Dissident Politics: News bits: New coup attempt video; A DJT warning (again, sigh); Best people flock to MAGA!!

ARR (authoritarian radical right) House Republicans released 90 hours of video recording from DJT's treasonous 1/6 coup attempt. The authoritarian radical right immediately seized on the released videos as proof that the riot was (i) peaceful, (ii) people were brutally persecuted for no reason, and (iii) the violence was fomented by government agents. Note that (i) and (iii) contradict each other, but trivialities and irrationality like that are of no concern the enraged ARR crowd. Newsweek reports about the insulting ARR lie that the coup attempt was caused by federal agents:

Conspiracy theorists pointed to one clip they say proved federal agents were present at the riot. They have argued a video shows one rioter, Kevin Lyons, wearing one of Trump's signature "Make America Great Again" hats, while flashing an official government identification badge at a camera.

Skeptics, however, pointed out that Lyons was actually holding a vape—not a government ID—pouring cold water on the theory. Several high-profile conservatives pushed the theory, but were forced to backtrack amid criticism.

Sen. Mike Lee of Utah was among the Republicans who backed the theory, retweeting a post on X, formerly Twitter, Saturday night questioning whether Lyons was an "undercover federal agent."

"I can't wait to ask FBI Director Christopher Wray about this at our next oversight hearing. I predict that, as always, his answers will be 97% information-free," Lee wrote in a post on X.

Lee's post remained public Monday morning, and he has not addressed criticism that Lyons was actually holding a vape, despite a community note from X fact-checking him on the matter: "The person is not flashing a badge. He is not a government employee or source. It is Kevin Lyons, who was recently sentenced to 4 years in jail for his actions on January 6th. He called police officers Nazis,'" the community note reads.

So there we have it, high-ranking US senator Mike Lee, himself a vicious, ignorant liar, accusing the FBI of being information-free on the basis of a debunked crackpot lie directly contradicted by video evidence. What an effing hypocrite and liar.

That is how mendacious and morally rotted America's ARR Republican Party is.

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More people are going woke! Salon reports more warnings about what would happen if the kleptocrat dictator gets re-elected in 2024:

“Our democracy hangs by a thread”: Expert panel says a Trump victory in 2024 will end it

Fight through the trauma and exhaustion, our panel urges: The 2024 election could “end the American experiment”

Donald Trump and the movement he represents are not “just” a matter of politics: They are effectively a public health crisis that touches all areas of American society and life.

These assaults on democracy and a humane society are emotional, physical, spiritual, psychological, economic, intellectual and material. Trumpism and fascism attack reality and truth, seeking to replace them with what social psychologists have described as a state of “malignant normality."

The result of these assaults is a collective state of trauma, anxiety, lack of direction and growing despair about our futures as individuals and citizens of a supposed democracy. These negative emotions are amplified by existential fears about global climate disaster, disruptive technologies such as AI, wars in multiple areas of the world, past and future pandemics and other unpredictable crises.

Fascism and authoritarianism are like opportunistic predators. They seek out societies in crisis whose dysfunction and brokenness allow them to flourish.

If Trump and his MAGA forces take back the White House, whether by fair means or foul — a once-unthinkable prospect that now seems increasingly likely — that might finally mean the end of innocence for those Americans who have deluded themselves into believing that “we are better than that.”

Cheri Jacobus is a former media spokesperson at the Republican National Committee:

I look at the poll numbers and realize that half the country supports a lying, treasonous, dangerous, racist, sexist authoritarian who is under indictment, has been found liable for massive fraud, and who may be elected president because he's good for Fox News ratings and does Vladimir Putin's bidding. He's a lifelong criminal who likely sold or otherwise provided classified and top secret intelligence to our enemies and adversaries, and who managed to install a federal judge in the right jurisdiction to delay and obstruct his case, and generally assist him in covering up his crimes.

Joe Walsh was a Republican congressman and a leading Tea Party conservative:

Our democracy hangs by a thread, and a Trump victory in 2024 will end our democracy as we know it. People right now don't see this, and I worry that all the noise and chaos going on all over the world will keep people from recognizing the looming threat right in front of us. Biden looks overwhelmed by it all. That only strengthens Trump. .... What scares me the most right now is what's always scared me the most: Trump back in the White House, and a radicalized former political party of mine taking a sledgehammer to our democracy and our Constitution. The only thing that gives me hope is young people. Not because they understand any of this, but because they have the potential to understand. Older Americans are set in their ways. They're gone. Young people need to save this thing. I don't know if they will. But I know they can.

My goodness gracious. These people are starting to sound like Germaine has been sounding for the last ~7 years. I'm an Oracle. A seer. Sasquatch! I am being vindicated. MAGA!!

Why the hell is it taking so long for intelligent, informed people to see the freaking blatantly obvious? (rhetorical question)

But this post is not meant to say or imply that all MAGA people are pedophiles. It is just to point out that there are scumbags among the MAGA elites and the MAGA movement generally doesn't condemn the bad things the elites do. Trump is a great example.

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The MAGA movement continues to draw hoards of the best people to its valiant, patriotic cause. Rolling Stone reports:

Right-Wing ‘Moms for Liberty’ Organizer Is
a Convicted Sex Offender

MOMS FOR LIBERTY is a conservative parental rights group that has chapters all over the United States working to eradicate LGBTQ-related discussion in public schools, at least partially under the belief that educators are using it to “groom” children for sexual relationships. The group might want to look inward first. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on Monday that Phillip Fisher Jr. — a pastor, Republican ward leader, and faith coordinator for Moms for Liberty in Philadelphia — is a registered sex offender.

Fisher was convicted in 2012 for aggravated sexual abuse of a 14-year-old boy, with the charging documents saying that Fisher, then 25, engaged and oral and anal [😮] sex with the boy. Fisher, who pleaded guilty, told the Inquirer that the conviction was a “railroad job” by a PAC affiliated with Lyndon LaRouche, the cult-y former presidential candidate whose organization Fisher worked for at the time. “It was a political situation that happened between me and Lyndon LaRouche,” Fisher said. “It was a member of his camp, his party, that made the accusation. They pushed it through.”

How MAGA!! sees this /s: See, Fisher is innocent. It was a Choo & Choo Railroad job by the vast LaRouche conspiracy empire that got Fisher the Pure to plead guilty. He’s innocent I say, INNOCENT! Those darned socialist Dems are just a bunch of pedophiles ’n perverts. God will smite them good and hard until they are dead.