Reasons Why Hegseth Should Not Be Confirmed as the Secretary of Defense

 

“Each of us swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We did not swear it to an individual or a party. American elections and the peaceful transfers of power that result are hallmarks of our democracy.”

They wrote, before the events on January 6 took place, that “this year should be no exception.” Of course, tragically, it was. At the time the Post published their letter, all sorts of alarm bells were already going off for anyone who was paying attention (unlike in FBI headquarters). The former civilian leaders of our military were deeply concerned, so much so that they went to press with it.

They referred to senior defense leaders who they quoted as weighing in to say, “‘there’s no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of a U.S. election.’ Efforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory.”

They admonished Chris Miller, the acting secretary who had assumed his post most unusually after Trump lost the election in 2020, with his chief of staff, Kash Patel, at his side that “They must also refrain from any political actions that undermine the results of the election or hinder the success of the new team.” Just days later, the two were in place as rioters overran the Capitol.

Our country has a proud tradition of a civilian-led military, designed by the Founding Fathers to avoid the risk of a coup by the military. The Secretary of Defense doesn’t come to the job from active duty, and waivers have to be obtained from Congress for those out of uniform for less than seven years, as President Biden did for Lloyd Austin and Donald Trump did for James Mattis.

The irony, then, was that in 2020 it was that same civilian leadership of the military that in no small part was responsible for preventing a president from being the one to insinuate the takeover.

Donald Trump has nominated Pete Hegseth to be the Secretary of Defense. It's a nomination that should have been ended by allegations of financial mismanagement—Hegseth denies them—of an organization whose budget ran into tens of millions, not the $783 billion dollar budget he would oversee at the Pentagon.

And, of course, there are the other criticisms that have been leveled at Hegseth, of misogyny and sexual assault, which he also denies, and of excess drinking, of which he says he won’t drink if he’s confirmed.

Politico reported on Thursday that a dozen senators, both Democrats and Republicans, have taken the unusual step of asking for his FBI background investigation. The report relates this interesting detail, “Some Republicans, such as [Maine Republican Sen. Susan] Collins and North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, say the claims are serious enough to warrant greater access to the findings.

While it’s unlikely the FBI findings would be made public, they could still give Republican senators political cover to vote against Hegseth or support his defense.” Hegseth has said he has nothing to hide and welcomes the FBI background process, so if everyone’s in agreement, let’s get that report into the senators’ hands!

You may recall from the whole affair with Justice Kavanaugh that the FBI does background investigations aren’t always as fulsome as the seriousness of confirmation proceedings suggest they should be. 

As in that case, there’s also the possibility that a report could whitewash serious issues by, for instance, failing to speak with all of the witnesses who have information to offer or neglecting leads so that the process can be completed quickly. But the fact that even Republican senators are asking for the report shows that this is a nomination that deserves far greater scrutiny than Donald Trump and his followers want it to get.

As we saw in January of 2021, it’s one of the most important jobs in government. It’s about leading the military, but it is also, in times of great stress, about upholding the Constitution and the rule of law. The secretary of defense is supposed to lead the military and serve the people, not the president. Right now, it’s only the Senate, and let’s be blunt, Republican senators, who can ensure that this next pick is up to the job.

Can you imagine Pete Hegseth signing on to a letter like the one that was written by Ashton Carter, Dick Cheney, William Cohen, Mark Esper, Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, James Mattis, Leon Panetta, William Perry, and Donald Rumsfeld? Can you imagine him heeding the kind of advice his predecessors, if he’s confirmed, are likely to offer him?

It’s not often that you see a group that consists largely of former politicians from both parties, including a Vice President (Cheney), coming forward to make a definitive statement like the one in the Post that January morning. It’s not that it was controversial; perhaps it’s that it wasn’t, but that it desperately needed to be said, nonetheless, in that moment.

At his confirmation hearing, Pete Hegseth needs to be asked, among many other things, if he agrees with the sentiment expressed by the men who held the job he aspires to. If the answer isn’t an unequivocal yes (and it’s unlikely it will be given the context), it’s just another reason he’s not fit to serve.

We’re in this together,

-Joyce Vance

 

MAGA Extremists

 

Yesterday, Representative Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) released an “Interim Report on the Failures and Politicization of the January 6th Select Committee.” As the title suggests, the report seeks to rewrite what happened on January 6, 2021, when rioters encouraged by former president Donald Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol.

Loudermilk chairs a subcommittee on oversight that sits within the Committee on House Administration. The larger committee—House Administration—oversees the daily operations of the House of Representatives, including the Capitol Police. Under that charge, former House speaker Kevin McCarthy permitted MAGA Republicans to investigate security failures at the Capitol on January 6.

Loudermilk was himself involved in the story of that day after video turned up of him giving a tour of the Capitol on January 5 despite its being closed because of Covid. During his tour, participants took photos of things that are not usually of interest to visitors: stairwells, for example. Since then, he has been eager to turn the tables against those investigating the events of January 6.

Loudermilk turned the committee’s investigation of security failures into an attack on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, more commonly known as the January 6th Committee. Yesterday’s report singled out former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who has taken a strong stand against Trump’s fitness for office after his behavior that day, as the primary villain of the select committee.

In his press release concerning the interim report, Loudermilk said that Cheney “should be investigated for potential criminal witness tampering,” and the report itself claimed that “numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney” and that the FBI should investigate that alleged criminality.

The report seeks to exonerate Trump and those who participated in the events of January 6 while demonizing those who are standing against him, rewriting the reality of what happened on January 6 with a version that portrays Trump as a persecuted victim.

Trump’s team picked up the story and turned it even darker. At 2:11 this morning, Trump’s social media account posted: “Liz Cheney could be in a lot of trouble based on the evidence obtained by the subcommittee, which states that ‘numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney, and these violations should be investigated by the FBI.’ Thank you to Congressman Barry Loudermilk on a job well done.”

To this, conservative writer David Frum responded: “After his successful consolidation of power, the Leader prepares show trials for those who resisted his failed first [violent attempt to overthrow the government].”

Liz Cheney also responded. “January 6th showed Donald Trump for who [he] really is—a cruel and vindictive man who allowed violent attacks to continue against our Capitol and law enforcement officers while he watched television and refused for hours to instruct his supporters to stand down and leave.”

She pointed out that the January 6th committee’s report was based on evidence that came primarily from Republican witnesses, “including many of the most senior officials from Trump’s own White House, campaign and Administration,” and that the Department of Justice reached the similar conclusions after its own investigation.

Loudermilk’s report “intentionally disregards the truth and the Select Committee’s tremendous weight of evidence and instead fabricates lies and defamatory allegations in an attempt to cover up what Donald Trump did,” Cheney wrote. “Their allegations do not reflect a review of the actual evidence and are a malicious and cowardly assault on the truth. No reputable lawyer, legislator or judge would take this seriously.”

CNN aired clips today of Republican lawmakers blaming Trump for the events of January 6.

Last night, Trump also filed a civil lawsuit against pollster J. Ann Selzer, her polling company, the Des Moines Register, and its parent company Gannett over Selzer’s November 2 poll showing Harris in the lead for the election. Calling it “brazen election interference,” the suit alleges that the poll violated the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act.

Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told Brian Stelter, Katelyn Polantz, Hadas Gold, and Paula Reid of CNN: “This absurd lawsuit is a direct assault on the First Amendment. Newspapers and polling firms are not engaged in ‘deceptive practices’ just because they publish stories and poll results President-elect Donald Trump doesn’t like. Getting a poll wrong is not election interference or fraud.”

Conservative former representative Joe Walsh (R-IL) wrote: “Trump is suing a pollster and calling for an investigation of [Liz Cheney]. Don’t you dare tell me he’s not an authoritarian. And don’t you dare look the other way. Donald Trump is un-American. The resistance to him from Americans must be steadfast & fierce.”

This afternoon, Trump’s authoritarian aspirations smashed against reality.

The determination of the MAGA extremists in the House to put poison pills in appropriations measures over the past year meant that the Republicans have been unable to pass the necessary appropriations bills for 2024 (not a typo), forcing the government to operate with continuing resolutions. On September 25, Congress passed a continuing resolution that would fund the government through December 20, this Friday. Without funding, the government will begin to shut down…right before the holidays.

At the same time, a farm bill, which Congress usually passes every five years and which outlines the country’s agriculture and food policies including supplemental nutrition (formerly known as food stamps), expired in 2023 and has been continued through temporary extensions.

Last night, news broke that congressional leaders had struck a bipartisan deal to keep the government from shutting down. The proposed 1,500-page measure extended the farm bill for a year and provided about $100 billion in disaster relief as well as about $10 billion in assistance for farmers. It also raised congressional salaries and kicked the government funding deadline through March 14. It seemed like a last-minute reprieve from a holiday government shutdown.

But MAGA Republicans immediately opposed the measure. “It’s a total dumpster fire. I think it’s garbage,” said Representative Eric Burlison (R-MO). They are talking publicly about ditching Johnson and voting for someone else for House speaker.

Trump’s sidekick Elon Musk also opposed the bill. Chad Pergram of the Fox News Channel reported that House speaker Mike Johnson explained on the Fox News Channel that he is on a text chain with Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, both of whom are unelected appointees to Trump’s proposed “Department of Government Efficiency” charged with cutting the U.S. budget.

Johnson said he explained to Musk that the measure would need Democratic votes to pass, and then they could bring Trump in roaring back with the America First agenda. Apparently, Musk was unconvinced: shortly after noon, he posted, “Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!” Later, he added: “No bills should be passed Congress [sic] until Jan 20, when [Trump] takes office.”

This blueprint would shut down the United States government for a month, but Musk—who, again, does not answer to any constituents—seems untroubled. ″‘Shutting down’ the government (which doesn’t actually shut down critical functions btw) is infinitely better than passing a horrible bill,” he tweeted.

Pergram reported that Musk’s threats sent Republicans scrambling, and Musk tweeted: “Your elected representatives have heard you and now the terrible bill is dead. The voice of the people has triumphed! VOX POPULI VOX DEI.”

But Trump and Vice President–elect J.D. Vance seem to recognize that shutting down the government before the holidays is likely to be unpopular. They issued their own statement against the measure, calling instead for “a streamlined bill that doesn’t give Chuck Schumer and the Democrats everything they want.”

Then Trump and Vance went on to bring up something not currently on the table: the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling is a holdover from World War I, when Congress stopped trying to micromanage the Treasury and instead simply gave it a ceiling for borrowing money. In the last decades, Congress has appropriated more money than the country brings in, thus banging up against the debt ceiling. If it is not raised, the United States will default on its debt, and so Congress routinely raises the ceiling as long as a Republican president is in office. If a Democrat is in office, Republicans fight bitterly against what they say is profligate spending.

The debt ceiling is not currently an issue, but Trump and Vance made it central to their statement, perhaps hoping people would confuse the appropriations bill with the debt ceiling. ”Increasing the debt ceiling is not great but we’d rather do it on Biden’s watch. If Democrats won’t cooperate on the debt ceiling now”—again, it is the Republicans who threaten to force the country into default—“what makes anyone think they would do it in June during our administration. Let’s have this debate now.”

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) explained: “Remember what this is all about: Trump wants Democrats to agree to raise the debt ceiling so he can pass his massive corporate and billionaire tax cut without a problem. Shorter version: tax cut for billionaires or the government shuts down for Christmas.”

President and Dr. Biden are in Delaware today, honoring the memory of Biden’s first wife, Neilia, and his one-year-old daughter Naomi, who were killed in a car accident 52 years ago today, but White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued a statement saying:

“Republicans need to stop playing politics with this bipartisan agreement or they will hurt hardworking Americans and create instability across the country. President-elect Trump and Vice President–elect Vance ordered Republicans to shut down the government and they are threatening to do just that—while undermining communities recovering from disasters, farmers and ranchers, and community health centers.

Triggering a damaging government shutdown would hurt families who are gathering to meet with their loved ones and endanger the basic services Americans from veterans to Social Security recipients rely on. A deal is a deal. Republicans should keep their word.”

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo pointed out the relationship between Trump’s authoritarianism and today’s chaos on Capitol Hill. Trump elevated Musk to the center of power, Marshall observes, and now is following in his wake. Musk, Marshall writes, “is erratic, volatile, impulsive, mercurial,” and he “introduces a huge source of unpredictability and chaos into the presidency that for once Trump doesn’t control.”

Ron Filipkowski of MeidasNews captured the day’s jockeying among Trump’s budding authoritarians and warring Republican factions over whether elected officials should fund the United States government. He posted: “The owner of a car company is controlling the House of Representatives from a social media app.”

—Heather Cox Richardson

Notes:

https://cha.house.gov/about#:~:text=House%20Administration%20manages%20the%20daily,are%20set%20by%20the%20Committee.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/watch-jan-6-panel-releases-video-of-rep-loudermilk-leading-a-capitol-tour-day-before-attack

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/21/jan-6-riot-trump-capitol-00047018

https://cha.house.gov/2024/12/chairman-loudermilk-releases-second-january-6-2021-report

https://cha.house.gov/_cache/files/6/d/6dae7b82-7683-4f56-a177-ba98695e600d/145DD5A70E967DEEC1F511764D3E6FA1.final-interim-report.pdf

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/17/media/trump-lawsuit-des-moines-register-ann-selzer-poll/index.html

https://thehill.com/business/budget/5040567-government-funding-deal-shutdown-deadline/

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60580

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5046736-government-funding-house-vote-fast-track/

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/18/johnsons-spending-gop-problems-2025-00195216

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-musk-2670491497/

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/johnson-forward-stopgap-funding-bill-despite-elon-musk/story?id=116903027

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/18/trump-joins-elon-musk-in-opposing-house-gops-government-funding-bill.html

https://apnews.com/article/biden-memorial-wife-daughter-killed-accident-delaware-a00f53d572a90386a55f206f59c7ff3e

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/12/18/statement-from-press-secretary-karine-jean-pierre-on-republicans-threatening-a-government-shutdown/

https://www.reuters.com/legal/trump-vows-pursue-more-defamation-claims-after-abc-news-settlement-2024-12-17/

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trumps-trump

https://apnews.com/article/congress-budget-trump-musk-johnson-5dc9fd8672f9807189032811d4ab0528

X:

davidfrum/status/1869359704385925446

ChadPergram/status/1869384847673745746

emptywheel/status/1869391339584151948

AccountableGOP/status/1869397789538729999

RpsAgainstTrump/status/1869416953464406483

WalshFreedom/status/1869408028954603983

ChrisMurphyCT/status/1869501953195352408

ChrisMurphyCT/status/1869203329081118983

jakesherman/status/1869448889876832538?s=46

Bluesky:

atrupar.com/post/3ldlz4q7zec2i

ronfilipkowski.bsky.social/post/3ldlz4uawec2m

yasharali.bsky.social/post/3ldm3rqevv22m

ronfilipkowski.bsky.social/post/3ldmj6risy22m

macfarlanenews.bsky.social/post/3ldmouc57vk2t

maxwellfrost.bsky.social/post/3ldmchrizp223

yasharali.bsky.social/post/3ldmdfbihfc22

 

Trump Followers Are Misinformed

 

...The Republican Great Depression forced reforms to banking that are with us to this day (although George W. Bush undid some of them, resulting in the Great Theft that triggered the Bush Crash of 2008). While we still are generally wary of banks, they’re not Public Enemy Number One in the public’s mind anymore.

Instead, today there’s barely an American family that doesn’t have a horror story of being denied essential healthcare because a giant insurance company refused to pay a claim or authorize a procedure, test, or medication.

It’s not an exaggeration to point out that Americans’ hatred of health insurance executives today is right up there with my mother’s generation’s hatred of bankers in the 1930s. Which explains why Luigi Mangione is now a folk hero: He’s the John Dillinger of this generation. Donald Trump campaigned as a similar type of [so-called] bad-boy folk hero.

He’s the guy who was going to take down the Black people, Hispanics, and women who white Republicans believe have gained their positions by virtue of their skin color or gender rather than their competence. He’ll give white men their mojo back by destroying Brown peoples’ lives and tearing families apart. He’s going to cut our taxes and “drain the swamp.” He’s going to “protect” our kids from liberals and queer people.

Americans, after all, know they’ve been screwed. Forty-three years of Reaganism has gutted the middle class, as I lay out in my new book The Hidden History of the American Dream.

Whether they know the details or not, working class people intuit that houses cost twice the average annual income in the 1960s but cost ten times the average annual income today. Boomers controlled over 21 percent of the nation’s wealth when we were in our 30s, but today’s generation in their 30s only control 4.6 percent of the nation’s wealth. One paycheck was the price of entry to the middle class 43 years ago; today it takes two or more.

What the people who support Trump don’t realize, though, is that it was Trump’s own Party and his own class of extremely wealthy people who did this to them. And who are now gaslighting them. A Harris poll a few months ago found how badly Trump followers are misinformed:

— Fully 55 percent of Americans thought the economy was shrinking, although it’d been steadily growing throughout Biden’s four years in office.
— Half (49%) thought the stock market was down, when it was hitting all-time highs, up 24 percent in 2023 and over 12 percent in 2024.
— The same percentage believed that unemployment was at a 50-year high, even though it was below 4 percent, a 50-year low.
— An amazing 72 percent of Americans believed inflation was increasing when, in fact, it had collapsed from over 9 percent to less than 3 percent.
— As a result of these false beliefs, fully 56 percent of voters thought America was in a recession on election day when, in fact, the economy was doing better than any time in the past 50 years.

People who consumed billionaire-owned right-wing media or got their news from billionaire-owned social media were actually less well-informed than people who claimed to follow no news at all.

It’s a true testament to the gaslighting power of billionaire Murdoch’s Fox “News,” billionaire-owned social media, and billionaire-owned rightwing hate radio: they succeeded in convincing virtually the entire Republican base that up was down. Along with a lot of help from the richest man in the world and his purchase of the world’s largest social media platform, which he turned into a sewer of grievance, hate, and lies.

It’s what happens when a man like Musk spends a quarter-billion dollars on deceitful television and other advertising media. And, tragically, it’s also an example of the failure of the Biden administration and congressional Democratic leadership (and the DNC) to simply and daily promote their own successes over the four years of his presidency.

What’s most relevant here is that Luigi Mangione identified a real villain: a parasitic, greedy, and psychopathic health insurance industry that does not exist as it does here in any other developed country in the world.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, promised to fix a middle class that’s been broken by 40 years of Reaganomics’ austerity and low taxes on the rich…with more austerity and low taxes on the rich.

Which is going to present a real challenge for Trump when he takes over. He’ll continue to claim he’s fighting for the little guy as he cuts taxes on billionaires, guts Social Security, makes college and healthcare more expensive, increases pollution, and throws the nation into a recession with his deportations and tariffs.

He’s already trying to position himself as his own version of Luigi Mangione, a “giant killer” who’ll take on a corrupted system even at the peril of his own life.

But reality can be problematic. Convincing people that Trump’s efforts are working once he’s back in office is going to be a much bigger lift for rightwing media. They’ll try, of course — throughout his last administration Trump and rightwing media repeatedly proclaimed the “best economy in American history” when, in fact, he never even got to Obama’s or Biden’s economic numbers.

The simple reality is that while Trump is a revolutionary, he’s promoting a revolution that will exclusively benefit the corrupt and the morbidly rich. He’ll make things worse for average people, just like he did last time; just like George W. Bush did, and Ronald Reagan did.

All three had severe recessions, each kicked off by tax cuts, just like Reagan’s recession after his tax cuts. Clinton, Obama, and Biden — eschewing tax cuts and instead raising taxes on the rich — never had a recession.

But Donald Trump will go big on shoveling government money to billionaires and thus bring our economy to its knees. Then, and really only then, should CEOs across multiple industries begin to worry as unemployment and inflation both explode while billionaires and massive monopolies make off with another $7 trillion like during his last administration.

Until that time, the only CEOs who really have a legitimate reason, based on current public opinion; to look over their shoulders are in the health insurance industry.

-Thom Hartmann

The Hartmann Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my daily work to wrest America back from the neofascist billionaires, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

 

"The terrifying implications of pardoning insurrectionists who killed and maimed…"

 

This past weekend, in his Meet The Press interview with Kristen Welker, Donald Trump reaffirmed his intention to pardon the people who attacked our Capitol, killing five civilians and three police officers and sending more than 140 cops to the hospital.

“I’m going to be acting very quickly. First day,” Trump said of pardoning Jan. 6 killers. “They’ve been in there for years, and they’re in a filthy, disgusting place that shouldn’t even be allowed to be open.”

Most media and political observers and commentators appear to be of the opinion that this is simply Trump’s way of thanking the people who made what he considers a heroic effort to keep him in office through violence. That would be bad enough, but experts at The Critical Internet Studies Institute are worried that there may be a much more sinister explanation.

If they’re right, it would also go a long way toward explaining his picks for Attorney General, Defense Secretary, and FBI director.

This theory, increasingly shared among counterterrorism experts and people who monitor violent rightwing extremist groups, suggests that the real reason Trump would do the pardons (and is unafraid of discussing them) is because he’s recruiting. And you don’t need to go back to 1930s Europe to find examples of how that could work.

Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin, for example, has often used non-state actors to intimidate and even kill his political enemies. The most well-known is the Night Wolves Motorcycle Club, aka “Putin’s Angels,” run by a man who calls himself “the Surgeon.” They helped Putin invade Crimea and Ukraine, but most of their activity is against protestors, “communists” (anybody opposing Putin), and the queer community in Russia.

Similarly, five years and one week before Trump applauded the “Jews will not replace us” Nazis who rallied in Charlottesville and murdered Heather Heyer, a group of some 700 right-wing Hungarian “patriots” held a torchlight parade that ended in front of the homes of Hungary’s largest minority group, chanting, “We will set your homes on fire!”

Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán’s police watched the thugs, laughing and refusing to intervene, as Roma families fled their homes in terror. In 2013, Zsolt Bayer, one of the founders of Orbán’s party, had called the Roma “animals… unfit to live among people.”

Language strikingly similar, if not milder, to Trump‘s way of describing Black people, immigrants, and liberals.

Orbán refused to condemn Bayer or the violence, and life has become more and more difficult for racial, ethnic, and religious minorities. Not only are they routinely excluded from job markets but are also frequently subject to violence at the hands of all-white, Orbán-supporting Hungarian militias.

Armed rightwing militia groups in the United States have been on a recruiting jag of their own in anticipation of Trump’s presidency, according to press reports and terrorism experts. For example, Reuters notes:

“The Proud Boys are back. Four years after the failed effort to overturn Trump’s 2020 electoral defeat, the violent all-male extremist group that led the storming of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, is rebuilding and regaining strength as Trump campaigns to return to the White House, according to interviews with eight Proud Boys, two U.S. law enforcement officials and four experts who track the group’s online activity.”

Similarly, Wired magazine reports that Scott Seddon, the Pennsylvania-based founder of the American Patriots Three Percenters (APIII), is preparing for something like war:

“’This is not going to just go away. We need to become fuckin’ strong, fuckin’ lions,’ says Seddon. ‘Start reaching out to individuals in your state that are trustworthy, that have the like-minded vision of local strong communities, to hold down the fort, just in case [of] war, or for when shit hits the fan.’”

El Pais tells the story of armed militia groups who are looking forward to action on America’s southern border when Trump allows it. Referencing them, Tom Homan, who Trump has appointed as his “Border Czar,” told Fox “News”:

“There are thousands of retired agents, border patrols, retired military personnel who want to come and volunteer to help this president secure the border and do deportation operations.”

They also cite a Wired article that quotes Tim Foley, head of Arizona Border Recon, a white “civilian patrol group,” as saying they’re doing outreach: “We’re in talks with a few different people. We have a better lay of the land than the federal agents do.”

It’s worth remembering that the people Trump says he wants to pardon not only include almost exclusively white men who killed civilians and police officers, but who also tried to hang the Vice President and murder the Speaker of the House of Representatives. These are actions that typically only happen in countries experiencing a live civil war. Which is exactly what Trump’s Defense nominee Pete Hegseth has argued we’re on the verge of. 

In his 2020 book American Crusade, Hegseth described leftists as the nation’s “internal adversaries”: “The military and police, both bastions of freedom-loving patriots, will be forced to make a choice,” Hegseth further wrote. “It will not be good. Yes, there will be some form of civil war.”

More recently, in his 2024 book “The War on Warriors,” Hegseth asserted that because of Democrats “America today is in a cold civil war,” claiming that the country is “under siege by confederacy radicals.” Donald Trump himself has said that he expects his plan to deport millions of undocumented workers in America to be “bloody.”

Our timid national media refuse to even consider such a savage scenario, but America should brace itself as Trump has not let up on his violent rhetoric and neither have his followers. As former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance told MSNBC’s Ari Melber:

“You know, when you listen to these comments and watch these videos, what you are forced to consider is the message that Donald Trump is sending, because it is not just to the January 6th defendants. It is to the people he hopes will support him in this next term, and the message is: ‘Support me at all costs, use violence, commit crimes, I will take care of you.’ I find that to be deeply frightening.”

January 6th taught us that Trump and some of the people following him are deadly serious and willing to use violence and even murder to achieve their goals. America needs to get ready. President Biden should be preparing (or reassuring) us. And, if the latter, explaining why.

-Thom Hartmann

Trump's Immunity Argument

 

Yesterday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg made it clear he had no intention of going quietly. No obedience in advance from the office that obtained the only criminal conviction against Donald Trump before his election win ran out the clock on the three other criminal cases against him.

After delays to assess Trump’s claim that the case should be dismissed or at least he could not be sentenced because he was about to assume the presidency, the District Attorney flatly rejected Trump’s argument that the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling impacts their case and asked Judge Juan Merchan to proceed to sentencing. Nothing, the DA writes, prevents Trump from being sentenced before the inauguration.

Trump floated a series of arguments that had no relevance to the question of whether this case could proceed, including:

• Hunter Biden got a pardon, so the case against him can’t proceed (irrelevant for so many reasons, including the fact that Biden’s case was a federal prosecution where the president had the authority to issue a pardon after a defendant was adjudicated guilty).
• The Justice Department sent a lawyer to the Manhattan DA’s office to prosecute him (not true).
• DA Bragg is ignoring violent crime in the city (not relevant; not true).

The one argument Trump made that needed consideration, because of the uniqueness of this situation, is whether Supremacy Clause issues that could make it inappropriate to continue the case once Trump is in office apply before his inauguration as well. This was a typical sort of “give us an inch and we’ll take a mile” argument from Trump’s lawyers, who claimed a sort of global, timeless bar to any further action against him, even though Trump’s crimes predate his first ascension to the presidency, and he is currently not the president.

Bragg reached a clear conclusion in the time he requested from the court to review the issue. The is no special rule for people who will become, but aren’t yet, the president. He relied on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. U.S. that “presidential immunity under Article II of the Constitution does not extend to the President-elect. Article II vests the entirety of the executive power in the incumbent President,” to reach the conclusion that “The President-elect is, by definition, not yet the President. The President-elect therefore does not perform any Article II functions under the Constitution, and there are no Article II functions that would be burdened by ordinary criminal process involving the President-elect.”

Trump’s argument, and immunity itself, is based on the concern that prosecution would interfere with the performance of a president’s duties. So Bragg’s argument, which undercuts this rationale, is both persuasive and compelling. Trump has no duties to perform, so he has no excuse to avoid sentencing in a case in which he has already been convicted.

Trump, of course, tries to argue that sentencing would interfere with the transition. But as the DA underscores, Trump’s convictions are based on unofficial, pre-presidency conduct that does not merit immunity. His “request that this Court create a doctrine of pre-presidential immunity under Article II that attaches before a President-elect becomes President—and that applies where the defendant’s criminal conduct is wholly based on unofficial, not official, acts—has no grounding in Article II of the Constitution.”

Bragg asked Judge Merchan to reject Trump’s request to dismiss the case, arguing, “There are no grounds for such relief now, prior to defendant’s inauguration, because President-elect immunity does not exist. And even after the inauguration, defendant’s temporary immunity as the sitting President will still not justify the extreme remedy of discarding the jury’s unanimous guilty verdict and wiping out the already-completed phases of this criminal proceeding.”

Trump could be sentenced, with service of any custodial sentence deferred until he leaves office. Bragg argues that there are other options the court could use, including staying the sentencing until after Trump’s term in office as president ends.

What happens next is up to Judge Merchan. Trump will almost certainly try to run out the clock with appeals if he dislikes the ruling. But sometimes, moral victories are worth it for their own sake. Today, Alvin Bragg demanded, on behalf of all of us, that Donald Trump face some measure of the justice he deserves.

The Manhattan district attorney is not powerful outside of his own jurisdiction. He has little to bring to bear against the president of the United States. But Alvin Bragg, who won a hard-fought conviction, stood up for it today and stood up for it against Donald Trump. His courage should inspire us. It is a measure of the courage we are all capable of. We do not have to accept Donald Trump and the demise of the rule of law as inevitable.

We’re in this together,

Joyce Vance

 

Defending Your Family with a Gun Could Land You in Prison

 

You'd do anything to protect your family! Hence, that’s why you have a gun stored safely. However, do you know what could happen to you if you ever had to fire your gun? First thing you need to know is that the legal system has set you up, no matter if you

✓ Bought the right gun

✓ Trained to use it according to the U.S. Constitution

✓ Stored it safely

✓ Prepared yourself for the worst

There's ONE terrifying gap in your protection plan, one that could tear your family apart. What happens AFTER you save or protect them? The truth is, the legal system doesn't care about your good intentions.

—Your clean record MEANS NOTHING.

—Your responsible ownership DOESN’T MATTER.

—Your family's safety is NOT THEIR CONCERN.

What most responsible gun owners don't realize is this: the moment you pull that trigger, everything changes for you, even if your actions are justified. In the eyes of the law, you may face:

—Your defense becomes a criminal case.

—Your life savings is drained by legal fees.

—Your family loses their financial provider.

—Your children will not see you again for a long time.

Even worse. This isn't about IF you can protect your family. It's about what happens WHEN you do protect your family. Nevertheless, there's a way to protect yourself BEFORE you need to defend yourself and your family, which will ensure that you are prepared AFTER you have protected your family. Watch the video below. It will show you

✓ How you can defend your family without risking prison.

✓ What happens AFTER you pull the trigger.

✓ The crucial step missing from your protection plan and how to fix it.

The video is free. Protecting your family should not cost you your freedom:

Defending Your Family With a Gun Could Land You In Prison…

United States Conceal Carry Association (USCCA)

Outside My Kitchen Window

 

If you live in North America, chances are you might live near a Cooper’s Hawk. You might be lucky enough to spot a Cooper’s Hawk darting through trees in search of prey, or you might see one perched…

Size, Shape and Color

The Cooper’s Hawk is a medium-sized raptor, between 14 to 20 inches long from beak to tail, roughly the size of a rolling pin. They’re a similar size to a crow and can be found year-round. Adults have a large head with a crown that can look black in certain lights. Their backs are gray/blue with a white underside, while their chests have horizontally streaked rufous bars.

Their long tail has three black bands, while the outer tail feathers are shorter than the rest, giving the tail a slightly rounded appearance. Apart from size and a few other characteristics, this long tail can really help distinguish the Cooper’s Hawk from the Sharp-shinned Hawk, another common American bird of prey.

Distribution

The Cooper’s Hawk is wide-spread across the United States, favoring wild deciduous forests, but is also found in suburban and urban areas. Cooper’s Hawk can be found across the states and they are the most common accipiter in the USA.

Cooper's Hawk Male and Female

Males and females look very similar, but females are about one-third larger than males. This size difference is not always noticeable in the field. To tell them apart, remember that adult females can have more orange on their cheeks than the males. (They put on a little bit of blush!)

Immature and juvenile birds are brown above with thin brown vertical streaks stretching from just below their neck to stomach. Cooper’s Hawk have bright yellow eyes when they’re young and as they grow older, their eyes turn orange, then red.

Flight

In flight, Cooper’s Hawks exhibit a flap-flap-glide pattern, typical of accipiters. Even when crossing expansive open areas, they rarely flap continuously when hunting. During the breeding season, adults often fly with flared undertail coverts (American Goshawks also do this too).

Diet

When targeting their prey of small birds, they fly fast and low to the ground, then up and over an obstruction to surprise their target on the other side. In addition to a diet of small birds, this species also feeds on small mammals like squirrels and chipmunks (if they can catch them!). 

As male Cooper’s Hawk are slightly smaller, their prey is predominantly smaller birds and small mammals. As the females are much larger, they can take down larger prey, like Mourning Dove and Pigeons.

Vocalizations

The vocalizations of Cooper’s Hawk are unique. Learning their suite of calls will allow you to be aware of the bird’s presence even when they are feeling a little shy. They are often heard giving a rapid series of “kek, kek, kek, kek”. To listen to the call of the Cooper’s Hawk, find this in Birda’s Species Guide

You might be looking for Cooper’s Hawks near you, and the best place to find out is by heading to the Birda app. If you’re looking for a great app to begin and track your birdwatching journey, Birda might be just for you. Join challenges, earn badges, post sessions and connect with other birders. Find out more about the Birda app. […].

https://birda.org/coopers-hawk-identification/