Alito Leads the Christian Nationalists

Last week, Rep. Marjorie Taylor (R-GA), a GOP leader, called on Republicans to rename themselves “The Christian Nationalist Party.” She said, “We need to be the party of nationalism and I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists.” In the past, Christian nationalists largely denied its existence or shouted name-calling if accused of the religious white supremacy. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) followed Greene by saying:

“The church is supposed to direct the government, the government is not supposed to direct the church. I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk.”

Christian nationalists believe the myth that the U.S. was created as a “Christian nation,” that framers didn’t believe in neutrality in religion. The purpose of Christian nationalism is dividing the nation into “us v. them” with entitled White Christians controlling all governments and courts. The January 6 insurrectionist was a public example of the violence to obtain this privilege. The 2022 election has expanded the push toward Christian nationalism with candidates such as Doug Mastriano as a candidate for Pennsylvania’s governor.

When Greene ran for Congress in 2019, she attacked Muslim Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), accusing them of trying to impose “Sharia in America” and demanded they “go back to the Middle East.” No religious freedom there. Omar is a naturalized citizen from Somalia, and Tlaib was born in Detroit. Greene’s accusations violate the “freedom of religion” in the U.S. Constitution. Mastriano agrees with Greene in falsely claiming that elected Muslims “practice Sharia law” because they “respect neither the culture nor the rights of the original population.” Neither does he, because Native Americans, America’s indigenous peoples, did not practice Christianity.

Christian nationalism tries to enforce their belief that only White Christians have full rights, and the U.S. Supreme has gained a majority supporting that fascist belief. Justice Samuel Alito is leading the group to force his values on the entire nation. Last Thursday, he gave a political speech in Rome, supposedly about “religious liberty,” but ridiculing national opposition to his opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. In his writing, he went back to rulings from the 1200s to justify the rights of states to block all abortions, even one for a raped 10-year-old girl.

Justices now give faith-based speeches at faith-based events sponsored by faith-based parties who file briefs before the court. They have no obligation to publicize or record their speeches, but the University of Notre Dame released a video of his speech. To Alito, secularism is a threat to religious freedom although authors of the Constitution created a secular government with religious liberty. Alito’s justification for forcing religion on people is that an increasing percentage of the population is rejecting it.

In his speech, Alito attacked world readers to get cheap laughs about people who don’t meet his high “religious” standards. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron expressed disappointment at Alito’s faulty ruling and opinion in eliminating abortion in the U.S., and the European Union’s parliament formally condemned the reversal of protections for this reproductive healthcare after the SCOTUS ruling of Roe v. Wade a half century ago. Alito sarcastically said that Johnson “paid the price” with his criticism by his resignation from the position, which had nothing to do with his comments about the supreme Court ruling.

Alito decried the “growing hostility to religion, or at least the traditional religious beliefs that are contrary to the new moral code that is ascendant in some sectors.” When he complained almost two years ago about safety restrictions precautions during the pandemic, his political speech railed against marriage equality, contraception, reproductive rights, and five Democratic senators. Last fall, Alito criticized U.S. journalists,Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CO) said that “judges turning into political actors, giving speeches attacking journalists, is terrible for the court and terrible for democracy.” 

Instead of a “new moral code,” however, the United States “has more non-Christian people to question the implied, often systemic primacy of Christian values and rules in American society,” wrote Philip Bump. He compared the change to the increase of non-White people who may be skeptical of a society in the U.S. that advantages Whites.  The “new code” which Alito sneers at, is recognition of people long excluded from power. This is the threat to Alito’s “traditional” beliefs.

Since Alito got on the Supreme Court, thanks to George W. Bush, he has followed the evangelical policy of denying rights to women. In 2007, he ruled against Lily Ledbetter’s lawsuit that Goodyear was guilty of pay discrimination by giving men higher wages than women for the same type of job. Ledbetter discovered the discrimination in 1998 and filed an EEOC complaint, and Alito stated that she should have followed the law by filing her claim within 180 days after he first paycheck. She filed as soon as she discovered, after nine years, the disparity, but Alito didn’t care. 

Known for rolling his eyes at female justices during oral arguments, Alito belonged to Concerned Alumni of Princeton, formed from outrage for women being admitted to the university. Appointed to the 3^rd Circuit Court by Ronald Reagan, Alito argued that women must tell their husbands before having an abortion, indifferent to the possibility of domestic violence. He used the justification that Justice Sandra Day O’Connor held that position although she joined the ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) that “women do not lose their constitutionally protected liberty when they marry.” Angry about Casey’s reference to “undue burden” permitting abortions, Alito threw out the possibility of any abortions. His argument is that regulating abortion is not a “sex-based classification” of the sort that would trigger heightened constitutional scrutiny merely because it’s a “medical procedure that only one sex can undergo.”

During Alito’s speech, he took umbrage that he witnessed a young boy in Berlin ask who Jesus was, which he described as ignorance about religion. He described it as a “growing hostility to religion, or at least the traditional religious beliefs that are contrary to the new moral code that is ascendant in some sectors.” Thus  he makes Christianity is mandatory although Christians comprise under one-third of the people in the world. Alito’s speech was the emphasis on demanding all people being religious (aka Christian).  Quoting St. Augustine, he said, “Our hearts are restless until we rest in God.”

On the same day as Alito’s speech, Justice Elena Kagan warned that the hard-right majority of justices risks destroying the court’s legitimacy. At a conference in Montana, she said,

“I’m not talking about any particular decision or even any particular series of decisions, but if over time the court loses all connection with the public and with public sentiment, that’s a dangerous thing for a democracy. People are rightly suspicious if one justice leaves the court or dies and another justice takes his or her place and all of sudden the law changes on you.”

After the six Supremes removed women’s right to abortions, confidence in SCOTUS fell to 25 percent in a conservative Gallup poll. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) called Alito’s speech an “embarrassment to the Supreme Court.” Lieu tweeted:

“He doesn’t understand there are different religions in America. What makes America great is that we let you practice your faith, change your faith or have no faith at all. Some religions support abortion, some don’t.”

Norm Ornstein, Emeritus scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, wrote:

“Alito is not just a partisan hack. He is the leader of this partisan and reckless court, and he is a clear and present danger to our basic system of governance and of justice.”

Samantha Marcotte tried to explain how Alito was wrong in why people abandon religion, that it has occurred because of evangelicals’ opposition to expanded rights for all regardless of race, gender, sex, and sexuality:

“If Republicans want to know who is to blame for young people abandoning the church in droves, they should look in the mirror. The more both Republicans and the Christian establishment reject these basic rights, the more they can expect to be rejected themselves, especially by younger people.”

Instead of protecting religious freedom, Alito wants to impose his religion on everyone as a baseline of morality and public policy. He ignores any separation of church and state but instead expresses rage and disgust that society shifts away from the beliefs that he wants to be central to society. His treatment of those presenting cases in his court displays a personal belief that they are all fools or idiots—Republicans in the first group and liberal justices disagreeing with in the second.

Both Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas lead the charge to do away with rights by appearing to keep them—just making them much harder to achieve. In the case of blocking abortion, they turned it into states’ rights with about 60 percent of the states determined to block the procedure and going so far as to prevent pregnant women from cross state lines and perhaps even execute women who obtain abortions. In Miranda, people must still be read their rights—if they know enough to ask for them; people can’t sue police for not receiving a Miranda warning. Criminal defendants can’t challenge convictions for bad legal help with lawyers missing deadlines for appeals.

In the past, sane people held out a hope that Congress could protect them from Christian Nationalists; now the Supreme Court will not be protecting the law.

Udates, News on July 30, 2022

News from the past week have led to extensive updates:

Ukraine: The 12 HIMARS sent from the U.S. are stopping Russia from gaining air superiority in its invasion, according to the Pentagon, and British defense officials said Ukraine has successfully repelled small-scale Russian attacks in the Donbas region. Ukraine announced that its fighting in the Kherson area destroyed over 100 Russian soldiers and seven tanks as well as stopping rail traffic across the Dnipro River, cutting off Russian forces west of the river from supplies out of Crimea and further east.

Missing January 6 texts: Department of Homeland Security Inspector General James Cuffari, appointed by Dictator Donald Trump (DDT), refused to collect agency phones in an attempt to recover deleted Secret Service texts. After a senior forensics analyst in Cuffari’s office collected the phones, Cuffari’s told investigators to not take the phones and not seek any data from them. Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL), Judiciary Committee chair, asked the DOJ to intervene in the investigation of the missing texts.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued a statement Friday calling the missing messages “an extremely serious matter” and said he would ask the Justice Department to intervene. Reps. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), chair of the House January 6 investigative committee, and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) have asked that Cuffari be replaced in the investigation. Text messages from former acting homeland security secretary Chad Wolf and acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli, both appointed by DDT, are missing for a key period leading up to the Jan. 6 attack, but both of them said their phones had the texts when they gave their phones to DHS. Secret Service Director James Murray, another DDT-appointed official in the missing text scandal, will need to delay his retirement at the end of July for a job at Instagram because of the investigations.

The PACT Act: GOP senators scuttled a bill they had already approved expanding VA healthcare for seriously ill military veterans who were exposed to toxic burn pits of waste. Immediately before Republicans voted against support for veterans, they tweeted their admiration for the veterans. After their negative votes, Ted Cruz (TX), Steve Daines (MT), and others gloated with joyful fist bumps and handshakes on the chamber floor in a video that has gone viral. Republicans complained the bill’s change in the House would allow Democrats a “slush fund,” but it kept other agencies from siphoning off the healthcare funds. Democrats threaten delaying the August recess with 15 Republicans needing to campaign for the 2022 election. Bill advocate Jon Stewart’s response to the happy GOP senators.

Kentucky’s flooding:  Kentucky’s death toll from flooding has gone to at least 25 with “still a lot of people unaccounted for,” according to Gov. Andy Beshear. Since the beginning of heavy rainfall last Wednesday, almost 300 people have been saved, but more rain is forecast for Sunday. The historic flooding follows the deadliest tornadoes in its history killing over 70 in December 2021.

More Florida regulations: Gov. Ron DeSantis has attacked a Miami restaurant hosting drag shows in the presence of children by threatening to pull its liquor license. DeSantis consistently approves of parental decisions—if they do what he wants. Parents criticize the accusation that the drag show violates the state statute opposing anything “injurious to people’s morals and manners.” DeSantis says that drag shows will “sexually abuse” young people. A state representative pointed out that DeSantis doesn’t mind children going to Hooters restaurants, that he thinks “it’s only sexually explicit if it’s LGBTQ+.” DeSantis doesn’t mind hurting trans children. He told schools to ignore federal guidelines protecting transgender youth, threatening repercussions if they follow Title IX guidelines.

Gaetz donations for abortion access:  Misogynistic rants by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) about how anti-abortionists are too ugly to “impregnante” raised over $1 million for abortion access within 72 hours after he personally attacked Olivia Julianna, a member of Gen Z for Change. By late Saturday, July 30, the fund had about $2 million to provide access for this “critical reproductive health care.” Gen Z is defined as people born between 1997 and 2012. Representing one-tenth of the electorate thus far, the racially-diverse Gen Z grew up with technological expertise and are more pragmatic and financially-minded after watching their parents take huge hits in this area. Although similar to Millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, Gen Z is more progressive on social issues and believe the government should take a bigger role in solving problems, including climate change which they attribute to human activities.  

And a bit of more news:

High oil prices are causing inflation and tremendous ire from people in the U.S., but major gasoline companies are raking in huge profits.  The three largest Western oil companies—Chevron, Exxon, and Shell—made a record $46 billion in total profits last quarter, with $17.9 billion going to just Exxon. It’s profit of $2,245.62 comes to more than four times as much as the same time period in 2021. The Wall Street Journal wrote:

“Exxon’s oil and gas production was up about 4% from the same period last year. Chevron’s oil-and-gas production declined globally about 7.4% compared with the same period a year ago, largely due to the end of projects in Thailand and Indonesia, though its production rose in the U.S. by about 3.2%.”

One word for that practice is “profiteering.” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), said, “The oil companies are ripping Americans off.”

Following DDT’s goal of keeping immigrants out of the U.S., he required fingerprinting and extensive background check for every household member, instead of only the sponsor, where an unaccompanied child would live. Before DDT’s order, this practice was followed only because a safety concern. Children spent weeks and sometimes even months longer in custody. DDT’s office said the practice was unworkable but continued it without any further information that children were at risk. Thanks to a lawsuit, the U.S. will now establish fingerprinting deadlines for parents and sponsors trying to get unaccompanied immigrant children out of government custody, seven days for appointments and ten days for completion of processing with tracking reports.

n Austin (TX), podcaster Alex Jones is facing his first Sandy Hook defamation trial and not doing well in defending his accusation that the mass shooting of 22 children and six educators was a hoax. His attorney, Andino Reynal, flipped off opposing counsel Mark Bankston inside the courtroom. Producer Daria Karpova, defense-selected representative for Jones’ network Infowars, characterized his 2017 interview with Megyn Kelly, then on NBC, as about the Sandy Hook shooting, allowing the plaintiffs to play the 17-minute segment in open court. In the video, Jones said that the images of children fleeing Sandy Hook “looked like a drill” and admitted his “research” came from internet articles. He had refused to apologize for any of his statements. Karpova then talked about the stress of representing Jones because people told horrific lies about him when testifying about the man who called the Sandy Hook massacre a hoax involving actors and trying to increase gun control.

Perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, Jones’ media company Free Speech Systems filed for bankruptcy on Friday. Plaintiffs are asking for $150 million to the family of one child killed in the 2012 mass shooting. Last April, Jones’ company Infowars and two more of his business entities filed for bankruptcy, which delayed the trial until now. His lawyers said the current bankruptcy filing won’t delay the current trial, expected to conclude this coming week. Courts in Texas and Connecticut already found Jones liable for defamation in default judgments against Jones without trials because he failed to respond to court orders and turn over documents. In court records, Jones claimed he was $20 million in debt, but he made over $165 million between 2015 and 2018 in sales of nutritional supplements and survival gear. He also asked his Infowars listeners for donations.

A federal judge dismissed a $195 million lawsuit from a Catholic school student against six national media outlets for defamation after reporting on Nicholas Sandmann’s actions while he was in Washington, D.C. for an anti-abortion rally in 2019. A combined $1.25 billion came from the inclusion of lawsuits against seven other media organizations in the suit. Reports of Sandmann’s interaction with Native American rights activist Nathan Phillips at the Lincoln Memorial included videos, indicating racial motivation. The judge said the reporting of Phillips’ statement that Sandmann “blocked him and wouldn’t allow him to retreat” was the activist’s opinion for which the media couldn’t be sued. The quote couldn’t be proved true or false. Three other media outlets had previously settled with Sandmann. Depicting himself as a 16-year-old victim, Sandmann plans to appeal in a case which the majority of Supreme Court justices could use to overturn the constitutional freedom of the press.

DDT is in trouble with voters for supporting Saudi Arabia by hosting the LIV golf tournament, the Saudi’s attempt to eliminate the historic PGA tour, at his resort. He may also be breaking federal law by using the presidential seal on items such as towels and golf carts at the Bedminster (NJ) golf course.

People who get more spam in your email can blame the Republicans. GOP fundraising dropped off so Republicans attacked Google for putting fundraising emails into spam despite no evidence. Google may be forced into exempting campaign emails from spam detection.

Russian Invasion of Ukraine – Day 156

The Russian invasion in Ukraine may have come to a temporary standstill with newly delivered Western weapons helping Ukrainians to regain advantages they recently lost. After no significant territorial gains since the July 2 Ukrainian retreat from the eastern city of Lysychansk from crushing artillery fire, Russia has control of one region, Luhansk in eastern Donbas, the only strategic success since its retreat from the Kyiv area in April. Russian president Vladimir Putin claimed his troops were pausing to “rest and develop their combat capabilities,” but the end of the hiatus on July 16 brought no additional intensity in his assaults. George Barros, a Russia analyst with the Institute for the Study of War, said Russians may not even conquer the entire Donbas region, their supposed goal at the beginning of the invasion.

Putin hasn’t quit. He hopes to generate manpower for his war from a massive recruitment campaign in Russia or even change tactics by using the country chemical and nuclear stockpiles. Meanwhile, Ukraine has made use of the advanced artillery provided by its Western allies, including the U.S. High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS). This weapon allows Ukrainians to strike almost 50 miles behind Russian lines with great accuracy; they have destroyed over 100 high-value Russian targets such as command and control centers, ammunition storage sites, and logistics and support facilities.

Russian mercenaries from the private military firm Wagner Group may be responsible for front-line fighting although they may not have meaningful impact on the invasion.

Recently HIMARS have been employed in counteroffensive in and near the southern city of Kherson, including the third attack this week against the Antonovsky Bridge over the Dnieper River. The destruction of the over one-half-mile-long bridge took out the main supply route between Russia’s 49th Army on the west bank of the river and the remaining Russian force, leaving troops “highly vulnerable,” according to the British Department of Defense.

Ukraine’s taking out ammunition stocks forced Russia to move them farther from the front, increasing the supply lines which includes artillery shells. Lacking a “good automated logistical system,” moving the shells “requires a lot of manual labor … not very efficient,” according to Rob Lee of the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute. Striking command and control centers takes out Russian officers and commanders, responsible for orders to block the HIMARS.

Members of the Russian miliary still suffer from low morale and recruitment while having trouble matching forces to equipment. Soldiers complain about being on the frontline without food or medicine. In May, Russian generals and other high officials were killed because of poor chain-of-command communication. Putin may be recruiting soldiers from prisons for his private army.

Sanctions against Russia are having an effect: about 1,000 multinational companies suspended operations in Russia, and major Russian state-owned companies lost 70 to 90 percent of their market capitalization. According to a Yale University study, Russian imports have mainly collapsed, and its domestic production came “to a complete standstill.”

In Ukrainian air space, Russia lost one of its newest and most advanced fighter plane, worth $50 million, when its own air defense mistakenly shot it down. Former FSB colonel Igor Girkin tweeted the information on July 18. Russian forces may have been trying to take out a missile fired by a Ukrainian HIMARS. Thus far, Russia has lost at least 35 fighter jets along with 221 aircraft and 38,850 personnel, according to Ukraine.

Cyberhacking is one advantage that Ukraine has against Russia, having been in action since the invasion began. The IT Army uses volunteers from around the world to deny services to the Russian government and company websites, 662 targets as of June 7.  

The U.S. has reported at least 18 “filtration” camps where Russians subject Ukrainians to inhumane conditions—abuse and sometimes executions. A video also shows a POW being castrated in Russian-occupied Donbas. Ukraine has asked the UN and the Red Cross to help with evacuating and treating wounded after Russia’s attack on a prison camp camp holding Ukrainians that killed at least 50 detainees and investigate the attack. Prisoners included those captured while defending Mariupol in May who Russians claimed were neo-Nazis and war criminals. Russia is blaming Ukraine for the attack, but Ukraine states it has overwhelming evidence, including an intercepted radio conversation between Russian-backed separatists talking about a series of explosions deliberately engineered by the rebels themselves. Other Ukrainian sources blame mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner group.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine visited a port in the Odesa area with the hope that grain exports could soon begin to alleviate some of the world’s starvation. Last week’s negotiation for transferring grain out of Ukraine between Russia and Turkey was immediately followed by Russian cruise missile attacks on Odesa, blocking the movement of the ships across the Black Sea. Ukraine is a world leader in exporting wheat, barley, corn, and sunflower, and grain silos in Odesa have been left undamaged. Russia has not promised to stop the strikes.

Trying to root out Russian spies and collaborators, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has fired two senior law enforcement officials, saying they had not been nearly aggressive enough in weeding out traitors. He says that Russian sympathizers in the church, government, intelligence agencies, security service, and Russian-occupied areas are reporting locations of Ukrainian targets, sheltering Russian officers, informing on Ukrainian activists in Russian-occupied areas, and removing explosives from bridges so that Russians can cross.

Exiled Belarusian sources state Russian military activities inside Russia’s ally are trying to threaten an attack against northern Ukraine after failing an assault on Kyiv. An invasion into northern Ukraine may not be imminent, but the information raises the possibility about Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko joining a Russian offensive. At the beginning of its war on Ukraine, Russia deployed tens of thousands of its troops in Belarus, but the number has shrunk to about 1,000, but Russia still has access to Belarusian airspace. The country has little public support for the inexperienced Belarusian soldiers fighting in Ukraine, and Belarusian deaths in Ukraine can cause instability for Lukashenko who may be an illegitimate president.  

Putin has moved the goalposts for his invasion in the past five months, shifting from taking over the western Donbas region to getting rid of “the absolutely anti-popular and anti-historic regime” of Ukraine, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. He claims Russia want Ukrainians to have “a much better life.” Yet three months ago, Lavrov stated Russia wasn’t looking for a change of power in Kyiv. Now Russia seems to be aiming to annex southern Ukraine as well as the western portion.

Russia’s aim of annexation has been shown by establishing the ruble as the official currency and installing banks, forcing Ukrainians to apply for Russian passports and citizenship, putting Russian loyalists into government positions, and controlling telecommunications infrastructure including broadcasting towers and the internet. Occupying forces are also putting Russian curriculum into schools. The same process was used in Crimea in 2014. Putin is promising teachers salaries over five times what they currently make to teach Ukrainian students a “corrected” education so they learn the Russian version of Ukrainian history during the coming school year. The offer offers free transportation and “accommodation and food under discussion.” Almost 250 teachers signed up for the deal.

As of July 13, Russia had forcibly relocated from 900,000 to 1.6 million Ukrainians into Russia into filtration camps where they are either detained or disappeared. About 260,000 of the deportees are children, many of them separated from their parents. Russia claims the moves are “voluntary” for “humanitarian” reasons, but U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said they may be war crimes. Forcible removal can be to take the assets and property left behind by deportees. International law considers mass deportation and forced transfers of civilians crimes against humanity when undertaken in a “widespread or systematic” manner during peace or war. Happening during armed conflict, these deportations and population transfers are war crimes.

Richard Nixon’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger changed his position that Ukraine should cede territory to Russia and now states that Ukraine should not do so.

At the beginning of the invasion, some of the most conservative GOP legislators, Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) followers, justified Russia’s invasion by saying the country need to protect its borders. They have typically voted against supporting Ukraine and still claim they are isolationists, not understanding that Putin might want a regime change in the United States. Domestic problems and fatigue with the war may discourage more Republicans from support for Ukrainian democracy, some of them going as far as supporting Putin. On July 18, 18 House Republicans voted against a resolution to urge NATO’s acceptance of Finland and Sweden, citing fiscal reasons.  

Politics – July 28, 2022

January 6, 2021 was a popular time for missing texts. The Secret Service can’t find any because of a “migration,” and messages for acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli are also missing for a period of time leading up to the insurrection. A problem with a “reset” of their phones. Joseph Cuffari, appointed by Dictator Donald Trump (DDT), didn’t seem concerned about the missing texts, didn’t alert Congress about the problems with its request, and didn’t try to recover the lost data. Wolf was DDT’s favorite DHS Secretary and would likely be called back to work for DDT if he came back to the White House.

In a court filing, DDT’s attorneys asked a judge to grant him total immunity against any civil law lawsuits connected to the insurrection. DDT is attempting to ask all lawsuits to be dismissed. Previously, DDT claimed his January 6 speech was “protected by presidential absolute immunity.” The newer filing said DDT’s “statements were on matters of public concern.” Lawyers insist “impeachment is the only means of punishing a president for abuse and that attempts by Democrats and others to sue Trump after he emerged victorious in his impeachment trial are tantamount to ‘harassment.'” In February, the judge ruled the speech was likely “words of incitement not protected by the First Amendment.” [Right: the man who considers running for re-election in two years.]

The DOJ probe into the insurrection, ongoing since April, is building, and AG Merrick Garland said he may charge DDT. Prosecutors are willing to go to court to get DDT’s White House officials to testify about conversations on and around January 6m, 2021. No former president has ever been criminally charged in U.S. history, but Garland hasn’t ruled out indicting DDT.  

Lawyers passing through DDT’s White House are adding themselves to the vast number of witnesses testifying about the January 6 insurrection, including DDT’s participation in the plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Last week, former VP Mike Pence’s aide Marc Short, a DDT accuser, and Pence’s counsel Greg Jacob testified before the DOJ grand jury investigating these events. Emmet Flood, briefly acting White House counsel, is Short’s lawyer. In 2019, DDT tweeted his “friend” Flood did a “GREAT JOB.”

Ty Cobb, Flood’s predecessor and overseer of the White House’s response to the Mueller investigation, said DDT’s declaration of candidacy “serves no interest but his self-defeating and overwhelming need for relevance, attention and money. Such an announcement also does not inoculate him from criminal investigation.” Cobb also listed DDT’s possible crimes on CNN. Pat Cipollone, DDT’s last White House counsel, confirmed earlier testimony and stated that everyone in the White House except DDT wanted people to leave the Capitol on January 6. At Cipollone’s side during his testimony was Michael Purpura, deputy White House counsel during the DDT’s administration.

Russian State Duma member Evgeny Popov is bragging about a close connection with DDT by calling him “our own Donald Trump” and lamenting the DOJ criminal investigation into DDT’s actions. He insinuated that DDT belongs to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Popov also echoed the lie that the 2020 presidential election was rigged and DDT’s complaints about Joe Biden and the current state of the U.S. The Russian also ranted:

“Didn’t we write a cool speech for Donald Trump? The best is yet to come. It won’t be surprising if DOJ adds Trump’s speech to the materials of their criminal case. Donald says he is an agent of Russia, which is true.”  

In a bipartisan act, the Senate voted 84-14 in favor of the Honoring Our Pact Act (HOPA), passed in the House with a 256-174 vote, that expands health care and benefits to veterans suffering from exposure to unsafe practices, such as “burn pits,” while in the military. The typical conservative senators as well as Mitt Romney (R-UT) criticized the bill for mythical budgetary reasons. The bill moved to the House which supported it by a 256-174 vote and a tweak to make some spending mandatory.  When the bill was returned to the Senate for final approval, 42 Republicans voted against a procedural vote, leaving the bill in question. Jon Stewart gave an impassioned speech about the GOP abandonment of veterans in retaliation for Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) supporting a bill delaying climate change, lowering drug prices, and slightly raising corporate taxes,.

The Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) bill passed the Senate by 64-33 and moved onto President Joe Biden’s desk after a 243-187 vote in the House. Despite more attempts at retaliation for any action by Democrats, 24 House GOP members voted for the bill.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), the biggest joke in the House before the onslaught of QAnon representatives, is irate because Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) put fact-checking articles about GOP lies from the past year into the congressional record, such as the false claims that AG Merrick Garland was investigating parents speaking at school boards and calling them “domestic terrorists.” In response to Rep. Jim Jordan’s (R-OH) misrepresentation of a DOJ whistleblower memo, Cicilline read the memo into the record. When Republicans objected, Cicilline asked that “the Republicans were afraid for the document to be in the record.” The incensed Gohmert said Cicilline isn’t permitted “to impugn false statements by this side.” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) laughed at Gohmert, and Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) first put his head in his hand and then went to using his cell phone.

Kentucky’s GOP senators, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, do their constituents a great disservice if they continue to ignore the dire consequences of climate change. In the past week, the catastrophic flooding in the mountainous eastern part of the state has killed at least eight people and left many others missing or trapped. Gov. Andy Beshear said, “We expect double-digit deaths.” He added, “Hundreds will lose their homes.” One county received 11 inches in rain in two days and expects more in the stalled weather front that caused historic flooding in St. Louis last Tuesday from over 12 inches of rain. In Kentucky, the hardest place hit, Hazard with 5,000 population, had over nine inches in 12 hours, and the terrain funnels more water down into the valley towns. Rock and mudslides also cut off populated areas. Heavy rainfall is now 20 to 40 percent more likely in the area than in 1900.

Remember when Republicans opposed regulations? Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis disagrees with his party’s approach. He is notorious for blocking mask mandates during the worst of the pandemic, delaying COVID vaccinations for children, eliminating LGBTQ mention in classrooms while mandating Christian nationalism in the curriculum, countermanding constitutional separation of church and state, preventing protest gatherings of more than two people, removing the right to discuss race in the workplace, redrawing the state’s Congressional map to increase the number of Republicans Florida sends to Congress, establishing his own personal state army with no federal oversight, and permitting bullying of LGBTQ students.

In Florida, teachers are ordered to dedicate 45 minutes of instruction about the suffering of people around the world on November 7, “Victims of Communism Day.” Mandated subjects are Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Fidel Castro along with “poverty, starvation, migration, systemic lethal violence, and suppression of speech” endured under those regimes. Teaching materials will be prepared by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Teachers are fleeing Florida, the state needs 10,000 teachers, and DeSantis accuses elementary school teachers, lying how they “instructed” children they may be transgender and anyone disagreeing with him is “lying.”

DeSantis latest regulation is blocking his administration from investments in “woke” corporations by prohibiting the use of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings for these decisions. Doing so would allow recipients of pensions to receive funds from companies with similar funds. DeSantis said, “The inmates are running the asylum.” Yet the State Board of Administration stated it didn’t use these ratings for overseeing the $250 billion in funds. DeSantis’ revoking Disney’s zoning agreement for criticizing his “Don’t Say Gay” law has already cost Florida taxpayers $1 billion.

In the past, Republicans objected to being surveiled; now they promote it. With the approval of a Supreme Court majority, Texas’ anti-abortion law turns all citizens into vigilantes, reporting anyone supporting abortion and creating a society reminiscent of a totalitarian state. Tennessee and Florida allow students to sue transgender students for using the “wrong” bathroom. Anyone in New Hampshire can sue a school for violating vague rules regarding teaching about race, sex, gender, and other sensitive issues, and teachers lose their licenses. Only Democratic governors in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—up for re-election this fall—protect people from totalitarian surveillance. And only the six Supremes can protect others in the U.S., and they aren’t likely to do so.

Outrage by students at George Washington University has caused Justice Clarence Thomas to cancel his plan to teach a seminar there, something he has done since 2011. Thomas is threatening to overturn a large number of human rights after participating in overturning the constitutional right to abortion in Roe v. Wade.

GOP, DDT Reject Human Rights

After a year, the Senate passed a bill to provide $280 billion for chip manufacturing, design, and scientific research. Seventeen Republicans supported the bill in the 64-33 vote with only one member of the Democratic caucus, Bernie Sanders (I-VT), in opposition because of its weak guidelines. The U.S. has contributed no money to chip manufacturing, compared to the $150 billion that China pays to support the industry. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said she had the votes in her chamber for the bill.   

Most of the funding goes toward advanced, rather than basic, chips, the majority currently coming from Taiwan. The U.S. went from making 37 percent of the world’s chips in 1990 to only 12 percent while the nation contributes “nearly nothing” to their manufacturing  compared to China’s $150 billion investment. Even with the advantages to their states, some senators, such as Tommy Turberville (R-AL) ignored the importance of chips, i.e., a critical component for Javelin missiles, manufactured in Turberville’s state.

After Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) joined Republicans to force the removal of tax increases for the wealthy and big businesses from the bill, he failed to vote after testing positive for COVID.

In Congress, Republicans joined Justice Clarence Thomas to make women into baby incubators by removing female rights to travel, contraception access, and marriage to whom they love. Although 47 GOP House members voted for marriage equality, only eight supported the right to contraception, and 205 Republicans voted against women traveling across state lines for an abortion. This dystopian vision of the U.S. comes directly from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The GOP refusal to protect marriage equality and contraception is exactly the same Republicans used to deny protection for Roe v. Wade—their assumption these rights will never be overturned. Yet justices are calling the 2015 marriage equality ruling “undemocratic,” “a problem that only [the court] can fix.”

Sen. Joni Ernst has also blocked a bill legalizing contraceptives; at 52 years old, she probably doesn’t need them. Ernst made her reputation—and may have gotten elected in 2014—with a TV ad about comparing her goals in the Senate to castrating hogs.

Twenty House Republicans also supported human trafficking by voting against a bill to combat the problem. One of them, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), criticized Democrats for doing nothing about protecting victims. Another naysayer, Matt Gaetz (R-FL), is under investigation for sex trafficking at least one underage girl. Pence’s former aide, Marc Short, said about Gaetz’s recent speech to Turning Point USA, a conservative student group, “I’m actually surprised the Florida law enforcement still allows him to speak to teenage conferences like that.”

In his speech to Turning Point, Gaetz said all anti-abortionists were fat and ugly, that they couldn’t get pregnant anyway. After a 19-year-old Texas girl objected, he used her photo to support his lie and sent her a vile insulting tweet. She used his body-shaming abuse to raise $214,000 thus far for an anti-abortion group.  

DDT’s favorite network—no, it isn’t Fox—may disappear after Verizon Fios stopped carrying One America News, removing 3.5 million subscribers. Earlier this year, OAN lost its biggest revenue when AT&T dumped DirecTV off the service in April, losing another 15 million subscribers. Far to the right of Fox, OAN created a haven for pundits who couldn’t get jobs on other channels, those willing to promote conspiracy theories including the “stolen” election.  OAN has admitted Verizon thinks that the channel is not “a credible news organization.”

Perhaps not noticing that CNN’s new CEO is directing the network to the right-wing dark side, DDT threatens to sue the company for defamation going back to his 2016 presidency campaign. DDT is still claiming his 2020 election was “stolen,” as recently as his speech in Washington, D.C. earlier this week. Clarence Thomas has said the Supreme Court should create an easier environment for people to win lawsuits against the media.   

DDT’s speech seems to be winding up to another presidential campaign with the lies about stolen elections and LGBTQ people front and center, especially trans women. For example, he misgendered swimmer Lia Thomas, accusing “him” of having “arms that are 30 feet long” and “seriously injur[ing]” a competitor “because he swam so fast that he gave her major wind burn as he went by.” Thomas also wasn’t named “female athlete of the year” and didn’t break the record “by 38 seconds.” DDT also talked about a transgender weightlifter who doesn’t seem to exist. In his speech, DDT called LGBTQ people “sickos.”

Fifty-five trans candidates running in 2022 have been joined by 20 gender nonconforming candidates, 18 nonbinary candidates, and four Two-Spirit candidates. Some of them are in red states such as Montana and Oklahoma. A total of 1,068 LGBTQ candidates, an increase of 73 percent since 2020, is running this year when legislatures introduced 162 anti-LGBTQ bills before July 1. Congress has 11 elected LGBTQ members.

Witnesses in the House January 6 probe are revealing more of his lies. The Pentagon now supports the many claims that he never called on the National Guard to protect the U.S. Capitol. DDT’s former acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller said DDT never requested the 10,000 troops to secure the Capitol before January 6, a claim made by both DDT and his former chief of staff Mark Meadows. DDT’s former official Mick Mulvaney will also testify before the committee; he says he believe the testimony of witnesses Cassidy Hutchinson and other top former DDT officials,

After eight hearings from the House January 6 investigative committee showing DDT’s involvement in the failed coup at the U.S. Capitol, the DOJ is taking steps to investigate him. Concerns include DDT’s attempt to force former VP Mike President to overturn Joe Biden’s presidential election and DDT’s ties to establishing fake alternate electors in battleground states he lost. In five of seven states, these electors appear to be driven by DDT’s lawyers with DDT also involved. The DOJ interviewed witnesses, seized phone records of his top allies, and searched the home of former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark who enabled DDT in his election-fraud theories. AG Merrick Garland has repeatedly said that no one is above the law, and the Fulton County (GA) criminal investigation into DDT’s efforts to overturn the election is also expanding.

Furious about the investigation, DDT used his Truth Social to repeat his lies and conspiracy theories—“massive and irrefutable” evidence about the “rigged and stolen” election, his “perfect” phone call to Georgia begging for more votes to make him a winner, and more whining about his impeachments and Russia scams. The extensive quotes, complete with excessive capital letters, are here.

The DOJ has a new warrant to search John Eastman’s phone in the continued investigation regarding a criminal conspiracy between DDT and his lawyer to overturn the election, partly through using fake electors. Eastman’s employer, conservative Claremont Institute, is backing off from its staunch DDT support after standing by Eastman before it learned more about his actions. Now they’re lamenting that he decided to jettison the Constitution for DDT’s benefit. The question now is how the think tank can separate itself from Eastman.

The House committee evidence supports charges of obstruction of an official proceeding with a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and used against hundreds of insurrectionists along with possibly seditious conspiracy, like charges brought against Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. In a new poll, 79 percent of people think DDT’s actions on January 6 were illegal or unethical with only 21 percent believing he did nothing wrong. Even 55 percent of Republicans agree with either illegal or unethical behavior, the same percentage of Republicans who don’t want DDT as the 2024 candidate. The 69 percent of people who believe the January 6 attack to be a crisis or major problem for American democracy is up from 65 percent earlier this year.

Leaked audio from Steve Bannon, added to his saying that DDT would declare victory on election night even if he lost, are his conspiracy with exiled Chinese mogul Guo Wengui and his associates to spread the lies that Hunter Biden’s computer, Joe Biden’s son, contained proof about salacious crimes. Guo controls pro-DDT media sites spreading far-right disinformation. Before the election, Guo’s associates disseminated videos and photos of Hunter Biden in sexual encounters and drug use.

After paying almost $2 million for DDT’s legal bills, the RNC chair Ronna McDaniel said the money stops if he becomes a 2024 candidate using the weak excuse of its “neutrality policy.” Earlier, DDT backed down when McDaniel made the same threat after DDT said he was creating his own political party. DDT’s leadership PAC, Save America, and his presidential committee-turned-PAC Make America Great Again PAC are paying legal bills for issues related to January 6, raising concerns about his witness tampering.

A Harvard study of almost 500 documents shows primary motivation for 417 Capitol rioters charged for insurrection: support for DDT, 20.6 percent; DDT’s lie about a stolen election, 20.6 percent; “peacefully protest,” 7 percent; and “general interest in violence,” 6.2 percent.  

Christian Nationlists Drive Away Church Members

Religious leaders in the U.S., like the conservative Supreme Court justices, want to make the U.S. a theocracy, overturning rights such as abortion and moving forward to block contraception, marriage equality, etc. With the growing prevalence of Christian nationalism (aka white supremacy) since Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) was elected in 2016, however, Christianity is losing numbers in its congregations. For the first time, a majority of people don’t belong to any church; only 47 percent have a membership. Only 14 percent of people in the U.S. identify as evangelical Christians.  

The movement from a “feel-good,” “uplifting approach” to hateful political Christian nationalists rants in sermons may be partly responsible. Instead of “welcoming and inclusive,” one pastor in a large St. Louis church prepares his audience for a bloody “final battle” where “the bullets are real.” He assigns books and documentaries about the evidence-free election fraud of 2020, and calls Christianity a “battleship.” Sermons began to sound like “Fox News” at the beginning of DDT’s term, even calling the COVID vaccine “the mark of the beast.” People started leaving halfway through the sermons about “critical race theory,” and new faces were older and whiter.

Christian nationalists believe the U.S. is a completely Christian nation and should follow evangelical beliefs. They want to erase separation and state while claiming biblical references for right-wing culture issues such as the drag queen story hours. DDT is represented as a Christ-like figure, and the violent Proud Boys provide security for Christian nationalist pastors.

A breaking point for many parishioners was insisting on in-person services during the pandemic. Churches had millions of dollars stashed away but ignored the growing poverty caused by lockdowns. People left the radicalized churches because they showed no love for people.

In 2019, the 86-year-old group Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, composed of ministers, lawyers, and political activists, formed the Christians Against Christian Nationalism. It calls Christian nationalism a “damaging political ideology,” a “persistent threat to both our religious communities and our democracy.” According to its initiative, Christian nationalism “often overlaps with and provides cover for white supremacy and racial subjugation.” The group also wrote the 2021 report identifying Christian nationalism as the driving ideology behind the Capitol riot.

Evangelical Christians are lobbying conservative Supreme Court justices by wining, dining, and entertaining them for conservative positions on abortion, homosexuality, open gun use, and other issues for several decades. Couples meeting with the justices were directed to focus on “the importance of a child having a father and a mother” and say, “We believe you are here for a time like this.” They report back to the group regarding their progress. VP Peggy Nienaber of Faith and Liberty, part of the legal group Liberty Counsel, prayed with justices. A staffer for Liberty Counsel behind much of the anti-civil rights litigation, reclassified as an “association of churches” in 2018, also said she prays with conservative justices inside the court building.

Since DDT’s election in 2016, activist groups can much more easily gain church status, hiding themselves from financial examination and taxes. An example is the Family Research Council (FRC), steps from the U.S. Capitol and the White House. Its legislative lobbying opposes gender-affirming surgery, abortion, and civil rights through religious exemptions. FRC’s parent organization, Focus on the Family, became a church in 2016. Groups with church status are not required to file public tax returns, reveal key staffer salaries and other officials such as board members, and give such information as grants and large payments to independent contractors. They cannot be audited without permission from a high-level Treasury official.

The IRS has 14 characteristics to identify churches or association of churches, but an organization doesn’t need to meet all 14. FRC states the group has almost 40,000 churches in its association but didn’t name them. It performs ceremonies bush as baptisms and has schools, but these are the responsibilities of the unnamed churches. Although FRC stated it holds regular chapel services for its 65 employees at its office building, a staffer denied the claim.

In early 2022, the American Family Association running the influential American Family Radio network, a film studio, and a magazine changed its designation to a church. It sends out frequent “action alerts”asking subscribers to sign petitions opposing government appointees or boycott media and brands that it identifies as supporting LGBTQ rights or abortion access.

Churches also have a “ministerial exemption” to hiring discrimination laws for religious leaders; i.e., Catholic churches can exclude women when hiring priests. Judicial rulings permit churches to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and other reasons.

The IRS does not reveal how many groups apply to come churches and how many applications it denies. With the proliferation of right-wing political activist groups becoming churches, the Satanic Temple received church recognition in 2019 and is now suing Texas, claiming that the state’s abortion restrictions inhibit the liberty of the organization’s members to practice their religious rituals. The FRC and Liberty Counsel complain that the Satanic Temple is too political to be a church, but the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies the FRC, Liberty Counsel and the American Family Association as hate groups for their anti-LGBTQ stances and advocacy. Their theocratic direction, however, leads them to influence politics away from democracy.

Rules prohibiting public, tax-exempt charities including churches from “directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office” dates back to 1954. These tax-exempt groups, however, can deal in “issue advocacy” such as voter education. If their lobbying is not a “substantial part” of their activities, they can lobby for political causes. For direct political activities, the FRC uses another tax-exempt organization, a social welfare organization called Family Research Council Action, which actively endorses candidates and lobbies for legislation. It is registered at the same address and shares five part-time employees with the FRC with FRC listing no full-time employees.

Scandals are also driving people away from churches. A Southwest Missouri boys’ boarding and reform school faces 19 lawsuits for physical and emotional abuse of the students and violating the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act by misrepresenting or concealing information from parents, such as the quality of education provided, activities at the school, discipline practices, and food and medical treatment. State AG Eric Schmitt asked Gov. Mike Parson for 65 criminal courts against 22 individuals connected to Agapè Boarding School. A longtime physician for the school also faces charges of child sex crime charges in another county. Still open and enrolling students, the Christian school, a ministry of Agapè Baptist Church, supposedly “turns around rebellious boys.”

In the Daily Beast, Kate Briquelet reported on her interviews with former students:

“They encountered a climate … like Lord of the Flies, where staff were given free rein to restrain and beat students, and where some kids were emotionally and sexually abused. They claim Agapé has functioned like a ‘cult’ and ‘Christian torture compound’ for decades, allowing adults to manhandle teenagers and withhold food, water, and proper clothing — apparently without most parents ever knowing.

“[Agapé] banned children from speaking to each other without adults present, censored their letters home, destroyed photographs showing anything other than happy faces, and admonished kids that if they ran away, locals with guns would hunt them down.”

Finally closed seven years ago, West Virginia’s Blue Creek Academy, another “reform” school for boys and part of the nearby Independent Fundamental Church, was an “alternative to today’s degenerate, secular culture and education methods.” It subjected boys to neglect, isolation, silence, rat-infested quarters, physical beating, and sexual abuse. Religious schools in West Virginia don’t need to comply with any standards, and the state is not unique with other states providing no control over these schools. Pastors consider school licensing an “intrusion into freedom of the church’s rights.” No website tracks schools, and the Supreme Court may require taxpayers to pay for tuition to them.

In May, the Southern Baptist Convention released a report about 703 pastors and church workers accused of sexual abuse, most of the cases suppressed by the churches by years and kept in a secret database for almost two decades. Assaulters went to the highest level with one leader sexually assaulting a woman one month after he finished a two-year tenure as convention president. Heather Cox Richardson provides an overview of SBC’s deterioration and declining enrollment.

A survivor of abuse said:

“This is a denomination that is through and through about power. It is misappropriated power… I am so gutted.”

The Southern Baptists said the denomination couldn’t put together a registry of sex offenders because it goes against how it functions. One reason, however, is that leaders were afraid of being sued. Private emails also showed how leaders believed sexual abuse concerns were “a satanic scheme to completely distract us from evangelism.” Russell Moore, who left his position in 2021 as head of the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said, “The depths of wickedness and inhumanity in this report are breathtaking.”  

Michael Gerson, George W. Bush’s speechwriter, wrote about “a culture of brutal chauvinism that has grown up for generations around Christianity… An utter failure to prioritize abused women and children is the largest crisis of institutional religion in the United States.”

And the Republicans—including the Supreme Court majority—promote the practice.

Secret Service Scandals, More Weekly News

A few of the text messages exchanged among Secret Service members on January 5-6 being sought by the House January 6 investigative committee and deleted by the Secret Service may have been discovered. The agency’s investigators found metadata from around that date which were not retained while examining phones of 10 Secret Service personnel. The discovery came after the DHS inspector general, James Cuffari, asked for text records last year from 24 people at the Secret Service because of demands from the House committee. It revealed only one text.

The IG had asked for text messages for January 7-8—after the insurrection was over. On January 6, the Secret Service planned and shadowed DDT’s movements, and texts would be a treasure trove of background for DDT’s activities. On July 20, the inspector general order Secret Service to stop its investigation because of a criminal probe.

The Secret Service blames the missing data on a migration of phones or a “device replacement program” beginning on January 27, 2021, one week after the inauguration of President Joe Biden. On January 16, 2021, House members sent letters to various agencies, including the Secret Service, to preserve records related to January 6. Spokesman for the Secret Service Anthony Guglielmi said the agency had no record of the letter, and Cuffari’s first request for records was on February 26, 2021, a month after the “migration” started. Both the House committee and the National Archives are searching for information with, respectively, a subpoena and a request.

Cuffari was long been aware that the texts are missing and failed to take any action for nine months. He also rejected sending an alert about the access problem until his first public statement in a letter to Congress on July 13, 2022—18 months after the House ordered him to save all records related to the insurrection. The Secret Service still stated that the migration had not lost any of the texts the inspector general was seeking, a complete falsehood.

Both Cuffari and James Murray, Secret Service director, are trying to dig themselves out of the scandal exploding after the agents’ deleted texts that could reveal DDT’s activities on the days before and of the insurrection. DDT appointed both of them, based on friends’ recommendations and their loyalty to protect him at any costs. According to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, the Secret Service were told at least three times to preserve text messages and communications on the agency’s phones, per federal law. Murray didn’t live up to his responsibility. Investigative journalist Carol Leonnig wrote that DDT wanted to appoint Secret Service Tony Ornato for the agency’s director in 2019, but Ornato recommended Murray. Ornato then became DDT’s deputy chief of staff, and Murray became the director after a ten-minute interview with DDT.  

During his Cuffari’s tenure as director:

He rejected his staff’s recommendation to investigate the Secret Service role in the June 2020 violent clearing of peaceful anti-racist protesters from Lafayette Square for DDT’s photo op at St. John’s Church.

Cuffari suppressed a report about sexual misconduct within DHS for over a year and then told Congress he would issue it because it was old information.

He attempted to limit the investigation into COVID spread within the Secret Service alleged caused by DDT’s re-election campaign not following guidelines.

He ignored staff’s request to examine Secret Service COVID protocols putting Secret Service employees at risk because DDT would not wear masks in close quarters before a vaccine was available.

He stonewalled his career staff from interviewing key officials in a review about Border Patrol employee participation in a Facebook group rife with racist and sexist messages until one of them behind it had resigned.

He was accused of stalling a whistleblower’s complaint about DHS officials politicizing its department in support of DDT and Stephen Miller until after DDT lost the election.

The DHS Office of Intelligence & Analysis also released no “intelligence products specific for January 6”, 2021, attack on the capitol.

Under Cuffari, the DHS did not launch a single probe specifically investigating the Secret Service at any point during the tenure of Dictator Donald Trump (DDT).

In another week, Murray is leaving his director of Secret Service position to become chief security officer for Snap Inc., owner of the Snapchat social media site. Despite glowing comments about the Secret Service, others have pointed out continuing scandals including prostitution, security missteps for President Obama, and the ongoing allegations of politization during DDT’s term and into that of President Joe Biden.

Recently, two of Biden’s Secret Service detail in South Korea caused an altercation with the country’s citizens while the two men were bar-hopping while off duty. A month earlier, agency leaders admitted four employees, including one assigned to protect first lady Jill Biden were allegedly hoodwinked by two men impersonating federal agents and gave them expensive gifts. On January 6, then-VP Mike Pence refused to get into a car with Secret Service agents for fear they would remove him from his responsibility to preside over counting electoral votes after the insurrection.

On July 12, 2022, the House committee hearing presented testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson; she claimed Ornato had told her that DDT lunged for the car’s steering wheel to keep the driver from returning to the White House on January 6 instead of going to the U.S. Capitol. She added that Robert Engel, head of DDT’s security detail who was present at the discussion, did not deny Ornato’s claim. They have said the incident didn’t happen but have yet to testify under oath and retained private counsel as has the driver. At the July 22, 2022 hearing, Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) said two additional sources have partly corroborated the story about DDT’s attack on his Secret Service detail, one of them, “a former White House employee with national security responsibilities.” The second witness was retired Washington, DC, police Sgt. Mark Robinson, who was in DDT’s motorcade that day.

Former members of the Secret Service, media pundits, and politicians have disagreed whether the texts were maliciously deleted through politics or just lost through sloppy, bad governance. Whether from incompetence or intention, the result is criminal.

Following are a few snippets of recent news, some of them flying under the radar:

Jeffrey Clark, who DDT tried to make Acting AG to overturn the Georgia 2020 election, is facing ethics charges at the D.C. Bar which could require him to cooperate with any DOJ investigation of DDT. His choice could be prison or cooperation.

Conservatives have a new scapegoat for all the hate in the U.S.—Hillary Clinton. Paul Waldman has a differing opinion in his column, “The Most Dangerous Threat to America? White Male Entitlement.”

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are no longer connected to DDT’s political endeavors—at least for now.

The Senate voted 64-34 to advance a slimmer bill boosting U.S. semiconductor competition with China, $50 billion in subsidies for manufacturing computer chips and decrease dependence on Asia. The global shortage hurts many manufacturing industries—automotive vehicles, mobile phones, consumer technology, defense systems, etc. If senators pass the bill, it moves to the House. Over a year ago, the bill passed the Senate with $250 billion, but the House didn’t consider it. The House bill included climate change funding, and Republicans refused it.

As usual, DDT has soaked up media coverage with almost no space left over for Biden’s trip to the Middle East except for outrage about a fist bump with murderer Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). His trip began gathering support against Iran, a country developing much more power since DDT backed out of the agreement to keep it from having nuclear weapons. Biden’s work was to lay diplomacy for Saudi Arabia for an agreement with Israel like the Jerusalem Declaration, similar to the Abraham Accords, signed during Biden’s trip. The work with Middle East countries is vital because Russian President Vladimir Putin is building a coalition with Iran and China—a primary security threat. MBS already signed the Jeddah Communique, stressing the importance for both sides “of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.” Biden’s final stop, the GCC+3 summit with nine Middle East leaders, shows the U.S. will not leave a vacuum for China, Iran, or Russia. Global affairs, like life, are complicated.

Conservatives who follow Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post will be reading this about DDT after the eighth hearing:    

“His only focus was to find any means—damn the consequences—to block the peaceful transfer of power. There is no other explanation, just as there is no defense, for his refusal to stop the violence.”

Murdoch has sent a message to DDT about his future aspirations of completing an authoritarian regime, again weaponizing his power to force loyalty and militarize the nation with grand displays of parades. Even Murdoch wants the GOP to move on without DDT.

DDT’s Response to Hearing, Congressional Action

Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) couldn’t stay quiet about the eighth hearing on July 21 by the House January 6 investigative committee:

• He called Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), vice-chair of the House January 6 investigative committee, “a sanctimonious loser.”
• He said he “didn’t know” the witness Sarah Matthews, who worked for his 2020 presidential campaign before becoming his White House deputy press secretary.
• About his failure to have “10,000 to 20,000 troops to stand guard at the Capitol Building,” DDT wrote, “It’s Nancy Pelosi’s fault, she turned down the troops!”
• He claimed he didn’t tell House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) that the mob is “just more upset about the election than you are.”
• He added that “Crooked Hillary Clinton” and Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams “contested their elections” for a “far longer time.” (In 2016 Clinton conceded her defeat to DDT within 24 hours, and Abrams did not challenge the election as DDT did. Neither led an angry mob to stop their opponents from taking power.)
• He repeated the lie about “an election Rigged and Stolen from me, and our Country” and added “the USA is going to Hell. Am I supposed to be happy?”
• He called Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) a “disloyal sleaze bag.” Immediately after the insurrection, McConnell told then-acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, “We’re not going to let these people keep us from finishing our business. So we need you to get the building cleared, give us the OK so we can go back in session and finish up the people’s business as soon as possible.” The next day he blamed the attack on DDT. “Is this the same Mitch McConnell who was losing big in Kentucky, and came to the White House to BEG me for an Endorsement and help?” DDT wrote. “Without me he would have lost in a landslide.”

Last week, former DDT adviser Steve Bannon went to trial for defying a subpoena from the House committee and was convicted within five days. Prosecutors had two witnesses, and Bannon had none, not even himself. As a witness, he would have to testify under oath. Bannon claimed he had executive privilege although he hasn’t worked in the White House since 2017. The conviction for two counts of contempt each brings 30 days to one year in prison with sentencing on October 21. Bannon will likely appeal.

Almost two years ago, DDT pardoned Bannon for his taking $1 million in an alleged wall-building scam. The case never went to trial. He continually declares that Joe Biden is an illegitimate president because DDT won the election. Before the insurrection, he told DDT, “[I]t’s time to kill the Biden presidency in the crib.” On his January 5 podcast he said:

“All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. Just understand this: All hell is going to break loose tomorrow…. [A]ll I can say is: Strap in. You have made this happen, and tomorrow it’s game day.”

Last year, Bannon said he would make his case “the misdemeanor from hell for Merrick Garland, Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden.” He implied he would try to force the January 6 committee to reveal internal communications and interviews conducted in secret. Last month, Bannon said that AG Merrick Garland and “everybody in the DOJ” would be impeached if DDT is indicted for anything related to overturning the election. Last week, he added, “We’re going medieval on these people. We’re going to savage our enemies.” Bannon is a “studio gangster,” a performer who can’t back up their songs or raps. 

Bannon thought he could win his case with fake excuses: deadlines on official documents weren’t for real; official signatures could have been forged by anyone; the subpoenas were not legitimate. Bannon even accused the committee chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) of testing positive for COVID to avoid testifying at the trial. The judge told the jury to ignore the signature issue.

As members of the U.S. Supreme Court consider erasing marriage equality, Andorra has became the 33^rd country in the world to legalize same-gender civil marriage. Lawmakers in the Pyrennes country of 77,000 unanimously voted for this right as well as allowing transgender people to update their names and gender markers on legal documents without proof of medical care, something the U.S. moves toward eliminating. The House has passed the Respect for Marriage Act (RMA) with all Democrats and 22 percent of Republican lawmakers, but the bill needs 20 percent of GOP Senators to join all Democrats for passage. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) already called the bill a “waste of time,” referring to hundreds of thousands of marriages—including mine.

In 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act, permitting states to refuse marriage equality and defining marriage as only heterosexual, passed by 342-67 including 118 House Democrats. Exactly 26 years later, support for marriage equality in the U.S. is 71 percent, compared to 27 percent in 1996. Texas wants to move back almost three decades. The man who created the draconian vigilante anti-abortion law is involved in six state lawsuits to chip away at LGBTQ rights, including marriage, most of them regarding religious rights to trump performance of marriage, preventative medical care (specifically PrEP for HIV) from private insurers, employment, and books in libraries.    

Susan Collins (ME) and Rob Portman (OH), who announced in 2013 his son is gay, announced the bill in the Senate. Ron Johnson (WI), usually the biggest outlier, said he wouldn’t oppose the bill. (He’s facing a very difficult re-election this year.) Sen. Thom Tillis (NC) said he was voting for the RMA, and Lisa Murkowski (AK) said she’s always supported same-gender marriage. Responses from the 50 GOP senators about their positions. Major excuses for lack of support are not reading the bill or no need, despite judicial threats against it. The bill would also codify the right to interracial marriage, not threatened by conservative Justice Clarence Thomas after his biracial marriage. 

In an odd shift from marriage equality, only eight Republicans voted for federal contraceptive protection when the Right to Contraception Act (RCA) passed by 228-195. The Supremes have also threatened to overturn the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut requiring married people to be permitted birth control. One excuse was that the bill would protect contraception not approved by the FDA—and of course, misinformation that the bill isn’t necessary. Two GOP Iowa representatives have put forward a bill to permit FDA-approved contraceptives to have over-the-counter status, but both voted against the RCA.

The House passed two access to abortion bills which are unlikely to survive the Senate, but the Senate is also playing offense with the Electoral College Count Act (ECCA), a bipartisan bill trying to prevent future coups like the one DDT attempted. Its provisions aim to prevent action by another losing candidate to move into the White House:

• A state must appoint electors using the state’s laws before Election Day. State’s laws requiring electors based on the popular vote could not change the process. DDT tried to force legislators to appoint electors in opposition to the popular vote, pushed Republican congressional members to object to legal electors, and pressured his vice president to block the count, giving him time to take more action in the states.
• State legislatures would no longer declare a “failed election” and overturn the state’s popular vote.
• The governor must certify the correct electors by a hard deadline before Congress counts them, keeping a governor from certifying electors for a losing candidate. An aggrieved candidate could trigger expedited judicial review by a federal three-judge panel, subject to an expedited Supreme Court appeal. The ECCA would prevent state legislators and governors from breaking their laws.
• The vice president’s role in counting the votes is only ceremonial.
• One-fifth of each chamber would be required to force a vote to invalidate electors. The current law requires one member from each congressional chamber to start debate.

Another bill increases criminal punishments for threats, harassment, and violence against election workers.

DDT is still working to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. On July 19, he called Wisconsin GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos with a new scam after the state Supreme Court ruled that most absentee ballot drop boxes in the state are illegal for future elections. DDT wants to make it retroactive. Vos told DDT his idea is unconstitutional but said DDT “has a different opinion.”A former state Supreme Court justice, who resigned after a year, has been running a ballot audit for over a year and also wants the legislature to decertify the 2020 election although the justice’s own attorney said doing so is impossible. 

Ten months ago, DDT insisted Arizona must decertify the 2020 results, followed by his insistence two months later the Georgia do the same. He claims he will undo his defeat and return to the White House. Earlier in July, Christina Bobb, a former OAN host now working for the former president, wanted to decertify 2020 votes after the 2022 midterm elections. Throughout the nation DDT’s allies, including architect of overturning the election John Eastman, are pushing states to pass resolutions rescinding Electoral College votes for Joe Biden and sue to prove evidence-free claims of large-scale voter fraud in their work to reinstate DDT.

Congress has two more weeks to work on bills until members leave for their one-month summer adjournment. Meanwhile, five justices on the Supreme Court handed ICE authority over to a DDT-appointed federal judge in Texas on how to authorize their time for the next year despite a federal statute giving this power to the HHS Secretary. SCOTUS may make its order permanent next year, negating enforcement for the past 2+ decades. Amy Coney Barrett broke with the six Supremes.

January 6, 2021 Hearing – July 21, 2022

The eighth hearing from the House January 6 investigative committee lasted 135 minutes and covered 187 minutes while supporters of Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) followed following his orders to violently destroy the orderly process of announcing electoral votes for the next president of the United States, Joe Biden. For that entire time, congressional members, their staff, and others were hiding from the insurrectionists while the Capitol Police tried to protect them. The Secret Service, who also feared for their lives and made goodbye calls to their loved ones, smuggled VP Mike Pence out of the Capitol and into safety from the mob chanting “Hang Mike Pence” because he didn’t follow their demands.

Complainers about how the hearings’ information has already been in the news are, in part, correct, but witness testimony verifies what was formerly called hearsay. DDT attacked a Secret Service driver when he demanded he was going to the Capitol for the insurrection and had to be forced back to the White House where he sat in his dining room and watched Fox reporting on the insurrection. For almost three hours he refused to take any action, despite begging from family, friends, and advisers; as Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-OH) said, “He chose not to act.” DDT would not allow any photographs and legal record-keeping of his communications during that time. 

Committee Vice-chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) facilitated the session, and Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS), isolated after testing positive for COVID, spoke by video at the beginning and end of the hearing. Kinzinger and Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) led the questioning of witnesses Matthew Pottinger, former National Security Council official, and Sarah Matthews, DDT’s deputy white House press secretary. Matthews, a House GOP staffer, has already been attacked as a liar and a pawn for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on the House GOP account from the office of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY). Jeremy Adler, one of Cheney’s top aide, shamed Stefanik’s team because Matthews is “doing her patriotic duty.” The tweet was then deleted. A second tweet calling tonight’s hearing “heresy,” perhaps meaning hearsay, was also deleted.

Clips at the beginning and end of the hearing play speeches immediately after January 6 by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) given on their chamber floors. McCarthy said, “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters” because he didn’t act “immediately.” McConnell said, “It was obvious that only President Trump could end this” because people were acting on Trump’s behalf and blamed DDT for using false voter-fraud claims to inflame supporters.   

The committee revealed more hearings are planned for September after Congress returns from its August hiatus. More people are volunteering testimony to support the proof DDT’s dereliction of duty and violating his oath to protect the U.S. Constitution.

Showing DDT’s dereliction of duty, White House counsel Pat Cipollone gave a detailed timeline on DDT’s January 6 activities during the insurrection, beginning as early as 2:00 pm when Cipollone and several others pushed for a statement to call off rioters. After a long pause, he answered a question by adding that everyone in the White House wanted the insurrectionists to leave except DDT.

Outtakes of DDT’s videos to—reluctantly—stop the mob’s violence and his follow-up speech the next day demonstrate his refusal to include any mention of peace and vilification of the insurrectionists (which Republicans still call “tourists”). He also couldn’t say, “The election’s over.” DDT did not call any agency—not Defense, Justice, Homeland Security, or any other—for a response to the attack. That was left of to Pence while he was in hiding. Then White House chief of staff Mike Meadows told Gen. Mark A. Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to say that DDT had called him, not Pence, in an attempt to make him look as if he were in control. Earlier, DDT refused to take a call from the Pentagon that was seeking to “coordinate on the response to the attack.” Adviser Eric Herschman told Cipollone that “the president didn’t want anything done.”

DDT wasn’t through after the failed insurrection. His personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani made calls reinforcing support for the plan of overturning the election to such congressional members as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Lindsey O. Graham (R-SC), Josh Hawley (R-Mo), and Ted Cruz (R-TX). A voicemail for Tuberville laid out the scheme: “just slow [this hearing] down.”

DDT left his dining room for his White House residence at 6:27 pm on January 6 after his last tweet of the day, a love note to his followers:

“These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide victory is so unceremoniously, viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly, unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love and peace.”

The last thing DDT said on January 6 was “Mike Pence let me down.” Herschmann said everyone left the White House because they were “drained.”

At the Capitol, congressional members came out of hiding, resumed the electoral vote counting about 8:00 pm, and then finished their job at 3:41 am EST on January 7, 14 hours and 41 minutes after they started. The counting must be done in a session beginning son January 6 unless Congress passes a law changing it.

Senate staff had saved the paper Electoral College ballots when the chamber was evacuated because the mob was breaking into the building.

A lasting video of the eighth hearing is Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) running in terror through the halls and down steps. This was after he thrust his fist in the air in support of the protesters and adding fuel to the violence while he was behind the barricades.

Three days after the insurrection, texts from DDT’s campaign officials and loyalists Tim Murtaugh and Matthew Wolking show their disgust and rage with DDT when he didn’t even acknowledge the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick on the night of January 7. Wolking wrote, “Everything [DDT] said about supporting law enforcement was a lie.”

Viewers see the hearings as building a criminal case against DDT and his enablers of seditious conspiracies in overthrowing the government and forcibly opposing its authority. The DOJ can use the committee’s work. Just as important, however, is “to stop Trump’s continuing attack on American democracy,” according to Robert Reich who lists six ways through the hearings:

Be crystal clear that the continuing attempted coup is based on a lie through repeatedly playing DDT’s former AG Bill Barr stating:  

“I saw absolutely zero basis for the allegations [of voter fraud], but they were made in such a sensational way that they obviously were influencing a lot of people, members of the public, that there was this systemic corruption in the system and that their votes didn’t count and that these machines controlled by somebody else were actually determining it, which was complete nonsense. And it was being laid out there, and I told them that it was—that it was crazy stuff and they were wasting their time on that. And it was doing a grave disservice to the country.”

Showing the battle between democracy and authoritarian is non-partisan with all the GOP witnesses who worked for DDT, GOP legislators, GOP-appointed judges, GOP-elected state officials, etc. They are all citizens disgusted by and worried about DDT’s attempted coup.

Appealing to Republican lawmakers to stop supporting DDT’s continuing attempted coup in stressing oaths to defend the U.S. Constitution. 

Explaining how average people fell for DDT’s treachery with disastrous results with witnesses such as Stephen Ayers representing the ordinary “family man and a working man” who took part in the insurrection because he thought DDT wanted him there.  

Reminding people of their duties to democracy as Committee chair Thompson said in the seventh hearing:

“We settle our differences at the ballot box. Sometimes my choice prevails, sometimes yours does, but it’s that simple. We cast our votes. We count the votes. If something seems off with the results, we can challenge them in court, and then we accept the results. When you’re on the losing side, that doesn’t mean you have to be happy about it. And in the United States, there’s plenty you can do and say so. You can protest. You can organize. You can get ready for the next election to try to make sure your side has a better chance the next time the people settle their differences at the ballot box. But you can’t turn violent.”

Presenting DDT’s attempted coup as ongoing like Cheney did when she described DDT’s attempts at witness tampering.

The hearings are making a difference. Without them, DDT’s popularity would increase as people lack information and forget. Instead, the 57 percent of people say DDT has, at least, a good amount of blame for the January 6 insurrection, up from 53 percent six months ago. Half the people think DDT should be charged with crimes based on the evidence presented in the hearings. At least 58 percent of people in the U.S. are paying either a lot of attention (25 percent) or some attention (33 percent) to the hearings.

The drip, drip, drip accumulation about a corrosive DDT provided by the hearings is eroding support for him, shown in polling, focus groups, and fundraising. Part of DDT’s problem is that he won’t stop litigating the 2020 election, which some describe as “Trump fatigue.”

And new evidence will be back in September hearings!

 

Primary – July 19, 2022

After June’s exciting primaries, July had only one on the 19^th before the drama begins with another 20 in August and September. Maryland voted for candidates to replace Gov. Larry Hogan who started out as a conservative Republican before moving to the middle, perhaps becoming the most liberal of all GOP governors. He endorsed his former Labor Secretary Kelly Schulz, but state legislator Dan Cox, endorsed by Deposed Donald Trump (DDT), took the race to become the gubernatorial GOP candidate. Six years ago, Cox lost to Rep. Jamie Raskin (D) by 26 percent.

Cox sued Hogan for his early pandemic restrictions, but the lawsuit was dismissed. He also filed a resolution of impeachment against Hogan and organized busloads of protesters to go to Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021. Saying that President Joe Biden’s win should not have been certified, Cox tweeted that former VP Mike Pence was a “traitor,” later apologizing. Democrats may be happier than DDT with Cox’s win, but the GOP is upset because the Democratic Governors Association put over $1 million into an ad boosting Cox, a weak candidate in November.

For the Democrat gubernatorial candidate, Tom Perez, former DNC chair and President Obama’s Secretary of Labor during his second term, follows Wes Moore, veteran turned bestselling author, by nine points, but over one-third of the votes have not been counted. Oprah Winfrey and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer endorsed Moore. Republicans rarely win the top office in Maryland where Democrats outnumber the GOP 2-1, and DDT lost Maryland by 2-1 in 2020.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D) is considered a safe re-election in November. Chris Chaffee, the GOP candidate for U.S. Senate in November, received under 22 percent of the vote after 78 percent of ballots were counted in a field of ten. One of his opponents, Ryan Dark White running as Dr. Jon McGreevey, received six percent of the vote despite his arrest for allegations of false information about child sex trafficking at the Edgewood (MD) adult bookstore where he works. The GOP candidate for Baltimore County sheriff, Andy Kuhl, made campaign appearances with White and issued warnings about a so-called “multistate child trafficking operation.”

Losing GOP candidates this summer, many of them against other Republicans, claim the election is rigged against them:

Colorado state Rep. Ron Hanks and Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters lost primaries for U.S. Senate and secretary of state and demanded recounts. Hanks’ rival outspent him by 14-1, and QAnon-follower Peters was indicted on seven felony charges for allegations she helped orchestrate a breach in her county’s voting system’s hard drive.  

Joey Gilbert came in second for Nevada GOP gubernatorial candidate and claimed elections have “too many holes.”

Kandiss Taylor came third in Georgia’s GOP primary election with 3.4 percent; she wants a recount.

Kari Lake, opposed by Republicans in Arizona such as Gov. Doug Ducey except for staunch DDT supporters, said her top opponent “might be trying to set the stage for another steal.”

Months ago, Sarah Palin, one of 50 candidates for the one representative from Alaska, said the election rigged against her.

Only Republican losers see any election fraud; no GOP winners make this claim.

Jim Marchant declared Nevada had no legitimate election in the state for over a decade with all winners since 2006 “installed by the deep-state cabal” but celebrated his win for GOP secretary of state candidate as legitimate.

In Pennsylvania, GOP gubernatorial winner for the November election, Doug Mastriano, led a state Senate hearing airing false claims about mass voter fraud and went to the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. He was stripped of his committee chair position by Republicans and tried to create a partisan election audit in the state but didn’t mention election fraud in declaring victory for the November election.

Helping DDT legislate false claims of voter fraud, Texas AG Ken Paxton accepted his win for GOP candidate in the November election.

Claimants of voter fraud Ohio GOP Senate candidate J.D. Vance, North Carolina GOP Senate nominee Ted Budd, and Pennsylvania U.S. Senate Mehmet Oz—were delighted to accept their candidacies for November.

In under a day after the Buffalo shooting killing ten people at a grocery store, Oz held a pro-gun rally with Ted Nugent. When Oz bragged about winning the election against Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, Fox host Bill Hemmer told him he was “trailing significantly” in the polls—by nine percent. And that was when Fetterman wasn’t campaigning while he recovered from a stroke. Oz responded, “I think I should be favored.” He complained Fetterman brought in over five times the donations he was–$26.1 million—because his opponent campaigned on the “issues” as “excuses.” Oz gathered only $1.1 million during the second quarter compared to Fetterman’s $9.9 million with over half under $200 per person and 69 percent of donations from new donors.

Despite criticizing pharmaceutical companies for the rising insulin costs, Oz invested $715,000 in those companies.

In Ohio, J.D. Vance, DDT-endorsed GOP U.S. Senate candidate is broke. With $628,000 in the bank and $883,000 in debt, his campaign has a deficit of over $250,000. His opponent, Rep. Tim Ryan raised $9.1 million the second quarter, listing 90,000 new donors with almost all the donations under $100. During his candidacy, Vance promised not to take contributions from corporate PACs, but his finance report shows he took tens of thousands of dollars from at least 11 corporate PACs in energy, insurance, and real-estate industries.

After winning his candidacy because of DDT’s endorsement, Vance bailed on him, claiming no cuts for Medicare and Social Security as well as opposition to their privatization. His excuse is that the GOP is “the party of the aging white person.”

Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano is scrubbing his extremist videos from his Facebook page, including his false claims of a rigged election electing Joe Biden as president, once a mandate for getting elected. Earlier he erased videos promoting tweets and videos promoting QAnon conspiracy theories. Mastriano organized a fake post-election legal hearing for Rudy Giuliani in Pennsylvania, asked Congress to deny the state’s electors, visited the Arizona private ballot audit debacle, used campaign funds to bus people to the January 6 insurrection, and crossed police barricades at the Capitol.

Mastriano paid $5,000 to the social media platform Gab, home of conspiracies and anti-Semitism. The shooter at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill (PA) who killed 11 Jewish worshippers routinely posted anti-Semitic content on Gab where Mastriano posts. He also gave Gab an interview on the platform while avoiding mainstream media outlets and banning some media from campaign events. His opponent, Josh Shapiro, is Jewish; according to the Anti-Defamation League, anti-Semitic violence is at an all-time high in Pennsylvania.

California’s new redistrict put Republican Rep. Ken Calvert into Palm Springs, and he is reversing his 30-year-old homophobic positions. He faces out gay challenger Will Rollins in November and even voted in favor of the Respect for Marriage Act which passed the House this past week. “It’s a different country,” he said. DDT endorsed Calvert, who received a “0” in the 2019/2020 session by the Human Rights Campaign. In 2021, Calvert voted against the Equality Act, intended to prohibit discrimination against sexual orientation and gender identity. His conversion apparently happened in the past 12 months. Conservative polling company found that 70 percent of the people support marriage equality, including 55 percent of Republicans.

Primary winner Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) expressed outrage that Biden’s administration has seized a massive numbers of fentanyl pills at the southern border and accused him of “a terrorist chemical attack on our country” by “letting drugs flow into our country” by “keeping our border open.” (A) Drug smuggling and terrorist chemical attacks are very different; (B) Biden stopped the drugs from flowing; and (C) drug smugglers were stopped at the border.

Prosecutors in Georgia targeted 16 fake electors after the 2020 presidential election for subpoenas and may be subject to criminal charges by a grand jury in Fulton County (GA) as part of DDT’s efforts to overturn the election. One of the targeted fake electors is state Sen. Burt Jones, GOP candidate for lieutenant governor.  

With 40 percent of the states left to hold primaries, the next Primary Day will be on August 2 with elections in Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington, followed by Tennessee two days later.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has killed hopes to delay climate change and opposed the Clean Water Act in his desire to make money and please the Republicans but diverted $15 million in government funding to wetlands near his vacation condo.

Europe is suffering from extreme heat with over 1,000 people killed in temperatures the highest in history. Over 105 million people in 28 states also face excessive heat conditions going up to 115 degrees in Texas and Oklahoma. The “heat dome,” a stagnant ridge of high pressure diverts the jet stream north and may not break for at least a week.

Temperature isn’t alone in causing deaths: extreme heat paired with high humidity, measured as “wet-bulb temperature,” is extremely dangerous. The upper limit of safety could be 95 degrees with 100 percent humidity or 115 degrees at 50 percent humidity, but people are at even high risk with heart disease, respiratory problems, and other health problems along with certain medications. People over the age of 65 comprise some 80 percent to 90 percent of heat wave casualties.