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whispering-clan · 4 months

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The Costal Valley Territories

I made a map of the Whisper-verse clan's territories!

These clans live alongside the sea in a small valley split by a river!

Note: this map is more representative than entirely accurate, I just tried to show the basic idea of what the territories look like.

Descriptions of the Clan Territories below!

Moon Island:

Moon Island is both the gathering place for the clans on the full moon, and the place where the majority of the clans (excluding Whisperingclan) go to speak to Starclan. In the middle of the island where the trees form a circle around a large stone, the leaders will perch for meetings. This is also where cats wishing to speak to Starclan sit- under the light of the moon and stars.

...

Whisperingclan:

Age/origin: Youngest clan; formed after the founders were banished from Roaringclan for a coup against the new leader.

Territory: the tallest mountains, rocky, though with some trees, grass and bushes interspersed with the stone. There are a few small creeks and pools running through the mountains due to rain and snow run off, there are also several caves within the mountain. The winter is the worst here with the high altitude and high snowfall.

Camp: the Whispering Cave, a large cave filed with mystical glowing crystals which seem to whisper with the words of the Starclan ancestors. There are several pools above the cave, from which small streams of water fall through cracks in the stone into the cave.

Borders: the River marks the border with Roaringclan and SIngingclan; the border with Growlingclan is only marked with scent markers, though the change in territories can also be seen in the mountain peaks becoming lower and sharper in Growling territory.

...

Roaringclan:

Age/Origin: One of the oldest clans, formed at the same time as Singingclan and Echoingclan; territory was once larger, but was taken over by humans.

Territory: grassy, hilly, plains. Notable features are small patches of trees and bushes, a lake, a muddy/ soil patch by the river, and many little burrows to be found amongst the hills.

Camp: the Abandoned Burrows, a circle of empty fox burrows surrounded by trees and bushes.

Borders: the River marks the border with Whisperingclan; the creek marks the borders of Singingclan and Weepingclan; and on all other sides a human fence marks where their territory ends and the Human Farms begin.

...

Weepingclan:

Age/Origin: Second youngest, though still far older than Whisperingclan; formed from Singingclan separating into two clans, not from any all out fighting, but the realization that there were two obvious separate groups (in skill and personality) in the clan that could survive better in the separate territories.

Territory: marsh lands and dark forests made up of willows and oaks. The forests have soft thick wet peat, though there are some rocky places. Tall grasses and reeds grow around the marsh giving good cover.

Camp: The Weeping Grotto, a large cave opening within a rocky area of the forest of which is surrounded by the largest and oldest weeping willows of the territory.

Borders: the border with Roaringclan is marked by the creek; the border with Singingclan is marked by scent markers, though the change in territories can also be seen in the change in types of trees; the small piece of border with Echoingclan is separated by the river at it's widest, though both clans lay claim to half of the row of stepping stones which could connect the territories; the border which is not shared with any clan stops where human trails (hiking trails) begin, farther from there are human dens and farms.

...

Singingclan:

Age/Origin: One of the oldest clans, formed at the same time as Roaringclan and Echoingclan; originally encompassed Weepingclan as well, but they amicably separated into two clans for better survival.

Territory: forests made of oak and birch along with meadows filled with wildflowers and grasses. Through the center of the territory runs the River and a small creek shoots off through the territory as well. the river is banked by reeds and other water plants.

Camp: the River Hollow, a space surrounded by trees in the center of the island in the middle of the River within their territory.

Borders: the border with Roaringclan is marked by the creek; the border with Whispering and Growlingclan is marked by the River; the border with Weepingclan is marked by scent markers, though the change in territories can also be seen in the change of types of trees; and the border with Echoingclan is marked with scent markers, though it is easy to tell where it is, it is where the sand begins.

...

Echoingclan:

Age/Origin: One of the oldest clans, formed at the same time as Roaringclan and Singingclan; originally encompassed Growlingclan as well, though unlike Weeping and Singing, the separation was born from civil war, the losing side being Growlingclan.

Territory: a beach, almost entirely sand with only costal plants growing in the territory. There is a cliff line which is made up of rock, at the higher end of which the beach is mostly rock with tide pools, weathered stone arches, and the opening to a system of sea caves. This territory seems small, but the sea caves stretch out underneath for large expanses, and even under Growlingclan's territory, Echoingclan lays claim to all of the cave system even under other clan's terriotories.

Camp: the Sea Caves, mostly the large cavern formed at the front opening of the Sea Caves but some cats may even make their own dens in smaller off shoots of the caves as well.

Borders: most of their borders are at the sea's edge, though their borders with the other clans are marked with scent markers; it is easy to tell where territories end however. the border with Singingclan is where Singing's grass begins, and the border with Growlingclan is where the mountain's stone begins.

...

Growlingclan:

Age/Origin: Third youngest, though still far older than Whisperingclan; formed from Echoingclan separating into two clans, two factions in the clan had formed and went into a civil war, Echoing won and banished the losing side to the far less hospitable side of the territory.

Territory: Truly one of the harshest territories, the lower levels of the mountains, rocky sharp lands that end with cliffs along the sea shore that are too high to dare try to reach the sea. There are small groups of shrubs and small trees, but little else in the form of plant life. there are some small pools which are cherished as they are the only certain sources of water.

Camp: the Broken Crag, a cliff face which is broken in places revealing small caves where cats can make dens.

Borders: the border with Whisperingclan is marked with scent markers though the change in territories can also be seen through the mountain peaks becoming higher in Whispering territory; the small border with Singingclan is marked with the river; the border with Echoingclan is marked with scent markers though it is easy to tell where the border is, it is where the sand begins.

#this was fun to make #I love world building :3 #whisperingclan #cryptid plays clangen #clangen #warrior cats #my ocs #warriors #ocs #singingclan #roaringclan #echoingclan #weepingclan #growlingclan #the other clans

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malspinningyarns · 2 years

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I know we are still freaking out about SCOTUS and Roe, but there was also a surprise January 6th Committee Hearing Today!

Their witness was Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’s executive assistant Cassidy Hutchinson and, whew boy, was information dropped.

Here are some tweets:

(I’d greatly appreciate if someone could write out these Tweets bc I’m on mobile)

Basically the rundown:

Trump knew people with weapons were at the Capitol on Jan 6th

CoS Meadows also knew there were armed people and did not look up from his phone when an alarmed Hutchinson told him what was happening

He also shut the car door on her 2X when she tried to give him security updates during the rally at the Eclipse over a period of at least 25 minutes

Trump was mad that his crowd size wasn’t big enough for the rally photo op because security wouldn’t let people with weapons through and people didn’t want their weapons to be confiscated. Trump wanted the MAGS to be taken down because he knew “the people weren’t there to hurt [him]”

The non-Rudy lawyers practically begged Hutchinson not to let Trump join the riot at the Capitol because they could get in trouble for multiple crimes.

When Trump was told in the car by security that they were not going to the Capitol, but were going back to the White House, Trump first tried to take the wheel of the car and then TRIED TO CHOKE HIS HEAD OF SECURITY WHO WAS TRYING TO STOP HIM

Back at the WH, 45 threw a hissy fit that included throwing his lunch at the wall. Apparently, this was a continuous behavior of his

Trump agreed with the rioters call to hang Mike Pence and that they “were not doing anything wrong”

Multiple lawyers, Congress people, FOX News hosts, Ivanka, Don Jr tried to get Meadows to get Trump to do something but Meadows said that Trump “didn’t want to see anyone”

Only the threat of cabinet members invoking the 25th amendment made him agree to tweet out the video telling rioters to go home and that “we love you”

During the Jan 7th statement, Trump wanted to pardon the rioters but WH lawyers said “absolutely not”

A lot of people in Trumpworld pleaded the 5th for every single question they were asked, including General Flynn when asked if he believed in the peaceful transfer of power

The committee ended the hearing with depositions from people they interviewed, basically saying they’ve been threatened by people in Trumpworld to not say anything, which is witness tampering

It was wild.

#scotus #congress #us congress #january 6th #january 6th committee #politics #us politics #treason #congressional hearing #twitter

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tomorrowusa · 4 months

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youtube

Today is January 1st. There are just 309 days until Election Day.

We can't rely on a clever legal gimmick or some preternatural force to prevent a Trump victory. We have to do it ourselves with our organizing and our votes.

Three young women who worked in the Trump White House had a conversation with ABC's Jonathan Karl before the end of 2023. Sarah Matthews, Cassidy Hutchinson, and Alyssa Farah Griffin went on to testify before the House January 6th Committee. The trio said that a second Trump term would be even worse than the first.

Former aides warn of 'running out of time' to prevent Trump re-election

All three gave testimony to the US House committee investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat as well as the 6 January 6 Capitol attack staged by his supporters. And they warned in an unprecedented television interview on Sunday that time was short to prevent a second Trump administration in which they insist his behavior would be much worse. “People in general have short memories, and might forget the chaos of the Trump years,” Sarah Matthews, a former deputy White House press secretary who resigned on the day of the deadly Capitol riot, said on ABC’s This Week. “They also might not just be paying attention to what he’s saying now – and the threat to democracy that exists. It does really concern me if he makes it to the general [election] that he could win. I’m still hopeful that we can defeat him in the primaries, but we’re running out of time.” [ ... ] Hutchinson, ex-aide to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, said voters needed to believe Trump when he said he would be a dictator on his first day back in the White House. “The fact that he feels that he needs to lean into being a dictator alone shows that he is a weak and feeble man,” she said. Matthews, meanwhile, said Trump had already signaled what his second administration would look like. “We don’t need to speculate because we already saw it play out,” she said.

The three former staffers know that Trump's dictator and vermin rantings are not just talk. Sarah Matthews, Cassidy Hutchinson, and Alyssa Farah Griffin should be taken more seriously than some blowhard on Fox News who's attempting to dismiss Trump's Hitlerian references.

#donald trump #far right #january 6th #sarah matthews #cassidy hutchinson #alyssa farah griffin #jonathan karl #trump is “a weak and feeble man”#the danger of a trump second term #republicans #election 2024

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 1 month

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Mike Luckovich

* * * *

House Oversight Committee Impeachment hearing produces damning evidence—against Donald Trump.

It is difficult to describe how badly the House impeachment hearing went for Republicans on Wednesday. Republicans produced two witnesses who were supposed to damage President Biden. But the witnesses were jokes. The first—Tony Bobulinksi—famously met with Mark Meadows “under the bleachers” at a Trump rally while wearing a ski mask. Who among us hasn’t done the same thing when chatting about innocent matters? The second witness testified from prison, where he is serving time for looting the retirement funds of a tribal entity of the Oglala Lakota Nation.

Both witnesses testified to brief meetings where Joe Biden talked about their families and backgrounds. Neither testified that Joe Biden—then a private citizen—was involved in any business dealings with Hunter Biden. And that was the highlight of the day for Republicans.

Then Lev Parnas testified. If you don’t remember Lev Parnas, he is a Ukrainian American businessman tasked by Rudy Giuliani to “find dirt” on Joe Biden.

Parnas’s testimony was devastating. See CNN, Lev Parnas, ex-Giuliani associate, testified allegations against Bidens are false and 'spread by the Kremlin'

CNN described Parnas’s testimony as follows:

“The American people have been lied to, by Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and various cohorts of individuals in government and media positions. They created falsehoods to serve their own interests knowing it would undermine the strength of our nation." “Congressman Pete Sessions [and] Senator Ron Johnson and many others understood they were pushing a false narrative. The same goes for John Solomon, Sean Hannity and media personnel, particularly with Fox News, who use this narrative to manipulate the public ahead of the 2020 elections. Sadly, they are still doing this today as we approach the 2024 elections.” Parnas maintained during the hearing that there was no evidence of Biden family corruption involving Ukraine and that the baseless accusations against the president came from the Russian government.

"The only information ever pushed on the Bidens and Ukraine has come from one source and one source only: Russia and Russian agents.”

So, the guy who was hired to find dirt on Joe Biden anywhere in the world testified that there was none to be found—and that the false allegations came from Russian agents.

At this point, efforts by House Republicans to repeat the false allegations spread by Russian agents should be seen as promoting counter-intelligence and election interference efforts against the US.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

#Robert B. Hubbell #Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter #Russian propaganda #Russian election interference #Right wing undermining our country #flood the zone #right wing media #Mike Luckovich

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longwindedbore · 6 months

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EVIDENCE

Why Trump is visibly angry and Biden is relaxed.

Courtrooms, like Scientific Laboratories, are set up for Evidence to Triumph over Bullshit.

The evidence in courtrooms is undercutting Trump’s endless spewing of self-aggrandizing bullshit.

Evidence in last year’s tax fraud case (guilty!) this year’s Summary Judgment (liable for fraud).

Trump’s produced no evidence in his Stolen election claim while Fox loses the election defamation case in court $750 Millions) and is facing another ($2 billions+). Giuliani loses his defamation case in Court while producing NO evidence. A chorus of election deniers plead guilty to fraud and become witnesses against Trump, Giuliani, Fox, etc.

Trump is being joined by GOP members of Congress who also sh*tting their pants/panties/adult diapers because Jack Smith has their J6 texts off of Mark Meadows phone.

Mark Measows phone has the kind of evidence Trump and the GOP wishes was on the Hunter Biden laptop the Giuliani ‘found’.

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ohraicodoll · 1 year

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Figment | Chapter 1

Chapters: 1/7 Fandom: The Sandman (Comics & TV 2022) Rating: Mature Relationships: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus/Original Female Character, Dream/Reader Characters: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Original Female Characters, Matthew the Raven, Lucienne Additional Tags: Mix of TV Dream and Comic Dream, Spice a little later, kinda enemies to lovers, Cause Dream likes when people backtalk to him, lots and lots of tension Summary: She had only been able to enter other's dreams two years ago, but she knew the rules.

Don't interfere with the dream. Don't create anything in another's dream. Don't destroy anything in another's dream.

Chapter 1

When I was little, my grandmother used to tell me that our family had a gift. That we could visit other worlds when we slept, we only had to imagine a door and walk through it. But we had to keep it a secret lest we attract the wrong sort of attention. That the Lord of Dreams didn’t take kindly to little girls who did whatever they wanted in his realm.

My mother would roll her eyes and mutter about bedtime stories and how she was told the same thing when she was a girl. “You better behave or else the boogeyman will get you,” and all that nonsense. She was an insomniac and so was I. There were no worlds when we slept, no doors, so we marked it down as just a way grandma would try to coax children into sleep and behave.

Two years ago, I finally started getting rest in what felt like the first time in my entire life. I chalked it up to a new medication I’d been switched to, but I felt wonderful. Vibrant, almost. As if someone had lifted a filter off my life and the world was filled with sharp colors again.

And then I started to dream consistently. It wasn’t like I couldn’t before, but they were frenetic, blurry, dark things. They never made sense. Now it was almost like stepping into a play, the people around me acting their parts and my surroundings changing in a whirl of backdrops and set pieces. Except I was aware. Really aware, not like I was asleep, but wide awake and able to comprehend everything.

It felt like when I would sleep, I would leave my world and awaken in another. Because even when I would wake up, I would never forget.

Our family had a gift. And when I finally bit my lip, unsure but curious, and imagined a doorway? It appeared.

I stepped through and my own dream fell away, changing into a whole new scene. Clarice, my downstairs neighbor, was dressed in an outfit straight from a Ren-faire, chattering fox at her side. We stood in a dewy meadow, twinkling lights suspended in the air and little gnomes walking around and working. I blinked and when I looked behind me, the door was gone.

And so that’s how it went. I didn’t dream every night but when I did, I was able to leave my own dreams and visit others. I even learned how to wake myself up instantly if I walked into someone’s nightmare. Above all, I remembered what my grandmother told me. Don’t attract attention, don’t mess with things, lest the Dreamlord finds you. That part I wasn’t sure about, but so far she’d been right and I wasn’t risking it.

I drank tea with a large gargoyle and the little girl down the street, all of us wearing feather boas. I ate popcorn and listened as the mailman showed and explained a movie he was creating on an old film projector, images burning into the film as he told it. I picked out books from a whole, never-ending library, titles I knew didn’t exist, and read while a guy with a pumpkin head grumbled about construction and moved shelves around by himself. I even swam with reverse mermaids (human bodies with giant fish heads) and watched as the front clerk of my apartment tested out a submarine he built himself.

It was magic.

During the day, I was a normal boring data entry clerk, working at a big book publisher, going out in the evening with her boyfriend, scribbling the things she saw in a journal to maybe one day turn into….something. A book? A poem? Who knows. At night I walked between dreams, watching the people I’d met in the mundane world live out extraordinary adventures and scenarios. That was the exciting part, the part I enjoyed. I felt more alive then than when I was awake.

I think that was the problem. The dream world was so exciting and the real world was just so…dull. It started to get harder to wake up, to find excitement in everyday life where you had to make money and have a job and keep up with the mundane tasks of life.

Maybe it was my fault then. I hadn’t been a very good girlfriend and I knew whatever brief spark Thomas and I had had was fading. Or faded. We’d been together for over a year but it felt so…routine. Dinner on Fridays, bar on Saturday, switching every other night at each other’s house. It had sort of faded away into background noise. I couldn’t explain that I was able to explore people’s dreams. It was a part I had to keep locked away, but it was such a large part of me now.

He called it. Sort of. Not really, but his actions did. He called it by sleeping with someone else in my apartment, in my bed. My neighbor (Jeanette, not Clarice from downstairs) was mid-climax when I walked in.

I wanted to vomit right on the carpet, but the whole situation felt so far away. Maybe I was disassociating? Or it was shock. His frantic curses and the sound of explanations echoed in the back of my head, distant and muffled. I don’t remember saying anything, reacting really. I shrugged off cajoling hands and ran into the bathroom, locking myself in there and ignoring Thomas’ pleas to talk. The “Baby, this didn’t mean anything” and “You’ve just been so distant” echoed around me.

I’m not sure how long I stayed there. Hours, maybe. But when it was finally quiet and I couldn’t hear any rustling, I left the bathroom and he was gone. The bed was still rumpled, sheets spilling onto the floor and lamp tipped over. I wanted to set the whole thing on fire.

Finally, the small burning of emotion rose. The numbness was beginning to fade. How dare him. How dare him! In my fucking bed?

I ignored my phone as another text came through, going straight for the kitchen cabinets. My hands shook with barely contained anger, tears streaming down my face as I stabbed the corkscrew into the top of a wine bottle. I didn’t want to feel this. Sure, I wasn’t crazy about Thomas and wasn’t even sure if I loved him, but that fucker still had the utter audacity to fuck another woman in my bed?

My hands reached for a wine glass, paused, and then angrily grasped the wine bottle by the neck as I began to chug straight from it. I wasn’t a big drinker, didn’t really like it, but Thomas liked to go out with his buddies and I liked people watching to see if I would be able to walk into any of the other patrons' dreams that night. Alcohol made it more difficult to be careful in the dream world and made it easier to slip into a nightmare by accident, but I didn’t care. I was exhausted and wanted to turn my brain off. I wanted to sleep and escape reality and the fucked up mess of my life.

And when the first bottle didn’t work fast enough, I started on the second. But as the fogginess of sleep hit me while laying on the couch, I knew I had definitely overdid it. The alcohol hit my bloodstream late and I was way more drunk than I intended as I slipped into the world of dreams.

I was in a garden at night. A fountain flowed in the middle, the flowers chatting with one another, and the frogs sang jazz instead of croaking. The fountain was flowing in the opposite direction, the water going from the pool up into the spout. Everything was slightly discolored and misshapen. Oh, I’d definitely drank too much.

Groaning, I debated plopping my butt down on the soft grass and staying safely in my own dream for once. I could relax here, listen to the frogs, wait for the alcohol to burn off and for my emotions to calm down. But as the floor shifted unevenly beneath my feet, I looked to the right at the door that had appeared nestled amongst the trees.

And I said fuck it, almost as if I knew what would be on the other side.

That can happen sometimes. Thinking about a person too much can make that door take you straight to them. I knew better, but I could feel the echoes of opening up a very similar door earlier and that made the anger run fresh.

It was the bar we went to on Saturdays. The lights were dim and there was that slight smell of old spilled beer, but the place was practically empty. Practically. Except for the two people at the bar, a robot bartender cleaning a glass in front of them. The sticky wood boards creaked under my feet as I watched Thomas flirt with a literal faceless blonde, her mannerisms mirroring laughing but no sound coming out as he continued to brag about something.

His hand caressed her bare knee and my fists clenched as I watched. The anger was white hot, coursing through me like lava and smoke and the sharp edge of glass. I wanted to slap his hand away and shove him off his chair. I wanted to scream in his face, the opposite of what I did in reality. Scream how he was a self-absorbed piece of shit, a mediocre person whose idea of fun was dick measuring at a bar with his old college friends who hated him. I wanted to throw all that anger I hadn’t felt earlier, was too numb to feel properly, at him now where I felt a tiny semblance of control.

My hand grabbed an empty glass from the bar before I could think and I threw it, watching it shatter against the wall and fall to the ground in a sprinkling of glass and stars. Thomas jumped and turned around and the faceless woman turned as if to look at me if she had eyes. I froze, the alcohol slowing down my thoughts as I stared down at my empty hand. I threw it. I broke something in someone else’s dream. I broke a rule.

“Babe, hey-” Thomas stuttered, stumbling to stand up with a look of surprise and confusion. Adrenaline coursed through me and before I could think, I grabbed an empty beer bottle and threw it as well. The shattering satisfied something deep inside of me. Fuck him. Fuck everything.

Thomas jumped as I continued to grab things and threw them crashing to the ground, a rush of release and rage and joy flooding me. “You are such a selfish,” crash, “disgusting,” shatter, “piece of shit and I hope, “a bar stool toppled, “that getting your dick sucked off was worth it all.”

I couldn’t stop. Not even as the faceless blonde rushed out or the robot bartender got a broom out and attempted to pointlessly clean up the mess. Thomas cringed and shielded himself as glass shattered around us, my hands grabbing whatever I could find to break. A part of me knew this was not what I should be doing. Don’t create or destroy in someone else’s dream, don’t disturb the dreamer, don’t cause a scene. But I was so angry. Not even fully at him, just in general. Angry that I had let this shit-head stay in my life so long, that he had cheated in my home, that in my waking mundane life this was the grand adventure I had to deal with.

I was breathing hard and may have been crying but it was hard to tell. Thomas was backed into a wall, cringing away from me and arms raised to protect himself from the damage. I stared down at my shaking hands, at the floor that was wavy and pulsing like the waves, and looked up to survey the damage only to freeze.

There was a man sitting in the far corner of the bar, half hidden in the shadows.

I couldn’t see his face, but I could feel him there like an ominous cloud rolling in from the ocean. Foretelling a storm. He was decked in black, from what I could see, with a long peacoat hanging to the floor, legs stretched out from under the small bar table and fingers like alabaster thrumming slowly across the tabletop. His posture gave off the fake perception of lounging, relaxation, but I knew better. Each thrum of his fingers was like a war drum. From the shadows masking his face, I could feel his eyes on me like flames licking at my skin. I could almost see twin stars peering out from the darkness, setting me on fire.

I broke the rules. I broke the rules.

My heart leapt in my throat, limbs frozen like a deer staring into the blinding light of a coming car. Panicked, I quickly mumbled under my breath.

“Wake up.”

And then I was jolting awake, the command throwing me startling into the waking world. The darkness of my apartment met me and the voices from the tv I had left on when I passed out on the couch pierced the fog in my ears. My heart was thrumming and even with the brain-jarring migraine coming on from the early onset of a hangover, I could vividly remember the man with the star-like eyes staring straight at me.

Don’t attract the wrong sort of attention.

The Lord of Dreams doesn’t take kindly to little girls who did whatever they want in his realm.

That couldn’t have been him. No, that was just from the stories, right? I hadn’t ever come across anything about an actual Dreamlord in the two years since I started exploring the dream world, but then again I had been trying to be careful. But grandmother had been right about everything else so who's to say there wasn’t an actual Lord of Dreams. And if so, I most certainly had attracted his attention.

I groaned and fell back into the couch cushions, knowing there wasn’t going to be any way I’d risk going back to sleep. Sighing, I grabbed my phone and blinked at the dozens of missed calls and texts from Thomas. The alcohol was fading and despite the panic I felt at getting caught, I did feel slightly better after breaking everything.

With a few taps of my fingers, I blocked Thomas’ number and deleted everything off social media. A year of smiling photos (half-hearted smiles on my part), gone and dust in the wake. He was a mistake, something to fill the void and time and stave off the numbness of a normal life after being able to escape to an actual dream world. That was the downside to my nighttime adventures. It was hard to be excited about the real world.

I sighed and pushed myself up. No time like the present to start gathering all his junk to leave it in the hallway.

Either he or the garbage men could gather it in the morning.

#the sandman fic #the sandman fanfiction #the sandman fanfic #fic: figment #series: fragments #the sandman #sandman #dream of the endless #dream x ofc #dream x fem!reader #dream x reader

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 1 year

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White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows exchanged text messages with at least 34 Republican members of Congress as they plotted to overturn President Trump’s loss in the 2020 election.

Those messages are being fully, publicly documented here for the first time.

The texts are part of a trove Meadows turned over to the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack that was obtained by TPM. For more information about the story behind the text log and our procedures for publishing the messages, read the introduction to this series. Meadows’ exchanges shed new light on the extent of congressional involvement in Trump’s efforts to spread baseless conspiracy theories about his defeat and his attempts to reverse it. The messages document the role members played in the campaign to subvert the election as it was conceived, built, and reached its violent climax on Jan. 6, 2021. The texts are rife with links to far-right websites, questionable legal theories, violent rhetoric, and advocacy for authoritarian power grabs.

One message identified as coming from Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) to Meadows on January 17, 2021, three days before Joe Biden was set to take office, is a raw distillation of the various themes in the congressional correspondence. In the text, despite a typo, Norman seemed to be proposing a dramatic last ditch plan: having Trump impose martial law during his final hours in office.

"Mark, in seeing what's happening so quickly, and reading about the Dominion law suits attempting to stop any meaningful investigation we are at a point of no return in saving our Republic !! Our LAST HOPE is invoking Marshall Law! PLEASE URGE TO PRESIDENT TO DO SO!!" - Rep. Ralph Norman

The text, which has not previously been reported, is a particularly vivid example of how congressional opposition to Biden’s election was underpinned by paranoid and debunked conspiracy theories like those about Dominion voting machines. Norman’s text also showed the potentially violent lengths to which some congressional Republicans were willing to go in order to keep Trump in power. The log Meadows provided to the Select Committee does not include a response to Norman’s message.

Reached via cell phone on Monday morning, Norman asked TPM for a chance to review his messages before commenting.

“It’s been two years,” Norman said. “Send that text to me and I’ll take a look at it.”

TPM forwarded Norman a copy of the message calling for “Marshall Law!!” We did not receive any further response from the congressman.

Based on TPM’s analysis, Meadows received at least 364 messages from Republican members of Congress who discussed attempts to reverse the election results with him. He sent at least 95 messages of his own. The Committee did not respond to requests for comment. Some of Meadows’ texts — notably with Fox News personalities and a couple members of Congress — have already been made public by the Committee, media outlets, and in the book “The Breach.” However, the full scope of his engagement with congressional Republicans as they worked to overturn the election has not previously been revealed.

Meadows’ text log shows what the scheme to reverse the election results looked like behind the scenes, revealing new details about which members of Congress helped spearhead the efforts and the strategies they deployed. The members who messaged Meadows about challenging the election included some of the highest-profile figures on the right flank in Congress, such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), all of whom are identified as playing leading roles in the effort to undo Trump’s defeat.

One message that was dated Dec. 30, 2020 and was identified as coming from Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller described Brooks as a “ringleader” of the effort to block the electoral certification.

Miller declined to comment on this story. Brooks, who spoke with TPM on Monday morning, agreed that he played a leading part in the objection. The congressman, who is set to leave office when the next term begins on Jan. 3, 2023, suggested his case for objecting to the election result was based on a bipartisan 2005 report co-authored by former President Jimmy Carter and James Baker III, who served in multiple Republican administrations.

“There are a number of different people who took leadership roles,” Brooks said of the election challenge, adding, “I was certainly the leader with respect to the arguments that centered on arguments related to the 2005 report and on non-citizen voting.”

While the Carter-Baker report identified risks for “potential fraud” and instances where there was some malfeasance, it also concluded that “there is no evidence of extensive fraud in U.S. election.” Nevertheless, the document has since been exaggerated and mischaracterized by Trump and others to justify election-related conspiracy theories. Nevertheless, Brooks argued the Carter-Baker report and other prior studies showed “massive voter fraud” and suggested anyone who was not familiar with the reasoning behind those conclusions was unqualified to discuss American elections.

“That’s like claiming you’re a Christian but you don’t read the Bible,” Brooks said.

When pressed on conclusions from experts and from Trump-appointed officials that there was no significant fraud in the 2020 election, Brooks hung up the phone.

Based on the log, some of the election objectors saw themselves as participating in an epic battle. Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) sent at least 21 messages to Meadows and received at least four responses. On November 6, he dramatically urged Meadows to refuse to give up.

"Mark, When we lose Trump we lose our Republic. Fight like hell and find a way. We're with you down here in Texas and refuse to live under a corrupt Marxist dictatorship. Liberty! Babin" - Rep. Brian Babin

Babin and his office did not respond to requests for comment.

Meadows’ messages also provide an indication of the support the election objection received from right-wing dark money groups. The text log shows how the Republican efforts to fight the electoral certification at the Capitol became more organized and gained steam in the days after Biden’s victory. On Nov. 9, Edward Corrigan, the president and CEO of the Conservative Partnership Institute, wrote Meadows to say Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) would be holding a meeting about legal strategies with his colleagues at the organization’s Capitol Hill townhouse.

“Mike Lee has about a dozen Senators coming over to CPI tonight and they wanted to hear from a legal expert on what’s going on with the campaign,” Corrigan wrote. “Any suggestions who would be good for that?”

CPI, which would go on to employ Meadows after Trump left office, is a dark money group that has been described by NPR as “among the most powerful messaging forces in the MAGA universe.” It hosted meetings for the far-right House Freedom Caucus and, according to Meadows’ log, served as something of a headquarters for members of Congress working to overturn the election. Corrigan did not respond to a request for comment.

In addition to Lee’s meeting, Babin sent a text to Meadows in late December 2020 describing plans for an “objector meeting” at CPI. Babin was apparently concerned other members of Congress could try to thwart the efforts to object to the electoral certification and seemingly hoped former Vice President Mike Pence — who Trump and many of his allies felt had the power to certify alternate slates of pro-Trump electors — was on their side.

"Mark, Looks like objectors will be meeting this Saturday, 6pm at the CPI facility. We would like to have you there. B PS. Probably need to keep our ears open to any machinations by Senate Dems and Republicans who want to change rules. Would you reach out to the VP and see if he will help prevent that?" - Rep. Brian Babin

Many of the Republican efforts to overturn the election played out in the public eye. During the period between the election and Jan. 6, multiple Republican members of Congress participated in rallies where they amplified violent rhetoric and spread false claims of fraud to question the results. The attack on the Capitol interrupted the electoral certification, but it continued that evening and 147 Republicans still voted to overturn the results as they were surrounded by National Guard troops and broken glass.

While some of the more than 450 texts that Republican members of Congress exchanged with Meadows indicate they were disturbed by the violence of Jan. 6, the messages also show in colorful detail how the same members of Congress played a direct role in ratcheting up opposition to the election result and in stoking Trump’s baseless claims of fraud. (Officials at every level of government including Republicans and members of the Trump administration have confirmed there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election.)

Based on Meadows’ text log, overheated battle cries began streaming into his phone as the votes were still being counted on Election Day, Nov. 3, 2020. Texts the Committee identified as coming from members of Congress declared “our Trump team is kicking ass today” and “Fight until hell freezes over than fight them on the ice.”

On Nov. 4, 2020, the day after the election, Rep. Billy Long (R-MO) wrote Meadows claiming he was personally aware of two instances of alleged fraud where people voted twice in Nevada. Based on this claim, he urged Meadows to push for a review of the race in that key state.

“I know of at least 2 people who told me they mailed in their ballots and voted in person so you can tell them they might be interested in going over all votes in Nevada,” Long wrote.

“Ok,” Meadows replied.

Long did not respond to a request for comment.

On the evening of Nov. 4, 2020, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) wrote Meadows to suggest, “John James should lead the challenge in Michigan,” an apparent reference to the 2020 GOP nominee for Senate in that state who would go on to lose his race after disputing the results without providing evidence. Last month, James won election to represent Michigan’s 10th House district. James, who, at the time, was baselessly claiming “there is enough credible evidence to warrant an investigation” into the election in Michigan, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Davidson did not respond to a request for comment.

Shortly after the message from Davidson, the log contains one identified as coming from Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), who offered a profane description of his support for the suits against the results in his home state. Meadows responded indicating he appreciated Kelly’s work.

Kelly did not respond to a request for comment.

President Joe Biden wouldn’t ultimately be declared the winner of the election by major media outlets until Nov. 7, 2020. In the four days between the election and the projection of Biden’s win, votes were being counted in key battleground states.

On Nov. 5, as the numbers began to look bleak for Trump, congressional Republicans wrote Meadows with offers to help fight against the results. Among them was Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) who said, “We have no tools / data / information to go out and fight RE: election / fraud. If you need / want it, we all need to know what’s going on.”

“Thanks so much. Working on it for surrogates briefing,” Meadows replied, indicating the Trump team was preparing to help organize congressional opposition to the vote.

Later that same day, Babin also suggested he and his colleagues were eager to prevent Trump’s impending loss. Without evidence, he described it as a “theft” and indicated GOP leadership was trying to focus on their election victories rather than Trump’s defeat.

"Dear Mark, Many of us as Republican House members want to help the President in any way we can to prevent the outright theft of this presidential election. So far I've only heard our leadership talk about us picking up five new diverse members while the Presidency is at stake. We need some guidance as to what we should be saying and doing. Please let some of us know what you would suggest. In earnest prayer for POTUS and our Republic. Brian Babin" - Rep. Brian Babin

The text messages show Republican members of Congress strategizing in real time to reverse the results. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) piped in with an offer to “put some cash together for the defense fund.” In a conversation with TPM on Monday, Cramer confirmed he offered to help with a defense fund, however, he said the conversation did not go anywhere.

“What I recall is I probably did offer to help if they were raising money for a defense fund or something,” Cramer explained. “I never got a response.”

Cramer, who ultimately was not among the 147 Republicans who objected to the electoral certification, also said all of his messages were “proper” and efforts to “be helpful” to “friends” in the White House.

“None of the text messages from me are condemning in any way other than to just try to get all the information again, be as helpful as you can,” Cramer said.

Other members of Congress sent Meadows questionable legal theories and wildly undemocratic plans to have the vote overturned at the state level. Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) pointed to a segment on the far-right cable network Newsmax where the political operative Dick Morris argued Republican state legislatures had the power to “declare” Trump the winner based on unproven allegations of fraud.

The text log does not include responses from Meadows to these texts from Babin, Cramer, and Green. Green’s communications director, Rachel del Guidice, provided a statement to TPM that suggested his ideas came from people in his district rather than the congressman himself.

“Congressman Green was passing along what constituents were sending him to keep the White House informed on the sentiments of his constituents,” del Guidice said. “He wasn’t advocating for any specific course of action.”

The next day, Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC) sent Meadows a couple of texts with another version of the state legislature strategy gleaned from the far-right website Revolver, which is run by Darren Beattie, a former Trump White House speechwriter who was fired from that post in August 2018 after it was revealed he participated in a 2016 conference with a high-profile white nationalist. Murphy’s text was largely copied and pasted from a Revolver article that claimed “The Vote Has Been Hopelessly Contaminated. Republican State Legislatures Must Now Move to Appoint Pro-Trump Electors.”

“Why are we not pursuing this strategy?” Murphy asked before sharing text from the Revolver article, and adding, “Please pay close attention to the very last paragraph.”

The text logs did not include any response from Meadows. Murphy did not respond to a request for comment.

On Nov. 7, shortly after news outlets called the election for Biden, Norman sent a message encouraging Meadows to set up a “game plan” and “FIGHT.”

As Trump’s allies were trying to come up with a plan on Capitol Hill, far-right activists were also gathering to protest the election around the country. The text log shows Meadows was in communication with Amy Kremer, who organized a “March For Trump” bus tour and ultimately helped plan the Jan. 6, 2021, rally on the White House Ellipse where the former president spoke and urged the crowd to “fight like hell” before many of them marched to the Capitol as it was being stormed. Messages in the log also highlight how Republican members of Congress were participating in a series of pre-Jan. 6 election protests around the country. On the afternoon of Nov. 7, Kevin Brady (R-TX) wrote Meadows to let him know that he had spoken at a “Defend the President Rally” in his home state.

“Asked the crowd to cheer for our President. They are still in the fight!” Brady wrote.

“I will pass it to potus. Thank you and thank them,” Meadows replied.

A spokesperson for Brady provided a statement to TPM that suggested he was simply trying to be helpful and encouraging.

“On the fourth day after the election, before all votes had been reported and prior to the later election contest strategy by the Trump campaign, Congressman Brady sent Mr. Meadows a photo of a local rally for the President and a single general inquiry on how he might help. There was no response from Mr. Meadows,” the spokesperson said.

Brady’s spokesperson also emphasized that he was not one of the 147 Republicans who objected to the election results.

Conspiracy theories are a major theme of Meadows’ messages with Republican members of Congress following Trump’s defeat. On the evening of Nov. 7, Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) shared a message claiming there were links between Dominion Voting Systems and billionaire George Soros. Dominion was a focus in many 2020 election conspiracies that were thoroughly debunked. In some messages to associates, Meadows, who expressed openness to other wild theories, indicated that the Dominion theories were too far-fetched even for him. Soros has long been a fixture of far-right conspiracy theories that blend overheated analysis of the financier’s funding of progressive causes with anti-Semitic tropes.

“Praying for your health! FYI Dominion Voting Systems is owned by State Street Capital, which are Carlyle (Rubenstein alums), Rubenstein is a longtime co-investor with Soros Capital,” wrote Budd.

Budd’s message seemed to be a misspelling of Staple Street management, a private equity firm that owns Dominion, coupled with a series of claims that there were some kind of ties between various other investors. Budd did not respond to a request for comment. Last month, Budd earned a promotion when he was elected to one of the Senate seats in his home state. He is set to take office next month.

CPI was not the only conservative dark money group that aided the push to overturn the election. On Dec. 2, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) wrote Meadows and indicated he was participating in Georgia rallies organized by Club For Growth. While those events were focused on that state’s Senate runoff race, Gohmert and Greene reportedly brought up the presidential race in their remarks. In his text to Meadows, Gohmert was hoping for a ride on Air Force One or a White House visit.

Gohmert had previously texted Meadows asking to visit the White House and been rebuffed by the Chief of Staff. Based on the log, Meadows did not respond to his message about a ride on the presidential plane. Gohmert did not respond to a request for comment.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) is another member of Congress who texted Meadows outlandish conspiracy theories about the election. According to the log, shortly after 11 p.m. on Dec. 16, 2020, Gosar wrote in with his own completely inaccurate concerns about Dominion.

The claim made by Gosar reportedly originated with far right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ website, InfoWars. Gosar also included a link to an executive order signed by Trump in 2018 that called for the director of national intelligence to “conduct an assessment of any information indicating that a foreign government” attempted to interfere with the election within 45 days of ballots being cast. Gosar also sent Meadows a link to a fringe blog called “Some Bitch Told Me” and a since-deleted set of files that he said showed “Massive fraud coming out of AZ.” In total, the log shows Gosar sent Meadows 13 messages, nearly half of which came between Dec. 16-17, 2020. Based on the log, Meadows did not respond to any of them.

Despite Gosar seemingly gleaning his assertions from InfoWars and “Some Bitch Told Me,” Anthony Foti, a spokesperson for the congressman insisted, “at no time did he share a conspiracy theory.”

“Congressman Gosar filed objections to certification from Arizona under the Electoral Count Act,” Foti wrote in an email to TPM, adding, “His comments were based on factual occurrences.”

Meadows did entertain some of the conspiracy theories forwarded along by the Republican members of Congress — and in at least one case, he acted on them.

On Dec. 29, 2020, Babin sent Meadows a link to an article describing claims by Republican legislators in Pennsylvania that the state’s election results didn’t “add up.” The article included a statement from Pennsylvania’s Department of State that noted in detail how the lawmakers’ claims were “uninformed” and called them a “so-called analysis [that] was based on incomplete data.” Nevertheless, Meadows seemed to take Babin’s article seriously and indicated he sent it on to the Justice Department.

“Yes. Already forwarded it to DOJ,” Meadows replied to Babin’s message with the link.

On Dec. 30, 2020, Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), who had just been elected, wrote Meadows and suggested the debunked Pennsylvania analysis convinced her to object to the electoral certification.

In a text to TPM, Lummis provided an explanation for her message to Meadows.

“I voted against the Pennsylvania electors because Pennsylvania conducted its 2020 election in violation of its own Pennsylvania Constitution. Sen. Hawley had publicly expressed the same concern about Pennsylvania. That explains the text to Mark Meadows,” wrote Lummis. “I did not vote against the Arizona electors. I do not know how Sen Hawley voted re: Arizona’s electors.”

Meadows’ log also shows certain congressional Republicans playing key roles in the effort to overturn the election. In a Dec. 19, 2020, message, Rep. Jody Hice claims to be “leading the GA electoral college objection on Jan 6.” In a phone call with TPM, Sarah Selip, a spokesperson for Hice, noted he was outspoken in his opposition to the election results in his home state.

“Our boss did lead the electoral objection for Georgia. I mean that’s just how it is,” said Selip.

Ted Cruz, meanwhile, seems to have played a major part in heading up objections in the Senate. On Jan. 2, he sent Meadows a link to a statement he released with Lummis and nine other colleagues vowing to “vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not ‘regularly given’ and ‘lawfully certified’ (the statutory requisite), unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed.” Meadows had a one-word response to Cruz.

“Perfect,” said Meadows.

The following day, Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller wrote Meadows that Trump himself was pressing Georgia’s senators to “to get on board with the Cruz effort.” A spokesperson for Cruz declined to comment.

Brooks wrote Meadows on Dec. 21, 2020, about plans to have a “White House meeting regarding formulation of our January 6 strategies.” Later that day, Meadows sent a message to Fox News personality Brian Kilmeade later that day indicating the meeting took place.

“The President and I met with about 15 members of Congress to discuss the evidence of voter fraud in various states as well as discuss the strategy for making the case to the American people,” Meadows wrote to the cable news host. (Eleven of those members — including Babin, Biggs, Gaetz, Gosar, Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), Hice, Jordan, Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) and Rep.-elect Marjore Taylor Greene (R-GA) — were later identified by the Jan. 6 Committee, citing White House visitor logs. Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ) also attended the meeting.)

As the electoral certification approached, members of Congress sent Meadows messages expressing concern and anger that some Republicans were not backing their efforts. On the evening of Jan. 5, 2021, Norman wrote Meadows about House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

“Mark, I hear McCarthy is giving equal time to let those who are opposed to the challenge of the electoral votes which is LUDICROUS!! Trump needs to call Kevin!!” Norman wrote.

Later that same night, Jordan presented a plan for Pence to throw out the results as he presided over the certification.

Trump would later rage at Pence for not taking this approach. Meadows responded to Jordan on the morning of Jan. 6 indicating the Vice President was not on board.

“I have pushed for this. Not sure it is going to happen,” Meadows said.

Jordan and his office did not respond to a request for comment.

In the wake of the attack on the Capitol, some members wrote to Meadows and offered encouragement for Trump. One of them was Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA). On Jan. 9, he had an idea for Trump to return to social media after he was banned from Twitter and Facebook for his part in fomenting the violence.

As ever, Meadows was on board with the plan.

“I will share it with him,” Meadows said. “Thanks Andrew”

Below is a list of all of the members of Congress identified in Meadows’ text message log. We have also included details about whether we were able to verify the contact information associated with their names and our efforts to include their comments on this story.

1. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) – Biggs’ number was identified by Committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. Biggs did not respond to a request for comment.

2. Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) – Kelly’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. Kelly did not respond to a request for comment.

3. Rep. Billy Long (R-MO) – Long’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. Long did not respond to a request for comment.

4. Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) – Davidson’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. Davidson did not respond to a request for comment.

5. Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) – Roy, who ultimately did not vote to object to the election results, previously confirmed he sent the texts Meadows provided to the Committee when CNN reported on his messages. When asked about this story, a Roy spokesperson directed TPM to an earlier response.

6. Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) – Babin’s number was identified by Committee investigators. TPM was unable to independently verify that the number belongs to him. Babin did not respond to a request for comment.

7. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) – Cramer, who ultimately did not vote to object to the election results, spoke to TPM for this story and his comments are included above.

8. Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) – Green’s number was identified by Committee investigators and confirmed by TPM. His office provided a statement which was included in the story above.

9. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) – Gohmert’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. Gohmert and his office did not return requests for comment.

10. Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC) – Murphy’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. Murphy and his office did not return requests for comment.

11. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) – Committee investigators identified Gosar as using multiple phone numbers and an email address to text Mark Meadows. TPM has independently verified one of the numbers as well as the email. Gosar’s office provided a statement for this story, part of which is included above.

12. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) – Norman’s number was identified by committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. He spoke to us for this story and his comments are detailed above.

13. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) – Lee, who ultimately did not vote to object to the election results, has confirmed he sent the texts Meadows provided to the Committee that were identified as coming from his phone. Lee and his office did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

14. Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) – Brady’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. In a response that is included in this story, a spokesperson for Brady stressed that he did not vote to object to the election results.

15. Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) – Perry’s number was identified by Committee investigators. TPM was unable to independently verify that the number belongs to him. Perry and his office did not respond to a request for comment.

16. Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) – Budd’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. Budd and his office did not return requests for comment.

17. Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) – Emmer’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. He ultimately did not vote to object to the election results. Emmer and his office did not return requests for comment.

18. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) – Jordan’s number was identified by Committee investigators. TPM was unable to independently verify that the number belongs to him. Jordan and his office did not respond to a request for comment.

19. Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) – Hudson’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. A spokesperson requested to see the texts identified as coming from Hudson in the Meadows log. They did not respond to subsequent requests for comment.

20. Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) – Hice’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. A spokesperson provided a comment, which is included in the story above.

21. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) – Loudermilk’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. He did not respond to a request for comment.

22. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) – Committee investigators identified Johnson, who ultimately did not vote to object to the election results, using an email address that was confirmed by TPM. A Johnson spokesperson also issued a statement saying, “that he saw no scenario in which any of Biden’s electors would be disallowed. He also believes it is indisputable that there were a number of election irregularities that need to be addressed.”

23. Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) – Perdue’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. Perdue, who left office on January 3, 2021 and was not present for the electoral certification, declined to comment on record.

24. Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA) – Allen’s number was identified by Committee investigators. TPM was unable to independently verify that the number belongs to him. Allen and his office did not respond to a request for comment.

25. Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-OH) – Gibbs’ number was identified by committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. Gibbs and his office did not respond to a request for comment.

26. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) – Brooks’ number was identified by Committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. He defended his actions in a phone interview that is included in the story above.

27. Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) – Johnson’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. Johnson and his office did not respond to a request for comment.

28. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) – Cruz’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. A spokesperson for Cruz declined to comment on this story.

29. Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) – Lummis’ phone number was identified by Committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. She sent us a text message that is included in the story above.

30. Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA) – Greene’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. Her office did not respond to a request for comment.

31. Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL) – Moore’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. Moore and his office did not respond to a request for comment.

32. Rep. Fred Keller (R-PA) – Keller’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. Keller and his office did not respond to a request for comment.

33. Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) – Bishop’s number was identified by Committee investigators and confirmed by TPM. He provided a statement defending his objection to the election results: “My analysis of the tactics, purposes and possible impacts of the Democrats’ national litigation campaign to disrupt 2020 election operations remains 100% factual and accurate. Consequently, I have no regrets about publishing it,” Bishop said.

34. Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) – Clyde’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. His office responded to a request for comment by pointing out some of his messages were reported by CNN. They did not respond to questions about the substance of his remarks.

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republicansaredomesticterrorists · 2 years

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😡

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corporationsarepeople · 1 year

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Honestly at this point every one of these assholes should be removed from office for sedition.

Based on TPM’s analysis, Meadows received at least 364 messages from Republican members of Congress who discussed attempts to reverse the election results with him. He sent at least 95 messages of his own. The committee did not respond to requests for comment. Some of Meadows’ texts — notably with Fox News personalities and a couple members of Congress — have already been made public by the committee, media outlets, and in the book “The Breach.” However, the full scope of his engagement with congressional Republicans as they worked to overturn the election has not previously been revealed.

#sedition #mark meadows #republicans #us politics

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theyoungturks · 2 years

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A legal analyst from Fox News has given his reasoning for why Donald Trump could face prosecution due to evidence coming to light from the January 6th hearings. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks. Watch LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live Read more HERE: https://news.yahoo.com/wing-news-declares-trump-unfit-080155438.html "New testimony from the most recent Jan. 6 committee hearing shows that former President Donald Trump is a “disgrace” who is “unfit to be anywhere near power ever again,” according to right-wing news website the Washington Examiner. Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Mark Meadows while he was Trump’s White House chief of staff, gave jaw-dropping testimony Tuesday that indicated Trump knew his supporters were armed and potentially violent but encouraged them to help him overthrow the 2020 election anyway. She also testified that a Secret Service agent told her that Trump tried to grab the wheel of his armored limousine to turn back to the Capitol when the Secret Service informed him they’d be unable to take him there on Jan. 6. The Examiner noted that Hutchinson, at 25, had already worked at the highest levels of Republican politics, and was “a conservative Trumpist true believer and a tremendously credible one at that.” “What Hutchinson relayed was disturbing. She gave believable accounts of White House awareness that the planned Jan. 6 rally could turn violent. She repeated testimony that Trump not only knew that then-Vice President Mike Pence’s life had been credibly threatened that day but also that he was somewhere between uncaring and actually approving of Pence’s danger,” the site said, before going on to relay other shocking elements of Hutchinson’s testimony, including his episode in the presidential motorcade and his “fits of rage” throwing food at walls." *** The largest online progressive news show in the world. Hosted by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. Help support our mission and get perks. Membership protects TYT's independence from corporate ownership and allows us to provide free live shows that speak truth to power for people around the world. See Perks: ▶ https://www.youtube.com/TheYoungTurks/join SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ http://www.facebook.com/TheYoungTurks TWITTER: ☞ http://www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM: ☞ http://www.instagram.com/TheYoungTurks TWITCH: ☞ http://www.twitch.com/tyt 👕 Merch: http://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey ▶ https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt Watchlist with Jayar Jackson ▶ https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA #TYT #TheYoungTurks #BreakingNews 220630__TB04_Right_Wingers by The Young Turks

#IFTTT #YouTube

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 6 months

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Michael de Adder :: @deAdder :: Nov 1 :: The Toronto Star

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 3, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

NOV 4, 2023

Today, Representative Ryan Zinke (R-MT), who was former president Trump’s Interior Secretary until he left under accusations of misconduct, introduced a bill to ban Palestinians from the United States and to revoke any visas issued to Palestinians since October 1 of this year. Although the U.S. has resettled only about 2,000 Palestinians in the last 20 years, ten other far-right members of the House signed onto Zinke’s bill, which draws no distinction between Hamas and Palestinian civilians.

This blanket attack on a vulnerable population echoes Trump’s travel ban of January 27, 2017, just a week after he took office. Executive Order 13769 stopped travel from primarily Muslim countries—Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen—for ninety days. The list of countries appeared random—Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, countries from which terrorists have sometimes come directly to the U.S., weren’t on the list—and appeared to fulfill a campaign promise and assert a new view of executive power.

Insisting that immigrants endanger the country is a key tactic of authoritarians. Excluding them is a central principle of those eager to tear down democracy: they insist that immigration destroys a nation’s traditions and undermines native-born Americans. With tensions in the nation mounting over the crisis in the Middle East, this measure, introduced now with inflammatory language, seems designed to whip up violence.

Representative Greg Landsman (D-OH) called out his Republican colleagues on social media. “Un-American and definitely NOT in the Bible, [Speaker Johnson],” he wrote. “You going to tell them to pull this bill?”

But, far from trying to work across the aisle, Johnson has been throwing red meat to his base. In the last two days, for example, the House has voted to slash 39% of the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and 13% of the budget of the National Park Service. It voted to require the Biden administration to advance oil drilling off the Alaska coast. It has voted on reducing the salary of the EPA administrator, the director of the Bureau of Land Management, and the Secretary of the Interior to $1 each.

Yesterday, Johnson told reporters he considers extremists Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) close friends and said “I don’t disagree with them on many issues and principles.”

To direct his communications team, Johnson has tapped Raj Shah, a former executive from the Fox News Corporation, who was a key player in promoting the lie that Trump won the 2020 presidential election. As the head of the “Brand Protection Unit,” Shah demanded that the Fox News Channel continue to lie to viewers who would leave the station if it told the truth. Johnson has hired Shah to be his deputy chief of staff for communications and, according to Alex Isenstadt of Politico, “help run messaging for House Republicans.”

The extremists are doubling down on Trump and his election lies even as his allies are admitting in court that they are, indeed, lies. Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows is in trouble with the publisher of his memoir after admitting that under oath that the election had been fair. The publisher is suing him for millions in damages for basing his book on the idea that the election had been stolen and representing that “all statements contained in the Work are true.”

The publisher says it has pulled the book off the market.

House extremists continue to back Trump even as he is openly calling for an authoritarian second term. In September, former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley had to take “appropriate measures” for his own security after Trump accused him of disloyalty to him, personally, and suggested that in the past, such “treason” would have been punished with death.

On Wednesday, Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage, and Maggie Haberman of the New York Times reported that Trump was frustrated in his first term by lawyers who refused to go along with his wishes, trying to stay within the law, so Trump's allies are making lists of lawyers they believe would be “more aggressive” on issues of immigration, taking over the Department of Justice, and overturning elections.

They are looking, they say, for “a different type of lawyer” than those supported by the right-wing Federalist Society, one “willing to endure the personal and professional risks of association with Mr. Trump” and “to use theories that more establishment lawyers would reject to advance his cause.”

John Mitnick, who served in Trump’s first term, told the reporters that “no qualified attorneys with integrity will have any desire to serve as political appointees” in a second Trump term. Instead, the lawyers in a second term would be “opportunists who will rubber-stamp whatever Trump and his senior White House staff want to do.”

Trump has also made it clear he and his allies want to gut the nonpartisan civil service and fill tens of thousands of government positions with his own loyalists. Led by Russell Vought, who served as Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, Trump’s allies believe that agencies like the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Securities and Exchange Commission should not be independent but should push the president’s agenda.

This week, Trump vowed to take over higher education too. In a campaign video, he promised to tax private universities with large endowments to fund a new institution called “American Academy.” The school, which would be online only, would award free degrees and funnel students into jobs with the U.S. government and federal contractors.

“We spend more money on higher education than any other country, and yet they’re turning our students into communists and terrorists and sympathizers of many, many different dimensions,” Trump said. “We can’t let this happen.” In his university, “wokeness or jihadism” would not be allowed, he said.

In admirable understatement, Politico’s Meridith McGraw and Michael Stratford noted: “Using the federal government to create an entirely new educational institution aimed at competing with the thousands of existing schools would drastically reshape American higher education.”

Trump has made no secret of his future plans for the United States of America.

Meanwhile, Republicans appear determined to push their agenda over the wishes of voters. In Ohio, where voters on Tuesday will decide whether to amend the state constitution to make it a constitutional right to “make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions,” Republicans first tried to make it harder to amend the state constitution, and then, when voters rejected that attempt, the Republican-dominated state senate began to use an official government website to spread narratives about the constitutional amendment that legal and medical experts called false or misleading.

Adding reproductive health protections to the state constitution is popular, but In an unusual move, the Republican secretary of state, Frank LaRose, quietly purged more than 26,000 voters from the rolls in late September. LaRose is a staunch opponent of the constitutional amendment and is himself running for a seat in the U.S. Senate.

In Virginia, where Republicans are hoping to take control of the state legislature to pass new abortion restrictions as well as the rest of Republican governor Glenn Youngkin’s agenda, a study by the Democratic Party of Virginia shows that officials are flagging the mail-in ballots of non-white voters for rejection much more frequently than those of white voters. As of today, 4.82% of ballots cast by Black voters have gotten flagged, while only 2.79% of the ballots of white voters have been flagged.

In Richmond, The Guardian’s Sam Levine reported, city officials flagged more than 11% of ballots returned by Black voters but only about 5.5% of ballots cast by white voters. After the ballots are fixed, or cured, the rate of rejection for Black voters remains more than twice as high as that of white voters.

Virginia officials also reported last week that they had accidentally removed more than 3,400 eligible voters from the rolls.

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From an American #Heather Cox Richardson #election 2023 #gerrymandering #election interference #voter suppression #Radical Right Wing Agenda #US House of Representatives

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yourreddancer · 2 years

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HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

April 25, 2022 (Monday)Yesterday, voters in both France and Slovenia rejected far-right candidates for leadership. French voters preferred leaving Emmanuel Macron in place as president by 58.5% over Marine Le Pen (41.5%). Le Pen is supported by fascists and antisemites, and she promised to take France out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), to turn against the U.S. influence, and to end multiculturalism, which she maintains is a failure.

In Slovenia, a small country in central Europe where Melania Trump was born, prime minister Janez Janša is a close ally of Viktor Orbán, who is prime minister in Slovenia’s neighbor Hungary and who has been quite clear that he intends to dismantle democracy. An admirer of Donald Trump, Janša insisted that Trump won the 2020 election, and pushed the nation toward the right, away from the European Union and toward a governing style like Orbán’s. Freedom House, which keeps tabs on the health of democracies, recently said that Janša’s government has been trying to undermine the rule of law, the media, and the judiciary. He lost out yesterday to a new political party that is socially liberal, pro-European, and eager to deal with the climate crisis. That party, the Freedom Movement, was organized only in May 2021.

The rejection by European voters of far-right authoritarianism is a backdrop to news in the U.S. today, where CNN dropped information about 2,319 text messages from the files Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows turned over to the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol before he changed his mind and stopped cooperating.

Shockingly, these are the messages Meadows thought were okay to share. He held back more than 1,000, including all of them from December 9 to December 20, on the grounds that they should be protected for one reason or another. You have to wonder what was in them, considering what was in the ones he surrendered.

The first thing that jumps out from today’s messages is how thoroughly Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity was working for Trump, rather than acting the part of an impartial news reporter. On Election Day, November 3, 2020, Meadows told Hannity to stress to voters they needed to get out and support Trump. “Yes sir,” Hannity answered. “On it. Any place in particular we need a push?” Meadows answered: “Pennsylvania. NC AZ… Nevada.” “Got it,” Hannity answered. “Everywhere.” There is now some muttering that the Trump campaign should have listed the free advertising from the Fox News Channel as a campaign contribution, since it was clear that Hannity’s shows were advertisements, and that “in-kind” donations are subject to federal regulation.

The second thing that jumps out is how determined Trump Republicans were to believe that Trump could not possibly have lost the election. The day after the election, the Trump team was already working state officials to skew the vote counts, but as early as November 6, Trump advisor Jason Miller texted evidence that debunked the idea that the election was stolen, and he would continue to do so. Meadows agreed that there was no evidence to match the extreme claims of Trump lawyer Sidney Powell; Jared Kushner sent an article debunking the story of suitcases full of ballots in Georgia. We know from other exchanges that Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Representative Chip Roy (R-TX) came to recognize that the election had not been stolen.

And yet, Trump supporters, especially MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, continued to send Meadows stories about a stolen election; Lindell believed that God was directing Trump’s reelection. By November 7, former energy secretary Rick Perry was on board with the idea that the election had been fraudulent. By November 19, 2020, Meadows was trying to set up a call with Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger—this would end up being the hour-long phone call between Raffensperger and Trump on January 2, 2021, that Raffensperger recorded. In it, Trump urged Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” in Georgia—one more than Trump needed to win the state. As early as November 6, a scheme to keep Trump in power despite the will of the voters was underway.

To be clear, this means that elected representatives and appointed members of our government were actively working to end our democracy. More than 40 current and past members of Congress are in the records, including Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL), Donald Trump, Jr., and Rick Perry. Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) was also a key player.

Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ) suggested getting Republican state legislatures to appoint electors* for Trump rather than Biden. Meadows answered: “I love it.” Representative Scott Perry (R-PA) texted on December 26: “Mark, just checking in as time continues to count down. 11 days to 1/6 and 25 days to inauguration. We gotta get going!” On January 5, Jim Jordan said that Vice President Mike Pence should refuse to accept all electoral votes he thought were unconstitutional. Meadows responded: “I have pushed for this. Not sure it’s going to happen.”

When the MAGA crowd turned violent on January 6, supporters begged Trump to call them off, suggesting they knew full well who was rioting and who was behind those riots. And yet, hours later, Jason Miller proposed lying to the American people by changing the story altogether, blaming “Antifa” for the violence of the Trump supporters at the Capitol. He added that Trump should tweet, “The fake news media who encouraged this summer's violent and radical riots are now trying to blame peaceful and innocent MAGA supporters for violent actions. This isn't who we are!” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) also tried to argue that the attackers were “Antifa. Dressed like Trump supporters.” So did Louie Gohmert (R-TX).

Those deep in the insurrection have flat out lied about their participation in it, suggesting they know it was illegal. When called out for texts back last December, Rick Perry denied he sent them, but today’s texts not only came from his phone but also were signed. Similarly, when Greene was asked under oath just last Friday—three days ago—“Did you advocate to President Trump to impose martial law as a way to remain in power?” Greene answered: “I do not recall.” Greene’s questioner followed up: “So you’re not denying you did it?” Greene answered: “I don’t remember.”A

nd yet, on January 17, Greene texted: “In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall [sic] law. I don't know on those things. 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!”

The attack on our democracy was entirely fabricated, and yet it has persisted and metastasized in the shape of the Big Lie that Biden stole the election. Last night in Georgia, where Republicans Brian Kemp and Trump-endorsed David Perdue are struggling over the Republican nomination, the Big Lie was center stage. According to Patricia Murphy of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Purdue began the debate by endorsing the Big Lie—“First off, let me be very clear, the election in 2020 was rigged and stolen—”and he managed to keep the debate locked on the 2020 election for the first 24 minutes.

The ability of the Republicans to create a world out of lies comes from our current media landscape in which it is possible for Trump supporters to live in a media bubble of falsehoods.. Researchers recently conducted an experiment in which they paid pro-Trump Republicans to switch from the Fox News Channel to CNN for a month, and they discovered that those viewers changed their minds on a number of key issues. But, as soon as the payments stopped, they went right back to watching the FNC.

This week, the European Union set out to bring some kind of order to social media, reaching a deal that would require Facebook, YouTube, and other internet services to combat misinformation, disclose their algorithms, and stop targeting users with divisive advertising. And yet, the U.S. today appeared to move in the opposite direction. Twitter announced it had reached an agreement with billionaire Elon Musk to sell Twitter to him. If he gets over all the next hurdles to the deal, that widespread information hub will become a company owned by a single man. Reporter Matthew Gertz from Media Matters wrote that last Friday, 18 House Republicans led by Jim Jordan wrote to the Twitter board that had previously opposed the sale to Musk, browbeating them to consider the sale, which they interpret as a win for right-wing voices that have been banned from current Twitter for spreading lies.

Jokes broke out today that Arizona would be challenging the results of the French election, but it’s not really a joke. Today, Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill providing for an election police force charged with rooting out election fraud, and Aaron Rupar of Public Notice recorded that the Fox News Channel today mentioned Hunter Biden 32 times and Mark Meadows once.When Slovenian prime minister Janez Janša lost his election yesterday, a leader of the opposition noted how many people in the country were in shock at how quickly Slovenia slipped into “a more autocratic system. We never thought a democratic system could change so fast,” she said.

*The text’s actual words– “a look doors”-- seem to be a voice to text mistranslation.

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