- Conspiracy to commit offense, or defraud the United States (up to 10 years)
- Deprivation of rights under color of law (up to Life in Prison, or the Death Penalty)
- Witness tampering (up to 20 years)
All federal felonies.
Jul 19, 2023
Today's Beau
Suckered
Donald Trump has always played on the fact that people want to believe what they hear, because they don't want to believe they're being fooled.
We have some faith in what we're told because we're taught to have faith in people who are "above" us - our betters (ie: teachers, preachers, leaders, etc).
When they boldly assert an opinion as if it were a fact - stating it forcefully, and repeating it over and over again - we tend to lose track of our initial skepticism, and over time, we may even forget the bit of conflicting evidence that raised doubt in the first place. The repeated assertion becomes an ear worm - like an inane commercial jingle, or a Rick Astley song.
Trump convinces people to do illegal things for him, simply by telling them those things aren't actually illegal.
The Michigan indictments reinforce the evidence that at least some of those involved knew this wasn’t exactly on the up-and-up
When Michigan Republicans were planning in late 2020 to submit a slate of electors who supported Donald Trump — despite Trump having lost the state by nearly three points — then-state GOP Chairwoman Laura Cox thought better of it.
“I was very uncomfortable with that, as per my lawyers’ opinion,” Cox told the congressional Jan. 6 committee last year.
So she said she proposed an alternative: Instead of submitting the electors as if Trump had won, the party would sign a document merely offering the electors as a contingency in case the courts somehow awarded Michigan to Trump.
Those involved did not adopt Cox’s plan. The courts didn’t overturn Michigan’s result. And now the 16 people who signed a document falsely claiming they were duly elected have been indicted.
Michigan on Tuesday became the first state to charge so-called “fake” Trump electors. The 16 electors who signed that document are each charged with eight felonies, including forgery.
As documents from the office of state Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) note, they not only falsely declared duly elected status, but they also falsely claimed they had “convened and organized in the State Capitol” — the location where such proceedings must legally be held — despite meeting at state GOP headquarters instead. The possibility of criminal charges for making such false statements in a legal document has long been talked about. Alternate electors in Georgia have also been scrutinized, and news broke last week that Arizona’s Democratic attorney general was similarly probing her state’s alternate electors.
The Michigan 16 become the latest in a long line of people indicted for their roles in trying to overturn the election for Trump. That list could possibly grow to include Trump himself soon; news broke earlier Tuesday that special counsel Jack Smith had informed Trump that he was a target in his Jan. 6 investigation. It’s not clear whether any charges might involve the fake-elector plans that developed in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6.
Here’s what the Michigan case reinforces about the “fake elector” plots: just how many people seemed to recognize that the plan wasn’t exactly on the up-and-up.
The documents released with the indictment allege that those involved talked about how the effort was supposed to remain secret.
When one now-indicted participant posted about it on Facebook, according to the Michigan affidavit, another complained “we were all asked to keep silent” and added, “Was she not told to keep quite [sic].”
A third participant, now-indicted Michigan Republican National Committeewoman Kathy Berden, confirmed, according to the affidavit, “Yes we all were.”
The Michigan case is the third in which we’ve learned about how the fake electors intended to operate in secret. The Washington Post reported last year on an email showing a Trump campaign staffer advising Georgia’s alternate electors to operate in “complete secrecy.” Separately, a fake elector in Wisconsin talked about efforts to meet in secret.
In each case, those involved indicated they worried that people knowing what was happening would compromise the mission or present security concerns. In Michigan, there was even talk of sneaking into the Capitol the day before the constitutionally required date of Dec. 14 and staying overnight, according to Cox’s testimony. She labeled the idea “insane and inappropriate.”
Despite the calls for secrecy, in each of the three states, they wound up promoting their efforts, at least after the fact.
But it’s not the only evidence that at least some of the people involved understood in real time how dicey what they were doing was.
In addition to Cox refusing to participate, so did two of the 16 people who had initially volunteered to serve as Trump electors. One of them was former Michigan secretary of state Terri Lynn Land (R), who in that role had run the state’s elections. (Cox testified that Land was also not “comfortable” with the effort.) Those two were replaced.
Cox stated in her Jan. 6 committee testimony, “That document was like an affidavit stating that they were voting for the president, and that was not — they weren’t doing that.”
Similarly, one of the now-indicted signers, Meshawn Maddock, who later became state party co-chairwoman, signaled a month before signing that she might have been aware there were potential legal problems with such an effort. When asked by Politico’s Kyle Cheney in mid-November 2020 about the possibility of submitting alternate electors for Trump, Maddock said, “What I might want to do can be completely different from what we are legally capable of doing, does that make sense?”
While Michigan Republicans opted not to pursue Cox’s plan, some in other states took more care to insulate themselves — in line with her idea. In both New Mexico and Pennsylvania, the electors built into the documents they signed a contingency stating that they were the duly chosen electors only if Trump’s loss in their state were to be overturned.
More broadly, the big question about the fake-elector plot was whether it was truly such a contingency in case a state’s results were overturned, as Trump’s campaign insisted, or whether it was intended to try to overturn the result on Jan. 6 regardless, as Trump eventually attempted to do. Evidence suggests that at least some involved understood this early on as being about the intended outcome. Georgia’s alternate Trump electors have suggested in court that Trump’s campaign might have “misused[d]” them when he tried to overturn the results on Jan. 6 even without Georgia’s result being overturned.
We might soon learn a lot more about that, via the special counsel’s investigation. For now, though, 16 more people are facing serious penalties for playing roles in Trump’s scheme — in seemingly predictable ways.
Jul 18, 2023
Today's Deep Thought
If teachers have been indoctrinating kids in public schools, then more adults would know the correct usage of commas and apostrophes.
SCOTUS
The federal judiciary is at an historical low approval.
- Code of ethics
- Term limits
- Expand the court
Today's Tweet
Charles Barkley: “If you’re gay, bless you if you’re trans, bless you. If you have a problem with that - F*CK YOU!” pic.twitter.com/eQID66Q2eS
— chris evans (@notcapnamerica) July 14, 2023
The Temp Is Too Damn High
Dangerous heat is expected to engulf most of the southern United States this week.
The Post is tracking the potential for dangerous heat using the heat index, which accounts for the combined impact of temperature and humidity — the higher the humidity, the more difficult it is for the body to cool itself off through sweating.
Extreme heat kills more people in the United States than any other weather hazard, and the risk of longer and more frequent heat waves is only expected to increase as climate change worsens. Heat disorders such as heat stroke, heat cramps and heat exhaustion are possible with any extended exposure to a heat index at or above 90 degrees.
Heat illness can set in quickly — in as little as 10 to 15 minutes — when your body overheats and can’t properly cool itself off. This can lead to muscle cramps or spasms, heavy sweating, weakness or tiredness, abnormal pulse rate, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, headache, confusion, fainting, loss of consciousness or death.
Multiple days of extreme heat, including warm nights that don’t allow our bodies to cool down, are especially dangerous. A Washington Post analysis of data provided by the nonprofit First Street Foundation estimated that the average number of Americans experiencing at least three consecutive days of temperatures 100 degrees or higher each year will climb from 46 percent today to 63 percent over the next 30 years.
Urban centers, which have fewer trees, less grass, and heat-absorbing pavement, can be up to 20 degrees hotter than nearby neighborhoods, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Weather Service issues heat watches, warnings and advisories when extreme heat — generally a heat index of 100 degrees or higher — is expected or imminent. Any watch, warning or advisory in effect for your location can be seen by entering your location into the lookup box at weather.gov.
Infants and children up to four years old, adults 65 years and older, and people who are overweight, ill, or on certain medications are at the highest risk for heat-related illness, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Outdoor workers and athletes are also at greater risk.
The Weather Service recommends wearing light, loose-fitting clothing, drinking water often before you get thirsty, reducing or rescheduling strenuous activity, and staying in air-conditioned places during extreme heat.
Jul 17, 2023
These Fuckin' Guys
Republicans have alleged:
The FBI went after conservative parents at school board meetings.
(That’s entirely baseless)
FBI Director Chris Wray, a registered Republican, personally sicced the FBI on conservatives.
(Wray called this “insane”)
FBI has eagerly persecuted Trump.
(The FBI is rule-bound and cautious)
FBI plants incited the Jan6 attack.
(The central evidence of this has collapsed)
The MAGA persecution complex is eating itself to death
Stephen K. Bannon, a spiritual leader of the Trumpist right, infamously declared in 2018 that the secret to political warfare was “to flood the zone with s--t.” For many observers, this quote continues to capture the perils of our “post-truth” moment: Our democratic culture remains deeply vulnerable to being swamped by disinformation.
But with Donald Trump out of the presidency and his allies in Congress mired in infighting, we’re now seeing what happens when the zone gets so flooded with excrement that it threatens to drown the MAGA movement itself.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) chaired a House Judiciary Committee hearing last week that purported to expose the FBI’s “weaponization” against conservatives. But GOP lawmakers floated so many allegations and conspiracy theories that the spectacle devolved into a haphazard, scattered mess with no storylines developed in meaningful depth.
After months of these hearings, it’s painfully clear they lack anything close to the focus of the congressional investigations into the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, during Barack Obama’s presidency. As a result, these proceedings are unlikely to produce the political benefits that the Benghazi hearings did.
Blame it on the “MAGA persecution complex” — the vast array of outlets in the right-wing media ecosystem that incentivizes GOP lawmakers to pander to conservative victimization and grievance. It’s feasting on so many claims of persecution that it’s essentially eating itself to death.
At last week’s hearing, Republicans alleged that the FBI investigated conservative parents at school board meetings. (That’s entirely baseless.) They insisted FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, a registered Republican, personally sicced the FBI on conservatives. (Wray called this “insane.”) They claimed the FBI has eagerly persecuted Trump. (The FBI has actually been rule-bound and cautious.) They railed that FBI plants incited the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. (The central evidence of this has collapsed.)
Republicans even insisted the FBI is riddled with anti-Catholic bias based on a field-level memo about radical right-wing Catholics that is indeed problematic. But Wray admitted to a serious error, declaring it subject to internal review. Presenting one example of abuse at a huge agency as proof of another vast conspiracy is silly.
The barrage of these allegations and others — the FBI is covering up President Biden’s bribery, it’s investigating would-be GOP informants, it’s colluding with social media giants to censor conservatives — is dizzying. Storylines eclipse each other before any can gel into something coherent.
“Good oversight may start with a theory, but it gathers facts before reaching conclusions,” Brendan Buck, a former senior House GOP leadership aide, told me. “These committees are starting with conclusions and then trying — and mostly failing — to find facts to support them.”
Republicans are trying to tell one story about the persecution of conservatives that has fractured into a thousand subplots. By contrast, once the GOP-controlled House hit on Benghazi, the focus on that story was far tighter.
Kurt Bardella, a former House GOP communications adviser who has turned on the party, points out that at the time, lawmakers had fewer incentives to seek viral moments by hijacking specific narratives for themselves. Hearings could be more coordinated toward influencing mainstream news coverage.
“Nowadays, if you want to have a moment, you say something outlandish, put it up on social media,” Bardella told me. “All the right-wing platforms will amplify it for you.” That encourages freelance messaging and disunity, he noted.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton — the central character in the Benghazi hearings — was widely distrusted by reporters (to catastrophically unfair effect) at the outset. It’s hard to quantify the impact of those hearings, but a years-long drumbeat about vague corruption, amplified in mainstream coverage, probably took a toll.
Contrast that with today. Yes, the public is sour on the FBI. The agency did make serious mistakes during the Trump years. But voters are being asked to hate a villain that’s far more baroque and insidious than “mistakes were made.” The enemy is either absurdly nebulous (the “deep state”) or fantastical (thousands of federal officers conspiring against conservatives).
It also clashes with how the FBI has long been perceived in mainstream culture, noted Tim Weiner, author of a history of the agency. It’s a “very White, very male, very conservative law enforcement agency,” Weiner told me, and Republicans are trying to portray it as “antifa in a Brooks Brothers suit.”
That’s a tough sell. But as Bloomberg’s Jonathan Bernstein notes, this conspiratorial rhetoric has become party-wide dogma. Repeating it earns party approval, creating a self-reinforcing effect.
Also, mainstream media outlets appear inclined to cover Trump-aligned conspiracy-mongering with more skepticism than the Benghazi hearings. Matt Gertz has detailed for Media Matters that attacks on the FBI have taken on a Keystone Kops quality: New whistleblowers and revelations are forever promised to reporters and never materialize.
Finally, Jan. 6 sharply illustrated the true stakes of the situation: Many on the far right did commit serious crimes against the country. While Trump-loyal Republicans are handwaving it all away, law enforcement is meting out appropriate accountability. This probably inclines news organizations to cover right-wing attacks on law enforcement more harshly than Benghazi.
But no matter: The zone-flooding conspiratorial antics will keep on coming. The MAGA persecution complex requires no less.
Stephen K. Bannon, a spiritual leader of the Trumpist right, infamously declared in 2018 that the secret to political warfare was “to flood the zone with s--t.” For many observers, this quote continues to capture the perils of our “post-truth” moment: Our democratic culture remains deeply vulnerable to being swamped by disinformation.
But with Donald Trump out of the presidency and his allies in Congress mired in infighting, we’re now seeing what happens when the zone gets so flooded with excrement that it threatens to drown the MAGA movement itself.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) chaired a House Judiciary Committee hearing last week that purported to expose the FBI’s “weaponization” against conservatives. But GOP lawmakers floated so many allegations and conspiracy theories that the spectacle devolved into a haphazard, scattered mess with no storylines developed in meaningful depth.
After months of these hearings, it’s painfully clear they lack anything close to the focus of the congressional investigations into the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, during Barack Obama’s presidency. As a result, these proceedings are unlikely to produce the political benefits that the Benghazi hearings did.
Blame it on the “MAGA persecution complex” — the vast array of outlets in the right-wing media ecosystem that incentivizes GOP lawmakers to pander to conservative victimization and grievance. It’s feasting on so many claims of persecution that it’s essentially eating itself to death.
At last week’s hearing, Republicans alleged that the FBI investigated conservative parents at school board meetings. (That’s entirely baseless.) They insisted FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, a registered Republican, personally sicced the FBI on conservatives. (Wray called this “insane.”) They claimed the FBI has eagerly persecuted Trump. (The FBI has actually been rule-bound and cautious.) They railed that FBI plants incited the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. (The central evidence of this has collapsed.)
Republicans even insisted the FBI is riddled with anti-Catholic bias based on a field-level memo about radical right-wing Catholics that is indeed problematic. But Wray admitted to a serious error, declaring it subject to internal review. Presenting one example of abuse at a huge agency as proof of another vast conspiracy is silly.
The barrage of these allegations and others — the FBI is covering up President Biden’s bribery, it’s investigating would-be GOP informants, it’s colluding with social media giants to censor conservatives — is dizzying. Storylines eclipse each other before any can gel into something coherent.
“Good oversight may start with a theory, but it gathers facts before reaching conclusions,” Brendan Buck, a former senior House GOP leadership aide, told me. “These committees are starting with conclusions and then trying — and mostly failing — to find facts to support them.”
Republicans are trying to tell one story about the persecution of conservatives that has fractured into a thousand subplots. By contrast, once the GOP-controlled House hit on Benghazi, the focus on that story was far tighter.
Kurt Bardella, a former House GOP communications adviser who has turned on the party, points out that at the time, lawmakers had fewer incentives to seek viral moments by hijacking specific narratives for themselves. Hearings could be more coordinated toward influencing mainstream news coverage.
“Nowadays, if you want to have a moment, you say something outlandish, put it up on social media,” Bardella told me. “All the right-wing platforms will amplify it for you.” That encourages freelance messaging and disunity, he noted.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton — the central character in the Benghazi hearings — was widely distrusted by reporters (to catastrophically unfair effect) at the outset. It’s hard to quantify the impact of those hearings, but a years-long drumbeat about vague corruption, amplified in mainstream coverage, probably took a toll.
Contrast that with today. Yes, the public is sour on the FBI. The agency did make serious mistakes during the Trump years. But voters are being asked to hate a villain that’s far more baroque and insidious than “mistakes were made.” The enemy is either absurdly nebulous (the “deep state”) or fantastical (thousands of federal officers conspiring against conservatives).
It also clashes with how the FBI has long been perceived in mainstream culture, noted Tim Weiner, author of a history of the agency. It’s a “very White, very male, very conservative law enforcement agency,” Weiner told me, and Republicans are trying to portray it as “antifa in a Brooks Brothers suit.”
That’s a tough sell. But as Bloomberg’s Jonathan Bernstein notes, this conspiratorial rhetoric has become party-wide dogma. Repeating it earns party approval, creating a self-reinforcing effect.
Also, mainstream media outlets appear inclined to cover Trump-aligned conspiracy-mongering with more skepticism than the Benghazi hearings. Matt Gertz has detailed for Media Matters that attacks on the FBI have taken on a Keystone Kops quality: New whistleblowers and revelations are forever promised to reporters and never materialize.
Finally, Jan. 6 sharply illustrated the true stakes of the situation: Many on the far right did commit serious crimes against the country. While Trump-loyal Republicans are handwaving it all away, law enforcement is meting out appropriate accountability. This probably inclines news organizations to cover right-wing attacks on law enforcement more harshly than Benghazi.
But no matter: The zone-flooding conspiratorial antics will keep on coming. The MAGA persecution complex requires no less.
Say What, Vlad?
What up here, dude?
Is this another shot at extortion?
Take hostages and maybe the world will overlook the shit you're always trying to pull?
Russia Pulls Out of the Black Sea Grain Deal
The Kremlin terminated an agreement that had allowed Ukraine to export its grain by sea despite a wartime blockade, a deal seen as essential to keeping global food prices stable.
Russia said on Monday that it was ending an agreement that had allowed Ukraine to export its grain by sea despite Moscow’s naval blockade, upending a deal that had helped to keep global food prices stable and alleviate one element of the global fallout from the war.
Ukraine is a major producer of grain and other foodstuffs, and the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, said he was “deeply disappointed” by the decision. Millions of people who face hunger, or are struggling, as well as consumers around the world facing a cost of living crisis, will “pay a price,” he said.
"Today’s decision by the Russian Federation will strike a blow to people in need everywhere,” he told journalists.
A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told journalists earlier on Monday that the agreement was “halted.”
“As soon as the Russian part is fulfilled, the Russian side will immediately return to the implementation of that deal,” he said. He added that the decision was not connected to the attack hours earlier on the Kerch Strait Bridge linking Russia to occupied Crimea. Russian officials blamed Ukraine for the attack, but Kyiv has not taken responsibility.
“Only upon receipt of concrete results, and not promises and assurances, will Russia be ready to consider restoring the ‘deal,’” the statement said.
The agreement, known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative and brokered by the United Nations and Turkey, had been set to expire on Monday following the latest in a series of short-term extensions.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said he would speak to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia about the agreement and signaled hope that it could be revived.
“Despite the statement today, I believe the president of the Russian Federation, my friend Putin, wants the continuation of this humanitarian bridge,” Mr. Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that Moscow had broken its agreement with the United Nations and with Mr. Erdogan, rather than with his country itself, given that Ukraine had made a separate deal with the two mediators over grain. Ukraine demands a complete withdrawal of Russian forces from its territory and an end to aggression before any talks can take place.
“Even without the Russian Federation, everything must be done so that we can use this Black Sea corridor,” Mr. Zelensky said in remarks sent by his press office, adding that Ukraine was ready to restart shipments if the United Nations and Turkey agreed.
The deal successfully eased shortages that resulted from blockades in the first months of the war, which caused global wheat prices to soar. It allowed Ukraine to restart the export of millions of tons of grain that had languished for months, and it has been renewed multiple times, most recently in May. Wheat prices surged on Monday, exposing vulnerable countries to the prospect of a new round of food insecurity.
But Moscow has complained that Western sanctions continued to restrict the sale of its own agricultural products, and sought guarantees that would facilitate its exports of grain and fertilizers. In an effort to extend the deal, Mr. Guterres sent Mr. Putin proposals last week that he said would “remove hurdles affecting financial transactions” through Russia’s agricultural bank.
Ukraine has exported 32.8 million tons of grain and other food since the initiative began, according to U.N. data. Under the agreement, ships are permitted to pass by Russian naval vessels that in effect have blockaded Ukraine’s ports since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The ships are inspected off the coast of Istanbul, in part to ensure they are not carrying weapons.
Last year, Russia halted participation in inspections that were part of the deal, only to rejoin in a matter of days.
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