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Just Tories being Tories.

More than one coup: Jan. 6 committee draws a direct line to Donald Trump Earlier this week, the New York Times published an op-ed by former Justice Department (DOJ) prosecutor and primary member of Robert Mueller's Russia investigation team Andrew Weissman in which he shared his concern about what the DOJ is doing about Donald Trump's attempted coup. Weissman suggested that they may have approached the case as one might approach an organized crime investigation starting with the January 6th insurrectionist prosecutions and working their way up. Looking at the case as it's been presented by the January 6th Committee so far, he came to believe it would have been better organized as a "hub and spoke" conspiracy "in which the Ellipse speech by President Trump and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol were just one 'spoke' of a grander scheme." In other words, as a conspiracy with Donald Trump at the center of a number of different plots aimed at accomplishing the same goal. After hearing all the testimony and evidence so far, it seems clear that's exactly what happened. As crazy as the committee's presentation of the White House event was, it was actually much, much crazier. Donald Trump concocted the Big Lie even before the election as a scheme to stay in office if Joe Biden won. He was told over and over again by almost everyone around him that his lies had no basis in fact or law. Yet he and a few accomplices cooked up various maneuvers anyway, from filing specious lawsuits to pressuring state officials to trying to corrupt the Justice Department in an effort to somehow overturn the results. One obscure lawyer came up with a spurious strategy to get partisan players to file fake electoral votes in order to have the vice president claim there was a dispute and refuse to count the votes. All of these plans overlapped in some ways but stood as distinct "spokes" in the president's relentless drive to stay in office no matter what it took. The public hearing on Tuesday highlighted a couple of other spokes, one which was thankfully never acted upon while the other tragically was. The committee discussed a notorious meeting that took place on December 18th, 2020, four days after the states had all filed their electoral votes. I wrote about it in some detail a while back, based upon the vivid report by Jonathan Swan of Axios, and I have to say that as crazy as the committee's presentation of the event was, it was actually much, much crazier. On the evening of the 18th, Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and the former CEO of Overstock.com Patrick Byrne were waved into the oval office by a member of Trump loyalist Peter Navarro's staff without anyone knowing about it. A major confrontation ensued between the three of them and lawyers from the White House counsel's office as the outsiders tried to persuade the president to declare a national security emergency under an executive order from 2018 (regarding cyber threats) enabling the president to order the military to seize the voting machines to do an audit. The group wanted the president to name Powell as special counsel to "investigate" voter fraud. They had even already drafted the order giving Powell the assignment and ordering the seizure. Trump listened carefully to the presentation and repeatedly pointed out to the White House lawyers and others who were vociferously arguing against this inane plot that at least Powell and the others were "out there fighting." Trump patched in Rudy Giuliani on the phone and even he was against Powell's plot believing they had a better chance of overturning the election through the state legislatures and he ended up coming over to the White House and joining in person. Powell thought Trump had agreed with the plan to name her special counsel and no one is quite sure if he actually did. In any case, no national security emergency was declared so that "spoke" was abandoned that night. Donald Trump was at the center of a number of different plots aimed at accomplishing the same goal. The committee didn't mention it in the hearing but it's worth noting how Powell and Flynn came up with this looney idea. Sarah D. Wire of the Los Angeles Times did a deep dive on the Patrick Byrne connection and apparently, right around the election, Byrne financed and organized a "crowdsourcing" operation to find the alleged voter fraud. He hired cyber security experts and analysts and first put them up at the Trump Hotel in Washington and then moved the whole group down to a plantation in Georgia owned by another kooky Trump attorney named Lin Wood, supposedly for security purposes. Michael Flynn was intimately involved in all this as was Powell. This group was the source of most of the allegations that Giuliani and Powell used in their many unsuccessful lawsuits and it was also where Powell and Flynn, as well as a number of fringe players, came up with the stories that the election had been stolen by foreign countries hacking the voting machines, giving them the supposed authority to declare a national security emergency and call out the military. (Flynn had already been agitating for Trump to declare martial law and have the military re-run the election in the swing states.) This is why Byrne was with them at the White House meeting on December 18th where nobody knew who he was. He had financed the whole operation. https://www.salon.com/2022/07/13/more-than-one-coup-jan-6-committee-draws-a-direct-line-to-donald/

The problem is that the more time offenders do in prison, the more likely they are to re-offend.

'That does not happen': Witnesses refute House Republican's 'outrageous' claims of 'infanticide' During a House of Representatives hearing on "abortion access and the law" on Wednesday, United States Congressman Ralph Norman (R-South Carolina) attempted to coax witnesses to validate the false right-wing claim that infants are often killed after they are delivered. It was a total disaster for the Republican lawmaker and the second time in as many days that the GOP has had its dubious arguments solidly refuted. "Do you agree with infanticide?" Norman asked Georgia State Representative Renitta Shannon (D-84th District). "Well, I think you're using inflammatory language to basically describe a situation that does not happen. We don't have infanticide happening. Doctors would not do that, and neither would folks who have carried pregnancies," Shannon shot back. "Okay, would a healthy child – do you agree that if a healthy child is born that it's that woman's right to decide if it lives or dies?" Norman posited. "What I think is based on your question you have a very low opinion of pregnant people," Shannon replied. Norman then tried to interrupt Shannon but she tore right through it. "Excuse me, do you want an answer or do you want to keep talking over witnesses? What I am telling you is that nobody would carry a pregnancy and then decide on a Monday because they are bored that they want to have an abortion," she said. "That's ridiculous. And it's inflammatory. What you're saying – you're talking about families who are in tough situations where folks have been excited about carrying a pregnancy. Most of the abortions that happen later in pregnancy are really tragedies where it's really a disappointment for everyone involved." Norman was completely unmoved and then redirected his initial question at National Women's Law Center President Fatima Goss Graves, who was seated next to Shannon at the witness table. "Would you agree – I take it with all those words – that you agree with, basically, murdering a child after they're born. Yes or no?" he asked Graves. She was not having it. "I have to say, Congressman, how you just characterized the representative's statement is extremely inflammatory and the type of thing that is dangerous," Graves said. Norman tried to cut Graves off, but she nevertheless persisted. "You guys have been talking today about the threats against crisis pregnancy centers, which I assume are serious and are terrible," she continued, "the threats on people who work on abortion access every single day, and part of it is because of this sort of inflammatory, outrageous language and it is not okay." https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/witnesses-dismember-house-republican-infanticide/

The Riders live or die by their public image as a community-owned team. O'Day has to be brain-dead if he ignores all this crap around Marino, not to mention all the other crap that has been happening starting with Chris Jones tenure there.

Perhaps we are too stupid to survive- human Dodo birds. Well, we had a good run.

The planned insurrection revelations just keep getting wider and deeper and now stand revealed as what the worst fears were. Trump and his lackeys planned and attempted to overthrow the results of the Biden election even though, or maybe because, they absolutely knew that Trump had lost. These miscreants were prepared to use violence, illegal mobilization of US military and para-military and as many of government departments as they could suborne to do their bidding. And yet, despite this growing mountain of evidence, most Americans are blissfully ignorant of how close they came to living in a dictatorship. Nothing short of a vigorous prosecution of all involved parties and an excising of all supporters within the civil service will prevent this from happening again.

House Republican Asked for Safety Plan for GOP Members On 1/5 Because Trump Supporters Would Go Nuts There have been previous reports on this site in which it was noted that the bits of previously available evidence painted a picture in which it seemed as though some members of Congress, especially Republicans, knew that the Capitol would at least be vulnerable to MAGA supporters in a rage over the election certification on January 6th. For example, when Rep. Jim Jordan heard the chaos descending on the House, he said something about helping and protecting “the ladies” and reached for Liz Cheney, who said ‘Get away from me. You f*cking did this,’ and many of us have long believed that to be a very personal message to Jordan, that Cheney knew that “this” was part of a plan in which Jordan was personally involved. Today, the Committee presented evidence that even the MAGA Republicans that were planning to “Object” on January 6th knew that it could be violent and explosive around the Capitol. The Committee played the haunting voice of Rep. Debbie Lesko of Arizona, a woman who objected to Biden’s clear victory, talking on a conference call on January 5th about her concerns for a plan for “members’ safety” for the next day. Like every good MAGA, Lesko noted that “Antifa will be there” (except they were not), but then went on to admit that Trump had pushed his supporters to the point that they expect Congress to reverse the election and when that didn’t happen, “they will go nuts.” “We also have, quite honestly, Trump supporters who actually believe that we are going to overturn the election, and when that doesn’t happen — most likely, will not happen — they’re going to go nuts” It is stunning to hear from Republicans who knew beforehand that they’d put themselves and the nation at risk in their zeal to please Trump. They know that Trump was on Twitter on December 19th, 2020 saying it would be “wild.” And yet they went ahead with the objections, according to his plan. To the extent that Trump’s followers believed that they would overturn the evidence, it was because members promised to object! And yet we hear her voice, talking about a plan for members’ safety, knowing that Trump’s followers are “going to go nuts,” and she must have sensed that these are some of the country’s most violent people. It is very telling. Lesko referenced “antifa,” but that must have been by instinct alone. Because it was only after describing these many Trump followers and their anger when the election isn’t overturned that she said things might go nuts. Lesko knew which side presented a violent threat. https://www.politicususa.com/2022/07/12/gop-rep-member-security.html .

Trump Tried To Contact A Jan. 6 Committee Witness, Liz Cheney Says Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said former President Donald Trump attempted to contact a Jan. 6 committee witness. During a hearing Tuesday, Cheney said the witness, who has not yet appeared publicly, did not answer a call from Trump and informed their attorney about the attempted contact. The committee turned over information about the attempted contact to the Department of Justice, Cheney said. Cheney said Trump called the witness after the last hearing, during which Cassidy Hutchinson, a former assistant to Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, made a series of bombshell claims about the former president’s actions on Jan. 6. Cheney did not name the witness. “Let me say one more time: We will take any effort to influence witness testimony very seriously,” Cheney said. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-jan-6-witness_n_62cdd1cfe4b0aa392d45562c

Another General Killed as Russian Leak Admits ‘Big Shot ******* Command post’ Was Obliterated As Ukraine reports a devastating blow to Russia’s military, one of Putin’s troops is caught telling a friend of “12 dead” among the senior commanders.

In skimming through the comments on riderfans, I was pleasantly surprised at the number of posters who have condemned Marino and some even called for him to be thrown out of the league. Marino's defenders are spitting vitriol at anyone who dares be critical of Marino.

More confirmation that stoopidity is contagious.

Mitchell was/is effective when all is perfect. He does not do well in adversity.

2h 32 degrees C (90 F) recorded in Inuvik, NWT, Canada last week. That town is well inside the Arctic circle and near the Arctic Ocean…

Jan. 6 Hearing To Lay Out Ties Between Trump Advisers and Groups That Attacked Capitol The committee plans to reveal coordination between Trump associates like Roger Stone and Michael Flynn and the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. WASHINGTON ― Donald Trump advisers Roger Stone and Michael Flynn were in communication with the extremist groups that led the attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot, and it plans to lay out that evidence at a hearing Tuesday. Their roles took center stage after the Electoral College ratified the former president’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden on Dec. 14, a committee aide said Monday on condition of anonymity. “In the weeks leading up to the 6th, Donald Trump grew more desperate and summoned the mob to Washington,” the aide said, describing a meeting Trump held with Flynn, his first national security adviser, and lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell on Dec. 19. The then-president posted a tweet an hour later telling his followers to come to Washington on the day of the ceremonial election certification in Congress. “That was a pivotal moment for the chain of events,” the aide said. The committee also intends to lay out the role of the QAnon movement, “which is based on deranged and often antisemitic conspiracy theories in which Donald Trump is a savior figure fighting against the dark forces in the ‘Deep State,’” according to the aide. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jan-6-hearing-trump-advisers-extremist-groups_n_62cc8de7e4b0359fa47f4984

Like the "trade" or not, the RedBlacks really had no choice. I have no bone to pick with Arbuckle- he has just never had the same supporting cast he had back in Cowgary.

No doubt Marino will be a marked man and out of the league by the end of the year. Okay- maybe Chris Jones might pick him up.

I would like the Riders to have tp pay Marino for the rest of the year and have that count against the cap. That would ensure that the team suffers for keeping the jackhole around when they knew who he was.

Cassidy Hutchinson Forced into Hiding For Telling The Truth About Trump In a sign of the dark change in the American right, Cassidy Hutchinson has been forced into hiding after testifying about Trump. Too many of us are even now a bit intellectually lazy. We still think that this is the America we grew up in, the country it was from the 70s, through 9-11, and even when some of us dared to hope for change. No, we are not with the times. At the state level, in the U.S. Senate, and in rallies thrown by a bellicose, narcissistic terrorist, this country has far more in common with contemporary Russia than what we hoped to be a more enlightened America. Alexander Vindman once said, “Here, truth matters.” Truth does matter but in a new way. Vindman ended up summarily fired for telling Trump truths. And now, when Cassidy Hutchinson bravely tossed aside her Trump-protecting attorney, to tell the truth, she is forced into hiding. It is Putinesque, a new era. As reported by the New York Times, it was Hutchinson who received the message before her deposition: A person “let me know you have your deposition tomorrow. He wants me to let you know he’s thinking about you. He knows you’re loyal. And you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition.” The shockingly bold witness tampering and Hutchinson’s testimony about Trump’s behavior on January 6th forced the Committee to schedule her public hearing four days later as an anonymous witness, in order to protect Hutchinson and keep her relatively safe. She also likely hid during the interim four days, though that’s speculation. She is hiding now, that’s a fact, according to the Times: Now unemployed and sequestered with family and a security detail, Ms. Hutchinson, 26, has developed an unlikely bond with Ms. Cheney, a Wyoming Republican and onetime aide to former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell during the George W. Bush administration — a crisis environment of another era when she learned to work among competing male egos. More recently, as someone ostracized by her party and stripped of her leadership post for her denunciations of Mr. Trump, Ms. Cheney admires the younger woman’s willingness to risk her alliances and professional standing by recounting what she saw in the final days of the Trump White House, friends say. It is heartening to hear that Hutchinson has been taken under the wing of Cheney. Despite being irretrievably conservative in her economic and regulatory approach to government, Cheney has emerged as an unlikely hero of classic Western Liberalism and an inspiration to young women everywhere. Hutchinson is up against raw, unapologetic, purposefully-intimidating power radiating from Trump World, and as much as liberals despise the dynastic Cheney-Halliburton-Bush-MI Complex ecosystem, it at least provides Hutchinson a modicum of “pushback power” and she likely won’t be unemployed long. For that, we should be thankful. Our schools are stuffed with proto-women that will need a more relatable role model in the future. And yet it is unbelievably sad that the witness who changed history, the brave young woman who told Trump truths is forced into a position that looks far too much like that of dissidents and journalists who tell the truth about Putin or MBS, despite the fact that Joe Biden, a retro-All American guy himself is president. What if Trump gains power again? Hawley? DeSantis? Is Hutchinson safe? Could she work as an executive at Halliburton, headquartered in Houston? We cannot know. Not yet. This country’s future starts to get really hazy after mid-November 2024. We absolutely know that all things Trump, MAGA, and even GOP. abhor transparent truths and relish revenge. They are already gearing up to investigate the investigators. The witness who changed history has a vague and dangerous future. Similar to witnesses in Russia, one wonders if this patriot has a future in this country, especially if Trump is charged with a crime, forcing Hutchinson into the role of witness again. Hard to know. For now, even we liberals can be thankful that Hutchinson is firmly within Cheney-World while vilified by Trump-World. At least the Cheneys want the old America back, one in which truth mattered, the one we assumed would last, and the one in which Hutchinson would be safe.

Judge Refuses To Delay Trial For Trump's Ex-adviser Steve Bannon. WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Monday declined to delay the upcoming trial of Steve Bannon, a one-time adviser to former President Donald Trump who faces contempt of Congress charges after refusing for months to cooperate with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. Bannon is still scheduled to go on trial next week despite telling the House committee late Saturday that he is now prepared to testify. It’s unclear whether Bannon will again decline to appear before the committee with the trial pending. Bannon was also barred from asserting several potential defenses or calling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or members of the House committee to the stand. The series of rulings by U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols left one of his attorneys complaining that the one-time White House senior official, now host of the “Bannon’s War Room” podcast, wouldn’t be able to defend himself at all. Barring an appeals court ruling or another delay, the trial will begin as the committee continues its series of high-profile hearings into the riot. Testimony by former White House aides has revealed new allegations that Trump knew the crowd was heavily armed and that he tried to join the people marching to the Capitol.

I had thought it was John Barry.

A functional self-preservation instinct?

There appears to be no bottom to the quality and sanity of GOP candidates. We are truly blessed that our air has not yet decided to move to China.

Until a Kent Austin-type passer comes along.