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Author Topic: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2  (Read 290651 times)

Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5648 on: August 06, 2022, 03:41:13 AM »
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‘It changes my view’: Bill Barr now thinks DOJ is ‘taking a hard look’ at Trump



Former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr has modified his views on the Department of Justice investigation into the efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

CBS News correspondent Catherine Herridge interviewed Barr after the DOJ subpoenaed former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Patrick Philbin, his deputy.

Herridge asked, "do the new grand jury subpoenas suggest that the Justice Department is squarely focused on former President Trump?"

"I think it definitely is a significant event," Barr replied.

"It changes my view of what's been going on," he continued. "From my standpoint, it looked to me like the department was really focusing on the lower-level people. As you know, since the election they've been going after the people who went into the Capitol."

"And I didn't think they were paying that much attention to the higher-ups and were sort-of leaving it to the congressional committee," Barr explained. "But this suggests to me that they're taking a hard look at the group at the top, including the president and the people immediately around him who were involved in this."

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5648 on: August 06, 2022, 03:41:13 AM »


Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5649 on: August 06, 2022, 05:14:25 AM »
Hannity’s fall amid rise of The Five and Jesse Watters shows GOP moving on from Trump: analysis



The shifts in editorial focus and audience attention at Fox News may signal a shift in the direction of the far-right movement in America, according to a new analysis.

Daily Beast correspondent Justin Baragona examined the situation at Fox News under the headline, "How ‘Loyal Dog’ Sean Hannity Went From King of Fox News to Has-Been."

"During the Trump administration, Sean Hannity was on top of the world. With the ouster of his longtime Fox News colleague and nemesis Bill O’Reilly in April 2017 over sexual misconduct allegations, Hannity quickly rose from second fiddle to the most-watched host in cable news. And he stayed there for years," Baragona wrote. "But towards the end of Trump’s term, Tucker Carlson—who essentially replaced O’Reilly in primetime—supplanted Hannity as the top dog at Fox News. Conservative cable viewers seemed far more interested in Carlson’s brand of taking Trumpism’s far-right nationalism, fervent anti-immigrant rhetoric, and COVID trutherism and running with it over Hannity’s increasingly stale Trump boosterism (and insatiable Hillary Clinton obsession)."

Hannity was known as the "shadow chief of staff" during the Trump administration.

"Having already risen to a solid third place in Fox News viewership by the 2020 election, the late-afternoon panel show 'The Five' —featuring popular Fox News veterans Greg Gutfeld and Jesse Watters—eventually passed Hannity for second place in August 2021, and hasn’t looked back since. In fact, the culture war-driven gabfest has even overtaken 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' as the most-watched show in all of cable news. (Carlson’s show, however, regularly draws more viewers in the coveted 25-54 advertising demographic.)"

Watters was rewarded with the show "Jesse Watters Primetime" which quickly became one of the top five shows on cable news.

"Hannity’s show was able to claw its way to a third-place finish for the second quarter of the year, pulling in an average of 2.73 million total viewers to Watters’ 2.69 million, while beating Jesse Watters Primetime in the advertising demographic by nearly 50,000 viewers," The Beast reported. "But June and July, separately, told a different story. Watters once again edged out Hannity in total viewership in June while closing the gap in the 25-54 demographic. The following month, Watters expanded his lead in overall audience by more than 100,000 viewers and came within 13,000 of Hannity in the key advertising demographic."

Baragona also examined the shift in focus at Fox News.

"The sustained ascendancy of Carlson, Gutfeld, and Watters—more 'own the libs' culture warriors than card-carrying Trumpists—while Hannity, a member of Trump’s inner circle, continues to sink cannot be simply chalked up to a growing perception that the network is distancing itself from Trump’s cult of personality," Baragona wrote. "Instead, the most likely explanation comes from Hannity’s inability to evolve with the changing right-wing media landscape—one that has long moved into darker ideological terrain after decades of loyally defending and touting the Republican Party above all else."

For analysis, Bargona interviewed Matthew Sheffield, who was a right-wing media figure and founder of NewsBusters before growing disenchanted with the movement.

“The fundamental thing about Hannity is that he's not an ideas guy. He’s a cheerleader,” Sheffield said. “He is not a creative person. He just wants to have the same guests on all the time talking about the same things. And for the more angry, reactionary, Christian types, that’s just not enough for them anymore. They want more anger, more ambitiousness. And they certainly don’t want to hear what Lindsey Graham has to say.”

On Friday, Tammy Bruce guest hosted "Sean Hannity Tonight."

Read More Here: https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-loyal-dog-sean-hannity-went-from-king-of-fox-news-to-has-been

Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5650 on: August 06, 2022, 05:20:33 AM »
Donnie the con artist grifter is always looking for new ways to scam his sucker followers out of their money. And these morons keep handing it over to him.

Trump now asking for donations from MAGA fans to finance his lawsuit against CNN



On Friday, The Daily Beast reported that former President Donald Trump is now asking supporters on his email list to chip in money to help him fight his lawsuit against CNN.

This comes in spite of the fact that the lawsuit, announced last week, has not yet actually materialized and Trump has not taken any formal steps to initiate legal action against the cable network.

"Instead of court documents being filed, Trump appears to be more preoccupied with begging followers to send in money to 'support' the so far non-existent legal action," reported Zachary Petrizzo. "A new fundraising message sent out from the ex-president on Friday said: 'I’m calling on my best and most dedicated supporters to add their names to stand with me in my impending LAWSUIT against Fake News CNN.' 'Add your name IMMEDIATELY to show your support for my upcoming lawsuit against Fake News CNN,' the email continued, linking to a donations page."

"It was one of two fundraising messages sent out," continued the report. "Trump touting a potential CNN lawsuit comes as the Republican National Committee has said they will stop paying the ex-president’s legal bills upon him declaring his candidacy for president."

The lawsuit, which Trump threatened in a cease-and-desist letter to CNN, is demanding that the network remove all uses of "Big Lie" and "lying" from articles about the former president's crusade to overturn the 2020 presidential election. There remains no evidence to support any of Trump's claims that the election was somehow stolen or rigged.

Commentators have broadly ridiculed Trump's threat to sue CNN, with Steve Chapman writing for the Chicago Tribune, "You don’t need to have passed the bar exam to know that no one at CNN will lose sleep over his demand that the network “publish a full and fair correction, apology, or retraction” of dozens of statements accusing him of a cynical campaign of deceit. Trump is more likely to win the Olympic decathlon than to prevail in this dispute."

Read More Here: https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-begs-supporters-to-donate-for-upcoming-lawsuit-against-cnn

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5650 on: August 06, 2022, 05:20:33 AM »


Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5651 on: August 06, 2022, 05:31:17 AM »
Right wingers are once again drooling over the fascist leader of Hungary Viktor Orbán as they wamt to enforce the same fascist policies here in America. Banning abortion while forcing women to give birth even if it kills them and eliminating Social Security and Medicare is the main agenda for the GOP.
 
'No divorcing' the GOP from 'disgusting' racism and fascism after Orban's CPAC display: former party operative



On Friday's edition of MSNBC's "The Beat," Kurt Bardella — a former GOP operative and Breitbart staffer turned Democratic adviser — laid into Republicans at CPAC in Dallas for cheering on speakers openly promoting Christian nationalism and the erosion of democracy.

One of the key moments from that gathering was a speech delivered by Viktor Orbán, the strongman prime minister of Hungary.

"What is that disgusting display by someone like Viktor Orbán, on domestic U.S. soil, telling you about the GOP?" asked anchor Katie Phang.

"What you are seeing, Katie, is the Republican Party wrap their arms around autocratic white nationalist ideals and cementing that as the platform of the party going forward," said Bardella. "Make no mistake about it right now, there is no divorcing the Republican Party from racism. Every single candidate that is on the ballot with an R next to their name in November, you own this. Your refusal to speak out against it, your participation in it, the fact that you cater and pander to the audience at CPAC that is cheering on these very dangerous and disgusting ideals. You own this."

Bardella continued on, condemning Republican silence as complicity.

"It would not be hard for any member of the Republican Party to denounce what we're hearing right now," said Bardella. "Things that are repulsive, repugnant, have no place in the 21st century. Yet they're not going to do that. They're going to hide. They're going to embrace. They're going to high-five. They're going to cheer it on. Because to them, the white America that we're hearing these speakers talk about is exactly what they want to do to this country, they're not trying to hide it. They've basically taken off their hoods and exposed themselves for what they are."

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Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5652 on: August 06, 2022, 05:37:34 AM »
The forever coup: Trump’s Big Lie is the coin of the GOP realm in Arizona

This week’s primaries helped show something: The January 6 hearings may well not end the Big Lie. The Big Lie is more than Trump now, and it is more than a revisionist project about the 2020 election.

The Big Lie is now part of the culture wars, and as such it has become more diffused through our politics, more capable of enduring in myriad ways across American life. Any and all elections can now be called into question—from school board to president. Thiel-backed Senate hopeful Blake Masters, addressing questions around his own peddling of election lies summed it up by saying, “I think there’s always cheating, probably, in every election.”

His fellow Arizona election deniers — Kari Lake, Mark Finchem, and Abe Hamadeh — all have secured their nominations. Lake made waves by alleging she already had proof of fraud and tampering in the 48 hours before the primary vote, but has refused to provide any proof. She also emulated Trump by taking to the stage at her watch party at a moment when she still trailed in the vote and declaring, “We won this race, period.”

Lake is now the nominee, with all the worrying things that could portend, but her conduct in the final hours of the primary race highlight just how thoroughly embedded the logic of election denial has become. 

While Masters has taken extreme positions, the threat posed by Lake, Finchem, and Hamadeh is far more direct. If they successfully win their respective races for governor, secretary of state, and attorney general, then elections in newly swing-y Arizona would be at the mercy of a trio of Big Lie supporters. While such a trifecta is by no means guaranteed, this would be a dream scenario for the MAGA movements hardcore coup supporters in 2024.

Finchem, a self-identified member of the Oath Keepers, also offers a prominent example of the increasingly dangerous relationship between the modern GOP and extremist militias. The Bie Lie isn’t just fueling attempts at legal coups, it’s helping to propel groups that are entirely willing to engage in armed and violent actions to subvert democracy.

We live in the age of the supercharged conspiracy theory, capable of finding wider and wider audiences through new media platforms and capturing believers before they’re even fully aware of the nature of the content they are consuming.

But, perhaps more importantly, we live in the age of the fractured civic soul. Americans do not trust their institutions, and they do not trust one another. A host of politicians and activists, primarily on the populist right, have emerged to prey upon these vulnerabilities and move across the country like door-to-door salesmen for authoritarianism.

Concerns remain elsewhere. The Rust Belt states that helped deliver Donald Trump’s shock win in 2016 and were then critical to Biden’s 2020 victory have been particular hotbeds of Big Lie radicalism. In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano’s candidacy threatens to bring a firmly pro-coup politician into the governor’s mansion. In Michigan, party purges across state and local levels have elevated election deniers and alienated those who defend basic democratic accountability and transparency. Canvassers in Macomb, Saginaw, and Kalamazoo Counties, among others, have been pushed out to make room for Big Lie believers. In Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District, Republican Peter Meijer paid the ultimate price for his 2021 impeachment vote, falling to Trump-backed John Gibbs.

Across Lake Michigan, politics in Wisconsin is also turning into a stew of election paranoia and contempt. One stark example can be found in Elena Schneider’s examination of politics in Green Bay, where she noted that the city’s “nonpartisan city council races — traditionally quiet affairs that focus on taxes and roads — feature ads from a GOP super PAC questioning whether the city’s elections are legitimate…” We are no longer at a moment where the question is only whether Donald Trump will run in 2024 and attempt to manipulate or invalidate the results. We are at a point where even the most local races are vulnerable to conspiracy theorizing and attempted power grabs.

That local aspect is critical. It isn’t just in the prominent congressional, gubernatorial, and senatorial races that you can find the rot. Across America, officeholders and power-seekers in the most banal and seemingly minor contexts now plead conspiracy and theft in the face of basic democratic process. Sheriffs in states like Kansas, Michigan, and Wisconsin have taken it upon themselves to tout and even investigate election conspiracies. The deterioration of state Republican parties is clear, and so is the descent at the county level — perhaps best highlighted by the refusal of commissioners in Otero County, N.M., to certify their results of the state’s Republican primary.

Yes, many of the people above were propelled to prominence by Trump and the Trump movement — Kari Lake was, after all, once a proud Obama-voting moderate. And conspiratorial fears about Dominion Voting Systems continue to come up as a point of contention even in cases like Otero County. But the genie is well out of the bottle at this point.

Make America Great Again is so 2016, and Keep America Great is so 2020. Make America Great Again, Again is the new credo, and its redundancy is a function of its eternal quality. It’s the language of the Lost Cause, a nation having risen, been thwarted, and risen again, only to fall again to the overwhelming power of a corrupt elite and its power centers of finance and cultural production.

The term “forever war” has been popularized to describe the difficult, often flailing foreign military entanglements in which the United States poured itself during the Global War on Terror. These quagmires, the common sense has gone, led to decades of civic rot, misallocated energy, and declining reputation prestige for the country. Now, America could well be poised to endure a prolonged domestic quagmire, marked by anger, distrust, and a fundamentally anti-democratic approach to the election process.

https://www.azmirror.com/2022/08/05/the-forever-coup-trumps-big-lie-is-the-coin-of-the-gop-realm-in-arizona/

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5652 on: August 06, 2022, 05:37:34 AM »


Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5653 on: August 06, 2022, 09:39:26 PM »
Alex Jones' lawsuit verdict is bad news for the conspiracy-spewing hosts on Fox: legal expert



According to JoAnne Sweeny, professor of law at the University of Louisville’s Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, the massive monetary damages awarded to the parents who lost children at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012 as part of a civil suit filed against Infowars founder Alex Jones should serve as a warning to several hosts on the Fox News network.

On Friday a jury added $45.2 million in punitive damages to the $4.1 million already awarded to parents Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis for the trauma Jones inflicted upon them by saying the school masacre was faked.

As Sweeny points out, the atmosphere for suing over blatant lies and accusations has changed and those who traffic in disinformation have been put on notice.

According to the legal expert, "This is not only a large blow to Jones, who has already filed for bankruptcy, but to other conspiracy-theory fomenters who fill their audiences’ heads with stories of the deep state, a stolen election and a child-sex ring in the basement of a pizza restaurant," with Sweeny adding, "Jones styles himself as a media broadcaster, and the media has historically been given a lot of latitude in publishing statements that are even partially false. That latitude has helped modern partisan news sites like Newsmax and Breitbart to use their platforms to spread outlandish theories with impunity."

Among those who are already looking at pricey legal repercussions is Fox News in a defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems.

"Fox News is currently being sued for $1.6 billion by Dominion Voting Systems for Fox News’ claim that Dominion voting machines helped to rig the 2020 presidential election. The verdict against Jones should serve as a warning to the network and all the other conspiracy-peddlers out there. Repeating nonsense theories from 4chan or Reddit may not be protected free speech even if you attempt to disguise it as 'questioning known liars in the media," she wrote.

"The size of the verdict validates the strategy of going after conspiracy theorists on grounds of defamation. That’s significant because, though it has been argued that some of Jones’ activity crosses the line into outright criminal incitement, it’s much harder to make a case on that score," she added.

Read More Here:

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/alex-jones-law-suit-verdict-sandy-hook-case-scare-conspiracy-theorists-rcna41828

Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5654 on: August 07, 2022, 10:35:13 AM »
Michael Hardy @mkerrhardy

Trump's rhetoric is significantly more extreme than even a few years ago. This might be most frightening speech I've ever heard. Full-on, unapologetic fascism.

Read full Twitter thread here: https://twitter.com/mkerrhardy/status/1556064661296058368

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5654 on: August 07, 2022, 10:35:13 AM »


Offline Rick Plant

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Re: Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2
« Reply #5655 on: August 07, 2022, 10:43:45 AM »
Meadows Will 'Rat Trump Out' in DOJ Jan. 6 Probe, Glenn Kirschner Predicts



Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner predicted Friday that Donald Trump's former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows will "rat" the former president "out" to Justice Department investigators as part of the probe into January 6, 2021.

CNN reported on Thursday that Trump had been told by advisers to "cut contact" with Meadows, who is seen by some legal analysts as a potential key witness against the former president. The news organization also reported that Trump's legal team "is in direct communication with Justice Department officials" in connection to the January 6 probe.

Kirschner, who now works as a legal analyst for MSNBC and NBC News, and has called for Trump's indictment, cited this reporting by CNN in a video shared to YouTube and Twitter on Friday. He said that the former president's attorneys talking with the Justice Department was a "last ditch effort" to prevent an indictment. The legal expert also pointed to reporting by Rolling Stone that said Trump's legal team is attempting to place blame for any alleged criminal behavior on "fall guys."

"Who is one of the marquee fall guys?" Kirschner asked. "Mark Meadows."

"And do you really think Mark Meadows is just going to sit quietly by and take the fall for Donald Trump? Maybe just volunteer to dive under the bus? No," the attorney added. "He's going to cut his losses. He's going to cooperate. He's going to flip. He's going to turn state's evidence. He's going to rat Trump out. He's going to snitch."

Newsweek reached out to Trump's press office for comment.

The ex-president says that he did nothing wrong on January 6 or in his effort to overturn President Joe Biden's election win. Trump continues to also say that the election was "rigged" or "stolen" from him. He describes all investigations targeting him and his allies as part of a partisan "witch hunt."

Despite Trump's claims, no evidence has emerged showing the 2020 election was fraudulent. To the contrary, dozens of legal challenges brought by the former president and his allies failed in state and federal courts. Meanwhile, audits and recounts consistently reaffirmed Biden's win.

Top Trump administration officials and prominent Republicans have repeatedly said that there is no evidence that the election was stolen. Former Attorney General William Barr, who was widely viewed as one of Trump's most loyal Cabinet members, has called the claims of widespread voter fraud "bullsh*t."

Whether Trump will face an indictment from the Justice Department remains to be seen. Attorney General Merrick Garland has been tightlipped publicly about the investigation. At the same time, Garland has said that nobody is off limits in the probe.

"No person is above the law in this country. I can't say it any more clearly than that," he said in July. His remark came in response to a question about whether the Justice Department would hypothetically indict a former president.

Charging a former president would be an unprecedented step in the United States since no former head of state has ever been indicted for a crime. While some analysts have warned about the repercussions of such a move, Kirschner previously warned that the ramifications of not doing so would be worse.

"It's time for the Department of Justice, it's time for our federal government writ large, to take the maiden legal voyage and hold a criminal former president accountable for his crimes," Kirschner said.

The former federal prosecutor said that if Trump is not prosecuted, it would be like giving the former president "a pass." He also said it would be a pass "from everything from obstructing an official proceeding up to and potentially including treason."

"That sends the unmistakable signal to all future presidential candidates or presidents seeking to retain power after they lost the election that they have DOJ's permission to do everything Donald Trump did to either acquire power or retain power," Kirschner said. "And I don't think our nation can, you know, survive another go around of that."

Barr in comments to CBS News on Friday assessed that evidence is "building" against Trump in the January 6 investigation by the Justice Department.

"I'm sure what they're doing is getting deeper and deeper into it," the former Trump administration official said. "So, I think what Merrick Garland is trying to do here is trying to say, 'Hey look, I am looking hard at this, and if we find any crime, we will prosecute it.'"

https://www.newsweek.com/meadows-will-rat-trump-out-doj-jan-6-probe-glenn-kirschner-predicts-1731543

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