Trump likely committed felony with plan to obstruct Congress, U.S. judge rules

Reuters

Trump likely committed felony with plan to obstruct Congress, U.S. judge rules

Jan Wolfe – March 28, 2022

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump holds a rally to contest the certification of the 2020 U.S. presidential election results by the U.S. Congress in Washington

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. judge ruled on Monday that former President Donald Trump “more likely than not” committed a felony by trying to pressure his vice president to obstruct Congress and overturn his election defeat on Jan. 6, 2021.

The assertion was in a ruling that found the House of Representatives committee probing the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol has a right to see emails written to Trump by one of his then-lawyers, John Eastman. The judge said that Trump’s plan to overturn his defeat amounted to a “coup.”

“The Court finds it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021,” U.S. District Judge David Carter in Los Angeles said in a written decision.

Representatives of Trump and Los Angeles-based Eastman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Carter has no power to bring criminal charges against Trump. That decision would need to be made by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, for violations of federal law.

The Capitol riot occurred as then-Vice President Mike Pence and members of both chambers of Congress were meeting to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s November 2020 election win.

“Dr. Eastman and President Trump launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history,” Carter wrote. “Their campaign was not confined to the ivory tower – it was a coup in search of a legal theory.”

The Democratic-led committee was formed to investigate last year’s Capitol attack by thousands of Trump supporters, more than 750 of whom have been charged criminally.

The committee said earlier this month it believed Trump may have committed multiple felonies.

Before the mob stormed the Capitol, Trump gave a fiery speech in which he falsely claimed his election defeat was the result of widespread fraud, an assertion rejected by multiple courts, state election officials and members of his own administration.

(Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Scott Malone and Grant McCool)

Navalny won’t be freed until Putin is gone, top aide says


Axios

Navalny won’t be freed until Putin is gone, top aide says

Dave Lawler – March 27, 2022

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s new sentence — nine years in a more remote prison colony — could potentially endanger his life and sever his contacts with the outside world, according to Vladimir Ashurkov, the director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.

Driving the news: Navalny protested Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in court and on social media before a judge handed down the sentence, on fraud charges that were widely seen as politically motivated. Navalny has been in prison since returning to Russia in January 2021 after recuperating from an assassination attempt by Russia’s security services.

What he’s saying: “Yes, we are dismayed by the sentence. But we knew that with Putin in power it’s unlikely that Alexei can get out. So it’s important for us to continue our work,” Ashurkov told Axios in a Zoom interview from London, where he lives in exile.

  • The foundation continues to post investigations into the alleged wealth and corruption of Kremlin insiders, most recently of a $700 million yacht linked to Putin.
  • And Navalny, who has faced harsh treatment in prison and held a three-week hunger strike last year to demand proper medical care, has remained one of Putin’s sharpest critics. “He is thin, he is frail, but he is as fiery as ever,” Ashurkov said.

Up to now, Navalny’s lawyers have been able to visit him at his prison colony outside Moscow for around an hour each day, during which time he could write and receive messages from his family and colleagues and help guide the work of his organization.

  • He will now be moved to a more secure and more remote facility. It’s unclear whether he will appear regularly in court, or have steady access to his lawyers — who were briefly detained following his sentencing on Tuesday.
  • “This trickle of communication and information has been vital for us,” Ashurkov said. “It’s possible this will be taken away.”

Asked about Navalny’s personal safety, Ashurkov noted that he is himself in danger even in London.

Ashurkov in 2018. Photo: Chris J. Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty

  • “Nobody has any doubt that Russian security services can undertake assassinations in any part of the world. We’ve seen it in Germany, we’ve seen it in U.K. So a Russian prison cell is not a secure place — it’s probably the least secure place.”
  • Ashurkov left Russia in 2014 after facing politically motivated charges for his work with Navalny. The entire Anti-Corruption Foundation moved its staff and operations to Lithuania last year after being declared an “extremist” organization.
  • Ashurkov noted that many more Russians are moving into exile as Putin steps up his repression at home during the invasion in Ukraine. “Any dissident, any independent voice in Russia is unfortunately in great danger.”

What’s next: Navalny is calling for protests over the Ukraine invasion, and Ashurkov expects a new wave of demonstrations to begin in the next few months as sanctions bite and discontent over the war grows. He believes that will destabilize the regime and, over time, lead to its downfall.

  • His team is preparing for that day to ensure it has a “seat at the table” when the direction of post-Putin Russia is set.

The bottom line: “People who are involved in Russian opposition politics have learned not to expect quick wins. They are in for the long run and have braced for long battles.”

Why autocrats fail

Palm Beach Daily News

Why autocrats fail

David Brooks – March 27, 2022

Joe Biden correctly argues that the struggle between democracy and autocracy is the defining conflict of our time. So which system performs better under stress?

For the last several years the autocracies seemed to have the upper hand. In autocracy, power is centralized. Leaders can respond to challenges quickly, shift resources decisively. China showed that autocracies can produce mass prosperity. Autocracy has made global gains and democracy continues to decline.

In democracies, on the other hand, power is decentralized, often polarized and paralytic. The American political system has become distrusted and dysfunctional. A homegrown would-be autocrat won the White House. Academics have written popular books with titles like “How Democracies Die.”

Yet the past few weeks have been revelatory. It’s become clear that when it comes to the most important functions of government, autocracy has severe weaknesses. This is not an occasion for democratic triumphalism; it’s an occasion for a realistic assessment of authoritarian ineptitude and perhaps instability. What are those weaknesses?

The wisdom of many is better than the wisdom of megalomaniacs. In any system, one essential trait is: How does information flow? In democracies, policymaking is usually done more or less in public and there are thousands of experts offering facts and opinions. Many economists last year said inflation would not be a problem but Larry Summers and others said it would and they turn out to have been right. We still make mistakes but the system learns.

Often in autocracies, decisions are made within a small, closed circle. Information flows are distorted by power. No one tells the top man what he doesn’t want to hear. The Russian intelligence failure about Ukraine has been astounding. Vladimir Putin understood nothing about what the Ukrainian people wanted, how they would fight or how his own army had been ruined by corruption and kleptocrats.

People want their biggest life. Human beings these days want to have full, rich lives and make the most of their potential. The liberal ideal is that people should be left as free as possible to construct their own ideal. Autocracies restrict freedom for the sake of order. So many of the best and brightest are now fleeing Russia. The American ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, points out that Hong Kong is suffering a devastating brain drain. Bloomberg reports, “The effects of the brain drain in sectors such as education, health care and even finance will likely be felt by residents for years to come.” American institutions now have nearly as many top-tier AI researchers from China as from the United States. Given the chance, talented people will go where fulfillment lies.

Organization man turns into gangster man. People rise through autocracies by ruthlessly serving the organization, the bureaucracy. That ruthlessness makes them aware others may be more ruthless and manipulative, so they become paranoid and despotic. They often personalize power so they are the state, and the state is them. Any dissent is taken as a personal affront. They may practice what scholars call “negative selection.” They don’t hire the smartest and best people. Such people might be threatening. They hire the dimmest and the most mediocre. You get a government of third-raters (witness the leaders of the Russian military).

Ethnonationalism self-inebriates. Everybody worships something. In a liberal democracy, worship of the nation is balanced by the love of liberal ideals. With the demise of communism, authoritarianism lost a major source of universal values. National glory is pursued with intoxicating fundamentalism.

Putin seems to believe Russia is exceptional on front after front and “on the march.” This kind of crackpot nationalism deludes people into pursuing ambitions far beyond their capacity.

Government against the people is a recipe for decline. Democratic leaders, at least in theory, serve their constituents. Autocratic leaders, in practice, serve their own regime and longevity, even if it means neglecting their people. Thomas J. Bollyky, Tara Templin and Simon Wigley illustrate how life expectancy improvements have slowed in countries that have recently transitioned to autocracies. A study of more than 400 dictators across 76 countries by Richard Jong-A-Pin and Jochen O. Mierau found that a one-year increase in a dictator’s age decreases his nation’s economic growth by 0.12 percentage points.

When the Soviet Union fell, we learned that the CIA had overstated the Soviet economy and Soviet military might. It’s just very hard to successfully run a big society through centralized power.

To me, the lesson is that even when we’re confronting so-far successful autocracies like China, we should learn to be patient and trust our liberal democratic system. When we are confronting imperial aggressors like Putin, we should trust the ways we are responding now. If we steadily, patiently and remorselessly ramp up the economic, technological and political pressure, the weaknesses inherent in the regime will grow and grow.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Donald Trump Asked Kid Rock About North Korea and There Is No Bottom

Daily Beast

Donald Trump Asked Kid Rock About North Korea and There Is No Bottom

The Daily Beast – March 27, 2022

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty

Summing up the Republicans’ appalling conduct at the Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation hearing, and Sen. Mike Braun’s interview where he said interracial marriage should be a question for the states, The New Abnormal co-host Molly Jong-Fast says “they’re never gonna be happy. They’re not gonna be happy when they take away abortion. They wanna go back to antebellum times. This ends with less and less rights.”

That’s anything but a joke, but “it’s funny because I remember thinking before the 2016 election, ‘Well, Trump won’t get elected,’ but even when he did I thought, ‘Wow, it’s so terrible, but they’ll get what they want and they’ll see how much it sucks.’ And they didn’t. They were thrilled. And then when Trump started killing his own people and telling them that the virus wasn’t a big deal, I thought, ‘Well, he’ll kill his own people. And they’ll see this guy’s a monster,’ but it seems like he can pretty much do anything. These Republicans can pretty much do anything and (their supporters) don’t notice that it’s against their interests.”

If not antebellum times, says co-host Andy Levy, “the most charitable thing you can say about them is that they want to go back to the 1950s. That’s the latest time-frame you can give them. They all think that the 1950s were grand, with the white picket fences and the nuclear families that all loved each other and to them, that’s the garden of Eden that they don’t care that first of all never really existed. And second of all, to the extent that existed, it existed for white Christians only, and it wasn’t even so great for white Christian women. But they don’t care, that’s their end game.”

Meantime, Kid Rock of all damn people is boasting about how Donald Trump would call him up after Sarah Palin introduced him and Ted Nugent to the president, and ask things like “What do you think we could do about North Korea?”

“I’m like, What? I don’t think I’m qualified to answer this.”

Then again, it could always be worse with this set. As Molly asks, “Do you think Kid Rock is stupider than Junior?” And, notes Andy, at least Kid Rock “was self-aware enough to know that he shouldn’t be talking, giving advice about North Korea.”

Plus, Florida Agriculture Commissioner and gubernatorial candidate Nikki Fried—who went to high school with Judge Jackson—joins to explain how she won office in a red state and her bid to become its first female governor. She says the party needs to “follow my lead” to win again in the Sunshine State:

“The Democrats need to understand, once again, that it is always about the economy—it always has been and always will be. Of course, we have to stand up and we have to fight and we have to advocate for our people and our principles. But at the end of the day, the people of our state want leaders. They don’t want their elected officials to be falling into these cultural war traps, which Republicans are trying to do. We have an opportunity under my leadership to bring our party together, to unite our party and to fight for fundamental principles that—you know, might have been electing Republican governors for 25 years, but it’s by the smallest of margins by, by less than one percent, Ron DeSantis won by 34,000 votes out of almost 8.3 million votes.”

Fried concludes: “So to say that our state is red is not consistent with how we vote. And for those same 25 years, the people of our state have consistently voted for very progressive constitutional amendments, from a $15 minimum wage to medical marijuana to environmental issues to restoration of civil rights. But we as Democrats have not done a good enough job running campaigns, and making sure we are on the same page as the rest of the people of our state. So we have to take some playbooks by the Republicans on the economy, on home rule, on the free market. But really we’ve got to rise above this chaos and this nonsense and be ready to fight. There’s no one out there who doesn’t know that I am willing and able to throw punches. And most of the times I land them, and make the governor squirm every time that we are in the same room together. And that’s what it’s going to take to stand up against this bully and show the people of our state that there is a better way to lead.”

Clarence Thomas was the lone dissent in the Supreme Court’s January order rejecting Trump’s bid to withhold documents from the January 6 panel

Insider

Clarence Thomas was the lone dissent in the Supreme Court’s January order rejecting Trump’s bid to withhold documents from the January 6 panel

Erin Snodgrass – March 24, 2022

clarence thomas
Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas.Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
  • Text messages reportedly show Ginni Thomas urging Mark Meadows to overturn the 2020 US election.
  • The news prompted scrutiny on Clarence Thomas’ lone dissent in a January 6-related case.
  • Ginni Thomas has long participated in partisan politics despite her husband’s role on the court.

In January, the Supreme Court rejected former President Donald Trump’s bid to block the release of some presidential records to the House committee investigating the Capitol riot.

Only one of the nine justices dissented: Clarence Thomas.

At the time, Thomas provided no explanation for why he would have approved Trump’s request — a standard omission when the top court addresses emergency motions.

But Thomas’ objection fell under scrutiny Thursday after several outlets reported that the justice’s wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, sent text messages to Mark Meadows, then the White House chief of staff, urging him to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the aftermath of Trump’s loss to Joe Biden.

The Washington Post reported that in a message from November 6, 2020, Ginni Thomas told Meadows not to concede the election, saying “it takes time for the army who is gathering for his back.” In a message November 10, 2020, Ginni Thomas declared Biden’s win “the greatest Heist of our History.”

In total, Ginni Thomas and Meadows exchanged 29 texts from November 2020 to January 2021, the outlet reported, all of which are now part of the trove of evidence the January 6 panel is investigating.

Meadows and Ginni Thomas didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment from Insider.

CNN reported Thursday that the committee obtained the texts from Meadows. The former Trump official is believed to have turned over thousands of text messages before he stopped cooperating with the House panel late last year.

Ahead of the Supreme Court’s order on Trump’s White House documents, Meadows filed a supporting brief in favor of blocking the release of documents.

Ginni Thomas has come under scrutiny in recent months over her conservative advocacy given her husband’s position on the nation’s highest court. Earlier this month, she acknowledged attending the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the Capitol attack but said she got cold and left before Trump spoke.

She also denied having ties to the organizers of the rally after several news outlets reported that she was connected to January 6 rally organizers and served on the board of a conservative group that promoted overturning the 2020 election results.

Ginni Thomas has long been an active participant in partisan politics. In a recent interview with the Washington Free Beacon, she said she and her husband had their “own separate careers, and our own ideas and opinions too.”

“Clarence doesn’t discuss his work with me, and I don’t involve him in my work,” she said.

Donald Trump looks increasingly like a stray orange hair to be flicked off the nation’s sleeve

Washington Post – Opinion

Donald Trump looks increasingly like a stray orange hair to be flicked off the nation’s sleeve

By George F. Will, Columnist – March 4, 2022

Floundering in his attempts to wield political power while lacking a political office, Donald Trump looks increasingly like a stray orange hair to be flicked off the nation’s sleeve. His residual power, which he must use or lose, is to influence his party’s selection of candidates for state and federal offices. This is, however, perilous because he has the power of influence only if he is perceived to have it. That perception will dissipate if his interventions in Republican primaries continue to be unimpressive.

So, Trump must try to emulate the protagonist of “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.” In Mark Twain’s novel, a 19th-century American is transported back in time to Britain in the year 528. He gets in trouble, is condemned to death, but remembers that a solar eclipse occurred on the date of his scheduled execution. He saves himself by vowing to extinguish the sun but promising to let it shine again if his demands are met.

Trump is faltering at the business of commanding outcomes that are, like Twain’s eclipse, independent of his interventions. Consider the dilemma of David Perdue.

He is a former Republican senator because Trump, harping on the cosmic injustice of his November loss in 2020, confused and demoralized Georgia Republicans enough to cause Perdue’s defeat by 1.2 percentage points in the January 2021 runoff. Nevertheless, Trump talked Perdue into running in this year’s gubernatorial primary against Georgia’s Republican incumbent, Brian Kemp, whom Trump loathes because Kemp spurned Trump’s demand that Georgia’s presidential vote be delegitimized. In a February poll, Kemp led Perdue by 10 points.

Trump failed in his attempt to boost his preferred Senate candidate in North Carolina, Rep. Ted Budd, by pressuring a rival out of the race. As of mid-January, Budd was trailing in the polls. Trump reportedly might endorse a second Senate candidate in Alabama, his first endorsement, of Rep. Mo Brooks, having been less than earthshaking. Trump has endorsed Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin in the gubernatorial primary against Gov. Brad Little. A poll published in January: Little 59 percent, McGeachin 18 percent. During Trump’s presidency, a majority of Republicans said they were more supporters of Trump than of the GOP. That has now reversed.

Trump is an open book who has been reading himself to the nation for 40 years. In that time, he has changed just one important word in his torrent of talk: He has replaced “Japan” with “China” in assigning blame for our nation’s supposed anemia. He is an entertainer whose repertoire is stale.

A European war is unhelpful for Trump because it reminds voters that Longfellow was right: Life is real, life is earnest. Trump’s strut through presidential politics was made possible by an American reverie; war in Europe has reminded people that politics is serious.

From Capitol Hill to city halls, Democrats have presided over surges of debtinflationcrimepandemic authoritarianism and educational intolerance. Public schools, a point of friction between citizens and government, are hostages of Democratic-aligned teachers unions that have positioned K-12 education in an increasingly adversarial relationship with parents. The most lethal threat to Democrats, however, is the message Americans are hearing from the party’s media-magnified progressive minority: You should be ashamed of your country.

Trump’s message is similar. He says this country is saturated with corruption, from the top, where dimwits represent the evidently dimwitted voters who elected them, down to municipalities that conduct rigged elections. Progressives say the nation’s past is squalid and not really past; Trump says the nation’s present is a disgrace.

Speaking of embarrassments: We are the sum of our choices, and Vladimir Putin has provoked some Trump poodles to make illuminating ones. Their limitless capacity for canine loyalty now encompasses the Kremlin war criminal. (The first count against Nazi defendants at Nuremberg: “Planning, preparation, initiation and waging of wars of aggression.”) For example, the vaudevillian-as-journalist Tucker Carlson, who never lapses into logic, speaks like an arrested-development adolescent: Putin has never called me a racist, so there.

J.D. Vance, groveling for Trump’s benediction (Vance covets Ohio’s Republican Senate nomination), two weeks ago said: “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine.” Apparently upon discovering that Ohio has 43,000 Ukrainian Americans, Vance underwent a conviction transplant, saying, “Russia’s assault on Ukraine is unquestionably a tragedy,” and emitting clouds of idolatry for Trump’s supposedly Metternichian diplomacy regarding Putin.

For Trump, the suppurating wound on American life, and for those who share his curdled venom, war is a hellacious distraction from their self-absorption. Fortunately, their ability to be major distractions is waning.

Russia, are you listening?

John Hanno, tarbabys.com – February 22, 2022

No one seems to know why your President wants to invade your sovereign neighbor to the West. Maybe Russia has run out of riches Vlad and his buddies can siphon off and send over to Democratic nations to be laundered.

Reports are that Vladimir Putin is one of the richest Kleptocrats in the world, with between $85 and $100 billion in net worth. That’s quite an accomplishment on a reported government salary of about $250,000 a year, even after a 20 year run as Pillager in Chief.

Although that seems like more than enough money for any one person to squander for at least a couple of hundred lifetimes, some people are just not satisfied with any amount of wealth. We have someone in America who’s exactly like that, and is a matter of fact one of Vlad’s best buds.

America’s deposed ex-president, Donald J. Moneybags, has been bragging about his worth, for as long as he’s foisted his material ego on the American public, even before the Apprentice T.V. show. But news flash, the Donald’s accounting firm Mazars USA just trimmed his sales and his purported net worth, claiming that the last decade of financial statements they prepared were, not surprisingly, unreliable. His accountants rude awakening probably had something to do with the investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James and a hearing this week in a Manhattan court.

A.G. James is investigating whether Trump or the Trump Organization falsified asset values to obtain loans, to bamboozle investors, and to pay lower taxes.

During the hearing, state Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump, his daughter Ivanka Trump and son Donald Trump Jr. to comply with the A.G’s subpoenas and to testify under oath about the Trump organization’s business practices.  

Engoron stated in the ruling, that when a state Attorney General investigates a “business entity, uncovers copious evidence of possible financial fraud, and wants to question, under oath, several of the entities’ principals, including its namesake,” they have a right and a duty to do so. Apparently Mazars sees the writing on the wall, has unceremoniously kicked trump to the curb and is going into full self preservation mode.

Maybe Vlad Putin is just a school-yard bully who wants to beat up on the neighborhood weakling and take his lunch money, because well, he just can.

Vlad Farkus

Vlad’s Cousin Skut Farkus

This reminds me of the movie “Christmas Story”, in which Ralphie and his school-mates Flick and Schwartz are tormented by the neighborhood bullies Scut Farkus and Grover Dill.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is l-intro-1644963695.jpg
Scut Farkus and Grover Dill waylay Ralphie and his friends on their way home from school

Ralphie, his little brother and school-mates are confronted by Farkus

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Ralphie and his mates are terrified of the bullies.

But Ralphie eventually decides he’s taken the bullying and a beating once too often. He finally snaps and beats up Farkus, giving him a black eye and a bloody nose. The Ukrainian people might have reached that same juncture, living under the thumb of their Russian bully.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 475FD70D00000578-0-image-a-43_1513400078899.jpg

Ralphie surprises even himself when he stands up to Farkus.

America, NATO and the European Union have emphatically stated that should Putin invade their sovereign neighbor, they will help Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his country men and women, give Putin and his 190,000 lackeys two nasty public black eyes and a world-wide size financial bloody nose. Those threatened sanction have as yet not dissuaded Putin from his military buildup but may still avert a war that no one can win.

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Vlad, er Scut will rue the day they pick on the weakling.

It’s hard to discern what goes through the head of a megalomaniac like Putin. The world has been under assault from the coronavirus pandemic for more that two years, almost a million Americans have perished and more that 6 million world-wide, but Putin has decided this is a perfect time to start World War III. The civilized world wonders what kind of a human being is this.

We’re trying to dissect the addled mine of our own egomaniac ex president Donald J. Trump. After losing handily to Joe Biden in 2020, and in spite of more than 60 U.S. courts (including our Supreme Court) having ruled against his efforts to challenge that fair election, he conspired to illegally overturn the election by inciting an insurrection, by firing-up his MAGA storm-troopers to attack our Nations Capitol, assault it’s defenders and hang his own vice president.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is xmas_bully.png

And trump’s lackeys in the U.S. Congress still fawn over him with unwavering devotion.

We must apologize to the Russian people for not doing a better job of prosecuting their Kleptocrats who violate international money laundering laws, but it’s not for the lack of trying. Unfortunately there are some business and political leaders in our country who flaunt those laws and hinder the prosecution of those criminals enterprises.

I believe the primary reason Putin has decided now is the time to invade the Ukraine, is because their burgeoning Democratic Westward leanings are a threat to his tight grip on his Russian monopoly and money train. If the Russian populace can sort through the propaganda maze enough to see what life could be under a more Democratic governance, we might witness another Russian revolution.

We understand it won’t be easy. Putin holds ultimate control over your elections and the media. When Putin is routinely reelected with more than 90% of the vote, it’s virtually impossible for any opposition candidates to win anything. And anyone who stands up to Putin ends up in prison, in a hospital or in a cemetery. We understand that once the right to vote is usurped and the ability to protest against an Autocratic government or criticize a tyrannical despot is stifled, it may be impossible to regain any slim thread of democratic choice.

That’s why our Democratic Party, some true Republicans and those bracing the pillars of our democracy and democratic institutions, are staunchly defending American’s ability to vote and our ability to fairly count those votes. Unfortunately, trump’s Grand Old Party has relinquished constitutional and conservative Democratic principles to an Autocratic self serving cult leader who demands slavish allegiance. The right to vote in America is under assault in dozens of states and endorsed by most of the cowardly republi-cons in Congress.

We know one thing for sure, if trump would have prevailed over Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, Vlad and his 150,000 – 190,000 storm troopers would have already set up camp in Kiev, already begun rounding up opposition leaders, religious leaders and activists who preach Democracy. They would have already begun pillaging Ukraine’s wealth and national treasures, quickly transferred most of it westward for safekeeping and extinguished all civil opposition and inclination towards Democracy.

But in spite of Putin’s stranglehold over every aspect of your society, we know the Russian people are capable of courageous opposition.

Putin blamed the 200,000 protestors who flooded the streets of Moscow in 2014 on Hillary Clinton, but a thirst for Democracy was the real impetus.

Anti-Putin Protests

Britannica: Silencing critics and actions in the West

“On February 27, 2015, opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was gunned down within sight of the Kremlin, just days after he had spoken out against Russian intervention in Ukraine. Nemtsov was only the latest Putin critic to be assassinated or to die under suspicious circumstances. In January 2016 a British public inquiry officially implicated Putin in the 2006 murder of former Federal Security Service (FSB; the successor to the KGB) officer Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko, who had spoken out against Russian government ties to organized crime both before and after his defection to the United Kingdom, was poisoned with polonium-210 while drinking tea in a London hotel bar. Britain ordered the extradition of the two men accused of carrying out the assassination, but both denied involvement and one—Andrey Lugovoy—had since been elected to the Duma and enjoyed parliamentary immunity from prosecution.”

Boris Nemtsov
Flowers, condolence messages, and a memorial photograph marking the spot in Moscow’s Red Square where Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was assassinated on February 27, 2015.
Ivan Sekretarev/AP Images

In January 2021, protests against Putin took place across Russia for imprisoning Alexei Navalny. Navalny, 44 year-old lawyer and anti-corruption campaigner who has dedicated himself to toppling Putin’s reign of terror, has stood fast in spite of being intimidated, poisoned, doused with dye and jailed. Navalny has accused the Russian president of using state cash to enrich himself and his family, including building a £1billion palace at Gelendzhik on the Black Sea.

Russian police are arresting protesters demanding the release of top Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny

Russian police are arresting protesters demanding the release of top Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Credit: AP:Associated Press

The Sun reported in January 2021: “The Kremlin has denied being “afraid” of Navalny and his pro-democracy campaigners but are concerned to act tough to prevent mass support growing for a Ukrainian-style revolution.”

Alexei Navalny and his Supporters

Navalny’s eye will take months to recover after surgery

Alexei Navalny Poisoned
What does Russia represent? How do the Russian people want to be viewed by the entire civilized world.

The latest intelligence reports released by the White House yesterday claim that Putin fully intends to invade their sovereign peaceful neighbor Ukraine and then target activists, journalists, religious leaders and others for extermination or prison camps. This sounds exactly like Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Is this what the Russian people want to be remembered for in history? Hitler’s plan for world domination caused between 20 and 27 million Soviet Union citizens to perish in WW II, from all war related causes, a terrible toll. Where does Putin’s plans for empire stop?

In the U.S. and most of the West, Russia is viewed as a tyrannical Kleptocracy who’s despots stalk and murder civil activists around the world, who imprisons peaceful protestors, and as an international bully who infiltrates and overthrows democratic nations, who engages in cyber warfare in Democratic countries, including meddling in our own democratic elections. Russia represents a failed nation, with an economy less that half of our state of California, less than Italy, a much smaller country. What does Russia manufacture, besides weapons of war? What does Russia export except fossil fuels that pollute the world and contribute to global warming. It seems like the only other things Russia exports is pain, grief, terror and doped athletes, including a talented and tragic 15 year old Olympic skater who probably had no say on what went into her body.

Editorial cartoon

Putin couldn’t care less for anyone or anything but himself and his own ego. Is he attacking his countries own enormous social, civil and financial problems? No, he’s attacking a peaceful neighbor.

We had our own Putinesque Kleptocratic leader who couldn’t care less for his country, its Constitution, it’s laws and institutions, it’s reputation around the world or it’s people. Trump’s “I alone can fix it” motto was as hollow as his promises to MAGA. His main goal was enriching himself and his family.

America came to its senses and kicked it’s Autocratic want-a-be bully to the curb in 2020. He’s not quite gone yet but our Democratic institutions and courts are working around the clock on that. The Republican enablers in our Congress are in full defense mode behind trump’s assault on our Democracy but we have an election this year and another in 2024, so maybe the less radical right trump sycophants will take note of Putin’s Russia death wish and vote for more Democracy minded candidates.

Trump’s MAGA faithful cry “Freedom” at every turn, but they have no idea what real freedom is until they live under a despot like Putin, Hitler or trump. These self-serving Autocrats steal your voice, your vote, your opinion, your thoughts, your humanity and your treasures and wealth.

What a large majority of America’s voters are wondering is, how much better off our country, the world and even the Russian people would be if Hillary Clinton had been elected instead of Donald Trump. Can we even count the ways? A few jump off the page of history; our withdrawal from The Iran Nuclear Treaty and their renewed race for nuclear weapons, ditto The Paris Accord and worsening global warming, and just as important, the assent of Autocratic governments and sympathizers who disdain Democracy, free choice and a real authentic “Freedom.” And Trump’s admiration for Putin only encouraged his expansionist ambitions of Russian empire.

To all the Democratic leaning Russians, activists and empathetic citizens, it’s obvious Putin listens to no one but himself, not his flunkies, his neighbors, the European Union, NATO, the United Nations and especially not the United States, but maybe he’ll listen to the Russian people. He’s amassed almost 200,000 soldiers on your far Western border, more than half of his entire army. This would be an extremely opportunistic time for the Russian people to engage in civil disobedience and peaceful protests. Save the Ukrainian people from a catastrophic invasion, blood bath and refugee crisis. Ukrainians, especially the younger generations dream of a more equitable and Democratic future. Save your Ukrainian brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles and cousins from a more tragic history. And save your own soldiers from coming home in body-bags. Stand up to Putin and change the direction of your Nation, civil society and economic well being. Save the Ukrainians, the Russian people and the entire world from Putin’s diabolical plans of empire.

I did a 2 1/2 year U.S. Army tour in Germany during the height of the early 60’s cold war. I was a Sergeant stationed in a nuclear artillery unit as a communications section chief. We had our nuclear missiles aimed at the Soviets and they had theirs aimed at us. We were on high alert 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. I sometimes feel like I went to sleep almost 60 years ago, just woke up and nothing has changed with Russia; a once great nation with a back-ward looking leader stuck in the 19th century.

I remember one night out with friends; I guess we had too much to drink and I got lost driving. We ended up near the East German border. The thing I remember most vividly was the darkness; very few lights were visible on the East German side. Bleak would be an understatement.

We have too many people in our own country who want to turn off the lights on America’s Democratic experiment; many of them are republi-cons in the U.S. Congress. Courageous American’s will not let them succeed.

The world is wondering what he’s thinking, or if he’s thinking?
Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin on Saturday, February 19 alongside his ally, Belarusian president Lukashenko watched the Russian military perform nuclear drills, while the U.S. announced that Russian forces were ‘poised to strike’ Ukraine. The nuclear bomb drills were carried out simultaneously from the sea, land and the air. 
I’m surprised Putin didn’t use a big fat Sharpie to sign the documents and then show it to the cameras, like Trump’s televised spectacles.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin signs decrees to recognize independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed decrees to recognize independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk. Moscow ordered troops into these areas on Monday, escalating the prospect of outright war between Russia and Ukraine.Alexei Nikolsky/TASS via Getty Images

Note to Mr. Putin: Your false flag operations in Eastern Ukraine aren’t fooling anyone; hopefully the Russian people can see through your propaganda.

Starting a war under false pretenses never turns out well; we proved that by invading Iraq and are still paying the costs and consequences.

And you Mr. Putin should have learned that in Afghanistan; the beginning of the downfall of the Soviet Empire.

You claim the West is against the Russian people, so you believe you alone must reconstitute the Soviet empire in order to save it from the dust bin of history. That’s nonsense. Were against your reckless assault and invasion of sovereign Democratic nations and your disregard of human misery and death.

You want to go down in history as the great leader who brought Russia back from the dead, but the only thing you’ll accomplish is to strengthen the EU, NATO and the worlds resolve in Defending Democracy. You will live in infamy as a radical lunatic who started a needless war and destroyed his country.

Russia are you listening; America are you listening?

You can’t be a Republican by today’s standards if you won’t go along with the ‘Big Lie’

Los Angeles Times

Granderson: You can’t be a Republican by today’s standards if you won’t go along with the ‘Big Lie’

LZ Granderson – November 3, 2021

FILE - In this May 12, 2021 file photo, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., speaks to the media at the Capitol in Washington. Kinzinger a critic of Donald Trump who is one of two Republicans on the panel investigating the deadly Capitol attack, announced Friday, Oct. 29, that he will not seek re-election next year. (AP Photo/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades, File)
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who voted to impeach Donald Trump, announced Friday that he will not seek reelection in 2022. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades / Associated Press)

I first met Rep. Adam Kinzinger nearly 10 years ago at a time in which he was a rising star within the Republican Party. Not only was he in his early 30s and a natural on television, he went into the House with a good deal of gravitas, having served in the Air Force in both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

Over the years, we’ve discussed his views on social issues as well as his thoughts about President Obama’s military strategy. Sometimes I would agree with him, sometimes I would not. But regardless of whether we saw eye to eye on the topic, I always knew where he stood. That’s not to say Kinzinger didn’t play politics. You don’t get to serve six terms in Congress without your share of vague answers and long walks along the party line. But his core principles never changed — he is conservative on gun control, immigration and abortion.

He’s just no longer a Republican.

At least not by today’s standards.

Last week, he became the second Republican House member who voted to impeach President Trump to announce he was not seeking reelection in 2022. He joins Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio), a former college football and NFL star who also came into office with some cachet, only to see it evaporate as his party fell into Trumpism. In response to the Kinzinger news, Trump issued a statement that read in part: “2 down, 8 to go!”

It was like watching Thanos collect another infinity stone during “Avengers: Endgame.”

Consider this: The polling analysis website FiveThirtyEight has Kinzinger voting in support of Trump’s policies more than 90% of the time. He won the Republican primary in 2018 with 68% of the vote and went unopposed in the primary in 2020 and won the general election with more than 64% of the vote. Kinzinger even voted against the first impeachment in 2019. None of that seems to matter. He along with Gonzalez, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and a handful of others now find themselves out of favor with the party because they wouldn’t go along with Trump’s Big Lie.

Talk about what have you done for me lately.

“The Republican establishment now — whether it’s the [National Republican Congressional Committee], whether it’s Kevin McCarthy — have held onto Donald Trump,” Kinzinger said to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. “They have continued to breathe life into him, and so actually, it’s not really handing a win as much to Donald Trump as it is to the cancerous kind of lie and conspiracy — not just wing anymore — but mainstream argument of the Republican Party.”

Kinzinger was supported by the tea party insurgency that fueled the Republican landslide in the 2010 midterm election; it helped him defeat another Republican in the GOP primary in 2012. Those days of being a GOP darling are over.

“It’s not on Liz Cheney and I to save the Republican Party,” Kinzinger said. “It’s on the 190 Republicans who haven’t said a dang word about it, and they put their head in the sand and hope somebody else comes along and does something.”

Yeah, but what exactly?

There hasn’t been a consequential third-party candidate since Ross Perot received 19% of the popular vote in 1992. And while political analysts disproved the theory that Perot cost George H.W. Bush reelection, the truth remains that those 20 million votes Perot received did not go to Bush or Bill Clinton. Given the thin margin of victory in states such as Arizona and Georgia, how comfortable would Kinzinger be as a third-party candidate if his presence opens the door to a second Trump term?

And given Trump’s intense support among the GOP base — and continuing efforts by Republicans to sabotage voting laws — can anyone be sure that Trump won’t secure a second term, even without a third-party spoiler?

This is what makes Kinzinger’s departure so noteworthy. Over the course of one term, he went from rock star to GOP pariah all because he wouldn’t toss his core conservative values off a cliff.

In 2011, Kinzinger was listed on Time magazine’s “40 Under 40” list of future national leaders in American politics. Ten years later, Kinzinger is fulfilling that promise albeit not in the fashion he or the editors of the magazine imagined.

Kinzinger has said this is the end of his career in the House but not in politics. That could mean he’s eyeing a run for an Illinois Senate seat; both are currently held by Democrats. Sen. Richard J. Durbin will be close to 80 when he seeks reelection in 2026. But it’s doubtful Kinzinger will wait that long. Sen. Tammy Duckworth is up for reelection in 2022, but Kinzinger will have a hard time making it through the Republican primary with Trump still hanging over his shoulders.

Perhaps the governor’s office? Maybe president? Whatever Kinzinger decides to do next, one thing is crystal clear: Democrats won’t be his only opponents and facts won’t be much of an ally.

‘It was time to fight back’: My journey from the Republican Party, through grief, to advocacy

USA Today

‘It was time to fight back’: My journey from the Republican Party, through grief, to advocacy

Rachel Vindman – October 31, 2021

On Sept. 27, 2018, I was volunteering in my daughter’s second-grade classroom. My phone was buzzing with updates of Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony during Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing. I remember the day so clearly; after I finished at the school, I sat in my car and listened to a recording of her opening statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

I believed her, and yet my deep skepticism of the news media, my belief in our “system” and my conservative political identity left me searching for reasons to discount her testimony. Maybe she misremembered who had attacked her or the severity of the attack? I could not get her out of my mind. She had displayed such bravery and grace in the face of the ugly and vile attacks.

So began my journey away from the Republican Party.

Grieving and growing

The following month I read Max Boot’s “The Corrosion of Conservatism,” which I couldn’t get out of my head for months. The Trump administration continued to erode my faith in the strength of our American democracy. As a foreign policy expert, my husband did not follow domestic policies and politics like I did, so we didn’t discuss it much; he knew how I felt about President Donald Trump, but he had a job to do, and he has never been one to care about “palace intrigue” and gossip.

The following January, I attended a Women’s March for the first time. I felt like a fraud; Alex and I drove to Washington, D.C., together, and we parked in front of the White House as he went to work in the building while I attended the march. I was plagued with major imposter syndrome!

Rachel Vindman is a wife, mom, podcast host, writer and activist.
Rachel Vindman is a wife, mom, podcast host, writer and activist.

Then, a mere 13 months after Ford’s testimony, it was my family in the eye of the storm, weathering ugly and vile attacks and withering criticism from the president and some lawmakers as my husband, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, testified during Trump’s first impeachment.

As I sat awake in the early hours of Oct. 29, 2019, I realized something. I didn’t leave the Republican Party. It left me.

Alexander Vindman: The White House staffer who sparked Trump’s 1st impeachment, tells his story

The first days and months after Alex’s testimonies were acutely uncertain and scary. It reminded me of my mother’s cancer diagnosis or my very high-risk pregnancy with our surviving daughter; at first your head spins as you process the news, then you learn to live in the storm despite being terrified. There is no other choice because children must be fed, bills must be paid and life needs to be lived. So you figure out how to put one foot in front of the other. It’s the story of women since time immemorial.

This period lasted for almost a year. Only in looking back at it now can I see how awful it was; we were going through the stages of grief and we could only speak to very close family and advisers. Thankfully we had each other, but the isolation took a heavy toll. A few weeks into my husband’s retirement in the summer of 2020, I heard about another journalist – one I have followed for a long time – whose life and family were being threatened. That was my moment. I remember where I was when I heard the story and I made the decision right there: I would no longer be silent.

"The first days and months after Alex’s testimonies were acutely uncertain and scary," writes Rachel Vindman.
“The first days and months after Alex’s testimonies were acutely uncertain and scary,” writes Rachel Vindman.

It was time to fight back, publicly and in a way that honored and reflected what my family and those close to me had endured. It was important to me to speak out in ways that were a genuine reflection of who I am in real life. I want my family and close friends to see me on TV or read something I wrote and think, “Yes, that’s Rachel.”

So I proudly joined a movement of women who were using their voices and talents to fight for the things that mattered most to them. I began to engage and found more ways to promote democracy, amplify women’s voices and ensure my voice is heard in my local community as well as on a national level.

The best me for this season of my life

It is hard to articulate the sense of freedom and empowerment I experienced once I began speaking out and working on causes and issues that are important to me. Every week on my podcast, “The Suburban Women Problem,” we speak to every day women who are making a difference in their communities, and every week I am inspired. For me, a huge part of telling their stories is talking about the good and the bad: what motivates us and how we came to this work while also discussing the difficult parts. Like so many others, I have guilt over adding more responsibilities and activities to my already full calendar – if you’re reading this and you’re waiting on me for a response to an email or something else I owe you, know you are not alone.

Rachel and Alex Vindman in their Virginia home.
Rachel and Alex Vindman in their Virginia home.

I have lost friends due to my activism. There are even those who supported us during the impeachment saga but have since distanced themselves because they do not understand why I refuse to return to my “regular” life. To them I simply say this is the most authentic version of Rachel Vindman for this season of my life. I don’t know how long this moment will last, but I am committed to doing all I can do now.

More than two decades ago, I was hiking near the Sea of Galilee. The main part of the hike was through a river bed that was filled with softball-size rocks that were impossible to stand on so my companions and I were forced to constantly move forward or we would lose our balance and fall. I tried to stop once, and I fell. I still have the scar as a reminder that I must keep moving forward. The scenery and companions change throughout the years, but our goal should remain the same. Keep moving forward.

Rachel Vindman is a wife, mom, podcast host, writer and activist.

tarbabys blog hacked !

John Hanno October 30, 2021

Dear tarbabys blog readers:

The Tarbaby’s Blog was hacked about 6 weeks ago. Our webhost IONOS has been trying to correct the problems, but have still been unable to fix the posting issues, so please be patient. I’m way behind in posting and will try to catch up in the next few weeks.

Whether posting and debating about the coronavirus and public health, the environment and the catastrophic consequences of global warming and climate change, the threats to America’s Democratic institutions, politics, voter suppression and intimidation, Veterans advocacy, fair labor practices or a long list of vital social and economic issues, truth tellers become a target for those who would like to silence public debate and speaking truth to power. We will not be silenced. Please stay tuned.