Author: Paul Murphy

Praetorian Guard

Mike Pence was being led down into the bowels of the Capitol building by Secret Service agents to a waiting vehicle in a subterranean garage. He was told to get into the car. He famously said, “I am not getting into that car.” He was about to when he saw who was driving.  “I trust you, Tim, but you’re not driving the car. If I get in that vehicle, you guys are taking off. I’m not getting in the car.”

Those are not the words of someone who was refusing to leave out of civic duty. They are the words of someone afraid to entrust himself to strangers with his usual security detail gone. And this was at a moment when Trump had tweeted a further condemnation and the halls of the Capitol were ringing with chants of “Hang Mike Pence.” Good call!

Now, in light of the ILLEGAL disappearance of Secret Service messaging from January 5th and 6th it appears more and more likely that the SS had a mission that went beyond keeping people safe that day. Now they are covering it up. Biden needs to remove ANYBODY whose text messages have gone missing. NOW. He does not need the agents of the criminal Trump anywhere near.

Yet another Trump crime?

Signs point to – Yes!

For some reason, yet to be determined by the IRS Inspector General, BOTH James Comey and Andrew McCabe – FBI Directors who were not loyal to Trump – were selected for very rare and very intensive IRS audits that are supposed to be done at random. A little back of the envelope math based on IRS data about these audits says that the chances of this happening by chance are beyond miniscule – precisely 0.00000017% or about 1 out of 590 million.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/irs-comey-mccabe-investigation-audit-b2118349.html

Big Oil = Big Tobacco

https://tinyurl.com/maaccmrv

The gist of the article is that just like Big Tobacco did, Big Oil is creating a dangerous mass of liability through its history of deception about the dangers its products present. Big Tobacco lied to the public, downplayed the health risks, funded contrarian science, and promoted unproven ideas to protect its market. Big Oil has done the same. For decades.

If it is any comfort, think of the looming wave of financial accountability for the lying liars of Big Oil as being a case of bullshit eventually losing out in the “marketplace of ideas.”

As an aside, the article points out that the Heartland Institute played a similar deceptive role as a cut-out for both Big Oil and for Big Tobacco.

Ho Hum. Just another day in America – 70 Rounds 7 Dead

There is no polite way to put this. The NRA and everyone who has fought against the banning of assault weapons has even more blood on their hands.

Once again, the maniac LEGALLY bought a “high powered rifle similar to an AR15.” With such firepower he was able to get off 70 rounds, killing 7 and injuring about 30 more. He fled the scene dressed as a woman. The weapon he left behind was in a database which led to his quick identification and capture.

The media has been headlining the site of this tragedy as “Chicago.” It is not. It is Highland Park, a prosperous middle-class town near Chicago. The fact that the town is approximately 30% Jewish may also prove relevant when the motives of the killer are made public. So far, no motive has been reported. We do know that he is 21, white, heavily tattooed, a nascent rapper fascinated by violence, attended several Trump rallies, and had posted a picture of himself wrapped in a Trump flag online.

There is no valid reason for weapons of war with no purpose other than killing people to be readily available to almost anyone in a supposedly civilized country. None.

Fool me once, shame on you; Fool me twice, shame on me.

One has to wonder how many times do some people need to be lead down the primrose path before they stop believing the con man doing it to them.

Many of our “conservative” posters in this forum have breathlessly repeated every exaggerated story of how the Durham investigation was going to vindicate Donald Trump and many Democrats and national security officers were going to end up in jail for perpetrating the Trump-Russia “hoax”. Their glee at the prospect of “Lock them up!” was palpable.

This has been going on for two years now, with the latest being the expectation of a conviction and damning revelations in the minor case of Attorney Sussman accused of lying when he said he was reporting what he knew acting on his own. The jury heard the thin evidence and the strong countervailing testimony and rightly and quickly decided “Not guilty.” Has their day in court satisfied these “conservatives” once and for all? Oh no! The jury was biased because they are “urban”, “real Americans” would have convicted, and Durham still has major revelations ahead. Here is some advice – don’t hold your breath.

Along the same lines, the Big Lie has been vociferously defended by people who unquestioningly take Donald Trump at his word. I well remember the “conservative” excitement over the video showing ballot box stuffing in Fulton County, Georgia, where, you know, a lot of “urban” people live. Even though the story has been debunked again and again by Republican officials, they stood by it, repeated it and spread it. Today’s hearing presentation was absolutely definitive. It was all bullshit. Donald Trump was informed again and again that it was bullshit but that did not stop him from weaving a tale of election theft as he fired up the troops to assault the Capitol.

Does anyone have an explanation of why so many supposedly normal people are so eager to be fooled? It seems the more obvious the lies, the more eager they are to be hoodwinked.

This is what Trump has done.

Here is a leading Republican ex-governor and now a candidate for the United States Senate in Missouri going after fellow Republicans. His Republican primary opponents are not just wrong on the issues, or won’t spread the Big Lie, or just not as qualified as he is. Oh, no! They are corrupt and cowardly, and it will take guns to get the country back from them. Republicans!

But go ahead “MAGA crew” – say that liberals have no sense of humor and blame Hollywood or video games for gun violence in our country.

Day Two – The Big Lie

The presentation by the Select Committee today focused on the Big Lie – The claim that the election was stolen from Donald Trump through massive election fraud. Using testimony from people appointed by Trump they established beyond a reasonable doubt that:

  1. There was no fraud of any significance in ANY of the states that Trump accused of stealing the election from him. Or anywhere else.
  2. Everyone around Trump KNEW that this was the truth of the matter and told him so beginning on election night where only an inebriated Rudy Giuliani gave him the advice he took – claim a victory that was not in the cards and start with his fraud accusations.
  3. Donald Trump was told over and over and over again that his claims were false and even after such briefings by his staff, his campaign, and the DOJ he IMMEDIATELY repeated them again for public consumption as if they were God’s truth.

When considering a criminal case, the greatest hurdle is often to prove criminal intent. Nobody really knows what is in another person’s mind. A possible Trump defense in a criminal conspiracy trial might be a claim that he really did believe the Big Lie. The evidence presented today makes that impossible to believe unless he is truly insane – “detached from reality” in AG Barr’s words.

One side topic at the end of the session covered Trump’s fundraising off the Big Lie. He raised more than $250 million supposedly for legal fights to “Stop the Steal.” The bulk of it was transferred to a PAC controlled by Trump and never used for the advertised purpose. The Big Lie became the Big Rip-Off. Classic Donald Trump grifting. Suckers!