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solarbirdHere's how big a collection of fuckheaded insanity the GOP have become:
The latest QAnon freak winning a GOP nomination for Congress primaried a sitting representative and won.
You can't have a democratic country like this. You literally just can't.
----- 1 -----
Right Wing Watch
twitter.com/RightWingWatch
2 June 2020
https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1278746281263992832
During the Summer Family Bible Conference at Andrew Wommack's Charis Bible College yesterday, speaker Wendell Parr declared that Nancy Pelosi is demon-possessed.
[EMBEDDED VIDEO AT LINK]
----- 2 -----
Fact-checking Trump's references to the anti-police chant 'pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon'
By Daniel Dale
Updated 2:46 PM ET, Thu July 2, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/02/politics/fact-check-trump-pigs-blanket-black-lives-matter/index.html
Washington (CNN)As President Donald Trump criticizes "Black Lives Matter," he and his team keep bringing up an eight-word protest chant that has been highlighted repeatedly by conservative Fox News personalities.
Trump has mentioned the chant twice in the past week while criticizing a plan from New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to paint the words "Black Lives Matter" in large yellow letters on the street in front of Trump Tower in Manhattan.
"'Pigs in a Blanket, Fry 'Em Like Bacon', referring to killing Police, is their chant. NYC Police are furious!" Trump wrote on June 25.
"This will further antagonize New York's Finest, who LOVE New York & vividly remember the horrible BLM chant, 'Pigs In A Blanket, Fry 'Em Like Bacon,'" Trump wrote on July 1.
After Trump claimed that de Blasio's plan would create a "symbol of hate," White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump's issue isn't with the words "Black Lives Matter" but that "what he doesn't agree with is an organization that chants 'pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon' about our police officers, our valiant heroes ..."
Trump and McEnany were not making up the chant. But they were leaving out some important context.
Facts First: The words "pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon" were chanted at a protest march held by a Black Lives Matter group in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 2015. That group, however, was an independent entity not affiliated with the national Black Lives Matter organization. And we could find no evidence the chant has been used by the national organization, by any Black Lives Matter groups in the New York City area, or by Black Lives Matter activists anywhere outside Minnesota -- nor even by the St. Paul group on any subsequent occasion.
----- 3 -----
Lawsuit accuses GOP gubernatorial candidate Loren Culp of mishandling child sex-abuse investigation
July 2, 2020
By Jim Brunner
Seattle Times political reporter
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/lawsuit-accuses-gop-gubernatorial-candidate-loren-culp-of-mishandling-child-sex-abuse-investigation/
Loren Culp, the Republican gubernatorial candidate and police chief of Republic, Ferry County, is accused in a lawsuit of botching a child sexual-abuse investigation and intimidating the victim with threats of a false-claims charge.
The lawsuit, filed in 2017, alleges Culp and two other law enforcement officers failed to properly investigate and report to state authorities allegations in 2013 from a 17-year-old girl who said a male relative had been sexually molesting her since she was 5.
After the abortive investigation in Ferry County, the Benton County Sheriff’s Office stepped in with its own criminal probe, leading swiftly to the arrest of Roy A. Moore Jr. in 2014 on child rape, child molestation and incest charges.
Moore pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree child molestation in March 2015. He was sentenced to a minimum of 67 months in prison but was released on Dec. 19, 2019, according to the state Department of Corrections (DOC). Now 57, Moore will remain under DOC supervision as a sex offender for life.
The victim, now 23, said in an interview with The Seattle Times she is suing to make sure Culp and other officers and agencies involved are held accountable for failing to properly investigate her abuser, putting her through severe emotional trauma.
“It’s going happen to somebody else if they don’t pay for what they have done,” she said in an interview this week. “He [the abuser] was guilty … and it’s like it wasn’t important. It didn’t matter what was going on with me.”
----- 4 -----
White evangelical approval of Trump slips, but eight-in-ten say they would vote for him
By Michael Lipka and Gregory A. Smith
Pew Research
1 July 2020
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/01/white-evangelical-approval-of-trump-slips-but-eight-in-ten-say-they-would-vote-for-him/
Amid rising coronavirus cases and widespread protests over racial injustice, President Donald Trump’s approval rating has dropped among a wide range of religious groups, including white evangelical Protestants – though they remain strongly supportive.
Roughly seven-in-ten white evangelical Protestants (72%) say they approve of the way Trump is handling his job, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted June 16 to 22. That is a 6 percentage point drop from 78% recorded in April, in line with the 5-point drop during that period among U.S. adults overall. The share of white evangelicals who say they “very strongly” approve of Trump’s performance is now at 59%, down 8 points from 67% in April. (Pew Research Center also asked the presidential approval question in March of this year, at which time Trump’s rating was similar to results obtained in April.)
----- 5 -----
'Liberate Hong Kong' slogan banned as protesters lie low
City government declares slogan ‘subversive’ and says anyone using it risks prosecution
2 July 2020
Helen Davidson
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/02/hong-kong-protesters-laying-low-following-mass-arrests-china
Hong Kong on Thursday banned the most resonant slogan of its protest movement as those who had taken to the streets over the past year appeared to be lying low the day after the introduction of sweeping draconian national security laws prompted demonstrations, violence, and mass arrests.
A statement from the city government declared that “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our time” had separatist connotations and was “subversive”, and that anyone using it risked prosecution under the new security legislation.
More than 370 people were arrested on Wednesday, including 10 under the new laws imposed directly by Beijing and without the involvement of Hong Kong’s semi-autonomous legislature.
The swift use of the laws to crack down on protests appears to have had a chilling effect already, with social media and encrypted channels that usually buzz with alerts for new demonstrations going conspicuously quiet and no protests planned for the coming days.
“Due to the imminent implementation of the national security law, the operation of this channel has been suspended until further notice,” said one. “Please forgive us for the inconvenience.”
Others remained active but instead of calls to action, there were mournful posts about Lennon walls being torn down, websites removing potentially illegal stories and posts, and a few rumours of further arrests.
Lennon Walls at “yellow” businesses and institutions – those in favour of the pro-democracy protest movement – had become a fixture across the city, but business owners were warned by police on Thursday that displaying such material was now potentially illegal.
----- 6 -----
GOP candidate is latest linked to QAnon conspiracy theory
By ALAN FRAM, NICHOLAS RICCARDI and JIM ANDERSON
July 1, 2020 at 9:11 pm Updated July 2, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/gop-candidate-is-latest-linked-to-qanon-conspiracy-theory-2/
DENVER (AP) — When Lauren Boebert was asked in May about QAnon, she didn’t shy away from the far-right conspiracy theory, which advances unproven allegations about a so-called deep state plot against President Donald Trump that involves satanism and child sex trafficking.
“Everything that I’ve heard of Q, I hope that this is real because it only means that America is getting stronger and better, and people are returning to conservative values,” she said.
At the time, Boebert was on the political fringe, running a campaign largely focused on her gun-themed restaurant and resistance to coronavirus lockdowns. She is now on a path to becoming a member of Congress after upsetting five-term Rep. Scott Tipton in Tuesday’s Republican primary. The GOP-leaning rural western Colorado district will likely support the party’s nominee in the November general election.
Boebert is part of a small but growing list of Republican candidates who have in some way expressed support for QAnon. They include Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is advancing to a runoff for a congressional seat in a GOP-dominated Georgia congressional district, and Jo Rae Perkins, the party’s Senate nominee in Oregon.
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He Built a Privately Funded Border Wall. It’s Already at Risk of Falling Down if Not Fixed.
Trump supporters funded a private border wall on the banks of the Rio Grande, helping the builder secure $1.7 billion in federal contracts. Now the “Lamborghini” of border walls is in danger of falling into the river if nothing is done, experts say.
by Jeremy Schwartz and Perla Trevizo
July 2, 2020
https://www.propublica.org/article/he-built-a-privately-funded-border-wall-its-already-at-risk-of-falling-down-if-not-fixed
Tommy Fisher billed his new privately funded border wall as the future of deterrence, a quick-to-build steel fortress that spans 3 miles in one of the busiest Border Patrol sectors.
Unlike a generation of wall builders before him, he said he figured out how to build a structure directly on the banks of the Rio Grande, a risky but potentially game-changing step when it came to the nation’s border wall system.
Fisher has leveraged his self-described “Lamborghini” of walls to win more than $1.7 billion worth of federal contracts in Arizona.
But his showcase piece is showing signs of runoff erosion and, if it’s not fixed, could be in danger of falling into the Rio Grande, according to engineers and hydrologists who reviewed photos of the wall for ProPublica and The Texas Tribune. It never should have been built so close to the river, they say.
Just months after going up, they said, photos reveal a series of gashes and gullies at various points along the structure where rainwater runoff has scoured the sandy loam beneath the foundation.
“When the river rises, it will likely attack those areas where the foundation is exposed, further weakening support of the fence and potentially causing portions ... to fall into the Rio Grande,” said Alex Mayer, a civil engineer professor at the University of Texas at El Paso who has done research in the Rio Grande basin.
Fisher dismissed the concerns. A company attorney, Mark Courtois, called the erosion “a normal part of new construction projects like this and does not in any way compromise the fence or associated roadway.” The company will seek to build drainage ditches to lessen the deterioration, he added. Neither Courtois nor Fisher responded to additional questions made through Courtois’ office.
----- 8 -----
Mary Trump’s Publisher Wins Order Unblocking Her Memoir
By Erik Larson
July 1, 2020
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-02/mary-trump-publisher-gets-court-to-lift-order-blocking-her-book
Simon & Schuster Inc. got a green light -- for now -- to publish a tell-all memoir by President Donald Trump’s niece after a New York appeals court lifted a temporary ruling that would have blocked the book’s release.
The appeals court kept in place a temporary restraining order handed down earlier this week against Mary L. Trump, who wrote a damning memoir about the “toxic” Trump family, but lifted the TRO from her publisher.
The decision on Wednesday is a setback for the president’s brother, Robert S. Trump, who sued to block the book claiming it violated a secrecy deal that was part of a 2001 legal settlement over the wills of the president’s parents.
Mary Trump agreed as part of the 2001 settlement with Donald Trump, Robert Trump and other family members not to “directly or indirectly publish or cause to be published any diary, memoir, letter, story, photograph, interview, article, essay, account or description or depiction of any kind whatsoever” about their relationships, according to the complaint.
“While Ms. Trump unquestionably possesses the same First Amendment expressive rights belonging to all Americans, she also possesses the right to enter into contracts, including the right to contract away her First Amendment rights,” the appeals court said. “Unlike Ms. Trump, Simon & Schuster has not agreed to surrender or relinquish any of its First Amendment rights.”
The latest QAnon freak winning a GOP nomination for Congress primaried a sitting representative and won.
You can't have a democratic country like this. You literally just can't.
- During the Summer Family Bible Conference at Andrew Wommack's Charis Bible College yesterday, speaker Wendell Parr declared that Nancy Pelosi is demon-possessed.
- Fact-checking Trump's references to the anti-police chant 'pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon'
- Lawsuit accuses GOP gubernatorial candidate Loren Culp of mishandling child sex-abuse investigation
- White evangelical approval of Trump slips, but eight-in-ten say they would vote for him
- 'Liberate Hong Kong' slogan banned as protesters lie low
- GOP candidate is latest linked to QAnon conspiracy theory
- He Built a Privately Funded Border Wall. It’s Already at Risk of Falling Down if Not Fixed.
- Mary Trump’s Publisher Wins Order Unblocking Her Memoir
----- 1 -----
Right Wing Watch
twitter.com/RightWingWatch
2 June 2020
https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1278746281263992832
During the Summer Family Bible Conference at Andrew Wommack's Charis Bible College yesterday, speaker Wendell Parr declared that Nancy Pelosi is demon-possessed.
[EMBEDDED VIDEO AT LINK]
----- 2 -----
Fact-checking Trump's references to the anti-police chant 'pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon'
By Daniel Dale
Updated 2:46 PM ET, Thu July 2, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/02/politics/fact-check-trump-pigs-blanket-black-lives-matter/index.html
Washington (CNN)As President Donald Trump criticizes "Black Lives Matter," he and his team keep bringing up an eight-word protest chant that has been highlighted repeatedly by conservative Fox News personalities.
Trump has mentioned the chant twice in the past week while criticizing a plan from New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to paint the words "Black Lives Matter" in large yellow letters on the street in front of Trump Tower in Manhattan.
"'Pigs in a Blanket, Fry 'Em Like Bacon', referring to killing Police, is their chant. NYC Police are furious!" Trump wrote on June 25.
"This will further antagonize New York's Finest, who LOVE New York & vividly remember the horrible BLM chant, 'Pigs In A Blanket, Fry 'Em Like Bacon,'" Trump wrote on July 1.
After Trump claimed that de Blasio's plan would create a "symbol of hate," White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump's issue isn't with the words "Black Lives Matter" but that "what he doesn't agree with is an organization that chants 'pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon' about our police officers, our valiant heroes ..."
Trump and McEnany were not making up the chant. But they were leaving out some important context.
Facts First: The words "pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon" were chanted at a protest march held by a Black Lives Matter group in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 2015. That group, however, was an independent entity not affiliated with the national Black Lives Matter organization. And we could find no evidence the chant has been used by the national organization, by any Black Lives Matter groups in the New York City area, or by Black Lives Matter activists anywhere outside Minnesota -- nor even by the St. Paul group on any subsequent occasion.
----- 3 -----
Lawsuit accuses GOP gubernatorial candidate Loren Culp of mishandling child sex-abuse investigation
July 2, 2020
By Jim Brunner
Seattle Times political reporter
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/lawsuit-accuses-gop-gubernatorial-candidate-loren-culp-of-mishandling-child-sex-abuse-investigation/
Loren Culp, the Republican gubernatorial candidate and police chief of Republic, Ferry County, is accused in a lawsuit of botching a child sexual-abuse investigation and intimidating the victim with threats of a false-claims charge.
The lawsuit, filed in 2017, alleges Culp and two other law enforcement officers failed to properly investigate and report to state authorities allegations in 2013 from a 17-year-old girl who said a male relative had been sexually molesting her since she was 5.
After the abortive investigation in Ferry County, the Benton County Sheriff’s Office stepped in with its own criminal probe, leading swiftly to the arrest of Roy A. Moore Jr. in 2014 on child rape, child molestation and incest charges.
Moore pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree child molestation in March 2015. He was sentenced to a minimum of 67 months in prison but was released on Dec. 19, 2019, according to the state Department of Corrections (DOC). Now 57, Moore will remain under DOC supervision as a sex offender for life.
The victim, now 23, said in an interview with The Seattle Times she is suing to make sure Culp and other officers and agencies involved are held accountable for failing to properly investigate her abuser, putting her through severe emotional trauma.
“It’s going happen to somebody else if they don’t pay for what they have done,” she said in an interview this week. “He [the abuser] was guilty … and it’s like it wasn’t important. It didn’t matter what was going on with me.”
----- 4 -----
White evangelical approval of Trump slips, but eight-in-ten say they would vote for him
By Michael Lipka and Gregory A. Smith
Pew Research
1 July 2020
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/01/white-evangelical-approval-of-trump-slips-but-eight-in-ten-say-they-would-vote-for-him/
Amid rising coronavirus cases and widespread protests over racial injustice, President Donald Trump’s approval rating has dropped among a wide range of religious groups, including white evangelical Protestants – though they remain strongly supportive.
Roughly seven-in-ten white evangelical Protestants (72%) say they approve of the way Trump is handling his job, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted June 16 to 22. That is a 6 percentage point drop from 78% recorded in April, in line with the 5-point drop during that period among U.S. adults overall. The share of white evangelicals who say they “very strongly” approve of Trump’s performance is now at 59%, down 8 points from 67% in April. (Pew Research Center also asked the presidential approval question in March of this year, at which time Trump’s rating was similar to results obtained in April.)
----- 5 -----
'Liberate Hong Kong' slogan banned as protesters lie low
City government declares slogan ‘subversive’ and says anyone using it risks prosecution
2 July 2020
Helen Davidson
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/02/hong-kong-protesters-laying-low-following-mass-arrests-china
Hong Kong on Thursday banned the most resonant slogan of its protest movement as those who had taken to the streets over the past year appeared to be lying low the day after the introduction of sweeping draconian national security laws prompted demonstrations, violence, and mass arrests.
A statement from the city government declared that “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our time” had separatist connotations and was “subversive”, and that anyone using it risked prosecution under the new security legislation.
More than 370 people were arrested on Wednesday, including 10 under the new laws imposed directly by Beijing and without the involvement of Hong Kong’s semi-autonomous legislature.
The swift use of the laws to crack down on protests appears to have had a chilling effect already, with social media and encrypted channels that usually buzz with alerts for new demonstrations going conspicuously quiet and no protests planned for the coming days.
“Due to the imminent implementation of the national security law, the operation of this channel has been suspended until further notice,” said one. “Please forgive us for the inconvenience.”
Others remained active but instead of calls to action, there were mournful posts about Lennon walls being torn down, websites removing potentially illegal stories and posts, and a few rumours of further arrests.
Lennon Walls at “yellow” businesses and institutions – those in favour of the pro-democracy protest movement – had become a fixture across the city, but business owners were warned by police on Thursday that displaying such material was now potentially illegal.
----- 6 -----
GOP candidate is latest linked to QAnon conspiracy theory
By ALAN FRAM, NICHOLAS RICCARDI and JIM ANDERSON
July 1, 2020 at 9:11 pm Updated July 2, 2020
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/gop-candidate-is-latest-linked-to-qanon-conspiracy-theory-2/
DENVER (AP) — When Lauren Boebert was asked in May about QAnon, she didn’t shy away from the far-right conspiracy theory, which advances unproven allegations about a so-called deep state plot against President Donald Trump that involves satanism and child sex trafficking.
“Everything that I’ve heard of Q, I hope that this is real because it only means that America is getting stronger and better, and people are returning to conservative values,” she said.
At the time, Boebert was on the political fringe, running a campaign largely focused on her gun-themed restaurant and resistance to coronavirus lockdowns. She is now on a path to becoming a member of Congress after upsetting five-term Rep. Scott Tipton in Tuesday’s Republican primary. The GOP-leaning rural western Colorado district will likely support the party’s nominee in the November general election.
Boebert is part of a small but growing list of Republican candidates who have in some way expressed support for QAnon. They include Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is advancing to a runoff for a congressional seat in a GOP-dominated Georgia congressional district, and Jo Rae Perkins, the party’s Senate nominee in Oregon.
----- 7 -----
He Built a Privately Funded Border Wall. It’s Already at Risk of Falling Down if Not Fixed.
Trump supporters funded a private border wall on the banks of the Rio Grande, helping the builder secure $1.7 billion in federal contracts. Now the “Lamborghini” of border walls is in danger of falling into the river if nothing is done, experts say.
by Jeremy Schwartz and Perla Trevizo
July 2, 2020
https://www.propublica.org/article/he-built-a-privately-funded-border-wall-its-already-at-risk-of-falling-down-if-not-fixed
Tommy Fisher billed his new privately funded border wall as the future of deterrence, a quick-to-build steel fortress that spans 3 miles in one of the busiest Border Patrol sectors.
Unlike a generation of wall builders before him, he said he figured out how to build a structure directly on the banks of the Rio Grande, a risky but potentially game-changing step when it came to the nation’s border wall system.
Fisher has leveraged his self-described “Lamborghini” of walls to win more than $1.7 billion worth of federal contracts in Arizona.
But his showcase piece is showing signs of runoff erosion and, if it’s not fixed, could be in danger of falling into the Rio Grande, according to engineers and hydrologists who reviewed photos of the wall for ProPublica and The Texas Tribune. It never should have been built so close to the river, they say.
Just months after going up, they said, photos reveal a series of gashes and gullies at various points along the structure where rainwater runoff has scoured the sandy loam beneath the foundation.
“When the river rises, it will likely attack those areas where the foundation is exposed, further weakening support of the fence and potentially causing portions ... to fall into the Rio Grande,” said Alex Mayer, a civil engineer professor at the University of Texas at El Paso who has done research in the Rio Grande basin.
Fisher dismissed the concerns. A company attorney, Mark Courtois, called the erosion “a normal part of new construction projects like this and does not in any way compromise the fence or associated roadway.” The company will seek to build drainage ditches to lessen the deterioration, he added. Neither Courtois nor Fisher responded to additional questions made through Courtois’ office.
----- 8 -----
Mary Trump’s Publisher Wins Order Unblocking Her Memoir
By Erik Larson
July 1, 2020
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-02/mary-trump-publisher-gets-court-to-lift-order-blocking-her-book
Simon & Schuster Inc. got a green light -- for now -- to publish a tell-all memoir by President Donald Trump’s niece after a New York appeals court lifted a temporary ruling that would have blocked the book’s release.
The appeals court kept in place a temporary restraining order handed down earlier this week against Mary L. Trump, who wrote a damning memoir about the “toxic” Trump family, but lifted the TRO from her publisher.
The decision on Wednesday is a setback for the president’s brother, Robert S. Trump, who sued to block the book claiming it violated a secrecy deal that was part of a 2001 legal settlement over the wills of the president’s parents.
Mary Trump agreed as part of the 2001 settlement with Donald Trump, Robert Trump and other family members not to “directly or indirectly publish or cause to be published any diary, memoir, letter, story, photograph, interview, article, essay, account or description or depiction of any kind whatsoever” about their relationships, according to the complaint.
“While Ms. Trump unquestionably possesses the same First Amendment expressive rights belonging to all Americans, she also possesses the right to enter into contracts, including the right to contract away her First Amendment rights,” the appeals court said. “Unlike Ms. Trump, Simon & Schuster has not agreed to surrender or relinquish any of its First Amendment rights.”
