It has been reported that they removed 15 boxes last night.
Oh ok, missed that. Thanks!
There is no level of sucking we haven't seen; in fact, I'm pretty sure we hold the patents on a few levels of sucking NOBODY had seen until the past few years.
I have no idea how accurate that is. It's still early in a developing story. I think it will take at least a few days before there is any clarity on the amount of materials retrieved.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
Doctors Against Oz Launch Campaign Denouncing GOP Candidate as 'Quack'
"ShamWow guy + stethoscope = Dr. Oz," said John Fetterman, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate in Pennsylvania.
Highlighting Dr. Mehmet Oz's spreading of Covid-19 misinformation and his history of dispensing what one study found to be "baseless" medical advice, several Pennsylvania doctors joined Democratic Senate candidate Lt. Gov. John Fetterman on Wednesday in warning that electing Oz to the U.S. Senate would "endanger Pennsylvanians' health."
Drs. Val Arkoosh of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners, Marcelle Shapiro of Perelman School of Medicine, and Lisa Perriera of the Women's Centers were joined by Fetterman surrogate state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-181) at a press conference at City Hall in Philadelphia, launching a statewide "Real Doctors Against Oz" campaign.
Fetterman and the physicians are not claiming that Oz, a retired heart surgeon who is running for Senate as a Republican, is not a "real doctor"—but instead denouncing his "history of peddling debunked supplements, dangerous fad diets, and fake miracle cures," his financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry, and his support for "Republican efforts to ban abortion in Pennsylvania, endangering the lives of women."
"Not only has Oz palled around with big pharma and promoted their products on his show, but we also know that he's invested in some of the same companies that are raking in billions while helping to drive up the cost of medication and force families to ration their insulin doses," said Arkoosh. "When his pharma buddies make money, Oz makes money. Oz simply doesn't care about the health of Pennsylvanians."
The physicians discussed Oz's long career as a celebrity doctor who hosted a TV show for 13 seasons before pivoting to a political career in 2021.
As a study published in 2014 in The BMJ found, half of the advice Oz gave out on his show was "baseless or wrong," and researchers at Georgetown University found in 2018 that more than three-quarters of his recommendations "did not align with evidence-based medical guidelines."
The doctors also condemned Oz's comparison of vaccine mandates "to forced sterilization and lobotomies" and his claim that vaccines against Covid-19 are not "true" vaccines, as well as his defense of discredited Covid-19 treatments like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.
"As physicians, we take a pledge to do no harm, as part of our Hippocratic oath," said Shapiro. "We absolutely cannot trust him to have the best interests of the health of the people of Pennsylvanians and for our country."
The Real Doctors Against Oz is led by "members of the Pennsylvania medical community communicating their distrust of Dr. Oz, the threat he poses to Pensylvanians as quack doctor and fraud—not trusted by real medical professionals—who has always and will always put enriching himself above all else even if it means endangering people's health," said the group.
In addition to pushing ineffective and hazardous treatments for Covid-19, Oz has spent years promoting the use of diet products such as "green coffee bean extract as a miracle fat-burning pill that works for everyone," the Federal Trade Commission said in 2014. Such claims led both Republicans and Democrats on a Senate committee to "scold" Oz, Real Doctors Against Oz said.
On social media on Wednesday, Fetterman shared several clips of Oz promoting "magic" products "that let you lose weight without diet or exercise."
"He has no problem spreading misinformation if it helps him make money," said Fetterman of Oz's claim that he intends to "take on" Big Pharma as a senator, despite investing heavily in the industry.
"Oz has ALWAYS put profits above the health and well-being of others," Fetterman added.
As he frequently has in recent months, the lieutenant governor added a meme poking fun at Oz for owning a home in New Jersey, as well as an image of Vince Offer, who starred in infomercials selling an absorbent cloth called ShamWow.
"ShamWow guy + stethoscope = Dr. Oz," tweeted Fetterman.
What Trump and Orbán want: It's fascism — it's not a metaphor or a joke
The global right's two greatest heroes spoke at CPAC over the weekend. Take what they said very seriously
Are you a Democrat? Have you voted for Democrats in the past? If the answer is yes, Donald Trump wants to put you in prison.
That may sound preposterous, but these are are not idle threats.
At a rally last week in Wisconsin, Trump told his followers this:
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We are a nation that has weaponized its law enforcement like never before against the opposing political party. They send their law enforcement out to get them because they can't beat us at the polls so let's lock them up.
Like other autocrats and tyrants, Trump is engaging in an act of obvious psychological projection. He imagines himself to be the victim of some vast conspiracy, and this imagined victimhood becomes the justification for violence and other crimes against human decency and society.
Trump is actually threatening — or, more precisely, promising — to put his political opponents and others who dare to oppose him in prison, or to subject them to some even worse fate, if he manages to regain the presidency. These are themes that Trump and his acolytes have repeated during his presidency and beyond. The Jan. 6 insurrection and Trump's coup attempt were those evil desires partly translated into reality.
Trump has gone further of late, even telling his audiences where he would imprison these "enemies of the people". In a recent speech at the America First Agenda Summit, he promised to put "homeless people" and "drug addicts" in special camps as a way of removing them from the country's major cities. Once such camps were created, they would in all likelihood soon be used for political enemies as well. Fascists and other authoritarians find ways to disappear people as a matter of routine.
Those who continue to believe in the permanence and sanctity of America's "institutions" and the rule of law, and who instinctively proclaim that it would be "illegal" for Trump and the Republicans to do any such thing are living in a fantasy world. Many of those same public voices also announced with certainty that it would be impossible for Trump and his confederates to attempt a coup because such things simply "can't happen here." By definition, fascists and other authoritarians do what they want to do, proclaiming their deeds to be legal after the fact, if necessary. They have no use or respect for the law, except when they can twist it to advance their pursuit of power and domination.
As I and numerous others have repeatedly observed, demagogues, autocrats and tyrants typically tell you what they are going to do and then do it. They do not conceal their goals or motivations, and they are not kidding. One does not need to be an expert in semiotics or linguistics to decode what Trump and other fascists are saying. The meaning is clear for anyone who chooses to pay attention.
In a much-discussed 2016 essay for the New York Review of Books, Masha Gessen offered this prescient advice about understanding the realities of fascism and other forms of authoritarianism:
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I have lived in autocracies most of my life, and have spent much of my career writing about Vladimir Putin's Russia. I have learned a few rules for surviving in an autocracy and salvaging your sanity and self-respect. It might be worth considering them now:
Rule #1: Believe the autocrat. He means what he says. Whenever you find yourself thinking, or hear others claiming, that he is exaggerating, that is our innate tendency to reach for a rationalization. This will happen often: humans seem to have evolved to practice denial when confronted publicly with the unacceptable. Back in the 1930s, The New York Times assured its readers that Hitler's anti-Semitism was all posture….
He has received the support he needed to win, and the adulation he craves, precisely because of his outrageous threats. Trump rally crowds have chanted "Lock her up!" They, and he, meant every word. ... Trump has made his plans clear, and he has made a compact with his voters to carry them out. These plans include not only dismantling legislation such as Obamacare but also doing away with judicial restraint—and, yes, punishing opponents.
Last weekend's CPAC meeting in Dallas once again proved the wisdom of Gessen's advice. Consider what some of the featured speakers actually said. Donald Trump repeated his threats about putting homeless people and other vulnerable people in concentration camps. He reiterated his promise to federalize the National Guard as his personal enforcers, to be deployed against "crime" in majority Black and brown cities. He continued to encourage violence by his followers through both stochastic terrorism and overt threats:
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So as we gather tonight, our country is being destroyed more from the inside than out. America is on the edge of an abyss. And our movement is the only force on Earth that can save it. This movement right here. What we do in the next few months and the next few years will determine whether American civilization will collapse or fail, or whether it will triumph and thrive, frankly like never before. This is no time for complacency. We cannot be complacent. We have to seize this opportunity to deal with the radical left socialist lunatics and fascists. And we have to hit them very, very hard. Has to be a crippling defeat, because our country cannot take it.
Steve Bannon, Trump's former campaign CEO and White House strategist, who has since become a propagandist for international fascism, said in his CPAC speech: "We are at war. We're at a political and ideological war. You can say anything else you want about it, but we're at war." He described Joe Biden as an "illegitimate imposter" and reiterated his goal of sending "shock troops" to Washington to destroy the "administrative state." At Rolling Stone, Tim Dickinson adds:
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Bannon promised the crowd they had an opportunity to "shatter the Democratic party as a national political institution." He alleged that the party has been overrun by "radical, cultural Marxists" and "groomers" who "want to destroy the Republic." Bannon insisted the GOP must pursue absolute victory over "power-mad and lawless" Democrats, asserting: "There can be no half measures anymore."
Viktor Orbán, the right-wing prime minister of Hungary, was the featured guest at the CPAC meeting. Kathryn Joyce of Salon offered this context:
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Over the last two years, Orbán has become an icon of American conservatives rivaled only by Donald Trump himself. That's so much the case that this week's CPAC is bookended by Orbán's opening speech and Saturday night's closer by Trump, who earlier this week posted pictures of him and Orbán meeting at his New Jersey golf course along with the caption, "Great spending time with my friend." Thursday's opening speech was the most high-profile appearance Orbán has made since igniting international controversy two weeks ago over comments he made condemning the notion of "mixed race" nations as an "ideological ruse" of the "internationalist left," and urging supporters to read one of the most infamously racist books of the last 50 years. But Orbán's Dallas address wasn't his first invitation by CPAC.
In recent years CPAC has incrementally broadened its scope beyond U.S. borders, holding mini versions of its flagship American gathering in countries such as Israel and Brazil. In May, the group held its first-ever European conference in Budapest, where Orbán, serving as host, offered a 12-point "open source" plan for Americans to emulate Hungary's "Christian conservative success" and reject "progressive dominance." ... In Dallas, Orbán struck a similar tone: part pregame coach ("You must play to win!"), part commanding officer of an international brigade ("We must coordinate the movement of our troops because we face the same challenge"). Throughout he spoke from the premise, widely accepted among today's U.S. right, that Hungary, which recently voted Orbán into his fourth consecutive term, has discovered the secret recipe for permanent conservative rule.
During his CPAC speech, as reported by the Guardian, Orbán summoned up centuries-old lies about a Jewish cabal that secretly runs the world and manipulates Black and brown people, along with unwitting "leftists," into doing its bidding:
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"Hungary is an old, proud, but David-sized nation standing alone against the woke globalist Goliath. We invite the solidarity of American conservatives. They are in total attack, so we need a total defense. You have to be brave. If you feel fear, you have a job to do. The only thing we Hungarians can do is show you how to fight back by our own rules.…
"We are not the favorites of the American Democrats. They did not want me to be here, and they made every effort to drive a wedge between us. They hate me and slander me and my country, as they hate you and slander you and the America you stand for." Why? "Because they knew what I would tell you. Because I am here to tell you that we should unite all our forces."
Orbán also channeled the white supremacist "great replacement" conspiracy theory:
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"The future of the West is in grave doubt. We must take back the institutions in Washington and Brussels. We must find friends and allies in one another. We must coordinate the movement of our troops because we face the same challenge." Europe and America's coming elections, he said, "will define the two fronts in the battle being fought for Western civilization. Today we hold neither of them, yet we need them both. You have two years to get ready."
Other speakers and featured guests at the CPAC gathering in Dallas continued with these fascist themes, threatening political violence against "the deep state," "socialist Democrats" and other "enemies," wallowing in antisemitic conspiracy theories and celebrating both the Jan. 6 coup attempt and the Big Lie.
If a time machine or some other portal between the past and the present existed, the speakers and attendees at this month's CPAC meeting could travel to the infamous 1939 pro-Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden, where they would feel right at home.
In a 2019 essay for the New Yorker, Margaret Talbot explored the horrific resonance that connects the pro-fascist "America First" movement of the 1930s and early '40s to Trumpism and the white right of the present day:
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"A Night at the Garden" is a seven-minute documentary film composed entirely of archival footage that is, in its way, as chilling and disorienting to watch as the most inventive full-length horror movie. The film, which is nominated for an Oscar in the Documentary Short category, chronicles the night in February, 1939, when twenty thousand American men, women, and children gathered at Madison Square Garden for an event billed as a "Pro-American Rally." In the opening minutes, the signifiers seem scrambled, as though in a nightmare. A banner of George Washington hangs at the back of the stage; there are American flags everywhere and excited kids dressed in what might be scouting uniforms. But people in the audience are giving the stiff-armed Hitler salute, and the speaker is Fritz Kuhn, the head of the German-American Bund, a national organization that supported the Nazi Party.
But even more unnerving than the strangeness of the spectacle is the creeping sense of familiarity it evokes. Kuhn's snarky excoriation of the "Jewish-controlled" press, his demand "that our government shall be returned to the American people who founded it," and even the idolatry of the Founding Fathers all have their echoes in far-right politics today. No moment in the film seems more redolent of our current demagogue's maga rallies than the one in which a protester scrambles onto the stage — he was Isadore Greenbaum, a twenty-six-year-old plumber's helper from Brooklyn — and is promptly tackled and pummeled by Kuhn supporters, amid appreciative laughter and hooting from the crowd.
One advantage to living through Trumpism is that it has compelled a reckoning with aspects of our country's past that, for a long time, many Americans preferred not to acknowledge.
On Monday, the FBI searched Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort and residence in Florida, after obtaining a warrant from a judge. It has been reported that FBI agents recovered numerous boxes that may contain classified documents illegally taken from the White House. On Thursday night, the Washington Post reported that sources close to the investigation say some of those documents were related to national security matters, including U.S. nuclear weapons.
Predictably, Trump took to his Truth Social platform and issued a delusional edict, in which he again appeared to incite violence by his followers and proclaimed that he is the victim of a vast left-wing conspiracy:
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These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents. Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before. After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate.
It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don't want me to run for President in 2024, especially based on recent polls, and who will likewise do anything to stop Republicans and Conservatives in the upcoming Midterm Elections.
Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before….
The political persecution of President Donald J. Trump has been going on for years….
I stood up to America's bureaucratic corruption, I restored power to the people, and truly delivered for our Country, like we have never seen before. The establishment hated it. Now, as they watch my endorsed candidates win big victories, and see my dominance in all polls, they are trying to stop me, and the Republican Party, once more. The lawlessness, political persecution, and Witch Hunt must be exposed and stopped.
I will continue to fight for the Great American People!
These are not hollow threats. Across the right-wing echo chamber, Trump, his followers and the larger American fascist movement are announcing their plans to retaliate and seek revenge against Joe Biden, the Democrats, Attorney General Merrick Garland and all others they target as un-American traitors.
The American people would be wise not to take these threats lightly. This is not a game or a joke, not material for mockery by late-night TV hosts. American democracy continues to be imperiled by Trump and his movement, and they will not stop until they succeed in replacing it with their own version of fascism, carrying a cross and wrapped in a flag.
This didn't seem to actually fit any existing thread but I wasn't going to start a new thread for it....
New York judge rules criminal case against the Trump Organization and former CFO Allen Weisselberg can proceed
A New York State judge ruled Friday that a criminal fraud and tax evasion prosecution against the Trump Organization and its former CFO, Allen Weisselberg, can proceed.
Weisselberg and the company asked a judge in February to dismiss all 15 counts charged against them. Judge Juan Merchan dismissed one of several tax fraud counts against the Trump Organization, but allowed all others to remain.
Attorneys for Weisselberg and the company did not immediately comment on Friday's decisions.
The Trump Organization and Weisselberg accused prosecutors of targeting them "based on political animus" toward former President Donald Trump. Weisselberg also argued he had received immunity against certain federal charges when he testified to a federal grand jury investigating former Trump attorney Michael Cohen.
Jury selection will take place on Oct. 24.
Prosecutors said in a May 23 filing that the Weisselberg investigation was spurred by a Nov. 2, 2020 Bloomberg article about perks Weisselberg allegedly received.
"The article outlined many of the key facts relevant to the crimes charged," Manhattan prosecutor Solomon Shinerock wrote in May.
The Trump Organization was accused in July 2021 of providing executives with lavish untaxed perks, which prosecutors called "indirect employee compensation." Weisselberg, a 74-year-old who had been at Trump's side at the company for decades, was accused of receiving $1.7 million in perks — including an apartment and car.
Weisselberg and the company have entered not guilty pleas.
Merchan said that in September, he will hear arguments on a request by Weisselberg's team to suppress evidence from two Manhattan district attorney investigators who he said "struck up small talk" while Weisselberg was in custody. A statement attributed to Weisselberg from the conversation — in which he described the lengthy commute from his Long Island home — was included in court documents. Attorneys for Weisselberg, who is accused of moving into a New York City corporate apartment without paying taxes on the alleged perk, have argued he was essentially tricked into divulging information he might otherwise not have with a lawyer present.
In the motion to dismiss charges, they claimed the company and Weisselberg were "improperly targeted" due to politics. They highlighted statements made by New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat who has been critical of Trump, a Republican. Two attorneys from James' office are assigned to the Manhattan district attorney's investigation.
Trump sat for a court-ordered deposition on Wednesday in James' case, invoking the Fifth Amendment and then replying "same answer" hundreds of times during about four hours of questioning.
Trump's attorneys have said previously they were concerned that Trump's deposition could be turned over to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Attorneys for James' office, and a judge overseeing her probe, have said that her investigators are allowed to do that.
Weisselberg's lawyers also wrote in January that the charges against Weisselberg should be tossed because he received immunity against certain federal charges when he testified to a federal grand jury investigating former Trump attorney Michael Cohen.
Shinerock replied that no one on his team "has ever seen or been briefed on the contents of Weisselberg's testimony" against Cohen, but claimed the federal immunity does not apply to the state charges filed against Weisselberg.
GOP Rep. James Comer says Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert have shown interest in being on Oversight Committee in a Republican-controlled House John L. Dorman 21 hours ago
GOP Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, who could potentially lead the powerful House Oversight Committee if Republicans take control of the lower chamber after the 2022 midterms, said high-profile conservative congresswomen Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado have shown interest in becoming members of the panel.
In a recent interview with Politico, Comer — who is currently the Oversight ranking member — said that if he led the panel, it would not devolve into "a dog-and-pony show."
"This isn't a committee where everybody's gonna scream and be outraged and try to make the witnesses look like fools," he told Politico as he launched a political attack against past Democratic-led investigations.
"Unlike Adam Schiff, we're gonna have something concrete, substantive on Hunter Biden or I'm not going to talk about Hunter Biden," he added.
Yet both Greene and Boebert have railed against presidential son Hunter Biden — whose business dealings in Ukraine have become a popular target among Republicans — in starkly political terms.
Republicans hope to use a House majority to conduct vigorous oversight against the Biden administration, which has already started to prepare itself against potential probes regarding everything from the 2021 US withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan to the shortage of baby formula that become a critical supply-chain problem earlier this year.
At the moment, a significant number of the panel's members are also a part of the House Freedom Caucus, which is overwhelmingly loyal to former President Donald Trump.
He should just send in a letter pleading the 5th because we all know that’s all he’ll do in person. It’s what criminals do. As stated in this direct quote from his master…before he too pled the 5th… “THE MOB TAKES THE FIFTH AMENDMENT. IF YOU'RE INNOCENT, WHY ARE YOU TAKING THE FIFTH AMENDMENT?"
New Hampshire Republican Senate hopefuls trash FBI, 2020 election results on debate stage
None of the three candidates on stage would say President Biden won the 2020 election fairly.
Republican candidates in a New Hampshire Senate primary debate over the weekend raced to the right, casting doubt on the 2020 election and discrediting the FBI after the recent search of former President Donald Trump's home.
Speaking at a debate sponsored by the Government Integrity Project, a conservative group, retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, cryptocurrency investor Bruce Fenton and former Londonderry Town Manager Kevin Smith all raised unfounded doubts about the last presidential election. None would affirmatively say that they knew who won the 2020 election — President Joe Biden won the election and numerous court cases and audits have not uncovered information that challenge that fact.
Fenton said that "we can’t tell what’s true,” but he knows there was “a lot of fraud” during the election; Smith said “it’s very unlikely that Joe Biden got 81 million votes” and said he’d support investigations into the 2020 election if elected; and Bolduc said “I signed a letter with 120 other generals and admirals saying Trump won the election, and damn it, I stand by [it].”
Fenton called to abolish the FBI, citing the decision to serve a search warrant on Trump amid and the decades-old campaign to discredit Martin Luther King Jr as examples of what he described as the agency's abuses.
"They've been harassing Martin Luther King, people on the left, people on the right, for far too long. I think we should abolish the FBI and replace it with nothing," Fenton said. He also agreed with one moderator’s question about whether the bureau should be labeled a domestic terror group.
Smith attempted to defend the "fine, very good men and women, agents at much lower levels" as he criticized the FBI leadership and floated the need for a congressional investigation into the FBI, while Bolduc said that: "The first question we have to ask is, do we still need the FBI? If we answer that question no, then get rid of them," or if it's kept, it should be reformed.
Those attacks are similar to the manner in which many Republicans have criticized the FBI in the days after search warrant was served. Both the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are warning that threats against law enforcement have spiked since the search.
Bolduc and Fenton also said they support repealing the 17th Amendment, which allowed for the direct election of senators. Before that amendment was enacted, state legislators chose who would represent the state in the Senate.
Not on the stage — state Sen. Chuck Morse and entrepreneur Vikram Mansharamani, two other Republican candidates in the race.
The winner of September's GOP primary will face off against Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan.
GOP Senate Campaign Arm Is Pulling Ads in Three Key Races Ryan Bort Mon, August 15, 2022, 4:17 PM·2 min read
The National Republican Senatorial Committee is canceling $10 million worth of fall advertising reservations in Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — three states at the center of the GOP’s push to regain control of Congress. The New York Times, which reported the news on Monday, notes Republicans have been struggling to raise money as of late, as well as that the decision to pull ads for some of its top candidates could be tied to the party’s financial troubles.
The NRSC has cut the most money, $5 million, in Pennsylvania, where quack TV doctor Mehmet Oz is taking on Lt. Governor John Fetterman. Oz’s campaign has been fraught, to say the least, and current polling averages currently have him losing to the Democrat by more than 10 percentage points. Oz narrowly edged out David McCormick in the state’s Republican primary behind the strength of former President Donald Trump’s endorsement. Members of the Republican establishment, and even Trump’s circle, had lined up to back McCormick for fear that Oz couldn’t beat Fetterman.
The committee also cut more than $2 million in both Arizona, where Trump-backed Blake Masters is up against incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly, and Wisconsin, where incumbent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson is trying to fend off rising Democratic star Mandela Barnes, who won his primary last week. Polling averages have Masters trailing Kelly by more 10 points. There isn’t much polling for the matchup between Johnson and Barnes, but the race is expected to be a close one, making the NRSC’s move to cut bait — at least $2 million worth of it — all the more surprising.
NRSC Communication Director Chris Hartline stressed that the committee was still invested in all three races in a statement to the Times. “Nothing has changed about our commitment to winning in all of our target states,” he said.
The Senate is currently split 50/50 between Republicans and Democrats, with Democrats holding the edge because of Vice President Kamala Harris’ ability to cast tie-breaking votes, as she did last week when the Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act along party lines. Republicans have been hoping to take control of the chamber this November, but if Fetterman wins in Pennsylvania they’d be losing a seat (that race is to replace retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey), and they stand to lose another should Johnson lose to Barnes in Wisconsin.
Fla. state House candidate banned from Twitter for suggesting violence against federal officials
A candidate running for a seat in Florida’s state House was banned on Twitter on Thursday after he advocated violence against the FBI and other federal agencies.
“Under my plan, all Floridians will have permission to shoot FBI, IRS, ATF and all other feds ON SIGHT!” tweeted Luis Miguel (R), who is running in the 20th district of the Florida House, according to Florida Politics. “Let freedom ring!”
Miguel told Florida Politics that he stands by the “plan” he proposed earlier in the week because the IRS has been “weaponized by dissident forces,” saying that his permanent suspension from Twitter “doesn’t affect (him) at all.”
The Hill has reached out to Miguel for comment on the suspension.
A spokesperson for Twitter told The Hill that the account @LuisMiguelUS is “permanently suspended for violating our hateful conduct policy.”
“You may not promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease,” reads Twitter’s policy on hateful conduct.
The news comes after members of the GOP have slammed the FBI following the bureau’s search of former President Trump’s home in Palm Beach, Fla. The former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate was searched for classified documents that the Department of Justice suspected were taken following Trump’s loss in 2020.
In addition, Republicans have railed against the IRS after President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law. The spending bill would provide $80 billion in funding to the agency over the next 10 years to help enforce provisions in the IRA. However, members of the GOP have claimed that the funding would be used to hire tens of thousands of agents and audits would increase for non-wealthy Americans.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) went to far as to warn Americans not to apply for positions at the IRS since a Republican majority would immediately seek to reverse the funding increase.
Miguel’s Facebook and Instagram pages are also inaccessible. Facebook confirmed to The Hill that both accounts were deleted for “repeated violation of our policies.”
Miguel is running against incumbent Rep. Bobby Payne (R) on Tuesday, according to The St. Augustine Record, in a northern district of the Florida House. Payne currently represents district 19 but is running to represent district 20 after redistricting in the state.
One of them will head to the general election on Nov. 8 to face a Democratic opponent.
The Hill has reached out to Payne for comment on Miguel’s proposal of shooting federal officials.
“Under my plan, all Floridians will have permission to shoot FBI, IRS, ATF and all other feds ON SIGHT!” tweeted Luis Miguel (R), who is running in the 20th district of the Florida House, according to Florida Politics. “Let freedom ring!”
Can this guy be tried for suggesting this? I mean if I were on the jury, I'd vote to convict him
#GMSTRONG
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Daniel Patrick Moynahan
"Alternative facts hurt us all. Think before you blindly believe." Damanshot
remember, don't blame the politicians who say these things. blame the voters who support this trash.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
2 men convicted in plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Whitmer
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — A jury on Tuesday convicted two men of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020, delivering swift verdicts in a plot that was broken up by the FBI and described as a rallying cry for a U.S. civil war by anti-government extremists.
The result was a big victory for the U.S. Justice Department. A different jury just four months ago couldn’t reach unanimous decisions on Adam Fox or Barry Croft Jr. but acquitted two other men, a stunning conclusion that led to a second trial.
Their arrests nearly two years ago came at an extremely tense time: the volatile homestretch of the election between Joe Biden and then-President Donald Trump playing out against a backdrop of armed protests over COVID-19 restrictions, especially in Michigan.
Jury selection in the retrial of Fox and Croft coincidentally occurred a day after FBI agents searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate for documents, putting the agency in headlines at the same time that the judge was trying to detect any biases about law enforcement in the jury pool.
Fox and Croft were convicted Tuesday of two counts of conspiracy related to the kidnapping scheme and attempts to use a weapon of mass destruction. Prosecutors said they wanted to blow up a bridge to disrupt police if the abduction could be pulled off at Whitmer’s vacation home.
Croft, 46, a trucker from Bear, Delaware, was also convicted of another explosives charge. The jury deliberated for roughly eight hours over two days.
“Today’s verdicts prove that violence and threats have no place in our politics and those who seek to divide us will be held accountable. They will not succeed,” said Whitmer, a Democrat, who turned 51 years old on Tuesday.
“But we must also take a hard look at the status of our politics,” she added. “Plots against public officials and threats to the FBI are a disturbing extension of radicalized domestic terrorism that festers in our nation, threatening the very foundation of our republic.”
Law enforcement officials across the country have been warning about an increase in threats and the potential for violence against agents or buildings.
Fox and Croft, who face sentences of up to life in prison, just stared at the jury as the verdicts were read. Defense attorney Christopher Gibbons shook his head while another defense lawyer, Joshua Blanchard, removed his glasses.
Jurors declined to speak to reporters outside the courthouse.
“It’s been a good fight. We were hoping for a different outcome,” Gibbons said.
During closing arguments Monday, a prosecutor had a blunt message: No one can strap on an AR-15 rifle and body armor and snatch a governor.
“But that wasn’t the defendants’ ultimate goal,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler said. “They wanted to set off a second American civil war, a second American Revolution, something that they call the boogaloo. And they wanted to do it for a long time before they settled on Gov. Whitmer.”
The investigation began when Army veteran Dan Chappel joined a Michigan paramilitary group and became alarmed when he heard talk about killing police. He agreed to become an FBI informant and spent the summer of 2020 getting close to Fox and others, secretly recording conversations and participating in drills at “shoot houses” in Wisconsin and Michigan.
The FBI turned it into a major domestic terrorism case with two more informants and two undercover agents embedded in the group. Evidence showed the group had many gripes, particularly over stay-at-home orders and other pandemic restrictions imposed by Whitmer.
Fox, Croft and others, accompanied by the government operatives, traveled to northern Michigan to see Whitmer’s vacation home at night and a bridge that could be destroyed. Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, too, were on that ride. They pleaded guilty and testified for the prosecution.
Whitmer was not physically harmed; six men were arrested hours away from her home in October 2020.
David Porter, who leads the FBI in western Michigan, hailed the verdicts.
“Here in America, if you disagree with your government you have options. ... What you cannot do is plan or commit acts of violence,” he said outside the courthouse.
Defense attorneys tried to put the FBI on trial, repeatedly emphasizing through cross-examination of witnesses and during closing remarks that federal players were present at every crucial event and had entrapped the men.
Fox and Croft, they said, were “big talkers” who liked to smoke marijuana and were guilty of nothing but exercising their right to say vile things about Whitmer and government.
“This isn’t Russia. This isn’t how our country works,” Blanchard, Croft’s attorney, told jurors. “You don’t get to suspect that someone might commit a crime because you don’t like things that they say, that you don’t like their ideologies.”
Gibbons said the FBI isn’t supposed to create “domestic terrorists.” He described Fox, 39, as poor and living in the basement of a Grand Rapids-area vacuum shop, which was a site for meetings with Chappel and an agent.
In separate but related cases, eight other men linked to the scheme are being prosecuted by the Michigan attorney general in state courts.
Whitmer in 2020 blamed Trump for stoking mistrust and fomenting anger over coronavirus restrictions and refusing to condemn hate groups and right-wing extremists like those charged in Michigan.
Trump even recently called the kidnapping plan a “fake deal.”
Duo plead guilty to plot to sell Biden daughter’s stolen diary to Project Veritas
Two people have pleaded guilty in a scheme to peddle a diary and other items belonging to Joe Biden’s daughter to the conservative group Project Veritas for $40,000, prosecutors said Thursday.
The two, both from Florida, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property, Manhattan US attorney Damian Williams’ office said.
While authorities did not identify Biden, the type of property stolen or the organization that paid, the details of the investigation have been public for months.
“Aimee Harris and Robert Kurlander pled guilty to conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property involving the theft of personal belongings of an immediate family member of a then former government official who was a candidate for national political office,” the US attorney’s office in the southern district of New York announced in a statement on Thursday.
Ashley Biden stored the diary, tax records, a digital device with family photos and a cellphone in September 2020 in a Delray Beach, Florida, home where one of the defendants was living at the time, prosecutors said in a release.
According to case interviews and documents reviewed by the New York Times, Biden left her belongings in the home of a friend at that time and planned to collect them later that year. The friend, who also knew Harris, allowed Harris to also stay at the home as she was embroiled in a custody dispute and was facing financial struggles.
Prosecutors said Harris stole the items and got in touch with the other defendant, a man who contacted Project Veritas, which asked for photos of the material and then paid for the two to bring it to New York.
According to Williams, the pair sold the property for “$40,000 and even returned to take more of the victim’s property when asked to do so. Harris and Kurlander sought to profit from their theft of another person’s personal property, and they now stand convicted of a federal felony as a result.”
Donald Trump shakes hands with White House social media director Dan Scavino during a social media summit at the White House. Trump applauds far-right provocateurs during 'social media summit’ Read more Project Veritas has said it received the diary from “tipsters” who said it had been abandoned in a room. The activist group, which identifies itself as a news organization, said it turned the journal over to law enforcement and never did anything illegal.
According to the group and its founder, James O’Keefe, Project Veritas “was not involved in any theft of property and that all of Project Veritas’s information on how the confidential sources found the property came from the sources themselves”.
When asked earlier this year by New York magazine whether he had a right to publish the diary’s details, O’Keefe replied: “Someone can provide information to me – a third party – and I have a first amendment right to publish that.”
Project Veritas is best known for conducting hidden camera stings that have embarrassed news outlets, labor organizations and Democratic politicians.
In efforts to verify the diary’s authenticity, a Project Veritas operative attempted to deceive Biden during a phone call into confirming that the diary did actually belong to her.
According to Biden’s lawyers, the group then contacted them in efforts to land an interview with her father prior to the election. Biden’s lawyers, who then reached out to federal prosecutors, accused the group of its “extortionate effort to secure an interview”.
Both Harris and Kurlander, who were released from custody after the court hearing, apologized for their actions. “I sincerely apologize for any actions and know what I did was illegal,” said Harris, according to the New York Times.
“I know what I did was wrong and awful and I apologize,” said Kurlander.
The pair pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property. The count carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. They also each agreed to forfeit $20,000, according to the attorney’s office.
Duo plead guilty to plot to sell Biden daughter’s stolen diary to Project Veritas
Two people have pleaded guilty in a scheme to peddle a diary and other items belonging to Joe Biden’s daughter to the conservative group Project Veritas for $40,000, prosecutors said Thursday.
The two, both from Florida
OK, stop.
This is where I had to pause, LMA almost into a coma... and just come here to say s# on 'knee-jerk mode.'
The daughter of the candidate for POTUS. Project Veritas- about as public and out-front as any during that time. The 'motherload:'
$40,000.
This ish reads like an article from The Onion.
Now, I'll go back to finish. I just needed these few minutes to catch my breath-
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