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Author Topic: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2  (Read 290687 times)

Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5504 on: July 05, 2022, 12:06:04 AM »
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As I stated above, we are losing our freedoms because of the radical right.

So, how can Americans celebrate "freedoms" on the 4th of July when Republicans are taking them away?

Another freedom that we are rapidly losing is the freedom of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". We are losing our freedom just to live our every day normal lives by going out to an event and enjoying ourselves.

Republicans with their insane pro gun laws have made it possible for anyone to get easy access to military grade assault weapons in red states. All one has to do is buy a weapon in a red state with loose gun laws and take it into a blue state with strict gun laws to commit their act of violence. And this happens in Illinois every single day.

Today is Independence Day, and the people of Highland Park, Illinois can't even celebrate America's Birthday because of a mass shooter shooting up a 4th of July parade. So, Americans have lost their freedom to watch a parade in safety and not be killed while doing it.

There was a recent poll where 44% of Republicans said we should "learn to accept mass shootings" in order to allow military weapons to still be sold. Are these people insane? They actually want their lives to be endangered each day where they could be shot just so military assault weapons can still be sold.

These weapons have no business being sold on the market. They are designed for the battlefield. No 18 year old should be allowed to use a high powered weapon that can shoot hundreds of rounds of ammo per minute. They are using these weapons to murder innocent people.

These mass shootings have happened everywhere in America. Large cities, suburbs, and small towns so nobody is safe from a mass shooter. Yet, Republicans continue to do the bare minimum and still allow this carnage to take place.       

If you can't even celebrate Independence Day without a mass shooting taking place, then you know there's a major problem and we are losing our freedoms.

If you go back 30, 40, 50 years...people never had to deal with mass shootings. They had their freedom to go anywhere and watch an event without the risk of being shot. That's because these military assault weapons were not circulating in our cities in mass quantities.

We still should have the same freedom folks decades ago had, but with Republicans and their gun fetish, we can no longer go in public without the risk of a mass shooting. That's how Republicans want us to live our lives. That's no way to live and we have no freedom to be safe. That's why these Republicans need to be voted out so we can restore our freedom and safety. With Republicans in control, we will lose more of our freedoms and gun violence will continue to get worse. 

6 dead, more than two dozen hospitalized in mass shooting at Highland Park Fourth of July parade; shooter sought

The shooter appeared to have fired “a high-powered rifle” from a rooftop, police said. “This doesn’t happen here,” said a witness who ran to safety with his family. “It shouldn’t happen anywhere.”


Police in Highland Park escort people Monday afternoon who had sought a safe place after a shooter with a high-powered rifle opened fire hours earlier at Highland Park’s Fourth of July parade.

Six people were killed and more than two dozen others wounded when a gunman used a high-powered rifle to fire from a rooftop on people attending the Highland Park Fourth of July parade Monday.

Authorities continued to hunt Monday afternoon for the shooter, and “the offender still has not been apprehended so far,” Christopher Covelli of the Lake County sheriff’s office and the Lake County major crimes task force said at a news conference hours after the shooting.

The gunman used “a high-powered rifle,” Covelli said and fired from a rooftop. “He was very discreet and very difficult to see.”

He called the crime “very random, very intentional,” and he called it “a very sad day.”

It appeared that the gunman had used a ladder to get to the building’s roof, authorities said.

The FBI asked that anyone who had video of the shooting or possible information about the shooter call their toll-free tipline at (800) CALL-FBI. As of 3:30 p.m., authorities said the shooter was still being sought but said they’d made “progress” toward finding him.

By 3:30 p.m., investigators were focusing their manhunt the downtown area bounded by Green Bay Road, Laurel Avenue, St. John’s Avenue and Elm Place, according to Highland Park police Cmdr. Chris O’Neill. People outside that area no longer were being asked to shelter in place.

Lake County Coroner Jennifer Banek said five people were dead at the scene, all adults, and another died at a hospital. It wasn’t clear how old the sixth victim was.

All of the victims have been identified, though authorities still were notifying families as of 3:30 p.m.

Dozens of the injured were taken to Highland Park Hospital, Lake Forest Hospital and Evanston Hospital. The “vast majority” were treated for gunshot wounds, though some “sustained injuries as a result of the ensuing chaos at the parade,” according to NorthShore University Health Systems, which owns the Highland Park and Evanston hospitals.

Authorities said a child was among those wounded and was hospitalized in critical condition.

One witness said he counted more than 20 shots.

Miles Zaremski, a Highland Park resident, told the Chicago Sun-Times: “I heard 20 to 25 shots, which were in rapid succession. So it couldn’t have been just a handgun or a shotgun.”

Miles Zaremski, a Highland Park resident, told the Chicago Sun-Times: “I heard 20 to 25 shots, which were in rapid succession. So it couldn’t have been just a handgun or a shotgun.”

Zaremski said he saw “people in that area that got shot,” including “a woman covered with blood . . . She did not survive.”


Terrified parade-goers fled Highland Park’s Fourth of July parade after shots were fired, leaving behind their belongings as they sought safety.

As they fled the parade route on Central Street in downtown Highland Park, panicked parade-goers left behind chairs, baby strollers and blankets as they sought cover, not knowing just what happened. Even as people ran, a klezmer band, seemingly unaware of the gunfire, continued to play.

O’Neill said that a rifle the gunman used has been recovered and that the suspect appeared to be 18 to 20 years old, white and wearing a blue T-shirt.

Adrienne Drell, a former Sun-Times reporter, said she was sitting on a curb along Central Avenue watching the parade when she saw members of the Highland Park High School marching band start to run.

“Go to Sunset,” Drell said she heard the students shout, directing people to nearby Sunset Foods.

A man picked her up off the curb and urged her to get out, Drell said.

“There’s panic in the whole town,” she said. “Everyone is just stunned beyond belief.”

She ran across to a nearby parking lot with other people who had been watching the parade.

“It was a quiet, peaceful, lovely morning, people were enjoying the parade,” Drell said. “Within seconds, to have that peacefulness suddenly ripped apart, it’s scary. You can’t go anywhere, you can’t find peace. I think we are falling apart.”

Eric Trotter, 37, who lives blocks from the shooting, echoed that sentiment.

“I felt shocked,” Trotter said. “How could this happen in a peaceful community like Highland Park.”

As police cars sped by on Central Avenue, sirens blaring, Alexander Sandoval, 39, sat on a bench and cried. He’d gotten up before 7 a.m. to set up lawn chairs and a blanket in front of the main stage of the parade. He lives within walking distance from there, so he went home to have breakfast with his son, partner and stepdaughter before going back for the parade.

Hours later, he said he and his family ran after hearing the gunfire, afraid for their lives.

“We saw the Navy’s marchers and float pass by, and, when I first heard the gunshots, I thought it was them saluting the flag and shooting blanks,” Sandoval said. “But then I saw people starting to run, and the shots kept going. We started running.”

He said that, in the chaos, he and his partner Amairani Garcia ran in different directions, he with his 5-year-old son Alex, she with her 6-year-old daughter Melani.

“I grabbed my son and tried to break into one of the local buildings, but I couldn’t,” Sandoval said. “The shooting stopped. I guess he was reloading. So I kept running and ran into an alley and put my son in a garbage dumpster so he could be safe.”

Then, he said he ran in search of the rest of his family and saw bodies in pools of blood on the ground.

“I saw a little boy who was shot being carried away,” Sandoval said. “It was just terror.”

He found his partner and stepdaughter, safe, inside a McDonald’s nearby.

“This doesn’t happen here,” he said. “It shouldn’t happen anywhere.”

Don Johnson, 76. who lives about two blocks from the shooting scene, thought at first the gunfire was a car backfiring. He said he ran with several other people to a nearby BP gas station and described the scene as “surreal.”

“It’s just a terrible thing,” he said. “I never wouldn’t thought this would’ve happened in downtown Highland Park.”

Johnson said his daughter lives in Chicago with her son and that he’s been urging them to move to Highland Park, telling her recently, “It’s safe.”

Now, he said, it’s clear that “it can happen anywhere.”

David Goldenberg, the Midwest regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, was among those at the parade. He’d gone early to set up chairs for his family along the parade route. He said he ended up moving their chairs to be closer to friends.

If not for that, Goldenberg said, “We would have been awfully close” to the shooting.

“It was chaotic,” he said. “Those sorts of things that you hear about — those split-second moments accounting for everyone in your family as people are yelling, ‘There’s a shooter! There’s a gun!’ ”

He said he knows of an adult who was killed, though he declined to discuss details.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker called on “all Illinoisans to pray for the families who have been devastated by the evil unleashed this morning in Highland Park, for those who have lost loved ones and for those who have been injured.

“There are no words for the kind of monster who lies in wait and fires into a crowd of families with children celebrating a holiday with their community. There are no words for the kind of evil that robs our neighbors of their hopes, their dreams, their futures.

“We must — and we will — end this plague of gun violence.”

Responding to the Highland Park shooting, President Joe Biden said in a written statement: “Jill and I are shocked by the senseless gun violence that has yet again brought grief to an American community on this Independence Day.”

News of the shooting spree in Highland Park prompted other suburbs to cancel their Fourth of July celebrations.

Former Obama White House adviser David Alexrod tweeted that someone he knew was at the parade, writing: “A friend took his kids to July 4th Parade in Highland Park today. His son has special needs. When shots rang out, they ran for their lives, the dad pushing his grown son’s wheelchair —which at one point tumbled over. On America’s day, what has become a sickeningly American story.”

Watch:

                   

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5504 on: July 05, 2022, 12:06:04 AM »


Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5505 on: July 05, 2022, 02:36:41 PM »
Highland Park shooter 'part of a new wave of terror' that advanced 'well past Donald Trump': extremism expert



The alleged gunman in the Highland Park massacre was photographed at Donald Trump rallies, but an expert on online extremism said he's part of a "new wave of terror" that doesn't appear to have a specific political motivation.

Robert "Bobby" Crimo III was taken into custody hours after the shooting that killed six people and wounded 38 others at an Illinois parade on the Fourth of July, and NBC News correspondent Ben Collins told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" what he had learned about the person of interest in the massacre.

"I will say that -- man, there's no other way to put this -- the one thing that combines all these things is ready access to weapons, and this guy had ready access to weapons," Collins said. "That's just the one thing. He had ready access to a machine that could kill a bunch of people in a short period of time. You're not going to be able to stop this on a rhetorical level."

"This guy, he posted on Spotify, on Discord, on a bunch of websites that you and I would never hear of," Collins continued. "He posted on Twitter, on YouTube, Instagram, posted everywhere he could post. Even if there was a consortium of people who worked at the private companies monitoring this stuff, you couldn't get them all. There's no way to get them all necessarily. Also, I want to say, like, you can't drill this down to one specific traditional political subculture. I know a lot of people want to point out he was a Donald Trump fan, there were pictures of him draped in a Trump flag outside of a Donald Trump motorcade."

"This is part of a much larger, deeper subculture that Donald Trump is in the past of -- like, this guy grew up as a child and Donald Trump was the president, he's trying to advance the acceleration well past Donald Trump," Collins added. "He is part of a new wave of terror, and that's something we have to get our brains around right now. This is not tied to one guy. This is tied to a much larger cell of people who think they're lone wolves who are really acting in concert, to express their disaffection with the world by murdering a bunch of people. We have to stop that. I don't know how else to stop that."

Collins said limiting access to high-powered firearms must be part of that conversation, because the online networks that motivate mass shooters are simply too large.

"The one thing you can stop at the very end is the gun part, but we have to at least, you know, try to start to learn how people are getting to this point," he said. "Otherwise, we're going to come here every two weeks, guys, like every two weeks, we're going to be on this show talking about what's going to happen and how we can't stop this thing. We have to wrap our brains around this very new reality, where there are a bunch of different subcultures that are extremely violent."

Watch the video below:


Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5506 on: July 05, 2022, 02:45:19 PM »
Indictments are coming: At long last, criminal justice will catch up with Donald Trump

After Cassidy Hutchinson, there's not much doubt: Federal charges will happen — but Georgia may get there first



Putting a former president on trial for alleged criminal behavior would be the first prosecution of its kind in American history. It would also do much toward restoring the myth that no person or corporation is above the law. As James Doyle has explained, putting Trump on trial "redeems American justice."

Looking both backward and forward, I would argue that putting the former racketeer in chief and his accomplices on trial for seditious conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government — arguably the ultimate constitutional crime — is more tangible than the abstract goal of redeeming American justice. In this insurrectionary moment, "substantive" due process justice trumps "procedural" due process justice.

After the first five public hearings held by the House select committee investigating the organized and coordinated activities of Donald J. Trump and his allies to steal the 2020 presidential election, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, it seemed apparent that Attorney General Merritt Garland would not prosecute Trump for two likely federal crimes: "obstructing an official proceeding" and engaging in a "conspiracy to defraud the United States."

But the sixth hearing, and the dramatic testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows — the proverbial "fly on the wall" — was truly a game-changer. Knowing that Trump welcomed the armed weapons and the assault on the Capitol was certainly no surprise to most people who have been paying attention.

Knowing Trump as a criminal biographer, I was not surprised to learn that he may have physically assaulted another person under circumstances similar to those on the occasion when he struck his first-grade teacher in the head before a whole classroom of his peers.

It was a surprise to me initially that Trump wanted to be present at the Capitol during the assault. For both legal and safety reasons, that would have been highly inadvisable. Jumping into Trump's fantasy world, however, where he believed that he was not at physical risk, I could also imagine Trump envisioning himself riding up the stairs and into the Capitol on a white stallion, ahead of his troops.

Recall that Trump had successfully defended himself from "incitement of insurrection" during his second impeachment trial, contending that his Ellipse speech was protected by the First Amendment and that he had no knowledge about the crowd's makeup, its intentions or its possible weaponry.

In Trump's fantasy world, he believed he was in no physical danger, and imagined himself riding up the Capitol steps on a white stallion, leading his troops.

after only four weeks of investigation the House impeachment managers' case against him was based on circumstantial rather than direct evidence. All of that changed with the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson.

That's why the testimony of Pat Cipollone, Trump's former White House counsel, who was quoted by Hutchinson as saying, "We're going to get charges of every crime imaginable," including seditious conspiracy as well as jury tampering, has now been subpoenaed by the select committee.

I do not imagine that any federal prosecution of Trump will occur before the end of 2023. In the meantime, however, it is likely that the former president will be prosecuted before the end of 2022 for the felony of asking Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn the outcome in that state by "finding" 11,780 fake votes, one more than Trump lost the state by to Joe Biden.

In the Georgia case, Trump could be charged with violating as many as four statutes. These include seeking to have ballots counted that Trump knew were "materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws" of the State of Georgia; conspiring with Meadows and two other lawyers "to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person…"; "soliciting another person" to willfully tamper "with any electors list, voter's certificate…"; and engaging in "criminal solicitation to commit election fraud."

Following a lifetime of crime, corruption and impunity, it now appears that the criminal law is at last catching up with the man who has operated a criminal enterprise within the Trump Organization since the early 1980s.

Over more than four decades, a non-exhaustive listing of the former president's alleged crimes would include sexual assault; tax evasion; money laundering; the non-payment of employees, contractors and attorneys; financial fraud; racketeering; and obstruction of justice.

Trump is a veritable Houdini of white-collar crime, a master of lawlessness and impunity. Not only has he never been convicted of any crime, he has never even been charged with a felony.

As a litigator, Trump is in a league of his own. Since 1973 he has been involved in more than 4,000 lawsuits, and in some 60 percent of those as the suing plaintiff.

Until now, his litigation has almost always been about attracting attention and wearing down opponents. As the late, great litigator James D. Zirin, author of "Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3,500 Lawsuits," wrote of Trump: "What was important was to use the lawsuit to attract attention, to exert economic pressure, and to prove he was the kid on the block not to be messed with."

The impending criminal charges to be filed against Donald Trump by the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, and the U.S. Department of Justice are both very different from the thousands of previous lawsuits in Trump's career. Those civil cases, both past and present, have always been about money. The soon-to-be criminal cases will be about Trump's personal freedom — and whether he will be wearing an orange jumpsuit for the next several years.

https://www.salon.com/2022/07/05/indictments-are-coming-at-long-last-criminal-justice-will-catch-up-with-donald/

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5506 on: July 05, 2022, 02:45:19 PM »


Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5507 on: July 06, 2022, 12:31:06 AM »
Lindsey Graham and Rudy Giuliani issued subpoenas in Georgia election investigation



A Georgia grand jury has subpoenaed Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and members of Donald Trump's campaign legal team.

In addition to the South Carolina Republican, the Fulton County special grand jury investigating Trump's efforts to overturn his loss has issued subpoenas to Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Cleta Mitchell, Kenneth Chesbro and Jenna Ellis, reported the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The subpoenas were filed Tuesday and signed off by Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who is overseeing the grand jury and must approve summons for individuals who live out of state.

Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis is also engaged in legal battles with at least two current and former GOP officials, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and ex-state Sen. William Ligon, in Georgia over subpoenas, arguing in a recent court filing that seeking to reverse election results were not protected by legislative immunity.

The special grand jury has permission to meet until May 2023, but Willis has said she expects her investigation to end long before then.

https://www.rawstory.com/lindsey-graham-georgia-2657612934/


Trump attorney with ‘unique knowledge’ ordered to testify in Georgia election case



A Georgia judge has ordered an attorney from former President Donald Trump's campaign team to testify in a special grand jury investigation about efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Joe Henke of 11Alive obtained the order, which names attorney Kenneth Chesebro as a "necessary and material" witness for the investigation focusing on Trump.

Chesebro allegedly had a role in organizing an "alternate" slate of electors that would elect Trump instead of Joe Biden. On December 14, 2020, the group assembled at the state capitol to cast their illegitimate votes for Trump.

"The court's order said he was involved in the 'coordination and execution of a plan to have 16 individuals meet at the Georgia State Capitol on December 14, 2020 to cast purported electoral college votes in favor of former President Donald Trump, even though none of those 16 individuals had been ascertained as Georgia’s certified presidential electors by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp,'" 11Alive reported.

Chesebro "[d]rafted at least two memoranda in support of this plan, which were provided to the Georgia Republican Party, and... provided template Microsoft Word documents to be used by the Georgia Republican Party at its meeting on December 14, 2020," the order said.

The document asserted that the attorney has "unique knowledge" of the plot to overturn the election.

The House Select Committee on Jan. 6 and the Justice Department have also subpoenaed Chesebro.

https://www.11alive.com/article/news/politics/kenneth-chesebro-ordered-testify-fulton-county-trump-election-probe/85-262a6891-2fbc-4633-bd43-bc633f111d3b


‘Striking’ how close Georgia election investigation is getting to Trump: legal expert

An Atlanta grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election have subpoenaed a handful of Trump allies, including Rudy Giuliani, Lindsey Graham, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Cleta Mitchell, and Kenneth Chesebro.

As CNN points out, several state officials have already been subpoenaed and have appeared before the special grand jury led by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Speaking on MSNBC this Tuesday, legal analyst Allie Vitale said, it's "striking how close this investigation is now getting to the former president, but then also ... how closely these names are now tracking with what [the Jan. 6 committee] is now bringing to light."

"Many of the names the committee has been focused on in recent weeks, like John Eastman, like Rudy Giuliani, like others, we've seen now in these seven subpoenas that Fulton County has issued," Vitale said.

Watch the segment in link below:

https://www.rawstory.com/georgia-trump-investigation/

Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5508 on: July 06, 2022, 11:11:51 AM »
Trump real estate firm hit with $10,000 a day fine by New York judge

New York Justice Arthur F. Engoron has imposed a daily $10,000 fine on real estate giant Cushman and Wakefield for failing to turn over documents to state investigators examining in Donald Trump inflated the value of his real estate holdings.

"On Tuesday afternoon, a clearly irked Justice Arthur F. Engoron signed an order ripping into the real estate behemoth for missing a deadline to turn over documents—after having two months to meet it," The Daily Beast reported. "He criticized the company, which routinely helped Trump value properties in ways that benefited him directly, for dragging its feet."

In April, the same judge ruled that Cushman & Wakefield lied and broke its own internal policies to help the Trump Organization.

"The massive, national real estate firm was supposed to deliver documents related to its valuations of all kinds of properties—so that state investigators could compare how the company treated other projects compared to Trump developments," The Beast reported. "The office of New York Attorney General Letitia James issued subpoenas between September 2021 and February 2022 that the firm still hadn’t complied with, so the judge ordered the company to play ball in April. But the firm fought that in appellate court—and lost."

The company had failed to comply with a June 29 deadline set by the judge.

"Time is of the essence. State investigators are set to interview former President Donald Trump and two of his children—Don Jr. and Ivanka—in closed-door depositions the week of July 18. And investigators have said they need to review the evidence from Cushman and Wakefield before those interviews," The Beast noted.

Read the full report:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/judge-holds-real-estate-giant-in-contempt-over-trump-case

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5508 on: July 06, 2022, 11:11:51 AM »


Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5509 on: July 06, 2022, 01:31:55 PM »
The fascist Florida Governor Ron DeSantis claims his state is all about "freedom" but he is now forcing University students and professors to register their political views with the state of Florida. 

I keep warning people that these right wing radical Republicans are taking away your freedoms and privacy every chance they get. And here is another perfect example of rights and freedoms being taken away by Republicans. 

State officials have no business knowing which political party you belong to because you have the right to your privacy.

Some people might say, "I don't care if the state knows what my political party preference is". Well, you would care if state officials use your political preference against you. There should be no reason for them to know what your politics are, unless they have an agenda to use against politics they don't like.

These state officials could easily target professors at Universities if they don't like their political views. The state could basically refuse funding to the school unless the university hires professors that align with their politics.

Students could be affected as well if the state disagrees with their political views. The state could force Universities to accept students of their preferred political party or they would refuse to fund the school if they didn't.

It's written right there in the law that schools would lose funding if the state feels "students' beliefs do not satisfy Florida's GOP-run legislature". So, if the majority of students are Democrats, the Republican legislature could cut funding to the school and demand professors who register Democrat be fired since it doesn't "satisfy" Republicans.

Basically, the state of Florida wants to promote their radical right wing political agenda in Universities and this "law" gives them the authority to do it.

With the hostile political climate we have today, you can bet your last dollar that Republicans in Florida would use this unconstitutional law of gathering political information against Democrats at Universities.

This is just another way for Republicans in Florida to push their radical laws and to continue to discriminate against people they don't like.

And this could open the door for the state to force people at other places of employment to divulge their political party preference, and even your medical records or religious beliefs. And if they don't agree with your religious beliefs, you could be targeted by them.

Forcing students and professors to declare their political views is not "freedom", that is fascism. And especially when the opposition party can cut funding to the school or have professors fired if they don't like their political views.

You can bet that other right wing Governors will be doing the same as Florida. And if Republicans ever control Congress again, they could make a federal law forcing you to divulge your political party preference or any other personal information, and it could be used against you.

How is that "freedom"? It's not freedom, and the GOP is doing everything possible to oppress the people and the groups they don't like. And when they have your personal information, don't think for a minute that they won't use it against you because they will.

The only way for this oppression to stop is if you vote all these right wingers out of office.                     


DeSantis signs bill requiring Florida students, professors to register political views with state

Universities may lose funding if staff and students' beliefs do not satisfy Florida's GOP-run legislature



Public universities in Florida will be required to survey both faculty and students on their political beliefs and viewpoints, with the institutions at risk of losing their funding if the responses are not satisfactory to the state's Republican-led legislature.

The unprecedented project, which was tucked into a law signed Tuesday by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, is part of a long-running, nationwide right-wing push to promote "intellectual diversity" on campuses — though worries over a lack of details on the survey's privacy protections, and questions over what the results may ultimately be used for, hover over the venture.

Based on the bill's language, survey responses will not necessarily be anonymous — sparking worries among many professors and other university staff that they may be targeted, held back in their careers or even fired for their beliefs.

According to the bill's sponsor, state Sen. Ray Rodrigues, faculty will not be promoted or fired based on their responses, but, as The Tampa Bay Times reported Tuesday, the bill itself does not back up those claims.

The only details on the survey come via a passage over its purpose, to discover "the extent to which competing ideas and perspectives are presented" at public universities, and whether students "feel free to express beliefs and viewpoints on campus and in the classroom."

"It used to be thought that a university campus was a place where you'd be exposed to a lot of different ideas," DeSantis said at a press conference following the bill signing. "Unfortunately, now the norm is, these are more intellectually repressive environments. You have orthodoxies that are promoted, and other viewpoints are shunned or even suppressed."

Republicans have long held that universities promote left-wing ideologies and discriminate against conservative students and staff.

Though the bill does not specify what the survey results will be used for, both DeSantis and Rodrigues suggested that the state could institute budget cuts if university students and staff do not respond in a satisfactory manner.

"That's not worth tax dollars and that's not something that we're going to be supporting moving forward," DeSantis said.

When pressed by reporters, the governor did not offer any specific examples of repression and discrimination faced by conservative students, simply saying that he knows "a lot of parents" who worry about their children being "indoctrinated" on campus.

Florida Senate President Wilton Simpson was more pointed in his criticism Tuesday at a meeting of the state university system's Board of Governors, calling the institutions "socialism factories" — again without much detail on what makes the schools so left-wing.

"We always hear about the liberal parts of the university system, and we don't hear so much of that from the college system," he said, according to The Tampa Bay Times.

In addition to the survey, the bill also prevents officials from limiting campus speech that "may be uncomfortable, disagreeable or offensive" — a measure that, as Democrats in the state Legislature pointed out, will also make it easier for groups like the KKK or the Proud Boys to hold events on campus.

In a conversation with the Miami Herald this April, Barney Bishop, one of the top lobbyists pushing the bill in Florida's state legislature over the past year, shone a light on the justifications behind such measures — which he said were less about "intellectual diversity" and more concerned with maintaining the country's conservative Christian identity in the face of younger, more diverse generations that share a dimmer view of religious right-wing orthodoxy.

Bishop also told the paper he "certainly hopes" the effort will expand into the K-12 system over time.

"I think the problem isn't just in higher ed. The truth of the matter is that kids are being indoctrinated from an early age," he said.

"I think that those of us who have diverse thinking and look at both sides of the issue, see that the way the cards are stacked in the education system, is toward the left and toward the liberal ideology and also secularism — and those were not the values that our country was founded on. Those are the values that we need to get our country back to."

https://www.salon.com/2021/06/23/desantis-signs-bill-requiring-florida-students-professors-to-register-political-views-with-state/

Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5510 on: July 06, 2022, 01:42:01 PM »
Lindsey Graham may not be able to use Senate immunity to avoid Georgia subpoena in Trump case: legal experts



Reacting to a report that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) along with several other supporters of former President Donald Trump have been served with subpoenas in Georgia over efforts to interfere with the 2020 presidential election results, two legal experts on CNN explained that the South Carolina Republican likely won't be able to fall back on congressional protections to avoid testifying.

On Tuesday it was reported that Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney signed off on the grand jury subpoenas for Graham, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Cleta Mitchell, Kenneth Chesbro and Jenna Ellis over their efforts to dispute the election results that showed Joe Biden won Georgia's Electoral College votes.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that "the 23-person special grand jury has heard testimony in recent weeks from a parade of witnesses, including some who had direct contact with Trump and his associates in late 2020 and early 2021. But Tuesday’s subpoenas are the closest jurors have gotten to the Trump campaign or inner circle of the former president."

On Wednesday morning CNN "New Day" hosts John Berman and Brianna Keillar sat down with legal analyst Elie Honig and NYU Law Professor Rebecca Roiphe to discuss Graham's options should he choose to fight testifying.

"Let's talk about the Lindsey Graham part of this," host Keilar said. "You have a sitting senator who has been subpoenaed in this case. I mean, how big of a deal is that?"

"I think it's extraordinary," Roiphe replied. "I mean, this is not usual case of course, but in this particular situation to subpoena somebody who is a sitting congressperson, you know, it's significant and it shows how far-reaching this investigation is at this point."

"Does that speech and debate clause protect him? Is that going to hold water?" the CNN host pressed.

"You know, I don't think so," Roiphe explained. "I think it's certainly an issue that will get litigated but I think at this point this is a criminal grand jury that is looking for evidence and I don't think that will protect him from giving this particular testimony."

"It's going to be a professor's dream come true because it's the kind of thing we talk about but it never happens," Honig chimed in. "The speech and debate clause essentially says a member of Congress cannot be questioned in some other body, meaning outside of Congress, but it has to relate to their legislative duties. Lindsey Graham is going to have to convince a court that his phone call to [Georgia Secretary of State] Brad Raffensperger made a couple of weeks before Trump's phone call was somehow within the scope of his legislative duties."

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5510 on: July 06, 2022, 01:42:01 PM »


Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5511 on: July 06, 2022, 02:14:24 PM »
'Shameful': GOP colluding with autocratic Orban government



News that GOP members of Congress are coordinating with the far-right Hungarian government in an attempt to block a proposed global minimum tax on multinational companies is drawing outrage from watchdog groups and Democratic lawmakers, with one U.S. senator accusing Republicans of doing "anything it takes to help their dark money corporate backers dodge taxes."

Just ahead of the July 4 holiday weekend, the Washington Post reported that "senior Hungarian officials say they are working with Republican lawmakers in the United States to defeat a global minimum tax backed by the Biden administration, as European and American leaders struggle to enact a groundbreaking international accord targeting multinational corporations."

"These are no patriots. They've betrayed their oaths of office, their constituents, and their country."

The deal's framework, agreed to by nearly 140 countries in October after years of negotiations, includes a 15% global minimum tax rate designed to stop companies from stashing profits overseas to dodge their tax obligations, a key driver of what's been dubbed the "race to the bottom" on corporate taxation. The Tax Foundation notes that the average statutory corporate tax rate worldwide was 40.11% in 1980; in 2020, it was 23.85%.

In recent weeks, Hungary—led by autocratic Prime Minister Viktor Orbán—has raised objections to the European Union's implementation of the minimum tax on corporations, holding up progress on the accord and prompting applause from Republican lawmakers in the U.S., which has also yet to enact the agreement. Each member of the European bloc has veto power over tax deals.

In a statement last month praising the Hungarian government's obstruction, retiring Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) declared that the U.S. "should be leading" the race to the bottom on corporate taxes, "not trying to prevent it."

As the Post reported Friday, "GOP Reps. Adrian Smith (Neb.) and Mike Kelly (Pa.), top members of the House Ways and Means Committee, sent a letter to the ambassador of Hungary last week commending that country for rejecting the global tax deal" and extending "an offer for a direct dialogue with congressional Republicans as you consider Hungary's position on the global tax agreement."

"The letter was released by Hungarian media and later confirmed by spokespeople for the lawmakers, who did not post it to their congressional websites or social media pages," the Post noted. "Spokespeople for both lawmakers said they were not in contact with Hungarian officials beyond the letter."

Morris Pearl, the chair of the Patriotic Millionaires—a progressive advocacy group that supports higher taxes on the rich and large corporations—said Tuesday that in their efforts to undercut the global minimum tax deal, "Republican lawmakers are siding with billionaire donors and corrupt foreign autocrats like Viktor Orbán over the American people."

"By choosing to sabotage the United States' ability to tax corporations effectively and conspire with foreign governments, the lawmakers working with Hungary have revealed how little they actually care about their own country," said Pearl. "These lawmakers have chosen to do whatever it takes to keep the rich from paying their fair share, even if protecting foreign corporate wealth means undermining the wellbeing of the United States."

"It's fitting that news of this anti-American behavior broke on Independence Day weekend," Pearl continued. "These are no patriots. They've betrayed their oaths of office, their constituents, and their country."

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) tweeted Sunday that "siding with a right-wing autocrat is shameful, but that won’t stop them."

"Money talks louder than morals," the senator added.

Sheldon Whitehouse @SenWhitehouse

Republicans will do anything it takes to help their dark money corporate backers dodge taxes. Siding with a right-wing autocrat is shameful, but that won’t stop them. Money talks louder than morals.



GOP officials back Hungary’s resistance to Biden global tax deal
Viktor Orban’s foreign minister says he is ‘constantly’ consulting Republican lawmakers on opposition to plan to tax multinational firms


https://twitter.com/SenWhitehouse/status/1543629332647649282

While popular with the U.S. public, the Biden administration's push to implement a minimum tax on the foreign profits of U.S.-based corporations faces long odds in Congress amid Republican obstruction and likely pushback from Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), right-wing lawmakers who have objected to corporate tax hikes.

Given the present composition of Congress, the only plausible way for Democrats to advance the global minimum tax would be through budget reconciliation, an arcane process that's exempt from the Senate's 60-vote legislative filibuster. Such an avenue would be blocked entirely if Republicans retake the House or the Senate in November.

“I am not surprised the Republicans are doing whatever they can to defend large multinational corporations, even if it means working against the interests of the U.S. government to work with a foreign government," Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, told the Post. "Their patriotism evaporates when it comes to protecting tax loopholes for multinational corporations."

Read More Here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/07/01/hungary-gop-tax-deal/