If touching Social Security is “the third rail of politics” then why isn’t #ElonMusk being electrocuted?

Digby just shared some statistics about how many of our fellow citizens will be affected by Elon’s crusade to cut Social Security by whatever means necessary. She asked, “I honestly don’t know if anyone or anything is going to be able to stop it.”

Now’s the time to help make the media and Republicans see that these cuts are deadly to their constituents, and make touching them metaphorically deadly to Musk and Trump.

Alex Lawson of Social Security Works talked to Nicole Sandler about how to set up a rally at your local Social Security Administration office. It think that is a GREAT idea!

Go to HandsOffSocialSecurity.org for how to set up a rally.

What to do until then? Take some action! I’ve already left messages for my Dem Senators and Congressperson about Elon Musk & DOGE. Yesterday I used a modified 5 Calls script on Protect Social Security Benefits Here’s the audio from my call to Pelosi’s office.

But what about your friends who are Blue Dots in Red States? I’ve got friends and relatives in Texas, Nebraska, Arizona and Florida who are all in MAGA Republican districts. They call and are told “We will never touch your Social Security Benefits” and the MAGA politicians won’t admit that DOGE is shutting down offices, firing staff and stopping phone service. They don’t think they are listened to, so I’ve got a new action THEY can take to be heard. It can also be used by their Republican friends and neighbors.

Press 3 for Constituent Services

Alex Lawson explained on the Nicole Sandler show talk about a brilliant new strategy that people can use RIGHT NOW to show politicians how concerned you are about the possibility that your Social Security might be disrupted.

Yesterday I contacted both my senators & rep in the House, on the constituent services side to prepare for a disruption to my #SocialSecurity.This prepared ME AND let my congressperson know I'll be demanding they help me, since this is their job. @alaw202.bsky.social @gottalaff.bsky.social

— Spocko (@spocko.bsky.social) 2025-03-25T20:20:09.739Z

I contacted Senators Schiff, Padilla and my representative, Nancy Pelosi, on the constituent services side to prepare for a disruption to my Social Security. What was interesting was that the Padilla staff member said they are getting overwhelmed with requests for help because of all the OTHER DOGE cuts in so many areas. If my social security is disrupted I’m to call back and ask to fill out a privacy release form. (NOTE THE PHRASE THAT PAYS!!)

This call prepared ME AND let my representatives know I’ll be demanding they help me, since this is their job.

I’m calling the Representative on behalf of my mom

Like a lot of people, we are responsible for elderly parents who depend on Social Security. They live in another district, and since we are legally and financially responsible for them, I’m calling their Representative to get the same info on their behalf from their Rep’s constituent services.

Now, our parents are Democrats and have a Democrat representative, but I have friends with elderly parents who are MAGA Republicans. They only watch Fox. They believe their MAGA Rep who said at a Town Hall that “Your Social Security benefits will never be touched.”

Their parents won’t call until something happens to their Social Security check. Then they’d call the social security office and expect it to be fixed. If necessary, they’d go to their local social security office to get their benefits restored.

But do they know Elon Musk and DOGE is stopping phone service to social security? No.
Have they seen on Fox News that their local social security office might be closed? No.

Will they act now BEFORE something terrible happens? Again, NO.

So, if THEY won’t call, you can call their MAGA Rep on behalf of your MAGA parents to make sure their earned benefits keep coming.

These steps, preparing for a disruption of social security benefits, is a NON-PARTISIAN act. EVERYONE should do it. But, like preparing your will, or setting up your earthquake kit, most people don’t do it until it happens to them or they have a close call. A near death experience.

Why alert the constituent services people now about how Musk is making the department malfunction? Because it sets them up for the first BIG F-UP. And it puts the blame on the person who is doing it, not the victims who voted for Trump.

WE can act with empathy to help our parents, even those who have been brainwashed by decades of right wing propaganda.

“Look, I don’t care who you voted for, but I’m not a billionaire like Howard Lutnick, and I can’t support you if the money you EARNED is disrupted for a couple of months. You looked after me when I was a kid and I didn’t understand what was happening. So now I’m looking after you. ”

Hands Off Social Security!

Cross Posted to Spocko’s Brain

I got into a conversation with some friend’s about the Dem’s failure to prepare for the nomination hearings. I KNEW that there were multiple weaknesses in them, but I also knew that the Trump team had a strategy to push them through.

 I saw lots of complaints about Dem Senators questions at the hearings. It is hard, especially when Team Trump uses these tactics:

1) Withholding evidence 

2) No background checks by FBI AND the FBI doesn’t share the info with all committee members

3) Coach candidates to give non-answers and to give technically correct, but misleading answers

“It wasn’t an NDA, It was a “non- disparagement clause in the divorce proceedings”
Come on man! GIVE ME A BREAK!

4) Threaten people who have legit questions about their qualifications, or have issues about their character. See what they did to Sen. Joni Ernst.

I started looking into Tulsi Gabbard. Howie Klein wrote about her at Down With Tyranny. Will Senate Republicans Draw The Line At Tulsi Gabbard? Very Very Unlikely Subhead: Does Trump’s Crazy Hare Krishna Belong To Putin?

I learned a lot. There are multiple weakness that could be exploited if someone was in charge of a PR campaign to derail her nomination. I don’t know if anyone is, but I do know the people in charge of pushing nominees are ON THE JOB! They are busy, pre-emptively shutting down lines of attack on Tulsi.

In Howie’s piece he points to an Atlantic article, “Elaine Godfrey managed to do what few reporters have managed to do— a journey to the heart of Gabbardism. She started at just the right place too: the Chris Butler Hare Krishna cult Tulsi built her life around.”

That leader is Chris Butler, the founder of an offshoot of the Hare Krishna movement in Hinduism, called the Science of Identity Foundation. Butler’s followers know him as Jagad Guru Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa, and Gabbard, who identifies as Hindu, has called him her “guru-dev,” or spiritual master.

What Everyone Gets Wrong About Tulsi Gabbard
Other than raw ambition, only one through line is perceptible in a switchbacking political career
The Atlantic, January 21, 2025

Howie talks about meeting her:

When I first came across Tulsi Gabbard, she was two things to me: a right-wing Hare Krishna and a fanatic intent on persecuting the LGBTQ community in Hawaii. From the very beginning I saw her as, first and foremost, an enemy— and then as a brainwashed cultist moron.

Long before her sudden transformation into a Berniecrat— so still a right-wing, faux-Dem— she called me to ask for a Blue America endorsement. She didn’t really try to paint herself as a progressive and she came across as a garden variety careerist Democrat, not especially bad and not especially good. At the end of the interview, I asked her about the process by which she had come to change her position on LGBT equality. She immediately said she’d call back and then hung up abruptly and… never called back.

Howie Klein

Now, it might be interesting if some Dem senators asked her ask questions about her involvement with her Guru Butler. But if they did, she is prepared to take umbrage at it. Hegseth pre-emptively dismissed any concerns about his Christian Nationalism and nobody dug into it because it would require educating the public about its dangers.

The group in question, The Science of Identity Foundation, got ahead of any questions and put out a press release attacking the Media for how they are covered. They also got multiple groups to sign a letter to basically say, “Any attack on Butler & his group is an attack on all Hindus.” 

So, if any media WANTS to talk about the group & her connection to them will need experts or groups not on that list who can say, “Look, don’t lump all Hindus together. This is what Butler has said on homosexuality, gay marriage, transgender, and abortions. This is what these 3 main Hindu groups have said on these topics,  But Tulsi is her own person, ask her what her views are right now about these topics. What will come out is that she has “evolved” then “devolved” and “revolved.”
They could even go back to 1998, when here father Mike Gabbard put out a TV ad featuring a teenage Tulsi and her siblings that likened marrying someone of the same sex to marrying your dog.

(YouTube link, I’ll but a copy of the video below in case it gets removed.)

Now, in my attempt to find those experts, I got this excellent comment, her Hinduism isn’t the issue here; it’s her hate campaign against gay and trans people.

That should be the focus, but it won’t come up during her hearings because it won’t be deemed relevant. But it is, because her position of power would give her the ability to persecute and gather information on groups here in the U.S. who she hates, for whatever reason. 

Jim Stewardson and my friends at Mind War suggested that I look up what Tulsi Gabbard had to say on Rumble (funded by Peter Thiel & now a publicly traded company) where she got big bucks for a few videos. I’m sure the Dems can ask her about how much she got when they get her TAX returns (if the FBI will provide it to them.) And seeing that Thiel companies (Palantir Technologies) is one of the big vendors to the intelligence community & Rumble is big in the misinformation & disinformation community, it wouldn’t be like a conflict of interest or anything… especially in the Trump admin.

Marcy Wheeler @emptywheel.bsky.social made a great point about the strategy behind Sen Kaine’s questions to Hegseth on the Nicole Sandler show last week.

Rather than saying, “Did you rape that woman?” he said “Did you cheat on your wife?” The more important question is, “Why didn’t you tell Donald Trump?”

This is, in my opinion, how Democrats should be approaching these hearings,
How can I describe the danger you pose to Donald Trump? How can I describe the danger you pose to the Republican project of, for example, really taking on China?

Marcy Wheeler on the Nicole Sandler show 1-17-2025

My point is It SHOULD be the job of the Dems who are going to talk to the media before, during and after these confirmation hearings to find weaknesses in these nominees that can be used to protect the American people.

I’m doing the best I can to help in advance. I’ve found a lot of damming videos of her on Rumble but the ones that won’t show up in the Senate hearings will be her anti-trans views because that’s been normalized on the right.

What MIGHT show up are ways that her flip flopping views might come back to hurt Trump, Trump cabinet members, rich gay donors, or Republican money making projects.

Cross posted to Spocko’s Brain

Instead of following the news, I’ve been watching The Equalizer. I like when complex problems are wrapped up in under an hour! I loved Leverage more, less killing. Leverage PREPARED for what the bad guys would likely say and do, then busted them harder when they did. The reveal at the end showed our heroes knew their mark and used it against them. They often got the mark in trouble in ways the legal systems wouldn’t.

Today my friend Cliff Schecter talked about Pam Bondi’s hearing and how Adam Schiff prepared for her hearing and busted her. Cliff points out she was a lobbyist for Qatar in 2019, ( you know, Qatar where it’s illegal to be gay.) There were paying her a fee of $115,000 a month. Listen to Cliff point out all the problems with Bondi here.

The exchange reminded me of a joke I wrote during the 1st Impeachment hearing. Pam Bondi says “Do you expect me to tell the truth.?” Adam Schiff, “No Ms. Bondi, I expect you to lie!”

I posted this and someone said, “Goldfinger, right?” Correct! Here is the scene.

Last week I my friends Marcy Wheeler and Lisa Graves talked about the confirmation hearings of Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi on the Nicole Sandler show. See them all under LIVE on Nicole’s YouTube channel

Here is a 5 minute segment talking about questions that the Dems should have asked Pam Bondi, and the strategy of questions that Dems need to use during confirmation hearings.

I ran the show through a transcription program and added subtitles to this segment.\

@emptywheel made a great point about Sen Kaine’s questions to #Hegseth.

Rather than saying, “Did you rape that woman?” he said “Did you cheat on your wife?” The more important question is, “Why didn’t you tell Donald Trump?”

This is, in my opinion, how Democrats should be approaching these hearings,
How can I describe the danger you pose to Donald Trump? How can I describe the danger you pose to the Republican project of, for example, really taking on China?

On Tuesday I was on the show taking about how Sen. Tim Kaine asked some questions about domestic violence to Pete Hegseth that I think will be paying off soon.

I have a lot more to say about the confirmation hearings. Later this week I’ll be talking specifically how to use the nomination hearing to set traps for Tulsi Gabbard & other nominees.

I’m a HUGE fan of A Closer Look on the Seth Meyers show. It’s written by Sal Gentile and the supervising producer is Emily Erotas. They have a limited series podcast called A Closer Look Back, talking about what they learned during Trump first term & what they can do to prepare for Trump 2.0. It’s insightful & funny and I highly recommend it. I was on the Nicole Sandler Show on 12-2-2024 singing the praises of Sal and A Closer Look. I mentioned my idea on the show, here it is cued up.

Listening to their podcast and Rachel Maddow’s recent show on preparing for Trump’s next term got me thinking.

Who has a media and social media strategy to mess with Trump this time around? And, because nothing seems to hurt Trump, who is focusing on busting his nominees & minions? I ask because I don’t see the Dems doing it.

I wondered what I can do. Who can I help that I think is doing good work to counter the RW narrative? I looked at what was breaking thru the RW narrative IN MULTIPLE SPACES. One was comedy. So I wrote the best comedy writers & producers I knew about & asked them this question:

Dear Sal & Emily:

How can we on the left help you prepare for the scandals of nominees, so the COMEDY bits can be used to define them first?

What struck me in your A Closer Look back podcasts was how you talked about what you learned during the first Trump term and how you were overwhelmed by new scandals daily. You said you forgot about some scandals, but you remembered the jokes. I believe the same is true for a LOTS of people. 

You know that people need something goofy to see & discuss about people and issues. You saw how Weird got a reaction. It reached Trump & Fox News, but the scandals didn’t, so I’m looking for things that have broken through to the right, and want to make more of them. 

For Trump 2.0. I think getting out the weirdest information about Trump’s nominees & minions is one way to hurt them, since nothing seems to hurt Trump. So my question is,

How can I help you “flood the zone with good jokes about Trump’s nominees?”

Spocko’s question to Seth Meyers’ writers & producers

I KNOW that jokes aren’t enough, but when I hear “Follow the money” from the Watergate days, I point out that today, if it’s from the Koch’s & the usual suspects, it’s totally legal! Thanks Citizens United!  

You talked about how hard it is to keep up with the news about the nominees. My friends at The Democracy Labs created a tool that shows the links between the Billionaires, the cabinet picks, Project 2025 people and Influencers to Trump. I talked to the creators and suggested they should add YouTube links to the people’s names so you can do research for A Closer Look.

Here is the link to the tool. https://thedemlabs.org/2024/12/01/trump-nominees-map-dec-1-2024/

I used the tool/site to look up information and links on Sean Duffy, Trump’s nominee for Department of Transportation. Trump picked Duffy because he saw him on TV and he looks like a MANLY MAN, especially compared to the GAY Pete Buttigieg. Sure Pete was in combat, but DUFFY was a LUMBERJACK* contest winner! 

 I expect Duffy will attack Pete Buttigieg for this year’s “Christmas Transportation” problems that Duffy, the LUMBERJACK, will fix by throwing axes at them, just like Pete Hegseth! (Who happens to be Duffy’s wife co-host on Fox and Friends Weekend!)

---

---

We know Fox will position Duffy as being there for travelers with families, unlike Buttigieg who Duffy attacked for being on paternity leave and not doing anything about Transportation problems!  Duffy WOULD never go on Paternity leave, even though Duffy & his wife have 9 kids. But we can’t talk about politicians kids, especially since one of them has Down’s syndrome, HOWEVER you can talk about Duffy’s traveling with kids during the holidays. How do they do it!?

How many nannies do the Duffy’s have? Are they here legally?  Have the Duffy’s paid them correctly?

Where will the Duffy’s go for Christmas? To the 50-acre Hawaiian ranch they just bought for $3.5 million.  

Where did the Duffy’s get the money? Their Fox News salaries are one area. You might point out Duffy quit Congress because he said couldn’t live on $174K a year. The boring “Follow the money” people would ask, “Did you know that since 2019 Duffy has accepted almost $1 millions from BRG Group to lobby for the airlines, and transportation companies?” Link to Duffy and OpenSecrets lobbying profile. BUT WHO CARES!? It’s totally legal! BORING!!! 

But, what if you heard Rachel Campos-Duffy got a $1 million dollar settlement from Fox News for sexual harassment? EXCITING!

Sadly nobody will talk about sexual harassment at Fox News because both of them work there.  Also, she likely signed an NDA, and it was around the time she was named co-host of Fox and Friends Weekends. HOWEVER, you could play this clip from 2017,  when she talked about Al Franken and said,

“There are a lot of sexual harassers on the Hill who are quivering in their boots right now… Talk about draining the swamp. Let’s get rid of them. Let’s get rid of this secret fund that they have. Let’s let constituents know who are these people who’ve been accused of sexual harassment and are using a secret taxpayer fund to quiet their accusers.” — Rachel Campos-Duffy Nov 17, 2017

link to the video: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10155941251265238

If that’s too serious for A Closer Look, I want to direct you to some wacky comments from his wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy. 

“Former reality TV star Rachel Campos-Duffy has spent eight years spreading extremism and conspiracy theories as a contributor and host at Fox News, where she has pushed the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, complained about “the eugenics mentality of the pro-choice movement,” and claimed that feminism is about “abortion and communism.”

Here is a link to a BUNCH of her wacky comments from my friends at Media Matters.

Link https://www.mediamatters.org/rachel-campos-duffy/reality-tv-warping-reality-rachel-campos-duffy-has-made-career-pushing

* Sean Duffy’s Lumberjack videos

Duffy Bulls Eye throwing axes 
Duffy Climbing poles
Duffy log rolling

You could compare Sean Duffy’s Axe Throws and Pete Hegseth’s (Which I know you love) But that’s not enough, when people see Lumberjack they instantly think of the Monty Python song, maybe you can use that as a connection. Remember the lyrics to that song? 

MOUNTY CHORUS

He’s a lumberjack and he’s OK
He sleeps all night and works all day
PALIN
I cut down trees, I wear high heels
Suspenders and a bra
I wish I were a girlie
Just like my dear papa

Thank you for your work on A Closer Look. I’m a big fan. I even have a Corrections jackal mug and a Late Night with Seth Meyer’s t-shirt.

LLAP 
Spocko
Mastodon: @spocko@mastodon.online 
Bluesky: @spocko.bsky.social  
Twitter/X @Spockosbrain 

P.S. BTW, I suggested to my one rich Democrat friend that he pay me to feed you folks raw material to work with in advance so you can confirm it & write some of the 100 jokes Seth demands every day. He suggested I do it for free, because I love Democracy. Frankly, if the Democrats were smart, they’d hire comedy writers to help them with Zingers. I’ll bet Scollins or Baze would love to write jokes for Chuck Schumer…

Cross Posted to Spocko’s Brain #SethMeyers #ACloserLook #SeanDuffy #PeteHegseth #Lumberjack song #MontyPython #AxeThrowing #RachalCampos-Duffy #FoxNews #SexualHarassment

Today Cliff Schecter and Hal Sparks talked about Kash Patel & how he could be the first possible leather daddy to head the FBI.

The Steve Bannon plan is to overwhelm the media with Trump’s horrible nominees. What gets to the MSM, that makes them disqualified, isn’t the same as what makes it to late night comedy shows, or to Fox News, or RW social media.

Part of what we can do with our audiences is to show how weird these people are. There are serious reasons these people are horrible, that would disqualify them to normal people like us. But we need to also point out stuff that the MAGAs have a hard time with, but we can’t reach their channels. If we tried they’d say, “I thought you were COOL WITH DEI, gays, and leather daddies!” So we put stuff out saying, “We’re cool them being gay or leather daddies, but we are not cool with their policies to destroy our national security, are you?”

Frankly I don’t know which weird, corrupt, sick, incompetent or illegal activity of Trump’s nominees will knock them out of the process. But we need to find them and share them. And if we don’t succeed in knocking them out, we need to prepare for weaknesses in the crappy choices number 2 & 3.

Marcy Wheeler was on the Nicole Sandler show talking about all the things the Dems need to point out in other candidates, like Pam Bondi, that we can hammer on during the nomination process.

What we find disqualifying, like failing to protect the people of Florida from bank fraud, THEY like! Such as when Bondi fired the Florida AG staff who were prosecuting the banks offering fraudulent loans. She got donations from one of the companies behind the fraud. The corporations would LOVE and AG that gives them a pass for fraud. So, we have to show all the Trump supporters who were harmed by Bondi’s failure as Florida AG, that she is not going to protect them in the future. (Sadly, people who lost their homes to mortgage fraud, and the attorneys who resigned or were fired don’t have a big lobbying arm, but they are available to talk on camera during a nomination hearing.

Maybe that’s not sick enough, so I look forward to retelling the story of the time Pam Bondi delayed an execution so she can party

Cross posted to Spocko’s Brain @spocko.bsky.social @spocko@mastodon.online

As Digby wrote earlier, Republicans ought to think twice about confirming Kash Patel, “Hoover had everyone under his thumb, not just the liberals. ”

On Cliff Schecter’s Youtube channel today is a video about Kash Patel, “a very emotionally and intellectually damaged “person,” has long been a fave of Trump’s bc he’s a Stalinist to the core. Not very bright, but very vengeful & very loyal to whichever authoritarian he serves. He was installed at the Defense Dept in 2020 to help w Trump’s coup. Gee, why would Trump want him running “his” FBI??”

Yesterday I watched hours of Kash Patel videos on Rumble and YouTube. The things that people on the left find horrifying, the right LOVES. “Drain the SWAMP! Fire everyone! Prosecute TRAITORS!” But what we have seen is that what upsets the RW is the only way we can stop Trump’s nominees. In the video I watched, Patel on The Shawn Ryan Show September 2, 2024, I found the comment that will get the RIGHT to push him out.

Patel’s plan is to take a way the money making power of 51 intelligence community people by revoking their security clearance.

I think THIS is what will crush his nomination. The intelligence community won’t be obvious that they want to protect their revenue streams, but they will find something bad enough to upset the GOP. Like how they got rid of the DEA sheriff nomination because he was too tough on some mega church pastor in Florida that didn’t follow the COVID laws.
THAT is how you get rid of someone on the right. YOU SHOW the times they were too LEFTY.

What people need to prepared for is that Patel will blame the LEFT for losing the nomination for FBI. But he won’t go away. Just like Matt Gaetz won’t go away. I expect Patel to lash out at EVERYONE, so the RW won’t want their fingers on the leaks/ story. But this is one way government employees will protect themselves against Trump’s nutballs.

As I said on the Nicole Sandler show, we need to keep finding ways to knock down Trump MAGA, the media isn’t going to do it for us. The Dems are afraid, the Republicans are afraid. So we look for who will LOSE money because of Trump’s minions. They can see this as a zero sum game for revenue and play the hardball that we can’t.

Last Wednesday I wrote about Democrats fear of fighting back. I linked to a video from my friend Cliff Schecter. We’ve been talking about what fighting back looks like. I’m going to share some examples here next week with specifics. Today Cliff shares an example, Gavin Newsom.

Yes we were all horrified by Trump’s win. But at some point we get back up and fight. Newsom’s response has been chef’s kiss. No Trump congratulations. You accept the results, but rip him to cameras, point out it was a puny win, he’s no king and still an asshole. You call a special legislative session to bolster legal defenses and garner media coverage of your message!

You go to D.C., meet with Democratic reps and President Biden–not Trump. You know it’ll piss him off and he doesn’t deserve the photo op. The coup de gras? Newsom’s using a Trump threat to justify harming Apartheid Man-Baby’s business, which should help kick the inevitable Musk vs. Trump clash into gear. Watch the video for that one and all the rest, as we learn to fight the tyrants.

And be sure after you watch to SUBSCRIBE to Cliff’s Edge, which is quickly becoming a leading resistance outlet on Youtube we’ll need over the next four years!

I just saw a great video from my old friend Cliff Schechter on his new YouTube channel, Cliff’s Edge.

Is It Time to Start FIGHTING Dirty Against Donald Trump?

After I watched it, I liked, subscribed and joined the channel as a paying member. I’d like folks to do the same. Then I called Cliff to talk about it.

I’ve known Cliff for years and we talked about “fighting” on camera on RW media, and the opportunity for a lefty billionaire to buy a media outlet like CNBC and MSNBC. I hope it happens. If it DOES happen, we need to understand the fear of funders on the left to fighting back and what to do about it.

One thing that I’ve seen is that people who consider themselves journalists in the mainstream media don’t see “fighting back” as their job. That’s the job of activists. That’s the job of Democrats. Many see their role as reporting the facts. (Or “documenting the atrocities” as Atrios would say.)

I’ve written about what happens to journalists when they do report the facts, do the “both sides” bit, and talk to experts. They get threatened. Accepting death threats IS NOT part of the job! @spockosbrain 

I’ve been a behind the scenes activist for almost 20 years. I’ve taught my techniques and methods to others. I see how when we win, the right adapts. I actively developed the Spocko Method to drive advertisers away from the violent rhetoric of RW talk radio. This method destroyed RW media’s easy corporate revenue stream. Brands didn’t want to associate with hosts talking about blowing people’s brains out, and sexist attacks on women. Respectable corporate customer facing ads got pulled from RW radio hosts’ shows. The RW media lost 100s of millions of dollars in revenue.

The RW media adapted and started taking money from boner pill companies & supplements. They took money from dark money fronts & RW groups who just wanted the audience and didn’t need to sell goods or services.

I don’t want to get started about how this strategy failed with Elon Musk. When you can tell Advertisers to Go. F*ck. Yourself, that’s a game changer. I worked with the groups that contacted advertisers just to tell them “Hey your brand is being tainted you might want to do something” Musk SUED THOSE GROUPS, AND THE ADVERTISERS! That is something Disney/ABC/ didn’t do when I alerted advertisers to the violent rhetoric coming from the KSFO hosts.

But just like the RW adapts, so do we. There are ways to fight back. There are people who are fighting back. And we need to support them. Financially.

One of my recent projects involves helping the people who have been harmed by the right. It involves suing those who have been harming others AND those who organized the harm. What I’m doing behind the scenes is learning WHY, when we win, we stop. I’m looking at the models of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Qui tam laws and class actions suits. I’m also looking at how these stories are covered in the media, how they are shared (or not shared) on social media. How can these stories penetrate the RW bubble? What can we do when the RW bubble REFRAMES everything so that the person DOING the harm is seen as the victim? (“Cricket shot first! Kristi Noam was defending her family from a vicious dog! Coastal elites don’t understand farm life!”)

One of the things I’m looking at is how regular people can help, without subjecting themselves to massive attacks online, in the media and on social media. Here’s the thing, there are already people who have been harmed and the bad people have gotten away with it. They PROFITED from organizing harm. People might say, that’s “Just good business” because in America making money often overrules EVERYTHING. But not always.

Some change does happen when causing and organizing harm ends up COSTING corporations and individuals money. And when reducing harm MAKES money for the people who were harmed, well, most people can get behind that.

Yes. I know the people causing harm adapt. We on the left feel better helping victims. We don’t like to be the aggressor, many want to forgive the bad people and move on. We need to understand this impulse, and prepare for it in our fights.

This is one of the reasons that the right screams “political prosecution!” when they are held accountable for crimes where they have had due process, found guilty and ordered to pay restitution. They STILL want to appeal to people’s sympathy. We are seeing this right now with Rudy Giuliani’s failure to pay what he owes to Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.

Rudy goes outside the courthouse, where he’s not under oath, and lies about the case. That’s the video I’ve seen used on TV and quoted in stories. What we DON’T see are the lawyers for Freeman & Moss calling out the lies following Rudy’s press conference outside. I want to see more of Freeman & Mosses lawyers on the attack.

If we don’t hear from the victims, the focus of the story becomes RUDY as the victim, not, Rudy failing to pay the REAL victims what he owes. RUDY IS NOT THE VICTIM! He’s the bully, the aggressor and the adjudicated LOSER in this case. If I was doing PR for the lawyers I would be out front of the courthouse every SINGLE TIME Rudy whines, and point out what a LIAR he is and remind people of the HARM he caused.

We can not forget what happened to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, remind people of the 100’s of death threats they got that drove them from their homes. Tell people the story again of the big names who still haven’t been held accountable for their role in the case. We need to fight back on behalf of the people who have been harmed. And we keep fighting back after we win.

Yes, I’m on BlueSky @spocko.bsky.social also on Mastodon @spocko@mastodon.online

Cross posted to Spocko’s Brain.

“When we fight, we win!” – Kamala Harris.

So, what do we do when we fight & lose? Never Give Up! Never surrender!

People admire that about a leader and a cause. We don’t just fight the fights we can win. You fight the fights that need fighting!” Martin Sheen, The American President (1995)

We expect people to follow the norms of losing. Like we do. Accept the loss. Don’t flip the board over.

And when we WIN? We are supposed to accept the win. So we stop fighting. We reach out to the losing side & shake hands. We follow the norms of winners. Say, “Good luck! It’s great to have a strong opponent!”

We aren’t supposed to be a sore winner! Don’t spike the football. Don’t mock them for losing. Don’t brag about the win everywhere. “Don’t get cocky kid!”

I’m getting into too many sports and movie metaphors here, so I want to talk about a specific win and why when we fight & win against RWers we must keep fighting, because the norms of winning aren’t enough against today’s RW.

Ruby Freeman & Shaye Moss won a $148 million judgement against Giuliani after he defamed them

Rudy delayed turning over his assets to them for over a year.

Inside court, under oath, Rudy & his lawyers were rebuked and chastised by the judge for their failures to follow the law. Rudy was threatened with contempt

Outside the court, when he was NOT under oath, Rudy lied about the case.

The MSM ran the video of Rudy lying. Those lies were shared everywhere on social media.

There was no video of the lawyer for Freeman & Moss reminding people of the harm Rudy did, his failure to comply, debunking his new and reoccurring lies, and what was revealed UNDER OATH in the court.

On Thursday of last week Rudy’s lawyers quit working for him.
Rudy Giuliani’s Lawyers Tell Judge They Want To Quit On Him
(This is a GREAT story about it by Brandi Buchman in the Huffington Post. She focused on how the victims were harmed. )

People think they quit because they were worried about getting paid, but I asked Glenn Kirschner about that Sunday and he said, judges don’t grant that kind of request, because they should have known that going in. More likely it was because they didn’t want to commit crimes for Rudy and they didn’t want to get disbarred, like Rudy.

Outside of court Rudy whined he didn’t have enough money to afford food, and his followers donated $127,000 to him. (Money that should be seized by the court and given to Freeman and Moss.)

Friday, we learned he’s been hiding over $40,000 in joint checking accounts in multiple LLCs, in court he didn’t want to tell the judge who was in those LLCs with him, but because it was in court, he was ORDERED to do it. (BTW, why did he say he couldn’t give their name? He claimed they would be threatened and harassed. They expect that the tactics THEY use to intimidate others will be used by the left.)

Friday night Rudy finally turned over some assets: some watches, his Mercedes. Hooray! That’s a win! We need to celebrate!

Rudy was ALSO supposed to turn over a signed, framed Joe DiMaggio jersey. That was supposed to be settled on Nov 15. But Rudy’s new lawyer didn’t turn it over and engaged in legal f*ckery.

See the Jolting Joe jersey hung over his fireplace in his penthouse apartment? Rudy got it in 2002 at the 3rd Annual Joe DiMaggio Awards Gala Honoring Rudy Giuliani. When the lawyer for Freeman and Moss got the keys to the penthouse, it wasn’t there.

There was a bunch of back and forth with Rudy’s lawyers about exactly where it was, asking for a list of inventory and how the Freeman/Moss lawyers could access them. The old lawyers quit, the new lawyer sent a letter saying something like,

‘Oh yeah, that framed Joe DiMaggio jersey that was in his penthouse apartment? According to OUR interpretation of the law in the state of New York, that shirt is ‘wearing apparel’ and is exempt.’

ARE YOU Fking KIDDING ME? WEARING APPAREL? RUDY LOST THE CASE! It’s been adjudicated! IN COURT! He did the crime, pay the fine!

What I see today is a lot of people giving up. I get it. When Trump never went to prison for his crimes, people think “What’s the point of fighting him?” It’s hard to think about fighting NEW fights over his lawbreaking, when we failed to punishing him for his OLD attacks. But I want to remind people to focus on the victims who have succeeded in fighting Trump, Rudy, RW media and MAGA nuts.

Learn from what they did right. Learn what to do when they refuse to accept defeat. Anticipate their doubling down. Know that winning in court is not the end of fighting them. They have to be fought OUTSIDE the court too.

Learn how knock back their own narrative in their own media and on social media when we win. “Political prosecution?! We’re the real victims here!”

I’ve written recently why the DOJ is bad at promoting their successes. They don’t get that truth and justice need a hype-man.

But in civil cases, we can talk about the case while it is happening. We can comment about their lies right outside the courthouse. We can get the last word. We can remind people about what was said UNDER OATH in court, and who is the real victim.

These women were DRIVEN from their HOMES and neighborhood of the death threats based on the DEFAMATION of Rudy, OAN, Gateway Pundit and Donald Trump. They had to go into HIDING because people were POUNDING on their doors and pushed their way into their homes to confront them.

@msnbc

GA election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss speak after a jury orders Rudy Giuliani to pay nearly $150 million in damages for defaming the mother and daughter pair after the 2020 election.

♬ original sound – MSNBC

I’ve looked at what kind of cases against Trump & MAGA have succeeded, the civil cases. One reason was there was a financial pay off for the people fighting, so that they can fund the ongoing case against an opponent, especially against one that uses delays & financial resources to overwhelm people.

At the highest levels on the right when someone does something immoral or illegal for Trump they have been getting away with it. But when he thinks someone is ripping him off or doing something that costs him money, THAT is when he gets pissed and will cut them loose. Trump expects to PROFIT from everything. If someone is a big earner, they can get away with ANYTHING.

Fighting Trump, the RW media & MAGA in this century requires us to understand what levers work on them and why. We have seen that when something costs corporations massive amounts of money, the change their behavior. (Then they buy politicians & change the laws so that it doesn’t cost them money anymore, but that’s another story)

With Trump, like a mob boss, if someone stops being a big earner for him they lose power in the organization.

When we win against them, we need ways to take their money and use it to build our side. That means, activists, our media, our lawyers, our influencers, our messaging experts or technology experts. We use that to build and win our future cases against them.

We work the narrative to show our side that when we win, we fight.

Now that it’s clear that Elon is “Dark Gothic MAGA” he’s using multiple ways to help Trump return to power. Here’s one I spotted the other day, from Doge Designer (a suspected Musk sock puppet account).

He says Elon Musk’s PAC launched an X Community focused on “exposing voter fraud and election interference” and it asks people to post videos or information about “election interference” or “anything compromising election integrity” in the X Community.

What’s this really about? It’s a place to dump false and unverified stories that can be used to create the appearance of widespread voter fraud. It will be used right after the election to demand that the votes not be certified until the “fraud” is investigated. It’s also about “flooding the zone with sh*t” in social media so that the media, who are all still on Twitter/X, will have to address all the “fraud” that is posted. Especially since the Musk X algorithm will be amplifying them.

I went to X’s “Election Integrity Community” and found a handful of posts. Three were looking to dox someone who delivered ballots. MAGAts are going after a postal worker for doing his job. Just like they went after election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss for doing their jobs.

This line of attack, going after someone dropping off multiple ballots, presuming they are fraudulent, is the same one used by the widely debunked film 2,000 Mules.

For years I have been writing about the FAILURE of social media companies to enforce their own rules and guidelines about threats of violence on their platforms. Legislators in most states have FAILED to pass laws to address the harm from doxing and harassments of public health officials & workers during the height of the pandemic.

So what are people like this ballot delivery guy to do when they start getting death threats and harassed? Report them to the DOJ’s Election Threats Task Force. It was set up in 2021 for this purpose.

Post by @spocko@mastodon.online

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It’s good that the Election Threats Task Force exists, but it’s not enough to change the attitude that it’s okay to threaten, dox and harass people online. Because of that attitude I’ve been suggesting the use of civil cases.

The Georgia courts never criminally prosecuted the people who attacked them. but Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss did sue the people who defamed them. They sued them for millions. And they WON all those cases. “News network” OAN, Gateway Pundit, and as of Oct 31 2024 “A moving company representative and lawyers were expected to be given access to Rudy Giuliani’s Manhattan apartment after the former New York City mayor failed to turn over belongings to two former Georgia election workers who won a $148 million defamation judgment against him.”. Freeman and Moss are the winners.

There is also the case of Mark Andrews, who was featured putting five ballots in a drop box in Lawrenceville, an Atlanta suburb, in the debunked voter-fraud film 2,000 Mules. He sued Dinesh D’Souza, Salem Media, Regnery Publishing, True The Vote, and True the Vote’s Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips for peddling manufactured lies that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by “ballot mules” engaged in election fraud.

The publisher apologized to Andrews and the Salem Media Group stopped distributing 2,000 Mules. The lawsuit for damages to Andrews is still proceeding. (PDF link)

How do we bust Musk & the MAGA attackers of election workers?

I’m the kind of Vulcan who wants to know the logical steps for how to do things, & then prepare for the illogical actions of humans who do NOT WANT TO DO those things. I say to people, “This is our 3rd rodeo.” We’ve seen these tricks before. We know how the bull will buck. We know how the orange-faced rodeo clown will try to distract us from our goal.

I’m betting that MAGA people will find the ballot delivery man, dox, harass and threaten him. The Election Threats Task Force will need to be alerted to investigate. They might not be able to successfully prosecute a criminal case, because the laws against harassment and doxing aren’t in every state, but it is their mission to take on these kinds of cases. They have the resources to track down all the connections to his threats, including those who amplified, organized and spread false & unverified information that was used to target him. But as I said, lots of humans in law enforcement do NOT want to investigate & prosecute anything that has to do with WORDS. Because of that history I’ve been teaching people. & groups how to file civil lawsuits against the people who defamed and threaten them.

I hope that concurrently to the Task Force investigation the doxxed, harrrassed & threatened ballot deliverer goes to the group that won the Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss civil defamation case. Or the group that sued Dinesh D’Souza, & The Salem Media group.

He will need resources to sue Elon Musk, his PAC and the people who carried out the threats. But, there are now multiple successful cases that the lawyers can point to as a reason to keep the lawsuits going for the years it will take. People need to know Musk has lost cases. He doesn’t prepare for the lawsuits that will come following his rash actions and that makes vulnerable. He has a grade school level of understanding of the law & thinks his definition of free speech is a get out of jail free card for when he breaks laws about speech that is not protected..

The other reason I want to see civil cases is so the lawyers for the plaintiffs can keep talking about the case in public. Civil lawsuits don’t go into the black hole of the DOJ and come out 19 month later with a press release about the win. The DOJ is TERRIBLE at promoting their successful prosecution of threats to election workers and officials.

For example, did you hear about Brian Ogstad, the guy who got 30 months in prison for threatening Arizona election workers? Of course you didn’t! The DOJ put out a press release, didn’t you read it? It didn’t have any photos of Ogstad though, so the media that DID pick it up showed images of a ballot box or a building. I searched for him and found the photo below from when he “confronted” the Cullman City Council on it’s COVID-19 response. )

Alabama Man Sentenced to 30 Months for Threatening Maricopa County Elections Office During 2022 Primary

Brian Ogstad, a former business professor at Maricopa Community Colleges, sent 18 messages to Maricopa County Election workers between August 2 and August 4, 2022, a majority of which contained threats against the workers’ lives. (Photo taken from X, formerly Twitter)

I wanted to make a short video of the threats Ogstad & others made that was powerful enough to get on Fox News, but it’s hard when the DOJ doesn’t even bother to provide MUG shots of the people they put away for years for their true threats to election workers.

In the past people would ask private entities to enforce their own rules & guidelines about speech, especially on social media where people said things that that were “awful, but lawful.” But Musk ignores rules developed on his own platform to protect the community from harm. The “Election Integrity community” looks like it is violating X’s OWN Civil Integrity rules, which, sadly, no one expects Musk to follow. But based on what I’ve seen so far, the new X community violates multiple state and federal laws. I’m going to dig into it more, but just because Musk is protected under rule 230 of the Telecommunication Act, doesn’t mean he’s above all laws. Stay tuned.

Cross Posted to Spocko’s Brain