monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Army leaders distanced the U.S. military from the American election process Friday as several prominent allies of President Trump proposed he declare martial law in light of losing his race for reelection.

“There is no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of an American election,” Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said in a joint statement.

Several well-known supporters of Mr. Trump, ranging from former presidential advisers to a current Virginia state senator, have suggested he deploy the military to somehow either prove massive voter fraud invalidating Mr. Biden’s victory or perhaps to oversee a do-over of the election.

Mr. Trump lost the election to Democratic rival Joseph R. Biden, but the president and some fellow Republicans allege the race was rigged against the incumbent and deny its outcome.

Appearing on TV earlier this week, Michael T. Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general and former Trump adviser, recommended the president deploy the military to “basically rerun” the election he lost.

That interview Thursday on Newsmax was not the first time Mr. Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and was later pardoned by the president, recommended Mr. Trump deploy the military due to his defeat.

Mr. Flynn shared a press release on social media earlier this month similarly urging Mr. Trump to invoke “limited martial law” and have the military conduct a “revote” of the presidential election.

Virginia state Sen. Amanda F. Chase, a Republican candidate for governor, endorsed that idea Monday on Facebook in a post: “President Trump should declare martial law as recommended by General Flynn.”

Other politicians who recently suggested Mr. Trump declare martial law and put the military in charge include former Republican congressional hopefuls Omar Navarro of California and Duane Hennen of Ohio.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Illinois Republican and U.S. Air Force veteran, recently said putting the military in control is “insane.” Former congressman Alan Grayson, Florida Democrat, has called talk of using the military “sedition” and any actual acting upon the request to be “treason.”

Leaders of federal agencies responsible for ensuring the election process occurred securely attest they were successful, and no credible evidence has emerged to corroborate any claims suggesting otherwise.

Numerous courts have also rejected lawsuits brought by Republicans challenging the election, making military deployment among the last drastic options remaining for the president to try to remain in power.

Mr. Biden is set to be sworn in as president on Jan. 20.

One need not dabble in conspiracy theories to ask a simple question today: What should be done about Donald Trump having served as a Russian asset for the past four years?

In the wake of the recently revealed Russian cyberattack on the U.S. -- apparently unprecedented in its danger to national security -- it's time for Congress, the media and the incoming Biden administration to move beyond the question of "if" Trump was helping his overt ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin. The relevant questions are why and how.

With the nation preoccupied with removing Trump from the White House without force, the timing might not seem ideal. But the results of Putin's engagements with Trump are too many and too obvious: Someone needs to connect the dots.

Today's 24/7 news cycles are not suited for this task. They rely upon the instant gratification of breaking news stories as they present themselves, not analysis of how events might fit into a pattern of conduct. When Trump outrageously refused to condemn Russia this week for its massive hacking crime, the general reaction was puzzlement and outrage among the chattering class. It should have been a sense of confirmation followed by a timeline.

Trump leaves office with an unknown number of Russian spies and intelligence experts in possession of an unknown treasure trove of sensitive private information held -- for starters -- on federal systems at departments including Homeland Security, Treasury, Commerce and the National Nuclear Security Administration, CNBC reports.

"Susan Gordon, former principal deputy director of national intelligence, told CNBC that the massive cyberattack targeting federal agencies 'will take years to overcome' as senior intelligence officials report there is little doubt the Russians were the perpetrators and that they're still at it."

That has a "mission accomplished" feel about it for the folks back home in Moscow. So rather than wonder why Trump isn't acting upset, perhaps the media should be asking, "What did Trump know about this hacking and when did he know it?"

An American president's refusal to push back publicly and strongly against a major hostile act by an adversary is more than a matter of bad optics. At best it's a display of humiliating weakness. At worst, it's an act of surrender and -- in Trump's case with Russia -- a strong suggestion of complicity.

What's fascinating is that the reporting is all out there on this topic, but the cohesion of a clear narrative doesn't hold from one major story to the next. On October 25, the Washington Post published an epic piece documenting Trump's history with Russia headlined "Tumult at home, ailing alliances abroad: Why Trump's America has been a 'gift' to Putin."

The Post's reporting was hardly unique. In 2019, CNN recounted "37 times Trump was soft on Russia." The New York Times published a definitive op-ed piece in 2018 from national security expert Susan Rice headlined "How Trump Helps Putin." On and on it goes. So why the stunned indignation today when Trump wouldn't even criticize Putin -- much less condemn him -- for what was essentially an act of war on the nation he's sworn to protect?

There's no mystery here. Trump's fealty to Putin has been an ongoing national scandal in full public view, perhaps so blatantly that the nation is numbed to its traitorous essence.

Here's a list of "Trump's Greatest Hits as a Russian Asset" assembled from a variety of sources. The ordering is subjective, but not the facts:

1. Trump has mounted -- and maintains -- a vicious attack on the legitimacy of American democracy and the integrity of its elections. That has topped Putin's anti-American wish list beyond his wildest imagination.
2. On Trump's watch, Russia has launched possibly the most damaging cyber-attack in American history, an act of war that might prove lasting enough in its damage to supplant #1 above.
3. Trump seriously degraded America's NATO alliances -- arguably Putin's top international priority -- by feuding with the organization over dues and petty differences and weakening its resolve to treat Russia as a threat.
4. Trump handed Putin undeserved international legitimacy at a Helsinki summit by publicly siding with him over the unanimous U.S. intelligence community with regard to his denials of Russian meddling in the 2016 election on Trump's behalf.
5. Trump held foreign aid to Ukraine hostage -- aid it needed to defend itself against Russia -- as part of a failed extortion scheme to muddy Joe Biden.
6. Trump failed to raise a whimper of protest when it was revealed the Russia had placed bounties on the heads of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
7. Trump pulled the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accord, isolating the nation from the world community and creating a void for Russia and others to fill.
8. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the World Trade Organization. See item 7.
9. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Iran Nuclear Deal. See item 7.
10. Trump pulled U.S. troops from Syria, a major strategic victory for Putin and his client, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. That was beyond item 7 in value to Russia, which swiftly filled the void left by the U.S.
11. Trump weakened the European Union -- as he did with NATO -- by supporting Brexit and sending Steve Bannon to Europe to support anti-government movements.
12. Trump supported Putin with silence over the poisoning of Russian Alexei Navalny with the same nerve agent used to poison ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in 2018. Trump stayed silent for as long as possible on that one as well.
13. Trump shared highly classified intelligence information about ISIS with two top Russian officials in an infamous Oval Office meeting.
14. Trump has met repeatedly in person and by phone with Putin without allowing independent notetaking and documentation customarily included in meetings with foreign leaders.
15. Trump lifted sanctions from Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a Putin ally, over 2016 election interference, prompting bipartisan outrage from the U.S. Senate.
16. Trump defended Putin's 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea, which had caused Russia to be kicked out of the Group of Eight (G8). Trump has led a one-man effort to bring Russia back into the G8 with no concessions. (Europeans are calling it G6 + 1 as long as Trump is around.)
17. Trump's continual support for dictators across the globe has aided the ascent -- with his support -- of pro-Putin autocrats in Europe.
18. Trump has consistently resisted the implementation (and reduced the size) of U.S. sanctions aimed at punishing various Russian misdeeds.
19. The Trump administration last year pressured the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to delete part of a report concluding that Russia was aiming to help Donald Trump win reelection in 2020.
20. Trump even went out of his way at a Cabinet meeting to laud Russia's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan in which U.S.-backed Afghan militants had fought the Russians.

This list could on for quite a while. Perhaps for those not willing to see it as proof of his complicity with Putin, the question might better be worded: "If Trump isn't a Russian asset, why did he do all these things to help Putin?"

Still, the story hasn't come together in its fullness. It's a bitterly ironic note that media have become hamstrung by one of the biggest of Trump's Big Lies: That all the investigations into his sleazy and criminal interactions with Russia were nothing more than a "hoax." There's no reason for self-consciousness by the media, nor for holding back on "the Russia, Russia, Russia" story, but strangely that is what has happened.

For example, the much-maligned Mueller Report is treated like it never existed. Yes, it fizzled as grounds for impeachment for reasons of process and politics utterly unrelated to its damning substance. But it broadly torpedoed Trump and his conduct for anyone who read it. That he has been able to use Mueller fatigue to escape scorn for what it contains is a testament to the power of disinformation.

The Mueller report remains totally relevant as context for the Trump-as-Russian-asset story. I've separated it here from the main list of examples, not because many of its findings don't belong there, but because it serves best as a baseline for understanding the rest.

To refresh memories, here are some key conclusions of the Mueller report -- as recounted by the Guardian -- which provide a baseline from which one might jump to understand Trump's relationship as president with Russia:

Quote:

The Russians had led a campaign to swing the 2016 election in Trump's favor and committed crimes to achieve that goal
The Trump campaign was receptive to help from the Russians
Donald Trump Jr said he would "love" to receive dirt on Hillary Clinton from the Russian government
As a candidate, Trump publicly urged the Russians to hack Clinton's emails
Trump pursued a lucrative Trump Tower project in Moscow during the campaign
Multiple top Trump campaign and administration officials were convicted of lying to investigators about their contacts with Russians

Mueller also pointed out at least 10 instances in which Trump acted in a way that might have led to obstruction of justice charges were he not president. And let's not forget this passage from the Mueller Report:

"[T]he investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts."

Add to all this Trump's countless relationships with shady figures such as Paul Manafort with their Russian connections, and those hazy efforts at business dealings -- including the fateful 2013 Miss Universe visit to Moscow -- and the refusal to release tax returns that might show some of Trump's Russian business affairs. It's not a pretty picture. If Trump owes Russian interests as part of the gigantic foreign debts facing him after office, it's downright ugly.

Now, return to the current news that somehow, some way, Putin's hackers managed to pull off one of the greatest espionage coups in history, at U.S. expense, on Donald Trump's watch. And Trump, it turns out, is the only one in the U.S. unfazed by it all as he focuses instead on staying in office by military coup.

If all those dots cannot be connected, someone needs a new Sharpie.

REVEALED: ‘Simple Math’ Shows Biden Claims 13 MILLION More Votes Than There Were Eligible Voters Who Voted in 2020 Election

Bill Binney, Constitutional Patriot
@Bill_Binney
(39)With 212Million registered voters and 66.2% voting,140.344 M voted. Now if Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden. These numbers don’t add up to what we are being told. Lies and more Lies!

Biden's victory is laughable. There was massive fraud.

If President Trump won 74 million votes, then that leaves only 67.5 million votes remaining for Biden. This means 13 million duplicate or made up ballots were created and counted for Biden!

WOAH: 25 BRAND NEW Studies Completely DISCREDIT Dr. Fauci

The pro-lockdown evidence is shockingly thin, and based largely on comparing real-world outcomes against dire computer-generated forecasts derived from empirically untested models, and then merely positing that stringencies and “nonpharmaceutical interventions” account for the difference between the fictionalized vs. the real outcome. The anti-lockdown studies, on the other hand, are evidence-based, robust, and thorough, grappling with the data we have (with all its flaws) and looking at the results in light of controls on the population.

Much of the following list has been put together by data engineer Ivor Cummins, who has waged a year-long educational effort to upend intellectual support for lockdowns. AIER has added its own and the summaries. The upshot is that the virus is going to do as viruses do, same as always in the history of infectious disease. We have extremely limited control over them, and that which we do have is bound up with time and place. Fear, panic, and coercion are not ideal strategies for managing viruses. Intelligence and medical therapeutics fare much better.

(These studies are focused only on lockdown and their relationship to virus control. They do not get into the myriad associated issues that have vexed the world such as mask mandates, PCR-testing issues, death misclassification problem, or any particular issues associated with travel restrictions, restaurant closures, and hundreds of other particulars about which whole libraries will be written in the future.)

DO THE MATH PINKY.

Voter apathy in the United States

According to the Pew Research Center, only 55.7 percent of the U.S. voting age population cast ballots in the 2016 presidential election. This percentage is a slight increase from the 2012 election, but lower than the 2008 election, which had record numbers. Voter turnout numbers in the United States are quite low compared to other developed nations. The United States was ranked 31 out of the 35 countries in this study. The Census Bureau recorded that there were roughly 245.5 million Americans who were eligible to vote, but only 157.6 million of eligible voters were registered to vote. The United States Election Project had similar findings, estimating apathy slightly higher: 46.9 percent of eligible voters did not vote in 2016.[24] Many Americans do not take the effort to learn the voting process, as some see it as a burden.

There is an overemphasis on the number of Americans who have claimed they voted. The Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives only recorded 136.8 million people, compared to the 137.5 million who claimed to have voted. This number also includes 170,000 ballots which were blank, spoiled, or null.

With 212Million registered voters and 66.2% voting,140.344 M voted. Now if Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden. These numbers don’t add up to what we are being told.

Lies and more Lies!

Not a hope in hell that the numbers add up; not a hope in hell.

somebody wrote:

Not a hope in hell that the numbers add up; not a hope in hell.

Somebody is using the totals from 2016 and earlier, when there was much lower voter turnout.