Dirty politics & dirty tricks

James O'Keefe, the sleazemaster of Project Veritas

The New York Times writes on how the radical right lies and sleaze group, Project Veritas, aggressively intrudes into private lives to find dirt for Republican political advantage:

Ashley Biden’s Diary Was Shown at Trump Fund-Raiser. Weeks Later, 

Project Veritas Called Her.

The right-wing group’s deceptive call to the president’s daughter a month before Election Day is among the new details that show how the organization worked to expose personal information about the Biden family.

A month before the 2020 election, Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s daughter, Ashley, received a call from a man offering help. Striking a friendly tone, the man said that he had found a diary that he believed belonged to Ms. Biden and that he wanted to return it to her.

Ms. Biden had in fact kept a diary the previous year as she recovered from addiction and had stored it and some other belongings at a friend’s home in Florida where she had been living until a few months earlier. The diary’s highly personal contents, if publicly disclosed, could prove an embarrassment or a distraction to her father at a critical moment in the campaign.

She agreed with the caller to send someone to retrieve the diary the next day.

But Ms. Biden was not dealing with a good Samaritan.

The man on the other end of the phone worked for Project Veritas, a conservative group that had become a favorite of President Donald J. Trump, according to interviews with people familiar with the sequence of events. From a conference room at the group’s headquarters in Westchester County, N.Y., surrounded by other top members of the group, the caller was seeking to trick Ms. Biden into confirming the authenticity of the diary, which Project Veritas was about to purchase from two intermediaries for $40,000.

The caller did not identify himself as being affiliated with Project Veritas, according to accounts from two people with knowledge of the conversation. By the end of the call, several of the group’s operatives who had either listened in, heard recordings of the call or been told of it believed that Ms. Biden had said more than enough to confirm that it was hers.

Drawn from interviews, court filings and other documents, the new information adds further texture to what is known about an episode that has led to a criminal investigation of Project Veritas by federal prosecutors who have suggested they have evidence that the group was complicit in stealing Ms. Biden’s property and in transporting stolen goods across state lines.

And by showing that Project Veritas employed deception rather than traditional journalistic techniques in the way it approached Ms. Biden — the caller identified himself with a fake name — the new accounts could further complicate the organization’s assertions in court filings that it should be treated as a publisher and granted First Amendment protections. Project Veritas regularly carries out undercover stings, surveillance operations and ambush interviews, mostly against liberal groups and journalists.

At the same time, new information about the case suggests that the effort to make the diary public reached deeper into Mr. Trump’s circle than previously known.

A month before the call to Ms. Biden, the diary had been passed around a Trump fund-raiser in Florida at the home of a donor who helped steer the diary to Project Veritas and was later nominated by Mr. Trump to the National Cancer Advisory Board. 

Project Veritas — which is suing The New York Times for defamation in an unrelated case — has denied any wrongdoing or knowledge that the belongings had been stolen. It has portrayed itself as a media organization that is being unfairly investigated for simply doing journalism and has assailed the Justice Department and the F.B.I. for their handling of the case.

Prosecutors have signaled that they view the circumstances very differently, all but dismissing in one court filing the group’s defense that it was acting as a news organization, saying that “there is no First Amendment protection for the theft and interstate transport of stolen property.”

In response to a request to Project Veritas for comment, Mr. O’Keefe sent an email criticizing The Times. “Imagine writing so thoroughly divergent from reality and so mendacious with innuendo that there is literally no utterance that won’t make it worse,” he said.

At this point, I now firmly believe that: 

• America's radical right and in particular the Republican Party and its major donors and propagandists do not speak or act in good faith or with good will; 
• Relentless ill-will and bad faith come from a recognition that because their ideologies, morals and policy preferences are out of synch with an apparent permanent majority in America, the radical right minority has to resort to staunch anti-democratic authoritarianism in a desperate attempt to not lose the concentrated power and wealth the elites have long enjoyed; and
• Due to the desperate situation that radical right extremist elites find themselves, mostly laissez-faire capitalists and aggressive, vengeful Christian fundamentalists, the ends justify all means that might be feasible and practical, legal or not, moral or not, deadly or not, and dirty or not.  

So, is it time to unleash the dogs of dirty politics to look into the dirty laundry of Don Jr, Ivanka, Eric, Barron, Melania and the children, spouse and/or close relatives of Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell, Marjory Taylor Greene, Kevin McCarthy, Mike Pence, William Barr and all the rest of the morally rotted GOP leadership? We are in an all-out war of corruption, deceit, lies and American fascism against honesty, transparency, truth and American democracy. Maybe the ends do justify the means. 

Questions: Do political ends justify dirty politics and tricks means, e.g., since they are just legal dark free speech? Does it make any difference if democracy falls if its defenders do not adopt dirty politics and dirty tricks tactics? 

He's so sure of himself

Regarding the role of Christian nationalism in the 1/6 coup attempt

At the 1/6 insurrection

Experts have been analyzing the role of the Christian nationalist political movement in the 1/6 coup attempt. Results of that research is pointing to a significant but complex role. The Washington Post writes:

University of Oklahoma sociologist Samuel Perry, another participant in Thursday’s event, has written several books about religion and politics. New research for “The Flag and The Cross,” which comes out next month, shows a powerful correlation between people who subscribe to Christian nationalist beliefs and anti-democratic beliefs.

The book, co-written by Perry and Yale sociologist Philip Gorski, lays out a scale of Christian nationalism based on agreement with seven points, including “the federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation,” and “the success of the United States is part of God’s plan.”

Their research shows how, the higher people are on the Christian nationalism scale the more they tend to agree with the statement “we make it too easy to vote.” The same thing happens when people agree with the statements “the best way to stop bad guys with guns is to have good guys with guns,” and “authorities should be able to use any means necessary to keep law and order” and “if national security is at risk, I support torture.”

“Even after accounting for partisanship and political ideology, the more strongly White Americans affirm Christian nationalism, the more likely they were to respond to Trump’s election loss with a view that voting access should be restricted even more,” the book says.

“White Christian nationalism is not just in the people who stormed the Capitol but it’s powerfully associated and a leading predictor of whether people affirm authoritarian tactics to control populations they think are problems,” Perry told The Post.

Perry and other experts say new data does not indicate that an expanding percentage of the U.S. population hold these views. He says that is because of younger Americans being more secular and the Trump presidency heightening awareness of the issue.

However, it is wrong to see this group as “ineffective or in a dying grasp,” he said. Instead, they are becoming more angry and, he believes, dangerous. The book’s research showed that the same group more powerfully believed “it’s too easy to vote” after the 2020 election compared with before.

“As this group of Americans — Whites who believe the country is for people like them — the more they feel marginalized, in a corner, and can lean into that, there is more potential for them to become more radical, more militant,” he says. The topic becomes wrapped up in partisanship, with followers saying: “If the liberals hate this Christian nationalism, it must be good.”

Regarding Christian nationalism, NPR reported last January. NPR commented that CN beliefs include (i) masks and vaccinations violate religious freedom, (ii) the Jan. 6 insurrectionists were proud patriots, and (iii) the Biden administration is evil and illegitimate. NPR noted that “this movement of ultra-conservative, politicized churches is apparently on the march, though there are no firm numbers because the congregations are mostly nondenominational.”

NPR reported about the Patriot Church in Lenoir City, TN, where Rev. Ken Peters spoke to his congregation in a sermon entitled How Satan Destroys the World. Peters said: “Don't let the mainstream media or the left tell you that we were not a Christian nation. You know why there's churches everywhere and not mosques? Because we're a Christian nation! .... You know he's not the most popular president in America. How many Biden parades did you see? Yet he beat Trump with 70 million? Give me a break. We know something's up.”

After the sermon, one of the parishioners commented: “This is a spiritual battle. It's good versus evil. And, unfortunately, evil has taken charge.”

That is how Christian nationalism sees America and what it stands for.

The professional media awakens?

It may be the case that the professional new media are beginning to wake up to the existence, authoritarian fundamentalist agenda and toxic influence on the Republican Party and American society of the Christian nationalist political movement. If so, that would be some good news.

In the next few days, a post focused on the findings of a recent research report on the role of Christian nationalism in the 1/6 coup attempt will follow. 

Comedy before Reality? Zelensky version?

 I had no idea. I never heard of the sitcom Servant of the People. 

Found it this morning on my Netflix!

Well well, Comedy before Reality! Zelensky playing a school teacher who becomes President of Ukraine. Seriously?

Servant of the People review: Sitcom that propelled Zelensky to presidency has earned its place in cultural history

Now also the name of Zelensky’s political party, ‘Servant of the People’ is pacy, satirical, wry, earthy and honest.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/zelensky-sitcom-review-b2028841.html

Ukraine President Zelensky’s ‘Servant of the People’ on Netflix Is Shockingly Prescient

MUST-SEE TV

The streamer has made the first season of his hit TV series available, featuring Volodymyr Zelensky as a high school teacher who, after a viral rant, rises to the presidency.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ukraine-president-zelenskys-servant-of-the-people-on-netflix-is-shockingly-prescient

Have you all heard of this, and it is just this SNOWFLAKE who never did?

What's bubbling in the GOP propaganda cauldron?

Ah yes, the stench of Republican dark free speech tactics is upon us. As usual. This blast of smelly bad faith, ill-will and hypocrisy is all the rage, literally, in the Republican propaganda cauldron.

MTG cooking up some toxic rage and lies 

Slate writes about the sad cosmic joke of American politics:

As gas prices have surged over the past several months—and shot up even further following Russia’s incursion into Ukraine—Republicans have predictably tried to pin blame on the White House.

“Joe Biden caused this and doesn’t seem to care,” the Republican National Committee’s deputy communications director tweeted last week, echoing the stickers that Trump-voting motorists have been slapping onto gas pumps across the country.

But President Joe Biden did not cause this. In fact, other than sanctions against Russia—which the GOP broadly supported—the primary reasons why filling up your tank has gotten more expensive over the past year have almost nothing to do with America’s chief executive. This shouldn’t be a surprise, since presidents almost never have much direct control over gas prices. But unfortunately voters act like they do, which is sort of the sad cosmic joke of American politics.

.... based on the GOP’s rhetoric, you might be tempted to think that U.S. oil production had collapsed since Biden stepped into the Oval Office.

That’s just not the case: In fact, oil production has actually increased, from about 11 million barrels per day to 11.5 million barrels through 2021.

The Biden administration also did pause sales again last month, after a Trump-appointed judge blocked the administration from considering climate costs when auctioning oil leases. So it’s a GOP-approved official who’s forced this halt on land sales while the administration rejiggers its energy accounting.

The real reason U.S. oil production hasn’t returned to peak production levels has less to do with Biden’s energy policies than with the fossil fuel industry’s desire to earn a buck.

As demand for oil has resurged from its mid-2020 lows, producers have been under pressure from shareholders to “put profits over production increases” and “return cash to shareholders rather than pump it back into drilling,” to quote the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal, respectively. As a result, companies have only expanded production slowly.

Just listen to oil executives themselves. “Whether it’s $150 oil, $200 oil, or $100 oil, we’re not going to change our growth plans,” the CEO of Pioneer, which is the largest oil producer in the Permian Basin, the key oil-producing area of the Southwest, said at a Bloomberg event last month. “If the president wants us to grow, I just don’t think the industry can grow anyway.”  

Occidental Petroleum CEO Vicki Hollub has likewise said her company is focused on paying back investors at the moment: “I feel now that we do need to return cash to the shareholders in the form of dividends or buybacks, especially during the better cycles.”

And of course, as we all recall with perfect clarity, Republicans howled in sanctimonious outrage while Obama was in office that oil prices were too low. The Republicans hated Obama's guts for that along with the fact that he even existed as a human being. To fix that horrible Obama-caused situation, our awful Republican ex-president, supported by his awful Republican Party, helped to finagle an agreement to cut global oil production by a massive 9.7 million barrels per day. The New York Times wrote this about that:

Oil-producing nations on Sunday agreed to the largest production cut ever negotiated, in an unprecedented coordinated effort by Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States to stabilize oil prices and, indirectly, global financial markets.

Saudi Arabia and Russia typically take the lead in setting global production goals. But President Trump, facing a re-election campaign, a plunging economy and American oil companies struggling with collapsing prices, took the unusual step of getting involved after the two countries entered a price war a month ago. Mr. Trump had made an agreement a key priority.  

“This is at least a temporary relief for the energy industry and for the global economy,” said Per Magnus Nysveen, head of analysis for Rystad Energy, a Norwegian consultancy. “The industry is too big to be let to fail.”

There it is, too big to fail. And, as we all know, gas prices take the elevator up, but the stairs down. Profits for oil elites trump the public interest and the environment.

There's your daily dose of toxic Republican bad faith, ill-will and hypocrisy. No wonder the stew smells funny. It's got rotten things in it.