if you listen to him long enough — no easy chore — Donald Trump will tell you all his secrets. Witness this line from his July 3 speech in Sarasota, Florida: “If you say it enough and keep saying it, they’ll start to believe you.”
Source: Donald Trump just accidentally told the truth about his disinformation strategy – CNNPolitics
An Insult to Democracy trying to be delicate when Trump certainly wasn’t.
On Tuesday morning, a new Senate report revealed even more of what is increasingly obvious: The January 6 Capitol insurrection was both surprisingly predictable and yet widely ignored by the people who had the power to stop it. “The U.S. Capitol Police had specific intelligence that supporters of President Donald Trump planned to mount an armed invasion of the Capitol at least two weeks before the Jan. 6 riot,” the Washington Post reports, “but a series of omissions and miscommunications kept that information from reaching front-line officers targeted by the violence.” The report itself is incredibly bureaucratic and, being bipartisan, overly delicate with the fragile feelings of Republicans who continue to support Trump despite his overt incitement of the insurrection. But the most important and remarkable aspect of the report is how it lays out that Capitol intelligence officials downplayed the threat of violence, even though, to quote the report author Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., “The attack was, quite frankly, planned in plain sight.”
Email Sometimes people refuse to ask a question when they know the answer will be painful. Instead, they convince themselves that not asking the question will make the underlying reality change. Donald Trump and his regime committed many criminal, evil and otherwise despicable acts in plain sight. Those include, with no attempt to be comprehensive:
Author and director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law Karen J. Greenberg summed up the background recently, writing: In his second term, [former President Barack] Obama did try to put some limits and restrictions on lethal strikes by [remotely piloted aircraft], establishing procedures and criteria for them and limiting the grounds for their use. President Trump promptly watered down those stricter guidelines, while expanding the number of drone strikes launched from Afghanistan to Somalia, soon dwarfing Obama’s numbers. According to the British-based Bureau for Investigative Journalism, Obama carried out a total of 1,878 drone strikes in his eight years in office. In his first two years as president, Trump launched 2,243 drone strikes. The document’s release follows a fall court order saying the Trump administration could no longer keep the rules secret or deny their existence.
A group of 77 companies took $8.2 billion, and almost all cut jobs.
Ted Boutrous, a constitutional law expert, told CNN, “The 1st Amendment provides strong protections for statements of opinion, but what Dominion is pointing to is the fact that Ms. Powell was declaring that she had evidence of this fraud and this election malfeasance and she was declaring that as a matter of fact. The 1st Amendment doesn’t protect knowingly false statements of fact.”
How Sidney Powell ‘Clowned’ Right-wing Media and Led Them down a Dark Rabbit Hole — Ending in Legal Peril | The Smirking Chimp
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Partially Shut Due To COVID-19 Outbreak | HuffPost
Former President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach club has been partially closed because of a COVID outbreak.
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Partially Shut Due To COVID-19 Outbreak | HuffPost
Totally NOT shocking: the universe of domestic right-wing extremists who came together on Jan. 6 has grown massive, is constantly expanding, and now poses a greater threat to American society than overseas jihadists.
Surprise! Proud Boys And Oath Keepers At Heart Of 1/6 Insurrection | Crooks and Liars
Amid the pandemic, lockdown orders, and nationwide protests against police violence, a historically large increase in murders occurred in 2020. Previously, the largest recorded one-year rise in murders in U.S. history was a 12.7 percent increase in 1968. Last year, meanwhile, data from nearly 12,000 law enforcement agencies released by the FBI, running through September, shows murders up 21 percent nationally. This matches data we collected from a sample of agencies from 60 large cities showing a 36 percent increase in murders in those cities, as well as a Council on Criminal Justice analysis from 34 cities finding a 30 percent increase in 2020 compared to 2019.
What Drove the Historically Large Murder Spike in 2020?
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While White Right-Wing Domestic terror has increased under Trump
Crime, too, has dramatically fallen in the United States in the past 20 years, but Trump wants people to believe the opposite. Again, only if there is a crisis of brown and black crime will das Volk be willing to surrender their rights to the Great White Trump.
“The Horror, the Horror.” An epitaph for Trump’s Nazi Presidency
Republican officials at the highest level support insurrection, terrorism and treason. They have presided over a political culture that, for many years, has inculcated seditious desires within millions of expertly programmed citizens. The consequences became manifest on Jan. 6 when a rabid mob of neo-Confederates, fascists and associated psychotics took the Capitol by force, perhaps hoping to murder duly elected members of Congress — not to mention the vice president — and install Donald Trump as dictator.
Longtime GOP insider Mike Lofgren on his former party: “Going easy on these people will not work” | Salon.com
You cannot reason with a psychopath, you cannot shame such a person or appeal to their better instincts. There is no point in writing open letters to them. The usual way of dealing with politicians who develop some wild ideas in the course of their search for voters and campaign funds will not work.
Four Years Later: ‘Welcome to Psychopathocracy,’ the Sequel
Donald Trump’s presidency has had plenty of low points, but none as low as the past week. With barely two weeks left, many of the president’s Cabinet members are distancing themselves or outright resigning. Twitter—the social media megaphone that he’s used for years to peddle conspiracy theories and incite hatred—has permanently suspended his account. And even his allies can’t defend his legacy as the only president in modern history to incite a riot against the US government.
Even Trump Loyalists Can No Longer Defend His Legacy – Mother Jones
Lord Beaverbrook is at a cocktail party conversing with an attractive woman, and the conversation turns to ethics. He asks her if she would sleep with someone for a million pounds. She says that she would. He asks her, “Would you sleep with someone for five pounds?” She says, “Certainly not, what sort of woman do you think I am?” He observes drily, “Madame, we have already established that. Now we are just haggling about the price.” I have some questions for the resignees:
Dear Rats deserting Trump’s Sinking Ship: All those Times you didn’t Resign or Even criticize his Monstrous Deeds
‘Delighting in causing complete chaos’: what’s behind Trump supporters’ brazen storming of the Capitol‘Delighting in causing complete chaos’: what’s behind Trump supporters’ brazen storming of the Capitol
‘Delighting in causing complete chaos’: what’s behind Trump supporters’ brazen storming of the Capitol
Additional arms deals this week include $4 billion in helicopters to Kuwait, $169 million in military equipment to Egypt, and $65 million in drones and fighter jets to UAE.
Lame-Duck Trump’s “Middle East Arms Bonanza” Continues With Approval of $290 Million Weapons Sale to Saudi Regime | Common Dreams News
Trump said on December 9 that he “might” invoke the Korea War-era act, which allows the US government to direct companies to produce urgently needed goods necessary to national security. The US government pays the companies to do this, so it isn’t socialism and doesn’t involve a government take-over. It just delays receipt of other goods by other customers. Trump has repeatedly said he is reluctant to invoke the act because it is socialist in character and would make us like Venezuela. He did use it to compel GM to produce ventilators last spring, paying $489 million for 30,000 ventilators. It was a relatively minor use of the act given the scale of the national emergency.
Biden to invoke Defense Production Act for Vaccine manufacture. Trump? Playing Golf at Mar-a-Lago
It seems increasingly clear that the 21st century will be the Chinese century. And, China is going to get there sooner thanks to a new isolationism and a paroxysm of ignorant reality-denial for which Donald J. Trump has been the cheerleader and chief implementation officer. The BBC reports that a British think tank predicts that China will overtake the US as the world’s largest economy in 2028 instead of 2033, as a result of its deft handling of the pandemic and as a result of outgoing president Trump’s monumental screw-up, the largest public health disaster in American history.
How incompetent Boob Trump took down America and launched the Chinese Century
When Donald Trump announces his intention to run again for president, tens of millions of Americans will flock to his side. If he ultimately doesn’t run, they will throw their support behind anyone that the disgraced ex-president selects as his successor. They will do so despite all the harm Trump has caused the United States and the world. For the United States, at least, that might prove to be the most dangerous denialism of them all.
How America’s Denialism– Elections, COVID, Climate — is Leading to its Downfall
Trump’s Role Model was always Putin and he tried to do it like Putin
Those living in the bubble created by right-wing news hear Trump’s lies repeatedly from multiple sources, making them appear credible. This is the underpinning of all propaganda. That firehosing lacks a commitment to consistency and objective reality can seem counter intuitive. But as Masha Gessen of the New Yorker explains, that is because the goal of firehosing is not persuasion but power. The immediate reaction of the media and others to a firehose of lies is to fact-check. That turns the lies into a political fight. What shouldn’t be up for debate becomes a partisan tit for tat. As Peter Pomerantsev, a Soviet-born British journalist and author, wrote about Putin’s information warfare in 2014: “insisting on the lie, the Kremlin intimidates others by showing that it is in control of defining ‘reality.’ This is why it’s so important for Moscow to do away with truth. If nothing is true, then anything is possible.”
The GOP’s Assault on Truth Is About Power, Not Persuasion | Washington Monthly
Despite the fact that herd immunity failed in Sweden and the hospitals are now unable to cope. Trump wants chaos th reign and COVID-19 is a perfect ploy. (ODT)
Trump appointee at HHS, Paul Alexander, urged other health officials to “flood the zone” with coronavirus and infect “kids and young people” in order to develop herd immunity.
Trump HHS Official Admits ‘We Want Them Infected’ With COVID-19 | Crooks and Liars
Look at the statistics: At the time of publication, this is the stark situation worldwide: Cases: 72 million Recovered: 47 million Deaths: 1.6 million In the US alone, the figures are startling: Cases: 16.3 million Deaths: 300,000, equivalent to the entire population of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. The US now records more daily deaths from COVID-19 than occurred on the day of that infamous terrorist assault on the US – September 11, 2001.
Vale 2020 – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Sedition is a serious charge, but it’s the right word. Most House Republicans and 17 state attorneys general are standing against the right of Americans to choose their own leaders. As elected officials, they are using the power granted to them by the people to declare that the people should not have such power. Even if they lose this case, this time around, the fact that so many traitors hold elected office in America is a major crisis all by itself.
Republicans want more than a coup: Trump’s loyalty test exposes their hatred for democracy | Salon.com
Congress may be close to a deal on another coronavirus bailout, but Senate Republican demands for liability protections for businesses remain a major obstacle.
McConnell was holding up Stimulus over Shielding Businesses from Coronavirus Liability — A Very Bad Idea
Director Redfield broke the law when he tried to cover up requests from the White House to lie to the public about COVID.
CDC Director Illegally Orders Trump Administration Email Deleted | Crooks and Liars
Seventeen American states, all run by Republicans, have decided to join Texas in its seditious and frivolous quest to have the U.S. Supreme Court throw out the votes of 81,282,896 citizens and declare Donald Trump the winner of the 2020 election. Those states: Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia.
From Frivolous to Frightening: 17 Republicans States Join Texas, Ask the Supreme Court for a Coup | The Smirking Chimp
A significant epidemiological and statistical analysis shows a major factor in liklihood of death among the 300,000 that have died and contracted COVID-19 is 1) Race and 2) Postcode. and Trump thinks that’s just TERRIFIC
Donald Trump has said it is “terrific” that nearly 15 per cent of Americans have contracted the coronavirus since the outbreak began in the US, citing the “powerful vaccine” of herd immunity.
‘Powerful vaccine in itself’: Trump says it’s ‘terrific’ that nearly 15 per cent of Americans got Covid | The Independent
Business befor Politics as far as National Security is concerned for Trump
U.S. intelligence agencies received reports indicating that one of the U.S.’s closest Middle Eastern partners had signed a collaborative agreement with a sanctioned Russian mercenary group operating in Libya, according to a current U.S. intelligence official and two former officials with knowledge of the matter. U.S. intelligence agencies have been looking into whether the United Arab Emirates is helping to finance the Libya operations of the Russian Wagner Group. Both the UAE and Wagner have intervened to support Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar, who has tried to overrun the United Nations-backed government in Tripoli.
Arms Sale to UAE Proceeds Despite U.S. Probe Into Wagner Ties
Trumpism is at this point nothing more than a blend of cultism and fascism, a violent, nihilistic howl against the pillars of American democracy unparalleled in presidential history. Donald Trump and his acolytes know their gig is up; they can file lawsuits till they are blue in the face, but they’re not going to overturn the election results in multiple states simultaneously. They have reached a fork in the road: Accept the results and move on, or attempt to flex the presidential muscle in a way that launches America into an experiment with dictatorship. They have decided, at least rhetorically, to opt for the latter. And while they almost certainly don’t have the bite to match their bark, the very fact that people surrounding Trump are calling for dictatorship ought to send a chill up all Americans’ spines.
Why the Trumpists’ Calls for Dictatorship Should Worry Us | The Nation
I think Washington can show good faith by lifting sanctions prior to opening negotiations. Then both sides could work out such details as destroying the excess enriched uranium and arranging frequent international inspections. Iranians are waiting for Biden to make the first move after his Inauguration on January 20, 2021. Lifting unilateral US sanctions is the key to foiling Trump’s attempt to handcuff the new administration. We’ll see if Biden finds a good locksmith.
Iran assassination is way for Netanyahu and Trump to hurt Biden
there is a lack of outrage over a far more significant matter: the death of more than a quarter-million Americans. On Wednesday, the United States set a new record for COVID-19 deaths: 2,804. This is just 173 shy of the death toll of 9/11—that cataclysmic event that reordered elements of American society. The United States is looking at that level of loss on a daily basis. Yet there is little uproar.
274,000 Dead, and Trump Obsesses Over Election Conspiracy Theories. Where’s the Outrage? – Mother Jones
Bill Barr’s only hope is to reverse his comments about election fraud. Then maybe he can stay, says Trump.
Trump Threatens To Fire Bill Barr Over Election Fraud Comments | Crooks and Liars
The justification for Voter ID is ALWAYS racist, just not always this blatantly racist.
Trump ‘Voter Fraud’ Witness Says Voter ID Needed Because ‘All Chinese Look Alike’ | Crooks and Liars
This is garbage. It comes at the absolute worst point in the pandemic with an unprecedented surge in cases nationwide and with months ahead before the vaccine helps get us out of the pandemic. Millions are going hungry. And McConnell’s focus is on letting businesses get off scot-free for endangering, even killing, their employees. Oh, and free business meals. Because he is a fucking monster.
McConnell Poisons the Covid-19 Stimulus Negotiations Again with Cruelest Offering Yet | The Smirking Chimp
American security experts are concerned that Donald Trump will be unable to keep state secrets when he leaves the White House, and should be barred from receiving future intelligence briefings, according to reports.
Former security officials warn Donald Trump won’t keep state secrets | The Independent
At the end of this past June, the most recent Federal Reserve data point available, the nation’s poorest half held less than 1 percent of the nation’s stock holdings, just 0.6 percent. The nation’s poorest 90 percent, all combined, now hold just 11.8 percent of the nation’s stocks.
The Rich Are Cheering Wall Street’s Latest Records. Americans of Modest Means Are Draining 401(k)s. | The Smirking Chimp
The incoming administration has its job cut out restoring faith in the process and in the nation`s leader to repair the damage reaped by four years of inglorious damnable conduct. The Republican Party also has some fence-building to do. The lights in the party room need to be burning late into many nights analysing the last four years; what worked, what didn’t and what needs to happen to ensure the Democrats only get one term (when Biden is likely to hand the baton on to his Vice President for 2024). Should their outgoing fellow decide he wants another tilt, do they support him or send him on gardening leave, or do they quietly hope that the agony of loss will fry his addled brain completely? Time will tell. Maybe he will retire to his golf courses, sorry, country clubs. Memo to anyone competing with the club owner; let him win, he doesn’t like losing … in case that fact eluded you.
Opportunity lost: Trump’s presidency – » The Australian Independent Media Network
A trillion dollars could maintain wages at pre-crisis levels for all workers in America, enabling people to stay home and stop the spread of the virus, for four months. Instead, it’s gone into the personal piggy banks of a handful of billionaire owners and investors.
US Billionaires Have Increased Their Riches By $1 Trillion During the Pandemic
During his four-year tenure in the White House, President Donald Trump packed powerful federal regulatory agencies with dozens of right-wing loyalists who are well-placed to stall or undermine the agenda of President-elect Joe Biden from the moment he takes office.
To Prevent ‘Active Sabotage’ of His Agenda, Biden Urged to Clean House of Trump Loyalists on Day One | Common Dreams News
Bolton noted that the Trump campaign has so far lost all but two of more than 30 legal challenges in various states. “Right now Trump is throwing rocks through windows, he is the political equivalent of a street rioter,” Bolton said.
Trump faces pressure from Republicans to drop ‘corrosive’ fight to overturn election | US news | The Guardian
One of his legal advisers, Jenna Ellis, claimed it paved the way for “Republican state legislator[s] [to] select the electors” — an open invitation for the Republican-led legislature to hand the state to Trump, not Biden, in defiance of the will of the people. This was a state that Biden won by almost 150,000 votes.
Donald Trump’s current strategy isn’t about winning in court. It’s about disrupting the process in the hope of winning the US election by default – ABC News
Despite his authoritarian tendencies, Donald Trump never came close to dragging us into fascism. But he did drag us further toward a xenophobic, anti–working-class, right-wing-populist abyss. Those forces will continue to destroy American and global politics — if we don’t take them on and defeat them.
Here’s What We Learned About the Far Right From Donald Trump’s Presidency
Trump has touted vaccines and therapeutics, including therapeutics that may have saved his own life when he was hospitalized with the infection. But there aren’t nearly enough therapeutics for all the patients in need — nor the top-notch care the president received — and the vaccines won’t be ready for full distribution into well into 2022. On Friday, Trump announced that the vaccines will be available in April, though he had previously said it could be distributed last month, in October, which never happened. And right now, the administration has no plan to stop surging virus. Most Republicans are following his lead, and even Democratic governors who might prefer to take a more aggressive approach are hamstrung by a lack of federal resources. There is no plan to stop the virus. The federal government just intends to let it spread through all of us. It’s a plan for mass death, because they don’t care enough to stop it.
The Trump Plan for Mass Death Is Unfolding Before Our Eyes | The Smirking Chimp
Atlas is a physician with no expertise in infectious diseases or epidemiology. Fauci, an immunologist, has led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for more than three decades. MOST READ GA Secretary of State: There will be a ‘full, by hand recount in each county’ Georgia’s chief election official announces hand recount of presidential results The GOP’s Georgia boogeyman: Chuck Schumer Biden announces Ron Klain will be White House chief of staff Two Ideas for Trump’s Exit Strategy Trump’s new Pentagon sets up clash over Afghanistan pullout
‘A political animal’: Atlas attacks Fauci, escalating feud between Trump’s pandemic advisers – POLITICO
And on this point, there’s much reason for hope that, whatever chaos Trump tries to stir up, democracy will prevail. The House is expected to continue to have its majority of Democrats. While the Senate should still have a Republican majority by January — with two runoff races outstanding in Georgia — when it meets to accept the slates of electors, at least four Republicans have already congratulated Biden and referred to him as president-elect: Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Ben Sasse of Nebraska. That means that there should be a majority of both the House and the Senate who, at the time when it’s crucial, acknowledge that Biden is the rightful president.
Trump’s Coup Attempt Is Very Real — but There Are Several Gaping Holes in the Plan | The Smirking Chimp
On November 2, Trump signed an executive order that aims to manipulate the minds of young children. “We will state the truth in full, without apology (sic),” he said, adding: “We declare that the United States of America is the most just and exceptional nation ever to exist on earth (sic).” If bipartisan US hardliners get their way, education at all levels may resemble Nazi Germany and Israeli indoctrination of children. After Nazis gained control in 1933, the infamous Nuremberg Laws followed. Education featured indoctrination and loyalty to the Reich. It laid the groundwork for wars to come. Scholar Louis L. Snyder witnessed Nazi rallies and practices firsthand. He explained that “(t)here were to be two basic educational ideas…” “First, there must be burnt into the heart and brains of youth the sense of race.” “Second, German youth must be made ready for war, educated for victory or death.” “The ultimate purpose of education was to fashion citizens conscious of the glory of country and filled with fanatical devotion to the national cause.” As one of the world’s most militarized societies, Israel resembles Nazi German.
Trump’s Executive Order to Manipulate the Minds of US School Children – Stephen Lendman
Trump’s America: poor targeted, red carpet for wealthiest tax avoiders – Michael West
While Trump’s tax affairs have been widely reported, statistics show that US authorities are going after the poorest families. Just seven of the 23,400 households earning on average $30 million were audited (0.03%). Yet more than a third of households earning an average $12,600 were audited – nine times the rate for the richest. David Cay Johnston reports.
Trump’s America: poor targeted, red carpet for wealthiest tax avoiders – Michael West
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