Last Call For The GOP's Race To The Bottom, Con't

There's no better example than the adage "The GOP has a much larger bigotry problem than just Donald Trump" than Georgia's 14th Congressional district and QAnon conspiracy theorist, avowed white supremacist, anti-Semite, Islamophobic jackass Marjorie Taylor Greene.

And now that Greene's Democratic opponent has been driven out of the race abruptly by threats from Greene's fellow travelers, Greene now has nothing to stop her from joining the House in 2021. As expected from the White Supremacy party, Republicans are now dropping any and all opposition to her and embracing her hate-filled views as one of their own, starting with GOP Rep. Steve Scalise.

Scalise told CNN this week that he wants to sit down with Greene, a first-time candidate and the owner of a commercial construction company, and talk about her goals, noting repeatedly he's been told she's "very strongly" against abortion. 

"The people that know her say her real drives and passions are fighting for life and battling socialism," said Scalise. "Those are things that a lot of people are very interested in fighting for." 

"You got to respect every district, and I think I owe it to her to have a real good candid conversation," he added. 

Despite Greene espousing views that many see as racist, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic, Republicans are working to bring her into the fold -- and are insisting they expect her to be a team player if she comes to Washington next year. Many are happy about comments Greene made last month backing away from promoting "Q," an anonymous central character in a conspiracy theory that claims that President Donald Trump secretly fights to bring down a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles. The FBI has warned such fringe conspiracy views amount to a domestic terror threat. 

Greene has called "Q" a "patriot" who is "worth listening to." But in August, she told Fox News that QAnon "wasn't part of my campaign" and that once she "started finding misinformation," she "chose another path." CNN asked Greene campaign manager Isaiah Wartman whether she is denouncing QAnon; Wartman referred CNN to their press office, which did not respond to a request for comment. 

While Greene distanced herself from the fringe movement, she stopped short of disavowing it. 

But top Republicans believe her comments to Fox News were sufficient. 

"Marjorie also came out and denounced QAnon," House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told CNN on Wednesday. When asked about her past offensive and racist comments, McCarthy said as he walked into his office: "I raised my concerns about those." 

Rep. Liz Cheney, a member of the House GOP leadership, was satisfied with Greene's comments on Fox News and added that she backs her candidacy. 

"We've got to make sure we get every Republican elected -- she's fighting hard and that's an important seat for us to keep," Cheney said.

I can't wait until Greene is on the House floor in a few months, screaming for federal prosecution of Democrats. No doubt she'll end up on the House Intel or Homeland Security committees demanding investigations and arrests of "traitors".

I've referenced the Ten Stages of Genocide on this blog before, and we're definitely deep into Stage 7, heading for Stage 8.

VII. PREPARATION

National or perpetrator group leaders plan the “Final Solution” to the Jewish, Armenian, Tutsi or other targeted group “question.” They often use euphemisms to cloak their intentions, such as referring to their goals as “ethnic cleansing,” “purification,” or “counter-terrorism.” They build armies, buy weapons and train their troops and militias. They indoctrinate the populace with fear of the victim group. Leaders often claim that “if we don’t kill them, they will kill us,” disguising genocide as self-defense. There is a sudden increase in inflammatory rhetoric and hate propaganda with the objective of creating fear of the other group. Political processes such as peace accords that threaten the dominance of the ruling group through elections or prosecution for corruption may actually trigger genocide.
Prevention of preparation may include arms embargo​e​s and commissions to enforce them. It should include prosecution of incitement and conspiracy to commit genocide, both crimes under Article 3 of the Genocide Convention.

National law enforcement authorities should arrest and prosecute leaders of groups planning genocidal massacres.

Let's remember that QAnon is a domestic terrorist group, and that we have multiple White Supremacist domestic terrorism militias in the United States, that are often composed of national law enforcement authorities.

We're already dipping our toes into the bloody ocean of Stage 8 as well.

VIII. PERSECUTION

Victims are identified and separated out because of their national, ethnic, racial or religious identity. The victim group’s most basic human rights are systematically violated through extrajudicial killings, torture and forced displacement. Death lists are drawn up. In state sponsored genocide, members of victim groups may be forced to wear identifying symbols. Their property is often expropriated. Sometimes they are segregated into ghettoes, deported to concentration camps, or confined to a famine-struck region and starved. They are deliberately deprived of resources such as water or food in order to slowly destroy the group. Programs are implemented to prevent procreation through forced sterilization or abortions. Children are forcibly taken from their parents. Genocidal massacres begin. All of these destructive acts are acts of genocide outlawed by the Genocide Convention. They are acts of genocide because they intentionally destroy part of a group. The perpetrators watch for whether such massacres are opposed by any effective international response. If there is no reaction, they realize they can get away with genocide. The perpetrators know that the U.N., regional organizations, and nations with powerful militaries will again be bystanders and permit another genocide.

When it comes to the regime's deportation program, ICE camps,  family separation, mass deportation, and now as we have learned, forced sterilizations, we are definitely in Stage 8.

After that point, the shooting starts in earnest.

Lowering The Barr, Con't

Attorney General Bill Barr keeps getting closer and closer to full-blown authoritarianism, and extra-legal retribution against Trump's enemies' list as his main job.

Attorney General William P. Barr told federal prosecutors in a call last week that they should consider charging rioters and others who had committed violent crimes at protests in recent months with sedition, according to two people familiar with the call.

The highly unusual suggestion to charge people with insurrection against lawful authority alarmed some on the call, which included U.S. attorneys around the country, said the people, who spoke on the condition they not be named describing Mr. Barr’s comments because they feared retribution.

The attorney general has also asked prosecutors in the Justice Department’s civil rights division to explore whether they could bring criminal charges against Mayor Jenny Durkan of Seattle for allowing some residents to establish a police-free protest zone near the city’s downtown for weeks this summer, according to two people briefed on those discussions.

The directives are in keeping with Mr. Barr’s approach to prosecute crimes as aggressively as possible in cities where protests have given way to violence. But in suggesting possible prosecution of Ms. Durkan, a Democrat, Mr. Barr also took aim at an elected official whom President Trump has repeatedly attacked.

Justice Department representatives did not respond to requests for comment. The Wall Street Journal first reported Mr. Barr’s remarks about sedition.

The disclosures came as Mr. Barr directly inserted himself into the presidential race in recent days to warn that the United States would be on the brink of destruction if Mr. Trump lost. He told a Chicago Tribune columnist that the nation could find itself “irrevocably committed to the socialist path” if Mr. Trump lost and that the country faced “a clear fork in the road.”

Mr. Barr’s actions have thrust the Justice Department into the political fray at a time when Democrats and former law enforcement officials have expressed fears that he is politicizing the department, particularly by intervening in legal matters in ways that benefit Mr. Trump or his circle of friends and advisers.

The protest zone in Seattle became a flash point in the national debate over issues of race and policing this summer. Officers had abandoned the police station there for weeks before retaking it in late July amid escalating violence, including deadly shootings. Ms. Durkan said at the time that she had been forced to act because of the lawlessness.

Days later, federal Homeland Security officials sent tactical agents to the city. Ms. Durkan protested that their arrival would potentially exacerbate tensions between residents and local officials.

Mr. Trump has called the people who lived in the zone “domestic terrorists” and warned that Ms. Durkan and Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington needed to regain control of the area. “If you don’t do it, I will,” the president wrote on Twitter. “This is not a game.”

It's not a game. And in a second Trump term, thousands of dissenters and resisters are most likely going to jail, along with Democrats.

The larger issue, besides Barr criminalizing dissent quite literally, is the fact that Donald Trump is encouraging his supporters to deadly violence.  Barr should be going after Trump.

We have to do everything we can to stop that future from coming to pass.

Black Lives Still Matter, Con't

Support for Black Lives Matter is running into the "Biden will destroy the suburbs" racist propaganda, and it's working on white voters in particular. The backlash is here.

As racial justice protests have intensified following the shooting of Jacob Blake, public support for the Black Lives Matter movement has declined, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. A majority of U.S. adults (55%) now express at least some support for the movement, down from 67% in June amid nationwide demonstrations sparked by the death of George Floyd. The share who say they strongly support the movement stands at 29%, down from 38% three months ago.

The Black Lives Matter movement has been back in the spotlight due to this summer’s protests. The new survey findings come as confrontations between protesters and police have escalated in some cities and as President Donald Trump has stepped up his criticism of the movement.

The recent decline in support for the Black Lives Matter movement is particularly notable among White and Hispanic adults. In June, a majority of White adults (60%) said they supported the movement at least somewhat; now, fewer than half (45%) express at least some support. The share of Hispanic adults who support the movement has decreased 11 percentage points, from 77% in June to 66% today. By comparison, support for the Black Lives Matter movement has remained virtually unchanged among Black and Asian adults.

Support for the Black Lives Matter movement remains particularly widespread among Black adults. Some 87% of Black Americans say they support the movement, similar to the share who said this in June. However, the share of Black adults expressing strong support for the movement has decreased 9 points, from 71% to 62%.

The partisan divide in support for the Black Lives Matter movement – which was already striking in June – has widened even more. Among Republicans and those who lean to the Republican Party, about two-in-ten (19%) now say they support the movement at least somewhat, down from four-in-ten in June. The share of Democrats and Democratic leaners who support the movement (88%) has not changed considerably.

The partisan gap is similar among White adults. About nine-in-ten White Democrats (88%) express at least some support for the Black Lives Matter movement, compared with 16% of White Republicans. And while about half of White Democrats (51%) say they strongly support the movement, just 2% of White Republicans say the same.

White Republicans in particular have decided that Black folks deserve all the police brutality, murder, and suffering we can get in order to stop "riots".  Video of George Floyd had 37% of white Republicans support BLM in June, it's now 16%. Running police propaganda on FOX for three months has cut white Republican support of BLM by more than half. 

Creating the "All Lives Matter" backlash absolutely worked on the people most in need of the badly-needed perspective that Black people are human.

It always does, generation after generation.

Black Lives Still Matter.

StupidiNews!

• Rescue crews are working in "historic flooding" on the Gulf Coast as the remnants of Hurricane Sally dropped 30 inches of rain in 24 hours in parts of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
• High winds this weekend could fuel more wildfires on the West Coast as California braces for more wildfire-related problems.
• Donald Trump insisted Wednesday that CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield was "confused" and "contradicted himself" correcting Trump's claims a COVID-19 vaccine would be widely ready in 2020.
• A new Quinnipiac poll finds SC GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham is tied with Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison, the poll shows both men at 48%.
• Donald Trump has dismissed Republican Michael O'Rielly on the FCC, O'Rielly will be replaced by White House advisor Nathan Simington in order to fast track social media retribution regulation.