#investigating insurrection

[ivygorgon]

An open letter to the U.S. Congress

January 6 Insurrection

3 so far! Help us get to 5 signers!

Please support a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol.

In my lifetime, I have never before been so aware of the date the electoral college votes were formally counted to validate a Presidential election.

The day is well-documented — video, photos, sworn testimony of witnesses and rioters, a noose was hung for then Vice President Pence, elected officials barricaded doors and vacated chambers, the Confederate flag was marched into the capitol, the list goes on — 5 people died, $30,000,000 of damage was done. Watching the events unfold that day, I was terrified for our elected officials, terrified for our democracy and horrified by the unhinged insurrectionists. What have we become?

Please do what is right for our democracy and support a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection.

▶ Created on May 19, 2021 by Kathryn

📱 Text SIGN PBYCVZ to 50409

🤯 Liked it? FOLLOW KATE.RESIST

[justinspoliticalcorner]

S.V. Dáte at HuffPost:

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s coup attempt that ended with the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol may be on the cusp of making new headlines, just weeks ahead of the November election. Or not. That decision is now in the hands of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who will determine when and how much to make public of a detailed accounting of special counsel Jack Smith’s evidence backing up the four felony charges against Trump. That could include material never before seen, such as grand jury testimony from then-Vice President Mike Pence and Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows. Whether and how much any of those details will matter to voters in the campaign’s final weeks, though, is an open question. “Very, very unlikely,” said Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. “Jan. 6 is already baked into this election cake.” Fellow Republican David Kochel, a consultant and veteran of numerous campaigns, said he also doubts that any new information or details about testimony will change many minds. “If you care about Jan. 6, you’re already for Harris,” he said about Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee. “I guess anything helps. And when Trump is covered wall to wall, it’s usually unhelpful to him.”

The fact that Donald Trump’s coup attempt on January 6th, 2021 could be back in the news right before election day is a bad omen for Trump’s chances.

[qqueenofhades]

"Weaponization of the Federal Government." I just....I just can't.

[sbrown82]

[jonostroveart]

Speechiflied

[ivygorgon]

🏠 Tell the US House to Expel Members of Congress That Participated in The Jan 6 attack on The Capitol

🖊️ Text SIGN PSDAJA to 50409

📜 Tell the US Congress to Impose Section 3 of 14th Amendment Against Trump

🖊️ Text SIGN PEREHG to 50409

Happy Traitor Day to those who celebrate.

[welcometoqueer]

Just to be clear, Kamala conceded with grace and dignity but it is still well within everyone’s right to demand an investigation and even a recount with due cause despite a winner being declared. U.S.Americans have the right to demand free and fair elections (we don’t have a right to, say, start an insurrection like certain people did after the 2020 election).

Many, including major swing states, (Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and more) have already admitted to data and ballots not being recognized or lost and are recounting or calling for a recount. It usually takes days to count and record votes, a day after a bunch of election tampering is not enough.

If you used a mail-in ballot and haven’t yet, check if it was actually counted and “recognized.” A lot of mail-in voters from swing states found out that their ballots were uncounted today.

[liberalsarecool]

I owe my Trump-supporting friends an apology. I’ve been critical of the Trump presidency and am still exhausted from the experience.

But to be fair, President Trump wasn’t that bad, other than:

• when he incited an insurrection against the government,

• mismanaged a pandemic that killed over a million Americans

• separated children from their families

• lost those children in the bureaucracy

• tear-gassed peaceful protesters on Lafayette Square so he could hold a photo op holding a Bible in front of a church

• tried to block all Muslims from entering the country

• got impeached

• got impeached again

• had the worst jobs record of any president in modern history

• pressured Ukraine to dig dirt on Joe Biden

• fired the FBI director for investigating his ties to Russia

• bragged about firing the FBI director on TV

• took Vladimir Putin’s word over the US intelligence community

• diverted military funding to build his wall

• caused the longest government shutdown in US history

• called Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate”

• lied nearly 40,000 times

• banned transgender people from serving in the military

• ejected reporters from the White House briefing room who asked tough questions

• vetoed the defense funding bill because it renamed military bases named for Confederate soldiers

• refused to release his tax returns

• increased the national debt by nearly $8 trillion

• had three of the highest annual trade deficits in U.S. history

• called veterans and soldiers who died in combat losers and suckers

• coddled the leader of Saudi Arabia after he ordered the execution and dismembering of a US-based journalist

• refused to concede the 2020 election

• hired his unqualified daughter and son-in-law to work in the White House

• walked out of an interview with Lesley Stahl

• called neo-Nazis “very fine people”

• suggested that people should inject bleach into their bodies to fight COVID

• abandoned our allies the Kurds to Turkey

• pushed through massive tax cuts for the wealthiest but balked at helping working Americans

• incited anti-lockdown protestors in several states at the height of the pandemic

• withdrew the US from the Paris climate accords

• withdrew the US from the Iranian nuclear deal

• withdrew the US from the Trans Pacific Partnership which was designed to block China’s advances

• insulted his own Cabinet members on Twitter

• pushed the leader of Montenegro out of the way during a photo op

• failed to reiterate US commitment to defending NATO allies

• called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries

• called the city of Baltimore the “worst in the nation”

• claimed that he single-handedly brought back the phrase “Merry Christmas” even though it hadn’t gone anywhere

• forced his Cabinet members to praise him publicly like some cult leader

• believed he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

• berated and belittled his hand-picked Attorney General when he recused himself from the Russia probe

• suggested the US should buy Greenland

• colluded with Mitch McConnell to push through federal judges and two Supreme Court justices after supporting efforts to prevent his predecessor from appointing judges

• repeatedly called the media “enemies of the people”

• claimed that if we tested fewer people for COVID we’d have fewer cases

• violated the emoluments clause

• thought that Nambia was a country

• told Bob Woodward in private that the coronavirus was a big deal but then downplayed it in public

• called his exceedingly faithful vice president a “p---y” for following the Constitution

• nearly got us into a war with Iran after threatening them by tweet

• nominated a corrupt head of the EPA

• nominated a corrupt head of HHS

• nominated a corrupt head of the Interior Department

• nominated a corrupt head of the USDA

• praised dictators and authoritarians around the world while criticizing allies

• refused to allow the presidential transition to begin

• insulted war hero John McCain – even after his death

• spent an obscene amount of time playing golf after criticizing Barack Obama for playing (far less) golf while president

• falsely claimed that he won the 2016 popular vote

• called the Muslim mayor of London a “stone cold loser”

• falsely claimed that he turned down being Time’s Man of the Year

• considered firing special counsel Robert Mueller on several occasions

• mocked wearing face masks to guard against transmitting COVID

• locked Congress out of its constitutional duty to confirm Cabinet officials by hiring acting ones

• used a racist dog whistle by calling COVID the “China virus”

• hired and associated with numerous shady figures that were eventually convicted of federal offenses including his campaign manager and national security adviser

• pardoned several of his shady associates

• gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to two congressman who amplified his batshit crazy conspiracy theories

• got into telephone fight with the leader of Australia(!)

• had a Secretary of State who called him a moron

• forced his press secretary to claim without merit that his was the largest inauguration crowd in history

• botched the COVID vaccine rollout

• tweeted so much dangerous propaganda that Twitter eventually banned him

• charged the Secret Service jacked-up rates at his properties

• constantly interrupted Joe Biden in their first presidential debate

• claimed that COVID would “magically” disappear

• called a U.S. Senator “Pocahontas”

• used his Twitter account to blast Nordstrom when it stopped selling Ivanka’s merchandise

• opened up millions of pristine federal lands to development and drilling

• got into a losing tariff war with China that forced US taxpayers to bail out farmers

• claimed that his losing tariff war was a win for the US

• ignored or didn’t even take part in daily intelligence briefings

• blew off honoring American war dead in France because it was raining

• redesigned Air Force One to look like the Trump Shuttle

• got played by Kim Jung Un and his “love letters”

• threatened to go after social media companies in clear violation of the Constitution

• botched the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico

• threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans when he finally visited them

• pressured the governor and secretary of state of Georgia to “find” him votes

• thought that the Virgin islands had a President

• drew on a map with a Sharpie to justify his inaccurate tweet that Alabama was threatened by a hurricane

• allowed White House staff to use personal email accounts for official businesses after blasting Hillary Clinton for doing the same thing

• rolled back regulations that protected the public from mercury and asbestos

• pushed regulators to waste time studying snake-oil remedies for COVID

• rolled back regulations that stopped coal companies from dumping waste into rivers

• held blatant campaign rallies at the White House

• tried to take away millions of Americans’ health insurance because the law was named for a Black man

• refused to attend his successors’ inauguration

• nominated the worst Education Secretary in history

• threatened judges who didn’t do what he wanted

• attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci

• promised that Mexico would pay for the wall (it didn’t)

• allowed political hacks to overrule government scientists on major reports on climate change and other issues

• struggled navigating a ramp after claiming his opponent was feeble

• called an African-American Congresswoman “low IQ”

• threatened to withhold federal aid from states and cities with Democratic leaders

• went ahead with rallies filled with maskless supporters in the middle of a pandemic

• claimed that legitimate investigations of his wrongdoing were “witch hunts,”

• seemed to demonstrate a belief that there were airports during the American Revolution

• demanded “total loyalty” from the FBI director

• praised a conspiracy theory that Democrats are Satanic pedophiles

• completely gutted the Voice of America

• placed a political hack in charge of the Postal Service

• claimed without evidence that the Obama administration bugged Trump Tower

• suggested that the US should allow more people from places like Norway into the country

• suggested that COVID wasn’t that bad because he recovered with the help of top government doctors and treatments not available to the public

• overturned energy conservation standards that even industry supported

• reduced the number of refugees the US accepts

• insulted various members of Congress and the media with infantile nicknames

• gave Rush Limbaugh a Presidential medal of Freedom at the State of the Union address

• named as head of federal personnel a 29-year old who’d previously been fired from the White House for allegations of financial improprieties

• eliminated the White House office of pandemic response

• used soldiers as campaign props

• fired any advisor who made the mistake of disagreeing with him

• demanded the Pentagon throw him a Soviet-style military parade

• hired a shit ton of white nationalists

• politicized the civil service

• did absolutely nothing after Russia hacked the U.S. government

• falsely said the Boy Scouts called him to say his bizarre Jamboree speech was the best speech ever given to the Scouts

• claimed that Black people would overrun the suburbs if Biden won

• insulted reporters of color

• insulted women reporters

• insulted women reporters of color

• suggested he was fine with China’s oppression of the Uighurs

• attacked the Supreme Court when it ruled against him

• summoned Pennsylvania state legislative leaders to the White House to pressure them to overturn the election

• spent countless hours every day watching Fox News

• refused to allow his administration to comply with Congressional subpoenas

• hired Rudy Giuliani as his lawyer

• tried to punish Amazon because the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post wrote negative stories about him

• acted as if the Attorney General of the United States was his personal attorney

• attempted to get the federal government to defend him in a libel lawsuit from a women who accused him of sexual assault

• held private meetings with Vladimir Putin without staff present

• didn’t disclose his private meetings with Vladimir Putin so that the US had to find out via Russian media

• stopped holding press briefings for months at a time

• “ordered” US companies to leave China even though he has no such power

• led a political party that couldn’t even be bothered to draft a policy platform

• claimed preposterously that Article II of the Constitution gave him absolute powers

• tried to pressure the U.K. to hold the British Open at his golf course

• suggested that the government nuke hurricanes

• suggested that wind turbines cause cancer

• said that he had a special aptitude for science

• fired the head of election cyber security after he said that the 2020 election was secure

• blurted out classified information to Russian officials

• tried to force the G7 to hold their meeting at his failing golf resort in Florida

• fired the acting attorney general when she refused to go along with his unconstitutional Muslim travel ban

• hired Stephen Miller

• openly discussed national security issues in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago where everyone could hear them

• interfered with plans to relocate the FBI because a new development there might compete with his hotel

• abandoned Iraqi refugees who’d helped the U.S. during the war

• tried to get Russia back into the G7

• held a COVID super spreader event in the Rose Garden

• seemed to believe that Frederick Douglass is still alive

• lost 60 election fraud cases in court including before judges he had nominated

• falsely claimed that factories were reopening when they weren’t

• shamelessly exploited terror attacks in Europe to justify his anti-immigrant policies

• still hasn’t come up with a healthcare plan

• still hasn’t come up with an infrastructure plan despite repeated “Infrastructure Weeks"

• forced Secret Service agents to drive him around Walter Reed while contagious with COVID

• told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by”

• fucked up the Census

• withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic

• did so few of his duties that his press staff were forced to state on his daily schedule “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings,” allowed his staff to repeatedly violate the Hatch Act

• seemed not to know that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican

• stood before sacred CIA wall of heroes and bragged about his election win

• constantly claimed he was treated worse than any president which presumably includes four that were assassinated and his predecessor whose legitimacy and birthplace were challenged by a racist reality TV show star named Donald Trump

• claimed Andrew Jackson could’ve stopped the Civil War even though he died 16 years before it happened

• said that any opinion poll showing him behind was fake

• claimed that other countries laughed at us before he became president when several world leaders were literally laughing at him

• claimed that the military was out of ammunition before he became President

• created a commission to whitewash American history

• retweeted anti-Islam videos from one of the most racist people in Britain

• claimed ludicrously that the Pulse nightclub shooting wouldn’t have happened if someone there had a gun even though there was an armed security guard there

• hired a senior staffer who cited the non-existent Bowling Green Massacre as a reason to ban Muslims

• had a press secretary who claimed that Nazi Germany never used chemical weapons even though every sane human being knows they used gas to kill millions of Jews and others

• bilked the Secret Service for higher than market rates when they had to stay at Trump properties

• apparently sold pardons on his way out of the White House

• stripped protective status from 59,000 Haitians

• falsely claimed Biden wanted to defund the police

• said that the head of the CDC didn’t know what he was talking about

• tried to rescind protection from DREAMers

• gave himself an A+ for his handling of the pandemic

• tried to start a boycott of Goodyear tires due to an Internet hoax

• said U.S. rates of COVID would be lower if you didn’t count blue states

• deported U.S. veterans who served their country but were undocumented

• claimed he did more for African Americans than any president since Lincoln

• touted a “super-duper” secret “hydrosonic” missile which may or may not be a new “hypersonic” missile or may not exist at all

• retweeted a gif calling Biden a pedophile

• forced through security clearances for his family

• suggested that police officers should rough up suspects

• suggested that Biden was on performance-enhancing drugs

• tried to stop transgender students from being able to use school bathrooms in line with their gender

• suggested the US not accept COVID patients from a cruise ship because it would make US numbers look higher

• nominated a climate change skeptic to chair the committee advising the White House on environmental policy

• retweeted a video doctored to look like Biden had played a song called “Fuck tha Police” at a campaign event

• hugged a disturbingly large number of U.S. flags

• accused Democrats of “treason” for not applauding his State of the Union address

• claimed that the FBI failed to capture the Parkland school shooter because they were “spending too much time” on Russia

• mocked the testimony of Dr Christine Blasey Ford when she accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault

• obsessed over low-flow toilets

• ordered the re-release of more COVID vaccines when there weren’t any to release

• called for the construction of a bizarre garden of heroes with statutes of famous dead Americans as well as at least one Canadian (Alex Trebek)

• hijacked Washington’s July 4th celebrations to give a partisan speech

• took advice from the MyPillow guy

• claimed that migrants seeking a better life in the US were dangerous caravans of drug dealers and rapists

• said nothing when Vladimir Putin poisoned a leading opposition figure

• never seemed to heed the advice of his wife’s “Be Best” campaign

• falsely claimed that mail-in voting is fraudulent

• announced a precipitous withdrawal of troops from Syria which not only handed Russia and ISIS a win but also prompted his defense secretary to resign in protest

• insulted the leader of Canada

• insulted the leader of France

• insulted the leader of Britain

• insulted the leader of Germany

• insulted the leader of Sweden (Sweden!!)

• falsely claimed credit for getting NATO members to increase their share of dues

• blew off two Asia summits even though they were held virtually

• continued lying about spending lots of time at Ground Zero with 9/11 responders,

• said that the Japanese would sit back and watch their “Sony televisions” if the US were ever attacked

• left a NATO summit early in a huff

• stared directly into an eclipse even though everyone over the age of five knows not to do that

• called himself a very stable genius despite significant evidence to the contrary

• refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and kept his promise

And a whole bunch of other things I can’t remember .

[charlesoberonn]

Issuing an arrest warrant less than a month after the president attempted an insurrection?

Don't they know you need to wait 2 years to investigate, issue a special counsel, and then let the insurrectionist president be free to run for and win another term that would put his insurrection trial on hold?

It's like they learned nothing from America!

[ivygorgon]

📜 Tell the US Congress to Impose Section 3 of 14th Amendment Against Trump

🖊️ Text SIGN PEREHG to 50409

🏠 Tell the US House to Expel Members of Congress That Participated in The Jan 6 attack on The Capitol

🖊️ Text SIGN PSDAJA to 50409

[elumish]

Tomorrow (or today, depending on your time zone), November 5 is election day in the United States, and so I am going to make one last plea.

If you haven't voted, if you're on the fence, if you're undecided, if you're leaning against it--

Go out tomorrow and vote anyway, because it matters.

For all its many flaws, we have seen some extraordinary good from the Biden administration. It has been quiet, it has been unobtrusive, it has been the type of government we mostly haven't had to think about, like we all dreamed about under Trump.

Kamala Harris has her own accolades to stand on. She has experience in all three branches of government--between the federal and state levels, she has been part of the judiciary, the legislature, and the executive branch. That is a virtually unprecedented for a candidate for president.

She performed one of the first same-sex marriages in the country. She established a hate crime unit in San Francisco to investigate crimes against queer youth. She established criminal justice reforms in California. She has a huge range of progressive accomplishments spanning decades.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a felon and a rapist who has shown unwavering support for Netanyahu, appointed the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe, and attempted to overturn the results of the last election by fomenting a violent insurrection.

The reality of U.S. politics is that one of two people will win the election. Our only possibilities are Harris and Trump.

If your priority is protecting American lives, or if it's protecting Palestinian and Lebanese lives, or if it's moving policies leftward in the United States, there is only one choice that will get you there, and it's voting for Harris for president.

Voting tomorrow will not be the glorious revolution. It will not fix the entire U.S. government. It will not enact every leftist policy you dream of.

But it does matter. It will matter a hell of a lot. No matter what you think of Harris, she will be a more compassionate, rational, intelligent, progressive president than Trump.

And if your goal is to push the country to the left, it takes actually electing candidates who are to the left. Letting a more conservative candidate win will not accomplish any of your goals.

So you vote for Harris. And then you show up and you organize. You protest. You tell her every day how you disagree with her and what you think she should be doing differently. You call your local representatives, your state representatives, your congresspeople. You write. You march. You show up and push for the policies you believe in.

But none of those policies will be possible if Donald Trump is in charge. We don't even need to speculate about this, because we saw what a Trump presidency looked like, and it was horrifying.

So go vote.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Brandi Buchman at HuffPost:

A four-part appendix detailing more about former President Donald Trump’s alleged criminal attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election hit the public record on Friday. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan approved the public release on the federal criminal docket in Washington, D.C., late Thursday, following weeks of Trump requesting to keep the appendix out of the public eye. Trump told the judge on Oct. 10 he needed more time to weigh his “litigation options” if she decided to admit the source materials publicly, arguing they could be damaging to jurors and the integrity of the case. Chutkan agreed to give him one week to respond and make his arguments at blocking the release. He filed a last-ditch motion early Thursday asking for more time, but was denied.

The appendix is split into four parts with sensitive information redacted. The four volumes total more than 1,800 pages. Volume I is mostly transcripts of interviews with witnesses who testified before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. There is a new detail in this first volume that stands out, however: testimony before the Jan. 6 committee from a White House valet to Trump. The valet told the committee that on Jan. 6, when Trump was preparing to watch playback of his speech as violence erupted, Trump asked him if his “speech was cut off.” The valet told the committee that he tried to explain to Trump that it had been. [...]

The version published in March by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), the chair of the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, redacted the section where the valet tells investigators that after Trump said “let’s go see” when he was told that his speech was cut off, the valet took off Trump’s outer coat, got a television ready for him and handed him a remote. “And he starts watching it. And I stepped out to get him a Diet Coke, come back in, and that’s pretty much it for me as he’s watching it and like, seeing it for himself,” the valet testified, according to Smith’s version.

The Republican version of the transcript also redacted when congressional investigators next asked the valet: “So, you set up the TV. Did you set it up for him to watch his speech or live coverage of what was happening at the Capitol?” “Typically, that’s — a lot of times he’s in that back dining room a lot,” the valet said. The contents of the transcript with the valet cut off here in Smith’s appendix once investigators asked the valet if he knew, in fact, whether Trump was watching the events at the Capitol. Volume I also contains a previously public transcript in which Jan. 6 committee investigators ask a witness about whether Trump’s Jan. 6 speech draft was something his staffers categorized as “political” or “official.”

[...] Another transcript in the first volume features testimony from Greg Jacob, former Vice President Mike Pence’s legal counsel. The transcript in the Smith appendix redacts Jacob’s name, but a side-by-side comparison by HuffPost of the Jan. 6 committee transcript and the one Chutkan published Friday, confirms it is him. Here the material Smith attaches to his immunity arguments zeroes in on testimony in which Jacob told the Jan. 6 committee about attempts by Trump darling and “coup memo” author John Eastman to convince Pence and Pence’s staff that a vice president had the constitutional authority to count slates and object to them. This meant, according to Eastman, that anything in the existing legislation that governed the count, like the Electoral Count Act, was unconstitutional.

[...]

Volume II is heavily redacted and primarily features tweets from Trump in which he said there had been pervasive voter fraud in battleground states and called on state and election officials to address it. In tweets from November 2020, including on and around Election Day, Trump calls on the Supreme Court to decide the outcome or alleges that fraud in those battleground states is an “unsolvable problem.” The records show how officials including Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt were forced to directly rebut Trump’s bunk claims online but often with demonstrably less effect on social media, given Trump’s reach on Twitter.

The tweets and retweets relate, in part, to Smith’s allegation that Trump was exacting a pressure campaign on election officials predicated on information he knew to be false and despite being told numerous times after Election Day that the election had been the most secure in history. Chris Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, made that announcement on Nov. 13. Former Attorney General William Barr would declare publicly on Dec. 1 that there was no evidence of voter fraud. None of that deterred Trump from pursuing his conspiracy theories, according to prosecutors. This volume also shows tweets in which Trump calls on people to come to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, and not just the first time, Dec. 19, 2020, when he blasted out the invite to his “wild” rally. Smith’s appendix shows Chutkan that Trump sent out the call multiple times in December, including on Dec. 30, when he wrote, “JANUARY SIXTH, SEE YOU IN DC!”

[...] Volume III has sections from Pence’s book, “So Help Me God.” Prosecutors highlighted certain passages in which Pence’s describes trying to console a despondent Trump over his defeat and Pence’s own awareness at the time that if there had been any voter fraud, it wasn’t enough to cost Republicans the 2020 election. Other sections feature Pence’s recollection of Trump’s repeated calls to him on the eve of the U.S. Capitol attack. “You gotta be tough tomorrow,” Pence recalled Trump telling him. There are transcripts from court hearings in the third appendix, including a portion of one that took place in Arizona’s Maricopa County, where Trump and his cohorts peddled a fake elector scheme. Other transcripts come straight from political speeches Trump gave, including one on Jan. 4, 2021, when he endorsed Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue before a Georgia runoff election. Trump spent much of that rally talking about his own reelection campaign and claiming the presidential vote had been rigged.

[...] Volume IV contains information that is mostly already in the public record and was obtained through the House Jan. 6 committee. Much of this 384-page document is redacted and it doesn’t offer much new to pore over. There are letters and emails already on the record about the strategy to advance fake electors as well as Pence’s letter issued on Jan. 6, 2021, stating that he did not have unilateral authority to determine which electoral slates should be counted. It also includes a transcript of a town hall from May 2023 in which Trump defended his remarks made at the rally on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021, and denied telling people to march to the Capitol that day. The next big deadline Trump must meet in the election subversion case arrives Nov. 7, when he must reply to the 165-page immunity brief special counsel Jack Smith filed on Oct. 2. When he does, it is expected that Trump’s lawyers will emphasize that Trump genuinely believed there was widespread voter fraud and that he acted with the interest of the nation first to reverse his defeat.

[...] The Supreme Court’s ruling granted presidents absolute immunity for their core acts and “presumptive” immunity for all other official acts. But actions outside of core acts are not given this protection.

On Friday, more January 6th-related evidence that Insurrection-Inciter Donald Trump and his allies tried to keep from being revealed came out in the open in a 4-part appendix totaling more than 1,800 pages by Judge Tanya Chutkan.

See Also:

AP, via The Guardian: Judge in Trump election interference case unseals trove of documents

[robertreich]

How Trump is Following Hitler's Playbook

You’ve heard Trump’s promise:

TRUMP: I’m going to be a dictator for one day.

History shows there are no “one-day” dictatorships. When democracies fall, they typically fall completely.

In a previous video, I laid out the defining traits of fascism and how MAGA Republicans embody them. But how could Trump — or someone like him — actually turn America into a fascist state? Here’s how in five steps.

Step 1: Use threats of violence to gain power

Hitler and Mussolini relied on their vigilante militias to intimidate voters and local officials. We watched Trump try to do the same in 2020.

TRUMP: Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.

Republican election officials testified to the threats they faced when they refused Trump’s demands to falsify the election results.

RAFFENSPERGER: My email, my cell phone was doxxed.

RUSTY BOWERS: They have had video panel trucks with videos of me proclaiming me to be a pedophile.

GABRIEL STERLING: A 20-something tech in Gwinnett County today has death threats and a noose put out saying he should be hung for treason.

If the next election is close, threats to voters and election officials could be enough to sabotage it.

Step 2: Consolidate power

After taking office, a would-be fascist must turn every arm of government into a tool of the party. One of Hitler’s first steps was to take over the civil service, purging it of non-Nazis.

In October of 2020, Trump issued his own executive order that would have enabled him to fire tens of thousands of civil servants and replace them with MAGA loyalists. He never got to act on it, but he’s now promising to apply it to the entire civil service.

That’s become the centerpiece of something called Project 2025, a presidential agenda assembled by MAGA Republicans, that would, as the AP put it, “dismantle the US government and replace it with Trump’s vision.”

Step 3: Establish a police state

Hitler used the imaginary threat of “the poison of foreign races” to justify taking control of the military and police, placing both under his top general, and granting law-enforcement powers to his civilian militias.

Now Trump is using the same language to claim he needs similar powers to deal with immigrants.

Trump plans to deploy troops within the U.S. to conduct immigration raids and round up what he estimates to be 18 million people who would be placed in mass-detention camps while their fate is decided.

And even though crime is actually down across the nation, Trump is citing an imaginary crime wave to justify sending troops into blue cities and states against the will of governors and mayors.

Trump insiders say he plans to invoke the Insurrection Act to have the military crush civilian protests. We saw a glimpse of that in 2020, when Trump deployed the National Guard against peaceful protesters outside the White House.

And with promises to pardon January 6 criminals and stop prosecutions of right-wing domestic terrorists, Trump would empower groups like the Proud Boys to act as MAGA enforcers.

Step 4: Jail the opposition

In classic dictatorial fashion, Trump is now openly threatening to prosecute his opponents.

TRUMP: if I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.’ They’d be out of business.

And he’s looking to remake the Justice Department into a tool for his personal vendettas.

TRUMP: As we completely overhaul the federal Department of Justice and FBI, we will also launch sweeping civil rights investigations into Marxist local district attorneys.

In the model of Hitler and Mussolini, Trump describes his opponents as subhuman.

TRUMP: …the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country…

Step 5: Undermine the free press

As Hitler well understood, a fascist needs to control the flow of information. Trump has been attacking the press for years.

And he’s threatening to punish news outlets whose coverage he dislikes.

He has helped to reduce trust in the media to such a historic low that his supporters now view him as their most trusted source of information.

Within a democracy, we may often have leaders we don’t like. But we have the power to change them — at the ballot box and through public pressure. Once fascism takes hold, those freedoms are gone and can’t easily be won back.

We must recognize the threat of fascism when it appears, and do everything in our power to stop it.

[wilwheaton]

Moreover, recent revelations affirm that there are deep biases among the nakedly pro-Trump justices of this court and that Chief Justice John Roberts knew that when the court took the case. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito should have been recused under any standard of judicial ethics. We already knew that Thomas’ wife, Ginni, was entangled in the run-up to Jan. 6 and was a witness in the congressional investigation of the insurrection. Last Thursday, the shocking news broke that an upside-down flag, a symbol of the “Stop the Steal” conspiracy, flew at Alito’s house shortly after the Jan. 6 insurrection. “Word of the flag filtered back to the court,” reported The New York Times, and yet the incident was hidden from the public for years. Had Alito and Thomas been recused, it would have required the votes of the four other Republican-appointed justices, including Roberts, to take the case. At a minimum, given Roberts’ repeated statements of concern for the credibility of the court, he owes the public a transparent accounting of how Alito and Thomas can be allowed to continue to sit on this case. The public is due similar explanations for their participation in the court’s decision to hear Fischer v. U.S., which challenges convictions of insurrectionists under the obstruction-of-an-official-proceeding statute also at issue in the Trump prosecution.

New York’s speedy Trump trial is a rebuke of the Supreme Court

[akajustmerry]

couldn’t find anything about the murdochs suppressing press freedom would you mind sharing links please

ooooooft okay. i do forget that not everyone is aware of these things. but!! if you wanna know why dominant news media in the global north sucks / wanna be more aware of media influence on politics / wanna appreciate succession more - here is a 'fuck the murdochs' reading list

a recent article on the current court case between Fox News (founded by Rupert Murdoch) and Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion is claiming defamation after Fox News pushed the lie the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, which led to the Jan 6 riots.

Opinion piece by former Aus PM Malcolm Turnball on why he's leading a campaign requesting a Royal Commission into Murdoch's monopoly over Australia's press and Murdoch's unjust influence on Australian politics

here is a podcast breaking down how Lachlan Murdoch (irl Kendall) is suing an independent paper here in Aus for connecting the Jan 6 insurrection to fearmongering of Murdoch press in the States. like, he is literally suing journalists for accurate reporting. that *is* suppressing freedom of the press by definition.

The Murdochs: Empire of Influence (2022). 6 part documentary featuring historians, journalists, ex-employees etc. covers everything there is to know about the family's role in press and politics from world war 1 up to 2022.

Book: Breaking News: Sex, Lies and the Murdoch Succession by veteran anti-Murdoch journalist Paul Barry. The book is from 2013, but is a thoroughly accessible analysis of on the family's rise

Vanity Fair also recently published this hugeeeeee investigation: Inside Rupert Murdoch's Succession Drama

The official Succession podcast is free and discusses the show's influences pretty openly. it doesn't go super in-depth (probably because they don't want to be sued) but it makes mention and discussion of real events and people that influence the show.

just for good measure: here is a list of every news outlet and publisher and media outlet the Murdoch family own across the US, UK, Europe and Asia. handy for when you do your own research, which you should so you're not reading from *their* sources. The whole reason you have trouble finding this kind of information on them is because they suppress it, or make it hard to find.

like... i know a lot of people don't know this, but Succession is a political satire and is about a very specific group of people who are actively shaping the world for the worst so they can become rich and never live with the consequences. the majority of Jesse Armstrong's work is about how internal dynamics between people in powerful institutions literally shape society. if you don't understand that's what Succession is then you're actually missing a huge part of it. so i hope you, and anyone else who needs it, take a gander at these resources because you won't only understand Succession more, but the state of your local politics and media too.

[iizzeee]

Guys, I am begging you. Please please please please please PLEASE do NOT vote 3rd party, or not vote at all.

I get it. I really do. Biden’s handling of Israel has been, not gonna mince words, dogshit. Abominable. Unspeakably bad.

But we cannot afford to protest like this.

We don’t need Biden as president. We do need to keep Trump out of office. And to those who respond “well, I don’t want just the lesser of two evils,” please, for the love of god, grow the fuck up.

For one, why wouldn’t you want the lesser of two evils. It is, by definition, LESS EVIL.

“Why can’t we just have no evil, why isn’t that an option.” I really wish it was. Just as much as you. But it’s not. These are our cards, and we have to play our hand to the best of our ability.

Which brings us to two.

Trump is more evil. Like, so much more evil. We’re comparing apples and oranges here guys.

I understand that a lot of you might doubt that. The largest demographic of people advocating for third party or non-votes are in the 18-26 range. New voters, with one or no elections under their belt.

So they don’t remember.

Most of us (I myself fall under this age range) don’t remember 2016. The election, that is. They don’t remember how so many people protested Hillary vs Trump by going 3rd party or writing in joke votes, because they saw the two as equally bad. And Trump won.

Half of us don’t remember the Trump presidency. We’ve heard he was a weird, bad, bigoted president, but don’t fully grasp the scope of how bad.

So off the top of my head, here are some highlights of real things Donald Trump did while he held office.

- threw toilet paper at hurricane victims like he was trying to shoot a 3-pointer

- fired the man investigating him for election fraud

- called African countries “shitholes”

- appointed members of the Supreme Court who would go on to overturn roe v wade

- stole classified documents from the white house to hide at his resort

- tried to instate a Muslim Ban

- incited a insurrection to try and keep himself in office, and maybe hang his VP if there was time

- looked directly at an eclipse. Like no glasses, full on.

- fueled covid conspiracies. Also told people to “drink bleach” to fight the virus

- withdrew us from the Paris Climate Accord

- cofefe. Remember that? What a fun, normal thing for the president to tweet at 2am.

- employed literal white supremacists

- called Nazi’s “very fine people”

- got endorsed by the KKK, and refused to condemn David Duke

And that’s just what I can remember right now.

So if you’re angry at Biden about Palestine, please please please do not think for a fucking second Trump would be better. He would almost certainly actively be worse. He would give Netanyahu the green light. If you think Biden has used a loose leash, at least it’s some kind of leash. Trump would be all in. Full chips, flying to the Middle East to send in the bombs himself.

If you’re still hesitant, consider this last plea.

Things are bad. These shouldn’t be the only two choice we have, but they are. You can’t look at the menu, which is offering either bland soup someone spit in or actual rat poison and go “could I have some steak”.

You can order the soup and live to write a one-star review on Yelp, maybe call health inspections on the restaurant or contact the owners and say “you guys know your menu has only two options and they’re both dogshit. If you don’t add more, you’ll be unemployed soon.”

Or you can order rat poison and die.

If we elect Donald Trump in the fall, we will be eating rat poison. He has repeatedly said himself to be in favor of a dictatorship. He quotes Hitler. If he is put in office, the change we all want and so critically need will not be fucking POSSIBLE. Because with Biden, it’ll be hard, and tedious, and long, and exhausting, but at least it will be goddamn possible.

So, come November, please don’t order the rat poison.

Please just eat your shitty ass soup so we can live to get really angry about it.

Please.