tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-146168762024-03-13T02:59:33.560-04:00Inside the Belly of the Beltway BeastWashington, D.C. area's true left wing blog. Pete Perry, an anti-war radical dedicated to nonviolence shares his thoughts and experiences.PeteinDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497456994808669418noreply@blogger.comBlogger300125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14616876.post-89754012076705254162022-04-15T23:45:00.012-04:002022-04-16T08:05:12.770-04:00The Sad and Disturbing Tale of Dustin Thompson<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Wow, it has been a while since I have written a blog entry. In fact,
it has been a year, and I have a lot to fill you in on. But let's get down to
what I covered via Tweets recently -- the insurrectionist Trial of Dustin
Thompson, of Ohio, who entered into the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021,
and stole first a bottle of booze and then a coat rack from the office of the
Senate Parliamentarian.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Yesterday Thompson was convicted on all six criminal counts the
Department of Justice had charged him with. There have now been about a half
dozen January 6th insurrectionists (many call them rioters) who have been
convicted following a trial. About 170 have already plead guilty.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Growing up in central
Ohio, Thompson was originally a libertarian with moderate political views
overall. According to his wife Sarah, the two met when they were both students
at Ohio State University, Thompson had a double major of history and
psychology. Sarah, a democrat, was a fashion merchandising major and went directly into
working in the clothing retail industry.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thompson graduated about
a semester after Sarah did, and he worked for several years at a pawn shop.
Then he was hired by his first exterminator job and worked there for a couple of
years. And then he worked for a second extermination company. The two were
married in January 2020.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">During Trump's
presidency, Sarah testified that her boyfriend and then husband moved further
to the right politically. He apparently identified with Trump, who was often
beset by criticism from the media, Democrats, and sometimes fellow
Republicans. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Three months after the
two were married, Thompson was laid off. He testified that it was due to lack
of business due to the burgeoning Covid-19 pandemic. It was March and his
depression began. He felt isolated, being in quarantine, and spent hundreds of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>hours trolling the Internet.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"It was then that I
began latching onto conspiracy theories," he said in court. And he began
to listen very closely to what his president, who he was now an ardent supporter
of, was saying about the upcoming election.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Under Sarah's
cross-examination on the witness stand she said she personally had no interest
in going to the January 6th Save America Rally herself. However, "I knew
what this rally was all about, and I supported his right to attend." She
admitted she made the hotel reservation for Thompson at the Hampton Inn in
Silver Spring, Maryland on the border of D.C. And, she said she has known
Robert Lyon, Thompson's friend, for a number of years who travelled to the rally
with him<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Lyon who did not enter
the U.S. Capitol on that inauspicious day, has already plead guilty to a couple
charges in an agreement with the government a few weeks ago. He is scheduled to
be sentenced in July.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Unlike his friend,
Thompson did enter the Capitol Building and not just once, but twice. His first
trip in, he stole a bottle of bourbon from the Senate Parliamentarian's Office.
On his second trip to the same locale, he nicked a wood and brass coat rack.
And, unlike Lyon, he chose to plead not guilty. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the evening of
January 6th, as the two Ohio compadres considered how to get back to the
Hampton Inn with their "trophy" coat rack (the liquor is not mentioned
again -- as maybe it was consumed) they were confronted by a couple Capitol
Hill Police officers, as they remained inside the restricted area on Capitol
Hill. One of the prosecution's witnesses was Jennifer O'Neil, one of the two
officers who confronted the pair shortly after 6:00pm. It was at this time that
Thompson, as he admitted under cross-examination, fearing arrest for criminal
behavior decided to flee on foot, leaving the trophy at the scene on South
Capitol Street. Lyon did not flee.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">A couple of weeks later, soon after he first tried to reach out to the FBI, effectively turning himself in (by then he had been identified), he chose to hire his attorney, Samuel Shamansky. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9MCIaMEslyZw7vd-RowvHgtYFRrJXDF2zJGfWOe-Y-Ore4ry0pRcCpdhFdnwhqJ_D7v8AiMU0il9yrePNds4elRxga8OVCxmjH__VJIVpxO4__PeXUGPbAZYYQ_VmbunvYqH_OosVxBILqBcgvbiisPkn2aEDl2osPHpTmg_cT_Jkx6qka48/s259/senparliamentarian.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="194" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9MCIaMEslyZw7vd-RowvHgtYFRrJXDF2zJGfWOe-Y-Ore4ry0pRcCpdhFdnwhqJ_D7v8AiMU0il9yrePNds4elRxga8OVCxmjH__VJIVpxO4__PeXUGPbAZYYQ_VmbunvYqH_OosVxBILqBcgvbiisPkn2aEDl2osPHpTmg_cT_Jkx6qka48/w240-h320/senparliamentarian.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Senate Parliamentarian's office <br />on the evening of January 6, 2021.<br />Credit Newsweek.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On Thursday, April 14th, around 3:30pm the jury of six Black
folks, four White folks, an Asian person, and a Hispanic person (a rather good
demographic reflection of DC), and six women and six men returned with the
verdict. After about two and a half hours of deliberation, the jury returned
the ruling of guilty on all six counts. One of the five is a felony,
obstruction of an official proceeding, and all but requires jail time.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Judge Reggie Walton, a Bush appointee, </span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">according to a seasoned D.C. lawyer friend of
mine has a reputation of hard and long sentencing. He said he did not find any
of Thompson's testimony to be honest or candid, and the way he spoke before the
court "did not seem sincere."</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">After the jury cleared
the room, Judge Walton spoke to Shamansky and Thompson, "I have some
rather serious concerns... This was an insurgency, and our Democracy is in
trouble."</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Although the
prosecution was fine with a release on bond pending sentencing, Judge Walton
was not satisfied without that scenario, and ruled that Walton would await
sentencing in D.C. Jail. A few words were quietly exchanged between client and
counsellor, and then a bailiff approached, and the would-be insurrectionist
emptied his pockets; a wallet, a pack of cigarettes, and a few other small
items. He then removed his tie and his belt. And finally he turned around, and
the court guard handcuffed his hands behind his back and led him to a door in
the rear of the courtroom.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Of the approximately
190 who have been convicted and/or sentenced about 25 have been felonies, the
rest have been misdemeanors. The harshest sentence yet, five years in prison,
was doled out in December to Robert Palmer, a 54-year-old Florida man. He was
the one seen in videos spraying police on January 6th with a fire extinguisher,
and then once it was empty hurling it at them.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As he ordered Thompson
to remain detained until his sentencing date, Judge Walton commented, "As
my mother used to stay, 'you made me your bed and now you must lie in
it.'"</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"I am disturbed
by how gullible so many people are, and I do think the former president is a
charlatan," Judge Walton said. "But I find [Mr. Thompson's] behavior
reprehensible."</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The trial of Dustin
Thompson was the first January 6th trial that employed a 'Trump Made Me Do
It" defense strategy. Shamansky had vigorously tried to get the court to
accept the former president to testify, but Judge Walton ultimately rejected the
defense motion.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "inherit", serif; font-size: 18px;">“I don’t think we want individuals to feel they can listen to anybody and go out and commit a criminal act and say, well, I was told I could do it,” Walton said.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Shamansky did not stop there, during his closing argument, he played the entire 70-minute speech Trump delivered the morning of January 6th. The jurors looked bored and shifted </span><span style="font-size: 18px;">uncomfortably</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> in their chairs, one even kept her eyes shut part of this time, and for the rest she was </span><span style="font-size: 18px;">looking</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> off to the side away from the screen. And Judge Walton during this replay of the former president's diatribe repeatedly looked at his smartphone.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Shamansky,
however, during the trial repeatedly tried to place the blame on Trump. Oddly,
it was as if the defense was attempting to entirely reframe the trial, as if
Thompson were a witless victim, rather than the accused perpetrator.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On
cross-examination, prosecutor William Dreher pressed Thompson to accept
culpability for his own actions.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"You
are not a child?" Dreher asked the Defendant.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"No."</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"You
are an adult?"</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Yes."</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"This
morning, you got yourself dressed, and got yourself to court?"</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Yes."</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"You
are aware of the concept of stealing, and you know it is illegal?"</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Yes."</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A little later,
"You fled from Officer O'Neil the evening of the 6th, because you were
afraid you would be arrested because of what you did that day?"</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Yes."</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrsz-YpFpYuaDe32qcJRp187bSFekZ2KwkilFCXuOi3y7I-q7BmDV3p_ZLh_1UebkUFUnOM8fFAhIMF6rEdOn6NMykHsQ9_07-3j9eoti8q6jjRuI7g1eMhxdtGztkE95i7NU5kq6jMNcxeWNDqiRU_Em3UQAHbxk6eFCz8yGcjbTzFRVekKs/s960/dustinthompsonshamansky.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrsz-YpFpYuaDe32qcJRp187bSFekZ2KwkilFCXuOi3y7I-q7BmDV3p_ZLh_1UebkUFUnOM8fFAhIMF6rEdOn6NMykHsQ9_07-3j9eoti8q6jjRuI7g1eMhxdtGztkE95i7NU5kq6jMNcxeWNDqiRU_Em3UQAHbxk6eFCz8yGcjbTzFRVekKs/w293-h180/dustinthompsonshamansky.jpg" width="293" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Dustin Thompson and his lawyer Samuel <br />Shamansky enter the Prettyman Federal <br />Courthouse in Washington. <br />Credit CTV News.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That
cross-examination, in addition to the wealth of evidence solidly proving that
Thompson went into the capitol twice, stole the two items, and remained within
a restricted area for hours was all stipulated (not contested as fact) to by defense
sealed his conviction.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">After the verdict was delivered
by the jury foreperson, and the 38-year-old married man from Ohio was led out
of the courtroom to a detainment cell, I tried to imagine his life before he
came to D.C. in January 2021, and what his life would be like after his conviction. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Like so many pulled
into Trump's </span><span style="font-size: 18px;">traitorous</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> Big Lie, Alex Jones' fantastical delusions, or Q Anon's wildly grandiose and out
of this world conspiracies -- or all three -- what leads individuals, such as
Dustin Thompson, to commit criminal acts against their better judgment as
adults, like they did on January 6, 2021? The answer is not clear to me,
but luckily this defense of escaping culpability by blaming a dastardly and
powerful authority figure utterly failed on April 14, 2022.</span></span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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</script></div>PeteinDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497456994808669418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14616876.post-35408470092531438462021-02-09T00:29:00.217-05:002021-02-09T10:11:51.094-05:00The White Nationalist Insurrection of January 6, 2021<div><span style="font-family: arial;">In a few hours from now, the U.S. Senate will begin its second Impeachment Trial of Donald J. Trump, the 45th President. Many Republicans of Capitol Hill fear the popularity and control this man has with a large portion of the party's base. This blog post will look at that base<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (noun: 3<span class="mw_t_bc" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">: </span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;">the fundamental part of something</span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"> </span><span class="mw_t_bc" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">: </span><a class="mw_t_sx" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/groundwork" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-image: linear-gradient(90deg, rgb(151, 190, 206) 100%, transparent 0px); background-position: 0px 1.15em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 3px 1px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="text-uppercase" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: normal; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black;">GROUNDWORK</span></span></a><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;">,</span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"> </span><span class="text-uppercase" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-image: linear-gradient(90deg, rgb(151, 190, 206) 100%, transparent 0px); background-position: 0px 1.15em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 3px 1px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: normal; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="mw_t_sx" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/basis" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-image: linear-gradient(90deg, rgb(151, 190, 206) 100%, transparent 0px); background-position: 0px 1.15em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 3px 1px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black;">BASIS</span></a> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;">the book's theoretical</span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"> </span><span class="mw_t_wi" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">base, </span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;">her broad</span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"> </span><span class="mw_t_wi" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">base</span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;">of knowledge</span><span class="mw_t_bc" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">: </span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;">something (as a group of people) that reliably provides support (such as for a business or political candidate)</span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"> </span><span class="uns" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: normal; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="un" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: normal; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="mdash" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: normal; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">—</span><span class="unText" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: normal; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">usually singular, </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;">efforts to expand their customer</span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"> </span><span class="mw_t_wi" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">base, </span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;">the band's fan</span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"> </span><span class="mw_t_wi" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">base</span></span><span style="font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">)</span>, which truly is in many regards truly base <span style="font-size: x-small;">(adjective: </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;">1</span><span class="mw_t_bc" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">: </span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;">lacking or indicating the lack of higher qualities of mind or spirit</span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"> </span><span class="mw_t_bc" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">: </span><span class="text-uppercase" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-image: linear-gradient(90deg, rgb(151, 190, 206) 100%, transparent 0px); background-position: 0px 1.15em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 3px 1px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: normal; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="mw_t_sx" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ignoble" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-image: linear-gradient(90deg, rgb(151, 190, 206) 100%, transparent 0px); background-position: 0px 1.15em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 3px 1px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black;">IGNOBLE</span></a>; 2: </span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;">appealing to a person's</span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"> </span><em class="mw_t_it" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">baser</em><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;">instincts</span><span class="mw_t_bc" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">: </span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px;">lacking higher values</span><span class="mw_t_bc" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">: </span></span><span class="text-uppercase" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-image: linear-gradient(90deg, rgb(151, 190, 206) 100%, transparent 0px); background-position: 0px 1.15em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 3px 1px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: normal; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a class="mw_t_sx" href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/degrading" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-image: linear-gradient(90deg, rgb(151, 190, 206) 100%, transparent 0px); background-position: 0px 1.15em; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 3px 1px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black;">DEGRADING</span></a><span>)</span></span>. </span>This fear driving a clear majority of Republicans in the Congress is quickly leading them further down a path of solidifying their party's identity as the political club of angry and disgruntled white men, and the vast majority of those men are indeed racists. Donald Trump continues to stoke <i>their</i> fears, as he has done for several years.</span></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The attack on the Capitol Building on January 6th was not an amorphous riot, it was a white nationalist insurrection. It was cultivated and encouraged for months by Trump. As far back as July, Trump predicted that the only way he could lose would be if there happens to be widespread fraud. And so when the mail-in ballots started coming in, and five battleground states shifted away from Trump and toward Biden -- the 45th president simply had to declare there was organized widespread fraud. A conspiracy theory he had already begun to build months earlier.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Trump's speech at his rightwing rally on the day that Congress certified the electoral college results will be used in this impeachment trial. A trial that many Republicans are claiming is unconstitutional, which it is not because Trump was impeached by the House while he was still in office. Following the House's Impeachment vote, the Constitution states: "<span style="background-color: white; color: #202124;">The Senate <i>shall </i>have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation." And that oath or affirmation compels the Senate to act in good faith as a jury.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202124;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202124;">Let's take a close look at Trump's speech he gave, less than an hour before the violent insurrection at the Capitol began</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202124;">. Notice how he spends the majority of his speech regurgitating the baseless claims of organized and massive fraud his failed legal team would make in front of the cameras with no evidence. But they would not dare do so in front of a judge, because it is a felony to willingly lie in court. And then he whips the angry mob, who adores him, into a frenzy, telling them they are getting screwed over by Democrats and weak (traitorous) Republicans. He says they <i>must fight to save their country</i>. And then he lies once again, saying he will march down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol with loyal mob.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202124;">But then Trump just enters the White House and follows the violent insurrection on TV. Reports emerged that he was gleeful at the violence, resulting in five deaths, and which suspended the election certification (which was never in doubt) for more than four hours.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: arial;">Here's the transcript:</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Well, thank you very much. This is incredible.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Media will not show the magnitude of this crowd. Even I, when I turned on today, I looked, and I saw thousands of people here. But you don’t see hundreds of thousands of people behind you because they don’t want to show that. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">We have hundreds of thousands of people here and I just want them to be recognized by the fake news media. Turn your cameras please and show what’s really happening out here because these people are not going to take it any longer. They’re not going to take it any longer. Go ahead. Turn your cameras, please. Would you show? They came from all over the world, actually, but they came from all over our country. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I just really want to see what they do. I just want to see how they covered. I’ve never seen anything like it. But it would be really great if we could be covered fairly by the media. The media is the biggest problem we have as far as I’m concerned, single biggest problem. The fake news and the Big tech.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Big tech is now coming into their own. We beat them four years ago. We surprised them. We took them by surprise and this year they rigged an election. They rigged it like they’ve never rigged an election before. And by the way, last night they didn’t do a bad job either if you notice.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I’m honest. And I just, again, I want to thank you. It’s just a great honor to have this kind of crowd and to be before you and hundreds of thousands of American patriots who are committed to the honesty of our elections and the integrity of our glorious republic.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical-left Democrats, which is what they’re doing. And stolen by the fake news media. That’s what they’ve done and what they’re doing. We will never give up, we will never concede. It doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that’s what this is all about. And to use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with: We will stop the steal. Today I will lay out just some of the evidence proving that we won this election and we won it by a landslide. This was not a close election.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">You know, I say, sometimes jokingly, but there’s no joke about it: I’ve been in two elections. I won them both and the second one, I won much bigger than the first. OK. Almost 75 million people voted for our campaign, the most of any incumbent president by far in the history of our country, 12 million more people than four years ago.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And I was told by the real pollsters — we do have real pollsters — they know that we were going to do well and we were going to win. What I was told, if I went from 63 million, which we had four years ago, to 66 million, there was no chance of losing. Well, we didn’t go to 66, we went to 75 million, and they say we lost. We didn’t lose.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And by the way, does anybody believe that Joe had 80 million votes? Does anybody believe that? He had 80 million computer votes. It’s a disgrace. There’s never been anything like that. You could take third-world countries. Just take a look. Take third-world countries. Their elections are more honest than what we’ve been going through in this country. It’s a disgrace. It’s a disgrace.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Even when you look at last night. They’re all running around like chickens with their heads cut off with boxes. Nobody knows what the hell is going on. There’s never been anything like this.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">We will not let them silence your voices. We’re not going to let it happen, I’m not going to let it happen.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">(Audience chants: “Fight for Trump.”)</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Thank you.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And I’d love to have if those tens of thousands of people would be allowed. The military, the secret service. And we want to thank you and the police law enforcement. Great. You’re doing a great job. But I’d love it if they could be allowed to come up here with us. Is that possible? Can you just let him come up, please?</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And Rudy, you did a great job. He’s got guts. You know what? He’s got guts, unlike a lot of people in the Republican Party. He’s got guts. He fights, he fights.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And I’ll tell you. Thank you very much, John. Fantastic job. I watched. That’s a tough act to follow, those two. John is one of the most brilliant lawyers in the country, and he looked at this and he said, “What an absolute disgrace that this can be happening to our Constitution.”</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And he looked at Mike Pence, and I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. I hope so.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All he has to do, all this is, this is from the number one, or certainly one of the top, Constitutional lawyers in our country. He has the absolute right to do it. We’re supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our Constitution, and protect our constitution.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">States want to revote. The states got defrauded, They were given false information. They voted on it. Now they want to recertify. They want it back. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And I actually, I just spoke to Mike. I said: “Mike, that doesn’t take courage. What takes courage is to do nothing. That takes courage.” And then we’re stuck with a president who lost the election by a lot and we have to live with that for four more years. We’re just not going to let that happen.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Many of you have traveled from all across the nation to be here, and I want to thank you for the extraordinary love. That’s what it is. There’s never been a movement like this, ever, ever. For the extraordinary love for this amazing country, and this amazing movement, thank you.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">(Audience chants: “We love Trump.”)</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">By the way, this goes all the way back past the Washington Monument. You believe this? Look at this. That is. Unfortunately gave, they gave the press the prime seats. I can’t stand that.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">No. But you look at that behind. I wish they’d flip those cameras and look behind you. That is the most amazing sight. When they make a mistake, you get to see it on television. Amazing. Amazing. All the way back.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And don’t worry, we will not take the name off the Washington Monument. We will not cancel culture.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">You know they wanted to get rid of the Jefferson Memorial. Either take it down or just put somebody else in there. I don’t think that’s going to happen. It damn well better not. Although, with this administration, if this happens, it could happen. You’ll see some really bad things happen.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">They’ll knock out Lincoln too, by the way. They’ve been taking his statue down. But then we signed a little law. You hurt our monuments, you hurt our heroes, you go to jail for 10 years, and everything stopped. You notice that? It stopped. It all stopped.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And they could use Rudy back in New York City. Rudy. They could use you. Your city’s going to hell. They want Rudy Giuliani back in New York. We’ll get a little younger version of Rudy. Is that OK, Rudy?</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">We’re gathered together in the heart of our nation’s capital for one very, very basic and simple reason: To save our democracy.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">You know most candidates on election evening and, of course, this thing goes on so long. They still don’t have any idea what the votes are. We still have congressional seats under review. They have no idea. They’ve totally lost control. They’ve used the pandemic as a way of defrauding the people in a proper election.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">But you know, you know, when you see this and when you see what’s happening. Number one, they all say, “Sir, we’ll never let it happen again.” I said, “That’s good. But what about eight weeks ago?” You know they try and get you to go.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">They said, “Sir, in four years, you’re guaranteed.” I said: “I’m not interested right now. Do me a favor, go back eight weeks. I want to go back eight weeks. Let’s go back eight weeks.”</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">We want to go back and we want to get this right because we’re going to have somebody in there that should not be in there and our country will be destroyed and we’re not going to stand for that.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">For years, Democrats have gotten away with election fraud and weak Republicans. And that’s what they are. There’s so many weak Republicans. And we have great ones. Jim Jordan and some of these guys, they’re out there fighting. The House guys are fighting. But it’s, it’s incredible.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Many of the Republicans, I helped them get in, I helped them get elected. I helped Mitch get elected. I helped. I could name 24 of them, let’s say, I won’t bore you with it. And then all of a sudden you have something like this. It’s like, “Oh gee, maybe I’ll talk to the president sometime later.” No, it’s amazing.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">They’re weak Republicans, they’re pathetic Republicans and that’s what happens.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">If this happened to the Democrats, there’d be hell all over the country going on. There’d be hell all over the country. But just remember this: You’re stronger, you’re smarter, you’ve got more going than anybody. And they try and demean everybody having to do with us. And you’re the real people, you’re the people that built this nation. You’re not the people that tore down our nation.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">The weak Republicans, and that’s it. I really believe it. I think I’m going to use the term, the weak Republicans. You’ve got a lot of them. And you got a lot of great ones. But you got a lot of weak ones. They’ve turned a blind eye, even as Democrats enacted policies that chipped away our jobs, weakened our military, threw open our borders and put America last.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Did you see the other day where Joe Biden said, I want to get rid of the America First policy? What’s that all about? Get rid of. How do you say I want to get rid of America First? Even if you’re going to do it, don’t talk about it, right? Unbelievable what we have to go through. What we have to go through.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And you have to get your people to fight. And if they don’t fight, we have to primary the hell out of the ones that don’t fight. You primary them. We’re going to. We’re going to let you know who they are. I can already tell you, frankly.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">But this year, using the pretext of the China virus and the scam of mail-in ballots, Democrats attempted the most brazen and outrageous election theft and there’s never been anything like this. So pure theft in American history. Everybody knows it.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">That election, our election was over at 10 o’clock in the evening. We’re leading Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, by hundreds of thousands of votes.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And then late in the evening, or early in the morning, boom, these explosions of bullshit.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And all of a sudden. All of a sudden it started to happen.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">(Audience chants: “Bullshit.”)</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Don’t forget when Romney got beat. Romney, hey. Did you see his? I wonder if he enjoyed his flight in last night. But when Romney got beaten, you know, he stands up like you’re more typical, “Well, I’d like to congratulate the victor.” The victor?Who is the victor, Mitt? “I’d like to congratulate.” They don’t go and look at the facts. No, I don’t know. He got, he got slaughtered. Probably, maybe it was OK, maybe it was. But that’s what happened.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">But we look at the facts and our election was so corrupt that in the history of this country we’ve never seen anything like it. You can go all the way back.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">You know, America is blessed with elections. All over the world they talk about our elections. You know what the world says about us now? They said, we don’t have free and fair elections.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And you know what else? We don’t have a free and fair press. Our media is not free, it’s not fair. It suppresses thought, it suppresses speech and it’s become the enemy of the people. It’s become the enemy of the people. It’s the biggest problem we have in this country.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">No third-world countries would even attempt to do what we caught them doing. And you’ll hear about that in just a few minutes.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Republicans are, Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back. It’s like a boxer. And we want to be so nice. We want to be so respectful of everybody, including bad people. And we’re going to have to fight much harder.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PQk_i6RC8dU/YCKj6VE9T8I/AAAAAAAAKag/Zotc2WL51pIm-U6VyQ1qqGgpdABrbujOQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/20210106_151029.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="279" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PQk_i6RC8dU/YCKj6VE9T8I/AAAAAAAAKag/Zotc2WL51pIm-U6VyQ1qqGgpdABrbujOQCLcBGAsYHQ/w209-h279/20210106_151029.jpg" width="209" /></a></span></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn’t, that will be a, a sad day for our country because you’re sworn to uphold our Constitution.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Now, it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. And after this, we’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you, we’re going to walk down, we’re going to walk down.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Anyone you want, but I think right here, we’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Today we will see whether Republicans stand strong for integrity of our elections. But whether or not they stand strong for our country, our country. Our country has been under siege for a long time. Far longer than this four-year period. We’ve set it on a much greater course. So much, and we, I thought, you know, four more years. I thought it would be easy.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">We’ve created the greatest economy in history. We rebuilt our military. We get you the biggest tax cuts in history. Right? We got you the biggest regulation cuts. There’s no president, whether it’s four years, eight years or in one case more, got anywhere near the regulation cuts.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Used to take 20 years to get a highway approved, now we’re down to two. I want to get it down to one, but we’re down to two. And it may get rejected for environmental or safety reasons, but we got it down to safety.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">We created Space Force, We, we, we. Look at what we did. Our military has been totally rebuilt. So we create Space Force which, by and of itself, is a major achievement for an administration. And with us it’s one of so many different things.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Right to Try. Everybody know about Right to Try. We did things that nobody ever thought possible. We took care of our vets, our vets. The VA now has the highest rating, 91%. The highest rating that it’s had from the beginning, 91% approval rating. Always, you watch the VA, it was on television every night, people living in a horrible, horrible manner. We got that done. We got accountability done. We got it so that now in the VA, you don’t have to wait for four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, four months to see a doctor. If you can’t get a doctor, you go outside, you get the doctor. You have it taken care of and we pay the doctor.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And we’ve not only made life wonderful for so many people, we’ve saved tremendous amounts of money, far secondarily, but we’ve saved a lot of money. And now we have the right to fire bad people in the VA. We had 9,000 people that treated our veterans horribly. In primetime, they would not have treated our veterans badly. But they treated our veterans horribly.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And we have what’s called the account, VA Accountability Act. And the accountability says if we see somebody in there that doesn’t treat our vets well or they steal, they rob, they do things badly, we say: “Joe you’re fired. Get out of here.” Before you couldn’t do that. You couldn’t do that before.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">So we’ve taken care of things, we’ve done things like nobody’s ever thought possible. And that’s part of the reason that many people don’t like us, because we’ve done too much.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">But we’ve done it quickly and we were going to sit home and watch a big victory and everybody had us down for a victory. It was going to be great and now we’re out here fighting. I said to somebody, I was going to take a few days and relax after our big electoral victory. 10 o’clock it was over. But I was going to take a few days.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And I can say this. Since our election, I believe, which was such a catastrophe, when I watch. And even these guys knew what happened. They know what happened. They’re saying: “Wow, Pennsylvania’s insurmountable. Wow, Wisconsin.” Look at the big leads we had, right. Even though the press said we would lose Wisconsin by 17 points. Even though the press said, Ohio’s going to be close, we set a record; Florida’s going to be close, we set a record; Texas is going to be close, Texas is going to be close, we set a record.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And we set a record with Hispanic, with the Black community, we set a record with everybody.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Today we see a very important event though. Because right over there, right there, we see the event going to take place. And I’m going to be watching. Because history is going to be made. We’re going to see whether or not we have great and courageous leaders, or whether or not we have leaders that should be ashamed of themselves throughout history, throughout eternity they’ll be ashamed.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And you know what? If they do the wrong thing, we should never, ever forget that they did. Never forget. We should never ever forget.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">With only three of the seven states in question, we win the presidency of the United States. And by the way, it’s much more important today than it was 24 hours ago, because I don’t. I spoke to David Perdue, what a great person, and Kelly Loeffler, two great people, but it was a setup.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And you know, I said, “We have no backline anymore.” The only backline, the only line of demarcation, the only line that we have is the veto of the president of the United States. So this is now, what we’re doing, a far more important election than it was two days ago.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I want to thank the more than 140 members of the House. Those are warriors. They’re over there working like you’ve never seen before. Studying, talking, actually going all the way back, studying the roots of the Constitution, because they know we have the right to send a bad vote that was illegally gotten.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">They gave these people bad things to vote for and they voted because what did they know? And then when they found out a few weeks later, again, it took them four years to devise this screen.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And the only unhappy person in the United States, single most unhappy, is Hillary Clinton. Because she said: “Why didn’t you do this for me four years ago? Why didn’t you do this for me four years ago? Change the votes, 10,000 in Michigan. You could have changed the whole thing.” But she’s not too happy. You know, you don’t see her anymore. What happened? Where’s Hillary? Where is she?</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">But I want to thank all of those congressmen and women. I also want to thank our 13, most courageous members of the U.S. Senate. Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Ron Johnson, Senator Josh Hawley, Kelly Loeffler.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And Kelly Loeffler, I’ll tell you, she has been, she’s been so great. She worked so hard. So let’s give her and David a little special hand because it was rigged against them. Let’s give her and David.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Kelly Loeffler, David Purdue. They fought a good race. They never had a shot. That equipment should never have been allowed to be used, and I was telling these people don’t let him use this stuff.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Marsha Blackburn, terrific person. Mike Braun, Indiana. Steve Daines, great guy. Bill Hagerty, John Kennedy, James Lankford, Cynthia Lummis, Tommy Tuberville, the coach, and Roger Marshall. We want to thank them. Senators that stepped up, We want to thank them.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I actually think though, it takes, again, more courage not to step up, and I think a lot of those people are going to find that out and you better start looking at your leadership, because your leadership has led you down the tubes.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">You know, we don’t want to give $2,000 to people. We want to give them $600. Oh, great. How does that play politically? Pretty good? And this has nothing to do with politics, but how does it play politically?</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">China destroyed these people. We didn’t destroy. China destroy them, totally destroyed them. We want to give them $600 and they just wouldn’t change.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I said give them $2,000, we’ll pay it back. We’ll pay it back fast. You already owe 26 trillion, give them a couple of bucks. Let them live. Give them a couple of bucks. And some of the people here disagree with me on that, but I just say, “Look, you’ve got to let people live.”</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And how does that play though? OK. Number one, it’s the right thing to do. But how does that play politically? I think it’s the primary reason, one of the primary reasons, the other was just pure cheating. That was the primary, super primary reason. But you can’t do that, you got to use your head.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">As you know, the media has constantly asserted the outrageous lie that there was no evidence of widespread fraud. Have you ever seen these people? While there is no evidence of fraud. Oh, really? Well, I’m going to read you pages. I hope you don’t get bored listening to it. Promise? Don’t get bored listening to it, all those hundreds of thousands of people back there. Move them up, please, yeah.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">All they, all these people, don’t get bored, don’t get angry at me because you’re going to get bored because it’s so much.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">The American people do not believe the corrupt, fake news anymore. They have ruined their reputation. But you know, it used to be that they’d argue with me. I’d fight. So I’d fight, they’d fight, I’d fight, they’d fight. Pop pop. You’d believe me, you’d believe them. Somebody comes out. You know, they had their point of view, I had my point of view, but you’d have an argument.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Now what they do is they go silent. It’s called suppression and that’s what happens in a communist country. That’s what they do, they suppress. You don’t fight with them anymore. Unless it’s a bad story. They have a little bad story about me, they make it 10 times worse and it’s a major headline.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">But Hunter Biden, they don’t talk about him. What happened to Hunter? Where’s Hunter? Where’s Hunter? They don’t talk about him. They’ll watch, all the sets will go off. Well, they can’t do that because they get good ratings. Their ratings are too good. Now, where’s Hunter? You know.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And how come Joe is allowed to give a billion dollars of money to get rid of the prosecutor in Ukraine? How does that happen? I’d ask you that question. How does that happen? Can you imagine if I said that? If I said that it would be a whole different ballgame.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And how come Hunter gets three and a half million dollars from the mayor of Moscow’s wife, and gets hundreds of thousands of dollars to sit on an energy board, even though he admits he has no knowledge of energy? And millions of dollars up front.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And how come they go into China and they leave with billions of dollars to manage. “Have you managed money before?” “No, I haven’t.” “Oh, that’s good. Here’s about 3 billion.” No, they don’t talk about that.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">No, we have a corrupt media. They’ve gone silent. They’ve gone dead. I now realize how good it was if you go back 10 years, I realized how good, even though I didn’t necessarily love them, I realized how good. It was like a cleansing motion, right?</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">But we don’t have that anymore. We don’t have a fair media anymore. It’s suppression. And you have to be very careful with that and they’ve lost all credibility in this country.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">We will not be intimidated into accepting the hoaxes and the lies that we’ve been forced to believe.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Over the past several weeks, we’ve amassed overwhelming evidence about a fake election. This is the presidential election. Last night was a little bit better because of the fact that we had a lot of eyes watching one specific state, but they cheated like hell anyway.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">You have one of the dumbest governors in the United States. And you know when I endorsed him, and I didn’t know this guy, at the request of David Perdue, he said, “Friend of mine’s running for governor.” “What’s his name?” And you know the rest. He was in fourth place, fifth place. I don’t know, he was, he was doing poorly. I endorse him, he went like a rocket ship and he won.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And then I had to beat Stacey Abrams with this guy, Brian Kemp. I had to beat Stacey Abrams. And I had to beat Oprah, used to be a friend of mine. You know, I was on her last show, her last week, she picked the five outstanding people. I don’t think she thinks that any more. Once I ran for president, I didn’t notice there were too many calls coming in from Oprah. Believe it or not, she used to like me. But I was one of the five outstanding people.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And I had a campaign against Michelle Obama and Barack Hussein Obama, against Stacey.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And I had Brian Kemp, who weighs 130 pounds. He said he played offensive line in football. I’m trying to figure that out. I’m still trying to figure that out. He said that the other night, “I was an offensive lineman.” I’m saying: “Really? That must have been a very small team.” But I look at that and I look at what’s happened and he turned out to be a disaster. This stuff happens.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">You know, look, I’m not happy with the Supreme Court. They love to rule against me. I picked three people. I fought like hell for them. One in particular, I fought. They all said, “Sir, cut him loose.” He’s killing the senators. You know, very loyal senators, they’re very loyal people, “Sir, cut him loose, he’s killing us, sir, cut him loose.” I must have gotten half of the senators.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I said: “No, I can’t do that, it’s unfair to him and it’s unfair to the family. He didn’t do anything wrong.” They made up stories, they’re all made-up stories. He didn’t do anything wrong. “Cut him loose, sir.” I said, “No, I won’t do that. We got him through.” And you know what, they couldn’t give a damn. They couldn’t give a damn. Let him rule the right way.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">But it almost seems that they’re all going out of their way to hurt all of us and to hurt our country. To hurt our country.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">You know, I read a story in one of the newspapers recently how I control the three Supreme Court justices. I control them. They’re puppets.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I read it about Bill Barr, that he’s my personal attorney. That he’ll do anything for me. And I said, “You know, it really is genius.” Because what they do is that, and it makes it really impossible for them to ever give you a victory, because all of a sudden Bill Barr changed. If you hadn’t noticed. I like Bill Barr, but he changed, because he didn’t want to be considered my personal attorney.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And the Supreme Court, they rule against me so much. You know why? Because the story is — I haven’t spoken to any of them, any of them, since virtually they got in — but the story is that they’re my puppets. Right? That they’re puppets.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And now the only way they can get out of that because they hate that it’s not good in the social circuit. And the only way they get out is to rule against Trump. So let’s rule against Trump. And they do that. So I want to congratulate them.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">But it shows you the media’s genius. In fact, probably if I was the media, I’d do it the same way. I hate to say it. But we got to get them straightened out.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Today, for the sake of our democracy, for the sake of our Constitution, and for the sake of our children, we lay out the case for the entire world to hear. You want to hear it?</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">(Audience responds: “Yeah”)</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">In every single swing state, local officials, state officials, almost all Democrats, made illegal and unconstitutional changes to election procedures without the mandated approvals by the state legislatures.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">That these changes paved a way for fraud on a scale never seen before. I think we go a long way outside of our country when I say that.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">So, just in a nutshell, you can’t make a change or voting for a federal election unless the state legislature approves it. No judge can do it. Nobody can do it. Only a legislature.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">So as an example, in Pennsylvania, or whatever, you have a Republican legislature, you have a Democrat mayor, and you have a lot of Democrats all over the place. They go to the legislature. The legislature laughs at them, says we’re not going to do that. They say, thank you very much and they go and make the changes themselves, they do it anyway. And that’s totally illegal. That’s totally illegal. You can’t do that.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">In Pennsylvania, the Democrat secretary of state and the Democrat state Supreme Court justices illegally abolished the signature verification requirements just 11 days prior to the election.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">So think of what they did. No longer is there signature verification. Oh, that’s OK. We want voter ID by the way. But no longer is there a signature verification. Eleven days before the election they say we don’t want it. You know why they don’t want to? Because they want to cheat. That’s the only reason.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Who would even think of that? We don’t want to verify a signature?</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">There were over 205,000 more ballots counted in Pennsylvania. Think of this, you had 205,000 more ballots than you had voters. That means you had two. Where did they come from? You know where they came from? Somebody’s imagination, whatever they needed.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">So in Pennsylvania, you had 205,000 more votes than you had voters. And the number is actually much greater than that now. That was as of a week ago. And this is a mathematical impossibility unless you want to say it’s a total fraud.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">So Pennsylvania was defrauded. Over 8,000 ballots in Pennsylvania were cast by people whose names and dates of birth match individuals who died in 2020 and prior to the election. Think of that. Dead people, lots of dead people, thousands. And some dead people actually requested an application. That bothers me even more.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Not only are they voting, they want an application to vote. One of them was 29 years ago, died. It’s incredible. Over 14,000 ballots were cast by out-of-state voters, so these are voters that don’t live in this state.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And by the way, these numbers are what they call outcome-determinative, meaning these numbers far surpass. I lost by a very little bit. These numbers are massive, massive.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">More than 10,000 votes in Pennsylvania were illegally counted, even though they were received after Election Day. In other words, they were received after Election Day. Let’s count them anyway.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And what they did in many cases is, they did fraud. They took the date and they moved it back so that it no longer is after Election Day. And more than 60,000 ballots in Pennsylvania were reported received back. They got back before they were ever supposedly mailed out. In other words, you got the ballot back before you mailed it, which is also logically and logistically impossible, right?</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Think of that one. You got the ballot back. Let’s send the ballots. Oh, they’ve already been sent. But we got the ballot back before they were sent. I don’t think that’s too good, right?</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Twenty-five thousand ballots in Pennsylvania were requested by nursing home residents, all in a single giant batch, not legal, indicating an enormous, illegal ballot harvesting operation. You’re not allowed to do it, it’s against the law.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">The day before the election, the state of Pennsylvania reported the number of absentee ballots that had been sent out. Yet this number was suddenly and drastically increased by 400,000 people. It was increased, nobody knows where it came from, by 400,000 ballots, one day after the election.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">It remains totally unexplained. They said, “Well, ah, we can’t figure that.” Now, that’s many, many times what it would take to overthrow the state. Just that one element. Four hundred thousand ballots appeared from nowhere right after the election.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">By the way, Pennsylvania has now seen all of this. They didn’t know because it was so quick. They had a vote. They voted. But now they see all this stuff, it’s all come to light. Doesn’t happen that fast. And they want to recertify their votes. They want to recertify. But the only way that can happen is if Mike Pence agrees to send it back. Mike Pence has to agree to send it back.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">(Audience chants: “Send it back.”)</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And many people in Congress want it sent back.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And think of what you’re doing. Let’s say you don’t do it. Somebody says, “Well, we have to obey the Constitution.” And you are, because you’re protecting our country and you’re protecting the Constitution. So you are.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">But think of what happens. Let’s say they’re stiffs and they’re stupid people, and they say, well, we really have no choice. Even though Pennsylvania and other states want to redo their votes. They want to see the numbers. They already have the numbers. Go very quickly. And they want to redo their legislature because many of these votes were taken, as I said, because it wasn’t approved by their legislature. You know, that, in itself, is legal. And then you have the scam, and that’s all of the things that we’re talking about.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">But think of this. If you don’t do that, that means you will have a president of the United States for four years, with his wonderful son. You will have a president who lost all of these states. Or you will have a president, to put it another way, who was voted on by a bunch of stupid people who lost all of these states.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">You will have an illegitimate president. That’s what you’ll have. And we can’t let that happen.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">These are the facts that you won’t hear from the fake news media. It’s all part of the suppression effort. They don’t want to talk about it. They don’t want to talk about it. In fact, when I started talking about that, I guarantee you, a lot of the television sets and a lot of those cameras went off. And that’s a lot of cameras back there. But a lot of them went off.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">But these are the things you don’t hear about. You don’t hear what you just heard. I’m going to go over a few more states. But you don’t hear it by the people who want to deceive you and demoralize you and control you. Big tech, media.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Just like the suppression polls that said we’re going lose Wisconsin by 17 points. Well, we won Wisconsin. They don’t have it that way because they lost just by a little sliver. But they had me down the day before, Washington Post/ABC poll, down 17 points.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I called up a real pollster. I said, “What is that?” “Sir, that’s called a suppression poll. I think you’re going to win Wisconsin, sir.”</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I said, “But why don’t they make it four or five points?” Because then people vote. But when you’re down 17, they say, “Hey, I’m not going to waste my time. I love the president, but there’s no way.”</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Despite that, despite that, we won Wisconsin. It’s going to see. I mean, you’ll see. But that’s called suppression because a lot of people when they see that. It’s very interesting. This pollster said, “Sir, if you’re down three, four, or five people vote. When you go down 17, they say, ‘Let’s save. Let’s go and have dinner and let’s watch the presidential defeat tonight on television, darling.'”</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And just like the radical left tries to blacklist you on social media. Every time I put out a tweet, that’s, even if it’s totally correct, totally correct, I get a flag. I get a flag.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And they also don’t let you get out. You know, on Twitter, it’s very hard to come onto my account. It’s very hard to get out a message. They don’t let the message get out nearly like they should. But I’ve had many people say, “I can’t get on your Twitter.” I don’t care about Twitter. Twitter’s bad news. They’re all bad news.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">But you know what, if you want to, if you want to get out a message and if you want to go through Big tech, social media, they are really, if you’re a conservative, if you’re a Republican, if you have a big voice, I guess they call it shadow banned, right? Shadow banned. They shadow ban you, and it should be illegal.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I’ve been telling these Republicans, get rid of Section 230. And for some reason, Mitch and the group, they don’t want to put it in there and they don’t realize that that’s going to be the end of the Republican Party as we know it, but it’s never going to be the end of us. Never. Let them get out. Let, let the weak ones get out. This is a time for strength.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">They also want to indoctrinate your children in school by teaching them things that aren’t so. They want to indoctrinate your children. It’s all part of the comprehensive assault on our democracy, and the American people are finally standing up and saying no. This crowd is, again, a testament to it.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I did no advertising, I did nothing. You do have some groups that are big supporters. I want to thank that, Amy, and everybody. We have some incredible supporters, incredible. But we didn’t do anything. This just happened. Two months ago, we had a massive crowd come down to Washington. I said, “What are they there for?” “Sir, they’re there for you.”</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">We have nothing to do with it. These groups are for, they’re forming all over the United States. And we got to remember, in a year from now, you’re going to start working on Congress and we got to get rid of the weak Congress, people, the ones that aren’t any good, the Liz Cheneys of the world. We got to get rid of them. We got to get rid.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">You know, she never wants a soldier brought home, I brought a lot of our soldiers home. I don’t know, somewhat like it. They’re in countries that nobody even knows the name, nobody knows where they are. They’re dying. They’re great, but they’re dying. They’re losing their arms, their legs, their face. I brought them back home, largely back home. Afghanistan, Iraq.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Remember, I used to say in the old days: “Don’t go in Iraq. But if you go in, keep the oil.” We didn’t keep the oil. So stupid. So stupid these people. And Iraq has billions and billions of dollars now in the bank. And what did we do? We got nothing. We never get. But we do actually, we kept the oil here or we get, we did good.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">We got rid of the ISIS caliphate. We got rid of plenty of different things that everybody knows and the rebuilding of our military in three years. People said it couldn’t be done. And it was all made in the USA, all made in the USA, best equipment in the world.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">In Wisconsin, corrupt Democrat-run cities deployed more than 500 illegal, unmanned, unsecured drop boxes, which collected a minimum of 91,000 unlawful votes. It was razor-thin, the loss. This one thing alone is much more than we would need. But there are many things.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">They have these lockboxes. And, you know, they’d pick them up and they disappear for two days. People would say where’s that box? They disappeared. Nobody even knew where the hell it was.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">In addition, over 170,000 absentee votes were counted in Wisconsin without a valid absentee ballot application. So they had a vote, but they had no application, and that’s illegal in Wisconsin. Meaning those votes were blatantly done in opposition to state law and they came 100% from Democrat areas such as Milwaukee and Madison, 100%.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">In Madison, 17,000 votes were deposited in so-called human drop boxes. You know what that is, right? Where operatives stuff thousands of unsecured ballots into duffle bags on park benches across the city, in complete defiance of cease-and-desist letters from state legislature.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Your state legislatures said don’t do it. They’re the only ones that can approve it. They gave tens of thousands of votes. They came in in duffle bags. Where the hell did they come from?</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">According to eyewitness testimony, Postal Service workers in Wisconsin were also instructed to illegally backdate approximately 100,000 ballots. The margin of difference in Wisconsin was less than 20,000 votes. Each one of these things alone wins us the state. Great state. We love the state. We won the state.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">In Georgia, your secretary of state who, I can’t believe this guy’s a Republican. He loves recording telephone conversations. You know, that was? I thought it was a great conversation personally. So did a lot of other. People love that conversation because it says what’s going on.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">These people are crooked. They’re 100%, in my opinion, one of the most corrupt, between your governor and your secretary of state. And now you have it again last night. Just take a look at what happened. What a mess.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And the Democrat Party operatives entered into an illegal and unconstitution — unconstitutional settlement agreement that drastically weakened signature verification and other election security procedures.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Stacey Abrams. She took them to lunch. And I beat her two years ago with a bad candidate, Brian Kemp. But they took, the Democrats took the Republicans to lunch because the secretary of state had no clue what the hell was happening. Unless he did have a clue. That’s interesting. Maybe he was with the other side.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">But we’ve been trying to get verifications of signatures in Fulton County, they won’t let us do it. The only reason they won’t is because we’ll find things in the hundreds of thousands. Why wouldn’t they let us verify signatures in Fulton County, which is known for being very corrupt. They won’t do it. They go to some other county where you would live.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I said, “That’s not the problem.” The problem is Fulton County, home of Stacey Abrams. She did a good job, I congratulate her. But it was done in such a way that we can’t let this stuff happen. We won’t have a country if it happens.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">As a result, Georgia’s absentee ballot rejection rate was more than 10 times lower than previous levels because the criteria was so off.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Forty-eight counties in Georgia, with thousands and thousands of votes, rejected zero ballots. There wasn’t one ballot. In other words, in a year in which more mail-in ballots were sent than ever before, and more people were voting by mail for the first time, the rejection rate was drastically lower than it had ever been before.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">The only way this can be explained is if tens of thousands of illegitimate votes were added to the tally. That’s the only way you could explain it.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">By the way, you’re talking about tens of thousands. If Georgia had merely rejected the same number of unlawful ballots as in other years, they should have been approximately 45,000 ballots rejected. Far more than what we needed to win, just over 11,000. They should find those votes. They should absolutely find that. Just over 11,000 votes, that’s all we need. They defrauded us out of a win in Georgia, and we’re not going to forget it.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">There’s only one reason the Democrats could possibly want to eliminate signature matching, opposed voter ID, and stop citizenship confirmation. “Are you a citizenship?” You’re not allowed to ask that question, because they want to steal the election.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">The radical left knows exactly what they’re doing. They’re ruthless and it’s time that somebody did something about it. And Mike Pence, I hope you’re going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you’re not, I’m going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now. I’m not hearing good stories.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">In Fulton County, Republican poll watchers were ejected, in some cases, physically from the room under the false pretense of a pipe burst. Water main burst, everybody leave. Which we now know was a total lie.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Then election officials pull boxes, Democrats, and suitcases of ballots out from under a table. You all saw it on television, totally fraudulent. And illegally scanned them for nearly two hours, totally unsupervised. Tens of thousands of votes. This act coincided with a mysterious vote dump of up to 100,000 votes for Joe Biden, almost none for Trump. Oh, that sounds fair. That was at 1:34 a.m.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">The Georgia secretary of state and pathetic governor of Georgia, have reached, although he says I’m a great president. You know, I sort of maybe have to change. He said the other day, “Yes, I do. I disagree with president, but he’s been a great president.” Good, thanks. Thank you very much.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Because of him and others, you have Brian Kemp. Vote him the hell out of office, please. Well, his rates are so low. You know, his approval rating now, I think it just reached a record low.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">They’ve rejected five separate appeals for an independent and comprehensive audit of signatures in Fulton County. Even without an audit, the number of fraudulent ballots that we’ve identified across the state is staggering.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Over 10,300 ballots in Georgia were cast by individuals whose names and dates of birth match Georgia residents who died in 2020 and prior to the election.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">More than 2,500 ballots were cast by individuals whose names and dates of birth match incarcerated felons in Georgia prison. People who are not allowed to vote.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">More than 4,500 illegal ballots were cast by individuals who do not appear on the state’s own voter rolls.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Over 18,000 illegal ballots were cast by individuals who registered to vote using an address listed as vacant, according to the Postal Service.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">At least 88,000 ballots in Georgia were cast by people whose registrations were illegally backdated.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Sixty-six thousand votes, each one of these is far more than we need. Sixty-six thousand votes in Georgia were cast by individuals under the legal voting age.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And at least 15,000 ballots were cast by individuals who moved out of the state prior to November 3 election. They say they moved right back. They moved right back. Oh, they moved out, they moved right back. OK. They missed Georgia that much. I do. I love Georgia, but it’s a corrupt system.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Despite all of this, the margin in Georgia is only 11,779 votes.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Each and every one of these issues is enough to give us a victory in Georgia, a big beautiful victory. Make no mistake, this election was stolen from you, from me and from the country.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And not a single swing state has conducted a comprehensive audit to remove the illegal ballots. This should absolutely occur in every single contested state before the election is certified.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">In the state of Arizona, over 36,000 ballots were illegally cast by non-citizens. Two thousand ballots were returned with no address. More than 22,000 ballots were returned before they were ever supposedly mailed out. They returned, but we haven’t mailed them yet.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Eleven thousand six hundred more ballots and votes were counted, more than there were actual voters. You see that? So you have more votes again than you have voters.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">One hundred and fifty thousand people registered in Maricopa County after the registration deadline. One hundred and three thousand ballots in the county were sent for electronic adjudication with no Republican observers.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">In Clark County, Nevada, the accuracy settings on signature verification machines were purposely lowered before they were used to count over 130,000 ballots.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">If you signed your name as Santa Claus, it would go through.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">There were also more than 42,000 double votes in Nevada. Over 150,000 people were hurt so badly by what took place. And 1,500 ballots were cast by individuals whose names and dates of birth match Nevada residents who died in 2020 prior to November 3 election. More than 8,000 votes were cast by individuals who had no address and probably didn’t live there.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">The margin in Nevada is down at a very low number, any of these things would have taken care of the situation. We would have won Nevada, also. Every one of these we’re going over, we win.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">In Michigan, quickly, the secretary of state, a real great one, flooded the state with unsolicited mail-in ballot applications sent to every person on the rolls in direct violation of state law.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">More than 17,000 Michigan ballots were cast by individuals whose names and dates of birth match people who were deceased.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">In Wayne County, that’s a great one. That’s Detroit. One hundred and seventy-four thousand ballots were counted without being tied to an actual registered voter. Nobody knows where they came from.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Also, in Wayne County, poll watchers observed canvassers rescanning batches of ballots over and over again, up to three or four or five times.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">In Detroit, turnout was 139% of registered voters. Think of that. So you had 139% of the people in Detroit voting. This is in Michigan. Detroit, Michigan.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">A career employee of the Detroit, City of Detroit, testified under penalty of perjury that she witnessed city workers coaching voters to vote straight Democrat while accompanying them to watch who they voted for. When a Republican came in, they wouldn’t talk to him.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">The same worker was instructed not to ask for any voter ID and not to attempt to validate any signatures if they were Democrats. She also told to illegally, and was told, backdate ballots received after the deadline and reports that thousands and thousands of ballots were improperly backdated. That’s Michigan.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Four witnesses have testified under penalty of perjury that after officials in Detroit announced the last votes had been counted, tens of thousands of additional ballots arrived without required envelopes. Every single one was for a Democrat. I got no votes.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">At 6:31 a.m. in the early morning hours after voting had ended, Michigan suddenly reported 147,000 votes. An astounding 94% went to Joe Biden, who campaigned brilliantly from his basement. Only a couple of percentage points went to Trump.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Such gigantic and one-sided vote dumps were only observed in a few swing states and they were observed in the states where it was necessary.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">You know what’s interesting? President Obama beat Biden in every state other than the swing states where Biden killed them, but the swing states were the ones that mattered.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">They’re always just enough to push Joe Biden barely into the lead. We were ahead by a lot and within a number of hours we were losing by a little. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">In addition, there is the highly troubling matter of Dominion Voting Systems. In one Michigan county alone, 6,000 votes were switched from Trump to Biden and the same systems are used in the majority of states in our country.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Senator William Ligon, a great gentleman, chairman of Georgia’s senate judiciary subcommittee. Senator Ligon, highly respected, on elections has written a letter describing his concerns with Dominion in Georgia.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">He wrote, and I quote, The Dominion Voting Machines employed in Fulton County had an astronomical and astounding 93.67% error rate. It’s only wrong 93% of the time in the scanning of ballots requiring a review panel to adjudicate or determine the voter’s interest in over 106,000 ballots out of a total of 113,000.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Think of it. You go in and you vote and then they tell people who you supposed to be voting for. They make up whatever they want. Nobody’s ever even heard.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">They adjudicate your vote. They say, Well, we don’t think Trump wants to vote for Trump. We think he wants to vote for Biden. Put it down for Biden.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">The national average for such an error rate is far less than 1% and yet you’re at 93%. The source of this astronomical error rate must be identified to determine if these machines were set up or destroyed to allow for a third party to disregard the actual ballot cast by the registered voter.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">The letter continues. There is clear evidence that tens of thousands of votes were switched from President Trump to former Vice President Biden in several counties in Georgia.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">For example, in Bibb County, President Trump was reported to have 29,391 votes at 9:11 p.m. Eastern time, while simultaneously Vice President Joe Biden was reported to have 17,213. Minutes later, just minutes, at the next update, these vote numbers switched with President Trump going way down to 17,000 and Biden going way up to 29,391. And that was very quick, a 12,000 vote switch all in Mr. Biden’s favor.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">So, I mean, I could go on and on about this fraud that took place in every state, and all of these legislatures want this back. I don’t want to do it to you because I love you and it’s freezing out here. But I could just go on forever. I can tell you this.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">(Audience chants: “We love you.”)</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">So when you hear, when you hear, while there is no evidence to prove any wrongdoing, this is the most fraudulent thing anybody has, this is a criminal enterprise. This is a criminal enterprise. And the press will say, and I’m sure they won’t put any of that on there, because that’s no good. And you ever see, while there is no evidence to back President Trump’s assertion.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I could go on for another hour reading this stuff to you and telling you about it. There’s never been anything like it.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Think about it. Detroit had more votes than it had voters. Pennsylvania had 205,000 more votes than it had more. But you don’t have to go any. Between that, I think that’s almost better than dead people if you think, right? More votes than they had voters. And many other states also.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">It’s a disgrace that the United States of America, tens of millions of people, are allowed to go vote without so much as even showing identification.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">In no state is there any question or effort made to verify the identity, citizenship, residency or eligibility of the votes cast.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">The Republicans have to get tougher. You’re not going to have a Republican Party if you don’t get tougher. They want to play so straight. They want to play so, sir, yes, the United States. The Constitution doesn’t allow me to send them back to the States. Well, I say, yes it does, because the Constitution says you have to protect our country and you have to protect our Constitution, and you can’t vote on fraud. And fraud breaks up everything, doesn’t it? When you catch somebody in a fraud, you’re allowed to go by very different rules.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">So I hope Mike has the courage to do what he has to do. And I hope he doesn’t listen to the RINOs and the stupid people that he’s listening to.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">It is also widely understood that the voter rolls are crammed full of non-citizens, felons and people who have moved out of state and individuals who are otherwise ineligible to vote. Yet Democrats oppose every effort to clean up their voter rolls. They don’t want to clean them up. They’re loaded.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And how many people here know other people, that when there are hundreds of thousands and then millions of ballots got sent out, got three, four, five, six, and I heard one, who got seven ballots. And then they say you didn’t quite make it, sir.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">We won in a landslide. This was a landslide. They said it’s not American to challenge the election. This the most corrupt election in the history, maybe of the world.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">You know, you could go third-world countries, but I don’t think they had hundreds of thousands of votes and they don’t have voters for them. I mean no matter where you go, nobody would think this.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">In fact, it’s so egregious, it’s so bad that a lot of people don’t even believe it. It’s so crazy that people don’t even believe it. It can’t be true. So they don’t believe it. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">This is not just a matter of domestic politics, this is a matter of national security.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">So today, in addition to challenging the certification of the election, I’m calling on Congress and the state legislatures to quickly pass sweeping election reforms, and you better do it before we have no country left.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Today is not the end, it’s just the beginning.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">With your help over the last four years, we built the greatest political movement in the history of our country and nobody even challenges that.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I say that over and over, and I never get challenged by the fakeness, and they challenge almost everything we say.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">But our fight against the big donors, big media, big tech, and others is just getting started. This is the greatest in history. There’s never been a movement like that.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">You look back there all the way to the Washington Monument. It’s hard to believe.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">We must stop the steal and then we must ensure that such outrageous election fraud never happens again, can never be allowed to happen again.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">But we’re going forward. We’ll take care of going forward. We’ve got to take care of going back. Don’t let them talk. OK, well, we promised. I’ve had a lot of people. Sir, you’re at 96% for four years. I said I’m not interested right now. I’m interested in right there.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">With your help, we will finally pass powerful requirements for voter ID. You need an ID to cash a check. You need an ID to go to a bank, to buy alcohol, to drive a car. Every person should need to show an ID in order to cast your most important thing, a vote.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">We will also require proof of American citizenship in order to vote in American elections. We just had a good victory in court on that one, actually.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">We will ban ballot harvesting and prohibit the use of unsecured drop boxes to commit rampant fraud. These drop boxes are fraudulent. Therefore, they get disapp — they disappear, and then all of a sudden they show up. It’s fraudulent.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">We will stop the practice of universal unsolicited mail-in balloting.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">We will clean up the voter rolls that ensure that every single person who casts a vote is a citizen of our country, a resident of the state in which they vote and their vote is cast in a lawful and honest manner.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">We will restore the vital civic tradition of in-person voting on Election Day so that voters can be fully informed when they make their choice.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">We will finally hold big tech accountable. And if these people had courage and guts, they would get rid of Section 230, something that no other company, no other person in America, in the world has.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">All of these tech monopolies are going to abuse their power and interfere in our elections, and it has to be stopped. And the Republicans have to get a lot tougher, and so should the Democrats. They should be regulated, investigated, and brought to justice under the fullest extent of the law. They’re totally breaking the law.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Together, we will drain the Washington swamp and we will clean up the corruption in our nation’s capital. We have done a big job on it, but you think it’s easy. It’s a dirty business. It’s a dirty business. You have a lot of bad people out there.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Despite everything we’ve been through, looking out all over this country and seeing fantastic crowds. Although this, I think, is our all-time record. I think you have 250,000 people. 250,000.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Looking out at all the amazing patriots here today, I have never been more confident in our nation’s future. Well, I have to say, we have to be a little bit careful. That’s a nice statement, but we have to be a little careful with that statement.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">If we allow this group of people to illegally take over our country because it’s illegal when the votes are illegal when the way they got there is illegal when the states that vote are given false and fraudulent information.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">We are the greatest country on Earth and we are headed and were headed in the right direction.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">You know, the wall is built. We’re doing record numbers at the wall. Now, they want to take down the wall. Let’s let everyone flow in. Let’s let everybody flow in. We did a great job in the wall. Remember, the wall, they said it could never be done. One of the largest infrastructure projects we’ve ever had in this country, and it’s had a tremendous impact, that we got rid of catch and release. We got rid of all of this stuff that we had to live with.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">But now, the caravans, I think Biden’s getting in, the caravans are forming again. They want to come in again and rip off our country. Can’t let it happen.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">As this enormous crowd shows, we have truth and justice on our side. We have a deep and enduring love for America in our hearts. We love our country.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">We have overwhelming pride in this great country and we have it deep in our souls. Together, we are determined to defend and preserve government of the people, by the people and for the people.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Our brightest days are before us. Our greatest achievements, still away.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I think one of our great achievements will be election security. Because nobody until I came along had any idea how corrupt our elections were.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And again, most people would stand there at 9 o’clock in the evening and say I want to thank you very much, and they go off to some other life. But I said something’s wrong here, something is really wrong, can have happened.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Our exciting adventures and boldest endeavors have not yet begun. My fellow Americans, for our movement, for our children, and for our beloved country.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">And I say this despite all that’s happened. The best is yet to come.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">So we’re going to, we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I love Pennsylvania Avenue. And we’re going to the Capitol, and we’re going to try and give.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">The Democrats are hopeless, they never vote for anything. Not even one vote. But we’re going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don’t need any of our help. We’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">I want to thank you all. God bless you and God Bless America.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit;">Thank you all for being here. This is incredible. Thank you very much. Thank you.</span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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Americans have died from Covid-19. This is a deadly virus that has spread like
wildfire throughout the world. Highly contagious it spreads through droplets
emitted primarily via the nose and mouth. This is why the media has continually
banged the drum on wearing face masks, surgical masks being the safest bet. It
is really tragic that for about 10 months now the U.S. has seen other nations
do a far better job at containing the outbreak. Our unstable and truly chaotic
president has made light of this lethal virus and mocked the practice of
wearing a mask. I am grateful to God he has lost his re-election bid!<o:p></o:p></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0G8QIM7r8ik/X-n-oPzuoUI/AAAAAAAAKQ4/muNBE2_8o8wjfZFMXKrhv2jhcoN2RRFxACLcBGAsYHQ/s723/DailyDeaths.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="723" height="268" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0G8QIM7r8ik/X-n-oPzuoUI/AAAAAAAAKQ4/muNBE2_8o8wjfZFMXKrhv2jhcoN2RRFxACLcBGAsYHQ/w447-h268/DailyDeaths.PNG" width="447" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The current surge in the
U.S. is significantly worse than the ones in April and May. Right now, on
average, 1 Covid-19 patient dies every 90 seconds, according to the CDC. It has been hard to distance
oneself and not see family members, but life is better than dying on a
ventilator. Often those dying in hospitals are not allowed to see their loved
ones the last few days of their lives. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thankfully, two vaccines
have now been approved in the U.S., and two more are on their way. This morning
I signed my 83-year-old mom and myself up to get the vaccine. This was done
through a new website established by the District of Columbia. Soon tens of
millions of Americans will be vaccinated rom this horrible pandemic, but until
then we must hang on. We can always check-in with each other in the meantime
via FaceTime, Zoom, or Skype.<o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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</script></div>PeteinDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15497456994808669418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14616876.post-38981534300547536302020-11-24T16:29:00.003-05:002020-11-24T16:30:33.426-05:00Bernie and Righteous (Published way late)The 2020 Democratic primary has narrowed down to two long-time politicians, centrist Joe Biden and progressive Bernie Sanders. Many folks on my Facebook and Twitter feed already seem to be assuming that Biden has already won, but the primary is months from its actual conclusion. Super Tuesday has come and gone, a week prior to Super Tuesday Sanders was the clear frontrunner. Now Biden is now leading in number of delegates.<br />
<br />
The media will spend a lot of time reporting on the percentages of votes candidates will earn in any given, but it truly comes down to a candidate's acquisition of delegates. That is how the eventual nominee is decided at the party's summer convention.<br />
<br />
Immediately before and a couple days after Super Tuesday candidates quickly dropped out of the race when it became clear they had no path to actually winning the nomination. Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen Amy Klobuchar dropped out, consolidating the centrist lane of the race. Meanwhile enthusiasm remained with the progressive lane with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Mayor Mike Bloomberg, the former Republican also stayed in the race for Super Tuesday and performed poorly, usually coming in third or fourth. He and Warren, who finished third in her own state, withdrew from the race after Super Tuesday.<br />
<br />
Now why did Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Bloomberg all endorse fellow centrist when they withdrew, but Warren has yet to endorse her progressive ally Sanders. Why? This would seem to be the logical course if she wanted to commit to working for their shared progressive agenda, such as Medicare for All and cancelling all student debt. This is one of the burning questions currently...<div><br /></div><div>No idea why I did not publish the above sooner...</div><div><br /></div><div>Now it appears 45 is getting ready to exit after his pathetic denials of reality, and Joe Biden will become our 46th president. Much more in my next blog post.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<br />
Yes, I am afraid of being seriously injured, but my even greater fear is being arrested by the cops on some trumped up charge when I try to defend myself from these goose stepping racist misogynistic homophobic wannabe gestapo thugs. So I knew right away I would not be on the front lines. And the more I thought about it, I truly did not want to spend my entire Saturday being a carebear inside a building removed from the action (yet likely seeing younger activists sustaining injuries). Furthermore, I still don't think I'm completely on board with the tactics of directly (often physically) confronting fascists in broad daylight with a horde of cops present. It strikes me as not very smart.<br />
<br />
However, I am also beginning to recognize the value of confronting these hateful misanthropes as they continue to issue calls for utilizing lethal violence against vulnerable groups. These cretins and their followers flourish in darkness; when they are ignored. To ignore them is to fail in any real way to hold them accountable. And not only should they be held accountable -- they should be publicly shamed for embracing the most despicable aspects of humanity. The Proud Boys and their ilk praise the Nazis' final solution, and Chilean fascist dictator Pinochet's practice of dropping political opponents and journalists from high-flying helicopters.<br />
<br />
Two weeks ago I returned from Canada. I was banned from our neighboring nation for 10 years due to a "Failure to Obey a Lawful Order" conviction in 2009. Now I was allowed to enter, visit my two younger cousins, and experience joy in exploring a few parts of Montreal. As I get older, I realize that I must choose more wisely what I am willing to risk arrest for and be held accountable for in a court of law. I continue to believe civil resistance is a powerful tool of transformative love. But there are only a couple precious causes I am willing to go the distance for, and only a couple activist groups I want to act with in that powerful and dramatic way.<br />
<br />
I am glad there are some folks ready to directly confront the fascists when they hold public rallies. And I don't mind playing some sort of support role for these brave activists, but it just ain't my cup of tea to join them at the front. I have harbored rather violent ideas on how to deal with these folks' leaders, and it doesn't involve performative actions with the police as the audience. But, anyhow, I will reserve my practice of nonviolent direct action for those just causes I feel utterly called to act upon -- and it most likely will never be a counter protest.<br />
<br />
My friend Alex has asked me a few times what cause would I be willing to die for. I really had trouble answering this because I truly do love life. There really is only one to be completely honest -- it would be in protection of the vulnerable immigrant children I have been recently involved with serving through two small Suburban Maryland groups. It is this direct service work that is giving me great joy.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<br />
Fields sat emotionless at the defense table in a navy sweater over a collared shirt, a layer of stubble on his face. He also wore dark glasses and his eyes looked exhausted underneath. Heather Heyer's mom, Susan Bro, sat in the front row behind the prosecutor's table, supported by dozens of people in attendance who at times embraced her.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-elGuxmgg7yA/XAFUa1dXMrI/AAAAAAAAFgY/ktRQ0xpjSwA-2sTmzpCiyLQDnHKwQa6iQCLcBGAs/s1600/heather-heyer-mother-njs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-elGuxmgg7yA/XAFUa1dXMrI/AAAAAAAAFgY/ktRQ0xpjSwA-2sTmzpCiyLQDnHKwQa6iQCLcBGAs/s320/heather-heyer-mother-njs.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Susan Bro holds photo of her daughter, Heather Heyer, and her mother.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
After a few days of jury selection, 16 individuals, including four alternates, sat attentively in the jury box directly in front of Judge Moore. Among them is only one black men. All 15 others are white. When I arrived the last portion of basic jury instructions were being recited to them. The courtroom was mostly full. The jury was not to be sequestered, they were not to talk about the case to each other outside of the jury room, and they were not to read or listen to any media accounts of the trial. Months earlier a defense had failed to have the trial moved out of Charlottesville.<br />
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At Charlottesville Circuit Court, all personal electronic devices are being banned from the building during this trial. I knew this ahead of time, so my cellphone remained in the glove box of my car. Outside of the courthouse on East High Street, TV cameras and microphones lined the sidewalk, and several news vans were parked nearby.<br />
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After a short break the trial officially began with the opening arguments, as is the custom the prosecution -- in this case the Commonwealth of Virginia -- went first. The prosecutor described Fields as someone who followed white supremacist and neonazi groups online from his home in Ohio, and that the day before he drove directly to central Virginia. Having arrived in Charlottesville shortly after 3am on August 12, 2017 he soon met up with attendees of the Unite the Right Rally to begin later that morning. A couple months previously, the prosecutor said, Fields had posted a disturbing graphic on his Instagram account of a car being driven into a crowd labeled as protesters. On the day of the crime, after the Unite the Right Rally had been declared an unlawful assembly by law enforcement authorities and the groups were dispersing, she said Fields sat in his silver Challenger alone on a hill above a crowd of counter-protesters, marching away from him, and he watched with his car idling. He was not being threatened, his car was not being attacked, when he then revved his engine and dashed his vehicle into the crowd -- many of those injured would be testifying, promised the prosecutor.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cl6alCSAY1M/XAFT2-Z2tYI/AAAAAAAAFgQ/yh2i7GdgArgQztZQqXYLgl7RhsB6LTjKwCLcBGAs/s1600/fieldsnazi-with-car.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="348" data-original-width="620" height="179" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cl6alCSAY1M/XAFT2-Z2tYI/AAAAAAAAFgQ/yh2i7GdgArgQztZQqXYLgl7RhsB6LTjKwCLcBGAs/s320/fieldsnazi-with-car.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">James Alex Fields Jr poses with his Dodge Challenger.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The 21 year-old neonazi faces five felony counts of malicious wounding, three counts of aggravated malicious wounding, and one count of failing to stop at an accident involving a death. Furthermore, Fields has been charged with hate crimes in a 30-count federal indictment. His espousing white supremacist ideals and visceral hatred for minorities has been document. The prosecutor closed her opening with saying that Fields chose to kill in Charlottesville, not drive away from the rally peacefully. He furthermore did not immediately stop when a police car began pursuing him immediately after the crime.<br />
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Fields' lead defense attorney began his opening that there will be very little the two legal teams will disagree about during the expected next two and a half weeks of witnesses testifying in circuit court. His speech was uneven, sometimes dropping the end of his sentences to a mere mumble, which was extremely difficult for observers to hear.<br />
<br />
"Yes, Mr. Fields was operating the vehicle when it struck Heather Heyer and the others," the defense attorney said. "And, so, you are asking why are we here?" He then went on to explain that this case was about the why of his client's actions. Defense counsel explained how as the young neonazi arrived for the rally he saw rising tensions among protesters and counter-protesters, was "hassled" by several counter-protesters as the rally was about to begin, and then once the rally was cancelled and the dispersal began he had supposedly made lunch plans with three other right-wing attendees. He said a couple of those individuals will testify as to that arrangement. However, these individuals then went separate ways to retrieve their vehicles, and Fields headed toward the area of 4th Street and the downtown pedestrian mall.<br />
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Defense argued that Fields felt directly threatened, saw individuals flashing firearms, and instead of leaving the downtown area altogether, stayed inside his vehicle watching a large group of counter-protesters from behind. His intent, defense said, was not malicious when the criminal act occurred, rather it was one of "self-preservation."<br />
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Following a twenty minute break after the opening statements, I stayed for the first two government witnesses, Michael Webster and Marcus Martin.<br />
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Michael Webster had spent the morning of August 12, 2017 at his girlfriend's home watching news reports and social media posts. She lived further from downtown than he, and wanted him to stay with her that weekend, because she was concerned about the violence that began with the nazi tiki torch march the evening before. However, about an hour after the Unite the Right Rally was cancelled and apparently dispersed, the couple decided to go downtown and support local businesses -- perhaps have lunch at a restaurant they were familiar with near the pedestrian mall.<br />
<br />
Around 1:30pm the couple parked in a free parking space Webster had at his place of work and began walking. This was when they first saw Field's car near the top of a hill idling, and they walked in front of it. They also saw a large group of counter-protesters who he described as "jubilant -- boisterous I would say, not violent," as they neared Water Street.<br />
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Webster took out his smart phone and began recording some of the activity at this time. He then said he saw the defendant backing up 4th Street, and he and his girlfriend agreed that the driver was going to try and navigate another way out of the downtown area, probably via Market Street. After the couple looked down the mostly empty pedestrian mall they heard the loud engine rev and screech of the Challenger's wheels on the pavement as it hurtled toward the crowd. They at once heard screaming, and then they observed the car go in reverse at a high speed back up 4th Street, both bumpers having come loose and a sneaker stuck in its grill.<br />
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The defense's assistant attorney then engaged in a few cross-examine questions, mostly about the physical layout of 4th Street, the pedestrian mall, and where Webster was standing at the time of the crime.<br />
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The second witness, Marcus Martin, took the witness stand after a short break. A tall man with a quiet voice, he spoke in nervous halting sentences as he remembered the fateful day. He was asked about who he was with, and he replied he was with his wife -- then fiance -- Marissa, Heather Heyer, and another mutual friend. They had decided the evening before to join the counter-protesters the evening before.<br />
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When asked to describe his friend Heyer, Martin paused and then began weeping, as he said, "She was a great person."<br />
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Martin said that he, his fiance, and their two friends did not arrive downtown until about 12:30pm, approximately an hour after the rally had been cancelled and people began to leave. Most of the nazis and white supremacists were leaving to the west, and the counter-protesters were heading east. The large group of counter-protesters they ended up with near the intersection of 4th and Water Streets were happy, Martin said, they were celebrating the fact that the Unite the Right Rally had been cancelled.<br />
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It was when Martin stopped to look down at his smart phone that he heard the loud screech of the wheels that the criminal incident happened. Martin said he had just enough time to push his fiance out of the way, when he was thrown up onto the hood of the Challenger, and he said he saw other people thrown into the air. His tibia was completely shattered and his ankle had a severe fracture for which he had to wear a boot cast for eight months.<br />
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At about 1:20pm the trial stopped for an hour lunch break and I left for my return trip home to DC.<br />
<br />
Charlottesville Circuit Court is located at 315 East High Street. The trial is expected to continue at least two more weeks.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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We really don't have to ask Metro Transit Police, MPD, and Fairfax Police who they protect, who they serve. Pretty obvious. And this sets a disturbing and disgusting precedent.<br />
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https://www.localdvm.com/news/virginia/metro-union-calls-to-oust-wmata-general-manager-after-unite-the-right-2-/1366281912<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Fm4r5w3IRJs/WTjfIqsvkrI/AAAAAAAACgs/crj096E0crE-A1Oi5fq5ob_-g-TEOS5iACLcB/s1600/1971-protest-march.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="560" height="160" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Fm4r5w3IRJs/WTjfIqsvkrI/AAAAAAAACgs/crj096E0crE-A1Oi5fq5ob_-g-TEOS5iACLcB/s320/1971-protest-march.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Hello sisters and brothers, subjects of the United States Empire, it has become clear the elected representatives on Capitol Hill no longer truly represent us and our best interests, but rather are serving their elite major campaign contributors. They serve the interests of the extreme rich and large corporations, certainly not the average American worker, student, or retired individual.<br />
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In order to improve our government, we, a collective of dedicated social justice activists, propose three demands to those who have power to legislate within the Federal Government. We list those demands here, and will then discuss how to make sure they pass into the law of the land:<br />
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1) Universal single payer health care, something that nearly all other developed nations of the world already possess for their citizens. We, as human beings, have a right to good health and to never be financially crippled in this pursuit of our own well-being. We demand that Congress pass House Resolution 676 and a Senate companion resolution before the end of the year.<br />
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2) A federally mandated $15 per hour minimum wage for all workers within the nation. We, as human beings, have a right to a fair living wage, and should not have to lag behind workers in nearly every other developed nations of the world. One full-time job should suffice in the obtainment of the most basic necessities of life. We demand the passage of this law at the federal level, before the end of the year, which has already been passed by many municipalities and a few states within the Union.<br />
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3) An end to unaccountable special interests and corporate donations flowing into all federal elections. We demand the passage of the DISCLOSE Act, House Resolution 5175 and Senate 3369, before the end of the year. As human beings residing within the United States we are the ones the Federal Government is tasked with serving. We are entitled to know all the sources of contributions flowing into the campaigns of those seeking to serve in elected office. This is a requirement of a democracy, and we demand that our government turn away from a plutocratic empire and return to a truly representative republic, of for and by its people.<br />
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We will not rest until these demands are met. We will occupy public spaces and halls of government. We will disrupt business as usual, utilizing nonviolent direct action in a focused and persistent away, in order to insure that these three demands for the improvement of our society and all our lives are met.<br />
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Later this year we will be gathering in communities of resistance, learning from one another, and then launch our peaceful actions of resistance and disturbance. We will pursue this course of action with love for our communities and hope for our society's future.<br />
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In my life, I have come to realize that the most paramount factor is other people. Think about it, unless you live somewhere deep in the Himalayans, and somehow have a fully sustainable yurt with near-daily air drop services -- you probably interact with a lot of different folks. You learn from them, you share good and bad times with them. You struggle and debate with them. If it's someone you click with socially, you thoroughly enjoy hanging out and sharing life together. At least, that's it in a nutshell for me. </div>
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As I previously mentioned, listening is a required part of communication. It is also socially required to show respect for your fellow human beings who you encounter. I like the old idiom, "You are given two ears and one mouth to show you that listening is twice as important as speaking." Sometimes, I need to remind myself of this basic bit of wisdom. And it's an important ethic to keep in mind when you are organizing with other intelligent human beings. Again, respect, basic dignity -- it's something we want to promote in the world we are trying to bring about.</div>
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Next, I would like to discuss elitism and exclusivity vs humility and inclusivity. Both are important to understand and be aware of when we are building places to organize our campaigns for a more just, egalitarian, and all around better world. We need each other, see second paragraph above, and really we are a stronger collection of organizers when we welcome each other in and genuinely want to utilize each other's ideas, as well as blood, sweat and tears. And we want to be on guard against tokenism. We truly want full participation, we ideally want a diverse group of folks bringing a wealth of experience and creative ideas, as well as their heartfelt dedication to our campaigns. The danger is to think that your one small clique has the best and most useful answers when it comes to group messaging, or group strategy. You don't. Not yet. I really don't think you do, until you first listen to your participants. If you find yourself falling into an elitist clique-think, just take a breather and try and swallow a humility pill. Remember, it's always best to be willing to try and incorporate folks, and draw on their cool ideas. It ought to be your organizing mode default. It's called collectivism, and you can do it.<br />
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Furthermore, once folks feel like they are being respected and included, they will naturally buy into the campaign. Therefore being far more committed to making sure it wins. It's pretty simple folks, it hearkens back to the golden rule.<br />
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Now to shift gears once again, let's discuss another one of the most important factors in life: Fear. Yes, the terrifying F word. There's so much in life we are afraid of, such as: Threats, Injuries, Loss of Income, Loss of Family, Loss of Friends, Loss of Love, Illness, Darkness, Water, Those Who are "Different," and ultimately Death. Too much to cover in this blog entry. But perhaps I will cover the first one and the last two, both in the context of the current presidential election and progressive organizing on campaigns to bring about a better future.<br />
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Donald Trump is a threat. I think nearly all sane people realize that. But let's look at it real closely, why he is a threat? A lot of it is because of what he says. But also, threats don't always come true. I see Trump as a con-man, and a former pro-choice Democrat. How was he able to win the Republican nomination? He utilized FEAR, which is very effective. But, also he noticed that the whole climate of our corporate duopoly in control of politics, well and our appetite for Reality TV. And he already stared in a Reality TV show that was a success, a huge success, we are talking so much success you are going to be sick of the success! OK, humor aside, I hope you get my point. Trump is a threat, but how much did we let him become one?<br />
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I think voting for the lesser of two evils [100% about FEAR] for decades now has given us Trump. It has also given us Hillary Clinton. Take a look at her, her record (she actually has a governmental track record, unlike The Donald), and also take a look at her campaign and her former campaigns.<br />
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Hillary Clinton is extremely duplicitous. She has changed her position (or at least the intentionality of the verbiage on her position) on many major issues facing the country and the world. HRC has also often denied that she previously held the opposing position. HRC is being touted by a lot of my liberal/progressive Democrat friends as the Lesser Evil. These include people I have been to many a protest with, really good folks. But they are stuck in FEAR. Fear of the orange-haired boogeyman. Forget about all the neocons lining up to cast their ballot for her (and not uncomfortable sharing this fact with all their buddies and fan clubs), forget that she has sold fracking to the world, forget that she has called people deplorables and basement dwellers, forget that she has routinely given multi-million dollar speeches to powerful and corrupt Wall Street firms, such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, forget that she voted for war in Iraq, that she orchestrated the war in Libya, and that she has laughed about it. Forget about the DNC emails that talked about the planned and orchestrated undermining of Bernie Sanders' campaign, about the Taco Bowl outreach to Latino voters. Forget about it!? She is not the lesser evil. There is no lesser -- EVIL is evil.<br />
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"When you choose the 'lesser evil,' you are still stuck with evil." ~ Dorothy Day</div>
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My fellow human being are often controlled by their fear. It leads to irrational behavior and decisions. Yes, I was going to address Those Who are Different and Death. Both are important when discussing America and our place in the world.<br />
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Racism has a central role in American history, and our society today. Whether you are voting for someone who calls Mexicans rapists or good little Miss Housekeepers, or, whether you are calling black youth Super Predators -- the fact is you are part of the problem if you vote for them. You really are. These are people who are widely seen as leaders, many see them as the ultimate leader. You are going to vote for people who throw about bigoted remarks and helped promote the completely failed War on Drugs and a system of mass incarceration, which has thrown millions of nonviolent people of color behind bars for most of their lives? Really? What are you afraid of?<br />
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And what sort of places are we creating as progressive organizers? Are we creating safe spaces that are fully inclusive?<br />
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Now, the final one. It's what is waiting for us all at the end. Death. Those who have near-death experiences, almost always come out of it viewing their life differently. Having those very close to us die, this happened to me very recently, makes us realize how precious life is.<br />
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Our country, the US, has the capability to inflict death on the world. A few times over. In this presidential election do you hear either candidate discussing the hundreds of thousands of nuclear warheads we still possess?<br />
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Then there's also a much slower global death, such as sea level rise and atmospheric adjustments due to climate change. The US could lead on this, but most often does not. Has this matter been brought up in the presidential debates, and will it?<br />
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To sum it up: Life is brief. Make it count. I want to make it clear that what we do matters. In every moment of our life. Do you want to make decisions motivated by fear, either fear of a potential implied repressive government (hell, we already have one), or fear in a lack of capability or agreement with your fellow co-organizers?<br />
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I personally prefer to make my decisions out of hope, certainly my experience plays a part, but so does my vision of the world I want to leave behind for those I love who will come after me. Let's be consistent to ourselves and our own goals motivated by there greater goal to accomplish a better world.<br />
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I leave you with a couple good references. Two concepts I have found useful in my own experience…<br />
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<a href="http://organizingforpower.org/clusters-spokes-councils/" target="_blank">Spokescouncils and clusters</a><br />
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<a href="http://nica.ic.org/Process/Consensusbasics.php" target="_blank">Consensus</a><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; line-height: 1.58;">"</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; line-height: 1.58;">You know that this broken world, with its rising seas and hungry mouths and bodies riddled by police bullets, can be so much better. We can end the toxic corruption that gives us militarized police, and oil-slicked pipeline deals, and hopeless shoeless migrant children like the ones I went to school with in Texas. </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; line-height: 1.58;">We can get to the other side together. One road, many lanes." </span></span></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; line-height: 1.58;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; line-height: 1.58;">~Justin </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.04800000041723251px; line-height: 25px;">Jacoby</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; line-height: 1.58;"> Smith, American activist</span></span></span></i></div>
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<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></em></div>
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<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"How can an organization trying to fix our democracy operate undemocratically? How can an organization tell us that real change happens from the bottom-up. when they themselves operate top-down?" ~Kobi Azoulay, American activist</span></em></div>
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<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></em></div>
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<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"In the end, the most important thing is not to do things for people who are poor and in distress, but to enter into relationship with them, to be with them and help them find confidence in themselves and discover their own gifts." ~Jean Vanier, founder of L'Arche</span></em></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">"The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?" ~Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement</em></span></div>
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In April my hope once again blossomed with the gathering of 1,400 fellow activists who risked arrest in a week's worth of nonviolent direct actions on Capitol Hill. It was a beautiful sight that so many of us were willing to speak truth to power in the center of the Belly of the Beast. The newly formed coalition had named itself Democracy Spring and promoted itself as nonpartisan in it's quest to remove big corporate money from our political sphere and to expand voter access. Much of the malaise in Washington can be traced back to huge monied interests holding sway over their favored duopoly of Democrats and Republicans controlling our government. I saw a great potential of focusing our energies on this fundamental cancer in our country, not on petty internal squabbles over diminishing resources and divided commitments to various causes (because really the big monied elite holding the strings are really at the root of so many of our society's ills), or to individual electoral campaigns which always seem to drain energies away from social movements during presidential election years.<br />
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An early criticism I had of Democracy Spring is that it actively encouraged people to simply pay the $50 fine if and when they were arrested by the National Capitol Police. Myself and a small handful refused to pay the fine, because we felt our right to exercise our First Amendment to petition a redress our grievances in a peaceful manner within a public forum was not illegal, and furthermore such expression should never come with a price tag. To simply pay (into the rapidly expanding police state) the protest tax and go on our merry way, seemed to communicate that, yes, you could place a monetary value on free speech (the opposite of what we were just arguing).<br />
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We elected to go to trial, and while many had their cases "no papered" or dismissed -- a minuscule number of us did get our day in court. Three of the four of us remaining decided to defend ourselves (pro se) in court. It became a rather lengthy trial with many starts and stops, because the brand new magistrate judge apparently was not well-versed in controlling her tightly packed calendar. In early September, when the judge ordered us to return for her verdict -- I was convinced we would be found guilty, and personally I was prepared refuse any and all court assigned fines, and thereby greatly increase my chances of a jail sentence. A sentence I am guessing would have been between five and 10 days in DC Jail. However, because we were rather well prepared and had eloquent arguments, we were all acquitted. Regardless of outcome, I would like to say how incredibly empowering it is to be pro se in court; to continue speaking truth to power about your campaign, which invariably goes into the court record.<br />
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I feel strongly that the First Amendment, which enshrines the right to freely express one's self in a peaceful manner and to petition one's own government for a redress of grievances is a natural and necessary function of any government claiming to be democratic. And, yes, I was prepared to go to jail to highlight and resist the burgeoning plutocracy which has seized control of our government.<br />
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One of the most attractive qualities of Democracy Spring, besides a commitment to engage in the time-honored (and very often successful) tradition of nonviolent direct action, was that it was non-partisan and seemingly focused on A) getting big money out of politics, and B) expanding voter access. Again, two very important qualities of a functioning democracy. I met Libertarians, Democrats, and fellow Greens sitting, singing, and sometimes dancing on the Capitol steps. We were unified in a great cause. We were not promoting any of our preferred candidates.<br />
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Imagine my disappointment in Democracy Spring as an organization when its interim national coordinating committee of 11 fellow progressive activists decided to trumpet a "strategic" vote for Hillary Clinton. Although they have said time and again now that it wasn't really an endorsement, as I understand American politics (and I grew up in DC and had worked on Capitol Hill many years ago) when you advocate for folks to vote for a certain candidate that is indeed an endorsement. It was now clear Democracy Spring had recast itself as partisan.<br />
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Furthermore Democracy Spring, with its 11 decision makers had made this very important decision with no input from its participants -- from the approximately 1,400 of us arrested in the nation's capital in April. To sum it up: Democracy Spring was not being democratic. They tried to explain how it all made sense strategically, as they were trying to set in place an easier playing field in which to get the reforms they desperately struggled for. But they would now play within the conventional (and corporately approved and funded) conformity of the duopoly enthroned inside the Beltway. They became partisan, and not solely focused on change through nonviolent direct action.<br />
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However, to Democracy Spring's credit they tried to communicate with their participants, sometimes more effectively than other times. But it was after the fact. And, in the end, they said they would put forward a survey and were even willing to reconsider their decision regarding the "strategic" endorsement. Although I could spend the rest of this post quibbling about the way the survey was written (with its four potential outcomes as choices), the 11 person decision making body refused to rescind its earlier "strategic" endorsement. Although I think they did a fine job explaining how they came to this final decision, I still felt deep in my heart that they were not acknowledging the thoughts and feelings of folks who had invested a lot of themselves and risked quite a lot at the birth of this new organization; many participating had never been arrested before. And more than 100 fellow activists courageously marched most (or the entire length) of the 140-mile march from Philadelphia to DC as the initiation of this mobilization.<br />
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Ultimately, Democracy Spring was pursuing an undemocratic course. I think the 11 person interim national coordinating committee is comprised of good people. I just sincerely question the organizing method they chose to pursue, and their willingness to in effect become their own elite by persisting in an undemocratic fashion. They could have pursued a different method -- they could have pursued state or regional spokes councils before ever pushing forward with such a decision. Or, perhaps even better, they could have stayed out of the presidential election, and continued to plan for their next big phase in the campaign for 2017 regardless of who won the White House. In short, they could have remained nonpartisan, which they had so proudly promoted themselves as a few months prior.<br />
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During my years of activism and a few roles as an organizer, I have always felt it was important to pursue means that clearly reflected the ends. With Democracy Spring the coordinating committee talked about its DNA and front loading their organization when it was still really just a coalition of many different groups (albeit the clear leader was 99 Rise). To be clear these early strategic maneuvers were not made transparent and were never widely shared before April. I think they would say that their honorable and laudable ends justify their untrustworthy and in fact authoritarian means. I just can't go along with a newly formed organization that has chosen such a path. I believe in the ethic Gandhi encourages us as activists to live by, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."<br />
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Again, I want to express respect and an acknowledgement of the goodness within the hearts and minds of the 11 activists comprising the decision making body. One of whom, I know as a great individual who has dedicated much of his life toward moving our country toward a more egalitarian and just society. I first met him through Occupy K Street. It is with loving concern that I write this blog entry, critiquing what I consider to be a serious error.<br />
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A critical factor in Democracy Spring's misstep, in my opinion, is to first assume that you know how to strategize a campaign better than a large group of fellow activists who are committing themselves to the same endeavor. To see one's self as wiser and more capable of making such strategic and substantive identity-defining decisions than your comrades at once falls into the trap of creating what could be compared to a class divide within a seemingly progressive movement. You have the small elite organizers on the one hand, and the activist drones on the other. And then further compounding the misstep and creating a graver problem for your fledgling organization is to cling to your undemocratic decision, despite being told by a majority (about 63% according to their own survey) of participants that they disagree.<br />
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But I now want to move away from this discussion of Democracy Spring. It simply illustrates some patterns of organizing I have repeatedly seen in many progressive networks and organizations. In my opinion the use of spokes councils, or direct democracy with consensus (or even modified consensus) is a preferable way to go. Through these methods you can be true to yourself, each other, and begin to actually reflect your goals which you wish to achieve in your campaigns. You become a glimpse into this better future to the greater community around you. And through the process you empower one another and can deepen each other's commitment to the cause.<br />
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It is important in our dialogue, as fellow progressive activists, that we listen to one another; to truly dedicate ourselves to learning from one another. We are all capable students, and we are all capable teachers. Having worked for a wonderful organization by the name of L'Arche in two different cities now -- I have accepted this principal of recognizing the inherit precious value and impressive potential of all to be a fundamental truth that I carry with me. It takes quite a bit of humility my friends to pursue this ethic, but I am confident we are all capable of achieving it. It is also extremely helpful approach as we struggle to build healthy relationships and communities. Please, let's be reflections of what we are hoping to perpetuate and accomplish.<br />
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In the second part of this blog entry, I will discuss why I have chosen a revolutionary path, rather than a reformist one, vis a vis social movements. It's a discussion that nicely complements what I have begun with this first half. Thank you for reading, friends and comrades.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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Contact: Pete Perry, <a href="tel:202-704-3963" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank" value="+12027043963">202-704-3963</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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Helen Schietinger, <a href="tel:202-344-5762" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank" value="+12023445762">202-344-5762</a><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<b>Four Democracy Spring Activists Acquitted </b></div>
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Sept. 2, 2016<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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WASHINGTON -- In a stirring victory for First Amendment rights in the nation's capitol, four pro-democracy activists who had participated in Democracy Spring's week of actions on Capitol Hill in April were acquitted Friday by Judge Diane Lepley of Blocking, Crowding and Incommoding, and Failure to Obey a Lawful Order. Helen Schietinger and Pete Perry of Washington, Alex Park of Virginia, and Manijeh Saba of New Jersey were thankful for the decision, recognizing its importance for those who travel to the Capitol Building and congressional offices to speak with their elected representatives.</div>
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"I want to thank Judge Lepley who deliberated over our case and decided to favor our right to peacefully assemble to communicate our concerns to Congress," said Perry. "This right is essential to a functioning democracy. We feel that this victory does not belong to us, but the entire people of America.” </div>
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The four were arrested during three different actions taking place on Capitol Hill, April 11-18. The week included the single largest nonviolent civil resistance action at the Capitol Building since the Vietnam War. Schietinger, Perry, and Saba represented themselves in court, while Park was represented by Mark Goldstone, long-time First Amendment attorney.</div>
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Goldstone said, ”I was honored to stand with these four brave citizen-activists and also with Ric Galanits whose case was dismissed at trial. They were part of the Democracy Spring movement which is committed to winning sweeping democracy reforms that would end the corruption of big money in politics and guarantee the right to vote for all. In April 2016 Democracy Spring organized the largest American civil disobedience action of this century, with over 1,300 people being arrested after nonviolently sitting in on the steps of the US Capitol and demanding reform to reclaim our democracy from the plutocrats, the special interests and the 1%.”</div>
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Manijeh Saba, a naturalized citizen who came to the U.S. in the 1970s, recalled the trial, "During our trial I showed Judge Lepley my copy of the U.S. Constitution, which I always carry with me, and which I swore an oath to defend. That is absolutely what I was doing both in April and most recently by defending our First Amendment rights in court.” </div>
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According to Schietinger, “I believe this is a landmark decision. Judge Lepley has recognized the importance of our having a fair trial.” </div>
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"I hope the actions by my co-defendants and I inspire further actions and educate the people of this country as to how we must win back our democracy,” Park said after the verdict was rendered. </div>
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**I Promise to provide some detailed analysis in a future blog**</div>
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The truth with the American corporate duopoly running the U.S. government is that there is precious little separating the two parties. True there are some differences on social issues, such as gay marriage and abortion rights -- both reveal that the days are numbered for the G.O.P. However the Democrats, from the 1990s until recent years, have shifted sharply to the right with a full embrace of neoliberal policies -- favoring privatization of many areas of the public sphere and pursuing programs of austerity. Today's Democrats are 1980s Republicans, and with some issue areas President Obama's administration, particularly the draconian crack down on government whistleblowers and record high deportation rates, are a bit to the right of Reagan's administration.<br />
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In 2016, the duopoly's picks are both unabashed neoliberals who are extremely hawkish (Trump actually being a bit more reserved on military interventions), and have both played roles in exporting millions of jobs outside of our nation. Both are now adamantly against comprehensive universal single payer health care (like what the rest of the Western developed world has). And both have revealed their racist leanings ("super-predators," "rapists").<br />
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Last night Green Party nominee Jill Stein took the stage at the CNN studio with her running mate veteran human rights activist Ajamu Baraka in a televised town hall. This gave the Green Party a great deal of exposure they very seldom have had. However, Libertarian Gary Johnson has already been given two town hall appearances by CNN. Despite Chris Cuomo's subtle and obnoxious racist badgering of Mr. Baraka and his naysaying of several of Dr. Stein's proposals, the Green duo performed extremely well, and received warm applause from the audience.<br />
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Don't expect a third party win this cycle, but there will be extremely significant gains from where they were four years ago (<a href="http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/national.php" target="_blank">0.99% for Johnson, 0.36% for Stein</a>) -- the time is ripe in our nation's history, job growth remains sluggish, wages are stagnant with more people working longer hours while seeing many of their benefits trimmed (if they are lucky enough to have a job that offer benefits, such as a pension). Americans are people who are fed up and increasingly disgusted by the duopoly and their corporate funders. A couple in depth polls this year show a solid 60% of Americans want a strong third party. As for Stein and Johnson <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/poll-clinton-maintains-big-lead-voters-doubt-trump-s-temperament-n631351" target="_blank">their numbers are definitely looking up</a>.<br />
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This is indeed a long term struggle to reshape American politics, but with more and more Americans aware of how our government has been subverted by the billions of dollars of corporate dark money flooding into our presidential, gubernatorial, senate, and congressional races the corporate duopoly as it now exists is endangered. Thirty years -- perhaps even 20 years from now, I predict the Republican Party will cease to exist, and the Democrats will again have faced another Bernie Sanders-type dilemma: Reverse course and return to its FDR/New Deal soul, or continue its betrayal of hardworking Americans in its rightward march. This struggle is just beginning and as Millenials increasingly flirt with -- some already gravitating toward -- the Greens, this progressive party will have an increasingly significant role to play.<br />
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For me, I am quite proud to be a Green. It's the party which has been fighting hard for green renewable energy for about four decades, universal single payer and LGBT rights for more than three decades, and marijuana legalization for just as long. I invite my readers to review the party's <a href="http://www.gp.org/10kv" target="_blank">10 Key Values</a>, and if you agree with all of them join us! The future has never looked greener.<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E7aJ0HhMNPY/V7Z5-z3C7bI/AAAAAAAACXo/DlVti8a_HSMi8dIMVZetVVGOAD_0dESwACEw/s1600/Political_green_party_logo-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E7aJ0HhMNPY/V7Z5-z3C7bI/AAAAAAAACXo/DlVti8a_HSMi8dIMVZetVVGOAD_0dESwACEw/s200/Political_green_party_logo-5.jpg" width="158" /></a></div>
A leading criticism of the Green Party that needs to be addressed is that we are really not much more than our presidential nominee popping up every four years. This is simply not true, as our party runs candidates at every level of government every single year. This year we have more than 130 Green candidates running. Just to highlight a few -- Joshua Harris running for Baltimore mayor is an African American millennial (<a href="http://www.gp.org/baltimore_green_party_mayoral_candidate_joshua_harris_wins_youth_straw_poll" target="_blank">and shown some extreme strength with that age group)</a> already deeply involved in the Baltimore community; Arn Menconi running for U.S. Senate from Colorado is a former Democrat who was an Eagle County Commissioner; and Charlotte Pritt running for Governor of West Virginia is a former Democrat who had previously run for governor. <a href="http://www.gp.org/officeholders" target="_blank">Current Green officeholders</a> include Mayor Bruce Delgado of Marina, CA; County Commissioner Art Goodtimes of San Miguel County, CO; Town Meeting Members Frank Gatti and Vincent O'Connor of Amherst, MA; City Council Member Cam Gordon of Minneapolis, MN; Mayor Jim Sullivan of Victory, NY; and City Council Member George Altgelt of Laredo, TX.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Contact:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For Immediate Release</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pete Perry, 202-704-3963</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">July 12, 2016</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Washington, DC -- Four activists who took part in Democracy Spring’s week of peaceful protests at the Capitol Building calling for corporate money to be removed from the American political process are waiting a decision in their trial before D.C. Magistrate Judge Diane Lepley.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> On Monday, the government prosecutor and the defendants concluded their closing arguments. Lepley scheduled the decision in the case for 9:00 a.m. Friday, July 15, in D.C. Superior Court, Room 116. Defendants Peter Perry of Philadelphia, Manijeh Saba of New Jersey, and Helen </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Schietinger </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of Washington, D.C. are defending themselves in court. Defendant Alexander Park of Virginia is being represented by Attorney Mark Goldstone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The four activists participated in Democracy Spring’s week-long protests on Capitol Hill, resulting in more than 1,400 arrests. This included the largest single protest arrest on the Capitol grounds since the Vietnam War.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “We came to the Capitol Grounds to peacefully petition our government to ban vast amounts of unaccountable corporate dark money flooding our political process,” said pro-se defendant Perry in the defense’s closing argument. “Our intention was never to block or impede anyone, or incommode any entranceway, and we did not. Our intention, as we all testified, was to exercise our First Amendment rights.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The defendants are being charged with Crowding, Blocking and Incommoding on the Capitol Grounds and Failure to Obey a Lawful Order.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “Too much power is being handed over to the police, we must defend our rights. These rights are enshrined in the Constitution, which I took an oath to protect and uphold when I was granted citizenship 40 years ago,” said pro-se defendant Saba. “I already lived through two dictatorships in Iran, and would not wish that on anyone else. I am committed to defending and protecting our democracy.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In her opening statement, Schietinger asserted that "the rule prohibiting protests in this traditional public space is an unreasonable and arbitrary violation of our Constitutional right of free speech.” She compared the Democracy Spring sit-ins at the steps of the U.S. Capitol — the People’s House — to the June sit-in by members of Congress in the House of Representatives demanding a vote on gun control. "They actually stopped the business of Congress. They were not arrested. They should not have been arrested. But neither should we.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Democracy Spring is an organization formed this year from a coalition of citizen groups deeply concerned about the influence of big money in American politics, and committed to making voting more accessible for all citizens. It plans to participate in the protests during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, July 25-29.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.38; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Democracy Spring’s current campaign is the Equal Voice for All Declaration, which calls on current members of Congress and candidates for public office at any level of government — from President to City Council — to commit to fight for reform to save our democracy and ensure political equality. The Declaration is a tool to establish public commitments from elected officials or candidates that can be used to demonstrate the breadth of support for reform, educate voters about what candidates to support, and hold candidates-elect accountable to honor their commitment by fighting to pass reform.</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JKUslG7aSZc/VxsB4SpETiI/AAAAAAAACRo/4Li0Nt3ABLwr4lyCdYWvpZhLam4lLPnZwCLcB/s1600/Chinatown-Friendship-Gate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JKUslG7aSZc/VxsB4SpETiI/AAAAAAAACRo/4Li0Nt3ABLwr4lyCdYWvpZhLam4lLPnZwCLcB/s320/Chinatown-Friendship-Gate.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
OK, so I love walking the bustling streets of Chinatown Philly! What I have noticed is the boba (or bubble) tea phenomena has exploded in popularity. There must be about a dozen establishments here dedicating their focus to this. Also, where else can you find several Internet Cafes within a five block radius without jumping into a time machine and journeying back to the mid to late 1990s? A bit odd. But perhaps I will explore those two types of businesses in future posts. Now back to food. Honestly, I love Chinese food and would not have a problem eating it every day if given the chance!<br />
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<u>Pho 20</u> -- Located up on the northern end of Chinatown Philly is this family run establish with generous hours (unlike many places in the neighborhood, this one actually stays open past 10pm). The summer rolls were delicate, paper thin rice pastry like it should be and the fillings were fresh and extremely tasty. For pho I ordered the beef flank, and it was truly a special experience. The broth was sublime and absolutely pleased the palette as soon as it touched the tongue. The beef seemed fresh and cooked medium, which is just right -- moist, not overly rubbery or dried out.<br />
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I can't wait to return to Pho 20. The price was very reasonable, and probably the best summer rolls and pho I have ever had. 234 N. 10th Street, at the corner with Winter Street. Rating 4 Stars<br />
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<u>Tom's Dim Sum</u> -- Formerly known as Dim Sum Garden, this establishment is not in a very attractive location. It is across from the Hilton Garden Hotel, where 11th Street is covered, trapping in a lot of exhaust fumes. And on the same block as Jefferson Station for the SEPTA Regional commuter trains. I had seaweed salad, fishball soup, and a vegetable bun for $12.10! The seaweed salad seemed fresh and tasted just as good as any of the same dish I have had at some upscale Japanese restaurants. The fishball soup was delicious, aromatic and intensely favorable broth, the veggie steamed bun was also great, some nice filling featuring among other things minced mushrooms and seitan.<br />
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I also look forward to my next trip (will order the scallion pancakes which I was happy to see on the menu) to this little casual place with a modern and very clean decor. 59 N. 11th Street. Rating 3.5 Stars<br />
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1 Star is like McDonalds. 4 Stars is the best there is for its cuisine.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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I joined a community house in Syracuse, and tried to make it a Catholic Worker house of hospitality. I faced a lot of disagreements, and the various ideas for a mission, from the individuals involved, were never on the same page. Then there was anger and a lot of frustration. Now there is a lot of uncomfortable silence. There were some personality clashes (I accept my role in that). I am not pointing any fingers. Maybe I was wrong to push my vision. The house here has been many things over its 40 years of existence. But it seems like its longest running mission was being a part of the Central American Sanctuary movement and offering hospitality to that affected community on a family scale for about 10 years (mid-80s to mid-90s). This time around it did not gel and the former occupant, the organizational founder, Jail Ministry, will move its offices back in here this summer (it moved out a year and a half ago).<br />
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I will in the short-term be living with my sister and her husband in Philadelphia. Bruno, my most awesome and very loving basset hound, will of course come with me. I will be there during a search for a community to join. I still lean toward a Catholic Worker community, but it does not have to be one. I have been making contacts and tentative plans to visit communities that are dedicated to working with and for the poor in Connecticut, Maryland, and Virginia. Of the three, Connecticut is sort of lowest on my preference list, as I would like to be significantly closer to my parents than I am right now in Syrcause. Their health is not well, particularly my mother.<br />
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This move to Philadelphia will happen in six weeks. I am excited about it. Hope to explore the city and get to know and possibly volunteer with Sr. Margaret McKenna. She co-founded and runs the New Jerusalem Community, and she is a well-respected peace and social justice activist.<br />
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Currently spending a lot of time with Bruno and reading (right now <i>Francis and Jesus</i> by Bodo). Also praying for continued guidance and inspiration. Already thinking about my next blog entry!<br />
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Lastly, I am grateful to all my friends and family who have been supportive of me as I stumble through life, trying to follow God. I also hope that the anger here will subside and we can wish each other well as we part ways.<br />
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It is getting down to election time in D.C., and I have had the great pleasure of volunteering for Eugene Puryear's campaign for City Council. His public positions resonate strongly with my own views powered by my belief system. And the good news is he has a fairly good chance of winning! Early voting begins Monday. And I will be working closely with the camping during these last two weeks! This evening, I did a bit of outreach for Eugene at the mayoral debate at Anacostia High.<br />
Anyhow, check out <a href="http://www.eugenepuryear.com/" target="_blank">Eugene's Website</a>. If you are progressive like me, I am sure you will love his candidacy.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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Furthermore, my spirituality which I often silenced or suppressed, has now truly begun to blossom. I now wish to grow and nourish my relationship with God. To me my activism was never separate from my spirituality. My belief in pursuing justice, doing good, and resisting violence in the world has always been very important to me. The causes I have worked on may be political, but my energy and commitment has always stemmed from my core beliefs. These actions and campaigns have been more than just merely political for me. And I am interested in living in community with others similarly committed.<br />
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In 48 hours from now I will be more than half way through a Greyhound bus ride to Kansas City. That will be my first stop on a tour of Catholic Worker communities I will consider joining. I don't believe I have been this excited about anything in my life since my move to Seattle when I was 27. I am listening to a voice inside me, and I feel I am heeding a call. Last winter and into the spring I found intense happiness interacting with some of my homeless neighbors. I have shared food and conversation with them. I feel I have gotten to know two of them. I hope to do this kind of work full-time and build community around it. This is to a large degree what the Catholic Worker movement is all about.<br />
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In 2004, when I became intensely involved in the anti-war movement, I was always deeply impressed with the Catholic Workers. Their commitment to nonviolence and building a more just world for those most oppressed and ignored in our midst quickly resonated with me. However, I was supposed to try and succeed at a typical career, after all isn't that what I went to school for? Is it not what my parents expect? But you see, I feel disconnected from God when I only focus on <i>my "</i>career," and I feel it puts greater distance between myself and my brothers and sisters I observe just struggling to simply survive. I feel called to act in a way that may help build just a little bit of justice in the world, or maybe it will only result in lessening the suffering of just a couple brothers and sisters. Either way, I want to be present for those struggling with loneliness, hunger, addiction, homelessness. I want to serve, in some small capacity, the stranger who comes to the door seeking refuge.<br />
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So there you have it in a nutshell. Perhaps this intention to serve is just a little bit selfish. I don't want an empty life, I wish for it to have more value than just holding a decent job, being a "good citizen," doing what is "expected" of me and <i>for</i> me. Living God's love is doing/being/living for others. Thank you for reading, and God bless.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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2014 will be a better year. I am sure of it. After seven months of unemployment, next week I will begin a digital archives job in downtown D.C. I also plan to begin yoga regularly and continue to live frugally in order to save some money for my next trip to South America. I am very glad I am getting back into the field I want to continue with (archives), and I am also on the host committee for the Society of American Archivists 2014 Conference, which will be here in my hometown this year.</div>
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I won't be as stressed out about bills and transportation costs. I think Bruno and I will continue to be happy. Activism will still be around, but it won't dominate my life. Look forward to more gaming and more healthy living!</div>
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Here's a great recipe that went over well for Christmas when I made it... <a href="http://www.cookingquinoa.net/cranberry-quinoa-bread" target="_blank">Cranberry & Quinoa Bread</a>!</div>
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While I continue to worry about the people of the U.S., I am generally happy with the direction my life is going in. But I think it is terrible, and a crime, that unemployment benefits were suddenly cut off for 1.3 million of my fellow citizens over this past weekend. And I am aware that between 50 and 60 million of my fellow citizens are living in poverty. Meanwhile the richest 1 percent owns more than 40 percent of the wealth. Here's a great <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM" target="_blank">data visualization illustrating the wealth inequality</a>. A significant, and revolutionary, change is over due.</div>
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Now I am looking forward to ringing in the New Year. And having brunch with my buddy Steve and a couple other friends on 1/1/14! Cheers.</div>
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<i>"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal."</i> ~ Emma Goldman, anarchist leader and philosopher</div>
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<i>"It's time to bring the global pro-democracy movement into the belly of the beast."</i> ~ Howie Hawkins, co-founder of the Green Party U.S.</div>
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During the last three years, I have on occasion described myself politically as an anarchist. And now I have a confession to make. I am not a very good anarchist. I write this now, as I believe there is still some utility to voting within the current capitalist-imperialist structure of the U.S. government. I vote for Green Party candidates. I have thought for a while now about this internal conflict of mine. I do believe that most humans have come to a point in their evolution where they don't really need a large centralized government managing their social customs, enacting laws over their lives. We certainly can now handle direct democracy and find it far more preferable over the corrupt and quite literally broken (<i>well, it's not broken for the elite</i>) form of representative government we have here in Washington, D.C. Well, we citizens of the District of Columbia don't even have that representation. So, why do I vote Green, and why am I recently becoming more involved with the local D.C. Statehood-Green Party if I call myself an anarchist?<br />
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Philosophically there is a lot in anarchism that I deeply agree with. However, I am not convinced that our society has completely lost all need for government. I think our society no longer needs, nor deserves, this current government. I think the poor and most vulnerable, and the most oppressed by The State, deserve protection. They deserve support from the community as a whole. And, no, small collective communities practicing their own direct democracy assemblies are not adequate at this point to fulfill these needs on their own. Perhaps sometime in the distant future when we have reverted, or are in a post-revolution landscape, have gone back to smaller, mostly agrarian communities we will be able to do this. But we don't have this capacity, or sadly in many cases, the willpower to provide this safety net.<br />
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Here in the imperial U.S. we live in a highly materialistic society where we love our small electronic gadgets built from minerals mined in places such as the Congo (the most violent place in the world thanks to armies owned by various corporations) and constructed by near-slave labor in China. I sometimes find it absurd and tragic when I find myself bemoaning materialism and what drives it -- capitalism -- with my other progressive friends via our smartphones. And this current capitalist-imperialist government continually gives corporate tax breaks and subsidies to these same multinational corporations who violate human rights in the name of profit.<br />
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Even many of my progressive friends who have adopted and supposedly fully embraced anarchism, pay taxes. They may not vote, but they still pay taxes -- lest they be put away inside the prison industrial complex in the imperial U.S. Why vote if you don't want to support or partake in "the system," but yet you still pay taxes to this monster which spends more than 50 percent of its discretionary spending on past, present and future wars abroad, and the police/surveillance state here at home?<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cyzjlY-O1Ks/Uqe6U0vmPLI/AAAAAAAAAzQ/w822m2rMOOs/s1600/IMG_20131210_100816_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cyzjlY-O1Ks/Uqe6U0vmPLI/AAAAAAAAAzQ/w822m2rMOOs/s200/IMG_20131210_100816_0.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>
<br />
I guess I vote, because I want to overturn the current imperial-capitalist structure by any means necessary. Yes, any means. I still protest. I still organize with others from various backgrounds and groups/organizations. And I see my involvement in the D.C. Statehood-Green Party also as an avenue to organize for a far more progressive, non-capitalist future, beyond simply the ballot box. [Because this coming revolution will rely on good old fashioned people power.] Although the ballot box is still part of my picture. I also, quite frankly, find myself in full agreement with the Green Party's <a href="http://www.gp.org/tenkey.php" target="_blank">Ten Key Values</a>.<br />
<br />
Although I have often shared the cynicism and rage against Election Day that Emma Goldman posits in the first quote in this essay, I think voting does/can make a significant difference in society, particularly to those most vulnerable. I spent a good part of today with Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala, as they were recognizing that today was Human Rights Day; 65 years ago the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights was enacted. They demanded that the out of control military budget be cut, so that rights -- such as a right to food and a right to health care be preserved. Nearly half of all Americans are now living in poverty. That should be an eyeopener if it isn't already.<br />
<br />
I also want to recognize the importance of anarchy in many social movements from the labor movement of the late 19th and early 20th century, to more recently Occupy. However, Occupy was not inspired by anarchy -- although its form of organizing and decision making borrows from the anarchist model. It was inspired largely by the pro-democracy movements happening around the globe, most notably the Arab Spring. Those movements were driven primarily by young people, many anti-authoritarian, but I would suggest they were not anarchist. They simply wanted to overthrow outdated, horribly corrupt, elitist regimes. As do I.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<br />
So, let me state quite clearly here: I will become more creative, less dogmatic. More accepting of myself and worrying a lot less about fighting battles, which cannot be won. I am going to have more fun with life. I am going to start taking reading, writing and improving my knowledge of the archival world more seriously. I am going to continue with my job search, but I am going to do so with more patience and less fear.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-igFyh-Cjhu0/UkOow9eqRlI/AAAAAAAAAvw/xhPamwH8sig/s1600/cuencacathedral.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-igFyh-Cjhu0/UkOow9eqRlI/AAAAAAAAAvw/xhPamwH8sig/s320/cuencacathedral.jpg" width="320" /></a>About that novel that I started writing, my friend Bill (one of the gamers) told me November is some sort of <a href="http://nanowrimo.org/" target="_blank">write a novel month</a>. I already have a 3,500 word head-start. Should be fun and exciting. I am not going to give away my plot here, but I will give a few updates as the work progresses during the month.<br />
<br />
A lot of folks have asked about the trip my friend Debbie and I took to Ecuador. It was fabulous! I think I enjoyed it more than Debbie, as she broke her shoulder a week before and felt sick for part of the trip. We were in Cuenca, the nation's third largest city -- located in the Andes -- and somewhat of a center for expats from the U.S. The temperatures are springlike, the people are friendly and kind, there's cool public art, interesting mercados [markets], charming architecture, and the prices on most things are like one-fifth the price of things here. I think I still want to retire there... And I could do so and live quite comfortably. I will continue practicing mi espanol and will return to Ecuador at least a couple more times before that enormous move.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sPSNpDo4HrA/UkOpQpBkiEI/AAAAAAAAAv4/-N2YHbnHKpA/s1600/ACA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sPSNpDo4HrA/UkOpQpBkiEI/AAAAAAAAAv4/-N2YHbnHKpA/s320/ACA.jpg" width="320" /></a>Someone on Facebook, who has given me a few useful pointers during the job hunt, asked me about civil resistance/civil disobedience when I said that many of these actions, some of which ended in convictions, I now regret. This regret is due to the pervasive background checks to get a job in the Washington metro area. I think many of these actions were not well organized, lacked a greater strategic plan, and were not even covered well (or at all) by the media. I hate to say it folks, but I am rather desperate to get a job and reconnect with my career as an archivist, or some sort of librarian. I went to graduate school for Library and Information Science for a reason, and I passed the Certified Archivist exam for a reason. I feel like I did my part in the world of progressive activism, but that segment of my life has now drawn to a close.<br />
<br />
I think civil resistance/civil disobedience can bring about a more just and peaceful world, but it has to draw enormous numbers, have systems of support in place (intentional, loving communities of resistance), and be part of larger strategic campaigns. Too often activists, and I put myself in this category at least for a couple years, feel that they are the superstars making a huge difference in the world, and that more folks should just be more like them. Sorry to say it but in some ways these folks are borderline delusional and are failing to connect with others who either sympathize with them but cannot afford to put themselves at risk, or those they claim to speak for but they don't even know. Far too often these actions completely lack any larger strategic vision, or any tangible goals. They are often pursued by an extremely small group of self-righteous individuals, although on some level they "mean well." That's not how civil resistance/civil disobedience will help bring about positive change in our lifetime.<br />
<br />
I guess those above two paragraphs might truly annoy and/or upset people I still consider rather close to me and dear to my heart. I speak from my own experience and feel that I am being truthful with my perspective. I feel that the hour to truly disassemble the empire and completely reform our society has most likely already passed. And this is why I look forward to the day when I have maybe done 10 years of what I want in an archives or the special collections of a library, and I can move out of the empire. I want to fulfill some of my own personal goals, and then cease being a part of this place.<br />
<br />
Now for something a little different -- a couple recipes:<br />
<br />
My Morning Strawberry-Banana Smoothie<br />
2 crushed ice cubes<br />
2 tablespoons whey protein powder<br />
1/2 cup organic apple juice<br />
3/4 cup organic almond milk<br />
1 banana<br />
3 average-sized strawberries<br />
- Puree in blender for 30 to 40 seconds<br />
<br />
Granny's Buttermilk Cornbread<br />
1/2 cup butter<br />
2/3 cup white sugar<br />
2 eggs<br />
1 cup buttermilk<br />
1/2 teaspoon baking soda<br />
<span style="background-color: white;">1 cup cornmeal</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">1 cup all-purpose flour</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">1/2 teaspoon salt</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">- <span style="line-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease an 8 inch square pan.</span></span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6k2bX93YNjs/UkOqJituwSI/AAAAAAAAAwE/LZzop2uf_aU/s1600/Cornbread.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: white; clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6k2bX93YNjs/UkOqJituwSI/AAAAAAAAAwE/LZzop2uf_aU/s320/Cornbread.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="line-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Melt butter in large skillet. Remove from heat and stir in sugar. Quickly add eggs and beat until well blended. Combine buttermilk with baking soda and stir into mixture in pan. Stir in cornmeal, flour, and salt until well blended and few lumps remain. Pour batter into the prepared pan.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 17px;">Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a</span><span style="line-height: 17px;"> </span><a href="http://allrecipes.com/recipe/grandmothers-buttermilk-cornbread/#" id="_GPLITA_0" in_rurl="http://i.txtsrving.info/click?v=VVM6NDk0NjU6MTg6dG9vdGhwaWNrOjJiZTczMjIzOWYxMjExMjNhZjg4OGI0MWNlZmI0MmQyOnotMTQ5MC0yNTMxMjI6YWxscmVjaXBlcy5jb206MDowOmQyN2E0MmNiZDM1YzQ0NjRhNTI0ZGI4YzgzMTQ2MTNl" style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Click to Continue > by CouponDropDown">toothpick</a><span style="line-height: 17px;">inserted in the center comes out clean.</span></span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nL9ITiixPjQ/Uhlryf-VkmI/AAAAAAAAAu4/EeUFPYhjAA4/s1600/chelseamanning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nL9ITiixPjQ/Uhlryf-VkmI/AAAAAAAAAu4/EeUFPYhjAA4/s320/chelseamanning.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
35 years was close to the prediction I formulated in my mind, having attended 12 days of the trial. There were many who attended far more of the trial than me -- some predicted a longer sentence, others predicted shorter hoping against hope that Lind, who is being promoted, would show mercy to this young, courageous, deeply ethical humanist who was disturbed and disgusted by the dehumanization of people on the other side of the globe we have been told we were somehow "liberating" by destroying their infrastructures, and bombing their communities. Chelsea wanted to spark meaningful debate and hoped for some reform within the heart of the U.S. Empire. And now we must demand a pardon for her after a three and half year pre-trial prison term she has already served. There is <a href="http://pardon.bradleymanning.org/" target="_blank">a petition</a> requesting President Obama quickly issue a Pardon for Manning. Hopefully more mainstream Democrats will get behind this campaign, in part launched by Amnesty International and now endorsed by media darlings, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smIIOPt9iIQ" target="_blank">The Young Turks</a>.<br />
<br />
I do think the struggle to liberate Chelsea Manning will continue. It is surprising how many Americans have not heard, or have forgotten about political prisoners in the U.S. such as Mumia Abu Jamal and Leonard Peltier. Well now we have another prominent political prisoner, probably the greatest U.S. whistleblower since Daniel Ellsberg. And while the U.S. Empire spends time and resources (although Obama has at times tried to downplay this effort) trying to track down and arrest Edward Snowden, another great whistleblower, Manning will be in the military prison in Ft. Leavenworth. Although some liberals seem to praise Snowden and condemn Manning, I would like to say that Manning showed more courage and honor, by pleading guilty, a.k.a. accepting full responsibility for 20 charges filed against her at the beginning of the trial. But I don't blame Snowden, I would have also left, having seen what happened with Manning, especially during her stay at Quantico.<br />
<br />
If you want to learn more about Manning's case, please watch this <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2013/8/22/watch_full_extended_interview_with_mannings_attorney_after_35_year_sentence" target="_blank">in-depth interview of defense attorney</a> Coombs conducted by Alexa O'Brien.<br />
<br />
Speaking of leaving, in one week my friend Debbie and I will be in Ecuador. We will be touring the beautiful Andean city of Cuenca, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and making plans for the future. I have heard wonderful things about this city and its people. Also, we like President Correa and it's pretty awesome that this small South American nation <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/03/AR2008090303289.html" target="_blank">kicked out the U.S. military</a> in 2008. We are excited about our trip, and I'll be taking many pictures.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<br />
That's enough about me. I am job searching for something in an archives, library, or an interesting nonprofit that I can believe in and can pay me enough so Bruno and I can survive and keep a roof over our heads.<br />
<br />
This week was the first of Bradley Manning's long-awaited trial. He has been in pre-trial imprisonment for four years. This is for exposing war crimes, causing embarrassment to the imperial government of the U.S., and quite honestly for doing the courageous and moral thing of saying something when he saw something wrong.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rps9fRMPb8s/UbIJbEYM1ZI/AAAAAAAAAss/l_Xzk6eobpo/s1600/bradtrial.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="249" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rps9fRMPb8s/UbIJbEYM1ZI/AAAAAAAAAss/l_Xzk6eobpo/s400/bradtrial.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Let's recap what Bradley Manning, now by his own admission, did to bring the full weight of the military and government down upon himself. He saw widespread government corruption (that the State Dept. knew about and helped cover up), he saw the military he was a part of detain and torture political scholars -- not violent terrorists, and he witnessed the war crime captured in the infamous Apache video. He first tried to go to his superior officers, and was told to shut up. He confided in a pathological felon ex-hacker who betrayed him. He also tried to approach the New York Times and Washington Post, because he thought the American citizenry should know the malfeasance and downright criminality committed in their names with their tax dollars. These two major newspapers ignored him, and then he turned to WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks although often criticized by these same news outlets is often a crucial source in mildly investigative news stories they in turn publish.<br />
<br />
This week this young man's trial began. The government is pursuing life in prison for him. Manning never committed a crime previously. And he has plead to 10 lesser charges, but the government is hell bent on pursuing the "Aiding The Enemy" charge, which is contained in a 1917 law. The same law utilized to execute the Rosenbergs in 1953. It's what the government tried to get Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon Papers) on, but failed.<br />
<br />
In this week's testimony it was revealed that Bradley Manning never mentioned any intent of aiding the enemy, and that he never expressed a hatred of the U.S. Government. However witnesses commented on his intelligence, talent with computers, and ability to provide other military intelligence analysts with useful data. But we are continually being told by the military and government that he is a traitor, a criminal worthy of disdain.<br />
<br />
I am disgusted by the imperial government. I plan to move to Ecuador, as soon as I enter retirement (hopefully an early one). This government wants to destroy this young private's life for wanting to improve the world in some small way, according to the chat log's which were used to betray him, he said:<i> "Hopefully [this leads to] worldwide discussion, debate, and reforms..."</i> Manning loved his nation and believed it could be improved. I am afraid he is being proved wrong.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<br />
However, I find myself compelled to write finally. This past week, the Washington Peace Center celebrated its 50th anniversary. I am proud to have been associated with this great small progressive org. There were times when it appears this org would not make it to 50 years of life, but it did. And I would say a lot of the credit goes to the activists associated with it for so long, its generous donors, and its past and present board members. They have never given up hope that positive social change could occur through the vision and organizational leadership of the Washington Peace Center, even when the org was nearly out of funds and operating out of a board member's living room. Here's to another 50 years!<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wG54miv_e4U/UY3H9QUmNkI/AAAAAAAAAsA/gVv4No1tnEw/s1600/wat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wG54miv_e4U/UY3H9QUmNkI/AAAAAAAAAsA/gVv4No1tnEw/s320/wat.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
Some promising news recently: After years of protests, direct actions, and citizen lobbying it appears there is in fact some strong momentum now to shut down our military's own immoral and unlawful gulag, Guantanamo Bay. There has been a petition circling widely written by a former military prosecutor demanding Obama use his executive power (and there is a clause within the NDAA which expressly states this ability) to bypass Congress and immediately shut it down. There are 86 men there who have been cleared for release by the military for years now. The fact this place is still open approximately 5 years after Obama pledged to close it is his own great shame.<br />
<br />
Here is a link to this petition (currently it has about 200,000 signatures) drafted by Morris Davis, former Air Force prosecutor at Guantanamo: <a href="http://www.change.org/petitions/president-obama-close-detention-facility-at-guantanamo-bay">http://www.change.org/petitions/president-obama-close-detention-facility-at-guantanamo-bay</a>. There was a press conference Friday on Capitol Hill about the ongoing hunger strike by prisoners who have lost hope about ever being able to again walk with their friends and family as free men, and the renewed energy to close this hell on earth.<br />
<br />
Also, since I last wrote, Bradley Manning has plead guilty to lesser charges for releasing thousands of government and military memos and reports to WikiLeaks. This move was not received well by the government and military who have vowed to continue pursuing the Aiding the Enemy charge, which could very well leave Manning in jail for the rest of his life. Public support for Manning as a courageous whistle blower has also been on the increase.<br />
<br />
Manning's trial is expected to finally begin June 1. That's four years Manning has been in jail for exposing war crimes and massive government corruption around the globe. This event, similar to Daniel Ellsberg's release of the Pentagon Papers, except this material was classified at a lower secrecy level, has earned Manning several nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize. It is widely believed that news reports in Tunisia based on some of these releases helped spark the people's uprising, also known as the Arab Spring. There will be a large rally at Ft. Meade that first day of the trial.<br />
<br />
Next time I will share some more restaurant reviews/tips and maybe a recipe I have used recently. Note: I made some delicious cornbread two weeks ago. Until then!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Tb79j_Dvcms/UMybMLj0-EI/AAAAAAAAAro/l76rXsx2U64/s1600/sandyhook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="148" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Tb79j_Dvcms/UMybMLj0-EI/AAAAAAAAAro/l76rXsx2U64/s200/sandyhook.jpg" width="200" /></a><br />
<div>
</div>
<div>
Troubled. White. Male. Adam Lanza a resident of Newtown, Connecticut, was quite young himself, 20, and lived with his mother who was a teacher. Not much else is known about him.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
What is known though from the reports coming out now was that he was severely socially awkward, avoided eye contact, had been on medication for some time; many neighbors said he was a "weird" kid. He had few to no friends. He and his older brother Ryan did not take their parents' breakup and divorce well. However Ryan moved on and became an accountant like his father. Adam did not. He stayed with his mother who apparently collected guns. Apparently he was in honors classes, but was difficult to interact with. These reports are all coming from neighbors and former classmates who knew the Lanzas.</div>
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I think the troubled nature of Adam Lanza contributed to the horror that erupted in the Sandy Hook Elementary School. He was troubled and those who interacted with him knew it. They didn't think he was violent, but I also seriously doubt they tried very hard to reach this young man. Many of us in our daily lives bypass, or totally ignore those who are mentally ill. We refuse to directly interact with those who (due to being "troubled") have been ignored for a long time. They are ostracized, their ailments are stigmatized, and they are pushed further away from any human interaction which could lead to assistance and care. I think in our culture if you are not fiercely independent and fully functional and motivated you are pushed to the outer limits of society. You are seen as an outsider. The sense of not belonging is simply reinforced and codified. I fear that Adam Lanza needed continual medication, therapy, as well as a community of loving and supporting friends and family. He didn't have any of that. </div>
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I don't care much for the reports that describe the shooter as evil. This is outrageously simplistic, distances us from this kind of violence, and yet again reinforces the different outsider who people avoid and refuse to engage with.</div>
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Adam Lanza was white. White western culture is the most violent the world has seen in modern (last 1,000 years) times. We have enslaved others, we have waged genocide against indigenous populations, we exploit the earth and each other. Violence is a common tool in the white population. Wars are seen as noble and justified when most often they are neither. Whiteness carries a lot of privilege and arrogance with it. You don't see mass murderers of other races usually (the black Washington Beltway sniper was a rare exception, and the Asian guy at Virginia tech was also a rarity). Whiteness seems to reward individualism, minimizes community, rewards greed, minimizes cooperation. You take what you want. You look out for number one. Violence can often be justified, even more so if it is done against an "other."</div>
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The White world continues its legacy of violence and exploitation. We subjugate others for their labor and their lands' natural resources. Middle East, Africa, the list goes on. However, I think I have made my point about White acceptance and rewards of violence.</div>
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Adam was a young man, barely outside of boyhood. He was a male. Now that trait is even more common to mass murderers than their race or ethnicity. Once again, similar to whiteness, Maleness rewards violence and dominance over others. Hunting, competitive sports, going to war -- all have long been and in many ways continue to be the realm of manhood. An attractive, virile male is one who can fight violently for himself, his family, his "own." He can defend himself and his "own" against "outsiders." If one's sense of masculinity, their manliness is insulted or questioned -- violence, traditionally often a duel, is fully acceptable and implicitly praised. </div>
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Perhaps in Newtown, this "troubled" kid viewed as an "outsider" living with his mom needed to prove something. He needed to prove to everyone that he would no longer be insulted, ignored, called "weird." He was now a man. Probably an angry and disturbed man who had access to weapons. </div>
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I am sure there are other elements in this case I have not touched on, but I thought I would just give a thoughtful overview as many are desperately looking to make some sense out of the seemingly senseless. I do think there are some answers to be found coming out of this. We will probably never fully know what was in Adam Lanza's mind when he went to the Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14th. But we can get a better sense of what most likely led him to that point.</div>
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I do think greater gun control, if not an outright repeal of the 2nd Amendment to the U.S.Constitution are part of the answer, but only part. I do think greater access to mental health services and associated medication is part of the answer, but only part. I think instilling a greater sense of community (and in the end these community instincts did in some ways kick in in Newtown) where we look out for one another, directly engage one another, listen and share with one another -- not ostracize and ignore each other is part of the answer, but not the only part. I think ending the acceptance and use of violence in our country and abroad -- condemning violence rather than justifying and rewarding it -- is part of the answer, but only part.</div>
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I guess in the end something must be done. As I have often said aloud and in my writings, the status quo is no longer tolerable. If the government does not act -- the people must. Conditions will not improve on their own... On this issue, eight of the 10 deadliest shootings in the U.S. have happened during my lifetime. All 10 happened within the last 100 years. Yesterday was the second deadliest ever.</div>
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I wish everyone the best of luck as they struggle for an improvement in all of our lives here in the U.S., but I'm still going to Ecuador.</div>
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