Last Call For Spies Like Us

So if you recall the news that yet another NSA contractor was busted for stealing classified data back in August, well it turns out that there's a whole new level of problematic with what the FBI found when they looked deeper into this rabbit hole.

Government lawyers on Thursday said they would prosecute a former National Security Agency contractor accused of stealing classified information under an espionage law, a move carrying far more severe penalties than previously announced charges.

Harold Thomas Martin spent over two decades pilfering classified information from multiple government agencies, federal prosecutors said in a new filing made in a U.S. District Court in Baltimore. They expected to bring charges that included violations of the Espionage Act, the filing said.

The amount of stolen data is estimated to be at least fifty terabytes, enough to fill dozens of hard drives, prosecutors said, adding that the alleged criminal conduct "is breathtaking in its longevity and scale." Some officials have said the trove may amount to the largest heist of classified government information in history.

An attorney representing Martin was not immediately available for comment.

Among the material allegedly stolen by Martin included a top secret document that contained "specific operational plans against a known enemy of the United States and its allies," the prosecutors said.

U.S. officials announced in a criminal complaint earlier this month that Martin, 51, was taken into custody in Maryland in August and charged with felony theft of classified government material. It did not allege a motive.

The FBI is investigating possible links between Martin and the leak online this summer of secret NSA hacking tools used to break into the computers of adversaries such as Russia and China, U.S. officials said.

In other words, this guy was most likely one of the most successful Russian moles in history.  He stole classified data over more than twenty years and did untold damage to the US intelligence community.

I'm glad this guy got caught but I think we're going to be spending a long time cleaning up after this guy.  I'm old enough to remember Aldrich Ames, and Martin here makes Ames look like a cub scout.

What Actually Rigging An Election Looks Like

Ohio is arguably the key state for Donald Trump, he simply can't win the presidency without it (no Republican has won the White House without it) but the efforts by the Kasich administration and Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted to throw one million mostly black and low-income voters Ohio voters off the rolls has now been deemed illegal, and those voters will now be able to vote on provisional ballots.

A federal judge in Ohio laid out a plan on Wednesday for the state to restore voting privileges for people who were illegally removed from the state's voter rolls over the past five years.

The ruling stems from a case in which the ACLU and other plaintiffs sued, saying Ohio's process for removing people who had died or moved away from voter rolls was illegal because it purged people simply for not voting and not responding to a letter from the state.

Voting rights cases have become pivotal battlegrounds ahead of the Nov. 8 election between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump.

The American Civil Liberties Union and others have challenged laws in Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina over voting rights issues.

In the Ohio case, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati said Ohio's process for removing inactive voters was illegal, reversing an earlier ruling by U.S. District Judge George C. Smith.

In response, Smith on Wednesday ordered the state to allow people who had been removed from the rolls to cast provisional ballots on election day.

Those ballots will be checked against voter rolls, and if people were purged in the years 2011, 2013 or 2015, their votes will be counted and their registration restored.

Again, Husted tried to purge more than one million Ohio voters off the rolls over six years for the crime of not voting and not immediately responding to a letter that was often sent to an old address.  That will now be reversed.  How many provisional ballots will be cast, I don't know, but the plan was absolutely to lower turnout and give the state's elections to Republicans.

I'm glad the courts stopped this idiocy.

Something Something Accept What You Cannot Change

If there was somehow any doubt that Hillary Clinton will be the next president (with a commanding six point lead in the RCP average and an 85% chance of winning at Five Thirty Eight) last night's debate all but slammed the door in Trump's orange face.

It’s over. There will be no more presidential debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. (Hopefully.)

The final debate looked, at first, like it could have been pretty normal. At the start, there were some Trumpy moments — but for the most part, it appeared like both candidates, thanks to Trump’s slightly better behavior, were going to mostly stick to the issues.

Then Trump happened. By the end of the debate, Trump had insulted Latino immigrants in Spanish, continued to say that he would not concede the election if he lost, and called Clinton “such a nasty woman.”

In many ways, it was a fitting end to what’s been a very odd election season. But it also offered yet another reminder that we are living in very strange times.

But the real signal as to what Trump will do with all that anger when he loses big in November is as obvious as it comes.

Thirty minutes before the debate, Trump’s Facebook page went live with a video. It ran with the message: “If you’re tired of biased, mainstream media reporting (otherwise known as Crooked Hillary’s super PAC), tune into my Facebook Live broadcast. Starts at 8:30 EST/5:30 PST -- you won't want to miss it. Enjoy!” The ensuing show had its own anchors and guests.

For any other candidate, this may come off as unremarkable. But Trump’s wording, the original anchors and guests, and ongoing rumors suggest this is a tease of “Trump TV” — a business venture Trump might launch after his failed presidential bid.

Matt Yglesias explained for Vox:

While Trump and his team do not appear capable of winning a general election in the United States, they certainly have the right mix of skills and experience to operate a successful media company, folding the existing Breitbart and Hannity franchises together with the Trump brand to form Trump TV or Trump Media.

Trump’s people, for their part, haven’t done much to dispel the rumors. Here’s what Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon said recently, according to CNN anchor Brian Stelter’s newsletter:

Bannon did not deny talk about a potential "Trump TV" network or streaming service. When asked if there is anything to the rumors, Bannon responded with a smile and said, "Trump is an entrepreneur." He repeated the answer again later. "Trump is an entrepreneur." He also pointed out Trump's social media prowess on Facebook and Twitter. "Look at the engagement. It's incredible..."

The Facebook Live video, however, suggests that Trump’s team isn’t even bothering to wait until after the election to pull this off.

Donald Trump: red meat salesman in the New Clinton Age.  It's about the only job he's actually qualified for, frankly.  But he'll ride that tornado through the American psyche doing as much damage as he can and will most likely profit from it.

Then again, this is a man that went bankrupt running casinos, a business model absolutely designed to part suckers from their money.  If he can't even get that right, maybe Trump TV won't be long for this world.

I hope.

StupidiNews!

• The first new US nuclear reactor in 20 years went online this morning as the TVA's Watts Bar 2 reactor was switched on after decades of cost overruns and safety concerns.
• The trial of Ammon Bundy and seven fellow accused conspirators goes to a jury today after their armed takeover of an Oregon wildlife center in January.
• British PM Theresa May says Britain will play a "full role" in the EU up until Brexit is official, and will remain a "strong and dependable partner" after.
• Philippine President Rodrigo Dueterte says the island nation will say "goodbye" to America and improve foreign policy ties with China as he visits Beijing for a summit this weekend.
• The newest weapon in fighting antibiotic-resistant infections may be the bacteria in our own digestive systems as researchers are looking into creating new drugs based on gut microbes.

In Science We Trust

A new Pew Research poll on which professions are trusted finds Americans believe in the medical community acting in the country's best public interest the most, followed by the US military and the scientific community overall.

About three-quarters or more of Americans are confident in the military, medical scientists and scientists in general to act in the best interests of the public. But fewer than half of Americans report similar confidence in the news media, business leaders and elected officials, according to a Pew Research Center report released earlier this month.

One-third of the public (33%) has a great deal of confidence in the military and an additional 46% say they have a fair amount of confidence. The high ranking of the military is consistent with a 2013 Pew Research Center survey, which found 78% of the public said the military contributes “a lot” to society. 

Similar shares of Americans express at least a fair amount of confidence in medical scientists (84%) and scientists (76%). 

The public expresses less confidence in school and religious leaders. About two-thirds (65%) say they have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in K-12 principals and superintendents and 53% have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in religious leaders. 

Americans are least confident in the news media, business leaders and elected officials to act in the best interests of the public. Majorities have not too much or no confidence in each of these three groups, a pattern that is shared across the political spectrum. For example, majorities of both Democrats (68%) and Republicans (78%) say they have not too much or no confidence at all in elected officials to act in the best interests of the public, in keeping with previous Pew Research Center studies showing near-record low trust in the federal government.

The survey also shows that Republicans trust professions less overall than Democrats or independents with the obvious exception of the military, and that religiously unaffiliated Americans have serious trust issues with religious leaders overall.

Overall the news media is only trusted by a little over a third of the country to act in the public's best interest, a little less than business leaders at 41%, but political leaders are in the basement at 27% (there's that number again...)

I would think after this election that all three groups would want to take a serious look at themselves as to why so few Americans trust them to act in the public's best interest.

Because for the most part?  They don't.

The Other Side: The 5 Stages Of Trump

I'd say this clinical autopsy of the Trump campaign from David Freddoso at the DC Examiner is about as antiseptic as it comes, as at this point we're well past ignoring the GOP elephant in the room that is Donald Trump's unprecedented meltdown.

One of the strongest arguments Trump made during the primary in support of his own candidacy was his promise to self-fund. In focus group after focus group, with voters across the ideological spectrum, the pledge proved widely popular. It gave his supporters — and many rank and file conservatives who viewed Trump with skepticism — comfort that Trump possessed the means to fund a competent campaign, despite Trump's dismissal of a typical finance or campaign infrastructure. Even establishment Republicans were heartened by the notion that, if nominated, Trump would not divert resources from the rest of the Republican ticket. 

As winter turned to spring, Trump secured the nomination and his campaign made no attempts at online or direct-mail fundraising. This was a critical error on his team and a missed opportunity to seize financial support from a dedicated and fired-up grassroots base. Warning signs about Trump's lack of fundraising were dismissed by members of the press and justified by his apologists due to recurring assurances that Trump was worth billions and would self-fund. 

As spring turned to summer, not only did Trump refuse to put significant sums behind his effort, but he structured his campaign to use donor money to reimburse himself for campaign loans. Predictably, high-dollar donors sat on their wallets and publicly questioned Trump's commitment to victory. They demonstrated little desire to fund an organization that came across as dedicated to subsidizing Trump companies as opposed to field offices, staff and basic campaign operations. 

As Trump capitulated to pressure and filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to forgive his loan, he continued to use costly and inefficient Trump facilities, airplanes and products. This was occurring as Clinton's operation encouraged frugality with donor funds, similar to the Mitt Romney, Barack Obama and George W. Bush campaigns before it. 

Now it's crunch time. Unsurprisingly, Clinton has the resource advantage to put more states in play with each passing week. The burden has fallen to the Republican National Committee to finance, organize and execute a national ground game in support of Trump as well as endangered House and Senate Republicans across the country. Establishment Republican donors, most of whom were ardent supporters of Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, have stepped up to give significant funds to Trump victory programs with the RNC. Some are even funding a top-tier super political action committee effort in an attempt to soften Clinton's support in targeted Senate states.

Despite Trump's claims to be worth $10 billion and his insinuations that he owns a store worth more than Romney, Trump has put only slightly more of his own money into his campaign than Romney dedicated to his first campaign in 2008. When you take into account all the campaign money squandered on Trump companies, Trump may actually spend less than Romney did in 2008.

Yes, and keep telling yourself that the reason Trump is going to get mauled is because he didn't spend enough money.

Really is no hope for these guys, is there? Hey "principled conservatives", ask yourself why this race has been over since May.

StupidiNews!

• At least 19 people are dead after a hospital fire in eastern India Monday night, more than 100 were injured by flames and smoke.
• Retired US Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright has plead guilty in a deal with federal prosecutors to lying to the FBI over leaks involving the Stuxnet computer worm and Iran.
• Russia's defense minister says that Russia and Syria will pause air strikes on Aleppo in order to allow UN aid convoys into the area on Thursday.
• Apple has shelved its automaker project for now, scaling back plans to enter the US auto market itself and instead to partner to create self-driving cars.
• The website for Senate Republican fundraising is one of thousands to have been infected with skimming software that stole credit card data for at least six months.

Last Call For Supreme Obstruction

If you think either President Obama or a future President Hillary Clinton will be able to make any Supreme Court nominations with a GOP-controlled Senate in charge, well the "moderate" John McCain would like to put an end to that notion.

Almost immediately after news of Justice Antonin Scalia’s death broke, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) proclaimed that “this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President.” And, with rare exception, this has been the Senate GOP’s message since Scalia’s seat became vacant — let the election happen first, and whoever wins that election gets to pick the next justice. 

Nevertheless, in a Monday interview with a Philadelphia radio host, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) admitted that Republicans will continue to block anyone the next president nominates to the Supreme Court — at least if that president is Hillary Clinton. 

“I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up.” 

“The strongest argument I can make” for why Pennsylvania voters should reelect Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, is that a Republican Senate can “ensure that there is not three places on the United States Supreme Court that will change this country for decades.”

Scalia's seat on the court has been vacant now for seven full months.  There's no reason to believe that a lame duck session will approve his nomination unless voters give control of the Senate to the Democrats again.

We can do something about that in a few weeks, guys.

Trump Cards, Con't

An increasingly erratic and desperate Donald Trump continues to accuse Democrats and the entire US government of "rigging the election" at his rallies, Trump and his surrogates are specifically accusing the Obama administration of allowing massive voter fraud at poling places.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his surrogates amplified their rhetoric on the racially charged issue of voting fraud, accusing Democrats of systematic cheating that could throw the election to Hillary Clinton.

Trump said in a Twitter message Sunday that the Nov. 8 election is “absolutely being rigged” at polling places and through media coverage. Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said election fraud was a sin committed almost entirely by Democrats in America’s inner cities, where populations tend to be heavily minorities.

“They leave dead people on the rolls, and then they pay people to vote those dead people four, five, six, seven, eight, nine times,” said Giuliani, one of Trump’s most prominent supporters, on CNN’s “State of the Union.” He added, “dead people generally vote for Democrats.”

Cheating by Republicans is rare, Giuliani said. “They don’t control inner cities the way Democrats do,” he said.

These are pretty awful accusations, not to mention the blatantly racist assumption that it's the "inner city", code word for us awful black people of course, that Giuliani is accusing of mass voter fraud.  This is a former mayor of NYC for crying out loud, and yet here we are.

So yes, Trump and his campaign surrogates are openly accusing the Democrats of voter fraud and election rigging weeks before the election has even happened because "everybody knows" Democrats cheat.

To say such rhetoric is dangerous and irresponsible is a massive understatement.  Trump is trying to take the American election process with him in his collapse, and if the events in NC this weekend are any indication, he's well on his way to doing so.  No wonder then that a majority of Trump supporters now agree that the American election system is rigged.

I expect it to be far higher after they lose.  And that will be a disaster for the country.

Our Little Domestic Terror Problem, Con't

Whoever is behind acts like this needs to stop it immediately, because hey, this too is domestic terrorism guys.

The weekend firebombing of a North Carolina Republican headquarters drew national attention Sunday, with one state GOP official calling it an act of “political terrorism.”

Hillsborough police say the incident at the Orange County GOP headquarters occurred when a bottle of flammable liquid was thrown through the front window of the office that housed the local GOP headquarters.

The words, “Nazi Republicans get out of town or else” and a swastika were spray painted on the side of an adjacent building. Officials said the bomb ignited inside the office. No damage estimates were available.

“This highly disturbing act goes far beyond vandalizing property; it willfully threatens our community’s safety … and its hateful message undermines decency, respect and integrity in civic participation,” Mayor Tom Stevens said in a statement. “Acts like this have no place in our community.”

Hillsborough police and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were continuing to investigate. The incident took place in Orange County, home of the University of North Carolina in nearby Chapel Hill.

The county is overwhelmingly Democratic. Democrats and independents outnumber Republicans 5-1.

Democrats condemned the bombing. “The attack on the Orange County HQ @NCGOP office is horrific and unacceptable, Hillary Clinton’s campaign tweeted. “Very grateful that everyone is safe.”

N.C. Democratic Party Chair Patsy Keever called the bombing “outrageous.”

“The North Carolina Democratic Party strongly condemns this attack,” she said. “Violence has no place in our political system … Our deepest sympathies are with everyone at the North Carolina Republican Party.”

Dallas Woodhouse, executive director of the state GOP, called the bombing “political terrorism.”

“The office itself is a total loss,” he said. “The only thing important to us is that nobody was killed, and they very well could have been.”

Later, Woodhouse said, “Whether you are Republican, Democrat or Independent, all Americans should be outraged by this hate-filled and violent attack against our democracy. … Everyone in this country should be free to express their political viewpoints without fear for their own safety.”

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article108627627.html#storylink=cpy

For those of you unfamiliar with NC, Orange County is home to UNC-Chapel Hill and is just west of Durham.  It's very liberal, part of the Research Triangle Park and has a lot of suburban areas, in fact it's about the most liberal county in the state (maybe Buncombe County and Asheville) and for this kind of thing to happen here, well.

Here's the thing though, we've seen Democrats raising money to help the NC GOP rebuild the office. That's a nice sentiment, but it's misguided for two reasons, one, because the NC GOP is most certainly fundraising on this out of anger and not sorrow, and two the Republicans are taking this as a tacit admission of guilt and will blame "violent Democratic rhetoric" for this, as if somehow it's not Donald Trump saying we need Second Amendment solutions to America's problems.

Believe me when I say being raised as a liberal Catholic from a New York family that I intimately understand the concept of guilt and it motivating our actions to take action to be the better world we want to see, but this isn't the way to do it.

Nor do we need to be attacking the folks that did give.  Again, I understand the impulse.  It will not be received in the spirit in which it is being offered, believe me.  Sometimes doing nothing is better in the long run.

I have my suspicions about the incident still.  Whoever did it, needs to face the full extent of the judicial system.  Republicans are already howling for blood as it is.

StupidiNews!

• Iraqi forces, backed by US air power and military advisors, have begun the military effort to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from ISIS, which has controlled the city since early 2014.
• The federal defamation trial against Rolling Stone magazine over a debunked 2014 rape allegation story at the University of Virginia begins today.
• China has launched its longest planned manned space mission to date as the Shenzhou 11 mission is expected to see two astronauts dock with the Tiangong 2 space lab.
• After a series of mechanical issues, the US Navy says its latest Littoral Combat Ship, the USS Coronado, is ready for duty in Southeast Asia.
• The FAA has officially banned all Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones from all flights after the now discontinued phone was launched with battery charging problems leading to fires.

Last Call For The Master Debaters

Saturday Night Live. That is all. See you guys Monday.

The Paper Trail

The Arizona Republic recently endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, and the response from Trump supporters has been nothing short of death threats against the paper and its supporters for doing so. The paper's publisher and president, Mi-Ai Parrish, responds to the community about the threats made against the paper and herself, specifically:

 

To those of you who have said Jesus will judge me, that you hope I burn in hell, that non-Christians should be kept out of our country, I give you my pastor grandfather. He was imprisoned and tortured for being a Christian, and suffered the murder of his best friend for also refusing to deny Christ. He taught all that freedom of religion is a fragile and precious thing.

Much as my grandfather taught, I also know there are a lot of things worth standing up for.

To those of you who said we should go live with the immigrants we love so much, and who threatened violence against people who look or speak a different way, I give you Jobe Couch.

He was the Army cultural attache and Alabama professor who sponsored my aunts and my mother when they arrived in America from Korea after World War II. There are dozens of descendants of his kindness. Citizens with college degrees, a dentist, lawyers, engineers, pastors, teachers, business owners, a Marine, a publisher and more. Uncle Jobe stood for the power of America as a melting pot. He taught me that one kind man can make a difference.

To all the other people who we heard from, who thanked us for our courage and our bravery, or who were bold enough to disagree with us on principle — the people who didn’t threaten to bomb our homes or harm our families — I have something for you, too. To you, I give my gratitude. I’m grateful that you stood up to say that we live in a better world when we exchange ideas freely, fairly, without fear.

To all of you who asked why we endorsed — or what right we had to do so — I give you my mother. She grew up under an occupying dictatorship, with no right to an education, no free press, no freedom of religion, no freedom to assemble peaceably, no right to vote. No right to free speech. She raised a journalist who understood not to take these rights for granted.

Don Bolles and Nina Pulliam are gone now, and Uncle Jobe is, too.

But the journalists I introduced you to here walk into the newsroom every day to do their jobs.

When they do, they pass by an inscription that fills an entire wall, floor to ceiling. It is 45 words long. It is an idea that is in my thoughts a lot these days.

It is the First Amendment.

For those of you playing at home, the First Amendment says this:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It's held up for quite some time, frankly.  And it has because of people like Mi-An Parrish.  By the way, Don Bolles, the Republic reporter that Parrish referenced?  Killed by a car bomb 40 years ago for what many believed was for following a story on organized crime.

Violence against the media in America is nothing new, folks.  But a presidential candidate and his supporters openly calling for it over an endorsement of a political opponent?  That's pretty much beyond the pale, even for this country's bloody history.

Sunday Long Read: A Tortured Existence

Yet another reason Donald Trump can never be allowed to be in the White House: he would bring back Bush-era "enhanced interrogation techniques" to be used freely on suspects.  You know, legalized torture by the CIA.  Turns out that even years later, the folks the Bushies wrongfully accused and detained are still suffering the effects.

Before the United States permitted a terrifying way of interrogating prisoners, government lawyers and intelligence officials assured themselves of one crucial outcome. They knew that the methods inflicted on terrorism suspects would be painful, shocking and far beyond what the country had ever accepted. But none of it, they concluded, would cause long lasting psychological harm.

Fifteen years later, it is clear they were wrong.

Today in Slovakia, Hussein al-Marfadi describes permanent headaches and disturbed sleep, plagued by memories of dogs inside a blackened jail. In Kazakhstan, Lutfi bin Ali is haunted by nightmares of suffocating at the bottom of a well. In Libya, the radio from a passing car spurs rage in Majid Mokhtar Sasy al-Maghrebi, reminding him of the C.I.A. prison where earsplitting music was just one assault to his senses.

And then there is the despair of men who say they are no longer themselves. “I am living this kind of depression,” said Younous Chekkouri, a Moroccan, who fears going outside because he sees faces in crowds as Guantánamo Bay guards. “I’m not normal anymore.”

After enduring agonizing treatment in secret C.I.A. prisons around the world or coercive practices at the military detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, dozens of detainees developed persistent mental health problems, according to previously undisclosed medical records, government documents and interviews with former prisoners and military and civilian doctors. Some emerged with the same symptoms as American prisoners of war who were brutalized decades earlier by some of the world’s cruelest regimes.

Those subjected to the tactics included victims of mistaken identity or flimsy evidence that the United States later disavowed. Others were foot soldiers for the Taliban or Al Qaeda who were later deemed to pose little threat. Some were hardened terrorists, including those accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks or the 2000 bombing of the American destroyer Cole. In several cases, their mental status has complicated the nation’s long effort to bring them to justice.

Americans have long debated the legacy of post-Sept. 11 interrogation methods, asking whether they amounted to torture or succeeded in extracting intelligence. But even as President Obama continues transferring people from Guantánamo and Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, promises to bring back techniques, now banned, such as waterboarding, the human toll has gone largely uncalculated.

At least half of the 39 people who went through the C.I.A.’s “enhanced interrogation” program, which included depriving them of sleep, dousing them with ice water, slamming them into walls and locking them in coffin-like boxes, have since shown psychiatric problems, The New York Times found. Some have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, paranoia, depression or psychosis.

Hundreds more detainees moved through C.I.A. “black sites” or Guantánamo, where the military inflicted sensory deprivation, isolation, menacing with dogs and other tactics on men who now show serious damage. Nearly all have been released.

It's important to realize two things: one, as I said before that this was done in our name and that Trump as president has vowed to bring these inhuman practices back, and two, President Obama stopped these from happening when he took office.

This is part of what "voting for Clinton to continue Obama's legacy" means.

The Orange Martyrs Brigade, Con't

I used to joke about the "coming purge of America" by Trump's furious supporters in their senior mobility devices and their diesel flareside pickups with Confederate flag gun racks.

Nobody should be laughing anymore after this weekend, especially here in the Cincinnati area.

Anger and hostility were the most overwhelming sentiments at a Trump rally in Cincinnati last week, a deep sense of frustration, an us-versus-them mentality, and a belief that they are part of an unstoppable and underestimated movement. Unlike many in the country, however, these hard-core Trump followers do not believe the real estate mogul’s misfortunes are of his own making.

They believe what Trump has told them over and over, that this election is rigged, and if he loses, it will be because of a massive conspiracy to take him down.

At a time when trust in government is at a low point, Trump is actively stoking fears that a core tenet of American democracy is also in peril: that you can trust what happens at the ballot box.

His supporters here said they plan to go to their local precincts to look for illegal immigrants who may attempt to vote. They are worried that Democrats will load up buses of minorities and take them to vote several times in different areas of the city. They’ve heard rumors that boxes of Clinton votes are already waiting somewhere.

And if Trump doesn’t win, some are even openly talking about violent rebellion and assassination, as fantastical and unhinged as that may seem.

“If she’s in office, I hope we can start a coup. She should be in prison or shot. That’s how I feel about it,” Dan Bowman, a 50-year-old contractor, said of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. “We’re going to have a revolution and take them out of office if that’s what it takes. There’s going to be a lot of bloodshed. But that’s what it’s going to take. . . . I would do whatever I can for my country.”

He then placed a Trump mask on his face and posed for pictures.

The thing is we all know someone like Dan Bowman.  And we should be now asking ourselves just how serious he is.

There's a reason I'm not sporting Clinton/Kaine bumper stickers.  It's because the people I work with are sporting III-percenter, Molon Labe, and Blue Lives Matter flags.  And Trump stickers.

I'm a big guy.  I'm not Luke Cage. I'm not bulletproof by any means. If somebody at work or around town decides to take offense at my support of Democrats here, really decides to take offense, well I end up a hashtag and it really won't be long before FOX News discovers my blog, huh.

Guys like Dan Bowman want me to be scared.  You'd be absolutely foolish not to be when you hear about a man openly bragging at a political rally about starting a bloody coup should that politician's opponent win.

But I'm going to vote anyway, because it's my duty to do so.  It's literally the least I can do in order to maintain the America I want to live in. I'm doing it because the people who should be most vocally against Trump, the Republican party voters who should be horrified at this, are silent and complicit.

I will not be.

Vote.