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thedepthsoffandomminds · 8 months

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Episode ten - paper

Jack Dawkins x fem reader.

Jack's eyes opened slowly, the room around him was dark. He was on the ground and pain clamped at his chest.

"What's going on?" He asks into the darkness. Footsteps tapping against the damp stone floor.

"Oh weren't sure if you'd wake up, you're losing a lot of blood. My lad hasn't quite learnt how to stab and not kill just yet." The voice felt familiar to Jack.

"Bill?" He says. The man laughs. The rope around Jack's wrist tugs and begins to lift him until jack's feet barely touch the floor.

"No, no my brother is well and truly dead, that Oliver Twist really got him good. Still, little toff is in prison himself now. Sweet justice." He laughed again.

"What?" Jack was finding it hard to keep up.

"Oh, I'm just here getting a little payback. You're collateral damage as they say." He laughed again. Jack felt him come too close, the stink of his breath assaulting his nostrils.

"I never did anything to Bill or you!" Jack strains against the pain from his knife wound.

"Oh I ain't got problems with you, but you dying sure as hell will hurt the people I hate." The man laughed again, slamming his fist into Jack's stomach.

*_*_*_*

"lady y/n, what on earth do you think you are doing?" Sneed questions entering your room.

"I have to help Fagin find Jack" you say, pulling your dressing gown on over your nightdress.

"Find Jack, he only just got back, what happened to him?"

"He was kidnapped, last night. It looks like he was hurt. We have to find him." You say taking your sister's arm.

"And you were just going to let her run off? Y/n has just had heart surgery!" He asked Belle. She tilted her head in a shrug.

"Do you think we could stop her?" She shot back at him.

"At least put on some clothing. If you insist on charging around Port Victory your corset will help keep you together." Sneed sighed. You held his hand.

"thank you, thank you Rainsford."

Belle helps you into a simple white cotton dress, forgoing the hooped crinolines. The corset felt foreign after being in bed for so long. Though you had to admit it was making your chest feel a little easier. You don't bother to put up your hair, choosing instead to simply tie back the front.

When ready you make your way down to the morgue where Fagin waited for you. Aputi, Flashbang, Tim and Red are with him.

"Do we know anything yet?" You ask.

Fagin shakes his head.

"We've heard nothing. Not a dot." He admits.

"That isn't true." You spin heating your father's voice behind you.

"Father?" You take his outstretched hand.

"It appears this is all my fault." He says, leaving a folded slip of paper in the air. You snatch the paper from his hand.

"Governor Fox, you may recall Lord Branwell. You have debt with him and I have come to collect. Arthur Sikes." You read aloud.

"Sikes?" Fagin turns white, "Oh that family is like a bad smell, they always come back."

"Father what did you do?"

Edmund sighs, "Many years ago during my military days I had command of Lord Branwell's son. A fine chap really if not a little wild. Branwell always blamed me for his death"

You put your hand on his shoulder.

"It's alright father, we will deal with this. Surely he will want money and we have plenty." You say.

"No, if I know the Sikes this isn't about money."

*_*_*_*

Jack pulls against the rope holding him up. His fingertips were already beginning to turn blue.

"If killing me is the point why not just do it?" He coughs out.

"Well no need to be boring. We all like to have a little fun in our work. Plus seeing old Fagin's face when he sees your mutilated body will be fun." Arthur bit into an apple as he talked.

"So it is a little about him then?" Jack says between heavy breaths.

Arthur kicks his foot, knocking the tied rope. It uncurls and skids until Jack hits the floor, face first. Blood quickly starts dripping from his forehead. Joining the wounds that now littered his body. Stomping across the room Arthur grabbed Jack's shirt and shoved him onto his back. Crouching over him.

"You know, it isn't really you that I want, I just know having you will bring one Fox's kids here. Then he'll learn what it is to lose a son."

"Fox doesn't have a son." Jack says.

"a daughter then. I hear one of them is quite taken with you." He laughs again. "now how about we choose something to send to them? A finger? The whole hand? And ear? A foot? Hmm? What about your baby maker?" He laughs again, showing his rotten teeth and twirling a knife between his fingers.

"No, please" Jack began to beg.

"a toe then, we'll start small." Arthur pulled Jack's shoe from his foot, sliding the blade between his toes.

"No."

A door opened somewhere behind Jack and a voice called to Arthur. He grabbed Jack's face around the jaw.

"I guess this will have to wait. See you soon, Jacky boy." He shoved Jack's face before rushing away.

"What is it?" He growls at the smaller man.

"the whole town is looking for him. We're done for."

*_*_*_*

"Where has she gone?" Edmund bellowed through the hospital.

"We don't know. She was looking at the paper and then she just took off!" One of the recoats explained.

You had slipped from the hospital and we're making your way through the streets of the town. The dirt scratching against your bare feet. Your sister knew very much about the body, Jack was impressively good at surgery but you, you knew about paper. Seemingly dull to many but upon arriving in Port Victory you had familiarised yourself with each type of paper available to you. Only one was made within the town limits. A basic sheet, thicker than that shipped from England. It had little wooden flecks throughout it, picked up from the sawdust that littered the factory floor. This had to be where they were keeping Jack and you knew exactly where to go.

The cut on your chest pulled at your skin as you walked. You had to ignore it and find him. If you told anyone else your theory they would send an army to the door and that ran the risk of Jack being killed.

You hear a bell being rung and know they have discovered your absence, leaving you little time.

The factory was not a large one, and was connected to a boarding house. You knew it would be stupid to walk in through the front door. Looking around you see a window on the upper floor. You climb the wooden steps on the boarding to balcony and climb onto the railings. You slip, catching your dress underfoot. Grumbling you unclasp it and let the garment fall to the ground, leaving you in just your bloomers, corset and short chemise. Able to move more freely you climb back up and throw yourself across to the small ledge under the window. The bump catches your breath and you're sure you feel something catch below your corset. You pull yourself up and slip into the window, there is an old wooden platform that you stand on. It is filled with old boxes. You hide behind them, doing your best to move quietly. You see Jack lying in the ground and your heat breaks.

A fast sweep of the room tells you he is alone so you slowly make your way down the steps and across the floor.

"Jack?" You touch his face, then check his body. The wound on his chest looked angry.

"Jack, Jack come on you have to wake up." You whisper to him, tapping his face to rouse him. When his eyes finally open he looks up at you. Fear crossed his eyes.

"No, Y/n you shouldn't be here! You have to go. Now!"

You ignore him and u tie his hands.

"can you stand?" You ask. He nods and the two of get up.

"Wait, y/n you have blood on you." He says pressing his hand to your chest.

"Perhaps it's yours." You say, once again ignoring the sting of pain below the corset, "come on we have to go quickly." You pull his arm around your shoulders and start to direct him towards the doors.

"This was silly, you should not have come here." Jack chastised you.

"No she definitely should not have." Arthur's foot kicks into the back of your knees sending both you and Jack to the ground. He drags you backwards by your ankles. No matter how you claw at the floor you cannot stop him. Jack struggles to move as two other men grab at him.

"Here you go my Lord. Just in time for you to watch it." Arthur grabs you by the hair and yanks you back. You meet eyes with a pompously large man who laughs, pouring a glass of wine.

Episode eleven

@fandomfan-102 @darasloves @afalls14universe

#jack dawkins x y/n #jack dawkins x reader #jack dawkins #the artful dodger x reader

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sweetbuckybarnes · 8 months

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Wake Up, Belle

Pairings: Jack “Artful Dodger” Dawkins + Lady Belle Fox

Summary: What if Belle woke up on the table?

Jack and Sneed had just finished sewing up Belle’s chest, Jack only had time to drop the tools in his hands haphazardly onto the nearby table, before he was cupping her face, bloody fingers leaving red fingerprints on her cheeks.

“Wake up, Belle,” Jack begged, his eyes roaming her face as he is thumb came to rest on the feel of her heartbeat on the side of her neck. Her heart was beating! So why wasn’t she waking up? “Please, wake up, Belle!”

Gaines came around the table gun in one hand, and wrapped his hand around Jack’s upper arm. “Alright, time to go.”

“No, leave me. Belle, wake up,” he didn’t want to slap her awake - she was a lady after all - but if it’s what wakes her up, he’d do it.

Just as Gaines dragged him off Belle’s body, she took in a sudden deep breath, and her eyes cracked open as she caught her breath.

“Oh darling,” Lady Jane pushed herself around to Jack’s side of the table and blocked her daughter’s view of the surgeon. “Oh, my darling!”

“Jack,” Belle called, reaching her hand past her mother and to the man she loves. Lady Jane took hold of her daughter’s hand, who was quick to shake her off. “Jack.”

He peered over her mother’s shoulder, tears of relief filling his eyes. “Welcome back, Lady Belle.”

“Jack,” she reached her hand over for him to take, but pulled her hand away from her mother’s grip once again. “No, I want Jack.”

“Dearest-“

“You didn’t believe me when I told you I had an aortic aneurysm, you tried to tell me I was wrong, but I was right,” she stared her mother down, reaching her hand out for a third time for Jack to take - even with his hands covered in her blood - he took it. “Jack was the only one who believed me.”

Lady Jane stumbled over her words trying to find the right ones which would separate her daughter from the twisted surgeon for good. However, it was Captain Gaines who spoke up. “My lady, he is a criminal and a thief, he will be hung from the gallows in the morning.”

Belle looked up at Jack, whose face had paled - he had saved the love of his life’s life and now he was condemned to death. She turned her head to look at her father. “Papa, will you pardon Jack, please?”

“Belle, my sweet,” the Governor started, looking at his wife (with her eyes, she was telling him to say no), Gaines (who was silently wanting him to allow him to hand Jack Dawkins), then to the man himself - the young man who he presumed to be a few years older than Belle, was as white as a sheet, staring down at Belle both scared for his life and a look of adoration. Then he turns his eyes on Belle, his little girl (despite being the age of 25), as she looks up at him from the theatre table where just five minutes ago was battling with herself to stay alive, she looks over at Jack with the same adoring eyes, and then up at her father. “Do you love him?”

Belle looked back over at Jack, staring up at his face, framed by his dark hair and dark eyes swimming with tears. In the throes of pain, before she was given the ether, she remembers Jack telling her that he loves her.

“I do. I love him.”

“Then he shall be pardoned, and on the Prof’s retirement, shall be made Head Surgeon,” the Governor declares, watching as his daughter’s face lit up, turning her head to look up at Jack and raise a hand to cup his face.

Jack’s face flooded with relief, leaning down so he could press his forehead against Belle’s then nudging his nose along hers.

“I knew you could do it,” Belle tells him, obviously referring to her surgery.

“Edmund, dearest,” his wife comes around the table, digging her fingernails into his arm. “I thought Dr. Sneed was going to be Head Surgeon.”

The Governor looked over at the other surgeon in the room, who was looking at Jack with what could be considered pride. “Dr Dawkins just saved our daughter’s life, we are very lucky to have him as our surgeon in Port Victory.”

Jack hadn’t taken his eyes off Belle, “I’ll be back in a moment, I need to go clean up,” he motioned to his hands covered in her blood, whilst remembering about the spare shirt he keeps in his office.

“Jack,” Belle says, wrapping her hands around a little bit tighter.

“Lady Fanny, will you keep your sister company while I clean up?” Jack asks the youngest Fox daughter.

Fanny nods, hurrying as fast as her skirt would allow her. “Of course, Dr. Dawkins,” she took her sister’s hand, as Jack leaned down and pressed a slightly scandalous kiss to her forehead.

“I’ll be back in a moment, my lady.”

Belle watched, as she tipped her head until she lost sight of him, as Jack made his way to the bowls and cleaned himself up.

“Belle, do you truly love him?” Fanny asked, looking down at her sister in awe and curiosity.

“Yes, I don’t think I could ever stop loving him.”

Belle didn’t pay her mother any kind of attention until Lady Jane made an unladylike noise. “Belle, it is improper from someone of your station to be associated with him. Society will turn its back on you.”

Belle glanced over at her mother. “Don’t you know, mother?” She looks at her. “I am society.”

#dodgerfox #the artful dodger #jack and belle #jack x belle #belle and jack #belle x jack #jack dawkins #lady belle fox #the governor #lady Jane fox #lady Fanny fox #Captain Gaines #rainsford sneed

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masquerade-at-home · 3 years

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2021 Masquerade Awards and Judges

San Diego Comic-Con Category Awards

Graciously awarded by:

Our 2021 Masquerade Judges

Will be selecting a winner for each of the following categories: Best in Show, Judges’ Choice, Best Re-Creation, Best Original Design, Best Workmanship, Most Beautiful, Most Humorous, and Best Group.

All winners receive 2021 Masquerade Winners Medallions and complimentary tickets to San Diego Comic-Con 2022

Frank and Son Award for Most Outstanding Costume

$1,000 Cash Prize

Graciously awarded by:

The Frank & Son Collectible Show, of the City of Industry, California. Frank and Sons is a giant one-stop show for all things collectible at their bi-weekly mini-cons and has supported fan costuming at our conventions with generous cash prizes for many years.

The David C. Copley Award for Most Innovative Costume

$500 in Amazon Gift Cards

Graciously awarded by:

The UCLA David C. Copley Center for The Study of Costume Design, judged and awarded by Copley Center Director Deborah Nadoolman Landis.

The David C. Copley Center serves UCLA TFT students, the university, the international community of historians, filmmakers and professional costume designers. The Center provides a home for the study of costume design history, genre research, costume illustration as an art form, and the influence of costume design on fashion and popular culture.

Costume Designers Guild Spotlight Award

Costume Design Book, a copy of CDG Magazine, and a $100 gift card to Mood Fabrics, the largest online fabric store for designers and anyone who sews.

Graciously awarded by:

The Costume Designers Guild IATSE Local 892, representing Hollywood costume designers, assistant costume designers, and costume illustrators working at the highest levels of expertise in motion pictures, TV, commercials, music videos, and new media.

The CDG is part of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees (I.A.T.S.E.)

Meet Our 2021 Masquerade Judges

Jennifer May Nickel

Is a Costume Designer for Television and Film. Classically trained in theatre, Jennifer holds an MFA in Costume Design from Carnegie Mellon University and also studied in England at Oxford University (St. Edmund’s College: Myth and Ritual in Theatre). A proud member of the Costume Designers’ Guild Jennifer has won the Elizabeth Schrader Kimberly Costume Design Award, The Cecilia Cohen Award for Excellence in Theatre and The WCDAC Achievement Award

Her Television Costume Design credits include Neflix’s Cabin with Bert Kreischer and Taylor Tomlinson: Quarter-Life Crisis, the CW’s Containment, Fox’s What Just Happened??! with Fred Savage, Syfy’s TV movie Miami Magma, the History Channel’s Legend of the Superstition Mountains, TLC’s TV movie The Secret Santa and Nickelodeon’s The Massively Mixed-Up Middle School Mystery. Jennifer has Costume Designed various CollegeHumor Originals, SMBC Theater’s hit web series Starpocalypse and pilots for E!, Nickelodeon, Relativity TV and CrisisLab.

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Deborah Nadoolman Landis, PhD

Costume designer, historian and endowed chair at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television Landis is the Founding Director of the David C. Copley Center for Costume Design. Landis received an M.F.A. in costume design from UCLA and a Ph.D. in the history of design from the Royal College of Art, London. Her distinguished career includes Animal House (1978), The Blues Brothers (1980), An American Werewolf in London (1981), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Trading Places (1983), The Three Amigos (1987), Coming to America (1988), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award, and the groundbreaking music video Michael Jackson’s Thriller (1983). Now considered ‘classic,’ characters she has designed, like Indiana Jones, have become international cultural icons. Her costume designs are found in the collections of museums including the Smithsonian Museum of American History (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones), the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame (Michael Jackson’s Thriller) and most recently, the National Museum of African American History and Culture (Coming to America).

A two-term past president of the Costume Designers Guild, Local 892, and a past-Governor of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (2013-2018), Landis sits on the Board of the National Film Preservation Foundation. She is the author of six books including Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design, FilmCraft: Costume Design, Hollywood Sketchbook: A Century of Costume Illustration and the catalogue for her landmark exhibition, Hollywood Costume, which she curated at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London in 2012. The exhibition, a celebration of one hundred years of costume design history while showcasing the designers’ contribution and process, open just three months, with an attendance of more than 265,000 visitors, became the most successful exhibition in the long history of that museum. The show then traveled to Melbourne, Australia, Phoenix, Arizona and Los Angeles. Landis is the editor-in-chief of the upcoming three-volume Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Film and Television Costume Design (2021).

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Garnet Filo

Is a Costume Designer with more than 40 projects under her belt. Recently she’s Costume Design assisted on several sci-fi series including The Orville and The Mandalorian; further developing her skills by working closely with their Costume Designers. Garnet has always been fascinated by the futuristic and the fantastic and her passion to bring these to life only continues to grow. She is the chairperson for the Costume Designers Guild I.A.T.S.E. local 892 Comic-Con committee.

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Allan Lavigne

Is a self-taught costumer, make-up special effects artist, sculptor, and [MJ1] painter with 40 years’ experience in costume fabrication Formerly a top costume winner for many years at fan conventions around the USA, including many San Diego Comic-Cons, he brings with him great insight from having honed his costume skills as an on-stage contestant himself. Since then, he has gone on to do work for Disney, Lucasfilm, Sony Pictures, and more. In his Bronze Armory studio, in the San Francisco Bay Area, he creates, lectures, and teaches.

His costume work has been exhibited in museums, at film premieres and at numerous conventions. His current exhibit of screen-accurate motion picture and television costume reproductions “The Batman Armory” is featured at the San Francisco Cartoon Museum, requested by Warner Brothers to promote the new Batman encyclopedia: Batman: The Definitive History of the Dark Knight in Comics, Films and Beyond which Allan was technical advisor for. In a second gallery of the museum, his Wonder Woman costume re-creations accompany the featured exhibit about that character.

- - - - - - - - - -

Gigi “Fast Elk” Bannister (formerly Porter)

has been in the film industry for over 35 years as a SFX Artist, Director, Producer, and actor. Better known for her practical special effects and production work, Gigi is experienced on both sides of the camera. She has appeared in over a dozen films and television shows, and is a popular guest at horror conventions, film festivals, workshops, and seminars. For several years she has donated time at San Diego Comic-Cons to assist Masquerade contestants with their special effects make-up needs.

Gigi is credited as a Producer on Don Coscarelli and David Hartman’s “Phantasm V: Ravager” (2016) and Steve King’s “One For the Road” (2011) (Night Shift Anthology). As a character actor, she appeared in “Bloody Bloody Bible Camp” (2011), “Carnies” (2009), in “Small Town Saturday Night” (2009) (with Chris Pine, and John Hawkes), and again in Don Coscarelli’s “Bubba Ho-Tep” (2002) (Bruce Campbell, Reggie Bannister and Ozzie Davis). She has produced and directed on numerous projects including dozens of live events, fundraisers and seminars, six independent feature films, and six shows for television. More information on Gigi can be found on IMDb.

#comic con@home #Comic-ConAtHome #Comic-ConAtHome2021 #Comic-ConAtHomeMasquerade #SDCC

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patriotsnet · 3 years

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How Are Republicans Responding To Impeachment

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-are-republicans-responding-to-impeachment/

How Are Republicans Responding To Impeachment

House Prosecutor Cites Former Republican Expert Witness In Pro

IMPEACHMENT RESPONSE: House Republicans Respond To Democrats Impeachment Hopes

A House impeachment manager cited professor Jonathan Turley, who had appeared as a Republican witness during Trump’s first impeachment battle, as part of the prosecution’s argument in favor of holding the former president on trial.

Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., quoted Turley’s assertion in a past study on the executive branch that “resignation from office does not prevent trial on articles of impeachment.”

Neguse also quoted Turley’s writing in a 1999 article on impeachment, where the professor approvingly quoted 18th century statesman Edmund Burke’s declaration that “no man in no circumstance, can escape the account, which he owes to the laws of his country.”

Turley in recent weeks, however, has argued that“the planned;impeachment trial;is at odds with the language of the Constitution, which expressly states that removal of a president is the primary purpose of such a trial.”

Turley had appeared before the House as Republicans’ expert witness in 2019, as part of the proceedings related to Trump’s first impeachment. Kevin Breuninger

If Biden Doesnt Resign Which He Wont Where Does Gop Rhetoric Go From Here

From a technical standpoint, the first time that Donald Trump faced an impeachment effort came in May 2017. Then, Rep. Al Green demanded that the House of Representatives charge Trump with obstruction of justice related to the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The immediate predicate for Greens call was the firing of FBI Director James B. Comey early that month. But over the course of the year, the impeachment articles expanded to include a broad range of actions by the then-president, constituting a set of high misdemeanors.

That December, the House voted on Greens aggregated charges. It was tabled by a 364-to-58 vote. More than twice as many Democrats voted against the measure as voted for it. But it was doomed anyway; Republicans had control of the chamber, and they werent likely to acquiesce to an impeachment effort, no matter how robust. When Green tried again in 2018, the outcome was the same.

The impeachment effort, many claimed, was just a continuation of the Russia investigation itself, an attempt to undo what the electoral college made possible: a Trump presidency.

The two-thirds requirement in the Senate for convicting Trump meant that there was little chance he would actually be removed from office, and he wasnt. But there was a warning that accompanied the Republican response to the impeachment: Do it to us, and well do it to you.

Impeach Biden and all that, one owner said. You know, kind of turn the tables.

If Trump Goes Unpunished Well Have No One To Blame But Ourselves

Representative Jamie Raskin argued that Trumps actions on January 6, were a culmination of the presidents actions, not an aberration from them. He described how Trump encouraged violence against his political enemies for years, and even continued attacking Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer following a foiled plot to kidnap her in the weeks before the 2020 election.

My dear colleagues, is there any political leader in this room who believes that if he is ever allowed by the Senate to get back into the Oval Office, Donald Trump would stop inciting violence to get his way? Raskin asked. Would you bet the lives of more police officers on that? Would you bet the safety of your family on that? Would you bet the future of your democracy on that?

Raskin noted that even after the January 6 attack, Trump declared his conduct totally appropriate.

So, if he gets back into office and it happens again, well have no one to blame but ourselves, he said.

Rep. Jamie Raskin asks senators if they believe Donald Trump would stop inciting violence if he was allowed back into the Oval Office:Would you bet the lives of more police officers on that? Would you bet the future of your democracy on that?

The Recount

You May Like: Are There Any Republicans Running Against Donald Trump

Trump’s Attorneys Close Out Their Case

As he started out his closing statement, Trump attorney Michael van der Veen said the former president’s team does not stipulate the truthfulness of the statement from Jaime Herrea Beutler.;

Van der Veen then resorted to attacking the House impeachment managers, falsely claiming they never mentioned the Constitution and distorted evidence.;

Van der Veen insisted that no one could have interpreted Mr. Trump’s January 6 speech as anything other than peaceful. He also suggested that some of the people who attacked the Capitol were already at the Capitol when Mr. Trump was speaking.;

He claimed the protesters “hijacked” the event for their own purposes, even though those who stormed the Capitol have identified themselves as Trump supporters.;

Van der Veen said the entire impeachment has been a “charade” from beginning to end.

“You do not have to indulge the impeachment lust, the dishonesty and the hypocrisy,” van der Veen said.;

Trump Impeachment Trial Verdict: How Senators Voted

Coons said he favors a Sept. 11-style commission to probe further into Trump’s actions leading up to and on the day of the Capitol attack.

“There’s still more evidence that the American people need and deserve to hear,” he said. “The 9/11 Commission is a way to make sure that we secure the Capitol going forward, and that we lay bare the record of just how responsible and how abjectly and violating of his constitutional oath President Trump really was.”

Trump’s role in the party

The Senate vote raises further questions about Trump’s role in the Republican Party going forward.

In a statement after the verdict, Trump said: “Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., an ally of the former president, told Fox News Sunday that he had spoken with Trump, and that he’s eager to help the GOP win the House and Senate back in 2022.

But Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who was one of seven Republicans who broke ranks with their party in voting to convict the former president, told ABC’s This Week that Trump’s “force wanes” in the GOP.

Cassidy is facing backlash in Louisiana over his vote, including the state GOP voting to unanimously censure him. But he says people want to hold their leaders accountable and that’s what his vote to convict was based on.

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Recommended Reading: How Many Senate Seats Do The Republicans Have

Biden On Trump Acquittal: ‘the Substance Of The Charge Is Not In Dispute’

“We had no need to call any witnesses at the end of the trial because, as all Americans believed at that moment, the evidence was overwhelming,” she said in an interview Sunday with NPR’s Weekend Edition.

The Senate voted 57-43, which included seven Republicans, to hold Trump guilty on the impeachment charge of inciting an insurrection. But that was short of the two-thirds, or 67 votes, needed to convict him.

“I know that people have a lot of angst and they can’t believe that the Senate did what they did. But what we needed were senators, more senators with spines, not more witnesses,” Plaskett said.

She said the House managers wanted to enter into the record the statement of Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., about a conversation Beutler had with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., regarding a call he had with Trump on Jan. 6.

After an agreement was reached to read Herrera Beutler’s statement into the record, Plaskett says, there was no need to call her as a witness.

“Individuals do not come to the Senate floor, raise their hand and testify. Individuals are depositioned, videotaped, and that tape is then played before the Senate,” Plaskett said.

“We wanted the testimony and the statement of our colleague Jaime Herrera Beutler, who is a tremendous patriot to put herself out there. And we were able to get that,” she said.

Plaskett denied that she and other House managers were pressured by Senate Democrats not to call witnesses.

Trumps Failure To Discourage Election Violence

ED KILGORE: Again and again, the House impeachment managers are stressing that Trump had an affirmative obligation under his oath of office to stop threats of violence related to his efforts to reverse the election returns. Obviously he failed to do that on more occasions than you can count, whether or not you accept the evidence showing he actively encouraged the Capitol attacks. He knew the attacks were imminent or likely, and that these were people who regarded themselves as his cavalry. So why did he never say a discouraging word? Its a hard question for Trumps attorneys to answer.

Recommended Reading: Why Do Republicans Want To Get Rid Of The Epa

How The Seven Republicans Who Voted To Convict Trump Later Explained Their Decisions

The evidence is compelling that President Trump is guilty of inciting an insurrection against a coequal branch of government and that the charge rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors, said Senator Richard Burr, who is retiring at the end of his term in 2022.

Senator Bill Cassidy said he voted guilty because thats what Trump was, and that Our Constitution and our country is more important than any one person.

Instead of preventing a dangerous situation, President Trump created one, explained Senator Susan Collins, referencing how primed the January 6 crowd of Trump supporters was for violence. And rather than defend the Constitutional transfer of power, he incited an insurrection with the purpose of preventing that transfer of power from occurring.

Explained Senator Lisa Murkowski: If I cant say what I believe that our president should stand for, then why should I ask Alaskans to stand with me?

Senator Mitt Romney said the House managers proved their case, adding that Trump incited an insurrection despite the obvious and well known threats of violence that day. President Trump also violated his oath of office by failing to protect the Capitol, the vice president, and others in the Capitol. Each and every one of these conclusions compels me to support conviction.

Previously Unheard Audio Introduced

House Republicans respond to articles of impeachment l ABC News

ED KILGORE: Plaskett just played previously unreleased audio of Capitol Hill police in full panic as the mob broke down the security perimeter and injured officers, and then video of hand-to-hand combat between police and rioters. Shes using a model of the Capitol to show the mobs progress towards the House and Senate chambers where Congress was reviewing electoral vote objections by Trump allies.

Using new security footage, Plaskett shows the mob breaking through the windows from inside the Capitol, noting some of the first rioters through the breech were in full tactical armors and/or riot shields. She then pauses in the video evidence to draw a parallel between the attacks and September 11. I would note myself that on 9/11 I was standing on Pennsylvania Avenue SE and watched members of Congress walk away from the Capitol in scenes echoed by the January 6 evacuation.

Also Check: How Many Senate Seats Did The Republicans Pick Up

Republican Search For Response

Many Republicans appear to have made up their minds that they won’t vote to convict Trump, but they have struggled to find a consistent way to respond to the Democrats’ emotional case.

Many Republican senators weren’t at their desks for parts of the day’s presentation, and a pool reporter spotted Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., at his desk appearing to write in the names of countries on a blank map of Asia.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said the Democrats’ presentation Thursday wasn’t compelling. “Today was not connecting the dots,” he said.

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., said, “Very political today.”

NBC News app for breaking news and politics

Trump attorney David Schoen stepped out for a time to do an interview with Fox News. He said he felt confident that he wasn’t missing anything.

“It’s more of the same thing. They’re showing the same repetitive videos,” Schoen said.

Schoen called the managers’ use of videos of the attack “offensive,” a charge Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., had made on Wednesday night.

“I think they’re making a movie, you know. They haven’t in any way tied it to Donald Trump. I think its offensive, quite frankly. It’s an antithesis the healing process to continue to show the tragedy that happened here that Donald Trump has condemned, and I think it tears at the American people, quite frankly,” Schoen said.

Schoen said they discussed “procedure.”

House Managers Rest Their Case

Representative Jamie Raskin wrapped up House Democrats case against Trump, saying the evidence clearly shows that he laid the groundwork for the Capitol riot throughout his presidency, instigated the attack in the days leading up to January 6, and then showed no remorse once it happened.

Raskin quoted from Thomas Paine, urging senators to use common sense when deciding whether to convict.

Senators, America, we need to exercise our common sense about what happened, he said. Lets not get caught up in a lot of outlandish lawyers theories here. Exercise your common sense about what just took place in our country.

Raskin concluded: Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered, but we have this saving consolation: The more difficult the struggle, the more glorious in the end will be our victory. Good luck in your deliberations.

Raskin closes with this Thomas Paine quote: “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered, yet we have this consolation with us: that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

Aaron Rupar

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After Raskin Says He Wants To Call Rep Herrera Beutler Senate Votes 55

The impeachment trial took a dramatic turn on Saturday. Lead House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin opened the days proceedings by referencing Friday nights news reports that Trump and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy got into a shouting match on the phone while the Capitol riot was underway, and that during that conversation, Trump had not just refused to call off the rioters, but tried to leverage the riot to his benefit. In light of that news, Raskin said House managers wanted to call Washington State Representative Herrera Beutler the impeachment-supporting GOP congresswoman who had confirmed the call happened and said she had contemporaneous notes recording the details as a witness.

Trump lawyer Michael van der Veen opposed the request, and threatened to call for countless witnesses himself and drag out the trial as much as possible:

van der Veen explains that if House managers want witnesses, then “I’m going to need at least, over 100 depositions””Do not handcuff me by limiting the number of witnesses I can have,” he angrily says. “We should close this case out today.”

Aaron Rupar

It also led to this embarrassing moment:

“That’s the way it works, folks … I don’t know why you’re laughing … there’s nothing laughable here” — the Senate chamber breaks out in laughter after van der Veen threatens to depose Nancy Pelosi and Kamala Harris not by Zoom, but in his office in Philadelphia

Aaron Rupar

Regardless, Senator Lindsey Graham made the same threat:

Gop Officials Were Moved By Democrats’ Arguments But Have Not Disclosed Whether They Will Convict Former President

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Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, among six GOP senators who broke from the party to vote to proceed with Donald Trump‘s impeachment trial, said video footage from the Capitol insurrection showed “insurrectionists that tried to object to the peaceful transfer of power”.

“That should give anyone who loves our republic great pause,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

House impeachment managers on the second day of the former president’s impeachment trial included a comprehensive video timeline, aided by previously unreleased surveillance footage and police audio, revealing the scale of the assault on the Capitol on 6 January, and how close lawmakers and their staff came to violence.

Impeachment managers linked the former president’s months-long attempt to undermine election results as he courted violence from his supporters, exploding into a deadly insurrection fuelled by his false claims of voter fraud and conspiracy theories.

David Schoen and Bruce Castor: Who are Donald Trumps defense team?

The footage “reinforces my belief that it was a terrible day for our country, and that there’s no doubt that it was an attempt to disrupt the counting of the electoral votes”, said Senator Susan Collins, among Republicans who are expected to vote to convict the former president for inciting the insurrection during a joint session of Congress to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Read Also: Can Republicans Vote In The Nevada Caucus

Rep Neguse Takes Over

ED KILGORE: The second impeachment manager to appear, Joe Neguse of Colorado, is going into the precedents supporting the constitutionality of an impeachment trial after its target has left office. The most important is the trial of former Secretary of War William Belknap, impeached for corruption in 1876. Belknap resigned in order to avoid an impeachment and a trial, the House impeached him and the Senate went ahead with a full trial .

The Trump Team Unveils Their Own Video

ED KILGORE: Schoen attempted to offer an equivalent to the House managers videos of January 6: a cavalcade of images of Democratic pols calling for Trumps impeachment prior to his actual impeachment in 2019.;The overwhelming majority of these images were of non-white Democrats, which probably had some Trump fans watching at home saying Uh Huh,

Don’t Miss: What Are The Republicans Saying About Impeachment

Seven Republican Rebels Who Voted To Convict Feel Trumpists’ Fury

didnt want to cut him off. He made a Faustian bargain with them. And thats whats coming to the Republican party, Emanuel added. 1932 … was the last time a party that is the Republicans lost the presidency, the Senate and the House. Thats how far back you go for this moment in time to have a corresponding point in history.

The Gop Senators Likely To Vote For Trump’s Conviction

Republican response to Trump impeachment articles

Senators say as many as a half-dozen GOP lawmakers could vote with Democrats to convict former President TrumpDonald TrumpWalensky says ‘now is the time’ to tackle gun violence: reportBanks fights Jan. 6 committee effort to seek lawmaker recordsBiden to raise pay for federal employees effective Jan. 1.MORE for inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6 after the powerful presentations by impeachment managers, including chilling footage of the attack on the Capitol.

That would not be enough to secure a conviction of Trump, something that would require at least 17 Republican votes assuming every Democrat in the chamber votes to impeach. But it would be the largest bipartisan Senate majority in history for a presidential impeachment vote.

Heres a look at the six GOP votes seen as being in play.

Willard Mitt RomneyMitt Romney was right: Too many Americans are dependent on government Democrats sound alarm over loss in Connecticut suburbsLawmakers flooded with calls for help on Afghanistan exitMORE

Romney is viewed as a lock to vote for Trumps conviction after he was the only Republican senator to vote to remove Trump from office after his first impeachment trial last year.

Previously unreleased security footage played on the second day of the trial showed Romney narrowly missed walking into a crowd of angry rioters thanks to the quick thinking of Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman, who redirected Romney away from the violent crowd as it marched toward the chamber.

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kumail-fan · 3 years

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Political Career

Sheridan continued to accommodate to improvise spectacular displays at Drury Lane, but as a series of acting directors took on the weight of direction that his time has been given to politics. His only full-length after drama was the worthless but popular patriotic melodrama Pizarro (1799), according to a German drama around the conquest of Peru.

Sheridan's crucial acumen and control over language had complete extent in his oratory and have been observed in their greatest in his speeches as director of their ineffective impeachment of Warren Hastings, governor general of India. Sheridan was known among the most persuasive orators of the time but not attained greater political influence in Parliament since he had been believed to be an unreliable intriguer. Some support for this view is to be seen within his behavior during the regency catastrophe (1788--89) after the temporary insanity of George III, when Sheridan acted as advisor to the famous, self-indulgent prince of Wales (afterwards George IV). He invited the prince to believe there are a terrific bulk due to their being regent including all the imperial powers only because he was heir apparent. From the state at large that was seen as a movement by Charles James Fox along with his buddies to take over the government and push out Prime Minister William Pitt. Sheridan was also distrusted due to his role from the Whigs' internecine squabbles (1791--93) using Edmund Burke within the latter's implacable hostility into the French Revolution. He had been among those few members brave enough publicly to defend people who suffered due to their assistance of the French Revolution. Truly, Sheridan enjoyed taking a single stand, also, although he encouraged Fox in advocating the French had the right to select their own method of authorities, he broke with Fox after the French became warlike and jeopardized the safety of England. In addition, he came out to the face of the Tory government when he chased mutineers who had rebelled against dwelling conditions from the British Navy (1797). Much to Fox's disgust, Sheridan, though a Whig, gave some assistance to the Tory government of Prime Minister Henry Addington, afterwards 1st Viscount Sidmouth (1801--04).

In November 1806, Sheridan succeeded Charles James Fox as part of Westminster--but not, as he'd expected, as chief of the Whigs--he also lost the seat in May 1807. The prince of Wales subsequently returned as member for its"pocket borough" of Ilchester, but his reliance on the prince's favour rankled with Sheridan, for they differed in their mindset on Catholic emancipation. Sheridan, who had been determined to encourage emancipation, stood for election as part of Stafford again in 1812, however he couldn't cover those who had supported him just as much as they anticipated and, consequently, had been defeated.

Read more about Sheridan

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itsfinancethings · 4 years

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New story in Politics from Time: Joe Biden Formally Nominated by Democrats to Run Against President Trump

(NEW YORK) — Democrats formally nominated Joe Biden as their 2020 presidential nominee Tuesday night, as party officials and activists from across the nation gave the former vice president their overwhelming support during his party’s all-virtual national convention.

The moment marked a political high point for Biden, who had sought the presidency twice before and is now cemented as the embodiment of Democrats’ desperate desire to defeat President Donald Trump this fall.

The roll call of convention delegates formalized what has been clear for months since Biden took the lead in the primary elections’ chase for the nomination. It came as he worked to demonstrate the breadth of his coalition for a second consecutive night, this time blending support from his party’s elders and fresher faces to make the case that he has the experience and energy to repair chaos that Trump has created at home and abroad.

Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State John Kerry — and former Republican Secretary of State Colin Powell — were among the heavy hitters on a schedule that emphasized a simple theme: Leadership matters. Former President Jimmy Carter, now 95 years old, also made an appearance.

“Donald Trump says we’re leading the world. Well, we are the only major industrial economy to have its unemployment rate triple,” Clinton said. “At a time like this, the Oval Office should be a command center. Instead, it’s a storm center. There’s only chaos.”

Tuesday’s speaking program underscored Biden’s challenge as he seeks to inspire a new generation of voters. While the Democratic leaders of yesteryear can point to experience and achievement, many of them are aging white men.

Just 77 days before the election, Biden has neither history nor enthusiasm on his side.

Just one incumbent president has been defeated in the last four decades. And Biden’s supporters consistently report that they’re motivated more by opposition to Trump than excitement about Biden, a 77-year-old lifelong politician. That deficit could hurt turnout among less consistent voters, particularly minorities and younger voters, whom Biden needs to show up in great numbers this fall.

Biden formally captured his party’s presidential nomination Tuesday night after being nominated by three people, including two Delaware lawmakers and 31-year-old African American security guard who became a viral sensation after blurting out “I love you” to Biden in a New York City elevator.

Delegates from across the country then pledged their support for Biden in a video montage that featured Democrats in places like Alabama’s Edmund Pettis Bridge, a beach in Hawaii and the headwaters of the Mississippi River.

In the opening of the convention’s second night, a collection of younger Democrats, including former Georgia lawmaker Stacey Abrams and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, were given a few minutes to shine. But overall, there was little room on Tuesday’s program for the younger stars of the party’s far-left wing.

“In a democracy, we do not elect saviors. We cast our ballots for those who see our struggles and pledge to serve,” said Abrams, 46, who emerged as a national player during her unsuccessful bid for governor in 2018 and was among those considered to be Biden’s running mate.

She added: “Faced with a president of cowardice, Joe Biden is a man of proven courage.”

On a night that Biden was formally receiving his party’s presidential nomination, the convention was also introducing his wife, Jill Biden, to the nation as the prospective first lady.

Biden is fighting unprecedented logistical challenges to deliver his message during an all-virtual convention this week as the coronavirus epidemic continues to claim hundreds of American lives each day and wreaks havoc on the economy.

The former vice president was becoming his party’s nominee as a prerecorded roll call vote from delegates in all 50 states airs, and the four-day convention will culminate on Thursday when he accepts that nomination inside a mostly empty Delaware convention hall. His running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, will become the first woman of color to accept a major party’s vice presidential nomination on Wednesday.

Until then, Biden is presenting what he sees as the best of his sprawling coalition to the American electorate in a format unlike any other in history. There is no live audience for any of the speakers, who have so far delivered their remarks standing or seated alone in mostly prerecorded videos.

For a second night, the Democrats featured Republicans.

Powell, who served as secretary of state under George W. Bush and appeared at multiple Republican conventions in years past, was endorsing the Democratic candidate. In a video released ahead of his speech, he said, “Our country needs a commander in chief who takes care of our troops in the same way he would his own family. For Joe Biden, that doesn’t need teaching.”

Powell joins the widow of the late Arizona Sen. John McCain, Cindy McCain, who was expected to stop short of a formal endorsement but talk about the mutual respect and friendship her husband and Biden shared.

While there have been individual members of the opposing party featured at presidential conventions before, a half dozen Republicans, including the former two-term governor of Ohio, have now spoken for Democrat Biden.

No one on the program Tuesday night has a stronger connection to the Democratic nominee than his wife, Jill Biden, a longtime teacher, was speaking from her former classroom at Brandywine High School near the family home in Wilmington, Delaware.

“You can hear the anxiety that echoes down empty hallways. There’s no scent of new notebooks or freshly waxed floors,” she said of the school in excerpts of her speech before turning to the nation’s challenges at home. “How do you make a broken family whole? The same way you make a nation whole. With love and understanding—and with small acts of compassion. With bravery. With unwavering faith.”

The Democrats’ party elders played a prominent role throughout the night.

Clinton, who turns 74 on Tuesday, hasn’t held office in two decades. Kerry, 76, was the Democratic presidential nominee back in 2004 when the youngest voters this fall were still in diapers. And Carter is 95 years old.

Biden’s team did not give the night’s coveted keynote address to a single fresh face, preferring instead to pack the slot with more than a dozen Democrats in their 20s, 30s and 40s. The younger leaders included Abrams, Rep. Conor Lamb., D-Pa., and the president of the Navajo Nation Jonathan Nez.

Clinton, a fixture of Democratic conventions for nearly three decades, addressed voters for roughly five minutes in a speech recorded at his home in Chappaqua, New York.

In addition to railing against Trump’s leadership, Clinton calls Biden “a go-to-work president.” Biden, Clinton continued, is “a man with a mission: to take responsibility, not shift the blame; concentrate, not distract; unite, not divide.”

It remains to be seen whether the unconventional convention will give Biden the momentum he’s looking for.

Preliminary estimates show that television viewership for the first night of the virtual convention was down compared with the opening of Hillary Clinton’s onsite nominating party four years ago.

An estimated 18.7 million people watched coverage between 10 and 11 p.m. on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC, the Nielsen company said. Four years ago, the opening night drew just under 26 million viewers.

Biden’s campaign said an additional 10.2 million streamed the convention online Monday night.

“We are producing a digital convention, and people are watching,” Biden spokesman T.J. Ducklo tweeted.

Meanwhile, Trump continued to court battleground voters in an effort to distract from Biden’s convention. Appearing in Arizona near the Mexican border earlier in the day, the Republican president claimed a Biden presidency would trigger “a flood of illegal immigration like the world has never seen.”

Such divisive rhetoric, which is not supported by Biden’s positions, has become a hallmark of Trump’s presidency, which has inflamed tensions at home and alienated longstanding allies around the world.

Kerry said in an excerpt of his remarks, “Joe understands that none of the issues of this world — not nuclear weapons, not the challenge of building back better after COVID, not terrorism and certainly not the climate crisis — none can be resolved without bringing nations together.”

___

AP Washington Bureau Chief Julie Pace contributed to this report.

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newstechreviews · 4 years

Link

Just 77 days before the election, Biden has neither history nor enthusiasm on his side.

She added: “Faced with a president of cowardice, Joe Biden is a man of proven courage.”

On a night that Biden was formally receiving his party’s presidential nomination, the convention was also introducing his wife, Jill Biden, to the nation as the prospective first lady.

For a second night, the Democrats featured Republicans.

The Democrats’ party elders played a prominent role throughout the night.

Clinton, a fixture of Democratic conventions for nearly three decades, addressed voters for roughly five minutes in a speech recorded at his home in Chappaqua, New York.

It remains to be seen whether the unconventional convention will give Biden the momentum he’s looking for.

Preliminary estimates show that television viewership for the first night of the virtual convention was down compared with the opening of Hillary Clinton’s onsite nominating party four years ago.

Biden’s campaign said an additional 10.2 million streamed the convention online Monday night.

“We are producing a digital convention, and people are watching,” Biden spokesman T.J. Ducklo tweeted.

___

AP Washington Bureau Chief Julie Pace contributed to this report.

#Blogger

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thefourthbranch · 4 years

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4/19/2020: Would the Founders Find Us Worthy? The headline read: "U.S. Is Nowhere Close to Reopening the Economy, Experts Say" - Jim Tankersley - The New York Times (4/6/20) First, with regard to a plan to reopen the economy, Tankersley asserted that "there is no good answer yet, in part because we don’t even have the data needed to formulate one." Then he turns to the 'expert' -- “Our ability to reopen the economy ultimately depends on our ability to better understand the spread and risk of the virus,” said Betsey Stevenson, a University of Michigan economist who worked on the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama. Question: how much of the economy must be destroyed and how many lives with it, before these 'experts' will have enough data to be able to formulate a plan? And then, how the hell long is it going to take to implement the damn thing? In an effort to help them, here is some relevant data: In order to prevent the POTENTIAL death of 200,000 people our wise leaders, in less than a month, took us from near full employment with a mere three million unemployed to, now, a staggering 22 million added to the unemployment line. In essence and, in fact, we have sacrificed the well being of 99% for the sake of 1%. Now, factor in this headline: "Everyone will likely be infected with coronavirus at some point, California health official says" - By Edmund DeMarche | Fox News (4/6/20) That is the point that I have been making from the beginning of this madness. I have also been making the point that there is a far greater danger that is posed by the precedent that is being set by the governors of this nation through the implementation and enforcement of Marshall Law. If you doubt that we are in a state of Marshall Law and would like to see an excellent nationwide accounting of the enforcement of it, and just a handful of the violations of the 1st and 4th Amendments to the Constitution, please stop and scroll down to the Blog post preceding today's, and let Matt Walsh of THE DAILYWIRE present the case in his article -- "WALSH: We Have Become A Police State, And None Of Us Should Be Okay With That" Now, with his presentation fresh in your mind, there are two things that every citizen should be enraged about. First, is the fact that our state governments have become so emboldened that they believe they can impose Marshall Law upon the citizenry based upon speculation about a virus. Second, and this is the root of the problem, is that the citizenry of this nation has reached the point where the majority are perfectly willing to allow them to do just that. The Constitution was not written to protect the citizenry against viruses and disease. It was written to protect the sovereign individual against the tyranny of government at all levels. It is one thing to watch the nations of Europe and the rest of the world submit to such tyranny. But this is the United States of America where our heritage demands that we should view tyranny as intolerable and, more importantly, stand up to it. But, apparently not! I wonder, can you hear the screams from the grave of Patrick Henry? "Is life so dear, and peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, Give me liberty or give me death!" I wonder, if the Founders were here today, would they find us worthy to fight for? For 50 years I have watched this nation steadily advancing toward this day. And here we are. My book, We of Mind and Reason, reveals how we got here and what it will take to restore this nation to a level of strength, Liberty and justice worthy of our heritage. Please go to the home page of this website and purchase a copy of We of Mind and Reason. Please join the ranks of We of Mind and Reason, The Constitutional Patriots of America, and become a voice for history's greatest instrument of Liberty, the Constitution of the United States. Thank you, and God bless America! Rick Chase

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kansascityhappenings · 6 years

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Tennessee killer says ‘Let’s rock’ before state executes him with electric chair

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A Tennessee man who murdered two people in 1984 was executed Thursday, becoming the first inmate in the United States in five years to die in an electric chair.

Edmund Zagorski, 63, had two last words: “Let’s rock.”

Reporter Adam Tamburin, with the Tennessean newspaper, described Zagorski as having a grin on his face at one time, until a sponge and helmet were put over his face. He said Zagorski then grimaced.

Jason Lamb, a reporter with CNN affiliate WTVF, said that Zagorski wore white prison trousers and a yellow shirt. He seemed to wave or raise his left hand as he was prepared for electrocution, including after a black cloth shroud was put over his face, Lamb said.

Relatives of the two men Zagorski killed attended the execution. They chose not to speak to the media.

Zagorski was pronounced dead at 8:26 p.m. ET. His last-day appeal to the US Supreme Court was denied.

Why is the electric chair an option?

Nine states have death by electric chair as an alternative to lethal injection. In 2014, Tennessee became the first state to make use of the electric chair mandatory when lethal injection drugs are unavailable.

By Tennessee law, any person convicted of a capital offense before January 1, 1999 may choose electrocution.

Zagorski began his sentence in March 1984 and the state’s prosecutors had argued “the statute also gives the Tennessee Department of Correction the authority to promulgate rules to carry out the election (of electrocution instead of lethal injection).”

Daryl Holton, who killed his three young sons and his ex-wife’s daughter, chose the electric chair in 2007.

Before Holton’s execution, Tennessee had not used the electric chair in 47 years.

The electrocution protocol is practiced monthly by the execution team, and public records indicate the chair was tested in February, the Tennessean newspaper reported.

After Zagorski chose the electric chair, Gov. Bill Haslam issued a reprieve of 10 days to prepare for the execution.

“[T]his brief reprieve will give all involved the time necessary to carry out the sentence in an orderly and careful manner,” the governor said in a statement.

Zagorski’s electrocution was the first in the US since 2013, when Virginia killed a man who murdered two people.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2018/11/01/tennessee-killer-says-lets-rock-before-state-executes-him-with-electric-chair/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2018/11/02/tennessee-killer-says-lets-rock-before-state-executes-him-with-electric-chair/

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newstfionline · 8 years

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Trump vs. the media: the war over facts

Tom Fiedler, CS Monitor, March 11, 2017

BOSTON--President Trump has repeatedly claimed that, were it not for massive voter fraud, he--not Hillary Clinton--would have won the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. He alleges that “thousands” of Massachusetts residents were bused into New Hampshire to vote against him. Both charges lack evidence.

His claims to have drawn record crowds to his inauguration collide with the reality of aerial photographs showing large empty areas of standing room. He won the election despite asserting among other falsehoods that climate change is a Chinese hoax, that campaign rival Ted Cruz’s father conspired with Lee Harvey Oswald in the Kennedy assassination, and the long-running trope that Barack Obama was born in Kenya.

When Mr. Trump is confronted with contradictory evidence, his response isn’t to admit error, or even to cease repeating the claims. He attacks the critics, none more vociferously than the news media. Presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway, in one confrontation with a TV interviewer, controversially referred to “alternative facts.”

As stunning as this may seem, historians and veteran reporters can point to numerous precedents. For example, in what remains the low point of press freedom in the US, President John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, which, among other things, criminalized criticism of government officials. Several newspaper editors--all aligned with Adams’s political rival, Thomas Jefferson--were jailed under those laws.

And Jefferson was more than ambivalent about the press himself. In 1807 he wrote: “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.” Abraham Lincoln at the height of the Civil War arrested and imprisoned the editors of two New York newspapers who had published a fake story alleging that Lincoln was about to draft 400,000 men. The newspapers and the wire service that transmitted the story were shut down.

A century later, Richard Nixon’s vice president, Spiro Agnew, mocked the press as “nattering nabobs of negativism,” and Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell, described in an off-color phrase what would happen to Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham if the paper printed a story linking Nixon to the infamous Watergate scandal. (The Post published the story and a sanitized version of Mitchell’s quote.) Nixon even kept what he called his “enemies list” on which reporters were heavily represented.

In Trump’s attacks on the press he may have found a model in George Wallace, the Alabama segregationist governor and populist presidential candidate. A feisty campaigner who favored mass rallies with a tent-revival feel--something Trump enjoys as well--Wallace routinely and with relish used traveling reporters as his foils. I covered one Wallace rally in the spring of 1976 along with a New York Times reporter who had brought his 9-year-old son with him. True to script, Wallace launched into an anti-press tirade in which he called The New York Times “communist propaganda.” He then pointed to the roped-off press section and, in his thick Southern drawl, shouted “and that man right over there works for The New York Times.” Wallace grinned broadly as the lathered crowd responded with hissing, booing, and cursing in the direction of the reporter.

This veteran newsman had endured such taunts at rallies many times before and was unfazed. But his terrified child burst into tears. When that was brought to Wallace’s attention after the rally, he summoned the Times reporter and his son to his hotel room. When they entered the suite, Wallace quickly picked up the trembling boy, wrapped him in a bear hug, and said in a soothing tone: “Listen here, son, don’t you pay no never mind to the things I said about your daddy tonight; it’s just politics.”

But are Trump’s venomous attacks--propelled to countless true believers in his tweets and passed along on partisan websites--“just politics”? The consequences to some journalists have been real and personal. Reporters who have criticized Trump have had their home addresses and the names of their children distributed through extremist sites. The Washington Post retained security guards to protect one of its reporters who had been threatened anonymously for his coverage. Female journalists and reporters with Jewish-sounding names regularly endure scathing assaults on social media. Former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly’s criticisms of Trump so riled some in her audience that she hired an armed guard to accompany her and her children as they vacationed at Disney World.

These threats and attacks come because the news reporters are doing their jobs. They report embarrassing facts about Trump’s behavior or his predilection for repeating statements that are--and you can choose your own word here--inaccurate, falsehoods, exaggerations, or lies.

Again, as with presidential disdain for the press, there is ample precedent of presidents who engage in exaggeration, hyperbole, and lying. Contrary to the myth of George Washington and the cherry tree, presidents regularly assault truth, sometimes with major consequences. Lyndon Johnson manipulated a supposed attack by Vietnamese gunboats on a US warship in the Gulf of Tonkin to justify America’s massive engagement in Vietnam. Dwight Eisenhower insisted that a plane shot down over the Soviet Union at the height of the cold war wasn’t a US plane--until the Soviets produced the captured pilot who had survived the crash of his U-2. Bill Clinton infamously went on national television to say, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” contrary to all later evidence. In her first presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton claimed she dodged sniper fire after landing at an airfield in war-torn Bosnia in 1996, yet video showed her placidly being greeted by local officials and children. In 2002 George W. Bush justified the invasion of Iraq by claiming to have “proof” that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction--“proof” that didn’t exist.

And long before Trump, there was a US president whose statements were so outlandish, so forcefully repeated--and so demonstrably false--that the press nearly gave up reporting them. That was Ronald Reagan, whose authorized biographer, Edmund Morris, described him as a “fabricator” who had an “embarrassing propensity to just make things up.” Reagan told Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir that he was in Germany with American troops in 1945 as they liberated two Nazi concentration camps exposing the horror of the Holocaust. Yet Reagan had spent the entire war in Culver City, Calif., making Army training films where he viewed footage of soldiers liberating a camp. The film became Reagan’s reality.

And at a White House ceremony honoring war heroes, Reagan recounted the bravery of a World War II bomber pilot whose plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire. The pilot ordered the crew to bail out, but one crewman was too wounded to do so. Reagan told the audience that the pilot chose to remain on the plane to comfort the crewman as they spiraled to their deaths, thereby earning the pilot a Medal of Honor. Reporters quickly discovered that the story was pure fiction, a scene in the wartime Hollywood movie “A Wing and a Prayer.”

White House reporters were flummoxed by the president’s disregard for facts like these--and even more flummoxed by the public’s disinterest in holding him to account. In a 1983 New York Times article, Steven R. Weisman noted that reporters wearied of reporting the president’s frequent “debatable assertions of fact” because the public seemed to shrug them off as “nits and nats” and “inside baseball.” When White House press secretary Larry Speakes was asked how it could be that Reagan would repeat stories that were provably false, Speakes replied, “If you tell the same story five times, it’s true.”

This history could support the argument that Trump’s disregard for fact-based statements isn’t a big deal. It might suggest that the public will even tire of being reminded of the president’s bouts with the facts and reporters will grow weary of reporting them. But there are differences between then and now. The ever-genial Reagan never treated the press as his enemy. Even when his stories were challenged, Reagan didn’t accuse the press of creating fake news, perhaps well aware that a solid majority of the public that had long gotten its news from trusted sources such as Walter Cronkite held the press in high regard.

No longer. Trust in the news media is at its lowest point since Gallup began measuring it in the 1970s. In a September 2015 Gallup poll, just 40 percent of voters said they have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in the press. That’s in stark contrast to the media’s high point of 72 percent in 1976 in the aftermath of their highly regarded coverage of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. And it was down another eight percentage points, to 32 percent, in September 2016.

Nor are relations between the White House and the mainstream media likely to get more genial anytime soon. Mr. Bannon, in fact, recently vowed that they are “going to get worse--every day.” The president has said he won’t attend the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner. From the briefing podium, the administration appears to be implementing a media strategy that pushes back against the traditional news organizations that have covered the White House while favoring those that are unabashedly friendly to the president. White House press secretary Sean Spicer recently barred reporters from CNN, the Los Angeles Times, Politico, and The New York Times from participating in an informal daily briefing, while including reporters from such pro-Trump outlets as Breitbart and The Washington Times. Dean Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times said that “nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties.”

So what does this mean? Like wounded animals, the news media seem to be easy prey for Trump’s persistent battering. An Emerson College survey in February found that 49 percent of registered voters said Trump was “more truthful” than the news media, while only 39 percent had the opposite view. If that situation is sustained, the news media’s ability to hold the president to account for misstatements or misbehavior will have limited, if any, impact. And reversing this situation will be difficult in large part because of the internet’s ability to provide echo chambers where individuals of all political stripes can find support for their beliefs. No longer is the news media able to fill its pre-internet role as the gatekeeper of reliable information, separating facts from “alternative facts,” a term that has quickly become shorthand for Orwellian falsehood, though Ms. Conway has said she simply meant an alternative perspective. Cognitive neuroscience tells us our beliefs are so tightly held that, even when presented with evidence to disprove them, the typical response is to reject the evidence rather than alter the belief.

At this point in the nation’s history, having a president with little regard for facts that challenge his beliefs isn’t a trivial matter. American democracy presupposes a well-informed citizenry--that is, it depends upon voters making decisions using factual information. Legendary columnist Walter Lippmann wrote in 1920, “There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies.” That is as true today as it was a century ago and serves well in defining the purpose of serious journalism in the Trump era.

#journalism in the Trump era #news media and president #Trump and news media #presidents and media

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forasecondtherewedwon · 8 months

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The Artful Dodger, tumblrfied: "Bully in the Alley" 7/?

#Second's TAD edit #The Artful Dodger #TAD s1e6 #The Artful Dodger spoilers #Lady Fanny Fox #Frances 'Red' Scrubbs #Governor Edmund Fox #Captain Lucien Gaines #Dr. Jack Dawkins #Lady Belle Fox #dodgerfox #Bayani 'Flashbang' Rivera

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viralhottopics · 8 years

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Obama aide: Trump should ‘reach out’ to Democrats boycotting inauguration

Twenty-three House Democrats plan to sit out Trumps swearing-in, including John Lewis, who the president-elect attacked over Russian hacking scandal

The Obama administration has urged incoming US president Donald Trump to reach out to the growing faction of House Democrats who have pledged to boycott the presidential inauguration, as some representatives question Trumps legitimacy, citing the Russian hacking scandal that continues to plague the transition.

Twenty-three House Democrats, including civil rights leader John Lewis and John Conyers, the longest serving congressman currently in office, have said they will not attend Fridays inauguration, marking a significant break from the tradition of witnessing the peaceful transition of power.

Georgia congressman Lewis, who was arrested numerous times in the 1960s civil rights campaigns and was beaten during the historic march over the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Alabama in 1965, said on Friday he would not attend the ceremony due to concerns over Russian interference in the 2016 election.

I dont see this president-elect as a legitimate president, Lewis told NBCs Meet the Press, citing a consensus in the US intelligence community that Russian hackers infiltrated the emails of a top Clinton aide and leaked thousands of embarrassing documents to destabilise the election.

I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected, and they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.

Over the weekend, which marked the start of the Martin Luther King Jr Day public holiday, the president-elect used Twitter to lambast the 76-year-old African American, whom he said should spend more time fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results.

All talk, talk, talk no action or results. Sad!

Despite a slight uptick in 2015, the national crime rate has descended to historic lows under the Obama administration. Lewis congressional district in Atlanta includes several wealthy neighborhoods, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Hartsfield-Jackson airport and a major hub for computer science, the Georgia Institute of Technology.

On Sunday, White House chief of staff Denis McDonough told CNNs State of the Union Lewiss concerns were by no means trivial but argued Obama believed that Trump was the freely elected president.

My hope would be that the president-elect would reach out to somebody as consequential as somebody who is such a leader as John Lewis, McDonough said.

That would be the kind of thing that would not only send a message to the American people that were prepared to work together, but would also send a message to the Russians that we are united. Their efforts to divide us, to weaken us, to advance their own interests at the expense of ours, are going to fail.

Democrat senator Bernie Sanders, who challenged Hillary Clinton for the partys presidential nomination in 2016, stopped short of branding Trumps presidency illegitimate, despite acknowledging his great concerns about Russian interference in the election.

Do I think Russians supported him? Do I think they tried to get him elected? Do I think it worked against Clinton? I do. And that is something that has to be investigated. Sanders told ABC News on Sunday, adding that describing Trump as illegitimate would be just words.

On Friday the senate intelligence committee said it planned to question senior figures in the incoming Trump administration as part of an inquiry into Russian hacking during the election.

Vice-president-elect Mike Pence indicated on Sunday that such an act of reconciliation between Trump and Lewis would be unlikely, telling Fox News he was deeply disappointed by Lewiss comments.

The anger was mirrored by Trumps pick for chief of staff, Reince Priebus, who branded the remarks as incredibly disappointing and irresponsible during an interview with ABC news on Sunday.

Lewis too seemed not to be in conciliatory mood, telling NBC that if Trump were to ask him to work with him, I would say, Mr President, Mr Trump, its going to be hard. Its going to be tough.

Pence also offered the frankest denial yet of any contact between the Trump campaign and Russian authorities during the election, as was described in an explosive but unverified dossier authored by a former MI6 agent and published by BuzzFeed earlier in the week.

Pressed repeatedly, Pence eventually said: Of course not, why would there be any contacts between the campaign?

He added: This is all a distraction, and its all part of a narrative to delegitimize the election. The American people see right through it.

Pence had earlier caveated his response by stating he had only been part of the Trump campaign since July last year.

I joined this campaign in the summer and I can tell you that all the contact by the Trump campaign and associates was with the American people, he said.

The former Indiana governor also denied that phone calls between Trumps incoming national security adviser Mike Flynn and Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak, involved discussions related to President Obamas sanctions against the Russian regime in response its interference in the election.

I talked to General Flynn yesterday, and the conversations that took place at that time were not in any way related to new US sanctions against Russia and the expulsion of diplomats, Pence said.

Pence did not address reports suggesting that Trumps first foreign visit as president would be to Iceland for a summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin, who, the intelligence agencies said, approved the hacking operation.