You Can’t Talk About Trump’s Georgia Case Without Talking About Racism
As the final bars of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” filled the room, former President Donald Trump took the stage in Windham, N.H. The audience, many of them white New Englanders and veterans, chanting “U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A” had to settle a bit before Trump could launch into a winding, military-themed speech at the August 8 campaign rally.
[NOTE: Anybody remember that #45 began his administration by lying about the size of his sparse inaugural crowd, and doctoring the photographs? Here we go again. In the past two weeks I received half a dozen texts and email pleas to show up at his monster 2024 campaign rally in tiny Pickens, South Carolina on July 1. It was to be a monumental show of strength.
It should have been; the location is deep in some of the Southeast’s reddest regions, where homeboy Senator Lindsay “Loyal Lapdog” Graham was loudly booed, as nowhere near red enough for the true believers. Pickens is not far from the two northernmost Georgia House districts, home to Reps Marjorie “Impeach Bush & Hunter’s Laptop Too” Taylor Greene, and Andy January-6-at-the-Capitol-was-just-a- “normal-tourist-visit” Clyde. So thanks to Newsweek for a deep-dive expert checking analysis of the breathless claims by local officials that the crowd was 50,000 –no, wait, 60K — oh, but really, 75 thousand. At least. The best expert estimates point to a sizeable crowd, but no monster. They also point to a year of more non-credible crowd numbers. 2024 will be a tough election anyway.]
NEWSWEEK — Fact Check
Donald Trump’s holiday weekend rally in Pickens, South Carolina, was heralded to have attracted tens of thousands of attendees, a seeming affirmation of his support for his 2024 White House campaign.
The former president used the occasion to tell supporters “all bets were off” in his battle against the Department of Justice, pledging to launch investigations against federal prosecutors as well as his main political opponent, Joe Biden.
During the course of the day, locals and fans estimated that 50,000 people had arrived to see Trump make campaign pitches, although not everyone was convinced the number was accurate. Continue reading Nerding Out: Did Trump’s July 1 Rally Actually Draw 50-75K People??
Feb. 5, 2021
Today, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III signed a memo directing commanding officers and supervisors at all levels to select a date within the next 60 days to conduct a one-day “stand-down” to discuss extremism in the ranks with their personnel.
The Department of Defense Instruction (DoDI) 1325.06, ” Handling Dissident and Protest Activities Among Members of the Armed Forces” provides the core tenets to support such discussions. Leaders have the discretion to tailor discussions with their personnel as appropriate, but such discussions should include the importance of our oath of office; a description of impermissible behaviors; and procedures for reporting suspected, or actual, extremist behaviors in accordance with the DoDI.
[NOTE: Austin sounded serious: after all, he spoke less than a month after the Jan. 6 coup attempt, when dozens of veterans and active duty military were in the invasion of the Capitol, leaving several dead and more than 150 wounded, disrupting the electoral count, sending members of Congress running and hiding for their lives, and chants of “Hang Mike Pence!” echoing in the supposedly hallowed hallways.
But that was then.
This is now. Or more precisely, about a week ago, May 20, 2023]:
Continue reading You Could See It Coming — CNN: Army ABANDONS anti-extremism effort
