#Donald Trump the Man of Lawlessness

[walks-the-ages]

Just for the record, there's a big post going around claiming that 20 million votes weren't counted in the election, and that has been debunked multiple times, and had zero evidence or sources to begin with other than someone on twitter claiming it out of thin air.

Kamala Harris has already publicly conceded her run.

Joe Biden just gave his own speech today at the White House, announcing that Trump won the election.

"Denying the results of the election (blue version, so it's Good This TIme)" is not something that is going to help anyone, least of all the people who are getting their hopes up that things can change, only to sink to even deeper despair come January when the handover happens.

Trump won. This is not something that can be magically "fixed" by "finding 20 million votes".

Trump won, and we need to accept, and absorb that reality to move forward.

You should have been preparing for this possibility as soon as Trump announced he was running again.

He had a 50-50 chance of becoming President, and now we are indeed in this "worst timeline" of a second Trump Presidency.

You need to stop denying this fact, work on accepting it, and make your plans to build a support network before things hit the fan.

Do not wait for January 6th, 2025 to accept the fact that Trump won the election.

Do not spend the next two months in denial.

If you think the world is going to go up in literal hellfire or nuclear apocalypse if Trump becomes President, then start prepping for that scenario now if you genuinely believe it:

Learn to grow your own food.

Learn to forage wild food safely.

Learn to live off the grid.

Learn to collect your own water.

Learn first aid.

Get a firearm license and learn how to use it properly.

If you truly believe the world is going to end and the apocalypse is gonna happen to America, then act like it and prep for it.

Otherwise, stop spreading fearmongering, stop doom posting, remember that America did not dissolve into a fallout-style lawless wasteland the last time Trump was President, take a deep breath, and start telling yourself the world is not going to end.

Join local neighborhood Facebook groups and start engaging with your neighbors and local community.

Start making friends and connections at the local level.

Join local political initiatives.

Join or start a community garden.

Don't trap yourself in denial, hoping the some miracle will happen and magically make it so Harris actually won the election.

The world is not going to end.

Do something that gets you out there and actively building a better future, one small step at a time.

[contemplatingoutlander]

That the Editorial Board of the premier U.S. newspaper of record is finally warning about Donald Trump is significant. As such, this is a gift 🎁 link so that those who want to read the entire editorial can do so, even if they don't subscribe to The New York Times. Below are some excerpts:

As president, [Trump] wielded power carelessly and often cruelly and put his ego and his personal needs above the interests of his country. Now, as he campaigns again, his worst impulses remain as strong as ever — encouraging violence and lawlessness, exploiting fear and hate for political gain, undermining the rule of law and the Constitution, applauding dictators — and are escalating as he tries to regain power. He plots retribution, intent on eluding the institutional, legal and bureaucratic restraints that put limits on him in his first term. Our purpose at the start of the new year, therefore, is to sound a warning. Mr. Trump does not offer voters anything resembling a normal option of Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, big government or small. He confronts America with a far more fateful choice: between the continuance of the United States as a nation dedicated to “the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” and a man who has proudly shown open disdain for the law and the protections and ideals of the Constitution. [...] It is instructive in the aftermath of that administration to listen to the judgments of some of these officials on the president they served. John Kelly, a chief of staff to Mr. Trump, called him the “most flawed person I’ve ever met,” someone who could not understand why Americans admired those who sacrificed their lives in combat. Bill Barr, who served as attorney general, and Mark Esper, a former defense secretary, both said Mr. Trump repeatedly put his own interests over those of the country. Even the most loyal and conservative of them all, Vice President Mike Pence, who made the stand that helped provoke Mr. Trump and his followers to insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, saw through the man: “On that day, President Trump also demanded that I choose between him and the Constitution,” he said.

[See more under the cut.]

There will not be people like these in the White House should Mr. Trump be re-elected. The former president has no interest in being restrained, and he has surrounded himself with people who want to institutionalize the MAGA doctrine. According to reporting by the Times reporters Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Jonathan Swan, Mr. Trump and his ideological allies have been planning for a second Trump term for many months already. Under the name Project 2025, one coalition of right-wing organizations has produced a thick handbook and recruited thousands of potential appointees in preparation for an all-out assault on the structures of American government and the democratic institutions that acted as checks on Mr. Trump’s power. [...] Mr. Trump has made clear his conviction that only “losers” accept legal, institutional or even constitutional constraints. He has promised vengeance against his political opponents, whom he has called “vermin” and threatened with execution. This is particularly disturbing at a time of heightened concern about political violence, with threats increasing against elected officials of both parties. He has repeatedly demonstrated a deep disdain for the First Amendment and the basic principles of democracy, chief among them the right to freely express peaceful dissent from those in power without fear of retaliation, and he has made no secret of his readiness to expand the powers of the presidency, including the deployment of the military and the Justice Department, to have his way. [...] Re-electing Mr. Trump would present serious dangers to our Republic and to the world. This is a time not to sit out but instead to re-engage. We appeal to Americans to set aside their political differences, grievances and party affiliations and to contemplate — as families, as parishes, as councils and clubs and as individuals — the real magnitude of the choice they will make in November.

I encourage people to use the above gift link and read the entire article.

[edited]

[sentinelleblr]

It feels more and more that we live in a lawless country.  Guns and mass killings proliferate because the Supreme Court that decided the president is above the law also decided that the Second Amendment confers a “right” to own firearms that did not exist for more than 200 years in our country.  When Donald Trump’s Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, they made it legal for states to outlaw abortions with legal language that has led to the deaths of dozens of women who sought help for pregnancies that were in extremis and were denied proper care. We are executing pregnant women just as we execute innocent prisoners.  Laws do not mean anything when they are written for the purpose of making murder legal.  It is essential that we vote for better people to make our laws, a better and less cruel way of living, and a better country.  We don’t have to live this way.  

Vote Democrat. Bring back truth and decency in politics.

[donald-trump-official]

New campaign ad

[Sarah McLachlan’s “Arms of an Angel” starts playing over images of an empty trump tower penthouse suite]

Donald trump Jr. voiceover: hi, I’m Donald trump Jr. Every year, dozens and dozens of billionaires are subjected to unfair and unjust court rulings, costing them hundreds of millions of dollars, and the livelihood they worked so hard to achieve

[landscape view of a desolate, deserted luxurious golf course appears on screen]

Voiceover: in the time it takes you to watch this, billions of dollars will be unjustly stripped away from American patriots and businessmen

[image of a man passed out in a hot tub on a yacht, glass of bourbon and cigar in hand]

Voiceover: we can’t continue to let the deep state do this. We can’t let this continue. We can help these victims, and with your support we can save them from the tragic life of an upper-middle class lifestyle

[cut to a man on the side of the road wearing an Armani suit and a Rolex, cardboard sign in hand]

Voiceover: this isn’t the America I grew up in. This is full blown communism. And with your support, we can stop it. We can put an end to this lawlessness and unjust treatment

[an above view of a Gucci bag falling into a trash can appears on screen, with a superimposed BOOM resonating out after it hits the bottom]

Voiceover: with your monthly $500 donation, we can get these great American businessmen back on their feet. We can truly help these people and make America great again

[in fades the silhouette of a man leaning against his private jet, his back to the camera, clearly sobbing]

Voiceover: please, call now. Don’t wait. We can put an end to this cruelty once and for all. Our wire transfers are always open and staffed by real billionaires affected by this socialist agenda. Now is the time to act

[“Arms of an Angel” fades out to a picture of Donald trump waving to his supporters]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Elizabeth Warren for Time Magazine:

To everyone who feels like their heart has been ripped out of their chest, I feel the same. To everyone who is afraid of what happens next, I share your fears. But what we do next is important, and I need you in this fight with me. As we confront a second Donald Trump presidency, we have two tasks ahead. First, try to learn from what happened. And then, make a plan.

Many political experts and D.C. insiders are already blaming President Joe Biden’s economic agenda for Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss. This does not stand up to scrutiny. Even though the Biden economy produced strong economic growth while reining in inflation, incumbent parties across the globe have been tossed out by voters after the pandemic. American voters also showed support for Democratic economic policies, for example, approving ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage in Alaska and to guarantee paid sick leave in Missouri.

[...] What comes next? Trump won the election, but more than 67 million people voted for Democrats and they don’t expect us to roll over and play dead. We will have a peaceful transition of power, followed by a vigorous challenge from the party out of power, because that’s how democracy works. Here’s a path forward.

First, fight every fight in Congress.

We won’t always win, but we can slow or sometimes limit Trump’s destruction. With every fight, we can build political power to put more checks on his administration and build the foundation for future wins. Remember that during the first Trump term, mass mobilization—including some of the largest peaceful protests in world history—was the battery that charged the resistance. There is power in solidarity, and we can’t win if we don’t get in the fight. During the Trump years, Congress stepped up its oversight of his unprecedented corruption and abuses of power. In the Senate, Democrats gave no quarter to radical Trump nominees; we asked tough questions and held the Senate floor for hours to slow down confirmation and expose Republican extremism. These tactics doomed some nominations entirely, laid the groundwork for other cabinet officials to later resign in disgrace, and brought scrutiny that somewhat constrained Trump’s efforts.

When all this work came together, we won some of the toughest fights. Remember Republicans’ attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act? Democrats did not have the votes to stop the repeal. Nevertheless, we fought on. Patients kept up a relentless rotation of meetings in Congress, activists in wheelchairs performed civil disobedience, and lawmakers used every tactic possible—late night speeches, forums highlighting patient stories, committee reports, and procedural tactics—to draw attention to the Republican repeal effort. This sustained resistance ultimately shifted the politics of health care repeal. The final vote was a squeaker, but Republicans lost and the ACA survived.

Democrats should also acknowledge that seeking a middle ground with a man who calls immigrants “animals” and says he will “protect” women “whether the women like it or not” is unlikely to land in a good place. Uniting against Trump’s legislative agenda is good politics because it is good policy. It was Democratic opposition to Trump’s tax bill that drove Trump’s approval ratings to what was then the lowest levels of his administration, forcing Republicans to scrap all mention of the law ahead of the 2018 midterm election and helping spark one of the largest blue waves in recent history.

Second, fight Trump in the courts.

Yes, extremist courts, including a Supreme Court stocked with MAGA loyalists, are poised to rubber-stamp Trump’s lawlessness. But litigation can slow Trump down, give us time to prepare and help the vulnerable, and deliver some victories.

Third, focus on what each of us can do.

I understand my assignment in the Senate, but we all have a part to play. During the first Trump administration, Democrats vigorously contested every special election and laid the groundwork to take back the House in the 2018 midterms, creating a powerful check on Trump and breaking the Republican trifecta. Whether it’s stepping up to run for office, supporting a neighbor’s campaign, or getting involved in an organization taking action, we all have to continue to make investments in our democracy—including in states that are passed over as “too red.” The political position we’re in is not permanent, and we have the power to make change if we fight for it.

Finally, Democrats currently in office must work with urgency.

While still in charge of the Senate and the White House, we must do all we can to safeguard our democracy. To resist Trump’s threats to abuse state power against what he calls “the enemy within,” Pentagon leaders should issue a directive now reiterating that the military’s oath is to the Constitution. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer must use every minute of the end-of-year legislative session to confirm federal judges and key regulators—none of whom can be removed by the next President. To those feeling despair: I understand. But remember, every step toward progress in American history came after the darkness of defeat. Abolitionists, suffragettes, Dreamers, and marchers for civil rights and marriage equality all faced impossible odds, but they persisted. Now it is our turn to pull up our socks and get back in the fight.

Elizabeth Warren wrote a well-written op-ed in Time encouraging Senate Democrats to confirm loads of judges and other jobs requiring Senate confirmation while we still have the majority and also fight back against the Trump tyranny.

[tomorrowusa]

« THE REPUBLICAN PARTY today isn’t incidentally grotesque; like the man who leads it, Donald Trump, it is grotesque at its core. It is the Island of Misfit Toys, though in this case there’s a maliciousness to the misfits, starting with Trump, that makes them uniquely dangerous to the republic. Since 2016, they have been at war with reality, delighting in their dime-store nihilism, creating “alternative facts” and tortured explanations to justify the lawlessness and moral depravity and derangement of their leader.

None of this is hidden; it is on display in neon lights, almost every hour of every day. No one who supports the Republican Party, who casts a vote for Trump and for his MAGA acolytes, can say they don’t know. »

— Peter Wehner at The Atlantic. (archived)

Having a disturbingly weird malefactor as leader of the GOP over the past nine years has turned the Republican Party into one big freak show.

Donald Trump acts like a magnet of yuck attracting fellow lowlifes. It's not unexpected that disreputable individuals like Mark Robinson, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, and Tucker Carlson would gravitate towards him.

Such people now drive the narrative of the GOP. And even if some Republicans wanted to condemn (for example) Mark Robinson's pro-Nazi and other lunatic comments, they simply can't because it would imply criticism of the Orange Dear Leader. So Donald Trump is the face of the Republican Party.

[mariacallous]

Standing in a seemingly endless line of people donning Harris-Walz branded camouflage hats, pink knit beanies, and “Hotties for Harris” T-shirts, 36-year-old Jenn Cookson was brimming with excitement. 

“I’m just a die-hard Kamala fan and Walz fan,” said Cookson, an acquisitions specialist at the U.S. Defense Department, as she waited for U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’s rally on Tuesday. “I’m not going to lie, when I see her speak today, I’m totally going to cry.”

Emotions are running high among American voters just days before the election on Nov. 5, which polls suggest will be a toss-up between Harris and former U.S. President Donald Trump. Both candidates are making their final pitches to galvanize potential voters—but their target audiences look quite different. 

Democrats and Republicans “are now engaged in a battle of the sexes,” said Jennifer Lawless, a political scientist at the University of Virginia. “This is the first time I can remember where they’re really not competing for the same voters at all,” she added. 

Gendered voting preferences are nothing new. For decades, women and men in the United States have differed in their political views, with women leaning Democratic over Republican, and young women in particular growing steadily more progressive while their male counterparts have remained the same. That split has been thrown into the spotlight this presidential election—the first since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022—as both Harris and Trump champion starkly different visions of womanhood and masculinity on the campaign trail.

“The Democrats are making it about abortion rights and about women’s rights in general,” Lawless said. “The Republicans are making it more about men being left behind and not being sufficiently supported by the Democratic administration.”

That approach has seen Trump’s team, known for its “grab ‘em by the pussy” and “childless cat ladies” comments, lean into hypermasculine messaging and often crude rhetoric about women and gender roles. In just the last few weeks, Trump has praised the size of Arnold Palmer’s genitalia and mocked CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who is gay, by calling him “Allison Cooper.” Last year, Trump was found liable for sexual abuse. Now, he is casting himself as a protector of women—“whether the women like it or not.” 

To court upward of tens of millions of largely young male potential voters, Trump has appeared on at least a dozen podcasts and shows with overwhelmingly male audiences, including the immensely popular Joe Rogan Experience. Stephen Miller, a top Trump advisor, built on that kind of messaging in an interview with Fox News, in which he remarked that a vote for Trump would be a stamp of manliness. 

“The best thing you can do is to wear your Trump support on your sleeve,” Miller said. “Show that you are a real man. Show that you are not a beta. Be a proud and loud Trump supporter and your dating life will be fantastic.”

It’s a vision of gender roles that stands in sharp contrast to that espoused by Harris, who has made reproductive rights a key feature of her campaign and uses the catchphrase “we are not going back”—including in a campaign ad that nodded to the women’s suffrage movement. Reproductive rights also dominated the conversation when Harris appeared on the popular podcast Call Her Daddy, which has an audience of some 5 million people, most of whom are women under the age of 45. 

“We are looking at, I think, different Americas depending on who wins here,” said Christine Matthews, a pollster who has worked for Republican candidates with expertise on swing voters, particularly those who are women. “The question is: Will there be enough women and men who agree that ‘we should not go back’ to propel Kamala Harris to victory?” 

If Harris is indeed propelled to victory, she would make history as the United States’ first woman president. But unlike former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who called attention to her gender when she ran for president in 2016, Harris has largely downplayed her identity on the campaign trail. 

“Political leaders are always performing their gender,” said Hilary Matfess, a political scientist at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies whose work focuses on political violence and gender dynamics. “It’s a little bit trickier for women to try and walk that tightrope—demonstrating that they’re strong, and tough, and masculine enough to get the job done without people thinking, ‘Oh, my god. She’s such an unrelatable bitch.’” 

Both Trump and Harris are rallying potential voters at a time when younger women across the United States have grown increasingly progressive in the past two decades. But their male counterparts—who tend to tilt conservative over liberal—have not shifted with them. 

Those patterns have long guided campaign strategies for Democrats and Republicans. The formula of success for Democrats “is to win women by more than we lose men,” said Celinda Lake, one of the two lead pollsters for the Biden campaign in 2020. “The Republican formula is the opposite: win men by more than they lose women.” 

That longstanding gap in presidential voting preferences between men and women largely tracks with what we’re seeing ahead of this election, experts and pollsters said, despite both candidates’ more targeted outreach. “Even though both campaigns are leaning heavily into messaging to one gender or the other, the overall gender gap is well within the norm,” Matthews said.

But those numbers could prove decisive in key swing states, where polls indicate that Harris has stronger support among women, while Trump has stronger support among men. Dawn Teele, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University, noted there are simply more women in many key battleground counties and that overall women voter turnout is slightly higher than men. 

“Even a small preference for the Democrats among women in some of these swing states, in some of these swing counties, can make a difference because there’s more of them,” she said. 

Women might broadly lean Democratic, but there remain deep divisions within the demographic, particularly along racial, age, location, and educational lines. Those dynamics were on display in both 2016 and 2020, when the majority of white women voted for Trump.  

One such voter is Maureen Sullivan of Hoboken, New Jersey, who made waves in 2016 for penning a New York Times op-ed explaining her decision to vote for Trump. As a white, college-educated, Catholic mother who grew up in a pro-union household, voting for Trump “was an easy choice,” she wrote, citing economic issues, school choice, and how he would “come into office less burdened by party loyalties.” 

Sullivan, who said she grew up in a traditional Democratic household but has mostly voted Republican, plans to back Trump again this year. “We’ve seen the world [become] a lot more dangerous place than it was when Trump was president,” Sullivan told Foreign Policy. Under a Trump administration, she would want to see low taxes, a strong economy, and changes with crime and the border, she said. 

“I just don’t think [Harris] has what it takes to be president,” said Sullivan, who noted that she watches the news constantly. She likened Harris to an “empty pantsuit.” “I try to find something in her that convinces me that she would make a decent president, and I just haven’t seen it. She can’t speak. She doesn’t seem to have any ideas. She certainly can’t communicate them if she does have ideas.” 

A recent poll found that nearly 60 percent of college-educated white women said they will back Harris this election. But 55 percent of white women and 70 percent of white men without college degrees said they will vote for Trump. 

And with just a few days to go before the election, both conservative and liberal women are already turning out in force. Women are already outpacing men in battleground states, resulting in a 10-point gender gap in early voting so far, Politico reported. 

While waiting in line to hear Harris’s speech on Tuesday, 51-year-old Renee Dotson, who works in local government, said that she was “glad” the Democratic presidential candidate was a woman of color. “But, like, more importantly than her gender and race is the current conditions that we’re facing as Americans right now and how that can really be diminished,” she said. 

“We’ve already had a taste of what presidency looks like under this other candidate, and there’s no need to revisit that,” she said. “Nothing good came from it.”

[renniejoy]

By Sen. Elizabeth Warren

November 7, 2024 3:34 PM EST

To everyone who feels like their heart has been ripped out of their chest, I feel the same. To everyone who is afraid of what happens next, I share your fears. But what we do next is important, and I need you in this fight with me.

As we confront a second Donald Trump presidency, we have two tasks ahead. First, try to learn from what happened. And then, make a plan.

Many political experts and D.C. insiders are already blaming President Joe Biden’s economic agenda for Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss. This does not stand up to scrutiny. Even though the Biden economy produced strong economic growth while reining in inflation, incumbent parties across the globe have been tossed out by voters after the pandemic. American voters also showed support for Democratic economic policies, for example, approving ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage in Alaska and to guarantee paid sick leave in Missouri.

...

What comes next? Trump won the election, but more than 67 million people voted for Democrats and they don’t expect us to roll over and play dead. We will have a peaceful transition of power, followed by a vigorous challenge from the party out of power, because that’s how democracy works. Here’s a path forward.

First, fight every fight in Congress.

We won’t always win, but we can slow or sometimes limit Trump’s destruction. With every fight, we can build political power to put more checks on his administration and build the foundation for future wins. Remember that during the first Trump term, mass mobilization—including some of the largest peaceful protests in world history—was the battery that charged the resistance. There is power in solidarity, and we can’t win if we don’t get in the fight.

During the Trump years, Congress stepped up its oversight of his unprecedented corruption and abuses of power. In the Senate, Democrats gave no quarter to radical Trump nominees; we asked tough questions and held the Senate floor for hours to slow down confirmation and expose Republican extremism. These tactics doomed some nominations entirely, laid the groundwork for other cabinet officials to later resign in disgrace, and brought scrutiny that somewhat constrained Trump’s efforts.

When all this work came together, we won some of the toughest fights. Remember Republicans’ attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act? Democrats did not have the votes to stop the repeal. Nevertheless, we fought on. Patients kept up a relentless rotation of meetings in Congress, activists in wheelchairs performed civil disobedience, and lawmakers used every tactic possible—late night speeches, forums highlighting patient stories, committee reports, and procedural tactics—to draw attention to the Republican repeal effort. This sustained resistance ultimately shifted the politics of health care repeal. The final vote was a squeaker, but Republicans lost and the ACA survived.

Democrats should also acknowledge that seeking a middle ground with a man who calls immigrants “animals” and says he will “protect” women “whether the women like it or not” is unlikely to land in a good place. Uniting against Trump’s legislative agenda is good politics because it is good policy. It was Democratic opposition to Trump’s tax bill that drove Trump’s approval ratings to what was then the lowest levels of his administration, forcing Republicans to scrap all mention of the law ahead of the 2018 midterm election and helping spark one of the largest blue waves in recent history.

Second, fight Trump in the courts.

Yes, extremist courts, including a Supreme Court stocked with MAGA loyalists, are poised to rubber-stamp Trump’s lawlessness. But litigation can slow Trump down, give us time to prepare and help the vulnerable, and deliver some victories.

Third, focus on what each of us can do.

I understand my assignment in the Senate, but we all have a part to play. During the first Trump administration, Democrats vigorously contested every special election and laid the groundwork to take back the House in the 2018 midterms, creating a powerful check on Trump and breaking the Republican trifecta. Whether it’s stepping up to run for office, supporting a neighbor’s campaign, or getting involved in an organization taking action, we all have to continue to make investments in our democracy—including in states that are passed over as “too red.” The political position we’re in is not permanent, and we have the power to make change if we fight for it.

Finally, Democrats currently in office must work with urgency.

While still in charge of the Senate and the White House, we must do all we can to safeguard our democracy. To resist Trump’s threats to abuse state power against what he calls “the enemy within,” Pentagon leaders should issue a directive now reiterating that the military’s oath is to the Constitution. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer must use every minute of the end-of-year legislative session to confirm federal judges and key regulators—none of whom can be removed by the next President.

To those feeling despair: I understand. But remember, every step toward progress in American history came after the darkness of defeat. Abolitionists, suffragettes, Dreamers, and marchers for civil rights and marriage equality all faced impossible odds, but they persisted. Now it is our turn to pull up our socks and get back in the fight. (x)

[dertaglichedan]

MSNBC shockingly edits images from Nazi rally into coverage of Trump's MSG appearance

MSNBC has been slammed for comparing Donald Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden to a 1939 Nazi gathering at the same venue.

Host Jonathan Capehart recalled the Nazi rally when speaking about Trump's event on Sunday, saying that 'in 1939, more than 20,000 supporters of a different fascist leader, Adolf Hitler, packed the Garden for a so-called pro-America rally.'

MSNBC showed images of the Nazi rally at the Garden, complete with goose-stepping and Hitler salutes, as Capehart accused Trump of holding a fascist event at the iconic venue. 

Capehart added: 'Against that backdrop of history, Donald Trump - the man who has threatened to use the military against opponents he calls "enemies from within, who has threatened to use the troops to quell what he says are lawless cities and to use those troops to carry out mass deportations of immigrants - is once again turning Madison Square Garden into a staging ground for extremism.'

But social media users - including Jewish groups - were outraged by the comparison. Popular X account Awesome Jew wrote: 'BREAKING: The American Jewish community is outraged by MSNBC's comparison of a Trump rally to a Nazi rally, which they perceive as mocking the Holocaust and diminishing the memory of the millions of Jews who perished during that period.

[realjaysumlin]

The man supposed to stop Donald Trump is an unpopular 81-year-old

It's really sad to see that we live in a world where people are just stupid or blind to ignorance and hate. I just don't get it, how can a pathological liar, a convicted felon, a modern day Benedict Arnold due to the insurrection of January 6 instigator become a presidential candidate and glorified as a god?

Only in America can people be this stupid. This is my native land and as an American I can't believe what is unfolding right before our eyes in plain sight of hate and the reenactment of Nazis Germany now becoming Nazis America because the people are afraid of attacking whiteness and Christianity two things that made America and other parts of the world what it is today.

Donald Trump has no other options but to enforce project 2025 because he should be locked up and put away for good. He will pardon all of the insurrectionists and go after the likes of Bragg's and Fani Willis for doing their jobs.

I can go on and on about what we are facing but for what reason? People who are facing to relive American Apartheid are willing to accept their own demise so a raging lunatic can be elected as president once again from someone who hasn't done anything but drag this country down a sewage and the shit people who are behind him is willing to allow him to take us even lower than we already have.

A supreme court that gives immunity to a criminal is nothing but a symbol of a lawless country, where criminals get away with treason and innocent Black Indigenous People are being incarcerated for protesting against a modern day genocide. I hope we all can wake up from this nightmare before it's too late.

[beardedmrbean]

A Texas man who pleaded guilty to posting a message online threatening Georgia officials in the wake of the 2020 election was sentenced Wednesday to two years in prison.

Chad Christopher Stark, of Leander, was charged last year in connection with a Craigslist ad posted on Jan. 5, 2021, that mentioned $10,000 and referred to killing Georgia election officials, the Justice Department said in a news release.

“Georgia Patriots it’s time for us to take back our state from these Lawless treasonous traitors,” the message read in part, according to court documents. The ad referred to putting “an end to the lives” of three officials, who are not named in the indictment, and urged an effort to “take back our country by force.”

Stark pleaded guilty in August to one count of threatening use of a telecommunications device. He was sentenced Wednesday in federal court in Georgia.

In a statement Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland said threats of violence against election officials are “dangerous for our democracy.”

“This sentence should serve as warning — illegal threats against the public servants who make our democracy work will be met with the full force of the Justice Department,” Garland said.

An attorney for Stark did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Stark's two-year sentence was at the higher end of the 18-24 months’ imprisonment federal prosecutors recommended in court documents.

Threats to election workers have grown in recent years. Since the 2020 election, former President Donald Trump and his allies have promoted false election fraud claims, with elections officials targeted at times.

More recently, the FBI said this month it was investigating letters with suspicious powder addressed to election workers after officials in multiple states reported suspicious letters.

[the-hem]

"The Water Line." From the Mandukya Karika.

We must periodically discuss the staple of Vedantin metaphors, the snake and the rope. Upon seeing a snake on the side of the road a man was sure he was going to be bitten and poisoned to death. Then he gets closer and sees the snake was just a pile of rope and he is greatly relieved. This is how it is when man imagines things. He anticipates the worst and then fantasizes about ways to escape only to realize his mind was playing tricks on him.

We are currently snaking the rope with climate change and this Third World War by being as deliberately as ineffective at managing our behavior as we can be. Unlike the metaphor, however, we need to see we do indeed have a venomous snake waiting for us on the road ahead and not a rope and act very rational as to how we want to go forward:

II-16. First of all, He imagines the Jiva (individual soul) and then (He imagines) various objects, external and internal. As is (a man’s) knowledge, so is (his) memory of it.

II-17. Just as a rope, the nature of which is not known in the dark, is imagined to be things such as a snake, a water-line, etc., so too is the Self imagined (as various things).

II-18. As when the (real nature of the) rope is known, the illusion ceases and the rope alone remains in its non-dual nature, so too is the ascertainment of the Self.

II-19. (The Self) is imagined as infinite objects like prana etc. This is the Maya of the luminous One by which It itself is deluded, (as it where).

The laws we have signed and agreed to uphold do not permit our governors to be deluded. They need to identify with the problems our lawlessness has caused and do what has to be done to protect the human race and the life bearing capacity of this planet.

Now the Russians and their war are making things worse and they are stealing water from underneath their neighbors in order to ransom them, and I still cannot get the US DOJ to act conscionably on Donald Trump's treasons or his knack for paddywack with underage boys. One by one, the Upanishad says the crimes of our leads have accumulated and now this planet is getting very hot.

It is clearly time to ascertain the nature of the Self.

[almaqead]

"The Spear and the Animal." Conclusion to Surah 25 Al-Furqan "The Glasswort."

We have not yet achieved victory. The United States Government will not put Donald Trump and his sons in prison for their crimes and are instead condoning their roles in organized crime, election fraud, a siege, and the terrorism against the people of Israel perpetrated on October 7, 2023. This malfunction has stopped history. It has to be fixed. The might of the Scripture is being tested and it must not lose.

The Quran in Surah Furqan says the power of the ungodly must face the law and it must lose. Rise up! Force President Biden to do his job and put Donald Trump in jail. He is not legally allowed to compete in this election this point must be made!

About the power of the people to free themselves from tyranny, a God given right, the Surah says man may not pay homage or prostrate before a cruel man or a lawless one...not while there are others.

25: 58-

Put your trust in the Ever-Living, Who never dies, and glorify His praises. Sufficient is He as All-Aware of the sins of His servants.

˹He is˺ the One Who created the heavens and the earth and everything in between in six Days,1 then established Himself on the Throne. ˹He is˺ the Most Compassionate! Ask ˹none other than˺ the All-Knowledgeable about Himself.

Blessed is the One Who has placed constellations in the sky, as well as a ˹radiant˺ lamp1 and a luminous moon.

And He is the One Who causes the day and the night to alternate, ˹as a sign˺ for whoever desires to be mindful or to be grateful.

The ˹true˺ servants of the Most Compassionate are those who walk on the earth humbly, and when the foolish address them ˹improperly˺, they only respond with peace.

˹They are˺ those who spend ˹a good portion of˺ the night, prostrating themselves and standing before their Lord.

˹They are˺ those who pray, “Our Lord! Keep the punishment of Hell away from us, for its punishment is indeed unrelenting.

It is certainly an evil place to settle and reside.”

˹They are˺ those who spend neither wastefully nor stingily, but moderately in between.

˹They are˺ those who spend neither wastefully nor stingily, but moderately in between.

˹They are˺ those who do not invoke any other god besides Allah, nor take a ˹human˺ life—made sacred by Allah—except with ˹legal˺ right,1 nor commit fornication. And whoever does ˹any of˺ this will face the penalty.

Their punishment will be multiplied on the Day of Judgment, and they will remain in it forever, in disgrace.

As for those who repent, believe, and do good deeds, they are the ones whose evil deeds Allah will change into good deeds. For Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

And whoever repents and does good has truly turned to Allah properly.

And whoever repents and does good has truly turned to Allah properly.

˹They are˺ those who, when reminded of the revelation of their Lord, do not turn a blind eye or a deaf ear to it.

˹They are˺ those who pray, “Our Lord! Bless us with ˹pious˺ spouses and offspring who will be the joy of our hearts, and make us models for the righteous.”

It is they who will be rewarded with ˹elevated˺ mansions ˹in Paradise˺ for their perseverance, and will be received with salutations and ˹greetings of˺ peace,

staying there forever. What an excellent place to settle and reside!

Say, ˹O Prophet,˺ “You ˹all˺ would not ˹even˺ matter to my Lord were it not for your faith ˹in Him˺. But now you ˹disbelievers˺ have denied ˹the truth˺, so the torment is bound to come.”

Commentary:

Take to the streets in salutations to the peace and tell the United States Government a fornicator and terror monger like Donald Trump who has violated the law may not step foot near state power ever again. This affront to what is sane and professional must not be allowed.

On January 6, 2021, Donald Trump incited a riot within the US Capitol designed to overthrow the government. This he did because I published a book called the Crossroad of the Divine, which contains a strong recommendation to mankind to study the Quran. You can hear the screams of the combatants Trump aligned himself with screaming at the top of their lungs I was going to change their lives and "make them pray to Allah."

A few US soldiers were raped, maimed, or killed as a result of the attack on January 6, and the same persons moved on, undaunted by the response of the Biden Administration to attack Israel on October 7, 2023. My name was equated with sufficient vicissitude to justify both attacks which were performed in the name of God. I am out for blood...of this there is no doubt, but only the kind that can be legally obtained.

As the Surah says, this is an excellent place. Those who do not waste their time, who are generous and seek the wisdom of heaven must not be troubled by the lore and lies and impious desires of gangsters and kiddie porn peddlers like Donald Trump and the Mormons. We have a right to be free of them, and the law has finally given us the means to trapped them. All we need to do is slam the trap shut. Vladimir Putin admits the demise of Donald Trump will cripple him. After Trump is gone, he is next. We will follow evil with the laws we have made wherever it goes and then the world will turn again. As for the rest...

Follow the Prophet to freedom. Read the Quran without fear and profess faith in God.

Thus ends the Surah.

الفراء  قَنَاة 

Alfara and Qanah.

Spear the Animal.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Tim Dickinson and Asawin Suebsaeng at Rolling Stone:

Donald Trump was slamming his fist on the Resolute Desk and, once again, calling for blood.  It was the second year of his presidency, and Trump was seething about gang members and drug lords. He wanted to see their bodies piled up in the streets. Specifically, he sought a series of mass executions — with firing squads and gallows, and certainly without the quaintness of an appeals process — to send a chilling message about the scope of his power.  Trump, who’d taken office inveighing against “American carnage,” wanted to create some of his own.  This violent fantasy became an obsession, according to former Trump administration officials. The 45th president brought up the topic so often during the early years of his presidency that one former White House official tells Rolling Stone they lost count. “Fucking kill them all,” Trump would say. “An eye for an eye.” Other times he’d snap at his staff: “You just got to kill these people.” Invoking the brutality of dictatorial regimes that Trump wanted to emulate, he’d add, “Other countries do it all the time.” 

For Trump, the spectacle was crucial. “He had a particular affinity for the firing squad,” says one of the former White House officials. He’d say, “They need to be eradicated, not jailed.” Administration officials privately referred to this demand as Trump’s “American death-squads idea,” comparing it to the drug-war bloodbath carried out by Filipino strongman Rodrigo Duterte. (The sources, some still very much within Trump’s circle, requested anonymity in order to speak candidly about sensitive conversations.) That mass executions were not a feature of Trump’s term is a credit to the American justice system and the more sober-minded government officials who were unwilling to be complicit in his mad schemes. These aides and advisers typically put the president off, making vague promises to “look into” the idea, long enough to let Trump’s tyrannical tantrum blow over. 

But if Trump defeats Vice President Kamala Harris this November, America will encounter a Trump unbound, a man whose darkest impulses will not be checked by “adults in the room” — ­creating potentially catastrophic consequences for the American experiment. “This election is about whether or not we remain a democratic society or we move to authoritarianism,” Sen. Bernie Sanders tells Rolling Stone, insisting that Trump “does not believe in the basic tenets and foundations of American democracy.”  The safeguards that kept Trump in check during his first term have collapsed — starting with the MAGA-fication of the Republican Party. “We know from the first administration that Trump was an amateur and lots of people stopped his most radical actions,” says Jason Stanley, a Yale professor and author of How Fascism Works. He underscores that Trump’s darkest ambitions were present from the beginning — from the Muslim ban to the coup attempt of Jan. 6. “The only thing that stopped him from being a full-on dictator was other people,” Stanley says. “We know that that’s not going to happen anymore.” 

Trump’s campaign to retain power after losing the 2020 election only collapsed because Vice President Mike Pence proved more loyal to the Constitution than to Trump’s cult of personality. But for 2024, Trump has a vice presidential candidate who appears even less committed to the democratic process than he is. J.D. Vance is a protégé and plaything of the billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who has written that “freedom and democracy” are not “compatible.”  A second administration will not feature advisers in the mold of former Chief of Staff John Kelly, or Defense Secretary Mark Esper — establishment Republicans with a stake in keeping Trump constitutionally in bounds. “These are going to be all MAGA people,” says Michael Klarman, a Harvard law professor and an expert in executive power. “Some of them are much more ideologically committed to the agenda than Trump is,” he says, listing deputies like Stephen Miller and Russell Vought, as well as masterminds of the Heritage Foundation’s extreme policy agenda, Project 2025.

[...]

Dictatorship Threat

TRUMP HAS BEEN PUBLIC about his plans, vowing to be a “dictator” — though just for a day, he claims, so he could supercharge fossil-­fuel production and seal off the border. How any of this would work is likely beyond Trump’s understanding, but he’s certainly going to pull every lever of power within his grasp. And the targets of his authoritarian ambition are not single-day, or even single-year, projects. Trump seeks autocratic power to implement his draconian immigration policies, including starting “the largest domestic deportation operation” in U.S. history and reinstating the Muslim travel ban. He’s called for ending the constitutional right of birthright citizenship with an “executive order” — a notion backed by Vance.

Trump also seeks to remake American energy policy to benefit the fossil-fuel industry, a plan he shorthands as “drill, drill, drill.” And he’s put criminal justice on the agenda, vowing to free the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, calling them “hostages” and vowing to “sign their pardons or commutations on Day One.” For those who have studied the rise of authoritarian leaders throughout history, the playbook of Trump and his allies dictates they will push through as many new laws, executive decrees, and emergency orders as possible before anyone understands what is happening. “They want to have a blitzkrieg — and then all you need to be is a dictator for a day,” says Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongmen: How They Rise, Why They Succeed, How They Fall and a professor at New York University. “It’s not just a change of methods, it’s a change of political system — a vast expansion of the powers of the executive, so that Trump will be able to rule as an autocrat.”

Get Out of Jail Free

TRUMP’S EFFORT TO REGAIN power is driven substantially by his desire to stay out of prison — part of a long pattern of putting his own interests ahead of the nation’s. He is a felon convicted on 34 counts stemming from the cover-­­up of a hush-money payout to a porn star at the height of the 2016 election. He also faces federal charges for election interference, as well as a Georgia indictment for his demand that GOP election officials “find 11,780 votes” to reverse his loss in that swing state.  Regaining the White House would put a naked abuse of power at Trump’s fingertips. Trump has long been open about his desire to meddle in his criminal cases, having called on Congress to defund the Justice Department until it dropped charges against him. No one in MAGA world denies that Trump would begin a second term by ordering federal charges against himself and his cronies dismissed. In a more normal time, such a brazenly corrupt act might define a political era. 

Trump’s tightrope walk to keep out of prison is a hallmark of autocrats. “Regular politicians wouldn’t even run for office if they had big legal problems. But strongmen are not normal politicians,” says Ben-Ghiat. “They have to run; they have to get back into power and make their legal troubles go away.” She points to the examples of Italy’s former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who faced dozens of criminal trials, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. “This is how these guys think. And it’s why they all denigrate the press and the judiciary as corrupt, because that’s their enemy.” 

Retribution Agenda

TRUMP HAS POSITIONED HIMSELF as an avatar of a collective revenge fantasy for his followers. During a 2023 speech in Waco, Texas, site of the fiery 1993 standoff between the anti-government Branch Davidian cult, led by David Koresh, and federal authorities, Trump told the audience: “I am your warrior, I am your justice.… For those who have been wronged and betrayed … I am your retribution.”  The Waco setting was chilling ­— and no accident. The FBI’s deadly siege of the Koresh compound inspired the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing by militia member and anti-­government extremist Timothy McVeigh, the deadliest domestic terror attack in U.S. history and a horrific act of vengeance. McVeigh and Koresh are seen as martyrs by the far right, and Trump was speaking directly to the most radical core of his base.

Trump has already threatened to turn the Justice Department into a vehicle for retribution for what he perceives as unjust political persecution — for election interference, hush-money payments, as well as his alleged mishandling of classified documents. He has posted on Truth Social, for example: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” Trump has long blamed Biden for all of his legal woes, despite the president’s hands-off approach to the various cases against him. Trump has vowed to appoint “a special prosecutor” to go after President Biden and his family over what Trump describes as “bribes, kickbacks, and other crimes,” insisting, “Justice will be done.”  Trump associate and former counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee Mike Davis, who has been talked up for a top post in a new Trump administration, said on a recent podcast that if he were selected as acting attorney general, he’d carry out a “three-week reign of terror” before getting “chased out of town with my Trump pardon,” pledging to “indict Joe Biden and Hunter Biden and James Biden and every other scumball, sleazeball Biden.” 

[...]

Controlling Families

LIKE MANY ASPIRING AUTOCRATS, Trump is a threat to families, seeking to impose government power on personal choices about reproduction. He’s “proud” of his success in overturning Roe v. Wade, which led to state-level, near-total abortion bans affecting millions of women. Trump has said he’ll personally vote to preserve Florida’s six-week abortion ban, and has even endorsed the idea of states choosing to punish women for seeking abortion care. The GOP platform, moreover, includes a declaration of fetal personhood, asserting that fetuses are entitled to 14th Amendment protections — logic that could lead to a court-imposed nationwide abortion ban. Vance, meanwhile, has opposed abortion even in the case of rape and incest: “It’s not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term,” he said in a 2021 interview. “It’s whether a child should be allowed to live — even though the circumstances of that child’s birth are somehow inconvenient to society.” Vance has also accused people without children of lacking a “direct stake” in the country and proposed that those with kids be given greater voting power. (His mentor, Thiel, has blamed his loss of confidence in democracy, in part, on “the extension of the franchise to women.”) Controlling reproduction is yet another hallmark of fascism, says Ben-Ghiat, whose expertise is in Benito Mussolini’s rule in Italy. Il Duce equated population growth with national strength, and restricted birth control and outlawed abortion while providing loans to married couples that would be forgiven in stages with the birth of each child. “Vance may not know that he’s repeating Mussolini proposals, but it’s the same stuff,” Ben-Ghiat says. “You have women seen as an enemy if they’re not contributing to the state by having babies.” Ben-Ghiat points out that this type of rhetoric doesn’t just impact women: “Mussolini actually passed a measure that taxed bachelors because they weren’t doing their duty” to reproduce. “It’s never just one target,” she warns. “The number of targets always expands.”

[...]

‘Real Danger to the Rule of Law’

TRUMP’S AUTHORITARIANISM ISN’T going to look the same as Putin’s in Russia or Xi Jinping’s in China. Think more of a WWE-style circus mixed with former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover-style crackdowns and Newt Gingrich’s limited-government fantasies. Much of what Trump and his government-in-waiting are plotting — including invading and even bombing Mexico to supposedly send a message to drug cartels — is rooted in Trump’s impulse to wallow in the spectacle of cinematic violence. The sheer cartoonishness of Trump’s vision for America can make it hard to accept as real. But Klarman insists that Trump and Co. must be taken at face value: “There’s no reason to doubt it. They admire Viktor Orban; Trump meets with him at Mar-a-Lago. He admires Putin’s strength. He admires Xi. They are authoritarian. There’s no reason in the world to doubt this.”  It is seductive to dismiss Trump’s darkest calls for revenge and bloodshed as red meat to rally his troops, and to doubt the likelihood of follow-through. “It’s a very common theme in the history of fascism that lots of people think that the fascist leader is joking,” Stanley warns. “People don’t want to believe what’s right in front of their eyes. Let’s take Trump seriously this time.” Trump allies like Davis call fears of an autocratic Trump term “silly.” He points to the fact that Trump never had Hillary Clinton arrested, despite the pervasive chants at his rallies to “Lock her up” — which he contends offers assurance that the former president’s most troubling rhetoric won’t translate into action: “Trump has already proven that he’s not going to be vindictive as president.” Others who have seen Trump operate up close, however, are strident in their warnings. Pence refused to endorse Trump on the grounds that “anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.” John Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, has blasted Trump’s admiration for “autocrats and murderous dictators,” while insisting the former president has “nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.”  But the surge of excitement and creative energy for the candidacy of Kamala Harris — and a Democratic agenda centered on Tim Walz’s call for Americans to both root for their neighbors and to “mind your own damn business” — provides hope of defending against Trump’s threat to democracy.

Rolling Stone had an insightful column about how America would be a nightmare if Donald Trump wins. If you want a safe, free, and prosperous America, vote Kamala Harris!

Read the full story at Rolling Stone.

[pscottm]

The Republican Freak Show

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY today isn’t incidentally grotesque; like the man who leads it, Donald Trump, it is grotesque at its core. It is the Island of Misfit Toys, though in this case there’s a maliciousness to the misfits, starting with Trump, that makes them uniquely dangerous to the republic. Since 2016, they have been at war with reality, delighting in their dime-store nihilism, creating “alternative facts” and tortured explanations to justify the lawlessness and moral depravity and derangement of their leader.

None of this is hidden; it is on display in neon lights, almost every hour of every day. No one who supports the Republican Party, who casts a vote for Trump and for his MAGA acolytes, can say they don’t know.

They know.

[templardom]

God’s Whistleblower

Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness. Matthew 23:28 (NLT)

Calamity is hungry for him; disaster is ready for him when he falls. Job 18:12 (NIV) 

A person who plans evil will get a reputation as a troublemaker. The schemes of a fool are sinful; everyone detests a mocker. Proverbs 24:8-9 (NLT) 

To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech. Proverbs 8:13 (NIV) 

Do not be deceived: God is not to be mocked. Whatever a man sows, he will reap in return. Galatians 6:7 (BSB) 

Warn a divisive person once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them. You may be sure that such people are warped and sinful; they are self-condemned. Titus 3:10-11 (NIV) 

Calamity will surely destroy the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be punished. Psalm 34:21 (NLT) 

The Righteous One knows what is going on in the homes of the wicked; he will bring disaster on them. Proverbs 21:12 (NLT)