Monday, August 21, 2023

Last Call For Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Don't bother calling the cops on our little white supremacist domestic terrorism problem, because in an increasing number of counties around the US, your local sheriff's department are the domestic terrorists.
 
Against the background hum of the convention center, Dar Leaf settled into a club chair to explain the sacred mission of America’s sheriffs, his bright blue eyes and warm smile belying the intensity of the cause.

“The sheriff is supposed to be protecting the public from evil,” the chief law enforcement officer for Barry County, Michigan, said during a break in the National Sheriffs’ Association 2023 conference in June. “When your government is evil or out of line, that’s what the sheriff is there for, protecting them from that.”

Leaf is on the advisory board of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, founded in 2011 by former Arizona sheriff Richard Mack. The group, known as CSPOA, teaches that elected sheriffs must “protect their citizens from the overreach of an out-of-control federal government” by refusing to enforce any law they deem unconstitutional or “unjust.”

“The safest way to actually achieve that is to have local law enforcement understand that they have no obligation to enforce such laws,” Mack said in an interview. “They’re not laws at all anyway. If they’re unjust laws, they are laws of tyranny.”

The sheriffs group has railed against gun control laws, COVID-19 mask mandates and public health restrictions, as well as alleged election fraud. It has also quietly spread its ideology across the country, seeking to become more mainstream in part by securing state approval for taxpayer-funded law enforcement training, the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism found.

Over the last five years, the group has hosted trainings, rallies, speeches and meetings in at least 30 states for law enforcement officers, political figures, private organizations and members of the public, according to the Howard Center’s seven-month probe, conducted in collaboration with the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting.

The group has held formal trainings on its “constitutional” curriculum for law enforcement officers in at least 13 of those states. In six states, the training was approved for officers’ continuing education credits. The group also has supporters who sit on three state boards in charge of law enforcement training standards.

Legal experts warn that such training — especially when it’s approved for state credit — can undermine the democratic processes enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and is part of what Mary McCord, a former federal prosecutor and executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University, called a “broader insurrectionist ideology” that has gripped the nation since the 2020 presidential election.

“They have no authority, not under their state constitutions or implementing statutes to decide what’s constitutional and what’s not constitutional. That’s what courts have the authority to do, not sheriffs,” McCord said.

“There’s another sort of evil lurking there,” McCord added, “because CSPOA is now essentially part of a broader movement in the United States to think it’s OK to use political violence if we disagree with some sort of government policy.”

At least one state, Texas, canceled credit for the sheriffs’ training after determining the course content – which it said included a reference to “this is a war” – was more political than educational. But other states, such as Tennessee, have approved the training, in part because it was hosted by a local law enforcement agency.

Unlike other law enforcement continuing education, such as firearms training, the sheriffs’ curriculum is largely a polemic on the alleged constitutional underpinnings of sheriffs’ absolute authority to both interpret and refuse to enforce certain laws. One brochure advertising the group’s seminars states: “The County Sheriff is the one who can say to the feds, ‘Beyond these bounds you shall not pass.’”
 
When the MAGA chuds say "Make America Great Again" what they mean is "take us back to a time where county and state law enforcement officials refused to enforce federal civil rights laws and engaged in violence against people who did try to enforce those laws".
 
We've got county sheriffs across the nation gladly saying they won't do that now, along with gun safety regulations and anything else they don't like. And nobody's doing a damn thing to remove these assholes from the offices they refuse to uphold.
 
These monsters are only growing in power and scope, and heading into 2024 I suspect we're going to see a lot more nefarious action of them the closer we get to Election Day.

The Big Lie, Con't

Donald Trump's campaign continues to lie about the 2020 Georgia presidential election even after being indicted on state RICO charges over it, and now they are citing the indictments by Fulton County DA Fani Willis as further "evidence" that Georgia state lawmakers and GOP Gov. Brian Kemp are all part of the same massive Big Lie "conspiracy".

Although Trump’s allegations have repeatedly been disproven — often by his own advisers — they’ve taken a firm hold among his party. An Associated Press poll last week found 57% of Republicans said they didn’t view Biden as a legitimately elected president.

The 98-page Georgia indictment lists several false allegations made by Trump that were quickly disproven by fellow Republicans, Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and Gov. Brian Kemp. Still, Trump insists to this day that the election was stolen from him and continues to lie about it.

After the indictment, he promised a press conference this week revealing a report he claimed would show how the Georgia election was stolen from him — a pledge he rescinded on Thursday, saying his lawyers wanted to make his argument in a court filing instead.

“Does anybody really believe I lost Georgia?” Trump asked on his Truth Social network Saturday. “I DON’T.”

By repeating the lie over and over, even when it has been repeatedly exposed as baseless, Trump is not only ensuring that his loyal followers remain energized, but also dominating the discussion and forcing others to relitigate the 2020 election on his terms.

At the recent Iowa State Fair, where he was campaigning for that state’s presidential caucus next year, Trump again claimed the 2020 election was “rigged.” In anticipation of the Georgia indictment, Trump’s campaign issued a statement a week ago saying prosecutors were “taking away President Trump’s First Amendment right to free speech, and the right to challenge a rigged and stolen election that the Democrats do all the time.”

His attorneys have defended his actions by saying the former president sincerely believes fraud cost him reelection.

Lee McIntyre, a Boston University researcher, noted that many of Trump’s followers no longer see other Americans as legitimate opposition, but rather as an enemy. “This is strategic,” McIntyre said. “This is not a mistake. Somebody is profiting from this — politically, ideologically or financially — and we know it’s Trump.”

Known as “affective polarization,” that phenomenon has led to increased violence and political destablization in other nations. This month, FBI agents fatally shot an armed Utah man who had threatened to kill Biden and referred to himself online as a “MAGA Trumper.”

“It’s not just that the other side is wrong, it’s that the other side is evil, and they deserve to be punished, maybe even physically harmed,” McIntyre said. “It is no longer about facts, but about trust. It’s about teams, and which side you’re on.”
 
Increasingly, Gov. Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger are The Enemy to Trump, and part of The Big Lie now. Trump wants to get rid of Fani Willis for sure, and Georgia GOP lawmakers are trying to make that happen.
 
But Trump also wants Kemp and Raffensperger gone too. Don't be surprised if Trump has a Georgia rally in MTG country in order to turn his MAGA cultists against the two of them as well.

No Labels, Yes Spoilers, Con't

Despite their cries of "nu-huh", bipartisan rodent coitus enjoyers No Labels still plan to try to hand the country over to Donald Trump in 2024 with a third party effort to sabotage President Biden in swing states.
 
Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said Sunday that No Labels will “very likely” launch a third-party “alternative” if former President Trump and President Biden win the nominations for their parties.

“But if Trump and Biden are the nominees, it’s very likely that No Labels will get access to the ballot and offer an alternative,” Hogan said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And if most of the voters don’t want A or B, we have an obligation to give them C, I mean, for the good of the country.”

Hogan, who serves as the national co-chairman of No Labels — a political group that has been pushing for a third-party ticket — said two-thirds of the American people are “not interested” in voting for the Republican or Democratic nominee.

“It’s an overwhelming majority of people who are completely fed up with politics,” Hogan said. “They think Washington is broken. And so, even though this normally is not something that we consider and talk about seriously, because it hasn’t happened in the past, this is something that could happen,” noting that it is still a “long way off.”

David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Obama, pushed back against Hogan’s proposal Sunday, saying, “Honestly, doesn’t that pave the way for Donald Trump? Doesn’t that siphon votes from Joe Biden and elect the person that you have criticized so heavily?

Hogan disagreed and said the third-party candidate would “pull just as many votes from Donald Trump as Joe Biden.”

“I love Larry Hogan, but that’s just not true,” Axelrod responded. “I think that broken glass will be the jagged edge that cuts the throat of the Biden campaign. History shows that. Trump has a high floor and a low ceiling. If you lower the ceiling to where his … high floor is good enough to win, he will win. And he benefited from third parties in 2016. This would be a dreadful mistake if the goal is to deprive Donald Trump of the presidency.” Axelrod called it the former president’s “hope” and “prayer.
 
Good for Axe to call Hogan out. 2016 is proof of that nonsense. Hogan's still a Republican, and he still wants the Republican candidate to win.
 
Hit these guys as Trump collaborators every time.