Everyone did:
"what digby sez..."
Month: January 2021
Climate activist Gan Golan writes this on his Facebook page and it is very smart. I hope this advice is heeded:
Napoleon famously said: “Never interrupt your enemy when they are in the middle of making a mistake,” an enduring strategic insight that we should adapt directly to the present moment: “Never interrupt a nazi when they are punching themselves in the face.” Yes, right now, the nazis are punching themselves in the face and we should not interrupt them.
The events in DC have suddenly made clear to the public and to The State what has been obvious all along: the MAGA movement is an existential threat to the country’s stability. Out of sheer stupidity they succeeded in creating a pure, undeniable narrative for the world to see. They directly attacked a commonly accepted symbol of Democracy without any discernible provocation. Now, despite their desperate attempts to do so they cannot use their usual gaslighting and disinformation tactics to escape accountability, because well, Antifa wasn’t even around, so they cannot draw false equivalencies.
The results are that the public has turned on them. Perhaps even more importantly The State has turned on them. There are now massive internal fissures within their movement that is fracturing both their elite funders and their white middle class base. There are now even calls to purge law enforcement of white supremacists and MAGA sympathizers, which was decades overdue.
All of this is a good thing. The Nazis are punching themselves in the face.
The most important thing for us to do is to not interrupt this narrative by doing anything that would distract from it. Instead, allow it to flourish and continue to wreak havoc on their entire network as their infrastructure gets obliterated. This would be a perfect moment for Antifa and to stay home, kick your boots on the table, drink vegan milkshakes and eat popcorn.
Or, better yet, if militant anti -fascists really want to be seen in public right now then draw a contrast. Go out and cheer frontline healthcare workers, or help distribute vaccines, or deliver food to families in need. Help our communities survive and grieve. The last thing we need to do right now is to try and punch nazis in the face because they are doing a much better job of it than any of us could.
I understand the impulse to confront the insurrectionists. But it would be a terrible, terrible idea for all the reasons outlined above.
More than 10 million people have seen the video shot by HuffPost reporter Igor Bobic showing a Black Capitol Police officer leading pro-Trump rioters away from where senators were holed up in the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Now, ProPublica has uncovered new footage — amid a trove of content archived from the now-shuttered social platform Parler — that reveals the raw moments before Officer Eugene Goodman’s actions. The clip, recorded minutes after crowds breached a barrier outside, allows the public to see and hear new details from a turbulent day that ultimately led to President Donald Trump’s second impeachment.
As the just-under-two-minute recording begins and the door is opened, cheers are heard from crowds of demonstrators gathered outside. Once inside, the mob fans out, passing a Senate appointments desk and heading toward a bank of elevators.
Half of the video depicts the showdown between Goodman and the angry mob, and lets viewers see more clearly the size of the crowd and its rage. “Where they countin’ the votes?!” yells a man in the crowd repeatedly after rioters approach Goodman, who was blocking a corridor and stairs that lead to the Senate floor and other key offices.
Goodman had been guarding the entrance before demonstrators broke open a door moments earlier on the west side of the Capitol. After a loud crack, rioters are seen streaming into the building to the sound of glass breaking. Some chanted “U-S-A” as they sought out lawmakers.
Allegations of racism against the Capitol Police are nothing new: Over 250 Black cops have sued the department since 2001. Some of those former officers now say it’s no surprise white nationalists were able to storm the building.
The video also shows the brief, but tense, standoff with Goodman as he keeps his hand on his gun holster. Goodman — eyes wide and mask sliding below his face — continues trying to keep the crowd at bay. “Don’t do it!” someone shouts.
It soon became clear that Goodman was outnumbered. He turns and heads up the stairs he had been blocking moments earlier.
“Are you going to beat us all?” a man in the crowd says. Seconds later, the camera pans to the floor and cuts out.
The day after the first video emerge, I said Goodman should get the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Of course, Trump has degraded that so much maybe he wouldn’t want it.
This will have to do:
A bipartisan group of lawmakers has introduced a bill to award Goodman the Congressional Gold Medal for luring the mob away from lawmakers. Goodman is a 40-year-old U.S. Army veteran and deployed with the 101st Airborne Division to Iraq for a year, The Washington Post reported.
A Texas real estate agent who took a private jet to the Capitol last week and called it “one best days of my life” was charged Friday for participating in the violent insurrection.
Jenna Ryan, a Frisco, Texas real estate broker and life coach, has been charged with knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building without lawful authorities and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds after documenting her two-day excursion to D.C. on social media.
Ryan went on a PR offensive after the riot, telling Spectrum News that she “answered the call of my president” and proudly stormed the Capitol because the election was rigged. “It’s not necessarily about taking over the Capitol, it’s about ‘we the people own this building,’” she said.
According to a criminal complaintfiled in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Ryan diligently documented her participation in the mob—starting from her flight on a “small private aircraft” on Jan. 5.
The next day, she posted a bathroom mirror selfie on Facebook with the caption: “We’re gonna go down and storm the capitol. They’re down there right now and that’s why we came and so that’s what we are going to do. So wish me luck.” She added: “This is a prelude going to war.”
In one now-deleted video, she filmed herself in a crowd going into the Capitol through the Rotunda entrance. She walked past broken windows, up some stairs, and said, “We are going to fucking go in here. Life or death, it doesn’t matter. Here we go.”
Then, she turned to the camera and added, “Y’all know who to hire for your realtor. Jenna Ryan for your realtor.”
By the time Ryan made it to the door of a building “clearly desecrated, with broken glass windows shattered, and security alarms sounding,” she yelled “U-S-A! U-S-A!” and “Here we are, in the name of Jesus!
She also took photos of herself in front of a broken window with the caption, “Window at The capital [sic]. And if the news doesn’t stop lying about us we’re going to come after their studios next…’”
Hours later, Ryan posted on Twitter: “We just stormed the Capital. It was one of the best days of my life.”
But, as backlash to her antics grew in the Lone Star State, she gave multiple interviews and flooded her social media with posts defending herself and saying she was “truly heartbroken for the people who have lost their lives.
Then, in a Thursday interview with CandysDirt.com, Ryan said she and her fellow rioters did not care that someone was shot because “our freedom is more important to us than our lives.”
Ryan, who runs a life-coaching business called SelfLoveU and has previously hosted an advertising segment on a local radio station, dug in further on Twitter, retweeting election conspiracies and offering to provide real estate services if Texas secedes from the Union.
“Can’t face federal charges for exercising my right to freedom of speech and assembly,” she wrote last week, adding that she was “an innocent person who is not a professional rioter; someone just living and standing up for what I believe in.”
“You can never cancel Jenna Ryan,” she wrote. However, by Monday, she said her publisher had canceled her self help book that was due out next month.
The extreme entitlement in those comments are almost more than I can bear. The celebration of violence among Republicans like this woman is proof of their overwhelming sense of privilege.T his woman literally didn’t believe that anything she did was criminal. She thought that because she was her, it was her God-given right.
We are a very sick culture. And I’m not talking about COVID.
During the House of Representatives’ impeachment debate on Wednesday, Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., turned to the Republican side of the aisle and asked, “Is there any depravity too low? Is there any outrage too far? Is there any blood and violence too much to turn hearts and minds in this body?”
For 197 House Republicans, the answer, apparently, is no — at least when it comes to President Donald Trump and his rabid supporters. After all, just one week before Trump sent an angry, deluded mob, which he had summoned to gather on that day, to storm the U.S. Capitol and stop a joint session of Congress from certifying the Electoral College votes for Joe Biden. The violence that ensued targeted the elected representatives who were in the building, including Republican Vice President Mike Pence.
“This is a moment of truth, my friends,” Connolley asked his Republican colleagues this week. “Are you on the side of chaos and the mob? Or on the side of constitutional democracy and our freedom?”
Only ten GOP House members defended their colleagues, their institution, the democratic process and the Constitution by voting to impeach Donald Trump for a second time. Only ten. So yes, Congressman Connolly was right to ask the question. As we’ve seen over the past five years of the Trump nightmare, one that has featured everything from sexual assault to national security betrayal to massive corruption and now incitement of a violent insurrection, there is no outrage too far nor depravity too low.
Sure, these Republican officials sometimes grumble anonymously to the press and many of them privately assure their congressional comrades that they disapprove, but the base loves Trump so there’s nothing much they can do about it if they want to keep their jobs — which many are apparently willing to sell their souls to do.
Polling done after the assault on Congress shows that Trump has lost a little support from Republicans but not much. According to a Politico–Morning Consult poll, 75 percent of Republican voters said they still approve of the job Trump is doing, which is 8 points less than it was a month ago. A Reuters–Ipsos showed a steeper decline of 18 points since August, bringing Trump down to 70 percent approval among Republicans. That’s right. He’s lost some support but you’ll notice that in both polls the vast majority of Republican voters still approve of Donald Trump.
And it appears that they don’t find the violence that was perpetrated on police officers or the vandalism and threats to Vice President Pence’s life to be deal-breakers. As this New York Times article illustrates, many local and state Republican officials across the country either believes the violence was perpetrated by people other than Trump supporters or was something they didn’t have a problem with in the first place. The report quotes one Oklahoma County GOP chairman wondering on Facebook just hours before the riotous mob took over the Capitol why violence is unacceptable. He wrote, “What the crap do you think the American revolution was? A game of friggin pattycake?”
According to The Times, “the opposition to [Trump] emerging among some Republicans has only bolstered their support of him.” That’s the support that turned into ugly mob violence on Jan. 6th.
When Trump boasted that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any voters, he may have been right. And this does present something of a dilemma for the Republican establishment which looks at his national record and sees someone who lost the popular vote twice, the electoral college once and put both the House and Senate back in Democratic hands over the course of his single term. And yet his blatant white nationalism, lies and conspiracy-mongering has proven to be catnip to the hardcore base of the party, rendering any attempt to purge him very difficult.
Nonetheless, they are testing the waters. While it’s true that Trump maintains a large majority of support among GOP voters, it’s not as large as it used to be and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was not pleased by the losses in Georgia which he reportedly lays at Trump’s feet. For his part, McConnell got what he wanted from Trump and no longer has any reason to put up with him. And neither does Corporate America which, unlike Trump’s cult followers, is not immersed in conspiracy theories and doesn’t want to see the country descend into violence and chaos. That’s bad for business. (Of course, it’s just a total coincidence that they are taking this “principled stand” against Trump at the moment when Democrats are a week away from taking total control of the government.)
On the House side, you have a national security hawk and a member of the House Leadership, Liz Cheney, R-Wy, coming out strong against Trump to see if there are any remnants of the old flag waving Republican Party that can be reached with calls to traditional America patriotism. So far, it isn’t looking good. The Trump followers may chant “USA!, USA!” and babble about “Communist China” but their real enemies are already within the U.S. borders and it appears that Liz Cheney may be one of them.
I don’t think anyone knows yet whether Trump will survive this or if Trumpism survives without Trump. He’s dominated our political culture for five years, with his desperate need for attention and our compulsion to give it to him. Obviously, tens of millions came to worship him as a cult leader — the QAnon believers among them, and they are legion, even think he is “a messianic warrior battling ‘deep state’ Satanists.” But he deeply invaded the consciousness of the rest of the country as well, even those who hate him with the same passion as those who adore him. From the moment he came down that golden escalator in 2015, we haven’t been able to take our eyes off of him, even when we desperately wanted to.
But after Jan. 20 he will not be able to command that level of attention, even if he decides to announce his run for 2024 that same day. There is no novelty in anything he might do, he will no longer wield real power and without access to his social media following, he simply will not be particularly accessible, at least on the level he has been for the past five years. He still has his supporters, of course, but without the grandeur of the office and the ability to dominate the political stage, you have to wonder if he will be able to maintain their attention much longer.
I have no doubt that “Trumpism,” if it’s defined as the right-wing extremism that let fly at the U.S. Capitol last week, will continue to be a threat. It existed before Trump came along. He just grew it and brought it mainstream. But I’m afraid it now has a life of its own and I’m not sure that Corporate America, Mitch McConnell, or even Donald Trump can snap some fingers and make it go away. The problem really isn’t Trump. It’s all those people who said over and over again, “he says what I’m thinking.”
Brian Stelter’s newsletter catches us up on the other crisis in America.
In his address to the nation Thursday evening, President-elect Biden said about the coronavirus pandemic, “The crisis of deep human suffering is in plain sight.” But here’s a question worth asking: Is it, truly, in plain sight?
The political and national security crisis triggered by domestic terrorism at the US Capitol, and the ensuing impeachment of President Trump, has unquestionably overshadowed the public health crisis. And yet the suffering is still very real and the situation has never been more dire. Earlier this week, the US set another single-day death record when 4,462 people died in one day, according to Johns Hopkins data. Each day brings north of 200,000 new cases. And the total US death toll is approaching 400,000 — a number the country will likely surpass before Inauguration Day.
But you wouldn’t necessarily know that by scanning the front pages of newspapers or the homepages of major news websites this week. I noticed, for instance, that The New York Times and The Washington Post only had one reference each to the virus on their Thursday front pages. When scanning CNN.com earlier this afternoon, there were no coronavirus stories in the top half of the website. And even when outlets are making time or room for the coronavirus, most stories center around the vaccines, not the deaths and economic crisis.
No doubt, journalists are doing their very best to juggle all of these stories. But as we cover DC politics and the fallout from last week’s attack, we should not forget that thousands of Americans continue to lose their lives each day to this ruthless virus. And while the vaccine rollout is gradually improving, the situation right now is, frankly, very alarming and urgent…
East coast bias
Much of the suffering happening right now is coming from the West Coast. In Los Angeles County, one person is dying of Covid-19 every six minutes, according to Hopkins data. Hospitals are struggling. As someone who hails from the Pacific-facing side of our country, but now lives in NY, I can attest to the fact that the East Coast gets special treatment from national news outlets. If it storms in New York or one of our neighboring cities, the whole world knows about it. But the West Coast, far from the biggest newsrooms, doesn’t get that special treatment.
And I’d argue that bias is having a noticeable effect on how the crisis unfolding in L.A. is being covered. When was the last time you saw a national news outlet carry a press conference from a California official on the virus, for example? Compare that to how often Bill de Blasio and Andrew Cuomo were on TV when NY experienced its surge.
Don’t take my word for it – take Sara Sidner’s. The L.A.-based CNN correspondent, who was overcome with emotion during a live shot on “New Day” Tuesday morning, joined Brian Stelter on this week’s “Reliable Sources” podcast. She matter-of-factly said that “there is a bias” and it’s readily apparent now that she lives on the West Coast…
“It looked like a war zone inside”
Sidner told Stelter about recent visits to hospitals that look like war zones. “There are people everywhere,” she said – “people with real emergencies that need an ICU bed are in the emergency room hallways. That’s how little room there is.”
“And to see the doctors and nurses running from person to person,” she said, “it was terrifying, because when you live and work in a community, you are a part of the community. And I was thinking to myself, if I got into an accident right now, or if a friend of mine got into an accident, or a complete stranger, just a fellow American got into an accident — right now, this is where they’re going to be treated: in the hallways, because the Covid patients need to be separated out. That’s insane in the most wealthy nation on Earth. What are we doing?”
Sidner also said that she felt “exposed and embarrassed” when her rage turned into tears on live TV. It is what “we’re taught not to do,” she said. But her human reaction helped draw newfound attention to the Covid-19 crisis, Stelter pointed out. “If it did something to help,” she said, “then I’ll embarrass myself every single day, all day long.”
As someone who lives in LA and was told yesterday that they estimate 1 in 3 people have Covid in this county, it’s a little bit stunning that this isn’t much of a story in the national press. I know it’s hard. There is a LOT going on. But it is really bad here as well as other states, of course, and I feel as if it’s just another “regional” filler story. I know for a fact that if there was a train derailment in the Acela corridor they would find time to tell it in great detail for days on end…
Anyway, enough whining. It is what it is. And the media talking about it isn’t going to change anything anyway. We’ll just have to hunker down and get through it. I’m one of the lucky ones who works from home so I can isolate myself from other people. It’s the poor essential workers who are forced to be out there every day, many of whom live in crowded, multi-generational housing, who are paying the biggest price. It’s just awful.
Sen. Jon Tester is recognizable as much for his haircut as for his moderate politics. As a cable TV guest, the Montana Democrat is not exactly a “get.” He recently complained that Democrats rely on too narrow a slice of caucus members to deliver messages to voters across the country. And he’s right.
Rural voters don’t identify with spokespeople with whom they don’t identify seems plain enough. “You cannot have Chuck Schumer talking rural issues to rural people; it ain’t gonna sell,” Tester said. “And quite frankly, I don’t know that you can have Jon Tester go talk to a bunch of rich people and tell them what they need to be doing.”
But last week’s insurrection stirred the Montana farmer to speak out about the coast-to-coast culture of impunity underlying it. In USA Today, Tester called for accountability for both rioters and complicit colleagues:
Last week, as I worked in my Senate office, I watched in horror as terrorists ransacked our nation’s Capitol, where I represent Montanans in the U.S. Senate.
The Capitol is a beacon of hope, which I share with colleagues, staffers, custodial workers, reporters, woodworkers and law enforcement officials, among thousands of other Americans.
In the aftermath of that armed insurrection, it is our duty to hold everyone involved accountable to our laws and history — not just President Donald Trump and the violent rioters he incited, but also the members of Congress who enabled him.
A few days before the violent insurrection, as the president pressured Georgia’s Secretary of State to find enough votes to overturn his election loss, 13 of my Senate colleagues took the shocking step of announcing plans to challenge the outcome of the election.
Maybe they did it because they believe it will help them in their next election. Maybe they did it to raise money, or because it’s much easier to follow than to lead. Whatever their reasons, blame rests squarely on their shoulders, and history will never forget who they are — no matter how much they try to explain it away now.
If traitors to our democracy aren’t held accountable, we will fall under siege again. And if that happens, it will unfold with better planning and even bloodier results.
Millions of Americans watched as armed terrorists marched from the president’s rally to Capitol Hill, then smashed their way into our nation’s foremost symbol of freedom and democracy.
After officers regained control of the Capitol, some of those 13 senators quickly changed their tune, condemning the outcome they provoked — without taking any responsibility for their role in parroting, protecting and enabling the disaster 16 blocks west of Capitol Hill for years.
For the past four years, this president has cheapened the institutions of our country, mocked our democracy, disposed of our allies and embraced dictators. He did it because too many politicians enabled his crusade for unchecked power, found an excuse for every lie, ignored every breathtaking tweet and pretended our fragile democracy wasn’t on the line.
On Wednesday, our democracy was on the line. Up close and on live TV for everyone in the world to see. The insurrection of the U.S. Capitol was domestic terrorism, plain and simple.
I represent a state whose early history was shaped by crooked, power-hungry politicians. More than a century ago, one of the wealthiest men on the planet, a mining magnate from Montana named William Clark, bribed his way to a seat in the U.S. Senate. In our state, a lot of powerful people looked the other way because they were afraid of him. But in Washington, the scandal was so concerning that the Senate initially refused to even seat Clark.
The people of Montana got fed up with all this unchecked power. Republicans and Democrats, and even socialists, teamed up to pass powerful reforms to put political power back in the hands of Montana’s people. This is history worth repeating.
Let’s declare war on unchecked power. Let’s demand courage, accountability and truth from our leaders. Let’s call phonies for what they are, including those who wrap themselves in flags before burning America down.
And to my colleagues who helped set off this tragic set of events: I urge you to take an honest look in the mirror and accept responsibility for the damage you’ve done.
The future of our fragile democracy depends on it.
Janan Ganesh writes at Financial Times that a look in the mirror is not enough. Republicans will need a time machine (emphasis mine):
Whether we date it to the congressional midterm election of 1994, or Barry Goldwater’s White House bid in 1964, or the McCarthyite 1950s, the party has not policed its right flank for a long time. The Republican portrayal of government as inherently malign is hardly new. Nor is the cheapness with which the American Revolution is invoked (both Richard Nixon and the former congressional leader Newt Gingrich did it). The impugning of opponents’ legitimacy did not commence with president-elect Joe Biden’s this winter.
Ganesh is not sanguine about the Republicans’ prospects. Tester isn’t speculating.
“Central to [Donald] Trump’s mystique is that he breaks rules and gets away with it,” writes Michelle Goldberg. It is a perk that comes with being a trust-fund baby that people who sacked the Capitol Jan. 6 at his urging at once despise and envy. The huckster offered them a taste of the Trump life for the low, low price of their constitutional republic.
Rioters who assaulted Capitol police and kicked in windows and doors last week behaved as if they had carte blanche and the president’s blessing. It is “an animating irony” of Trump’s bargain-basement authoritarianism, Goldberg writes, “that it revels in lawlessness while glorifying law and order.”
That is why “showing the world that he cannot in fact get away with it” is essential to ending Trumpism, a scholar of authoritarian regimes tells Goldberg.
Because the principal driver of unrest on the right and the left is not economic inequality, although there is that. It is the stark nature of the inequity in the operation of American justice that feeds distrust in government and in democracy itself.
For that to change, “and justice for all” has to be more than an empty slogan.
Police impunity for the killing of civilians in 2020 inspired the largest wave of Black Lives Matter protests the nation has seen. The police killing by strangulation of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minn., and the shootings of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky. and Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta, Ga. brought to a boil the anger simmering for years over the killings of unarmed Blacks by white police officers.
Meanwhile, with exceptions, whites and/or elites and/or police who commit crimes go free if brought to account at all. The contrast in how District and Capitol police prepared for the arrival of Trump’s ragtag army and how they treated Black Lives Matter protesters last summer was stark. Trump’s insurrectionists felt immune.
“My client had heard the oft-repeated words of President Trump,” St. Louis attorney Albert Watkins said of client Jake Angeli. The “QAnon Shaman” was arrested for his participation in the Trump Insurrection.
“The words and invitation of a president are supposed to mean something,” Watkins continued. When the president invites you to do it, “that means it is not illegal.” Watkins implied. Angeli (who is white) has requested a presidential pardon from the patron saint of getting away with it. *
Getting away with it is undermining trust in government on both the right and the left. Two-tiered justice has to end.
Police assault and arrest Black Lives Matter protesters for less. After a months-long investigation, New York Attorney General Letitia James brought suit against the New York Police Department on Thursday for the department’s treatment of peaceful protesters there last summer:
The investigation found that officers allegedly used “indiscriminate, unjustified, and repeated use of batons, pepper spray, bicycles and a crowd control tactic known as ‘kettling’ against peaceful protestors,” the release said.”
There is no question that the NYPD engaged in a pattern of excessive, brutal, and unlawful force against peaceful protesters,” said James.”
Over the past few months, the NYPD has repeatedly and blatantly violated the rights of New Yorkers, inflicting significant physical and psychological harm and leading to great distrust in law enforcement.”
Discriminatory (or preferential) treatment of offenders is only one aspect of systemic inequality in this country but, in light of the last year’s event, a glaring one.
After the 2014 poisoning of Flint, Mich. drinking water at the hands of state officials, Michigan’s attorney general Thursday announced criminal charges against former Gov. Rick Snyder and eight other state officials, for their alleged roles in the crisis:
Together the group face 42 counts related to the drinking water catastrophe roughly seven years ago. The crimes range from perjury to misconduct in office to involuntary manslaughter.
The drinking water debacle is linked to at least 12 deaths and at least 80 people sickened with Legionnaires’ disease after untreated water from the Flint River caused lead to leach from old pipes, poisoning the majority Black city’s water system.
NBC News adds:
Snyder, 62, and eight others who worked under him face a host of charges stemming from a water supply switch in 2014 that exposed Flint residents to dangerous levels of lead and Legionnaires’ disease.
“Let me start by saying the Flint water crisis is not some relic of the past,” Michigan Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud told reporters. “At this very moment the people of Flint continue to suffer from the categorical failure of public officials at all levels of government who trampled upon their trust and evaded accountability for far too long.”
Our-two-tiered system of justice that over-punishes some and allows others to evade accountability “for far too long” is what led the U.S. to a place where trust not just in government but in popular sovereignty itself is at an all-time low. It led to the election of a career con man as president and the rise of a fascist movement that rejects the very principles it purports to love. The actions this week in New York and Michigan may help restore our confidence in ourselves, but don’t hold your breath.
*UPDATE: Federal prosecutors now say insurrectionists including Angeli (legally Jacob Anthony Chansley) intended “to capture and assassinate elected officials.“
Last night Brian Williams said “Big corps don’t like to be associated with seditionists.”
He was talking about the corporations who have suspended donations to any member of Congress who objected to the certification of the Electoral College vote. This campaign got going when Judd Legum and his new publication Popular Information made some calls.
Popular Information contacted 144 corporations that, through their corporate PACs, donated to one or more of these eight Senators in the 2020 election cycle. Popular Information asked if they would continue to support these Senators in the future. In response, three major companies said they would stop donating to any member of Congress who objected to the certification of the Electoral College vote.
Major corporations say they will stop donating to members of Congress who tried to overturn the election
– Jan 10, 2021 by Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria
I jumped on this as soon as I saw it and applied it to Nebraska Rep. Adrian Smith. I looked up his donations from the first 4 corporations listed at OpenSecrets.org and alerted the local media in Nebraska.
Then as more corps were added I started looking up if he got donations from any of them.
If you want to get involved here are some steps that you can take.
1) Find out who is on the list of people who voted to object to the certification of the Electoral College vote:
The long list of Republicans who voted to reject election results (The Guardian LINK)
2) See which corporations have already pulled money
Major corporations say they will stop donating to members of Congress who tried to overturn the election
Popular Information has an updated list. (Popular Information LINK )
3) Go to OpenSecrets.org
Search for the corporation that has pulled money. For example, Blue Cross Blue Shield
Then click recipients tab.
Scroll down to ALL RECIPIENTS and type in a name from the Sedition Caucus list.
I used Smith, Adrian from District 3 in Nebraska. It’s a Big Red district, in more ways than one here is how they have voted in the last four Presidential elections.
2008 President John McCain 69% – Barack Obama 30%
2012 President Mitt Romney 70% – Barack Obama 28%
2016 President Donald Trump 74% – Hillary Clinton 20%2020 President Donald Trump 75% – Joe Biden 22%
Smith might see the polling that the 51% of Republicans Think Trump Deserves No Blame For Capitol Riots. But i’m thinking that if we polled the people in the corporations that are giving money they would NOT be holding the same views.
Do this for each cycle (2012-2020) You can either do a screenshot or export to a spreadsheet to keep track.
4) Facebook or Tweet this info to your friends and the local media.
5) Repeat for as many corps/ seditionists you can. (If you want to cross check to see if they voted against impeachment too here is how to check with the Clerk’s office.)
6) Call corporations that have NOT pulled their support yet.
Here is a tool from my friends at Color of Change.
Tell These Major Corporations To Suspend Republican Donations!
LINK
If you WORK at a corporation that has not spoken up yet, you can contact Judd Legum @juddlugum to see what the status is and perhaps help the executives see the problems with them tainting their brand by associating with seditionists.
“You cannot overstate the consternation by lawmakers about fund-raising drying up,” said a former senior Trump administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations with Republican lawmakers.
Pressure Mounts on Republicans to Buck Trump Amid Impeachment Battle
I suggest focusing on people with connections to you and be very specific. I chose Nebraska because I have friends there. I chose Blue Cross Blue Shield because they were a big donor to Smith and the health insurance industry is very powerful.
Have an impact? Expect a Backlash!
I wasn’t surprised by the number of Republicans elected officials who STILL voted to object to certifying Biden and kept the lies about the election going.
This is because they faced no financial consequences for doing so. They read the polling and a big percent of their voters still believed the lies that there was massive voter fraud.
But as I’ve demonstrated over the years with right wing media is that in America’s market-based system to really put pressures on people to change, you have to look into where they get their money. Who do they get it from & what do THOSE people care about?
If you can show the money suppliers that associating with violent rhetoric and the people who spout it taints their brand, they WILL leave.
Show more corporations that associating with the politicians who are still supporting lies and violent rhetoric taints their brands.
Here is what to expect from the seditionist politicians
They will:
1) Deny they are spewing violent rhetoric
2) Whine. “They are attacking us for our speech! I was just asking questions!”
3) Attack the people who point out their violent rhetoric and support of lies to the corporations.
(Only a few will attack the actual corporations that pulled the money)
4) Double down on their support for Trump while whining about being a victim
However, SOME will finally
5) Change their behavior
Be aware that those that do change their behavior will say that it had NOTHING to do with the loss of funding. They will talk about how they get death threats from their own people. (Which is terrible and we should encourage them to ask the FBI to investigate so people can be arrested for doing it.)
The right wing knows that death threats work. On their side threats of criminal prosecution have been blocked or lessened by failure to prosecute crimes. So for many of these politicians, financial threats are the most powerful. Unless they have one of the 63 billionaires behind them that Trump had, they WILL respond to the loss of legitimate corporate money.
They will be looking for an excuse/reason that they stopped with their sedition. They will talk about unity, lowering the temperature and demanding that the Democrats reach out to them. Some will want to be part of the New Republican Party that the MSM really is desperate to make happen.
The bottom line is that the loss of corporate money is what will give them the excuse to publicly walk away from the Trump craziness. Let’s help make it happen.
After last week’s deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump, members of Congress are expressing something once unthinkable: that some of their own colleagues may be endangering their lives. Not in a rhetorical sense, but in a direct and immediate way.
“It’s the most poisonous I’ve ever seen,” Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., said in an interview. “There’s the overall sense that maybe if some of them have guns — and likely the ones who are more into conspiracy theories and QAnon with the pedophilic satanic rings — are we safe from them?”
Since the deadly riot Jan. 6, lawmakers have suggested — not, so far, backed up by evidence — that far-right colleagues may have helped plan or guide the attack. There are particular concerns about some newly elected members who have espoused extremist views, including comments supportive of the QAnon lie that accuses perceived enemies of Trump of being part of a child-abusing cult.
Congresswomen Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert insist they should be able to carry guns on the floor of the Senate. Madison Carthorne says he was armed on the floor during the insurrection.
Who do you think they see as a threat? The mob breaking down the doors?
Nope:
She’s QAnon, of course:
“Q is a patriot. We know that for sure,” Greene said in the half-hour-long video. She went on to explain the ins and outs of the theory, noting that QAnon “seems completely for the good” “and totally on Trump’s side.”
Here’s Lauren Boebert last year at a Colorado “protest” with White Supremacists flashing White Power signs:
“Madame Speaker, I have constituents outside this building right now and I promised to be their voice,” said Boebert on the House floor mere moments before the pro-Trump rioters invaded the building. Earlier that day, Boebert tweeted, “Today is 1776.”
Some have alleged that Boebert was attempting to aid rioters who were searching for U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by tweeting information about her whereabouts during the attack.
Later that day, Boebert attempted to back away from the rioters she earlier referred to as her constituents, saying they “were not conservative” and potentially nodding to the conspiracy that Antifa was behind the riot.
Now, just a week after being sworn into Congress, some are calling for Boebert’s removal.
As some national news outlets have reported, Boebert’s former campaign manager Sherronna Bishop once praised the Proud Boys, a white supremacist hate group that was among those who attacked the Capitol. Over the past several months, the Colorado Times Recorder has reported extensively on Boebert’s ties to far-right extremist groups and conspiracies.
Boebert has long embraced the far-right militia movement, appearing at events with them and even asking members of the III% United Patriots, also known as the “Three Percenters,” to provide security at campaign events, as reported by CTR’s Erik Maulbetsch in July. The group had a strong presence at Wednesday’s riot.
Boebert appeared at a rally in opposition to Colorado’s “red flag” gun law in December of 2019 alongside members of the Three Percenters and the Proud Boys, Maulbetsch reported at the time.
This summer, Boebert tweeted, “I am the militia. #2A #WeThePeople.”
In May, when armed militia members entered the Michigan Capitol over COVID-19 orders, Boebert tweeted that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer “should not be in power,” and that “she’s become an outright tyrant.”
Last month, Boebert said in an interview with Breitbart News that “the Second Amendment isn’t about hunting, except hunting tyrants, maybe.”
These people are menaces. They should be expelled.