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I remember the Vindman boys fondly. Theirs is the story of America at its best. https://t.co/0Pkj8mAkwk
- Ken Burns (@KenBurns) October 29, 2019

Давая показания в Конгрессе, подполковник Александр Виндман обратился к своему отцу:

"Dad, my sitting here today, in the US Capitol talking to our elected officials is proof that you made the right decision forty years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to United States of America in search of a better life for our family. Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/19/us/politics/vindman-statement-testimony.html

Как выяснилось, по поводу последнего (“I will be fine for telling the truth”) он ошибался.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a national security aide who played a central role in President Donald Trump’s impeachment case, announced his retirement from the Army on Wednesday in a scathing statement that accused the president of running a “campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation.”
The statement from attorney David Pressman said Vindman was leaving the Army after more than 21 years after it had been made clear “that his future within the institution he has dutifully served will forever be limited.”
“Through a campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation, the President of the United States attempted to force LTC Vindman to choose: Between adhering to the law or pleasing a President. Between honoring his oath or protecting his career. Between protecting his promotion or the promotion of his fellow soldiers,” read the statement, first obtained by CNN.
Vindman’s name was on a promotion list sent to Defense Secretary Mark Esper earlier this year, according to one U.S. official familiar with the matter. But that list was delayed for weeks because the White House asked for an investigation of Vindman. The Pentagon did a review and found that any suggestion of misconduct was unfounded. <...>
Trump in February ousted Vindman from his job on the National Security Council, where he served as an expert on Ukraine, just two days after the president’s acquittal by the Senate. Vindman’s lawyer said then that his client had been told to leave in retaliation for “telling the truth.”
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/vindman-retiring-from-u-s-army-lawyer-accuses-trump-of-bullying-intimidation-and-retaliation



По отзывом его начальников Виндман был блестящим офицером, которого ждала стремительная военная карьера. Отзыв бригадного генерала Питера Звака, бывшего военного атташе США в России:

ZWACK: I think I need to lay out a working environment, which was the U.S. embassy Moscow back between 2012 and 2014 - very consequential years in our mission for a group of attaches who represented the United States Department of Defense and the military to the Russian defense establishment and worked closely within the international community and aspects of the Russian, as well, to facilitate, if you will, the defense side of our foreign policy - was a very, very, very important time.
MARTIN: Right.
ZWACK: The most - the key attribute when you get into personal relationships is imagine you're in a relatively small working space and you're on a mission to Mars. It's pretty well closed off and you have to trust each other implicitly - absolutely trust each other. We did. Alex is a hardworking, dedicated person who had the courage of his convictions and was a true area specialist. And the key point is that when we were doing work within Russia, we trusted him entirely as vice versa.
MARTIN: Do I understand then that you never had a reason to question his integrity?
ZWACK: None, none. I would trust him with my life.
MARTIN: I ask that because, as you know, President Trump supporters have attempted to call into question his loyalty. President Trump himself has called Alexander Vindman a, quote, "Never Trumper." As a career military officer yourself, what do you make of the commander in chief publicly disparaging a decorated officer?
ZWACK: That is a major reason I'm speaking today. Generally, I'm reticent on these type of events. It was unfair. It was unfounded. And to slime and slander the good name, the career and the actions of a fine Army officer, one who many who know him - and I knew him especially well - it was out of bounds in my mind. It was absolutely over the top and wrong.
https://www.npr.org/2019/10/30/774646265/alexander-vindmans-background



Если Виндман был наказан за правдивые показания Конгрессу, то Роджер Стоун был вознагражден за вранье и освобожден Трампом от назначенного ему тюремного наказания.

Из показаний в Конгрессе Аарона Зеленского, одного из прокуроров из команды Мюллера:

Roger Stone is a longtime friend and associate of President Trump. In the summer of 2016, Stone was considered by the Trump campaign to be the campaign’s access point to WikiLeaks. Throughout the summer and fall, Stone was in regular contact with the highest levels of the Trump campaign, which was relying on him for information about Wikileaks’s activities.
Beginning in spring 2016, Stone told senior Trump campaign officials that he had inside knowledge regarding WikiLeaks’s plans, and that he communicated with Julian Assange. Stone made these claims throughout the summer to Deputy Campaign Chairman Rick Gates, Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, and Campaign CEO Steve Bannon. These men believed his claims, and they sought information from Stone about what WikiLeaks would do to help the Trump campaign. Moreover, as the summer wore on, the senior leadership found Stone’s predictions to be reliable. Manafort instructed Gates to keep in touch with Stone regarding WikiLeaks so that he could keep then-candidate Trump updated on Stone’s information. And the senior level of the Trump campaign began brainstorming a press strategy based in part on Stone’s predictions of a WikiLeaks release of documents that would be damaging to the Clinton campaign.
That summer, Stone reached out to both Manafort and Bannon, telling Manafort that Stone had a “plan to save Trump’s ass.” And in August 2016, Stone told Bannon he knew how to “win but this ain’t pretty.” Bannon responded, “let’s talk ASAP.” In this same time period, Stone also publicly bragged that he had a backchannel to Julian Assange, and “therefore I am a recipient of pretty good information.”
On Friday, October 7, 2016, WikiLeaks began dumping into the public domain thousands of emails which the Russian government had hacked from Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta’s personal email account. Minutes after WikiLeaks began releasing the hacked emails, one of Trump campaign CEO Bannon’s aides texted Stone, “well done.” That weekend, Campaign CEO Steve Bannon himself heard that Stone was involved in the WikiLeaks release of the hacked emails. And that summer, Stone wasn’t just talking to the CEO, Chairman, and Deputy Chairman of the campaign. He was talking directly to then-candidate Trump himself. On June 14, 2016, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced that it had been hacked earlier that spring by the Russian Government. That evening, Stone called Trump, and they spoke on Trump’s personal line. We don’t know what they said. On July 31, Stone again called then-candidate Trump, and the two spoke for approximately ten minutes. Again, we don’t know what was said, but less than an hour after speaking with Trump, Stone emailed an associate of his, Jerome Corsi, to have someone else who was living in London “see Assange.” Less than two days later, on August 2, 2016, Corsi emailed Stone. Corsi told Stone that, “Word is friend in embassy [Assange] plans 2 more dumps. One “in October” and that “impact planned to be very damaging,” “time to let more than Podesta to be exposed as in bed w enemy if they are not ready to drop HRC. That appears to be the game hackers are now about." Around this time, Deputy Campaign Chairman Gates continued to have conversations with Stone about more information that would be coming out from WikiLeaks. Gates was also present for a phone call between Stone and Trump. While Gates couldn’t hear the content of the call, he could hear Stone’s voice on the phone and see his name on the caller ID. Thirty seconds after hanging up the phone with Stone, then-candidate Trump told Gates that there would be more information coming. Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, also stated that he was present for a phone call between Trump and Stone, where Stone told Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and in a couple of days WikiLeaks would release information, and Trump responded, “oh good, alright.” Paul Manafort also stated that he spoke with Trump about Stone’s predictions and his claimed access to WikiLeaks, and that Trump instructed Manafort to stay in touch with Stone.
In his written answers to the Special Counsel’s Office, President Trump denied remembering anything about his conversations with Stone during the summer of 2016, and he denied being aware that Stone had discussed WikiLeaks with anyone associated with the campaign. One week after submitting his written answers, President Trump criticized “flipping” witnesses and stated that Stone was “very brave” in indicating he would not cooperate with prosecutors. The Special Counsel’s Report stated that the President’s statements complimenting Stone “support the inference that the President intended to communicate a message that witnesses could be rewarded for refusing to provide testimony adverse to the President[.]”
https://judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/zelinsky_opening_statement_hjc.pdf

По этому случаю Мюллер нарушил молчание:

"Russian efforts to interfere in our political system, and the essential question of whether those efforts involved the Trump campaign, required investigation. In that investigation, it was critical for us (and, before us, the FBI) to obtain full and accurate information. Likewise, it was critical for Congress to obtain accurate information from its witnesses. When a subject lies to investigators, it strikes at the core of the government’s efforts to find the truth and hold wrongdoers accountable. It may ultimately impede those efforts.
We made every decision in Stone’s case, as in all our cases, based solely on the facts and the law and in accordance with the rule of law. The women and men who conducted these investigations and prosecutions acted with the highest integrity. Claims to the contrary are false."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/11/mueller-stone-oped/

Освобождение Стоуна от наказания в награду за вранье Конгрессу - новое безнаказанное преступление в продолжение старого.



Пошатнувшаяся вера в торжество правосудия была немного подкреплена Верховным судом.

В деле Trump v. Vance Трамп пытался заблокировать ордер окружного прокурора Манхэттена на его финансовые документы. Решением 7 на 2 суд подтвердил право на ордер.

In our judicial system, “the public has a right to everyman’s evidence.” Since the earliest days of the Republic, “every man” has included the President of the United States.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-635_o7jq.pdf

Дело может затянуться надолго. В суде нижнего уровня адвокаты Трампа смогут продолжать бороться за ограничения документов, которые попадают под ордер. В случае вынесения обвинений за нарушение законов штата Нью-Йорк, дальнейшее расследование в подготовке этих обвинений может занять долгое время.

В деле Trump v. Mazars, к которому было пристегнуто дело Trump v. Deutsche Bank, Трамп боролся с ордером на финансовые документы из Конгресса. Решением 7 на 2 суд подтвердил право Конгресса на подобные повестки, но передал в нижние суды вопрос о том, какие именно документы можно запрашивать.

Congress has no enumerated constitutional power to conduct investigations or issue subpoenas, but we have held that each House has power “to secure needed information”in order to legislate. This “power of inquiry-with process to enforce it-is an essential and appropriate auxiliary to the legislative function.” Without information, Congress would be shooting in the dark, unable to legislate “wisely or effectively.” The congressional power to obtain information is “broad” and “indispensable.” It encompasses inquiries into the administration of existing laws, studies of proposed laws, and “surveys of defects in our social, economic or political system for the purpose of enabling the Congress to remedy them.”
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-715_febh.pdf

Дело опять же затянется и, по всей видимости, не сможет разрешиться до выборов, но принцип тоже важен. Во время импичмента Трамп и его администрация отказались передавать какие-либо документы Конгрессу, а республиканцы в Сенате отказались выписывать новые повестки и вызывать свидетелей вроде Джона Болтона, чтобы можно было после этого отмазывать Трампа в виду недостатка доказательств. У демократов была возможность пойти в суд, но она была нереалистичной - судебная борьба затянулась бы на много месяцев и могла дойти до Верховного суда, где решение было неочевидным. Ныне право на повестки официально закреплено прецедентным решением, в следующий раз с его помощью можно будет ускорить дело.



Как напоминает Мюллер, Роджер Стоун вместе с Полом Манафортом (выпущенным из тюрьмы под домашний арест) и Майклом Коэном (снова посаженным в тюрьму) входил в число людей из окружения Трампа, которые непосредственно общались с сотрудниками ГРУ - организации, которая платит премии Талибану за убийство американских солдат. Об этом стало известно в 2019. С тех пор главнокомандующий не сделал ничего для защиты солдат несмотря на многочисленные разговоры с Путиным и нескончаемые уступки его интересам.

Week of February 10, 2020: A senior U.S. intelligence official confidentially briefs lawmakers that Russia wants President Trump to be reelected, according to the Washington Post.
February 20, 2020: President Trump removes acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, reportedly over the February 10th briefing to lawmakers.
Maguire is replaced by Richard Grenell.
February 28, 2020: President Trump announces that he will nominate Rep. John Ratcliffe as the next director of national intelligence. During Trump’s impeachment proceedings, Ratcliffe stated in a House Judiciary Committee hearing that he viewed it as acceptable for a foreign government to “become involved in an election involving a political opponent.”
On December 12, 2019, Ratcliffe said: “Is it ever okay to invite a foreign government to become involved in an election involving a political opponent? The answer is yes! It better be. We do it all the time. … He is the chief executive.”
March 16, 2020: The Department of Justice drops a two-year investigation into a Russian company-Concord Management and Consulting LLC-alleged to have interfered with the 2016 presidential election.
In its original indictment, DOJ alleged that the company funded a scheme with the intent to interfere in the 2016 presidential election using social media accounts with stolen identities of U.S. citizens. The indictment also referred to Russia’s Internet Research Agency’s effort to conduct what the group called “information warfare against the United States of America” in carrying out this scheme.
March 30, 2020: President Trump speaks to President Putin. The two leaders agree to continue talking on a “personal level.”
In an interview with “Fox & Friends” prior to the call, President Trump says that he will discuss trade with President Putin. Trump states:
“They love to be able to do trade with our country. It’s been very much hindered by the nonsense that’s been going on. Russia, Russia, Russia, which has turned out to be a total hoax when you look at what happened with Comey and McCabe and you look at all the things that happened with Mueller and the Mueller report. … We should get along with all countries if possible.”
According to the Kremlin, the two presidents discuss oil markets and the spread of coronavirus. They also agree to communicate on a “personal level,” according to the Kremlin’s readout of the call.
April 1, 2020: Handing President Putin a major public relations victory, Russia sends medical supplies to the United States. President Trump calls it “very nice” during a White House press conference.
“Russia sent us a very, very large planeload of things, medical equipment, which was very nice,” states President Trump. “For the Kremlin, the shipment was a propaganda coup,” writes the Moscow correspondent for the New York Times. It’s later revealed that the Russian manufacturer of the ventilators is a company under U.S. sanctions, adding to the PR windfall for Putin.
April 9, 2020: President Trump speaks to President Putin and King Salman of Saudi Arabia on a conference call reportedly to discuss an OPEC oil deal.
April 10, 2020: President Trump speaks to President Putin reportedly about the countries’ response to coronavirus, ther energy markets, and other “bilateral and global issues.”
April 12, 2020: President Trump speaks to President Putin and King Salman again about the OPEC oil deal.
May 7, 2020: President Trump speaks to President Putin and reports that the call was “very nice.”
Trump states during a White House press conference that he spoke to President Putin earlier that day and states:
“And that was a very nice call. And remember this: The Russia hoax made it very hard for Russia and the United States to deal with each other. They’re a very important nation. We’re the most powerful nation; they’re a very powerful nation. Why would we not be dealing with each other?
But the Russia hoax is - absolute dishonest hoax. Made it very difficult for our nation and their nation to deal. And we discussed that. I said, ‘You know, it’s a very appropriate time.’ Because things are falling out now and coming in line, showing what a hoax this whole investigation was. It was a total disgrace. … We are talking about arms control with Russia, and we will go forward with that. And we are talking about it very seriously.”
May 30, 2020: President Trump postpones the G7 summit and calls for Russia to join the next meeting in September, inviting President Putin to the United States. U.S. allies publicly oppose the invitation.
“I don’t feel that as a G7 it properly represents what’s going on in the world,” states the president.“It’s a very outdated group of countries.” U.S. allies, including the United Kindom and Canada, oppose allowing Russia back into the group and disagree publicly with the invitation.
June 1, 2020: President Trump calls President Putin to discuss “progress towards convening the G7,” among other matters.
According to the Kremlin, President Trump initiates the call and personally invites President Putin to attend the G7 gathering in the fall.
June 6, 2020: In a surprise announcement, President Trump orders the US to withdraw 9,500 American troop members from Germany by September 2020.
Experts criticize the decision as weakening NATO’s ability to deter Russia. Retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, the former commander of U.S. Army Europe, calls the move a “colossal mistake.” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg states that Trump did not inform the alliance beforehand.
June 19, 2020: In an interview with Axios, President Trump says he would consider meeting with Russian-backed Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and suggests that he lacks confidence in Juan Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela.
After an outpouring of bipartisan criticism, President Trump walks back his position and tweets that he would meet with Maduro only to discuss “a peaceful exit.”
According to former National Security Advisor John Bolton in his recent memoir, President Putin conducted a “brilliant display of Soviet-style propaganda” in early 2019 by suggesting to President Trump that he roll back his support for Guaidó.
“Putin said our support for Guaidó had consolidated support for Maduro, which was completely divorced from reality, like his equally fictitious assertion that Maduro’s May 1 rallies had been larger than the Opposition’s. In a way guaranteed to appeal to Trump, Putin characterized Guaidó as someone who proclaimed himself, but without real support, sort of like Hillary Clinton deciding to declare herself President. This Orwellian line continued, as Putin denied that Russia has any real role in the events in Venezuela.”
June 30, 2020: Sources within the Trump administration say that the president is pandering to President Putin, according to CNN.
Aides describe the president as “inordinately solicitous of Putin’s admiration and seemingly seeking his approval,” according to CNN’s Carl Bernstein. The same assessment is echoed in Bolton’s memoir. The former national security advisor’s exchange with ABC News’ Martha Raddatz is also revealing:
RADDATZ: Let’s move to Vladimir Putin. How would you describe Trump’s relationship with Vladimir Putin?
BOLTON: I think Putin thinks he can play him like a fiddle. I think Putin is smart, tough. He plays a bad hand extremely well. And I think he sees that he’s not faced with a serious adversary here. And he works on him, and he works on him, and he works on him.
https://www.justsecurity.org/71182/the-baseline-how-a-functional-executive-would-have-handled-the-russian-bounty-operation/

О помощи Путина Талибану деньгами и оружием было известно раннее. Эта помощь перешла в заказные убийства американцев, потому что не встретила американского сопротивления. Более того, Трамп заставил ЦРУ делится с российскими спецслужбами антитеррористической информацией, не получая ничего взамен.

What we now know is that President Trump not only failed to push back against Russia’s arming the terrorist group. That extraordinary act of omission was coupled with the president’s effort to push the CIA to cooperate with Russia by providing U.S. intelligence to the Kremlin on counterterrorism operations despite getting nothing in return, according to former officials.
https://www.justsecurity.org/71279/trump-pushed-cia-to-give-intelligence-to-kremlin-while-taking-no-action-against-russia-arming-taliban/

Something has been off about that relationship since the beginning, and Americans are quite literally paying in blood for his pandering to Putin.
- Rep. Elissa Slotkin (@RepSlotkin) June 28, 2020

Приведет ли настолько очевидное предательство Америки поражению Трампа на выборах в ноябре? Не обязательно.

Элисса Слоткин, конгрессвумен из Мичигана и бывший сотрудник Пентагона и ЦРУ, призывает не доверять опросам, которые показывают значительное преимущество Байдена, в том числе в ключевых штатах. Слоткин победила в 2018 на гребне "синей волны" в округе, который голосовал за Трампа в 2016, и не исключает, что некоторые из тех же избирателей придут голосовать за Трампа в 2020. Для того, чтобы смотреть правде в глаза, Слоткин наняла социологическую компанию для проведения собственных опросов.

Is her gripe that these snapshots-the polling, both public and private, that shows Republicans bleeding support across the board-are accurate in the present, yet subject to so much volatility in the future as to be worthless? Or does she believe the snapshots themselves are inaccurate here and now?
“I think they’re inaccurate,” she replies without hesitation. “Here’s the thing. When I started to run and I had to hire a pollster, I interviewed a bunch of different folks and I decided to do what we do sometimes at the Pentagon, which is to take a ‘bad cop’ approach to the interview. … It was five or six folks that I interviewed, and I said, ‘You got something wrong. You screwed up in 2016. What did you get wrong? And how are you going to fix it?”
Only one pollster, Slotkin says, admitted that he got it wrong. That was the person-Al Quinlan of GQR, a large Washington-based firm-she hired.
“He told me that they fundamentally undercounted the Trump vote; that the Trump voter is not a voter in every single election, that they come out for Trump, so they’re hard to count,” she explains. “On a survey, if someone says, ‘I’m not sure I’m going to vote,’ you don’t usually continue the conversation. And some of them didn’t have any desire to be on those poll calls; they didn’t have the 20 minutes to talk to somebody. They didn’t want to do it. And so, they were fundamentally undercounted.”
Slotkin, ever the intel analyst-identifying trends, compiling a report, presenting a conclusion-tells me, with a high degree of confidence, “I believe that same thing is happening right now.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/10/elissa-slotkin-congress-trump-351513

I mean, how do you deal with this and still justify running for reelection? pic.twitter.com/Jwg0vayITO
- Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) July 10, 2020

American Passports Are Worthless Now (Map)

Oh the places you can’t gohttps://t.co/FxtXx0IPzI
- Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) July 11, 2020

Проваленная борьба с пандемией - проигрышная тема для избирательной кампании Трампа. Но смерть и обнищание, принесенные пандемией, могут играть ему на руку, если, следуя доктрине садопопулизма (в терминологии Тимоти Снайдера), суметь перенаправить народное недовольство на врагов.

Враги нашлись. В речи на День Независимости у горы Рашмор Трамп говорил про "bad, evil people". Так он называл неправильных американцев: "Many of these people have no idea why they are doing this, but some know exactly what they are doing."

В ход пошел жупел “Cancel Culture”, который пришел на смену устаревшему "Political Correctness". Когда людей призывают к ответсвенности за их расистские высказывания, это, по словам Трампа (точнее, писавшего его речь Стивена Миллера), "the very definition of totalitarianism".

We must stop the spread of pic.twitter.com/iy2XDqVw35
- The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 4, 2020

Если борцы с политической корректностью использовали в свое время некорректный термин "liberal fascism", то в речи Трампа он превратился в оксиморон "far-left fascism".

The right had been waging a campaign against liberal academics for more than a decade. Starting in the mid-1970s, a handful of conservative donors had funded the creation of dozens of new thinktanks and “training institutes” offering programmes in everything from “leadership” to broadcast journalism to direct-mail fundraising. They had endowed fellowships for conservative graduate students, postdoctoral positions and professorships at prestigious universities. Their stated goal was to challenge what they saw as the dominance of liberalism and attack left-leaning tendencies within the academy.
Starting in the late 1980s, this well-funded conservative movement entered the mainstream with a series of improbable bestsellers that took aim at American higher education. The first, by the University of Chicago philosophy professor Allan Bloom, came out in 1987. For hundreds of pages, The Closing of the American Mind argued that colleges were embracing a shallow “cultural relativism” and abandoning long-established disciplines and standards in an attempt to appear liberal and to pander to their students. It sold more than 500,000 copies and inspired numerous imitations.
In April 1990, Roger Kimball, an editor at the conservative journal, The New Criterion, published Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted our Higher Education. Like Bloom, Kimball argued that an “assault on the canon” was taking place and that a “politics of victimhood” had paralysed universities. As evidence, he cited the existence of departments such as African American studies and women’s studies. He scornfully quoted the titles of papers he had heard at academic conferences, such as “Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl” or “The Lesbian Phallus: Does Heterosexuality Exist?”
In June 1991, the young Dinesh D’Souza followed Bloom and Kimball with Illiberal Education: the Politics of Race and Sex on Campus. Whereas Bloom had bemoaned the rise of relativism and Kimball had attacked what he called “liberal fascism”, and what he considered frivolous lines of scholarly inquiry, D’Souza argued that admissions policies that took race into consideration were producing a “new segregation on campus” and “an attack on academic standards”. The Atlantic printed a 12,000 word excerpt as its June cover story. To coincide with the release, Forbes ran another article by D’Souza with the title: “Visigoths in Tweed.”
These books did not emphasise the phrase “political correctness”, and only D’Souza used the phrase directly. But all three came to be regularly cited in the flood of anti-PC articles that appeared in venues such as the New York Times and Newsweek. When they did, the authors were cited as neutral authorities. Countless articles uncritically repeated their arguments.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/30/political-correctness-how-the-right-invented-phantom-enemy-donald-trump

Роджер Кимбалл, который ввел в употребление "liberal fascism", в восторге от речи.

"Looking back on the 2020 election, historians will say that last night’s speech was the moment that Donald Trump won reelection. It was a magnificent speech that will, I predict, take an honored place in the library of great American political addresses."
https://amgreatness.com/2020/07/04/a-magnificent-speech/



В качестве "полезных идиотов" в распространении теории заговора про "cancel culture" выступили деятели культуры, подписавшие коллективное письмо, опубликованное в журнале Harper's.

Среди них - Дж. К. Роулинг, которая обиделась на критику ее выстраданных мыслей на тему трансгендеров. Ранее высказывания Роулинг пригодились республиканским сенаторам для того, чтобы зарубить Equality Act, принятый в прошлом году Палатой представителей. Этот законопроект запрещает дискриминацию сексуальных меньшинств не только при приеме на работу (что было подтверждено Верховным судом), но и в других сферах жизни. Программа Джо Байдена включает обязательство добиваться принятия закона в первые 100 дней его президентства.

The bipartisan Equality Act was introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and in the Senate by Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Susan Collins (R-ME), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and Cory Booker (D-NJ) on March 13, 2019. The bill was introduced with 287 original cosponsors-the most congressional support that any piece of pro-LGBTQ legislation has received upon introduction. The Equality Act was passed in the House by a bipartisan vote of 236-173 on May 17, 2019.
https://www.hrc.org/resources/the-equality-act

Senator James Lankford, R-Okla., on Thursday blocked Senate consideration of the Equality Act, an LGBTQ civil rights bill, by citing "Harry Potter" author J. K. Rowling’s recent blog post, which has been criticized as a “transphobic manifesto.”
“To say in the words of J.K. Rowling this past week where she wrote, ‘All I’m asking, all I want is for similar empathy, similar understanding to be extended to the many millions of women whose sole crime is wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats or abuse,’” Lankford said on the Senate floor, as first reported by The Washington Blade. “Let’s work together to get equality. This bill does not do it in this form.”
The GOP-controlled Senate has refused to bring the Equality Act up for a vote since it was passed by the House of Representatives in May 2019. In addition, the Trump administration has advanced anti-transgender legal arguments before the Supreme Court and in federal rule-making processes.
The Equality Act would amend civil rights bills pertaining to employment, housing, public accommodations, jury service, education, federal programs and credit by adding “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to their lists of protected classes.
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/gop-senator-quotes-j-k-rowling-while-blocking-vote-lgbtq-n1231569

“It looks, for all the world, like these protests are achieving what very few do: setting in motion a period of significant, sustained, and widespread social, political change,” said Douglas McAdam, a professor at Stanford University. https://t.co/eoJjSHOGkw
- The New York Times (@nytimes) July 3, 2020

Антирасистские протесты прокатились по всем 50 штатам и стали самыми массовыми в американской истории. Они вовлекли десятки миллионов человек и резко переломили общественное мнение.

Overall, 67% of Americans say they strongly (38%) or somewhat (29%) support the Black Lives Matter movement, while smaller shares (31%) oppose the movement.
Across racial and ethnic groups, people are more likely to support rather than oppose Black Lives Matter. The strength of that support is highest among black Americans. Fully 86% say they are at least somewhat supportive of Black Lives Matter, including 71% who offer strong support.
At the same time, large shares of Hispanic (77%), Asian (75%) and white (60%) adults also say they at least somewhat support the Black Lives Matter movement.
https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020/06/12/amid-protests-majorities-across-racial-and-ethnic-groups-express-support-for-the-black-lives-matter-movement/

Массовые стихийные волнения пробудили также страхи - в том числе страх отдельных либералов и властителей дум вроде Роулинг попасть под раздачу и оказаться "нерукопожатыми". Они правы в том смысле, что заход далеко влево оказывается деструктивным, когда сочувствие к угнетенным перерастает в ненависть к угнетателям. Они неправы в утверждении "the way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion" - это извращенное понимание свободы слова, которым пользуются демагоги. Теории заговора, порожденные страхом - питательная среда расизма. Остается ждать, поможет ли нагнетание страха Трампу сохранить власть.



Комментатором бросилось в глаза сходство в фашистской риторике Трампа у горы Рашмор с риторикой в передачах Такера Карлсона на Fox News.

Trump - or rather his speechwriter Stephen Miller - framed the president's opposition to the Black Lives Matter protest movement using the same imagery Carlson has been laying out night after night on Fox.
https://www.axios.com/donald-trump-tucker-carlson-monologues-93a5c279-9b53-47a2-bb92-b026f18cbffd.html

Как выяснилось без особого сюрприза, автором текстов для монологов Карлсона работал задрот по имени Блейк Нефф, который в других местах позволял себе неприкрыто расистские высказывания. После разоблачения он моментально уволился с Fox News и удалил свои аккаунты в социальных сетях.

The top writer for Fox News show Tucker Carlson Tonight resigned after it was discovered that he had been posting viciously racist, sexist, and homophobic comments on an online forum using a pseudonym.
According to a report from CNN’s Oliver Darcy, Blake Neff had been working as the lead writer for the Fox show since 2016 after coming from the conservative website The Daily Caller, which was co-founded by Carlson and where Neff wrote more than 2,000 posts.
A Fox News spokesperson confirmed in a statement to Mediaite that Neff had resigned. A check of Neff’s Twitter account on Friday evening found that it had been deleted.
Neff’s abrupt departure came after CNN, via an anonymous tipster, discovered years of posts by Neff on the message board AutoAdmit, in which the former Fox writer posted numerous bigoted and derogatory comments about women, Black, Asian, and LGBTQ people. Some of the racist posts authored by Neff came from as recently as two weeks ago.
“In a recent article in the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, Neff said, ‘Anything [Carlson is] reading off the teleprompter, the first draft was written by me.'” Darcy reported.
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/lead-writer-for-tucker-carlson-tonight-reportedly-resigns-after-being-outed-for-posting-racist-sexist-comments-online-using-pseudonym/

Prior to being in Tucker's teleprompter, Blake was a journalist for the Daily Caller.

Here is the FAQ on white nationalism he wrote for some literal Nazis.

Did you know "ethnicity" comes from the Greek, ethnos, meaning nation? Hard-hitting stuff, Blake!https://t.co/wFNo2EMMmz
- Samuel Hammond 🌐🏛 (@hamandcheese) July 11, 2020

Работая в издании Карлсона Daily Caller, Нефф участвовал в травле профессора, который был отстранен от работы после неудачного высказывания в Твиттере, высмеивающего теорию заговора про " белый геноцид".

Ciccariello-Maher and his supporters have said that his comments have been distorted and that his academic freedom has been attacked.
On Thursday, he announced on Twitter that he was leaving his tenured job at Drexel. "After nearly a year of harassment by right-wing, white supremacist media outlets and internet mobs, after death threats and threats of violence directed against me and my family, my situation has become unsustainable," he wrote on Twitter. "Staying at Drexel in the eye of this storm has become detrimental to my own writing, speaking and organizing."
Ciccariello-Maher went on to say that his situation illustrated the limits of tenure protections (he has tenure). "Tenure is a crucial buffer against those who would use money to dictate the content of higher education. But in a neoliberal academy, such protections are far from absolute," he wrote. "We are all a single outrage campaign away from having no rights at all, as my case and many others make clear. The difference between tenure-track and the untenured adjunct majority -- which has far more to do with luck than merit -- is a difference in degree not in kind."
He added, "In the past year, the forces of resurgent white supremacy have tasted blood and are howling for more. Given the pressure they will continue to apply, university communities must form a common front against the most reprehensible forces in society and refuse to bow to their pressure, intimidation and threats. Only then will universities stand any chance of survival."
Drexel, which has sought to distance itself from Ciccariello-Maher's positions and suspended him from teaching in October, issued this statement: "Associate Professor George Ciccariello-Maher has decided to resign his employment from Drexel University in order to pursue other opportunities. Drexel University has accepted his resignation and recognizes the significant scholarly contributions that Professor Ciccariello-Maher has made to the field of political thought and his service to the Drexel University community as an outstanding classroom teacher. Drexel University wishes Professor Ciccariello-Maher well in his future pursuits."
The controversy over the professor started Dec. 24, 2016, when Ciccariello-Maher tweeted, "All I want for Christmas is white genocide." The tweet went viral, with many conservative websites calling for Drexel to fire Ciccariello-Maher. Drexel condemned the tweet but didn't fire him.
Ciccariello-Maher and his supporters said that the irony and purpose of his tweet were lost on many. Ciccariello-Maher argues that white genocide doesn't exist, and is a false image used by the far right to scare white people. So he says he was making a point, not calling for anyone to be hurt. <...>
The university said at the time that it was suspending Ciccariello-Maher not because of his views, but for safety, given the threats he was receiving.
In an essay in The Washington Post, Ciccariello-Maher acknowledged that he was receiving death threats, but said that Drexel was wrong to suspend him as a result of those threats. "By bowing to pressure from racist internet trolls, Drexel has sent the wrong signal: that you can control a university’s curriculum with anonymous threats of violence," he wrote.
The American Association of University Professors backed the professor, expressing concern that the suspension was "at odds" with norms of academic freedom.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/01/02/controversial-drexel-professor-resigns

Травлю успешно раскрутил российский тролль TEN_GOP с улицы Савушкина.



Этот пример показывает, что целенаправленная травля со стороны безымянных троллей действительно встречается, но в других местах, а не в тех примерах, которые приводят авторы письма Harper's и которые при ближайшем рассмотрении легко опровергаются https://theobjective.substack.com/p/a-more-specific-letter-on-justice

Между тем борцы с "cancel culture" и "political correctness" перешли к прямой атаке на университеты. Одно из самых деструктивных действий иммиграционной службы под надзором Стивена Миллера - запрет на рабочие визы и распоряжение об отмене виз и депортации иностранных студентов, если они из-за пандемии не посещают занятие лично. Гарвард, MIT и другие ведущие университеты судятся с правительством. Из обращения президента MIT:

"Our international students now have many questions - about their visas, their health, their families and their ability to continue working toward an MIT degree. Unspoken, but unmistakable, is one more question: Am I welcome?
At MIT, the answer, unequivocally, is yes.
MIT’s strength is its people - no matter where they come from. I know firsthand the anxiety of arriving in this country as a student, excited to advance my education, but separated from my family by thousands of miles. I also know that welcoming the world’s brightest, most talented and motivated students is an essential American strength."
https://president.mit.edu/speeches-writing/mit-action-response-new-ice-rule-online-learning

Seize the endowments
- Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) July 10, 2020

Один из разоблаченных в расистских и нацистских связях и взглядах - мегатролль Джек Пособец. Пособец работает на любимом телеканале вождя OANN, набрал миллион подписчиков в Твиттере и часто удостаивается высочайшего ретвита. На республиканском съезде в 2016 он представлялся открытому нацисту Ричарду Спенсеру, как "человек Роджера Стоуна".

Posobiec attended the RNC in July 2016 while working for Citizens for Trump, a 501(c)(4) organization with ties to longtime political operative Roger Stone. The Game of Thrones blogger self-produced an obscure podcast under his own name in the summer of 2016 with show titles like “Tutorial: How to Rig an Election.” He used it to talk about his relationship to Citizens for Trump, to Stone and his experience at the RNC. Citizens for Trump hosted an event outside the RNC on July 18, 2016, which was initially sponsored by a website called Eternal Sentry, according to news reports from that time. Citizens for Trump dropped Eternal Sentry as a sponsor after Media Matters reported that website depicted Jews as an enemy race of whites in propaganda videos. Eternal Sentry also pushed racist conspiracies about “white genocide.” It was not the first time Citizens for Trump drew criticism for promoting racism.
Stone, who Posobiec frequently praises, was convicted of felony charges related to the Mueller investigation. He has also made racist statements. He publicly described black journalist Roland Martin as a “stupid negro” and a “fat negro,” during the runup to the 2016 election, and was banned from appearing on CNN and MSNBC for those remarks, as well as others in a similar vein. Video footage taken July 19, 2016, the second day of the RNC, demonstrates Posobiec’s apparent closeness to Stone at that time. Stone gave a talk at a Barnes and Noble that day. In the footage, Posobiec can be seen standing behind the veteran political operative.
White nationalist Richard Spencer claimed that during the RNC in Cleveland, Posobiec introduced himself as an associate of Stone. Posobiec also called himself a white nationalist sympathizer, according to Spencer. Spencer published a picture appearing to show the two men together at a bar to corroborate his claim.
“Here’s a photo of me and @JackPosobiec in Cleveland at bar during the RNC,” Spencer published on June 18, 2017, across a series of different tweets, explaining what he described as a falling out between the men that followed. “[I] had never heard of Jack [Posobiec] before. He introduced himself as a Roger Stone associate and we talked for a while. Jack praised me and other Alt-Right leaders for the work we did helping Trump. He presented himself as a supporter.”
Spencer described the incident in greater detail in an interview with Laura Sennett of the antiracist group One People’s Project in 2017. During the interview, which was recorded on video, Spencer said the event where he first met Posobiec was “semi-private.” He said it was staged at a “Scottish themed Hooters bar.” The Tilted Kilt was open in Cleveland during the 2016 RNC, but it closed two years later.
“This guy came up to me who I had never met before and he introduced himself, you know, as Jack, Jack Posobiec,” Spencer recalled to Sennett in the interview. “He introduced himself as, ‘I work for Roger Stone, I’m Roger Stone’s man.’”
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2020/07/08/jack-posobiecs-rise-tied-white-supremacist-movement



Молодые люди, которых объединяли не только взгляды, но и русскоязычные жены, позже разругались. Спенсера раздражала провинциальность и необразованность Пособца, а тот в свою очередь пытался дистанцироваться, чтобы избежать зашквара. Его и ему подобных стали называть alt-lite, чтобы различать их от alt-right https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/from-alt-right-to-alt-lite-naming-the-hate

Но, как выясняется, хрен редьки не слаще.

I am shocked that the guy who has frequently used (((these))) to refer to Jewish people is tied to the white supremacist movement.
- Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) July 9, 2020

Корни дерева трампизма при ближайшем рассмотрении оказываются тесно переплетены.