Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Trump trained his MAGA base ‘to view reality as the crisis and violence as the solution’

Donald Trump has brainwashed his "Make America Great Again" base into rejecting reality and endorsing political violence, according to a new analysis published by The Washington Post.

Trump has continued to push his "Big Lie" of election fraud that incited the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

"Likewise, the crooked and highly partisan Unselect Committee of political hacks looking into the January 6th protest of the Election should spend their time studying the Election Fraud of 2020, also known as the Crime of Century," Trump said in a statement released Saturday.

Later that day, Trump tried to allege there was "massive election fraud," but awkwardly used a double negative that suggested he thinks he is "either very stupid or very corrupt."

"Trump’s assertions about the election are some mix of self-care and delusion. He wants to believe he didn’t lose the election he lost, casting his behavior over the past 12 months with the sort of pathos that was obvious to outside observers in his speech at Mar-a-Lago. But he seems also to have convinced himself that maybe something did go wrong somewhere, which allows him to believe that his reaction isn’t solely about his ego. A former White House staffer told CNN last month that Trump at first knew Biden had won but then readily allowed himself to be convinced otherwise," Philip Bump wrote for The Post.

Bump noted a new bombshell report on how Trump raised an army of 21 million "committed insurrectionists."

"In a lengthy article for the Atlantic, Barton Gellman outlines how Trump’s delusion has swelled to encompass much of his party. Gellman staked out an important position on Trump’s willingness to subvert the election when he wrote an article for that magazine shortly before the 2020 contest in which he outlined a number of the paths Trump eventually explored for trying to wrench a victory from his loss. Now, he writes that Trump and his allies are both unchastened from the aftermath of the election and preparing to do better next time," Bump reported.

"At no point in time has Trump expressed any serious concern about the risk of right-wing political violence centered on the 2020 election. Even on Jan. 6, he patted the rioters on the head as he encouraged them to go home in one of his last social media posts before Twitter and Facebook decided that the risk he might foment more violence outweighed the value of extending him a platform. The riot on Jan. 6 was always inextricably downstream from Trump’s rhetoric and calls to action. Trump roused the rabble and then cheered the result," he explained. "The point is not that this all happened. It’s that it is happening. That, 11 months after the riot, Trump is saying the same things to the same people and getting a warm response. That he’s there at Mar-a-Lago making the same increasingly ludicrous claims to the same people in the same bubble even as he mulls a 2024 run and makes moves to continue to reshape the GOP. That’s the point."

Bump noted Trump's absurd delusion that the insurrection actually took place on election day, when voters chose Joe Biden.

"It’s self-serving nonsense, in the way that so much of what Trump says is. But it’s also an encouragement, yet again, to view reality as the crisis and violence as the solution," he wrote.

Read the full analysis:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/12/06/trump-comments-undermining-democracy/

[Rick Plant]

'If Weisselberg doesn't cooperate he's got to worry Trump may turn on him': Former White House lawyer



The New York Times revealed Tuesday that sources with knowledge of Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance's investigation into former President Donald Trump and his company the Trump Organization may indict the CFO Allen Weisselberg as soon as this summer.

Speaking to MSNBC host Joy Reid, former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal and ex-federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner warned Weisselberg that this is going to come down like a ton of bricks.

Kirschner explained that the evidence should concern Trump because it makes it more likely that Weisselberg could make a plea deal and hang Trump out to dry.

"But there's also a long game to be played here," Kirschner continued. "I've had defendants who were not exactly like Weisselberg, but they were people that I desperately needed to bring on board to build my case against the bigger criminal fish, and they wouldn't plead guilty. Allen Weisselberg may not plead guilty. So, here's how we play the long game as prosecutors. We indict him. We try him. We convict him. And we sit down with him again after a jury has said, guilty, but before a judge has sentenced him. And we say, 'What are you going to do now, chief? You still have an opportunity. We can still reduce your sentence somewhat, but guess what? You're not going to get as good a deal as if you had come on board and cooperated upfront when you should have.' So, there are still a lot of moving pieces to the Allen Weisselberg part of this equation."

Reid asked if it was possible for Trump to walk away from the case without consequences if he is able to successfully blame it all on Weisselberg. Katyal said he didn't think so.

"We'll have to study this new reporting by the New York Times, but to me, it looks like the first domino for Donald Trump is starting to fall," said Katyal. "And this has been an inexorable path since the Supreme Court, 9-0, said Trump Tax returns have to be turned over, so these financial records that you're seeking about Trump are now in the hands of prosecutors. We know that those New York prosecutors have convened a grand jury. They're going to sit for six months, three days a week."

He also explained that prosecutors sent a warning letter to the Trump Organization calling it a criminal investigation. All prosecutors must do is tell Weisselberg is what will happen if he doesn't cooperate.

"I think prosecutors here know one other thing, which is that Allen Weisselberg knows where all the keys to the kingdom are," Katyal continued. "He knows everything. So, most normal companies have a compliance office that deals with all these questions. Not the Trump Organization. The Trump Organization's compliance office was basically, like, a giant sharpie drawing of the presidential seal or something like that. So, it's really all up to Weisselberg. And so, if they can flip Weisselberg, and I suspect they can because of that dynamic that Michael Cohen was just revealing, this kind of prisoner's dilemma where if Weisselberg doesn't cooperate, he's got to worry that Trump may turn on him. Each of them has to worry about that and that becomes a race to get information and that's why I think ultimately bad news for Trump."

Watch the video below:

[Rick Plant]

Here's another perfect example that debunks the right wing lie of there being a "Liberal Media". The fact is there is no "Liberal Media". We have a far right wing media and a mainstream media that is doing a terrible job.

Here are two headlines from the Associated Press. One from 2018 and 2021. Look at how dishonest and negative the media is towards Democrats and President Biden while favorable towards Trump and the GOP.

The first headline is from 2018 where the Associated Press praises Trump for 200,000 jobs. They give him a positive headline and even call it "robust". So, the person reading this will have a positive feeling after they read it.

Fast forward to 2021 and we see a different story coming out of the Associated Press. This headline criticizes President Biden for 210,000 jobs last month. They give President Biden a negative headline and use the word "sluggish". So, the person reading this will have a negative feeling after they read it.

How dishonest is this? President Biden had 10,000 more jobs and the AP calls it "sluggish" and writes a negative article. Trump had 10,000 less jobs and gets praised as "robust" with a positive AP article.

This is what we are dealing with having a mainstream media that continues to bash Democrats even when there is great success. President Biden has created nearly 6 million jobs in less than a year which is the most jobs in history. Does he get any credit from the media? No, he gets faslely attacked. President Biden lowered unemployment rate  down to 4.2%. That wasn't even supposed to happen this quickly. Does the President get credit for that? No. The media has been dishonestly attacking the President since July with these same sort of tactics. Whenever a Democrat is in office the media will go negative like we see again today. It's clearly dishonest putting out a negative headline saying its "sluggish" when more jobs were created, but they call it "robust" just a couple of years ago when less jobs were created.             

[Rick Plant]

The bogus "election fraud" claim is just a fundraising scam so Criminal Donald can take more money from the suckers in his base who give it to him. It's also another scam so that right wingers can enact more voter suppression laws all across the United States. Right wingers lie about non existent voter fraud and claim they need to make "voter integrity" laws and those laws restrict our voting rights which gives the GOP an advantage. The GOP knows they can't win so they make bogus laws so they can cheat. That's what this is all about.

Trump's election lie falls flat again as right-wing Wisconsin group finds 'no evidence of widespread fraud'



In a blow to former President Donald Trump's conspiracy theories, Forbes reported on Tuesday that a right-wing legal group in Wisconsin has released the results of its investigation into the 2020 presidential election — and concluded that there was no evidence the election was corrupted by voter fraud.

"The investigation by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) found 'no evidence of widespread voter fraud,' which it defined as 'an intentional effort to subvert the election' by preventing voters who support a specific candidate from voting or having their vote counted, 'attempting to procure votes that were never cast' or 'falsely increasing' one candidate’s vote share," reported Alison Durkee.

In an extra blow, WILL found that Democrats performed "worse than expected" in areas that used equipment from Dominion Voting Systems — an elections company that has been the target of conspiracy theories from Trump allies who have claimed their machines switched votes to Joe Biden.

"In all likelihood, more eligible voters cast ballots for Joe Biden than Donald Trump," concluded WILL — although the report was sure to note the group still recommends new voting restrictions.

WILL has previously stirred controversy by filing a lawsuit to force hundreds of thousands of voters to be purged from the Wisconsin voter rolls.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that the 2020 presidential election was corrupt or rigged, even though reports indicate his own lawyers knew that his accusations were completely unfounded. His conspiracy theories have formed the basis for crackdowns on voting rights all around the country, as well as partisan "audits" of vote counts, most notably in Maricopa County, Arizona.

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-biden-wisconsin/

[Rick Plant]

Some people want to look at our current situation with rose colored glasses while being oblivious to reality. Our Capitol was attacked by Trump's anti American cult members who tried to overthrow the US Government. Their goal was to stop the certification of President Biden's victory so they could illegally install Trump. Trump's "Big Lie" of voter fraud is proven to be the scam that it is each time one of his right wing groups conducts their phony election "audits" in the select states they choose. After the phony audit is completed, no evidence of "voter fraud" is ever found, but the right wing group always recommends that voter restriction laws need to be implemented. Then right on cue, the GOP controlled legislatures in these states immediately draft voter restriction laws aimed at voter suppression which benefits the GOP. The question you need to ask yourself is, since no voter fraud exists, why does the GOP need to enact voter restrictive laws making it harder to vote? There is no fraud but the GOP implements these laws anyway because that is there entire goal. Their goal is to create doubt in people's mind that our election system is "rigged" and that the way we hold elections "doesn't work" anymore and we need to use another method instead. This is a clear and blatant attack on our democracy and it's what countries do who are shifting towards authoritarian governments. We hear these same words coming directly from the radical right each day and their goal is to end our democracy.

Voting should be made easy for everybody. When it's easier to vote, more people partake in the process. The most patriotic thing you can do is cast a vote and the GOP is making it harder for Americans to do that. Not only are the GOP implementing laws making it harder to vote, they are installing their own cronies in key positions as officials. So, when the GOP loses an election, they can immediately claim there's "voter fraud", even though none exists, and since they are in charge of these positions they can reject the election results and overturn it in their own favor. This is totally unconstitutional and illegal but they are making this law based on the "Big Lie" of non existent voter fraud. It's all about them being in control and having power as a minority party.   

We see neo nazi hate groups marching in DC and giving their full support to Donald Trump. Violent right wing militia groups are taking up arms wanting a Civil War. Republican members of Congress incite violence towards Democratic members of Congress. Some GOP members are supporters of these white nationalists. Others like Marco Rubio are cozying up to authoritarian dictators. Qanon conspiracy cultists stormed the Capitol beating cops. Their philosophy is to use violence as a means for their radical evangelical religion which is exactly what ISIS does. They infiltrate and attack school board members at meetings and are now running for school board committees so they can control school boards to push anti mask and vaccine mandates. This is extremely dangerous and these are the radicals who are so blood thirsty to control our government wanting to end our democracy and implement their own radical form of government. Meanwhile, the people with their rose colored glasses don't see this happening in America each day. We simply cannot allow these fascists to be in power or democracy will be over as we know it.           

Trump's attack on democracy is 'gaining momentum' as even impeachment-backing Republicans feel intimidated: reporter
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-coup-2655951289/

[Rick Plant]

Meadows text messages reveal he secretly chatted with GOP members about an election overthrow plot



Mark Meadows shared some of the contacts he had in or around Jan. 6 involving the White House's attempts to stop the certification of the 2020 election, according to a letter from the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol and what led to it.

According to the Committee's Chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), Meadows had a conversation with a member of Congress who suggested an alternative slate of electors. The member confessed that the idea would be a "highly controversial" one, but Meadows still said, "I love it."

"The text messages you did produce include a Nov. 6, 2020, text exchange with a Member of Congress apparently about appointing alternate electors in certain states as part of a plan that the Member acknowledged would be 'highly controversial' and to which Mr. Meadows apparently said, 'I love it'; an early Jan. 2021 text message exchange between Mr. Meadows and an organizer of the Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse' and text messages about the need for the former President to issue a public statement that could have stopped the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol," an excerpt of the letter from Thompson to Meadows' lawyer says.

The messages were from Meadows' personal cell phone, which don't appear to have been turned over to the National Archives, in violation of the Presidential Records Act.


Mark Meadows turned over a 38-page PowerPoint called 'Options for 6 JAN' to the Capitol riot committee

Former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows decided abruptly to withdraw his cooperation with the Jan. 6 House Select Committee on Tuesday, after working with the committee and providing evidence.

Meadows said that they decided to withdraw after it was discovered the House Committee subpoenaed phone records, which is generally done to understand the questions to ask the witness to clarify.

The Guardian's congressional reporter, Hugo Lowell, tweeted that chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) revealed a 38-page PowerPoint presentation titled "Options for 6 JAN." At the same time, the committee also discovered "certain text messages from his personal cellphone he relinquished after Jan. 6."

According to Thompson's statement Tuesday, Meadows agreed to waive executive privilege on the PowerPoint and the text messages.

In the letter to Meadows' lawyer, Thompson explained that on Nov. 26, 2021, "Mr. Meadows provided to the Select Committee certain documents that you obtained from Mr. Meadows' personal email account and determined were responsive to the Select Committee's subpoena. In doing so, you also provided a privilege log indicating that you withheld several hundred additional documents from Mr. Meadows' personal email account based on claims of executive, attorney-client, or other privilege. Despite your very broad claims of privilege, Mr. Meadows has also produced documents that you apparently agree are relevant and not protected by any privilege at all. Those documents include: a Nov. 7, 2020, email discussing the appointment of alternate slates of electors as part of a 'direct and collateral attack' after the election; a Jan. 5 2021, email regarding a 38-page PowerPoint briefing titled "Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 JAN" that was to be provided 'on the hill'; and among others, a Jan. 5 2021, email about having the National Guard on standby."

The letter goes on to say that Meadows held back over 1,000 text messages from his cell phone that he handed over to his cell phone provider after Jan. 6, 2021.

"The text messages you did produce include a Nov. 6, 2020, text exchange with a Member of Congress apparently about appointing alternate electors in certain states as part of a plan that the Member acknowledged would be 'highly controversial' and to which Mr. Meadows apparently said, 'I love it'; an early Jan. 2021 text message exchange between Mr. Meadows and an organizer of the Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse' and text messages about the need for the former President to issue a public statement that could have stopped the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol," the letter also says.

The letter goes on to say that Meadows' recent claims that the committee doesn't respect former President Donald Trump's privilege is outright false.

"Mr. Meadows' refusal to appear is motivated by, among other things, the documents the Select Committee staff provided to you in advance, pursuant to your request for an accommodation. You go on to suggest that those documents somehow indicate that the "Select Committee has no intention of respecting boundaries concerning Executive Privilege." That assertion runs counter to the stated purpose of the Dec. 8, 2021, deposition, which was to give Mr. Meadows a chance to answer the Select Committee's questions or assert and articulate a specific privilege he believes protects that information from disclosure," the letter says.

The letter explains to Meadows lawyer that they tried to identify the areas of inquiry that Meadows believed were protected but neither he nor his lawyers could provide that information. So, Thompson said that he would ask Meadows about those claims on a "question-by-question basis."

Thompson wrote, "That is not a lack of respect for the boundaries of executive privilege but rather an appreciation for the proper process for asserting any protective privilege."

'Even as we litigate privilege issues, the Select Committee has numerous questions for Mr. Meadows about records he has turned over to the Committee with no claim of privilege, which includes real-time communications with many individuals as the events of January 6th unfolded. We also need to hear from him about voluminous official records stored in his personal phone and email accounts, which were required to be turned over to the National Archives in accordance with the Presidential Records Act," said Thompson's statement.

Thompson also said that if Meadows is claiming executive privilege on emails and text messages from his personal cell phone and personal email, then it means he didn't comply with the Presidential Records Act, which mandates that all records be turned over regardless of their privilege level. Those records would then be controlled by the National Archives. It's the same complaint that Republicans had about Hillary Clinton's personal email server, they said should have been turned over to investigators.

The law, passed in 1978, "Codifies the process by which former and incumbent Presidents conduct reviews for executive privilege prior to [the] public release of records by NARA (which had formerly been governed by Executive order 13489).

This is one of many reasons that the committee explained it has no choice but to hold Meadows in contempt of Congress. He appears to be picking and choosing which things on which he'll wave executive privilege.

Read the full letter below:





https://www.rawstory.com/mark-meadows-documents-jan6-committee/

[Rick Plant]

Need anymore evidence that Newsmax and these far right wing outlets are nothing but Russian disinformation? They put their hero on the cover of this month's issue of their magazine and call him "great". For anyone who thinks Newsmax is anything but Russian disinformation, here is the cover of Newsmax Magazine’s December issue. Hundreds of thousands of MAGAs get their "news" from Putin every day.

[Rick Plant]

These MAGA suckers never learn as these lying grifters are taking all their money based on a lie.   

Sidney Powell’s Group Raked in Nearly $15 Million in Donations Off Election Lies

Former executives of Defending the Republic have claimed that Powell hid the group’s finances from them, according to a new report from The Washington Post



Supporters of former President Donald Trump gave more than $14 million to a Sidney Powell-led group raising funds to dispute the 2020 presidential election results, The Washington Post reported on Monday after reviewing records from Powell’s group, Defending the Republic.

The Post’s report also reveals inner turmoil among the Defending the Republic’s leadership about how the money should be spent. The group is a target of federal prosecutors, who have subpoenaed financial records and other documents from it and a political action committee run by Powell with the same name. A source familiar with the Jan. 6 committee’s work told the paper that the panel is also interested in how much money the group brought in.

"Business is good and accountability is low, which means we’re just going to see continued use of this playbook,” former senior U.S. cybersecurity official Matt Masterson told the Post. “Well-meaning folks that have been told that the election was stolen are giving out money that they might not otherwise be able to give.”

According to public filings cited by the Post, Defending the Republic raised $14.9 million from Dec. 1, 2020, to July 31 of this year and spent over $5 million on legal fees as well as unspecified awards and grants. The group also gave than half a million dollars to the GOP-led Arizona ballot review. But, according to the paper, the group may have raised more than the paperwork suggests since Powell began raising money on Nov. 10, just a week after the election. At one point this past summer, Powell controlled some $9 million in funds.

In a statement to the Post, the group’s lawyer, Howard Kleinhendler, said: “Defending The Republic is pleased that its audited financials clearly refute and put to rest previously reported allegations of financial impropriety. Defending The Republic will continue to focus on its important work for #WeThePeople.”

But so far that work has not been successful, in that they have not secured any additional election victories for Trump. The group started to fracture in March and April, the Post reported, and a number of people resigned on April 9, including former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, who served as Defending the Republic’s chief executive. Byrne said he decided to resign after Powell sent an email accusing him and others of being “panicked” and “immature” in their reaction to a filing she submitted to the court seeking to have a lawsuit dismissed that was brought against them by Dominion Voting Systems.

"The job that every American who has donated to our cause expects me to do is to get the truth out in our cases and hopefully win the litigation as I did in Flynn,” Powell wrote in the email. “I need and deserve the full team behind me on this. I MUST run the litigation. That is why I started all of this. We do not have time, money or energy to waste. Drama needs to go.”

The next day, Byrne and many others including the executive team and Powell’s former client, ex-Trump National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn, resigned from the group. According to Byrne, Powell “refused all oversight and would not answer questions about” how much money the group had raised and had on hand.

Lin Wood, a Trump attorney and ally, has also accused Powell of grifting and posted a recorded call between himself and Byrne. “I’m not sure where all this money is going, but I think somebody owes to the American public a full accounting,” Wood told Byrne on the call.

Byrne said that he hadn’t spoken to Powell since April 6 and “never will again.”

“I gave her a laundry list of things she had to clean up and told her she had to get an auditor … She refused to let me look at any — well, I can’t tell you more,” he said. “But we walked out after about 17 days there … You can infer what you want from that.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/sidney-powell-defending-republic-15-million-1267360/