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Oct 5, 2022
Today's Problem
Hershel Walker's Abortion Controversy
Yeah, I get it - it's a joke. But even the vaccine thing would be ignored. The rubes are conditioned to accept, and to rationalize, and even to embrace whatever horror or contradiction comes from the candidate they've been instructed to support.
Daddy State Awareness
BASICS:
- The Daddy State lies as a means of demonstrating their power.
- The lies have practically nothing to do with the subject of the lies.
- Lying about everything is a way to condition us - to make us accept the premise that they can do anything they want.
- THEIR GOAL IS TO DICTATE REALITY TO US.
Dirty Fuels
We have to keep moving away from dirty fuels, but that threatens the plutocrats who are looking for control by commoditizing everything, and then monopolizing it.
You can't sabotage the sun, you can't cut back on the production of wind, and you can't blow up the motion of the water.
If we want energy independence, and the healthier world, and the freedom all of that implies, then we have to stomp the rent-seekers out of existence (figuratively of course - if possible).
How do you expect to hold me hostage to something that you don't have?
The WaPo editors conveniently miss that point.
(pay wall)
Undersea pipeline sabotage demands the West prepare for more attacks
Evidence continues to accumulate regarding underwater explosions that blew huge holes in two Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipelines on Sept. 27, and the circumstances all point to what a official NATO statement called “deliberate” sabotage. Sweden and Denmark have officially informed the U.N. Security Council that there were “at least two detonations” using “several hundred kilos” of explosives. This is the kind of capability usually wielded by a state actor, though NATO did not say officially what everyone suspects unofficially: The author of this strike against Europe’s stability and security was Russia. Now, the United States and its allies must meet a new challenge: threats to critical infrastructure, just as they are about to try to get through winter without Russian oil and gas.
Intelligence sources had foreseen this, and, indeed, Ukraine’s government warned of it. Getting the response right begins with understanding why Russian President Vladimir Putin might have chosen to strike where and when he did. In some ways, the pipelines — known as Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 — made attractive targets precisely because the short-term harm to Europe’s economy would be relatively limited. Neither carried much gas. Russia shut off the flow in Nord Stream 1, ostensibly for routine maintenance, more than a month ago, and the German government canceled Nord Stream 2’s planned opening in response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Furthermore, the explosions took place in international waters in the Baltic Sea, meaning they cannot be construed as a direct attack on any NATO member, which could have triggered the alliance’s mutual-defense agreement. As for the timing, the attack came on the day a new undersea gas pipeline opened from one NATO member that borders on Russia, Norway, to another, Poland, which the latter had billed as a quantum leap for its energy security.
Put it all together and the attack looks very much like an attempt to take revenge on countries that have backed Ukraine — a signal to them that more expensive energy supply disruptions might be coming — while preserving plausible deniability.
The West has long been aware of Russia’s capacity to disrupt critical energy and communications infrastructure through cyberattacks and disinformation. In April, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, along with the FBI and the National Security Agency, issued a joint warning about the cyberthreat to critical infrastructure such as energy and utilities. And so far, Ukraine and its supporters have kept cyber-damage to a minimum. Sabotage to the gas pipelines shows that Russia might use more prosaic “kinetic” tools — high explosives — to achieve the same purposes. In fact, Norway has suspected the Russian navy damaged its undersea fiber-optic cables earlier this year.
NATO was wise not to assign blame without ironclad proof, while warning it would respond forcefully against known culprits. What must come next, however, is stepped-up air and naval surveillance of the global network of undersea pipelines and cables, more accumulation of energy reserves for the winter and assurance that existing pipeline repair services — they already exist in both the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea — can act rapidly if needed. In protecting critical infrastructure, resilience is an essential part of deterrence.
Today's Smarmspace Antics
Eric Wemple at WaPo breaks down the nuisance lawsuit filed by Trump against CNN.
And while he does it right - pointing out the silliness of Trump's assertions, and the fact it's not going anywhere - he leaves out what I think is the motivation for it - the thing that Trump is always angling for - which is to come up with something he can pimp to the rubes so they focus on him as the avatar for their delusions of persecution, and perceived grievance. If he stops doing that, then the flow of money stops, and his power dissipates.
(pay wall)
Opinion
Trump sued CNN for defamation. Here’s where his case falls apart.
Did Donald Trump miss the news? Under Chris Licht, CNN’s new chairman and CEO, the network is embracing middle-of-the-road newscasting and has parted ways with high-profile staffers who spoke in blunt terms about Trump’s behavior in office.
If the former president is grateful, he’s not showing it. Trump filed suit against CNN on Monday, alleging that it has strived “to defame [Trump] in the minds of its viewers and readers for the purpose of defeating him politically.” This culminated “in CNN claiming credit for ‘[getting] Trump out’ in the 2020 presidential election,” according to the complaint filed in a Florida federal court.
Trump is seeking $475 million in punitive damages. Like other Trump lawsuits, this one lacks substance — more bluntly, it’s garbage — with its only utility being as a guide to this country’s wide-ranging First Amendment protections. CNN, in earlier correspondence with Trump excerpted in the legal filing, told the former president’s counsel, “While we will address the merits of any lawsuit should one be filed, we note that you have not identified a single false or defamatory statement in your letter.”
Although Trump’s financial demands run to nine figures, the document behind them is a flimsy 29 pages. It takes issue with statements aired on CNN that accuse Trump of pushing the “big lie” and that characterize him with the “false ... and defamatory labels of ‘racist,’ ‘Russian lackey,’ ‘insurrectionist,’ and ultimately ‘Hitler.’ ” The most facially laughable of these, of course, is “Russian lackey,” which is not only an innocuous put-down but also rests, in part, on one of the most infamous moments in U.S. diplomatic history — when then-President Trump sided with Russia over U.S. intelligence regarding Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The other allegedly “defamatory labels” are no such thing. Here are a few claims in the complaint, followed by explanations as to why they aren’t defamatory:
· Psychiatrist Allen Frances told then-CNN host Brian Stelter in August 2019, “Trump is as destructive a person in this century as Hitler, Stalin and Mao were in the last century.” Frances also said: “He may be responsible for many more million deaths than they were. He needs to be contained but he needs to be contained by attacking his policies, not his person. It’s crazy for us to be destroying the climate our children will live in. It’s crazy to be giving tax cuts to the rich that will add trillions of dollars to the debt our children will have to pay. It’s crazy to be destroying our democracy by claiming that the press and the courts are the enemy of the people.” Trump argues in his complaint that PolitiFact cited part of Frances’s statement as a “Pants on Fire” falsehood.
This was a dark moment for CNN. Stelter later admitted that he should have challenged Frances (he cited technical problems, saying he hadn’t heard the statement). But the unspecific nature of the commentary and the way it’s couched — that Trump “may be” responsible for the deaths — place it in the realm of rhetorical hyperbole. Shameless commentary isn’t always libelous. “I’m reasonably confident that a court would rule that, taken in context, that passage is an expression of opinion by Dr. Frances about the human toll of policies Trump pursued, which is protected by the First Amendment,” Lee Levine, a longtime media defense attorney, tells me by email.
· House Democrats in March 2019 likened aspects of Trump’s rise to Hitler’s, as CNN reported then. According to the suit, “the ‘reporting’ is nothing more than self-serving pronouncements by political opponents of [Trump] and their news proxy (and political participant), CNN.”
Read the statements in question, and it’s clear why they’re not remotely defamatory. For instance, House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) said, “Adolf Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany. And he went about the business of discrediting institutions to the point that people bought into it.” Clyburn also said: “Nobody would have believed it now. But swastikas hung in churches throughout Germany. We had better be very careful.”
To defame someone, you must make a false statement that purports to be a fact about that person. In this instance, Clyburn is speaking to historical parallels and political trends, not launching the sort of ad hominem attacks necessary to win a defamation claim.
· CNN host Jake Tapper said on a show in January 2022: “There is a reason Trump was in Arizona, to push the legislature to disenfranchise the state’s voters based on all of his deranged election lies.”
Those italics are in the lawsuit, apparently seeking to highlight the defamatory sting of Tapper’s remarks. Except they are no such thing. It’s well established that Trump has been told, again and again, that his claims about a stolen election are false. His persistence in airing these claims suggests that he’s lying, though Trump’s lawyers have said that he “subjectively believes that the results of the 2020 presidential election turned on fraudulent voting activity in several key states.”
Even if Trump believed his own statements, however, Tapper’s commentary would be protected as hyperbole — a valued commodity in a democratic society.
CNN’s lawyers will also likely argue that the challenged statements in the suit are, to a large extent, protected as assertions of opinion — the very doctrine that Trump deployed to get out of a lawsuit brought by a Republican strategist in 2016.
The complaint also argues that CNN has treated Trump’s claims of a stolen election differently from various claims by Democrats in recent election cycles. Set aside for a moment the fact that Trump’s claims have been more persistent, more egregious and more impactful, as we all saw at the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021. Even if CNN had treated Democratic claims of voter fraud more favorably, that would be protected First Amendment activity. Just think what would happen to Fox News if slanted reporting amounted to libel.
· Licht held a conference call in June 2022 in which he expressed low regard for the wording “big lie,” a term with Nazi origins. “Since then,” reads the complaint, “CNN’s on-air personalities — including John King, Jake Tapper, John Avlon, Brianna Keilar, and Don Lemon, among others — have continued to use the phrase in describing [Trump and Trump’s] questions of election integrity despite an apparent admonition from their Chief Executive Officer.”
So what? This is a management issue for CNN, not a legal one.
Calling presidents liars, even when they’re honest, is a great American tradition. Trump, the greatest liar in American political history, stands no chance of upending it.
Oct 4, 2022
Ukraine
I know it happens - to one degree or another - every time we lose our shit enough to send people to war.
But this makes me think all I want right now is to see Russians suffer and die.
More Wingnut
But it is kinda clever.
He needs to dodge the obvious question (If an all-powerful god wanted us to be a theocracy, wouldn't we be a theocracy already?), so he skips backwards to the founding, claiming the US is supposed to be a theocracy, but those rotten liberals are thwarting god's plan.
But that demands the conclusion: if god's plan can be thwarted by a few bureaucrats and activists, then that's one weak-ass god you got there, Skeezix.
That Oath Keepers Thing
(pay wall)
Stewart Rhodes is on trial in federal court in Washington along with four people described by prosecutors as “top lieutenants” in the militia-movement group he founded, the Oath Keepers. Rhodes is the highest-profile defendant charged so far in the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and is accused of steering a months-long effort to prevent by force the swearing-in of President Biden. Rhodes is among 14 fighting the historically rare charge of seditious conspiracy in what the government has called one of the largest investigations in U.S. history.
The Oath Keepers were founded in 2009 by Rhodes, who wanted armed paramilitary groups to prepare for an inevitable conflict with a tyrannical federal government. Rhodes, a former aide to libertarian congressman Ron Paul, recruited among law enforcement and military veterans and soon claimed thousands of members for the anti-government group. But few of those supporters have gotten involved in any Oath Keepers events, and former members describe it as a vanity project Rhodes used to fund personal luxuries.
Which Oath Keepers are facing trial, when and why?
Rhodes is facing trial with Thomas Caldwell, Kenneth Harrelson, Kelly Meggs, and Jessica Watkins. All are accused of conspiring to engage in sedition, obstructing the congressional affirmation of President Biden’s victory and impeding police on Jan. 6. Meggs, Harrelson and Watkins, who went into the Capitol, are also accused of property damage, and all but Watkins are charged with destroying evidence.
Caldwell and Rhodes stayed out of the building, according to court records. But prosecutors say they helped organize the Oath Keepers’ involvement, including the stationing of armed “Quick Reaction Force” teams with firearms, ammunition and explosives outside Washington. Four more defendants charged in the same seditious conspiracy are set to go to trial in November. Nine more Oath Keepers members or associates face trial in February on related but separate charges.
What to know about the Oath Keepers sedition trial
Rhodes has accused prosecutors of trying to manufacture a nonexistent conspiracy, denied there was a plan to enter the Capitol, and asserted that defendants only brought firearms in case President Donald Trump mobilized private militias to maintain order in a national emergency.
Attorneys for the defendants say their aggressive talk was just bravado that did not reflect their nonviolent actions on Jan. 6. Unlike members of the Proud Boys, who face their own seditious conspiracy trial next year, the Oath Keepers are not charged with assaulting police, though the indictment describes them as joining mobs that fought with law enforcement.
What do we expect or hope to learn from the trial?
- Did the accused Oath Keepers interact with people in Trump’s immediate orbit or other influential supporters involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results?
- To what extent did defendants plan for violence on Jan. 6, and did they anticipate continued armed resistance afterward?
- What was the scope of the Oath Keepers’ relationship with other extremist groups, such as the Proud Boys, whose longtime leader Rhodes met in a parking lot the night of Jan. 5?
- Is there any evidence to back up the Oath Keepers defendants’ claims that they went as peacekeepers, helped police inside the Capitol, and were unfairly targeted because of their beliefs?
What is seditious conspiracy?
Seditious conspiracy is defined as an effort by two or more to “conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof.”
A seditious conspiracy conviction carries the same 20-year maximum sentence as obstruction of an official proceeding, a felony hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants face. But seditious conspiracy carries more political weight by implying participation in a rebellion against the government. Prosecutions under the law are rare; the last was more than a decade ago, against a Christian militant group, and ended with a judge throwing out the charges. But three members of the Oath Keepers have already pleaded guilty to participating in a seditious conspiracy around Jan. 6 and are cooperating with the government.
What connection is there to former president Donald Trump?
The profile of the Oath Keepers rose with the 2016 election, as Trump embraced far-right figures and conspiracy theories about the federal government. Oath Keepers began standing armed outside voting booths providing security for certain Republicans. Members of the Oath Keepers worked as security for Trump allies, including his close confidant Roger Stone, who has publicly distanced himself from the violence and has said there is no evidence he had knowledge of the attack. Oath Keepers attorney Kellye SoRelle, who volunteered with a group of lawyers challenging the election results, says she was in contact with administration officials and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.
After the 2020 election, Rhodes began calling on Trump to give militants legal cover to forcibly stop the transfer of power. After the riot, according to court documents, Rhodes tried to get in touch with Trump and asked an intermediary to again urge the president to deputize the Oath Keepers to use force. It is not clear who he called.
What is the Insurrection Act and why does it matter?
The Insurrection Act is an 1807 law that allows the president to deploy federal troops, including deputized militias, to put down a domestic rebellion. The law has not been invoked in decades or been tested in the Supreme Court in nearly 200 years.
Rhodes and his followers traveled to Washington for Jan. 6 and stashed weapons just outside the city in hopes that Trump would use the law to empower the Oath Keepers to act as a shock troop thwarting anyone who tried to make Biden’s election victory a reality, according to allegations outlined in court documents.
Trump first threatened to use the law against Americans during racial justice protests in the summer of 2020. The Oath Keepers were among those urging Trump to do so, tweeting, “We’ll give Trump one last chance to declare this a Marxist insurrection & suppress it as his duty demands.”
After the election, Rhodes again pushed Trump to use the Insurrection Act to stay in power by force. Court records show that in advance of Jan. 6, Rhodes privately told lead Oath Keepers to have weapons ready in case they were “called up by the President as a militia.” Prosecutors point to the discussions as evidence that the Oath Keepers had a plan to use violence to thwart democracy. Rhodes says the group was preparing for what would have been a legal order from the president.
Seditious conspiracy is defined as an effort by two or more to “conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof.”
A seditious conspiracy conviction carries the same 20-year maximum sentence as obstruction of an official proceeding, a felony hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants face. But seditious conspiracy carries more political weight by implying participation in a rebellion against the government. Prosecutions under the law are rare; the last was more than a decade ago, against a Christian militant group, and ended with a judge throwing out the charges. But three members of the Oath Keepers have already pleaded guilty to participating in a seditious conspiracy around Jan. 6 and are cooperating with the government.
What connection is there to former president Donald Trump?
The profile of the Oath Keepers rose with the 2016 election, as Trump embraced far-right figures and conspiracy theories about the federal government. Oath Keepers began standing armed outside voting booths providing security for certain Republicans. Members of the Oath Keepers worked as security for Trump allies, including his close confidant Roger Stone, who has publicly distanced himself from the violence and has said there is no evidence he had knowledge of the attack. Oath Keepers attorney Kellye SoRelle, who volunteered with a group of lawyers challenging the election results, says she was in contact with administration officials and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.
After the 2020 election, Rhodes began calling on Trump to give militants legal cover to forcibly stop the transfer of power. After the riot, according to court documents, Rhodes tried to get in touch with Trump and asked an intermediary to again urge the president to deputize the Oath Keepers to use force. It is not clear who he called.
What is the Insurrection Act and why does it matter?
The Insurrection Act is an 1807 law that allows the president to deploy federal troops, including deputized militias, to put down a domestic rebellion. The law has not been invoked in decades or been tested in the Supreme Court in nearly 200 years.
Rhodes and his followers traveled to Washington for Jan. 6 and stashed weapons just outside the city in hopes that Trump would use the law to empower the Oath Keepers to act as a shock troop thwarting anyone who tried to make Biden’s election victory a reality, according to allegations outlined in court documents.
Trump first threatened to use the law against Americans during racial justice protests in the summer of 2020. The Oath Keepers were among those urging Trump to do so, tweeting, “We’ll give Trump one last chance to declare this a Marxist insurrection & suppress it as his duty demands.”
After the election, Rhodes again pushed Trump to use the Insurrection Act to stay in power by force. Court records show that in advance of Jan. 6, Rhodes privately told lead Oath Keepers to have weapons ready in case they were “called up by the President as a militia.” Prosecutors point to the discussions as evidence that the Oath Keepers had a plan to use violence to thwart democracy. Rhodes says the group was preparing for what would have been a legal order from the president.
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