Most popular

Tweet (Bird):

"if I'm getting this right the most popular president in American history needs 20+ thousand soldiers to protect him from citizens but the soldiers have to be disarmed to protect him from the the soldiers" 

This has turned into a pure shithole country inauguration.

Immature and unreasonable

I think we all know about this phenomenon, but this is a particularly good explanation (and explains why Mitch wouldn't let that $2000 slip from his cold, dead hands, even at the cost of being able to run the Senate; I'll bet he prefers the fun of gumming up the works as Minority Leader):  "GOP’s Familiar, Troubling Plan to Torpedo Biden’s Presidency" (Bartlett):

"One reason Republicans are far more successful than Democrats in implementing their agenda is they have a long-term plan that actually anticipates Democratic victories from time to time; in fact, the occasional Democratic victory is essential to its success. The basic strategy here is called “starve the beast”: it involves big tax cuts when Republicans are in power and hardline deficit reduction when Democrats are in charge. (Occasional Democratic control is actually essential to give Republicans political cover for spending cuts that might otherwise prove politically painful for them.) It worked perfectly during the administrations of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, and Republicans are now preparing to keep it going through an almost-inevitable Joe Biden administration."

"Liz Cheney suffers impeachment vote blowback at home: 'Couldn't win a primary today for dog catcher'" (Miller).  Primarying her and Rubio would be good for the party, and the country.

"Signal is a government op" (Levine).  This is undoubtedly true, but Levine is taking quite a bit of abuse for it on Twitter, either from government agents who want to trick people into using it, or from pragmatic types who fear people will be scared away from taking any security steps with this kind of talk, and that Signal is still better than nothing.  The bottom line is that if you have things to say you don't want the government to hear, speak in person or use trusted couriers.  Be like bin Laden.

"Liberalism’s War on the Internet" (Studebaker):

"Liberalism is grounded on the idea that instead of having a state which is committed to one particular moral theory, religion, or worldview, the state will be committed to the “freedom” or “liberty” to create and choose one’s own values. These values are constructed through civil society organizations. There is a plurality of these organizations, offering a menu of different values. Traditionally, they include churches, universities, unions, social clubs, and so on.

The more intelligent liberal theorists recognize that it is possible for these civil society organizations to promote values which are hostile to pluralism, and therefore hostile to freedom as liberalism understands it. Max Weber condemned these organizations and their followers as “immature”, because in his view, they fail to recognize that their freedom to choose their illiberal values itself depends on the freedom which the liberal state secures. Much later, John Rawls called these same people and organizations “unreasonable”.

To deal with this, clever liberal theorists encourage the state to regulate civil society. By policing out organizations which are “immature” or “unreasonable”, liberalism offers a curated discourse, in which citizens are free to choose from among values which all happen to be compatible with the liberal state. The freedom, then, is a freedom to be liberal, to submit to the liberal state, because the liberal state has a monopoly on what counts as “mature” or “reasonable”.

Of course, if we become widely conscious of this, liberalism begins to look totalitarian, and the freedom it promises begins to look illusory. To make curated pluralism credible as genuine pluralism, the state must not be seen to enforce the curation. The curation must appear to be the natural consequence of reasonable, mature arguments winning out over unreasonable, immature arguments. 

This is easily achieved during periods of liberal consensus, when liberalism has managed to create sufficient social stability that there are very few people who attempt to advance illiberal ideas. But when this consensus begins to break down, liberalism must find a way to regain control over civil society. This typically begins in finding a way to purge civil society without being seen to purge it."

Tweet (Glenn Greenwald) (in a set of tweets referring to the issue reflected in this oddity; Hawley is obviously politically terrifying to the Dems, as he seems willing and able to experiment successfully with popular populist positions):

"AOC has since denounced Hawley for his objections to the Electoral College but hasn't shamed those who worked with Hawley.

Relatedly: I can't remember a time when the soft-socialist Left has been more aligned with or loyal to the Democratic Party as now. Very little daylight."

Tweet (Whitney Webb):

""AOC said there is a spectrum of radicalization that ranges from sympathizers to conspiracy theorists, to Neo-Nazis. Such radical ideology could lead to violence and domestic terrorism." 

Just wait until 9/11 truth and Epstein get the same treatment."

This is war

"‘Democracy’ With Iron Fist. Washington Is in State of Siege as Inauguration Approaches" (South Front):

"At the same time, the Biden administration, having gained the power, is likely to announce its intention to protect democracy from the influence of the Republican “terrorists”, while continuing distorting any basic principles in its favor. American society is moving closer to the Orwellian system, where the declared functions and real actions of the government bodies completely contradict each other, and the society is governed by a brutal totalitarian system, the inhabitants are deprived of civil rights and individuality.

A new totalitarian regime is being actively imposed, leaving no room for preserving any traditional social values and principles of democracy. American democracy, which has been maiming for decades, became a relic of the past. The new era is coming and the whole world will have to deal with it."

A level of security suited to somebody who has just stolen an election. Very 90s, very South American.  Of course, the level of security is supposed to demonize the Trumpists as it is supposed to be a reflection of the level of threat posed by them.  I think it is working - it seems the protests, if any, will be at local statehouses, and will probably consist mostly of agents provocateurs.

"The Gray Curtain Descends, Part 2" (Gore):

"Nothing will be fair about the coming fight. It’s no use whining about the other side’s lack of principles, its lies, hypocrisy, unfairness, ruthlessness, and control of virtually every important institution. They’re evil totalitarians, what the hell do we expect? Their principle is absolute power and they’ll do whatever is necessary to acquire and keep it.

Ashli Babbitt’s death, if it is to mean anything at all, should be the cold slap of reality across the faces of those who haven’t grasped the nature of what we face. To ignore the risk that breaching an Imperial Sanctum would be met with violence was pure foolishness. The demonstrators who entered the Capitol could have been murdered en masse. Any expectation that their murderers would receive justice from the Corruptocracy would be delusional naiveté.

No more foolishness or naiveté. Any supposedly peaceful protest will be infiltrated by agent provocateurs bent on making trouble for our cause (including the protests being advertised for next week). The totalitarians will do what they do until they’re completely defeated. This is war, which calls for the unremitting exercise of cold, ruthless rationality. We will administer justice and show mercy when appropriate, but we will expect or receive neither from the other side.

Let’s get on with it."

"Information War Dethrones US President" (Danilov):

"Social media and digital tools used in information warfare have proven to be a destructive force comparable to nuclear weapons since under certain circumstances, they can be used not only to influence outcomes of important elections in various nations but to also help win different political battles.

Clearly, social networking sites have long been employed as political tools and the United States appears to have mastered their use in this manner. In addition, they have been employed by presidential candidates to win elections and to encourage color revolutions all over the world. Facebook, Youtube and Google dominate the online world and their leadership do not seem to care where in the world accounts are suspended as long as they continue to comply with the wishes of investors and sponsors.

Such wars can be initiated and waged yet again in any country and not only using tools employed in color revolutions. Hence, it is important to ensure the use of digital tools for waging information warfare is regulated at a supranational level in order to prevent certain political forces in the West from employing them in their own interests in other countries."

"Impeachment is more dangerous than Trump" (Tracey):

"Curiously, the most putatively “progressive” members of Congress seem to be the most exercised about resurrecting concepts that sound like Woodrow Wilson suppressing dissidents in wartime."

"Washington’s Bastille" (Moglia). The 'unmentionables'.  "Did Milton Friedman’s Libertarianism Seek to Advance Jewish Interests?" (de Wit).  MacDonald has a test (it catches almost all, if not all, of (((them)))):

"MacDonald gives us a three-step method to answer the question:

1. “find influential movements dominated by Jews, with no implication that all or most Jews are involved in these movements and no restrictions on what the movements are.”
2. “determine whether the Jewish participants in those movements identified as Jews
3. AND thought of their involvement in the movement as advancing specific Jewish interests.” (Kevin MacDonald. Culture of Critique, pp. 11-12.)"

Long games, infinite dissembling

Max Blumenthal continues to be a topic of discussion.  Tweet (brainsturbator) (this is the same long game that Noam has been playing):

"Seeing all this has been a real education in how the Anglo-Israeli ratfucking network operates. Happy to play both sides for decades - long games, infinite dissembling"

"The American Brumaire" (Lee). "Why is there no socialism in the United States?"  The new two-front war of Assholia:  people who are somehow in the way of Khazarian land theft, and Deplorables.

It appears the American military is already in training for anti-Deplorables urban warfare operations in big cities.  "Everything We Know About The Mysterious Dark Helicopters That Have Been Circling Los Angeles" and "Those Mysterious Dark Helicopters Were Landing On Multiple Downtown LA Rooftops Last Night (Updated)" (Trevithick).

"Three Cheers For “Baseless”" (Smith).  Fact-checking Assholian history.

It's almost funny.  "Dems Reject Bigger Survival Checks, Float Tax Breaks For The Rich" (Sirota/Rock/Perez).  At the least, far too early to tell, but the signs, and Biden's deep history, are not good:  "Biden is shifting leftwards" (Bhadrakumar).

"Federal official walks back allegation rioters intended to 'capture and assassinate'" (Williams/Edelman).  For at least 95% of these guys, who were welcomed in by police through open doors to a public building, where they milled around and took goofy selfies, there was no possible crime to have been committed.

"Extremists exploit a loophole in social moderation: Podcasts" (Arbel).  Loophole.  "The Circus in Washington Continues – the US Is Concerned About Press Freedom in … Russia" (Stalker Zone).

Okay. That was quick.

"Trump may be on trial, but the system that produced him will be acquitted" (Cook):

"All this is not just the latest sign that the US political system has degenerated into tawdry theatre. It is growing evidence that US politics is devolving into a permanent confrontation between two authoritarian tribes. Both are convinced that the other side is un-American, perverting the true republic. Both are unwilling to compromise, believing they share no common ground. And ultimately both are fighting for a rotten cause."

and:

"For this tribe, Trump was an illegitimate president from the outset, one whose election to the highest office in the land revealed something unwholesome about their country they preferred to avert their gaze from because it might implicate them too. Removing Trump largely eclipsed the struggle to improve the lives of ordinary Americans.

The obsession with Trump above everything else seemingly rationalised any means – fair or foul – to be rid of him. Few thought about how this would look to his supporters or to those not already safely ensconced in one or other tribe.

Had they wished to understand, they needed only look to the storming of the Capitol last week. How they felt watching the building being ransacked – a Deplorable putting his feet up contemptuously on Pelosi’s desk – was how Trump’s tribe felt watching their president being denounced as a Russian agent and dragged through impeachment proceedings."

and:

"There is a way out of the dead-end culture war that pits one tribe against the other. It is to formulate an alternative, popular politics based on class struggle – the 99 percent against the 1 percent. But neither the Republican nor the Democratic leaderships, nor the respective medias that cheerlead them, has any interest in encouraging a political realignment of this sort.

The Democratic party is not a vehicle for class struggle, after all. Like the Republican party, it is designed to preserve the privileges of an elite. Its biggest donors, like the Republican’s, are drawn from Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Big Pharma, the arms industries. The political battle in the United States is between two parties of capital united by far more than divides them.

The shadow play of US politics is the enervating, antagonistic confrontation of identities described above. While ordinary Americans get stoked into a mutual tribal loathing by a corporate media that profits from this theatre of hate, the elite enjoys a free hand to pillage the planet and the commons."

Tweet (Hans Mahncke):

"This is from the newly released Flynn 302s. 

Trump let bygones by bygones. In return, Team Hillary organized a coup."

"FBI is Now Saying Foreigners Might Have Planned the Capitol Storm" (Anglin):

"EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED. 

There was no plan! There was no attack!

This is what happened:

• In the days before 1/6, virtually all law enforcement was pulled from the Capitol
• On 1/6, Donald Trump gave a speech which probably wasn’t legally incitement (though he will probably be convicted of it anyway) that implied people should go to the Capitol, and maybe get a little bit rowdy
• People went to the Capitol, and got a bit rowdy
• The cops pulled back, and actually, literally opened the doors of the Capitol building and let people walk in
• People walked in and mulled around a little bit, mostly taking selfies
• Some of them were yelling
• Some guy violated a podium
• Some guy sat at Nancy Pelosi’s desk and took selfies
• People just kind of filed out of the building, in an orderly way

Things that did not happen:

• An attack
• Any kind of plan at all

The only people who had a plan were the people who pulled the law enforcement from the Capitol the day before the event, and whoever ordered the cops to stand down and open the doors.

Everyone knows this. It’s all very clear, on innumerable videos. They are raiding everyone, and they have yet to come up with any information that counters any of this.

Anyone who claims differently than any of this is lying to you, for a purpose.

The purposes of lying about this are legion:

• There is a massive shut down of free speech on the internet (including closing and seizing bank accounts)
• There is a lunatic new military police state is being brought in
• Donald Trump is being impeached again
• All supporters of Donald Trump are being framed as terrorists
• There is a plan to create new legal classifications for fake “fake news” and “domestic terrorism” in order to completely shut down the First Amendment
• To try to clamp down on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies (USE MONERO)
• Create a mandate for Joe Biden to “unify the country in the wake of unprecedented violence against our democracy” (Biden previously had no mandate beyond “I’m a nice person and Donald Trump is a mean person”)
• Destroy any future for a post-Trump MAGA platform by associating it with violence and terrorism
• And apparently, based on the above article, to link MAGA to Russia, Iran and China
• etc.

This is ALL OBVIOUS.

None of it is even slightly ambiguous, based directly on the information that we are getting from the government and the media – and of course, the video footage itself.

You people need to figure out what is going on and you need to figure it out quickly, because this is dropping like an ACME anvil."

"FT: Even Richard Spencer Thinks The Right Has Gone Too Far" ('Hunter Wallace') (remember, this guy is a 'white nationalist', though he sounds like the sanest guy in the room, and he is describing the possible 'common ground' that doesn't seem to exist in Assholia);

"Originally, we had been attracted to MAGA and rightwing populism because it had seemed like a breath of fresh air at the time. The Donald Trump that we supported in 2015 and 2016 was the man on the stump who was going to build the wall and deport illegal aliens, who was going to get rid of our terrible trade deals, who thought the Iraq War was a huge mistake, who was running on a trillion dollar infrastructure program, who said things that were true but politically incorrect and who was self financing his campaign in order to be free of the corrupting influence of the Republican donor class. More than anything else, we backed Trump though because we hated mainstream conservatism and we saw him as a bulldozer who could demolish those people and open up our politics. He could “move the Overton Window.” 

We saw Donald Trump only as a vehicle for what came to be called “Trumpism” which are policy preferences that a variety of insurgent candidates – most famously, Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot and Ron Paul – had championed over the course of the previous thirty years:

• Change our trade policies to end globalization and foster investment and job creation in America to develop our economy for American workers.
• Rollback the American Empire and put an end to these endless wars in the Middle East that have cost us so much and which we don’t understand anymore.
• Tighten up and enforce our immigration laws because we have had too much immigration for too long and because it is too destabilizing.
• End the yoke of political correctness which is a tyranny bitterly resented by the vast majority of Americans who are forced to walk on eggshells.
• Rebuild the infrastructure of this country which is falling apart.
• Stop being the body servant or water boy of billionaires who have been buying our elections and corrupting our politics.

This was the mandate.

None of these things are particularly controversial. The idea that this agenda amounts to “fascism” is ludicrous. Over half the things on this list have been supported by Bernie Sanders. If Trump had governed on the basis of his populist mandate, he would have been reelected in a landslide.

The toxic side of rightwing populism is largely what we got instead:

• MIGA.
• Performance art politics/Political theater.
• Donald Trump’s nepotism which empowered Jared Kushner and Ivanka which we had not anticipated in 2016.
• Donald Trump’s personality cult which ultimately overwhelmed and overshadowed his policy agenda. MAGA became all about him rather than pushing an agenda.
• Trump the plutocrat and Wall Street cheerleader.
• QAnon, “Trust the Plan” and conspiratards.
• Cynical race baiting and fear mongering to wind up and manipulate voters.
• The rejection of expertise above all else with COVID-19.
• Laziness and incompetence.
• Legions of grifters who became Trump influencers.
• A policy agenda that was sold to the donor class.
• Blowback which swelled the legions of our enemies, destroyed our online platforms and real world monuments.
• The absolute utter narcissism and disloyalty of Trump.
• A man who endorsed all his enemies and destroyed all his allies. He destroyed Jeff Sessions and wiped out the immigration hawks. Charlie Kirk became the public face of Trumpism.
• A man who lifted up almost no one in American politics who shares his views or at least what he said in 2016 but who surrounded himself with mediocrities skilled at flattery.

Who imagined in 2016 that we were voting for a guy who was going to bring the neocons back to power and have Mike Pompeo as his Secretary of State? Who was going to run on the Platinum Plan?

The final denouement of the Trump era – Sidney Powell, Lin Wood and Rudy Giuliani hawking conspiracy theories, the “Stop the Steal” grift and the fraud narrative, “Unleash the Kraken,” the “Storm Is Coming” and the Capitol Siege and impeachment – revealed the con it had been all along. Trumpism had moved away from populism and devolved into a personality cult for grifters, chumps and conspiratards led by an incompetent narcissist who used them as pawns only to disavow and discard them.

Imagine where Donald Trump and MAGA would be today if he had actually gone down the Alt-Right road in 2017. Suppose he had done some of the things that we wanted from him instead of wooing Mitch McConnell, passing the Paul Ryan agenda and nurturing the QAnon grift. Withdrawing troops from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Passing a major infrastructure bill. Deporting illegal aliens. Busting up political correctness. Pressuring Senate Republicans to pass the $2,000 stimulus checks. Would the Democrats now control the White House and Congress? Would rightwing populism be in this bad of shape? There were worse things in this world than catering to the mostly reasonable Alt-Right agenda."

"Progressive pundit Jimmy Dore helping ‘FASCISM’ by calling for Julian Assange pardon, liberal commentators claim".  "Pelosi Removes Katie Porter… Bringing Joy & Gratitude To Every Crooked Bankster On Wall Street" (Smith) (also).  "Pelosi Puts Swalwell Back On Homeland Security Committee Despite Chinese Spy 'Entanglement'" (Durden).  "Stop Biden’s Neocon Nominee To The State Department" (Carden).  Tweet (!) (David Dayen) (also):

"The Prospect and The Intercept have learned that Renata Hesse, a former Obama Justice Department official who then went on to work for Google and Amazon, is a leading contender to head up the DoJ Antitrust Division."

Tweet (Gianni, DDS):

""protests turn violent""

"America 2.0: After the Election" (Medvedev).

Didn't take long for the UFOs to show up!:  "UFO In Cape Hatteras? Viral Video Sparks Debate Of Mysterious Flying Object" (Durden).

It's a dangerous job, running the world ('heart attack', goyim, and all the headlines stress it):  "Billionaire Benjamin de Rothschild Dies At 57" (Durden).

In a box outside

Tweet (HAPPY):

"living in america is like being born into a super rich family that forces you to sleep in a box outside" 

Tweet (Sister Helen Prejean):

"The death penalty is fundamentally a poor person’s issue. Over nearly 40 years of visiting death row facilities across the United States, I have never met a single person with money or resources. Capital punishment means “those without the capital get the punishment.”"

Tweet (Michael Tracey) (this was during the time of Killary's brilliant plan to have the (((media))) promote Trump, the idea being he would squeeze out the serious Republican candidates and she would then roll over him in the election):

"Went back and re-watched some Trump interviews on CNN, MSNBC, etc. from 2015 and early 2016. Beyond chummy. Corporate media really did all they possibly could to boost Trump until the moment he became nominee. Now they call him fascist. Well if so, they were fascism’s #1 enablers"

Tweet (Sam Adams):

"imagine running these numbers and thinking the problem is paying the minimum-wage worker too much"

Mark of the Beast news:  "Silicon Valley and WEF-Backed Foundation Announce Global Initiative for COVID-19 Vaccine Records" (Webb).  Also, of course, Palantir:  "NHS Contract With US Tech Firm May Be 'Massive Breach' of Data Protection Law, Says medConfidential" (Elmaazi) and "CDC Urges Biden To Drop Palantir's COVID Tracker" (Durden).

"Rush to judgment on Trump? Multiple leftists arrested for Capitol riot" (Showalter).  There are a considerable amount of agents provocateurs who are neither Antifa, nor MAGA, but just work for the federal government.

"Joe Biden’s War" (J. Hawk for South Front):

"Moreover, it does seem that the US “Deep State” is frustrated by Russia’s resistance and is getting impatient to finally grapple with China. It has already made many moves in that direction during the Trump administration, including the crackdown on Huawei, the effort to ban or seize Tik-Tok, last-minute moves to expand US contacts with Taiwan in violation of the “One China” policy, and most notably by the growing importance of naval and air power in Pentagon thinking. When Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley of the U.S. Army says that the Army will need to have its spending cut in order to bolster the U.S. Navy budget, this is no longer some Trumpian whim, but rather an expression of broad-based consensus preferences. Something that violates the long-standing if unwritten rule that each of the three major services, Army, Navy, Air Force, gets an equal share of the defense budget, cannot be anything other than an indicator of a major shift of focus.

Because while a US naval build-up would have consequences for Russia, since USN warships carry long-range land-attack missiles that are to be supplemented by hypersonic weapons and possess anti-ballistic missile defense capabilities, they are hardly suitable for the task of “defending the Suwalki Gap” and other NATO missions in Eastern Europe. Even the US Marine Corps, which during the Cold War had a major European NATO mission in Norway, is shedding its tanks and artillery to reshape itself as a force for littoral combat in the many archipelagoes of western Pacific. So, if anything, it looks like the United States military is actually sacrificing its ability to put boots, and tanks and guns, on the ground in continental Europe for the sake of putting ships and planes into and over the East China Sea and possibly the Arctic Ocean.

Biden’s team could try to reverse all that, but doing so would carry high political costs. Hunter Biden’s China ties are a liability that will be exploited should Joe “show weakness” toward China. The “Uyghur genocide” rhetoric will only intensify in the coming years, there is nothing that Biden can do to stem that, not anymore than Trump could tamp down on the “Russian collusion” theories that proliferated over the years. China’s success at tackling COVID-19 has only raised the sense of urgency about the “China threat” among the US supremacists. And finally there are the domestic US constituencies, often consisting of traditional Democratic Party voters, who backed Trump because the confrontation with China meant the possibility of manufacturing jobs of coming back to the US.

All in all, it does not appear possible that Biden will have the luxury of picking and choosing theaters of Cold War, which sets us up for the spectacle of the United States that could not defeat the Taliban attempt to tackle two Eurasian major powers all at once. As in the previous iteration of “Cold War”, the battlefield will be the peripheral countries that are torn between the United States and the Eurasian powers. These include the European Union, whose economic interests are not served by US-led escalation toward either Russia or China, but also Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Australia, Philippines, and even India which collectively represent a geopolitical “no-man’s land” since their alliance commitments to the US are balanced by economic ties to America’s “designated enemies”.

Whether the United States is up to the task of handling this kind of a challenge is an open question. China’s, Russia’s economic systems are far more viable than they were during the Cold War, and are also healthier than Western economies that are struggling under massive debt burdens and require constant monetary stimulus policies by their respective central banks. US internal problems and divisions will likewise drain attention and budget funding away from international adventures. Should Biden focus on implementing this extreme foreign policy agenda at the expense of domestic priorities, the next round of isolationist backlash in the US will be even stronger than the previous one. So the situation in many ways resembles that facing the Nixon Administration in the late 1960s. However, is anyone in the Biden Administration willing to pursue détente policies?"

"Sedition Tracker".

This is a perfect description of the current bewildering state of official direction of the government of Ontario (Ford is currently in the state of having to pretend to do something while not interfering in any way with the profits of the long-term care facilities or the big box Assholian chain stores):  tweet (Matt O'Brien):

"GOVERNMENT: stay home

ME: ok I’m staying home GOVERNMENT: ....you wanna go out and get a burrito or something? ME: can I? GOVERNMENT: ya maybe I dunno ME: can I goto the park? GOVERNMENT: haha buddy I dunno what am I the park police"

Wow

Tweets by Tactical Phase Lomez on the January 6 incident.

"BREAKING BOMBSHELL: CNN Was In On It! Reporter Disguised Herself As Trump Supporter And Plotted With BLM Member" (Keirns).

"Don’t Fall for the Establishment’s Tall Tales. There Was No “Violent Assault on the Capitol” and There Is Abundant Evidence of Electoral Fraud" (Roberts).  Comment by lloyd on Jade Sacker:

"I just checked out Jade Sacker from CNN and NPR. She accompanied black Antifa leader John Sullivan into the Capitol building. They are both heard gloating over the invasion and at best indifferent to death of MAGA female supporter. On her webside she lists herself as maternally Native American and paternally Russian Jewish. She clearly hates traditional America like poison. Oh dear. Another spawn of civil rights."

"Rush to judgment on Trump? Multiple leftists arrested for Capitol riot" (Showalter).

"‘Sanctions guru’ involved in creating Russiagate saga to return as CIA’s deputy director under Biden".  Israel is in full control of the CIA.  This (((thug's))) bio is practically a parody of Khazarian control over Washington.

"Trump’s not-so-secret art of containing China" (Escobar).  We're seeing a trend across the entire West of assuming you've won once you upload your PR strategy.  I'm not sure who they are tying to kid, but it is not China that is falling for it.

Tweet (Dr media critic (PHD)):

"libs openly talking about nuking brazil if they host any pro-Trump content"

This is one of the low points of recent lib scalp collecting, and The Nation should be ashamed for publishing it: "The Enablers of Insurrection Should Be Ostracized" (Heer).

"Facebook page closed" (Lang).  Alternatives

A small amount of sanity is creeping back into Washington:  "Feds Back Down from Claims of “Assassination Plot” at the Capitol" (Anglin).

Tweet (ELIJAH SCHAFFER):

"A 78 yr old man campaigned from his basement 

Picks one of the most unpopular VP’s 

Receives the most votes of any candidate in history at 4am 

Confirmed in the middle of the night 

An empty inauguration 

20,000 troops to protect him 

& nobody can question any part of it 

Wow"

Another reality

"Ford ousts MPP from caucus over open letter pushing for end to COVID-19 lockdown".  The letter that got him fired.  It's true that the lockdown probably has killed more people than it has saved, but od's, suicides, and the deaths that are effects of postponed surgeries are difficult to measure.

"Three Jewish Democrats are leading the House impeachment charge" (Kampeas).  Trump's going to go to his grave completely oblivious to the (((nature))) of the conspiracy against him.

From Niqnaq - "illarionov’s “live journal” post, in full".

"American Pravda: Our Disputed Election" (Unz).

Tweet (Michael Tracey):

"The QAnon shaman guy is who federal prosecutors have cited for the contention that rioters intended to “capture and assassinate elected officials”

They also note the shaman guy’s “belief that he is an alien, a higher being, and he is here on Earth to ascend to another reality”"

The CIA seems awfully, and illegally, interested in the murder of Seth Rich:  "Why Was the CIA Spying on American Citizens? by Larry C Johnson".

Louis tweets on the Epoch Times.  Also on the DSA!

Tweet (Ben Norton):

"The authoritarian right-wing US-backed puppet regime in Ecuador is refusing to give credentials to international electoral observers from the European Parliament and Grupo de Puebla, as the election is just 3 weeks away 

There are widespread fears it might try to rig the election"

Tweet (Max Ajl):

"There has been next to no comment on the eco-modernist “left” soft embrace of Zionism and its relationship with its technological prometheanism & fullbore addiction to fairy tales of “progress”"

Tweet (Louis):

"There is a lamentable trend of academics who glorify past anti-imperialist figures but simultaneously spread imperialist propaganda on contemporary issues & demonise those who take anti-imperialist positions in the present day (positions the people they glorify would have taken)."

Tweet (Bryan MacDonald):

"Remembering when America's super expensive @Georgetown University introduced a bullsh*t course based on the non-existent 'Gerasimov Doctrine.' Featuring conspiracy theorist 

@mollymckew. Even after the creator of the hoax, a British 'Russia Watcher,' admitted it didn't exist."

"America’s Biggest Owner Of Farmland Is Now Bill Gates" (Shapiro).  "'Bill Gates has joined a £3bn bidding war to buy the world’s largest private jet operator just as he prepares to publish his new book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.'" (Aangirfan).  "Bill Gates joins Blackstone in bid to buy British private jet services firm" (Neate).

With the terrorists

"Will the Senate Confirm Coup Plotter Victoria Nuland?" (Benjamin/Davies/Winograd).  Depends, as always, on how many shekels (((they))) throw while yelling for the Senators to dance, dance, dance.

Tweet (Glenn Greenwald):

"The 3 journalistic units most devoted to demanding online censorship are CNN's media reporters, NBC's "disinformation team," and NYT's tech reporters. 

Here's the latter laying the groundwork for making encrypted apps Signal & Telegram the next targets: 

https://nytimes.com/2021/01/13/technology/telegram-signal-apps-big-tech.html"

There has been more gloating talk by the Clintonisas and SJWs that Ivanka has lost her place in NYC 'high society', but she can just say 'you are welcome' as she describes the theft by President Jared from the Trump campaign as the reason Biden was able to steal the election. They are bona fide Heroes of the Resistance!

"REDPILLED MEDIA EXCLUSIVE: US Capitol Police Agent David Bailey Who Killed Ashli Babbitt Was The SAME OFFICER THAT LET STEVE SCALISE GET SHOT in 2017! (EXCLUSIVE EVIDENCE)" and "THE BEST OF THE BEST: Diversity Hire Cop David Bailey Who Murdered Ashli Babbitt Was Hired With a Sole Bachelor’s Degree in Physical Education — HE RAKES IN OVER $120K A YEAR!".

"White Supremacist Trump Supporters Just Want a Black Guy, Any Black Guy to be Their Leader" (Sailer).

Another 'two-state solution' trick, from one of the usual tricksters:  "Israel is losing the fight to obscure its apartheid character" (Cook).

It is wild that Trump got impeached for something he clearly didn't do or say:  tweet (Michael Tracey):

"This is the one quote cited in the impeachment article to demonstrate Trump's "incitement" of the mob. It's an unremarkable line that he could've used in about a thousand different contexts over the past five years"

Tweet (Michael Tracey):

"From an unprecedented corporate censorship purge, to a "snap" impeachment that effectively criminalizes ordinary political speech, this past week has been a 9/11-style frenzy. And if you raise any objections, you are denounced as "with the terrorists""

Declassification.

The single most dangerous gift to Sheldon, with thanks for all the shekels:  tweet (Gordon Lubold):

"NEW: Trump ordered the Pentagon to reorganize its command structure and put Israel in US CENTCOM, in a nod to Israel’s long wishes and another last minute policy decision it will be hard for Biden to undo. Exclusive with 

@mgordonwsj and me"

"The Intercept Fires Co-Founder Who Publicly Discussed Reality Winner 'F*ck-Up'" (Durden).  Pierre's going to protect his embedded CIA assets at all cost, including losing his best people.  Snowden tweets.

Epoch Times has been around for years as a fruitcake cult newspaper that buries the crazy in the news, but it is suddenly everywhere:  Tweet (Carl Zha):

"New York Times vs New York Times"

These two examples are part of setting the stage for war, as everybody is lining up victim countries for the inevitable, albeit utterly illegal, Wars For The Jews:  "Biden Snubs Erdogan, Refuses To Answer Phone Call In Rare NATO Cold Shoulder" (Durden).  "Guardian Smears Syria's President With Implausible Link To Beirut's Port Blast" (Moon).

With the 2000->1400, Biden's doing the old, classic cartoon.

"Killing or Curing - The Impact of Vaccinating Elderly Norwegians for COVID-19" (Viable Opposition).

Ben Norton tweets on the 'Chinese debt trap'.

Tweet (Ben Norton):

"Ecuador's right-wing authoritarian US puppet regime is putting so many absurd restrictions on the election. 

The leading left-wing candidate Arauz, who polls show is likely to win, is now banned from using any images of popular former President Correa. This is ridiculously unfair"

De-baathification

Union VP, staunch Obama supporter, dies on January 6 in Washington during the protests, after becoming 'radicalized' (I like how these stories portray becoming a Republican - driven to it by the failure of Democrats to stop the deindustrialization - as the equivalent of joining the KKK):  "How an Alabama man went from Obama supporter to dying in the Capitol insurrection" (Sheets).

De-baathification.

"Berlin Clinical Data Confirm Alexei Navalny Had Pancreatitis, Diabetes, Liver Failure, Staphylococcal Infection, Mild Heart Attack – No Novichok Symptoms" (Helmer).  Medical miracle!

Btw, in case, for some crazy (((reason))), you didn't see it in the (((media))), President Jared stole $500,000,000 from the Trump campaign, which was why it was out of money to pay for ads at the end of the campaign.  "Grifting on a Dream" (Gonzalez):

"In early October, amid tight midwestern races, Trump’s campaign pulled $2.5 million in ads from Ohio, $820,000 from ads in Iowa, $2 million in ad buys in Michigan and Wisconsin, and $5 million from its projected fall TV budget in Minnesota. Trump ended up losing three of those five states. 

By late October, the Associated Press reported that records showed “a web of limited liability companies hid more than $356 million in spending from disclosure.” That figure ballooned up from the $170 million reported by the CLC, but it was just the first shading of a much bigger picture.

It appears Parscale took a half-billion-dollar bullet for Kushner and company.

Business Insider reported in late December that Kushner “approved the creation of a campaign shell company that secretly paid the president’s family members and spent almost half of the campaign’s $1.26 billion war chest.” The Insider called the operation a “campaign within a campaign,” lifted from Mitt Romney’s playbook.

A month after Kushner promoted Parscale to campaign manager in February 2018, Trump’s team members met with attorneys at the Jones Day law firm. Among these lawyers were a few who crewed Romney’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns, a source told the Insider. They pitched an idea to Parscale based on a pass-through company, American Rambler, used by Romney to purchase campaign TV ads. “One month later, Kushner signed off on a plan to have Trump’s family and campaign staff run the shell company.” As usual, Kushner attempted to create layers between himself and events.

On April 18, 2018, that company, American Made Media Consultants LLC, was formally incorporated in Delaware. Though Parscale has been consistently connected to the company in media reports, Kushner was reportedly the real hand behind the operation."

Self defense

Tweet (Bryan MacDonald) (update):

"This is astonishing. Twitter has restricted the account of Russia's Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine. In the middle of a pandemic." 

"Poland slams social media deplatforming of Trump as government readies anti-censorship law".

ProBar.  Self-defense weapon of Champions. 

"Oh Sheldon we hardly knew you!" (Weiss).

"Brexit Was Johnson’s Churchillian Moment. So Britain Can Now Have Its Cake and Eat It?" (Jay).  You are not supposed to notice, but Boris out-waited the bad faith Eurotrash 'negotiators' and did quite well for Britain.  It was never going to be smooth as the Eurotrash could not afford to let Britain out too easily, lest that jailbreak inspire other oppressed countries.

Philosophy of science book thread.

Gloomy as hell

"Questions swirl around possible 'insider' help for Capitol attack" (Cohen).  This is so dangerously close to the truth of what happened that I don't expect it to have legs.  Ali Alexander gives every appearance of being a government agent.

"Michael Hudson: Looking Forward to 2021".  Gloomy as hell.

"Can China Lead a World Economic Recovery?" (Engdahl).  Gloomy as hell.

"#blueskying A New Social Media Standard" (MetaFilter).  I assume someone else - a non-criminal - could create the same thing.

"Full Spectrum Dominance: UN General Assembly Voting Reveals the Truth" (Stea).

"Fascist Blindness" (Robinson).

Zuck is a 'domestic terrorist':  "Facebook Played Major Role Coordinating 'Capitol Riot' As Sandberg Deflects Blame" (Durden).

"Ken Livingstone to challenge EHRC in court" (Winstanley).  Tweet (Ali Abunimah) (she'll be getting The Visit soon, as this kind of blatant morality cannot stand!):

"Kudos to newly elected @Marie4Congress for calling out Israel's flagrant violation of its legal duty to provide vaccines to Palestinians under its occupation. As far as I can see, @AOC @RashidaTlaib @IlhanMN couldn't find a minute to do the same. Or did I miss something?"

"Israel Launches "Deadliest Airstrikes In Years" On Syria With US Intelligence Coordination" (Durden).

"French family demands justice from Israel" (Abunimah).

"New York: Jew Caught Vandalizing Multiple Synagogues" (Anglin).

"Bibi and Jonathan Pollard: Two Anti-American Peas in Their Own Pod" (Goodman).  Concludes with the two-state solution!  

In your face!:  "Jonathan Pollard's release shows that Israel is unrepentant about spying on its 'allies'" (Winstanley).

Tweet (Aaron Maté):

"Reports that Joe Biden has invited Carlos Vecchio, fake US “ambassador” of Venezuela’s coup mongers, to his inauguration. Quite the signal for Democrats: impeaching Trump for inciting a mob at home, embracing the far more destructive coup that Trump has attempted abroad."

"No One Is Listening: A Country Divided Against Itself" (Giraldi).

Criminally insane

Tweet (Michael Tracey):

"Virtually none of the corporate media coverage even bothers to remark on the radicalism of what occurred today. "Snap" impeachment with a total of two hours of debate, charging as a "high crime" that the president engaged in political speech" 

Impeachment used to be a Big Thing, but, thanks to the Democrats, it is now the moral equivalent of getting a parking ticket. 

Even better!:  "Pelosi Names Eric Swalwell As House Impeachment Manager" (Turley).

"Twitter’s Ban on Trump Will Only Deepen the US Tribal Divide" (Cook).  "Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Explains Why Trump Ban Was "Right Decision", Admits It Sets "Dangerous Precedent"" (Durden).  "In "Staggering" Lack Of Self-Awareness, Twitter Lectures Uganda On Principles Of 'Open Internet'" (Durden).  "Censorship and Twitter's Version of the Truth" (Viable Opposition).   Jack is so confident he can't even be bothered to have his PR team write up a coherent response to the criticism.

I'm afraid Trump may have fallen into a complete funk, ashamed of being bested by whoever organized the color revolution, and may not issue any pardons that don't protect himself and his cronies/family.  "The Assange Saga: Practicing Real Journalism Is Criminally Insane" (Escobar).  "Wednesday's Other Story: Taibbi".

"The Lafayette Park Protests And The Revision Of History" (Turley).  Illustrative of the trend amongst woke 'journalists' and the (((media))) that outright lying is fine if it is in advancement of your woke cause.  Of course, as Taibbi points out, actual journalism about anything that counts is now illegal.

"No matter Impeachment 2.0, Trumpism haunts America" (Bhadrakumar).  What to do with the 70 (or so) million?

"Russia Turns Attention To US After Winning Oil War With Saudi Arabia" (Luongo).  "The Empire is losing the energy war" (The Ister).  "The World's Most Controversial Pipeline Project Enters Its Final Phase" (Katuna).  "Germany draws another line in the sand for the US" (Bhadrakumar).  And China!:  "Merkel Accused Of Rushing EU-China Investment Deal As Part Of German Telecoms Quid Pro Quo" (Durden).

From 2019:  "Joe Biden’s Love Affair With the CIA" (Boguslaw).  "RAY McGOVERN: Can Burns Change the CIA?"  Burns is the least awful of Biden appointments, and Burns played a big role in the diplomacy behind the Iran deal.  Sadly, there is no fixing the CIA.

"Washington's New Domestic War" (Viable Opposition):

"Let's close this posting with a few points to ponder. As we know from relatively recent history, governments love to have an excuse to snoop on our private lives and that once the laws are in place to legalize government actions, they are never rescinded. Given the repeated appearance of the "domestic terrorism" narrative over the past year and Joe Biden's referring to the "mob" that "invaded" Capitol Hill as "domestic terrorists", we can pretty much assure ourselves that Washington will be enacting a bill to counter this "threat" at its earliest convenience. As far as what Congress uses to define "domestic terrorism" is pretty much anyone's guess with the strong possibility that "spreading disinformation" and "questioning election outcomes" included among crimes that are part of "domestic terrorism". Additionally, such laws could ultimately be used to quash political viewpoints that are not shared by the ruling party.

By repeatedly floating the "domestic terrorism" mantra and with a severely polarized political reality, the Biden Administration is signalling its intention to further trample on what few civil rights we now have. The events on Capitol Hill will be just the excuse needed.

Remember, one person's terrorist is another person's hero. It's all in your perspective as it has been throughout history."

"The false hope of a Biden presidency" (Allday):

"It should be plainly stated that by any meaningful and honest measure, Biden is a monster who has caused an incalculable amount of suffering over his many decades as a senior official of the US empire. Given the length of Biden’s career, a comprehensive rap sheet requires a book-length study, but his ‘highlights’ include his central role in drafting a number of deeply racist pieces of legislation (including the infamous 1994 Crime Bill) that both exacerbated and consolidated the mass incarceration of Black Americans, and legislation that went on to be passed largely unchanged as the Patriot Act of 2001 that gutted civil liberties in the US; his prominent role in lobbying the Senate and the American public for the war on Iraq as Chairman of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee; and his ‘unconditional, career-long commitment to Israel’ that has seen him develop close friendships with a number of fellow war criminals including Benjamin Netanyahu and the late Ariel Sharon, at whose funeral he delivered a eulogy. In short, Biden is a racist authoritarian at home and an enthusiastic and unapologetic imperialist abroad. On environmental issues, in spite of the hopes that liberals are already investing in him, Biden is little better. During the campaign he repeatedly announced that he will not ban fracking and his adviser on energy issues, who served as Energy Secretary under Obama, is a notorious lobbyist for the fossil fuel industry. It is alarming to note too that Ezekiel Emanuel, a member of Biden’s recently announced Coronavirus taskforce, has argued that life is not worth living beyond the age of 75."

"Biden Appoints Mideast Advisor Who Resigned Over Trump Syria Withdrawal (DeCamp).  "Tweet (Aaron Maté):

"*humanitarian crises that you helped create/grow (Yemen, Libya, Syria, Gaza)"

"The Role of the Israel Lobby in Jon Ossoff’s Ascendance" (Weir).  Peak JQ.

I guess it doesn't matter as we're all going to die: "Near-Term Covid Analyses Point to Risk of Medical System Breakdown, Other Severe Dislocations" (Smith).

No emergency

"McConnell Won't Convene Senate For Emergency Impeachment Trial" (Durden).  This stuff is interesting as we are watching the give-and-take between the basic desire to get rid of Trump, or anybody else outside the 'club' of acceptable nominees, permanently, from the GOP, and the fear that the loss of Trump supporters caused by shivving him will mean the end of the party as a viable electoral winner.  It looks like the Republicans are terrified of losing so many voters at once.  Koch has apparently decided that he'd like the party to continue.  Trump can be dealt with later, with a health threat or some financial prodding.

Father and son

"Hundreds of historians call for Trump’s removal from office after Capitol riot" (lotsa ((()))):

"The letter’s principal drafters were Sean Wilentz, Sidney Blumenthal and David Greenberg." 

Sidney's son is Max.

"Max Blumenthal: Breach of Capitol Security Was Like a Military Operation" (Garrison).

"Chaos agent: Right-wing blames US Capitol riot on notorious instigator banished by Black Lives Matter" (Blumenthal).  A professional agent provocateur.

"Through my conversations with the Sullivan brothers, I learned that they had become the subject of a documentary by a Los Angeles-based photojournalist named Jade Sacker. Sacker appeared briefly in Sullivan’s footage filming inside the Capitol and could be heard congratulating him for the invasion. “We did it!” she chirped to Sullivan as the mob flowed inside the building.

Sacker’s documentary project is being advised by Bryan Fogel, maker of Icarus, the Academy Award-winning Netflix documentary on alleged doping by Russian Olympic athletes, and The Dissident, which covers the murder of Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi government agents, and has been endorsed by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Sacker said she hoped Fogel would agree to serve as executive producer on her project about the Sullivan brothers “once he sees the sizzle and a demonstration of the work that I’ve done.”

When I reached Sacker on January 9, she initially downplayed the role of her documentary subject, John Sullivan, in the Trumpist rampage through the Capitol three days before. “He’s passionate, and he’s apolitical,” she said of Sullivan. “He is against the system, but he’s extremely nonviolent.”

Portraying herself as “someone who is very much [politically] progressive,” and opposed to Trump’s agenda, she framed her congratulatory comments to Sullivan as an expression of surprise, not approval.

“John knew somehow that people were considering storming the Capitol,” Sacker told me. “He had had intelligence days before, and I didn’t believe him. I never thought that something like that would happen. And then when we showed up at the Capitol, there were 1000s and 1000s of people there. I didn’t think that we would be able to document what was going on. So when I said we did it, I was just shocked that we like got in there at all, and that we were on the front lines of being able to tell the story.”

Upon further questioning, Sacker conceded she was not aware of the full extent of Sullivan’s actions in the Capitol. “As far as reliving the whole thing, like, I’m still processing it. And I’m still, I think also, like, a little bit scarred by what happened,” she said.

Sacker has also focused her documentary lens on John Sullivan’s brother, James, a pro-Trump activist who helped organize the January 6 “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington. James Sullivan is a Black Republican, inheriting the rigidly conservative political line of the white Mormon parents that adopted him.

His and John’s adoptive father is an Air Force Major General named Kevin J. Sullivan who was disciplined for his role in wrongly sending fuses for nuclear warheads to Taiwan. Following his retirement after some two decades of service, Maj. Gen. Sullivan went to work for an arms industry firm that contracts with the Pentagon.

In an apparent bid to protect his family’s reputation and that of the Trumpist cause to which he is dedicated, James Sullivan has campaigned to blame the riot on his brother, and by extension, on the leftist forces he supposedly represented. If the recent DFR/Vox poll is to be believed, his efforts have been surprisingly fruitful.

But the real John Sullivan is far from a committed social justice activist. Within the larger BLM community, he is considered as dangerous to the cause as any Proud Boy. In fact, after suffering the effects of his caustic presence, several DC-based BLM activists told me they now refer to Sullivan as “Proud Boy X.”

While describing herself as Sullivan’s friend, Sacker conceded that his ultimate agenda is to spawn as much destruction as possible.

“He’s just angry,” she reflected to me. “And he says it in a lot of his videos – ‘Fuck the system, burn it down.’ He doesn’t think it can be reformed. Like he kind of wants his civil war. He’s a bit of a provocateur and he wants to dismantle the system, and he believes in the value of civil disobedience. And because he is apolitical, I think he feels more a sense of allegiance to anyone who shares that the values of, I guess, chaos.”"

Purge and tighten

"What Was the Point of Fortress D.C.?" (McEntee).  Just as the point of the War On Drugs isn't to restrict the availability of narcotics (it would be hilarious if it was, given the prevalence of narcotics in society), but to provide the police with easy threats of prosecution with massively long sentences to be used as social control, so the purpose of 'security' and other War On Terror artifacts isn't to provide security, but to push people around, and make it clear the rulers have infinite control.  Security 'breakdowns' are actually part of the plan, as they lead to the tightening.

"President-elect Biden Announces Ambassador Samantha Power as His Nominee for USAID Administrator".  This was the acid test in determining whether the Biden Administration was going to be Pure Evil, or not.  Pure Evil it is, then!

"Biden Exploits His Capitol Gains" (Johnstone):

"One might think that in his moment of victory, a true statesman would demonstrate the qualities it takes to lead a nation by offering to bring all people together as fellow Americans. He did quite the opposite.

The very next day after the Capitol happening, in his small fiscal haven home state of Delaware, Biden raged against his opponents as a terrorist mob, no less.

“They weren’t protestors,” he proclaimed. “Don’t dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob. Insurrectionists. Domestic terrorists. It’s that basic. It’s that simple.”

Trump, said Biden, “has unleashed an all-out assault on our institutions of democracy from the outset, and yesterday was but the culmination of that unrelenting attack.” Trump had poisoned the political environment by using “language that autocrats and dictators use all over the world to hold on to power.”

Biden’s own language certainly sounded less like a magnanimous winner uniting his people than like that used by autocrats and dictators to hold onto power. Trump was trying to “deny the will of the American people,” he said, much as Trump said of him. The whole problem was that “the will of the American people” was far from unanimous.

So even before his inauguration, President-elect Biden has given us a bitter taste of days ahead. There is to be no sacred unity, but deepened division between The Good (woke liberals), the Bad (Russians and other enemies of Our Democracy) and the Ugly Americans, to be labeled Domestic Terrorists, White Supremacists and fascists.

The authoritarian center, ranging from opportunistic Republicans to The Squad, can rally around the necessary purge of Domestic Terrorists, silencing their communications and getting them properly fired from their jobs.

The Establishment has long been determined to crush Trump. But there is talk of “purging” all his followers as well. Biden is already speaking like a War President, calling for measures to combat the internal enemy such as accompany major wars.

The oligarchic nature of the American War Party is revealed by the haste with which privately owned social media enterprises silence dissent – even the still acting President of the United States. Indeed, who really rules the United States? Is the president only an agent of economic powers whose role is to serve their interests? And the trouble with Trump is that he had not been picked for the job.

Trump managed to appeal to millions of discontented Americans without offering any coherent practical program to replace the War Party with policies capable of transforming the nation into a haven of peace and prosperity. His confusion mirrored the ideological confusion of a population scandalously undereducated in history and political ideas. The illusion that Trump was the leader dissident Americans needed cost Ashli Babbit her life and led thousands of Trump voters into what amounts to a trap. Trump himself was led into the trap."