Republican Assault on Democracy and March Towards Fascism

[LFC]

How soon before the Republicans start screeching because the Democrats accurately called them on their shit.

The increasingly caustic rhetoric aimed at the FBI, IRS, and other government agencies by former President Donald Trump and Republicans is putting everyday workers “in grave danger and at risk of violence,” warn top Democrats on two congressional committees.

On Wednesday morning, the chairs of the House Oversight Committee and its National Security Subcommittee issued a stark letter to the law enforcement agency tasked with protecting government employees, asking what it’s doing to deal with the onslaught of threats from right-wing extremists and the MAGA crowd.

“We are alarmed that leaders in the Republican Party have promoted false conspiracy theories and fueled violent threats against federal workers, putting the lives of law enforcement officials and other patriotic public servants at risk,” it reads.

The letter is signed by U.S. Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY), who leads the Oversight Committee, and Rep. Stephen F. Lynch (D-MA), who chairs the National Security subcommittee. It is addressed to the Department of Homeland Security’s uniformed police division, the Federal Protective Service.

Powerful Republicans have spent weeks making regular appearances on Fox News and other conservative news outlets to scare Americans about armed IRS agents suddenly storming their homes, and they keep claiming that the Justice Department’s investigation into the former president’s mishandling of classified information is a political persecution that could spark a second civil war.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to fuel the fire by angrily posting on social media by directing anger against the FBI itself. His MAGA adherents make up the most boisterous contingent of the GOP and his movement serves as a Republican loyalty litmus test.

The letter cites nine examples, several of which it describes as “demonizing federal law enforcement officers and even hinting at possible violence.”

Topping the list is Trump’s recent speech in which he called the DOJ and FBI “vicious monsters” and warned about “a backlash the likes of which nobody has ever seen before,” an ominous warning that parallels his comments before the Jan. 6 insurrection he helped foment.

The letter also notes how Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) claimed on Fox News that “riots in the street” would follow if the DOJ were to prosecute Trump for illegally keeping Top Secret documents at his oceanside Mar-a-Lago estate. It notes that Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) recently tweeted that “we must destroy the FBI,” and Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) tweeted that “if they can do it to a former President, imagine what they can do to you.”

[LFC]

Oh, look. A right-winger doing exactly what right-wingers accuse the left of doing. I'm shocked. Shocked I say!

Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl’s home and office were raided by sheriff’s investigators Wednesday looking into an award allegedly given to a nonprofit organization the supervisor is connected with—but local officials were quick to decry the search as a “witch hunt.” The news comes after an investigation by local officials and the Los Angeles Times found a network of officers targeting vocal critics and political opponents of Los Angeles Sheriff Alex Villanueva. “This is a bogus, vindictive, politically motivated witch hunt by a corrupt sheriff with a track record of abusing his power and trying to silence and intimidate his critics,” L.A. City Council member Mike Bonin said in a statement, championing Kuehl’s integrity as a public official. The Civil Rights and Public Integrity Detail team, reportedly comprised of nine men and women, notably targeted L.A. County Inspector General Max Huntsman, the department’s top watchdog, and county Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, both of whom called for Villanueva’s resignation in 2020, according to the Los Angeles Times.

[LFC]

Some states are moving to protect their poll workers. Notice that none of them are deep red states.

The democratic process hasn’t been the same since 2020 — and if a rising, anti-democratic movement in America gets its way, we may never go back. But in the wake of unprecedented attacks on those who administer our elections, state lawmakers have scrambled to put in place new laws ahead of the midterms that would provide them with more protection.

State legislatures in Colorado, Maine, Vermont and California have each passed laws this year making it a crime to threaten or harass election workers, or making it easier to prosecute those who do. In other states, such as Wisconsin, top law enforcement officials are examining their own strategies for prosecuting such threats, while candidates to oversee elections in states such as Nevada have vowed to push for similar legislation if they take office.

Since former President Donald Trump pushed the bogus claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him, election workers across the country have faced a deluge of targeted harassment for their work.

“There’s been a really alarming rise in harassment against election workers and officials,” Gowri Ramachandran, senior counsel of the Brennan Center’s Democracy program, told TPM.

A Brennan Center poll from this past March found that one in six election officials have been threatened over their jobs. Seventy-seven percent of those polled say that these threats have increased in recent years.

At times, the intimidation has gone as far as death threats. FEC United, a Colorado-based far-right extremist group held a meeting on supposed election fraud back in February; that night, a self-proclaimed election denier claimed to have evidence of Colorado’s Secretary of State Jena Griswold engaging in criminal election conduct. (He didn’t.)

[pnwguy]

www.denverpost.com/2022/09/14/lauren-boebert-christian-nationalist-republican-colorado

U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert’s pattern of pushing for a religious takeover of America, spreading falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election and warning of an impending judgment day amounts to Christian nationalism, religious, political and social experts say.

Those ideals threaten the rights of non-Christian — and typically non-white — Americans but also endanger the foundation of the country’s democratic process, those experts say. The far-right Western Slope congresswoman represents a high-profile and incendiary voice in the movement, which is infiltrating virtually every level of American government and its judiciary.

Boebert leaned on those talking points Friday — in her official capacity as a member of Congress — at the Truth & Liberty Coalition’s From Vision to Victory Conference in Woodland Park.

“It’s time for us to position ourselves and rise up and take our place in Christ and influence this nation as we were called to do,” Boebert, of Silt, told the crowd, which responded with applause.

“We know that we are in the last of the last days,” Boebert later added. “This is a time to know that you were called to be part of these last days. You get to have a role in ushering in the second coming of Jesus.”

Boebert and her contemporaries, whether in Congress, state or local governments, can be expected to increase the volume and frequency of their Christian nationalist rhetoric as the November midterm elections approach and even beyond, Philip Gorski, a sociologist and co-director of Yale’s Center for Comparative Research, said.

“This is new and worrisome,” Gorski said. “There’s an increasing number of people saying ‘We’re in this battle for the soul of America. We’re on the side of good and maybe democracy is getting in the way. Maybe we need to take power and if that means minority rule in order to impose our vision on everybody else then that’s what we’re going to do.’”

Boebert’s comments Friday in Woodland Park serve as a dog whistle for violence, said Anthea Butler, chief of the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Religious Studies. Especially in the context of the congresswoman’s penchant for firearms and her framing the issue around the November elections.

“Now the apocalypse is because if we don’t get our people in, it’s an apocalypse,” Butler said. “She’s posing with guns and talking about the apocalypse.”

As of Monday, Boebert’s representatives would not say whether the congresswoman would accept the results of the upcoming election even if she loses. Instead, they assert that the congresswoman will be reelected “and her first act will be to fire Nancy Pelosi.”

“This is not compatible with democracy.”

A spokesperson for Boebert, who did not identify themselves, declined an interview request for the congresswoman but added that she doesn’t consider herself a Christian nationalist. Still, The Denver Post spoke to six social, political and religious experts from across the country who said her comments fit squarely within the belief system.

At their core, Christian nationalists believe that America holds a unique and divinely ordained purpose, said Andrew Whitehead, an assistant professor of sociology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

“I believe that there have been two nations that have been created to glorify God. Israel, whom we bless, and the United States of America,” Boebert said in June. “And this nation will glorify God.”

In the same address Boebert said she was “tired of this separation of church and state junk” and claimed that God “anointed” Donald Trump to the presidency.

Christian nationalists also hold a strong sense of moral traditionalism, express comfort with authoritarian control as a way of maintaining order and embrace strong ethno-racial boundaries, particularly revolving around national identities, Whitehead said.

The congresswoman told Christians at a right-wing religious conference last year to “speak up” for God and to remove “unrighteous politicians, these corrupt, crooked politicians” while installing “righteous men and women of God in their place.”

Boebert is perhaps best known for her gun-rights advocacy and said this summer that Jesus had been killed by Romans because he didn’t have enough assault rifles “to keep his government from killing him.”

She blamed a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which left 19 students and two teachers dead, on “godlessness that is here overtaking America” and she frequently says drug use and violent crime are on the rise because of the Latin American people illegally immigrating through the southern border.

“It’s the idea that government power should be in the hands of ‘real Americans’ and those ‘real Americans’ are defined by an ethnoreligious category that usually entails white conservative Christians,” Kristin Kobes DuMez, a professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University, said. “This is not compatible with democracy.”

The end goal for certain sects of Christian nationalism, which subscribe to so-called Dominion theory, is to conquer what are called the “seven mountains” or seven areas of influence, Gorski said. They are family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business and government.

“Once they do, that will trigger the second coming of Christ,” Gorski said, citing their prophecy.

Boebert is moving in those circles, which also have ties to militia groups, Gorski added.

“An organized quest for power.”

Religious nationalism isn’t a new concept, it’s centuries old, said DuMez, whose 2020 book “Jesus and John Wayne” focuses on the historical intersection of evangelicalism and American politics. But it’s seeing a resurgence.

Current examples of religious nationalists include Vladimir Putin of Russia, Viktor Orbán of Hungary and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, according to Katherine Stewart, an investigative journalist whose 2020 book, “The Power Worshippers”, focuses on the rise of religious nationalism. Political leaders like these bind themselves to ultraconservative religious figures in their countries to consolidate authoritarian, political power.

“These leaders use religious nationalism to bubble-wrap themselves in sanctimony, to guard against any democratic check on their power or critique of their corruption,” Stewart said.

American Republicans welcomed Orbán to the stage of the Conservative Political Action Conference in August shortly after he said that Hungary must not become a “mixed race” country, Politico reported.

“Christian nationalism is a means of persuading a large subsection of the American public to vote for the political candidates that the movement favors, and thus empower movement leaders and enshrine the policies they want in our laws and society,” Stewart said. “Movement leaders want power and political access, policies that favor certain ‘approved’ religious and political viewpoints and access to private and public money.”

“It is a political phenomenon that involves the exploitation of religion for political purposes,” Stewart added. “I think of it as combining two things. On the one hand, it is a set of ideas or an ideology. On the other hand, it is a political movement, an organized quest for power.”

Stewart added that former president Donald Trump also capitalized on the movement.

The movement is also evolving, DuMez said. Christian nationalists aren’t as subtle as they once were. Some, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia publicly identify as Christian nationalists.

Other contemporaries mentioned by the experts include Sen. Rick Scott and Gov. Ron Desantis, both of Florida; Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas; and gubernatorial candidates Kari Lake and Doug Mastriano, of Arizona and Pennsylvania, respectively.

The list goes on and spans every level of American government, DuMez said.

Christian nationalists and the politicians that espouse their values have strong ties to voter suppression efforts, Whitehead said.

More specifically, Christian nationalists look to restrict voting to a “worthy” few, Whitehead said, citing a 2022 study he conducted with two other experts, Sam Perry, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Oklahoma and Joshua Grubbs, an associate professor of psychology at Bowling Green State University. The “worthy” are inevitably only those who subscribe to a specific set of Christian beliefs.

They’re also likely to spread conspiracy theories, like those embraced by QAnon, Gorski said, and to deny the results of the 2020 presidential election, which President Joe Biden legitimately won.

Another often-cited Christian nationalist is retired Army general and former national security advisor under former President Donald Trump, Michael Flynn, who frequently spreads baseless conspiracy theories about the election.

Boebert has continued to avoid saying whether she believes Biden won his race in the same election that gave her a seat in Congress.

“This is potentially a really serious problem.”

Not all Christians exhibit nationalistic beliefs, Melissa Deckman, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization, said.

Multiple Christian and other faith-based organizations like Vote Common Good, Faithful America, Christians against Christian Nationalism and the National Council of Churches denounce the movement.

But Christian nationalism clearly resonates within what Deckman called the “target audience” of white evangelical Protestants.

The movement gains momentum through fears of white Americans who believe they’re losing ground in the country, according to Butler, whose 2021 book “White Evangelical Racism” focuses on the history of evangelical racism. There are also non-white Americans who support the movement. They’re motivated by a “promise of whiteness” or the promise of “being American,” she said.

“This is a very white movement, I don’t think you can get away from that,” Butler said.

On the whole, 43% of Americans believe that being Christian “is somewhat or very important to being truly American,” according to a 2021 PRRI survey, which questioned 2,508 people across the country. That number increases to 76% for white evangelical Protestants, the data shows.

At the same time, about 78% of white evangelical Protestants agree that “America is in danger of losing its culture and identity,” the data shows. Sixty percent of them believe the election was stolen from Trump and they’re the most likely religious group to agree that “true American patriots might have to resort to violence in order to save our country,” with 26% in agreement.

“Clearly those that embrace the idea that God intended America to be this promised land are more likely to believe that they might have to resort to violence to save the country,” Deckman said.

Those findings, combined with a willingness to spread conspiracy theories and deny the results of the 2020 election, is where the danger lies for America, Deckman said.

Deckman pointed to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection in the U.S. Capitol as an example of the risk.

Boebert reportedly met with then-President Trump’s White House officials before the riot and discussed what options the vice president had when faced with certifying the 2020 election, a high-level aide testified in April.

Deckman also mentioned the swath of election deniers running for secretary of state across the country, a position essential to certifying future votes and seating electors in the Electoral College.

“This is potentially a really serious problem,” Deckman said.

“You can definitely expect more of the same.”

There is little or no indication that Boebert will temper her rhetoric as she heads into a likely second term, Whitehead said. Especially since the incendiary comments regularly garner national attention.

The same goes for other officials espousing the same ideals, he said.

“If they aren’t losing elections there’s no reason for them to reevaluate how they operate,” he said. “You can definitely expect more of the same.”

So one way to push back against the anti-democratic message would be for conservative Republicans and Christians to denounce those comments from Boebert and her contemporaries, Gorski said.

“Call her out on her views and say ‘Look, this is not Christian. Certainly, it’s not democratic,’” Gorski said.

Butler expressed concern that the country will see widespread election denial after the November elections if these far-right candidates lose their elections.

“The alarm has not really struck and we’re careening toward disaster in November,” she said.

There’s also a reason why Christian nationalist voices seem to be shouting louder now, Deckman said. They’re compensating because younger generations are less Republican, less religious and more diverse. With time, perhaps a decade, Christian nationalist voices might weaken.

[LFC]

Republican fascists in Congress, which is a set that is close to identical to Republicans in Congress, will block the law Dems are proposing to safeguard federal employees from an out of control executive who would fire them at will if they did not comply with their demands. Not the country's demands. Not the law's demands. Not reality. This was the Trump plan and, as reported here before, it's still part of the Republican plan for creating their own deep state and packing the federal bureaucracies with partisans rather than actual competent workers.

In the final days of his presidency, Donald Trump quietly attempted what might have been his most brazen play yet to reshape the federal government in his image: He issued an executive order giving him the power to fire essentially any civil servant at will.

That attempt was thwarted by the election of Joe Biden. But in laying out a 2024 presidential bid and a White House comeback, Trump has vowed to enact that order again immediately, Axios reported.

Congress has the power to block him—or any other president—from executing those plans. But it’s increasingly looking like they won’t use it.

On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed legislation to codify civil service protections, with six Republicans joining all Democrats in voting yes. But in the Senate, where 10 GOP senators would be needed to vote in favor, the prospects for the legislation are grim.

The piece is fairly factual but on the opinion end of things early in the article the author bends over like Gumby to make sure blame is placed on both sides, as if recent history shows that there is even the remotest chance of getting 10 Republican Senators to vote for something like this. They even know the reason that this is true but have to both side-ism things.

The lead Republican on the Oversight Committee, Rep. James Comer (R-KY), framed Trump’s effort as a well-intentioned campaign to improve “accountability” in the federal government by making it easier to fire poor performers.

But Republicans’ most emphatic arguments against the bill seemed to say the quiet part out loud. “President Trump sought to take on this bureaucracy and restore power to the people by draining the swamp,” Comer said. “We should all be in favor of policies making it easier to remove civil servants who refuse to follow the will of the voters.”

[pnwguy]

Sept 19, 2022 19:04:41 GMT LFC said:

Translation:  The will of the voters is not what is contained in law but is the whim of His Majesty, King Trump. 

[LFC]

The United States continues to slide in comparison with other nations in multiple categories.

The United States may regard itself as a “leader of the free world,” but an index of development released in July 2022 places the country much farther down the list.

In its global rankings, the United Nations Office of Sustainable Development dropped the U.S. to 41st worldwide, down from its previous ranking of 32nd. Under this methodology – an expansive model of 17 categories, or “goals,” many of them focused on the environment and equity – the U.S. ranks between Cuba and Bulgaria. Both are widely regarded as developing countries.

The U.S. is also now considered a “flawed democracy,” according to The Economist’s democracy index.

As a political historian who studies U.S. institutional development, I recognize these dismal ratings as the inevitable result of two problems. Racism has cheated many Americans out of the health care, education, economic security and environment they deserve. At the same time, as threats to democracy become more serious, a devotion to “American exceptionalism” keeps the country from candid appraisals and course corrections.

We are now a "flawed democracy." That puts us in the same category as Hungary though not as bad ... yet. Of course the Republicans want us to blow past them as they try to strangle real democracy at every turn.

The Economist’s democracy index now groups the U.S. among “flawed democracies,” with an overall score that ranks between Estonia and Chile. It falls short of being a top-rated “full democracy” in large part because of a fractured political culture. This growing divide is most apparent in the divergent paths between “red” and “blue” states.

Although the analysts from The Economist applaud the peaceful transfer of power in the face of an insurrection intended to disrupt it, their report laments that, according to a January 2022 poll, “only 55% of Americans believe that Mr. Biden legitimately won the 2020 election, despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud.”

Election denialism carries with it the threat that election officials in Republican-controlled jurisdictions will reject or alter vote tallies that do not favor the Republican Party in upcoming elections, further jeopardizing the score of the U.S. on the democracy index.

[LFC]

Kevin McCarthy, being the brilliant man that he is, let the House Republican out without its password protection. They want national abortion limits (so they lied), they want to repeal drug price controls (f*** the old people), and to enshrine their ability to steal elections. This is from Nancy!

[LFC]

The Claremont Institute has been recruiting and training sheriffs to ignore federal and possibly even state laws and instead enforce Republican law. That's really not an overstatement.

Here’s the Secret “Sheriff Fellowship” Curriculum From the Country’s Most Prominent MAGA Think Tank

Last November, the Claremont Institute hosted its inaugural class of “Sheriff Fellows.” Over the course of a week, eight sheriffs—all white men—chosen from the more than 3,000 in the country stayed at the Waterfront Beach Resort in Huntington Beach, California, attending a series of discussions, lectures, and fireside chats steeped in the far-right-wing think tank’s heady intellectualism and radical ideology. While the Claremont Institute restricted public access to the fellowship, a review of the fellowship’s previously unreported curriculum reveals a program that presented for the sheriffs two sets of people in America: those communities sheriffs should police as freely and brutally as they see fit, and those “real” Americans who should be considered virtually above the law.

Public information requests and other reporting have provided insight into the stated and unstated reasons behind the Claremont Institute’s recruitment of county sheriffs, and revealed the curriculum of the fellowship. (You can read the full curriculum at the bottom of this article.) What emerges in reviewing this information is a portrait of the far right’s deep investment in sheriffs. They seem to be a key target of the movement because the office is already vulnerable to extremism and because sheriffs can enable other extremist actors like vigilantes and militias to wreak havoc on society. Claremont provides a historical and intellectual cover for selected sheriffs to continue a march into white Christian nationalism; for Claremont, the sheriffs are elected influencers who can push their message into the mainstream, far from the coterie of intellectual elites. They also have the authority to use violence under the color of law to enforce these principles in their communities.

[LFC]

Traitor Gowdy was on Faux News trying to offer a defense of Italy's new prime minister, a blatant neo-fascist. He's still an squirrelly un-American little shit. These people are champing at the bit to normalize this shit as just another political view.

Trey Gowdy, the former top Republican U.S. Congressman from South Carolina, head of the powerful Oversight Committee who chaired the House Select Committee investigating Hillary Clinton and the attack in Benghazi, is under fire this week for what some see as normalizing fascism.

Gowdy appeared on a Fox News‘ “hard news” program Monday, hosted by anchor Bret Baier, and decried how some media outlets described Italy’s election of Giorgia Meloni, a neo-fascist, who will be their new prime minister.

Meloni is also a Christian nationalist who has praised the founder of Italian fascism, dictator Benito Mussolini. She holds far right views, including opposition to abortion, any legal rights for LGBTQ people including marriage and adoption, and is seen as xenophobic and opposed to the European Union.

During the campaign Meloni at a rally “thundered,” as the AP reported, “Yes to the natural family. No to the LGBT lobby. Yes to sexual identity. No to gender ideology.”

The Fox News panel denounced the U.S. media labeling Meloni as “far right.”

“I guess what I’m wondering is,” Gowdy, an attorney and former federal prosecutor said, “if you’re winning elections, if you are what the people want, at what point does that become the center? Who gets to say what is far right, or what is hard right?”

What Gowdy neglected to note is Italy does not have a two-party system like the U.S., so

Meloni won with just a quarter of the vote. And regardless of popularity, political positions are categorized by positions on a scale, including far and center.

On social media Gowdy was highly criticized.

“How could the Nazis do the things they did? How could rational decent Germans just stand by and watch as fascism rose to power to began to murder millions? How? This is how,” retired U.S. military intelligence officer Jim Wright, who runs a popular Twitter account, wrote in response to the clip.

Quoting Gowdy questioning “who gets to say?” Wright added, “Who gets to say what’s wrong? Who gets to condemn the rise of fascism?”

“Who gets to condemn hate and intolerance and the violence of these goddamn goons? I DO. YOU DO. WE ALL DO. That’s who,” he continued.

[AnBr]

I belong to Wright's Stonekettle Station Facebook group. The whole of Wright's post:

"If you are what the people want, at what point does that become the center? Who gets to say what is far-right or hard right?"

That's former Congressman Trey Gowdy -- the guy who tried to prosecute Hillary Clinton ... and failed. Repeatedly.

Gowdy is now, of course, a Fox News "contributor."

Last night, on Fox News, Gowdy defended the rise of fascism -- calling it fascism -- live on the air. If fascism is what people want, who are we to decide if that's bad? says Gowdy, opining on the election of a self-described fascist in Italy.

If that's what people want.

What people want.

What people?

And what about those of us, the vast majority, who DON'T goddamn want it?
How could the Nazis do the things they did? How could rational decent Germans just stand by and watch as fascism rose to power to began to slaughter millions? How could Italians just stand by as Mussolini murdered his own countrymen?
Why didn't ordinary people stop it?

Why?

How?

THIS is how.

What people want.

Americans don't remember the German-America Bund, those Americans who supported fascism in the run up to WWII. Those American who demanded isolationism, who were bamboozled by politicians who supported Hitler into thinking that fascism was what they wanted, and so who proudly waved the Nazi Swastika themselves, who proudly wore Sturmabteilungen uniforms and who literally fought Jewish veterans of WWI right here in the the streets of America, who sent their own children to Hitler Youth Camps on American soil -- all in close alliance with the Christian Front, a nationwide organization of Antisemitic Christians led by a charismatic preacher named Father Charles Coughlin.

encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/german-american-bund

Today, it's Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Mike Pompeo, the MAGA movement and its evangelical priests et al, who are openly and proudly cheering the election of reborn fascism in Europe.

thehill.com/policy/international/3661541-gop-lawmakers-celebrate-right-wing-candidates-win-in-italian-elections/

"If you are what the people want, at what point does that become the center? Who gets to say what is far-right or hard right?"

Who gets to say what's wrong?

Who gets to condemn the rise of fascism?

Who gets to condemn hate and intolerance and the violence of these goddamn goons?

I DO.

YOU DO.

WE ALL DO.

That's who.

Last time, our grandparents stood by and let it happen. MILLIONS of innocents died as a result. The entire world was engulfed in war. The horror of those fascists STILL echoes to this very day.
This time, we don't have an excuse. We know better.

Who?

US.

When?

NOW.

[LFC]

DeSatanist sent somebody to deal with "those people" but he was outed. Nice pick, Ronny.

Hood Off

Jeffery Moore, a Gadsden County commissioner who was appointed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), suddenly resigned on Friday after a photo that appeared to show him in a Ku Klux Klan robe and hood emerged.

• Gadsen County is the only predominantly Black county in Florida. Moore was also the only Republican commissioner on the board.

• Moore didn’t explain in his resignation letter why he was leaving, only that he was doing so for “personal reasons.”

[LFC]

More and more Republicans have stopped even pretending they aren't full blown fascists. Here's the GOP gubernatorial candidate for Arizona gushing over the actual fascist new PM of Italy.

In Case You Missed It: Kari Lake Sees Kindred Spirit In Fascism-Tied Italian Leader

During an appearance on Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s show on Monday, far-right Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake “you go, girl!”-ed Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s new leader whose party, Brothers of Italy, has direct ties to the post-World War II neofascist movement.

• Lake gushed over Meloni as someone she “can relate to,” and the gubernatorial nominee is just “so excited” about Meloni’s victory.

• Lake said she couldn’t find “any straight-up information” on Meloni when she first heard about the Italian leader, only accusations that Meloni is racist. Here’s some information on Meloni’s advancement of the white nationalist “great replacement” theory:

Great Replacement Theory? Other than the funny accent that simply puts her squarely in the GOP base.

[LFC]

Now we know what the next step in the fascists' attempted takeover of the judiciary looks like. Be sure to sweep away all candidates, no matter their performance and abilities, from a prestigious institution since it does not kowtow to the American Taliban.

A federal appellate judge has announced that he will no longer take on clerks who graduated from Yale Law School, reportedly citing what he said was the school’s “cancellation of views” as the reason for his decision.

“Yale not only tolerates the cancellation of views — it actively practices it,” Fifth U.S. Circuit Judge James Ho said Thursday, according to a National Review story. “Starting today, I will no longer hire law clerks from Yale Law School. And I hope that other judges will join me as well.”

“If they want the closed and intolerant environment that Yale embraces today, that’s their call,” Ho also reportedly said. “But I want nothing to do with it.”

Ho’s remarks were part of his keynote address to the Kentucky Chapters Conference of the Federalist Society on Thursday. The speech, according to the National Review, was titled “Agreeing to Disagree — Restoring America by Resisting Cancel Culture.”

Resisting "Cancel Culture" by ... uuuuhhh ... practicing cancel culture. Got it.

[LFC]

Sure looks like "palin' around with terrorists" to me.

[LFC]

This was posted by CPAC. It was up for about 12 hours before somebody realized that maybe being so obviously Putin's bitch was a bad idea. Fortunately multiple people snapped it before it disappeared.

[goldenvalley]

This author was prescient.  From "This is how fascism comes to America" a May, 2016 op ed piece (6 months before the election), is a diagnosis:

But of course the entire Trump phenomenon has nothing to do with policy or ideology. It has nothing to do with the Republican Party, either, except in its historic role as incubator of this singular threat to our democracy. Trump has transcended the party that produced him. His growing army of supporters no longer cares about the party. Because it did not immediately and fully embrace Trump, because a dwindling number of its political and intellectual leaders still resist him, the party is regarded with suspicion and even hostility by his followers. Their allegiance is to him and him alone.

And the source of allegiance? We’re supposed to believe that Trump’s support stems from economic stagnation or dislocation. Maybe some of it does. But what Trump offers his followers are not economic remedies — his proposals change daily. What he offers is an attitude, an aura of crude strength and machismo, a boasting disrespect for the niceties of the democratic culture that he claims, and his followers believe, has produced national weakness and incompetence. His incoherent and contradictory utterances have one thing in common: They provoke and play on feelings of resentment and disdain, intermingled with bits of fear, hatred and anger. His public discourse consists of attacking or ridiculing a wide range of “others” — Muslims, Hispanics, women, Chinese, Mexicans, Europeans, Arabs, immigrants, refugees — whom he depicts either as threats or as objects of derision. His program, such as it is, consists chiefly of promises to get tough with foreigners and people of nonwhite complexion. He will deport them, bar them, get them to knuckle under, make them pay up or make them shut up.

The party's part in this:

To understand how such movements take over a democracy, one only has to watch the Republican Party today. These movements play on all the fears, vanities, ambitions and insecurities that make up the human psyche. In democracies, at least for politicians, the only thing that matters is what the voters say they want — vox populi vox Dei. A mass political movement is thus a powerful and, to those who would oppose it, frightening weapon. When controlled and directed by a single leader, it can be aimed at whomever the leader chooses. If someone criticizes or opposes the leader, it doesn’t matter how popular or admired that person has been. He might be a famous war hero, but if the leader derides and ridicules his heroism, the followers laugh and jeer. He might be the highest-ranking elected guardian of the party’s most cherished principles. But if he hesitates to support the leader, he faces political death.

In such an environment, every political figure confronts a stark choice: Get right with the leader and his mass following or get run over. The human race in such circumstances breaks down into predictable categories — and democratic politicians are the most predictable. There are those whose ambition leads them to jump on the bandwagon. They praise the leader’s incoherent speeches as the beginning of wisdom, hoping he will reward them with a plum post in the new order. There are those who merely hope to survive. Their consciences won’t let them curry favor so shamelessly, so they mumble their pledges of support, like the victims in Stalin’s show trials, perhaps not realizing that the leader and his followers will get them in the end anyway.

A great number will simply kid themselves, refusing to admit that something very different from the usual politics is afoot. Let the storm pass, they insist, and then we can pick up the pieces, rebuild and get back to normal. Meanwhile, don’t alienate the leader’s mass following. After all, they are voters and will need to be brought back into the fold. As for Trump himself, let’s shape him, advise him, steer him in the right direction and, not incidentally, save our political skins.

I've quoted to much of this probably but read the whole thing.  

[pnwguy]

I am about 20% through Malcolm Nance's recent book, They Want To Kill Americans. Scary read on the various militias of neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and authoritarian supporters ready to fight as Trump's Brownshirt army. Republican leaders fear them and lick Trump's A-hole to end up on top of the civil war they want to start. It will be your friends and neighbors who will act like silent Germans in 1933 and not object to rounding up Democrats as the new Jews.

[LFC]

It doesn't get much more fascist than being arrested for creating a parody of a police department. The man was forced to go to trial where he was acquitted. He then sued over his obvious First Amendment rights being violated but lost that case.

A federal appeals court ruled that a man arrested and later acquitted of charges stemming from the creation of a fake Parma police Facebook page was unable to prove the city violated his free speech or wrongfully arrested him.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday upheld a ruling against Anthony Novak, who sued Parma police officials and accused them of retaliating against him for creating a parody Facebook page that pilloried the police.

A panel of three judges ruled that Novak failed to prove Parma police violated his free speech or that the officers acted maliciously when they investigated and charged him with fourth-degree felony disrupting public services.

“Little did Anthony Novak know when he launched ‘The City of Parma Police Department’ page that he’d wind up a defendant in court,” the opinion, written by Circuit Court Judge Amul Thapar, said. “So too for the officers who arrested him. At the end of the day, neither got all they wanted — Novak won’t be punished for his alleged crime, and the defendants are entitled to summary judgment on Novak’s civil claims.”

In legal terms, summary judgment means the case was ruled upon by a judge who sided with the city.

Several organizations— including the national and Ohio ACLU— backed Novak and said his Facebook account amounted to free speech that his arrest violated his First Amendment rights.

They wasted no time crushing him like a bug.

Novak in March 2016 created the Facebook page that used the same logo and masthead as the real department’s page, but replaced the police’s slogan of “We know crime” with “We no crime.” He put up fake job postings that said the department “strongly” encourages minorities not apply. Another post touted a non-existent law against feeding homeless people. Another said Parma police offered abortions.

The page was active for less than a day and received less than 100 followers. About 10 people called 911 to report the Facebook page. Parma police a few days later arrested Novak and seized his laptop and cellphone. He spent four days in jail and was later acquitted at trial.

He's now trying to get SCOTUS to take this up. Amusingly The Onion, which knows a thing or two about satire, filed an amicus brief. Even before the court was under total partisan hack control I wouldn't bet on this one being successful. Both Roberts and Alito had a strong history of siding with authority even before they were nominated to SCOTUS.

[pnwguy]

Today's Bulwark newsletter has a great summary of the Pat Buchanan destructive legacy on the GOP.

morningshots.thebulwark.com/p/the-trump-before-trump-krauthammers

[AnBr]

Well, he was one of the architects of the Southern Strategy. You can say he helped the sow the first seeds of the modern politics of division.

[Bact PhD]

I’m putting this here because it looks like the UF President Search Committee’s significant requirement for a University President was “someone who can ‘play ball’ with the Supreme Emperor and have enough academic credentials to hopefully not put our US News and World Report ranking in jeopardy.” A couple of notes:
-The active rumor for some months was that current Ed Commissioner Corcoran, a Supreme Emperor stooge if there ever was one, had the inside track for the job,
-Recently, a HUGE carve-out to the state Sunshine Law was passed to exempt State University President searches until the Finalist stage. The rationale was that a lot of upper-level academic types weren’t applying because their names would be made public too early in the process, pissing off their current employers. So natch, UF figures out the workaround.
-Also noteworthy: Last go-round, the powers that be did everything they could to hide what was clearly the top choice from the public until the eleventh hour.

www.gainesville.com/story/news/2022/10/06/nebraska-sen-ben-sasse-named-finalist-land-uf-presidential-job/8196012001/

Ben Sasse, the Republican U.S. senator from Nebraska, is positioned to become the next president of the University of Florida.

UF announced Thursday afternoon that Sasse was selected as the sole finalist for the job, following a national search of more than 700 candidates.

[snip]

A bill signed into law in March, SB 520, allowed UF to conduct much of the presidential search outside of the requirements of Florida’s open meetings and public records laws. Under the measure, the university was allowed to keep the names of candidates secret and only publicly announce the names of any finalists.

UF reported that its search committee focused attention on a dozen candidates that included nine sitting presidents at major research universities, but that Sasse was the committee's unanimous choice. Sasse is expected to resign from his Senate seat at the end of this year after accepting the offer to become UF president.

Paul Ortiz, a UF history professor and head of its faculty union chapter, said he was disappointed about a lack of community input on the naming of a finalist.

"Sen. Sasse is really going to have to work hard to establish trust because his name has never come up. There hasn't been any community vetting, there hasn't been any town hall meetings," Ortiz said. "This was conducted outside of the Sunshine Act because of the state law. It's going to be very challenging to take the next steps here, because when President Fuchs was appointed, for example, he already had met with a lot of people before his appointment."

[snip]

His selection comes as questions of political interference have hung over UF, since it was revealed last fall that faculty were barred from testifying in court against policies backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature.

Patel, a UF trustee and chair of the Presidential Search Committee, had previously told The Sun that the university was focused on hiring "an accomplished educator of national stature, with recognized scholarly success."

Patel told The Sun Thursday that the search committee unanimously selected Sasse "because he embodies the attributes and leadership qualities identified by the UF community, and the credentials sought by the search committee.

"This was led by the search committee, with direction from the board of trustees, as laid out in Florida statute," he said. "There was no other influence or other body involved in the search process."

Patel said that among the candidates for the job who were sitting university presidents, none of them would come forward as a finalist unless they were chosen as the one sole finalist. He said that Sasse is a "visionary and transformational leader."

I call BS on the last 2 paragraphs. Again, though, at least it wasn’t Corcoran…

[LFC]

Is it any wonder Republicans love Orban and Putin? This is exactly the kind of fascist moves they want to pull. And John Solomon is exactly the kind of lying propagandist flunky they want to use.

If Donald Trump ever grows tired of being faux-bashful about 2024 and actually announces he’s running, we know what at least one item on his agenda will be: purging the “woke and broken” National Archives.

It’s obvious why he wants to clear out the agency that’s not only nonpartisan, but also tasked with the very wholesome goal of preserving history — it dared to tell him he can’t play finders-keepers with government records.

Trump has reportedly been telling close allies since sometime this summer that he would want to get rid of a handful of agency officials if he runs and wins again in 2024 and would would make it a top priority for his second term, two sources familiar with the matter told Rolling Stone.

Trump’s reportedly gotten into specifics in these conversations, too, outlining who he would fire and even asking close allies who he should install in top positions. Peep this hilarious nugget from Rolling Stone:

In some of these conversations, the former president has referenced specific officials — all installed during Democratic administrations — who he’d want to immediately “get rid of” and have replaced with pliable loyalists. One of these sources says that it was clear from the conversation that someone in Trump’s orbit had been slipping him names or lists of potential targets.

In other instances, the ex-president has also casually solicited recommendations for conservatives to install at the National Archives and Records Administration, including for the top post of archivist. At least one Trump confidant threw out John Solomon, a Trump ally and conservative journalist, as an apparently serious suggestion, one of the people with knowledge of this matter says.

Aside from the FBI, it’s the former president’s least favorite federal agency. Ever since FBI agents raided his Mar-a-Lago resort this summer to take back the classified materials that Trump failed to hand over to NARA and hoarded at his Florida home, Trump’s been disparaging the agency, tossing out claims that it’s part of the “deep state,” his favorite term to fling at anyone or thing that tries to hold him accountable. At a rally this week, Trump introduced another favored smear against the agency: “woke.”

Some of Trump’s allies have also filed lawsuits against the National Archives in recent weeks, which Rolling Stone gets into more here.

The news is hardly surprising. Trump is as known for his pettiness as he is for using political and governmental power to avenge his various grievances.

[LFC]

" I am above zee law!" --Ron DeSatanist

The University of Florida’s search for a new president violates the intent of a new state law that governs the process, according to state Sen. Jeff Brandes, who co-sponsored the measure in the Legislature this year.

The law keeps the early part of presidential searches secret as a way to attract high-caliber applicants who don’t want to jeopardize their current jobs. But it also requires universities to lift that confidentiality when “a final group of applicants” emerges.

Instead, UF officials announced one finalist, U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, and have refused to release the names of a dozen people they interviewed after reaching out to hundreds of possible candidates.

“My intent in proposing the public records exemption was that they would always propose multiple candidates,” Brandes, a St. Petersburg Republican, said in an interview. “The goal was to get to finalists, not announce who the person was as the only finalist.”

He added: “I think what they’ve done is make it harder for the Legislature in the future to support reauthorizing (the law). I think it was shortsighted so they can get their one candidate in.”

The law is automatically repealed in 2027 unless the Legislature reapproves it.

Brandes said the spirit of the law was to ensure that Florida had access to the most qualified candidates across the country. In past presidential searches, he said, those candidates were not applying because of Florida’s open record laws and fear of their current employers finding out.

He said UF’s decision to name one finalist makes it easy for the Legislature in the future to change the current law, which passed this year with bipartisan support after not getting enough traction in previous sessions.

“All they had to do was propose multiple individuals of the highest caliber — and, to me, that was the right way to do it,” Brandes said. “But we are where we are, and I don’t regret it.”

[LFC]

Why yes, the FBI is filled with right-wing domestic terrorist sympathizers. This is the real Deep State.