Bedfellows

Seems odd. There are guys who harp on "Only soy boys drive hybrids and electric cars. A real man - a real AMERICAN man - coal rolls in his F-350 while chuggin' battery acid on the rocks, and munchin' on 20d nails!".

And these are now the guys rushing to the defense of the green-energy Earth-friendly girly car that comes with a coupon for a free pair of Birkenstocks and a year's supply of paper straws.

The Proud Boys and Militias Come to Tesla’s Defense

After weeks of “Tesla Takedown” protests, extremist groups are showing up to back Elon Musk’s beleaguered car company.

Over the weekend, thousands of people joined the “Tesla Takedown” protest movement at the company’s showrooms across the country. At the same time, a much smaller number of Elon Musk supporters turned out at Tesla locations for a counterprotest movement that some participants dubbed “Tesla Shield.”

While the protest movement comprises people angered at Elon Musk’s role in the dismantling of federal government agencies, the counterprotest movement that showed up this weekend was peopled mostly by MAGA supporters. Among them were an array of far-right extremists, including members of the Proud Boys, armed militias, and at one event in Idaho, a guy dressed as Hitler.

As Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) rips through huge swaths of the federal government and puts people’s lives and livelihoods at risk, the Tesla protest movement has gained traction. Tesla’s stock price has dropped by more than 30 percent since the beginning of the year. Isolated incidents of vandalism against Tesla vehicles and chargers as well as dealerships have led Trump to push the Department of Justice to treat alleged violent protesters as “domestic terrorists,” and now some extremist groups have taken it upon themselves to help Musk fight back.

“My people will be free, my people will rule again,” David Pettinger, a member of the extremist anti-government People’s Rights group, shouted at protesters in a fake German accent outside a Tesla dealership in Meridian, Idaho, on Saturday, according to video footage of the incident.

A moustachioed Pettinger wore a T-shirt with the words “LITERALLY HITLER” written on the back and a picture of Musk giving a nazi-like salute on the front. Wearing jodhpurs and black boots, Pettinger marched in front of protesters and handed out heart-shaped stickers to Musk supporters.

Pettinger told WIRED that he dressed as Hitler to “make fun of the overuse of the terms nazi and fascist.” However, Pettinger’s posts on X echo Hitler’s deeply antisemitic worldview.

Also in Meridian were a number of armed individuals in camouflage gear, some wearing body armor, according to images of the counterprotest posted to Bluesky. Pettinger also appeared to be armed, according to video footage showing a handgun tucked into his jodhpurs.

Meanwhile, Josh Fulfer, who is known online as Oreo Express and was at the US Capitol in Washington on January 6, joined a counterprotest group in Fresno, California, telling a local news outlet: “We’re out here to show support for DOGE, Elon Musk, Tesla, and this administration.” Fulfer can be seen on his own videos harassing and shouting at protesters.

Ahead of the Tesla Takedown protests this weekend, the Proud Boys and other far-right groups put out calls on their social media channels for supporters to show up in numbers and counter the protests.

A virtually all of the dealerships which had protests this weekend, however, the number of anti-Musk protesters vastly outnumbered the pro-Musk protesters.

In Columbus, Ohio, news that a local Proud Boy chapter had urged supporters to show up didn’t dissuade more than 1,000 anti-Musk protesters from turning up. Meanwhile, fewer than 50 pro-Musk supporters were in attendance, according to local media. The Proud Boy group claimed they would be infiltrating the protesters to gather information, but it’s unclear if they were present at Saturday’s protest.

In Salem, Oregon, pro-Musk supporters waved Proud Boys flags in front of a Tesla dealership while many of them walked around wearing the group’s uniform of yellow and black clothing.

Meanwhile, in Oklahoma, the far-right anti-government militia group Veterans on Patrol announced on its Telegram channel that it was taking a break from monitoring and tracking immigrants to infiltrate a Tesla Takedown protest for “redirecting action against Elon and EVs towards a more reasonable target.”

Musk himself posted multiple times about the protests over the weekend, claiming without any evidence that the protesters were being paid. The hate-filled LibsofTikTok account, operated by Chaya Raichik, responded to one of Musk’s post, claiming: “Soros is paying for this,” referring to Hungarian billionaire and philanthropist George Soros, who far-right figures believe is controlling huge swaths of the global population.

As Musk continues to tear through the federal government, and Tesla’s stock price continues to plummet, the organizers of the Tesla Takedown movement have pledged to continue to protest, with the movement now reaching other parts of the world as well. But equally, members identifying with the so-called Tesla Shield movement have vowed, on posts on X and Facebook, to continue their efforts to defend Musk and his company.

Today's Hypocrisy

There are no chants of "Lock him up"

The public and the Press Poodles are letting it slide

It comes as absolutely no surprise on either count. Hypocrisy is just not a thing for way too many people.

We've got an "administration" filled with complete bozos, and there's so much going wrong - so often, by so many - we can't keep up with the shit we hear about, which has to mean there's all kinds of shit going wrong that we don't know about. 

USAmerica Inc is following the tried-n-true formula for the descent into fascism.

And it's like a lot of us are getting tired of criticizing the bad shit, as well as getting a little bored with hearing about it.

Waltz and staff used Gmail for government communications, officials say

Trump’s national security adviser is trying to manage his way out of a crisis. But new revelations about his team’s operational security are piling up in the inbox.

The use of Gmail, a far less secure method of communication than the encrypted messaging app Signal, is the latest example of questionable data security practices by top national security officials already under fire for the mistaken inclusion of a journalist in a group chat about high-level planning for military operations in Yemen.

A senior Waltz aide used the commercial email service for highly technical conversations with colleagues at other government agencies involving sensitive military positions and powerful weapons systems relating to an ongoing conflict, according to emails reviewed by The Post. While the NSC official used his Gmail account, his interagency colleagues used government-issued accounts, headers from the email correspondence show.

Waltz has had less sensitive, but potentially exploitable information sent to his Gmail, such as his schedule and other work documents, said officials, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe what they viewed as problematic handling of information. The officials said Waltz would sometimes copy and paste from his schedule into Signal to coordinate meetings and discussions.

The use of personal email, even for unclassified materials, is risky given the premium value foreign intelligence services place on the communications and schedules of senior government officials, such as the national security adviser, experts say.

NSC spokesman Brian Hughes said he has seen no evidence of Waltz using his personal email as described and said on occasions when “legacy contacts” have emailed him work-related materials, he makes sure to “cc” his government email to ensure compliance with federal records laws that require officials to archive official correspondence.

“Waltz didn’t and wouldn’t send classified information on an open account,” said Hughes.

When asked about a Waltz staffer discussing sensitive military matters over Gmail, Hughes said NSC staff have guidance about using “only secure platforms for classified information.”

Waltz has also created and hosted other Signal chats with Cabinet members on sensitive topics, including on Somalia and Russia’s war in Ukraine, said a senior administration official. The existence of those groups was first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Sunday.

Hughes said that Signal “is approved and in some cases is added automatically to government devices.” He acknowledged that it is not supposed to be used for classified material and insisted Waltz never used it as such.

Waltz’s creation of a Signal group chat that discussed sensitive information and included Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of the Atlantic and a prominent critic of President Donald Trump, has rankled the president and frustrated other Cabinet members whose communications were exposed on the chat.

Publicly, Trump has strongly backed Waltz, but on Wednesday he met with Vice President JD Vance, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and others to discuss whether to keep him on. A day later, he informed aides he was not firing Waltz, but it was largely out of a desire to avoid giving the “liberal media a scalp,” said a senior administration official.

“This incident badly damaged Waltz,” said the official, who noted that the national security adviser was told after the meeting that he needed to be more deferential to Wiles. The Wednesday meeting was first reported by the New York Times.

Data security experts have expressed alarm that U.S. national security professionals are not more readily using the government’s suite of secure encrypted systems for work communications such as JWICS, the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System.

Most concerning, however, is the use of personal email, which is widely acknowledged to be susceptible to hacking, spearfishing and other types of digital compromise.

“Unless you are using GPG, email is not end-to-end encrypted, and the contents of a message can be intercepted and read at many points, including on Google’s email servers,” said Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

National security experts have expressed alarm over the administration’s denial that the leaked Signal chat contained classified information.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s comments in the Signal chat detailed the sequencing, timing and weapons systems in advance of the Trump administration’s March attack on Houthi militants in Yemen, potentially jeopardizing U.S. airmen headed into harm’s way.

In the chat, Waltz offered a brief but highly specific after-action report of the strikes, revealing that the military had “positive ID” of a senior Houthi leader “walking into his girlfriend’s building” — pointing to what intelligence sources would later confirm was Israeli surveillance capabilities shared with the United States. Israeli officials expressed frustration that their capabilities were made public.

U.S. officials say Trump is much more upset about the inclusion of a liberal journalist on a confidential group chat than he is about exposing secrets to foreign adversaries. But White House officials have found Waltz’s denials increasingly hard to believe.

Waltz, who added Goldberg to the chat, told Fox News: “I take full responsibility. I built the group.” But he has subsequently said Goldberg’s contact information was “sucked into” his phone somehow and that he’s never met or talked to the journalist despite a newly circulated photo of the two men near each other at an event at the French ambassador’s residence in Washington.

“He’s telling everyone that he’s never met me or spoken to me. That’s simply not true,” Goldberg told “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

“This isn’t ‘The Matrix.’ Phone numbers don’t just get sucked into other phones,” he added.

Waltz, the first Green Beret elected to Congress and an adviser to former vice president Dick Cheney, has long pontificated about the importance of classified information and harshly criticized the Justice Department for not pursuing charges against Hillary Clinton for using a private email server as secretary of state.

“What did DOJ do about it? Not a damn thing,” Waltz wrote on social media in June 2023. The FBI investigated Clinton’s use of the private server and concluded no criminal charges were warranted. FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi have given no indication that Trump officials’ use of Signal for sensitive information will be investigated, with Bondi saying the material shared was not classified.

While most Trump administration officials have downplayed the Signal breach publicly, some have acknowledged it was a significant mishap.

“Obviously, someone made a mistake. Someone made a big mistake,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters during a trip last week to Jamaica.

Rubio and his staff, who have years of experience with classified intelligence from his former role as vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, are known for taking operational security seriously, said a senior U.S. official.

Rubio noted that his contributions in the Signal chat were minimal.

“Just speaking for my role, I contributed to it twice,” Rubio told reporters. “I identified my point of contact, which is my chief of staff, and then later on … I congratulated the members of the team.”

On Sunday, Trump dismissed the controversy as a politically motivated attack. “I don’t fire people because of fake news and because of witch hunts,” he said.

Hughes, the NSC spokesman, said that “Mike serves at the pleasure of President Trump and the President has voiced his support for the National Security Advisor multiple times this week.”

While Democrats have seized on the incident as evidence of incompetence, some in the MAGA wing of the Republican Party have assailed Waltz as a George W. Bush-aligned neoconservative, circulating a video from 2016 in which he condemned Trump as a draft-dodger, saying “Stop Trump now.”

“The chattering of unnamed sources should be treated with the skepticism of gossip from people lacking the integrity to attach their names,” Hughes said.

When asked about the senior aide’s use of Gmail for highly sensitive topics, Hughes said it is “unreasonable to ask for comment on an email you refuse to provide for my review.” The Post accepted the emails on the condition that it would not disclose the materials in full.

A key mark in Waltz’s favor is that the breach was discovered by a left-of-center media outlet and not conservative media, officials said.

“The one thing saving his job is that Trump doesn’t want to give Jeff Goldberg a scalp,” said a second administration official. “Despite all of Trump’s attacks on the ‘fake news,’ he still reads the papers, and he doesn’t like seeing this stuff.”

I promise - I get it - there is such a thing as too much secrecy. We need some good old fashioned disinfecting sunlight to keep government relatively clean. And there are no "sides" to the need for people to know a lot of what's going on.

But we have to be careful not to get so amped up about "the deep state" that we actually flop over into the Anti-Government camp, where they're not just wary of Big Gubmint, they say they're hostile to any and all government - unless of course, it's The Daddy State.

Pretty much every time something like this happens, I'm more convinced that the contradictions are part of the plan.

We can stop saying, "Make it make sense." It doesn't make sense because it's not supposed to make sense.

Daddy State Awareness

• The Daddy State lies as a means of demonstrating power.
• The lies have practically nothing to do with the subject of the lies.
• Lying about everything creates chaos, which helps condition us to stop thinking, and look to them for "guidance".
• Once we're totally dependent on them, we'll accept the premise that they can do anything they want.

The goal is to destroy reality

so they can dictate reality to us

MAGA Malarkey

Gaetz

The fact that Gaetz paid for sex is not such a big deal to me. If it's a fair transaction, and everybody's able to give their consent, and no harm done - OK, do your thing.

But it takes a special kind of dirtbag to then turn around and show off pictures and videos to the gang at the office.

That's not the kind of thing an honorable man does, Matty. You need to keep your shit to yourself - especially when you're a sitting member of Congress, and you're supposed to be setting a good example of decent, law-abiding behavior for the folks back home.

And one of your "service providers" was underage? Now, don't get me wrong. I didn't just fall off a turnip truck - I realize there are people out there who're 17-goin'-on-35, but holy fuck, dude - you're a lawmaker and a lawyer, you stoopid fucking fuck.

Would anybody care to venture a guess on what happens next?

House Ethics report says Matt Gaetz regularly paid for sex, including payment to an underage girl

Former congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) regularly paid for sex, possessed illegal drugs and paid a 17-year-old girl for sex in 2017, according to a 42-page report released by the House Ethics Committee on Monday on President-elect Donald Trump’s former pick for attorney general.

The report cited “substantial evidence” that from 2017 to 2020, Gaetz “regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him,” and from 2017 to 2019, possessed illegal drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, on “multiple different occasions.” The Ethics Committee also investigated a 2018 trip Gaetz made to the Bahamas where the panel found he accepted transportation and lodging in violation of the House rules and laws on gifts.

The GOP-led committee concluded in the document that Gaetz “violated House Rules, state and federal laws, and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, acceptance of impermissible gifts, the provision of special favors and privileges, and obstruction of Congress.”

The release of the report was temporarily delayed after Gaetz filed a lawsuit to halt the release of the panel’s findings, according to two people familiar with the panel’s internal deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations. Gaetz’s lawyers requested a restraining order and injunction against the committee, arguing that its actions amounted to an “unconstitutional” attempt to “exercise jurisdiction over a private citizen through the threatened release of an investigative report containing potentially defamatory allegations,” according to the complaint.

The committee’s release of the hotly anticipated report, which came three days after Congress adjourned for the holidays Friday evening, reversed an earlier decision not to make public the results of its investigation. The report is the culmination of years-long scrutiny surrounding Gaetz and the allegations against him. The panel wrote that Gaetz was “uncooperative” throughout its review and found that he “knowingly and willfully sought to impede and obstruct the Committee’s investigation of his conduct.”

It also concluded that he misused House resources when he employed his then-chief of staff to “assist a woman with whom he engaged in sexual activity in obtaining a passport, falsely indicating to the U.S. Department of State that she was a constituent.”

Rep. Michael Guest (R-Mississippi), who chairs the Ethics Committee, and others had opposed publicizing the report, arguing that Gaetz was no longer up for attorney general or a member of Congress. Democrats wanted to force its release, leading to a contentious debate. In the report on Monday, Guest wrote on behalf of the members who did not support the release, arguing that “the majority deviated from the Committee’s well-established standards” on releasing a report on “an individual no longer under the Committee’s jurisdiction, an action the Committee has not taken since 2006.”

But Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Maryland) told The Washington Post in a brief interview that there was precedent for releasing a report after a member has left office. And he argued that the panel’s work was an important public good that provided “guidance to current members of the House as to what conduct is across the line and what’s permissible.”

“The public has a right to know,” said Ivey. “Whether [Gaetz] seeks public office of a different type, or whether he seeks employment in the private sector, I think this is the type of information, given the nature of these issues, that those folks should have a right to know before they make a decision.”

In 2020, while Trump was still in office, the Justice Department began investigating Gaetz over the alleged relationship with a 17-year-old girl and sex-trafficking allegations that related to whether he had paid for her travel. The Justice Department did not bring charges. Gaetz has denied all the allegations against him and pointed to the Justice Department’s decision not to charge him.

Gaetz said on X last week that he has never been charged and never had sexual contact with a minor. He posted that his behavior was “embarrassing, though not criminal” and that he had in the past “probably partied, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have.” He also said he “often” sent money to women he dated when he was single, as well as some he did not date.

On Monday, Gaetz criticized the committee for releasing the report without giving him recourse to a courtroom, “where I could present evidence and challenge witnesses,” he posted on X. “This is testimony from one of the alleged ‘prostitutes’ that you won’t see in the report!” Gaetz added, sharing a screenshot of testimony from one of the witnesses who appeared before the committee and said she “never charged anyone anything.”

Read the full report

Today's Chicken Republican

Question:

Do you think Trump is a fascist?

Trump’s former Chief of Staff John Kelly:

Well, I'm looking at the definition of fascism. It’s a far-right movement with a dictatorial leader and forcible suppression of opposition … So certainly in my experience, he falls into the definition of a fascist.

His on-the-record statements more than imply that he sees Trump as a fascist, but then he says it's inappropriate for him to make a public declaration of support one way or the other because a retired military officer &/or former military folks should stay out of such things.

Horseshit.

First off, you kinda screwed that pooch by taking a political job in the first fuckin' place, General.

Second, by saying former military should stay out of it, you just took a giant dump on some very honorable people like John McCain, Daniel Inouye, Bob Dole, Tammy Duckworth, Amy McGrath, George McGovern, and Dwight-fucking-Eisenhower - to name just a few.

Wanna shit on George Washington now?

Sick to fucking death of guys like Kelly who won't stand up for the obvious. All talk and no walk.

Q: Do you think Trump is a fascist?

Trump’s Chief of Staff John Kelly: Well, I'm looking at the definition of fascism. It’s a far-right movement with a dictatorial leader and forcible suppression of opposition… So certainly in my experience, he falls into the definition of a… pic.twitter.com/1znyIrkzJ8

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 23, 2024

Oh, Elmo

Cuz Elon Musk loves "free speech", and he never censors or suppresses content on twixter.

Trump campaign worked with Musk’s X to keep leaked JD Vance file off platform

Journalist who published vetting document on Republican running mate was kicked off site formerly known as Twitter

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign worked with X to prevent information about JD Vance from being posted on the social media platform, a move that resulted in the journalist who revealed the information being kicked off the site, according to reports.

The former president’s team contacted X, owned by the billionaire Trump backer Elon Musk, about a 271-page document compiled by his campaign to vet his running mate that was linked to by Ken Klippenstein, an independent journalist, the New York Times has reported.

X responded by blocking links to the material, claiming that it contained sensitive personal information such as the Ohio US senator’s social security number, and banned Klippenstein from the platform.

The materials published by Klippenstein on his Substack in September appear to be related to a hack of the Trump campaign earlier this year, which the FBI has linked to Iran. Documents from the hack have been shared with several media outlets, which have chosen to not publish them.

Media outlets did not reach the same decision when they gave significant attention to files from Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign that had been hacked and leaked by Russian intelligence before she ultimately lost that election to Trump. At one point, Trump had said he hoped Russia would be “able to find” some of Clinton’s files.

The leaked dossier on JD Vance is revealing in all the things it doesn’t say

The removal of the material from X has highlighted the increasingly strident support of Musk, the world’s richest person, for Trump’s attempt to return to the White House after losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden. After buying Twitter in 2022, Musk said that he was an advocate of free speech and the open sharing of information, even if it offended either political party.

Last week, Musk appeared at a Pennsylvania rally alongside the former president, performing an awkward jump on stage before declaring that “I’m not just Maga – I’m dark Maga” while invoking the Republican nominee’s Make America Great Again slogan.

Musk added that “this will be the last election” if Trump doesn’t win in November against Kamala Harris, complaining that she and her fellow Democrats want “to take away your freedom of speech, they want to take away your right to bear arms, they want to take away your right to vote, effectively”.

Klippenstein, whose X account was restored following the New York Times reporting, said in a Substack post on Friday that Musk had purchased political influence and “is wielding that influence in increasingly brazen ways”.

“The real election interference here is that a social media corporation can decree certain information unfit for the American electorate,” he wrote.

“Two of our most sacred rights as Americans are the freedoms of speech and assembly, online or otherwise. It is a national humiliation that these rights can be curtailed by anyone with enough digits in their bank account.”

Musk is set to appear at further Trump rallies – and he may even knock on voters’ doors for the campaign in Pennsylvania in the coming week. He has funded a political action entity called America Pac that has spent around $80m to help Trump reach voters in crucial swing states like Pennsylvania.

Senate News

There are 9 GOP Senators up for re-election this year.

All 9 voted against the Right To IVF Act.

John Barrasso

Marsha Blackburn

Kevin Cramer

Ted Cruz

Deb Fischer

Josh Hawley

Pete Ricketts

Rick Scott

Roger Wicker

JD Vance missed the vote.

This is not the "party of freedom".

About The Flag Flap

It seems apparent that Sam Alito is a liar, and a dickhead.

(not a real quote, but the probability is not zero)

Alito’s account of the upside-down flag doesn’t fully add up. Here’s why.

A look at the major discrepancies in Justice Samuel Alito’s comments about controversial flags flown at his property and what he still has not fully answered.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. has offered multiple accounts of how politically charged flags came to fly outside his homes in Virginia and New Jersey — the type of display that is generally off-limits for judges, who must remain impartial and avoid even the appearance of bias as they handle cases.

Since the public revelation of the flags engulfed the nation’s highest court in criticism last month and prompted calls for Alito’s recusal from certain cases, the justice has said it was his wife who flew the banners, not him, and that she flew one of them after a neighborhood dispute. But his successive explanations — in a statement, an interview with Fox News and letters to Congress — have raised additional questions, and in some cases conflicted with known facts.

Alito has yet to fully explain some key aspects of the controversy: How long did an upside-down American flag fly at the Alitos’ Virginia home? Where did they get the “Appeal to Heaven” flag that flew at their New Jersey beach house? And more.

Here are the major discrepancies in Alito’s telling and what he still has not fully answered. Neither he nor his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, responded to a request for comment.

The neighborhood dispute

Alito has consistently cited the feud between Martha-Ann Alito and a neighbor as the backdrop for his wife raising the upside-down American flag at their Fairfax County, Va., home in the weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. But his description of the episode is contradicted at significant points by police records, neighbors’ descriptions of events and other facts.

Alito told Fox News reporter Shannon Bream the neighborhood dispute began when his wife went to speak with their neighbor Emily Baden in January 2021. Martha-Ann Alito was upset the woman was displaying an anti-Trump sign, with an expletive, “within 50 feet of where children await the school bus,” as Bream put it on X, formerly Twitter.

But Fairfax County schools were shuttered at the time because of the coronavirus pandemic and had been since March 2020. All but a tiny handful of students were learning virtually. Students did not return to the classroom until Feb. 16, 2021, after the flag episode occurred.

In addition, Baden and her mother said in interviews that the school bus stop near their home was moved before the dispute began and they confirmed no students were catching the bus at the time.

Baden told The Washington Post the row began shortly after Christmas 2020, when Martha-Ann Alito stopped by her home to thank her for taking down an anti-Trump sign featuring an expletive, which the justice’s wife said was offensive.

Baden said she told Alito that the sign would remain on display and had not been taken down, it had simply blown over. She also said Alito never mentioned the school bus stop. The conflict soon escalated.

Justice Alito has portrayed Baden and her then-boyfriend as the aggressors in the dispute, writing in letters to Congress that his neighbors had displayed a sign “attacking” his wife “personally.” But photos provided by Baden and interviews with a neighbor indicate the signs made no explicit mention of Martha-Ann Alito.

One featured the off-color reference to Trump on one side and the phrase “Bye Don” on the other. A second read “Trump Is a Fascist,” while a third read “You are Complicit.”

It’s possible the Alitos thought the latter sign referred to them, but Baden said it was directed at Republicans who she felt were complicit in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. A neighbor who saw the signs at Baden’s house confirmed that none directly referenced the Alitos.

In her telling, Baden said it was Martha-Ann Alito who confronted them on a handful of occasions. After the initial encounter, Baden said Martha-Ann Alito glared at them from her car on Jan. 7, 2021, and ran down her driveway and spat at Baden’s vehicle on another occasion.

Justice Alito told Bream a key moment in the dispute came when he and his wife were walking in the neighborhood sometime after the initial conversation. A man got into an argument with Martha-Ann Alito and called her a vulgar epithet for part of a woman’s anatomy, according to the justice. In his letters to Congress, Alito also said the man followed them down the street.

But Baden said that while that confrontation with the Alitos involved both her and her then-boyfriend, it was actually she who uttered the epithet, an account corroborated by a neighbor who heard it. Baden said she could not recall whether she and her boyfriend then followed the Alitos down the street.

Justice Alito told Bream that following the exchange his wife was “distraught” and raised the upside-down flag. A photo obtained by the New York Times showed the flag flying on Jan. 17, 2021.

The profane encounter between Martha-Ann Alito, Baden and her then-boyfriend occurred about a month after the upside-down flag was raised, according to a phone call the boyfriend placed to police on that day. A Fairfax County, Va., government spokesman confirmed that call was placed on Feb. 15, 2021.

Why were the upside-down flag and “Appeal to Heaven” flag flown?

The most pivotal question about the upside-down American flag has yet to be fully answered: Martha-Ann Alito’s motivation for flying it.

Many liberals have said the raising of the flag in the weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol suggests sympathy for the “Stop the Steal” movement or solidarity with the pro-Trump rioters who believed the 2020 election was stolen and had adopted the symbol at the time.

They have called for Justice Alito to recuse himself from a pair of high-profile cases related to efforts to block the election results, arguing the flag indicates political bias or creates the perception that Alito is not impartial. Alito has refused.

The Alitos have not explicitly addressed whether the upside-down flag had a connection to Jan. 6 or “Stop the Steal,” and Justice Alito’s comments about his wife’s motivation for flying it have shifted.

• In comments to a Post reporter outside his home in 2021, Alito said his wife raised the flag in response to the neighborhood dispute and it was not political. Martha-Ann Alito, in her only known public comments about the flag, shouted at the reporter, “It’s an international sign of distress!” The upside-down flag does have a long history as a sign of distress in the military, and has been used by protesters of all political stripes at various times.
• Alito repeated his contention that a neighborhood dispute sparked the flag flying in a statement to the New York Times, which first reported the flag controversy last month. The justice then told Fox News reporter Shannon Bream the dispute began when his wife confronted a neighbor about an anti-Trump sign that featured an expletive, indicating the argument likely did have a political dimension.
• In letters Alito sent to Congress saying he would not recuse himself from the Jan. 6 cases, however, the justice’s explanation subtly changed. He said his wife flew the flag at a time of “great distress” over the neighborhood dispute, but also indicated it might not have been her only motivation, writing, “my wife’s reasons for flying the flag are not relevant for present purposes.”

The letters include a much more specific explanation of why Martha-Ann Alito flew the “Appeal to Heaven” flag at the couple’s vacation home on the New Jersey shore last summer. That flag has origins in the American Revolution, but has recently been adopted by some Christian nationalists and was carried by some Jan. 6 rioters.

Alito said he “assumed” his wife was flying it for religious and patriotic reasons. He definitively said neither he or his wife knew the flag was associated with the “Stop the Steal” and it was not flown in solidarity with that movement.

Alito did not issue a similar denial for the upside-down flag that flew at his Virginia home.

How long did the upside-down flag fly?

A handful of neighbors who saw the upside-down flag at the Alitos’ residence said in interviews that they could not remember exactly when they first saw it but placed it in the latter half of January 2021, which matches the Jan. 17 date of the photo obtained by the Times.

Alito said in an initial comment to the Times that the upside-down flag flew “briefly.” Alito later told Bream it flew for “a short time.” In his most recent account in letters to members of Congress, Alito said he requested his wife take down the flag as soon as he saw it, but she refused for “several days.” Alito did not detail exactly when he saw the flag was up.

Some neighbors of the Alitos said they recalled seeing the flag flying for between two and five days.

As for Baden, she said she never saw the flag at the Alitos’ home.

They're Taking Aim

MAGA is a whole big buncha pinch-faced, blue-nosed puritans who are desperate to make your decisions for you.

And here's that picture of that smug prick Michael Knowles

...and one more - in drag.

Oy

Another perfect example of the glaring hypocrisy of the GOP - the "party of free speech" clutches its pearls and staggers backwards groping for the fainting couch as people exercise their rights under 1A.

And the obvious implication is that Trump would, of course, quell the protests by turning out the military to bust a few skulls and send some protesters to prison for a few years to make sure everybody gets the message and blah blah blah.

That said, I think it would be good to get straight with the protocols of protest and civil disobedience.

• You do your thing
• You get yourself arrested
• You stand for the consequences
• You go back and do it again

You don't throw rocks and then hide your hands.

Because, yes - there are rules about how you break the rules. That's how we need to do things in a civilized and democratized society.

Sick to death of this wingnut crap, and just as sick of Press Poodles who continue to make like GOP stenographers, giving endless oxygen to authoritarian assholes, and doing nothing to clarify and contextualize the events.

Democracy dies in the darkness that WaPo refuses to lift.

Trump, GOP seize on campus protests to depict chaos under Biden

Republicans highlight images of turmoil, though most of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations have been peaceful

Former president Donald Trump and other prominent Republicans are seizing on the eruption of campus protests across the country to depict the United States as out of control under President Biden, seeking to use the mostly peaceful demonstrations as a political cudgel against the Democrats.

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The pro-Palestinian protests at numerous colleges — including Columbia, Yale, Emory, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas at Austin and others — include encampments and barricades intended to highlight protesters’ denunciation of Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza, as well as to push universities to divest from companies with ties to Israel.

Beyond the disruption to campus life, top Republicans have highlighted the antisemitic chants that have occurred at some of the protests. The issue is complicated by a debate over what constitutes antisemitism — and when criticism of Israel crosses that line — while some student organizers have denounced the chants or said they are coming from outside activists.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has cited the protests to accuse Biden and Democrats of being unable to maintain order or quash lawlessness, an accusation he has leveled at the president on other hot-button political issues. He has also highlighted the protests as a way to air his own political grievances, including the lack of similar demonstrations around his current criminal trial.

On Monday morning, Trump posted on Truth Social, “STOP THE PROTESTS NOW!!!”

As the protests have mushroomed in recent days, numerous Republicans have sought ways to highlight them as an example of the country’s slide into chaos. Several Republican lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), have visited the campus of Columbia University, the site of some of the most sweeping protests, to call for its president to resign for purportedly failing to contain the demonstrations.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, dispatched more than 100 state troopers to the University of Texas at Austin to clear out pro-Palestinian protesters, resulting in dozens of arrests. All of the charges against the protesters were later dropped for lack of probable cause.

The campus protests present conservatives with some of their favorite targets: elite universities, progressive activists, “woke” culture and civil rights leaders. In addition, attacking the protests allows Republicans to change the subject from less friendly political terrain, such as abortion rights and the war in Ukraine.

Their rhetoric is harsh in many cases. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) have demanded that Biden mobilize the National Guard to protect Jewish Americans on campus. Hawley compared the standoff to the battle over segregation in 1957, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower summoned the National Guard to force the integration of Central High School in Little Rock.

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) suggested that the college protesters were mentally unstable. “You don’t get to turn our public places into a garbage dump. No civilization should tolerate these encampments. Get rid of them,” Vance posted on X. “If you want to protest peacefully fine. It’s your right. But go home and take a shower at the end of the day. These encampments are just gross. Wanting to participate in this is a mental illness.”

The GOP rhetoric has not been limited to campus protests, sometimes covering pro-Palestinian actions more broadly, including those that have shut down roads and bridges in some cities. Cotton, in a post on X, urged those who get stuck behind “pro-Hamas mobs blocking traffic” to “take matters into your own hands.” Following criticism that some might read that as a call to violence, Cotton amended his post to say “take matters into your own hands to get them out of the way.”

Supporters of the campus protests say they are peaceful, and that accusations of antisemitism are often a pretext to shut down dissenting voices. Many of the Republicans criticizing the protests, they say, condoned or excused the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, which was far more violent.

The students are “peacefully protesting for an end of the Israeli genocide against Palestinians in Gaza,” the group Jewish Voices for Peace, which supports a cease-fire in Gaza, said of the Columbia protests. “ … We condemn any and all hateful or violent comments targeting Jewish students; however, in shutting down public protest and suspending students, the actions of the University of Columbia are not ensuring safety for Jewish students — or any students — on campus.”

The Israel-Gaza war has deeply fractured the Democratic Party, posing significant political challenges to Biden months ahead of November’s presidential contest. Biden pledged steadfast support of Israel after Hamas militants stormed through the Israel-Gaza border on Oct. 7 and killed 1,200 people, many of them civilians, and took 253 hostage, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel responded with a punishing military campaign in Gaza that has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, imposing a siege that has created a humanitarian catastrophe as Gaza’s health system has collapsed and the population faces a looming famine. The resulting protest movement has electrified many younger voters and progressives, as well as others in the Democratic coalition that Biden needs to repeat his 2020 win, who have called for the United States to impose conditions for aid to Israel or suspend it altogether.

Democrats have voiced a range of views on the legitimacy of the protests, and Biden has sought a balance between condemning antisemitism and supporting students’ right to protest. Republicans, in contrast, are largely unified in casting the demonstrations as a disgrace, echoing conservative denunciations of the anti-Vietnam War protests of the 1960s.

Trump this week called a 2017 neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville — which he said at the time had “very fine people on both sides,” prompting a bipartisan backlash — a “peanut” compared with the current protests on campuses. Speaking to reporters after attending his criminal trial in New York on Thursday, Trump repeated the comments he wrote on social media and went further. He called the Charlottesville gathering, where a counterprotester was killed, “a little peanut” and added, “it was nothing compared — the hate wasn’t the kind of hate that you have here.”

Trump has contrasted the pro-Palestinian demonstrations with the lack of protests outside the Manhattan courthouse where he is on trial for an alleged hush money scheme. In seeking to blame Biden for the campus protests, Trump has accused the president of hating Israel, Jews and Palestinians, and accused Jewish Democrats of hating their religion. Many of the protesters are Jewish students, and progressive Jewish organizations have helped lead a number of protest movements since the war began in October.

“The Courthouse area in Lower Manhattan is in a COMPLETE LOCKDOWN mode, not for reasons of safety, but because they don’t want any of the thousands of MAGA supporters to be present,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday. “If they did the same thing at Columbia, and other locations, there would be no problem with the protesters!”

The tone of the criticism is not new; since Biden took office, Trump and other Republicans have pushed the notion that America is descending into chaos and lawlessness on his watch. From illegal immigration to soaring inflation to violent crime, they have regularly painted a picture of a country out of control.

These assertions have often been exaggerated or without context, but Trump has seized on them to promise a fierce crackdown should he return to power.

And during his 2020 reelection campaign, Trump tweeted in response to the large-scale protests over the police killing of George Floyd, which were mostly peaceful but occasionally turned to looting, writing, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” The post was widely criticized for potentially encouraging private citizens, or police officers, to take deadly aim at looters.

Trump’s own position on Israel has often been hard to pin down. He has tried to position himself as a firm defender of Israel, but he has also criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war and sought to exploit the fissures in Biden’s coalition over U.S. support of Israel.

After the Oct. 7 attack, Trump insulted Israel’s leaders while praising the intelligence of the Hezbollah militant group. Faced with a backlash to that comment, the former president proposed harsh policies against Muslim migrants, saying he would reimpose his ban on travel from Muslim-majority countries and deport students involved in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

In the weeks after the Hamas massacre, Trump said his administration would revoke student visas of “radical, anti-American and antisemitic foreigners.” Other Republicans still running for president at the time — including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.) — and GOP members of Congress similarly called for the visas of “pro-Hamas” foreign students to be revoked.

The spread of the college protests has ignited a renewed Republican response. When word circulated last Wednesday that pro-Palestinian protesters were planning to occupy a lawn at the University of Texas, Gov. Abbott sought to show that his Republican-dominated state would not tolerate a repeat of the encampment at Columbia University, dispatching state troopers.

The Texas Department of Public Safety said it responded to the campus “at the direction of” Abbott, who applauded the crackdown on social media. He said the protesters “belong in jail” and that any student participating in “hate-filled, antisemitic protests” at public colleges should be expelled.

Incidents at some universities have fed the criticisms, though pro-Palestinian activists say they are isolated incidents. Video re-emerged this week of a Columbia student who has taken part in the pro-Palestinian protest encampments declaring that “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” The student, Khymani James, made the comments in a video posted in January, although he has since stated that they were wrong. Columbia said it had barred the student from campus, but it was unclear whether he was suspended or expelled.

In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp (R), following protests in several cities including Chicago and San Francisco, stressed that he would not tolerate anything similar in his state. Recounting a conversation with Georgia’s public safety commissioner, he said: “You know how I feel about people blocking bridges, airports and other things like we’re seeing around the country. I said, ‘If they do that, lock their ass up.’ ”

In New York City, Speaker Johnson and a group of GOP lawmakers visited Columbia’s campus on Wednesday, where they demanded that the university’s president, Nemat “Minouche” Shafik, resign for failing to quickly dismantle the pro-Palestine encampments and, in their view, for not doing enough to ensure that Jewish people on campus felt safe.

Their visit appeared to raise tensions, as Johnson was met with boos and pro-Palestinian chants. One student yelled at Johnson to “get off our campus,” while another shouted, “go back to Louisiana, Mike!”

And on Capitol Hill, Republicans last week urged the Biden administration to intervene in the demonstrations. Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), a top-ranking House Republican, sent a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Attorney General Merrick Garland, calling on them to deport students who she said “are brazenly endorsing Hamas and other terrorist organizations” by participating in demonstrations and related events on campus.

Separately, a group of 27 Senate Republicans, including every member of the Senate GOP leadership team, signed onto a letter to Cardona and Garland calling on the administration “to take action to restore order and protect Jewish students on our college campuses.”

“The Department of Education and federal law enforcement must act immediately to restore order, prosecute the mobs who have perpetuated violence and threats against Jewish students, revoke the visas of all foreign nationals (such as exchange students) who have taken part in promoting terrorism, and hold accountable school administrators who have stood by instead of protecting their students,” the letter said.

Divide-n-Conquer, boys and girls.

It used to be we had a "generation gap" that politicians and pundits fretted over. Now we have several generation gaps that can be exploited by cynical manipulators in order to gain political advantage for some vaguely defined "they".

The Daddy State is tickled pink whenever one group is set against another group. And when several groups are all set against each other, the power of the people diminishes considerably, and we're that much closer to Rule By Minority.

Hedging Their Bets

... or maybe they just don't give a fuck (more likely IMO), because they think they'll be fine no matter what because they have the money to buy their way into the power circles, and out of whatever trouble it might bring them.

This is not "Late-Stage Capitalism", inviting the inference of a collapsing system - this is Early-Stage Plutocracy, as unfettered market-driven capitalism comes back into full flower.

Hat Tip = The Professional Left Podcast

These 50 companies have donated over $23 million to election deniers since January 6, 2021

Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.

Then, according to the report of the bipartisan January 6 Commission, Trump engaged in a "multi-part conspiracy to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 Presidential election."

Trump did not do this alone. He was supported by members of Congress who endorsed his lies and voted against certifying the election results, state attorneys general who filed briefs in support of Trump's baseless legal claims, and local officials who helped Trump create slates of fake electors. This all culminated in the violence of January 6, 2021, by a mob that was incited and encouraged by Trump, both before and during the attack.

Ultimately, Trump's efforts to cling to power came up short and Joe Biden, the rightful winner, was inaugurated. But in the intervening three years, the threat to democracy has not ebbed — it has intensified.

Trump won the Republican presidential primary and will be on the ballot again in November 2024. He has not abandoned his lies about 2020. Instead, he has made them central to his reelection campaign.

At rallies, Trump refers to the rioters who were sentenced in connection with the violent attack on the United States Capitol as "January 6th hostages." Before each campaign rally, he plays a version of the national anthem performed by people who participated in the mob violence. He is promising to pardon all of them if he wins the presidency again.

In other words, Trump has recast the violent attack of January 6, 2021, as an expression of patriotism. It sends a clear message to Trump supporters as America barrels toward what promises to be another close election.

Should he lose again, Trump warned ominously of "bedlam in the country" and "the opening of a Pandora’s box" after a January court appearance. Asked by a reporter if he would rule out more violence by his supporters, Trump simply walked away. (At a campaign event earlier this month, Trump said there would be a "bloodbath for the country" if Biden wins, but insists he was only talking about the domestic electric vehicle industry.)

Despite all of this, Trump has the near-unanimous support of the Republican Party. And many Republican election officials are not simply endorsing Trump — they are endorsing his lies about the 2020 election. The group States United Action has identified 170 federal and statewide officials and candidates who are election deniers, including 136 members of Congress, 22 statewide officials, and 12 candidates on the ballot for statewide office.

A new investigation by Popular Information, using state and federal campaign finance databases, found that 50 prominent corporations have donated $23,273,400 to the campaigns and political committees of these election deniers since January 6, 2021. Some of the largest contributors to election deniers are also some of the country's leading companies, including AT&T, Comcast, Walmart, and Microsoft.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. On January 4, a large group of business leaders signed onto a statement arguing that the planned objections to vote were destructive. "Congress should certify the electoral vote on Wednesday, January 6," the business leaders wrote. "Attempts to thwart or delay this process run counter to the essential tenets of our democracy." The Chamber of Commerce, which represents nearly every major corporation in America, released a similar statement.

As Popular Information comprehensively documented, in the aftermath of the attack on the U.S. Capitol, many of these corporations pledged to cut off support to members of Congress who voted to overturn the election.

Since then, the election deniers in Congress and around the country have not changed.

Just last month, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) said that had she been in the position of former Vice President Mike Pence (R) on January 6, 2021, she would not have certified election results. Stefanik said she stood by her vote against certifying the 2020 results, calling the election not "legal" and "unconstitutional." Notably, Stefanik also refused to commit to certifying the 2024 election results, calling Democrats "desperate." She also accused Democrats of "trying to steal" the 2024 election.

Over the last three years, Stefanik has received $503,500 from the 50 prominent corporations included in Popular Information's investigation through her committee and leadership PAC, including Home Depot, General Motors, FedEx, UnitedHealth, and Toyota. And Stefanik is not alone. Corporate cash is flowing to many officials who are not only defending their efforts to subvert the democratic process in 2020 but threatening to run the same playbook in 2024.

AT&T: $1,234,100 to 120 election deniers
After January 6, 2021, AT&T released a statement saying, “Employees on our Federal PAC Board convened a call today and decided to suspend contributions to members of Congress who voted to object to the certification of Electoral College votes last week.”

AT&T resumed donating to political committees supporting Republican objectors in February 2021. Those donations increased in September 2021. By January 2022, AT&T fully broke their pledge and resumed donations to individual Republican objectors. AT&T argued that the “employee PAC suspended contributions to those lawmakers’ campaigns for more than a year.” But since corporate political donations are capped over a two-year cycle, AT&T didn't miss out on an opportunity to donate the maximum to any candidate.

From January 6, 2021 to the present, AT&T has donated $1,234,100 to 109 election deniers at the federal level and 11 election deniers at the state level.

This includes $10,000 to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and $5,000 to Johnson’s leadership PAC. On January 6, 2021, hours before the insurrection, Johnson posted on X, “We MUST fight for election integrity, the Constitution, and the preservation of our republic! It will be my honor to help lead that fight in the Congress today.” Johnson voted to overturn the results of the election later that day, and reportedly coached Republican colleagues before the vote. Over a year later, Johnson said on his religious podcast “Truth Be Told” that “he and his colleagues had been right to object to the election results.” In January 2024, during an interview on CBS’ “Face The Nation,” Johnson continued to push claims that there was election interference in the 2020 election. “The Constitution was violated in the run up to the 2020 election…That’s just a fact,” Johnson said. Many courts have reviewed the claim that the conduct of the 2020 election was unconstitutional and all have rejected it.

AT&T also donated $10,000 to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R). After the 2020 election, Paxton filed a Supreme Court lawsuit attempting to invalidate the results of the election in key battleground states. Paxton argued that the states “exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to justify ignoring federal and state election laws and unlawfully enacting last-minute changes, thus skewing the results of the 2020 General Election.” In May 2022, Paxton posted a statement on X saying he “stand[s] by this lawsuit completely.” Paxton called it a “historic challenge to the unconstitutional 2020 presidential election.”

AT&T did not respond to a request for comment.

Microsoft: $112,500 to 29 election deniers
On February 5, 2021, Microsoft released a statement stating that it would “suspend contributions for the duration of the 2022 election cycle to all members of Congress who voted to object to the certification of electors. We will also suspend contributions for the same period for state officials and organizations who supported such objections or suggested the election should be overturned.”

Since January 6, 2021, however, Microsoft has donated $112,500 to 27 election deniers on the federal level and two election deniers on the state level.

In a statement to Popular Information, the company said, “Microsoft maintained our commitment for the duration of the 2022 election cycle and gave no money to candidates who objected to the certification of electors. Should any candidate continue to deny the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election in 2024, we will not contribute to their campaign.”

Microsoft’s recent donations, however, include multiple election deniers who continue to question the validity of the 2020 election results. On June 30, 2023, Microsoft donated $3,000 to Representative Byron Donalds (R-FL). At an Axios event this month, Donalds maintained that "states did not follow election laws in 2020." Donalds said that, if he became vice president, he would consider not certifying election results.

Microsoft also donated $15,000 to Johnson and $1,000 to Stefanik.

Comcast: $787,500 to 91 election deniers
After January 6, 2021, Comcast pledged to “suspend all of our political contributions to those elected officials who voted against certification of the electoral college votes, which will give us the opportunity to review our political giving policies and practices.” Comcast condemned the insurrection in a statement, saying, “The peaceful transition of power is a foundation of America’s democracy… This year, that transition will take place among some of the most challenging conditions in modern history and against the backdrop of the appalling violence we witnessed at the U.S. Capitol last week.”

Since January 6, 2021, however, Comcast has donated $787,500 to 83 election deniers on the federal level and eight election deniers on the state level.

This includes $5,000 to Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH). The January 6 Committee found that Jordan was a “significant player” in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. According to the committee’s report, Jordan “participated in numerous post-election meetings” where they “discussed strategies for challenging the election, chief among them claims that the election had been tainted by fraud.” During his bid to become House Speaker in October 2023, Jordan was asked in a press conference if he thought the 2020 election was stolen. “I think there were all kinds of problems with the 2020 election. I’ve been clear about that,” Jordan said.

Comcast also donated $2,500 to Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall (R). In March 2022, Marshall “refused to call President Joe Biden the ‘duly elected and lawfully serving’ president of the country.”

Comcast did not respond to a request for comment.

Walmart: $384,000 to 89 election deniers
After January 6, 2021, Walmart released a statement saying, “In light of last week’s attack on the U.S. Capitol, Walmart’s political action committee is indefinitely suspending contributions to those members of Congress who voted against the lawful certification of state electoral college votes.”

Since January 6, 2021, however, Walmart has donated $384,000 to 82 federal election deniers and seven election deniers on the state level.

Walmart's donations include $2,500 to Alabama Governor Kay Ivey (R). In 2022, Ivey released a campaign ad that pushed claims of election fraud. In the ad, Ivey stated, “The fake news, Big Tech and blue state liberals stole the election from Donald Trump. But here in Alabama, we’re making sure that never happens.”

Walmart also donated $15,000 to House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) and $7,500 to Scalise’s leadership PAC. In November 2023, Scalise “repeatedly did not answer whether or not the 2020 election was not stolen” in an interview with ABC News. “What I’ve told you is there are states that didn’t follow their laws. That is what the … U.S. Constitution requires,” Scalise said.

In a statement to Popular Information, Walmart equated Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election with symbolic votes to object by seven Democrats in 2017, months after Hillary Clinton conceded:

We’ve long believed we can more effectively advocate on behalf of our associates, customers, communities and shareholders by engaging with policymakers of both parties. However, our political contributions do not mean we support every view of an elected official. We continually examine our political giving strategy and contribute to those who are focused on issues important to our business and key stakeholders. As part of our ongoing reassessment and in line with the above approach, we resumed giving to select members of Congress who contested the 2020 presidential election, just as we’ve given in the most recent election cycle to some of the House Democrats who objected to electoral votes following the 2016 presidential election.

In the most recent election cycle, Walmart donated $4,500 to three Democrats who cast a symbolic vote against certifying the 2016 election.

Corporate governance experts weigh in

Bruce Freed, the president of the Center for Political Accountability, thinks these companies are making a mistake. Freed told Popular Information that the corporations sending millions in PAC donations to election deniers are "putting themselves at risk." He thinks the companies are underestimating the economic danger of undermining "the rule of law." Instead of focusing on the preservation of "the political system that they need to be able to operate and grow," they are engaged in "very short term" thinking.

Yale University's Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a corporate governance scholar who convened gatherings of CEOs before and after January 6, 2021, offered a qualified defense. Sonnenfeld told Popular Information that the CEOs he spoke with only committed to "a two year moratorium through the next election cycle" and not "a permanent moratorium." But, while some companies publicly limited their pledge to two years, most left it open ended. Further, as Popular Information has documented, many major corporations resumed donating to election deniers well before the end of two years. Sonnenfeld also stressed that in the first two years, overall corporate contributions to election deniers were lower.

Thomas Lyon, a corporate governance expert at the University of Michigan, was less positive. Lyon told Popular Information that corporate donors to election deniers are exposing themselves to "some scenarios in which some really ugly things happen." Lyon predicted that, if there is a repeat of violence after the 2024 election, there would be some "pretty serious blowback." He attributed the flow of millions in corporate cash to election deniers to "arm-twisting by politicians."

Other major corporate donors:

In a statement to Popular Information, Home Depot said that “our associate-funded PAC is bipartisan. It supports candidates and organizations on both sides of the aisle who champion pro-business, pro-retail positions that create jobs and economic growth.”

General Motors sent Popular Information the following statement: “The General Motors employee-funded PAC supports the election of U.S. federal and state candidates from both sides of the aisle who foster sound business policies, support American workers and understand the importance of a robust domestic auto industry as we pursue an all-electric vehicle future.”

Union Pacific told Popular Information, “Union Pacific donates to candidates on both sides of the aisle in compliance with national and state rules. We review our giving annually to every candidate as part of a comprehensive oversight process that ensures all political contributions are made in a legal and ethical manner.”

UBS and Wells Fargo declined to comment. The rest of the companies did not respond to a request for comment.

Today's Denier

Ingraham asks him to reassure voters he's not gay. Because of course Republicans aren't a buncha homophobic assholes 🤨, they just need reassurance - of - what? That while he is gay, he promises to stay deeply closeted, and that he'll work harder at being more self-loathing?

And also of course, he takes the opportunity to skip the question and go straight to attacking the media, because he's so quick and clever and original.

These idiots need some new material.

Today's Today

It just occurred to me that 'today' is an anagram of 'toady'. I wonder what brought that to mind.

Anyway, three years ago today, Lindsey Graham showed his true colors.

 Happy Anniversary, Senator! 

Making It Look Like Something Else