Lessons of History and Trying To Avoid the Same Mistakes

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When Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer gave closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee on July 31, it quickly seemed clear that none of it implicated President Joe Biden, and nothing much implicated Hunter Biden himself in any corruption shenanigans related to Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company. For a few hours after Archer gave his testimony, Republican officials kept mum. In contrast, Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman spoke with reporters about how much of a bust this witness was for conservatives trying to use their House majority to frame the Biden family.

Later that evening, Republican Reps. James Comer and Jim Jordan went on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show and claimed that the testimony, while not a smoking gun, was filled with all kinds of circumstantial evidence of corruption. Comer told Hannity that Archer said, “Hunter Biden was under immense pressure while they both served on Burisma’s board to call Washington, D.C., immediately and try to get Shokin fired. That’s the Ukrainian prosecutor. Not many days later, Joe Biden traveled to Ukraine, and we’ve all seen the video where Joe Biden brags about withholding foreign aid to Ukraine in exchange for the Ukrainian president firing the prosecutor who was investigating his son’s corrupt energy company.”

Calling bullshit, Democratic leaders demanded that Comer and Jordan release the transcript of the testimony to the public. “Release the transcript” became a trending topic on social media and finally, Republicans released the transcript for all to see. Surprise, surprise: Archer’s testimony not only doesn’t imply any of the things Comer and Jordan claimed, it supports the existing evidence showing the accusations against President Biden are ludicrous.

During his testimony, Archer insisted that he never witnessed any bribery talk involving the president or his son. Archer also told the committee that the president’s son was very clear that he wanted to follow the letter of the law. In fact, the Catch-22 being faced by conservatives is that for all of Hunter Biden’s personal problems with addiction, he understood that the Biden “brand”—the reason he was being paid a lot of money for his lobbying expertise—was tied up with his father’s integrity.

That led to this exchange about the strains on Hunter Biden as he was pressured to exert more influence:

Mr. Archer: It was a constant push-pull in that regard, you know.

Mr. Goldman: Because Burisma wanted him—
Mr. Archer.eople always wanted more.
Mr. Goldman. Burisma wanted him to do more
Mr. Archer: Right.
Mr. Goldman:—with his connections.
Mr. Archer: Correct.
Mr. Goldman: And Hunter Biden understood that he could not do that, but he
was trying to—
Mr. Archer: Balance it.
Mr. Goldman:—balance it and prove value to a company that expected him to do
things that—
Mr. Archer: Right.
Mr. Goldman:—he was uncomfortable doing.
Mr. Archer: Right.
Goldman: And so as a Biden, it was important for him to follow the law. Is that fair?
Archer: That's fair.

And then there is the false claim by Republicans—the one that is foundational to the entire accusation—that Hunter Biden’s job at Burisma was to get then-Vice President Joe Biden to have Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin fired. The entire corruption conspiracy Comer and Jordan and Sen. Chuck Grassley have promoted alleges that Shokin posed a threat to Burisma because he was investigating them and putting pressure on the new company, and possibly holding up millions in dollars of assets locked in a bank account in England.

Archer’s testimony explained that the opposite was true. He said it was his understanding that Shokin was good for Burisma:

Mr. Goldman: Let's talk about legally, I think just pivot to that, because you had said earlier that—I believe the direct quote is that Burisma felt like they had Shokin under control.

Mr. Archer: Correct.
Mr. Goldman: What did you mean by that?
Mr. Archer: That was like—that was a narrative that was told to me by various of the D.C. team, that the firing of Shokin was bad for Burisma because he was under control.
Mr. Goldman: What did you understand "under control" to mean?
Mr. Archer: Meaning that they were going to maybe give a slap on the wrist as opposed to—
Mr. Goldman: Okay.
Mr. Archer. -- you know, seize all his assets.

Once again, Archer is proving why anyone paying even a tiny bit of attention to the claims against President Biden considers these accusations baseless. Then-Vice President Biden went to Ukraine, pushed for the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor because that prosecutor was not investigating possible corruption and potentially dubious assets, and the company Hunter Biden was being paid by not only didn’t benefit from this, they would have greatly preferred the prosecutor stay where he was—at least financially.

Whether or not the Republican witch hunters are taking their “investigation” behind closed doors because they are tired of being publicly embarrassed isn’t known. What is known is that when any of the facts are revealed to the public, it quickly becomes very clear that Comer and Jordan are trying their best to finish the fabricated narrative started by their swamp-king leader Donald Trump.

Republicans' star witness contradicts Republican claims

When Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer gave closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee on July 31, it quickly seemed clear that none of it implicated President Joe Biden, and nothing much implicated Hunter Biden himself in...

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Part 1

During Tuesday’s voting, machines at one polling location in Summit County—home to Akron—reportedly had some issues that impacted voters. But for MAGA world, suddenly it was election night 2020 all over again. Seizing on one anodyne report of minor delays in voting in one precinct in one city, several MAGAs cried foul about the entire election—because that’s basically all they do now.


It all started with this rather tame report on problems with several voting machines at a single polling location in the city of Cuyahoga Falls, via Mike Holden of Cleveland ABC affiliate WEWS:



For those unable or unwilling to watch that video, Holden’s report boils down to a few key points:

• There was a ballot jam on more than one of the machines; the screens directed voters to ask a poll worker for help.
• As a result, some voters were unable to immediately scan their ballots.
• Voters had the option of placing their ballots in an orange box to be scanned later, or they could void their ballots and come back.
• Some people were concerned and upset.

Alert the media! Oh, wait. That guy is the media. And his report is kind of unremarkable and boring, frankly.

But in MAGA world, it clearly means Hugo Chavez’s reanimated corpse is orbiting the Earth in an Italian satellite, zapping voting machines with bamboo lasers, and sucking “YES” votes like digital energy vampires into the blessed ether!

Luckily for Cuyahoga Falls voters, Arizona Not-Gov. Kari Lake, whom God created out of one of Mike Lindell’s discarded McRibs, was there to expose create malfeasance from afar. No one else could have done it! Just like no one else can hear her absinthe fairies when they tell her to fly back to Mar-a-Lago.




For the nontweeters:

KARI LAKE: Sound familiar?? Looks like they took a page out of the Maricopa County “selections” playbook. Today is Election Day in Ohio and the machines don’t work. The swampy never-Trumper Ohio Secretary of State was too busy running for another office to do his job making sure Election Day runs smoothly. Reminds me of the jackasses who run Maricopa County elections when they sabotaged Election Day to stop the will of We the People. Wake up America.

Lake—who has 1.4M followers hanging on her every word—continues to claim the election she lost in November was fraudulent. Why? Beyond her refusal to admit she lost, there were printer issues in Maricopa County that, in some instances, led to a delay in the vote count—though, to be clear, every ballot was ultimately counted. Thus, Lake’s bids (plural) to reverse the results have so far been vigorously slapped down.

Birth of a MAGA conspiracy theory: How one tweet fueled cries of election fraud in Ohio

If you thought you were done luxuriating in fancy baths of right-wing tears following Issue 1’s landslide loss in Ohio on Tuesday night, it’s time to buckle up for a soothing bath bomb or two. Since a not-insignificant number of minority-rule-loving...

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Part 2

But the movement Lake and her Big Daddy Mafia Don launched is still going strong, if the following reactions to the Cuyahoga Falls report are any indication. Other MAGAs were utterly and easily convinced that this was all a setup—because, again, the only legitimate election results are those the ocher arschloch 100% approves of.

Sir Rickster alerted his 30.6K followers!



ORANGE! It must be fraud!

But wait! Holden’s report was “clarified” by the Summit County Board of Elections. It wasn’t the machines, it was the people!

The Akron Beacon Journal:

Some Summit County poll workers were experiencing difficulties Tuesday handling new equipment, a Summit County Board of Elections official said.
But, he said, voting has not been affected.
Deputy Director Pete Zeigler said no machines malfunctioned, clarifying earlier reports, and said poll workers' unfamiliarity with new machines was to blame for incidents of ballots not properly feeding into scanners.
"These machines have not malfunctioned; this has only been happening because of poll workers struggling to learn the new equipment." Zeigler said, adding that a couple of machines were involved. "At no point was voting halted. They only swapped out machines as a precaution.”

A Columbus reporter also tried to stop the panic.



Holden himself didn’t bother to update his own 9,483 followers that “the scanners were fixed by 1 p.m and all votes were counted” until nearly 5 a.m. Wednesday.

That was more than 12 hours after Hank, who is blue-check-certified on Xwitter, asked his 10,000-plus followers, “Could these machine failures be more than just a coincidence during such a critical election?”

Birth of a MAGA conspiracy theory: How one tweet fueled cries of election fraud in Ohio

If you thought you were done luxuriating in fancy baths of right-wing tears following Issue 1’s landslide loss in Ohio on Tuesday night, it’s time to buckle up for a soothing bath bomb or two. Since a not-insignificant number of minority-rule-loving...

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https://twitter.com/TheJOstroff

 

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Part 3

[ To keep it short]



Kevin R Kosar
·
Aug 9

14. The job of a reporter is to report for the sake of helping the public understand what is going on. Failing to report all the facts led to a lot of misunderstanding and enflamed simmering suspicions amongst a portion of the public. Not good.
https://twitter.com/kevinrkosar
https://twitter.com/kevinrkosar
@kevinrkosar
·
Aug 9

15. I hope this reporter learned the right lesson, and I hope other reporters also will learn that the job they hold is a public trust. Voters need journalists; but we depend on you to give us the full story.

----------------
Crying "Election Fraud" in a Theatre full of people. Guess what happens.


[Full article online]

Birth of a MAGA conspiracy theory: How one tweet fueled cries of election fraud in Ohio

If you thought you were done luxuriating in fancy baths of right-wing tears following Issue 1’s landslide loss in Ohio on Tuesday night, it’s time to buckle up for a soothing bath bomb or two. Since a not-insignificant number of minority-rule-loving...

www.dailykos.com

 

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[HikerGuy83]

If it seems that MAGA movement supporters are committed to the Republican Party, it’s because they are.

Participation in the process is bad.

I get it now.

 

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There is no one better to help us untangle and understand the complicated hearing that will take place this week in a Birmingham courtroom to determine the map that will be used when Alabama voters elect members to the House of Representatives in 2024. If you want a refresher, we took a look at the Supreme Court’s surprise decision last term, telling Alabama its maps violated the Voting Rights Act here, and the Alabama Legislature’s refusal to comply with that decision here. It would be bad enough if it was just Alabama, but the decisions made here will impact other states and what they are permitted to do.

(full article online)

https://joycevance.substack.com/p/five-questions-about-gerrymandering?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=607357&post_id=136000472&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email

 

[Sixties Fan]

This week, everyone is focused on Fulton County, Georgia, and district attorney Fani Willis. We don’t expect an indictment before Tuesday, for the simple reason that several witnesses have said they have received subpoenas to testify in the grand jury and grand jury testimony must be complete before the indictment is voted on. Tuesday is the earliest we should expect to hear anything out of Atlanta, unless something squirrely is going on, like multiple indictments.

But Georgia isn’t the only place where important legal developments are underway. In Alabama, we’re waiting to see if a three-judge panel will rebuke the Alabama legislature, which refused to comply with a decision from the Supreme Court in Allen v. Milligan, requiring it to redraw Alabama’s districts in a way that didn’t discriminate against Black voters. Unlike the usual federal case that is heard by one judge at the district court level, redistricting cases like this one are heard initially by a panel made up of two district judges and an appellate court judge. The panel has set aside the entire week to hear from the parties. The new map adopted by the Republican supermajority in the Alabama legislature does not create two districts where Black voters have the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice, as the Supreme Court said they must, based on 2020 census data that showed maps were drawn in a way that unconstitutionally diluted Black voting power in the state.

I’ll be sending out a separate explainer for the hearing first thing tomorrow morning, in the form of five questions answered by my good friend, Alabama Democratic state Rep. Chris England. Although Five Questions is a feature that’s usually just for paid subscribers, the impact of this Alabama case on all of our rights is highly significant, and I’m going to make the post available for everyone, since this hearing may not get the coverage it deserves this week, in light of all things Trump.

As Alabama Democratic state Sen. Merika Coleman told me, “Had Democrats defied a court order in the same manner, the Republicans would be screaming, ‘Lock them up!’” She hopes the court will appoint “a special master to redraw the congressional map to produce two minority-majority districts so Black Alabamians have the real opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.” We’ll have more about what to expect from Rep. England in the morning. He got straight to the point of why Alabama Republicans refuse to comply with the Supreme Court’s decision in a recent tweet, which also explains why this is a matter that folks outside of Alabama should be paying attention to as well.


(full article online)

https://joycevance.substack.com/p/the-week-ahead-b3d?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=607357&post_id=135710676&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email

 

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Donald Trump sang the praises of Laura Loomer–an anti-Muslim activist who was banned from Uber Eats for being too racist–in a new video with the right-wing influencer. In a selfie clip with Trump posted by Loomer on Sunday, the ex-president called her “terrific” and “very special” while thanking her for your support. “You are a very opinionated lady, I have to tell you,” Trump said of Loomer in the video—whose opinions include banning Muslims from rideshare apps. “And in my opinion, I like that,” he continued. Loomer is also known to have pushed false conspiracy theories after the Parkland shooting. In April, outspoken GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) described Loomer as “mentally unstable and a documented liar. She can not be trusted.”

Trump Lauds White Nationalist Deemed Too Racist for Uber Eats

The ex-president called her “terrific” and “very special.”

www.thedailybeast.com

 

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[ Trump fans beware, this could happen to you if one thinks that calling and threatening government officials is the way to go to free Donald Trump ]

Texas woman accused of threatening to kill judge overseeing Trump election case and a congresswoman

A Texas woman has been charged with threatening to kill the federal judge overseeing the criminal case against former President Donald Trump in Washington and a congresswoman.

apnews.com

 

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An account on social media platform X, previously known as Twitter, has been suspended after at least two brands cut their advertising for appearing on the profile. A report, initially published by Media Matters for America, revealed how brands including Sports Illustrated, Gilead Sciences, USA Today, NCTA-The Internet and Television Association and more appeared on the verified profile. Following the publication of the article, X suspended the account, and soon after, CNN received confirmation from NCTA and pharmaceutical company Gilead that they immediately paused their ad spending on X. “We take the responsible placement of NCTA ads very seriously and are concerned that our post about the future of broadband technology appeared next to this highly disturbing content,” NCTA spokesperson Brian Dietz said in a statement. X did not respond to a request for comment from CNN. The news of the account, which promoted fascism and shared Nazi-related content, comes just a week after newly installed CEO Linda Yaccarino promised that “99.9 percent” of the content on the platform was safe.


(full article online)

Advertisers Ditch Twitter After Appearing on Pro-Nazi Account

Two brands are reported to have suspended advertising on the social media platform, now known as X.

www.thedailybeast.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ Would Dallas Officers have behaved the same way had been a Caucasian Veteran? Should not all people be treated the same way? ]

Dynell Lane, a disabled former U.S. Army Sergeant, addresses the Dallas police oversight board during its meeting on Tuesday, August 8, 2023. Lane spoke about his experience interacting with Dallas police officers who refused to help mediate a request between him and the management of Serious Pizza in Deep Ellum to use the restroom, which was blocked off, but not out of order.(Brandon Wade / Special Contributor)


[Vide video and full article online)

Dallas cops laughed after disabled military vet was denied restroom, urinated on himself

Dallas’ police oversight office is investigating four officers caught on video laughing about a disabled military veteran who urinated on himself after he was...

www.dallasnews.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ When one continuously loses against a Mouse ]

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has had enough of his war against 'woke’ Disney.

“Where we are today, you know, we’ve basically moved on,” DeSantis said during an interview Monday evening on CNBC’s “Last Call.”

DeSantis proceeded to urge Disney to drop its "government retaliation" lawsuit against the state—as if that didn't sound desperate after making his “War on woke” a central pillar of his 2024 presidential bid.

“They’re suing the state of Florida, they’re going to lose that lawsuit. So what I would say is, drop the lawsuit,” DeSantis said, giving Disney free legal advice it surely neither wants nor needs.

As part of his persuasion campaign, DeSantis then took credit for Disney's profits.

“No one has made Disney more money recently than me,” DeSantis claimed. “Because during COVID, they were open in Florida.”

Hear that, Bob Iger? No one. Not exactly nailing the charm offensive, is he?


In actuality, DeSantis has been outmaneuvered by the iconic American corporation ever since the governor retaliated against it after Disney's CEO criticizedDeSantis' fascist "Don't Say Gay" bill, which seeks to chill all speech about queer Americans in educational settings.

In June, the governor asked a federal judge to dismiss Disney’s lawsuit, arguing that he and the head of the state's Department of Economic Opportunity are "immune" from being sued. Now it appears DeSantis is trying to publicly wriggle out of the lawsuit after railing against the company on the campaign trail and pledging in May to never retreat from his fight against Disney.

"The chance of us backing down from that is zero,"DeSantis said in Manchester, New Hampshire, a day after Disney announced it was abandoning a $1 billion investment in building a new campus in Orlando. Disney plans to invest $17 billion in Florida over the next decade, "which is what the state should want us to do," Iger said during the company's second-quarter earnings call in July.

Other businesses have already begun canceling events due to Florida's discriminatory laws, costing the Sunshine State millions in convention business, which is a key economic driver for the state. It could be just the tip of the iceberg. Ask North Carolina, which is estimated to have lost billions in revenues after Republicans pushed through an anti-transgender "bathroom bill."

More headlines along those lines can't look good on the campaign trail for a governor who supposedly gets stuff done. Disney, by the way, is the single biggest driver of Florida's largest industry: tourism.

DeSantis on his ‘woke’ war against Disney: Never mind

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has had enough of his war against 'woke’ Disney. “Where we are today, you know, we’ve basically moved on,” DeSantis said during an interview Monday evening on CNBC��

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[Sixties Fan]

[ Republicans, always trying to win an election by cutting Black people's right to vote. And then they wonder why most Black people will not vote for them ]

• In Virginia, the Chesapeake City Council voted to approve just four early voting satellite locations, cutting the total number of locations by two and eliminating a community center location in a heavily-Black area.

Democracy Docket

 

[Sixties Fan]

Female support for Republican candidates is dropping in direct relation to increased conservative efforts to deny them their rights. Republicans should’ve romped in the 2022 midterm elections given high inflation and President Joe Biden’s low approval ratings, yet Democrats won the female vote 53-45. Considering that women make up a majority of the electorate (52% in 2022), Republicans can’t afford to keep bleeding their support.

A fully functioning Republican Party would figure out why it’s losing support among women and recalibrate its politics to better appeal to them. But the Republican Party is not fully functioning, and the fringe conservative response has been to advocate for women to lose their right to vote.

That is self-evidently idiotic. Of course universal suffrage isn’t going anywhere, and it obviously alienates persuadable women. But it is even more potentially self-defeating than that: At least one MAGA woman has decided to stop voting in response.


“I asked my husband if he wanted me to vote this year, he said going forward he doesn’t want me to vote … and I couldn’t be more relieved,” said Reformed-Her 007, a conservative woman, in a viral tweet viewed over 3 million times and posted on Reddit’s Leopards Ate My Face sub. “I truly think things like voting and law enforcement should be reserved for MEN ONLY.”

(vide tweets online)

For anyone trapped in the MAGA information bubble, this isn’t an unreasonable belief. Consider incel ringleader Nick Fuentes, who claims that “women don’t have the right to vote” and has made stripping women of all their rights a key tenet of his popular misogynistic message.

John Gibbs, a Donald Trump-backed Republican House candidate in Michigan last year,, once wrote,

“Some argue that in a democratic society, it is hypocritical or unjust for women, who are 50% of the population, not to have the vote. This is obviously not true, since the founding fathers, who understood liberty and democracy better than anyone, did not believe so. In addition, all people under age 18 cannot vote, although they too comprise a significant portion of the population. So we cannot say that women should be able to vote simply because they are a large part of the population.”

Claiming that communism and feminism were linked, he concluded that “increasing the size and scope of government is unequivocally bad. And since women's suffrage has caused this to occur on a larger scale than any other cause in history, we conclude that the United States has suffered as a result of women's suffrage.” Gibbs thankfully lost his election

From Lauren Witzke, the Republican Senate candidate in Delaware in 2020: “In regards to women voting, that was the worst thing to happen to America. Look at us now. Women overwhelmingly vote on their emotions. And the liberals are very good at appealing to their emotions.” She also lost.

Southern Baptist religious leaders certainly don’t think women should have any rights, including the right to vote. Responding to an MSNBC story about high female turnout and the bloc’s Democratic vote, one conservative minister tweeted, “Yes, women are more easily deceived than men … yes, the 19th Amendment [granting women the right to vote] was a bad idea.

Ann Coulter, who has otherwise tried to distance herself from MAGA Trumpism, would happily surrender her own vote, literally. “Yeah, I’d give up my vote in a heartbeat as long as the rest of you stop voting ...” she told students at Missouri State University back in 2021. “Women see the government as their husbands. I mean when you look at the Democrats getting in there and spending $4 trillion ... wherever women are given the vote in whatever state, in whatever country you see spending going through the roof.”

And the Republican Party is happy to spotlight personalities hostile to universal suffrage. “What is the most controversial thing you believe?” anti-abortion activist Abby Johnson was asked on Twitter. Her response was, “I would support bringing back household voting. How anti-feminist of me.” She was then a featured speaker at the 2020 Republican National Convention a month or so later.

“Household voting,” of course, is the idea that the man decides everyone’s vote—something that is actually a real thing. Single women are far more likely to vote Democratic than married ones. Asked to clarify if the spouses disagreed on a candidate, Johnson replied, “Then they would have to decide on one vote. In a Godly household, the husband would get the final say.”

And in case you were wondering, none of this is anything new. Republicans were bemoaning the female vote a decade ago.

Conservative woman listens to MAGA chauvinists, decides not to vote

Female support for Republican candidates is dropping in direct relation to increased conservative efforts to deny them their rights. Republicans should’ve romped in the 2022 midterm elections ...

www.dailykos.com