WHY WAS ENRIQUE TARRIO AT THE TRUMP WHITE HOUSE TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE J6 INSURRECTION AGAINST THE UNITED STATES?

 

On December 12, 2020, Tarrio indicated on his Parler social media account that he was invited to the Trump White House. 

 Really? 

And what was discussed at the White House three weeks before the  Jan. 6 attempted coup that involved that Proud Boy? 

Ex-Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio sentenced to 22 years in Jan. 6 case

Has any Republican spoken out against this proto-fascist gang, Proud Boys, the leader of which will now spend 22 years behind bars for committing sedition against the United States?

Tarrio was a guest at the White House?  Why?

• "Tarrio wasn't at the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot because he was arrested days earlier for vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Black church in D.C. in 2020.
• However, prosecutors have argued that Tarrio maintained command over Proud Boys members after his arrest and cheered on the group as its members stormed the Capitol.
• Prosecutors also noted Tarrio took credit for the riot on behalf of the group.

What they're saying: "No organization put more boots on the ground at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, than the Proud Boys, and they were at the forefront of every major breach of the Capitol's defenses, leading the on-the-ground efforts to storm the seat of government," said Matthew Graves, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, in a statement.

• "The leaders of the Proud Boys and the leaders of the Oath Keepers, who conspired before, during, and after the siege of the Capitol to use force against their own government to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, have now been held accountable."

Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro convicted of contempt of Congress

AMAZING!

 

Scientists create model human embryo lasting 14 days, without eggs, sperm or a womb – groundbreaking new study 

Scientists tread over an ethical quagmire as they unlock fresh insights into our first month of development.

In a groundbreaking development, scientists have grown synthetic human embryos for 14 days – without eggs, sperm or a womb. 

 In a new study published in Nature, biologist Prof Jacob Hanna and his research team at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, demonstrate their complete model of a human embryo using lab-grown stem cells. They generated the model using genetically unmodified pluripotent stem cells. These are cells that have the potential to develop into many different cell types. The resulting model mimics the 3D structure and key characteristics of a human embryo.

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This will lead to all kinds of discussions by ethicists, I'm sure. But, as I understand this from listening to a report on NPR, the use of these embryos could be used to further science's understanding of what can go wrong in a human embryo and why that happens.

Read the report in the link carefully. These stem cell produced embryos cannot develop into human fetuses:

"The researchers underline that while the models resemble embryos, they are not real embryos. 

Scientists are still unsure how long they would survive if allowed to develop beyond 14 days. While it is currently illegal to implant synthetic embryos into a human womb, there is currently no legal framework addressing the ethical issues of synthetic embryos. Despite this, so far they have not been grown for longer than 14 days."

We truly are living in interesting times.

The late presidential speech writer, Michael Gerson, wrote this message in 2020 for people who excuse Trump's racism:

 

History can and will repeat itself if we don't pay attention.

"I had fully intended to ignore President Trump’s latest round of racially charged taunts against an African American elected official, and an African American activist, and an African American journalist and a whole city with a lot of African Americans in it. I had every intention of walking past Trump’s latest outrages and writing about the self-destructive squabbling of the Democratic presidential field, which has chosen to shame former vice president Joe Biden for the sin of being an electable, moderate liberal.

But I made the mistake of pulling James Cone’s 'The Cross and the Lynching Tree' off my shelf — a book designed to shatter convenient complacency. Cone recounts the case of a white mob in Valdosta, Ga., in 1918 that lynched an innocent man named Haynes Turner. Turner’s enraged wife, Mary, promised justice for the killers. The sheriff responded by arresting her and then turning her over to the mob, which included women and children. According to one source, Mary was 'stripped, hung upside down by the ankles, soaked with gasoline, and roasted to death. In the midst of this torment, a white man opened her swollen belly with a hunting knife and her infant fell to the ground and was stomped to death.'

God help us. It is hard to write the words. This evil — the evil of white supremacy, resulting in dehumanization, inhumanity and murder — is the worst stain, the greatest crime, of U.S. history. It is the thing that nearly broke the nation. It is the thing that proved generations of Christians to be vicious hypocrites. It is the thing that turned normal people into moral monsters, capable of burning a grieving widow to death and killing her child.

When the president of the United States plays with that fire or takes that beast out for a walk, it is not just another political event, not just a normal day in campaign 2020. It is a cause for shame. It is the violation of martyrs’ graves. It is obscene graffiti on the Lincoln Memorial. It is, in the eyes of history, the betrayal — the re-betrayal — of Haynes and Mary Turner and their child. And all of this is being done by an ignorant and arrogant narcissist reviving racist tropes for political gain, indifferent to the wreckage he is leaving, the wounds he is ripping open.

Like, I suspect, many others, I am finding it hard to look at resurgent racism as just one in a series of presidential offenses or another in a series of Republican errors. Racism is not just another wrong. The Antietam battlefield is not just another plot of ground. The Edmund Pettus Bridge is not just another bridge. The balcony outside Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel is not just another balcony. As U.S. history hallows some causes, it magnifies some crimes.

What does all this mean politically? It means that Trump’s divisiveness is getting worse, not better. He makes racist comments, appeals to racist sentiments and inflames racist passions. The rationalization that he is not, deep down in his heart, really a racist is meaningless. Trump’s continued offenses mean that a large portion of his political base is energized by racist tropes and the language of white grievance. And it means — whatever their intent — that those who play down, or excuse, or try to walk past these offenses are enablers.

Some political choices are not just stupid or crude. They represent the return of our country’s cruelest, most dangerous passion. Such racism indicts Trump. Treating racism as a typical or minor matter indicts us."

— Michael Gerson

JUSTICE!

 

Michael Beschloss:  We still need to know what Tarrio was doing at Trump WH  3 weeks before 1/6 OK, Tarrio gets twenty-two years, but we still need to know what he was really doing at the Trump White House three weeks before January 6, 2021. Why was he there?

Ex-Leader of Proud Boys Sentenced to 22 Years in Jan. 6 Sedition Case

Enrique Tarrio was found guilty of seditious conspiracy against the United States.  

Look at the Republican senators, governors and other GOP pols who were proud to be photographed with this seditious felon!

"You will know who they are by the people they're proud to be seen with."

GUEST POST BY DAVE MILLER

 

A Change Has Gotta Come... 

They’re all too old. Every. Last. One!

Joe Biden, Mitch McConnell, Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Grassley, Jim Clyburn, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Hal Rogers, Donald Trump and more.

If you are over 75 years old, you should be running for public office or reelection. Period.

Nikki Haley was only 30% right recently when she said the Senate is “the most privileged nursing home in this country.” Because she left out the Presidency and the House of Representatives where Democrats have a host of folks, especially in leadership, in their mid 80’s.

If Democrats don’t think Joe Biden has lost more than a step or two, they’re not being honest. If the GOP thinks Mitch McConnell is still on the top of his game, they’re smoking too much of that old wacky tobacky.

And it’s the same for the rest of the lot.

No serious person is going to make the case that someone in their eighth decade of life has not slowed down. DMV’s across the land place greater restrictions on drivers license renewals as people age. Most people as they age face mandatory retirement across a host of jobs.

Ask yourself this…

Would you want an aging lawyer defending you in an important legal case? How about an aging medical professional, prone to freezing up, doing your root canal or heart bypass? Do you want to see your EMT show up to your accident scene, and having to be guided over to your injured son or daughter because of an unsteady gait?

Of course not.

So why are we alright with political leaders, well past their prime, continuing to serve. Why are we okay with octogenarians guarding extremely sensitive US security information? Surely there is something we can do.  

Like many, I am well aware of what the Constitution says. But the Constitution was always seen as a living document, malleable by amendments. Why not now? The 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951 in response to FDR’s four terms, limited the president to two terms.

I’m convinced that the specter of aging US leaders, once a rare sight but now increasingly on display through social media, is changing our perceptions.

Whereas once our outrage seemed to be party specific, now we are hearing same party criticisms of our aging leader class. The GOP is rightly concerned about the recent Mitch McConnell freeze ups, just as some Democrats are expressing public consternation and calling for Dianne Feinstein to step aside after her recent struggles with shingles and a very visible physical decline.

Rather than push term limits, which as we have seen in states, simply keep the same people employed, albeit in other elected offices, we should move to a mandatory retirement age for all elected office holders in the legislative and executive branches of government and appointed officers in the judicial branch.

Admittedly, a one size fits all solution via an amendment to our Constitution is going to sweep up some seniors more than able to continue to effectively serve. But the same argument could be made on the minimum age limits already enshrined in our Constitution. 

Those exceptions however should not keep up from action. America is ready for change and we need younger people leading us and the chance to debate the new ideas they will bring to the table. 

An upper age limit will ensure ongoing renewal of our leader class, the infusion of new ideas and I believe, mostly rid us situations like we faced with an aging Senator Strom Thurmond, where one of his own aides once remarked that "for his last ten years, Thurmond didn't know if he was on foot or on horseback”.

America can, and should do better. 

YOUR SUNDAY MOMENT OF ZEN

 

SATURDAY NIGHT MUSIC

 

RIP Jimmy Buffett.  Saw him perform in Key West years ago.

Tonight, to remember him, we're having margaritas and cheeseburgers.

These people vote!

 

"By the way, if the truth about Biden and his family’s corruption does finally break through our mainstream media and everybody actually starts to hear it AND he IS impeached and the truth comes out, what’ll he do, arrange another 9/11? Why not? 

He’s the king of subterfuge, that’s for sure…timely, beneficial, Biden-serving subterfuge."

Keep in mind, Dear Readers, that it is DONALD J. TRUMP who's under multiple criminal investigations for fraud, cheating, lying, stealing government top secret documents, inciting an insurrection against the United States of America, and interfering in the Georgia presidential elections by pressuring the Georgia secretary of states to find him 11,780 votes so he could treacherously steal the election from the winner of the 2020 election, Joe Biden. 

Oh, and this little infraction of the law that Trumpers NEVER mention: 

Donald J. Trump was found liable for sexual assault on E. Jean Carroll -- rape, as the presiding judge called it. Yet the person quoted above, and the people who follow her, believe it is the Bidens who are the "crime family." 

These people, who are seriously deluded and marinated in FAUX NOOZ propaganda, are so insane that they think that Joe Biden may conspire to pull off another 9/11 and kill over 3,000 Americans just to keep himself from being impeached?

These people vote!

WOMEN AND GIRLS: Texas proposes that they be hunted down if they try to leave the state for a medically legal procedure

 

You didn't think they'd go this far, did you? You were wrong. 

Never underestimate what the state will do to strip away your human rights -- especially Red states: 

 Washington  Post:  A new wave of proposals passed in several Texas jurisdictions and under consideration elsewhere in the state would make it illegal for anyone to use certain roads to drive someone out of state for an abortion. The ordinances, pushed by antiabortion activists, allow any private citizen to sue a person or organization they suspect of violating the ordinance. 

 Conservative lawmakers started exploring ways to block interstate abortion travel long before Roe v. Wade was overturned. But even in the most conservative corners of Texas, efforts to crack down on abortion travel are meeting some resistance from voters who think the proposed “abortion trafficking” laws go too far.

JUSTICE!

 

Proud Boys Leader Joe Biggs Gets Hefty Sentence for Jan. 6 Riot 

 Proud Boys leader Joe Biggs was “an instigator and leader” of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to prosecutors. Now he’ll serve 17 years behind bars after being sentenced for seditious conspiracy on Thursday. It’s a lengthy jail term compared to the other Capitol rioters—only a year shorter than the longest sentence given for Jan. 6-related crimes. That belongs to Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who got an 18-year sentence for the same crime. Biggs is a veteran of the U.S. Army and sustained a head injury during his service in Iraq. He later joined right-wing conspiracy website Infowars as a correspondent. When he stormed the Capitol with his fellow Proud Boys on Jan. 6, Briggs was a “vocal leader and influential proponent of the group’s shift toward political violence,” prosecutors argued.

This is Biggs after the J6 insurrection, bragging about how much fun it was.

FAFO!

This is what our students face in their schools in the "Greatest Country in the World:"

The front page of The Daily Tarheel, August 29: 

Text messages sent and received by UNC students Monday, August 28. 

The campus was on lockdown for more than three hours.

 

We are a country that loves guns more than we love our children.

 

Republicans against Trump

@RpsAgainstTrump

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Donald Trump who lives in FL, has been posting nonstop about his poll numbers, money he made from the mug shot, attacks on judges, prosecutors, Christie, DeSantis, and everyone else, But he’s yet to Post anything about hurricane #Idalia. It's almost as if he’s a narcissistic sociopath who doesn't give a sh*t about anyone but himself.

The Trumpublican Party is interferring with US justice...

 

to protect one of the most corrupt ex-presidents in American history.

A  Republican-led effort to reprimand District Attorney Fani Willis after she brought charges against former President Donald Trump in Fulton County is poised to expand, as state and federal lawmakers pursue new efforts to sanction the prosecutor. 

 State Senate Majority Leader Steve Gooch said in an interview that Republican leaders could hold legislative hearings into whether Willis is using “her position in a political manner” after accusing Trump and his allies of a complex conspiracy. The two initiatives are part of a broader effort by Trump’s allies at the Georgia Capitol and the U.S. Congress to punish Willis over the 51-count indictment, which accuses Trump and 18 co-defendants of a sprawling “criminal enterprise” to reverse his 2020 defeat. 

 U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde wants to use an upcoming appropriations bill to slash federal funding for Willis, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and federal special counsel Jack Smith. Each is a top prosecutor in one of the four cases Trump is currently facing. 

[skip]

"Willis, who has long predicted the attacks, has declined to comment. But the district attorney said earlier this month when announcing the indictments that she acted 'based on the facts and the law.' 'The law is completely nonpartisan,' she said. 'That’s how decisions are made in every case.' " 

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This is a peek at where the former Republican Party is going, and that is to no longer respect the separation of powers; to weaken the judiciary; and consolidate power. 

This is what Viktor Orban of Hungary would do. It’s a type of soft fascism, and alarm bells should be going off all over America as Trump cultists try to stop Trump from facing the consequences of his illegal plot to steal the 2020 election from President Biden.

Will the American people recognize what they’re seeing in Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Texas, & Missouri? These states are moving towards authoritarian style governments, and more red states are moving in the same direction.

THIS HAPPENED TODAY:

"A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that Rudolph W. Giuliani was liable for defaming two Georgia election workers by repeatedly declaring that they had mishandled ballots while counting votes in Atlanta during the 2020 election. 

The ruling by the judge, Beryl A. Howell in Federal District Court in Washington, means that the defamation case against Mr. Giuliani, a central figure in former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to remain in power after his election loss, can proceed to trial on the narrow question of how much, if any, damages he will have to pay the plaintiffs in the case. 

 Judge Howell’s decision came a little more than a month after Mr. Giuliani conceded in two stipulations in the case that he had made false statements when he accused the election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, of manipulating ballots while working at the State Farm Arena for the Fulton County Board of Elections."

Victor Shi

@Victorshi2020

·

4h

A reminder to never mess around with Black women protecting our democracy. Today, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss won their defamation case against Rudy Giuliani & it is absolutely glorious. They are our heroes. They are the best of our democracy. Thank you, Ruby & Shaye.