(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Let's Dare Call It Treason - GNR for Bluesday, August 9th [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2022-08-09 When John Stormer wrote his 1964 right wing diatribe, None Dare Call It Treason, he accused our country’s elites of being pro-communist and howled that we were losing the cold war because of it. In addition to his John Birch Society bona fides, he was an early fundamentalist nutjob who helped turn Eisenhower’s party into the hot mess we’re stuck with today. HIs book is a cult classic amongst the knuckledragger’s leadership cabal. Screw him and the horse he rode in on. Almost all of the executive branch treason we’ve seen for the last 60 years has originated within the ranks of the republican party — Watergate, Wedtech, Iran-Contra, the Valery Plame Affair, Lawyergate, Abramoff, the Iraq Invasion, Russian influence in 2016, tfg’s impeachments, Pruitt, Flynn, Manafort, Zinke, Stone, Bannon, January 6th — the list goes on. The reckoning is long overdue. As we anxiously wait for their worms to turn, it has become apparent their distorted patriotic apple has been pretty much eaten completely away from the inside. Conspiring to overthrow the duly elected government of the United States is not the same as cheating on one’s taxes. The latter is a betrayal of an obligation; the former is a betrayal of an entire nation. Every single congressman or senator who voted against ratifying Joe Biden’s victory is a traitor. Those who voted to acquit the instigator of the insurrection and the idiot who put the quo in quid pro are culpable for their allegiance to party over country. By their actions they have turned their party into America’s giant, leaky colostomy bag. These are people who chose to support and even deify a man who never met a promise he wouldn’t break; a vow he wouldn’t ignore; a contract he wouldn’t breach; an oath he wouldn’t betray; a lie he wouldn’t tell; or a law he would obey. None of his behavior was surprising. It was all there staring them in the face. Yet, they chose to ignore the evidence of a life spent corruptly and elevate him to our highest office (while ignoring his clear collusion with Russia). We lost a million Americans due to their perfidy and politicization of a pandemic. Whether you call them inbred insurrectionists, noodle-brained nihilists, cosplay conspirators, or the braindead bumblefuck brigade — they have done a great disservice to our nation. And they continue to do so to this day. So, my fellow Americans, we have a duty — a duty to ourselves, our nation, and our planet — The republican party is a hotbed of deceit and treason. Honest republicans are an endangered species. The mainstream need to be forcibly ejected from political office. We do this by not letting them get away with false equivalences, big lies, manufactured distractions, or any of their other long list of ways to dodge responsibility for their bigotry, cupidity, and lust for power. We do this by GETTING OUT THE VOTE. We have the power. We have the ability. We can and we will do this. Slava Ukraini! Remember the Children Screw you, Samuel Alito Late Night This ad from Juice Media is too good not to repeat. x YouTube Video News of Note Popcorn Futures Take a Huge Spike The FBI had to have convinced a judge there had probable cause for the search before a warrant would have been issued. Donnie is whining about it to anyone who’ll listen. I wonder how much stolen stuff they’ll turn up? Huffington Post: Nick Visser: FBI Raided Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago Resort, Former President Says The circumstances of the raid are unclear, but the Justice Department has been ramping up its investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and Trump’s efforts to remain in power after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden. The New York Times first reported that the search appeared to be related to classified material Trump brought with him to Mar-A-Lago after he left the White House. The raid is an extreme move against a former president and would require approval from the highest echelons of the Justice Department. The Times added that the FBI would have been required to convince a judge it had probably cause to search the premises. When First You Practice to Deceive, Don’t Keep Evidence on Your Phone Alex Jones is the poster child for unchecked republican inbreeding and unwarranted arrogance. He’s what happens when you take a lying liar and mate it with snake oil and extra greasy chickenshit. If hell doesn’t exist, it will have to be created just so there’s a place to stuff this unbalanced turdstack when he’s gone. Mother Jones: James West: Here’s Why Jan. 6 Investigators Want to Get Their Hands on Alex Jones’ Phone An Austin, Texas, jury on Friday found that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay Sandy Hook parents $45.2 million in punitive damages for broadcasting defamatory claims that the 2012 school massacre was a government plot—and that the parents were in on the operation. That was on top of a separate set of compensatory damages issued this week, totaling $4.1 million.✂️ But along with the other future hearings, Jones could soon be embroiled in another high-stakes legal drama after his lawyers in the defamation case mistakenly sent an enormous trove of his personal phone data to the legal counsel … for the Sandy Hook parents. This jaw-dropping development produced considerable courtroom drama—as my colleague Abigail Weinberg documented on Wednesday (watch to see Jones’s reaction happen in real-time). It also opened a surprise door for investigators working for the January 6 commission, which is trying to piece together how the Capitol Insurrection was potentially coordinated among a band of far-right operatives and extremists. News quickly broke that the committee was preparing to issue a subpoena for the data, which apparently consists of two years’ worth of texts. Mark Bankston, a lawyer representing the parents, told the Texas court he was now in the possession of “intimate messages with Roger Stone”—the Trump-aligned operative—and that he was prepared to hand the cache over if the judge, Maya Guerra Gamble, cleared the way. She did just that on Friday. As Mother Jones has previously reported, Stone has multiple connections to a group of Oath Keepers, the far-right militia accused of helping to orchestrate a plot to disrupt the 2020 presidential election. (Both Stone and Jones have maintained they played no role in promoting violence.) ✂️ But here’s what they might be looking for. The committee has already sought documents from Jones. Last year, he sued the committee in an effort to stymie a subpoena for communications that sought to illuminate how Jones knew, as early as January 3, about potential plans for Trump to meet a group of rally-goers who were planning to march to the Capitol after the president’s now-infamous speech at the Ellipse. Jones was a big promoter of Trump’s big election lie, and he was publicly saber-rattling on January 5th, the eve of the attack: “We have only begun to resist the globalists,” he told a crowd in DC. “We have only begun our fight against their tyranny.” Saving a Buck the Totally Criminal Republican Way Hello Deceit, I’d like to introduce you to Hypocrisy. I think the two of you were made for each other. I’m sensing a bit of a connected theme so far today. Wonkette: Robyn Pennacchia: Turns Out Your Favorite 'Let's Go Brandon' Shirts Not Made In America The owner of a pro-Trump clothing line is being forced to pay a $211,335 fine to the Federal Trade commission (FTC) for being a lying liar who pretended his junk was made in America when it was in fact made in China. This seems both poetic and entirely expected. Utah-based clothing company Lions Not Sheep, which sells very classy "Let's Go Brandon" and "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" T-shirts and definitely-designed-by-a-man "No Beard No Booty" crop tops for the ladies, made a real big thing in all its advertisements about how its products were American-made. Online and on labels, the brand proudly declared its products were “Made in the USA,” “Made in America,” “Are your products USA Made?” “100% AMERICAN MADE,” and “BEST DAMN AMERICAN MADE GEAR ON THE PLANET.” But then someone found a video from 2020 featuring the brand's founder Sean Whalen (who — rudely — is not in fact the actor from the Aaron Burr "Got Milk" commercial and Pauly Shore's Jury Duty) titled "Made In America." In the video, which he posted to his own social media, Whalen stood next to a Chinese flag and demonstrated the ease with which he could remove "Made In China" tags and replace them with "Made In America" tags. Once made aware of the video, the FTC investigated his company and found this is exactly what he had been doing, at least from May 10, 2021 and Oct. 21, 2021. Whalen has now been ordered to pay the fine, stop making these claims and to come clean about his foreign production. Not that anyone who buys his crap will care. Roh Roh, This Won’t Play Well in Peoria The republican voting flow chart goes like this: Put foot in mouth. Stick head up ass. Shoot self in foot. Daily Beast: Wajahat Ali: Republicans to People With Diabetes: Drop Dead Republicans probably don’t like being thought of as the party of the callous, inhumane, “kick the poor” caucus. Which is weird, because they could have voted to ensure every American suffering from diabetes could procure their life-dependent doses of insulin at $35 a pop, and they chose not to. Thanks to 43 Republican senators voting “nay,” Democrats couldn’t overcome the 60-vote filibuster to cap the price of insulin at $35 for everyone. Mind you, this isn’t “free” or “socialized” health care—it’s insulin. Roughly 1 in 10 Americans have diabetes (37.3 million) and about 1 in 3 (96 million) have pre-diabetes, according to the CDC. In a country with both an obesity crisis and a health-care system where even people with “good insurance” can go bankrupt because of a health crisis, you’d think the GOP would be looking for ways to puff up its supposed “economic populist” credentials, rather than voting against a modest price control that would help keep tens of millions of Americans from, you know, dying. He Doesn’t Care Who Gets Shot, as Long as It’s Not Him The Florida man-in-chief just oozes insincerity from every fiber of his being. Aside from being a bully, fool, and liar, he’s also a pseudo preacher who refuses to practice. I wonder what he’s afraid of? Raw Story: Sarah K. Burris: Ron DeSantis refuses to allow firearms at his rallies — even after saying 'gun-free zones' aren't safe Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) hasn't announced whether or not he'll run for president in 2024, but as he tries to promote himself and other GOP candidates, he's traveling the country with a gun-free zone for events, despite the fact that he's decried such zones as being ripe targets for mass shooters. "The Buffalo guy said he wanted to go where he knew there wouldn't be blowback from people being armed, and so he tried to find a gun-free zone," DeSantis said about the mass shooter that opened fire at a grocery store in New York state. But as Insider discovered, DeSantis has a gun-free zone of his own to protect his own safety. While he's in Arizona, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, firearms will be strictly prohibited. And it isn't liberals who are showing up to greet the Florida guy with an AR-15. Take That Foul Russian Invader This is actually oldish news from last month, that never gained traction. Pink News: Lily Wakefield: Ukraine’s Zelensky to consider replacing Russian empress statue with monument to gay porn star Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky must consider a petition to have a statue of Catherine the Great in Odessa replaced with one of a gay porn star. The petition, signed by more than 25,000 people, lays out five reasons that the statue of Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia from 1762 until 1796, should be replaced with a statue of American porn star Billy Herrington. While some of the reasons are playful – “it’s funny”, “memes”, and “all students of Odesa universities will be able to drink beer with Billy Herrington after receiving their diploma” – others are far more serious. petition states that Catherine the Great “caused great damage to Ukrainian statehood and culture”, and continues: “The very fact of erecting this monument was a terrible mistake, and every day of its continued existence signals that Odessa is in the zone of Russian cultural influence.” Thestates that Catherine the Great “caused great damage to Ukrainian statehood and culture”, and continues: “The very fact of erecting this monument was a terrible mistake, and every day of its continued existence signals that Odessa is in the zone of Russian cultural influence.” Let the Potty Nazi Humor Commence I guess when I thought the 2020 election would end this and tfg would slink away to lick the chicken fat from his stubby fingers and fade into obscurity or jail, I was wrong. I’m still holding out for the jail part. Slate: Ben Mathis-Lilley: “Peak Trump” Reached as Ex-President Appears Concurrently in News Stories About Both Toilets and Hitler Musical Interlude Why worry, there should be laughter after pain There should be sunshine after rain These things have always been the same So why worry now Why worry now x YouTube Video The Lighter Side Ok, I got a little carried away. I just couldn’t bring myself to make any cuts. These really accumulate when I miss a turn in the rotation. Instrumental Bridge x YouTube Video Special Run, Josh, Run Section Yes. I know, I’m beating a dead horse racer. But, it’s still so damn much fun. Look Jane, look at Josh See Josh run. Run, run, run. Hear Josh cry. Josh is sad. Too Bad. x Josh Hawley running away to a variety of soundtracks. Pt. 2: Benny Hill Theme pic.twitter.com/3cl6otJxiJ — Mallory Nees (@The_Mal_Gallery) July 22, 2022 x Josh Hawley running away to a variety of soundtracks. Pt. 4: Sir Robin Theme from Monty Python + the Holy Grail pic.twitter.com/3YVKqoKCUp — Mallory Nees (@The_Mal_Gallery) July 22, 2022 Closing Notes From the tail end of July, 1987, here’s a tasty West L.A. Fadeaway to help get your heart started. x YouTube Video [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/9/2112564/-Let-s-Dare-Call-It-Treason-GNR-for-Bluesday-August-9th Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/