Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

DC insider: New revelations show Ginni Thomas 'very much a part of seditious conspiracy'



Ginni Thomas, the right-wing activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, lobbied far more Arizona state lawmakers than previously known to try to overturn the state's 2020 election results—a revelation that reignited calls on Friday for Justice Thomas to recuse himself from cases related to the election.

"As obvious as the symmetry between Clarence and Ginni Thomas' work was three weeks ago, it's even more glaring now."

In addition to emailing two state representatives in November and December 2020, calling on them to "choose" electors who would grant former President Donald Trump a victory in the state, Thomas used a platform called FreeRoots.com to call on 27 other state lawmakers to put aside President Joe Biden's victory. The Washington Post, which first reported the news, obtained the emails Thomas sent via Arizona's public records law.

On November 9, as part of a campaign organized by Every Legal Vote—a group that has supported Trump's "Big Lie" that the election was stolen from him—Thomas sent an email saying the lawmakers must "stand strong in the face of political and media pressure" and claiming they had the "power to fight back against fraud."

"The wife of a sitting Supreme Court justice was very much a part of the seditious conspiracy" that culminated in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, said Democratic strategist Sawyer Hackett on Friday in response to the new reporting.

Prior to the January 6 rally—which she briefly attended—Thomas also wrote to 22 state House members and one state senator on December 13, a day before they were scheduled to count their votes, warning them to "consider what will happen to the nation we all love if you don't stand up and lead."

"Never before in our nation's history have our elections been so threatened by fraud and unconstitutional procedures," Thomas wrote.

When the letters to two lawmakers were reported by the Post last month, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) was among the critics who said Thomas's efforts to keep Trump in office represented a "conflict of interest."

Thomas's husband was the lone dissenter earlier this year when the court rejected Trump's bid to block the release of presidential records regarding the January 6 insurrection.

The Thomases have long claimed that they keep their work separate from one another, but journalist Mark Joseph Stern said Friday, "As obvious as the symmetry between Clarence and Ginni Thomas' work was three weeks ago, it's even more glaring now."

Thomas's lobbying of 29 state lawmakers to overrule the will of Arizona voters represented "a completely egregious attack on democracy by the wife of a sitting SCOTUS justice," tweeted Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.).

Friday's revelations come two-and-a-half months after the Post and CBS News obtained text messages that Thomas sent to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in the weeks following the election, calling on him to "save us from the left taking America down."

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) issued a "friendly reminder that Ginni Thomas has a government position and absolutely should not," referring to her position on the Library of Congress Trust Fund Board, to which Trump appointed her.

"Her egregious actions to push the White House Chief of Staff and others to overturn a free and fair election make her a threat to democracy and should disqualify her for any role of public trust at the Library of Congress or anywhere else in government," said CREW in April.

https://www.rawstory.com/ginni-thomas-jan-6-2657494716/

[Rick Plant]

'This is treason squared': Legal expert aghast Trump tried to keep security forces away from the Capitol



On Friday's edition of MSNBC's "The ReidOut," former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner broke down the significance of new reporting from the January 6 Committee's first day of hearings.

Specifically, Kirschner focused on details of how former President Donald Trump refused to summon a security response to the attack on the Capitol.

"This was a plan, a scheme," said Kirschner. "This was not a riot or a crowd that got overenthusiastic and sort of spun out of control, and I can't wait to see more information in the coming public hearings about the meeting in the Oval Office between Trump, Flynn, Giuliani and Powell. I'm quite sure the J6 committee has some information about that. They are going to present. Last night we sort of got the impression that there were no adults in the room at the time, no lovers of democracy in there to try to keep that — that conspiracy, you know, contained, and we heard, that you know, some people did rush in and when we heard these folks were meeting in the Oval of course, but about an hour after that meeting we got the tweet. The plan had been hatched, and Donald Trump was implementing it. Come to D.C. on January 6th. It will be wild."

"The other word ... that you heard yesterday was war," said Kirschner. "Why does that become important? Well, where is that word prominently featured in the big ugly blue book of federal laws, the United States Code, the crime of treason, and every time I heard war, my mind went back to treason which is a very short and simple statute. Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, like the president, levies war against the United States, is guilty of treason."

The real indication of a crime, Kirschner argued, is Trump's lack of response to what was going on.

"I think what we learned a little bit more about last night was not only did he refuse to call off the attack, he refused to authorize the deployment of any forces to go to the Capitol to fend off the attack, to protect the people in the U.S. Capitol that he set his angry mob on," said Kirschner. "It took an order from Mike Pence, who frankly probably didn't have the authority at that moment, but General Milley said he was insistent. We have to get forces to the Capitol. Mike Pence is no hero. He was protecting his own skin because he was in the Capitol. But you know what, this begins to feel not — not just like treason but like treason squared."

Watch below:

[Rick Plant]

Domestic extremism expert explains why the Proud Boys would follow Trump -- and lead the Jan. 6 breach on the Capitol
https://www.rawstory.com/domesitic-extremism/

[Rick Plant]

Right wing Republicans and the right wing media like to pretend that gas prices are only high in the United States and lie  that "Biden policies" has caused gas prices to soar. Once again, that lie is debunked as the UK pays even higher prices for gas than Americans do. Gas prices are high all over the world, so the Republican lie that "Biden caused high gas prices" is easily debunked. Gas prices are high all over the world due to Big Oil Price Gouging and Putin's war in Ukraine. Countries all over the world have higher inflation and higher gas prices in the United States.     

As gas hits $8.60 a gallon in the UK, Brits pay $125 to fill a family car

The cost of filling up the average U.K. family car surpassed £100 ($125) for the first time ever Thursday.

It now costs £100.27 to fill a 55-litre family saloon with petrol and £103.43 for diesel.

British automotive company RAC said the milestone was “a truly dark day” for drivers a fuel prices continue to push higher.



Britons are now paying over £100 ($125) to fill up an average-sized family car after petrol prices soared past the psychological threshold for the first time ever Thursday.

The price is based on the cost of filling up a 55-litre family saloon — £100.27 — as average U.K gasoline prices surpassed £1.82 a litre. That roughly translates to $8.60 a gallon, with one litre equal to 0.264172 U.S. gallons.

The cost of filling an equivalent car with diesel is £103.43, with diesel now priced at £1.88 a litre.

British automotive company RAC, which provided the figures, said it was “a truly dark day today for drivers” as fuel prices continue to push higher.

“While fuel prices have been setting new records on a daily basis, households up and down the country may never have expected to see the cost of filling an average-sized family car reach three figures,” RAC fuel spokesperson Simon Williams said in a statement.

Thursday’s milestone is latest marker of the continued upward pressure on fuel prices amid Russian oil sanctions and soaring inflation.

The cost of unleaded petrol is now 37% more expensive in the U.K. than this week a year ago, while diesel is 38% more expensive.

The U.K. government announced a 5-pence-a-litre cut to fuel duty in March to help reduce costs for motorists. However, motoring groups have warned that retailers are not passing cuts on and said more support is needed.

“March’s 5 [pence] fuel duty cut now looks paltry as wholesale petrol costs have already increased by five-times that amount since the Spring Statement [25 pence],” Williams said.

“A further duty cut or a temporary reduction in VAT would go a long way towards helping drivers, especially those on lower incomes who have no choice other than to drive,” he added.

Industry analysts are now predicting that petrol prices could rise even higher.

“We are certainly peppering the £2 a litre mark at the moment,” Gordon Balmer, executive director at the Petrol Retailers Association, told Sky News Thursday.

Still, the U.K. is not the most expensive place for fuel in Europe.

Denmark is the costliest country in the region for petrol, according British motoring association the AA. The price at the pump was £2.05 a litre as of 30 May.

It was followed by Greece, Germany and then Britain.

Exchange rates, VAT levels and duty levels are among the reasons for the differing fuel prices across the continent, according to an AA spokesperson.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/09/brits-paying-8point60-a-gallon-for-gasoline-125-to-fill-family-car.html

[Rick Plant]

Fascism expert: Trump needed to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6 to pull off his coup attempt



Fascism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat stunned CNN's Jim Acosta on Saturday when she explained why Donald Trump needed to travel to the Capitol after his speech on the ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021.

Acosta played a clip of Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) speaking at the first prime-time hearing of the House Select Committee Investigating the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

"Cheney also said Trump had a sophisticated seven-point plan to overturn the election and the chair of the committee, Benny Thompson, called this a coup attempt," Acosta said. "Ruth, you're an expert on coups. What's the significance of that?"

"I was really pleased to see Chairman Thompson use that word because it's the right word for something that's the result of a process that started -- in a sense it started before November 2020... because Trump had been trying to discredit elections for several years and forming his personality cult so the faithful would rally when he summoned them."

"But coups can take months or years to plan and this was a multi-pronged attempt to overthrow our democracy. It's worth reviewing that he tried so many things simultaneously. He had General Michael Flynn trying to have martial law or military intervention and he tried the trickery that happened with the Georgia Secretary of State. And when none of that worked, he went nuclear and did what autocrats have done in the past and used violence, summoned the people there to right this monstrous wrong on his behalf," said Ben-Ghiat, the author of the book Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present.

"It's interesting, what came out recently, is Trump was trying to get to the Capitol on Jan. 6. He couldn't get there. This is consistent, if you're having a coup and summoned everybody and you expect to be anointed as the head of a new illegitimate government, you have to be there," she explained. "There's a phase in coups. They're violent, quick, and then you have the pronouncement of the new order. That's why he was trying to get there."

"Wow," Acosta said. "That is a great point."

Watch the segment below:

[Rick Plant]

Flying under the radar is the testimony of a former senior Faux News political editor Monday. There has been little reporting and he isn’t commenting, but he is expected to detail how Faux coordinated with Trump leading up to January 6 to spread election fraud lies.

Former Fox News Political Editor Chris Stirewalt To Testify Before January 6th Committee



Chris Stirewalt the Fox News political editor let go from the network in January 2021 said that he has been called to testify before the January 6th Committee and will do so on Monday.

“I have been called to testify before this committee, and I will do so on Monday,” Stirewalt said on NewsNation, where he serves as political editor.

He told anchor Adrienne Bankert that he was “not in a position now to tell you what my testimony will be about,” but said that he wanted to make a full disclosure.

The committee already has indicated that it would explore how Donald Trump’s false election claims were spread in the media.

Stirewalt was dropped from Fox News in January 2021, in what the network said was a restructuring. But Stirewalt later wrote that he was fired from the network after defending the Fox News decision desk’s call of Arizona for Joe Biden on Election Night, the first major signal that Trump would lose his bid for re-election. That triggered a backlash against the network by Trump and his supporters. He’s authored an upcoming book, Broken News: Why the Media Rage Machine Divides America and How to Fight Back, to be published in August.

A representative for the committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a piece that Stirewalt wrote for the Los Angeles Times after his departure, he wrote, “Having been cosseted by self-validating coverage for so long, many Americans now consider any news that might suggest that they are in error or that their side has been defeated as an attack on them personally. The lie that Trump won the 2020 election wasn’t nearly as much aimed at the opposing party as it was at the news outlets that stated the obvious, incontrovertible fact.”

He added, “What tugs at my mind after seeing a mob of enthusiastic ignoramuses sack the Capitol, though, is whether that sophistication will come quickly enough when outlets have the means to cater to every unhealthy craving of their consumers.”

On Thursday, as other broadcast and cable network pre-empted programming to carry the committee’s first primetime hearing, Fox News Channel stuck with its lineup of opinion hosts during the hearing itself, including Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, while anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum covered the event on Fox Business Network. Hannity’s name came up during the hearing, when the committee’s co-chair, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) read a text that he sent to Kayleigh McEnany, then White House press secretary and now a Fox News contributor, in the aftermath of the Capitol attack.

Cheney said at the hearing, “Sean Hannity wrote in part: ‘Key now, no more crazy people.’ ‘No more stolen election talk.’ ‘Yes, impeachment and 25th amendment are real, and many people will quit.’  Ms. McEnany responded in part: ‘Love that. That’s the playbook.’”

Cheney’s point was that White House staff knew that Trump was spreading false conspiracies about the election and that he needed to be “cut off” from those who were spreading the theories.

https://deadline.com/2022/06/fox-news-january-6th-committee-chris-stirewalt-1235042774/

[Rick Plant]

Trump 'one step closer' to federal prosecution after aides' testimony to Jan 6th committee: report



According to a report from the Guardian, revelations from former Donald Trump aides at the first of the six House committee hearings on the Jan 6th insurrection have given federal prosecutors a solid basis to pursue criminal charges against the former president.

On Thursday, the bi-partisan committee dropped a bombshell by announcing that multiple Republican Party lawmakers made an appeal to Trump for pardons -- and the committee has proof -- which led the Guardian's Hugo Lowell to write that any hope that they may have had that they didn't know they were doing something illegal just went down in flames.

According to his Guardian report, "The news that multiple Republicans asked the Trump White House for pardons – an apparent consciousness of guilt – was one of three revelations portending potentially perilous legal and political moments to come for Trump and his allies, adding, "The extraordinary claim also raised the prospect that the Republican members of Congress seeking clemency believed Trump’s election fraud claims were baseless: for why would they need pardons if they really were only raising legitimate questions about the election."

As Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) explained, "It’s hard to find a more explicit statement of consciousness of guilt than looking for a pardon for actions you’ve just taken, assisting in a plan to overthrow the results of a presidential election.”

Add to that, clips of former Trump aides admitting that it was common knowledge in Trump's White House that the 2020 presidential election was not stolen -- and that Trump had been told that repeatedly -- make it more likely that the Department of Justice has a growing case against Trump.

"The admissions by some of Trump’s top aides are important since they could put federal prosecutors one step closer to being able to charge Trump with obstructing an official proceeding or defrauding the United States on the basis of election fraud claims he knew were false," Lowell wrote before citing former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance wrote that "the panel appears to be trying to make is the legal doctrine of 'willful blindness'."

The report adds, "The potential case against Trump might take the form that he could not use, as his defense against charges he violated the law to stop Biden’s certification on January 6, that he believed there was election fraud, when he had been credibly notified it was 'bullshit'" as it was characterized by former attorney general Bill Barr.

You can read more here:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/12/us-capitol-attack-panel-hearings-trump-allies-trouble