"A Shadow Ex-President" & His "Cult-like Movement"

From Brett Samuels' 1-31-22 THE HILL article entitled "Psaki: Trump Raising Jan. 6 Pardons, Overturning Election a Reminder He's Unfit":

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday said former President Trump's comments over the weekend in which he floated pardons for Capitol rioters and complained that the 2020 election was not "overturned" were a reminder of how unfit Trump is for office.

"He defended the actions of his supporters, who stormed the Capitol and brutally attacked the law enforcement officers protecting it. I think it’s important to shout that out and call that out," Psaki said at a press briefing when asked about Trump's comments and potential reforms to the Electoral Count Act.

"He even attacked his own vice president for not, in his words, having overturned the election," Psaki continued. "And it’s just a reminder of how unfit he is for office. And it’s telling that even some of his closest allies have rejected those remarks as inappropriate in the days since."

Trump at a rally in Texas on Saturday said if he ran for reelection and won in 2024, he would treat those convicted of crimes connected to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots "fairly," adding, "If it requires pardons, we will give them pardons, because they are being treated so unfairly."

Hundreds of people have been arrested and sentenced in connection with the Capitol riots, when a pro-Trump mob violently overwhelmed law enforcement and stormed the complex in a bid to stop the certification of Joe Biden's electoral victory.

On Sunday night, amid talk in Congress of reforming the Electoral Count Act, Trump argued that former Vice President Mike Pence should have unilaterally "changed the outcome" of last November's election, his clearest admission to date that he wanted the results completely thrown out so he could remain in power.

To read Samuels' entire article, click HERE.

From Will Bunch's 1-30-22 PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER column entitled "At Texas Rally, Trump All But Promised a Racially Charged Civil War If He’s Indicted":

For a nation that’s awakened every morning for nearly two years to a Groundhog Day of pandemic and paranoia, the scenes from Donald Trump’s latest comeback rally on Saturday at a fairground in the East Texas flatlands of Conroe could certainly numb the American mind with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.

The mile-long line of Trump fanatics, braving the January prairie chill to see the twice-impeached ex-president and passing rows of vendors, including the occasional Confederate flag. Then the viral clips of the true believers — the woman in her Trump 2024 hat expounding that the “Joe Biden” currently in the White House is fake and that the real one was assassinated at Gitmo in March 2019, another woman peddling a book containing all of Trump’s tweets before he was banned from Twitter, and the guy peddling doses of the quack COVID-19 cure ivermectin while lashing out at anyone wearing a mask for trying to "save Grandma" [...].

[T]he man who’d occupied the White House little more than one year ago delivered one of the most incendiary and most dangerous speeches in America’s 246-year history. It included an appeal for all-out mayhem in the streets to thwart the U.S. justice system and prevent Trump from going to jail, as the vise tightens from overlapping criminal probes in multiple jurisdictions. And it also featured a stunning campaign promise — that Trump would look to abuse the power of the presidency to pardon those involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

It’s impossible for me to understate or downplay the importance of this moment, and I hope that my colleagues in the media — who too often over the last year have craved or even pretended about a return to the politics of “normal,” when we are nowhere near normal — will wake up and see this. Of course, Biden’s presidency deserves our full scrutiny, with praise for what’s gone right (an economic boom) and criticism for what’s gone wrong (broken promises on climate and student debt). But while Biden is seeking to restore democratic norms, a shadow ex-president — unpunished so far for his role in an attempted coup on Jan. 6 — is rebuilding a cult-like movement in the heartland of America, with all the personal grievance and appeals to Brownshirts-style violence that marked the lowest moments of the 20th century. On the 89th anniversary of the date (Jan. 30, 1933) that Adolf Hitler — rehabilitated after his attempted coup — assumed power in Germany, are we repeating the past’s mistakes of complacency and underestimation?

To read Bunch's entire article, click HERE.

ROBERT GUFFEY APPEARS ON THE INDEPENDENT RIOT!

This past Friday, on January 27th, the latest episode of James Duncan's INDEPENDENT RIOT podcast featured Part One of a two-part interview with Yours Truly. Part One focuses on my third book, CHAMELEO (2015), and the second part will focus on my eighth book, OPERATION MINDFUCK: QANON & THE CULT OF DONALD TRUMP (2022), which is due to be published within the next few months. To hear the entire ninety-minute-plus interview, click HERE.

Art Spiegelman Reacts to MAUS Being Banned

From Chris Boyette's 1-28-22 CNN report entitled "A Tennessee School Board Removed the Graphic Novel 'Maus,' About the Holocaust, From Curriculum Due to Language and Nudity Concerns":

"Maus," the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the experiences of Holocaust survivors that was recently banned by a Tennessee school board, has made the Amazon best-seller list.

As of Friday night, a hardcopy version of the serialized work by Art Spiegelman was listed as the online retailer's #9 top seller.

Earlier this month, "Maus" was removed from an eighth-grade English language arts curriculum by the McMinn County, Tennessee, Board of Education over concerns about "rough, objectionable language" and a drawing of a nude woman.

The board voted 10-0 to remove the book from the curriculum, saying it should be replaced, if possible, with another book without content deemed objectionable.

"Maus" is a graphic novel by Spiegelman, a comic artist, that follows his Jewish parents in 1940s Poland from their early experiences of anti-Semitism to their internment in Auschwitz. The novel is intercut with the young author's attempts to coax the story out of his father as an old man. It depicts Jewish people as mice and Nazis as cats.

The minutes of the January 10 meeting show McMinn County Director of Schools Lee Parkison addressed the board about the book before voting took place.

"The values of the county are understood. There is some rough, objectionable language in this book and knowing that and hearing from many of you and discussing it, two or three of you came by my office to discuss that," Parkison said.

Parkison said he spoke to an attorney and suggested redacting the profanity and the drawing of the woman, according to the minutes posted on the school board's website. But the board discussed concerns over copyright issues they may face for altering the book.

Ultimately, the board reached the unanimous vote to remove the book after discussing other aspects surrounding the decision, including state regulations, the core curriculum and the possibility of finding a book to replace "Maus."

CNN has reached out to Parkison and all members of the McMinn County School Board for further comment on the decision.

"I'm trying to, like, wrap my brain around it," Spiegelman said on CNN's "New Day" when asked for his reaction in an interview Thursday.....

To read the entire article, click HERE.

Art Spiegelma

'Maus' Author Reacts to His Book Being Banned (1-27-22):

 

Chuck Palahniuk Reacts to FIGHT CLUB Being Censored

From Patrick Brzeski's 1-26-22 HOLLYWOOD REPORTER article entitled "‘Fight Club’ Author Chuck Palahniuk Says China’s Censored Ending Is Actually Truer to His Vision":

The author also said that he saw the irony in many Americans’ angry response to China’s actions, given that his books are banned in many locations across the U.S.

“What I find really interesting is that my books are heavily banned throughout the U.S.,” he said. “The Texas prison system refuses to carry my books in their libraries. A lot of public schools and most private schools refuse to carry my books. But it’s only an issue once China changes the end of a movie? I’ve been putting up with book banning for a long time.”

He also said that having his work revised in ways he can’t control is nothing new to him.

“A lot of my overseas publishers have edited the novel so the novel ends the way the movie ends,” he said. “So I’ve been dealing with this kind of revision for like 25 years.”

To read the entire article, click HERE.

Mysterious Drone Incursions

From Brett Tingley's 1-15-22 TheDrive article entitled "Mysterious Drone Incursions Confirmed Over Sweden's Nuclear Facilities":

Swedish law enforcement officials have confirmed that unidentified drones have been seen in the airspace over multiple nuclear power facilities early in the evening of Friday, January 14. An investigation has been launched by Sweden’s National Operations Department (NOA), but so far no suspects have been identified.

The Swedish Police Authority say the drones were seen over two separate nuclear facilities: one in the city of Forsmark and another over Oskarshamn. There are reports that a third nuclear facility at Ringhals had similar incursions, but Swedish police have yet to confirm that drones were in fact seen there. According to Reuters, the facility at Forsmark is the nation’s largest producer of energy.

According to the official website of Sweden’s Swedish Police Authority, Polisen.se, the NOA oversees national-level investigations and operations and is the “national point of contact for the Swedish Security Service, the Swedish Armed Forces, and the National Defence Radio Establishment, and is responsible for managing sensitive information relating to terrorism and signals intelligence.”

Swedish TV station TV2 reports the drone seen at Forsmark was thought to be “a larger model that can withstand wind as it blew hard in the area.” The drone was first seen by a guard as it hovered over the facility before heading away east towards the island of Gräsö. Authorities reportedly used helicopters to try to locate the alleged drone, but were unsuccessful. Swedish national public television broadcaster SVT posted a video filmed by a motorist reportedly showing a drone over the Ringhals nuclear power plant, but that alleged incursion remains unconfirmed by Swedish authorities. The 27-second video appears to show a bright single point of light in the sky, but little can be made of it [...].

The United States has seen its share of unidentified drone incursions lately. We previously reported on an absolutely bizarre drone incursion above the Palo Verde nuclear power plant in Arizona which remains unexplained to this day. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) documents show that Palo Verde is far from the only nuclear facility to have had such incursions and that as many as 60 different drone sightings took place at 24 nuclear power facilities between 2015 and 2019. The NRC and National Nuclear Security Administration appear to be finally taking the situation seriously by making moves to deploy anti-drone systems at sensitive sites.

A more widespread series of unidentified drone sightings occurred above wide swaths of the American west in late 2019 and 2020, similarly ending without conclusive evidence about the drones’ operators revealed to the public. The Navy has also experienced mysterious drone swarms in some of its most sensitive training areas near home waters. Extremely peculiar drone incursions that have occurred near or over highly surveilled U.S. military bases in urban areas remain unsolved. Even America's most critical missile defense sites have not been immune to highly suspicious drone incursions. 

To read the entire article, click HERE.

"'UFO' and 'Shadow People' Seen Near US Air Force Base"

From John Bett and Michael Moran's 1-13-22 MIRROR article entitled "Man Saw 'UFO' and 'Shadow People' Near Nuclear Weapons at US Air Force Base":

An airman has witnessed a ' UFO ' while he was guarding nuclear weapons at a US Air Force base - adding that he's seen 'shadow people' at similar installations.

Former USAF nuclear weapons technician Adrian Reister said that between 2003 and 2007 he was stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, where he would guard, maintain, and move nuclear weapons.

He said that while performing his duties, he saw a glowing 'orb' hovering above a nearby treeline before flying off, as the Daily Star reports.

Adrian, 37, said that it couldn't have been one of their planes as he knew them all extensively, and he added that while he was training at a similar station he came face-to-face with a terrifying 6ft 'shadow person' [...].

He said: 'I saw what I can’t really describe as other than a black mass in the shape of a person standing at 6ft. Not really a shadow but something that was slightly blurry and didn’t reflect any light.'

To read the entire article, click HERE.

Robert Welch & the John Birch Society

From Edward H. Miller's 1-9-22 LOS ANGELES TIMES Op-Ed piece entitled "Today’s Right-wing Conspiracy Theory Mentality Can Be Traced Back to the John Birch Society":

As the years passed, [Robert] Welch’s theories grew wilder. He eventually concluded that communism was just another name for the conspiracy begun by the Bavarian Illuminati in 1776. He also said that the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bilderbergers (a group that sought to foster dialogue between Europe and North America) were the puppet masters of U.S. foreign and economic interests. The [John Birch Society] also called for the U.S. to withdraw from the United Nations and for the impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren.

In the 1970s, the John Birch Society became even more influential. Despite a widespread belief that the “responsible” right of William F. Buckley had purged the conservative movement of the Birchers, Welch was never excommunicated. His style of American conservatism remained potent.

In those years, Welch broadened the society’s focus by opposing abortion, high taxation and sex education — issues that propelled the Reagan revolution. Bircher Lewis Uhler was instrumental in passing Proposition 13 to reduce California’s property taxes in 1978.

All the while, Welch continued to press his extreme theories.

In the 1970s, Americans began receiving some confirmation that perhaps conspiracies weren’t really as rare and nutty as they seemed. In 1973 and 1974, Watergate demonstrated that a president could secretly abuse his constitutional authority. Americans learned that more government officials had spied for the Soviet Union and had worked with mobsters in an unsuccessful effort to kill a foreign head of state. The CIA turned out to have conducted LSD experiments on Americans. After a while, anything seemed plausible. Over the years that followed, the number of people who said they trusted the government plummeted.

Welch is important today because, beginning in the 1980s and continuing on, his world has become ours. The depth of his influence on the transformation of the Republican Party — and therefore on America — has never been fully appreciated. His style of politics remained extremely potent after his death in 1985.

Reagan espoused conspiracy theories, such as his claim that Gerald Ford staged assassination attempts against himself to win sympathy votes. In the 1990s, partisanship became more central, ideology more crucial. On the radical fringe of the far right, private militia members armed themselves to the teeth. Both major parties, they claimed, wanted to end American sovereignty.

To read the entire article, click HERE.