Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Michigan Democrat urges federal and state authorities to prosecute phony Trump electors

A resolution introduced in the Michigan House of Representatives Tuesday condemns the fake 2020 Electoral College certificates submitted by Republicans and calls upon state and federal officials to prosecute the phony electors.

House Resolution 252, introduced by State Rep. Joe Tate (D-Detroit), aims to “condemn the actions of illegitimate presidential electors” and urge attorneys general in Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New Mexico and Wisconsin, as well as the Department of Justice “to prosecute these fake electors for their misdeeds to the fullest extent of the law.”

The non-binding resolution is unlikely to be passed by the GOP-controlled House. It comes after Republicans submitted a fraudulent set of electors to Congress and other entities to reelect former President Donald Trump in 2020, claiming he had won Michigan’s 16 electoral votes. The bogus certificates in the seven states were obtained by American Oversight, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog, as previously reported by the Advance. This was part of a larger plan by Trump’s team to keep him in office, despite losing the election.

Michigan’s legitimate set of Democratic electors convened inside the Michigan State Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, to cast their 16 votes for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Biden won Michigan by more than 154,000 votes.

The fraudulent certificate included signatures from 16 Michigan Republicans, including Michigan Republican National Committeewoman Kathy Berden, who served as chair and handed the document to officials. The certificate also listed Michigan GOP Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock; Amy Facchinello, a Grand Blanc school board member whose QAnon social media posts have been subject to scrutiny; and Stan Grot, the Shelby Township clerk at the heart of a payoff scandal at the Michigan GOP.

Identical fraudulent certificates have surfaced in the six other states listed in Tate’s resolution. In each of the seven certificates, there was no specification that the signatories were a false slate of electors.

Attorney General Nessel previously said that the fake electors could be charged under state law for forgery of a public record, which is punishable by up to 14 years in prison, or election law forgery, which is also punishable by up to five years in prison. She also noted it could be charged federally under forgery of a public record for the purposes of defrauding the United States or conspiracy to commit an offense to defraud the United States.

Nessel said in January she had referred the matter to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Western District of Michigan.

Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence.

https://michiganadvance.com/blog/rep-tate-introduces-resolution-condemning-fake-gop-electors-calls-on-states-feds-to-prosecute/

[Rick Plant]

Kremlin lies about Ukraine gets a boost from QAnon influencer -- and then from top-rated Fox News host



False claims about Ukraine were amplified by a single QAnon influencer earlier this month but have already made their way onto the most-watched cable TV program.

The Kremlin has been promoting false claims about U.S.-backed "biolabs" in Ukraine to justify Russia's invasion, and those conspiracy theories have made their way from junk news blogs to QAnon supporters and then to Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump Jr., reported The Daily Beast.

"These accusations are built off of two far-reaching assumptions: that COVID-19 was manufactured as a bioweapon and that the U.S. would only fund research labs in order to secretly produce such weapons," The Beast reported. "As thoughtless and evidence-free as those base claims may be, many online communities that traffic in conspiratorial content accepted those assumptions years ago. Whether they choose to blame billionaire George Soros, the 'deep state,' or the 'New World Order,' assertions that the coronavirus was made as a bioweapon to justify controlling the world’s population are abundantly common in anti-vaccine and other conspiratorial communities online."

Those same assumptions have fueled resistance to pandemic safety measures, and they have found a receptive audience among American conservatives -- and some Republican lawmakers.

“Now the narratives are one of main justifications of the invasion," said Eto Buziashvili, a research associate at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.

Russian military officials have presented forged documents as supposed proof of these claims to justify the invasion, and those false claims have taken root among Fox-watching American audiences.

"Intentionally or not, conspiratorial influencers and audiences have contributed to a Russian disinformation campaign meant to justify its slaughter of Ukrainian civilians," The Daily Beast reported. "The seeming inability or unwillingness of right-wing media groups to self-police against its excesses and worst tendencies have given the Kremlin a gift it is sure to leverage as it intensifies its campaign to justify those horrors."

How Russian Disinformation Goes From the Kremlin to QAnon to Fox News
Conservatives and U.S. media are regurgitating a fake conspiracy theory that’s being used to justify Putin’s assault on Ukraine.

In the information era, a lie can make its way around the world and, in short order, make millions of people sympathetic to an unjustifiable war of aggression.

False claims that Russia has been targeting sinister U.S.-backed “biolabs” in Ukraine were popularized among conspiratorial American audiences by QAnon believers shortly after Russia launched its invasion in late February. Mainstream Republican voices have since dragged the old Russian propaganda at its roots across the forefront of the U.S. political stage.

The Kremlin has for years accused the U.S. of operating a shady network of biolabs in foreign countries conducting dangerous experiments, including some in Ukraine that have allegedly targeted unsuspecting locals. Though the U.S. does support medical and biodefense labs across the former Soviet Union, there is no evidence to support claims that the labs are used to develop bioweapons programs. China has peddled similar propaganda; it tag-teamed with Russia last year to rehash an old accusation that COVID-19 may have been manufactured in U.S.-supported labs—a narrative that has been nurtured by pro-Kremlin sources since the onset of the pandemic in 2020.

Kremlin media operations and officials resurfaced these lies as Russia was amassing its troops at Ukraine’s northern border, and again in early March (once the invasion was already underway) after its other justifications failed to stick. Government officials in the U.S. have explicitly denied the accusations.

As noted by fact checkers, these propaganda lines were regurgitated by U.S.-audience junk news blogs in late February shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine. In early March, a single QAnon supporter launched the false claims on their way to online virality after sharing an image of maps contrasting lab locations with Russian airstrike locations.

And now, the premise of this Kremlin accusation is being asserted and defended by some of the country’s most popular Trump-aligned media personalities, including America’s most-watched cable host Tucker Carlson, former presidential adult son Donald Trump Jr., and beanie-clad “disaffected liberal” YouTube creator Tim Pool. Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (MAGA’s favorite Democrat) got in on the take too, though she has walked back her claims somewhat after drawing criticism.

Reporting for Foreign Policy, journalist Justin Ling explained that these accusations are built off of two far-reaching assumptions: that COVID-19 was manufactured as a bioweapon and that the U.S. would only fund research labs in order to secretly produce such weapons. As thoughtless and evidence-free as those base claims may be, many online communities that traffic in conspiratorial content accepted those assumptions years ago. Whether they choose to blame billionaire George Soros, the “deep state,” or the “New World Order,” assertions that the coronavirus was made as a bioweapon to justify controlling the world’s population are abundantly common in anti-vaccine and other conspiratorial communities online.

Those claims about COVID-19’s origins and the virus’ supposed sinister utility to the world’s elite have fueled years of anti-mask, anti-mandate, and anti-vaccine activism in the U.S., including at protests and in the harassment of public health officials. COVID conspiracy theories’ ability to unify swaths of the anti-establishment GOP has established itself as a bridge uniting the furthest excesses of conservative politics with the most mainstream of its culture war causes.

It’s not evident that Russia initially formulated this specific grain of wartime propaganda for conspiratorial American audiences. Its lies about biolabs in Ukraine were likely circulated anew among domestic Russian audiences this year to build fear and support for its hostility toward Ukraine.

Regardless, those lies were turned into grist for the mills of the conspiracy-brained internet and partisan U.S. media programs that gleefully regurgitate such fare. That’s a win for the Kremlin’s war propaganda machine.

Eto Buziashvili, a research associate at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (where we both work), has worked on a team tracking biolab rumors from Russian and Chinese sources for more than two years. She told me that while Russia first used narratives and disinformation related to biolabs to threaten or distract from its own actions, “now the narratives are one of main justifications of the invasion.” She added that Russian military officials have since presented forged documents as additional “proof” of those supposed justifications.

Though some experts and news headlines have already declared Russian propaganda efforts surrounding its invasion of Ukraine a flop, those declarations were perhaps premature.

Junk claims about biolabs have undeniably resonated with conspiratorial American audiences in ways that other Kremlin wartime propaganda has, thus far, failed. As Russian officials rehash the accusations again, folding U.S. audience interpretations of its longstanding narratives further into pro-invasion propaganda efforts, it is clear Moscow has identified the narrative as a potential winner.

Intentionally or not, conspiratorial influencers and audiences have contributed to a Russian disinformation campaign meant to justify its slaughter of Ukrainian civilians. The seeming inability or unwillingness of right-wing media groups to self-police against its excesses and worst tendencies have given the Kremlin a gift it is sure to leverage as it intensifies its campaign to justify those horrors.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-russian-disinformation-goes-from-the-kremlin-to-qanon-to-fox-news?ref=scroll

[Rick Plant]

REVEALED: Trump appointee ordered DHS to probe voter fraud 'fantasy' months before 2020 election



One of Donald Trump's top political appointees directed the Department of Homeland Security to investigate voter fraud in the 2020 election -- more than six months before the votes were counted.

Ken Cuccinelli, the former Virginia attorney general who served as deputy secretary of the DHS, asked a senior official in April 2020 to have analysts in the Office of Intelligence and Analysis look for evidence of mail-in voting fraud, which the former president fixated on before and after his re-election loss, reported Politico.

“What makes this inappropriate is that the underlying activity is a fantasy,” said Ben Wittes, a senior fellow in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution, "and there are no circumstances in which the Intelligence Community should be tasked to collect on fantasies.”

Later in summer 2020 they were tasked with investigating possible hacking of political campaigns, voter intimidation and illegal entry into polling places, and as Election Day neared, DHS investigators were told to look into “attempts to alter, destroy, sell, or hide mail-in ballots,” which were all conspiracy theories amplified by Trump online, during rallies and even in presidential debates.

“The ‘sell, destroy, or hide mail ballots’ — that’s a theoretical conspiracy that I’ve heard talked about, but there’s no evidence that that has occurred,” said Amber McReynolds, a former Colorado election official.

Analysts raised concerns about the directives during a series of listening sessions held in September and October, when voters were already casting ballots.

“People questioned a tasking related to reporting on voter fraud,” read one memo on the sessions that Politico reviewed. “‘Is this criminal activity appropriate for an IC agency?’ Thresholds and priorities are judgment calls from leadership and many people questioned whether taskings were politically motivated.”

“The workforce has a general mistrust of leadership resulting from orders to conduct activities they perceive to be inappropriate, bureaucratic, or political,” the memo added.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/18/trump-dhs-bogus-claims-voter-fraud-00018365

[Rick Plant]

In order to be a MAGA Trump radical you need to be a religious lunatic. It's really a shame what the GOP has turned into since 2015. In order to be accepted in their cult, you have to worship Donald Trump, push his lies and conspiracies, be part of the Qanon cult, preach violence, praise Putin, and be a crazy religious fanatic. Look at all these crazy radicals running for the GOP primaries, they are absolutely nuts just like this woman. These people have zero qualifications to be in government. Republicans need to start electing sane and responsible people to represent them, and if there isn't any, then don't put these lunatics in office.           

California MAGA candidate says she’s running because Jesus spoke to her son in a closet



California Republican Rachel Hamm is running for Secretary of State in the June primary. Like many candidates, she is speaking about her motivation for running. Like many GOP candidates, she is claiming God was involved in her decision. Unlike any other candidate, Hamm says Jesus spoke to her son in a closet and told her to declare her candidacy.

“I’ve been a prophetic dreamer so I had spent a lot of 2019 and 20 having a lot of political dreams that I was in office. And because our youngest son, Ezekiel is a seer I went and got him and I said, ‘Hey, can you look around and see what you’re seeing?’ Because I just really, I get a kick out of hearing him describe, you know, what he sees?”

“And so, he said, you know, let me know if you see anything. And so he looked at my bedroom and my bathroom. He said, ‘There’s nothing there.’ And then he goes into the closet – which is where I had been when I was praying – and he said, ‘Whoa,’ and his eyes got like, big as saucers, and he kind of like started backing away, and then started bending down and he said, ‘You’ve got a really big guy in your closet, and his power is pushing me to the ground,’ and we had never had he’d never had that reaction ever, to an angel. And so I’m like, is he’s for us, not against us, right?”

“‘He’s full of light, I can’t even see his face.’ And then he said, ‘he has a scroll in his hand.’ And so I was like, then he came with a message is what is the message and the message was a commissioning. so at the very end, I asked him what his name was. ‘What angel is this?’ you know? And he said, ‘Immanuel,’ That wasn’t an angel. It wasn’t an angel that was Jesus Himself. And so that’s why I’m running for Secretary of State.”

California GOP Secretary of State candidate Rachel Hamm said today that she decided to run for office after her son found Jesus inside a closet in their home, and Jesus handed him a scroll telling her to declare her candidacy.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1504615074497011715

[Rick Plant]

Pay up Donnie!

Trump suffers another NDA debacle as his campaign is ordered to pay legal fees to former staffer



Donald Trump’s campaign organization has been ordered to pay more than $350,000 in legal fees and expenses for trying to enforce an “unenforceable” nondisclosure agreement (NDA) against a former staffer, according to an order entered this month in a nonpublic arbitration case.

The March 10 order, which was made public this week by the former staffer’s attorneys, is another setback for the Trump campaign in its effort to use NDAs to try to punish former staffers who publicly criticize or take legal action against Trump. BuzzFeed News reports that an arbitrator found that even though Alva Johnson’s effort to sue Trump failed, the campaign couldn’t invoke a legally unsound nondisclosure agreement. She had accused Trump of trying to forcibly kiss her and raised pay discrimination claims. A judge dismissed that case.

As BuzzFeed noted of Trump, "When he ran for president in 2016, many campaign workers were reportedly directed to sign nondisclosure agreements that broadly barred them from sharing information about the campaign or saying negative things about Trump, his family, and his businesses; the agreement specified that the campaign could press complaints about alleged violations of the agreement in arbitration."

In two previous cases, though, a judge and an arbitrator concluded that key sections of the NDAs were too vague and ill-defined to be constitutionally enforceable. In Johnson’s case, arbitrator Victor Bianchini - who is a retired federal magistrate from California - found those decisions persuasive and dismissed the campaign’s complaint against Johnson late last year.

Johnson’s lawyers then filed to have the campaign pay their legal bills as the winning party. Bianchini agreed and ordered the campaign to pay $303,285; the campaign also will have to cover the costs of the arbitration itself, which totaled about $50,000.

“The Trump campaign has tried to use its unenforceable NDA to unlawfully silence its critics,” Johnson’s lawyer Hassan Zavareei said in a statement. “We are pleased that the arbitrator has held that these efforts cannot stand and ordered the campaign to compensate our client for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees that the campaign forced her to incur.”

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/trump-campaign-nda-pay-arbitration

[Rick Plant]

Weak Donnie gazing lovingly at his puppet master Putin.

[Rick Plant]

War And Lies: Trump Republicans Confronted With Past Putin Praise On TV

Many Republican leaders have praised Vladimir Putin and misled Americans about the facts of his record as a dictator. This MSNBC report documents some of those claims, featuring them in contrast to recent reporting and footage about Putin's invasion of Ukraine. This is part of a larger report by MSNBC’s Ari Melber.

Watch: