#biden has the chance to undo it
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#also hw bush clinton bush obama and trump#but it started with reagan#biden has the chance to undo it#or at least change direction
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@ScottFishman
Tucker is Outing Obama as Gay. But Everyone is Missing the Big Story. I’m Obama’s College Classmate. I’ve Been Trying to Warn America for 15 years! By Wayne Allyn Root I’m Barak Obama’s college classmate at Columbia University, Class of ’83. I’m also the author of the #1 bestselling hardcover book in America in 2012, “The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide.” I’ve always had Obama’s number. I understand what makes him tick. I understand his goals. First let’s get the “gay issue” out of the way. I’ve reported on both my radio and TV shows for 15 years that my wealthy, connected friends in Chicago have always said, “Obama frequented gay bath houses and gay clubs. Everyone in the know, knows Obama is gay.” Now that we’ve heard from Obama’s biographer that Obama wrote about his daily gay fantasies, I think it’s pretty clear my Chicago pals were right. Tucker Carlson is onto something! But gay is not the issue. The issue here is fraud. If Obama is in fact gay, then he was lying to the American people from day one. He portrayed himself as a happily married family man with a wife and two beautiful young daughters. That’s called fraud.
If America had known the truth in 2008, does anyone honestly think Obama would have been elected president? But all of this is small potatoes. This is not the big story. Why does any of this matter now? Because Joe Biden is a brain-dead puppet. This is the third term of Obama. The proof is we are all reliving the nightmare Obama economy. Great for Wall Street and billion-dollar multi-national corporations. But a disaster for the American middle class and Main Street. Second, Biden is fading fast – and everyone can see it. At the same time Biden’s cognitive health is in freefall, all of his corruption from the past is pouring out of the closet. Biden is finished. He is toast. He will never make it to 2024. Sometime this fall Biden will have a very public “episode” and be hospitalized. Soon thereafter he (or Jill) will announce he is stepping down for “health reasons.” Who will replace him? Either Michelle Obama or Gavin Newsom. But whoever it is, Obama will be calling the shots from his nearby Washington DC mansion. That’s why this story matters. I’ve had Obama pegged from the first day. Obama is the ultimate “Manchurian Candidate.” Gay is unimportant. What matters is he was groomed to be president by the Deep State and communist, fascist, globalist enemies of the United States. What matters is Obama is a radical Marxist tyrant carrying out the destruction of America.
Obama was tame in his first two terms. He was “boiling the frog slowly.” But Trump ruined his plan. Now Obama is trying to destroy this country as fast as he can before Trump has a second chance to undo the damage. And at the same time, Obama is coordinating the attacks on Trump to either imprison him, kill him, or disqualify him. My guest on my show, “America’s Top Ten Countdown” on Real America’s Voice TV last week was former Illinois Governor Rod “Blago” Blagojevich. Blago’s Governor’s mansion was raided by an early morning FBI Swat team. Sound familiar? I pointed out to “Blago” that Obama’s fingerprints were all over his frame job… and FBI SWAT raid… and long prison sentence. Obama set him up. Obama took away his freedom. I asked him to comment. Blago reported, “Obama set up the meeting that led to my arrest.” Do you get it now? It’s the exact same M.O. as what’s happening to President Trump. The same FBI raids, persecution, frame job. The same weaponization of government to destroy Obama’s political adversaries. I’ve always said the key to understanding Obama was his time at Columbia University.
First, there is the “Ghost of Columbia” mystery. I was a Pre Law, Political Science major. So was Obama. He had to be in all the same classes as me. But he was never in one class. I never met Obama, never saw him, never heard of him, never met anyone at Columbia who has. Obama got in, so why didn’t anyone ever see him? My educated guess is Obama was in the Soviet Union studying communism. Columbia had a “sister school” in Moscow. That would be the only real answer as to why Obama was rarely if ever seen at Columbia. He was being groomed way back then by the enemies of America. Secondly, at Columbia we learned a plan to destroy America called “Cloward Piven.” I’ll bet Obama spent two years in the Soviet Union at our “sister school” becoming the world’s expert. Look around. Everything happening in America today is Cloward Piven… The open borders bringing millions of foreigners into our country, changing our demographics forever. The explosion of welfare and bailouts. The Green New Deal. The destruction of our military. The end of the dollar as world reserve currency. The plans for pandemic lockdowns, climate change lockdowns and Central Bank Digital Currency.
The censorship, banning of dissent, and weaponization of government against conservatives and Christians. Defund the police. The vicious criminals let out without bail. Critical Race Theory and Transgender brainwashing. Persecution of PTA parents. Conservatives and Christians classified as “domestic terrorists.” The arrest of political opponents. 87,000 new IRS agents. It’s all about Cloward Piven and communist-level control. Sound familiar? It’s what Obama the “Manchurian Candidate” learned in the Soviet Union from the best. This man was groomed from day one by the communist and globalist enemies of America. He was sent to destroy us. Now he’s working behind the scenes to finish the job. He is the man who ordered the spying on Trump. The framing of Trump. Now he’s the man directing the nonstop government attacks against Trump. Just as he did to Blago. So, Obama being gay is the least of it. America is being destroyed. Obama is at the root of every evil thing happening.
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Article published 2021
The U.S. has a habit of ignoring its own laws when it comes to arming and supporting authoritarian regimes. The latest example of this came last month when the Biden administration waived Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, which was created to block U.S. military assistance to Azerbaijan during and after the first Karabakh war.
One administration after another has issued this waiver since it became available in 2002 in the name of counter-terrorism cooperation, but events in the last year have made the usual rubber-stamping of supplying weapons to the Aliyev regime much more controversial, and rightly so.
Azerbaijan’s aggressive military campaign in Karabakh last year was exactly what the original cutoff in military assistance was intended to discourage, and the assault on Karabakh proved that Baku’s commitment to diplomacy was a lie. Issuing the waiver in the wake of the second Karabakh war is indefensible. Doing so shortly after recognizing the Armenian genocide is a slap in the face to the Armenian-American community, and it makes a mockery of the Biden administration’s pretensions to making human rights central to its foreign policy.
Azerbaijan is just one of many client governments whose war crimes the U.S. has ignored in order to keep military assistance flowing. Enabling further aggression against the people of Karabakh and Armenia is a particularly obnoxious and shameful example of how our government’s partnerships with corrupt authoritarian states puts innocent lives in jeopardy.
Within weeks of the administration’s decision, there were already reports of new incursions by Azerbaijan’s forces into Armenian territory.[,,,]
Specifically, members of Congress should insist that Secretary Blinken explain why he signed off on this when the government of Azerbaijan is putting its war crimes on display in its appalling Military Trophies Park, complete with “ghoulish displays of helmets and caricatured mannequins of Armenian soldiers.” The dehumanization of Armenians has become a major feature of Azerbaijan’s official ideology, and by supporting Azerbaijan’s government the U.S. is giving its stamp of approval to a regime that both denies the Armenian genocide and threatens to commit another one.[...]
It is no accident that the amendment that created the waiver for Section 907 was passed just a few months after the September 11 attacks. Our government’s “war on terror” has spawned a host of destructive policies, and establishing a closer security relationship with the dictatorship in Azerbaijan in the name of combating terrorism was one of them.[...]
There are some hard-liners in Washington that were cheerleading for Azerbaijan during its aggressive war in Karabakh, and they are no doubt pleased with the Biden administration’s decision to ignore Azerbaijan’s many crimes. According to the hard-liners’ view, backing Azerbaijan is not only tolerable but necessary to counter Russian and Iranian influence in the region.[...]
Presented with the opportunity to undo Trump’s decision to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, Biden has demurred, and it now appears that no reversal of that decision will be forthcoming. Given the chance to block an unjustifiable $23 billion sale of advanced weapons to the United Arab Emirates, Biden has let it go ahead. Issuing the waiver for military assistance to Azerbaijan makes the same kind of mistake.
If Biden and Blinken want to make good on their rhetoric about emphasizing the importance of human rights in their foreign policy, they should begin by cutting off all military assistance to Azerbaijan. U.S. and Turkish support for Azerbaijan have served to create a menace in the Caucasus. The least that the U.S. can do is to stop aiding that menace as it threatens the stability of the region.
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U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona on Thursday unveiled a regulatory proposal on Title IX — the federal law banning sex discrimination in schools — that largely unravels a rule set by the Trump administration.
Key changes under the proposed rule include not requiring colleges to have a live hearing to assess claims of sexual violence and cementing protections for transgender students.
Under the current rule, created by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, institutions must hold a hearing to evaluate reports of sexual misconduct. Under Cardona’s proposed new model, a college official could both investigate and make a decision on a report of sexual violence.
This is known as a single-investigator system, which has come under attack by civil liberties advocates, who argue it does not provide due process.
Under Cardona’s draft rule, colleges would generally need to use a “preponderance of the evidence” standard, which means a ruling can be made against a student if there is a greater than 50% chance that a claim is true. But colleges could be able to choose to use a higher bar, the “clear and convincing” standard, if they do so in other similar disciplinary procedures.
The plan would also broaden the scope of cases colleges would be required to investigate. They would need to look into alleged misconduct involving college representatives that occurs off campus or that happens in buildings owned or controlled by a student organization.
The draft regulation makes clear that discrimination against a student’s gender identity or sexual orientation could constitute a Title IX violation. However, the Education Department opted not to clarify some protections for student-athletes, specifically the criteria used by colleges to determine whether they can participate in men’s or women’s sports.
A senior department official said Thursday the Education Department will pursue a separate rulemaking process for Title IX and athletics.
The Biden administration also touted protections in the proposed rule for students and employees who are pregnant, saying it would strengthen requirements for reasonable modifications, break time and lactation space.
The administration’s release of the proposal on Thursday — the 50th anniversary of former President Richard Nixon signing Title IX into law — kicks off a process for putting a new rule into force.
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I mean what is the realistic option here? I'm not saying im for genocide but pragmatically, like Sisko or FDR atomic bomb tier, ignoring who did what and who has what claims to what land, the removal of palestinians from gaza is the best, top level approach to any sort of long term path to that area settling down, short of people having a big fucking kumbaya hand holding revelation.
What I'm more mad about is that Israel WANTS to do that, they're fucking frothing at the mouth to do it and everyone knows it, having a politician "kicked out for suggesting they nuke gaza" (which is their way of saying We Totally Want To Nuke You But Wont...For Now) but they're too scared to actually fucking do it and all it is doing is dragging the damn situation out and making it worse on everyone. I'd unironically respect Netanyahu if he just ordered full Scorched Earth and told the west to fuck off, even if I think he's become a dictator on par with all the other despots.
If they don't wanna fight/dont have the resolve to commit, that's different and peace should be heavily encouraged but as long as he plays the Not One Step Back card the best case is he's just prolonging the conflict by not taking the necessary steps to win. Best case is he finally gets thrown out and you get a more moderate Israeli alongside some sort of non insane Palestinian figurehead a la Yassar Arafat and maybe things can work out in the future but it would have to involve at least undoing the past ~20-30 years of settlements Israelis have built and I don't see that happening.
I just don't know what a realistic outcome that has any chance of working could be without just saying Fuck It and flipping the board. Israel has an infinity-long get out of jail card because of the Holocaust/antisemitism just as much as Palestinians can point out even if it's called Israel it's still a European Colonial State. Factor in the war on terror, "western interests," the unfortunate case of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and others, and it's just such a clusterfuck. I'd genuinely respect Biden if he put forward some plan to take Palestinians, even just youths, and get them education and work on helping them but that'd also require politicians to do anything in the USA at all beyond fingerpointing publicly and making their stocks grow privately.
Israel doesn't 'rip the bandaid off' because, at least in part, it's very politically, socially and economically useful for a lot of countries to have a low-intensity war on the backburner for as long as possible.
That's the one constructive answer I can contribute here. Otherwise you're just spewing thoughts in my inbox instead of your own blog for some reason
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I mean this in the softest way, but your problem is that you seem to think some anonymous tumblr named idk “dong-slinger-communist” is a widely followed commentator of great importance and intellectual integrity and then engage them endlessly when they, and the rest of the universe, do not care. I think you care more about words on tumblr than anyone else on here
You mean that fuzzyface guy.
I argue with footsoldiers to see where the current argument front is with them, and the sideblog is for content that's not worth putting on the mainblog. If you don't like the sideblog I recommend you unfollow it and just follow the mainblog.
Usually I test munitions on footsoldiers on Twitter and not Tumblr because Tumblr is for reading and Twitter is for fighting, but I wanted a point of comparison between Twitter and Tumblr and it looks like the footsoldiers are pretty similar.
If you follow the mcfuzzyface thread, you can see that he's acting based on trust in Democrat-aligned sources and not engaging in general reasoning about the subject. That's actually relevant information, even though it's a slog against an idiot partisan, because it implies that control of the upstream nodes will get him to drop the racial content, rather than that being an organic upswelling of support.
Now it's true that many of us thought that before, but it's useful to test.
As for whether the Biden Administration themselves actually believe this crap (or will actualize it), we got a chance to test that when they overturned Trump's order defunding crank lefty race theory and then got shot down by the courts for trying to explicitly discriminate by race in farm aid.
So this kind of bullshit did actually end up in power like I thought it would and it didn't just go away like "good, sane" Democrats said it would. Up until 2021 we were kind of in a vague period where lots of Democrats said "eh it's just a powerless fringe lol stop freaking out," but that's been shown otherwise.
I already told you what the actual plan is in another post - the Right has to update Civil Rights law to remove the unanchored assumptions that give the Left indefinite power.
Once that's done it's an out-and-out fight and mildly (but not extremely) conservative institutions should come out the winners over a 10-year period, resulting in a winding down of current DEI content.
A lot of the far right would say that I "just don't want to win," and the truth is I really don't want to undo like 80% of things, 10% is iffy, but that last 10% is make-or-break, so there's really no other option.
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White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows exchanged text messages with at least 34 Republican members of Congress as they plotted to overturn President Trump’s loss in the 2020 election.
Those messages are being fully, publicly documented here for the first time.
The texts are part of a trove Meadows turned over to the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack that was obtained by TPM. For more information about the story behind the text log and our procedures for publishing the messages, read the introduction to this series. Meadows’ exchanges shed new light on the extent of congressional involvement in Trump’s efforts to spread baseless conspiracy theories about his defeat and his attempts to reverse it. The messages document the role members played in the campaign to subvert the election as it was conceived, built, and reached its violent climax on Jan. 6, 2021. The texts are rife with links to far-right websites, questionable legal theories, violent rhetoric, and advocacy for authoritarian power grabs.
One message identified as coming from Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) to Meadows on January 17, 2021, three days before Joe Biden was set to take office, is a raw distillation of the various themes in the congressional correspondence. In the text, despite a typo, Norman seemed to be proposing a dramatic last ditch plan: having Trump impose martial law during his final hours in office.
"Mark, in seeing what's happening so quickly, and reading about the Dominion law suits attempting to stop any meaningful investigation we are at a point of no return in saving our Republic !! Our LAST HOPE is invoking Marshall Law! PLEASE URGE TO PRESIDENT TO DO SO!!" - Rep. Ralph Norman
The text, which has not previously been reported, is a particularly vivid example of how congressional opposition to Biden’s election was underpinned by paranoid and debunked conspiracy theories like those about Dominion voting machines. Norman’s text also showed the potentially violent lengths to which some congressional Republicans were willing to go in order to keep Trump in power. The log Meadows provided to the Select Committee does not include a response to Norman’s message.
Reached via cell phone on Monday morning, Norman asked TPM for a chance to review his messages before commenting.
“It’s been two years,” Norman said. “Send that text to me and I’ll take a look at it.”
TPM forwarded Norman a copy of the message calling for “Marshall Law!!” We did not receive any further response from the congressman.
Based on TPM’s analysis, Meadows received at least 364 messages from Republican members of Congress who discussed attempts to reverse the election results with him. He sent at least 95 messages of his own. The Committee did not respond to requests for comment. Some of Meadows’ texts — notably with Fox News personalities and a couple members of Congress — have already been made public by the Committee, media outlets, and in the book “The Breach.” However, the full scope of his engagement with congressional Republicans as they worked to overturn the election has not previously been revealed.
Meadows’ text log shows what the scheme to reverse the election results looked like behind the scenes, revealing new details about which members of Congress helped spearhead the efforts and the strategies they deployed. The members who messaged Meadows about challenging the election included some of the highest-profile figures on the right flank in Congress, such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), all of whom are identified as playing leading roles in the effort to undo Trump’s defeat.
One message that was dated Dec. 30, 2020 and was identified as coming from Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller described Brooks as a “ringleader” of the effort to block the electoral certification.
Miller declined to comment on this story. Brooks, who spoke with TPM on Monday morning, agreed that he played a leading part in the objection. The congressman, who is set to leave office when the next term begins on Jan. 3, 2023, suggested his case for objecting to the election result was based on a bipartisan 2005 report co-authored by former President Jimmy Carter and James Baker III, who served in multiple Republican administrations.
“There are a number of different people who took leadership roles,” Brooks said of the election challenge, adding, “I was certainly the leader with respect to the arguments that centered on arguments related to the 2005 report and on non-citizen voting.”
While the Carter-Baker report identified risks for “potential fraud” and instances where there was some malfeasance, it also concluded that “there is no evidence of extensive fraud in U.S. election.” Nevertheless, the document has since been exaggerated and mischaracterized by Trump and others to justify election-related conspiracy theories. Nevertheless, Brooks argued the Carter-Baker report and other prior studies showed “massive voter fraud” and suggested anyone who was not familiar with the reasoning behind those conclusions was unqualified to discuss American elections.
“That’s like claiming you’re a Christian but you don’t read the Bible,” Brooks said.
When pressed on conclusions from experts and from Trump-appointed officials that there was no significant fraud in the 2020 election, Brooks hung up the phone.
Based on the log, some of the election objectors saw themselves as participating in an epic battle. Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) sent at least 21 messages to Meadows and received at least four responses. On November 6, he dramatically urged Meadows to refuse to give up.
"Mark, When we lose Trump we lose our Republic. Fight like hell and find a way. We're with you down here in Texas and refuse to live under a corrupt Marxist dictatorship. Liberty! Babin" - Rep. Brian Babin
Babin and his office did not respond to requests for comment.
Meadows’ messages also provide an indication of the support the election objection received from right-wing dark money groups. The text log shows how the Republican efforts to fight the electoral certification at the Capitol became more organized and gained steam in the days after Biden’s victory. On Nov. 9, Edward Corrigan, the president and CEO of the Conservative Partnership Institute, wrote Meadows to say Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) would be holding a meeting about legal strategies with his colleagues at the organization’s Capitol Hill townhouse.
“Mike Lee has about a dozen Senators coming over to CPI tonight and they wanted to hear from a legal expert on what’s going on with the campaign,” Corrigan wrote. “Any suggestions who would be good for that?”
CPI, which would go on to employ Meadows after Trump left office, is a dark money group that has been described by NPR as “among the most powerful messaging forces in the MAGA universe.” It hosted meetings for the far-right House Freedom Caucus and, according to Meadows’ log, served as something of a headquarters for members of Congress working to overturn the election. Corrigan did not respond to a request for comment.
In addition to Lee’s meeting, Babin sent a text to Meadows in late December 2020 describing plans for an “objector meeting” at CPI. Babin was apparently concerned other members of Congress could try to thwart the efforts to object to the electoral certification and seemingly hoped former Vice President Mike Pence — who Trump and many of his allies felt had the power to certify alternate slates of pro-Trump electors — was on their side.
"Mark, Looks like objectors will be meeting this Saturday, 6pm at the CPI facility. We would like to have you there. B PS. Probably need to keep our ears open to any machinations by Senate Dems and Republicans who want to change rules. Would you reach out to the VP and see if he will help prevent that?" - Rep. Brian Babin
Many of the Republican efforts to overturn the election played out in the public eye. During the period between the election and Jan. 6, multiple Republican members of Congress participated in rallies where they amplified violent rhetoric and spread false claims of fraud to question the results. The attack on the Capitol interrupted the electoral certification, but it continued that evening and 147 Republicans still voted to overturn the results as they were surrounded by National Guard troops and broken glass.
While some of the more than 450 texts that Republican members of Congress exchanged with Meadows indicate they were disturbed by the violence of Jan. 6, the messages also show in colorful detail how the same members of Congress played a direct role in ratcheting up opposition to the election result and in stoking Trump’s baseless claims of fraud. (Officials at every level of government including Republicans and members of the Trump administration have confirmed there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election.)
Based on Meadows’ text log, overheated battle cries began streaming into his phone as the votes were still being counted on Election Day, Nov. 3, 2020. Texts the Committee identified as coming from members of Congress declared “our Trump team is kicking ass today” and “Fight until hell freezes over than fight them on the ice.”
On Nov. 4, 2020, the day after the election, Rep. Billy Long (R-MO) wrote Meadows claiming he was personally aware of two instances of alleged fraud where people voted twice in Nevada. Based on this claim, he urged Meadows to push for a review of the race in that key state.
“I know of at least 2 people who told me they mailed in their ballots and voted in person so you can tell them they might be interested in going over all votes in Nevada,” Long wrote.
“Ok,” Meadows replied.
Long did not respond to a request for comment.
On the evening of Nov. 4, 2020, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) wrote Meadows to suggest, “John James should lead the challenge in Michigan,” an apparent reference to the 2020 GOP nominee for Senate in that state who would go on to lose his race after disputing the results without providing evidence. Last month, James won election to represent Michigan’s 10th House district. James, who, at the time, was baselessly claiming “there is enough credible evidence to warrant an investigation” into the election in Michigan, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Davidson did not respond to a request for comment.
Shortly after the message from Davidson, the log contains one identified as coming from Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), who offered a profane description of his support for the suits against the results in his home state. Meadows responded indicating he appreciated Kelly’s work.
Kelly did not respond to a request for comment.
President Joe Biden wouldn’t ultimately be declared the winner of the election by major media outlets until Nov. 7, 2020. In the four days between the election and the projection of Biden’s win, votes were being counted in key battleground states.
On Nov. 5, as the numbers began to look bleak for Trump, congressional Republicans wrote Meadows with offers to help fight against the results. Among them was Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) who said, “We have no tools / data / information to go out and fight RE: election / fraud. If you need / want it, we all need to know what’s going on.”
“Thanks so much. Working on it for surrogates briefing,” Meadows replied, indicating the Trump team was preparing to help organize congressional opposition to the vote.
Later that same day, Babin also suggested he and his colleagues were eager to prevent Trump’s impending loss. Without evidence, he described it as a “theft” and indicated GOP leadership was trying to focus on their election victories rather than Trump’s defeat.
"Dear Mark, Many of us as Republican House members want to help the President in any way we can to prevent the outright theft of this presidential election. So far I've only heard our leadership talk about us picking up five new diverse members while the Presidency is at stake. We need some guidance as to what we should be saying and doing. Please let some of us know what you would suggest. In earnest prayer for POTUS and our Republic. Brian Babin" - Rep. Brian Babin
The text messages show Republican members of Congress strategizing in real time to reverse the results. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) piped in with an offer to “put some cash together for the defense fund.” In a conversation with TPM on Monday, Cramer confirmed he offered to help with a defense fund, however, he said the conversation did not go anywhere.
“What I recall is I probably did offer to help if they were raising money for a defense fund or something,” Cramer explained. “I never got a response.”
Cramer, who ultimately was not among the 147 Republicans who objected to the electoral certification, also said all of his messages were “proper” and efforts to “be helpful” to “friends” in the White House.
“None of the text messages from me are condemning in any way other than to just try to get all the information again, be as helpful as you can,” Cramer said.
Other members of Congress sent Meadows questionable legal theories and wildly undemocratic plans to have the vote overturned at the state level. Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) pointed to a segment on the far-right cable network Newsmax where the political operative Dick Morris argued Republican state legislatures had the power to “declare” Trump the winner based on unproven allegations of fraud.
The text log does not include responses from Meadows to these texts from Babin, Cramer, and Green. Green’s communications director, Rachel del Guidice, provided a statement to TPM that suggested his ideas came from people in his district rather than the congressman himself.
“Congressman Green was passing along what constituents were sending him to keep the White House informed on the sentiments of his constituents,” del Guidice said. “He wasn’t advocating for any specific course of action.”
The next day, Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC) sent Meadows a couple of texts with another version of the state legislature strategy gleaned from the far-right website Revolver, which is run by Darren Beattie, a former Trump White House speechwriter who was fired from that post in August 2018 after it was revealed he participated in a 2016 conference with a high-profile white nationalist. Murphy’s text was largely copied and pasted from a Revolver article that claimed “The Vote Has Been Hopelessly Contaminated. Republican State Legislatures Must Now Move to Appoint Pro-Trump Electors.”
“Why are we not pursuing this strategy?” Murphy asked before sharing text from the Revolver article, and adding, “Please pay close attention to the very last paragraph.”
The text logs did not include any response from Meadows. Murphy did not respond to a request for comment.
On Nov. 7, shortly after news outlets called the election for Biden, Norman sent a message encouraging Meadows to set up a “game plan” and “FIGHT.”
As Trump’s allies were trying to come up with a plan on Capitol Hill, far-right activists were also gathering to protest the election around the country. The text log shows Meadows was in communication with Amy Kremer, who organized a “March For Trump” bus tour and ultimately helped plan the Jan. 6, 2021, rally on the White House Ellipse where the former president spoke and urged the crowd to “fight like hell” before many of them marched to the Capitol as it was being stormed. Messages in the log also highlight how Republican members of Congress were participating in a series of pre-Jan. 6 election protests around the country. On the afternoon of Nov. 7, Kevin Brady (R-TX) wrote Meadows to let him know that he had spoken at a “Defend the President Rally” in his home state.
“Asked the crowd to cheer for our President. They are still in the fight!” Brady wrote.
“I will pass it to potus. Thank you and thank them,” Meadows replied.
A spokesperson for Brady provided a statement to TPM that suggested he was simply trying to be helpful and encouraging.
“On the fourth day after the election, before all votes had been reported and prior to the later election contest strategy by the Trump campaign, Congressman Brady sent Mr. Meadows a photo of a local rally for the President and a single general inquiry on how he might help. There was no response from Mr. Meadows,” the spokesperson said.
Brady’s spokesperson also emphasized that he was not one of the 147 Republicans who objected to the election results.
Conspiracy theories are a major theme of Meadows’ messages with Republican members of Congress following Trump’s defeat. On the evening of Nov. 7, Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) shared a message claiming there were links between Dominion Voting Systems and billionaire George Soros. Dominion was a focus in many 2020 election conspiracies that were thoroughly debunked. In some messages to associates, Meadows, who expressed openness to other wild theories, indicated that the Dominion theories were too far-fetched even for him. Soros has long been a fixture of far-right conspiracy theories that blend overheated analysis of the financier’s funding of progressive causes with anti-Semitic tropes.
“Praying for your health! FYI Dominion Voting Systems is owned by State Street Capital, which are Carlyle (Rubenstein alums), Rubenstein is a longtime co-investor with Soros Capital,” wrote Budd.
Budd’s message seemed to be a misspelling of Staple Street management, a private equity firm that owns Dominion, coupled with a series of claims that there were some kind of ties between various other investors. Budd did not respond to a request for comment. Last month, Budd earned a promotion when he was elected to one of the Senate seats in his home state. He is set to take office next month.
CPI was not the only conservative dark money group that aided the push to overturn the election. On Dec. 2, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) wrote Meadows and indicated he was participating in Georgia rallies organized by Club For Growth. While those events were focused on that state’s Senate runoff race, Gohmert and Greene reportedly brought up the presidential race in their remarks. In his text to Meadows, Gohmert was hoping for a ride on Air Force One or a White House visit.
Gohmert had previously texted Meadows asking to visit the White House and been rebuffed by the Chief of Staff. Based on the log, Meadows did not respond to his message about a ride on the presidential plane. Gohmert did not respond to a request for comment.
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) is another member of Congress who texted Meadows outlandish conspiracy theories about the election. According to the log, shortly after 11 p.m. on Dec. 16, 2020, Gosar wrote in with his own completely inaccurate concerns about Dominion.
The claim made by Gosar reportedly originated with far right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ website, InfoWars. Gosar also included a link to an executive order signed by Trump in 2018 that called for the director of national intelligence to “conduct an assessment of any information indicating that a foreign government” attempted to interfere with the election within 45 days of ballots being cast. Gosar also sent Meadows a link to a fringe blog called “Some Bitch Told Me” and a since-deleted set of files that he said showed “Massive fraud coming out of AZ.” In total, the log shows Gosar sent Meadows 13 messages, nearly half of which came between Dec. 16-17, 2020. Based on the log, Meadows did not respond to any of them.
Despite Gosar seemingly gleaning his assertions from InfoWars and “Some Bitch Told Me,” Anthony Foti, a spokesperson for the congressman insisted, “at no time did he share a conspiracy theory.”
“Congressman Gosar filed objections to certification from Arizona under the Electoral Count Act,” Foti wrote in an email to TPM, adding, “His comments were based on factual occurrences.”
Meadows did entertain some of the conspiracy theories forwarded along by the Republican members of Congress — and in at least one case, he acted on them.
On Dec. 29, 2020, Babin sent Meadows a link to an article describing claims by Republican legislators in Pennsylvania that the state’s election results didn’t “add up.” The article included a statement from Pennsylvania’s Department of State that noted in detail how the lawmakers’ claims were “uninformed” and called them a “so-called analysis [that] was based on incomplete data.” Nevertheless, Meadows seemed to take Babin’s article seriously and indicated he sent it on to the Justice Department.
“Yes. Already forwarded it to DOJ,” Meadows replied to Babin’s message with the link.
On Dec. 30, 2020, Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), who had just been elected, wrote Meadows and suggested the debunked Pennsylvania analysis convinced her to object to the electoral certification.
In a text to TPM, Lummis provided an explanation for her message to Meadows.
“I voted against the Pennsylvania electors because Pennsylvania conducted its 2020 election in violation of its own Pennsylvania Constitution. Sen. Hawley had publicly expressed the same concern about Pennsylvania. That explains the text to Mark Meadows,” wrote Lummis. “I did not vote against the Arizona electors. I do not know how Sen Hawley voted re: Arizona’s electors.”
Meadows’ log also shows certain congressional Republicans playing key roles in the effort to overturn the election. In a Dec. 19, 2020, message, Rep. Jody Hice claims to be “leading the GA electoral college objection on Jan 6.” In a phone call with TPM, Sarah Selip, a spokesperson for Hice, noted he was outspoken in his opposition to the election results in his home state.
“Our boss did lead the electoral objection for Georgia. I mean that’s just how it is,” said Selip.
Ted Cruz, meanwhile, seems to have played a major part in heading up objections in the Senate. On Jan. 2, he sent Meadows a link to a statement he released with Lummis and nine other colleagues vowing to “vote on January 6 to reject the electors from disputed states as not ‘regularly given’ and ‘lawfully certified’ (the statutory requisite), unless and until that emergency 10-day audit is completed.” Meadows had a one-word response to Cruz.
“Perfect,” said Meadows.
The following day, Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller wrote Meadows that Trump himself was pressing Georgia’s senators to “to get on board with the Cruz effort.” A spokesperson for Cruz declined to comment.
Brooks wrote Meadows on Dec. 21, 2020, about plans to have a “White House meeting regarding formulation of our January 6 strategies.” Later that day, Meadows sent a message to Fox News personality Brian Kilmeade later that day indicating the meeting took place.
“The President and I met with about 15 members of Congress to discuss the evidence of voter fraud in various states as well as discuss the strategy for making the case to the American people,” Meadows wrote to the cable news host. (Eleven of those members — including Babin, Biggs, Gaetz, Gosar, Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), Hice, Jordan, Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) and Rep.-elect Marjore Taylor Greene (R-GA) — were later identified by the Jan. 6 Committee, citing White House visitor logs. Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ) also attended the meeting.)
As the electoral certification approached, members of Congress sent Meadows messages expressing concern and anger that some Republicans were not backing their efforts. On the evening of Jan. 5, 2021, Norman wrote Meadows about House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
“Mark, I hear McCarthy is giving equal time to let those who are opposed to the challenge of the electoral votes which is LUDICROUS!! Trump needs to call Kevin!!” Norman wrote.
Later that same night, Jordan presented a plan for Pence to throw out the results as he presided over the certification.
Trump would later rage at Pence for not taking this approach. Meadows responded to Jordan on the morning of Jan. 6 indicating the Vice President was not on board.
“I have pushed for this. Not sure it is going to happen,” Meadows said.
Jordan and his office did not respond to a request for comment.
In the wake of the attack on the Capitol, some members wrote to Meadows and offered encouragement for Trump. One of them was Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA). On Jan. 9, he had an idea for Trump to return to social media after he was banned from Twitter and Facebook for his part in fomenting the violence.
As ever, Meadows was on board with the plan.
“I will share it with him,” Meadows said. “Thanks Andrew”
Below is a list of all of the members of Congress identified in Meadows’ text message log. We have also included details about whether we were able to verify the contact information associated with their names and our efforts to include their comments on this story.
1. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) – Biggs’ number was identified by Committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. Biggs did not respond to a request for comment.
2. Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) – Kelly’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. Kelly did not respond to a request for comment.
3. Rep. Billy Long (R-MO) – Long’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. Long did not respond to a request for comment.
4. Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) – Davidson’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. Davidson did not respond to a request for comment.
5. Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) – Roy, who ultimately did not vote to object to the election results, previously confirmed he sent the texts Meadows provided to the Committee when CNN reported on his messages. When asked about this story, a Roy spokesperson directed TPM to an earlier response.
6. Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) – Babin’s number was identified by Committee investigators. TPM was unable to independently verify that the number belongs to him. Babin did not respond to a request for comment.
7. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) – Cramer, who ultimately did not vote to object to the election results, spoke to TPM for this story and his comments are included above.
8. Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) – Green’s number was identified by Committee investigators and confirmed by TPM. His office provided a statement which was included in the story above.
9. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) – Gohmert’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. Gohmert and his office did not return requests for comment.
10. Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC) – Murphy’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. Murphy and his office did not return requests for comment.
11. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) – Committee investigators identified Gosar as using multiple phone numbers and an email address to text Mark Meadows. TPM has independently verified one of the numbers as well as the email. Gosar’s office provided a statement for this story, part of which is included above.
12. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) – Norman’s number was identified by committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. He spoke to us for this story and his comments are detailed above.
13. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) – Lee, who ultimately did not vote to object to the election results, has confirmed he sent the texts Meadows provided to the Committee that were identified as coming from his phone. Lee and his office did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
14. Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) – Brady’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. In a response that is included in this story, a spokesperson for Brady stressed that he did not vote to object to the election results.
15. Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) – Perry’s number was identified by Committee investigators. TPM was unable to independently verify that the number belongs to him. Perry and his office did not respond to a request for comment.
16. Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) – Budd’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. Budd and his office did not return requests for comment.
17. Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) – Emmer’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. He ultimately did not vote to object to the election results. Emmer and his office did not return requests for comment.
18. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) – Jordan’s number was identified by Committee investigators. TPM was unable to independently verify that the number belongs to him. Jordan and his office did not respond to a request for comment.
19. Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) – Hudson’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. A spokesperson requested to see the texts identified as coming from Hudson in the Meadows log. They did not respond to subsequent requests for comment.
20. Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) – Hice’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. A spokesperson provided a comment, which is included in the story above.
21. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) – Loudermilk’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. He did not respond to a request for comment.
22. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) – Committee investigators identified Johnson, who ultimately did not vote to object to the election results, using an email address that was confirmed by TPM. A Johnson spokesperson also issued a statement saying, “that he saw no scenario in which any of Biden’s electors would be disallowed. He also believes it is indisputable that there were a number of election irregularities that need to be addressed.”
23. Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) – Perdue’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. Perdue, who left office on January 3, 2021 and was not present for the electoral certification, declined to comment on record.
24. Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA) – Allen’s number was identified by Committee investigators. TPM was unable to independently verify that the number belongs to him. Allen and his office did not respond to a request for comment.
25. Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-OH) – Gibbs’ number was identified by committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. Gibbs and his office did not respond to a request for comment.
26. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) – Brooks’ number was identified by Committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. He defended his actions in a phone interview that is included in the story above.
27. Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) – Johnson’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. Johnson and his office did not respond to a request for comment.
28. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) – Cruz’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. A spokesperson for Cruz declined to comment on this story.
29. Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) – Lummis’ phone number was identified by Committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. She sent us a text message that is included in the story above.
30. Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA) – Greene’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. Her office did not respond to a request for comment.
31. Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL) – Moore’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently verified through public records by TPM. Moore and his office did not respond to a request for comment.
32. Rep. Fred Keller (R-PA) – Keller’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. Keller and his office did not respond to a request for comment.
33. Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) – Bishop’s number was identified by Committee investigators and confirmed by TPM. He provided a statement defending his objection to the election results: “My analysis of the tactics, purposes and possible impacts of the Democrats’ national litigation campaign to disrupt 2020 election operations remains 100% factual and accurate. Consequently, I have no regrets about publishing it,” Bishop said.
34. Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) – Clyde’s number was identified by Committee investigators and independently confirmed by TPM. His office responded to a request for comment by pointing out some of his messages were reported by CNN. They did not respond to questions about the substance of his remarks.
#us politics#news#talking points memo#2022#capitol riot#capitol riot investigation#house select committee#mark meadows#trump administration#conservatives#republicans#gop#election denialism#election deniers#texts#text messages#Rep. Ralph Norman#Jason Miller#sen. ted cruz#rep. jim jordan#rep. paul gosar#Rep. Brian Babin#Sen. Mike Lee#Conservative Partnership Institute#Rep. Mike Kelly#Rep. Chip Roy#rep. louis gohmert#Sen. Cynthia Lummis#rep. kevin mccarthy#mike pence
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I’m not American and I’m so confused. Is there nothing their PRESIDENT can do? Literally nothing? The Supreme Court can just do literally anything they want and there’s no one above them who can stop them? They just have to hope and pray that these people end up changing their minds and undo the overturning?
Basically yes.
The president gets to appoint supreme court justices (the senate has to agree, but they usually do), but only if one dies or steps down voluntarily. Once you're appointed you can stay literally until the day you die.
Trump got to appoint 3 new justices because Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, she was very progressive. Anthony Kennedy stepped down, he was usually a swing vote and Antonin Gregory Scalia died, he was a republican. Trump appointed three extremely conservative assholes in their place which means they now have 6 republicans and 3 democrats. And not 6 republicans who can be reasoned with, 6 republicans who hate minorities incredibly hard.
Biden can not do anything unless someone dies or steps down. Thing is that Trump appointed three young republicans (well, young for justices). All 3 are in their 50s, the other republicans are 72, 74 and 67, the chance of them dying in the next 2 years is slim and the chance of them stepping down while a democrat is president is basically zero. They will wait for a republican president and potentially give up their seat so he (we all know it won't be a woman president) can appoint new and younger republican justices.
This is why Americans were so worried about Trump in 2016. He literally set the course of the country for what might be the next 30 years by appointing 3 young justices who are extremely conservative.
They won't undo it, they will ban gay marriage and probably massively restrict access to contraceptives. Sorry if that sounds negative, but the 3 trumpies are completely on board with that, Thomas is as well and Alito is literally the one who is behind overturning the abortion law. That's 5 already, not even including the 6th republican who also is in favor of restricting abortion (just wasn't on board with overturning the law completely).
#ask#abortion#supreme court#gay marriage#really the only hope is public outcry#and international scrutiny but Biden will be facing the scrutiny not the supreme court justices so i doubt that will change much
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By Thom Hartmann
Common Dreams
May 17, 2024
The ideology of the Republican Party and the stranglehold of powerful corporations of our political system overall has transformed America from a democracy into a late-stage oligarchy, and the point of no return is now visible.
The headline in this week’s Fortune reads:
“Billionaire investor Ray Dalio warns U.S. is ‘on the brink’ and estimates a more than 1 in 3 chance of civil war”
Billionaires and civil war? A billionaire-funded Supreme Court Justice flew the American flag upside down outside his house after January 6th in apparent support of Donald Trump‘s attempt to overthrow our government.
Americans for Tax Fairness reports that 50 billionaire families have, at this early stage, already injected almost a billion dollars into our political system — the overwhelming majority of it going to Republicans and in support of Donald Trump — in an effort to maintain enough control of our political system that their taxes won’t go up. And that total is just what’s reported: it doesn’t count the billions in unknowable dark money that’s sloshing around the system thanks to Citizens United.
Back in the day, the late Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis warned us:
“We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.”
The number one movie in America last month was Civil War. Right wing militias are on the march. More than half of Republicans say they are “expecting” a civil war.
How did we get here? And what does oligarchy have to do with civil war?
The clear result of five corrupt Republicans on the 1978 and 2010 Supreme Courts legalizing political bribery of politicians (and Supreme Court justices) by both corporations and the morbidly rich is that America is now well past the halfway mark of a fatal-to-democracy slide into oligarchy and the strongman autocracy typically associated with it. And the conflict that can follow that.
You can see the consequence in any contemporary survey. The majority of people want things — gun control, a strengthened social safety net, a cleaner and safer environment, quality, free education, higher taxes on the rich — that Congress refuses to do anything about because it is in thrall to great wealth.
As President Jimmy Carter told me eight years ago:
“It [Citizens United] violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. … So now we’ve just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election’s over.”
For example, just last week, Donald Trump solicited a $1 billion bribe from a group of fossil fuel executives in exchange for undoing all of President Biden’s climate regulations.
In a testament to how today’s form of transactional oligarchy has become normalized in America, the only national news organization that reported this shocking story was MSNBC; every other news outlet thought it was entirely normal for an American politician to have their hand out in exchange for legislative or policy changes. As Media Matters reported this week:
“CNN, Fox News Channel; ABC’s Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and This Week; CBS’ Mornings, Evening News, and Face the Nation; and NBC’s Today, Nightly News, and Meet the Press” all completely ignored the story.
What we are watching is the final stage of the 40-year neoliberal transition of our nation from a forward-looking and still-evolving democratic republic into a white supremacist ethnostate ruled by a small group of fascist oligarchs.
Some years ago, Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore (before he was Trump’s advisor) was a guest on my radio/TV program. I asked him, “Which is more important, democracy or capitalism?“
Without hesitation, Moore answered, “Capitalism.” He went on to imply this was how the Founders wanted things. After all, as George Orwell said:
“Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.”
That philosophy and a phony American history have held the Republican Party in its thrall for the past 40+ years and have brought America to this moment of great crisis and danger.
It has transformed America from a democracy into a late-stage oligarchy, and the point of no return is now visible. Which presents a true crisis for America, because oligarchy is almost always merely a transitional phase in the evolution to full-blown tyranny and/or fascism, and often civil war.
Oligarchies are inherently unstable forms of government because they transfer resources and power from working people to the oligarchs. Average people, seeing that they’re constantly falling behind and can’t do anything about it, first become cynical and disengage, and, when things get bad enough, they try to revolt.
That “revolution” can either lead to the oligarchy failing and the nation flipping back to democracy, as happened here in the 1860s and the 1930s, or it can flip into full-blown strong-man tyranny, as happened recently in Hungary, Turkey, and Russia, and nearly happened here on January 6th.
Oligarchies usually become police states, where any average person who dares seriously challenge the ruling oligarchs is squashed like a bug either legally or financially; the oligarchs themselves are immune from prosecution and get to keep their billions regardless of how many people’s lives are ruined or die because of their crimes.
Oligarchic governments almost always do a few predictable things, as I lay out in The Hidden History of American Oligarchy:
— They change monopoly laws and regulations so their rich buddies can take control of most of the nation’s businesses and media.
— They stack the courts and regulatory agencies with oligarch-friendly ideologues or outright corrupt toadies, while eliminating regulatory protections for average citizens.
— They cut taxes on the rich and drive wages low on working people while criminalizing and cracking down on dissent, particularly if it involves any sort of direct action or property damage.
— They distract voters from their own looting by demonizing minorities and encouraging racism, religious/gender conflict, and regionalism.
— They reinvent history to argue that the country was “always an oligarchy and that’s the way the nation’s founders wanted it. It’s what works best.”
— They actively suppress the vote among people inclined to oppose them (typically minorities and the young), or outright rig the vote to insure their own victory.
— And they transform their nations into police states, heavily criminalizing demonstrations, nonviolent resistance, or “direct action” while radicalizing and encouraging right wing vigilante “militias” to put down the inevitable pro-democracy rebellions as people realize what’s happening.
To the end of cementing their own oligarchy here, the billionaires who own the GOP are now actively promoting the same sort of revisionist history the Confederacy did, claiming that the Founders were all rich guys who hated taxes, wanted rich men to rule America, and wrote the Constitution to make that happen. It was a story popular in the South leading up to the Civil War, now part of the “Lost Cause” mythology.
To that end, they’re purging our schools and colleges of books and history courses; professors and teachers who don’t toe their line that America was designed from its founding to be an oligarchy are being fired as you read these words. In this, they’re promoting — for their own benefit — a dangerous lie.
A lie that rationalizes oligarchy.
While there were some in America among the Founders and Framers who had amassed great land holdings and what was perceived then as a patrician lifestyle, Pulitzer Prize winning author Bernard Bailyn suggests in his brilliant 2003 book To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders that they couldn’t hold a candle, in terms of wealth, to the true aristocrats of England.
With page after page of photographs and old paintings of the homes of the Founders and Framers, Bailyn shows that none of those who created this nation were rich by European standards. After an artful and thoughtful comparison of American and British estates, Bailyn concludes bluntly:
“There is no possible correspondence, no remote connection, between these provincial dwellings and the magnificent showplaces of the English nobility...”
Showing and describing to his readers the mansions of the families of power in 18th century Europe, Bailyn writes:
“There is nothing in the American World to compare with this.”
While the Founders and Framers had achieved a level of literacy, creativity, and a depth of thinking that rivaled that of any European states or eras, nonetheless, Bailyn notes:
“The Founders were provincials, alive to the values of a greater world, but not, they knew, of it – comfortable in a lesser world but aware of its limitations.”
As Kevin Phillips describes in his masterpiece book Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich:
“George Washington, one of the richest Americans, was no more than a wealthy squire in British terms.”
Phillips documents that it wasn’t until the 1790’s — a generation after the War of Independence — that the first American accumulated a fortune that would be worth one million of today’s dollars. The Founders and Framers were, at best, what today would be called the upper-middle-class in terms of lifestyle, assets, and disposable income.
In 1958, one of America’s great professors of history, Forrest McDonald, published an extraordinary book debunking Charles Beard’s 1913 hypothesis that the Constitution was created exclusively of, by, and for rich white men. McDonald’s book, titled We the People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution, bluntly states:
“Economic interpretation of the Constitution does not work.”
Over the course of more than 400 meticulously researched pages, McDonald goes back to original historical records and reveals who was promoting and who was opposing the new Constitution, and why. So far as I can tell, he is the first and only historian to do this type of original-source research, and his conclusions are startling.
McDonald notes that a quarter of all the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had voted in their own state legislatures for laws that would have helped debtors and the poor and thus harmed the interests of the rich.
“These [debt relief laws] were the very kinds of laws which, according to Beard’s hypothesis, the delegates had convened to prevent,” says McDonald. He adds: “Another fourth of the delegates had important economic interests that were adversely affected, directly and immediately, by the Constitution they helped write.”
While Beard theorizes that the Framers were largely drawn from the class of wealthy bankers and businessmen, McDonald shows that wasn’t true at all:
“The most common and by far the most important property holdings of the delegates were not, as Beard has asserted, mercantile, manufacturing, and public security investments, but agricultural property.”
Most were farmers or plantation owners and, as noted earlier, owning a lot of land did not always make one rich in those days, particularly compared to the bankers and mercantilists of New York and Boston.
“Finally,” McDonald concludes, “it is abundantly evident that the delegates, once inside the convention, behaved as anything but a consolidated economic group.”
After dissecting the means and motivations of the Framers who wrote the Constitution, McDonald goes into an exhaustive and detailed state-by-state analysis of the constitutional ratifying conventions that finally brought the U.S. Constitution into law.
For example, in the state of Delaware, which voted for ratification:
“[A]lmost 77 percent of the delegates were farmers, more than two-thirds of them small farmers with incomes ranging from 75 cents to $5.00 a week. Slightly more than 23 percent of the delegates were professional men – doctors, judges, and lawyers. None of the delegates was a merchant, manufacturer, banker, or speculator in western lands.”
In other states, similar numbers showed up. Of the New Jersey delegates supporting ratification, 64.1 percent were small farmers. In Maryland, “the opponents of ratification included from three to six times as large a proportion of merchants, lawyers, and investors in shipping, confiscated estates, and manufacturing as did the [poorer] delegates who favored ratification.”
In South Carolina it was those in economic distress who carried the day: “No fewer than 82 percent of the debtors and borrowers of paper money in the convention voted for ratification.” In New Hampshire, “of the known farmers in the convention 68.7 percent favored ratification.”
But did farmers support the Constitution because they were slave owners or the wealthiest of the landowners, as Charles Beard had guessed back in 1913?
McDonald shows that this certainly wasn’t the case in northern states like New Hampshire or New Jersey, which were not slave states.
But what about Virginia and North Carolina, the two largest slave-holding states, asks McDonald rhetorically. Were their plantation owners favoring the Constitution because it protected their economic and slave-holding interests?
“The opposite is true,” writes McDonald. “In both states the wealthy planters – those with personality interests [enslaved people] as well as those without personality interests – were divided approximately equally on the issue of ratification. In North Carolina small farmers and debtors were likewise equally divided, and in Virginia the great mass of the small farmers and a large majority of the debtors favored ratification.”
After dissecting the results of the ratification votes state by state — the first author in history to do so, as far as I can determine — McDonald sums up:
“Beard’s thesis — that the line of cleavage as regards the Constitution was between substantial personality interests [wealth and slave ownership] on the one hand and small farming and debtor interests on the other — is entirely incompatible with the facts.”
Here we find the explanation for James Madison sealing his notes on the Constitutional Convention until every man who participated was dead (they were finally published more than 50 years later in 1840). He and many others at the convention were essentially betraying their own economic class in favor of democracy. Something today’s wealthy Americans apparently can’t imagine doing.
No matter how hard Republicans try to reinvent the Founders and Framers of this nation in the image of their libertarian billionaire patrons, and no matter how imperfect and even brutal their time was, the simple reality is that in 1770’s America this nation’s Founders undertook American history’s first truly great progressive experiment.
And they all put their lives on the line to do it: when they signed their names on the Declaration, a death warrant was issued against each one of them by the largest and most powerful empire in the world.
And then, four generations later, we backslid.
The only other time in American history when an entire region of America was converted from a democracy into an oligarchy was the 1830-1860 era in the South. It’s why Republicans are so fond of the Confederate flag and Civil War memorial monuments.
The invention of the Cotton Gin made a few hundred families of southern planters richer than Midas; they seized political control of the region and then destroyed democracy in those states. Even white men who dared stand up to them were imprisoned or lynched, ballot boxes were stuffed, and social mobility came to a standstill.
By the 1840s, the South had become a full-blown police state, much like Trump and his acolytes would like America to become in the near future.
Offended and worried by the democratic example of the Northern states, the Confederacy declared war on the United States itself with the goal of ending democracy in America altogether. Almost 700,000 people died defending our form of government.
And now, for a second time in American history, we’re confronted with a near-complete takeover of about half of our nation by America’s oligarchs.
And with it has come not just the threat of political violence, but the reality, from the death of Heather Heyer to the George Floyd protests to January 6th and the assault on Paul Pelosi.
All driven by oligarchs determined to pit us against each other so we won’t recognize how they’re robbing us blind.
Unless and until our tax laws are changed and the Supreme Court’s legalization of political bribery is reversed, we’ll continue this disintegrative slide into fascism and the danger of domestic armed conflict.
This fall we’ll have the opportunity to elect politicians who actively oppose oligarchy and fascism while embracing the true spirit of American egalitarianism.
President Biden is the first president in 80 years to consequentially raise taxes on both rich people and corporations. That political bravery has brought him powerful enemies: this fall’s election will be hard fought.
Make sure everybody you know is registered to vote, and if you live in a Republican-controlled state double-check your voter registration every month at vote.org.
America’s future — and the integrity of our history — depend on it.
#corporate power#oligarchy#fascism#republican party#democratic party#civil war#2024 presidential election#u.s. constitution#founding fathers#democracy#thom hartmann
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DENVER (AP) — A Colorado judge has rejected an attempt by former President Donald Trump to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to keep him off the state ballot, ruling that his objections on free-speech grounds did not apply.Trump’s attorneys argued that a Colorado law protecting people from being sued over exercising their free speech rights shielded him from the lawsuit, but Colorado District Judge Sarah Wallace said that law doesn’t apply in this case.The law also conflicted with a state requirement to get the question about Trump's eligibility resolved quickly — before a Jan. 5 deadline for presidential candidates' names to certified for the Colorado primary, Wallace wrote.Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington claims in its lawsuit that putting Trump on the ballot in Colorado would violate a provision of the 14th Amendment that bars people who have “engaged in insurrection” against the Constitution from holding office.The group’s chief counsel, Donald K. Sherman, welcomed Wallace’s decision, which was made late Wednesday. He called it a “well-reasoned and very detailed order” in a statement Thursday. A Denver-based attorney for Trump, Geoffrey Blue, didn't immediately return a phone message Thursday seeking comment.The Colorado case is one of several involving Trump that stand to test the Civil War-era constitutional amendment, which has never been ruled on by the U.S. Supreme Court. Along with lawsuits filed in Minnesota and Michigan, it has a good chance of reaching the nation’s high court.The lawsuits also involve one of Trump’s arguments in criminal cases filed against him in Washington, D.C., and Georgia for his attempt to overturn his 2020 loss — that he is being penalized for engaging in free speech to disagree with the validity of the vote tally.The Colorado case will focus in part on the meaning of “insurrection” under the 14th Amendment, whether it applies only to waging war on the U.S. or can apply to Trump's goading of a mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to halt the certification of President Joe Biden's win.Trump's attorneys dispute that it applies to his attempt to undo the election results. They also assert that the 14th Amendment requires an act of Congress to be enforced and that it doesn't apply to Trump, anyway.Trump swore a presidential oath to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution, but the text of the 14th Amendment says it applies to those who have sworn oaths to “support” the Constitution, Blue pointed out the sematic difference in an Oct. 6 filing in the case.Both oaths “put a weighty burden on the oath-taker,” but those who wrote the amendment were aware of the difference, Blue argued.“The framers of the 14th Amendment never intended for it to apply to the President,” he wrote.The trial to determine Trump's eligibility for the Colorado ballot is scheduled to start Oct. 30.___Gruver reported from Cheyenne, Wyoming.
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WAYNE ROOT: Tucker is Outing Obama as Gay. But Everyone is Missing the Big Story. I’m Obama’s College Classmate. I’ve Been Trying to Warn America for 15 Years!
Why does any of this matter now? Because Joe Biden is a brain-dead puppet. This is the third term of Obama. The proof is we are all reliving the nightmare Obama economy. Great for Wall Street and billion-dollar multi-national corporations. But a disaster for the American middle class and Main Street.
Second, Biden is fading fast- and everyone can see it. At the same time as Biden’s cognitive health is in freefall, all of his corruption from the past is pouring out of the closet. Biden is finished. He is toast. He will never make it to 2024.
Sometime this fall Biden will have a very public “episode” and be hospitalized. Soon thereafter he (or Jill) will announce he is stepping down for “health reasons.”
Who will replace him? Either Michelle Obama or Gavin Newsom. But whoever it is, Obama will be calling the shots from his nearby Washington DC mansion. That’s why this story matters.
I’ve had Obama pegged from the first day. Obama is the ultimate “Manchurian Candidate.” Gay is unimportant. What matters is he was groomed to be president by the Deep State and communist, fascist, globalist enemies of the United States. What matters is Obama is a radical Marxist tyrant carrying out the destruction of America.
Obama was tame in his first two terms. He was “boiling the frog slowly.” But Trump ruined his plan. Now Obama is trying to destroy this country as fast as he can, before Trump has a second chance to undo the damage.
And at the same time, Obama is coordinating the attacks on Trump to either imprison him, kill him, or disqualify him.
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Investing News from America's #1 Source Unsubscribe | Report Spam | View In Browser Headline Wealth - America's Most Trusted Source for Financial News Putin Threatens Biden with Catastrophic Power Grid Attack if U.S. Enter Conflict... According to a recent Department of Homeland Security bulletin, Vladimir Putin has issued a WARNING to President Biden... ...That he'll take out America's power grid with a cyber weapon if the U.S. enters the Ukraine war. And what's absolutely terrifying is if he deploys these weapons it will cause a multi-year blackout across the country and could kill of up to 90% of the U.S. population. If you think this sounds far-fetched then you should know that President Trump was very worried about this and knew that it was the undisputed #1 threat to our very existence. Unfortunately, within days of taking over as president, Joe Biden made the decision to undo many of Trump's policies which means America's power grid is now more vulnerable than ever! So what exactly can you do to prepare you and your family for this UNIMAGINABLE CRISIS? Best selling author and freelance journalist Keith Jacobs just released a new book on getting your family prepared for this coming crisis called THE GREAT DARK THREAT. And in response to the coming crisis, he has worked out a deal with his publisher to give away the first 500 copies for FREE. In this life-saving book, you'll discover: What to expect should the unthinkable worse-cast scenario blackout event unfold. You'll learn the 18 sectors of industry that will be targeted and how exactly they will impact your chances of survival. What to do to survive the immediate aftermath of this devastating attack. You'll learn what to do to survive the first hours, days and weeks while others are falling by the wayside. How to build your own backup power source. You'll get step-by-step instructions for building your own backup power generator from scratch (no matter your skill level or budget). The 36 specific foods to stockpile to feed your family, plans for handing hygiene and sanitation when the toilets don't run plus the ultimate home and family defense supply list. This is just a small sample of what you'll find in this handbook to surviving and they are giving away FREE copies today (while supplies last). The bad news is these will run out fast. They could be gone by later today. Don't delay - claim your free copy now. Enter your shipping details here to get your copy of The Great Dark Threat shipped to your doorstep. The information presented here is for general educational purposes only. You should always consult with your personal physician regarding any personal health problem, and you should always consult with your financial adviser regarding investment decisions. FDA DISCLOSURE: The statements, articles, and products featured in Headline Wealth emails and at HeadlineWealth.com have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. No information or products appearing in emails or the website are intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. MATERIAL CONNECTION DISCLOSURE: Headline Wealth may have an affiliate relationship and/or another material connection to any persons or businesses mentioned in or linked to from emails or the website and may receive commissions from purchases you make on subsequent web sites. You should not rely solely on information published by Headline Wealth to evaluate the product or service being offered. Always exercise your own due diligence before purchasing any product or service. HEADLINE WEALTH • PO BOX 49043 • CHARLOTTE, NC 28277 Unsubscribe | Report Spam | View In Browser | Forward to a Friend | Ensure Email Delivery
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Putin Threatens Biden with Catastrophic Power Grid Attack if U.S. Enter Conflict…
According to a recent Department of Homeland Security bulletin, Vladimir Putin has issued a WARNING to President Biden…
…That he’ll take out America’s power grid with a cyber weapon if the U.S. enters the Ukraine war.
And what’s…
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Some of the positions of Biden going into this election:
Abolish the death penalty.
End cash bail as it disproportional punishes the poor.
End cocaine sentencing disparity as racist
Eliminate mandatory minimums
Scrap past marijuana convictions
Eliminate private prisons
Raise minimum wage to 15$/hour
Supports a government mandated 12 weeks of paid family leave for all workers
Two years of college free
Expand student debt forgiveness, including 10K of forgiveness for all student loans and complete forgiveness for all undergraduate loans from 2 and 4 year public colleges and universities, and other loan forgiveness and payment reduction plans.
Eliminate funding gap for k-12 schools based on location (essentially between white and non white/poor and non poor division) with specific first steps outlined to do so.
Increase teacher pay, especially in underfunded schools (poor and POC schools)
Plan outlined to get us back in on the Paris agreement and goal of switching to clean energy by 2035 with first steps specified.
Supports voluntary gun buyback (similar programs have had huge success in reducing gun violence in other countries)
Supports firearm registry
Supports universal background checks for fire arm purchase
Supports huge expansions of medicare and the creation of a public run health insurance option that everyone is automatically enrolled in if they lose other coverage. You would also be able to use this free option if you did not want to use employer coverage. He has moved left in a huge way since the pandemic came into full swing but most people just ignore it. There is a good chance that by the time we get to the point of implementation he could just go medicare for all.
Citizenship for dreamers (DACA)
Outlined steps for increasing the quality of life, access to resources, and autonomy of disabled people, including expansion and strict enforcement of non discrimination policies
Universal hazard pay for “front line” workers during the pandemic
Specific first steps outlined for reducing systematic LGBTQ discrimination
Large increase of taxes on the wealthy, including a direct wealth tax and increasing taxes on corporations, with short term proposals in place that include undoing much of the damage done by trump.
You will notice that a lot of these positions can be described as halfway progressive. As in they move in the right direction but stop short of the ultimate goal. Sure, we didn’t win the primary and get a truly progressive candidate in, but the strong showing of progressive ideals during the primary means that we strong armed the democrat party into compromising with us. We forcibly moved the Overton window significantly left, imagine if we did this election after election! We could force real change regardless of the presidential candidate that is ultimately chosen.
We are slowly winning, but in order for it to stick we have to demonstrate that progressives will reward the shift in our direction. We absolutely need to vote Biden in, as well as support democrats in the senate, congress, and local levels. We need to prove that progressives are a powerful political group that can make promises and deliver to those who compromise with us. This is critical for the long term viability of progressive politics.
Biden isn’t just damage control. We wont be sprinting towards an ideal world but we will be taking significant steps in that direction. Don’t throw away all the progress we made because you don’t like the names on the ticket.
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It Looks Like the Biden Presidency Will Be a Force for Good for Transgender People World Wide
he Joe Biden administration may actually make a huge difference for transgender people, not only in America, but all over the world.
2014 was the transgender tipping point, with unprecedented trans visibility and acceptance. Then came the backlash.
The anti-trans backlash
In Europe we have seen extremist governments in Hungary and Poland attack the LGBTQA community. In Britain some so called “radical feminists” have joined forces with right wing transphobes in a media blitz against trans and nonbinary people. In the US the Trump administration has done its best to undo several years of transgender progress.
Transgender people has become the focal point for extremists who fear gender diversity, much in the same way as lesbian and gay people were used as scapegoats in the 20th century.
This is not primarily about trans people. It is about political power and the desire to turn the clock back some 100 years, back to a time with traditional gender roles and a world run by conservative white men.
As we can see, they are using racism, homophobia and transphobia to achieve their objectives.
The effects of transphobic policies
The various anti-trans policies affect trans people negatively for several reasons:
Firstly, obviously, they harm trans people because they are denying them the chance to live a normal life.
Secondly they hurt transgender people by creating an atmosphere of fear.
This is why the Biden administration may be of help to transgender people all over the world, and not only in the US.
The Capitol terrorist attack has shown the world what kind of evil we are dealing with here, and having a sane president supporting transgender people will be seen as a clear signal for change in the right direction all over the world.
What has Biden said and done about trans people so far?
According to the Washington Post Biden has called the trans struggle the “civil rights issue of our time.”
In 2017, he endorsed Danica Roem, the first openly trans person to be elected to a state legislature in U.S. history.
Biden asked transgender veteran Shawn Skelly to be part of his presidential transition team at the Department of Defense.
The Post reports that when he left the vice presidency, Biden partnered with other advocates to start the As You Are campaign to advocate for families’ acceptance of their transgender children.
What are Biden and Harris going to do?
Biden has promised to overturn every Trump administration rule that limits transgender rights, including tossing out its near-total ban on transgender troops serving in the military.
He will also reinstate the Obama-era guidance for protecting transgender students that the Trump administration took away.
Biden has said he will protect the rights of anyone who qualifies to adopt, regardless of religion or family composition.
Legal experts expect that Biden’s Department of Education will switch sides in two legal battles regarding transgender athletes — one in Connecticut and one in Idaho.
Furthermore, the Biden administration will provide anti-bias training for federal employees and offer incentives for states that adopt programs that help prepare transgender people for the workplace.
Keep in mind that Biden will also try to get the Equality Act passed by Congress. This law will add sexual orientation and gender identity to existing federal civil rights laws, banning discrimination against LGBTQA people in housing, public accommodations, credit and more. Since the Democratic Party now controls the Senate, there is a chance that the law will go through.
In support of Black trans people
The Washington post writes:
During a town hall meeting with voters, Biden surprised even longtime LGBTQ advocates when he addressed the killing of transgender women — largely of color. At least 43 transgender or gender-nonconforming people were killed in the United States in 2020, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
Advocates praised Biden for bringing the issue to the national stage and vowing to direct federal resources to prevent and prosecute such homicides.
“There’s an opportunity here for a national discussion on transgender people of color who are often just left out of the national conversation,” said David J. Johns, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, a civil rights organization dedicated to the Black LGBTQ community.
“Even though the transgender community may have more visibility in TV shows like ‘Pose,’ the vitriol at the policy level that exists within the system leaves no promise of justice.”
Johns said he hopes to see more LGBTQ leaders of color appointed in Biden’s administration.
Under the Obama administration American embassies world wide were decorated in rainbow colors. I expect that to happen again, and that would be a clear message to homophobes and transphobes all over the world that America is again on the side of justice.
Not all of these changes will happen over night, though. LGBTQ Nation reports that Biden’s landmark LGBTQA rights legislation could take more than 100 days to pass. The Corona virus and the Trump impeachment will obviously have an effect.
Photo: Reuters
#trans#transgender#biden#biden administration#lgbt#lgbtqa#transphobia#trump#terf#black transgender#black trans#nonbinary
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yeah, voting is good and all, but I don’t think systemic change will happen with it. The government’s mostly blue right now and look where we are, no cancellations of student debt, abortion protection laws are crumbling, still no true plan on how to deal with COVID, immigrants are still being held in cages.
So much should be done, but just voting won’t help solve anything unless we reform our government completely. We cannot wait for politicians to care about the people they “serve”, because all they do is appeal to the masses and then sell out the moment they get their votes. The system is broken, voting helps the tiniest bit, but we need true government reform and we need true representation and power for the working class.
America has the chance to be a good country, but its sins are too great, and capitalism was built to always have a group of people in that system to be in servitude for the wealthy. Not saying we need Communism, but we need a definite social and political reform that exists outside of voting. That’s just my two cents though.
I know your heart is probably in the right place, but you're actually quite wrong.
The government is not mostly blue right now. The White House is democrat, yes. The Supreme Court is stacked conservative republicans. The Senate is 50/50 (with a handful of dem senators voting more closely with their repub peers more often than fellow dems on big topics). The House of Representatives is barely majority democrat, by a margin of ~20.
I agree that voting isn't where this all stops and that more action must be taken to change our government on a fundamental level, but acting like change doesn't start with exercising your right to vote is misguided and, frankly, foolish. If people didn't get out and vote in 2020 because they felt the US' "sins are too great" for voting to matter, Donald Trump would still be president and things would be infinitely worse. Everyone voting for Biden knew it would take a lot of time to undo the damage Trump did, especially without abusing his power the way Trump did. I don't like the guy, but he's better than the alternative.
The things you list as reasons you think the dems are failing are precisely why you have to vote for more progressive candidates. The people elected now are mostly doing damage control, and without a super majority they can't do anything. Biden is too moderate, the lead dems are too moderate, but they're better than the conspiracy theorist right-wing Trumpers trying to seize power. We need more people in office that will push for the future, not keep things the same or pull us back to the past. And you do that by voting. By getting involved in your local elections, your local political reform organizations and charities. By attending rallies and protests and signing petitions and so much more.
But to say voting won't change anything is defeatist and untrue.
#This isn't as eloquent a response as I probably could have made#but it really irritates me to see people decide to take such a back seat to things effecting everyone's lives#it's not hard to vote just go do it#if everyone from 18-29 voted every election that would literally change the course of American history#but people are lazy and defeatist and say it doesn't matter#it does#I'm sorry if this comes off as hostile but sometimes people need to hear things bluntly#I'll add this too: sharing your thoughts like this even through an anon is brave#it opens yourself up to criticism and hearing things you don't like in response#so I do really appreciate you sending this and letting me reply to it#Like I said at the start I think your heart's in the right place but sometimes we can't see the forest for the trees yknow#I don't mean this reply as a means of ridicule I mean it as a way for you to see what at least I believe in this situation#asks#anon
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The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol is expected to issue letters requesting voluntary cooperation from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and around a dozen other Republican members of Congress, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The panel intends to issue a letter to McCarthy – the top House Republican – and is considering further letters to Scott Perry, Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mo Brooks, Lauren Boebert, Andy Biggs, as well as some Republican Senators, the sources said.
Congressman Bennie Thompson, the Chair of the Select Committee, is expected to authorize the list of Republican members of Congress caught up in the investigation potentially as soon as this week. The letters may come either this week or next week, the sources said.
The scope and subjects of the letters are not yet finalized, and the sources cautioned that the members of Congress approached for cooperation may still change. On Thursday, Thompson said only that he would send letters to McCarthy and other Republicans.
But the select committee’s move to seek cooperation from some of Donald Trump’s fiercest defenders on Capitol Hill – and for some members like McCarthy, Jordan and Perry, the second such request – marks a new gear for the inquiry as it reaches its final stages.
The new letters are being discussed internally as a final chance for cooperation before the select committee considers ways to compel their assistance, the sources said: once reluctant to pursue subpoenas against members of Congress, the mood on panel is changing.
The panel has a renewed interest in McCarthy’s cooperation after new reporting this week showed he had told the Republican leadership days after January 6 that Trump admitted to him at least partial responsibility for the Capitol attack, the sources said.
The select committee is particularly focused on whether Trump might have indicated to McCarthy why he believed he was culpable for the Capitol attack, the sources said, and whether the former president knew he may have acted unlawfully on January 6.
Thompson is also considering letters to Greene and Perry and other Republicans who played an outsize role in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election and pressed the White House about Trump declaring martial law to stay in office, the sources said.
The Select Committee wants to learn more information from members of Congress who were in constant text-messages communication with Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, described by one of the sources as “those in the text message traffic”.
A spokesman for the select committee declined to comment.
Greene messaged Meadows on 17 January, according to one of more than 2,000 texts Meadows turned over to the investigation and obtained by CNN, that some members of Congress were calling for Trump to impose martial law to remain in power.
“In our private chat with only Members several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call Marshall [sic] law,” Greene said in the text. “I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next.”
Meadows did not appear to respond to Greene’s text. But the messages Trump’s top White House aide was receiving shows the extraordinary ideas swirling around Trump after he and his operatives were unable to stop the certification of Biden’s election win on January 6.
The newly-released text messages also show Perry, now the chairman of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, lobbying Meadows to replace the justice department leadership with Jeffrey Clark, a DoJ official sympathetic to Trump’s effort to undo the 2020 election.
Greene and Clark were among the leading Republicans determined to overturn Trump’s defeat to Biden, according to the text messages – as well as testimony provided to House investigators by Cassidy Hutchinson, a Trump White House aide who worked for Meadows.
The Select Committee appears to believe the time is right to request voluntary cooperation from the members, the sources said, capitalizing on the public outrage surrounding McCarthy’s remarks and the texts sent by the Republican members of Congress.
Thompson on Thursday confirmed to reporters that he would certainly issue a second letter to McCarthy to appear before House investigators, as well as to Jordan and Perry, but declined to name other targets or how he would proceed if the requests were rejected.
#us politics#news#the guardian#2022#biden administration#house select committee#capitol protests#capitol riot#capitol riot investigation#trump administration#mark meadows#rep. kevin mccarthy#rep. scott perry#rep. jim jordan#rep. marjorie taylor greene#rep. mo brooks#rep. lauren boebert#rep. andy biggs#rep. bennie thompson#Jeffrey Clark#Cassidy Hutchinson
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