Comments by "Voix de la raison" (@voixdelaraison593) on "Newsmax"
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The Ultra Conservative New York Post gave Trump a blistering rebuke demanding that he grow up and accept his loss to President-elect Joe Biden and stop falsely claiming that mass voter fraud had marred the results — an effort the paper labeled a “dark charade.”
“We understand, Mr. President, that you’re angry that you lost,” the editorial board wrote. “But to continue down this road is treasonous.”
Under the headline “Stop the insanity,” the conservative tabloid took particular aim at Trump’s attempts to pressure Vice President Pence and congressional Republicans to somehow Throwout the result when they meet on Jan. 6 to certify Biden’s electoral college victory.
“You have tweeted that, as long as Republicans have ‘courage,’ they can overturn the results and give you four more years in office,” the Post wrote. “In other words, you’re cheering for an undemocratic coup.”
The article also reminded Trump that he had clearly failed in his attempts to prove voter fraud propelled Biden to victory.
“You had every right to investigate the election. But let’s be clear: Those efforts have found nothing,” the Post wrote, noting that Trump-backed recounts in Wisconsin and Georgia had turned up no evidence of malfeasance.
The editorial also lashed out at Sidney Powell, whose “Kraken” lawsuits seeking to overturn the election results have repeatedly been tossed out of court, and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who has floated the idea of declaring martial law to keep Trump in power.
“Michael Flynn suggesting martial law is tantamount to treason. It is beyond shameful.”
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Republicans are blaming renewable energy, when it’s the state’s powerful deregulated utilities that failed to prepare for the worst.Texans are also furious about how their state’s ruinous laissez-faire governance led to a cascade of human-caused disasters of epic. In general, there’s a natural gas storage problem in Texas. Utility companies didn’t bother to have gas reserves: It’s easier, cheaper and more profitable to tap the gas in the field with a pipeline.
After a cold snap in 2011, the power companies were supposed to better winterize their plants. Ten years later, they hadn’t done it. It’s hard to believe they couldn’t afford it: Oncor, the giant power utility serving Dallas, reported $651 million in net income in 2019.
As the cold froze Oklahoma and sent temperatures in Dallas to lows not seen in over a century, the natural gas industry were unable to deliver more gas even if it was purchased. Wellheads in the Permian Basin froze solid. Pipelines leaked water, which, in turn, turned metal and gas into useless, immovable ice.
The crisis dates back to the 1930s, when the Federal Power Commission gained the authority to regulate interstate transmission of electric power. But politicians in Texas didn’t want Washington regulating the electricity business and chipping away at those hefty profits.
So the business went entirely unregulated until the formation of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) in the 1970s. But ERCOT has been anything but reliable. While it is technically overseen by the state, its board is really just an industry club. Several of its members don’t even live in Texas.
After taking a beating on Twitter, Mr. Abbott tried to blame the renewable energy industry, a talking point that caught fire among conservatives. Renewables like wind and solar can contribute up to 20 percent of the Texas power grid, but just 7 percent of the winter grid, with 80 percent coming from natural gas, coal and a bit of nuclear power. While some wind turbines in Texas froze, many of them kept turning.
Yet another example of Fakenews- media spewing Propaganda.
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U.S. authorities have leveled the first conspiracy charge against a leader of an extremist group in the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, arresting an Oath Keeper who is accused of plotting to disrupt the electoral vote confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory and proposing further assaults on state capitols.
Thomas Edward Caldwell, 66, of Clarke County, Va., was taken into custody before 7 a.m. on four federal counts, including conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States in the attack on the Capitol. The conspiracy charge is reserved for offenses interfering with or obstructing the lawful operation of government.
A charging affidavit says he helped organize a group of eight to 10 individuals, including self-styled Ohio militia members apprehended Sunday, who wore helmets and military-style gear and were seen moving purposefully toward the top of the Capitol steps and leading the move against police lines.
Separately, charges were unsealed Wednesday accusing a Queens man who worked in the state court system of making threats to murder Democratic politicians, including suggesting another attack on the Capitol timed to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration Wednesday.
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“There’s Nothing Left, I no longer recognize my party”
Why Hundreds of Thousands of Republicans Are Leaving the Party
Voting registration data indicates a strong and unusual flight from the G.O.P. since the Capitol riot, with an intensely fluid period in American politics now underway.
In the days and weeks after the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, hundreds of thousands of Republicans left the party. After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations.
In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.
An analysis of January voting records found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data (19 states do not have registration by party). Voting experts say this is the start of a particularly damaging period for G.O.P. registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.
Among those who recently left the party are Juan Nunez, 56, an Army veteran in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He said he had long felt that the difference between the United States and many other countries was that campaign-season fighting ended on Election Day, when all sides would peacefully accept the result. The Jan. 6 riot changed that, he said.
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WE NOW HAVE EVIDENCE OF VOTER FRAUD AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT:
Mark Meadows, Trump’s last White House chief of staff, registered to vote in September of that year, listing his domicile as a rusty old mobile home in Scaly Mountain, N.C.
It seems, however, that he never bothered to live there. Voter registration forms, require you to list “where you physically live,” which one signs “under penalty of perjury.” But at the time of his registration, Meadows lived at his home near Washington, D.C.. The rules seem clear enough even for Meadows.
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Trump: Campaign shifted money into indebted private business, Forbes
Trump has shifted money raised from campaign donors into the Trump Organization, according to documents from the Federal Election Committee (FEC) seen by Forbes.
He moved around $2.8 million into his private businesses throughout the duration of his presidency, Forbes's Dan Alexander reported.
Trump funneled an additional $81,000 into the Trump Organization after his election loss, the magazine said.
The payments were made public in the filings the campaign submitted to the FEC and were liest to cover costs including rent, airfare, lodging, and other expenses.
One of the campaign's joint-fundraising committees, associated with the Republican Party, also moved an estimated $4.3 million of donor money into his private business during his presidential term, according to Forbes.
Read more: 10 huge hits to Trump's business from the pandemic that may be permanent.
The joint-fundraising committee also paid around $300,000 towards Trump's hotel chain in the week following the former president's election loss, the Independent reported.
Around $40,000 was handed over from the campaign to Trump Tower Commercial LLC, a company which the former president owns a stake in, in December, the paper said.
This isn't the first time it has been reported that Trump transferred campaign money to his private businesses.
In July, The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold reported that Trump's campaign sent nearly $400,000 to the Trump Organization in just two days.
Documents showed that the campaign channeled $380,000 to the president's personal business in 43 transactions, Fahrenthold said.
This comes when the former president is said to be looking for ways to cash in on his post-presidency to address potentially huge debt.
The Trump Organization owes $400 million, according to Forbes.
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What is happening is not a coup, or even an attempt at a coup but a ham-handed effort to discredit the election outcome by any crackpot method available to sooth Trump’s ego. Scholars of real coups in other countries say that Trump has few of the ingredients necessary to pull off a coup — the international community despises him, the nation’s main media is still independent, an the armed forces think Trump is a joke. However, Trump is set to successfully pursue a slow-motion “con game,” pleading for donations by playing his supporters. He’s also crafting a “Stab in the Back” myth in hopes of returning to the WH in 2024.There is a fundamental difference between between a coup and a con. A coup is an illegitimate power grab by force. A con is a mostly criminal, unethical, or manipulative act. A con can become a coup if the con is successful — if enough people buy into the con then a Coup has occurred.
Though Trump will fail in his coup - this time - the fact that his fellow Republicans tacitly approved of his methods, or looked the other way dramatically weakens our Democratic Institutions. As Trump continues to spew crazy conspiracies, half truths, and outright lies more and more Republican voters will drift into delusion and violence.
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The Ultra Conservative New York Post gave Trump a blistering rebuke demanding that he grow up and accept his loss to President-elect Joe Biden and stop falsely claiming that mass voter fraud had marred the results — an effort the paper labeled a “dark charade.”
“We understand, Mr. President, that you’re angry that you lost,” the editorial board wrote. “But to continue down this road is treasonous.”
Under the headline “Stop the insanity,” the conservative tabloid took particular aim at Trump’s attempts to pressure Vice President Pence and congressional Republicans to somehow Throwout the result when they meet on Jan. 6 to certify Biden’s electoral college victory.
“You have tweeted that, as long as Republicans have ‘courage,’ they can overturn the results and give you four more years in office,” the Post wrote. “In other words, you’re cheering for an undemocratic coup.”
The article also reminded Trump that he had clearly failed in his attempts to prove voter fraud propelled Biden to victory.
“You had every right to investigate the election. But let’s be clear: Those efforts have found nothing,” the Post wrote, noting that Trump-backed recounts in Wisconsin and Georgia had turned up no evidence of malfeasance.
The editorial also lashed out at Sidney Powell, whose “Kraken” lawsuits seeking to overturn the election results have repeatedly been tossed out of court, and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who has floated the idea of declaring martial law to keep Trump in power.
“Michael Flynn suggesting martial law is tantamount to treason. It is shameful.”
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TREASONOUS TRUMP PARDONS THE WHO’S WHO OF SWAMP CREATURES
Trump used his pardon power to help his supporters, fundraisers, and those that committed crimes for him.
The latest round of pardons and commutations — 143 in total — followed dozens last month, when Mr. Trump pardoned associates like Paul Manafort and Roger J. Stone Jr., and four Blackwater guards convicted in connection with the killing of Iraqi civilians.
* Stephen K. Bannon, his former chief strategist. Bannon was headed to jail for stealing $1 million dollars from a Build the Wall Charity promoted by Bannon and Don Jr.
* Elliott Broidy, Trump’s top fund-raisers in 2016. Mr. Broidy pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to violate foreign lobbying laws as part of a covert campaign to influence the Trump administration on behalf of the Chinese Government. Mr. Brody accepted $9 million from the Chinese to lobby Trump. After Mr. Trump’s victory, Mr. Broidy aggressively promoted his connections to the new administration to politicians, business executives and governments around the world. A defense company he owns won big contracts from the United Arab Emirates and Angola. And Mr. Broidy discussed the possibility of a visit to Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private resort in Florida, for an Angolan politician from whom he was seeking to collect additional payments. He also was involved along with several others — including the lawyer of Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner — in what prosecutors described as a scheme to offer a bribe in exchange for clemency for a convicted tax criminal, according to court documents unsealed in December.
* Rick Renzi, Republican, was sentenced in 2013 to 3 years in jail for a bribery scheme involving an Arizona land swap deal.
* Robert Hayes, GOP Chairman NC, pleaded guilty in 2019 to lying to the F.B.I. about a bribery scandal involving a state insurance commissioner donating $2 million towards his reelection campaign — in exchange for the removal of another official involved in the regulation of GOP donor and co-defendant Greg Lindberg’s private-equity company.
* Randall “Duke” Cunningham, Republican, who pleaded guilty in 2005 to taking $2.4 million in bribes from military
* M. Kilpatrick, a former Detroit mayor who was convicted in 2013 for using his office to enrich himself and his family through shakedowns, kickbacks and bid-rigging schemes.
* William T. Walters, a wealthy sports gambler convicted on charges related to his role in an insider-trading scheme. Mr. Walters hired Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer John M. Dowd in 2018. Mr. Dowd bragged to Mr. Walters and others that he could help them receive a pardon because of his close relationship with the president.
* Paul Erickson, Republican Influence Peddler and former boyfriend of the Russian operative Maria Butina. Mr. Erickson was convicted last July of wire fraud and money laundering and sentenced to 84 months in prison on charges that related to his work in 2017 on a business deal in the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota.
* Dr. Salomon E. Melgen, who ran a series of clinics in Florida that fraudulently told Medicare patients that they had eye diseases and then performed medically unnecessary tests and procedures, falsely billing the federal government at least $42 million, according to prosecutors.
* Ken Kurson, a friend and associate of Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who was arrested late last year on cyberstalking.
* George Gilmore, Republican, who was convicted last January of failure to file payroll taxes for employees and bank fraud.
* Anthony Levandowski, the former Uber executive who pleaded guilty to stealing driverless-car plans when he left Google to form a company, which Uber then acquired.
* Sholam Weiss, who was sentenced to more than 800 years in prison in 2000 for racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering related to a huge insurance fraud scheme.
* Eliyahu Weinstein, who was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison in 2014 for a real estate Ponzi scheme that prosecutors said caused $200 million in losses.
* Robert Zangrillo, a Miami real estate developer who was charged with conspiring with a college consultant to bribe athletic officials at the University of Southern California to designate his daughter as a recruit to the crew team.
* Aviem Sella, a former Israeli Air Force officer who was indicted by the United States in 1987 on espionage charges that he recruited the convicted spy Jonathan Jay Pollard to collect U.S. military secrets for Israel.
Treasonous Trump loves criminals just like him.
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WE NOW HAVE EVIDENCE OF VOTER FRAUD AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT:
Mark Meadows, Trump’s last White House chief of staff, registered to vote in September of that year, listing his domicile as a rusty old mobile home in Scaly Mountain, N.C.
It seems, however, that he never bothered to live there. Voter registration forms, require you to list “where you physically live,” which one signs “under penalty of perjury.” But at the time of his registration, Meadows lived at his home near Washington, D.C.. The rules seem clear enough even for Meadows.
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The Ultra Conservative New York Post gave Trump a blistering rebuke demanding that he grow up and accept his loss to President-elect Joe Biden and stop falsely claiming that mass voter fraud had marred the results — an effort the paper labeled a “dark charade.”
“We understand, Mr. President, that you’re angry that you lost,” the editorial board wrote. “But to continue down this road is treasonous.”
Under the headline “Stop the insanity,” the conservative tabloid took particular aim at Trump’s attempts to pressure Vice President Pence and congressional Republicans to somehow Throwout the result when they meet on Jan. 6 to certify Biden’s electoral college victory.
“You have tweeted that, as long as Republicans have ‘courage,’ they can overturn the results and give you four more years in office,” the Post wrote. “In other words, you’re cheering for an undemocratic coup.”
The article also reminded Trump that he had clearly failed in his attempts to prove voter fraud propelled Biden to victory.
“You had every right to investigate the election. But let’s be clear: Those efforts have found nothing,” the Post wrote, noting that Trump-backed recounts in Wisconsin and Georgia had turned up no evidence of malfeasance.
The editorial also lashed out at Sidney Powell, whose “Kraken” lawsuits seeking to overturn the election results have repeatedly been tossed out of court, and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who has floated the idea of declaring martial law to keep Trump in power.
“Michael Flynn suggesting martial law is tantamount to treason. It is shameful.”
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Republicans are blaming renewable energy, when it’s the state’s powerful deregulated utilities that failed to prepare for the worst.Texans are also furious about how their state’s ruinous laissez-faire governance led to a cascade of human-caused disasters of epic. In general, there’s a natural gas storage problem in Texas. Utility companies didn’t bother to have gas reserves: It’s easier, cheaper and more profitable to tap the gas in the field with a pipeline.
After a cold snap in 2011, the power companies were supposed to better winterize their plants. Ten years later, they hadn’t done it. It’s hard to believe they couldn’t afford it: Oncor, the giant power utility serving Dallas, reported $651 million in net income in 2019.
As the cold froze Oklahoma and sent temperatures in Dallas to lows not seen in over a century, the natural gas industry were unable to deliver more gas even if it was purchased. Wellheads in the Permian Basin froze solid. Pipelines leaked water, which, in turn, turned metal and gas into useless, immovable ice.
The crisis dates back to the 1930s, when the Federal Power Commission gained the authority to regulate interstate transmission of electric power. But politicians in Texas didn’t want Washington regulating the electricity business and chipping away at those hefty profits.
So the business went entirely unregulated until the formation of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) in the 1970s. But ERCOT has been anything but reliable. While it is technically overseen by the state, its board is really just an industry club. Several of its members don’t even live in Texas.
After taking a beating on Twitter, Mr. Abbott tried to blame the renewable energy industry, a talking point that caught fire among conservatives. Renewables like wind and solar can contribute up to 20 percent of the Texas power grid, but just 7 percent of the winter grid, with 80 percent coming from natural gas, coal and a bit of nuclear power. While some wind turbines in Texas froze, many of them kept turning.
Yet another example of Fakenews- media spewing Propaganda.
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Republicans are blaming renewable energy, when it’s the state’s powerful deregulated utilities that failed to prepare for the worst.Texans are also furious about how their state’s ruinous laissez-faire governance led to a cascade of human-caused disasters of epic. In general, there’s a natural gas storage problem in Texas. Utility companies didn’t bother to have gas reserves: It’s easier, cheaper and more profitable to tap the gas in the field with a pipeline.
After a cold snap in 2011, the power companies were supposed to better winterize their plants. Ten years later, they hadn’t done it. It’s hard to believe they couldn’t afford it: Oncor, the giant power utility serving Dallas, reported $651 million in net income in 2019.
As the cold froze Oklahoma and sent temperatures in Dallas to lows not seen in over a century, the natural gas industry were unable to deliver more gas even if it was purchased. Wellheads in the Permian Basin froze solid. Pipelines leaked water, which, in turn, turned metal and gas into useless, immovable ice.
The crisis dates back to the 1930s, when the Federal Power Commission gained the authority to regulate interstate transmission of electric power. But politicians in Texas didn’t want Washington regulating the electricity business and chipping away at those hefty profits.
So the business went entirely unregulated until the formation of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) in the 1970s. But ERCOT has been anything but reliable. While it is technically overseen by the state, its board is really just an industry club. Several of its members don’t even live in Texas.
After taking a beating on Twitter, Mr. Abbott tried to blame the renewable energy industry, a talking point that caught fire among conservatives. Renewables like wind and solar can contribute up to 20 percent of the Texas power grid, but just 7 percent of the winter grid, with 80 percent coming from natural gas, coal and a bit of nuclear power. While some wind turbines in Texas froze, many of them kept turning.
Yet another example of Fakenews- media spewing Propaganda.
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The Ultra Conservative New York Post gave Trump a blistering rebuke demanding that he grow up and accept his loss to President-elect Joe Biden and stop falsely claiming that mass voter fraud had marred the results — an effort the paper labeled a “dark charade.”
“We understand, Mr. President, that you’re angry that you lost,” the editorial board wrote. “But to continue down this road is treasonous.”
Under the headline “Stop the insanity,” the conservative tabloid took particular aim at Trump’s attempts to pressure Vice President Pence and congressional Republicans to somehow Throwout the result when they meet on Jan. 6 to certify Biden’s electoral college victory.
“You have tweeted that, as long as Republicans have ‘courage,’ they can overturn the results and give you four more years in office,” the Post wrote. “In other words, you’re cheering for an undemocratic coup.”
The article also reminded Trump that he had clearly failed in his attempts to prove voter fraud propelled Biden to victory.
“You had every right to investigate the election. But let’s be clear: Those efforts have found nothing,” the Post wrote, noting that Trump-backed recounts in Wisconsin and Georgia had turned up no evidence of malfeasance.
The editorial also lashed out at Sidney Powell, whose “Kraken” lawsuits seeking to overturn the election results have repeatedly been tossed out of court, and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who has floated the idea of declaring martial law to keep Trump in power.
“Michael Flynn suggesting martial law is tantamount to treason. It is shameful.”
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Trump: Campaign shifted money into indebted private business, Forbes
Trump has shifted money raised from campaign donors into the Trump Organization, according to documents from the Federal Election Committee (FEC) seen by Forbes.
He moved around $2.8 million into his private businesses throughout the duration of his presidency, Forbes's Dan Alexander reported.
Trump funneled an additional $81,000 into the Trump Organization after his election loss, the magazine said.
The payments were made public in the filings the campaign submitted to the FEC and were liest to cover costs including rent, airfare, lodging, and other expenses.
One of the campaign's joint-fundraising committees, associated with the Republican Party, also moved an estimated $4.3 million of donor money into his private business during his presidential term, according to Forbes.
Read more: 10 huge hits to Trump's business from the pandemic that may be permanent.
The joint-fundraising committee also paid around $300,000 towards Trump's hotel chain in the week following the former president's election loss, the Independent reported.
Around $40,000 was handed over from the campaign to Trump Tower Commercial LLC, a company which the former president owns a stake in, in December, the paper said.
This isn't the first time it has been reported that Trump transferred campaign money to his private businesses.
In July, The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold reported that Trump's campaign sent nearly $400,000 to the Trump Organization in just two days.
Documents showed that the campaign channeled $380,000 to the president's personal business in 43 transactions, Fahrenthold said.
This comes when the former president is said to be looking for ways to cash in on his post-presidency to address potentially huge debt.
The Trump Organization owes $400 million, according to Forbes.
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“There’s Nothing Left, I no longer recognize my party”
Why Hundreds of Thousands of Republicans Are Leaving the Party
Voting registration data indicates a strong and unusual flight from the G.O.P. since the Capitol riot, with an intensely fluid period in American politics now underway.
In the days and weeks after the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, hundreds of thousands of Republicans left the party. After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations.
In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.
An analysis of January voting records found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data (19 states do not have registration by party). Voting experts say this is the start of a particularly damaging period for G.O.P. registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.
Among those who recently left the party are Juan Nunez, 56, an Army veteran in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He said he had long felt that the difference between the United States and many other countries was that campaign-season fighting ended on Election Day, when all sides would peacefully accept the result. The Jan. 6 riot changed that, he said.
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What the judge said: U.S. District Judge Matthew W. Brann, a Republican, dismissed the case Saturday, throwing it out before the Trump campaign said it had a chance to even get started. And he didn’t just close the door. He slammed it, with a 37-page ruling that at times amounted to accusing the campaign of undermining democracy.
Among the most notable portions of his writing:
• “[The Trump campaign asks] this Court to disenfranchise almost seven million voters. This Court has been unable to find any case in which a plaintiff has sought such a drastic remedy in the contest of an election, in terms of the sheer volume of votes asked to be invalidated. One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption, such that this Court would have no option but to regrettably grant the proposed injunctive relief despite the impact it would have on such a large group of citizens. That has not happened. Instead, this Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence. In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state. Our people, laws, and institutions demand more.”
• “Plaintiffs’ only remaining claim alleges a violation of equal protection. This claim, like Frankenstein’s Monster, has been haphazardly stitched together from two distinct theories in an attempt to avoid controlling precedent.” (In other words, the judge alleges the Trump campaign tried to sew up baseless accusations in the hopes the judge wouldn’t notice they didn’t have a concrete one.)
• “[Two voters who say their ballots were thrown out] have entirely failed to establish any causal relationship between Secretary [of State Kathy] Boockvar and the cancellation of their votes.”
• “Granting Plaintiffs’ requested relief would necessarily require invalidating the ballots of every person who voted in Pennsylvania. Because this Court has no authority to take away the right to vote of even a single person, let alone millions of citizens, it cannot grant Plaintiffs’ requested relief.”
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The Ultra Conservative New York Post gave Trump a blistering rebuke demanding that he grow up and accept his loss to President-elect Joe Biden and stop falsely claiming that mass voter fraud had marred the results — an effort the paper labeled a “dark charade.”
“We understand, Mr. President, that you’re angry that you lost,” the editorial board wrote. “But to continue down this road is treasonous.”
Under the headline “Stop the insanity,” the conservative tabloid took particular aim at Trump’s attempts to pressure Vice President Pence and congressional Republicans to somehow Throwout the result when they meet on Jan. 6 to certify Biden’s electoral college victory.
“You have tweeted that, as long as Republicans have ‘courage,’ they can overturn the results and give you four more years in office,” the Post wrote. “In other words, you’re cheering for an undemocratic coup.”
The article also reminded Trump that he had clearly failed in his attempts to prove voter fraud propelled Biden to victory.
“You had every right to investigate the election. But let’s be clear: Those efforts have found nothing,” the Post wrote, noting that Trump-backed recounts in Wisconsin and Georgia had turned up no evidence of malfeasance.
The editorial also lashed out at Sidney Powell, whose “Kraken” lawsuits seeking to overturn the election results have repeatedly been tossed out of court, and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who has floated the idea of declaring martial law to keep Trump in power.
“Michael Flynn suggesting martial law is tantamount to treason. It is shameful.”
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@rebeccadowney9084
ALL THESE VERSUS SPEAK OF TRUMP
2 Corinthians 11:13-15
For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.
Matthew 24:11
And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.
2 Timothy 4:3
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,
Deuteronomy 18:20-22
But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.
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U.S. authorities have leveled the first conspiracy charge against a leader of an extremist group in the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, arresting an Oath Keeper who is accused of plotting to disrupt the electoral vote confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory and proposing further assaults on state capitols.
Thomas Edward Caldwell, 66, of Clarke County, Va., was taken into custody before 7 a.m. on four federal counts, including conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States in the attack on the Capitol. The conspiracy charge is reserved for offenses interfering with or obstructing the lawful operation of government.
A charging affidavit says he helped organize a group of eight to 10 individuals, including self-styled Ohio militia members apprehended Sunday, who wore helmets and military-style gear and were seen moving purposefully toward the top of the Capitol steps and leading the move against police lines.
Separately, charges were unsealed Wednesday accusing a Queens man who worked in the state court system of making threats to murder Democratic politicians, including suggesting another attack on the Capitol timed to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration Wednesday.
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THE CRAZIES IN THE GOP
A clear indication that Marjorie Taylor Greene was more than a dabbler in QAnon was her 2018 endorsement of “Frazzledrip,” one of the most grotesque tendrils of the movement’s mythology. You “have to go down a number of rabbit holes to get that far,” said Mike Rothschild, whose book about QAnon.
The lurid fantasy of Frazzledrip refers to an imaginary video said to show Hillary Clinton and her former aide, Huma Abedin, assaulting a young girl, and drinking her blood. It holds that several cops saw the video, and Clinton had them killed.
Greene posted a picture of Donald Trump superimposed with the mother of the slain N.Y.P.D. officer Miosotis Familia on Facebook, one of her Frazzledrip fans wrote, “This was another Hillary hit.” Greene replied, “Yes it is, I post things sometimes to see who knows things. Most the time people don’t. I’m glad to see your comment.”
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THE CRAZIES IN THE GOP
A clear indication that Marjorie Taylor Greene was more than a dabbler in QAnon was her 2018 endorsement of “Frazzledrip,” one of the most grotesque tendrils of the movement’s mythology. You “have to go down a number of rabbit holes to get that far,” said Mike Rothschild, whose book about QAnon.
The lurid fantasy of Frazzledrip refers to an imaginary video said to show Hillary Clinton and her former aide, Huma Abedin, assaulting a young girl, and drinking her blood. It holds that several cops saw the video, and Clinton had them killed.
Greene posted a picture of Donald Trump superimposed with the mother of the slain N.Y.P.D. officer Miosotis Familia on Facebook, one of her Frazzledrip fans wrote, “This was another Hillary hit.” Greene replied, “Yes it is, I post things sometimes to see who knows things. Most the time people don’t. I’m glad to see your comment.”
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WE NOW HAVE EVIDENCE OF VOTER FRAUD AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT:
Mark Meadows, Trump’s last White House chief of staff, registered to vote in September of that year, listing his domicile as a rusty old mobile home in Scaly Mountain, N.C.
It seems, however, that he never bothered to live there. Voter registration forms, require you to list “where you physically live,” which one signs “under penalty of perjury.” But at the time of his registration, Meadows lived at his home near Washington, D.C.. The rules seem clear enough even for Meadows.
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The Ultra Conservative New York Post gave Trump a blistering rebuke demanding that he grow up and accept his loss to President-elect Joe Biden and stop falsely claiming that mass voter fraud had marred the results — an effort the paper labeled a “dark charade.”
“We understand, Mr. President, that you’re angry that you lost,” the editorial board wrote. “But to continue down this road is treasonous.”
Under the headline “Stop the insanity,” the conservative tabloid took particular aim at Trump’s attempts to pressure Vice President Pence and congressional Republicans to somehow Throwout the result when they meet on Jan. 6 to certify Biden’s electoral college victory.
“You have tweeted that, as long as Republicans have ‘courage,’ they can overturn the results and give you four more years in office,” the Post wrote. “In other words, you’re cheering for an undemocratic coup.”
The article also reminded Trump that he had clearly failed in his attempts to prove voter fraud propelled Biden to victory.
“You had every right to investigate the election. But let’s be clear: Those efforts have found nothing,” the Post wrote, noting that Trump-backed recounts in Wisconsin and Georgia had turned up no evidence of malfeasance.
The editorial also lashed out at Sidney Powell, whose “Kraken” lawsuits seeking to overturn the election results have repeatedly been tossed out of court, and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who has floated the idea of declaring martial law to keep Trump in power.
“Michael Flynn suggesting martial law is tantamount to treason. It is shameful.”
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What is happening is not a coup, or even an attempt at a coup but a ham-handed effort to discredit the election outcome by any crackpot method available to sooth Trump’s ego. Scholars of real coups in other countries say that Trump has few of the ingredients necessary to pull off a coup — the international community despises him, the nation’s main media is still independent, an the armed forces think Trump is a joke. However, Trump is set to successfully pursue a slow-motion “con game,” pleading for donations by playing his supporters. He’s also crafting a “Stab in the Back” myth in hopes of returning to the WH in 2024.There is a fundamental difference between between a coup and a con. A coup is an illegitimate power grab by force. A con is a mostly criminal, unethical, or manipulative act. A con can become a coup if the con is successful — if enough people buy into the con then a Coup has occurred.
Though Trump will fail in his coup - this time - the fact that his fellow Republicans tacitly approved of his methods, or looked the other way dramatically weakens our Democratic Institutions. As Trump continues to spew crazy conspiracies, half truths, and outright lies more and more Republican voters will drift into delusion and violence.
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Trump: Campaign shifted money into indebted private business, Forbes
Trump has shifted money raised from campaign donors into the Trump Organization, according to documents from the Federal Election Committee (FEC) seen by Forbes.
He moved around $2.8 million into his private businesses throughout the duration of his presidency, Forbes's Dan Alexander reported.
Trump funneled an additional $81,000 into the Trump Organization after his election loss, the magazine said.
The payments were made public in the filings the campaign submitted to the FEC and were liest to cover costs including rent, airfare, lodging, and other expenses.
One of the campaign's joint-fundraising committees, associated with the Republican Party, also moved an estimated $4.3 million of donor money into his private business during his presidential term, according to Forbes.
Read more: 10 huge hits to Trump's business from the pandemic that may be permanent.
The joint-fundraising committee also paid around $300,000 towards Trump's hotel chain in the week following the former president's election loss, the Independent reported.
Around $40,000 was handed over from the campaign to Trump Tower Commercial LLC, a company which the former president owns a stake in, in December, the paper said.
This isn't the first time it has been reported that Trump transferred campaign money to his private businesses.
In July, The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold reported that Trump's campaign sent nearly $400,000 to the Trump Organization in just two days.
Documents showed that the campaign channeled $380,000 to the president's personal business in 43 transactions, Fahrenthold said.
This comes when the former president is said to be looking for ways to cash in on his post-presidency to address potentially huge debt.
The Trump Organization owes $400 million, according to Forbes.
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The Ultra Conservative New York Post gave Trump a blistering rebuke demanding that he grow up and accept his loss to President-elect Joe Biden and stop falsely claiming that mass voter fraud had marred the results — an effort the paper labeled a “dark charade.”
“We understand, Mr. President, that you’re angry that you lost,” the editorial board wrote. “But to continue down this road is treasonous.”
Under the headline “Stop the insanity,” the conservative tabloid took particular aim at Trump’s attempts to pressure Vice President Pence and congressional Republicans to somehow Throwout the result when they meet on Jan. 6 to certify Biden’s electoral college victory.
“You have tweeted that, as long as Republicans have ‘courage,’ they can overturn the results and give you four more years in office,” the Post wrote. “In other words, you’re cheering for an undemocratic coup.”
The article also reminded Trump that he had clearly failed in his attempts to prove voter fraud propelled Biden to victory.
“You had every right to investigate the election. But let’s be clear: Those efforts have found nothing,” the Post wrote, noting that Trump-backed recounts in Wisconsin and Georgia had turned up no evidence of malfeasance.
The editorial also lashed out at Sidney Powell, whose “Kraken” lawsuits seeking to overturn the election results have repeatedly been tossed out of court, and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who has floated the idea of declaring martial law to keep Trump in power.
“Michael Flynn suggesting martial law is tantamount to treason. It is shameful.”
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What the judge said: U.S. District Judge Matthew W. Brann, a Republican, dismissed the case Saturday, throwing it out before the Trump campaign said it had a chance to even get started. And he didn’t just close the door. He slammed it, with a 37-page ruling that at times amounted to accusing the campaign of undermining democracy.
Among the most notable portions of his writing:
• “[The Trump campaign asks] this Court to disenfranchise almost seven million voters. This Court has been unable to find any case in which a plaintiff has sought such a drastic remedy in the contest of an election, in terms of the sheer volume of votes asked to be invalidated. One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption, such that this Court would have no option but to regrettably grant the proposed injunctive relief despite the impact it would have on such a large group of citizens. That has not happened. Instead, this Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence. In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state. Our people, laws, and institutions demand more.”
• “Plaintiffs’ only remaining claim alleges a violation of equal protection. This claim, like Frankenstein’s Monster, has been haphazardly stitched together from two distinct theories in an attempt to avoid controlling precedent.” (In other words, the judge alleges the Trump campaign tried to sew up baseless accusations in the hopes the judge wouldn’t notice they didn’t have a concrete one.)
• “[Two voters who say their ballots were thrown out] have entirely failed to establish any causal relationship between Secretary [of State Kathy] Boockvar and the cancellation of their votes.”
• “Granting Plaintiffs’ requested relief would necessarily require invalidating the ballots of every person who voted in Pennsylvania. Because this Court has no authority to take away the right to vote of even a single person, let alone millions of citizens, it cannot grant Plaintiffs’ requested relief.”
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What is happening is not a coup, or even an attempt at a coup but a ham-handed effort to discredit the election outcome by any crackpot method available to sooth Trump’s ego. Scholars of real coups in other countries say that Trump has few of the ingredients necessary to pull off a coup — the international community despises him, the nation’s main media is still independent, an the armed forces think Trump is a joke. However, Trump is set to successfully pursue a slow-motion “con game,” pleading for donations by playing his supporters. He’s also crafting a “Stab in the Back” myth in hopes of returning to the WH in 2024.There is a fundamental difference between between a coup and a con. A coup is an illegitimate power grab by force. A con is a mostly criminal, unethical, or manipulative act. A con can become a coup if the con is successful — if enough people buy into the con then a Coup has occurred.
Though Trump will fail in his coup - this time - the fact that his fellow Republicans tacitly approved of his methods, or looked the other way dramatically weakens our Democratic Institutions. As Trump continues to spew crazy conspiracies, half truths, and outright lies more and more Republican voters will drift into delusion and violence.
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“There’s Nothing Left, I no longer recognize my party”
Why Hundreds of Thousands of Republicans Are Leaving the Party
Voting registration data indicates a strong and unusual flight from the G.O.P. since the Capitol riot, with an intensely fluid period in American politics now underway.
In the days and weeks after the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, hundreds of thousands of Republicans left the party. After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations.
In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.
An analysis of January voting records found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data (19 states do not have registration by party). Voting experts say this is the start of a particularly damaging period for G.O.P. registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.
Among those who recently left the party are Juan Nunez, 56, an Army veteran in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He said he had long felt that the difference between the United States and many other countries was that campaign-season fighting ended on Election Day, when all sides would peacefully accept the result. The Jan. 6 riot changed that, he said.
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HOW WAS OUR REPUBLIC SAVED FROM TRUMP?
We are taught that the main function of the U.S. Constitution is the control of executive power: curtailing presidents who might seek to become tyrants. Other republics have lapsed into dictatorships (the Roman Republic, the Weimar Republic, the Republic of China and so on), but will our elaborate constitutional system of checks and balances protects us from despotism?
Trump severely tested our constitutional system with his aggressive autocratic impulses that were mostly thwarted but not by our system of checks and balances. Our three branches of government played a pitifully small role in stopping Trump from assuming the unlimited powers he wanted. What really saved the Republic from Trump was an informal and unofficial set of institutional norms upheld by federal prosecutors, military officers and state elections officials. You might call these values our “unwritten constitution”, Trump Cult Members call it the Deep State.
The courts did their job in providing a modest check on Trump’s tyrannical tendencies, such as with the dismissal of his despicable attacks on the election. But the bigger and more important failure was Congress. Madison intended Congress to be the primary check on the president. Unfortunately, that design has a key flaw (as Madison himself realized). The flaw reveals itself when party loyalty is placed before loyalty to country and its citizens. When this happens Congress will not function as a reliable check on a president of that same party. This was what happened with Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate.
When confronted with a president who ignores all rules, Senate Republicans enabled him or remained silent. They allowed acting appointees to run the federal government. They allowed him to claim a right to attack Iran without congressional approval. The impeachment process was reduced to nothing but a party-line vote. The Senate became a rubber stamp for executive overreach.
Instead, the president’s worst impulses were checked by the three pillars of the unwritten constitution. The first is the customary separation between the president and federal criminal prosecution. The second is the traditional political neutrality of the military. The third is the personal integrity of state elections officials.
If any of these informal “firewalls” had failed, Trump might be on his way to president for life. But they held firm, for which the Republic should be grateful.
The first firewall is prosecutorial independence. The prosecution function of the executive branch is not mentioned in the Constitution, and based on the text alone — “the executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States” — Trump claimed in 2017 “I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department.” But AG Barr danced a fine line between being Trump’s personal instrument of vengeance and running an unbiased Rule of Law DOJ.
The second firewall of the unwritten constitution was the U.S. military’s longstanding custom against getting involved in domestic politics. It was invaluable in checking Trump’s militaristic instincts and ability to conduct a successful coup. On June 1, as protests and counter-protests became violent and destructive of property, Trump appeared in the Rose Garden of the White House and railed against what he called “acts of domestic terror.” He said he would “deploy the United States military” if necessary to “defend the life and property” of U.S. citizens. In a subsequent photo op, he was flanked by Mr. Barr, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was clad in military fatigues. Soon, active duty forces from the 82nd Airborne Division were positioned outside of Washington.
It was an extraordinarily dangerous moment for the country. As the history of lapsed republics suggests, when the military becomes involved in domestic politics, it tends to stay involved. But two days after Trump’s rant, Mr. Esper publicly broke with the president, stressing that active duty forces should be used domestically only “as a matter of last resort, and only in the most urgent and dire of situations.” He concluded that “I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act.”
General Milley later issued a public apology for participating in Trump’s photo op. “My presence in that moment,” he said, “created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.” He added, “I should not have been there.”
Trump’s plans ran afoul not of the law, but of an unwritten rule. In a few days, the active duty troops gathered around Washington were sent home. Though briefly tested, the norm had held.
The final firewall of the unwritten constitution has been the integrity of state elections officials. Corruption of the people and institutions that set election rules and count votes is an obvious threat to the democratic process. In Russia, for example, the neutrality of its Central Election Commission during President Vladimir Putin’s rule has been repeatedly questioned, especially given the tendency of that body to disqualify leading opposition figures and parties.
The story of Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state in Georgia and its top elections official, testifies to the potential threats to an election’s integrity during a heated campaign. Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican, was loosely in charge of the vote in a state that went narrowly for Mr. Biden. In that capacity, Mr. Raffensperger was attacked and disparaged by higher-ranking members of his own party. This included such prominent political figures as Georgia’s two senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. Both demanded Mr. Raffensperger resign for no apparent reason other than his failure to prevent Mr. Biden from winning the state.
Despite the pressure, Mr. Raffensperger and the state’s governor, Brian Kemp, held steady, along with an overwhelming majority of state elections officials around the country. They have refused to “discover” voting fraud without good evidence of it. Party loyalty — at this point — seems not to have fatally corrupted the vote-counting process.
Might this welcome result be credited to constitutional design? Not really. What mattered most was the But what seems to have mattered most was the integrity of the state elections officials. Their professional commitment to a fair vote spared the Republic an existential crisis.
The last four years suggest that Structural checks can be overrated. The survival of our Republic depends as much, if not more, on the virtue of those in government, particularly the upholding of norms by civil servants, prosecutors and military officials. We have grown too jaded about things like professionalism and institutions, and the idea of men and women who take their moral duties seriously. But as every major moral tradition teaches, no external constraint can fully substitute for the personal compulsion to do what is morally right.
It is called civic virtue, and at the end of the day, it is this type of Patriotism that makes a Republic function.
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“There’s Nothing Left, I no longer recognize my party”
Why Hundreds of Thousands of Republicans Are Leaving the Party
Voting registration data indicates a strong and unusual flight from the G.O.P. since the Capitol riot, with an intensely fluid period in American politics now underway.
In the days and weeks after the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, hundreds of thousands of Republicans left the party. After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations.
In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.
An analysis of January voting records found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data (19 states do not have registration by party). Voting experts say this is the start of a particularly damaging period for G.O.P. registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.
Among those who recently left the party are Juan Nunez, 56, an Army veteran in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He said he had long felt that the difference between the United States and many other countries was that campaign-season fighting ended on Election Day, when all sides would peacefully accept the result. The Jan. 6 riot changed that, he said.
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Trump: Campaign shifted money into indebted private business, Forbes
Trump has shifted money raised from campaign donors into the Trump Organization, according to documents from the Federal Election Committee (FEC) seen by Forbes.
He moved around $2.8 million into his private businesses throughout the duration of his presidency, Forbes's Dan Alexander reported.
Trump funneled an additional $81,000 into the Trump Organization after his election loss, the magazine said.
The payments were made public in the filings the campaign submitted to the FEC and were liest to cover costs including rent, airfare, lodging, and other expenses.
One of the campaign's joint-fundraising committees, associated with the Republican Party, also moved an estimated $4.3 million of donor money into his private business during his presidential term, according to Forbes.
Read more: 10 huge hits to Trump's business from the pandemic that may be permanent.
The joint-fundraising committee also paid around $300,000 towards Trump's hotel chain in the week following the former president's election loss, the Independent reported.
Around $40,000 was handed over from the campaign to Trump Tower Commercial LLC, a company which the former president owns a stake in, in December, the paper said.
This isn't the first time it has been reported that Trump transferred campaign money to his private businesses.
In July, The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold reported that Trump's campaign sent nearly $400,000 to the Trump Organization in just two days.
Documents showed that the campaign channeled $380,000 to the president's personal business in 43 transactions, Fahrenthold said.
This comes when the former president is said to be looking for ways to cash in on his post-presidency to address potentially huge debt.
The Trump Organization owes $400 million, according to Forbes.
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Trump: Campaign shifted money into indebted private business, Forbes
Trump has shifted money raised from campaign donors into the Trump Organization, according to documents from the Federal Election Committee (FEC) seen by Forbes.
He moved around $2.8 million into his private businesses throughout the duration of his presidency, Forbes's Dan Alexander reported.
Trump funneled an additional $81,000 into the Trump Organization after his election loss, the magazine said.
The payments were made public in the filings the campaign submitted to the FEC and were liest to cover costs including rent, airfare, lodging, and other expenses.
One of the campaign's joint-fundraising committees, associated with the Republican Party, also moved an estimated $4.3 million of donor money into his private business during his presidential term, according to Forbes.
Read more: 10 huge hits to Trump's business from the pandemic that may be permanent.
The joint-fundraising committee also paid around $300,000 towards Trump's hotel chain in the week following the former president's election loss, the Independent reported.
Around $40,000 was handed over from the campaign to Trump Tower Commercial LLC, a company which the former president owns a stake in, in December, the paper said.
This isn't the first time it has been reported that Trump transferred campaign money to his private businesses.
In July, The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold reported that Trump's campaign sent nearly $400,000 to the Trump Organization in just two days.
Documents showed that the campaign channeled $380,000 to the president's personal business in 43 transactions, Fahrenthold said.
This comes when the former president is said to be looking for ways to cash in on his post-presidency to address potentially huge debt.
The Trump Organization owes $400 million, according to Forbes.
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U.S. authorities have leveled the first conspiracy charge against a leader of an extremist group in the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, arresting an Oath Keeper who is accused of plotting to disrupt the electoral vote confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory and proposing further assaults on state capitols.
Thomas Edward Caldwell, 66, of Clarke County, Va., was taken into custody before 7 a.m. on four federal counts, including conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States in the attack on the Capitol. The conspiracy charge is reserved for offenses interfering with or obstructing the lawful operation of government.
A charging affidavit says he helped organize a group of eight to 10 individuals, including self-styled Ohio militia members apprehended Sunday, who wore helmets and military-style gear and were seen moving purposefully toward the top of the Capitol steps and leading the move against police lines.
Separately, charges were unsealed Wednesday accusing a Queens man who worked in the state court system of making threats to murder Democratic politicians, including suggesting another attack on the Capitol timed to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration Wednesday.
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Trump: Campaign shifted money into indebted private business, Forbes
Trump has shifted money raised from campaign donors into the Trump Organization, according to documents from the Federal Election Committee (FEC) seen by Forbes.
He moved around $2.8 million into his private businesses throughout the duration of his presidency, Forbes's Dan Alexander reported.
Trump funneled an additional $81,000 into the Trump Organization after his election loss, the magazine said.
The payments were made public in the filings the campaign submitted to the FEC and were liest to cover costs including rent, airfare, lodging, and other expenses.
One of the campaign's joint-fundraising committees, associated with the Republican Party, also moved an estimated $4.3 million of donor money into his private business during his presidential term, according to Forbes.
Read more: 10 huge hits to Trump's business from the pandemic that may be permanent.
The joint-fundraising committee also paid around $300,000 towards Trump's hotel chain in the week following the former president's election loss, the Independent reported.
Around $40,000 was handed over from the campaign to Trump Tower Commercial LLC, a company which the former president owns a stake in, in December, the paper said.
This isn't the first time it has been reported that Trump transferred campaign money to his private businesses.
In July, The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold reported that Trump's campaign sent nearly $400,000 to the Trump Organization in just two days.
Documents showed that the campaign channeled $380,000 to the president's personal business in 43 transactions, Fahrenthold said.
This comes when the former president is said to be looking for ways to cash in on his post-presidency to address potentially huge debt.
The Trump Organization owes $400 million, according to Forbes.
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“There’s Nothing Left, I no longer recognize my party”
Why Hundreds of Thousands of Republicans Are Leaving the Party
Voting registration data indicates a strong and unusual flight from the G.O.P. since the Capitol riot, with an intensely fluid period in American politics now underway.
In the days and weeks after the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, hundreds of thousands of Republicans left the party. After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations.
In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.
An analysis of January voting records found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data (19 states do not have registration by party). Voting experts say this is the start of a particularly damaging period for G.O.P. registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.
Among those who recently left the party are Juan Nunez, 56, an Army veteran in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He said he had long felt that the difference between the United States and many other countries was that campaign-season fighting ended on Election Day, when all sides would peacefully accept the result. The Jan. 6 riot changed that, he said.
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“There’s Nothing Left, I no longer recognize my party”
Why Hundreds of Thousands of Republicans Are Leaving the Party
Voting registration data indicates a strong and unusual flight from the G.O.P. since the Capitol riot, with an intensely fluid period in American politics now underway.
In the days and weeks after the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, hundreds of thousands of Republicans left the party. After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations.
In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.
An analysis of January voting records found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data (19 states do not have registration by party). Voting experts say this is the start of a particularly damaging period for G.O.P. registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.
Among those who recently left the party are Juan Nunez, 56, an Army veteran in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He said he had long felt that the difference between the United States and many other countries was that campaign-season fighting ended on Election Day, when all sides would peacefully accept the result. The Jan. 6 riot changed that, he said.
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@smileysmultimedia
Treasonous Trump is the very Antithesis of a vessel of God, and has more in common with an Antichrist type figure. Treasonous Trump is nor more likely to be a vessel of God than Osama Bin Ladin was. In truth, Treasonous Trump is exactly the type of leader who have historically led Christians astray by appealing to their darker natures. Within every Christian their are two voices competing for attention. The first voice would have you engage in prejudice, judgement, and subjugation in a misguided service to God. These are the voices that brought us the torture of “heretics”, the burning of witches, the inquisition, and the European Religious Wars. The second voice is the one of Jesus who speaks of love, acceptance, inclusion, and enlightenment. Treasonous Trump is yet another dark force that we were forwarded about:
1 John 4:1-6
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. ...
2 Corinthians 11:13-15
For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.
Jeremiah 23:16
Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord.
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“There’s Nothing Left, I no longer recognize my party”
Why Hundreds of Thousands of Republicans Are Leaving the Party
Voting registration data indicates a strong and unusual flight from the G.O.P. since the Capitol riot, with an intensely fluid period in American politics now underway.
In the days and weeks after the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, hundreds of thousands of Republicans left the party. After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations.
In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.
An analysis of January voting records found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data (19 states do not have registration by party). Voting experts say this is the start of a particularly damaging period for G.O.P. registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.
Among those who recently left the party are Juan Nunez, 56, an Army veteran in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He said he had long felt that the difference between the United States and many other countries was that campaign-season fighting ended on Election Day, when all sides would peacefully accept the result. The Jan. 6 riot changed that, he said.
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The Ultra Conservative New York Post gave Trump a blistering rebuke demanding that he grow up and accept his loss to President-elect Joe Biden and stop falsely claiming that mass voter fraud had marred the results — an effort the paper labeled a “dark charade.”
“We understand, Mr. President, that you’re angry that you lost,” the editorial board wrote. “But to continue down this road is treasonous.”
Under the headline “Stop the insanity,” the conservative tabloid took particular aim at Trump’s attempts to pressure Vice President Pence and congressional Republicans to somehow Throwout the result when they meet on Jan. 6 to certify Biden’s electoral college victory.
“You have tweeted that, as long as Republicans have ‘courage,’ they can overturn the results and give you four more years in office,” the Post wrote. “In other words, you’re cheering for an undemocratic coup.”
The article also reminded Trump that he had clearly failed in his attempts to prove voter fraud propelled Biden to victory.
“You had every right to investigate the election. But let’s be clear: Those efforts have found nothing,” the Post wrote, noting that Trump-backed recounts in Wisconsin and Georgia had turned up no evidence of malfeasance.
The editorial also lashed out at Sidney Powell, whose “Kraken” lawsuits seeking to overturn the election results have repeatedly been tossed out of court, and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who has floated the idea of declaring martial law to keep Trump in power.
“Michael Flynn suggesting martial law is tantamount to treason. It is beyond shameful.”
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What is happening is not a coup, or even an attempt at a coup but a ham-handed effort to discredit the election outcome by any crackpot method available to sooth Trump’s ego. Scholars of real coups in other countries say that Trump has few of the ingredients necessary to pull off a coup — the international community despises him, the nation’s main media is still independent, an the armed forces think Trump is a joke. However, Trump is set to successfully pursue a slow-motion “con game,” pleading for donations by playing his supporters. He’s also crafting a “Stab in the Back” myth in hopes of returning to the WH in 2024.There is a fundamental difference between between a coup and a con. A coup is an illegitimate power grab by force. A con is a mostly criminal, unethical, or manipulative act. A con can become a coup if the con is successful — if enough people buy into the con then a Coup has occurred.
Though Trump will fail in his coup - this time - the fact that his fellow Republicans tacitly approved of his methods, or looked the other way dramatically weakens our Democratic Institutions. As Trump continues to spew crazy conspiracies, half truths, and outright lies more and more Republican voters will drift into delusion and violence.
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“There’s Nothing Left, I no longer recognize my party”
Why Hundreds of Thousands of Republicans Are Leaving the Party
Voting registration data indicates a strong and unusual flight from the G.O.P. since the Capitol riot, with an intensely fluid period in American politics now underway.
In the days and weeks after the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, hundreds of thousands of Republicans left the party. After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations.
In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.
An analysis of January voting records found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data (19 states do not have registration by party). Voting experts say this is the start of a particularly damaging period for G.O.P. registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.
Among those who recently left the party are Juan Nunez, 56, an Army veteran in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He said he had long felt that the difference between the United States and many other countries was that campaign-season fighting ended on Election Day, when all sides would peacefully accept the result. The Jan. 6 riot changed that, he said.
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“There’s Nothing Left, I no longer recognize my party”
Why Hundreds of Thousands of Republicans Are Leaving the Party
Voting registration data indicates a strong and unusual flight from the G.O.P. since the Capitol riot, with an intensely fluid period in American politics now underway.
In the days and weeks after the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, hundreds of thousands of Republicans left the party. After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations.
In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.
An analysis of January voting records found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data (19 states do not have registration by party). Voting experts say this is the start of a particularly damaging period for G.O.P. registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.
Among those who recently left the party are Juan Nunez, 56, an Army veteran in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He said he had long felt that the difference between the United States and many other countries was that campaign-season fighting ended on Election Day, when all sides would peacefully accept the result. The Jan. 6 riot changed that, he said.
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Republicans are blaming renewable energy, when it’s the state’s powerful deregulated utilities that failed to prepare for the worst.Texans are also furious about how their state’s ruinous laissez-faire governance led to a cascade of human-caused disasters of epic. In general, there’s a natural gas storage problem in Texas. Utility companies didn’t bother to have gas reserves: It’s easier, cheaper and more profitable to tap the gas in the field with a pipeline.
After a cold snap in 2011, the power companies were supposed to better winterize their plants. Ten years later, they hadn’t done it. It’s hard to believe they couldn’t afford it: Oncor, the giant power utility serving Dallas, reported $651 million in net income in 2019.
As the cold froze Oklahoma and sent temperatures in Dallas to lows not seen in over a century, the natural gas industry were unable to deliver more gas even if it was purchased. Wellheads in the Permian Basin froze solid. Pipelines leaked water, which, in turn, turned metal and gas into useless, immovable ice.
The crisis dates back to the 1930s, when the Federal Power Commission gained the authority to regulate interstate transmission of electric power. But politicians in Texas didn’t want Washington regulating the electricity business and chipping away at those hefty profits.
So the business went entirely unregulated until the formation of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) in the 1970s. But ERCOT has been anything but reliable. While it is technically overseen by the state, its board is really just an industry club. Several of its members don’t even live in Texas.
After taking a beating on Twitter, Mr. Abbott tried to blame the renewable energy industry, a talking point that caught fire among conservatives. Renewables like wind and solar can contribute up to 20 percent of the Texas power grid, but just 7 percent of the winter grid, with 80 percent coming from natural gas, coal and a bit of nuclear power. While some wind turbines in Texas froze, many of them kept turning.
Yet another example of Fakenews- media spewing Propaganda.
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“There’s Nothing Left, I no longer recognize my party”
Why Hundreds of Thousands of Republicans Are Leaving the Party
Voting registration data indicates a strong and unusual flight from the G.O.P. since the Capitol riot, with an intensely fluid period in American politics now underway.
In the days and weeks after the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, hundreds of thousands of Republicans left the party. After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations.
In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.
An analysis of January voting records found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data (19 states do not have registration by party). Voting experts say this is the start of a particularly damaging period for G.O.P. registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.
Among those who recently left the party are Juan Nunez, 56, an Army veteran in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He said he had long felt that the difference between the United States and many other countries was that campaign-season fighting ended on Election Day, when all sides would peacefully accept the result. The Jan. 6 riot changed that, he said.
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Republicans are blaming renewable energy, when it’s the state’s powerful deregulated utilities that failed to prepare for the worst.Texans are also furious about how their state’s ruinous laissez-faire governance led to a cascade of human-caused disasters of epic. In general, there’s a natural gas storage problem in Texas. Utility companies didn’t bother to have gas reserves: It’s easier, cheaper and more profitable to tap the gas in the field with a pipeline.
After a cold snap in 2011, the power companies were supposed to better winterize their plants. Ten years later, they hadn’t done it. It’s hard to believe they couldn’t afford it: Oncor, the giant power utility serving Dallas, reported $651 million in net income in 2019.
As the cold froze Oklahoma and sent temperatures in Dallas to lows not seen in over a century, the natural gas industry were unable to deliver more gas even if it was purchased. Wellheads in the Permian Basin froze solid. Pipelines leaked water, which, in turn, turned metal and gas into useless, immovable ice.
The crisis dates back to the 1930s, when the Federal Power Commission gained the authority to regulate interstate transmission of electric power. But politicians in Texas didn’t want Washington regulating the electricity business and chipping away at those hefty profits.
So the business went entirely unregulated until the formation of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) in the 1970s. But ERCOT has been anything but reliable. While it is technically overseen by the state, its board is really just an industry club. Several of its members don’t even live in Texas.
After taking a beating on Twitter, Mr. Abbott tried to blame the renewable energy industry, a talking point that caught fire among conservatives. Renewables like wind and solar can contribute up to 20 percent of the Texas power grid, but just 7 percent of the winter grid, with 80 percent coming from natural gas, coal and a bit of nuclear power. While some wind turbines in Texas froze, many of them kept turning.
Yet another example of Fakenews- media spewing Propaganda.
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Trump: Campaign shifted money into indebted private business, Forbes
Trump has shifted money raised from campaign donors into the Trump Organization, according to documents from the Federal Election Committee (FEC) seen by Forbes.
He moved around $2.8 million into his private businesses throughout the duration of his presidency, Forbes's Dan Alexander reported.
Trump funneled an additional $81,000 into the Trump Organization after his election loss, the magazine said.
The payments were made public in the filings the campaign submitted to the FEC and were liest to cover costs including rent, airfare, lodging, and other expenses.
One of the campaign's joint-fundraising committees, associated with the Republican Party, also moved an estimated $4.3 million of donor money into his private business during his presidential term, according to Forbes.
Read more: 10 huge hits to Trump's business from the pandemic that may be permanent.
The joint-fundraising committee also paid around $300,000 towards Trump's hotel chain in the week following the former president's election loss, the Independent reported.
Around $40,000 was handed over from the campaign to Trump Tower Commercial LLC, a company which the former president owns a stake in, in December, the paper said.
This isn't the first time it has been reported that Trump transferred campaign money to his private businesses.
In July, The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold reported that Trump's campaign sent nearly $400,000 to the Trump Organization in just two days.
Documents showed that the campaign channeled $380,000 to the president's personal business in 43 transactions, Fahrenthold said.
This comes when the former president is said to be looking for ways to cash in on his post-presidency to address potentially huge debt.
The Trump Organization owes $400 million, according to Forbes.
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HOW WAS OUR REPUBLIC SAVED FROM TRUMP?
We are taught that the main function of the U.S. Constitution is the control of executive power: curtailing presidents who might seek to become tyrants. Other republics have lapsed into dictatorships (the Roman Republic, the Weimar Republic, the Republic of China and so on), but will our elaborate constitutional system of checks and balances protects us from despotism?
Trump severely tested our constitutional system with his aggressive autocratic impulses that were mostly thwarted but not by our system of checks and balances. Our three branches of government played a pitifully small role in stopping Trump from assuming the unlimited powers he wanted. What really saved the Republic from Trump was an informal and unofficial set of institutional norms upheld by federal prosecutors, military officers and state elections officials. You might call these values our “unwritten constitution”, Trump Cult Members call it the Deep State.
The courts did their job in providing a modest check on Trump’s tyrannical tendencies, such as with the dismissal of his despicable attacks on the election. But the bigger and more important failure was Congress. Madison intended Congress to be the primary check on the president. Unfortunately, that design has a key flaw (as Madison himself realized). The flaw reveals itself when party loyalty is placed before loyalty to country and its citizens. When this happens Congress will not function as a reliable check on a president of that same party. This was what happened with Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate.
When confronted with a president who ignores all rules, Senate Republicans enabled him or remained silent. They allowed acting appointees to run the federal government. They allowed him to claim a right to attack Iran without congressional approval. The impeachment process was reduced to nothing but a party-line vote. The Senate became a rubber stamp for executive overreach.
Instead, the president’s worst impulses were checked by the three pillars of the unwritten constitution. The first is the customary separation between the president and federal criminal prosecution. The second is the traditional political neutrality of the military. The third is the personal integrity of state elections officials.
If any of these informal “firewalls” had failed, Trump might be on his way to president for life. But they held firm, for which the Republic should be grateful.
The first firewall is prosecutorial independence. The prosecution function of the executive branch is not mentioned in the Constitution, and based on the text alone — “the executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States” — Trump claimed in 2017 “I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department.” But AG Barr danced a fine line between being Trump’s personal instrument of vengeance and running an unbiased Rule of Law DOJ.
The second firewall of the unwritten constitution was the U.S. military’s longstanding custom against getting involved in domestic politics. It was invaluable in checking Trump’s militaristic instincts and ability to conduct a successful coup. On June 1, as protests and counter-protests became violent and destructive of property, Trump appeared in the Rose Garden of the White House and railed against what he called “acts of domestic terror.” He said he would “deploy the United States military” if necessary to “defend the life and property” of U.S. citizens. In a subsequent photo op, he was flanked by Mr. Barr, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was clad in military fatigues. Soon, active duty forces from the 82nd Airborne Division were positioned outside of Washington.
It was an extraordinarily dangerous moment for the country. As the history of lapsed republics suggests, when the military becomes involved in domestic politics, it tends to stay involved. But two days after Trump’s rant, Mr. Esper publicly broke with the president, stressing that active duty forces should be used domestically only “as a matter of last resort, and only in the most urgent and dire of situations.” He concluded that “I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act.”
General Milley later issued a public apology for participating in Trump’s photo op. “My presence in that moment,” he said, “created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.” He added, “I should not have been there.”
Trump’s plans ran afoul not of the law, but of an unwritten rule. In a few days, the active duty troops gathered around Washington were sent home. Though briefly tested, the norm had held.
The final firewall of the unwritten constitution has been the integrity of state elections officials. Corruption of the people and institutions that set election rules and count votes is an obvious threat to the democratic process. In Russia, for example, the neutrality of its Central Election Commission during President Vladimir Putin’s rule has been repeatedly questioned, especially given the tendency of that body to disqualify leading opposition figures and parties.
The story of Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state in Georgia and its top elections official, testifies to the potential threats to an election’s integrity during a heated campaign. Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican, was loosely in charge of the vote in a state that went narrowly for Mr. Biden. In that capacity, Mr. Raffensperger was attacked and disparaged by higher-ranking members of his own party. This included such prominent political figures as Georgia’s two senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. Both demanded Mr. Raffensperger resign for no apparent reason other than his failure to prevent Mr. Biden from winning the state.
Despite the pressure, Mr. Raffensperger and the state’s governor, Brian Kemp, held steady, along with an overwhelming majority of state elections officials around the country. They have refused to “discover” voting fraud without good evidence of it. Party loyalty — at this point — seems not to have fatally corrupted the vote-counting process.
Might this welcome result be credited to constitutional design? Not really. What mattered most was the But what seems to have mattered most was the integrity of the state elections officials. Their professional commitment to a fair vote spared the Republic an existential crisis.
The last four years suggest that Structural checks can be overrated. The survival of our Republic depends as much, if not more, on the virtue of those in government, particularly the upholding of norms by civil servants, prosecutors and military officials. We have grown too jaded about things like professionalism and institutions, and the idea of men and women who take their moral duties seriously. But as every major moral tradition teaches, no external constraint can fully substitute for the personal compulsion to do what is morally right.
It is called civic virtue, and at the end of the day, it is this type of Patriotism that makes a Republic function.
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“There’s Nothing Left, I no longer recognize my party”
Why Hundreds of Thousands of Republicans Are Leaving the Party
Voting registration data indicates a strong and unusual flight from the G.O.P. since the Capitol riot, with an intensely fluid period in American politics now underway.
In the days and weeks after the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, hundreds of thousands of Republicans left the party. After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations.
In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.
An analysis of January voting records found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data (19 states do not have registration by party). Voting experts say this is the start of a particularly damaging period for G.O.P. registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.
Among those who recently left the party are Juan Nunez, 56, an Army veteran in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He said he had long felt that the difference between the United States and many other countries was that campaign-season fighting ended on Election Day, when all sides would peacefully accept the result. The Jan. 6 riot changed that, he said.
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“There’s Nothing Left, I no longer recognize my party”
Why Hundreds of Thousands of Republicans Are Leaving the Party
Voting registration data indicates a strong and unusual flight from the G.O.P. since the Capitol riot, with an intensely fluid period in American politics now underway.
In the days and weeks after the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, hundreds of thousands of Republicans left the party. After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations.
In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.
An analysis of January voting records found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data (19 states do not have registration by party). Voting experts say this is the start of a particularly damaging period for G.O.P. registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.
Among those who recently left the party are Juan Nunez, 56, an Army veteran in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He said he had long felt that the difference between the United States and many other countries was that campaign-season fighting ended on Election Day, when all sides would peacefully accept the result. The Jan. 6 riot changed that, he said.
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“There’s Nothing Left, I no longer recognize my party”
Why Hundreds of Thousands of Republicans Are Leaving the Party
Voting registration data indicates a strong and unusual flight from the G.O.P. since the Capitol riot, with an intensely fluid period in American politics now underway.
In the days and weeks after the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, hundreds of thousands of Republicans left the party. After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations.
In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.
An analysis of January voting records found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data (19 states do not have registration by party). Voting experts say this is the start of a particularly damaging period for G.O.P. registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.
Among those who recently left the party are Juan Nunez, 56, an Army veteran in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He said he had long felt that the difference between the United States and many other countries was that campaign-season fighting ended on Election Day, when all sides would peacefully accept the result. The Jan. 6 riot changed that, he said.
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Republicans are blaming renewable energy, when it’s the state’s powerful deregulated utilities that failed to prepare for the worst.Texans are also furious about how their state’s ruinous laissez-faire governance led to a cascade of human-caused disasters of epic. In general, there’s a natural gas storage problem in Texas. Utility companies didn’t bother to have gas reserves: It’s easier, cheaper and more profitable to tap the gas in the field with a pipeline.
After a cold snap in 2011, the power companies were supposed to better winterize their plants. Ten years later, they hadn’t done it. It’s hard to believe they couldn’t afford it: Oncor, the giant power utility serving Dallas, reported $651 million in net income in 2019.
As the cold froze Oklahoma and sent temperatures in Dallas to lows not seen in over a century, the natural gas industry were unable to deliver more gas even if it was purchased. Wellheads in the Permian Basin froze solid. Pipelines leaked water, which, in turn, turned metal and gas into useless, immovable ice.
The crisis dates back to the 1930s, when the Federal Power Commission gained the authority to regulate interstate transmission of electric power. But politicians in Texas didn’t want Washington regulating the electricity business and chipping away at those hefty profits.
So the business went entirely unregulated until the formation of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) in the 1970s. But ERCOT has been anything but reliable. While it is technically overseen by the state, its board is really just an industry club. Several of its members don’t even live in Texas.
After taking a beating on Twitter, Mr. Abbott tried to blame the renewable energy industry, a talking point that caught fire among conservatives. Renewables like wind and solar can contribute up to 20 percent of the Texas power grid, but just 7 percent of the winter grid, with 80 percent coming from natural gas, coal and a bit of nuclear power. While some wind turbines in Texas froze, many of them kept turning.
Yet another example of Fakenews- media spewing Propaganda.
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U.S. authorities have leveled the first conspiracy charge against a leader of an extremist group in the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, arresting an Oath Keeper who is accused of plotting to disrupt the electoral vote confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory and proposing further assaults on state capitols.
Thomas Edward Caldwell, 66, of Clarke County, Va., was taken into custody before 7 a.m. on four federal counts, including conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States in the attack on the Capitol. The conspiracy charge is reserved for offenses interfering with or obstructing the lawful operation of government.
A charging affidavit says he helped organize a group of eight to 10 individuals, including self-styled Ohio militia members apprehended Sunday, who wore helmets and military-style gear and were seen moving purposefully toward the top of the Capitol steps and leading the move against police lines.
Separately, charges were unsealed Wednesday accusing a Queens man who worked in the state court system of making threats to murder Democratic politicians, including suggesting another attack on the Capitol timed to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration Wednesday.
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“There’s Nothing Left, I no longer recognize my party”
Why Hundreds of Thousands of Republicans Are Leaving the Party
Voting registration data indicates a strong and unusual flight from the G.O.P. since the Capitol riot, with an intensely fluid period in American politics now underway.
In the days and weeks after the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, hundreds of thousands of Republicans left the party. After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations.
In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.
An analysis of January voting records found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data (19 states do not have registration by party). Voting experts say this is the start of a particularly damaging period for G.O.P. registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.
Among those who recently left the party are Juan Nunez, 56, an Army veteran in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He said he had long felt that the difference between the United States and many other countries was that campaign-season fighting ended on Election Day, when all sides would peacefully accept the result. The Jan. 6 riot changed that, he said.
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Trump: Campaign shifted money into indebted private business, Forbes
Trump has shifted money raised from campaign donors into the Trump Organization, according to documents from the Federal Election Committee (FEC) seen by Forbes.
He moved around $2.8 million into his private businesses throughout the duration of his presidency, Forbes's Dan Alexander reported.
Trump funneled an additional $81,000 into the Trump Organization after his election loss, the magazine said.
The payments were made public in the filings the campaign submitted to the FEC and were liest to cover costs including rent, airfare, lodging, and other expenses.
One of the campaign's joint-fundraising committees, associated with the Republican Party, also moved an estimated $4.3 million of donor money into his private business during his presidential term, according to Forbes.
Read more: 10 huge hits to Trump's business from the pandemic that may be permanent.
The joint-fundraising committee also paid around $300,000 towards Trump's hotel chain in the week following the former president's election loss, the Independent reported.
Around $40,000 was handed over from the campaign to Trump Tower Commercial LLC, a company which the former president owns a stake in, in December, the paper said.
This isn't the first time it has been reported that Trump transferred campaign money to his private businesses.
In July, The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold reported that Trump's campaign sent nearly $400,000 to the Trump Organization in just two days.
Documents showed that the campaign channeled $380,000 to the president's personal business in 43 transactions, Fahrenthold said.
This comes when the former president is said to be looking for ways to cash in on his post-presidency to address potentially huge debt.
The Trump Organization owes $400 million, according to Forbes.
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Republicans are blaming renewable energy, when it’s the state’s powerful deregulated utilities that failed to prepare for the worst.Texans are also furious about how their state’s ruinous laissez-faire governance led to a cascade of human-caused disasters of epic. In general, there’s a natural gas storage problem in Texas. Utility companies didn’t bother to have gas reserves: It’s easier, cheaper and more profitable to tap the gas in the field with a pipeline.
After a cold snap in 2011, the power companies were supposed to better winterize their plants. Ten years later, they hadn’t done it. It’s hard to believe they couldn’t afford it: Oncor, the giant power utility serving Dallas, reported $651 million in net income in 2019.
As the cold froze Oklahoma and sent temperatures in Dallas to lows not seen in over a century, the natural gas industry were unable to deliver more gas even if it was purchased. Wellheads in the Permian Basin froze solid. Pipelines leaked water, which, in turn, turned metal and gas into useless, immovable ice.
The crisis dates back to the 1930s, when the Federal Power Commission gained the authority to regulate interstate transmission of electric power. But politicians in Texas didn’t want Washington regulating the electricity business and chipping away at those hefty profits.
So the business went entirely unregulated until the formation of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) in the 1970s. But ERCOT has been anything but reliable. While it is technically overseen by the state, its board is really just an industry club. Several of its members don’t even live in Texas.
After taking a beating on Twitter, Mr. Abbott tried to blame the renewable energy industry, a talking point that caught fire among conservatives. Renewables like wind and solar can contribute up to 20 percent of the Texas power grid, but just 7 percent of the winter grid, with 80 percent coming from natural gas, coal and a bit of nuclear power. While some wind turbines in Texas froze, many of them kept turning.
Yet another example of Fakenews- media spewing Propaganda.
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THE CRAZIES IN THE GOP
A clear indication that Marjorie Taylor Greene was more than a dabbler in QAnon was her 2018 endorsement of “Frazzledrip,” one of the most grotesque tendrils of the movement’s mythology. You “have to go down a number of rabbit holes to get that far,” said Mike Rothschild, whose book about QAnon.
The lurid fantasy of Frazzledrip refers to an imaginary video said to show Hillary Clinton and her former aide, Huma Abedin, assaulting a young girl, and drinking her blood. It holds that several cops saw the video, and Clinton had them killed.
Greene posted a picture of Donald Trump superimposed with the mother of the slain N.Y.P.D. officer Miosotis Familia on Facebook, one of her Frazzledrip fans wrote, “This was another Hillary hit.” Greene replied, “Yes it is, I post things sometimes to see who knows things. Most the time people don’t. I’m glad to see your comment.”
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The Ultra Conservative New York Post gave Trump a blistering rebuke demanding that he grow up and accept his loss to President-elect Joe Biden and stop falsely claiming that mass voter fraud had marred the results — an effort the paper labeled a “dark charade.”
“We understand, Mr. President, that you’re angry that you lost,” the editorial board wrote. “But to continue down this road is treasonous.”
Under the headline “Stop the insanity,” the conservative tabloid took particular aim at Trump’s attempts to pressure Vice President Pence and congressional Republicans to somehow Throwout the result when they meet on Jan. 6 to certify Biden’s electoral college victory.
“You have tweeted that, as long as Republicans have ‘courage,’ they can overturn the results and give you four more years in office,” the Post wrote. “In other words, you’re cheering for an undemocratic coup.”
The article also reminded Trump that he had clearly failed in his attempts to prove voter fraud propelled Biden to victory.
“You had every right to investigate the election. But let’s be clear: Those efforts have found nothing,” the Post wrote, noting that Trump-backed recounts in Wisconsin and Georgia had turned up no evidence of malfeasance.
The editorial also lashed out at Sidney Powell, whose “Kraken” lawsuits seeking to overturn the election results have repeatedly been tossed out of court, and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who has floated the idea of declaring martial law to keep Trump in power.
“Michael Flynn suggesting martial law is tantamount to treason. It is shameful.”
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“There’s Nothing Left, I no longer recognize my party”
Why Hundreds of Thousands of Republicans Are Leaving the Party
Voting registration data indicates a strong and unusual flight from the G.O.P. since the Capitol riot, with an intensely fluid period in American politics now underway.
In the days and weeks after the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, hundreds of thousands of Republicans left the party. After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations.
In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.
An analysis of January voting records found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data (19 states do not have registration by party). Voting experts say this is the start of a particularly damaging period for G.O.P. registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.
Among those who recently left the party are Juan Nunez, 56, an Army veteran in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He said he had long felt that the difference between the United States and many other countries was that campaign-season fighting ended on Election Day, when all sides would peacefully accept the result. The Jan. 6 riot changed that, he said.
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“There’s Nothing Left, I no longer recognize my party”
Why Hundreds of Thousands of Republicans Are Leaving the Party
Voting registration data indicates a strong and unusual flight from the G.O.P. since the Capitol riot, with an intensely fluid period in American politics now underway.
In the days and weeks after the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, hundreds of thousands of Republicans left the party. After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations.
In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.
An analysis of January voting records found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data (19 states do not have registration by party). Voting experts say this is the start of a particularly damaging period for G.O.P. registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.
Among those who recently left the party are Juan Nunez, 56, an Army veteran in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He said he had long felt that the difference between the United States and many other countries was that campaign-season fighting ended on Election Day, when all sides would peacefully accept the result. The Jan. 6 riot changed that, he said.
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Republicans are blaming renewable energy, when it’s the state’s powerful deregulated utilities that failed to prepare for the worst.Texans are also furious about how their state’s ruinous laissez-faire governance led to a cascade of human-caused disasters of epic. In general, there’s a natural gas storage problem in Texas. Utility companies didn’t bother to have gas reserves: It’s easier, cheaper and more profitable to tap the gas in the field with a pipeline.
After a cold snap in 2011, the power companies were supposed to better winterize their plants. Ten years later, they hadn’t done it. It’s hard to believe they couldn’t afford it: Oncor, the giant power utility serving Dallas, reported $651 million in net income in 2019.
As the cold froze Oklahoma and sent temperatures in Dallas to lows not seen in over a century, the natural gas industry were unable to deliver more gas even if it was purchased. Wellheads in the Permian Basin froze solid. Pipelines leaked water, which, in turn, turned metal and gas into useless, immovable ice.
The crisis dates back to the 1930s, when the Federal Power Commission gained the authority to regulate interstate transmission of electric power. But politicians in Texas didn’t want Washington regulating the electricity business and chipping away at those hefty profits.
So the business went entirely unregulated until the formation of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) in the 1970s. But ERCOT has been anything but reliable. While it is technically overseen by the state, its board is really just an industry club. Several of its members don’t even live in Texas.
After taking a beating on Twitter, Mr. Abbott tried to blame the renewable energy industry, a talking point that caught fire among conservatives. Renewables like wind and solar can contribute up to 20 percent of the Texas power grid, but just 7 percent of the winter grid, with 80 percent coming from natural gas, coal and a bit of nuclear power. While some wind turbines in Texas froze, many of them kept turning.
Yet another example of Fakenews- media spewing Propaganda.
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@MsMilagrita
Mueller Report Vol I, House Intel Report, Senate Intel Report, FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA Reports. You should read them, but you won’t, because MAGA Maggots don’t Read, Research, or Reason.
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What is happening is not a coup, or even an attempt at a coup but a ham-handed effort to discredit the election outcome by any crackpot method available to sooth Trump’s ego. Scholars of real coups in other countries say that Trump has few of the ingredients necessary to pull off a coup — the international community despises him, the nation’s main media is still independent, an the armed forces think Trump is a joke. However, Trump is set to successfully pursue a slow-motion “con game,” pleading for donations by playing his supporters. He’s also crafting a “Stab in the Back” myth in hopes of returning to the WH in 2024.There is a fundamental difference between between a coup and a con. A coup is an illegitimate power grab by force. A con is a mostly criminal, unethical, or manipulative act. A con can become a coup if the con is successful — if enough people buy into the con then a Coup has occurred.
Though Trump will fail in his coup - this time - the fact that his fellow Republicans tacitly approved of his methods, or looked the other way dramatically weakens our Democratic Institutions. As Trump continues to spew crazy conspiracies, half truths, and outright lies more and more Republican voters will drift into delusion and violence.
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The Ultra Conservative New York Post gave Trump a blistering rebuke demanding that he grow up and accept his loss to President-elect Joe Biden and stop falsely claiming that mass voter fraud had marred the results — an effort the paper labeled a “dark charade.”
“We understand, Mr. President, that you’re angry that you lost,” the editorial board wrote. “But to continue down this road is treasonous.”
Under the headline “Stop the insanity,” the conservative tabloid took particular aim at Trump’s attempts to pressure Vice President Pence and congressional Republicans to somehow Throwout the result when they meet on Jan. 6 to certify Biden’s electoral college victory.
“You have tweeted that, as long as Republicans have ‘courage,’ they can overturn the results and give you four more years in office,” the Post wrote. “In other words, you’re cheering for an undemocratic coup.”
The article also reminded Trump that he had clearly failed in his attempts to prove voter fraud propelled Biden to victory.
“You had every right to investigate the election. But let’s be clear: Those efforts have found nothing,” the Post wrote, noting that Trump-backed recounts in Wisconsin and Georgia had turned up no evidence of malfeasance.
The editorial also lashed out at Sidney Powell, whose “Kraken” lawsuits seeking to overturn the election results have repeatedly been tossed out of court, and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who has floated the idea of declaring martial law to keep Trump in power.
“Michael Flynn suggesting martial law is tantamount to treason. It is shameful.”
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What the judge said: U.S. District Judge Matthew W. Brann, a Republican, dismissed the case Saturday, throwing it out before the Trump campaign said it had a chance to even get started. And he didn’t just close the door. He slammed it, with a 37-page ruling that at times amounted to accusing the campaign of undermining democracy.
Among the most notable portions of his writing:
• “[The Trump campaign asks] this Court to disenfranchise almost seven million voters. This Court has been unable to find any case in which a plaintiff has sought such a drastic remedy in the contest of an election, in terms of the sheer volume of votes asked to be invalidated. One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption, such that this Court would have no option but to regrettably grant the proposed injunctive relief despite the impact it would have on such a large group of citizens. That has not happened. Instead, this Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence. In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state. Our people, laws, and institutions demand more.”
• “Plaintiffs’ only remaining claim alleges a violation of equal protection. This claim, like Frankenstein’s Monster, has been haphazardly stitched together from two distinct theories in an attempt to avoid controlling precedent.” (In other words, the judge alleges the Trump campaign tried to sew up baseless accusations in the hopes the judge wouldn’t notice they didn’t have a concrete one.)
• “[Two voters who say their ballots were thrown out] have entirely failed to establish any causal relationship between Secretary [of State Kathy] Boockvar and the cancellation of their votes.”
• “Granting Plaintiffs’ requested relief would necessarily require invalidating the ballots of every person who voted in Pennsylvania. Because this Court has no authority to take away the right to vote of even a single person, let alone millions of citizens, it cannot grant Plaintiffs’ requested relief.”
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@MRGF78
As you may, or may not know, Trump’s #1 negotiator was Treasury Sec. Munchkin. Munchkin & McConnell clear let the House know what they would agree to, or not.
Negotiations require compromise, Democrats wanted money for Hospitals, Municipalities, Cities, and States needing COVID Relief, and direct funds to Joe Average, Republicans wanted Farmer Welfare, Corporate Tax Cuts/Giveaways, and Pork for the 1%. Both got what they wanted in exchange.
One of the things McConnell said Republicans would not agree to was $2,000 in stimulus money to Joe Average American. The most that Republicans were willing to negotiate was $600. Once again, let me remind you that Treasury Sec. Munchkin was the lead negotiator for Trump.
Now for kicks a giggles we get to see if McConnell will allow the House approved $2,000 stimulus to Joe Average. Democrats called McConnell’s and Trump’s Bluff and we will see if it becomes law.
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Trump: Campaign shifted money into indebted private business, Forbes
Trump has shifted money raised from campaign donors into the Trump Organization, according to documents from the Federal Election Committee (FEC) seen by Forbes.
He moved around $2.8 million into his private businesses throughout the duration of his presidency, Forbes's Dan Alexander reported.
Trump funneled an additional $81,000 into the Trump Organization after his election loss, the magazine said.
The payments were made public in the filings the campaign submitted to the FEC and were liest to cover costs including rent, airfare, lodging, and other expenses.
One of the campaign's joint-fundraising committees, associated with the Republican Party, also moved an estimated $4.3 million of donor money into his private business during his presidential term, according to Forbes.
Read more: 10 huge hits to Trump's business from the pandemic that may be permanent.
The joint-fundraising committee also paid around $300,000 towards Trump's hotel chain in the week following the former president's election loss, the Independent reported.
Around $40,000 was handed over from the campaign to Trump Tower Commercial LLC, a company which the former president owns a stake in, in December, the paper said.
This isn't the first time it has been reported that Trump transferred campaign money to his private businesses.
In July, The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold reported that Trump's campaign sent nearly $400,000 to the Trump Organization in just two days.
Documents showed that the campaign channeled $380,000 to the president's personal business in 43 transactions, Fahrenthold said.
This comes when the former president is said to be looking for ways to cash in on his post-presidency to address potentially huge debt.
The Trump Organization owes $400 million, according to Forbes.
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“There’s Nothing Left, I no longer recognize my party”
Why Hundreds of Thousands of Republicans Are Leaving the Party
Voting registration data indicates a strong and unusual flight from the G.O.P. since the Capitol riot, with an intensely fluid period in American politics now underway.
In the days and weeks after the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, hundreds of thousands of Republicans left the party. After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations.
In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.
An analysis of January voting records found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data (19 states do not have registration by party). Voting experts say this is the start of a particularly damaging period for G.O.P. registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.
Among those who recently left the party are Juan Nunez, 56, an Army veteran in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He said he had long felt that the difference between the United States and many other countries was that campaign-season fighting ended on Election Day, when all sides would peacefully accept the result. The Jan. 6 riot changed that, he said.
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“There’s Nothing Left, I no longer recognize my party”
Why Hundreds of Thousands of Republicans Are Leaving the Party
Voting registration data indicates a strong and unusual flight from the G.O.P. since the Capitol riot, with an intensely fluid period in American politics now underway.
In the days and weeks after the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, hundreds of thousands of Republicans left the party. After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations.
In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.
An analysis of January voting records found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data (19 states do not have registration by party). Voting experts say this is the start of a particularly damaging period for G.O.P. registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.
Among those who recently left the party are Juan Nunez, 56, an Army veteran in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He said he had long felt that the difference between the United States and many other countries was that campaign-season fighting ended on Election Day, when all sides would peacefully accept the result. The Jan. 6 riot changed that, he said.
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The Ultra Conservative New York Post gave Trump a blistering rebuke demanding that he grow up and accept his loss to President-elect Joe Biden and stop falsely claiming that mass voter fraud had marred the results — an effort the paper labeled a “dark charade.”
“We understand, Mr. President, that you’re angry that you lost,” the editorial board wrote. “But to continue down this road is treasonous.”
Under the headline “Stop the insanity,” the conservative tabloid took particular aim at Trump’s attempts to pressure Vice President Pence and congressional Republicans to somehow Throwout the result when they meet on Jan. 6 to certify Biden’s electoral college victory.
“You have tweeted that, as long as Republicans have ‘courage,’ they can overturn the results and give you four more years in office,” the Post wrote. “In other words, you’re cheering for an undemocratic coup.”
The article also reminded Trump that he had clearly failed in his attempts to prove voter fraud propelled Biden to victory.
“You had every right to investigate the election. But let’s be clear: Those efforts have found nothing,” the Post wrote, noting that Trump-backed recounts in Wisconsin and Georgia had turned up no evidence of malfeasance.
The editorial also lashed out at Sidney Powell, whose “Kraken” lawsuits seeking to overturn the election results have repeatedly been tossed out of court, and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who has floated the idea of declaring martial law to keep Trump in power.
“Michael Flynn suggesting martial law is tantamount to treason. It is shameful.”
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U.S. authorities have leveled the first conspiracy charge against a leader of an extremist group in the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, arresting an Oath Keeper who is accused of plotting to disrupt the electoral vote confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory and proposing further assaults on state capitols.
Thomas Edward Caldwell, 66, of Clarke County, Va., was taken into custody before 7 a.m. on four federal counts, including conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States in the attack on the Capitol. The conspiracy charge is reserved for offenses interfering with or obstructing the lawful operation of government.
A charging affidavit says he helped organize a group of eight to 10 individuals, including self-styled Ohio militia members apprehended Sunday, who wore helmets and military-style gear and were seen moving purposefully toward the top of the Capitol steps and leading the move against police lines.
Separately, charges were unsealed Wednesday accusing a Queens man who worked in the state court system of making threats to murder Democratic politicians, including suggesting another attack on the Capitol timed to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration Wednesday.
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The Ultra Conservative New York Post gave Trump a blistering rebuke demanding that he grow up and accept his loss to President-elect Joe Biden and stop falsely claiming that mass voter fraud had marred the results — an effort the paper labeled a “dark charade.”
“We understand, Mr. President, that you’re angry that you lost,” the editorial board wrote. “But to continue down this road is treasonous.”
Under the headline “Stop the insanity,” the conservative tabloid took particular aim at Trump’s attempts to pressure Vice President Pence and congressional Republicans to somehow Throwout the result when they meet on Jan. 6 to certify Biden’s electoral college victory.
“You have tweeted that, as long as Republicans have ‘courage,’ they can overturn the results and give you four more years in office,” the Post wrote. “In other words, you’re cheering for an undemocratic coup.”
The article also reminded Trump that he had clearly failed in his attempts to prove voter fraud propelled Biden to victory.
“You had every right to investigate the election. But let’s be clear: Those efforts have found nothing,” the Post wrote, noting that Trump-backed recounts in Wisconsin and Georgia had turned up no evidence of malfeasance.
The editorial also lashed out at Sidney Powell, whose “Kraken” lawsuits seeking to overturn the election results have repeatedly been tossed out of court, and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who has floated the idea of declaring martial law to keep Trump in power.
“Michael Flynn suggesting martial law is tantamount to treason. It is shameful.”
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U.S. authorities have leveled the first conspiracy charge against a leader of an extremist group in the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, arresting an Oath Keeper who is accused of plotting to disrupt the electoral vote confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory and proposing further assaults on state capitols.
Thomas Edward Caldwell, 66, of Clarke County, Va., was taken into custody before 7 a.m. on four federal counts, including conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States in the attack on the Capitol. The conspiracy charge is reserved for offenses interfering with or obstructing the lawful operation of government.
A charging affidavit says he helped organize a group of eight to 10 individuals, including self-styled Ohio militia members apprehended Sunday, who wore helmets and military-style gear and were seen moving purposefully toward the top of the Capitol steps and leading the move against police lines.
Separately, charges were unsealed Wednesday accusing a Queens man who worked in the state court system of making threats to murder Democratic politicians, including suggesting another attack on the Capitol timed to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration Wednesday.
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Trump: Campaign shifted money into indebted private business, Forbes
Trump has shifted money raised from campaign donors into the Trump Organization, according to documents from the Federal Election Committee (FEC) seen by Forbes.
He moved around $2.8 million into his private businesses throughout the duration of his presidency, Forbes's Dan Alexander reported.
Trump funneled an additional $81,000 into the Trump Organization after his election loss, the magazine said.
The payments were made public in the filings the campaign submitted to the FEC and were liest to cover costs including rent, airfare, lodging, and other expenses.
One of the campaign's joint-fundraising committees, associated with the Republican Party, also moved an estimated $4.3 million of donor money into his private business during his presidential term, according to Forbes.
Read more: 10 huge hits to Trump's business from the pandemic that may be permanent.
The joint-fundraising committee also paid around $300,000 towards Trump's hotel chain in the week following the former president's election loss, the Independent reported.
Around $40,000 was handed over from the campaign to Trump Tower Commercial LLC, a company which the former president owns a stake in, in December, the paper said.
This isn't the first time it has been reported that Trump transferred campaign money to his private businesses.
In July, The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold reported that Trump's campaign sent nearly $400,000 to the Trump Organization in just two days.
Documents showed that the campaign channeled $380,000 to the president's personal business in 43 transactions, Fahrenthold said.
This comes when the former president is said to be looking for ways to cash in on his post-presidency to address potentially huge debt.
The Trump Organization owes $400 million, according to Forbes.
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What the judge said: U.S. District Judge Matthew W. Brann, a Republican, dismissed the case Saturday, throwing it out before the Trump campaign said it had a chance to even get started. And he didn’t just close the door. He slammed it, with a 37-page ruling that at times amounted to accusing the campaign of undermining democracy.
Among the most notable portions of his writing:
• “[The Trump campaign asks] this Court to disenfranchise almost seven million voters. This Court has been unable to find any case in which a plaintiff has sought such a drastic remedy in the contest of an election, in terms of the sheer volume of votes asked to be invalidated. One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption, such that this Court would have no option but to regrettably grant the proposed injunctive relief despite the impact it would have on such a large group of citizens. That has not happened. Instead, this Court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations, unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by evidence. In the United States of America, this cannot justify the disenfranchisement of a single voter, let alone all the voters of its sixth most populated state. Our people, laws, and institutions demand more.”
• “Plaintiffs’ only remaining claim alleges a violation of equal protection. This claim, like Frankenstein’s Monster, has been haphazardly stitched together from two distinct theories in an attempt to avoid controlling precedent.” (In other words, the judge alleges the Trump campaign tried to sew up baseless accusations in the hopes the judge wouldn’t notice they didn’t have a concrete one.)
• “[Two voters who say their ballots were thrown out] have entirely failed to establish any causal relationship between Secretary [of State Kathy] Boockvar and the cancellation of their votes.”
• “Granting Plaintiffs’ requested relief would necessarily require invalidating the ballots of every person who voted in Pennsylvania. Because this Court has no authority to take away the right to vote of even a single person, let alone millions of citizens, it cannot grant Plaintiffs’ requested relief.”
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TREASONOUS TRUMP PARDONS THE WHO’S WHO OF SWAMP CREATURES
Trump used his pardon power to help his supporters, fundraisers, and those that committed crimes for him.
The latest round of pardons and commutations — 143 in total — followed dozens last month, when Mr. Trump pardoned associates like Paul Manafort and Roger J. Stone Jr., and four Blackwater guards convicted in connection with the killing of Iraqi civilians.
* Stephen K. Bannon, his former chief strategist. Bannon was headed to jail for stealing $1 million dollars from a Build the Wall Charity promoted by Bannon and Don Jr.
* Elliott Broidy, Trump’s top fund-raisers in 2016. Mr. Broidy pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to violate foreign lobbying laws as part of a covert campaign to influence the Trump administration on behalf of the Chinese Government. Mr. Brody accepted $9 million from the Chinese to lobby Trump. After Mr. Trump’s victory, Mr. Broidy aggressively promoted his connections to the new administration to politicians, business executives and governments around the world. A defense company he owns won big contracts from the United Arab Emirates and Angola. And Mr. Broidy discussed the possibility of a visit to Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private resort in Florida, for an Angolan politician from whom he was seeking to collect additional payments. He also was involved along with several others — including the lawyer of Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner — in what prosecutors described as a scheme to offer a bribe in exchange for clemency for a convicted tax criminal, according to court documents unsealed in December.
* Rick Renzi, Republican, was sentenced in 2013 to 3 years in jail for a bribery scheme involving an Arizona land swap deal.
* Robert Hayes, GOP Chairman NC, pleaded guilty in 2019 to lying to the F.B.I. about a bribery scandal involving a state insurance commissioner donating $2 million towards his reelection campaign — in exchange for the removal of another official involved in the regulation of GOP donor and co-defendant Greg Lindberg’s private-equity company.
* Randall “Duke” Cunningham, Republican, who pleaded guilty in 2005 to taking $2.4 million in bribes from military
* M. Kilpatrick, a former Detroit mayor who was convicted in 2013 for using his office to enrich himself and his family through shakedowns, kickbacks and bid-rigging schemes.
* William T. Walters, a wealthy sports gambler convicted on charges related to his role in an insider-trading scheme. Mr. Walters hired Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer John M. Dowd in 2018. Mr. Dowd bragged to Mr. Walters and others that he could help them receive a pardon because of his close relationship with the president.
* Paul Erickson, Republican Influence Peddler and former boyfriend of the Russian operative Maria Butina. Mr. Erickson was convicted last July of wire fraud and money laundering and sentenced to 84 months in prison on charges that related to his work in 2017 on a business deal in the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota.
* Dr. Salomon E. Melgen, who ran a series of clinics in Florida that fraudulently told Medicare patients that they had eye diseases and then performed medically unnecessary tests and procedures, falsely billing the federal government at least $42 million, according to prosecutors.
* Ken Kurson, a friend and associate of Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who was arrested late last year on cyberstalking.
* George Gilmore, Republican, who was convicted last January of failure to file payroll taxes for employees and bank fraud.
* Anthony Levandowski, the former Uber executive who pleaded guilty to stealing driverless-car plans when he left Google to form a company, which Uber then acquired.
* Sholam Weiss, who was sentenced to more than 800 years in prison in 2000 for racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering related to a huge insurance fraud scheme.
* Eliyahu Weinstein, who was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison in 2014 for a real estate Ponzi scheme that prosecutors said caused $200 million in losses.
* Robert Zangrillo, a Miami real estate developer who was charged with conspiring with a college consultant to bribe athletic officials at the University of Southern California to designate his daughter as a recruit to the crew team.
* Aviem Sella, a former Israeli Air Force officer who was indicted by the United States in 1987 on espionage charges that he recruited the convicted spy Jonathan Jay Pollard to collect U.S. military secrets for Israel.
Treasonous Trump loves criminals just like him.
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@georgehenderson7783
THE CRAZIES IN THE GOP
A clear indication that Marjorie Taylor Greene was more than a dabbler in QAnon was her 2018 endorsement of “Frazzledrip,” one of the most grotesque tendrils of the movement’s mythology. You “have to go down a number of rabbit holes to get that far,” said Mike Rothschild, whose book about QAnon.
The lurid fantasy of Frazzledrip refers to an imaginary video said to show Hillary Clinton and her former aide, Huma Abedin, assaulting a young girl, and drinking her blood. It holds that several cops saw the video, and Clinton had them killed.
Greene posted a picture of Donald Trump superimposed with the mother of the slain N.Y.P.D. officer Miosotis Familia on Facebook, one of her Frazzledrip fans wrote, “This was another Hillary hit.” Greene replied, “Yes it is, I post things sometimes to see who knows things. Most the time people don’t. I’m glad to see your comment.”
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@100percentSNAFU
THE CRAZIES IN THE GOP
A clear indication that Marjorie Taylor Greene was more than a dabbler in QAnon was her 2018 endorsement of “Frazzledrip,” one of the most grotesque tendrils of the movement’s mythology. You “have to go down a number of rabbit holes to get that far,” said Mike Rothschild, whose book about QAnon.
The lurid fantasy of Frazzledrip refers to an imaginary video said to show Hillary Clinton and her former aide, Huma Abedin, assaulting a young girl, and drinking her blood. It holds that several cops saw the video, and Clinton had them killed.
Greene posted a picture of Donald Trump superimposed with the mother of the slain N.Y.P.D. officer Miosotis Familia on Facebook, one of her Frazzledrip fans wrote, “This was another Hillary hit.” Greene replied, “Yes it is, I post things sometimes to see who knows things. Most the time people don’t. I’m glad to see your comment.”
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What is happening is not a coup, or even an attempt at a coup but a ham-handed effort to discredit the election outcome by any crackpot method available to sooth Trump’s ego. Scholars of real coups in other countries say that Trump has few of the ingredients necessary to pull off a coup — the international community despises him, the nation’s main media is still independent, an the armed forces think Trump is a joke. However, Trump is set to successfully pursue a slow-motion “con game,” pleading for donations by playing his supporters. He’s also crafting a “Stab in the Back” myth in hopes of returning to the WH in 2024.There is a fundamental difference between between a coup and a con. A coup is an illegitimate power grab by force. A con is a mostly criminal, unethical, or manipulative act. A con can become a coup if the con is successful — if enough people buy into the con then a Coup has occurred.
Though Trump will fail in his coup - this time - the fact that his fellow Republicans tacitly approved of his methods, or looked the other way dramatically weakens our Democratic Institutions. As Trump continues to spew crazy conspiracies, half truths, and outright lies more and more Republican voters will drift into delusion and violence.
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Trump: Campaign shifted money into indebted private business, Forbes
Trump has shifted money raised from campaign donors into the Trump Organization, according to documents from the Federal Election Committee (FEC) seen by Forbes.
He moved around $2.8 million into his private businesses throughout the duration of his presidency, Forbes's Dan Alexander reported.
Trump funneled an additional $81,000 into the Trump Organization after his election loss, the magazine said.
The payments were made public in the filings the campaign submitted to the FEC and were liest to cover costs including rent, airfare, lodging, and other expenses.
One of the campaign's joint-fundraising committees, associated with the Republican Party, also moved an estimated $4.3 million of donor money into his private business during his presidential term, according to Forbes.
Read more: 10 huge hits to Trump's business from the pandemic that may be permanent.
The joint-fundraising committee also paid around $300,000 towards Trump's hotel chain in the week following the former president's election loss, the Independent reported.
Around $40,000 was handed over from the campaign to Trump Tower Commercial LLC, a company which the former president owns a stake in, in December, the paper said.
This isn't the first time it has been reported that Trump transferred campaign money to his private businesses.
In July, The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold reported that Trump's campaign sent nearly $400,000 to the Trump Organization in just two days.
Documents showed that the campaign channeled $380,000 to the president's personal business in 43 transactions, Fahrenthold said.
This comes when the former president is said to be looking for ways to cash in on his post-presidency to address potentially huge debt.
The Trump Organization owes $400 million, according to Forbes.
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Republicans are blaming renewable energy, when it’s the state’s powerful deregulated utilities that failed to prepare for the worst.Texans are also furious about how their state’s ruinous laissez-faire governance led to a cascade of human-caused disasters of epic. In general, there’s a natural gas storage problem in Texas. Utility companies didn’t bother to have gas reserves: It’s easier, cheaper and more profitable to tap the gas in the field with a pipeline.
After a cold snap in 2011, the power companies were supposed to better winterize their plants. Ten years later, they hadn’t done it. It’s hard to believe they couldn’t afford it: Oncor, the giant power utility serving Dallas, reported $651 million in net income in 2019.
As the cold froze Oklahoma and sent temperatures in Dallas to lows not seen in over a century, the natural gas industry were unable to deliver more gas even if it was purchased. Wellheads in the Permian Basin froze solid. Pipelines leaked water, which, in turn, turned metal and gas into useless, immovable ice.
The crisis dates back to the 1930s, when the Federal Power Commission gained the authority to regulate interstate transmission of electric power. But politicians in Texas didn’t want Washington regulating the electricity business and chipping away at those hefty profits.
So the business went entirely unregulated until the formation of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) in the 1970s. But ERCOT has been anything but reliable. While it is technically overseen by the state, its board is really just an industry club. Several of its members don’t even live in Texas.
After taking a beating on Twitter, Mr. Abbott tried to blame the renewable energy industry, a talking point that caught fire among conservatives. Renewables like wind and solar can contribute up to 20 percent of the Texas power grid, but just 7 percent of the winter grid, with 80 percent coming from natural gas, coal and a bit of nuclear power. While some wind turbines in Texas froze, many of them kept turning.
Yet another example of Fakenews- media spewing Propaganda.
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U.S. authorities have leveled the first conspiracy charge against a leader of an extremist group in the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, arresting an Oath Keeper who is accused of plotting to disrupt the electoral vote confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory and proposing further assaults on state capitols.
Thomas Edward Caldwell, 66, of Clarke County, Va., was taken into custody before 7 a.m. on four federal counts, including conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States in the attack on the Capitol. The conspiracy charge is reserved for offenses interfering with or obstructing the lawful operation of government.
A charging affidavit says he helped organize a group of eight to 10 individuals, including self-styled Ohio militia members apprehended Sunday, who wore helmets and military-style gear and were seen moving purposefully toward the top of the Capitol steps and leading the move against police lines.
Separately, charges were unsealed Wednesday accusing a Queens man who worked in the state court system of making threats to murder Democratic politicians, including suggesting another attack on the Capitol timed to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration Wednesday.
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