Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Bullies and bluster and threats. Oh my!

From his first cabinet picks, Donald Trump demonstrated a bully’s intent both to stick a stubby finger in the world’s eye and a need to surround himself with a thick posse of wingmen to do his fighting for him. It’s working. He’s already succeeded in getting ABC News to capitulate to him for daring to use the R-word.

The most litigious president in U.S. history is just getting warmed up (New York Times):

The legal threats have arrived in various forms. One aired on CNN. Another came over the phone. More arrived in letters or emails.

All of them appeared aimed at intimidating news outlets and others who have criticized or questioned President-elect Donald J. Trump and his nominees to run the Pentagon and F.B.I.

The small flurry of threatened defamation lawsuits is the latest sign that the incoming Trump administration appears poised to do what it can to crack down on unfavorable media coverage. Before and after the election, Mr. Trump and his allies have discussed subpoenaing news organizations, prosecuting journalists and their sources, revoking networks’ broadcast licenses and eliminating funding for public radio and television.

Or maybe he’ll just order troops to shoot news executives in the legs. At the very least, Trump transition copiers must be eating up reams of paper printing NDAs with non-disparagement clauses. And that’s just for Trump’s “friends.”

A bad precedent

Litigation, or the threat of it, is among Trump’s weapons of choice. The $15 million ABC settlement sets a bad precedent and whets Trump’s appetite for more. The grifter will see it as another profit center. If he can’t void the First Amendment by royal fiat, he’ll threaten enough legal action that the fourth estate self-censors. Or else make money suing them.

Media lawyer Elizabeth McNamara expects more of the same in the current political environment:

“There’s been a pattern and practice for the past couple of years of using defamation litigation as a tactic to harass or test the boundary of case law,” said Ms. McNamara, who represented ABC News and Mr. Stephanopoulos but was speaking in general. (Her law firm, Davis Wright Tremaine, has also represented The New York Times.)

Over the past several weeks, lawyers for Mr. Trump and two of his most high-profile nominees — Pete Hegseth, the potential defense secretary, and Kash Patel, whom Mr. Trump has picked to run the F.B.I. — warned journalists and others of defamation lawsuits for what they had said or written.

Freedom was a theme (and a theme song) for the Harris campaign. But freedom of speech, like loyalty, only works one way in authoritarian cults.

And if lawsuits don’t work to “cancel” the libs, there are always flying MAGAs.

A miracle, like his hair

From a guy named Anthony Citrano, September 7, 2020:

It’s almost impossible to believe he exists. It’s as if we took everything that was bad about America, scraped it up off the floor, wrapped it all up in an old hot dog skin, and then taught it to make noises with its face.

I mean in its own way it’s a miracle. Sure, it’s the most tragic kind of miracle and it may very well cause the death of the American experiment. But still, if you step back and behold it with cosmic indifference you cannot help but be almost awestruck.

It’s like the inverse feeling of standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon. In both cases you’re struck numb. “How can this thing be‽ It is incalculable.” But rather than a soaring sense of awe, you feel an equally powerful well of dark gravity, your soul being eaten by despair.

We survived the four years since the thread above first hit the Net. We’re only a few days from the longest, darkest day of the year. Don’t despair. Things get brighter from there.

Happy Hollandaise everyone!

Don’t say they weren’t warned. Honolulu Civil Beat reports:

A former member of a secretive Hawaiʻi religious sect is warning members of Congress about the potential dangers of confirming Tulsi Gabbard as President-elect Donald Trump’s next director of national intelligence.

Anita van Duyn says she spent 15 years inside the Science of Identity Foundation, a fringe offshoot of Hare Krishna that was formed in the 1970s and has been described by defectors as a cult.

She has sent the letters only to Democrats so far, so I don’t know how effective that will be. And as the article acknowledges, Senators are loathe to criticize anyone for their religious beliefs(well, unless the person is a Democrat in which all bets are off.) Most DC types seem to think they should really go near this issue.

But Gabbard hasn’t been nominated to be the head of Housing and Urban Development she’s been tapped to be the head of all the Intelligence Agencies and she’s a lifelong member of a cult! And it’s a real one:

The van Duyn letters outline what she says are Butler’s long-standing political ambitions and the ways he groomed and supported his disciples, Gabbard included, in their pursuit of public office while promoting his own ideologies, which include a long history of espousing anti-gay rhetoric.[…]

Throughout her public life, Gabbard has been dogged by her ties to the Science of Identify Foundation and Butler, in particular, who has openly described Gabbard as a star pupil.

“Everybody is thinking her allegiance is to Trump, but in reality her allegiance was already given away to her guru,” van Duyn said in an interview with Civil Beat. “You can’t just go in and out of that. That’s a lifetime commitment.”

Gabbard has been vague about her own experiences in the group and in 2017 told a reporter for The New Yorker magazine she’d never heard Butler say anything mean or hateful about anyone. “I can speak to my own personal experience and, frankly, my gratitude to him, for the gift of this wonderful spiritual practice that he has given to me, and to so many people,” she said.

Both her former and current husbands are lifelong members of the cult and remain involved as do her parents. So is she:

Throughout her political career, Gabbard has maintained ties with Butler and his followers, whether hiring them to staff her congressional office or work on her 2020 presidential campaign. Her husband, Abraham Williams, has deep roots in the organization.

Science of Identity members have donated to her campaigns, sign-waved on her behalf and even staffed her most ambitious political endeavors, most prominently her run for president. In some cases, these followers were simply volunteering their time and efforts. In others, they were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Gabbard has always been very weird. And this is likely the source of most of it. She’s a member of a strange religious cult and she is following the agenda of its leader. That’s not an acceptable thing for someone going into the position for which she’s been nominated.

I realize that may seem odd considering the fact that Trump himself is the leader of a massive cult that has distinctly religious overtones. But at least we know what we’re dealing with with him and can fashion some kind of resistance. We don’t have a clue what Tulsi and her guru are all about and there is no way that she should be anywhere near a national security job.

Having said that, I suspect she’ll be confirmed. Trump wants her and the GOP wants what he wants. Let’s just hope that if there is indeed a “deep State” that they can exercise some of their apparent magical powers to thwart anything nefarious.

And the mainstream press could be paying more attention to this too. Whether they will, I don’t know. The big bosses seem intent upon gifting Dear Leader with whatever he wants these days so who knows?

Update — A little more info from Business Insider:

…In 1977, Butler splintered from the Hare Krishna movement to start the Science of Identity Foundation. He began to further deemphasize traditional Hindu texts and practices, and began to expound his own controversial views.

Butler taught that homosexuality is evil, using virulent homophobic rhetoric, and that public schools and the outside world were not to be trusted. Children of followers were homeschooled, and some — including Gabbard — were later sent to schools the SIF created in the Philippines.

The SIF amassed a tightly-knit community of around a thousand followers in Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia. Among them were Mike and Carol Gabbard, who would name one of their daughters after “tulasi,” the Sanskrit word for the holy-basil herb that appears in the Bhagavad Gita as an offering to the Lord.

Tulsi Gabbard and her siblings were raised as Hindus and vegetarians, she told the Indo American News before her first run for Congress. She grew up largely among fellow disciples, singing or chanting sacred Hindu songs on the beach, the New Yorker reported. 

Gabbard met both her first husband and her current spouse, freelance cinematographer Abraham Williams, in SIF, according to New York Magazine.

While Gabbard has described her experience growing up in the group as one that was seemingly positive, some other ex-members have described themselves as survivors of a cult.

“I was raised to believe Chris Butler was God’s voice on earth, and if you questioned him or offended him in any way, you were effectively offending God,” someone who identifies as a former member of the SIF wrote in a 2017 Medium post. “Questioning the leader was spiritual suicide, which was seen as worse than death.”

Another former member told New York Magazine that Butler was vulgar and vindictive, excoriating people for small slip-ups like driving poorly or failing to clean water cups properly.

Butler has denied these claims, and Gabbard told the New Yorker that these experiences didn’t chalk up to her own: “I’ve never heard him say anything hateful, or say anything mean about anybody,” Gabbard said. “I can speak to my own personal experience and, frankly, my gratitude to him, for the gift of this wonderful spiritual practice that he has given to me, and to so many people.”

Both Butler and Gabbard also said the foundation is a resource, not a religious organization, though Butler acknowledged that he does have “disciples” as “Jagad Guru,” or “teacher of the world,” the New Yorker reported.

Gabbard has often downplayed the influence of Butler, telling the New Yorker that she has “had many different spiritual teachers, and continue[s] to.” But she acknowledged that he had shaped her Hindu identity, referring to him as her “guru dev,” or spiritual guide. Gabbard also told the New York Times in 2019 that Butler and his work still guide her.

Come on. This can’t happen.

Yum.

I hope he doesn’t want to ban antibiotics too or we’ll be in worse trouble than we already are.

By the way:

Recall this?

Nov. 10, 2010 — An effort by Pennsylvania schools to get students to eat healthier is coming under fire from Sarah Palin.

The proposed new guidelines would limit the amount of sweets in classroom parties and reduce the number of holiday and birthday celebrations.

On the proposed regulations, Palin called Pennsylvania a “nanny state run amok.” In protest, she brought 200 sugar cookies to a Bucks County school fundraiser Tuesday.

“I had to shake it up a little bit because I heard there is a debate going on in Pennsylvania over whether most schools condemn sweets, cakes, cookies, that type of thing,” Palin said. “I brought dozens and dozens of cookies to these students.”

Instead, parents would be encouraged to serve healthy snacks, such as fruits or vegetables.

But hey, the two Sarahs never said you shouldn’t serve raw meat, raw egg yolks and raw milk to kids, amirite? Perfectly legit.

It should be noted that Huckasanders is specifically talking about denying food stamps recipients the ability to buy unhealthy food. What she wants is for those people to be restricted in their choices to punish them for being poor. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if she and others want to reduce the subsidy since they won’t be allowed to buy candy or chips or soft drinks anymore. It’s not like she really wants them eat healthy. The rest of her state, however, which currently has a 40% obesity rate, the third highest in the nation, is free to indulge in whatever they want, of course. This is America, goddamnit!

This drone story taking the country by storm is almost certainly nothing nefarious. People are all over the internet with videos of what are obviously airplanes shrieking about drones the size of SUVs. It’s possible that there’s something going on with drones in New Jersey but with Fox News screeching about an “Iranian mothership” launching them off the Jersey shore we really have reached full Idiocracy. ABC News broadcast about a mysterious orb in the sky.

Well, actually this is full Idiocracy:

That should be all you need to know but just in case you’re curious:

1. Project Blue Beam is a conspiracy theory that alleges a secret plan by entities like NASA and the United Nations to establish a new world order through advanced technological manipulation. Here’s a detailed breakdown of what the theory claims: 

2. Objective:
The primary goal is to implement a new global religion that would serve as the ideological foundation for a totalitarian world government. The theory suggests this new religion would use a simulated second coming of a religious figure or an alien invasion to discredit existing religions and unify humanity under a single belief system 

3. Steps:
Step 1: Breakdown of Archaeological Knowledge – This involves staging events like earthquakes at specific locations to uncover “new” archaeological findings that would contradict traditional religious doctrines, aiming to destabilize faith in existing religions.

Step 2: Gigantic Space Show – Utilizing technology like satellites with laser projections, holograms would be displayed in the sky, creating spectacular visions of religious figures or alien invasions visible to people globally. This would be done to manipulate people into accepting the new religion.

Step 3: Electronic Telepathy – The theory suggests the use of technologies like extremely low frequency (ELF) radio waves to simulate telepathic communication, making individuals believe they are receiving messages directly from a divine source or an alien entity.

Step 4: Supernatural Manifestations – This step involves creating scenarios where supernatural or paranormal events are faked, potentially leading to mass hysteria or acceptance of a new world order out of fear or awe. 

4. Controversies and Criticism:
The theory was popularized by Canadian journalist Serge Monast in the 1990s, who later died under circumstances some conspiracy theorists claim were suspicious. However, there’s no credible evidence supporting the existence of such a project.
Critics argue that the logistics of such an operation would be nearly impossible to execute on a global scale without detection, and the technology described often exceeds current capabilities or understanding.

It’s often cited in discussions around UFO sightings or other unexplained aerial phenomena, with some believing these are “tests” or “early stages” of Project Blue Beam. However, these claims remain speculative and unsupported by concrete evidence.

Cultural Impact:
Project Blue Beam has gained traction in various conspiracy theory circles, often mentioned alongside other New World Order theories. It has appeared in various forms of media, from books to podcasts, reflecting a cultural fascination with grand conspiracy narratives.

The theory has been widely debunked by experts, with no substantial evidence found to support its claims.

People are starting to shoot at airplanes thinking they’re alien drones. I’m not kidding.

We are living in very, very strange times. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Have these people never looked up at the sky before now?

That’s just the most high profile. They bought themselves cabinet sets. The Big CEOs are all donating at least a million to the inauguration and ABC settled a totally bogus lawsuit for 15 million to be donated to Trump’s “presidential library and foundation” which doesn’t exist. They threw in George Stephanopoulos being forced to apologize as a sweetener. (That was probably worth more to Trump than the money.)

I expected Republicans to bend the knee. That’s not unusual. Even a few Democrats following suit doesn’t surprise me. But the media and the business community totally capitulating, bringing gifts to the baby Trump like they’re the three wise men wasn’t something I expected. Those guys have so much money I assumed they’d never have to curry that kind of favor. It appears to me they want to. Maybe it’s just a matter of not wanting to be left out of the Mar-a-Lago party.

But this is definitely happening and it’s very, very worrying.

Descent into madness

Two of my friends (barely a couple of years older) had polio as children. One still walks with a limp. The other told me just yesterday that she spent time in an iron lung as a kid. I was shocked.

Remember when medical ventilators were in super-high demand during the COVID-19 pandemic? Before ventilators there were iron lungs. Obsolete now (save for extremely rare cases), iron lungs fell out of use in the 1950s when positive pressure ventilators came along. Coincidentally, vaccines that ended the polio outbreaks of the 1940s and 1950s arrived about the same time. My parents put me in line at a Chicago park one night to get the Salk vaccine by injection gun. Getting vaccinated against polio back then was a community event.

You can imagine what my friends think of RFK Jr.’s proposal for having the FDA decertify the polio vaccine. The one with iron lung experience used spicier language yesterday than used by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, 82, himself a polio survivor (CBS News):

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell issued an apparent warning Friday to Robert F. Kennedy, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Health and Human Services Department, after The New York Times reported that one of Kennedy’s top advisers had filed petitions to revoke the approval of a polio vaccine and several other shots. 

“Anyone seeking the Senate’s consent to serve in the incoming Administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts,” McConnell said in a statement.

McConnell, a polio survivor, denounced efforts “to undermine public confidence in proven cures” like the polio vaccine.

“The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives and held out the promise of eradicating a terrible disease. Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed — they’re dangerous,” McConnell said.

McConnell credited the “miraculous combination of modern medicine and a mother’s love” with saving him from paralysis when he contracted the disease at two years of age, and he praised  the “miracle” of “the saving power of the polio vaccine” for the millions of children who came after him.

Do me a favor. Spread around the link to the 2015 WSJ page, “Battling Infectious Diseases in the 20th Century: The Impact of Vaccines.” It’s where I found that polio heat map above. Measles, hepatitis A, mumps, rubella and other diseases look like this after vaccines were approved. I don’t need to show you again what a case of smallpox look like.

RFK Jr. is out of his freaking, worm-eaten mind. And Trump is just as insane for entertaining his conspiracy-mongering. God help us.

Happy Hollandaise everyone!

Splitting sculpted hairs

Don’t use the R-word.

The extremely litigous future former president actually won one in court this week. ABC News agreed to pay Donald J. Trump $15 million dollars in a defamation lawsuit brought against network anchor George Stephanopoulos and his employer, plus $1 million in legal fees. That’s a lot of Eau de Trump.

The network agreed to make a $15 million contribution to a “Presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for Plaintiff.” [Read on once you’ve stopped laughing about where that money will actually wind up.] The network will also issue a statement of “regret” over comments made by Stephanopoulos in a March 10 interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.).

As NBC News tells the tale:

In the initial complaint, Trump’s lawyers alleged that Stephanopoulos “knowingly or recklessly made multiple false and disparaging statements regarding Plaintiff during ABC broadcasts.”

Mace, who has publicly discussed being [R-worded] as a teenager, was asked during the March interview with Stephanopoulos about Trump’s treatment of women and the E. Jean Carroll case.

Stephanopoulos said during the interview that Trump “has been found liable for [R-word] by a jury.” Trump, however, was found liable in a civil case for sexually abusing Carroll, not liable for her alleged {R-word] . The nine-member jury in that case checked the box marked “no” when asked whether Carroll had proven “by a preponderance of the evidence” that “Mr. Trump [R-worded] Ms. Carroll.”

The judge in the civil case elaborated that what Trump did to Carroll in that Bergdorf Goodman dressing room did not fit New York’s “far narrower” definition of [R-word] (Washington Post):

“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘[R-worded]’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘[R-worded]’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘[R-word],’” Judge Lewis A. Kaplan wrote. “Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

I’m surprised that Trump doesn’t make the Frost-Nixon defense that when the future president does it … that means that it is not [R-word].

Happy Hollandaise everyone!