In this free edition of the weekly Unauthorized Disclosure podcast, Matthew Hoh returns to the show. He’s a former Marine, whistleblower, and Green Party candidate for the US Senate in North Carolina.
Matthew provides an update on his Senate campaign. The Green Party was certified by the State Board of Elections, which means candidates may appear on the ballot in November. But the Democratic Party filed a lawsuit to stop the Green Party that was condemned by a major local newspaper.
Later in the show, Matthew reacts to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan and also comments on the US drone strike against Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and what that signified.
Remember that famous scene from All the President’s Men, with Deep Throat in the shadows of a parking garage, telling Robert Redford’s Bob Woodward to “follow the money” in order to unlock the conspiracy? Well, the Jan. 6 committee is most definitely following the money, and in doing so potentially building a wire fraud case against Donald Trump and members of his White House staff and campaign, who raised $250 million for a defense fund that did not exist to “fight election fraud”—which also did not exist.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) led this portion of the hearing testimony Monday, which included video of Amanda Wick, a senior investigative counsel. She outlined how, for weeks following the election and up to Jan. 6, Trump and his allies raised that $250 million with dozens of email solicitations a day. They raised $100 million in the first week after the election alone, Wick said.
“The emails claimed the, quote, left-wing mob was undermining the election, implored supporters to ‘step up to protect the integrity of the election’ and encouraged them to ‘fight back,’ ” Wick said. “But as the select committee has demonstrated, the Trump campaign knew these claims of voter fraud were false. Yet they continued to barrage small-dollar donors with emails encouraging them to donate to something called the ‘Official Election Defense Fund.’”
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) unfurled a thermal blanket during President Joe Biden’s congressional address to draw attention to the surge of migrants at the southern border, but her stunt backfired.
The silver blanket was similar to those distributed to migrants held in detention facilities, and Boebert tweeted about the border situation during Biden’s address to Congress — but her demonstration mystified and irritated many observers.
The controversial audit of Maricopa County votes in Arizona has been widely panned for lacking legitimacy, but former President Donald Trump is reportedly fixated on the political theater — even though it may backfire on Republicans.
“More than five months after the 2020 presidential election, and after numerous failed attempts to overturn the results, former president Donald Trump has seized on a new avenue to try to call the outcome into question: a hand recount of 2.1 million ballots cast in Arizona’s largest county. Several advisers said the former president has become fixated on the unorthodox process underway in Phoenix, where the GOP-led state Senate took ballots and voting equipment from Maricopa County and turned them over to Cyber Ninjas, a private contractor whose chief executive has echoed claims that the election was fraudulent but has now promised a fair review of the November results,” The Washington Postreported Thursday.
Trump fans Dion Cini and Cliff Gephart held their pro-Trump boat parade earlier this month in Tampa, Florida, and they plan to take their parades nationwide, with more events planned for San Diego, Cleveland, and Las Vegas, according to the “Trumparilla” Facebook page.
According to Mother Jones’ Ali Breland, Cini yelled the phrase as he was being recognized from the stage by Gephart for his efforts to organize the event.
Proud Boys in Washington, D.C. (Johnny Silvercloud / Shutterstock.com)
Two leaders of the far-right Proud Boys gang are now being detained ahead of their trial for their roles in the January 6th riots at the United States Capitol building.
As reported by BuzzFeed News’ Zoe Tillman, Proud Boys leaders Ethan Nordean and Joseph Biggs were ordered to go back to jail pending their trials by United States District Judge Timothy Kelly of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
In his ruling, Kelly emphasized the seriousness of the charges facing Nordean and Biggs, whom he said “stand charged with seeking to steal one of the crown jewels of our country, in a sense, by interfering with the peaceful transfer of power.”
On Sunday evening, Jordan Zarakin of Progressives Everywhere on Substack released an interview with Florida state Rep. Carlos Smith, the first gay Latino member of the Florida legislature, in which they discussed the growing sex trafficking scandal surrounding Rep. Matt Gaetz.
During the segment, Smith noted that the Florida Republican Party, behind the scenes, is terrified that the investigation could sweep up more of their members.
“The web of corruption that Matt Gaetz, Joel Greenberg, and [Ron] DeSantis are all wrapped up in is really a web that appears to tie up the entire Republican Party of Florida,” said Smith. “It seems like everyone in the Capitol is nervous about what the next revelation is going to be and who else is implicated in this sweeping saga of corruption that they’ve been a part of for so long.”
US president Donald Trump. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP
According to CNN, the Supreme Court has once again declined to take up a lawsuit asserting the 2020 presidential election was tainted by voter fraud.
On Monday, the high court declined to take up a case filed by Republicans that the voting in Pennsylvania was tainted by changes to voting rules.
Noting that the latest dismissal by the court is signal that the justices want no part in Donald Trump’s assertion that he was robbed of his second term, CNN reports, “Before Monday, the justices had already declined several requests to dive into one of the most litigious elections in history, denying petitions from then-President Donald Trump and other Republicans seeking to overturn election result in multiple states President Joe Biden won.”
The union organizing campaign at the Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, Ala., was defeated by a vote of 1798 against and 738 in favor. Jane McAlevey argues that the biggest factor in the vote was the laws that give tremendous advantages to the corporate side—but the union itself made a series of tactical and strategic errors. Jane is The Nation’s strikes correspondent.
Also: Hunter Biden was the target of a massive Republican attack campaign for more than a year leading up to the election; at the same time, the gossip pages seized on his disastrous private life. They made the most of his decades of alcohol addiction and drug abuse, and his subsequent affair with the widow of his brother. Now he’s written a book—it’s called Beautiful Things: A Memoir. Amy Wilentz comments.
There’s one political prediction that always comes true: Record turnout in one election will be followed by a tidal wave of voter suppression efforts before the next one. So it’s not surprising that after 2020 had record turnout, 2021 is seeing voting rights under attack nationwide by Republican-controlled state legislatures. Georgia has taken the lead—and Georgia is being challenged in court by the ACLU, along with the the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Dale Ho comments: He’s director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, and supervises the ACLU’s voting rights litigation nationwide.
Also: Joe Biden and Congress should end our forever wars—and they can—by starting with three key steps: Karen Greenberg explains. She is the director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School and author, most recently, of Rogue Justice: The Making of the Security State.
Just two weeks ago, many of us celebrated the new year – and the end of an especially devastating one – with a renewed sense of optimism that perhaps the worst of the Trump presidency was behind us.
That hope came to a screeching halt on January 6 when a violent, insurrectionist mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
Many forces at work perpetuated and exacerbated the disturbing events that unfolded that day, and immediate and decisive efforts to hold Trump legally accountable have already begun:
On January 13, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump a second time for inciting insurrection, an effort People For fully supported.
In addition to Trump’s impeachment, we have also called for the resignation of every senator and House member who voted to reject certification of the Electoral College results, and censure for Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Josh Hawley, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Whip Steve Scalise.
In addition, we believe the Justice Department should undertake an investigation into Trump’s potential criminality in inciting the riots, as well as potential criminality of the actions of Trump cronies and rally participants, including Rudy Giuliani, Mike Flynn, Peter Navarro, and Rep. Mo Brooks.
And we have called for a full investigation of the law enforcement response for fraternizing with rioters and potentially even facilitating the violent attack, and for the stark disparity in their response to the pro-Trump mob and their history of needlessly aggressive policing tactics at Black Lives Matter protests, during Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, and other events.
Left of Left 