Author: clearandpresentdanger

In economics, they call it the law of unintended consequences:  An event ultimately produces an outcome, sometimes negative, that was not expected.

That’s what is happening to Brandy Bottone of Plano, TX, a mother who is 34 weeks into her pregnancy.

On June 29 she was driving on U.S. Highway 75 South and headed to the Interstate 635 West interchange.

“I was driving to pick up my son. I knew I couldn’t be a minute late, so I took the HOV [high-occupancy vehicle] lane. As I exited the HOV, there was a checkpoint at the end of the exit. I slammed on my brakes, and I was pulled over by police.

“An officer peeked in and asked, ‘Is there anybody else in the car?’

“I said, ‘Well, yes.’

“He asked, ‘Where?’

“I pointed to my stomach and said, ‘My baby girl is right here. She is a person.’

“He said, ‘Oh, no. It’s got to be two people outside of the body.’

“One officer kind of brushed me off when I mentioned this is a living child, according to everything that’s going on with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. ‘So I don’t know why you’re not seeing that,’ I said.

“He was like, ‘I don’t want to deal with this.’ He said, ‘Ma’am, it means two persons outside of the body.’

“He waved me on to the next cop who gave me a citation and said, ‘If you fight it, it will most likely get dropped.’

“But they still gave me a ticket. So my $215 ticket was written to cause inconvenience?

“This has my blood boiling. How could this be fair? According to the new law, this is a life.

“I know this may fall on deaf ears, but as a woman, this was shocking.”

I mean, might as well make the argument!

SAYING SOMETHING DOES NOT MAKE IT TRUE.

Read that again. THINK about it.

Saying something does not make what you said true—no matter how loudly you say it,  no matter how many times you say it, no matter how many times you hear it on Fox, no matter how many times Trump says it, no matter how many time your MAGA friends say it.

Here are some things that ARE true:

• Trump is NOT intelligent.
• He is NOT a good businessman.
• He is NOT a strong leader.
• He will NOT make America great.
• He IS a habitual liar.
• He IS a sexual predator.
• He IS a coward.
• He did NOT “make America great again”.
• He did NOT win the 2020 election.
• He DID plan, call for, and incite the attempted coup on January 6th, 2021..For those of you still reading—and not curled up on the floor in a fetal position with your thumbs in your mouths—I know the above may have caused you extreme discomfort and spiked your blood pressure. I make no apology for that. It is simply the price of your willful ignorance.

 

 

Now, go home and get your shine box.

 

A Fulton County judge has reportedly ordered Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to appear before a special grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump for alleged election tampering.

According to Jose Pagliery of The Daily Beast, the judge’s order was filed on Friday.

“The judge called Graham ‘a necessary and material witness’ who can’t dodge grand jury testimony,” Pagliery reported.

Graham is scheduled to appear on Aug. 2, the order said. But the Republican senator is expected to fight the subpoena from his home state of South Carolina.

Last week, a judge also ordered Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani to appear before the grand jury.

We all are familiar with Trump’s call to GA Secretary of State Raffensberger, asking him to “find another 11,000 votes.”  What you may not have noticed is that Graham made the same call to the GA SecState.  Graham and Trump both are looking at likely felony convictions.  Let’s hope they serve their time in a Georgia state prison . . . maybe on a chain gang.

This morning on “Face the Nation,” Glenn Youngkin did his usual: lots of dodging and lying, in an attempt to soften or conceal his extreme policy positions. 

• Basically admitted that the only reason he’s not pushing to completely ban abortion in Virginia is that Democrats control the State Senate. If Democrats lose the Senate next year, god forbid, then watch out!
• Said he believes “life begins at conception,” which of course implies a complete ban on abortion, as well as several forms of contraception, embryonic stem cell research, etc.
• Dodged on whether he’d ever support a “full ban” on abortion. For now, he’s for a “15-week pain threshold bill.”  Except that, as this NPR fact check reports, “this contradicts widely accepted medical research from 2005. This study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, concluded that a fetus is not capable of experiencing pain until somewhere between 29 or 30 weeks. Researchers wrote that fetal awareness of pain requires ‘functional thalamocortical connections.’ Those thalamocortical fibers begin appearing between 23 and 30 weeks’ gestational age, but the capacity for pain perception comes later.” So yet again, Youngkin’s full of crap.
• Claimed that Democrats supposedly support abortion “all the way up through and including birth” (an apparent reference to Ralph Northam talking about a case where a fetus is “non viable” and has “severe deformities”). In fact, as this fact check finds, “Virginia Governor Ralph Northam was not supporting ‘infanticide.’ According to a spokeswoman, he was referring to a ‘extremely rare case’ of a nonviable pregnancy.”
• On whether or not he’d push to codify same-sex marriage in Virginia, he dodged and weaved, blathering about the Supreme Court returning these types of decisions to the states, then stating that “we actually do protect same-sex marriage in Virginia, that’s the law…and therefore as governor of Virginia, we protect same-sex marriage.”  Huh? In fact, the Virginia constitution STILL BANS same-sex marriage, thanks to *REPUBLICANS* who put the ban in there and to the *REPUBLICANS* who blocked moves to amend the constitution in order to get it out of there!
  • Asked about whether his PAC would support and spend money to help elect extremists/insurrections like Doug Mastriano for governor in Pennsylvania, Youngkin dodged, talks about electing Republican candidates for Congress (all of whom are extremists, by the way) in Virginia.  Youngkin then dodged again on Mastriano, said “we’re still working on my agenda,” and flat-out lied that “there are states, like Virginia, where people recognize that a Democrat [sic] governor has not done a good job, and a Republican governor, like Republican governors all over America, can do a good job.” As Aaron Rupar tweeted, “Youngkin is an astoundingly slippery character. Check out how he dodges a question about whether he’ll help pro-coup Republicans win elections this November.” Slimier. Than. Whale. Shit.

By the way, Bob Costa of “Face the Nation” did try to pin Youngkin down, but not hard enough IMHO. Also, Costa and other journalists need to call out lies, in real time, and even stop interviews if the person they’re talking to keeps lying. But, of course, they won’t do that, because apparently they have whatever number of questions to get through, and also because they’re afraid if they “bark” at their guests (as Chuck Todd once admitted) they fear that the liars won’t come on their shows (would that really be a loss?).

 

The next round of Jan 6 Committee hearings will lay bare the connections between Trujp and his coup plotters and the foot soldiers who stormed the US Captiol, attacked Capitol Police officers,  and attempted to assassinate VP Pence.

First, here is the schedule for the upcoming hearings.

• Tuesday, July 12, 0222; 10:00 AM
• Next meetings to be announced

And now — the connections between Trump and the mob

One of the most crucial questions for both the FBI investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol and the House Select Committee inquiry is the connection between President Trump and the militant groups that carried out the attack.

The next hearing of the January 6^th Committee, scheduled for July 12 and led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), reportedly “plans to detail known links and conversations between political actors close to Trump and extremists,” according to the New York Times.

While it is not clear what evidence the committee will present, a network of operatives surrounding retired Lt. General Michael Flynn — an inspirational figure for rank-and-file Trump supporters protesting the outcome of the election — helped build an infrastructure for months in advance that stoked anger, called on the president to invoke the Insurrection Act, and amplified his call to supporters to be in Washington for a “wild rally” on Jan. 6.

One of the initiatives that sprung up around Flynn was called Operation Voter Integrity.  You will recall that Flynn was Trump’s former national security advisor who was seeking a pardon after the US Department of Justice dismissed charges for lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador.

Felisa Blazek, a New Hampshire-based event planner with ties to the QAnon community, outlined plans for the initiative in an interview with Tamara Leigh, a podcaster active in the campaign to vindicate Flynn, and Brent Hamachek, the executive editor of the right-wing publication Human Events. As Blazek described it, the project would deploy GOP activists to monitor polling places for voter fraud, with pro-Trump groups standing by to escalate complaints up through a network that she said would ultimately reach the White House.

Two of the groups mentioned by Blazek, Veterans for Trump and Bikers for Trump, would later show up at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Blazek described a phone tree in which one activist “would just call the head of your state for Bikers for Trump.” She continued: “One phone call. They dispatch 20 to 30 people to that precinct. Second phone call, you call in Veterans for Trump. They dispatch 20 to 30 people. They just show there and they just stand up, and they just let you know you’re not alone. The police will come. If the police don’t come, they’re all trained. We’re just standing by and letting you know that we know.”

Blazek could not be reached for comment for this story.

Two days after the election, Veterans for Trump co-founder Joshua Macias and an associate, Antonio LaMotta, were arrested on weapons charges outside the Philadelphia Convention Center, where election officials were tabulating votes. Local police made the arrests after receiving an FBI alert about a possible attempt to interfere with the vote count, according to the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office. The police reportedly recovered a semi-automatic AR-15-syle assault rifle, samurai sword and hundreds of firearms cartridges from the Hummer that the two men drove from Virginia.

Macias and LaMotta could not be reached for comment for this story.

At the time, some Democratic officials and voting rights groups condemned President Trump’s instruction to supporters to “go into the polls and watch very carefully,” saying it amounted to voter intimidation, and the Department of Homeland Security warned that polling places could be “flash points for potential violence.”

Both Macias and Blazek were avid supporters of Flynn.

Two years earlier, Macias had organized a rally to support Flynn outside the DC federal courthouse at the former general’s sentencing hearing, where he stood alongside Tamara Leigh, according to a report in Mother Jones. Chris Cox, the founder of Bikers for Trump, also attended the protest to support Flynn.

Blazek had recently organized a two-day QAnon-friendly gathering called the Patriot Party in Scottsdale, Ariz. that featured Barbara Redgate, Flynn’s sister.

During an interview to promote the event, Blazek had said, “We’re hoping to host General Flynn and his family as our honored guests. If they would choose to speak, that would be great. But really, we just want them to come there, and support them.” Blazek added that the Flynn family was like “the tip of the spear in our movement.”

David Sumrall, a Dallas-based organizer who founded the right-wing group Stop Hate, similarly extolled the Flynn family in an interview with Redgate to promote the Patriot Party.

“We want to make sure that General Flynn’s getting a message of support and love and encouragement because we have his back,” Sumrall said. “We understand what happened to him, and the whole fact that he’s willing to take one for the team.”

Soon after Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election, Blazek and Sumrall, alongside Ali Alexander and Tomi Collins, began organizing rallies across the country to protest the electoral outcome.

Pasquali “Pat” Scopelliti, a business coach based in Charlottesville, Va. and frequent contributor on the PardonFlynnNow.com website, praised Blazek and Macias together in a post-election thread on Twitter. Referring to the two by their Twitter handles and using hashtags associated with Blazek’s election mobilization effort and a parallel campaign led by Alexander, Scopelliti tweeted: “Both @PatriotAssembly and @JoshuaMacias are on the Field of Fight, right now. I choose to support them, as should you./ #1LoudVoice/ #StopTheSteal.”

The following day, Scopelliti issued another Twitter thread, declaring that America was at “war,” with “voter fraud” being the “ultimate weapon,” while speculating that “$1,000 bottles of rice wine” were “being uncorked in Beijing.”

“There are three people I must mention,” Scopelliti continued, recognizing Sumrall, alongside Blazek and Macias. “They are: @HelpStopHate, @PatriotAssembly, @JoshuaMacias. These three patriots have known in their bones, the nature of this war. And they have joined forces to lead the ground game of its fight.”

Scopelliti attached a digital flier to the tweet with the heading “All 50 State Capitol Buildings, #1LoudVoice, Truth Rally, 12:00 PM across the nation.” The flier included URLs for nearly a dozen pro-Trump groups, including Sumrall’s Stop Hate; Blazek’s Patriot Party; PardonFlynnNow.com; and Cowboys for Trump, led by Couy Griffin, who had attended the Patriot Party event in Scottsdale. Griffin would later be arrested for his role in the attack on the Capitol, and found guilty of entering and remaining in a restricted building.

Veterans for America First, the successor organization to Veterans for Trump, currently lists Scopelliti as its community engagement advisor on the organization’s website.

Despite being out on a $750,000 bail with pending firearms charges in Philadelphia, Macias and LaMotta traveled to Washington, DC in early January for a cluster of rallies culminating with President Trump’s speech at the Ellipse. Macias was present during a brief meeting between Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes in an underground parking garage on Jan. 5, the eve of the attack on the Capitol. Tarrio and Rhodes both face seditious conspiracy charges in separate cases related to the attack on the Capitol.

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner noted the meeting during a press conference last month to announce a motion to have Macias held for contempt of court due to his actions at the Capitol.

“When people are planning a bank robbery, when they are planning a mob hit, they do not let uninvolved people come to that small private meeting,” Krasner said. “When people are planning serious crimes, the only people that are going to be there, especially when they’re trying to be secretive, are people that are seriously involved.”

Also present at the parking garage meeting were Kelly SoRelle, who now serves as general counsel for the Oath Keepers, and Latinos for Trump President Bianca Gracia.

On Jan. 6, Blazek, Macias, LaMotta, Rhodes, SoRelle, Gracia and members of a Bikers for Trump faction known as Boots on the Ground gathered at the MAGA Freedom Rally in front of the Russell Senate Office Building, a block away from the Capitol.

In an interview with Sumrall last fall, SoRelle said she went back to a hotel room to eat and get warm, while Rhodes went to the Capitol. Rhodes took up a position outside the Capitol, while more than a dozen Oath Keepers members outfitted in tactical gear pushed through the crowd in a stack and followed a mob into the building. SoRelle said in that interview in September that there was no plan to attack the Capitol. In January, Rhodes and 10 other members of the Oath Keepers were charged with seditious conspiracy — a charge that amounts to attempting to overthrow the government by force. Two of those charged have pleaded guilty.

“Stewart had guys that were protecting different speakers at different events, namely Ali Alexander, who was supposed to have been literally on the Capitol grounds,” SoRelle told Sumrall last September. “Then everybody’s like, ‘Well, we don’t know where everybody’s at. This is chaos. Like, what the heck?’ So, that’s why we ended up at the Capitol. We went down there just to see if we could locate his people. You know? And then next thing you take it straight to crazy la-la land, as in everybody’s the mastermind, and whatever.”

Sumrall, who used social media to raise money to take a “team” to Washington, DC, concurred with SoRelle’s account.

Sumrall said he told FBI agents: “Guys, listen: The plan was to get to DC. That’s where it stopped. That’s where it stopped. You’re never going to find anything where anybody says, ‘We’re going in the Capitol.’”

Sumrall’s voice can be heard in a video posted on Stop Hate’s Instagram account that was taken from the west side of the Capitol. The post is accompanied by a text comment from the account owner: “We’ve broken down the gates and made it onto the Capitol grounds.”

Another video on the Stop Hate Instagram account shows police in riot gear lined up on the inauguration review stand and the terrace facing rioters, with the caption, “#StormTheCapitol.”

Macias and LaMotta also went to the Capitol. Footage recently obtained by NBC News shows LaMotta inside the Capitol. He has not been arrested to date.

With LaMotta standing nearby, Macias addressed the crowd on the east side of the Capitol, according to video archived by the @capitolhunters Twitter account.

“Mike Pence is a Benedict Arnold,” Macias roared. “We believed in you, Vice President. We had hope that you would do what’s right for our Constitution. I stood with you onstage, sir. We believed in you.

“President Trump, you have the ability to pass — if you have the strength, sir — the Insurrection Act is now,” Macias continued. “You have the power, sir, and we support you 110 percent. Do what’s right, sir…. Defend the Constitution against foreign and domestic enemies. Those domestic enemies are here. If you’re not awake, America, be awoke. The enemy is not at the gates; the enemy is already here.”

Another person could be heard answering Macias with the QAnon slogan: “Where we go one, we go all!”

“That’s right!” Macias said. “One loud voice! We are one. We are united. I am Josh Macias, Vets for Trump. We will never quit.”

 

 

 

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