thepitchkc |Flush with ambition and cash, a newcomer arrives like a bolt from the blue. Or, in Missouri’s case, red.
He jumps a line of
aspirational politicians, lands in a statewide elected office and
immediately sets his sights on a higher target, heedless of the wreck
just up the road.
Missouri has seen this movie twice in four years.
The original performance
starred Eric Greitens, who was largely unknown before he began his
improbable but successful 2016 run for governor, only to be forced out
of office after two years, enveloped in scandal.
The sequel features Josh
Hawley. His first elected office, also gained in 2016, was state
attorney general — a job that traditionally has gone to politicians who
have spent years in the trenches of the state legislature. Two years
later, Hawley vaulted to the U.S. Senate. He is now facing nationwide
wrath for prolonging baseless doubts about Democrat Joe Biden’s election, and for encouraging insurrectionists with a fist pump before they stormed the U.S. Capitol.
Outside of President
Trump’s deep red base—whose votes and affections Greitens and Hawley
both covet—the actions of the two wunderkinds have left many Missourians
embarrassed and wondering how their state has become the cradle for
ambition gone so wildly awry.
The explanation begins with
the two men themselves, who both grew up in Missouri, went elsewhere
and returned with the intention of using the state as a launching pad
for their presidential ambitions.
Greitens settled in the St.
Louis area and founded a non-profit to help military veterans. Hawley
landed a job as assistant professor at the University of Missouri School
of Law in Columbia.
While Hawley was
conscientious about teaching his classes and meeting with students, he
showed no interest in the life of the university or the usual faculty
activities, said Frank Bowman, a professor at the law school.
“It became clear that personal advancement was the priority behind which everything else had to fall,” said Bowman.
caitlinjohnstone | President-elect Bidenpromised unambiguously
that if voters gave the Democratic Party control of the Senate by
electing Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in Georgia earlier this month,
checks of $2,000 would “go out the door immediately”. Warnock blatantly
campaigned on the promise of $2000 checks if elected, literally using pictures of checks with “$2000” written on them to do so. This was not an unclear promise by any stretch of the imagination, yet when Biden unveiled the “American Rescue Plan” on Thursday, the number 1400 was written where the number 2000 should have been.
The argument being pushed out
at the moment is that when Democrats were blatantly promising stimulus
checks of $2000 what they really meant was that Americans would receive
$1400 on top of the $600 checks they’d received earlier, and everyone
should have just known this somehow (perhaps via some sort of psychic
precognition or sorcery). Which of course makes as much sense as someone
hiring you to do a job for a given amount of money and then paying you
the amount promised minus the amount you’d made at your last job.
It’s
just so emblematic of US austerity policies, which are so normalized
they don’t even use that word. Keep people stretched so thin that even a
paltry $2000 after months and months of nothing can be spun as an
excessively exorbitant indulgence which must be scaled back to keep it
reasonable. In reality a grand total of $2600 in the richest nation on
earth after all this time would still be a huge slap in the face, but
generations of media spin have gone into keeping Americans from
attaining that level of rightful entitlement.
So
as of this writing the internet is full of angry Americans actually
typing the words “$1400 is not $2000”, which is totally bananas. People
should not have to say that the number 1400 is not the same as the
number 2000. It feels like if my Twitter feed was full of people saying
“Cars are not birds”, or “Pogs are not iPhones”, or “Mimes are not
salad”. People should not have to make such self-evident clarifications.
But they apparently do need to make such clarifications, because scumbags like Adam Schiff are looking them right in the eye, sharing information that says “$1,400 checks” on it, and telling them that it says “$2000 relief checks”.
thelastamericanvagabond |Americans appear too divided and distracted to recognize
that the architects of the Patriot Act and the failed War on Terror now
have their sights set on the American homeland.
The first week of 2021 kicked off with chaos at the Capitol in Washington D.C. Was it a protest, a riot or an insurrection? Were there provocateurs, and if so, were they Antifa, the cops, and/or the Feds? As
usual, everyone on the internet thinks they know the answer within ten
minutes. Unfortunately, this genuinely leads to the spreading of
unfounded theories – many based on nothing but speculation and emotion.
But while the public is debating over theories and arguing amongst
themselves, the newly emboldened Military Industrial Complex is eagerly
anticipating the incoming Biden Administration as an opportunity to
expand the War on Domestic Terror.
In the immediate aftermath of the “storming of the Capitol”, the
media pundits, intelligence community, and politicians began foaming at
the mouth in excitement over the chance to push through Domestic Terror
legislation. Michigan representative Elissa Slotkin, also former Acting
Assistant Secretary of Defense and CIA analyst, said, “the post 9/11
era is over. The single greatest national security threat right now is
our internal division. The threat of domestic terrorism.” Slotkin went on to say that she urges the Biden administration to “understand that the greatest threat now is internal.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) also reportedly released a
bulletin warning that “domestic extremists” are planning a nationwide
protest to stop Joe Biden from being sworn in as President. According to
ABC News, “The
FBI has also received information in recent days on a group calling for
“storming” state, local and federal government courthouses and
administrative buildings in the event President Donald Trump is removed
from office prior to Inauguration Day. The group is also planning to
“storm” government offices in every state the day President-elect Joe
Biden will be inaugurated, regardless of whether the states certified
electoral votes for Biden or Trump.”
Since the bulletin has not been publicly released the report should
be viewed skeptically. However, it’s only one of many emerging reports
and articles stoking the flames of civil war and internal chaos. The
fact of the matter is that this is not a new attempt to demonize the
American people. This current effort is simply a continuation of the
effort to label Americans as terrorists that has been taking place since
at least the mid-1990’s following the Oklahoma City bombing false flag. These efforts were expanded further after the attacks of 9/11.
In fact, as most readers know by now, it was Joe Biden who wrote the
anti-terror legislation in the 90’s which became the basis for the
Patriot ACT after 9/11.
While the “War on Terror” launched by the George W. Bush
administration was focused on imaginary enemies in Iraq, Afghanistan,
Libya, Iran, Syria, and elsewhere, there has also been a steady push to
focus on the American public. In the first years of the Obama
administration we saw the rise of the “Tea Party” movement, the American
Libertarian movement, and Liberal Progressives who opposed the war
machine, the surveillance state, and the militarization of the police.
Organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) did their best
to label activists “extremists” for constitutionally protected activism
and organizing. In 2010, the SPLC even came up with a “Patriot Hit List” of so-called extremists.
The post-9/11 era saw the creation of Fusion Centers; centralized
systems that pool and analyze intelligence from federal, state, local,
and private sector entities. The National Network of Fusion Centers was
created after the 9/11 attacks to provide for more streamlined
communication between federal and local agencies. The Fusion Centers
have been criticized as violations of civil liberties and a danger to
separation of federal and local governments. They have been exposed for
targeting of protesters of the Dakota Access Pipeline and most infamously, in 2009 it was revealed that the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) was
targeting supporters of third party candidates, Ron Paul supporters,
anti-abortion activists, and “conspiracy theorists” as potential
domestic extremists.
medium | Just
hours before White domestic terrorists would murder a Capitol Hill
police officer, smear feces throughout the sacred halls of our
democracy, break into offices, break glass, carry zip ties and
Confederate flags all to the symphony of chants of “Hang Mike Pence,”
Donald J. Trump and his inner circle stood before them goading them into
action. The president’s own disgraced attorney, Rudy Giuliani, drunk on
the high that only greed and lies can provide, told the hyped-up crowd
that there would be “trial by combat.” Meanwhile, the president told his angry mob that “you need to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
We
are at a place that is so historic in nature that the joint chiefs saw
fit to release a statement reminding those in all branches of the
military that they swore an oath not to a person but to the
Constitution.
Josh Hawley
was the first senator to break with Senate Leader Mitch McConnell when
he pledged to challenge the results of the election. He was seen in an
image that will now go down in infamy of him greeting the mob before
they ransacked the Capitol. Hawley was joined by Sen. Ted Cruz, who told
a crowd in Georgia right before the Senate runoff that Republicans
would “not go quietly into the night. We will defend liberty.”
These are just a few of the president’s men who gathered tinder over
the last four years, poured gasoline over it with their unrelenting lies
about a stolen election, and then handed out matches to a rabid mob of
terrorists and pointed them in the direction of the Capitol.
What’s
even more terrifying than the acts that we witnessed last Wednesday is
learning that they had inside help. In a Facebook Live video, Rep. Mikie
Sherrill of New Jersey says she witnessed members of Congress—her
colleagues—providing a “reconnaissance tour”
of the Capitol the day before. In another video posted to social media
by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, she said she didn’t want
to shelter with other members of Congress because she felt unsafe and
that they could possibly tip the rioters off to her location. She also
says this in her hourlong video:
“If they cared, they wouldn’t have amplified the lie … if they cared,
they would have protected their colleagues instead of tweeting out their
locations for the mob to find them. They would have acted with
integrity, but they didn’t. They don’t care.”
centerforsecuritypolicy | The deadly riot at the US Capitol bore the markings of an organized
operation planned well in advance of the January 6 joint session of
Congress.
A small number of cadre used the cover of a huge rally to stage its
attack. Before it began, I saw from my vantage point on the West Front
of the Capitol, what appeared to be four separate cells or units:
Plainclothes militants. Militant, aggressive men in
Trump and MAGA gear at a front police line at the base of the temporary
presidential inaugural platform;
Agents-provocateurs. Scattered groups of men
exhorting the marchers to gather closely and tightly toward the center
of the outside of the Capitol building and prevent them from leaving;
Fake Trump protesters. A few young men wearing
Trump or MAGA hats backwards and who did not fit in with the rest of the
crowd in terms of their actions and demeanor, whom I presumed to be
Antifa or other leftist agitators; and
Disciplined, uniformed column of attackers. A
column of organized, disciplined men, wearing similar but not identical
camouflage uniforms and black gear, some with helmets and GoPro cameras
or wearing subdued Punisher skull patches.
All of these cells or groups stood out from the very large crowd by
their behavior and overall demeanor. However, they did not all appear at
the same time. Not until the very end did it become apparent there was a
prearranged plan to storm the Capitol building, and to manipulalte the
unsuspecting crowd as cover and as a follow-on force.
Eyewitness account, with no outside details
This article is a first-person, eyewitness account drafted the night
of January 6 and morning of January 7, so it is not affected by other
news coverage or information. The only research aids used in this
article were photos and videos that I took from my phone. I have
witnessed and participated in scores of protests since the 1970s, when
as a high school student I was trained by professional agitators from
California. Apart from my own professional background and experience,
nothing in this article is derived from any third-party information or
analysis.
In editing this for publication, I fought the temptation to add new
information that I had subsequently learned from my own or from other
people’s accounts. Other reports will vary and may contain contradicting
information, and will contain far more facts than appear here. Many
well-known actions and developments reported in the news do not appear
here, as this is purely what I saw and understood between about 11:30
a.m. and 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, January 6.
nbcnews | In April 2009, a senior Homeland Security intelligence analyst named Daryl Johnson wrote an internal report warning that right-wing extremism was on the rise in the United States and that it could lead to violence.
The report leaked, and the backlash was swift. Republican lawmakers were furious.
Veterans advocates criticized a section raising concerns about service
members returning with post-traumatic stress. Homeland Security
Secretary Janet Napolitano apologized for parts of it, and the unit ultimately was dissolved.
Nearly 11 years later, a mob of right-wing extremists, spurred by President Donald Trump, stormed the U.S. Capitol in a deadly riot that highlighted the magnitude of the threat.
"This
Capitol insurrection that we just had last week — some people were like
OK, this is the climax of the story. No, it's not. This is ushering in a
new phase of violence and hostility," Johnson said in an interview.
"This isn't the final chapter of a movement that's dying out."
Johnson, who runs DT Analytics, a security consulting firm, published a 2019 book about U.S. extremism called "Hateland." He spoke to NBC News about the threat and how it can be quelled.
A transcript follows, lightly edited for length and clarity.
ABC | Congressional Democrats have demanded an investigation into what they
call "suspicious behavior and access" for some visitors the day before
the Capitol assault, alleging that unnamed lawmakers led "an extremely
high number of outside groups" through the building on what they say
could have been "reconnaissance" tours.
During a Facebook Live
on Tuesday, New Jersey Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill claimed that she
witnessed unnamed members of Congress lead groups of people through the
Capitol on a "reconnaissance" tour on Jan. 5, though it is common for
lawmakers to guide constituents through the building.
Sherrill also alleged that Republicans "abetted" President Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the election, promising that she would "see they are held accountable, and if necessary, ensure that they don't serve in Congress."
The New Jersey Democrat, a former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot and former
federal prosecutor, joined more than 30 lawmakers signing a letter
Wednesday to request an investigation from the acting House
sergeant-at-arms, the acting Senate sergeant-at-arms, and the United
States Capitol Police.
CNN | One week after the deadly insurrection at the Capitol, there are still more questions than answers on whether any lawmakers or police assisted the pro-Trump rioters.
The
idea of an insurrection is unheard of in modern US history, and the
possibility that lawmakers or allies inside the Capitol were helping
only contributes to the uncertainty and worry about the event and what's
to come.
At
least one protest organizer said he coordinated with three House
Republicans. There are unverified accusations of a "reconnaissance"
mission one day before the attack. And more than a dozen US Capitol
Police officers are under internal investigation for allegedly helping rioters.
While
President Donald Trump's role in inciting the violence is clear, there
are some early indications and accusations that other insiders may have
more actively aided the mob.
House Republicans under scrutiny
Ali Alexander, a right-wing conspiracy theorist who led one of the "Stop The Steal" groups, claimed in a livestream video that
he planned the rally that preceded the riot with three GOP lawmakers:
Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Rep. Mo Brooks of
Alabama.
Brooks spoke at the rally before Trump took the stage, and urged the crowd to "start taking down names and kicking ass." In a 2,800-word statement about
his involvement, Brooks said he was only telling the crowd to fight
back at the ballot box. (Brooks also revealed that a White House
official called him one day earlier and invited him to speak at the
rally.)
CNN
previously reported that Gosar associated himself with Alexander's
group in recent months. A spokesman for Biggs told CNN that he hasn't
ever met or worked with Alexander.
Alexander
said he hoped his "mob" would pressure lawmakers to block
President-elect Joe Biden's victory through the Electoral College. After
the riot was quelled, the three lawmakers voted to throw out Biden's
electoral votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania. Their effort failed.
"Those
three members of Congress are going to need to lawyer up, very fast,"
former GOP Rep. Charlie Dent, a CNN contributor, told CNN's Erin Burnett
on Wednesday, adding that he thinks the lawmakers will face scrutiny
from federal prosecutors and the House Ethics Committee.
NYTimes | At the heart of
Mr. Hawley’s condemnation of our terrifyingly Pelagian world lies a dark
conclusion about the achievements of modern, liberal, pluralistic
societies. When he was still attorney general, William Barr articulated
this conclusion in a speech
at the University of Notre Dame Law School, where he blamed “the
growing ascendancy of secularism” for amplifying “virtually every
measure of social pathology,” and maintained that “free government was
only suitable and sustainable for a religious people.”
Christian
nationalists’ acceptance of President Trump’s spectacular turpitude
these past four years was a good measure of just how dire they think our
situation is. Even a corrupt sociopath was better, in their eyes, than
the horrifying freedom that religious moderates and liberals, along with
the many Americans who don’t happen to be religious, offer the world.
That
this neo-medieval vision is incompatible with constitutional democracy
is clear. But in case you’re in doubt, consider where some of the most
militant and coordinated support for Mr. Trump’s postelection assault on
the American constitutional system has come from. The Conservative
Action Project, a group associated with the Council for National Policy,
which serves as a networking organization for America’s religious and
economic right-wing elite, made its position clear in a statement issued
a week before the insurrection.
It called
for members of the Senate to “contest the electoral votes” from
Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and other states that were the focus of
Republicans’ baseless allegations. Among the signatories was Cleta
Mitchell, the lawyer who advised
Mr. Trump and participated in the president’s call on Jan. 2 with Brad
Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state. Cosignatories to this
disinformation exercise included Bob McEwen, the executive director of
the Council for National Policy; Morton C. Blackwell of the Leadership
Institute; Alfred S. Regnery, the former publisher; Tony Perkins, the
president of the Family Research Council; Thomas Fitton of Judicial
Watch; and more than a dozen others.
Although
many of the foot soldiers in the assault on the Capitol appear to have
been white males aligned with white supremacist movements, it would be a
mistake to overlook the powerful role of the rhetoric of religious
nationalism in their ranks. At a rally in Washington on Jan. 5, on the
eve of Electoral College certification, the right-wing pastor Greg Locke
said that God is raising “an army of patriots.” Another pastor, Brian
Gibson, put it this way: “The church of the Lord Jesus Christ started
America,” and added, “We’re going to take our nation back!”
In
the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection, a number of Christian
nationalist leaders issued statements condemning violence — on bothsides.
How very kind of them. But few if any appear willing to acknowledge the
instrumental role they played in perpetuating the fraudulent
allegations of a stolen election that were at the root of the
insurrection.
They seem, like Mr.
Hawley, to live in a post-truth environment. And this gets to the core
of the Hawley enigma. The brash young senator styles himself not just a
deep thinker who ruminates about late-Roman-era heretics but also a man
of the people, a champion of “the great American middle,”
as he wrote in an article for The American Conservative, and a foe of
the “ruling elite.” Mr. Hawley has even managed to turn a few
progressive heads with his economic populism, including his attacks on tech monopolies.
christianitytoday | Though the overall number of Christians in Congress fell
slightly from 91 percent from 2017 to 88 percent in 2019, a vast
majority of freshmen—78 of the 96 newly elected lawmakers—identify as
Christian and around half—47—are Protestants, according to the Pew Research Center’s Faith on the Hill report.
With the largest freshman class since 2011, these
representatives bring historic levels of diversity to Washington, a
range of backgrounds outside politics, and deep convictions about faith
in governance. The group includes Sunday school teachers, deacons,
Christian college graduates, missions trip participants, prayer
advocates, a former aspiring pastor, and plenty of churchgoers.
“In Romans 13, government officials are described as
ministers of God,” said Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, who assumes
Claire McCaskill’s seat, in an interview last year about his faith. “That’s how serious God is about politics.”
Former counsel with the religious liberty legal group
Becket (where he helped defend the Hobby Lobby and Hosanna-Tabor cases
before the Supreme Court), Hawley belongs to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, speaks before Baptist crowds,
and is one of 22 freshmen who identify as unspecified/other Protestants
in the congressional questionnaire from CQ Roll Call, the basis for the
Pew report released today.
This is why Kamala Harris was chosen by the Democrats despite my community rejecting her pic.twitter.com/JjgW8lexY5
— Nina Turner is a Dr. Cornel West Democrat 🥋 (@SocialistMMA) January 13, 2021
like a dying star that implodes before it goes supernova , in the final stage of an empire foreign policy becomes domestic policy 😎💫🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/Wb6OhWv0RH
A model of the statue of Freedom overlooks scores of U.S. troops deployed to the Capitol to protect Congress as the House prepares to impeach President Trump a 2nd time, on Jan. 13, 2021. pic.twitter.com/gwfdE3qeXB
mintpressnews | Liberals who express dismay, or more bizarrely a fevered hope, about
the corporatists and imperialists selected to fill the positions in the
Biden administration are the court jesters of our political burlesque. They long ago sold their soul and abandoned their most basic principles to
line up behind a bankrupt Democratic Party. They chant, with every
election cycle, the mantra of the least worst and sit placidly on the
sidelines as a Bill Clinton or a Barack Obama and the Democratic Party
leadership betray every issue they claim to support.
The only thing that mattered to liberals in the presidential race,
once again, was removing a Republican, this time Donald Trump, from
office. This, the liberals achieved. But their Faustian bargain, in
election after election, has shredded their credibility. They are
ridiculed, not only among right-wing Trump supporters but by the
hierarchy of the Democratic Party that has been captured by corporate
power. No one can, or should, take liberals seriously. They stand for
nothing. They fight for nothing. The cost is too onerous. And so, the
liberals do what they always do, chatter endlessly about political and
moral positions they refuse to make any sacrifices to achieve.
Liberals, largely comprised of the professional managerial-class that
dutifully recycles and shops for organic produce and is concentrated on
the two coasts, have profited from the ravages of neoliberalism. They
seek to endow it with a patina of civility. But their routine and public
humiliation has ominous consequences. It not only exposes the liberal
class as hollow and empty, it discredits the liberal democratic values
they claim to uphold. Liberals should have abandoned the Democratic
Party when Bill Clinton and political hacks such as Biden transformed
the Democratic Party into the Republican Party and launched a war on
traditional liberal values and left-wing populism. They should have
defected by the millions to support Ralph Nader and other Green Party
candidates.
slate | It turns out that Fortress D.C.—the capital city’s permanent,
ever-expanding post-9/11 security-scape—is a myth. It’s a myth that
residents have put up with because, in some ways, we want it to be true.
It made us feel safer and it made us feel important, if only by proxy.
(We also put up with it because we couldn’t say no.)
And it gave some higher purpose to getting yelled at for unknowingly
walking too close to a building or leaving your Swiss Army knife on your
keychain when you walk through a metal detector. The scrutiny was
frequently more intense for people of color.
Naïvely,
I thought they were taking little things so seriously to demonstrate
how gravely and ruthlessly they would dismantle a big thing. (After all,
Fortress D.C. hasn’t had a problem being ruthless in the name of
security in the fairly recent past.)
But Wednesday’s insurrectionist siege revealed that there never was any
higher purpose to us getting yelled at or detoured. It wasn’t an
indication of any higher seriousness at all. It was instead the limits
of the security’s reach.
When
Fortress D.C. was tested, it failed: An angry mob marched to the
Capitol, broke in, and stayed for hours. Unrushed, they sat in the House
speaker’s office with their feet up. Unbothered, they walked out with a senator’s computer.
I can barely believe these things happened, and not even in my wildest
imagination would I have considered them possible before Wednesday.
Fortress D.C. failed from a combination of factors that I’m sure will be
investigated and enumerated, and people will resign and be fired if they haven’t already. It turns out that yelling at bike commuters, stray tourists, and kids sledding did not prove a successful deterrent to a mob invasion that was announced ahead of time. Whatever the security plan was, it wasn’t sufficient to secure the building, deter the crowd, or prevent tragic and senseless
deaths, including that of one of the Capitol Police officers whose
superiors failed to adequately prepare for a clearly hostile crowd.
Fortress D.C. was so sure of itself it preemptively rejected offers to help. It took local police
to get things back under control, and by that point the building and
the myth of the building’s inviolability were completely wrecked.
The response will be to double down on more of the same. “Non-scalable” fences will
cut off the U.S. Capitol for at least the next 30 days. There will
inevitably be more bollards and more metal detectors. More street
closures. More intrusions on daily life. More of the things that proved
so easily surpassable when there was an effort to pass them. Fortress
D.C. didn’t work, and as a consequence, it will get larger. Everyone
will lose more public space, more access, and more mobility. And for
what?
jacobin | Nearly two decades since its initial passage in the aftermath of the
9/11 attacks, the Patriot Act has continued to linger in our collective
memory. Though few Americans probably remember much about its provisions
or specifics, the Bush-era legislation long ago entered into general
usage as an synonym for heavy-handed domestic surveillance and
institutional overreach — the words “Patriot Act” now being practically
synonymous with secrecy, eavesdropping, and the rolling back of civil
liberties under the intentionally broad guise of “national security.”
Given the law’s contents and implications in practice, this reputation is well deserved. Passing the Senate with only a single
dissenting vote, the Patriot Act dramatically expanded the power of
federal authorities to spy on ordinary Americans with minimal oversight:
enabling the FBI to obtain detailed information about citizens’ banking
history and personal communications without having to seek judicial
approval and even allowing “sneak and peek” searches of homes and
offices. “The Patriot Act,” in the rather blunt words of a brief prepared by the ACLU, “[turned] regular citizens into suspects.”
Predictably, a great deal of law enforcement activity resulted from the ludicrously titled law (USA PATRIOT was a backronym
for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools
Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism”). According to data
released by the Department of Justice, the FBI made hundreds of
thousands of incursions into personal phone, computer, and financial
records in the years immediately following its passage — the utility of
these searches in identifying or preventing actual terrorist activities
being debatable, to say the least.
Despite passing with widespread support, the Patriot Act
was still considered extreme enough for lawmakers to attach sunset
clauses to several of its major provisions, guaranteeing their expiry in
lieu of congressional renewal (which, incidentally, eventually came under George W. Bush and again under Barack Obama).
One prominent Delaware lawmaker, however, felt it didn’t go far enough.
Ahead of the nearly unanimous October 25, 2001, Senate vote on the Patriot Act, Joe Biden was regularly claiming the law as his own, boasting in an interview with the New Republic:
“I drafted a terrorism bill after the Oklahoma City bombing. And the
bill John Ashcroft sent up was my bill.” Biden wasn’t wrong. In fact,
key parts of the Bush administration’s signature national security law
were drawn from provisions contained in Biden’s own 1995 anti-terrorism bill. Originally called the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act, Jacobin’s Branco Marcetic summarized it contents as follows:
The bill made “terrorism” a new federal crime, allowed
those charged with terrorism to be automatically detained before trial,
outlawed donations to government-designated terrorist groups, allowed
electronic surveillance of suspected terrorists, and created a special
court to deport noncitizens accused of terrorism (ironically, when Bush
had proposed a similar measure years before, Biden had denounced it as “the very antithesis of our legal system”). It also let the government use evidence from secret sources in those trials.
Calling the Patriot Act “measured and prudent” during an approving speech
on the Senate floor, Biden would nonetheless lament the removal of
sections from his 1995 bill that would have given police even more
sweeping powers of surveillance.
jonathanturley | Speaker Nancy Pelosi shocked many in Washington by
appointing Eric Swalwell as a house managers in the impeachment of
President Donald Trump as he continues to face calls for his removal
from the House Intelligence Committee due to his alleged intimate
relationship with a Chinese spy. Swalwell has been bunkered down to
avoid questions from the media and the public, but he will now be one of
those prosecuting the case against the President.
He allegedly first met the spy, Fang Fang
or Christine Fang, in 2011. She not only raised money for Swalwell but
reportedly had a personal relationship with him. She also pushed
successfully for his office to accept an intern. He cut ties with her in
2015 after the FBI contacted him. Pelosi made no mention of the scandal
in heralding Swalwell’s credentials:
“Congressman Swalwell serves on House
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where he chairs the
Intelligence Modernization and Readiness Subcommittee, and on the
Judiciary Committee,” Pelosi’s office said in a statement. “He is a
former prosecutor and is the son and brother of law enforcement
officers. He is serving his fifth term in Congress.”
Usually a speaker selects House managers to reinforce the credibility
and integrity of the case against a president. Even before the current
scandal, Swalwell was viewed as a member who was a raw partisan. Last
year, it was revealed that (despite long denials) the FBI did send an
agent to report on his observations within the Trump campaign. As I
discussed in a column,
Democratic members spent years mocking allegations that there was any
spying or surveillance of Trump or his campaign by the FBI. That was
just a conspiracy theory. Now however there is proof that the FBI used a
briefing in August 2016 of then candidate Trump to gather information
for “Crossfire Hurricane,” the Russia investigation. It turns out that
it did not really matter after all and Rep. Eric Swalwell did not miss a
step. Swalwell declared
that such targeting of the opposing party and its leading presidential
candidate was “the right thing to do.” That’s it. A conspiracy theory
suddenly becomes a commendable act.
Previously, Swalwell also declared that if President Donald Trump
refused to give Congress the documents and witnesses that it has
demanded, he is clearly guilty of all charged offenses. Swalwell
declared “We can only conclude that you’re guilty.”
WaPo | Over
the past day, a lot of people have asked me how I feel. They are
usually referring to my covid-19 diagnosis and my symptoms. I feel like I
have a mild cold. But even more than that, I am angry.
I
am angry that after I spent months carefully isolating myself, a single
chaotic day likely got me sick. I am angry that several of our nation’s
leaders were unwilling to deal with the small annoyance of a mask for a
few hours. I am angry that the attack on the Capitol and my subsequent
illness have the same cause: my Republican colleagues’ inability to
accept facts.
When
I left for Washington last week, it was my first trip there in several
months. I had a list of things to accomplish, including getting my
picture taken for the card I use when voting on the House floor. For the
past two years, I appeared on that card completely bald as a result of
the chemotherapy I underwent to eliminate the cancer in my right lung.
It was because of that preexisting condition that I relied so heavily on
the proxy voting the House agreed to last year, when we first began to
understand the danger of covid-19.
I
was nervous about spending a week among so many people who regularly
flout social distancing and mask guidelines, but I could not have
imagined the horror of what happened on Jan. 6.
To
isolate as much as possible, I planned to spend much of my day in my
apartment, shuttling to the House floor to vote. But the building shares
an alley with the Republican National Committee, where, we’d later
learn, law enforcement found a pipe bomb. I was evacuated from that
location early in the afternoon.
The
next best option would have been my office in the Cannon House Office
Building, where just three of my staffers worked at their desks to
ensure safe distancing. Before I arrived, security evacuated that
building as well, forcing us to linger in the hallways and cafeteria
spaces of the House complex. As I’m sure you can imagine, pushing the
occupants of an entire building into a few public spaces doesn’t make
for great social distancing. Twice, I admonished groups of congressional
staff to put on their masks. Some of these staffers gave me looks of
derision, but slowly complied.
dailymail | The woman interrupted Schumer during his
press conference in Manhattan on Tuesday. During the encounter, she is
heard calling Schumer, who is Jewish, a 'racist, anti-Semite'.
'You're
nothing but a coward. Seeing you hide under your desk, I actually got
sexually excited over it. That's how much I loathe you. That's how much
I'm glad what they did.'
As the woman continued to rant about the Capitol riot, Schumer's security was seen trying to get her to leave.
'As
long as there’s unrest, there’s going to be unrest in these streets, I
don’t give a sh*t whether you believe me,' she yelled.
'Six feet! Six feet! Stand down! Stand down! Stand down!' she screamed.
sicsempertyrannis |The shape of what is
coming to America is already clear; a technology driven tyranny that
will make the Chinese leadership green with envy. Siri, Alexa and other
unknown AI demons will read, listen and watch everyone, everywhere,
always, not just for impure thoughts, let alone acts, but for even the
suggestion that an unapproved thought process is occurring.
The initial outcome of
such surveillance will be your appearance on lists. The "No fly" list,
soon to be followed by the "No train", "No credit card", "No
employment", "No drivers license", "No phone", "No internet access", "No
Education", "No voice", "No Welfare" and of course the "No firearms"
list. I call this process Human deplatforming.
The checks and balances
have been replaced with (Bank) checks and (Bank) balances. The richest
men in the world are overseeing this experiment which is going global
quicker than you can say "Google". They are enabled by the University
academics who as Raymond Asquith once observed are always prepared to
provide an intellectual justification for vile acts if the price is
right and journalists will laud said acts to the heavens as decent,
moral doings if they want a paycheck next week from their masters.
The Legislature is
bought. The Executive is bought. The Supreme Court are ninnies. The only
thing standing in their way is soon to be Ex President Trump. I don't
like his chances of becoming a rallying point, they are going to go
after his children.
Oh Yes, but you have
guns you say. Well those pasty faced, namby, pamby West Coast
transgender wokeists, as you call them, may not be able to shoot
straight but they have drones, swarming drones, robots and God knows
what else in the way of weapons. They have satellite data and almost
perfect intelligence regarding your behaviour. They don't have to shoot
accurately, they have machines to do that. They can and will commit
unspeakable acts of murder and destruction before they turn off the
monitor and jog off for a Latte. After all if you are not with us you
are a domestic terrorist aren't you? There is no middle ground.
consentfactory | So, welcome to 2021! If last week was any indication, it is going to
be quite an exciting year. It is going to be the year in which GloboCap
reminds everyone who is actually in charge and restores “normality”
throughout the world, or at least attempts to restore “normality,” or
the “New Normality,” or the “Great Normal Reset,” or “The New Normal War
on Domestic Terror” … or whatever they eventually decide to call it.
In any event, whatever they call it, GloboCap is done playing
grab-ass. They have had it with all this “populism” malarkey that has
been going on for the last four years. Yes, that’s right, the party is
over, you Russian-backed white supremacist terrorists! You Trump-loving,
anti-mask grandmother killers! You anti-vax, election-fraud-conspiracy
theorists! You deviants who refuse to follow orders, wear your damn
masks, vote for who they tell you, and believe whatever completely
nonsensical official propaganda they pour into your heads!
Oh, yes, you really did it this time! You stormed the goddamned US Capitol. You and your racist, Russia-backed army of bison-hat wearing half-naked actors
have meddled with the primal forces of GloboCap, and now, by God, you
will atone! No, do not try to minimize your crimes. You entered a
building without permission! The building where America simulates
democracy! You walked around in there waving silly flags! You went into
the Chamber, into people’s offices! One of you actually put his filthy populist feet up on Pelosi’s desk … ON HER DESK! This aggression will not stand!
OK, before I go any further with this essay, I need to explain to my
regular readers (in case it wasn’t already clear) that I’ve decided to
forswear every word I’ve ever written, and all my principles, and my
common sense, and join the remainder of my old leftist and liberal
friends in the orgy of online hate and outrage they are currently
mindlessly indulging in.
Yes, I realize this comes as a shock, but I have seen the GloboCap writing on the wall, and I don’t want to … you know, get ideologically “cleansed,” or charged with “extremism,” or “insurrectionism,” or “domestic terrorism,” or “populism,” or whatever. I’m already in enough trouble as it is for not playing ball with their “apocalyptic plague,”
and whatever else I am, I am certainly no martyr, and I have a career
in the arts to consider, so I have decided to listen to my inner coward
and join the goose-stepping global-capitalist mob, which is why this
column sounds slightly out of character.
Celebrating 113 years of Mama Rosa McCauley Parks
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*February 4, 1913 -- February 4, 2026*
*Some notes: The life of the courageous activist Mama Rosa McCauley Parks*
Mama Rosa's grandfather Sylvester Ed...
Monsters are people too
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Comet 3I/Atlas is on its way out on a hyberbolic course to, I don't know
where. I do know that 1I/Oumuamua is heading for the constellation Pegasus,
and ...
Remembering the Spanish Civil War
-
This year marks the 90th anniversary of the launch of the Spanish Civil
War, an epoch-defining event for the international working class, whose
close study...
Return of the Magi
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Lately, the Holy Spirit is in the air. Emotional energy is swirling out of
the earth.I can feel it bubbling up, effervescing and evaporating around
us, s...
Covid-19 Preys Upon The Elderly And The Obese
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sciencemag | This spring, after days of flulike symptoms and fever, a man
arrived at the emergency room at the University of Vermont Medical Center.
He ...
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(Damn, has it been THAT long? I don't even know which prompts to use to
post this)
SeeNew
Can't get on your site because you've gone 'invite only'?
Man, ...
First Member of Chumph Cartel Goes to Jail
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With the profligate racism of the Chumph Cartel, I don’t imagine any of
them convicted and jailed is going to do too much better than your run of
the mill ...
