Book discussion: They want to kill Americans

The C-Span program Book TV aired an author's discussion about the book, They Want to Kill Americans: The Militias, Terrorists, and Deranged Ideology of the Trump Insurgency, by author Malcolm Nance. Nance argues that that another attack on U.S. soil is likely in view of what transpired in the January 6, 2021 coup attempt and the intelligence he was aware of before then. 

Nance was a counterterrorism analyst, but currently fights on the front lines with the Ukrainian army. He does that to defend what he sees as the seriously threatened eastern flank of democracy. His discussion on C-Span centers on what he sees as the seriously threatened western flank of democracy, namely the US.

The 56 minute discussion was taped on July 15, 2022 and first aired on Aug. 14.

The view that Nance takes makes my warnings about the seriousness and urgency of the threat that T**** and the Republican Party constitute feel understated. As the book title indicates, the They in his book title refers our heavily armed and very angry but deranged neighbors. He refers to Trumpism and the Republican Party as a cult.

A transcript of the program included these comments, which are at the link to the program given above.

At 17:48 Nance responded to a question about what the acronym TITUS referred to (bold emphasis added):

RIGHT. AND WHAT I WAS WATCHING WAS THESE PEOPLE ORGANIZE. NOT THE PROUD BOYS, THESE GUYS ARE EASY TO MONITOR. THESE GUYS ARE IDIOTS. THEY ARE ALL THESE WANT TO BE SPECIAL FORCES GUYS. THE PROUD BOYS ARE STREET THUGS. IT STARTED AS A GANG THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BEAT LIBERALS ON THE STREET WITH YOUR HANDS. BY GEORGE FLOYD SUMMER, EVERYBODY HAD AN AR-15. EVERYBODY WAS ROCKING BODY ARMOR. EVERYBODY WAS GOING OUT SPENDING $1000 ON A COMBAT HELMET AND WEARING SIZE 52 PENCE -- PANTS. WHAT WAS HAPPENING WAS THAT NAME , TITUS, WAS FORMING. THAT STANDS FOR TRUMP INSURGENTS IN THE UNITED STATES. IT WAS NOT BEING A BOOGALOO BOYS AND WEARING A HAWAIIAN SHORT -- A HAWAIIAN SHIRT. IT WAS NOT ABOUT BEING AN A OATH KEEPERS AND BELIEVING THE GOVERNMENT IS OUT TO GET YOU. IT WAS NOT ABOUT STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES IN WHITE SUPREMACY. THAT IS A GIVEN. IT IS ABOUT YOUR LOYALTY TO DONALD TRUMP. IF YOU ARE LOYAL TO DONALD TRUMP, YOU ALREADY SUBSCRIBE TO ALL OF THOSE THINGS. YOU HATED BLACK LIVES MATTER, ANITFA WAS AN ENEMY LIKE A KIND AND ISIS. IN YOUR HEAD, YOU MAY NEED TO HAVE A GUN BATTLE ON -- GUN BATTLE. ANOTHER THING PEOPLE WERE TALKING ABOUT, THERE IS ALWAYS THE SURVIVALIST ROLE. THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT THINGS BREAKING DOWN SO BADLY, AS ONE GOOD ANALYST SAID, A WORLD WITHOUT RULE OF LAW. WHEN THERE IS A NATURAL DISASTER AND THE COPS ARE NOT THERE. YOU HAVE TO PROTECT YOURSELF. IT GOT SO BAD THERE WAS ACTUALLY A FIRE IN OREGON, JUST A NATURAL FIRE, AND THIS ONE TOWN CONVINCED ITSELF THAT ANITFA SETS THE FIRES AND WAS COMING TO THE TOWN TO SET MORE FIRES. THEY JUST JUMPED UP, GOT ALL OF THEIR GUNS, SET UP ROADBLOCKS INTO THE TOWN AND TWO BLOGGERS FROM PORTLAND DROVE INTO THIS. IT COULD HAVE BEEN DEAD -- COULD HAVE BEEN THAT. THE POLICE DID NOT ARREST ANYONE . THE POLICE DID NOT SAY PUT YOUR WEAPONS ON THE GROUND, LET ME SEE YOUR HANDS AT THE CHECKPOINT. THE POLICE WERE LIKE WOULD YOU DISPERSE? TAKE YOUR WEAPON SONG. THIS IS RIDICULOUS. I'M NOT EVEN SURE IF THEY SAID THIS IS RIDICULOUS. IT WAS, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO ROADBLOCK THESE ROADS. IT WAS ANOTHER INDICATOR OF THE MADNESS THAT WAS NOW TAKING OVER , WHAT WOULD BE, THE TITUS. WHY DO I USE THAT PHRASE? IN THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY, WE LIKE PACKAGES. IT IS BETTER TO IDENTIFY YOUR THREAT WITH EQUAL TITLE. WHATEVER YOU WANT TO CALL IT. TITUS IS A PRETTY SOLID ACRONYM FOR PEOPLE WHO IT IS ALL ABOUT DONALD TRUMP. IT IS NOT ABOUT AMERICA, IT IS ABOUT A VERSION OF AMERICA THAT EXISTS RIGHT HERE. THERE IS ANY OLD STORY FROM "THE ONION," A FEW YEARS BACK, IT IS THE RECORD IN AMERICA. IT WAS "MAN PLEDGES ALLEGIANCE TO THE CONSTITUTION IN HIS HEAD ." A WILD MALONES OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS, THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, AND THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE THIS MAN THINKS IS THE CONSTITUTION. IT IS IN HIS HEAD. ALL OF THIS WAS MASS HYSTERIA STEMMING FROM THE CLERGY -- THE CRAZY WORDS OF DONALD TRUMP WHICH WAS FORMING THE WALLS ON THEIR BELIEF SYSTEM. THEN ENTER QANON WHICH IS A CRAZY GROUP. I KNOW YOU WILL GET TO THAT. THIS ALL CAME TOGETHER AND WAS READY AND POISED ON NOVEMBER 4. WHEN THEY DID NOT GET WHAT THEY WANTED, THEY DENIED REALITY. THEY BELIEVE DONALD TRUMP SHOULD DECLARE HIMSELF PRESIDENT. THEY LIT A MATCH. THAT SHOWED YOU WHO TITUS WAS. 40,000 PEOPLE. BEN SHAPIRO WHEN I SAID ON BILL MARK THAT THE PARK SERVICE HAS COUNTED THESE PEOPLE. THERE WERE 40,000 PEOPLE AT THE RALLY. DONALD TRUMP SAID ONE MILLION. 10,000 OF THEM ATTACKED AT THE CAPITAL. YOU CAN SEE IN A EASY 2000, 3000, 4000 IF YOU LOOK DOWN THE STEPS ON ONE SPOT. HE WAS LIKE, THAT IS A LIE. JULY. I REMEMBER SITTING THERE THINKING EITHER THIS IS AN ACT OR YOU NEVER LEARNED ARITHMETIC OR HE THOUGHT IT WAS ONE MILLION. HE IS A PROPAGANDIST SO HE DOES NOT KNOW. HE DOES IS LITTLE ANGRY CHIPMUNK ROUTINE. I THOUGHT, THIS IS A LEVEL OF DENIAL THAT IS DANGEROUS. YOU SAW TITUS EMERGE. THE FRONT END OF THOSE PEOPLE WHERE THE MALICIOUS AND TERRORIST GROUPS, THE PROUD BOYS. THE REST OF THEM WERE NOT MEMBERS OF THOSE GROUPS.

At 24:56 Nance talked about what the US intelligence community knew before 1/6 and what the House 1/6 Committee was disclosing at the time C-Span taped the program:

PLANNING WAS OBVIOUS TO ME. THE JANUARY 6 COMMITTEE IS JUST GETTING TO REVEALING WHAT MOST ANALYSTS WERE SEEING IN REAL-TIME PRINCIPALLY IN NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER. I HAVE BEEN SEEING A LOT OF THESE GUN GROUPS AND PATRIOTS, RANGE PARTY GROUPS GET TOGETHER AND START SAYING YOU HAVE GOT TO GET TACTICAL TRAINING BY THE ELECTION. THERE WERE GUN RANGES, THERE WAS AN EX NAVY SEAL RUNNING PATRIOT CLASSES. WHO NEEDS PATRIOT CLASSES IN CLOSE QUARTER BATTLE? WHO IS GOING TO HAVE TO COME THROUGH A DOOR AND CLEARED A ROOM IN AN URBAN WARFARE ENVIRONMENT? NOT SOMEONE WHO IS SHOOTING PAPER. NOT SOMEONE WHO IS TRYING TO GAIN PROFICIENCY AT IT HUNDRED YARDS. THAT IS SOMEONE WHO PLANS ON DOING BATTLE IN CLOSE QUARTERS. WE WERE SEEING ALL OF THAT AND IT WAS BECOMING FRANTIC IN THE RUN-UP TO THE ELECTION. AFTER THAT, THE ORGANIZATION OF THE LEADER OF THE CROWD WAS SPEAKING TO THE LEADER OF THE OATH KEEPERS, THAT WAS HAPPENING A LOT. THEY WERE SAYING IT, I MET WITH X AND I MET WITH Y. BY THE DECEMBER PROTESTS IN WASHINGTON, D.C. WHERE THEY WERE WILLING TO DO ARMS PROTEST -- ARMED COMBAT WITH ANITFA. THEY ARE LIKE ISIS. I AM NOT JOKING. THEIR CORE PHILOSOPHY IS IF YOU ARE NOT ONE OF US, WE CAN KILL YOU. YOU HAVE TO JOIN US TO SURVIVE. THESE GUYS WERE COORDINATED AND I HOPE THE WHOLE -- AND I HAVE A WHOLE CHAPTER OF IT WHERE THEY ARE JUST TALKING ABOUT IT THIS WEEK. THIS BOOK WAS DONE LAST AUGUST. YOU ARE READING A PRODUCT THAT WAS A YEAR AHEAD OF THESE BRIEFINGS. ANOTHER THING I DO IS I GO OUT EVEN FURTHER AS TO WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN AFTER THIS. TALKING ABOUT THEM ORGANIZING IS NATURAL. IN MANY INSTANCES I HAD TO GO BACK AND SAY THERE IS A GAP OF INFORMATION HERE. THAT IS HOW THE ANALYST COMMUNITY DOESN'T, THERE ARE TWO CONVERSATIONS I AM MISSING HERE. THEY WOULD HAVE TO SAY WHATEVER IS IMPACTING THE NEXT CONVERSATION. WE COULD RE-CREATE THEIR MEETINGS AND ANOTHER JANUARY 6 HAS THEIR RECORDS AND THEY HAVE ALL OF THOSE MEETINGS AND THEY WERE AN ARMY ORGANIZING.

The treasonous ex-president plans for his 2nd term: Dictatorship, bigotry & cruelty are on tap

The traitor ex-president is acting like he will run for president again in 2024. Maybe he is serious, or maybe he is just continuing his massive grift. His recent speeches are laying out his agenda. In his speeches, T**** discusses six policies he wants to implement if he gets back in office. The Washington Post writes:

Strip job protections for federal workers

In October 2020, Trump signed an executive order reclassifying tens of thousands of federal workers to remove their employment protections and make them easier to fire. The National Treasury Employees Union sued to stop the change, and before a court could rule on the challenge, Biden took office and revoked the order.

Lately, Trump has declared his intent to restore the change and put it to greater use. He’s gone further by calling on Congress to overhaul the civil service through a statute, which could be more sweeping and harder to reverse than an executive order.

Shrinking the federal bureaucracy and thereby weakening the civil service has been a long-standing conservative goal. Good-government groups say undermining the merit-based workforce would hurt professionalism and lead to politicization, reviving the “spoils system” of the 19th century, when government jobs were doled out to reward partisan supporters.

Restrict voting to one day using paper ballots

Trump’s grievances over losing the 2020 election and baseless conspiracy theories about voter fraud have inspired Republican state lawmakers across the country to propose and adopt new voting restrictions. Trump has called for measures such as universal voter ID since disbanding in 2018 the commission he established to back up his false claim of millions of fraudulent votes costing him the 2016 popular vote.

Trump has recently added a demand for same-day voting using paper ballots. “That should be our goal,” he said at CPAC. The proposal echoes his false claims blaming mail ballots and electronic voting machines for his loss in 2020.

Deploy federal force against crime, unrest and protests

During the social justice protests that followed George Floyd’s murder in 2020, .... Trump threatened to deploy the military unless state and local officials cracked down harder on the protests.

In recent speeches, Trump has said he showed too much deference to local leaders and wished he’d ordered more federal intervention. Trump indicated he wouldn’t hesitate in the future.

“The next president should use every power at his disposal to restore order, and if necessary, that includes sending in the National Guard or the troops,” Trump said at CPAC on Aug. 6. “I think the next time, either we’re going for a very quick change or we’re sending them in.”

Eliminate the Education Department

“Across the country, we need to implement strict prohibitions on teaching inappropriate racial, sexual and political material to America’s schoolchildren in any form whatsoever,” Trump said at CPAC, “and if federal bureaucrats are going to push this radicalism, we should abolish the Department of Education.”

The Education Department, created in 1980, has about 4,400 employees and a discretionary budget of more than $78 billion. Most of the money goes to grants for local agencies to serve disadvantaged or disabled students and to financial aid or loan subsidies for college students. Trump did not specify whether some or all of those functions would be reassigned to other agencies or eliminated.

“Repealing the department doesn’t actually mean much if you don’t repeal the laws it’s responsible for implementing or enforcing,” said Michael J. Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which conducts research on education, and a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. “If you wanted to actually get rid of not just the name but everything it does, you’re talking about taking away tens of billions of dollars from K-12 schools and higher education, which would be incredibly unpopular.”

Move homeless people to outlying ‘tent cities’

Trump’s solution is to move homeless people to “tent cities” on the outskirts of metropolitan areas, staffed with medical professionals and built to house hundreds of thousands or even millions of people.

“The only way you’re going to remove the homeless encampments and reclaim our downtowns is to open up large parcels, large tracts, of relatively inexpensive land on the outer skirts of the various cities and bring in medical professionals, psychiatrists, psychologists and drug rehab specialists and create tent cities,” Trump said on Aug. 6 at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas. “You don’t have time to build buildings, you can do that later, but you have to get the people off the street. We have to bring back, we have to reclaim our cities.”

Execute drug dealers

Trump has a long record of supporting the death penalty and has advocated executing people for drug crimes since at least 2018. His recent speeches have repeatedly returned to the idea as part of his public-safety messaging.

“If you look at countries all throughout the world, no matter where you go, the only ones that don’t have a drug problem are those that institute the death penalty for drug dealers,” Trump said at a law-and-order-themed speech in Las Vegas in July. In the Washington speech, he elaborated by calling for a joint task force of the departments of Justice and Homeland Security to dismantle gangs and organized street crime.

Building an American dictatorship 

The first two, making firing federal workers easy and undermining elections are core tactics that Viktor Orban used to kill democracy in Hungary in ~2010-2012. Orban fired large numbers of professional bureaucrats, claiming austerity, and then replaced them with twice as many loyalists. That cemented destruction of honest and professional government and its replacement with corrupt incompetent government. Orban also targeted elections to rig them so that he could never lose an election. He has since won three elections that experts assert were blatantly fraudulent.

In a nutshell, Orban deployed demagoguery to neuter government and voter's power in elections to install himself. Accomplishing those goals were needed to set himself up as dictator for life in Hungary.

The ex-president's intent to establish himself as the first American dictator for life is crystal clear here. There is no dispute. To reinforce his new power from neutering professional government and voters in elections, T**** also proposes sending in the military to put down protests. He is willing to use the US military to shoot people dead in the streets.

Establishing and normalizing Christian and racist bigotry

Eliminating the education department is T****'s nod to the radical Christian nationalist wing of the Republican Party. That goal is fascist radical right culture war. T**** and the GOP Christian nationalists desperately want to be able to (i) re-write inconvenient parts of history to sanitize and Christianize the inconveniences, and (ii) openly discriminate against the LGBQT community, racial and ethnic minorities, women and all non-Christians in public schools. Eliminating the US education department makes a lot of sense. Truth is a deadly enemy to fascism and intolerant Christian theocracy and racial and ethnic minorities are hated by racists. The federal education department acts to tamp down the lies and bigotry, so it has to go.

Implementing and normalizing vicious cruelty

Moving the homeless out of cities and executing drug dealers is harsh, but there probably is some or a lot of support for those measures. Obviously, the idea of moving homeless people first and then adding human support and physical infrastructure is nonsense. That would never happen. The homeless would just  be forced into "temporary" tent camps and rotten conditions. T**** and the GOP have no intent of ever dealing with the squalor and misery the homeless would be living in outside the cities. Homeless people are just unsightly human wreckage. Once they are pushed out of sight and out of mind, they will be abandoned in prison camps where people won't see the squalor.

Either way, dead or forced into tent camps, out of sight means out of mind. T**** and Republican elites are damn cruel mofos.

T**** advocating for tent cities

The rule of law, failing or not?

In recent years, the rule of law has seemed weak when it comes to dealing with white collar crime. The problem seems to be especially acute for politicians and crimes related to politics. Although the DoJ now states that there is an ongoing criminal investigation(s) of the ex-president, that is no guarantee of any indictment, much less any conviction for anything. From the looks of things, practiced white collar criminals have figured effective ways to commit many or most crimes and evade laws.

The New York Times describes an example of the near impossibility of convicting criminals who know how to play the system. The NYT writes:

Trump Executive Nears Plea Deal With Manhattan Prosecutors

Allen H. Weisselberg, who was charged with participating in a tax scheme, will not cooperate with the district attorney’s investigation into Donald J. Trump.

If it becomes final, a plea deal for the executive, Allen H. Weisselberg, would bring prosecutors no closer to indicting the former president but would nonetheless brand one of his most trusted lieutenants a felon.

While Mr. Weisselberg, 75, is facing financial penalties as well as up to 15 years in prison if convicted by a jury, a plea deal would avoid a high-profile trial and spare him a lengthy sentence. Two people with knowledge of the matter said that Mr. Weisselberg was expected to receive a five-month jail term. With time credited for good behavior, he is likely to serve about 100 days.

Prosecutors have long hoped that they could persuade Mr. Weisselberg to testify against Mr. Trump, given his decades in the employ of the Trump family and his vast knowledge of the company and its business practices.

Mr. Trump and his company have long maintained that Mr. Weisselberg would have had to lie to implicate Mr. Trump. Still, his decision to plead guilty — and accept prison time — underscores the extent of his loyalty to a family that has employed him for nearly a

half-century. 

Even without Mr. Weisselberg’s cooperation, the prosecutors continued to build a case against Mr. Trump, focusing on whether he falsely inflated the value of his hotels, golf clubs and other assets.

But Mr. Vance had decided not to run for re-election, and after weeks of meetings about the case, Mr. Bragg developed concerns about the challenge of showing that Mr. Trump intended to break the law, a requirement for proving the charge under consideration.

Weisselberg faces up to 15 years in jail, but is going to serve maybe 1-2 years. That is a farce. It is nothing. Weisselberg appears to be on the verge of getting off with a scolding accompanied by some finger wagging. 

Naughty boy, naughty, naughty boy. 

Weisselberg's response: 

Blow it out your tailpipe, you wuss

I'm not gonna rat him out

There, the punishment fit his crime. Justice has been served for the criminal Weisselberg. For the rest of us? Arguably not so much, or not at all.

If that is how this turns out for Weisselberg, big effing deal. 

I argue that this is yet more evidence the rule of law is usually a farce for people like Weisselberg and his criminal, traitor boss. T**** is laughing in our faces and the law cannot do a damned thing about it. Well, at least the law has yet to do a damned thing about it, and it has had years and years to act.

Q: Is the rule of law failing or not?

About those declassified documents

The New York Times writes:

Presidential Power to Declassify Information, Explained

While it is legally irrelevant, former President Donald J. Trump claims he had declassified the top secret files the F.B.I. seized at his Florida residence.

On Friday, Mr. Trump’s office claimed that when he was president, he had a “standing order” that materials “removed from the Oval Office and taken to the residence were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them,” according to a statement read on Fox News by a right-wing writer Mr. Trump has designated as one of his representatives to the National Archives.

Apart from whether there is any evidence that such an order actually existed, the notion has been greeted with disdain by national security legal specialists. Glenn S. Gerstell, the top lawyer for the National Security Agency from 2015 to 2020, pronounced the idea that whatever Mr. Trump happened to take upstairs each evening automatically became declassified — without logging what it was and notifying the agencies that used that information — “preposterous.”

The claim is also irrelevant to Mr. Trump’s potential troubles over the document matter, because none of the three criminal laws cited in a search warrant as the basis of the investigation depend on whether documents contain classified information.

Is the classification system enforced by criminal law?

Largely not.

For the most part, the classification system is about bureaucratic controls. The main punishment for disobedience is administrative: Officials can be admonished, lose their security clearances and be fired.

Can presidents declassify matters directly?

Yes, because it is ultimately their constitutional authority. 

Do presidents have to obey the usual procedures?

There is no Supreme Court precedent definitively answering that question.

Can a president secretly declassify information without leaving a written record or telling anyone?

That question, according to specialists in the law of government secrecy, is borderline incoherent. 

If there is no directive memorializing a decision to declassify information and conveying it to the rest of the government, the action would essentially have no consequence, as departments and agencies would continue to consider that information classified and so would continue to restrict access to documents containing it.  

“Hypothetical questions like ‘What if a president thinks to himself that something is declassified? Does that change its status?’ are so speculative that their practical meaning is negligible,” said Steven Aftergood, a secrecy specialist with the Federation of American Scientists.

He added: “It’s a logical mess. The system is not meant to be deployed in such an arbitrary fashion.”

Huh??

Despite the NYT article assertion that declassification is irrelevant, in my opinion it does not provide comfort that T**** is going to be indicted, convicted and jailed for anything. Maybe a sharply worded rebuke from someone might be forthcoming. Or maybe not. 

Borderline incoherence is not illegal. In fascist Republican politics, it is as common as actual incoherence. It’s also not rare in Democratic Party politics. Speculation that is preposterous or that has negligible practical meaning is also not illegal. Aiding in T****’s defense is the expert’s assertion that the system “is a logical mess” and a statement that “the system is not meant to be deployed in such an arbitrary fashion.” Who gives a hoot about how a system is meant to be deployed, unless that intent is backed by meaningful criminal law? Fascist Republicans could not care less about the “spirit of the law.” They do care about winning, power and wealth. 

Heck, they usually don’t even care much or at all about “the letter of the law,” since it is so rarely applied to politics. 

All-in-all, it sounds a lot like we have a mostly toothless secrecy system that is easily and legally subverted by (i) a treasonous or corrupt president, and (ii) a bureaucrat, treasonous or corrupt or not. 

Preposterous speculation

Maybe the law about retaining government documents that T**** and the Republicans in congress passed (in 2018?) will come back to bite the traitor. T**** and the Republicans passed that law to nail Hillary Clinton with a felony if it turned out that she had illegally kept government documents. She didn't break the Republican anti-Hillary law, but maybe T**** did. 

Unfortunately, whacking T**** with his own law requires the DoJ to have the guts to vindicate the rule of law. In view of its track record so far, that assumption is preposterous speculation. It is deployed in such an arbitrary fashion that it carries negligible practical meaning, if you catch my drift. 

America’s descent into hate, chaos and violence

NBC News writes:

A Louisiana school librarian is suing two men for defamation after they accused her of advocating to keep "pornographic" materials in the parish library's kids' section. It's a rare example of an educator taking legal action against conservatives who use extreme rhetoric in their battle against LGBTQ-themed books.

Amanda Jones, a librarian at a middle school in Denham Springs, Louisiana, filed a defamation lawsuit Wednesday, arguing that Facebook pages run by Michael Lunsford and Ryan Thames falsely labeled her a pedophile who wants to teach 11-year-olds about anal sex.

Jones, the president of the Louisiana Association of School Librarians, was alarmed and outraged by the verbal attacks, which came after she spoke against censorship at a Livingston Parish Library Board of Control meeting. She said she’s suing the two men because she’s exhausted with the insults hurled at educators and librarians over LGBTQ materials.

“I’ve had enough for everybody,” Jones said in an interview. “Nobody stands up to these people. They just say what they want and there are no repercussions and they ruin people’s reputations and there’s no consequences.”

Lunsford did not respond to requests for comment. Thames declined to comment.

Nationwide, school districts have been bombarded by conservative activists and parents over the past year demanding that books with sexual references or that discuss racial conflict, often by authors of color or those who are LGBTQ, be purged from campuses. Those demands have slowly moved toward public libraries in recent months.

Many conservative activists have referred to people who defend the books as “groomers,” comparing them to child molesters. The Proud Boys, an extremist hate group, has barged into LGBTQ-themed reading events in several libraries, insisting they need to protect children. Some librarians have said they no longer feel safe serving in their roles.

More than 600 people donated a combined $20,000 for Jones on GoFundMe so she could respond with legal action.

The defamation suit seeks damages and asks a judge to issue a restraining order to prevent the two activists from speaking about Jones publicly. She also filed criminal complaints with the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office against the men. The sheriff’s office said the case is under investigation.

CNN writes:

The FBI is investigating an "unprecedented" number of threats against bureau personnel and property in the wake of the search of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, including some against agents listed in court records as being involved in the recent search, a law enforcement source tells CNN.

In the days following the search [at Mar-a-Lago], violent threats surfaced online, with posters writing, "Garland needs to be assassinated" -- referencing Attorney General Merrick Garland, who "personally approved" the decision to seek a warrant -- and "kill all feds." Additionally, the biography and contact information of the federal magistrate judge who signed the search warrant was wiped from a Florida court's website after he too became the target of violent threats.

The New York Times writes:

As Right-Wing Rhetoric Escalates, So Do Threats and Violence

Both threats of political violence and actual attacks have become a steady reality of American life. Experts blame dehumanizing and apocalyptic language.

In the year and a half since a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, threats of political violence and actual attacks have become a steady reality of American life, affecting school board officials, election workers, flight attendants, librarians and even members of Congress, often with few headlines and little reaction from politicians.

In late June, a former Marine stepped down as the grand marshal of a July 4 parade in Houston after a deluge of threats that focused on her support of transgender rights. A few weeks later, the gay mayor of an Oklahoma city quit his job after what he described as a series of “threats and attacks bordering on violence.”

While this welter of events may feel disparate, occurring at different times and places and to different types of people, scholars who study political violence point to a common thread: the heightened use of bellicose, dehumanizing and apocalyptic language, particularly by prominent figures in right-wing politics and media.

Several right-wing or Republican figures reacted to the search of Mar-a-Lago not only with demands to dismantle the F.B.I., but also with warnings that the action had triggered “war.”

“This just shows everyone what many of us have been saying for a very long time,” Joe Kent, a Trump-endorsed House candidate in Washington State, said on a podcast run by Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former chief political strategist. “We’re at war.”  

On Thursday, a 42-year-old Ohio man, identified as Ricky W. Shiffer, showed up at the Cincinnati field office of the F.B.I. with an AR-15-style rifle and was subsequently shot to death after firing multiple times at the police during a standoff. There is no evidence of what prompted Mr. Shiffer to act. But Mr. Shiffer’s social media posts later revealed that he was full of rage about, among other things, the search at Mar-a-Lago — and that he wanted revenge.  

“Violence is not (all) terrorism,” he wrote — on Mr. Trump’s own social media app, Truth Social. “Kill the F.B.I. on sight.”

Violence is not terrorism? That is blithering nonsense. Violence can be terrorism when it is illegal and unwarranted.   

This childish, mindless hate and violence is what decades of poisonous Republican Party lies, slanders, irrational emotional manipulation and crackpot conspiracy bullshit has encouraged and unleashed. Millions of Americans are morphing into domestic terrorists based on nothing but lies, slanders and irrational drivel. Fascist Republican elites, donors and their propagandists incite the hate, chaos and violence. This is Republican Party’s way of attacking and destroying democracy, the rule of law, civil liberties and respect for truth, especially inconvenient truth.

Being focused purely on winning power and based on lies and deceit, these fascist lies, slanders and attacks are unprincipled and incoherent. The Republican Party incites and condones it all, making it a fascist domestic terrorist organization.

Q: It is time for law enforcement to classify the Republican Party as a domestic terrorist organization?

Rank and file fascists?

If not, then what?