Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

These are today's MAGA Trump endorsed Republicans...conspiracy theorists, racist, violent, and antisemitc.

Kari Lake endorsed an antisemitic Oklahoma Republican who says ‘the Jews’ are evil



Less than a month ago, Kari Lake rejected an endorsement from a prominent antisemite, saying that she “absolutely denounces bigotry in all its forms, especially anti-semitism.”

This week, the Republican nominee for Arizona’s governor gave her full-throated endorsement to an Oklahoma legislative candidate who has said “the Jews” are evidence that “evil exists.” Lake said he is a “fighter” and a “patriot” who is attacked by “the Soros media” — an antisemitc reference to wealthy businessman and philanthropist George Soros, who is Jewish — because he is “over the target.”

Late Friday afternoon, a Phoenix Jewish group called on Lake to rescind her endorsement of Jackson, calling it “appalling.”

Jarrin Jackson, a far-right streamer who won a GOP primary for the Oklahoma State Senate in June, has repeatedly posted antisemitic things on his Telegram page.

In February, after watching a right-wing documentary about enemies of Christianity, he criticized the film for not explicitly naming what is evil in the world.

“Outline & detail the evil…” Jackson wrote. “The Jews, Illuminati, Covid shots kill. Rothschilds. Communists. Woke pastors. Social gospel. Christ will chuck a bunch of stuff in the fire.”

Media Matters for America, a liberal watchdog, found that Jackson frequently references the Rothschilds on his Telegram page. References to the wealthy Jewish family are a frequent antisemitic trope, and “has become a generic term for greedy and manipulative Jewish billionaires,” according to the American Jewish Committee.

In one instance, Jackson said he “would’ve rolled my eyes at people invoking ‘Rothschilds’ or ‘MK Ultra’ or other conspiracy theories” until Trump lost the 2020 election. In another, he spread a conspiracy theory that one of the Rothschilds “applied for & was granted the patent for COVID-19 testing. In 2015.” The first application for a COVID-19 testing patent wasn’t made until May 2020.

Project MKUltra was the code name of a quasi-legal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Most prominently, it researched mind-control through the use of psychedelic drugs and other measures.

Jackson has also endorsed a white nationalist and neo-Nazi conspiracy theory that is a variation on the so-called “great replacement” theory. The theory, also known as the Kalergi Plan, posits that global elites — especially Jewish people — are trying to rid the world of white people through immigration and interracial breeding.

The idea has led to deadly violence: In 2018, an antisemite who believed a Jewish humanitarian group that aided refugees and immigrants was trying to wipe out white people massacred 11 worshippers in a Pittsburgh synagogue.

Per Media Matters:

Roughly 18 minutes into the 26 and-a-half minute video, Jackson played a clip of a narrator claiming that “an unholy alliance of leftists, capitalists and Zionist supremacists has schemed to promote immigration and miscegenation with the deliberate aim of breeding us out of existence in our own homelands.” In the clip, repeated images of the Star of David and the phrase “diversity is white genocide” were displayed.

Jackson responded to the clip by stating that he thinks the Kalergi Plan is “real.”

Jackson went on to say that he believes the “great replacement” theory, and said people who support American immigration are trying to wipe out white Christians.

“It’s not nativism. It’s common sense. But the real issue at the core here is that — I can’t believe no one else sees this. They want to get rid of white people because of their Christianity,” he said.

In late July, less than a week before the Aug. 2 primary election, a Lake campaign spokesman told the Arizona Mirror that the former TV newscaster rejected the endorsement of Andrew Torba, the founder of the far-right social media platform Gab and an avowed antisemite.

“It goes without saying, the Kari Lake Campaign for Governor absolutely denounces bigotry in all its forms, especially anti-semitism. We have never sought this endorsement,” spokesman Ross Trumble said in an emailed statement at the time.

Trumble did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Friday about Lake’s decision to endorse Jackson.

Jackson posted a statement from Lake on Twitter on Aug. 17 when he announced her endorsement: “We need fighters in EVERY state (and) that’s why I’m proud to endorse Jarrin Jackson for Oklahoma state senate! Jarrin is an America First patriot and does so much to advance our America First movement. RINOs & the Soros media attack him relentlessly because he’s over the target. Jarrin is a winner and a fighter we need in the state senate!”

Jackson has also been endorsed by Arizona Republicans Mark Finchem, who is the GOP nominee for secretary of state, and state Sen. Wendy Rogers. Both Finchem and Rogers touted the endorsement of Torba, who has said that Jewish people shouldn’t be welcomed by conservatives.

The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Phoenix issued a statement to the Mirror late Friday afternoon calling on Lake and Finchem to pull their endorsements and denounce Jackson.

“Kari Lake’s and Mark Finchem’s endorsements of the antisemitic Oklahoma State Senate Candidate Jarrin Jackson is appalling. We are judged by our relations, and the company we keep,” the organization said. “There is no room for support for antisemitic bigots from those who want to lead Arizona.”

But the group didn’t make the same demand of Rogers, who has openly embraced white nationalists and made antisemitic comments on social media multiple times.

“We are not going to bother asking Rogers to rescind her endorsement or issue a denunciation because her antisemitism is well-documented–we know who she is, and what she stands for,” the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Phoenix said.

Lake won the Aug. 2 primary election, defeating wealthy developer Karrin Taylor Robson to earn the Republican nomination for governor. She faces Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, the Democratic nominee, in November.

A poll released this week that was commissioned by Fox News found Hobbs leading Lake by three percentage points.

https://www.azmirror.com/2022/08/19/kari-lake-endorsed-an-antisemitic-oklahoma-republican-who-says-the-jews-are-evil/


Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate appears with Nazi sympathizer and QAnon-linked activists at campaign events



(CNN) - Kari Lake, the Arizona gubernatorial candidate recently endorsed by former President Donald Trump, has embraced fringe far-right figures in her campaign events, including publicly thanking a Nazi sympathizer for his support and appearing with figures linked to the QAnon conspiracy, a CNN KFile review of her appearances has found.

At a campaign event in late August, Lake posed for a photo and video with far-right personalities Ethan Schmidt-Crockett, the founder of the AntiMaskersClub, who harassed a store specializing in wigs for cancer patients this summer because it required customers to wear masks, and Greyson Arnold, a Nazi sympathizer who has a history of making White nationalist, racist, antisemitic and pro-Nazi statements, including once calling Adolf Hitler "a complicated historical figure which many people misunderstand."

"Anti-maskers club here with Kari Lake," said Schmidt-Crockett alongside Lake and Arnold in the video. "America First," they each said.

After Arnold posted a photo of the trio on Twitter, Lake replied, "It was a pleasure to meet you, too."

Lake became an early favorite in the GOP primary by embracing the once-fringe extremism now mainstream within the Republican Party, including promoting election lies, doubling down against mask and vaccine mandates, and calling for the imprisonment of Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is also running for governor. GOP Gov. Doug Ducey cannot run again next year because of term limits.

The former longtime TV anchor at a Phoenix Fox affiliate station has also earned the endorsement of other far-right conspiracy theorists, including Rep. Paul Gosar, former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.

In the wake of Trump's loss to Joe Biden in Arizona last year, the state GOP has censured Republicans who have spoken out against Trump's efforts to overturn the election, while support for the partisan audit of Maricopa County's election has become a litmus test for candidates in GOP primaries for governor and Senate.

On Wednesday, Lake's campaign held what it called an "election integrity" rally to commemorate the anniversary of the 2020 election, which she falsely promotes as the "Big Steal" in event flyers.

Lake posed for a photo last month with Ron Watkins, a MAGA conspiracy theorist who helped spread and amplify the violent far-right QAnon conspiracy across social media.

Watkins, who is running for Congress in Arizona's 1st Congressional District, wrote in the post, "Just had dinner with Kari Lake, the next Governor of Arizona. She inspires me with her tenacity and willingness to lead the fight to take back Arizona from do-nothing RINOs."

After publication, an attorney for the Lake campaign reached out to CNN and pointed to a statement from Lake denying she had dinner with Watkins, as he had described on Telegram, and saying he was among many she had met at a campaign event.

"There were more than 75 Arizona voters there who showed up to hear me speak about our candidacy. I took photos with many of the people who asked for them. I take dozens of photos with Arizonans each day at campaign events across the state," Lake said.

Timothy La Sota, an attorney for the campaign, added that Lake "does not do a background check on everyone she takes a photo with or everyone whose name she ever mentions."

At a Back the Blue campaign event in early October, Lake's campaign invited right-wing activist Mary Ann Mendoza, who lost her police officer son in a crash involving an undocumented immigrant, to speak.

Last year, Mendoza promoted a QAnon-laced conspiracy theory tweet thread that baselessly alleged Jews were plotting to take over the world, causing the Republican National Convention to abruptly drop her from its speaking lineup.

Lake also appeared at events with at least two Republicans who have run or are running for Congress and have engaged with the QAnon conspiracy theory, Josh Barnett and Daniel Wood.

Barnett, who is running in Arizona's 6th Congressional District, previously shared numerous QAnon hashtags on his social media platforms (including the innocuous-looking #savethechildren). Although he has since distanced himself from the conspiracy theory, he has become active in pushing for Arizona's sham election audit.

Lake has praised Barnett on social media as "an American hero" and "patriot" who "deserves so much credit for making sure the debacle election of 2020 was investigated. The forensic audit would not have happened without you."
There was no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election and the sham audit confirmed that Biden had defeated Trump in Maricopa County.

While speaking at a Q&A in October, Lake praised Barnett, who sat in the audience, for assisting with that audit.

"We have some people like Josh, in here, who's been helping get them rolling in Georgia, Pennsylvania. And this is a real patriot right here. Can Josh stand up? I'm sorry. I have to call you out," she said. "Josh Barnett is one of the most amazing -- I always say that our grandkids will be toasting him in, in a bar in 50 years as one of the people who helped save the republic."

In May, before she officially launched her gubernatorial bid, Lake also spoke at the same Arizona MAGA conference as Barnett and Wood, a Republican who ran in Arizona's 3rd Congressional District last year. Wood previously said he has followed QAnon "at times" and that while he's cautious about the movement, "it has millions of followers who really want our country to succeed."

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/04/politics/kfile-kari-lake-nazi-symapthizer-qanon-figure/index.html

[Rick Plant]

Pittsburgh-area faith leaders decry Mastriano's ties to Gab, joint appearance with Florida Gov. DeSantis here Friday



PITTSBURGH — A Pittsburgh-area group of faith and community leaders say they are speaking out against hate by criticizing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appearing in Pittsburgh on Friday with state Sen. Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate for governor of Pennsylvania.

Jewish community leader Meryl Ainsman said they are "concerned community leaders and religious leaders from various segments of the Pittsburgh community. And we're just grouped together in a grassroots effort to try and combat hate and vitriol that might come out of this upcoming election. As we said, we are non-partisan. We are mainly based on the concept of this is no place for hate."

They spotlighted Mastriano's payment of thousands of campaign dollars to the website called Gab for advertising and consulting services to reach Gab users. That site is widely cited as a haven for antisemitism and extremism. After repeated criticism, Mastriano appears to have suspended his campaign's Gab account. His association is in the spotlight again because Mastriano will be joined by DeSantis for a political event in Pittsburgh on Friday.

Gab was the site on which Robert Bowers, who is charged in the Tree of Life Synagogue mass shooting in Pittsburgh, was active. He sent a message on Gab saying he was "going in," moments before the synagogue attack.

"This is personal to me. I have been speaking out about Doug Mastriano's affiliation with Gab, the website so fraught with antisemitic and racist sentiments because in addition to being concerned about the future of Pennsylvania, I am a 62-year-old member of the Tree of Life," said Jeffrey Letwin, another Jewish community leader. "Mastriano's ties to Gab are alarming. They're disgusting, they're terrifying, but they're not surprising. This is yet another example of Mastriano's obsession with dangerous hatred in our communities."

The Rev. Richard Freeman, of Resurrection Baptist Church of Braddock, said, "We are stronger than hate. It has no place in these United States. It should not have a place in the gubernatorial race."

Brother Mizanoor Biswas, chairman of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh, said, "I'm not here to say I support the Republican candidate or Democratic candidate. But what I'm talking about is hate-mongering."

Pittsburgh's Action News 4 reached out to the Mastriano campaign and to spokespeople for DeSantis and we're awaiting responses. Allegheny County Republican Committee Chair Sam DeMarco declined comment. We also have requests in to the Pennsylvania Republican Party and the national Republican party.

https://www.wtae.com/article/doug-mastriano-ron-desantis-pittsburgh-area-faith-leaders/40923955



Miri Rabinowitz: Mastriano and Gab: Words of hate can bring about acts of hate

I am the widow of one of the 11 worshippers massacred during the attack at the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018. Just hours before the carnage at my synagogue began, the Tree of Life attacker posted “screw your optics, I'm going in” on Gab, a social media platform that is a haven for white supremacists, extremists and antisemites.

The shooter was a prominent and verified user of Gab, consistently posting neo-Nazi propaganda and repeatedly calling for violence against Jewish people. He referred to the Jewish people as the “children of Satan.”

These words of hate quickly turned into the deadliest attack on Jewish people in U.S. history — and Gab played a key role.

When it was revealed that the GOP gubernatorial candidate, Doug Mastriano, paid thousands of dollars in “consulting fees” to Gab, I was shocked and disgusted. However, when it was revealed that this money was actually being used to recruit extremists and antisemites to his campaign, I knew I had to speak out.

When Mastriano wrote that check to Gab, did he write “screw the optics” on the memo line, and what has he received in exchange for his payment?

Since Mastriano paid Gab in April, his follower base has grown from under 3,000 to over 37,000, and he’s warmly accepted the endorsement of Gab CEO, Andrew Torba, who has a long history of spreading extreme and anitsemtic rhetoric, saying, “thank god for what you’ve done.”

Even after Republicans, Democrats, Jewish leaders, leaders of all faiths and organizations across the country, including the Anti-Defamation League, called on Mastriano to denounce Gab and Torba, Mastriano refused.

Following recent criticism of Gab, tens of thousands of users, many of whom support Mastriano, are inciting violence and making dangerous threats against Jewish people. Media Matters discovered hundreds of violent posts, saying things such as “WHERE IS ADOLPH WHEN HE IS NEEDED,” and others have called for the literal extermination of all Jews.

Mastriano’s initial willingness to pay and post on Gab and now his failure to condemn Gab — or his own supporters — who are literally calling for violence against Jewish people is not only appalling, but dangerous. If you are Jewish, Muslim, Black, an immigrant or anyone other than a white supremacist, the message is clear, and you should be alarmed.

On that horrific October day in 2018, my husband, Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, and 10 fellow other worshippers were murdered, others were injured, our entire community was traumatized, and our lives were forever changed. Healing is difficult and slow.

Each mass shooting that targets immigrants, communities of color or religious minorities has the same root cause — white supremacy — and each of these tragedies triggers painful memories of that awful day and its aftermath.

This violence does not emerge out of nowhere. In part, it is fueled by elected officials who enact racist policies and by those who turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to this moral evil.

Let’s be clear: Words of hate can bring about acts of hate.

We must hold our leaders accountable. We must demand that our elected officials speak out and act against white supremacy. And we must vote for leaders who will condemn violence, dangerous rhetoric and white supremacy — rather than encourage it.

Miri Rabinowitz is a researcher in the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Pittsburgh. She is a 25-year member of Congregation Dor Hadash, one of the three congregations sharing worship space at the Tree of Life building on the day of the attack.

https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2022/08/18/tree-of-life-antisemitism-gab-doug-mastriano-miri-rabinowitz-gop-gubernatorial-social-media-jewish-torba/stories/202208180017

[Rick Plant]

'Deeply dangerous nonsense': Treasury Dept. debunks GOP lies about 87,000 armed IRS agents

An official from the U.S. Treasury Department confirmed Friday that, contrary to the unrelenting barrage of lies repeated by GOP operatives for over a week, the Internal Revenue Service is not going to hire 87,000 new agents to harass working people at their homes.

Not a single Republican in the House or Senate voted for the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that was passed through the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process last week and signed into law by President Joe Biden on Tuesday, choosing instead to condemn the package's relatively modest but popular tax reforms.

Despite analysts' predictions that the 98.2% of U.S. households with annual incomes of $400,000 or less will receive the same tax bill or a slight cut as a result of the IRA, far-right lawmakers have sown disinformation about how the law's provision of roughly $80 billion in new IRS funding over 10 years—money intended to help the agency crack down on rich tax cheats—poses a threat to every American.

Last week, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) went so far as to claim that Democrats are "using the power of the federal government for armed robbery!" Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has made similar allegations.

It's not just fringe members of the GOP who are spreading such falsehoods. One day before Boebert's tirade, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), the highest-ranking Republican in the lower chamber, tweeted, "Democrats in Washington plan to hire an army of 87,000 IRS agents so they can audit more Americans like you."

On Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis—currently a top contender, along with former President Donald Trump, to be the Republican Party's 2024 nominee for the White House—called hiring 87,000 IRS agents "a middle finger to the American public," making clear that he would prefer more "might at the border."

Where does this oft-repeated number of IRS agents come from?

"The 87,000 figure does exist, buried within a May 2021 Treasury Department report when the Biden administration was pushing a bigger spending bill with the same $80 billion IRS funding," Reuters noted Friday. "The report estimated the money could fund 86,852 full-time hires through 2031."

But the actual net increase in staff would be much lower, as the IRS expects more than 50,000 aging Baby Boomer employees to retire over the next half-decade.

In addition to an unspecified number of new revenue agents—there were 8,321 in fiscal year 2021—the agency is looking to hire tens of thousands of new information technology specialists and customer service personnel who can create a user experience more akin to online banking, Natasha Sarin, Treasury counselor for tax policy and administration, told Reuters.

There are 2,100 special agents in the IRS Criminal Investigation branch who are authorized to carry firearms, but right-wing assertions that all 87,000 new hires would be auditors, criminal enforcement agents, or armed are "deeply dangerous nonsense—and false," said Sarin.

"The speed and voracity with which [Republicans] are coming at this is really a testament to how important these resources are going to be—because there are many wealthy tax evaders that stand to lose a lot," Sarin continued.

The GOP's intentionally misleading attacks come after a decade of budget cuts approved by congressional Republicans left the IRS with 16,000 fewer employees in 2021 than it had in 2010.

As ProPublica has documented, the IRS now audits low-income taxpayers at the same rate as the top 1%, but that is a direct result of years of austerity, which have undermined the agency's ability to audit the rich.

The IRA's boost in IRS funding aims to rectify this injustice and to begin closing an estimated $600 billion annual "tax gap"—the difference between taxes paid and owed—by strengthening enforcement against the complex avoidance strategies used by the wealthy, especially those with murky sources of income.

New information technology hires will develop "tools to identify more high-end audit targets," Reuters reported. "To target wealthy taxpayers and handle sophisticated audits, Sarin said the IRS needs mid-career individuals with accounting and often tax law experience."

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the increase in IRS funding will raise $204 billion in additional revenue over 10 years, while the Treasury projects that the real revenue impact will likely be $400 billion over a decade—a substantial portion of the IRA's climate and healthcare spending.

Earlier this week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen instructed IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig—a scandal-plagued Trump appointee who spent decades battling the agency—to submit an $80 billion spending and hiring plan within six months. Yellen previously directed the agency not to use any new resources to increase audits of people making less than $400,000 per year.

https://www.rawstory.com/irs-agent/

[Rick Plant]

'He should be worried': Legal insiders predict Trump indictments are coming



In an interview with Business Insider, an attorney close to Donald Trump's legal team and their maneuverings claimed the former president is headed toward a spate of criminal indictments and is not taking his legal peril seriously enough.

With Trump facing an expanding investigation being conducted by the Department of Justice, continued hearings by the House select committee looking into the Jan 6 insurrection at the Capitol and an election tampering investigation in Georgia related to the 2020 presidential election, the attorney said Trump seems to think they are things that he "can talk his way out of."

According to the report, "....people who have been close to his inner circle told Insider that they think he could be in serious legal trouble.One lawyer familiar with the Trump team's thought process said in an interview that the ex-president 'likes to run the show' and is a 'big believer in the public relations assault,' but that he could soon face criminal charges."

The attorney added, "He should be worried about all these investigations. I think he's a target of all of them and I think he'll get indicted."

In an interview with Business Insider on Friday, occasional Trump defender Alan Dershowitz said Trump's criminal legal exposure may also increase as the result of civil suits he faces in New York.

Dershowitz "told Insider on Friday that Trump should be most concerned about the New York attorney general's civil investigation into his business practices. 'Right now it's only civil, but you never know,' he said. 'Civil can always morph into criminal the way it did with [Trump Org CFO Allen Weisselberg.'"

Read More Here: https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-could-soon-get-indicted-mar-a-lago-2022-8

[Rick Plant]

Legal expert explains why Fox will probably settle the infamous Dominion lawsuit

Former federal prosecutor and law professor Joyce Vance thinks that the Fox network will likely look to settle their lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems over the false portrayals of them on numerous shows after the 2020 election.

Speaking to host Ayman Mohyeldin on MSNBC Saturday, Vance explained that defamation lawsuits are incredibly powerful and that it's unusual to see one that is as one-sided as Dominion's.

"One suspects that there would be a lot of pressure on the Fox defendant to settle the case short of trial," Vance explained. "Although a settlement could be painful, going to trial almost guarantees a broader exposure of these sorts of Kraken-lawyer-fever-dreams that are being spread here."

As for the First Amendment, she explained cases like this are the perfect example of drawing lines around whether people can be held liable for knowingly lying to the American public.

"One of the most really eclectic and very fitting elements of this sort of law is plaintiffs are entitled to get some form of truth-telling from defendants in the same form where lies were told," Vance continued. "As you indicated, there are beginning efforts in that area, it only gets worse as the case goes to trial."

Mohyeldin, who said he doesn't consider Fox a "news organization," has a "moral obligation" to tell the truth. However, he asked, "it's not a crime to lie, is it?"

"This is a very interesting slice of that sort of behavior," she explained. "It is not talking about criminality. It simply says in the language of the law that you committed a civil tort against me, Dominion. That you have defamed my business, that you have told lies and, in many ways, impacted my ability to earn a living, or you've impacted my profits and bottom line. So, I am entitled to compensation from you. So, the lawsuit proceeds very much in that vein along that civil liability track that punishes people, who intentionally or with gross negligence lie above people and the sorts of civil settings."

See the explanation below:

[Rick Plant]

Trump believed the military 'swore an oath to him' and could be ordered to do any illegal act he wanted: Navy vet



On Friday, writing for The Bulwark, Navy veteran and Brennan Center for Justice fellow Theodore Johnson argued that former President Donald Trump believed that just because he was the commander-in-chief, the military "swore an oath to him personally," and could be ordered to do whatever he wanted, regardless of whether it was legal or constitutional.

This was thrown into sharp relief, Johnson wrote, by two major recent news stories: the release of Gen. Mark Milley's draft resignation letter that he never sent to the former president accusing him of politicizing the military, and Trump's hoarding of highly classified information, potentially including nuclear weapons secrets, that led the FBI to execute a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

"These historic occurrences speak to just how deeply Trump believed the military not to be an instrument of national power but an apparatus for personal use," wrote Johnson. "Milley composed his resignation draft after being asked to participate in Trump’s ego-stroke theater — first by conducting a military show of force against Americans upset about George Floyd’s killing days earlier and then being unwittingly drafted into Trump’s infamous march across Lafayette Square after it was forcibly cleared of protesters. Regarding the classified material squirreled away in Mar-a-Lago, the underlying explanation from Trump and his supporters appears to amount to little more than that it was his to do with as he pleased without any regard to the potential damage to our national security interests."

"These occurrences bring to the fore a troubling issue usually lurking in the background of civil-military relations: When a president believes his interests supersede the nation’s — or, worse, that his interests become the nation’s — the democratic principle of 'civilian control of the military' exposes the armed services to co-option as a partisan tool for domestic politics," wrote Johnson.

This comes after a number of other reports about Trump's desire to abuse military power, including a book by Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender that alleged Trump wanted the military to come in during the George Floyd protests at the White House and "crack skulls" to put it down.

"Civil-military relations mostly held during the Trump presidency, a testament to the resilience of the institution and to our democracy. But dangers remain," concluded Johnson. "If our country’s toxic polarization, hyperpartisanship, and intentional stoking of social tensions for political ends are not sufficiently addressed, we may find ourselves dangerously close to the precipice once more—and if Trump or someone following the Trump model comes to power again, we may well tumble over the edge."

You can read more here:

https://www.thebulwark.com/trump-acted-as-though-the-military-swore-an-oath-to-him-personally/

[Rick Plant]

GOP governor’s attacks on GOP nominee are ‘devastating’: Republican lawmaker



On paper, Republican gubernatorial hopeful Dan Cox has one main opponent this fall — Democrat Wes Moore, the best-selling author and former nonprofit CEO.

Increasingly, however, the xxxx County lawmaker is being forced to beat back attacks from a second high-profile foe — the state’s popular governor, Republican Larry Hogan.

Hogan has repeatedly called the Trump-endorsed Cox a “QAnon whack job” and a “nut job.” He has said he will not be voting for him or supporting him in any way. And he declared that he wouldn’t let the lawmaker set foot in the governor’s office.

This week, Hogan went further, questioning the GOP standard-bearer’s sanity.

“He’s not, in my opinion, mentally stable,” Hogan told an Eastern Shore radio station, WGMD, this week. “Half of Republicans don’t support the guy because he’s a nut.”

The governor’s comments come at a crucial time for Cox.

As he pivots from the primary election to the general, he is trying to make the best possible first impression on Democrats and independents who may not have tracked the GOP primary. He also needs to court the voters who supported his main primary rival, former state commerce secretary Kelly Schulz.

Cox is also trying to professionalize the ad hoc team that helped him capture the nomination. In recent days he opened a new campaign headquarters and hired a campaign manager and press secretary.

Sen. Johnny Ray Salling (R-Baltimore County), a Cox supporter, conceded that Hogan’s constant attacks are likely to make the GOP nominee’s uphill fight even more difficult.

“To me, it’s devastating, especially for your party,” said Salling. “You have somebody that you would think would be your supporter and it’s not.”

Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford (R), an outspoken Cox critic and Schulz supporter like Hogan, also predicted that the governor’s comments will hurt the GOP candidate. “You have a governor with 70% approval rating and if he’s saying that he doesn’t care for this other candidate, it’s going to have some impact,” he said.

(Rutherford distanced himself from Hogan’s description of Cox as being “not mentally stable,” calling it “not terminology I would use.”

“The people who support Del. Cox, they support him for the positions that he takes,” Rutherford added.)

In an email, Cox declined to characterize Hogan’s crack about his mental state. He said the choice for voters this fall center around the candidates on the ballot, not the current governor.

Republicans who run statewide for most offices in Maryland — U.S. Senate, comptroller, attorney general — often fail by wide margins, thanks largely to the lopsided voter registration advantage that Democrats enjoy. GOP candidates for governor have won three of the last five governors races by appealing to a broad spectrum of the electorate.

Hogan’s comments about Cox imperil his ability to build that coalition. They could also hurt fundraising.

Goucher College political science professor Mileah Kromer said Hogan is “popular where it matters for winning general elections, popular among moderate-to-conservative Democrats and consistently popular among independents.”

Kromer said Hogan’s continual (and arguably unprecedented) takedowns of Cox only reinforce her core question about his candidacy — whether Cox has a mathematical path to victory. “You have a message from a very popular Republican governor basically saying ‘This guy’s not me,’” she said. “’There is a reason (voters) voted for me, but this guy’s not me.’”

In addition to making sharp-elbowed comments about Cox on the radio, Hogan went a step further on Friday, posing for pictures with Moore and wife Dawn during a chance encounter at the Maryland Association of Counties summer conference. The governor’s staff posted a photo of the trio online.

In an interview, Hogan denied trying to actively undermine Cox’s bid for high office. He said his comment about Cox’s mental stability came only after he received a litany of Cox-related questions.

“It doesn’t matter to me what happens to Dan Cox,” he said. “I was on the radio, talking about all the things that we’re doing, and everything we’ve accomplished for the [Eastern] Shore. And the guy asked me five, six questions about him. And I was just tired of answering the stupid questions.”

Hogan’s comments were picked up by several national media outlets, including The Hill, making it certain that former President Trump, with whom the governor has long sparred, with become aware of them.

Democrats welcomed Hogan’s comments about Cox.

“The governor is incredibly popular, not just in Baltimore County but across the state,” said Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski (D). “I hope that his comments have a deep impact.”

“I think it says a lot when a sitting governor criticizes someone of their own party so resoundingly,” he added.

Former Secretary of State John Willis (D), a political science professor at the University of Baltimore, agreed. An early Moore supporter and Dawn Moore’s former boss when the two worked in the Secretary of State’s office, Willis said: “As the nominee of a party, you wouldn’t want the governor of the state making those comments about you in a general public setting.”

AFP