#trump russia scandal

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Noah Berlatsky at Public Notice:

Though it’s largely already been forgotten, 2024 was not a completely peaceful election. Anonymous terrorists, probably working for Russia, sent bomb threats to numerous majority Black and Native American polling places in battleground states in an effort to disrupt voting and aid the Trump campaign.

The threats were widely reported on Election Day itself. However, in the aftermath of Trump’s narrow but definitive win, there has been little discussion of these egregious, deliberate attacks on democracy in general, and on the voting rights of Black and Native American people in particular. Analysts have instead focused on whether the Democrats and Kamala Harris should have run further to the left or further to the right or further in some other direction. The bomb threats did not change the election outcome, so it’s perhaps understandable that they have not been a focus of the collective, apparently endless post-election autopsy. But the lack of interest in an egregious assault on American democracy is a mistake. The attacks demonstrate how fragile our democracy is. And they provide a blueprint for the MAGA regime to tamper in elections in the future. The fact that incoming president Donald Trump can and probably would try to block investigations into Russia’s involvement — and into the Trump campaign’s potential involvement as well — is chilling. If we want to prevent attacks like this in the future, it’s important not to instantly memory hole the attack that just happened.

A coordinated attack on democracy, and on Democrats

The hoax bomb threats on Election Day were sent to polling locations in the swing states of Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona. The FBI said that many of the threats “appear[ed] to originate from Russian email domains.”

None of the threats were credible, and no bombs were found. However, the threats did cause disruptions in Georgia, where five polling places were evacuated. Hours were extended at those locations to ensure all voters could cast their ballots. Republican Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia Secretary of State best known for refusing to aid Trump in his coup attempt in 2020, argued that Russia was attempting to undermine faith in the US system of government. The Russians are “up to mischief it seems,” he said. “They don’t want us to have a smooth, fair and accurate election.” This is probably true, as far as it goes. But it seems important to note that the bomb threats weren’t just randomly distributed attempts to undermine the electoral process. Like threats of violence in the 2020 election, they were intended specifically to target and discourage Democratic voters in key swing states.

Polls heading into November 5 indicated the election would be extremely close, so whoever was behind the threats had good reason to believe that even minor disruptions in Democratic leaning areas could tip the balance and hand Trump a win in a tight race. In the event, Trump’s win was large enough, and the disruptions small enough, that they didn’t change the outcome. But the pattern of interference nonetheless makes it clear which side was being targeted. Fulton County, Georgia, a Democratic stronghold with a 43.7 percent plurality of Black voters,��received 32 bomb threats by email and phone. Neighboring DeKalb county (53.7 percent Black) was also targeted for threats. Police had to sweep six polling locations. Similarly, bomb threats in Pennsylvania were directed at polling locations in Democratic majority city Philadelphia. In Wisconsin, Madison was targeted; in Michigan, Detroit. In Arizona, polling locations on the lands of the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe were both threatened. Native voters tend to favor Democrats (as they did this year, despite some misleading early exit polls).

Russia helps Trump because Trump helps Russia

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Putin would attempt to help Trump. Russian election interference globally has been designed to advance the far right and boost candidates friendly to Russia’s authoritarian leader Vladimir Putin. Putin has been doling out money to boost and buy the allegiance of far right candidates across Europe, focusing especially on getting Europe to abandon Ukraine, which Russia invaded in 2022. His interference in Romania’s recent election on behalf of far right candidate Călin Georgescu was so egregious that the Romanian Constitutional Court invalidated the election results.

And of course Putin interfered in the 2016 presidential election, waging a sweeping electoral interference campaign. Russian intelligence hacked the Democratic National Committee network, stealing and releasing private emails, which drove news cycles throughout the campaign and boosted Trump, who won the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote. (Trump continues to deny there was any election interference, because of course he does.) According to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which was launched after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey amid a probe of his campaign’s connections with the Kremlin, Russia attempted to hack the DNC shortly after Trump publicly urged Putin to expose and disseminate Hillary Clinton’s emails. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press,” Trump said, live on television. A Senate investigation found numerous links between Russia and the Trump campaign in 2016. And Putin tried again to help Trump (unsuccessfully) in 2020. In return, Trump has consistently and successfully undermined support for Ukraine within the GOP while legitimizing Putin as a global player.

Trump’s link to Russia were not fully investigated or prosecuted after 2016 because Trump, with the power of the presidency behind him, did everything he could to delegitimize and block the investigation in ways that may well have constituted obstruction of justice. He was aided in that by a Republican Party dead set against any suggestion that the 2016 election victory that allowed them to stack the Supreme Court and cut taxes for billionaires was in any way compromised. Bill Barr, Trump’s attorney general (who has subsequently become a Trump critic), downplayed and mischaracterized Mueller’s report about Russian interference, creating a narrative that helped the right to dismiss the findings. Supposedly moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins refused to even consider impeachment on the basis of Trump’s links to Russia. This is, to put it mildly, an ominous precedent for investigation of, and accountability for, Russian bomb threats during 2024. Raffensperger (again, a Trump critic) wouldn’t even acknowledge that the threats were intended to help Trump.

[...] Putin, Trump, and Republicans have learned that potentially violent election interference targeting Democratic voters is fine as long as you win. If they aren’t made to pay some sort of price, why wouldn’t they do it again?

Bomb threats at swing state polling places on Election Day were a Russian campaign to intimidate potential Kamala Harris supporters.

[poorrichardjr]

The Banana Republic

In 1977 the Republicans in Congress forced then president Jimmy Carter to sell his families peanut farm because they feared that some entity would use it to funnel money to the president. Well, not really, but it was a justifiable concern. Carter, did the right thing and sold it because he didn't want to give even the appearance of impropriety. The country had just come off of the Nixon scandals and Ford's unsolicited pardon to "heal" the country.

In 2016, a new president decided differently. Instead of divesting in his businesses or at least putting them in a blind trust where he wouldn't have undo influence on their profits, Trump decided to hand off his businesses to his sons, but did not take himself out of the loop. In fact, it is more than speculated that a few foreign nations and local oligarchs paid Trump, his businesses, or his hotels large amounts of money to "influence" him. There were halted investigations that proved that foreign nations paid Trump in various ways to get what they wanted.

This is the sort of thing that goes on in corrupt nations, and sadly, America is just as corrupt as any Eastern European nation during the reign of Communist Russia. Tomorrow, Trump is getting back into office, but this time he isn't just content to get millions of dollars from foreign nations through his hotels, or tax funded trips to Saudi Arabia or Davos. Nope, now he has a new con, and a much better way to hide the vast amounts of money nations like China or Russia will be willing to pay him just to get what they want.

Cryptocurrency is a godsend for someone like Trump. Anyone from anywhere can buy into it, but it doesn't really exist. It's like money for nothing. Except it isn't going to be nothing. We aren't going to be able to monitor who buys this illusionary currency put out by Donald Trump, and it is absolutely guaranteed that someone in Trump's orbit is going to suggest to all those entities who have business in America exactly what they have to do to get what they want. It's just modern day bribery in the Banana Republic of America.

President's often got out of office with major debts they had to repay. That didn't happen to Trump last time, and it's absolutely guaranteed that it isn't going to happen this time. The man doesn't know anything about running the country, but he sure knows how to pull off a con, often badly. A lot of very bad things are going to happen to this country. After all, a man who's only concern is how much money he can make, doesn't have the countries interests at heart.

[reality-detective]

Biden Family Scandal About to Erupt?

With Trump back in the White House, its all about to come out. 💥

Newly discovered bank accounts tied to the Biden family reveal millions in laundered funds from China, Romania, and Russia, traced back to Joe Biden's time as VP. Among the findings: $240K in direct wire transfers to Biden himself—with no explanation.

This isn’t just a scandal; it’s a potential crime of historic proportions. The American people deserve answers: Who sent the money? Why? And what was promised in return?

With mounting evidence, is prison time looming for Biden? These revelations could trigger a political earthquake and shake the very foundations of the Biden family.

Accountability is overdue. Justice must prevail. Stay tuned—this could be the story that changes everything. 🤔

[batboyblog]

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #29

July 26-August 2 2024

President Biden announced his plan to reform the Supreme Court and make sure no President is above the law. The conservative majority on the court ruled that Trump has "absolute immunity" from any prosecution for "official acts" while he was President. In response President Biden is calling for a constitutional amendment to make it clear that Presidents aren't above the law and don't have immunity from prosecution for crimes committed while in office. In response to a wide ranging corruption scandal involving Justice Clarence Thomas, President Biden called on Congress to pass a legally binding code of ethics for the Supreme Court. The code would force Justices to disclose gifts, refrain from public political actions, and force them to recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have conflicts of interest. President Biden also endorsed the idea of term limits for the Justices.

The Biden Administration sent out an email to everyone who has a federal student loan informing them of upcoming debt relief. The debt relief plan will bring the total number of a borrowers who've gotten relief from the Biden-Harris Administration to 30 million. The plan is due to be finalized this fall, and the Department of Education wanted to alert people early to allow them to be ready to quickly take advantage of it when it was in place and get relief as soon as possible.

President Biden announced that the federal government would step in and protect the pension of 600,000 Teamsters. Under the American Rescue Plan, passed by President Biden and the Democrats with no Republican votes, the government was empowered to bail out Union retirement funds which in recent years have faced devastating cut of up to 75% in some cases, leaving retired union workers in desperate situations. The Teamster union is just the latest in a number of such pension protections the President has done in office.

President Biden and Vice-President Harris oversaw the dramatic release of American hostages from Russia. Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former Marine Paul Whelan held since 2018, Russian-American reporter for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Alsu Kurmasheva convicted of criticizing the Russian Military, were all released from captivity and returned to the US at around midnight August 2nd. They were greeted on the tarmac by the President and Vice-President and their waiting families. The deal also secured the release of German medical worker Rico Krieger sentenced to death in Belarus, Russian-British opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza, and 11 Russians convicted of opposing the war against Ukraine or being involved in Alexei Navalny's anti-corruption organization. Early drafts of the hostage deal were meant to include Navalny before his death in Russian custody early this year.

A new Biden Administration rule banning discrimination against LGBT students takes effect, but faces major Republican resistance. The new rule declares that Title IX protects Queer students from discrimination in public schools and any college that takes federal funds. The new rule also expands protections for victims of sexual misconduct and pregnant or parenting students. However Republican resistance means the rule can't take effect nation wide. Lawsuits from Republican controlled states, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming, means the new protections won't come into effect those states till the case is ruled on likely in a Supreme Court ruling. The Biden administration crafted these Title IX rules to reflect the Supreme Court's 2020 Bostock case.

The Biden administration awarded $2 billion to black and minority farmers who were the victims of historic discrimination. Historically black farmers have been denied important loans from the USDA, or given smaller amounts than white farmers. This massive investment will grant 23,000 minority farmers between $10,000 and $500,000 each and a further 20,000 people who wanted to start farms by were improperly denied the loans they needed between $3,500-$6,000 to get started. Most payments went to farmers in Mississippi and Alabama.

The Biden Administration took an important step to stop the criminalization of poverty by changing child safety guidelines so that poverty alone isn't grounds for taking a child into foster care. Studies show that children able to stay with parents or other family have much better outcomes then those separated. Many states have already removed poverty from their guidelines when it comes to removing children from the home, and the HHS guidelines push the remaining states to do the same.

Vice-President Harris announced the Biden Administration's agreement to a plan by North Carolina to forgive the state's medical debt. The plan by Democratic Governor Roy Cooper would forgive the medical debt of 2 million people in the state. North Carolina has the 3rd highest rate of medical debt in the nation. Vice-President Harris applauded the plan, pointing out that the Biden Administration has forgiven $650 million dollars worth of medical debt so far with plans to forgive up to $7 billion by 2026. The Vice-President unveiled plans to exclude medical debt from credit scores and issued a call for states and local governments to forgive debt, like North Carolina is, last month.

The Department of Transportation put forward a new rule to bank junk fees for family air travel. The new rule forces airlines to seat parents next to their children, with no extra cost. Currently parents are forced to pay extra to assure they are seated next to their children, no matter what age, if they don't they run the risk of being separated on a long flight. Airlines would be required to seat children age 13 and under with their parent or accompanying adult at no extra charge.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it is giving $3.5 billion to combat homelessness. This represents the single largest one year investment in fighting homelessness in HUD's history. The money will be distributed by grants to local organizations and programs. HUD has a special focus on survivors of domestic violence, youth homeless, and people experiencing the unique challenges of homelessness in rural areas.

The Treasury Department announced that Pennsylvania and New Mexico would be joining the IRS' direct file program for 2025. The program was tested as a pilot in a number of states in 2024, saving 140,000 tax payers $5.6 million in filing charges and getting tax returns of $90 million. The program, paid for by President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, will be available to all 50 states, but Republicans strong object. Pennsylvania and New Mexico join Oregon and New Jersey in being new states to join.

Bonus: President Biden with the families of the released hostages calling their loved ones on the plane out of Russia

[qqueenofhades]

I understand how important it is to be able to criticize the President, and am not at all of the belief he should be beyond critique, but the critiquing of Biden makes me so nervous. (That's not to say I agree with every decision he's made - I absolutely do not). But I feel like people see things he's done wrong and decide they won't vote for him because of it. I'm not sure if enough people have the ability to see that he's done things wrong but also is our only hope of staving off literal fascism.

So many people talk about how sick they are of it constantly being a lesser of two evils situation, constantly having to vote for a candidate they hate because the other side is worse (I heard it in 2020, 2022, etc), and I guess I just- I don't really get it? We're here because they didn't do that in 2016. All of this could've been avoided had the result been different then. I just feel like people don't comprehend how different of a place we'd be in if Hillary won and engage in all this cognitive dissonance to make themselves feel better about being part of the reason she didn't.

Like.... this has been a long-running topic of discussion on my blog, not least because it is so inexplicable and maddening. It also shows how terribly shallow most people's understanding of the American political process is, and how toxic the "I can only vote for a candidate if every single personal belief/position of theirs matches mine" belief is, as well as how much damage it has done to American democracy even (and indeed, especially) by people who technically don't identify as right-wing. Yell at Republicans all you like (God knows I do, because they're the worst people on earth) but they vote. Every time. Every election. Every candidate. Whereas the Democratic electorate still holds out for Mister Perfect, and it very definitely is Mister Perfect. The amount of "evil HRC!!!" Republican-poisoned Kool-Aid that so-called progressives drank in 2016, and then afterward when they insisted they could have voted for someone like Elizabeth Warren and then didn't do that in 2020, is... baffing.

Frankly, I don't care if Hillary Clinton's personal positions on XYZ issue were the most Neoliberal Corporate Centrist Shill to Ever Shill (and Online Leftists' intellectual skills being what they are, I seriously doubt that they were using any of those words correctly and/or accurately). American policy is not made by "personal dictate of the ruler," or at least it shouldn't be, because we are not an absolute monarchy. We rely on the operation of a system with input from many people. As such, if Hillary had been elected, we would have 2-3 new liberal justices on SCOTUS and have secured civil and environmental rights for the next generation. Roe would be intact, and all the other terrible rulings that SCOTUS has recently handed down wouldn't have happened. We wouldn't have had January 6th, the attempt to stage a coup, all the tawdry scandals, our national security being at risk because of Trump stealing classified documents and probably selling them to Russia and/or Saudi Arabia, etc etc. If you think that's in any way an equivalent amount of evil to what would have happened if Hillary was elected, or if she was "still evil!!!," then I honestly don't know what to tell you. She could fucking murder puppies in her spare time if she had preserved SCOTUS for us, WHICH SHE WOULD HAVE, BECAUSE SHE WARNED US EXACTLY WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN.

(Hoo. Sorry. Still steamed. 2016 war flashbacks, again.)

In short, Hillary would have been a solid continuity Democrat and she would have signed whatever legislation a Democratic House and Senate passed, not to mention been hugely inspiring as the first female president. But because it's so important to the Online Leftists' moral sense of themselves that BOTH PARTIES ARE THE SAME!!!, they can't possibly acknowledge that ever being a factor, and/or admit that they have any culpability in not voting for her in 2016. It's like when you read the British press about any of the UK's equally numerous problems, and they BEND OVER BACKWARD to avoid mentioning that Brexit might be a factor. They just can't mention it, because then that means they might have made the wrong choice in pulling for it as hard as they did, and blah blah Sovereignty.

Basically, if HRC had been elected president, everything would be so much less terrible and terrifying all the time, we would be talking about her successor in 2024 as someone else who could be the "first," we could explore handing the reins over to Kamala as a Black/Asian woman, we could promote Buttigieg as the first gay president, etc etc. But because 2016 was so catastrophically fucked up, we are in damage control mode for the immediate future and every election is just as pivotal. And yet, because people think that the only thing that matters is a presidential candidate's personal views, we're stuck having the same old arguments and desperately begging people over and over to please vote against fascism, since that somehow isn't self-evident enough on its own. Yikes on Bikes.

[never-was-has-been]

Don't Look Away

"I am 85 years old.

I have experienced the American Dream because I was born a white, American male; I was privileged.

Women did not have that privilege, African-Americans did not have that privilege, people of color did not have that privilege,

Native Americans did not have that privilege, non heterosexuals did not have that privilege--it was reserved for white, American males who presented as heterosexual.

In the 1960's and 1970's a sense of optimism filled the air in America, a genuine feeling that the American Dream could be made available to all people regardless of sex, color, creed, race, national origin or sexual orientation.

It was a tumultuous time, the civil rights movement, assassinations, the Watergate scandal, the Vietnam War protest movement; nevertheless, there truly was the feeling of a promise of a better tomorrow.

Because we were so optimistic, we let down our guard; we took our freedoms for granted, a big mistake; freedom is a fragile gift that must be closely guarded.

I can't pinpoint the exact time when the change began, I think it was when Ronald Reagan was elected President in 1980.

A popular actor, a gentle-speaking likeable man, a convert to "conservative" values, a perfect puppet for the elitists, white supremacists and authoritarians who have been ever-present in our society since its very beginnings.

"Trickle-down" economics seeped in, anti-trust regulations were relaxed, “Free Markets” was the slogan of the day, human beings were reduced to chits on a profit board, consumerism took hold as the gap between the richest and the poorest widened into an insurmountable divide during the ensuing decades.

Money became the weapon of the rich and powerful white supremacists and Fascists who now seek to overthrow our tattered republic. Donald Trump is their latest puppet.

We are in a very dark place--BUT WE ARE STILL A LIVING, BREATHING REPUBLIC.

On November 5th, American citizens will be voting to decide whether our nation will remain a living, breathing Republic or will go the way of Russia, China, India, Hungary and all the other regimes that oppress their people under the heel of totalitarianism.

THE CHOICE IS OURS; EVERY VOTE IS CRITICAL; THE SUM TOTAL OF OUR VOTES WILL ECHO THE VOICE OF FREEDOM.

Donald Trump has a fixed base of mindless supporters that will not grow significantly.

If freedom-loving voters go to the polls, we can have a decisive victory and we can then begin the long and challenging task of restoring the promise of a better tomorrow, not just for American citizens, but FOR ALL HUMAN BEINGS.

I am an old man; I will not live to see my AMERICAN-DREAM-FOR-ALL come true.

I have devoted my life to. this cause.

Please allow me to celebrate the beginning of a better tomorrow for America and the world.

IT CAN HAPPEN ON NOVEMBER 5TH!

Be well... ~Alan "DontLookAway" Dornan~ "

[darkmaga-returns]

Schiff and Swalwell should join former Deputy Attorney General Rod ‘Rat’ Rosenstein and Biden National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan as the initial examples made by the Trump administration.

Roger Stone

Dec 23, 2024

The Department of Justice’s inspector general issued a report last week examining the ethical and legal implications of the DOJ's snooping on media and congressional employees throughout the Russia-gate investigation. The report was largely ignored by fake news media despite its apparent implication of high-level Democrat officials in potentially criminal acts.

A critical section of the IG report notes that California Democrat Congressmen Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, referenced as Member 1 and Member 2 in the report as confirmed by The Federalist, were investigated as suspects for leaking classified information to drag President Trump through the mud and paint him as a Russian agent in the biased. At the time, Schiff led the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), with Swalwell serving as a member, and they reportedly abused their power at this prestigious committee to damage their political opposition.

According to the report, a Democrat whistleblower had a guilty conscience over Schiff and Swalwell’s immoral deeds and voluntarily opened up to the FBI, telling the federal law enforcement agency that he “suspected that Member 1 had previously leaked classified information and that Member 2 wanted to influence public opinion via the release of classified information.” This is allegedly how Schiff and Swalwell worked in tandem to manipulate public opinion and trick the unsuspecting public into believing the patently false Trump/Russia collusion story.

[gsirvitor]

Holy shit, they're going full swing to memory hole the legitimate accusations against the Biden family with the Burisma scandal, and Mitch is so eager to swallow that deep state cock.

Read the article, I did;

According to CNN, the allegations against Hunter Biden and his father began in 2020, in truth, this information was open and available since 2014.

Biden has openly gloated about exercising his power as vice president in a corrupt manner to call off the investigation against Burisma, and Hunter's laptop confirms that payments were being funneled to Biden through Hunter.

Mitch, the FBI lied about the Hunter Biden laptop, they lied about Trump's connections to Russia, why do you think they're being truthful now, because they're telling you what you want to hear?

Mitch, you can trust the deep state, I trust my "lying eyes."

[gusty-wind]

INTERVIEW OF KASH PATEL ABOUT THE FBI'S TREASON AGAINST PRESIDENT TRUMP THE RUSSIAGATE!

Listen to Kash Patel eloquently explain exactly how the FBI was framing Trump for treason in the Russia Gate scandal. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone more knowledgeable about the inner workings of the FBI crime scene than Kash. They were duping the world into believing Trump was a Russian asset when it was Clinton and Obama who were actually funding and organizing the scheme from the shadows. But they left a money trail. The upper echelon of the FBI was acting as a hand of the deep state and usurping the will of the people. This must all be exposed and we the people want justice! Kash knows exactly where the bodies are buried. In-Depth Clips here:

1: "The FBI met with Igor Denchenko���for three years while he was a confidential human source for the FBI. They could have been asking all these questions. But as I've said from the beginning the FBI is smart enough to know questions they don't want answers to because they didn't want their investigation to be shut down. And that's what they did. They struck page Comey All those people failed on purpose to answer to set forth specific questions because they knew the answers would kill the Russia investigation because they would have no credibility, for their source verification process, and they would have no fundamental facts upon which to go to the Pfizer Court That was their end goal They engineered a crime and worked in reverse. And then they went out there as we'll talk about and offered a bounty to people with information. It is a shocking abuse of the law."

2) "Remember when we broke the news that the DNC and Hillary Clinton had paid for the Steele Dossier? To me, this news is as important and as signify as that. Because now you have not the political party paying for the dossier, you have the United States government and our tax dollars being offered for what...Can you, Christopher Steele, corroborate any of the information we're looking for and we'll pay you a million dollars. Shocking. That is the exact reverse of how you run sources at the FBI."

3: Kash Patel says that the FBI, Clinton and the deep state are the real "insurrectionists" after the Durham Report revealed they were all in on it. "The FBI has become the police state. America does not have a single tier system of justice. Our judiciary and the FBI are corrupt gangsters and they've put it on full display. (They were) committing insurrection acts by trying to overthrow a duly elected President and subvert Democracy and ruining his administration. The Steele Dossier was the basic road map to how they kept doing it version after version all the way up to Hunter Biden's laptop."

4: "They are afraid that President Trump is going to come in and actually use the law to prosecute those who broke it. Whether they are in government, private sector, civilians, and yes, even if they are in the media if they participated in a conspiracy to rig elections and break the law you will be prosecuted.. The entire quote says we will use the constitutional courts of law to go after those that broke the law including those in the media. I think they are threatened because we caught them in Russia Gate, we caught them with 51 intel letter, we caught them on Jan 6th, we are catching them in Hunter Biden/Joe Biden criminal activities, and American citizens are tired of it. And they know they are in on it. That's when criminals fret the most and that's why are they slinging baseless rhetoric and hyperbole."

[forsetti]

On Calls For Pres. Biden To Step Aside: Know The Players And Motives Tossing aside one of the most progressive presidents in fifty years because you are afraid they might not win an election is just plain stupid without a really, really, really solid backup plan. It is even stupider if you look at who is pushing for him to step aside and their motives. Here are the main groups calling for Pres. Biden to step away from running against Trump in November and why:

1-Republicans. Republicans know Biden is the biggest threat to them getting back the White House and enacting their batshit crazy policy agenda. They want nothing more than to not run against Pres. Biden because not only does he have the track record of beating Trump before but has an amazing economic record to run on. If you ever want to understand who Republicans view as their political threat, all you have to do is look at who they are attacking. They were going after Hillary for three years prior to 2016. The entire Benghazi witch hunt had no other purpose than to damage her electorally. Every single hearing about Hunter Biden, the border, the Biden Crime Family,… is nothing more than dog and pony hearings to dampen Democratic and Independent voter enthusiasm.

2-The Media. Trump’s non-stop crazy train administration was a goldmine for media outlets. Every day there was a new outrage, wild-ass rant, something that brought eyes to screens which translates to selling ad time/space. The Biden administration is efficient and boring. No scandals, except the ones Republicans gin up that turn up nothing. No rants. No chaos. No real controversy. Just plain old boring governance which is great for the country but bad for a business model that relies on shock, drama, and negativity. “Dems in disarray,” has been a media cottage industry since Bill Clinton was in office. If you don’t understand the financial motivation for why the media constantly derides Democrats for the slightest misstep while ignoring Republican malfeasance, you are probably likely to fall for their own brand of political propaganda.

It should tell you something that major news outlets have come out demanding Pres. Biden step aside for not looking good on camera during one ninety-minute debate but not a single one has asked the same of the candidate who was found guilty of sexual assault, found guilty of thirty-four felony charges, misspeaks dozens of times at every rally, and goes off on wild, illogical, batshit crazy tangents, and is tied to child sexual abuse via Jeffery Epstein. That they are not treating Trump with the same non-stop demands to step aside as they are Pres. Biden should tell you something about their motives.

3-Bad Foreign Actors. Russia wants nothing more than for Biden to lose the election. He is their biggest threat to taking over Ukraine and pushing their influence farther into Western Europe. NATO is stronger now and has more members than at any time in its history. This is the last thing Putin wants. Russia has been actively pushing propaganda online to influence U.S. elections for some time but really have ramped it up the past few election cycles.

Russia targets Republicans by fueling rage over culture war topics like abortion, immigration, racial violence, and the decline of Western, Christian norms. They also target liberals by trying to divide them over issues they care about Israel/Palestine, LGBTQI rights, Bernie vs Clinton, Bernie v Biden, DNC v “real progressives,”… They want liberals at each other’s throats because, if unified, the left is the largest voting bloc in America. Conservatives are electoral dinosaurs but they maintain power through gerrymandering, voter suppression, and liberals being more invested in their petty arguments than voting Republicans out of office.

4-Sandernistas. There is still a good-sized faction of people on the left who are still upset about Bernie Sanders not being the nominee in 2016 or in 2020. They are especially mad at what they deem as “establishment Dems,” screwing over Sanders in 2020 starting with the South Carolina primary. What they really are upset about is black voters, predominately female black voters, denying their White Progressive Savior his rightful spot at the head of the ticket. Because Pres. Biden was the one who benefited from this minority voting bloc in 2020, tearing him down and taking him out is a passion project for a lot of so-called “progressives.”

These “progressives,” are under the disillusion that if the Democratic Party fails far enough, hard enough, they will be able rebuild it in their own, perfectly progressive image. They never explain how this magical transformation will happen, they just take it as a matter of faith. Of course, anyone who understands American history and basic civics knows if/when conservatives have ultimate power, they will make sure they never lose another election.

These “progressives,” are the worst kind of progressive. They are often white, middle to upper-class liberals who view politics as a game because they are usually shielded from the consequences of the electoral decisions. If you are a middle/upper-class white, male progressive, very few, if any of Trump’s actions when he was in office affected you directly. The same cannot be said about the progressive voters who overwhelmingly supported Hillary in 2016 and Joe in 2020. They have the most skin in the game, have the most to lose and they vote accordingly. For white dudebros to step in and demand Pres. Biden step aside is a direct “fuck you” to the most loyal part of the base which has the most to lose if Trump is reelected.

Never mind this group has NEVER accomplished a damn thing politically other than cost many good Democrats to lose and decades and decades of progressive policy and law wiped out. They are as adamant about their political skills as they are it is always someone else’s fault when the find-out portion of their fuck around actions comes to fruition.

5-Progressives suffering from 2016 PTSD. This is the one group I can actually relate to and sympathize with. Hillary's loss in 2016 was a major shock to a lot of people. This shock was compounded because not only were we denied the first female president, but we got a lying, narcissistic, misogynist man-child in her place who went about rolling back decades of hard-earned progressive policies and turning the Supreme Court into a right-wing arm of the Federalist Society.

For those of us who lived through 2016, there is no election data that will make us feel good or at ease. It also makes us hyper-vigilant about anything and everything that can be seen as a negative towards the nominee. The second anything bad happens, whether factual or not, a lot of people in this group take the flight instead of the fight option which is associated with PTSD.

Being overly anxious and hyper-vigilant are not necessarily bad unless they lead to bad decisions.

There is only one sure way to make sure Trump is not reelected. Vote for the candidate running against him. Period. Full fucking stop.

If you aren’t willing to do this, for whatever reason you tell yourself, then you will be directly responsible for the very thing you claim is a politically existential moment. Stop listening and parroting Republican talking points. Stop allowing the media to determine who you should vote for. Stop listening to butt-hurt progressives who have no record of political success about what those who do should/shouldn’t do. Stop acting like frightened little bunnies whenever someone says something negative about successful Democratic leaders. Stop automatically going into flight mode when something goes wrong or something negative is said. Fight.

If you aren’t willing to fight, and I’m not talking about inter-party fighting (that time came and went,) for women’s rights, minority rights, safe air/water/food, climate policies, democracy… then you really aren’t as progressive as you tell yourself and others. You are a big reason why we are even in this situation. Whether you like Pres. Biden or think he is too old really isn’t the pertinent issue if you really care about the things you say you do. As long as Pres. Biden is willing to fight like hell for progressive policies and prevent Republicans from turning the country into a white supremacist, misogynist, oligarchy, you should be doing the same.

I don’t know what is going to happen between now and election day. Neither does anyone else. The one thing I am 100% positive about is if Trump does win, the people on the left who have spent the majority of their time and energy railing against the Democratic Party and Pres. Biden will blame anyone and everyone other than themselves. If Pres. Biden wins reelection, these same people will claim their childish hissy fits are what led him to “change course,” enabling him to win. Their view of personal responsibility for election outcomes is some fucked up “No True Scotsman,” bullshit. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING ever counts against their political beliefs and views.

I know some people reading this will wonder why I spend so much time and energy railing against the left. The answer is really simple-I fully expect the people on the right to be bad-faith actors who are hell-bent on destroying any and all progressive policies and candidates. I don’t, and shouldn’t expect the same from people who claim to be political allies. You can't claim to be a member of Team Good™ if your behaviors and actions help Team Bad™.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jay Kuo at Think Big Picture:

For years, critics of Vladimir Putin have been warning that the Russians have taken over parts of the Republican Party. They raised the alarm as Republicans defended the Russian leader, parroted clear Kremlin talking points, and became mules for disinformation campaigns. In recent weeks, that criticism has shifted to include not just Republicans who have left the party, including former representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, but current GOP members. Recently, two powerful Republican chairs of the House Intelligence Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee warned openly about how Russian propaganda has seeped into their party and even made its way into speeches on the House floor. Other members are now even openly questioning whether some of their fellow officials have been compromised and are being extorted. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) suggested in a recent interview that the Russian spies may possess compromising tapes of some of his colleagues. It’s unclear where he’s getting his information or how accurate it is.

And then there’s this: According to a report by Politico, a number of European politicians were recently paid by Moscow to interfere in the upcoming EU elections by Russians pretending to be a “media” outlet called “Voice of Europe.” The Kremlin-backed operation used money to influence officials to take pro-Russian stances. Authorities have conducted some money seizures and launched an investigation into which members of the European Parliament may have accepted cash bribes. This in turn raises an important question for our own politics: Are the Russians doing the same with U.S. politicians, directly or indirectly? This piece walks through the three types of compromise—disinformation, extortion, and bribery—to give a sense of what we know and what we don’t really know, and, importantly, where we should be on our guard. As this summary will show, from the 2016 election till now, there’s enough Russian smoke now to assume there is a fire, one that compromises not only the integrity of our own system of elections, but the safety and security of the free world. Duped.

Over the past year, we have witnessed two distinct kinds of Russian propaganda in action. Both use our own elected officials and intelligence processes to amplify and even weaponize disinformation. The first kind originates online through Russian-backed internet channels. Information operatives begin spreading false rumors, for example about Ukraine, that then get repeated within right-wing silos before reaching willing purveyors of it within the halls of Congress. A chief culprit in Congress is Georgia’s Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Among the Russian-originated false narratives she has uplifted is the patently false claim that Ukraine is waging a war against Christianity while Russia is protecting it. On Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, Greene even claimed, without evidence, that Ukraine is “executing priests.”

Where would Greene have gotten this wild, concocted notion? We don’t have to look far. Russian talking points have included this gaslighting narrative for some time. The twist, of course, is that, according to the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance, it is the Russian army that has been torturing and executing priests and other religious figures, including 30 Ukrainian clergy killed and 26 held captive by Russian forces. The Russians have also targeted Baptists, whom they see as U.S. propagandists, according to an in-depth Time magazine piece on the violence and death directed toward evangelicals. The Congressional propaganda mouthpieces for Russia aren’t limited to the U.S. House. Over in the Senate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance was also recently accused of spreading Kremlin-backed disinformation about Ukraine, this time over spurious allegations that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy siphoned U.S. aid to purchase himself two luxury yachts.

[...]

The accusation that Russians are presently extorting and blackmailing U.S. politicians into supporting Russia’s agenda has some broad appeal. It would help explain some mysteries, including why people like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) suddenly is no longer as supportive of Ukraine as before and constantly kisses the ring of Donald Trump these days—after presciently saying in 2016 that the GOP would destroy itself if it nominated him. 

The problem has been that these accusations aren’t supported by much evidence. That means that political extortion by the Russians is either not a very prevalent practice, or it’s so effective that no one dares expose it. Either way, we’re left without much to go on. The Russian word kompromat came into common parlance around the time that Buzzfeed published a salacious story about another intelligence report back in early 2017. In that instance, the author, a former British intelligence officer named Christopher Steele, was concerned Russia had compromising data on the soon-to-be president, Donald Trump.

That report never wound up being substantiated, and its sources and funding came into question as well. But intelligence agencies are in general agreement that obtaining kompromat is standard practice by Russia, and someone like Trump could have been an easy mark considering the company that he kept (e.g. Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell) and the projects he was involved with (e.g. the Miss Universe contest). Lately, the notion of kompromat emerged once again, this time not from Democratic-paid outfits but from within the GOP itself. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) is one of the more “colorful” characters within the GOP, primarily known lately for being one of the eight members who voted to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and even for getting into public jostling and shouting matches with McCarthy.

The Republican Party (or at least its pro-MAGA faction) is compromised by Russian kompromat.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 14, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Sep 15, 2024

Five years ago, on September 15, 2019, after about a six-week hiatus during the summer, I wrote a Facebook post that started:

“Many thanks to all of you who have reached out to see if I'm okay. I am, indeed (aside from having been on the losing end of an encounter with a yellow jacket this afternoon!). I've been moving, setting up house, and finishing the new book. Am back and ready to write, but now everything seems like such a dumpster fire it's very hard to know where to start. So how about a general overview of how things at the White House look to me, today....” 

I wrote a review of Trump’s apparent mental decline amidst his faltering presidency, stonewalling of investigations of potential criminal activity by him or his associates, stacking of the courts, and attempting to use the power of the government to help his 2020 reelection. 

Then I noted that the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), had written a letter to the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, on Friday, September 13, telling Maguire he knew that a whistleblower had filed a complaint with the inspector general of the intelligence community, who had deemed the complaint “credible” and "urgent.” This meant that the complaint was supposed to be sent on to the House Intelligence Committee. But, rather than sending it to the House as the law required, Maguire had withheld it. Schiff’s letter told Maguire that he’d better hand it over. Schiff speculated that Maguire was covering up evidence of crimes by the president or his closest advisors.

And I added: “None of this would fly in America if the Senate, controlled by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, were not aiding and abetting him.”

“This is the story of a dictator on the rise,” I wrote, “taking control of formerly independent branches of government, and using the power of his office to amass power.”

Readers swamped me with questions. So I wrote another post answering them and trying to explain the news, which began breaking at a breathtaking pace. 

And so these Letters from an American were born.

In the five years since then, the details of the Ukraine scandal—the secret behind the whistleblower complaint in Schiff’s letter—revealed that then-president Trump was running his own private foreign policy to strong-arm Ukraine into helping his reelection campaign. That effort brought to light more of the story of Russian support for Trump’s 2016 campaign, which until Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine seemed to be in exchange for lifting sanctions the Obama administration imposed against Russia after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. 

The February 2022 invasion brought renewed attention to the Mariupol Plan, confirmed by Trump’s 2016 campaign advisor Paul Manafort, that Russia expected a Trump administration to permit Russian president Vladimir Putin to take over eastern Ukraine. 

The Ukraine scandal of 2019 led to Trump’s first impeachment trial for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, then his acquittal on those charges and his subsequent purge of career government officials, whom he replaced with Trump loyalists. 

Then, on February 7, just two days after Senate Republicans acquitted him, Trump picked up the phone and called veteran journalist Bob Woodward to tell him there was a deadly new virus spreading around the world. It was airborne, he explained, and was five times “more deadly than even your strenuous flus.” “This is deadly stuff,” he said. He would not share that information with other Americans, though, continuing to play down the virus in hopes of protecting the economy.

More than a million of us did not live through the ensuing pandemic.

We have, though, lived through the attempts of the former president to rig the 2020 election, the determination of American voters to make their voices heard, the Black Lives Matter protests after the murder of George Floyd, the election of Democrat Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, and the subsequent refusal of Trump and his loyalists to accept Biden’s win. 

And we have lived through the unthinkable: an attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob determined to overrule the results of an election and install their own candidate in the White House. For the first time in our history, the peaceful transfer of power was broken. Republican senators saved Trump again in his second impeachment trial, and rather than disappearing after the inauguration of President Biden, Trump doubled down on the Big Lie that he had been the true winner of the 2020 presidential election. 

We have seen the attempts of Biden and the Democratic-controlled Congress to move America past this dark moment by making coronavirus vaccines widely available and passing landmark legislation to rebuild the economy. The American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act spurred the economy to become the strongest in the world, proving that the tested policy of investing in ordinary Americans worked far better than post-1980 neoliberalism ever did. After Republicans took control of the House in 2023, we saw them paralyze Congress with infighting that led them, for the first time in history, to throw out their own speaker, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). 

We have watched as the Supreme Court, stacked by Trump with religious extremists, has worked to undermine the proven system in place before 1981. It took away the doctrine that required courts to defer to government agencies’ reasonable regulations and opened the way for big business to challenge those regulations before right-wing judges. It ended affirmative action in colleges and universities, and it overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the constitutional right to abortion. 

And then we watched the Supreme Court hand down the stunning decision of July 1, 2024, that overturned the fundamental principle of the United States of America that no one is above the law. In Donald J. Trump v. U.S., the Supreme Court ruled that a president could not be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of his official duties.

We saw the reactionary authoritarianism of the former president’s supporters grow stronger. In Republican-dominated states across the country, legislatures passed laws to suppress Democratic voting and to put the counting of votes into partisan hands. Trump solidified control over the Republican Party and tightened his ties to far-right authoritarians and white supremacists. Republicans nominated him to be their presidential candidate in 2024 to advance policies outlined in Project 2025 that would concentrate power in the president and impose religious nationalism on the country. Trump chose as his running mate religious extremist Ohio senator J.D. Vance, putting in line for the presidency a man whose entire career in elected office consisted of the eighteen months he had served in the Senate.

In that first letter five years ago, I wrote: “So what do those of us who love American democracy do? Make noise. Take up oxygen…. Defend what is great about this nation: its people, and their willingness to innovate, work, and protect each other. Making America great has never been about hatred or destruction or the aggregation of wealth at the very top; it has always been about building good lives for everyone on the principle of self-determination. While we have never been perfect, our democracy is a far better option than the autocratic oligarchy Trump is imposing on us.” 

And we have made noise, and we have taken up oxygen. All across the country, people have stepped up to defend our democracy from those who are open about their plans to destroy it and install a dictator. Democrats and Republicans as well as people previously unaligned, we have reiterated why democracy matters, and in this election where the issue is not policy differences but the very survival of our democracy, we are working to elect Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz.

If you are tired from the last five years, you have earned the right to be.

And yet, you are still here, reading. 

I write these letters because I love America. I am staunchly committed to the principle of human self-determination for people of all races, genders, abilities, and ethnicities, and I believe that American democracy could be the form of government that comes closest to bringing that principle to reality. And I know that achieving that equality depends on a government shaped by fact-based debate rather than by extremist ideology and false narratives. 

And so I write.

But I have come to understand that I am simply the translator for the sentiments shared by millions of people who are finding each other and giving voice to the principles of democracy. Your steadfast interest, curiosity, critical thinking, and especially your kindness—to me and to one another—illustrate that we have not only the power, but also the passion, to reinvent our nation.

To those who read these letters, send tips, proofread, criticize, comment, argue, worry, cheer, award medals (!), and support me and one another: I thank you for bringing me along on this wild, unexpected, exhausting, and exhilarating journey.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[11queensupreme11]

Well America is doomed 🙏 I genuinely do NOT understand people who voted for a CONVICTED FELON A RAPIST AND A PEDO.

(warning: i'm gonna rant a bit because this has really disappointed me. i'm not surprised, but i am disappointed)

there's still a sliver of hope left in me (copium) for a recount just like last time, which helped biden a lot. plus, there's evidence of a lot of voter suppression, election fraud and interference going on (ballot boxes being burned, mail-in ballots being turned away because of "inability to verify signatures", poll stations closing early, bomb threats, etc.) and all of this coincidentally happening in blue areas only smh, so i'm really hoping that kamala doesn't concede and lets the votes keep counting (because there's still millions left), or at least demand a recount later on

remember, counting doesn't last only a day. it takes days, not a single night. there's still more votes to be counted and incidents to be investigated AND the chance for a recount should kamala ask for one.

this election should be an eye-opener on just how deeply hateful and uneducated a lot of americans are. literally the only people who would ever benefit from a trump reign are rich, white, heterosexual, cisgender men and that EXACT combination only. it doesn't matter if you're a rich black woman, or a broke white man, or a heterosexual poc, etc. if you are not rich AND white AND straight AND cisgender male, you will NOT benefit from him at all.

and yet we had exactly those sort of people voting him in. black women and men of all ages did so good voting blue, but their hard work has been ruined because SO many white women and men, and latinos have voted against their own interests. hell i saw gay couples and trans people proudly voting for trump all over twitter. all because of their own hatred and lack of education because some of them GENUINELY thought trump would make their lives better. they hate everyone and they hate themselves, and they aren't even aware of it. they're so stupid too, they don't understand what's going to happen to them under trump and they don't WANT to

don't even get me started on the jill stein bs. i get it that people genuinely thought that voting for her would save palestine, but she was being endorsed by a member of the KKK and has a running mate who is openly against abortion and trump himself has said that he liked her -- that should've been telling. not only that but she's part of the green party. green parties will never win, their sole purpose is to divide votes and that's exactly what happened in some of the states kamala could've won had it not been for so many people choosing jill stein instead. all those wasted votes could've HELPED US.

right now we've lost the senate and house of representatives, we are becoming a very fascistic country -- even more than we were before. rfk jr -- the man who's wife killed herself because of his rampant cheating scandal, the man who chooses conspiracy theories over science, who promised to ban ALL vaccines (polio, flu, covid, measles, smallpox, etc) -- will soon be in charge of public health (including women's health), the department of education will be targeted even more than before because dumb, uneducated americans are more likely to vote red (a fact which has been proven many many times before -- this very election is also proof of that), palestine and ukraine are in more danger than ever -- trump wants all of palestine wiped out for israel and he wants to remove the US out of NATO so european countries are going to have to do whatever they can to protect ukraine and themselves from russia because putin's not gonna stop at ukraine and israel's not gonna stop with palestine, syria, lebanon, and yemen.

this is a country full of dangerously dumb and cruel people and it's going to impact EVERYONE because america can't keep their claws out of other countries' businesses

[reality-detective]

Obama’s Global Spy Network Targeted Trump: Explosive New Evidence Revealed!

Barack Obama’s shadowy betrayal has surfaced, shaking the very core of America. He orchestrated a treasonous conspiracy, weaponizing global intelligence networks to attack Donald Trump—a man who dared to challenge the globalist cabal.

Project Fulsome: A Web of Treason

Obama, in collaboration with Britain’s GCHQ, bypassed U.S. laws to spy on Trump, his family, and his campaign. Trump Tower wasn’t just wiretapped—it was a surveillance fortress. Tools designed for counter-terrorism were turned against an American citizen. Financial records, emails, and private conversations were infiltrated, with the Deep State feeding this intel to fabricate scandals.

This was no ordinary operation; it was a globalist vendetta to preserve their crumbling grip on power. Secret satellites even tracked Trump’s movements during the 2016 campaign. Every action, every word—monitored.

The Russia Hoax: Manufactured Lies

The infamous Russia hoax wasn’t an accident. Phony dossiers, funded by Clinton’s allies and legitimized by Obama’s corrupted agencies, were part of this operation. The Steele dossier? Pure disinformation. Whistleblowers reveal it was a long-planned strategy to discredit any outsider who challenged their rule. Trump just happened to win, making him target #1.

Black Sites and Secret Courts: Deep State Tools

Beyond spying, Obama’s network used secret courts and black sites to crush Trump’s allies. FISA warrants based on lies enabled illegal surveillance. Black sites deployed rogue operatives to infiltrate Trump’s inner circle, feeding intel back to the cabal.

Why They Had to Stop Trump

Trump’s presidency represented a direct threat to their empire. He promised to end endless wars, dismantle corrupt trade deals, and expose their hidden agendas. The globalist pipeline funding their machine was at risk. Trump wasn’t a puppet—he was their worst nightmare.

The Awakening: Deep State on the Brink

The Deep State is collapsing. Whistleblowers are stepping forward. Leaks are surfacing. Patriots within the intelligence community are exposing the truth. Platforms like X and Telegram bypass Big Tech’s censorship, spreading revelations far and wide.

The Fight Isn’t Over

Obama’s betrayal exposed the elites’ desperation. Now is the time to act. Share the truth. Demand accountability. Stand with Trump. The Deep State is crumbling, but the battle for freedom continues.

You would think ALL that 👆 would be something you'd see in a spy/espionage movie like "Enemy of the State" with Gene Hackman and Will Smith.

Stay vigilant. History will remember those who fought for truth. 🤔

[painandmovies]

Since 1998, Gen Z has had to live thru (and not understand a huge chunk of) a presidential scandal where a silly man claimed "he did not have sexual relations with that woman," 9/11, the rise of school shootings, Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Sandy, the Boston Marathon bombings, a government shutdown because 2 opposing sides of House and Senate couldn't agree, Ebola virus, the Orlando nightclub shooting, Christina Grimmie concert attack, the Manchester attack, Trump's crackdown on immigration, a Supreme Court nominee (later winner) and woman in court hearings for his sexual assault on her, that suicide forest video, wildfires in California, the Trump-Ukraine scandal, George Floyd death and every black person killing to be in rememberance, Covid, the January 6th Capitol attack, Russia invading Ukraine, the overturn of Roe v Wade, and Donald Trump's industrial piercing.

I'm so tired and I haven't even done anything; I haven't even lived.

[simply-ivanka]

Joe Biden and America’s Out-of-Control Spooks

The president should step aside rather than find out how the deep state would save his candidacy.

Wall Street Journal

By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.

Thursday’s catastrophic debate can be a lifesaver for America. A different kind of 2024 election is still possible, starting with a rollicking contest of impressive Democratic governors for their party’s nomination. The outcome wouldn’t merely result in replacing an invalided Mr. Biden. It would allow Democrats to hire a new standard-bearer who doesn’t need to dig America ever deeper into the pit of lawfare, media lying and intelligence meddling to get himself re-elected.

This is the real issue now.

Not exactly the bipartisan wise person I’ve been hoping for, Bob Bauer will have to do. A former White House counsel under Presidents Obama and Biden, he has a timely new book, “The Unraveling.” Our democracy, he writes, endangers itself with its free fall toward win-at-all-costs cynicism, and the trouble doesn’t begin and end with Donald Trump.

He’s right, and only missing is 75% of his case since he doesn’t mention the collusion hoax or intelligence officials lying about the Hunter Biden laptop to help Mr. Biden get elected, episodes in which his own hands may not be entirely clean.

Now he has a chance to put his money where his mouth is. I see the same descent into reckless, zero-sum politics that he does. So does fund manager Ray Dalio, who told clients this week that the behavior of our parties is “threatening the rule of law as we know it and is bringing us closer to some form of civil war.”

What I don’t see is an underlying cause or dispute, such as slavery in the Civil War, of transcendent magnitude to explain it.

The tainting of our elections itself is what’s driving Americans apart.

This is where Mr. Bauer’s moment has arrived. He played Mr. Trump in Mr. Biden’s debate prep. He’s obviously trusted by the candidate. He could point out a few things about how we got into today’s mess, starting with former FBI Director James Comey’s ill-advised meddling in the Hillary Clinton email case to help another Democratic candidate. Play history backward without Mr. Comey and everything is different now. Mr. Trump likely loses in 2016. The collusion follies never happen, profoundly damaging half of America’s faith in Washington.

Mr. Biden is playing with the same fire all over again. He had every moral and political reason not to seek a second term—his age, Hunter Biden, the intelligence community’s unseemly lying to the American public to secure his first victory over Mr. Trump.

Almost anybody in the Democratic Party was a better bet to beat Donald Trump a second time, and Mr. Biden wasn’t a good bet to beat almost any Republican who might earn the GOP nomination instead of Mr. Trump.

But Mr. Biden insisted on being the candidate anyway, and we got the bubbling up of Trump prosecutions from dutiful Democratic prosecutors around the country. Whatever their merits, the charges had an overridingly political purpose: Return Mr. Trump to center stage and give Mr. Biden the one opponent he might reasonably hope to beat.

The miscalculation is now apparent. Mr. Biden’s own deterioration makes him the opponent even a scandalized and distrusted Mr. Trump could likely beat, possibly in a landslide.

What now? Ours was already in danger of becoming a government of siloviki, to borrow Russia’s word for intelligence operatives actively manipulating domestic politics. This subject our media continues to shy away from though academics are taking it up: the revolutionary and unprecedented activities of Mr. Comey and Obama intelligence veterans James Clapper and John Brennan starting in 2016 and again in 2020 with the laptop lie.

In my view, Mr. Biden is more blundering than calculating in this mess. He foolishly indulged his son over the years, getting himself in a situation in 2020 where his campaign had to be rescued from his family-created scandal by the shockingly disingenuous intervention of intelligence officials falsely fingering Russia for the laptop.

But ask yourself: Having stumbled into a dynamic where they might need a failing Mr. Biden to hold off a Trump restoration, how will our Clapperized elite prevent the outcome they have been telling themselves and us for eight years would be the end of America? Do you want to find out?

The 2024 election is already shaping up to be a deeply souring democratic experience for millions of Americans, the third such presidential election in a row. It can get a lot better or a lot worse depending on what Democrats decide to do, with Mr. Bauer hopefully whispering wisdom in Mr. Biden’s ear.

The next few days will be telling. If Mr. Biden remains in the seat, Mr. Trump may romp to a broad, unambiguous victory and mandate. Then you’ll want to hold your breath on the morning of Nov. 6.