Category: Latest News

Wave of departures leaves federal court seats for Biden to fill

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A growing number of federal judges have announced their departures in the weeks since President Biden was sworn in, giving the new administration an early opportunity to start making inroads into former President Trump’s success at filling the judiciary with conservative judges.

There are currently 57 vacancies in the federal district and appellate courts and another 20 seats that will become vacant in the coming months. At least 25 of those vacancies were announced after Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

The group of departures includes Emmet Sullivan, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by former President Clinton in 1994. Sullivan presided over several high-profile cases during the Trump era, including the prosecution of Michael Flynn on charges that the former White House national security adviser had lied to the FBI about his conversations with a Russian diplomat during Trump’s transition period. Continue reading.

Before the insurrection, Alex Jones told MAGAites Biden is a ‘slave of satan’ who ‘will be removed one way or another’

InfoWars’ Alex Jones, a notorious conspiracy theorist who has been kicked off multiple platforms for his extremism, was welcomed onto the stage at a Dec. 12 “prayer rally” organized by religious-right supporters of former President Donald Trump’s effort to stay in power as well as a Jan. 5 rally in Washington, D.C., the day before the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Jones was in sync with the rallies’ themes of Christian nationalism and rebellion intertwined with the persona and presidency of Donald Trump.

At the Dec. 12 “prayer rally,” Jones said that God had raised up Trump and that Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and other “miserable globalists” are “slaves of Satan.” Jones said he didn’t know who would be going to White House in January, but he did know this: “Joe Biden is a globalist, and Joe Biden will be removed one way or another.”

At the Jan. 5 rally on the eve of the insurrection, Jones said that God had sent Donald Trump as a “deliverer.” He said the following day would be “Waterloo” for the “globalists” he said were behind the election fraud. He concluded by screaming, “The globalists are in fear! The globalists want to play God! They are not God! And the answer to their 1984 tyranny is 1776! 1776! 1776! 1776!” Continue reading.

Impeachment trial: Research spanning decades shows language can incite violence

Senators, acting in the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump that begins on Feb. 9, will soon have to decide whether to convict the former president for inciting a deadly, violent insurrection at the Capitol building on Jan. 6. 

A majority of House members, including 10 Republicans, took the first step in the two-step impeachment process in January. They voted to impeach Trump, for “incitement of insurrection.” Their resolution states that he “willfully made statements that, in context, encourage – and foreseeably resulted in – lawless action at the Capitol, such as: ‘if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore.’” 

Impeachment proceedings that consider incitement to insurrection are rare in American history. Yet dozens of legislators – including some Republicans – say that Trump’s actions leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol contributed to an attempted insurrection against American democracy itself.  Continue reading.

Viral video shows Marjorie Taylor Greene on January 5 saying ‘get ready to fight for America tomorrow’

Less than 24 hours before thousands of Trump supporters would storm the U.S. Capitol in an armed and deadly insurrection Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) stood with that same building in the background and told MAGA adherents to “get ready to fight for America tomorrow.”

Greene, a racist and QAnon conspiracy theorist who has not stopped making incendiary remarks even after being stripped of her committee assignments last week, also told supporters, “Trump was re-elected for four more years,” which is a lie, part of the Big Lie Trump and his cult have been spreading since the November election.

The Congresswoman, who last week told her colleagues in the House that she was “allowed to believe” the QAnon cult claims to were real, also falsely claims the Electoral College vote was “stolen.” Continue reading.

Marjorie Taylor Greene and the death of the public political apology

When Georgia representative and sometime QAnon enthusiastMarjorie Taylor Greene met with fellow House Republicans on Feb. 3, she may have apologized. Or she may not have.

During the closed-door meeting in which Greene’s conspiracy theory beliefs came up, we don’t know exactly what went down because, well, it was behind closed doors. 

Speaking after the event, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy described Greene’s remarks as an apology, saying that Greene had denounced her previous statements and social media postings – which included the idea that mass school shootings are “false flag” operations and that California forest fires were started by Jewish space lasers – and that “she said she was wrong.”  Continue reading.

Newly Released Emails Show Trump Appointees Tried To Slow Virus Testing

Newly released emails written by a former Trump administration official show just how deep the effort to slow down the testing of Americans for the coronavirus went, as political appointees sought to meet Donald Trump’s demand to make the number of cases look smaller in an effort to bolster his reelection chances.

The emails were released by the House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis, which has been investigating Trump’s failed pandemic response. The Washington Post first reported on the emails, which the committee says prove there was political interference in the Trump administration’s virus response efforts.

The emails were sent by Paul Alexander, a Trump political appointee who was behind an effort to get the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to stop testing asymptomatic people who had been exposed to the coronavirus. Alexander was the same official who Politico reported in December was behind the push for a “herd immunity” strategy, in which Alexander wanted millions of people to be infected with the coronavirus to build community resistance to it and end the pandemic — a strategy public health officials said was dangerous and could have led to many more deaths. Continue reading.

‘Complete mental break’: Ex-QAnon ‘cult’ member explains how she fell ‘down the rabbit hole’ — and how she finally got out

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As mainstream media digs into the deeply concerning QAnon conspiracy theory—including coverage of the reality that we now have a QAnon congresswoman—we’re also seeing more people who formerly identified with the movement come forward. In an interview with CNN, Melissa Rein Lively described how she fell into the conspiracy tunnel, and why she wants to help people experiencing the same thing now. “I really became all consumed in the QAnon conspiracy theories because of a mix of fear, anxiety, depression,” she told host Alisyn Camerota on Monday. “You know, uncertainty. Inconsistency about information coming out about the pandemic.” She talked about feeling terrified seeing people around her lose their businesses. So what did she do? She went online. And that’s when, according to Lively, the algorithm took hold and brought her into an “echo chamber.”

Lively says she began looking at a number of wellness, spirituality, and New Age pages, and within a “matter of weeks,” the algorithm hooked her into a “terrifying echo chamber” that “completely changed the way that I think and that I process information.” Lively notes that the Save the Children messaging, in particular, spoke to her. Lively went on to describe how her husband gave her an ultimatum between her family and the QAnon movement, including even calling the police out of concern for her well-being.

Lively says she ultimately broke the QAnon spell by seeking mental health treatment with a specific focus on PTSD and trauma. “I really believe that it’s a cult,” she said. “It operates like a cult in every single way. And people don’t realize that they’re being consumed by QAnon until it’s too late.” Continue reading.

Law Prof Cited By Trump Team Says They ‘Flat-Out Misrepresented’ His Work

In a legal brief submitted this week, one of the sources cited by former President Donald Trump’s impeachment lawyers is a 2001 article by Brian C. Kalt, a University of Michigan law professor. Attorneys Bruce Castor, David Schoen and Michael T. van der Veen use Kalt’s article to argue against Trump’s second impeachment — and according to a Twitter thread by Kalt, they have taken his arguments out of context “badly.”

Kalt’s 2001 article dealt with late impeachment. Trump, following the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building, was impeached late in his presidency for incitement to insurrection — too late, according to his impeachment lawyers. But Kalt, noting that the brief “cites my 2001 article on late impeachment a lot,” explains, “The article favored late impeachability, but it set out all the evidence I found on both sides — lots for them to use. But in several places, they misrepresent what I wrote quite badly.”

Kalt, in his 2001 article, never reached the conclusion that a late impeachment was unconstitutional. But Castor, Schoen and van der Veen, according to Kalt, strongly suggest he did argue for this conclusion. Continue reading.

Arrested Trump supporter threatened Mitch McConnell’s grandkids on Parler: DOJ

On Monday, George Washington University Program on Extremism analyst Seamus Hughes reported that the FBI has arrested Brad Houck, an Oklahoma Trump supporter who has made public death threats against a number of government officials on Facebook and alternative social-media site Parler.

According to the complaint, Houck targeted Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and his family, writing on Parler, “hey mitch, how are your grandkids doing?” He also went after Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, saying, “Hey justice Roberts, we are coming for you and your illegal adopted kids!! finished! they will get to watch you hang”

Houck also called for executing pharmaceutical executives “on the spot” and killing them “like animals” for “committing attempted murder for years,” saying that “slimy” politicians in both parties “are not going to make it,” and proclaiming that “WE MUST STORM THAT CAPITAL [sic] AND REMOVE THESE PEOPLE BY FORCE!” Continue reading.

Rep. Cedrick Frazier (HD45A) Update: February 10, 2021

Happy Black History Month!

Last week I introduced H.F. 593, to The House Public Safety and Criminal Justice Reform Finance and Policy Committee which calls on the Peace Officer Standards and Training Board to revise the standards of conduct for peace officers (under Minnesota Statutes, section 626.843, subdivision 1, clause (6)), to prohibit officers from affiliating with, supporting, or advocating for white supremacist groups, causes, or ideologies.

The bill passed the committee 11-7. 

7 nays…

You can watch the hearing here starting at 40:23.

Continue reading “Rep. Cedrick Frazier (HD45A) Update: February 10, 2021”