HuffPost: “The video highlights Trump’s catastrophic mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, noting how some GOP governors continue to ‘recklessly’ ignore facts and sacrifice lives ‘in the callous pursuit of votes.’
“’These aren’t leaders of a political movement, they’re leaders of a cult. And they kill,’ the PAC, founded by attorney Ben Meiselas and his two brothers in 2020, captioned the clip with the hashtag #TrumpCultKills.”
Former Republicans operative Steve Schmidt spoke with Rachel Maddow on Sept. 24 about the ominous rise of anti-democracy forces inside the shell of the former Republican Party and its march toward autocracy under Donald Trump.
Fascism is a word that gets thrown around a lot, but it specifically refers to anti-democracy movements and political parties. Steve Schmidt, Bill Kristol and many other former Republicans are sounding the alarm. Fascism isn’t coming. It’s here. This is what American fascism looks like.
Watch:
Common Dreams Op-Ed: “It’s time to be blunt. The right-wing political alliance anchored by the Republican party and Trumpism coheres around a single concrete objective—taking absolute power in the U.S. as soon and as definitively as possible. And they’re more than ready, even seemingly want, to destroy the social fabric of the country to do so.
“They smell blood in the water. They have a strong majority on the Supreme Court and a majority in the federal judiciary overall. Republicans imagine that with the aid of the aggressive campaign of disfranchisement they’re pursuing in forty-three states, they’ll take control of one or both houses of Congress next year. Mitch McConnell devised the playbook against the Obama presidency; with a Democrat in the White House, the GOP’s sole legislative agenda is obstruction, to make certain that no legislation passes, that no appointments are confirmed, to the extent of often enough forcing government shutdowns. Corporate media, punditry, and academics have obscured this Republican strategy with names implying a tit-for-tat perspective, like “partisan gridlock,” which, they lament, is causing Americans to lose patience with and trust in government.”
Washington Post: Thursday saw two major developments in the pursuit of the Big Lie: Trump successfully browbeat Texas into conducting a “full forensic” recount of votes in four counties and his sad yet bizarre audit in Arizona found another 360 votes — for Joe Biden.
Here’s the scorecard:
1. Arizona — 360 vote shift to Biden
2. Michigan/Antrim County — 12 votes to Trump
3. Georgia — 1,779 votes to Trump
4. Wisconsin — 74 votes to Biden
In other words: Democracy 1, Trump 0.
It was hard to imagine before this year that the California GOP could become more pathetic and unpopular. They’re already the smallest of California’s three voter groups, under Dems and Inds, with just 24% of registered voters. And yet, in an unbelievable act of political stupidity that took six tries in 24 months, they found a way to piss everybody off. By recalling Gov. Newsom, they wasted $300 million in taxpayers’ money and disrupted the state’s economic recovery with needless and reckless chaos.
And bonus for Californians now: Because of CAL GOP, we get to do it all again in just a few months when the regularly scheduled governor’s race begins!
Maybe John “Who?” Cox will run again.
CNN: “As the United States-backed government in Afghanistan fell to the Taliban and US troops raced to leave the country, White supremacist and anti-government extremists have expressed admiration for what the Taliban accomplished, a worrying development for US officials who have been grappling with the threat of domestic violent extremism.
“That praise has also been coupled with a wave of anti-refugee sentiment from far-right groups, as the US and others rushed to evacuate tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan by the Biden administration’s August 31 deadline.
“Several concerning trends have emerged in recent weeks on online platforms commonly used by anti-government, White supremacist and other domestic violent extremist groups, including ‘framing the activities of the Taliban as a success,’ and a model for those who believe in the need for a civil war in the US, the head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, John Cohen, said on a call Friday with local and state law enforcement, obtained by CNN.”
Miami Herald: “As cases ballooned in August … the Florida Department of Health changed the way it reported death data to the CDC, giving the appearance of a pandemic in decline, an analysis of Florida data by the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald found.
On Monday, Florida death data would have shown an average of 262 daily deaths reported to the CDC over the previous week had the health department used its former reporting system, the Herald analysis showed. Instead, the Monday update from Florida showed just 46 ‘new deaths’ per day over the previous seven days.”
Open Secrets: “On Friday, the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol sent letters requesting information from 15 social media companies. On Aug. 25, the select committee sent requests to federal agencies for records related to the riot.
“The letters ask agencies from the National Archives and Records Administration to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice to expedite the gathering of the records, asking for information within two-weeks.
“The House subpoena names Caroline Wren, a veteran GOP fundraiser who received at least $170,000 from the Trump political operation as the campaign’s national finance consultant with the joint fundraising committee. Wren was listed as a “VIP Advisor” on the permit granted by the National Park Service for the Jan. 6 rally…”
“But since Trump’s campaign and joint fundraising committee funneled millions of dollars through layers of opaque firms and shell companies where the ultimate payee is hidden, the public may never know the full extent of the Trump campaign’s payments to organizers involved in the protests. “
From the O’Dwyer’s newsletter op-ed section:
The Brooklyn filmmaker had featured 9/11 conspiracy theorists in the final installment of his four-part “NYC Epicenters 9/11-2021 ½” series to be aired next month on HBO.
He interviewed members of the nutjob “Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth” group, which spread the garbage that the World Trade Center was destroyed by controlled demolition and not by aircraft.
In giving them facetime, Lee justified the group. He then set up a false equivalency situation by including interviews with scientists who trashed the notion that 9/11 was an insider job.
The Architects and scientists shouldn’t be on the same set, Spike
The filmmaker defended his work, telling the New York Times on Aug. 23 that he survived past criticism of his films “Do the Right Thing” (racist), “Mo’ Better Blues” (antisemitic) and “She’s Gotta Have It” (misogynist).
He said it was up to viewers to make up their minds about 9/11. After reviewers hammered Lee for showcasing the 9/11 debunkers, Lee caved and is re-editing the last episode.
How out of touch could Spike be?
His endorsement of the 9/11 conspiracy spreaders is a boost to those who deny the results of the 2020 election and safety of the COVID-19 vaccines.
Does Lee want to be a leader in the army of truth-deniers that is ripping the nation apart? One wonders if Lee has gotten his COVID-19 shot, or is that going to be part of his next documentary?
HBO also doesn’t emerge from the Epicenters mess smelling like a rose.
He once was THE guy to schmooze,
Back before the Trump election ruse.
“America’s Mayor” after 9/11 —
He was in reputation heaven,
But now Rudi Giuliani’s been banned from Fox News.
