10/05/2024

wtf is wrong with these maga morons?

every day we learn that maga is even creepier and more disgusting than we thought.  for example?  jesus mesa ('newsweek') reports:


Minnesota GOP Senate candidate Royce White is facing mounting criticism after a tweet resurfaced in which he claimed that the "bad guys" won World War II, a comment that has brought a backlash.

In the 2022 tweet, White wrote, "It dawned on me today...The bad guys won in WWII. There were no 'good guys' in that war. The controlling interests had a jump ball. If you look closely, you see the link between liberalism and communism in the Allied forces. Remember what Gen. Patton said and why they capped him."

The backlash quickly followed after the post was resurfaced by Heartland Signal, a Midwestern digital newsroom. His tweet brought criticism from numerous users on X (formerly Twitter) and from organizations like VoteVets, a nonprofit representing military veterans, families and "progressive values." The group condemned the comments, stating, "This isn't just bizarre—it's reprehensible."


wtf is wrong with him?  wtf is wrong with these maga morons?  they are human trash.  they're uneducated.

this is why maga needs to be voted out and why trump never needs to go back to the white house.


in 2024, this cesspool of liars and idiots wants to debate whether or not nazis were the good guys. 


how the f**k did we get to this point?  it's time to take this garbage to the curb for trash pick up and the easiest way to do that is to vote straight democrat this election.  

and as i have repeatedly noted here, maga is trash.  maga is not the republican party.  there are many good republicans.  my 1st husband was a republican.


i do not know how this sewer trash rose up through the gop but it's time for all of us to send them packing.  they're the criminally insane and they are a threat to us all.

 

let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'


Friday, October 4, 2024.  We look at the importance of the coalition behind Kamala and we note the growing criticism of 'independent' media's failure to serve and recognize Black people.

 

Starting with Lawrence O'Donnell last night on MSNBC.






Liz Cheney campaigned with Kamala Harris in Wisconsin yesterday.   

"Thank you, Liz!" chants greeted her.  Like Adam Kinzinger, Liz is one of many Republicans endorsing Kamala.  

I love Jon Stewart and have known him for years.  He is very funny and that's his first obligation -- I understand that.  There are two times where we did not note him here this election cycle.  I didn't want to take part in the national stupidity of 'why violence, why!'  You preach violence, you sew it, karma comes after you.  Live by the sword, die by the sword, I didn't invent the phrase.  

So we skipped that.  The other we skipped was the Dick Cheney insult.  I am not a Cheney fan -- to put it mildly.  We are on completely oposite sides and always will be and I will never forgive him for his actions regarding our attack on Iraq.

Jon was going for the joke and I get that and have no ill will towards him.  

But I do not attack anyone from the opposite side of the aisle for endorsing Kamala Harris for president.  I have many policy reasons for endorsing Kamala.  I also think she has the skill, training and wisdom to be president -- I'm basing that on having known Kamala for many years.  And for any late to the party, Kamala and I are not friends.  She was in a relationship with a friend of mine and I just didn't like her (probably feeling protective -- and maybe even territorial -- with regards to my friend).  But when we started calling for Joe Biden to step aside, I was dictating the snapshot and going over some of the possibilities.  I wouldn't have thought she would be a valid possibility.  It's while dictating the snapshot -- and you can read it -- that I really thought about what her strengths are and what they are not and realize that not only is she a worthy possibility but she's actually the best possibility.

So I endorse her for her policies and also for her strong traits that argue she could be a great president -- she's immensely qualified from a resume perspective but I've also seen her under pressure and she has the skill set required and the temperament needed for the office.

But before there was Kamala's run, in 2023, I said here that I was voting for the Democrat whoever it ended up being.  I said that all of 2023 and I said that in 2024 -- long after everyone announced it was Joe and that that-was-that.  No, it wasn't.  

Our country's future is at stake which is why I would vote for any Democrat to do my part to ensure that Donald Trump wasn't given the chance to destroy the country.  We were talking about, for example, Project 2025 here back in 2023.  

Donald is a threat to our democracy.  

And I see that.  A lot of people see that.

Adam and I would not agree on everything, Liz and I would not agree on everything.  Dick Cheney and I agree on pretty much nothing.  One thing I do applaud him for is taking this stand because it's right for the country but also because it's right for a parent.  

We have seen Donald's threats to attack Liz Cheney.  Dick doesn't have to say anything.  He could be silent.  Bully Boy Bush is being silent (though he hates Donald Trump and even he thinks Donald is a threat to democracy).  So Dick could have been silent.

But that's his daughter that's being attacked and threatened by Donald.  And Dick has spoken out and I am glad he's on the side of democracy but I'm also happy to see that he would defend his daughter because I'm aware of just how many Republican politicians fear Donald getting back in the White House and yet they stay silent for various reasons.

So I'm not going to make fun of Dick Cheney for doing the right thing.

That is what so many Americans around the country are trying to do.

We are trying to save our republic.  

We are trying to defend our democracy.

We are trying to save our nation.  

And that is why you are seeing people coming together who may have nothing in common other than wanting to defend and save the United States.

In this election cycle, that's enough.  That's more than enough.

And I'm thankful for everyone willing to stand together and defend our country.



That's Liz Cheney speaking in Wisconsin and a speech worth hearing but what should especially resonate is Donald's efforts to force Mike Pence to help him overturn the legal election.  

I'm not a Mike Pence fan.  We mainly just noted him here when he visited Iraq in 2019. I wasn't impressed.  But for the post-2020 election, I have to wonder why he hasn't received some official honor from the US government?

He certainly deserves it.

I did not rush to judgment on the January 6th incident.  Legal terms should be applied carefully and not in the heat of the moment is how I feel.  As one piece of evidence after another has emerged, this was an attempted coup that Donald plotted.  It was supposed to be violence.  Violence was supposed to create hysteria and stop the proceedings.  He spent weeks working on gathering a mob and then he incited the mob on January 6th.  He was willing to destroy our country to get four more years in office.  That's a disgusting motive and it's undeniable that is what he was doing.

The days after January 6th, I noted here reaptedly -- because I go cold when people try to inflame -- that the story here was that the system worked. 

And it did work.

I was right about that.

But I wasn't right on why it worked.

It worked, as the facts now clearly attest, because Mike Pence believed in democracy and loved his country.   Again, he deserves our nation's highest honor and I don't know why he hasn't received it.  I hope he will under a Kamala Harris presidency.  If, heaven forbid, Donald wins this election, I hope one of President Joe Biden's last actions will be to award Mike Pence with some honor recognizing the patriotism that Pence demonstrated.

I am very thankful for Mike Pence.  And I am very thankful for all the people coming together around the effort to save this country by voting for Kamala.    

In this week's vice presidential debate, JD Vance refused to answer questions about the insurrection and insisted he was "focused on the future."

As though an attempted coup less than four years ago is ancient history?


This goes to MAGA's hatred for books and knowledge.  The Trump cult can't stand books or knowledge or teaching.  They are the people who, like JD Vance, complain and whine about fact checking.  Reality is what MAGA wants to help Donald destroy.  

And that's why this is Donald's war on America.  

This country has struggled and struggled from the beginning.  Our history is not perfect or without blame.  And that's why we learn from the past and that's why we strive for better.  

And that's why people who believe in this country can come together with Kamala to try to save this country.

I don't usually question other people's love for this country.

It's clear Donald doesn't love the country -- or anything or anyone but himself.

But did you pay attention to our so-called left media?  I'm not talking about corporate media which is slimed as "left media" by some -- I wish it were left media.  I'm talking about DEMOCRACY NOW!, COMMON DREAMS, IN THESE TIMES, et al.

Yesterday wasn't about Jack Straw's legal filing for them.  

I don't know how you ignore that except you just don't care about this country.  




A former federal prosecutor said Thursday night that the special counsel in former President Donald Trump's election subversion case may have a key response to the MAGA leader's latest attempt to have some of the charges against him dismissed. 

Trump is now trying to get obstruction charges tossed from his federal election conspiracy case, arguing that the Supreme Court's recent decision in Fischer v. United States, which erased obstruction charges for January 6 rioters, also applies to him.

But that's not a done deal, former federal prosecutor Elie Honig explained to CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Thursday evening, because special counsel Jack Smith, who recently made an enormous filing detailing explosive evidence against Trump in the case, has one key way he can make a distinction between Trump and the rioters at issue in the Supreme Court's decision.

 

So RAW STORY is covering the issue.  


We hear criticism that Donald's insane mutterings are getting "sane washed" by reporters who try to justify the remarks or down play them or try to instead report what they think he was trying to say.  And that's wrong.  


But it's also wrong that DEMOCRACY NOW!, COMMON DREAMS, IN THESE TIMES and so many others are ignoring what's at stake.


They don't like Kamala, these outlets.  They're too busy grudge f**king America to argue on its behalf. 


Many of them are telling and hoping Americans will waste their vote on Jill Stein.  She's not going to win and you're throwing your vote away because you're supporting MAGA and Trump because that's who has provided the legal support and the financial support to Jill Stein.


Your inflamed over Gaza to the point that you can't see reality.  Trump's not going to help Palestinians.  He would make things much, much worse.  


Not only are they voting to harm Palestinians, they're also harming support for Palestinians -- support in the US.  They don't know what they're doing.  And when those of us who were covering it regularly (here, it was daily) stepped back because the Jill Stein crazies lied to America that it was supporting Gaza or supporting Kamala Harris, we saw how interest in the issue caved.


Because they don't know how to sell the issue, they don't know to structure the narrative.


The killing in Gaza has not stopped.  But most Americans are not as tied to the issue as they were.  It's become a I HATE AMERICA movement with the crazies in charge.  And hate is never going to rally good people.  It can frighten and trick stupid people -- and often does.  


So they offer their hate.  And they join with other haters like Glenn Greenwald who can't shut up about, for example, Dick Cheney.  And people do realize that Glenn helped sell the Iraq War, right?  He was for it.  And yet today, he's the virgin protecting his maidenhead from Dick.  Ed Snowden's also attacking Kamala Harris.  From Russia.  As is Tara Reade.  From Russia.  Seems the more you hate America, the more you flirt with Donald Trump.


I don't know what COMMON DREAMS, DEMOCRACY NOW! and others think there future is.  I know that one of the biggest things we're discussing right now -- those of us who have funded independent media -- is their behavior currently.  And we're not planning on funding this garbage again.


We're a month away from a US election and DEMOCRACY NOW ignored Jack Smith's filings to give us a film ALJAZEERA made and broadcast about another country.

 

In a Donald Trump administration, other nations will not be pressured regarding human rights abuses or anything else.  


I rightly criticized DEMOCRACY NOW! in 2009 for doing an inauguration party for Barack Obama and I had spent 2008 noting how the program tilted the scales and flat out lied -- Melissa Lie Face Harris you are not forgotten nor do I ever forget that Amy Goodman knew she was campaigning for Barack -- knew it by appearing on Rev Jesse Jackson's program with Lie Face -- and then brought her on DEMOCRACY NOW! and lied to the audience by presenting Lie Face as a disinterested college professor.  


That I called out.


That's not journalism and it's nothing to be proud of.


They should be ashamed to this day.


And I am not calling for them to provide that kind of treatment to Kamala Harris campaign.  (Although it is worth noting that they and other outlets celebrated Barack Obama as a Black candidate -- remember David Lindorf's infamous quote? -- while today refusing to celebrate Kamala as the same.)  All I'm asking is that they cover the news, actually cover the news.  And Jack Straw's filing is news. And Myrlie Evers-Williams endorsing Kamala Harris was news.  But DEMOCRACY NOW! couldn't even note that in a headline -- despite having had this Civil Rights pioneer, the widow of Medgar Everts on their program before.  

You're not doing journalism.  


So-called 'independent' media -- that begs constantly for money -- either whores for their favored candidate or they ignore the one that they don't care about.


There's no balance, there's nothing between the two extremes.  And this is not journalism and should not be mistaken for it.  





As Stacey Abrams notes in the video above, "There could not be a starker choice."


Stacey Abrams . . . who's been a guest multiple times on DEMOCRACY NOW! in the past.  But endorsing Kamala means she's vanished.  


I've talked about why I support the coalition building around Kamala.  Maybe Amy doesn't?  Could be.  But how is this coalition not worthy of a debate or segment on DEMOCRACY NOW!?  


We know who Donald Trump is.  We know the damage he has done.  We know the damage he wants to do.  I don't see the point in ever giving another dime to DEMOCRACY NOW! or any of the other outlets that are working to get Donald back in the White House.





What I'm hearing as I speak with one group after another every day this week is that 'independent' media doesn't care about Black people.  They complain about the way DN! and others refuse to celebrate Kamala Harris' run as historic, they complain about how their views and their opinions are not being embraced.   I'm going to note Betty's post from last night:


At the end of C.I.'s snapshot -- which I'll repost in full at the end -- she notes Will Bunch's column about Trump's desired "purge."  I want to note that here to give him credit for writing about it because very few White people have.  C.I. and I have covered it -- see my "" -- and C.I. not just written of it but also posted a huge number of video reports about it and you should have noticed that the people addressing this very serious topic in videos were overwhelmingly Black.  As both C.I. and I have noted, that's the community that would be hardest targeted in Trump's purge.  So thank you to Will Bunch -- who is White -- for writing about it.




Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump recently claimed that "one real tough, nasty" and "violent" day of police brutality would bring an immediate end to crime in the nation, raising alarms for experts on authoritarianism about the danger to democracy should Trump's remarks ever translate into policy.

[. . .]

Geoff Eley, a University of Michigan professor of contemporary history who studies nationalism and the far-right, told Salon that Americans should take Trump's comments seriously even if it's often hard to know his true intent. 

"We need to take his comments very, very seriously, partly because this time he's bull-in-a-china-shop determined to get his way, partly because (by contrast with 2016) he's surrounded by a core of smart and ruthlessly committed helpers and ideologues, whose ideas are most definitely coherent, thought-through and focused," Eley said in an email.

Trump's "political accomplishment," Eley said, has been in imparting to large swaths of the country that "democracy, proceduralism, civility, speaking across differences, and the rule of law have outlived their purposes — they're fictions, illusions, tricks, and they no longer matter."

Despite Trump's insistence both at the rally and throughout his campaign that crime "has gone through the roof," data indicates that the opposite is true.

Recently released FBI stats show a 2.4% decrease in property crime between 2022 and 2023. Preliminary data comparing periods of 2024 ranging from the first quarter to the first half to the same periods of 2023 also indicated a drop in violent crime following the COVID-19 isolation-era uptick, suggesting this year will see a continued decline in the nation's crime rate. 



I am sick of the failing White politician trying to scapegoat to win an election.  Donald Trump's entire campaign is a Willie Horton ad.  For those new to the Willie Horton aspect of a campaign, from WIKIPEDIA:


During the 1988 presidential election, US Vice President and Republican nominee George H. W. Bush brought Horton up frequently during his campaign against Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis who was the governor of Massachusetts. He was commonly referred to as "Willie" Horton, despite never having gone by the nickname. The renaming of the African-American Horton has been speculated to be the product of racist stereotyping.[2] A prominent PAC ad for Bush about Horton has been widely characterized as a textbook example of dog-whistle politics.[3][4][5][6][7]



In other words, when you can't win on your own, demonize Black people.  

And thank you to Tatyana but, again, she's Black.  It would be nice to see more people like Will Bunch -- more non-Blacks -- grabbing this very serious story.  Instead, it comes off like yet again Black people are on their own.  We're expected to speak on behalf of all groups but when we're targeted White left goes silent too many times.  But thank you to Tatyana and to every Black person who has rightly raised their voices to call Trump's deranged proposal out.

Black people are already the most targeted with police violence.  Trump is threatening us and he's threatening us because it feeds his racist base.  It plays to their hatred and racism and resentment.  He's painting a target on our backs.


If you're not getting how empty and desperate Trump and his MAGA are, ATLANTA BLACK STAR NEWS reports:


A white Republican running for Congress in Nevada was caught on tape Monday telling supporters, “I’m from North Las Vegas. I’m not worried about Black people.”
John Lee is seeking to represent Nevada’s 4th Congressional District, where 15 percent of the population is Black. His opponent, incumbent Democrat Steven Horsford, was recently named chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, a promotion that drew ridicule from Lee, formerly mayor of North Las Vegas.

“They made him chair of the Black Caucus. Whoop-de-doo,” Lee said on an audiotape obtained by HuffPost.

Lee went on to denigrate the CBC, following a pattern of insults over the last year. In August, he said they were comparable to a “blond-haired caucus,” and he had previously called the group “stupid.”

[. . .]


Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Lauryn Fanguen condemned Lee’s remarks in a statement.

“John Lee’s shocking comments about Black Nevadans and CBC Chair Steven Horsford are not only deeply offensive but betray an utter disdain for a large swath of the district he claims to want to represent,” Fanguen said.


Ava and I have spent a lot of time in Georgia with Betty (Betty is exclusively speaking Georgia -- her home state -- and has taken time off from her job to do so).

Donald Trump is using Black people, threats against them, insults and targeting them for violence.  And that's disgusting.  But where's our 'independent' media in this?  They aren't rushing to defend.   


We were speaking -- Betty, Ava and I -- near Johns Creek yesterday to a group and a Black woman from Johns Creek stated she felt as though the left media -- she named COMMON DREAMS -- was playing the oppression olympics and giving all this credence to issues outside this country while ignoring the very threats to Black people in our country.


Betty is correct in her post that Donald's doing dog whistles and Willie Horton-ing Black people.  He's playing to and promoting racism.  And apparently White-White-White 'independent' media can't grasp that -- can't grasp what Black people are seeing and feeling.  


Let's note that THE BLACK COMMENTATOR is back from its summer hiatus:



The Black Commentator Issue #1012 is now Online

Hurricane preparation, survival and cleanup

delayed publication of this issue
 

  October 3, 2024

Read issue 1012





The Black Commenentator | P.O. Box 2635, A weekly publication dedicated to economic justice, social justice and peace.,
Tarpon Springs, FL 34688-2635



And, as Marcia noted, Bruce Springsteen has endorsed Kamala.







The following sites updated:





Posted by at

10/03/2024

donald trump's long history of hating veterans



Donald Trump’s campaign has made great pains to combat the narrative that Trump repeatedly denigrated dead and injured soldiers.

Donald Trump himself keeps saying and doing callous things regarding dead and injured soldiers that make that much more difficult.

Democrats in the 2024 race have focused extensively on reported comments — confirmed last year by Trump’s former chief of staff, John F. Kelly — in which Trump referred to dead soldiers as “suckers” and questioned why people would join the military. The reported comments are hardly the only examples of Trump saying off-color things on the subject, but they are the most pronounced.

Still, even as that particular dispute has simmered, Trump keeps breathing life into the same narrative.

In mid-August, Trump called the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is awarded to civilians, “much better” than the Medal of Honor. He said that was because the latter is awarded to soldiers who are “either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead.”

(The Veterans of Foreign Wars and other veterans groups denounced the comments as crassly minimizing the sacrifices of soldiers.)

Later that month, Trump campaign staffers got into an altercation with a staff member at Arlington National Cemetery who tried to stop them from holding a Trump photo op in a highly restricted area of the cemetery — a photo op that appeared to run afoul of federal law. At least one family whose loved one’s gravesite was featured in a Trump campaign video of the event objected.


yes, he has a long, long history of attacking veterans.  as i said lst time, he's never done any service so he naturally attacks people who really do put others ahead of themselves, who really do show service to our country.  for donald is is all about donald.always and constantly. 



After the attack, the Pentagon said 109 soldiers were treated for traumatic brain injuries. Trump, then commander-in-chief, downplayed those injuries as nothing more than headaches, and on Wednesday he doubled down.

“So, first of all — injured — what does injured mean? Injured means, you mean, because they had a headache? Because the bombs never hit the fort. So, just so you understand, there was nobody ever tougher in Iraq,” the 45th President said.

neither callous nor selfish is sufficient to describe donald trump. 

let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'


Thursday, October 3, 2024.  New details emerge about Donald Trump's attempted January 5th coup.



Starting with the news regarding Donald Trump's attempted coup.   Madeline Halpert (BBC NEWS) reports on Special Counsel  Jack Smith's new filing,  "The new 165-page document presents the clearest view yet of how Mr Smith's team would pursue their case, having tweaked the wording of their charges after the Supreme Court's intervention.  It gives details of Trump's alleged scheme, including his actions when his supporters rioted at the US Capitol building on 6 January 2021. It also outlines the efforts of Mike Pence, the vice-president at the time, to talk him down."  It outlines a lot more than just that and, in being released raises a central question that will get to in a bit.  But let's all remember that in Tuesday's vice presidential debate, Miss Sassy JD Vance refused to admit that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.



Tim Walz: There's one, there's one, though, that this one is troubling to me. And I say that because I think we need to tell the story. Donald Trump refused to acknowledge this. And the fact is, is that I don't think we can be the frog in the pot and let the boiling water go up. He was very clear. I mean, he lost this election, and he said he didn't. One hundred and forty police officers were beaten at the Capitol that day, some with the American flag. Several later died. And it wasn't just in there. In Minnesota, a group gathered on the state capitol grounds in St. Paul and said we're marching to the Governor's residence and there may be casualties. The only person there was my son and his dog, who was rushed out crying by state police. That issue. And Mike Pence standing there as they were chanting, hang Mike Pence. Mike Pence made the right decision. So, Senator, it was adjudicated over and over and over. I worked with kids long enough to know, and I said, as a football coach, sometimes you really want to win, but the democracy is bigger than winning an election. You shake hands and then you try and do everything you can to help the other side win. That's, that's what was at stake here. Now, the thing I'm most concerned about is the idea that imprisoning your political opponents already laying the groundwork for people not accepting this. And a President's words matter. A President's words matter. People hear that. So I think this issue of settling our differences at the ballot box, shaking hands when we lose, being honest about it, but to deny what happened on January 6, the first time in American history that a President or anyone tried to overturn a fair election and the peaceful transfer of power. And here we are four years later in the same boat. I will tell you this, that when this is over, we need to shake hands, this election, and the winner needs to be the winner. This has got to stop. It's tearing our country apart. 


[. . .]


Tim Walz: January 6th was not Facebook ads. And I think a revisionist history on this. Look, I don't understand how we got to this point, but the issue was that happened. Donald Trump can even do it. And all of us say there's no place for this. It has massive repercussions. This idea that there's censorship to stop people from doing, threatening to kill someone, threatening to do something, that's not censorship. Censorship is book banning. We've seen that. We've seen that brought up. I just think for everyone tonight, and I'm going to thank Senator Vance. I think this is the conversation they want to hear, and I think there's a lot of agreement. But this is one that we are miles apart on. This was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen. And it manifested itself because of Donald Trump's inability to say, he is still saying he didn't lose the election. I would just ask that. Did he lose the 2020 election?


JD Vance: Tim, I'm focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?



Tim Walz: That is a damning. That is a damning non answer.


And it's even more of a damning non-answer as a result of the release of Straw's filing.  Here's last night's NEWSHOUR (PBS).




  • Amna Nawaz:

    We're learning previously undisclosed details tonight about former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

    A newly unsealed 165-page court filing from the Department of Justice argues the former president should still face trial even after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled presidents have immunity for official acts.

    NPR's Carrie Johnson and former U.S. attorney Mary McCord are following the latest developments. They join me now.

    Welcome to you both.

    So, Carrie, what do we know about why this filing was unsealed now by Judge Tanya Chutkan, and what stood out to you as you made your way through it?

  • Carrie Johnson, NPR:

    Yes, the Justice Department made this filing in response to what the Supreme Court did this past summer.

    The Supreme Court ruled that Trump and future presidents do enjoy substantial immunity from prosecution for official acts. But the special counsel, Jack Smith, and his team maintain that Trump was acting as a political candidate and not the president of the United States when he allegedly attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

    And this court filing today was filed under seal a short while ago. There's been some back-and-forth about how much the public should be able to see. And just this afternoon, Judge Tanya Chutkan mostly sided with prosecutors and released this filing with some redactions.

    There are some new details in here based on grand jury testimony and notes that people like former Vice President Mike Pence took about his interactions with former President Donald Trump. There's some really interesting mentions of notes that Pence took about this all being up to Pence in the later part of 2020 and early 2021 as people prepared to count the electoral votes on January 6.

    And there's some new detail from prosecutors, who maintain that Trump himself was in the dining room near the Oval Office tweeting on January 6 as Mike Pence was in danger from rioters in the Capitol. And Trump allegedly said to an aide who asked him about all this: "So what?"

    So there's a lot of new color and vivid detail about Trump's alleged actions and his state of mind and his knowledge in those waning weeks of 2020 and early 2021.

  • Amna Nawaz:

    Mary, we knew this was an argument that Jack Smith was going to lay out, saying, even though Trump was holding the official office of president, his scheme, as he writes in the filing — quote — "was a fundamentally private one."

    Just broadly speaking, how does he make that case here and how compelling a case is that?

  • Mary McCord, Former Justice Department Official:

    He goes through all of the different facets of the scheme the pressure on state legislatures, the pressure on his own vice president, the efforts to orchestrate the fraudulent electors scheme, and his comments not only at the Ellipse on the morning of January 6, but in the lead-up to that, including public speeches and tweets.

    And he — and Jack Smith emphasizes at every step how many private actors, private attorneys, and advisers, including some of his co-conspirators, were involved in so many of these efforts. He also makes the point about there not being executive branch officials involved in these various efforts.

    And he also adds, I think, some really interesting details, to go to Carrie's point about showing his capacity as a candidate. He adds details about, when he's pressuring state legislatures, for example, and state government officials, he is, for one, only pressuring Republicans. He never calls, for example, the Michigan Democratic governor or secretary of state to complain about election fraud.

    He only pressures Republicans. And in those states that are led by Democrats, he instead pressures state legislatures. He constantly refers only to his own race when he talks about fraud in the election and never to the election more generally. So, in other words, claims of election integrity, you would expect to be calling into question a number of different facets of the election, but, instead, he focused only on himself.

    So, Jack Smith really does paint quite a vivid picture throughout not only the first part of this motion, which includes this extensive factual recitation, but particularly in his legal analysis and his application of the law, the law that the Supreme Court laid down in Trump v. United States, to the facts of this case.

  • Amna Nawaz:

    Carrie, I want to underscore here that moment you briefly mentioned about Mr. Trump's reaction to learning that his vice president had been taken to a secure location. Here is what is actually written out in the filing related to that.

    Jack Smith writes that: "Upon receiving a phone call, learning that Pence had been taken to a secure location, a redacted person rushed to the dining room to inform the defendants in hopes the defendant would take action to ensure Pence's safety. Instead, after he delivered the news, the defendant," in this case, former President Trump, "looked at him and said only: 'So what?'"

    What else do we learn from this, Carrie, about the many efforts Vice President Pence made to offer then-President Trump an off-ramp from these false claims of election fraud?

  • Carrie Johnson:

    Yes, we learned a lot about conversations that Pence had with Trump, as well as Pence's aides, who met with some of Trump's alleged co-conspirators, people we believe to be former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, law professor John Eastman, and others who were advancing these bogus claims.

    And after they tried all kinds of other efforts in the courts and with the states, they basically failed at all of those things, and it came down for them to Mike Pence. And so they placed enormous pressure on Pence, tried to signal that he had the power to overturn the will of millions of voters.

    And Pence wasn't buying it. Nor was one of his legal aides who's testified before the house January 6 Committee. And we get a lot of detail about that. Pence basically says to Trump, why don't you try again? Take this — sit this one out. You can try again in 2024. And Trump and his top aides were just not having it.

    In fact, Trump called Pence on January 5 and the morning of January 6 asked him to be tough. And Pence was under enormous pressure, as we saw in that period, but, still, he held firm and refused to go along with this alleged scheme.

  • Amna Nawaz:

    Mary, there are some newly disclosed details in here, some newly confirmed details. Much of it was also known from the results of the January 6 hearings. But the big question is, now what?

    What kind of impact will this filing have on the case moving forward?

  • Mary McCord:

    Right.

    So now it will be Mr. Trump's legal counsel's turn to file a response to this and make arguments in opposition to Jack Smith's arguments.

    So he has argued that, for each facet of the scheme, Mr. Trump's conduct — well, first of all, for his pressure on his vice president, where the Supreme Court said that could — that's official, they have made a showing and an argument that they can rebut the presumption of immunity by showing through the evidence that prosecution for this illegal pressure on Mike Pence would not create any danger of intrusion the functions of the presidency.

    For every other category, he argues that acts are private and not official. And even if the court were to find they were official, again, he can rebut the presumption of immunity by showing prosecution would have no danger of intrusion the functions of the presidency.

    And this is something that Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in her concurring opinion, she pointed out some areas that she thought were private and said if she had — she thought the majority should have said so in its opinion, and some areas where she thought the presumption was rebutted.

  • Amna Nawaz:

    That is former U.S. attorney Mary McCord and NPR's Carrie Johnson joining us tonight.

    Thank you to you both.


Here's ABC NEWS zooming on Donald Trump insisting immediately after the 2020 election that the actual results -- HE LOST! -- do not matter.
 


And here's Chris Hayes discussing it on MSNBC  with Lawrence O'Donnell and Rachel Maddow and Chris focuses on the Tweet  Donald used to put a target on then-Vice President Mike Pence's back.


The released court filing (here) contains a lot of newly released facts and it also provides a timeline of the attempt by Donald Trump to attack our democracy.  There's so much in there that anyone should be able to find new details and facts.  

In the discussion above in the MSNBC clip, Rachel noted:


One of the things that I never connected before is something that's provided on page 63 of this document.  We knew from Pence's memoir, that when he was really making clear, as of New Year's Day, as of January 1st, that he was not going to go along with this, that all of the lobbying of him was not working,  we know from his memoir that Trump threatened him and said that, "Hundreds of thousands of people are going to hate your guts."  We knew he had done that.  What I did not know before reading this today is that he's threatening him that hundreds of thousands of people are going to effectively come after him for what he's doing here and then immediately after he says that to Pence, immediately afterwards, he Tweets a reminder to all of his supporters to make sure you're going to be in Washington, DC on January 6th.  I mean when he makes that threat to Pence, he's already announced "will be wild, come for January 6th," he tells him hundreds of thousands of people will come for you and then he hits a reminder in Twitter telling people that they need to show up so that they can make good on the threat.  It is just wielding the promise of an angry mob as a deliberate threat and as as one that he is planning to make good on.  And I have never seen it laid out that way before even though I knew the individual pieces and it just sent a chill down my spine.

And as you hear about the filing, as you read about it, read it and/or watch videos about it, you'll probably have a similar reaction.  Erik De La Garza (RAW STORY) notes:

“I don’t usually gasp at things,” said MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin during an appearance with host Nicole Wallace on Wednesday on her show “Deadline: White House," but added, “We are learning facts that weren’t previously known to us.”

“I’ll read first what made Lisa Rubin gasp. Why make everybody wait?” Wallace said before going on to read from page 142 of the massive document, including a portion where Trump reportedly responded with, “So what?” when delivered the news that Mike Pence was taken to a secure location because of fears over his safety.

“The cavalierness with which Donald Trump received that news certainly is news to me,” Rubin said, adding that the new court filing contains more information than what has previously been released by the Jan. 6 committee investigation. “There is a whole lot of new content here Nicole and that is just one part of it.”

MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissman took it a step further when he called Trump’s actions after the 2020 election and in the lead-up to Jan. 6 the most serious crime “in American history.”

“What you have here is chapter and verse over and over again about an effort, a conspiracy – a criminal conspiracy – to thwart the will of the American electorate,” Weissman, a former FBI general counsel, told Wallace. “There is no more serious crime in American history than that.”




 

At one point, Smith details how a Trump campaign employee was informed that a final batch of ballots at a Detroit vote-counting center would favor Joe Biden. “Find a reason it isn’t,” the staffer said. “Give me options to file litigation.”

When a colleague warned doing so could spark unrest, the staffer replied, “Make them riot.”

Smith’s motion also indicates that the special counsel intends to prove Trump and his allies baselessly invented claims that noncitizens were voting in U.S. elections, and ignored indications that their theory that dead Americans were casting their votes was flat-out wrong.

The motion further reveals that the MAGA politicos failed to deliver on their own election fraud theories. They promised to “package up” evidence of the election-stealing crime and then never delivered it to its intended recipients, namely former Arizona Governor Doug Ducey and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, where two prongs of the scheme have resulted in sprawling election conspiracy cases.




Here are two more videos that should be streamed on this important topic.







The lightly redacted filing argues that Trump’s scheme to use bogus election fraud claims to stop Biden from taking office “was fundamentally a private one” and did not involve “official conduct.” If the courts accept that argument, the indictment could survive the expansive presidential “immunity” standard invented by the Supreme Court in its controversial July 1 decision.

But regardless of the fate of Smith’s legal case, the motion matters politically. It bolsters the argument that Trump’s disregard for the Constitution, democracy, and the rule of law leave him unfit to return to office. And it functions as a reminder for distractible voters about the seriousness of the charges against the first election loser in American history to incite violence in bid to retain power.

Trump’s lawyers fought unsuccessfully in court to block release of the motion based on the claim that it could affect the election, an argument Chutkan, who has repeatedly said she does consider Trump’s status as a presidential candidate to be relevant to her proceedings, rejected. Smith also filed an appendix that includes FBI interviews, grand jury testimony, and other evidence, which remains sealed, though parts of that could also be made public before election day.



             

More evidence could come out in coming days. A hefty appendix accompanying Wednesday’s filing remains under seal, and the judge has asked both sides to weigh in on how much of it should be made public. Among the documents in the appendix are grand jury transcripts and notes from FBI interviews conducted during the yearslong investigation.

    

Donald staged a coup.  He should be in prison.  But he's not our only issue.  U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon needs to be removed from the bench immediately.  Her constant delays in this case and her eventual dismissal of it were questioned by other justices and legal scholars.  Now knowing some of what we do -- things Cannon already knew -- we see that she worked to deprive the American people -- ahead of an election -- of the details and facts that they needed.  They needed to know how the coup was staged, they needed to Donald Trump's involvement.  The right of a citizenry to be informed, to be informed voters, didn't matter to Aileen.  She saw her position on the bench as running interference for the man that got her that post.  She betrayed the law, she betrayed our judicial system.  

These shocking things that we're learning -- and more may be coming -- were shielded by her.  She refused to allow the American people to know what went down as our democracy was attacked.

Her rulings have been questionable from the beginning; however, it is no longer speculation about what she was doing.  Her intent some can argue.  But her decisions and her actions prevented the American people from knowledge they should have had, from facts they should have known.  She did not pursue justice, instead she worked to cover up a crime.  She should be removed from the bench.  

Winding down with Will Bunch.  Over the weekend, Donald Trump advocated for a lawless purge period attacking people in the United States.  Many outlets have ignored it.  Will Bunch covers it below:

This is not a test. This is your emergency broadcast system announcing the commencement of the Annual Purge, sanctioned by the U.S. Government. Commencing at the siren, any and all crime, including murder, will be legal for 12 continuous hours.

That’s how “The Purge,” an annual —and thankfully fictional, at least for now — event held in a dystopian 2040 America is announced in a sequel of the long-running film series called, fittingly, The Purge: Election Year. The run of action horror films first launched in the early 2010s has become something of a B-movie sensation. Its pretense about a troubled America that tries controlled mayhem to stave off non-stop anarchy surely alarms some viewers — and thrills others. One thing I’m pretty sure about is that the producers didn’t mean for The Purge movies to serve as a policy white paper.

And yet here was Donald Trump, ex-president and GOP nominee for the last three elections, telling a smallish rally crowd in Erie, Pa. on Sunday afternoon that if returned to the White House, he will write his own sequel to The Purge — treating a violent Hollywood murder flick like it was the lost 31st chapter of Project 2025. The plot twist is that in Trump’s remake, everyday folks aren’t committing the crimes, but instead getting a whupping from an all-powerful police state.

- YouTubeyoutu.be

“See, we have to let the police do their job.” Trump said, even if “they have to be extraordinarily rough.” That was the start of a long, hard-to-follow ramble in which the Republican candidate claimed to have seen TV images of shoplifters walking out of stores with refrigerators or air conditioners on their backs — for which he blamed the permissive left. Trump’s solution would be “one really violent day” by the cops. Or even just “one rough hour. And I mean real rough. The word will be out. And it will end immediately...”

Well, as you can imagine, Trump’s call for a National Day of Violence — many commentators on X/Twitter compared it to an American Kristallnacht — caused an immediate frenzy. CBS News interrupted Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and the Kansas City Chiefs for a special report: “Trump’s Day of Violence.” New York Times executive editor Joe Kahn ran down the newsroom’s iconic red stairs and screamed at his top lieutenants to rip up tomorrow’s front page. And...

And, who am I kidding with this tired bit? Of course those things never happened. Most news organizations did mention the Trump rant — it was hard to ignore — but treated it as the umpteenth instance of Trump being Trump, and not as a dangerous escalation of national rhetoric. The future 2024 Word of the Year — sanewashing — came back this weekend in a big way among the handful of media critics exasperated at the lack of urgency.

“Trump constantly saying extreme, racist, violent stuff can’t always be new,” the New Republic’s Michael Tomasky wrote in an essay. “But it is always reality. Is the press justified in ignoring reality just because it isn’t new? Are we not allowed to consider his escalations as dangerous, novel developments in and of themselves? And should we not note the coincidence that his remarks seem more escalatory as the pressures of the campaign mount?”

America — and especially the media — should take Trump’s rants seriously and literally.

Tomasky and others noted that Trump’s hateful weekend comments about immigrants were just as troubling as his endorsement of violence. At a Saturday rally in the ironically named Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin (ironic because Trump hates chiens, or dogs), Trump unleashed a flurry of the kind of dehumanizing language that typically precedes ethnic cleansing. “I will liberate Wisconsin from this mass migrant invasion of murderers, rapists, hoodlums, drug dealers, thugs, and vicious gang members,” the GOP nominee claimed. He called migrants “animals,” and, most bizarrely, claimed that they “will walk into your kitchen, they’ll cut your throat.”

Sanewashing? “Trump pounds immigration message after Harris’ border visit,” was the headline in Axios, while Bloomberg tweeted that “Donald Trump sharpened his criticism on border security in a swing-state visit, playing up a vulnerability for Kamala Harris.” Really? Trump’s words sounds more like they were sharpened in the flames of a cross at a KKK rally than any kind of serious policy. Is it a vulnerability for Harris that her speeches about the border don’t sound like they were drafted by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels? What different election are these journalists watching than the one that’s actually happening?



The following sites updated:

Posted by at
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)