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real-human
Joined: 02 Jul 2011
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 Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2023 12:35 am Post subject: |
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ben-shapiro-s-crusade-to-prosecute-presidents-under-rico-comes-back-to-haunt-him-as-he-blasts-trump-charges/ar-AA1fjcI2?cvid=ea5b62d3300e4dbe864c73cea7d6c6c0&ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&ei=7
Ben Shapiro’s Crusade to Prosecute Presidents Under RICO Comes Back to Haunt Him as He Blasts Trump Charges
| Quote: | Ben Shapiro, who once wrote an entire book about how Barack Obama should be prosecuted under the RICO statute, is now lamenting the racketeering charges filed Monday against former President Donald Trump.
Shapiro tweeted Tuesday morning, “Whatever you think of the Trump indictments, one thing is for certain: the glass has now been broken over and over again. Political opponents can be targeted by legal enemies. Running for office now carries the legal risk of going to jail — on all sides.”
Larry King interviewed Shapiro in 2014 on his book: The People Vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against The Obama Administration.
“Has the Obama administration acted like a criminal cabal as Shapiro alleges?” asked King, as he introduced the author. “And if so, is prosecution of a sitting president the answer, in lieu of impeachment?”
Shapiro explained, “I make the case that the RICO Act, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act from 1970, which allows for civil charges — people can file civil suits — that that be broadened to allow people to sue members of the executive branch. So, the people themselves, essentially, become the guardians of the criminal law. Because, sorry, but I just don’t trust the executive branch to prosecute its own guys.” |
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democrat-turned-republican-who-s-now-pushing-for-a-biden-impeachment-inquiry-once-opposed-doing-the-same-for-trump-because-it-lacked-bipartisan-support-and-would-divide-the-country/ar-AA1fjcvf?cvid=9cbadb3b39424eebac7cb403b8f710e1&ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&ei=15
Democrat-turned-Republican who's now pushing for a Biden impeachment inquiry once opposed doing the same for Trump because it lacked 'bipartisan support' and would 'divide the country'
| Quote: | Rep. Jeff Van Drew, then a Democrat, voted against an impeachment inquiry into Trump in 2019.
At the time, he said it would be divisive, lacked bipartisan support, and would fail in the Senate.
Now a Republican, he's urging an impeachment inquiry into Biden, despite similar political dynamics.
In October 2019, then-Democratic Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey was one of just two members of his party to vote against launching an impeachment inquiry into then-President Donald Trump.
"Without bipartisan support I believe this inquiry will further divide the country tearing it apart at the seams and will ultimately fail in the Senate," Van Drew said in a statement at the time.
House Democrats had decided to launch the inquiry after a whistleblower came forward alleging that Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate Hunter Biden. The House later voted to impeach Trump along partisan lines, and the effort did fail in the Senate, which was controlled by Republicans at the time. |
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real-human
Joined: 02 Jul 2011
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| Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2023 6:00 pm Post subject: |
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takers are the heros to right wingers...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/why-are-red-state-welfare-queen-oligarchs-allowed-to-mooch-off-of-blue-states-opinion/ar-AA1fQIzO?cvid=1ac9837dd0aa4da28abd42d4ae215ca6&ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&ei=73
Why are red state 'welfare queen' oligarchs allowed to mooch off of blue states?
| Quote: |
| Opinion
Story by Thom Hartmann •
6h
© provided by AlterNet
America is rapidly bifurcating — becoming two nations — and one of the main drivers of the process is a federal system that encourages Red states to mooch off Blue states, using essentially stolen tax money to reinvent the old Confederacy, “own the libs,” and wage “war on woke.”
Most Red states have become oligarchic white supremacist medieval-like fiefdoms with obscene levels of often multigenerational wealth at the top, extreme poverty at the bottom, and working people, women, and minorities kept in subordinate roles through explicit government and corporate policy.
In this, these Red states are following the once-classic European and later Southern US tradition of a patriarchal, hierarchical society run by male kings, nobles, plantation masters, and wealthy churchmen, with all the work done by serfs, slaves, women, or impoverished wage-slaves.
Frederick Douglass, who was born into Southern slavery, described the South as “a little nation by itself, having its own language, its own rules, regulations, and customs.”
Fewer than 2000 families — six-tenths of one percent of the Southern population — owned more than 50 enslaved people and ruled the oligarchy that we call the Confederacy with an iron fist. The 75 percent of white people in the South during that era who did not own any enslaved persons generally lived in deep poverty.
Women had no rights, queer people were routinely tortured and murdered, education for both enslaved Africans and poor whites was generally outlawed, religious attendance was often mandated, and hunger and disease stalked all but those in the families of the two thousand morbidly rich planter dynasties.
Modern-day Red states are doing their best to recreate that old Confederacy, right down to state Senator Kathy Chism’s new effort to return the Confederate battle flag to Mississippi's state flag. Ron DeSantis and Mike Pence have both emphasized their presidential pledges to restore the names of murderous Civil War traitors to American military bases, celebrating their armed defense of the “values” of the Old South.
Today’s version of yesteryear’s plantation owners are called CEOs, hedge and vulture fund managers, and the morbidly rich.
They use the power of political bribery given them by five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court — with Clarence Thomas’ tie-breaking Citizens United vote on behalf of his sugar daddy Harlan Crow — to lord over their Red states, regardless of the will of those states’ citizens.
Working people in Red states are kept in poverty by “Right to Work for Less” laws based on the GOP’s 1947 Taft-Hartley Act (passed over Harry Truman’s veto), deprived of healthcare by their governors’ refusal to expand Medicaid to cover all low-wage working people, and draconian cuts along with byzantine bureaucratic obstacles to getting state aid ranging from housing support to food stamps to subsidized daycare to unemployment insurance.
Women are returning to chattel status in Red states, the property of their fathers or husbands, their bondage enforced by bounty systems and the threat of imprisonment should they try to assert agency over their own bodies.
Multiple Red states have outlawed teaching the actual history of slavery, Jim Crow, and the ongoing violence and persecution suffered by racial, gender, and religious minorities. Many are using government tax revenues to subsidize typically-all-white “Christian” religious schools, a trend spreading across Republican-controlled states like an out-of-control fungus.
Almost a dozen GOP-controlled states have passed laws criminalizing protests against Republican policies, and, writes The Atlantic quoting the International Center for Non-for-Profit Law, “several of those states have simultaneously provided civil or criminal protection for drivers who hit [and kill] protesters…”
Others have banned books and fired teachers who dare discuss diversity or basic sex education. Many, as I wrote here yesterday, are withholding state funds from banking and investment institutions that consider the environment, social justice, or governance on behalf of the working class and the poor (ESG) when making business decisions.
Climate change, they’ll tell you as they take campaign funds from the fossil fuel industry and the billionaires it’s created, is a hoax perpetrated by liberal scientists who are somehow “getting rich” by warning the world of its consequences.
Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis no longer rule the South on behalf of the notorious “2000 families” but their spiritual heirs, today’s Red state governors, would make them proud with their restrictions on voting, encouragement of armed white supremacist vigilantism, and state tax subsidies for American oligarch billionaires and their corporate empires.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp — whose family, investigative reporter Greg Palast discovered, was the first to bring enslaved Africans to Georgia — famously signed a law codifying 10-hour voting lines in Black neighborhoods and giving his state the power to throw people off voting rolls without justification in a closed-door ceremony before a painting of one of the 2000 families’ Georgia slave plantations.
It’s said that Red states are trying to take us back to the 1950s. In fact, most are shooting for the 1870s, when women were the property of their husbands, poor children worked 12-hour days for pennies, queer people were invisible, and Black, Asian, Native American, and Hispanic people could be murdered with impunity.
On the other hand, Blue states have embraced 21st-century values of inclusiveness, tolerance, education, healthcare, a clean environment, worker’s rights, higher minimum wages and unionization, gun safety, paid sick leave, and are working to override the electoral college to bring democracy to the race for president.
Most have enacted gun control laws that often include assault weapon bans, outlawed forced “captive audience” union-busting meetings, expanded drug treatment programs, decriminalized marijuana, strengthened abortion rights protections, raised their minimum wages, and are moving quickly to green their economies to mitigate climate change.
They’re offering protections to asylum seekers, women seeking medical care, and transgender individuals fleeing overt persecution in Red states. They celebrate gay marriage and honor the holidays of religious minorities. Women and racial minorities make up large parts of their legislative bodies and occupy many of their governor’s offices.
In this, Blue states are following the vision and values laid out by several of America’s Founders who helped create the first nation in world history espousing the idea that nobody should have to live in poverty and an important role of government was to prevent people from falling through the cracks.
Thomas Paine, for example, laid out a proposal for what we today call Social Security in his pamphlet Agrarian Justice, and Thomas Jefferson created the nation’s first totally free university (the University of Virginia). Half the delegates to the Constitutional Convention spoke against slavery as a curse against our nation’s ideals, although it took a bloody war to end that “peculiar institution” held so tightly in the grip of the 2000 families.
Even in the first years of our republic, the founding generation understood that caring for the public good was an essential function of government, as referenced in the preamble to the Constitution. President George Washington signed the first legislation providing federal funds for poorhouses that including food, clothing, shelter, and medical care along with job training.
Three decades later, when the legislation was up for renewal, President James Madison (the “Father of the Constitution”) vetoed a provision proposed by Southern states that would have cycled those revenues through local churches, writing in his veto message that federal funding of churches — even for charitable antipoverty purposes the government supported — “would be a precedent for giving to religious societies as such a legal agency in carrying into effect a public and civil duty.”
So, how did we get here and what can we do about it?
Ironically, it turns out that Red states are able to carry out their campaign of reviving the old Confederacy and its values of patriarchy, hierarchy, and wage slavery in large part because Blue states are subsidizing them.
While Donald Trump carried 2,497 counties in the 2020 election compared to Joe Biden’s 477 counties, the Blue counties Biden carried generated a total of 71 percent of the nation’s economic activity.
The fiscal health of Blue states and counties — along with widespread Red state poverty exacerbated by Red State tax breaks for the morbidly rich — accounts for the bizarre reality that Blue states are subsidizing the brutal and retrograde policies of Red states.
A March 2023 report from the Rockefeller Institute lays out how glaring this appropriation of Blue state revenue is by the Red states. In just New York, for example, they write that over a five-year period:
“New York taxpayers have given $142.6 billion more to the federal government than New York residents have received back in federal spending.”
As the Associated Press summarized in an article titled AP FACT CHECK: Blue high-tax states fund red low-tax states:
“Mississippi received $2.13 for every tax dollar the state sent to Washington in 2015, according to the Rockefeller study. West Virginia received $2.07, Kentucky got $1.90 and South Carolina got $1.71.
“Meanwhile, New Jersey received 74 cents in federal spending for tax every dollar the state sent to Washington. New York received 81 cents, Connecticut received 82 cents and Massachusetts received 83 cents.
“California fared a bit better than other blue states. It received 96 cents for every dollar the state sent to Washington.”
When the Biden administration tried to just slightly slow down the Red state gravy train, specifying in the American Rescue Plan that the subsidies to the states for helping people who lost their jobs due to Covid could not be misappropriated and redirected to tax cuts for local billionaires, their politicians — dancing to the tune of their in-state oligarchs — went ballistic. As Forbes documented:
“So far, a total of 18 red states are plaintiffs in five separate lawsuits challenging a provision in the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Biden signed into law last month which says that state governments cannot use any of the $350 billion in federal pandemic relief funds coming their way to ‘either directly or indirectly offset a reduction’ in their net tax revenue resulting from state tax cuts.
“In a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, 21 Republican state attorneys general described it as ‘the greatest attempted invasion of state sovereignty by Congress in the history of our Republic.’”
Federal policy fails to equalize revenue flowing to Red states against the tax money they send Washington DC. This loophole in US tax law is driving this bizarre process where citizens in Blue states are forced by law to pay for all-white “Christian” academies, enforcement of abortion restrictions, persecution of asylum seekers and immigrants, and political attacks on queer people.
Red state “welfare queen” governors and legislatures are going to happily continue this grift as long as we let them get away with it. Congress should pass legislation mandating that Red state revenues to DC must at least match 90 percent of the money they get back; 100 percent would be better, and help hugely with our nation’s budget deficit.
It’s time to end Red state welfare! |
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when good people stay silent the right wing are the only ones heard. |
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real-human
Joined: 02 Jul 2011
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| Posted: Mon Aug 28, 2023 3:47 pm Post subject: |
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Again another right wing hero who was a liar... but he was a hero...
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/28/us/politics/samuel-wurzelbacher-joe-the-plumber-dead.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20230828&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=cta®i_id=115919677&segment_id=143102&user_id=f730a3b9531f5b2c781c5ff7996dd05c
Samuel Wurzelbacher, Celebrated as ‘Joe the Plumber,’ Dies at 49
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For Republicans in 2008, he briefly became a symbol of Middle America when he questioned the presidential candidate Barack Obama in an impromptu televised encounter.
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Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, who briefly became “Joe the Plumber,” the metaphorical American middle-class Everyman, by injecting himself into the 2008 presidential campaign in an impromptu nationally-televised face-off with Barack Obama over taxing small businesses, died on Sunday at his home in Campbellsport, Wis., about 60 miles north of Milwaukee. He was 49.
The cause was complications of pancreatic cancer, his wife, Katie Wurzelbacher, said.
Mr. Obama, then a United States senator from Illinois, was campaigning on Shrewsbury Street in Toledo, Ohio, on Sunday, Oct. 12, 2008, when Mr. Wurzelbacher interrupted a football catch with his son in his front yard to mosey over and confront the Democratic nominee about his proposed tax increase for small businesses.
During a cordial but largely inconclusive five-minute colloquy in front of news cameras, Mr. Wurzelbacher said he was concerned about being subject to a bigger tax bite just as he was approaching the point where he could finally afford to buy a plumbing business, which he said would generate an income of $250,000 a year.
Three days later, “Joe the Plumber,” as he was popularized by Mr. Obama’s Republican rival, Senator John McCain of Arizona, was invoked some two dozen times during the final debate of the presidential campaign.
Mr. Wurzelbacher became a folk hero of sorts during the final weeks of the contest, particularly among McCain supporters and conservative commentators, who cottoned to his remarks that Mr. Obama’s share-the-wealth prescriptions for the economy were akin to socialism or even communism and contradicted the American dream. Mr. McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, also jumped in, appearing onstage with Mr. Wurzelbacher at rallies.
Mr. Wurzelbacher during his encounter with Barack Obama in Ohio in early October 2008. Captured by television cameras, the moment thrust Mr. Wurzelbacher, labeled “Joe the Plumber,” briefly into the national spotlight. Credit...Jae C. Hong/Associated Press
But by Election Day his tenure as a burly, bald, iron-jawed John Doe eroded as the public learned that he was not a licensed plumber (he could work in Toledo only for someone with a master’s license or in outlying areas) and owed $1,200 in back taxes. |
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when good people stay silent the right wing are the only ones heard. |
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real-human
Joined: 02 Jul 2011
Posts: 14892
Location: on earth
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| Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2023 10:52 pm Post subject: |
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/neo-nazi-groups-spew-hate-outside-disney-world-and-near-orlando-officials-say/ar-AA1gbOCL?ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&cvid=6f592b6569754b7a8303b70c6c37d67d&ei=23
Neo-Nazi groups spew hate outside Disney World and near Orlando, officials say
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Groups of neo-Nazis and white supremacists spread antisemitic, white supremacist and anti-LGBTQ messages outside of Disney World and in the nearby Orlando area on Saturday, in the latest examples of rising antisemitism in the U.S., officials said.
A group of about 15 people wearing clothing and bearing flags emblazoned with Nazi insignia demonstrated outside the entrance to the Disney Springs shopping center, according to Orange County Sheriff's Office, who said deputies were dispatched to the scene around 10:40 a.m.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, a civil rights organization dedicated to countering extremism, participants carried antisemitic, white supremacist and anti-LGBTQ flags and signs. The group consisted of members of the neo-Nazi groups Order of the Black Sun, Aryan Freedom Network and 14 First, a now disbanded group that has been absorbed into the National Socialist Movement, the largest neo-Nazi group in the U.S., according to the ADL.
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The extremists dissipated after about two hours, and no arrests were made, according to the sheriff's office.
Representatives for Walt Disney World did not respond to requests for comment Sunday afternoon.
The iconic theme park has been embroiled in controversies this year, garnering criticism for abolishing its diversity, equity and inclusion programs earlier this month, facing a legal challenge from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and encountering backlash from some Disney devotees for closing its famous Splash Mountain ride in January due to its incorporation of characters from the 1946 film “Song of the South,” which featured racist stereotypes.
In a statement, the Orange County Sheriff's Office said the extremist groups gathered outside Disney were looking for attention and that the office condemned their actions.
"We know these groups demonstrate in high profile areas in order to agitate and incite people with antisemitic symbols and slurs," the sheriff's office said. "The Orange County Sheriff’s Office deplores hate speech in any form, but people have the First Amendment right to demonstrate. What these groups do is revolting and condemned in the strongest way by Sheriff [John] Mina and the Sheriff’s Office. They are looking for attention, and specifically media attention."
Later in the day, a group of more than 50 members of two different extremist groups — the Goyim Defense League and Blood Tribe — gathered in the greater Orlando area and waved swastika flags, saluted Hitler and shouted hateful messages including "White power" and "Jews will not replace us," according to the ADL.
The Goyim Defense League is a small network of antisemitic and white supremacist conspiracy theorists that was behind various antisemitic stunts that made headlines last year, including hanging a banner over a busy Los Angeles freeway that said "Kanye is right about the Jews" — referring to comments made by Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West — and projecting the same message onto a building outside the TIAA Bank Field stadium in Jacksonville following a football game between the universities of Georgia and Florida, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
The Blood Tribe is a neo-Nazi group that espouses white supremacist and anti-LGBTQ views, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
A video posted to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, by state Rep. Anna Eskamani, D., shows the extremists chanting "we are everywhere" as they march in what appears to be identical clothing while waving flags inscribed with swastikas. Eskamani said the incident took place at Cranes Roost Park, a waterfront area in the suburban city of Altamonte Springs, about 12 miles north of Orlando.
The Seminole County Sheriff's Office directed questions about the incident to the Altamonte Springs Police Department, whose representatives could not immediately be reached.
An ADL spokesperson said the group was not aware of any arrests or injuries from either incident.
In a statement, the group called on leaders to denounce the extremists' gatherings.
"This type of hateful activity has no place in our community," the group's Florida Regional Director Sarah Emmons said, noting that the incidents came just a week after the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington and the murders of three Black people in Jacksonville by a white gunman.
"We cannot allow for hate and extremist beliefs to become normalized in our society," Emmons added.
Representatives for the Orlando Police Department and Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer could not immediately be reached on Sunday afternoon.
Earlier this year, an ADL report found that 2022 saw the highest amount of recorded antisemitic incidents since the group began tracking them in 1979: there were 3,697 reported incidents last year, compared to 2,717 in 2021 — an increase of 36%. Most incidents — nearly 2,300 — were characterized as harassment, while more than 1,200 were acts of vandalism and 111 were assaults.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com |
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when good people stay silent the right wing are the only ones heard. |
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real-human
Joined: 02 Jul 2011
Posts: 14892
Location: on earth
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| Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2023 12:03 am Post subject: |
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Boebert lying about vaping, and giving handjobs in public, till the videos are released. . Removed from theatre when the pregnant woman asks her to stop. When removed she says do you know who I am.
Again it is illegal for a gun owner to be doing drugs, shall we say hunter biden.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoawrSK3mv4
Lauren Boebert Scandal GETS EVEN WORSE with New Camera Angle Surfacing
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MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on how Lauren Boebert was caught engaging in more disturbing acts with her boyfriend on a new camera angle that has surfaced. |
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when good people stay silent the right wing are the only ones heard. |
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real-human
Joined: 02 Jul 2011
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| Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2023 1:44 am Post subject: |
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/project-veritas-ceo-steps-down-citing-past-financial-improprieties/ar-AA1llzQC?ocid=winp2fptaskbar&cvid=adb0b755892a43fb80db1afddfc4df6f&ei=91
Project Veritas CEO Steps Down, Citing 'Past Financial Improprieties'
| Quote: | The chief executive of Project Veritas, a self-identified “investigative journalism” organization that pushes far-right agendas, announced she is resigning because of “strong evidence of past illegality and past financial improprieties.”
“I am stepping down from all roles with Project Veritas and Project Veritas Action — effective immediately,” Hannah Giles wrote Monday on X (formerly Twitter). “Though I had high hopes when I joined the organizations, I stepped into an unsalvageable mess — one wrought with strong evidence of past illegality and past financial improprieties. Once such evidence was discovered, I brought the information to the appropriate law enforcement agencies. Thank you.”
Giles took over for founder James O’Keefe in June, when the group’s board uncovered “financial malfeasance” from O’Keefe, including “$14,000 on a charter flight to meet someone to fix his boat under the guise of meeting with a donor” and “$60,000 in losses by putting together dance events such as Project Veritas Experience.” O’Keefe is under investigation in New York for misusing Project Veritas funds.
Project Veritas did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In September, Project Veritas laid off its employees amid its financial struggles.
Project Veritas is known for its heavily edited videos, like a video targeting Planned Parenthood in 2008, where O’Keefe and Lila Rose, the founder of an anti-abortion group, illegally recorded Planned Parenthood employees consulting Rose, who they believed to be a 13-year-old pregnant girl. The video was edited to remove parts of the conversation where the Planned Parenthood employees tell Rose to talk with her mother about the pregnancy.
Giles and O’Keefe worked together in 2009 on a hidden-video “sting” that purportedly showed employees of the progressive Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) agreeing to aid the pair in crimes. The two, who had been employed by conservative journalist Andrew Breitbart, ended up paying settlements to one of the ACORN staffers. The organization, however, lost much of its funding despite investigations that found no wrongdoing.
Last year, Project Veritas was ordered to pay $120,000 to a Democratic consulting firm for secretly recording employees at the firm to embarrass them. |
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when good people stay silent the right wing are the only ones heard. |
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real-human
Joined: 02 Jul 2011
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| Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2024 7:17 pm Post subject: |
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amazing how this is not all over the media yet... He is again playing the right wing i am the victim card as trump tells his haters to do. He decapitates his fathers head and makes a video of it holding his fathers head. plays the maga card. and we do not hear any maga people saying this is bad, so he is another victim like McVey to the right wing.
Here is just one more hero to the right.
https://www.kget.com/news/ap-man-accused-of-beheading-his-father-in-suburban-philadelphia-home-and-posting-gruesome-video-online/
Man accused of beheading his father in suburban Philadelphia home and posting gruesome video online
| Quote: | LEVITTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A man accused of beheading his father in suburban Philadelphia posted a gruesome video on social media that shows him holding up the severed head and railing against the government, authorities said Wednesday.
Justin Mohn, 32, who is charged with first-degree murder and abusing a corpse, was armed and had jumped a fence at a National Guard facility about 100 miles (160 kilometers) away when he was arrested late Tuesday, hours after the killing, a Guard spokeswoman said.
The father, identified as Michael F. Mohn, was found decapitated in the bathroom of the home in Levittown where his son also lived.
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The YouTube video, more than 14 minutes long, showed Justin Mohn picking up the head and identifying his father by name. Police said it appeared he was reading from a script as he encouraged violence against government officials and called his father a traitor to his country.
Michael Mohn was a federal employee, an engineer with the geoenvironmental section of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Philadelphia district office, agency spokesman Steve Rochette said. Rochette declined further comment.
Police said Michael Mohn’s wife, Denice Mohn, arrived home and found the body about 7 p.m. Tuesday. Officers found the body, a machete and bloody rubber gloves, according to a police affidavit. Denice Mohn told police her husband’s white Toyota Corolla and her son were missing.
In a statement, YouTube said the video, which was uploaded and not livestreamed, was removed for violating its graphic violence policy and Justin Mohn’s channel was shut down. Police said the video was online for about five hours.
Mohn, who also was arrested on a weapons possession charge, was arraigned Wednesday and held without bail with a hearing scheduled for Feb. 8. Police and prosecutors were expected to release additional details at a news conference Friday.
An attorney for Mohn wasn’t listed in court records, and a message seeking comment on his behalf was left at a phone listing for him. The district court office said it had no record of a lawyer representing him.
Mohn embraced violent anti-government rhetoric in writings he published online going back several years. In August 2020, Mohn published an online “pamphlet” in which he tried to make the case that people born in or after 1991 — his birth year — should carry out what he termed a “bloody revolution.” He also complained at length about a lawsuit that he lost and encouraged assassinations of family members and public officials.
In the video posted after the killing, he described his father as a 20-year federal employee. He also espoused a variety of conspiracy theories and rants about the Biden administration, immigration and the border, fiscal policy, urban crime and the war in Ukraine.
Mohn drove his father’s car to Fort Indiantown Gap, where he was taken into custody, Capt. Pete Feeney of the Middletown Township Police Department said. Officials at the facility were told late Tuesday that Mohn’s cellphone had pinged nearby, according to Angela Watson, communications director for the Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.
He was walking and had a gun when he was caught, Watson said. She said he has never been a member of the Pennsylvania National Guard.
The house where Michael Mohn’s body was found is in a suburban development of single-family homes. No one answered the door there Wednesday.
Neighbors out walking dogs described Justin Mohn as a regular walker in the development, someone t |
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real-human
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| Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2024 6:55 pm Post subject: |
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good old Jack Abramoff was it about 100 million he was bribing with, Kushner gets 2 billion...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/a-central-figure-in-the-abramoff-corruption-scandal-is-helping-mtg-become-a-real-player-on-capitol-hill/ar-BB1iwbOj?cvid=d918e53b69c1429ba5208d9dfcb4ad04&ocid=winp2fptaskbar&ei=13&sc=shoreline
A Central Figure In The Abramoff Corruption Scandal Is Helping MTG Become A ‘Real Player’ On Capitol Hill
| Quote: | https://talkingpointsmemo.com
Sixteen years ago, things looked bleak for Ed Buckham. The former chief of staff to the House Majority leader had been swept up in a wave of scandal, found himself under investigation by the FBI and, ultimately, was forced to close down his lucrative lobbying firm.
He was never charged with a crime and, now, Buckham has made a fairly quiet return to a notable role on Capitol Hill. Buckham is the chief of staff to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
Their partnership brings together a man who, before his fall from grace, was known as one of the most influential and effective operators in the halls of Congress and Greene, a MAGA firebrand who is trying to turn her popularity with the GOP’s right-wing base into real power in Washington.
In a statement to TPM, Greene praised Buckham as a worthy ally in her ambitious mission.
“I have big plans for the future of this country, so of course I’m going to hire the best,” Greene said. “And I’ll continue stacking my team to accomplish every goal I set.”
Greene’s statement was provided by her office. It did not address questions about Buckham’s past.
Buckham’s roller coaster congressional career started with stints as a staffer in multiple offices. He became known as one of the most powerful people in Washington during his time working for Tom DeLay, a Texas congressman who became the GOP’s majority whip and ultimately majority leader with Buckham as his right-hand man. Buckham parlayed his position into a lucrative lobbying career — until a snowballing series of scandals saw him exiled from K Street. Greene ultimately gave him a chance for a comeback as she seeks to climb the ladder as DeLay once did.
Reached by phone last week, DeLay described Buckham as perfectly suited to help Greene plot a Washington ascent.
“She found him and she’s very smart to have hired him, because no matter what her future is in the House or otherwise he can help you,” DeLay said.
‘The Hammer’ And ‘The Handle’
A Tennessean, Buckham began his career in Congress in 1983 when he was in his mid-twenties. He started as a research assistant on the Judiciary Committee and worked for multiple Republican members before becoming executive director of the House Republican Study Committee, a group of the most conservative members. It was there that he met DeLay, who was, in his own words, “ambitious” and eager to move up in the world.
“We got to be friends and he wanted me to be chairman of the Republican Study Committee, which is a huge stepping stone to the leadership table,” DeLay said of Buckham. “So, I agreed and that’s when we hooked up. He was executive director and I was chairman of the Study Committee and we drove the leadership crazy.”
Buckham joined DeLay’s staff in 1995. With Buckham’s help and counsel, DeLay scored a series of partisan wins including helping drive the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton. During their run, DeLay earned the nickname “The Hammer” for the aggressive tactics he used to keep Republican colleagues in line. DeLay said Buckham “was huge in developing the strategy.”
“If I was ‘The Hammer’ … he was the handle, that’s for sure,” DeLay said of Buckham.
After working on DeLay’s staff, Buckham opened a lobbying firm, the Alexander Strategy Group, in 1998. The firm made millions and, according to the Washington Post, “thrived” thanks largely to “its close connections to DeLay.” Alexander Strategy Group also had DeLay’s wife on the payroll for four years.
Then came the Abramoff investigation — at the time perhaps the largest political scandal to hit DC since Watergate — and it all came crashing down.
The substance of what super lobbyist Jack Abramoff was accused of — fraud in his dealing with his clients — is not so much what the scandal is remembered for as the way it metastasized, expanding to include more and more people. A dizzying series of interconnected corruption cases swept through the Republican Party, culminating in the conviction of Abramoff, who was close with Buckham and DeLay. Both Buckham and DeLay were investigated as part of the probe during the mid-2000s, but were not found to have committed any wrongdoing and were not charged with a crime in conjunction with the case.
Some of their colleagues were not so lucky. Two of DeLay’s senior congressional aides were among the group of Republican staffers and Bush administration White House officials who ended up being convicted or pleading guilty as part of the fallout from the Abramoff probe.
Abramoff himself pleaded guilty to three felony charges in January 2006. The charges against Abramoff included fraud related to him steering Native American tribes that had casino operations to a strategy firm run by a former DeLay aide, Michael Scanlon. Both Abramoff and Scanlon, who pleaded guilty in 2005, also faced charges related to providing gifts to public officials in exchange for actions that benefited their clients and were sentenced to prison time following their pleas. The bribery scandal also led to the conviction of one Republican congressman, Ohio’s Bob Ney, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to multiple offenses after admitting he accepted trips, campaign contributions, and other gifts in exchange for official actions that benefited Abramoff’s casino-running clients.
There were extensive ties between Abramoff, Buckham, and DeLay. After leaving DeLay’s office, Buckham, who was an ordained minister, organized a conservative Christian non-profit called the U.S. Family Network. The group, which raised millions, paid substantial fees to Buckham’s lobbying firm and was funded “almost entirely” by businesses linked to Ambramoff. This cash included a mysterious $1 million check that allegedly came from a pair of Russian oil tycoons.
“In my opinion, the money we took in to bring America back to God was all from these tainted sources,” Christopher Geeslin, a former board president of the U.S. Family Network, told Washington State’s Spokesman-Review newspaper at the time. It was one of multiple interviews where he expressed concern about the group’s finances. “I believe that we were a shell organization for [Buckham’s] own enrichment, and possibly public corruption,” he added.
‘A Concierge Operation’
While DeLay and Buckham were cleared in the Abramoff investigation, they were not unscathed. Buckham shut down his lobbying firm the week after Abramoff pleaded guilty. He directly attributed the closure to the scandal. DeLay resigned from Congress in April 2006, a week after one of his aides entered a guilty plea of their own. The scandal was widely seen as helping to precipitate DeLay’s downfall. At the time, DeLay also faced separate corruption charges in Texas over his fundraising operation. He was convicted in 2010 on state money laundering charges for allegedly funneling money he received from lobbyists who sought to influence him to other Republicans. He denied any wrongdoing, and the conviction was overturned in 2013.
DeLay’s prodigious fundraising operation, which had attracted the interest of the FBI and authorities in Texas, was a key weapon in his arsenal as he hammered his priorities through the House. He backed the pet projects and campaigns of allies and funded primary challenges against his enemies. Through it all, Buckham was a key part of the operation.
“I give him credit for any successes that I’ve had — never lost a vote — and all the good stuff we did,” DeLay said of Buckham. “He was right in there at the very beginning. He taught me everything I know. He’s quite the strategist.”
The pair’s connection was spiritual as well as political. Buckham became DeLay’s pastor and they held intimate prayer sessions in the congressman’s office.
“He was my mentor, my rock, my refuge,” DeLay said of Buckham.
DeLay’s vote counting and wrangling operation was known for its personal touch with members of the Republican caucus. He and his team knew all the members and their spouses. DeLay provided his colleagues with cigarette breaks and meals during late night sessions as well as what Newsweek described as an “endless stream of birthday cards and get-well wishes, flowers and small favors.” According to DeLay, “Buckham was huge in developing the strategy and he knew the House better than anybody.”
“We set up, really, what you could call a concierge operation,” DeLay explained.
In the end, the mix of campaign contributions, meals, and event tickets that paved the way for DeLay and Buckham’s rise was key to their demise. The investigations that led both men to leave the Hill focused on their relationships with lobbyists and the mix of favors, campaign donations and gifts that swirled around them.
After shuttering his firm in the wake of the Abramoff scandal, according to public records, Buckham worked with an RV dealership in West Virginia and other small businesses.
However, he was never far from the Hill. Buckham’s son and daughter have both worked as congressional staffers. In 2016, the right-wing Freedom Caucus reportedly considered hiring Buckham as its executive director — a throwback to his days at the top of the Republican Study Committee. At the time, Politico covered the possible comeback and described Buckham as “a controversial former top aide to Tom DeLay and central figure in the Jack Abramoff scandal.”
In the end, it was Greene, who has been mired in nearly constant controversies of her own, who brought Buckham back. Greene owned a Crossfit gym and became involved in conservative activism during Donald Trump’s administration. She first ran for office in 2020 as a staunch supporter of the former president’s MAGA agenda. Since then, Greene has made national headlines for her history of anti-Semitic and Islamophobic comments as well as her embrace of paranoid theories about the coronavirus, QAnon, and even supposed Jewish space lasers. Greene was also involved in the conspiracy-fueled efforts to protest and overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss that coincided with the Jan. 6 attack.
Greene hired Buckham in October 2021 at a turbulent moment in her office. It was a little over nine months after she came to the Hill and her first chief of staff had quit shortly after Greene engaged in a shouting match with Democrats outside the Capitol.
The bombastic, inexperienced Greene and Buckham, a devout behind the scenes operator might seem like an odd couple. However, each has something the other needs. Buckham brings the experience in dealmaking and diplomacy Greene needs if she hopes to move from MAGA influencer to wielding real influence. And, in Greene, Buckham found someone who had so much of their own drama that they were willing to look past his.
As she announced Buckham’s hiring, Greene praised him to the right-leaning Washington Examiner as a “a strong conservative” who has had experience in the swamp, so to speak — probably more of it than most people working on the Hill right now. Greene also brushed aside any concerns about Buckham’s past.
“This is a serious hire,” Greene said. “It’s the first of more to come, and I’m not afraid of the controversy.”
Apart from an article on the progressive site Raw Story, Buckham’s comeback has attracted relatively little public attention. However, behind the scenes, the move made waves. DeLay, who still speaks with Buckham, “was thrilled” about his former chief’s return. He said he heard from other Republicans who were “excited” to see Buckham join forces with Greene.
“A lot of — especially the conservatives and staffers … it seems to me that they’re calling him up and getting advice. He’s very much involved in what’s going on,” DeLay said of Buckham, adding, “I know that, when he walked into Greene’s office … I heard from a lot of people on the Hill that they were very excited about it. … He talks to a lot of people, a lot of staffers especially.”
In a profile on Greene last year, the Washington Post did not mention Buckham’s past ties to Abramoff. However, the paper noted that Republicans credited Buckham with giving Greene a “focus on the inside game in Congress” that had been instrumental in shifting her relationship with GOP leadership. That gamesmanship may be useful as Greene aims to go from the fringe to a far more central role in Washington.
According to one senior Republican congressional aide, who requested anonymity to candidly discuss strategic deliberations, Greene is “trying to set herself up for something.” The aide said Greene angled to become Trump’s running mate as he pursues a second term and has moved on to eyeing offices in her home state, such as a run for Senate or the governor’s race.
According to a source close to Greene, she is keeping her options open including potentially taking a Cabinet position if Trump is re-elected or a leadership position on the Hill. As Greene seeks to gain power, she has notably broken with some of her colleagues on the right. Last year, Greene was ousted from the Freedom Caucus following tensions with her fellow conservatives over her support for former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and her clashes with Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO). As other MAGA members and conservatives led the successful effort to oust McCarthy, Greene emerged as one of his vocal backers.
“She wanted to be a real player,” DeLay said, praising Greene’s handling of the speaker battle as a move that would help her gain ground. “It was obvious to me she wanted to be a player and she used the Freedom Caucus as her base, but at the same time, she knew as time went on, here comes McCarthy, and she knew — or somehow somebody told her — that she needed to grab ahold of his coattails and support him. So she went from a leader in the Freedom Caucus to maybe backing off a bit and knew where the power was.”
And DeLay suggested Buckham’s impact on Greene’s approach was clear.
“I shouldn’t say it that way … she’s a woman,” DeLay began before briefly pausing and plowing forward with a laugh. “I was going to say his fingerprints is all over her.”
Buckham rejected that notion in a statement provided to TPM by Greene’s office.
“Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn’t need Ed Buckham. She’s a force of her own. I’m just here to assist,” Buckham said.
Buckham did not comment on his past work in Washington.
‘Just The Way Business Was Done Back Then’
For his part, DeLay dismissed the scandals that brought both him and Buckham down as “the beginning of the cancel culture.” He painted the investigations as a conspiracy hatched by Democrats and competing lobbyists who were “using our legal system as a political weapon” and suggested similar forces are behind Trump’s legal woes.
“Ed was investigated deeply, and they found nothing, and I knew they wouldn’t,” DeLay said. “It was generated — the whole investigation was generated by the Democrats aided by … the Native American tribes, the lobbyists for the American tribes, because the lobbyists lost a lot of money to Abramoff and his operation and they wanted to destroy him to get rid of him.”
Despite believing he was unfairly targeted, DeLay has no regrets.
“None at all. It was time for me to go anyway,” said DeLay.
Abramoff, for his part, is not willing to weigh in on Buckham’s comeback. Reached via phone on Monday, Abramoff declined to comment on this story.
“I am so sorry to be rude, but at this point, I do not speak either on or off the record to the media,” Abramoff said. “I hope you understand that this is not personal, but rather a blanket policy for now.”
It’s a new rule for Abramoff. After being released from prison in 2010, he leaned into his infamy and made regular media appearances, including a stint as a mystery judge for TPM’s annual Golden Dukes scandal and corruption awards in 2011. Abramoff’s current silence may have something to do with a new round of legal woes. In 2020, Abramoff pleaded guilty to multiple criminal charges related to an allegedly fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme. The charges included violations of rules that were actually inspired by Abramoff’s prior misconduct. According to court documents, Abramoff entered a guilty plea on two counts pursuant to a plea agreement that would involve “continued cooperation with the government.” Abramoff’s attorneys and prosecutors jointly requested that his sentencing be postponed as the trial for the CEO of the cryptocurrency company is ongoing. A judge agreed, and the next status hearing in the case has been set for next month.
Another figure associated with Buckham’s controversial past had no similar reluctance to comment — and he dramatically changed his prior story. Christopher Geeslin, the former board president of the U.S. Family Network, who had accused Buckham in newspaper interviews of taking “tainted” money from Russia, is happy to see Buckham back on the Hill.
Geeslin called Buckham a “fine man” and suggested he had been “somewhat naive” when he expressed concern over the group’s finances.
“It’s just the way business was done back then I guess,” Geeslin said.
Geeslin, who is a pastor, suggested the situation had worked itself out perfectly.
“Ed Buckham, I consider him a good friend and any problems we had in the past, we don’t have them now,” he said, adding: “In my opinion, he’s right where God would want him to be and I’m glad he’s there.”
This story originally appeared on Talking Points Memo. |
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real-human
Joined: 02 Jul 2011
Posts: 14892
Location: on earth
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| Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2024 4:29 pm Post subject: |
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https://www.rawstory.com/republican-jail-sentence/?cx_testId=4&cx_testVariant=cx_undefined&cx_artPos=8&cx_experienceId=EXC93HV4HK4I#cxrecs_s
Former Texas GOP official sentenced to 4 centuries in prison for child sex abuse
| Quote: | Bo Michael Dresner, a former precinct chairman for the Hays County, Texas Republican Party, was sentenced to more than four centuries in prison after pleading guilty to multiple counts of child sexual abuse and more than 60 claims related to child pornography with the intention to promote.
Although Dresner had originally pleaded not guilty after first being arrested on the charges five years ago, he changed his plea once his trial started earlier this month, reports MySanAntonion.com.
The trial was to feature testimony both from Dresner's own daughter and from another child who once lived in Dresner's home.
Dresner immediately raised suspicions when police started investigating claims that he abused children when he was pulled over on his way to an airport and found in possession of a one-way ticket to Armenia, which does not extradite alleged criminals back to the United States.
READ MORE: How Bill Barr laid the foundation for today’s MAGA movement
A subsequent search of his electronic devices featured hundreds of thousands of child pornography images and his search history showed he was looking for countries that specifically did not have extradition treaties with the United States.
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According to MySanAntonion.com, Dresner "got a stacked sentence that totaled 410 years, according to a news release. Dresner was given 75 years each for four counts of sexual abuse of a child and Judge Gary Steel of the 274th District Court added sentences of 10 to 20 years for each of the 61 counts of child pornography with intent to promote." |
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real-human
Joined: 02 Jul 2011
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Location: on earth
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| Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2024 11:08 pm Post subject: |
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gop-senator-shuns-candidate-who-demanded-obama-s-public-execution-terrorist-propaganda/ar-BB1jYmSN?ocid=winp2fptaskbar&cvid=adaf784bd2e54d05fe9c39c0b1557348&ei=89
GOP senator shuns candidate who demanded Obama's public execution: 'terrorist propaganda'
| Quote: | Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) is apparently drawing a line at being asked to endorse Republican North Carolina superintendent nominee Michele Morrow.
A spokesperson for Tillis offered a statement to WNCN reporter Michael Hyland in which he spoke in unsparing terms about the person whom North Carolina Republicans want to see run their state's school system.
"Highly unlikely he'd support her," the spokesperson said. "Spewing terrorist propaganda and calling for public executions of elected officials you disagree with are things we usually hear from radical fundamentalists in places like Iran, Afghanistan, and Russia, not candidates running for office in North Carolina."
RELATED: Republican public schools nominee supports political killings and ‘death’ to Bill Gates
Tillis' statement came just hours after CNN revealed that Morrow had called in 2020 for the public execution of former President Barack Obama.
“I prefer a Pay Per View of him in front of the firing squad," Morrow said of the possibility of killing America's first Black president. "I do not want to waste another dime on supporting his life. We could make some money back from televising his death.”
Morrow also reacted with violent rhetoric to President Joe Biden when he asked Americans to wear masks during the coronavirus pandemic that killed over 1 million U.S. citizens.
"Never," she told Biden. "We need to follow the Constitution’s advice and KILL all TRAITORS!!!"
Morrow doesn't just limit her death wishes to elected officials, as she has also wished death upon Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, who has been a strong advocate for vaccines.
In response to reports on her past extremist statements, Morrow doubled down and restated her belief that Obama was a "treasonous" president.
"The insanity of the media demonstrates the need to teach K-12 students real history and critical thinking skills," she argued in a Twitter post. |
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