Today's News (2020/7/12): Fascism and Police Violence edition
And it's only mid-July.
----- 1 -----
Robert Mueller: Roger Stone remains a convicted felon, and rightly so
By Robert S. Mueller III
July 11, 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/11/mueller-stone-oped/
Robert S. Mueller III served as special counsel for the Justice Department from 2017 to 2019.
The work of the special counsel’s office - its report, indictments, guilty pleas and convictions - should speak for itself. But I feel compelled to respond both to broad claims that our investigation was illegitimate and our motives were improper, and to specific claims that Roger Stone was a victim of our office. The Russia investigation was of paramount importance. Stone was prosecuted and convicted because he committed federal crimes. He remains a convicted felon, and rightly so.
Russia’s actions were a threat to America’s democracy. It was critical that they be investigated and understood. By late 2016, the FBI had evidence that the Russians had signaled to a Trump campaign adviser that they could assist the campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to the Democratic candidate. And the FBI knew that the Russians had done just that: Beginning in July 2016, WikiLeaks released emails stolen by Russian military intelligence officers from the Clinton campaign. Other online personas using false names - fronts for Russian military intelligence - also released Clinton campaign emails.
Following FBI Director James B. Comey’s termination in May 2017, the acting attorney general named me as special counsel and directed the special counsel’s office to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The order specified lines of investigation for us to pursue, including any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign. One of our cases involved Stone, an official on the campaign until mid-2015 and a supporter of the campaign throughout 2016. Stone became a central figure in our investigation for two key reasons: He communicated in 2016 with individuals known to us to be Russian intelligence officers, and he claimed advance knowledge of WikiLeaks’ release of emails stolen by those Russian intelligence officers.
We now have a detailed picture of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. The special counsel’s office identified two principal operations directed at our election: hacking and dumping Clinton campaign emails, and an online social media campaign to disparage the Democratic candidate. We also identified numerous links between the Russian government and Trump campaign personnel - Stone among them. We did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government in its activities. The investigation did, however, establish that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome. It also established that the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.
Uncovering and tracing Russian outreach and interference activities was a complex task. The investigation to understand these activities took two years and substantial effort. Based on our work, eight individuals pleaded guilty or were convicted at trial, and more than two dozen Russian individuals and entities, including senior Russian intelligence officers, were charged with federal crimes.
Congress also investigated and sought information from Stone. A jury later determined he lied repeatedly to members of Congress. He lied about the identity of his intermediary to WikiLeaks. He lied about the existence of written communications with his intermediary. He lied by denying he had communicated with the Trump campaign about the timing of WikiLeaks’ releases. He in fact updated senior campaign officials repeatedly about WikiLeaks. And he tampered with a witness, imploring him to stonewall Congress.
The jury ultimately convicted Stone of obstruction of a congressional investigation, five counts of making false statements to Congress and tampering with a witness. Because his sentence has been commuted, he will not go to prison. But his conviction stands.
----- 2 -----
Debunking 12 lies and falsehoods from the White House statement on Roger Stone's commutation
By Marshall Cohen
Updated 10:47 AM ET, Sat July 11, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/10/politics/fact-check-white-house-statement-roger-stone-commutation/index.html
Washington (CNN)- President Donald Trump commuted the prison sentence of his longtime friend and political adviser Roger Stone on Friday, days before Stone was required to begin his 40-month prison term for lying to Congress about the Trump campaign's ties to WikiLeaks.
The extraordinary act of clemency was announced by White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. She released a lengthy statement that was littered with lies and false claims about the Russia investigation, special counsel Robert Mueller and the details of Stone's legal case.
Stone was convicted in November of lying to Congress, obstructing its inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and threatening a witness who could have exposed his lies. The commutation erases Stone's prison sentence -- but the guilty verdicts remain on the books.
Here's a breakdown of 12 baseless claims from the White House statement.
----- 3 -----
The worst president ever keeps getting worse
Opinion by Max Boot
Columnist
July 11, 2020 at 6:25 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/11/worst-president-ever-keeps-getting-worse/
Three months ago - all the way back on April 5 - I proclaimed Donald Trump the worst president ever. Oh, how innocent I was. Sure, I knew he was bad. But not this bad.
Back then I thought he was barely edging James Buchanan in the annals of presidential ineptitude. But now, with the commutation of Roger Stone’s well-deserved prison sentence and so many other vile acts, he has disgraced the nation’s highest office as no previous occupant has come close to doing.
Think about all that has happened since April 5. That was before security forces attacked peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square so that Trump could stage a bizarre photo-op. Before he pushed to send the armed forces into the streets. Before he embraced “white power” and called Black Lives Matter “a symbol of hate.” Before he vowed to veto the defense authorization bill to prevent the renaming of military bases named after Confederate generals. Before he used the novel coronavirus as an excuse to shut down immigration and threatened to revoke the visas of college students unable to attend classes in the fall. Before he ignored reports that a Russian intelligence unit had placed a bounty on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. Before he moved to pull out of the World Health Organization during the worst pandemic in a century. Before he held rallies that most likely helped to spread the disease. Before he falsely accused MSNBC host and Post columnist Joe Scarborough of murdering a staff member. Before former national security adviser John Bolton revealed that Trump praised China’s prison camps for Uighurs and asked Chinese leader Xi Jinping to help him win reelection.
Most of all, that was before the coronavirus had infected more than 3.1 million Americans and claimed the lives of more than 131,000. The pandemic was already a disaster on April 5, but back then we still had “only” 331,000 cases and 9,400 deaths. On April 5, 1,344 new cases were reported. As many were recorded in 30 minutes on Friday, when daily new coronavirus cases climbed to a record-breaking 63,900. In early April it was still possible to imagine that the virus really would abate by the middle of summer. That this hasn’t happened - that the virus is still raging out of control in America while being brought under control in so many other countries - is directly attributable to the epic failure of leadership by a president who infamously proclaimed “I don’t take responsibility at all.”
----- 4 -----
Trump Allegedly Suggested Selling Puerto Rico as Hurricane Maria Approached
A former cabinet member recalls the president’s bizarre ideas.
Russ Choma
11 JULY 2020
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/07/trump-allegedly-suggested-selling-puerto-rico-as-hurricane-maria-approached/
Donald Trump’s initial reaction to the devastating hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico in 2017 were to suggest that the United States sell, or “divest” from the territory, a former acting secretary of Homeland Security said on Friday. Elaine Duke, who served as Trump’s second secretary of Homeland Security, replacing John Kelly when he became Trump’s chief-of-staff, has become the latest former Trump cabinet member to speak out against her old boss, telling the New York Times in an interview this past week that Trump cares little about policy, and uses “hate-filled, angry and divisive” language.
Duke was acting secretary when she signed off on ending the DACA protections-the program set up by the Obama administration to protect young undocumented immigrants, known as Dreamers, from deportation. Duke told the Times that she agreed the program was illegal, but wasn’t ready to sign off on its closure, and that she was “ambushed” by Trump and his political allies at an August 2017 White House meeting. Last month the Supreme Court ruled that the DACA program was improperly ended-giving the Dreamers a reprieve, but also opening the door for the Trump administration to try again.
Duke also described to the Times how as Hurricane Maria approached Puerto Rico in the fall of 2017-it would go on to devastate the island, leaving much of it without power for months-other Trump cabinet members derided her for trying to urge the president to take it more seriously. Duke said that Trump did initially show concern for the suffering of Puerto Rican people after the disaster, but was disturbed by his first instincts on how to react:
“The president’s initial ideas were more of as a businessman, you know,” she recalled. “Can we outsource the electricity? Can we can we sell the island? You know, or divest of that asset?”
She said the idea was never seriously considered or discussed after that meeting.
----- 5 -----
Cory Doctorow #BLM
twitter.com/doctorow
11 July 2020
https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1281964933991632897
[THREAD]
If you want someone to stay loyal to your cult, you could do worse than demanding the impossible of them: "I can do $IMPOSSIBLE_THING and so will you, if your faith is pure."
[EDITOR'S NOTE: see also scientology]
[NEXT]
Wiley Brooks told his breatharian cultists they could get all their nutrients from breathing and this would make them immortal. He charged $100k+ for breath-training. In 1983, he was caught at at 7-11 with a Slurpee, hot dog, and Twinkies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inedia#Wiley_Brooks
2/
[NEXT]
Which is hilarious, sure, but think about it. Everyone in Brooks's cult must have been doing the same thing, because otherwise they'd have starved to death. Think about how their shameful secret must have made them both loyal and suspicious.
3/
[NEXT]
Which brings me to the Mississippi Republican Party.
Republicanism is a death-cult that demands that its adherents shun masks and social distancing, insisting that the whole coronavirus pandemic is a liberal hoax.
4/
[THREAD CONTINUES AT UPPER URL]
----- 6 -----
Stone Walks Free in One of the Greatest Scandals in American History
The amazing thing about the saga is how much of it happened in the full light of day.
7:05 AM ET
David Frum
Staff writer at The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/roger-stone/614068/
Roger Stone’s best trick was always his upper-class-twit wardrobe. He seemed such a farcical character, such a Klaxon-alarm-from-a-mile-away goofball-who could take him seriously?
Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen: They had tradecraft. They didn’t troll people on Instagram or blab to reporters. They behaved in the way you would expect of people betraying their country: conscious of the magnitude of their acts, determined to avoid the limelight.
Stone could not have been more different. He clowned, he cavorted, he demanded limelight-which made it in some ways impossible to imagine that he could have done anything seriously amiss. Bank robbers don’t go on Twitter to announce, “Hey, I’m going to rob a bank, sorry, not sorry.” Or so you’d expect.
Yet Stone is the central figure in the greatest scandals in U.S. history. Ames, Hanssen, the Rosenbergs, Alger Hiss-none of them worked with a foreign intelligence service to help a candidate for president of the United States. Stone did. And now he will receive a commutation of his sentence from the president he served.
The amazing thing about the Trump-Stone story is how much of it happened in the full light of day. A (very) partial timeline:
----- 7 -----
Barr recommended Trump not give Stone clemency: report
By J. Edward Moreno - 07/11/20
[EDITOR: I'm hesitant to report this because it's shite. Barr doesn't give a fuck about right and wrong, he also needs to be impeached. This is just part of the "see I'm reasonable" act as he covers for Trump's corruption and fascism.]
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/506895-barr-recommended-trump-not-give-stone-clemency-report
U.S. Attorney General William Barr recommended that President Trump not grant associate Roger Stone clemency, administration officials told NBC News.
On Friday, the White House commuted the prison sentence of Stone, a longtime Trump confidant who was convicted of lying to Congress in connection with its investigation into Russia's election interference, witness tampering and obstructing an official proceeding.
Sources told NBC that Barr and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows recommended against the move over concerns of political blowback.
Stone maintained his innocence throughout his trial and attempted to appeal his conviction. Stone was due to report to prison Tuesday before Trump stepped in to commute his sentence.
----- 8 -----
Barr 'decapitates' third U.S. attorney's office looking at Trump
Rachel Maddow
10 July 2020
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/barr-decapitates-third-u-s-attorney-s-office-looking-at-trump-87458373925
Rachel Maddow describes Attorney General William Barr's pattern of removing the leadership of three key U.S. Attorneys' Offices that have ongoing investigations related to Donald Trump, and replacing them with loyal footmen.
----- 9 -----
Twelve signs Trump would try to run a fascist dictatorship in a second term
He lies about voter fraud, admires authoritarians, tries to suppress free speech and uses the law against those who would hold him accountable.
By Jonathan Greenberg
July 10, 2020 at 8:04 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/fascist-dictatorship-trump-second-term/2020/07/10/63fdd938-c166-11ea-b4f6-cb39cd8940fb_story.html
People have debated whether Donald Trump is fascist since he announced he was running for president. In 2015, Jamelle Bouie wrote in Slate that Trump, in his campaign speeches and Twitter utterances, exhibited seven of the 14 characteristics identified by the Italian novelist Umberto Eco in his defining essay “Ur-Fascism.” In 2016, the Georgetown professor John McNeill assessed Trump’s fascist tendencies on a scale of zero to four “Benitos,” after the father of fascism, Benito Mussolini. As an amateur, Trump fell short.
That was then. What about now? And, more important, what about the Trump of a potential second term in the White House?
On June 1, as demonstrators gathered and marched in Washington and around the country to protest the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police, President Trump, in a brief speech in the White House Rose Garden, called for states to use the National Guard to “dominate the streets” and promised that if they didn’t, “I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.” Federal forces then used tear gas and stun grenades on peaceful protesters to clear a path for him to walk from the White House to nearby St. John’s Episcopal Church for a photo op with a Bible as prop.
“The fascist speech Donald Trump just delivered verged on a declaration of war against American citizens,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) tweeted. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) - noting in an opinion column three days later that the president’s “attempt to use chaos to shred democratic safeguards and consolidate authoritarian power is deadly serious” - put it this way: “This is our own Reichstag fire and, yes, Trump is playing the role of would-be Fuehrer, proclaiming a ‘God-given signal’ to seize more power.”
I first reported on Trump in 1982, when he conned me into putting him on the Forbes 400 rich list. That Trump was just a younger version of this Trump, and now I worry that what happened in June was a mere prelude; he’s certainly capable of a far worse Reichstag-fire-like event that would allow him to steal the 2020 election. And if he does win a second term, legitimately or not, his words and actions of the past four years provide 12 indicators that he would seek to replace our democracy with a fascist dictatorship.
----- 10 -----
Dan Hon
twitter.com/hondanhon
10 July 2020
https://twitter.com/hondanhon/status/1281685535686180864
[THREAD A]
Been thinking about this *a lot* since Adrian pointed it out
[QUOTED TWEET]
Adrian Hon
twitter.com/adrianhon
9 July 2020
https://twitter.com/adrianhon/status/1281223340431204353
[THREAD B]
Theory: QAnon is popular partly because the act of “researching” it through obscure forums and videos and blog posts, though more time-consuming than watching TV, is actually *more enjoyable* because it’s an active process.
Game-like, even; or ARG-like, certainly.
[THREAD B continues at https://twitter.com/adrianhon/status/1281223340431204353 ]
[NEXT A]
Specifically based on all the ARG player behavior I’ve seen over the last 20 years.
I’m pretty terrified about how it plays out. No time for a thread or to write about it today though.
[NEXT A]
Sigh ok
It even “solves” the content generation “problem” that ARGs have had :(
[NEXT A]
Every single QAnon behavior I’ve seen is a 10x+ version of ARG player behavior but uncontrolled, undirected and unconstrained
[NEXT A]
It rewards independent research, gives you the dopamine hit of finding a connection “on your own” and for pros, unlike ARGs, you can generate your own content to fill in the narrative gaps *that other players will use* AND it is a threat to public safety and governance
[THREAD A CONTINUES AT https://twitter.com/hondanhon/status/1281685535686180864 ]
----- 11 -----
When reporters get arrested in Seattle and get a view from inside the criminal justice machine
By Danny Westneat
Seattle Times columnist
July 10, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/when-reporters-get-arrested-in-seattle-and-get-a-view-from-inside-the-criminal-justice-machine/
The story of a British journalist getting wrongly arrested by Seattle police during recent protests is making the rounds, mainly for his implication that he was treated worse here than when he’s been detained in places like Cuba or Pakistan.
“It was a brief, partial window into a criminal justice system seemingly bereft of humanity,” wrote Andrew Buncombe, a U.S. correspondent for the British newspaper Independent, who was swept up by police when they cleared the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) last week.
The account brought back strong memories for me of the time I was arrested by Seattle police while covering a protest - and charged, wrongly, with the same crime as Buncombe, failure to disperse. My case, from decades ago, still sits on the Seattle Municipal Court’s case portal, and every few years I get asked about my “criminal past” when someone comes across it.
What’s so interesting about Buncombe’s account is that it comes from the European perspective of how heavy-handed an American police and jail system can feel - even if experienced only in glancing fashion.
Buncombe was on the periphery of CHOP when police cleared it, and though he showed police his press credentials, he got handcuffed anyway. He describes being put in shackles in a van and driven to the downtown jail - having trouble breathing, and repeatedly saying that he was press and shouldn’t have been swept up.
Not surprisingly, at least to me, this didn’t work.
“Get back in the cell. You’ve lost your chance. You’re being condescending,” Buncombe quotes a King County jail official.
The sense of his story is one of an unreasoning machine - that once a police sweep starts, it hoovers up anybody in the path. Another man in his cell was apparently just out walking to get food when he got detained.
That was my reaction, too, when I was arrested in nearly identical circumstances while covering a protest in the 1990s. I was a freelancer for some community newspapers and had followed a protest group through a training session and then onto a sit-in, against U.S. aid to El Salvador, outside the federal building in downtown Seattle.
----- 12 -----
Asher Vollmer
Twitter.com/AsherVo
10 July 2020
https://twitter.com/AsherVo/status/1281731074523979776
I did not fully appreciate the issue with "most cops don't live in the neighborhood they police" until seeing this
[EMBEDDED VIDEO: How police not only oppress PoC, but are paid for by the taxpayers they're oppressing, and that money is used to fund white suburbs. Watch it.]
Also posted to ソ-ラ-バ-ド-のおん;
comments at Dreamwidth. Please comment there.
- Robert Mueller: Roger Stone remains a convicted felon, and rightly so
- Debunking 12 lies and falsehoods from the White House statement on Roger Stone's commutation
- The worst president ever keeps getting worse
- Trump Allegedly Suggested Selling Puerto Rico as Hurricane Maria Approached
- If you want someone to stay loyal to your cult, you could do worse than demanding the impossible of them: "I can do $IMPOSSIBLE_THING and so will you, if your faith is pure."
- Stone Walks Free in One of the Greatest Scandals in American History
- Barr recommended Trump not give Stone clemency: report [EDITOR: I'm hesitant to report this because it's shite. Barr doesn't give a fuck about right and wrong, he also needs to be impeached. This is just part of the "see I'm reasonable" act as he covers for Trump's corruption and fascism.]
- Barr 'decapitates' third U.S. attorney's office looking at Trump
- Twelve signs Trump would try to run a fascist dictatorship in a second term
- THREADS: QAnon is an Augmented Reality Game where the problem of content generation has been solved. That's why it's popular. TWO threads, both linked.
- SEATTLE: When reporters get arrested in Seattle and get a view from inside the criminal justice machine
- I did not fully appreciate the issue with "most cops don't live in the neighborhood they police" until seeing this [EDITOR: VIDEO BUT WORTH YOUR TIME.]
----- 1 -----
Robert Mueller: Roger Stone remains a convicted felon, and rightly so
By Robert S. Mueller III
July 11, 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/11/mueller-stone-oped/
Robert S. Mueller III served as special counsel for the Justice Department from 2017 to 2019.
The work of the special counsel’s office - its report, indictments, guilty pleas and convictions - should speak for itself. But I feel compelled to respond both to broad claims that our investigation was illegitimate and our motives were improper, and to specific claims that Roger Stone was a victim of our office. The Russia investigation was of paramount importance. Stone was prosecuted and convicted because he committed federal crimes. He remains a convicted felon, and rightly so.
Russia’s actions were a threat to America’s democracy. It was critical that they be investigated and understood. By late 2016, the FBI had evidence that the Russians had signaled to a Trump campaign adviser that they could assist the campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to the Democratic candidate. And the FBI knew that the Russians had done just that: Beginning in July 2016, WikiLeaks released emails stolen by Russian military intelligence officers from the Clinton campaign. Other online personas using false names - fronts for Russian military intelligence - also released Clinton campaign emails.
Following FBI Director James B. Comey’s termination in May 2017, the acting attorney general named me as special counsel and directed the special counsel’s office to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The order specified lines of investigation for us to pursue, including any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign. One of our cases involved Stone, an official on the campaign until mid-2015 and a supporter of the campaign throughout 2016. Stone became a central figure in our investigation for two key reasons: He communicated in 2016 with individuals known to us to be Russian intelligence officers, and he claimed advance knowledge of WikiLeaks’ release of emails stolen by those Russian intelligence officers.
We now have a detailed picture of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. The special counsel’s office identified two principal operations directed at our election: hacking and dumping Clinton campaign emails, and an online social media campaign to disparage the Democratic candidate. We also identified numerous links between the Russian government and Trump campaign personnel - Stone among them. We did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government in its activities. The investigation did, however, establish that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome. It also established that the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.
Uncovering and tracing Russian outreach and interference activities was a complex task. The investigation to understand these activities took two years and substantial effort. Based on our work, eight individuals pleaded guilty or were convicted at trial, and more than two dozen Russian individuals and entities, including senior Russian intelligence officers, were charged with federal crimes.
Congress also investigated and sought information from Stone. A jury later determined he lied repeatedly to members of Congress. He lied about the identity of his intermediary to WikiLeaks. He lied about the existence of written communications with his intermediary. He lied by denying he had communicated with the Trump campaign about the timing of WikiLeaks’ releases. He in fact updated senior campaign officials repeatedly about WikiLeaks. And he tampered with a witness, imploring him to stonewall Congress.
The jury ultimately convicted Stone of obstruction of a congressional investigation, five counts of making false statements to Congress and tampering with a witness. Because his sentence has been commuted, he will not go to prison. But his conviction stands.
----- 2 -----
Debunking 12 lies and falsehoods from the White House statement on Roger Stone's commutation
By Marshall Cohen
Updated 10:47 AM ET, Sat July 11, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/10/politics/fact-check-white-house-statement-roger-stone-commutation/index.html
Washington (CNN)- President Donald Trump commuted the prison sentence of his longtime friend and political adviser Roger Stone on Friday, days before Stone was required to begin his 40-month prison term for lying to Congress about the Trump campaign's ties to WikiLeaks.
The extraordinary act of clemency was announced by White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. She released a lengthy statement that was littered with lies and false claims about the Russia investigation, special counsel Robert Mueller and the details of Stone's legal case.
Stone was convicted in November of lying to Congress, obstructing its inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and threatening a witness who could have exposed his lies. The commutation erases Stone's prison sentence -- but the guilty verdicts remain on the books.
Here's a breakdown of 12 baseless claims from the White House statement.
----- 3 -----
The worst president ever keeps getting worse
Opinion by Max Boot
Columnist
July 11, 2020 at 6:25 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/11/worst-president-ever-keeps-getting-worse/
Three months ago - all the way back on April 5 - I proclaimed Donald Trump the worst president ever. Oh, how innocent I was. Sure, I knew he was bad. But not this bad.
Back then I thought he was barely edging James Buchanan in the annals of presidential ineptitude. But now, with the commutation of Roger Stone’s well-deserved prison sentence and so many other vile acts, he has disgraced the nation’s highest office as no previous occupant has come close to doing.
Think about all that has happened since April 5. That was before security forces attacked peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square so that Trump could stage a bizarre photo-op. Before he pushed to send the armed forces into the streets. Before he embraced “white power” and called Black Lives Matter “a symbol of hate.” Before he vowed to veto the defense authorization bill to prevent the renaming of military bases named after Confederate generals. Before he used the novel coronavirus as an excuse to shut down immigration and threatened to revoke the visas of college students unable to attend classes in the fall. Before he ignored reports that a Russian intelligence unit had placed a bounty on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. Before he moved to pull out of the World Health Organization during the worst pandemic in a century. Before he held rallies that most likely helped to spread the disease. Before he falsely accused MSNBC host and Post columnist Joe Scarborough of murdering a staff member. Before former national security adviser John Bolton revealed that Trump praised China’s prison camps for Uighurs and asked Chinese leader Xi Jinping to help him win reelection.
Most of all, that was before the coronavirus had infected more than 3.1 million Americans and claimed the lives of more than 131,000. The pandemic was already a disaster on April 5, but back then we still had “only” 331,000 cases and 9,400 deaths. On April 5, 1,344 new cases were reported. As many were recorded in 30 minutes on Friday, when daily new coronavirus cases climbed to a record-breaking 63,900. In early April it was still possible to imagine that the virus really would abate by the middle of summer. That this hasn’t happened - that the virus is still raging out of control in America while being brought under control in so many other countries - is directly attributable to the epic failure of leadership by a president who infamously proclaimed “I don’t take responsibility at all.”
----- 4 -----
Trump Allegedly Suggested Selling Puerto Rico as Hurricane Maria Approached
A former cabinet member recalls the president’s bizarre ideas.
Russ Choma
11 JULY 2020
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/07/trump-allegedly-suggested-selling-puerto-rico-as-hurricane-maria-approached/
Donald Trump’s initial reaction to the devastating hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico in 2017 were to suggest that the United States sell, or “divest” from the territory, a former acting secretary of Homeland Security said on Friday. Elaine Duke, who served as Trump’s second secretary of Homeland Security, replacing John Kelly when he became Trump’s chief-of-staff, has become the latest former Trump cabinet member to speak out against her old boss, telling the New York Times in an interview this past week that Trump cares little about policy, and uses “hate-filled, angry and divisive” language.
Duke was acting secretary when she signed off on ending the DACA protections-the program set up by the Obama administration to protect young undocumented immigrants, known as Dreamers, from deportation. Duke told the Times that she agreed the program was illegal, but wasn’t ready to sign off on its closure, and that she was “ambushed” by Trump and his political allies at an August 2017 White House meeting. Last month the Supreme Court ruled that the DACA program was improperly ended-giving the Dreamers a reprieve, but also opening the door for the Trump administration to try again.
Duke also described to the Times how as Hurricane Maria approached Puerto Rico in the fall of 2017-it would go on to devastate the island, leaving much of it without power for months-other Trump cabinet members derided her for trying to urge the president to take it more seriously. Duke said that Trump did initially show concern for the suffering of Puerto Rican people after the disaster, but was disturbed by his first instincts on how to react:
“The president’s initial ideas were more of as a businessman, you know,” she recalled. “Can we outsource the electricity? Can we can we sell the island? You know, or divest of that asset?”
She said the idea was never seriously considered or discussed after that meeting.
----- 5 -----
Cory Doctorow #BLM
twitter.com/doctorow
11 July 2020
https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1281964933991632897
[THREAD]
If you want someone to stay loyal to your cult, you could do worse than demanding the impossible of them: "I can do $IMPOSSIBLE_THING and so will you, if your faith is pure."
[EDITOR'S NOTE: see also scientology]
[NEXT]
Wiley Brooks told his breatharian cultists they could get all their nutrients from breathing and this would make them immortal. He charged $100k+ for breath-training. In 1983, he was caught at at 7-11 with a Slurpee, hot dog, and Twinkies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inedia#Wiley_Brooks
2/
[NEXT]
Which is hilarious, sure, but think about it. Everyone in Brooks's cult must have been doing the same thing, because otherwise they'd have starved to death. Think about how their shameful secret must have made them both loyal and suspicious.
3/
[NEXT]
Which brings me to the Mississippi Republican Party.
Republicanism is a death-cult that demands that its adherents shun masks and social distancing, insisting that the whole coronavirus pandemic is a liberal hoax.
4/
[THREAD CONTINUES AT UPPER URL]
----- 6 -----
Stone Walks Free in One of the Greatest Scandals in American History
The amazing thing about the saga is how much of it happened in the full light of day.
7:05 AM ET
David Frum
Staff writer at The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/roger-stone/614068/
Roger Stone’s best trick was always his upper-class-twit wardrobe. He seemed such a farcical character, such a Klaxon-alarm-from-a-mile-away goofball-who could take him seriously?
Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen: They had tradecraft. They didn’t troll people on Instagram or blab to reporters. They behaved in the way you would expect of people betraying their country: conscious of the magnitude of their acts, determined to avoid the limelight.
Stone could not have been more different. He clowned, he cavorted, he demanded limelight-which made it in some ways impossible to imagine that he could have done anything seriously amiss. Bank robbers don’t go on Twitter to announce, “Hey, I’m going to rob a bank, sorry, not sorry.” Or so you’d expect.
Yet Stone is the central figure in the greatest scandals in U.S. history. Ames, Hanssen, the Rosenbergs, Alger Hiss-none of them worked with a foreign intelligence service to help a candidate for president of the United States. Stone did. And now he will receive a commutation of his sentence from the president he served.
The amazing thing about the Trump-Stone story is how much of it happened in the full light of day. A (very) partial timeline:
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Barr recommended Trump not give Stone clemency: report
By J. Edward Moreno - 07/11/20
[EDITOR: I'm hesitant to report this because it's shite. Barr doesn't give a fuck about right and wrong, he also needs to be impeached. This is just part of the "see I'm reasonable" act as he covers for Trump's corruption and fascism.]
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/506895-barr-recommended-trump-not-give-stone-clemency-report
U.S. Attorney General William Barr recommended that President Trump not grant associate Roger Stone clemency, administration officials told NBC News.
On Friday, the White House commuted the prison sentence of Stone, a longtime Trump confidant who was convicted of lying to Congress in connection with its investigation into Russia's election interference, witness tampering and obstructing an official proceeding.
Sources told NBC that Barr and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows recommended against the move over concerns of political blowback.
Stone maintained his innocence throughout his trial and attempted to appeal his conviction. Stone was due to report to prison Tuesday before Trump stepped in to commute his sentence.
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Barr 'decapitates' third U.S. attorney's office looking at Trump
Rachel Maddow
10 July 2020
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/barr-decapitates-third-u-s-attorney-s-office-looking-at-trump-87458373925
Rachel Maddow describes Attorney General William Barr's pattern of removing the leadership of three key U.S. Attorneys' Offices that have ongoing investigations related to Donald Trump, and replacing them with loyal footmen.
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Twelve signs Trump would try to run a fascist dictatorship in a second term
He lies about voter fraud, admires authoritarians, tries to suppress free speech and uses the law against those who would hold him accountable.
By Jonathan Greenberg
July 10, 2020 at 8:04 a.m. PDT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/fascist-dictatorship-trump-second-term/2020/07/10/63fdd938-c166-11ea-b4f6-cb39cd8940fb_story.html
People have debated whether Donald Trump is fascist since he announced he was running for president. In 2015, Jamelle Bouie wrote in Slate that Trump, in his campaign speeches and Twitter utterances, exhibited seven of the 14 characteristics identified by the Italian novelist Umberto Eco in his defining essay “Ur-Fascism.” In 2016, the Georgetown professor John McNeill assessed Trump’s fascist tendencies on a scale of zero to four “Benitos,” after the father of fascism, Benito Mussolini. As an amateur, Trump fell short.
That was then. What about now? And, more important, what about the Trump of a potential second term in the White House?
On June 1, as demonstrators gathered and marched in Washington and around the country to protest the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police, President Trump, in a brief speech in the White House Rose Garden, called for states to use the National Guard to “dominate the streets” and promised that if they didn’t, “I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.” Federal forces then used tear gas and stun grenades on peaceful protesters to clear a path for him to walk from the White House to nearby St. John’s Episcopal Church for a photo op with a Bible as prop.
“The fascist speech Donald Trump just delivered verged on a declaration of war against American citizens,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) tweeted. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) - noting in an opinion column three days later that the president’s “attempt to use chaos to shred democratic safeguards and consolidate authoritarian power is deadly serious” - put it this way: “This is our own Reichstag fire and, yes, Trump is playing the role of would-be Fuehrer, proclaiming a ‘God-given signal’ to seize more power.”
I first reported on Trump in 1982, when he conned me into putting him on the Forbes 400 rich list. That Trump was just a younger version of this Trump, and now I worry that what happened in June was a mere prelude; he’s certainly capable of a far worse Reichstag-fire-like event that would allow him to steal the 2020 election. And if he does win a second term, legitimately or not, his words and actions of the past four years provide 12 indicators that he would seek to replace our democracy with a fascist dictatorship.
----- 10 -----
Dan Hon
twitter.com/hondanhon
10 July 2020
https://twitter.com/hondanhon/status/1281685535686180864
[THREAD A]
Been thinking about this *a lot* since Adrian pointed it out
[QUOTED TWEET]
Adrian Hon
twitter.com/adrianhon
9 July 2020
https://twitter.com/adrianhon/status/1281223340431204353
[THREAD B]
Theory: QAnon is popular partly because the act of “researching” it through obscure forums and videos and blog posts, though more time-consuming than watching TV, is actually *more enjoyable* because it’s an active process.
Game-like, even; or ARG-like, certainly.
[THREAD B continues at https://twitter.com/adrianhon/status/1281223340431204353 ]
[NEXT A]
Specifically based on all the ARG player behavior I’ve seen over the last 20 years.
I’m pretty terrified about how it plays out. No time for a thread or to write about it today though.
[NEXT A]
Sigh ok
It even “solves” the content generation “problem” that ARGs have had :(
[NEXT A]
Every single QAnon behavior I’ve seen is a 10x+ version of ARG player behavior but uncontrolled, undirected and unconstrained
[NEXT A]
It rewards independent research, gives you the dopamine hit of finding a connection “on your own” and for pros, unlike ARGs, you can generate your own content to fill in the narrative gaps *that other players will use* AND it is a threat to public safety and governance
[THREAD A CONTINUES AT https://twitter.com/hondanhon/status/1281685535686180864 ]
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When reporters get arrested in Seattle and get a view from inside the criminal justice machine
By Danny Westneat
Seattle Times columnist
July 10, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/when-reporters-get-arrested-in-seattle-and-get-a-view-from-inside-the-criminal-justice-machine/
The story of a British journalist getting wrongly arrested by Seattle police during recent protests is making the rounds, mainly for his implication that he was treated worse here than when he’s been detained in places like Cuba or Pakistan.
“It was a brief, partial window into a criminal justice system seemingly bereft of humanity,” wrote Andrew Buncombe, a U.S. correspondent for the British newspaper Independent, who was swept up by police when they cleared the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) last week.
The account brought back strong memories for me of the time I was arrested by Seattle police while covering a protest - and charged, wrongly, with the same crime as Buncombe, failure to disperse. My case, from decades ago, still sits on the Seattle Municipal Court’s case portal, and every few years I get asked about my “criminal past” when someone comes across it.
What’s so interesting about Buncombe’s account is that it comes from the European perspective of how heavy-handed an American police and jail system can feel - even if experienced only in glancing fashion.
Buncombe was on the periphery of CHOP when police cleared it, and though he showed police his press credentials, he got handcuffed anyway. He describes being put in shackles in a van and driven to the downtown jail - having trouble breathing, and repeatedly saying that he was press and shouldn’t have been swept up.
Not surprisingly, at least to me, this didn’t work.
“Get back in the cell. You’ve lost your chance. You’re being condescending,” Buncombe quotes a King County jail official.
The sense of his story is one of an unreasoning machine - that once a police sweep starts, it hoovers up anybody in the path. Another man in his cell was apparently just out walking to get food when he got detained.
That was my reaction, too, when I was arrested in nearly identical circumstances while covering a protest in the 1990s. I was a freelancer for some community newspapers and had followed a protest group through a training session and then onto a sit-in, against U.S. aid to El Salvador, outside the federal building in downtown Seattle.
----- 12 -----
Asher Vollmer
Twitter.com/AsherVo
10 July 2020
https://twitter.com/AsherVo/status/1281731074523979776
I did not fully appreciate the issue with "most cops don't live in the neighborhood they police" until seeing this
[EMBEDDED VIDEO: How police not only oppress PoC, but are paid for by the taxpayers they're oppressing, and that money is used to fund white suburbs. Watch it.]
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