"Your people keep shoveling this sh*t out." Former AG Barr to Trump on his lies about a "stolen election."

Inside William Barr’s Breakup With Trump

In the final months of the administration, the doggedly loyal attorney general finally had enough.

By Jonathan D. Karl

Excerpt:

"After the lunch with Balsamo, Barr and Levi went to the White House for a previously scheduled meeting with Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. After talking briefly with Meadows, they went upstairs to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone’s office. As they were conferring, one of the counsel’s aides knocked on the door and told Cipollone that the president wanted to see him and then, pointing to Barr, the aide said, “And he is looking for you.” 

Barr, Levi, and Cipollone walked to the president’s personal dining room near the Oval Office. Trump was sitting at the table. Meadows was sitting next to him with his arms crossed; the White House adviser Eric Herschmann stood off to the side. The details of this meeting were described to me by several people present. One told me that Trump had “the eyes and mannerism of a madman.” 

He went off on Barr. “I think you’ve noticed I haven’t been talking to you much,” Trump said to him. “I’ve been leaving you alone.” Barr later told others that the comment was reminiscent of a line in the movie Dr. Strangelove, in which the main character, Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper, says, “I do not avoid women, Mandrake, but I do deny them my essence.” 

Trump, Barr thought, was saying that he had been denying him his essence. Trump brought up Barr’s AP interview. “Did you say that?” “Yes,” Barr responded. “How the fuck could you do this to me? Why did you say it?” “Because it’s true.” 

The president, livid, responded by referring to himself in the third person: “You must hate Trump. You must hate Trump.” Barr thought that the president was trying to control himself, but he seemed angrier than he had ever seen him. His face was red. 

Barr’s AP interview was dominating every cable news channel except the one Trump was watching. The television in the room was tuned to the right-wing, pro-Trump network One America News, which was broadcasting a committee hearing of the Michigan legislature. The hearing featured disproven allegations of massive election fraud, including the testimony of a woman named Melissa Carone, who had worked at the counting location in Detroit and told the committee, “Everything that happened at the TCF Center was fraud. Every single thing.” The next day, Carone would testify again, next to Rudy Giuliani, during which time she slurred her words and appeared to be drunk. (Carone later denied that she had been drunk.) 

“They saw the boxes going in!” Trump yelled, referring to the stories about boxes of illegal ballots being counted. 

“You know, Mr. President, there are 662 precincts in Wayne County,” Barr said. Trump seemed taken aback that he knew the exact number. “It’s the only county with all the boxes going to a central place, and you actually did better there this time around than you did last time. You keep on saying that the Department of Justice is not looking at this stuff, and we are looking at it in a responsible way. But your people keep on shoveling this shit out.” 

As Trump ranted about other examples of fraud, Meadows continued to sit silently with his arms crossed, his posture suggesting that he, too, was upset by what Barr had done. “You know, you only have five weeks, Mr. President, after an election to make legal challenges,” Barr said. “This would have taken a crackerjack team with a really coherent and disciplined strategy. Instead, you have a clown show. No self-respecting lawyer is going anywhere near it. It’s just a joke. That’s why you are where you are.” Interestingly, Trump didn’t argue when Barr told him that his “clown show” legal team had wasted time. In fact, he said, 'You may be right about that.' "

Everybody who isn't in the cult knows that Trump is insane with his incessant braying about a "stolen election."

The election wasn't stolen. Trump lost. By a lot. And no amount of his post-presidency rallies or his lies are going to change that fact. 

Why it's important to have a POTUS who knows the laws and isn't an ignorant dictator wannabe, as was the odious Trump:

Exchange of the Day:

 Axios has a passage from the forthcoming book, "Frankly, We Did Win This Election," from the Situation Room during the Black Lives Matter protests last summer. 

Trump had announced he had put Joint Chiefs chairman Mark Milley “in charge.” 

 TRUMP: I said you’re in fucking in charge! 

 MILLEY: Well, I’m not in charge! 

 TRUMP: You can’t fucking talk to me like that! 

 MILLEY: Goddamnit. There’s a room full of lawyers here. Will someone inform him of my legal responsibilities? 

 BARR: He’s right, Mr. President. The general is right.

Trump's ignorance got a pushback from General Milley and AG Barr, but this exchange shows us how close we came to having a military intervention against civilian Americans. 

This is how dictatorships operate, and Trump was all in with it!

Sunday Truth Blog

 

Some people (Trumpers) can't handle it:

SATURDAY NIGHT DANCING

 WOW!

KARMA:

The force created by a person's actions that is believed in Hinduism and Buddhism to determine what that person's next life will be like. 

Informal : the force created by a person's actions that some people believe causes good or bad things to happen to that person.

 

The Catholic Bishops' Club:

As Groucho Marx once said, "I wouldn't want to belong to a club that had me as a member!" 

IMO, Catholic Bishops have NO moral authority where it concerns President Biden.

The GQPers don't even try to hide their corruption anymore:

2 secretaries of state undercut Trump’s fraud claims in key, GOP-controlled states. Republicans have now voted to strip both of power.

 

DEREK CHAUVIN GETS 22+ YEARS 

FOR THE MURDER OF GEORGE FLOYD.

BAD NEWS!

Take a look around the far right blogs and news sites and read their whining and complaining about how Liberals impose their beliefs and "indoctrinate" students at colleges and universities. 

 Then read this:

"Public universities in Florida will be required to survey both faculty and students on their political beliefs and viewpoints, with the institutions at risk of losing their funding if the responses are not satisfactory to the state's GOP-led legislature."

It is none of DeSantis's business what political affiliations students and faculty hold. DeSantis is a little fascist in training.

Students who attend any college or university in FloriDUH can tell DeSantis to go pound sand.

DeSantis signed legislation that is unconstitutional. But like a good little fascist he expects people to obey his illegal laws.

He can go straight to Hell.

And let's not forget the unAmerican, anti-democracy dictator wannabe who lost the last election:

Top US general rejected Trump suggestions military should 'crack skulls' during protests last year, new book claims

"Washington(CNN)The top US general repeatedly pushed back on then-President Donald Trump's argument that the military should intervene violently in order to quell the civil unrest that erupted around the country last year. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley often found he was the lone voice of opposition to those demands during heated Oval Office discussions, according to excerpts of a new book, obtained by CNN, from Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender. 

 Titled "Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost," the book reveals new details about how Trump's language became increasingly violent during Oval Office meetings as protests in Seattle and Portland began to receive attention from cable new outlets. The President would highlight videos that showed law enforcement getting physical with protesters and tell his administration he wanted to see more of that behavior, the excerpts show."

Good News!

NEW YORK — New York state suspended Rudolph W. Giuliani from practicing law on Thursday, months after the former New York mayor battled to overturn the settled results of the presidential election on behalf of President Donald Trump. 

 The committee of First Department Appellate Division judges that made the determination said Giuliani is not fit to continue practicing law after he “communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for [Trump] and the Trump campaign in connection with Trump’s failed effort at reelection in 2020.” The panel issued a 33-page opinion on the matter.

 

Well that's a great start to rounding up the criminal types who kissed up to Trump when he refused to accept his overwhelming defeat at the polls in November and in  how our American democracy works. 

Anyone who has anything to do with Don the Con ends up indicted or in jail.

Let's hope the next big news is about the Big Orange Cahuna being indicted!

Here's the ruling:

“We conclude that there is uncontroverted evidence that [Giuliani] communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for former president Donald J. Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with Trump’s failed effort at reelection in 2020,” the judges overseeing the disciplinary proceedings wrote in a 33-page ruling. 

“These false statements were made to improperly bolster respondent’s narrative that due to widespread voter fraud, victory in the 2020 United States presidential election was stolen from his client. We conclude that respondent’s conduct immediately threatens the public interest.”

Wednesday Night Music

 

John Prine:

Comments?

 

A brief trip around the rabid right wing Trumper blogs shows them discussing how "crazy" and "dangerous" the Democrats are. 

But those same  bloggers apparently either don't read about their own party leaders' anti-democracy legislation, or they approve of anti-free speech when the speech is offensive only to them.

Read these two reports below to understand who the folks who are intolerant and who want to impose "sharia-like" restrictions on women and their reproductive choices.

The current GQP is a party of proto-fascists who continue to support a former president who is under criminal investigation, was impeached twice, and who incited an attack on his own government and his own vice president. 

You won't read any of this because those GQPers are hypocrites, liars, and anti-democracy Trump cultists:

TALLAHASSEE — In his continued push against the “indoctrination” of students, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday signed legislation that will require public universities and colleges to survey students, faculty and staff about their beliefs and viewpoints to support “intellectual diversity.”

No details offered

The governor did not name specific state universities or colleges with this problem. He was broad in his accusations about the higher education system and used vague anecdotes to justify the need for such a survey.

For instance, the governor said he “knows a lot of parents” who are worried that their children will be “indoctrinated” when they go off to college, and that universities are promoting “orthodoxies.” But he did not offer specifics on those claims.

Clair McCaskill on Twitter: 

 Crazy Republicans in MO are getting ready to have a special session to outlaw birth control. You seriously can’t make this stuff up. 10:42 AM · Jun 23, 2021·Twitter for iPad 

 Claire McCaskill @clairecmc · 2h Replying to @clairecmc They want to make sure women on Medicaid can’t use an IUD. No word about the state mandating condoms… 

 Claire McCaskill @clairecmc · 1h This is the kind of extreme that happens when there is no balance in government. These men think they are politically invincible because Trump won our state, and their leader won the Governor’s race, both by a large margin. There will be a wake up call in the future.

OFF FOR A FEW DAYS

 

BE EXCELLENT TO EACH OTHER.

ABODE OF THE GODS

"Cusco is a city that never ceases to amaze us, there is always something new to visit, value newly excavated ruins, other routes to explore, the city never stands still and it is more alive than ever! 

This new lithic monument, Apukunaq Tianan, derives from the Quechua language that means “The abode of the gods.” Quechua is the language spoken by many Indigenous Communities in Peru. 

 The abode of the gods Apukunaq Tianan is a new and modern tourist attraction that in recent months is being very crowded by a large number of people. It is located in Poroy district of the province and department of Cusco, in the community of Senk’a, approximately 40 minutes from the main square of Cusco. 

These are gigantic sculptures of gods and Andean figures carved in Rock on the same mountain by the Cusco Sculptor Michael de Titan. He seeks through his sculptures to revalue the Andean culture and ideology, merging nature and art just as their ancestors the Incas did, in a way that transmits a powerful energy to us in their spectacular monuments. 

 Although this attraction is still under construction, it is expected that by 2021, the bicentennial year of Peru’s independence, it will be finished. Even so, Apukunaq Tianan has already opened its doors to the public as a space for outdoor recreation so that they can enjoy its imposing sculptures.

SATURDAY NIGHT DANCING

 

"Dancing In The Dark" Gilda Radner and Steve Martin - Saturday Night Live 1978 

"Dancing In The Dark" from the movie, "The Band Wagon 1953" - Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse

 

Hooray!

 

Federal employees to get Friday off as Biden signs legislation making Juneteenth a national holiday

"President Biden, having returned to the White House from his first trip abroad as president...sign[ed] into law a bill creating a federal holiday to commemorate Juneteenth, the day marking the end of slavery in Texas. Because June 19 falls on a Saturday this year, most federal employees will get this Friday off."

From the National Museum of African-American History and Culture:

On “Freedom’s Eve,” or the eve of January 1, 1863, the first Watch Night services took place. On that night, enslaved and free African Americans gathered in churches and private homes all across the country awaiting news that the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect. At the stroke of midnight, prayers were answered as all enslaved people in Confederate States were declared legally free. Union soldiers, many of whom were black, marched onto plantations and across cities in the south reading small copies of the Emancipation Proclamation spreading the news of freedom in Confederate States. 

Only through the Thirteenth Amendment did emancipation end slavery throughout the United States. But not everyone in Confederate territory would immediately be free. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective in 1863, it could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control. As a result, in the westernmost Confederate state of Texas, enslaved people would not be free until much later. 

Freedom finally came on June 19, 1865, when some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state, were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as "Juneteenth," by the newly freed people in Texas.

THESE REPUBLICANS VOTED NO! TO MAKE JUNETEENTH A NATIONAL HOLIDAY:

HOORAY!

Affordable Care Act Survives Latest Supreme Court Challenge

 

The court sidestepped the larger issue in the case, whether the 2010 health care law can stand without a provision that required most Americans to obtain insurance or pay a penalty.

June 16, 2021: Trump to Hannity “WE DIDN'T WIN.” the 2020 presidential election.

So. What do the Trump cultists have to say about that?

Are they still arguing that the election was stolen?

Their cult leader admitted on June 16, 2021, on the Sean Hannity show that "WE DIDN'T WIN."

Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday came as close as he’s ever been to conceding his 2020 election loss in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, also claiming he is rooting for President Joe Biden’s success on the world stage. 

 [skip] 

 Though he acknowledged in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 election that he would be leaving office, Trump has typically stopped short of conceding that he lost the election legitimately. Recently, he has returned to loudly proclaiming the election was stolen through widespread fraud – despite repeated rejections of those claims by the courts – and pouring his hopes into bizarre election audits in key states. 

Trump also reportedly believes the audits will lead to his reinstatement as president, as well as the reinstatements of several GOP senators ousted in 2020, such as David Perdue of Ohio and Martha McSally of Arizona. He hasn’t expressed such a belief publicly, but he hinted at it in a GOP fundraising video earlier this month by stating Republicans will take back the White House and Congress “sooner than you think.”

NOTE: Saying "We didn't win," is not the same as saying "The election was stolen." Trump didn't say that to Hannity. He said "We didn't win." Period.

That's the closest he's come to a concession speech since November 7, when President Biden was officially declared the winner.

Will Trump cultists accept their cult leader's admission? I don't think so. They've bought into the Big Lie and because they live in a world where grievances define them, they will continue to believe Trump won and that the election was "stolen." 

After all, Trump believes he'll be "reinstated," even though no such mechanism exists in the US Constitution for "reinstatement of a president who lost an election."

The only way he'll be reinstated is by a coup d'etat -- a violent one at that, like what Trump and his armed thugs tried on January 6.

IOW, Trump continues to threaten to overthrow the U.S. government in order to take back the presidency he lost.

Who's surprised?

The man who incited an insurrection against his own government and his own vice president, and who believes he'll be "reinstated" as POTUS in August, tried to get his own DoJ to join him in his corruption in the last days of his corrupt regime. These are shocking details of Trump's debasement of the Constitution. May Trump never come close to power again. And may he feel the fullest punishment of the law for what he tried to do:

WASHINGTON — An hour before President Donald J. Trump announced in December that William P. Barr would step down as attorney general, the president began pressuring Mr. Barr’s eventual replacement to have the Justice Department take up his false claims of election fraud. 

 Mr. Trump sent an email via his assistant to Jeffrey A. Rosen, the incoming acting attorney general, that contained documents purporting to show evidence of election fraud in northern Michigan — the same claims that a federal judge had thrown out a week earlier in a lawsuit filed by one of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers.

[skip]

The emails, turned over by the Justice Department to investigators on the House Oversight Committee and obtained by The New York Times, show how Mr. Trump pressured Mr. Rosen to put the power of the Justice Department behind lawsuits that had already failed to try to prove his false claims that extensive voter fraud had affected the election results. They are also the latest example of Mr. Trump’s frenzied drive to subvert the election results in the final weeks of his presidency, including ratcheting up pressure on the Justice Department. And they show that Mr. Trump flouted an established anticorruption norm that the Justice Department acts independently of the White House on criminal investigations or law enforcement actions, a gap that steadily eroded during Mr. Trump’s term.

As more and more documents are released, we understand the depth of Trump's dishonesty and treachery and how he would use the levers of power to keep himself in the presidency he so clearly and overwhelmingly lost.

The thing to remember is this: Republican politicians believe in winning. They benefit greatly from the electoral college and from the United States Senate. They have used redistricting in state legislatures to create super-majorities. For the most part, most Trumpublican politicians no longer value democracy. This much is clear because they continue to support  Donald J. Trump's corruption.

Good Morning! Ain't it the truth!

 

SATURDAY NIGHT DANCING

 

 Liza Minnelli and Joel Gray

Liza as Sally Bowles in "Caberet," does "Mein Herr."

 

 Joel Gray does "Two Ladies."

 

Compare and Contrast

 

Macron and Pouty Trump

This is how world leaders behave.

Oh, while you're at it, compare and contrast the messages from the present and former FLOTUSes:

Trump Administration Used Apple to Spy on Intelligence Committee Members

Hunting Leaks, Trump Officials Focused on Democrats in Congress 

The Justice Department seized records from Apple for metadata of House Intelligence Committee members, their aides and family members. 

Trump used his justice department thugs to spy on Adam Schiff and others in Congress, their staff and family members.

You know that what we’ve learned so far is only the tip of the iceberg of his dirty, criminal dealings, right?

Always projection. 

Whenever Trump accuses someone else of criminal activity, look at the crimes he is secretly committing.

How many times did Trump claim the Obama administration used the FBI to spy on his campaign? 

The FBI actually did the opposite, announcing an investigation into HRC during an election. Always corruption and projection with the GQP and Trump.

This isn’t shocking or even surprising. It is expected. There are no limits to what the GQP and Trumpublicans will do to subvert democracy and maintain its stranglehold on power.

Republican attacks on government have been in broad daylight since Reagan. But the behind-the-scenes abuses at the Trump DOJ belied the GQP's wanting a small government while decrying a deep state. 

Trumpublicans exploit all the protections of the Constitution and want total control of an extensive government apparatus to overturn our civil rights, often by perverting justice. 

When Hannah Arendt spoke of 'the banality of evil', she meant all the government workers who did their small cog jobs with no thought of their contribution to the greater evil. 

The Sessions, Barrs, and McConnells, instituting the madness of the right wing extremist agenda, relied on the mindset of those implementing the abuses. "Just doing my job" compliance and "what can one person do?" defeatism in the ranks is as dangerous as the malicious machinations of those at the top.

 

EX-President Trump: "As everybody knows, my family, your great country and your president (YOUR FORMER PRESIDENT!) have gone through a terrible ordeal (DO YOU REFER TO THE JANUARY 6 INSURRECTION ON THE US CAPITOL INSTIGATED BY YOU?!) by some very dishonest and corrupt people." (SPEAK FOR YOURSELF MR. "THE COVID-19 WILL BE GONE BY SPRING 2020! AND I HAVE A BEAUTIFUL HEALTH CARE PLAN THAT IS CHEAPER AND BETTER THAN OBAMACARE!").

They have done everything possible to destroy us (YOU MEAN BY YOUR CLAIMING THE 2020 ELECTION WAS STOLEN AND GETTING YOUR THUGS  TO ATTACK, TRY TO OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND HANG YOUR OWN VICE PRESIDENT?) and by so doing have very badly hurt our nation. (OUR NATION WAS WOUNDED BY YOUR LIES AND YOUR UNCEASING DIVISIVNESS). 

They know what they are doing is wrong. But they put themselves far ahead of our great country." (YES. IN ATTACKING THE US GOVERNMENT BECAUSE OF DONALD TRUMP'S BIG LIE, YOU AND YOUR CULTISTS HURT OUR COUNTRY). 

TRUMP: "Weeks ago and again yesterday courageous Republican politicians and leaders had the wisdom, fortitude and strength to do what everyone knows was right. (THEY COWARDLY REFUSED TO INITIATE A COMMISSION TO STUDY TRUMP'S INSURRECTION!)  I don’t like people who use their faith for justification for doing what they know is wrong (YOU MEAN LIKE GAS YOUR OWN PEOPLE SO YOU COULD HOLD A BIBLE UPSIDE DOWN AS A PHOTO OP?). Nor, do I like people who say, “I pray for you,” when they know that that’s not so. So many people have been hurt. We can’t let that go on (WITH YOU OUT OF OFFICE, WE CAN WORK TO MAKE SURE HURTING AMERICA WILL NOT GO ON.)

Z: "TRUER WORDS WERE RARELY SPOKEN. Please, Mr. President; REALLY do something…all based on verifiable TRUTH and all somehow made known to ALL Americans, not just Conservatives. WE know, Mr. President…we need more to know what’s happened."

HERE'S WHAT'S HAPPENED: TRUMP LOST THE ELECTION BY 8 MILLION POPULAR VOTES AND AN ELECTORAL COLLEGE LANDSLIDE. TRUMP WOULD NOT ACCEPT HIS LOSS. TRUMP ENCOURAGED HIS ARMED THUGS TO ATTACK THE US CAPITOL TO TRY TO GET VICE PRESIDENT PENCE TO NOT CERTIFY THE E.C. VOTES -- AN UNLAWFUL ACT.

*EVERY STATE'S SECRETARY OF STATE CERTIFIED THE VOTE AND FOUND NO FRAUD.

*TRUMP'S OWN DOJ FOUND NO FRAUD.

*THE HEAD OF CYBER SECURITY SAID THE 2020 ELECTION WAS THE MOST SECURE ELECTION IN DECADES.

JOSEPH R. BIDEN WON THE ELECTION; DONALD J. TRUMP LOST THE ELECTION. 

JOE BIDEN TOOK THE OATH OF OFFICE ON JANUARY 20, 2021, AND TRUMP, THE SORE LOSER, DIDN'T ATTEND.

TRUMP IS A DANGER TO OUR DEMOCRACY. PERIOD. 

TRUMP'S ARMED THUGS FAILED TO STOP THE ELECTORAL CERTIFICATION; PEOPLE WERE KILLED, AND THE US CAPITOL WAS DESECRATED WITH TRUMP'S ARMED THUGS' HUMAN FECES AND BY THOSE SAME THUGS DESTROYING U.S. PROPERTY.

ANYTHING ELSE THESE TRUMP CULTISTS TRY TO USE TO EXCUSE THE LAWLESS DONALD TRUMP IS A LIE.

YOU CANNOT BELIEVE WHAT A CULTIST SAYS ABOUT THE CULT'S LEADER. EVER.

THEY ARE DELUDED AND ANTI-AMERICAN NEO-FASCISTS. 

WHY AM I SHOUTING? 

BECAUSE THE TRUMP CULTISTS REFUSE TO FACE THE TRUTH, SO WE HAVE TO SHOUT IT AGAIN, AND AGAIN, AND AGAIN.

THAT'S WHY.

Stupidity Cubed

Greene says she knows COVID-19 is a 'bioweapon' because evolution doesn't exist. 

Greene: "I don't believe in evolution. I don't believe in that type of so-called 'science.' I don't believe in evolution. I believe in God."

This shockingly stupid woman has never heard that viruses mutate? Does she believe God arbitrarily mutates the viruses, just to mess around with humans and see if "so-called science" can come up with vaccines fast enough so that the human race isn't wiped out?

I wonder. If Greene became ill, would she go to a "so-called doctor" who's studied medical science? Or would she just pray away her strep throat or appendicitis?

A question for those who actually and truly believe that by praying, illnesses like cancer and COVID-19 can be healed: Can those people explain why people who've lost limbs and prayed to have those limbs replaced -- those amputees' prayers NEVER get answered?

Evolution doesn't need anyone to "believe" in it. Evolution is as real as the air we breathe.

Too bad stupidity isn't painful.

Viruses and Evolution  

Just as natural selection has shaped the evolution of humans, plants, and all living things on the planet, natural selection shapes viruses, too. 

Though viruses aren’t technically living – they need a host organism in order to reproduce – they are subject to evolutionary pressures. 

The human immune system uses a number of tactics to fight pathogens. The pathogen’s job is to evade the immune system, create more copies of itself, and spread to other hosts. 

Characteristics that help a virus do its job tend to be kept from one generation to another. Characteristics that make it difficult for the virus to spread to another host tend to be lost. Take, for example, a virus that has a mutation that makes it particularly deadly to its human host and kills the host within a few hours of infection. The virus needs a new, healthy host for its descendants to survive. If it kills its host before the host infects others, that mutation will disappear.

Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) Likens Trump to a Chinese Communist Leader

 

While I do not agree with Rep. Cheney on any of her policies, she's spot on with this (this isn't policy):

In a podcast episode released Monday, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) likened former "President" Trump's rhetoric about U.S. democracy and elections to that of the Chinese Communist Party, the Washington Post reports. 

State of play: Cheney was ousted from her position as the No. 3 House Republican after publicly criticizing the former president’s baseless claims of election fraud. 

● Tensions between Cheney and Trump escalated after she voted for his impeachment on a charge of inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. 

● Her ouster last month reflects how much loyalty to Trump has become institutionalized in the Republican Party. What they’re saying: "I think what Donald Trump did is the most dangerous thing, the most egregious violation of an oath of office of any president in our history,” Cheney said on "The Axe Files," a podcast hosted by former Obama adviser David Axelrod. 

● "When you listen to Donald Trump talk now, when you hear the language he’s using now, it is essentially the same things that the Chinese Communist Party, for example, says about the United States and our democracy,” Cheney said. 

● “When he says that our system doesn’t work … when he suggests that it’s, you know, incapable of conveying the will of the people, you know, that somehow it’s failed — those are the same things that the Chinese government says about us,” she added. “And it’s very dangerous and damaging … and it’s not true.”By Yacob Reyes

Here's what's interesting about Rep. Cheney's insightful observation: 

Trump cultists claim Joe Biden and his vice president, Kamala Harris, are Communists, hell the trolls who come here daily call ME a "Communist" for posting the truth about Trump. 

And here is a bona fide Republican -- not a Trumpublican -- who tells the truth about who actually behaves, speaks, and is actually like a Communist: Trump!

Believe what a non-cultist says. Rep. Cheney is not blinded by Trump's con. Trump is on a one-man mission to kill American democracy, aided by his foolish cultists.

Faketriotics!

 

The biggest threat to our republic and American democracy is the GQP and its inability to untether itself from the malignant narcissist, demagogue, and anti-American Former Guy, Trump.

This is an astounding piece of information:

"Pollsters at PRRI recently asked Americans if they agreed or disagreed that 'the government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation.' ” 

 An astonishing 23 percent of Republicans agreed, and 28 percent of Republicans agreed that 'because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.' ” --EJ Dionne, Jr., WaPo

************************

The U.S. Capitol was attacked and police men and women were assaulted. Five people died as a result of the violence, and the Trumpublican Party doesn't think a commission to investigate that attack on American democracy is necessary. 

The Former Guy claimed at the convention in South Carolina this weekend that he'd be "reinstated" in the presidency in August. This is madness.

Trump's cultists believe this; Trump believes this, and the spineless GQP senators and representatives play along in Trump's psychosis.

There will be no "reinstatement." Fact. 

There is no "reinstatement" clause in the Constitution, so what in hell is Trump and his sycophantic followers thinking in spreading this lunacy?

It's pretty evident that Trump has lost his marbles, and his cultists are just as crazy in following his march to insanity.

An email from a friend in Naples, Florida:

"The small minority of loud, stupid, ‘Faketriotic’ Americans who believe Trump’s megalomaniacal rants feel emboldened and validated by the overwhelming media coverage about their Dear Leader’s vision for his autocratic aspirations to ‘Save America’. 

 On behalf of the vast majority of quiet, sane and truly patriotic Americans let me say this: Fascist wimps are deluding themselves if they think we sane, factually patriotic Americans will remain quiet if they attempt to undo what The Greatest Generation accomplished with their lives and blood defeating the last megalomaniacal autocrat who climbed up on the world stage!"

"Faketriotics!" A perfect word to describe Trump cultists.

James Randi

SATURDAY NIGHT DANCING...

 

ON THE CEILING!

May 31 to June 1, 1921 -- The Tulsa Massacre

[Tulsa isn’t the only race massacre you were never taught in school. Here are others.] 

 It’s important that all this be known. Yet it’s also important to recognize that what happened in that Oklahoma town was not some isolated event. No, Tulsa in 1921 is echoed by New York in 1863, Memphis and New Orleans in 1866, Wilmington, North Carolina in 1898, Atlanta in 1906, Springfield in 1908, East St. Louis in 1917, Chicago and Elaine, Arkansas, in 1919, Rosewood, Florida in 1923 — among others. 

 On the morning of May 30, 1921, a young black man named Dick Rowland was riding in the elevator in the Drexel Building at Third and Main with a white woman named Sarah Page. The details of what followed vary from person to person. Accounts of an incident circulated among the city’s white community during the day and became more exaggerated with each telling. 

 Tulsa police arrested Rowland the following day and began an investigation. An inflammatory report in the May 31 edition of the Tulsa Tribune spurred a confrontation between black and white armed mobs around the courthouse where the sheriff and his men had barricaded the top floor to protect Rowland. Shots were fired and the outnumbered African Americans began retreating to the Greenwood District. 

 In the early morning hours of June 1, 1921, Greenwood was looted and burned by white rioters. Governor Robertson declared martial law, and National Guard troops arrived in Tulsa. Guardsmen assisted firemen in putting out fires, took African Americans out of the hands of vigilantes and imprisoned all black Tulsans not already interned. Over 6,000 people were held at the Convention Hall and the Fairgrounds, some for as long as eight days. 

 Twenty-four hours after the violence erupted, it ceased. In the wake of the violence, 35 city blocks lay in charred ruins, more than 800 people were treated for injuries and contemporary reports of deaths began at 36. Historians now believe as many as 300 people may have died. 

 In order to understand the Tulsa Race Massacre it is important to understand the complexities of the times. Dick Rowland, Sarah Page and an unknown gunman were the sparks that ignited a long smoldering fire. Jim Crow, jealousy, white supremacy, and land lust, all played roles in leading up to the destruction and loss of life on May 31 and June 1, 1921. 

 THE REST IS HERE.

How many times have I read on far right news sites and blogs  "Why bring this up? That happened in the past." (These are the same folks who ride around their communities with the Confederate and "Trump Won!" flags  blowing in the wind! Talk about not "getting over it!)

We bring up these atrocities to remind self-satisfied Americans that we need to be a bit more humble when chest-thumping about being "The Greatest Country or Exceptional Country" in the world.

Our Constitution is a great document, but it is often ignored and defiled when flawed human beings disregard it because of their fears and bigotries. What happened in the Greenwood section of Tulsa was not an exception. See above for the other American cities where thriving African-American communities were destroyed based on a rumor, whim, jealousy, or just plain racial hatred.

Massacres in U.S. History

Here is a list of some of the countless massacres in the history of the United States.

Most of these massacres were designed to suppress voting rights, land ownership, economic advancement, education, freedom of the press, religion, LGBTQ rights, and/or labor rights of African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asians, and immigrants. While often referred to as “race riots,” they were massacres to maintain white supremacy.

At the same time those African-American communities were destroyed, lynchings of African-Americans were carried out across the South and other areas with impunity. Efforts to outlaw these extra-judicial killings were quashed by Southern Congressmen by means of the filibuster. 

"...the modern filibuster’s first civil rights fatality actually occurred decades earlier in the searing 1922 defeat of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill. The Senate’s abandonment of this landmark legislation in the history of anti-Black violence is little remembered today, but it set a path for partisan and ideological battles in the century since and continues to reverberate in our legal system." --WaPo

Read that again. A law that would end extra-judicial killings of Americans was blocked by the filibuster! Areas of the South celebrated lynchings as a day of fun and enjoyment for families. Souvenirs of the murdered victims' body parts were passed around for sale after the Black victims (men, women, and children) were tortured, burned, and hanged. Postcards with images of these horrendous killings were sold and eagerly bought and sent to relatives in other states.

The filibuster stopped legislation that would have stopped the extra-judicial murders of Americans.

Nearly 2,000 Black Americans Were Lynched During Reconstruction

A new report brings the number of victims of racial terror killings between 1865 and 1950 to almost 6,500

Many Americans have never heard of the Tulsa Massacre or any of the other Black communities that were destroyed. And many Americans would like to forget the lynchings that were carried out across the South and other areas, because that all "happened in the past," and "we have to move on." Those folks have no understanding about how the massacres of thriving African-American communities robbed succeeding generations of treasure and the ability to build upon the wealth their forbears created. 

Making America face what it did to our African-American citizens is a step toward reconciliation and reparation.

TRUMP SAYS HE'LL BE "REINSTATED" AS POTUS IN AUGUST!

 

Sydney Powell, a supposed lawyer, has assured the Trump cultists that Trump will be reinstated in August. What Powell doesn't explain is where in the US Constitution it provides for this so-called "reinstatement" of a president who lost re-election.

Trump believes this insane delusion as well.

REPORT

The scale of Trump’s delusion is quite startling. This is not merely an eccentric interpretation of the facts or an interesting foible, nor is it an irrelevant example of anguished post-presidency chatter. It is a rejection of reality, a rejection of law, and, ultimately, a rejection of the entire system of American government. 

There is no Reinstatement Clause within the United States Constitution. Hell, there is nothing even approximating a Reinstatement Clause within the United States Constitution. 

The election has been certified, Joe Biden is the president, and, until 2024, that is all there is to it. It does not matter what one’s view of Trump is. It does not matter whether one voted for or against Trump. It does not matter whether one views Trump’s role within the Republican Party favorably or unfavorably. We are talking here about cold, hard, neutral facts that obtain irrespective of one’s preferences; it is not too much to ask that the former head of the executive branch should understand them. --CHARLES C. W. COOKE is a senior writer for National Review.

Coup d'etat anyone?

"Michael Flynn says the US should have the same kind of coup d'etat that Myanmar had. Remember: Myanmar's military is overturning elections, shooting protesters, torturing students, destroying the economy -- and it's fresh off a genocide of the Rohingya." --Nicholas Kristof

Michael Flynn was Trump's national security advisor for a few days at the beginning of Trump's presidency until he had to resign in disgrace because he lied to the FBI. Now this shameful man is calling for a violent overthrow of the United States government so that Trump, who lost the Nov. 3 election by 7 million popular votes and an electoral landslide, can be reinstated. 

I just wrote words that, as an American citizen, I never thought I'd write. And yet, here's a former flag officer of the US military calling for a coup d'etat, a treasonous action, against the country he was sworn to protect and defend against all enemies foreign and domestic. 

This past weekend Michael Flynn spoke to a QAnon crowd about supporting domestic enemies who would overthrow the duly elected government of the United States. 

Michael Flynn Calls for Myanmar-Style Coup in the U.S. 

 Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn—now firmly entrenched in the lunatic fringe—told a QAnon conference this weekend that he supports a violent military coup in the U.S. 

Video from the Dallas confab posted on social media shows Flynn was asked by an audience member “why what happened in Myanmar can’t happen here?” As the audience of conspiracy theorists cheered, Flynn responded: “No reason. I mean, it should happen here.” 

Myanmar’s military in February seized control of the country, detaining leaders Aung San Suu Kyi and Win Myint, claiming their election was fraudulent. The junta has since killed 800 people in a brutal crackdown. 

Flynn’s public support for an American version had critics on social media calling for the former Army general to be court-martialed.

 

 

Is the disgraced Flynn working with the guy who's being criminally investigated, Donald J. Trump, to overthrow the government of the United States? 

Michael Flynn Could Face Court Martial for Myanmar Coup Remark: Ex–Trump Official

BY KHALEDA RAHMAN ON 5/31/21 AT 11:21 AM EDT

VIA The Week:

Trump expects to be ‘reinstated’ as president by August

Former President Donald Trump reportedly believes he's going to be "reinstated" as president within the next two months. 

According to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, "Trump has been telling a number of people he's in contact with that he expects he will get reinstated by August" because the widely criticized "audit" he's backing in Arizona will show he actually won the 2020 presidential election. 

 "He is not putting out statements about the 'audits' in states just for the sake of it," Haberman reports. "He's been laser focused on them, according to several people who've spoken with him." 

Haberman notes that Trump's obsession with retaking the White House this year comes as he's staring at the possibility of being indicted by the New York Attorney General's Office, which is conducting a criminal probe of the Trump Organization for potential tax fraud.