Today a group called The We the People Convention ran a full-page ad in the Washington Times (Sun Myung Moon, founder) calling for Trump to declare martial law and overturn the election. Here’s more from Gateway Pundit. This effort appears to be led by a Georgia attorney named Lin Wood.
Good morning.
Our country is headed to civil war. A war created by 3rd party bad actors for their benefit – not for We The People.
Communist China is leading the nefarious efforts to take away our freedom.@realDonaldTrump should declare martial law.https://t.co/h3Ym5ytMYt
— Lin Wood (@LLinWood) December 1, 2020
Wood also tweeted today that Dominion Voting Systems is owned by “Communist China” through a Chinese affiliate of the Swiss firm UBS Securities. Here in Real World Land, Dominion was founded by a bunch of Canadians and has headquarters in Toronto and Denver. From what I could find out in a quick web search, Dominion is owned by its management and by Staple Street Capital, a private equity firm headquartered in midtown Manhattan. Apparently there are vast conspiracy theories connecting Dominion to all sorts of nefarious elements, including (as you’ve heard) the ghost of Hugo Chavez. Dominion should sue the socks off a few people, starting with Lin Wood. But let’s go on.
Speaking of lawsuits, former cyber security chief Christopher Krebs is considering legal action against Trump campaign attorney Joseph diGenova, who called for Krebs to be “taken out at dawn and shot.” You may remember diGenova as part of the legal team Toensing and DiGenova, which has been involved in right-wing plots going back years.
On the other hand, Bill Barr just released a statement saying the Justice Department has not uncovered evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Even Barr has decided enough is enough. But Trump has a zombie army that will not be deterred, I fear. Barr may need a bigger security detail.
Ron Brownstein has a piece at CNN that compares Trump to Joe McCarthy. I have been thinking the same thing. Trump really is more like McCarthy than like Hitler, IMO. I realize that may be a subtle distinction. But like McCarthy, Trump is a, shall we say, unexceptional man who stumbled into genuine power. And it revealed him to be a monster, but not before doing a lot of damage to a lot of people. But the interesting part here is the relationship between the Republican Party and McCarthy and how much it resembles the relationship between the Republican Party and Trump.
In McCarthy’s era, most of the GOP’s leaders found excuses to avoid challenging conspiracy theories that they knew to be implausible, even as evidence of their costs to the nation steadily mounted. For years, despite their private doubts about his charges and methods alike, the top GOP leadership — particularly Senate Republican leader Robert A. Taft, the Mitch McConnell of his day — either passively abetted or actively supported McCarthy’s scattershot claims of treason and Communist infiltration.
McCarthy in his heyday was very, very powerful. A word from him could ruin somebody. At first McCarthy went after Democrats and career diplomats in the State Department, so he was useful to Republicans. But then he started on President Dwight Eisenhower and other figures in his administration. Still Republicans stayed silent. Then in March 1954 Edward R. Murrow at CBS had the guts to rip McCarthy apart in a See It Now episode. And later that year McCarthy imploded on national television during the Army McCarthy hearings. Support for McCarthy plummeted, and only then did Senate Republicans move to censure McCarthy. McCarthy did the Republican Party a huge favor when he died of liver damage caused by heavy drinking in 1957.
Trump hasn’t yet reacted to Bill Barr’s statement, but he’s been eviscerating Georgia’s Gov. Kemp so ruthlessly I almost feel sorry for Kemp. Any Republican official involved in certifying a contested state for Biden has been subjected to Trump’s wrath. Several have reported receiving death threats. Republicans are worried that Trump is going to cost them the Georgia Senate runoffs (please), but still they are afraid to correct him.
In a new turn in this ugly saga, Georgia Republicans are now actively pleading with Trump to put an end to this problem for them. But what’s even more darkly absurd is how they’re going about doing this: They apparently do not believe that they themselves can explain to voters that the voting was actually legitimate in their own state — until Trump gives them permission to do so.
Back to Brownstein at CNN:
“For me it’s the dog that hasn’t barked,” conservative strategist and Trump critic Bill Kristol says of the party’s silence about the President’s unfounded fraud claims. “This is as if we’ve had the Army-McCarthy hearings and everyone is just quiet. No one is rethinking anything.”
It took years for the GOP to unshackle itself from McCarthy, and even then the separation came only after a figure as formidable as Eisenhower, a sitting President and national hero, privately encouraged it.
As Kristol notes, with McConnell and other GOP leaders deferring to Trump so completely — and many in the GOP breathing a sigh of relief over the party’s surprisingly competitive performance in the House and Senate elections — it’s not clear where a critical mass of resistance to him might develop, despite his increasingly open attacks on basic pillars of American democracy.
“It was easier to get beyond McCarthy than it will be to get beyond Trump,” Kristol predicts.
I haven’t looked at it, but apparently there is some kind of “hearing” being shown on One America News in which people are testifying to seeing all kinds of fraudulent voting things going on in the contested states. Joe McCarthy didn’t have the advantage of “alternative” news. In 1954 there were four networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, and DuMont). The Army-McCarthy hearings were broadcast gavel to gavel by ABC and DuMont. There were no other outlets, no social media, no filter bubbles, to present an alternative hearing or another version of what happened.
Meanwhile, the Washington Examiner is running a news scoop claiming that the USPS was delivering Biden campaign material but not Trump material. The story also claims all manner of mail-in ballots were lost, without noting that, if true, that probably hurt Biden more than Trump.
As it says here, beware the beginnings.
Viral photo by Joshua A. Bickel, Columbus Dispatch, of Ohio anti-restriction protesters.
Swing-state counties that used Dominion voting machines mostly voted for Trump
Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 808; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, §?330016(1)(L), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.)
I suspect Barr knows how crazy Trump is – for real. I have opinions and no firsthand encounters with Trump. I never watched his TV show. But Barr has (I suspect) been on the receiving end of phone calls and Trump has (opinion) overtly demanded Barr obstruct justice and violate the law. My guess is that Barr was sending a not-too-subtle hint when he pointed out that Trump tweets weren't helping Barr do his job (of using the DOJ to protect Trump.)
If Barr knows that Trump bounced senior people in the Pentagon after the election because Trump wants the option of exactly what the title of this blog suggests insurrection. If Barr knows, he's considered that 1) Trump couldn't pull off a successful birthday party for Barron. 2) No matter what butts sit in what chairs in the Pentagon, every officer in the US military has sworn an oath – not to the president – but to uphold the Constitution of the United States. 3) Barr does not want to die in federal prison.
Barr might have figured out that the sycophants surrounding Trump might have convinced President Bone Spurs to go-for-broke. After all, Trump can pardon himself and anyone else. Barr doesn't even want to hear that scheme, let alone be a participant. Maybe Barr is trying to prevent Trump from total self-destruction because there is political energy in Trump and his cult following in 2024. It's game over if Trump orders martial law to overturn an election.
I have a question though. Was the WTPC and Washington Times advertisement the product of a group prodding Trump or was it a trial balloon from Trump to test the feasibility of a coup attempt?
I don't see how we can have any reconciliation with our Reich Wing fellow citizens.
They hate anyone who's not part of their tribe. And not just any regular hatred. But a deep seeded visceral hatred.
A visceral hatred that demands blood. As I wrote yesterday, they want to kill us! (Or so they say. And I see no reason to doubt them).
I'm very pessimistic about us remaining as the "United" States of America. We're too splintered. Nothing much unites us anymore. No common threads – except being Americans. That used to mean something. But if it really ever did, it was lost – and that's if we ever really had it in the first place.
At one point, with only 3or 4 TV (broadcast) networks, we could talk at the water-cooler about last night's show(s). Now, there are hundreds of (narrow-cast) channels. Those BROADcast networks tried to appeal to the broad swaths of America. Narrow-casting channels meet a specific interest niche. On top of that, now, we have uncountable video options via the internet.
Back in the day, AM & FM radio stations played the latest hits. We all listened, and argued about who was great, and who was over-rated. Or who was a one-hit wonder. The Sony Walkman and the boombox made every person their own DJ. Now, you can download whatever genre of music appeals to you in seconds!
We "urban" Americans have almost nothing in common with "rural" ones. And the suburbs, well, the city people don't generally like the suburbs – not enough to do. And the country folk don't like them because it's too crowded. And too many of "those people" moving out of cities.
So how do we reconcile?!?
And the outgoing monster who's leaving the White House has been doing little except sowing our national discourse with 5+ years of divisive rhetoric, further dividing us.
I wonder: Did the election of our first Black POTUS cause the ignorant, stupid, and bigoted citizens to rally-round-the-flag? The Confederate flag, I mean.
Was the election of Obama what finally split this country?
It doesn't help that he was followed by the most stupid, ignorant, bigoted, and incurious monster to pass gas in the Oval Office.
Would a Hillary presidency have helped somehow? At least mitigate the racism with some sexism?
I don't know.
But I don't think the next few years are going to be pleasant.
I fear there will be blood.
And not an insignificant amount either.
I hope I'm very, very wrong.
(Maybe aliens will invade us? How bad is it that that might be all that might possibly unite us?!?).
They will do their worst. Let us do our best.
The (in)famous retired General Michael Flynn has endorsed the 'We The Fascists…' plot. For those unaware, Flynn is still receiving his approximately $130,000 a year military retirement pension.
I have great difficulty with lionizing rePuke state and local politicians who refuse to risk jail time to openly support the tRump efforts to steal the election. Not wanting to go to prison is a pretty damn low barrier for today's rePukes. I suspect that Billy Barr's actions yesterday were along this line of reasoning.
The Generals and Admirals have too much power now to risk it by participating in a military coup. Plus, there is a world-wide history of military coups eventually ending up with the generals in front of firing squads.
Pat Robertson says it is over and used a football analogy to explain to his flock. Trump, he said, is trying to change the score and winner of a football game after the time has run out and the score is posted.
To those of you who do not know of the 700 club and Pat Robertson a little background is important. Pat is the epicenter of the Theocracy Party (non-Mormon) wing of the Republican Party. If you tune in, you get daytime propaganda, five days a week, with a little preaching, a little news, a little politics, and some just good simple common sense advice on living. Oh, and you will be hammered for donations at a level that makes a Public Radio Pledge Drive seem tolerable. It is very popular in rural America with the crowd that never listens to Public Radio.
So why would the Theocratic Wing of the GOP not go along with their "anointed one" ? I would like to think it is because at their core they are moral and sincere people, and I am sure a few of the main players think they are at least. I am sure they know the Theocratic Wing (Mormon Division) has already broken from Trump as a candidate for a latter day saint, and the Jesuit Pope has completely nixed the notion of possible sainthood. But this 'games over' break IMO is not due to a mass religious movement toward morality and Christian values. I am more inclined to think that is has connections to the Almighty Dollar.
You see the list of donors that Trump is bilking for his PAC and his they stole my election con, is highly overlapping the list of donors to the 700 club. That 170 million Trump is filling his slush fund with means less supply of donations for a very expensive Christian Broadcasting Network. The though has even crossed my mind that Trump's disdain for the Georgia runoffs is a play for donations, and there is just much money in the fool pool.
Oh the search for the truth has some really cynical pathways. I fear some are appropriate when assessing the actions of the con artist. Thanks for bearing with me on this one.
Actually, I don't trust Dominion any more that Trump. I've read credible reports of their manipulations starting with the 2000 elections (Ohio, primarily), and it would take a lot to prove that they have gone legit – specifically, (1) open review (thus far quashed) of all elections EVER using Dominion machines, and (2) open review of their Software (which they are still blocking – hiding behind the fig-leaf of Intellectual Property Rights).
I have always thought that Trump's bizarre claims of vote fraud & manipulation are twisted versions of the truth. I suspect that someone in the GOP told him some of their tricks – possibly claiming that "Democrats do it too" – and Trump, as usual, said the quiet parts out loud, weaponizing a grain of truth into a soggy glob of mush to fling at HRC. Same thing this time; Trump probably knew of some GOP manipulations, and protected them by claiming the Democrats were doing it. Democrats stupidly defended our election system(s) both times, when they should have attacked back (see Greg Palast), exposing GOP manipulations rather than worrying about maintaining the illusion that elections in all 50 states are squeaky clean.
But this year, IMO, the "Deep GOP" (ooh, there's a phrase to give to the Trumpists!) kept the thumb on the down-ballot races but let up a bit on the Presidential vote. They – Old/Big Money GOP – know that Trump would break their Party with 4 more years, so they played the long game: let Biden win, let the Senate & SC prevent Democrats from doing anything to help people, then take over again when people get mad that things haven't gotten better.
Not that I trust Trump, or anybody he hires; everything they say is so far off that "it isn't even wrong". But I'd still like to see Dominion ripped open & scrutinized.
and oh yeah, please Never quote Bill Krystol, it undermines your credibility. He is Not a spokesman for responsible, reformed Republicans; he's still a Neocon, now hoping to gain influence in the Biden Administration. And based on some of the Foreign Policy picks Biden has made so far, it looks pretty good for the Neocons.
Between 2,596 Trades in One Term: Inside Senator Perdue’s Stock Portfolio and the wingnuts and Trump depressing turnout, I’m starting to feel a wee bit optimistic about Georgia and the Senate.
Voter Fraud: Republican attorney in Florida caught on video explaining how to move to Georgia for a few months in order to vote in run off
Lin Wood apparently donated twice to Barack Obama's campaign. Could he be a Democratic mole?