We Think We Found The Guy Inciting The Violence, It's The Same Guy As Last Time
Evidence.
Donald Trump obviously blabs his gross mouth all day and night, and it's arguable that about 98 percent of the broken English he spits out is of no true consequence. But right now, as he may be about to be indicted for the first time, people are watching for him to incite violence, for him to try to create his second January 6 attack. Obviously people are worried, especially as he's been begging people to go out and protest for him.
So it would seem that his absurd screeds today from his fake Twitter site probably matter. The incitement to violence comes at the end. There are funny parts too. It's all in ALL CAPS, because of course it is.
WHY WON’T BRAGG DROP THIS CASE?
Waaaaaaah!
EVERYBODY SAYS THERE IS NO CRIME HERE.
Nobody who actually knows law says that.
I DID NOTHING WRONG!
He did lots of things wrong.
IT WAS ALL MADE UP BY A CONVICTED NUT JOB WITH ZERO CREDIBILITY, WHO HAS BEEN DISPUTED BY HIGHLY RESPECTED PROFESSIONALS AT EVERY TURN.
Whenever Trump says somebody is "highly respected," he is usually talking about people who are the laughingstocks of their professions, people who probably literally fuck Play-Doh and then eat it. Sometimes he is talking about enemies of the United States and our values like Putin and Viktor Orban.
BRAGG REFUSES TO STOP DESPITE OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY.
Blah blah blah.
HE IS A SOROS BACKED ANIMAL
Look how Donald Trump talks about Black people. And Jewish people. Are these dogwhistles, or as Wonkette's Liz Dye asked, is it more like an elephant klaxon?
WHO JUST DOESN’T CARE ABOUT RIGHT OR WRONG NO MATTER HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE HURT.
Projection. ALL CAPS projection.
THIS IS NO LEGAL SYSTEM, THIS IS THE GESTAPO, THIS IS RUSSIA AND CHINA, BUT WORSE. DISGRACEFUL!
The Gestapo and Russia and China, but also worse?
So anyway, that was the first post. Sixteen minutes later came this one:
EVERYBODY KNOWS I’M 100% INNOCENT, INCLUDING BRAGG, BUT HE DOESN’T CARE.
Nobody but Trump's dumbest MAGA followers thinks he is innocent.
HE IS JUST CARRYING OUT THE PLANS OF THE RADICAL LEFT LUNATICS. OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED, AS THEY TELL US TO BE PEACEFUL!
There it is.
Of course in this case Trump stated at the end in all caps, "AS THEY TELL US TO BE PEACEFUL!" Trump's defenders like to get extra-literal on us whenever questions come up of whether he LITERALLY told his supporters to commit terrorist acts or LITERALLY told Michael Cohen to do crimes for him. (As Cohen told Congress, he speaks in code, like a mob boss.) So we are sure they will say Trump was simply musing that all these things are happening as they tell them to be peaceful, like he is just a chronicler of things.
It's the same way they tell us that because Trump barely mumbled the word "peaceful" in the middle of the rest of his frothing gargoyle speech on January 6, he did not really order that terrorist attack.
Fuck them all.
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LIVE: Let's Watch Republicans Yell 'Woke!' At Pentagon Officials And Call It Oversight
Drag Queen War-ry Hour.
There is literally an article in Politico this week about how Pentagon officials are practicing how to respond to Republican nutcases who just babble the word "woke" at them and act like that is reasonable, adult oversight of the military.
Today, Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are going before the House Defense Appropriations panel, and they will get to try out their answers. We've been here before. But with the modern Republican Party we can always guarantee that this time will be stupider than the last.
Come, let us liveblog together:
10:15: Oh we guess it's already gotten started, but the cameras only just now came on. GOP Rep. Kay Granger is speaking, nothing real stupid has been said yet (that we've heard).
10:19: Austin says two of his priorities at the Pentagon are taking care of their people and teamwork. We hope you know that means WOKE PRONOUN PARTIES.
10:25: Austin is just giving his opening statement, do you need us to liveblog that? You do not. Just FYI. You probably also don't need us to liveblog Milley's opener. Stronger allies, support NATO, stick with Ukraine until the end, "Russia's cruel war of choice," and so forth.
10:28: Milley says we are not going to war with Russia or China anytime soon, thank yew very much, shut up to all idiots who say we are.
10:35: Now we start with GOP Rep. Ken Calvert, who would like Austin to tell us why we are getting rid of a bunch of Navy ships if we want to fight CHIIIIIINA. Austin is like man how many boats can a guy have, we just wanna have the right number of boats, why you wanna have too many boats?
"Ship count matters," says Calvert. Sounds like a woke slogan.
10:44: Republican Kay Granger says our enemies are getting much cuddlier with countries in South America and wants to know what we are doing to deal with that. Does not even say CARAVAN!!1! or anything weird, it's like these Republicans do not even want to be on "Hannity" tonight.
10:54: Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, wants to make sure Congress gets credit for giving more money to the Pentagon than even Trump or Biden has asked for. Remember who your real dad is, Pentagon!
11:05: We almost feel like it is newsworthy that a hearing in a Republican-controlled Congress is fairly normal and people are being respectful, even Republicans to the Democrats from the Democrat administration. Maybe somebody promised the Republicans that if they could be semi-normal for a whole hour they would get a pizza party.
11:19: This hearing has not had the word "woke" one time yet.
11:27: Mike Garcia, a Republican from California, is talking about a bill he sponsored, now a law, to make it easier for military spouses to take their professional licenses across state lines when they have to move. Also has serious concerns with how little money lower level enlisted people are making, many of them far below 32K per year.
All of this sounds suspiciously like governing and we don't like it.
11:31: Garcia seemed to kind of want Milley to either blame the way Afghanistan ended on Trump or Biden, and Milley was like nah, that was a 20-year war, we have only begun to grapple with how fucked up that all was and why. And Garcia was like "Well said" and again he is a Republican and we are just going to keep asking what is happening and wonder when James Comer is going to invade this committee he is not on to declare that he's found Hunter Biden's penis in the backyard and let's go get it.
11:41: MARIO DIAZ-BALART, A REPUBLICAN; No more blank checks in Ukraine! What is the end-state for Ukraine?
MILLEY: Uhhhh, Ukraine is a sovereign nation and stays that way and wins and Joe Biden has been clear on that?
We guess the chair of the committee, Ken Calvert, said something idiot at the beginning before the cameras came on about "no more blank checks for Ukraine."
You know, because of how we've been giving Zelenskyy blank checks and saying "GO WILD, BABY! DEFEND YOURSELF FROM RUSSIA, LIKE A WILD CHILD!"
These people are garbage.
11:54: There was just a mild-mannered discussion about the issue of extremism in the ranks, but there was nobody that yelled at the military was attacking conservatives. Now Marcy Kaptur from Ohio is talking. She is giving out a book recommendation!
12:01: Hal Rogers, Republican from Kentucky, said he wanted to talk about the elephant in the room, and we figured he meant how under Joe Biden troops do Drag Queen Story Hour instead of Basic Training, but instead he wanted Milley and Austin to assess Xi Jinping's recent trip to Moscow to play with Putin.
12:08: Oh good, it is Chris Stewart from Utah. He's kinda very stupid.
He's "concerned" about where things are going in Ukraine and wants to know if Ukraine winning means they get Crimea back. He is "concerned" about that. (This is Russian propaganda, the idea that Crimea should stay Russian.)
12:13: Chris Stewart wants to know about the "culture" of the military and what's "broken" between fathers and sons to make them not hit their recruitment goals anymore.
Milley says we're actually at a 50-year high on retention, so ... that's a thing. Says recruiting is definitely difficult. Says COVID plays a role. Recruiters can't go to high schools and trick kids into convince kids to join the military when they're home because of COVID.
We feel like Chris Stewart really wanted to yank the "woke" chain, but he's kinda dumb, as we said, and we feel like in our experience of watching him, he kinda follows the other congressmen's leads when it comes to how nutcase he acts.
11:18: And now they are finished and nobody said woke!
WEIRD. Tip your bartenders if you like liveblogs!
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100 Year Old Lady At Florida School Board Better Patriot Than All Book Banners Put Together
Knows a thing or two about fascists.
Earlier this month, the school district in Martin County, Florida, purged at least 84 books from school libraries after complaints from the head of the local Moms for "Liberty" chapter under the state's school censorship law, HB 1467, passed last year. PEN America notes that most of the books were removed following challenges by a single objector, "who filed forms indicating that she did not actually read any of the books in question." No problem; in keeping with the law, a DeSanctified "media specialist" in the district reviewed the books, or at least the list, and the books were gone.
Among the familiar suspects like Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Beloved,the banned books also included 20 by a single author, Jodi Picoult, who writes novels for the young adult market. Picoult notes in an op-ed that the complaints — again, all from the one Moms for Censorship lady — inaccurately described all her books as "adult romance that should not be on school shelves." Picoult, who we suspect knows her books better than the mom who didn't read them, points out that most of the books that were targeted "do not even have a kiss in them.," but they do deal with social issues that make rightwingers sad, and they "encourage kids to think for themselves." Can't have that.
Picoult also notes that one of her books marked for culling was The Storyteller, a novel about the repercussions of the Holocaust.
It chronicles the growth of anti-Semitism and fascism in Nazi Germany. There was a strange irony that a parent wanted this particular book removed, because it felt a bit like history repeating itself.
Julie Marshall, the Mom for Purity who lodged the complaints, told the Washington Post by email, "At this point, we believe we have challenged the most obscene and age inappropriate books," but didn't specify what her issues with The Storyteller were. Apparently there's sex, including depictions of Nazi guards committing sexual assault, so maybe we wouldn't want kids thinking Nazis were rapists.
The removal of all those books meant that Tuesday night's Martin County school board meeting was packed, with about 200 people there. Many of the 40 who spoke at the meeting called for the books to be restored, although a few also worried about all the nasty sex in books available to high school readers, giving the very laziest local news stations an excuse to present one quote from each side and call it good coverage.
Marshall was there, in a Wonder Woman T-shirt, to explain that while she filed almost all the complaints, she works with many many concerned parents both locally and nationwide, and sadly she didn't actually say "There are dozens of us! Dozens!" But she did say
"If you guys want to continue making me out to be the sole parent in all of this and give me the power that I can have all these books removed and make me out to be Wonder Woman, so be it ... Persecute me for standing on morality, I really don't care."
We really do hope someone lets her know that Wonder Woman is a queer icon, that Lynda Carter thinks bigots suck, and that the character was created in the first place by William Moulton Marston, who lived very happily in a throuple and deliberately included a LOT of bondage references in the comic, what with that Lasso o' Truth and all. (He was also a lie-detector crank who always looked for a way to cash in on his dubious inventions, so there's that.) Marston included this illustration, by Harry G. Peter, of what a real Wonder Woman believes, in his article "Why 100,000 Americans Read Comics" in American Scholar (1943-44):
Image: Harvard College Library via NPR
Happily, among the many folks calling for freedom to read, there was a real wonder woman at the school board meeting, 100-year-old Grace Linn, who knows far too well why fascism has to be nipped in the bud whenever it arises. Her husband was killed in action fighting them in WW II, and by god she's not going to allow any book burners in her America, thank you very much.
Linn brought along a quilt she had made to honor books and ideas that the current round of fascists are trying to snuff out; in January, as America's censorship crusade was well under way, she had shared a photo of her quilt with MSNBC's Ali Velshi for his show's "Banned Book Club" feature.
The quilt includes censored titles like Beloved,Maus, Fahrenheit 451, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Gender Queer, Two Boys Kissing, and more. Linn told Palm Beach TV station WPTV — one of the non-lazy ones! — "When I showed this to adult women, they'll say, 'Oh, no they didn't do that to The Color Purple.'"
Now, let's get out of her way and listen:
A few highlights (full transcript of Linn's remarks at AlterNet):
Good afternoon folks. I am Grace Lynn. I am a hundred years young. I'm here to protest our school district's book-banning policy. My husband Robert Nichol was killed in action in World War II, at a very young age, he was only 26, defending our democracy, Constitution, and freedoms.
One of the freedoms that the Nazis crushed was the freedom to read the books they banned. They stopped the free press, banned and burned books. The freedom to read, which is protected by the First Amendment, is our essential right and duty of our democracy. Even so, it is continually under attack by both the public and private groups who think they hold the truth.
Linn noted she'd made the quilt last year in reply to the Right's mania for book banning, and urged her fellow citizens not to knuckle under to today's fascists, who seek power by trying to make us afraid of other Americans:
Banned books, and burning books, are the same. Both are done for the same reason: fear of knowledge. Fear is not freedom. Fear is not liberty. Fear is control. My husband died as a father of freedom. I am a mother of liberty. Banned books need to be proudly displayed and protected from school boards like this. Thank you very much. Thank you.
And that's what we all need to be saying at every school and library board meeting in America, the end.
UPDATE: Well silly me, I didn't include anything about the school board's reactions to the two hours of public comment. According to the local paper, the board didn't take any action on the banned books at Tuesday's meeting, and no board members responded to the comments.
[PEN America / Daily Beast / WaPo / JTA / NPR / AlterNet / TC Palm]
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Li'l Nebraska State Sen Lady Machaela Cavanaugh Sets Up Early Bid For BADASS OF THE YEAR!
BURN IT ALL DOWN.
Last month, Nebraska state Senator Machaela Cavanaugh declared that she'd filibuster every damn bill the Republican-controlled legislature put forward unless it pulled proposed legislation banning gender-affirming health care for transgender youth. Specifically, this anti-trans garbage would ban puberty blockers, gender-affirming surgeries, and hormone therapy.
A SPLAINER! What IS Gender Affirming Health Care For Kids Anyway, Because Texas Is Super F*cking Lying About It Right?
Cavanaugh wasn't shy about her intentions. She said, "If people are like, 'Is she threatening us?' let me be clear: Yes, I am. I am threatening you." She added, "If this Legislature collectively decides that legislating hate against children is our priority, then I am going to make it painful; painful for everyone. Because if you want to inflict pain upon our children, I am going to inflict pain upon this body.”
Those are the badass lines from the trailer for the eventual movie starring Elizabeth Olsen.
The senator maintained her blanket filibuster for weeks, and the Legislature hasn't passed diddly squat all year. Cavanaugh told her colleagues last month, "I will burn this session to the ground over this bill. I have nothing but time, and I am going to use all of it."
PREVIOUSLY: Nebraska Dem Just Gonna Filibuster Eeeeeeeeverything
Although Republicans' supermajority in the state Senate increased to 32 from 17 in 2020, they need 33 votes to end a filibuster. So kudos to Cavanaugh's colleagues for supporting her and not folding because of yadda, yadda, norms, yadda, yadda, business of the people.
She's now reached an agreement with Speaker of the Legislature John Arch of La Vista to pause her filibuster long enough to have a true debate on the anti-trans bill.
Unfortunately, state Sen. R. Brad von Gillern of Elkhorn offers a sample of the quality of debate we can expect:
As I considered this debate, I constantly reminded myself that this bill is about protecting kids and in truth protecting themselves from their own young and immature minds. There’s testimony today that seeks to imply that loving the individual is impossible if we disagree with them. I just want to say out loud: I hate that. Not everything that a child wants for themselves is good for them. We don’t let a kid eat candy every meal because we know it’s harmful. We don’t let them choose whether to attend school or not. We don’t let them jump off the roof because they think they’re a superhero.
This fool's argument is beneath the dignity of a Dr. Beverly Crusher gif because we doubt he would support legislation preventing parents from feeding their kids candy or hamburgers. "The state has decreed that all children must adhere to a strict vegan diet!"
Press coverage has framed Cavanaugh's filibuster as a "protest," which I don't think is quite accurate. Protesters ideally are demanding action from those empowered to make change. Cavanaugh has demonstrated that she's far from powerless. She's using the tools at her disposal as a member of the minority party. Her filibuster has blocked five other anti-trans bills, as well as a POS bill banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
Most importantly, it's believed that Cavanaugh only paused the filibuster because she now has enough votes to kill the bill dead. That's how you filibuster, folks.
Now, you might say, "How you can you support Cavanaugh's filibuster when you've consistently decried Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema's continued supported for the US Senate filibuster?" and that's a valid point for an idiot to have. Manchin and Sinema high-five each other while Republicans use the filibuster to block voting rights legislation and codify abortion rights. They also seem oblivious to how Republicans have killed the filibuster when it stood in the way of their agenda and would do so again without a thought.
Manchin and Sinema, despite their highly prized bipartisanship, never reached any grand filibuster-proof bargains on voting or abortion rights. That's because they're chumps. Cavanaugh is not a chump. She's a badass.
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