Thousands of people are desperate to leave Afghanistan after the city of Kabul has been taken over by the Taliban. The Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani has fled into hiding, and in the ensuing chaos a number of people are reported to have been killed as US troops are currently attempting to assist in evacuation efforts of U.S. embassy personnel and civilians.
According to the Pentagon and State Department: “Tomorrow and over the coming days, we will be transferring out of the country thousands of American citizens who have been resident in Afghanistan, as well as locally employed staff of the US mission in Kabul and their families and particularly vulnerable Afghan nationals.”
Since announcing a pullout of Afghanistan, Biden has faced criticisms from the right, including Trump.
“If president Biden Truly has no regrets about his decision to withdraw, then he is disconnected from reality,” Lindsey Graham tweeted.
Jim Banks, who voted to overturn the election of Joe Biden, told Fox News: “We have never seen an American leader abdicate his responsibilities and leadership like Joe Biden.”
If he hadn’t mentioned the president by name, one might think he was talking about Donald Trump.
“He’s in hiding,” Banks continued. “The lights are on at the White House, but nobody’s home. Where’s Joe Biden?,”
Last year, in February, the Trump administration set up a peace agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban. The agreement stipulated that all U.S. military troops would vacate Afghanistan by the end of 2021.
Trump’s statement: “Had our 2020 presidential election not been rigged and if I were now president, the world would find that our withdrawal from Afghanistan would be a conditions-based withdrawal. I personally had discussions with top Taliban leaders whereby they understood what they are doing now would not have been acceptable. It would have been a much different and much more successful withdrawal, and the Taliban understood that much better than anyone. What is going on now is not acceptable.”
Via Slate:
“Former President Donald Trump is telling lies about how he would have handled the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, opening a new avenue for Trump-dazed Republicans to attack Joe Biden.
“In other words, there is no evidence that a withdrawal under Trump would have been “much more successful” than it’s going under Biden. Trump’s swift withdrawal of a small contingent of peacekeeping troops from Syria in Oct. 2019, leaving Kurdish allies open to Turkish slaughter, suggests that Trump would have been no more discerning about protecting Afghans. ( The Kurds had been instrumental in helping U. S. troops crush ISIS in northern Syria ).
“The falsehoods not withstanding, Trump’s statement will no doubt be parroted by Congressional Republicans and conservative pundits in the coming weeks and months.
“Now, however, the critics have received the word from their leader-in-exile: withdrawal isn’t a bad thing, but withdrawal under Trump would have been “conditions-based,” and it would have been “much more successful.” When things worsen in Afghanistan, and they almost certainly will, this will be their mantra for attacking Joe Biden’s foreign policy – and for absolving themselves of complicity.”
On January 06, 2021, democracy came under assault from a political party that, ironically often accuses their opponents of being anti-american. A party that continues to persist with the absurdity that it’s really Democrats that are anti-american. As if Americans hadn’t witnessed thousands of Trump enthusiasts marching angrily on the Capitol, many of them calling for the head of the vice president as they carried a gallows, breaking into the Capitol building, destroying government property, assaulting people, and using it as a public toilet – all at the behest of Donald Trump, who for months leading to election day, insisted that Joe Biden and the Democrats had stolen the election.
After the Senate blocked a commission that had Congress’s approval, the majority of the House approved the creation of a committee to investigate the Capitol riot, by a vote of 222-190.
A majority of Republicans were opposed to the the creation of a commission, for fear it would be politicized against them in the up-coming 2022 elections.
“January 06 was a day of darkness for our country,” Nancy Pelosi said, Wednesday in a news conference from the White House. “A day, as you know. that was called for in our Constitution of the United States for us to validate the presidential election. to certify the results of the electoral college. That day, one of the darkest, I say again, I’ll keep saying, days in our history, our temple of democracy was attacked by insurrectionists.
“You know all of this. The gleeful desecration of the Capitol resulted in multiple deaths, physical harm to over 240 members of law enforcement and terror and trauma among staff, workers, and members. That trauma is something I can never forget or forgive.
“The insurrection was called for to impede our Constitutional mandate. But Congress returned to the Capitol to accomplish our Constitutional mandate…”
Only two Republicans have supported the committee: Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney. They were also the only two to vote yes to impeach Trump and form a bipartisan commission.
Many Republicans stubbornly refuse to acknowledge Trump’s role in the Capitol insurrection attempt. Texas Representative Michael Burgess has accused the Democrats of laying the blame for the attack on Trump, as if the former president’s rhetoric had nothing to do with the situation.
“The outcome of this investigation has in fact already been written,” Burgess said. “The Democrats have been publicly excoriating Trump for months.” While many Republicans have been making excuses for him, I might add.
“These investigations have been done and are on-going,” said Minnesota Representative Michelle Fishburne, without noting that the last Senate inquiry failed to examine the role of Donald Trump and his supporters in Congress who knowingly peddled false information about the election. “It appears that this select committee is being done for purely political purposes.”
It’s ironic that she would say it was being done for political purposes, since the attempts to overturn the electoral results by Trump during his phone calls with state governors, and that of his minions who swarmed the Capitol, were themselves political, for the purpose of keeping Lord Emperor Trump in the White House.
Last week, the Republican party’s resident lunatic Marjorie Taylor Greene, compared wearing masks to the Holocaust.
Speaking to David Brody on “The Water Cooler” podcast, Greene verbally attacked Nancy Pelosi for requiring GOP members to wear masks unless they can prove they’ve been vaccinated.
QAnon Kook and Congressperson MTG.
Speaking of Nancy Pelosi, Greene said, “This is a woman who is mentally-ill. You know, we can look back at a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star, and they were definitely treated like second-class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas Chambers in Nazi Germany. And this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about. This is a woman who doesn’t care about people’s safety. This is a woman that is hyper-focused on her own power and control.”
As is typical of Republicans who have no sense of irony, she has accused Democrats of being divisive and violent. Media Matters has an entry on all of the “divisive and violent” rhetoric of Greene, here, before and after being elected to Congress.
“You can never compare health-related restrictions with yellow stars, gas Chambers and other Nazi atrocities,” the American Jewish Congress tweeted in response to Greene’s anti-semitic comments. “Such comparisons demean the Holocaust and contaminate American political speech. Rep. Greene must immediately retract and apologize.”
Kevin McCarthy and the Republican party’s response – or at least those who are loyal to Donald Trump – demonstrates exactly how they have been cucked by the dangerous extremism of Marjorie Taylor Greene.
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy’s statement:
“Marjorie is wrong and her intentional decision to compare the horrors of the Holocaust with wearing masks is appalling. The Holocaust is the greatest atrocity committed in history. The fact that this needs to be stated today is deeply troubling.
“At a time when the Jewish people face increased violence and threats, anti-Semitism is on the rise in the Democrat party and is completely ignored by Nancy Pelosi.
“America must stand together to defeat anti-Semitism and any attempt to diminish the history of the Holocaust.
“Let me be clear: the House Republican conference condemns this language.”
The fact that he blames anti-Semitism on the Democrats rather his own party, shows how naive and uniformed conservatives are. He went so far as to draw up a bill condemning hate crimes against Jews, which conservatives are blaming on Democrats for certain members having the audacity to rightfully criticize and condemn Irael’s war crimes against the Palestinian people. There is no nuance when it comes to Israel. To conservatives, you either support Israel’s subjugation and occupation of Gaza, and if you don’t you’re an anti-Semite. Poppycock.
The Republican party has always been as anti-Semitic as it is racist against black people. If you dare call out Netanyahu’s genocidal treatment of Palestinians, conservatives will accuse you of being anti-Semitic. If you dare accuse them of anti-Semitism for criticizing George Soros and other liberal Jews they don’t like, for instance accusing them of being Nazis collaborators, you’re just being hysterical, it has nothing to do with anti-Semitism because conservatives know for a fact that as a fourteen year old boy, Soros really did collaborate with the Nazis to betray his own people.
The only people who have ever diminished or attempted to diminish the history of the Holocaust, are the Republican party and their voters. They have done it time and time again with these and similar comments throughout the presidency of Donald Trump. And when called out, they always play the what-about-ism game, what about the Democrats, what about Ilhan Omar’s ‘it’s all about the Benjamin’s baby?
Republicans like Kevin McCarthy don’t give a damn about condemning anti-Semitism. The Republican party and it’s voting base are full of anti-Semites in the form of fascists, neo-Confederates, and actual Nazis. They voted for Trump, they attended his rallies, they turned up at BLM rallies to antagonize and incite violence, they gathered at Unite The Right in Charlottesville to protest the removal of a Confederate monument, and Trump literally called them “very fine people.”
If Republicans actually cared about condemning anti-Semitism, they would be serious about calling it out in their own party by condemning and expelling extremists like Marjorie Taylor Greene. Instead, they choose to rebuke her half-heartedly and censure Liz Cheney for refusing to believe the election was stolen from Trump.
“Sorry some of my words make people uncomfortable, but this is what the American left is all about,” Greene tweeted.
The last four years have proven that this is what the Republican party is all about. Extremism, bigotry, racism, and anti-Semitism. And the Trump-loving Republicans don’t care. All they care about is pleasing Trump.
Former U.S. Air Force veteran, Ashli Babbitt was among the Trump-supporting mob of radicals who stormed and invaded the Capitol on January 06. She was fatally shot by a police officer and later died of her wound.
Babbitt, according to her social media foot print, had once voted for Obama, but had become disillusioned somewhere along the way.
“Over the past five years, a potent MAGA online subculture appears to have transformed this former Obama voter – who turned to Trump over a dislike of Hillary Clinton – into a QAnon follower ready to storm the Capitol,” Bellingcat reported back in January after the incident.
According to Travis View of the QAnon Anonymous podcast, Ashli Babbitt was “100% a dedicated QAnon follower.” Like your typical Q follower, she believed the election had been unfairly rigged, that Trump had been the rightful winner. She had attended the Trump rally that day where he urged his followers to march to the Capitol, by telling them,”You’ll never take back our country with weakness; you have to show strength and you have to be strong.”
While filming the march, which she shared with her Facebook account, she said, “We are walking to the Capitol in a mob. There is nothing but a sea of red, white and blue.”
Babbitt would later be shot attempting to climb through a shattered window inside the Capitol building.
According to Babbitt’s brother, Roger Witthoeft said his sister “was a normal Californian,” he told the NY Times. “The issues she was mad about, were the things all of us were mad about. If you feel like you gave the majority of your life to your country and your not being listened to, that’s a hard pill to swallow. That’s why she was upset.”
She seemed more upset about an election Trump claimed was stolen from him.
The Department of Justice released a statement here.
The potential for violence during the certification of Joe Biden on January 06 is the subject of a new report. The Capitol Police Inspector general, Michael Bolton, released a scathing report criticizing his agency, saying that leaders received warnings that Trump supporters were a threat to civilians and law enforcement, but we’re not equipped to handle the violent extremists.
The inspector general’s report – over one hundred pages – criticizes how the Capitol Police prepared and responded to the Capitol Hill mob on that day in early January.
Three days before the event, Capitol Police intelligence had warned of the potential for violence from Trump supporters, many of whom believed his insane claims and conspiracies of a stolen election from the greatest president ever known. Some of these supporters are alleged to have posted a map of the Capitol’s tunnel system on pro-Trump websites.
“Unlike previous post-election protests, the targets of the pro-Trump supporters are not necessarily the counter-protesters, as they were previously, but rather Congress itself is the target on the 6th,” the threat assessment read according to the inspector’s report. “Stop the Steal’s propensity to attract white supremacists, militia members, and others who actively promote violence may lead to a significantly dangerous situation to law enforcement and the public alike.”
According to the report, the agency received warning about how Trump’s extremist supporters “were growing increasingly desperate” as he promoted lies about election fraud.
“Supporters of the current president see January 06, 2021 as the last opportunity to overturn the results of the presidential election. This sense of desperation, and disappointment may lead to more of an incentive to become violent.”
On December 21, the DHS warned CP of comments found on a pro-Trump website promoting attacks against Congressional members, including a map of the Capitol’s tunnel system. Among the comments included, “Bring guns. It’s now or never.” “We can’t give them a choice. Overwhelming armed numbers are our only chance.”
According to the New York Times, other social media comments included, “Be read to fight. Congress needs to hear breaking glass, doors being kicked in, and blood from their BLM and Pantifa slave soldiers being spilled. Get violent, stop calling this a march, or a rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our president or we die. Nothing else will achieve this goal.”
“None of the intelligence we received predicted what actually occured,” the former Capitol Police chief, Steven Sund testified in February before the Senate. “These criminals came prepared for war.”
Certain words and events have been changed for humorous effect.
Trump before his bizarre speech at Mar-a-Lago.
Speaking to a group of Republican donors at his Mar-A-Lago golf resort Saturday night, Donald Trump lambasted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnel and Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Looking as if he were about to fall asleep standing up, Trump said, “That bitch… I mean that Mitch McConnel, I’ll tell you, he’s one dumb son-of-a butthead, don’t you think?”
The crowd cheered wildly, hissing and booing in agreement.
Ever since McConnell had the testicles to criticize him for his role in the Capitol riot, which he had referred to as “a disgraceful dereliction of duty,” Trump’s panties had been wadded into a bunch.
McConnell had been one of the forty-three Republicans to vote Trump not guilty of the charge of inciting the attack on the Capitol.
“There’s no question, none really, that president Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day,” McConnell said back in February. “No question about it. I mean, look, they listened to Trump whine and cry like a two year-old about an election he lost fair and square. They listened to him babble about haunted voting machines, the evil spirit of Hugo Chavez, the evilest Jew in the world – George Soros – Antifa, Captain Crunch, and Tony The Tiger working with China, Joe Biden and the Democrats to steal the election. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president. And having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of false statements, conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on earth.”
Despite his criticism, McConnell voted not guilty because he believed Trump was “Constitutionally not eligible for conviction” given the fact that he was no longer president.
“Do you know he had the balls to criticize me after the, uhh… the ahh… that… uhh… whatever it was at the Clapitol,” Trump continued, stuttering and slurring some of his words. It was obvious that he was either drunk, high, or medicated on something, but no one noticed, or seemed to care. All they cared about was Trump. All eyes present were adorably fixated on Trump.
“The riot by Antifa!?” some joker in the audience shouted, and everyone laughed, this time with more gusto.
“That’s right,” Trump said. “It was Antifa. It had nothing to do with me! It was Antifa, and Sleepy Joe prodly put ’em to it. Anyway, you know what he said? He said it was “a definition of duty.”
The crowd laughed again. Trump thought they were laughing at how stupid they believed McConnell was for blaming him for the riot. But they weren’t laughing at McConnell. They were laughing at Trump’s description of McConnell’s criticism – “description of duty.” To them it probably conjured images of bowel movements or something similar, hence the laughter.
“That’s right. That guy’s a real boozer. He should take up drinking instead. He sucks at being a Senatorial. I heard his wife once to clean my toilets. She suffered so greatly… marrying Mitch… not cleaning my toilets. Did he ever tell you that? No? Did I ever tell you that? No? I guess he’s ashamed to have people know his wife cleans crap for a living… and married Mitch. Well, I guess it’s true what Democrats say about that guy, that loser. He looks like a pencil-neck greek masquerading as a tuttle. To me he looks more like that weasel in that Foghorn Leghorn cartoom from Warmer Brothers.”
The crowd laughed uproariously, still blissfully unaware that he was drunk or high… or just not caring.
Speaking on Anthony Fauci he said, “Have you ever seen any- bloody so full of clap?”
“Mitch McConnel?!” another joker shouted, although it sounded like the same guy.
The crowd once again erupted into laughter.
“That’s right,” Trump said. “No one’s more full of crap than that… that… that Mitch the pencil-neck tuttle. Except Dr. Gouci. Fist he said not to wear a mask, then he said to wear a mask, then he said to go outside, then he said to don’t go outside, play social distancing media instead. Well, which is it Dr. Nouci I assed him. I never wrote a mask when I went outside and I was fine until I got sick, but I was OK, they gave me all kinds of drugs to make feel better, just like I do now. I felt like Superman in Christian Slater. I should have wore my Superman cape to show everyone how strong I was, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, Donald!” the joker shouted. “Ain’t no one stronger than you! Not Superman, not Batman, not Spiderman, not Iron Man, and not even me!”
Most of the crowd laughed again, like they hadn’t heard anything so funny in ages. One old woman cackled so hard her dentures flew from her mouth and landed in the hair of a woman sitting in front of her. No one noticed or seemed to care, especially the woman whose hair it was stuck in. Another old lady with a face like a donkey snorted so hard, snot exploded from her nostrils splattering several people in front of her. No one noticed or seemed to care. An old man laughed until he literally crapped himself, farting explosively as he defecated. Again, no one noticed or seemed to care.
“They made fun of me when I said the corona beer virus would be gone by Easter, and when I said you can mix belch with Kool-aid and drink it to get rid of the virus, they thought I was crazy. They laughed. But I was right. A lot of people did it and were cured. I guess I showed ’em, am I right?”
“That’s right Donald!” the joker shouted again. “No one knows more than you do! Not Mitch the tuttle, not Dr. Nouci, and not even me!”
Trump babbled on for nearly forty more minutes, about space aliens wanting to eat his brain, Mexicans being bad people who want to eat his brain, the Democrats and Sleepy Joe stealing the election through Dominion voting machines, Hugo Chavez, Antifa, George Soros, Tony The Tiger, Captain Crunch… and space aliens who wanted not only to steal the election, but eat his brain.
He also babbled about the vaccines he claimed he had been responsible for and said they should have been called Donaldcines. The media, other than Fox News, Newsmax and OANN, had no idea what the whole thing was about.
Was he drunk? Was he high? Or was he simply being himself? Your guess is as good as anyone’s guess.
Conservative media pundits have often claimed that liberals and leftists never let a good opportunity go to waste… or something of that nature.
Conservative themselves never let a good opportunity go to waste. With conservatives, it’s Antifa. It’s how violent, radical and extreme the Democratic party is, the left and liberals. They totally ignore and pretend as if their own party, their own movement is completely patriotic and supporting of liberty – instead of the radical and extreme party that it really is – freedom and free speech, while hyping and over-exaggerating the anti-fascists and anti-racists as the real threat to free speech and democracy.
It’s called gaslighting. Making someone doubt or question their perception of reality, and conservatives have mastered it to a fine art. All one has to do is watch a segment of Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingraham discussing Black Lives Matter and Antifa. BLM and Antifa – both leftist, anti-fascist and anti-racists – are “thugs, criminals, and terrorists.” While conservatives – no matter how violent they are, such as those who marched in the Unite The Right rally, or murdered BLM protesters – are “law-abiding,” “very fine people,” and “heros.”
During a segment of her broadcast last week, Laura Ingraham tried really hard to convince the rubes that the Democrats are hell-bent on “criminalizing all Trump supporters as “terrorists.”
“The January 06 Capitol riot was a gift to Democrats,” she said smugly. “It gave them the video in the narrative that they’ve desperately wanted and they needed to justify a crackdown on the civil liberties of all conservatives.
“However, you don’t need hearings to know that dedicated men and women of the Capitol police were overwhelmed and unprepared for a breach.”
Only pro-Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol, had gotten inside, and ransacked it… have been charged with crimes ranging from felonies to misdemeanors. No one who stood by and simply watched , have been arrested that I know of. There has been no attempt to criminalize Trump supporters who protest peacefully, as there was with BLM protesters over the summer. These people have not had their civil liberties cracked down on, and neither have they been criminalized as terrorists. And one doesn’t need hearings to know that Capitol police were unprepared by design. It was obvious to anyone who knew what to expect from months of Trump, Republicans, and right-wing media pundits like Ingraham, complaining about mail-in ballots, and election fraud.
She said what happened at the Capitol was “despicable, criminal and infuriating,” but compared to other armed insurrections, “this one was pretty lame. And the loss of life that occured that day is still shrouded in mystery… from the get-go, the media saw this tragic day as an opportunity to tar the entire Trump coalition as a bunch of heinous terrorists… we still don’t know anything about the cause of officer Sicknick’s death, but we do know the entire life story of the idiot in the buffalo get up and face paint.”
A riot that resulted in at least five deaths, and injuries – most of them police officers – was shrouded in mystery and pretty lame? We may not yet know the exact cause of Sicknick’s death, but he was killed by the actions of a pro-Trump mob – that’s no mystery.
“If you voted for Trump, if you ever attended a Trump rally or posted support for his America First agenda, you’re complicit in the attack and you need to be shunned from society, lose your job, and you need to be banned from social media indefinitely. Make no mistake about it. What we’re witnessing at all levels of society run by liberals is a new Red Scare. But instead of targeting Marxists or communists, they’re fighting Americans in red states.”
If Ingraham wants to complain about people having their civil liberties violated and criminalized as terrorists, perhaps she should talk about Antifa and BLM protesters – an entire movement of social activists – who she and her colleagues at Fox News have never had any trouble tarring as criminals and terrorists over the years, and were quick and eager to blame for the violence at the Capitol. But she will never do that. She will never defend actual patriots who want law enforcement officers who commit murder, to be held accountable under the law, as those they murder are held accountable. She will never defend real patriots who want government to be less corrupt. She will always equate them to fascists because she is a fascist. Misrepresenting actual patriots as anti-American, and equating terrorists as patriots, that’s what authoritarians do. Antifa are the real fascists… and the Trump supporting mob that proudly wave those Confederate and Nazi flags at his rallies, and the shooters who have listened to his rhetoric and the rhetoric of the totally non-violent and non-racist Republican party, and their media allies like Ingraham… are the real patriots, the real pro-Americans with their America First agenda, which is an agenda first used by the Klan. So, yes, if you support it, then you are indeed complicit in the assault on the Washington Capitol.
Ingraham had this to say about who really may have been behind the Capitol riot. Calling into Fox News, she said:
“We knew this would happen when you had a huge group of people descending on Capitol Hill, when you have members of Trump support organizations and Antifa threatening to show up at the same time. We’ll learn more to the extent that that happened. I’m getting a sense that there’s clearly a big split in the MAGA groups that have come to peacefully protest with whoever is behind this intrusion in the Capitol, which by any account is unacceptable.”
On her broadcast that night, she said, “They were likely not all Trump supporters. I’ve never seen Trump rally attendees wearing helmets, black helmets, brown helmets, black backpacks – the uniforms you saw in some of those crowd shots.”
Ingraham says the Democrats want to criminalize people who voted for Trump, for attending any of his rallies, or supporting his America First agenda, and are complicit in the Capitol riot, should be shunned from society, lose their jobs, and be banned indefinitely from social media.
I would say: anyone who attended any of his rallies and listened to the violent and racist rhetoric, saw the Confederate flags flying freely and stayed silent.
Anyone who listened to his rhetoric about Charlottesville Nazis and neo-Confederates as ‘very fine people’ and did not condemn it.
Anyone who saw the Nazi flags displayed and did not speak up, did not question their presence.
Anyone who has no problem with symbols of white supremacy remaining in a society – that conservatives swear is no longer racist – as nothing more than “Southern heritage or pride.”
Anyone who has no problem calling Antifa – anti-fascists – and Black Lives Matter “terrorists,” but revere white shooters who murder peaceful protesters as “heros.
Anyone’s reaction to a black president speaking on matters of race: “Why is he playing the race card?” ( the idea that black people have no right to speak about race without accusations of playing the “race card” is absurd ). But giving a white president a free lifetime pass on the race card.
And finally, I would say: anyone – anyone, including Trump’s media lapdogs – who repeated the rhetoric and conspiracy theories of a stolen election – Dominion, George Soros, the ghost of Hugo Chavez, all of that shit – who egged on and riled up the assholes to get out in the streets with their “stop the steal” signs and chants, culminating in the ransacking of democracy and the Capitol.
These people are complicit in the raiding and the ransacking of the Capitol. They shouldlose their jobs, and they should be banned from social media forever. These people participated in a coup to interfere in a democratic election simply because their favorite narcissistic egomaniac didn’t get re-elected. These people should be treated like pariahs. It has nothing whatsoever to do with criminalizing ordinary, innocent Americans who are guilty for no other reason than voting for Trump.
Did the media desperately try to pin QAnon to Donald Trump? Or did he, in fact, endorse them? Is the media being dishonest or are they telling the truth in this particular case? Is Dana Loesch right, or full of shit? Let’s look at the evidence.
For the record, let it be known that Dana Loesch doesn’t know much about the QAnon movement. In fact, she doesn’t know much about anything she talks about.
She doesn’t know that for the entire four years of Trump’s only term, they completely and enthusiastically endorsed him. She knows nothing about the thousands of Q enthusiasts who love Donald Trump so much, many of who have shown up as his rallies dressed in Q clothing, carrying Q signs, shouting Q conspiracies. But none of this means anything, since they have no connection to Trump.
She knows nothing of the dozens of failed predictions involving the enemies of Donald Trump – all of them Democrats, by the way – our greatest American president, and how he would heroically expose and vanquish them all on the day of reckoning known as “The Storm.”
She knows none this. But you can bet your ass she knows “that they aren’t the ones in the streets burning down buildings, punching people in the head ( ?? ), burning down houses and blocking first responders from rescuing the trapped children” ( ?? ) – here she links to a fake news article – “or mass-squatting on multiple city blocks ( peaceful protesting is a bad thing in her view, as long as it involves BLM ).”
She also knows that the media “has been fine to give Democrats a pass when the party refuses to condemn the violence but they’re intent on pinning QAnon on Trump.” ( Here she links to a Breitbart article to prove her point, but the article fails to prove her point that Democrats refuse to condemn Antifa ).
“Trump literally says he “doesn’t know much about the movement,” Dana argues, “after quippingthat he hears they like him and instead of accurately reporting Trump’s remarks, CNN sensationalizes it with “Trump embraces.”
Trump literally says he doesn’t know much about the movement, she argues, and so we’re supposed to believe it.
“The left and their media surrogates realize how damaging Antifa violence has been to their image ( ?? ) and so are trying to create something similar for which they can attack the GOP… except there isn’t anything similar.
“Ask me again why I question legacy media.”
Alright, let’s Examine Trump’s remarks to determine if CNN was just sensationalizing and deliberately taking his words out of context to “make him look bad.”
During an August 2020 press briefing, Trump was asked about QAnon. He had this to say:
“I don’t know much about the movement, other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate. I’ve heard that it’s gaining in popularity. And I’ve heard these are people who love our country and they just don’t like seeing it ( destroyed ).”
When asked if he believed the conspiracy theory that he “is secretly saving the world from this satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals,” Trump replied: “I haven’t heard that, but is that supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing? If I can help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it. I’m willing to put myself out there. And we are actually, we’re saving the world from a radical left philosophy that will destroy this country.”
This was taken from the CNN website. For someone who didn’t know much about QAnon, he sure knew enough about them to offer his opinion about how great they were. He very clearly praised them, which sounds like an endorsement to me. He certainly did not denounce or condemn them.
And during the October 15, NBC televised town hall, when Savannah Guthrie asked him if he would denounce QAnon as false, he couldn’t do it. Instead, he denounced and condemned Antifa. Of course he did.
“So, I know nothing about QAnon. I know very little. You told me, yes. What you told me doesn’t necessarily make it fact. I hate to say that. I know nothing about it. I do know they are very much against pedophilia. They fight it very hard. But I know nothing about it. I’ll tell you what I do know, I know about Antifa and the radical left. I just don’t know about QAnon.”
Again, he knew nothing about QAnon, but he knew they are against pedophilia, and they love him and see him as their savior who will save the world. He couldn’t bring himself to denounce them, their rhetoric or their violence. Instead, he side-stepped the issue as he always did when asked do disavow white supremacy, by denouncing Antifa, and asking why Sleepy Joe refused to denounce and condemn them.
So, did CNN inaccurately report Trump’s remarks to “sensationalize” them as “embracing?” No, they did not. CNN accurately reported everything he said when asked about QAnon. They did not sensationalize or “spin” his remarks to suit their narrative. He praised them after claiming he knew nothing about them, saying they loved him, which he appreciated, so Dana’s argument that CNN sensationalized his remarks to claim he endorsed them, is itself inaccurate. One doesn’t have to say “endorse” as a way of approving of someone’s support. QAnon endorses Trump. Trump said he “heard they loved” him, and he said he “appreciated it.” That’s as close to an endorsement as you’re going to get.
But Loesch didn’t agree. She’s an expert on the word endorsement. Trump had to say the word to make it definitive.
After his Town Hall remarks, a QAnon account tweeted its appreciation in return:
Dana would ignore that too, and pretend Trump has no connection to QAnon.
My verdict on this claim: Bullshit. Trump came as close to endorsing QAnon as he possibly could.
Next, let’s examine Dana’s claims that “Antifa violence has been damaging to the left and their media surrogates, and the media has been fine to give Democrats a pass when the party refuses to condemn the violence, but they’re intent on pinning QAnon on Trump.”
Recently a meme posted to Facebook made the claim that “not a single Democrat has condemned violence linked to BLM and Antifa: “Not a single Democrat has condemned or called for an end of the BLM and Antifa caused violence,” the post read. “They are aiding and abetting mass violence across the country.”
When a MAGA supporter goes on a shooting spree influenced by violent rhetoric from right-wing media pundits and conservative politicians like Donald Trump, it’s never their fault, they’re never culpable. Right media and the Republican party and its politicians cannot be held accountable. Neither were they culpable in the Capitol riot. Antifa was really behind it, so it’s really the let’s fault. Don’t you dare blame Donald Trump, the politicians or the media pundits who played along with his false narrative of election fraud!
However, when property damage occurs during a protest as a result of police violence, law enforcement is never held to account by right media, and the Republican party. It’s always the fault of the victim, the left, Democrats and the so-called liberal media.
Now to Dana’s claim that the left and their media surrogates realize how damaging Antifa violence has been to their image and are trying to create something similar with which to attack the GOP.
Here she seems to be suggesting that so-called left media – MSNBC and CNN – both center-right corporate news network’s – have some kind of love affair with a small rabble of communists, socialists, and anarchists, and thereby supports it wholly and enthusiastically. First of all, MSNBC and CNN are capitalist, corporate owned network’s, as are Fox News. The accusation that they are both hyper-partisan, far left – Communist News Network, as some idiots have labeled it – outlets, is laughable. Most of the journalists, pundits and commentators at these two networks are conservatives and neo-liberal Democrats that have far more in common with Republicans in terms of policy, than so-called socialists like Bernie Sanders and AOC.
Conservatives have been desperate to tie Antifa with the so-called liberal media and the Democratic party – even going so far as to claim they are the military wing of the party – since anti-fascist protesters demonstrated against Milo Yiannapolous at Berkely several years ago. But Antifa, at least the type that Fox News loves to fear-monger about, are nothing more than anti-fascist protesters that show up at right-wing events like Charlottesville, which conservatives have blown up into an evil, anti-American movement of millions of “terrorists” who are rampaging through the streets randomly assaulting thousands of innocent people, and are really fascists themselves. So this claim that Antifa is damaging to the Democratic party because they won’t condemn the violence – which they have – is also bullshit.
No news network is more obsessed with Antifa than Fox News. All one had to do was tune into Fox News during the summer protests to find them obsessively fear-mongering about so-called Antifa terrorists instigating the “riots.” But in reality, Federal authorities have found virtually no evidence that Antifa instigated the BLM protests. But that has never stopped conservatives from making that claim, without evidence.
I would argue that hyping the threat of Antifa has been more damaging to not only the image, but the reputation of right-wing media. Antifa, as insignificant as it is, has no love for Sleepy Joe and the Democratic party. The Democratic party has no love for them. Antifa has never been seen carrying signs favoring the Democrats. They are anti-capitalists. And the Democrats have never praised Antifa, so the obsession of linking “Antifa” with the Democratic party, is disingenuous and laughable.
As for her charge that the “left is trying to create something similar” to Antifa “to attack the GOP, except there isn’t anything similar.”
All of these incidents, one could argue, were either inspired by the rhetoric of Donald Trump, Republican politicians, and or Right-wing media pundits. For months leading up to the El Paso, Texas shooting, Fox News hosts and Republicans complained of an “invasion” of migrants. It’s no secret that most of the Fox News hosts and the GOP are xenophobic and have never been shy about reminding their viewers and voting base that immigrants are filthy invading criminals who want to steal their jobs and commit crimes. It’s no surprise that someone took their rhetoric seriously and did something about it. The left has never had any reason to try to create anything similar to Antifa. Trump’s supporters have been worse than anything conservatives could dream up about the left. Among his voting base were white nationalists and hardcore Nazis who unabashedly showed up to many of his rally with their racist flags and symbols, and some of them carried out acts of domestic terrorism in his name. Charlottesville was the start of it.
There has never been anything similar on the left or among the Democrats. No one ever showed up to an Obama speech or rally when he was president, proudly waiving a Communist flag. But that didn’t stop Republicans from calling him a far left radical every chance they could. And none of his supporters were enthusiastic enough to pick up an assault weapon and massacre a mosque full of Muslims, as a result of his rhetoric, which was never violent, or racial.
So, her claim that Democrats and the media have given the party a pass for “refusing to condemn the violence,” and trying to create a boogeyman similar to Antifa… is hogwash. If anyone has been given a free pass, it is right-wing media, including Dana Loesch, in refusing to condemn and call out the violent racial rhetoric of Donald Trump and Republicans.
And since the incident at the Capitol, does Dana really have any right to complain that the left is more violent than the right? I think not. After four years of simping for Trump, defending every embarrassing thing he said and did, her constant whining about the media being Obama’s personal lapdog, was not only hilarious, but downright embarrassing. But this woman is incapable of feeling embarrassment about her bootlicking for Trump and the GOP.
In conclusion, Dana asks her readers why she questions the “legacy media.” The answer is simple: because the MSM – MSNBC and CNN – that she and others constantly criticize as biased against conservatives, is not another Fox News, is not 100% biased toward conservatives. It doesn’t mirror her view of reality, it has the audacity to fact check conservative lies and misinformation.
So, was the media desperate to pin QAnon to Trump? No. QAnon has signal boosted their support for Trump, even including him in their ridiculous conspiracy theories, and even though Trump has never – that I know of – officially endorsed their support, neither has he ever disavowed them. QAnon was tied or pinned to Trump during his tenure. Its members and followers showed up at his speeches and rallies with their Q flags and symbols. He couldn’t get more “pinned” than that. The media had no need to try and pin them to Trump. By refusing to disavow them, he pinned himself to them.
My verdict. Dana Loesch is full of shit, and it’s a shame she will never realize it.
Rawstory has reported that Newsmax host Greg Kelly recently urged Trump supporters to overthrow the Grand Old Party and form a MAGA-styled party of their own, a party filled exclusively with kooks and crackpots, where questioning and criticizing Donald The Divine is forbidden.
On his Wednesday night show, Greg Kelly Reports, he encouraged his viewers to distance themselves from both parties because they were not “cutting it.”
“( The Republican party isn’t extreme enough ). Weneed a new party,” he said. “Democrats aren’t cutting it, and quite frankly, I don’t think the Republicans are cutting it either. At least a lot of them are just mailing it in.( We need a party that won’t criticize president Trump. Don’t we have enough of that with the Democrats? Why must the Republicans criticize him as well? Doesn’t he have a tough enough job to do without everybody jumping all over him for no reason other than making America great again?”
Is Donald Trump “cutting it”? Hell yeah, you bet he is! He made America great again, just like he said he would! He saved the economy – including historically lowering black unemployment – with a wave of his hand, something Barack Obama and ‘Sleepy-Stuttering’ Joe Biden were unable to accomplish in eight years. He improved conditions in black communities. He improved race relations. He united all Americans under a single racial banner, and united all of America during the pandemic by declaring that it’s over, thereby assuring everyone that no one’s granny or grand pappy will die of the virus ever again.
Kelly said the MAGA party would be a party about ideas, the Constitution, opportunity, liberty, term limits, the second amendment, and cancelling the “deep state.”
The MAGA party already exists. It’s called the Republican party. If the Republican party were to ever to be replaced with a MAGA party led by Trump, the idea that it would be about the Constitution, and liberty – is laughable. At this moment, Donald Trump and the Republican party are attempting to subvert the Constitution and liberty by trying to steal a fair election. MAGA heads don’t give a damn about the Constitution or liberty. They were recently out marching on the capitol chanting ‘Stop the steal!’ Yeah, these are people who care about liberty and the Constitution.
Since Trump became president, the Republican party has become fully enmeshed with the MAGA movement. It’s also a party enmeshed in racism, anti-semitism, bigotry, voter fraud and voter suppression.
Senatorial candidate Kamala Harris recently had some scathing criticisms for president Trump’s handling of the pandemic.
During a brief campaign stop in Cleveland, she told an enthusiastic crowd, “Six years ago we had a different health crisis. It was called Ebola. We all remember that pandemic, right? But you know what happened then? Barack Obama and Joe Biden did their job. Only two people died. Two. That’s what’s called leadership.
“( But the Republicans didn’t think so. Fox News didn’t think so. They said president Obama was incompetent and inept. They blew it into a national scandal on a scale with 9/11. They said he was allowing Ebola to infect Americans because he hated America, and he wanted reparations for slavery. They said he was using Ebola to confiscate guns. They screamed for his impeachment. Did he ask for reparations? No. Did he confiscate any guns? No.
“Four people died in Benghazi. They said it was a cover up. They blew it up into a national scandal. They said it was bigger than 9/11. They said he failed the American people. They did numerous investigations but couldn’t come up with any proof of a cover up. They screamed for his impeachment.
“Compare that to the moment that we now find ourselves in. When others were following the science, ( Trump suggested injecting disinfectants, as apparently some did. He has even suggested that a good whiff of gas would make it – poof – just go away ‘like a miracle’, and I have no doubt some of his supporters tried that one too!”
The crowd laughed.
“He even suggested nuking the virus! Can you believe that?! I know I can’t. I mean, telling people to inject bleach was ridiculous enough, not to mention brown air, but where did he think they were going to get a nuke?”
The crowd laughed again.
“Can this president ever be bothered to take this virus seriously? Apparently not. He’s seems to be too preoccupied with fantasizing about grabbing women by the you-know-what’s ). And this is what happens when we elect a guy who just isn’t up for the job.”
