Category Archives: Terrorism

Why Not Just Leave Our Flags At Half Mast?

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As I was driving home the other day, I noticed a flag at half mast, which made me wonder: Who was it honoring?

Was it for the two officers gunned down during a traffic stop in western Wisconsin? Was it for the Minnesota sheriff’s deputy who was shot and killed while responding to a domestic assault? Was it for the Wisconsin officer gunned down by a suspected drunk driver? Or was it honoring the victims of the latest mass shooting?

But, if it was for the latter, which one?

The shootings are coming at such a furious rate, it’s increasingly difficult to know which shooting victims the flags are honoring. In fact, as of midday May 23, 2023, GunViolenceArchive.org had counted 237 mass shootings and 175 law enforcement officers killed or wounded. That works out to 1.66 mass shootings per day and 1.23 law enforcement officers shot per day!

Of course, gun advocates will use that information to support their belief that even more people need to be armed. Really? The USA already has more guns in the hands of civilians than our civilians have hands, yet the number of shootings continues to increase.

Gun advocates also claim that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. But in a life-or-death situation, experts tell us that it’s seldom possible to distinguish between the two.

Moreover, if you still believe it’s necessary to carry a gun for self-defense, you might want to consider this: So far this year, there have been 436 defensive uses of a gun. Over the same period of time, there have been 604 unintentional shootings. So, you’re far more likely to shoot yourself with your own gun than use it to respond to a crime!

And that’s not even considering suicide by gun. With so many guns so readily available, it’s all too easy for people to kill themselves in a moment of anger or despair. Indeed, out of the total of 16,671 gun deaths this year, 9,438 have been from suicide leaving families and loved ones to clean blood and body parts off the walls of their family homes.

In addition, 13,566 people have been wounded, many sustaining life-changing debilitating physical injuries. And that doesn’t include the psychological damage done to the victims, the first responders, the ER teams, and the witnesses. (If you doubt that, look at the body camera footage of the officers involved at the Uvalde elementary school, which shows officers vomiting and sobbing after they finally entered the classrooms.) Many of these people will require physical or mental therapy for the rest of their lives.

The long-term costs are simply unimaginable.

“It’s Not My Kid, Friend, Or Co-Worker.”

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“There’s nothing I can do about it.” “That’s the price of freedom.” “It’s a mental health issue.” “Guns don’t kill. People do.” “Thoughts and prayers.” And, of course, there’s the old reliable excuse we hear following every mass murder: “Now is not the time to talk about solutions.”

Of all the possible reactions to mass shootings and gun violence, those have to rank among the worst. They are the equivalent of saying, “I don’t care…move along…nothing to see here…it didn’t happen to anyone I know.”

And move along they do.

The MAGA Party and its NRA sponsors continue to ignore the 10-million-pound elephant in the room: Guns. And, in fact, they continue to make matters worse by passing laws to encourage and increase gun ownership. Since the 1970s, we’ve seen them legalize conceal and carry. We’ve seen them legalize open carry and permitless carry. We’ve seen them legalize silencers and bump stocks that can turn a semi-automatic rifle into the equivalent of a fully automatic weapon. We’ve seen them pass laws to protect gun manufacturers from lawsuits. We’ve seen them pass 2nd Amendment sanctuary laws to make it illegal for state authorities to cooperate with federal authorities, such as the ATF and FBI.

And we’ve seen them pass laws to protect the life of a gun (in some red states, it’s illegal to destroy a confiscated gun, even those used in crimes)!

What we haven’t seen them do is pass laws requiring universal background checks or red flag laws to keep guns from those deemed mentally unstable and dangerous. We haven’t seen bans on 3D printed guns, ghost gun kits, or Glock switches. We haven’t seen them do anything to stop the illegal trafficking of guns to Mexican cartels. We haven’t seen them pass laws to ban AR-15s, AK-47s and other weapons of war.

And, of course, we haven’t seen them do anything to protect the lives of school children, grocery shoppers, theatergoers, concertgoers, and bankers.

To the MAGA Party, the NRA, and the gun lobby, mass murders in the US are like reading about Russian war crimes halfway around the world – sad and regrettable, but they remain secure in the belief that such tragedies won’t affect them personally. That’s probably what some of the parents in Uvalde thought until it happened to them. Or the people in Nashville or Louisville or Buffalo or…fill in the blank with your city of choice. There are hundreds, if not thousands of mass murder sites to choose from.

The reality is that gun violence is now the number one cause of death for children. One in 25 American kindergartners won’t make it to their 40th birthday because of guns. As of this writing, we’ve already experienced more mass shootings (150) in the US this year than we’ve experienced days (103). And we’ve already lost 11,888 lives to gun violence.

It’s not like we don’t know how to stop it. Though we have a greater incidence of gun violence than every other nation on Earth, we don’t have a greater incidence of mental illness. We don’t have a greater incidence of poverty than most. And contrary to MAGA beliefs, more Americans are religious than in other wealthy nations.

What sets us apart is the number of guns (there are more guns in the US than there are people) and a misguided reading of our Constitution’s 2nd Amendment. (As former Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger said, “The gun lobby’s interpretation of the Second Amendment is one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American people by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”)

It doesn’t have to be this way. The rights granted by the 2nd Amendment, like all other rights, are not unlimited. We can restrict the types of guns sold. We can demand background checks, we can restrict the age of gun owners, we can demand safe storage, and other common sense safety measures. And, if we’re serious about ending gun violence, Australia has already set an example for us to follow.

If such measures result in economic hardships for gun manufacturers? Well, thoughts and prayers.

What They Say Versus What They Do.

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Today’s Trump-loving MAGA GOP has tried to stake out the political high ground by waving the flag and likening themselves to the colonial patriots of 1776. They claim to be the only true defenders of the Constitution – God-fearing Americans who are for low taxes and limited government. Many walk around with a copy of the Constitution in one hand and a Bible in the other. But, following countless encounters with such people, I can assure you that most have read neither. Moreover, they have a flawed understanding of American history and civics if, indeed, they have any understanding at all.

So, let’s examine their boastful – dare I say delusional – claims one by one:

• They call themselves patriots. But they are actively trying to destroy our government. They support autocrats, dictators and our nation’s adversaries such as Putin and Russia. So, in reality, the only thing they have in common with the original patriots is that they own guns.
• They claim to support freedom. But they are trying to limit the freedom of others to love and worship as they please. They are denying others the right to vote. And they are denying women the freedom to control their own bodies.
• They claim to be for ordinary working people. But most of the bills they propose are written for them by large corporations and corporate “think” tanks.
• They claim to be anti-crime. But they have made it incredibly easy for any criminal to obtain military-style weaponry that permits them to out-gun the police. Many support those who attacked police on January 6. And now they are trying to undermine the FBI and the DOJ.
• They claim to be fiscally conservative. But they have given trillions in tax cuts and subsidies to the wealthy and large multinational corporations. The resulting loss of revenue has led to large deficits and a growing national debt. Further, they have created “free market” messes – the Great Depression and the Great Recession – that were left for Democrats to clean up.
• They claim to be against raising taxes. But they have proposed a 30 percent sales tax that would be devastating to everyone but the very wealthy.
• They claim to support Social Security and Medicare. But they have opposed them from their very beginning and they continue to call for major changes that would put millions of seniors at risk.
• They claim the mainstream media is biased against them. But their media darlings on Fox News have been proven to be little more than propagandists peddling lies that divide us and damage our nation.
• They claim to be pro-life. But they are really only pro-birth. For example, they refuse to do anything to stop school shootings. They continually try to cut food stamp programs and school lunch programs that feed impoverished children. And, by encouraging the births of more unwanted children, they will further overload the foster system – a system that too often serves as a feeder system for our prisons.
• They claim to be pro-education. But they are banning books and threatening teachers who dare to discuss real American history.
• They claim to be Christian. But they have little to no compassion for the poor and the oppressed.
• They claim that the events of January 6 were part of a peaceful demonstration carried out by tourists. But anyone with a functioning brain could see that it was a violent attack on our nation’s capitol as part of a failed coup incited by the disgraced, twice-impeached former president.
• And, of course, they claim the 2020 election was stolen. But multiple recounts and audits found negligible voter fraud. And most of the fraud that was uncovered was committed by some of their very own.

In other words, everything they say is a lie.

Why A New Civil War Seems Inevitable.

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It seems the majority of Americans have viewed Marjorie Taylor-Greene’s call for a “national divorce” as laughable. But many of us who have been following the extreme right for the last several decades are not laughing. Both the rhetoric and actions of what can only be called the sedition caucus point to the near inevitability of a civil war led by many of the same people responsible for the January 6 insurrection.

Consider that some of the planners and cheerleaders for the coup attempt are not only still occupying seats in the US House of Representatives. They have, thus far, faced no repercussions. Indeed, they now control both the Speaker and many of the House committees. Likewise, the former president who led the coup has not yet been held accountable. He has even announced that he is running for president in 2024 and, in fact, is the leading candidate of the Republican Party despite his obvious attempt to turn our democracy into an autocracy!

Moreover, he has previously shown an intent to use the office to dismantle institutions, to punish opponents, and to sell favors to other nations, including our adversaries.

But the threat to our democracy goes much deeper.

For one thing, the twice-impeached former president packed our courts with rightwing loyalists. So, any court cases against Republican legislation designed to undermine our democracy are likely to fail. Second, autocracy-friendly Republicans have full control of 23 of our 50 states. They also have legislative control of 30 states. And 19 of those states have already called for a convention to rewrite the Constitution. If successful, their rewrites are likely to remove the barrier between church and state, as well as to change the requirements for citizenship and voting. They might even embrace far more radical ideas such as a bill offered by a Florida legislator which would essentially ban the Democratic Party in that state.

An even more likely recipe for civil war was outlined in a chilling Twitter thread by author and former Navy aviator Brynn Tannehill. She begins by stating that “we have two competing visions for America that are mutually exclusive, both sides really don’t like each other, but one of the two is violent, delusional, and willing to destroy democracy to get its way.” She then explains how Republicans are forcing the issue with a new bill that passed out of committee in Tennessee. According to Tannehill, the bill “would bar insurers from doing business with the state if they cover health care for trans people anywhere in the US.”

What are the chances of the six staunchly Catholic justices who comprise the majority of SCOTUS ruling against such a law? After their ruling which overturned decades of precedent to throw out Roe v Wade, those chances are likely zero, nada, nil.

Almost certainly, that will cause states to react as they did following the end of Roe v Wade. Red states quickly banned abortion while blue states began passing laws that would codify a woman’s right to abortion. So, in a reaction to Tennessee, blue states are likely to require insurers to cover trans health care in their own states.

Even if the Tennessee bill doesn’t pass, there will be other discriminatory bills proposed by rightwing zealots with the intent to further divide us. As Tannehill points out, “…this sort of blackmail can be used on any topic: whether it’s Disney for promoting ‘woke’ material, coverage of abortions, drug manufacturers and Mifepristone, or anything else they want to ban.”

Of course, the real flashpoint between the two sides revolves around guns. Democrats rightfully want to limit access to weapons of war and to ban untraceable ghost guns. But Republicans view the 2nd Amendment as the 11th commandment: “Thou shall not take away our guns.” Yet, without new gun safety measures which restrict the sales of ever more lethal weaponry, our nation will be consigned to a future with more school shootings and mass murders. Assuming that our nation, which has been far too passive in addressing climate change, has any future at all.

Fox News Has Gone Full Goebbels.

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During a recent Laura Ingraham show in which she questioned Mike Pompeo about his interview with the Jan 6 committee, a headline appeared at the bottom of the screen reading “Dems prop up phony democracies abroad, shred ours.” In other words, the radical conservatives are angry that we are supporting Ukraine and investigating the January 6th insurrection.

And the Ingraham show is not even the worst thing on Fox. Tucker Carlson, the multi-millionaire heir to the Swanson Foods fortune, takes partisanship to a new level in his show by blatantly promoting autocrats and white supremacists, by excusing Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and by fawning over our deposed president and crime boss, Donald J. Trump.

Despite Fox calling its content “news”, it has long been little more than a propaganda network for Republicans and Libertarians. Its schedule is packed full of hate, fearmongering, and falsehoods. So much so that it is increasingly difficult to distinguish it from the pre-World War II work of Joseph Goebbels. (Goebbels, of course, was famously known as the chief propagandist who helped Adolf Hitler rise to power.) In fact, it could seriously be argued that many of the Fox hosts, Newsmax, and other MAGA propagandists are more extreme.

This pattern of radical anti-Democratic (and anti-democratic) rhetoric has been going on since the end of the Fairness Doctrine in the late eighties. A number of TV, radio and podcast hosts (Sean Hannity, Alex Jones, Mark Levin, et al) are deeply involved in Trump’s seditious conspiracy. And their rhetoric is getting worse.

It is abundantly clear that such propaganda is the primary reason for our nation’s divisions. As Trump and his MAGA followers have labeled the legitimate press as “enemies of the people” for reporting the truth, Fox and the other propaganda outlets have promised to tell you the real story. And what a story it is – full of partisan distortions and lies which blame immigrants, the LGBTQ community, and people of color for many of our nation’s problems.

They portray immigrants as criminals and “illegals.” They raise fears that same-sex marriage will somehow undermine the marriages of heterosexuals. They portray people of color as “lazy thugs” who have destroyed the rule of law in our cities. Like Trump, they describe our nation as a democracy in decay with carnage in our streets.

Yet, in truth, it is the Trump supporters – the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, white supremacists, and violent militias – who have taken to the streets with guns and body armor. It is these MAGAts who tried to bully governors, legislators, and judges from instituting policies to mitigate the pandemic. It is the MAGATs who invaded our Capitol to threaten Congress with the apparent intent to murder individuals and overthrow an election. And it is their NRA’s greed that has made Americans feel unsafe in theaters, in shopping centers, in churches, at concerts, even at schools.

There are other striking similarities between the Republican MAGAts and Nazis. They both intended to seize power based on bullying and armed insurrection. And they both aimed their hatred at minorities.

And even though the insurrection of January 6th was stopped, the Republican Party’s attempts to destroy our democracy continue. The propagandists are unbowed, and their falsehoods are unabated. Moreover, recognizing that knowledge is a threat and a counter to propaganda, the GOP continues its attacks on education and the educated. For decades, the GOP has dismissed and ridiculed expertise. It has dismissed economists who proclaimed trickle-down economics an abject failure. It has ignored the negative impact of tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. And it has ridiculed the vast majority of the world’s scientists who warned about the devastating impacts of climate change.

Republicans have undermined public schools by slashing their budgets and channeling tax dollars into private schools through vouchers. They have threatened teachers for schooling their students in our nation’s history of slavery and the genocide of natives. They have sought to marginalize LGBTQ students. And their push for private schools allows conservatives to prioritize Christianity in classrooms over science.

Republicans have also exposed the flaws of mainstream television networks. By trying to appear nonpartisan, the networks too often offer airtime to Republicans intent on spreading falsehoods and hatred. Moreover, by presenting news in soundbites without context, the networks offer a distorted and incomplete version of the truth which makes it more difficult to counter the Republican narrative.

Of course, social media plays a part in the conservatives’ attack on democracy by creating information (more accurately, disinformation) silos where many people go for their news. It is in those silos, hidden from the public eye, where extremists, seditionists, and insurrectionists can go to reinforce their twisted ideas and plot their attacks on civil society. And despite the claims of those who profit from social media, little has been done to enforce decorum on their sites and to block disinformation.

Unfortunately, there is little government can do to counter all of this. Certainly, it can prosecute crimes as they happen. And we can vote out those who would destroy public education. But given our constitutional rights to free speech and a free press, we can’t stop the propaganda. We can only make a real effort to inform ourselves and seek the truth. Let’s hope that’s enough.

The GOP’s Clown Car To Autocracy.

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No, that’s not hyperbole. And, no, Donald Trump, the narcissistic and wannabe autocrat, is not on the ballot. But, across the nation, many equally seditious and treason-adjacent candidates are. They call themselves Republicans. And some of them make the conspiracy-loving Marjorie Taylor-Greene, the gun-toting Lauren Boebert, the insurrectionist Paul Gosar, and the alleged child sex trafficker Matt Gaetz seem almost moderate.

For example, in Arizona, Trump acolyte Mark Finchem will carry the Trump banner forward as the Republican nominee for Arizona Secretary of State. If he wins, he will be in control of the state’s elections. What makes this prospect frightening is that he is still a firm believer in the Big Lie – that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Not surprisingly, he was also in Washington, DC for the January 6th insurrection. If elected, he plans to ban electronic voting machines and ban early voting making it far more difficult for low-paid workers to cast their ballots. And, given his past, imagine what he might do if, once again, the vote totals were not in favor of his preferred candidate.

In the race for Arizona governor, the GOP will offer one of two horrific choices: the Trump-endorsed bat-crap crazy Kari Lake who says she would have overturned Biden’s victory in Arizona, or the Pence-endorsed theocratic Karrin Taylor Robson. Both are legitimate threats to democracy. And, in the race for US Senate, Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly will face off against Blake Masters, a libertarian, Big Lie-embracing, billionaire-funded venture capitalist. Masters believes that our history of slavery and racism should not be taught in schools. He blames gun violence on black people. He supports a national abortion ban and the privatization of Social Security. He also reportedly compared requirements that political candidates disclose financial donations to Nazi Germany’s Kristallnacht. And he supported some views of the Unabomber.

In Georgia, former NFL running back, Herschel Walker is the GOP nominee for the US Senate. Walker, who always refers to himself in third person, has a Trump-like aversion to the truth. Indeed, his own campaign staff has called him a pathological liar. To wit: he falsely claimed to be a former FBI agent and a valedictorian graduate of the University of Georgia (his only degree is in carrying a football). And though he claims to stand for Christian values, he has a history of domestic violence, and he seemingly can’t remember how many children he has fathered. Moreover, if forced to take the most simplistic sixth grade level civics test, he unquestionably would fail. Yet he hopes to win one of the most powerful seats in government.

In Missouri, Trump-loving Eric Schmitt is the favorite for Roy Blunt’s open Senate seat. A theocrat and 2020 election denier, Schmitt worked to help overturn Biden’s win in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin. He is also an enemy of women’s reproductive rights.

In Pennsylvania, Hillbilly Elegy author and wingnut, J.D. Vance is also running for the US Senate funded by billionaire Peter Thiel. Vance is running a campaign of fear based on all of the wacko hot button social issues, such as banning Critical Race Theory in public schools (it’s only taught in law schools). He also believes women should risk staying in abusive relationships “for the sake of the children.” And like most Republicans, he believes in regulating women’s uteruses. Not guns.

Yet, as dangerous as all those candidates seem, they pale in comparison to Republican incumbent and longtime wackadoodle, Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. Johnson, you may remember, was a participant in the attempt to decertify Biden’s electoral votes on January 6. Not only is he a supporter of the Big Lie, if Republicans gain control of Congress again, he wants to end mandatory funding of Social Security and Medicare. Instead, he proposes that the funding be made discretionary, which would mean Congress would have to vote to approve funding annually.

The list of such anti-government, anti-American, and anti-democracy candidates is long. And, if Republicans take control of Congress, they promise to impeach Biden (in retaliation for the twice impeached Trump), to investigate members of the January 6 select committee, and to ban all abortions. They will also do everything in their power to privatize education, to privatize or eliminate Social Security and Medicare, to eliminate affirmative action…their ugly, hateful list is long. But the even greater threat to the future of our nation is the departure of competent and trustworthy election officials.

In states and counties across this nation, election officials have resigned or been pushed out of office under threat of violence. They have been doxed – their personal information made public to Trump’s heavily armed insurgent militias who have harassed the officials by phone, staked out their homes, and threatened their lives along with the lives of their families. Many have been replaced by inexperienced and unqualified individuals who believe the 2020 election was rigged and who plan to make sure Trump and his allies never lose again.

If the MAGAts are able to take control of more statehouses, governorships, and secretary of state offices, future elections will be elections in name only. It will be officials who decide the “winners.” Not the voters.

The Plan To Destroy Democracy.

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In case it’s not yet obvious that Trump tried everything in his power to overthrow a free and fair election, here is what we know, or can reasonably surmise, about his plan to stay in office despite an overwhelming defeat at the polls:

1. Before the election, Trump began to sow doubt in the electoral process by claiming that the election would be rigged if he didn’t win. (He did the same in 2015.)
2. In anticipation of a large mail-in vote caused by Covid, Trump named a lackey (Louis DeJoy) as Postmaster General to delay and disrupt the mail, particularly in cities with large Democratic majorities.
3. On the night of the election, Trump claimed victory long before all of the ballots were counted. This was designed to support his claims of a stolen election should Biden ultimately be named the winner.
4. As mail-in and absentee ballots continued to be counted, Trump claimed the ballots were fraudulent and encouraged armed supporters to go to ballot-counting stations to disrupt the counting and intimidate election workers.
5. When it was clear that Biden had won, Trump and his personal lawyers claimed foreign interference in the election, saying that China dumped millions of ballots in the mailboxes. That Venezuela and Italy hacked Dominion voting machines to change votes to Biden.
6. Trump and his lawyers filed more than 60 lawsuits claiming voter fraud. All but one was thrown out for lack of evidence.
7. Trump and his closest supporters created a “war room” in the Willard Hotel where sycophants made plans to overturn the election results.
8. As cabinet members announced their resignations, Trump began replacing them with more compliant loyalists, including acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller who tried to investigate a voter fraud conspiracy involving Italian satellites that the DOJ called “pure insanity.”
9. Trump pressured Department of Justice officials to declare the election fraudulent and to order a new election. When they refused, he threatened to fire acting Attorney General Rosen and replace him with Trump loyalist Jeffrey Clark.
10. Trump, his personal attorneys, and other supporters called Secretaries of State in Georgia and other critical swing states asking them to “find” the precise number of votes to change the outcome of the election.
11. As other plans for Trump to stay in power failed, he and his inner circle encouraged Republican-led state legislatures to select “alternative” slates of electors to replace the legitimate slates.
12. As Biden’s inauguration neared, Trump demanded that Vice-President Pence refuse to certify the official electoral votes on January 6 by declaring them invalid and sending the election to state legislatures where Republican legislators would declare Trump the winner.
13. Trump sycophants, including the wife of a sitting Supreme Court justice arranged for a “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, DC the day Congress was set to certify the vote. Trump tweeted supporters to “Be there. It will be wild.” In the days leading up to the rally, the recently pardoned felons, Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, met with leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys to plan the coup. As part of the plan, these insurgent militias organized weapons depots outside the District of Columbia in anticipation of a civil war.
14. On January 5, at least one congressional representative provided an apparent reconnaissance tour of the Capitol for constituents who participated in the January 6 insurrection.
15. In the early morning hours of January 6, pipe bombs were placed in front of the offices of Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee as an obvious attempt to create a distraction for law enforcement prior to the insurrection.
16. On the morning of January 6, Trump placed a phone call to the Vice-President in a last-ditch attempt to convince Pence to refuse certification of the electoral votes. When he refused, Trump angrily called him a pussy before hanging up. He then tweeted that the Vice-President “didn’t have the courage to do the right thing.” In essence, this was the equivalent of a crime boss ordering a hit.
17. At the “Stop the Steal” rally, Trump extremists and conspiracy theorists made a series of fiery speeches telling the crowd to “fight like hell” or they wouldn’t have their country anymore.
18. When many of Trump’s armed supporters refused to enter the rally grounds for fear of having their weapons confiscated as they passed through security screenings, Trump became upset by the optics of a small crowd. He then demanded that the Secret Service take down the magnetometers. When told that many in the crowd were armed, Trump said he didn’t care, they weren’t there to harm him.
19. In his own speech at the rally, Trump asked his supporters to “march to the Capitol,” saying he would join them. He became furious when the Secret Service refused to take him to the Capitol to lead the insurgency.
20. As the electoral certification got underway, 147 of Trump’s congressional supporters – Biggs, Brooks, Boebert, Cawthorn, Cruz, Gohmert, Gaetz, Gosar, Hawley, Loudermilk, Taylor-Greene, Tuberville, et al began to challenge electoral votes.
21. Meanwhile, even before the rally ended, Trump’s insurgent militias began to break through police lines and encouraged others to follow.
22. As the siege of the Capitol began, gallows were constructed on Capitol grounds with the apparent intent to threaten VP Pence and Democratic leaders. After Trump issued a tweet saying Pence didn’t have the courage to do what’s right, the crowd became even more inflamed and clearly intended to murder the Vice-President, coming within a few feet of Pence and members of Congress.
23. Following Pence’s narrow escape, it appears the next step in the plan was for Trump loyalists in the Secret Service to spirit Pence away from the Capitol so that Chuck Grassley, as president pro tempore of the Senate, could take Pence’s place and send the election back to the state legislatures.
24. As a last-ditch effort, it appears Trump planned to use the violence as an excise to declare martial law. In doing so, he could order the military to seize voting machines and call for a new Putin-style “election” that he would be guaranteed to “win.”
25. Trump would then declare himself president for life as he had previously suggested when China’s Xi Jinping was given that title.

If not for the courage of the Capitol police, along with Mike Pence and a few other individuals, we would no longer be living in a constitutional democracy. But we must all realize that Trump’s attempted coup is far from over. Not only does he plan to run again in 2024. His hateful and heavily armed followers are standing by waiting for his orders. In addition, he has successfully created suspicion about election security resulting in threats of violence against election officials and their subsequent resignations. Many of those have been replaced by MAGAts who will do his bidding. And throughout the country he is promoting candidates for governor, Congress, and Secretaries of State who are attuned to his ideology.

Even if Trump is eventually charged with seditious conspiracy, manslaughter and various other crimes, he still has a compliant majority on the Supreme Court. He still has a well-established propaganda network (Fox News, Newsmax, Breitbart, and talk radio). He still benefits from a shocking amount of disinformation on social media platforms. He still has the support of the Republican Party and “Christian” evangelicals. And there are still nearly 74 million Americans who voted for his brand of hateful and vengeful politics – many of them heavily armed and waiting for the opportunity to act.

An Open Letter To The Once Supreme Court Of The United States

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I know that I speak for many Americans when I say that I no longer respect the court that I once believed supreme in regard to the wisdom of its legal rulings and interpretation of the Constitution.

In recent years, the conservative majority has ruled that money equals free speech, that corporations have the rights of people (giving executives and boards of directors both individual and corporate rights), that free speech does not include the right to boycott, that the separation of church and state does not extend to taxpayer funding of religious schools and, as the leaked document indicates, that a woman no longer has the right to privacy concerning her medical treatment and conversations with a physician.

The court’s most recent ruling seems to be based on an originalist reading of the 2nd Amendment, noting that its wording gives citizens the right to “keep and bear arms.” But what about the rest of the Amendment’s wording: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”?

If the majority so strongly believes in the Framers’ original intent, why not rule that all males of a certain age must provide their own arms and order them to muster at designated times for training as my colonial ancestors were required to do?

I can only assume that it is because that reading does not fit the political ideology of the conservative majority.

Therein lies the problem. Many of us can no longer hold the court supreme because it has become utterly and hopelessly political. Unlike every other court in the land, this once supreme court has no code of ethics. A number of the justices have taken speaking engagements with highly partisan groups. Some have refused to recuse themselves from decisions in which they have a conflict of interest. And the wife of one justice has deeply engaged in a seditious attempt to overturn the results of an election.

In virtually every nation that has become a failed democracy, it has done so with the complicity of its judicial system. I now fear, with this court’s aid, that will be the future of the United States.

America Can No Longer Be Called Home Of The Brave.

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Ask most Americans to quote the 2nd Amendment and they’ll recite some version of “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged.” But that is only half of the Amendment. The full Amendment states: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged.”

Reading it in its entirety completely changes the meaning of the Amendment.

Yes, it gives you the right to own and bear arms. But only as a member of a well-regulated militia. You see, when the 2nd Amendment was adopted in 1791, the United States had disbanded the Continental Army and relied entirely on state militias for national defense. That’s because the framers of the Constitution were wary of a standing army, fearing that it could be turned against the people. As a result, their intent was for each state to maintain a militia to defend against all threats both foreign and domestic. The idea of such volunteer militias originated with the nation’s very first European settlers. For instance, in Jamestown under the guidance of Capt. John Smith and in Plymouth Colony under Myles Standish, every man was responsible to own arms and to regularly train as part of the militia.

That is the definition of “well-regulated militia.”

In no way did the framers of 2nd Amendment intend for Americans to own weapons of war in order to shoot each other. They certainly didn’t intend for domestic terrorists to stockpile weapons in order to attack political opponents and legally elected officials. And they would be horrified to know that a corrupt interpretation of the Amendment is responsible for more mass shootings annually than there are days in the year!

According to Gun Violence Archive, nearly 20,000 Americans are killed each year by homicide or accidental shootings. Nearly 40,000 more suffer wounds – many of them horrific and debilitating. And nearly 25,000 Americans use guns to commit suicide.

No other nation has anywhere near this level of gun violence. But, then no other nation has so many guns. In fact, there are now more guns in the hands of American civilians than there are people! That total includes more than 638,000 legally owned machine guns, nearly 20 million AR-15-style assault rifles, an almost incalculable number of handguns, and a growing number of untraceable ghost guns (many with so-called Glock switches that can easily convert a semiautomatic handgun into a fully automatic machine gun). The weaponry available to civilians even includes .50 caliber sniper rifles that can blast a hole through a cast iron engine block. Is it any wonder then that our police have become so militarized? In far too many crimes, they are outgunned.

Given all this, one has to ask: Why? What has gone so terribly wrong? What are Americans so afraid of? What happened to the home of the brave?

Perhaps those best suited to answer that question are the leaders of the GOP and the NRA. After all, they are the ones who have spent the last 40-plus years promoting fear in order to get elected and to sell more guns. They have worked overtime to eliminate any restrictions to carrying guns. Through their sleazy ads and propaganda networks, they have convinced many Americans to fear criminals, to fear people of color, to fear immigrants, to fear the LGBTQ community, to fear the UN, to fear their own elected government, and, most of all, to fear Democrats and those who would impose common sense gun restrictions.

Yet, for all the violence driven by fear, there are many other factors to consider. Not the least of which is the Cowboy mythology of the white-hatted hero winning a shootout with a villain. This is the myth that led to the NRA’s self-serving statement that “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Therefore, their argument goes, guns are necessary for self-defense.

However, anyone with a comprehensive understanding of self-defense can tell you that guns are seldom used for defense. They are offensive weapons. Consider this: What use is a gun when a bad guy already has one aimed at you? As for most active shooter events, if numerous people on the scene are holding guns, in the chaos of the moment how are the police supposed to tell which gun owner is the real threat?

While some would have you believe that our gun violence is caused by mental illness and the separation of church and state, those are mere distractions. Certainly, mental illness plays a role. But if the gun proponents believe that is the primary cause of gun violence, why have Republicans methodically cut funds from mental health services? (Before the Uvalde school shooting, Texas Governor Abbott cut $211 million from the state budget intended to provide greater access to mental health services.)

Bullying, poverty, broken homes, social media, and disinformation have also contributed to our problem. But the real issue – the elephant herd in the room – is the ever-increasing availability and lethality of guns!

It Is No Longer Accurate To Call White Nationalists Extremists.

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While those who espouse white nationalism may seem extreme to Democrats and to many independents, it has become clear that they now represent the mainstream of the Republican Party.

Don’t believe me?

Perhaps you will trust Miles Taylor, the former Chief of Staff of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) during the Goerge W. Bush and Donald J. Trump administrations. A former Republican himself, he says that fully 50 percent of today’s GOP voters believe in Replacement Theory, the racist theory that Democrats are encouraging the illegal immigration of people of color in order to reduce white Christian Americans to minority status.

Once a theory propagated by only the most twisted racists on the very fringes of society – the KKK and neo-Nazis – it has been elevated from the sewers by Trump and mainstreamed by Fox News along with rightwing radio pundits, social media, and various Internet celebrities. The violent results of their hateful rhetoric have accelerated throughout the last 5 years, beginning with the “Alt Right’ March in Charlottesville and culminating in last week’s racist shootings at a Buffalo grocery store.

Of course, those who have incited such hatred refuse to claim any responsibility. And, though they may well briefly tone down their rhetoric, they will soon return to full-throated racism.

To underscore the ties between the GOP and racial terrorism, CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) will hold its annual conference in Budapest, Hungary. Why? Because Hungary’s dictator, Viktor Orban, espouses the same racist replacement theory as much of the GOP. Indeed, so does Russia’s resident dictator and Trump supporter, Vladimir Putin. Which may explain why 25 percent of the Republican congressional caucus voted against more military aid to help Ukraine defend itself against Putin’s invasion.

Moreover, according to Taylor, 50 percent of GOP voters believe in the cult-like conspiracies espoused by QAnon, including the preposterous belief that Democrats are pedophiles and that Democratic leaders and A-list Hollywood celebrities are running a child sex trafficking ring.

Finally, Taylor notes that 70 percent of the GOP think the 2020 election was stolen despite all evidence to the contrary. Not even Trump’s hand-picked Attorney General nor the Trump-appointed judges and justices believed in the claims of widespread voter fraud. Of course, there were a few notable cases of individual voter fraud. But they were Trump supporters who returned ballots for dead family members. And, of course, there’s the case of Trump’s Chief of Staff who illegally registered to vote in two states.

Nevertheless, the GOP and many of its candidates continue to espouse the “Big Lie.” At the same time, GOP governors and legislatures are working overtime to ensure they control upcoming elections. By that, they don’t simply mean they want to win the elections. They are taking steps to rig them by any means necessary.

Taylor says the DHS determined the biggest national security threat is domestic terrorism. I would amend the threat to include the GOP.