#someone said joseph would be a trump supporter

[albiclalepsza]

American political climate is genuinely insane to me. Like, I checked the dates. The primaries are IN A YEAR. November 2024. And under every post where people are rightfully fucking pissed about Biden supporting the genocide there is someone going 'noooo you can't talk about my little baby Joseph this waaaaay! You'll lose us the elections!! Think about what Trump would do in his place!!!!'

Have you all lost your minds out there? The elections are, again, IN A YEAR. And people are stifling any sort of criticism and anger towards Biden and his party because the other guys, in a totally hypothetical scenario where they rule America right now, would do even worse.

The two party system is a brainrot. I've seen a person who just gained voting rights, who was talking on Reddit about how awful they feel about the situation in the US. Where their vote seems to be a choice between losing all their rights as a queer person and between slowly losing them election by election. They said that they will vote for the third party so that they hopefully may finally get a seat or two, to put any sort of tension on Democrats to build their platform on anything else other than being the lesser evil. And they got downvoted to oblivion. Like it's set in stone that you have to vote for the two parties or you are throwing your vote away.

Anyways, as shitty as Polish political climate is, I'm happy that I can at least vote for actually left-wing candidates without being accused of losing the election to 100% Hitler.

#us politics #united states #joe biden #free palestine

[the-firebird69]

Watch "Freya Ridings - Castles (Official Video)" on YouTube

I called her small ones once and I think she's correcting me but she has different characters and they're not exactly human cuz she's not exactly on the planet as people think but she looks just like Amanda gorenflo. And she of course would be her yes

Zues

It's not that complicated it's like RC. I was physically on Earth in Antarctica. For a long time. And I was born there. And I fled. Like he told me to. And I found bases and I'm staying there and people keep other people away there's a space battle and I'm okay but I'm calling him cuz he didn't ask sometimes it doesn't happen usually I call him a few times but he's doing other stuff and everybody's bothering him but he feels bad about it and I know he does but I'm okay and they're still fighting. Now I'm finally come to a conclusion about this in bed stuff and Dave Audette AKA JC. The same thing for her she made the same kind of thing it's the same hole and she did open it up and it's cut square now and people wondered why and thought it was Peter audette when it was her getting hers and the female venom. Both of them went there to that place and both of them were looked at and he put both in the case and it was JC and he came back and it was a different woman he hates her and she took both now both of those were taken by Peter audette and he's actually Tommy f and he's actually Joseph Stalin and he's above my husband and Southwest Florida in a 100 black ship and it is a dangerous machine people are now planning on infiltrating it's almost game set and match and they say it

Hera

Zues

We're getting ready to launch stuff to support the action here and to do things and we hear it and we're ready for it too this is an amazing song they represents her devotion to him and it makes him cry cuz he's happy and he knows what she's going through and it's suffering and she's beautiful and she looks at him and can feel him looking at her and good you see me and she says you made me feel so bad so you're broke up with me for real and I didn't know you were there so I didn't know I was supposed to care more and stuff like that. She says that's all you get wow. He really said oh cuz sometimes she makes you feel pain and there's that stuff in there and then stuff from the durock but that stuff's gone and this stuff will deteriorate in a few days finally and it is going to go pretty quick so few reasons mostly it's half life the other is he's hydrating more. And it didn't cause any damage and he's got a lot of empty cancer stuff one reason why he's doing it is because the durock and it didn't do it and speaking of which the castle she's going to help build and he will too is going to help save everyone and it's down there somewhere and then Hellboy they brought up part of The fortress in a tunnel and the supporting it and it's temporary and the two fell down and it was Trump and Tommy f and they landed in a moat and we're not killed and the piece of concrete started falling and they had to move but really someone's trying to make it look like they raised it that would be him and her and the castles are going to be put next to the others and someone's right again it's not the actual devil who's out yet and it's Hellboy and it takes the horns and the taxes them again but this time to his head because it's mutating and when he becomes legend he is switched out with the real thing and the girl can tell because of my character yes it's kind of like venom she says afterwards but very very scary and you don't want to bother them we weren't and we had a hard time and you said this is what it's like everyone's trying to tempt you and it's a terrible terrible thing and he knows about it and can't do anything so I feel bad for him in a way he's trapped with all this stuff and can't do stuff but then again he's creating things and it's really crushing everybody so he has to be stopped but he is and things are playing out and he's going after Max that's what it's mostly for and we know it so she says that but she's upset he says regrettably nobody ever survives an encounter with him so he's used for you but she never really does so you should be happy and amazed and she started to say this is a cheerful day you can charge like a billion dollars per seance. She started doing it right away and said the Trump was out and could see where he was and he was and things changed everybody started to listen to her and to talk to people it's coming up pretty soon because he's going to come out pretty soon

And Trump is going to do this stuff sooner they know where it is and they know where the tunnel is

There's a reason for that they want to see if there's evidence against my husband. And try and get us to fight max. And or use them as hostage. But really what's going to happen is they're going to go to extinction. Now everybody is after Carol a little bit and then after Tommy asked a lot more and the clothes and attacks of intensified over the past 15 minutes and the bases are under severe strike they're also going after the max they think they may have taken it from Tommy f they captured him several times and other people did too it's a real mess but they're isolated there and they're trying to gather all the power so it makes sense or you could have it or it could be trying to get it back but the maps are going after them but not really hard enough so people are checking it out

Hera

Zues

There's a period of time and people are trying to grab Tommy f and the max grabbed him a few times and disappeared and it's recorded and the McDonald's have it Biden will and Bill Stan and a lot of warlock have this recorded and they're going to have to go after him a lot harder

Thor Freya

Olympus

So he whistles the song and says you don't have to say he wants me to sit there and be beautiful I see how it is he's looking at Michelle and found that she was different when it's treating him different it was really weird but didn't want to do anything cuz of Dave and he thought that was strange too cuz they're saying it's she's a sister she's sitting there looking right where she's going to put the program I got to tell you what she was doing something evil right in front of him and he hates that

Hera

#Youtube

[thesheel]

Introduction The first debate between President Donald Trump and the former Vice President Joe Biden from the Democratic Party will be held on September 29, 2020. It will be a ninety-minute debate that is going to take place at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic’s joint health campus in Cleveland, Ohio.  The other two will be held on October 15 and October 23 at Miami, Florida, and Nashville, Tennessee, respectively.   Trump vs. Biden odds of drug test: What does Trump mean by it? Presidential election odds are common in the US elections, as multiple surveys are conducted. President Donald Trump has doubts, thinking that maybe Joe Biden is on drugs. He stated that he is not sure yet, but someone informed him. He thinks that it should be confirmed for the betterment of the election. He also said that both candidates should be tested, including himself. Trump takes an aspirin every day, he mentioned during the Washington Examiner interview. A primary debate was held in March with Biden against Senator Bernie Sanders. Mr. Trump found an improvement in Biden’s performance. He pointed this out in an Oval Office interview. He mentioned that Biden’s performances were always very bad, and Trump’s campaigns always questioned Biden’s mental state as well. Trump vs. Biden odds of drug test: Is there any evidence? Trump assures us that the debate against Bernie was Biden’s best performance. He suggested that an unknown substance may have aided Joe Biden. He has no evidence; hence, Donald Trump calls for a drug test before the upcoming debates for the scheduled election of November 3.  Speaking briefly of the uncertainty about whether they will let him do the drug test or not, he repeated that it should be done. Trump also hints at how all of a sudden, Biden could perform so well in a debate, whereas previously he was so incompetent.    What makes Trump consider a drug test? Trump watched all of Biden’s debates and never found him capable and coherent. Trump said, “My point is, if you go back and watch some of those numerous debates, he (Joe Biden) was so bad. He wasn’t even coherent.” US President Donald Trump is comparing the upcoming debates to a boxing match. To him, this election is a prizefight. In an interview at the White House this August, he told The Washington Examiner that, “It's no different from the gladiators." He also said that he would use his brain and mouth to win the debate, and his body to stand where he wants all standing.   A look back at Trump vs. Hilary Clinton odds In the US election of 2016, Trump similarly called for a drug test when his opponent was Hillary Clinton. He felt she was on drugs during an earlier debate. In the same way, Trump spoke that he doesn't know what's going on with her, but he is sure that something is wrong. Why would she seem so pumped up in the beginning, whereas in the end, Hillary could barely reach the car without any physical support? Without offering any sort of evidence to his suspicions, he asked for a drug test just a month before the election.   Do Trump's claims have any basis? If we analyze the whole drug test issue in a simple way, it will be very easy to note that Trump has made some baseless claims about his opponent, Democrat Joseph R. Biden. Trump is becoming anxious about his decreasing chance of winning. He already promoted the fake claims regarding his debate performances, his mental health, and many more. The entire drug test issue was initiated due to his suspicion, which has no clear evidence. Moreover, the same thing done in 2016 is repeated. He wanted a drug test for Hillary Clinton at that time. If we look deeper, the reasons are pretty much alike. Now comes the understanding of the situation underneath. Trump is notoriously known for humiliating and insulting anyone who opposes him inside or outside the United States. He uses this type of domination to make people feel weaker and make himself a fake stronger versi

on of himself. There is no solid forecast as to what he is targeting this time, but aside from that, Trump is being classic Trump. He will try to put down anyone who stands in his way, with anything that he possibly can. He is a master at finding aspects of people to hurt and make some benefits for himself in the process.  But, Joe has a very steady lead in the polls, which is not changing very much. The Trump administration is trying to weaken the side of Joe Biden with anything they can, and this seems like just another scheme.   Conclusion A drug test is unlikely. Allegations out of nowhere of using drugs are even more insulting. Illogical accusations like these are not unexpected from Trump, but would people be accepting of a president talking about his rival like this? It seems like Donald Trump will not stop until he can successfully destroy the image of Joe. Still, when Trump is seeing that the steady lead is not diminishing, he will want to go all the way to get ahead. No matter what Trump vs. Biden odds are, only time will tell about the accusations he's made about Joe Biden, and how that will turn out to be. Don't Miss Other Parts :   US Election 2020 Updates (Part-1): List of Probable Incidents as the Election is Nearing US Election 2020 Updates (Part-2): Is Trump Feeling Incompetent after Seeing Biden’s Rising Popularity? US Election 2020 Updates (Part-3): The Forecast Model and the Right Presidential Candidate US Election 2020 Updates (Part-4): Why Trump Says Ivanka is Better than Kamala Harris as VP US Election 2020 Updates (Part-5): 9 latest lies told by Trump on His Way to the Election US Election 2020 Updates (Part-6):Why 75% of Top Executives Bet that Biden Will Win the 2020 Presidential Election  

[trustcad]

Ted cruz daughters wiki

According to stories long repeated by Rafael Cruz on the conservative conference circuit, Rafael Cruz's youth in his native Cuba was shaped by four years, as a teenager, working as a gun-toting rebel leader with an underground resistance movement against dictator Fulgencio Batista's government (a position that at the time aligned him with the movement of Fidel Castro). Some of Cruz's ideology can be traced to his father, Rafael Bienvenido Cruz y Díaz. 5.6 Mommas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be This Guy.To call him a "clown" is insulting to clowns. It's wonderful to see how people can come together, if only in their hatred of Ted Cruz - the most hated man in the Senate, especially since he was one of the six senators who voted to help Trump steal the 2020 election (out of the 13 who initially threatened to vote for such before the failed trumpist coup ). Republicans hate him, Democrats hate him. Ted Cruz actually gives us a lot of hope. You'd almost think the whole birtherism thing was pure partisanship and/or racism, if you didn't know better.įormer US Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner (a fellow Republican and a Catholic) called Cruz " Lucifer in the Flesh"- but that's insulting to Satanists, who want nothing to do with Cruz. Oddly enough, that never seemed to have come up (except in a passing mention by Trump, of course ). Of course, given the way the Republicans took the ball and ran with birtherism when a black Democrat was in the White House, you'd think they would have immediately shut down the candidacy of someone who was born in Canada. All of this in spite of the very nasty comments that Trump has made about his wife, and in spite of Trump having given Cruz the moniker "Lyin' Ted" (though he did later change it to " Bigly beautiful, Beautiful Ted" in the 2018 midterms ). Ever since then, he has become one of the worst Trump bootlickers in the Senate, even going so far as vote against the certification of Arizona's electoral votes for Joe Biden, a move many people claim to be treasonous, especially considering that a violent horde of Trump supporters had broken into the Capitol during the vote, the first time something like that had ever happened since 1814. He suspended his campaign in May 2016 even Teabaggers have no time for a Dominionist with no track record of successful legislation whatsoever. It is truly an honor to witness such a meteoric rise. You have to remember this is the guy who blew up chiefly thanks to Sarah Palin endorsing him for Senate. Ĭruz was a leading candidate for the 2016 Republican Party presidential nomination. He also looks - and behaves - uncomfortably like Joseph McCarthy. When people he (and his bosom buddy Mike Lee) doesn't like make decisions he doesn't agree with, he implies they are in violation of the Constitution, because his supporters are morons who respond to divisive idiocy like that. Like any senator from said state, he's a gibbering Tea Party nut - an obnoxious reactionary on every social and economic issue. Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz, a.k.a Lyin' Ted, Sweaty Teddy, or Cancún Cruz, (1970–) is the Zodiac Killer a Canadian- Texan Senator and a leading light of the absurdist wing of the GOP. Ted Cruz, asking - why can't it be both? “ ”I do think in the media there is a tendency to describe conservatives as one of two things: stupid or evil.

#Ted cruz daughters wiki

[serenata-your-neighborhood-lefty]

Kenosha judge shields Kyle Rittenhouse during his murder trial testimony

On Wednesday, right-wing extremist vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse took the stand at his own trial for murdering two people and seriously injuring a third during anti-police violence protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin on August 25, 2020.

During the testimony by the far-right gunman, Kenosha Circuit Court Judge Bruce Schroeder intervened repeatedly to block questions that would have undermined the right-wing narrative being presented by Rittenhouse and his defense team, according to which Rittenhouse was acting in “self-defense.” This included an extraordinarily hysterical outburst where Judge Schroeder yelled, “Don’t get brazen with me!” at Kenosha Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger, following a defense motion for a mistrial.

Defense attorney Mark Richards called Rittenhouse to the stand in the morning and proceeded to present a carefully rehearsed series of questions and answers, during which Rittenhouse couched his testimony in the jargon of police officers. At one point, he claimed, “I stopped the threat from attacking me.”

During questioning by Richards, Rittenhouse said he shot his first victim, the unarmed Joseph Rosenbaum, four times in the Car Source parking lot because he “came out from behind the car and ambushed me.”

Throughout the trial, Judge Schroeder has excluded all the evidence of Rittenhouse’s political and ideological motivations. The prosecutors have been ordered not to mention or allude in any way to what motivated Rittenhouse to show up in Kenosha during mass protests against the brutal police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old black man, by Kenosha police officer Rusten Sheskey two nights earlier.

In fact, Rittenhouse traveled from his hometown of Antioch, Illinois to Kenosha on that night armed with a loaded AR-15-style assault rifle to join a group of armed far-right vigilantes who brandished their weapons at the protesters.

Fully immersed in far-right politics, Rittenhouse was a supporter of the reelection campaign of then-President Donald Trump, went on police ride-alongs and wore an Army-green T-shirt and paramilitary boots. He responded to a post on Facebook by the Kenosha Guard which called for armed civilians to patrol the streets of the city during the anti-police violence protests.

Two weeks before the shooting, Rittenhouse openly declared that he wished to shoot people he saw coming out of a CVS store, who he believed were shoplifting. “Bro, I wish I had my f—ing AR. I'd start shooting rounds at them.”

Rittenhouse is an associate of the Proud Boys, a violent far-right paramilitary organization closely tied to Trump, and which was implicated in the January 6 coup attempt. After posting bail following the killings in Kenosha, Rittenhouse attended a celebration at a pub where he was caught flashing “white power” signs at a meeting with top Proud Boys leaders.

The judge has ordered that the jury will not hear any of this evidence, and prosecutors are forbidden from even suggesting that such evidence exists. In addition, the judge has ordered that the victims of the shootings cannot be called “victims” but that they can be called “looters” and “rioters.”

Rittenhouse who was 17 years old at the time and could not legally possess a firearm in the state of Wisconsin, killed Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, whom he shot at close range by firing a .223 caliber round into his chest, and injured Gaige Grosskreutz with a bullet that struck his upper arm.

While his own attorney was questioning him about the events leading up to the shooting, Rittenhouse, who has been rehearsing his testimony for months, attempted to give the impression of someone hysterically sobbing, but he was not able to produce any actual tears. Judge Schroeder helped to bolster the credibility of this performance by solemnly excusing the jury and pausing the trial.

The prosecutor began the cross-examination of Rittenhouse by suggesting that he was tailoring his explanation of what happened to what had already been introduced in the case. Judge Schroeder abruptly excused the jury and launched into a diatribe against the prosecutor. Supporting a claim by the defense that Binger was “commenting on my client’s right to remain silent,” the judge said, “this is a grave constitutional violation” and “is not permitted.”

Later, during the same exchange, Judge Schroeder affirmed that Rittenhouse’s “attitude” and “beliefs” were off-limits for questions. When Binger, the prosecutor, responded that the rulings were “before the defendant’s testimony,” Judge Schroeder interjected, “Don’t get brazen with me!”

The dispute referenced an earlier September 17 ruling by Judge Schroeder that Rittenhouse’s boast that he would “start shooting rounds” at people he believed were shoplifting was off-limits, together with Rittenhouse’s public appearance last January with the leading members of the Wisconsin branch of the fascist Proud Boys. The judge rejected the prosecutor’s arguments that Rittenhouse’s testimony had opened the door to the admission of this evidence.

If there were any doubt where Judge Schroeder stands politically, during the afternoon session when his cell phone rang during court, his ring tone was “God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood, a country music singer-songwriter who has performed the song at far-right political rallies, including the inauguration ceremonies for Donald Trump in 2017.

Rittenhouse has been championed by Trump and the Republican Party as a national hero who was merely acting in “self-defense.” The media has more or less accepted the far-right framing of the case as one of whether Rittenhouse “felt threatened” when he shot and killed his victims.

This framing turns reality upside down. If anyone had a right to self-defense, it was the Kenosha protesters, who were being menaced by an armed right-wing extremist vigilante with a loaded assault rifle. In one encounter, a man accused Rittenhouse of pointing his loaded assault rifle directly at him—a reckless and dangerous act in itself, an extreme provocation, and an implicit death threat.

If Rittenhouse is acquitted, it would set a dangerous precedent. It would effectively provide legal sanction for fascist vigilantes to march into future left-wing protests with impunity, terrorize protesters at gunpoint, and open fire whenever they “feel threatened.”

-  Kevin Reed and Tom Carter writing for the WSWS

#important #kyle rittenhouse #usa #politics #blm #protests #rittenhouse #news #article #blm protests #anti fascist #black lives matter #anti-capitalist #leftist #socialist #antifa #far-right #trump #progressive #anti-capitalism #left #proud boys #leftblr #law

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

President Donald J. Trump pressed top Justice Department officials late last year to declare that the election was corrupt even though they had found no instances of widespread fraud, so that he and his allies in Congress could use the assertion to try to overturn the results, according to new documents provided to lawmakers and obtained by The New York Times.

The demands were an extraordinary instance of a president interfering with an agency that is typically more independent from the White House to advance his personal agenda. They are also the latest example of Mr. Trump’s wide-ranging campaign during his final weeks in office to delegitimize the election results.

The exchange unfolded during a phone call on Dec. 27 in which Mr. Trump pressed the acting attorney general at the time, Jeffrey A. Rosen, and his deputy, Richard P. Donoghue, on voter fraud claims that the department had disproved. Mr. Donoghue warned that the department had no power to change the outcome of the election. Mr. Trump replied that he did not expect that, according to notes Mr. Donoghue took memorializing the conversation.

“Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me” and to congressional allies, Mr. Donoghue wrote in summarizing Mr. Trump’s response.

Mr. Trump did not name the lawmakers, but at other points during the call, he mentioned Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, whom he described as a “fighter”; Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, who at the time promoted the idea that the election was stolen from Mr. Trump; and Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, whom Mr. Trump praised for “getting to bottom of things.”

Mr. Jordan and Mr. Johnson denied any role in Mr. Trump’s efforts to pressure the Justice Department.

“Congressman Jordan did not, has not, and would not pressure anyone at the Justice Department about the 2020 election,” said Russell Dye, a spokesman for Mr. Jordan, who voted to overturn election results in key states but has downplayed his role in the president’s pressure campaign. “He continues to agree with President Trump that it is perfectly appropriate to raise concerns about election integrity.”

Mr. Johnson had “no conversations with President Trump about the D.O.J. questioning the election results,” said his spokeswoman, Alexa Henning. She noted that he acknowledged Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the president-elect but that he has also called for what he sees as election irregularities to be fully investigated and addressed to restore confidence in future elections.

Mr. Perry did not immediately respond to requests for comment. He has continued to assert Mr. Trump won, but has not been tied directly to the White House effort to keep him in office.

The Justice Department provided Mr. Donoghue’s notes to the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which is investigating the Trump administration’s efforts to unlawfully reverse the election results.

Typically, the department has fought to keep secret any accounts of private discussions between a president and his cabinet to avoid setting a precedent that would prevent officials in future administrations from candidly advising presidents out of concern that their conversations would later be made public.

But handing over the notes to Congress is part of a pattern of allowing scrutiny of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. The Biden Justice Department also told Mr. Rosen, Mr. Donoghue and other former officials this week that they could provide unrestricted testimony to investigators with the House Oversight and Reform and the Senate Judiciary Committees.

The department reasoned that congressional investigators were examining potential wrongdoing by a sitting president, an extraordinary circumstance, according to letters sent to the former officials. Because executive privilege is meant to benefit the country, rather than the president as an individual, invoking it over Mr. Trump’s efforts to push his personal agenda would be inappropriate, the department concluded.

“These handwritten notes show that President Trump directly instructed our nation’s top law enforcement agency to take steps to overturn a free and fair election in the final days of his presidency,” Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York and chairwoman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said in a statement.

Mr. Trump’s conversation with Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue reflected his single-minded focus on overturning the election results. At one point, Mr. Trump claimed voter fraud in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Arizona, which he called “corrupted elections.” Mr. Donoghue pushed back.

“Much of the info you’re getting is false,” Mr. Donoghue said, adding that the department had conducted “dozens of investigations, hundreds of interviews” and had not found evidence to support his claims. “We look at allegations but they don’t pan out,” the officials told Mr. Trump, according to the notes.

The department found that the error rate of ballot counting in Michigan was 0.0063 percent, not the 68 percent that the president asserted; it did not find evidence of a conspiracy theory that an employee in Pennsylvania had tampered with ballots; and after examining video and interviewing witnesses, it found no evidence of ballot fraud in Fulton County, Ga., according to the notes.

Mr. Trump, undeterred, brushed off the department’s findings. “Ok fine — but what about the others?” Mr. Donoghue wrote in his notes describing the president’s remarks. Mr. Trump asked Mr. Donoghue to travel to Fulton County to verify signatures on ballots.

The people “saying that the election isn’t corrupt are corrupt,” Mr. Trump told the officials, adding that they needed to act. “Not much time left.”

At another point, Mr. Donoghue said that the department could quickly verify or disprove the assertion that more ballots were cast in Pennsylvania than there are voters.

“Should be able to check on that quickly, but understand that the D.O.J. can’t and won’t snap its fingers and change the outcome of the election, doesn’t work that way,” Mr. Donoghue wrote in his notes.

The officials also told Mr. Trump that the Justice Department had no evidence to support a lawsuit regarding the election results. “We are not in a position based on the evidence,” they said. “We can only act on the actual evidence developed.”

Mr. Trump castigated the officials, saying that “thousands of people called” their local U.S. attorney’s offices to complain about the election and that “nobody trusts the F.B.I.” He said that “people are angry — blaming D.O.J. for inaction.”

“You guys may not be following the internet the way I do,” Mr. Trump said, according to the document.

In a moment of foreshadowing, Mr. Trump said, “people tell me Jeff Clark is great, I should put him in,” referring to the acting chief of the Justice Department’s civil division, who had also encouraged department officials to intervene in the election. “People want me to replace D.O.J. leadership.”

“You should have the leadership you want,” Mr. Donoghue replied. But it “won’t change the dept’s position.”

Mr. Donoghue and Mr. Rosen did not know that Mr. Perry had introduced Mr. Clark and Mr. Trump. Exactly one week later, they would be forced to fight Mr. Clark for their jobs in an Oval Office showdown.

During the call, Mr. Trump also told the Justice Department officials to “figure out what to do” with Hunter Biden, Mr. Biden’s son. “People will criticize the D.O.J. if he’s not investigated for real,” he told them, violating longstanding guidelines against White House intervention in criminal investigations or other law enforcement actions.

Two days after the phone call with Mr. Trump, Mr. Donoghue took notes of a meeting between Justice Department officials: Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows; the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone; and the White House deputy counsel Patrick Philbin met to discuss a conspiracy theory known as Italygate, which asserts without evidence that people in Italy used military technology to remotely tamper with voting machines in the United States.

The Justice Department officials told the White House that they had assigned someone to look into the matter, according to the notes and a person briefed on the meeting. They did not mention that the department was looking into the theory to debunk it, the person said.

#politics #us politics #news #trump administration #donald trump #trump #trump scandals #department of justice #doj #Jeffrey Rosen #Richard Donoghue #jim jordan #rep. jim jordan #gym jordan #rep. scott perry #scott perry #sen. ron johnson #ron johnson #House Oversight and Reform Committee #Senate Judiciary Committee #Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney #Carolyn B. Maloney #jeff clark #new york times #mark meadows #Pat Cipollone #Patrick Philbin #election fraud #election audit #voter fraud

[route22ny]

By Timothy Snyder

Published Jan. 9, 2021 - Updated Jan. 10, 2021, 10:12 a.m. ET

When Donald Trump stood before his followers on Jan. 6 and urged them to march on the United States Capitol, he was doing what he had always done. He never took electoral democracy seriously nor accepted the legitimacy of its American version.

Even when he won, in 2016, he insisted that the election was fraudulent — that millions of false votes were cast for his opponent. In 2020, in the knowledge that he was trailing Joseph R. Biden in the polls, he spent months claiming that the presidential election would be rigged and signaling that he would not accept the results if they did not favor him. He wrongly claimed on Election Day that he had won and then steadily hardened his rhetoric: With time, his victory became a historic landslide and the various conspiracies that denied it ever more sophisticated and implausible.

People believed him, which is not at all surprising. It takes a tremendous amount of work to educate citizens to resist the powerful pull of believing what they already believe, or what others around them believe, or what would make sense of their own previous choices. Plato noted a particular risk for tyrants: that they would be surrounded in the end by yes-men and enablers. Aristotle worried that, in a democracy, a wealthy and talented demagogue could all too easily master the minds of the populace. Aware of these risks and others, the framers of the Constitution instituted a system of checks and balances. The point was not simply to ensure that no one branch of government dominated the others but also to anchor in institutions different points of view.

In this sense, the responsibility for Trump’s push to overturn an election must be shared by a very large number of Republican members of Congress. Rather than contradict Trump from the beginning, they allowed his electoral fiction to flourish. They had different reasons for doing so. One group of Republicans is concerned above all with gaming the system to maintain power, taking full advantage of constitutional obscurities, gerrymandering and dark money to win elections with a minority of motivated voters. They have no interest in the collapse of the peculiar form of representation that allows their minority party disproportionate control of government. The most important among them, Mitch McConnell, indulged Trump’s lie while making no comment on its consequences.

Yet other Republicans saw the situation differently: They might actually break the system and have power without democracy. The split between these two groups, the gamers and the breakers, became sharply visible on Dec. 30, when Senator Josh Hawley announced that he would support Trump’s challenge by questioning the validity of the electoral votes on Jan. 6. Ted Cruz then promised his own support, joined by about 10 other senators. More than a hundred Republican representatives took the same position. For many, this seemed like nothing more than a show: challenges to states’ electoral votes would force delays and floor votes but would not affect the outcome.

Yet for Congress to traduce its basic functions had a price. An elected institution that opposes elections is inviting its own overthrow. Members of Congress who sustained the president’s lie, despite the available and unambiguous evidence, betrayed their constitutional mission. Making his fictions the basis of congressional action gave them flesh. Now Trump could demand that senators and congressmen bow to his will. He could place personal responsibility upon Mike Pence, in charge of the formal proceedings, to pervert them. And on Jan. 6, he directed his followers to exert pressure on these elected representatives, which they proceeded to do: storming the Capitol building, searching for people to punish, ransacking the place.

Of course this did make a kind of sense: If the election really had been stolen, as senators and congressmen were themselves suggesting, then how could Congress be allowed to move forward? For some Republicans, the invasion of the Capitol must have been a shock, or even a lesson. For the breakers, however, it may have been a taste of the future. Afterward, eight senators and more than 100 representatives voted for the lie that had forced them to flee their chambers.

Post-truth is pre-fascism, and Trump has been our post-truth president. When we give up on truth, we concede power to those with the wealth and charisma to create spectacle in its place. Without agreement about some basic facts, citizens cannot form the civil society that would allow them to defend themselves. If we lose the institutions that produce facts that are pertinent to us, then we tend to wallow in attractive abstractions and fictions. Truth defends itself particularly poorly when there is not very much of it around, and the era of Trump — like the era of Vladimir Putin in Russia — is one of the decline of local news. Social media is no substitute: It supercharges the mental habits by which we seek emotional stimulation and comfort, which means losing the distinction between what feels true and what actually is true.

Post-truth wears away the rule of law and invites a regime of myth. These last four years, scholars have discussed the legitimacy and value of invoking fascism in reference to Trumpian propaganda. One comfortable position has been to label any such effort as a direct comparison and then to treat such comparisons as taboo. More productively, the philosopher Jason Stanley has treated fascism as a phenomenon, as a series of patterns that can be observed not only in interwar Europe but beyond it.

My own view is that greater knowledge of the past, fascist or otherwise, allows us to notice and conceptualize elements of the present that we might otherwise disregard and to think more broadly about future possibilities. It was clear to me in October that Trump’s behavior presaged a coup, and I said so in print; this is not because the present repeats the past, but because the past enlightens the present.

Like historical fascist leaders, Trump has presented himself as the single source of truth. His use of the term “fake news” echoed the Nazi smear Lügenpresse (“lying press”); like the Nazis, he referred to reporters as “enemies of the people.” Like Adolf Hitler, he came to power at a moment when the conventional press had taken a beating; the financial crisis of 2008 did to American newspapers what the Great Depression did to German ones. The Nazis thought that they could use radio to replace the old pluralism of the newspaper; Trump tried to do the same with Twitter.

Thanks to technological capacity and personal talent, Donald Trump lied at a pace perhaps unmatched by any other leader in history. For the most part these were small lies, and their main effect was cumulative. To believe in all of them was to accept the authority of a single man, because to believe in all of them was to disbelieve everything else. Once such personal authority was established, the president could treat everyone else as the liars; he even had the power to turn someone from a trusted adviser into a dishonest scoundrel with a single tweet. Yet so long as he was unable to enforce some truly big lie, some fantasy that created an alternative reality where people could live and die, his pre-fascism fell short of the thing itself.

Some of his lies were, admittedly, medium-size: that he was a successful businessman; that Russia did not support him in 2016; that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. Such medium-size lies were the standard fare of aspiring authoritarians in the 21st century. In Poland the right-wing party built a martyrdom cult around assigning blame to political rivals for an airplane crash that killed the nation’s president. Hungary’s Viktor Orban blames a vanishingly small number of Muslim refugees for his country’s problems. But such claims were not quite big lies; they stretched but did not rend what Hannah Arendt called “the fabric of factuality.”

One historical big lie discussed by Arendt is Joseph Stalin’s explanation of starvation in Soviet Ukraine in 1932-33. The state had collectivized agriculture, then applied a series of punitive measures to Ukraine that ensured millions would die. Yet the official line was that the starving were provocateurs, agents of Western powers who hated socialism so much they were killing themselves. A still grander fiction, in Arendt’s account, is Hitlerian anti-Semitism: the claims that Jews ran the world, Jews were responsible for ideas that poisoned German minds, Jews stabbed Germany in the back during the First World War. Intriguingly, Arendt thought big lies work only in lonely minds; their coherence substitutes for experience and companionship.

In November 2020, reaching millions of lonely minds through social media, Trump told a lie that was dangerously ambitious: that he had won an election that in fact he had lost. This lie was big in every pertinent respect: not as big as “Jews run the world,” but big enough. The significance of the matter at hand was great: the right to rule the most powerful country in the world and the efficacy and trustworthiness of its succession procedures. The level of mendacity was profound. The claim was not only wrong, but it was also made in bad faith, amid unreliable sources. It challenged not just evidence but logic: Just how could (and why would) an election have been rigged against a Republican president but not against Republican senators and representatives? Trump had to speak, absurdly, of a “Rigged (for President) Election.”

The force of a big lie resides in its demand that many other things must be believed or disbelieved. To make sense of a world in which the 2020 presidential election was stolen requires distrust not only of reporters and of experts but also of local, state and federal government institutions, from poll workers to elected officials, Homeland Security and all the way to the Supreme Court. It brings with it, of necessity, a conspiracy theory: Imagine all the people who must have been in on such a plot and all the people who would have had to work on the cover-up.

Trump’s electoral fiction floats free of verifiable reality. It is defended not so much by facts as by claims that someone else has made some claims. The sensibility is that something must be wrong because I feel it to be wrong, and I know others feel the same way. When political leaders such as Ted Cruz or Jim Jordan spoke like this, what they meant was: You believe my lies, which compels me to repeat them. Social media provides an infinity of apparent evidence for any conviction, especially one seemingly held by a president.

On the surface, a conspiracy theory makes its victim look strong: It sees Trump as resisting the Democrats, the Republicans, the Deep State, the pedophiles, the Satanists. More profoundly, however, it inverts the position of the strong and the weak. Trump’s focus on alleged “irregularities” and “contested states” comes down to cities where Black people live and vote. At bottom, the fantasy of fraud is that of a crime committed by Black people against white people.

It’s not just that electoral fraud by African-Americans against Donald Trump never happened. It is that it is the very opposite of what happened, in 2020 and in every American election. As always, Black people waited longer than others to vote and were more likely to have their votes challenged. They were more likely to be suffering or dying from Covid-19, and less likely to be able to take time away from work. The historical protection of their right to vote has been removed by the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, and states have rushed to pass measures of a kind that historically reduce voting by the poor and communities of color.

The claim that Trump was denied a win by fraud is a big lie not just because it mauls logic, misdescribes the present and demands belief in a conspiracy. It is a big lie, fundamentally, because it reverses the moral field of American politics and the basic structure of American history.

When Senator Ted Cruz announced his intention to challenge the Electoral College vote, he invoked the Compromise of 1877, which resolved the presidential election of 1876. Commentators pointed out that this was no relevant precedent, since back then there really were serious voter irregularities and there really was a stalemate in Congress. For African-Americans, however, the seemingly gratuitous reference led somewhere else. The Compromise of 1877 — in which Rutherford B. Hayes would have the presidency, provided that he withdrew federal power from the South — was the very arrangement whereby African-Americans were driven from voting booths for the better part of a century. It was effectively the end of Reconstruction, the beginning of segregation, legal discrimination and Jim Crow. It is the original sin of American history in the post-slavery era, our closest brush with fascism so far.

If the reference seemed distant when Ted Cruz and 10 senatorial colleagues released their statement on Jan. 2, it was brought very close four days later, when Confederate flags were paraded through the Capitol.

Some things have changed since 1877, of course. Back then, it was the Republicans, or many of them, who supported racial equality; it was the Democrats, the party of the South, who wanted apartheid. It was the Democrats, back then, who called African-Americans’ votes fraudulent, and the Republicans who wanted them counted. This is now reversed. In the past half century, since the Civil Rights Act, Republicans have become a predominantly white party interested — as Trump openly declared — in keeping the number of voters, and particularly the number of Black voters, as low as possible. Yet the common thread remains. Watching white supremacists among the people storming the Capitol, it was easy to yield to the feeling that something pure had been violated. It might be better to see the episode as part of a long American argument about who deserves representation.

The Democrats, today, have become a coalition, one that does better than Republicans with female and nonwhite voters and collects votes from both labor unions and the college-educated. Yet it’s not quite right to contrast this coalition with a monolithic Republican Party. Right now, the Republican Party is a coalition of two types of people: those who would game the system (most of the politicians, some of the voters) and those who dream of breaking it (a few of the politicians, many of the voters). In January 2021, this was visible as the difference between those Republicans who defended the present system on the grounds that it favored them and those who tried to upend it.

In the four decades since the election of Ronald Reagan, Republicans have overcome the tension between the gamers and the breakers by governing in opposition to government, or by calling elections a revolution (the Tea Party), or by claiming to oppose elites. The breakers, in this arrangement, provide cover for the gamers, putting forth an ideology that distracts from the basic reality that government under Republicans is not made smaller but simply diverted to serve a handful of interests.

At first, Trump seemed like a threat to this balance. His lack of experience in politics and his open racism made him a very uncomfortable figure for the party; his habit of continually telling lies was initially found by prominent Republicans to be uncouth. Yet after he won the presidency, his particular skills as a breaker seemed to create a tremendous opportunity for the gamers. Led by the gamer in chief, McConnell, they secured hundreds of federal judges and tax cuts for the rich.

Trump was unlike other breakers in that he seemed to have no ideology. His objection to institutions was that they might constrain him personally. He intended to break the system to serve himself — and this is partly why he has failed. Trump is a charismatic politician and inspires devotion not only among voters but among a surprising number of lawmakers, but he has no vision that is greater than himself or what his admirers project upon him. In this respect his pre-fascism fell short of fascism: His vision never went further than a mirror. He arrived at a truly big lie not from any view of the world but from the reality that he might lose something.

Yet Trump never prepared a decisive blow. He lacked the support of the military, some of whose leaders he had alienated. (No true fascist would have made the mistake he did there, which was to openly love foreign dictators; supporters convinced that the enemy was at home might not mind, but those sworn to protect from enemies abroad did.) Trump’s secret police force, the men carrying out snatch operations in Portland, was violent but also small and ludicrous. Social media proved to be a blunt weapon: Trump could announce his intentions on Twitter, and white supremacists could plan their invasion of the Capitol on Facebook or Gab. But the president, for all his lawsuits and entreaties and threats to public officials, could not engineer a situation that ended with the right people doing the wrong thing. Trump could make some voters believe that he had won the 2020 election, but he was unable to bring institutions along with his big lie. And he could bring his supporters to Washington and send them on a rampage in the Capitol, but none appeared to have any very clear idea of how this was to work or what their presence would accomplish. It is hard to think of a comparable insurrectionary moment, when a building of great significance was seized, that involved so much milling around.

The lie outlasts the liar. The idea that Germany lost the First World War in 1918 because of a Jewish “stab in the back” was 15 years old when Hitler came to power. How will Trump’s myth of victimhood function in American life 15 years from now? And to whose benefit?

On Jan. 7, Trump called for a peaceful transition of power, implicitly conceding that his putsch had failed. Even then, though, he repeated and even amplified his electoral fiction: It was now a sacred cause for which people had sacrificed. Trump’s imagined stab in the back will live on chiefly thanks to its endorsement by members of Congress. In November and December 2020, Republicans repeated it, giving it a life it would not otherwise have had. In retrospect, it now seems as though the last shaky compromise between the gamers and the breakers was the idea that Trump should have every chance to prove that wrong had been done to him. That position implicitly endorsed the big lie for Trump supporters who were inclined to believe it. It failed to restrain Trump, whose big lie only grew bigger.

The breakers and the gamers then saw a different world ahead, where the big lie was either a treasure to be had or a danger to be avoided. The breakers had no choice but to rush to be first to claim to believe in it. Because the breakers Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz must compete to claim the brimstone and bile, the gamers were forced to reveal their own hand, and the division within the Republican coalition became visible on Jan. 6. The invasion of the Capitol only reinforced this division. To be sure, a few senators withdrew their objections, but Cruz and Hawley moved forward anyway, along with six other senators. More than 100 representatives doubled down on the big lie. Some, like Matt Gaetz, even added their own flourishes, such as the claim that the mob was led not by Trump’s supporters but by his opponents.

Trump is, for now, the martyr in chief, the high priest of the big lie. He is the leader of the breakers, at least in the minds of his supporters. By now, the gamers do not want Trump around. Discredited in his last weeks, he is useless; shorn of the obligations of the presidency, he will become embarrassing again, much as he was in 2015. Unable to provide cover for their gamesmanship, he will be irrelevant to their daily purposes. But the breakers have an even stronger reason to see Trump disappear: It is impossible to inherit from someone who is still around. Seizing Trump’s big lie might appear to be a gesture of support. In fact it expresses a wish for his political death. Transforming the myth from one about Trump to one about the nation will be easier when he is out of the way.

As Cruz and Hawley may learn, to tell the big lie is to be owned by it. Just because you have sold your soul does not mean that you have driven a hard bargain. Hawley shies from no level of hypocrisy; the son of a banker, educated at Stanford University and Yale Law School, he denounces elites. Insofar as Cruz was thought to have a principle, it was that of states’ rights, which Trump’s calls to action brazenly violated. A joint statement Cruz issued about the senators’ challenge to the vote nicely captured the post-truth aspect of the whole: It never alleged that there was fraud, only that there were allegations of fraud. Allegations of allegations, allegations all the way down.

The big lie requires commitment. When Republican gamers do not exhibit enough of that, Republican breakers call them “RINOs”: Republicans in name only. This term once suggested a lack of ideological commitment. It now means an unwillingness to throw away an election. The gamers, in response, close ranks around the Constitution and speak of principles and traditions. The breakers must all know (with the possible exception of the Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville) that they are participating in a sham, but they will have an audience of tens of millions who do not.

If Trump remains present in American political life, he will surely repeat his big lie incessantly. Hawley and Cruz and the other breakers share responsibility for where this leads. Cruz and Hawley seem to be running for president. Yet what does it mean to be a candidate for office and denounce voting? If you claim that the other side has cheated, and your supporters believe you, they will expect you to cheat yourself. By defending Trump’s big lie on Jan. 6, they set a precedent: A Republican presidential candidate who loses an election should be appointed anyway by Congress. Republicans in the future, at least breaker candidates for president, will presumably have a Plan A, to win and win, and a Plan B, to lose and win. No fraud is necessary; only allegations that there are allegations of fraud. Truth is to be replaced by spectacle, facts by faith.

Trump’s coup attempt of 2020-21, like other failed coup attempts, is a warning for those who care about the rule of law and a lesson for those who do not. His pre-fascism revealed a possibility for American politics. For a coup to work in 2024, the breakers will require something that Trump never quite had: an angry minority, organized for nationwide violence, ready to add intimidation to an election. Four years of amplifying a big lie just might get them this. To claim that the other side stole an election is to promise to steal one yourself. It is also to claim that the other side deserves to be punished.

Informed observers inside and outside government agree that right-wing white supremacism is the greatest terrorist threat to the United States. Gun sales in 2020 hit an astonishing high. History shows that political violence follows when prominent leaders of major political parties openly embrace paranoia.

Our big lie is typically American, wrapped in our odd electoral system, depending upon our particular traditions of racism. Yet our big lie is also structurally fascist, with its extreme mendacity, its conspiratorial thinking, its reversal of perpetrators and victims and its implication that the world is divided into us and them. To keep it going for four years courts terrorism and assassination.

When that violence comes, the breakers will have to react. If they embrace it, they become the fascist faction. The Republican Party will be divided, at least for a time. One can of course imagine a dismal reunification: A breaker candidate loses a narrow presidential election in November 2024 and cries fraud, the Republicans win both houses of Congress and rioters in the street, educated by four years of the big lie, demand what they see as justice. Would the gamers stand on principle if those were the circumstances of Jan. 6, 2025?

To be sure, this moment is also a chance. It is possible that a divided Republican Party might better serve American democracy; that the gamers, separated from the breakers, might start to think of policy as a way to win elections. It is very likely that the Biden-Harris administration will have an easier first few months than expected; perhaps obstructionism will give way, at least among a few Republicans and for a short time, to a moment of self-questioning. Politicians who want Trumpism to end have a simple way forward: Tell the truth about the election.

America will not survive the big lie just because a liar is separated from power. It will need a thoughtful repluralization of media and a commitment to facts as a public good. The racism structured into every aspect of the coup attempt is a call to heed our own history. Serious attention to the past helps us to see risks but also suggests future possibility. We cannot be a democratic republic if we tell lies about race, big or small. Democracy is not about minimizing the vote nor ignoring it, neither a matter of gaming nor of breaking a system, but of accepting the equality of others, heeding their voices and counting their votes.

Timothy Snyder is the Levin professor of history at Yale University and the author of histories of political atrocity including “Bloodlands” and “Black Earth,” as well as the book “On Tyranny,” on America’s turn toward authoritarianism. His most recent book is “Our Malady,” a memoir of his own near-fatal illness reflecting on the relationship between health and freedom.

***

Essay copied & pasted here in its entirety for the benefit of those stuck behind the paywall. Follow the link for the accompanying photos and captions.

#trump coup #american abyss #timothy snyder #fascism in america

[coochiequeens]

Kyle Rittenhouse may be a disturbing kind of racist male violence. But why the hell was the People’s Revolution Movement ok with a convicted child abuser and a guy who assaulted his brother and grandmother at their events?

In attempt to justify the actions of Kyle Rittenhouse — the 17-year-old accused of shooting three people, killing two, with a semi-automatic rifle during a protest on Aug. 25, 2020, in Kenosha, Wisconsin — Americans on the political right launched a grassroots effort to uncover any evidence to deny the shooting victims martyrdom among opponents.

The makeshift investigations revealed what hardline conservatives believed to be proof of criminal wrongdoing by the deceased — Anthony Huber, 26, and Joseph Rosenbaum, 36 —as well as by Gaige Grosskreutz, 26, who shot was shot in the arm and survived. One blog post alleged:

Anthony Huber was jailed for domestic violence. Joseph Rosenbaum was a pedophile. Gaige Grosskreutz was arrested and charged with burglary among other crimes […] are you really saying the backgrounds of these ‘peaceful protestors’ aren’t relevant to the discussion?

Ultimately, the focus on the victims’ backgrounds aimed to prove Rittenhouse’s actions defensible, and discredit an underlying belief by the political left: that the victims acted heroically, and were wrongfully targeted by the armed teenager at the protest.

And though the rumors about the shooting victims varied in severity and nature, many alleged this: Huber was a known offender of domestic violence and rapist; Rosenbaum had sexually abused children; Grosskreutz had been arrested on suspicion of multiple crimes, including felony burglary, and all three victims were convicted felons. Based on court records and inmate rosters, aspects of those claims were indeed accurate, while others were outright false.

What follows is an explanation of those findings, as well as everything we know about the incident that made the three men symbols of the country’s political divide, at the request of Snopes readers to investigate the wide-ranging online campaign to celebrate Rittenhouse, and smear the reputations of his alleged victims.

But we should note here: No evidence showed the victims’ histories had anything to do with the protest, which began as a peaceful showing of people against racism by U.S. law enforcement after a white police officer days prior shot and wounded a Black man, Jacob Blake, who is now paralyzed from the waist down.

Additionally, no proof existed to confirm or deny whether Rittenhouse knew of Huber, Rosenbaum, or Grosskreutz — or their criminal histories — before he was captured in video footage patrolling the protest with the rifle.

‘I Just Killed Someone’: How the Kenosha Shooting Unfolded

To understand the gravity of the rumors swirling about the shooting victims’ past, let’s unpack what happened that chaotic night in Kenosha.

Giving ideological ammo to Rittenhouse supporters on the frontlines of the country’s culture war online, his legal defense team have framed the teenager from Antioch, Illinois, as a courageous vigilante who was patrolling the streets of Kenosha to prevent property destruction and theft when he needed to use his gun to defend himself. U.S. President Donald Trump, too, has said the teen appeared to be “in very big trouble” and “probably would have been killed” had he not acted the way he did.

That said, according to a statement to reporters by one of Rittenhouse’s attorneys, the teen had heard the owner of a Kenosha car dealership wanted help patrolling his properties during the protest, so Rittenhouse and a friend armed themselves with rifles and headed to one of the auto shops.

After the city’s mandated curfew of 8 p.m. passed, law-enforcement officers tried to clear a crowd of people a couple of blocks away — which, in effect, pushed the group toward the auto shop where Rittenhouse and others were stationed with guns. People in the crowd apparently threatened the teen and others acting as vigilante security guards, per the attorney’s account. Then, after some running around, Rittenhouse attempted to go to a second mechanic shop, which he apparently believed was vulnerable to property damage. That’s when the attorney said people “began chasing him down.”

The back and forth between the teenager and the alleged “mob” was unknown, including if or to what extent they exchanged words. Also unknown were the locations of Huber, Rosenbaum, or Grosskreutz at that point in the night, or whether they had interacted with Rittenhouse before shots were fired.

The complaint outlining Rittenhouse’s criminal charges — which include murder and first-degree reckless homicide — as well as bystanders’ videos, explained what happened next, shortly before midnight: For some reason, Rittenhouse started running in the auto shop parking lot, while his first shooting victim, Rosenbaum, followed him at a close distance, and a journalist trailed Rosenbaum.

At one point, Rosenbaum — who appeared to be unarmed in at least one video — threw what appeared to be a plastic bag in the teen’s direction while running, and it landed short of Rittenhouse. And within seconds, shots rang out, and Rosenbaum fell to the ground, according to the complaint. It was unclear who fired first.

Rittenhouse’s legal team has said the teen didn’t open fire first — but rather he heard a gunshot behind him as he ran, turned around, and saw Rosenbaum lunging toward him and reaching for the rifle.

As the journalist attempted to give Rosenbaum medical aid, Rittenhouse apparently called someone — and then fled. The complaint stated:

As the defendant is running away, he can be heard saying on the phone, ‘i just killed somebody.’ … [The journalist] stated that he then heard other shots really soon after.

According to cellphone footage, a group of people followed Rittenhouse, yelling “Beat him up!” and “Hey, he shot him!” The teenager continued running, tripped, and then fell to the ground — from where he fired four shots.

Per the complaint, several people rushed toward the teen and hit him or tried to disarm him while he was lying on the ground. Among that group was Rittenhouse’s second victim, Huber, who had apparently hit Rittenhouse with a skateboard during the scuffle. Then, the complaint stated:

The defendant then fires one round … Huber staggers away, taking several steps, then collapses to the ground.

Rittenhouse sat up and pointed his gun at Grosskreutz, who ducked, put his hands in the air, and stepped back. Seconds later, when Grosskreutz moved toward the teen — apparently while holding a handgun — Rittenhouse fired one shot and struck Grosskreutz in the arm, the complaint alleged.

Grosskreutz ran away and medics took him to the hospital, where he was treated for a severe gunshot wound. Weeks later, in an interview with CNN that published Sept. 11, Grosskreutz said he was still recovering and missing most of his bicep where he was shot.

“I never fired my weapon that night,” Grosskreutz said. “Everybody was there exercising their right to protest. And there were some people who were exercising their right to bear arms, including myself.”

What We Know About the Victims — Aside From Their Rap Sheets

All victims apparently were familiar faces at protests against police brutality beginning in May 2020, when George Floyd, a Black man, died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for about nine minutes, and sparked an international reckoning over race and policing.

Porche Bennett, a Kenosha activist and business owner, told The Kenosha News while all three men were known by protest organizers, Rosenbaum and Huber were regular attendees of gatherings in the Kenosha area.

“They came out here every time with us,” Bennett said of the deceased.

Rosenbaum was originally from Waco, Texas. He lived in Arizona, where he went to high school and a community college, before moving to Wisconsin in 2020, per news reportsand his Facebook page. He apparently worked at a Wendy’s restaurant in Kenosha at the time of his death, and he was survived by a fiancée and young daughter.

Those closest to Huber, a Kenosha resident, remembered him as a friendly, laid-back guy who loved skateboarding. His obituary said he “died a hero fighting for a cause he believed in.”

Grosskreutz, meanwhile, isn’t from Kenosha, a lakeside city between Milwaukee and Chicago with a population of about 100,000 people. Following Blake’s shooting by a police officer there, however, Grosskreutz traveled about 40 miles south to Kenosha from his home in West Allis, a Milwaukee suburb, to show solidarity with those protesting the police officer’s use of potentially lethal force against Blake.

Grosskreutz is reportedly a member of a Milwaukee-based social justice group called the People’s Revolution Movement, and was patrolling Kenosha streets as a volunteer medic when the Aug. 25 demonstration turned deadly. And in addition to social justice work, Grosskreutz has worked as a wilderness medical instructor, among other jobs, and was a senior at a private liberal arts college in Ashland, Wisconsin, when he was shot and wounded, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

“I’m not an Antifa terrorist organizer,” he told CNN. “I go to school. And yeah, I exercise my First Amendment right to peacefully protest.”

What’s True — and False — About the Victims’ Criminal Histories

The viral claims alleging unlawful behavior by Huber, Rosenbaum, and Grosskreutz before the Kenosha shooting were a mixture of truth and falsehoods.

For example, yes, at age 19, Rosenbaum was sentenced to prison for sexually abusing five children — all boys between the ages of 9 and 11 — in Arizona’s Pima County in early 2002, according to his case file obtained via a public records request by Snopes.

The documents said Rosenbaum was temporarily living with the boys’ parents after his mother had kicked him out for disobeying her rules about one month earlier. Over the course of his weeks-long stay, Rosenbaum molested the boys, showed them porn, and performed oral sex on them, among other offenses, the documents showed. He was sentenced to prison for roughly 15 years, and authorities believed at the time “his risk to recidivate being of great concern to the community” considering the victims’ gender and age. (Let us note here: The records included an interview with Rosenbaum in which he said his stepfather sexually abused him and his brother on an almost daily basis when he was a preteen.)

Considering that evidence, the claim that Rosenbaum at one point was convicted of sexually abusing at least one child before his death was true.

Next, we analyzed criminal records involving Huber, and determined it also accurate to state he was charged with domestic abuse. We uncovered a Kenosha County criminal complaint that outlined his first serious run-in with law enforcement, in December 2012. And per that complaint, Huber, who was 18 years old at the time, threatened his brother and grandmother at their home with a knife, choked the brother, and demanded that they follow his orders. The complaint said the brother wanted to take Huber to a hospital, apparently for emergency mental health help, but Huber resisted. In the end, he was charged with strangulation and suffocation and false imprisonment, both of which are felony crimes.

On another occasion, about three years later, Huber paid a roughly $150 citation or possessing drug paraphernalia, court records showed. Then, in 2018, Huber was charged with disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor offense, after a fight with his sister at their house, per a criminal complaint by Kenosha prosecutors.

But unlike what many Rittenhouse supporters claimed, we could find no court evidence that Huber had sexually assaulted anyone.

Also false was the assertion that all three of the teenager’s victims were felons. Grosskreutz had not committed a felony crime, our analysis of court records showed.

He was, however, found guilty in 2016 of breaking Wisconsin’s law governing the use of dangerous weapons — a misdemeanor offense — per Milwaukee County court records. He had apparently gone somewhere “armed while intoxicated,” though the court records did not elaborate on what exactly had happened. Snopes requested a copy of the probable cause statement from county records administrators, but we have not yet obtained it.

Additionally, Grosskreutz at various points received tickets for minor offenses including disobeying police officers and making loud noises, the court records showed. However, no evidence showed he had indeed committed burglary, like supporters of the alleged killer claimed, though he had been arrested on suspicion of the crime in 2012. The felony charge was later dismissed, per Wisconsin Department of Justice’s criminal data.

In the interview with CNN, Grosskreutz said he has paid his debt for his past crimes and that he had every right to carry a gun at the Aug. 25 protest. “I’m not a felon,” he said. “I had a legal right to possess [a firearm] and to possess it concealed.”

The Victims’ Criminal Past ‘Have No Bearing on Them Being Shot’

As of this writing, Rittenhouse was set to make his next court appearance on Sept. 25, and no court proceedings have called attention to the criminal histories of his alleged victims.

Threads on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and other social media sites for Americans on the far political right, as well as white supremacists and armed militias, were a different story, however. Those type of discussions were not unusual; onlookers of high-profile, controversial killings often focus on the criminal records of the victims, no matter the relevance of that history.

Kyle Rittenhouse shot a sex offender , a domestic abuser and an armed communist. The kid is only 17 and he’s completed half my bucket list.

— The People's Cube (@ThePeoplesCube) August 27, 2020

The phenomenon is particularly prevalent when authorities kill non-white people; for example, conservative corners of the internet focused on Floyd’s alleged criminal background after his death, which sparked a civil rights movement, and the rapsheet of another Black man, Rayshard Brooks, after a white Atlanta police officer fatally shot him in a Wendy’s parking lot in June 2020.

Psychologists have said the strategy — whether intentional or not — of shifting focus away from questionable violence and onto the past unlawful behavior of victims makes it easy for people to subscribe to the “they had it coming” trope and justify deaths or injuries.

In response to that campaign, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel released a statement on Sept. 1 in which it explained why the newspaper had not reported on the victims’ past legal records. The statement read:

There is no evidence so far that the backgrounds of the three victims — Anthony Huber, Joseph Rosenbaum and Gaige Grosskreutz — had anything to do with the clashes that led to the deaths of Huber and Rosenbaum and the wounding of Grosskreutz.

They are the victims of a shooting, and as far as we can tell their past legal records have no bearing on them being shot during a protest.

If more facts emerge that show their backgrounds are relevant to what happened that night in Kenosha, we would revisit our decision. For instance, if there is evidence that any of the victims’ backgrounds could have affected their interactions with Rittenhouse, or if he knew anything about them before the shooting.

This report was updated after Arizona's Pima County fulfilled Snopes' public records request for documents outlining the sexual child abuse for which Rosenbaum was sentenced to prison. This article was updated on Sept. 23 to provide more information about Grosskreutz's criminal background.

Jessica Lee

Published 11 September 2020

Updated 11 May 2021

Editor's Picks

Sources Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.   “Why We Aren’t Reporting On The Records of The Victims of The Kenosha Protest Shooting, and Answers To Other Questions About Our Coverage.”    1 September 2020. Maxouris, Christina.   “The 26-Year-Old Man Killed in Kenosha Shooting Tried To Protect Those Around Him, His Girlfriend Says.” CNN.   28 August 2020. Dudek, Mitch.   “Anthony Huber, Killed While Protesting in Kenosha Remembered As Fearless Skateboarder.” Chicago Sun Times.   27 August 2020. Johnson, Annysa, et. al.   “Victim of Kenosha Protest Shooting May Have Been ‘Trying To Save Somebody’: What We Know.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.   28 August 2020. Guardian Staff.   “A Father And A 26-Year-Old Skateboarder: The Protesters Killed in Kenosha.”    The Guardian.   27 August 2020. Flores, Terry.   “WATCH NOW: UPDATE: 36 Arrested Overnight, Peaceful Protesters Condemn Rioters.” Kenosha News.    27 August 2020. Thebault, Reis, and Teo Armus.   “Dueling Narratives Fuel Opposing Views of Kenosha Protest Shooting.” The Washington Post.   30 August 2020. Middle, Isaac.   “Anthony Huber was jailed for domestic violence…”    Medium.   29 August 2020. Oliveira, Nelson.   “Kenosha Shooting Victims Identified, Remembered as ‘Sweet,’ ‘Loving’ Guys By Family And Friends.”    Daily News.   27 August 2020. Willis, Haley, et. al.   “Tracking The Suspect In The Fatal Kenosha Shootings.”    New York Times.   27 August 2020. Fox News.   “Kyle Rittenhouse’s Attorney Says His Client Acted In Self-Defense.”    31 August 2020. Cardinal News.   “Letter From Law Firm Pierce Bainbridge Representing Kyle Rittenhouse In Defense of First Degree Intentional Homicide Charges And Other Charges.”    31 August 2020. Fritze, John.   “Trump Defends Kyle Rittenhouse On Eve Of Visit To Kenosha.” USA Today.   31 August 2020.

Yesterday I reblogged a post calling out the bs of asking white women to wear feminine clothes and shoes and put themselves at the front of protests. Not only will feminine clothes not protect women from police violence but it won’t protect them from the men asking them to do that if these same men are ok with domestic abusers and child abusers in their midst.

#Liberal men #Kyle rittenhouse trial #People’s revolution movement

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Timothy Snyder [don't miss a word]

When Donald Trump stood before his followers on Jan. 6 and urged them to march on the United States Capitol, he was doing what he had always done. He never took electoral democracy  seriously nor accepted the legitimacy of its American version. Even when he won, in 2016, he insisted that the election was fraudulent — that millions of false votes were cast for his opponent. In 2020, in  the knowledge that he was trailing Joseph R. Biden in the polls, he spent months claiming that the presidential election would be rigged and signaling that he  would not accept the results if they did not favor him. He wrongly  claimed on Election Day that he had won and then steadily hardened his  rhetoric: With time, his victory became a historic landslide and the  various conspiracies that denied it ever more sophisticated and  implausible.                                                

People believed him,  which is not at all surprising. It takes a tremendous amount of work to  educate citizens to resist the powerful pull of believing what they  already believe, or what others around them believe, or what would make  sense of their own previous choices. Plato noted a particular risk for  tyrants: that they would be surrounded in the end by yes-men and  enablers. Aristotle worried that, in a democracy, a wealthy and talented  demagogue could all too easily master the minds of the populace. Aware  of these risks and others, the framers of the Constitution instituted a  system of checks and balances. The point was not simply to ensure that  no one branch of government dominated the others but also to anchor in  institutions different points of view.                                                                                                                          

In  this sense, the responsibility for Trump’s push to overturn an election  must be shared by a very large number of Republican members of  Congress. Rather than contradict Trump from the beginning, they allowed  his electoral fiction to flourish. They had different reasons for doing  so. One group of Republicans is concerned above all with gaming the  system to maintain power, taking full advantage of constitutional  obscurities, gerrymandering and dark money to win elections with a  minority of motivated voters. They have no interest in the collapse of  the peculiar form of representation that allows their minority party  disproportionate control of government. The most important among them,  Mitch McConnell, indulged Trump’s lie while making no comment on its  consequences.                                  

Yet  other Republicans saw the situation differently: They might actually  break the system and have power without democracy. The split between  these two groups, the gamers and the breakers, became sharply visible on  Dec. 30, when Senator Josh Hawley announced that he would support Trump’s challenge by questioning the validity of the electoral votes on Jan. 6. Ted Cruz then promised his own support, joined by about 10 other senators. More than a hundred Republican  representatives took the same position. For many, this seemed like  nothing more than a show: challenges to states’ electoral votes would  force delays and floor votes but would not affect the outcome.

Yet  for Congress to traduce its basic functions had a price. An elected  institution that opposes elections is inviting its own overthrow.  Members of Congress who sustained the president’s lie, despite the  available and unambiguous evidence, betrayed their constitutional  mission. Making his fictions the basis of congressional action gave them  flesh. Now Trump could demand that senators and congressmen bow to his  will. He could place personal responsibility upon Mike Pence, in charge  of the formal proceedings, to pervert them. And on Jan. 6, he directed  his followers to exert pressure on these elected representatives, which  they proceeded to do: storming the Capitol building, searching for people to punish, ransacking the place.

Of  course this did make a kind of sense: If the election really had been  stolen, as senators and congressmen were themselves suggesting, then how  could Congress be allowed to move forward? For some Republicans, the  invasion of the Capitol must have been a shock, or even a lesson. For  the breakers, however, it may have been a taste of the future.  Afterward, eight senators and more than 100 representatives voted for  the lie that had forced them to flee their chambers.Post-truth is pre-fascism,  and Trump has been our post-truth president. When we give up on truth,  we concede power to those with the wealth and charisma to create  spectacle in its place. Without agreement about some basic facts,  citizens cannot form the civil society that would allow them to defend  themselves. If we lose the institutions that produce facts that are pertinent to us, then we tend to wallow in attractive abstractions and  fictions.

Truth defends itself particularly poorly when there is not  very much of it around, and the era of Trump — like the era of Vladimir  Putin in Russia — is one of the decline of local news. Social media is  no substitute: It supercharges the mental habits by which we seek  emotional stimulation and comfort, which means losing the distinction  between what feels true and what actually is true.Post-truth  wears away the rule of law and invites a regime of myth. These last  four years, scholars have discussed the legitimacy and value of invoking  fascism in reference to Trumpian propaganda. One comfortable position  has been to label any such effort as a direct comparison and then to  treat such comparisons as taboo. More productively, the philosopher  Jason Stanley has treated fascism as a phenomenon, as a series of  patterns that can be observed not only in interwar Europe but beyond it.

My  own view is that greater knowledge of the past, fascist or otherwise,  allows us to notice and conceptualize elements of the present that we  might otherwise disregard and to think more broadly about future  possibilities. It was clear to me in October that Trump’s behavior  presaged a coup, and I said so in print; this is not because the present  repeats the past, but because the past enlightens the present.Like  historical fascist leaders, Trump has presented himself as the single  source of truth. His use of the term “fake news” echoed the Nazi smear Lügenpresse (“lying press”); like the Nazis, he referred to reporters as “enemies  of the people.” Like Adolf Hitler, he came to power at a moment when the  conventional press had taken a beating; the financial crisis of 2008  did to American newspapers what the Great Depression did to German ones.  The Nazis thought that they could use radio to replace the old  pluralism of the newspaper; Trump tried to do the same with Twitter.

Thanks  to technological capacity and personal talent, Donald Trump lied at a  pace perhaps unmatched by any other leader in history. For the most part  these were small lies, and their main effect was cumulative. To believe  in all of them was to accept the authority of a single man, because to  believe in all of them was to disbelieve everything else. Once such  personal authority was established, the president could treat everyone  else as the liars; he even had the power to turn someone from a trusted  adviser into a dishonest scoundrel with a single tweet. Yet so long as  he was unable to enforce some truly big lie, some fantasy that created  an alternative reality where people could live and die, his pre-fascism  fell short of the thing itself.

Some  of his lies were, admittedly, medium-size: that he was a successful  businessman; that Russia did not support him in 2016; that Barack Obama  was born in Kenya. Such medium-size lies were the standard fare of  aspiring authoritarians in the 21st century. In Poland the right-wing  party built a martyrdom cult around assigning blame to political rivals  for an airplane crash that killed the nation’s president. Hungary’s  Viktor Orban blames a vanishingly small number of Muslim refugees for his country’s problems. But such claims were not quite big lies; they stretched but did not rend what Hannah Arendt called “the fabric of factuality.”

One  historical big lie discussed by Arendt is Joseph Stalin’s explanation  of starvation in Soviet Ukraine in 1932-33. The state had collectivized  agriculture, then applied a series of punitive measures to Ukraine that  ensured millions would die. Yet the official line was that the starving  were provocateurs, agents of Western powers who hated socialism so much  they were killing themselves. A still grander fiction, in Arendt’s  account, is Hitlerian anti-Semitism: the claims that Jews ran the world,  Jews were responsible for ideas that poisoned German minds, Jews  stabbed Germany in the back during the First World War. Intriguingly,  Arendt thought big lies work only in lonely minds; their coherence  substitutes for experience and companionship.In November 2020, reaching millions of lonely minds through social media, Trump told a lie that was dangerously ambitious: that he had won an election that in fact he had lost. 

This lie was big in every pertinent respect: not as big as “Jews run  the world,” but big enough. The significance of the matter at hand was  great: the right to rule the most powerful country in the world and the  efficacy and trustworthiness of its succession procedures. The level of  mendacity was profound. The claim was not only wrong, but it was also  made in bad faith, amid unreliable sources. It challenged not just  evidence but logic: Just how could (and why would) an election have been  rigged against a Republican president but not against Republican  senators and representatives? Trump had to speak, absurdly, of a “Rigged  (for President) Election.”

The  force of a big lie resides in its demand that many other things must be believed or disbelieved. To make sense of a world in which the 2020 presidential election was stolen requires distrust not only of reporters  and of experts but also of local, state and federal government  institutions, from poll workers to elected officials, Homeland Security  and all the way to the Supreme Court. It brings with it, of necessity, a  conspiracy theory: Imagine all the people who must have been in on such  a plot and all the people who would have had to work on the cover-up.Trump’s  electoral fiction floats free of verifiable reality. It is defended not  so much by facts as by claims that someone else has made some claims.  The sensibility is that something must be wrong because I feel it to be  wrong, and I know others feel the same way. When political leaders such  as Ted Cruz or Jim Jordan spoke like this, what they meant was: You  believe my lies, which compels me to repeat them. Social media provides  an infinity of apparent evidence for any conviction, especially one  seemingly held by a president.

On the  surface, a conspiracy theory makes its victim look strong: It sees Trump  as resisting the Democrats, the Republicans, the Deep State, the  pedophiles, the Satanists. More profoundly, however, it inverts the  position of the strong and the weak. Trump’s focus on alleged  “irregularities” and “contested states” comes down to cities where Black  people live and vote. At bottom, the fantasy of fraud is that of a  crime committed by Black people against white people.It’s  not just that electoral fraud by African-Americans against Donald Trump  never happened. It is that it is the very opposite of what happened, in  2020 and in every American election. As always, Black people waited longer than others to vote and were more likely to have their votes challenged. They were more likely to be suffering or dying from Covid-19, and less likely to be able to take time away from work. The historical  protection of their right to vote has been removed by the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, and states have rushed to pass measures of a kind that historically reduce voting by the poor and communities of color.

The  claim that Trump was denied a win by fraud is a big lie not just  because it mauls logic, misdescribes the present and demands belief in a  conspiracy. It is a big lie, fundamentally, because it reverses the  moral field of American politics and the basic structure of American  history.

When Senator Ted Cruz  announced his intention to challenge the Electoral College vote, he  invoked the Compromise of 1877, which resolved the presidential election  of 1876. Commentators pointed out that this was no relevant precedent,  since back then there really were serious voter irregularities and there  really was a stalemate in Congress. For African-Americans, however, the  seemingly gratuitous reference led somewhere else. The Compromise of  1877 — in which Rutherford B. Hayes would have the presidency, provided  that he withdrew federal power from the South — was the very arrangement  whereby African-Americans were driven from voting booths for the better  part of a century. It was effectively the end of Reconstruction, the  beginning of segregation, legal discrimination and Jim Crow. It is the  original sin of American history in the post-slavery era, our closest  brush with fascism so far.If the  reference seemed distant when Ted Cruz and 10 senatorial colleagues  released their statement on Jan. 2, it was brought very close four days  later, when Confederate flags were paraded through the Capitol.

Some things have changed since 1877, of course. Back then, it was the Republicans, or  many of them, who supported racial equality; it was the Democrats, the  party of the South, who wanted apartheid. It was the Democrats, back  then, who called African-Americans’ votes fraudulent, and the  Republicans who wanted them counted. This is now reversed. In the past  half century, since the Civil Rights Act, Republicans have become a  predominantly white party interested — as Trump openly declared — in  keeping the number of voters, and particularly the number of Black  voters, as low as possible. Yet the common thread remains. Watching  white supremacists among the people storming the Capitol, it was easy to  yield to the feeling that something pure had been violated. It might be  better to see the episode as part of a long American argument about who  deserves representation.

The  Democrats, today, have become a coalition, one that does better than Republicans with female and nonwhite voters and collects votes from both labor unions and the college-educated. Yet it’s not quite right to  contrast this coalition with a monolithic Republican Party. Right now,  the Republican Party is a coalition of two types of people: those who  would game the system (most of the politicians, some of the voters) and  those who dream of breaking it (a few of the politicians, many of the  voters). In January 2021, this was visible as the difference between  those Republicans who defended the present system on the grounds that it  favored them and those who tried to upend it.In  the four decades since the election of Ronald Reagan, Republicans have  overcome the tension between the gamers and the breakers by governing in  opposition to government, or by calling elections a revolution (the Tea  Party), or by claiming to oppose elites. The breakers, in this  arrangement, provide cover for the gamers, putting forth an ideology  that distracts from the basic reality that government under Republicans  is not made smaller but simply diverted to serve a handful of interests.

At  first, Trump seemed like a threat to this balance. His lack of  experience in politics and his open racism made him a very uncomfortable  figure for the party; his habit of continually telling lies was  initially found by prominent Republicans to be uncouth. Yet after he won  the presidency, his particular skills as a breaker seemed to create a  tremendous opportunity for the gamers. Led by the gamer in chief,  McConnell, they secured hundreds of federal judges and tax cuts for the  rich.

Trump  was unlike other breakers in that he seemed to have no ideology. His  objection to institutions was that they might constrain him personally.  He intended to break the system to serve himself — and this is partly  why he has failed. Trump is a charismatic politician and inspires  devotion not only among voters but among a surprising number of  lawmakers, but he has no vision that is greater than himself or what his  admirers project upon him. In this respect his pre-fascism fell short  of fascism: His vision never went further than a mirror. He arrived at a  truly big lie not from any view of the world but from the reality that  he might lose something.

Yet Trump  never prepared a decisive blow. He lacked the support of the military,  some of whose leaders he had alienated. (No true fascist would have made  the mistake he did there, which was to openly love foreign dictators;  supporters convinced that the enemy was at home might not mind, but  those sworn to protect from enemies abroad did.) Trump’s secret police  force, the men carrying out snatch operations in Portland, was violent but also small and ludicrous. Social media proved to be a  blunt weapon: Trump could announce his intentions on Twitter, and white  supremacists could plan their invasion of the Capitol on Facebook or  Gab. 

But the president, for all his lawsuits and entreaties and threats  to public officials, could not engineer a situation that ended with the  right people doing the wrong thing. Trump could make some voters believe  that he had won the 2020 election, but he was unable to bring  institutions along with his big lie. And he could bring his supporters  to Washington and send them on a rampage in the Capitol, but none  appeared to have any very clear idea of how this was to work or what  their presence would accomplish. It is hard to think of a comparable  insurrectionary moment, when a building of great significance was seized, that involved so much milling around.

The lie outlasts the  liar. The idea that Germany lost the First World War in 1918 because of  a Jewish “stab in the back” was 15 years old when Hitler came to power.  How will Trump’s myth of victimhood function in American life 15 years from now? And to whose benefit?

On  Jan. 7, Trump called for a peaceful transition of power, implicitly  conceding that his putsch had failed. Even then, though, he repeated and  even amplified his electoral fiction: It was now a sacred cause for  which people had sacrificed. Trump’s imagined stab in the back will live  on chiefly thanks to its endorsement by members of Congress. In  November and December 2020, Republicans repeated it, giving it a life it  would not otherwise have had. In retrospect, it now seems as though the  last shaky compromise between the gamers and the breakers was the idea  that Trump should have every chance to prove that wrong had been done to  him. That position implicitly endorsed the big lie for Trump supporters  who were inclined to believe it. It failed to restrain Trump, whose big  lie only grew bigger.

The breakers  and the gamers then saw a different world ahead, where the big lie was  either a treasure to be had or a danger to be avoided. The breakers had  no choice but to rush to be first to claim to believe in it. Because the  breakers Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz must compete to claim the brimstone  and bile, the gamers were forced to reveal their own hand, and the  division within the Republican coalition became visible on Jan. 6. The  invasion of the Capitol only reinforced this division. To be sure, a few  senators withdrew their objections, but Cruz and Hawley moved forward  anyway, along with six other senators. More than 100 representatives  doubled down on the big lie. Some, like Matt Gaetz, even added their own  flourishes, such as the claim that the mob was led not by Trump’s  supporters but by his opponents.Trump  is, for now, the martyr in chief, the high priest of the big lie. He is  the leader of the breakers, at least in the minds of his supporters. By  now, the gamers do not want Trump around. Discredited in his last  weeks, he is useless; shorn of the obligations of the presidency, he  will become embarrassing again, much as he was in 2015. Unable to  provide cover for their gamesmanship, he will be irrelevant to their daily purposes. But the breakers have an even stronger reason to see  Trump disappear: It is impossible to inherit from someone who is still  around. Seizing Trump’s big lie might appear to be a gesture of support.  In fact it expresses a wish for his political death. Transforming the  myth from one about Trump to one about the nation will be easier when he  is out of the way.

As Cruz and Hawley  may learn, to tell the big lie is to be owned by it. Just because you  have sold your soul does not mean that you have driven a hard bargain.  Hawley shies from no level of hypocrisy; the son of a banker, educated at Stanford University and Yale Law School, he denounces elites. Insofar  as Cruz was thought to have a principle, it was that of states’ rights,  which Trump’s calls to action brazenly violated. A joint statement Cruz  issued about the senators’ challenge to the vote nicely captured the  post-truth aspect of the whole: It never alleged that there was fraud,  only that there were allegations of fraud. Allegations of allegations,  allegations all the way down.The  big lie requires commitment. When Republican gamers do not exhibit  enough of that, Republican breakers call them “RINOs”: Republicans in  name only. This term once suggested a lack of ideological commitment. It  now means an unwillingness to throw away an election. The gamers, in  response, close ranks around the Constitution and speak of principles  and traditions. The breakers must all know (with the possible exception  of the Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville) that they are participating in a  sham, but they will have an audience of tens of millions who do not.

If  Trump remains present in American political life, he will surely repeat  his big lie incessantly. Hawley and Cruz and the other breakers share  responsibility for where this leads. Cruz and Hawley seem to be running  for president. Yet what does it mean to be a candidate for office and  denounce voting? If you claim that the other side has cheated, and your  supporters believe you, they will expect you to cheat yourself. By  defending Trump’s big lie on Jan. 6, they set a precedent: A Republican  presidential candidate who loses an election should be appointed anyway  by Congress. Republicans in the future, at least breaker candidates for  president, will presumably have a Plan A, to win and win, and a Plan B,  to lose and win. No fraud is necessary; only allegations that there are allegations of fraud. Truth is to be replaced by spectacle, facts by  faith.Trump’s coup attempt of 2020-21, like other failed coup attempts, is a warning  for those who care about the rule of law and a lesson for those who do  not. His pre-fascism revealed a possibility for American politics. For a  coup to work in 2024, the breakers will require something that Trump  never quite had: an angry minority, organized for nationwide violence,  ready to add intimidation to an election. Four years of amplifying a big  lie just might get them this. To claim that the other side stole an  election is to promise to steal one yourself. It is also to claim that  the other side deserves to be punished.Informed  observers inside and outside government agree that right-wing white  supremacism is the greatest terrorist threat to the United States. 

Gun  sales in 2020 hit an astonishing high. History shows that political  violence follows when prominent leaders of major political parties  openly embrace paranoia.Our big lie  is typically American, wrapped in our odd electoral system, depending  upon our particular traditions of racism. Yet our big lie is also  structurally fascist, with its extreme mendacity, its conspiratorial  thinking, its reversal of perpetrators and victims and its implication  that the world is divided into us and them. To keep it going for four  years courts terrorism and assassination.

When  that violence comes, the breakers will have to react. If they embrace  it, they become the fascist faction. The Republican Party will be  divided, at least for a time. One can of course imagine a dismal  reunification: A breaker candidate loses a narrow presidential election  in November 2024 and cries fraud, the Republicans win both houses of  Congress and rioters in the street, educated by four years of the big lie,  demand what they see as justice. Would the gamers stand on principle if  those were the circumstances of Jan. 6, 2025?To  be sure, this moment is also a chance. It is possible that a divided Republican Party might better serve American democracy; that the gamers, separated from the breakers, might start to think of policy as a way to  win elections. It is very likely that the Biden-Harris administration  will have an easier first few months than expected; perhaps  obstructionism will give way, at least among a few Republicans and for a  short time, to a moment of self-questioning. 

Politicians who want  Trumpism to end have a simple way forward: Tell the truth about the  election.America will not survive the  big lie just because a liar is separated from power. It will need a  thoughtful repluralization of media and a commitment to facts as a  public good. The racism structured into every aspect of the coup attempt  is a call to heed our own history. Serious attention to the past helps  us to see risks but also suggests future possibility. We cannot be a  democratic republic if we tell lies about race, big or small.Democracy  is not about minimizing the vote nor ignoring it, neither a matter of  gaming nor of breaking a system, but of accepting the equality of  others, heeding their voices and counting their votes.

#trump #donald j #political #NYTimes #insurrection #January 6 2020 #corrupt GOP #Criminal GOP #analysis #sedition

[shmaltzandmenudo]

Well, the Reviews Are in for Last Night’s Presidential Debate ...

Unfortunately, I watched/listened to yesterday’s (September 29, 2020) presidential debate. It was the first — and possibly the last — debate between President Donald J. Trump and former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. The event was marked by Trump’s interruptions, personal attacks (mostly from Trump), and the spectacle of moderator Chris Wallace losing control of the debate early on. The debate had little to no substance, but it was clear that both candidates despised the left.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter who “won” — even though many people have pointed toward Biden — because the American people and the world lost. Most likely, one of these guys will win in November and millions of people will continue to suffer as a result, regardless of people’s political affiliation.

Notes

My takeaways from this debate:

Trump dominated the debate by talking over Biden much of the time, pointing out bad policies that Biden supported/legislated, and doling out personal attacks.

Even though Chris Wallace thoroughly embarrassed Trump in an interview for Fox News over the summer, he was ill-prepared to deal with Trump in this debate. Biden didn’t help matters — and especially his own cause — by taking Trump’s bait and failing to stay on message.

What a difference four years makes. If Biden had debated Trump four years ago, I believe that Biden would have won with low- to mid-level difficulty. However, that would depend on how substantive Biden’s message would have been. Trump struggles when people are firm, they stick to the issues, they call him out on his BS, and they avoid personal attacks as much as possible. This Joe Biden failed to do any of these things, plus he’s a shell of his former self. He does not have the same cognitive sharpness that he had even two years ago. Bernie supporters warned everyone about this.

Speaking of Bernie Sanders, while the independent Senator from Vermont has given his full-throated support of Biden, the feeling isn’t mutual. During this debate, Biden tried his hardest to outflank Trump from the right. Biden has taken every other opportunity to spit in the eye of people to the left of him, first by rejecting every top policy objective of progressives (like Medicare for All, free college, and UBI, especially during this pandemic), and also by repeated telling everyone that he “beat the socialist.”

While Trump enables and emboldens (other) white supremacists, Joe Biden never expressly denounced white supremacists.

Biden continues not to read the room with regards to police brutality. In fact, besides picking Kamala “Top Cop” Harris as his VP, Biden has repeatedly said that he plans to increase funding for cops.

Biden will not take drastic action to deal with environmental collapse. He refuses to ban fracking. Also, despite recognizing that the Green New Deal would “pay for itself,” he refused to support it.

The only positive I can take from this debate is what Biden said about Antifa:

Antifa is an idea not an organization.

For much of his 2020 presidential campaign, Donald Trump has fearmongered about “radical leftists” and Antifa. At the same time, Trump has ignored, incited, and made excuses for groups like the Proud Boys, the Boogaloo Boys, and right-wing militias, as well as individuals like the 17-year-old murderer Kyle Rittenhouse.

Antifa is short for antifascist, so whenever someone criticizes the concept of antifa, they run the risk of indicating that they support fascism. Trump definitely does, but many of the things that Biden has done over his 40+ political career has enabled fascism in this country and around the world. Still, that comment he made was important, at least in the rhetorical sense.

Quotes

Before I go, I just wanted to collect some various comments and tweets that I found last night that either made me laugh or amused me in some way:

“This was the worst presidential debate I have ever seen.”

— George Stephanopoulos

“That was a hot mess inside a dumpster fire inside a train wreck.”

— Jake Tapper

Around the Horn has you covered.

Like some in the responses have said, I’d take $2,000 a month.

I agree. And while I think that Bernie would have a hard time dealing with Trump’s interruptions, Bernie could have countered with his superior policies and substantive criticism of Trump’s administration.

That’s All for Now …

Stay tuned for my thoughts on the vice-presidential debate and subsequent presidential debates — if the Democrats allow Biden to participate after this debacle.

#Joe Biden #Donald Trump #Presidential Debate #2020 Presidential Election #train wreck #Bernie Sanders #Bernie would have won

[bluewavenewwave]

Can I get this off my chest? Back in 2016-2017 I was a sophomore in high school, I was taking a government class in school, and it was the 2016 election. My family has always been very conservative, and I’d always just gone along with it, but I was never actively into politics. Because of the election and my government class, I got really invested into politics. Blindly following my family’s politics, I supported Trump, started obsessively watching conservative YouTube videos, and exclusively watched Fox News. I would get home from school, get on the computer and watch about 4-5 hours everyday of videos from people like Paul Joseph Watson, Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro, Milo Yiannopolis, Mark Dice, Steven Crowder, Students for Life, and Live Action. And then we’d all watch (either baseball or) Fox News during dinner and before going to bed. I was literally obsessed with being conservative. I became extremely pro-life and anti-abortion, even though I was very pro-choice in middle school and freshman year. Never in my life have I ever wanted children, or really even liked kids. But to add substance to my pro-life stance, I pretended I wanted children, and told people I wanted to have kids when I was older, even though I knew I didn’t. I’ve been an atheist (and anti-theist) since I was six, but because I was so determined to be a good conservative, I started reciting the “under god” line during the pledge of allegiance in school for a few days, even though I never had before. I even tried to convince myself that maybe I could follow some form of religion. I believed in aliens, why not god? That didn’t last for more than a few hours, but I was so obsessed with trying to fit in as a conservative, I was willing to try anything. For the end of the year essay in government class, I wrote about the “popularity of the conservative movement” (yikes). My life literally revolved around politics and my entire identity was conservative. I was completely brainwashed and I didn’t know it. The thing is, in middle school and freshman year, I lived for music and celebrity/Hollywood news, and I spent most of my time fangirling over my favorite artists. My life was music. Then in 2016 none of my favorite artists were putting out new music/content, and I just got bored and looked for something else to obsess over. And I chose politics. 

My life in middle school and freshman year revolved around music. It may seem a bit pathetic, but my entire life revolved around One Direction and Taylor Swift. My life had structure based around the routine music and content I’d get from them. Every year I’d get a One Direction album in  November, and every other year (on the even numbered years) in October or November, I’d get a Taylor Swift album, and every year there was at least one tour. And then in 2016 there was no One Direction tour and no Taylor Swift tour. November 2016 was the first year in a long time there was no new One Direction album. 2016 was also the first even numbered year in her career that Taylor hadn’t put out a new album. It was November 2016, my structure was gone, I was bored, and I had no new music to obsess over. But there was an election. And thus my new obsession began.

In middle school and freshman year I never truly identified politically one way or another, but I knew deep down I was liberal. I just would never admit it out loud to anyone because of how conservative my parents were and how much they always said they hated liberals. But in middle school and freshman year, I was liberal, I was a feminist, I was pro-choice, pro-environment, and pro-LGBT. The only politics I ever cared about or got involved in were LGBT issues. I would write LGBT essays for school, or even just for myself. I’ve known I was bi since I was 10, and LGBT issues have always been my #1 political focus, even when I thought I was conservative. 

I didn’t switch to conservatism until November 2016. I even said to myself at the time “I know one day I’ll be liberal again”. In reality, I always was liberal, I was just desperately trying to convince myself and everyone around me that I was conservative. 

It got really bad in 2017. I spent the entire year watching conservative YouTube videos and Fox News. I think I watched so much conservative content because I was trying to make sure the brainwashing stuck. I think deep down I always subconsciously knew that I didn’t agree, but when all you consume all day everyday is conservative views, you’re going to convince yourself you do agree. I convinced myself I was conservative, I convinced myself I didn’t really care about the environment, I convinced myself I was pro-life, I convinced myself that I wasn’t a feminist, I convinced myself that I was panphobic and transphobic. I brainwashed myself completely and I still hate myself for it. I had a daily journal notebook and almost everyday in 2017 I would write something about politics, or Trump, or the videos I would watch. I think I was trying to write it down as much as possible to try to convince myself it’s what I believed. I was brainwashed but I was still trying to subconsciously fight the side of me that knew those weren’t my true beliefs. Maybe it was because I knew my parents had a habit of going through my things and reading my journals and I wanted to convince them I was conservative. 

For my birthday in 2017 in November I got Harry Styles’ debut album, Niall Horan’s “Flicker”, and Taylor Swift’s “reputation”. And I got really back into my fandoms. In 2018 I made a One Direction/Taylor Swift fan account on Twitter, and I was constantly getting content from all my favorite artists. Harry, Taylor, and Niall had tours, and Liam and Louis were putting out singles. 

In 2018 I still considered myself to be conservative, but every time I’d watch a conservative YouTube video I realized, and admitted to myself, I wasn’t agreeing with any of it. Every time I’d try to watch a video or Fox News, I’d be rolling my eyes and disagreeing. So I stopped altogether. I completely ignored politics, I stopped watching political YouTube videos and politicized news. I spent most of my time being involved in my fandoms online or watching baseball. 

In senior year (2018-2019) I became pro-choice again, and a feminist again. Part of me felt like I was lifting a horrible weight off of myself, and another part of me felt like I was admitting defeat. I’ve always been stubborn, and after two years of being brainwashed into believing I was conservative and hated liberals, it was hard to admit that I myself was in fact liberal. So I held onto the panphobia and transphobia. For a brief period of time in 2019 I was a pro-LGB panphobic bisexual terf (and yeah I hate myself for that, too). I had my beliefs but I never got involved in politics. Senior year in English I wrote my essay on LGBT issues and rights, and I don’t think I would’ve done that junior or sophomore year. During the summer of 2019, I watched MTV’s “Are You The One?” season 8 (fluid season) and it all just clicked. It was literally overnight. I stopped being panphobic. I stopped being transphobic. I stopped being a terf. My sudden switch back to liberal views really does prove to me that I always was liberally minded, and once I stopped trying to brainwash myself into thinking I was conservative, I was able to truly admit it to myself. 

I never posted my conservative “beliefs” anywhere online or told them to anyone at school, or left hate comments anywhere or discriminated against anyone. They were just thoughts in my head, and occasionally in my journals. 

I wanted to post this because I’ve spent the last year or so trying to desperately erase all evidence that I ever identified conservatively. I scratched out/covered up all my political journal entries from when I was conservative, tore up and recycled all my old school papers where I’d mentioned I was conservative, and painted over some conservative quotes/names/references on a collage my sister gave me for Christmas (that one I feel bad about, but I couldn’t bare to see those things represent me anymore). I even ripped out journal entries where I reflected on overcoming being conservative, and how I feel so much better believing in and supporting what’s right (or, well, left… get it?). I wrote that the highlight of my decade was becoming liberal again, supporting communities I’d turned my back on, and becoming a better person. I ripped out and threw those pages away because I wanted to forget I ever thought I was conservative. I want to stop pretending it never happened, acknowledge my faults and mistakes, and recognize my growth. Because I’m proud of that growth.

I wanted to create this blog to focus on politics in a healthy way, and share ideas that help people, rather than hurt them. This is not a liberal blog run by someone who has only known liberal politics and grew up in a liberal household. This is a liberal blog run by a liberal who grew up surrounded by conservative politics and has spent time analyzing both sets of views, both sides. This is a liberal blog run by someone who knows just how bad conservative brainwashing can be, someone who experienced it first hand. This is a liberal blog run by a liberal who wants to stand up for what’s right. 

#do you think i need therapy? #mine #my post #bluewavenewwave

[go-redgirl]

My dream is coming true: Trump is coming back! Exclusive: Joseph Farah says he's thought about it 'since the earliest days of the Biden occupation' Joseph Farah By Joseph Farah Published April 8, 2021 at 7:31pm

When Joe Biden took the oath of office to become president – or, should we say, presidential pretender – I was morose.

I was one of the million or so cheerleaders for Donald J. Trump in Washington, D.C., Jan. 5-7 – for what has become known as "the insurrection." Then it was over.

That was not easy to accept. I believe Trump was the greatest president in the history of the United States. That's right! His achievements in four years exceeded that of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. I loved them all. Reagan changed my politics. But Trump was one of a kind.

While Trump was the greatest president ever, Biden has been the worst – with a sample size of only three months.

Biden is sullen, his voice hurts my ears, he's cognitively challenged, he's incoherent, he falls a lot – and, worst of all, he's mean. He lies on a grand scale and he's hopelessly immoral.

The worst thing he has ever done is to commit a high crime against America by perpetuating election fraud against the greatest country the world as ever known.

Since the earliest days of the Biden occupation, I have been dreaming, fantasizing and thinking about what might be coming next. Three days after Biden became the Impostor in Chief, it came to me.

Trump is seemingly more popular than ever. He's beloved by ordinary Americans. They know that Joe Biden is simply serving the ruling class he has so loyally served to undo everything Trump put into place. The true uprising he began will not simply fade away. He not only made America great again, he gave America hope again.

So I started noodling around with not only how Trump could regain power, but how he could maximize it, to have more than just four more years as an encore. If it comes to realization, it might be my most serious achievement. So, listen up!

Four days after Biden came to power, I wrote: "What's next? Once we have the House and Senate, we can impeach Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for high crimes and misdemeanors – not phony ones like they had to manufacture against President Trump, but real, weighty crimes.

"That would leave House Speaker Kevin McCarthy as president of the United States – only temporarily. As president, he could appoint anyone in the interim he chose as vice president. He would select Donald J. Trump in early 2023. Then McCarthy, or perhaps Jim Jordan, would resign, leaving Trump as president. After all, who would have more experience and wisdom?"

I warned: "America has much more than Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to worry about. China is a real threat. And so is Big Tech." I wrote, "Nobody but Trump is up to the challenge."

A couple weeks after I wrote this, Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist in the early days of the Trump administration, gave a speech to Boston Republicans that turned into a headline in the Boston Herald.

"Trump is a disrupter, but he has a long-term vision because I absolutely believe in the marrow of my bones that he will be our nominee in 2024," Bannon said at a Lincoln Day Breakfast. "He'll come back to us. We'll have a sweeping victory in 2022, and he'll lead us in 2024."

After Republicans win the House and Senate back, and name Trump as speaker of the House, they could turn the tables on Biden and Kamala and impeach them for "his illegitimate activities of stealing the presidency."

I texted Bannon a message asking if he had read my column.

"I loved it," he said.

Could this be the way this turns out?

Well, since then, there's been some more interest in the idea.

Paul Bedard took up the idea in his recent Washington Examiner column headlined "Trump for speaker."

"And what about former President Donald Trump? Aides said that he is focused on electing friendly Republicans in the 2022 election. And if it helps the GOP regain the majority, there is growing support for installing Trump as House speaker, allowed under House rules," the report said.

Disrn.com's Peter Heck wrote: "Odds are increasing that Donald Trump could be the next speaker of the House." He said Trump could have a "major role in the upcoming 2022 congressional elections, with a potential payoff that would greatly impact the future of President Biden's term in office."

He pointed out that a GOP

The majority in the House following 2022 could elect Trump speaker.

"House rules allow for the majority to select someone from the outside to serve in the position," wrote Heck.

He said the latest to join the campaign is Ed Martin, president of Phyllis Schlafly Eagles.

Martin told "Secrets": "I'm serious. We need the Trump voters. With the possibility of having Donald Trump as speaker, conservative voter turnout would be through the roof nationwide."

[newstfionline]

Wednesday, January 13, 2021

House Sets Impeachment Vote to Charge Trump With Incitement (NYT) House Democrats introduced an article of impeachment against President Trump on Monday for his role in inflaming a mob that attacked the Capitol, scheduling a Wednesday vote to charge the president with “inciting violence against the government of the United States” if Vice President Mike Pence refused to strip him of power first. As the impeachment drive proceeded, federal law enforcement authorities accelerated efforts to fortify the Capitol ahead of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s inauguration on Jan. 20. The authorities announced plans to deploy up to 15,000 National Guard troops and set up a multilayered buffer zone with checkpoints around the building by Wednesday, just as lawmakers are to debate and vote on impeaching Mr. Trump. Federal authorities also said they were bracing for a wave of armed protests in all 50 state capitals and Washington in the days leading up to the inauguration.

National Guard inauguration deployment (Military Times) The Defense Department has authorized as many as 15,000 troops to be deployed to Washington, D.C., for the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. National Guard Bureau chief Gen. Daniel Hokanson said that there will initially be a deployment of 10,000 troops—an increase of about 4,000 from those in D.C. now. That figure is twice the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. The general declined to specify whether the guardsmen will be armed, stating that “we will work very closely with the federal agency, the FBI and law enforcement to determine if there is a need for that.” A D.C. National Guard spokesman told Military Times on Sunday that while some troops came to town with their weapons, carrying them on the streets had not yet been authorized.

Companies cutting off Trump and GOP (Yahoo Finance) Marriott and Blue Cross Blue Shield are just a few of the companies that are halting donations to GOP lawmakers who objected to certifying Joe Biden as president, while other businesses move to cut ties with President Trump directly. The actions come on the heels of Friday’s permanent suspension of Donald Trump’s Twitter account and Amazon’s move to cut off social media platform Parler’s servers. (NYT) The backlash is part of a broader shunning of Mr. Trump and his allies unfolding in the wake of the assault on the Capitol. Schools stripped the president of honorary degrees, some prominent Republicans threatened to leave the party and the New York State Bar Association announced it had begun investigating Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, which could lead to his removal from the group. And the P.G.A. of America announced it would strip Mr. Trump’s New Jersey golf club of a major tournament.

Virus deaths surging in California, now top 30,000 (AP) The coronavirus death toll in California reached 30,000 on Monday, another staggering milestone as the nation’s most populous state endures the worst surge of the nearly yearlong pandemic. Newly confirmed infections are rising at a dizzying rate of more than a quarter-million a week and during the weekend a record 1,163 deaths were reported. Los Angeles County is one of the epicenters and health officials there are telling residents to wear a mask even when at home if they go outside regularly and live with someone elderly or otherwise at high risk. California has deployed 88 refrigerated trailers to use as makeshift morgues mostly in hard-hit Southern California, where traditional storage space is dwindling.

A never-ending scandal (Bloomberg) Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35, the fighter jet already being flown by the U.S. and eight allies, remains marred by 871 software and hardware deficiencies that could undercut readiness, missions or maintenance, according to the Pentagon’s testing office. The Defense Department’s costliest weapons system “continues to carry a large number of deficiencies, many of which were identified prior to” the development and demonstration phase, which ended in April 2018 with 941 flaws, Robert Behler, the director of operational testing, said in a new assessment obtained by Bloomberg News in advance of its publication.

Pompeo Returns Cuba to Terrorism Sponsor List (NYT) The State Department designated Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism on Monday in a last-minute foreign policy stroke that will complicate the incoming Biden administration’s plans to restore friendlier relations with Havana. In a statement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cited Cuba’s hosting of 10 Colombian rebel leaders, along with a handful of American fugitives wanted for crimes committed in the 1970s, and Cuba’s support for the authoritarian leader of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro. Mr. Pompeo said the action sent the message that “the Castro regime must end its support for international terrorism and subversion of U.S. justice.” The action, announced with just days remaining in the Trump administration, reverses a step taken in 2015 after President Barack Obama restored diplomatic relations with Cuba, calling its decades of political and economic isolation a relic of the Cold War.

Brexit sandwich problems (BBC) A Dutch TV network has filmed border officials confiscating ham sandwiches and other foods from drivers arriving in the Netherlands from the UK, under post-Brexit rules. Under EU rules, travellers from outside the bloc are banned from bringing in meat and dairy products. The rules appeared to bemuse one driver. “Since Brexit, you are no longer allowed to bring certain foods to Europe, like meat, fruit, vegetables, fish, that kind of stuff,” a Dutch border official told the driver in footage broadcast by TV network NPO 1. In one scene, a border official asked the driver whether several of his tin-foil wrapped sandwiches had meat in them. When the driver said they did, the border official said: “Okay, so we take them all.” Surprised, the driver then asked the officials if he could keep the bread, to which one replied: “No, everything will be confiscated—welcome to the Brexit, sir. I’m sorry.”

Merkel sees coronavirus lockdown until early April: Bild (Reuters) Chancellor Angela Merkel has told lawmakers in her conservative party that she expects a lockdown in Germany to curb the spread of the coronavirus to last until the start of April, top-selling Bild daily cited participants as the meeting as saying. “If we don’t manage to stop this British virus, then we will have 10 times the number of cases by Easter. We need eight to 10 more weeks of tough measures,” Bild quoted Merkel as saying.

‘A Stalin with double meat’ (Foreign Policy) A Moscow kebab shop named after Soviet leader Joseph Stalin has closed after just 24 hours of opening after a string of complaints from angry residents. In its brief existence Stalin Doner served items like “Stalin with double meat” and “Beria with tkemali sauce”—a reference to Stalin’s notorious secret police chief. The shop’s owner, Stanislav Voltman, was interviewed by police for three hours following complaints. “They asked me if my head was screwed on straight,” Voltman told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. “It’s not like I had Hitler as the face of my brand,” Voltman said. Despite public outcry about the kebabs, support for Stalin is on the rise in Russia. A Levada Center poll in 2019 found that 70 percent of Russians think Stalin played a completely or relatively positive role in the life of the country.

In Kashmir, Hopes Wither (NYT) Kashmir, the craggily beautiful region in the shadow of the Himalayas long caught between India and Pakistan, has fallen into a state of suspended animation. Schools are closed. Lockdowns have been imposed, lifted and then reimposed. Once a hub for both Western and Indian tourists, Kashmir has been reeling for more than a year. First, India brought in security forces to clamp down on the region. Then the coronavirus struck. The streets are full of soldiers. Military bunkers, removed years ago, are back, and at many places cleave the road. On highways, soldiers stop passenger vehicles and drag commuters out to check their identity cards. Conflict in Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority region, has festered for decades. And an armed uprising has long sought self-rule. Tens of thousands of rebels, civilians and security forces have died since 1990. India and Pakistan have gone to war twice over the territory, which is split between them but claimed by both in its entirety. Now, as India flexes its power over the region, to even call Kashmir a disputed region is a crime—sedition, according to Indian officials. Many say that the political paralysis is the worst it has ever been in Kashmir’s 30 years of conflict, and that people have been choked into submission.

India’s top court suspends implementation of new farm laws (AP) India’s top court on Tuesday temporarily put on hold the implementation of new agricultural laws and ordered the formation of an independent committee of experts to negotiate with farmers who have been protesting against the legislation. The Supreme Court’s ruling came a day after it heard petitions filed by the farmers challenging the controversial legislation. The court said that the laws were passed without enough consultation, and that it was disappointed with the way talks were proceeding between representatives of the government and farmer leaders. Tens of thousands of farmers protesting against the legislation have been blocking half a dozen major highways on the outskirts of New Delhi for more than 45 days. Farmers say they won’t leave until the government repeals the laws. They say the legislation passed by Parliament in September will lead to the cartelization and commercialization of agriculture, make farmers vulnerable to corporate greed and devastate their earnings. The government insists the laws will benefit farmers and says they will enable farmers to market their produce and boost production through private investment.

First came political crimes. Now, a digital crackdown descends on Hong Kong. (Washington Post) HONG KONG—The police officers who came to take away Owen Chow on national security grounds last week left little to chance. Determined to find his phones, they had prepared a list of mobile numbers registered to his name, even one he used exclusively for banking, said the 23-year-old Hong Kong activist. Officers called each number in succession, the vibrations revealing the locations of three iPhones around his apartment. By the end of their operation, police had amassed more than 200 devices from Chow and 52 others held for alleged political crimes that day, according to those arrested, as well as laptops from spouses who are not politically active and were not detained. The digital sweep showed how Hong Kong authorities are wielding new powers under the national security law, introduced last summer, far more widely than the city’s leader promised. Since the Jan. 6 raids, authorities have blocked at least one website, according to the site’s owner and local media reports, raising concerns that Hong Kong is headed for broader digital surveillance and censorship akin to that in mainland China. Hong Kong police have begun sending devices seized from arrested people to mainland China, where authorities have sophisticated data-extraction technology, and are using the information gleaned from those devices to assist in investigations, according to two people familiar with the arrangement who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their safety.

26 missing, at least 13 dead in Indonesia landslides (AP) Rescuers are searching for 26 people still missing after two landslides hit a village in Indonesia’s West Java province over the weekend, officials said Tuesday. At least 13 people were killed and 29 others injured in the landslides that were triggered by heavy rain on Sunday in Cihanjuang, a village in West Java’s Sumedang district. Some of the victims were rescuers from the first landslide.

Leading human rights group calls Israel an ‘apartheid’ state (AP) A leading Israeli human rights group has begun describing both Israel and its control of the Palestinian territories as a single “apartheid” regime, using an explosive term that the country’s leaders and their supporters vehemently reject. In a report released Tuesday, B’Tselem says that while Palestinians live under different forms of Israeli control in the occupied West Bank, blockaded Gaza, annexed east Jerusalem and within Israel itself, they have fewer rights than Jews in the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. “One of the key points in our analysis is that this is a single geopolitical area ruled by one government,” said B’Tselem director Hagai El-Ad. “This is not democracy plus occupation. This is apartheid between the river and the sea.” That a respected Israeli organization is adopting a term long seen as taboo even by many critics of Israel points to a broader shift in the debate as its half-century occupation of war-won lands drags on and hopes for a two-state solution fade.

Uganda bans social media ahead of presidential election (Reuters) Uganda banned social media on Tuesday, two days ahead of a presidential election pitting Yoweri Museveni, one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders, against opposition frontrunner Bobi Wine, a popular singer. Internet monitor NetBlocks said its data showed that Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, Skype, Snapchat, Viber and Google Play Store were among a lengthy list of sites unavailable via Uganda’s main cell network operators. Campaigning ahead of the vote has been marred by brutal crackdowns on opposition rallies, which the authorities say break COVID-19 curbs on large gatherings. Rights groups say the restrictions are a pretext for muzzling the opposition. At 38, Wine is half the age of President Yoweri Museveni and has attracted a large following among young people in a nation where 80% of the population are under 30, rattling the ruling National Resistance Movement party.

Coronavirus-spurred changes to global workforce to be permanent (Reuters) Sweeping changes to the global labour market caused by the coronavirus pandemic will likely be permanent, policy makers said on Tuesday, as some industries collapse, others flourish and workers stay home. The pandemic, which has so far infected at least 90.5 million people and killed around 1.9 worldwide, has up-ended industries and workers in almost every country in the world as tough lockdowns were imposed. The International Labour Organization (ILO) has estimated that the impact of huge job losses worldwide is creating a fiscal gap that threatens to increase inequality between richer and poorer countries. The ILO estimated that global labour income declined by 10.7 per cent, or $3.5 trillion, in the first three quarters of 2020, compared with the same period in 2019, excluding government income support. India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said the pandemic had created an “accidental challenge” under which the government delivered food on a regular basis to 800 million people and provided sustained business funds. Philippines central bank Governor Benjamin Diokno said it was clear some industries will not survive, others will not be as dynamic as before, and yet others will be boosted by the massive changes. The need for a more nimble and innovative approach to education will remain long after the pandemic ends, said Helen Fulson, Chief Product Officer at educational publisher Twinkl. “How many children today will be doing jobs that currently don’t exist?’ she said at Reuters Next on Monday. “We don’t know how to train for these jobs.”

#headlines #news

[breakingmllc]

I Smell Hand Sanitizer Lots And Lots Of Hand Sanitizer Witch T Shirt

Work Republican Can Deal with the White House Any Longer That’s the Only Way to Do and Joe Biden Is Just the Person to Ensure We Get Our Lives Joe Biden Is a I Smell Hand Sanitizer Lots And Lots Of Hand Sanitizer Witch T Shirt Decent Man with a Long History of Public Service to America He Will Restore Integrity to Branch I Would Strongly Encourage All Come Together and Hopefully Return the Country’s Political Discourse Back to Some Measure of Normalcy and Decency I’m Sure We Sure Is Going to Help Us Now from Alabama and Jones Jones from the Great State of Alabama Growing up in the South Growing up in the Midst of Start Divisions but It Was Here in Alabama Where Rosa Parks Helping Body Movement by Refusing to Give up Her Seat on a Bus for Freedom Riders of Different Races Came Together in Pursuit of Equality It Was Here in Alabama Where John Lewis Marched across a Bridge toward Freedom from a Young Age I Knew the Hope That Comes from Seeing Good People Work to Heal Our Divisions Is What Led Me to Become the United States Attorney Were Convicted to Klansmen Who Murdered for Young Black Girls in 1963 Birmingham Church Bombing Delivered Long Overdue Justice I’m Standing in Front of an Exhibit Dedicated to Their Memory Alabama Has Shown Me That Even Our Deepest Divisions Can Be Overcome Because Each of Us Want the Same Thing to Be Treated Fairly and Given the Same Opportunities in the Freedom to Live with Dignity and Respect Now Some Politicians Try to Pit Us against Each Other I Believe That Americans Have More in Common Than What Divides in November We Have a Chance to Elect a President Who Believes That to Have Known Joe for More Than 40 Years and That It Is a Wide Eyed Law Student and He’s Been My Friend and Champion Ever since Jill I Know Is Exactly the Leader Our Country Needs Right Now He Can Bring People Together to Find Common Ground While Standing up for What He Believes Is Right after Years of Bitter Partisanship Can Unite Our Country and Get Things Done for Working Families and Everyone Looking for a Better Future Is Not about What Side of the Our Own about Whether or Not Where the Side of the People Great John Lewis Would Often Quote the Old African Proverb When You Pray Move Your Feet and Then Challenge Us to Do Just That As a Nation He Said If We Care for the Beloved Community We Must Move Our Feet and Hands Our Resources to Build and Not Tear down the Reconciling Not to Divide the Love and Not to Hate to Heal and Not to Kill in the Final Analysis We Are One People One Family One House the American House the American Family VP Biden Understands That He Is Who We Need Is Our Next President Here We Are in Twinkle Twinkle and We Talked about the Post Office US Postal Service Financial to so Much of Our Lives to the Post Office to Get the Prescriptions Social Security Beneficiaries on the Post Office to Check the Post Office to Send Birthday Cards Today and Green Kids Need the Post Office to Do Business As Well Post Office Is Also One Way We Cast Our Notes to Find out How to Exercise That Right This November Whether by Mail or in Person Text about the OTE 230330 Here to Say More Is the First Being Paid to the United States Senate Senator Happen Quite As As Catherine Cortez and Stephanie This Year More Americans Than Ever before Going to Her from Her and Stuff like This Marking about the Kitchen Table Exercising One of Our Most Fundamental Rights from Home by Now in a Secure Option for You 16 33 Million Americans for Is Requested 15 Eric Twice This Year the Americans Will Choose to Voting and Voting with How Many of Is to the Advice of Scientific and Medical Experts Listen to the People at the Back to Put in Place by Now so Very Option Is Trying to Get Right Is Threatened with Cold Federal Funding Can Spanking Our Schools and Seniors from Challenged in Court One I Republican Secretary Of State the Judge to Dismiss Now He’s Putting the Lives of Seniors Risk by Trying to Find the Post Office Will Be Able to Get Their Prescriptions If He Wants to Win If Not Intimidated America Is Not Intimidated You We Are United by Shared Values Shared History and Shared Rights Including Fundamental Right to File We Will Send Job the White House Reflect the Senate with Kyle Majority in the Senate We Will Expand Access and Print Voting Rights to America We Jobcom Which Flipcom to Help Us Take Back Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell That We Know Stand Together to Turn This Country around This Year We Had an Historic Field of Presidential Candidates Historic Number of Women Including a Nice Presidential Nominee Had More Difficulty Than Any Primary First Openly Gay Man to Win This Party the Democratic Party Welcomes Everyone Encourages Everyone to Leave Anyone Ideas to Ensure This Country Builds Back This Is What Our Next Speaker Believes Steel for Club Hello America like My Friend Catherine Believe That the Right to Vote Is Fundamental. Joseph’s biological fatherand grandfather Jesus while the foster grandfather stepgrandfather I said but that he lie was the I guess will have the line of succession would a pastor St. Get a valid back on my that was about as far as friends did you have it cut off everyone from back thenand start again how did that work with the seller had two groups of friends had one group

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[plusorminuscongress]

New story in Politics from Time: Trump Taps Loyalist Richard Grenell as Acting Head of Intelligence

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, will become acting director of national intelligence, a move that puts a staunch Trump ally in charge of the nation’s 17 spy agencies, which the president has only tepidly embraced.

“Rick has represented our Country exceedingly well and I look forward to working with him,” Trump tweeted.

Grenell follows Joseph Maguire, who has been acting national intelligence director since August. It was unclear if Maguire would return to the National Counterterrorism Center. “I would like to thank Joe Maguire for the wonderful job he has done,” Trump tweeted, “and we look forward to working with him closely, perhaps in another capacity within the Administration!”

Grenell, a loyal and outspoken Trump supporter, has been the U.S. ambassador to Germany since 2018. He previously served as U.S. spokesman at the United Nations in the George W. Bush administration, including under then-Ambassador John Bolton.

News of the announcement was quickly criticized by those who said the job should be held by someone with deep experience in intelligence. Trump named Grenell acting national intelligence director, meaning he would not have to be confirmed by the Senate.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Trump had “selected an individual without any intelligence experience to serve as the leader of the nation’s intelligence community in an acting capacity.”

Warner accused the president of trying to sidestep the Senate’s constitutional authority to advise and consent on critical national security positions.

“The intelligence community deserves stability and an experienced individual to lead them in a time of massive national and global security challenges,” Warner said in a statement. “… Now more than ever our country needs a Senate-confirmed intelligence director who will provide the best intelligence and analysis, regardless of whether or not it’s expedient for the president who has appointed him.”

Susan Hennessey, a fellow in national security law at Brookings Institution and a former attorney at the National Security Agency, tweeted: “This should frighten you. Not just brazen politicization of intelligence, but also someone who is utterly incompetent in an important security role. The guardrails are gone.”

Trump named Maguire to the position after Texas GOP Rep. John Ratcliffe removed himself from consideration after just five days amid criticism about his lack of intelligence experience and qualifications for the job.

Maguire became acting director the same day that former National Intelligence Director Dan Coats’ resignation took effect. It was also the same day that deputy national intelligence director Sue Gordon walked out the door. Democrats denounced the shake-up at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and accused Trump of pushing out two dedicated intelligence professionals.

By ZEKE MILLER and MATTHEW LEE / AP on February 19, 2020 at 08:42PM

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[phroyd]

In a rare moment of bipartisanship, the Senate voted unanimously for a whistleblower complaint involving President Donald Trump to be turned over to congressional intelligence committees.

The move is monumental, and it came as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced her support of a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump stemming from the complaint.

The complaint centers around a July 25 phone call Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which Trump reportedly pressured Zelensky to work with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election.

The whistleblower also alleges that Trump made a "promise" to Zelensky during the call, but it's unclear what the promise was.

The whistleblower is in talks with both congressional intelligence committees about testifying in regard to their complaint against Trump.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The Senate voted unanimously in favor of a resolution on Tuesday calling for a whistleblower complaint involving President Donald Trump to be turned over to congressional intelligence committees.

The move is monumental and a rare moment of bipartisanship between Democrats and Republicans in the upper chamber. It also came as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was expected to announce her support of a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump stemming from the whistleblower's complaint.

According to recent reports, the complaint centers around a phone call Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, during which Trump pressed Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden's dealings in Ukraine ahead of the 2020 election, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump pressured Zelensky to work with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani on the matter at least eight times during their July 25 phone call. The whistleblower's complaint also references a "promise" that Trump made to Zelensky, but it's unclear what it was, The Washington Post reported last week.

Media reports have said it could relate to a nearly $400 million military-aid package that the Trump administration slow-walked until a few days after the complaint was filed.

The Washington Post reported on Monday that Trump decided toslam the brakes on sending the aid roughly a week before his call with Zelensky and released it on September 12 after Schiff requested a full, unredacted copy of the whistleblower's complaint.

The president confirmed The Post's reporting on Tuesday and said he decided to withhold the aid days before the call with Zelensky, but he denied that it was part of any quid pro quo effort. Instead, he said his main concern with sending military assistance to Ukraine was that other countries haven't been paying their fair share as well.

But he appeared to acknowledge on Monday that the aid package was at least somewhat on his mind during the call with Zelensky.

"It's very important to talk about corruption," Trump said. "If you don't talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt? It's very important that on occasion, you speak to somebody about corruption."

Read more: A mysterious exchange between Trump and a foreign leader is Washington's latest obsession. Here's what's actually going on.

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, first revealed the existence of the complaint on September 13, when he subpoenaed acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire to turn over the full complaint to the committee in accordance with federal law.

The intelligence community inspector general determined that the complaint was credible and a matter of "urgent concern." But the Office of the Director of National Intelligence overruled the inspector general after consulting with the Justice Department and concluded that the complaint did not fit the definition of "urgent concern" under federal law.

The definition concerns serious allegations related to "the funding, administration or operation of an intelligence activity within the responsibility and authority" of the director of national intelligence, Jason Klitenic, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's general counsel, wrote in a letter to Schiff.

"This complaint, however, concerned conduct by someone outside the Intelligence Community and did not relate to any 'intelligence activity' under the DNI's supervision," Klitenic added. For that reason, after consulting with the Justice Department, the agency concluded it was not required to forward the complaint to the intelligence committees.

On Tuesday, Politico reported that the whistleblower and their attorney were in talks with the House and Senate intelligence committees to testify about the complaint.

The House panel has "been informed by the whistleblower's counsel that their client would like to speak to our committee and has requested guidance from the Acting DNI as to how to do so," Schiff tweeted.

He added: "We're in touch with counsel and look forward to the whistleblower's testimony as soon as this week."

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also confirmed to Politico that the whistleblower's lawyer had reached out but added, "We're going to have to take this one step a time. And I think it's terribly important to get the facts."

Phroyd

#whistleblower complaint #senate