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Ecstasy in Trumplandia

Published by digby on July 2, 2023

I don’t know if you have the stomach to watch any of Trump’s rally yesterday but at least read this if you don’t. It’s really gotten Nurembergesque:

Former President Donald J. Trump drew a crowd of thousands on Saturday to a quiet South Carolina town’s Independence Day event, where he assailed the integrity of major American institutions and painted a dark portrait of the country ahead of a holiday meant to celebrate its underpinnings.

Speaking for nearly 90 minutes on Main Street in Pickens, S.C., with at least 20 American flags behind his back, Mr. Trump often eschewed the rhetorical flag-waving and calls for unity that have long been as central to Independence Day as hot dogs, baseball and fireworks.

Instead, the twice-impeached and twice-indicted former president railed against Democrats and liberals, who he said threatened to rewrite America’s past and erase its future. He skewered federal law enforcement, which he accused without evidence of rampant corruption. And he attacked President Biden, enumerating what he saw as his character flaws and accusing him of taking bribes from foreign nations.

“We want to have a respect for our country and for the office” of the presidency, Mr. Trump said. “But we really have no interest in people who are sick.”

Mr. Trump’s comments were largely familiar. But the event highlighted the hold he has on his most fervent supporters — a challenge for his Republican rivals as they seek their party’s presidential nomination from far behind Mr. Trump in the polls.

Despite sweltering humidity and heat, thousands of people swarmed the streets of Pickens — a town of about 3,000 in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains — beginning at dawn.

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Pam Nichols, who described herself as an “insurrectionist,” said that she flew from Mundelein, Ill., to proudly support Mr. Trump in person. She had last done so in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, she said, when a mob of Mr. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol building. She did not talk in detail about her actions that day.

“I was told to lay low after,” Ms. Nichols said, adding that she had watched a number of Mr. Trump’s speeches online since. “But I felt like it’s time to come out now. I’m tired of laying low.”

The event in Pickens was only Mr. Trump’s second full-scale rally since he kicked off his campaign in November. Though such rallies were a hallmark of his past two campaigns, he has so far largely taken the stage at events organized by other groups.

Bryan Owens, the director of marketing for Pickens, said that a representative for the Trump campaign reached out two weeks ago to ask to come to the town for its Independence Day celebration.

South Carolina, an early nominating state, was a key victory for Mr. Trump in the 2016 primaries as he sought to unite the Republican Party behind him. In 2020, he won the state handily, drawing overwhelming support in this region, a conservative swath of 10 counties in the northwest corner known as the Upstate.

Mr. Owens said that the town’s decision was easy. Though he personally would not support Mr. Trump in 2024, he said, the opportunity to bring a former president to Pickens was too good to pass up.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime event for Pickens,” Mr. Owens continued, gesturing behind him to a crowd that packed the streets and stretched for several blocks. “And people that aren’t that familiar with small towns — they’ll get that experience.”

Pickens’s Independence Day festivities began with a 5K race to raise money to repair water fountains on a local nature trail. American flags lined the streets, and signs encouraged visitors to shop local, even as businesses on Main Street were closed because of Secret Service measures.

With parking near the site of the rally limited, residents were charging up to $100 — cash, many were quick to clarify — to let visitors leave cars in their driveways or on their lawns. For another $20, a golf cart might shuttle you from your car toward the rally’s entrance, outside a McDonald’s at the end of Main Street.

Red, white and blue were the wardrobe colors of the day, from hat to boots. Tammy Milligan, of Myrtle Beach, S.C., arrived dressed in a Wonder Woman costume, which she said she started wearing around the time of Mr. Trump’s first impeachment in 2019.

Even as she stood behind Mr. Trump wholeheartedly and called him a patriot, she acknowledged that much of the country felt differently — which she framed as an American ideal.

“Well, everyone’s entitled to think what they want to think,” Ms. Milligan said. “That’s our country.”

Mr. Trump was not so generous. He dwelled on the federal indictment that charged him with illegally retaining national security documents and obstructing the government’s efforts to reclaim them. And even as he denounced the prosecution as an egregious and politically motivated step, he vowed, as he has before, that he would reciprocate in kind if elected.

Outlining a dark vision of America, Mr. Trump called his political opponents “sick people” and “degenerates” who were “running our country to the ground.”

And he threatened the Republicans while he was at it:

He’s got not more than a 50/50 endorsee record. That’s another lie. Naturally.

Hey single ladies and gents

Published by digby on July 2, 2023

Elon thinks you should STFU

I wish we didn’t have to pay attention to this moron. But his influence is huge as twitter owner and he’s making everything even more terrible than it already was.

Mommy Dearests for Liberty

Published by digby on July 2, 2023

Yikes:

In another era of politics, Republican presidential hopefuls may have hesitated before hitching their brands to an organization whose members have harassed and threatened opponents, fantasized about enacting gun violence, mingled with known extremist groups, quoted Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in their materials, and earned a designation as an anti-government hate group. It’s safe to say that time is long gone.

Five 2024 candidates traveled to the birthplace of the United States to take turns auditioning for the support of a sold-out crowd of Moms for Liberty activists and rhetorically kissing the rings of the group’s co-founders, former school board members Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice, at their “Joyful Warriors” conference in Philadelphia this week.

It’s little surprise; Moms for Liberty has emerged as a juggernaut in the conservative movement since its inception two years ago. The group claims to fight for “parental rights at all levels of government,” but it’s better known for what it opposes: COVID-19 health precautions, the contents of school libraries, and educational curricula that feature lessons about race, sexuality, and gender. Moms for Liberty has ridden its successes into statehouses across the country, where it hopes to help push anti-LGBTQ bills into law.

The Southern Poverty Law Center added Moms for Liberty to its database of extremist groups last month: a move swiftly rejected by the group as a “political hit job” and frowned upon by many of the group’s conservative media allies. For many speakers, including presidential candidates, that hate group designation was acknowledged via a punchline.

“I’m telling you these people are sick,” former President Donald Trump said, earning laughter from the audience. “Moms for Liberty is no hate group… You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to America.”

Even Nikki Haley, a relative moderate in the current slate of Republican candidates, shrugged off the group’s scandals.

“When they mentioned that this was a terrorist organization, I said, ‘Well, then count me as a Mom for Liberty,’” Haley proclaimed to the sold-out crowd. She was met with roaring applause.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told Moms for Liberty that scrutiny of the group was “a sign that we are winning this fight.”

Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma superintendent of public instruction who has called teachers’ unions “terrorist organizations” and is facing fallout for his handling of federal funds, took his pushback a step further.

“You know who else was called a terrorist group, an extremist group?” Walters rhetorically asked. “Those founding fathers. That’s who you are today. You are the most patriotic, pro-America group in the country right now.”

It’s clear that the SPLC’s hate group designation struck a chord at Moms for Liberty. The joking candor shifted briefly before Trump spoke on Friday, when co-founder Justice teased that her group would be exploring retribution, hinting at possible legal action, against its opponents and critics.

But even with that scrutiny in front of mind, Moms for Liberty made no apparent effort to tamp down on the kinds of extreme rhetoric and far-right affiliations that earned its spot on SPLC’s list to begin with. Even a passing glance at the event’s speakers lineup reveals a wash of far-right ideologues.

One featured speaker was KrisAnne Hall, who has espoused far-right rhetoric and affiliated with less-debatable extremist groups like the anti-government Oath Keepers and neo-Confederate League of the South. Others include James Lindsay, an anti-LGBTQ social media performer who has described the Pride flag as that “of a hostile enemy” and North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, an unabashed Christian nationalist who has declared the transgender rights movement “demonic” and “full of the Antichrist spirit.” Many speakers have publicly accused teachers and officials who promote LGBTQ inclusion in schools of grooming children for sexual exploitation—incendiary rhetoric that has undergirded surges in anti-LGBTQ threats in the US.

That sort of sentiment was mirrored by DeSantis, who maintains a fandom within Moms for Liberty, and the other presidential hopefuls, too. At one point in DeSantis’ speech, he declared that gender-affirming care for transgender youth was “wrong” and “has no place in our society.”

Haley accused transgender rights advocates of “trying to erase” the progress of women in America. Audible groans of disgust could be heard from audience members when Trump bemoaned parents who take their children to drag shows.

The incendiary rhetoric directed toward LGBTQ people and their advocates on stage was certainly hateful, but it also serves to justify a host of behaviors and policies that don’t actually help parents or their children. It also works to cast Republicans’ political opponents not just as people who disagree but as immoral villains who must be defeated by any means necessary, let alone compromised with.

The establishment conservative movement has long sought to undermine public education, and some of its biggest players have predictably rushed to support Moms for Liberty and groups like it. Its founders have discovered allies in a host of conservative movement groups with large bases of support and dollars. Heritage Foundation and Liberty Institute, two of the most powerful and well-funded think tanks in Washington, sponsored Moms for Liberty’s summit this year.

If you believe Trump, all of this debasement is in service of fighting “a cult” of “Marxists and perverts” who are pushing a “poison” of gender ideology on children. Those who believe DeSantis might think of themselves like those who battled for a democratic Berlin after World War II. Whatever it might be, to the true believer, it must be better than the child abuse Democrats supposedly hope to normalize.

The only viable currency in the modern Republican Party is raw power: a fact made self-evident in presidential candidates’ appearances at the Moms for Liberty summit. In their run to the top of the ticket, these Republican candidates have also submitted to a race to the bottom of a barrel, where shame is a benchable injury.

They haven’t submitted. They have eagerly embraced this. They like it. They feel … liberated.

Meanwhile, in Pickens

Published by Tom Sullivan on July 2, 2023

South Carolina, y’all

Yup. Pretty much like this:

In which a local deploys a metaphor:

Sen. Lindsey Graham is from Central, SC where he once tended bar. Central is just south of Pickens. (I lived in Central, a former mill village, for a stretch in the mid-1980s.)

Old stomping (and biking) grounds.

Lindsey seems to have outlived his usefulness to local MAGA foot soldiers.

Nobody gets indoctrinated around these parts. Hell, no:

Back in the day, the weekly Mountain Monitor of Travelers Rest used to document the weekly car wrapped around a tree and feature (IIRC) articles borrowed from The Thunderbolt (Klan), the apparent voice of truth in America. Since then, T.R. (just north of Greenville) has gentrified some. Pickens, less so, apparently.

Southern Poverty Law Center on the National Justice Party.

Supreme Court rules on a lie

Published by Tom Sullivan on July 2, 2023

Feels like another big one

Supreme Court, Authority of Law Statue . Photo 2009 by Matt Wade via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).

Here’s an eye-catching headline: Man cited in Supreme Court LGBTQ rights case says he was never involved.

In 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis on Friday, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of Lorie Smith, a Colorado web designer who objected to building a wedding web site for a gay couple … that did not exist.

Wait, what?!

Washington Post:

Lorie Smith filed her initial case to Colorado district court in 2016, arguing that the state’s anti-discrimination law prevented her from including a message on the webpage for her company, 303 Creative, stating that she would not create wedding websites for gay couples.

In subsequent court documents, her lawyers cited a query that they said was sent by an individual named Stewart with contact information that matches the person The Post interviewed. The request asked for Smith’s services for Stewart’s forthcoming wedding to a person named “Mike.”

“We are getting married early next year and would love some design work done for our invites, placenames etc. We might also stretch to a website,” the message cited in the case read.

A New Republic reporter contacted Stewart last week prior to the ruling. It was the first time Stewart had heard anything about the case (New Republic):

Yes, that was his name, phone number, email address, and website on the inquiry form. But he never sent this form, he said, and at the time it was sent, he was married to a woman. “If somebody’s pulled my information, as some kind of supporting information or documentation, somebody’s falsified that,” Stewart explained. (Stewart’s last name is not included in the filing, so we will be referring to him by his first name throughout this story.)

“I wouldn’t want anybody to … make me a wedding website?” he continued, sounding a bit puzzled but good-natured about the whole thing. “I’m married, I have a child—I’m not really sure where that came from? But somebody’s using false information in a Supreme Court filing document.”

What’s more, it was the first time anyone had contacted him about the case.

The Guardian:

The revelation of a falsified request may not matter much in a strictly legal sense, said Jenny Pizer, the chief legal officer at Lambda Legal, a group that protects LGBTQ+ rights. The court has signaled recently that potential liability is enough to support a legal challenge, she said.

“The bigger impact might well be on the public’s view of the claims by self-identified Christian business owners who claim they are victims of religious persecution when they are expected to follow the same non-discrimination laws that apply equally to all business owners,” she said. “This sort of revelation tends to reinforce to many people that the fundamentalist Christian victim narrative is without foundation.”

The inquiry from Stewart seems to have appeared at a suspicious point in the litigation, the New Republic noted.

The query was sent on 21 September 2016, a day after the Alliance Defending Freedom filed the lawsuit on Smith’s behalf. In the fall of 2016, Smith’s attorneys originally said that she did not need an actual request for services to challenge the law. But months later, in February of 2017, it referenced the request. Smith signed an affidavit saying she received the message.

The Alliance Defending Freedom tells the Washington Post, “Whether Lorie received a legitimate request or whether someone lied to her is irrelevant. No one should have to wait to be punished by the government to challenge an unjust law.”

Harry Litman, former U.S. Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General, tweeted:

This is a bonafide scandal. On the legal level, it means the Court decided a case that wasn’t a real case or controversy as Art III requires. On the political level, it

means that conservative forces in the country have effected a huge change in the law, and inroad on long-established anti-discrimination principles, based on a contrived story that exploited the judicial system and simply did an end-around the requirement of actual facts.

Finally, for the Court majority it’s a huge black eye that they neverthelss will simply ignore, b/c they can, and b/c the case serves their agenda,even though they sh be apoplectic about being taken advantage of. Imagine the hue & cry if Jane Roe had been a man who made it all up

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in his opinion that “the First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands.” 

“All manner of speech – from ‘pictures, films, paintings, drawings, and engravings,’ to ‘oral utterance and the printed word’ – qualify for the First Amendment’s protections; no less can hold true when it comes to speech like Ms. Smith’s conveyed over the Internet,” Gorsuch wrote.

Educators in Ron DeSantis’ Florida and in other states restricting speech and books can taste the bitterness.

Maybe not having an actual request ultimately is irrelevant to this case. But it still raises quite a stink. The fact that teams of Trump supporters after November 2020 submitted slates of fraudulent electors from multiple states seems pretty damned relevant. But what do I know? Law is outside my area.

Conservative activists deploy “voter fraud” as an accusation like Donald Trump does with “Russia, Russia, Russia.” Is it any surprise where the real fraud is coming from?

Lindsey Graham is hated by Trumpers in South Carolina? WTH?

Published by digby on July 1, 2023

What in God’s name did he do to deserve this? He’s the most servile of Trump loving Senators in the government? I don’t get it. Trump pretty much calls him a liberal. What’s he talking about?

Graham isn’t happy. This may be a watershed moment for him. There is literally nothing he can do to make himself more of a Trump sycophant and it isn’t enough, They hate him anyway. He is nothing.

Update. Ok. I guess it must be Ukraine. I suppose he can try to become a Putin loving symp in a vain attempt to remain “relevant” but that’s all he’s got left.

Yikes. This is so fucking sick:

Sounds just a little “Auschwitz-y” to me.

She knew what she was saying. They all did.

Raffensberger wasn’t the only one

Published by digby on July 1, 2023

We knew Trump had called Arizona Governor Doug Ducey (remember seeing that video of him getting a phone call with the “hail to the chief” ring tone while he was signing the electoral count paperwork?) We had not heard for sure until now whether Trump was doing what we thought he was doing:

In a phone call in late 2020,President Donald Trump tried to pressure Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) to overturn the state’spresidential election results, saying that if enough fraudulent votes could be found it would overcome Trump’s narrow loss in Arizona, according to three people familiar with the call.

Trump also repeatedly asked Vice President Mike Pence to call Ducey and prod him to find the evidence to substantiate Trump’s claims of fraud, according to two of these people. Pence called Ducey several times to discuss the election, they said, though he did not follow Trump’s directions to pressure the governor.

The extent of Trump’s efforts to cajole Ducey into helping him stay in power have not before been reported, even as other efforts by Trump’s lawyer and allies to pressure Arizona officials have been made public. Ducey told reporters in December 2020 that he and Trump had spoken, but he declined to disclose the contents of the call then or in the more than two years since. Although he disagreed with Trump about the outcome of the election, Ducey has sought to avoid a public battle with Trump.

Ducey described the “pressure” he was under after Trump’s loss to a prominent Republican donor over a meal in Arizona earlier this year, according to the donor, who like others interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. The account was confirmed by others aware of the call. Ducey told the donor he was surprised that special counsel Jack Smith’s team had not inquired about his phone calls with Trump and Pence as part of the Justice Department’s investigation into the former president’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the donor said.

Ducey did not record the call, people familiar with the matter said.

Now out of public office, the former governor declined through a spokesman to answer specific questions about his interactions with Trump and his administration.

[…]

A spokesman for Trump declined to respond to questions about the call with Ducey and instead falsely declared in a statement that “the 2020 Presidential election was rigged and stolen.” The spokesman said Trump should be credited for “doing the right thing — working to make sure that all the fraud was investigated and dealt with.”

It is unclear if Ducey has been contacted by Smith’s office since meeting with the donor. Investigators in the special counsel’s office have asked witnesses about Trump’s calls with governors, including the one to Ducey, according to two people familiar with the matter. It is unclear if prosecutors plan to eventually bring charges or how the calls figure into their investigation. Prosecutors have also shown interest in Trump’s efforts to conscript Pence into helping him, according to witnesses and subpoenas previously reviewed by The Washington Post.

Trump phoned the governor’s cellphone on Nov. 30,2020, as Ducey was in the middle of signing documents certifying President Biden’s win in the state during a live-streamed video ceremony. Trump’s outreach was immediately clear to those watching. They heard “Hail to the Chief” play on the governor’s ringtone. Ducey pulled his phone from out of his suit jacket, muted the incoming call and put his phone aside. On Dec. 2,he told reporters he spoke to the president after the ceremony,buthe declined to fully detail the nature of the conversation. Ducey said the president had “an inquisitive mind”but did not ask the governor to withhold his signature certifying the election results.

But four people familiar with the call said Trump spoke specifically about his shortfall of more than 10,000 votes in Arizona and then espoused a range of false claims that would show he overwhelmingly won the election in the state and encouraged Ducey to study them. At the time, Trump’s attorneys and allies spread false claims to explain his loss, including that voters who had died and noncitizens had cast ballots.

After Trump’s call to Ducey, Trump directed Pence, a former governor who had known Ducey for years, to frequently check in with the governor for any progress on uncovering claims of voting improprieties, according to two people with knowledge of the effort.

Pence was expected to report back his findings and was peppered with conspiracy theories from Trump and his team,the person said. Pence did not pressure Ducey, but told him to please call if he found anything because Trump was looking for evidence, according to those familiar with the calls.

A representative for Pence declined to comment.

In each of the calls, Ducey reiterated that officials in the state had searched for alleged widespread illegal activity and followed up on every lead but had not discovered anything that would have changed the outcome of the election results, according to Ducey’s recounting to the donor.

After learning that Ducey was not being supportive of his claims, Trump grew angryand publicly attacked him.

It is unclear if Ducey and Trump had additional conversations. Publicly, the governor said the state’s election systems should be trusted, even as Trump and his allies sought to reverse his loss.

In Arizona, Trump and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, called then Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers (R) on Nov. 22, 2020. They asked the speaker to convene the legislature to investigate their unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud, which included that votes had been cast en masse by undocumented immigrants and in the names of deceased people. Weeks later, on Dec. 31, 2020 the White House switchboard left a message for the chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, Clint Hickman, seeking to connect him with Trump. The supervisor, a Republican, did not return the call.

Trump and his allies made similar appeals to officials in Michigan and Georgia.On Jan. 2, 2021, Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) and said he wanted to undo his loss there by finding additional votes. The next night, the White House switchboard left Hickman another voice mail seeking to connect him to Trump. Hickman did not call back.

Investigators with Smith’s office interviewed Raffensperger this week, and they interviewed Giuliani last week. “The appearance was entirely voluntary and conducted in a professional manner,” said Giuliani spokesman Ted Goodman.

More than half a dozen past and current officials in Arizona contacted by Trump or his allies after his defeat have either been interviewed by Smith’s team or have received grand jury subpoenas seeking records,according to four people familiar with the interviews.Those interviewed include Bowers, the former Arizona House speaker, and three current members of the governing board of Maricopa County, the largest voting jurisdiction in the state that affirmed that Biden won.

Spokespeople for Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D), told The Post this week that their offices have not received correspondence from Smith’s team seeking records about the 2020 election. The Arizona Secretary of State’s office received a grand jury subpoena dated Nov. 22, 2022, that sought information about communications with Trump, his campaign and his representatives, according to an official familiar with the document but not authorized to publicly speak about it.

By the way, Lindsey Graham called Ducey too.

I sure hope Jack Smith’s investigators have spoken to these people. How the DOJ hadn’t spoken to them at least a year ago is beyond me.

The J6 Martyrs

Published by digby on July 1, 2023

This is just depressing:

Six months since the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol completed its work, a far-right ecosystem of true believers has embraced “J6” as the animating force of their lives.

They attend the criminal trials of the more prominent rioters charged in the attack. They gather to pray and sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” on the outer perimeter of the District of Columbia jail, where some two dozen defendants are held. Last week, dozens showed up at an unofficial House hearing convened by a handful of Republican lawmakers to challenge “the fake narrative that an insurrection had occurred on Jan. 6,” as set forth by Jeffrey Clark, a witness at the hearing and a former Justice Department official who worked to undo the results of the 2020 election.

The 90-minute event was a through-the-looking-glass alternative to the damning case against former President Donald J. Trump presented last year by the Jan. 6 committee. In the version advanced by five House Republicans who attended the hearing — Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Ralph Norman, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Troy Nehls — as well as conservative lawyers and Capitol riot defendants, Jan. 6 was an elaborate setup to entrap peaceful Trump supporters, followed by a continuing Biden administration campaign to imprison and torment innocent conservatives.

Writ large, their loudest-in-the-room tale of persecution rather than prosecution might be dismissed as fringe nonsense had it not migrated so swiftly to the heart of presidential politics. Mr. Trump has pledged to pardon some of the Jan. 6 defendants if he returns to the White House, and his chief challenger for the 2024 Republican nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, has signaled he may do the same.

More than half, or 58 percent, of self-described conservatives say that Jan. 6 was an act of “legitimate political discourse” rather than a “violent insurrection,” according to a poll three months ago by The Economist/YouGov.

The counternarrative is in part animated by a series of particularly stiff sentences for the Jan. 6 defendants, including one of more than 12 years in prison handed down on Wednesday for a rioter who savagely assaulted a D.C. police officer, Michael Fanone.

The audience for the hearing in the Capitol Visitor Center included several of the most avid and successful promoters of the Jan. 6 counternarrative.

Among them were Micki Witthoeft, the mother of Ashli Babbitt, the Air Force veteran and QAnon adherent who was fatally shot by a Capitol police officer during the riot and is now heralded as a martyr by the far right; Nicole Reffitt, whose husband, Guy Reffitt, was sentenced to more than seven years in prison for his role in the riot and who now helps organize nightly vigils at the D.C. jail; Tayler Hansen, who has claimed to possess videotaped evidence of antifa elements instigating the violence at the Capitol, but who did not respond to a request from The New York Times to view the footage; and Tommy Tatum of Mississippi, who describes himself as an independent journalist and has inferred from various unidentified characters who appear in his own footage that sophisticated teams of plainclothes federal agents orchestrated the breach of the Capitol.

The Jan. 6 deniers range from true believers to flighty opportunists, with fevered arguments among them as to who is which. Mr. Tatum and William Shipley, a lawyer who has represented more than 30 Jan. 6 defendants, have for example accused each other on Twitter of cynical profiteering.

One generally admired within the group is Julie Kelly, a former Illinois Republican political consultant, cooking class teacher and pandemic lockdown critic who writes for the conservative website American Greatness. Ms. Kelly has asserted that the Biden administration is “on a destructive crusade to exact revenge against supporters of Donald Trump” and has accused Mr. Fanone, who was beaten unconscious by the rioters at the Capitol, of being a “crisis actor.” She was a frequent guest on Tucker Carlson’s prime-time show before Fox fired him in April.

Last month, aides to Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave Ms. Kelly and two other conservative writers, John Solomon of Just the News and Joseph M. Hanneman of The Epoch Times, permission to ferret through the Capitol’s voluminous Jan. 6 security footage, the only journalists other than Mr. Carlson to obtain such access.

In an interview the day before the House hearing, Ms. Kelly said she was scouring the video in hopes of learning the provenance of the infamous gallows that were seen on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6. “Did Trump supporters go there and build that? I doubt it,” she said. Ms. Kelly also hopes to learn whether nefarious “agitators” were already inside the Capitol before the breach. She variously termed Jan. 6 “an inside job” and a “fed-surrection.”

Ms. Kelly recounted a meeting she and a fellow supporter of Jan. 6 defendants, Cynthia Hughes, had last September with Mr. Trump at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. She said she told the former president that the defendants felt abandoned by him: “They’re saying to me: ‘We were there for him. Why isn’t he here for us?’” Ms. Hughes informed Mr. Trump that the federal judges he appointed were “among the worst” when it came to the treatment of the riot defendants.

Surprised, Mr. Trump replied, “Well, I got recommendations from the Federalist Society.” Ms. Kelly said he then asked, “What do you want me to do?” She replied that he could donate to Ms. Hughes’s organization, the Patriot Freedom Project, which offers financial support to the defendants. Mr. Trump’s Save America PAC subsequently gave $10,000 to the group.

Others in the ecosystem contend that Mr. Trump’s contribution to the cause is manifest by the slings and arrows he has himself suffered since that day. “I call him Jan. Sixth-er Number One,” said Joseph D. McBride, perhaps the most visible of the lawyers representing the defendants. “He’s under the gun. He’s being investigated and indicted.”

Mr. McBride’s clients include Richard Barnett, who posed for a photograph with his foot on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk, as well as Ryan Nichols, who exhorted fellow protesters to target elected officials, yelling, “Cut their heads off!”

Mr. McBride also represented two Stop the Steal rally organizers subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee, Ali Alexander and Alex Bruesewitz. It was Mr. Bruesewitz who introduced Mr. McBride to Donald Trump Jr., which led to several invitations to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s club in Palm Beach, Fla.

“I’ve lost count at this point,” Mr. McBride said, adding that the club “is a good place to network.”

Mr. McBride was also a frequent guest on Mr. Carlson’s show, including the time he claimed that a mysterious man seen at the Capitol on Jan. 6 with his face obscured in red paint was “clearly a law enforcement officer.” Shown evidence later that week by a HuffPost reporter that the man was a well-known habitué of St. Louis Cardinals baseball games, Mr. McBride replied: “If I’m wrong, so be it, bro. I don’t care.”

He did acknowledge a certain dubiousness to the claim that the mostly white male conservatives who showed up at the Capitol on Jan. 6 had the judicial deck stacked against them.

“Pre-Jan. 6, anytime you heard the term ‘two-tier system of justice,’ it’s Blacks, it’s Latinos, it’s the infringed, it’s the poor, it’s the drug addicted, it’s the marginalized, it’s the L.G.B.T.Q. community,” he said. That coalition of victims, Mr. McBride insisted, now included the MAGA supporters he represented.

That is insane.

Keep in mind that these are the same people who believe that Kyle Rittenhouse was totally justified in gunning down 3 unarmed people at a political protest and routinely defend police and private citizens alike who shoot first and asks questions later.

I don’t know how to think about this anymore. I can’t help but feel that the right is simply brainwashed.

Another freak out shot down

Published by digby on July 1, 2023

Literally:

The Chinese spy balloon that was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean in early February was built, at least partly, using American off-the-shelf parts, a U.S. official has confirmed to ABC News.

The official could not say whether any of the American gear was sold illicitly to China but said determining whether any of it came from illegal trade was a topic of serious concern among officials since some items — like chips — are forbidden to sell to certain markets.

Later Thursday, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said that the balloon not only did not transmit data back to China — it never collected any.MORE: US tracked Chinese balloon from launch, may have accidentally drifted: Official

“We’re aware that it had intelligence collection capabilities, but it was our — and it has been our — assessment now that it did not collect while it was transiting the United States,” Ryder said during a briefing, adding, “As we said at the time, we also took steps to mitigate the potential collection efforts.”

That assessment allays concerns from some lawmakers early this year that the balloon was collecting information as it flew across much of the U.S. mainland in early February, including over sensitive military sites that house intercontinental ballistic missiles, before being downed by the military.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in February the balloon was “one more method that they use to collect intelligence on us. We have to be cognizant of it and protect ourselves against it.”

China has maintained the balloon was merely a harmless, unmanned civilian vehicle.

Ryder was asked Thursday whether he believes those U.S. mitigation efforts were responsible for the balloon’s failure to gather any info.

“Certainly, the efforts that we made contributed,” he said.

I don’t know if we’ll ever learn the whole story about this. But the meltdown over it was instructive. We are a very silly country.

DeSantis and the gays

Published by digby on July 1, 2023

I just don’t know what to say about this…

Tim Miller:

Late Friday, the Ron DeSantis’s extremely online campaign team released a video to contrast the Florida governor’s stalwart bigotry with Donald Trump’s lighter touch and highlight the fact that their candidate stands out as the most hostile to LGBT Americans—in a field that, mind you, also includes Mike Pence.

The ad, which seems to have been originally produced by anonymous Twitter user ProudElephantUS, was repurposed by the “DeSantis War Room” with the following message: “To Wrap up ‘Pride Month,’ let’s hear from the politician who did more than any other to celebrate it…”

The video begins with a sizzle reel of Donald Trump promising to protect LGBT Americans, saying that he doesn’t care what bathroom Caitlyn Jenner uses, telling Barbara Walters that transgender women would be allowed to compete in the Miss Universe contest, and contrasting his views on gays favorably with how the group is viewed by Islamic terrorists.

From there the ad takes a hard turn, with a deep house beat and images that work very hard to depict Ron DeSantis as the country’s most-based, faggot-hating, alpha male. The “pro-”DeSantis portion of the ad compares him to fictional serial killer and cannibal Patrick Bateman, the (purportedly gay) Greek warrior Achilles, and the floating image of the “GigaChad,” a highly photoshopped muscle man.

The ad’s intended message is that, unlike Trump, DeSantis will not show any humanity to gays and will be significantly more effective at targeting LGBT Americans by advancing the most “extreme slate of anti-trans laws in modern history.”

But there is one line from this portion of the video that deserves particular notice.

Mike Figueredo of the Humanist Report is quoted, saying DeSantis “just produced some of the harshest, most draconian laws that literally threaten trans existence” (emphasis added).

It’s important to recognize the context here. This is not one of those clip mashups where MAGA types make fun of hyperventilating lefties making overwrought claims about their opponents. It’s exactly the opposite. This clip is interspersed with shirtless muscled men who are ostensibly there to demonstrate DeSantis’s strength

1 The whole point of the ad is that DeSantis is tough enough to go there and actually target the LGBTs, unlike that cucked Trump who just wants to be loved. 

Given that context, the inclusion of Figueredo’s line about how DeSantis’s policies “literally threaten trans existence” is deeply disturbing. That this line would make it into a product put out by one of the leading contenders for the presidency is a scandal. It ought create a total and complete repudiation from the campaign just to have any hope of surviving. 

Say what you want about Mitt Romney’s 47 percent gaffe, it pales in comparison to suggesting that you want to pass laws that “literally threaten” the existence of a marginalized class of Americans like it’s a good thing.

In addition to this ad being childish, cruel, and reprehensible on the merits, it’s also political malpractice, even in a GOP primary. Especially for the person who is claiming to run as the “electability” candidate. 

Are the voters in the Atlanta suburbs who have abandoned the GOP in droves excited to come back for someone who is running to Trump’s right on anti-gay bigotry? Do you think the McCain/Flake/Ducey voters who rejected creepy Blake Masters in Arizona are going to be interested in supporting someone who compares himself to Patrick Bateman and brags that trans people feel their very existence is threatened by his policies? 

I promise you the answer is no. 

Despite a disquieting turn in public opinion on trans issues, Americans are not looking for an edgelord Nazi who winks at the radicals hoping to eradicate trans people. 

In a just world, DeSantis’s latest attempt to get to Trump’s nutball right would result in a backlash so severe that it eradicates from the GOP primary the notion that there is any purchase in signaling to America that your biggest problem with Trump was that he was just too kind and inclusive. 

Alas, I doubt we live in such a world.

1 To be honest, there are so many shirtless men in the ad that if Proud Elephant were actually a gay lib or Log Cabin Trumper with a thing for muscular dudes trolling the DeSantis campaign and they just didn’t realize it because they have such a hard on for punishing trans people I wouldn’t be surprised. On a scale from homophobic to homoerotic this thing is off the charts.

Ric Grenell, famously gay Trumper (and totally unqualified ambassador and acting CIA director) called it homophobic. I don’t think any Republican cares about that at all.

Haven’t the DeSantis people learned yet that there is nothing — nothing — Trump can do that will shake the faith of his followers?