Month: May 2022

It’s as white as it ever was, I’m sure

Madison Cawthorne throws down:

“gentile politics”?

Will Sommer, who follows the batshit right for the Daily Beast tweeted this:

Dark MAGA has been a growing concept among very online Trump supporters this spring. Basically it means you stole the election from us, NOW we’re going to be bad.

So, it’s not just Caawthorne. There are others as crazy as he is.

I think what we are seeing is the beginning of the far right turning on Trump and his cronies for failing to be MAGA enough. Kathy Barnette’s campaign in Pennsylvania was the first I’ve seen that openly embraced that idea. And she’s not backing off:

Failed GOP Pennsylvania Senate candidate Kathy Barnette took to Twitter to blame Fox News host Sean Hannity for her primary election loss. 

“Never forget what Sean Hannity did in this race,” she said in a video posted on Twitter Wednesday. “Almost single handedly Sean Hannity sowed deep seeds of disinformation, flat out lies every night for the past five days and that was just extremely hard to overcome.”

Her comment comes after Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz said Tuesday Hannity has been giving him advice “behind the scenes.”

“I want to thank Sean Hannity. Sean has been like a brother to me. When Sean punches through something, he really punches through it. He understands exactly how to make a difference and he’s been doing that this entire campaign,” Oz said.

Oz and former hedge fund manager David McCormick are still in a battle for the GOP Senate nomination as the vote was too close to call on Tuesday night. 

Barnette declared she would not support Oz or McCormick in the general election, saying she had “no intentions of support[ing] globalists” before the election began Tuesday,

Maybe she and Madison can run for president on the QAnon ticket.

Or maybe it’s the Dumb Madman theory, which is even worse

Richard Nixon famously promoted the “madman theory” which held that if foreign leaders thought they were dealing with a warmongering madman they would be more careful since they could not predict what he would do. I’ve always thought there was something like that working with Trump. Only it wasn’t an act. It’s not that he was a warmongering madman. He was just incredibly stupid. And that is arguably even worse.

Fiona Hill had this to say about Trump:

Russian President Vladimir Putin often became frustrated with President Donald Trump over his lack of knowledge on geopolitical issues, Fiona Hill said, adding that this played into Moscow’s decision on the timing of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

One of the reasons Putin invaded Ukraine with President Joe Biden in the White House was that he expected the US to “sue for peace” and thought it would be better to deal with Biden than trying to negotiate with someone like Trump, whom the Russian leader had “to explain everything to all the time,” Hill, who served as the top Russia advisor on the National Security Council under Trump, said Tuesday at a Chicago Council on Global Affairs event.

“He thought that somebody like Biden — who’s a transatlanticist, who knows all about NATO, who actually knows where Ukraine is, and actually knows something about the history, and is very steeped in international affairs — would be the right person to engage with,” Hill said.

“You could see that he got frustrated many times with President Trump because he had to keep explaining things, and Putin doesn’t like to do that,” Hill said, adding: “Even though he loves to be able to spin his own version of events, he wants to have predictability in the person that he’s engaging with.”

A number of Trump’s former advisors have said the ex-president had a poor grasp of global affairs. The former national security advisor John Bolton, for example, said Trump once asked whether Finland was part of Russia.

Similarly, Trump’s former White House chief of staff Gen. John Kelly also once said Trump “doesn’t know any history at all, even some of the basics on the US,” says Hill’s new book, “There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century,” which was published last year.

In the book, Hill writes that Trump’s meager comprehension of international affairs was a “major liability” for US national security.

“Whenever he got to meetings and the conversation started, it seemed like the first time he was hearing things from world leaders,” she writes. 

We are very, very lucky that nobody made a mistake. I have little doubt that if the rest of the world knew how impotent the entire government was under that ignorant president someone would have tried something. But like most Americans they almost certainly believed that Trump couldn’t possibly be a dumb as he seemed and they were unsure what the US was up to.

They know what he is now and if he wins the White House again they won’t be confused by any of it. He is an idiot and is easily manipulated. His accomplices are either crazy or equally stupid. It’s unlikely that things will unfold the same way they did in his first term.

And you know where that leads

QAnon Part II:

You always want to cover up the Evil Apple, okay?”

The early-morning sun in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, glints off the holographic stickers the vendor hands us as we fumble to remove our cell-phone cases. “They’re telling you, ‘You’re satanic, you’re Luciferian, you’re worshiping them.’ You’re bowing down to them right there. Do you see the Evil Apple? This is where it all started, guys.”

On this weekend in May, Christopher Key, who also goes by “Vaccine Police,” wears an off-white blazer over a faded red T-shirt cut low enough to reveal two New Age crystal necklaces resting on his tan skin. Also around his neck: something that looks from a distance like a plug-in bathroom air freshener. This device, he explains, creates an invisible four-foot bubble of purified air around the wearer.

A lively evening newsletter about everything that just happened.

The stickers, which he says neutralize our iPhones’ harmful and enervating frequencies, are free of charge. Key’s real product is Miracle Mineral Solution: a naturopathic all-purpose remedy that he says can eliminate all your medical troubles for good if you drink enough of it. “Chlorine dioxide!” he exclaims with an enormous smile as he swirls the mixture around in a Dixie cup. “This is the most amazing product in the world. Remember when President Trump said ‘Drink bleach’? This is it!” The customers lean forward excitedly. One takes out her pocketbook.

The ReAwaken America tour — a multicity event hosted by a man named Clay Clark and Trump’s disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn — features rows of merchandise booths that sell everything from Trump playing cards to self-published apocrypha to bedazzled gun-shaped purses. But no table of any sort receives more traffic than Key’s MMS operation. As I walk past the table on the second day, I overhear a woman ask Key whether he thinks the bleach would work if mixed surreptitiously into someone’s coffee. Her husband, despite her pleading, has received the COVID-19 vaccine. She does not want him to die.

By this point, I understand her concern. Over the course of this conference, no fewer than ten people who call themselves doctors tell us the science is clear: This woman’s husband and I have both made a terrible mistake. The COVID vaccine has rewritten our DNA and sterilized us. Every shot we receive decreases our immune systems by 50 percent. Even if we somehow avoid infection, graphene nanoparticles are assembling themselves in our bronchial tubes and preparing to choke us to death. And that’s not even to mention the horrors the deep state has in store for us when it emits its 5G frequencies and triggers the release of HIV and the Marburg virus into our ruined bodies.

“This is sacrificing children to Moloch,” declares Christiane Northrup (who despite claiming to be a doctor does not have a current medical license) without a hint of irony. “You need to understand that this is the religion of the demonic cult that has been running the planet since the time of Genesis. And their time is up!”

If this all sounds like crackpot ravings from the very edge of society, you would be only half-right. This event may have more tinfoil per capita than a Reynolds Wrap warehouse, but it is anything but fringe. The speaker roster includes New Age healers, conspiracy podcasters, and self-declared prophets as well as trusted members of Trump’s inner circle. Kash Patel, a Trump loyalist once described as swinging “the biggest dick in D.C.,” speaks for half an hour on defeating the deep state. The two most infamous recipients of Trump’s last-minute presidential pardons are here: Roger Stone and Flynn, considered a scoundrel and a traitor in many corners of America but a persecuted hero here. Eric Trump is also in attendance — not exactly an A-lister but a Trump nonetheless. Halfway through the conference, Clark breathlessly announces that Donald Trump Jr. just signed on for an upcoming New York stop.

None of these men holds high office, but all of them have the ear of the man who controls a Republican Party in thrall to the idea that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Under such circumstances, what could be more useful than a movement fueled by prophecy and paranoia, ready to help a man chosen by God to fight a battle against ancient forces of darkness? Or, to translate it into the demented vocabulary of QAnon, a deep-state cabal of child-murdering pedophiliac elites?

Christopher Key, a.k.a. “Vaccine Police,” sells his Miracle Mineral Solution. Photo: Laura Jedeed

“If justice cannot take place in the Department of Justice and in the corrupt courts, then how can justice be served?” American Media Periscope founder John Michael Chambers asks the crowd, then answers his own question. “Gitmo!” he screams. “A new courtroom for war-crime trials at Guantánamo Bay. The stolen election will be exposed and then decertified.”

The crowd is on its feet, a roar filling the theater. “Freedom!” Chambers shouts. “It’s up to each and every one of us! Where we go one …”

Without a moment’s hesitation, the crowd completes the QAnon slogan: “We go all!”

You may think these people are just fringers but consider that Pennsylvania Republicans just nominated a full-blown QAnon Christian nationalist for Governor. Don’t assume they are fringe.

Florida leads the parade

The right wing is very, very concerned about free speech these days. They whine incessantly that they are being cancelled for their views. Yet across the country they are banning books, censoring teachers, dictating what can and cannot be taught in classrooms. Trump must be allowed to use any platform he chooses to destroy democracy. But kids cannot be allowed to learn about Black history or celebrate gay rights.

Down in Florida, as you know, they have passed a law banning teachers from discussing any kind of gay topic in the lower grades. They insist it’s just to keep the innocent little kids from being tainted by sexuality. But the law is very vague and allows all schools, at any level, to ban these discussions if they can find a reason. In one high school, they have found them. And they are persecuting one young gay student for speaking out:

My name is Jack Petocz. I am the high school junior who led walkouts in opposition to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and was suspended for passing out pride flags. Now, I’m being prevented from running for senior class president. No matter what, I won’t stop fighting for my community. pic.twitter.com/5lG6EYIXo2

— Jack Petocz (@Jack_Petocz) May 17, 2022

If you think the right isn’t coming for gay rights you’re sadly mistaken. They are “drawing the line” at trans rights but it’s just the beginning. The religious among them are immovably hostile to anything but traditional family arrangements. Don’t assume anything they hate is safe. And they hate a lot.

This system isn’t working

With all eyes on the Supreme Court following the leak of a draft opinion regarding abortion, Americans support 69 – 27 percent limiting the number of years a Supreme Court Justice can serve on the Supreme Court, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University national poll of adults released today. There is majority support among all party groups. Democrats (77 – 18 percent), independents (69 – 27 percent), and Republicans (61 – 36 percent) all support limiting how long a Supreme Court Justice can serve.

A majority of Americans (63 percent) say the Supreme Court is mainly motivated by politics, while 32 percent say the Supreme Court is mainly motivated by the law. There are stark divisions along party lines. Democrats say 86 – 11 percent and independents say 63 – 32 percent the Supreme Court is mainly motivated by politics, while Republicans say 53 – 42 percent the Supreme Court is mainly motivated by the law.

Having three justices on the Court under the circumstances by which they were appointed, five of them by men who didn’t win the popular vote, would have delegitimized the court regardless. But the Court’s actions ever since Bush v Gore have been partisan and increasingly radical to the point at which it’s now just another right wing affront to democracy. Republicans have rammed through a super-majority of right wing extremists without regard to precedent, norms or legitimacy. They know the country is changing and the Court is now just another illegitimate tool to undemocratically secure power for themselves.

Term limits are just one way to fix this problem and it isn’t entirely satisfactory. But it’s a start.

Smacking down the conservative tone police

Michigan State Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D) lit a fire in Lansing back in April. Her women colleagues aren’t taking it anymore.

Yielding back my time.

There’s a timeline to this as well.

The male GOP senator referenced in Dayna’s speech decided to tone police Sen. @rosemarybayer after she gave these apt remarks about the Buffalo murders:👇🏾
2/4https://t.co/tQzfsrxx3H

— State Senator Erika Geiss (SD01) (@SenErikaGeiss) May 18, 2022

The same kind of admonitions are never applied to our male colleagues (not that we want that). It’s strictly reserved for us. We are so over the misogyny & will keep speaking out & they’re just going to have to #GetUsedToIt. 4/4

— State Senator Erika Geiss (SD01) (@SenErikaGeiss) May 18, 2022

Misogynoir. Coined by Moya Bailey. Had not run into that word before.

A good word for bad behavior.

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Request a copy of For The Win, 4th Edition, my free, countywide get-out-the-vote planning guide for county committees at ForTheWin.us.
If in a position to Play to win in 2022 (see post first), contact tpostsully at gmail dot com.

You’d think Democrats would campaign like it

You would be wrong.

The Republican Party has abandoned democratic principles. If it ever had any.

Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano is the GOP nominee for governor (Washington Post):

As a Pennsylvania state senator and gubernatorial candidate, Doug Mastriano railed against the rampant fraud that he believes was responsible for Donald Trump’s 2020 defeat.

He vowed to decertify voting machines in counties where he suspects the result was rigged.

And he asserted that the Republican-controlled legislature should have the right to take control of the all-important choice over which presidential electors to send to Washington.

Should he win in November, Mastriano will hand pick the secretary of state that signs off on presidential election returns and allocation of the state’s electoral votes.

Mastriano’s backers appear well aware of the stakes. A video posted to Telegram by election denial activist Ivan Raiklin from Mastriano’s victory party on Tuesday showed the candidate smiling as Raiklin congratulated him on his win and added, with a thumb’s up, “20 electoral votes as well,” a reference to the state’s clout in the electoral college.

“Oh yeahhhh,” Mastriano responded.

In Colorado, a GOP candidate for governor has a plan to eliminate the concept of one person, one vote from state-level elections (9NEWS-KUSA):

Former Parker Mayor Greg Lopez, who holds the top line on the 2022 Republican primary ballot, says Colorado should create an electoral college system for electing candidates to statewide office.

The plan, which would be the first of its kind on the state level, would give far more voting power to Coloradans in rural, conservative counties and dilute the voting power of Coloradans in more populous urban and suburban areas. Even as turnout numbers vary over time, the sheer number of rural conservative counties would create a built-in advantage for Republicans.

9NEWS has audio.

“One of the things that I’m going to do, and I’ve already put this plan together, is, as governor, I’m going to introduce a conversation about doing away with the popular vote for statewide elected officials and doing an electoral college vote for statewide elected officials,” Lopez said.

Lopez said his electoral college plan would weight counties’ votes based on their voter turnout percentage to encourage turnout.

“I’ve already got the plan in place,” Lopez said. “The most that any county can get is 11 electoral college votes. The least that a county can get is three.”

Democrat Jared Polis won the last election for governor by double digits. Under Lopez’s plan, the race would have swung 30 points, handing the win to the Republican after winning a minority of votes.

Unconstitutional? Sure. Does Lopez care? No.

As Trumpists scheme to end the republic as we know it, Democrats nationwide, risk-averse as ever, continue to campaign on cruise control like Kevin Bacon’s character at the end of Animal House. They insist on campaigning on kitchen-table issues as if eveything is normal. “Remain calm! All is well!”

The Post’s Paul Waldman warned in February about Democrats relying on over-used metaphors like “bread-and-butter” issues:

It’s about a dangerous fantasy that has gripped Democrats for decades, the idea that they can drain the emotion out of politics by focusing on concerns that are immediate and mundane, and thereby stave off defeat.

Let’s say this as clearly as we can: If this is all Democrats do between now and November, they will fail.

Republicans are tearing holes in the ship’s hull while Democrats act as if this is politics as usual. The republic is at risk of sinking. Rearranging the deck chairs won’t save it.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Request a copy of For The Win, 4th Edition, my free, countywide get-out-the-vote planning guide for county committees at ForTheWin.us.
If in a position to Play to win in 2022 (see post first), contact tpostsully at gmail dot com.

They’re so screwed up they called in Don Jr. fix it

Lol:

Donald Trump has had a question for his friends and advisers in the past several weeks: “Is Google trying to fuck me?”

The source of his paranoia, according to two people with knowledge of the ex-president’s query, was the absence of an Android app for his struggling social media app, Truth Social. Since it launched in February, the app has been available only on Apple devices, leaving Android users — roughly 40 percent of the U.S. mobile device market — without access to the platform. This has left Trump with questions about the status of the product and whether his perceived enemies at Google had any plans to reject it.

“He keeps hearing about how Google and YouTube have it out for him … including on Truth Social, and I think he’s taking [it] seriously,” says one source who’s discussed the topic with the twice-impeached former president. (In some instances since last month, Trump has instead asked if Google is trying to “screw with me” on Truth Social or has simply inquired, “What’s up with Google?”)

In a statement about the future availability of a Truth Social Android app, TMTG chief executive Devin Nunes, the former congressman and vociferous Trump ally, appeared to lean in to Trump’s suspicions, hinting that Google’s approval of the app in its Play Store could be uncertain. Truth Social, Nunes wrote, was on the verge of making the app available in web browsers at the end of May: “After that we will launch an Android app … pending approval from Google!” A week prior to Nunes’ announcement, Trump alluded to Android availability during a rally in Ohio, telling fans that “non-iPhone users are coming very, very soon” to the platform.

A censorious Big Tech boogeyman blocking the former president’s app sounds like a plausible storyline to conservative ears, but there’s just one problem with the former president’s suspicions about a Google plot: It appears to exist entirely in his own head.

As of Tuesday, Truth Social hasn’t even submitted an Android app to Google to review for Play Store approval, an individual familiar with the matter and two Trumpworld sources with knowledge of the situation tell Rolling Stone.

A Google spokesperson declined to comment. A spokesperson for Truth Social did not respond to a request for comment.

Recent Truth Social job postings suggest the Android app is still under development. The company also recently advertised a job for a developer who can assist with “bringing some of our core products to Android,” according to a posting on the TMTG’s website.

YouTube, a part of the Google empire, suspended Trump from the platform days after the Capitol insurrection, but Google’s Play Store’s terms of service are separate from YouTube’s and contain no obvious provisions which would prohibit a Truth Social Android application due to Trump’s role as chairman of the company.

The lack of an Android app — and its current unavailability in the Play Store three months after the launch — marks yet another obstacle in what has been a shambolic rollout for Trump’s social media platform. In February, Nunes said in an appearance on Fox News that the company’s “goal” would be to have the app “fully operational” by “the end of March,” but users, including the former president, still had their complaints well into May.

In the time since February, the ex-president has repeatedly hit the phones to ask his advisers such pressing questions as “What the fuck is going on” with Truth Social? On multiple occasions, Trump has bemoaned the bad press the app rollout has attracted, demanding answers on why his new website wasn’t crushing his MAGA-app competitors. Things got bad enough that in recent weeks, the former president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was called in to take a lead role focused on trying to “fix” what was wrong with the company and the app performance, according to two people familiar with the situation. One of these sources frankly referred to what Trump Jr. was doing as an emergency “rescue mission.” (A spokesman for Trump Jr. declined to comment on this story.)

The tech wizard Don Jr??? ok…

By the way, Kimberley Guilfoyle is now hawking steaks. I‘m not kidding:

Kimberly Guilfoyle, the former advisor to President Donald Trump’s failed re-election campaign who later become engaged to his eldest son, is hawking steaks for a meat delivery service whose Better Business Bureau (BBB) accreditation has been revoked. In online reviews, customers allege that the curated meat boxes from Good Ranchers, which may cost hundreds of dollars, are not only a “rip off” but also sometimes never arrive. 

On May 15, Guilfoyle uploaded a video of herself standing over a smoking indoor grill, flipping thin cuts with little visible marbling over the flames. “I’m here with these beautiful steaks from goodranchers.com,” she says. “And this is the way you show your family you love them — by buying this meat that is born and raised here in the United States.” 

Guilfoyle continues by claiming “85% of the meat that they sell in stores today is not even from the United States.” That statement is inaccurate; according to the Department of Agriculture, only 8 to 12% of the beef sold in the US comes from foreign sources. (Guilfoyle may be referring to grass-fed beef, of which 75 to 80% is imported, though often processed in the US.) 

Support American Farms & Ranches with @goodranchers American meat delivered 🥩🇺🇸 Use code: ULTRAMAGA to get 2 POUNDS of American wagyu burgers FREE with your first order! Just in time for Memorial Day! pic.twitter.com/5WMM3CBTbc

— Kimberly Guilfoyle (@kimguilfoyle) May 15, 2022

Never leave a penny op=n the sidewalk…

They’ll decide what you can do with your body, not you

Men brought big main character energy to today's congressional abortion hearing. pic.twitter.com/Kqg2DTUHv0

— The Recount (@therecount) May 18, 2022

"I have never seen that in a health care setting, ever. We don't put baby parts in freezers" — Dr Yashica Robinson to Chip Roy pic.twitter.com/fOC0LrLkjD

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 18, 2022

Maybe that performance by a bunch of male throwbacks explains this:

A new Quinnipiac poll finds that if a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate supports abortion rights, 41% of Americans say they are more likely to vote for that candidate, while 22% say they are less likely, and 36% say it does not make a difference.

It’s common sense. The people trying to control women’s bodies are very dumb.

This is what is at stake:

Take the time to watch this because it is the reality of the end of abortion rights. Women with failed pregnancies WILL be subjected to criminal scrutiny and punishment by the state, in fact it's already happening. https://t.co/neSF2AiPzF https://t.co/qVzY1Y603g

— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) May 18, 2022

It’s not unusual at all

The LA Times reports:

Years before law enforcement seized the contents of Ian Rogers’ safe, he earned a reputation as a talented mechanic and successful Napa Valley business owner. Rogers catered to an elite clientele of Jaguar, Land Rover and Rolls-Royce owners inside a garage off Napa’s main drag, a street spotted with boutiques and high-end bed and breakfasts.

The 47-year-old from Sonoma County, who appeared to have a passion for guns according to Facebook posts where he dissed prominent Democrats, was also a loving husband and father who paid his bills on time, according to his family and friends.

In the fall of 2020, in the weeks after Joe Biden was declared the next president of the United States, Rogers sent an ominous text to someone he trusted, according to court records.

“Ok bro we need to hit the enemy in the mouth,” he messaged.

“Yeah so we punch Soros,” Rogers’ former employee and gym buddy, Jarrod Copeland, texted back, referring to billionaire investor George Soros.Sponsored

Copeland, a Kentucky native, was a mechanic at Rogers’ shop nearly a decade earlier.

“I think right now we attack democrats. They’re offices etc. Molotov cocktails and gasoline,” Rogers continued.

Copeland replied, “We need more people bro. Gonna be hard.”

The day after Thanksgiving, the chatter kindled a plan. Text messages contained in court records show the two men agreed to burn down the headquarters of the California Democratic Party in Sacramento, a building diagonal to the California Highway Patrol office tasked with protecting state lawmakers and daily visitors to the Capitol. Also nearby: a youth center, gym and popular bookstore.

Rogers: sent link to the address of the California Democratic Party office…
Copeland: Right next to CHP
Copeland: gotta be cautious
Rogers: Only takes 3 minutes
Rogers: Take a brick break a window pour gas in and light

The two men texted that they hoped hitting that particular target would send a message and ignite a movement. They viewed themselves as action film heroes, referencing “The Expendables,” a popular movie franchise.

Rogers: Scare the whole country
Rogers: Can you imagine cnn covering this haha !
Rogers: I’ll leave a envelope with our demands and intentions
Rogers: Basically saying we declare war on the Democratic Party and all traitors to the republic.
Copeland: That’s some expendables stuff.
Rogers: We need to send a message
Copeland: Yep I agree
Rogers: Start a movement

On Jan. 8, 2021, the two acknowledged they might die carrying out their plan. Rogers asked Copeland if he was ready to leave his wife.

Rogers: What I’m talking about we probably will die unfortunately
Copeland: She was crying yesterday and said to me “please don’t leave me I don’t know what to do without you” she was rubbing my back while I was watching…
Copeland: She knows how i run and she knows I will put myself in harms way for what I believe in

It never came to that.

Rogers and Copeland were arrested in January and July of 2021, respectively, according to court records.

The two are charged in federal court with conspiracy to destroy by fire or explosive a building used in interstate commerce, with Copeland facing an additional destruction of records in official proceedings charge for allegedly destroying evidence of his communication with Rogers.

Right wing political violence is the leading cause of terrorism in the US. And it’s pretty clear that mainstream GOP politicians see some benefit to it. They sure aren’t willing to buck the gun nuts, racists and anti-government crusaders. That would anger a large faction of their base.