"The Global Consciousness Project, also known as the EGG Project, is an international multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists, engineers, artists and others continuously collecting data from a global network of physical random number generators located in 65 host sites worldwide. The archive contains over 10 years of random data in parallel sequences of synchronized 200-bit trials every second."
This is simply more damnable icing on the corrupt cake.
The things he says, and the way he says them are purposely ambiguous, so that to even an expert witness in syntax, one would not be able to definitively say that he unquestionably stated a thing certain.
That’s how the mafioso talks. They’re deliberately ambiguous, vague, and speak in riddles and figurative language, such as “I hear you paint houses,” which means “I understand that you’re a hit man and kill people.”
Simply read what he says.
It’s as clear as a bell that he’s being ambiguous. But by the same tone, it’s equally clear what he wants.
“Something bad happened. When the right answer comes out, you’ll be praised.”
-and-
“The people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, that you’ve recalculated. So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state. So what are we going to do here, folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break. There’s no way I lost Georgia. There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.”
Neal Katyal, a Georgetown law professor who was Acting Solicitor General in the Obama administration, said Trump’s use of language is “the way that people in organized crime rings talk. I’ve heard the extraordinary excerpts that the Washington Post has and, at least based on those excerpts, it sounds like Donald Trump is talking like a mafia boss, and not a particularly smart mafia boss at that. This is the way that people in organized crime rings talk, and you see it there.”
“This is, you know, the heart of what the abuse of power that our founders worried about so much is — it’s, you know, the idea that the government official can use the powers of his office to try and stay in office and try and browbeat other officials that disagree with them.”
“So, one question is whether or not a high crime and misdemeanor was committed, certainly the tape makes it sound like it has. The second is whether or not there has been a criminal offense and the federal code 52 U.S.C. 20511 prohibits a federal official from interfering in a state election process.”
Note: We are reposting (with a new introduction) an article from Nov. 9, 2019, written during hearings on Trump’s conversation with Ukraine’s president, as it appears relevant to this week’s impeachment trial.
“Nothing the President said on January 6th was inciteful, let alone impeachable,” the Republican Party is arguing during former president Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, “and in fact, President Trump urged supporters to exercise their rights ‘peacefully and patriotically.’”
Of course, Trump did not directly instruct his supporters to attack the Capitol, stop official proceedings and threaten members of Congress until they agreed to keep Trump in power, despite the election results. That is not how he talks. In the past, Trump has said that, “I did not make a statement that, ‘You have to do this or I’m not going to give you A.’ I wouldn’t do that.” We know from former Trump attorney Michael Cohen that Trump does not like to say things explicitly when they might get him into trouble. Instead, he prefers to communicate indirectly.
Cohen has said Trump “doesn’t give orders. He speaks in code. And I understand that code.” That’s the way that Mafiosi speak to each other, to avoid trouble. In my book on the political economy of trust, I discuss the oblique ways in which Sicilian Mafiosi communicate with one another and how this affects trust and distrust among them, building on the work of sociologists such as Diego Gambetta.
Popular culture shows how mobsters communicate in code when they are worried about being overheard by law enforcement, using indirect language to describe their intentions, so as to make it harder to pin responsibility on them. Similarly, Trump very possibly never said explicitly that Ukraine would be frozen out unless it helped discredit Trump’s potential election rival. Sondland’s testimony suggests that Trump tried to get Ukraine to hurt his presidential opponent through intermediaries using careful language that left no doubt what he wanted, but did so in a way that would preserve a crucial minimum of deniability.
Ambiguity makes it difficult to prove intent.
There is a reason why mob bosses prefer ambiguous language: it makes it harder to prove charges against them. The same is plausibly true for Trump. That is especially so when much of the jury (in this case, Republican senators) have strong political reasons to want to find Trump innocent. Trump has made a very successful career out of speaking in code, and ruthlessly throwing subordinates under the bus when they do what he wants them to do but then gets caught. It’s unlikely that he is going to stop any time soon.
Trump Call to Georgia Lead Investigator Reveals New Details
by Cameron McWhirter
Updated March 11, 2021 10:08 am ET
ATLANTA—Then-President Donald Trump urged the chief investigator of the Georgia Secretary of State’s office to Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, February 12, 2021
“Trump told us to do it.”
Trump’s MAGA supporters rioter-insurrectionists who were assembled at the White House Ellipse Park January 6, 2021 quickly became violent exclusively because they believed that Trump was asking them to do so – that they were doing his bidding.
“He said, ‘Be there.’ So I went and I answered the call of my president.”
House Impeachment Managers cited social media posts, recorded video, and court documents which reflected as much.
“I Answered the Call of My President.”
Impeachment Managers also extensively documented that several months BEFORE the election, Trump was laying the groundwork for convincing his cult of followers that the November presidential election was fixed, and that his victory was stolen because of Read the rest of this entry »
The mention of his religion is of no consequence, save perhaps, for the fact that he had asked for, then rescinded his request for the trial to take a day off – Saturday, beginning from sundown Friday, to sunrise Sunday (the Jewish “sabbath”) – to attend Synagogue, wear his little beanie, not use electricity, not serve dairy and meat together (like on a cheeseburger), or to practice whatever superstitious silliness that religiously observant Jews practice on Saturdays – just like Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, Loser Trump’s second child, and first-born daughter, of whom he said that he would be “dating her” (TRANSLATE: Having sex with) if he wasn’t married to Malaria, er… Melania, and noted that she was a “fine piece of ass.”
The TEMERITY to quote Lincoln in his closing remarks!
Is he trying to defend, or prosecute his client?
The atrocity occurs very near the closing after 3:57… that’s 3 HOURS and 57 minutes.
“Stand with anybody that stands RIGHT. Stand with him while he is right, and PART with him when he goes wrong.” –– The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, “Speech at Peoria, Illinois” (October 16, 1854), p. 273.
And then, to read – and give an UTTERLY HORRIBLE performance of – an 1849 poem by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow!
That’s utter heresy!
The atrocity!
A goddamn moron, he is.
Schoen, a 3rd rate goofball, who the Piece of Shit former loser President hired after his first slew of attorneys quit in disgust, after the shit bag insisted that they base their claim of defense that he lost because of massive vote fraud, and they refused.
What?
Giuliani couldn’t do it?
Loser Trumpanzee is a goddamn moron.
Schoen is the 3rd, or 4th string.
Loser Trumpanzee can barely sign his name with a Sharpie permanent marker. He butchers words like “Yosemite” pronouncing it instead as “Yo – Semite” as if he were talking to his bigoted Semite son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Yeah… the bigot who was credibly accused of housing discrimination (he’s a slumlord) against Blacks, and rather than go to trial, agreed to Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, February 8, 2021
The transcript of then-President Trump’s hour-long call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is too lengthy to duplicate here, per se, but suffice it to say, it all boiled down to this oft-repeated remark by Trump during the call:
“The ballots are corrupt, and they’re brand new, and they don’t have seals, and there’s a whole thing with the ballots. But the ballots are corrupt. And you are going to find that they are — which is totally illegal — it is more illegal for you than it is for them because, you know, what they did and you’re not reporting it. That’s a criminal, that’s a criminal offense. And you can’t let that happen. That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer.
“All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.”
The call, which occurred on a Saturday afternoon, January 2, 2021, is a classic example of a shakedown.
In common parlance, the term “shakedown” refers to a criminal activity, describing extortion of money, as by blackmail. It is the preferred and primary definition in most reputable, and modern dictionaries.
Even the “Urban Dictionary,” a repository of modern colloquial use acknowledges similarly, but takes it at least one step further, by also acknowledging context of usage by writing that shakedown is,
“Another word for extortion/blackmail, or the obtaining of a good or service through means of force, threats/intimidation, or abuse of power.
Only one other dictionary acknowledges that capacity by writing that shakedown refers to “extortion, as by blackmail or threats of violence.”
Merriam-Webster defines it as “to rob by the use of trickery or threats.”
The Online Slang Dictionary finds similarly, by writing that it means “to extort. That is, to obtain something via force, threats, intimidation, abuse of power, etc.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, February 2, 2021
As a treasonously wicked, son of perdition and Manipulator in Chief, Trump’s planned corruption played out in public, in print and broadcast news reports (he’s a media whore), on Twitter (he’s a narcissist), on other social media, like FaceBook, and Parler, the favorite of White Supremacists, neo-Nazis, and other right-wing extremists.
His followers are rightly called the “Cult of Trump.”
WALLACE: In general, not talking about November, are you a good loser?
TRUMP: I’m not a good loser. I don’t like to lose. I don’t lose too often. I don’t like to lose.
WALLACE: But are you gracious?
TRUMP: You don’t know until you see. It depends. I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election. I really do.
WALLACE: Are you suggesting that you might not accept the results of the election?
TRUMP: No. I have to see. Look, Hillary Clinton asked me the same thing.
WALLACE: No, I asked you the same thing at the debate.
77 Days: Trump’s Campaign to Subvert the Election
Within a few hours after the United States voted, the President declared the election a fraud — a lie that unleashed a movement that would shatter democratic norms and upend the peaceful transfer of power.
By Jim Rutenberg, Jo Becker, Eric Lipton, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Martin, Matthew Rosenberg and Michael S. Schmidt
January 31, 2021
By Thursday the 12th of November, President Donald J. Trump’s election lawyers were concluding that the reality he faced was the inverse of the narrative he was promoting in his comments and on Twitter. There was no substantial evidence of election fraud, and there were nowhere near enough “irregularities” to reverse the outcome in the courts.
Mr. Trump did not, could not, win the election, not by “a lot” or even a little. His presidency would soon be over.
Allegations of Democratic malfeasance had disintegrated in embarrassing fashion. A supposed suitcase of illegal ballots in Detroit proved to be a box of camera equipment. “Dead voters” were turning up alive in television and newspaper interviews.
The week was coming to a particularly demoralizing close: In Arizona, the Trump lawyers were preparing to withdraw their main lawsuit as the state tally showed Joseph R. Biden Jr. leading by more than 10,000 votes, against the 191 ballots they had identified for challenge.
As he met with colleagues to discuss strategy, the president’s deputy campaign manager, Justin Clark, was urgently summoned to the Oval Office. Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, was on speaker phone, pressing the president to file a federal suit in Georgia and sharing a conspiracy theory gaining traction in conservative media — that Dominion Systems voting machines had transformed thousands of Trump votes into Biden votes.
Mr. Clark warned that the suit Mr. Giuliani had in mind would be dismissed on procedural grounds. And a state audit was barreling toward a conclusion that the Dominion machines had operated without interference or foul play.
Mr. Giuliani called Mr. Clark a liar, according to people with direct knowledge of the exchange. Mr. Clark called Mr. Giuliani something much worse. And with that, the election-law experts were sidelined in favor of the former New York City mayor, the man who once again was telling the president what he wanted to hear.
Thursday the 12th was the day Mr. Trump’s flimsy, long-shot legal effort to reverse his loss turned into something else entirely — an extralegal campaign to subvert the election, rooted in a lie so convincing to some of his most devoted followers that it made the deadly Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol almost inevitable.
Weeks later, Mr. Trump is the former President Trump. In coming days, a presidential transition like no other will be dissected when he stands trial in the Senate on an impeachment charge of “incitement of insurrection.” Yet his lie of an election stolen by corrupt and evil forces lives on in a divided America.
A New York Times examination of the 77 democracy-bending days between election and inauguration shows how, with conspiratorial belief rife in a country ravaged by pandemic, a lie that Mr. Trump had been grooming for years finally overwhelmed the Republican Party and, as brake after brake fell away, was propelled forward by new and more radical lawyers, political organizers, financiers and the surround-sound right-wing media.
In the aftermath of that broken afternoon at the Capitol, a picture has emerged of entropic forces coming together on Trump’s behalf in an ad hoc, yet calamitous, crash of rage and denial.
But interviews with central players, and documents including previously unreported emails, videos and social media posts scattered across the web, tell a more encompassing story of a more coordinated campaign.
Across those 77 days, the forces of disorder were summoned and directed by the departing president, who wielded the power derived from his near-infallible status among the party faithful in one final norm-defying act of a reality-denying presidency.
Throughout, he was enabled by influential Republicans motivated by ambition, fear or a misplaced belief that he would not go too far.
In the Senate, he got early room to maneuver from the majority leader, Mitch McConnell. As he sought the president’s help in Georgia Read the rest of this entry »
What We Learned from Trump’s Effort to Overturn the 2020 Election Results
by Matthew Rosenberg, Jim Rutenberg
February 1, 2021
The January 6, 2021 rally/riot of MAGA Trump supporters before their assault on the Capitol. Nina Berman/NOOR, via Redux Pictures
An examination by the New York Times of the 77 days between election and inauguration shows how a lie the former president had been grooming for years overwhelmed the Republican Party and stoked the assault on the Capitol.
For 77 days between the election and the inauguration, President Donald J. Trump attempted to subvert American democracy with a lie about election fraud that he had been grooming for years.
A New York Times examination of the events that unfolded after the election shows how the president — enabled by Republican leaders, advised by conspiracy-minded lawyers and bankrolled by a new class of Trump-era donors — waged an extralegal campaign that convinced tens of millions of Americans the election had been stolen and made the deadly Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol almost inevitable.
Interviews with central players, along with documents, videos and previously unreported emails, tell the story of a campaign that was more coordinated than previously understood, even as it strayed farther from reality with each passing day.
Here are some key takeaways:
As some lawyers on Trump’s team pulled back, others were ready to press ahead with suits skating the lines of legal ethics and reason
Within 10 days of the election, even as Mr. Trump and his supporters promoted allegation after allegation of voter fraud, his team of election lawyers knew that the reality was the inverse of what Mr. Trump was presenting: They were not finding substantial evidence of malfeasance or enough irregularities to overturn the election.
That reality was hammered home on November 12, when final Arizona results showed Joseph R. Biden Jr. with an irreversible lead of more than 10,000 votes that rendered the legal team’s main lawsuit in that state — which had identified 191 ballots to contest — moot.
At an Oval Office meeting that day, the election lawyers squared off against the president’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, over Mr. Giuliani’s embrace of questionable legal tactics and conspiracy theories like one that Dominion voting machines had transformed Trump votes into Biden votes.
Ultimately, Mr. Trump decided to give Mr. Giuliani leadership of the entire legal strategy, making November 12 the day when Mr. Trump’s effort to reverse his loss in the courts became an all-out, extralegal campaign to disenfranchise millions of voters based on the false notion of pervasive fraud.
Voting-machine conspiracy theories became intertwined with a supercomputer story pushed in conservative media
The Dominion conspiracy theory taking root among the president and many of his supporters had been weeks in the making. In late October, an obscure conservative website, The American Report, was pushing stories about a supercomputer called The Hammer that it said was running software called Scorecard to steal votes from Mr. Trump.
The theory found amplification the day before the election on the podcast of Mr. Trump’s former political strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, who Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, January 31, 2021
The answer to the question below is an unambiguously, and resounding: “YES!”
There is an overwhelmingly abundance of evidence that shows he did, most all of which was plastered across social media by the man himself – particularly on Twitter.
Did Trump know what was about to happen January 6?
By Donald Ayer and Dennis Aftergut
Donald Ayer served as Deputy Attorney General under George H.W. Bush and as a U.S. Attorney and Principal Deputy Solicitor General in the Reagan administration.
Dennis Aftergut is a former federal prosecutor and Supreme Court advocate, currently a Lawyers Defending American Democracy steering committee member.
President Trump speaks to his rioters before they breached the Capitol.
Photo: Carol Guzy/Zuma Press
That close call should compel robust criminal investigations — not only to hold accountable all those who entered the Capitol but also to tell us exactly what Trump knew when he gave his speech that morning inciting the rioters.
The facts already known do not cast Trump in a good light.
Consider the context: Trump’s increasing desperation on January 6 as the walls closed in on his prospects for holding power.
• More than 60 courts had rejected Trump’s unfounded legal attempts to overturn the election.
• On January 2, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger had refused, in an hourlong phone call, to knuckle under to Trump’s pleas to alter the Georgia vote count.
• On January 3, Trump was stopped from replacing then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Jeffrey Clark, an assistant attorney general working with Trump to overturn Georgia’s election. A threat from the rest of the Justice Department leadership team to resign en masseforced Trump to back down.
• On January 5, the U.S. Attorney in Georgia resignedrather than collaborate in Trump’s attempts to overturn a state election result affirmed in three recounts.
These facts — along with Trump’s January 6 speech in which he told supporters, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” “You’ll never take back our country with weakness” and “When you catch somebody in a fraud, you’re allowed to go by very different rules” — ought to be evidence enough, we think, to convict him in his imminent impeachment trial.
What is already known to prosecutors is likely also sufficient to indict Trump for his willful efforts to deny Americans’ civil rights by subverting our democracy.
But more is needed.
History — as well as competent prosecution — demands that we establish Trump’s knowledge and intent on January 6 so that he is held accountable and Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, January 24, 2021
Dear Judas,
(A Letter to the Evangelical Church)
NOVEMBER 20, 2020
by JOHN PAVLOVITZ
Dear Evangelicals,
I thought of you today.
I was reading the Bible. (You may remember the Bible from a sitting president’s recent upside-down, tear-gassed, church steps photo op.)
I came across Matthew’s story of Judas’ final moments here on the planet: overwhelmed with guilt, in a searing, sweaty panic — realizing that he had betrayed his beloved Jesus and sent him to an unthinkably violent death, all for thirty cold pieces of silver that now felt worthless in his hands.
He’d kissed him and he’d killed him, just to gain a quick windfall that he suddenly realized was fool’s gold.
He died knowing he’d forfeited his soul and couldn’t get a refund.
President Donald Trump poses with a Bible outside St. John’s Church across Lafayette Park from the White House Monday, June 1, 2020, in Washington, D.C. Part of the church was set on fire during protests on Sunday night. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
I wonder if you will ever have such a last-minute awakening: a similarly sickening moment of clarity-come-too-late, when you look around and see all that you’ve destroyed and how many people you’ve grievously wounded — and if you too will realize that you’re now permanently in the red because you have abandoned your namesake for another name that adorns very different kinds of buildings.
Take a moment and survey the coins in your hand, now, friends.
Roll them around your fingers.
Feel the weight of them.
Your thirty pieces of silver were these last four years, some Supreme Court Justices, a couple hundred lower court judges, the temporary high of a few political wins, the bully pulpit of a President’s Twitter feed for forty-eight months, and perhaps soon, loss of a woman’s right to autonomy over her own body.
That was your soul’s selling price.
Was it all worth betraying Jesus for, I wonder?
Was it worth brutalizing the already vulnerable and oppressed, whose lives he said he inhabited?
Was it worth aligning with this petulant, profane Caesar in all his pervasive and prolific violence?
Was it worth driving a generation from the Church that Jesus built to be a refuge for wanderers, a balm for the hurting, a destination for weary pilgrims, and a home for prodigals?
From where I’m standing, it wasn’t.
From where I’m standing, you’re bankrupt.
From where I’m standing, you’re stuck.
President Donald Trump (in blue tie, 3rd from right) poses outside St. John’s Church across Lafayette Park from the White House Monday, June 1, 2020, in Washington. Part of the church was set on fire during protests on Sunday night. Standing with Trump are, LEFT to RIGHT, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Attorney General William Barr, White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien, Trump, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
I’m out here with the multitudes who will never darken the door of one your gatherings ever again because they’ve seen your greed.
I’m here with those whose last remaining tethers to religion have been fully severed seeing you abandon the tender world-loving heart of Jesus, in favor of a thin facade of nationalistic bravado.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, January 18, 2021
Dear President Lincoln,
You and George Washington had something in common, aside from Presidency – you were both honest men.
There’s a story told, that as we understand it now, is but a mythical fable of someone’s vivid imagination, although every lie has an element of truth. That fable was first apparently crafted by the Reverend Mason Locke Weems (1759-1825), the first person ordained by the Anglican Church for the Episcopal Church in America after the American Revolution.
Though he first studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and in London, his calling was apparently to the Christian ministry, and he never practiced medicine.
His 1784 ordination – first as deacon, as customary, September 5, and then as priest on September 12 – was remarkable in part, because he was the first beneficiary of the English Parliament’s passage of the Enabling Act on August 13, 1784, which thereby enabled English bishops to ordain clergy for the American Church without requiring them to swear a loyalty oath to the English sovereign.
He later served as rector in two Maryland parishes – All Hallows’ Parish in Anne Arundel County, 1784-1789, and then from 1790-1792 of Westminster Parish in the same county.
For about 20 years, he was also an itinerant preacher at various Virginia parishes, most notably among them the Pohick Church, where George Washington (1732-1799) attended, before the Revolution. That enabled him to refer to himself as “formerly rector of Mt. Vernon Parish.”
From around 1791 until his death, he became an author, and book peddler for publisher Matthew Carey. Though he wrote and had published various moralizing tracts and biographies of individuals of renown in that era, such as Benjamin Franklin, William Penn, and General Francis Marion (a Continental Army General nicknamed the “Swamp Fox” for his elusive tactics), his most famous biography was of George Washington – “The Life and Memorable Actions of George Washington, General and Commander of the Armies of America” – and first published in 1800. It proved to be quite a success, especially with school-aged children, and in its fifth edition in 1806 – albeit with a slightly different title, “The Life of George Washington: With Curious Anecdotes, Equally Honourable to Himself, and Exemplary to His Young Countrymen” – for the first time, there appeared the anecdote of Washington and the cherry tree.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, January 17, 2021
Oh yeah… add QAnoners, Deep Staters, Alex “InforWars” Jonesers, Stop the Stealers, militia members, neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, Proud Boys, and other nutzos – including Banana Republicans.
That is the “Party of Donald Trump.”
“This gathering should send a message to them; this isn’t their Republican party anymore, this is Donald Trump’s Republican party, this is the Republican party that will put America first.”
–– Donald Trump, Jr., January 6, 2021 at the “America First/Stop the Steal” (or whatever they called it) “officially known as the “March to Save America,” was largely organized by a 501(c)(4) group known as Women for America First” rally on The Ellipse, a 52-acre park south of the White House, which can be seen in the background
Speaking of which…
Here’s what the Liar in Chief and his clan were doing while the Capitol Building was under seige.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, January 13, 2021
The actions of Banana Republicans in the House that did NOT vote to impeach President Donald J. Trump a SECOND time, are simply mind-numbing.
Here, we have a President ON VIDEO TAPE who:
1.) Encouraged and invited rioters to come to Washington, D.C. SPECIFICALLY on January 6, 2021 in order to “stop the steal” writing on Twitter December 19, 2020 that “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”
-AND-
2.) Though his deliberately provocative rhetoric, incited a riotously violent insurrection in which the thousands upon thousands of Trump2020 mobsters there present stormed and laid siege to the Capitol Building and deliberately disrupted a Joint Session of Congress in which the Electoral College Votes were being counted to certify Joseph R. Biden as the President-elect
As fallout continues from the deadly siege on the U.S. Capitol, Ed Stetzer, head of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, has a message for his fellow evangelicals: It’s time for a reckoning.
Evangelicals, he says, should look at how their own behaviors and actions may have helped fuel the insurrection. White evangelicals overwhelmingly supported President Trump in the 2020 election.
Some in the protest crowd raised signs with Christian symbolism and phrases.
“Part of this reckoning is: How did we get here? How were we so easily fooled by conspiracy theories?” he tells NPR’s Rachel Martin. “We need to make clear who we are. And our allegiance is to King Jesus, not to what boasting political leader might come next.”
Members of the audience react as U.S. President Trump delivers remarks at an Evangelicals for Trump Coalition Launch at the King Jesus International Ministry in Miami, Florida, U.S., January 3, 2020. REUTERS/Tom Brenner
In the interview, Stetzer also laments that evangelicals seem to have changed their view of morality to support Trump.
“So I think we just need to be honest. A big part of this evangelical reckoning is a lot of people sold out their beliefs,” he says.
Here are excerpts from the Morning Edition conversation:
You write that “many evangelicals are seeing Donald Trump for who he is.” Do you really think that’s true? There have been so many other things that Trump has said and done over the past four to five years that betray Christian values and their support didn’t waver. You think this time it’s different?
I think it’s a fair question, and I’ve been one for years who was saying we need to see more clearly who Donald Trump is and has often not been listened to. But I would say that for many people, the storming of the Capitol, the desecration of our halls of democracy, has shocked and stunned a lot of people and how President Trump has engaged in riling up crowds to accomplish these things. Yeah, I do think so. I think there are some significant and important conversations that we need to have inside of evangelicalism asking the question: What happened? Why were so many people drawn to somebody who was obviously so not connected to what evangelicals believe by his life or his practices or more.
You write that Trump has burned down the Republican Party. What has he done to the evangelical Christian movement?
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, January 13, 2021
First POTUS to ever be impeached TWICE.
He also holds the distinction of being the President who has had the most members of his own party vote for his impeachment.
Or perhaps instead, should that be FOUR-TIME LOSER?
1.) Lost 2016 Popular Vote
2.) Impeached December 18, 2019
3.) Lost 2020 Election: Popular -and- Electoral College Vote
4.) Impeached January 13, 2021 in the final days of his totally failed presidency
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, January 13, 2021
380,821
Bet you never thought you’d be seeing this, did you?
And yet, here we are.
Because of the Loser in Chief/Liar in Chief, America is f**ked.
India, which has over 1 BILLION MORE people than the United States (which has 330 Million+), has 10,495,147 cases of COVID-19 while America has OVER TWICE as many – 22,849,962.
Let that sink in for a moment.
India, which has 300% MORE people than the United States, has LESS THAN HALF the number of cases America does.
America has OVER 117% MORE cases than India.
Because of his, and his administration’s utter ineptitude and incompetence, our nation is closing in on 400,000 Americans who have died from COVID-19… all unnecessarily.
When ebola popped up on the global public health radar, the Obama administration didn’t allow it to spread globally. And yet, what did the Loser in Chief/Liar in Chief do when faced with a possible Public Health crisis?
He cut practically ALL monies allocated for biological terrorism, and pandemic response, and eliminated practically ALL the offices, agencies and departments charged with protecting the American people.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, January 7, 2021
U.S. Capitol Police in plain clothes stand behind barricaded doors to the House floor and draw pistols upon Trump 2020 mobsters who violently invaded the U.S. Capitol Building, Wednesday, January 6, 2021 during the Constitutionally-ordered tallying of the states’ certified Electoral College votes.
The shocking events that unfolded yesterday in our nation’s capitol – rioting thugs, marauders, and hooligans who violently overthrew and violently invaded our Nation’s Capitol building complex thereby participating in insurrection after being egged on by their losing candidate, the soon-to-be-former President Trump – are unprecedented. Not since the War of 1812 when British soldiers breached and burned our nation’s capitol has the capitol been invaded. The sad part is, that it was brought about EXCLUSIVELY by a Lying, Lawless and Treasonous American President – Trump – whom the GOP has coddled and cultivated.
Again, yesterday’s domestic terroristic events were brought about exclusively by President Trump, who has consistently falsely asserted that he “won” the 2020 General Election, despite numerous Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, January 4, 2021
When analyzing language, we’re told that the number of times that a word is mentioned often indicates its importance. Samuel Johnson expressed it this way in Rambler #2 (March 24, 1750) by writing that, “Men more frequently require to be reminded, than informed.”
It should also be borne in mind that sometimes, when making a request, or even in casual conversation, per se, language is sometimes “coded,” meaning that one word stands for, and substitutes for another idea, or thought. Consider the 2004 book “I Heard You Paint Houses”: Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran & the Inside Story of The Mafia, The Teamsters & the Last Ride of Jimmy Hoffa” which became a motion picture entitled “The Irishman,” directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, and Ray Romano, among others.
The sentence “I heard you paint houses” was euphemistic (coded) language meaning to murder someone, that the person speaking the sentence was inquiring with the listener if the listener was a “hit man,” or murderer for hire, and obliquely, that the speaker wanted someone killed.
Trump’s beverage of choice is Diet Coke. It doesn’t seem to be working.
“I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike… I guess you have one of your wealthy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. … The other thing, There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me.”
While the following list is neither the entire, nor complete list, it is a listing of the words that are germane to the topic of the phone call with the Georgia Secretary of State as it pertains to the November General Election in which Trump lost to Biden in that state, for which Trump sought illegal relief from the Secretary of State.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, January 3, 2021
By now, unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, or just checked in from an overnight trip to Mars, you’ve heard the news that the soon-to-be-former President suborned conspiracy and fraud from the Georgia Secretary Of State Brad Raffensperger.
The Washington Post, in conjunction with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, first published the story, which was quickly picked up by other news reporting outlets, including the Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, New York Times, NPR, and many others, including international news outlets.
The Loser in Chief and POS45 LEFT, and Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger RIGHT
Throughout the entire call, The Lying Sack of Shit in Chief, aka the Loser in Chief and Criminal in Chief, was consistently inconsistent in asserting his “the Earth is flat” debunked fraudulent election claims.
And even though his figures throughout the hour-long recorded phone call were inconsistent, there was one thing he consistently stated, in many ways, that he wanted : For the GA SOS to invalidate enough votes from the already-certified election results which would cause the election to be thrown to him.
If that’s not corrupt – to blatantly ask (numerous times) for a criminal act to be performed (to suborn fraud and conspiracy, “suborn” being defined by Black’s Law Dictionary, 8th ed. 2004, as “to induce (a person) to commit an unlawful or wrongful act, esp. in a secret or underhanded manner”) – I don’t know what is.
And, as it turns out, it is illegal, at the State -and- Federal levels.
Republicans should rejoice that laws exist which regulate behavior involving elections and voting, and not just at the ballot box, either.
Georgia Code Title 21 – Elections Chapter 2 – Elections and Primaries Generally Article 15 – Miscellaneous Offenses
Section § 21-2-604. Criminal solicitation to commit election fraud; penalties
(a) (1) A person commits the offense of criminal solicitation to commit election fraud in the first degree when, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a felony under this article, he or she solicits, requests, commands, importunes, or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage in such conduct.
(2) A person commits the offense of criminal solicitation to commit election fraud in the second degree when, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a misdemeanor under this article, he or she solicits, requests, commands, importunes, or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage in such conduct.
(b) (1) A person convicted of the offense of criminal solicitation to commit election fraud in the first degree shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than three years.
(2) A person convicted of the offense of criminal solicitation to commit election fraud in the second degree shall be punished as for a misdemeanor.
(c) It is no defense to a prosecution for criminal solicitation to commit election fraud that the person solicited could not be guilty of the crime solicited.
(d) The provisions of subsections (a) through (c) of this Code section are cumulative and shall not supersede any other penal law of this state.
Code 1981, § 21-2-604, enacted by Ga. L. 2011, p. 683, § 21/SB 82.
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2010 Georgia Code TITLE 16 – CRIMES AND OFFENSES CHAPTER 4 – CRIMINAL ATTEMPT, CONSPIRACY, AND SOLICITATION § 16-4-7 – Criminal solicitation O.C.G.A. 16-4-7 (2010) 16-4-7. Criminal solicitation
(a) A person commits the offense of criminal solicitation when, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a felony, he solicits, requests, commands, importunes, or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage in such conduct.
(b) A person convicted of the offense of criminal solicitation to commit a felony shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than three years. A person convicted of the offense of criminal solicitation to commit a crime punishable by death or by life imprisonment shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than five years.
(c) It is no defense to a prosecution for criminal solicitation that the person solicited could not be guilty of the crime solicited.
(d) The provisions of subsections (a) through (c) of this Code section are cumulative and shall not supersede any other penal law of this state.
A person, including an election official, who in any election for Federal office-
(1) knowingly and willfully intimidates, threatens, or coerces, or attempts to intimidate, threaten, or coerce, any person for-
(A) registering to vote, or voting, or attempting to register or vote;
(B) urging or aiding any person to register to vote, to vote, or to attempt to register or vote; or
(C) exercising any right under this chapter; or
(2) knowingly and willfully deprives, defrauds, or attempts to deprive or defraud the residents of a State of a fair and impartially conducted election process, by-
(A) the procurement or submission of voter registration applications that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held; or
(B) the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held,
shall be fined in accordance with title 18 (which fines shall be paid into the general fund of the Treasury, miscellaneous receipts (pursuant to section 3302 of title 31), notwithstanding any other law), or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.
( Pub. L. 103–31, §12, May 20, 1993, 107 Stat. 88 .)
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18 USC 241: Conspiracy against rights
Text contains those laws in effect on January 3, 2021 From Title 18-CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
PART I-CRIMES
CHAPTER 13-CIVIL RIGHTS
§241. Conspiracy against rights
If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or
If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured-
They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 696 ; Pub. L. 90–284, title I, §103(a), Apr. 11, 1968, 82 Stat. 75 ; Pub. L. 100–690, title VII, §7018(a), (b)(1), Nov. 18, 1988, 102 Stat. 4396 ; Pub. L. 103–322, title VI, §60006(a), title XXXII, §§320103(a), 320201(a), title XXXIII, §330016(1)(L), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 1970 , 2109, 2113, 2147; Pub. L. 104–294, title VI, §§604(b)(14)(A), 607(a), Oct. 11, 1996, 110 Stat. 3507, 3511.)
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2 USC 10307: Prohibited acts Text contains those laws in effect on January 3, 2021 From Title 52-VOTING AND ELECTIONS Subtitle I-Voting Rights CHAPTER 103-ENFORCEMENT OF VOTING RIGHTS
§10307. Prohibited acts
(a) Failure or refusal to permit casting or tabulation of vote
No person acting under color of law shall fail or refuse to permit any person to vote who is entitled to vote under any provision of chapters 103 to 107 of this title or is otherwise qualified to vote, or willfully fail or refuse to tabulate, count, and report such person’s vote.
(b) Intimidation, threats, or coercion
No person, whether acting under color of law or otherwise, shall intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for voting or attempting to vote, or intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for urging or aiding any person to vote or attempt to vote, or intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for exercising any powers or duties under section 10302(a), 10305, 10306, or 10308(e) of this title or section 1973d or 1973g of title 42.1
(c) False information in registering or voting; penalties
Whoever knowingly or willfully gives false information as to his name, address or period of residence in the voting district for the purpose of establishing his eligibility to register or vote, or conspires with another individual for the purpose of encouraging his false registration to vote or illegal voting, or pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both: Provided, however, That this provision shall be applicable only to general, special, or primary elections held solely or in part for the purpose of selecting or electing any candidate for the office of President, Vice President, presidential elector, Member of the United States Senate, Member of the United States House of Representatives, Delegate from the District of Columbia, Guam, or the Virgin Islands, or Resident Commissioner of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
(d) Falsification or concealment of material facts or giving of false statements in matters within jurisdiction of examiners or hearing officers; penalties
Whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of an examiner or hearing officer knowingly and willfully falsifies or conceals a material fact, or makes any false, fictitious, or fraudulent statements or representations, or makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
(e) Voting more than once
(1) Whoever votes more than once in an election referred to in paragraph (2) shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
(2) The prohibition of this subsection applies with respect to any general, special, or primary election held solely or in part for the purpose of selecting or electing any candidate for the office of President, Vice President, presidential elector, Member of the United States Senate, Member of the United States House of Representatives, Delegate from the District of Columbia, Guam, or the Virgin Islands, or Resident Commissioner of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
(3) As used in this subsection, the term “votes more than once” does not include the casting of an additional ballot if all prior ballots of that voter were invalidated, nor does it include the voting in two jurisdictions under section 10502 of this title, to the extent two ballots are not cast for an election to the same candidacy or office.
(Pub. L. 89–110, title I, §11, Aug. 6, 1965, 79 Stat. 443 ; renumbered title I, Pub. L. 91–285, §2, June 22, 1970, 84 Stat. 314 ; amended Pub. L. 91–405, title II, §204(e), Sept. 22, 1970, 84 Stat. 853 ; Pub. L. 94–73, title IV, §§404, 409, Aug. 6, 1975, 89 Stat. 404 , 405.)
And yet, as of this writing, there has been only ONE reporting outlet with the gumption to tell it like it is.
“Georgia state law includes two provisions that criminalize “solicitation of election fraud” and “conspiracy to commit election fraud.” Trump’s detractors also pointed to a federal statute that criminalizes “the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent.”
“Anthony Michael Kreis, a Georgia State University law professor, said: “The Georgia code says that anybody who solicits, requests or commands or otherwise attempts to encourage somebody to commit election fraud is guilty of solicitation of election fraud. ‘Soliciting or requesting’ is the key language. The president asked, in no uncertain terms, the secretary of state to invent votes, to create votes that were not there. Not only did he ask for that in terms of just overturning the specific margin that Joe Biden won by, but then said we needed one additional vote to secure victory in Georgia.”
““There’s just no way that if you read the code and the way the code is structured, and then you look at what the president of the United states requested, that he has not violated this law — the spirit of it for sure,” Kreis continued.
“Kreis added that the phone call could not be divorced from recent episodes in which Trump amplified a false conspiracy theory about Raffensperger’s family and his vows to end the political careers of people like the secretary of state and Kemp for upholding Biden’s victory in the election. He also said Trump’s request for a specific number of votes — just enough to prevail by one — undercut the notion that he was simply asking for the truth.
““If I’m the president of the United States and my pardon power is not — does not extend to state acts, I don’t think that in the last few days of my term that I would want to be engaging in activities that even remotely subject me to the possibility of state criminal prosecution,” Kreis said. “That’s what makes this even more bewildering to me, is because if he had sensible advisers they would just keep him off the phone.”“
Regarding the claims of inaccurate, or otherwise invalid absentee, and mail-in ballots, which require signatures, the Liar in Chief claimed that there were “thousands and thousands” of ballots illegally cast which did not properly have signatures authenticated properly.
Brad Raffensperger, Georgia Secretary of State:
“President Trump, we’ve had several lawsuits, and we’ve had to respond in court to the lawsuits and the contentions. Um, we don’t agree that you have won. And we don’t — I didn’t agree about the 200,000 number that you’d mentioned. And I can go through that point by point.
“What we have done, is we gave our state Senate about one and a half hours of our time, going through the election issue by issue, and then on the State House, the Government Affairs Committee, we gave them about two and a half hours of our time, going back point by point on all the issues of contention. And then just a few days ago we met with our U.S. Congressmen, Republican Congressmen, and we gave them about two hours of our time talking about this past election. Going back, primarily what you’ve talked about here focused in on primarily, I believe, is the absentee ballot process. I don’t believe that you’re really questioning the Dominion machines. Because we did a hand re-tally, a 100% re-tally of all the ballots and compared them to what the machines said and came up with virtually the same result. Then we did the recount, and we got virtually the same result. So I guess we can probably take that off the table.
“Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong. We talked to the congressmen and they were surprised.
“But they — I guess there was a person Mr. Braynard who came to these meetings and presented data and he said that there was dead people, I believe it was upward of 5,000. The actual number were two. Two. Two people that were dead that voted. So that’s wrong. There were two.”
The GBI (GA Bureau of Investigation) examined signatures (which change over time) on ballots and found no problems.
The entire state’s ballots was recounted at least three times – and once manually – and no problems were found which would have affected the outcome of the race.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Saturday, January 2, 2021
There is little-to-no question that the damage done to the Republican Party by the Liar/Narcissist/Loser in Chief has taken a toll upon the party, and it may well be years before they can recover from the 4-year onslaught.
There is also little-to-no question that they have been their own worst enemy. That is not to say that the Democrats are all light and goodness, for they are not. Hillary Rodham Clinton did her damndest to hobble the party by literally having the party’s directors and upper level managers sign a contract over to her relinquishing, and ceding control of the party to her. While that was not illegal, it was unethical has hell, and spelled the end of Bernie Sanders candidacy, who, with crowds surpassing those of Hillary and Trump combined, and with a political history that was unwavering and consistent, appeared TWICE as if he would be the party’s nominee. But for Hillary.
Her corrupted actions were detailed in a book authored by Donna Brazile, which was entitled “Hacks.”
And, perhaps you may recall how she later revealed in her book, an excerpt of which was made into a Politico article, what she’d found when she was briefly DNC chair, specifically, how a back-room deal was struck between Hillary and the DNC a year before the 2016 election campaign season began.
“I had promised Bernie when I took the helm of the Democratic National Committee after the convention that I would get to the bottom of whether Hillary Clinton’s team had rigged the nomination process, as a cache of emails stolen by Russian hackers and posted online had suggested. I’d had my suspicions from the moment I walked in the door of the DNC a month or so earlier, based on the leaked emails. But who knew if some of them might have been forged? I needed to have solid proof, and so did Bernie.
“So I followed the money. My predecessor, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had not been the most active chair in fundraising at a time when President Barack Obama’s neglect had left the party in significant debt. As Hillary’s campaign gained momentum, she resolved the party’s debt and put it on a starvation diet. It had become dependent on her campaign for survival, for which she expected to wield control of its operations.”
“When I got back from a vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, I at last found the document that described it all: the Joint Fund-Raising Agreement between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America.
“The agreement—signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook [Hillary’s Campaign Manager] with a copy to Marc Elias [General Counsel for Hillary’s campaign]—specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.”
Contributing writer at The Atlantic and senior fellow at EPPC
Senator Josh Hawley isn’t just engaging in civic vandalism—he is an emblem of a weak and rotten Republican Party.
Ryan Christopher Jones / The New York Times / Redux
Those hoping for a quick snapback to sanity for the Republican Party once Donald Trump is no longer president should temper those hopes.
The latest piece of evidence to suggest the enduring power of Trumpian unreality is yesterday’s announcement by Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri that he will object next week when Congress convenes to certify the Electoral College vote.
Hawley knows this effort will fail, just as every other effort to undo the results of the lawful presidential election will fail. (A brief reminder for those with faulty short-term memories: Joe Biden defeated Trump by more than 7 million popular votes and 74 Electoral College votes.) Every single attempt to prove that the election was marked by fraud or that President-elect Biden’s win is illegitimate—an effort that now includes about 60 lawsuits—has flopped. In fact, what we’ve discovered since the November 3 election is that it was “the most secure in American history,” as election experts in Trump’s own administration have declared. But this immutable, eminently provable fact doesn’t deter Trump and many of his allies from trying to overturn the election; perversely, it seems to embolden them.
One such Trump ally is Tommy Tuberville, the newly elected senator from Alabama, who has suggested that he might challenge the Electoral College count. And there are others. But what makes Hawley’s declaration ominously noteworthy is that unlike Tuberville—a former college football coach who owes his political career in a deep-red state to Trump’s endorsement in the GOP primary against Jeff Sessions—Hawley is a man who clearly knows better. According to his Senate biography, he is “recognized as one of the nation’s leading constitutional lawyers.” A former state attorney general, Hawley has litigated before the Supreme Court. He graduated from Stanford University in 2002 and Yale Law School in 2006. He has clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts; he taught at one of London’s elite private schools, St. Paul’s; and he served as an appellate litigator at one of the world’s biggest law firms.
It is one thing for Hawley to position himself as a populist, something he had done even before he was elected in 2018; it is quite another for him to knowingly engage in civic vandalism and, in ostentatiously unpatriotic ways, undermine established norms and safeguards. This is precisely what Senator Hawley is now doing—and he is doing so in the aftermath of Trump’s loss, when some political observers might have hoped that the conspiracy mindset and general insanity of the Trump modus operandi would begin to lose their salience.
A longtime acquaintance of the Missouri senator explained to me Hawley’s actions this way: “Hawley never wants to talk down to his voters. He wants to speak for them, and at the moment, they are saying the election was stolen.”
“He surely knows this isn’t true,” this acquaintance continued, “and that the legal arguments don’t hold water. And yet clearly the incentives he confronts—as someone who wants to speak for those voters, and as someone with ambitions beyond the Senate—lead him to conclude he should pretend the lie is true. This is obviously a very bad sign about the direction of the GOP in the coming years.”
Think about this statement for a moment: The incentives Josh Hawley and many of his fellow Republicans officeholders confront lead them to conclude that they should pretend the lie is true.
Those who have hoped that Republicans like Senator Hawley would begin to break free from Trump once he lost the election have not understood the nature of the change that has come over the party’s base.
Trump was the product of deep, disturbing currents on the American right; he was not the creator of them. Those currents have existed for many decades; we saw them manifested in the popularity of figures such as Sarah Palin, Patrick J. Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, Oliver North, and many others. But their power grew in force and speed over the past decade. In 2016, Trump tapped into these currents and, as president and leader of the Republican Party, he channeled those populist passions destructively, rather than in the constructive ways that other Republicans before him, such as Ronald Reagan, had done. (Even if you’re a progressive who loathed Reagan, the notion that he was a pernicious and malicious force in American politics in the style of Trump is simply not credible.)
What is happening in the GOP is that figures such as Hawley, along with many of his Senate and House colleagues, and important Republican players, including the former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, are all trying to position themselves as the heirs of Trump. None of them possesses the same sociopathic qualities as Trump, and their efforts will be less impulsive and presumably less clownish, more calculated and probably less conspiracy-minded. It may be that not all of them support Hawley’s stunt; perhaps some are even embarrassed by it. But these figures are seismographers; they are determined to act in ways that win the approval of the Republican Party’s base. And this goes to the heart of the danger.
The problem with the Republican “establishment” and with elected officials such as Josh Hawley is not that they are crazy, or that they don’t know any better; it is that they are cowards, and that they are weak. They are far more ambitious than they are principled, and they are willing to damage American politics and society rather than be criticized by their own tribe. I’m guessing that many of them haven’t read Nietzsche, but they have embraced his philosophy of perspectivism, which in its crudest form posits that there is no objective truth, no authoritative or independent criteria for determining what is true or false. In this view, we all get to make up our own facts and create our own narratives. Everything is conditioned on what your perspective is. This is exactly the sort of slippery epistemic nihilism for which conservatives have, for more than a generation, reproached the academic left—except the left comes by it more honestly.
The single most worrisome political fact in America right now is that a significant portion of the Republican Party lives in a fantasy world, a place where facts and truth don’t hold sway, where “owning the libs” is an end in itself, and where seceding from reality is a symbol of tribal loyalty, rather than a sign of mental illness. This is leading the party, and America itself, to places we’ve never been before, including the spectacle of a defeated president and his supporters engaging in a sustained effort to steal an election.
The tactics of Hawley and his many partisan confreres, if they aren’t checked and challenged, will put at risk what the scholar Stephen L. Carter calls “the entire project of Enlightenment democracy.” This doesn’t seem to bother Hawley and many in his party. But what he should know—and, one hopes, does know, somewhere in the recesses of his heart—is that he has moved very far away from conservatism.
Whether the Republican Party can be salvaged is very much an open question. I don’t know the answer. But here is what I do know: Patriotic Republicans and conservatives need to fight for the soul of the Republican Party, for its sake and for the sake of the nation. America needs two healthy and sane political parties. Trump’s departure on January 20 should open up space for at least a few brave and responsible figures to arise, to help ground the GOP in truth rather than falsehoods, reality instead of fantasy, and to use the instruments of power for the pursuit of justice.
Their task won’t be easy; right now the political winds are in their face rather than at their back. Trump’s hold on the GOP remains firm, and separating from Trump and Trumpism will trigger hostility in an often angry and radicalized base. The right-wing ecosystem is in a mood to find and (figuratively) hang traitors, whom it defines as anyone in the Republican Party who doesn’t acquiesce to Trump’s indecency and paranoia. Which in turn means that those hoping to lead a Republican reclamation project need to find ways to be shrewd and persuasive, to be crafty while maintaining their integrity. They need to connect with the base but find ways to elevate it instead of pandering to it. In better times, many Republican leaders have done so, starting of course with Abraham Lincoln, “the great hero of America’s struggle for the noblest cause,” in the words of his early 20th-century biographer Lord Charnwood. But others have done so as well.
Our collective hope should be that principled Republicans will find their voice and prevail—one courageous step at a time, one act of decency at a time, one year at a time.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, December 21, 2020
“For too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.
“Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth.
“Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed.
“The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country.
“Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation’s Capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.
“That all changes – starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you.
“It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America.
“This is your day. This is your celebration.
“And this, the United States of America, is your country.
“What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.
“January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.”
Contrary to what the Liar in Chief said, neither he, nor the Banana Republican Party, have made America great again.
Of course, the logic of his campaign slogan – “Make America Great Again” – is illogical, and inherently contradictory, because Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, December 20, 2020
The President has made seemingly countless false statements on equally seemingly innumerable subjects, across numerous categories. But a common thread, if it could be described as such, has emerged. And it is that everyone else is wrong, and he is the only one right. In his own mind, at least to hear him tell it, he’s always right, always correct, always and in every way perfect. And since he doesn’t need to ask forgiveness, he could very well be the reincarnation of Jesus of Nazareth.
But, more to the point.
Whose “landslide” are you talking about anyway, eh?
On November 27, 2016, then newly-President Elect Donald Trump tweeted: “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”
In the 2016 General Election, Republican candidate Donald Trump won 304 Electoral College votes, but lost the Popular Vote with 46.1%. His Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton won 227 Electoral College votes, but won the Popular Vote with 48.2%, or 65,853,514 votes cast, to 62,984,828 for the Republican.
In the 1972 General Election, Republican Richard Nixon won the Electoral College with 520 votes, and carried 60.7% of the Popular Vote. His Democratic opponent Senator George McGovern won 17 Electoral College votes, and won 37.5% of the Popular Vote.
In the 1984 General Election, Republican Ronald Reagan won 525 Electoral College votes, with 58.8% of the Popular Vote, while his Democratic opponent Walter Mondale won 13 Electoral College votes, and 40.6% of the Popular Vote.
He claimed a massive conspiracy “robbed” him of votes in 2016. Were those same conspirators at work in 2020?
During his first week in office, in a bipartisan meeting with Congressional leaders on Monday, January 23, 2017, POTUS said that “millions of unauthorized immigrants had robbed him of a popular vote majority,” as told by members of both parties who attended the meeting.
On Tuesday, January 24, 2017, at 1400 EST, Sean Spicer, Press Secretary for the POTUS, in a press conference stated that the POTUS personally believed that Read the rest of this entry »
A key player in this ordeal is Michael Caputo, Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services, who on September 16, 2020 began a two month medical leave of absence. Earlier, he had undergone surgery at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, a week before David DiPietro, a spokesman for the Caputo family, issued a statement on Thursday, September 24, 2020, that following surgery, the Republican political strategist/lobbyist had been diagnosed with “squamous cell carcinoma, a metastatic head and neck cancer which originated in his throat.” Mr. Caputo moved to Russia in 1994 and advised Russian President Boris Yeltsin, his work also included worked for Russian media company Gazprom Media in 2000 where he worked on improving Vladimir Putin‘s image in the U.S.A.
Evidence that the Trump Administration may have deliberately downplayed the severity of the novel coronavirus was discovered in a tranche of emails obtained by the House subcommittee between numerous high-level administration health officials principally involving Caputo’s appointed science advisor Dr. Paul E. Alexander, PhD, a part-time Assistant Professor of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada since 2015. Interestingly, Dr. Alexander’s educational pedigree is respectable: A Master’s degree in evidence-based medicine and clinical epidemiology from the University of Oxford and University of Toronto, and a Master’s training in health sciences at York University. In 2015, he received his doctorate from McMaster University in Health Research Methods. The Hamilton Spectator wrote on July 22 that Dr. Alexander “is a decorated academic whose peer-reviewed works have been published more than 60 times — six of which pertain to novel coronavirus research.”
Dr. Alexander actually sought to have COVID-19 run amok among America’s children and teens – and toward that end, advocated that no masks be worn in schools, and was the individual behind the Trump administration’s efforts to censor COVID-19 documents held by the CDC.
The House subcommittee report states in part that,
“Consistent with a“herd immunity” approach, the evidence obtained by the Select Subcommittee shows that Dr. Alexander privately acknowledged to other appointees that “[w]e always knew” that “cases will rise” as a result of the Administration’s policies. Yet even as he advocated for letting the coronavirus spread widely, Dr. Alexander also attempted to pass blame for the Administration’s failure to contain the virus to career scientists and public health officials. He also urged colleagues to suppress scientific information about the risk posed by the virus to minority communities that he admitted was “very accurate”out of concern that it would be “use[d] against the president.””
This is clear-cut evidence that Trump “Administration appointees undermined the nation’s public health response and put American lives at greater risk during the pandemic.”
The report also states that,
“Documents obtained by the Select Subcommittee show that top Trump Administration officials repeatedly communicated about pursuing a dangerous herd immunity strategy as far back as June 2020, despite public denials that the Administration was adopting this approach.”
On July 3, 2020, Dr. Alexander wrote to senior officials at HHS, including Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Michael Caputo, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Ryan Murphy, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for Public Health Bill Hall, and Deputy Assistant Secretary and National Spokesperson Caitlin Oakley:
“So the bottom line is if it is more infectiouness [sic] now, the issue is who cares?If it is causing more cases in young, my word is who cares…as long as we make sensible decisions, and protect the elderely [sic] and nursing homes, we must go on with life….who cares if we test more and get more positive tests…”
The following day, July 4, 2020, Dr. Alexander wrote to Mr. Caputo and other HHS officials:
“There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high risk groups expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD.We continue the public health message of proper hygiene, hand washing, protecting elderly at your homes and nursing care facilities, social distancing and so on…but we go on and let our societies open up fully NOW. If the hospitalizations occur in young and they get severe illness, then that’s a different story and we will then have a huge mess on our hands and real nightmare. But that is not the case of now.”
In a follow-up message, he explained:
“Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected…and recovered…with antibodies….hospitals are NOW geared, PPE in place, ICUs beds are on the ready, doctors and nurses alert, the syndrome is crystalized…etc.
Michael Caputo was appointed by Trump.
Similarly, on July 24, 2020, Dr. Alexander wrote to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Stephen Hahn, FDA Associate Commissioner for External Affairs John Wagner, and numerous HHS officials including Mr. Caputo, Mr. Murphy, and Ms. Oakley, suggesting that “it may be that it will be best if we open up and flood the zone and let the kids and young folk get infected” as a strategy to get “natural immunity…natural exposure….”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, December 16, 2020
Good-for-nothing bastard.
The late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had something to say about such abuse:
Whenever the government provides opportunities in privileges for white people and rich people they call it “subsidized” when they do it for Negro and poor people they call it “welfare.”
The fact that is the everybody in this country lives on welfare. Suburbia was built with federally subsidized credit. And highways that take our White brothers out to the suburbs were built with federally subsidized money to the tune of 90 percent.
Everybody is on welfare in this country.
The problem is that we all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free enterprise capitalism for the poor. That’s the problem.”
From a sermon entitled “The Minister to the Valley,” February 23, 1968, from the archives of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Scores Of Private Charitable Foundations Got Paycheck Protection Program Money
Scores of private charitable foundations, set up by some of the nation’s wealthiest people, received money from the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program, which was created last spring to save jobs at small businesses as the coronavirus tanked the economy.
NPR has identified at least 120 foundations that collectively received more than $7.5 million in PPP funding. That’s a small slice of the overall program, which disbursed about a half-trillion dollars, but some of the foundations are linked to individuals of considerable means: An oil magnate, a cable television tycoon, a dermatologist called the father of modern hair transplantation, and an aviation entrepreneur who founded companies with annual sales of more than a billion dollars.
President Trump speaks as Jovita Carranza, Administrator of the Small Business Administration; Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin; and Ivanka Trump, advisor to the president, listen during a Paycheck Protection Program event in the East Room of the White House on April 28, 2020.
The decision in the case of TEXAS V. PENNSYLVANIA, ET AL., in which the Solicitor General for the State of Texas refused to sign onto, was short, sweet, and to the point.
“The State of Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.”
The Current White House Occupant’s longtime friend Rudy Giuliani, and company (including the looney-tunes bad-conspiracy-peddling lady Sidney Powell), alleging fraud, tried in numerous states’ courts to have the certified election results overturned on the most inauspicious of grounds.
They failed in every one.
Even used coffee grounds would’ve had more substance than their arguments. Perhaps they should take a refresher course on the law, and maybe do a few practices before moot court.
What they called “fraud,” in the exceedingly vast majority of cases were simple clerical errors, minuscule issues, or minor oversights, and in no way was representative of any wholesale effort by any person, group, or organization to conduct or perpetrate fraud.
Every voting official in every beat, box, precinct, county, and state validated and verified that the election was conducted properly in accordance with all applicable local, state, and federal laws. And their statements were reinforced by the independent statement released by the nation’s top election security official with the Department of Homeland Security, as well as numerous other security and intelligence agencies which are charged with matters pertaining to national security.
A highly publicized and now, all-too-common, firing-by-Tweet by the Banana Republican POS45 of the Director of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Chris Krebs, our nation’s top Election Security Official at the Department of Homeland Security occurred when Director Krebs had the unmitigated audacity to speak the truth to the monstrous authoritarian power of the Liar in Chief, the CWHO POS45, that,
And frankly, in every court in which the Manipulator in Chief has had his Rudy Giuliani-led Goon Squad appear, they have testified, sworn, or affirmed under oath that they are NOT alleging fraud. To be under oath, and then lie before a judge – to commit perjury – is a severe crime with enormously negative consequences, and for a lawyer to lie before a judge is even worse, because they could lose their license to practice law. Giuliani has not done that. He has not committed perjury. And if he, or any other member of his team is to be believed, then we – like all other judges in all other courts in which he has appeared in this matter – should believe him when he testified in every case that fraud is not involved.
U.S. District Judge Matthew W. Brann of the Middle District of Pennsylvania, an Obama appointee who is a longtime Republican, questioned Giuliani about whether the case he was bringing was a fraud case. Giuliani said, “This is not a fraud case.”
Judge Brann scolded Giuliani saying, “You’re alleging that the two individual plaintiffs were denied the right to vote. But at bottom, you’re asking this court to invalidate more than 6.8 million votes, thereby disenfranchising every single voter in the Commonwealth. Could you tell me how this result could possibly be justified?”
There will be numerous articles written about the matter, and here are a few of the early ones. Read the rest of this entry »
Trump Social Security Administration Is Preparing To Bar 500,000 Americans From Getting Benefits
12/07/20 09:45 AM EST
By David A. Weaver, Opinion Contributor David A. Weaver, Ph.D., is an economist and retired federal employee who has authored a number of studies on the Social Security program. The views in this article do not reflect the views of any federal agency. The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill.
Over the weekend, the Social Security Administration (SSA) sent the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) a proposal that — if similar to a version leaked earlier this year — will bar Social Security benefits from hundreds of thousands of Americans. The document that leaked suggests the proposal could ultimately prevent as many as 500,000 Americans from receiving benefits. Whether SSA can slip this through the regulatory process before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration may depend on whether SSA and OMB respect the formal regulatory process.
If implemented, the regulation should be undone by the Biden administration or overruled by Congress.
SSA’s proposal, as described in press reports, would make it harder for older workers to receive Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits. By law (not regulation), SSA is required to Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, December 6, 2020
“Should Trump win, as he did in 2016, he will make it a much bigger win and talking about the fraudulent election support on the Democratic side. But should Trump lose narrowly, I think we can be assured that he will not concede early. Trump may not even recognize the legitimacy of the election.”
–– Dr. Jerrold M. Post, MD, former Director of the CIA’s Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior, Chief Psychological Profiler, in Salon interview December 2, 2019
CIA Psychological Profiler Who Labeled Trump “Dangerous” Dead Of COVID-19 Aged 86
By Sydney Trent
As a pioneering psychological profiler for the Central Intelligence Agency and later as a consultant, Professor Dr. Jerrold M. Post, MD plumbed the lives, leadership styles and, at times, the mental illness of foreign heads around the globe. Over decades, his expertise and instincts were greatly in demand, especially at the White House.
The Yale-and-Harvard-trained psychiatrist advised former President Jimmy Carter about how best to negotiate with Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat before the Camp David Peace Accords. He explained Sadat’s “Nobel Prize Complex” — his desire to be remembered as a great leader — and Begin’s biblical preoccupation and obsession with detail.
Post warned about labeling Saddam Hussein simply as “the mad man of the Middle East,” lest it mislead political leaders into thinking Hussein was unpredictable, when in fact he was not. As an expert in the psychology of terrorism, Post produced psychological profiles of suicide bombers in Israel and opined on the corporate leadership style of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Professor Dr. Jerrold M. Post, MD
And yet in late 2019 — a year before his death on Nov. 22 of COVID-19 at the age of 86 — Post found himself doing what at one point would have been unthinkable – publishing a book about the alarming psychological makeup of an American President.
“He was a Life Fellow of the APA, but he said if they kicked him out, he didn’t care,” said his wife, Carolyn Post. “He felt it was that important and that psychiatrists have a duty to warn.”
By then, Post had had a storied two-decade career as Founding Director of the CIA’s Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior. He then used his expertise to found Political Psychology Associates, a research and consulting firm that specialized in industrial espionage, counterterrorism and leadership assessment. All along, he lectured as a Professor at George Washington University, wrote 14 books and continued to see patients in a private practice he ran out of the basement of his Bethesda home.
His career success, his family said, was a reflection of an insatiable, roving curiosity and a probing empathy for his fellow humans — qualities that also made him a highly engaging friend and a nurturing husband, father and doctor.
“A separate conservative group also wants the Michigan Supreme Court to invalidate the results that show President-elect Joe Biden won the state.
“The latest lawsuit, filed in the Eastern District of Michigan and before the state’s highest court, rely on unfounded allegations of widespread fraud and misconduct that judges in the state and across the country have previously rejected. Neither has a high likelihood of success.
“There is no evidence of mass fraud or wrongdoing that affected election operations in Michigan or elsewhere. Biden earned roughly 154,000 more votes than Trump in Michigan.”
Of course, the only other alternative is this alt-headline:
Trump Supporters Ask Judge To Turn A Democratic Republic Into Banana Republic
Sadly, that is the essence of what the deranged – yes, mentally deranged and deluded – Trump supporters are asking.
Think that’s a stretch?
Let’s examine some additional information – which outgoing loser POS45 prefers to call “fake news.” Remember, though: “Fake news” is superior to (better than, for the POS45 goons reading this) alt-reality.
“In banana republics, high government officials (who are sometimes lieutenant colonels) pressure other officials to carry out vendettas against political enemies and to defend their friends against harsh treatment by judicial institutions.
“President Trump has also repeatedly invoked the idea of the “deep state” to explain his troubles. The “deep state” is a notion that emerged from the days of pre-Erdoğan Turkey. It referred to networks of high officials in the government and military who were prepared to intervene if any group ever threatened the then-dominant politics of Kemalism—the secular, modernizing legacy of Mustapha Kemal, better known as Ataturk. The notion of a deep state, in other words, was a critique of forces who were prepared to use extra-legal and military means to protect the Turkish state against perceived enemies.
“What Trump calls the “deep state” in the contemporary United States, by contrast, the rest of us think of as the institutions of constitutional government. He seeks and expects from government officials one thing only: loyalty. Not to the Constitution, as their oath requires, but to him.
“What Trump calls the “deep state” in the contemporary United States, by contrast, the rest of us think of as the institutions of constitutional government. He seeks and expects from government officials one thing only: loyalty. Not to the Constitution, as their oath requires, but to him. Despite the fact that Jeff Sessions was the first senator to endorse his campaign, by recusing himself from the Russia investigation he showed that he was insufficiently loyal to the president; he therefore had to go. Trump wanted an Attorney General who would see his job as protecting the president from damaging investigations. He may have found his man in Bill Barr, who has advanced a theory of the chief executive that sees its occupant as having virtually limitless power—very much as Trump sees the office. Trump once asked, “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” He now seems to have found one.
“The term Trump invariably invokes when he is accused of serious wrongdoing in the exercise of his official duties is “hoax.” Until he came into office, a hoax was a scam perpetrated by someone trying to persuade people that some far-fetched claim was true, often to the claimer’s financial benefit. Trump tries to destroy our faith in institutions—and in the very idea of the truth–by insisting that elected and career officials who are loyal to the Constitution rather than to the occupant of the Oval Office are engaged in a “hoax” when they call him out for malfeasance. If one constantly insists they are engaged in a “hoax,” people may come to doubt that these officials are non-partisan. Invocation of the term is essential to Trump’s ability to survive the many scandals in which he is constantly involved.”
The history and development of the term “banana republic” has come to mean or refer to governments and their leaders that are: authoritarian; oligarchic, often at a local level; exert great power; corrupt; exploitative, often economically; politically unstable; function poorly for citizens and disproportionately benefit an elitist, often corrupt individual or group; conspiratorial, often with local government officials.
As we can already see, this President and his maladministration fit every one of those characteristics. But it is the last characteristic – “conspiratorial, often with local government officials” – which I wish to focus upon at it relates to this entry in particular.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, December 1, 2020
“I love the poorly educated!,” he exclaimed during his campaign.
But of course he does.
Why?
Stupid people are easily fooled.
Switzerland Halves New Infections Without National Lockdown As Pubs And Restaurants Stay Open
By Justin Huggler Berlin
30 November 2020 • 4:05pm
Switzerland is emerging as a model for how the coronavirus can be contained without a national lockdown, after daily new infections halved since the start of November despite pubs, restaurants, gyms and sports remaining open in much of the country.
The figures were hailed as a triumph for the “Swiss special way” by Swiss government doctors last week, and will be seen as evidence that regional tiers can work in the UK.
Rather than ordering a general lockdown, Switzerland allowed regions to decide their own measures and only the worst-hit imposed tough restrictions. But critics have charged that the success came at too high a price, after the country experienced some of the highest death rates in Europe.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, December 1, 2020
The more we progressed into this utterly incompetent and anti-American administration, the more I became convinced that the true extent of the damages done by the actions of this President and his maladministration will not be evident until at least a year, or two – or perhaps more – into the successive administration.
And, it just goes to prove my long-held point, that GOPers, now known as “the Party of Trump,” and formerly known as “Republics” (if those assholes can call Democrats “Democrat” instead of “Democratic” when referring to the party, then Republicans can be called “Republic,” or “Republics.” After all, turn about’s fair play) are hell-bent upon tearing down and destroying practically every vestige of government, all in the name of “efficiency,” or whatever they want to call it.
And remember: It was originally Ronald Reagan, who in his first Inaugural Address flatly stated that “government is the problem.” Of course, one needn’t be a rocket surgeon or a brain scientist to figure out that, if X is the problem, then the elimination of X is the solution to the problem. And in this case, “government” was the problem.
And so, Robin Hood and his band of merry men set of to rob and steal, to tear down and destroy as much of the system as they possibly could, all in the name of “liberty,” and “efficiency.” Passing tax cuts along to the wealthy, and doing little-to-nothing for the poor.
Destroy the monetary distribution system associated with funding various government programs – not all of which were social programs – and turn them all into “block grants” (blocks of money) and allow the states to play with them as they will to their hearts’ desire, all in the name of “efficiency.” And then, allow them to set up whatever freaky-deaky program and arcane asinine rules they want to associate with it. In other words, pervert it to the extent that it no longer looks like it once did, and is only a mere spectre of a program, and a mockery of the law that made it.
The Republic Party and its members haven’t done a goddamn thing to BUILD UP this country, and have ONLY worked like hell to tear it down, bit-by-bit, piece-by-piece.
They’re still straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel, and still champing at the bit to privatize Social Security. They almost privatized the U.S. Postal Service under the maladministration of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who was actively aiding and abetting the destruction of the mail delivery system specifically in order to thwart the election, and throw it to the POS45 campaign. Fortunately, his treasonously corrupt efforts were caught in time, and stopped.
America was brought to the brink of destruction by this malignant misleader.
Fortunately, our Constitution works! And come January, we will have an entirely new administration and President – one of whom we can be proud!
And a parting thought: Since when did inexperience become a valued quality in regard to governmental service – as if someone with LITERALLY NO EXPERIENCE whatsoever is somehow qualified to be the Chief Executive? NO ONE in their right mind would imagine even for a moment that some moron picked up from off the street could run Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, Apple Computer, Ford Motor Company, or any other multi-million dollar business. So why would anyone think for a moment that someone with LITERALLY NO EXPERIENCE OF ANY KIND at any level in public service, either appointed, or elected, would have any ability to govern? Seriously! Why?
And that, my friends, is what we have had for the past 4 years – an utterly incompetent, and clueless boob.
A government watchdog says the Labor Department has been releasing flawed data — and finds that most states underpaid jobless Americans
Ben Winck
Monday, 30 November 2020
The Labor Department reported false counts of week-to-week jobless-benefits claims, and several states underpaid unemployed Americans through a key economic relief program, the Government Accountability Office said Monday.
Inconsistent state data, claims backlogs, and potential fraud in the benefits system resulted in “flawed week-to-week comparisons” of jobless-claims data, the government watchdog said.
Average weekly payments through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program fell below the poverty line in 29 of the 41 states reporting data, the agency added. While some states made minimum payments first and plan to back pay remaining totals, it’s unclear when the process can be completed.
The GAO’s report signals the virus’ economic fallout may be greater than first thought and that most states aren’t paying out the immediate relief allocated by Congress.
The Labor Department’s weekly tally of unemployment-insurance filings has reflected inaccurate data throughout the pandemic, and jobless Americans are being underpaid through the benefits program, the Government Accountability Office said Monday.
The historic number of unemployed Americans applying for benefits has skewed weekly claims figures for months, the government watchdog said in its report. Inconsistent state data, claims backlogs, and potential fraud in the benefits system has resulted in “flawed week-to-week comparisons of total claims numbers,” the GAO added.
Additionally, a program meant to provide benefits to workers who lost their jobs because of the pandemic has been underpaying recipients in most states, the GAO said. Some states paid minimum amounts first and Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, November 23, 2020
What is the word used to describe the condition in which someone believes as true something that’s blatantly not true?
By the way, “belief” is only necessary or required when there’s little-to-no evidence to give credence to a supposition – aka “conjecture” – and is similarly differentiated from theory, which is based upon some type, or degree, of evidence.
Deluded– holding to a falsebelief;deceivedthoroughly
Now, while I don’t consider myself to be either a religious, nor spiritual individual, per se, I do happen to be fairly well-versed in (good pun… I know), and know my way around the Judeo-Christian Scriptures, and this passage from 2 Thessalonians 2 seems entirely apropos (in case you’re reading Donald, that’d be “Second Thessalonians, chapter 2”):
verses 9-11 “The appearing of the lawless one, whose presence is according to the working of the Adversary, will be attended with various types of power, signs, and false amazements. Silly and naive people will be fooled by his evil deeds. They could be preserved from harm, but because they will refuse to love the truth and accept it, consequently, they will be covered over themselves with a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false.”
The three men who wrote that?
The Apostle Paul, his sidekick Silas, and Paul’s disciple/apostle Timothy.
Trump’s Legal Team Cried Vote Fraud, But Courts Found None
By Maryclaire Dale
November 22, 2020 GMT
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — As they frantically searched for ways to salvage President Donald Trump’s failed reelection bid, his campaign pursued a dizzying game of legal hopscotch across six states that centered on the biggest prize of all: Pennsylvania.
The strategy may have played well in front of television cameras and on talk radio. But it has proved a disaster in court, where judges uniformly rejected their claims of vote fraud and found the campaign’s legal work amateurish.
In a ruling late Saturday, U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann — a Republican and Federalist Society member in central Pennsylvania — compared the campaign’s legal arguments to “Frankenstein’s Monster,” concluding that Trump’s team offered only “speculative accusations,” not proof of rampant corruption.
Now, as the legal doors close on Trump’s attempts to have courts do what voters would not do on Election Day, and deliver to him a second term, his efforts in Pennsylvania show how far he is willing to push baseless theories of widespread voter fraud.
Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney and lead attorney for his re-election campaign, speaks to the media at a press conference held in the rear parking lot of Four Seasons Total Landscaping company – adjacent a sex shop and crematorium – on November 7, 2020 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The press conference took place just minutes after news networks announced that Joe Biden had won the presidency over Donald Trump after it was projected that he had won the state of Pennsylvania. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
It was led by Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, who descended on the state the Saturday after the Nov. 3 election as the count dragged on while the President played golf. Summoning reporters to a scruffy, far-flung corner of Philadelphia on Nov. 7, he held forth at a site that would soon become legendary: Four Seasons Total Landscaping – not the luxurious Four Seasons Hotel.
The 11:30 am. news conference was doomed from the start.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, November 10, 2020
“Fact checking” is a relatively new phenomenon, having become necessitated by the seemingly incessant barrage of lies, falsehoods, fabrications, exaggerations, and otherwise untrue remarks, comments, statements, insinuations, and innuendo of the President and those in the near vicinity of, and within the orbit of his warped, demented, corrupted, and perverted “inner circle.”
Had there been no POS45 President, there’d have been no need for “fact checkers,” per se – at least not in the sense to which we’ve so quickly become accustomed to them… including their imposters.
Thom Hartmann
The comments of most people can be taken at face value, that they’re true, and if they’re exaggerated, at least the exaggeration is clearly understood by the listener/hearer. And even if the content shared was biased, that too, was clearly understood, even if it was reported upon, relayed or conveyed by a third party – disinterested, or not.
As an aside, in that vein of truth-telling, there are at least two entertaining and fun-to-watch motion pictures which stories are based upon the premise of truth-telling. In one, everyone in society tells the truth, or at least is incapable of lying, save for one individual – Ricky Gervais, in the 2009 comedy “The Invention of Lying.” In another, the protagonist is temporarily rendered incapable of saying anything other than the truth – the 1997 comedy “Liar Liar,” starring Jim Carrey.
But as we have all sadly come to understand – some later, while others early on – is that when Donald John Trump speaks, he is “not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him,” and when Donald John Trump “lies, he speaks his native language” with a forked tongue. And according to those who continue to track his prevarications, as of the last update August 27, 2020, the Current White House Occupant had uttered a total of 22,247 false or misleading claims in 1,316 days as the nation’s Chief Executive.
Despite the overwhelming and incontrovertible abundance of evidence of their innocence, the nation’s current Chief Executive maintains the false assertion of their guilt. Perhaps the Earth is flat, after all, eh?
And then, there’s the matter of a Federal Class Action lawsuit against him and his eponymous, now-defunct “university” which evidence found was nothing but a scam, a fraudulent, deceptive, shyster, high-pressure bait-and-switch criminal organization, which case was eventually settled for $25 million.
“You belong to your father, the devil,
and you want to carry out your father’s desires.
He was a murderer from the beginning,
not holding to the truth,
for there is no truth in him.
When he lies, he speaks his native language,
for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
– Jesus of Nazareth, as recorded in John 8:44 (NIV)
But again, more the point, and that being the veracity of remarks made by Thom Hartmann, a longtime renown liberal radio show host, and author, and speaker.
“When Donald Trump first decided to run for president, he confided to friends that his real goal was to get publicity for his brand and squeeze a larger payment out of NBC for his TV show. He even bragged that he’d be the first person to make money running for the White House.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, November 4, 2020
In response to the President’s most recent false claims made at a quickly-convened 2:35 AM Wednesday early morning campaign press conference in the White House, that counting legally-cast ballots in states like Pennsylvania “is a major fraud on our nation,” numerous Republican leaders have suddenly not only openly contradicted his false and maliciously scurrilous remarks, but blatantly repudiated them in some cases. For some, it’s a rare occurrence to criticize him, or to bite the political hand that feeds them, for those presently in office.
“So we won there, we lead [present tense] by 76,000 votes, with almost nothing left. And all of a sudden, everything just stopped. This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election… frankly, we did win this election. So our goal now is to ensure the integrity for the good of this nation. This is a very big moment. This is a major fraud on our nation. We want… the law to be used in a proper manner. So we’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop. We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4 o’clock in the morning and add them to the list, okay? It’s, it’s a very sad… it’s a very sad moment. To me, this a very sad moment. And… we will win this, and as far as I’m concerned, we already have won it. So I just want to thank you.”
• Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky: “Claiming you’ve won the election is different from finishing the counting.”
• Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on ABC News: “There’s just no basis to make that argument tonight. There just isn’t. All these votes have to be counted that are in now. You have to let the process play itself out before you judge it to be flawed. And by prematurely doing this, if there is a flaw later, he has undercut his own credibility. So I think it’s a bad strategic decision, it’s a bad political decision, and it’s not the kind of decision you would expect someone to make tonight who holds the position he holds.”
• Illinois Representative Adam Kinzinger replied on Twitter:
“Stop. Full stop. The votes will be counted and you will either win or lose. When the results are confirmed, we must accept the outcomes with respect for our democracy.”
• Florida Senator Marco Rubio remarked on Twitter:
“Taking days to count legally cast votes is NOT fraud.”
By Ryan J. Reilly, Senior Justice Reporter, HuffPost
Monday, November 2, 2020, 4:45 AM CST
The Justice Department can’t take four more years of President Donald Trump.
Scores of former department officials from both political parties said that the severe damage inflicted by the president on the department and its components over the past four years will become permanent and irreversible if Trump wins a second term. The result, they said, would be a fundamental subjugation of the rule of law and the transformation of the department into an overtly political operation.
No president since Richard Nixon has had as much of a negative effect on the Justice Department as Trump. He fired one FBI director and is considering firing another. He pushed out his first attorney general and is engaging in a public campaign to pressure current Attorney General William Barr to investigate his chief political rival, Joe Biden, hinting that he might dismiss Barr if he doesn’t.
“As bad as that has been over the past four years, it would be obviously even worse over the next four years,” Greg Brower, the FBI’s former congressional liaison and a Republican appointed by President George W. Bush as Nevada’s top federal prosecutor, told HuffPost.
“I worry a great deal about what they would do with another four years in power,” former Attorney General Eric Holder told HuffPost. “People need to understand that there’s no doubt that the Department of Justice is on the ballot this year.”
A number of former U.S. attorneys who were appointed by Republican presidents ― including a man who served as both FBI and CIA director under President Ronald Reagan ― agreed. They condemned Trump, whom they called “a threat to the rule of law in our country,” and endorsed former Vice President Biden, who they said would “refocus the Justice Department on the cause of impartial justice” and help address the country’s “deep-seated societal issues.”
“Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have hammered home that justice is on the ballot in 2020,” said Julie Zebrak, a former Justice Department official turned political consultant. “Four more years of manipulating DOJ to serve the president’s personal agenda — and personal vendettas — could very well bring the department to the point of no return.”
Indeed, for many Justice Department employees who endured four years of the Trump administration, the outcome of the election will determine the future of their careers. Significant brain drain is a near certainty if Trump wins another term.
A White House spokesman did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
Holder said that four years of Trump had done “substantial” but recoverable harm to the Justice Department. He’s not so sure if Trump wins reelection.
“After eight years you would have such structural damage done to the department that I really worry about the ability of a new administration [in 2024] to actually repair the damage that would’ve been done after eight years under Donald Trump,” Holder said.
Uncharted Waters
A few days before the 2016 election, a journalist shot off an email to his fellow reporters on the Justice Department beat, proposing Election Day drinks. It had been an unusual few months on a beat that was usually calm in the run-up to a presidential election, in part because of policies meant to prevent the department from affecting elections.
“Once every four years, it is certain that DOJ/FBI reporters will have a quiet few weeks before Election Day,” the reporter wrote. “That promise was stolen from us.”
There was FBI Director James Comey’s highly unusual press conference on Hillary Clinton’s emails in July, followed by the discovery of emails on Anthony Weiner’s laptop, which threw the whole campaign into chaos just days before the election. Ongoing investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election had mostly faded into the background. The focus was on Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, October 28, 2020
“He’s left a ballooning debt, and deficit.
He’s left a hollowed-out government
with
positions unfilled,
a diplomatic corps that’s
lost morale,
an intelligence agency that
has been torn apart
with
how it can advise the President.
He’s left a wake of destruction behind him.
That is his legacy.”
–– V. Kim Hoggard, high-level official, Reagan & GHW Bush administrations, on POTUS Donald John Trump
If the GOP suffers – and they will – blame Trump.
This is your President, America. Revel in the moment when you elected an incompetent idiot.
If the GOP suffers – and they will – blame the GOP.
There’s plenty of blame to go around.
The GOP could have decertified him, and thereby could have prevented him from advancing… but, they did not.
The GOP really doesn’t care for you, or for America.
They only care for their BIG BUSINESS interests and BIG MONEY donors.
And to be certain, there are some Democrats like that – Hillary among them. But those old dinosaurs are dying off politically – thank goodness – and Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, October 18, 2020
Trump’s economy is SO BAD…
How bad is it?
Trump’s economy is so bad, that he has LOST MORE than was gained under his administration.
When he took the Oath of Office in January 2017, POS45 was given a THRIVING economy by his predecessor, the Black Democratic President (that’s GOT to gall POS45, don’t you know!?!) Barack Hussein Obama.
Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) from the St. Louis Federal Reserve, presented graphically data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis about our national economy.
And, just for funsies, and perspective, data from the First Quarter 2005 until Current – 2nd Quarter 2020 is shown.
And as you can see plainly, the last time the economy was performing at this level, was in the 1st Quarter 2015 – over 5 years ago.
5ive years.
That would be the next-to-last year of President Obama’s 2nd term.
Yeah.
Trump has
SQUANDERED AWAY EVERYTHING,
AND THEN SOME!
Kinda’ sounds like a Bible parable, or some such thing.
Isn’t that what he’s done historically with his casinos and their 6 associated Chapter 11 bankruptcies?
But look also at this: The sudden precipitous decline, the rapidly massive downturn in Trump’s economy is the WORST – THE WORST (he likes superlatives) – since records began being kept in 1947. Maybe even worse than the Great Depression.
But look also at this: The sudden precipitous decline, the rapidly massive downturn in Trump’s economy is the WORST – THE WORST (he likes superlatives) – since records have been kept in 1947. Maybe even worse than the Great Depression.
Trump’s economy is now at the point
where Obama’s economy was
in the 1st Quarter 2015.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Saturday, October 17, 2020
This image is so ironically apropos.
Why?
It’s what he has done to himself.
The Asshole in Chief – truly, a man with a genuine psychiatric and personality disorder, Narcissism among them – has never taken the job as President of the United States seriously. Not even once.
Last Thursday night – October 15, 2020 – NBC TODAY co-host Savannah Guthrie, a Georgetown Law School-educated attorney – took no quarter when Trump ran his tired and worn deny, deny, deny tactic against her when she took him to task for retweeting some false nutso conspiracy theory crap from the nutso group QAnon.
America is sick and tired of his bullshittery and gross incompetence.
And, if voter turnout is any indication of voter discontent with his putrid performance in office, we’ll see a Blue Tsunami unceremoniously turn him out of office.
Even deep-red Republican Alabama is having a record turn-out.
“Alabama voters have set a state record for casting the most absentee ballots during an election, and there are still three more weeks to go.
“Alabama Secretary of State of John Merrill said that as of Tuesday, 91,000 absentee ballots have been cast ahead of the November 3 general election. The previous record was
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Saturday, October 17, 2020
“You’re the President — you’re not like someone’s crazy uncle who can just retweet whatever!”
–– Savannah Guthrie, NBC News’ TODAY co-anchor and Chief Legal Correspondent to U.S. President Donald Trump, Thursday night, October 15, 2020, at a town hall styled outdoor debate at Perez Art Museum, Miami, Florida
US President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks during an NBC News town hall event moderated by Savannah Guthrie at the Perez Art Museum in Miami, Florida on October 15, 2020.
In addition to getting losing ratings when compared to Biden’s Philadelphia town hall event, Trumpanzee acted like the ass he’s always been – even while in office. A leopard can’t change its spots, nor a zebra its stripes. And Trump can’t be anything other than an asshole – the Asshole in Chief, specifically.
That was the promise which was authorized and made to freed slaves by General Tecumseh Sherman in Special Field Order No. 15 on January 16, 1865, during the last days of the Civil War.
It was promptly broken by President Johnson, who was a slave owner, and had become President upon Lincoln’s assassination.
America has been breaking promises at least since 1776.
I wish that America’s politicians
(especially the GOP)
cared more for The People
than for corporations.
Anyone that loves America, loves her people, loves the idea of liberty, of equality, and guaranteed rights under law, should also love honesty, justice, and responsibility. And one simply CANNOT examine any segment of American history without acknowledging the horrific and grotesque inequity present FROM THE BEGINNING of this nation. It’s written in the Constitution, for heaven’s sake!
Women did not have the right to vote (suffrage).
Blacks were enslaved. Then, Blacks were continually discriminated against in seemingly countless ways – ranging from the denial of voting rights, of commerce, of justice, and more. And, as if to add insult to injury, the 13th Amendment has an exclusion clause FOR the purpose of perpetuating slavery. The amendment reads: Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
“…except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted…”
Yes, slavery IS 100% Legal in the United States. The Constitution says so.
And to ANYONE who claims or asserts that there is not now institutionalized racism in this country need only look to the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) to see that racism is institutionalized, and alive and well in the United States.
In the 1999 Class Action case Pigford v. Glickman(Timothy Pigford, et al., v. Dan Glickman, Secretary, United States Department of Agriculture), “the suit claimed that the agency had discriminated against black farmers on the basis of race and failed to investigate or properly respond to complaints from 1983 to 1997.” Members of the class included those who received allocation of farm loans and assistance between 1981 and 1996. (See: “Black Farmers Win $1.25 Billion In Discrimination Suit,” By Jasmin Melvin, February 18, 2010, online at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-farmers-pigford-idUSTRE61H5XD20100218)
• The 2007 Census of Agriculture reported that 2.20 million farms operated in the United States. Of this total, 32,938, or approximately 1.5% of all farms, were operated by African Americans.
• Over 74% (24,466) of African American farmers in the United States reside in Texas, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Virginia and Louisiana.
• Average annual market value for farms operated by African American farmers in 2007 was $30,829. The national average for white U.S. farmers was $140,521.
• Overall, the number of farms operated in the United States increased by 3.2% between 2002 and 2007. Farms operated by African Americans increased from 29,090 to 32,938, an 11.7% increase over the five-year period.
• In 2007, 348 (757 in 2002) African American farmers received Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) loans amounting to a total of $9.9 million. This averaged $28,408 per participating African American farmer, about 32% of the national average ($87,917). Average CCC loan value to white farmers was $88,379.
• Other federal farm payments to African American operated farms averaged $4,260, half the national average government farm payment of $9,518. About 31% of all African American farmers received some government payment compared to 50% of white farmers.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, October 12, 2020
––Day 1: Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing: Blumenthal Urges Barrett To Recuse From Cases Involving Election––
Perhaps you’ve read, and therefore know, my earlier opinion on that matter.
I have also said that she should recuse herself, because he and his campaign are PLANNING on a Supreme Court fight in the course of this election – much WORSE than Bush v Gore, which will make that case look like a cakewalk. And, the President is COUNTING ON HER SUPPORT.
He has said as much:
“We need 9 justices. You need that. With the unsolicited millions of ballots that they’re sending, it’s a scam; it’s a hoax. Everybody knows that. And the Democrats know it better than anybody else. So you’re going to need 9 justices up there. I think it’s going to be very important. Because what they’re doing is a hoax, with the ballots. I think this will end up in the Supreme Court, and I think it’s very important that we have 9 justices. I think it’s better if you go before the election because I think this scam that the Democrats are pulling, it’s a scam, this scam will be before the United States Supreme Court. And I think having a 4-4 situation is not a good situation. If you get that. I don’t know that you’d get that. I think it should be 8-to-nothing or 9-to-nothing, but just in case it would be more political than it should be.”
(Hearing him talk is like listening to the idiotic babbling of a toddler – incessantly repeating himself.)
He is suborning her prejudicial support of his court case. That is a corrupt practice, not only for an independent judiciary, but for the Office of the President.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, October 8, 2020
You KNOW things are serious when a majority of physicians, scientists, researchers and others come out against a political leader, especially and particularly the President… when they’ve NEVER DONE IT BEFORE.
America has NOT been made “great again” by our feckless misleader, the Liar in Chief, Donald John Trump.
It’s time to TAKE OUT THE TRASH IN NOVEMBER!
In an uncharacteristic move, The New England Journal of Medicine recently took a step which they have not since their 1812 founding.
A scathing editorial signed by all 34 editors of the publication – physicians, scientists, health researchers, and medical experts – acknowledged that in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the President and his administration have “taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy.”
The group minced no words in their scorching criticism of the President and his administration for their abysmal, still-ongoing failures which have claimed at least 212,466 lives, and counting, by writing that “Instead of relying on expertise, the administration has turned to uninformed ‘opinion leaders’ and charlatans who obscure the truth and facilitate the promulgation of outright lies.”
Solution being carefully poured into a petri dish that sits under a micro scope. A medical scientist wearing glasses can be seen concentrating as he pours from the glass flask. Selective focus.
Noting that physicians and other healthcare professionals face the possibility of lawsuits, and loss of license for such malpractice, they acknowledged that the nation’s solitary recourse for political malfeasance is to vote him out of office, and wrote that, “Anyone else who recklessly squandered lives and money in this way would be suffering legal consequences. Our leaders have largely claimed immunity for their actions. But this election gives us the power to render judgment.”
They cited America’s Trump-led failures and wrote that in comparison to other nations, “We have failed at almost every step. We had ample warning, but when the disease first arrived, we were incapable of testing effectively and Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, September 30, 2020
The Current White House Occupant managed to shoot himself and the GOP in the foot again last night (Tuesday, 29 September 2020) with his unmitigated bullying and verbal abuse at the first Trump-Biden Presidential Debate. No doubt, GOP candidates in so-called “down ballot” races will appreciate his effort for making the party look so appealng. </sarcasm>
True to form, and likely knowing that he couldn’t succeed against Biden – an expert debater with 36 years of Senate experience – Trump took a “burn it down/scorched earth” approach and succeeded in destroying the debate, format and forum, by repeatedly interrupting his opponent, the Democratic candidate Joe Biden, and the Moderator, in order to prevent his opponent from cogently responding.
Trump even verbally attacked Moderator Chris Wallace, Fox News Anchor, several times. In the history of American Presidential debates, that has never happened. At one point, Wallace found it necessary to sternly ask Trump to allow his opponent, the Democratic Party’s Presidential Nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, to answer the question, and Trump rudely interrupted him. The exchange was:
WALLACE: “Mr. President, I’m the moderator of this debate and I’d like you to let me ask my questions.”
TRUMP: “I guess I’m debating you, not him. I’m not surprised.”
To characterize the GOP candidate as undisciplined, unbridled, unhinged, out-of-control, and even rude throughout the 90 minute episode, would be diplomatically generous on all counts. Interestingly enough, his performance was oddly reminiscent of Russian tactics during World War II in which the Russians and their army retreated as the German Nazis advanced toward Moscow – colloquially termed as a “scorched earth” policy – in August/September/October 1941. Knowing that the Nazis were approaching, the peasants and others decided to evacuate their towns and cities, burning everything that could possibly be useful to the enemy as they departed. Moreover, it was Hitler’s ill-fated decision to invade Russia, in conjunction with the Russian tactic, that marked a turning point in World War II for the Nazis, which depleted their strength, and resolve. And ironically, Trump’s scorched earth approach to the debate may similarly prove to be the turning point of his candidacy, and presidency, marking the beginning of his end.
Republican strategist Alex Conant confirmed Trump’s failed “burn it down” approach by acknowledging that Trump undoubtedly knows that he’s behind in numerous national polls, and among voting groups whose support it critical to his success, especially in Read the rest of this entry »
“Dog whistle is a type of strategy of communication that sends a message that the general population will take a certain meaning from, but a certain group that is “in the know” will take away the secret, intended message. Often involves code words.
“Republicans say they want to make civil rights for gays a state issue, which is really just a dog whistle strategy for saying that they will refuse to grant equal rights on a federal level.”
Trump To White Minnesota Audience:
“You Have Good Genes.”
by Christopher Wilson – Senior Writer, Yahoo News
September 21, 2020
It’s called a “dog whistle,” a word or phrase in a speech that is unobjectionable on the surface but conveys a coded message to partisans, by analogy to high-pitched sounds that are audible to dogs but not to people. Richard Nixon leaned on it heavily during his 1968 presidential campaign, referencing “law and order” and a “war on drugs,” further codifying racial appeals from Barry Goldwater for “states’ rights” and “freedom of association.” Ronald Reagan took it to another level in 1976, demonizing a “welfare queen” who fraudulently collected $150,000 in government benefits, a barely concealed appeal to the race and class resentments of White voters toward Blacks.
Ed. NOTE: Reagan’s demagogic demonization of an ostensibly Black woman as a “welfare queen” is a highly-popularized modern-day Republican myth. Linda Taylor, a Tennessee-born White Chicago-area resident, was given the miscreant moniker by the Chicago Tribune in October 1974, which also focused upon her personal possessions – jewelry, furs, and a Cadillac – though the real story of her behavior was much worse, and more complicated than a relatively minor case of simple welfare fraud. In 2013, Josh Levin, Editorial Director for Slate, wrote an extensively detailed report of the real-life character who Reagan mythologized on his campaign trail, exclusively in an effort to capitalize upon the “shock and awe” factor to gain voter support for his candidacy. Reagan’s use of exaggeration as a raconteur was renown, and in a January 1976 campaign rally, as any good story-teller would, he embellished that character by claiming, “In Chicago, they found a woman who holds the record. She used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans’ benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare. Her tax-free cash income alone has been running $150,000 a year.” While much has been written about Reagan’s well-known penchant for demagoguery, little of what he claimed was true, though he made significant political hay with it by portraying one isolated problem as a wholesale representation of systemic organizational failure, which he later used to justify reducing spending on social welfare programs. While Taylor did go to prison for committing about $8000 in welfare fraud (the 2020 value of which would be about $36,500), she was more memorable for her theft-claim and bigamy scams, which frauds were discovered only years later, along with probable murder and kidnapping for which she was never indicted. Levin wrote, “For Linda Taylor, people were consumable goods, objects to cultivate, manipulate, and discard. For Ronald Reagan, Taylor was a tool to convince voters that the government was in crisis.”
By that standard, President Trump’s riff about the “good genes” found among the people of Minnesota — an 80 percent white state — wasn’t a dog whistle. It was a train whistle, folding in Trump’s long-held belief that some people, himself especially, are simply born with superior traits to others.
“You have good genes, you know that, right?” Trump said during his Saturday rally in front of a nearly all-white crowd in Bemidji. “You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes, isn’t it, don’t you believe? The racehorse theory. You think we’re so different? You have good genes in Minnesota.”
The racehorse theory is the belief that some humans have a better genetic endowment than others, and by breeding two superior people you end up with superior offspring. The belief in eugenics, the pseudoscience of trimming out “inferior” bloodlines to increase the quality of the gene pool, is part of a long, racist history in America, from forced sterilizations to research funded by the Carnegie Institution, among other wealthy foundations. Earlier this month, charges surfaced that a doctor at an ICE facility was performing unwanted and likely unnecessary hysterectomies on detained immigrant women, which would prevent them from having more children.
“It’s not just eugenics in theory, but it’s eugenics in practice,” said Steve Silberman, a historian whose Read the rest of this entry »
Many people have used the word “fascist” to describe Donald Trump over the past few years. I was not one of them—until Monday night, when Trump openly defended and endorsed violence by his supporters.
First, Trump shockingly defended his 17-year-old supporter Kyle Rittenhouse, who drove across state lines into Wisconsin where he illegally carried a weapon in the streets of Kenosha and then shot and killed two people. (Criminal charges filed against Rittenhouse include first-degree intentional homicide and illegal possession of a deadly weapon.)
Then Trump backed his supporters who on Saturday descended in a caravan of cars on Portland, Oregon, where they were seen shooting projectiles such as paintballs and pepper spray at people in the street. Trump defended this criminal conduct as a “peaceful protest,” arguing that “paint is not bullets.” In reality, shooting people with paintballs is a crime—we all know that. It could blind a person or worse. Yet Trump defends it because the people engaged in this violence were on Team Trump.
We have now entered a new reality in America where Trump, like fascists before, is embracing violence to remain in power. Let’s be clear about what fascism is. As Madeleine Albright explained while discussing her 2018 book, Fascism: A Warning,
“Fascism is not an ideology; it’s a process for taking and holding power.”
She added that “what differentiates fascism from other ideological movements is the use of violence and anger to achieve political ends.” Hammering that point home, Albright back in early 2019 used a line that sums up Trump today:
“Fascism involves the endorsement and use of violence to achieve political goals and stay in power.”
While Trump has embraced other methods used by fascists before—such as pitting Americans against one another to incite anger—that has been Read the rest of this entry »
U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom Robert Wood “Woody” Johnson IV told embassy staff in 2018 that his friend, President Trump, asked him to help get the British Open golf tournament held at one of the Trump family’s golf resorts in Scotland.
U.S. Embassy staff have separately complained that Johnson made racist and sexist comments on the job.
The State Department’s Inspector General has been looking at these claims as part of a routine review of the embassy, according to people familiar with the matter. The inquiry was first reported by theNew York TimesandCNN.
Lewis Lukens, the embassy’s former second-in-command, confirmed in a text to NPR that Johnson told him about the president’s request.
“I advised him that doing so would violate federal ethics rules and be generally inappropriate,” Lukens wrote.
But Johnson apparently went ahead and raised the matter with David Mundell, then secretary of state for Scotland, according to a person familiar with the conversation.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, June 22, 2020
… to little fanfare in Tulsa, Oklahoma’s BOK Center yesterday (Saturday) evening, June 20, 2020.
Many reporters and pundits completely overlooked what should’ve been hailed as a globally glorious and momentous moment of monumentally magnificent proportions — the President of the United States of America announced a CURE for the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, aka COVID-19, in a rally Saturday night in Tulsa, Oklahoma’s BOK Center.
The announcement was of such magnitude, that only a statement announcing the discovery for a cure to Read the rest of this entry »
“This is, you know, the heart of what the abuse of power that our founders worried about so much is — it’s, you know, the idea that the government official can use the powers of his office to try and stay in office and try and browbeat other officials that disagree with them.”
Warm Southern Breeze 