Laura Clawson of Daily Kos reported on the support police are giving far-right militia groups. She provides a few examples, such as the police chief of Snohomish, Wash. who welcomed vigilantes, one with a Confederate flag, to town. Clawson wrote:
It’s telling that police—and, in some other cases, local officials—see people who are threatening violence as allies if they’re there to oppose anti-racism protests. This once again tells us so much about who U.S. law enforcement and the criminal justice system are there to protect and who they’re there to control and keep down. And at this moment in time, the occupant of the White House is eagerly encouraging both that aspect of the official system and the armed vigilantes there to cheer it on.
David Neiwert of Kos reported that a far-right vigilante was killed in Portland on Saturday. That prompted Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers to tweet he’s ready for civil war. If the nasty guy doesn’t do his duty and declare a Marxist insurrection, they will do theirs.
Neiwert ponders whether this is a viable threat or merely a lot of bluster, which Rhodes is known for. However, Neiwert reminds us that the Oath Keepers is a private army accountable to no one. If the nasty guy empowered them, even unofficially, it would be a disaster.
Joan McCarter of Kos reported the House Oversight Committee is preparing subpoenas for Postmaster General Louis DeStroy (thanks to my friend and debate partner for the nickname). The committee wants several documents on DeStroy’s communications with the nasty guy campaign related to slowing down the Postal Service. To be seen is whether the documents will be provided and, if not, what the House will do about it.
McCarter also reported Robert Duncan, the chair of the USPS Board of Governors is a pal of the nasty guy and Moscow Mitch. He’s such a pal he’s a director of Mitch’s super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund. He’s also a director of American Crossroads Super PAC, which is on the right side of conservative funding machines. Which is why the USPS board is quite content with the job DeStroy is doing.
Last week Geoff Bennett tweeted with pictures:
A postal employee provides NBC News with exclusive images of dismantled mail sorting machines in a Dallas facility. Workers attempted to repair and reinstall them but found critical parts were trashed. These bar code sorters process letter mail, including ballots.
Yared Wonde, president of the Dallas postal workers union, tells us the sorting machines were in working condition at the time of their removal in July and that workers have “been told not to put it back in operation.” He says they will likely be sold for scrap metal.
Hunter of Kos reported William Barr of the Department formerly known as Justice has pushed out another high-level oversight official. Then he released a memo restricting investigations of federal surveillance of political candidates and their campaigns related to possible foreign intelligence links, unless he personally approves it.
So Barr, and Barr alone, will decide which investigations of foreign election interference keep going or get shut down. Nicely convenient for the nasty guy and his campaign’s many links to foreign agents.
Joan McCarter reported that the nasty guy and Moscow Mitch (and the rest of the GOP) is pretending COVID-10 is over. McCarter reviewed all of the economic support provisions that have expired and are about to cause an economic calamity.
Channing Tatum (I’ll reveal later how I cam across his Twitter stream) tweeted a quote from Will Smith:
Racism is not getting worse, it’s getting filmed.
Georgia Logothetis, in her pundit roundup for Kos quoted Ryan Cooper of The Week:
A democratic republic is a useful form of government for many reasons, but one of the most important ones is it moves political competition away from violence and towards the ballot box. If an election is lost, parties who did not win can regroup and try to win the next one instead of overthrowing the government by force. But this only works if a critical mass of the population views the electoral process as legitimate.
That is less and less true of the American right, which increasingly tries to win by cheating — through gerrymandering, vote suppression, destroying the Post Office, and so on — instead of getting more votes. One reason this is happening is that the right is thoroughly gripped by crackpot conspiracy nonsense. But another is the accurate perception that conservatives cannot win a fair election, even though American institutions are already ludicrously biased towards them. And there is no more blatant form of cheating democracy than violently attacking one's political opponents.
David Rothkopf tweeted a review of the thwarted investigation of the nasty guy and his ties to Russia, then added (and the shouty caps are his):
In other words...THERE HAS BEEN NO REAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE GREATEST CRIME EVER PERPETRATED BY AN AMERICAN PRESIDENT OR PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE OR THOSE CLOSE TO HIM, THE GREATEST BETRAYAL OF US BY THE BIGGEST TRAITOR IN US HISTORY. NONE.
The biggest scandal in our history is wrapped in the 2d biggest scandal, the cover-up. Trump, his cronies, the Russians, Barr, Rosenstein-they all must be brought before the bar, tried, held accountable or the precedent we set will be devastating for the future of our democracy.
AND: It must be emphasized that if real investigations took place, the prosecutions the law demands took place, those who were sworn to uphold the Constitution did so...then 180,000 Americans would likely not be dead & our economy not in shambles.
That got me thinking a bit more about what I included yesterday. Alexandra Erin had tweeted that the Constitution is a matter of opinion, and has been for 200 years.
I thought of another way of saying that. The Constitution doesn’t have its own army or police force. If there is a willful effort to ignore the Constitution by enough people (such as the current squatter in the Oval Office, the entire Republican Party (and a few Democrats), and the judges and justices they appoint) there is no other force or body that can stand up to protect it – except we the people.
For now we do have some justices still standing up for the Constitution. Gabe Ortiz of Kos reported that gay couple Derek Mize and Jonathan Gregg won their court case. Both men are listed on their daughter Simone’s birth certificate. She was born outside the US through surrogacy, though both men are US citizens. The nasty guy’s state department said that since she is biologically related to only one of her fathers she is born out of wedlock and not eligible for birth citizenship. They sued in federal court. And won.
Back to Channing Tatum. I came across his Twitter stream when someone linked to a tweet where he has a picture of himself indulging his inner child, which prompted the creation of Sparkella.
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