This drone photo of the vent area in Butler, Pennsylvania, shows the building in the upper left-hand corner where the shooter’s body was found.
Dear Sky Dancers, this is not a good day for our Republic.
Judge Cannon used this moment to distract the press from what I believe might be a staged coup attempt by Donald on Donald. He golfed right after the shooting and had no bandages or marks to be seen. I have reached this theory of the case after spending a day and a half asking questions and reviewing materials with JJ, BB, and a friend of my friend PB from the late Fire Dog Lake site. The press is characterizing people like us as BlueAnon conspiracy theorists. Frankly, I just have questions about things. I’m up to being proved wrong. I’m just someone who has watched decades of Law and Order and Criminal Minds, and I’m also smarter than your average bear.
Understand what Judge Cannon did. She saw the non-stop media coverage of the shooting, used that distraction to overturn decades of legal precedent without citing a single case in her ruling’s favor, & dismissed Trump’s classified documents case. This is how republics collapse.
To be sure, Cannon’s absurd ruling is so extreme that only one of the MAGA justices supported it in his immunity decision (Thomas). Her decision will likely be reversed because it has absolutely zero basis in precedent whatsoever.But Cannon’s indefensible opinion still serves its purpose of delaying Trump’s trial long enough to prevent any form of accountability before the November election. That was the move all along. And the DOJ delayed & delayed & that helped Trump get away with this. Smh.
Judge Aileen Cannon and Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images/USDC for the Southern District of Florida)
This is from Eric Tucker at the AP. “Federal judge dismisses Trump classified documents case over concerns with prosecutor’s appointment.”
The federal judge presiding over the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump in Florida dismissed the prosecution on Monday, siding with defense lawyers who said the special counsel who filed the charges was illegally appointed by the Justice Department.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, which can be appealed and may later be overturned by a higher court, brings at least, for now, a stunning and abrupt conclusion to a criminal case that at the time it was filed was widely regarded as the most perilous of all the legal threats the Republican former president confronted.
I’ve been doing a bit of digging and found this article from Salon on May 7. “Judge Cannon’s secret right-wing getaway: Why didn’t we know about this? Federal judge in Trump’s documents trial didn’t tell us about those right-wing conferences at a Montana resort.” It’s reported by columnist Lucian Truscott IV.
Let me ask you a question: How many all-expenses-paid vacations at luxury hunting and fishing lodges have you enjoyed over the last few years? I’m not talking about a motel in the boonies of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan or a drafty log cabin on a lake in Maine or Minnesota. We’re talking about a luxury resort on 1,200 acres alongside the Yellowstone River just outside Yellowstone National Park. We’re talking about a lodge featuring rooms with stone fireplaces that go for upwards of $1,000 a night in high season, meals that include “house-cured meats from local ranches, garden-fresh produce from nearby farms, and, of course plenty of Northwest craft beers and spirits,” as the resort’s website describes the offerings.
It’s called the Sage Lodge in Pray, Montana, and it’s where George Mason University sends gaggles of federal judges for a week-long “colloquium” every year or so. Paid for by the Law and Economics Center at the Antonin Scalia Law School, the “colloquium” held at the Sage Lodge in 2021, for example, featured lectures on such subjects as “Woke Law!” – and yes, the exclamation point is part of the lecture topic — by one Todd J. Zywicki, who is George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School and a senior fellow at the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives of the Cato Institute. Another juicy topic covered at the Sage Lodge in 2021 was “Unprofitable Education: Student Loans, Higher Education Costs, and the Regulatory State,” also featuring a lecture by Zywicki, a topic that rings what we might call a rather different bell after the Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s student loan forgiveness program last year.
The Antonin Scalia Law School, by the way, was established and largely funded by the efforts of Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society, who helped put together $30 million from conservative donors, including Leo himself, to rename the law school after the late legendary right-wing justice, who it will be remembered died of a heart attack in 2016 at another luxury hunting lodge, that one in Texas, while on a trip paid for by wealthy conservative “friends of the court,” I guess we could call them. The other major donor to the Scalia Law School was the Charles Koch Foundation, which threw in a handy $10 million.
Why are we talking about luxury hunting lodges and right-wing “colloquiums” for judges? Because one of our favorite federal judges, Aileen Cannon of Florida, currently presiding over the case against Donald Trump over the secret documents he kept at Mar-a-Lago, was a guest at that same 2021 “colloquium” at the Sage Lodge, and the one held in 2022 as well. The thing is, Cannon failed to file the form known as a Privately Funded Seminar Disclosure Report, which lists whoever paid for the judge to attend the seminar, who the speakers were and what topics were discussed. The form is supposed to be posted on the website of every federal court within 30 days of the time a judge attending such an all-expenses-paid seminar. Cannon, however, somehow forgot to do so, so anyone who might be interested in learning who was paying for Cannon’s vacations and the nature of her judicial education would have been out of luck.
So why do we suppose Judge Cannon was so shy about who’s paying for her luxury trips and what she might have learned there? Oh, I don’t know … might it be because she didn’t want anyone to know about her links to the Leonard Leo wing of legal theory? Could it have been that she didn’t want it known that she had taken money from an organization that was in large part funded by billionaires friendly to the man whose case she was presiding over?
Procedurally, this may actually not help Trump in the way he’d like (because DOJ has the option of appealing it or having a US Attorney charge Trump).
But it’s also hilarious, since Aileen Cannon has been treating herself like an Appellate Judge that she hasn’t been confirmed to be.
Update: One thing Cannon appears upset about is Merrick Garland’s invocation of Section 533, which appoints FBI-like figures.
Special Counsel Smith argues that Section 533(1) confers on the Attorney General the authority to appoint special counsels, specifically, constitutional officers wielding the “full power and independent authority . . . of any United States Attorney.” 28 C.F.R. § 600.6. After careful review, the Court is convinced that it does not. Congress “does not . . . hide elephants in mouseholes.” Whitman v. Am. Trucking Associations, 531 U.S. 457, 468 (2001). Special Counsel Smith’s interpretation would shoehorn appointment authority for United States Attorney-equivalents into a statute that permits the hiring of FBI law enforcement personnel. Such a reading is unsupported by Section 533’s plain language and statutory context; inconsistent with Congress’s usual legislative practice; and threatens to undermine the “basic separation-of-powers principles” that “give life and content” to the Appointments Clause. Morrison, 487 U.S. at 715 (Scalia, J., dissenting). The Court explains below.
33 Order No. 5730-2023 (appointing David C. Weiss); Order No. 5588-2023 (appointing Robert K. Hur).
That is her only mention of Robert Hur, whose appointment would be unconstitutional under her theory as well. (I’m still trying to figure out whether Cannon will help Hunter Biden go free, too.)
Update: Okay, I’ve read the thing.
It’s hilarious.
It’s hilarious, because it doesn’t create any delay that Cannon was not pursuing anyway. Indeed, Jack Smith could immediately appeal this and try to get her tossed, so it may hasten things (unless Trump wins!).
It’s hilarious because it is unbelievably hubristic. The only credible future for Judge Cannon now is Trump’s first SCOTUS appointment in a second term.
It’s hilarious because the way she did this, if it were upheld (not an impossibility given how nutty SCOTUS has gotten), it would be even more useful for Hunter Biden than Donald Trump (especially if Trump didn’t win reelection), because the statutes of limitation on Hunter’s alleged crimes have started to expire.
So, back to Donald and his surprising recovery from a shooting that killed one and critically injured two. So my Nancy Drew senses started tingling when I saw how composed Donald was after the shooting; he was more worried about getting his shoes than leaving the scene. Posing for pictures all along the way. PB first contacted me with this bit.
Talked to a friend who’s a Psych and body language expert. 100% staged. Look at their unified messaging.
In a recently released transcript of a deposition as part of a lawsuit filed by a group of protesters who alleged they were assaulted by Trump’s security guards at a 2015 campaign rally, the subject of fruit – and fruit being flung, in particular – came up.
Here’s the full – and fully epic – back-and-forth between Trump and Benjamin Dictor, an attorney representing the protestors.
Dictor: Okay. And you said that, ‘If you see someone getting ready to throw a tomato, just knock the crap out of them would you.’ That was your statement?
Trump: Oh, yeah. It was very dangerous.
Dictor: What was very dangerous?
Trump: We were threatened.
Dictor: With what?
Trump: They were going to throw fruit. We were threatened. We had a threat.
Dictor: How did you become aware that there was a threat that people were going to throw fruit?
Trump: We were told. I thought Secret Service was involved in that, actually. And you get hit with fruit, it’s – no – it’s very violent stuff. We were on alert for that.
Trump attorney Jeffrey Goldman: A tomato is a fruit after all, I guess. … It has seeds.
Just enough time for a NAZI salute also, which is being used by the Press right now. They’re using the fist bumps. The campaign is now using for fundraising and political materials.
And where did Donald get the idea to lead an assassination attempt on himself? This is from Newsweek, May 3, 2023. “Russia Staged Putin ‘Assassination’ to Justify Mass Mobilization: ISW” I know now about self-coups and staged assassination attempts as political tools of fascists. What a world! Funny how Donald has disappeared from the campaign trail for a few weeks but suddenly was paling around with Viktor Orban last week, too.
The alleged attempt to “assassinate” Russian President Vladimir Putin was likely staged by the Kremlin to justify a future effort to mobilize troops for the war in Ukraine, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
The Russian government on Wednesday issued a statement alleging that two Ukrainian drones had been destroyed near Putin’s official residence in Moscow. The Kremlin said that the drones were attempting to carry out “a planned terrorist attack” by assassinating Putin just before “Victory Day” celebrations on May 9. Ukraine has denied any involvement.
While video of the drones dramatically exploding over Kremlin grounds appeared online soon after the purported attack occurred, the incident immediately raised eyebrows, with a number of experts and commentators suggesting that it may have been a staged “propaganda” event intended to drum up Russian support for the war.
ISW, the U.S.-based think tank, said in a report published on Wednesday night that the Russian government “likely staged” the purported assassination attempt “to bring the war home to a Russian domestic audience and set conditions for a wider societal mobilization.”
5 months ago, Alex Jones and InfoWars guest Ivan Raiklin discussed how assassinating Trump would be beneficial, according to them, because it would lead to retaliatory “in kind” assassinations of a “deep state” list which includes President Joe Biden.
Ivan Raiklin: “If they [assassinate Trump], option 2, behind Trump, is going to be so much better for us and so much worse them.”
Alex Jones: “I was about as to say, If they kill him, that’s best case scenario from a sick level. From a sick level medium, ‘Oh, please kill him.’ I mean, it’s so good after that.”
Raiklin: “Oh, it’s going to be the best cleansing and the fastest cleansing that we’ve ever seen in my lifetime. I guaran—, I access, with almost certainty, with the highest level of confidence, that if they assassinate Trump, it is so game over for them.”
Authorities released few updates Sunday on the progress of their investigation into Trump’s would-be assassin, but a portrait of Crooks — a 2022 graduate of Bethel Park High School who worked as a dietary aide at a local nursing and rehabilitation center — began to emerge.
He had no criminal history, almost no presence on social media, and lived in a middle-class suburb about an hour away from the site of the shooting.
His political leanings were not immediately apparent. Though he was registered as a Republican, according to state voter rolls — and this year’s election would have been the first in which he was eligible to cast a ballot for president — campaign finance reports show a man with the same name gave $15 to a progressive political action committee in January 2021, on the day Biden was sworn into office.***
Crooks’ father, Matthew, reached by CNN late Saturday, said he was trying to figure out “what the hell [was] going on” and declined to comment further until he had spoken with authorities. Attempts to reach other family members were unsuccessful Sunday.
Kevin Rojek, head of the FBI’s field office in Pittsburgh, told reporters Sunday that agents recovered bomb-making material from inside Crooks’ car and his residence. The rifle he used in the attack, which was believed to have been purchased at least six months earlier by his father, as well as Crooks’ cell phone and other evidence had been sent to the FBI lab in Quantico, Va., “for processing and exploitation,” Rojek said.
Meanwhile, several former classmates offered conflicting characterizations of Crooks. Some described him as a loner who had been bullied during his high school years. Jason Kohler, who graduated alongside Crooks, told reporters that students had harassed him “almost every day” and that he often wore “hunting” outfits to class.
“He was just an outcast,” Kohler said.
*** Author note: There’s some evidence this was not the shooter but a 69-year-old man with the same name from Pittsburg.
Here are some additional things I have questions about. Most of these are based on photography at the scene. For example, Kim Wexler’s Ponytail shows this TikTok of a New Angle of Trump at Rally shooting. It basically shows either Donald’s bodyguards or the Secret Service moving photographers close to the stairs. Perhaps for a better shot of the exit act? The TikTok comes from
Why was there such lackluster Security at the Rally?
I had a lot of weird things from early on that I thought were just not right. One was the interview by an MSNBC reporter of a man who was supposed to be standing next to Donald at the podium from the onset. He told the reporter something to the effect that he got up there, introduced himself, and was then told by Donald to go ahead and come up to the podium, only to be quickly told, wait, let’s do that later, and shuffled him off to sit somewhere else. I cannot find that clip by my neighbor across the street, who I had been with earlier for cocktails, who told me that she had seen it, too.
I also heard Frank Figluzzi discuss the fact that it was odd that the roof wasn’t in the area where the check-for-weapons zone was. He also said that on the other side was where the protestors were allowed to gather and even march. My thought was, wow! Sounds like a setup to blame a protestor and let the guy onto the roof. The fact that he was a right-wing Republican gun nut just really puts that on display as planning.
One of the most questionable things is that photos of Trump show him looking in the direction of the building where the shooter was. This is precisely when he turned his head to point to his whiteboard. At that point, local police went to the roof, saw him, and went back down the stairs. There was also a hesitation by the Secret Service Sniper to shoot him. Acyn, the Senior Digital Editor for MeidasTouch.com, captured this on CSPN. He’s looking directly at the shooter and then angling towards the White Board. The shooter was only about 165ish feet away from Donald. That’s definitely a distance that a good sniper could handle.
So, several things I noticed from this bit. First, when you speak to a large audience, you look straight ahead. You do not fixate on a spot to your right. Nowadays, politicians use teleprompters, but the ones that are guarded by the Secret Service have bulletproof shields. Do you see one?
I had another conversation with a neighbor this morning who has friends who have been military snipers, and their hypothesis on this I would put under the conspiracy theory. They’re saying they think the Republican Party mainstream was working with the Secret Service to take him out. That’s pure speculation. It’s obvious, though, that there’s something wrong with the security there.
The U.S. Secret Service is investigating how a gunman armed with an AR-style rifle was able to get close enough to shoot and injure former President Donald Trump at a rally Saturday in Pennsylvania, a monumental failure of one the agency’s core duties.
The gunman, who was killed by Secret Service personnel, fired multiple shots at the stage from an “elevated position outside of the rally venue,” the agency said.
An Associated Press analysis of more than a dozen videos and photos taken at the Trump rally, as well as satellite imagery of the site, shows the shooter was able to get astonishingly close to the stage where the former president was speaking. A video posted to social media and geolocated by the AP shows the body of a man wearing gray camouflage lying motionless on the roof of a manufacturing plant just north of the Butler Farm Show grounds, where Trump’s rally was held.
The roof was less than 150 meters (yards) from where Trump was speaking, a distance from which a decent marksman could reasonably hit a human-sized target. For reference, 150 meters is a distance at which U.S. Army recruits must hit a scaled human-sized silhouette to qualify with the M16 assault rifle in basic training. The AR-15, like the shooter at the Trump rally had, is the semi-automatic civilian version of the military M16.
On Monday, Cheatle said in a statement: “Since the shooting, I have been in constant contact with Secret Service personnel in Pennsylvania who worked to maintain the integrity of the crime scene until the FBI assumed its role as the lead investigating agency into the assassination attempt.”
She added that the Secret Service is working with other law enforcement agencies to “understand what happened, how it happened, and how we can prevent an incident like this from ever taking place again. … We will also work with the appropriate Congressional committees on any oversight action.”
Neither Cheatle or the Secret Service’s communications office have weighed in on criticism of women in the agency more broadly.
I have a few more weird angles from various drones and photogs that make me even more suspicious, but according to White Christian Nationalists, it’s all just a miracle. I’m sticking with a staged attempt ala Putin because that seems more in line with Trump’s lack of anything decent.
So, I’m open to comments and criticism, but this is my case so far. I’m likely not going to leave this rabbit hole for a while. Keep an eye on the things Republicans don’t want you to know. And please, don’t take in any of the stupidity of the Republican Convention. This one is going to be insane.
The FBI continues to investigate the shooting incident at the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, as an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump and as potential domestic terrorism. The investigation is still in the early stages, and the FBI is providing the following updates:
FBI technical specialists successfully gained access to Thomas Matthew Crooks’ phone, and they continue to analyze his electronic devices.
The search of the subject’s residence and vehicle are complete.
The FBI has conducted nearly 100 interviews of law enforcement personnel, event attendees, and other witnesses. That work continues.
The FBI has received hundreds of digital media tips which include photos and videos taken at the scene, and we continue to review incoming tips. We encourage anyone with information that may assist with the ongoing investigation to continue to submit it online at tips.fbi.gov or call 1-800-CALL-FBI.
While the investigative work continues, FBI victim services personnel have offered assistance to the victims of Saturday’s incident.
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Today’s top story is the Democrats’ historic climate/health-care/tax bill.
The bill can be passed through reconciliation, after the Senate parliamentarian approved most of the bill’s provisions. One portion of the Medicare drug portion of the bill was disallowed.
US Senate Democrats on Saturday were set to push ahead on a bill that would address key elements of President Joe Biden’s agenda, tackling climate change, lowering the cost of energy and senior citizens’ drugs and forcing the wealthy to pay more taxes.
A Senate rulemaker determined that the lion’s share of the $430bn bill could be passed with only a simple majority, bypassing a filibuster rule requiring 60 votes in the 100-seat chamber to advance most legislation and enabling Democrats to pass it over Republican objections, majority leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement….
“Democrats have received extremely good news,” Schumer said in the statement. “Medicare will finally be allowed to negotiate drug prices … This is a major victory for the American people.“ [….]
There are three main parts to the bill: a 15% minimum tax on corporations, tougher IRS enforcement and a new excise tax on stock buybacks. The legislation has $430 billion in new spending along with raising more than $740 billion in new revenues.
Beside billions of dollars to encourage the production and purchase of more electric vehicles and foster clean energy, the bill would set $4 billion in new federal drought relief funds. The latter is a move that could help the re-election campaigns of Democratic Senators Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada and Mark Kelly in Arizona….
One provision cut from the bill would have forced drug companies to refund money to both government and private health plans if drug prices rise more quickly than inflation. The Senate arbiter, known as the parliamentarian, ruled that measure could not apply to private industry.
Frida Kahlo’s cat feeling shunned as she cuddles a monkey
Before they can vote on the bill, Democrats will have to endure a “vote-a-rama,” in which Republicans will try to weaken the bill with votes on proposed amendments. They may also face a fight with good old Bernie Sanders.
In a vote-a-rama, senators can offer up an unlimited amount of amendments to a bill but the process is expedited.
There is only one minute allocated for debate, equally divided between both sides. Then, senators are given 10 minutes to vote. This process repeats for every single amendment.
In a vote-a-rama, senators can offer up an unlimited amount of amendments to a bill but the process is expedited.
There is only one minute allocated for debate, equally divided between both sides. Then, senators are given 10 minutes to vote. This process repeats for every single amendment.
The last time the Senate held a vote-a-rama was when it adopted a budget resolution for fiscal year 2022 last August. Senators offered up 43 amendments for a vote, leading to a session that lasted around 14 hours.
What’s the point of this nonsense?
Most amendments are expected to come from Republicans, who are furious over the deal which was negotiated without their input.
Republican-proposed amendments are expected to fail. But the vote-a-rama will allow Republicans to make Democrats vote on tough issues that could be used for ads on the campaign trail this fall.
The deal also incited the anger of some on the left, who have criticized the bill’s investment in new fossil fuel development – likely due to the importance natural gas and coal are to the economy of Manchin’s home state.
Progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on the Senate floor Wednesday,urged lawmakers “to do everything possible to take on the greed of the fossil fuel industry,” and promised to offer an amendment nixing fossil fuel investments in the bill.
Sanders’ amendment is expected to fail as the bill is contingent on Manchin’s support.
Senate rules are truly insane.
Photographer Margaret Bourke-White with her kitten in 1944
The Inflation Reduction Act that is poised for votes in the US Senate is far from perfect. A scaled-down version of the ambitious plans that President Joe Biden and Senate Budget Committee chair Bernie Sanders framed last summer as the “Build Back Better” agenda, it’s the latest step in the series of compromises that’s been referred to as “Build Back Smaller.”
Yet the $740 billion budget reconciliation package worked out by Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has ambitions that ought not be underestimated—especially as it arrives at a point when many Democrats had given up hope on getting another omnibus bill enacted before the November midterm elections. As it stands now, according to Politico, the measure “would spend $369 billion on energy and climate change, extend Obamacare subsidies through 2024, direct Medicare to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs and send an estimated $300 billion to deficit reduction. It would be funded, in part, by a 15 percent corporate minimum tax on big companies and increased IRS enforcement.”
And it looks as if it will include a 1 percent excise tax on stock buybacks, which is actually a very big deal. The tax, which would raise $73 billion for climate and health care initiatives, cracks down on some of the ugliest abuses by multinational corporations.
Read all the details at The Nation.
Also in the news: the fight for women’s personhood as Republicans try to turn women into broodmares.
Indiana became the first state in the country after the fall of Roe v. Wade to pass sweeping limits on abortion access, after Gov. Eric Holcomb (R) signed into law Friday a bill that constitutes a near-total ban 0n the procedure.
The Republican-dominated state Senate approved the legislation 28-19 on Friday in a vote that came just hours after it passed Indiana’s lower chamber. The bill, which will go into effect Sept. 15, allows abortion only in cases of rape, incest, lethal fetal abnormality or when the procedure is necessary to prevent severe health risks or death.
Paul Klee with his cat Bimbo
Supporters of abortion rights crowded into the corridors of the Indiana Statehouse throughout the day as lawmakers cast their votes, some holding signs that read “You can only ban safe abortions” and “Abortion is health care.” Moments after the vote, some protesters hugged and others stood stunned before the crowd broke out into chants of “We will not stop.”c
In a statement released after signing the bill, Holcomb said he had “stated clearly” following the overturn of Roe that he would be willing to support antiabortion legislation. He also highlighted the “carefully negotiated” exceptions in the law, which he said address “some of the unthinkable circumstances a woman or unborn child might face.”
Note he said “some of.” There are bound to be many “unthinkable circumstances” that Indiana state legislators are ignorant about.
The vote followed days of testimony from citizens and a debate that grew heated at times. “Sir, I am not a murderer,” state Rep. Renee Pack (D) said in the chamber after state Rep. John Jacob (R), a staunch abortion opponent who wanted exceptions for rape removed, described the procedure as murder.
Abortion rights organizations quickly rebuked Friday’s decision. Alexis McGill Johnson, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the vote “was cruel and will prove devastating for pregnant people and their families in Indiana and across the whole region.” “Hoosiers didn’t want this,” Johnson said.
In a statement, antiabortion group Indiana Right to Life opposed the exceptions and said the new law did not go far enough in cutting abortion access.
The Safe Haven Baby Box at a firehouse in Carmel, Ind., looked like a library book drop. It had been available for three years for anyone who wanted to surrender a baby anonymously.
Ai Weiwei with Lai Lai — one of his 40 cats
No one had ever used it, though, until early April. When its alarm went off, Victor Andres, a firefighter, opened the box and found, to his disbelief, a newborn boy wrapped in towels.
The discovery made the local TV news, which praised the courage of the mother, calling it “a time for celebration.” Later that month, Mr. Andres pulled another newborn, a girl, from the box. In May, a third baby appeared. By summer, three more infants were left at baby box locations throughout the state.
The baby boxes are part of the safe haven movement, which has long been closely tied to anti-abortion activism. Safe havens offer desperate mothers a way to surrender their newborns anonymously for adoption, and, advocates say, avoid hurting, abandoning or even killing them. The havens can be boxes, which allow parents to avoid speaking to anyone or even being seen when surrendering their babies. More traditionally, the havens are locations such as hospitals and fire stations, where staff members are trained to accept a face-to-face handoff from a parent in crisis.
So a child will never know who her parents are unless they can find a way to locate them through on-line DNA matching.
But for many experts in adoption and women’s health, safe havens are hardly a panacea.
To them, a safe haven surrender is a sign that a woman fell through the cracks of existing systems. They may have concealed their pregnancies and given birth without prenatal care, or they may suffer from domestic violence, drug addiction, homelessness or mental illness.
The adoptions themselves could also be problematic, with women potentially unaware that they are terminating parental rights, and children left with little information about their origins.
As the Supreme Court anticipated when it overturned Roe v. Wade, the battle over abortion rights is now being waged state by state. Nowhere is the fight more intense than in Ohio, which has long been considered a national bellwether. The state helped secure the Presidential victories of Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, then went for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. Its residents tend to be politically moderate, and polls consistently show that a majority of Ohio voters support legal access to abortion, particularly for victims of rape and incest. Yet, as the recent ordeal of a pregnant ten-year-old rape victim has illustrated, Ohio’s state legislature has become radically out of synch with its constituents. In June, the state’s General Assembly instituted an abortion ban so extreme that the girl was forced to travel to Indiana to terminate her pregnancy. In early July, Dr. Caitlin Bernard, the Indiana obstetrician who treated the child, told me that she had a message for Ohio’s legislature: “This is your fault!”
Gustav Klimt with his cat Katz
Longtime Ohio politicians have been shocked by the state’s transformation into a center of extremist legislation, not just on abortion but on such divisive issues as guns and transgender rights. Ted Strickland, a Democrat who served as governor between 2007 and 2011, told me, “The legislature is as barbaric, primitive, and Neanderthal as any in the country. It’s really troubling.” When he was governor, he recalled, the two parties worked reasonably well together, but politics in Ohio “has changed.” The story is similar in several other states with reputations for being moderate, such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania: their legislatures have also begun proposing laws so far to the right that they could never be passed in the U.S. Congress.
Ohio’s law prohibits abortion after six weeks—or even earlier, if doctors can detect fetal cardiac activity—unless the mother is at risk of death or serious permanent injury. Dr. Bernard noted that the bill’s opponents had warned about the proposed restrictions’ potential effect on underage rape victims. “It was literally a hypothetical that was discussed,” she told me. Indeed, at a hearing on April 27th, a Democrat in the Ohio House, Richard Brown, declared that if a thirteen-year-old girl “was raped by a serial rapist . . . this bill would require this thirteen-year-old to carry this felon’s fetus.”
It’s a long read, so please check it out at The New Yorker if you’re interested.
A Texas jury has determined Infowars host Alex Jones must pay the parents of a Sandy Hook school shooting victim $45.2 million in punitive damages. The Friday decision comes a day after the same jury awarded the plaintiffs $4.1 million in compensatory damages, culminating the final phase of a defamation case first brought in 2018 over Jones’s repeated false claims that the deadliest elementary school shooting in U.S. history was a hoax.
Jones was not in court as the jury read the unanimous verdict.
The damages phase of the trial that ended Friday marks the first time Jones, an influential purveyor of far-right conspiracy theories, has faced financial repercussions in court for the outlandish lies he told via his Infowars broadcast about the shooting. Since the early days that followed the 2012 shooting that killed 26 people, including 20 young children, Jones said on his program that “no one died” at Sandy Hook and that the attack was a ruse “staged” by gun-control advocates to manufacture anti-gun sentiment.
In the case brought by Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the parents of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, the damages hint at what Jones could face in the months ahead in his additional Sandy Hook defamation cases in Texas and Connecticut.
Name a traumatic news event in recent decades, and it’s almost certain Alex Jones has claimed it didn’t happen — or not the way you think it did.
The Boston Marathon bombing in 2013? Staged by the FBI.
The shooting of Arizona congresswoman Gabby Giffords in 2011? A government mind control operation.
The September 11th terrorist attacks? An inside job.
All lies.
The conspiracy theorist and radio host was confronted with his track record of fabulism this week in an Austin, Texas, courtroom. He was on trial to determine how much he should pay for defaming the parents of a first grader killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, after years of falsely claiming that no children died and the families were “crisis actors” in a “giant hoax” designed to take away guns….
Jones got his start in public access broadcasting in Austin, Texas, in the 1990s. From his early days on air, he spouted conspiracy theories about the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, and the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
When his wild claims got him fired from a local radio station, he founded Infowars in 1999 and started broadcasting over the internet and in radio syndication.
After the September 11th attacks, Jones surged to fame as a “truther,” claiming the Bush administration was behind the tragedy.
As his audience grew, Jones popularized a vocabulary for pernicious doubt: not just that officials and media are hiding the truth, but that tragic events are being engineered for nefarious purposes.
“He’s at least a catalyst of those prevailing narratives that follow almost every newsworthy tragedy, whether it’s a mass shooting or otherwise,” said Sara Aniano, a disinformation researcher at the Anti-Defamation League.
Read more or listen at NPR.
That’s it for me today. I hope you’re all having a great weekend!
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Once again, I’ve reached the point where I can’t bring myself to watch the news on TV. I check Twitter a few times a day and end up frightened and depressed. On the days I write posts, I read a number of articles, but then I need hours of down time to decompress. When will there be some good news for those of us who want the U.S. to be a democracy?
When will Democratic leaders understand that we are facing the strong possibility of losing the House and Senate in November? When will the House January 6 Committee begin the promised public hearings? When will the Justice Department prosecute the powerful people who planned the Capitol insurrection?
How can the pandemic end when the GOP has become the party of removing all restrictions designed to reduce the spread of the virus?
I don’t know the answers to these questions; I only know that, in terms of democracy, our country has been losing ground since 2016 and–even with a Democratic president–we are still in grave danger from Trump and his GOP sycophants who are still trying to overturn the 2020 election.
In statehouses and courtrooms across the country, as well as on right-wing news outlets, allies of Mr. Trump — including the lawyer John Eastman — are pressing for states to pass resolutions rescinding Electoral College votes for President Biden and to bring lawsuits that seek to prove baseless claims of large-scale voter fraud. Some of those allies are casting their work as a precursor to reinstating the former president.
The efforts have failed to change any statewide outcomes or uncover mass election fraud. Legal experts dismiss them as preposterous, noting that there is no plausible scenario under the Constitution for returning Mr. Trump to office.
John Eastman
But just as Mr. Eastman’s original plan to use Congress’s final count of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021, to overturn the election was seen as far-fetched in the run-up to the deadly Capitol riot, the continued efforts are fueling a false narrative that has resonated with Mr. Trump’s supporters and stoked their grievances. They are keeping alive the same combustible stew of conspiracy theory and misinformation that threatens to undermine faith in democracy by nurturing the lie that the election was corrupt.
The efforts have fed a cottage industry of podcasts and television appearances centered around not only false claims of widespread election fraud in 2020, but the notion that the results can still be altered after the fact — and Mr. Trump returned to power, an idea that he continues to push privately as he looks toward a probable re-election run in 2024.
Democrats and some Republicans have raised deep concerns about the impact of the decertification efforts. They warn of unintended consequences, including the potential to incite violence of the sort that erupted on Jan. 6, when a mob of Mr. Trump’s supporters — convinced that he could still be declared the winner of the 2020 election — stormed the Capitol. Legal experts worry that the focus on decertifying the last election could pave the way for more aggressive — and earlier — legislative intervention the next time around.
The article quotes Michael Luttig, a prominent conservative lawyer who was consulted by Mike Pence when Trump was pushing him to refuse to certify the 2020 Electoral College results:
“At the moment, there is no other way to say it: This is the clearest and most present danger to our democracy,” said J. Michael Luttig, a leading conservative lawyer and former appeals court judge, for whom Mr. Eastman clerked and whom President George W. Bush considered as a nominee to be the chief justice of the United States. “Trump and his supporters in Congress and in the states are preparing now to lay the groundwork to overturn the election in 2024 were Trump, or his designee, to lose the vote for the presidency.”
Eastman’s latest effort in Wisconsin:
ABC News reported yesterday that Trump coup memo attorney John Eastman met privately w/ the Wisconsin House Speaker Robin Vos to pressure him to decertify the 2020 results…
A former lawyer for Donald Trump has claimed attorney-client privilege over 37,000 pages of emails related to his dealings with the then-president, he revealed in a court filing Monday night. John Eastman, known for penning a memo outlining how Team Trump might overturn the 2020 election, was ordered by a judge in January to review and turn over more than 90,000 pages of emails to the House select panel probing the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. After reviewing a reported 1,000 to 1,500 pages per day for three months, Eastman made no claims over 25,000 other records, according to Politico. However, after his Monday filing, the House committee said it objected to “every claim” of privilege. All 37,000 pages will now be sent to U.S. District Judge David Carter, who in March called Eastman and Trump’s post-election activities “a coup in search of a legal theory,” for him to rule individually on each of them.
Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) may have been in contact with Oath Keepers members during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
A newly released trove of text messages shows members of the right-wing militia discussing security for some top Donald Trump allies ahead of the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win, and Oath Keepers co-founder Stewart Rhodes asked an associate for Jackson’s cell phone number, reported Politico.
“Dr. Ronnie Jackson — on the move,” wrote an unidentified person. “Needs protection. If anyone inside cover him. He has critical data to protect.”
“Help with what?” Rhodes replied. “Give him my cell.” [….]
Kelly Meggs, an Oath Keepers member among six indicted on seditious conspiracy charges, mentioned on Jan. 3, 2021, that allies had discussed militia members “on the call with congressmen” and “wanted to say thank you all for providing and protecting us.”
What kind of data was Jackson trying to “protect?”
In pandemic news, yesterday a Trump-appointed judge struck down the mask mandate for airline passengers and crew.
This is Kathryn Kimball Mizelle. She is a Federalist Society judge who worked for Clarence Thomas. The American Bar Association said she is unqualified to hold office, but Republicans confirmed her anyway after Trump lost.
The coronavirus pandemic may feel like a past-tense phenomenon for many Americans, even though the dangers are real and ongoing. But a federal judge appointed by Donald Trump just did everything she could to send the nation back into chaos.
On Monday, Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Florida threw out the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s mask mandate for air travel and other forms of mass transportation. Deaths from COVID-19—and the mask mandates intended to prevent them—may be on the wane nationwide, but whatever you think about such policies, this is the latest and most egregious example of a judge acting as a partisan warrior in the COVID-19 culture wars.
Mizelle was appointed to the federal bench by President Trump in 2020. She was 33, and had been practicing law for only 8 years. She had never tried a case as a lead attorney. The Senate confirmed her even though the American Bar Association gave her a rating of “not qualified.” This nominee should have been rejected by the Senate not because of her judicial philosophy and not because of her age, but because she simply didn’t have the credentials and experience to be a federal judge with lifetime tenure.
Now she is substituting her opinion for that of scientific professionals at the CDC, and dictating health policy in America. The outcome could be disastrous, only serving to further embolden the right-wing activists who dispute the reality of this horrifically lethal pandemic.
Click the link to read the rest.
This could be a bit of good news:
Oh no, if it isn’t the consequences of Alex Jones’ own insane, conspiratorial actions. https://t.co/k7pgBC4cQ6
The conspiracy website Infowars has filed for bankruptcy protection as founder Alex Jones faces multiple defamation lawsuits tied to his false claims that the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a “giant hoax.”
According to documents filed Sunday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, three companies owned by Jones are seeking Chapter 11 protection, which would put civil litigation on hold while they restructure their finances.
Jones is being sued by the families of several victims of the 2012 attack that left 26 people dead, including 20 young children, in Newtown, in western Connecticut. It remains the deadliest elementary school shooting in U.S. history. The 20-year-old gunman died by suicide.
But Jones falsely claimed the massacre was fabricated by gun control advocates and the mainstream media, who he said pursued a “false flag” operation staged by “crisis actors.”
The families accused him of grifting off those false claims while defaming their loved ones. Some said they were harassed and threatened after Jones ran online segments accusing them of being a part of a hoax, with one receiving hate mail referencing the Second Amendment, according to a 2018 CBS news segment. They rejected settlement offers from Jones….
Jones has been found liable in two separate cases, one in Texas, where he and Infowars are based, and another in Connecticut where the mass shooting occurred. Damages have not yet been decided in either case, but an initial amount of $725,000 has been paid into a bankruptcy trust managed by two retired judges, court records show, with an expected $2 million to be funded at a later date. The Texas court is expected to determine damages first, with jury selection scheduled for April 25.
Or maybe not so good news?
Why are people celebrating Alex Jones filing for bankruptcy? Do you think that means he is broke? Far from it. It’s a ploy to try to avoid paying current and future legal judgments against him. That is all.
If Russia were to use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine it would, as CIA Director William Burns put it in public remarks last week, “change the world in a flash.” It might not, however, according to several experts, result in the direct military involvement of the west or a broader nuclear war.
Although nuclear weapons have not been used since the American attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the late summer of 1945, concerns about their use are higher than they have been in decades. CIA Director Burns, in remarks at the Georgia Institute of Technology last Thursday, said, “Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership…none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons.” On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy echoed this warning saying that the international community should be concerned about Russian use of nuclear or chemical weapons, saying, “We should… not be afraid but be ready.”
Senior U.S. officials with whom I spoke emphasized that Burns was not basing his comments on any new intelligence or other evidence that Russia was preparing to use nuclear weapons, but rather on a prudent analysis of Russia’s situation. They mentioned that Russian doctrine had a “lower threshold” for the use of nuclear weapons than other nations, but that it was “still pretty high.” According to that doctrine, there were two kinds of events that would warrant consideration of the use of nuclear weapons. One was if the Russian military was facing a massive defeat that threatened its ability to further defend its country. The other was if there was a direct threat to the regime in Moscow.
Read the rest at the Daily Beast link.
That’s it for me today. Now I need to decompress with an escapist novel. I hope you are all well and taking care not to overdose on the news.
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We’ve reached the end of another week in the post-Trump era, and we continue to deal with crises that developed and worsened during the monster’s regime. It’s clear that it will take a long time to recover–if recovery is even possible. On the plus side, it’s great to have a normal president again–a person with empathy and compassion–and a caring, engaged first lady, and White House pets!
Republicans are struggling to persuade voters to oppose President Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic rescue plan, which enjoys strong, bipartisan support nationwide even as it is moving through Congress with just Democratic backing.
Democrats who control the House are preparing to approve the package by the end of next week, with the Senate aiming to soon follow with its own party-line vote before unemployment benefits are set to lapse in mid-March. On Friday, the House Budget Committee unveiled the nearly 600-page text for the proposal, which includes billions of dollars for unemployment benefits, small businesses and stimulus checks.
Republican leaders, searching for a way to derail the proposal, on Friday led a final attempt to tarnish the package, labeling it a “payoff to progressives.” The bill, they said, spends too much and includes a liberal wish list of programs like aid to state and local governments — which they call a “blue state bailout,” though many states facing shortfalls are controlled by Republicans — and increased benefits for the unemployed, which they argued would discourage people from looking for work.
Out in the real world, even Republican voters support the relief bill.
More than 7 in 10 Americans now back Mr. Biden’s aid package, according to new polling from the online research firm SurveyMonkey for The New York Times. That includes support from three-quarters of independent voters, 2 in 5 Republicans and nearly all Democrats. The overall support for the bill is even larger than the substantial majority of voters who said in January that they favored an end-of-year economic aid bill signed into law by President Donald J. Trump.
While Mr. Biden has encouraged Republican lawmakers to get on board with his package, Democrats are moving their bill through Congress using a parliamentary process that will allow them to pass it with only Democratic votes.
“Critics say my plan is too big, that it cost $1.9 trillion dollars; that’s too much,” Mr. Biden said at an event on Friday. “Let me ask them, what would they have me cut?”
House Republican leaders on Friday urged their rank-and-file members to vote against the plan, billing it as Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California’s “Payoff to Progressives Act.” They detailed more than a dozen objections to the bill, including “a third round of stimulus checks costing more than $422 billion, which will include households that have experienced little or no financial loss during the pandemic.” Ms. Pelosi’s office issued its own rebuttal soon after, declaring “Americans need help. House Republicans don’t care.”
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has subpoenaed a New York City property tax agency as part of a criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s company, the agency confirmed on Friday, suggesting prosecutors are examining the former president’s efforts to reduce his commercial real-estate taxes for possible evidence of fraud.
The subpoena issued to the New York City Tax Commission is the latest indication that Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. is looking at the values Trump assigned to some commercial properties in tax filings and loan documents.
Along with information already subpoenaed from creditors, the tax agency documents would help investigators determine whether Trump’s business inflated the value of his properties to secure favorable terms on loans while deflating those values to lower tax bills for those same properties….
The subpoena likely would compel the agency to provide detailed income and expense statements the Trump Organization would have filed as part of an effort to lower tax assessments on some of its commercial properties, according to people familiar with the commission’s operations. Trump’s holdings include Trump Tower and Trump Plaza.
Those filings typically would include valuations submitted by the company to challenge the market values assigned to Trump’s property by the city’s tax assessors, they added.
Subpoenas also have been issued to at least two creditors that helped finance Trump’s real-estate holdings, Deutsche Bank AG and Ladder Capital Finance LLC, Reuters has previously reported.
The Federal investigation into the January 6 insurrection is continuing to heat up.
The Justice Department and FBI are investigating whether high-profile right-wing figures — including Roger Stone and Alex Jones — may have played a role in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach as part of a broader look into the mind-set of those who committed violence and their apparent paths to radicalization, according to people familiar with the investigation.
The investigation into potential ties between key figures in the riot and those who promoted former president Donald Trump’s false assertions that the election was stolen from him does not mean those who may have influenced rioters will face criminal charges, particularly given U.S. case law surrounding incitement and free speech, the people said. Officials at this stage said they are principally seeking to understand what the rioters were thinking — and who may have influenced beliefs — which could be critical to showing their intentions at trial.
However, investigators also want to determine whether anyone who influenced them bears enough responsibility to justify potential criminal charges, such as conspiracy or aiding the effort, the officials said. That prospect is still distant and uncertain, they emphasized.
Nevertheless, while Trump’s impeachment trial focused on the degree of his culpability for the violence, this facet of the case shows investigators’ ongoing interest in other individuals who never set foot in the Capitol but may have played an outsized role in what happened there through their influence, networks or action.
“We are investigating potential ties between those physically involved in the attack on the Capitol and individuals who may have influenced them, such as Roger Stone, Alex Jones and [Stop the Steal organizer] Ali Alexander,” said a U.S. official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a pending matter.
U.S. authorities on Friday alleged a broader conspiracy by Oath Keepers to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, charging six new individuals who appeared to be members or associates of the right-wing group.
One self-described leader in the group, which recruits among military and law enforcement, sent a Facebook message claiming at least 50 to 100 Oath Keepers planned to travel to D.C. with him on Jan. 6 and that they would “make it wild,” echoing a comment President Donald Trump made on Twitter rallying supporters to the Capitol.
A 21-page indictment alleged that the defendants “did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with each other and others known and unknown” to force entry to the Capitol and obstruct Congress from certifying the election of Joe Biden as president in riots that led to five deaths and assaults on 139 police.
The nine-person indictment named three already charged military veterans — Jessica Marie Watkins, 38, and Donovan Ray Crowl, 50, both of Woodstock, Ohio; and Thomas E. Caldwell, 66, of Berryville, Va. The six new defendants include siblings Graydon Young, 54, of Englewood, Fla., and Laura Steele, of Thomasville, N.C. It also includes married couples Kelly and Connie Meggs, 52 and 59, of Dunnellon, Fla.; and Bennie and Sandra Parker, 70 and 60, of the Cincinnati area.
Bruno Cua, an 18-year-old from Milton, Georgia, was already facing serious charges when he was arrested on Feb. 6 in connection with the insurrection at the US Capitol a month earlier. He was accused not only of illegally entering the Capitol but also of assaulting police and of obstructing Congress’s efforts to certify the presidential election, which are felony crimes.
But it only got worse for Cua when a federal grand jury in Washington, DC, returned an indictment four days later. On top of the original set of charges, the grand jury bumped up misdemeanor counts he’d faced for entering the Capitol to felonies, citing evidence that he’d carried a “deadly and dangerous weapon” — in his case, a baton. The addition of a “weapons enhancement” meant the maximum sentence he faced for those counts jumped tenfold, from one year in prison to 10.
Cua is one of a growing number of defendants charged in the insurrection seeing their felony counts — and potential prison time — stack up as the investigation presses on. Other defendants only charged with misdemeanors when they were arrested are now facing felonies post-indictment. Acting US Attorney Michael Sherwin in Washington had told reporters one week after the assault on the Capitol that the early rounds of arrests on misdemeanor charges were “only the beginning,” and promised more “significant charges” once prosecutors took these cases before a grand jury. New court documents in cases such as Cua’s show how that’s taking shape.
Of the more than 230 people charged to date, at least 70 are now facing a minimum of one felony count — the most common is obstruction of Congress, which has a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. More than 30 are charged with assaulting or interfering with law enforcement officers, and at least 14 are charged with carrying or using a weapon that day. Weapons identified in the government’s court filings so far have included knives, Tasers, a hockey stick, a large metal pipe, baseball bats, fire extinguishers, and batons.
Now that Trump is gone, the Feds are admitting how dangerous right-wing extremism is.
The U.S. government is acknowledging for the first time that right-wing extremists were responsible for the majority of fatal domestic terrorist attacks last year, according to an internal report circulated by the Department of Homeland Security last week and obtained by Yahoo News.
A review of last year’s domestic terrorist incidents by a DHS fusion center — which shares threat-related information between federal, state and local partners — found that although civil unrest and antigovernment violence were associated with “non-affiliated, right-wing and left-wing actors, right-wing [domestic violent extremists] were responsible for the majority of fatal attacks in the Homeland in 2020.”
The report, produced by the Joint Regional Intelligence Center, a DHS-funded fusion center, was sent out to police and law enforcement agencies nationwide as part of an intelligence-sharing system created after the 9/11 attacks.
While independent think tanks and outside groups have been pointing to the rise in ring-wing violence for some time, this appears to be the first known instance of an official government or law enforcement agency clearly acknowledging the trend, though senior officials have noted the rise in white supremacist attacks. The report also comes not long after the end of the Trump administration, which was criticized for downplaying right-wing violence.
So . . . lots happening this weekend. I’ll add more stories in the comment thread. What’s on your mind today?
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There were two terrorist attacks in America over the weekend, but don’t expect the mainstream media to call them that.
On Friday, 48-year-old Georgia resident Dennis Marx was scheduled to appear at the Forsyth County Courthouse in Cumming, Georgia, to face charges on 11 different felony counts.
Marx arrived at the courthouse on-time, but while in his truck, he threw “homemade spike strips” onto the road, and tried to run over a policeman.
After police opened fire on him, Marx began shooting at them from his truck, and proceeded to throw tear gas grenades, smoke grenades, and pepper spray grenades at them.
After a three minute long firefight, a SWAT team surrounded Marx, ultimately killing him.
Meanwhile, yesterday in Las Vegas, an armed couple screaming about “revolution”opened fire and killed two Las Vegas policemen inside of a local pizza joint.
After shooting and killing Officer Alyn Beck and Officer Igor Soldo, the couple took their weapons and covered their bodies with the Gadsden Flag, a yellow banner with contains a coiled snake around the words, “Don’t tread on me.”
The flag is named for Christopher Gadsden, the Revolutionary War general who designed it. It’s also a very popular symbol with the Tea Party movement.
After killing the police officers, the couple then fled to a local Walmart, where they killed an innocent bystander, before ultimately taking their own lives in an apparent murder-suicide.
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, neighbors said the couple often spoke about mistrust for and killing of police officers, and “going underground” until the time was right.
Neighbors also told the Review-Journal that the husband claimed he had been kicked off the Bundy Ranch during the protests there last month.
And back in April, Frazier Glenn Miller, a well-known right-wing extremist and member of the KKK, shoot and killed 14-year-old boy and his grandfather at a Jewish Community Center near Kansas City.
Miller then drove to a Jewish retirement home, and killed another person.
As police arrested him, Miller screamed out “Heil Hitler.”
Frazier Glenn Miller, Dennis Marx and the Las Vegas shooters were right-wing extremists and domestic terrorists. It’s that simple.
Unfortunately, the media refuses to acknowledge right-wing extremism and domestic terrorism in our country, even though they pose a bigger threat to our national security than jihadists and Islamic extremists.
According to the New America Foundation, as of April of this year, 21 people had been killed in the United States in attacks motivated by Islamic extremism since 9/11.
Meanwhile, 34 people had been killed by right-wing extremist attacks during the same time period.
The fact is, right-wing extremism is on the rise, it’s dangerous, and it’s now a major terrorist force in America.
Right-wing extremist and militia groups aren’t the fringe groups they used to be – now Fox so-called News makes members of these groups like the ones who showed up at the Bundy Ranch into media stars and heroes.
But while the facts speak for themselves, the mainstream media (CNN, MSNBC, FOX, The New York Times etc…) refuses to acknowledge the truth.
Jerad Miller outlined his political views, which were largely based on conspiracy theories promoted by Fox News and Alex Jones, in his social media postings, and he posted frequently about firearms and violent revolution.
“We can hope for peace,” he posted June 2. “We must, however, prepare for war. We face an enemy that is not only well funded, but who believe they fight for freedom and justice. Those of us who know the truth and dare speak it, know that the enemy we face are indeed our brothers. Even though they share the same masters as we all do. They fail to recognize the chains that bind them. To stop this oppression, I fear, can only be accomplished with bloodshed.”
Jerad and Amanda Miller posted comments at InfoWars, Breitbart
A May 28, 2012, post on Jones’ InfoWars site appears to have been made by Jerad Miller, who expressed frustration with his arrest on drug charges and vowed he would rather die than be labeled a criminal.
“I am like a wild coyote,” he wrote, using the user name “Jerad” and a Gadsden flag as his avatar. “You corner me, I will fight to the death.”
He goes on to say he’s “broken hearted” to see other Americans placated by materialism and celebrity worship as they submitted to tyranny.
“So, do I kill cops and make a stand when they come to get me?” the post continues. “I would prefer to die than sit in their jail, when I have done nothing to hurt anyone.”
That post attracted an appreciative comment from another InfoWars user, Amanda, whose profile uses the same maiden name – Woodruff – as Amanda Miller, along with the same birth year and hometown as the shooting suspect.
“Jerad, baby, I love you with all my heart and I’ll stand behind you no matter what,” wrote Amanda, whose avatar appears to be Amanda Miller. “It’s true that its not fair that i can’t have a gun because you live with me. I know its not right that my rights get taken away from me because I live in the same home as you but I would love to see them try and enforce that. My love for you is deep and forever and f-ck what they have to say cause they have no right to do what they say is not right.”
The InfoWars user Amanda also claims the same job — head of the needlepoint department for Hobby Lobby — as Amanda Miller’s Facebook profile.
During his InfoWars.com radio show Monday, Jones accused the U.S. government of staging theLas Vegas shooting allegedly committed by Jeradand Amanda Miller that left two police officers and one civilian dead over the weekend in an attempt to smear conservatives before the midterm elections.
“There is so much proof of this being staged yesterday, when I first read about it, and this morning, that my mind exploded with hundreds of data points, and quite frankly it’s conclusive,” Jones said, before outlining why he believes this event is one in a long line of similar “false flag” operations perpetrated by the Democrats.
Jones cited the attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, the chemical attacks in Syria and the “Fast & Furious” gun deal in Mexico as examples of other “false flag” operations committed by the U.S. If the government would stage those, he said they would “absolutely” use the Millers to kill two police officers in Las Vegas.
“Would they do this to get our guns and blame the tea party that’s sweeping in every runoff election and primary right now?” he asked. “I kept telling, they’re getting ready to false flag, and it happens right in Harry Reid’s district, right in his state, right in his city, with his police department.”
But what I am saying is this: there are some particular features of conservative political rhetoric today that help create an atmosphere in which violence and terrorism can germinate.
The most obvious component is the fetishization of firearms and the constant warnings that government will soon be coming to take your guns. But that’s only part of it. Just as meaningful is the conspiracy theorizing that became utterly mainstream once Barack Obama took office. If you tuned into one of many national television and radio programs on the right, you heard over and over that Obama was imposing a totalitarian state upon us. You might hear that FEMA was building secret concentration camps (Glenn Beck, the propagator of that theory, later recanted it, though he has a long history of violent rhetoric), or that Obama is seeding the government with agents of the Muslim Brotherhood. You grandfather probably got an email offering proof that Obama is literally the antichrist.
Meanwhile, conservatives have become prone to taking the political disagreements of the moment and couching them in apocalyptic terms, encouraging people to think that if Democrats have their way on any given debate, that our country, or at the very least our liberty, might literally be destroyed.
To take just one of an innumerable number of examples, when GOP Senator Ron Johnsonsays that the Affordable Care Act is “the greatest assault on freedom in our lifetime,” and hopes that the Supreme Court will intervene to preserve our “last shred of freedom,” is it at all surprising that some people might be tempted to take up arms? After all, if he’s right, and the ACA really means that freedom is being destroyed, then violent revolution seems justified. Johnson might respond by saying, “Well, of course I didn’t mean that literally.” And I’m sure he didn’t — Johnson may be no rocket scientist, but he knows that despite the individual mandate going into effect, there are a few shreds of freedom remaining in America.
But the argument that no sane person could actually believe many of the things conservatives say shouldn’t absolve them of responsibility. When you broadcast every day that the government of the world’s oldest democracy is a totalitarian beast bent on turning America into a prison of oppression and fear, when you glorify lawbreakers like Cliven Bundy, when you say that your opponents would literally destroy the country if they could, you can’t profess surprise when some people decide that violence is the only means of forestalling the disaster you have warned them about.
To my conservative friends tempted to find outrageous things liberals have said in order to argue that both sides are equally to blame, I’d respond this way: Find me all the examples of people who shot up a church after reading books by Rachel Maddow and Paul Krugman, and then you’ll have a case.
The father of Bowe Bergdahl, the Idaho soldier released from captivity in a controversial prisoner swap with the Taliban, has received emailed death threats that authorities are investigating, an Idaho police chief said on Saturday.
The first of the death threats sent to Bob Bergdahl at his home near Hailey, Idaho, was received on Wednesday, the same day the city canceled a planned rally celebrating the release of his son, Hailey Police Chief Jeff Gunter said.
“There were four specific emails with death threats given to the FBI and they are looking into it,” Gunter told Reuters in an interview.
Authorities are providing security to Bob Bergdahl and his wife, Jani, but Gunter declined to elaborate on those measures.
Bergdahl’s release after being held for nearly five years in Afghanistan provoked an angry backlash in Congress among lawmakers over the Obama administration’s failure to notify them in advance. Some of Bergdahl’s former comrades have charged that he was captured in 2009 after deserting his post.
U.S. military leaders have said the circumstances of Bergdahl’s capture are unclear, with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel urging critics to wait for all the facts to be known before rushing to judgment on Bergdahl.
The threats came as Hailey, a tourist community of some 8,000 people in the mountains of central Idaho, was buffeted by hundreds of vitriolic phone calls and emails.
You just have to wonder how stupid people can be. If there was an assault on right wing rights, the first to go would be any number of these media outlets.
What’s on you reading and blogging list today?
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
All these corrupt Republican Judges seem to lead right back to Leonard Leo, don’t they? Something is very rotten here. 
So, back to Donald and his surprising recovery from a shooting that killed one and critically injured two. So my Nancy Drew senses started tingling when I saw how composed Donald was after the shooting; he was more worried about getting his shoes than leaving the scene. Posing for pictures all along the way. PB first contacted me with this bit.
And then there’s good old Alex Jones, the father of seeing everything as staged with crisis actors. Listen to this. It’s from 
There’s no way to blame Biden for the shooter, given his personal history as a gun-toting right-wing Republican, either. “FBI probing motives, the background of Thomas Matthew Crooks, the Western Pa. gunman behind Donald Trump assassination attempt.
Here are some additional things I have questions about. Most of these are based on photography at the scene. For example,
One of the most questionable things is that photos of Trump show him looking in the direction of the building where the shooter was. This is precisely when he turned his head to point to his whiteboard. At that point, local police went to the roof, saw him, and went back down the stairs. There was also a hesitation by the Secret Service Sniper to shoot him. Acyn, the Senior Digital Editor for MeidasTouch.com, c
Some of the weirdest Republican attacks have been on Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who is a 27-year-old veteran of the force. She is being called a DEI hire by really nasty Republican pols. S
Once again, I’ve reached the point where I can’t bring myself to watch the news on TV. I check Twitter a few times a day and end up frightened and depressed. On the days I write posts, I read a number of articles, but then I need hours of down time to decompress. When will there be some good news for those of us who want the U.S. to be a democracy?
Out in the real world, even Republican voters support the relief bill.
Along with information already subpoenaed from creditors, the tax agency documents would help investigators determine whether Trump’s business inflated the value of his properties to secure favorable terms on loans while deflating those values to lower tax bills for those same properties….
However, investigators also want to determine whether anyone who influenced them bears enough responsibility to justify potential criminal charges, such as conspiracy or aiding the effort, the officials said. That prospect is still distant and uncertain, they emphasized.
Zoe Tillman at Buzzfeed News: 
A review of last year’s domestic terrorist incidents by a DHS fusion center — which shares threat-related information between federal, state and local partners — found that although civil unrest and antigovernment violence were associated with “non-affiliated, right-wing and left-wing actors, right-wing [domestic violent extremists] were responsible for the majority of fatal attacks in the Homeland in 2020.”
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