Texas House GOPers Prepare to Barbecue AG Ken Paxton-R before Memorial Day

This is HUGE!

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Texas House Committee Moves To Impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton

https://www.kut.org/politics/2023-05-25/texas-house-committee-moves-to-impeach-attorney-general-ken-paxton
by Sergio Martínez-Beltrán
Published May 25, 2023 at 4:57 PM CDT
Updated May 25, 2023 at 9:27 PM CDT

A Texas House panel adopted 20 articles of impeachment against Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday.

The decision by the House General Investigating Committee comes a day after the panel heard from investigators who shared a long list of Paxton’s alleged illegal acts aimed at protecting a political donor.

“After a period of time for your review and reflections, I intend to call up the resolution adopting the articles of impeachment,” Chairman Andrew Murr, R-Junction, told House members Thursday evening.

It’s unclear when the full House might vote on the impeachment resolution. The final day of the legislative session is Monday.

If the House votes to impeach, the Republican attorney general would be suspended from his role pending action from the Texas Senate.

The articles of impeachment include disregard of official duty, misapplication of public resources, constitutional bribery and obstruction of justice.

The panel’s decision to move to impeach comes after four House-hired investigators revealed on Wednesday they uncovered evidence of multiple violations of the law and Paxton’s oath of office, including abuse of official capacity, misuse of official information, and retaliation and official oppression.

Many of the allegations were previously known, but Wednesday was the first time they were discussed publicly and in such detail.

Paxton has vehemently denied the allegations.

In a statement published on his Twitter account Thursday, Paxton said

Here’s What You Get When You Ignore Politics And Do Not Vote

New York State’s Republican U.S. Representative for the Empire State’s 3rd Congressional District, GEORGE ANTHONY DEVOLDER SANTOS, also known as “George Santos,” Defendant.

There is, I dare say, no one who “likes” him. To be more succinct, people (his constituents especially and particularly) do not appreciate who he is, and what he has done, which is to consistently lie, i.e., fabricate falsehoods, exclusively about himself.

And the way they got him was to NOT VOTE.

Literally.

The sheer number of people who DID NOT VOTE in the 2022 midterm election in New York’s 3rd Congressional District is the EXCLUSIVE reason why George Santos was elected. Period. It’s THEIR fault, by omission.

New York’s 3rd Congressional District which Defendant Santos now ostensibly “represents” is the state’s wealthiest Congressional District, and in 2022, was the 4th wealthiest nationally. One would imagine that the wealthy, well-educated, well-off, and well-to-do would have better sense and be more proactive in their own self governance. Apparently not.

Here are a few income figures for NY CD3:

Median household income: $130,679

Mean household income: $178,723

Percent of households with incomes of $200,000 or more: 30.4%

At the time of Forbes’ writing (10/21/22, linked above), it was represented by Tom Suozzi, a Democrat, who opted to campaign for governor of the Empire State instead of for Congressional reelection. George Santos, who had campaigned for that same office in the election immediately prior, i.e., 2020, was elected in the November 8, 2022 General Election, and took the Oath of Office January 3, 2023.

After 2020 redistricting, the district includes northern Long Island from Great Neck in the west, to Dix Hills and Kings Park in the east.

In the 2020 General Election, George Santos campaigned against Tom Suozzi, who campaigned as a Democrat / Working Families Party / Independence Party. Tom Suozzi won, 208,412 to 161,907. In the 2022 mid-term election, Republican George Santos won against Democrat Robert Zimmerman, who campaigned under the banner of the Democrat / Working Families Party, by 142,017 to 120,060. Put another way, Santos won the 2022 election with FEWER VOTES (12.2%) than he received in 2020.

Again, there’s ONLY one reason why Santos won in 2022: People did NOT vote. Altogether, a little over 101,000 FEWER people voted in the Zimmerman v Santos race in CD3 in 2022, than in the 2020 Suozzi v Santos race.

Defendant George Santos, a now-Federally-indited Republican U.S. Representative of NY CD-3. This is NOT a mugshot, but rather, is a U.S. Passport-style photograph, which does NOT allow the subject to wear glasses, caps, or uniforms when the image is made.

Of course, there was is another chronically habitual liar, who became the 45th POTUS for essentially the same reason — people didn’t vote. Though there were more popular votes for the losing candidate than for the winning candidate, Electoral College votes decide the ultimate winner — NOT the popular vote. Again, Presidential candidates are NOT elected by popular vote, but that’s a discussion for another day. And it’s NOT the first time it’s ever happened, either.

More to the point, George Santos now has an OFFICIAL new name:

Defendant.

He seems to enjoy changing his name, and practically every other aspect about his life which he has fraudulently fabricated. Some news outlets have generously used the term “fabulist” to describe him, which is, in my considered estimation, not merely inaccurate, but entirely too kind.

Here’s why:

The term “fabulist,” is defined as: 1. A composer of fables.

The 2nd definition, which is not the preferred, or primary usage, is “A teller of tales; a liar.” The word “fabulist” stems from the French word “fabuliste,” which was further derived from the Latin word “fābula,” meaning fable — and a fable is defined as follows: 1. A usually short narrative making an edifying or cautionary point and often employing as characters animals that speak and act like humans.
2. A story about legendary persons and exploits.
3. A falsehood; a lie.

Clearly, we see that a “fabulist” is not primarily, nor necessarily, a bad person. Jack and the Beanstalk, The Three Little Pigs, Little Red Ridinghood, and “The Boy Who Cried ‘WOLF!'” (properly “The Shepherd Boy & the Wolf“) are all “tall tales,” allegorical stories that teach a moral. And hopefully, most everyone knows that “The Shepherd Boy & the Wolf” is an Aesop’s fable, and the moral it teaches: DO NOT LIE.

So fables, and the associated related term fabulist, as one who tells fables, are much too generous terms to characterize the Defendant, which is the name the United States Government has given to him, and is the term we’ll use from here, forward. Of course, the more blunted “goddamn liar” is exceedingly more succinct, though unofficial, so we’ll use the OFFICIAL term — DEFENDANT.

Defendant has been charged with violating the following laws:

SANTOS, also known as “George Santos” did transmit and cause to be transmitted, by means of wire communication in interstate and foreign commerce, one or more writings, signs, signals, pictures and sounds, as st forth below:

Count — Approximate Date — Description

• ONE — October 4, 2022 — Email on behalf of

Nashville, TN, and the nation, weeps

Statistically, there are two extremes on the bell curve (the left and the right), and they both resemble each other. In fact, the bell curve itself — so named because its outline shape resembles a bell — is a mirror image of itself. Both halves are identical.

At the far end on either side, there’s very few of the thing being measured, or counted.

But, up in the middle, is where most everything is located.

It’s the same way with politics.

And guns.

Some say ban them all — but up in the middle is where consensus is found — while others say do nothing.

The Volunteer State and the nation are grieving over the deaths of three 9-year old children, and 3 adults gunned down at The Covenant School, a private Christian elementary school in Nashville’s Green Hills district. The world has taken notice not only the victims’ deaths, but of the heroic actions of Nashville’s Metro Police Department, whose members were on scene and resolved the problem in 15 minutes. Such quick action undoubtedly saved lives. They are to be commended beyond measure, and deservedly should be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation’s highest civilian honor, perhaps even the Congressional Gold Medal.

Even the Babylon Bee, an online satire magazine stepped up to the fore and acknowledged MPD’s bravery, by Tweeting an article about it: “Putin Immediately Surrenders After U.S. Airdrops Nashville Police Officers Into Battlefield.”

Putin Immediately Surrenders After U.S. Airdrops Nashville Police Officers Into Battlefield https://t.co/ZUb9rf0EaW

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) March 29, 2023

Two former Tennessee Governors — Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, and Bill Haslam, a Republican, the 48th, and 49th Governor, respectively, who are friends — co-authored an Op-Ed published March 31 in The Tennessean, on the necessity of state, and Federal, lawmakers to collaborate to help bring about an end to the preventable tragedies of school shootings.

Both men share several similarities — both men were Mayor of a major Tennessee city, Bredesen of Nashville,  Haslam of Knoxville, both men were re-elected as governor, both men are entrepreneurs, and very wealthy — and for the past year, they have both co-hosted a podcast at the Howard H. Baker, Jr. Center for Public Policy at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Howard Baker (1925-2014) was a long-time Republican U.S. Senator from Tennessee (1967-1985), who was renown for his pithy axiom, “Always remember that the other fellow might be right.”

They restated what some consider to be obvious, which is that,

Thank A Republican

If you enjoy your electrical power from TVA, and all the other associated benefits that have come along for that ride, such as regional economic development, improved health, care & quality of life, etc., you can thank a Republican.

That man would be Nebraska Republican U.S. Senator George W. Norris (1861-1944), who served 5 terms in the House (10 years), and 5 terms in the Senate (30 years), the last term of which he became an Independent, and was defeated for re-election in 1942.

George W. Norris as a newly elected U.S. Senator, 1912.

Senator Norris was also a member of a somewhat contrarian group in the House of Representatives that, in 1910, brought reform to its practices, by reducing the autocratic control which the Speaker of the House then had.

He also authored the 20th Amendment, which abolished so-called “lame duck” Congressional sessions, fought for presidential primaries, and direct election of Senators.

He also saved TVA from being sold — more accurately, prevented Wilson Dam in the Muscle Shoals area of Northwest Alabama from being sold — to one of the wealthiest industrialists of his era, which POTUSes Coolidge and Hoover (especially), both GOPers, wanted to sell to private enterprise, bidding in which Alabama Power (part of Atlanta, GA HQ’d Southern Company) was a strong contender.

That man was Henry Ford.

In the May 22, 1920 edition of The Dearborn Independent, a Henry Ford publication also known as The Ford International Weekly, Henry authored a front-page article entitled “The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem” that was later translated into several languages and distributed widely.

Interestingly enough, Henry Ford was a rabid anti-Semite Nazi sympathizer, of whom Adolph Hitler spoke fondly in a March 1923 interview with the Chicago Tribune, who said,

Is Charles Grassley REALLY older than the Chocolate Chip cookie?

Yes, it’s TRUE:

Iowa Republican Senator Charles “Chuck” Grassley, now aged 89, (b.1933) was born before the invention of the chocolate chip cookie (late 1930’s).

And — believe it, or else — Iowa voters returned him to the nation’s Capitol to serve warm a seat another six (6) years in the United States Senate.

So, when was the chocolate chip cookie invented?

For that answer, we find this:

“The original recipe was created in the late 1930s by Ruth Wakefield who famously ran the Toll House restaurant in Whitman, Massachusetts. The delicious mix of crispy cookie and melted chocolate chunks first appeared in

Crime In Alabama

The reader should bear in mind that, in Alabama, there are:
399 TOTAL Law Enforcement Organizations
297 Municipal PDs
67 Sheriff’s Departments
25 Community College/University PDs
7 Judicial/Drug Task Force
2 Airport PDs
1 Special Investigations (fire/explosion)

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Alabama, like many, or even most, states, likes to crow about how much they appreciate, or even revere, their Law Enforcement Officials (LEOs). And, under a Republican ultra-majority dominated legislature, executive branch, and judiciary, for well over a decade, one would imagine that by now, the controlling party, since 2011, would have gotten a firm grip on problems facing residents — to either resolve, ameliorate, or eliminate them.

They have not.

Consider crime. Often touted as a Republican talking point, e.g. being “tough on crime,” one would imagine that not only the Corrections system would have corrected and reformed those entrusted to its “corrections,” but that Law Enforcement agencies statewide would be supported, strengthened, and improved by the Republicans to protect the public, and uphold the laws, as is their charge. The state’s prison system, like the ignored metaphorical “elephant in the room,” has long teetered on a Federal takeover for overcrowding, violence, inhumane conditions, and corruption, while Alabama’s LEOs and their agencies continue failing their charge of public protection by not arresting offenders, solving crimes, and bringing swift justice for the offended victims.

And that proverbial “three-legged stool” has at least one woefully short leg. And that, is solving crimes.

In law enforcement jargon, crimes are considered “cleared,” or solved, when a suspect is arrested, and sometimes, several crimes can be cleared with one arrest. But not always. That terminology is used nation-wide at all levels of law enforcement, Local, State, and Federal.

ALEA, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, was a creation of

Unqualified Georgia GOP Senate Candidate Hershel Walker a 2022 Herman Cain Redux

History repeats itself, we’re told.

… but only if we ignore it, wrote George Santayana.

George Santayana in Rome, 1944.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

– George Santayana (1863-1952), Spanish philosopher writing in his 5-part book “The Life of Reason” Volume 1 “Reason in Common Sense,” (published 1905-1906)

One only need look at Georgia to see that GOPers are doing it again.

What are they doing again?

“It” is using the same old failed plays to win.

This time they’re using Hershel Walker like a subway token, just like they did Herman Cain.

They’re parading an utterly unqualified, out-of-touch-with-reality, ultra-wealthy individual as a candidate for high-level elected public office at the Federal level.

Hershel Walker, love him, loathe him — or ambivalent — has never held any elected office, much less held an office of public trust… just like another recent failure who retired to a palatial Florida estate which doubles as a high-priced “Members Only” club. So, why would ANYONE in their right mind imagine that Hershel Walker — in any way, shape, or form — would somehow be “qualified” to be a United States Senator from Georgia?

Sure, the Constitution states that the only qualifications to be Senator are as follows:

“No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.”
[U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 3, clause 3]

That bar is low enough that anyone — literally, anyone — could be a U.S. Senator. And according to that low standard, even a convicted felon still imprisoned could be a U.S. Senator. How preposterously absurd is that?!? Hershel Walker, as most anyone who’s been paying attention for the past several years, ought to know that

Tennessee GOP Governor Bill Lee Gives Insipidly Milquetoast State of the State Address

If you want to see, and hear, what an insipidly milquetoast governor Bill Lee is for Tennessee, simply watch a few minutes of his disgustingly loathsome address, delivered to the General Assembly, Monday, 31 January 2022.

It is weak, weak, weak.

As the namby-pamby, weak-kneed, say-little-do-nothing Republican Governor Bill Lee gave his State of the State address today, I thought his knees would buckle under the weight of his featherweight words.

His was a vapidly bland address, delivered in a monotonic voice, devoid of fervor or passion, full to overflowing with the null set of simply maintaining the status quo. Nothing new, nothing exciting, nothing life-changing… a real snooze-fest.

He said NOTHING about

Partisan Hacks Abound

One would NOT mention something if it were NOT part of the equation.

It’d be like mentioning Tostitos at a cake-baking contest, the theory of relativity to 3rd Graders, a taco soup recipe to Chinese citizens in Shenzhen, or the merits of a ’57 Chevy during discussion of a cardiac surgical procedure. TOTALLY out of place.

The very fact that SHE — Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett — mentioned it, is sufficient.

“My goal today is to convince you that this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks.”

— Supreme Court Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Sunday, 12 September 2021, at the McConnell Center, University of Louisville, KY, a venue created by Kentucky Republican Senator Mitch McConnell

Similarly, one would NOT need to be convinced if a thing, saying, or claim had utterly no credibility. It’d be like claiming (falsely) that “the sun rises in the west.” Any casual observer can plainly see that the sun appears to “rise” in the east, because of the Earth’s rotation upon its axis. That is to say, Earth spins in an “easterly” direction.

But, what else could be said about a court that INCREASINGLY issues “emergency” rulings, colloquially known as the “Shadow Docket,” WITHOUT proceedings, WITHOUT hearing ANY argument?

That tactic DENIES citizens their Constitutional RIGHT TO BE HEARD IN AN OPEN & PUBLIC COURT OF LAW.

NO ONE BUT she brought up that topic.

So, yeah… Amy Coney “I’m not a partisan hack” Barrett,

Florida Nuts Best In Nation

Florida man, eh?

El Stupido MAXIMO!

Ron DeSantis, Republican Florida Governor

Goddamn Ron Deathsantis is a FUCKING MORON!!

Let’s put this in perspective, shall we?

Try this on for size:

DeSantis maintains clothes can be detrimental for children’s development and that younger children simply don’t wear clothes properly. But board members in the counties of Broward, home to Fort Lauderdale, and Alachua, home to Gainesville, decided not to allow parents to easily opt out of the clothing mandate as surging cases of severe second degree sunburn fueled by climate change began straining hospitals.

How does THAT fit, eh?

Yup.

Deese Flahda fokes ah nutz!

Oh… and WHO IS LITERALLY DEFUNDING GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS, INCLUDING PUBLIC SCHOOLS?

Yup. You guessed it!

Goddamn Republicans.

Banana Republics are run by Banana Republicans.

Banana Republicans specialize in, and are expert at, a psychological manipulation technique called “projection.”

Projection is the practice of accusing others of doing the very thing that the accuser is doing. They “project” the action upon others whom they hope to revile by so doing.

Banana Republicans accuse Democrats of “defunding” the police, and yet, here they (Ron Deathsantis being their chief exemplar) are, LITERALLY defunding the “socialist” public schools.

Oh… and ANOTHER THING:

Banana Republicans decry “socialism” (though they NEVER actually define it) as being government involvement in anything.

So, using that measure, that metric, that (perverted) “definition,” ALL government is socialist — which makes Ron Deathsantis the Chief Socialist of the Socialist State of Florida.

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Florida Threatens To Pull School Funding Over Mask Mandates

Republican In Legal Peril: No mo’ Mo?

California U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell (RIGHT), a Democrat for the state’s 15th Congressional District, listens to testimony of U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn describing the Trump-led terrorist attacks upon Congress at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 as Congress was preparing to certify the election results.

The Alabama GOP Mo-ron Brooks, POS45, and his corrupt lying entourage will likely end up in prison… hopefully – if there’s any justice at all in this violently topsy-turvy world.

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In a Federal Court filing Tuesday, July 27, 2021, the United States Department of Justice served notice that they will not be representing Alabama GOP Representative Morris “Mo” Brooks-CD5 in California Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell’s-CD15 lawsuit against him, Donald John Trump, Donald J. Trump, Jr., and Rudolph Giuliani.

“Brooks submitted a request to the Department of Justice (“Department”) for certification under the Westfall Act that he was acting within the scope of his office or employment as a Member of Congress at the time of the conduct alleged in the Complaint. Brooks later petitioned this Court for a scope-of-employment certification, and the Court called for the United States to respond by July 27, 2021.”

Explaining that “If the Department certifies that

Nashville, TN Conservative Talk Radio Host Phil Valentine Hospitalized With COVID-19

Earlier, a friend had notified me that Phil Valentine, a Nashville, TN-based WASP Republican talk radio show host, affectionately known as “Uncle Phil” by listeners, is hospitalized with an infection of COVID-19.

Oh!

The irony!

He certainly fits the typical anti-COVID-19 vaxxer profile:
• Southern
• White
• Republican
• Conservative
• Male

The last FaceBook update from him was February 5, 2020, which consisted of a link to a podcast entitled “I’m Calling Bovine Scatology,” which is a “polite” way of saying “bullshit,” and the episode posted was entitled “They Closed Down the Economy for the Spanish Flu?”

• Business Insider picked up the story and wrote in part that, “A conservative radio talk-show host who had told followers that they were “probably safer not getting” the COVID-19 vaccine if they weren’t at high risk is now hospitalized in serious condition with the coronavirus, his family said.

“Phil Valentine, who hosts “The Phil Valentine Show” on WWTN-FM in Nashville, Tennessee, contracted COVID-19 more than a week ago and “has since been hospitalized & is in very serious condition,” his family said in a statement on Thursday.”

• All Access Music Group of Malibu, California wrote on their website that, “Posts by his family on social media confirm that CUMULUS News-Talk WWTN (SUPER TALK 99.7 WTN)/NASHVILLE afternoon host PHIL VALENTINE is in the hospital “fighting for his life” after contracting COVID-19.

“VALENTINE had voiced skepticism about the COVID-19 vaccine on the air and opposed government efforts urging the public to get vaccinated, touting

A Radicalized Supreme Court

Democratic senators say if the Supreme Court strikes a blow against Roe v. Wade by upholding a Mississippi abortion law, it will fuel an effort to add justices to the court or otherwise reform it.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority this week agreed to hear the Mississippi case, which could dramatically narrow abortion rights by allowing states to make it illegal to get an abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

“It will inevitably fuel and drive an effort to expand the Supreme Court if this activist majority betrays fundamental constitutional principles,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“It’s already driving that movement,” he added.

Senator Blumenthal said it doesn’t mean that a Congress led by Democrats would immediately be able to add justices to the court, but he suggested it would add momentum to reform efforts at a minimum.

“Chipping away at Roe v. Wade will precipitate a seismic movement to reform the Supreme Court. It may not be expanding the Supreme Court, it may be making changes to its jurisdiction, or requiring a certain numbers of votes to strike down certain past precedents,” he said.

No one knows for sure when the Supreme Court will hand down its decision on the Mississippi abortion law, but it is widely expected to hear arguments after it convenes in October. That could set up a decision next year.

Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D), another member of the Judiciary Committee, said the court’s review of the Mississippi law raises serious concerns.

“It really enlivens the concerns that we have about the extent to which right-wing billionaire money has influenced the makeup of the court and may even be pulling strings at the court,” he said.

“We’ve got a whole array of options we’re looking at in the courts committee,” Senator Whitehouse said of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, which President Biden established by executive order in April.

Senator Whitehouse said even if

Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Green, and other House GOPers, Seek to Defund Police

Banana Republicans are 100% pure hypocrites.

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Matt Gaetz

Marjorie Taylor Greene

Florida Republican Representative Matt Gaetz (CD-1) and a group of other House Republicans on Friday, 30 April 2021 introduced legislation to defund the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, a law enforcement and investigative arm of U.S. Postal Service.

The legislation, “H.R.2921 – To prohibit funds from being used to implement the Internet Covert Operations Program under the United States Postal Inspection Service, and for other purposes,” was in response to a March bulletin distributed by the Postal Service’s Inspection Service’s Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP), and reported by Yahoo News earlier this month. The bulletin cited the Postal Inspection Service’s concerns about potential “significant” likely violent protests planned for March 20 based upon “online inflammatory material,” and possible threats to the integrity and security of the U.S. Mail System, in conjunction with posts on radical right-wing social media platforms Parler and Telegram.

American intelligence agencies have debriefed Congress and issued reports about the serious threat to national security posed by domestic terrorists, particularly White supremacists, neo-Nazis and other racist groups such as Proud Boys, and others, following their concerted attack upon Congress on January 6, 2021 as they were performing their Constitutionally-mandated duties by certifying election results. Those groups, and others sympathetic with them, primarily used the radical right-wing social media platforms Parler and Telegram to coordinate their efforts, and attack.

Louie Gohmert-TX 1

Paul Gosar

“iCOP analysts are

Republican Tennessee Governor Bill Lee Has Lost His Mind

A gun in every pocket.

Not a chicken in every pot.

No pot there, either.

Not even medical.

The state wants people to kill each other.

But not in the womb.

That’d be wrong.

Shooting people to kill them, is A-OK.

Shooting pregnant women is not.

Might harm the unborn, you know.

Tennessee’s Republican Governor Bill Lee has signed NRA-written legislation that allows any adult aged 21, or older, to carry a handgun either openly, or concealed without any special training, education, or permit. Active duty Military Service Members aged 18 to 21 are excepted.

Tennessee’s Law Enforcement Agencies throughout the state, including the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, have told the Governor that they thought his idea was poor policy, but he ignored them, and signed into law a bill that removes restrictions on carrying firearms, either concealed, or openly.

Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Lee (RIGHT) signs HB786 as the bill’s sponsor, Republican Representative William Lamberth of Portland, District 44, observes.

Despite law enforcement’s opposition to his legislation that would end gun permits in Tennessee, Governor Bill Lee told a gathering from the National Rifle Association that his legislation would “make Tennessee safer.” However, he failed to mention how it would.

A spokesman for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation told a Senate committee, “The bureau has been consistent [in opposition] on this from a public safety standpoint.” The TBI and Tennessee Sheriff’s Association oppose eliminating requirements for concealed carry gun permits.

Governor Lee’s Press Secretary Casey Black said, “The ‘Constitutional Carry’ legislation is a key priority in the governor’s public safety package, which is focused on protecting law-abiding Tennesseans’ Second Amendment rights, while also significantly increasing penalties for criminals who steal firearms.”

Advocates point to permitless carry which is often misnomered as

Matt Gaetz Is Toast, And Awaits Federal Sentencing For Child Sex Trafficking

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

And Florida’s CD-1 Republican Representative Matt Gaetz is burnt toast.

In a report published today (Thursday, April 8, 2021), Matt Gaetz is implicated in a pay-for-play scheme in which he laundered money in order to make his payments appear as if they were innocuous.

They were not.

The Daily Beast reported that Republican Florida Representative Matt Gaetz sent $900 to his friend Joel Greenberg, a Federally-accused sex trafficker and former Seminole County tax collector who is cooperating with Federal authorities, in two late-night Venmo transactions – a social media mobile payment service owned by PayPal – in May 2018. Over the course of eight minutes the next morning, Greenberg used the Venmo app to send varying sums of money to three young women, which altogether, transactions totaled $900.

Joel Greenberg, LEFT, & Matt Gaetz

In the first of Gaetz’s Venmo transactions to Greenberg, the memo field was titled “Test.” In the second transaction, he wrote

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill Caught With Pants Down

Looks like John let the little head do the thinking for the big head.

He also likes anal sex – something his wife apparently doesn’t give him.

Yes… it’s true:

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill has been caught red-handed in an extra-marital relationship, much to the chagrin of his cult-like followers who were hoping he would campaign for the soon-to-be-vacated U.S. Senate seat held by almost-nonagenarian Democrat-turned-Republican-since-1994 Richard Shelby (b.1934), who has occupied the office since 1986, which is up for grabs in 2022.

“He was such an idiot. And he would talk, just… I don’t know if you ever met him outside of looking like he’s a professional, he’s a total [sic] different person. He’s sometimes funny, and he’s charismatic, and he has a sense of humor… but then, when the real John Merrill stands up, then you’re kinda’ like ‘uggh.'”

– Cesaire McPherson, 44-year old Legal Assistant, and lover to Alabama Republican Secretary of State John Merrill in phone interview with National File about their extramarital sexual relationship

Of note, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service on December 17, 2020 updated their report “Membership of the 116th Congress: A Profile” which found that the average age of the average Senator was 62.9 years, while the average age of the Members of the House of Representatives was 57.6. At the time of the report, there were only 3 African American Senators – Kamala Harris, D-CA Corey Booker, D-NJ, and Tim Scott, R-SC. Since Kamala Harris is now Vice President, there are now only 2 African American Senators. And, the oldest Senator in the 116th Congress was Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, born June 22, 1933, who was then aged 85.

Merrill’s official statement said that, “With the end of my term coming up in January of 2023, I have been presented with a variety of options for where my path in public service could lead. I have decided that I will not be a candidate for any office in 2022.”

In a confession to the Advance Local Media LLC-owned AL dot com news group, John Merrill said further that,

Yes, Georgia’s New Republican Vote Restriction Law Makes Illegal Giving Water Or Food To Voters

Many questions have arisen, and comments have been made, about Georgia’s new voting restrictions law.

Republican state legislators who wrote, passed, and signed the bill into law (Republican Governor Brian Kemp was formerly Secretary of State when he campaigned for the Governor’s office… and as a state official, oversaw his own election… nope, no conflict of interest there, eh?) continue to claim that the “integrity” and “security” of the voting systems in Georgia should be strengthened – as if they were insecure to begin with.

They were not.

The essence of what has happened, as many have observed and stated, is that since Republicans lost in the national election for President, and in the Senate election, they’re changing the rules in order to make it easier for them to win next time.

There was NO fraud, NO irregularities, NO insecurity in the Georgia election, nor in any election in the nation. Period.

So, here for your perusal, is the word-for-word reading of the law, including a screenshot of the law as passed, and

Texas Prosecutes Black Woman Who Made An Honest Mistake

One of the tenets of law is intentionality, which is the foreknowledge of, and intent to willfully disobey, or violate, law, and often includes recklessness as an element of intent. Intent is part and parcel of motive, and in context, often accompanies an evil, or malicious motive. In law, typically, a person cannot be convicted of a crime if there is no intent. Motive, however, is different from intention, and is irrelevant in determining liability.

Sometimes it’s said that “ignorance is no excuse for the law,” but that’s a mere colloquialism which itself has no basis in law. It’s nothing but a hollow saying, for it has no support in any way. There is such as thing as “willful ignorance,” which is an intentional, and therefore deliberate, act. And, the classic Steve Martin comedy sketch in which he presents his defense to a “foul crime” as “I forgot” is funny precisely because there are crimes which are so inherently gross in their violation – rape, murder, armed robbery, arson, etc. – that no reasonable, or sane person could ever assert that they forgot it was illegal.

Negligence is similar, insofar as there is a risk which is assumed by the offending party, which has the potential to harm another person, or property. Negligence occurs when it is likely that harm will occur from the offending party’s conduct, and knowingly engages in the risk. Again, a deliberate action.

Recklessness requires determining that the offending party should have known they were taking a risk, but the difference between recklessness and negligence is not always clear. An example of recklessness would be DUI – the offending party clearly knows they were taking a risk, and continued with the conduct. Once again, a deliberateness is evident.

However, there are crimes that are not inherently, or morally wrong, and it is impossible for any one person to know all laws. Furthermore, many laws are intricately complex, which further adds to the confusing calculus. Because of that, it puts even the most circumspect and conscientious people at risk of violating laws for which many – including legislators, legal experts, jurists, attorneys, and others – are unaware of their requirements. And in that sense, the traditional protection afforded by determining culpability before conviction is dismissed.

Most folks would agree, I’m certain, that it’s probably not too uncommon for anyone to violate a law unknowingly. And, when such a thing occurs, and someone is arrested for the same – for unknowingly violating a law – when the time for prosecution comes around (if it does), because often, such cases are rapidly dismissed by the state (government) because intentionality is missing.

The state has a responsibility to its citizens to make them aware of the law, so that they can abide by it.

But, in Texas, there is presently a case which will undoubtedly be heard by that state’s Supreme Court (though it must first be heard by the TX Court of Criminal Appeals) which raises that very question:
Can a citizen be held to account for unintentionally violating a law, when the state had a responsibility – which they admittedly failed to do – to notify the citizen of their circumstances before the law, and liability to it?

Crystal Mason

A Fort Worth, TX woman – Crystal Mason – who happens to be Black, was on supervised release for a Federal felony conviction related to tax fraud, when she cast a provisional ballot in 2016. She had been released from prison the previous year. She and her former husband had owned a tax preparation business, and was accused of inflating tax deductions on some returns which they prepared for clients, and eventually plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the government, and was sentenced to 5yrs in prison, and 3yrs supervised release. She was placed on probation for 2 of 3 other felonies, and received deferred adjudication for the 3rd.

Neither state, nor Federal authorities notified her that she was, by Texas state law, ineligible to vote until the entire term of her punishment was fully completed.

Officials who were overseeing her supervised release testified at her trial that they never informed her that she was ineligible to vote under Texas state law.

She was urged by

Matt Gaetz: Another Drowning Rat From Trump’s Sunken Ship

He’s a “Florida Man” to be certain, and his Twitter bio states as much. He’s the moral equivalent of Jeffrey Epstein. His “NAY” vote was the EXCLUSIVE – the SOLITARY – the ONLY vote against a human sex trafficking bill. And his flimsy “excuse” or rationale why, is as weak as water. He’ll be out soon as just another worthless, hypocritical, flash-in-the-pan piece of GOP garbage.

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Matt Gaetz, On The Ropes From Juvenile Sex Trafficking Investigation, Finds Few Friends In The GOP

by Juliegrace Brufke & Mike Lillis
03/31/21 05:33 PM EDT

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/545850-gaetz-on-the-ropes-finds-few-friends-in-gop

In four years on Capitol Hill, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has experienced a meteoric rise to national prominence — one fueled by a close alliance with former President Trump, a penchant for political theatrics and a no-apologies brand of conservatism that’s made him a darling of the right-wing cable outlets.

Matt Gaetz now – with a slicked-back pompadour, and snazzy suit.

Yet this week, facing a federal investigation into allegations of a sexual relationship with an underage girl, Gaetz is finding himself in an unusual spot: On the ropes and virtually alone.

Few of Gaetz’s GOP colleagues are coming to the defense of the third-term Floridian following a New York Times report that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is investigating allegations of sexual misconduct with — and interstate trafficking of — a minor roughly two years ago. And a number of Republicans, while warning against jumping to premature conclusions about Gaetz’s conduct, also suggested they wouldn’t miss him if he were gone.

“I don’t know anything about this situation other than to say he has certainly made enemies and painted a bull’s-eye on his back,” said one Republican lawmaker, who requested anonymity to speak freely on a sensitive topic. “This appears to be a self-inflicted wound.”

Gaetz has vehemently denied that he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old-girl — the central allegation of the Justice Department probe, which was launched under the Trump administration. Gaetz contends that he and his family have been targeted by a former DOJ official in an extortion scheme seeking millions of dollars to have the allegations vanish.

In a series of tweets, statements and media interviews Tuesday evening, he maintained that

Matt Gaetz Is A Sexual Predator?

It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2017695?Title=human%20trafficking

Kinda’ “ironic,” wouldn’t you say, that the QAnon conspiracy theory folks who wrongly thought, and therefore targeted the Democrats for alleged involvement in some global child sex-trafficking cabal have sided with the exact ones who are actually participating in that very activity… Republicans.

Remember: Psychological projection – accusing others of the thing you’re guilty of – is a tool/technique extensively employed not only by the GOP, but in droves by the 45th President.

BTW… Matt Gaetz’ official actions as a Member of Congress are rather peculiar.

Matt Gaetz then…

In 2017, Representative Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Fort Walton Beach representing FL’s 1st CD, was the ONLY member of Congress to vote “NAY” on a law that gave the Federal government more power and money to fight human trafficking – S.1536 – Combating Human Trafficking in Commercial Vehicles Act.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/1536

THE ONLY ONE.

Vote Question: On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass
Combating Human Trafficking in Commercial Vehicles Act

Matt Gaetz now – with a slicked-back pompadour, cuff links, and snazzy suit.

Gaetz Republican Florida Nay

S.1536 – Combating Human Trafficking in Commercial Vehicles Act
Roll Call Vote 695, December 19, 2017, 4:56PM ET
115th Congress, 1st Session
418 YEAS
1 NAY
12 NOT VOTING

NOT VOTING
Bridenstine Republican Oklahoma Not Voting
Brooks (AL) Republican Alabama Not Voting
Cummings Democratic Maryland Not Voting (was sick & getting treatment)

Kennedy Democratic Massachusetts Not Voting
Loudermilk Republican Georgia Not Voting
Messer Republican Indiana Not Voting

Napolitano Democratic California Not Voting
Pocan Democratic Wisconsin Not Voting
Renacci Republican Ohio Not Voting

Scalise Republican Louisiana Not Voting
Smith (TX) Republican Texas Not Voting
Thompson (MS) Democratic Mississippi Not Voting

See also: https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2017/12/29/florida-rep-matt-gaetz-was-literally-the-only-person-to-vote-against-an-anti-human-trafficking-bill

See also: https://crooksandliars.com/2021/03/matt-gaetz-under-investigation-federal

Note this: Gaetz tweeted that his father was wearing a “wire” by the FBI.
Why would he broadcast that information, thereby spoiling the investigation?

…and my father has even been wearing a wire at the FBI’s direction to catch these criminals. The planted leak to the FBI tonight was intended to thwart that investigation.

No part of the allegations against me are true, and the people pushing these lies are targets…

— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) March 30, 2021

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Matt Gaetz Is Said to Be Investigated Over Possible Sexual Relationship With a Girl, 17

by Michael S. Schmidt, Katie Benner
March 30, 2021, Updated 6:52 p.m. ET
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/us/politics/matt-gaetz-sex-trafficking-investigation.html

Republican Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, age 38, a close ally of former President Donald J. Trump, is being investigated by the United States Department of Justice over whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him, according to three people briefed on the matter, who also said that Federal officials are investigating whether, or not, Mr. Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking laws.

Representatives for the Justice Department and the F.B.I.

Alabama GOP Politicians Meddle In Healthcare To Deny Treatment

Should government exercise control over its citizens to the extent that:
a.) Certain types of private health care is illegal;
b.) Certain people are denied care?

Should your neighbors (aka “the government”) have the right to tell you, and/or your family, what you can, or cannot be treated for by a licensed healthcare professional?

Suppose someone said, “Well… I don’t think you need to be treated for

Georgia Crackers & Banana Republicans Waffle Again

So they got their clocks unexpectedly cleaned in the November General Election, and now, they don’t like it.

And what do they do?

Change the rules, because they don’t like them any more.

That’s right!

Where, or in what sport does that ever occur – that the losing team seeks rule changes after a loss, because they lost?

None.

Why?

Because respectable teams understand that their losses are exclusively because of poor playing skills, including faulty strategy, bad tactics, and nothing more. And in politics, it boils down to the questions how well have you treated the people? What have you done FOR them to help, and benefit them?

Georgia elections official Gabriel Sterling, pictured in November 2020, pushed back on false claims about voter fraud. But he supports some Republican initiatives to change voting laws, saying it could help elections administrators.

It’s only been 16 years since Republicans last changed the voting rules in Georgia, and… well, read this article by Georgia Public Broadcasting about the matter -AND- the article by NPR in which Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s Chief Operating Officer for the Secretary of State’s office, is interviewed.

“In 2005, the year that Republicans gained control of state government after decades of Democratic domination, HB 244 was a 59-page bill that contained nearly 70 revisions of state election code, including two major changes: adding a photo ID requirement for in-person voting and allowing Georgians to vote by mail without an excuse, and without an ID.

“At the time, Democrats and voting rights groups adamantly opposed both measures. Lawmakers compared the photo ID requirement to Jim Crow laws and warned that Georgia would have some of the country’s most restrictive voting procedures. The addition of no-excuse absentee voting did not reassure Democrats, either. In an eerie inversion of today’s positions, they argued that it would introduce a system ripe for abuse.

““By removing restrictions related to mailed absentee ballots, HB 244 opens a greater opportunity for fraud,” former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, then a Democratic state senator, wrote in an op-ed. “Skeptics might point out that absentee voters have historically voted for Republicans in higher numbers.”

“Among the lawmakers who voted for the bill were Gov. Brian Kemp (then a state senator), House Speaker David Ralston, Speaker Pro Tem Jan Jones, Majority Leader Jon Burns, Senate Rules chairman Jeff Mullis, Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer (then a state senator) and Reps. Terry England, Sharon Cooper, Ed Setzler, Lynn Smith and Barry Fleming, author of the current House omnibus which is one of the bills that would add an ID requirement to absentee ballots and applications.

“Democrats who opposed the 2005 bill included current Sen. Minority Leader Gloria Butler, Sens. Ed Harbison, Horacena Tate, Kasim Reed and Reps. Debbie Buckner, Roger Bruce, MARTOC chair Mary Margaret Oliver, and Calvin Smyre, currently the longest-serving member of the House, among others.

“Democrats said at the time that requiring photo ID to vote in person would disenfranchise lower-income, older and non-white voters, while pressing the idea that expanded no-excuse absentee voting without an ID requirement was an invitation to fraud.

““This bill would actually open the door wide to opportunities for voter fraud because it allows voting by mail where you present no identification whatsoever,” Democratic Secretary of State Cathy Cox said in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article. “So those parts of the bill really don’t jive in my mind in terms of any real effort to crack down on what someone perceives to be voting fraud.”

“Fast forward to 2021: There has been no evidence of widespread fraud with absentee-by-mail voting and, until the 2018 governor’s race, the relative few voters that used absentee ballots skewed older, whiter and more Republican.

“A record number of Georgians participated in the November general election thanks in part to expanded voting rules and procedures pushed by Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Demographic changes and a surge in automatic voter registrations have shifted statewide politics to razor-thin margins, and Democrats took advantage of no-excuse absentee voting to flip the state’s electoral votes and both U.S. Senate seats.

“In the elections debate following the 2020 presidential race, the arguments might sound familiar. Former President Donald Trump and other top Republicans have questioned the security of the more than 1.3 million absentee ballots cast by Georgians in the November election, claimed that the state’s method of matching signatures to verify absentee ballots opened the door to fraud, and proposed sweeping changes to fix the system.

“Raffensperger told GPB News that adding an ID requirement to absentee ballots seemed like a logical solution given the complaints from both sides of the aisle.

““A year ago we were being sued by the Democrats,” Raffensperger said in the interview. “They did not like signature match, they said it was unconstitutional and now the Republicans are saying the same thing. Well, you guys are both singing off the same song sheet now, so maybe now we need a verifiable photo ID component with the absentee ballot process.”

“Gov. Brian Kemp supported no-excuse absentee voting in 2005, and by the end of his run as secretary of state in 2018, touted Georgia as a national leader in election law because of the state’s absentee rules, automatic voter registration and at least 16 days of in-person early voting — a distinction that his successor Raffensperger touts at the bottom of every press release.

“But other Republican legislators have changed their stances on the state’s election laws over the past decade-and-a-half.”
–––MORE–––

Georgia is recognized as a national leader in elections. It was the first state in the country to implement the trifecta of automatic voter registration, at least 16 days of early voting (which has been called the “gold standard”), and no-excuse absentee voting. Georgia continues to set records for voter turnout and election participation, seeing the largest increase in average turnout of any other state in the 2018 midterm election and record turnout in 2020, with over 1.3 million absentee by mail voters and over 3.6 million in-person voters utilizing Georgia’s new, secure, paper ballot voting system.

See: https://sos.ga.gov/index.php/elections/state_election_board_invites_dominion_voting_systems_to_discuss_2020_statewide_voting_system_implementation

See: Georgia Senate Republicans Pass Bill To End No-Excuse Absentee Voting
by Stephen Fowler
March 8, 2021; 6:07 PM ET
https://www.npr.org/2021/03/08/974985725/georgia-senate-republicans-pass-bill-to-end-no-excuse-absentee-voting

Georgia elections official Gabriel Sterling gained national attention a few months ago by pushing back against former President Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud. 

But Republican state lawmakers in Georgia, inspired by those falsehoods, have introduced a handful of bills that would increase barriers to voting for some people.

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Georgia Elections Official Gabriel Sterling Responds To Bills That Make Voting Harder

March 9, 2021; 5:04 AM ET

https://www.npr.org/2021/03/09/974948010/georgia-elections-official-gabriel-sterling-responds-to-bills-that-make-voting-h

Georgia is among 43 states that are considering similar legislation, according to the Brennan Center.

Sterling, a Republican who is now the chief operating officer for the Georgia secretary of state’s office, says some of the measures backed by Republican Georgia state lawmakers go too far. 

But he argues that many of the proposals could end up helping elections administrators.

There was no widespread fraud in Georgia, he says, but there were small numbers of double voting, out-of-state voting and felons voting. Rules involving photo IDs could make things easier for elections workers, he says.

“In a state like Georgia, where the election is getting closer and closer, every vote’s going to count,” Sterling says. “And anything we can do to make the system more secure and provide confidence to everybody, that’s the kind of things that we need to be focusing on.”

Sterling talked with NPR’s Scott Detrow on Morning Edition about the proposals under consideration and why he opposes the Democrat-backed voting rights bill that passed the U.S. House last week.

Here are excerpts of the interview:

One proposal would eliminate no-excuse absentee voting and add voter ID requirements for absentee voting. This is being characterized by many voting rights groups as nothing more than a response to the fact that Democrats won Georgia Senate races and the presidential race last year and that Democrats used absentee voting more than Republicans. Are they wrong?

––MORE––

Impeachment v2.0 Day 3: The Devil Made Me Do It

“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

The Republican Party Is Dead. There Are Only 6 Remaining Members.

Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins

A significant number of the American people have been bamboozled, swindled, and otherwise cheated and lied to for at least the past 40+ years, at least since 1980, and beginning in earnest in January 1981 with the Reagan administration.

In actuality, the Republican party’s seeds of destruction were sown in 1964 at the Republican National Convention in Daly City, California when then-New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller warned the assembled delegates that

“The Republican party is in real danger of subversion
by
a radical, well-financed,
and
highly disciplined minority.”  

He was given 5 minutes to address the delegates, but was booed for over 16 minutes.

Why?

He was seeking the inclusion of language in the official party platform which would have said,

“The Republican Party fully respects the contribution of responsible criticism, and defends the right of dissent in the democratic process. But we repudiate the efforts of irresponsible, extremist groups, such as the Communists, the Ku Klux Klan, the John Birch Society and others, to discredit our Party by their efforts to infiltrate positions of responsibility in the Party, or to attach themselves to its candidates.”

One would think that such language condemning and repudiating the Ku Klux Klan, Communists, John Birch Society members, and others, would have been welcomed.

Ku Klux Klansmen rally in support of Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, the GOP 1964 Presidential nominee.
Image: Universal History Archive/Getty Images

But, it wasn’t.

That was the year Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater was the party’s Presidential nominee.

That was also the year the GOP suffered one of the greatest losses in American political history.

A mere 6 states – Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina – voted for Barry Goldwater.

Lyndon Baines Johnson won in a landslide with 486 Electoral College votes to Goldwater’s 52.

The Popular Vote was just as decisive:
Johnson 43,127,041 (61.1%), to Goldwater 27,175,754 (38.5%).

The next quadrennial election cycle proved to be a harbinger of things to come.

Nebraska Republican Senator Ben Sasse

In 1968, Alabama Governor George C. Wallace – a stridently biogted racist and segregationist, at the height of his hatred of Blacks – campaigned on the American Independent ticket against Republican Richard Nixon of New York, and Minnesota Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey, who had been LBJ’s Vice President. That year’s election was equally decisive in its victory, but what may be most interesting, is the fact that as a 3rd Party Candidate, the openly racist, bigoted Alabama Governor George C. Wallace, though he was a Democratic governor, campaigned on a platform of racial segregation as a Presidential candidate on the American Independent ticket – and commonly, though incorrectly known as a “Dixiecrat” – won 5 states (AL, AR, GA, LA, MS) and their 46 Electoral College votes, along with 9,901,118 Popular Votes, for 13.5% of all Popular Votes cast. It remains the strongest showing of a 3rd Party candidate in American political history. Not even John B. Anderson in 1980, or Ross Perot in 1992 won any Electoral College Votes, though Ross Perot made a good showing among the Popular Vote with 19,743,821, or 18.9% of all Popular Votes cast, and in 1996, Perot secured 8,085,294 Popular Votes, which was 8.4% of all Popular Votes cast, though he never won any Electoral College votes in any election.

Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski

Wallace’s strong showing among those 5 Southern states in 1968 was resounding evidence of how pervasive, ingrained, and embedded – how thoroughly infiltrated – the message of hate, and he as its chief messenger – along with the Ku Klux Klan, Communists, John Birch Society, and other such elements as then-New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller had mentioned at 1964’s RNC convention – had become in the South. Sadly, Nixon did nothing to help, and rather, relied upon a “Southern Strategy” to win over those very voters – the racist bigoted “Dixiecrats” who had become enured with the Ku Klux Klan, Communists, John Birch Society members, and others – to welcome them into the fold of the Republican Party.

Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” was the creation, per se (it was more an anthropological and demographic analysis of long-term trends than anything else), of Kevin Phillips (b.1940), a brilliant, if not genius (matriculated Colgate University aged 16, graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude, spent his junior year at Scotland’s University of Edinburgh, where he knew more about Scottish history than his Scottish classmates), Harvard Law-educated man who authored the 1969 book “The Emerging Republican Majority“ in which he detailed an ethnographic political strategy that capitalized upon, an exploited alleged hostilities between the Irish, Italians, and Poles, and Jews, Negroes, and affluent Yankees to achieve its goals. He later abandoned the GOP in the 1990’s after becoming grossly disaffected by them.

Having now authored over 13 books, the premise of his first book “The Emerging Republican Majority,” was the presumption that most voters “still voted on the basis of ethnic or cultural enmities that could be graphed, predicted and exploited. For instance, the old bitterness toward Protestant Yankee Republicans that had for generations made Democrats out of Irish, Italian, and Eastern European immigrants had now shifted, among their children and grandchildren, to resentment of the new immigrants – Negroes and Latinos – and against the national Democratic party, whose Great Society programs increasingly seemed to reflect favoritism for the new minorities over the old.”

Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy

In a May 17, 1970 article entitled “Nixon’s Southern strategy ‘It’s All In the Charts’” for the New York Times,

Georgia’s M.T.-headed Greene Representative

Fear the Q.

That’s the message Georgia’s nutjob Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is sending to Republicans, her constituents, and America.

The GOP is sunk.

They didn’t keep out the KKK, Communists, John Birch Society members, racist Dixiecats, and other such ilk in 1964, and look at ’em now! All grown up!

Mr. Lincoln would NOT be proud.

Of course, the utter nonsense of her demonstrably false claims of “voter fraud” in Georgia – which she claims led to Trump’s loss – somehow, magically, mysteriously, did NOT result in her loss.

She still hasn’t figured that one out.

Stupid cunt.

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As Democrats Call For Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Removal, Republicans Stay Silent

January 30, 2021, 6:20 PM ET

The list is long of the baseless conspiracy theories that Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has embraced. She’s:
1.) Denied that a plane hit the Pentagon on September 11, 2001;

2.) Supported the idea that the Parkland school shooting was a “false flag” operation meant to usher in tighter gun laws;

3.) Seemed to agree that Hillary Clinton was recorded “filleting” a child’s face.

4.) Greene has also “liked” social media posts that called for executing “deep state” FBI agents, or that;

5.) Advocated removing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with “a bullet to the head.”

6.) Greene supports QAnon and;

7.) Has said Muslims do not belong in government.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, CD-14, wears a “Trump Won” face mask as she arrives on the floor of the House to take her oath of office as a newly elected member of the House of Representatives on January 3. Erin Scott/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

As reports on Greene’s history and flirtations with violence have come to light, Democrats have rushed to condemn her, suggesting she be censured, stripped of committee assignments, or more: Representative Jimmy Gomez of California has promised to introduce a resolution that would expel Greene from the House of Representatives entirely. Other Democrats have said they would join that resolution.

Pelosi called Greene’s comments “absolutely appalling” and criticized House Republican leadership for placing Greene on the House Education Committee.

California Representative Barbara Lee said Greene “is a threat to the safety of members, staff, and our democracy. It’s time for her to go.”

Republican lawmakers have been more reticent. Utah Senator Mitt Romney indicated in a tweet that Greene was speaking “nonsense.” But most have stayed silent; a spokesperson for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he plans to “have a conversation” with Greene about her “deeply disturbing” comments. The lack of forceful denunciation doesn’t sit well with many Democrats.

“A member of your caucus has harassed a Parkland survivor and Representative @CoriBush, and made violent and dangerous statements,” Representative Katherine Clark, D-Massachusetts, tweeted Saturday. “How about serious consequences instead of a ‘conversation’, Kevin McCarthy?” (Representative Bush of Missouri is moving offices after a confrontation with Greene over Greene not wearing a face mask.)

But dealing with rogue members isn’t among McCarthy’s chief concerns these days. McCarthy’s priorities this year have been “traveling to Mar-a-Lago to make up with the former president,” keeping his job secure, and regaining majority control in 2022, NPR correspondent Ron Elving told Weekend Edition. McCarthy met with Trump on Thursday, reportedly to secure his support.

And those Republicans who are staying silent? If they opened their mouths, Democrats might not like what they hear. “There are also Republicans who want to circle the wagons and defend Representative Greene, much as they have defended the former president and his denial of the 2020 election results,” Elving said.

Even with a Democratic majority in the House, expelling Greene wouldn’t be easy. That would require a two-thirds majority vote, meaning around 70 Republicans would have to join the Democrats — something that would make them vulnerable to primary challenges. “And even then you’d have to ask, what would it ultimately accomplish?” Elving asked. “Would she not be more powerful as a martyr than she is now, far more important than she needs to be, with an even bigger megaphone?”

Some Republicans outside of Congress have condemned Greene. After the liberal group Media Matters reported this week on another conspiracy theory Greene had endorsed — that
8.) The November 2018 wildfires in California may have been caused by lasers from space linked to the Rothschild company — the Republican Jewish Coalition said it was “offended and appalled.” Other Jewish leaders have also vigorously condemned Greene’s embrace of “antisemitic canards.”

House Republicans have long known that Greene could be a problem for their party. “Everybody was well aware of her previous persona and who she is,” John Cowan, who challenged Greene during last summer’s primary runoff, told Axios. “Maybe they just assumed that the awe of winning an election would calm her down a little bit, and so she would actually be interested in governing and be interested in policy, and she’s just clearly not.”

In the absence of vociferous Republican condemnation in Congress, Greene is doubling down. In a statement Friday, titled “A Message to the Mob,” Greene thumbed her nose at detractors, claiming that the more the “radical, left-wing Democrat mob” and the “Fake News media” try to “take me out,” the more money she raises from supporters.

“Every attack. Every lie. Every smear strengthens my base of support at home and across the country because people know the truth and are fed up with the lies,” Greene wrote, blaming “cancel culture” and urging the GOP to stand in solidarity. “If Republicans cower to the mob,” she said, they would be “opening the door to let the vicious cancel culture mob take out every one of you.”

On Saturday, Greene said she had a “GREAT” phone call with her “all time favorite POTUS,” Donald Trump. “The blood thirsty media and the socialists hate America Democrats are attacking me now just like they always attack President Trump,” Greene said, adding: “I will never back down.”

https://www.npr.org/2021/01/30/962438098/as-democrats-call-for-marjorie-taylor-greenes-removal-republicans-stay-silent

Consuming A Steady Diet Of Lies Has Damaged The GOP

While I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of any political party, I am completely simpatico with Senator Sasse’s observations, and remarks.

Competition is good, wholesome, and healthy, and strengthens each competitor. So in a very real way, it would be disastrous for our political system – which for all practical purposes, is comprised of but two political parties – to suffer the loss of one. Instead, we should be seeking to increase the number of viable competitors.

The GOP’s problems are myriad, not the least of which are cowardice, and failure to stand for truth, and oppose lies, no matter their source, or who promulgated them. As evidenced by what they did the past 4 years, if the party cannot will not stand for “truth, justice, and the American way,” what will they fall for?

As the colloquial saying – and song by the same name – goes, “you’ve got to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything.”

Sadly, the GOP has already fallen.

The following article contains abbreviated excerpts of the original, which may be found linked at the conclusion.

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QAnon Is Destroying the GOP From Within

Until last week, too many in the Republican Party thought they could preach the Constitution and wink at QAnon. They can’t.

By Senator Ben Sasse
Republican of Nebraska
January 19, 2021

Eugene Goodman is an American hero. At a pivotal moment on January 6, the veteran United States Capitol Police officer single-handedly prevented untold bloodshed. Staring down an angry, advancing mob, he retreated up a marble staircase, calmly wielding his baton to delay his pursuers while calling out their position to his fellow officers. At the top of the steps, still alone and standing just a few yards from the chamber where senators and Vice President Mike Pence had been certifying the Electoral College’s vote, Goodman strategically lured dozens of the mayhem-minded away from an unguarded door to the Senate floor.

…

If and when the House sends its article of impeachment against Trump to the Senate, I will be a juror in his trial, and thus what I can say in advance is limited. But no matter what happens in that trial, the Republican Party faces a separate reckoning. Until last week, many party leaders and consultants thought they could preach the Constitution while winking at QAnon. They can’t. The GOP must reject conspiracy theories or be consumed by them. Now is the time to decide what this party is about.

The newly elected Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. She once ranted that “there’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it.” During her campaign, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had a choice: Disavow her campaign and potentially lose a Republican seat, or welcome her into his caucus and try to keep a lid on her ludicrous ideas. McCarthy failed the leadership test and sat on the sidelines. Now in Congress, Greene isn’t going to just back McCarthy as leader and stay quiet. She’s already announced plans to try to impeach Joe Biden on his first full day as president. She’ll keep making fools out of herself, her constituents, and the Republican Party.

If the GOP is to have a future outside the fever dreams of Internet trolls, we have to call out falsehoods and conspiracy theories unequivocally. We have to repudiate people who peddle those lies.

…

America’s Junk-Food Media Diet

The way Americans are consuming and producing news—or what passes for it these days—is driving us mad. This has been said many times, but the problem has worsened in the past five years. On the supply side, media outlets have discovered that dialing up the rhetoric increases clicks, eyeballs, and revenue. On the demand side, readers and viewers like to see their opinions affirmed, rather than challenged. When everybody’s outraged, everybody wins—at least in the short term.

This is not a problem only on the right or only on obscure blogs. The underlying economics that drive

Safety and Security in the Southern States during a Democratic Administration

Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Democratic Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you.

Perhaps you’ll recognize the opening words of Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, delivered March 4, 1861. There is one very minor, only slight change, however, and it is the substitution of the word “Democratic” for the word “Republican.”

That is purposeful, and deliberate, to illustrate a case in point.

Photograph shows participants and crowd at the first inauguration of President Abraham Lincoln, at the U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C. Lincoln is standing under the wood canopy, at the front, midway between the left and center posts. His face is in shadow but the white shirt front is visible. (Source: Ostendorf, p. 87) “A distant photograph from a special platform by an unknown photographer, in front of the Capitol, Washington, D.C., afternoon of March 4, 1861. ‘A small camera was directly in front of Mr. Lincoln,’ reported a newspaper, ‘another at a distance of a hundred yards, and a third of huge dimensions on the right … The three photographers present had plenty of time to take pictures, yet only the distant views have survived.” (Source: Ostendorf, p. 86-87)

Slave Southern states nowadays are largely Republican political strongholds.

That is not accidental. It is deliberate, and has been an ongoing effort in the Republican party since at least 1964, or, perhaps even earlier.

States below the Mason-Dixon line – a surveyor’s line of demarcation delineating primarily the southern border of Pennsylvania, and the western border of Delaware, from Maryland – sometimes also known as, or referred to as “slave states,” i.e., states where slavery as an institution was considered not only legal, but morally upright, ethical, and good – were once largely Democratic strongholds until around the mid-1960’s, or thereabouts.

The tables, however, were largely turned, and the tide began to shift in earnest beginning with the candidacy of Arizona United States Senator Barry Goldwater, who was the failed Republican candidate for President in 1964, opposite President Lyndon Baines Johnson of Texas, who as Vice President, succeeded to the Presidency upon the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas.

At the GOP National Convention that year, New York’s Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller ominously warned of the invasion of the GOP by radicalized elements from the South, which included members of the Ku Klux Klan, John Birch Society, Communists, and other domestic terrorists. In his address to the party’s delegates at the July 1964 Republican National Convention at Cow Palace in Daly City, California, he was given 5 minutes to address the delegates, and was booed for over 16 minutes. He was requesting adoption of a resolution to the 1964 official party platform condemning those groups and individuals whom belonged to them, who had infiltrated the Republican party, and sought to include the following language: “The Republican Party fully respects the contribution of responsible criticism, and defends the right of dissent in the democratic process. But we repudiate the efforts of

Open Letter to POTUS Abraham “Honest Abe” Lincoln

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.

Knowing Weems was a minister, and that he

Donald Trump Now A 2-Time Loser

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

There are more, but those are the highlights.

Of his impeachment, the venerable truth-telling BBC wrote:

Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks: “President Trump is a FAILED leader.”

Let’s listen to Arnie for a few minutes.

He has something to say.

It’s well worth watching.

He stated that, “This is my message to my fellow Americans and my friends around the world after January 6, 2021.”

In his last days in office, Trump gives to the rich.

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.

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Scores Of Private Charitable Foundations Got Paycheck Protection Program Money

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/16/946739398/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.

Recipients also include the Walt Disney Family Foundation, the

Ex-AL State Senator’s COVID-Dying Words: “We made a mistake.”

Larry Dixon

Larry Dixon, a longtime Republican Alabama State Senator, who for many years also chaired the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners died from COVID-19 last week, aged 78.

Dr. David Thrasher, MD, a Critical Care Pulmonologist (lung doctor) in the state’s capitol city of Montgomery, who was Dixon’s longtime friend and treated him in the early stages of the disease, said Dixon was exposed to the coronavirus at a social gathering “with a couple of guys” that was hosted outside about two weeks ago.

And while he was unsure how many people attended, Dr. Thrasher said he knew of two other men who attended the meetup and tested positive.

Dr. Thrasher also said that Larry’s wife Gaynell Dixon also contracted COVID-19 and is still recovering. He also said the couple has two daughters who both contracted the virus earlier this year and have recovered, and so far, do not appear to have been reinfected by their parents.

Dr. Thrasher spoke with Dixon’s wife Gaynell before Larry was placed on a ventilator, and said that Larry’s family wanted to let The People of Alabama know his last words:

“We messed up.
We let our guard down.
Please tell everybody to be careful,
and take this thing seriously.
This is real,
and if you get diagnosed,
get help immediately.”

As an Alabama State Senator, Dixon represented

Donald John Trump is a Loser and Liar

See: https://www.cisa.gov/news/2020/11/12/joint-statement-elections-infrastructure-government-coordinating-council-election

Donald John Trump is a:

• Pathological Liar

Crazy Much? White Republican Mississippi State Representative Price Wallace Can’t Spell, Advocates Treason, Hides, Then Apologizes, And Otherwise Shows His Ignorance.

👈This is a screenshot of a now-deleted Tweet from an actual White Republican Mississippi State Representative – Price Wallace – who was elected to represent MS State House District 77, Mendenhall.

Sadly, the mofo doesn’t even know the difference in SECEDE and SUCCEED. Maybe it’s a good thing he didn’t confuzalate it with suck seed.😳😂

And apparently, he’s either forgotten history, or skipped school during Civil War history week.

So it would only be natural to remind him, via the United States National Park Service website, that in January 1861 Mississippi state lawmakers adopted a secession declaration which stated:

“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery
– the greatest material interest of the world.”

Spoiler warning: They tried that once; it was phenomenally unsuccessful.

But let’s play along, and briefly think about the “bigger picture” of his bad idea.

When compared to the other 49 states, Mississippi’s economy is:
Ranked between Guam and Puerto Rico in Per Capita GDP.
48th overall in the U.S. in Quality of Life.
49th in High School Graduation Rates.
50th in Healthcare Access & Quality.
48th in Public Health.
48th in Economy.
46th in Education.
45th in Infrastructure.
44th in Fiscal Stability.

On July 25, 2017, writing for the Mississippi Clarion-Ledger, Geoff Pender stated that “Mississippi remains dependent on Federal dollars.” Citing research by Pew Charitable Trusts which showed that compared to other states, at 42.1%, Mississippi was one of 6 states which received the bulk of their revenue from the Federal government, and in Fiscal Year 2018 received 42.6% of state revenue from the Federal government, with 41.2% from state taxes, with the balance from service charges and local taxes.

Now, close your eyes and imagine if it “succeeded” from the Union… and lost all the Federal money it now gets.

In actuality, what we have here, is a duly-elected Public Official advocating treason against the United States. Isn’t there a law against that kind of crap?

Not in Mississippi.

The state constitution in Article 3, Section 10 reads:

Fact Checking Thom Hartmann –OR– Did Trump Really Do/Say That?

“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.

Regarding assertions that the Current White House Occupant is neither racist nor bigoted, the axiom “the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree” applies, because there is extant a news record and official public record of his father’s June 1927 arrest at a KKK rally described then as a “near-riot” which occurred in conjunction with that parade/rally.

Not only that, but there’s the persistent fact and inconvenient truth of the Justice Department’s 1973 Federal racial housing discrimination lawsuit against him, his father, and their company, all of which is a very embarrassing matter of public record for him.

And then, there’s his continued recalcitrant adherence to the false idea that the “Central Park 5” were guilty of the particularly brutal beating and repeated raping of a 28-year old White female jogger, a 1989 case in which 5 young Black & Hispanic male teens ages 14, 15, and 16, were (falsely) accused, convicted, sentenced, and imprisoned for a crime they did not commit. Later, in 2002, after serving their sentences, DNA evidence and analysis cleared them all, and the true solitary culprit – a previously convicted rapist – was found. The young men’s convictions were all vacated, and they shared a $41 million settlement.

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. 

In his November 5, 2020 column “Even Losing Will be a Business Opportunity for Trump” Thom Hartmann wrote in part:

“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.

“Once he unexpectedly won,

Texas’ Republican U.S. Senator Ted Cruz Blasting Twitter CEO Dorsey Proves He’s A Dingaling

Seems ol’ Teddy Boy got hot under the collar at Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey during a Senatorial hearing today, Wednesday, 28 October 2020, which was conducted remotely because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Frustrated at the responses, Ted Cruz screamed out at Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey,

“Who the hell elected you? Why do you persist in behaving as a Democratic super PAC, silencing views to the contrary of your political beliefs?”

Ol’ Ted should remember that “Freedom of Speech and of the Press” (First Amendment Rights) do NOT apply to businesses.

Only to the government.

The Press – and for all practical purposes, Twitter is considered part of the Press – is free to publish, or not, what they want. They are free to censor as much as they like, or not.

In 2018, in a 5-4 ruling in the case “MANHATTAN COMMUNITY ACCESS CORP. ETAL. v. HALLECK ETAL.,” the Supreme Court ruled that

“The Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment prohibits only governmental, not private, abridgment of speech.”

The majority opinion was written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and was joined by

Trump’s Presidency A Failure, And The GOP Age Is Over

“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

SCOTUS Fun Facts!

Merrick Garland was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Barack Obama in March 2016. The Senate never voted on his nomination.

Led by Republican Senate Majority Leader “Moscow Mitch” McConnell, the Senate took no action on POTUS Barack Obama’s nominee Merrick B. Garland on March 16, 2016.

The last time the Senate had NOT considered a SCOTUS nominee was 61 years 4 months 8 days prior with Harlan Johnson, who was nominated by Dwight D. Eisenhower on November 9, 1954.

The first nominee to have NO ACTION taken upon his nomination was…

NPR F***s Up

Today, A.C. Barrett was administered the Constitutional oath as a Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court by SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas.

She must still be administered the oath of office.

It’s only her SECOND job as a judge.

And she hasn’t even been a judge a total of 3 years yet!

Not even!!

Can you say “GREENHORN”? “Wet behind the ears”?

Recall that she came from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals – her first job as a jurist, which Trump also gave her. No doubt, he’ll expect something in return.

Yesterday, the Senate confirmed her nomination along a party line vote, 52R-48D.

It only took 31 days from nomination to confirmation for the Republican Senate Majority Leader “Moscow Mitch” McConnell of Kentucky to ramrod her through the process – a record time. She must like being

Remember: TAKE OUT THE TRASH IN NOVEMBER!

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!

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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

Trump Move Guarantees American Economic Devastation

Alternate headline:
Trump Fucks Over America

“I have instructed my representatives to stop negotiating until after the election when, immediately after I win, we will pass a major Stimulus Bill that focuses on hardworking Americans and Small Business,” Tweeted his highness, the Twitterer in Chief, and Chief Twidiot on Twitter the day after returning from a weekend hospital stay at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center where he was treated for COVID-19.

His hypocrisy marks a 180° reversal from the weekend when Trump pushed for negotiators to reach an agreement, telling them to “GET IT DONE.”

The SOB in Chief just cut his own throat -and- that of every other GOPer in every down-ballot race in America.

He CONTINUES to shoot himself in the feet, and America in the head and back – execution style.

Expect a🌊BLUE🌊TSUNAMI🌊in November!!

By his intransigence, he has now set America on a guaranteed one-way course to GREAT DEPRESSION II.

And that EVEN AFTER Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned of PERMANENT economic damage if additional support was not forthcoming.

Trump in the Presidential office of Walter Reed

The move marks a risky gamble

WE DID IT!

Thanks… for nothing, Trump – you piece of shit.

Congratulations, Murka!

You did it!

You’ve
SURPASSED
the
200,000
Trumpvirus Death Count!

In a mere 8 months and 2 days, Trump’s

Dog Whistler For Sale

UrbanDictionary.com states this about the popular cultural meaning of “Dog Whistle“:

“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.”

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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.

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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.”

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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

Reagan quoted Lincoln about Trump

“You know, the first Republican President once said, ‘While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no Administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can very seriously injure the Government in the short space of four years.’

“If Mr. Lincoln could see what’s happened the last three-and-a-half years, he might hedge a little on that statement. But, with the virtues that are our legacy as a free people and with the vigilance that sustains liberty, we still have time to use our renewed compact to overcome the injuries that have been done to America these past three-and-a half years.”

– Ronald Reagan, July 17, 1980, Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech, Republican National Convention, Joe Louis Arena, Detroit, MI, quoting Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861

Thought to be the last beardless portrait of Lincoln, this photo was made August 13, 1860 in Springfield, IL by Preston Butler, “for the portrait painter, John Henry Brown, noted for his miniatures in ivory. … ‘There are so many hard lines in his face,’ wrote Brown in his diary, ‘that it becomes a mask to the inner man. His true character only shines out when in an animated conversation, or when telling an amusing tale. … He is said to be a homely man; I do not think so.'”

Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911-2004) served two terms as President of the United States 1981-1989

It’s nothing short of ironic, tragically amazing, and

Who Was The First Black Female VP Candidate?

Charlotta Bass (right) Progressive Party VP candidate, and Progressive Party Presidential candidate Vincent Hallinan, 1952

You’ve come a long way, baby.

Kudos to Kamala Harris on being selected by former Vice President Joe Biden to be his, and the Democratic Party’s Vice Presidential candidate. Truly, it’s a momentous moment in time.

But Senator Harris isn’t the first Black woman to have ever been a Vice Presidential pick.

Los Angeles newspaper owner and political activist Charlotta Bass (1874-1969) was.

She began her career as a conservative Republican, but by the 1940s, however, she had made a singificant political transition.

And in 1948 she supported Progressive Party candidate Henry Wallace in his unsuccessful bid for the Presidency.

Four years later, she was nominated to be the Vice Presidential nominee on the Progressive Party ticket.

She was the first African American woman to carry a political party’s nomination for the second highest office in the land.

Her acceptance speech to be the Progressive Party’s VP candidate was given at the Chicago convention of the Progressive Party on Sunday, March 30, 1952, and appears below.

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I stand before you with great pride.

This is a historic moment in American political life.

Historic for myself, for my people, for all women.

For the first time in the history of this nation a political party has chosen a Negro woman for the second highest office in the land.

It is a great honor to be chosen as a pioneer. And a great responsibility. But I am strengthened by thousands on thousands of pioneers who stand by my side and look over my shoulder—those who have led the fight for freedom—those who led the fight for women’s rights—those who have been in the front line fighting for peace and justice and equality everywhere. How they must rejoice in this great understanding which here joins the cause of peace and freedom.

These pioneers, the living and the dead, men and women, black and white, give me strength and a new sense of dedication.

I shall tell you how I come to stand here. I am a Negro woman. My people came before the Mayflower. I am more concerned with what is happening to my people in my country than in pouring out money to rebuild a decadent Europe for a new war. We have lived through two wars and seen their promises turn to bitter ashes. Two Negroes were the first Americans to be decorated for bravery in France in World War I, that war that was fought to make the world safe for democracy. But when it ended, we discovered we were making Africa safe for exploitation by the very European powers whose freedom and soil we had defended. And that war was barely over when a Negro soldier, returning to his home in Georgia, was lynched almost before he could take off his uniform. That war was scarcely over before my people were stoned and shot and beaten in a dozen northern cities. The guns were hardly silenced before a reign of terror was unloosed against every minority that fought for a better life.

And then we fought another war. You know Dorie Miller, the spud peeler who came out of his galley to fight while white officers slept at Pearl Harbor. And I think of Robert Brooks, another “first Negro”, and of my own nephew. We fought a war to end fascism whose germ is German race superiority and the oppression of other peoples. A Negro soldier returned from that war—he was not even allowed to take off his uniform before he was lynched for daring to exercise his constitutional right to vote in a Democratic primary.

Yes, we fought to end Hitlerism. But less than 7 years after the end of that war, I find men who lead my government paying out my money and your money to support the rebirth of Hitlerism in Germany to make it a willing partner in another war. We thought to destroy Hitlerism—but its germ took root right here. I look about me, at my own people—at all colored peoples all over the world. I see the men who lead my government supporting oppression of the colored peoples of the earth who today reach out for the independence this nation achieved in 1776.

Yes, it is my government that supports the segregation by violence practiced by a Malan in South Africa, sends guns to maintain a bloody French rule in Indo-China, gives money to help the Dutch repress Indonesia, props up Churchill’s rule in the Middle East and over the colored peoples of Africa and Malaya. This week Churchill’s general in Malaya terrorized a whole village for refusing to act as spies for the British, charging these Malyan and Chinese villagers who enjoyed no rights and no privileges—and I quote him literally—“for failing to shoulder the responsibility of citizenship.” But neither the Malayan people—nor the African people who demonstrate on April 6—will take this terror lying down. They are fighting back.

Shall my people support a new war to create new oppressions? We want peace and we shall have freedom. We support the movement for freedom of all peoples everywhere—in Africa, in Asia, in the Middle East, and above all, here in our own country. And we will not be silenced by the rope, the gun, the lynch mob or the lynch judge. We will not be stopped by the reign of terror let loose against all who speak for peace and freedom and share of the world’s goods, a reign of terror the like of which this nation has never seen.

Postcard with a photograph of a young Charlotta Bass, c.1901-1910. The photograph may have been taken in Providence, Rhode Island, where Bass (then Charlotta Spears) lived with an older brother and worked at the Providence Watchman, an African-American newspaper. From the Charlotta Bass / California Eagle Photograph Collection, 1880-1986, Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, Los Angeles, CA.

For 40 years I have been a working editor and publisher of the oldest Negro newspaper in the least. During those 40 years I stood

Things Don’t Look Good For Alabama State Representative Will Dismukes

Be very wary of an attorney who says these type things about his client:

“Will is young and is learning some hard lessons. But he’s a very convicted man. He’s very convicted in his faith and he’s very convicted in his character. He’s very convicted in his heritage. And Will’s not a person who’s going to shy away from the tough questions to satisfy folks. And that upsets a lot of people. And I understand that. Especially in these times.

“But Will’s not going to admit to something he didn’t do. And he’s not going to step down from a position that he was elected to that he’s trying to do a good job at just because someone has pointed the finger and tried to make him out to be a bad guy. He’s a fighter. I’d be surprised if he resigns.”

Learning hard lessons…

Convicted – 4 times!…

Heritage – especially if you’re aligned with a White Supremacist group…

Resigns…

When your own attorney uses those words in response to the charges, you gotta’ KNOW that it prolly won’t go well.

So already, things don’t look good for Will Dismukes.

A since-deleted Facebook social media post by Will Dismukes, a White Republican member of the Alabama State House of Representatives, State House District 88, who was at the time, also a Baptist pastor of Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, Prattville. Dismukes resigned after 3 days of outcry following discovery of this since-deleted social media post. “Fort Dixie” is the Selma, Alabama, home of Patricia Godwin, a woman with deep ties to the neo-Confederate cause and organized hate.

You should be concerned particularly, and especially if

Geraldo🤪Rivera😂Arrives Late To The Party

Let me guess… some of your best friends are Asian.

Someone tell Geraldo ‘that ship sailed long ago.’

Geraldo Rivera to Trump: Asian friends of mine say ‘China virus’ has ‘racial overtone’

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/510913-geraldo-rivera-tells-trump-asian-friends-of-mine-say-china-virus-has-racial

Geraldo Rivera told President Trump during an interview Thursday that Asian friends of say the term “China virus” has “a racial overtone.”

Geraldo Rivera

Rivera, speaking to the president on his WTAM radio show out of Cleveland, asked Trump about his repeated use of “China virus” to refer to the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19.

“I have some Asian friends who say, you know, that it’s not very polite, that they worry that it has a racial overtone,” Rivera said.

Trump said

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis: Former Governor Rick Scott Watched Over Unemployment System Revamp

In a recent interview published Tuesday, 04 August 2020, with Jim DeFede Investigative Reporter for WFOR-TV ch4, Miami, FL’s CBS affiliate, Governor Ron DeSantis made some startling comments, the most notable of which was about the state’s Unemployment Compensation system.

Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, succeeded Rick Scott, also a Republican

While acknowledging the state’s Unemployment Compensation system was previously aged 40 or 50 years, and therefore, by some means, inefficient, it was revamped in the last 5, or 6 years during the administration of then-Governor Rick Scott, also a Republican.

While he didn’t explicitly blame the former Governor, he left little room for speculation that Rick Scott had a hand in frustrating a system for claimants and claims upon the state’s UC system.

An earlier news item published 28 May 2020 by ABC News affiliate WFTS-TV ch28 in Tampa, identified that

How BAD is Trump’s Economy?

Trump’s economy is so bad, that…

Before we talk about how BAD it is, first…

Let’s turn to some official agencies to answer that question.

We’ll start with information from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the St. Louis Federal Reserve’s Economic Data.

Here’s a picture – it’s said that they’re worth 1000 words.

The DARK GRAY is Trump’s term in office, while the white line reflects the Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP – “real” means adjusted for inflation year-to-year) – which has consistently increased since Obama’s first quarter in his first term in office.

The MEDIUM GRAY (and DARK GRAY) areas represent the extent of Trump’s Economic Losses.

The LIGHT GRAY (at G.W. Bush’s end of term in office -and- presently) are representative of Economic Recessions.

So now that you’ve had an opportunity to examine the chart, let’s