Sen. 'RUSSIAN' Ron Johnson Told Capitol Security Officials That “Fake” Trump Supporters Started The Capitol Riots

Johnson, who refused to condemn Trump’s lies about the election, suggested Trump supporters were not actually responsible for the Jan. 6 attack.

Paul McLeodBuzzFeed News Reporter

Reporting From

Washington, DC

Posted on February 23, 2021, 

Pool / Getty Images

Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin

WASHINGTON — Sen. Ron Johnson claimed Tuesday that left-wing “provocateurs” and “fake” Trump supporters sparked the violence at the Capitol riots.

Johnson made the comments as Capitol Hill security chiefs testified before a Senate committee investigating how rioters were able to breach the Capitol on Jan.

Both Democrat and Republican senators spent their time grilling security heads on the logistics of what went wrong, before Johnson read a lengthy passage from a piece published in the right-wing website the Federalist titled “I Saw Provocateurs at the Capitol Riot on Jan. 6” by J. Michael Waller.

Waller claimed, without evidence, that people “whom I presumed to be Antifa or other leftist agitators” were the ones who attacked police officers and turned “unsuspecting marchers into an invading mob.” He described the Trump-supporting crowd as overwhelmingly peaceful and included a section about how they did not even litter.

BuzzFeed News was on the ground outside the Capitol on Jan. 6 and witnessed hundreds of Trump supporters attacking the Capitol, as well as media and police, carrying Trump signs and waving Trump flags. Many of the rioters who have been charged for the insurrection have explicitly said that they are Trump supporters who came to DC prepared for a fight and went into the Capitol because they believed Trump was directing them to. Joseph Padilla, who is charged among other things with joining a group that attacked police with a giant Trump sign with a metal frame, for example, posted on TheDonald after Jan. 6 that he wanted to be clear it was “Patriots” like himself who attacked the Capitol, not “Antifa,” according to charging documents unsealed on Tuesday.

Johnson spent most of his allotted time for questioning witnesses by reading passages from the Federalist piece that painted Trump supporters as overwhelmingly peaceful and made unsubstantiated suggestions that left-wing provocateurs were actually responsible for the attack.

“I’d really recommend everyone on the committee read this account,” Johnson said.

Johnson was one of 13 Republican senators who announced they would vote against certifying Joe Biden’s Electoral College win leading up to the Jan. 6 count. Several of them, including Johnson, reversed course after the Capitol siege and voted for certifying the results. The crowd had stormed the Capitol in an attempt to stop the count after then-president Donald Trump told them to “fight like hell” to stop the election from being stolen.

For weeks after the election, Johnson refused to condemn Trump’s lies about the election. The Republican senator repeatedly called for investigations into purported irregularities, lending credence to Trump’s false claims.

The Senate Rules and Administration Committee hearing Tuesday was intended to analyze the security breakdowns of Jan. 6. The committee repeatedly heard that the National Guard, under the control of Trump, was slow to get involved. Acting DC Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee III described being “stunned” as the federal government dragged its heels on sending in troops.

But Johnson warned his colleagues against second-guessing decisions made that day. “2020 is hindsight, it’s pretty easy to Monday-morning quarterback and I want to make sure we guard against doing so,” he said.

Zoe Tillman contributed reporting to this story.

NOT JUST PAGANS

Naked and unashamed: Christians strip down at a South Texas nudist community

Public nudity may seem antithetical to the modesty often promoted by churches, but to Christian naturists, the two go hand in hand.

Bill and Misty Katz pose in front of their home at Nature's Resort on March 16, 2022, in Elsa, Texas. Photo by Jeremy Lindenfeld

June 28, 2022

By 

Jeremy Lindenfeld

(RNS) — Outside the small Texas town of Elsa, a sheet metal fence too tall to see over surrounds a few acres of prime Rio Grande Valley land. In front of the compound’s drab, gray gate, bright orange letters spell out “Nature’s Resort.” The gate opens to reveal a seemingly ordinary community. RVs and small homes line the roads, péntaque and pickleball courts offer residents recreational spaces, and the front office acts as the community’s nucleus.

Nothing looks amiss, except that is, for what’s missing — namely, clothing.

Misty Katz, part owner of Nature’s Resort, finds comfort in shunning clothes. Growing up in South Africa, she was scolded by her parents for undressing in public when her clothes got dirty. She didn’t take those lessons too seriously. More than half a century later, she lives at a nudist (or naturist) resort in South Texas and doesn’t worry about dirty clothes anymore.

For as long as Katz has been a nudist, she has also been a Christian.

Public nudity may seem antithetical to the modesty often promoted by churches, but to Katz, the two go hand in hand. “Believe it or not, we are modest,” Katz says. “Modesty doesn’t mean you have to cover everything up. We don’t display our wares, we’re not adorning various parts of our bodies in a way that’s going to attract attention.

Her idea of modesty echoes Pope John Paul II’s 1981 book “Love and Responsibility,” in which he writes “nakedness itself is not immodest.” He goes on to explain that immodesty presents itself only when nakedness serves to sexually arouse.

Bill and Misty Katz woodwork in the nude at their home in Elsa, Texas, on March 16, 2022. Photo by Jeremy Lindenfeld

At Nature’s Resort, public nudity is not sexual. “The initial conception is that this is a sexual thing,” Katz says. “People think we’re all out on the front lawn having sex with each other, swapping partners. In fact, if there is any overt sexuality, you see that gate open real fast and somebody is ushered out.”

Some Christian critics of nudism, including Mary Lowman of The Christian Working Woman, see the lifestyle as an affront to God. On her website’s page The Christian Dress Code, Lowman claims “God’s dress code from the beginning has been to cover our nakedness.”

Even still, nudism attracts unlikely allies. Some nondenominational, hard-line conservative clergy accept nudism. Pastor Ron Smith, of McAllen’s Church of the King, vehemently opposes homosexuality, abortion and the transgender community, but when it comes to nudism, his strident views loosen up.

“I think it’s odd, I think it’s strange, but I have no proof it’s sinning,” Smith said. “We have a retired couple that sit in the front row every Sunday that live at a nudist camp. I believe they’re dedicated Christians.”

Because the Bible doesn’t explicitly forbid nudism, Smith says he cannot condemn those who practice it. In fact, the Bible condones nudism on several occasions: “Adam and Eve were in the garden talking to God every day. They were nude,” Katz says. “When David had his big victory in battle, he went dancing in the streets naked to praise God. So, that must be OK in God’s eyes.”

Pastor Ron Smith at Church of the King in McAllen, Texas, on March 17, 2022. Photo by Jeremy Lindenfeld

Katz isn’t the only Christian at Nature’s Resort. Chip and Daisy are a married couple who requested to exclude their last names so friends and family don’t learn of their nudism. They, like most everyone at Nature’s Resort, are winter Texans, retirees spending their summers up north and coming down to the Rio Grande Valley when temperatures start to drop.

Chip, a Black man, is also one of the only residents of color out of the up to 250 people in the community. Like Katz, Chip and Daisy find nudism fits neatly into their Christianity and see it enhancing their religious lives. “In a nudist environment, the true Christian belief of valuing others and not judging others is accentuated,” Daisy says. “Here, you don’t judge someone for what they look like or what they wear.”

“It’s one thing to be with Christians in a building,” Chip says. “It’s another thing to be with Christians who are nudists. There’s a deeper connectivity.”

Though Nature’s Resort is not explicitly religious, it is affiliated with the American Association for Nude Recreation, an organization with deep Christian roots. AANR, once named the American Sunbathing Association, and the American League for Physical Culture before that, was led by Ilsley Boone in the 1930s.

Misty Katz stands at the front desk of Nature’s Resort in Elsa, Texas. Photo by Jeremy Lindenfeld

Boone was a Dutch Reformed minister and a driving force behind popularizing Christian naturism in the U.S., where he preached a religiously enriching nudism. Christian naturism, popular in the early 20th century, continues to find success in the digital age on online forums.

---

RELATED: Dissent from Traditional Plan dominates United Methodists’ top court meeting

---

And though Nature’s Resort’s particular brand of nudism is not the Christian variety, some of its members have found the lifestyle deeply spiritual.

“I think it’s far easier being a Christian nudist than being a Christian nonnudist,” Katz says. “That’s because as a Christian, you’ve got to love everybody. And as a nudist, you do love everybody.”

ANTI CONSTITUTIONAL CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM

Florida offers new training for teachers that says it was a 'misconception' that 'the Founders desired strict separation of church and state': report

Sarah Al-Arshani
Sat, July 2, 2022 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at a press conference to discuss Florida's civics education initiative at Crooms Academy of Information Technology in Sanford

.Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis previously announced a 3-day civics training program for teachers.

Some teachers who attended say they're concerned the training is one-sided, The Washington Post reported.

The training said it's a "misconception" that "the Founders desired strict separation of church and state."




New civics education training for Florida teachers promotes inaccurate ideas about the separation of church and state, teachers told The Washington Post.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida Department of Education announced that they'll host 10 regional 3-day civics professional learning training sessions for 2,500 teachers this summer to accommodate over 2,500 teachers during the summer of 2022. The training comes with a $700 stipend.

The FDOE said the training would "be aligned to the revised civics and government standards," but some teachers have expressed concern about the instructions.

During a press conference on Thursday, DeSantis said the new civic education was pushing back on the "woke indoctrination" of children and said kids in the state were learning "real history."

"We're unabashedly promoting civics and history that is accurate and that is not trying to push an ideological agenda," he said.

According to the Post, the training included the phrase that it is a "misconception" that "the Founders desired strict separation of church and state."

"My takeaway from the training is that civics education in the state of Florida right now is geared toward pushing some particular points of view," Broward County teacher Richard Judd told the Post. "The thesis they ran with is that there is no real separation of church and state."

Judd told the Post trainers that teachers were told, "This is the way you should think."

DeSantis has recently pushed legislation that would limit what students can learn or discuss on history, race, and gender, and sexuality.

Presentation slides from the training, which were obtained by The Miami Herald through a public records request, feature graphics that illustrate George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were opposed to slavery while neglecting to mention that they owned slaves.

George Washington, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson all cultivated weed on their plantations. George Washington is said to have preferred a good pipeful of the “leaves of hemp” to any alcoholic drink. Prior to the Civil War, pot was a very successful drug when used to cure insomnia and impotence.

did george washington grow weed - DOROTHYJOSEPH.COM

Barbara Segal, a 12th-grade government teacher at Fort Lauderdale High School, told the Tampa Bay Times that the training was "very skewed."

"There was a very strong Christian fundamentalist way toward analyzing different quotes and different documents. That was concerning," Segal said.

Anna Fusco, president of the Broward Teachers Union, told the Post some teachers who attended told her that they were being told to present just "one side" of history.

"Then they kind of slipped in a Christian values piece, ignoring the fact that this country is made up of so many different cultures and religions," Fusco said.

Did some of our federal police conspire to overthrow the United States?
Thom Hartmann
December 01, 2022

Army Maj. Gen. William Walker, Commanding General of the Washington National Guard, said the Pentagon took three hours and 19 minutes to approve the deployment of the guard when the Capitol was attacked on January 6(AFP)

Congressman Ron Paul’s former staffer, Elmer Stewart Rhodes, leader of the Oathkeepers, was just convicted of seditious conspiracy. But how did he and his merry band get close enough to Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi to present the kind of deadly threat they tried to carry out?

“Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” the Scotland Yard police inspector asked Sherlock Holmes in Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story The Adventure of Silver Blaze.
“To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time,” Holmes replied.
“The dog,” the inspector said, “did nothing in the night-time.”
“That,” replied Holmes, “was the curious incident.”

Why didn’t the “dogs” of our federal police, investigative, and military agencies “bark” when they knew full well in advance that an armed mob was coming to the Capitol to try to overthrow our government, and that many within the mob were armed and willing to kill (and did) to try to accomplish their goal?

Why, afterward, did the Secret Service and the Department of Defense wipe their phones so the data could never be retrieved? Why has there never been a public examination of most of this?

It’s as if a small-town police force was warned that a gang of bank robbers was on their way into town on the following Saturday, and that weekend the entire police force decided to leave their phones off the hook and go fishing. And after the bank was robbed, they all said they didn’t realize they’d really intended to rob the town’s bank. And then destroyed the note warning them the robbers were coming to town.

Why are so few people openly speculating that corrupt individuals — possibly only a tiny handful — within the FBI, Secret Service, and Department of Defense may have participated in a plot led by Donald Trump to overthrow our government?

Is it simply because treason is such an unimaginably heinous act? Does journalistic integrity require them to await “smoking gun” evidence that, at the very least, some people within these organizations were knowing or unknowing participants in Trump’s plot to become America’s last president? Is it fear of losing sources in the agencies?

When I was 13 years old my father gave me a just-published book he’d gotten from a friend in the John Birch Society titled None Dare Call It Treason. It posited that the US State Department was riddled with communist sympathizers, largely based on circumstantial evidence and the “investigations” conducted a decade earlier by Senator Joe McCarthy.

There was no such conspiracy (although there were a few identified as “commies,” mostly just good liberals), but that didn’t stop the head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, from frequently and loudly suggesting to the press that there was.

Similarly, from the viewpoint of some of the people working in the FBI and Secret Service on January 6th, it may not have been as absurd as it sounds today to have then believed that Democrats in a half-dozen states had successfully stolen the election from Trump.

After all, the President of the United States was making that claim himself, repeatedly. And dozens of other high-ranking officials, including members of the House and Senate from the various states where the crimes allegedly occurred, were themselves corroborating his claim.

Trump was the boss, and if people in police agencies are anything it’s deferential to the boss. And highly aware of the chain of command. As the old saying goes, if he says, “Jump!” it’s their job to reply, “How high?”

Anybody who’s ever had much contact with members of police and military agencies knows they lean conservative, sometimes to the point of outright support for police-state style fascism. In many instances and circumstances a certain amount of authoritarianism seems necessary to do the job, particularly policing, which is why that kind of work draws authoritarian personalities to it.

It’s also no secret that both police officers and military enlistees vote overwhelmingly Republican, largely for the same reasons (although the GOP also goes out of its way to court those voters).

So, should we be surprised to learn that a handful of members of our federal police agencies — the FBI and Secret Service — and a few most senior officials in the Department of Defense may have conspired — wittingly or unwittingly — with Donald Trump to end democracy in America and institute a Trump-led strongman government?

As the January 6th Select Committee in the House is wrapping up their work and writing their final report, there are more than a few questions around the DOD, FBI, and Secret Service that remain unanswered, particularly about the days and weeks leading up to that fateful day.

The largest question, of course, is why they all stood down, knowing that armed militias were coming to try to overturn an election. And that the militia members were willing to spill blood, which they did, including that of the three police officers killed and over 140 injured, to accomplish their goal.

The attack heading toward the Capitol wasn’t a secret, by any measure. Trump had tweeted an invitation on December 19th saying it would be “wild” and reiterated the invitation multiple times both on Twitter and in other venues.

Rhodes texted to his Oathkeeper members, which included at least one FBI informant:

“We are not getting through this without a civil war. Prepare your mind, body and spirit.”

If that wasn’t clear enough, he also proclaimed:
“We will have to do a bloody, massively bloody revolution against them. That's what's going to have to happen.”

Planning was all over right-wing media, Twitter, and Facebook. People were openly discussing violence and plans for violence. There was brazen talk of revolution, of assassination.

Somebody brought and assembled a gallows on the lawn of the capitol building, but somehow nobody stopped the construction or knows the identities of its builders and how or why it was organized.

And we now know that FBI field offices across the country had noticed the boiling calls for violence, and the Secret Service and DOD were also fully aware of it.

But not only did they do nothing: they actively prevented — for days in advance, and for multiple hours during the active armed assault — any rescue of the small contingent of Capitol Police and legislators left to deal with an armed mob of thousands.

The Commanding General of the National Guard, Gen. William J. Walker, has openly complained that he was prevented — for four hours — from helping the Capitol Police that day. As The Washington Post reported:
“Walker contends that restrictions placed on him by McCarthy and Trump’s acting defense secretary, Christopher Miller, prevented him from sending Guard members to assist sooner.”

How is this an accident?

When Trump took the dais to whip up the crowd before sending them to the Capitol to “hang Mike Pence,” he took the unusual step of speaking from behind a wall of bulletproof glass. Congressman Mo Brooks, among others, wore a bulletproof vest.

They knew what the hell was up.

Hours before Trump’s rally, in the early morning hours, armed people had started showing up near the ellipse; DC police and the Secret Service had reports of an armed person in a tree and others carrying semiautomatic weapons.

January 6th Committee testimony suggests the Secret Service reported this to Trump himself although, weirdly, nobody tried to disarm these people in a city where guns are largely illegal. Instead, apparently there was a debate about whether or not to turn off the metal-detecting magnetometers.

Trump then demanded — in real time, from the stage — that those armed followers be allowed in to hear his speech without having to go through the magnetometers that would have identified their weapons.

Yet somehow his hand-picked FBI Director hadn’t prepared to deal with an armed mob in advance and, on the day of the assault, went fishing or something (his statement to Congress is here).

Whatever he was doing, he was seemingly paralyzed for most of the day and only took direct action, he testified under oath to Congress:
“Beginning on the evening of January 6, the FBI surged substantial resources to help ensure the safety and security of the U.S. Capitol complex, members of Congress, and their staff, and the public.” (emphasis mine)


This isn’t to say I think Chris Wray was in on the conspiracy. Unless he’s managed to drag the agency back to the era of J. Edgar Hoover and is blackmailing politicians, his retention by the Biden administration speaks volumes.

Nonetheless, many of us would like to know, “WTF?!??”

For similarly unknown reasons Trump’s acting Defense Secretary told the National Guard two days earlier, on January 4th, that they were not, without specific permission from him, allowed to help the Capitol police on January 6th. (His memo is reproduced at the end of this article.)

Meanwhile, as convicted seditionist Stewart Rhodes testified at his own trial, Oathkeepers were fully expecting counter-protestors to show up, people they could identify as “Antifa” and attack. General Mike Flynn was pushing Trump to use that expected battle as the excuse to declare martial law and suspend election activity.

And it now looks like Trump may have been prepared to execute Flynn’s plan, had those counter-protestors actually showed up.

The day before, on January 5th, Trump issued an executive order asserting that “Antifa” was both a domestic terrorist and organized crime group and should be treated as such by the federal government.
“[R]eliable reporting,” the January 5th order notes, “suggests that the movement known as Antifa is directly or indirectly responsible for some of the recent lawlessness in our communities, and has exploited tragedies to advance a radical, leftist, anarchist, and often violent agenda. In fact, Antifa has long used otherwise permissible demonstrations to engage in lawless, criminal behavior to further its radical agenda. …
“Those affiliated with Antifa have also repeatedly threatened violence, including against law enforcement officers. …
“In late September of 2020, individuals in a moving truck distributed riot equipment — including shields, masks, and a sign emblazoned with an Antifa symbol — in Louisville, Kentucky, before riots ensued there. Hours later, the violent situation resulted in the shooting of two police officers. And on October 5, 2020, reported Antifa activists in Portland were captured on video attacking a woman carrying an American flag.
“The Department of Justice has already publicly confirmed that actions by Antifa and similar groups meet the standard for domestic terrorism.”


Over at the Department of Defense then-acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller and his Chief of Staff Kash Patel (formerly of Devin Nunes’ staff) were running the place.

They controlled the Pentagon and our armed forces but, more importantly, they controlled the National Guard, whose troops had previously surrounded buildings in the Capitol area three-deep during the peaceful BLM protests just six months earlier.

The prospect that violence was heading toward the Capitol on January 6th wasn’t a secret to anybody with a Twitter or Facebook account: the nation was awash with threats and planning for violence, much of it in the open. It was discussed on talk radio and podcasts.

This apparently so alarmed Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy that, on January 4th, he reached out to his boss, Trump’s recently-appointed Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, to get permission to send the National Guard to the Capitol building on January 6th to prevent the violence they were seeing being planned all over social media.

Acting Defense Secretary Miller, in the effective role of commander of our entire military just one step below Commander-in-Chief Trump (on whose behalf he acted), then issued a memo on January 4th specifically directing McCarthy and the National Guard that they were:*Not authorized to be issued weapons, ammunition, bayonets, batons, or ballistic protection equipment such as helmets and body armor.

*Not to interact physically with protestors, except when necessary in self-defense or defense of others.
*Not to employ any riot control agents.
*Not to share equipment with law enforcement agencies.
*Not authorized to use Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) assets or to conduct ISR or Incident, Awareness, and Assessment activities in assistance to Capitol Police.
*Not allowed to employ helicopters or any other air assets.
*Not to conduct searches, seizures, arrests, or other similar direct law enforcement activity.
*Not authorized to seek support from any non-DC National Guard units.

There’s no coherent theory about why Chris Miller wrote this memo and thus blocked the National Guard from protecting the Capitol and the members of Congress within it.

Some have suggested it was to retain an appearance of “normality at the Capitol,” but that makes no sense when you see their response to things like that summer’s Black Lives Matter protests. That was the new normal.

But something wasn’t normal at all in the Trump administration.

Recall, way back on November 9, 2020, right after his election loss was called on November 7th, the Los Angeles Times wrote:

“President Trump’s decision to fire Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Monday [the day before the election] raised concerns that he may be planning far-reaching military moves in his final weeks in office — and is putting in place new leadership more inclined to go along.

“Trump named Christopher Miller, director of the national counterterrorism center, to take over as acting Defense secretary, bypassing the normal practice of having the Pentagon’s No. 2 official take charge temporarily if the top job becomes vacant.”

The article also noted that Miller’s predecessor, who’d been through a Senate confirmation and was a “legal” Secretary of Defense (Miller was not), was concerned:
“In an interview conducted before his dismissal but published after he was fired Monday, Esper suggested that his successor might be more willing than he was to go along with Trump’s questionable uses of the military.
“‘Who’s going to come in behind me?’ Esper told Military Times, which covers the armed forces. ‘It’s going to be a real ‘yes man.’ And then God help us.’”


What did it take for Trump to get Chris Miller to write this memo? Was he duped? Was he an enthusiastic or reluctant participant? Did Donald Trump or his Chief of Staff and apparent co-conspirator Mark Meadows dictate it?

If this isn’t bad enough, on January 6th itself — as armed traitors were attacking police and searching to “hang Mike Pence” — Chris Miller oversaw a mid-afternoon, mid-riot conference call in which Army Secretary McCarthy was again begging for authority to immediately bring in the National Guard.

Then-Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations General Charles Flynn, the brother of convicted/pardoned foreign agent General Michael Flynn (who had been pushing Trump to declare martial law and seize voting machines nationwide) was on the call; both the Pentagon and the Army, it has been reported, lied to the press, Congress, and, apparently, to the Biden administration about his presence on that call for almost a year.

It wasn’t until December, 2021 that it was widely reported that the National Security Council’s Colonel Earl Matthews (who was also on the call) wrote a memo calling both Charles Flynn and Lt. Gen Walter Piatt, the Director of Army Staff, “absolute and unmitigated liars” for their testimony to Congress in which they both denied they’d argued to withhold the National Guard on January 6th.

Then we discovered that the phones and text messages of most of the group, including Chris Miller, Walter Piatt, Kash Patel, and Ryan McCarthy were all wiped of all conversations and text messages they had on and in the lead-up to January 6th.

Most of the communication-based evidence was destroyed. Completely destroyed. By coincidence, they said.

Why is it such a stretch to imagine that at least some of these men believed, as Stewart Rhodes has said he believed, that the battle of January 6th would end with Donald Trump declared the president?

That, once declared, he’d award them all presidential medals and give them promotions and positions of even greater power in his second administration?

That 2016 would be the last election actually determined by the people themselves, and they were all okay with that?

Is it simply true that “none dare call it treason?”

Perhaps I’m missing some critical detail that reduces this speculation to nonsense. Or maybe it’s just that because I’m publishing here on Substack in my own little silo I don’t have to answer to a nervous editor who wants to maintain his publication’s access to the FBI, Secret Service, and DOD.

If you know what I’m missing, please let me know in the comments section below.

If not, please join me in asking this simple question:
“Was there a conspiracy — even if it only involved a handful of people — at the highest levels of our government to end the American Experiment that was only defeated by sheer luck? And, if so, who were the conspirators and who were the unwitting dupes?”


Americans deserve to know why the dog didn’t bark on January 6th and in the days leading up to it. And, if appropriate, to dare to call it treason.

THE NEW KINGFISH

‘This Must be Stopped’: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Plans to Establish a Militia That Answers Solely to Him

Niara Savage
Mon, December 6, 2021

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis introduced a budget proposal on Thursday that includes plans to establish a militia that would answer solely to him.

Unlike the Florida National Guard, the Florida State Guard wouldn’t receive federal funding or embark on federal missions.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis introduced a budget that would create a militia. (Photo by Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

DeSantis wants to use $3.5 million of the $100 million budget proposal to fund the state guard he said will “not be encumbered to the federal government.”

The guard, made up of up to 200 volunteers, would support the Florida National Guard during state emergencies, the proposal says.

“The $3.5 million to establish the Florida State Guard will enable civilians to be trained in the best emergency response techniques. By establishing the Florida State Guard, Florida will become the 23rd state with a state guard recognized by the federal government.”

DeSantis’ proposal isn’t completely outside of the norm. There are 22 states who currently have defense forces independent from the National Guard.

However, DeSantis’ track record, including violently quelling protesters has some Democrats sounding the alarm over the governor’s plan.

“No Governor should have his own handpicked secret police,” said Rep. Charlie Crist, who represents Florida’s 13th District in Congress.

Crist, who previously served one term governor after being elected to the office in 2006, is running against DeSantis in the 2022 gubernatorial race.

“Can’t believe I have to say this, but Florida doesn’t need a paramilitary force that only answers to @RonDeSantisFL,” tweeted fellow Democratic guberbnatorial candidate and Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried.

“Millions of Floridians know what it’s like to live under regimes like this — and came to our state to escape them. This must be stopped,” she said.

“DeSantis is making moves to advance his own reign of terror. We’ve seen this type of militia before in Syria & Iraq,” tweeted Democratic strategist Ameshia Cross.



The original Florida State Guard was established in 1941 to replace members of the National Guard who were serving overseas during World War II. It was disbanded in 1947 as states dropped those adjunct military groups after the war ended. In the 1980s many states revived state guard forces.

The largest chunk of DeSantis’ $100 million military budget proposal, $87.5 million, will fund the expansion of a readiness center in Miramar and establish three new armories in Homestead, Gainesville and Malabar.

The proposal also includes plans to fund armory maintenance, establish a new headquarters for the National Guard Counter Drug Program and support members of the state National Guard who are seeking college degrees.

“Florida is one of the most veteran friendly states and I think there are very few places that you would rather be on duty than in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said.

“In Florida, we are going to continue our momentum of supporting our military, supporting our veterans and being good stewards of our military installations.”

THE RIGHT WINGS BIGGEST NEMISIS

GOP Lawmaker Introduces Bill to Abolish the Federal Reserve

AFTER THE UN

By Aaron Pan
May 19, 2024

The exterior of the Federal Reserve Board building in Washington on March 13, 2023. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has introduced legislation to end the Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank responsible for managing the country’s financial and banking system.

The bill titled the “Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act” or “End the Fed” seeks to abolish the Federal Reserve System by dismantling its board of governors and the Federal Reserve banks. The legislation also aims to repeal the Federal Reserve Act, which created the Federal Reserve System in 1913.

In introducing the bill, Mr. Massie criticized the Fed’s monetary policies for record-high inflation.

“Americans are suffering under crippling inflation, and the Federal Reserve is to blame,” Mr. Massie said in a statement on May 16. “During COVID, the Federal Reserve created trillions of dollars out of thin air and loaned it to the Treasury Department to enable unprecedented deficit spending. By monetizing the debt, the Federal Reserve devalued the dollar and enabled free money policies that caused the high inflation we see today.”


The Federal Reserve System, also known as the Fed, was initially founded in 1913 in response to banking panics at the time. Over the following century, its powers have expanded to include regulating and overseeing banks and maintaining financial system stability. The Fed’s major function is implementing U.S. monetary policy. According to the Fed, its primary objectives include maximizing employment, stabilizing prices, and moderating long-term interest rates.

Mr. Massie also blamed the Fed for colluding with the executive and legislative branches, as well as Wall Street, for the financial problems Americans are now facing.

“Monetizing debt is a closely coordinated effort between the White House, Federal Reserve, Treasury Department, Congress, Big Banks, and Wall Street,” Mr. Massie said. “Through this process, retirees see their savings evaporate due to the actions of a central bank pursuing inflationary policies that benefit the wealthy and connected. If we really want to reduce inflation, the most effective policy is to end the Federal Reserve.”

If enacted, the bill will allow one year for the Fed to be shut down. In addition, the Federal Reserve Act will be repealed, and its assets and liabilities will be liquidated. The Director of the Office of Management and Budget will be responsible for the liquidation process.

The Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act was first introduced in 1999 by then-Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas). The legislation was reintroduced every single year until his retirement in 2013.


The legislation’s cosponsors include Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Matt Gaetz (R-FLa.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), and 15 others.

Besides the “End the Fed” Act, Mr. Massie, a Libertarian who favors limited government and lower taxes and opposes high government spending, has also introduced the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2023 to require a full audit of the Federal Reserve.
The Fed Under Criticism

Since its creation, the Fed has faced increasing scrutiny and criticism over its controversial role in the U.S. economy.

The most notable critic of the Fed is late Nobel laureate and economist Milton Friedman, who on multiple occasions called for abolishing the Fed for its ineffective policies, saying “It’s done more harm than good.”

In one interview, Friedman said, “There is no institution in the U.S. that has such a high public standing and such a poor record of performance.”

Last year, E.J. Antoni and Peter St Onge, research fellows at The Heritage Foundation, published an article titled “Time To End the Fed and Its Mismanagement of Our Economy,” which lays out the argument for ending the Fed. According to the authors, “Every major economic downturn of the last 110 years bears the mark of the Federal Reserve. In fact, as long as the Fed has been around, it has swung the economy between inflation and recession. Yet Americans, surprisingly, have tolerated it.”

Argentine President Javier Milei, an economist, drew headlines last year with his promise during his presidential campaign to abolish the country’s central bank, calling it “the worst garbage that exists on this Earth” and “one of the greatest thieves in the history of mankind.”

“Central banks are divided in four categories,” he said during an interview with Bloomberg last year. “The bad ones, like the Federal Reserve; the very bad ones, like the ones in Latin America; the horribly bad ones; and the Central Bank of Argentina.”

Last year, Mohamed A. El-Erian, an economist and former CEO of investment management fund PIMCO, also criticized the Fed for its failures.

“The U.S. Federal Reserve’s growing list of policymaking, supervisory, and communications failures is becoming increasingly consequential not just for Americans but also for the rest of the world,” he wrote in an article for Project Syndicate. “The global economy’s single most important institution has lost its way.”

From The Epoch Times

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for FALUN GONG 

The Doctors Suing to Make Health Care Great Again

MEDICARE FOR NONE YA ALL PAY CASH

DR.S RON AND RAND PAUL 
Olga Khazan 

A small, litigious group has spent decades trying to stop the government from telling doctors what to do. What happens if it succeeds?

© Bettmann / Getty / Katie Martin / The Atlantic

When the vaccine crackdown came, it was the doctors, of all people, who felt censored. It all started last year, when Adam Schiff, a Democratic representative from California, sent letters to Amazon and other tech giants expressing concern that the companies feature anti-vaccine videos and information on their platforms. Schiff cited a report by CNN that found that many searches on Amazon related to vaccines led to anti-vax content. The first listing, for instance, was a sponsored post for the book Vaccines on Trial, which is dedicated to “children who had to suffer due to adverse vaccine reactions.”


Amazon removed anti-vaccine movies like Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe from its Prime streaming service, incensing advocates opposed to mandatory vaccines and leading to a lawsuit that was filed against Schiff a few weeks ago. The lawsuit came from a New York woman who wants more information about vaccines, alongside an organization that, on the surface, seems counterintuitive: a group of doctors called the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.

The lawsuit alleges that Schiff’s actions are tantamount to censorship. As a result of his letters, the suit says, Amazon kicked AAPS out of an affiliate network through which the organization had earned commissions. According to the group, searches on Facebook for AAPS vaccine articles instead yielded links to the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One of the AAPS articles that was allegedly suppressed states, “Measles is a vexing problem, and more complete, forced vaccination will likely not solve it.” (Schiff’s office did not respond to a request for comment.)

Related: The new measles

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons might sound like another boring doctors’ group politely debating telehealth legislation. But AAPS is a small yet vociferous interest group. Like Zelig with a stethoscope, it has popped up in nearly every major health-care debate for decades, including the Affordable Care Act and opioids, and it wields a surprising amount of influence. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky was outed as a member in 2010. (A Paul spokesperson told me that while the senator is no longer a member, he is supportive of AAPS’s fight against Obamacare.) When Rep. Tom Price of Georgia was nominated to lead President Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services, several newspapers pointed out that he, too, was a member. (At the time, an HHS spokesperson said that not all doctors in a group believe the same thing.)

Though AAPS often takes positions that are associated with conservative groups, it sometimes goes even further, pushing fringe views that most mainstream conservatives do not endorse, such as the belief that mandatory vaccination is “equivalent to human experimentation” and that Medicare is “evil.” Over the years, the group seems to have coalesced around an ethos of radical self-determination and a belief that mainstream science isn’t always trustworthy. It’s the most curious of medical organizations: a doctors’ interest group that seems more invested in the interests of doctors, rather than public health.

At a time when doctors are facing scorching levels of burnout, health-care costs are soaring, and seemingly everyone is frustrated with the status quo, AAPS seems to have come up with an unusual answer: to turn back the clock. AAPS sees its vision as forward-looking and modern, but the group’s rhetoric recalls an era when a doctor would treat you for just a few bucks. No insurance deductible would need to be met first, and no intimidating vaccine schedule had been mandated from above.

AAPS has been called the Tea Party’s favorite doctors, but it’s actually a more fitting health-care group for the Trump era. As Trump has contributed to sowed doubt in the scientific consensus, AAPS is seizing the moment. The group just wants to make health care great again—even if that means tearing it apart.

AAPS was founded in 1943 in opposition to an early effort to provide universal health care to Americans. It first shot to fame half a century later, when it sued then–First Lady Hillary Clinton to gain access to the records of her Task Force on National Health Care Reform. (Though the Clinton administration was initially ordered to pay AAPS’s lawyer fees and other costs, eventually a federal appeals court ruled in its favor.)

Today, the group has moved beyond simply opposing health-care reform, with the apparent intent to throw sand in any and all government gears. It seems most invested in protecting doctors from regulations. “We believe in private medicine,” Jane Orient, AAPS’s longtime executive director and primary spokesperson, told me in a phone interview. “We have opposed attempts to intrude government and other third parties between the patients and the physicians.”

Related: When the religious doctor refuses to treat you

Orient said that AAPS’s membership consists of “under 5,000” of the country’s million or so doctors. She is a physician herself, based in Tuscon and licensed by the Arizona Medical Board. According to AAPS’s tax forms, Orient makes $181,000 a year from the group, though she said in an email that much of this goes toward running the office, such as IT support and office supplies, and that her salary is $48,000. On Facebook, someone named Jane Orient from Tucson posts AAPS press releases on her feed, along with ads for radiation detectors, conspiracy theories about vaccines, and inspirational posts from Littlethings.com. Orient would not confirm whether this was her Facebook page.

During our call, Orient was down on insurance companies, as well as electronic health records and anyone or anything that might tell a doctor what to do, ever. In 2005, Orient backed doctors who prescribe lots of opioids, telling a newspaper that doctors were being “imprisoned for prescribing in good faith with the intention of relieving pain.” (The opioid epidemic has claimed 700,000 American lives.) In 2007, AAPS sued the Texas Medical Board to stop it from relying on anonymous complaints to retaliate against doctors suspected of wrongdoing. (AAPS lost.) Later, AAPS became the first medical society to sue to overturn the Affordable Care Act, saying that it “spells the end of freedom in medicine as we know it.”

During the 2018 election cycle, AAPS donated $16,000 to federal political candidates, all of them Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Orient herself has consistently donated small amounts of money to candidates, almost exclusively Republicans, since 1998. But the group drifts from the Republican establishment in many ways. Orient said she opposes some traditionally conservative health-care policies, such as the Massachusetts predecessor to the Affordable Care Act devised by the conservative Heritage Foundation. Regarding Trump, Orient said he has been “a disappointment in some ways,” but that AAPS is “very glad for some of the things that he has done,” such as continuing to oppose Obamacare.

Several mainstream conservatives I reached out to declined to speak with me about AAPS. When I finally got one right-leaning health wonk, Joe Antos, on the phone, he said he had been thinking of the wrong AAPS and did not know much about the group.

Meanwhile, a media-relations representative at the American Medical Association, the main doctors’ group in America, mentioned that he'd expect the AAPS to accuse the AMA of having a ‘fascist’ relationship with the government. Orient told me that AAPS does not consider the AMA fascist, “although we certainly criticize many of their policies. We think it is important to define terms precisely and not to indulge in name-calling.”

Perhaps the only thing Americans agree on when it comes to health care today is that something’s gotta give. Electronic records are a nightmare for many doctors, and patients hate fighting with insurers as much as doctors do. It’s natural to want to just nuke it all. AAPS presents an extreme vision of that: What would happen if the government didn’t make doctors do, well, anything? I’ve met with some doctors who see anti-vaccine patients and who also don’t accept insurance, and I was taken by how free, self-actualized, and otherwise perky they were. Many doctors might readily swap an overcrowded primary-care practice for a concierge gig like that.

AAPS seems to have pushed this vision of the unfettered doctor too far, though. Over time, it has taken a puzzling turn toward unconventional medical views, as exemplified by its legal tangle with Schiff. To Orient, the government should not even dictate essential medications that protect public health. Asked whether vaccines increase the risk of autism, she said, “I think that the definitive research has not been done.” (The overwhelming scientific consensus is that vaccines do not cause autism.)

In 2015, after measles broke out at Disneyland, AAPS put out a press release questioning the safety of vaccines. The group has suggested that women who have abortions are at a higher risk of breast cancer, though mainstream scientists say this is false. In 2008, an article on AAPS’s website suggested that President Barack Obama was covertly hypnotizing people with his speeches, and that this might explain why Jews voted for him. AAPS’s journal, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, has published articles raising doubts that HIV causes AIDS and questioning the wisdom of urging people to quit smoking, according to the Louisville Courier Journal.

Orient told me that the articles in the group’s journal don’t necessarily represent the official policy of AAPS. She called the story from the Louisville Courier Journal a “hit piece,” saying that the smoking article was arguing simply that “constantly telling [people] that nicotine is addictive might give them an excuse not to try” to quit. Regarding the abortion–breast cancer link, she said in an email that “there is a large and growing number of articles supporting this, although ‘mainstream’ American researchers deny it and focus on a small number of articles with negative findings.” She denied the suggestion about Jews and said that the entire AAPS article was referencing an article from another source.

Orient disagrees with the premise of this article, too. She said that AAPS cares most about patients, not doctors. Rather than being backwards-looking, she said, the group is “looking forward to a future in which there’s more innovation and more freedom, instead of one in which there’s tighter government control.” With such freedom, Orient told me, “we could have a thriving, innovative, friendly medical practice where when you call the doctor’s office on the phone, instead of saying, ‘What insurance do you have?’ the doctor’s office will say, ‘How can we help you?’”


AAPS’s apparent yearning for patients to pay with cash and for doctors to do as they please has historical precedent. Medicare only arrived in 1966. Before that, the options for seniors were to, as PolitiFact notes, “spend their savings, rely on funding from their children … hope for charity from the hospitals or avoid care altogether.” In the early 1970s, only certain states had school vaccination laws—and their measles rates were 40 to 51 percent lower than in schools without such laws.

There were indeed fewer rules and less paperwork back then. But the AAPS doesn’t seem to offer a solution for the fact that these days, a single “How can we help you?” from a doctor can result in a five-figure bill. In recent years, the group has focused on opposing calls for single-payer health care, and it even came out against surprise-billing legislation, which would protect patients from out-of-network hospital bills and has garnered bipartisan support in several states. (Orient dismissed these measures as “price controls imposed on physicians.”)

In our conversation, Orient did say that physicians should strive to help people who can’t pay, that hospitals should charge more reasonable and transparent prices, and that patients are often able to reduce their hospital bills through negotiation. But in 2016, Orient wrote in an op-ed that some people might simply sell their belongings to pay their medical bills. “Consider this,” she wrote. “Would you rather buy a nice car and risk having to sell it to pay a bill, or pay the insurance company the same amount and never get to drive the car?” (Orient stands by this, writing in an email, “If you lived beyond your means and bought a car that you couldn’t afford, and did not provide for future medical costs, how much sympathy should you receive?”)

Most health groups today have a specific idea for how to reform medical care, whether through single-payer health care or Netflix for doctors. The trouble with AAPS’s vision for America is that it exhibits a nostalgia for a past that never existed. Measles killed hundreds of Americans a year before the vaccine became available. Americans are drowning in medical debt that kindly doctors haven’t successfully eliminated, and selling our cars to pay for medical care would strike few people as the right answer. The idea that doctors always do right by patients, and that patients always have the money to pay, and that no one ever gets measles at Disneyland, is a tempting dream. The problem is, it’s just that.


Related video: Anti-vaccine movement takes online harassment into the real world (provided by NBC News

  

© Digital Vision / Getty

President Of The Free World

This is why the Republicans will not win the Presidential election in 2008.

They are all white guys in suits.


Representative Duncan Hunter of California, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, Representative Ron Paul of Texas, Representative Thomas Tancredo of Colorado, former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson, former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and Senator John McCain of Arizona

While the Democrats represent the diversity of America and the rest of the world.

J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/The Associated Press Presidential hopefuls shake hands Thursday following the first Democratic presidential primary debate of the 2008 election hosted by the South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, S.C. From left are New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio.


Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Obama, Clinton, Richardson, Edwards, Democrats, President, US, America, politics, presidential race, Republicans, MSNBC