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	===Russian interference, Trump collusion===		===Russian interference, Trump collusion===
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		+	Dinesh D’Souza’s 2000 Mules Is a Hilarious Mockumentary. A tour de force exploring the limits of how many suckers there are willing to pay for fantasy. ome of the film’s funniest moments come when D’Souza summons his fellow Salem Media Group talkers—Dennis Prager, Eric Metaxes, Seb Gorka, and Charlie Kirk—for a meeting of the minds to discuss their thoughts about election fraud before and after viewing D’Souza’s movie. But even the Salem hosts seem wise to the game and acknowledge that D’Souza hasn’t, and won’t be able to prove anything. Gorka sums it up with this non sequitur: “It’s the perfect crime because it cannot be curated after it’s committed.” https://www.thebulwark.com/dinesh-dsouzas-2000-mules-is-a-hilarious-mockumentary/
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		+	Meadows texts reveal just how tight the Fox News-Trump embrace is. As Trump raged against non-existent election fraud, he took counsel from his actual staff. He also had help from acquaintances and associates like Rudy Giuliani. But, less conventionally, Trump’s White House was also getting guidance from some of Fox News’ best-known personalities, in a level of coordination rarely, if ever, seen in top-level politics. The direct interactions between Trump’s administration and the Fox hosts Sean Hannity and Maria Bartiromo were revealed in leaked text messages from the phone of Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff during the November election and the January 6 insurrection. The texts, revealed by CNN, show how the lines between Fox News and the Trump White House had become jarringly blurred in Trump’s final months. On election day 2021 Hannity, the second-most watched host on Fox News, was texting Meadows asking which states he particularly needed to “push” – to encourage people to vote. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/may/07/fox-news-donald-trump-meadows-hannity-texts
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		+	Homeland Security Secretary Altered Report on Russian Election Interference to Help Trump, Watchdog Says. The DHS inspector general’s office found that Chad Wolf and his employees made “changes that appear to be based in part on political considerations” The watchdog’s office said it interviewed an individual in the Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) “who told us the Acting Secretary asked the product be held because it made President Trump look bad and hurt President Trump’s campaign — the concept that Russia was denigrating candidate Biden would be used against President Trump.” The product, titled “Russia Likely to Denigrate Health of US Candidates to Influence 2020 Electoral Dynamics,” was first being drafted in April 2020 after then-candidate Biden had assumed frontrunner status in the Democratic primary. These findings align with a whistleblower report from Sept. 2020 filed by Brian Murphy, the former principal deputy undersecretary in DHS’s I&A office. Murphy alleged that DHS leaders including Wolf, former Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and senior official Ken Cuccinelli not only minimized Russian influence in the election, but fabricated data relating to the U.S.-Mexico border wall and downplayed the threat of white supremacy. Murphy also claimed retaliation by his superiors after he raised these concerns. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/chad-wolf-homeland-security-russian-interference-report-1347046/
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		+	Durham says CIA found data alleging Trump-Russia connection not 'technically plausible,' was 'user created'. Special Counsel John Durham asserted in a court filing Friday that the CIA concluded data from Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann alleging coordination between Donald Trump and Russia was "not technically plausible" and was "user created." But Sussmann is moving to preclude evidence concerning the "gathering" of that "DNS data" by "Tech Executive 1," who has been identified as Rodney Joffe, and his associates. Durham's original indictment alleges Sussmann told then-FBI General Counsel James Baker in September 2016 — less than two months before the 2016 presidential election — he was not doing work "for any client" when he requested and held a meeting where he presented "purported data and 'white papers' that allegedly demonstrated a covert communications channel" between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, which has ties to the Kremlin. The indictment alleges that Sussmann lied in the meeting, "falsely stating to the general counsel that he was not providing the allegations to the FBI on behalf of any client." Durham also alleges that Sussmann is a lizard person. https://news.yahoo.com/durham-says-cia-found-data-193143924.html
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		+	:https://i.imgur.com/Fbsxe25.jpg
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		+	The Presidency of Donald Trump review: the first draft of history. Julian Zelizer of Princeton has assembled a cast of historians to consider every aspect of four years that shook America. One of the best essays, about the Republican party Trump inherited, is written by the book’s editor, Julian Zelizer. The Princeton historian reminds us that the “smashmouth partisanship” perfected by Trump actually began when Newt Gingrich snared the House speakership nearly 30 years ago. In 1992, Pat Buchanan’s speech to the Republic convention featured all of the gay-bashing that Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, (and many other Republicans) have revived with so much gusto in 2022. With major contributions from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the rightwing media machine, most of the GOP moved so far right it didn’t become Trump’s party because he “seized control” but rather because “he fit so perfectly” with it. Most Republicans were “all in” for Trump, from Mitt Romney, the ex-never Trumper who voted with his former nemesis more than 80% of the time, to “moderate” Chris Christie, who gave Trump an “A” four months after his four years of scorched-earth governance were over. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/apr/03/the-presidency-of-donald-trump-review-history-zelizer-republican-party
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		+	Former President Trump is raising eyebrows after he seemingly admitted to losing the 2020 presidential election in a video published by The Atlantic on Monday.
		+	“I didn’t win the election,” Trump, who has repeatedly rejected President Biden’s victory, said while speaking in July to a panel of historians convened by Julian Zelizer, a Princeton professor and editor of “The Presidency of Donald Trump: A First Historical Assessment.” https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3259729-trump-gets-attention-for-saying-he-lost-election/
	It Wasn’t a Hoax. People with scant illusions about Trump are volunteering to help him execute one of his Big Lies. By David Frum NOVEMBER 25, 2021		It Wasn’t a Hoax. People with scant illusions about Trump are volunteering to help him execute one of his Big Lies. By David Frum NOVEMBER 25, 2021
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	Putin Did It Again: New Intelligence Report Says Moscow Helped Trump in 2020. Anti-Biden propaganda was prepared with the assistance of Russian intelligence. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/03/donald-trump-russia-2020/		Putin Did It Again: New Intelligence Report Says Moscow Helped Trump in 2020. Anti-Biden propaganda was prepared with the assistance of Russian intelligence. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/03/donald-trump-russia-2020/
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		+	===Liberal Dark Money===
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		+	Liberal ‘dark money’ groups’ revenue soared ahead of 2020 elections. More than $86.2 million of Sixteen Thirty Fund’s windfall came from its sister 501(c)(3) group, New Venture Fund, which tax documents show raised over $965 million — nearly $1 billion — in 2020 from a myriad of anonymous sources. Since New Venture Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, individual donors can write off their contributions as tax-deductible even though some of the nonprofit’s money is given to more politically active groups. Both New Venture Fund and Sixteen Thirty Fund give to an array of groups and causes with a wide range of levels of political activity. New tax records reviewed by OpenSecrets reveal that New Venture Fund was primarily funded by multimillion dollar donations in 2020 with ​​just eight anonymous donors giving tens of millions of dollars each in 2020 making up the bulk of its fundraising. Two donors gave over $100 million each. While Sixteen Thirty Fund and New Venture Fund do not voluntarily disclose donors, some funders have been made public by foundations and other groups giving grants to them. Donors have included nonprofits linked to Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar and liberal mega-donor George Soros. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/12/liberal-dark-money-groups-revenue-soared-ahead-of-2020-elections/
	==Past elections, fraud==		==Past elections, fraud==
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		+	Pro-Trump Group Invented Voter Fraud Claims Months Before Election. A well-funded far-right group—that made inroads with Stop The Steal organizations, paid a former police captain more than $200,000 to hunt ballots, and became entangled in a roadside stickup—was making war plans for Election Day 2020 months ahead of time, documents reveal. The fringe group, the Liberty Center for God and Country (LCGC), led a lucrative fundraising blitz in the run-up to the election and quietly networked with now-notorious election denialists. Their work came to light in October of that year when former Houston Police captain Mark Aguirre allegedly rammed his SUV into a man’s truck, forced the man onto the ground at gunpoint, and accused him of transporting 750,000 fraudulent ballots. Aguirre’s claims were baseless—his victim was an innocent air conditioner technician—and no widespread voter fraud has been found in the 2020 election. Aguirre was indicted this week for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. https://www.thedailybeast.com/pro-trump-group-liberty-center-for-god-and-country-invented-voter-fraud-claims-months-before-election-2020
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		+	How Ashley Biden's Diary Made Its Way to Project Veritas. Federal prosecutors and FBI agents are investigating whether there was a criminal conspiracy among a handful of individuals to steal and publish the diary. Those being scrutinized include current and former operatives for the conservative group Project Veritas; a donor Trump appointed to a political position in the final days of his administration; a man who once pleaded guilty in a money laundering scheme; and a financially struggling mother of two, according to people familiar with federal grand jury subpoenas and a search warrant who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. The investigation has focused new attention on how Trump or his allies sought to use the troubles of Biden’s two surviving children to undercut him. The inquiry has also intensified the scrutiny of Project Veritas. Its founder, James O’Keefe, was pulled from his apartment in his underwear and handcuffed during a dawn raid last month by the FBI, two days after a pair of his former employees had their homes raided. Asked a list of specific questions related to the investigation, a lawyer for Project Veritas, Paul A. Calli, responded with a statement from O’Keefe criticizing The New York Times. Project Veritas has said in court filings that it was assured by the people who sold Ashley Biden’s items to the group that they were abandoned rather than stolen. But the police report said that Bantner’s client had told him that the property was “possibly stolen” and “he got it from an unknown person at a hotel.” The video footage, which appears to be a partial account of the encounter, records Bantner describing the bags as “crap.” The officer can be heard telling Bantner that he is going to throw the bags in the garbage because the officer did not have any “information” or “proof of evidence.” “Like I said, I’m fine with it,” Bantner replied. But police did examine the contents of the bag and quickly determined that they belonged to Ashley Biden. The report said police contacted the Secret Service and the FBI, which later collected the items. https://news.yahoo.com/ashley-bidens-diary-made-way-194903781.html
	Probe finds Trump officials repeatedly violated Hatch Act https://apnews.com/article/presidential-elections-election-2020-elections-778951007a888c1f2af6babbb198634b		Probe finds Trump officials repeatedly violated Hatch Act https://apnews.com/article/presidential-elections-election-2020-elections-778951007a888c1f2af6babbb198634b
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	‘It’s all fallen apart’: Newsom scrambles to save California — and his career. The Democrat leading the nation’s biggest state is facing a raging pandemic, vaccine distribution problems and a nascent recall drive. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/11/gavin-newsom-california-scramble-fallen-apart-456665		‘It’s all fallen apart’: Newsom scrambles to save California — and his career. The Democrat leading the nation’s biggest state is facing a raging pandemic, vaccine distribution problems and a nascent recall drive. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/11/gavin-newsom-california-scramble-fallen-apart-456665
-	==2022 & Redistricting==	+	==2022==
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		+	===2022 & Redistricting===
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		+	Star Trek makes Stacey Abrams president of United Earth – and stokes conservative anger. National Review says candidate for governor in Georgia and self-confessed superfan does not deserve fictional title. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/19/stacey-abrams-president-earth-star-trek-georgia-governor
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		+	Inside McConnell's Campaign to Take Back the Senate and Thwart Trump. For more than a year, former President Donald Trump has berated Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, savaging him for refusing to overturn the state’s presidential results and vowing to oppose him should he run for the Senate this year. In early December, though, Ducey received a far friendlier message from another former Republican president. At a golf tournament luncheon, George W. Bush encouraged him to run against Sen. Mark Kelly, a Democrat, suggesting the Republican Party needs more figures like Ducey to step forward. “It’s something you have to feel a certain sense of humility about,” the governor said this month of Bush’s appeal. “You listen respectfully, and that’s what I did.” https://news.yahoo.com/inside-mcconnells-campaign-back-senate-153831180.html
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		+	Louisiana candidate for Senator burns up a confederate flag in this new kickass ad. Hoping to unseat racist Senator John Kennedy in the 2022 election, Louisiana Senate candidate Gary Chambers gets right down to business in his powerful new campaign ad. Appealing to Democrats and anyone else opposed to what the far-right senator stands for, Chambers hangs a confederate flag, douses it in gas, and then burns it up. And after explaining how Jim Crow never left Louisiana and the South, he ends the ad saying, "Our system isn't broken — it's designed to do exactly what it's doing, which is producing measurable inequity. … I do believe the South will rise again, but this time it will be on our terms." https://boingboing.net/2022/02/09/louisiana-candidate-running-against-sen-kennedy-torches-a-confederate-flag-in-this-new-kickass-ad.html https://youtu.be/X6iSRU9486I
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		+	Watch: Simple explainer on why democracy in America will lose, unless Democrats wake up https://boingboing.net/2022/01/14/watch-simple-explainer-on-why-democracy-in-america-will-lose-unless-democrats-wake-up.html
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		+	CA AD 78 old 77th Democrat Brian Maienschein Elected four times as a Republican, became a Democrat on January 24, 2019.
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		+	CA SD 39 old 39th Democrat Toni Atkins
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		+	CA CD 51 old 53rd Democrat Sara Jacobs
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		+	First-term Rep. Sara Jacobs announced Tuesday that she will seek re-election to the House of Representatives in the new 51st District in 2022. Hours later, Republican Rep. Darrell Issa said he’d seek the new 48th District seat. The new district in central San Diego County includes much of Democrat Jacobs’ current 53rd District, but also parts of the county previously represented by Reps. Scott Peters, Issa and Juan Vargas. https://timesofsandiego.com/politics/2021/12/21/reps-jacobs-issa-to-seek-re-election-in-new-51st-48th-congress-districts-in-2022/
	The map viewer includes draft maps that were approved 11.10.21. https://www.wedrawthelinesca.org/map_viewer		The map viewer includes draft maps that were approved 11.10.21. https://www.wedrawthelinesca.org/map_viewer
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	Pollster Frank Luntz: Trump's 'Big Lie' is working, may cost GOP votes. Luntz noted in an interview on the New York Times podcast “Sway” released Thursday that “more than two-thirds of Republicans believe that the election was stolen,” warning that a widespread and unproven belief that there was rampant fraud last November could turn Republicans off from voting in the midterm elections. “What Donald Trump is saying is actually telling people it's not worth it to vote. Donald Trump single-handedly may cause people not to vote. And he may be the greatest tool in the Democrats' arsenal to keep control of the House and Senate in 2022,” Luntz said. The pollster also said that Trump would be the "odds-on favorite" to win the Republican nomination if he runs again in 2024. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/552076-gop-pollster-frank-luntz-trumps-big-lie-is-working-may-cost-gop-house		Pollster Frank Luntz: Trump's 'Big Lie' is working, may cost GOP votes. Luntz noted in an interview on the New York Times podcast “Sway” released Thursday that “more than two-thirds of Republicans believe that the election was stolen,” warning that a widespread and unproven belief that there was rampant fraud last November could turn Republicans off from voting in the midterm elections. “What Donald Trump is saying is actually telling people it's not worth it to vote. Donald Trump single-handedly may cause people not to vote. And he may be the greatest tool in the Democrats' arsenal to keep control of the House and Senate in 2022,” Luntz said. The pollster also said that Trump would be the "odds-on favorite" to win the Republican nomination if he runs again in 2024. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/552076-gop-pollster-frank-luntz-trumps-big-lie-is-working-may-cost-gop-house
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		+	===California===
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		+	What 2022 election? California Republicans grim on beating Newsom. Republican donors and fundraisers described a dearth of activity. Faulconer has been reaching out to funders to see if another run is viable after he finished a distant third among recall replacement candidates, receiving only 590,000 votes compared with more than 3.5 million for Elder. (Nearly 8 million voted to keep Newsom in office.) https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2022/01/21/what-2022-election-california-republicans-grim-on-beating-newsom-1405828
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		+	===Trump GQP rallies, Republican/Nazi Party/Brotherhood of Evil Mutants===
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		+	Footage shows the "life-threatening" tap on Rudy Giuliani's back by market employee. Snowflake Rudy Giuliani nearly cracked his head and died after being "attacked" by a passerby in a supermarket (see harrowing video above). Or at least that's what the disgraced former Trump attorney is bellowing on about after a market employee slapped him on the back yesterday. "I feel a shot on my back like somebody shot me. I went forward, but luckily I didn't fall down," the skittish New York mayor-turned-slipper peddler said. "I mean, suppose I was a weaker 78-year-old and I hit the ground, cracked my skull, and died." (Yes, and suppose I walked outside and, from out of nowhere, a bolt of lightning struck me in the skull and I died.) "My back hurts, but otherwise I'm able to walk and stuff like that," continued the Big Lie promoter, who is still battling ongoing defamation lawsuits brought against him by Dominion Voting Systems. "He almost knocked me down. Thank God for a 78-year-old, I am in pretty good shape." https://boingboing.net/2022/06/27/footage-shows-the-life-threatening-tap-on-rudy-giulianis-back-by-market-employee.html https://youtu.be/VxSQ75InlVc
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		+	5 notable moments from Trump’s remarks at Faith and Freedom Coalition event
		+	# Trump floats pardons for Jan. 6 defendants after a potential 2024 win
		+	# Trump continues attacks on Pence over 2020 election certification
		+	# Trump claims without evidence that Jan. 6 videos shown as evidence are doctored
		+	# Trump asserts Capitol riot was ‘a simple protest that got out of hand‘
		+	# Trump bashes ‘left-wing indoctrination’ in education
		+	https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3528846-5-notable-moments-from-trumps-remarks-at-faith-and-freedom-coalition-event/
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		+	Trump Posts Fake Video Of Him Hitting Biden In The Head With Golf Ball. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-golf-ball-strikes-biden-fake-truth-social-video_n_62ae57f6e4b0c77098aedcf7
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		+	Trump calls Pence a 'human conveyor belt' who 'didn't have courage to act' and says Democrats want to execute babies AFTER birth in speech attacking Biden, the January 6 committee and schools that let 'kindergartners pick their own gender'
		+	Former President Donald Trump slammed his former vice president on Friday
		+	He said Pence 'had a chance to be great' if he refused to certify election results
		+	Instead he behaved like a 'human conveyor belt' by delivering the votes
		+	Trump addressed religious conservatives in Nashville, Tennessee
		+	'It was a simple protest,' he said of January 6. 'It got out of hand' https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10928309/Trump-slams-Mike-Pence-human-conveyor-belt-delivering-fraudulent-votes-January-6.html
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		+	Anti-Abortion Rep. Lauren Boebert Reportedly Had Two Abortions. The allegations were shared by the same PAC that targeted Rep. Madison Cawthorn. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Co.) reportedly had two abortions and worked as an unlicensed paid escort. During her escort work, one wealthy client in Aspen introduced her to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who subsequently encouraged Boebert to run for office. https://jezebel.com/anti-abortion-rep-lauren-boebert-reportedly-had-two-ab-1849062919
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		+	Primary election results – live: Trump rages as Dr Oz struggles and Madison Cawthorn crashes out. With almost all the results now in from Tuesday’s key primary elections, strong performances by several Donald Trump-backed candidates underscore the former president’s ongoing clout within the party – but it was far from a perfect scorecard, with North Carolina Republicans throwing out Trump-backed congressman Madison Cawthorn in his primary. Meanwhile, Mr Trump has taken to Truth Social to baselessly suggest mail-in ballots were fraudulent in Pennsylvania, where his chosen Senate candidate Dr Mehmet Oz is locked in a tight battle with former hedge fund executive David McCormick. With only a small portion of the vote yet to be counted, the two men are just a tiny number of votes apart, putting them within the 0.5-point margin that triggers an automatic recount – and raising the possibility that mail-in votes could put Mr McCormick ahead. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/primary-election-day-2022-pa-nc-b2081044.html
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		+	Trump, Don Jr., Imagine Themselves MAGA 'Royalty' In Cringey Memes https://news.yahoo.com/trump-don-jr-imagine-themselves-121639140.html
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		+	Lauren Boebert’s American Dream. The Colorado congresswoman has built her reputation as a certain kind of working-class hero. Her employees tell a different story. ABIGAIL WEINBERG The high percentage of unaffiliated voters in Boebert’s district lends a degree of unpredictability to the upcoming election, but the tea leaves seem to read in her favor. Boebert supporters, unsurprisingly, are confident that Boebert is not a fluke, but the future. “I think she’s going to become a very powerful member of the US Congress,” McInnis says. Or, as the donor who denounced “liberal crap” tells me, “Maybe she’ll be president someday.” https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/05/lauren-boebert-profile-shooters-grill-rifle-gun-obama-pay-staff-employees/
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		+	Lindsey Graham is heard praising Joe Biden as the 'best person' to lead the country in new audio while he was waiting in a 'secure location' during Jan. 6 riot
		+	The South Carolina senator called Biden the best person to unify the country
		+	'I mean, how mad can you get at Joe Biden?' Graham asked rhetorically
		+	The audio was released by two New York Times reporters promoting a book about the 2020 election
		+	It was recorded as the Republican sought refuge from rioters on January 6, 2021
		+	Graham sharply criticized Trump supporters after the riot
		+	Since then, he has been spotted golfing with the former president in Florida https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10803907/Lindsey-Graham-praises-Joe-Biden-best-person-lead-country-Jan-6-riot.html https://youtu.be/eprdMcZsjnQ
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		+	President Who Was Wrong Countless Times Tells Cult Followers ‘I Was Right About Everything’ Trump claimed tonight he was “right about everything” but also forgot the name of a candidate at whose rally he spoke just last week. Trump took to the stage as the Sept. 11 tribute song, “Proud to be an American,” played. He then told the crowd, “I could have gotten out of this one.” The rally, originally scheduled for Friday, had to be postponed because of potential severe weather in the area.
		+	Promoting Herbster, Trump said that the candidate accused of assault by multiple women was “a good man, a very good man.” (Trump has been credibly accused of sexual harassment or assault by at least 18 women.) https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/list-trumps-accusers-allegations-sexual-misconduct/story?id=51956410 Trump also touted other candidates he has endorsed in the 2022 elections, kind of. “We’ve endorsed Dr. Oz. We’ve endorsed J.P., right? J.D. Mandel. And he’s doing great. They’re all doing good. They’re all doing good. And let’s see what happens.” Except, J.D. Vance is the candidate Trump endorsed, not J.D. Mandel. Vance is running against Josh Mandel in Ohio’s Republican Senate primary. This, from a “stable genius” with a perfect cognitive test score and a “very, very large brain” who claims he has been “right about everything.” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-rally-charles-herbster-1345950/
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		+	Macomb County GOP ousts party leaders stuck re-litigating Trump's 2020 loss. When Macomb Township Republican Jamie Roe walked into the event at the Shelby Gardens convention space, he said the place was well on its way to being packed and that the mood was "spirited." "Last night, everyone who was focused on winning the election in 2022 had been pushed over the edge," said Roe. "Fed-up activists and elected officials joined together to remove the Executive Committee and officers from office and replace them with a new group focused solely on winning in 2022 and not on the past." Grassroots activists have a way of showing us what is happening within a party long before the first ballots are cast. What happened in Macomb is evidence that the party is ready to move on -- not necessarily beyond Trump, but certainly beyond 2020. https://news.yahoo.com/macomb-county-gop-ousts-party-173703937.html
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		+	Video shows Donald Trump struggling to say the name of his own social media platform, Truth Social. In Ohio, Trump was heard bungling the name of Truth Social, calling it "Truth Central" instead. At the same rally, Trump messed up the pronounciation of "drop box" too, calling them "drok boxes." https://www.businessinsider.com/video-shows-trump-struggling-to-name-his-truth-social-platform-2022-4
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		+	Trump Rambles About Toilets Not Flushing During Ohio Rally … Oh, and Also: Hijacking America’s Election Systems. The former president went on several laughable rants during his speech on Saturday night. He also waxed about his ongoing efforts to cut the legs out from under the democratic process. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/donald-trump-rally-delaware-ohio-jd-vance-1342199/
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		+	2022 election: Q&A with Rep. Darrell Issa, 48th Congressional District candidate. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/story/2022-04-21/2022-election-q-a-with-darrell-issa-candidate-for-californias-48th-congressional-district
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		+	In the summer of 2020, Ruth Ben-Ghiat was putting the final touches on her history of modern autocracy. She had to do it, though, without the benefit of knowing whether one of her most important subjects would remain in power come November. The genius of the “big lie” was not only that it sparked a movement that ended up with January 6 to physically allow him to stay in office. But psychologically the “big lie” was very important because it prevented his propagandized followers from having to reckon with the fact that he lost. And it maintains him as their hero, as their winner, as the invincible Trump, but also as the wronged Trump, the victim. Victimhood is extremely important for all autocrats. They always have to be the biggest victim. https://news.yahoo.com/one-way-history-shows-trump-110000336.html
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		+	GOP pollster Frank Luntz says 'Trump isn't the same man he was a year ago'
		+	He claims Republicans are mocking and laughing at the former president behind his back and 'think he's a child'
		+	Republicans, he says, are fed up with Trump pushing 2020 election fraud claims
		+	Comments come after New Hampshire GOP Governor Chris Sununu said during the Gridiron Dinner in D.C. on Saturday that Trump is 'f***ing crazy'
		+	He said: 'I don't think he's so crazy he should be in a mental asylum. But if he's in one, he's not getting out'
		+	'I don't know a single Republican who was surprised by what Sununu said,' Luntz said https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10714987/Pollster-says-Republicans-mock-child-Trump-private-tired-talking-2020-election.html
		+
		+	Donald Trump has long equated crowd size with success ― reportedly even bragging of the size of the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to block the certification of the election and keep him in power. GOP strategist Susan Del Percio said Trump is now falling short by that measure as his rally crowds decrease in size. “That’s what you saw there: a very shrinking base,” she told MSNBC’s Cori Coffin one day after Trump addressed a surprisingly sparse crowd in Selma, North Carolina. Local newspaper The News & Observer reported that Trump spoke to about 1,000 to 2,000 people ― a far cry from the 15,000 who turned out for him at the same venue in 2016. https://news.yahoo.com/gop-strategist-spots-ominous-warning-050550956.html https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article260270845.html
		+
		+	Mike Pence launches his midterms 'Freedom Agenda' to 'stop the radical left' - and jabs at Trump by saying Democrats would 'love nothing more than for conservatives to talk about the past'
		+	Former Vice President Mike Pence launched his 'Freedom Agenda' Thursday that outlines policy positions he argued conservative candidates can use to win
		+	He told Fox News Digital it was important for the conservative party to 'rally around a bold, optimistic agenda'
		+	Pence said Democrats would 'love nothing more for conservatives to talk about the past'
		+	The former VP is walking a thin line between touting what he and Trump accomplished and not further calling attention to his rift with the ex-president. With Trumpworld turned against him, Pence is trying to carve out areas where he can have clout within the Republican Party. The 'Freedom Agenda' is split into three sections: American Culture, American Opportunity, American Freedom. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10673793/Mike-Pence-launches-midterms-Freedom-Agenda.html
		+
		+	Trump, who was impeached in 2019 for his request to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he do Trump a "favor" by investigating Joe Biden's son Hunter, told right-wing television host John Solomon in an interview published Tuesday that he wanted Russian President Vladimir Putin to shed light on unverified reports that Biden's son received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Yelena Baturina, the wife of Moscow's former mayor. “She gave him $3.5 million, so now I would think Putin would know the answer to that,” Trump told Solomon. “I think he should release it. I think we should know that answer.” “How is it that the mayor of Moscow, his wife, gave the Biden family three and a half million dollars?” he continued. “I think Putin now would be willing to probably give that answer. I’m sure he knows.” https://news.yahoo.com/trump-solicits-putins-help-to-expose-alleged-dirt-on-hunter-biden-181900886.html
		+
		+	Trump Degrades His Own General as an ‘Idiot’ Before Gushing Over ‘Smart’ Kim Jong-un. Trump once again finds himself praising an autocrat who doesn’t care about democracy. Funny how that keeps happening. Before Donald Trump took the stage in Commerce, Georgia for a campaign-style rally Saturday night, those in attendance were shown a monologue by General George Patton. It wasn’t the actual Patton; like most what took place on stage Saturday night, it was someone acting a part. In this case, it was the general as played by George C. Scott in the 1970 Academy Award-winning film Patton.
		+	Within the hour, Trump had called the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — Gen. Mark Milley — a “freaking idiot.”
		+	“Where the hell are our General Pattons?” Trump exclaimed, before rehashing an alleged dialogue he had with Milley, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who’d also held that role under Trump. According to Trump — who, as a reminder, lies a lot — Milley advocated for leaving certain American-made weapons in Afghanistan during the withdrawal of U.S. forces while Trump thought otherwise. (Trump also claimed that the United States left some $85 billion of equipment in the country, but the real number is $18 billion, according to an Associated Press fact check.) “Sir, it’s cheaper to leave the equipment than to take it out, sir,” Trump said, giving an impression of Milley, whom he nominated as chairman in 2018.
		+	“That’s when I realized he was a freaking idiot,” Trump blurted out, in a near replica of comments he made about the general late last year at Mar-a-Lago. “I’ll never forget it. I said, ‘This guy says it’s cheaper to leave all this equipment.'” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-rally-north-korea-mark-milley-1327392/
		+
		+	Trump's Georgia Rally Sees 'Smallest Crowd' in State Since 2016: Reporters. Former President Donald Trump's Georgia rally on Saturday failed to draw the number of supporters he has been accustomed to in the southern state, according to multiple journalists covering the event. Trump held the event in support of several of Georgia's Republican primary candidates in Commerce, Georgia, which is about an hour drive northeast of Atlanta. While the former president has regularly seen tens of thousands attend his events in the state, as well as other states across the country, journalists assessed that the crowd size was underwhelming this weekend. "I've covered more than two dozen Trump rallies around the nation. This is the smallest crowd I've seen at a rally of his in Georgia since he won the 2016 election—significantly smaller than the crowd in Perry in September," Greg Bluestein, a political reporter at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweeted. Fowler also reported that people in attendance began "streaming out" even as Trump was still speaking. "People keep leaving during Trump speech. It's cold and windy and there's not much enthusiasm," he wrote. He also shared photos from different times during the event, showing that the venue got emptier as the former president spoke. https://www.newsweek.com/trumps-georgia-rally-sees-smallest-crowd-state-since-2016-reporters-1692212
		+
		+	Peter Thiel-tied dark money group helping bankroll super PAC spending on 2022 election. A “dark money” group tied to billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel steered hundreds of thousands of dollars into a super PAC spending on Ohio’s Senate race in support of “Hillbilly Elegy” author J.D. Vance, who worked at Thiel’s venture capital firm. Vance faces a crowded field of Republican contenders in the Ohio Senate race with a primary scheduled for May 3. The pro-Vance super PAC, Protect Ohio Values, received $200,000 from a group called Per Aspera Policy. Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook, also gave $10 million to the pro-Vance super PAC during the first half of 2021 but the super PAC did not report any money received from Thiel during the second half of the year. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/02/peter-thiel-tied-dark-money-group-helping-bankroll-super-pac-spending-on-2022-election/
		+
		+	A weakened Trump? As some voters edge away, he battles parts of the Republican Party he once ran. The former president’s power within the party and his continued focus on personal grievances is increasingly questioned behind closed doors at Republican gatherings, according to interviews with more than a dozen prominent Republicans in Washington and across the country, including some Trump advisers. Many spoke on the condition of anonymity because there remains significant fear of attracting Trump’s public wrath. The growing split is rooted in diverging priorities: Trump has pursued a narrow effort to punish those who challenged his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result, while also working to put people in power who would be more sympathetic to him should he try the same thing again. Other Republicans are more focused on finding palatable candidates most able to win in November. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/13/trump-politics-weakness/
		+
		+	Confederate Flags, Conspiracies, and the Ghost of JFK Jr.: What I Saw at Trump’s Bananas Texas Rally. It’s part roadshow and part religious revival, but the show is a grift and the religion being revived is fascism. We were in one of the reddest counties in one of the reddest states, and it showed: When I arrived at the press check-in station, the first thing I saw was a merchandise vendor with a Confederate flag — the banner of a nation that lasted only 4 years before being routed out of existence — that says “Come And Take It.” It was set up directly across from a wooden cross. Having attended the prior rally in Arizona and the Lara Trump event on Thursday, a twisted sense of deja vu came over me when I got into the venue and began to hear the same songs, watch the same videos, listen to the same speeches, and see the same people. There were many familiar faces — election conspiracy peddling MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and the JFK Jr. obsessed QAnon cult leader Michael Protzman — and in some instances, near word for word repeats of previous events. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-texas-rally-conspiracies-ghost-of-jfk-jr-1292592/
		+
		+	They’re Too Extreme for QAnon — and Right at Home at Trump’s Rally. Michael Protzman tells his followers that JFK Jr. and other dead celebrities are helping Trump catch a global cabal of pedophiles. Saturday night, he was seated with the VIPs. Florence, Ariz. — One full day before Trump spoke to an estimated 15,000 die-hard Republicans in Arizona, a group of JFK Jr. obsessed QAnon fanatics arrived at the venue grounds here. They drove all the way from Dallas, Texas, where they’ve been holed up in a Hyatt hotel for over two months amid a series of failed prophecies that JFK Jr. would return from the dead. The first among them was Stephen Tenner, right hand man to the group’s leader Michael Protzman. “I’m the first person and only person,” Tenner said in a video posted on social media. “I’m the number one mofo.” Tenner was later joined by Protzman and about two dozen members of this cultish group, whose months-long antics in Dallas have worried locals and drawn national attention. Protzman is a QAnon influencer who peddles a form of religious numerology known as “gematria,” which he infuses into his interpretations of QAnon theories. Protzman uses gematria to promote the idea that he is in direct contact with both the Kennedy family — which he believes are direct descendants of Jesus Christ — and members of the Trump inner circle. His group also trafficks in a wide range of outlandish conspiracy beliefs such as that long dead famous people such as Michael Jackson and JFK Jr. faked their deaths and are working with Donald Trump in secret to take down a global satanic pedophile cabal. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-rally-qanon-jkf-conspiracy-1286053/
		+
		+	Trump kicks off midterm year still stuck on last election. The former president delivers Jan. 6 rebuttal in Arizona, home to ground zero in the “Stop the Steal” movement’s fraudulent push to find evidence that the 2020 election was rigged. Trump, speaking at a podium emblazoned with “Save America,” opened his speech by falsely claiming “proof” that the 2020 election was “rigged.” As he vowed Republicans will take over the House and Senate in 2022, and sweep governors races across the country, an energized sea of supporters cheered at the Country Thunder festival grounds. “The fake news and the lamestream media … they refused to talk about it,” Trump said of his false election claims. “They say, ‘well it is unsubstantiated and the big lie.’ The big lie. The big lie is a lot of bullshit. That’s what it is.” “If an election were held today, we would trounce them so badly in a landslide in every way, just as we really did on Nov. 3. We trounced them. If we had an honest press, the election would have been much different,” Trump said, spreading more falsehoods about the election he lost by over 7 million votes. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/15/trump-kicks-off-midterm-year-still-stuck-on-last-election-527197
		+
		+	MAGA hats and QAnon: Inside Trump’s first rally of 2022. The former president hit all the notes in his rally in Arizona on Saturday. The question is: Is this a precursor to a reelection bid? https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/16/trump-first-rally-2022-maga-527206
	==2024 Election==		==2024 Election==
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	===GQP, Trump===		===GQP, Trump===
		+
		+	Trump Says He ‘May Have To’ Run in 2024 During Rambling, Lie-Filled South Carolina Rally Speech. “In 2024 we are going to take back that beautiful, beautiful White House,” the former president said. “I wonder who will do that. I wonder. I wonder.” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/donald-trump-florence-south-carolina-rally-1320483/
		+
		+	Trump told GOP donors that North Korea's Kim Jong Un had ability to make his advisers 'cower,' jokingly saying he also wants his staff to 'act like that'. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-wishes-staff-obedient-kim-jong-uns-nkorea-wapo-2022-3 "We will see a Republican president reclaim that beautiful White House in 2024. I wonder who that might be." https://twitter.com/politicoalex/status/1500315410750709760
		+
		+	The Republican National Committee is considering a change in its bylaws that would prohibit GOP presidential candidates from participating in presidential debates put on by the Commission on Presidential Debates. "So long as the CPD appears intent on stonewalling the meaningful reforms necessary to restore its credibility with the Republican Party as a fair and nonpartisan actor, the RNC will take every step to ensure that future Republican presidential nominees are given that opportunity elsewhere," RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel wrote in a letter Thursday to Frank Fahrenkopf and Kenneth Wollack, co-chairs of the debate commission. McDaniel said the party would initiate the rules change at its upcoming winter meeting, slated for February in Salt Lake City. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/rnc-threatens-bar-candidates-participating-official-presidential-debates-n1287427
	Trump’s 2024 veep tryouts get underway. The question of Trump’s prospective choice of running mate is surfacing with increasing frequency. “A lot of times, a presidential candidate will pick a running mate to balance out wings of the party. But with Trump, that’s not the issue. He is the party, basically. It’s so united behind him,” said John McLaughlin, one of Trump’s campaign pollsters. “So his choice, if he runs, will come down to what he wants. It would be a much more personal decision this time.” Trump hasn’t made his 2024 bid official. He’s expected to make a decision after the 2022 midterms. But he has been building a campaign-in-waiting that is already laying groundwork, and the question of a running mate is surfacing with increasing frequency. He’s name-dropped Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as one possible running mate. Veepstakes speculation rose among insiders who saw him interact recently with South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at his Mar-a-Lago club. “They’re all begging me. They all come here,” Trump boasted to one adviser, who shared the account anonymously with POLITICO. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/29/trump-vice-president-choice-2024-523429		Trump’s 2024 veep tryouts get underway. The question of Trump’s prospective choice of running mate is surfacing with increasing frequency. “A lot of times, a presidential candidate will pick a running mate to balance out wings of the party. But with Trump, that’s not the issue. He is the party, basically. It’s so united behind him,” said John McLaughlin, one of Trump’s campaign pollsters. “So his choice, if he runs, will come down to what he wants. It would be a much more personal decision this time.” Trump hasn’t made his 2024 bid official. He’s expected to make a decision after the 2022 midterms. But he has been building a campaign-in-waiting that is already laying groundwork, and the question of a running mate is surfacing with increasing frequency. He’s name-dropped Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as one possible running mate. Veepstakes speculation rose among insiders who saw him interact recently with South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at his Mar-a-Lago club. “They’re all begging me. They all come here,” Trump boasted to one adviser, who shared the account anonymously with POLITICO. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/29/trump-vice-president-choice-2024-523429
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	Pence flatlines as 2024 field takes shape. “There are some Trump supporters who think he’s the Antichrist,” said one Iowa GOP official. Mike Pence was met by a respectful, even warm, crowd in his first trip back to Iowa since the election. Republicans at a picnic in the northwestern corner of the state stood and clapped for him on Friday. In Des Moines later that afternoon, a ballroom full of Christian conservatives did the same. He was “honorable,” a “man of faith,” attendees at the annual Family Leadership Summit said. Evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats called him “a very consistent conservative voice in Congress and then as governor, and then as vice president.” Six months after he left the vice presidency, that is the prevailing view at the grassroots and among the GOP political class. By most accounts, both here and nationally, Pence is dead in the early waters of 2024. Stuart Spencer, the famed Republican strategist who advised Ronald Reagan, said he concluded that Pence was a “sincere guy and has a belief system” when Pence refused to be cowed by Trump on Jan. 6. But he doubted that will do him any good in 2024. “The Trump people don’t like him, and all the people who were anti-Trump don’t like him,” Spencer said. For Pence, he said, “That’s not a big Lincoln Day dinner.” https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/19/pence-flatlines-2024-499919		Pence flatlines as 2024 field takes shape. “There are some Trump supporters who think he’s the Antichrist,” said one Iowa GOP official. Mike Pence was met by a respectful, even warm, crowd in his first trip back to Iowa since the election. Republicans at a picnic in the northwestern corner of the state stood and clapped for him on Friday. In Des Moines later that afternoon, a ballroom full of Christian conservatives did the same. He was “honorable,” a “man of faith,” attendees at the annual Family Leadership Summit said. Evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats called him “a very consistent conservative voice in Congress and then as governor, and then as vice president.” Six months after he left the vice presidency, that is the prevailing view at the grassroots and among the GOP political class. By most accounts, both here and nationally, Pence is dead in the early waters of 2024. Stuart Spencer, the famed Republican strategist who advised Ronald Reagan, said he concluded that Pence was a “sincere guy and has a belief system” when Pence refused to be cowed by Trump on Jan. 6. But he doubted that will do him any good in 2024. “The Trump people don’t like him, and all the people who were anti-Trump don’t like him,” Spencer said. For Pence, he said, “That’s not a big Lincoln Day dinner.” https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/19/pence-flatlines-2024-499919
-
	Donald Trump May Already Be Violating Campaign Laws “Trump—if you believe what he’s saying—has already decided. So if he ends up getting in the race, that would mean he had made the decision as of now, and should be filing FEC reports as a candidate.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-may-already-be-violating-campaign-laws		Donald Trump May Already Be Violating Campaign Laws “Trump—if you believe what he’s saying—has already decided. So if he ends up getting in the race, that would mean he had made the decision as of now, and should be filing FEC reports as a candidate.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-may-already-be-violating-campaign-laws
		+
		+	===Biden===
		+
		+	Watch Biden's grinning response to whether he'd be up for a rematch against Trump https://boingboing.net/2021/12/23/watch-bidens-grinning-response-to-whether-hed-be-up-for-a-rematch-against-trump.html
		+
		+	===Warnings===
		+
		+	‘Slow-motion insurrection’: How GOP seizes election power. In battleground states and beyond, Republicans are taking hold of the once-overlooked machinery of elections. While the effort is incomplete and uneven, outside experts on democracy and Democrats are sounding alarms, warning that the United States is witnessing a “slow-motion insurrection” with a better chance of success than Trump’s failed power grab last year. They point to a mounting list of evidence: Several candidates who deny Trump’s loss are running for offices that could have a key role in the election of the next president in 2024. In Michigan, the Republican Party is restocking members of obscure local boards that could block approval of an election. In Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the GOP-controlled legislatures are backing open-ended “reviews” of the 2020 election, modeled on a deeply flawed look-back in Arizona. The efforts are poised to fuel disinformation and anger about the 2020 results for years to come. All this comes as the Republican Party has become more aligned behind Trump, who has made denial of the 2020 results a litmus test for his support. Trump has praised the Jan. 6 rioters and backed primaries aimed at purging lawmakers who have crossed him. Sixteen GOP governors have signed laws making it more difficult to vote. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll showed that two-thirds of Republicans do not believe Democrat Joe Biden was legitimately elected as president. The result, experts say, is that another baseless challenge to an election has become more likely, not less. https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-united-states-elections-electoral-college-election-2020-809215812f4bc6e5907573ba98247c0c
		+
		+	Generals Warn Of Divided Military And Possible Civil War In Next U.S. Coup Attempt. “With the country still as divided as ever, we must take steps to prepare for the worst,” wrote former Army Major Gen. Paul Eaton, former Brigadier Gen. Steven Anderson and former Army Major Gen. Antonio Taguba. As the nation nears the first anniversary of the Capitol riot, the generals are “increasingly concerned about the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election and the potential for lethal chaos inside our military, which would put all Americans at severe risk,” they wrote in The Washington Post. The “lack of military preparedness for the aftermath of the 2020 election was striking and worrying. Trump’s acting defense secretary, Christopher Miller, testified that he deliberately withheld military protection of the Capitol before Jan. 6,” the generals noted. That can’t happen again, they emphasized. Military leaders can’t wait for elected officials to take adequate action to prepare for the next time. “Not a single leader who inspired” the last attempt has even been “held to account,” the generals noted. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/2024-election-coup-military-participants_n_61bd52f2e4b0bcd2193f3d72
	==117th Congress, 2021-2022==		==117th Congress, 2021-2022==
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	====Republican/Nazi Party/Brotherhood of Evil Mutants====		====Republican/Nazi Party/Brotherhood of Evil Mutants====
		+
		+	Video resurfaces of Rand Paul admitting ‘misinformation works’ amid Dr Fauci accusations. Republican advised medical students that ‘misinformation works, so try to trick your opponents’ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/rand-paul-dr-fauci-misinformation-b1991603.html
		+
		+	https://www.foxnews.com/politics/boebert-wears-drill-baby-drill-outfit-sotu-message-biden
		+
		+	Lauren Boebert Heckles Biden as He Honors Dead Soldiers During State of the Union. “You put them in, 13 of them,” the Colorado lawmaker yelled, referring to service members who died in Afghanistan last summer, as the president spoke of his late son. Trashing Biden as he spoke about the death of his son wasn’t the only time Boebert heckled the president on Tuesday night. She and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) kicked off the night by turning their backs on Biden’s Cabinet. Later, they chanted “Build the Wall” as Biden pushed for immigration reform. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/lauren-boebert-marjorie-taylor-greene-joe-biden-state-of-the-union-1314969/
		+
		+	Republican Reps Issa and Green mock Biden’s absence from DC – while he was known to be attending funeral. EXCLUSIVE: Two Republican members of the House Foreign Relations Committee laughed and joked about Mr Biden being safe from a theoretical attack on Washington during an impromptu interview with The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ukraine-russia-biden-gop-delaware-b2024486.html
		+
		+	Stop the Steal’ Congressman Suddenly Worried About Will of the Voters. Madison Cawthorn, who voted against certifying the 2020 election Donald Trump lost, is losing it over a lawsuit designed to kick him off the ballot. https://www.thedailybeast.com/madison-cawthorn-of-north-carolina-suddenly-worried-about-will-of-the-voters
		+
		+	‘Cheap fakes’: Viral videos keep clipping Biden’s words out of context https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/feb/14/cheap-fakes-viral-videos-keep-clipping-bidens-word/
		+
		+	U.S. Capitol Police rejects GOP congressman’s claim that check of his open office is illegal investigation. Chief Tom Manger said a Capitol Police officer entered Rep. Troy E. Nehls’s office in November because the door was left 'open and unsecured’. Nehls accused Capitol Police leadership after one of the officers entered his office in the Longworth House Office Building with no prior notice Nov. 20, 2021, ahead of the Thanksgiving break, and took pictures of a whiteboard. The officer filed a report raising concerns about the contents of the whiteboard, which included mentions of “body armor” and a poorly drawn map of the Rayburn House Office Building — which is also part of the Capitol complex — that had an X at one of the building’s entrances. Nehls explained that the writing on the board — which included reports of faulty Chinese-made body armor — was related to legislation his office was working on, while the map of the Rayburn Building, which Nehls said “looked like it was done by my 9-year-old,” was drawn for an intern who was sent on a mission to find the ice machine. The X marked the spot. Nehls noted that he’s been a “very, very vocal” critic of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, and said he thinks he was being targeted by Capitol Police leadership because of this. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/08/capitol-police-nehl-investigation/
		+
		+	The original quote from Strom, an American white nationalist and Holocaust denier, has been used previously online and paraphrased in a variety of ways. In a 1993 radio broadcast, Strom said: “To determine the true rulers of any society, all you must do is ask yourself this question: Who is it that I am not permitted to criticize?” according to an internet archive containing his full remarks. U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, shared the incorrectly attributed quote in a tweet Sunday to his more than 320,000 followers, with a caption criticizing Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert. https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-business-media-elections-9631403283708d1f46bba768bddde779 @RepThomasMassie You mustn’t question Fauci, for he is science. https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1487872940431527941
		+
		+	The Republican National Committee Censured Liz Cheney And Adam Kinzinger. A move to admonish the two members of Congress despised by Trump passed an RNC vote on Friday. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kadiagoba/rnc-cheney-kinzinger-censure
		+
		+	8 interesting facts about Rep. Lauren Boebert https://boingboing.net/2022/01/06/7-interesting-facts-about-rep-lauren-boebert.html GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert and husband racked up arrests in home district https://nypost.com/2021/01/16/gop-rep-lauren-boebert-and-husband-have-racked-up-arrests/
		+
		+	'Twitter is an enemy to America': Marjorie Taylor Greene's hits out as her Twitter account is PERMANENTLY suspended after 'fifth strike' which saw her lash COVID rules and vaccine mandates. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10362503/Marjorie-Taylor-Greenes-personal-Twitter-account-permanently-suspended.html
		+
		+	Cristina Cawthorn is divorcing her husband Madison, a notorious pathological liar, racist insurrectionist, and alleged sex pest after having been married for just 8 months. Cawthorn, who likens women to "earthen vessels," blames his hard work on the Capitol for the break. https://boingboing.net/2021/12/23/earthen-vessel-is-divorcing-madison-cawthorn-after-8-months-of-marriage.html
	A warning from Tim Gosar: Paul Gosar is "dangerous" and "needs to be expelled". https://boingboing.net/2021/11/17/a-warning-from-tim-gosar-paul-gosar-is-dangerous-and-needs-to-be-expelled.html		A warning from Tim Gosar: Paul Gosar is "dangerous" and "needs to be expelled". https://boingboing.net/2021/11/17/a-warning-from-tim-gosar-paul-gosar-is-dangerous-and-needs-to-be-expelled.html
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	====DINOs====		====DINOs====
		+
		+	Dianne Feinstein May Be ‘Mentally Unfit’ for Congress, and Others Probably Are, Too. Reports raising questions about Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) mental fitness to serve in Congress have been bubbling up on occasion for a couple years now. On Thursday, an explosive new report claimed “four U.S. senators, including three Democrats, as well as three former Feinstein staffers and [a] California Democratic member of Congress,” have said the California Senator’s memory is “rapidly deteriorating.” Per one specific anecdote, the California member in question told the San Francisco Chronicle that at a recent meeting to discuss policy with Feinstein, 88, they had to reintroduce themselves to the Senator multiple times over the course of several hours. https://jezebel.com/dianne-feinstein-may-be-mentally-unfit-for-congress-1848794181
		+
		+	Sinema Reminds Biden He’s Wasting His Time on the Filibuster. Kyrsten Sinema took to the Senate floor just moments before Joe Biden arrived on Capitol Hill to let him know he can’t change her mind on the filibuster for voting rights. https://www.thedailybeast.com/kyrsten-sinema-reminds-joe-biden-hes-wasting-his-time-on-the-filibuster
	9 Moderate Democrats Threaten To Derail Pelosi's Infrastructure And Budget Plan. The letter is signed by Reps. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Carolyn Bourdeaux of Georgia, Filemon Vela of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Ed Case of Hawaii, Jim Costa of California and Kurt Schrader of Oregon. https://www.npr.org/2021/08/13/1027371749/moderate-house-democrats-infrastructure-budget-vote-pelosi		9 Moderate Democrats Threaten To Derail Pelosi's Infrastructure And Budget Plan. The letter is signed by Reps. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Carolyn Bourdeaux of Georgia, Filemon Vela of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Ed Case of Hawaii, Jim Costa of California and Kurt Schrader of Oregon. https://www.npr.org/2021/08/13/1027371749/moderate-house-democrats-infrastructure-budget-vote-pelosi
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	====News, Budget, Infrastructure====		====News, Budget, Infrastructure====
		+
		+	Stunning stat: 48 Democrats who supported reforming filibuster to pass voting rights bills represent 34 MILLION more Americans than 52 senators (all Republicans + Sinema/Manchin) who opposed it. 48 senators who voted to reform filibuster represent 182 million Americans, 55% of US. 52 senators who upheld filibuster represent 148 million Americans, 45% of US. https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/1484005724682391555
	After deal with moderates, House Democrats move forward on $3.5 trillion budget. The House moved forward on a $3.5 trillion budget plan Tuesday, as the Democratic leadership tries to keep its members united around President Biden’s agenda. The 220-212 vote was delayed after a group of 10 moderate Democrats said they would not vote yes on the budget until House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure deal that passed the Senate earlier this month. After negotiations, Pelosi said she was committed to passing the bipartisan deal by Sept. 27. Every House Democrat voted in favor of the bill, including the holdouts. https://news.yahoo.com/after-deal-with-moderates-house-democrats-move-forward-on-35-trillion-budget-212245072.html		After deal with moderates, House Democrats move forward on $3.5 trillion budget. The House moved forward on a $3.5 trillion budget plan Tuesday, as the Democratic leadership tries to keep its members united around President Biden’s agenda. The 220-212 vote was delayed after a group of 10 moderate Democrats said they would not vote yes on the budget until House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure deal that passed the Senate earlier this month. After negotiations, Pelosi said she was committed to passing the bipartisan deal by Sept. 27. Every House Democrat voted in favor of the bill, including the holdouts. https://news.yahoo.com/after-deal-with-moderates-house-democrats-move-forward-on-35-trillion-budget-212245072.html
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	===Whitehouse, The Presidency===		===Whitehouse, The Presidency===
		+
		+	“I ask every elected official in America: How do you want to be remembered?..Do you want to be the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?” Biden, Jan 11 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/01/11/remarks-by-president-biden-on-protecting-the-right-to-vote/
	From ‘Huckleberry Capone’ to ‘Turd Blossom’: A History of White House Nicknames. Presidents and their aides have long bestowed nicknames on each other — often to undermine their rivals. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/12/05/huckleberry-capone-turd-blossom-white-house-nicknames-523723		From ‘Huckleberry Capone’ to ‘Turd Blossom’: A History of White House Nicknames. Presidents and their aides have long bestowed nicknames on each other — often to undermine their rivals. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/12/05/huckleberry-capone-turd-blossom-white-house-nicknames-523723
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	===Climate Change===		===Climate Change===
		+
		+	Six key lifestyle changes can help avert the climate crisis, study finds. Research shows that governments and individuals making small changes can have a huge impact in reducing emissions.
		+	# Eat a largely plant-based diet, with healthy portions and no waste
		+	# Buy no more than three new items of clothing per year
		+	# Keep electrical products for at least seven years
		+	#Take no more than one short haul flight every three years and one long haul flight every eight years
		+	# Get rid of personal motor vehicles if you can – and if not keep hold of your existing vehicle for longer
		+	# Make at least one life shift to nudge the system, like moving to a green energy, insulating your home or changing pension supplier
		+	https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/07/six-key-lifestyle-changes-can-help-avert-the-climate-crisis-study-finds
	Greta Thunberg makes first cover of Vogue Scandinavia. https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/567068-greta-thunberg-makes-first-cover-of-vogue-scandinavia https://www.voguescandinavia.com/tags/greta-thunberg		Greta Thunberg makes first cover of Vogue Scandinavia. https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/567068-greta-thunberg-makes-first-cover-of-vogue-scandinavia https://www.voguescandinavia.com/tags/greta-thunberg
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	# dissociation from reality, fantastical thinking		# dissociation from reality, fantastical thinking
	# use of code words		# use of code words
		+
		+	===School shootings, guns, murder rate===
		+
		+	:https://i.imgur.com/dKrQxgd.jpg
		+	Artist Barry Blitt drew his latest sketchbook about the shooting by depicting such political leaders as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). (Barry Blitt for Air Mail Weekly) https://airmail.news/issues/2022-5-28/barry-blitts-sketchbook
		+
		+	Murder map: Deadliest U.S. cities https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/murder-map-deadliest-u-s-cities/43/
		+
		+	Cities With Most Murders 2022 https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-city-rankings/cities-with-most-murders
		+	# St. Louis, MO (69.4)
		+	# Baltimore, MD (51.1)
		+	# New Orleans, LA (40.6)
		+	# Detroit, MI (39.7)
		+	# Cleveland, OH (33.7)
		+	# Las Vegas, NV (31.4)
		+	# Kansas City, MO (31.2)
		+	# Memphis, TN (27.1)
		+	# Newark, NJ (25.6)
		+	# Chicago, IL (24)
		+	# Cincinnati, OH (23.8)
		+	# Philadelphia, PA (20.2)
		+	# Milwaukee, WI (20.0)
		+	# Tulsa, OK (18.6)
		+	# Pittsburgh, PA (18.4)
		+	# Indianapolis, IN (17.7)
		+	# Louisville, KY (17.5)
		+	# Oakland, CA (17.1)
		+	# Washington D.C. (17.0)
		+	# Atlanta, GA (16.7)
		+
		+	Eight warnings behaviors of a potential mass shooter: here's what to look for. https://news.yahoo.com/eight-warnings-behaviors-potential-mass-102503126.html
		+	# Pathway: This is where individuals are planning and preparing the details of their attack, like accumulating ammunition, buying firearms in secret and not telling people about them or building bombs or other incendiary devices in their garage.
		+	# Fixation
		+	# Identification: In Parkland, Florida, the shooter posted on YouTube six months prior to shooting the high school that he was going to become a "professional school shooter."
		+	#Energy burst: You may see an acceleration of "on the ground' behavior and a decrease in online behavior in the hours before an attack as the attacker prepares.
		+	#Leakage: This is the most common warning sign, where an individual communicates their intent to attack to a third party. It occurs in 60 to 90% of targeted attack cases, usually in the days or hours before the attack.
		+	#Directly communicated threat
		+	#Novel aggression: A potential attacker tests their ability to be violent ahead of time in their preparation for an attack, engaging in one-off unusually aggressive behavior that is a test of their resolve to carry out a homicidal act. This could include picking a fight or killing an animal.
		+	#Last resort: The potential attacker says things that indicate an urgent need to act violently within a specific time. They might say that it's up to them or use other words to communicate that they must act.
		+
		+	COPS DIDN’T STOP THE UVALDE SCHOOL SHOOTING. And they won’t stop the next. https://theintercept.com/2022/05/25/texas-uvalde-shooting-school-police/
		+
		+	Beto O'Rourke confront Gov. Greg Abbott during Texas shooting update https://news.yahoo.com/beto-orourke-confront-gov-greg-175642550.html
		+
		+	Uvalde, TX elementary school shooting: conspiracy trolls say it's a "psy-op" https://boingboing.net/2022/05/24/uvalde-tx-elementary-school-shooting-conspiracy-trolls-say-its-a-psy-op.html
	===Racism===		===Racism===
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	Critical race theory is a way of thinking about America’s history through the lens of racism. Scholars developed it during the 1970s and 1980s in response to what they viewed as a lack of racial progress following the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. It centers on '''the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions and that they function to maintain the dominance of white people in society'''. The architects of the theory argue that the United States was founded on the theft of land and labor and that federal law has preserved the unequal treatment of people on the basis of race. Proponents also believe race is culturally invented, not biological. https://apnews.com/article/what-is-critical-race-theory-08f5d0a0489c7d6eab7d9a238365d2c1		Critical race theory is a way of thinking about America’s history through the lens of racism. Scholars developed it during the 1970s and 1980s in response to what they viewed as a lack of racial progress following the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. It centers on '''the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions and that they function to maintain the dominance of white people in society'''. The architects of the theory argue that the United States was founded on the theft of land and labor and that federal law has preserved the unequal treatment of people on the basis of race. Proponents also believe race is culturally invented, not biological. https://apnews.com/article/what-is-critical-race-theory-08f5d0a0489c7d6eab7d9a238365d2c1
		+	===Corruption, current Hunter Biden, Rep. Darrell Issa and former Rep. Duncan Hunter===
		+
		+	Analysis of Hunter Biden's hard drive shows he, his firm took in about $11 million from 2013 to 2018, spent it fast. A representative for Biden says all of his tax responsibilities to the IRS are now satisfied. Two sources familiar with the matter have confirmed to NBC News that Hollywood attorney Kevin Morris began advising Biden in 2020 and arranged to pay off the approximately $2 million Biden owed the IRS. Legal experts say, however, that paying the bill won’t relieve Biden of criminal liability or necessarily erase his debts. While Republicans have suggested that Biden’s reference in an email to needing money for his “family” refers to the larger Biden clan, nothing in the Senate documents or on the hard drive indicates he was earning money expressly to share with other family members, including his father. https://news.yahoo.com/analysis-hunter-bidens-hard-drive-082903699.html
		+
		+	How the stench of corruption from Trump’s administration persists to the present day. The Trump administration may be gone from Washington, but the acrid stench of corruption lives on. Case in point: An allegation that former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt pressured agency personnel to approve a controversial Arizona housing development in return for political donations to then-President Trump by the builder and his associates. The allegation came in a request issued Wednesday by House Democrats for a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice into whether the approval by the Interior Department and the contributions to Trump represent “a potentially criminal quid pro quo.” https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-05-12/david-bernhardt-interior-house-committee-criminal-investigation
		+	New Hunter Biden revelations raise counterintelligence questions. Patrick Ho hardly seemed the profile of a big-time international fixer. A short, pudgy man, affectionately known to friends as “Fat Ping,” Ho had been a Harvard-trained ophthalmologist and a Hong Kong government minister. Yet in the fall of 2017, after landing at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City, he was arrested by FBI agents and charged in an audacious plot to dole out millions of dollars in bribes to African leaders in exchange for major energy contracts that appeared to advance Chinese government interests. What emerged in his indictment and later trial and conviction in federal court was a revealing portrait of Chinese influence peddling that included allegations that Ho arranged to broker arms deals — including the sale of rocket and grenade launchers — to countries in war zones in Africa and the Middle East. There was one noteworthy detail, however, about Ho’s global wheeling and dealing that went unmentioned in federal court documents or Justice Department press releases at the time. During the same period that he was being pursued by the FBI for his role in the global bribery scheme, Ho and his boss, Ye Jianming, a billionaire oil tycoon with past ties to a front for the People’s Liberation Army, had entered into a business relationship with two members of the Biden family — President Biden’s son Hunter Biden and the president’s brother, James Biden. As Yahoo News first reported, when Ho was arrested by agents at JFK, the first call he made was to James Biden. (The president’s brother later told the New York Times that he believed the call was intended for his nephew Hunter.) At the time, Ho’s connection to the Bidens was unclear. But emails on a damaged laptop that Hunter Biden left at a computer repair store in Wilmington, Del. — many of which have since been authenticated by the Washington Post and the Times — as well as bank records and other documents uncovered by Senate Republican investigators, reveal a high-dollar money trail that flowed from Chinese interests to Hunter and James Biden and which now appears to be at the heart of an ongoing Justice Department criminal investigation. (George Mesires, a lawyer for both Hunter and James Biden, did not respond to requests for comment from Yahoo News. A lawyer for Ho declined to comment.) https://news.yahoo.com/new-hunter-biden-revelations-raise-counter-intelligence-questions-090046438.html
		+	U.S. Congressman Fortenberry found guilty of lying to FBI about funds. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-congressman-fortenberry-found-guilty-lying-fbi-about-funds-2022-03-25/
		+	Another Republican ensnared? Rep. Darrell Issa may be implicated in Fortenberry scandal.
		+	Longtime House Republican Darrell Issa — worth $250M — may have been target of DOJ sting over $30,000 donation. One public official in question, who is identified in court filings only as "Candidate C," is Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican who is now the apparent target of a DOJ investigation — and may indeed have been the object of a sting operation. Issa retired from Congress in 2018 after serving nine terms from a Southern California district, but then moved to an adjoining district in San Diego County and was narrowly elected in 2020. The former CEO of an after-market auto accessories company called Directed Electronics, Issa has an estimated net worth of $250 million and is one of the richest members of the House. https://www.salon.com/2021/11/10/another-ensnared-rep-darrell-issa-may-be-implicated-in-fortenberry-scandal/
-	===Corruption, current Rep. Darrell Issa and former Rep. Duncan Hunter===	+	Trump’s interior secretary misused position and lied to ethics official, watchdog says. Ryan Zinke lied to agency ethics official about his involvement with foundation to advance project in his Montana home town. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/16/ryan-zinke-trump-interior-secretary-misused-position-watchdog
	The federal case against Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb. — who was indicted last month on charges of lying to federal investigators and concealing information about illegal campaign donations — appears to have ensnared another Republican congressman. The Department of Justice stated last week that a protective order was "necessary" in the Fortenberry case to protect "evidence related to sensitive and ongoing investigations, including those related to public officials." One public official in question, who is identified in court filings only as "Candidate C," is Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican who is now the apparent target of a DOJ investigation — and may indeed have been the object of a sting operation. Issa retired from Congress in 2018 after serving nine terms from a Southern California district, but then moved to an adjoining district in San Diego County and was narrowly elected in 2020. The former CEO of an after-market auto accessories company called Directed Electronics, Issa has an estimated net worth of $250 million and is one of the richest members of the House. https://www.salon.com/2021/11/10/another-ensnared-rep-darrell-issa-may-be-implicated-in-fortenberry-scandal/		The federal case against Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb. — who was indicted last month on charges of lying to federal investigators and concealing information about illegal campaign donations — appears to have ensnared another Republican congressman. The Department of Justice stated last week that a protective order was "necessary" in the Fortenberry case to protect "evidence related to sensitive and ongoing investigations, including those related to public officials." One public official in question, who is identified in court filings only as "Candidate C," is Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican who is now the apparent target of a DOJ investigation — and may indeed have been the object of a sting operation. Issa retired from Congress in 2018 after serving nine terms from a Southern California district, but then moved to an adjoining district in San Diego County and was narrowly elected in 2020. The former CEO of an after-market auto accessories company called Directed Electronics, Issa has an estimated net worth of $250 million and is one of the richest members of the House. https://www.salon.com/2021/11/10/another-ensnared-rep-darrell-issa-may-be-implicated-in-fortenberry-scandal/
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	Johns Hopkins Department of Civil and Systems Engineering, CSSE dashboard https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6		Johns Hopkins Department of Civil and Systems Engineering, CSSE dashboard https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
		+
		+	San Diego Wastewater Surveillance https://searchcovid.info/dashboards/wastewater-surveillance/
	This site was created by Avi Schiffmann. I am a high schooler in Washington State, USA. https://ncov2019.live/data https://ncov2019.live/data/unitedstates		This site was created by Avi Schiffmann. I am a high schooler in Washington State, USA. https://ncov2019.live/data https://ncov2019.live/data/unitedstates
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	===Coronavirus crisis, HealthCare, political, economy, masks===		===Coronavirus crisis, HealthCare, political, economy, masks===
		+
		+	For red and blue America, a glaring divide in COVID-19 death rates persists 2 years later. Cumulative death rates in red states 30% higher. https://news.yahoo.com/red-blue-america-glaring-divide-103237097.html
		+
		+	<nowiki>#</nowiki>8. San Diego County – Population that is fully vaccinated: 80.0% (2,670,929 fully vaccinated) https://fox5sandiego.com/news/coronavirus/counties-with-the-highest-covid-19-vaccination-rate-in-california-3/
		+
		+	US 'excess deaths' during pandemic surpassed 1 million, with covid killing most but other diseases adding to the toll. Although the vast majority of the excess deaths are due to the virus, the CDC mortality records also expose swollen numbers of deaths from heart disease, hypertension, dementia and other ailments across two years of pandemic misery. "We've never seen anything like it," Anderson said. In 2019, before the pandemic, the CDC recorded 2.8 million deaths. But in 2020 and 2021, as the virus spread through the population, the country recorded roughly a half-million deaths each year in excess of the norm. https://news.yahoo.com/us-excess-deaths-during-pandemic-215337856.html
		+
		+	My Mom passed a year ago today from COVID. She took pics of her progression while in the hospital. https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/sma6zr/my_mom_passed_a_year_ago_today_from_covid_she/
		+
		+	‘The case for masks became hugely stronger’: scientists admit their Covid mistakes. Prof Susan Michie, director of the centre for behaviour change at University College London, changed her mind on the usefulness of masks. Early on, my reading was that the evidence on the effectiveness of face masks in community settings was equivocal. The emphasis on droplet transmission raised a concern that infected people may touch their face masks and then touch surfaces, thus providing a transmission route. The possibility of people behaving less cautiously as result of wearing face masks was also raised. Two things changed. When evidence showed that the major route for transmission was via aerosol rather than droplet, '''the case for masks became hugely stronger'''. There was also persuasive evidence from real-world studies, including one from German towns and one on cruise ships. This changed my mind from sitting on the fence to being strongly in favour of masks. I was asked on a TV programme '''how long we’ll be wearing masks. I said “for ever, to some extent”''', and was cut off before I could elaborate that this would depend on the context and risk of infection. I had months of being trolled and attacked for saying this. But science continues to generate good evidence that masks reduce infection for Covid-19, an airborne virus. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/04/i-didnt-think-vaccines-would-work-scientists-admit-their-covid-mistakes?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
		+
		+	Good Grief, We’re Doing Throat Swabs Now? The mouth method might be better at detecting omicron. If you’re so inclined, you can swab your throat with a standard test kit by opening wide in front of a mirror and sticking the thing to the very back of your mouth, behind the arch. (A strep test, basically.) Then, stick the swab in each of your nostrils, as the instructions on the rapid test explain. https://slate.com/technology/2021/12/throat-swab-rapid-testing-omicron-effective.html
		+
		+	Right-Wing Podcaster Reportedly On Ventilator For COVID After he attended the right-wing “ReAwaken America” event in Dallas early this month, according to his podcast network and conspiracy theorist attorney Lin Wood.. Doug Kuzma posed with supplies of ivermectin, which the FDA and CDC have warned against using to treat COVID-19. A number of individuals who developed COVID-like symptoms after attending the Dallas event have claimed without evidence that they were somehow poisoned with anthrax. The Dallas event was part of a national tour paid for by right-wing funders featuring guest speakers including MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, as well as Flynn. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/doug-kuzma-covid-ventilator-reawaken-america_n_61c7c6e4e4b0bb04a6308680
		+
		+	Watch: Trump says the Covid vaccines he "came up with" are "all very, very good" A wizardly Donald Trump is on a tear this week, taking cues from a mysterious new playbook that leaves followers scrambling to catch up. Rather than touting bleach as the miracle Covid fix, he's now, finally, getting behind the vaccine. Not only did he admit to receiving the booster last Sunday, but he has actually disclosed the fact that he alone created not one, but all three vaccines. "I came up with a vaccine, with three vaccines, all are very, very good," he explained to right-wing Daily Wire host Candace Owens on Tuesday. "Came up with three of them in less than nine months. It was supposed to take 5–12 years." Yes, we laugh now. But don't think the master manipulator doesn't know what he's doing. https://boingboing.net/2021/12/24/watch-trump-says-the-covid-vaccines-he-came-up-with-are-all-very-very-good.html
		+
		+	During the COVID-19 pandemic’s early days, it wasn’t crystal clear how well face masks were preventing coronavirus infections or severe disease among wearers. Now, a new study reveals an association between mask policies and reduced COVID-19 deaths long before vaccines were added to the picture. Research on 44 countries in Asia and Europe including nearly one billion people shows nations that enacted face mask policies at the start of the pandemic had significantly lower COVID-19 deaths per million people than those that did not enforce any mask rules. https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2021/12/do-face-masks-work-against-covid-19-heres-what-new-study-of-44-countries-found.html
		+
		+	Select Subcommittee Releases Further Evidence of Trump Officials’ Pursuit of ‘Herd Immunity’ Strategy, Interference in Public Health. Then-President Trump held a meeting at the White House with a “fringe group” that advocated for a dangerous herd immunity strategy embraced by then-White House Special Advisor Dr. Scott Atlas. Dr. Birx and former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Principal Deputy Director Dr. Anne Schuchat detailed a series of early missteps that contributed to the Trump Administration’s ineffectual coronavirus response. The Trump White House intentionally “softened” CDC’s public health guidance for faith communities. A new Select Subcommittee analysis found that nearly 97 percent of Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) fraud prosecutions have involved fraudulent applications submitted during the Trump Administration’s implementation of the program. https://coronavirus.house.gov/news/press-releases/select-subcommittee-s-year-end-staff-report-highlights-oversight-work-releases
	Former president Donald Trump knowingly put at risk the lives of Gold Star families, wealthy donors at a Minnesota fundraiser, then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden, White House staff, the crews of Air Force One, White House reporters, and others, according to a new book from his former chief of staff. Trump finally admitted he had contracted COVID-19 just after midnight on Oct. 2, barely 24 hours following a campaign rally in Minnesota where he looked peaked and cut short his typically 90 minutes of rambling remarks to just 45. That, though, was actually almost six days after Sept. 26, when he had originally tested positive, according to former chief of staff Mark Meadows in his new memoir, as reported by the Guardian. In those intervening days, Trump held a reception for families of fallen service members, hosted a gathering of business leaders at the White House, attended a presidential debate with Biden, visited reporters in the press section of Air Force 1, and interacted with multiple flight crews on both Marine helicopters and Air Force planes. “The whole episode demonstrates a total disregard for public health and the well-being of others,” said Alyssa Farah Griffin, Trump’s former communications director who left the White House when Trump would not stop lying about the 2020 election results. https://news.yahoo.com/trump-may-infected-gold-star-195616565.html		Former president Donald Trump knowingly put at risk the lives of Gold Star families, wealthy donors at a Minnesota fundraiser, then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden, White House staff, the crews of Air Force One, White House reporters, and others, according to a new book from his former chief of staff. Trump finally admitted he had contracted COVID-19 just after midnight on Oct. 2, barely 24 hours following a campaign rally in Minnesota where he looked peaked and cut short his typically 90 minutes of rambling remarks to just 45. That, though, was actually almost six days after Sept. 26, when he had originally tested positive, according to former chief of staff Mark Meadows in his new memoir, as reported by the Guardian. In those intervening days, Trump held a reception for families of fallen service members, hosted a gathering of business leaders at the White House, attended a presidential debate with Biden, visited reporters in the press section of Air Force 1, and interacted with multiple flight crews on both Marine helicopters and Air Force planes. “The whole episode demonstrates a total disregard for public health and the well-being of others,” said Alyssa Farah Griffin, Trump’s former communications director who left the White House when Trump would not stop lying about the 2020 election results. https://news.yahoo.com/trump-may-infected-gold-star-195616565.html
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	===Economy===		===Economy===
		+
		+	China bought none of the $200 billion it promised from the U.S. under ‘Phase 1’ trade deal, study reveals. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-bought-none-of-the-200-billion-it-promised-from-the-u-s-in-phase-one-trade-deal-study-reveals-11644505449
	Musk tanks TSLA 10% to pay his taxes, then pauses to malign a US Senator. https://boingboing.net/2021/11/15/musk-tanks-tsla-10-to-pay-his-taxes-then-pauses-to-malign-a-us-senator.html		Musk tanks TSLA 10% to pay his taxes, then pauses to malign a US Senator. https://boingboing.net/2021/11/15/musk-tanks-tsla-10-to-pay-his-taxes-then-pauses-to-malign-a-us-senator.html
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	Gripped by the accelerating viral outbreak, the U.S. economy is under pressure from persistent layoffs, diminished income and nervous consumers, whose spending is needed to drive a recovery from the pandemic. A flurry of data released Wednesday suggested that the spread of the virus is intensifying the threats to an economy still struggling to recover from the deep recession that struck in early spring. The number of Americans seeking unemployment aid rose last week for a second straight week to 778,000, evidence that many employers are still slashing jobs more than eight months after the virus hit. Before the pandemic, weekly jobless claims typically amounted to only about 225,000. Layoffs are still historically high, with many businesses unable to fully reopen and some, especially restaurants and bars, facing tightened restrictions. https://apnews.com/article/pandemics-jobless-claims-unemployment-coronavirus-pandemic-economy-01d54b8c5f65a813a09df482aa4b6786		Gripped by the accelerating viral outbreak, the U.S. economy is under pressure from persistent layoffs, diminished income and nervous consumers, whose spending is needed to drive a recovery from the pandemic. A flurry of data released Wednesday suggested that the spread of the virus is intensifying the threats to an economy still struggling to recover from the deep recession that struck in early spring. The number of Americans seeking unemployment aid rose last week for a second straight week to 778,000, evidence that many employers are still slashing jobs more than eight months after the virus hit. Before the pandemic, weekly jobless claims typically amounted to only about 225,000. Layoffs are still historically high, with many businesses unable to fully reopen and some, especially restaurants and bars, facing tightened restrictions. https://apnews.com/article/pandemics-jobless-claims-unemployment-coronavirus-pandemic-economy-01d54b8c5f65a813a09df482aa4b6786
		+
		+	===★ Insurrection Index===
		+
		+	Below is a curated selection of key profiles of individuals and organizations who participated in, or directly supported the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. They are in positions of public trust or are actively campaigning for elected office.. State:California Elected Status:Elected Official https://insurrectionindex.org/records/?_record_type=persons&_states=california&_elected_status=elected
	===Trump incited Insurrection January 06, 2021, Qanon, MAGA Zombies===		===Trump incited Insurrection January 06, 2021, Qanon, MAGA Zombies===
		+
		+	‘Take me up to the Capitol now’: How close Trump came to joining rioters. Trump’s demands to lead a march to Capitol Hill sheds new light on his mindset as the siege began. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/01/trump-capitol-riot-march/
		+
		+	@alexjholder The Trumps did not have editorial control. Full stop. [Trump staging shot] https://twitter.com/alexjholder/status/1540034384014807043
		+
		+	Based on my interactions with him — I don’t claim to be a psychologist or psychiatrist, but in those moments, the position he gave to me is someone who was utterly irrational, someone living in an alternate reality, and that there was no way to have a coherent, rational conversation with him. It’s very scary when people start to believe in their own lies, and when you can’t have a rational conversation with them — that’s when things become very dangerous. And we’ve seen that play out in history, when very dangerous people start to believe in their own rhetoric and are able to get their supporters to believe. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/06/alex-holder-trump-was-utterly-irrational-after-january-6.html
		+
		+	On Dec. 8, 2020, a few weeks after Joseph R. Biden was elected president, “Q” — the anonymous online account that set off the QAnon conspiracy movement — posted a link to a video with scenes of cars burning on the streets, fighter jets over a stadium and Donald J. Trump with his hand on a Bible, being sworn in as president. The images played over a song by Twisted Sister, “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” The Q account has not posted since, and its major predictions have not come to pass. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/20/technology/qanon-conspiracy-movement.html
		+
		+	:https://i.imgur.com/Z3F2lHM.jpg
		+	A Single Text Exchange Tells Us Everything We Needed to Know About Melania Trump https://jezebel.com/a-single-text-exchange-tells-us-everything-we-needed-to-1849123971
		+
		+	Inside John Eastman’s California rise from GOP ‘happy warrior’ to Jan. 6 firebrand. He brought in high-profile conservatives such as Thomas, and invited his friend John Yoo, a former lawyer in George W. Bush’s administration and a tenured professor at UC Berkeley, to come teach, offering Yoo a break from blowback over his involvement with what came to be known as the torture memos. Eastman became a public face of the National Organization for Marriage, a group that promoted 2008’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California. He led the organization‘s years-long battle to keep its donor list private, which resulted in a string of court losses and fines for violating state disclosure laws. Fred Karger, a gay Republican activist who doggedly sought the group’s financial records, said he saw a pattern in Eastman’s actions then and in the current congressional investigation. “He has a history of lying and undermining our election laws as best he can,” Karger said. That cataclysmic viewpoint spilled into the Jan. 6 hearings, when former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann said in a deposition that he had warned Eastman his scheme to have the vice president invalidate the election would “cause riots in the streets.” “And [Eastman] said words to the effect of, ‘There has been violence in the history of our country, Eric, to protect the democracy or protect the republic,” Herschmann said. Eastman was so committed to this line of thinking that he continued to seek avenues to overturn Trump’s loss, even in the immediate aftermath of the attack on the U.S. Capitol. He unsuccessfully sought a pardon from Trump and now finds himself potentially in criminal jeopardy. “Unfortunately, he drank the Kool-Aid that President Trump was selling — that the election was a fraud,” Yoo said. https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-06-26/trump-lawyer-john-eastman-jan-6-notoriety
		+
		+	These 7 House Republicans aren't cooperating with the January 6 committee and here's how they've justified blowing off the investigation. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan of Ohio, have offered varying reasons for not participating — ranging from complaining about the committee's public outreach to assailing the "baseless witch hunt." Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona. Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama. Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas. Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia. Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. https://news.yahoo.com/7-house-republicans-arent-cooperating-110100522.html
		+
		+	Key facts to know about the Jan. 6 insurrection. Rally organizers told the National Park Service that they anticipated 30,000 people would attend. Law enforcement said the '''crowd size''' ahead of the protest was possibly as much as 80,000, according to then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy. The crowd size at the rally was at least 10,000, according to the Associated Press. https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-01-05/by-the-numbers-jan-6-anniversary
		+
		+	Donald Trump Called Mike Pence “The P-Word” For Not Illegally Overturning The Election, According To Jan. 6 Committee Testimony
		+	Both Ivanka Trump and a former Trump attorney described the conversation as “heated.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kadiagoba/donald-trump-pence-pussy-jan-6
		+
		+	How the Proud Boys Breached the Capitol on Jan. 6: Rile Up the Normies https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000008392796/rile-up-the-normies-how-proud-boys-breached-the-capitol.html
		+
		+	Rep. Loudermilk whips up amusing excuses on why Capitol "tourists" took pictures of the stairwell (video). https://boingboing.net/2022/06/15/rep-loudermilk-whips-up-amusing-excuses-on-why-capitol-tourists-took-pictures-of-the-stairwell-video.html
		+
		+	January 6 committee releases video of Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk giving Capitol tour on January 5 to rioter who hours later warned AOC and Nancy Pelosi mob was 'coming' for them and would pull speaker 'out by your hairs'
		+	The House's select committee on January 6 released a video Wednesday of Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk giving a January 5 tour of the Capitol
		+	One of the men with the Georgia Republican was captured snapping pictures of tunnels, hallways and security checkpoints
		+	The committee said in the video's introduction that it was the same man who made 'detailed and disturbing threats against specific Members of Congress'
		+	'There's no escape Pelosi, Schumer, Nadler - we're coming for you,' the individual is heard saying on January 6. 'We're coming to take you out'
		+	He also name-dropped AOC and suggested he would pull Pelosi out of the U.S. Capitol by her hair
		+	'You may as well make yourself another appointment. When I get done with you. You're going to need a shine up on top of that bald head,' the man said https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10920021/Jan-6-committee-releases-video-GOP-Rep-Loudermilk-giving-tour-people-taking-photos-tunnels.html
		+
		+	January 6 committee has footage that challenges Capitol Police findings over alleged role of GOP congressman. https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/15/politics/barry-loudermilk-tour-january-6/index.html
		+
		+	Trump releases 12-page response to Jan. 6 hearing. https://thehill.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/Statement-by-Trump-1.pdf https://thehill.com/news/administration/3522080-trump-releases-12-page-response-to-jan-6-hearing/ https://news.yahoo.com/trump-releases-12-page-response-230344723.html
		+
		+	Documentarian who testified about Jan. 6 says crew was aware they had filmed ‘multiple crimes’ Nick Quested told NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd that he saw crimes “on the steps of the Capitol” and “inside the Capitol.” https://thehill.com/news/sunday-talk-shows/3520369-documentarian-who-testified-about-jan-6-says-crew-was-aware-they-had-filmed-multiple-crimes/
		+
		+	Jared Kushner Wasn’t Just Involved in Trump’s Push to Overturn 2020. He Helped Start It. “Jared helped create what then morphed into the Rudy clown show,” one source tells Rolling Stone. According to four people familiar with the matter, in the week following Election Day in early November of that year, Kushner took charge in overseeing the development of plans to keep Trump in office — Kushner just wasn’t publicly ostentatious about it in the way Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others were. During that first week, Kushner repeatedly met with Trump and other high-ranking aides to the then-president to discuss and map out possible strategies for multi-pronged legal battles and a scorched-earth messaging war against the victorious Biden campaign, the knowledgeable sources tell Rolling Stone. “Jared was directly involved,” one of these sources, a former senior Trump aide who worked on the effort to nullify the election outcome, said. “There was a [brief] window…when it seemed like he was positioning himself to be the Jim Baker of this fight … It didn’t last long. He backed away from it, but he was there and got his hands dirty like everyone else did.” (Baker, a towering figure in the Republican Party, helmed the legal team for George W. Bush during the chaotic Florida recount that ultimately handed Bush the presidency.) https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jared-kushner-trump-jan6-2020-election-1365654/
		+
		+	Pence team couldn't verify Trump campaign's election fraud claims, new memo shows. In a previously unseen memo obtained by POLITICO, the former vice president's legal team called most of the fraud allegations minor and unverifiable. The memo shows Pence’s legal team didn’t just track the barrage of wild legal arguments from former President Donald Trump’s lawyers and allies, but also meticulously monitored the allegations of election fraud and mismanagement. It specifically includes charges leveled by the Trump campaign itself in court. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/10/pence-team-election-fraud-memo-00038921
		+
		+	Trump throws IVANKA under the bus after she told January 6 committee she didn't believe the 2020 election was stolen: Furious ex-president says his daughter had 'long-since checked out' and was not involved in looking at votes
		+	Donald Trump turned on his daughter Ivanka Trump on Friday morning
		+	Her testimony to House committee investigating January 6th attack showed she did not think the 2020 election was rigged
		+	'Ivanka Trump was not involved in looking at, or studying, Election results. She had long since checked out,' Trump posted on Truth Social
		+	Former president also attacked Bill Barr, his attorney general who said Trump's claims the election was rigged were 'bull****'
		+	'The Democrats hit pay dirt with Barr, he was stupid,' Trump said
		+	Trump also denied he ever said his VP Mike Pence 'deserved' to be hanged
		+	Trump was furious with his vice president for his ceremonial role in overseeing the certification of the 2020 election results https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10904155/Trump-turns-IVANKA-said-long-checked-election.html
		+
		+	FBI: Navarro called arresting agents 'Nazis'. Prosecutors dispute the former Trump trade adviser’s claims he was shackled and denied food and water following his arrest on a charge of defying a subpoena. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/09/fbi-navarro-called-arresting-agents-nazis-00038610
		+
		+	Five members of the Proud Boys street gang — including their leader, Enrique Tarrio — were indicted Monday on seditious conspiracy charges for their role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
		+	A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., returned the rare indictment, which charges that Tarrio and four other members of the Proud Boys — Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola — played an outsize role in the planning and execution of the insurrection. A sixth Proud Boy, Charles Donohoe, wasn’t included because he’d already pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in a plea deal that will force him to testify against his fellow gang members.
		+	Dozens of Proud Boys were among the thousands of people who stormed the U.S. Capitol that day in an effort to stop the certification of Joe Biden as president. Prosecutors say that Tarrio and his fellow defendants were instrumental in the planning stages of the attack; Tarrio allegedly looked over a document titled “1776 Returns” on Dec. 30, 2020, detailing plans to occupy several buildings in Washington on Jan. 6, including six House and Senate office buildings. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/proud-boys-leaders-indicted-seditious-conspiracy-charges-capitol-riot_n_629e5618e4b0c184bdd3f0ed
		+
		+	Former acting defense secretary testifies he was trying to avoid another Kent State on Jan. 6. He said he wanted to avoid fanning fears of a military coup or martial law. Former Acting U.S. Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller testified Wednesday that he was concerned in the days before the Jan. 6 insurrection that sending troops to the Capitol would fan fears of a military coup or fuel conspiracies that advisers to the president were advocating martial law. He said doing so could cause a repeat of the deadly 1970 Kent State University shooting in which Ohio National Guard troops fired at demonstrators and killed four American civilians. "Historically military responses to domestic protests have resulted in violations of American civil rights, and even in the case of the Kent State protests of the Vietnam War tragic deaths," he said. "I fervently believe the military should not be utilized in such scenarios, other than as a last resort, and only when all other assets had been expended on January 6." https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/house-oversight-committee-chair-testify-government-unprepared-capitol/story?id=77639074
		+
		+	@WestWingReport Two days ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on your Capitol, the pro gun Trump administration issued orders - the net result of which was that the DC National Guard would not be allowed to properly defend itself or public property. https://twitter.com/WestWingReport/status/1533793385068253184
		+
		+	Before Jan. 6, Aide Warned Secret Service of Security Risk to Pence. New details flesh out how the pressure campaign by Donald J. Trump and his allies to block certification of the 2020 election left the vice president’s staff fearing for his safety. By Maggie Haberman The chief of staff, Marc Short, had a message for the agent, Tim Giebels: The president was going to turn publicly against the vice president, and there could be a security risk to Mr. Pence because of it. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/03/us/politics/trump-pence-safety-jan-6.html
		+
		+	Committee provides timeline of Jim Jordan’s collaboration with Trump White House effort to question the 2020 presidential election results. The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol on Tuesday gave Champaign County’s Jim Jordan until June 11 to answer its questions about his role in former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. In doing so, it provided a timeline of Jordan’s “meetings, calls and communications” with Trump administration officials to pursue that goal. A May 31 letter from Committee Chair Bennie Thompson. a Mississippi Democrat, disputes Jordan’s claims that the committee lacks authority to subpoena him and lays out the most complete chronology supplied so far of Jordan’s collaboration with White House staffers and Trump campaign officials. https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/06/committee-provides-timeline-of-jim-jordans-collaboration-with-trump-white-house-effort-to-question-the-2020-presidential-election-results.html
		+
		+	Read the Trump-world legal memo that a judge ruled was likely part of a criminal effort to overturn the election. An attorney sketched out a plan for then-Vice President Mike Pence to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. https://www.politico.com/minutes/congress/06-1-2022/jan-6/ https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840.350.2.pdf
		+
		+	:https://i.imgur.com/eOu2c7Y.png
		+	Jury finds alleged Nazi sympathizer guilty of 5 charges ranging from obstruction to disorderly conduct in Jan. 6 case. The former Army reservist was charged with obstructing an official proceeding. Thomas Hale-Cusanelli, an alleged Nazi sympathizer and Army reservist who prior to his arrest was working as a private contractor who lived on the base with security clearance at the Naval Weapons Station in New Jersey, was found guilty on five charges ranging from obstruction to disorderly conduct in the Capitol riot case. The jury in this case, however, did not see images of Hale-Cusanelli impersonating an Adolf Hitler-style mustache. However, they were shown video, audio and social media images, as well as text messages involving his actions on and before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jury-finds-alleged-nazi-sympathizer-xx-jan-case/story?id=85025366
		+
		+	Trump 'approved' of Capitol rioters' chants to hang Mike Pence and 'complained' that his VP was being taken to safety, according to January 6 committee testimony
		+	Leaked testimony on Wednesday revealed what Trump was doing on Jan 6
		+	Mark Meadows, his chief of staff, left colleagues with the impression that the then president approved of the idea of hanging Vice President Mike Pence
		+	Meadows told other staff that Trump had complained that Pence was being rushed to safety
		+	Rioters called for Pence to hang for refusing to try to overturn the election. The newspaper said it was confirmed by Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Meadows. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10854597/Trump-approved-Capitol-chants-hang-Mike-Pence-according-leaked-January-6-testimony.html
		+
		+	Trump expressed support for hanging Pence during Capitol riot, Jan. 6 panel told. The Jan. 6 select committee has heard testimony indicating that then-President Donald Trump — after rioters who swarmed the Capitol began chanting “hang Mike Pence” — expressed support for hanging his vice president, according to three people familiar with the matter. The White House chief of staff at the time, Mark Meadows, was in the dining room off the Oval Office with Trump at one point during last year’s Capitol attack, the committee has been told. Meadows then left the dining room and informed other people nearby that Trump had signaled a positive view of the prospect of hanging the vice president, the panel heard. Meadows’ account as it was described to the committee came after some members of the mob converging on the Capitol had broken into chants of “Hang Mike Pence!” Those chants were a reaction to Pence's decision to accept electoral votes that indicated Joe Biden had won the presidency. POLITICO could not independently verify the veracity of the claim regarding Meadows’ comments. Two of the people who spoke for this story said the committee has heard testimony on this topic from more than one person. All three people spoke on condition of anonymity. Reached for comment, Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich blasted the committee. https://news.yahoo.com/trump-expressed-support-hanging-pence-173510960.html
		+
		+	===Trump incited Insurrection January 06, 2021, Qanon, MAGA Zombies, archived May 25, 2022===
		+
		+	Former thinker Naomi Wolf says WHO forces will occupy the US next week. The invasion of the body snatchers in Q-land has devoured yet another human mind. The once widely respected thinker Naomi Wolf is now sounding the alarm about a WHO takeover, which will be occupying the United States by next week. Yes, the Beauty Myth author and former campaign advisor to Bill Clinton warned YouTube's Charlie Kirk about the impending coup d'état with a straight face yesterday (see clip below). But she does have hope, thanks to the millions of gun owners who will be ready for the civil war that is about to break out. "A war is being waged on us, and we have to face the fact. … Thank god for the second amendment," she said. The only reason we are not "enslaved" the way Australia and Singapore are is "because we have millions of owners of guns. … it is harder to subjugate an armed population." "I really hope that it doesn't devolve into civil war, which is really what the next thing is in history when you have an occupying force," she said, "which is what the WHO will be, you know, by next week." https://boingboing.net/2022/05/24/former-thinker-naomi-wolf-says-who-forces-will-occupy-the-us-next-week.html
		+
		+	QAnon gains mainstream appeal with tens of millions in GOP funding. According to a new investigation by Grid, there are at least 78 QAnon candidates, backed by tens of millions of GOP dollars (20 million in this cycle, over 30 million since 2018), running for state or federal office — including governorships, secretaries of state, state legislature seats, and federal house and senate seats — in more than 26 states in this upcoming election cycle. Grid concludes, "QAnon appears to be a growing political movement with increasing clout and significant mainstream appeal." https://www.grid.news/story/misinformation/2022/04/12/qanon-candidates-are-on-the-ballot-in-26-states/ https://boingboing.net/2022/05/24/qanon-gains-mainstream-appeal-with-tens-of-millions-in-gop-funding.html
		+
		+	Cheney warns of ‘threat we have never faced’ in jab at Trump during award speech. In a speech as a recipient of the JFK award, Cheney highlighted the contrasts between past presidents who honored the “sacred obligation” of the transfer of power after an election loss to what happened on Jan. 6, when a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol in a bid to overturn certification of the 2020 election. “This sacred obligation to defend the peaceful transfer of power has been honored by every American president except one,” Cheney said. “The question for every one of us is in this time of testing, will we do our duty, will we defend our constitution, will we stand for truth, will we put duty to our oath above partisan politics? “Or will we look away from danger, ignore the threat, embrace the lies and enable the liar?” Cheney continued. “As we face a threat we have never faced before — a former president attempting to unravel our constitutional republic — at this moment we must all summon the courage to stand against that.” In her Sunday speech, Cheney repeated that the honorable transfer of power was the cornerstone of democracy. She said after the U.S. won its independence from England after the revolutionary war, George Washington handed over the power of the continental army over to Congress. “With this noble act, George Washington set the indispensable example of the peaceful transfer of power in our country,” Cheney said. “In our Republic, some things have to matter.” https://news.yahoo.com/cheney-warns-threat-never-faced-134949822.html
		+
		+	Oracle’s Larry Ellison joined Nov. 2020 call about contesting Trump’s loss. The Nov. 14 call included Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.); Fox News host Sean Hannity; Jay Sekulow, an attorney for President Donald Trump; and James Bopp Jr., an attorney for True the Vote, a Texas-based nonprofit that has promoted disputed claims of widespread voter fraud. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/20/larry-ellison-oracle-trump-election-challenges/
		+
		+	Ginni Thomas' emails deepen her involvement in 2020 election. Newly discovered emails show that Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was more deeply involved in baseless efforts to overturn the 2020 election than previously known. Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and a conservative political activist, urged Republican lawmakers in Arizona after the 2020 presidential election to choose their own slate of electors, arguing that results giving Joe Biden a victory in the state were marred by fraud. The revelations first published by The Washington Post on Friday show that Thomas was more involved than previously known in efforts, based on unsubstantiated claims of fraud, to overturn Biden's victory and keep then-President Donald Trump in office. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/clarence-thomas-ap-joe-biden-arizona-donald-trump-b2084011.html
		+
		+	Group Chat Linked to '''Roger Stone''' Shows Ties Among Jan. 6 Figures. The roster of participants highlights how Mr. Stone, the pro-Trump political operative, was involved with a strikingly large number of people who sought to overturn the 2020 election. There were “Stop the Steal” organizers, right-wing influencers, Florida state legislative aides and more than one failed candidate loyal to former President Donald J. Trump. One participant ran a website that promoted disinformation about the Capitol attack. Another was an officer in the Army Reserve allied with '''Michael T. Flynn''', Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser. "'''Owen Shroyer''', the right-hand man of the conspiracy theorist '''Alex Jones'''; '''Enrique Tarrio''', the onetime chairman of the Proud Boys; and '''Stewart Rhodes''', the leader of the Oath Keepers militia." '''Pete Santilli''', a veteran right-wing radio host. Named on the list are activists like '''Marsha Lessard''' and '''Christina Skaggs''', leaders of a group called the Virginia Freedom Keepers who helped to organize an anti-vaccine rally scheduled for the east side of the Capitol on Jan. 6. Ms. Lessard and Ms. Skaggs worked with another anti-vaccine activist, '''Ty Bollinger''', who was also on the list. '''Ali Alexander''', one of the most prominent Stop the Steal organizers who planned his own event at the Capitol that day, was on the list as well. '''Bianca Gracia''', the leader of a group called Latinos for Trump. At least one of Mr. Stone’s Oath Keeper bodyguards, '''Joshua James''', has pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy charges in the Capitol attack and is cooperating with the government’s inquiry. '''Kellye SoRelle''', a lawyer for the Oath Keepers, was part of the Friends of Stone chat as well and is also said to be cooperating with prosecutors in the riot investigation. '''Nayib Hassan''', Mr. Tarrio’s lawyer, declined to comment on his client’s role in the chat. two other Florida Proud Boys whose names appear on the Friends of Stone membership list: '''Jacobs Engels''' and '''Tyler Ziolkowski'''. '''Ivan Raiklin''', an Army Reserve lieutenant colonel who promoted a plan after the election to pressure Vice President Mike Pence not to certify electors from several disputed swing states. This plan, which Mr. Raiklin called the “Pence Card,” was ultimately taken up by Mr. Trump and some of his legal advisers, like the lawyer '''John Eastman'''. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/us/politics/roger-stone-jan-6.html
		+
		+	President Donald Trump was so deeply involved in the desperate, last-ditch effort to overturn the 2020 election results that he hand-wrote strategy notes, hired at least ten lawyers to work on just one court case, and spoke regularly with one of his lead lawyers both directly and through six conduits. John Eastman, the law professor tapped by Trump to craft a legal strategy to keep him in power, detailed those extensive communications in a new court filing late Thursday as he argued it should all be shielded from the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection because of attorney-client privilege or attorney work product protections. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-hand-wrote-strategy-notes-for-overturning-the-election-lawyer-john-eastman-reveals-in-court-filing
		+
		+	QAnon’s Chief Enabler Ran a Website Where He Brushed Off Concerns About Pedophilic Content. A little-known archive unveils a dark irony behind the right’s child protection conspiracy. 8chan’s proprietor is Jim Watkins—an American but often Philippines-based pornographer, pig farmer, and internet forum entrepreneur. Over the years, Watkins and his team took special steps to keep the Q posts coming and purportedly verify their provenance, ensuring the poster’s continued access to their followers. While 8chan’s historic association with child sexual abuse material is familiar to close observers of the QAnon conspiracy, Mother Jones has reviewed a little-known archive documenting conversations in the moderation channel of Pink, an earlier internet forum, that capture Watkins, the site’s administrator, pushing for a hands-off approach to the moderation of child porn-related content there. Entries in the archive, created between 2004 and 2018, show he was slow to address concerns about child pornography and sometimes dismissed advice from moderators seeking to stop the spread of potentially illegal content. They repeatedly record moderators of Watkins’ forum coming to him for advice on how to handle issues related to child sex abuse material and pedophilic content, and Watkins responding with blasé indifference. Fredrick Brennan, the original founder of 8chan, alerted Mother Jones to the logs’ existence and put me in touch with researchers at the QOrigins Project, who have made a more user-friendly backup of the archive. “Ali we probably need to talk,” Brennan, a former associate and now adversary of Watkins, first messaged me on Signal in March, explaining that he had been looking back at Pink records housed on the Internet Archive. “I was investigating Jim for something I thought was innocuous today, helping somebody who makes memes of him find more of his old photos. While doing that I discovered a few things…long conversations from circa 2009 and before between Jim Watkins and the Japanese users of BBSPINK. Almost all of the discussion keeps going back to child porn.” BBSPINK, or just “Pink,” is a text-only not-safe-for-work bulletin board system that started in 2001 as an offshoot of 2channel—the very popular Japanese precursor of both 4chan and 8chan. Pink was created as a place to divert 2channel users’ lewder content and presented as separate forum, but was run off the same servers as 2channel and managed by an overlapping team that included Watkins. He became the admin of the NSFW forum in 2002, and started hosting both Pink and 2channel on his servers in 2004. Brennan started working as the technical lead of 2channel in 2016, holding the position until departing in 2018. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/05/qanon-jim-watkins-pink-pedophilic-links/
		+
		+	John Eastman, Trump's former lawyer, asked Pennsylvania lawmakers to throw out absentee ballots to overturn Biden win. "For example, depending on how many ballots were counted that were received after the statutory deadline (say 10,000 for example's purpose), those 10,000 votes need to be discarded, and you can take the absentee ballot ratio for each candidate in the counties were late-received ballots were illegally counted and deduct the pro-rated amount from each candidate's total," Eastman wrote to Pennsylvania Republican state Rep. Russ Diamond on Dec. 4, 2020. "Then, having done that math, you'd be left with a significant Trump lead that would bolster the argument for the Legislature adopting a slate of Trump electors — perfectly within your authority to do anyway, but now bolstered by the untainted popular vote," he continued. "That would help provide some cover." The Colorado Ethics Institute obtained the Eastman emails via a Freedom of Information Act request for Eastman's communications while he was employed by the University of Colorado-Boulder from August 2020 until May 2021. The Denver Post first reported on the emails, which were later obtained by ABC News. https://www.yahoo.com/gma/john-eastman-trumps-former-lawyer-202350760.html
		+
		+	Evidence mounts of GOP involvement in Trump election schemes. In early December 2020, several lawmakers attended a meeting in the White House counsel’s office where attorneys for the president advised them that a plan to put up an alternate slate of electors declaring Trump the winner was not “legally sound.” One lawmaker, Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, pushed back on that position. So did GOP Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Louie Gohmert of Texas, according to testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former special assistant in the Trump White House. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia testified in a hearing in April that she does not recall conversations she had with the White House or the texts she sent to Meadows about Trump invoking martial law. Gohmert told AP he also does not recall being involved and that he is not sure he could be helpful to the committee’s investigation. Rep. Jody Hice of Georgia played down his actions, saying it is routine for members of the president’s party to be going in and out of the White House to speak about a number of topics. Hice is now running for secretary of state in Georgia, a position responsible for the state’s elections. Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona didn’t deny his public efforts to challenge the election results but called recent reports about his deep involvement untrue. In a statement Saturday, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona reiterated his “serious” concerns about the 2020 election. “Discussions about the Electoral Count Act were appropriate, necessary and warranted,” he added. In another meeting about Pence’s potential role, Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis were joined again by Perry and Jordan as well as Greene and Lauren Boebert, a Republican who had also just been elected to the House from Colorado. https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-biden-presidential-elections-electoral-college-mark-meadows-296ddf04ffaacec07f548a2a997af448
		+
		+	Watch this chilling 5-minute recap of Trump's coup attempt, and the ominous aftermath. Yale historian Timothy Snyder spelled out the GOP fascist takeover plan in July 2021: The scenario then goes like this. The Republicans win back the House and Senate in 2022, in part thanks to voter suppression. The Republican candidate in 2024 loses the popular vote by several million and the electoral vote by the margin of a few states. State legislatures, claiming fraud, alter the electoral count vote. The House and Senate accept that altered count. The losing candidate becomes the president. We no longer have "democratically elected government." And people are angry. No one is seeking to hide that this is the plan. It is right there out in the open. The prospective Republican candidates for 2024, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley, are all running on a big lie platform. If your platform is that elections do not work, you are saying that you intend to come to power some other way. The big lie is designed not to win an election, but to discredit one. Any candidate who tells it is alienating most Americans, and preparing a minority for a scenario where fraud is claimed. This is just what Trump tried in 2020, and it led to a coup attempt in January 2021. It will be worse in January 2025. https://boingboing.net/2022/04/29/watch-this-chilling-5-minute-recap-of-trumps-coup-attempt-and-the-ominous-aftermath.html @MeidasTouch There is only one party that has been hijacked by extremists. https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1520054450320121864
		+
		+	Meadows's texts show Trump supporters workshopping January 6 lies during Capitol attack. Antifa didn’t show up, but Republicans got busy trying to blame them anyway. The right-wing echo chamber has spent nearly 17 months trying to reframe the January 6 attack on Congress as an inside job, the fault of Nancy Pelosi, the work of antifa, or really anything other than what it actually was — an attack on Congress incited by Trump, perpetrated by Trump supporters, and representing a last-ditch attempt to effectively end US democracy to install a racist former gameshow host as dictator. The most recent revelations from the House committee investigating the attack provide fascinating insight into the origins of Trumpworld’s campaign of lies. A new batch of texts shows Trump supporters brainstorming to rewrite history in real time, and planting the seeds for a year-plus of gaslighting. According to texts to and from Mark Meadows (published Monday by CNN and representing the entire tranche of messages Meadows turned over to the January 6 committee), on the same day Trump supporters ransacked the Capitol, Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Louie Gohmert, and Trump’s aide and son-in-law Jared Kusher all texted Meadows with evidence-free ideas about how blame could be shifted to antifa. https://aaronrupar.substack.com/p/mark-meadows-texts-january-6-antifa
		+
		+	Kevin McCarthy, the senior Republican in the House of Representatives, privately accused one of his colleagues of “putting people in jeopardy” in the wake of the January 6 insurrection, according to a leaked audio recording. In a phone call with Republican leaders on 10 January 2021, McCarthy said that Matt Gaetz, a Florida congressman and ardent Trump supporter, was putting Americans at risk with his comments after the assault on the US Capitol that left five people dead. The New York Times obtained a recording of the call, in which McCarthy and Republicans including Steve Scalise, the No 2 House Republican, discussed an interview Gaetz had given where he attacked GOP members who had criticized Trump. “He’s putting people in jeopardy,” McCarthy said of Gaetz. “And he doesn’t need to be doing this. We saw what people would do in the Capitol, you know, and these people came prepared with rope, with everything else.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/27/kevin-mccarthy-capitol-attack-accusations-republicans
		+
		+	Marjorie Taylor Greene discussed martial law to keep Trump in power, text messages show. "In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall law [sic]," Greene texted Trump's then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, on Jan. 17, 2021, 11 days after a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol to try to stop the certification of the vote. The messages were revealed Monday by CNN, which said it obtained all 2,319 text messages that Meadows selectively handed over to the House select Jan. 6 committee in late 2021 before he decided not to cooperate with the panel. The authenticity of the messages was confirmed to ABC News by people who have seen them. MORE: Marjorie Taylor Greene testifies under oath about Jan. 6. "I don’t know on those things," Greene continued in her exchange with Meadows. "I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next. Please tell him to declassify as much as possible so we can go after Biden and anyone else!" Last Friday, Green became the first member of Congress to publicly testify under oath about the events surrounding the Capitol attack. When asked specifically about martial law and whether or not she discussed the idea of using it to keep Trump in power with either the former president, his chief of staff, or anyone else in the administration, Greene repeatedly said, "I don't recall." https://www.yahoo.com/gma/marjorie-taylor-greene-discussed-martial-011300381.html
		+
		+	An ‘exhilarated’ McConnell said Trump ‘totally discredited himself’ with Jan. 6: book. McConnell reportedly felt “exhilarated by the fact that this fellow finally, totally discredited himself.”
		+	The exchange was reported by The Washington Post, The Independent and a number of other outlets who obtained excerpts of the book.
		+	The conversation reportedly took place early on Jan. 7, 2021, just hours after the Capitol was ransacked by a group of Trump’s supporters.
		+	“He put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger,” McConnell said, according to the book. “Couldn’t have happened at a better time.”
		+	Martin and Burns also write that the Republican senator asked them “What do you hear about the Twenty-Fifth Amendment?” and said he was “eager for intelligence about whether his fellow Republicans were discussing removing Trump from office,” the Post added.
		+	They added in the book that the Kentucky politician “seemed almost buoyant” and that he said Trump was “pretty thoroughly discredited”. https://thehill.com/news/senate/3463473-an-exhilarated-mcconnell-said-trump-totally-discredited-himself-with-jan-6-book/
		+
		+	The Strangest Exchanges From the Mark Meadows Text Dumps. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/04/mark-meadows-trump-chief-of-staff-strangest-texts.html
		+
		+	Pence Refusing to Get in Secret Service Car on Jan. 6 'Chilling': Raskin. This moment was previously reported during an interview for the book I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year, by Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig. According to Tim Giebels, the lead agent inside of Pence's security on January 6, Pence repeatedly refused to be evacuated from the Capitol until the election results were certified, The Washington Examiner reported. "I'm not getting in the car, Tim," Pence said, in response to Giebels' insistence that he enter the armored vehicle. "I trust you, Tim, but you're not driving the car. If I get in that vehicle, you guys are taking off. I'm not getting in the car." https://www.newsweek.com/pence-refusing-get-secret-service-car-jan-6-chilling-raskin-1700341
		+
		+	Jan. 6 Committee Findings Are So Explosive They Will ‘Blow the Roof Off the House,’ Rep. Jamie Raskin Says. “This was not a coup directed at the president,” the panel member said on Thursday. “It was a coup directed by the president against the vice president and against the Congress.” Raskin, who serves on the committee, said hearings are expected in June, with a comprehensive report about the committee’s findings to be released by late summer or early fall. The timing and content of the report could aid Democrats in the run-up to the midterm elections. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jamie-raskin-jan-6-committee-explosive-findings-1341898/
		+
		+	Marjorie Taylor Greene forced to admit she called for Pelosi to get death penalty. ‘Oh no, wait, hold on now’. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-hearing-jan-6-b2063431.html
		+
		+	GOP lawmakers were deeply involved in Trump plans to overturn election, new evidence suggests. Deposition excerpts filed by the Jan 6. select committee underscore the expansive cast of elected Republicans who had enlisted themselves in Trump’s effort to cling to power. Lawmakers who attended meetings, in person or by phone, included Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and numerous members of the House Freedom Caucus, according to Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Meadows who provided key testimony about the conversations and meetings Meadows had in December 2020. The committee also indicated it has come to believe Trump did not attempt to contact any federal law enforcement agency amid the riot, pointing to testimony from former Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, former Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen and his deputy Richard Donoghue, who indicated he never connected with Trump that day. “I never spoke to the President that day,” Donoghue told the panel. “He was not on any calls that I was on.” The panel concluded: “It is also now clear that Mr. Trump never telephoned his Secretary of Defense that day to order deployment of National Guard, and never contacted any federal law enforcement agency to order security assistance to the Capitol Police.” https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/22/gop-lawmakers-deeply-involved-in-trump-plans-to-overturn-election-new-evidence-suggests-00027340
		+
		+	A day before the 2020 presidential election, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas mugged for the camera wearing a Trump baseball cap with her friend Connie Hair, chief of staff to GOP Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, at an event supporting the then-President in pictures posted on Facebook at the time. A month later, in her now-infamous texts to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, referred to Hair and claims about election fraud while urging Meadows to fight the election result. Around that same time, Hair’s boss, Gohmert, filed or supported two lawsuits challenging the election that eventually landed before the Supreme Court. Ginni Thomas’ years-long relationship with Hair, including social outings that Clarence Thomas attended, as well as her texting with Meadows add another dimension to an ongoing debate over whether her husband should recuse himself from cases related to the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection, especially when his wife is closely aligned to people who advocated overturning the election. https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/20/politics/ginni-thomas-mark-meadows-connie-hair-texts-january-6/index.html
		+
		+	Text message trove shows Oath Keepers discussing security details for Trump associates. Top members of the Oath Keepers now facing seditious conspiracy charges chatted for days about providing security for some of the highest-profile figures associated with Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the election, according to a newly released trove of text messages. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and top allies like Florida Oath Keeper Kelly Meggs discussed plans to provide security for figures like Roger Stone, Alex Jones, Ali Alexander and Michael Flynn on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, describing potential partnerships with other groups and security details. https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000180-3f0c-de92-addf-ff5fb1390000 https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/18/oath-keepers-security-trump-jan6-00026157
		+
		+	Phil Waldron, a retired Army colonel who helped allies of Donald Trump promote false claims of election fraud, is suing to block the Jan. 6 select committee from obtaining his phone records from AT&T. Waldron initiated the lawsuit in Collin County, Texas, courts in late February, records show, but AT&T transferred the matter to federal court on Friday. In his filings, Waldron describes himself as a “consultant” hired by Texas-based attorneys “to assist in the investigation of matters related to the Election for clients of [the] Attorneys.” Waldron is represented in the lawsuit by William Bundren, who also served as the attorney for a handful of pro-Trump activists who tried to sue former Vice President Mike Pence and claimed to be the legitimate presidential electors from states Biden won. The select committee subpoenaed Waldron himself for testimony and documents in December but has revealed little about its interactions with him since. Bernard Kerik, an ally of Trump and Rudy Giuliani who also testified to the Jan. 6 select committee, told lawmakers that it was Waldron’s idea for Trump to sign an executive order to seize voting machines. Trump discussed the idea with advisers in mid-December but never approved the order. Waldron is represented in the lawsuit by William Bundren, who also served as the attorney for a handful of pro-Trump activists who tried to sue former Vice President Mike Pence and claimed to be the legitimate presidential electors from states Biden won. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/18/phil-waldron-jan-6-committee-subpoena-00025977
		+
		+	QAnon, the ‘People’s Convoy,’ and Neo-Nazis Mingle at L.A. Anti-Vaxx Rally. It was billed as a rally against vaccine mandates. I witnessed something much darker, and much more frightening. As a journalist covering QAnon and fascism in Los Angeles, I’ve seen a lot in the past couple years. I’ve seen danger and violence, heard crazy conspiracies and angry confrontations, and tracked a movement as it spirals deeper and deeper into insanity. It has worn on me, and there are things I’ve seen that I’d like to forget, like people yelling “save our children,” a chant that drones on and on like an endless scream inside your mind. I went to see it all again last Sunday, April 10th, at a mass anti-vaxx rally in downtown L.A., where the movement faithful gathered for a “Defeat the Mandates” rally at Grand Park near City Hall. The rally, at least in its stated purpose, was a protest against city and county requirements that require most public workers to either get vaccinated against a disease that has killed 987,000 Americans. The rally had a full 6 hours worth of speakers — a mix of local anti-vaxxers with a few national figures — and I thought I was ready for it. But what I witnessed during those hours was one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen. I saw an unholy, dark alliance best described as “festival fascism” — where QAnon, the People’s Convoy, and Dr. Robert Malone can fuse together in ways which make them more powerful than they’ve ever been. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/qanon-antivaxx-rally-los-angeles-covid-1338549/
		+
		+	FBI Documents Expose Bureau‘s Big Jan. 6 ‘Lie‘. The bureau says it lacked the authority to monitor social media activity ahead of the pro-Trump insurrection, but it did exactly that during 2020 racial justice and police violence protests. The documents refer to teams of employees engaged in what law-enforcement agencies call “social-media exploitation,” or SOMEX. According to the documents, SOMEX teams gather reams of data from social media and distribute that information to special agents and other law-enforcement representatives. The documents show SOMEX data included in situation reports, or “sitreps,” distributed within the bureau. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/jan6-fbi-social-media-privacy-black-lives-matter-1337565/
		+
		+	===Trump incited Insurrection January 06, 2021, Qanon, MAGA Zombies. archiver April 15 2022===
		+
		+	In a D.C. jail, Jan. 6 defendants awaiting trial are forming bitter factions. Inside the Washington, D.C., jail, where a group of defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol have been held for as long as a year or more, a bitter divide is growing, current and former inmates say. Some ended up scattered in jails close to their homes. But a few dozen (the precise number has fluctuated) were incarcerated in the city where the Jan. 6 attack took place, in Washington, D.C.'s Correctional Treatment Facility. The District's Department of Corrections decided for the inmates' "own safety and security" to detain all of the Jan. 6 defendants in just one part of the facility, a section known as C2B. The main driver of this conflict, according to C2B inmates, along with their attorneys and family members, is the growing pool of money donated in the name of the Jan. 6 defendants. An alphabet soup of groups has sprung up to support the Jan. 6 defendants — from A4J (Americans For Justice Inc.), to CAPP (Citizens Against Political Persecution), to PFP (Patriot Freedom Project) and PMP (Patriot Mail Project). As donations have grown, so have resentments. And the conflict that has built inside the jail has been amplified outside by a kind of power struggle over who speaks for the so-called political prisoners. When Brandon Fellows first arrived in C2B in the summer of 2021, he hoped to find camaraderie with his fellow "patriots," as he calls them. He said the government had made an "enemy" by prosecuting him and that he rejected a plea offer from the government that would have resulted in a sentence of time served — meaning, he would go free. "I just don't negotiate with terrorists," he said. But then Fellows said he found out the group, led by Cynthia Hughes of New Jersey, was going to pick and choose which defendants and families to support. "The people that gave to Patriot Freedom Project believed that they were giving to help with the legal and financial cause for the men and women themselves. It wasn't for [Cynthia Hughes] to select and choose," said Troy Smocks. Smocks' photo was also featured on the group's website until recently, even though he said the group has not given him any money. Hughes is personally close to one defendant, Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, whom she has described as an "adoptive nephew." Hale-Cusanelli's defense attorney is actually court-appointed, and so the government — not Patriot Freedom Project — pays for Hale-Cusanelli's defense. But other inmates said they were concerned they had to "suck up" to Hale-Cusanelli to get access to donations. Federal prosecutors have accused Hale-Cusanelli, a former Army reservist, of being a white supremacist and Holocaust denier. Hale-Cusanelli allegedly breached the Capitol on Jan. 6 but has not been accused of violence or property damage. He has pleaded not guilty but was detained before trial because a federal judge found that he posed a danger to the community. https://www.npr.org/2022/04/14/1092580753/capitol-riot-january-6-insurrection-defendants
		+
		+	Guilty: Jury quickly convicts Capitol rioter who blamed Trump for January 6. A judge ordered him behind bars before sentencing. A jury found Capitol rioter Dustin Thompson guilty Thursday on charges he obstructed a congressional proceeding and stole a coat tree from a Senate office on January 6, 2021, rejecting a defense argument that attempted to shift blame for the day's violence onto former President Donald Trump. After just a few hours of deliberations, the jury convicted Thompson, 38, on all six charges he faced in connection with January 6, including obstruction of an official proceeding, trespassing on restricted Capitol grounds, and theft of government property. On the obstruction charge alone, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, but he's likely to receive a lighter punishment. Judge Reggie Walton ordered Thompson detained ahead of his July 20 sentencing, in a decision that appeared to surprise the now-convicted Capitol rioter and his defense lawyer. Walton raised concerns that Thompson posed a flight risk and said that, if released before his sentencing, Americans would wonder, "Why is he still walking free?" https://news.yahoo.com/guilty-jury-quickly-convicts-capitol-195741268.html
		+
		+	One week before an angry mob stormed the Capitol, a communications expert named '''Jason Sullivan''', a onetime aide to '''Roger Stone''', joined a conference call with a group of President Donald Trump’s supporters and made an urgent plea. After assuring his listeners that the 2020 election had been stolen, Sullivan told them that they had to go to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021 — the day that Congress was to meet to finalize the electoral count — and “descend on the Capitol,” according to a recording of the call obtained by The New York Times. While Sullivan claimed that he was “not inciting violence or any kind of riots,” he urged those on the call to make their presence felt at the Capitol in a way that would intimidate members of Congress, telling the group that they had to ensure that lawmakers inside the building “understand that people are breathing down their necks.” in the recording of the call, Sullivan can be heard telling his listeners that the lawmakers inside the Capitol “need to feel pressure.” “If we make the people inside that building sweat and they understand that they may not be able to walk in the streets any longer if they do the wrong thing, then maybe they’ll do the right thing,” he said. “We have to put that pressure there.” As the Justice Department widens its inquiry, federal prosecutors are using a grand jury in Washington to gather information on political organizers, speakers and so-called VIPs connected to a series of pro-Trump rallies after the 2020 election. One prominent planner of those rallies, '''Ali Alexander''', received a subpoena from the grand jury and said last week that he intended to comply with its requests. In the run-up to Jan. 6, Alexander publicly discussed a pressure campaign against lawmakers that was meant to stop the final electoral count, saying he was working with Reps. '''Mo Brooks''' of Alabama and '''Andy Biggs''' and '''Paul Gosar''' of Arizona, all Republicans. https://news.yahoo.com/conference-call-riot-plea-descend-114920602.html
		+
		+	Trump Gives An Interview That Will Have Investigators Licking Their Chops. In an April 7 interview in the Washington Post, he said at least three things that investigators have already disproven or will look to quickly disprove. False stories are commonly cover-ups for truths we wish to hide. Even for someone like Trump, who lies gratuitously, false statements that one goes out of one’s way to publish—as by arranging an interview with the most prominent newspaper in Washington—are special cases.
		+	# “I thought it was a shame. I hated seeing it. I hated seeing it.” Trump was speaking of the Capitol siege. But within two days of it, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) told radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt that he’d heard from White House aides that Trump was “delighted” by the attack.
		+	# “I kept asking why isn’t . . . Nancy Pelosi doing something about it? And the mayor of D.C. also. The mayor of D.C. and Nancy Pelosi are in charge. And I said, ‘It’s got to be taken care of,’ and I assumed they were taking care of it.” Again, multiple Trump aides have testified before the select committee. You can bet that we would know about it if they had said that the former President “kept asking why Nancy Pelosi isn’t doing something about” the attack.
		+	# “I don’t remember getting very many [telephone calls that day]. . . . Why would I care about who called me? If congressmen were calling me, what difference did it make?” Trump says he talked to “other people” besides the two men who have disclosed their calls, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH). But he says he “could not say exactly who he talked to that afternoon, or when.”
		+	https://verdict.justia.com/2022/04/08/trump-gives-an-interview-that-will-have-investigators-licking-their-chops
		+
		+	The Arizona Republican Party was jubilant at the news, delivered in Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s interim report on the findings of the Maricopa County election audit. https://www.azag.gov/sites/default/files/2022-04/2022-04-06%20Fann%20letter.pdf There are the six felons who somehow allegedly managed to vote while in Pima County jail. And there are three women who returned their recently deceased mothers’ early ballots. Two of them live in Maricopa County, one in Cochise County. So. Nine cases of election fraud. Out of 3.4 million votes cast. State GOP Chairwoman '''Kelli Ward''' was practically orgasmic. https://news.yahoo.com/finally-arizonas-election-fraud-found-203003858.html
		+
		+	Text From Donald Trump Jr. Set Out Strategies to Fight Election Outcome. Former President Donald Trump’s eldest son sent the White House chief of staff a text message two days after Election Day in 2020 that laid out strategies for declaring his father the winner regardless of the electoral outcome, people familiar with the exchange said Friday. The text, which was reported earlier by CNN, was sent two days before Joe Biden was declared the winner of the election. The recipient, Mark Meadows, turned a cache of his text messages over to the House committee investigating the events leading up to the deadly riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as the Electoral College results in Biden’s favor were being certified. “It’s very simple,” Donald Trump Jr. wrote to Meadows on Nov. 5, 2020. He wrote at another point, “We have multiple paths We control them all.” The message went on to lay out a variety of options that the elder Trump or his allies ultimately employed in trying to overturn the results of the election, from legal challenges to promoting alternative slates of electors to focusing efforts on the statutory date of Jan. 6 for certification of the Electoral College results. Trump and a number of his advisers pressured Vice President Mike Pence to use his ceremonial role in the Electoral College certification to upend the process, something Pence was adamant was beyond his authority. The text message that Donald Trump Jr. sent to Meadows acknowledged that scenario, which was championed by a lawyer advising the president, John C. Eastman. “We either have a vote WE control and WE win OR it gets kicked to Congress 6 January 2021,” the text message said. https://news.yahoo.com/text-donald-trump-jr-set-140356229.html
		+
		+	Trump says Secret Service blocked him from joining Jan. 6 march to the Capitol. The “Secret Service said I couldn’t go. I would have gone there in a minute," the former president said. In a wide-ranging interview at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida with Post reporter Josh Dawsey, Trump spoke about the Jan. 6 insurrection, repeated claims of a stolen election and weighed in on the possibility of a 2024 presidential campaign. On at least a dozen occasions throughout their conversation, Dawsey wrote, Trump blamed the events of Jan. 6 on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “I thought it was a shame, and I kept asking why isn’t she doing something about it? Why isn’t Nancy Pelosi doing something about it?” Trump said. “And the mayor of D.C. also. The mayor of D.C. and Nancy Pelosi are in charge.” Trump repeatedly said in his Wednesday interview with The Post that he deserved more credit for the size of the crowd he drew to the “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse, just outside the White House. “The crowd was far bigger than I even thought. I believe it was the largest crowd I’ve ever spoken to,” Trump said. “I don’t know what that means, but you see very few pictures. They don’t want to show pictures, the fake news doesn’t want to show pictures. But this was a tremendous crowd.” https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/07/trump-secret-service-capitol-riot-00023737
		+
		+	Documentary by Frontline and ProPublica Reveals '''Plot to Overturn the Election Origins of the Stolen Election Myth'''. Part of the Frontline and ProPublica project focuses on a group that gathered in the weeks after the 2020 election on a South Carolina plantation owned by conservative defamation attorney '''Lin Wood'''. Using the property as a temporary headquarters, a team of lawyers and cybersecurity experts gathered and synthesized what they claimed was evidence of election fraud. This group, which included '''Michael Flynn''', the retired three-star Army general and former national security adviser to Trump, and '''Patrick Byrne''', the former CEO of Overstock.com, became a key originator of the since-discredited idea that foreign communist governments had hacked voting machines made by Dominion Voting Systems. The belief was central to justifying the efforts of Trump and his allies to reverse the results of the election. https://www.propublica.org/article/new-documentary-by-frontline-and-propublica-reveals-origins-of-the-stolen-election-myth https://youtu.be/90O-q7dgS-I https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/plot-to-overturn-the-election/transcript/ I noticed similarities between content that We_Have_Risen had posted and information that was included in an affidavit submitted by a firm in Texas called Allied Security Operations Group. Dallas-based company '''Allied Security Operations Group''', or '''ASOG'''. A public face of the company is a retired Army colonel named '''Phil Waldron'''. ASOG’s report claimed that the voting machines in Antrim, made by a company called Dominion, were intentionally designed to produce fraud and to alter the election’s result. Doug Logan was Lin's "cybersecurity expert." Like Lin said, "This is my cybersecurity expert, '''Doug Logan'''," right? "From '''Cyber Ninjas'''," or whatever. '''Josh Merritt''' had been an early employee of ASOG, and Hancock tells me he was an important contributor to the Dominion conspiracy theory. In presenting their findings, Logan and his colleagues don’t dwell on the fact that based on their recount, Biden still won. Instead, Logan reels off a litany of misleading claims. An in-depth analysis of the audit produced by Maricopa County said that "nearly every finding included 'faulty analysis, inaccurate claims, misleading conclusions and a lack of understanding of federal and state election law.'"
		+	Logan wouldn't go on camera for an interview, but in an email he stood by his work, saying it was the first “forensic election audit” ever conducted and that he had experts working alongside him. '''Bill Gates''', a member of Maricopa’s board of supervisors and a lifelong Republican. Gates and his colleagues commissioned the 93-page analysis of the audit. This audit is a sham. They're sending out misinformation, half-truths, and then that is being seized upon by the president and others to perpetuate the "big lie." SEN. '''WENDY ROGERS''' (R), Arizona Senate
		+
		+	Trump’s 8-hour gap: Minute-by-minute during Jan. 6 riot. At 4:08 p.m. Trump went out to the Rose Garden. At 4:17 p.m. he released a scripted, pre-recorded video, which included a call for “peace” and “law and order” and finally told his supporters “you have to go home now.” But they didn’t. Things were still wildly out of control. In fact, the Capitol building was not secured until 5:34 p.m. At 6:01, Trump’s message was back to indignant: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long,” he wrote. “Remember this day forever!” At 6:27, he went back to the residence, and started calling his lawyers. https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-elections-donald-trump-presidential-elections-election-2020-3315609c4152b4429930a17191b5a217
		+
		+	Inside Pence-world's preparation for a Jan. 6 legal showdown. The former vice president asked his top lawyer to draft a memo — first obtained by POLITICO — a month before the Jan. 6 Capitol attack that laid out the history of counting electoral votes. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/30/pence-jan-6-legal-showdown-00021864 https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017f-daf9-d522-ab7f-def9bf4d0000 https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840.132.2.pdf
		+
		+	Revealed: Trump used White House phone for call on January 6 that was not on official log. Trump’s call to Republican senator should have been reflected in presidential call log on day of Capitol attack but wasn’t. The former president called the phone of a Republican senator, Mike Lee, with a number recorded as 202-395-0000, a placeholder number that shows up when a call is incoming from a number of White House department phones, the sources said. The number corresponds to an official White House phone and the call was placed by Donald Trump himself, which means the call should have been recorded in the internal presidential call log that was turned over to the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack. Trump called Lee at 2.26pm on January 6 through the official 202-395-0000 White House number, according to call detail records reviewed by the Guardian and confirmation by the two sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. The call was notable as Trump mistakenly dialed Lee thinking it was the number for Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville. Lee passed the phone to Tuberville, who told Trump Mike Pence had just been removed from the Senate chamber as rioters stormed the Capitol. But Trump’s call to Lee was not recorded in either the presidential daily diary or the presidential call log – a problem because even though entries in the daily diary are discretionary, according to several current and former White House officials, the call log is not. The presidential daily diary is a retrospective record of the president’s day produced by aides in the Oval Office, who have some sway to determine whether a particular event was significant enough to warrant its inclusion, the officials said. But the presidential call log, typically generated from data recorded when calls are placed by the White House operators, is supposed to be a comprehensive record of all incoming and outgoing calls involving the president through White House channels, the officials said. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/30/trump-used-white-house-phone-call-capitol-attack-jan-6-not-official-log
		+
		+	Who Is Behind QAnon? Linguistic Detectives Find Fingerprints. Using machine learning, separate teams of computer scientists identified the same two men as likely authors of messages that fueled the viral movement. “Open your eyes,” the online post began, claiming, “Many in our govt worship Satan.” That warning, published on a freewheeling online message board in October 2017, was the beginning of the movement now known as QAnon. Paul Furber was its first apostle. The outlandish claim made perfect sense to Mr. Furber, a South African software developer and tech journalist long fascinated with American politics and conspiracy theories, he said in an interview. He still clung to “Pizzagate,” the debunked online lie that liberal Satanists were trafficking children from a Washington restaurant. He was also among the few who understood an obscure reference in the message to “Operation Mockingbird,” an alleged C.I.A. scheme to manipulate the news media. As the stream of messages, most signed only “Q,” grew into a sprawling conspiracy theory, the mystery surrounding their authorship became a central fascination for its followers — who was the anonymous Q? Now two teams of forensic linguists say their analysis of the Q texts shows that Mr. Furber, one of the first online commentators to call attention to the earliest messages, actually played the lead role in writing them. Sleuths hunting for the writer behind Q have increasingly overlooked Mr. Furber and focused their speculation on another QAnon booster: Ron Watkins, who operated a website where the Q messages began appearing in 2018 and is now running for Congress in Arizona. And the scientists say they found evidence to back up those suspicions as well. Mr. Watkins appears to have taken over from Mr. Furber at the beginning of 2018. Both deny writing as Q. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/19/technology/qanon-messages-authors.html
		+
		+	White House phone logs turned over to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot show an unexplained seven-hour gap, according to a bombshell report out Tuesday morning. Records obtained by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post and Robert Costa of CBS News show a gap in Donald Trump’s phone records from 11:17 a.m. to 6:54 p.m.—the period when thousands of his supporters were invading the Capitol in a violent bid to prevent a joint session of Congress certifying Joe Biden’s election victory. The 11 pages of notes obtained by the Post and CBS News included five pages with the header “THE DAILY DIARY OF PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP” that outlined some of his activities that day—although not in much detail. The diary notes Trump addressing supporters at a “Stop the Steal” rally at the Ellipse at midday and his return to the White House at 1:19 p.m. before meeting "with his Valet" at 1:21 p.m. The riot started shortly after 2 p.m. when as many as 2,500 Trump supporters, some of them armed, forced their way into the Capitol, but the next entry on the White House diary is not until 4:03 p.m., when Trump went to the Rose Garden to record a message for the mob. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-phone-logs-from-jan-6-have-a-seven-hour-gap-says-report
		+
		+	Federal judge: President Trump likely violated two criminal statutes in connection w/Jan 6. If “President Trump’s plan had worked, it would have permanently ended the peaceful transition of power, undermining American democracy and the Constitution.” In the months following the election, numerous credible sources–from the President’s inner circle to agency leadership to statisticians–informed President Trump and Dr. Eastman that there was no evidence of election fraud. One week after the election, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency declared “[t]he November 3rd election [] the most secure in American history” and found “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”17 An internal Trump Campaign memo concluded in November that fraud claims related to Dominion voting machines were baseless.18 In early December, Attorney General Barr publicly stated there was no evidence of fraud, and on December 27, Deputy Attorney General Donoghue privately told President Trump that after “dozens of investigations, hundreds of interviews,” the Department of Justice had concluded that “the major allegations [of election fraud] are not supported by the evidence developed.” https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840.260.0_4.pdf
		+
		+	Ginni Thomas pressed for GOP lawmakers to protest 2020 election results. The conservative activist and wife of a Supreme Court justice said in a November 2020 email that Republicans weren't doing enough to help Trump and needed to be "out in the streets." Ginni Thomas pressed for GOP lawmakers to protest 2020 election results
		+	The conservative activist and wife of a Supreme Court justice said in a November 2020 email that Republicans weren't doing enough to help Trump and needed to be "out in the streets." https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/ginni-thomas-pressed-gop-lawmakers-protest-2020-election-results-rcna21644
		+
		+	QAnon's 'Great Awakening' failed to materialize. What's next could be worse. Believers who were stymied by Trump’s exit could turn to white nationalism and other extremist beliefs, experts say. hortly before Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, Dave Hayes – a longtime QAnon influencer who goes by the name Praying Medic – posted a photo of dark storm clouds gathering over the US Capitol on the rightwing social media platform Gab. “What a beautiful black sky,” he wrote to his 92,000 followers, appending a thunderclap emoji. The message was clear to those well-versed in QAnon lore: “the Storm” – the day of reckoning when Donald Trump and his faithful allies in the military would declare martial law, round up all their many political enemies, and send them to Guantánamo Bay for execution by hanging – was finally here. 20 January 2021 wouldn’t mark the end of Trump’s presidency, but the beginning of “the Great Awakening”. Instead, Trump slunk off to Florida and Biden took the oath of office under a clear blue sky. Now QAnon adherents are left to figure out how to move forward in a world that, time and time again, has proven impervious to their fevered fantasies and fascistic predictions. And while some seem to be waking up to reality, others are doubling down, raising concerns among experts that the movement is ripe for even more extreme radicalization. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/20/qanon-biden-inauguration-trump-antisemitism-white-nationalism
		+
		+	First on CNN: January 6 committee has text messages between Ginni Thomas and Mark Meadows. The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 riot has in its possession more than two dozen text messages between former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, a conservative activist and the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, according to multiple sources familiar with the messages. These text messages, according to sources, took place between early November 2020 and mid-January 2021. Thomas recently revealed that she attended the pro-Trump rally that preceded the US Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, but says she "played no role" in planning the events of that day. The content of the text messages may be of interest to the committee's investigation, because it asked Meadows in a subpoena to turn over "both documents and your deposition testimony regarding these and other matters that are within the scope of the committee's activity." https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/24/politics/ginni-thomas-mark-meadows-text-messages/index.html
		+
		+	A federal judge on Tuesday convicted an elected official from New Mexico of illegally entering restricted U.S. Capitol grounds but acquitted him of engaging in disorderly conduct during the riot that disrupted Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.
		+	U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden heard one day of testimony without a jury on Monday before handing down a verdict in the misdemeanor case against Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin, a 48-year-old former rodeo rider who helped found a group called Cowboys for Trump.
		+	McFadden, an appointee of then-President Donald Trump, said there was ample evidence that Griffin knew he was in a restricted area and didn’t leave. Griffin crossed over three walls, needing help from others or a ladder to get over them, the judge noted.
		+	“All of this would suggest to a normal person that perhaps you should not be entering the area,” McFadden said from the bench. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/couy-griffin-guilty-jan-6-riots_n_6239fcf8e4b019fd81338a62
		+
		+	Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff and a national campaign spokesperson were involved in efforts to encourage the president’s supporters to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. That’s according to a person who says he overheard a key planning conversation between top Trump officials and the organizers of the Jan. 6 rally on the White House Ellipse — and has since testified to House investigators about the phone call.
		+	Trump and his allies have tried to minimize his role in calling his supporters to the Capitol and argue he was simply participating in a lawful, peaceful demonstration.
		+	Scott Johnston — who worked on the team that helped plan the Ellipse rally — says that’s just not so. He claims that leading figures in the Trump administration and campaign deliberately planned to have crowds converge on the Capitol, where the 2020 election was being certified — and “make it look like they went down there on their own.” Johnston, who says he described the phone call to House select committee investigators, detailed his allegations in a series of conversations with Rolling Stone. Johnston says he overheard Mark Meadows, then-former President Trump’s chief of staff, and Katrina Pierson, Trump’s national campaign spokeswoman, talking with Kylie Kremer, the executive director of Women for America First, about plans for a march to the Capitol. Johnston said the conversation was clearly audible to him since it took place on a speakerphone as he drove Kremer between the group’s rallies in the final three days of 2020. Johnston says that, in the key phone conversation he overheard, the group settled on ordering a march without an official permit. “Nobody wanted to do it because they didn’t want to pay for it,” Johnston says of obtaining a permit. “They didn’t want to have to provide security and all the other expenses.” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/jan6-trump-mark-meadows-capitol-attack-republicans-1324218/
		+
		+	“1776 Returns,” a nine-page document federal prosecutors have obtained as part of its case against former Proud Boys head Enrique Tarrio, may give us a window into the group’s plans to storm government buildings on Jan. 6, 2021. Though it does not specifically mention the Capitol building, the document reportedly offers a five-point plan ahead of Jan. 6 for group members to appear “unsuspecting” and to “not look tactical” while occupying government buildings, and to chant “We the People” and “No Trump, No America” to blend in with protestors. According to the New York Times, it included a section that was apparently intended to instruct the public how to act. It shows a lot of forethought, that it’s deliberate, that this wasn’t just, as a lot of people claimed, something spontaneous that just happened. For some of the Capitol stormers, I think they were swept up in the moment. But for many people, especially the leaders of groups like the Proud Boys, this was premeditated. This was a very deliberate decision to go there and to cause real upheaval. That was the point, to dredge up some instability. If all things worked well, they would be able to turn the election. Because it failed, I hear a lot of people dismissing it, but the intentions were real. These people legitimately wanted to overthrow the government and overturn the election. We can’t forget that that was the overarching objective here, by any means necessary, frankly, even if that meant killing lawmakers. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/03/capitol-riot-trial-prosecution-enrique-tarrio.html
		+
		+	The second trial stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol is shaping up to be a lot less of a slam dunk for the Justice Department than the first. The case of Couy Griffin, a New Mexico county commissioner and founder of Cowboys for Trump, looks to be among the most marginal of hundreds of prosecutions stemming from the unrest and violence that broke out as lawmakers were seeking to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. Unlike the vast majority of the nearly 800 people charged in connection with Jan. 6, Griffin didn’t go inside the building, nor is he accused of violence or property destruction. His trial is expected to last only about a day. Griffin, 48, faces just two misdemeanor charges: entering a restricted area at the Capitol and disruptive or disorderly conduct while in such a place. Both carry a one-year maximum sentence. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/21/capitol-riot-trial-tests-justice-department-strategy-00018968
		+
		+	Using Facebook’s Own Data to Understand the Platform’s Role in Jan. 6 A team of reporters from ProPublica and The Washington Post have obtained a unique dataset on Facebook groups, providing the clearest evidence yet that the social platform was an important source of misinformation that led to the Jan. 6 attack. https://www.propublica.org/article/using-facebooks-own-data-to-understand-the-platforms-role-in-jan-6
		+
		+	===Trump incited Insurrection January 06, 2021, Qanon, MAGA Zombies: archived March 21, 2022===
		+
		+	How did a Proud Boys leader with a felony record get into the White House? Enrique Tarrio claims he visited the White House on Saturday, hours before a major pro-Trump rally. DECEMBER 15, 2020 Enrique Tarrio revealed that he visited the executive mansion on Saturday after receiving a "last-minute invite to an undisclosed location." The White House later said that Tarrio had not been invited, but had instead taken part in a holiday tour. "He was on a public White House Christmas tour," White House spokesperson Judd Deere said over the weekend. "He did not have a meeting with the president, nor did the White House invite him." White House public tours are self-guided, and anyone who wants one, including Christmas tours, must apply no fewer than 21 days ahead of their booking date because the application includes a security form and background check. Hopefuls with a felony are generally denied, a former Trump White House official told Salon, unless a senior member of the administration intervenes. In 2013, Tarrio, also known as Henry Tarrio Jr, was convicted of two class C, one class D and one class E felonies for stealing and reselling $1.2 million worth of diabetes test strips from Abbott Labs, and served 16 months in federal prison. Court records show that he was released in December 2014 with two years probation, and ordered to pay restitution for the full $1.2 million. On Saturday, Tarrio was accompanied to the executive mansion by other members of Latinos for Trump, including Bianca Garcia, the president of the group, and her son, Armani Garcia, a former intern for Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga. It is unclear if or when Latinos for Trump applied for its White House tour, and unclear why Tarrio received a security pass. https://www.salon.com/2020/12/15/how-did-a-proud-boys-leader-with-a-felony-record-get-into-the-white-house/
		+
		+	Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio jailed pending trial in Jan. 6 Capitol attack. U.S. Magistrate Judge Lauren F. Louis of Miami ordered Tarrio to be held after federal prosecutors argued that he and co-defendants “directed and encouraged” the actions of Proud Boys members who formed “the tip of the spear” in the breach of the U.S. Capitol. Tarrio poses a risk of flight and danger to the community, prosecutors said, citing his purported efforts to evade law enforcement and discourage witnesses from cooperating. “There is overwhelming evidence that Tarrio organized a plot to corruptly obstruct, influence, and impede the certification of the electoral college vote, an offense that strikes at the heart of our democracy,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason McCullough argued in court filings. Even as Congress’s proceedings were still suspended Jan. 6, Tarrio posted to other members, “They’ll fear us doing it again,” prosecutors said. When a member asked, “So what do we do now?” he allegedly answered at 4:14 p.m., “Do it again.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/03/15/tarrio-proud-boys-jailed-jan6/
		+
		+	DOJ: Film crew was present at Jan. 5 meeting between leaders of Proud Boys, Oath Keepers. The details provide new evidence of the encounter between the two groups, whose leaders played a key role in the breach of the Capitol the following day. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/14/film-crew-january-5-meeting-proud-boys-oath-keepers-00017107
		+
		+	Proud Boys leader had plans to ‘storm’ government buildings on 6 January. Enrique Tarrio possessed document titled ‘1776 Returns’, with details to invade and occupy seven buildings, New York Times says. Enrique Tarrio, the group’s former chairman who was arrested last week and charged with conspiracy over the deadly attack, had a nine-page document entitled “1776 Returns”, named for the year of American independence, the New York Times reported. The document, mentioned only in general terms in Tarrio’s indictment, contained details of a complex plan for supporters of Donald Trump to invade and occupy at least seven House and Senate office buildings on the afternoon Congress met to certify Joe Biden’s election victory, according to Times sources. The document features five sections, the Times reported: infiltrate, execution, distract, occupy and sit-in. The plan called for the recruiting of at least 50 Proud Boys and other Trump supporters to enter and occupy each building, “causing trouble” for security personnel who tried to stop them. Once inside, the instructions stated, the activists would be encouraged to chant slogans such as “We the People” and “No Trump, no America”. Supporters unable to gain access to the buildings would be encouraged to distract law enforcement and other authorities by “pulling fire alarms at nearby stores, hotels and museums”. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/15/proud-boys-leader-enrique-tarrio-document-january-6
		+
		+	Another Jan. 6 mystery revealed: Pence's second script rewrite. The never-before-told backstory of why the then-vice president made a change not seen since Al Gore — as a rebuttal to Trump allies' fringe theories. Pence’s decision to craft and employ his own unprecedented language as he presided over the final step of the 2020 election reflected his resistance to a pressure campaign by then-President Donald Trump to subvert the process. Pence’s rewrite has since drawn the attention of congressional investigators. He also made a second, subtler, but no less significant change to the script on Jan. 6, 2021, according to newly released documents and testimony. This previously unreported adjustment, further illustrating his pushback to the Trump-led gambit, involved a simple question that he asked each time a state’s electoral vote results were introduced: “Are there any objections?” https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/15/mike-pence-january-6-script-change-00017294
		+
		+	How Pence used 43 words to shut down Trump allies' election subversion on Jan. 6.
		+	The then-vice president and his top aides rewrote the script long used to certify elections, making clear that false elector slates wouldn't fly.
		+	:"After ascertaining that the certificates are regular in form and authentic the tellers will announce the votes cast by the electors for each state, starting with Alabama that the parliamentarians have advised me is the only certificate of vote from that state, and purports to be a return from the state, and that has annexed to it a certificate from an authority of that state purporting to appoint or ascertain electors."
		+	Under the Electoral Count Act, electors picked by the party of the winning candidate in each state are required to meet in mid-December to formally cast their ballots. In seven states won by Biden, however, the Trump campaign worked with state Republican parties to assemble their own elector meetings and cast ballots for Trump. Those false electors then signed certificates and mailed them to Washington. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/11/pence-jan-6-election-certification-script-00016539
		+
		+	New clues emerge about the money that might have helped fund the Jan. 6 insurrection. The committee's Feb. 23 subpoena of Salesforce emphasized its interest in the company's hosting of Trump emails asking for new donations that included false claims of election fraud.
		+	OpenSecrets has also identified these groups with financial ties to the so-called "March to Save America":
		+	* Rule of Law Defense Fund - a 501(c)(4) nonprofit affiliated with the 527 Republican Attorneys General Association
		+	* Black Conservatives Fund - a hybrid PAC
		+	* Moms for America - a 501(c)(3) nonprofit
		+	* Peaceably Gather - a 501(c)(3) nonprofit supported by First Liberty Institute
		+	* Phyllis Schlafly Eagles - a 501(c)(3) nonprofit
		+	"There are powerful indications that have surfaced and every day that passes we get more testimony shedding light on what exactly was taking place," Raskin said. "We should not discount the financial motive and imperative in the events leading up to Jan. 6." https://www.npr.org/2022/03/11/1085783310/new-clues-emerge-about-the-money-that-might-have-helped-fund-the-jan-6-insurrect
		+
		+	Trump lawyer knew plan to delay Biden certification was unlawful, emails show. John Eastman conceded that scheme represented violation of Electoral Count Act but urged Mike Pence to go ahead anyway. The admission that the scheme was unlawful undercuts arguments by Eastman and the Willard war room team that they believed there was no wrongdoing in seeking to have Pence delay the certification past 6 January – one of the strategies they sought to return Trump to power. It additionally raises the prospect that the other members of the Willard war room – including Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon – were also aware that the scheme to delay or stop the certification was unlawful from the start. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/10/trump-lawyer-plan-john-eastman-mike-pence
		+
		+	The former chairman of the U.S. right-wing group the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, was arrested on Tuesday on a conspiracy charge for his alleged role in plotting the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol in a bid to block certification of President Joe Biden's election. Tarrio, 38, appeared in a virtual Miami-based federal court hearing from a cellblock in a nearby local jail, and prosecutors said they were seeking to have him detained pending trial because they believe he is a danger to the community and poses a risk of flight. Tarrio told the judge he has "absolutely" no savings, and that he only recently got a job printing T-shirts that earns him $400-500 per week. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/former-proud-boys-chairman-tarrio-charged-with-conspiracy-washington-post-2022-03-08/
		+
		+	The Defense In The First Jan. 6 Trial's Closing Argument: Maybe The Evidence Is Fake. The jury is set to begin deliberating in Guy Reffitt's case on Tuesday. After three and a half days of testimony and evidence from government witnesses in the trial of Guy Reffitt, the first person charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection to stand trial, the defense on Monday made a brief appeal to the jury: Key witnesses — Reffitt’s son and a former fellow militant group member — weren’t reliable. Video showing Reffitt at the Capitol couldn’t be trusted. And Reffitt himself was full of it. Monday’s proceedings featured the final government witnesses and the defense’s pushback to the overarching prosecution theory that Reffitt planned well in advance to storm the Capitol, brought guns and other equipment to carry out that plan, and tried to lead the mob in the initial breach of the Capitol and resisted a barrage of projectiles shot at his body by police officers before being finally thwarted by chemical spray. The jury is set to begin deliberating first thing Tuesday. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/guy-reffitt-capitol-riot-trial-defense
		+
		+	A Former Texas Militant Group Member Testified About Bringing Rifles And Handguns To DC For Jan. 6. Rocky Hardie received partial immunity to testify for the government against defendant Guy Reffitt. A former member of the Texas Three Percenters militant group testified Friday that both he and Guy Reffitt — the first Jan. 6 defendant to stand trial — traveled to Washington, DC, with rifles and handguns, carrying the latter with them as they made their way to the US Capitol during the insurrection. The jury heard Friday from Rocky Hardie, who signed an immunity agreement with the government for his testimony; the prosecutor had him explain that he understood he could still be prosecuted for his actions on Jan. 6, but the deal meant that any charges couldn’t be based on information he’d given the government or testified about as part of the agreement. Late in the day, the jury then saw the weapons that the FBI seized from Reffitt’s house and that Hardie said Reffitt brought to Washington: a Smith & Wesson .40-caliber handgun and an AR-15-style rifle. The prosecutor showed a zoomed-in image of Reffitt’s back while he was on a stairway in front of the Capitol, and an FBI agent identified a dark object near Reffitt’s waist as a matte black holster, with a “silvery metallic linear object” that the government has alleged was the handgun. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/guy-reffitt-january-6-guns-trial
		+
		+	A Jan. 6 Defendant Texted And Recorded His Way Through Jan. 6. The Jury Got To See It All. “Multiple clay bullets and a battle cry like in Braveheart. The insurrection began immediately after,” Guy Reffitt wrote, according to the government’s evidence. The day ended with testimony from Reffitt's son, Jackson Reffitt, who bolstered the government's case with firsthand testimony about his father's messages and mindset around the time of the insurrection — and who described the emotional and familial fallout of his decision to cooperate with federal authorities. Reffitt cried when Jackson took the stand, according to a pool reporter in the room. The 19-year-old Jackson said he didn't regret his decision to share information with the FBI, but also spoke about the guilt and sadness he felt. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/reffitt-capitol-riot-trial-testimony
		+
		+	Court documents reveal Pence team's exasperation with Trump. “He came in and said, ‘I'm here asking you to reject the electors.’ That's how he opened at the meeting” on Jan. 5, Pence counsel Greg Jacob said of Eastman, according to his deposition before investigators for the House select committee. “I said, ‘If this case got to the Supreme Court, we'd lose 9-0, wouldn't we, if we actually took your position and it got up there?’ And he started out at 7 to 2. And I said, ‘Who are the two?’ And he said, ‘Well, I think maybe Clarence Thomas,’” Jacobs said, before Eastman eventually relented the case would be unlikely to get any votes. Jacobs and Eastman would go on to have a heated email exchange, with Jacobs criticizing him for forwarding legal advice that “functioned as a serpent in the ear of the President of the United States.” But the two men were able to end the discussion on a hopeful note. “When this is over, we should have a good bottle of wine over a nice dinner someplace,” Eastman responded later in the chain. https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/596743-court-documents-reveal-pence-teams-exasperation-with-trump
		+
		+	The ‘Overwhelming’ Evidence That Trump & Co. Committed Conspiracy. We talked to a prominent prosecutor who's laid out the way the DOJ could charge Trump and John Eastman for trying to overturn the election. “Conspiracy to defraud the United States” is when two or more people agree to obstruct or impede the proper functioning of government. Congress, by Constitution and statute, is supposed to show up at the Capitol on Jan. 6, count the votes, and certify the winner of the presidential election. Trump and others knowingly conspired to interfere with the peaceful transfer of presidential power, for reasons Trump knew to be false. That’s fraudulent. I also theorize that when Trump tried to get Mike Pence to abuse his authority as vice president, he and his co-conspirators were conspiring to obstruct a federal proceeding. That’s also a crime. https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7wkbe/the-overwhelming-evidence-that-trump-committed-conspiracy
		+
		+	Roger Stone will have some serious explaining to do next time he sees Donald Trump. Stone, Trump’s most trusted adviser for decades, was reportedly caught talking trash about the former president, going so far as to call him the '''“greatest single mistake in American history.”''' The Washington Post has obtained extraordinary documentary footage of Stone as he worked to overturn the 2020 election. In one section, filmed on Joe Biden’s Inauguration Day, the Post reports that Stone can be seen in a car with the filmmakers when he lets rip on Trump. After describing his ally as America’s worst ever mistake, Stone said Trump would regret failing to pardon himself, saying: “A good, long sentence in prison will give [Trump] a chance to think about it, because the Southern District is coming for him, and he did nothing.” After his rant, Stone is reported to have turned to the filmmakers and said: “Obviously if you use any of that, I’ll murder you.” In an interview with The Daily Beast on Friday morning, Stone pushed back on the Post recounting of the documentary and said it contained several errors. https://www.thedailybeast.com/roger-stone-distances-himself-from-stop-the-steal-and-insurrection-as-a-storm-foretold-footage-emerges
		+
		+	Roger Stone Distances Himself From ‘Stop the Steal’ and Insurrection After WaPo Documentary Bombshell. The Trump adviser pushed back as footage emerged showing him appearing to launch “the Big Lie” in the hours after the election and rushing to leave DC as the Capitol riot unfolded. “I really want to get out of here,” Stone told an aide, as they were filmed at the hotel by a Danish camera crew for a documentary on the veteran Republican operative. Stone said he feared prosecution by the incoming attorney general, Merrick Garland. “He is not a friend,” Stone said. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/roger-stone-documentary-capitol-riot-trump-election/ https://www.thedailybeast.com/roger-stone-distances-himself-from-stop-the-steal-and-insurrection-as-a-storm-foretold-footage-emerges
		+
		+	For most of his life, J. Michael Luttig has operated behind the scenes at the top of the conservative legal world. He started his career as a young aide at the U.S. Supreme Court, worked as an attorney in the Reagan White House, clerked for Judge Antonin Scalia before he was a legal icon, helped guide the appointment of two other Supreme Court justices and was appointed to a federal judgeship by former President George H.W. Bush. https://news.yahoo.com/untold-story-former-judge-beat-100000623.html
		+
		+	@judgeluttig https://twitter.com/judgeluttig The only responsibility and power of the Vice President under the Constitution is to faithfully count the electoral college votes as they have been cast. https://twitter.com/judgeluttig/status/1346469787329646592
		+
		+	Pence: Trump is ‘wrong’ to say election could be overturned. Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday directly rebutted Donald Trump’s false claims that Pence somehow could have overturned the results of the 2020 election, saying that the former president was simply “wrong.” In a speech to a gathering of the conservative Federalist Society in Florida, Pence addressed Trump’s intensifying efforts this week to advance the false narrative that, as vice president, he had the unilateral power to prevent Joe Biden from taking office. “President Trump is wrong,” Pence said. “I had no right to overturn the election.” https://apnews.com/article/mike-pence-donald-trump-election-2020-84ff467d9ff5bfaad084e274f69ac521
		+
		+	WHEREAS, Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger are participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens '''engaged in legitimate political discourse''', and they are both utilizing their past professed political affiliation to mask Democrat abuse of prosecutorial power for partisan purposes, therefore, be it https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/0bdaba1c-a2a6-4aa5-8acd-62d782590c54/note/c71c8a31-8623-4236-94ec-ce99dac1a51e.#page=1
		+
		+	Republicans in Congress were in on Trump's coup plot. They knew that Donald Trump was plotting a coup and they said nothing. By HEATHER DIGBY PARTON PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 4, 2022 https://www.salon.com/2022/02/04/in-congress-were-in-on-coup-plot/
		+
		+	The New York Times' front-page profile of "defiant" Jan. 6 "marchers" is a taste of what comes next. https://boingboing.net/2022/01/24/the-new-york-times-front-page-profile-of-defiant-jan-6-marchers-is-a-taste-of-what-comes-next.html
		+
		+	Trump campaign officials, led by Rudy Giuliani, oversaw fake electors plot in 7 states. Giuliani and his allies coordinated the nuts-and-bolts of the process on a state-by-state level, the sources told CNN. One source said there were multiple planning calls between Trump campaign officials and GOP state operatives, and that Giuliani participated in at least one call. The source also said the Trump campaign lined up supporters to fill elector slots, secured meeting rooms in statehouses for the fake electors to meet on December 14, 2020, and circulated drafts of fake certificates that were ultimately sent to the National Archives.
		+	Trump and some of his top advisers publicly encouraged the "alternate electors" scheme in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada and New Mexico. But behind the scenes, Giuliani and Trump campaign officials actively choreographed the process, the sources said.
		+	One fake elector from Michigan boasted at a recent event hosted by a local Republican organization that the Trump campaign directed the entire operation.
		+	"We fought to seat the electors. The Trump campaign asked us to do that," Meshawn Maddock, co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party, said at a public event last week that was organized by the conservative group Stand Up Michigan, according to a recording obtained by CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/20/politics/trump-campaign-officials-rudy-giuliani-fake-electors/index.html
		+
		+	Wife of Supreme Court justice who praised Capitol rioters wants Cheney and Kinzinger out of GOP for investigating it. Virginia ‘Ginny’ Thomas is a veteran conservative activist whose political activities have often concerned matters before the Supreme Court. The wife of one of the Supreme Court justices who could be charged with deciding whether the House January 6th select committee can view Trump administration White House records has signed on to an open letter calling for the committee’s two Republican members to be ousted from the House GOP conference. Virginia “Ginny” Thomas, a longtime conservative activist and the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, was one of more than 60 signatories to the open letter, which was organised by the pro-Trump Conservative Action Project and asks House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to “act immediately to remove” Reps Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger from the Republican conference “due to their egregious actions as part of the House of Representative’s January 6th Select Committee”. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ginny-thomas-cheney-kinzinger-jan-6-b1995752.html
		+
		+	Capitol rioters called Nancy Pelosi's office looking for a 'lost and found' for items they left behind on January 6, according to Rep. Jamie Raskin. Rioters were calling "asking whether there was a lost and found because they forgot their phone there, or they left their purse or what have you," Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told Insider on Friday in a Q&A. Police officers swiftly took down information from the callers, Raskin said. "The officers quickly got on the phone and said, yeah, just give us your name, your address, your social, you know, and we'll tie up those loose ends," Raskin said. "But what's so fascinating to me about that there really were people who felt as if they had been summoned to Washington by the president." "And when they were told that they were trespassing and invading the Capitol, they said the president invited them to be there," he said. "They didn't have any kind of subtle understanding of the separation of powers. They just thought that the number one person in the US government had invited them to be there, and therefore they had a right. https://www.businessinsider.com/capitol-rioters-called-pelosis-office-for-lost-and-found-raskin-2022-1
		+
		+	Yale law graduate founder of far-right Oath Keepers group is charged - along with ten others - with seditious conspiracy: Faces 20 years in prison for organizing Jan 6th riot and instructing his members from OUTSIDE Capitol building. Stewart Rhodes, founder of Oath Keepers, and 10 alleged accomplices charged with seditious conspiracy stemming from January 6 Capitol riots. Rhodes and more than a dozen members and associates of far-right militia are suspected of planning and carrying out attack to stop Biden's certification. Rhodes was in restricted area of Capitol grounds and directed the attack from there, indictment claims. Another eight suspects named in indictments charged with corruptly obstructing an official proceeding. It is largest conspiracy case brought by federal prosecutors as a consequence of the January 6 insurrection
		+	Seditious conspiracy charge carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Rhodes, a former US Army paratrooper and Yale Law School graduate, started the Oath Keepers in 2009. He is known for his eye patch: a former firearms instructor, he dropped a loaded handgun when he was 28 and it shot him in the face, blinding him in his left eye. Rhodes and Edward Vallejo, 63, of Phoenix, Arizona, were arrested on Thursday. The others who were charged were already facing criminal charges related to the attack. Those include Thomas Caldwell, 67, of Berryville, Virginia; Joseph Hackett, 51, of Sarasota, Florida; Kenneth Harrelson, 41, of Titusville, Florida; Joshua James, 34, of Arab, Alabama; Kelly Meggs, 52, of Dunnellon, Florida; Roberto Minuta, 37, of Prosper, Texas; David Moerschel, 44, of Punta Gorda, Florida; Brian Ulrich, 44, of Guyton, Georgia and Jessica Watkins, 39, of Woodstock, Ohio. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10399809/Oath-Keepers-founder-charged-organizing-January-6-riot.html
		+
		+	Congressional Staff Pressed Justice Department Officials For Safety Plans Before The Capitol Riot. “Soooo this has taken a turn for the worse,” one congressional staffer wrote to federal law enforcement agencies during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. At least two congressional staffers from House and Senate committees reached out to the FBI and the Justice Department concerned about security at the Capitol ahead of the Jan. 6 riots, according to documents obtained by BuzzFeed News. The inquiries support accusations that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies were not prepared for the pro-Trump mob that stormed the US Capitol despite direct warnings and calls for help. BuzzFeed News is publishing another cache of documents turned over by the Justice Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the agency and the FBI related to events around Jan. 6. Emails released last November revealed that top Justice Department officials were told there were “no credible threats” hours before the riot. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kadiagoba/congress-staff-january-6-email-justice-department
		+
		+	In prison interview, QAnon Shaman shares paranoid fantasies about the Deep State's "two-tiered slavery system". On Trump's legacy: "He was trying to create peace in the Middle East, you know, he released the JFK file, he created the space force. There was also during the Trump administration, there was a declassification of a zero-point energy engine and inertia propulsion or anti-gravity craft that the Navy put out there. Okay, I'll put it this way. Q is the only major movement in history, as far as I can tell, that is working to disclose the full truth about, say government Special Access Programs, top secret information and technologies, the truth about things like aliens are interdimensional beings and their role here on the planet. https://boingboing.net/2022/01/06/in-prison-interview-qanon-shaman-shares-paranoid-fantasies-about-the-deep-states-two-tiered-slavery-system.html
		+
		+	The Jan. 6 Defendants Are Getting Off Easy. We reviewed all 733 criminal cases connected to the insurrection. Here is what we found. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/01/jan-6-capitol-riot-criminal-prosecutions-status.html
		+
		+	Biden’s blistering speech on Trump praised by supporters, calling it his ‘best’. Speech described as ‘forceful’, ‘passionate’, ‘riveting’, and a ‘hinge moment in his presidency’. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/joe-biden-trump-capitol-riot-speech-b1988097.html
		+
		+	Biden eviscerates Trump for holding a 'dagger to the throat of Democracy' by watching Jan 6 riot live on TV and doing nothing to stop it: Donald hits back and calls Joe's speech 'political theater' https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10375211/Biden-heads-Capitol-January-6-speech-blame-Trump-chaos-carnage.html
		+
		+	Election Falsehoods Surged on Podcasts Before Capitol Riots, Researchers Find. Researchers at the Brookings Institution reviewed transcripts of nearly 1,500 episodes from 20 of the most popular political podcasts. Among episodes released between the election and the Jan. 6 riot, about half contained election misinformation, according to the analysis. In some weeks, 60% of episodes mentioned the election fraud conspiracy theories tracked by Brookings. Those included false claims that software glitches interfered with the count, that fake ballots were used, and that voting machines run by Dominion Voting Systems were rigged to help Democrats. Those kinds of theories gained currency in Republican circles and would later be leveraged to justify additional election audits across the country. The biggest offender in Brookings’ analysis was Steve Bannon, Trump’s former adviser. His podcast, “Bannon’s War Room,” was flagged 115 times for episodes using voter fraud terms included in Brookings’ analysis between the election and Jan. 6. “You know why they’re going to steal this election?” Bannon asked on Nov. 3. “Because they don’t think you’re going to do anything about it.” https://news.yahoo.com/election-falsehoods-surged-podcasts-capitol-125322535.html
		+
		+	A photographer’s helmet cam captured the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-01-04/photographers-point-of-view-of-the-capitol-riot-jan-6-anniversary
		+
		+	More than 1,000 US public figures aided Trump’s effort to overturn election. Insurrection Index identifies those who acted as accomplices by participating in 6 January attack or spreading Trump’s ‘big lie’. Among them are 213 incumbents in elected office and 29 who are running as candidates for positions of power in upcoming elections. There are also 59 military veterans, 31 current or former law enforcement officials, and seven who sit on local school boards. When the index goes live on Thursday, it will contain a total of 1,404 records of those who played a role in trying to overturn the 2020 election. In addition to the 1,011 individuals, it lists 393 organizations deemed to have played a part in subverting democracy. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/05/trump-capitol-attack-democracy-election-insurrection-index
		+
		+	===Trump incited Insurrection January 06, 2021, Qanon, MAGA Zombies. archived January 05, 2022===
		+
		+	New Texts Show Sean Hannity Panicking About Trump’s State of Mind After Jan. 6. The committee investigating the attack on the Capitol is asking the Fox News host to answer questions about his communications with Trump and Mark Meadows. The Jan. 6 committee is requesting voluntary cooperation from Sean Hannity, Chair Bennie Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney wrote in a letter released Tuesday. The letter cites previously unreleased text messages obtained by the committee, including one sent on Jan. 10 in which the Fox News host appears to express concern over what Trump might do ahead of Biden’s inauguration. “Guys, we have a clear path to land the plane in 9 days,” Hannity wrote to then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). “He can’t mention the election again. He can’t mention the election again. Ever. I did not have a good call with him today. And worse, I’m not sure what is left to do or say, and I don’t like not knowing if it’s truly understood. Ideas?” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jan-6-committee-sean-hannity-request-cooperation-1278476/
		+
		+	We Know Exactly Who the Capitol Rioters Were. A year later, a fuller picture of who really drove the riot is clear. The lessons for 2022 and beyond are sobering.We’ve now studied nearly 700 who have been arrested, and we’ve brought the study up to date as of early December. What we see is, over half of those who have been arrested are business owners, CEOs from white-collar occupations, doctors, lawyers, and architects. If you look at extremist group membership, again, 13 percent of those nearly 700 arrested as of early December are members of militia groups like the Oath Keepers or extremist groups like the Proud Boys. As I said, this is very different than about half that we normally find. If you look at their ages, two-thirds of those arrested for Jan. 6 are over the age of 34. They’re concentrated in their 40s and 50s. Normally for right-wing extremists, it’s two-thirds under the age of 34. Typically, only 10 percent have a college degree. Here, the Jan. 6 arrestees, 25 percent have a college degree, which is close to the national average of the U.S. electorate at 30 percent. About 15 percent of those on Jan. 6 had prior U.S. military service, but that compares with what we usually see in right-wing extremists at 40 percent. About 10 percent of the U.S. electorate has prior military service, so it’s a little higher than that, but much closer to the U.S. mainstream than to the usual right-wing extremists. What if we look at criminal history? Well, 30 percent of those arrested on Jan. 6 had prior criminal history, mostly for misdemeanors like marijuana charges, but with other right-wing extremists, it’s 64 percent have prior criminal history. The U.S. electorate overall has 20 percent with criminal history. When you look at this, it’s just one category after another after another that shouts out mainstream. The Jan. 6 insurrectionists really are best understood as a product of the mainstream. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/01/january-6-capitol-riot-arrests-research-profile.html
		+
		+	Trump cancels Jan. 6 event amid GOP complaints. Republican senators said the press conference wasn't a "good idea" hours before the former president canceled it. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/04/gop-trump-jan-6-speech-526487
		+
		+	Secret commandos with the authority to 'shoot-to-kill' were at the Capitol on January 6 under Trump's orders over fears of a terrorist attack or a plot to attack Pence or a member of Congress, report claims. Ex-Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, who ran Donald Trump's Justice Department at the time of the Capitol riot, reportedly acted alone in deciding to activate the elite units. FBI teams reportedly arrived on Capitol Hill early that day to collect evidence on explosives found near the Republican and Democrat national headquarters. The agency's snipers and other SWAT members provided cover to nearby Congressional buildings. And when violent Trump supporters breached the Capitol's parameters, members of the Hostage Rescue Team were among the first law enforcement officers in the building. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10365429/Secret-commandos-authority-shoot-kill-Capitol-January-6-Report.html
		+
		+	Ashli Babbitt a martyr? Her past tells a more complex story. The attack on Norris is an example of erratic and sometimes threatening behavior by Babbitt, who was shot by a police officer while at the vanguard of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Former President Donald Trump and his supporters have sought to portray her as a righteous martyr who was unjustly killed. In the months before her death, Babbitt had become consumed by pro-Trump conspiracy theories and posted angry screeds on social media. She also had a history of making violent threats. The Capitol Police officer who shot Babbitt, Lt. Michael Byrd, said in a televised interview in August that he fired as a “last resort.” When he pulled the trigger, he said, he had no idea whether the person jumping through the window was armed. https://apnews.com/article/ashli-babbitt-capitol-siege-a15c7e52a04d932972b7a284c7a8f7df
		+
		+	At time of Capitol prayer service Jan. 6, Trump will deliver remarks doubling down on the ‘Big Lie’. The riot at the Capitol briefly looked like it had broken Trump's hold on the GOP. Instead, he has reaffirmed his dominion over the party. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/02/trump-capitol-riot-aftermath-526277
		+
		+	Retired General Steven M. Anderson blasts Trump supporters in the military, calling them a 'threat from within' and advising them to stop listening to 'The Pillow Guy' Mike Lindell. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10361869/Retired-Gen-Steven-M-Anderson-blasts-Trump-supporters-military-calls-threat-within.html
		+
		+	Some Of The Biggest Lies Being Spread About The Jan. 6 Insurrection. The events from last Jan. 6 in Washington unfolded on live television but they've since been up for debate.
		+	# Claim: The Rioters Weren’t Trump Supporters
		+	# Claim: The Rioters Weren’t Violent
		+	# Claim: Trump Did Not Encourage The Rioters
		+	# Claim: Ashli Babbitt Was Killed By An Officer Working For Democrats
		+	# Claim: The Jan. 6 Suspects Are Political Prisoners And Are Being Mistreated
		+	:https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ap-us-capitol-riot-misinformation-lies_n_61d05615e4b0bb04a6398a8f
		+
		+	Conspiracy theories paint fraudulent reality of Jan. 6 riot. Millions of Americans watched the events in Washington last Jan. 6 unfold on live television. Police officers testified to the violence and mayhem. Criminal proceedings in open court detailed what happened. Yet the hoaxes, conspiracy theories and attempts to rewrite history persist, muddying the public’s understanding of what actually occurred during the most sustained attack on the seat of American democracy since the War of 1812. By excusing former President Donald Trump of responsibility, minimizing the mob’s violence and casting the rioters as martyrs, falsehoods about the insurrection aim to deflect blame for Jan. 6 while sustaining Trump’s unfounded claims about the free and fair election in 2020 that he lost. Spread by politicians, broadcast by cable news pundits and amplified by social media, the falsehoods are a stark reminder of how many Americans may no longer trust their own institutions or their own eyes. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/conspiracy-theories-paint-fraudulent-reality-of-jan-6-riot
		+
		+	So You Admitted To Storming The Capitol. Now What? Judges are figuring out in real time what the consequences should be for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/capitol-riot-judges-accountability-trump-insurrection
		+
		+	Trump Adviser Peter Navarro Lays Out How He and Bannon Planned to Overturn Biden’s Electoral Win. A former Trump White House official says he and right-wing provocateur Steve Bannon were actually behind the last-ditch coordinated effort by rogue Republicans in Congress to halt certification of the 2020 election results and keep President Donald Trump in power earlier this year, in a plan dubbed the “Green Bay Sweep.” In his recently published memoir, Peter Navarro, then-President Donald Trump’s trade adviser, details how he stayed in close contact with Bannon as they put the Green Bay Sweep in motion with help from members of Congress loyal to the cause. But in an interview last week with The Daily Beast, Navarro shed additional light on his role in the operation and their coordination with politicians like Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-advisor-peter-navarro-lays-out-how-he-and-steve-bannon-planned-to-overturn-bidens-electoral-win
		+
		+	The clear and present danger of Trump's enduring 'Big Lie' https://www.npr.org/2021/12/23/1065277246/trump-big-lie-jan-6-election
		+
		+	Movie at the Ellipse: A Study in Fascist Propaganda. Scholars on the Nazis and anti-Semitism have seen this before. https://www.justsecurity.org/74504/movie-at-the-ellipse-a-study-in-fascist-propaganda/
		+
		+	New January 6 video shows three hours of violent and chaotic assault on police. The Justice Department this week released a three-hour video of a battle between rioters and the police at the US Capitol Building on January 6 where rioters brandished weapons, officers were viciously beaten, and a member of the mob died on Capitol steps. The assault on the Lower West Terrace was one of the most violent confrontations between Capitol Police and the crowd. Officers held the line until the building was cleared without letting rioters inside. Some officers have since said they did not know the Capitol had already been breached in other areas. The video, taken from a Capitol security camera, does not have sound. It starts as officers retreat, helping each other as they stumble inside and washing their eyes out with water from chemical spray. Rioters crowd in behind them, coordinate efforts to attack and push through in infamous moments that have haunted the public, and officers, ever since. The Justice Department released the videos after CNN and other outlets sued for access. It is the longest video from the riot released by the government thus far. https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/24/politics/january-6-video-capitol-hill-riot/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a3RGlu5yLs
		+
		+	People Got Sick at a Conspiracy Conference. They’re Sure It’s Anthrax. The fact that the conference was likely a COVID outbreak and superspreader event has been almost entirely ignored. This far-right conspiracy claim began after a dozen people spent time together in a confined space at the ReAwaken America tour event in Dallas over the weekend of Dec. 10. And the fact that this was likely a COVID outbreak and superspreader event has been almost entirely ignored. https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7wz5a/people-got-sick-at-a-conspiracy-conference-theyre-sure-its-anthrax
		+
		+	New York Man Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy and Obstruction Charges Related to Jan. 6 Capitol Breach. Wednesday, December 22, 2021 Defendant Planned Activities as Member of Proud Boys Chapter in Central New York. A New York man pleaded guilty today to crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, which disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress that was in the process of ascertaining and counting the electoral votes related to the presidential election. According to court documents, Matthew Greene, 34, of Syracuse, conspired with fellow members of the Proud Boys, a self-described “pro-Western fraternal organization for men who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world; aka Western Chauvinists.” Greene pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of obstruction of an official proceeding this afternoon in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Greene was arrested on April 21, 2021, following his indictment along with two other individuals in this case, Dominic Pezzola, 44, of Rochester, New York, and William Pepe, 32, of Beacon, New York; they have pleaded not guilty to charges. According to court documents, Greene officially joined the Central New York Proud Boys chapter in December 2020. In advance of Jan. 6, he and other members of the Proud Boys planned to come to Washington and coordinate their activities through various communication methods they had previously obtained, including programmable radios. On Jan. 6, they met up at the Washington Monument, intentionally dressed in clothing that concealed their membership as Proud Boys. Greene and other Proud Boys members then marched from the Washington Monument to the Capitol, where Greene witnessed the tearing down of barricades and advanced with others into the restricted area. Greene was among the first wave to cross a downed police line and advance into the West Plaza. He later advanced to a set of stairs that ran from the West Plaza to the Upper West Terrace. He witnessed rioters assault the police and overrun them. Greene followed others up the stairs moments after the police line was breached. Finally, after exiting the stairs, he participated with other rioters, including members of the Proud Boys, in moving additional police barricades. https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/new-york-man-pleads-guilty-conspiracy-and-obstruction-charges-related-jan-6-capitol
		+
		+	Syracuse Proud Boy pleads guilty to conspiracy, will cooperate with prosecutors. On Monday, 34-year-old Syracuse man and accused Proud Boy Matthew Greene pleaded guilty to conspiracy and obstruction of official proceedings for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol; Greene also said he will cooperate with federal prosecutors. https://cnycentral.com/news/local/syracuse-proud-boy-pleads-guilty-to-conspiracy-will-cooperate-with-prosecutors
		+
		+	What we've learned from the Meadows documents.
		+	# Waldron could help fill in the gaps. Subpoenaed this week was a man otherwise not on the radar of many: a retired U.S. Army colonel and distillery owner who helped distribute a PowerPoint on plans for Jan. 6 and who briefed lawmakers on the plans for the day. The committee on Thursday demanded testimony from Phil Waldron, who was among those present at the Willard Hotel “war room” for the Trump campaign and appeared to play a key role in pushing forward the strategy to contest the election.
		+	# Text messages show it was a two-way street. The committee this week also released numerous text messages sent to Meadows to suggest the plan laid out by the Trump campaign and those such as Eastman and Waldman not only resonated with Republicans but left them encouraging the White House to follow through. Numerous text messages sent to Meadows show ideas about how to block the election were flowing from Trump's inner circle to Capitol Hill and the GOP back to the White House as they mulled how to undermine Biden’s victory.
		+	# GOP publicly downplayed attack while privately panicking. For the better part of a year, prominent conservative allies have followed Trump’s lead and downplayed the violent rioters who attacked police officers with bear spray, flag poles and baseball bats. They’ve been described as “peaceful patriots,” normal tourists and victims. But as mayhem and violence erupted that January day, text messages show a trio of popular Fox News personalities, GOP lawmakers and even Donald Trump Jr. were frantically trying to reach the president — through Meadows — to have him stop the attack and send his supporters home.
		+	https://thehill.com/homenews/house/586389-what-weve-learned-from-the-meadows-documents
		+
		+	“He's got to condemn this shit ASAP,” the president’s eldest son texted Meadows as the attack unfolded on live TV. “It has gone too far and gotten out of hand.”
		+
		+	Meadows Jan. 5 email indicated Guard on standby to ‘protect pro Trump people,’ investigators say. The context for the message is unclear, but it comes amid scrutiny of the Guard’s slow response to the Jan. 6 violence at the Capitol. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/12/meadows-jan-6-national-guard-trump-524133
	‘He’s got to condemn this …’: Panel releases urgent Jan. 6 texts from Donald Trump Jr., lawmakers and Fox hosts. House investigators held Mark Meadows in criminal contempt after releasing a trove of messages aimed at getting President Donald Trump to take stronger action amid the Capitol riot.		‘He’s got to condemn this …’: Panel releases urgent Jan. 6 texts from Donald Trump Jr., lawmakers and Fox hosts. House investigators held Mark Meadows in criminal contempt after releasing a trove of messages aimed at getting President Donald Trump to take stronger action amid the Capitol riot.
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	<nowiki>#breaking</nowiki> trump supporters clash with BLM and antifa on the boardwalk in PB. Heavy police presence some fights and scuffles. Pepper spray etc (not from pd).		<nowiki>#breaking</nowiki> trump supporters clash with BLM and antifa on the boardwalk in PB. Heavy police presence some fights and scuffles. Pepper spray etc (not from pd).
	@fox5sandiego https://twitter.com/heyguyfox5/status/1348032632345432064		@fox5sandiego https://twitter.com/heyguyfox5/status/1348032632345432064
		+
		+	===combatting online extremism===
		+
		+	Working to end online harms, applying evidence, ethics, and human rights https://moonshotteam.com/redirect-method/
		+
		+	Polarization and Extremism and Research Innovation Lab (PERIL) https://www.american.edu/centers/university-excellence/peril.cfm
		+
		+	White supremacist threat remains, but experts see hope in combatting online extremism. https://news.yahoo.com/white-supremacist-threat-remains-experts-090012557.html
	===Oath Keepers, Militiamen, Vigilantes, Terrorists===		===Oath Keepers, Militiamen, Vigilantes, Terrorists===
		+
		+	Cops in Woodland, Ca., stand by as "Proud Boys" try to force their way into drag show. https://boingboing.net/2022/07/01/cops-in-woodland-ca-stand-by-as-proud-boys-try-to-force-their-way-into-drag-show.html
		+
		+	The Far-Right’s Assault On An Idaho Pride Event Was Meticulously Planned. Details that emerged after the arrest of 31 white supremacists in Coeur D'Alene show how GOP rhetoric is signaling extremists to attack LGBTQ people. At a Republican fundraiser in Stateline, Idaho, a local GOP official named Dan Bell was excited to introduce the next speaker. “He’s definitely not OK with trans or any of that gay shit,” Bell, youth chair of the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee, said into the microphone as the crowd laughed. “Please give it up for Dave Reilly!” Reilly took the stage that day, April 16, to cheers. “A big round of applause for our Sheriff Norris, who keeps us safe!” Reilly said, pointing to Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris in the crowd, according to video footage obtained by HuffPost. Reilly is a white nationalist who recently moved to Idaho and aims to take over the state political system from the ground up. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/groomer-panic-idaho-white-supremacists-lgbtq_n_62acc960e4b06594c1d6348b
		+
		+	CNN on the origins of the white nationalist gang, Patriot Front. Booking photo montage: Top row, from left, are Jared Boyce, Nathan Brenner, Colton Brown, Josiah Buster, Mishael Buster, Devin Center, Dylan Corio, and Winston Durham. Second row, from left, are Garret Garland, Branden Haney, Richard Jessop, James Julius Johnson, James Michael Johnson, Connor Moran, Kieran Morris and Lawrence Norman. Third row, from left, are Justin O'leary, Cameron Pruitt, Forrest Rankin, Thomas Rousseau, Conor Ryan, Spencer Simpson, Alexander Sisenstein and Derek Smith. Bottom row, from left, are Dakota Tabler, Steven Tucker, Wesley Van Horn, Mitchell Wagner, Nathaniel Whitfield, Graham Whitsom and Robert Whitted. CNN's Anderson Cooper reports on the origins of the new gang. https://youtu.be/4ZlNbXYr0pk
		+
		+	Your Handy Guide to the Absolute Worst People in American Politics. With an array of hate groups forming in recent years, the threat of far-right violence has never been greater. But not all share the same goals and methods. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/all-american-extremism-guide-1361035/
		+
		+	:https://i.imgur.com/TIHfA8P.jpg
		+	It's No Coincidence That Right-Wing Extremists Are Ramping Up Attacks During Pride Month. Over the weekend, several white nationalists were arrested in incidents across the nation. https://jezebel.com/its-no-coincidence-that-right-wing-extremists-are-rampi-1849054353
		+
		+	The 31 Patriot Front members were arrested with riot gear after a tipster reported seeing people loading up into a U-Haul like “a little army” at a hotel parking lot in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, police said. Among those booked into jail on misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to riot was Thomas Ryan Rousseau of Grapevine, Texas, who has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as the 23-year-old who founded the group after the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. No attorney was immediately listed for him and phone numbers associated with him went unanswered Sunday. Also among the arrestees was Mitchell F. Wagner, 24, of Florissant, Missouri, who was previously charged with defacing a mural of famous Black Americans on a college campus in St. Louis last year. https://apnews.com/article/climate-texas-idaho-government-and-politics-southern-poverty-law-center-4f6b998f83814e8951eef658f44d818d
		+
		+	31 Patriot Front Extremists Aiming To 'Riot' At Idaho Pride Event Arrested: Officials. The white supremacists, who were dressed in nearly identical uniforms and masks, "did not come here to engage in peaceful events," said the local sheriff. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coeur-dalene-pride-event-riot_n_62a52bc1e4b0cf43c849dd90 https://youtu.be/7SlrREP6f5I
		+
		+	:https://i.imgur.com/sUev9JV.jpg
		+	'Losers!’: Mob of White Supremacists Busted Near Idaho Pride Event. Police say they foiled Patriot Front’s plans for a riot after a “concerned citizen” reported seeing a bunch of masked men in a U-Haul that “looked like a little army.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/white-supremacists-from-patriot-front-detained-en-masse-near-idaho-pride-event
		+
		+	Proud Boys storm drag queen story hour for kindergarteners at a San Francisco library: Right-wing extremists scream homophobic and transphobic threats at host
		+	Proud Boys barged into the San Lorenzo Library near San Francisco around 1:30 p.m. on Saturday
		+	The right-wing extremist group yelled homophobic and transphobic threats at the children's story host, Bay Area drag queen Panda Dulce, who was reading to preschoolers and kindergarteners for story hour
		+	The disturbance happened during Drag Queen Story Hour in celebration of Pride Month
		+	No arrests have been made, no one was physically harmed, authorities say
		+	Deputies will be at future story hours at the library 'to deal with any disruptors' https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10911471/Proud-Boys-storm-Drag-Queen-story-hour-San-Francisco-library-shouting-homophobic-threats.html
		+
		+	A U.S. service member has been identified as a possible suspect in an April explosion that injured several U.S. troops at a base in eastern Syria. Patrick Barnes, a spokesman for the Army Criminal Investigation Division, said in a statement that the potential suspect is back in the United States, and the investigation by Army CID and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations is ongoing. Barnes did not release the suspect's name. The U.S. military initially reported that the injuries were caused by artillery or another form of indirect fire. But it later said the April 7 attack was carried out by the "deliberate placement of explosive charges" by one or more individuals at an ammunition holding area and shower facility on the base, known as Green Village. The blasts hit two support buildings and four service members were evaluated for minor injuries and possible traumatic brain injuries. The U.S. has several hundred troops in eastern Syria as part of its effort to counter the Islamic State group. No charges have been filed. https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2022-06-06/us-base-syria-insider-attack-6255858.html
		+
		+	The Satanist Neo-Nazi Plot to Murder U.S. Soldiers. A rogue G.I.’s trial exposes the depths of a murderous far-right ideology — and the FBI’s complicity in spreading hate. Ethan Phelan Melzer’s secret life of hate ran deep. The 24-year-old private in the 173rd Airborne Brigade appeared to be just another young soldier, trying to find his way through military life at Fort Benning, Georgia. However, in his private time, prosecutors allege, Melzer had another, sinister side: He said he liked to perform macabre blood rituals; read obscure, gruesome tracts about torture and child abuse; collected violent iconography; and found like minds in the depths of Telegram, an encrypted messaging app so favored by extremists of all stripes that it is often referred to as “Terrorgram.” His handle was “Etil Reggad” — a near anadrome for “Elite Dagger.”
		+	By Melzer’s own account, enlisting in the Army was a ruse — on the encrypted app, he wrote that he had joined up solely to gain knowledge of military weaponry and tactics. “It’s great for training,” he wrote, adding a cryptic remark about his base. “All of these places the vast majority deserve to be burned.” https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/the-satanist-neo-nazi-plot-to-murder-u-s-soldiers-1352629/
		+
		+	@UR_Ninja Patriot Front wrecked the Olympia pride mural, as planned, in the early a.m. of Oct. 16. The next day, they discussed it in a post-mission debrief held on their self-hosted voice chat server. Full mp3 recording: https://vault.unicornriot.ninja/patriotfrontleaks/2021-recordings/2021-10-17_PNW_Regional_Mumble.mp3… Transcript (pdf): https://vault.unicornriot.ninja/patriotfrontleaks/2021-transcripts/2021-10-17_PNW_Regional_Mumble.pdf https://twitter.com/UR_Ninja/status/1525177716378685440
		+
		+	The ‘People’s Convoy’ Has a New Enemy: Kids with Eggs. The group of conservative truckers did not receive a warm reception in California. The “People’s Convoy” (yes, that is still a thing) has reached the West Coast, where they have been greeted with a less than friendly reception: Bay Area youth tossing raw eggs at the passing vehicles. The incident occurred when the caravan was driving away from the home of Democratic Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, where they were protesting her support of an abortion-related bill. According to The San Francisco Examiner, the convoy departed Wicks’ residence after police arrived. While driving away from the house through her residential neighborhood, the convoy passed a Safeway grocery store where a group of kids were gathered, equipped with eggs. Videos of the confrontation show the youth unleashing a flurry of raw egg projectiles at the vehicles in the convoy as they drove by. “We’re fighting for your freedoms, too,” one convoy member can be heard shouting at the kids. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/peoples-convoy-egged-1342326/
		+
		+	A U.S. intelligence community assessment obtained by Yahoo News concluded that the Russian government is providing “indirect and passive support” to neofascist groups operating in the U.S. and elsewhere, but stops short of accusing the Kremlin of supplying financial or material assistance to Western extremist groups. The Kremlin “probably tolerates some private Russian entities’ support” for U.S. and European white nationalist groups “because it aligns with Kremlin efforts to aggravate societal fissures in the West,” states the report. https://news.yahoo.com/us-intelligence-report-details-indirect-russian-government-support-for-western-neo-fascist-groups-233831082.html
		+
		+	Cyclist pedaling slowly holds up People's Convoy as it continues to make daily loops of DC Beltway demanding end to all COVID restrictions and the removal of BLM mural on road leading to White House
		+	The convoy now consists of about 100 trucks with some pickups and vans
		+	The roving protest against COVID-19 restrictions is still affecting traffic in DC
		+	On Friday, organizers called on the crowd to remove the large Black Lives Matter sign painted on a street near the White House
		+	One said the protest wouldn't end until the Biden administration does, as organizers face accusations that their list of demands has become bloated
		+	COVID rules continue to disappear, with LA lifting its mask mandate for students and Hawaii the only state with an indoor mask mandate https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10632987/Peoples-Convoy-making-daily-loops-DC-Beltway-members-issue-fresh-demands.html
		+
		+	The Pro-Trucker-Convoy Rally Is Another Failure for Far-Right Demonstrators in DC. But after January 6, authorities have little choice but to take these things seriously. Much of the media professionals at these rallies appeared to represent outlets based outside the US, but even domestic outlets face the same conundrum regarding these events that local law enforcement does: how seriously to take them after January 6, 2021. MAGA voices had touted the idea of invading the Capitol before former President Trump encouraged them to march down Pennsylvania Avenue to Congress, which was scheduled to certify Joe Biden’s victory over Trump that day. Still, very few in law enforcement foresaw the at-times medieval fighting that would ensue as several thousand people invaded the Capitol. Indeed, in a city that has seen increasingly organized incursions by far-right people going back to “Pizzagate,” there’s little choice but to take treat these events as possible threats to everyday life until they prove otherwise. Today’s rally may have been a bust, but who knows what will happen next? https://www.washingtonian.com/2022/03/01/the-pro-trucker-convoy-rally-is-another-failure-for-far-right-demonstrators-in-dc/
		+
		+	Trucker convoy protest in Washington DC flops as no-one shows up. Organisers had expected thousands of people to attend Freedom Convoy event. “Where are the trucks?” organiser Kyle Sefcik asked during his speech. Mr Sefcik is an MMA fighter and independent candidate for governor in Maryland, and also the organiser of Freedom Convoy USA 2022, which was due to arrive in DC on Tuesday but was scrapped when just five trucks showed up in Las Vegas. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trucker-convoy-washington-dc-protest-b2026209.html
		+
		+	A Porno-Metal Song About Gay Cowboys Is Disrupting the Anti-Vaxx Trucker Convoy. “Ram Ranch” has become the unofficial anthem of leftist trolling the far-right protests in Ottawa. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/anti-vax-trucker-convoy-porno-metal-ram-ranch-1297926/
		+
		+	They're Burning Books in Tennessee. Greg Locke's zealots set fire to sacred millennial texts like Harry Potter and Twilight. https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/pithinthewind/theyre-burning-books-in-tennessee/article_1f8c631e-850f-11ec-bc9f-dbd44d7e14d7.html
		+
		+	Roughly one in five applicants to the white supremacist group Patriot Front claimed to hold current or former military status, according to leaked documents reviewed by Hatewatch. The journalist collective Unicorn Riot leaked archives of Patriot Front’s private chats on Jan. 21. Patriot Front held these conversations on Rocket Chat, an open-source chat program, where they published 87 different applications for membership. The applications show that 18 of those 87 applicants (21%) claimed to be current or former members of the U.S. military. One of the applicants, who claimed to be a former Marine, also stated in his application that he currently works for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2022/02/01/one-five-patriot-front-applicants-claim-military-ties
		+
		+	‘We are desperate for new people’: inside a hate group’s leaked online chats. Chat logs depict Patriot Front as a tiny group reliant on vandalism and fake social accounts to promote its message. Chats indicate the white supremacist group has about 200 members. The messages show a coordinated effort to commit vandalism and intimidate people of color nationwide. The group requires members to deface racial justice murals and monuments to Black Lives Matter in their communities, much like a street gang that requires initiates to “tag” buildings as a form of vandalism and intimidation. Chats show that the group’s leaders regularly reprimand members for failing to meet exercise or participation requirements. It also shows a group fixated on getting more members, a task it has found difficult. “We are absolutely desperate for new people. We’ve been in the 220’s to 230’s membership rut for nearly a full year,” wrote Thomas Rousseau, the founder of Patriot Front. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/28/leaked-online-chats-white-nationalist-patriot-front
		+
		+	The FBI Said It Busted A Plot To Kidnap Michigan’s Governor. Then Things Got Complicated. The case seemed like a lock — until an informant and one FBI agent were charged with crimes, another was accused of perjury, and a third was found promoting a private security firm. And that wasn’t all. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kenbensinger/fbi-michigan-kidnap-whitmer
		+
		+	===Oath Keepers, Militiamen, Vigilantes, Terrorists. archived December 18, 2021===
	Flynn’s Fave Paramilitary Rebrands as Private Security Firm. “The Shepherd Group,” a venture of 1st Amendment Praetorian, went live days before the right-wing group’s leader, Robert Patrick Lewis, was subpoenaed in a Jan. 6 probe. Between Nov. 1 and Nov. 19, multiple social-media accounts associated with a California-based company calling itself “The Shepherd Group” went live, as did a website hawking its “holistic, boutique approach” to digital forensics, physical security, surveillance/counter-surveillance, and corporate intelligence. “Our clients include private individuals and corporations, law-enforcement agencies and the U.S. Government with a focus on missions that strive toward the betterment of the Republic and humanity,” the page reads, although it provides no list of past jobs or customers. But a little digging reveals that the Shepherd Group is not entirely new: rather, it appears to be a front for the militant group 1st Amendment Praetorian, previously a volunteer outfit that has deployed its self-described force of former armed forces and police personnel as security for right-wing leaders and events. The group’s name derives from the elite cadre of Roman soldiers who served as the emperor’s personal retinue. Most prominently, the modern outfit chaperoned the conservative star-studded rally on D.C.’s Freedom Plaza on the eve of the Capitol riot. Experts suggested the pivot to a for-profit business model might represent a bid for legitimacy in the face of public scrutiny. After all, the shift came just weeks ahead of the order for its founder to appear before Congress, though it is unclear whether this timing was deliberate or fortuitous. The address that the Shepherd Group—which also purports to consist entirely of ex-police and service members—lists on its website is the same UPS mailbox in the Los Angeles suburb of Calabasas that 1st Amendment Praetorian LLC used when it filed to become a federal vendor last year. Those same filings identified “The Shepherd Group,” which appears to have never received a government contract, as a trade name for 1st Amendment Praetorian. 1st Amendment Praetorian head Robert Patrick Lewis, a decorated former Green Beret, identifies himself as CEO of the Shepherd Group on his LinkedIn, and his initials adorn posts on the Shepherd Group’s blog. https://www.thedailybeast.com/flynns-fave-paramilitary-rebrands-as-private-security-firm		Flynn’s Fave Paramilitary Rebrands as Private Security Firm. “The Shepherd Group,” a venture of 1st Amendment Praetorian, went live days before the right-wing group’s leader, Robert Patrick Lewis, was subpoenaed in a Jan. 6 probe. Between Nov. 1 and Nov. 19, multiple social-media accounts associated with a California-based company calling itself “The Shepherd Group” went live, as did a website hawking its “holistic, boutique approach” to digital forensics, physical security, surveillance/counter-surveillance, and corporate intelligence. “Our clients include private individuals and corporations, law-enforcement agencies and the U.S. Government with a focus on missions that strive toward the betterment of the Republic and humanity,” the page reads, although it provides no list of past jobs or customers. But a little digging reveals that the Shepherd Group is not entirely new: rather, it appears to be a front for the militant group 1st Amendment Praetorian, previously a volunteer outfit that has deployed its self-described force of former armed forces and police personnel as security for right-wing leaders and events. The group’s name derives from the elite cadre of Roman soldiers who served as the emperor’s personal retinue. Most prominently, the modern outfit chaperoned the conservative star-studded rally on D.C.’s Freedom Plaza on the eve of the Capitol riot. Experts suggested the pivot to a for-profit business model might represent a bid for legitimacy in the face of public scrutiny. After all, the shift came just weeks ahead of the order for its founder to appear before Congress, though it is unclear whether this timing was deliberate or fortuitous. The address that the Shepherd Group—which also purports to consist entirely of ex-police and service members—lists on its website is the same UPS mailbox in the Los Angeles suburb of Calabasas that 1st Amendment Praetorian LLC used when it filed to become a federal vendor last year. Those same filings identified “The Shepherd Group,” which appears to have never received a government contract, as a trade name for 1st Amendment Praetorian. 1st Amendment Praetorian head Robert Patrick Lewis, a decorated former Green Beret, identifies himself as CEO of the Shepherd Group on his LinkedIn, and his initials adorn posts on the Shepherd Group’s blog. https://www.thedailybeast.com/flynns-fave-paramilitary-rebrands-as-private-security-firm
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	===Police riots and violence, collaboration, disinformation, propaganda, and lies===		===Police riots and violence, collaboration, disinformation, propaganda, and lies===
		+
		+	The Police Are Not Here to Save You. A number of horrifying recent incidents across the U.S. are a grim reminder that cops do not have a constitutional duty to protect people. Three Tempe, Arizona, police officers are on paid leave after body camera footage and a transcript were released showing them standing by as a man drowned in front of them. The police had been responding to a call on May 28 about a dispute between the man, Sean Bickings, who was Black and unhoused, and his wife. Bickings climbed into the lake and began to say he was drowning, to which one cop replied, “​​OK, I’m not jumping in after you.” https://www.vice.com/en/article/akewa8/the-police-are-not-here-to-save-you
		+
		+	:https://i.imgur.com/PGsLr5N.jpg
		+	:https://www.odmp.org/search/year?year=2021
		+
		+	MPD Political Extremism Powerpoint Spotlights Antifa and Boogaloo. Unicorn Riot has obtained documents used to train Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) staff on political extremism. The training presentation is entitled “Political Extremists / Anarchists, a brief summary of groups that border the line between protest and domestic terrorism.” The MPD documents discuss the so-called Boogaloo movement as well as the anti-fascist movement known commonly as Antifa. The training materials prepared by an MPD intelligence analyst reveal their targeting of individuals for expressing political speech. Additionally, the MPD demonstrates a misunderstanding of Antifa as well as the threat posed by Boogaloo members. https://unicornriot.ninja/2022/mpd-political-extremism-powerpoint-spotlights-antifa-and-boogaloo/
		+
		+	Bias, far-right sympathies among California law enforcement going unchecked, audit finds. A state audit of five law enforcement agencies in California found bias among officers toward people of color, immigrants, women and LGBTQ people, as well as a smattering of support for far-right extremist organizations such as the Proud Boys and Three Percenters. The audit also found the agencies had insufficient policies in place to safeguard against such attitudes within their ranks, to investigate them when they are alleged or to address them once identified, according to a report issued by the state auditor’s office this week. “As a result, these departments are at a higher risk of being unaware of and unable to effectively address the ways in which their officers exhibit bias,” the audit found. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-04-28/audit-of-california-law-enforcement-finds-extreme-bias-among-officers-goes-unchecked
		+
		+	A cop thought he could intimidate a bike rider. Big mistake https://boingboing.net/2022/03/18/a-cop-thought-he-could-intimidate-a-bike-rider-big-mistake.html
		+
		+	Police shot dead a record 1,055 people last year - the highest number in SEVEN years: Black people killed at twice the rate as white
		+	The Washington Post on Thursday released the latest analysis from its database of fatal police shootings in the United States
		+	The number of people killed by officers was the highest since they began keeping records seven years ago, with 1,055 dying in 2021
		+	In 2020 the figure was 1,021, which criminologists say is not a statistically significantly change with 2021
		+	The most affected people were young black men, and 14 percent had known mental health struggles
		+	Three quarters of those killed were armed with a gun or a knife - 632 had a firearm, and 154 had a knife
		+	California had the most fatal police shootings, with 141, while Rhode Island only had one https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10500759/Police-shot-dead-record-1-055-people-2021-young-black-men-disproportionate-majority.html
		+
		+	Portland police training material included far-right meme. The text on the image known as the “Prayer of the Alt Knight” references violence against a “dirty hippy” and is attributed to “Based Stickman,” an alias of far-right activist Kyle Chapman, who founded a subset of the far-right Proud Boys group, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported. The meme “is only coming to light because plaintiffs stood up to the City and sued them,” said attorney Juan Chavez, one of the lawyers representing Don’t Shoot Portland. https://apnews.com/article/police-portland-ted-wheeler-82f27c5a87a3187fc95c4de55f63ce84 https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1299796-based-stickman
		+
		+	The U.S. Cops Suckered by Foreign Spies With Honeytraps, Blackmail and Luxury Vacations. Foreign intelligence agencies around the world are itching to recruit U.S. police officers to do their bidding in America—and they’ve had success doing so in the past. The FBI has spent “two decades trying to warn state local law enforcement,” Evanina said, with the help of national law enforcement organizations. But it’s been an uphill battle, with some 18,000 police departments across the country, most with little clue to the designs of foreign adversaries or the resources to vet them. They’re easy prey for foreign agents pretending to be regular, friendly police officers. “I can no longer count the number of chiefs of police or assistant chiefs in this country I've run into who tell me they've been to Turkey and it's a beautiful place,” Figliuzzi said, ruefully. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-american-cops-suckered-by-foreign-spies-with-honeytraps-blackmail-and-luxury-vacations
		+
		+	To veteran attorneys, Potter verdict comes as a surprise, hints of change. Lawyers surprised jury convicted Potter on both counts, wonder about possible turning point in policing standards. The convictions will be appealed, but Brown and Gaertner didn't point to any obvious issues that would allow the case to be overturned. Also, Gaertner noted that by law, appellate judges "give great deference to juries with front row seats to the facts." Orput said of the appellate court: "They're going to carefully look at the elements of the crime without a lot of drama imposed." The lawyers agreed the verdict sent a message. "Now cops know if they screw up — and it doesn't have to be death — they can go to prison," Brown said. "It's called the rule of law." https://www.startribune.com/to-veteran-attorneys-potter-verdict-comes-as-a-surprise-hints-of-change/600129974/
		+
		+	‘Oh My God, I’m Scared’: New York Man’s Request for Supervisor Quickly Turned Into Violent Traffic Stop Caught on Video, Now He’s Suing Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. things soon turn took a violent turn when he could not find the registration and the deputies asked him step out of the vehicle. Olivas said in the interview that when he responded by asking to speak to a supervisor the deputies attacked him. His suit says he was hit several times and restrained him to the point that he couldn’t breathe. “After slamming me on the hood of his vehicle, he started to Mace me near my face.” Olivas said, noting that at times he almost lost consciousness. “Oh my God, I’m scared.’ I’m just trying not to do anything to make them think I’m trying to struggle or fight,” he recalled of the incident. The man claims the incident left him with permanent brain and emotional trauma. https://news.yahoo.com/oh-god-m-scared-york-174100874.html
		+
		+	Prosecutor Going After Antifa Peddled Antisemitic George Soros Conspiracies. San Diego DA Summer Stephan, who is bringing a conspiracy case against leftist protesters, once paid for a website that accused George Soros of funding anti-fascists. San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan has brought a sweeping new conspiracy case against left-wing protesters who counter-demonstrated at a pro-Trump rally in San Diego on Jan. 9. The result was a beachside brawl, during which rallygoers on the right flashed a knife and a BB gun and protesters on the left fired pepper spray. But rather than result in simple assault charges, Stephan is pressing conspiracy charges—and only against demonstrators on the left. https://www.thedailybeast.com/san-diego-prosecutor-going-after-antifa-once-peddled-antisemitic-george-soros-conspiracies
	A 29-year-old man who was charged in connection with a heated skirmish with San Diego police officers during a protest last year was acquitted of all charges Thursday.		A 29-year-old man who was charged in connection with a heated skirmish with San Diego police officers during a protest last year was acquitted of all charges Thursday.
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	===Religion===		===Religion===
		+
		+	Archbishop Cordileone bars Nancy Pelosi from Communion until she ends abortion support. Cordileone said on May 20 that the step was “purely pastoral, not political” and came after Pelosi, D-Calif., who has described herself as a “devout Catholic,” repeatedly rebuffed his efforts to reach out to her to discuss her abortion advocacy. Cordileone said that he sent the notification to Pelosi, “a member of our archdiocese,” on May 19. The Democratic leader did not immediately respond publicly to Cordileone’s announcement after it was released to the media Friday afternoon. In a 2008 interview with C-SPAN, Pelosi said being denied Communion would be “a severe blow,” describing herself at the time as a “regular communicant.” https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251305/archbishop-cordileone-nancy-pelosi-communion-abortion
		+
		+	How a San Diego Church Became a Nexus of Anti-Vaccine, Anti-COVID Lockdown and Right-wing Political Organizing. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Awaken has been at the center of a new movement of conservative activists. Some of the church’s leaders and supporters have become regulars at public meetings and the church itself has allied with political groups looking to recruit like-minded conservatives to run for office. Jurgen Matthesius, the lead pastor of Awaken Church, and his family flew into San Diego on July 4, 2005. As they looked out of the plane’s window they saw fireworks, and Matthesius joked with his sons that the explosions were meant to welcome their arrival. “They want (the United States) to be subject to a new world order,” Matthesius said in his thick Australian accent, but the tide was turning. “God said to me, ‘Do you see what’s happening in America?’” Matthesius claimed, the urgency of his words increasing with each utterance. “Do you see the patriots? Do you see the Trump flags? Do you see the ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ flags? Do you see the school boards?” https://voiceofsandiego.org/2022/05/16/how-a-san-diego-church-became-a-nexus-of-anti-vaccine-anti-covid-lockdown-and-right-wing-political-organizing/
		+
		+	Statement of Faith. In order to preserve the function and integrity of the Answers in Genesis (AiG) ministry (and its various attractions and outreaches, both domestic and international) in its mission to proclaim the absolute truth and authority of Scripture and to provide a biblical role model to our employees and to the global body of Christ, the community, and society at large, it is imperative that all persons employed by the AiG ministry in any capacity, or who serve as volunteers, should abide by and agree to our Statement of Faith and conduct themselves accordingly. https://answersingenesis.org/about/faith/
		+
		+	“Most non-evangelicals are not aware of the culture of evangelicalism and just how influential it is on ordinary evangelicals,” said Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation,” a New York Times bestseller released in 2020. The evangelical world remains confusing to many because it is 'invisible' to them, author says. “There's a whole universe out there that really forms the faith of ordinary evangelicals. And it is largely invisible to people outside this community,” Du Mez said in an interview on “The Long Game,” a Yahoo News podcast. “These sources are really formative for shaping their understanding of what is good and true.” One of the arguments in Du Mez’s book is that evangelical Christians believe that their worldview derives from the Bible, when it has in fact been shaped more by American popular culture. “They primarily identify as Bible-believing Christians. … That’s their brand,” she said, arguing that instead, it is “cultural and political allegiances [that] actually shape the ways in which they understand what is biblical.” https://www.yahoo.com/news/the-evangelical-world-remains-confusing-to-many-because-it-is-invisible-to-them-author-says-090029486.html
		+
		+	The Impatience of Job. The Torah story is perfect for our harrowing times. But we’ve been reading it all wrong. Job then utters a few enigmatic lines of Hebrew that scholars have struggled to translate for millennia: “al kayn em’as / v’nikham’ti al afar v’eyfer.” The King James Version gives those lines as “Wherefore I abhor myself / and repent in dust and ashes.” Historically, most other versions stab at something similar—though, as we will see, modern scholarship suggests some very different alternatives. So, Greenstein says, Job’s final words to God should be read as follows: That is why I am fed up: I take pity on “dust and ashes” [humanity]! Remember, for this statement, God praises Job’s honesty. Absent the book’s likely tacked-on epilogue, the Book of Job teaches that there is no final victory, no ultimate divine deliverance. As I think about how to respond to the concurrent cataclysms threatening the nation and the globe, I at least want to be Job—not a person with divine patience, but one who cares so much for his fellow mortals that he will spit acidic truth into the face of the Lord to the very end. What’s the alternative? Giving up? Waiting for oblivion? Such an attitude is its own kind of submissive patience. It’s understandable—but when things inevitably get even darker than they are today, it will be about as useful as waiting for God to save the day. What Job has given me is not exactly hope. But it’s something. https://slate.com/human-interest/2022/03/job-torah-story-despair-alternative-war-democracy-climate-apocalypse.html
		+
		+	Eric Trump, Flynn and other right-wing figures headline conference at San Marcos church. The national ReAwaken tour combines politics, religion and showmanship, prompting protest by other local faith leaders. Eric Trump, Roger Stone, retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and other right-wing figures spoke at a conservative conference held at a San Marcos church this weekend, while other local faith leaders protested the event, calling it an anti-democratic movement that distorts Christianity.
		+	The Reawaken America conference, organized by Flynn and Thrivetime Show podcast host Clay Clark, was held at Awaken Church in San Marcos as part of a national tour. Other Awaken church locations made headlines during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when the county issued cease-and-desist notices ordering them to stop holding unmasked indoor services. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/2022-03-12/reawaken-tour-san-marcos-church
	The Unmaking of the White Christian Worldview. Recent surveys by PRRI, an organization I lead, reveal disturbing realities among white evangelical Protestants today: 61% believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. And the idea of patriotism has taken a troubling turn: 68% believe Trump is a “true patriot,” and one in three believe that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” More than seven in ten deny that the history of slavery and discrimination in the U.S. has any bearing on economic inequalities between white and Black Americans today. White evangelicals are the religious group most likely to refuse COVID-19 vaccines and object to mask mandates. One in four are QAnon conspiracy believers. https://news.yahoo.com/unmaking-white-christian-worldview-110009548.html		The Unmaking of the White Christian Worldview. Recent surveys by PRRI, an organization I lead, reveal disturbing realities among white evangelical Protestants today: 61% believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. And the idea of patriotism has taken a troubling turn: 68% believe Trump is a “true patriot,” and one in three believe that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” More than seven in ten deny that the history of slavery and discrimination in the U.S. has any bearing on economic inequalities between white and Black Americans today. White evangelicals are the religious group most likely to refuse COVID-19 vaccines and object to mask mandates. One in four are QAnon conspiracy believers. https://news.yahoo.com/unmaking-white-christian-worldview-110009548.html
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	Secular Agenda for the 117th Congress & Biden Administration. https://ffrf.org/uploads/legal/TheSecularAgendaBidenAdministration.pdf		Secular Agenda for the 117th Congress & Biden Administration. https://ffrf.org/uploads/legal/TheSecularAgendaBidenAdministration.pdf
-	===Judiciary, SCOTUS===	+	===Judiciary, SCOTUS, abortion===
		+
		+	Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told his law clerks in the '90s that he wanted to serve for 43 years to make liberals' lives 'miserable'. In a conversation with his law clerks two years following his confirmation, The New York Times reported Thomas expressed his desire to serve on the court until the year 2034. "The liberals made my life miserable for 43 years," a former clerk remembered Thomas – who was 43 years old when confirmed – saying, according to The New York Times. "And I'm going to make their lives miserable for 43 years." https://www.nytimes.com/1993/11/27/us/2-years-after-his-bruising-hearing-justice-thomas-can-rarely-be-heard.html https://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-justice-clarence-thomas-051733128.html
		+
		+	Legal claims shed light on founder of faith group tied to Amy Coney Barrett. Examination of People of Praise comes as supreme court seems poised to reverse Roe v Wade. The founder of the People of Praise, a secretive charismatic Christian group that counts the supreme court justice Amy Coney Barrett as a member, was described in a sworn affidavit filed in the 1990s as exerting almost total control over one of the group’s female members, including making all decisions about her finances and dating relationships. The court documents also described alleged instances of a sexualized atmosphere in the home of the founder, Kevin Ranaghan, and his wife, Dorothy Ranaghan. The description of the Ranaghans and accusations involving their intimate behavior were contained in a 1993 proceeding in which a woman, Cynthia Carnick, said that she did not want her five minor children to have visitations with their father, John Roger Carnick, who was then a member of the People of Praise, in the Ranaghan household or in their presence, because she believed it was not in her children’s “best interest”. Cynthia Carnick also described inappropriate incidents involving the couple and the Ranaghan children. The matter was eventually settled between the parties. Barrett, 50, lived with Dorothy and Kevin Ranaghan in their nine-bedroom South Bend, Indiana, home while she attended law school, according to public records. The justice – who was then known as Amy Coney – graduated from Notre Dame Law School in 1997 and two years later married her husband, Jesse Barrett, who also appears to have lived in the Ranaghan household. There is no indication that Amy Coney Barrett lived in the house at the time when the Carnick children were visiting or witnessed any of the alleged behavior described in the court documents. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/06/people-of-praise-accused-child-abuse-amy-coney-barrett
		+
		+	Justice Clarence Thomas on Racial Inequality and the Supreme Court
		+	“What happened at the Court is tremendously bad,” remarked Justice Clarence Thomas about the recently-leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion that would strike down Roe v. Wade. Justice Thomas elaborated, saying that the leak does damage to the rule of law and institutions in general. “You can’t have a civil society--a free society--without a stable legal system,” he added. His remarks came during an interview at the Old Parkland Conference in Dallas. He also discussed other issues including free speech at colleges and universities, the influence that his mentor Thomas Sowell had on him, his disagreement on always abiding by legal precedent, and his disapproval of protests that happen near public officials' homes. https://www.c-span.org/video/?517582-1/justice-thomas-leak-supreme-court-opinion-damages-rule-law
		+
		+	A landmark study tracks the lasting effect of having an abortion — or being denied one. For over 10 years, Dr. Foster and her team of researchers tracked the experiences of women who'd received abortions or who had been denied them because of clinic policies on gestational age limits. The research team regularly interviewed each of nearly 1,000 women for five years and found those who'd been denied abortion experienced worse economic and mental health outcomes than the cohort that received care. And 95% of study participants who received an abortion said they made the right decision. We see a couple of areas where their lives dramatically diverge in outcomes [from women who got abortions]. The first is health. Consistent with the medical literature, carrying a pregnancy to term and delivering a child is much more physically risky than having an abortion, even a later abortion. We see much more severe physical health complications from birth, including most tragically, two women who died after delivery — one died of an infection and one died of a very common pregnancy complication. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/05/15/1098347992/a-landmark-study-tracks-the-lasting-effect-of-having-an-abortion-or-being-denied
		+
		+	'I wonder how long we're going to have these institutions': Justice Thomas warns that leak of abortion draft judgment could herald the END of the Supreme Court as he suggests leak came from clerk and takes dig at recent appointees
		+	Justice Clarence Thomas told conference for black conservatives that the leak of the Roe v Wade draft opinion was 'tremendously bad'
		+	The conservative judge said that despite being at odds politically with the late Ruth Bader Ginsberg: 'She was actually an easy colleague to deal with'
		+	Thomas also told the audience that conservatives wouldn't show up to protest at justice's homes
		+	Thomas went on to say that he always felt that leaking of opinions was 'verboten'
		+	Protests are expected across the country on Saturday, including a rally in DC https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10815579/Justice-Thomas-warns-leak-abortion-draft-judgment-herald-END-Supreme-Court.html
		+
		+	Ted Cruz Said Jan. 6 Wasn’t a ‘Violent Insurrection.’ Now He Labels Peaceful Pro-Choice Protesters ‘Mob Violence’ Can someone get the senator a dictionary? He seems confused about the definition of violence. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/ted-cruz-abortion-protesters-violence-1350436/
		+
		+	Samuel Alito: the abrasive justice taking abortion rights back to the 17th century. Samuel Alito, a conservative Catholic from New Jersey, delivered an abrasively aggressive demolition of Roe v Wade that came as no surprise to those familiar with his work. The man who wrote the draft supreme court opinion overturning Roe v Wade is known for his quick temper and ‘traditional’ values. https://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/may/06/samuel-alito-profile-abortion-supreme-court-justice
		+
		+	Pence hits Harris over abortion remarks: ‘How dare you?’. Pence, at a gala for the Carolina Pregnancy Center, responded to Harris’s comments saying “62 million unborn boys and girls ended in abortion” since Roe v. Wade was decided. “Since 1973, generations of mothers enduring heartbreaking and loss that can last a lifetime. Madame Vice President, how dare you?” Pence, like multiple other conservatives, speculated the document was leaked in order to try to change the majority opinion. “The Supreme Court of the United States will not be intimidated, and we will never stop fighting for the sanctity of life,” Pence said. “More than 62 million unborn children in the United States … lives of incalculable promise were ended before they were ever begun and countless young women have experienced sorrow and regret that can last a lifetime.” https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3479518-pence-hits-harris-over-abortion-remarks-how-dare-you/
		+
		+	Following protests sparked by the leak of a draft U.S. Supreme Court decision indicating the justices are poised to overturn the constitutional right to abortion, Justice Clarence Thomas said on Friday that the court cannot be "bullied." Thomas, one of the most conservative justices on the nine-member court, made only a few passing references to the protests over the leaked draft opinion as he spoke at a judicial conference in Atlanta. As a society, "we are becoming addicted to wanting particular outcomes, not living with the outcomes we don't like," Thomas said. "We can't be an institution that can be bullied into giving you just the outcomes you want. The events from earlier this week are a symptom of that." https://www.reuters.com/world/us/after-abortion-leak-justice-thomas-warns-supreme-court-cant-be-bullied-2022-05-06/
		+
		+	@TheDailyShow These judges make lying fun. It's the Black Robe Comedy Tour! https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1521979659977588737
		+
		+	We Read Alito’s 98-Page Leaked Opinion. Here Are the Most Shocking Lines. In several passages, the justice adopts the most radical rhetoric of the anti-abortion movement. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/the-most-extreme-lines-from-justice-samuel-alitos-leaked-opinion-on-roe.html
		+
		+	Watch: In 1996, George Carlin outed the "pro-life" GOP for what they really are. George Carlin nailed it 26 years ago when talking about the GOP's so-called pro-lifers. "These people aren't pro life," he said in his 1996 HBO special, Back In Town. "They're anti-woman." "Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't wanna know about you. They don't wanna hear from you," the comedian said in a video that has resurfaced since the Supreme Court's draft opinion that overturns Roe V. Wade was leaked and obtained by Politico. "No neonatal care, no daycare, no Head Start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're pre-born, you're fine, if you're preschool, you're fucked." https://boingboing.net/2022/05/04/watch-in-1996-george-carlin-outed-the-pro-life-gop-for-what-they-really-are.html https://youtu.be/uHRaUUlD00w
		+
		+	One of the most effective rhetorical weapons that liberals have in their arsenal is the simple and clear statement of “what happens next.” Conservatives have a hard time explaining, for instance, why their abortion ban will kill women, and that’s why they’d much rather spend everyone’s time talking about how a document was leaked rather than the core of the issue. In 1987, Ronald Reagan suffered one of the biggest political defeats of his eight-year presidency. The failed nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court left such a bad taste in the mouths of the right that now, nearly 40 years after Bork’s rejection, the right still waves this failure as a bloody shirt example of the purported perniciousness of liberalism. The blocking of Bork was good for America, as it prevented a radical from obtaining one of the most important jobs in American government. One key element in “Borking,” as it came to be known, is instructive going forward on how conservative ideas and leaders can effectively be defeated. Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy. America is a better and freer nation than Robert Bork thinks. Yet in the current delicate balance of the Supreme Court, his rigid ideology will tip the scales of justice against the kind of country America is and ought to be. https://oliverwillis.substack.com/p/one-weird-trick-to-destroy-conservatives https://youtu.be/Xza0MfDXZlE?t=118
		+
		+	'She is a favorite of the radical left': Lindsey Graham will vote AGAINST Ketanji Brown Jackson's nomination to the Supreme Court because of 'judicial activism', record on child porn and her being 'evasive' during their Senate hearing showdown
		+	Graham is one of three Senate Republicans who voted to confirm Jackson to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit
		+	He said she is a person of 'exceptionally good character'
		+	But he accused her of 'judicial activism' and 'flawed sentencing'
		+	Graham voted for both Barack Obama nominees and all three of Donald Trump's
		+	Jackson is likely to be confirmed next week in the 50-50 Senate
		+	Graham quizzed Jackson on her faith during her Senate confirmation hearings
		+	He also got into tense exchanges with her over child porn and her representation of Guantanamo Bay detainees https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10673205/Lindsey-Graham-vote-AGAINST-Ketanji-Brown-Jacksons-nomination-Supreme-Court.html
		+
		+	Clarence Thomas' wife told Mark Meadows that 'the Biden crime family' and 'ballot fraud co-conspirators' would be 'living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition,' texts show. "Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators (elected officials, bureaucrats, social media censorship mongers, fake stream media reporters, etc) are being arrested & detained for ballot fraud right now & over coming days, & will be living in barges off GITMO to face military tribunals for sedition," Thomas wrote in a message on November 5, 2020, two days after the presidential election, according to the Post. Adherents of the Q-Anon conspiracy movement spread those and similar conspiracy theories throughout late 2020 and early 2021, falsely claiming online that officials including Hillary Clinton and Rep. Adam Schiff had been rounded up in mass arrests, sent to Guantánamo, and executed for treason. https://www.businessinsider.com/ginni-thomas-thought-biden-crime-family-would-be-sent-to-barges-off-gitmo-2022-3
		+
		+	U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said he’s concerned efforts to politicize the court or add additional justices may erode the institution’s credibility, speaking Friday in Utah at an event hosted by former Republican U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch’s foundation. Thomas, the most senior justice on the nine-member court, said he often worries about the long-term repercussions of trends such as “cancel culture” and a lack of civil debate. “You can cavalierly talk about packing or stacking the court. You can cavalierly talk about doing this or doing that. At some point the institution is going to be compromised,” he told an audience of about 500 people at an upscale hotel in Salt Lake City. “By doing this, you continue to chip away at the respect of the institutions that the next generation is going to need if they’re going to have civil society,” Thomas said. Rulings this year will set laws on hot-button political issues, including abortion, guns and voting rights. https://apnews.com/article/voting-rights-ketanji-brown-jackson-us-supreme-court-utah-salt-lake-city-1887c7066a9dc3293099ddb15fdfdc9f
		+
		+	Kavanaugh angry, chokes up during testimony https://youtu.be/A-QpXVV6qLk
		+
		+	Cursing senators, judicial philosophy and document demands: 5 takeaways from Jackson hearing. The Supreme Court nominee's confidence grew as GOP attacks continued on day three. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/23/ketanji-brown-jackson-hearings-takeaways-00019938
		+
		+	Sen. Lindsey Graham interrupted SCOTUS nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson so many times that Sen. Dick Durbin intervened to let her speak. https://www.businessinsider.com/watch-lindsey-graham-interrupts-scotus-nominee-top-democrat-intervenes-2022-3
		+
		+	Lindsey Graham mocked for storming off after ranting at Ketanji Brown Jackson. Senator is irate that Judge Jackson has liberal defenders. “Here's what I would say: Every group that wants to pack the court, that believes this court is a bunch of right wing nuts who are going to destroy America, that consider the Constitution trash, all wanted you pick,” he said. “And … all I can say is the fact that so many of these left wing radical groups that would destroy the law as we know it declared war on Michelle Childs and supported you is problematic for me”. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ketanji-brown-jackson-lindsey-graham-b2041465.html
		+
		+	Lindsey Graham walked out of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's confirmation hearing Tuesday after arguing with Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin over the release of Guantanamo Bay detainees following his line of questioning of the Supreme Court nominee. Durbin, who was trying to defend President Joe Biden's nominee against Graham following his 30 minutes of questioning, spoke to the recidivism rate of those released. 'If you're going to talk about what I said, I'm going to respond to what you said,' Graham shot back, turning his microphone on. 'If we close Gitmo and move them to Colorado, do you support indefinite detention under the law of war for these detainees?' Durbin said the 31 percent Graham referenced of Guantanamo Bay detainees who were released and then were reoffenders dates back to 2005. 'What does it matter when it goes back to? We had them, and they got loose and they started killing people. If you're one of the people killed in 2005, does it matter to you when we released them? 'I'm suggesting the system has failed miserably and advocates to change the system, like she was advocating, would destroy our ability to protect this country. We;re at war, we're not fighting a crime. This is not some passage of time event. 'As long as they're dangerous, I hope they all die in jail if they're going to go back and kill Americans,' Graham said, starting to raise his voice. 'It won't bother me one bit if 39 of them die in prison,' he continued. 'That's a better outcome than letting them go.' 'And if it costs $500 million to keep them in jail, keep them in jail. Because they're going to go back to the fight. Look at the fricken Afghan government that's made up of former detainees at Gitmo. This whole thing by the left about this war ain't working.' At this point, Graham turned off his microphone, grabbed his water bottle and stormed out of the room. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10639735/Bidens-SCOTUS-pick-Ketanji-Brown-Jackson-rejects-claim-shes-soft-child-pornography-cases.html
		+
		+	Marsha Blackburn Lectures First Black Woman Nominated to Supreme Court on ‘So-Called’ White Privilege. The Republican from Tennessee suggested to Ketanji Brown Jackson that it’s merely a coincidence that only 2 of America’s 114 Supreme Court justices have been Black Blackburn continued to drill down on critical race theory, the GOP’s culture-war topic du jour. “You have praised the 1619 Project, which argues the U.S. is a fundamentally racist country, and you have made clear that you believe judges must consider critical race theory when deciding how to sentence criminal defendants,” she said. “Is it your personal hidden agenda to incorporate critical race theory into our legal system?” if confirmed, Jackson would be the only active Supreme Court justice to have attended an Ivy League law school, clerked for a Supreme Court justice, served as a public defender, served on the sentencing commission, served as a U.S. District Court judge, and served as a U.S. Court of Appeals judge. She seems to be qualified. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/marsha-blackburn-lectures-ketanji-brown-jackson-white-privilege-1324815/
		+
		+	Is Ginni Thomas a Threat to the Supreme Court? Behind closed doors, Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife is working with many groups directly involved in controversial cases before the Court. The claim that the Justices’ opinions are politically neutral is becoming increasingly hard to accept, especially from Thomas, whose wife, Virginia (Ginni) Thomas, is a vocal right-wing activist. She has declared that America is in existential danger because of the “deep state” and the “fascist left,” which includes “transsexual fascists.” Thomas, a lawyer who runs a small political-lobbying firm, Liberty Consulting, has become a prominent member of various hard-line groups. Her political activism has caused controversy for years. For the most part, it has been dismissed as the harmless action of an independent spouse. But now the Court appears likely to secure victories for her allies in a number of highly polarizing cases—on abortion, affirmative action, and gun rights. Many Americans first became aware of Ginni Thomas’s activism on January 6, 2021. That morning, before the Stop the Steal rally in Washington, D.C., turned into an assault on the Capitol resulting in the deaths of at least five people, she cheered on the supporters of President Donald Trump who had gathered to overturn Biden’s election. In a Facebook post that went viral, she linked to a news item about the protest, writing, “love maga people!!!!” Shortly afterward, she posted about Ronald Reagan’s famous “A Time for Choosing” speech. Her next status update said, “god bless each of you standing up or praying.” Two days after the insurrection, she added a disclaimer to her feed, noting that she’d written the posts “before violence in US Capitol.” (The posts are no longer public.) https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/is-ginni-thomas-a-threat-to-the-supreme-court
		+
		+	Clarence Thomas, Whose Wife Fought Election Results, Warns Of Political Influence In Supreme Court. Thomas griped about politics in the Supreme Court — but his wife battled to upend the 2020 election and works with groups that have presented cases to the court. “You can cavalierly talk about packing or stacking the court,” Thomas told an audience Friday at a Salt Lake City hotel, the Guardian reported. “You can cavalierly talk about doing this or doing that. At some point the institution is going to be compromised.” “By doing this, you continue to chip away at the respect of the institutions that the next generation is going to need if they’re going to have civil society,” he added, according to the Associated Press. Thomas is one of six conservative justices on the court. His wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, has come under heavy criticism for her involvement in activities leading up to last year’s Jan. 6 insurrection. She has also been criticized for her participation in the battle to throw out results of the presidential election because Donald Trump lost — a fight foes have labeled unconstitutional and one that could have ended up in her husband’s court. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/clarence-ginni-thomas-political-compromise-supreme-court_n_622d1c79e4b0e01d97ac0cf9
		+
		+	Justice Thomas slams cancel culture for not allowing people to make mistakes when they're young and calls out efforts to stack the Supreme Court because it will 'compromise' the institution
		+	Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, 73, condemned the idea of 'packing or stacking' the Court at Senator Orrin Hatch's foundation event on Friday
		+	'You continue to chip away at the respect of the institutions that the next generation is going to need if they're going to have civil society,' he said
		+	He also insinuated that Democrats were unhappy with the conservative Court and wanted to 'pack or stack' to get their way
		+	Democrats believe in and support the Constitution and the Rule of Law and we don't.
		+	'Let’s be honest. This is really about the results they want. They haven’t been able to make the institutions do what they want, to give them what they want,' he said
		+	He also blasted the media and cancel culture and said people needed to 'learn to engage like we did when I grew up'
		+	He briefly discussed his wife Ginni, who has faced scrutiny recently for her political involvement, but the Justice simply said she was a 'good person'
		+	He also did not discuss the upcoming Supreme Court cases, such as the case that could potentially overturn Roe v. Wade or gun rights at the event https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10605259/Justice-Thomas-slams-cancel-culture-packing-Supreme-Court.html
		+
		+	An ex-Trump aide said a White House gathering with Justice Clarence Thomas' wife, Ginni Thomas, was 'the craziest meeting I've ever been to'. Leonard Leo, the former executive vice president of the conservative Federalist Society, told the magazine that Trump sought to cultivate a relationship with Justice Thomas once he realized the immense popularity of the jurist among the Republican base, creating an opening for Ginni Thomas with the then-president. The magazine also detailed newly-reported ties between Ginni Thomas and organizers of a January 6, 2021 rally in support of Trump, along with efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, in which Joe Biden oust the former president in a decisive 306-232 Electoral College victory. In January 2019, Ginni Thomas met with Trump at the White House alongside select members of her conservative group, Groundswell, where a Trump aide described the nature of the conversation in unflattering terms. "It was the craziest meeting I've ever been to," he told the magazine. "She started by leading the prayer." https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-clarence-thomas-wife-ginni-craziest-meeting-white-house-aides-2022-2
	Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett has a "position on, you know, Jews, right?". She asked, "Is there any kind of — I mean, how would you even know if a — if a school taught all religions are bigoted and biased or, you know, Catholics are bigoted or, you know — or we take a position on the Jewish-Palestinian conflict because of our position on, you know, Jews, right?" https://boingboing.net/2021/12/10/supreme-court-justice-amy-coney-barrett-has-a-position-on-jews.html		Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett has a "position on, you know, Jews, right?". She asked, "Is there any kind of — I mean, how would you even know if a — if a school taught all religions are bigoted and biased or, you know, Catholics are bigoted or, you know — or we take a position on the Jewish-Palestinian conflict because of our position on, you know, Jews, right?" https://boingboing.net/2021/12/10/supreme-court-justice-amy-coney-barrett-has-a-position-on-jews.html
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	===IRS===		===IRS===
		+
		+	Proof the IRS targets the poor for tax audits while leaving millionaires alone. The figures show that the lowest-income wage earners, defined as those eligible for the federal Earned Income Tax Credit, were audited at a rate of 13 per 1,000 returns in 2021. For everyone else, the rate was 2.6 per 1,000 returns. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-03-14/who-does-the-irs-audit
	The IRS Is Targeting the Poorest Americans. The agency doesn’t track the race of those it audits, but predominantly Black counties have higher audit rates than predominantly white ones. By Dorothy A. Brown https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/how-race-plays-tax-policing/619570/		The IRS Is Targeting the Poorest Americans. The agency doesn’t track the race of those it audits, but predominantly Black counties have higher audit rates than predominantly white ones. By Dorothy A. Brown https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/how-race-plays-tax-policing/619570/
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	===DOJ, FBI===		===DOJ, FBI===
		+
		+	The Humiliation of John Durham. Hired by Bill Barr to investigate the Trump investigators, the prosecutor had little to show for his work even before his defeat in court yesterday. https://www.thebulwark.com/the-humiliation-of-trump-backed-prosecutor-john-durham/
		+
		+	Hillary Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann found NOT GUILTY for lying to the FBI in the Trump-Russia probe in John Durham's first prosecution
		+	The lawyer was accused of misrepresenting himself to the FBI in a meeting with a federal agent, not disclosing that he was working with Hillary Clinton
		+	He was employed by her campaign when presenting purported links between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank to a federal agent in 2016
		+	It's the only case in Durham's three-year probe to have gone to trial so far https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10871985/Hillary-Clinton-lawyer-Michael-Sussmann-NOT-GUILTY-lying-FBI-John-Durham-probe.html
		+
		+	Former Attorney General William Barr says people have the wrong idea of his service under former President Trump. WILLIAM BARR: The media chose to weave a narrative that I was a toady to the president, and that was false from the beginning because I felt I could be independent, and I was. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1084510375
		+
		+	'I would imagine that if the book is anything like him, it will be long, slow, and very boring': Trump's full three-page letter to NBC's Lester Holt tearing into Bill Barr and saying he fired him because he had 'no backbone'
		+	Former Attorney General Bill Barr has appeared on NBC News multiple times over the last week to promote his new White House memoir
		+	In both the interviews and book excerpts, Barr shreds Trump's election fraud claims and said the ex-president is 'morally responsible' for the Capitol riot
		+	It appears NBC News reached out to Trump for comment, to which he sent back a three-page letter with detailed answers to several questions
		+	Trump claims his Democrat rivals 'broke' Barr like 'a trainer breaks his horse'
		+	He said Barr was now 'groveling to the media, hoping to gain acceptance'
		+	Barr dismissed the letter as 'childish' in a Monday morning interview https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10585869/Trump-sends-letter-NBCs-Lester-Holt-tearing-Bill-Barr-saying-no-backbone.html
	House investigators have interviewed a former Justice Department official who drafted -- but never sent -- a resignation letter over what he said were former President Donald Trump's "direct instructions" to use the department to support his false election fraud claims. Patrick Hovakimian, chief of staff to then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, wrote the resignation letter January 3 in anticipation that Rosen would be fired at an extraordinary meeting that day with the former President at the White House, according to people briefed on the matter. It's among a trove of Justice Department documents turned over to House and Senate committees investigating events that led up to the January 6 US Capitol attack by Trump supporters who believed Trump's false fraud claims. https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/04/politics/justice-resignation-threats-trump-election/index.html		House investigators have interviewed a former Justice Department official who drafted -- but never sent -- a resignation letter over what he said were former President Donald Trump's "direct instructions" to use the department to support his false election fraud claims. Patrick Hovakimian, chief of staff to then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, wrote the resignation letter January 3 in anticipation that Rosen would be fired at an extraordinary meeting that day with the former President at the White House, according to people briefed on the matter. It's among a trove of Justice Department documents turned over to House and Senate committees investigating events that led up to the January 6 US Capitol attack by Trump supporters who believed Trump's false fraud claims. https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/04/politics/justice-resignation-threats-trump-election/index.html
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	===CBP, Immigration, Border, Wall===		===CBP, Immigration, Border, Wall===
		+
		+	CBP Officer Who Asked Mexico to Deny Entry to Some US Citizens Speaks Under Oath. An Inspector General’s report found the request to deny entry was without “genuine basis”. Depositions taken in the lawsuit filed by Pastor Kaji Douša are allowing us, for the first time, to hear directly from a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officer directly involved in those controversial tactics. CBP Officer Saro Oliveri testified he is the one who sent an email to the Mexican government in December 2018, asking them to deny entry to 24 people, including Pastor Douša and 13 other Americans. He called the request “unusual.” “We were requesting for them to deny entry so that once they turned around we would be able to interview them,” Oliveri said during his deposition. https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/investigations/cbp-officer-who-asked-mexico-to-deny-entry-to-some-us-citizens-speaks-under-oath/2835644/
	On the evening of Sept. 10, a soldier deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border slid a manifesto under each door in his brigade headquarters and then slipped away. The frustrated Army National Guardsman assigned to the 110th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade headquarters had seen enough. Three soldiers had died in three months, the most recent in an alleged DUI just five days earlier, and more than a dozen troops from the mission had been arrested or confined for drugs, sexual assault and manslaughter. “Someone please wave the white flag and send us all home,” the letter pleaded. “I would like to jump off a bridge headfirst into a pile of rocks after seeing the good ol’ boy system and fucked up leadership I have witnessed here.” https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2021/12/08/death-drugs-and-a-disbanded-unit-how-the-guards-mexico-border-mission-fell-apart/		On the evening of Sept. 10, a soldier deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border slid a manifesto under each door in his brigade headquarters and then slipped away. The frustrated Army National Guardsman assigned to the 110th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade headquarters had seen enough. Three soldiers had died in three months, the most recent in an alleged DUI just five days earlier, and more than a dozen troops from the mission had been arrested or confined for drugs, sexual assault and manslaughter. “Someone please wave the white flag and send us all home,” the letter pleaded. “I would like to jump off a bridge headfirst into a pile of rocks after seeing the good ol’ boy system and fucked up leadership I have witnessed here.” https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2021/12/08/death-drugs-and-a-disbanded-unit-how-the-guards-mexico-border-mission-fell-apart/
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	===DHS===		===DHS===
		+
		+	All but one GOP House member voted against Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act. The House voted 222-203 to pass the bill, sponsored by Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), which would create new offices within the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, and Federal Bureau of Investigation to "monitor, analyze, investigate, and prosecute domestic terrorism." "This bill glaringly ignores the persistent domestic terrorism threat from the radical left in this country and instead makes the assumption that it is all on the white and the right," Rep. Darrell Issa of California said on the House floor. A study conducted by the Anti-Defamation League shows, however, that right-wing extremists have committed the majority of extremism-related killings over the past decade in all years but one, 2016, the year of the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, by an adherent of Islamic extremism. Right-wing extremists committed 75% of the 443 killings from 2021 through 2021 documented by the ADL, and 55% were specifically tied to white supremacists. https://americanindependent.com/house-domestic-terrorism-prevention-act-buffalo-shooting/
		+
		+	Internal investigation of domestic violent extremism reveals four sympathizers inside DHS. March 11, 2022 "I was troubled by the findings, because the findings disclosed significant gaps in this department's ability to detect and respond to domestic violent extremism," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told CBS News in an exclusive interview Friday. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/domestic-violent-extremism-inside-department-of-homeland-security/
	*Chad Wolf acting DHS secretary		*Chad Wolf acting DHS secretary
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	A former acting chief of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence office has told Congress that DHS leaders pressed him to overstate illegal border crossings from Mexico and overplay the role of far left groups in violence during anti-government protests last summer, his lawyer said. In testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, former intelligence chief Brian Murphy accused department leadership of urging him to “blame Far Left groups in an exaggerated fashion” for violence during summer protests in Portland, Oregon, according to lawyer Mark Zaid. In closed-door committee hearings last Friday and Monday, Murphy acknowledged that Far Left protesters were responsible for some of the violence, Zaid said. In a Sept. 8 whistleblower complaint, Murphy accused President Donald Trump’s acting DHS chief, Chad Wolf, of having told him to hold back on circulating assessments of the threat of Russian interference in the approaching Nov. 3 election in part because it “made the President look bad.” Wolf also asked Murphy to play down U.S. white supremacist activity, the complaint said. https://www.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN28R33L		A former acting chief of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence office has told Congress that DHS leaders pressed him to overstate illegal border crossings from Mexico and overplay the role of far left groups in violence during anti-government protests last summer, his lawyer said. In testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, former intelligence chief Brian Murphy accused department leadership of urging him to “blame Far Left groups in an exaggerated fashion” for violence during summer protests in Portland, Oregon, according to lawyer Mark Zaid. In closed-door committee hearings last Friday and Monday, Murphy acknowledged that Far Left protesters were responsible for some of the violence, Zaid said. In a Sept. 8 whistleblower complaint, Murphy accused President Donald Trump’s acting DHS chief, Chad Wolf, of having told him to hold back on circulating assessments of the threat of Russian interference in the approaching Nov. 3 election in part because it “made the President look bad.” Wolf also asked Murphy to play down U.S. white supremacist activity, the complaint said. https://www.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN28R33L
-	===US Military, Afghanistan, VA===	+	===DOD, NSA, US Military, Afghanistan, VA===
		+
		+	Many’ Spy Agency Staffers Think Capitol Riot Was ‘Justified,’ Ex-NSA Veteran Says. “Hate speech was running rampant on our applications,” wrote Gilmore, whose identity and credentials have been vouched for by another Pentagon contractor. “I’m not being hyperbolic. Racist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamaphobic [sic], and misogynistic speech was being posted in many of our applications.” Even more startling, Gilmore alleges, “there were many employees at CIA, DIA, NSA, and other IC agencies that openly stated that the January 6th terrorist attack on our Capitol was justified.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/many-spy-agency-staffers-think-jan-6-capitol-riot-was-justified-ex-nsa-veteran-says
		+
		+	Marines investigate reservist for alleged link to White supremacist group. Cpl. Victor Krvaric, son of former county GOP chairman Tony Krvaric, was identified by activists after a leak of a hate-group membership interview. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/military/story/2022-02-04/marine-reservist-neo-nazi-group
		+
		+	@TheActivatedPod ICYMI: Yesterday we identified a Patriot Front prospect as San Diego local Victor Krvaric. Victor is corporal in the Marine Corps Reserve, and he also works as a contracted security guard for the Department of Homeland Security. https://twitter.com/TheActivatedPod/status/1488882551393374211 ?s=20&t=xVNoh8z0wVNaCr8BYErxiQ
		+
		+	One year after a few dozen military veterans took part in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon has responded by tightening regulations to combat extremism in the ranks. But the war has only just begun, according to Defense Department officials, lawmakers and experts on extremist movements. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/04/pentagon-extremism-ranks-jan-6-526441
		+
		+	The Plot Against American Democracy That Isn’t Taught in Schools. In an excerpt from Gangsters of Capitalism, Jonathan M. Katz details how the authors of the Depression-era “Business Plot” aimed to take power away from FDR and stop his “socialist” New Deal. As I looked through history to find the origins of the patterns of self-dealing and imperiousness that mark so much of American policy, I kept running into the Quaker Marine with the funny name. Smedley Butler’s military career started in the place where the United States’ overseas empire truly began, and the place that continues to symbolize the most egregious abuses of American power: Guantánamo Bay. His last overseas deployment, in China from 1927 to 1929, gave him a front-row seat to both the start of the civil war between the Communists and the Nationalists and the slowly materializing Japanese invasion that would ultimately open World War II. A few weeks after the siege, I talked to Butler’s 85-year-old granddaughter, Philippa Wehle. I asked her over Skype what her grandfather would have thought of the events of Jan. 6. Her hazel eyes narrowed as she pondered: “I think he would have been in there. He would have been in the fray somehow.” “Do you think he would have been with the people storming the Capitol?” I asked Philippa, tentatively. This time she answered immediately. “No! Heavens no. He would have been trying to do something about it.” He might have been killed, she added, given that the police were so unprepared. “Which is so disturbing, because of course they should have known. They would have known. They only had to read the papers.” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/coup-jan6-fdr-new-deal-business-plot-1276709/
		+
		+	Decades of DOD efforts fail to stamp out bias, extremism. https://apnews.com/article/business-donald-trump-lloyd-austin-veterans-arrests-aa564fe473dd4c347189bb39ad8a9201
	3 Trump associates, including a Marvel exec, tried to get the Department of Veterans Affairs to sell vets' medical records for profit, docs say. The team, which was based at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, included Ike Perlmutter, a major Trump donor, Mar-a-Lago member, and a Marvel executive; Marc Sherman, a Washington, DC, lawyer; and Dr. Bruce Moskowitz, a West Palm Beach, Florida, physician, according to ProPublica. The trio started advising the VA on budgeting and contracting issues, ProPublica reported, but they soon began to advance the idea of selling veterans' medical data. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-associates-wanted-sell-veterans-medical-records-profit-report-2021-9		3 Trump associates, including a Marvel exec, tried to get the Department of Veterans Affairs to sell vets' medical records for profit, docs say. The team, which was based at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, included Ike Perlmutter, a major Trump donor, Mar-a-Lago member, and a Marvel executive; Marc Sherman, a Washington, DC, lawyer; and Dr. Bruce Moskowitz, a West Palm Beach, Florida, physician, according to ProPublica. The trio started advising the VA on budgeting and contracting issues, ProPublica reported, but they soon began to advance the idea of selling veterans' medical data. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-associates-wanted-sell-veterans-medical-records-profit-report-2021-9
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	Trump team removes members of Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, including Kissinger, Albright. The purge was done quietly earlier this week, on the eve of Thanksgiving. Foreign Policy, which first reported the removals, said 11 high-profile advisers were ousted from the board, including Kissinger and Albright, as well as former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. The purge was done quietly earlier this week, on the eve of Thanksgiving. Also removed include former Treasury undersecretary David McCormick, who served during the George W. Bush administration, and Rudy De Leon, a former chief operating officer at the Pentagon. Foreign Policy reported that members of the Trump administration had tried to remake the board with figures more sympathetic to the president and outside of the D.C. establishment -- including former Air Force fighter pilot Scott O’Grady and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. However, the outlet reports that that move received pushback from then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper and acting Undersecretary James Anderson. Esper was fired earlier this month and replaced with Christopher Miller, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Anderson resigned a day later https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-pentagon-defense-policy-board		Trump team removes members of Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, including Kissinger, Albright. The purge was done quietly earlier this week, on the eve of Thanksgiving. Foreign Policy, which first reported the removals, said 11 high-profile advisers were ousted from the board, including Kissinger and Albright, as well as former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. The purge was done quietly earlier this week, on the eve of Thanksgiving. Also removed include former Treasury undersecretary David McCormick, who served during the George W. Bush administration, and Rudy De Leon, a former chief operating officer at the Pentagon. Foreign Policy reported that members of the Trump administration had tried to remake the board with figures more sympathetic to the president and outside of the D.C. establishment -- including former Air Force fighter pilot Scott O’Grady and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. However, the outlet reports that that move received pushback from then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper and acting Undersecretary James Anderson. Esper was fired earlier this month and replaced with Christopher Miller, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Anderson resigned a day later https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-pentagon-defense-policy-board
		+
		+	===Ukraine/Russia===
		+
		+	Lukashenko admits that Belarus will fight for west of Ukraine. "They (the West) have not yet abandoned the goal of aligning the front so that it passes from Smolensk-Pskov, Smolensk-Bryansk-Kursk and from there to Rostov. They need to align the front. And we are this thousand-kilometre balcony, so it must be cut off", assumes Lukashenko. Lukashenko added that "they (the West) will not stop there." "They will come from Western Ukraine or somewhere else. Maybe we will have to fight for Western Ukraine so that it is not chopped off. Because this is death for us, not only for Ukrainians. Terrible processes are under way," the self-proclaimed president added. https://news.yahoo.com/lukashenko-admits-belarus-fight-west-185151329.html https://goo.gl/maps/XRY5piGm93S9XGGd9
		+
		+	Henry Kissinger: Ukraine must give Russia territory. https://news.yahoo.com/henry-kissinger-warns-against-defeat-174812366.html
		+
		+	Ukraine funding bill: These 11 Republican senators split from party leadership, opposed $40 billion in aid. Ukraine military funding headed to Biden's desk, after weeklong delay due to some GOP opposition. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., led the opposition to the bill, demanding an inspector general be appointed to oversee the spending. The U.S. total financial commitment to the Russian war on Ukraine will now total nearly $54 billion. Paul was joined voting against the bill Thursday by Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., John Boozman, R-Ark., Mike Braun, R-Ind., Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Mike Lee, R-Utah, Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., Roger Marshall, R-Kan., and Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala. All of those Republicans voted "no" in previous procedural votes to advance the bill. No Democrats voted against the legislation. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/senate-passes-ukraine-funding-40-billion-11-republicans-vote-against
		+
		+	@sahilkapur
		+	Former President George W. Bush: “The decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean of Ukraine.” https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1527092111195226114
		+
		+	Senate advances $40 billion Ukraine aid package 05/16/22 7:16 PM ET The Senate on Monday overwhelmingly advanced a $40 billion Ukraine aid package that easily passed the House last week but had stalled in the upper chamber because of an objection from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). Senators voted 81 to 11 to end debate on a motion to proceed to the legislation, setting up a final vote on the bill for later in the week. https://thehill.com/news/senate/3490453-senate-set-to-advance-40-billion-ukraine-aid-package/
		+
		+	About a Boy: The Roots of Putin’s Evil. Putin’s childhood taught him many lessons that shape his thinking and actions to this day: that might makes right, that existing hierarchies can only be changed through violence, that force is the only language that matters, that power is always a zero-sum game. https://puck.news/about-a-boy-the-roots-of-putins-evil/
		+
		+	John McCain Warning on Rand Paul and Putin Resurfaces After Ukraine Vote. In the clip, McCain was discussing NATO membership for the Balkan nation of Montenegro. Paul had blocked a vote to ratify a treaty that would have allowed Montenegro to join the U.S.-led military alliance by refusing to agree to unanimous consent. The Senate went on to ratify the treaty by a vote of 98 to 2, with Paul and Republican Senator Mike Lee voting against it. McCain passed away in 2018. https://www.newsweek.com/john-mccain-warning-rand-paul-vladimir-putin-ukraine-vote-1706301
		+
		+	Rand Paul objection delays $40 billion Ukraine aid package. “Ukraine is not asking us to fight this war. They’re only asking for the resources they need to defend themselves against this deranged invasion, and they need help right now,” McConnell said. Paul, however, warned about the pace of spending, arguing that “we cannot save Ukraine by dooming the U.S. economy.” “Americans are feeling the pain [from inflation] and Congress seems intent only on adding to that pain by shoveling more money out the door as fast as they can,” Paul said. https://thehill.com/news/senate/3486654-rand-paul-objection-delays-40-billion-ukraine-aid-package/amp/
		+
		+	Love letter, ID card point to Russian units that terrorised Bucha https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/ukraine-crisis-bucha-killings-soldiers/
		+
		+	Russia’s Chernobyl seizure seen as nuclear risk ‘nightmare’ https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-health-europe-accidents-edcd5bc0e6bde3cbf6d7300bebc9343f
		+
		+	Russian military’s damaged Black Sea flagship sinks. Ukrainian officials said their forces hit the vessel with missiles, while Russia acknowledged a fire aboard the Moskva but no attack. U.S. and other Western officials could not confirm what caused the blaze. The Russian Defense Ministry said the ship sank in a storm while being towed to a port. Russia earlier said the flames on the ship, which would typically have 500 sailors on board, forced the entire crew to evacuate. It later said the blaze had been contained and that the ship would be towed to port with its missile launchers intact. https://news.yahoo.com/russian-military-damaged-black-sea-205304070.html
		+
		+	Supervisor Anderson Requests Federal Funds to Help Settle Ukrainian, Afghan Refugees. “As the number of people fleeing Ukraine continues to increase, coupled with your recent decision to admit 100,000 refugees into the U.S., the citizens of San Diego are once again willing to welcome the displaced with open arms,” Anderson wrote to the president. “However, to do so successfully will require additional funding from the administration to support this population.” A statement from his office said this influx of people “will likely burden the already overwhelmed resettlement agencies and community organizations working to welcome both immigrants and refugees into our nation.” https://timesofsandiego.com/politics/2022/03/28/supervisor-anderson-requests-federal-funds-to-help-settle-ukrainian-afghan-refugees/
		+
		+	Americans may be greatly underestimating the impact of 10 years of Putin’s propaganda. Few Americans have parsed Russian propaganda on its various platforms like Maxim Pozdorovkin. Far from just an attempt to negate discontent over its Ukraine invasion, Russia’s current state-media approach is, in Pozdorovkin’s view, a continuation of a decade-long campaign to warp Russian citizens’ view of the West. He argues the country’s population has been long primed for this moment -- seriously lowering the odds for any tech company or foreign outlet hoping to poke through the veil. https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2022-03-22/americans-impact-putin-propaganda-5439355.html
		+
		+	Putin's invasion grinds to a halt: Kyiv claims to have destroyed dozens of Russian helicopters overnight, retaken a city, and killed 11,000 troops while Russians have captured no significant territory sparking hopes Ukraine could win the war
		+	Ukraine claims to have destroyed dozens of Russian helicopters at an airfield near Kherson overnight
		+	Military also said it had recaptured Chuhuiv, near Kharkiv, and killed two commanders in the process
		+	Meanwhile units in Odessa claimed to have hit and destroyed a Russian patrol ship off the coast
		+	Experts say Russian losses becoming 'unsustainable' with no significant territory captured in recent days https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10585145/Ukraine-war-Zelensky-declares-god-not-forgive-Russians-target-civilians.html
	===International Terrorism===		===International Terrorism===
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	Osama bin Laden, the founder and first leader of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1:00 a.m.		Osama bin Laden, the founder and first leader of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1:00 a.m.
-	===Foreign Policy===	+	===SOS, Foreign Policy, Ukraine===
		+
		+	Marie Yovanovitch says it will take a 'concentrated effort over a number of years' to undo the 'damage' that Mike Pompeo did to the State Department. The former ambassador said Pompeo "presided over the hollowing out of a great institution." She wondered in her memoir whether the department would "survive the betrayals of the Pompeo years." https://www.businessinsider.com/yovanovitch-will-take-years-to-undo-pompeo-state-department-damage-2022-3
		+
		+	Nevada police allege woman stabbed date in revenge for 2020 killing of Iranian general. The woman told police she attacked the man in retaliation for the US drone strike that killed senior Revolutionary Guards leader Qassem Suleimani. Nika Nikoubin, 21, has been charged with attempted murder, battery with a deadly weapon and burglary, KLAS-TV reported. Nikoubin and the man met online on a dating website, Henderson police alleged in an arrest report. The pair then agreed to meet at Sunset Station hotel on 5 March, renting a room together. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/13/nevada-police-allege-woman-stabbed-date-in-revenge-for-2020-killing-of-iranian-general
		+
		+	While in the room, the pair began having sex when Nikoubin put a blindfold on the man, according to the police report. Nikoubin then turned off the lights, and several minutes later, the man “felt a pain on the side of his neck”, KLAS reported.
		+
		+	US pays $2M a month to protect Pompeo, aide from Iran threat. Current U.S. officials say the threats have been discusses in the nuclear talks in Vienna, where Iran is demanding the removal of all Trump-era sanctions. Those sanctions include a “foreign terrorist organization” designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that Pompeo and Hook were instrumental in approving. https://apnews.com/article/biden-mike-pompeo-iran-middle-east-795eb3faae6dc4803faafa3ee6615f4a
		+
		+	Ukraine crisis: Vladimir Putin address fact-checked https://www.bbc.com/news/60477712
	Biden and Putin hold high-stakes two-hour call over Ukraine. https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/07/politics/biden-putin-call-ukraine/index.html		Biden and Putin hold high-stakes two-hour call over Ukraine. https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/07/politics/biden-putin-call-ukraine/index.html
Line 1480:		Line 2341:
	===Trump Russia collusion===		===Trump Russia collusion===
		+
		+	Trump Lauds Putin’s ‘Genius’ Invasion of Ukraine: He’s ‘Very Savvy’. Trump just can’t stop praising the Russian authoritarian leader—this time expressing admiration for how he labeled his invasion a “peacekeeping” mission. The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-lauds-putins-genius-invasion-of-ukraine-says-hes-very-savvy
	FBI warned Giuliani, key Trump ally in Senate of Russian disinformation campaign targeting Biden. The FBI warned Rudolph W. Giuliani in late 2019 that he was the target of a Russian influence operation aimed at circulating falsehoods intended to damage President Biden politically ahead of last year’s election, according to people familiar with the matter. The warning was part of an extensive effort by the bureau to alert members of Congress and at least one conservative media outlet, One America News, that they faced a risk of being used to further Russia’s attempt to influence the election’s outcome, said several current and former U.S. officials. All spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter remains highly sensitive. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/rudy-giuliani-fbi-warning-russia/2021/04/29/5db90f96-a84e-11eb-bca5-048b2759a489_story.html		FBI warned Giuliani, key Trump ally in Senate of Russian disinformation campaign targeting Biden. The FBI warned Rudolph W. Giuliani in late 2019 that he was the target of a Russian influence operation aimed at circulating falsehoods intended to damage President Biden politically ahead of last year’s election, according to people familiar with the matter. The warning was part of an extensive effort by the bureau to alert members of Congress and at least one conservative media outlet, One America News, that they faced a risk of being used to further Russia’s attempt to influence the election’s outcome, said several current and former U.S. officials. All spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter remains highly sensitive. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/rudy-giuliani-fbi-warning-russia/2021/04/29/5db90f96-a84e-11eb-bca5-048b2759a489_story.html
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	Veselnitskaya’s Trump Tower Coverup Linked to Secret Russian Chemical Weapons Program. Documents obtained by The Daily Beast link the $230 million fraud discussed at the Trump Tower meeting in 2016 to Russia’s black-market weapons of mass destruction program. A company newly sanctioned by the U.S. over Alexei Navalny’s poisoning attack is tied to the money-laundering network that Natalia Veselnitskaya tried to cover up at the infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting, according to financial records obtained by The Daily Beast. One of the entities singled out by the U.S. government as a cog in Russia’s weapons of mass destruction program was Riol-Chemie. Investigative files compiled by the authorities in Lithuania—and reviewed by The Daily Beast—show that Riol-Chemie received hundreds of thousands of dollars from a British Virgin Islands-registered company accused of laundering some of the stolen money that was uncovered by Magnitsky. According to sources close to a separate investigation by French authorities, financial records show that two New Zealand-registered companies, which also received funds from the $230 million fraud, wired over $1 million to Riol-Chemie. https://www.thedailybeast.com/veselnitskya-trump-tower-coverup-linked-to-secret-russian-weapons-program		Veselnitskaya’s Trump Tower Coverup Linked to Secret Russian Chemical Weapons Program. Documents obtained by The Daily Beast link the $230 million fraud discussed at the Trump Tower meeting in 2016 to Russia’s black-market weapons of mass destruction program. A company newly sanctioned by the U.S. over Alexei Navalny’s poisoning attack is tied to the money-laundering network that Natalia Veselnitskaya tried to cover up at the infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting, according to financial records obtained by The Daily Beast. One of the entities singled out by the U.S. government as a cog in Russia’s weapons of mass destruction program was Riol-Chemie. Investigative files compiled by the authorities in Lithuania—and reviewed by The Daily Beast—show that Riol-Chemie received hundreds of thousands of dollars from a British Virgin Islands-registered company accused of laundering some of the stolen money that was uncovered by Magnitsky. According to sources close to a separate investigation by French authorities, financial records show that two New Zealand-registered companies, which also received funds from the $230 million fraud, wired over $1 million to Riol-Chemie. https://www.thedailybeast.com/veselnitskya-trump-tower-coverup-linked-to-secret-russian-weapons-program
-	===★ Trump Crime Family, Rape, Racism, Election Lies===	+	===★ Trump Crime Family, Rape, Racism, Election Lies, Grifters gotta Grift===
		+
		+	Essay: Macho Man Mona Eltahawy Oct 20, 2020 https://www.feministgiant.com/p/essay-macho-man
		+
		+	A variety of Trump watchers have tracked Donald Trump’s business failures, lawsuits and assorted controversies. Now, Trump's social media venture has released a rap sheet cataloguing the many stains on his long business career. This remarkable disclosure occurs on page 107 https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1849635/000119312522150801/d226205ds4.htm#rom226205_14 of the registration statement Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 16, providing key details of its planned merger with Trump’s new company, Trump Media & Technology Group. DWAC is a so-called blank check company set up last year that in October announced a deal to merge with Trump’s company, including the Truth Social messaging app. DWAC’s shares soared from $10 to $94 on the news. The shares now trade around $45. The registration statement provides details relevant to shareholders, including risks they might want to know about. That’s where the fun begins. Many of the risks posted in 66 pages of disclosures are boilerplate startup concerns, such as tough competition or possible financing difficulty. Then comes a section you won’t see in any other business filing: “Risks Related to our Chairman President Donald J. Trump.” This section includes five basic parts: A list of lawsuits Trump is involved in; a fraud charge the government levied against a Trump company 23 years ago; a list of Trump companies that have filed for bankruptcy; another set of Trump ventures that failed without declaring bankruptcy; and the rules governing Trump’s role in the company. Most of the information isn’t new, but this tidy compilation amounts to overt acknowledgement that Trump isn’t the business genius he makes himself out to be. https://news.yahoo.com/theres-an-amazing-new-rap-sheet-on-trump-164349974.html
		+
		+	===Trump Crime Family, Rape, Racism, Election Lies, archived May 18, 2022===
		+
		+	These qualities make a great leader — and president
		+	Surrounds themselves with competence not sycophants
		+	* Isn’t a serial liar
		+	* Doesn’t bully, coerce, threaten or intimidate
		+	* Doesn’t stoke peoples’ fear, bias or prejudice or identify scapegoats
		+	* Doesn’t seek to profit from their position
		+	* Doesn’t use the power of their position to pursue vendetta or grievance https://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/story/opinion/columns/2022/05/13/guest-opinion-these-traits-are-at-the-heart-of-a-good-leader/65355179007/
		+
		+	My extreme frustration with Joe Biden and his administration motivated me to find sources on leadership. The following content is exclusively from the Champlain College Online. I will add a comment or two but this non-political list from the Champlain College is very instructive. Think of Donald Trump versus Biden when you review the list and try to be objective.
		+	# VISION — See the big picture...and what it takes to get there. Advantage Trump. Easy one.
		+	# INSPIRATION — Convey that vision to others, and get them excited about it. Advantage Trump. Easy one.
		+	# STRATEGIC AND CRITICAL THINKING — Understand your strengths, weaknesses and course correct. Trump was a businessman and learned this lesson early in life. Biden was a 35-year, secure member of the U.S. Senate. Advantage Trump. Easy one.
		+	# INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION — Interact in a way that feels genuine. Trump was not perfect in the traditional “presidential” mode, but he was as genuine as you could be with his fearless personal style and love of America. Biden comes across as a tired, insincere and occasionally angry person. Advantage Trump.
		+	# AUTHENTICITY & SELF-AWARENESS — Be self-aware of your flaws and don’t try to fit a mold set by others. Try to not make an emotional decision because of tweets. Advantage Trump. Easy one.
		+	# OPEN MINDEDNESS & CREATIVITY — Be open to new ideas, possibilities and perspectives. Be able to listen, observe and change. Trump the human dynamo versus Biden? Advantage Trump. Easy one.
		+	# FLEXIBILITY — Be adaptable and nimble and stop, reassess and determine a new course. Trump renegotiated bad deals with other countries while Biden seems to be wandering aimlessly. Advantage Trump.
		+	# RESPONSIBILITY & DEPENDABILITY—This applies to your individual work. Trump was a workaholic who called Biden "Sleepy Joe." Advantage Trump. Easy one.
		+	# PATIENCE & TENACITY — Take the long view whether strategic, situational or a goal. Trump, as mentioned earlier was a force of nature and a powerful leader. Biden is not a leader. He seems afraid of the press and is using prepared answers in his notes. Advantage Trump. Easy one.
		+	# CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT — Perfection is a myth. Trump was not perfect by tweeting excessively, but he felt he had no choice when single-handedly battling the media. Biden's reluctance to fire people reveals a tolerance for incompetence. Advantage Trump. Easy one.
		+	:So, there you have it. The list is from a great source, and you can agree or disagree with my commentary, but I feel I am on solid ground in criticizing our unfortunate predicament of being led by a man who has very little to offer in the way of leadership qualities. https://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/story/opinion/columns/2022/05/02/guest-opinion-as-a-leader-trump-outclasses-biden/65353098007/ read the original list: https://online.champlain.edu/blog/top-qualities-of-a-great-leader
		+
		+	Mike Zuroick lives in Langhorne.
		+
		+	'I've got much more important things to do than being on the cover of Vogue': Melania attacks 'biased' Anna Wintour for putting Jill Biden on cover but failing to do same for her when she was First Lady
		+	Melania Trump has spoken out against Vogue editor-in-Chief, Anna Wintour
		+	Former first lady never graced the cover of the magazine while at White House
		+	Jill Biden and Kamala Harris were both been on the front cover during 2021
		+	Michelle Obama posed for three covers during her husband's two terms
		+	Hillary Clinton was the first wife of a President to pose on the cover in 1998
		+	Plenty of others haven't appeared including Laura Bush and Barbara Bush. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10815525/Melania-attacks-biased-Anna-Wintour-putting-Jill-Biden-cover-failing-her.html
		+
		+	Trump hosts MAGA ball at Mar-a-Lago: Kyle Rittenhouse, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert join ex-president's faithful allies at premiere of the election fraud film 2,000 Mules
		+	Trump allowed his Florida resort to be used for the red carpet premiere of conservative filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza's new movie 2,000 Mules
		+	The 'documentary' further builds on Trump's baseless 2020 fraud claims
		+	A veritable who's-who of Trump world was present, including MLK's niece Alveda King, a host of GOP reps. as well as former Trump White House aides
		+	It comes after Hollywood and Washington dressed their best for the White House Correspondents Dinner and the NYC Met Gala within the last week https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10786987/Trump-hosts-MAGA-ball-Mar-Lago-Kyle-Rittenhouse-Marjorie-Taylor-Greene-Lauren-Boebert.html
		+
		+	President Trump forced governors to flatter him and ask 'nicely' to get vital federal disaster aid, a new book says. Former President Donald Trump made governors flatter him personally for federal aid after natural disasters, a new book says. The revelations are made in an upcoming book, "This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America's Future," by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, according to The Independent. In the book, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, said Trump told governors who wanted aid: "You have to call and ask me nicely." Hogan claimed that Trump had a policy in which only Texas and Florida, two states with governors Trump considered close allies, would be given federal aid when needed without question. https://news.yahoo.com/president-trump-forced-governors-flatter-110026571.html https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-forced-governors-him-nicely-for-disaster-aid-book-says-2022-4
		+
		+	JARED KUSHNER FLAUNTED HIS INFLUENCE WITH SAUDI ARABIA, RUSSIA IN PITCH TO INVESTORS. Affinity Partners boasts of “accelerating transformation through connectivity” in a slide deck obtained by The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2022/04/18/saudi-russia-jared-kushner-affinity-partners/ https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/21639665
		+
		+	Grifters gonna grift. Trump Swooped In and Published Own Book Using White House Photographer’s Portfolio. Donald Trump hijacked White House staff photographer Shealah Craighead’s book deal by taking her images and publishing them in a book of his own, the New York Times reported Thursday. Published in December, “Our Journey Together” makes Trump the first former president to attempt to personally profit from a White House photographer’s planned book. Since Ronald Reagan, it has been tradition for the official White House photographer to publish a book of their most notable images of the president under which they served. According to the article, Craighead had already secured a publishing deal – including a six-figure advance – when she notified the White House about the book. Trump had also agreed to write the forward, as is custom for presidents to do. But her plan began to fall apart when Trump’s aides asked for a share of the profits for the forward and for helping promote the book. His team later asked her to delay publishing the book so that Trump could publish a book of his own using the work of Craighead and other White House photographers, for which he received a multimillion-dollar advance. The book, which is retailing for up to $230 apiece, sold out its first 300,000 copies for an estimated gross of $20 million. It’s sold on the website of Winning Team Publishing, the company co-founded by Donald Trump Jr. and Republican campaign operative Sergio Gor. https://news.yahoo.com/trump-swooped-published-own-book-202701218.html
		+
		+	EXCLUSIVE: Rev your engines! Buxom reality star Frenchy Morgan takes center stage at invite-only vintage car event at Mar-A-Lago and gets to meet President Trump
		+	Reality star Frenchy Morgan, 46, got an exclusive invite to an vintage car event at Donald Trump's Mar-A-Lago club last weekend
		+	Frenchy - real name Angelique Morgan, 46 - is seen in exclusive DailyMail.com photos from the event
		+	She wore a pink bikini around the upscale club, held a pink Trump 2024 flag, wore a pink bedazzled Trump baseball hat and a flashy MAGA purse
		+	The Paris-born TV star was even able to meet the former president when he came out to greet his guests
		+	During their interaction, she called the former president 'Daddy Trump' https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10640361/Reality-star-Frenchy-Morgan-attends-invite-event-Mar-Lago-meets-Trump.html
		+
		+	Donald Trump sues Hillary Clinton, others over Russian collusion allegations. "Acting in concert, the Defendants maliciously conspired to weave a false narrative that their Republican opponent, Donald J. Trump, was colluding with a hostile foreign sovereignty," the former president alleged in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Florida. Trump, who beat Democratic nominee Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, alleges "racketeering" and a "conspiracy to commit injurious falsehood," among other claims. Trump's allegations in the lawsuit are undermined by a 966-page report issued by a Republican-led U.S. Senate committee in August 2020. That report concluded that Russia used Republican political operative Paul Manafort and the WikiLeaks website to try to help Trump win the 2016 election. Manafort worked on Trump's presidential campaign for five months in 2016. https://news.yahoo.com/donald-trump-sues-hillary-clinton-173916750.html
		+
		+	Trump forgoes playing fan-favorite song YMCA at his South Carolina rally Saturday after dubbing it the 'gay national anthem' - and instead plays Hold On I’m Coming by Sam & Dave
		+	Donald Trump did not play Village People hit YMCA at his Saturday rally in a windy and cold Florence, South Carolina
		+	Came after he called the song the 'gay national anthem' in a podcast interview
		+	Former president ended his rally Saturday with 1966 song Hold On I'm Coming by duo Sam & Dave
		+	Trump sat for a wide-ranging interview with the Full Send podcast Wednesday
		+	Bragged about his 'high aptitude' for music while talking about his new gig as a disc jockey at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida
		+	Trump said he had 'a lot of good selections' and 'people love it when I do it'
		+	Trump is known for playing Village People hits YMCA and Macho Man at rallies https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10608025/Trump-forgoes-playing-fan-favorite-YMCA-SC-rally-dubbing-gay-national-anthem.html
		+
		+	Melania Trump slams the 'inaccurate' New York Times for saying her up to $50,000-a-table high tea has been postponed over questions about the investigation into her charity that 'doesn't exist'
		+	Melania Trump slams New York Times report that fundraiser she was attending was canceled after charity didn't register with state of Florida
		+	Trump says April fundraiser rescheduled for December
		+	Trump: 'As a result of the New York Times' inaccurate reporting, we captured the attention of way more people than expected and required a larger venue'
		+	New York Times reported the 'Tulips & Topiaries' was canceled because the charity didn't exist - it hadn't registered with state
		+	Organizer said he was originally advised he didn't need to register but did so after a state investigation began into event https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10577679/Melania-Trump-slams-New-York-Times-charity-fundraiser-canceled.html
		+
		+	A law clerk repeatedly had to tell Trump's lawyer to stop interrupting the judge while she ranted about political bias and right-wing conspiracy theories. "When the judge speaks, you have to stop speaking," the clerk told Trump's lawyer, Alina Habba. https://www.businessinsider.com/alina-habba-kept-interrupting-judge-tish-james-trump-organization-hearing-2022-2
		+
		+	Melania Trump issues rare statement calling press ‘dream killers’ for reporting on Florida charity investigation. Former first lady claims media reports on a Florida probe into a charity event she promoted are part of an attempt to ‘cancel’ her. grifter https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/melania-trump-florida-charity-statement-b2018276.html
		+
		+	Florida Reportedly Probing Melania Trump Tea For Charity That Doesn't Seem To Exist. All the documents are "in the works," the former first lady said of an "exclusive high tea," which is already selling tickets for up to $50,000. According to information from Trump’s office, the tea will raise money for the charity Fostering the Future, which is described as an initiative of Be Best, the anti-bullying mission launched by Trump when she was living in the White House. Money is supposed to fund computer science scholarships to young people who have been in foster care, according to the ticket sales site. Tickets for a VIP table sponsor cost $50,000. Patron tickets are going for $3,000. But no such charity is registered in Florida, the Times reported. Nor does it appear to exist anywhere else. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/melania-trump-high-tea-charity_n_62088c42e4b0e224afc848b6
		+
		+	Read NPR's full interview with former President Donald Trump. Donald Trump abruptly ended an interview with NPR on Tuesday after he was repeatedly called out on his baseless claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election. A video of the interview, published Wednesday morning, shows Trump becoming increasingly irritated as NPR’s Steve Inskeep asks him why he’s still pushing debunked conspiracy theories about his 2020 defeat. https://www.npr.org/2022/01/12/1072176709/transcript-full-npr-interview-former-president-donald-trump https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-rage-quits-npr-interview-after-hes-grilled-on-election-fraud-lies
		+
		+	Dallas crowd HECKLES Trump when he reveals he's had a COVID booster: Tells audience 'you're playing right into their hands' when you doubt the vaccine. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10329757/Dallas-crowd-HECKLES-Trump-Bill-OReilly-confirm-got-booster-shots.html
		+
		+	Trump accused of 'vile anti-Semitism' for saying American Jews 'no longer love or care about Israel' because of Biden, Obama and the 'Jewish people' who run the New York Times. Trump has claimed that Jews in America 'no longer love Israel,' and that evangelical Christians love it more. 'It used to be that Israel had absolute power over Congress and today I think it's the exact opposite,' Trump said. 'I think Obama and Biden did that,' the former president continued. 'Yet in the election they still get a lot of votes from the Jewish people' https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10321707/Trump-says-American-Jews-no-longer-love-Israel.html
	Trump kicked of a four-event 'History Tour' with conservative media personality Bill O'Reilly in Sunrise, Florida on Saturday evening . According to the Sentinel, the event location at FLA Live Arena had many empty seats – so much so that the top level of the venue was closed and ticket buyers were 'upgraded' to the lower levels. The Huffington Post noted that tickets remained for the event in Sunrise on Saturday. And there are still available tickets for the remaining three days of the tour in Orlando, Florida on Sunday; Houston, Texas next Saturday; and Dallas, Texas next Sunday. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10301913/Trump-praises-smart-sharp-Obama-event-said-love-air-Jan-6.html		Trump kicked of a four-event 'History Tour' with conservative media personality Bill O'Reilly in Sunrise, Florida on Saturday evening . According to the Sentinel, the event location at FLA Live Arena had many empty seats – so much so that the top level of the venue was closed and ticket buyers were 'upgraded' to the lower levels. The Huffington Post noted that tickets remained for the event in Sunrise on Saturday. And there are still available tickets for the remaining three days of the tour in Orlando, Florida on Sunday; Houston, Texas next Saturday; and Dallas, Texas next Sunday. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10301913/Trump-praises-smart-sharp-Obama-event-said-love-air-Jan-6.html
Line 1706:		Line 2655:
	Exclusive: Suspected Chinese spy targeted California politicians. A suspected Chinese intelligence operative developed extensive ties with local and national politicians, including a U.S. congressman, in what U.S. officials believe was a political intelligence operation run by China’s main civilian spy agency between 2011 and 2015, Axios found in a yearlong investigation. The woman at the center of the operation, a Chinese national named Fang Fang or Christine Fang, targeted up-and-coming local politicians in the Bay Area and across the country who had the potential to make it big on the national stage. Among the most significant targets of Fang's efforts was Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.). The case demonstrates China’s strategy of cultivating relationships that may take years or even decades to bear fruit. The Chinese Communist Party knows that today’s mayors and city council members are tomorrow’s governors and members of Congress. https://www.axios.com/china-spy-california-politicians-9d2dfb99-f839-4e00-8bd8-59dec0daf589.html		Exclusive: Suspected Chinese spy targeted California politicians. A suspected Chinese intelligence operative developed extensive ties with local and national politicians, including a U.S. congressman, in what U.S. officials believe was a political intelligence operation run by China’s main civilian spy agency between 2011 and 2015, Axios found in a yearlong investigation. The woman at the center of the operation, a Chinese national named Fang Fang or Christine Fang, targeted up-and-coming local politicians in the Bay Area and across the country who had the potential to make it big on the national stage. Among the most significant targets of Fang's efforts was Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.). The case demonstrates China’s strategy of cultivating relationships that may take years or even decades to bear fruit. The Chinese Communist Party knows that today’s mayors and city council members are tomorrow’s governors and members of Congress. https://www.axios.com/china-spy-california-politicians-9d2dfb99-f839-4e00-8bd8-59dec0daf589.html
-	===Media, Propaganda, Ratfucking===	+	===Media, Propaganda, Ratfucking, Truth Decay===
		+
		+	:https://i.imgur.com/X3h6EKy.jpg
		+	Compound pejoratives on Reddit – from buttface to wankpuffin. http://colinmorris.github.io/blog/compound-curse-words
		+
		+	:https://i.imgur.com/lMsoCsm.jpg
		+	Barry Blitt cartoon https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/barry-blitt https://www.barryblitt.com https://airmail.news/barry-blitt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Blitt
		+
		+	The play follows Kayla, a student at fictitious Eugene State College in Oregon, on her journey of political discovery amid the social tensions of 2019. When Trump’s announced to speak at Eugene State, Kayla is interested in becoming involved with more than middle-of-the-road politics and meets a cute boy who encourages her to do so. She starts attending White Nationalist meetings, although she never sees the boy there despite his promise to show up. The White Nationalists send Kayla to spy on ANTIFA as an undercover member. At the ANTIFA meeting, she finds the boy, Bent, and realizes she initially misunderstood him. https://elephantmusical.com/about/ https://elephantmusical.com
		+
		+	Project Veritas says the FBI declared it part of media. Prosecutors have ridiculed the idea that Project Veritas does journalism, but court filing says FBI treated group as "news media." Project Veritas says it learned the FBI’s initial characterization of it from an unnamed FBI agent who considered the actions against the organization to be improper. The agent sat for a video interview with Project Veritas’ founder, James O’Keefe, and provided O’Keefe a copy of an FBI document he said detailed the opening of an investigation into the group days before the presidential election in 2020, according to the filing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/19/project-veritas-says-the-fbi-declared-it-part-of-media-00033874
		+
		+	Watch Joe Rogan Realize In Real Time The Story He’s Ranting About Is Actually Fake News https://www.yahoo.com/news/watch-joe-rogan-realize-real-103106300.html @KnowNothingTV joe rogan having a normal one (watch until the end) https://twitter.com/KnowNothingTV/status/1526454217858236416 The fake is usually the warning
		+
		+	The Tesla CEO, who is in the midst of a $44billion takeover bid for Twitter, said he has previously voted 'overwhelmingly for Democrats', but savaged the current administration, saying Donald Trump's presidency was more effective at getting things done. He told The All-In Podcast: 'The real president is whoever controls the teleprompter. The path to power is the path to the teleprompter.' Industry veterans, degenerate gamblers & besties Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks & David Friedberg cover all things economic, tech, political, social & poker. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10824577/Elon-Musk-slams-Biden-cost-living-says-president-controls-teleprompter.html
		+
		+	Elon Musk would end Trump Twitter ban. The Tesla CEO, who is in the process of buying the app, said Twitter’s decision to boot Trump from the platform was “morally bad” and “foolish in the extreme.” https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/10/elon-musk-trump-twitter-ban-00031482
		+
		+	Elon Musk Left a South Africa That Was Rife With Misinformation and White Privilege. The apartheid era created all-white enclaves littered with anti-Black government propaganda and sheltered from the atrocities of apartheid. https://t.co/W4kvRTHwf8
		+
		+	Tucker Carlson privately mocked Trump and declined a phone call from the former president to his Fox News show: report. Justin Wells, a senior executive producer of Tucker Carlson Tonight told Insider: "Tucker Carlson programming embraces diversity of thought and presents various points of view in an industry where contrarian thought and the search for truth are often ignored. Stories in Tucker Carlson Tonight broadcasts and Tucker Carlson Originals documentaries undergo a rigorous editorial process. We're also proud of our ongoing original reporting at a time when most in the media amplify only one point of view." In his Thursday show, Carlson lambasted the reporting of The New York Times, but did not comment on his relationship with Trump. https://www.businessinsider.com/tucker-carlson-declined-trump-call-pre-empt-criticism-fox-show-2022-4
		+
		+	What would Musk's free-speech absolutism look like on Twitter? MARK FRAUENFELDER 10:20 AM THU APR 28, 2022 When Musk says that he supports all free speech within the law — US law, of course — remember how far the law goes. All of these are lawful speech in the US:
		+	* spam
		+	* doxxing
		+	* encouraging people to kill themselves
		+	* posting photos of murdered and mutilated children
		+	* posting Jihadi beheading videos
		+	* making your profile picture a swastika
		+	* Making your username “Lynch the N******” or “Gas the Kikes”1
		+	* campaigning for abolishing the age of sexual consent
		+	* posting long manifestos arguing that all Jews should be tortured to death
		+	Will Musk allow them all? For many reasons, it's now looking unlikely that Musk will end up buying Twitter. But if he does, he has high-profile partners who will have invested billions in Twitter with profits in mind. Can you imagine them allowing Musk to turn Twitter into toxic slime pit? https://boingboing.net/2022/04/28/what-would-musks-free-speech-absolutism-look-like-on-twitter.html https://arieh.substack.com/p/twitters-free-speech-musquarade
		+
		+	Piers Morgan Finally Shows Unedited Clip Of Donald Trump Talk TV Storm-Off; Blames “Incompetent Aide” & A Trump “Simmering With Anger” But Reality Is Damp Squib. https://news.yahoo.com/piers-morgan-finally-shows-unedited-195303163.html
		+
		+	The cognitive bias codex links to a definition of each cognitive bias. https://boingboing.net/2022/04/23/the-cognitive-bias-codex-links-to-a-definition-of-each-cognitive-bias.html https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Cognitive_bias_codex_en.svg
		+
		+	He rose to fame painting Trump realism. He is doing just great with him gone. Jon McNaughton put MAGA to canvas. He says his life is just fine with his muse not in office. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/21/trump-painter-00026676
		+
		+	WHY THE PAST 10 YEARS OF AMERICAN LIFE HAVE BEEN UNIQUELY STUPID. It’s not just a phase. By Jonathan Haidt It’s been clear for quite a while now that red America and blue America are becoming like two different countries claiming the same territory, with two different versions of the Constitution, economics, and American history. But Babel is not a story about tribalism; it’s a story about the fragmentation of everything. It’s about the shattering of all that had seemed solid, the scattering of people who had been a community. It’s a metaphor for what is happening not only between red and blue, but within the left and within the right, as well as within universities, companies, professional associations, museums, and even families. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/
		+
		+	Opinion | How Orwell Diagnosed Democrats’ Culture War Problem Decades Ago. The famed English writer warned that “cranks” on the left were turning off ordinary voters, even as broad support existed for progressive policies. by Jeff Greenfield is a five-time Emmy-winning network television analyst and author. In the most provocative segment of the entire book, Orwell also cites “the horrible, the really disquieting prevalence of cranks wherever Socialists are gathered together. One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw toward them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.” And he notes the prospectus for a summer Socialist school in which attendees are asked if they prefer a vegetarian diet. “That kind of thing is by itself sufficient to alienate plenty of decent people. And their instinct is perfectly sound, for the food-crank is by definition a person willing to cut himself off from human society in hopes of adding five years onto the life of his carcass; a person out of touch with common humanity.” https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/04/19/orwell-teach-democrats-working-class-00025047
		+
		+	"Libs of TikTok" unmasked in Washington Post exposé. It turns out that Libs of TikTok' author, Chaya Raichik, had in fact been identified online before this story—she'd registered the domain LibsofTikTok.us last October using her full name—and the story is also about the online sleuths who unraveled the thread. But it also reveals the involvement of a GOP operative, Grant Lally, and the reactionary rage overWaPo reporting all this out is spectacular in its own right. https://boingboing.net/2022/04/19/libs-of-tiktok-unmasked-in-washington-post-expose.html
		+
		+	The line between fact and fiction in American public life is becoming blurred. RAND calls this phenomenon "Truth Decay," and our researchers are studying its causes, consequences, and how to counter it. America's current era of Truth Decay is defined in part by an increasing disagreement about objective facts that exists on scale not observed in previous periods. For example, despite having more evidence than ever before about vaccines being safe and effective at preventing disease, vaccine skepticism in the United States is on the rise. This is just one example of how public attitudes can diverge from facts and data in debates and discourse. So what's behind the decline? RAND researchers have identified four main drivers:
		+	# cognitive biases
		+	# changes to the information ecosystem, including the rise of social media and changes in the economics of news
		+	# demands on the educational system that slow its ability to adapt to changes in the information ecosystem
		+	# political and social polarization
		+	https://www.rand.org/research/projects/truth-decay/about-truth-decay.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA112-17.html
		+
		+	Devin Nunes Flops in Fox Grilling About Trump’s Truth Social Debacle. The Trump toady peddled outlandish positivity about his flailing app but couldn’t hack serious questions even from the friendly Fox Business Network. Over the past week, Truth Social has faced a bumpy launch, top executives fleeing the company, a parent company whose stock price has plummeted, claims of censorship, and the scorn of unhappy users over former President Donald Trump still not using the platform. All these compounding problems left even the traditionally obsequious Trump ally and Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo and her on-air colleagues with serious questions about the dumpster fire of a social-media app. During a chat with Bartiromo’s FBN program, Nunes tossed out outlandish claims in defense of Truth Social, including that the Trump-created platform is home to more “interactions” than Twitter—the immensely popular site that the twice-impeached president, who is banned from tweeting, so clearly seeks to rip off. “It’s clear that Twitter is kind of a ghost town,” Nunes declared. “There’s not very much activity over at Twitter right now, especially when you compare it to sites like ours,” he laughably added, failing to provide any concrete numbers. “Our interactions are already beating Twitter.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/devin-nunes-absolutely-flops-in-fox-grilling-about-trumps-truth-social-debacle
		+
		+	A journalist who conducted Trump's latest interview was disowned by The Hill and Fox News after pushing disinformation about the Bidens and Ukraine. Trump, in an interview with John Solomon, sought Vladimir Putin's help in smearing Hunter Biden. Trump is exploiting disinformation about Biden and Ukraine long pushed by his allies and Russia. Among the architects of Trump's Ukraine disinformation was Solomon. in February 2020, Solomon's credibility took a major hit when The Hill in an internal review of his 14 articles about Ukraine and the Bidens found that he had omitted important details. The publication found that Solomon had not disclosed that key sources for his articles were Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani; the pro-Trump attorneys Victoria Toensing and Joseph diGenova; and other discredited Ukrainian sources. All three attorneys played key roles in propagating the narrative regarding the Bidens and Ukraine, distributing conspiracy theories and disinformation about the Bidens seemingly meant to help Trump's reelection campaign. Fox News, with whom Solomon was working as a commentator, severed ties with him later that year. An internal memo obtained by The Daily Beast warned that he had promoted "disinformation" about Ukraine. Russia has sought to tie Hunter Biden and other Republican hate figures to its disinformation campaign about secret US biolabs in Ukraine. Experts have told Insider that the campaign is an attempt to secure support from US conservatives for its invasion of Ukraine. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-interviewed-by-solomon-disowned-hill-fox-news-2022-3
		+
		+	Rich Lowry: Ron DeSantis and the new Republican Party. DeSantis offers an important element of Trumpism without the baggage or selfishness of Trump. https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2022/03/22/rich-lowry-ron-desantis/
		+
		+	Veteran Fox News cameraman dies from injuries after coming under attack yesterday near Kyiv in car he shared with father-of-three British Fox reporter who was left seriously wounded
		+	Fox News cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski, 55, was killed Monday in Ukraine
		+	Zakrzewski was based in London, but on assignment in Ukraine since February
		+	The vehicle he was traveling in was struck by incoming fire near Kyiv
		+	Zakrzewski was with reporter Benjamin Hall, 39, who was injured in the attack
		+	Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott confirmed Zakrzewski's death Tuesday
		+	Fox News praised Zakrzewski's 'bravery, professionalism and work ethic'
		+	The network extended condolences to his wife, Michelle, and his family
		+	Hall remains hospitalized from the attack, but no details were released https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10615623/Fox-News-photojournalist-Pierre-Zakrzewski-killed-Ukraine.html
		+
		+	Fox News Cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski Killed In Ukraine. Zakrzewski was killed in the same attack that left Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall injured and hospitalized. Pierre Zakrzewski was killed in Horenka, a city outside of the country’s capital, Kyiv. Zakrzewski was killed in the same attack that wounded Fox News Ukraine correspondent Benjamin Hall. Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra Kuvshynova was also killed in the attack, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Before the attack that killed Zakrzewski and injured Hall, Hall pushed back against Fox News personality Greg Gutfeld for saying the media is trying to rouse up an “emotional response” with its coverage of Ukraine. “Speaking as someone on the ground, I want to say that this is not the media trying to drum up some emotional response,” Hall told Gutfield. “This is absolutely what’s happening.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fox-news-cameraman-killed-russia-ukraine_n_6230ac4fe4b0fe0944dc0101
		+
		+	Right-wing group targets New York Times reporters who have aggressively reported on its spy tactics. Earlier this week, the right-wing organization Project Veritas released two undercover videos capturing Matthew Rosenberg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times, making a number of disparaging comments about his colleagues and the news media writ large. The right-wing group, headed by conservative activist James O'Keefe, has over the past year targeted three reporters in particular: Adam Goldman, Mark Mazzetti, and Michael Schmidt. Those three reporters, all Pulitzer Prize winners themselves, stand out because they are the journalists at The Times who have authored a series of exposés revealing how Project Veritas employs spy tactics and relies on ethically dubious reporting strategies to target perceived liberals. Project Veritas uses its stings against news organizations to fundraise. For instance, the blog post on the Project Veritas website featuring the Rosenberg video asked supporters to submit a donation "to support our mission." The stings against news organizations also generate a lot of publicity and attention for Project Veritas. They have often been featured prominently on Fox and receive significant attention in the right-wing media universe. https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/11/media/project-veritas-new-york-times/index.html
		+
		+	Trump tears in to Biden for 'playing into Putin's hands', admits he 'got along' with the Kremlin strongman but calls Ukraine invasion 'a crime against humanity' in Hannity interview
		+	Trump insists Ukraine invasion wouldn't have happened under his administration
		+	Ex-President of the United States spoke to Sean Hannity on FOX News talk show
		+	He went on to say the problem with Russian President Putin is his 'very big ego'
		+	The exchange saw Trump asked about comments made about Putin, describing the Russian's recognition of two Ukrainian 'republics' as independent as 'genius'
		+	https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10601975/Trump-tears-Biden-playing-Putins-hands.html
		+
		+	@atrupar LOL -- Hannity is trying so hard to get Trump to denounce authoritarians like Putin and he just refuses to do it https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1502112936726347780
		+
		+	@atrupar Trump tells Hannity he had a "very strong" conversation with Putin in which he received some sort of assurance that Putin wouldn't invade Ukraine while he was in office https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1502110641351532546
		+
		+	A Taxonomy of Right-Wing Dog Whistles. Listen closely and you’ll hear these phrases everywhere. The first time I witnessed the birth of a right-wing talking point, I was sitting in a crowded ballroom at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, in National Harbor, Maryland. This was the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, and I was listening to Sebastian Gorka deliver remarks that fell somewhere on the spectrum from venting to fomenting. There he was in his three-piece suit, voice booming: “They want to take your pickup truck. They want to rebuild your home. They want to take away your hamburgers.” As I jotted down the line about the hamburgers, a sudden sense of unreality came over me. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/taxonomy-right-wing-dog-whistles/622930/
		+
		+	How G. Gordon Liddy Bungled Watergate With an Office-Supply Request. The story of Operation Gemstone, his totally bonkers, Nazi-themed dirty tricks wish list. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/11/watergate-secret-history-garrett-graff-gordon-liddy-operation-gemstone-00007927
		+
		+	Sarah Palin's lawyers: New York Times libeled her amidst pattern of sliming conservatives. Manhattan jury begins deliberations in suit over 2017 editorial that linked Palin group's targeting map to 2011 Arizona shooting. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/11/sarah-palin-lawyers-new-york-times-libel-conservatives-00008248
		+
		+	Fox News host tells Trump to 'stop wasting our time' with 2020 election lies. 'Nobody cares about your topics. Right now nobody cares about 2020, nobody,' Fox News host Brian Kilmeade told Donald Trump. "They did a recount in Arizona, and the recount showed no difference, almost, and he came out and said it showed that they won Arizona. That's an outright lie, and please stop wasting our time with that because he's capable of doing so much more," he said. https://americanindependent.com/fox-news-host-brian-kilmeade-donald-trump-big-lie-2022-elections/
		+
		+	‘Be thankful you don’t have our poison’: US pollster Frank Luntz’s warning to UK. Luntz spent years sampling opinion for Republicans before a stroke changed his outlook: ‘I’m not afraid any more, so you will hear me criticise people I never would have two years ago’ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/27/frank-luntz-interview-pollster-us-uk-politics Luntz is traitor
		+
		+	Check out the "top 10 craziest things" new Fox primetime toady Jesse Watters has said on TV. https://youtu.be/tSOTytQP8SI https://boingboing.net/2022/01/12/check-out-the-top-10-craziest-things-new-fox-primetime-toady-jesse-watters-has-said-on-tv.html
		+
		+	Oregon father who said 'Let's Go Brandon' to Biden tells Steve Bannon it was a 'chance to voice his disapproval' of the 'terrible things' happening in the White House and insists the election was '100% stolen' from Trump. Jared Schmeck, 35, backtracked Monday on saying he is 'not a Trumper'. The Oregon-based father of four, donning a red Make America Great Again hat, went on to say that Trump is 'my president' and repeated the former president's claims that the 2020 presidential election was 'stolen'. 'Some of the media has run with that and said I don't support Donald Trump,' the former police officer said. 'That's absolutely false.' 'Donald Trump is my president and he should still be president right now. The election was 100 per cent stolen. So, I just want to make that clear,' he added. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10348139/Oregon-father-said-Lets-Brandon-Biden-said-voicing-disapproval-president.html
		+
		+	Oregon father of four who told President Biden ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ on Christmas Eve call said he meant it in jest. “At the end of the day, I have nothing against Mr. Biden, but I am frustrated because I think he can be doing a better job,” said Jared Schmeck, 35, who works for an electric company and was previously a Medford police officer for six years until he resigned in July 2018. “I mean no disrespect to him.” https://www.oregonlive.com/nation/2021/12/oregon-father-of-four-who-told-president-biden-lets-go-brandon-on-christmas-eve-call-said-he-meant-it-in-jest.html
		+
		+	@W7VOA “I am being attacked for utilizing my freedom of speech" for expressing "my frustrations in a joking manner,” complains Jared Schmeck, the #Oregon father of four who told @POTUS: 'Let's go Brandon.' https://twitter.com/W7VOA/status/1474854212555218949
		+
		+	Tucker Carlson Was Blind to His Own Privilege in TPUSA Speech. The Crowd Loved It. The Fox News host extolled the virtues of daily sauna trips in front of a crowd fed up with elitism Carlson alluding to the future in his closing remarks. “And then you can wait for the dawn, which is coming,” he said. The crowd began to file out, enthused for the evening’s country concert. But just like the corny gun rights sweater with questionable math, Carlson’s speech on Saturday didn’t quite add up. It didn’t need to in front of a crowd, and a future generation of conservative Americans, for which facts were an afterthought. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/tucker-carlson-tpusa-speech-phoenix-arizona-1273897/
		+
		+	Roger Stone and ‘Ratf—ing’: A Short History. The flamboyant political aide is often tagged with the term. But its origins—and Stone’s relationship with the word—are complicated. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/01/25/roger-stone-and-rating-a-short-history-224218/
		+
		+	Ex-Fox News Pundit Says ‘Screw It’ And Pens Scathing Essay About Network. “A huge share of the people” praising former President Donald Trump on TV were being dishonest because “they would say one thing to my face or in my presence and another thing when the cameras and microphones were flipped on,” claimed Goldberg. Over time, he added, he felt “like I was becoming complicit in a series of lies of omission.” https://news.yahoo.com/ex-fox-news-pundit-says-105215532.html
	Watch: Matt Gaetz and Steve Bannon plan a GOP takeover with "4,000 shock troops" https://boingboing.net/2021/12/10/watch-matt-gaetz-and-steve-bannon-plan-a-gop-takeover-with-4000-shock-troops.html		Watch: Matt Gaetz and Steve Bannon plan a GOP takeover with "4,000 shock troops" https://boingboing.net/2021/12/10/watch-matt-gaetz-and-steve-bannon-plan-a-gop-takeover-with-4000-shock-troops.html
Line 1794:		Line 2849:
	After election, Zuckerberg flipped "secret switch" to favor credible news outlets there. If it seems comically selfish that Zuckerberg would profit from the far right until election day, then immediately about-face in obeisance to the changing wind, remember that he renounced his own atheism days before Trump took office in 2017. There's nothing particularly cunning or covert about Zuckerberg. He reacts to pressure like a chemical, and media cynics just can't quite accept that the jejeune creature he seems to be is for real. He will do whatever mercenary thing is in his and Facebook's immediate interest and doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks about it. https://boingboing.net/2020/11/25/after-election-zuckerberg-flipped-secret-switch-to-favor-credible-news-outlets-there.html		After election, Zuckerberg flipped "secret switch" to favor credible news outlets there. If it seems comically selfish that Zuckerberg would profit from the far right until election day, then immediately about-face in obeisance to the changing wind, remember that he renounced his own atheism days before Trump took office in 2017. There's nothing particularly cunning or covert about Zuckerberg. He reacts to pressure like a chemical, and media cynics just can't quite accept that the jejeune creature he seems to be is for real. He will do whatever mercenary thing is in his and Facebook's immediate interest and doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks about it. https://boingboing.net/2020/11/25/after-election-zuckerberg-flipped-secret-switch-to-favor-credible-news-outlets-there.html
		+
		+	===Media Bias Fact Checking Point-of-View===
		+
		+	How Reliable is Your News Source? Understanding Media Bias 2021 https://my.lwv.org/california/torrance-area/article/how-reliable-your-news-source-understanding-media-bias-2021
		+
		+	Interactive Media Bias Chart https://adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart/
	==links==		==links==
	[[Category:Republicanism is a Mental Disease]] [[Category:BWTM]]		[[Category:Republicanism is a Mental Disease]] [[Category:BWTM]]

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Revision as of 15:08, 1 July 2022

This page is about US Politics.

This page continues from Links_-_Politics_-_3

Contents 1 U.S. Constitution 2 2020 Elections 2.1 Results 2.2 Transition and Inauguration 2.3 Russian interference, Trump collusion 2.4 Liberal Dark Money 3 Past elections, fraud 4 2021 4.1 California Recall 5 2022 5.1 2022 & Redistricting 5.2 California 5.3 Trump GQP rallies, Republican/Nazi Party/Brotherhood of Evil Mutants 6 2024 Election 6.1 GQP, Trump 6.2 Biden 6.3 Warnings 7 117th Congress, 2021-2022 7.1 117th Congress, 2021-2022 7.1.1 Leadership 7.1.1.1 Democrats 7.1.1.2 Republicans 7.1.1.3 Senate Judiciary Committee 7.1.2 Republican/Nazi Party/Brotherhood of Evil Mutants 7.1.3 Republican/Nazi Party/Brotherhood of Evil Mutants archived May 28, 2021 7.1.4 DINOs 7.1.5 News, Budget, Infrastructure 7.1.6 Impeachment 7.2 Whitehouse, The Presidency 7.3 Climate Change 7.4 behavior 7.5 School shootings, guns, murder rate 7.6 Racism 7.7 Corruption, current Hunter Biden, Rep. Darrell Issa and former Rep. Duncan Hunter 7.8 Reparations 7.9 Coronavirus crisis, tracking 7.10 Coronavirus crisis, HealthCare, political, economy, masks 7.11 Coronavirus crisis, HealthCare, political, economy, masks archived July 14, 2021 7.12 Economy 7.13 ★ Insurrection Index 7.14 Trump incited Insurrection January 06, 2021, Qanon, MAGA Zombies 7.15 Trump incited Insurrection January 06, 2021, Qanon, MAGA Zombies, archived May 25, 2022 7.16 Trump incited Insurrection January 06, 2021, Qanon, MAGA Zombies. archiver April 15 2022 7.17 Trump incited Insurrection January 06, 2021, Qanon, MAGA Zombies: archived March 21, 2022 7.18 Trump incited Insurrection January 06, 2021, Qanon, MAGA Zombies. archived January 05, 2022 7.19 Trump incited Insurrection January 06, 2021, Qanon, MAGA Zombies. archived November 18, 2021 7.20 Trump incited Insurrection January 06, 2021, Qanon, MAGA Zombies. archived August 31, 2021 7.21 Trump incited Insurrection January 06, 2021, Qanon, MAGA Zombies, archived June 20, 2021 7.22 Trumpism Coup, archived February 10, 2021 7.23 Protests 7.24 combatting online extremism 7.25 Oath Keepers, Militiamen, Vigilantes, Terrorists 7.26 Oath Keepers, Militiamen, Vigilantes, Terrorists. archived December 18, 2021 7.27 Police riots and violence, collaboration, disinformation, propaganda, and lies 7.28 Religion 7.29 Judiciary, SCOTUS, abortion 7.30 IRS 7.31 DOJ, FBI 7.32 CBP, Immigration, Border, Wall 7.33 DHS 7.34 DOD, NSA, US Military, Afghanistan, VA 7.35 Ukraine/Russia 7.36 International Terrorism 7.37 SOS, Foreign Policy, Ukraine 7.38 Trump Russia collusion 7.39 ★ Trump Crime Family, Rape, Racism, Election Lies, Grifters gotta Grift 7.40 Trump Crime Family, Rape, Racism, Election Lies, archived May 18, 2022 7.41 Trump Crime Family, Rape, Racism, Election Lies. archived September 09, 2021 7.42 Trump will pay you Tuesday for a cheeseburger today 7.43 MAGATs 7.44 Trump Nazifacation of US 7.45 Voter Suppression 7.46 Spying 7.47 Media, Propaganda, Ratfucking, Truth Decay 7.48 Media, Propaganda, Ratfucking archived November 16, 2021 7.49 Media Bias Fact Checking Point-of-View 8 links

U.S. Constitution

U.S. Constitution Annotated. This edition of the Congressional Research Service's U.S. Constitution Annotated is a hypertext interpretation of the CRS text, updated to the currently published version. It links to Supreme Court opinions, the U.S. Code, and the Code of Federal Regulations, as well as enhancing navigation through search, breadcrumbs, linked footnotes and tables of contents. https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights-transcript

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/amendments-11-27

2020 Elections

Results

Trump pollster's campaign autopsy paints damning picture of defeat. The 27-page report pins Trump's loss on voter perception that he was untrustworthy and disapproval of his pandemic performance. The post-mortem, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO, says the former president suffered from voter perception that he wasn’t honest or trustworthy and that he was crushed by disapproval of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. And while Trump spread baseless accusations of ballot-stuffing in heavily Black cities, the report notes that he was done in by hemorrhaging support from white voters. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/01/trump-campaign-autopsy-paints-damning-picture-of-defeat-464636

Saturday, November 7, 2020 08:50:41 AM

Biden 284 50.6% 74,847,834

Trump 214 47.7% 70,591,531

Vote Results Wednesday, December 9, 2020 04:46:17 PM

candidate	electoral votes	share	popular vote
Biden	306	51.30%	81,282,896 +7,060,412
Trump	232	46.85%	74,222,484

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-elections/president-results

Sunday, November 22, 2020 08:27:27 AM Biden advantage in California 5,085,114

Share of vote 21st c. presidential candidates https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1334623664474628097

1. Obama 2008 52.9
2. Biden 2020 51.3
3. Obama 2012 51.1
4. Bush 2004 50.7
5. Gore 2000 48.4
6. Kerry 2004 48.3
7. Clinton 2016 48.2
8. Bush 2000 47.9
9. Romney 2012 47.2
10. Trump 2020 46.9
11. Trump 2016 46.1
12. McCain 2008 45.7

Transition and Inauguration

Trump Was ‘Fact Free’ During Briefings, Says Former National Intelligence Director. “For the Intelligence Community, the Trump transition was far and away the most difficult in its historical experience with briefing new presidents,” a new CIA report said. Even once Trump started receiving the President’s Daily Brief (PDB), a daily summary of high-level national security and intelligence issues, Trump chose not to read it, according to Ted Gistaro, a career CIA analyst who frequently briefed Trump. This backed up earlier reports that Trump did not read the PDB. “He touched it,” Gistaro said when asked how closely Trump read the briefs. “He doesn’t really read anything.” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-fact-free-cia-report-1263777/

McConnell sought to disinvite Trump from Biden’s inaugural. According to a new book from Jonathan Karl, Trump got wind of the plan and preemptively announced he wasn’t attending. To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/15/mcconnell-disinvite-trump-biden-inaugural-522253

In Farewell Speech As President, Trump Says ‘We Did What We Came Here To Do’. “As I conclude my term as the 45th president of the United States, I stand before you truly proud of what we have achieved together,” Trump began. “This week, we inaugurate a new administration and pray for its success in keeping America safe and prosperous,” he continued, adding: “We also want them to have luck, a very important word.” (See video of the speech above.) “We did what we came here to do ― and so much more. Above all, we have reasserted the sacred idea that in America, the government answers to the people,” Trump said. “We restored the idea that in America, no one is forgotten ― because everyone matters and everyone has a voice.” Falsely casting his time in office as an effort to unify Americans, Trump claimed that his agenda “wasn’t about Republican or Democrat, but about the good of a nation, and that means the whole nation,” despite having spent his entire presidency vilifying his political opponents. He appeared to defend his violent rhetoric on Tuesday, saying, “In America, we don’t insist on absolute conformity or enforce rigid orthodoxies and punitive speech codes.” “Now, as I prepare to hand power over to a new administration at noon on Wednesday, I want you to know that the movement we started is only just beginning,” Trump said. “There’s never been anything like it.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-final-address-speech-video_n_6006ef17c5b6df63a91a0cec

Washington's security preps in high gear for inauguration. Thousands of National Guard forces have been called to the DC area ahead of President-elect Biden's inauguration. https://www.foxnews.com/us/washingtons-security-preps-high-gear-inauguration#

The next 12 days will be something to tell the grandchildren! It’s 1776 all over again! https://nyegop.org/2021/01/08/a-letter-from-the-chairman/?v=7516fd43adaa

Media has yet to do a deep dive on precisely what Trump *said* in his January 6 speech in DC—a speech now called an "incitement to insurrection," and the basis for an article of impeachment coming Monday. This thread unpacks the speech. https://threader.app/thread/1347908845281095680 https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1347908845281095680

Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021. https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspension.html

To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th. Jan 8, '21 @ 10:44 am ET Author: Likely Trump

The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!! Jan 8, '21 @ 9:46 am ET Author: Likely Trump

The violence at the Capitol was an attempted coup. Call it that. video https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/06/trump-mob-storm-capitol-washington-coup-attempt

Trump privately admits it’s over, but wants to brawl for attention. To one person, Trump even confided he was “just disappointed we lost.” But he still maintains he would have won a fair election. But mostly, he is continuing his fight to subvert the election for a Trumpian reason: to keep the attention on himself and give his supporters what they want, according to the people who have spoken with him. “The point is to still be relevant and still be talked about in the news,” said one of the people. “This is someone who’s been on Page Six of the New York Post for 40 years. He’s beyond embarrassment.” https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/05/donald-trump-election-challenge-455233

Trump says he’ll ‘fight like hell’ to hold on to presidency. With mounting desperation, Donald Trump declared Monday night he would “fight like hell” to hold on to the presidency and appealed to Republican lawmakers to reverse his election loss to Joe Biden when they convene this week to confirm the Electoral College vote. Electoral voters won by President-elect Biden are “not gonna take this White House!” he shouted as supporters cheered at an outdoor rally in Georgia. Trump’s announced purpose for the trip was to boost Republican Senate candidates in Tuesday’s runoff election, but he spent much of his speech complaining bitterly about his election loss — which he insists he won “by a lot.” https://apnews.com/article/trump-congress-reverse-election-loss-e2a6fa060432bd19d92a142a0da5688e

Fox News panelist defends Trump's leaked call to Georgia secretary of state: He is a “man who fights” The Washington Post just released tape of Trump threatening GA Secretary of State Bread Raffensberger in an attempt to overturn election results. 3:30 GAYLE TROTTER: The voters who wanted President Trump to have a second term voted for him because he's a fighter. He's a man who fights. And this is yet another example -- A.B. STODDARD: [LAUGHS] https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-panelist-defends-trumps-leaked-call-georgia-secretary-state-he-man-who-fights

Donald Trump could be planning Turnberry trip as Scots airport told to expect a high-flyer the day before Joe Biden’s inauguration. Prestwick airport has been told to expect the arrival of a US military Boeing 757 aircraft, that is occasionally used by Trump, on January 19 – the day before his Democratic rival takes charge at the White House. https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/donald-trump-could-be-planning-turnberry-trip-as-scots-airport-told-to-expect-a-high-flyer-the-day-before-joe-bidens-inauguration/

Trump, on tape, presses Ga. official to ‘find’ him votes. “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said. “Because we won the state.” https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-georgia-elections-a7b4aa4d8ce3bf52301ddbe620c6bff6 Here’s the full transcript and audio of the call between Trump and Raffensperger https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-transcript-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/2768e0cc-4ddd-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html

GOP senators, led by Cruz, to object to Electoral College certification, demand emergency audit. The lawmakers call for an electoral commission to be established to audit results." In 1877, Congress did not ignore those allegations, nor did the media simply dismiss those raising them as radicals trying to undermine democracy," the lawmakers said in the statement. "Instead, Congress appointed an Electoral Commission -- consisting of five Senators, five House Members, and five Supreme Court Justices -- to consider and resolve the disputed returns." https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-senators-cruz-electoral-college-certification-audit

Trump returns to White House after Florida vacation. Shortly after he entered the White House, Trump tweeted out a previously recorded message in which he praised Americans for showing "grit, strength, tenacity and resolve" throughout 2020 and boasted of his administration's work in developing a coronavirus vaccine. "This is one of the most extraordinary scientific, industrial and medical feats in history. Everybody has it at that," Trump said. "That's what they're marking it down as, and we can never let people forget where it came from and how it came. We're very proud to be honored, and all of the people that worked so hard on it, we have to be remembered for what's been done." https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/532236-trump-returns-to-white-house-after-florida-vacation

Democrats who praised 2004 objections to Electoral College certification now slam Hawley. Democrats objected to electoral vote certification last 3 times a Republican was elected president. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/democrats-who-praised-2004-objections-to-electoral-college-certification-now-slam-hawley Democrats challenge Ohio electoral votes. Move delays official certification of presidential election. Thursday, January 6, 2005 The move was not designed to overturn the re-election of President Bush, said Ohio Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones and California Sen. Barbara Boxer, who filed the objection. https://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/06/electoral.vote.1718/

Keep Calm and QAnon. Pro-Trump conspiracy theories may have actually discouraged postelection violence. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/12/qanon-post-election-violence-trump.html

Trump Attacks FBI, DOJ, Supreme Court and GOP Senators in Boxing Day Twitter Tirade. https://www.newsweek.com/trump-attacks-doj-fbi-supreme-court-gop-senators-mitch-mcconnell-twitter-1557376

Trump’s Bonkers Oval Office Meeting With Sidney Powell Was Even Too Much for Rudy. Dec. 19, 2020 8:05PM ET. Her claims of mass election fraud have fallen flat. But it didn’t stop Trump from inviting conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell to the White House for a brainstorm. Sidney Powell’s insane claims about the election being stolen have left judges across the country shaking and scratching their heads. But during a bonkers Oval Office meeting with her on Friday night, President Trump floated the idea of appointing her as a special counsel investigating voter fraud. Two sources familiar with the matter confirmed to The Daily Beast that Trump and Powell held the Friday meeting to discuss their baseless theories of mass election fraud. According to The New York Times, which first reported the meeting, some aides were left in shock at Trump’s suggestion of making Powell a special counsel. Even Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s most loyal foot soldier in his election fraud crusade, was against the idea. A source quoted by CNN on Saturday described the meeting as “ugly” after Powell and Flynn lashed out at others. “It was heated, people were really fighting it out in the Oval,” the source was quoted saying. Even some of the president’s closest allies vocally opposed some of the insane ideas floated in the meeting. Along with Giuliani, White House counsel Pat Cipollone was against the special counsel idea. Flynn’s idea of invoking martial law was similarly shot down, as was an extraordinary idea for an executive order to seize voting machines, according to the Times, which described the meeting as “raucous.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-bonkers-oval-office-meeting-with-sidney-powell-was-even-too-much-for-rudy

This might be the most embarrassing document created by a White House staffer. The first thing I did when I cracked open White House trade adviser Peter Navarro’s 30-page compilation of President Trump’s voter-fraud greatest hits was check a footnote. The introduction claimed that, as of midnight Election Day, Trump looked to be “well on his way to winning a second term,” given that he “was already a lock to win both Florida and Ohio.” “[N]o Republican has ever won a presidential election without winning Ohio,” the document notes, “while only two Democrats have won the presidency without winning Florida.” But this, in broad strokes, is how Navarro’s document operates. It throws out as near-certainties things that are unfounded, misrepresented or unimportant. Philip Bump is a correspondent for The Washington Post based in New York. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/12/18/this-might-be-most-embarrassing-document-created-by-white-house-staffer/ https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/peter-navarro-puts-out-immaculate-deception-report-rehashing-debunked-trump-complaints https://bannonswarroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/The-Immaculate-Deception-12.15.20-1.pdf

Joe Biden asks Trump to accept his 'clear victory' after electoral college vote result. Kayleigh McEnany slammed for claiming Biden’s electoral college speech was ‘divisive’. Remarks came as EC officially recognised Joe Biden’s election win. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/kayeligh-mcenany-joe-biden-electoral-college-speech-b1774297.html

Joe Biden asks Trump to accept his 'clear victory' after electoral college vote result. Trump says Biden is ‘pretending he’s won’ and insists he had a ‘landslide victory’. The president shows no signs of accepting reality and may never concede defeat. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/trump-electoral-college-votes-biden-b1774343.html

Supreme Court declines to hear Trump-supported Texas case over election results in four other states. Legal experts said Texas' case, flawed in several ways, was likely to fail. The order does not foreclose any other pending or future election appeals at the Supreme Court, but time is running out. The states meet next week on Dec. 14 for the Electoral College exercise. And on Jan. 6 there will be a joint session of the House and Senate to count the electoral votes and certify President-elect Joe Biden as the winner. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas said they would have heard the case -- without granting other relief, like issuing an injunction on electoral proceedings. They added that they expressed "no view on any other issue." https://www.foxnews.com/politics/scotus-denied-election-texas-election-suit

White House Asks Staff To Transition With ‘Professionalism’ Despite Trump’s Lies: Report. Staffers were asked to “prioritize preparations for a smooth transition.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/white-house-transition-professionalism_n_5fd2e7e2c5b68256b113dcfc

Trump holds self-congratulatory vaccine 'summit,' dismisses concerns over virus spread. The White House pushed back on reports U.S. declined to buy more vaccine doses. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-vaccine-executive-order-raises-questions-pfizer-offer/story?id=74604381

President Trump walks out on Medal of Freedom ceremony for legendary wrestler, ex-Iowa coach Dan Gable. Well, I think the case has already been made. If you look at the polls, it was a rigged election. You look at the different states. The election was totally rigged. It’s a disgrace to our country. It’s like a third-world country — these ballots pouring in from everywhere, using machinery that nobody knows ownership, nobody knows anything about. They have “glitches,” as they call them. Glitches. The glitches weren’t glitches. They got caught sending out thousands of votes — all against me, by the way. No, this was like from a third-world nation. And I think the case has been made. And now we find out what we can do about it. But you’ll see a lot of big things happening over the next couple of days. https://www.nj.com/sports/2020/12/president-trump-walks-out-on-medal-of-freedom-ceremony-for-legendary-wrestler-dan-gable.html

'We're all victims' Trump whines at Georgia rally, repeatedly refusing to accept he lost election to Biden. https://boingboing.net/2020/12/05/at-georgia-rally-trump-declares-repeatedly-he-refuses-to-accept-that-he-lost-election-to-biden.html

Just 26 congressional Republicans acknowledge Biden’s win, Washington Post survey finds. Two Republicans consider Trump the winner despite all evidence showing otherwise. And another 221 GOP members of the House and Senate — nearly 90 percent of all Republicans serving in Congress — will simply not say who won the election. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/survey-who-won-election-republicans-congress/2020/12/04/1a1011f6-3650-11eb-8d38-6aea1adb3839_story.html

When Kimmel extracts all lies from Trump's 45-min rant, it turns into great 45-second speech https://boingboing.net/2020/12/04/when-kimmel-extracts-all-lies-from-trumps-45-min-rant-it-turns-into-great-45-second-speech.html

Pentagon blocks visits to military spy agencies by Biden transition team. Dec. 4, 2020 at 5:52 p.m. EST The Trump administration has refused to allow members of President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team to meet with officials at U.S. intelligence agencies that are controlled by the Pentagon, undermining prospects for a smooth transfer of power, current and former U.S. officials said. The officials said the Biden team has not been able to engage with leaders at the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other military-run spy services with classified budgets and global espionage platforms. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/pentagon-blocks-biden-transition-team/2020/12/04/2e7042fa-3656-11eb-a997-1f4c53d2a747_story.html

Michigan voter fraud hearing goes viral for alleged flatulence, unruly witness. HuffPost reporter Ryan J. Reilly shared a video on Twitter of Giuliani passionately answering a question about Attorney General William Barr’s statement that federal prosecutors had not found evidence of election fraud that would influence the outcome. During the clip, what sounds like flatulence can be heard as he’s speaking. https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/528666-michigan-voter-fraud-hearing-goes-viral-for-alleged-flatulence

In February, 2021, a man goes to the White House to see Donald Trump. He is told by the Marine on duty that Trump is no longer president and that he no longer resides there. Three days in a row the man returns to see Trump and each time the same Marine tells him Trump is no longer president. On the fourth day, the Marine finally asks the man why he keeps coming back asking for Trump when he already knows the answer. The man replies, “I just love hearing you tell me Trump is no longer the president.” The Marine snaps to attention, salutes and says, “See you tomorrow, sir!”

Biden chief of staff says inauguration ‘not going to be the same’ Ron Klain said the inauguration ceremony will be altered to prevent the spread of coronavirus. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/22/biden-klain-inauguration-coronavirus-439181

Russian interference, Trump collusion

Dinesh D’Souza’s 2000 Mules Is a Hilarious Mockumentary. A tour de force exploring the limits of how many suckers there are willing to pay for fantasy. ome of the film’s funniest moments come when D’Souza summons his fellow Salem Media Group talkers—Dennis Prager, Eric Metaxes, Seb Gorka, and Charlie Kirk—for a meeting of the minds to discuss their thoughts about election fraud before and after viewing D’Souza’s movie. But even the Salem hosts seem wise to the game and acknowledge that D’Souza hasn’t, and won’t be able to prove anything. Gorka sums it up with this non sequitur: “It’s the perfect crime because it cannot be curated after it’s committed.” https://www.thebulwark.com/dinesh-dsouzas-2000-mules-is-a-hilarious-mockumentary/

Meadows texts reveal just how tight the Fox News-Trump embrace is. As Trump raged against non-existent election fraud, he took counsel from his actual staff. He also had help from acquaintances and associates like Rudy Giuliani. But, less conventionally, Trump’s White House was also getting guidance from some of Fox News’ best-known personalities, in a level of coordination rarely, if ever, seen in top-level politics. The direct interactions between Trump’s administration and the Fox hosts Sean Hannity and Maria Bartiromo were revealed in leaked text messages from the phone of Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff during the November election and the January 6 insurrection. The texts, revealed by CNN, show how the lines between Fox News and the Trump White House had become jarringly blurred in Trump’s final months. On election day 2021 Hannity, the second-most watched host on Fox News, was texting Meadows asking which states he particularly needed to “push” – to encourage people to vote. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/may/07/fox-news-donald-trump-meadows-hannity-texts

Homeland Security Secretary Altered Report on Russian Election Interference to Help Trump, Watchdog Says. The DHS inspector general’s office found that Chad Wolf and his employees made “changes that appear to be based in part on political considerations” The watchdog’s office said it interviewed an individual in the Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) “who told us the Acting Secretary asked the product be held because it made President Trump look bad and hurt President Trump’s campaign — the concept that Russia was denigrating candidate Biden would be used against President Trump.” The product, titled “Russia Likely to Denigrate Health of US Candidates to Influence 2020 Electoral Dynamics,” was first being drafted in April 2020 after then-candidate Biden had assumed frontrunner status in the Democratic primary. These findings align with a whistleblower report from Sept. 2020 filed by Brian Murphy, the former principal deputy undersecretary in DHS’s I&A office. Murphy alleged that DHS leaders including Wolf, former Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and senior official Ken Cuccinelli not only minimized Russian influence in the election, but fabricated data relating to the U.S.-Mexico border wall and downplayed the threat of white supremacy. Murphy also claimed retaliation by his superiors after he raised these concerns. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/chad-wolf-homeland-security-russian-interference-report-1347046/

Durham says CIA found data alleging Trump-Russia connection not 'technically plausible,' was 'user created'. Special Counsel John Durham asserted in a court filing Friday that the CIA concluded data from Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann alleging coordination between Donald Trump and Russia was "not technically plausible" and was "user created." But Sussmann is moving to preclude evidence concerning the "gathering" of that "DNS data" by "Tech Executive 1," who has been identified as Rodney Joffe, and his associates. Durham's original indictment alleges Sussmann told then-FBI General Counsel James Baker in September 2016 — less than two months before the 2016 presidential election — he was not doing work "for any client" when he requested and held a meeting where he presented "purported data and 'white papers' that allegedly demonstrated a covert communications channel" between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, which has ties to the Kremlin. The indictment alleges that Sussmann lied in the meeting, "falsely stating to the general counsel that he was not providing the allegations to the FBI on behalf of any client." Durham also alleges that Sussmann is a lizard person. https://news.yahoo.com/durham-says-cia-found-data-193143924.html

The Presidency of Donald Trump review: the first draft of history. Julian Zelizer of Princeton has assembled a cast of historians to consider every aspect of four years that shook America. One of the best essays, about the Republican party Trump inherited, is written by the book’s editor, Julian Zelizer. The Princeton historian reminds us that the “smashmouth partisanship” perfected by Trump actually began when Newt Gingrich snared the House speakership nearly 30 years ago. In 1992, Pat Buchanan’s speech to the Republic convention featured all of the gay-bashing that Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, (and many other Republicans) have revived with so much gusto in 2022. With major contributions from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the rightwing media machine, most of the GOP moved so far right it didn’t become Trump’s party because he “seized control” but rather because “he fit so perfectly” with it. Most Republicans were “all in” for Trump, from Mitt Romney, the ex-never Trumper who voted with his former nemesis more than 80% of the time, to “moderate” Chris Christie, who gave Trump an “A” four months after his four years of scorched-earth governance were over. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/apr/03/the-presidency-of-donald-trump-review-history-zelizer-republican-party

Former President Trump is raising eyebrows after he seemingly admitted to losing the 2020 presidential election in a video published by The Atlantic on Monday. “I didn’t win the election,” Trump, who has repeatedly rejected President Biden’s victory, said while speaking in July to a panel of historians convened by Julian Zelizer, a Princeton professor and editor of “The Presidency of Donald Trump: A First Historical Assessment.” https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3259729-trump-gets-attention-for-saying-he-lost-election/

It Wasn’t a Hoax. People with scant illusions about Trump are volunteering to help him execute one of his Big Lies. By David Frum NOVEMBER 25, 2021

1. Dating back to at least 2006, Trump and his companies did tens of millions of dollars of business with Russian individuals and other buyers whose profiles raised the possibility of money laundering. More than one-fifth of all the condominiums sold by Trump over his career were purchased in all-cash transactions by shell companies, a 2018 BuzzFeed News investigation found.
2. In 2013, Trump’s pursuit of Russian business intensified. That year, he staged the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. Around that time, Trump opened discussions on the construction of a Trump Tower in Moscow, from which he hoped to earn “hundreds of millions of dollars, if the project advanced to completion,” in the words of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
3. Trump continued to pursue the Tower deal for a year after he declared himself a candidate for president. “By early November 2015, Trump and a Russia-based developer signed a Letter of Intent laying out the main terms of a licensing deal,” the Senate Intelligence Committee found. Trump’s representatives directly lobbied aides to Russian President Vladimir Putin in January 2016. Yet repeatedly during the 2016 campaign, Trump falsely stated that he had no business with Russia—perhaps most notably in his second presidential debate against Hillary Clinton, in October 2016.
4. Early in 2016, President Putin ordered an influence operation to “harm the Clinton Campaign, tarnish an expected Clinton presidential administration, help the Trump Campaign after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, and undermine the U.S. democratic process.” Again, that’s from the Senate Intelligence Committee report.
5. The Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos “likely learned about the Russian active measures campaign as early as April 2016,” the Senate Intelligence Committee wrote. In May 2016, Papadopoulos indiscreetly talked with Alexander Downer, then the Australian high commissioner to the United Kingdom, about Russia’s plot to intervene in the U.S. election to hurt Clinton and help Trump. Downer described the conversation in a report to his government. By long-standing agreement, Australia shares intelligence with the U.S. government. It was Papadopoulos’s blurt to Downer that set in motion the FBI investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, a revelation authoritatively reported more than three years ago.
6. In June 2016, the Trump campaign received a request for a meeting from a Russian lawyer offering harmful information on Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump Jr. and other senior Trump advisers accepted the meeting. The Trump team did not obtain the dirt they’d hoped for. But the very fact of the meeting confirmed to the Russian side the Trump campaign’s eagerness to accept Russian assistance. Shortly after, Trump delivered his “Russia, if you’re listening” invitation at his last press conference of the campaign.
7. WikiLeaks released two big caches of hacked Democratic emails in July and October 2016. In the words of the Senate Intelligence Committee: “WikiLeaks actively sought, and played, a key role in the Russian intelligence campaign and very likely knew it was assisting a Russian intelligence influence effort.”
8. Through its ally Roger Stone, the Trump campaign team assiduously tried to communicate with WikiLeaks. Before the second WikiLeaks release, “Trump and the Campaign believed that Stone had inside information and expressed satisfaction that Stone’s information suggested more releases would be forthcoming,” according to the Senate Intelligence Committee. In late summer and early fall 2016, Stone repeatedly predicted that WikiLeaks would publish an “October surprise” that would harm the Clinton campaign.
9. At the same time as it welcomed Russian help, the Trump campaign denied and covered up Russian involvement: “The Trump Campaign publicly undermined the attribution of the hack-and-leak campaign to Russia and was indifferent to whether it and WikiLeaks were furthering a Russian election interference effort,” the Intelligence Committee found.
10. In March 2016, the Trump campaign accepted the unpaid services of Paul Manafort, deeply beholden to deeply shady Russian business and political figures. “On numerous occasions, Manafort sought to secretly share internal Campaign information” with a man the Intelligence Committee identified as a Russian intelligence officer. “Taken as a whole, Manafort’s high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services … represented a grave counterintelligence threat,” the committee found. Through 2016, the Russian state launched a massive Facebook disinformation program that aligned with the Trump campaign strategy.
11. At crucial moments in the 2016 election, Trump publicly took positions that broke with past Republican policy and served no apparent domestic political purpose, but that supported Putin’s foreign-policy goals: scoffing at NATO support for Estonia, denigrating allies such as Germany, and endorsing Britain’s exit from the European Union.
12. Throughout the 2016 election and after, people close to Trump got themselves into serious legal and political trouble by lying to the public, to Congress, and even to the FBI about their Russian connections.

The Steele dossier undertook to answer the question “What the hell is going on with Trump and Russia?” The Senate Intelligence Committee found that the FBI investigation gave the Steele dossier “unjustified credence.” But the disintegration of the dossier’s answers has not silenced the power of its question. It was to silence that question that the outgoing Trump administration appointed a special counsel of its own to investigate its investigators. John Durham has now issued three indictments, all for lying to the FBI about various aspects of the Steele dossier. None of these indictments vindicate Trump’s claims in any way. It remains fact that Russian hackers and spies helped his campaign. It remains fact that the Trump campaign welcomed the help. It remains fact that Trump’s campaign chairman sought to share proprietary campaign information with a person whom the Senate report identified as a “Russian intelligence officer.” It remains fact that Trump hoped to score a huge payday in Russia even as he ran for president. It remains fact that Trump and those around him lied, and lied, and lied again about their connections to Russia. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/11/trump-russia-senate-intelligence-report/620815/

Putin Did It Again: New Intelligence Report Says Moscow Helped Trump in 2020. Anti-Biden propaganda was prepared with the assistance of Russian intelligence. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/03/donald-trump-russia-2020/

Liberal Dark Money

Liberal ‘dark money’ groups’ revenue soared ahead of 2020 elections. More than $86.2 million of Sixteen Thirty Fund’s windfall came from its sister 501(c)(3) group, New Venture Fund, which tax documents show raised over $965 million — nearly $1 billion — in 2020 from a myriad of anonymous sources. Since New Venture Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, individual donors can write off their contributions as tax-deductible even though some of the nonprofit’s money is given to more politically active groups. Both New Venture Fund and Sixteen Thirty Fund give to an array of groups and causes with a wide range of levels of political activity. New tax records reviewed by OpenSecrets reveal that New Venture Fund was primarily funded by multimillion dollar donations in 2020 with ​​just eight anonymous donors giving tens of millions of dollars each in 2020 making up the bulk of its fundraising. Two donors gave over $100 million each. While Sixteen Thirty Fund and New Venture Fund do not voluntarily disclose donors, some funders have been made public by foundations and other groups giving grants to them. Donors have included nonprofits linked to Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar and liberal mega-donor George Soros. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/12/liberal-dark-money-groups-revenue-soared-ahead-of-2020-elections/

Past elections, fraud

Pro-Trump Group Invented Voter Fraud Claims Months Before Election. A well-funded far-right group—that made inroads with Stop The Steal organizations, paid a former police captain more than $200,000 to hunt ballots, and became entangled in a roadside stickup—was making war plans for Election Day 2020 months ahead of time, documents reveal. The fringe group, the Liberty Center for God and Country (LCGC), led a lucrative fundraising blitz in the run-up to the election and quietly networked with now-notorious election denialists. Their work came to light in October of that year when former Houston Police captain Mark Aguirre allegedly rammed his SUV into a man’s truck, forced the man onto the ground at gunpoint, and accused him of transporting 750,000 fraudulent ballots. Aguirre’s claims were baseless—his victim was an innocent air conditioner technician—and no widespread voter fraud has been found in the 2020 election. Aguirre was indicted this week for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. https://www.thedailybeast.com/pro-trump-group-liberty-center-for-god-and-country-invented-voter-fraud-claims-months-before-election-2020

How Ashley Biden's Diary Made Its Way to Project Veritas. Federal prosecutors and FBI agents are investigating whether there was a criminal conspiracy among a handful of individuals to steal and publish the diary. Those being scrutinized include current and former operatives for the conservative group Project Veritas; a donor Trump appointed to a political position in the final days of his administration; a man who once pleaded guilty in a money laundering scheme; and a financially struggling mother of two, according to people familiar with federal grand jury subpoenas and a search warrant who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. The investigation has focused new attention on how Trump or his allies sought to use the troubles of Biden’s two surviving children to undercut him. The inquiry has also intensified the scrutiny of Project Veritas. Its founder, James O’Keefe, was pulled from his apartment in his underwear and handcuffed during a dawn raid last month by the FBI, two days after a pair of his former employees had their homes raided. Asked a list of specific questions related to the investigation, a lawyer for Project Veritas, Paul A. Calli, responded with a statement from O’Keefe criticizing The New York Times. Project Veritas has said in court filings that it was assured by the people who sold Ashley Biden’s items to the group that they were abandoned rather than stolen. But the police report said that Bantner’s client had told him that the property was “possibly stolen” and “he got it from an unknown person at a hotel.” The video footage, which appears to be a partial account of the encounter, records Bantner describing the bags as “crap.” The officer can be heard telling Bantner that he is going to throw the bags in the garbage because the officer did not have any “information” or “proof of evidence.” “Like I said, I’m fine with it,” Bantner replied. But police did examine the contents of the bag and quickly determined that they belonged to Ashley Biden. The report said police contacted the Secret Service and the FBI, which later collected the items. https://news.yahoo.com/ashley-bidens-diary-made-way-194903781.html

Probe finds Trump officials repeatedly violated Hatch Act https://apnews.com/article/presidential-elections-election-2020-elections-778951007a888c1f2af6babbb198634b

FEC drops investigation into Trump hush money payments. The Federal Elections Commission (FEC) has closed its investigation into whether former President Trump illegally made hush money payments to women prior to the 2016 election. The FEC voted 4-1 to close the probes after failing to find that Trump or his campaign “knowingly and willfully” violated campaign finance law when his former attorney Michael Cohen paid $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her from disclosing an alleged affair. Cohen was convicted in 2018 of lying to Congress, tax evasion and other charges relating to the payments to Daniels and other women. He served three years in prison. His attorney said Cohen testified in court that the payment was made “for the principal purpose of influencing an election.” The FEC's Office of General Counsel issued a report in December finding that there was “reason to believe” that Cohen and the Trump campaign knowingly and willfully violated campaign finance law. However, the FEC said that it failed by a 2-2 vote to prove any of the parties violated campaign finance law. The panel’s two Republican commissioners, Allen Dickerson and Sean Cooksey, wrote in a statement that they felt Cohen had already been punished criminally and the matter was “not the best use of agency resources.” “The public record is complete with respect to the conduct at issue in these complaints, and Mr. Cohen has been punished by the government of the United States for the conduct at issue in these matters,” Dickerson and Cooksey wrote. In a separate statement, Democratic commissioner Ellen Weintraub and Commission Chair Shana Broussard said the probe should have been continued after the general counsel said there was reason to believe campaign finance law was broken. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/552271-fec-drops-investigation-into-trump-hush-money-payments

Twitter troll arrested for election interference related to disinformation campaign. The charges are a potentially tectonic shift in how the federal government tries to enforce laws against election interference. The notorious Twitter troll and alt-right figure Douglass Mackey, known better by his alter ego, Ricky Vaughn, was arrested on Wednesday on federal charges of election interference stemming from an alleged voter disinformation campaign during the 2016 election. Mackey is charged with conspiring with others “to disseminate misinformation designed to deprive individuals of their constitutional right to vote,” according to the newly unsealed criminal complaint. In September 2016, Mackey’s groups turned to creating memes that misled potential voters about how they would be able to cast votes, creating memes that falsely claimed that supporters could cast their vote by posting on Facebook or Twitter or by voting through text message. According to the complaint, 4,900 unique telephone numbers texted their votes to the number provided. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/twitter-troll-arrested-election-interference-related-disinformation-campaign-n1255864

2021

California Recall

Republicans overplayed their hand in California – and Democrats are laughing. Larry Elder just discovered that his brand appeals to a tiny fraction of voters. Republican governors in Texas and Florida may learn similar lessons. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/15/california-recall-republicans-larry-elder

5 Takeaways From The California Recall Election. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) crushed a Republican-led effort to oust him from office a year early.

1. Democrats’ coronavirus approach vindicated
2. ‘Trumpism is not dead’
3. Newsom dodges friendly fire
4. Recall reform could gain public support

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/california-recall-newsom-election_n_61417135e4b09519c50b7047

California Recall Updates: Gavin Newsom Wins, in a Relief for Democrats. The governor of America’s most populous state brushed aside an effort to remove him, as deep-blue California rallied to prevent Republicans from capturing its top office. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/09/14/us/california-recall-election-newsom

No 5,840,283 63.9%

Yes 3,297,145 36.1

California women show decisive support for Newsom, concerns about Elder, as recall looms. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-04/women-voters-thumbs-down-on-recall-elder-thumbs-up-on-keeping-newsom-in-office

Column: Gavin Newsom has been one of the most pro-Latino governors in California history, and he’s under attack for it. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-08-25/recall-election-newsom-latino-support

How Jerry Brown fits in among California’s greatest governors. Historians say he’s one of the best but doesn’t match his father. None of the other modern-era governors who served between Brown’s two stints in the top job quite match up, historians say, pointing to episodes like Wilson’s anti-immigrant policies, Gray Davis’ recall election, and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s failure to staunch the state’s fiscal problems. https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/12/23/jerry-brown-california-greatest-governors-history/

Column: How recall candidate Larry Elder mentored Trumpism’s top acolytes. BY JEAN GUERRERO https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-07-14/larry-elder-candidate-newsom-recall-election

Recall backers try to block Trump mentions from California voter guide. Their demand: Recall supporters say that Newsom's language misleadingly casts the recall as illegitimate and falsely implies only Republicans are in support. They want to strip out various references to Republicans and to mute Newsom’s attempts to frame the recall as a nefarious effort to seize power. Newsom response: "The lawsuit is totally baseless," Newsom campaign spokesperson Nathan Click said in a statement. "The facts are clear — this is a partisan Republican recall: one that was launched by Republicans like Heatlie and Netter and funded almost exclusively by Republican donors, the RNC and allies of Donald Trump. Republicans know they can't win in a normal election year, so they are trying to force a special election and grab power." Why it matters: Newsom has striven from the outset to define the recall as a cynical maneuver by Trump-aligned Republicans, believing that will resonate in a heavily Democratic state where Trump was very unpopular. The state’s official voter guide offers a prime opportunity to make that case to voters — or not. https://www.politico.com/states/california/whiteboard/2021/08/02/recall-backers-try-to-block-trump-mentions-from-california-voter-guide-1389380

Reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner said Friday that she's leading all contenders in the Gov. Gavin Newsom recall despite polling and fundraising totals that suggest otherwise, addressing California political reporters in her first campaign press conference. Jenner said she plans a statewide bus tour in the month before the Sept. 14 recall and dismissed a major May poll showing that she was fourth among GOP hopefuls with only 6 percent support. “Honestly, I'm not concerned about the polling,” she said, dismissing the survey as outdated. “I guarantee you that I am in the lead." Jenner said she has no plans to drop out of the race ahead of a filing deadline next week and will provide five years of tax returns as required by California's elections chief under a new law. “I have a tremendous advantage, obviously because of name recognition," Jenner said in her first trip to Sacramento some 10 weeks after declaring her candidacy. https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2021/07/09/jenner-insists-shes-leading-california-recall-field-despite-polling-1388190

GOP’s Faulconer: Boost Shelters For Homeless Californians. Republican gubernatorial candidate Kevin Faulconer wants to create more homeless shelters in California as part of his effort to get people off the streets, declaring homelessness in the state an emergency that must be treated like one. Faulconer, the former two-term San Diego mayor, released a statewide plan Tuesday modeled off his efforts while leading the nation's eighth-most populous city. Expanding shelters would make it easier for law enforcement to clear encampments and to cite or arrest people who don't leave. But the plan offers limited details on what happens to people once they're in the shelters, and only lays out a plan to help veterans access permanent housing. Faulconer said all shelters would be required to offer services for mental health and drug addiction. Converting hotel and motel rooms into housing is the key component of Newsom's response to homelessness. Faulconer supported such programs as San Diego mayor and said there's “absolutely" a place for it in the state's approach. https://www.kpbs.org/news/2021/jun/29/gops-faulconer-boost-shelters-homeless-californian/

‘It’s all fallen apart’: Newsom scrambles to save California — and his career. The Democrat leading the nation’s biggest state is facing a raging pandemic, vaccine distribution problems and a nascent recall drive. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/11/gavin-newsom-california-scramble-fallen-apart-456665

2022

2022 & Redistricting

Star Trek makes Stacey Abrams president of United Earth – and stokes conservative anger. National Review says candidate for governor in Georgia and self-confessed superfan does not deserve fictional title. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/19/stacey-abrams-president-earth-star-trek-georgia-governor

Inside McConnell's Campaign to Take Back the Senate and Thwart Trump. For more than a year, former President Donald Trump has berated Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, savaging him for refusing to overturn the state’s presidential results and vowing to oppose him should he run for the Senate this year. In early December, though, Ducey received a far friendlier message from another former Republican president. At a golf tournament luncheon, George W. Bush encouraged him to run against Sen. Mark Kelly, a Democrat, suggesting the Republican Party needs more figures like Ducey to step forward. “It’s something you have to feel a certain sense of humility about,” the governor said this month of Bush’s appeal. “You listen respectfully, and that’s what I did.” https://news.yahoo.com/inside-mcconnells-campaign-back-senate-153831180.html

Louisiana candidate for Senator burns up a confederate flag in this new kickass ad. Hoping to unseat racist Senator John Kennedy in the 2022 election, Louisiana Senate candidate Gary Chambers gets right down to business in his powerful new campaign ad. Appealing to Democrats and anyone else opposed to what the far-right senator stands for, Chambers hangs a confederate flag, douses it in gas, and then burns it up. And after explaining how Jim Crow never left Louisiana and the South, he ends the ad saying, "Our system isn't broken — it's designed to do exactly what it's doing, which is producing measurable inequity. … I do believe the South will rise again, but this time it will be on our terms." https://boingboing.net/2022/02/09/louisiana-candidate-running-against-sen-kennedy-torches-a-confederate-flag-in-this-new-kickass-ad.html https://youtu.be/X6iSRU9486I

Watch: Simple explainer on why democracy in America will lose, unless Democrats wake up https://boingboing.net/2022/01/14/watch-simple-explainer-on-why-democracy-in-america-will-lose-unless-democrats-wake-up.html

CA AD 78 old 77th Democrat Brian Maienschein Elected four times as a Republican, became a Democrat on January 24, 2019.

CA SD 39 old 39th Democrat Toni Atkins

CA CD 51 old 53rd Democrat Sara Jacobs

First-term Rep. Sara Jacobs announced Tuesday that she will seek re-election to the House of Representatives in the new 51st District in 2022. Hours later, Republican Rep. Darrell Issa said he’d seek the new 48th District seat. The new district in central San Diego County includes much of Democrat Jacobs’ current 53rd District, but also parts of the county previously represented by Reps. Scott Peters, Issa and Juan Vargas. https://timesofsandiego.com/politics/2021/12/21/reps-jacobs-issa-to-seek-re-election-in-new-51st-48th-congress-districts-in-2022/

The map viewer includes draft maps that were approved 11.10.21. https://www.wedrawthelinesca.org/map_viewer

Finally, three safely Democratic districts in the San Diego area have turned into two safely Democratic districts and one competitive district, which could force one of the area’s Democratic incumbents to either run on much redder turf or take on one of their colleagues. At the same time, though, the new map moves Republican Reps. Ken Calvert’s and Darrell Issa’s districts each 8 points to the left, putting them in danger of losing reelection later in the decade. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-2022-maps/california/

FiveThirtyEight also determined that the 50th District, which has historically always been a Republican stronghold, will still favor Republicans, but less strongly than it has before. "Certainly Darrell Issa will yet again be one of the targeted Republicans nationally and someone who will likely draw a top tier challenger and will be in another strong political fight," Kousser said. https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/new-proposed-political-maps-make-49th-50th-districts-more-competitive/2793411/

Trump’s Underlying Rally Message Is Clear: Fear Me. As he kicks off a new series of rallies, Trump hopes to punish those who have defied him and scare off any would be challengers in 2024. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-underlying-rally-message-is-clear-fear-me

‘As Long as the Party Embraces Trump, It’s Going to Have Trouble’ The Republican collapse in Michigan’s Oakland County, once a stronghold, was a long time coming. Is losing these suburbs a warning light for Trumpism? https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/06/18/biden-republican-voters-oakland-county-michigan-suburbs-494983

Pollster Frank Luntz: Trump's 'Big Lie' is working, may cost GOP votes. Luntz noted in an interview on the New York Times podcast “Sway” released Thursday that “more than two-thirds of Republicans believe that the election was stolen,” warning that a widespread and unproven belief that there was rampant fraud last November could turn Republicans off from voting in the midterm elections. “What Donald Trump is saying is actually telling people it's not worth it to vote. Donald Trump single-handedly may cause people not to vote. And he may be the greatest tool in the Democrats' arsenal to keep control of the House and Senate in 2022,” Luntz said. The pollster also said that Trump would be the "odds-on favorite" to win the Republican nomination if he runs again in 2024. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/552076-gop-pollster-frank-luntz-trumps-big-lie-is-working-may-cost-gop-house

California

What 2022 election? California Republicans grim on beating Newsom. Republican donors and fundraisers described a dearth of activity. Faulconer has been reaching out to funders to see if another run is viable after he finished a distant third among recall replacement candidates, receiving only 590,000 votes compared with more than 3.5 million for Elder. (Nearly 8 million voted to keep Newsom in office.) https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2022/01/21/what-2022-election-california-republicans-grim-on-beating-newsom-1405828

Trump GQP rallies, Republican/Nazi Party/Brotherhood of Evil Mutants

Footage shows the "life-threatening" tap on Rudy Giuliani's back by market employee. Snowflake Rudy Giuliani nearly cracked his head and died after being "attacked" by a passerby in a supermarket (see harrowing video above). Or at least that's what the disgraced former Trump attorney is bellowing on about after a market employee slapped him on the back yesterday. "I feel a shot on my back like somebody shot me. I went forward, but luckily I didn't fall down," the skittish New York mayor-turned-slipper peddler said. "I mean, suppose I was a weaker 78-year-old and I hit the ground, cracked my skull, and died." (Yes, and suppose I walked outside and, from out of nowhere, a bolt of lightning struck me in the skull and I died.) "My back hurts, but otherwise I'm able to walk and stuff like that," continued the Big Lie promoter, who is still battling ongoing defamation lawsuits brought against him by Dominion Voting Systems. "He almost knocked me down. Thank God for a 78-year-old, I am in pretty good shape." https://boingboing.net/2022/06/27/footage-shows-the-life-threatening-tap-on-rudy-giulianis-back-by-market-employee.html https://youtu.be/VxSQ75InlVc

5 notable moments from Trump’s remarks at Faith and Freedom Coalition event

1. Trump floats pardons for Jan. 6 defendants after a potential 2024 win
2. Trump continues attacks on Pence over 2020 election certification
3. Trump claims without evidence that Jan. 6 videos shown as evidence are doctored
4. Trump asserts Capitol riot was ‘a simple protest that got out of hand‘
5. Trump bashes ‘left-wing indoctrination’ in education

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3528846-5-notable-moments-from-trumps-remarks-at-faith-and-freedom-coalition-event/

Trump Posts Fake Video Of Him Hitting Biden In The Head With Golf Ball. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-golf-ball-strikes-biden-fake-truth-social-video_n_62ae57f6e4b0c77098aedcf7

Trump calls Pence a 'human conveyor belt' who 'didn't have courage to act' and says Democrats want to execute babies AFTER birth in speech attacking Biden, the January 6 committee and schools that let 'kindergartners pick their own gender' Former President Donald Trump slammed his former vice president on Friday He said Pence 'had a chance to be great' if he refused to certify election results Instead he behaved like a 'human conveyor belt' by delivering the votes Trump addressed religious conservatives in Nashville, Tennessee 'It was a simple protest,' he said of January 6. 'It got out of hand' https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10928309/Trump-slams-Mike-Pence-human-conveyor-belt-delivering-fraudulent-votes-January-6.html

Anti-Abortion Rep. Lauren Boebert Reportedly Had Two Abortions. The allegations were shared by the same PAC that targeted Rep. Madison Cawthorn. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Co.) reportedly had two abortions and worked as an unlicensed paid escort. During her escort work, one wealthy client in Aspen introduced her to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who subsequently encouraged Boebert to run for office. https://jezebel.com/anti-abortion-rep-lauren-boebert-reportedly-had-two-ab-1849062919

Primary election results – live: Trump rages as Dr Oz struggles and Madison Cawthorn crashes out. With almost all the results now in from Tuesday’s key primary elections, strong performances by several Donald Trump-backed candidates underscore the former president’s ongoing clout within the party – but it was far from a perfect scorecard, with North Carolina Republicans throwing out Trump-backed congressman Madison Cawthorn in his primary. Meanwhile, Mr Trump has taken to Truth Social to baselessly suggest mail-in ballots were fraudulent in Pennsylvania, where his chosen Senate candidate Dr Mehmet Oz is locked in a tight battle with former hedge fund executive David McCormick. With only a small portion of the vote yet to be counted, the two men are just a tiny number of votes apart, putting them within the 0.5-point margin that triggers an automatic recount – and raising the possibility that mail-in votes could put Mr McCormick ahead. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/primary-election-day-2022-pa-nc-b2081044.html

Trump, Don Jr., Imagine Themselves MAGA 'Royalty' In Cringey Memes https://news.yahoo.com/trump-don-jr-imagine-themselves-121639140.html

Lauren Boebert’s American Dream. The Colorado congresswoman has built her reputation as a certain kind of working-class hero. Her employees tell a different story. ABIGAIL WEINBERG The high percentage of unaffiliated voters in Boebert’s district lends a degree of unpredictability to the upcoming election, but the tea leaves seem to read in her favor. Boebert supporters, unsurprisingly, are confident that Boebert is not a fluke, but the future. “I think she’s going to become a very powerful member of the US Congress,” McInnis says. Or, as the donor who denounced “liberal crap” tells me, “Maybe she’ll be president someday.” https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/05/lauren-boebert-profile-shooters-grill-rifle-gun-obama-pay-staff-employees/

Lindsey Graham is heard praising Joe Biden as the 'best person' to lead the country in new audio while he was waiting in a 'secure location' during Jan. 6 riot The South Carolina senator called Biden the best person to unify the country 'I mean, how mad can you get at Joe Biden?' Graham asked rhetorically The audio was released by two New York Times reporters promoting a book about the 2020 election It was recorded as the Republican sought refuge from rioters on January 6, 2021 Graham sharply criticized Trump supporters after the riot Since then, he has been spotted golfing with the former president in Florida https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10803907/Lindsey-Graham-praises-Joe-Biden-best-person-lead-country-Jan-6-riot.html https://youtu.be/eprdMcZsjnQ

President Who Was Wrong Countless Times Tells Cult Followers ‘I Was Right About Everything’ Trump claimed tonight he was “right about everything” but also forgot the name of a candidate at whose rally he spoke just last week. Trump took to the stage as the Sept. 11 tribute song, “Proud to be an American,” played. He then told the crowd, “I could have gotten out of this one.” The rally, originally scheduled for Friday, had to be postponed because of potential severe weather in the area. Promoting Herbster, Trump said that the candidate accused of assault by multiple women was “a good man, a very good man.” (Trump has been credibly accused of sexual harassment or assault by at least 18 women.) https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/list-trumps-accusers-allegations-sexual-misconduct/story?id=51956410 Trump also touted other candidates he has endorsed in the 2022 elections, kind of. “We’ve endorsed Dr. Oz. We’ve endorsed J.P., right? J.D. Mandel. And he’s doing great. They’re all doing good. They’re all doing good. And let’s see what happens.” Except, J.D. Vance is the candidate Trump endorsed, not J.D. Mandel. Vance is running against Josh Mandel in Ohio’s Republican Senate primary. This, from a “stable genius” with a perfect cognitive test score and a “very, very large brain” who claims he has been “right about everything.” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-rally-charles-herbster-1345950/

Macomb County GOP ousts party leaders stuck re-litigating Trump's 2020 loss. When Macomb Township Republican Jamie Roe walked into the event at the Shelby Gardens convention space, he said the place was well on its way to being packed and that the mood was "spirited." "Last night, everyone who was focused on winning the election in 2022 had been pushed over the edge," said Roe. "Fed-up activists and elected officials joined together to remove the Executive Committee and officers from office and replace them with a new group focused solely on winning in 2022 and not on the past." Grassroots activists have a way of showing us what is happening within a party long before the first ballots are cast. What happened in Macomb is evidence that the party is ready to move on -- not necessarily beyond Trump, but certainly beyond 2020. https://news.yahoo.com/macomb-county-gop-ousts-party-173703937.html

Video shows Donald Trump struggling to say the name of his own social media platform, Truth Social. In Ohio, Trump was heard bungling the name of Truth Social, calling it "Truth Central" instead. At the same rally, Trump messed up the pronounciation of "drop box" too, calling them "drok boxes." https://www.businessinsider.com/video-shows-trump-struggling-to-name-his-truth-social-platform-2022-4

Trump Rambles About Toilets Not Flushing During Ohio Rally … Oh, and Also: Hijacking America’s Election Systems. The former president went on several laughable rants during his speech on Saturday night. He also waxed about his ongoing efforts to cut the legs out from under the democratic process. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/donald-trump-rally-delaware-ohio-jd-vance-1342199/

2022 election: Q&A with Rep. Darrell Issa, 48th Congressional District candidate. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/story/2022-04-21/2022-election-q-a-with-darrell-issa-candidate-for-californias-48th-congressional-district

In the summer of 2020, Ruth Ben-Ghiat was putting the final touches on her history of modern autocracy. She had to do it, though, without the benefit of knowing whether one of her most important subjects would remain in power come November. The genius of the “big lie” was not only that it sparked a movement that ended up with January 6 to physically allow him to stay in office. But psychologically the “big lie” was very important because it prevented his propagandized followers from having to reckon with the fact that he lost. And it maintains him as their hero, as their winner, as the invincible Trump, but also as the wronged Trump, the victim. Victimhood is extremely important for all autocrats. They always have to be the biggest victim. https://news.yahoo.com/one-way-history-shows-trump-110000336.html

GOP pollster Frank Luntz says 'Trump isn't the same man he was a year ago' He claims Republicans are mocking and laughing at the former president behind his back and 'think he's a child' Republicans, he says, are fed up with Trump pushing 2020 election fraud claims Comments come after New Hampshire GOP Governor Chris Sununu said during the Gridiron Dinner in D.C. on Saturday that Trump is 'f***ing crazy' He said: 'I don't think he's so crazy he should be in a mental asylum. But if he's in one, he's not getting out' 'I don't know a single Republican who was surprised by what Sununu said,' Luntz said https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10714987/Pollster-says-Republicans-mock-child-Trump-private-tired-talking-2020-election.html

Donald Trump has long equated crowd size with success ― reportedly even bragging of the size of the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to block the certification of the election and keep him in power. GOP strategist Susan Del Percio said Trump is now falling short by that measure as his rally crowds decrease in size. “That’s what you saw there: a very shrinking base,” she told MSNBC’s Cori Coffin one day after Trump addressed a surprisingly sparse crowd in Selma, North Carolina. Local newspaper The News & Observer reported that Trump spoke to about 1,000 to 2,000 people ― a far cry from the 15,000 who turned out for him at the same venue in 2016. https://news.yahoo.com/gop-strategist-spots-ominous-warning-050550956.html https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article260270845.html

Mike Pence launches his midterms 'Freedom Agenda' to 'stop the radical left' - and jabs at Trump by saying Democrats would 'love nothing more than for conservatives to talk about the past' Former Vice President Mike Pence launched his 'Freedom Agenda' Thursday that outlines policy positions he argued conservative candidates can use to win He told Fox News Digital it was important for the conservative party to 'rally around a bold, optimistic agenda' Pence said Democrats would 'love nothing more for conservatives to talk about the past' The former VP is walking a thin line between touting what he and Trump accomplished and not further calling attention to his rift with the ex-president. With Trumpworld turned against him, Pence is trying to carve out areas where he can have clout within the Republican Party. The 'Freedom Agenda' is split into three sections: American Culture, American Opportunity, American Freedom. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10673793/Mike-Pence-launches-midterms-Freedom-Agenda.html

Trump, who was impeached in 2019 for his request to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he do Trump a "favor" by investigating Joe Biden's son Hunter, told right-wing television host John Solomon in an interview published Tuesday that he wanted Russian President Vladimir Putin to shed light on unverified reports that Biden's son received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Yelena Baturina, the wife of Moscow's former mayor. “She gave him $3.5 million, so now I would think Putin would know the answer to that,” Trump told Solomon. “I think he should release it. I think we should know that answer.” “How is it that the mayor of Moscow, his wife, gave the Biden family three and a half million dollars?” he continued. “I think Putin now would be willing to probably give that answer. I’m sure he knows.” https://news.yahoo.com/trump-solicits-putins-help-to-expose-alleged-dirt-on-hunter-biden-181900886.html

Trump Degrades His Own General as an ‘Idiot’ Before Gushing Over ‘Smart’ Kim Jong-un. Trump once again finds himself praising an autocrat who doesn’t care about democracy. Funny how that keeps happening. Before Donald Trump took the stage in Commerce, Georgia for a campaign-style rally Saturday night, those in attendance were shown a monologue by General George Patton. It wasn’t the actual Patton; like most what took place on stage Saturday night, it was someone acting a part. In this case, it was the general as played by George C. Scott in the 1970 Academy Award-winning film Patton. Within the hour, Trump had called the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — Gen. Mark Milley — a “freaking idiot.” “Where the hell are our General Pattons?” Trump exclaimed, before rehashing an alleged dialogue he had with Milley, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who’d also held that role under Trump. According to Trump — who, as a reminder, lies a lot — Milley advocated for leaving certain American-made weapons in Afghanistan during the withdrawal of U.S. forces while Trump thought otherwise. (Trump also claimed that the United States left some $85 billion of equipment in the country, but the real number is $18 billion, according to an Associated Press fact check.) “Sir, it’s cheaper to leave the equipment than to take it out, sir,” Trump said, giving an impression of Milley, whom he nominated as chairman in 2018. “That’s when I realized he was a freaking idiot,” Trump blurted out, in a near replica of comments he made about the general late last year at Mar-a-Lago. “I’ll never forget it. I said, ‘This guy says it’s cheaper to leave all this equipment.'” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-rally-north-korea-mark-milley-1327392/

Trump's Georgia Rally Sees 'Smallest Crowd' in State Since 2016: Reporters. Former President Donald Trump's Georgia rally on Saturday failed to draw the number of supporters he has been accustomed to in the southern state, according to multiple journalists covering the event. Trump held the event in support of several of Georgia's Republican primary candidates in Commerce, Georgia, which is about an hour drive northeast of Atlanta. While the former president has regularly seen tens of thousands attend his events in the state, as well as other states across the country, journalists assessed that the crowd size was underwhelming this weekend. "I've covered more than two dozen Trump rallies around the nation. This is the smallest crowd I've seen at a rally of his in Georgia since he won the 2016 election—significantly smaller than the crowd in Perry in September," Greg Bluestein, a political reporter at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweeted. Fowler also reported that people in attendance began "streaming out" even as Trump was still speaking. "People keep leaving during Trump speech. It's cold and windy and there's not much enthusiasm," he wrote. He also shared photos from different times during the event, showing that the venue got emptier as the former president spoke. https://www.newsweek.com/trumps-georgia-rally-sees-smallest-crowd-state-since-2016-reporters-1692212

Peter Thiel-tied dark money group helping bankroll super PAC spending on 2022 election. A “dark money” group tied to billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel steered hundreds of thousands of dollars into a super PAC spending on Ohio’s Senate race in support of “Hillbilly Elegy” author J.D. Vance, who worked at Thiel’s venture capital firm. Vance faces a crowded field of Republican contenders in the Ohio Senate race with a primary scheduled for May 3. The pro-Vance super PAC, Protect Ohio Values, received $200,000 from a group called Per Aspera Policy. Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook, also gave $10 million to the pro-Vance super PAC during the first half of 2021 but the super PAC did not report any money received from Thiel during the second half of the year. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/02/peter-thiel-tied-dark-money-group-helping-bankroll-super-pac-spending-on-2022-election/

A weakened Trump? As some voters edge away, he battles parts of the Republican Party he once ran. The former president’s power within the party and his continued focus on personal grievances is increasingly questioned behind closed doors at Republican gatherings, according to interviews with more than a dozen prominent Republicans in Washington and across the country, including some Trump advisers. Many spoke on the condition of anonymity because there remains significant fear of attracting Trump’s public wrath. The growing split is rooted in diverging priorities: Trump has pursued a narrow effort to punish those who challenged his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result, while also working to put people in power who would be more sympathetic to him should he try the same thing again. Other Republicans are more focused on finding palatable candidates most able to win in November. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/13/trump-politics-weakness/

Confederate Flags, Conspiracies, and the Ghost of JFK Jr.: What I Saw at Trump’s Bananas Texas Rally. It’s part roadshow and part religious revival, but the show is a grift and the religion being revived is fascism. We were in one of the reddest counties in one of the reddest states, and it showed: When I arrived at the press check-in station, the first thing I saw was a merchandise vendor with a Confederate flag — the banner of a nation that lasted only 4 years before being routed out of existence — that says “Come And Take It.” It was set up directly across from a wooden cross. Having attended the prior rally in Arizona and the Lara Trump event on Thursday, a twisted sense of deja vu came over me when I got into the venue and began to hear the same songs, watch the same videos, listen to the same speeches, and see the same people. There were many familiar faces — election conspiracy peddling MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and the JFK Jr. obsessed QAnon cult leader Michael Protzman — and in some instances, near word for word repeats of previous events. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-texas-rally-conspiracies-ghost-of-jfk-jr-1292592/

They’re Too Extreme for QAnon — and Right at Home at Trump’s Rally. Michael Protzman tells his followers that JFK Jr. and other dead celebrities are helping Trump catch a global cabal of pedophiles. Saturday night, he was seated with the VIPs. Florence, Ariz. — One full day before Trump spoke to an estimated 15,000 die-hard Republicans in Arizona, a group of JFK Jr. obsessed QAnon fanatics arrived at the venue grounds here. They drove all the way from Dallas, Texas, where they’ve been holed up in a Hyatt hotel for over two months amid a series of failed prophecies that JFK Jr. would return from the dead. The first among them was Stephen Tenner, right hand man to the group’s leader Michael Protzman. “I’m the first person and only person,” Tenner said in a video posted on social media. “I’m the number one mofo.” Tenner was later joined by Protzman and about two dozen members of this cultish group, whose months-long antics in Dallas have worried locals and drawn national attention. Protzman is a QAnon influencer who peddles a form of religious numerology known as “gematria,” which he infuses into his interpretations of QAnon theories. Protzman uses gematria to promote the idea that he is in direct contact with both the Kennedy family — which he believes are direct descendants of Jesus Christ — and members of the Trump inner circle. His group also trafficks in a wide range of outlandish conspiracy beliefs such as that long dead famous people such as Michael Jackson and JFK Jr. faked their deaths and are working with Donald Trump in secret to take down a global satanic pedophile cabal. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-rally-qanon-jkf-conspiracy-1286053/

Trump kicks off midterm year still stuck on last election. The former president delivers Jan. 6 rebuttal in Arizona, home to ground zero in the “Stop the Steal” movement’s fraudulent push to find evidence that the 2020 election was rigged. Trump, speaking at a podium emblazoned with “Save America,” opened his speech by falsely claiming “proof” that the 2020 election was “rigged.” As he vowed Republicans will take over the House and Senate in 2022, and sweep governors races across the country, an energized sea of supporters cheered at the Country Thunder festival grounds. “The fake news and the lamestream media … they refused to talk about it,” Trump said of his false election claims. “They say, ‘well it is unsubstantiated and the big lie.’ The big lie. The big lie is a lot of bullshit. That’s what it is.” “If an election were held today, we would trounce them so badly in a landslide in every way, just as we really did on Nov. 3. We trounced them. If we had an honest press, the election would have been much different,” Trump said, spreading more falsehoods about the election he lost by over 7 million votes. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/15/trump-kicks-off-midterm-year-still-stuck-on-last-election-527197

MAGA hats and QAnon: Inside Trump’s first rally of 2022. The former president hit all the notes in his rally in Arizona on Saturday. The question is: Is this a precursor to a reelection bid? https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/16/trump-first-rally-2022-maga-527206

2024 Election

Sasse inflames GOP with anti-Trump video. If the GOP’s fervor for the former president fades to any degree, Sasse will be better positioned than anyone to capitalize. Sen. Ben Sasse's political prospects rest on a longer view of the Republican Party — and an uncertain bet that eventually it will shift away from former President Donald Trump. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/05/ben-sasse-2024-466424 https://youtu.be/-jCnUHNeTkg

GQP, Trump

Trump Says He ‘May Have To’ Run in 2024 During Rambling, Lie-Filled South Carolina Rally Speech. “In 2024 we are going to take back that beautiful, beautiful White House,” the former president said. “I wonder who will do that. I wonder. I wonder.” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/donald-trump-florence-south-carolina-rally-1320483/

Trump told GOP donors that North Korea's Kim Jong Un had ability to make his advisers 'cower,' jokingly saying he also wants his staff to 'act like that'. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-wishes-staff-obedient-kim-jong-uns-nkorea-wapo-2022-3 "We will see a Republican president reclaim that beautiful White House in 2024. I wonder who that might be." https://twitter.com/politicoalex/status/1500315410750709760

The Republican National Committee is considering a change in its bylaws that would prohibit GOP presidential candidates from participating in presidential debates put on by the Commission on Presidential Debates. "So long as the CPD appears intent on stonewalling the meaningful reforms necessary to restore its credibility with the Republican Party as a fair and nonpartisan actor, the RNC will take every step to ensure that future Republican presidential nominees are given that opportunity elsewhere," RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel wrote in a letter Thursday to Frank Fahrenkopf and Kenneth Wollack, co-chairs of the debate commission. McDaniel said the party would initiate the rules change at its upcoming winter meeting, slated for February in Salt Lake City. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/rnc-threatens-bar-candidates-participating-official-presidential-debates-n1287427

Trump’s 2024 veep tryouts get underway. The question of Trump’s prospective choice of running mate is surfacing with increasing frequency. “A lot of times, a presidential candidate will pick a running mate to balance out wings of the party. But with Trump, that’s not the issue. He is the party, basically. It’s so united behind him,” said John McLaughlin, one of Trump’s campaign pollsters. “So his choice, if he runs, will come down to what he wants. It would be a much more personal decision this time.” Trump hasn’t made his 2024 bid official. He’s expected to make a decision after the 2022 midterms. But he has been building a campaign-in-waiting that is already laying groundwork, and the question of a running mate is surfacing with increasing frequency. He’s name-dropped Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as one possible running mate. Veepstakes speculation rose among insiders who saw him interact recently with South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at his Mar-a-Lago club. “They’re all begging me. They all come here,” Trump boasted to one adviser, who shared the account anonymously with POLITICO. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/29/trump-vice-president-choice-2024-523429

Pence says he looked to James Madison as he certified the 2020 election for Biden. The Des Moines Register reported that Pence also compared Trump favorably to former President Ronald Reagan, describing both men as “one of a kind.” https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/01/politics/mike-pence-james-madison-2020-election/index.html

Grisham thinks Trump will run in 2024 and have no 'guardrails'. “I think he is going to run again and you know that's why I'm speaking out the way I am. I don't want him to run again,” Grisham told “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd on NBC. “I think people aren't remembering that if he does run again in 2024, he'll have no guardrails because he will never have to worry about reelection, so he will do whatever he wants. He will hire whomever he wants, and I think that includes people of the January 6 mind,” she said, referring to the mob attack on the Capitol that led to Trump's second impeachment. https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/576124-grisham-thinks-trump-will-run-in-2024-and-have-no-guardrails

Thoughts on Trump's rally in Des Moines, Saturday, October 09, 2021 and the value of Trump coverage more broadly. You may be done with Trump. But Trump is not done with you. https://aaronrupar.substack.com/p/trump-rally-des-moines-iowa-grassley

Bannon fires up 'shock troops' for next GOP White House. Trump often railed publicly about career civil servants and Obama administration political appointee holdovers whom he saw as obstacles to his agenda, referring to them collectively as the "deep state." Bannon said he wants to see pre-trained teams ready to jump into federal agencies when the next Republican president takes office. For the most part, that means the tiers of presidential appointees whose postings don't require Senate confirmation. "We’re going to have a sweeping victory in 2022 and that’s just the preamble to a sweeping victory in 2024, and this time we’re going to be ready — and have a MAGA perspective, MAGA policies, not the standard Republican policies," he said, referring to Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan and describing a 2024 electoral victory as a "second term." The launch party Wednesday drew a crowd of roughly 200 former officials from multiple Republican administrations — though mostly Trump appointees — according to a person who attended and is not one of the organizers of the group. Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, a former Broadcasting Board of Governors official who is one of the organizers of the group said organizers are still trying to determine who will lead the association, but he said the need for institutional memory is apparent. "What we’re hoping to do is build a base of people that can be available as a support system for political appointees who are coming in for the first time," he said. "It’s easy, if you know the rules, to accomplish your objective." https://news.yahoo.com/bannon-fires-shock-troops-next-083009240.html

Trump on what would prevent 2024 bid: 'I guess a bad call from a doctor' https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/573918-trump-on-what-would-prevent-2024-bid-i-guess-a-bad-call-from-a-doctor

Trump’s Long Campaign to Steal the Presidency: A Timeline The insurrection was a complex, yearslong plot, not a one-day event. And it isn’t over. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-campaign-steal-presidency-timeline.html

President Trump said that his one-time close ally and United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley can't decide how she feels about him. 'Every time she criticizes me, she uncriticizes me about 15 minutes later,' the former president told Vanity Fair. Haley, who hadn't spoken to Trump since that the riot, was doubtful that he would ever run again. 'I think he's going to find himself further and further isolated,' Haley said. 'I think his business is suffering at this point. I think he's lost any sort of political viability he was going to have. I think he's lost his social media, which meant the world to him. I mean, I think he's lost the things that really could have kept him moving.' Haley is now stuck in limbo along with every other Republican considering a run for the presidency. 'It's a holding pattern,' a frustrated Haley adviser told Vanity Fair. 'It's unlike any previous race.' Trump refuses to say whether he'll run in 2024, but told Fox News' Sean Hannity in August: 'Let me put it this way, I think you’ll be happy and I think a lot of our friends will be very happy.' Insiders believe he is basking in the 'will he or won't he' agony other prospective Republicans are grappling with. 'Knowing Trump, he’ll dangle it right up to the New Hampshire primary filing deadline,' one Trump confidant said. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9952619/Trump-tears-ex-ally-potential-2024-rival-Nikki-Haley.html

Donald Trump coming to Alabama for rally in Cullman on Aug. 21. The event at York Family Farms begins at 2 p.m. with music and speakers. The former president is scheduled to speak at 7 p.m. York Family Farms 1872 County Road 469 Cullman, AL 35057 https://www.al.com/news/2021/08/reports-donald-trump-coming-to-alabama-for-rally-in-cullman-on-aug-21.html https://goo.gl/maps/H92RVdm1vjtUNrpc8

Pence flatlines as 2024 field takes shape. “There are some Trump supporters who think he’s the Antichrist,” said one Iowa GOP official. Mike Pence was met by a respectful, even warm, crowd in his first trip back to Iowa since the election. Republicans at a picnic in the northwestern corner of the state stood and clapped for him on Friday. In Des Moines later that afternoon, a ballroom full of Christian conservatives did the same. He was “honorable,” a “man of faith,” attendees at the annual Family Leadership Summit said. Evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats called him “a very consistent conservative voice in Congress and then as governor, and then as vice president.” Six months after he left the vice presidency, that is the prevailing view at the grassroots and among the GOP political class. By most accounts, both here and nationally, Pence is dead in the early waters of 2024. Stuart Spencer, the famed Republican strategist who advised Ronald Reagan, said he concluded that Pence was a “sincere guy and has a belief system” when Pence refused to be cowed by Trump on Jan. 6. But he doubted that will do him any good in 2024. “The Trump people don’t like him, and all the people who were anti-Trump don’t like him,” Spencer said. For Pence, he said, “That’s not a big Lincoln Day dinner.” https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/19/pence-flatlines-2024-499919

Donald Trump May Already Be Violating Campaign Laws “Trump—if you believe what he’s saying—has already decided. So if he ends up getting in the race, that would mean he had made the decision as of now, and should be filing FEC reports as a candidate.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-may-already-be-violating-campaign-laws

Biden

Watch Biden's grinning response to whether he'd be up for a rematch against Trump https://boingboing.net/2021/12/23/watch-bidens-grinning-response-to-whether-hed-be-up-for-a-rematch-against-trump.html

Warnings

‘Slow-motion insurrection’: How GOP seizes election power. In battleground states and beyond, Republicans are taking hold of the once-overlooked machinery of elections. While the effort is incomplete and uneven, outside experts on democracy and Democrats are sounding alarms, warning that the United States is witnessing a “slow-motion insurrection” with a better chance of success than Trump’s failed power grab last year. They point to a mounting list of evidence: Several candidates who deny Trump’s loss are running for offices that could have a key role in the election of the next president in 2024. In Michigan, the Republican Party is restocking members of obscure local boards that could block approval of an election. In Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the GOP-controlled legislatures are backing open-ended “reviews” of the 2020 election, modeled on a deeply flawed look-back in Arizona. The efforts are poised to fuel disinformation and anger about the 2020 results for years to come. All this comes as the Republican Party has become more aligned behind Trump, who has made denial of the 2020 results a litmus test for his support. Trump has praised the Jan. 6 rioters and backed primaries aimed at purging lawmakers who have crossed him. Sixteen GOP governors have signed laws making it more difficult to vote. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll showed that two-thirds of Republicans do not believe Democrat Joe Biden was legitimately elected as president. The result, experts say, is that another baseless challenge to an election has become more likely, not less. https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-united-states-elections-electoral-college-election-2020-809215812f4bc6e5907573ba98247c0c

Generals Warn Of Divided Military And Possible Civil War In Next U.S. Coup Attempt. “With the country still as divided as ever, we must take steps to prepare for the worst,” wrote former Army Major Gen. Paul Eaton, former Brigadier Gen. Steven Anderson and former Army Major Gen. Antonio Taguba. As the nation nears the first anniversary of the Capitol riot, the generals are “increasingly concerned about the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election and the potential for lethal chaos inside our military, which would put all Americans at severe risk,” they wrote in The Washington Post. The “lack of military preparedness for the aftermath of the 2020 election was striking and worrying. Trump’s acting defense secretary, Christopher Miller, testified that he deliberately withheld military protection of the Capitol before Jan. 6,” the generals noted. That can’t happen again, they emphasized. Military leaders can’t wait for elected officials to take adequate action to prepare for the next time. “Not a single leader who inspired” the last attempt has even been “held to account,” the generals noted. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/2024-election-coup-military-participants_n_61bd52f2e4b0bcd2193f3d72

117th Congress, 2021-2022

117th Congress, 2021-2022

Leadership

Democrats

Republicans

none

Elaine Chao's Excuse For Using the DOT As Her Father's Personal PR Agency: I'm Asian! https://theslot.jezebel.com/elaine-chaos-excuse-for-using-the-dot-as-her-fathers-pe-1846405101

Revealed: DOJ declined to investigate Mitch McConnell's Transport Secretary wife Elaine Chao after inspector general probe said she used her office for personal tasks and to promote her family's shipping firm. A report made public on Wednesday said Chao used her staff and office for personal tasks and to promote her family's shipping company. The report also said DOT staff assisted in the marketing of Chao's father's biography and edited his Wikipedia page. It was given to the Justice Department who declined to open a criminal investigation, but said there 'may be ethical and/or administrative issues to address' regarding Chao's actions detailed in the report. Chao has denied wrongdoing, saying promoting her family was an appropriate part of her official duties. Chao is the wife of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9325009/DOJ-declined-investigate-ex-transport-chief-Elaine-Chao-report-claimed-misused-role.html

Senate Judiciary Committee

Incoming Senate Judiciary chairman wants to hold Garland hearing Monday. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the incoming chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he wants to hold confirmation hearing for Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland on Feb. 8, a day before the impeachment trial of former President Trump begins in the Senate. https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/congress-trump-impeachment-2-03-21/h_bb0b9b9967fca5ff70ef7561ba6c6c00

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) rejected a Democratic request on Monday to schedule a confirmation hearing next week for Merrick Garland, President Biden's pick to be attorney general. Though Democrats have the Senate majority, Graham is still the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman because the chamber hasn't yet passed an organizing resolution for the 117th Congress. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/536874-graham-shoots-down-request-for-feb-8-merrick-garland-hearing

https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/about/members

Senate Judiciary Committee, January 2021

REPUBLICAN MEMBERS	DEMOCRATIC MEMBERS
Lesley Graham (SC)	Dianne Feinstein (CA)
Chuck Grassley (IA)	Patrick Leahy (VT)
John Cornyn (TX)	Dick Durbin (IL)
Michael S. Lee (UT)	Sheldon Whitehouse (RI)
Ted Cruz (TX)	Amy Klobuchar (MN)
Ben Sasse (NE)	Christopher A. Coons (DE)
Joshua D. Hawley (MO)	Richard Blumenthal (CT)
Thom Tillis (NC)	Mazie Hirono (HI)
Thom Tillis (NC)	Cory Booker (NJ)
Joni Ernst (IA)	Kamala Harris (CA)
Mike Crapo (ID)
John Kennedy (LA)
Marsha Blackburn (TN)

Republican/Nazi Party/Brotherhood of Evil Mutants

Video resurfaces of Rand Paul admitting ‘misinformation works’ amid Dr Fauci accusations. Republican advised medical students that ‘misinformation works, so try to trick your opponents’ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/rand-paul-dr-fauci-misinformation-b1991603.html

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/boebert-wears-drill-baby-drill-outfit-sotu-message-biden

Lauren Boebert Heckles Biden as He Honors Dead Soldiers During State of the Union. “You put them in, 13 of them,” the Colorado lawmaker yelled, referring to service members who died in Afghanistan last summer, as the president spoke of his late son. Trashing Biden as he spoke about the death of his son wasn’t the only time Boebert heckled the president on Tuesday night. She and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) kicked off the night by turning their backs on Biden’s Cabinet. Later, they chanted “Build the Wall” as Biden pushed for immigration reform. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/lauren-boebert-marjorie-taylor-greene-joe-biden-state-of-the-union-1314969/

Republican Reps Issa and Green mock Biden’s absence from DC – while he was known to be attending funeral. EXCLUSIVE: Two Republican members of the House Foreign Relations Committee laughed and joked about Mr Biden being safe from a theoretical attack on Washington during an impromptu interview with The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ukraine-russia-biden-gop-delaware-b2024486.html

Stop the Steal’ Congressman Suddenly Worried About Will of the Voters. Madison Cawthorn, who voted against certifying the 2020 election Donald Trump lost, is losing it over a lawsuit designed to kick him off the ballot. https://www.thedailybeast.com/madison-cawthorn-of-north-carolina-suddenly-worried-about-will-of-the-voters

‘Cheap fakes’: Viral videos keep clipping Biden’s words out of context https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/feb/14/cheap-fakes-viral-videos-keep-clipping-bidens-word/

U.S. Capitol Police rejects GOP congressman’s claim that check of his open office is illegal investigation. Chief Tom Manger said a Capitol Police officer entered Rep. Troy E. Nehls’s office in November because the door was left 'open and unsecured’. Nehls accused Capitol Police leadership after one of the officers entered his office in the Longworth House Office Building with no prior notice Nov. 20, 2021, ahead of the Thanksgiving break, and took pictures of a whiteboard. The officer filed a report raising concerns about the contents of the whiteboard, which included mentions of “body armor” and a poorly drawn map of the Rayburn House Office Building — which is also part of the Capitol complex — that had an X at one of the building’s entrances. Nehls explained that the writing on the board — which included reports of faulty Chinese-made body armor — was related to legislation his office was working on, while the map of the Rayburn Building, which Nehls said “looked like it was done by my 9-year-old,” was drawn for an intern who was sent on a mission to find the ice machine. The X marked the spot. Nehls noted that he’s been a “very, very vocal” critic of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, and said he thinks he was being targeted by Capitol Police leadership because of this. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/08/capitol-police-nehl-investigation/

The original quote from Strom, an American white nationalist and Holocaust denier, has been used previously online and paraphrased in a variety of ways. In a 1993 radio broadcast, Strom said: “To determine the true rulers of any society, all you must do is ask yourself this question: Who is it that I am not permitted to criticize?” according to an internet archive containing his full remarks. U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, shared the incorrectly attributed quote in a tweet Sunday to his more than 320,000 followers, with a caption criticizing Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert. https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-business-media-elections-9631403283708d1f46bba768bddde779 @RepThomasMassie You mustn’t question Fauci, for he is science. https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1487872940431527941

The Republican National Committee Censured Liz Cheney And Adam Kinzinger. A move to admonish the two members of Congress despised by Trump passed an RNC vote on Friday. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kadiagoba/rnc-cheney-kinzinger-censure

8 interesting facts about Rep. Lauren Boebert https://boingboing.net/2022/01/06/7-interesting-facts-about-rep-lauren-boebert.html GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert and husband racked up arrests in home district https://nypost.com/2021/01/16/gop-rep-lauren-boebert-and-husband-have-racked-up-arrests/

'Twitter is an enemy to America': Marjorie Taylor Greene's hits out as her Twitter account is PERMANENTLY suspended after 'fifth strike' which saw her lash COVID rules and vaccine mandates. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10362503/Marjorie-Taylor-Greenes-personal-Twitter-account-permanently-suspended.html

Cristina Cawthorn is divorcing her husband Madison, a notorious pathological liar, racist insurrectionist, and alleged sex pest after having been married for just 8 months. Cawthorn, who likens women to "earthen vessels," blames his hard work on the Capitol for the break. https://boingboing.net/2021/12/23/earthen-vessel-is-divorcing-madison-cawthorn-after-8-months-of-marriage.html

A warning from Tim Gosar: Paul Gosar is "dangerous" and "needs to be expelled". https://boingboing.net/2021/11/17/a-warning-from-tim-gosar-paul-gosar-is-dangerous-and-needs-to-be-expelled.html

Watch: Paul Gosar's hard-to-understand statement about being "censored" by Congress. https://boingboing.net/2021/11/18/watch-paul-gosars-hard-to-understand-statement-about-being-censored-by-congress.html

House censures Rep. Gosar for violent video in rare rebuke. The House voted Wednesday to censure Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona for posting an animated video that depicted him killing Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword, an extraordinary rebuke that highlighted the political strains testing Washington and the country. Calling the video a clear threat to a lawmaker’s life, Democrats argued Gosar’s conduct would not be tolerated in any other workplace — and shouldn’t be in Congress. The vote to censure Gosar and also remove him from his House committee assignments was approved by a vote of 223-207, almost entirely along party lines, with Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois the only Republicans voting in favor. Gosar showed no emotion as he stood in the well of the House after the vote, flanked by roughly a dozen Republicans as Speaker Nancy Pelosi read the censure resolution and announced his committee penalty. He shook hands, hugged and patted other members of the GOP conference on the back before leaving the chamber. Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called the vote an “abuse of power” by Democrats to distract from national problems. He said of the censure, a “new standard will continue to be applied in the future,” a signal of potential ramifications for Democratic members should Republicans retake a majority. https://apnews.com/article/technology-entertainment-marjorie-taylor-greene-censures-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-854fd412b7a1049c8fb9a83fe2c56b8f https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-resolution/789/text

WATCH: Rep. Ocasio-Cortez on censure against Rep. Gosar who tweeted altered video showing her death https://youtu.be/HYjXOm9DCWs

WATCH: Rep. Gosar on censure vote for tweet of altered video showing Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s death https://youtu.be/9lf7rsyu3W0

Pelosi Calls Gosar 'To The Well' Of The Floor To Announce Censure Vote https://youtu.be/c_nP4NpmEIo

Cheney's Consultants Are Given an Ultimatum: Drop Her, or Be Dropped. In response, The Morning Group, a fundraising firm she hired to help prepare for a primary next year against a challenger endorsed by former President Donald Trump, informed her last month they could no longer work on her campaign, according to Republicans familiar with the matter. https://news.yahoo.com/cheneys-consultants-given-ultimatum-drop-121619186.html

'She Started Screaming': Controversial Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Spars with Liz Cheney on House Floor. According to CNN, Greene, 47, could be heard speaking in a raised voice to Cheney, 55, and Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin, both of whom voted to impeach former President Donald Trump for his role in supporting the rioters. "This is a joke," said Greene, a fierce ally of Trump, later telling Raskin: "Why don't you care about the American people?" Raskin, 58, replied to Greene: "You represent the American people." Cheney, meanwhile, responded to Greene by calling her a "joke" and referencing to a 2018 comment Greene made about "Jewish space lasers." CNN reports that Greene yelled "I never said that!" when Cheney mentioned the lasers. https://news.yahoo.com/she-started-screaming-controversial-rep-165935743.html

Greene heckles Democrats and they fire back on Capitol steps https://thehill.com/homenews/house/573836-greene-heckles-democrats-and-they-fire-back-on-capitol-steps

QAnon Rep. Rips GOP Colleagues in Bonkers 38-Part Twitter Thread Railing Against 'Dictator Biden' https://secondnexus.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-twitter-thread

@mtgreenee Dear Colleagues, Since Dictator Joe Biden started phase 1 of the Dems’ Communist takeover of America yesterday & I don’t have a GOP Conference call on my calendar or an email in my inbox from leadership to stop this insanity, well I’m going to be more direct than usual. https://twitter.com/mtgreenee/status/1436364437007523845?s=20

‘Predatory Enterprise of Perversion’: Lawsuit Claims Prominent GOP Donor Was ‘Sexual Ringmaster’ of Child Sex Trafficking Ring. The complaint, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in Minnesota, claims that Anton “Tony” Lazzaro, 30, led a sex trafficking ring that targeted minor girls, then tried to use his wealth to buy their silence. As previously reported by Law&Crime, on Aug. 13, Lazzaro was arrested along with his alleged accomplice 19-year-old Gisela Castro Medina for obstruction of justice, sex trafficking, and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors. Medina—who had recently been elected chair of University of St. Thomas College Republicans chapter—allegedly acted as a recruiter for Lazzaro. Prosecutors say Medina targeted girls and young women on social media, established a personal relationship with them, then received a fee when she introduced them to Lazzaro, who allegedly sought to exploit them sexually. https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/predatory-enterprise-of-perversion-lawsuit-claims-prominent-gop-donor-was-sexual-ringmaster-of-child-sex-trafficking-ring/

How Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans learned to stop worrying about a Biden victory and love the infrastructure bill. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/infrastructure-biden-mcconnell-trump/2021/08/10/239eae72-f959-11eb-8a67-f14cd1d28e47_story.html

In wild talk, Marjorie Taylor Greene claims Fauci paid China to create Covid, suggests audience should use guns to defend against vaccine workers https://boingboing.net/2021/08/06/in-wild-talk-marjorie-taylor-greene-claims-fauci-paid-china-to-create-covid-suggests-audience-should-shoot-vaccine-workers.html

The Trumpist right drifts toward fascism. It’s frustratingly typical for conservatives to fraudulently cloak themselves in the mantle of Abraham Lincoln and the Union. But what Fox News host Ben Domenech did on Tuesday night -- describing the progressive left as “the inheritor” of “slave power” with its “fixation on the hierarchy of race and caste” and his viewers as ideological descendants of the paramilitary pro-Lincoln “Wide Awakes” of 1860 -- wandered perilously close to a call for a new Civil War. Domenech presented U.S. politics as an existential fight between “the enemies of everything this nation has ever been” and “the patriots, the Americans, the men and women who will do anything to preserve it, because they know what civilization requires.” The host closed by directly addressing his millions of viewers. “You are the heart of a nation that has slept for so long,” he said. “But now at last, you are wide awake. So now I ask you again: What are you willing to do?” Domenech didn’t give an answer to the question -- but his rhetoric suggests that it isn’t casting votes for candidates who share your values. https://www.mediamatters.org/voter-fraud-and-suppression/trumpist-right-drifts-toward-fascism

McCarthy says 'it will be hard not to hit' Pelosi with gavel if he becomes House speaker. https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/01/politics/kevin-mccarthy-nancy-pelosi-gavel/index.html

Republican congressman bulldozes cannabis grows of Hmong farmers in California. Outdoor grows are illegal in that county and often lack sewage systems and other environmental safety measures. But advocates for local farmers say the timing of the videos — weeks after law enforcement officers fatally shot a 35-year-old Hmong man during a mandatory wildfire evacuation — is problematic, as is the congressman's language. “I love the smell of diesel power in the afternoon. It smells like victory,” LaMalfa says in one of the videos, playing off a quote from the Vietnam War movie "Apocalypse Now." https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2021/07/22/republican-congressman-bulldozes-cannabis-grows-of-hmong-farmers-in-california-1388879

Republican Reps. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene hoped the third time might be the charm for finding a California venue to host their “America First” rally on Saturday night. But instead of speaking to a packed arena, the pair were left with the sidewalk outside the Riverside City Hall. Greene used the “Peaceful Protest Against Communism” to hawk vaccine hesitancy. She urged the crowd, “Don’t let them force your kids to wear masks at school. Don’t let your kids be forced to take a vaccine that’s not FDA approved.” Meanwhile, coronavirus cases in California are surging as the more contagious Delta variant rips through the unvaccinated population. Gaetz, who is currently under federal investigation for sex trafficking and abuse of a minor, railed against “the corrupt forces in the Department of Justice and the FBI” and complained that the private venues’ refusals to host the pair amounted to an infringement on their freedom of speech. “They may try to cancel us online, they may try to pursue us in real life, they may shut down our venues, but we will take this fight to them in the courts, in the halls of Congress, and if necessary in the streets,” he said. In Riverside, city council members had voiced their concern with the two representatives, with council member Ronald Fierro saying, “The hateful and racist rhetoric that will be perpetrated at this event by these two well-known extremists has absolutely no place in our City.” The M3 Live Anaheim Event Center had canceled on Gaetz and Taylor Greene Saturday afternoon, just hours before the event was scheduled to begin. This came after two separate venues, the Pacific Hills Banquet & Event Center in Laguna Hills and the Riverside Convention Center, canceled on the pair after protesters flooded the respective owners with complaints. https://www.thedailybeast.com/no-one-wants-to-host-matt-gaetz-and-marjorie-taylor-greenes-rally

Matt Gaetz Is Blowing Piles of Cash on Scandal—and on Roger Stone. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is bringing in massive amounts of money, but he’s spending even more than he’s raising. https://www.thedailybeast.com/matt-gaetz-is-blowing-piles-of-cash-on-scandaland-on-roger-stone

Ted Nugent tells the tale of his night with Trump and Kid Rock. The menu featured lobster salad and lamb chops. The conversation ranged from "rock 'n' roll and hunting" to "military strength and Supreme Court justices." And everybody at the table was certainly on board with the politics. That's how Ted Nugent tells the tale of his night with Kid Rock as personal guests of President Donald Trump. The world awoke Thursday morning to learn the president had spent his evening with the Detroit-bred rockers, two outspoken Trump supporters who were invitees of fellow dinner guest Sarah Palin. https://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/music/2017/04/20/ted-nugent-kid-rock-trump/100710306/

Judi Hershman, a former advisor of the conservator attorney Ken Starr, is ready to get some shit off her chest.. Hershman’s lays out the receipts of Starr’s deviousness quite plainly, beginning with an anecdote about Starr and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh was just a lawyer when Hershman met him 20 years ago, when they were both working with Starr on the investigation into President Clinton’s relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Hershman, who helped prep Starr present his findings before Congress, recalled an incident in which a furious Kavanaugh began “badgering” her and “invading” her space, pointing his finger in her face and seething. https://jezebel.com/after-20-years-former-ken-starr-advisor-reveals-her-bo-1847285867

Ken Starr, Brett Kavanaugh, Jeffrey Epstein and Me Judi Hershman As a former professional partisan, I never thought I’d look back decades to my political beginnings and find the map that points to our current moment, when there is serious doubt whether the democracy we took for granted at the time will continue to exist. Despite all the posturing and gamesmanship and at times skullduggery back then, political opponents shared an understanding that the process enforced by our Constitution would prevail, no one would get everything they wanted every time, and the state of the union would remain strong. As it turns out, too many people like me stuck our heads in the sand, swallowed our doubts, let the unacceptable slide, convinced ourselves it was in the interest of the greater good, and never dreamed that we would look back and realize that a failure to say “Enough!” had led to our country’s biggest existential crisis since the Civil War. https://medium.com/@judihershman/ken-starr-brett-kavanaugh-jeffrey-epstein-and-me-ba2dbf77b0da

Newt Gingrich says Biden's attacks on GOP state voting reforms are the 'greatest threat to the nation since the Civil War' as Greg Abbott accuses President of spreading 'misinformation'. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9786339/Newt-Gingrich-says-Bidens-attacks-voting-reform-greatest-threat-Civil-War.html

Ken Starr helped Jeffrey Epstein with ‘scorched-earth’ campaign, book claims. Book by Miami Herald journalist details extraordinary efforts by special prosecutor who hounded Bill Clinton to aid sex trafficker. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/13/ken-starr-jeffrey-epstein-book

Of course Mel Gibson would dramatically salute Donald Trump https://boingboing.net/2021/07/12/of-course-mel-gibson-would-dramatically-salute-donald-trump.html

Secret filming shows GOP congressman saying party wants ‘18 months’ of disruption leading up to 2022 midterms. Chip Roy was recorded admitting that Republicans would try to ‘slow down’ the Democrat’s legislative agenda ahead of the elections for Congress. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/gop-chip-roy-secret-filming-b1879617.html

CNN's Jim Acosta asks GOP lawmakers about their continued support for former President Donald Trump and his unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen. https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/07/04/jim-acosta-gop-lawmakers-support-trump-vpx.cnn

Column: U.S. Capitol insurrection so disturbed a former San Diego mayor, he quit the GOP. Jerry Sanders, now chamber of commerce president, never cared for Trump and was alarmed at the direction of the GOP. The assault on Congress was the last straw. On Jan. 7, the 71-year-old former San Diego mayor and chief of police decided to quit the Republican Party he had joined as a young man when he first registered to vote. His current view of the state of affairs may be dark, but Sanders believes things will get brighter. However, he said for that to happen, Trump has to be moved to the sidelines — especially if the Republican Party is to get back on track. He especially has faith in potential future leaders who come from “a smart, young generation that’s accepting of others.” https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/columnists/story/2021-07-02/the-capitol-insurrection-so-disturbed-jerry-sanders-he-quit-the-gop

McCarthy Unveils Republican Task Forces, Announces Leaders and Members. Rep. Kevin McCarthy: "When we are in the majority in January 2023 we will be much different than the Democrats." https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1410697466895273984 https://www.republicanleader.gov/mccarthy-unveils-republican-task-forces-announces-leaders-and-members/

Nearly 40 House Democrats are demanding House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy take what they call "immediate action" to address the behavior of GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, whose actions, they say in a Thursday letter obtained by CNN, "could lead to violence against members of Congress." The group chose to take this step after Greene spoke as a warmup act for former President Donald Trump at his rally in Ohio last weekend, an aide familiar with the letter's origins told CNN. Greene, without evidence, repeatedly claimed Trump won the 2020 election and viciously attacked Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Greene described Ocasio-Cortez as the "little communist from New York City," and nodded in agreement with the crowd when they started shouting "lock her up." Ocasio-Cortez has signed on to the letter, which is led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington and is signed by a diverse list of House Democrats, including fellow progressives like Reps. Cori Bush of Missouri and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and more moderate members like Reps. Gerald Connolly of Virginia and Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania. https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/01/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-kevin-mccarthy-house-democrats/index.html

Republicans offer lots of excuses for not voting to give medals to the cops who saved their ass during the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, but simply put honoring people who put their lives in the way of an angry mob looking to hang the Vice-President and Speaker of the House is too much for them. CNN put together this wonderful video that goes one-by-one through the cowardly Q-publicans who appear to back the insurrection, more than the Capitol Police who defended our nation. https://boingboing.net/2021/06/16/video-destroys-back-the-blue-republicans-who-voted-against-medals-for-capitol-police.html

GOP congressman refuses to shake hands with D.C. police officer who protected the Capitol on Jan. 6, lawmakers say. Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (R-Ga.), who voted against awarding police officers the Congressional Gold Medal for their bravery in protecting the U.S. Capitol against violent, pro-Trump rioters on Jan. 6, refused to shake hands with D.C. police officer Michael Fanone on Wednesday. Fanone was beaten unconscious after he voluntarily rushed to the Capitol to help defend it from those who breached the building. He suffered a concussion and a mild heart attack. In the months since, Fanone has been one of the leading voices pushing back against Republicans who have sought to downplay the severity of what happened Jan. 6. Fanone, joined by Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, returned to the Capitol on Wednesday, the day after 21 House Republicans voted against the Gold Medal resolution, in an effort to meet them and tell his story. He said he recognized Clyde at an elevator and that he and Dunn hopped in with the congressman. “I simply extended my hand and said, “How are you doing today, Congressman.’ I knew immediately he recognized me by the way he reacted. He completely froze. He just stared at me,” Fanone said in an interview. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/jan-6-riot-capitol-police-house-republicans/2021/06/16/3ba60b7c-cee4-11eb-8cd2-4e95230cfac2_story.html

Regarding Blunt, Manchin appears to be suggesting — without, perhaps, quite explicitly saying so — that the wealthy executives on the call could dangle future financial opportunities in front of the outgoing senator while lobbying him to change his vote. Senate ethics rules forbid future job negotiations if they create a conflict of interest or present even the appearance of a conflict of interest. Manchin, notably, doesn’t suggest that the donors discuss a job, but rather says that people who Blunt may later be working with would be likely to have significant influence, reflective of the way future job prospects can shape the legislative process even when unspoken. https://theintercept.com/2021/06/16/joe-manchin-leaked-billionaire-donors-no-labels/

GOP senator: I want to make Biden a 'one-half-term president'. Republican Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.) last week said he wants to make President Biden a “one-half-term president” in 2022 by ensuring that Democrats no longer have complete control in Washington. “I’m looking forward to a very successful 2022,” Barrasso said during a breakfast discussion hosted by The Ripon Society on Thursday. “I want to make Joe Biden a one-half-term president, and I want to do that by making sure they no longer have the House, Senate and White House,” he added. When asked if Barrasso was advocating for removing Biden from office before his first term is up, Laura Mengelkamp, the senator's communications director, told The Hill he was referring to the GOP winning the House and Senate next year, which would take away Democratic control of Washington and help Republicans win the White House in the next general election cycle. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/558597-gop-senator-i-want-to-make-biden-a-one-half-term-president

Marjorie Taylor Greene Says She’s ‘Removing’ Holocaust Comparisons From Her Past Rebukes Of Covid Measures. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) held an impromptu press conference on Monday, shortly after a visit to the Holocaust Museum, to apologize for repeatedly comparing coronavirus precautions to the oppression of Jews by Nazi Germany last month, declaring that she is “removing” those comparisons to her condemnations of mask mandates. “And I have made a mistake and it’s really bothered me for a couple of weeks now. So I definitely want to own it. This afternoon, I visited the Holocaust Museum. The Holocaust is—there’s nothing comparable. It happened, you know, over 6 million Jewish people were murdered. More than that, there were not just Jewish people, Black people, Christians, children, people that the Nazis didn’t believe were good enough, perfect enough. The horrors of the Holocaust are something that some people don’t even believe happened, that some people deny, but there is no comparison to the Holocaust. There are words that I have said, remarks that I’ve made, that I know are offensive. And for that I want to apologize.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-rep-marjorie-taylor-greene-finds-out-how-bad-the-holocaust-was https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2021/06/14/marjorie-taylor-greene-says-shes-removing-holocaust-comparisons-from-her-past-rebukes-of-covid-measures/ https://twitter.com/AndrewSolender/status/1404561740365537283

Watch: Caitlyn Jenner won't say whether she thinks Biden won the election https://boingboing.net/2021/06/11/watch-caitlyn-jenner-wont-say-whether-she-thinks-biden-won-the-election.html

McConnell: 'The era of bipartisanship is over' 06/08/2021 05:02 PM EDT https://www.politico.com/video/2021/06/08/mcconnell-the-era-of-bipartisanship-is-over-266283

Greene says her remark about "gas chambers in Nazi Germany" was not referring to the Holocaust. "We can look back in a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star, and they were definitely treated like second-class citizens — so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany, and this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about." https://boingboing.net/2021/05/28/greene-says-her-remark-about-gas-chambers-in-nazi-germany-was-not-referring-to-the-holocaust.html

Emerging from two years of relative silence, former House Speaker Paul Ryan has joined the fight against Donald Trump, urging fellow conservatives to reject the former president’s divisive politics and those Republican leaders who emulate him. Ryan made his remarks during a Thursday evening address at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. He was critical of both Republicans and Democrats, though he saved his sharpest barbs for Trump, who is by most measures the leader of the modern-day Republican Party. “It was horrifying to see a presidency come to such a dishonorable and disgraceful end,” Ryan said, referring to the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol that Trump inspired on Jan. 6. “Once again, we conservatives find ourselves at a crossroads,” Ryan continued. “And here’s the reality that we have to face: If the conservative cause depends on the populist appeal of one personality, or on second-rate imitations, then we’re not going anywhere. Voters looking for Republican leaders want to see independence and mettle. They will not be impressed by the sight of yes-men and flatterers flocking to Mar-a-Lago.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/paul-ryan-donald-trump-message-to-republicans_n_60b099e1e4b0c5658f9228a6

Republican/Nazi Party/Brotherhood of Evil Mutants archived May 28, 2021

Toxic Marjorie Taylor Greene says she and Matt Gaetz are "taking charge" of the Republican party https://boingboing.net/2021/05/27/toxic-marjorie-taylor-greene-says-she-and-matt-gaetz-are-taking-charge-of-the-republican-party.html

House GOP lawmakers fined after defying mask mandate. The brave protesters were Reps. Brian Mast (R-FL), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA), Beth Van Duyne (R-TX), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Thomas Massie (R-KY), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Chip Roy (R-TX), Bob Good (R-VA), Mary Miller (R-IL), and Louie Gohmert (R-TX). After the protest, Greene posted a selfie of her and her grinning colleagues with the caption: “Masks are oppressive and nothing but a political tool. End the oppression!” Reps. Brian Mast of Florida, Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa and Beth Van Duyne of Texas all received $500 fines for second offenses of the mask mandate, the official said. Additional offenses of the mandate would result in $2,500 fines. https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/18/politics/house-gop-mask-fines/index.html

MTG v AOC: Marjorie Taylor Greene shouts 'stop being a baby' and 'get rid of your diaper' through AOC's office mailbox during 2019 visit with friend who was arrested for storming Capitol. Marjorie Taylor Greene was a conservative activist when she visited Congress in February 2019. Facebook Live video shows her urging AOC to 'Get rid of your diaper' through locked door. She was accompanied by Anthony Aguero, who was part of the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan 6. Greene has repeatedly sought out AOC for confrontation. Wednesday she accused the New York congresswoman of supporting 'terrorists'. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9579273/Unearthed-video-shows-Marjorie-Taylor-Greene-harassing-AOCs-office-2019-visit.html

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene aggressively confronted Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday and falsely accused her of supporting “terrorists,” leading the New York congresswoman’s office to call on leadership to ensure that Congress remains “a safe, civil place for all Members and staff.” Two Washington Post reporters witnessed Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) exit the House chamber late Wednesday afternoon ahead of Greene (Ga.), who shouted “Hey Alexandria” twice in an effort to get her attention. When Ocasio-Cortez did not stop walking, Greene picked up her pace and began shouting at her and asking why she supports antifa, a loosely knit group of far-left activists, and Black Lives Matter, falsely labeling them “terrorist” groups. Greene also shouted that Ocasio-Cortez was failing to defend her “radical socialist” beliefs by declining to publicly debate the freshman from Georgia. “You don’t care about the American people,” Greene shouted. “Why do you support terrorists and antifa?” Since asking earlier this year to debate Ocasio-Cortez, Greene has confronted her one other time on the House floor, when she approached the New York congresswoman last month to try to schedule a date for a debate over the Green New Deal, a set of environmental policies intended to combat climate change. In a video posted to social media a day later, Greene criticized Ocasio-Cortez for not debating her. “If she chickens out, then she shows who she really is: a scared little girl that is pretty stupid and doesn’t know anything about the economy or economics,” Greene said. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/greene-ocasio-cortez/2021/05/12/fd61d664-b37e-11eb-a3b5-f994536fe84a_story.html

Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney was ousted from House Republican leadership on Wednesday. In a closed-door meeting in the basement of the Capitol, Republicans voted her out in less than 15 minutes. The move cements Donald Trump's hold on Republican Party. In comments after the vote, Cheney said: 'I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again, is anywhere near the Oval Office'. After the vote, Trump said of Cheney: 'Liz Cheney is a bitter, horrible human being'. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9570721/Liz-Cheney-Republicans-remove-Wyoming-representative-leadership.html

Oregon lawmaker who opened state Capitol to far-right protesters faces criminal charges. State Rep. Mike Nearman, a Polk County Republican, has been charged with official misconduct and criminal trespassing following the Dec. 21 incident. https://www.opb.org//article/2021/04/30/oregon-rep-mike-nearman-criminal-charges-state-capitol-breach/

Fox contributor Newt Gingrich: Biden administration is “attacking people of traditional values who are appalled that this administration would fly the gay flag at American embassies” https://www.mediamatters.org/newt-gingrich/fox-contributor-newt-gingrich-biden-administration-attacking-people-traditional https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich#Marriages_and_children

“John Bolton has never recovered from being fired. President Trump used Bolton’s idiocy to the benefit of Americans in negotiating deals with other countries because they knew Bolton was a crazed lunatic, and if he was in the room, they’d be concerned,” Miller said. While Bolton predicted that Trump would not run for president in 2024, he said that he would not either. “My hope,” he said, “is that if [Trump] is upset with this poll and he and his pollsters go into the field and whatever they find they release with the same kind of transparency we have.” https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/20/john-bolton-trump-gop-poll-483459

Trump Curses Out ‘Son of a B*tch’ McConnell at GOP Donor Event for Not Completely Destroying Democracy. During this weekend’s Republican National Committee donor retreat in Florida, attendees headed to Donald Trump’s private club Mar-a-Lago on Saturday evening to hear prepared remarks from the twice-impeached former president on the future of his party. Predictably, Trump at times veered wildly off-script from his prewritten speech, the text of which was reviewed by The Daily Beast earlier in the day. While at the private event, he inveighed against Republican, Democratic, and celebrity enemies, and again denounced the 2020 presidential election outcome as “bullshit,” according to those in the audience. “[Trump began] swearing and telling everyone about the stolen election,” according to one such attendee. The 2020 election, of course, was not stolen from Trump, and President Joe Biden decisively beat the GOP incumbent in both the Electoral College and popular vote counts. Trump’s anti-democratic blitz following Election Day and the lies he and much of the mainstream GOP spread about the election culminated in the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, which Trump is now accused in court papers of inciting. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-curses-out-son-of-a-btch-mcconnell-at-gop-donor-event

Barr and the Office of the Attorney General received multiple briefings on the Gaetz probe, beginning in the summer of 2020, a second person familiar with the probe said. They encouraged Florida prosecutors to move as quickly as they needed to and take whatever steps were appropriate. The briefings were consistent with Barr's memo requiring notification to department leadership on probes of candidates. The briefing was important because — among other reasons — Barr didn't want to accidentally appear anywhere with Gaetz, the person said. At one point, Barr was scheduled for a meet-and-greet with Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee. But DOJ canceled his appearance at the event when they saw that Gaetz, a member of that committee, had RSVP'd for it. https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2021/03/31/gaetzs-father-backs-up-son-matts-claims-of-extortion-over-doj-probe-of-involvement-with-teen-1370695

Rep. Matt Gaetz was allegedly being extorted over 'compromising pictures' showing him in a sex orgy with underage prostitutes to help rescue American hostage Robert Levinson from Iran, according to newly-obtained documents. Bombshell text message screenshots, an email and a printout with the heading 'Project Homecoming' detail an alleged scheme involving former DOJ official David McGee and former Air Force intelligence officer Bob Kent. The alleged plot tries to enlist Gaetz's financial backing - to the sum of $25 million - to pay to free Levinson, who was captured 14 years ago in Iran and whose family said they were told he was dead. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9425215/Gaetz-extorted-sex-orgy-underage-prostitutes-rescue-hostage-Iran.html

Marjorie Taylor Greene's 'Mark Of The Beast' Theory Receives Holy Hell On Twitter. https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/marjorie-taylor-greene-mark-of-the-beast-090016763.html

The Matt Gaetz allegation, explained. “The Justice Department is investigating Rep. Matt Gaetz — a Florida Republican considered a close political ally of former president Donald Trump — over an alleged sexual relationship with an underage girl,” The Washington Post’s Matt Zapotosky and Devlin Barrett explain. That relationship allegedly included paying for the girl to travel, potentially across state lines, adding the complexity of potential federal charges related to sex trafficking, according to the Times. Both The Post and Times stories are constrained for fairly obvious reasons, including the limits of available information and the need to accurately convey the potential risk Gaetz faces. The investigation apparently spun out of another sex-trafficking probe in Florida. That one focused on a former county official named Joel Greenberg, who was charged in the summer with a number of federal offenses, including sex trafficking of a minor. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/03/31/matt-gaetz-allegation-explained/

Inside the Koch-Backed Effort to Block the Largest Election-Reform Bill in Half a Century. On a leaked conference call, leaders of dark-money Facist groups and an aide to Mitch McConnell expressed frustration with the popularity of the legislation—even among Republican voters. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/inside-the-koch-backed-effort-to-block-the-largest-election-reform-bill-in-half-a-century

Stephen Miller to launch a new legal group to give Biden fits. America First Legal will focus on a few things: executive branch issues and giving Joe Biden headaches. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/26/stephen-miller-legal-group-478167

The Republican Freshman Class Is a Tribute to Our Nation’s Notorious Local Bozos. A guide to the GOP’s ascendant congressional wing of bullshitters, cranks, zealots, and personal-life disasters. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/03/republican-freshman-class-notorious-local-bozos.html

Dozens of Trump appointees 'burrow' into Biden government. Roughly two dozen Trump administration appointees remain in civil service jobs or on government advisory boards roughly two months into the Biden administration, according to a new report from a government watchdog group obtained by The Hill. Accountable.US, a left-leaning watchdog, found that at least 24 Trump appointees have "burrowed" into civil service jobs. The appointments mean that Trump-era officials will remain in those posts for the foreseeable future. The report cited four individuals who are believed to have burrowed into national security roles, nine who have taken up roles in environmental regulation and three officials at the Department of Justice. The allegations mirror those made frequently during the Trump administration about a so-called deep state of career officials who were obstructing the former president's agenda. Among those listed in the report as potentially burrowing into the Biden administration are acting U.S. Attorney Prerak Shah, Brandon Middleton in the Department of Energy and Robert G. Cameron at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Biden administration has taken some steps to intervene in the appointments. Biden's Defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, in early February ousted hundreds of members from the Pentagon's advisory committees, removing last-minute appointees by the Trump administration that included former Trump campaign advisers Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/542324-dozens-of-trump-appointees-burrow-into-biden-government

Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren quietly releases massive social media report on GOP colleagues who voted to overturn the election. https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/05/politics/lofgren-social-media-report-gop-lawmakers/index.html https://lofgren.house.gov/socialreview

Donald Trump trashes Mitch McConnell calling him 'a dour, sullen and unsmiling political hack,' claiming he is 'destroying' GOP, is compromised on China by wife Elaine Chao and tells senators to FIRE him - after GOP leader blamed him for MAGA riot. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9267659/Donald-Trump-trashes-Mitch-McConnell-dour-sullen-unsmiling-political-hack.html

Shortly after taking his seat in Congress last month, Madison Cawthorn emailed his Republican colleagues to tell them of his intended role. “I have built my staff around comms rather than legislation,” he wrote, using the slang word for public relations. An Esquire magazine headline offered this translation of the freshman congressman’s words: “It’s not about legislating, or fixing problems. It’s about the show.” If so, the show is not designed to appeal to Western North Carolina’s mainstream Republicans, independents or Democrats, despite Cawthorn’s post-election promise to be the congressman for all his constituents. A new and featured attraction of Cawthorn’s “comms” is his own channel on a Dubai-based social-media platform, Telegram Messenger. Telegram was relatively unknown in the United States until after the Jan. 6 Capitol pro-Trump insurrection, when Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other services stepped up restrictions against disinformation, including debunked claims that President Biden “stole” the election, delusional conspiracy theories, and reckless assertions that the pandemic is a hoax. https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/2021/02/15/cawthorn-joins-firebrand-gop-colleagues-far-right-media-asheville-watchdog/6743530002/

A guide to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s conspiracy theories and toxic rhetoric. https://www.mediamatters.org/congress/guide-rep-marjorie-taylor-greenes-conspiracy-theories-and-toxic-rhetoric

How Lindsay Graham’s Petty Partisan Decision Stalled the DOJ. At the center of the imbroglio is a figure who is accustomed to being collateral damage of partisan warfare on Capitol Hill: Merrick Garland. While the AG nomination has no bearing on the court project, it’s been an ominous way to begin the task at hand for Democrats and for Durbin, who is replacing Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) as chairman. Graham is ceding the top spot on the GOP side to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), so he will no longer be his party’s chief instigator on judicial matters, but his final move as chairman has made some Democrats concerned about the path forward for the next two years. “It’s a bad first step,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), a member of the panel, told The Daily Beast on Tuesday. “It’s a bad way to begin the journey.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-lindsay-grahams-petty-partisan-decision-stalled-the-doj

Marjorie Taylor Greene finally partially apologizes for backing QAnon - then says 'I am NOT sorry' for harassing David Hogg and flees press conference when she is asked about wanting Nancy Pelosi executed. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9228375/Marjorie-Taylor-Greene-calls-lawmakers-voted-away-panel-assignments-morons.html

Eleven Republicans voted with House Dems. to strip GA's Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments: 230-199

1. Adam Kinzinger
2. Nicole Malliotakis
3. John Katko
4. Fred Upton
5. Brian Fitzpatrick
6. Carlos Gimenez
7. Chris Jacobs
8. Young Kim
9. Maria Salazar
10. Chris Smith
11. Mario Díaz-Balart

Marjorie Taylor Greene's altercation with Democratic rep Cori Bush and claim Ruth Bader Ginsburg was replaced by a body double are revealed - as White House slams her and she talks about the 'electric chair' for media. QAnon Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene got into an altercation with fellow freshman lawmaker, Rep. Cori Bush, the St. Louis Democrat revealed Friday. Additionally, another conspiracy theory of Greene's was revealed: that she said Ruth Bader Ginsburg was replaced by a body double. Greene has dominated the headlines from Capitol Hill since Tuesday when CNN reported she had shown support on Facebook for executing top Democrats. The White House has been forced to weigh in twice, with Jen Psaki saying Friday, 'We don’t want to elevate conspiracy theories further in the briefing room' https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9202899/Today-Marjorie-Taylor-Greene.html

Marjorie Taylor Greene warned before the election that Americans would have to shed blood to 'get your freedoms back' if Trump lost. https://www.businessinsider.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-warns-bloodshed-freedoms-trump-election-video-2021-1

A local TV reporter said she was threatened with arrest and removed from a town-hall meeting with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia for asking a question. Meredith Aldis, a reporter with the Chattanooga, Tennessee, station WRCB, tweeted that she attended the meeting in Dalton, Georgia, on Wednesday and was told she was not allowed to ask questions to Greene or anyone else in the building. https://www.businessinsider.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-town-hall-reporter-kicked-out-threatened-arrest-2021-1

Marjorie Taylor Greene tried to force Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib to retake their oaths on a Bible in a resurfaced video. In the footage, Ms Greene claimed it was the ‘law’ for the representatives to use a Bible when taking their oaths. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-omar-tlaib-bible-b1793806.html

Video Shows QAnon Congresswoman Harassing Parkland Teen. The conspiracy theorist lawmaker has falsely claimed that Parkland and other school shootings were not “real.” Georgia congresswoman and QAnon believer Marjorie Taylor Greene was filmed chasing after Parkland school shooting survivor David Hogg and berating him in a video that re-surfaced on social media Wednesday. Greene was apparently so proud of her creepy conduct that she posted the video to her YouTube page a year ago. It has re-surfaced amid reports that she claimed school shootings weren’t real and reports that she “liked” Facebook posts about executing Democrats. https://www.thedailybeast.com/qanon-congresswoman-marjorie-taylor-greene-berated-parkland-teen-david-hogg-on-capitol-hill-video-shows

Marjorie Taylor Greene indicated support for executing prominent Democrats in 2018 and 2019 before running for Congress. https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/26/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-democrats-violence/index.html

Before Capitol Riot, Republican Lawmakers Fanned the Flames. A “1776 moment”: Several of the president’s closest allies in Congress used bellicose language to urge their supporters to attend the Jan. 6 rally that turned into a deadly riot. “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass,” said Mr. Brooks, Republican of Alabama. “Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America? Louder! Will you fight for America?” Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, first-term lawmakers who ran as outspoken defenders of Mr. Trump, referred to the day as Republicans’ “1776 moment.” Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona, who for weeks promoted the Jan. 6 protest and other “Stop the Steal” events across the country more than a dozen times, repeatedly referred to Mr. Biden as an “illegitimate usurper” and suggested that Mr. Trump was the victim of an attempted “coup.” “Be ready to defend the Constitution and the White House,” Mr. Gosar wrote in an op-ed titled “Are We Witnessing a Coup d’État?” https://www.revolver.news/2020/12/congressman-paul-gosars-open-letter-to-arizona-are-we-witnessing-a-coup-detat/ Their comments have raised questions about the degree to which Republicans may have coordinated with protest organizers. In a since-deleted tweet, Representative Pete Sessions, Republican of Texas, wrote that he “had a great meeting today with the folks from Stop The Steal,” one of the leading groups that organized last week’s rally. And in a separate video, Ali Alexander, a far-right activist and conspiracy theorist who emerged as a leader of Stop the Steal, claimed that he, along with Mr. Brooks, Mr. Gosar and Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, had set the Jan. 6 event in motion. “We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting,” Mr. Alexander said in a since-deleted video, “so that who we couldn’t rally, we could change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud roar from outside.” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/us/politics/republicans-capitol-riot.html

Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) are facing a possible vote on a censure resolution in the Senate as Democrats and some Republicans blame them for the mob that attacked the Capitol last week. Several Democratic senators have called on Hawley and Cruz to resign and Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) have called for them to be expelled if they don’t step down voluntarily. Democratic aides say there is a discussion about censuring the two lawmakers for helping to incite protesters who temporarily halted the counting of the Electoral College last week after overrunning Capitol Police. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/533740-hawley-cruz-face-rising-anger-possible-censure

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Bonsall, said on Fox Business on Monday that Democrats are overplaying Wednesday’s violence at the U.S Capitol and are using the incident to kick President Donald Trump while he’s down. Issa, responding to a question about the Democratic effort to impeach Trump a second time, accused liberals of seizing on a political opportunity presented by the riot. “It’s kicking him when he’s down,” Issa said of Trump. “There’s no question at all, I think the liberals saw an opportunity, a misstep by the president that they’re going to overplay and they’re overplaying it as we speak.” https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/2021-01-11/rep-issa-democrats-overplaying-trumps-role-in-capitol-riot-associated-deaths

Cruz, AOC exchange blows on ‘Nazi’ accusations. Biden says voters should decide if GOP lawmakers who objected the election results should hold office "I think the American public has a good clear look at who they are. They're part of the Big Lie," Biden told reporters Wednesday, following the attacks that resulted in five dead, including a Capitol Police officer. "Goebbels [said] in the Great Lie -- you keep repeating the lie, repeating the lie." "By the way, Trump said that before he ran. 'If you say it enough, I'm going to convince you. I'll say it enough: The press is bad, the press is bad, the press is bad, the press is bad'." "If he's the only one saying it, it's one thing. But the acolytes that follow him are as responsible as he is," the president-elect continued. "There are decent people out there who actually believe these lies, because they've heard it again and again." Cruz took to Twitter to respond to Biden’s comparison and said, "President-elect Biden’s choice to call his political opponents literal Nazis does nothing to bring us together or promote healing." https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cruz-aoc-exchange-blows-nazi-accusations

After Capitol Stormed, Issa and Most California Republicans Still Rejected Biden’s Victory. California Republicans who voted to reject the Electoral College results from the two states — after being delayed for hours when a far-right, pro-Trump mob vandalized the Capitol — were House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, Doug LaMalfa of Richvale, Jay Obernolte of Big Bear Lake, Devin Nunes of Tulare, Darrell Issa of Vista, Ken Calvert of Corona, and Mike Garcia of Santa Clarita. “My colleagues and I spoke out in support of ballot integrity and the sacred right to vote,” said Issa after the votes. “The process is now complete and a peaceful and orderly transition of power will occur, as it should.” But one Republican voted to accept the votes from both states: Rep. Tom McClintock of Elk Grove. Newly elected representative Young Kim from Orange County did not vote on the Arizona question but voted to accept the Pennsylvania results. https://timesofsandiego.com/politics/2021/01/09/after-capitol-stormed-issa-and-most-california-republicans-still-rejected-bidens-victory/

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has condemned newly seated Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) for saying earlier this week that Adolf Hitler was “right” about the value of influencing a nation’s youth. Appearing at a Tuesday rally on Capitol Hill calling for the 2020 presidential election to be overturned, Miller said, “Hitler was right on one thing, that whoever has the youth has the future. Our children are being propagandized.” https://thehill.com/homenews/house/533089-newly-sworn-in-republican-lawmaker-condemned-by-holocaust-museum-for-hitler

Republican Congressional group opposing "The Squad" names themselves after X-Men villains. Beginning in Uncanny X-Men #199, the shape-shifting mutant anti-hero Mystique blackmails the US government into pardoning her and the other members of her on-the-nose named Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and then granting them legal authority as the rebranded Freedom Force. During this time, the so-called Freedom Force tries to frame the X-Men for several international terrorist attacks while Magneto is on trial at the UN, and even ignores the Mutant Massacre—literally a genocide of ugly mutants who live underground—just so they can persecute the X-Men and X-Factor (who, at the time, are the original 5 X-Men, pretending to be bigoted mutant hunters as a PR deflection so they can help mutants, because comics). In defense of Utah congressman-elect Burgess Owens, "Freedom Force" without context sounds like a pretty uncontroversial name. But that's ironically what the X-Men comics were counting on some 35 years ago, too. It is worth noting: Owens is a Black man. The rest of his "Freedom Force" includes Nicole Malliotakis (NY), Michelle Steel (CA), Stephanie Bice (OK), Victoria Spartz (IN), Carlos Giménez (FL), Maria Elvira Salazar (FL), and Byron Donalds (FL). In their defense, this is a diverse group. Then again, so was Mystique's Freedom Force, which included her wife, Destiny; the non-mutant Spider-Woman Julia Carpenter; the obese Texan mutant known as the Blob; as well as 3 immigrants: Pyro from Australia, Avalanche from Greece, and Spiral from the Mojoverse. And despite that range of diversity, they were still literally the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. https://boingboing.net/2020/12/01/republican-congressional-group-opposing-the-squad-names-themselves-after-x-men-villains.html

The 'Freedom Force': Republican group takes on the Squad and 'evil' socialism. Utah representative-elect Burgess Owens rails against the Democrats’ ‘radical agenda’ Calling themselves the Freedom Force, the Republicans say they will combat the “evil” of socialism and Marxism. “We love our nation. This group will be talking against and giving a contrast to the hard left. We have the Freedom Force versus Squad; we have a group of people who believe in our country, believe in God, family, respect for women and authority, and another group who hates everything I just mentioned,” the Utah congressman-elect Burgess Owens told the Fox News host Laura Ingraham, speaking as a representative of the Freedom Force. Owens said the group would aim to protect small business owners and the middle class. “Business ownership is the foundation of our freedom,” he said on Fox & Friends Weekend. “It’s where our middle class comes from.” He added that the middle class got its power from small businesses, while the left got its power “from misery”. During the interview, Owens – a former Super Bowl champion – also railed against NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem and against the Green New Deal. He pointed to the diversity within his new coalition. “South Korea, Cuba, Iran, Greece, I grew up in Tallahassee, Florida … We’ve all dealt with the harshness, the evil of socialism and Marxism, and so we can talk from experience,” he said. As a final warning to Democrats, he added: “You’re collateral damage if you run a business and you want to go to church and you want to put your kids in school; you’re collateral damage – that’s the way the evil Marxists and socialists roll.” The coalition of Republican lawmakers includes New York’s Nicole Malliotakis; Michelle Steel of California; Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma; Victoria Spartz of Indiana; and Carlos Giménez, Maria Elvira Salazar and Byron Donalds of Florida. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/30/republicans-freedom-force-squad-burgess-owens

Incoming GOP congresswoman to take aim at AOC with conservative 'squad' Nicole Malliotakis expects to form an alliance with other Republican women. Rep-elect Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) floated the idea during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” saying “a natural alliance is occurring among members” of the new freshman class of Republicans. “I think what you're going to see is a group of individuals who are going to serve as a counterbalance to the values of the socialist squad,” Malliotakis told CNN’s Dana Bash. “We don't believe we should be dismantling the economy. We don't believe we should be destroying free market principles. We don't believe in 'Green New Deal.' We don't believe in packing the courts.” Malliotakis, who frequently attacked Ocasio-Cortez during her campaign against Democratic Rep. Max Rose, took aim again at her New York counterpart when asked about the future of the Republican Party. “I think one of the reasons why we were so motivated to run is seeing the Democratic women being elected in 2018 that don't necessarily reflect our values, particularly those who are self-described socialists,” Malliotakis said. “I think there's just a stark contrast between what we're offering and what people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are offering. And that's something that needs to be debated in Washington.” https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/29/house-women-conservative-squad-malliotakis-441149

DINOs

Dianne Feinstein May Be ‘Mentally Unfit’ for Congress, and Others Probably Are, Too. Reports raising questions about Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) mental fitness to serve in Congress have been bubbling up on occasion for a couple years now. On Thursday, an explosive new report claimed “four U.S. senators, including three Democrats, as well as three former Feinstein staffers and [a] California Democratic member of Congress,” have said the California Senator’s memory is “rapidly deteriorating.” Per one specific anecdote, the California member in question told the San Francisco Chronicle that at a recent meeting to discuss policy with Feinstein, 88, they had to reintroduce themselves to the Senator multiple times over the course of several hours. https://jezebel.com/dianne-feinstein-may-be-mentally-unfit-for-congress-1848794181

Sinema Reminds Biden He’s Wasting His Time on the Filibuster. Kyrsten Sinema took to the Senate floor just moments before Joe Biden arrived on Capitol Hill to let him know he can’t change her mind on the filibuster for voting rights. https://www.thedailybeast.com/kyrsten-sinema-reminds-joe-biden-hes-wasting-his-time-on-the-filibuster

9 Moderate Democrats Threaten To Derail Pelosi's Infrastructure And Budget Plan. The letter is signed by Reps. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Carolyn Bourdeaux of Georgia, Filemon Vela of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Ed Case of Hawaii, Jim Costa of California and Kurt Schrader of Oregon. https://www.npr.org/2021/08/13/1027371749/moderate-house-democrats-infrastructure-budget-vote-pelosi

The Democrats who want to destroy the Biden presidency. The "Suicide Squad" is taking the party agenda hostage to get tax cuts for the rich. Led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, the Suicide Squad presented an argument for their position in a short op-ed at The Washington Post, which bears close examination. They say the reason the infrastructure bill must pass immediately is because America simply can't wait a single moment longer to start repairs, and that it's illegitimate to hold the bill hostage: https://theweek.com/politics/1004024/the-democratic-suicide-squad-that-wants-to-destroy-bidens-presidency

News, Budget, Infrastructure

Stunning stat: 48 Democrats who supported reforming filibuster to pass voting rights bills represent 34 MILLION more Americans than 52 senators (all Republicans + Sinema/Manchin) who opposed it. 48 senators who voted to reform filibuster represent 182 million Americans, 55% of US. 52 senators who upheld filibuster represent 148 million Americans, 45% of US. https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/1484005724682391555

After deal with moderates, House Democrats move forward on $3.5 trillion budget. The House moved forward on a $3.5 trillion budget plan Tuesday, as the Democratic leadership tries to keep its members united around President Biden’s agenda. The 220-212 vote was delayed after a group of 10 moderate Democrats said they would not vote yes on the budget until House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure deal that passed the Senate earlier this month. After negotiations, Pelosi said she was committed to passing the bipartisan deal by Sept. 27. Every House Democrat voted in favor of the bill, including the holdouts. https://news.yahoo.com/after-deal-with-moderates-house-democrats-move-forward-on-35-trillion-budget-212245072.html

The 19 GOP senators who voted for the $1T infrastructure bill. Roy Blunt (Mo.) Richard Burr (N.C.) Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) Bill Cassidy (La.) Susan Collins (Maine) Kevin Cramer (N.D.) Mike Crapo (Idaho) Deb Fischer (Neb.) Lindsey Graham (S.C.) Chuck Grassley (Iowa) John Hoeven (N.D.) Mitch McConnell (Ky.) Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) Rob Portman (Ohio) James Risch (Idaho) Mitt Romney (Utah) Dan Sullivan (Alaska) Thom Tillis (N.C.) Roger Wicker (Miss.) https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/567158-the-19-gop-senators-who-voted-for-the-1t-infrastructure-bill

Uphill: AOC's January 6 Account. Plus: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is removed from her committees. https://uphill.thedispatch.com/p/uphill-aocs-january-6-account

America’s anti-democratic Senate, in one number: 41,549,808. Because smaller states tend to be whiter and more conservative than larger states, this malapportionment gives Republicans an enormous advantage in the fight for control of the Senate. Once Warnock and Ossoff take their seats, the Democratic half of the Senate will represent 41,549,808 more people than the Republican half. https://www.vox.com/2021/1/6/22215728/senate-anti-democratic-one-number-raphael-warnock-jon-ossoff-georgia-runoffs

Dianne Feinstein's Staff Suggests Her Age Is Becoming a Problem. https://theslot.jezebel.com/dianne-feinsteins-staff-suggests-her-age-is-becoming-a-1845850560 Dianne Feinstein’s Missteps Raise a Painful Age Question Among Senate Democrats https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/dianne-feinsteins-missteps-raise-a-painful-age-question-among-senate-democrats

Goodbye and Thanks for Nothing. California Senator Dianne Feinstein announced on Monday that she plans to step down from her top Democrat spot on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Feinstein said in a statement that she would instead focus more on the natural disasters ravaging her state, “existential threats” that urgently need her attention, according to The Hill. But there are a few other reasons why it’s high time for Feinstein to vacate her position on the committee, many of which have to do with her love of civility politics and institutional norms at the expense of actually leading the party during critical moments. https://theslot.jezebel.com/goodbye-and-thanks-for-nothing-1845745147

Impeachment

Decoding Donald Trump's statement on his Senate acquittal. Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun. In the months ahead I have much to share with you, and I look forward to continuing our incredible journey together to achieve American greatness for all of our people. There has never been anything like it! We have so much work ahead of us, and soon we will emerge with a vision for a bright, radiant, and limitless American future. Together there is nothing we cannot accomplish. https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/14/politics/donald-trump-acquittal-statement/index.html https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1360696984907239428 http://static.c-spanvideo.org/files/pressCenter/Trump-Statement-on-Impeachment.pdf

Donald Trump learns his fate tomorrow with senators voting after impeachment trial turns into an angry shouting match as his defense attorneys call Democrats liars and hypocrites and they hit back: 'Get your client here to testify!' https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9255811/Trump-learns-fate-tomorrow-senators-voting-trial-turns-angry-shouting-match.html

Senator Mitt Romney was seen running for his life after Proud Boys and other rioters smashed their way into the US Capitol in previously unseen video footage played at Donald Trump's impeachment trial. The video, taken from the Capitol security footage and containing no sound, showed the Utah senator running down a corridor, having been told to flee by Capitol Hill police officer Eugene Goodman. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/mitt-romney-video-capitol-proud-boys-impeachment-b1800642.html

Here is Rep. Jamie Raskin's full 13-minute video montage of the Capitol insurrection https://youtu.be/2KVUB4L1LyI

Democrats Showed A Stunning Video Of Trump's Supporters Using His Own Words As They Attacked The Capitol In His Impeachment Trial. House Democrats opened Trump's historic second impeachment trial Tuesday with a video documenting how the former president's words kicked off violence. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/sarahmimms/impeachment-trial-video-trump-capitol-riot https://video-player.buzzfeed.com/embed?transcoder_path=%2Fhive-binaries%2Fbinaries%2F35f37464450f494ab21fe5b9bf7c85d6%2FImpeachment_2.0_2_9-1_00_PM_-_2_00_PM-impeachment_2_day_1_long_clip-2021-02-09.mp4

Trump’s lawyers say he was immediately ‘horrified’ by the Capitol attack. Here’s what his allies and aides said really happened that day. But that revisionist history conflicts with the timeline of events on the day of the Capitol riot, as well as accounts of multiple people in contact with the president that day, who have said Trump was initially pleased to see a halt in the counting of the electoral college votes. Some former White House officials have acknowledged that he only belatedly and reluctantly issued calls for peace, after first ignoring public and private entreaties to do so. “As this was unfolding on television, Donald Trump was walking around the White House confused about why other people on his team weren’t as excited as he was as you had rioters pushing against Capitol Police trying to get into the building,” he said, indicating that he had learned of Trump’s reaction from “senior White House officials.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-actions-capitol-attacks/2021/02/09/6dada250-6a3b-11eb-9ead-673168d5b874_story.html?utm_source=reddit.com https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-was-loving-watching-the-capitol-mob-white-house-official-2021-2

Whitehouse, The Presidency

“I ask every elected official in America: How do you want to be remembered?..Do you want to be the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?” Biden, Jan 11 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/01/11/remarks-by-president-biden-on-protecting-the-right-to-vote/

From ‘Huckleberry Capone’ to ‘Turd Blossom’: A History of White House Nicknames. Presidents and their aides have long bestowed nicknames on each other — often to undermine their rivals. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/12/05/huckleberry-capone-turd-blossom-white-house-nicknames-523723

Joe Biden Has Deadpan Response To Jimmy Fallon's Low Approval Ratings Question. Biden also countered the narrative that "Armageddon’s on the way" during his first late-night TV interview as president. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-jimmy-fallon-approval-ratings_n_61b47c02e4b04ae319ffa4d4

PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIANS SURVEY https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2021/?page=overall

'Something's seriously wrong with Joe': Ex-White House physician Ronny Jackson says he believes the president, 79, will be forced to resign or will face the 25th Amendment because he is NOT fit for office. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9821135/Former-White-House-physician-said-believes-Biden-forced-resign-fitness.html

How Conservative Lawyers Accidentally Helped Biden De-Trumpify the Government. The Supreme Court left Biden with two options: unilateral disarmament or hardball politics. He chose the latter. On Friday, President Joe Biden fired Andrew Saul, the Donald Trump nominee leading the Social Security Administration. Saul’s removal marked the latest chapter in Biden’s ongoing efforts to expel Trump holdovers from leadership positions in the executive branch. Beginning on Jan. 20, the new president has sacked Trump appointees from agencies both powerful and obscure, preventing the dead hand of the previous administration from governing the current one. The conservative legal movement has long advocated for the president’s power to fire executive officials at will. This theory of the “unitary executive” has gathered widespread support on the right and scorn from the left. But it is Biden who has first reaped its rewards, exploiting the theory’s ascendence at the Supreme Court to de-Trumpify the government. The radical nature of Trump’s nominees, combined with the Supreme Court’s conservative tilt, have allowed Biden to become the first unitary executive. An idea promoted by conservatives has created a windfall for Democrats. If Trump had put regular, competent Republicans in charge of the government, Biden might have put up with them until their terms ran out. But Trump put arsonists in charge of the firehouse, nominating extreme partisans eager to sabotage the agency they led. For instance, Peter Robb, Trump’s general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board, relentlessly sought to undermine unions. Michael Pack, whom Trump placed at the head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, tried to turn Voice of America and its sister networks into pro-Trump propaganda machines. And Kathleen Kraninger, Trump’s director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, authorized predatory lending and abusive debt collection practices. By tradition, a new president allows these officials to serve out their terms. But Biden did not wait for them to burn down the firehouse. He fired all three on Jan. 20. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/07/joe-biden-andrew-saul-trump-unitary-executive.html

Trump debuts at 41st in C-SPAN presidential rankings. His predecessor, Barack Obama, moved up to the No. 10 spot. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/30/trump-cspan-president-ranking-497184 https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2021/?page=overall

The Bidens' beloved pet dog Champ dies, as Jill pays tribute to their companion of 13 years who supported 'us in our most joyful moments and on our most grief-stricken days' The German Shepherd passed away peacefully aged 13 at his home. The Bidens released a statement saying their 'hearts are heavy' and paying tribute to their 'loving companion'. Jill and Joe Biden got Champ as a puppy in 2008 after Joe was elected Barack Obama's Vice President. His name was chosen by their grandchildren, in a heart-warming family reference to one of their grandfather's popular speeches. Champ moved with the Bidens to the White House in January along with three-year-old rescue pup Major. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9704025/Joe-Bidens-beloved-pet-dog-Champ-dies.html

Climate Change

Six key lifestyle changes can help avert the climate crisis, study finds. Research shows that governments and individuals making small changes can have a huge impact in reducing emissions.

1. Eat a largely plant-based diet, with healthy portions and no waste
2. Buy no more than three new items of clothing per year
3. Keep electrical products for at least seven years
4. Take no more than one short haul flight every three years and one long haul flight every eight years
5. Get rid of personal motor vehicles if you can – and if not keep hold of your existing vehicle for longer
6. Make at least one life shift to nudge the system, like moving to a green energy, insulating your home or changing pension supplier

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/07/six-key-lifestyle-changes-can-help-avert-the-climate-crisis-study-finds

Greta Thunberg makes first cover of Vogue Scandinavia. https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/567068-greta-thunberg-makes-first-cover-of-vogue-scandinavia https://www.voguescandinavia.com/tags/greta-thunberg

"Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people, to give them hope, but I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is." World Economic Forum, Davos, January 2019 https://www.voguescandinavia.com/articles/10-of-greta-thunbergs-most-memorable-quotes https://www.voguescandinavia.com/articles/greta-thunberg-on-friends-her-first-pet-and-who-makes-her-laugh

OPEN LETTER AND DEMANDS TO WORLD LEADERS #FaceTheClimateEmergency You must stop pretending that we can solve the climate- and ecological crisis without treating it as a crisis. https://climateemergencyeu.org

Greta Thunberg's message to world leaders at #DavosAgenda https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/01/greta-thunberg-message-to-the-davos-agenda/

@GretaThunberg "Right now more than ever we are desperate for hope. But what is hope? For me, hope is the feeling that keeps you going, even though all odds may be against you. For me hope comes from action not just words. For me, hope is telling it like it is." #wef2021 #DavosAgenda https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1354029885619118084

The United States is the #1 worst G20 nation when it comes to climate change. https://boingboing.net/2020/11/25/the-united-states-is-the-1-worst-g20-nation-when-it-comes-to-climate-change.html

behavior

1. obsession with words, what they mean, and how they are said
2. secrecy
3. dissociation from reality, fantastical thinking
4. use of code words

School shootings, guns, murder rate

Artist Barry Blitt drew his latest sketchbook about the shooting by depicting such political leaders as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). (Barry Blitt for Air Mail Weekly) https://airmail.news/issues/2022-5-28/barry-blitts-sketchbook

Murder map: Deadliest U.S. cities https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/murder-map-deadliest-u-s-cities/43/

Cities With Most Murders 2022 https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-city-rankings/cities-with-most-murders

1. St. Louis, MO (69.4)
2. Baltimore, MD (51.1)
3. New Orleans, LA (40.6)
4. Detroit, MI (39.7)
5. Cleveland, OH (33.7)
6. Las Vegas, NV (31.4)
7. Kansas City, MO (31.2)
8. Memphis, TN (27.1)
9. Newark, NJ (25.6)
10. Chicago, IL (24)
11. Cincinnati, OH (23.8)
12. Philadelphia, PA (20.2)
13. Milwaukee, WI (20.0)
14. Tulsa, OK (18.6)
15. Pittsburgh, PA (18.4)
16. Indianapolis, IN (17.7)
17. Louisville, KY (17.5)
18. Oakland, CA (17.1)
19. Washington D.C. (17.0)
20. Atlanta, GA (16.7)

Eight warnings behaviors of a potential mass shooter: here's what to look for. https://news.yahoo.com/eight-warnings-behaviors-potential-mass-102503126.html

1. Pathway: This is where individuals are planning and preparing the details of their attack, like accumulating ammunition, buying firearms in secret and not telling people about them or building bombs or other incendiary devices in their garage.
2. Fixation
3. Identification: In Parkland, Florida, the shooter posted on YouTube six months prior to shooting the high school that he was going to become a "professional school shooter."
4. Energy burst: You may see an acceleration of "on the ground' behavior and a decrease in online behavior in the hours before an attack as the attacker prepares.
5. Leakage: This is the most common warning sign, where an individual communicates their intent to attack to a third party. It occurs in 60 to 90% of targeted attack cases, usually in the days or hours before the attack.
6. Directly communicated threat
7. Novel aggression: A potential attacker tests their ability to be violent ahead of time in their preparation for an attack, engaging in one-off unusually aggressive behavior that is a test of their resolve to carry out a homicidal act. This could include picking a fight or killing an animal.
8. Last resort: The potential attacker says things that indicate an urgent need to act violently within a specific time. They might say that it's up to them or use other words to communicate that they must act.

COPS DIDN’T STOP THE UVALDE SCHOOL SHOOTING. And they won’t stop the next. https://theintercept.com/2022/05/25/texas-uvalde-shooting-school-police/

Beto O'Rourke confront Gov. Greg Abbott during Texas shooting update https://news.yahoo.com/beto-orourke-confront-gov-greg-175642550.html

Uvalde, TX elementary school shooting: conspiracy trolls say it's a "psy-op" https://boingboing.net/2022/05/24/uvalde-tx-elementary-school-shooting-conspiracy-trolls-say-its-a-psy-op.html

Racism

Critical race theory is a way of thinking about America’s history through the lens of racism. Scholars developed it during the 1970s and 1980s in response to what they viewed as a lack of racial progress following the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. It centers on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions and that they function to maintain the dominance of white people in society. The architects of the theory argue that the United States was founded on the theft of land and labor and that federal law has preserved the unequal treatment of people on the basis of race. Proponents also believe race is culturally invented, not biological. https://apnews.com/article/what-is-critical-race-theory-08f5d0a0489c7d6eab7d9a238365d2c1

Corruption, current Hunter Biden, Rep. Darrell Issa and former Rep. Duncan Hunter

Analysis of Hunter Biden's hard drive shows he, his firm took in about $11 million from 2013 to 2018, spent it fast. A representative for Biden says all of his tax responsibilities to the IRS are now satisfied. Two sources familiar with the matter have confirmed to NBC News that Hollywood attorney Kevin Morris began advising Biden in 2020 and arranged to pay off the approximately $2 million Biden owed the IRS. Legal experts say, however, that paying the bill won’t relieve Biden of criminal liability or necessarily erase his debts. While Republicans have suggested that Biden’s reference in an email to needing money for his “family” refers to the larger Biden clan, nothing in the Senate documents or on the hard drive indicates he was earning money expressly to share with other family members, including his father. https://news.yahoo.com/analysis-hunter-bidens-hard-drive-082903699.html

How the stench of corruption from Trump’s administration persists to the present day. The Trump administration may be gone from Washington, but the acrid stench of corruption lives on. Case in point: An allegation that former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt pressured agency personnel to approve a controversial Arizona housing development in return for political donations to then-President Trump by the builder and his associates. The allegation came in a request issued Wednesday by House Democrats for a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice into whether the approval by the Interior Department and the contributions to Trump represent “a potentially criminal quid pro quo.” https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-05-12/david-bernhardt-interior-house-committee-criminal-investigation

New Hunter Biden revelations raise counterintelligence questions. Patrick Ho hardly seemed the profile of a big-time international fixer. A short, pudgy man, affectionately known to friends as “Fat Ping,” Ho had been a Harvard-trained ophthalmologist and a Hong Kong government minister. Yet in the fall of 2017, after landing at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City, he was arrested by FBI agents and charged in an audacious plot to dole out millions of dollars in bribes to African leaders in exchange for major energy contracts that appeared to advance Chinese government interests. What emerged in his indictment and later trial and conviction in federal court was a revealing portrait of Chinese influence peddling that included allegations that Ho arranged to broker arms deals — including the sale of rocket and grenade launchers — to countries in war zones in Africa and the Middle East. There was one noteworthy detail, however, about Ho’s global wheeling and dealing that went unmentioned in federal court documents or Justice Department press releases at the time. During the same period that he was being pursued by the FBI for his role in the global bribery scheme, Ho and his boss, Ye Jianming, a billionaire oil tycoon with past ties to a front for the People’s Liberation Army, had entered into a business relationship with two members of the Biden family — President Biden’s son Hunter Biden and the president’s brother, James Biden. As Yahoo News first reported, when Ho was arrested by agents at JFK, the first call he made was to James Biden. (The president’s brother later told the New York Times that he believed the call was intended for his nephew Hunter.) At the time, Ho’s connection to the Bidens was unclear. But emails on a damaged laptop that Hunter Biden left at a computer repair store in Wilmington, Del. — many of which have since been authenticated by the Washington Post and the Times — as well as bank records and other documents uncovered by Senate Republican investigators, reveal a high-dollar money trail that flowed from Chinese interests to Hunter and James Biden and which now appears to be at the heart of an ongoing Justice Department criminal investigation. (George Mesires, a lawyer for both Hunter and James Biden, did not respond to requests for comment from Yahoo News. A lawyer for Ho declined to comment.) https://news.yahoo.com/new-hunter-biden-revelations-raise-counter-intelligence-questions-090046438.html

U.S. Congressman Fortenberry found guilty of lying to FBI about funds. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-congressman-fortenberry-found-guilty-lying-fbi-about-funds-2022-03-25/

Another Republican ensnared? Rep. Darrell Issa may be implicated in Fortenberry scandal. Longtime House Republican Darrell Issa — worth $250M — may have been target of DOJ sting over $30,000 donation. One public official in question, who is identified in court filings only as "Candidate C," is Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican who is now the apparent target of a DOJ investigation — and may indeed have been the object of a sting operation. Issa retired from Congress in 2018 after serving nine terms from a Southern California district, but then moved to an adjoining district in San Diego County and was narrowly elected in 2020. The former CEO of an after-market auto accessories company called Directed Electronics, Issa has an estimated net worth of $250 million and is one of the richest members of the House. https://www.salon.com/2021/11/10/another-ensnared-rep-darrell-issa-may-be-implicated-in-fortenberry-scandal/

Trump’s interior secretary misused position and lied to ethics official, watchdog says. Ryan Zinke lied to agency ethics official about his involvement with foundation to advance project in his Montana home town. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/16/ryan-zinke-trump-interior-secretary-misused-position-watchdog

The federal case against Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb. — who was indicted last month on charges of lying to federal investigators and concealing information about illegal campaign donations — appears to have ensnared another Republican congressman. The Department of Justice stated last week that a protective order was "necessary" in the Fortenberry case to protect "evidence related to sensitive and ongoing investigations, including those related to public officials." One public official in question, who is identified in court filings only as "Candidate C," is Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican who is now the apparent target of a DOJ investigation — and may indeed have been the object of a sting operation. Issa retired from Congress in 2018 after serving nine terms from a Southern California district, but then moved to an adjoining district in San Diego County and was narrowly elected in 2020. The former CEO of an after-market auto accessories company called Directed Electronics, Issa has an estimated net worth of $250 million and is one of the richest members of the House. https://www.salon.com/2021/11/10/another-ensnared-rep-darrell-issa-may-be-implicated-in-fortenberry-scandal/

When Kevin Faulconer was San Diego's mayor, his administration failed to follow best practices and conduct due diligence when spending hundreds of millions of dollars on real estate purchases, a city audit found. The audit released Thursday, reported by the San Diego Union-Tribune, explores four real estate deals totaling $230 million the city entered into under Faulconer's leadership. The auditors wrote "a serious lack of policies and oversight caused the City to miss or skip key steps in the acquisition process" and that Faulconer's administration left out or misrepresented key information. https://www.kpbs.org/news/2021/jul/23/san-diego-audit-faults-real-estate-deals-faulconer/

California conservatives rebuke Trump pardon of Duncan Hunter. Republican Carl DeMaio, who unsuccessfully ran for Duncan Hunter's 50th congressional district seat, issued a statement saying Trump's action "sends absolutely the wrong message that politicians can break the law, but can easily avoid any punishment when they do." While Duncan Hunter's pardon was upsetting to many Republicans, Darrell Issa, who won the election to take the 50th congressional district seat, congratulated him via Twitter. "I'm pleased that all of the Hunter family can spend this Christmas together with a fresh outlook on life," he said.

Trump Pardons GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter, Who Covered Up Campaign Fraud with Faith. https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/12/23/trump-pardons-gop-rep-duncan-hunter-who-covered-up-campaign-fraud-with-faith/

Estranged wife of former Rep. Duncan Hunter files for divorce. The divorce filings do not include any details about the “irreconcilable differences” that ended the marriage. An attorney for Margaret said she had no comment. A spokesman for Duncan did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday. The indictment and other court records prosecutors filed in Duncan Hunter’s case before he pleaded guilty last year suggested Duncan carried on extramarital affairs with at least five women — three lobbyists, a staff member and a congressional aid — and used his campaign money to pay for weekend getaways and other outings with them, starting in 2009. None of the women were named in court records. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/2020-12-09/estranged-wife-of-former-rep-duncan-hunter-files-for-divorce

Reparations

Nathan Bedford Forrest statue along I-65 being removed after more than 2 decades. After more than two decades, the controversial Nathan Bedford Forrest statue along Interstate 65 is being removed. This comes one year after Bill Dorris — the owner of the statue and the property where it stood — passed away. Dorris’ will left his estate to three parties: The Sons of Confederate Veterans. The Battle of Nashville Trust. And his border collie Lulu. The executor of the will is in the process of finalizing the distribution of assets and made the decision to remove the statue. It will be held in storage and possibly be put up for sale. For now, the flags will remain at the site. https://www.newschannel5.com/news/nathan-bedford-forrest-statue-along-i-65-being-removed-after-more-than-2-decades

Full text of Lt. Col. Kemter’s Memorial Day speech https://www.legion.org/honor/252713/full-text-lt-col-kemter’s-memorial-day-speech

I want a monument to Trump where I can shit on his head. https://twitter.com/bob_smith_42/status/1351214456458633234 It could be a larger than life statue of Trump with one of his shit eating smirks on his face and two thumbs up gesture, the statue would be in a pit sculpted like a bomb crater so his head is below ground level. There would be a platform above his head that viewers could step out to where there would be privy seats so that you could shit or piss on the statue.

Waiting for the American Khrushchev: Who will deliver the “Cult of Personality” speech to Americans? Yale historian and student of tyranny Timothy Snyder defines the Big Lie as one which requires believers to reject evidence and commit to a vast conspiratorial story. Hitler’s chief propagandist Joseph Goebbels was one of the craft’s best practitioners. “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it,” he wrote, “people will eventually come to believe it…the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” A few years after his death, Stalin’s Big Lie was revealed to be just that by none other than one of his former enablers — Nikita Khrushchev who delivered the famous “On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences” speech at a closed meeting of the 20th Congress of the Soviet Union in 1956. Who in Trump’s inner circle has the trust of his followers and the guts to do this? Tucker Carlson? Don Jr? Hannity? Ivanka? Is there an American equivalent of the 1956 Soviet Politburo — a group of high-level Trump supporters and enablers who can sense their own destruction on the horizon and for reasons of pure self-preservation will be willing to reveal the Big Lie for what it is to Trump’s supporters and the American public? Is there an American version of Nikita Khrushchev for this moment? I am waiting for him or her to speak up. https://medium.com/institute-for-the-future/waiting-for-the-american-khrushchev-78f59504fb6f

Black Farmers Have Been Robbed of Land. A New Bill Would Give Them a “Quantum Leap” Toward Justice. “This is the Black Farmers Civil Rights Act of 2020, and it’s long overdue.” https://www.motherjones.com/food/2020/11/black-farmers-have-been-robbed-of-land-a-new-bill-would-give-them-a-quantum-leap-toward-justice/

Coronavirus crisis, tracking

Johns Hopkins Department of Civil and Systems Engineering, CSSE dashboard https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

San Diego Wastewater Surveillance https://searchcovid.info/dashboards/wastewater-surveillance/

This site was created by Avi Schiffmann. I am a high schooler in Washington State, USA. https://ncov2019.live/data https://ncov2019.live/data/unitedstates

County https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/sdc/hhsa/programs/phs/community_epidemiology/dc/2019-nCoV/status.html

Here’s Where COVID-19 Outbreaks Have Happened In San Diego County https://www.kpbs.org/news/2020/dec/21/covid-19-outbreak-locations-san-diego-county/

Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html

https://myturn.ca.gov

https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/sdc/hhsa/programs/phs/community_epidemiology/dc/2019-nCoV/vaccines/COVID-19-VaxEvents.html#grossmont

Coronavirus crisis, HealthCare, political, economy, masks

For red and blue America, a glaring divide in COVID-19 death rates persists 2 years later. Cumulative death rates in red states 30% higher. https://news.yahoo.com/red-blue-america-glaring-divide-103237097.html

#8. San Diego County – Population that is fully vaccinated: 80.0% (2,670,929 fully vaccinated) https://fox5sandiego.com/news/coronavirus/counties-with-the-highest-covid-19-vaccination-rate-in-california-3/

US 'excess deaths' during pandemic surpassed 1 million, with covid killing most but other diseases adding to the toll. Although the vast majority of the excess deaths are due to the virus, the CDC mortality records also expose swollen numbers of deaths from heart disease, hypertension, dementia and other ailments across two years of pandemic misery. "We've never seen anything like it," Anderson said. In 2019, before the pandemic, the CDC recorded 2.8 million deaths. But in 2020 and 2021, as the virus spread through the population, the country recorded roughly a half-million deaths each year in excess of the norm. https://news.yahoo.com/us-excess-deaths-during-pandemic-215337856.html

My Mom passed a year ago today from COVID. She took pics of her progression while in the hospital. https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/sma6zr/my_mom_passed_a_year_ago_today_from_covid_she/

‘The case for masks became hugely stronger’: scientists admit their Covid mistakes. Prof Susan Michie, director of the centre for behaviour change at University College London, changed her mind on the usefulness of masks. Early on, my reading was that the evidence on the effectiveness of face masks in community settings was equivocal. The emphasis on droplet transmission raised a concern that infected people may touch their face masks and then touch surfaces, thus providing a transmission route. The possibility of people behaving less cautiously as result of wearing face masks was also raised. Two things changed. When evidence showed that the major route for transmission was via aerosol rather than droplet, the case for masks became hugely stronger. There was also persuasive evidence from real-world studies, including one from German towns and one on cruise ships. This changed my mind from sitting on the fence to being strongly in favour of masks. I was asked on a TV programme how long we’ll be wearing masks. I said “for ever, to some extent”, and was cut off before I could elaborate that this would depend on the context and risk of infection. I had months of being trolled and attacked for saying this. But science continues to generate good evidence that masks reduce infection for Covid-19, an airborne virus. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/04/i-didnt-think-vaccines-would-work-scientists-admit-their-covid-mistakes?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Good Grief, We’re Doing Throat Swabs Now? The mouth method might be better at detecting omicron. If you’re so inclined, you can swab your throat with a standard test kit by opening wide in front of a mirror and sticking the thing to the very back of your mouth, behind the arch. (A strep test, basically.) Then, stick the swab in each of your nostrils, as the instructions on the rapid test explain. https://slate.com/technology/2021/12/throat-swab-rapid-testing-omicron-effective.html

Right-Wing Podcaster Reportedly On Ventilator For COVID After he attended the right-wing “ReAwaken America” event in Dallas early this month, according to his podcast network and conspiracy theorist attorney Lin Wood.. Doug Kuzma posed with supplies of ivermectin, which the FDA and CDC have warned against using to treat COVID-19. A number of individuals who developed COVID-like symptoms after attending the Dallas event have claimed without evidence that they were somehow poisoned with anthrax. The Dallas event was part of a national tour paid for by right-wing funders featuring guest speakers including MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, as well as Flynn. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/doug-kuzma-covid-ventilator-reawaken-america_n_61c7c6e4e4b0bb04a6308680

Watch: Trump says the Covid vaccines he "came up with" are "all very, very good" A wizardly Donald Trump is on a tear this week, taking cues from a mysterious new playbook that leaves followers scrambling to catch up. Rather than touting bleach as the miracle Covid fix, he's now, finally, getting behind the vaccine. Not only did he admit to receiving the booster last Sunday, but he has actually disclosed the fact that he alone created not one, but all three vaccines. "I came up with a vaccine, with three vaccines, all are very, very good," he explained to right-wing Daily Wire host Candace Owens on Tuesday. "Came up with three of them in less than nine months. It was supposed to take 5–12 years." Yes, we laugh now. But don't think the master manipulator doesn't know what he's doing. https://boingboing.net/2021/12/24/watch-trump-says-the-covid-vaccines-he-came-up-with-are-all-very-very-good.html

During the COVID-19 pandemic’s early days, it wasn’t crystal clear how well face masks were preventing coronavirus infections or severe disease among wearers. Now, a new study reveals an association between mask policies and reduced COVID-19 deaths long before vaccines were added to the picture. Research on 44 countries in Asia and Europe including nearly one billion people shows nations that enacted face mask policies at the start of the pandemic had significantly lower COVID-19 deaths per million people than those that did not enforce any mask rules. https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2021/12/do-face-masks-work-against-covid-19-heres-what-new-study-of-44-countries-found.html

Select Subcommittee Releases Further Evidence of Trump Officials’ Pursuit of ‘Herd Immunity’ Strategy, Interference in Public Health. Then-President Trump held a meeting at the White House with a “fringe group” that advocated for a dangerous herd immunity strategy embraced by then-White House Special Advisor Dr. Scott Atlas. Dr. Birx and former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Principal Deputy Director Dr. Anne Schuchat detailed a series of early missteps that contributed to the Trump Administration’s ineffectual coronavirus response. The Trump White House intentionally “softened” CDC’s public health guidance for faith communities. A new Select Subcommittee analysis found that nearly 97 percent of Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) fraud prosecutions have involved fraudulent applications submitted during the Trump Administration’s implementation of the program. https://coronavirus.house.gov/news/press-releases/select-subcommittee-s-year-end-staff-report-highlights-oversight-work-releases

Former president Donald Trump knowingly put at risk the lives of Gold Star families, wealthy donors at a Minnesota fundraiser, then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden, White House staff, the crews of Air Force One, White House reporters, and others, according to a new book from his former chief of staff. Trump finally admitted he had contracted COVID-19 just after midnight on Oct. 2, barely 24 hours following a campaign rally in Minnesota where he looked peaked and cut short his typically 90 minutes of rambling remarks to just 45. That, though, was actually almost six days after Sept. 26, when he had originally tested positive, according to former chief of staff Mark Meadows in his new memoir, as reported by the Guardian. In those intervening days, Trump held a reception for families of fallen service members, hosted a gathering of business leaders at the White House, attended a presidential debate with Biden, visited reporters in the press section of Air Force 1, and interacted with multiple flight crews on both Marine helicopters and Air Force planes. “The whole episode demonstrates a total disregard for public health and the well-being of others,” said Alyssa Farah Griffin, Trump’s former communications director who left the White House when Trump would not stop lying about the 2020 election results. https://news.yahoo.com/trump-may-infected-gold-star-195616565.html

@atrupar Trump won't tell Hannity if he's had a negative coronavirus test. He just ignores the question and starts ranting. https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1314379349781553152

Trump tested positive for Covid few days before Biden debate, chief of staff says in new book. Mark Meadows makes stunning admission in new memoir obtained by Guardian, saying a second test returned negative. Meadows says Trump’s positive result on 26 September was a shock to a White House which had just staged a triumphant Rose Garden ceremony for the supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett – an occasion now widely considered to have been a Covid super-spreader event. Despite the president looking “a little tired” and suspecting a “slight cold”, Meadows says he was “content” that Trump travelled that evening to a rally in Middletown, Pennsylvania. But as Marine One lifted off, Meadows writes, the White House doctor called. “Stop the president from leaving,” Meadows says Sean Conley told him. “He just tested positive for Covid.” the stunning revelation of an unreported positive test follows a year of speculation about whether Trump, then 74 years old, had the potentially deadly virus when he faced Biden, 77, in Cleveland on 29 September – and what danger that might have presented. Trump announced he had Covid on 2 October. The White House said he announced that result within an hour of receiving it. He went to hospital later that day. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/01/trump-tested-positive-covid-before-biden-debate-chief-staff-mark-meadows-book

A federal agency that was run by a college friend of Jared Kushner and assigned $100 million to spend on fixing the Covid supply chain crunch has so far failed to invest a single dime, according to a new government watchdog report. In 2020, the Trump administration directed the International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to loan out $100 million in Pentagon funds through the CARES Act to "finance the domestic production of strategic resources needed to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak, and to strengthen any relevant domestic medical supply chains." Companies were encouraged to apply for financial backing to help increase U.S. distribution of ventilators, vaccines, medical testing supplies, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and other relevant products. According to a new Government Accountability Office report, 178 applications flooded into the agency’s downtown Washington office but no money flowed out. Adam Boehler, briefly a college roommate of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, ran the International Development Finance Corporation starting in fall 2019. The DFC had been created with bipartisan support in 2018 to help steer private investment to government-funded projects in the developing world. Adam Boehler, briefly a college roommate of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, ran the International Development Finance Corporation starting in fall 2019. The DFC had been created with bipartisan support in 2018 to help steer private investment to government-funded projects in the developing world. https://news.yahoo.com/trump-gave-agency-100-million-160020402.html

'He is egregiously incorrect': Fauci fires back at Rand Paul for claiming the NIH changed gain-of-function definition on their website and now he's 'trying to cover his a**' https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10166185/He-incorrect-Fauci-fires-Paul-claiming-NIH-changed-gain-function-definition.html

Moscow will reintroduce COVID-19 lockdown measures from Oct. 28, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Thursday, with supermarkets and pharmacies the only shops allowed to stay open in an effort to cut soaring infections and deaths. The decision came a day after President Vladimir Putin approved a nationwide week-long workplace shutdown from Oct. 30 to Nov. 7 and said regional leaders could introduce tighter measures at their discretion. The partial lockdown in the capital, the first since June of last year, will also run until Nov. 7. Sobyanin said all shops would close except those selling essential goods, such as supermarkets and pharmacies. Schools and kindergartens will shut too, while bars and restaurants can only operate takeaway and delivery services. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/moscow-reintroduce-lockdown-measures-covid-19-cases-deaths-soar-2021-10-21/

U.S. COVID-19 death toll hits 700,000 October 1, 2021 https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-covid-19-death-toll-hits-700000-2021-10-01/

San Diego County Supervisors Declare COVID-19 Misinformation A Public Health Crisis. Tuesday night's vote was 3-2, with Supervisors Jim Desmond and Joel Anderson voting no. The final result came after hours of debate featuring testimony from hundreds of residents, many who opposed the measure. Fletcher characterized them as "mostly right-wing, anti-vaxxers." https://www.kpbs.org/news/2021/sep/01/san-diego-county-supervisors-covid-misinformation/

KN95 MASKS VS PM2.5 FILTERS. KN95 (N95) is the rating given to a mask that can filter out 95% of PM2.5 such as dust, pollen, pollution, viruses and particulates in the air. PM2.5 describes the size of the fine particulate matter that people are concerned about. These tiny particles could be pollution, smoke or airborne virals. SARS-CoV-2 is an enveloped virus ≈0.1 μm in diameter, so N95 masks are capable of filtering most free virions, but they do more than that. A micrometer (also called a micron) is 1000 times smaller than a millimeter. ... Nanometer A nanometer is 1000 times smaller than a micrometer. 1 micrometer (μm) = 1000 nanometers. https://www.medicalmasksuperstore.com/kn95-masks-vs-pm2-5-filters/

3rd conservative radio host who condemned vaccines dies of Covid. Marc Bernier was a mainstay on talk radio in Daytona. On Aug. 4, another Florida conservative radio host who had criticized the coronavirus vaccine, Dick Farrel, died from Covid-19 complications. Farrel, whose given name was Farrel Austin Levitt, had worked at several radio stations in Florida, including WIOD in Miami and WPBR in Palm Beach, and had served as a fill-in anchor on Newsmax. He had strongly condemned the coronavirus vaccine, posting on Facebook on July 3, “why take a vax promoted by people who lied 2u all along about masks, where the virus came from and the death toll?” He also criticized Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infection disease doctor, calling him a “power tripping lying freak,” according to The Washington Post, which reported on his death. But the Post also reports that Farrel had changed his stance on vaccines after he became infected with Covid-19. He had reportedly urged a longtime friend to get the vaccine and regretted not getting it himself. Last week, Phil Valentine, a 62-year-old conservative radio host in Nashville, Tenn., who had questioned the necessity of vaccines, also died from the virus. Valentine, the son of former six-term Rep. Tim Valentine (D-N.C.), had a nationally syndicated show. “The people who instinctively believe that the government is the solution to everything are already talking vaccination mandates. This should be a personal choice,” he wrote on his blog in December. “I’m not an anti-vaxxer. I’m just using common sense.” But like Farrel, he had reportedly changed his position on vaccines after contracting Covid-19. The radio station he was affiliated with, 99.7 WTN, posted a statement on July 23 that Valentine had been hospitalized and “regrets not being more vehemently ‘Pro-Vaccine.’” https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2021/08/29/3rd-conservative-radio-host-who-condemned-vaccines-dies-of-covid-1390555

Watch: violent attacks at anti-vax protest in Los Angeles. https://boingboing.net/2021/08/16/watch-violent-attacks-at-anti-vax-protest-in-los-angeles.html

People who contracted Covid may have "substantial" drop in intelligence, according to The Lancet https://boingboing.net/2021/08/03/people-who-contracted-covid-may-have-substantial-drop-in-intelligence-according-to-the-lancet.html

General Information about Candida auris. Healthcare facilities in several countries have reported that a type of yeast called Candida auris has been causing severe illness in hospitalized patients. In some patients, this yeast can enter the bloodstream and spread throughout the body, causing serious invasive infections. This yeast often does not respond to commonly used antifungal drugs, making infections difficult to treat. Patients who have been hospitalized in a healthcare facility a long time, have a central venous catheter, or other lines or tubes entering their body, or have previously received antibiotics or antifungal medications, appear to be at highest risk of infection with this yeast. Specialized laboratory methods are needed to accurately identify C. auris. Conventional laboratory techniques could lead to misidentification and inappropriate management, making it difficult to control the spread of C. auris in healthcare settings. https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/candida-auris/candida-auris-qanda.html

Sen Rand Paul says he's asking DOJ for 'a criminal referral' into Fauci. Paul claims Fauci lied to Congress about gain-of-research funding. https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/564112-sen-rand-paul-says-hes-asking-doj-for-a-criminal-referral-into

The Other Victims Of The Pandemic: Workers Killed In Fights Over Masks. Essential workers have borne the brunt of a pandemic poisoned by politics. BuzzFeed News found at least four frontline employees who died in fights over masks. Here are their stories. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/clarissajanlim/workers-killed-fights-masks

Tennessee's former top vaccine official said she was sent a muzzle one week before she was fired. Dr. Michelle Fiscus was fired from the Tennessee Department of Health on Monday after facing scrutiny from Republican state lawmakers over TDH's outreach efforts to vaccinate teenagers against COVID-19. "They must not know me, this is for a beagle, but I'm a pit bull," Dr. Fiscus said in reaction to the muzzle. Dr. Fiscus believes she was fired to appease lawmakers after she sent out information on the Mature Minor Doctrine, which allows doctors to treat teenage patients without parental consent. https://www.newschannel5.com/news/tennessee-vaccine-official-says-she-was-sent-muzzle-one-week-before-firing

Coronavirus crisis, HealthCare, political, economy, masks archived July 14, 2021

The Tennessee Department of Health will halt all adolescent vaccine outreach – not just for coronavirus, but all diseases – amid pressure from Republican state lawmakers, according to an internal report and agency emails obtained by the Tennessean. If the health department must issue any information about vaccines, staff are instructed to strip the agency logo off the documents. The health department will also stop all COVID-19 vaccine events on school property, despite holding at least one such event this month. The decisions to end vaccine outreach and school events come directly from Health Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey, the internal report states. Additionally, the health department will take steps to ensure it no longer sends postcards or other notices reminding teenagers to get their second dose of the coronavirus vaccines. Postcards will still be sent to adults, but teens will be excluded from the mailing list so the postcards are not “potentially interpreted as solicitation to minors,” the report states. https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/health/2021/07/13/tennessee-halts-all-vaccine-outreach-minors-not-just-covid-19/7928701002/

On Monday, July 12, the Tennessee Department of Health fired Dr. Michelle Fiscus, the top vaccine official in the Tennessee state government. Fiscus said she was scapegoated to appease Republican state lawmakers who are angry about efforts to vaccinate teenagers. After losing her job, Fiscus released a 1,200-word statement about the ordeal. Below is her statement in its entirety. https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/health/2021/07/12/covid-19-tennessee-fired-vaccine-official-michelle-fiscus-fears-state/7945291002/

Tennessee fires top vaccine official as COVID-19 shows signs of new spread. Fiscus said she was a scapegoat who was terminated to appease state lawmakers angry about the department's efforts to vaccinate teenagers against coronavirus. The agency has been dialing back efforts to vaccinate teenagers since June. "It was my job to provide evidence-based education and vaccine access so that Tennesseans could protect themselves against COVID-19," Fiscus said in a written statement. "I have now been terminated for doing exactly that." https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/health/2021/07/12/tennessee-fires-top-vaccine-official-covid-19-shows-new-spread/7928699002/

Fox News’ Anti-Vaccination Hysteria Has Reached a Disturbing New Level. Right-wing media is melting down over President Biden’s push to … inoculate people against a virus that has killed more than 600,000 Americans. Kilmeade is correct in noting that the U.S. has done a good job tamping down Covid-19, and even that the virus is now “on the run.” The reason for this is simple: People are getting vaccinated. A recent Associated Press analysis of government data found that 98.9 percent of Covid-related hospitalizations are among the unvaccinated. Same goes for 99.2 percent of Covid-related deaths. This is a reason to keep vaccinating people, not to stop vaccinating people, especially as the highly contagious Delta variant is spreading around the world. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/fox-news-anti-vaccination-hysteria-1195003/

GOP and Fox News rush to turn vaccine door-knockers into terrifying straw men. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/09/gop-fox-news-rush-turn-vaccine-door-knockers-into-terrifying-straw-men/

Five clusters of unvaccinated Americans making up 15 million people across 12 states are putting the entire country at risk of another surge in COVID-19 cases, analysis finds. Five clusters of unvaccinated Americans could be putting the entire country at risk of future COVID-19 surges, a new analysis finds. COVID-19 vaccination is extremely uneven across the US, with some counties at rates above 70 percent while others are below 30 percent. The clusters of counties - which make up 15 million Americans - all have vaccination rates under 30 percent and stretch across 12 states including Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9770273/Five-clusters-unvaccinated-Americans-putting-entire-risk-COVID-19-surge.html

Group of scientists argues COVID-19 lab theory without evidence. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/561633-group-of-scientists-argues-covid-19-lab-theory-without-evidence

Nearly all COVID deaths in US are now among unvaccinated. Thursday June 24, 2021. Nearly all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. now are in people who weren’t vaccinated, a staggering demonstration of how effective the shots have been and an indication that deaths per day — now down to under 300 — could be practically zero if everyone eligible got the vaccine. https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-941fcf43d9731c76c16e7354f5d5e187

Inside the extraordinary effort to save Trump from covid-19. His illness was more severe than the White House acknowledged at the time. Advisers thought it would alter his response to the pandemic. They were wrong. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/06/24/nightmare-scenario-book-excerpt/

Among the thousands of pages of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails obtained recently by The Washington Post and BuzzFeed News, a short note from Kristian Andersen, a virus expert at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, has garnered a lot of attention. Over the past year, Andersen has been one of the most outspoken proponents of the theory that the coronavirus originated from a natural spillover from an animal to humans outside of a lab. But in the email to Fauci in January 2020, Andersen hadn’t yet come to that conclusion. He told Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, that some features of the virus made him wonder whether it had been engineered, and noted that he and his colleagues were planning to investigate further by analyzing the virus’s genome. Furin cleavage sites are found all across the coronavirus family, including in the betacoronavirus genus that SARS-CoV-2 belongs to. There has been much speculation that patterns found in the virus’s RNA that are responsible for certain portions of the furin cleavage site represent evidence of engineering. Specifically, people are pointing to two “CGG” sequences that code for the amino acid arginine in the furin cleavage site as strong evidence that the virus was made in the lab. Such statements are factually incorrect. While it’s true that CGG is less common than other patterns that code for arginine, the CGG codon is found elsewhere in the SARS-CoV-2 genome and the genetic sequence[s] that include the CGG codon found in SARS-CoV-2 are also found in other coronaviruses. These findings, together with many other technical features of the site, strongly suggest that it evolved naturally and there is very little chance somebody engineered it. https://www.yahoo.com/news/scientist-opens-early-email-fauci-114537695.html

Transcript: Lawrence Wright, Author, “The Plague Year: America in the Time of COVID”. I feel particularly warm about Matt Pottinger because he began his career as you and I did, as a reporter. And that turned out to be an exceptionally important fact. He speaks fluent Mandarin, and so he was covering SARS-1 in China for The Wall Street Journal. And when the Chinese were issuing statements in early 2020 saying that this was not a human disease, it wasn't transmissible and we've got it under control, some alarm bells went off in Matt Pottinger's mind--evidently not in the minds of people in our intelligence community because very little information was coming from that corridor. And so, Matt was the deputy national security advisory and he--in that capacity he began acting like a reporter once again. He started calling sources in China. And the reports he was getting were pretty alarming. This was community spread. In other words, it was out of control in China. And so even American public health authorities weren't taking it nearly as seriously as Matt was. And one of the things that he instituted was the coronavirus taskforce. He brought agents from across the government together to talk about this. And he also was the one who promoted the use of masks at a time when he was the very first person to wear a mask in the White House, and he said he felt like he was wearing a clown nose. And the president asked if he was ill, and he said, no, I just don't want to be the first person to knock off a president with a communicable disease. He was almost alone in his warnings in the White House about the threat that COVID-19 posed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2021/06/08/transcript-lawrence-wright-author-plague-year-america-time-covid/

What went wrong with Covid-19 response in the US? Author and journalist Lawrence Wright has been writing about pandemics for decades. So when Covid-19 struck the US, he was ideally placed to report on the political response. At the beginning of 2020 the author Lawrence Wright published a novel in which he imagined a deadly virus outbreak that swept the globe. He couldn’t have predicted that as that book hit the shops real life was eerily mimicking his plot. As a reporter for the New Yorker, Wright had been reporting on pandemics for decades and was ideally placed to chart the spread of Covid-19. He tells Anushka Asthana that what unfolded was to become America’s deadliest year, with half a million people lost to the virus. Inside the White House, there were experts desperately trying to influence the president to change course on key decisions. But the story of the initial Covid response, argues Wright, was one of a significant political failure. https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2021/jun/14/what-went-wrong-with-the-us-covid-19-response-podcast

QOP Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't believe in evolution or 'so-called science'. In case you had any doubts, the Right Hand of Q, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, does not believe in science, research, or anything that gets in the way of her claiming anything she'd like at any time. What she's saying: Greene leaned on religion to explain the origins of the coronavirus. "Why is there any need to create a virus that could spread rapidly to a population, to make people sick and kill them? That is a bioweapon," she said. Greene noted she doesn't support so-called "gain-of-function research," in which lab technicians modify a virus to develop vaccines and other medications. "I don't buy it because I don't believe in evolution," the freshman Republican from Georgia added. "I don't believe in that type of so-called science. I don't believe in evolution, I believe in God." https://boingboing.net/2021/06/14/qop-marjorie-taylor-green-doesnt-believe-in-evolution-or-so-called-science.html

Trump's State Department Officials Fought Over Whether The Coronavirus Was A Chinese Bioweapon. In an open letter posted on Medium on Thursday, Christopher Ford, former assistant secretary for international security and nonproliferation, said he intervened to prevent the US government from “embarrassing and discrediting” itself by accusing China of having deliberately engineered the coronavirus — despite there being no evidence to make that case. Sourcing his account to emails put into the public domain through reporting by Fox News and Vanity Fair, Ford’s Medium post detailed his increasingly fraught relationship with David Asher, a contractor in the State Department who was running its investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, and Thomas DiNanno, former acting head of the department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance (AVC). According to Vanity Fair, Asher and DiNanno viewed Ford as pushing a preconceived conclusion that the virus had a natural origin. In the Medium post, Ford said that DiNanno signaled that the investigation was focusing on “China allegedly having violated the Biological Weapons Convention by creating the virus.” He added: “They seemed to believe that COVID-19 was a biological weapons (BW) effort gone awry — or perhaps even a BW agent deliberately unleashed upon the world.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/coronavirus-state-department-lab-leak-bioweapon

The COVID lab-leak hypothesis: what scientists do and don’t know. Nature examines arguments that the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab in China, and the science behind them. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01529-3

Liberals' Bizarre Fear of an Unmasked Nation. By Ted Rall https://www.creators.com/read/ted-rall/06/21/liberals-bizarre-fear-of-an-unmasked-nation There's still flu, common cold, ragweed, car/diesel exhaust, industrial pollution, and my neighbors stinky barbecue. What's my long term health outcome if I wear an N95 outdoors vs not? I can see the freeway from my front porch. Last year that ship burned in the harbor smelled it https://twitter.com/bob_smith_42/status/1401547964212940805

Watch angry Jim Jordan blast Dr. Fauci as if he's responsible for Covid. The doctor never loses his cool https://boingboing.net/2021/04/15/watch-an-angry-jim-jordan-blast-dr-fauci-as-if-hes-responsible-for-covid-the-doctor-never-loses-his-cool.html

'A small victory. Yippee!' Emails reveal how Trump officials celebrated when the CDC altered their guidelines to align with the president's plan to reopen the US. The report, released by congressional investigators, found that as career scientists worked to combat the disease, a group of Trump-appointed officials were attempting to blunt the scientific messaging with their own set of alternative facts lies. At the Department of Health and Human Services, then-science adviser Paul Alexander wrote to then-public affairs chief Michael Caputo on Sept. 9, 2020, pointing to a report where CDC leaders allegedly changed the opening sentence about the spread of the virus among younger people after Alexander pressured them. In his email, Alexander called it a 'small victory but a victory nonetheless and yippee!!!' 'Dr. Fauci has no data, no science to back up what he is saying on school reopen, none … he is scaring the nation wrongfully,' Alexander wrote to 11 senior HHS officials on Aug. 11. Alexander enlisted then-White House adviser Scott Atlas to help him interfere with the document in relation to data on children's death, which came about as the Trump administration was pushing schools to reopen. Alexander also praised Nina Witkofsky, the acting CDC chief of staff, after numbers in the MMRW dropped. Witkofsky had previously been a contractor helping plan events for Seema Verma, the Trump administration's Medicare and Medicaid chief. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9455283/Yippee-Trump-officials-celebrated-CDC-altered-guidance.html

Fauci Slams ‘Bizarre’ Right-Wing Critics in Fox Interview. “Peter Navarro saying I created the virus. I mean, how bizarre is that?” the doctor said while responding to attacks from the former Trump aide. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/fauci-bizarre-fox-news-interview-1150791/

@NikkiMcR Peter Navarro calls COVID-19 the "Fauci Virus" calling Fauci "the father of" the virus and accusing him of allowing China and the People's Liberation Army to "genetically engineer" COVID-19. Host Rachel Campos-Duffy lets it slide. https://twitter.com/NikkiMcR/status/1377044643133730818

Trump lashes out at Fauci and Birx after CNN documentary. The former president released a fact-challenged statement criticizing the former advisers after they criticized his administration’s pandemic response. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/29/trump-fauci-birx-cnn-documentary-478422

The coronavirus jab's most tantalising side effects? It may help fight cancer, chronic pain... and even Alzheimer's. Scientists have documented the unexpected benefits of vaccines for decades. Some experts suggest vaccines can 'train' the immune system, strengthening it. Others say increased stress hormones affect cells' ability to target infections. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9307203/Coronavirus-jab-help-fight-cancer-chronic-pain-Alzheimers.html

Israeli hospital says it may have found Covid-19 cure as all treated patients make full recovery. The medication, called EXO-CD24, is a targeted drug that was reportedly developed as a cure for certain types of cancer. EXO-CD24 is relatively inexpensive and must be given once a day for a period of five days. It fights the cytokine storm, a potentially lethal immune overreaction as a result of a coronavirus infection, which is believed to be responsible for many Covid-related deaths. The drug uses so-called ‘exosomes’ – tiny carrier pouches that shuttle materials between cells – to deliver a protein called CD24 to the lungs, which Arber has been studying for decades. “This protein is located on the surface of cells and has a well-known and important role in regulating the immune system,” researcher Shiran Shapira, who is part of Arber’s research team, told the Times of Israel earlier today. https://www.cityam.com/israeli-hospital-says-it-may-have-found-covid-19-cure-as-all-treated-patients-make-full-recovery/

Meet the Bizarro Crew That Shut Down a Los Angeles Vaccine Site. At least two filmed themselves at the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Omar Navarro, a perennial political candidate who was previously convicted of attaching a tracking device to his wife’s car, stood outside Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on Saturday and warned that the coronavirus vaccines being distributed there were part of a mind-control project. “What they’re doing here is a massive, massive, massive indoctrination. They want to basically hurt people because this vaccination is definitely not good,” Navarro said in a Facebook Live video, telling viewers the location of his protest. “Basically what the left is doing is using Dodger Stadium to mass-vaccinate people.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/meet-the-bizarro-crew-that-shut-down-an-la-vaccine-site

County’s two largest nursing homes have largest outbreaks in region. The Shores Post-Acute in the Birdland neighborhood of San Diego continues to have the greatest number of cases among both its residents and health care workers. California Department of Public Health data show that 245 residents and 108 staff had tested positive for the virus at The Shores since the beginning of the pandemic. Of those cases, there were 41 residents and 33 staff who had active cases on Friday, down from 77 and 35 active cases reported to CDPH on Wednesday. The second-largest outbreak among skilled nursing residents is at Country Hills Post Acute in El Cajon. As of Friday, 202 residents and 111 health care residents had tested positive at the facility, but there were no active cases among residents and 43 active cases among staff. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/health/story/2021-01-16/countys-two-largest-nursing-homes-have-largest-outbreaks-in-region

Maskholes like Jim Desmond want us dead. https://www.escondidograpevine.com/2020/11/17/maskholes-like-jim-desmond-want-us-dead/ San Diegans take part in 'Let Them Play' rallies. “It just isn’t fair when the science supports us.,” Riley Merrigan, a student-athlete, said. “Wearing masks and distancing (makes) it safe for us to play. I feel like we have the opportunity, and we can take advantage of it.” Dr. Michele Ritter, an infectious disease specialist at UC San Diego Medical Center, says it is still too risky to resume youth sports. “I think sports are great, but I think we are just at the most challenging time with COVID-19,” Ritter said. “The best way parents can help their kids right now is to help us get through this,” she added, “which means hunker down, stay away from people, try to get our numbers down as much as possible until we can get people vaccinated.” https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/san-diegans-take-part-in-let-them-play-rallies

Trial of COVID-19 blood plasma finds no benefit in severely ill patients. An international trial testing convalescent blood plasma on COVID-19 patients with moderate and severe illness has halted enrolment of severely ill COVID-19 patients requiring intensive care after it found no benefit, trial investigators said on Monday. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-plasma-idUSKBN29G1JZ

Two more life-saving Covid drugs discovered. The UK government is working closely with the manufacturer, to ensure the drugs - tocilizumab and sarilumab - continue to be available to UK patients. As well as saving more lives, the treatments speed up patients' recovery and reduce the length of time that critically-ill patients need to spend in intensive care by about a week. Both appear to work equally well and add to the benefit already found with a cheap steroid drug called dexamethasone. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55574662

Black doctor in Indiana dies of COVID-19 after publicly complaining of racist treatment at hospital. "I don't trust this hospital," Dr. Susan Moore said from her hospital bed in Indiana, an oxygen tube hooked up to her nose. "That is not how you treat patients." Moore, an Indianapolis physician who was being treated for COVID-19 at Indiana University Hospital North, died of the virus this week. Earlier this month, she posted a video to Facebook to share that she believed she was not receiving proper medical care because she was Black. https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/24/us/black-doctor-susan-moore-covid-19/index.html

The City of El Cajon and Reopen San Diego present the “All I Want For Christmas is Freedom” rally. Posted: December 21, 2020 Mayor Bill Wells, State Senator Brian Jones, Congressman Darrell Issa, Pastor Reta, and Peggy Hall were among some of the officials who spoke at the rally. https://www.kusi.com/the-city-of-el-cajon-and-reopen-san-diego-present-the-all-i-want-for-christmas-is-freedom-rally/

White House canceled plans to mail face masks to all American homes because Trump hates Amazon's Jeff Bezos & feuded with USPS. https://boingboing.net/2020/12/19/white-house-canceled-plans-to-mail-face-masks-to-every-american-home-because-trump-hates-amazons-jeff-bezos-and-was-feuding-with-usps.html

Fox News' 'Utterly Insane' Lies About COVID-19 Slammed In Searing Supercut. Veteran radio host Chip Franklin warns in the three-minute spot for Really American, an anti-Trump PAC, that the conservative network will end up getting people killed with its falsehoods. “That’s what a superspreader event looks like. You know it as Fox News and its viewers can’t get enough and some even watch it from their hospital beds as they die from COVID,” Franklin says in the clip, which includes footage of its hosts, including prime-time stars Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, downplaying the threat of COVID-19 and railing against lockdowns and mask mandates aimed at combatting its spread. “Look, 40 million people watch these shows and only these shows and follow their edicts about no masks, no distancing, hydroxychloroquine and other utterly insane shit,” Franklin adds. “Then Trump repeats Fox and Fox repeats Trump.” https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/fox-news-coronavirus-dangerous-really-american-075058431.html https://youtu.be/Erx6lIFaebo

As COVID-19 surges in its ranks, LBPD warns officers to wear masks or face discipline. https://lbpost.com/news/long-beach-police-mask-photo-convention-center-not-wearing-face-coverings Long Beach police orchestrated a coronavirus super-spreader event, complaint alleges. An outbreak of coronavirus at the Long Beach Police Department, following a training session where hundreds of officers reportedly gathered indoors without masks, has some residents charging that police held a super-spreader event. A complaint filed this week with the Citizen Police Complaint Coalition centers on a large gathering of police officers Nov. 5 at the Long Beach Convention Center. Police had just completed a series of training exercises to prepare for potential unrest around the time of the election, Chief Robert Luna said in an interview last week. The chief stopped by to address the officers for about 10 minutes, praising them for working “their butts off this year.” “As police chief, I needed to get in front of my men and women,” Luna said. “I wanted to thank them for their commitment, their personal sacrifice. … Not only for that week but everything they had been through that year.” Many of the hundreds of officers gathered at the center didn’t wear masks, according to a photo the Long Beach Post published about a month later — alongside the Police Department’s official photo of the group, all wearing masks. The story sparked criticism, including from the two activist groups People of Long Beach and Long Beach Reform Coalition that signed the complaint. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-12-17/long-beach-police-orchestrated-a-coronavirus-super-spreader-event-complaint-alleges

'Like a Hand Grasping': Trump Appointees Describe the Crushing of the CDC. Kyle McGowan, a former chief of staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and his deputy, Amanda Campbell, were installed in 2018 as two of the youngest political appointees in the history of the world’s premier public health agency, young Republicans returning to their native Georgia to dream jobs. But what they witnessed during the coronavirus pandemic this year in the CDC’s leadership suite on the 12-floor headquarters here shook them: Washington’s dismissal of science, the White House’s slow suffocation of the agency’s voice, the meddling in its messages and the siphoning of its budget. https://news.yahoo.com/hand-grasping-trump-appointees-describe-133636121.html

White House security director lost foot, lower leg in battle against coronavirus: Crede Bailey, director of White House security, contracted virus in September. Bailey’s friend Dawn McCrobie organized a GoFundMe page to raise money for his medical expenses. “First let me say that Crede will NOT be happy I've done this as he is a proud man who is the first to help everyone else but would never ask for help himself,” she wrote in the Nov. 13 post. “But the reality is this. His family has staggering medical bills from a hospital stay of 2+ months and still counting in the ICU and a long road ahead in rehab before he can go home. When he does make it home there will be major changes necessary to deal with his new, and permanent, disability,” McCrobie continued. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-security-director-lost-foot-lower-leg-covid-19

Biden will have White House disinfected after Trump leaves. With President-elect Joe Biden set to be sworn into office in 41 days, precautions are being taken to prevent any infections among new White House staff. The General Services Administration will deploy a team that will “thoroughly clean and disinfect” every part of the White House touched by human hands, including furniture, doorknobs, handrails and light switches, before Biden settles into the Oval Office, Politico reports. A private contractor will also provide “disinfectant misting services” to remove any lingering droplets. https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/529660-biden-will-have-white-house-disinfected-after

Trump tweet: 'I just want to stop the world from killing itself!'

I just want to stop the world from killing itself! The Swine Flu (H1N1), and the attempt for a vaccine by the Obama Administration, with Joe Biden in charge, was a complete and total disaster. Now they want to come in and take over one of the "greatest and fastest medical miracles in modern day history." I don't think so! While my pushing the money drenched but heavily bureaucratic @US_FDA saved five years in the approval of NUMEROUS great new vaccines, it is still a big, old, slow turtle. Get the dam vaccines out NOW, Dr. Hahn @SteveFDA. Stop playing games and start saving lives!!! https://boingboing.net/2020/12/11/trump-tweet-i-just-want-to-stop-the-world-from-killing-itself.html

Older adults should avoid making trips to the grocery store during the pandemic and instead use curbside pick-up or food delivery, new data shows. https://www.futurity.org/older-adults-grocery-store-covid-19-2480642-2/

The staggering cost of the Scott Atlas debacle. Trump picked a coronavirus adviser because he liked his Fox hits, and now a lot of Americans are dead. Dr. Scott Atlas resigned from his post on the White House’s coronavirus task force on Monday, ending an experiment in governance by Fox News that has caused skyrocketing COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, with even darker weeks ahead. https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/staggering-cost-scott-atlas-debacle

Drugs hyped as coronavirus treatment linked to psychiatric disorders, says EU agency. EU’s drug regulator issues warning about chloroquine and a related compound, hydroxychloroquine. Chloroquine and a related compound, hydroxychloroquine, have been associated with cases of psychiatric disturbances and suicidal behavior after being given to COVID-19 patients, warned the EU's drug regulator today. The two medicines were some of the first drugs put forward as possible treatments for the coronavirus, and were famously promoted by controversial French doctor Didier Raoult and U.S. President Donald Trump. However, since then, they haven't shown to be effective in clinical studies. https://www.politico.eu/article/drugs-hyped-as-coronavirus-treatment-linked-to-psychiatric-disorders-says-ema/

Americans defy pandemic, political leaders to travel for Thanksgiving. Deaths from COVID-19 surpassed 2,000 in a single day for the first time since May on Tuesday and hospitalizations reached a record 88,000 on Wednesday as the country recorded 2.3 million new infections in the past two weeks. Spiraling infections typically result in a rising death toll weeks later. Coronavirus deaths reached 2,157 on Tuesday - one person every 40 seconds - with another 170,000 people infected, as millions of Americans disregarded official warnings and traveled for Thanksgiving. https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-usa/u-s-hits-highest-death-toll-since-may-with-hospitals-already-full-idUSKBN2851R6

Jury duty? No thanks say many, forcing trials to be delayed. Within the past month, courts in Hartford, Connecticut, San Diego and Norfolk, Virginia, have had to delay jury selection for trials because too few people responded to jury duty summonses. The non-response rates are much higher now than they were before the pandemic, court officials say. https://apnews.com/article/trials-coronavirus-pandemic-hartford-courts-california-de849f632364e81c69e4a7a67d72073f

New Study Shows When You're The Most Infectious With COVID-19. Here's how quick and how long asymptomatic and symptomatic people with the coronavirus may spread the illness. By Rachel Moss 11/20/2020 10:05am EST https://www.huffpost.com/entry/new-study-infectious-covid-19_l_5fb7d332c5b6f6adf949e42d

Economy

China bought none of the $200 billion it promised from the U.S. under ‘Phase 1’ trade deal, study reveals. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-bought-none-of-the-200-billion-it-promised-from-the-u-s-in-phase-one-trade-deal-study-reveals-11644505449

Musk tanks TSLA 10% to pay his taxes, then pauses to malign a US Senator. https://boingboing.net/2021/11/15/musk-tanks-tsla-10-to-pay-his-taxes-then-pauses-to-malign-a-us-senator.html

Donald Trump Built a National Debt So Big (Even Before the Pandemic) That It’ll Weigh Down the Economy for Years. The “King of Debt” promised to reduce the national debt — then his tax cuts made it surge. Add in the pandemic, and he oversaw the third-biggest deficit increase of any president. The growth in the annual deficit under Trump ranks as the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration, according to a calculation by a leading Washington budget maven, Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. And unlike George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln, who oversaw the larger relative increases in deficits, Trump did not launch two foreign conflicts or have to pay for a civil war. https://www.propublica.org/article/national-debt-trump

Trump Leaving Office With 3M Less Jobs Than When He Entered, Worst Record Since Depression. https://www.newsweek.com/trump-leaving-office-3m-less-jobs-when-he-entered-worst-record-since-depression-1562737

FedEx just painted a disturbing picture of the job market. FedEx (FDX) said its quarterly results were drilled by $450 million due to labor shortages alone, notably at its ground segment. The company estimated a shocking 600,000 packages across the FedEx network are being rerouted because of the inability to find labor. Those processing bottlenecks stand to wreak havoc on the holiday season if FedEx is unable to address the worker shortage, which increasingly appears unlikely. https://news.yahoo.com/fed-ex-just-painted-a-disturbing-picture-of-the-job-market-160422695.html

Congress averts shutdown; fight continues over pandemic aid. Congress passed a two-day stopgap spending bill Friday night, averting a partial government shutdown and buying yet more time for frustratingly slow endgame negotiations on an almost $1 trillion COVID-19 economic relief package. Democrats on Friday came out swinging at a key obstacle: a provision by conservative Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., that would close down more than $400 billion in potential Federal Reserve lending powers established under a relief bill in March. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is shutting down the programs at the end of December, but Toomey’s language goes further, by barring the Fed from restarting the lending next year, and Democrats say the provision would tie Biden’s hands and put the economy at risk. “As we navigate through an unprecedented economic crisis, it is in the interests of the American people to maintain the Fed’s ability to respond quickly and forcefully,” said Biden economic adviser Brian Deese. “Undermining that authority could mean less lending to Main Street businesses, higher unemployment and greater economic pain across the nation.” https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-pandemics-coronavirus-pandemic-bills-mitch-mcconnell-e3247d049ee1cac7a7ab4230cbfbf060

The Fed programs at issue provided loans to small and mid-sized businesses and bought state and local government bonds, making it easier for those governments to borrow, at a time when their finances are under pressure from the pandemic.

A huge study of 50 years of tax cuts for the wealthy suggests 'trickle-down' economics makes inequality worse. https://www.businessinsider.com/tax-cuts-rich-trickle-down-income-inequality-study-2020-12

Gripped by the accelerating viral outbreak, the U.S. economy is under pressure from persistent layoffs, diminished income and nervous consumers, whose spending is needed to drive a recovery from the pandemic. A flurry of data released Wednesday suggested that the spread of the virus is intensifying the threats to an economy still struggling to recover from the deep recession that struck in early spring. The number of Americans seeking unemployment aid rose last week for a second straight week to 778,000, evidence that many employers are still slashing jobs more than eight months after the virus hit. Before the pandemic, weekly jobless claims typically amounted to only about 225,000. Layoffs are still historically high, with many businesses unable to fully reopen and some, especially restaurants and bars, facing tightened restrictions. https://apnews.com/article/pandemics-jobless-claims-unemployment-coronavirus-pandemic-economy-01d54b8c5f65a813a09df482aa4b6786

★ Insurrection Index

Below is a curated selection of key profiles of individuals and organizations who participated in, or directly supported the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. They are in positions of public trust or are actively campaigning for elected office.. State:California Elected Status:Elected Official https://insurrectionindex.org/records/?_record_type=persons&_states=california&_elected_status=elected

Trump incited Insurrection January 06, 2021, Qanon, MAGA Zombies

‘Take me up to the Capitol now’: How close Trump came to joining rioters. Trump’s demands to lead a march to Capitol Hill sheds new light on his mindset as the siege began. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/01/trump-capitol-riot-march/

@alexjholder The Trumps did not have editorial control. Full stop. [Trump staging shot] https://twitter.com/alexjholder/status/1540034384014807043

Based on my interactions with him — I don’t claim to be a psychologist or psychiatrist, but in those moments, the position he gave to me is someone who was utterly irrational, someone living in an alternate reality, and that there was no way to have a coherent, rational conversation with him. It’s very scary when people start to believe in their own lies, and when you can’t have a rational conversation with them — that’s when things become very dangerous. And we’ve seen that play out in history, when very dangerous people start to believe in their own rhetoric and are able to get their supporters to believe. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/06/alex-holder-trump-was-utterly-irrational-after-january-6.html

On Dec. 8, 2020, a few weeks after Joseph R. Biden was elected president, “Q” — the anonymous online account that set off the QAnon conspiracy movement — posted a link to a video with scenes of cars burning on the streets, fighter jets over a stadium and Donald J. Trump with his hand on a Bible, being sworn in as president. The images played over a song by Twisted Sister, “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” The Q account has not posted since, and its major predictions have not come to pass. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/20/technology/qanon-conspiracy-movement.html

A Single Text Exchange Tells Us Everything We Needed to Know About Melania Trump https://jezebel.com/a-single-text-exchange-tells-us-everything-we-needed-to-1849123971

Inside John Eastman’s California rise from GOP ‘happy warrior’ to Jan. 6 firebrand. He brought in high-profile conservatives such as Thomas, and invited his friend John Yoo, a former lawyer in George W. Bush’s administration and a tenured professor at UC Berkeley, to come teach, offering Yoo a break from blowback over his involvement with what came to be known as the torture memos. Eastman became a public face of the National Organization for Marriage, a group that promoted 2008’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California. He led the organization‘s years-long battle to keep its donor list private, which resulted in a string of court losses and fines for violating state disclosure laws. Fred Karger, a gay Republican activist who doggedly sought the group’s financial records, said he saw a pattern in Eastman’s actions then and in the current congressional investigation. “He has a history of lying and undermining our election laws as best he can,” Karger said. That cataclysmic viewpoint spilled into the Jan. 6 hearings, when former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann said in a deposition that he had warned Eastman his scheme to have the vice president invalidate the election would “cause riots in the streets.” “And [Eastman] said words to the effect of, ‘There has been violence in the history of our country, Eric, to protect the democracy or protect the republic,” Herschmann said. Eastman was so committed to this line of thinking that he continued to seek avenues to overturn Trump’s loss, even in the immediate aftermath of the attack on the U.S. Capitol. He unsuccessfully sought a pardon from Trump and now finds himself potentially in criminal jeopardy. “Unfortunately, he drank the Kool-Aid that President Trump was selling — that the election was a fraud,” Yoo said. https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-06-26/trump-lawyer-john-eastman-jan-6-notoriety

These 7 House Republicans aren't cooperating with the January 6 committee and here's how they've justified blowing off the investigation. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan of Ohio, have offered varying reasons for not participating — ranging from complaining about the committee's public outreach to assailing the "baseless witch hunt." Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona. Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama. Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas. Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia. Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. https://news.yahoo.com/7-house-republicans-arent-cooperating-110100522.html

Key facts to know about the Jan. 6 insurrection. Rally organizers told the National Park Service that they anticipated 30,000 people would attend. Law enforcement said the crowd size ahead of the protest was possibly as much as 80,000, according to then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy. The crowd size at the rally was at least 10,000, according to the Associated Press. https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-01-05/by-the-numbers-jan-6-anniversary

Donald Trump Called Mike Pence “The P-Word” For Not Illegally Overturning The Election, According To Jan. 6 Committee Testimony Both Ivanka Trump and a former Trump attorney described the conversation as “heated.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kadiagoba/donald-trump-pence-pussy-jan-6

How the Proud Boys Breached the Capitol on Jan. 6: Rile Up the Normies https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000008392796/rile-up-the-normies-how-proud-boys-breached-the-capitol.html

Rep. Loudermilk whips up amusing excuses on why Capitol "tourists" took pictures of the stairwell (video). https://boingboing.net/2022/06/15/rep-loudermilk-whips-up-amusing-excuses-on-why-capitol-tourists-took-pictures-of-the-stairwell-video.html

January 6 committee releases video of Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk giving Capitol tour on January 5 to rioter who hours later warned AOC and Nancy Pelosi mob was 'coming' for them and would pull speaker 'out by your hairs' The House's select committee on January 6 released a video Wednesday of Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk giving a January 5 tour of the Capitol One of the men with the Georgia Republican was captured snapping pictures of tunnels, hallways and security checkpoints The committee said in the video's introduction that it was the same man who made 'detailed and disturbing threats against specific Members of Congress' 'There's no escape Pelosi, Schumer, Nadler - we're coming for you,' the individual is heard saying on January 6. 'We're coming to take you out' He also name-dropped AOC and suggested he would pull Pelosi out of the U.S. Capitol by her hair 'You may as well make yourself another appointment. When I get done with you. You're going to need a shine up on top of that bald head,' the man said https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10920021/Jan-6-committee-releases-video-GOP-Rep-Loudermilk-giving-tour-people-taking-photos-tunnels.html

January 6 committee has footage that challenges Capitol Police findings over alleged role of GOP congressman. https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/15/politics/barry-loudermilk-tour-january-6/index.html

Trump releases 12-page response to Jan. 6 hearing. https://thehill.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/Statement-by-Trump-1.pdf https://thehill.com/news/administration/3522080-trump-releases-12-page-response-to-jan-6-hearing/ https://news.yahoo.com/trump-releases-12-page-response-230344723.html

Documentarian who testified about Jan. 6 says crew was aware they had filmed ‘multiple crimes’ Nick Quested told NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd that he saw crimes “on the steps of the Capitol” and “inside the Capitol.” https://thehill.com/news/sunday-talk-shows/3520369-documentarian-who-testified-about-jan-6-says-crew-was-aware-they-had-filmed-multiple-crimes/

Jared Kushner Wasn’t Just Involved in Trump’s Push to Overturn 2020. He Helped Start It. “Jared helped create what then morphed into the Rudy clown show,” one source tells Rolling Stone. According to four people familiar with the matter, in the week following Election Day in early November of that year, Kushner took charge in overseeing the development of plans to keep Trump in office — Kushner just wasn’t publicly ostentatious about it in the way Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others were. During that first week, Kushner repeatedly met with Trump and other high-ranking aides to the then-president to discuss and map out possible strategies for multi-pronged legal battles and a scorched-earth messaging war against the victorious Biden campaign, the knowledgeable sources tell Rolling Stone. “Jared was directly involved,” one of these sources, a former senior Trump aide who worked on the effort to nullify the election outcome, said. “There was a [brief] window…when it seemed like he was positioning himself to be the Jim Baker of this fight … It didn’t last long. He backed away from it, but he was there and got his hands dirty like everyone else did.” (Baker, a towering figure in the Republican Party, helmed the legal team for George W. Bush during the chaotic Florida recount that ultimately handed Bush the presidency.) https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jared-kushner-trump-jan6-2020-election-1365654/

Pence team couldn't verify Trump campaign's election fraud claims, new memo shows. In a previously unseen memo obtained by POLITICO, the former vice president's legal team called most of the fraud allegations minor and unverifiable. The memo shows Pence’s legal team didn’t just track the barrage of wild legal arguments from former President Donald Trump’s lawyers and allies, but also meticulously monitored the allegations of election fraud and mismanagement. It specifically includes charges leveled by the Trump campaign itself in court. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/10/pence-team-election-fraud-memo-00038921

Trump throws IVANKA under the bus after she told January 6 committee she didn't believe the 2020 election was stolen: Furious ex-president says his daughter had 'long-since checked out' and was not involved in looking at votes Donald Trump turned on his daughter Ivanka Trump on Friday morning Her testimony to House committee investigating January 6th attack showed she did not think the 2020 election was rigged 'Ivanka Trump was not involved in looking at, or studying, Election results. She had long since checked out,' Trump posted on Truth Social Former president also attacked Bill Barr, his attorney general who said Trump's claims the election was rigged were 'bull****' 'The Democrats hit pay dirt with Barr, he was stupid,' Trump said Trump also denied he ever said his VP Mike Pence 'deserved' to be hanged Trump was furious with his vice president for his ceremonial role in overseeing the certification of the 2020 election results https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10904155/Trump-turns-IVANKA-said-long-checked-election.html

FBI: Navarro called arresting agents 'Nazis'. Prosecutors dispute the former Trump trade adviser’s claims he was shackled and denied food and water following his arrest on a charge of defying a subpoena. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/09/fbi-navarro-called-arresting-agents-nazis-00038610

Five members of the Proud Boys street gang — including their leader, Enrique Tarrio — were indicted Monday on seditious conspiracy charges for their role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., returned the rare indictment, which charges that Tarrio and four other members of the Proud Boys — Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola — played an outsize role in the planning and execution of the insurrection. A sixth Proud Boy, Charles Donohoe, wasn’t included because he’d already pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in a plea deal that will force him to testify against his fellow gang members. Dozens of Proud Boys were among the thousands of people who stormed the U.S. Capitol that day in an effort to stop the certification of Joe Biden as president. Prosecutors say that Tarrio and his fellow defendants were instrumental in the planning stages of the attack; Tarrio allegedly looked over a document titled “1776 Returns” on Dec. 30, 2020, detailing plans to occupy several buildings in Washington on Jan. 6, including six House and Senate office buildings. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/proud-boys-leaders-indicted-seditious-conspiracy-charges-capitol-riot_n_629e5618e4b0c184bdd3f0ed

Former acting defense secretary testifies he was trying to avoid another Kent State on Jan. 6. He said he wanted to avoid fanning fears of a military coup or martial law. Former Acting U.S. Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller testified Wednesday that he was concerned in the days before the Jan. 6 insurrection that sending troops to the Capitol would fan fears of a military coup or fuel conspiracies that advisers to the president were advocating martial law. He said doing so could cause a repeat of the deadly 1970 Kent State University shooting in which Ohio National Guard troops fired at demonstrators and killed four American civilians. "Historically military responses to domestic protests have resulted in violations of American civil rights, and even in the case of the Kent State protests of the Vietnam War tragic deaths," he said. "I fervently believe the military should not be utilized in such scenarios, other than as a last resort, and only when all other assets had been expended on January 6." https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/house-oversight-committee-chair-testify-government-unprepared-capitol/story?id=77639074

@WestWingReport Two days ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on your Capitol, the pro gun Trump administration issued orders - the net result of which was that the DC National Guard would not be allowed to properly defend itself or public property. https://twitter.com/WestWingReport/status/1533793385068253184

Before Jan. 6, Aide Warned Secret Service of Security Risk to Pence. New details flesh out how the pressure campaign by Donald J. Trump and his allies to block certification of the 2020 election left the vice president’s staff fearing for his safety. By Maggie Haberman The chief of staff, Marc Short, had a message for the agent, Tim Giebels: The president was going to turn publicly against the vice president, and there could be a security risk to Mr. Pence because of it. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/03/us/politics/trump-pence-safety-jan-6.html

Committee provides timeline of Jim Jordan’s collaboration with Trump White House effort to question the 2020 presidential election results. The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol on Tuesday gave Champaign County’s Jim Jordan until June 11 to answer its questions about his role in former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. In doing so, it provided a timeline of Jordan’s “meetings, calls and communications” with Trump administration officials to pursue that goal. A May 31 letter from Committee Chair Bennie Thompson. a Mississippi Democrat, disputes Jordan’s claims that the committee lacks authority to subpoena him and lays out the most complete chronology supplied so far of Jordan’s collaboration with White House staffers and Trump campaign officials. https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/06/committee-provides-timeline-of-jim-jordans-collaboration-with-trump-white-house-effort-to-question-the-2020-presidential-election-results.html

Read the Trump-world legal memo that a judge ruled was likely part of a criminal effort to overturn the election. An attorney sketched out a plan for then-Vice President Mike Pence to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. https://www.politico.com/minutes/congress/06-1-2022/jan-6/ https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840.350.2.pdf

Jury finds alleged Nazi sympathizer guilty of 5 charges ranging from obstruction to disorderly conduct in Jan. 6 case. The former Army reservist was charged with obstructing an official proceeding. Thomas Hale-Cusanelli, an alleged Nazi sympathizer and Army reservist who prior to his arrest was working as a private contractor who lived on the base with security clearance at the Naval Weapons Station in New Jersey, was found guilty on five charges ranging from obstruction to disorderly conduct in the Capitol riot case. The jury in this case, however, did not see images of Hale-Cusanelli impersonating an Adolf Hitler-style mustache. However, they were shown video, audio and social media images, as well as text messages involving his actions on and before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jury-finds-alleged-nazi-sympathizer-xx-jan-case/story?id=85025366

Trump 'approved' of Capitol rioters' chants to hang Mike Pence and 'complained' that his VP was being taken to safety, according to January 6 committee testimony Leaked testimony on Wednesday revealed what Trump was doing on Jan 6 Mark Meadows, his chief of staff, left colleagues with the impression that the then president approved of the idea of hanging Vice President Mike Pence Meadows told other staff that Trump had complained that Pence was being rushed to safety Rioters called for Pence to hang for refusing to try to overturn the election. The newspaper said it was confirmed by Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Meadows. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10854597/Trump-approved-Capitol-chants-hang-Mike-Pence-according-leaked-January-6-testimony.html

Trump expressed support for hanging Pence during Capitol riot, Jan. 6 panel told. The Jan. 6 select committee has heard testimony indicating that then-President Donald Trump — after rioters who swarmed the Capitol began chanting “hang Mike Pence” — expressed support for hanging his vice president, according to three people familiar with the matter. The White House chief of staff at the time, Mark Meadows, was in the dining room off the Oval Office with Trump at one point during last year’s Capitol attack, the committee has been told. Meadows then left the dining room and informed other people nearby that Trump had signaled a positive view of the prospect of hanging the vice president, the panel heard. Meadows’ account as it was described to the committee came after some members of the mob converging on the Capitol had broken into chants of “Hang Mike Pence!” Those chants were a reaction to Pence's decision to accept electoral votes that indicated Joe Biden had won the presidency. POLITICO could not independently verify the veracity of the claim regarding Meadows’ comments. Two of the people who spoke for this story said the committee has heard testimony on this topic from more than one person. All three people spoke on condition of anonymity. Reached for comment, Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich blasted the committee. https://news.yahoo.com/trump-expressed-support-hanging-pence-173510960.html

Trump incited Insurrection January 06, 2021, Qanon, MAGA Zombies, archived May 25, 2022

Former thinker Naomi Wolf says WHO forces will occupy the US next week. The invasion of the body snatchers in Q-land has devoured yet another human mind. The once widely respected thinker Naomi Wolf is now sounding the alarm about a WHO takeover, which will be occupying the United States by next week. Yes, the Beauty Myth author and former campaign advisor to Bill Clinton warned YouTube's Charlie Kirk about the impending coup d'état with a straight face yesterday (see clip below). But she does have hope, thanks to the millions of gun owners who will be ready for the civil war that is about to break out. "A war is being waged on us, and we have to face the fact. … Thank god for the second amendment," she said. The only reason we are not "enslaved" the way Australia and Singapore are is "because we have millions of owners of guns. … it is harder to subjugate an armed population." "I really hope that it doesn't devolve into civil war, which is really what the next thing is in history when you have an occupying force," she said, "which is what the WHO will be, you know, by next week." https://boingboing.net/2022/05/24/former-thinker-naomi-wolf-says-who-forces-will-occupy-the-us-next-week.html

QAnon gains mainstream appeal with tens of millions in GOP funding. According to a new investigation by Grid, there are at least 78 QAnon candidates, backed by tens of millions of GOP dollars (20 million in this cycle, over 30 million since 2018), running for state or federal office — including governorships, secretaries of state, state legislature seats, and federal house and senate seats — in more than 26 states in this upcoming election cycle. Grid concludes, "QAnon appears to be a growing political movement with increasing clout and significant mainstream appeal." https://www.grid.news/story/misinformation/2022/04/12/qanon-candidates-are-on-the-ballot-in-26-states/ https://boingboing.net/2022/05/24/qanon-gains-mainstream-appeal-with-tens-of-millions-in-gop-funding.html

Cheney warns of ‘threat we have never faced’ in jab at Trump during award speech. In a speech as a recipient of the JFK award, Cheney highlighted the contrasts between past presidents who honored the “sacred obligation” of the transfer of power after an election loss to what happened on Jan. 6, when a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol in a bid to overturn certification of the 2020 election. “This sacred obligation to defend the peaceful transfer of power has been honored by every American president except one,” Cheney said. “The question for every one of us is in this time of testing, will we do our duty, will we defend our constitution, will we stand for truth, will we put duty to our oath above partisan politics? “Or will we look away from danger, ignore the threat, embrace the lies and enable the liar?” Cheney continued. “As we face a threat we have never faced before — a former president attempting to unravel our constitutional republic — at this moment we must all summon the courage to stand against that.” In her Sunday speech, Cheney repeated that the honorable transfer of power was the cornerstone of democracy. She said after the U.S. won its independence from England after the revolutionary war, George Washington handed over the power of the continental army over to Congress. “With this noble act, George Washington set the indispensable example of the peaceful transfer of power in our country,” Cheney said. “In our Republic, some things have to matter.” https://news.yahoo.com/cheney-warns-threat-never-faced-134949822.html

Oracle’s Larry Ellison joined Nov. 2020 call about contesting Trump’s loss. The Nov. 14 call included Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.); Fox News host Sean Hannity; Jay Sekulow, an attorney for President Donald Trump; and James Bopp Jr., an attorney for True the Vote, a Texas-based nonprofit that has promoted disputed claims of widespread voter fraud. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/20/larry-ellison-oracle-trump-election-challenges/

Ginni Thomas' emails deepen her involvement in 2020 election. Newly discovered emails show that Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was more deeply involved in baseless efforts to overturn the 2020 election than previously known. Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and a conservative political activist, urged Republican lawmakers in Arizona after the 2020 presidential election to choose their own slate of electors, arguing that results giving Joe Biden a victory in the state were marred by fraud. The revelations first published by The Washington Post on Friday show that Thomas was more involved than previously known in efforts, based on unsubstantiated claims of fraud, to overturn Biden's victory and keep then-President Donald Trump in office. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/clarence-thomas-ap-joe-biden-arizona-donald-trump-b2084011.html

Group Chat Linked to Roger Stone Shows Ties Among Jan. 6 Figures. The roster of participants highlights how Mr. Stone, the pro-Trump political operative, was involved with a strikingly large number of people who sought to overturn the 2020 election. There were “Stop the Steal” organizers, right-wing influencers, Florida state legislative aides and more than one failed candidate loyal to former President Donald J. Trump. One participant ran a website that promoted disinformation about the Capitol attack. Another was an officer in the Army Reserve allied with Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser. "Owen Shroyer, the right-hand man of the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones; Enrique Tarrio, the onetime chairman of the Proud Boys; and Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia." Pete Santilli, a veteran right-wing radio host. Named on the list are activists like Marsha Lessard and Christina Skaggs, leaders of a group called the Virginia Freedom Keepers who helped to organize an anti-vaccine rally scheduled for the east side of the Capitol on Jan. 6. Ms. Lessard and Ms. Skaggs worked with another anti-vaccine activist, Ty Bollinger, who was also on the list. Ali Alexander, one of the most prominent Stop the Steal organizers who planned his own event at the Capitol that day, was on the list as well. Bianca Gracia, the leader of a group called Latinos for Trump. At least one of Mr. Stone’s Oath Keeper bodyguards, Joshua James, has pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy charges in the Capitol attack and is cooperating with the government’s inquiry. Kellye SoRelle, a lawyer for the Oath Keepers, was part of the Friends of Stone chat as well and is also said to be cooperating with prosecutors in the riot investigation. Nayib Hassan, Mr. Tarrio’s lawyer, declined to comment on his client’s role in the chat. two other Florida Proud Boys whose names appear on the Friends of Stone membership list: Jacobs Engels and Tyler Ziolkowski. Ivan Raiklin, an Army Reserve lieutenant colonel who promoted a plan after the election to pressure Vice President Mike Pence not to certify electors from several disputed swing states. This plan, which Mr. Raiklin called the “Pence Card,” was ultimately taken up by Mr. Trump and some of his legal advisers, like the lawyer John Eastman. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/us/politics/roger-stone-jan-6.html

President Donald Trump was so deeply involved in the desperate, last-ditch effort to overturn the 2020 election results that he hand-wrote strategy notes, hired at least ten lawyers to work on just one court case, and spoke regularly with one of his lead lawyers both directly and through six conduits. John Eastman, the law professor tapped by Trump to craft a legal strategy to keep him in power, detailed those extensive communications in a new court filing late Thursday as he argued it should all be shielded from the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection because of attorney-client privilege or attorney work product protections. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-hand-wrote-strategy-notes-for-overturning-the-election-lawyer-john-eastman-reveals-in-court-filing

QAnon’s Chief Enabler Ran a Website Where He Brushed Off Concerns About Pedophilic Content. A little-known archive unveils a dark irony behind the right’s child protection conspiracy. 8chan’s proprietor is Jim Watkins—an American but often Philippines-based pornographer, pig farmer, and internet forum entrepreneur. Over the years, Watkins and his team took special steps to keep the Q posts coming and purportedly verify their provenance, ensuring the poster’s continued access to their followers. While 8chan’s historic association with child sexual abuse material is familiar to close observers of the QAnon conspiracy, Mother Jones has reviewed a little-known archive documenting conversations in the moderation channel of Pink, an earlier internet forum, that capture Watkins, the site’s administrator, pushing for a hands-off approach to the moderation of child porn-related content there. Entries in the archive, created between 2004 and 2018, show he was slow to address concerns about child pornography and sometimes dismissed advice from moderators seeking to stop the spread of potentially illegal content. They repeatedly record moderators of Watkins’ forum coming to him for advice on how to handle issues related to child sex abuse material and pedophilic content, and Watkins responding with blasé indifference. Fredrick Brennan, the original founder of 8chan, alerted Mother Jones to the logs’ existence and put me in touch with researchers at the QOrigins Project, who have made a more user-friendly backup of the archive. “Ali we probably need to talk,” Brennan, a former associate and now adversary of Watkins, first messaged me on Signal in March, explaining that he had been looking back at Pink records housed on the Internet Archive. “I was investigating Jim for something I thought was innocuous today, helping somebody who makes memes of him find more of his old photos. While doing that I discovered a few things…long conversations from circa 2009 and before between Jim Watkins and the Japanese users of BBSPINK. Almost all of the discussion keeps going back to child porn.” BBSPINK, or just “Pink,” is a text-only not-safe-for-work bulletin board system that started in 2001 as an offshoot of 2channel—the very popular Japanese precursor of both 4chan and 8chan. Pink was created as a place to divert 2channel users’ lewder content and presented as separate forum, but was run off the same servers as 2channel and managed by an overlapping team that included Watkins. He became the admin of the NSFW forum in 2002, and started hosting both Pink and 2channel on his servers in 2004. Brennan started working as the technical lead of 2channel in 2016, holding the position until departing in 2018. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/05/qanon-jim-watkins-pink-pedophilic-links/

John Eastman, Trump's former lawyer, asked Pennsylvania lawmakers to throw out absentee ballots to overturn Biden win. "For example, depending on how many ballots were counted that were received after the statutory deadline (say 10,000 for example's purpose), those 10,000 votes need to be discarded, and you can take the absentee ballot ratio for each candidate in the counties were late-received ballots were illegally counted and deduct the pro-rated amount from each candidate's total," Eastman wrote to Pennsylvania Republican state Rep. Russ Diamond on Dec. 4, 2020. "Then, having done that math, you'd be left with a significant Trump lead that would bolster the argument for the Legislature adopting a slate of Trump electors — perfectly within your authority to do anyway, but now bolstered by the untainted popular vote," he continued. "That would help provide some cover." The Colorado Ethics Institute obtained the Eastman emails via a Freedom of Information Act request for Eastman's communications while he was employed by the University of Colorado-Boulder from August 2020 until May 2021. The Denver Post first reported on the emails, which were later obtained by ABC News. https://www.yahoo.com/gma/john-eastman-trumps-former-lawyer-202350760.html

Evidence mounts of GOP involvement in Trump election schemes. In early December 2020, several lawmakers attended a meeting in the White House counsel’s office where attorneys for the president advised them that a plan to put up an alternate slate of electors declaring Trump the winner was not “legally sound.” One lawmaker, Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, pushed back on that position. So did GOP Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Louie Gohmert of Texas, according to testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former special assistant in the Trump White House. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia testified in a hearing in April that she does not recall conversations she had with the White House or the texts she sent to Meadows about Trump invoking martial law. Gohmert told AP he also does not recall being involved and that he is not sure he could be helpful to the committee’s investigation. Rep. Jody Hice of Georgia played down his actions, saying it is routine for members of the president’s party to be going in and out of the White House to speak about a number of topics. Hice is now running for secretary of state in Georgia, a position responsible for the state’s elections. Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona didn’t deny his public efforts to challenge the election results but called recent reports about his deep involvement untrue. In a statement Saturday, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona reiterated his “serious” concerns about the 2020 election. “Discussions about the Electoral Count Act were appropriate, necessary and warranted,” he added. In another meeting about Pence’s potential role, Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis were joined again by Perry and Jordan as well as Greene and Lauren Boebert, a Republican who had also just been elected to the House from Colorado. https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-biden-presidential-elections-electoral-college-mark-meadows-296ddf04ffaacec07f548a2a997af448

Watch this chilling 5-minute recap of Trump's coup attempt, and the ominous aftermath. Yale historian Timothy Snyder spelled out the GOP fascist takeover plan in July 2021: The scenario then goes like this. The Republicans win back the House and Senate in 2022, in part thanks to voter suppression. The Republican candidate in 2024 loses the popular vote by several million and the electoral vote by the margin of a few states. State legislatures, claiming fraud, alter the electoral count vote. The House and Senate accept that altered count. The losing candidate becomes the president. We no longer have "democratically elected government." And people are angry. No one is seeking to hide that this is the plan. It is right there out in the open. The prospective Republican candidates for 2024, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley, are all running on a big lie platform. If your platform is that elections do not work, you are saying that you intend to come to power some other way. The big lie is designed not to win an election, but to discredit one. Any candidate who tells it is alienating most Americans, and preparing a minority for a scenario where fraud is claimed. This is just what Trump tried in 2020, and it led to a coup attempt in January 2021. It will be worse in January 2025. https://boingboing.net/2022/04/29/watch-this-chilling-5-minute-recap-of-trumps-coup-attempt-and-the-ominous-aftermath.html @MeidasTouch There is only one party that has been hijacked by extremists. https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1520054450320121864

Meadows's texts show Trump supporters workshopping January 6 lies during Capitol attack. Antifa didn’t show up, but Republicans got busy trying to blame them anyway. The right-wing echo chamber has spent nearly 17 months trying to reframe the January 6 attack on Congress as an inside job, the fault of Nancy Pelosi, the work of antifa, or really anything other than what it actually was — an attack on Congress incited by Trump, perpetrated by Trump supporters, and representing a last-ditch attempt to effectively end US democracy to install a racist former gameshow host as dictator. The most recent revelations from the House committee investigating the attack provide fascinating insight into the origins of Trumpworld’s campaign of lies. A new batch of texts shows Trump supporters brainstorming to rewrite history in real time, and planting the seeds for a year-plus of gaslighting. According to texts to and from Mark Meadows (published Monday by CNN and representing the entire tranche of messages Meadows turned over to the January 6 committee), on the same day Trump supporters ransacked the Capitol, Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Louie Gohmert, and Trump’s aide and son-in-law Jared Kusher all texted Meadows with evidence-free ideas about how blame could be shifted to antifa. https://aaronrupar.substack.com/p/mark-meadows-texts-january-6-antifa

Kevin McCarthy, the senior Republican in the House of Representatives, privately accused one of his colleagues of “putting people in jeopardy” in the wake of the January 6 insurrection, according to a leaked audio recording. In a phone call with Republican leaders on 10 January 2021, McCarthy said that Matt Gaetz, a Florida congressman and ardent Trump supporter, was putting Americans at risk with his comments after the assault on the US Capitol that left five people dead. The New York Times obtained a recording of the call, in which McCarthy and Republicans including Steve Scalise, the No 2 House Republican, discussed an interview Gaetz had given where he attacked GOP members who had criticized Trump. “He’s putting people in jeopardy,” McCarthy said of Gaetz. “And he doesn’t need to be doing this. We saw what people would do in the Capitol, you know, and these people came prepared with rope, with everything else.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/27/kevin-mccarthy-capitol-attack-accusations-republicans

Marjorie Taylor Greene discussed martial law to keep Trump in power, text messages show. "In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall law [sic]," Greene texted Trump's then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, on Jan. 17, 2021, 11 days after a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol to try to stop the certification of the vote. The messages were revealed Monday by CNN, which said it obtained all 2,319 text messages that Meadows selectively handed over to the House select Jan. 6 committee in late 2021 before he decided not to cooperate with the panel. The authenticity of the messages was confirmed to ABC News by people who have seen them. MORE: Marjorie Taylor Greene testifies under oath about Jan. 6. "I don’t know on those things," Greene continued in her exchange with Meadows. "I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next. Please tell him to declassify as much as possible so we can go after Biden and anyone else!" Last Friday, Green became the first member of Congress to publicly testify under oath about the events surrounding the Capitol attack. When asked specifically about martial law and whether or not she discussed the idea of using it to keep Trump in power with either the former president, his chief of staff, or anyone else in the administration, Greene repeatedly said, "I don't recall." https://www.yahoo.com/gma/marjorie-taylor-greene-discussed-martial-011300381.html

An ‘exhilarated’ McConnell said Trump ‘totally discredited himself’ with Jan. 6: book. McConnell reportedly felt “exhilarated by the fact that this fellow finally, totally discredited himself.” The exchange was reported by The Washington Post, The Independent and a number of other outlets who obtained excerpts of the book. The conversation reportedly took place early on Jan. 7, 2021, just hours after the Capitol was ransacked by a group of Trump’s supporters. “He put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger,” McConnell said, according to the book. “Couldn’t have happened at a better time.” Martin and Burns also write that the Republican senator asked them “What do you hear about the Twenty-Fifth Amendment?” and said he was “eager for intelligence about whether his fellow Republicans were discussing removing Trump from office,” the Post added. They added in the book that the Kentucky politician “seemed almost buoyant” and that he said Trump was “pretty thoroughly discredited”. https://thehill.com/news/senate/3463473-an-exhilarated-mcconnell-said-trump-totally-discredited-himself-with-jan-6-book/

The Strangest Exchanges From the Mark Meadows Text Dumps. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/04/mark-meadows-trump-chief-of-staff-strangest-texts.html

Pence Refusing to Get in Secret Service Car on Jan. 6 'Chilling': Raskin. This moment was previously reported during an interview for the book I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year, by Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig. According to Tim Giebels, the lead agent inside of Pence's security on January 6, Pence repeatedly refused to be evacuated from the Capitol until the election results were certified, The Washington Examiner reported. "I'm not getting in the car, Tim," Pence said, in response to Giebels' insistence that he enter the armored vehicle. "I trust you, Tim, but you're not driving the car. If I get in that vehicle, you guys are taking off. I'm not getting in the car." https://www.newsweek.com/pence-refusing-get-secret-service-car-jan-6-chilling-raskin-1700341

Jan. 6 Committee Findings Are So Explosive They Will ‘Blow the Roof Off the House,’ Rep. Jamie Raskin Says. “This was not a coup directed at the president,” the panel member said on Thursday. “It was a coup directed by the president against the vice president and against the Congress.” Raskin, who serves on the committee, said hearings are expected in June, with a comprehensive report about the committee’s findings to be released by late summer or early fall. The timing and content of the report could aid Democrats in the run-up to the midterm elections. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jamie-raskin-jan-6-committee-explosive-findings-1341898/

Marjorie Taylor Greene forced to admit she called for Pelosi to get death penalty. ‘Oh no, wait, hold on now’. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-hearing-jan-6-b2063431.html

GOP lawmakers were deeply involved in Trump plans to overturn election, new evidence suggests. Deposition excerpts filed by the Jan 6. select committee underscore the expansive cast of elected Republicans who had enlisted themselves in Trump’s effort to cling to power. Lawmakers who attended meetings, in person or by phone, included Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and numerous members of the House Freedom Caucus, according to Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Meadows who provided key testimony about the conversations and meetings Meadows had in December 2020. The committee also indicated it has come to believe Trump did not attempt to contact any federal law enforcement agency amid the riot, pointing to testimony from former Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, former Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen and his deputy Richard Donoghue, who indicated he never connected with Trump that day. “I never spoke to the President that day,” Donoghue told the panel. “He was not on any calls that I was on.” The panel concluded: “It is also now clear that Mr. Trump never telephoned his Secretary of Defense that day to order deployment of National Guard, and never contacted any federal law enforcement agency to order security assistance to the Capitol Police.” https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/22/gop-lawmakers-deeply-involved-in-trump-plans-to-overturn-election-new-evidence-suggests-00027340

A day before the 2020 presidential election, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas mugged for the camera wearing a Trump baseball cap with her friend Connie Hair, chief of staff to GOP Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, at an event supporting the then-President in pictures posted on Facebook at the time. A month later, in her now-infamous texts to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, referred to Hair and claims about election fraud while urging Meadows to fight the election result. Around that same time, Hair’s boss, Gohmert, filed or supported two lawsuits challenging the election that eventually landed before the Supreme Court. Ginni Thomas’ years-long relationship with Hair, including social outings that Clarence Thomas attended, as well as her texting with Meadows add another dimension to an ongoing debate over whether her husband should recuse himself from cases related to the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection, especially when his wife is closely aligned to people who advocated overturning the election. https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/20/politics/ginni-thomas-mark-meadows-connie-hair-texts-january-6/index.html

Text message trove shows Oath Keepers discussing security details for Trump associates. Top members of the Oath Keepers now facing seditious conspiracy charges chatted for days about providing security for some of the highest-profile figures associated with Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the election, according to a newly released trove of text messages. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and top allies like Florida Oath Keeper Kelly Meggs discussed plans to provide security for figures like Roger Stone, Alex Jones, Ali Alexander and Michael Flynn on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, describing potential partnerships with other groups and security details. https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000180-3f0c-de92-addf-ff5fb1390000 https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/18/oath-keepers-security-trump-jan6-00026157

Phil Waldron, a retired Army colonel who helped allies of Donald Trump promote false claims of election fraud, is suing to block the Jan. 6 select committee from obtaining his phone records from AT&T. Waldron initiated the lawsuit in Collin County, Texas, courts in late February, records show, but AT&T transferred the matter to federal court on Friday. In his filings, Waldron describes himself as a “consultant” hired by Texas-based attorneys “to assist in the investigation of matters related to the Election for clients of [the] Attorneys.” Waldron is represented in the lawsuit by William Bundren, who also served as the attorney for a handful of pro-Trump activists who tried to sue former Vice President Mike Pence and claimed to be the legitimate presidential electors from states Biden won. The select committee subpoenaed Waldron himself for testimony and documents in December but has revealed little about its interactions with him since. Bernard Kerik, an ally of Trump and Rudy Giuliani who also testified to the Jan. 6 select committee, told lawmakers that it was Waldron’s idea for Trump to sign an executive order to seize voting machines. Trump discussed the idea with advisers in mid-December but never approved the order. Waldron is represented in the lawsuit by William Bundren, who also served as the attorney for a handful of pro-Trump activists who tried to sue former Vice President Mike Pence and claimed to be the legitimate presidential electors from states Biden won. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/18/phil-waldron-jan-6-committee-subpoena-00025977

QAnon, the ‘People’s Convoy,’ and Neo-Nazis Mingle at L.A. Anti-Vaxx Rally. It was billed as a rally against vaccine mandates. I witnessed something much darker, and much more frightening. As a journalist covering QAnon and fascism in Los Angeles, I’ve seen a lot in the past couple years. I’ve seen danger and violence, heard crazy conspiracies and angry confrontations, and tracked a movement as it spirals deeper and deeper into insanity. It has worn on me, and there are things I’ve seen that I’d like to forget, like people yelling “save our children,” a chant that drones on and on like an endless scream inside your mind. I went to see it all again last Sunday, April 10th, at a mass anti-vaxx rally in downtown L.A., where the movement faithful gathered for a “Defeat the Mandates” rally at Grand Park near City Hall. The rally, at least in its stated purpose, was a protest against city and county requirements that require most public workers to either get vaccinated against a disease that has killed 987,000 Americans. The rally had a full 6 hours worth of speakers — a mix of local anti-vaxxers with a few national figures — and I thought I was ready for it. But what I witnessed during those hours was one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen. I saw an unholy, dark alliance best described as “festival fascism” — where QAnon, the People’s Convoy, and Dr. Robert Malone can fuse together in ways which make them more powerful than they’ve ever been. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/qanon-antivaxx-rally-los-angeles-covid-1338549/

FBI Documents Expose Bureau‘s Big Jan. 6 ‘Lie‘. The bureau says it lacked the authority to monitor social media activity ahead of the pro-Trump insurrection, but it did exactly that during 2020 racial justice and police violence protests. The documents refer to teams of employees engaged in what law-enforcement agencies call “social-media exploitation,” or SOMEX. According to the documents, SOMEX teams gather reams of data from social media and distribute that information to special agents and other law-enforcement representatives. The documents show SOMEX data included in situation reports, or “sitreps,” distributed within the bureau. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/jan6-fbi-social-media-privacy-black-lives-matter-1337565/

Trump incited Insurrection January 06, 2021, Qanon, MAGA Zombies. archiver April 15 2022

In a D.C. jail, Jan. 6 defendants awaiting trial are forming bitter factions. Inside the Washington, D.C., jail, where a group of defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol have been held for as long as a year or more, a bitter divide is growing, current and former inmates say. Some ended up scattered in jails close to their homes. But a few dozen (the precise number has fluctuated) were incarcerated in the city where the Jan. 6 attack took place, in Washington, D.C.'s Correctional Treatment Facility. The District's Department of Corrections decided for the inmates' "own safety and security" to detain all of the Jan. 6 defendants in just one part of the facility, a section known as C2B. The main driver of this conflict, according to C2B inmates, along with their attorneys and family members, is the growing pool of money donated in the name of the Jan. 6 defendants. An alphabet soup of groups has sprung up to support the Jan. 6 defendants — from A4J (Americans For Justice Inc.), to CAPP (Citizens Against Political Persecution), to PFP (Patriot Freedom Project) and PMP (Patriot Mail Project). As donations have grown, so have resentments. And the conflict that has built inside the jail has been amplified outside by a kind of power struggle over who speaks for the so-called political prisoners. When Brandon Fellows first arrived in C2B in the summer of 2021, he hoped to find camaraderie with his fellow "patriots," as he calls them. He said the government had made an "enemy" by prosecuting him and that he rejected a plea offer from the government that would have resulted in a sentence of time served — meaning, he would go free. "I just don't negotiate with terrorists," he said. But then Fellows said he found out the group, led by Cynthia Hughes of New Jersey, was going to pick and choose which defendants and families to support. "The people that gave to Patriot Freedom Project believed that they were giving to help with the legal and financial cause for the men and women themselves. It wasn't for [Cynthia Hughes] to select and choose," said Troy Smocks. Smocks' photo was also featured on the group's website until recently, even though he said the group has not given him any money. Hughes is personally close to one defendant, Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, whom she has described as an "adoptive nephew." Hale-Cusanelli's defense attorney is actually court-appointed, and so the government — not Patriot Freedom Project — pays for Hale-Cusanelli's defense. But other inmates said they were concerned they had to "suck up" to Hale-Cusanelli to get access to donations. Federal prosecutors have accused Hale-Cusanelli, a former Army reservist, of being a white supremacist and Holocaust denier. Hale-Cusanelli allegedly breached the Capitol on Jan. 6 but has not been accused of violence or property damage. He has pleaded not guilty but was detained before trial because a federal judge found that he posed a danger to the community. https://www.npr.org/2022/04/14/1092580753/capitol-riot-january-6-insurrection-defendants

Guilty: Jury quickly convicts Capitol rioter who blamed Trump for January 6. A judge ordered him behind bars before sentencing. A jury found Capitol rioter Dustin Thompson guilty Thursday on charges he obstructed a congressional proceeding and stole a coat tree from a Senate office on January 6, 2021, rejecting a defense argument that attempted to shift blame for the day's violence onto former President Donald Trump. After just a few hours of deliberations, the jury convicted Thompson, 38, on all six charges he faced in connection with January 6, including obstruction of an official proceeding, trespassing on restricted Capitol grounds, and theft of government property. On the obstruction charge alone, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, but he's likely to receive a lighter punishment. Judge Reggie Walton ordered Thompson detained ahead of his July 20 sentencing, in a decision that appeared to surprise the now-convicted Capitol rioter and his defense lawyer. Walton raised concerns that Thompson posed a flight risk and said that, if released before his sentencing, Americans would wonder, "Why is he still walking free?" https://news.yahoo.com/guilty-jury-quickly-convicts-capitol-195741268.html

One week before an angry mob stormed the Capitol, a communications expert named Jason Sullivan, a onetime aide to Roger Stone, joined a conference call with a group of President Donald Trump’s supporters and made an urgent plea. After assuring his listeners that the 2020 election had been stolen, Sullivan told them that they had to go to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021 — the day that Congress was to meet to finalize the electoral count — and “descend on the Capitol,” according to a recording of the call obtained by The New York Times. While Sullivan claimed that he was “not inciting violence or any kind of riots,” he urged those on the call to make their presence felt at the Capitol in a way that would intimidate members of Congress, telling the group that they had to ensure that lawmakers inside the building “understand that people are breathing down their necks.” in the recording of the call, Sullivan can be heard telling his listeners that the lawmakers inside the Capitol “need to feel pressure.” “If we make the people inside that building sweat and they understand that they may not be able to walk in the streets any longer if they do the wrong thing, then maybe they’ll do the right thing,” he said. “We have to put that pressure there.” As the Justice Department widens its inquiry, federal prosecutors are using a grand jury in Washington to gather information on political organizers, speakers and so-called VIPs connected to a series of pro-Trump rallies after the 2020 election. One prominent planner of those rallies, Ali Alexander, received a subpoena from the grand jury and said last week that he intended to comply with its requests. In the run-up to Jan. 6, Alexander publicly discussed a pressure campaign against lawmakers that was meant to stop the final electoral count, saying he was working with Reps. Mo Brooks of Alabama and Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar of Arizona, all Republicans. https://news.yahoo.com/conference-call-riot-plea-descend-114920602.html

Trump Gives An Interview That Will Have Investigators Licking Their Chops. In an April 7 interview in the Washington Post, he said at least three things that investigators have already disproven or will look to quickly disprove. False stories are commonly cover-ups for truths we wish to hide. Even for someone like Trump, who lies gratuitously, false statements that one goes out of one’s way to publish—as by arranging an interview with the most prominent newspaper in Washington—are special cases.

1. “I thought it was a shame. I hated seeing it. I hated seeing it.” Trump was speaking of the Capitol siege. But within two days of it, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) told radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt that he’d heard from White House aides that Trump was “delighted” by the attack.
2. “I kept asking why isn’t . . . Nancy Pelosi doing something about it? And the mayor of D.C. also. The mayor of D.C. and Nancy Pelosi are in charge. And I said, ‘It’s got to be taken care of,’ and I assumed they were taking care of it.” Again, multiple Trump aides have testified before the select committee. You can bet that we would know about it if they had said that the former President “kept asking why Nancy Pelosi isn’t doing something about” the attack.
3. “I don’t remember getting very many [telephone calls that day]. . . . Why would I care about who called me? If congressmen were calling me, what difference did it make?” Trump says he talked to “other people” besides the two men who have disclosed their calls, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH). But he says he “could not say exactly who he talked to that afternoon, or when.”

https://verdict.justia.com/2022/04/08/trump-gives-an-interview-that-will-have-investigators-licking-their-chops

The Arizona Republican Party was jubilant at the news, delivered in Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s interim report on the findings of the Maricopa County election audit. https://www.azag.gov/sites/default/files/2022-04/2022-04-06%20Fann%20letter.pdf There are the six felons who somehow allegedly managed to vote while in Pima County jail. And there are three women who returned their recently deceased mothers’ early ballots. Two of them live in Maricopa County, one in Cochise County. So. Nine cases of election fraud. Out of 3.4 million votes cast. State GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward was practically orgasmic. https://news.yahoo.com/finally-arizonas-election-fraud-found-203003858.html

Text From Donald Trump Jr. Set Out Strategies to Fight Election Outcome. Former President Donald Trump’s eldest son sent the White House chief of staff a text message two days after Election Day in 2020 that laid out strategies for declaring his father the winner regardless of the electoral outcome, people familiar with the exchange said Friday. The text, which was reported earlier by CNN, was sent two days before Joe Biden was declared the winner of the election. The recipient, Mark Meadows, turned a cache of his text messages over to the House committee investigating the events leading up to the deadly riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as the Electoral College results in Biden’s favor were being certified. “It’s very simple,” Donald Trump Jr. wrote to Meadows on Nov. 5, 2020. He wrote at another point, “We have multiple paths We control them all.” The message went on to lay out a variety of options that the elder Trump or his allies ultimately employed in trying to overturn the results of the election, from legal challenges to promoting alternative slates of electors to focusing efforts on the statutory date of Jan. 6 for certification of the Electoral College results. Trump and a number of his advisers pressured Vice President Mike Pence to use his ceremonial role in the Electoral College certification to upend the process, something Pence was adamant was beyond his authority. The text message that Donald Trump Jr. sent to Meadows acknowledged that scenario, which was championed by a lawyer advising the president, John C. Eastman. “We either have a vote WE control and WE win OR it gets kicked to Congress 6 January 2021,” the text message said. https://news.yahoo.com/text-donald-trump-jr-set-140356229.html

Trump says Secret Service blocked him from joining Jan. 6 march to the Capitol. The “Secret Service said I couldn’t go. I would have gone there in a minute," the former president said. In a wide-ranging interview at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida with Post reporter Josh Dawsey, Trump spoke about the Jan. 6 insurrection, repeated claims of a stolen election and weighed in on the possibility of a 2024 presidential campaign. On at least a dozen occasions throughout their conversation, Dawsey wrote, Trump blamed the events of Jan. 6 on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “I thought it was a shame, and I kept asking why isn’t she doing something about it? Why isn’t Nancy Pelosi doing something about it?” Trump said. “And the mayor of D.C. also. The mayor of D.C. and Nancy Pelosi are in charge.” Trump repeatedly said in his Wednesday interview with The Post that he deserved more credit for the size of the crowd he drew to the “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse, just outside the White House. “The crowd was far bigger than I even thought. I believe it was the largest crowd I’ve ever spoken to,” Trump said. “I don’t know what that means, but you see very few pictures. They don’t want to show pictures, the fake news doesn’t want to show pictures. But this was a tremendous crowd.” https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/07/trump-secret-service-capitol-riot-00023737

Documentary by Frontline and ProPublica Reveals Plot to Overturn the Election Origins of the Stolen Election Myth. Part of the Frontline and ProPublica project focuses on a group that gathered in the weeks after the 2020 election on a South Carolina plantation owned by conservative defamation attorney Lin Wood. Using the property as a temporary headquarters, a team of lawyers and cybersecurity experts gathered and synthesized what they claimed was evidence of election fraud. This group, which included Michael Flynn, the retired three-star Army general and former national security adviser to Trump, and Patrick Byrne, the former CEO of Overstock.com, became a key originator of the since-discredited idea that foreign communist governments had hacked voting machines made by Dominion Voting Systems. The belief was central to justifying the efforts of Trump and his allies to reverse the results of the election. https://www.propublica.org/article/new-documentary-by-frontline-and-propublica-reveals-origins-of-the-stolen-election-myth https://youtu.be/90O-q7dgS-I https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/plot-to-overturn-the-election/transcript/ I noticed similarities between content that We_Have_Risen had posted and information that was included in an affidavit submitted by a firm in Texas called Allied Security Operations Group. Dallas-based company Allied Security Operations Group, or ASOG. A public face of the company is a retired Army colonel named Phil Waldron. ASOG’s report claimed that the voting machines in Antrim, made by a company called Dominion, were intentionally designed to produce fraud and to alter the election’s result. Doug Logan was Lin's "cybersecurity expert." Like Lin said, "This is my cybersecurity expert, Doug Logan," right? "From Cyber Ninjas," or whatever. Josh Merritt had been an early employee of ASOG, and Hancock tells me he was an important contributor to the Dominion conspiracy theory. In presenting their findings, Logan and his colleagues don’t dwell on the fact that based on their recount, Biden still won. Instead, Logan reels off a litany of misleading claims. An in-depth analysis of the audit produced by Maricopa County said that "nearly every finding included 'faulty analysis, inaccurate claims, misleading conclusions and a lack of understanding of federal and state election law.'" Logan wouldn't go on camera for an interview, but in an email he stood by his work, saying it was the first “forensic election audit” ever conducted and that he had experts working alongside him. Bill Gates, a member of Maricopa’s board of supervisors and a lifelong Republican. Gates and his colleagues commissioned the 93-page analysis of the audit. This audit is a sham. They're sending out misinformation, half-truths, and then that is being seized upon by the president and others to perpetuate the "big lie." SEN. WENDY ROGERS (R), Arizona Senate

Trump’s 8-hour gap: Minute-by-minute during Jan. 6 riot. At 4:08 p.m. Trump went out to the Rose Garden. At 4:17 p.m. he released a scripted, pre-recorded video, which included a call for “peace” and “law and order” and finally told his supporters “you have to go home now.” But they didn’t. Things were still wildly out of control. In fact, the Capitol building was not secured until 5:34 p.m. At 6:01, Trump’s message was back to indignant: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long,” he wrote. “Remember this day forever!” At 6:27, he went back to the residence, and started calling his lawyers. https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-elections-donald-trump-presidential-elections-election-2020-3315609c4152b4429930a17191b5a217

Inside Pence-world's preparation for a Jan. 6 legal showdown. The former vice president asked his top lawyer to draft a memo — first obtained by POLITICO — a month before the Jan. 6 Capitol attack that laid out the history of counting electoral votes. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/30/pence-jan-6-legal-showdown-00021864 https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017f-daf9-d522-ab7f-def9bf4d0000 https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840.132.2.pdf

Revealed: Trump used White House phone for call on January 6 that was not on official log. Trump’s call to Republican senator should have been reflected in presidential call log on day of Capitol attack but wasn’t. The former president called the phone of a Republican senator, Mike Lee, with a number recorded as 202-395-0000, a placeholder number that shows up when a call is incoming from a number of White House department phones, the sources said. The number corresponds to an official White House phone and the call was placed by Donald Trump himself, which means the call should have been recorded in the internal presidential call log that was turned over to the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack. Trump called Lee at 2.26pm on January 6 through the official 202-395-0000 White House number, according to call detail records reviewed by the Guardian and confirmation by the two sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. The call was notable as Trump mistakenly dialed Lee thinking it was the number for Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville. Lee passed the phone to Tuberville, who told Trump Mike Pence had just been removed from the Senate chamber as rioters stormed the Capitol. But Trump’s call to Lee was not recorded in either the presidential daily diary or the presidential call log – a problem because even though entries in the daily diary are discretionary, according to several current and former White House officials, the call log is not. The presidential daily diary is a retrospective record of the president’s day produced by aides in the Oval Office, who have some sway to determine whether a particular event was significant enough to warrant its inclusion, the officials said. But the presidential call log, typically generated from data recorded when calls are placed by the White House operators, is supposed to be a comprehensive record of all incoming and outgoing calls involving the president through White House channels, the officials said. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/30/trump-used-white-house-phone-call-capitol-attack-jan-6-not-official-log

Who Is Behind QAnon? Linguistic Detectives Find Fingerprints. Using machine learning, separate teams of computer scientists identified the same two men as likely authors of messages that fueled the viral movement. “Open your eyes,” the online post began, claiming, “Many in our govt worship Satan.” That warning, published on a freewheeling online message board in October 2017, was the beginning of the movement now known as QAnon. Paul Furber was its first apostle. The outlandish claim made perfect sense to Mr. Furber, a South African software developer and tech journalist long fascinated with American politics and conspiracy theories, he said in an interview. He still clung to “Pizzagate,” the debunked online lie that liberal Satanists were trafficking children from a Washington restaurant. He was also among the few who understood an obscure reference in the message to “Operation Mockingbird,” an alleged C.I.A. scheme to manipulate the news media. As the stream of messages, most signed only “Q,” grew into a sprawling conspiracy theory, the mystery surrounding their authorship became a central fascination for its followers — who was the anonymous Q? Now two teams of forensic linguists say their analysis of the Q texts shows that Mr. Furber, one of the first online commentators to call attention to the earliest messages, actually played the lead role in writing them. Sleuths hunting for the writer behind Q have increasingly overlooked Mr. Furber and focused their speculation on another QAnon booster: Ron Watkins, who operated a website where the Q messages began appearing in 2018 and is now running for Congress in Arizona. And the scientists say they found evidence to back up those suspicions as well. Mr. Watkins appears to have taken over from Mr. Furber at the beginning of 2018. Both deny writing as Q. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/19/technology/qanon-messages-authors.html

White House phone logs turned over to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot show an unexplained seven-hour gap, according to a bombshell report out Tuesday morning. Records obtained by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post and Robert Costa of CBS News show a gap in Donald Trump’s phone records from 11:17 a.m. to 6:54 p.m.—the period when thousands of his supporters were invading the Capitol in a violent bid to prevent a joint session of Congress certifying Joe Biden’s election victory. The 11 pages of notes obtained by the Post and CBS News included five pages with the header “THE DAILY DIARY OF PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP” that outlined some of his activities that day—although not in much detail. The diary notes Trump addressing supporters at a “Stop the Steal” rally at the Ellipse at midday and his return to the White House at 1:19 p.m. before meeting "with his Valet" at 1:21 p.m. The riot started shortly after 2 p.m. when as many as 2,500 Trump supporters, some of them armed, forced their way into the Capitol, but the next entry on the White House diary is not until 4:03 p.m., when Trump went to the Rose Garden to record a message for the mob. https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-phone-logs-from-jan-6-have-a-seven-hour-gap-says-report

Federal judge: President Trump likely violated two criminal statutes in connection w/Jan 6. If “President Trump’s plan had worked, it would have permanently ended the peaceful transition of power, undermining American democracy and the Constitution.” In the months following the election, numerous credible sources–from the President’s inner circle to agency leadership to statisticians–informed President Trump and Dr. Eastman that there was no evidence of election fraud. One week after the election, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency declared “[t]he November 3rd election [] the most secure in American history” and found “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”17 An internal Trump Campaign memo concluded in November that fraud claims related to Dominion voting machines were baseless.18 In early December, Attorney General Barr publicly stated there was no evidence of fraud, and on December 27, Deputy Attorney General Donoghue privately told President Trump that after “dozens of investigations, hundreds of interviews,” the Department of Justice had concluded that “the major allegations [of election fraud] are not supported by the evidence developed.” https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840.260.0_4.pdf

Ginni Thomas pressed for GOP lawmakers to protest 2020 election results. The conservative activist and wife of a Supreme Court justice said in a November 2020 email that Republicans weren't doing enough to help Trump and needed to be "out in the streets." Ginni Thomas pressed for GOP lawmakers to protest 2020 election results The conservative activist and wife of a Supreme Court justice said in a November 2020 email that Republicans weren't doing enough to help Trump and needed to be "out in the streets." https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/ginni-thomas-pressed-gop-lawmakers-protest-2020-election-results-rcna21644

QAnon's 'Great Awakening' failed to materialize. What's next could be worse. Believers who were stymied by Trump’s exit could turn to white nationalism and other extremist beliefs, experts say. hortly before Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, Dave Hayes – a longtime QAnon influencer who goes by the name Praying Medic – posted a photo of dark storm clouds gathering over the US Capitol on the rightwing social media platform Gab. “What a beautiful black sky,” he wrote to his 92,000 followers, appending a thunderclap emoji. The message was clear to those well-versed in QAnon lore: “the Storm” – the day of reckoning when Donald Trump and his faithful allies in the military would declare martial law, round up all their many political enemies, and send them to Guantánamo Bay for execution by hanging – was finally here. 20 January 2021 wouldn’t mark the end of Trump’s presidency, but the beginning of “the Great Awakening”. Instead, Trump slunk off to Florida and Biden took the oath of office under a clear blue sky. Now QAnon adherents are left to figure out how to move forward in a world that, time and time again, has proven impervious to their fevered fantasies and fascistic predictions. And while some seem to be waking up to reality, others are doubling down, raising concerns among experts that the movement is ripe for even more extreme radicalization. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/20/qanon-biden-inauguration-trump-antisemitism-white-nationalism

First on CNN: January 6 committee has text messages between Ginni Thomas and Mark Meadows. The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 riot has in its possession more than two dozen text messages between former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, a conservative activist and the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, according to multiple sources familiar with the messages. These text messages, according to sources, took place between early November 2020 and mid-January 2021. Thomas recently revealed that she attended the pro-Trump rally that preceded the US Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, but says she "played no role" in planning the events of that day. The content of the text messages may be of interest to the committee's investigation, because it asked Meadows in a subpoena to turn over "both documents and your deposition testimony regarding these and other matters that are within the scope of the committee's activity." https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/24/politics/ginni-thomas-mark-meadows-text-messages/index.html

A federal judge on Tuesday convicted an elected official from New Mexico of illegally entering restricted U.S. Capitol grounds but acquitted him of engaging in disorderly conduct during the riot that disrupted Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential election victory. U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden heard one day of testimony without a jury on Monday before handing down a verdict in the misdemeanor case against Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin, a 48-year-old former rodeo rider who helped found a group called Cowboys for Trump. McFadden, an appointee of then-President Donald Trump, said there was ample evidence that Griffin knew he was in a restricted area and didn’t leave. Griffin crossed over three walls, needing help from others or a ladder to get over them, the judge noted. “All of this would suggest to a normal person that perhaps you should not be entering the area,” McFadden said from the bench. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/couy-griffin-guilty-jan-6-riots_n_6239fcf8e4b019fd81338a62

Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff and a national campaign spokesperson were involved in efforts to encourage the president’s supporters to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. That’s according to a person who says he overheard a key planning conversation between top Trump officials and the organizers of the Jan. 6 rally on the White House Ellipse — and has since testified to House investigators about the phone call. Trump and his allies have tried to minimize his role in calling his supporters to the Capitol and argue he was simply participating in a lawful, peaceful demonstration. Scott Johnston — who worked on the team that helped plan the Ellipse rally — says that’s just not so. He claims that leading figures in the Trump administration and campaign deliberately planned to have crowds converge on the Capitol, where the 2020 election was being certified — and “make it look like they went down there on their own.” Johnston, who says he described the phone call to House select committee investigators, detailed his allegations in a series of conversations with Rolling Stone. Johnston says he overheard Mark Meadows, then-former President Trump’s chief of staff, and Katrina Pierson, Trump’s national campaign spokeswoman, talking with Kylie Kremer, the executive director of Women for America First, about plans for a march to the Capitol. Johnston said the conversation was clearly audible to him since it took place on a speakerphone as he drove Kremer between the group’s rallies in the final three days of 2020. Johnston says that, in the key phone conversation he overheard, the group settled on ordering a march without an official permit. “Nobody wanted to do it because they didn’t want to pay for it,” Johnston says of obtaining a permit. “They didn’t want to have to provide security and all the other expenses.” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/jan6-trump-mark-meadows-capitol-attack-republicans-1324218/

“1776 Returns,” a nine-page document federal prosecutors have obtained as part of its case against former Proud Boys head Enrique Tarrio, may give us a window into the group’s plans to storm government buildings on Jan. 6, 2021. Though it does not specifically mention the Capitol building, the document reportedly offers a five-point plan ahead of Jan. 6 for group members to appear “unsuspecting” and to “not look tactical” while occupying government buildings, and to chant “We the People” and “No Trump, No America” to blend in with protestors. According to the New York Times, it included a section that was apparently intended to instruct the public how to act. It shows a lot of forethought, that it’s deliberate, that this wasn’t just, as a lot of people claimed, something spontaneous that just happened. For some of the Capitol stormers, I think they were swept up in the moment. But for many people, especially the leaders of groups like the Proud Boys, this was premeditated. This was a very deliberate decision to go there and to cause real upheaval. That was the point, to dredge up some instability. If all things worked well, they would be able to turn the election. Because it failed, I hear a lot of people dismissing it, but the intentions were real. These people legitimately wanted to overthrow the government and overturn the election. We can’t forget that that was the overarching objective here, by any means necessary, frankly, even if that meant killing lawmakers. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/03/capitol-riot-trial-prosecution-enrique-tarrio.html

The second trial stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol is shaping up to be a lot less of a slam dunk for the Justice Department than the first. The case of Couy Griffin, a New Mexico county commissioner and founder of Cowboys for Trump, looks to be among the most marginal of hundreds of prosecutions stemming from the unrest and violence that broke out as lawmakers were seeking to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. Unlike the vast majority of the nearly 800 people charged in connection with Jan. 6, Griffin didn’t go inside the building, nor is he accused of violence or property destruction. His trial is expected to last only about a day. Griffin, 48, faces just two misdemeanor charges: entering a restricted area at the Capitol and disruptive or disorderly conduct while in such a place. Both carry a one-year maximum sentence. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/21/capitol-riot-trial-tests-justice-department-strategy-00018968

Using Facebook’s Own Data to Understand the Platform’s Role in Jan. 6 A team of reporters from ProPublica and The Washington Post have obtained a unique dataset on Facebook groups, providing the clearest evidence yet that the social platform was an important source of misinformation that led to the Jan. 6 attack. https://www.propublica.org/article/using-facebooks-own-data-to-understand-the-platforms-role-in-jan-6

Trump incited Insurrection January 06, 2021, Qanon, MAGA Zombies: archived March 21, 2022

How did a Proud Boys leader with a felony record get into the White House? Enrique Tarrio claims he visited the White House on Saturday, hours before a major pro-Trump rally. DECEMBER 15, 2020 Enrique Tarrio revealed that he visited the executive mansion on Saturday after receiving a "last-minute invite to an undisclosed location." The White House later said that Tarrio had not been invited, but had instead taken part in a holiday tour. "He was on a public White House Christmas tour," White House spokesperson Judd Deere said over the weekend. "He did not have a meeting with the president, nor did the White House invite him." White House public tours are self-guided, and anyone who wants one, including Christmas tours, must apply no fewer than 21 days ahead of their booking date because the application includes a security form and background check. Hopefuls with a felony are generally denied, a former Trump White House official told Salon, unless a senior member of the administration intervenes. In 2013, Tarrio, also known as Henry Tarrio Jr, was convicted of two class C, one class D and one class E felonies for stealing and reselling $1.2 million worth of diabetes test strips from Abbott Labs, and served 16 months in federal prison. Court records show that he was released in December 2014 with two years probation, and ordered to pay restitution for the full $1.2 million. On Saturday, Tarrio was accompanied to the executive mansion by other members of Latinos for Trump, including Bianca Garcia, the president of the group, and her son, Armani Garcia, a former intern for Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga. It is unclear if or when Latinos for Trump applied for its White House tour, and unclear why Tarrio received a security pass. https://www.salon.com/2020/12/15/how-did-a-proud-boys-leader-with-a-felony-record-get-into-the-white-house/

Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio jailed pending trial in Jan. 6 Capitol attack. U.S. Magistrate Judge Lauren F. Louis of Miami ordered Tarrio to be held after federal prosecutors argued that he and co-defendants “directed and encouraged” the actions of Proud Boys members who formed “the tip of the spear” in the breach of the U.S. Capitol. Tarrio poses a risk of flight and danger to the community, prosecutors said, citing his purported efforts to evade law enforcement and discourage witnesses from cooperating. “There is overwhelming evidence that Tarrio organized a plot to corruptly obstruct, influence, and impede the certification of the electoral college vote, an offense that strikes at the heart of our democracy,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason McCullough argued in court filings. Even as Congress’s proceedings were still suspended Jan. 6, Tarrio posted to other members, “They’ll fear us doing it again,” prosecutors said. When a member asked, “So what do we do now?” he allegedly answered at 4:14 p.m., “Do it again.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/03/15/tarrio-proud-boys-jailed-jan6/

DOJ: Film crew was present at Jan. 5 meeting between leaders of Proud Boys, Oath Keepers. The details provide new evidence of the encounter between the two groups, whose leaders played a key role in the breach of the Capitol the following day. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/14/film-crew-january-5-meeting-proud-boys-oath-keepers-00017107

Proud Boys leader had plans to ‘storm’ government buildings on 6 January. Enrique Tarrio possessed document titled ‘1776 Returns’, with details to invade and occupy seven buildings, New York Times says. Enrique Tarrio, the group’s former chairman who was arrested last week and charged with conspiracy over the deadly attack, had a nine-page document entitled “1776 Returns”, named for the year of American independence, the New York Times reported. The document, mentioned only in general terms in Tarrio’s indictment, contained details of a complex plan for supporters of Donald Trump to invade and occupy at least seven House and Senate office buildings on the afternoon Congress met to certify Joe Biden’s election victory, according to Times sources. The document features five sections, the Times reported: infiltrate, execution, distract, occupy and sit-in. The plan called for the recruiting of at least 50 Proud Boys and other Trump supporters to enter and occupy each building, “causing trouble” for security personnel who tried to stop them. Once inside, the instructions stated, the activists would be encouraged to chant slogans such as “We the People” and “No Trump, no America”. Supporters unable to gain access to the buildings would be encouraged to distract law enforcement and other authorities by “pulling fire alarms at nearby stores, hotels and museums”. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/15/proud-boys-leader-enrique-tarrio-document-january-6

Another Jan. 6 mystery revealed: Pence's second script rewrite. The never-before-told backstory of why the then-vice president made a change not seen since Al Gore — as a rebuttal to Trump allies' fringe theories. Pence’s decision to craft and employ his own unprecedented language as he presided over the final step of the 2020 election reflected his resistance to a pressure campaign by then-President Donald Trump to subvert the process. Pence’s rewrite has since drawn the attention of congressional investigators. He also made a second, subtler, but no less significant change to the script on Jan. 6, 2021, according to newly released documents and testimony. This previously unreported adjustment, further illustrating his pushback to the Trump-led gambit, involved a simple question that he asked each time a state’s electoral vote results were introduced: “Are there any objections?” https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/15/mike-pence-january-6-script-change-00017294

How Pence used 43 words to shut down Trump allies' election subversion on Jan. 6. The then-vice president and his top aides rewrote the script long used to certify elections, making clear that false elector slates wouldn't fly.

"After ascertaining that the certificates are regular in form and authentic the tellers will announce the votes cast by the electors for each state, starting with Alabama that the parliamentarians have advised me is the only certificate of vote from that state, and purports to be a return from the state, and that has annexed to it a certificate from an authority of that state purporting to appoint or ascertain electors."

Under the Electoral Count Act, electors picked by the party of the winning candidate in each state are required to meet in mid-December to formally cast their ballots. In seven states won by Biden, however, the Trump campaign worked with state Republican parties to assemble their own elector meetings and cast ballots for Trump. Those false electors then signed certificates and mailed them to Washington. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/11/pence-jan-6-election-certification-script-00016539

New clues emerge about the money that might have helped fund the Jan. 6 insurrection. The committee's Feb. 23 subpoena of Salesforce emphasized its interest in the company's hosting of Trump emails asking for new donations that included false claims of election fraud. OpenSecrets has also identified these groups with financial ties to the so-called "March to Save America":

• Rule of Law Defense Fund - a 501(c)(4) nonprofit affiliated with the 527 Republican Attorneys General Association
• Black Conservatives Fund - a hybrid PAC
• Moms for America - a 501(c)(3) nonprofit
• Peaceably Gather - a 501(c)(3) nonprofit supported by First Liberty Institute
• Phyllis Schlafly Eagles - a 501(c)(3) nonprofit

"There are powerful indications that have surfaced and every day that passes we get more testimony shedding light on what exactly was taking place," Raskin said. "We should not discount the financial motive and imperative in the events leading up to Jan. 6." https://www.npr.org/2022/03/11/1085783310/new-clues-emerge-about-the-money-that-might-have-helped-fund-the-jan-6-insurrect

Trump lawyer knew plan to delay Biden certification was unlawful, emails show. John Eastman conceded that scheme represented violation of Electoral Count Act but urged Mike Pence to go ahead anyway. The admission that the scheme was unlawful undercuts arguments by Eastman and the Willard war room team that they believed there was no wrongdoing in seeking to have Pence delay the certification past 6 January – one of the strategies they sought to return Trump to power. It additionally raises the prospect that the other members of the Willard war room – including Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon – were also aware that the scheme to delay or stop the certification was unlawful from the start. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/10/trump-lawyer-plan-john-eastman-mike-pence

The former chairman of the U.S. right-wing group the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, was arrested on Tuesday on a conspiracy charge for his alleged role in plotting the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol in a bid to block certification of President Joe Biden's election. Tarrio, 38, appeared in a virtual Miami-based federal court hearing from a cellblock in a nearby local jail, and prosecutors said they were seeking to have him detained pending trial because they believe he is a danger to the community and poses a risk of flight. Tarrio told the judge he has "absolutely" no savings, and that he only recently got a job printing T-shirts that earns him $400-500 per week. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/former-proud-boys-chairman-tarrio-charged-with-conspiracy-washington-post-2022-03-08/

The Defense In The First Jan. 6 Trial's Closing Argument: Maybe The Evidence Is Fake. The jury is set to begin deliberating in Guy Reffitt's case on Tuesday. After three and a half days of testimony and evidence from government witnesses in the trial of Guy Reffitt, the first person charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection to stand trial, the defense on Monday made a brief appeal to the jury: Key witnesses — Reffitt’s son and a former fellow militant group member — weren’t reliable. Video showing Reffitt at the Capitol couldn’t be trusted. And Reffitt himself was full of it. Monday’s proceedings featured the final government witnesses and the defense’s pushback to the overarching prosecution theory that Reffitt planned well in advance to storm the Capitol, brought guns and other equipment to carry out that plan, and tried to lead the mob in the initial breach of the Capitol and resisted a barrage of projectiles shot at his body by police officers before being finally thwarted by chemical spray. The jury is set to begin deliberating first thing Tuesday. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/guy-reffitt-capitol-riot-trial-defense

A Former Texas Militant Group Member Testified About Bringing Rifles And Handguns To DC For Jan. 6. Rocky Hardie received partial immunity to testify for the government against defendant Guy Reffitt. A former member of the Texas Three Percenters militant group testified Friday that both he and Guy Reffitt — the first Jan. 6 defendant to stand trial — traveled to Washington, DC, with rifles and handguns, carrying the latter with them as they made their way to the US Capitol during the insurrection. The jury heard Friday from Rocky Hardie, who signed an immunity agreement with the government for his testimony; the prosecutor had him explain that he understood he could still be prosecuted for his actions on Jan. 6, but the deal meant that any charges couldn’t be based on information he’d given the government or testified about as part of the agreement. Late in the day, the jury then saw the weapons that the FBI seized from Reffitt’s house and that Hardie said Reffitt brought to Washington: a Smith & Wesson .40-caliber handgun and an AR-15-style rifle. The prosecutor showed a zoomed-in image of Reffitt’s back while he was on a stairway in front of the Capitol, and an FBI agent identified a dark object near Reffitt’s waist as a matte black holster, with a “silvery metallic linear object” that the government has alleged was the handgun. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/guy-reffitt-january-6-guns-trial

A Jan. 6 Defendant Texted And Recorded His Way Through Jan. 6. The Jury Got To See It All. “Multiple clay bullets and a battle cry like in Braveheart. The insurrection began immediately after,” Guy Reffitt wrote, according to the government’s evidence. The day ended with testimony from Reffitt's son, Jackson Reffitt, who bolstered the government's case with firsthand testimony about his father's messages and mindset around the time of the insurrection — and who described the emotional and familial fallout of his decision to cooperate with federal authorities. Reffitt cried when Jackson took the stand, according to a pool reporter in the room. The 19-year-old Jackson said he didn't regret his decision to share information with the FBI, but also spoke about the guilt and sadness he felt. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/reffitt-capitol-riot-trial-testimony

Court documents reveal Pence team's exasperation with Trump. “He came in and said, ‘I'm here asking you to reject the electors.’ That's how he opened at the meeting” on Jan. 5, Pence counsel Greg Jacob said of Eastman, according to his deposition before investigators for the House select committee. “I said, ‘If this case got to the Supreme Court, we'd lose 9-0, wouldn't we, if we actually took your position and it got up there?’ And he started out at 7 to 2. And I said, ‘Who are the two?’ And he said, ‘Well, I think maybe Clarence Thomas,’” Jacobs said, before Eastman eventually relented the case would be unlikely to get any votes. Jacobs and Eastman would go on to have a heated email exchange, with Jacobs criticizing him for forwarding legal advice that “functioned as a serpent in the ear of the President of the United States.” But the two men were able to end the discussion on a hopeful note. “When this is over, we should have a good bottle of wine over a nice dinner someplace,” Eastman responded later in the chain. https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/596743-court-documents-reveal-pence-teams-exasperation-with-trump

The ‘Overwhelming’ Evidence That Trump & Co. Committed Conspiracy. We talked to a prominent prosecutor who's laid out the way the DOJ could charge Trump and John Eastman for trying to overturn the election. “Conspiracy to defraud the United States” is when two or more people agree to obstruct or impede the proper functioning of government. Congress, by Constitution and statute, is supposed to show up at the Capitol on Jan. 6, count the votes, and certify the winner of the presidential election. Trump and others knowingly conspired to interfere with the peaceful transfer of presidential power, for reasons Trump knew to be false. That’s fraudulent. I also theorize that when Trump tried to get Mike Pence to abuse his authority as vice president, he and his co-conspirators were conspiring to obstruct a federal proceeding. That’s also a crime. https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7wkbe/the-overwhelming-evidence-that-trump-committed-conspiracy

Roger Stone will have some serious explaining to do next time he sees Donald Trump. Stone, Trump’s most trusted adviser for decades, was reportedly caught talking trash about the former president, going so far as to call him the “greatest single mistake in American history.” The Washington Post has obtained extraordinary documentary footage of Stone as he worked to overturn the 2020 election. In one section, filmed on Joe Biden’s Inauguration Day, the Post reports that Stone can be seen in a car with the filmmakers when he lets rip on Trump. After describing his ally as America’s worst ever mistake, Stone said Trump would regret failing to pardon himself, saying: “A good, long sentence in prison will give [Trump] a chance to think about it, because the Southern District is coming for him, and he did nothing.” After his rant, Stone is reported to have turned to the filmmakers and said: “Obviously if you use any of that, I’ll murder you.” In an interview with The Daily Beast on Friday morning, Stone pushed back on the Post recounting of the documentary and said it contained several errors. https://www.thedailybeast.com/roger-stone-distances-himself-from-stop-the-steal-and-insurrection-as-a-storm-foretold-footage-emerges

Roger Stone Distances Himself From ‘Stop the Steal’ and Insurrection After WaPo Documentary Bombshell. The Trump adviser pushed back as footage emerged showing him appearing to launch “the Big Lie” in the hours after the election and rushing to leave DC as the Capitol riot unfolded. “I really want to get out of here,” Stone told an aide, as they were filmed at the hotel by a Danish camera crew for a documentary on the veteran Republican operative. Stone said he feared prosecution by the incoming attorney general, Merrick Garland. “He is not a friend,” Stone said. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/roger-stone-documentary-capitol-riot-trump-election/ https://www.thedailybeast.com/roger-stone-distances-himself-from-stop-the-steal-and-insurrection-as-a-storm-foretold-footage-emerges

For most of his life, J. Michael Luttig has operated behind the scenes at the top of the conservative legal world. He started his career as a young aide at the U.S. Supreme Court, worked as an attorney in the Reagan White House, clerked for Judge Antonin Scalia before he was a legal icon, helped guide the appointment of two other Supreme Court justices and was appointed to a federal judgeship by former President George H.W. Bush. https://news.yahoo.com/untold-story-former-judge-beat-100000623.html

@judgeluttig https://twitter.com/judgeluttig The only responsibility and power of the Vice President under the Constitution is to faithfully count the electoral college votes as they have been cast. https://twitter.com/judgeluttig/status/1346469787329646592

Pence: Trump is ‘wrong’ to say election could be overturned. Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday directly rebutted Donald Trump’s false claims that Pence somehow could have overturned the results of the 2020 election, saying that the former president was simply “wrong.” In a speech to a gathering of the conservative Federalist Society in Florida, Pence addressed Trump’s intensifying efforts this week to advance the false narrative that, as vice president, he had the unilateral power to prevent Joe Biden from taking office. “President Trump is wrong,” Pence said. “I had no right to overturn the election.” https://apnews.com/article/mike-pence-donald-trump-election-2020-84ff467d9ff5bfaad084e274f69ac521

WHEREAS, Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger are participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse, and they are both utilizing their past professed political affiliation to mask Democrat abuse of prosecutorial power for partisan purposes, therefore, be it https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/0bdaba1c-a2a6-4aa5-8acd-62d782590c54/note/c71c8a31-8623-4236-94ec-ce99dac1a51e.#page=1

Republicans in Congress were in on Trump's coup plot. They knew that Donald Trump was plotting a coup and they said nothing. By HEATHER DIGBY PARTON PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 4, 2022 https://www.salon.com/2022/02/04/in-congress-were-in-on-coup-plot/

The New York Times' front-page profile of "defiant" Jan. 6 "marchers" is a taste of what comes next. https://boingboing.net/2022/01/24/the-new-york-times-front-page-profile-of-defiant-jan-6-marchers-is-a-taste-of-what-comes-next.html

Trump campaign officials, led by Rudy Giuliani, oversaw fake electors plot in 7 states. Giuliani and his allies coordinated the nuts-and-bolts of the process on a state-by-state level, the sources told CNN. One source said there were multiple planning calls between Trump campaign officials and GOP state operatives, and that Giuliani participated in at least one call. The source also said the Trump campaign lined up supporters to fill elector slots, secured meeting rooms in statehouses for the fake electors to meet on December 14, 2020, and circulated drafts of fake certificates that were ultimately sent to the National Archives. Trump and some of his top advisers publicly encouraged the "alternate electors" scheme in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada and New Mexico. But behind the scenes, Giuliani and Trump campaign officials actively choreographed the process, the sources said. One fake elector from Michigan boasted at a recent event hosted by a local Republican organization that the Trump campaign directed the entire operation. "We fought to seat the electors. The Trump campaign asked us to do that," Meshawn Maddock, co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party, said at a public event last week that was organized by the conservative group Stand Up Michigan, according to a recording obtained by CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/20/politics/trump-campaign-officials-rudy-giuliani-fake-electors/index.html

Wife of Supreme Court justice who praised Capitol rioters wants Cheney and Kinzinger out of GOP for investigating it. Virginia ‘Ginny’ Thomas is a veteran conservative activist whose political activities have often concerned matters before the Supreme Court. The wife of one of the Supreme Court justices who could be charged with deciding whether the House January 6th select committee can view Trump administration White House records has signed on to an open letter calling for the committee’s two Republican members to be ousted from the House GOP conference. Virginia “Ginny” Thomas, a longtime conservative activist and the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, was one of more than 60 signatories to the open letter, which was organised by the pro-Trump Conservative Action Project and asks House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to “act immediately to remove” Reps Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger from the Republican conference “due to their egregious actions as part of the House of Representative’s January 6th Select Committee”. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ginny-thomas-cheney-kinzinger-jan-6-b1995752.html

Capitol rioters called Nancy Pelosi's office looking for a 'lost and found' for items they left behind on January 6, according to Rep. Jamie Raskin. Rioters were calling "asking whether there was a lost and found because they forgot their phone there, or they left their purse or what have you," Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told Insider on Friday in a Q&A. Police officers swiftly took down information from the callers, Raskin said. "The officers quickly got on the phone and said, yeah, just give us your name, your address, your social, you know, and we'll tie up those loose ends," Raskin said. "But what's so fascinating to me about that there really were people who felt as if they had been summoned to Washington by the president." "And when they were told that they were trespassing and invading the Capitol, they said the president invited them to be there," he said. "They didn't have any kind of subtle understanding of the separation of powers. They just thought that the number one person in the US government had invited them to be there, and therefore they had a right. https://www.businessinsider.com/capitol-rioters-called-pelosis-office-for-lost-and-found-raskin-2022-1

Yale law graduate founder of far-right Oath Keepers group is charged - along with ten others - with seditious conspiracy: Faces 20 years in prison for organizing Jan 6th riot and instructing his members from OUTSIDE Capitol building. Stewart Rhodes, founder of Oath Keepers, and 10 alleged accomplices charged with seditious conspiracy stemming from January 6 Capitol riots. Rhodes and more than a dozen members and associates of far-right militia are suspected of planning and carrying out attack to stop Biden's certification. Rhodes was in restricted area of Capitol grounds and directed the attack from there, indictment claims. Another eight suspects named in indictments charged with corruptly obstructing an official proceeding. It is largest conspiracy case brought by federal prosecutors as a consequence of the January 6 insurrection Seditious conspiracy charge carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Rhodes, a former US Army paratrooper and Yale Law School graduate, started the Oath Keepers in 2009. He is known for his eye patch: a former firearms instructor, he dropped a loaded handgun when he was 28 and it shot him in the face, blinding him in his left eye. Rhodes and Edward Vallejo, 63, of Phoenix, Arizona, were arrested on Thursday. The others who were charged were already facing criminal charges related to the attack. Those include Thomas Caldwell, 67, of Berryville, Virginia; Joseph Hackett, 51, of Sarasota, Florida; Kenneth Harrelson, 41, of Titusville, Florida; Joshua James, 34, of Arab, Alabama; Kelly Meggs, 52, of Dunnellon, Florida; Roberto Minuta, 37, of Prosper, Texas; David Moerschel, 44, of Punta Gorda, Florida; Brian Ulrich, 44, of Guyton, Georgia and Jessica Watkins, 39, of Woodstock, Ohio. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10399809/Oath-Keepers-founder-charged-organizing-January-6-riot.html

Congressional Staff Pressed Justice Department Officials For Safety Plans Before The Capitol Riot. “Soooo this has taken a turn for the worse,” one congressional staffer wrote to federal law enforcement agencies during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. At least two congressional staffers from House and Senate committees reached out to the FBI and the Justice Department concerned about security at the Capitol ahead of the Jan. 6 riots, according to documents obtained by BuzzFeed News. The inquiries support accusations that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies were not prepared for the pro-Trump mob that stormed the US Capitol despite direct warnings and calls for help. BuzzFeed News is publishing another cache of documents turned over by the Justice Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the agency and the FBI related to events around Jan. 6. Emails released last November revealed that top Justice Department officials were told there were “no credible threats” hours before the riot. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kadiagoba/congress-staff-january-6-email-justice-department

In prison interview, QAnon Shaman shares paranoid fantasies about the Deep State's "two-tiered slavery system". On Trump's legacy: "He was trying to create peace in the Middle East, you know, he released the JFK file, he created the space force. There was also during the Trump administration, there was a declassification of a zero-point energy engine and inertia propulsion or anti-gravity craft that the Navy put out there. Okay, I'll put it this way. Q is the only major movement in history, as far as I can tell, that is working to disclose the full truth about, say government Special Access Programs, top secret information and technologies, the truth about things like aliens are interdimensional beings and their role here on the planet. https://boingboing.net/2022/01/06/in-prison-interview-qanon-shaman-shares-paranoid-fantasies-about-the-deep-states-two-tiered-slavery-system.html

The Jan. 6 Defendants Are Getting Off Easy. We reviewed all 733 criminal cases connected to the insurrection. Here is what we found. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/01/jan-6-capitol-riot-criminal-prosecutions-status.html

Biden’s blistering speech on Trump praised by supporters, calling it his ‘best’. Speech described as ‘forceful’, ‘passionate’, ‘riveting’, and a ‘hinge moment in his presidency’. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/joe-biden-trump-capitol-riot-speech-b1988097.html

Biden eviscerates Trump for holding a 'dagger to the throat of Democracy' by watching Jan 6 riot live on TV and doing nothing to stop it: Donald hits back and calls Joe's speech 'political theater' https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10375211/Biden-heads-Capitol-January-6-speech-blame-Trump-chaos-carnage.html

Election Falsehoods Surged on Podcasts Before Capitol Riots, Researchers Find. Researchers at the Brookings Institution reviewed transcripts of nearly 1,500 episodes from 20 of the most popular political podcasts. Among episodes released between the election and the Jan. 6 riot, about half contained election misinformation, according to the analysis. In some weeks, 60% of episodes mentioned the election fraud conspiracy theories tracked by Brookings. Those included false claims that software glitches interfered with the count, that fake ballots were used, and that voting machines run by Dominion Voting Systems were rigged to help Democrats. Those kinds of theories gained currency in Republican circles and would later be leveraged to justify additional election audits across the country. The biggest offender in Brookings’ analysis was Steve Bannon, Trump’s former adviser. His podcast, “Bannon’s War Room,” was flagged 115 times for episodes using voter fraud terms included in Brookings’ analysis between the election and Jan. 6. “You know why they’re going to steal this election?” Bannon asked on Nov. 3. “Because they don’t think you’re going to do anything about it.” https://news.yahoo.com/election-falsehoods-surged-podcasts-capitol-125322535.html

A photographer’s helmet cam captured the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-01-04/photographers-point-of-view-of-the-capitol-riot-jan-6-anniversary

More than 1,000 US public figures aided Trump’s effort to overturn election. Insurrection Index identifies those who acted as accomplices by participating in 6 January attack or spreading Trump’s ‘big lie’. Among them are 213 incumbents in elected office and 29 who are running as candidates for positions of power in upcoming elections. There are also 59 military veterans, 31 current or former law enforcement officials, and seven who sit on local school boards. When the index goes live on Thursday, it will contain a total of 1,404 records of those who played a role in trying to overturn the 2020 election. In addition to the 1,011 individuals, it lists 393 organizations deemed to have played a part in subverting democracy. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/05/trump-capitol-attack-democracy-election-insurrection-index

Trump incited Insurrection January 06, 2021, Qanon, MAGA Zombies. archived January 05, 2022

New Texts Show Sean Hannity Panicking About Trump’s State of Mind After Jan. 6. The committee investigating the attack on the Capitol is asking the Fox News host to answer questions about his communications with Trump and Mark Meadows. The Jan. 6 committee is requesting voluntary cooperation from Sean Hannity, Chair Bennie Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney wrote in a letter released Tuesday. The letter cites previously unreleased text messages obtained by the committee, including one sent on Jan. 10 in which the Fox News host appears to express concern over what Trump might do ahead of Biden’s inauguration. “Guys, we have a clear path to land the plane in 9 days,” Hannity wrote to then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). “He can’t mention the election again. He can’t mention the election again. Ever. I did not have a good call with him today. And worse, I’m not sure what is left to do or say, and I don’t like not knowing if it’s truly understood. Ideas?” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jan-6-committee-sean-hannity-request-cooperation-1278476/

We Know Exactly Who the Capitol Rioters Were. A year later, a fuller picture of who really drove the riot is clear. The lessons for 2022 and beyond are sobering.We’ve now studied nearly 700 who have been arrested, and we’ve brought the study up to date as of early December. What we see is, over half of those who have been arrested are business owners, CEOs from white-collar occupations, doctors, lawyers, and architects. If you look at extremist group membership, again, 13 percent of those nearly 700 arrested as of early December are members of militia groups like the Oath Keepers or extremist groups like the Proud Boys. As I said, this is very different than about half that we normally find. If you look at their ages, two-thirds of those arrested for Jan. 6 are over the age of 34. They’re concentrated in their 40s and 50s. Normally for right-wing extremists, it’s two-thirds under the age of 34. Typically, only 10 percent have a college degree. Here, the Jan. 6 arrestees, 25 percent have a college degree, which is close to the national average of the U.S. electorate at 30 percent. About 15 percent of those on Jan. 6 had prior U.S. military service, but that compares with what we usually see in right-wing extremists at 40 percent. About 10 percent of the U.S. electorate has prior military service, so it’s a little higher than that, but much closer to the U.S. mainstream than to the usual right-wing extremists. What if we look at criminal history? Well, 30 percent of those arrested on Jan. 6 had prior criminal history, mostly for misdemeanors like marijuana charges, but with other right-wing extremists, it’s 64 percent have prior criminal history. The U.S. electorate overall has 20 percent with criminal history. When you look at this, it’s just one category after another after another that shouts out mainstream. The Jan. 6 insurrectionists really are best understood as a product of the mainstream. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/01/january-6-capitol-riot-arrests-research-profile.html

Trump cancels Jan. 6 event amid GOP complaints. Republican senators said the press conference wasn't a "good idea" hours before the former president canceled it. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/04/gop-trump-jan-6-speech-526487

Secret commandos with the authority to 'shoot-to-kill' were at the Capitol on January 6 under Trump's orders over fears of a terrorist attack or a plot to attack Pence or a member of Congress, report claims. Ex-Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, who ran Donald Trump's Justice Department at the time of the Capitol riot, reportedly acted alone in deciding to activate the elite units. FBI teams reportedly arrived on Capitol Hill early that day to collect evidence on explosives found near the Republican and Democrat national headquarters. The agency's snipers and other SWAT members provided cover to nearby Congressional buildings. And when violent Trump supporters breached the Capitol's parameters, members of the Hostage Rescue Team were among the first law enforcement officers in the building. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10365429/Secret-commandos-authority-shoot-kill-Capitol-January-6-Report.html

Ashli Babbitt a martyr? Her past tells a more complex story. The attack on Norris is an example of erratic and sometimes threatening behavior by Babbitt, who was shot by a police officer while at the vanguard of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Former President Donald Trump and his supporters have sought to portray her as a righteous martyr who was unjustly killed. In the months before her death, Babbitt had become consumed by pro-Trump conspiracy theories and posted angry screeds on social media. She also had a history of making violent threats. The Capitol Police officer who shot Babbitt, Lt. Michael Byrd, said in a televised interview in August that he fired as a “last resort.” When he pulled the trigger, he said, he had no idea whether the person jumping through the window was armed. https://apnews.com/article/ashli-babbitt-capitol-siege-a15c7e52a04d932972b7a284c7a8f7df

At time of Capitol prayer service Jan. 6, Trump will deliver remarks doubling down on the ‘Big Lie’. The riot at the Capitol briefly looked like it had broken Trump's hold on the GOP. Instead, he has reaffirmed his dominion over the party. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/02/trump-capitol-riot-aftermath-526277

Retired General Steven M. Anderson blasts Trump supporters in the military, calling them a 'threat from within' and advising them to stop listening to 'The Pillow Guy' Mike Lindell. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10361869/Retired-Gen-Steven-M-Anderson-blasts-Trump-supporters-military-calls-threat-within.html

Some Of The Biggest Lies Being Spread About The Jan. 6 Insurrection. The events from last Jan. 6 in Washington unfolded on live television but they've since been up for debate.

1. Claim: The Rioters Weren’t Trump Supporters
2. Claim: The Rioters Weren’t Violent
3. Claim: Trump Did Not Encourage The Rioters
4. Claim: Ashli Babbitt Was Killed By An Officer Working For Democrats
5. Claim: The Jan. 6 Suspects Are Political Prisoners And Are Being Mistreated

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ap-us-capitol-riot-misinformation-lies_n_61d05615e4b0bb04a6398a8f

Conspiracy theories paint fraudulent reality of Jan. 6 riot. Millions of Americans watched the events in Washington last Jan. 6 unfold on live television. Police officers testified to the violence and mayhem. Criminal proceedings in open court detailed what happened. Yet the hoaxes, conspiracy theories and attempts to rewrite history persist, muddying the public’s understanding of what actually occurred during the most sustained attack on the seat of American democracy since the War of 1812. By excusing former President Donald Trump of responsibility, minimizing the mob’s violence and casting the rioters as martyrs, falsehoods about the insurrection aim to deflect blame for Jan. 6 while sustaining Trump’s unfounded claims about the free and fair election in 2020 that he lost. Spread by politicians, broadcast by cable news pundits and amplified by social media, the falsehoods are a stark reminder of how many Americans may no longer trust their own institutions or their own eyes. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/conspiracy-theories-paint-fraudulent-reality-of-jan-6-riot

So You Admitted To Storming The Capitol. Now What? Judges are figuring out in real time what the consequences should be for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/capitol-riot-judges-accountability-trump-insurrection

Trump Adviser Peter Navarro Lays Out How He and Bannon Planned to Overturn Biden’s Electoral Win. A former Trump White House official says he and right-wing provocateur Steve Bannon were actually behind the last-ditch coordinated effort by rogue Republicans in Congress to halt certification of the 2020 election results and keep President Donald Trump in power earlier this year, in a plan dubbed the “Green Bay Sweep.” In his recently published memoir, Peter Navarro, then-President Donald Trump’s trade adviser, details how he stayed in close contact with Bannon as they put the Green Bay Sweep in motion with help from members of Congress loyal to the cause. But in an interview last week with The Daily Beast, Navarro shed additional light on his role in the operation and their coordination with politicians like Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-advisor-peter-navarro-lays-out-how-he-and-steve-bannon-planned-to-overturn-bidens-electoral-win

The clear and present danger of Trump's enduring 'Big Lie' https://www.npr.org/2021/12/23/1065277246/trump-big-lie-jan-6-election

Movie at the Ellipse: A Study in Fascist Propaganda. Scholars on the Nazis and anti-Semitism have seen this before. https://www.justsecurity.org/74504/movie-at-the-ellipse-a-study-in-fascist-propaganda/

New January 6 video shows three hours of violent and chaotic assault on police. The Justice Department this week released a three-hour video of a battle between rioters and the police at the US Capitol Building on January 6 where rioters brandished weapons, officers were viciously beaten, and a member of the mob died on Capitol steps. The assault on the Lower West Terrace was one of the most violent confrontations between Capitol Police and the crowd. Officers held the line until the building was cleared without letting rioters inside. Some officers have since said they did not know the Capitol had already been breached in other areas. The video, taken from a Capitol security camera, does not have sound. It starts as officers retreat, helping each other as they stumble inside and washing their eyes out with water from chemical spray. Rioters crowd in behind them, coordinate efforts to attack and push through in infamous moments that have haunted the public, and officers, ever since. The Justice Department released the videos after CNN and other outlets sued for access. It is the longest video from the riot released by the government thus far. https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/24/politics/january-6-video-capitol-hill-riot/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a3RGlu5yLs

People Got Sick at a Conspiracy Conference. They’re Sure It’s Anthrax. The fact that the conference was likely a COVID outbreak and superspreader event has been almost entirely ignored. This far-right conspiracy claim began after a dozen people spent time together in a confined space at the ReAwaken America tour event in Dallas over the weekend of Dec. 10. And the fact that this was likely a COVID outbreak and superspreader event has been almost entirely ignored. https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7wz5a/people-got-sick-at-a-conspiracy-conference-theyre-sure-its-anthrax

New York Man Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy and Obstruction Charges Related to Jan. 6 Capitol Breach. Wednesday, December 22, 2021 Defendant Planned Activities as Member of Proud Boys Chapter in Central New York. A New York man pleaded guilty today to crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, which disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress that was in the process of ascertaining and counting the electoral votes related to the presidential election. According to court documents, Matthew Greene, 34, of Syracuse, conspired with fellow members of the Proud Boys, a self-described “pro-Western fraternal organization for men who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world; aka Western Chauvinists.” Greene pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of obstruction of an official proceeding this afternoon in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Greene was arrested on April 21, 2021, following his indictment along with two other individuals in this case, Dominic Pezzola, 44, of Rochester, New York, and William Pepe, 32, of Beacon, New York; they have pleaded not guilty to charges. According to court documents, Greene officially joined the Central New York Proud Boys chapter in December 2020. In advance of Jan. 6, he and other members of the Proud Boys planned to come to Washington and coordinate their activities through various communication methods they had previously obtained, including programmable radios. On Jan. 6, they met up at the Washington Monument, intentionally dressed in clothing that concealed their membership as Proud Boys. Greene and other Proud Boys members then marched from the Washington Monument to the Capitol, where Greene witnessed the tearing down of barricades and advanced with others into the restricted area. Greene was among the first wave to cross a downed police line and advance into the West Plaza. He later advanced to a set of stairs that ran from the West Plaza to the Upper West Terrace. He witnessed rioters assault the police and overrun them. Greene followed others up the stairs moments after the police line was breached. Finally, after exiting the stairs, he participated with other rioters, including members of the Proud Boys, in moving additional police barricades. https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/new-york-man-pleads-guilty-conspiracy-and-obstruction-charges-related-jan-6-capitol

Syracuse Proud Boy pleads guilty to conspiracy, will cooperate with prosecutors. On Monday, 34-year-old Syracuse man and accused Proud Boy Matthew Greene pleaded guilty to conspiracy and obstruction of official proceedings for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol; Greene also said he will cooperate with federal prosecutors. https://cnycentral.com/news/local/syracuse-proud-boy-pleads-guilty-to-conspiracy-will-cooperate-with-prosecutors

What we've learned from the Meadows documents.

1. Waldron could help fill in the gaps. Subpoenaed this week was a man otherwise not on the radar of many: a retired U.S. Army colonel and distillery owner who helped distribute a PowerPoint on plans for Jan. 6 and who briefed lawmakers on the plans for the day. The committee on Thursday demanded testimony from Phil Waldron, who was among those present at the Willard Hotel “war room” for the Trump campaign and appeared to play a key role in pushing forward the strategy to contest the election.
2. Text messages show it was a two-way street. The committee this week also released numerous text messages sent to Meadows to suggest the plan laid out by the Trump campaign and those such as Eastman and Waldman not only resonated with Republicans but left them encouraging the White House to follow through. Numerous text messages sent to Meadows show ideas about how to block the election were flowing from Trump's inner circle to Capitol Hill and the GOP back to the White House as they mulled how to undermine Biden’s victory.
3. GOP publicly downplayed attack while privately panicking. For the better part of a year, prominent conservative allies have followed Trump’s lead and downplayed the violent rioters who attacked police officers with bear spray, flag poles and baseball bats. They’ve been described as “peaceful patriots,” normal tourists and victims. But as mayhem and violence erupted that January day, text messages show a trio of popular Fox News personalities, GOP lawmakers and even Donald Trump Jr. were frantically trying to reach the president — through Meadows — to have him stop the attack and send his supporters home.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/586389-what-weve-learned-from-the-meadows-documents

“He's got to condemn this shit ASAP,” the president’s eldest son texted Meadows as the attack unfolded on live TV. “It has gone too far and gotten out of hand.”

Meadows Jan. 5 email indicated Guard on standby to ‘protect pro Trump people,’ investigators say. The context for the message is unclear, but it comes amid scrutiny of the Guard’s slow response to the Jan. 6 violence at the Capitol. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/12/meadows-jan-6-national-guard-trump-524133

‘He’s got to condemn this …’: Panel releases urgent Jan. 6 texts from Donald Trump Jr., lawmakers and Fox hosts. House investigators held Mark Meadows in criminal contempt after releasing a trove of messages aimed at getting President Donald Trump to take stronger action amid the Capitol riot.

• “He’s got to condemn this [shit] Asap. The Capitol Police tweet is not enough,” Donald Trump Jr. texted, one of a series of messages Meadows provided to the Jan. 6 select committee investigating the former president’s effort to overturn the election.
• “Hey Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home … this is hurting all of us … he is destroying his legacy,” Laura Ingraham wrote.
• “Please get him on tv. Destroying everything you have accomplished,” Brian Kilmeade wrote.
• “Can he make a statement? … Ask people to leave the Capitol,” Sean Hannity urged.
• “The president needs to stop this ASAP,” an unnamed lawmaker texted Meadows on Jan. 6
• Another unidentified lawmaker told Meadows after the attack: “Yesterday was a terrible day. We tried everything we could in our objection to the 6 states. I’m sorry nothing worked.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/13/hes-got-to-condemn-this-shit-panel-releases-urgent-jan-6-texts-from-trump-jr-lawmakers-524188

Retired Army colonel circulated proposal to challenge the 2020 election. A retired U.S. Army colonel who circulated a proposal to challenge the 2020 election, including by declaring a national security emergency and seizing paper ballots, said that he visited the White House on multiple occasions after the election, spoke with President Donald Trump's chief of staff "maybe eight to 10 times" and briefed several members of Congress on the eve of the Jan. 6 riot. Philip Waldron, the retired colonel, was working with Trump's outside lawyers and was part of a team that briefed the lawmakers on a PowerPoint presentation detailing "Options for 6 JAN," Waldron told The Washington Post. He said his contribution to the presentation focused on his claims of foreign interference in the vote, as did his discussions with the White House. A version of the presentation made its way to the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, on Jan. 5. That information surfaced publicly this week after the congressional committee investigating the insurrection released a letter that said Meadows had turned the document over to the committee. "The presentation was that there was significant foreign interference in the election, here's the proof," Waldron said. "These are constitutional, legal, feasible, acceptable and suitable courses of action." Waldron, 57, who is based in Dripping Springs, Texas, told The Post that before the election, he started working with the Texas company Allied Security Operations Group (ASOG). Russell J. Ramsland Jr., ASOG's leader, was also photographed at the Willard in the days before the riot, and Eastman told The Post that he met Ramsland around that time. Over the previous two years, the firm promoted claims about the dangers of electronic voting to a procession of conservative lawmakers, activists and donors, The Post has reported. The Arizona graph appeared, with the same design, text and font, in a Dec. 1 affidavit from Ramsland that pro-Trump lawyerSidney Powell included as purported evidence of fraud in a lawsuit seeking to "decertify" Arizona's election results. Arizona Senate President Karen Fann consulted Waldron in deciding to hire the Florida firm Cyber Ninjas to conduct that review, according to text messages that the nonprofit American Oversight obtained through a public records request. Waldron was named in a 2020 state corporate filing as the chief executive of PointStream Inc. of Dripping Springs, which bills itself as a discreet cybersecurity firm. Specialties that PointStream touts on its website include "deep access to the Internet of Things, Social Media, and Dark Web," conducting untraceable "cyber lurking," and providing data sets "virtually unknown" to either private industry or the U.S. government. PointStream was awarded a little over $60,000 in federal contracting in 2018. Spending records show the award was for "highly adaptive cybersecurity services" for the Defense Department's U.S. Southern Command. Waldron also has worked as a firearms instructor and owns a distillery, according to a company website and a state corporate filing. https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2021-12-11/retired-army-colonel-circulated-proposal-challenge-2020-election-3936120.html

Donald Trump attempted to spin his inflammatory speech ahead of the Jan. 6 insurrection into something much more mellow and measured on Friday night. The former president, during an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, claimed the incendiary address that whipped his supporters up into storming the U.S. Capitol in a bid to overturn the 2020 election was “extremely calming.” “Honestly, I have nothing to hide,” Trump told Ingraham during a conversation about a federal appeals court’s refusal to let him block the release of records to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 violence. “I wasn’t involved in that,” Trump declared. “And if you look at my words and what I said in the speech, they were extremely calming, actually.” Instead, Trump claimed, the insurrection took place on Election Day, and the attack on the Capitol was just a protest. https://news.yahoo.com/donald-trump-defies-belief-spin-082555407.html

Kanye West publicist pressed Georgia election worker to confess to bogus fraud charges. Weeks after the 2020 election, a Chicago publicist for hip-hop artist Kanye West traveled to the suburban home of Ruby Freeman, a frightened Georgia election worker who was facing death threats after being falsely accused by former President Donald Trump of manipulating votes. The publicist knocked on the door and offered to help. The visitor, Trevian Kutti, gave her name but didn’t say she worked for West, a longtime billionaire friend of Trump. She said she was sent by a “high-profile individual,” whom she didn’t identify, to give Freeman an urgent message: confess to Trump’s voter-fraud allegations, or people would come to her home in 48 hours, and she’d go to jail. https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/kanye-west-publicist-pressed-georgia-election-worker-confess-bogus-fraud-charges-2021-12-10/

Trump’s White House Passed Around a PowerPoint on How to End American Democracy. Former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows handed over a trove of pre-Jan. 6 documentation. It’s damning stuff. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/mark-meadows-overturn-election-results-jan-6-committee-1269532/

'Absolute liars': Ex-D.C. Guard official says generals lied to Congress about Jan. 6. In a 36-page memo to the Capitol riot committee, Col. Earl Matthews also slams the Pentagon's inspector general for what he calls an error-ridden report. Matthews' memo, sent to the Jan. 6 select committee this month and obtained by POLITICO, includes detailed recollections of the insurrection response as it calls two Army generals — Gen. Charles Flynn, who served as deputy chief of staff for operations on Jan. 6, and Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt, the director of Army staff — “absolute and unmitigated liars” for their characterization of the events of that day. Matthews has never publicly discussed the chaos of the Capitol siege. Matthews' memo levels major accusations: that Flynn and Piatt lied to Congress about their response to pleas for the D.C. Guard to quickly be deployed on Jan. 6; that the Pentagon inspector general’s November report on Army leadership’s response to the attack was “replete with factual inaccuracies”; and that the Army has created its own closely held revisionist document about the Capitol riot that’s “worthy of the best Stalinist or North Korea propagandist.” https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/jan-6-generals-lied-ex-dc-guard-official-523777

‘Handful of fanatics’ to blame for Capitol riot, Trump ally Meadows says in book. Ex-chief of staff downplays Trump involvement in insurrection and says mob had ‘absolutely no urging’ from the president. Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows claims in his new book that a “handful of fanatics” is to blame for the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot, accusing Donald Trump’s critics of selectively focusing on what he described as a few bad apples. “No one would [focus] on the actions of… those supporters of President Trump who came [to Washington on January 6] without hate in their hearts or any bad intentions,” he writes in the upcoming book The Chief’s Chief, per The Guardian. “Instead, they would laser in on the actions of a handful of fanatics across town.” More than 700 people have so far been charged in connection with the attempted insurrection, which left five people dead. While Trump called on his supporters to “fight like hell” and “take back our country” just before the mob stormed the Capitol building, Meadows insisted that the rioters had “absolutely no urging from President Trump.” Meadows recently became the highest-ranking former White House official to cooperate with congressional investigators in a probe of the Jan. 6 attack. The move came after he faced the threat of a contempt of Congress charge for defying a subpoena. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/02/trump-capitol-attack-mark-meadows-memoir-book

New FBI video shows interrogation of Jan. 6th defendant accused of tasing officer. A federal judge ordered the release of the interrogation video of Jan. 6th defendant Danny Rodriguez accused of tasing Officer Fanone. Ryan Reilly joins Lawrence O’Donnell to discuss his behavior during his interrogation, including what Reilly describes as an “ongoing theme” in which these defendants espouse “machismo heated rhetoric” until they face consequences and “suddenly we see them break down and that veil falls.” https://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/new-fbi-video-shows-interrogation-of-jan-6th-defendant-accused-of-tasing-officer-127588421984

Trump fan accused of tasing police officer at Capitol riot cries and calls himself ‘piece of s***’ in FBI interview. Daniel Rodriguez told agents he was radicalised by InfoWars and online right-wing pundits and comedians. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/maga-daniel-rodriguez-capitol-riot-b1939984.html

Roger Stone, an ally of former President Donald Trump, claimed this week that former Trump aide Katrina Pierson was "deeply involved" with the violence of the January 6 attack targeting the U.S. Capitol. Posting to Telegram early Thursday morning, Stone appeared to suggest that Pierson deserved a great deal of blame for the pro-Trump attack against the legislative branch of government. Stone also seemed to be unaware that Pierson—like himself—has been subpoenaed by the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack. "Given what I know, I am perplexed as to why the January 6 committee has not issued a subpoena to Katrina Pierson, in other words, someone deeply involved in the violent and unlawful acts of January 6, rather than me, given that I was not there and have no advance knowledge or involvement whatsoever in the events at the Capitol That day #Jan6Cmte," Stone wrote in a message to his Telegram channel subscribers. Pierson served as a national spokesperson for Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. The longtime Trump ally was brought in to arrange with the White House who would share the stage with the then-president during the January 6 rally event just ahead of the Capitol attack. FEC records show that the Trump campaign paid Pierson $10,000 every two weeks for her work from September 2019 to December 2020, the Associated Press previously reported. Although Trump and his allies continue to claim that the November 2020 election was "rigged" or "stolen" in favor of Biden, they have not brought forward evidence substantiating this extraordinary allegation. Dozens of election challenge lawsuits have failed in state and federal courts. Even judges appointed by Trump and other Republicans have rejected the claims. Meanwhile, audits and recounts across the country have consistently reaffirmed Biden's victory. https://www.newsweek.com/roger-stone-claims-ex-trump-aide-katrina-pierson-deeply-involved-jan-6-violence-1653368

Texts Show Kimberly Guilfoyle Bragged About Raising Millions for Rally That Fueled Capitol Riot. Text messages reviewed by ProPublica represent the strongest indication yet that members of the Trump family inner circle were involved in financing and organizing the Jan. 6 “Save America” rally, which immediately preceded the Capitol riot. In a series of text messages sent on Jan. 4 to Katrina Pierson, the White House liaison to the event, Guilfoyle detailed her fundraising efforts and supported a push to get far-right speakers on the stage alongside Trump for the rally, which sought to overturn the election of President Joe Biden. A House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6 has subpoenaed more than 30 Trump allies for testimony and documents, including Pierson and Caroline Wren, a former deputy to Guilfoyle. But Guilfoyle herself has so far not received any official scrutiny from Congress. "Literally one of my donors Julie at 3 million,” she added. Guilfoyle was referring to Julie Jenkins Fancelli, a Publix supermarket heir who Guilfoyle had developed a professional relationship with during the campaign. Until now, Wren has been the only person identified as having worked with Fancelli. As ProPublica reported last month, Wren also boasted in private conversations with colleagues of raising $3 million for the events of Jan. 6. https://www.propublica.org/article/texts-show-kimberly-guilfoyle-bragged-about-raising-millions-for-rally-that-fueled-capitol-riot

Trump incited Insurrection January 06, 2021, Qanon, MAGA Zombies. archived November 18, 2021

WASHINGTON, Nov 17 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced the U.S. Capitol rioter nicknamed the "QAnon Shaman" for his horned headdress to 41 months in prison for his role in the deadly Jan. 6 attack by former President Donald Trump's followers. Prosecutors had asked U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth to impose a longer 51-month sentence on Jacob Chansley, who pleaded guilty in September to obstructing an official proceeding when he and thousands of others stormed the building in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's election. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-seeks-four-years-prison-capitol-rioter-qanon-shaman-2021-11-17/

Trump cannot shield White House records from Jan. 6 committee, judge rules. “Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President,” Judge Tanya Chutkan wrote. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/09/trump-executive-privilege-court-ruling-kings-520512

House Jan. 6 panel subpoenas 10 former White House aides. The 10 former officials who were subpoenaed Tuesday either could not be reached or did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The panel said Tuesday that it had issued subpoenas for Miller, who Thompson said had “participated in efforts to spread false information about alleged voter fraud” and McEnany, who the committee said was present at times with Trump as he watched the insurrection and spoke at a rally that morning. The panel is also demanding documents and testimony from Keith Kellogg, former Vice President Mike Pence’s national security adviser, writing in the subpoena that it wants to hear from him because “you were with President Trump as the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol unfolded and have direct information about the former president’s statements about, and reactions to, the Capitol insurrection.” His subpoena says that according to several accounts, Kellogg urged Trump to send out a tweet aimed at helping to control the crowd. Other former Trump White House aides subpoenaed Tuesday include personal assistant Nicholas Luna, who the panel said may have witnessed a phone call from Trump to Pence pressuring him not to certify Biden’s win; special assistant Molly Michael, who the committee said sent information about election fraud to “various individuals at the direction of President Trump”; deputy assistant Ben Williamson, a senior adviser to Meadows; deputy chief of staff Christopher Liddell, who was in the White House on Jan. 6 and considered resigning, according to reports; and personnel director John McEntee and special assistant Cassidy Hutchinson, who the committee said were also in the White House that day and at the rally. The panel also subpoenaed Justice Department official Kenneth Klukowski, who Thompson said communicated with former senior Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark about a letter Clark sent to Georgia election officials urging them to delay certification of the voting results in that state because of purported fraud. The letter said Clark and Klukowski spoke before a Jan. 3 meeting at the White House in which Trump contemplated replacing acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen with Clark. Rosen and other leaders at the department had pushed back on the false fraud claims. The committee has also subpoenaed Clark, who appeared for a deposition last week but declined to testify, partly based on Trump’s claims that documents the committee is trying to obtain from the National Archives are privileged. Trump has sued to shield the documents from the panel but Biden has so far said he will allow the release of most of them. On Monday, the panel issued subpoenas to Bill Stepien, manager of Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign; Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the campaign; Angela McCallum, national executive assistant to the campaign; John Eastman, a lawyer who advised the former president; Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser to Trump who talked with Trump ahead of the insurrection; and Bernard Kerik, who the committee says paid for hotel rooms that served as command centers ahead of Jan. 6. https://apnews.com/article/steve-bannon-joe-biden-donald-trump-stephen-miller-capitol-siege-cd795b70e428f2306e73ac23a7abe02e

Movie at the Ellipse: A Study in Fascist Propaganda. Scholars on the Nazis and anti-Semitism have seen this before. On January 6, Trump supporters gathered at a rally at Washington DC’s Ellipse Park, regaled by various figures from Trump world, including Donald Trump Jr. and Rudy Giuliani. Directly following Giuliani’s speech, the organizers played a video. To a scholar of fascist propaganda, well-versed in the history of the National Socialist’s pioneering use of videos in political propaganda, it was clear, watching it, what dangers it portended. In it, we see themes and tactics that history warns pose a violent threat to liberal democracy. Given the aims of fascist propaganda – to incite and mobilize – the events that followed were predictable. Before decoding what the video presents, it is important to take a step back and discuss the structure of fascist ideology and how it can mobilize its most strident supporters to take violent actions. https://www.justsecurity.org/74504/movie-at-the-ellipse-a-study-in-fascist-propaganda/

'Off the rails': New Tucker Carlson project for Fox embraces conspiracy theories. The network's top host is now leading them to an examination of the violent Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol in a three-part series called Patriot Purge, which was released this week on the network's right-wing streaming service Fox Nation. In the series, Carlson strongly suggests that the insurrection was not orchestrated by former President Donald Trump's fans but by his foes, including violent leftist antifa groups and even the FBI and other national security divisions. He plants the idea that the siege was a "false flag" operation to discredit Trump supporters. Carlson is promoting the series on his own prime-time show on Fox News — which is the top-rated program in all of cable news — and on the popular Fox & Friends morning show. "These kinds of conspiracy theories about Jan. 6 used to be relegated to weird blogs and known conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones," says Jared Holt, who monitors extremism on social media for the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab. https://www.npr.org/2021/11/03/1051607945/tucker-carlson-fox-news-insurrection-conspiracy-new-show

Key findings of The Post’s Jan. 6 investigation: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/jan-6-insurrection-capitol/#key-findings

CONTAGION: Threats and disinformation spread across the country in the wake of the Capitol siege, shaking the underpinnings of American democracy. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/what-happened-trump-jan-6-insurrection/

BLOODSHED: For 187 harrowing minutes, the president watched his supporters attack the Capitol — and resisted pleas to stop them. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/what-happened-trump-jan-6-insurrection/

RED FLAGS: As Trump propelled his supporters to Washington, law enforcement agencies failed to heed mounting warnings about violence on Jan. 6. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/what-happened-trump-jan-6-insurrection/

The FBI Received Highly Specific Tips About Violence Set for Jan. 6—But Declined to Act. A blockbuster new investigation by the Washington Post details previously unreported “red flags.” https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/10/washington-post-january-6-red-flag-warnings-fbi/

Lindsey Graham urged police to use their guns during the Capitol riot, report says. The Post described Graham as "irate that senators were forced to flee their own chamber." "He yelled at the Senate sergeant-at-arms. 'What are you doing? Take back the Senate! You've got guns. Use them,'" the report said, citing a Republican senator with knowledge of the exchange. The report said Graham repeated himself. "We give you guns for a reason," he said. "Use them." The report also said Graham and other Republican senators tried to contact President Donald Trump and urge him to call off his supporters. https://news.yahoo.com/lindsey-graham-urged-police-guns-110313579.html

WaPost won't publish full Trump response due to 'unrelated, inflammatory claims'. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/579355-washington-post-decides-not-to-publish-full-trump-response-to-series-due-to

On Oct. 31, The Washington Post published a three-part investigation that found that law enforcement officials failed to heed mounting red flags that there would be violence when Congress formalized the electoral college vote on Jan. 6. The project documented the consequences of President Donald Trump’s inaction during the Capitol siege and examined how his false claims of election fraud helped incite the attack and, in the ensuing months, fostered a deep distrust of the voting process across the country. The Post investigation was based on interviews with 230 people and thousands of pages of court documents and internal law enforcement reports, along with hundreds of videos, photographs and audio recordings. The Post provided Trump a list of 37 findings reported as part of its investigation. His spokesman Taylor Budowich provided a lengthy written response that included series of unrelated, inflammatory claims that The Post is not publishing in full. In response to the investigation’s findings, Budowich said that the former president “greatly objected” to all of them. He disputed The Post’s investigation as “fake news” and falsely cast people who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6 as “agitators not associated with President Trump.” The statement repeated Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was rigged. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/10/31/response-trump-jan-6-insurrection/

GOP candidate: Michael Flynn trying to run extortion plot on U.S. officials to reinstall Trump. Pennsylvania Senate candidate Everett Stern made the bombshell accusation in a press conference Saturday. Because of his intelligence background, Stern claims at least two people representing a Flynn-linked group called "Patriot Caucus" approached him earlier this year after a speech with an offer to hire his firm to gather "dirt" on officials and recruit others to assist in the plot. At one point, one of the men allegedly told Stern that they had retained the services of active intelligence officials "both domestic and foreign." https://www.salon.com/2021/10/31/candidate-michael-flynn-trying-to-run-extortion-scheme-on-us-officials-to-reinstall/

‘A roadmap for a coup’: inside Trump’s plot to steal the presidency. A startling memo, a surreal Oval Office encounter – just some of the twists in the unfolding story of Trump’s bid to cling to power, which critics say was no less than an attempted coup. The 2020 presidential election was the largest in US history, with a record 156 million votes cast and the highest turnout of eligible voters since 1900. By all official accounts, it was also among the most secure and well-conducted in US history. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/30/trump-2020-election-steal-presidency-coup-inside-story

EXCLUSIVE: Jan. 6 Protest Organizers Say They Participated in ‘Dozens’ of Planning Meetings With Members of Congress and White House Staff. Two sources are communicating with House investigators and detailed a stunning series of allegations to Rolling Stone, including a promise of a “blanket pardon” from the Oval Office.