Last Call For These Disunited States, Con't

Trumpists are busy trying to purge their ranks of the unbelievers and destroy them as much as they are trying to destroy America, maybe even a little more so as the party makes it clear that loyalty to Dear Leader is the only thing that every mattered. 

 

Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney is finding this out the hard way as her political career may not survive this year, let alone a 2022 reelection campaign, after her vote to impeach Donald Trump last week.

 

On top of all this, GOP caucuses in states like Wyoming are now openly floating seceding from a Biden-led United States.

 

The chairman of the Wyoming Republican Party on Friday said Western states are "paying attention" to the effort by some in Texas' far-right to try to secede from the United States.

Appearing on former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast last week to discuss Rep. Liz Cheney’s vote to impeach Trump, Eathorne made the comment in response to a Bannon question about what conservatives should keep in mind in light of their movement's recent political losses.

“We need to focus on the fundamentals,” Eathorne said on the broadcast, which was recently banned by YouTube for peddling misinformation about the 2020 election. “We are straight talking, focused on the global scene, but we’re also focused at home. Many of these Western states have the ability to be self-reliant, and we’re keeping eyes on Texas too, and their consideration of possible secession. They have a different state constitution than we do as far as wording, but it’s something we’re all paying attention to.”

After a Star-Tribune reporter reached out for comment, Eathorne said the idea has not been a topic discussed by the Wyoming GOP.

"Only a brief conversation with the Texas GOP in earlier work with them," Eathorne wrote in the text. "Won't come up again unless the grass roots brings it up."

Bannon, who earlier in the program said that the populist, nationalist, conservative movement "is what people want,” pushed back on Eathorne’s statement, saying that as a native of Richmond, Virginia — the heart of the Confederacy — he was completely against any sort of secession. However, Bannon followed that statement by saying he would be open to talking about it further with Eathorne on a future program.

A 15-year-old fringe right-wing movement in the Lone Star State called “Texit” suggests it is not illegal for individual states to leave the United States — an occurrence that has not happened since the lead-up to the American Civil War.

Suggestions of secession have come up before. A week after the 2012 presidential election, nearly 700,000 Americans from all 50 states signed 69 petitions through the White House’s online petition system calling for the country to consider allowing states to peacefully secede from the United States — an opinion shared by one-quarter of Republican voters at the time, according to one 2012 poll. California once saw a fringe, left-wing movement to secede gain some momentum, and in 2017, Oklahoma state Sen. Joseph Silk introduced a bill seeking to remove the word “inseparable” from the sentence in the state constitution describing Oklahoma as “an inseparable part of the Federal Union.”

However, the question has been thrust into the mainstream in recent months as far-right groups have begun openly floating the idea.

In December, the conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh raised the subject to his 15.5 million listeners, saying in one broadcast, “I actually think that we’re trending toward secession.” A Mississippi state representative recently suggested to his Twitter followers that his own state — which had Confederate battle flag imagery in its state flag up until this past year — should consider breaking off from the country and forming its own state.

Earlier this month, Texas Republican Rep. Kyle Biedermann announced he would be sponsoring a bill in that Legislature’s 2021 session to put the question of secession to voters this fall, a step that comes roughly four years after the Texas Nationalist Movement came within two votes of adding Texas independence language to the state’s Republican platform.

 

You can be damned sure they're not going to be wanting "peaceful secession" from the Union this time. 2021 is going to continue to be an even worse year than 2020.

From Deportation Nation To Immigration Nation

Incoming President-elect Joe Biden is making it clear that reversing the racist, white supremacist deportation policies of Stephen Miller and the Trump regime is among his top priorities heading forward this week, and Democrats controlling Congress are already on board. WaPo's Seung Min Kim:

President-elect Joe Biden will roll out a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws the day he is inaugurated, including an eight-year pathway to citizenship for immigrants without legal status and an expansion of refugee admissions, along with an enforcement plan that deploys technology to patrol the border.

Biden’s legislative proposal, which will be sent to Congress on Wednesday, also includes a heavy focus on addressing the root causes of migration from Central America, a key part of Biden’s foreign policy portfolio when he served as vice president.

The centerpiece of the plan from Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris is the eight-year pathway, which would put millions of qualifying immigrants in a temporary status for five years and then grant them a green card once they meet certain requirements such as a background check and payment of taxes. They would be able to apply for citizenship three years later.

To qualify, immigrants must have been in the United States as of Jan. 1, a move meant to blunt any rush to the border.

Beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — which granted key protections for “dreamers” — and the temporary protected status program for migrants from disaster-ravaged nations could apply for a green card immediately. The details were described by transition officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The president-elect’s plan has been met with praise from pro-immigration advocates and Democratic lawmakers who have toiled to overhaul the immigration system for decades. But it also comes at a time when the Republican Party, led by President Trump, has shifted far rightward on immigration, complicating efforts at a deal that can get enough GOP support.

In a significant contrast with the Obama administration — which was heavily criticized by the Latino community for not tackling immigration when Democrats controlled the House, the Senate and the White House early in President Barack Obama’s tenure — Biden has made immigration his chief legislative priority behind the immediate health and economic relief stemming from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“Having leadership makes a big difference,” Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said in an interview Monday. “You cannot achieve immigration reform without presidential leadership, and from what I see, the seriousness of their purpose to start off with gives me a real good feeling that the president-elect is actually going to use capital to try to make this happen.”

The Biden effort would mark the most substantial attempt at a comprehensive immigration overhaul since the Senate passed legislation in 2013, only to have it collapse in the House, then controlled by Republicans, the following year.

After that collapse, pressure from Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocates pushed Obama to issue a wide-reaching effort aimed at protecting parents of U.S. citizen children and green-card holders in the country illegally, but that action promptly was blocked in the courts.

Good for Joe Biden and his team.

Now if they will only choose to do something about the fact that Senate Republicans will never, ever allow a word of this plan to become law, and realize that the Roberts Court will never allow a word of this to pass muster as an Executive Order.

We'll see.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

You know what?

 

I've written more than a hundred posts about this subject since 2009 and I swear to Christ I hope Joe Biden finally makes these assholes a top priority in his administration, because yes, they are basically engaging in conspiracies to commit white supremacist domestic terrorist attacks like the US Capitol attack and even this FBI has no choice but to go after them.

A heavy-metal guitarist, the alleged leader of a Colorado paramilitary training group and two self-styled militia members from Ohio have been charged with taking part in the riot at the Capitol last week, as the FBI ratchets up its investigation into the role extremist groups played in storming the building.

Jon Schaffer, an Indiana musician, turned himself in to the FBI on Sunday afternoon, officials said. On Jan. 6, Schaffer was photographed inside the Capitol, wearing a hat that said “Oath Keepers Lifetime Member.” Schaffer founded Iced Earth, a heavy-metal band, and music fans quickly recognized him as the FBI circulated wanted posters with his face on them.

Schaffer was charged with six counts, including engaging in an act of physical violence. Authorities said Schaffer was among the rioters who targeted U.S. Capitol Police with bear spray.

Also charged in a court filing made public Sunday was Robert Gieswein, 24, of Cripple Creek, Colo. Court papers say that Gieswein is affiliated with an Oath Keepers-related extremist group called the Three Percenters, and that he assaulted federal officers outside the Capitol with bear spray and a baseball bat; “encouraged other rioters as they broke a window of the Capitol building; entered … and then charged through the Capitol building.”

Gieswein runs a private paramilitary training group called the Woodland Wild Dogs, and a patch for that group was visible on a tactical vest he wore during the attack on Congress, an FBI affidavit said.

Gieswein gave a media interview in which he echoed anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, the affidavit said, and said his message to Congress was “that they need to get the corrupt politicians out of office. Pelosi, the Clintons … every single one of them, Biden, Kamala.”

Also arrested Sunday were Donovan Crowl, 50, a former U.S. Marine, and Army veteran Jessica Watkins, 38. A bartender, Watkins recently told the Ohio Capital Journal that she formed the “Ohio State Regular Militia” in 2019 — a unit of the Oath Keepers, the FBI said — and that the group has appeared at a dozen protests to “protect people.”

The FBI said Watkins posted to Parler a photograph of herself in uniform on Jan. 6, writing, “Me before forcing entry into the Capitol Building. #stopthesteal #stormthecapitol #oathkeepers #ohiomilitia.”

Watkins and Crowl were among about 10 individuals recorded at the U.S. Capitol wearing combat helmets, ballistic goggles, tactical vests and Oath Keepers patches who “move[d] in an organized and practiced fashion and force[d] their way to the front of the crowd” to lead the siege and break-in, FBI affidavits said.

Lawyers for the four defendants could not immediately be identified.

The Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters, and the Proud Boys, a male-chauvinist group with ties to white nationalism, have drawn particular attention from FBI agents investigating the attack on Congress, as they work to determine whether those groups organized or directed the violence to block certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory. Officials have said the Proud Boys in particular are an important focus of the FBI investigation.

 

Would sure be nice if a hell of a lot more of these assholes ended up in the hole on providing material support and conspiracy charges.

Just saying.

 

Last Call For Retribution Execution, Con't

The Republican on Michigan's state Board of Elections who was the deciding vote to certify the state's 2020 presidential election ballots is being summarily dismissed by Trump cultists demanding a sacrifice.

With party activists calling for certification to be blocked on Nov. 23, Aaron Van Langevelde, a policy adviser and deputy legal counsel for state House Republicans, joined the two Democrats on the four-member board to sign offon the results.

His term ends on Jan. 31. Instead of renominating him for a four-year term, the Michigan Republican Party has proposed three well-known activists to take his spot, according to a letter obtained by The Detroit News. Among them is Linda Lee Tarver, who was involved in a lawsuit that sought to have the GOP-controlled Legislature intervene in the results showing Democratic President-elect Joe Biden won.

Van Langevelde said he was never asked if he’d like another term on the board, unlike the first time he was nominated, when the party approached him about serving. He said the party’s decision came as no surprise, but he stood by his vote and said he was proud of the board’s decision.

“My conscience is clear, and I am confident that my decision is on the right side of the law and history,” Van Langevelde said in a Monday statement. “Time will tell that those who spread misinformation and tried to overturn the election were wrong, and they should be held responsible for the chaos and confusion they have caused.”

In addition to Tarver, a longtime former employee of the Michigan Department of State, the state Republican Party also nominated Tony Daunt, director of the conservative Michigan Freedom Fund, and Tori Sachs, a political strategist and executive director of Michigan Rising Action.

"Should you require any additional information, please contact my office," Michigan GOP Chairwoman Laura Cox wrote in a letter to Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Jan. 8.

Under state law, the Michigan Republican Party can nominate three individuals for a seat on the Board of State Canvassers. Whitmer has until Wednesday to pick one for the position.

Van Langevelde "did not request to be considered for reappointment to the state canvasing board," said Tony Zammit, a spokesman for the Michigan Republican Party.

Van Langevelde cast the deciding vote to certify Biden's 154,000-vote lead in Michigan. The other Republican member of the board, Norm Shinkle, abstained. What is usually a procedural process was fraught with controversy as supporters of GOP President Donald Trump pushed to delay certification and overturn the state's results based on unproven claims of fraud.

"We have a clear legal duty to certify the results of the election, as shown by the returns that were given to us," Van Langevelde said during the meeting. "We cannot and should not go beyond that. As John Adams once said, 'We are a government of laws, not men.'" 

 

And for his actions, he is being crucified.  I still have little sympathy for anyone who remained in the GOP after Donald Trump was elected, but Van Langevelde did his job correctly and he is being fired for it, and I hope he gets to sue the pants off of somebody in the future.

 

Probably not, though. His political career is essentially over as a Republican.

 

He could always join the good guys, however.

The Coup-Coup Birds Come Home To Roost, Con't

Team Biden is taking the Trumpist white supremacist domestic terrorist threat seriously, assuring America that they are preparing for the worst and hoping for a smooth transition of power.

 

President-elect Joe Biden is still planning to take his oath of office on the west side of the U.S. Capitol Wednesday despite growing concerns over safety for the event, incoming White House Communication Director Kate Bedingfield said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

“Well, that is certainly our plan,” Bedingfield said when asked by ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos if she was certain the ceremony would go forward as planned.

"I think that will send an incredibly important visual image to the world about the resilience of American democracy. And so our plan and our expectation is that President-elect Biden will put his hand on the Bible with his family outside on the West side of the Capitol on the 20th," Bedingfield said.

Authorities have been tracking an array of potential threats ahead of the inauguration, following the deadly riots at the Capitol. They have led to changes to Biden's inaugural plans -- already altered by the pandemic.

While the oath of office is moving forward as planned, Bedingfield said Sunday that the incoming White House staffers are preparing for any threats that should arise.

"We're in volatile times, and so we are making preparations," she said. "We'll begin meeting tomorrow, daily meetings with the outgoing leadership in national security and law enforcement to ensure that we're preparing for any scenario that should arise after noon on January the 20th."

Despite the increased threats, Biden told reporters on Friday that he felt safe with the inauguration plans, which include an outdoor ceremony where Biden is expected to deliver his inaugural address.

“What can Americans expect to hear on Wednesday? What is the major goal of this address?” Stephanopoulos asked Bedingfield.

"I think you can expect that this will be a moment where President-elect Biden will really work to try to turn the page on the divisiveness and the hatred over the last four years and really lay out a positive, optimistic vision for the country, and ... lay out a path forward that really calls on all of us to work together," Bedingfield said previewing the speech.

 

Biden's inaugural address will be historic for it merely being a public even held outside the US Capitol. I know I've seen people on social media, pundits, and columnists all argue that Biden should be taking the oath inside the Capitol, if not inside an undisclosed location.

But America needs this ceremony. It needs this to happen, for a couple of reasons, number one being We do not negotiate with terrorists, and number two, Biden's address will be one for the history books if only for the conditions under which Biden will be delivering them, to a nation divided almost as badly as it was in 1861, some 160 years ago, when Abraham Lincoln first addressed the country as President.

 

“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan -- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.” 

 

Our wounds are deep and still open. Let us hope, and help, Joe Biden close them and bring America together. Biden has to do this like every other President did after being elected, he has to do this in front of America and the world. This is the tough call to make, this is the right call to make, but in the end we have to have it.

But to solve the bigger problem, the problem of Trump, his cultists, his enablers, his terror squads willing to harm and even kill, we have to face up to it. We can't hide from these assholes any more. We need to take them on in order to heal the country, but to do that, we will need true reconciliation, and that only comes after real justice. 

Team Biden's Opening Day Lineup

Good morning as we head into the final days of Trumpeii.

 

With a bit more than 48 hours to go until inauguration, Joe Biden is definitely planning to hit the ground running on Wednesday after being sworn in, with a ream of executive orders ready to be signed from Day One through the end of January.

 

In his first hours as president, Joe Biden plans to take executive action to roll back some of the most controversial decisions of his predecessor and to address the raging coronavirus pandemic, his incoming chief of staff said Saturday.

The opening salvo would herald a 10-day blitz of executive actions as Biden seeks to act swiftly to redirect the country in the wake of Donald Trump’s presidency without waiting for Congress.

On Wednesday, following his inauguration, Biden will end Trump’s restriction on immigration to the U.S. from some Muslim-majority countries, move to rejoin the Paris climate accord and mandate mask-wearing on federal property and during interstate travel. Those are among roughly a dozen actions Biden will take on his first day in the White House, his incoming chief of staff, Ron Klain, said in a memo to senior staff.

Other actions include extending the pause on student loan payments and actions meant to prevent evictions and foreclosures for those struggling during the pandemic.

“These executive actions will deliver relief to the millions of Americans that are struggling in the face of these crises,” Klain said in the memo. “President-elect Biden will take action — not just to reverse the gravest damages of the Trump administration — but also to start moving our country forward.”

“Full achievement” of Biden’s goals will require Congress to act, Klain wrote, including the $1.9 trillion virus relief bill he outlined on Thursday. Klain said that Biden would also propose a comprehensive immigration reform bill to lawmakers on his first day in office.

Providing a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally will be part of Biden’s agenda, according to people briefed on his plans. Ali Noorani, president of the National Immigration Forum and among those briefed, said immigrants would be put on an eight-year path. There would be a faster track for those in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shields people from deportation who came to the U.S. as children, and for those from strife-torn countries with temporary status.

On Thursday, the new president’s second day in office, Biden would sign orders related to the COVID-19 outbreak aimed at reopening schools and businesses and expanding virus testing, Klain said. The following day, Friday, will see action on providing economic relief to those suffering the economic costs of the pandemic.

In the following week, Klain said, Biden would take additional actions relating to criminal justice reform, climate change and immigration — including a directive to speed the reuniting of families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border under Trump’s policies.

More actions will be added, Klain said, once they clear legal review. 

 

This is exactly what Joe Biden needed to do, and he's charging in, pen blazing. Get ready. The work begins in earnest in two days. 

All hands on deck.

 

StupidiNews!

• Incoming CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky warns that COVID-19 could claim another 100,000 lives by February 15 as the incoming Biden administration works to fix Trump issues.
• Multiple Texas newspaper editorial boards are calling for the resignation of GOP Sen. Ted Cruz in the wake of the US Capitol insurrection earlier this month.
• Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was immediately detained by Russian security forces returning to Moscow Sunday from Germany after recovering from a Russian poisoning attack.
• Democrats are pleading to intelligence agencies asking for Donald Trump to be cut off from tradition post-presidential intelligence briefings in the wake of his second impeachment.
• NASA's first major rocket ignition test in over a decade ended in failure Saturday as the Space Launch System failed a minute into a hot fire test at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.
  

Last Call For Pardon The Destruction, Con't

Donald Trump is now openly selling pardons to the highest bidder, because he's basically the most corrupt human on earth right now and he believes nobody will try to stop him. And if they do, he'll pardon everyone involved, including himself.

As President Trump prepares to leave office in days, a lucrative market for pardons is coming to a head, with some of his allies collecting fees from wealthy felons or their associates to push the White House for clemency, according to documents and interviews with more than three dozen lobbyists and lawyers.

The brisk market for pardons reflects the access peddling that has defined Mr. Trump’s presidency as well as his unorthodox approach to exercising unchecked presidential clemency powers. Pardons and commutations are intended to show mercy to deserving recipients, but Mr. Trump has used many of them to reward personal or political allies.

The pardon lobbying heated up as it became clear that Mr. Trump had no recourse for challenging his election defeat, lobbyists and lawyers say. One lobbyist, Brett Tolman, a former federal prosecutor who has been advising the White House on pardons and commutations, has monetized his clemency work, collecting tens of thousands of dollars, and possibly more, in recent weeks to lobby the White House for clemency for the son of a former Arkansas senator; the founder of the notorious online drug marketplace Silk Road; and a Manhattan socialite who pleaded guilty in a fraud scheme.

Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer John M. Dowd has marketed himself to convicted felons as someone who could secure pardons because of his close relationship with the president, accepting tens of thousands of dollars from a wealthy felon and advising him and other potential clients to leverage Mr. Trump’s grievances about the justice system.

A onetime top adviser to the Trump campaign was paid $50,000 to help seek a pardon for John Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. officer convicted of illegally disclosing classified information, and agreed to a $50,000 bonus if the president granted it, according to a copy of an agreement.

And Mr. Kiriakou was separately told that Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani could help him secure a pardon for $2 million. Mr. Kiriakou rejected the offer, but an associate, fearing that Mr. Giuliani was illegally selling pardons, alerted the F.B.I. Mr. Giuliani challenged this characterization.

After Mr. Trump’s impeachment for inciting his supporters before the deadly riot at the Capitol, and with Republican leaders turning on him, the pardon power remains one of the last and most likely outlets for quick unilateral action by an increasingly isolated, erratic president. He has suggested to aides he wants to take the extraordinary and unprecedented step of pardoning himself, though it was not clear whether he had broached the topic since the rampage.

He has also discussed issuing pre-emptive pardons to his children, his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and Mr. Giuliani.

A White House spokesman declined to comment.

Legal scholars and some pardon lawyers shudder at the prospect of such moves, as well as the specter of Mr. Trump’s friends and allies offering to pursue pardons for others in exchange for cash.

“This kind of off-books influence peddling, special-privilege system denies consideration to the hundreds of ordinary people who have obediently lined up as required by Justice Department rules, and is a basic violation of the longstanding effort to make this process at least look fair,” said Margaret Love, who ran the Justice Department’s clemency process from 1990 until 1997 as the United States pardon attorney.

The good news is it appears Trump is finally headed for the exits this week, dragging himself back to Florida in disgrace where he plans to build a $2 billion presidential library. In reality, I hope New York, Georgia, California, and other state's process servers will be waiting to serve him dozens, if not hundreds, of lawsuits.

 

We'll see.

[UPDATE] CNN is reporting late tonight that Trump will unleash scores of "controversial" pardons on Tuesday.

Will they include his family or even himself?

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorist Problem, Con't

Again, we're nowhere near out of the woods yet after the US Capitol attack. We have a long way to go, and the country is filled with terrorists.

 

The U.S. Capitol Police arrested a man at a security checkpoint in Washington on Friday after he flashed what an officer described as an “unauthorized” inauguration credential and a search of his truck found an unregistered handgun and more than 500 rounds of ammunition, the authorities said.

A federal law enforcement official said that the man, Wesley A. Beeler, 31, worked as a contractor, and that his credential was not fake, but was not recognized by the police officer. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the arrest.

Mr. Beeler’s father, Paul Beeler, said in an interview that his son was part of a security team working alongside the Capitol Police and the National Guard, and that his son must have simply left his personal gun in his truck. Wesley Beeler has an active private security license in Virginia and was approved to have a handgun, shotgun or patrol rifle while on assignments, according to a state website.

The arrest comes as law enforcement officials have tried to fortify Washington ahead of Inauguration Day on Wednesday, when they fear that extremists emboldened by the attack on the Capitol by President Trump’s supporters on Jan. 6 could seek to cause violence. A militarized “green zone” is being established downtown, National Guard members are flooding the city, and a metal fence has gone up around the Capitol grounds in advance of the swearing-in of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Mr. Beeler, of Front Royal, Va., had driven up to a security checkpoint less than half a mile from the Capitol grounds on Friday evening and presented “an unauthorized inauguration credential,” according to a statement from a Capitol Police officer filed in a District of Columbia court on Saturday. The officer, Roger Dupont, said that he had checked the credential against a list and found that it did not give Mr. Beeler authority to enter the restricted area.

A spokeswoman for the Capitol Police later described the credential that Mr. Beeler had shown as “nongovernment issued.”

Officers searched his truck, which had several gun-related bumper stickers, and found a loaded Glock pistol, 509 rounds for the pistol and 21 shotgun shells, the police said. Mr. Beeler had admitted having the Glock in the truck’s center console when he was asked if there were weapons in the car, they said.

Mr. Beeler, who could not be reached for comment, was charged with five crimes, including possessing a weapon and ammunition in Washington without having it registered as required. The documents filed in court and an incident report from the city’s Metropolitan Police Department do not shed light on why the man had tried to access a restricted area, nor do they provide more details about the credential the police say he presented.

Paul Beeler said his son, a father of four, had recently been working as a security guard on the Capitol grounds, and that he had held other security jobs over the years. “He was proud of the work he was doing with the police and the National Guard,” the father said.

 

So unauthorized credentials, a Glock, an a bunch of ammo. I can understand having a clip or a box of ammo in a Glock sidearm, but 500-plus rounds?  There's no way the guy was up to anything good. I hope the feds throw the entire library at him, forget the book.

And remember, the good guys have to catch or scare away or otherwise stop, dissuade, or delay every single terrorist threat.

The bad guys only have to get lucky once. And some of these guys have police, security, and/or military training and access to equipment.

It's nowhere near over, folks.

Domestic extremists are using obscure and private corners of the internet to plot new attacks ahead of Inauguration Day. Their plans are also hidden in plain sight, buried in podcasts and online video platforms.

Why it matters: Because law enforcement was caught flat-footed during last week's Capitol siege, researchers and intelligence agencies are paying more attention to online threats that could turn into real-world violence.

Driving the news: Extremism researchers worry the threat is more diffuse than the openly plotted Jan. 6 attack in Washington, with far-right groups taking to non-mainstream channels to plan nationwide disruption and broadly whip up anger and calls to arms. 

The overwhelming response from the D.C. Metro Police, the National Guard and others to increase and change security plans is dissuading some fringe groups from moving on D.C. Instead, they may shift their focus to state capitals and other cities, says Bryce Webster-Jacobsen, Director of Intelligence at cyber intelligence firm GroupSense.

The Booglaloo movement, a fringe-right extremist group dedicated to instigating a second civil war, is one of the groups plotting these attacks. Even if promoted under the pretext of being peaceful pro-Trump marches, the Boogaloo groups have a track record of plotting events that become flashpoints for political violence. 

"We're seeing fliers on message boards for more localized events by Boogaloo groups in state capitals in Oregon and Washington," Webster-Jacobsen says, while local officials and law enforcement officials in Michigan and Minnesota warn the groups are planning similar events in those states' capitals on Sunday.

The chatter is increasingly taking place on platforms like Telegram, where extremists can congregate in closed, invite-only groups. QAnon and other far-right organizations are also moving to even tougher-to-monitor venues like, as NBC News reports, massive text message chains.

Yes, but: Organizers of far-right violence are also in some cases operating in broad daylight, taking to mediums like podcasts and streaming video. There, they'll often talk in more guarded and coded terms than they'll use in less public channels, with the aim of building a like-minded audience and recruiting new followers.

The pre-inauguration timing of the planned events comes as online extremists — at least in the semi-public channels that researchers have infiltrated — increasingly avoid plotting activity for Inauguration Day itself, convinced that's when law enforcement will expect them to strike.

 

The threat these terrorists pose will be with us for a very, very long time. Keep in mind this is what we're up against.

Sunday Long Read: Cooking With Vlad

This week's Sunday Long Read comes from ProPublica's Abrahm Lustgarten, who correctly points out that in a rapidly warming world, no country stands to gain more valuable, arable land in a warming climate than Russia, and if that doesn't explain the last four years of Russian politics, I don't know what does.

IT WAS ONLY November, but the chill already cut to the bone in the small village of Dimitrovo, which sits just 35 miles north of the Chinese border in a remote part of eastern Russia’s Jewish Autonomous Region. Behind a row of sagging cabins and decades-old farm equipment, flat fields ran into the brambly branches of a leafless forest before fading into the oblivion of a dreary squall. Several villagers walked the single-lane dirt road, their shoulders rounded against the cold, their ghostly footprints marking the dry white snow.

A few miles down the road, a rusting old John Deere combine growled on through the flurries, its blade churning through dead-brown stalks of soybeans. The tractor lurched to a halt, and a good-humored man named Dima climbed down from the cockpit. Dima, an entrepreneur who farms nearly 6,500 acres of these fields, was born in the Liaoning Province of northeastern China — his birth name is Xin Jie — one of a wave of Chinese to migrate north in pursuit of opportunity in recent years. After Dima’s mostly Chinese laborers returned home this year amid the COVID-19 pandemic, he has been forced to do much of the work himself. Bundled against the wind in a camouflage parka, he bent to pick a handful of slender pods from the ground, opening one to reveal a glimpse at Russia’s future.

A great transformation is underway in the eastern half of Russia. For centuries the vast majority of the land has been impossible to farm; only the southernmost stretches along the Chinese and Mongolian borders, including around Dimitrovo, have been temperate enough to offer workable soil. But as the climate has begun to warm, the land — and the prospect for cultivating it — has begun to improve. Twenty years ago, Dima says, the spring thaw came in May, but now the ground is bare by April; rainstorms now come stronger and wetter. Across Eastern Russia, wild forests, swamps and grasslands are slowly being transformed into orderly grids of soybeans, corn and wheat. It’s a process that is likely to accelerate: Russia hopes to seize on the warming temperatures and longer growing seasons brought by climate change to refashion itself as one of the planet’s largest producers of food.

Around the world, climate change is becoming an epochal crisis, a nightmare of drought, desertification, flooding and unbearable heat, threatening to make vast regions less habitable and drive the greatest migration of refugees in history. But for a few nations, climate change will present an unparalleled opportunity, as the planet’s coldest regions become more temperate. There is plenty of reason to think that those places will also receive an extraordinary influx of people displaced from the hottest parts of the world as the climate warms. Human migration, historically, has been driven by the pursuit of prosperity even more so than it has by environmental strife. With climate change, prosperity and habitability — haven and economic opportunity — will soon become one and the same.

And no country may be better positioned to capitalize on climate change than Russia. Russia has the largest land mass by far of any northern nation. It is positioned farther north than all of its South Asian neighbors, which collectively are home to the largest global population fending off displacement from rising seas, drought and an overheating climate. Like Canada, Russia is rich in resources and land, with room to grow. Its crop production is expected to be boosted by warming temperatures over the coming decades even as farm yields in the United States, Europe and India are all forecast to decrease. And whether by accident or cunning strategy or, most likely, some combination of the two, the steps its leaders have steadily taken — planting flags in the Arctic and propping up domestic grain production among them — have increasingly positioned Russia to regain its superpower mantle in a warmer world.

 

And no country has worked harder to accelerate global climate change than Russia. There's a reason behind it, and a method to the madness. The hints are there now, where India, China, and the US are all suffering, Russia becomes the new land superpower, dominating both Europe and Asia.

Sure explains Russia, Trump, the EU, and everything, right?

America Goes Viral, Con't

Outgoing CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield is finally copping to the truth: the next several months ahead will be the worst so far as the COVID-19 death toll skyrockets.

 

Next week marks one year since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the first coronavirus case in the United States.

Dr. Robert Redfield, the outgoing CDC director, has been heading the federal public health agency's response to the pandemic from the start.

Redfield's departure on Wednesday, when President-elect Joe Biden will usher in a new administration, comes as a record surge in COVID-19 cases is sweeping across the country. The U.S. has far surpassed all other nations with more than 23 million virus-related cases and more than 391,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

But, even as the pandemic enters its deadliest stage yet, Redfield told NPR on Friday that the country is "about to be in the worst" months of the crisis.

As his tenure winds down, the CDC director said in an interview with All Things Considered that he stands by his federal health agency's response to the pandemic despite what he characterized as an early "learning curve" and conflicting public health guidance from President Trump.

If he has one criticism for the federal government's handling of the crisis, it's a failure of "consistency and unity of message" between the agency and the administration as it related to virus risk factors and public health measures such as the importance of masks to prevent the spread of infection.

When asked if the White House interfered with the CDC's work, Redfield said no.

"There was review and comments by different agencies within the White House," he said. "But at the end of the day, the CDC published the guidance that we believe is the most important for the American public."

 

Redfield's outgoing interview with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly is eye-opening for sure, but it's not just a reminder that the worst is still ahead, it's a reminder that the worst is still ahead because of the ongoing incompetence and cruelty of the Trump regime. 

Redfield failed America, and we'll be paying the price for a long time to come.

Last Call For Getting Kicked Out Of The Club

If Joe Manchin is considering the expulsion of GOP senators Hawley and Cruz over their insurrectionist actions, then it's not a pipe dream, folks.

 

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said the Senate should consider removing Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) via the 14th Amendment over their objections last week to the Electoral College results.

Speaking to PBS’s “Firing Line” on Friday night, Manchin said the Senate should explore the option after a violent mob, riled up by President Trump and convinced by Republicans such as Hawley and Cruz that the election was fraudulent, ransacked the Capitol in one of the darkest points in American democracy.

“That should be a consideration,” Manchin responded when asked if the 14th Amendment should be triggered. “He understands that. Ted’s a very bright individual, and I get along fine with Ted, but what he did was totally outside of the realm of our responsibilities or our privileges.”

The third section of the 14th Amendment reads that no lawmaker holding office “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

Critics of Hawley and Cruz, who led the effort in the Senate to object to the presidential election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania, said the amendment applies to the two senators, whom they blame for inciting the riot with their rhetoric echoing concerns of election fraud and irregularities. Last week’s mayhem resulted in the deaths of five people, including a Capitol Police officer and a rioter who was shot by another officer while trying to breach a window in the building.

Several Democrats have called for the two senators’ resignations, while Republicans have rebuked them for their objections, which Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) called “dumbass.”

Hawley and Cruz, however, have defended their actions, saying they were trying to address concerns from their constituents about election fraud that were propagated by the president and his allies.

 

Here's the thing: I bet I can find at least 17 Republican senators, along with all 50 Democrats, who hate Ted Cruz and hate Josh Hawley, and would like to see them dropkicked out the Senate later this month. They've torched bridge after bridge and nobody likes them.

Whether or not they'll countenance expulsion, well, something tells me we'll see.

 

The Coup-Coup Birds Come Home To Roost, Con't

Boston Globe columnist Talia Lavin reminds us that while there are plenty of armed white supremacist domestic terrorist groups out there, the people who showed up at the US Capitol insurrection were also middle-class white folks who sure loved the rush of being part-time warriors for whiteness.

Following the pro-Trump mob’s Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol building, in which five people died, the CEO of the Ilinois-based data analytics firm Cogensia was fired. Bradley Rukstales is facing federal charges for entering the Capitol alongside a mob that battered police officers with fire extinguishers and metal pipes, deployed bear spray and mace, and smeared the halls of Congress with human feces. In a statement, Rukstales emphasized that this was his first arrest and that this was an uncharacteristic “moment of extremely poor judgment.”

That a prosperous tech CEO might be among the insurrectionists who ran riot in the Capitol — some armed with guns and zip-ties, searching for lawmakers they hoped to harm — might seem, to some, surprising. But Rukstales was not an outlier among the Capitol mob for his prosperity. As the fallout for the coup attempt continues to unfold, the list of those arrested or identified as participants grows: state legislators, lawyers, doctors, nurses, firefighters, realtors, current and former members of the armed forces, and more than two dozen police officers. Prosperous business owner by prosperous business owner, the principal beneficiaries of white supremacy came out in force to defend it.

It’s long been assumed that the most extreme upholders of white supremacy in the United States, those willing to engage in violence on its behalf, are impoverished, uneducated, socially stunted, and confined to their mothers’ basements. In The Atlantic, Caitlin Flanagan wrote about the would-be coupists as “deadbeat dads, YouPorn enthusiasts, slow students, and MMA fans … with bellies full of beer and Sausage McMuffins, maybe a little high on Adderall” — a naked display of classism that happens to also be thoroughly inaccurate. The Washington Post quoted anonymous members of law enforcement agencies as “shocked by the backgrounds” of insurrectionists that included “current and former law enforcement and military personnel as well as senior business executives and middle-aged business owners.” The “toothless Cletus” (as I’ve referred to this much-imagined figure in my work), an uneducated redneck dedicated to racism and anti-Semitism in the shadow of a blighted life, has always been more myth than reality — and images of the Capitol riot underscore the flimsiness of this narrative.

The Trumpists, neo-Nazis, militia members, and QAnon adherents who broke down the doors of the Capitol, wielding improvised and very real weapons, are people who were able to take time off work in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, travel to another city, and make reservations at some of Washington’s swankiest hotels. They were able to devote time and money and resources to buy military gear and use it. They are America’s gentry, golfers, homeowners association members, and school-board warriors and heads of the PTA.

It’s an uncomfortable truth for white America to acknowledge: Those willing to upend the democratic order through violence to further a white supremacist agenda are indistinguishable from the rest of us. They are not even ideological outliers, anymore; a recent Ipsos poll found that 45 percent of Republicans polled approve of the storming of the Capitol. There is no socioeconomic stratum, no geographic location, no level of educational attainment that inures us from the forces of conspiracy and hate, and from the torrid lure of enforcing a white-led order. There is no neighborhood that insulates you, no zip code, no alumni association immune from a force so corrosive it has warped our nation to the breaking point.

 

The Trumpists are average white Americans, driving Dodge Ram 1500 trucks, shopping at Costco, going to the local megachurch, members of the PTA.

And they also are willing to take up arms to preserve their white privilege.

Trying to bring them down off their hatred high is a long and bitter process, but if we don't do it, this country is going to burn for years. The first step though is acknowledging that the terrorists are next door, the "respected" members of the community, and not the "lone wolf" basement types who certainly couldn't afford to make the trip to DC.

Guns are expensive. Ammo is expensive. Travel to DC is expensive. It's not the guy flipping burgers who's the threat, folks.

No, white America is out here actively rebelling in order to "keep" their white privilege, and there's a whole lot of potential terrorists out there as far as I'm concerned. 

It's well past time to treat them as such.

Georgia On Trump's Mind

New York isn't the only jurisdiction considering charges against Donald Trump after January 20th, as Georgia is looking into Trump's widely-played election interference call pressuring Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and others ahead of the Senate runoffs.

Prosecutors in Georgia appear increasingly likely to open a criminal investigation of President Trump over his attempts to overturn the results of the state’s 2020 election, an inquiry into offenses that would be beyond his federal pardon power.

The new Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, is already weighing whether to proceed, and among the options she is considering is the hiring of a special assistant from outside to oversee the investigation, according to people familiar with her office’s deliberations.

At the same time, David Worley, the lone Democrat on Georgia’s five-member election board, said this week that he would ask the board to make a referral to the Fulton County district attorney by next month. Among the matters he will ask prosecutors to investigate is a phone call Mr. Trump made in which he pressured Georgia’s secretary of state to overturn the state’s election results.

Jeff DiSantis, a district attorney spokesman, said the office had not taken any action to hire outside counsel and declined to comment further on the case.

Some veteran Georgia prosecutors said they believed Mr. Trump had clearly violated state law.

“If you took the fact out that he is the president of the United States and look at the conduct of the call, it tracks the communication you might see in any drug case or organized crime case,” said Michael J. Moore, the former United States attorney for the Middle District of Georgia. “It’s full of threatening undertone and strong-arm tactics.”

He said he believed there had been “a clear attempt to influence the conduct of the secretary of state, and to commit election fraud, or to solicit the commission of election fraud.”

The White House declined to comment.

Mr. Worley said in an interview that if no investigation had been announced by Feb. 10, the day of the election board’s next scheduled meeting he would make a motion for the board to refer the matter of Mr. Trump’s phone calls to Ms. Willis’s office. Mr. Worley, a lawyer, believes that such a referral should, under Georgia law, automatically prompt an investigation.

If the board declines to make a referral, Mr. Worley said he would ask Ms. Willis’s office himself to start an inquiry.

Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, is one of the members of the board and has said that he might have a conflict of interest in the matter, as Mr. Trump called him to exert pressure. That could lead him to recuse himself from any decisions on a referral by the board.

 

It's important to note that Fulton County DA Fani Willis, as with Tish James in New York, is yet another example of how it's Black women who are leading the way in holding Trump accountable once he's booted out of office Wednesday.

Keep that in mind.

The World Goes Viral, Con't

The planet has reached a pair of grim milestones, 400,000 US COVID-19 deaths and 2 million worldwide.

It's as if 10 of the world's largest commercial jets fell out of the sky, every day for an entire year. 

The official global death toll from the coronavirus pandemic surpassed 2 million on Friday, according to Johns Hopkins University. The tragic milestone came just over a year after the first Covid-19 death was reported in Wuhan, China. 

While the 2 million figure is horrifying, experts say the real death toll is likely much higher. Only confirmed Covid-19 deaths are included in the tally, which means that people who die without a firm diagnosis may not be included. 

With testing still inadequate in many countries across the world, there might be hundreds of thousands of additional deaths. 

Christopher Murray, the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle, said that an analysis of excess mortality suggests that as many as one fifth of coronavirus deaths might not be recorded. 

"We have found that on average, total deaths are 20% higher than reported deaths," he told CNN in an email, adding that the ratio varies substantially across different countries. 

As vaccination programs start rolling out across the world, there is a glimmer of hope -- even though it's likely going to take years for everyone to be offered the shot. 

In the meantime, the pandemic is getting worse. The death toll is rising faster than ever. While it took eight months for the world to record 1 million Covid-19 deaths, the second million came in less than four months. 

A number of countries, including the United States, Germany, Sweden, Indonesia, Israel and Japan recorded their deadliest days of the pandemic in the past week. The number of cases globally is fast approaching 100 million.

 

Some 20% of the world's COVID dead, and almost 25% of the world's total COVID cases, must be laid directly at the feet of Donald Trump and his regime.  And now the virus is mutating into more dangerous, virulent, and transmissible strains.

 

The months ahead are going to be brutal.  Joe Biden at least has a plan.

President-elect Joe Biden plans to use FEMA and the National Guard to build coronavirus vaccine clinics across the United States, according to new details of his Covid-19 vaccination plan released by his transition team on Friday.

The Biden administration will also “quickly jumpstart” efforts to make the vaccines available at local pharmacies across the U.S., which should ensure that Americans have access to doses at facilities only miles from their home, according to the plan.

“Here’s the deal: The more people we vaccinate, the faster we do it, the sooner we can save lives and put this pandemic behind us and get back to our lives and loved ones,” Biden said at a speech in Wilmington, Delaware, Thursday night. “We won’t get out of it overnight and we can’t do it as a separated nation.”

Drug store chains and pharmacies were supposed to take on a larger role in distributing the vaccine once the government expanded access to more people. But the slower-than-expected rollout has frustrated pharmacy chains. The National Association of Chain Drug Stores called on the federal government earlier this week to allow states to send more doses directly to pharmacies as they do with hospitals and health departments.

The group estimated that the country’s retail pharmacies could administer at least 100 million doses of vaccines each month, which would exceed the incoming administration’s promise of 100 million shots in 100 days.

The Biden administration has said current vaccination efforts are not sufficient to quickly and equitably vaccinate the vast majority of the U.S. population, adding, “We must ensure that those on the ground have what they need to get vaccinations into people’s arms.”

The problem is logistics, and Biden is tackling this head on. 100 million doses per month is the rate we need to get America inoculated by this summer and get us back to work, back to school, and back to being America.

But the next six months are still going to be hell.