“They Looked At Everything”

I know many of you read Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter so what you’re about to read is “old news.” Nevertheless, for those who don’t read her (outstanding) newsletter, I felt that something she wrote in her latest issue needed additional attention.

While I feel confident that most of my readers agree that the 2020 election was legal and valid, the following is just one more arrow to place in our quiver.

Today, Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post reported that Trump’s campaign hired a consulting firm to try to prove that the election had been stolen. The Berkeley Research Group examined the election results in six swing states but could not find anything that would have changed the outcome. “They looked at everything,” a source told Dawsey: “change of addresses, illegal immigrants, ballot harvesting, people voting twice, machines being tampered with, ballots that were sent to vacant addresses that were returned and voted…. Literally anything you could think of. Voter turnout anomalies, date of birth anomalies, whether dead people voted. If there was anything under the sun that could be thought of, they looked at it.” 

The consultants briefed Trump, chief of staff Mark Meadows, and others on their evidence that Biden’s election was legitimate in December 2020—before the events of January 6—but the Trump camp continued to insist the election had been stolen. 

To read the rest of this edition of Heather’s newsletter, click here.

This Made My Day!

Just finished reading an article in Business Insider and this first line jumped out at me:

• A Christian organization has started a petition protesting Trump’s 2024 campaign.

OH YES!!

At press time, 14,904 people had signed the petition — just shy of the organization’s goal of 15,000 signatures!

In the petition, Christians are asked to “speak out” and “make it clear that Donald Trump does not share our values and will never have our votes” … and “another Trump presidency would be a disaster for our country.”

The executive director of Faithful America, who is behind the petition, said this: “Neither the country nor the church can afford another four years of this charlatan’s fascism, racism, misinformation, or ego.”

FINALLY! A group of believers that have seen through the Great Façade! 👏👏

The Twitter Fiasco

As some of you may already know, Elon Musk finally accomplished his goal and is now the owner of Twitter. Robert Reich offers his perspective on this in his Substack article.

Personally, I think he’s pretty much spot-on.

Years ago, pundits assumed the internet would open a new era of democracy, giving everyone access to the truth. But dictators like Putin and demagogues like Trump have demonstrated how naive that assumption was.

Trump had 88 million Twitter followers before Twitter took him off its platform, just two days after the attack on the Capitol, which he provoked, in part, with his tweets. (Trump’s social media accounts were also suspended on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitch and TikTok.)

These moves were necessary to protect American democracy.

But Elon Musk – the richest man in the world, with 80 million Twitter followers – wasn’t pleased. Musk tweeted that US tech companies shouldn’t be acting “as the de facto arbiter of free speech”.

Elon now owns Twitter. Presumably, he’ll let Trump back on.

Musk is now accountable to no one — not even Twitter shareholders, because he’s taken the company private.

Elon has long advocated a libertarian vision of an “uncontrolled” internet. That vision is dangerous rubbish. There’s no such animal, and there never will be.

Someone has to decide on the algorithms in every platform – how they’re designed, how they evolve, what they reveal and what they hide. Musk has now given himself this sort of control over Twitter.

Elon has never believed that power comes with responsibility. He’s been unperturbed when his tweets cause real suffering. During his long and storied history with Twitter he has threatened journalists and tweeted reckless things.

In March 2020 he tweeted that children were “essentially immune” to Covid. He has pushed cryptocurrencies that he’s invested in. When a college student started a Twitter account to track Elon’s private plane, Musk tried and failed to buy him off, before blocking him.

The Securities and Exchange Commission went after Elon after he tweeted that he had funding to take Tesla private, a clear violation of the law. Elon paid a fine and agreed to let lawyers vet future sensitive tweets, but he has tried to reverse this requirement.

He has also been openly contemptuous of the SEC, tweeting at one point that the “E” stands for “Elon’s”. (You can guess what the “S” and “C” stand for.) By the way, how does the SEC go after Elon’s ability to tweet now that he owns Twitter?

Billionaires like Musk have shown time and again they consider themselves above the law. And to a large extent, they are.

Elon has enough wealth that legal penalties are no more than slaps on his wrist, and enough power to control one of the most important ways the public now receives news.

Think about it: after years of posting tweets that skirt the law, Elon now owns the platform.

Musk says he wants to “free” the internet. But what he really aims to do is make it even less accountable than it is now, when it’s often impossible to discover who is making the decisions about how algorithms are designed, who is filling social media with lies, who’s poisoning our minds with pseudo-science and propaganda, and who’s deciding which versions of events go viral and which stay under wraps.

Make no mistake: this is not about freedom. It’s about power.

In Musk’s vision of Twitter and the internet, he’s the wizard behind the curtain – projecting on the world’s screen a fake image of a brave new world empowering everyone.

In reality, that world is coming to be dominated by the richest and most powerful people on the globe, who aren’t accountable to anyone for anything — for facts, truth, science or the common good. (Emphasis mine.)

That’s Elon’s dream. And Trump’s. And Putin’s. And the dream of every dictator, strongman, demagogue and modern-day robber baron on Earth.

For the rest of us, it’s a brave new nightmare.

Fortunately, I rarely use Twitter … !

Trump LOVES Trump

I just came across this in my “Google News” app and could NOT resist sharing it!

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large

(CNN) Donald Trump needs you to know that Republican candidates don’t just like him, they love him. And they need him. Badly.

At a rally on Saturday night for Ohio GOP Senate nominee J.D. Vance, Trump made sure the crowd knew that Vance was subservient to him — big time.

“J.D. is kissing my ass he wants my support so bad,” Trump said.

Trump was reacting to a New York Times story that reported Vance had not actually invited Trump to campaign with him in the state. Instead, Trump’s team had simply told Vance that they would be coming to Ohio for a rally.

Trump’s campaign stops have always been, primarily, about Trump. You can tell that by the amount of time he spends talking about himself (a lot) versus how much time he spends talking about the candidate for whom he is ostensibly campaigning (very little).

But he has rarely thrown a candidate he endorsed so directly under the bus as he did Vance over the weekend. “He made J.D. Vance look like a mouse, not a man,” former Virginia Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock told CNN of the moment. “It was humiliating.”

Comstock is right. It’s hard to see Trump’s characterization of Vance as little more than a lackey benefiting him in his surprisingly competitive race against Democrat Tim Ryan this fall. Even for those voters who like Trump, the portrayal of Vance as little more than a lickspittle isn’t terribly appealing.

But that’s not what Trump cares about. Not really.

Sure, he visited Ohio to campaign for Vance — at least on the surface. But what Trump is really doing is burnishing his own brand — and basking in the adulation of his most dogged supporters. To quote Trump from more than three decades ago: “The show is Trump, and it is sold-out performances everywhere.”

That’s what you always have to remember when you are trying to understand the strategy or motivation behind something Trump does. Trump is all about Trump — first, last and forever.

And so, the most important thing Trump wanted to get across to those in attendance in Ohio over the weekend is not why they should vote for Vance. It’s that he remains uber-popular among Republicans and that every GOP candidate — Vance included — is desperate to have his endorsement.

That such an argument is belittling to Vance and makes him look both small and desperate is of no concern for Trump. The key (and only) concern is how does it make Trump look — strong, powerful and still very much coveted.

That’s all that matters.

Source of Article

A Powerful Question

OK … I’m doing it again. But this is something that NEEDS to be shared. It was written by Robert Reich (via Substack):

A personal question to powerful people who continue to deny the results of the 2020 election

What do you tell yourself in private?

I have a serious question for people who have power in America and who continue to deny the outcome of the 2020 election and enable Trump’s Big Lie: What are you saying to yourself in private? How are you justifying yourself in your own mind?

I don’t mean to be snide or snarky. I’m genuinely curious.

I’m not interested in Trump’s answer to this question. He is too far gone — lost in the depths of his own pathological ego. I’m also not asking the millions of Trump followers, Fox News viewers, and rightwing social media fans who have been fed the Big Lie nonstop for almost two years. Two-thirds of registered Republicans now believe it.

No, I am asking my question to people with power in our society, people who presumably know the truth.

If you hold public office and still deny the outcome of the 2020 election, how are you explaining this to yourself?

Are you telling yourself that despite the overwhelming evidence that Biden won and the lack of evidence of fraud, you still genuinely doubt the outcome? But you must know that sixty federal courts have found no basis in Trump’s claim, nor have any state so-called “audits,” and that even Trump’s own Attorney General found the claim baseless.

Or are you telling yourself that it will soon be over — that Trump will fade, that the Big Lie will disappear, that your party and America will soon move on?

But you must know you’re wrong. The Big Lie is growing. It has metastasized into a cancer that’s dividing the nation and devouring our democracy.

Or are you telling yourself that you have no real choice but to support the lie if you want to keep or obtain political power?

Even if true, is power so intoxicating to you — so important as an end in itself — that you’ll do anything for it?

Where will you draw the line? If Trump is reelected and imposes martial law? If he or another Republican president forbids public criticism of his administration? If he calls for violence against those who oppose him?

And what do you tell yourself about the measures your party is taking based on the Big Lie: suppression of votes, takeovers of election machinery, assertions that state legislatures can overturn voter preferences in the certification process, rejection of the January 6 committee’s findings?

You have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution. How do you defend yourself in your own mind?

I’m asking you, Kevin McCarthy. And you, Lindsey Graham. And you, Marco Rubio, and Rick Scott and Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson. And others.

And I’m asking those of you with significant power in the GOP who have remained silent in the face of all this – such as you, Mitch McConnell, and you, Mitt Romney: How do you justify your silence?

And I ask those of you now running for office who are denying the 2020 election results and pushing other aspects of Republican authoritarianism – such as you, JD Vance, and Blake Masters, Mehmet Oz, Herschel Walker, Doug Mastriano, and Kari Lake: What are you telling yourself in private? How are you excusing yourself? Why are you even running?

And I ask the billionaires and CEOs who are bankrolling these people: How do you rationalize spending millions, even tens of millions, helping them get or remain elected?

I’m asking you, Peter Thiel, and you, Stephen Schwarzman, and Ken Griffin and Steve Wynn and Mike Lindell and Patrick Byrne and others: Is this really the way you want to spend your fortune? Is this your legacy to the nation?

And I ask all the people making money off this rot – the TV hosts and producers and media moguls who are raking it in while poisoning the minds of America with bald face lies – what are you telling yourself in private?

I’m asking you, Rupert Murdoch, and you, Tucker Carlson, and you, Sean Hannity, and you, Laura Ingraham: How are you defending yourself to yourself?

I don’t expect you to answer me. This is a question for you to answer to yourself, alone and in private.

But before you do, may I have a confidential word with you?

Whether you’re a politician supporting the Big Lie, a billionaire backer of it, or a broadcaster who’s pushing it, it is not too late for you to get off the road you are on. Joe Biden has given you an off-ramp. He has stated the choice as clearly as it can be stated: democracy or autocracy.

Yet if you continue to promote or enable this lie, you are undermining our democracy and the norms of our society. The crisis you have helped create is worsening. You bear part of the responsibility for what comes next.

Know this: When the history of this trying time is written, future generations of Americans will judge your actions and your silences harshly.

They will recall your cowardice and your self-justifications. They will remember your lust for power and your moral blindness. They will recollect your unwitting ignorance or your witting failure to come to democracy’s defense in this perilous time.

Generations to come will sit in judgment about what you have wrought. And if the democratic experiment called America continues to unravel because of what you did or failed to do, you will live in infamy.