Let’s all pause for a moment and consider what has come to light in the space of a single news cycle:
– The president has attempted to silence the country’s DHS to further his own political gains;
– The president has sought once again to use the country’s DOJ as his personal law firm, to defend against a personal lawsuit; and –
The president willfully ignored sound advice from the scientific, medical, military and security communities regarding the dangers of the coronavirus at a time when action clearly would have saved countless lives.
He then proceeded to lie to the American public about the danger, again to further his own political gains, which he clearly and continually places above the well-being of 330 million American citizens.
We absolutely must replace this corrupt and incompetent administration and clean house from top to bottom, but that is no where near sufficient.
We must hold everyone involved accountable, however difficult and painful that may be, to forever disabuse anyone in the future of the notion that this kind of behavior may be gotten away with.
What it’s about:
**The complaint was made by Brian Murphy, who until recently was the head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) intelligence branch. It seems that, on more than one occasion, Chad Wolf, the “acting” Secretary of DHS told Mr. Murphy to eliminate or downplay intelligence that he had compiled about at least two topics. The first was the information that the Russian government had stepped up its efforts to interfere with the 2020 presidential election. This Russian interference was obvious, but the fact that it is happening was not supposed to be conveyed to the recipients of Mr. Murphy’s reports. The president didn’t want anyone to be reminded of the Russian interference.
The second topic was the fact that white supremacists have been responsible for the vast majority of the violence that has marred demonstrations in the last few months. The violence has been committed by supporters of the president who have taken advantage of the demonstrations to vandalize property near the demonstrations and to kill or injure demonstrators, police, and bystanders. Almost all of the looting has been committed by common criminals and individual opportunists from the local community.
Famous incidents:
In Kenosha, Wisconsin, Jacob Blake was shot and paralyzed by a policeman. Two days later, during violent demonstrations, a seventeen-year-old shot three more people, two of them fatally. The youth turned out to be a supporter of the president who claimed that he was there to protect property at risk during the demonstrations. He was not, however, anywhere near the property that he claimed to be protecting, and the people he shot were not involved in property damage nor had they been attacking him (as videos taken by bystanders demonstrates.)
In Portland, Oregon, supporters of the president formed a caravan, parts of which entered downtown and proceeded to spray demonstrators with noxious chemicals similar to “tear gas” then followed this up by using paintball guns to attack other demonstrators. One of these persons was shot in the chest and killed by a man who apparently was later shot and killed by police– his affiliation with the anti-presidential demonstrators has been asserted but not proven.
These two sets of incidents are only the most public of the numerous violent incidents which have occurred in the last few months. Another shooting — little publicized– resulted in the deaths of two officers protecting a federal building. It has been reliably attributed to a white supremacist group.
Antifa has been scapegoated:
The group which has been blamed by the president’s supporters is Antifa, a far-left, inchoate set of individuals who have been known to appear at right-wing demonstrations as counter-protestors. The only individual identified as responsible for a death was the man who shot a right wing supporter in Portland. The man who was killed was involved in the attacks upon protestors. No known Antifa supporters have been arrested for property damage. All of the Antifa alarms have been confirmed to be hoaxes. This was the information which Mr. Murphy was told to suppress.
A leaked draft security assessment from the Department of Homeland Security was obtained by Ben Wittes of the Lawfare blog. This report was publicized by POLITICO, a web site that extensively covers news of all sorts. This DHS document makes no mention of Antifa and describes white supremacists as the most important domestic terrorism threat.
What the president has done:
The incidents recently have been so numerous as to require us to limit our consideration to the most notorious.
First, the president’s lawyers had the Department of Justice (DOJ) take over (and pay for) his defense to a slander and defamation suit brought by a woman over an incident that is said to have occurred some 30 years ago when he was a private citizen. He recently claimed that the woman who wrote a book in which an incident was mentioned (in which she said that he raped her in the dressing room of a New York department store) was lying and what’s more, she was ugly and “not my type.” The basis for the DOJ’s involvement is supposedly because he made those statements “in the course of his employment” as president.
Second, the president told a reporter, Robert Woodward, in February that he knew all about how dangerous the novel coronavirus was. He publicly denied it to “avoid a panic.” He repeatedly denigrated those who wore masks to prevent infections. He failed to do anything of consequence to prevent a pandemic that has, so far, killed nearly 200,000 Americans.
Third, the president has attempted to silence the DHS to help increase violence in the streets because he believes that the violence will help his re-election.
Fourth, he has kneecapped the United States Postal Service, delaying the mail and trying to shake our confidence in the very most trusted government agency in existence — to prevent mail-in voting and help himself be re-elected.
Any one of these things, by itself, would have resulted in impeachment and removal of any president who had not completely corrupted the entire Republican Party and every sitting Senator. He must be prevented from cheating his way to re-election.
Conrad Theodore Seitz
Comment of the Day: whistleblower warns White Supremacist violence and Russian election interference is being covered up by DHS: NYT
This comment comes from a New York Times article on September 9 about a whistleblower complaint, just released by the House Intelligence Committee:
Tim, Baltimore, MD , Sept. 9 (Times Pick)
Let’s all pause for a moment and consider what has come to light in the space of a single news cycle:
– The president has attempted to silence the country’s DHS to further his own political gains;
– The president has sought once again to use the country’s DOJ as his personal law firm, to defend against a personal lawsuit; and –
The president willfully ignored sound advice from the scientific, medical, military and security communities regarding the dangers of the coronavirus at a time when action clearly would have saved countless lives.
He then proceeded to lie to the American public about the danger, again to further his own political gains, which he clearly and continually places above the well-being of 330 million American citizens.
We absolutely must replace this corrupt and incompetent administration and clean house from top to bottom, but that is no where near sufficient.
We must hold everyone involved accountable, however difficult and painful that may be, to forever disabuse anyone in the future of the notion that this kind of behavior may be gotten away with.
What it’s about:
**The complaint was made by Brian Murphy, who until recently was the head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) intelligence branch. It seems that, on more than one occasion, Chad Wolf, the “acting” Secretary of DHS told Mr. Murphy to eliminate or downplay intelligence that he had compiled about at least two topics. The first was the information that the Russian government had stepped up its efforts to interfere with the 2020 presidential election. This Russian interference was obvious, but the fact that it is happening was not supposed to be conveyed to the recipients of Mr. Murphy’s reports. The president didn’t want anyone to be reminded of the Russian interference.
The second topic was the fact that white supremacists have been responsible for the vast majority of the violence that has marred demonstrations in the last few months. The violence has been committed by supporters of the president who have taken advantage of the demonstrations to vandalize property near the demonstrations and to kill or injure demonstrators, police, and bystanders. Almost all of the looting has been committed by common criminals and individual opportunists from the local community.
Famous incidents:
In Kenosha, Wisconsin, Jacob Blake was shot and paralyzed by a policeman. Two days later, during violent demonstrations, a seventeen-year-old shot three more people, two of them fatally. The youth turned out to be a supporter of the president who claimed that he was there to protect property at risk during the demonstrations. He was not, however, anywhere near the property that he claimed to be protecting, and the people he shot were not involved in property damage nor had they been attacking him (as videos taken by bystanders demonstrates.)
In Portland, Oregon, supporters of the president formed a caravan, parts of which entered downtown and proceeded to spray demonstrators with noxious chemicals similar to “tear gas” then followed this up by using paintball guns to attack other demonstrators. One of these persons was shot in the chest and killed by a man who apparently was later shot and killed by police– his affiliation with the anti-presidential demonstrators has been asserted but not proven.
These two sets of incidents are only the most public of the numerous violent incidents which have occurred in the last few months. Another shooting — little publicized– resulted in the deaths of two officers protecting a federal building. It has been reliably attributed to a white supremacist group.
Antifa has been scapegoated:
The group which has been blamed by the president’s supporters is Antifa, a far-left, inchoate set of individuals who have been known to appear at right-wing demonstrations as counter-protestors. The only individual identified as responsible for a death was the man who shot a right wing supporter in Portland. The man who was killed was involved in the attacks upon protestors. No known Antifa supporters have been arrested for property damage. All of the Antifa alarms have been confirmed to be hoaxes. This was the information which Mr. Murphy was told to suppress.
A leaked draft security assessment from the Department of Homeland Security was obtained by Ben Wittes of the Lawfare blog. This report was publicized by POLITICO, a web site that extensively covers news of all sorts. This DHS document makes no mention of Antifa and describes white supremacists as the most important domestic terrorism threat.
What the president has done:
The incidents recently have been so numerous as to require us to limit our consideration to the most notorious.
First, the president’s lawyers had the Department of Justice (DOJ) take over (and pay for) his defense to a slander and defamation suit brought by a woman over an incident that is said to have occurred some 30 years ago when he was a private citizen. He recently claimed that the woman who wrote a book in which an incident was mentioned (in which she said that he raped her in the dressing room of a New York department store) was lying and what’s more, she was ugly and “not my type.” The basis for the DOJ’s involvement is supposedly because he made those statements “in the course of his employment” as president.
Second, the president told a reporter, Robert Woodward, in February that he knew all about how dangerous the novel coronavirus was. He publicly denied it to “avoid a panic.” He repeatedly denigrated those who wore masks to prevent infections. He failed to do anything of consequence to prevent a pandemic that has, so far, killed nearly 200,000 Americans.
Third, the president has attempted to silence the DHS to help increase violence in the streets because he believes that the violence will help his re-election.
Fourth, he has kneecapped the United States Postal Service, delaying the mail and trying to shake our confidence in the very most trusted government agency in existence — to prevent mail-in voting and help himself be re-elected.
Any one of these things, by itself, would have resulted in impeachment and removal of any president who had not completely corrupted the entire Republican Party and every sitting Senator. He must be prevented from cheating his way to re-election.
(Yes, I got a little carried away. Sorry.)
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