#Ron Filipkowski

[contemplatingoutlander]

Biden was working today on a multinational agreement on Israel, while the GOP was lying about him

Ron Filipkowski@RonFilipkowski: While Republicans were are screaming on Twitter that Biden called a lid on public events at noon, it was because he was busy hammering out a multinational aid agreement with our allies, among other things. While Republicans were doing important things like posting click bait.

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[bhodi-anjo-daishin]

Well said Ron!

[porterdavis]

How's that VP auditioning going Kristi?

[aunti-christ-ine]

🙄

Ugh.

Apartheid Clyde strikes again! 🫣

[misfitwashere]

The Big Reason Why Hunter's Pardon is Justified: Kash Patel

I've listened to hundreds of interviews of Trump's FBI Director nominee

Ron Filipkowski

Dec 02, 2024

I awoke this morning after a three day unplugged trip to Montreal to learn that in the previous 24 hours, two things had happened - Trump named Kash Patel as his FBI Director and then Joe Biden pardoned his only surviving son, Hunter. Neither one of these things were especially surprising since it is clear to me the two things are connected, but I was surprised by some of the reaction from those in the media, the Never Trump (former) Republicans, and a few Democratic elected officials.

Most of the criticism has taken the form of three primary arguments: 1. Trump will now have justification to make egregious pardons because of this; 2. Joe Biden lied and Dems who support the decision are hypocrites who claim to believe in the Rule of Law but really don’t; 3. Critics of the critics who cite Trump’s previous pardons are wrong because his awfulness doesn’t justify Joe’s awfulness.

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None of these things address the REAL reason for the pardon - Trump’s appointment of Patel, who has ranted and raved for the past four years on every right-wing podcast in America that he was going to get Hunter Biden for things he has never been prosecuted for. Joe takes that threat seriously. Apparently, the critics either do not, or are ignorant and unaware of exactly who Patel is and what he has pledged to do specific to Hunter.

I have spent the last 4 years covering right-wing shows, channels, conferences and podcasts. Some very fringy, conspiratorial and obscure. I am aware from time to time a legacy media journalist will dip their toe into that world by spending a week watching Steve Bannon or Charlie Kirk, write an article, and give their expert analysis. That has not been me. I have been immersed in their world - day after day, week after week, year after year. One person I have watched hundreds of times at all of these places is Kash Patel.

Patel first caught the attention of Trump while serving as an aide to Devin Nunes’s staff during the 2017-18 RussiaGate investigation. That led to an appointment by Trump late in his Administration to a post that Patel has no business ever being in - interim Chief of Staff to interim DOD Secretary Chris Miller. An interim to an interim. I have also heard Patel lie about and exaggerate his resume and accomplishments on an almost daily basis to the point of absurdity.

In these hundreds of Patel interviews there was always a central theme: That Trump was going to win, Patel was likely going to be appointed CIA or FBI Director, then he was going to use that appointment to go after Trump’s enemies from the Russia investigation, members of the media who supposedly lied about Trump, eliminate thousands of career civil servants (the Deep State), and go after Hunter and Joe Biden with a new criminal investigation.

I have posted many clips over the years of some of Patel’s most outlandish threats and statements. Some of them have been resurfaced by legacy media outlets, but only the ones where Patel vows to go after them, or to clean out government agencies. They never play the clips I posted where he obsesses on Hunter Biden, and boy, was he obsessed with Hunter Biden.

This is what Patel said last year in just one of the clips I posted:

Steve Bannon to Kash: “Do you feel confident when you go back as a senior member of this Administration starting in 2025 that you will be able to deliver the goods? That we can have serious prosecutions? That the people who did evil deeds will be held accountable and prosecuted? Can you deliver this in the first couple of months so we can get rolling on criminal prosecutions?”

Kash Patel: “Yes. We will find the conspirators not just in government but in the media. We are going to come after the people in the media who helped Biden rig the presidential election - we’re putting you all on notice.”

I should also emphasize that when he is talking about media “rigging” the election, he is talking about their refusal to cover the contents of the Hunter Biden laptop - Rudy Giuliani’s October Surprise in 2020.

Patel claimed in one interview after another that Hunter had gotten away with numerous felonies in connection with his business dealings in Ukraine and China, and that Joe Biden was also guilty and complicit in those crimes. James Comer spent two years investigating those allegations. He took dozens of depositions. Held numerous hearings. It was a disaster with one touted claim after another getting debunked when people actually had to present evidence under oath rather than on the internet.

Patel also said this in a separate interview specifically about Hunter:

“Hunter Biden is guilty of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Hunter Biden was shown to have been in bed with criminals from Ukraine and China to lobby the US government through the laundering of money that Hunter Biden received and leveraging his relationship with his dad. This DOJ should charge him, but they won’t. So I think that is where we need to focus (when we get in).”

The congressional investigation was so bad that Comer refused to even bring an impeachment case to a vote in his own committee, knowing that he didn’t have the votes from members of his own party. Democrat Jared Moskowitz repeatedly taunted him to call for a vote in committee on impeachment. Comer refused. That’s because Kevin McCarthy told him not to do it. Then Mike Johnson told him the same. They knew it was nonsense, they had no case, and many Republicans would vote against it.

But Patel claimed that Comer was simply weak and incompetent, and when Trump returned to power they would take over the investigation. That means a whole new round of subpoenas, grand juries, potential indictments, where many of Joe Biden’s family members and himself - not just Hunter - would likely be prosecuted.

When Trump nominated Patel as his FBI Director, Joe Biden already knew it was coming because it had been rumored for weeks. JD Vance let the cat out of the bag in a quickly deleted tweet two weeks ago where he disclosed that they were going to fire current Director Chris Wray despite the fact that he still had three years left in his term.

So it is important to emphasize, as nobody in the media seems willing to do, that this pardon is much more about protecting the Biden family from a deranged, vindictive Kash Patel than it is about Hunter’s BS gun charge that he was already convicted of.

I will give the critics in the media and some Dems who have chimed in some benefit of the doubt on the grounds that I don’t think they are aware at all of the things Patel has been saying about Hunter on the right-wing podcast circuit over the past four years. But I’m not sure even if they were aware it would’ve prevented them from clutching their pearls on their moral high ground. It’s far too important to them to feel like everyone is dirty, hypocritical and corrupt except them.

I have read the summary of every single pardon Trump granted during his term. Hundreds of them. It is a horror show. It is a litany of convicted Republican politicians, Trump donors, millionaires, drug traffickers, violent criminals, fraudsters, con artists, and just generally repulsive people. Trump also refused to use DOJ’s pardon office for any input - requests for pardons were screened by his son-in-law Jared Kushner in an obvious pay-for-play scheme. To suggest that there is any equivalency or justification for these things, or Trump’s future promise to pardon J6ers or commute the sentence of drug trafficker Ross Ulbricht, because of the Hunter Pardon is utterly absurd.

Joe Biden said many months ago in response to a question that he would not pardon Hunter. But the election was still months away. The circumstances have changed dramatically since that interview. Trump was elected. He first attempted to appoint Matt Gaetz as his Attorney General. Then replaced him with Pam Bondi, who isn’t much better on substance or future intent. Then he appointed a psycho obsessed with prosecuting Hunter as his FBI Director. That would change anyone’s minds about the landscape - especially a father who has already lost a wife, son and a daughter.

But the critics don’t seem to want to take any of that into account while calling Joe Biden a “liar.”

Joe Biden doesn’t want to spend his remaining few years after five decades in public service being hauled into courtrooms by Kash Patel and Pam Bondi. That is why he did this. So many of the critics still don’t fully understand what is about to happen with these unstable, vengeful lunatics being appointed to the most senior positions of the US government. I do because I have listened to them for the past four years, and I believe them when they promise revenge and retribution.

Or maybe the critics do have a pretty good idea about what is coming, but they just don’t really care as long as what they are criticizing doesn’t directly impact them.

Either way, I’m tired of their sanctimony, false piety, and weakness. Many of them have made millions from their roles as Trump critics and become prominent on cable news shows. Now maybe they’ve decided to flip the script.

Count me out.

[planetofsnarfs]

[roninkairi]

Kevin is a very forgiving person for all the wrong reasons apparently.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Adam Wren at Politico Magazine:

NEW YORK CITY — Brian Glenn was about to go live. Amid the hundreds of reporters crowded outside a Manhattan courthouse on the first morning of Donald Trump’s criminal trial last week, Glenn, the director of programming for Right Side Broadcasting Network, would be delivering the news from the circus straight to hundreds of thousands of faithful MAGA viewers. Glenn looked like a typical television newscaster, but a bright blue and white pin he wore on the lapel of his suit set him apart from others in the press corral: It featured a big, bold “47” — a nod to Trump’s possible return to the presidency, which was gifted to him by the Trump campaign. Surrounded by Trump fans, Glenn cut the figure of a former homecoming king navigating the crowd at the big game. People wearing red caps kept coming up asking to be interviewed, a request he repeatedly obliged. In between, he pulled out his iPhone and flashed me photos from when he had shown up at this same spot to cover Trump’s arraignment last April. Pointing to one image, he singled out his girlfriend, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. (He calls himself the other half of “MAGA America’s favorite couple.”) He recounted how his crew had to cut their coverage short that day after Greene was mobbed by press and onlookers. “I probably physically bulldozed a dozen people getting her out of there,” Glenn said.

As Glenn spoke, he stopped mid-sentence, a voice breaking through his AirPods. “30 seconds?” I heard him say. He quickly returned to his mark and began to broadcast to an audience of what would soon blossom into more than 200,000 RSBN viewers spread across YouTube and Rumble, the right-coded video service. “This is Biden’s witch hunt,” Glenn told his viewers. “This is what this is. This is Biden’s trial. This is his ability, or effort right now, to take President Trump off the campaign trail.” Right Side Broadcasting Network dates back to 2016, when stay-at-home dad Joe Seales launched the online channel in order to live stream Trump rallies. Eight years later, RSBN has grown into a full outlet that employs roughly a dozen people and features a website full of stories. RSBN is like NFL RedZone for Trump rallies, covering them hours before any speakers approach the dais. Now, as Trump’s general election campaign kicks into high gear, it has also cemented itself as the pro-Trump media outlet of record for the MAGA base. The network boasts 1.64 million subscribers on YouTube (a larger subscribership than One America News Network) and another half a million on Rumble.

Glenn is the star who Seales has largely handed control over to. He is the Trump rally gameday host who plumbs the depths of MAGA America in the crowds wherever Trump goes. Glenn is fast becoming one of Trump’s favorite reporters, likely racking up more one-on-one interviews with Trump in the last year than any other journalist. During gaggles, Trump often singles him out for positive-slanted questions after entertaining a series of hardballs from other reporters. Christina Bobb, one of Trump’s revolving cast of attorneys, is a regular guest alongside Glenn on RSBN’s coverage of the trials.

[...]

RSBN has developed a reputation for going nearly everywhere that Trump ends up. Thanks to that flood-the-zone mentality of documenting Trump’s every move, it’s likely your favorite mainstream media reporter’s go-to method for keeping tabs on Trump on days that they’re off the campaign trail. Filipkowski and Glenn have formed an unlikely friendship online over direct messages that have spanned years, something I did not expect when I reached out to Filipkowski, a prominent X personality who made his name by spending almost every waking moment dunking on Trump and the MAGA movement. “I actually have found them to be the most valuable resource over the last four years to understanding MAGA — more than any other source,” Filipkowski told me. “I’ve probably posted 50 or 100 Brian Glenn interview clips of Trump, probably even 200. I find those clips incredibly valuable, because you’re getting it unvarnished. That’s when [Trump] lets his guard down a little, when he’s got a friendly face.”

What Filipkowski and many reporters most appreciate about Glenn’s coverage is a simple open-ended question he asks MAGA stans: What is it that you love most about Donald Trump? “If you say ‘I’m from the New York Times,’ his fans at rallies say ‘you’re fake news’ and don’t talk to you,” Dave Weigel, a Semafor politics reporter who relies on the site, told me. “That’s obviously less interesting than somebody saying, ‘We love you guys. Let me explain to you all my views in an interesting way,’ which is what Right Side Broadcasting does.” RSBN has “replaced mainstream media in the needs of your average Trump supporter: Why would you turn on Fox where they’re going to cut away when you can watch this website, and they’ve also got more access,” Weigel said.

Politico Magazine reports on Brian Glenn, the boyfriend of far-right extremist Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Glenn is a host for far-right MAGA propaganda outlet Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN).

[cynicalclassicist]

Makes one question how popular he is really.

Notice a pattern.

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[latestnewschronicle]

Analyzing the Impact of the Ron Filipkowski and Laura Loomer Partnership

In the dynamic world of Florida politics, a surprising union has captured the spotlight. Laura Loomer, the provocative far-right activist, and Ron Filipkowski, a former staunch Republican turned vocal critic, have joined forces in a remarkable partnership.

Loomer’s notoriety knows no bounds, from handcuffing herself to Twitter’s doors in protest to amplify her conservative voice, to Ron Filipkowski’s journey, shifting from right-wing loyalty to progressive advocacy. Together, they share a common mission: challenging Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

But what does this alliance mean for Florida politics? It means a broader, more diverse opposition to DeSantis. It means amplified media coverage through their social media prowess. And it might mean legal battles, adding fuel to their fiery activism.

Yet, public reception varies widely, with some celebrating their activism while others decry it as extreme. Keep an eye on this dynamic duo; their collaboration promises to reshape the Sunshine State’s political landscape.

Source: Economic Insider

Also Read: OpenAI ChatGPT Facing Financial Troubles, May Go Bankrupt

[cynicalclassicist]

Pretty much. The GOP see Putin as the ideal leader. Trump sees somewhere like Canada and is enraged. He wants to do the same thing as Putin and spread outwards.

Somehow we got to the point where millions of American Republicans love Vladimir Putin and hate Canada.

[arthropooda]

[victusinveritas]

From Rebecca Solnit:

Just in case I'm a major news source for you or your news sources are not telling you enough about the grotesquerie, here's what happened at the hateathon tonight in Madison Square Garden. It was shockingly ugly (in our now familiar shocking-but-not-surprising mode) and interesting in that it won't exactly widen the base of support, including as it did insults for Palestinians, Puerto Ricans, Latinx people generally, watermelon jokes and "Dixie" for Black people, and an endless stream of weird miserable resentful white men, including Musk and RFK Jr and the disbarred Rudy Giuliani.

The argument that it's instead trying to wind up the faithful to be unleashed after Trump loses the election makes more sense (and it's long been striking that Trump has always focused far more on stoking and stroking his base than expanding it). Pretty sure no presidential candidate for a major party has ever orchestrated anything like it. Spiritually they were all wearing bedsheets around a burning cross.

Striking that both Vance and Tucker Carlson expressed hate and scorn for Trump only a few years ago. It's transactional for most of them. And Trump is too stupid, apparently, to realize that both Musk and Vance (who told an unending stream of lies on the Sunday morning shows) intend to push him aside and rule themselves should they win.

They're very attached to the idea that a nebulous "they" tried to kill Trump, rather than the actual young registered Republican who took a shot at him in August.

Ron Filipkowski tweeted:

@RonFilipkowski

·

5h

So far the speakers at the Trump rally has been a disgusting racist who trashed Jews, Latinos and Black people, a drunk disbarred guy under indictment who just lost everything in a lawsuit, and an unhinged Christian nationalist who called Harris the antichrist.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

AsOTD - in Columbus, Ohio yesterday...

the comfort level that rises when power is given to certain parties... I sure hope we survive this next era... 🙏

(Mary Elaine LeBey)

* * * *

Don’t fall for “the red mirage”

November 18, 2024

Robert B. Hubbell

The outcome of the election has been difficult to absorb because of the deliberate distortion of the scale and severity of the losses suffered by Democrats. We were warned before Election Day that there would be a “red mirage” that would create the illusion of a Republican victory in the early hours of Election Night. The hope was that Democrats would overtake Republicans as early leads from “same day” votes were offset by mail ballots and early voting tallies. Because Kamala Harris did not overtake Trump on Election Night, discussion of the “red mirage” was dislodged from the news cycle by insufferable articles that fall into two broad categories: “Scold the Democrats” and “Who’s to Blame?”.

But the red mirage was real—and it persists, distorting the true outcome of the 2024 election and deepening the disappointment of Democrats. The red mirage persists because of a disinformation campaign to create the illusion of a “mandate” that Trump did not earn on Election Day. It also persists because of the laziness, imprecision, and lack of perspective in the legacy media.

Over the weekend, Trump's share of the popular vote slipped below 50%--to 49.96%. It will continue to decline as California completes its tally over the next week. Kamala Harris currently has 48.24% of the popular vote. See Cook Political Report, 2024 National Popular Vote Tracker.

Failing to garner a majority of the election day vote does not constitute a mandate (no matter how many times Trumpworld repeats that lie). Moreover, Kamala Harris’s current 1.7% deficit in the popular vote qualifies as the third narrowest loss in the last 136 years! See Meidas Touch, Resistance HQ Bulletin 6 - by Ron Filipkowski.

Trump's alleged “landslide” in electoral college ballots is also a mirage. As noted in the Meidas Touch article above, Kamala Harris could have won the electoral college if she had garnered an additional 238,000 votes in three swing states.

The tales of a “mandate” or “landslide” are fiction. The election was extraordinarily close—as predicted all along. But elections are binary and being “extraordinarily close” does not convert a loss into a win.

Still, being “extraordinarily close” should help us put the 2024 election into perspective. Many readers are understandably bewildered by the (incorrect) notion that the “majority” of Americans voted for Trump. As I explained in an earlier newsletter, 93 million Americans eligible to vote did not do so. Those 93 million eligible voters dwarf the 76.5 million vote total currently held by Trump.

Of course, we do not know how those 93 million eligible voters would have voted, but we do know—as a matter of fact—that they did not vote for Trump in 2024. So, let’s excise from our narrative that the “majority of Americans” voted for Trump. That is not true—not by a long shot!

Finally, the red/blue maps that depict Trump's electoral college victory are grossly misleading. Land does not vote. People do. So, the traditional “winner take all” color-coding as depicted in the Cook Political Report map creates a distorted image of scale of Trump's victory in 2024. A state that Trump won by several thousand votes is solidly red—effectively erasing the millions of Democrats who supported Kamala Harris.

Don’t be misled or fooled. Don’t allow yourself to be lied to by bad actors who seek to use the “red mirage” to create the illusion that Trump has a mandate to trample the rule of law or ignore the Constitution. He does not. About one-third of eligible voters cast their ballots in favor of Trump. That is not a mandate. It is a narrow victory that is being contorted into a red mirage.

Most importantly, do not allow the red mirage to deepen your disappointment or undermine your faith in our ability to recover from the 2024 electoral outcome. Victory is tantalizingly close at hand. We must keep the faith and stay the course, despite our understandable disappointment.

GOP margin in the House continues to shrink

To place an exclamation point on the above story, determined Democrats are curing ballots in federal and state races to great success. Rather than giving up, these brave souls have thrown themselves into the fight even though they are as disappointed as the rest of us.

The House currently has 218 GOP seats and 212 Democratic seats—with five seats to be called. Democrats currently lead in two of the five still contested races, suggesting that Democrats will have at least 215 votes—with the possibility of 216. Those margins would give Republicans only a two or three seat margin of control in the House—a weak position that will require Republicans to rely on Democratic cooperation on many issues. See NYTimes, Tracking the Remaining House Races. Accessible to all.

And because Trump has nominated three GOP House members to his cabinet, it is possible that Republicans will have a one-vote margin for the early months of the 119th Congress. (Vacant seats in the House must be filled by special election, not by gubernatorial appointment. See Ballotpedia, Filling vacancies in the U.S. House of Representatives.)

Democrats have fought their way back to a narrow margin because of the incredible vote curing efforts on behalf of Derek Tran (CA 45) who was losing by 3,000 votes but now leads by 36 votes. Those efforts continue—as do efforts for other candidates, including Adam Gray (CA-13), who is trailing by 2,004 votes. And I hope that there is an all-hands-on-deck ballot curing effort for Christina Bohannan (IA-1), who currently trails by only 801 votes!

While the failure of Democrats to gain control of the House is a bitter pill, we must remember that Speaker Mike Johnson was required to rely on Democrats multiple times in the 118th Congress to pass legislation. That same phenomenon will be in effect in the 119th Congress.

Moreover, eight House Republicans won races by less than 10,000 votes. Trump's lurch to the right with this cabinet nominations should cause those Republicans to consider whether they are vulnerable in 2026 if they support the extremist agenda implied by his cabinet nominations.

Watch Professor Laurence Tribe explain why he believes that democratic institutions will prevail

During the 2024 campaign, commentators frequently referred to “the end of democracy” if Trump won. That phrasing was meant to evoke the urgent threat posed by a second Trump presidency. But it should not have been understood to suggest that democracy would literally end if Trump won. The only way that could happen is if hundreds of millions of Americans rolled over and refused to battle for democracy. That isn’t going to happen—because you and I are not going to let it happen.

Professor Laurence Tribe appeared on MSNBC to explain why he believes that democratic institutions will survive the stress test of second Trump presidency. See MSNBC, Laurence Tribe: It’s not over. The resistance is about to ignite.

If you are worried about democracy—and you should be—you should listen to Professor Tribe explain why he believes that our democracy will endure and prevail. As Professor Tribe explains, the United States benefits from a decentralized government that can serve as a strong counterweight to Trump’s authoritarian ambitions. It’s within this space — the system of checks and balances — that the resistance will emerge.

Watch Professor’s Tribe’s explanation. It will renew your confidence—as it did for me! Most importantly, Professor Tribe reminds us that everyone has a role in the resistance to Trump's plans to circumvent and weaken the Constitution and rule of law!

President Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to use US missiles to strike Russia.

Legacy media is reporting that President Biden has authorized Ukraine to use US missiles to strike “within Russia.” That description confused me. After reading several articles, it is clear that the authorization is to allow Ukraine to use the missiles inside Russian territory that Ukraine has already captured from Russia—i.e., Kursk Oblast,  See The Guardian, Biden lifts ban on Ukraine using US weapons to strike deeper into Russia.

Per The Guardian,

US President Joe Biden has authorized Ukrainian forces to use US-provided ATACMS in limited strikes against Russian and North Korean military targets within Kursk Oblast. The NYT and Washington Post reported on November 17 that unspecified US officials expect Ukrainian forces to initially conduct strikes against Russian and North Korean forces within Kursk Oblast and that the Biden Administration could expand this authorization to use ATACMS against targets elsewhere in Russia in the future.

Notably, the US missiles in question have a range of only 190 miles. Russia apparently anticipated the US granting authorization to Ukraine to use the missiles. Russia reportedly withdrew all aircraft from the range of the US missiles several weeks ago.

Nonetheless, the expanded authorization is a clear attempt to help Ukraine gain a strategic advantage in advance any peace talks forced on Ukraine by Trump's withdrawal of support for Ukraine.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]