Under The Radar

Having pled guilty in the fake electors scheme in Georgia, Ken Chesebro is apparently on tour, hitting all the hot venues, even though it's not been a big news item.

Exclusive:

Pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro cooperating in multiple state probes into 2020 fake electors plot

The pro-Trump lawyer who helped devise the 2020 fake electors plot and already pleaded guilty to the conspiracy in Georgia is now cooperating with Michigan and Wisconsin state investigators in hopes of avoiding more criminal charges, multiple sources told CNN.

In a dramatic turnaround from 2020 – when the lawyer, Kenneth Chesebro, was at the center of efforts by former President Donald Trump to subvert the Electoral College and overturn his defeat – Chesebro is now helping investigators in at least four states who are looking into the scheme.

Chesebro’s cooperation in Wisconsin is the first indication the state attorney general’s office has launched its own investigation into the false slates of pro-Trump electors. Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, has not publicly announced that an investigation is underway.

Chesebro also recently testified to a grand jury in Nevada, where indictments against six fake electors were announced Wednesday by state prosecutors. Additionally, Chesebro has been in contact with prosecutors in Arizona, where he plans to sit for an interview as part of that state’s ongoing investigation into fake electors.

CNN has previously identified Chesebro as an unindicted co-conspirator in special counsel Jack Smith’s federal indictment against Trump, where the former president is charged with organizing the fake electors scheme “to disenfranchise millions of voters” and unlawfully remain in power. There is no indication Chesebro is cooperating in the federal probe, or that Smith has ruled out charges against him.

The Trump campaign targeted seven states with the scheme in 2020. Charges have been filed against fake electors in Georgia, Michigan and Nevada. Investigations are underway in Arizona, New Mexico and now, apparently, Wisconsin. The seventh state in the plot was Pennsylvania.

The Michigan inquiry, led by state Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, was the first in the nation to produce criminal charges. It now appears that the scope of Nessel’s investigation may be broader than previously known, and is looking at other figures with ties to the scheme beyond the fake electors themselves.

The Michigan attorney general’s office confirmed to CNN in an email this week that their investigation is still active.

The Wisconsin attorney general’s office declined to comment, as did Chesebro’s lawyer.

Chesebro has entered into what’s known as proffer agreements in several states, which gives him some protection from prosecution, according to multiple sources. His cooperation with investigators in Michigan and Wisconsin has not been previously reported.

But cooperating with state prosecutors does not guarantee Chesebro will avoid criminal charges in one or all of the ongoing investigations, the sources cautioned.

Another pro-Trump lawyer in Michigan

Nessel’s ongoing investigation has already produced charges against the 16 fake electors in Michigan. One agreed to cooperate in exchange for his case being dropped. The rest pleaded not guilty, and there are key hearings this month in their bid to toss the case.

Sources told CNN that Nessel has scrutinized another pro-Trump lawyer, Ian Northon, who was in contact with top Trump allies after the 2020 election and accompanied the fake electors when they tried to enter the Michigan statehouse.

In charging documents against the Michigan fake electors, prosecutors highlighted how Northon tried to persuade a state trooper to let them into the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing – but they were rebuffed. This was a key part of the plan that Chesebro and others devised: Federal law and Michigan statutes require the electors to meet in the statehouse, and Chesebro hoped the pro-Trump slate would hew to the law as closely as possible.

An attorney for Northon did not comment for this story.

After the 2020 election, Northon participated in conference calls with then-Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman where they discussed how to contest the results, according to Northon’s testimony to the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

Northon also had a phone call with Sidney Powell, a right-wing attorney and conspiracy theorist who has pleaded guilty in the Georgia election subversion case. She asked him to join a lawsuit she was filing in Michigan about nullifying the election – he declined and filed a separate suit contesting the results. The meritless cases went nowhere.

According to his congressional testimony, Northon had no ties to Chesebro, except that a colleague forwarded to him one of Chesebro’s memos about the Electoral College after the 2020 election. Northon also said he learned from a pro-Trump state legislator that the fake electors would be meeting in Lansing.

“I was as disappointed, I think, as anybody to see what happened on January 6 at the Capitol,” Northon told the House committee in 2022. “My efforts in representing these private clients were to get people to follow the law, not to encourage people to break it.”

Today's Wingnut

It doesn't make sense because it's not supposed to make sense. Or rather, it's supposed to not make sense.

If an authoritarian keeps it all straight, he's not an authoritarian. So the point of the exercise is to maintain a consistency of being inconsistent. That way, the devotees must always come back and ask you what they should be thinking at any given moment about any given thing.

Daddy State Awareness

THE BASICS:

• 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 is a way to condition us - to make us accept the premise that they can do anything they want.

The goal is to dictate reality to us.

And Now To You, Mr Perry

This is from almost 2 weeks ago. Sorry - I missed it.

Rep Scott Perry (R - PA10) appears to be a major player in the Jan6 coup attempt.

• He pushed for Jeff Clarke to be appointed AG
• He kinda spear-headed the court challenges in Pennsylvania
• He asked Trump for a pardon

All of which makes me think the assumptions are true - that Mr Perry has at least a few counterparts in other states. eg: Arizona, New Mexico, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Court filing reveals Rep. Scott Perry’s vast web of contacts in bid to reverse 2020 election

A federal appeals court on Wednesday released previously secret text messages from Perry — only to remove them from the public docket later in the day.

At 11:08 p.m. on Dec. 30, 2020, days before Donald Trump prepared to install Jeff Clark atop the Justice Department amid his frenzied push to remain in power, Clark got a text from one key ally, Rep. Scott Perry.

“POTUS seems very happy with your response. I read it just as you dictated,” Perry (R-Pa.) texted the senior Justice Department official.

“I’m praying. This makes me quite nervous. And wonder if I’m worthy or ready,” Clark replied.

“You are the man. I have confirmed it. God does what he does for a reason,” Perry continued.

At the time, Clark was supporting Trump’s false claims of voter fraud — and Trump, hoping to harness the Justice Department in his bid to overturn the 2020 election, was nearing a decision to appoint Clark as acting attorney general. He ultimately backed off amid a high-level rebellion at DOJ and in the White House. But the newly disclosed text messages — contained in a court filing that appears to have been erroneously made public on Wednesday — show that Clark was girding for the appointment, bolstered by support from Perry, a conservative leader in Congress.

The intimate exchange, along with a batch of other communications, was released by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which previously heard litigation over special counsel Jack Smith’s effort to access the communications stored on Perry’s cell phone. The court partially blocked Smith’s effort in a ruling that relied on the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause, which allows members of Congress to prevent certain communications from being probed by prosecutors.

Many of the documents connected to the case had been kept under seal. But on Wednesday, the D.C. Circuit unsealed them — including a lower court’s opinion that described and quoted from a large volume of the very text messages that Smith has been seeking. By Wednesday evening, the unsealed opinion appeared to have been removed from the court’s public docket, suggesting it may have been posted inadvertently.

A spokesperson for the court did not immediately respond to a request for comment. John Rowley, an attorney for Perry, described dismay at the public release of the communications.

“The disclosure of Representative Perry’s private communications, taken from the phone of a sitting Member of Congress — who has never been accused of wrongdoing — is unfortunate,” Rowley said. “The communications reflect his efforts to understand real-time information about the 2020 election. They were confidential and intended to address critical business before Congress in service of his constituents.”

The FBI seized Perry’s phone in August 2022 — three months before Smith took over the probe — but the congressman quickly moved to block prosecutors from accessing the files it contained, citing his constitutional protections.

Wednesday’s unsealed filing shows that the warrant prosecutors obtained to access Perry’s phone sought an extraordinary array of information related to the investigation of efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election. It included a demand for any communications related to “alleged election fraud,” “efforts to install Jeffrey Clark as Acting Attorney General,” as well as contacts between Perry and Clark, his deputy Ken Klukowski, Trump, Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, attorney John Eastman and others. The warrant sought any discussions related to “overturning, decertifying, delegitimizing, challenging, or questioning the results of the 2020 United States presidential election in any state.”

The newly disclosed documents reveal an extraordinary web of communications between Perry, who is now the chair of the House Freedom Caucus, and key figures in Trump’s orbit. 

They include:

• A Dec. 12, 2020, text exchange with Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel discussing efforts to challenge Joe Biden’s victory in the election.
• A series of exchanges between Perry and a former DOJ colleague, Robert Gasaway, between Dec. 30, 2020, and Jan. 5, 2021, in which Perry embraced a plan to have then-Vice President Mike Pence “admit testimony” prior to the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021. Perry agreed to “sell[] the idea” with a call to Trump, Pence and Trump adviser John Eastman, but Perry later alerted Gasaway that Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, “will not allow access.”
• A description of numerous exchanges between Perry and top Trump administration officials, including Clark, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, senior adviser Eric Herschmann and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, a former House colleague of Perry.
• A Nov, 12, 2020 text to Trump campaign lawyer Alex Cannon advising the campaign on challenges to the election results in Pennsylvania, as well as numerous other contacts with Trump-affiliated lawyers Jenna Ellis, Boris Epshteyn and Justin Clark.
• An exchange with Simone Gold, a doctor known for opposing the Covid vaccine who would later plead guilty to misdemeanors for her role in the breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6.
• Exchanges with numerous Pennsylvania state legislators, including Doug Mastriano, strategizing ways to challenge the state’s election results.
• Texts with “cybersecurity individuals” working with attorney Sidney Powell to challenge the election results, including Phil Waldron. In one exchange, Perry emailed former Trump National Security Council staffer Rich Higgins to relay an “incredibly spooky” allegation that the U.S. Army had confiscated election servers in Germany to help cover up fraud.
• In the days after the election was called for Biden, Perry told one ally, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, that he would attempt to help get him or Sidney Powell booked on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. The filing shows Perry was in touch at times with Phil Waldron, a purported cybersecurity expert working with Powell, and discussed ways to get a pipeline of information to state legislative leaders.
• “Rep. Perry asked Waldron to ‘show me what you have’ and agreed to ‘fast track any questions/answers right to the leadership in the pa state legislature,’ and stating '[w]e’ll need a connection in the other states,’” the filing reveals.

But the exchanges with DOJ’s Clark — described in Smith’s federal indictment of Trump as one of six unnamed and unindicted co-conspirators in an effort to subvert the 2020 election — are perhaps the most revealing. Clark, then a low-profile figure who oversaw the Justice Department’s civil litigation in the final months of the presidential term, was introduced to Trump by Perry amid Trump’s effort to remain in office.

Trump came close to appointing Clark as acting attorney general in the early days of 2021 before backing down amid a mass resignation threat by senior DOJ and White House officials. During this time, Clark pressured top DOJ officials to send a letter to state legislatures urging them to consider sending alternate slates of presidential electors to Congress, and he obtained a security clearance to review intelligence about potential foreign efforts to interfere in the election.

Perry indicated in one newly disclosed exchange that Trump had personally approved a “presidential security clearance,” a comment that followed Clark asking Perry to ensure that Trump was aware that CIA Director Gina Haspel needed to supply him with “security clearance tickets” to access intelligence related to the 2020 election.

In one exchange, Perry told Clark that Trump was upset with Clark for using the Justice Department to defend Pence against a lawsuit brought by another House member, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas). Gohmert was seeking a court ruling declaring that Pence had the power to unilaterally reject Biden’s electoral votes, but DOJ’s civil division — then under Clark’s leadership — stepped in to defend Pence against the suit, which failed.

“[H]e’s not thrilled with your decision regarding Pence and Gohmert,” Perry texted.

Clark responded, “The branch within Civil Division responsible for Gohmert brief refused to have anything to do with my brief.”

“Folks are rebelling against [POTUS] because they know time is short and they yearn for Biden,” he added.

Clark has pointed to his involvement in the Gohmert suit he defends himself against criminal charges brought against him by Georgia prosecutors.

“I was in charge of the defense of this 2020 presidential election case and my name is the first one on the filings defending the Vice President,” he wrote in a September declaration.

On Wednesday evening, a spokeswoman for Clark said the former DOJ official had never disclaimed responsibility for the Justice Department brief that helped Pence fend off Gohmert’s lawsuit.

“True to form, POLITICO is taking a piece of the story and spinning a fake narrative worthy of regime accolades,” the spokeswoman said.

The newly disclosed exchanges also include Perry’s contacts with other House members seeking to reverse Trump’s defeat or to raise challenges to the election results. Perry texted Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) on Nov. 7, 2020 that there was “concrete evidence” of fraud in Michigan. The same day and on Nov. 8, Perry “exchanged text messages with Congressmen Hice, Jordan, and Roy, about issues with ‘the Dominion voting system,’ prompting comment from Rep. Hice, ‘YES!! ... And don’t forget, on the Trump campaign call this afternoon, they have uncovered ‘illegal ballot harvesting’ in 3 GA counties,’” the filing reveals.

And Perry also exchanged texts with then Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene, who complained about “incompetence here in Georgia,” prompting Perry to respond, “Nothing can beat effective cheating.”

This shit is wide and deep

Season's Reasons

Display by The Satanic Temple Iowa at the Iowa Capitol

Gov. Reynolds calls Satanic Temple display at State Capitol ‘absolutely objectionable’

12-12-2023
DES MOINES, Iowa — Gov. Kim Reynolds has weighed in on a controversial display at the Iowa State Capitol.

The Satanic Temple Iowa set up its holiday display back on December 2nd and it has raised a lot of eyebrows. It features a depiction of Baphomet, “a pagan idol associated with the Knights Templar that was conceived in the 11th century and whose depiction has changed dramatically over time.” The display also features the seven core beliefs of the religion.

A spokesperson for the Iowa Department of Administrative Services said the group applied for the spot and met all the requirements.

State Representative Brad Sherman, a Republican from Williamsburg, called on Gov. Kim Reynolds to take down the display. In his newsletter, he claims the preamble to the Iowa constitution refers to a supreme being, which is God. Sherman says with Satan being an enemy of God, the display is unconstitutional.

Gov. Reynolds responded in a news release Tuesday morning.

“Like many Iowans, I find the Satanic Temple’s display in the Capitol absolutely objectionable. In a free society, the best response to objectionable speech is more speech, and I encourage all those of faith to join me today in praying over the Capitol and recognizing the nativity scene that will be on display – the true reason for the season.”

GOV. KIM REYNOLDS

The Satanic Temple of Iowa released a statement Monday about the display.

“The Satanic Temple Iowa is proud to participate in the festivities at our Capitol this holiday season. Our display features the 7 Tenets, a set of seven core beliefs that members see as their guideposts for our deeply held beliefs; advocating for bodily autonomy, a rejection of arbitrary authority, recognizing our own fallibility, and inspiring nobility in thought and action which we hope enlightens the viewer to our beliefs and inspires one to reflect upon their own approach to the world. We thank the staff of the Capitol, the Capitol police & the Department of Administrative Services for holding fast to the principle of religious freedom and ensuring all religions have an equal opportunity to celebrate the holidays together in our beautiful Capitol.”

SATANIC TEMPLE IOWA

The display is scheduled to stay up through Friday, December 15th.

Bureaucratizing The Coup

Ari Melber breaks it down.

Ted Cruz is a dirt bag extraordinaire.

And speaking of both coups and dirt bags:

(via MSN)

Trump's campaign is growing nervous about his behavior

U.S. presidents have been accused by their political rivals of wanting to be kings or dictators ever since the very beginning of the Republic. It's even a charge that's had some merit from time to time.

In 1800, Thomas Jefferson charged John Adams with acting like a king when he expanded federal power and passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which effectively made it a crime to criticize the government. But Adams lost his re-election and gracefully conceded, establishing the tradition of the peaceful transfer of power that until very recently was observed by every president. Then there was Andrew Jackson, who critics assailed as a would-be king for wielding his veto pen for political purposes and challenging the primacy of the Supreme Court to decide constitutional matters, among other things. But he too left peacefully after eight years. Abraham Lincoln was repeatedly accused of being a dictator during the Civil War for implementing numerous extreme measures including the suspension of habeas corpus and the jailing of journalists. And in the 20th century, both wartime presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt were called dictators for expanding the powers of the presidency. Roosevelt even ran for four terms, precipitating the 22nd Amendment which limits future presidents to only two.

A few years back, President George W. Bush jokingly said, “If this were a dictatorship it would be a heck of a lot easier... as long as I'm the dictator." But except for that quip, I don't think there's any example of a president or someone running for president actually saying that he planned to be a dictator ... until Donald Trump. Not that anyone should be surprised by that. He is, after all, the president who plotted a coup to stay in office and fomented an insurrection to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power.

Last week, Fox News' Sean Hannity asked Trump a simple question: "Do you in any way have any plans whatsoever have any plans if you are re-elected president to abuse power, to break the law, to use the government to go after people" and Trump said, "like they are doing now" and went on to talk about how he's been indicted more than one of the greatest criminals of all time, "if you happen to like criminals" —- Al Capone.

Hannity pressed the question again:

I want to go back to this one issue, though, because the media has been focused on this and attacking you. Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody.

Trump's answer was, "except for day one." Hannity was taken aback. Trump explained, "He says you’re not going to be a dictator, are you? I said, no, no, no. Other than day one. We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator. Okay?"

Actually, it's not ok.

If Hannity were anything but a Trump flunky he would have at least followed up and asked him exactly what plans he had to accomplish those two things on "day one." But he didn't because he knew that Trump was trying to be clever and have it both ways. He admires dictators and it's clear from his stated agenda that he plans to implement it through the use of dictatorial powers. But he smugly said he just wants to use them for rather mainstream Republican policy goals rather than revenge which Hannity quickly acknowledged and then moved on. After all, the crowd loved it.

It was clear from Hannity's question that he was worried about the fact that the media has finally focused on the threat of a second Trump term. He did everything he could to give Trump the opportunity to say, "Of course I'm not going to abuse my power or become a dictator, that's ridiculous" but Trump couldn't do it.

It's starting to concern other people around him as well.

Many of the stories last week featured background quotes from people dropping names of potential Cabinet picks and other personnel choices for a second Trump term which clearly spooked the campaign. Axios had reported that people like Tucker Carlson were on a short list for VP while cronies Steve Bannon and Kash Patel were named for other important posts in the administration. Patel immediately appeared on Bannon's podcast to declare that they certainly did have big plans, one of which was to go after the media, "whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out." He told Bannon that they had a "bench" of "all-American patriots" who would get the ball rolling immediately.

This is likely what led senior campaign advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita to issue a statement on Friday, saying that "no aspect of future presidential staffing or policy announcements should be deemed official" unless it came from them. This was on the heels of a similar statement from a couple of weeks ago after the first flurry of reports about the planned dictatorship started appearing in the mainstream media, in which they proclaimed that "any personnel lists, policy agendas, or government plans published anywhere are merely suggestions."

But that's not true at all. Agenda 47, right there on his campaign web site, is hair raising. Here's just one of the more recent videos in which he promises "take the billions and billions of dollars that we will collect by taxing, fining, and suing excessively large private university endowments, and we will then use that money to endow a new institution called the American Academy" where there will be no wokeness or jihadism allowed.

Wiles and LaCivita can try all they want to distance the campaign from the likes of Bannon and Patel but they aren't the problem. The candidate is.

You might have thought that Trump would press pause on all the dictator talk considering that his campaign is obviously getting very nervous about it. But no. He appeared before the New York Young Republicans over the weekend and repeated his "dictator on day one" line, making even less sense than before:

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

Wiles and LaCivita wrote in their statement that "he is not interested in, nor does he condone, selfish efforts by ‘desk hunters" — but that doesn't seem to be the case:

The few professionals in the Trump campaign understand that it's lethal for Trump's chances in the general election if the public is actually informed of what he plans to do. Now that the press is no longer under the illusion that ignoring what he says is the best way to cover him, those pros are starting to realize that they can't control Trump or the people around him. They aren't the first to have that rude awakening. It would be a big relief if they were the last.

Numbers Don't Lie

... but an awful lot of politicians - mostly Republicans nowadays -  lie with numbers.

• The murder rate in the 25 states that voted for Donald Trump has exceeded the murder rate in the 25 states that voted for Joe Biden in every year from 2000 to 2020.
• Over this 21-year span, this Red State murder gap has steadily widened from a low of 9% more per capita red state murders in 2003 and 2004 to 44% more per capita red state murders in 2019, before settling back to 43% in 2020.
• Altogether, the per capita Red State murder rate was 23% higher than the Blue State murder rate when all 21 years were combined.
• If Blue State murder rates were as high as Red State murder rates, Biden-voting states would have suffered over 45,000 more murders between 2000 and 2020.
• Even when murders in the largest cities in red states are removed, overall murder rates in Trump-voting states were 12% higher than Biden-voting states across this 21-year period and were higher in 18 of the 21 years observed.

75% of murders here in

USAmerica Inc

are committed with a gun.

Let's Get Serious

Timothy Snyder's "On Tyranny" - here's the outline:

1. Do not obey in advance. Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked. You've already done this, haven't you? Stop. Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom.
2. Defend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don't protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.
3. Recall professional ethics. When the leaders of state set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become much more important. It is hard to break a rule-of-law state without lawyers, and it is hard to have show trials without judges.
4. When listening to politicians, distinguish certain words. Look out for the expansive use of “terrorism” and “extremism.” Be alive to the fatal notions of “exception” and “emergency.” Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.
5. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that all authoritarians at all times either await or plan such events in order to consolidate power. Think of the Reichstag fire. The sudden disaster that requires the end of the balance of power, the end of opposition parties, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Don't fall for it.
6. Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. (Don't use the Internet before bed. Charge your gadgets away from your bedroom, and read.) What to read? Perhaps The Power of the Powerless by Václav Havel, 1984 by George Orwell, The Captive Mind by Czesław Milosz, The Rebel by Albert Camus, The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, or Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev.
7. Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy, in words and deeds, to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. And the moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.
8. Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.
9. Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on your screen is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate foreign propaganda pushes.
10. Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.
11. Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down unnecessary social barriers, and come to understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.
12. Take responsibility for the face of the world. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.
13. Hinder the one-party state. The parties that took over states were once something else. They exploited a historical moment to make political life impossible for their rivals. Vote in local and state elections while you can.
14. Give regularly to good causes, if you can. Pick a charity and set up autopay. Then you will know that you have made a free choice that is supporting civil society helping others doing something good.
15. Establish a private life. Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the Internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Authoritarianism works as a blackmail state, looking for the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have too many hooks.
16. Learn from others in other countries. Keep up your friendships abroad, or make new friends abroad. The present difficulties here are an element of a general trend. And no country is going to find a solution by itself. Make sure you and your family have passports.
17. Watch out for the paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-Leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the game is over.
18. Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no. (If you do not know what this means, contact the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and ask about training in professional ethics.)
19. Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die in unfreedom.
20. Be a patriot. President Trump is not. Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come. They will need it.

Another Shoe

Why there's no reason to believe a conspiracy fantasy when it requires total secrecy on the part of lotsa people.

Like they say:

Three people can keep a secret -

as long as two them are dead.

Oops

Alina Habba was SO sure about this.

But in the end, we all knew that Donald Trump is a f•cking coward... pic.twitter.com/IN1re3caZ0

— SmackeyCracks 🇺🇸 (@SmackeyCracks) December 11, 2023

Trump says he won’t testify again at his New York fraud trial. He says he has nothing more to say

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump said Sunday he has decided against testifying for a second time at his New York civil fraud trial, posting on social media a day before his scheduled appearance that he “very successfully & conclusively” testified last month and saw no need to do so again.

The former president, the leading contender for the 2024 Republican nomination, had been expected to return to the witness stand Monday as a coda to his defense against New York Attorney General Letitia James ' lawsuit.

James, a Democrat, alleges Trump inflated his wealth on financial statements used in securing loans and making deals. The case threatens Trump’s real estate empire and cuts to the heart of his image as a successful businessman.

“I will not be testifying on Monday,” Trump wrote in an all-capital-letters, multipart statement on his Truth Social platform less than 20 hours before he was to take the witness stand.

Today's MAGA Dolt

Another 'Law-n-Order-Strict-Constitutionalist' Republican voter

saying she puts Trump above the law.