Talking Points Memo has the cache of Mark Meadows texts that were obtained by the J6 Committee. I personally think several members of Congress, plus Meadows, need to be tried for sedition. I also think they need remedial spelling classes. Let’s just hope the Meadow Texts get as much attention as Elon Musk’s nothingburger Twitter Files.
The text getting a lot of attention initially is from Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), sent to Meadows on January 17, 2021, just three days before Joe Biden was scheduled to take 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!!”
Something about this rang a bell. Oh, yeah, CNN reported back in April that Marjorie Taylor Greene sent this text to Mark Meadows, also on January 17.
“In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall law. I don’t know on those things. I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next. Please tell him to declassify as much as possible so we can go after Biden and anyone else!”
Obviously, we should find out who Marshall Law is, as he seems to be In On It. (/sarcasm) Oh, wait, I think I found him. He lives in a video game.
Reps. Norman and Greene also obviously really believe that the election was stolen. Here’s another one from Norman.
Guys, if there was ever a time to stand with our leader who has strengthened our military, stood for life for the unborn, supported Israel, built the wall , appointed conservative judges ect. And we lay down and abandon him JUST BECAUSE THE BIASED MEDIA HAS CALL THE ELECTION?? … I will go anywhere anytime to help our cause.
I know I’ve said in the distant past, that the Republican Party is mostly a big con but now the marks are getting into office and still don’t know it’s a con. Steve M at No More Mister Nice Blog writes,
When I started blogging twenty years ago, I believed that the right-wing propaganda machine was a cynical means to an end: The people who said that Democrats want to turn America into a communist dictatorship after stealing multiple elections through widespread voter fraud with the help of a monolithically left-wing media didn’t actually believe what they were saying — it was disinformation intended to stir up the rabble and keep them voting Republican. Now, as I read the Talking Points Memo series based on text exchanges after the 2020 election between then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and other coup plotters, I’m reminded that a large number of Republican officeholders are high on their own supply. They’re part of the rabble that believes the nonsense their propaganda outlets peddle.
There’s some serious stuff in the texts. Rep. Rick Allen of Georgia was practically spamming Meadows with utterly wild conspiracy theories he got from “his source.” Example:
Romanian illegal activity 3:40 ? 50 million stolen us identities 7:37 ? used by thiefs for online shopping, loans, election fraud, 8:24 ? produce duplicate copies of driver licenses to commit election fraud 8:40 ? to allow mail in voting from home 9:12 ? emails, passwords and all the data from your phone or laptop..and they will use these data in the election process without you realizing. 10:18 ?Planning this since 2009 10:48 ?100,000 Ukrainian illegally into the USA and “mules” to blackmail 1m US citizens to vote 13:40 ?defrauding 50m US citizens over $100B over past 11 years 15:30 ?received a second set of data in 2018 15:50 ?consequences of Trump reelection
Okay, then. Allen also was leaning on Brad Raffensperger to do something about all that, whatever it is.
And Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona exchanged a bunch of texts with Mark Meadows while ballots were being counted in Arizona. And after that it was about how do we turn this around? Biggs sent this on November 13:
So one of the remedies that may still be left is to enjoin the certification of the election based on the Fed only ballots. If we can’t get the investigation done in time for that, we should make sure we have it done in time and can demonstrate that a significant number of illegal aliens votes in the election so that the legislature, when called into certify the electors, can reject them based on fraud. What do you think?
I am no lawyer, but it might be that those people who seriously believed the election had been stolen from Trump might not be guilty of sedition. But surely Mark Meadows must have realized on some level that the Big Lie is a lie. He’d spent too much time with Trump to not know deep down that Trump is nothing but a grifter.
The way Biggs is processing information in his head is interesting, in a clinical way. Trump didn’t get enough votes? Obviously, it’s because a bunch of illegal aliens voted. That’s the only possible explanation. Biggs is not overburdened with critical thinking skills, I suspect.
In other news: Tesla stock is crashing, although it hasn’t hit zero yet. The BBC has just reported that Elon Musk is no longer the world’s richest man.
Also in other news: The announced breakthrough in fusion energy is good news, and I hope it can be turned into something. But if the past is our guide the world’s media are about to be flooded with stories about how fusion causes cancer or turns people gay or some such, to turn the public against it. And eventually the stories will be traced back to Big Oil. Just watch.
MTG: "Please tell him to declassify as much as possible so we can go after Biden and anyone else!”
Funny I thought lil-donnie de-classified everything, why hasn't Marge gone to court yet, what the fucking hold up?
"I am no lawyer, but it might be that those people who seriously believed the election had been stolen from Trump might not be guilty of sedition"
Weren't we always taught as miscreant adolescent's that being an ignorant fool isn't an excuse for law breaking? Your right Maha: "Republican Party is mostly a big con but now the marks are getting into office and still don’t know it’s a con", I believe they call that getting high on your own supply! The only bright side is that these GQP'ers are so f$cking stupid I don't think they could effectively "investigate" a dime store robbery so the investigation into Biden should be a real hoot! Somebody titled a post on DU "Mark Meadows' phone is everything Republicans wish Hunter Biden's laptop was", they got that right!
The Trumpsters begin with a false assumption that guarantees they can't process the truth. Trump lost. If the Trump advocates approached the subject objectively, they'd question the manner of everything from registration to computation of votes. Fine. We might even mutually find ways to tighten the process without sacrificing access.
But the cult refuses to begin with the question, "Who actually won the election?" The question as it's phrased by all the sources the cultists cite is, "How did the Democrats steal the election?" There are exceptions among Republicans, Kemp for example. I'm pleased with his integrity (and other Republicans in positions of authority) but never in my lifetime has it been appropriate to hand out gold medals for adding two and two and calculating four. That we have to search for Republicans willing to admit, "four is the answer" is not a credit to the Republican party.
In Germany, the arrogance of the Nazi party was easy and infectious when the war was in other countries and the natives only saw the benefits of the plunder and only heard (or wanted to hear) of the glory of the Third Reich. There's no single point in history when light dawned on German citizens that they really screwed up. For some, it might have been losing in combat and realizing they could not overcome the combined armies they faced. For others, napalm was undoubtedly persuasive – if they survived. (And I quit kidding myself decades ago – the allies, once they had control of the air over Europe, did not limit themselves to military targets. ) For some Germans, the suicide of Hitler shattered their illusions. I have a point.
What's the moment going to be for the cultists that Trump was an enormous screw-up. a criminal, and a fool? The road to unifying the United States doesn't begin unil a majority of conservatives recognize that a million died from Covid and many did not need to. Blame Trump. A litany of cruel violations of domestic and international law was directed by Trump. The decision, if Trump lost, not to accept the result of the 2020 election was made before the first vote was cast. "Stop the Steal" was a con job from the first time Trump cast doubt on the election.
Trump has cost the GOP power in 2018, 2020, and 2022. I see no evidence that voters are ready to exit the Trump bus. IMO, we need to prosecute the war on Trumpism without mercy. Trump needs to be charged for each and every crime in every state where false electors were recruited at the direction of the White House. The federal government needs to charge for the Mir-a-Lago docs, and for the January 6 insurrection. NY is going after Trump for his criminal graft. The IRS needs to follow up. Individuals are and should continue to sue Trump to poverty. Trump should NOT be allowed bankruptcy while even one law suit against Trump is open. Go after every one of Trump's lieutenants, from Mayor Bug Eyes to Steve Bannon, to Miller, Eastman, Meadows, and every mother's son in Congress who advocated martial law.
Call it political napalm. There is no legitimacy to insurrection, no excuse for the lies that fueled the public doubt in election integrity that has destabilized the country. If you use a public forum to spread lies, you should have to answer for it. I'm not sure how, but Tucker Carlson is as dangerous as Alex Jones, but he's smarter because he listens to his lawyers about where the line is and he dances exactly to it. (Musk has opened the gates of hell for hate speech. The First Amendment should not protect him for the harm the threats and insults do.
Political napalm – that has to happen before the country can come together.
What's the moment going to be for the cultists that Trump was an enormous screw-up. a criminal, and a fool?
Well, I strongly suspect that an indictment and conviction would go a long way to bring that "moment" into existence. As a matter of fact, I believe that that moment is currently in the process of occurring with the help of forces unseen (reality check). In church venanacular that process would be similar to what is referred to as the great falling away.
On the other hand, that moment will never come to be for some because they'd have to come to grips with their own flawed character ( demons). Eventually the remnant of true believers are going to find themselves lonelier than the Maytag repairman.
"If the Trump advocates approached the subject objectively"
They can't be objective because as maha outlines "they still don’t know it’s a con" in other words they actually believe this shit. The entire GQP has been fed a stew of lies and hate from FOX (and lately other wing-nut outlets) for so long that they can't possibly believe anything else. I've said it for years FOX news is the single most dangerous institution in this country, they have fucked up damn near half of this country, (well at least 74,223,975 of the fools what voted for Trump)!
Exactly!
They can't be objective. They firmly believe the con.
But the German citizens were not objective during the war. They firmly believed the con. They are now (IMO) staunch defenders of democracy. Again, my opinion, but something opened their eyes to the truth they were in denial of. Maha pointed this out to me a year ago – the roof fell in on them rather brutally.
My point is that they are gonna stay in denial even in electoral defeat until they get "bombed" into reality. In less than 12 months, Republicans are going to be asking the DOJ and everybody else to turn down the heat in the interest of 'national unity.' What I'm saying is "no!" We prosecute every one of the bastards who advocated the non-constitutional processes from trespassing to signing fake documents which were sent to the National Archives to the militias who begged for an excuse to overthrow the government. It needs to be understood – participating in anti-democratic movements is hazardous to your health and freedom. You might be shot by cops, you might go to jail, you might lose your job, you might be divorced by your wife and not ever have visitation rights.
Yes, I do believe in reconciliation. Join the USA, first. Figure out the difference between facts and propaganda. Accept the results of free and fair elections. Ask questions but ditch the tinfoil hat conspiracy BS. Participate in a constructive way. Hint: running around in the woods with an AR-15 playing pretend soldier isn't constructive.
There's another reason for "political napalm".
The fascists will regroup, and try again. That's what that meeting with the NY Young Republicans was about, the one where they cheered MTG saying she'd do Jan 6 with guns.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat writes about this in Coups Make a Comeback as GOP Elites Declare “Total War” on US Democracy
So if I have this right: The record of texts is in the hands of reporters, and we have to wait for them to parse their way through it and decide which bits are newsworthy?
Call me naive, but couldn't the entire record be posted somewhere and we could just parse it ourselves?
Somehow TPM got the texts ahead of the J6 committee release, it's all going to be released before the end of this month.
The 1000+ page J6 Committee report is scheduled to be released next Wednesday. Supposed to be posted on the internet.
You know how pathetic our Democratic Party is?
We're so pathetic, that we never told the Italians using their space lasers, or the illegals who were voting, or the Ukrainian ID thieves, to branch out a little and steal more than just the presidency!
We never asked any of them to hand our party a Senate with 68 D's, or a House majority of 100, or to steal state and local elections – so that even if the RepubliKKKLANs want to pull "The Eastman/tRUMP Trick" of sending the election to the House after the 2024 election, it'll be a futile gesture, since there would be more D than R state legislatures.
And why didn't we do the same thing in 2022?
JAYZOOS H. KEEEEERIST on a whiskey and meth bender, how dumb can some people be. (DON'T ANSWER THAT!)
A lot of these RepubliKKKLANs aren't high on their own supply.
They're just monumentally stupid!
A lot of RepubliKKKLANS couldn"t get an invite to a Russian "Village Idiots Convention."
I mean, they may be village idiots, but even idiots have standards!!!
What I've seen wall-to-wall are stories about how it's free power forever! The energy crisis is over! No Pollution! Colonize the stars!
Nuclear fusion is by the researcher’s own accounts 1) military and 2) impractical on every imaginable level. It requires a tremendous amount of energy to return very little. Overall, 300 megajoules of energy was needed to produce 3.15 megajoules from the target.
Another distraction, another shiny thing …
"Another distraction"
Distraction from what, how great Trump was? You should do a bit of research outside of the wing-nut bubble. Nuclear fusion means they are able to produce more power than they put in. You use the word overall, of course this research has been going for decades so yeah a bunch of energy has been expelled, but the experiment that is in the news actually achieved fusion for an instant, they had a net energy gain. Every scientific advance starts with a successful experiment, and we have one. It's not shiny it's science!
It is pretty amazing to me how much research you had to do to get past the headline to find out the actual energy in vs energy out, and judge for yourself. Show me the numbers, in other words.
Agree that there was an awful lot of foolish reaction from people who ran with the headline without going any deeper.
A. Stupid.
B. High on their own supply.
C. Living in a bubble.
D. All of the above.
E. None of the above.
Dr. Seuss says:
“In my world, everyone's a pony and they all eat rainbows and poop butterflies!”
To which the elephant (could be a coincidence) says: "That's beautiful Katie… in a really weird way."
Everyone, they say, is entitled to their own opinion. That doesn't mean they are entitled to their own reality. Many times, one's faulty opinions are a result of misperceptions of reality. This seems to be the case in Trump-world frequently.
In Trump-world what is believed can change within a paragraph and you have to assume Trump-world reality is in a constant state of flux. That isn't beautiful even in a weird sort of way. Words like delusional, psycho, evil, criminal seem more fitting at times to describe Trump-world.
(Video of in my world is available with variations in Kate's exclamation on the web by searching for "in my world…") I think the sigh is the movie version.