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"Meanwhile, Bannon told his podcast audience that he will have 20,000 'shock troops' ready to take over the country. 'We control this country,' he said. 'We have to start acting like it.'"

Why isn't Bannon behind bars this evening? Surely his words are damning enough to warrant an arrest!

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The question that I continue to come back to is - Where is our Justice Department? I understand the reluctance to initIate investigations, file criminal indictments, and try those threatening yet further violent insurrection that Trumpists may perceive as political prosecutions. However, failure to take these threats seriously only implies permission for them.

Dear AG Garland, please take these threats seriously and take the appropriate actions necessary to protect our democracy.

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The Texas "Heartless" Law was reinstated by the Fifth Court of Appeals late this evening. Isn't it interesting that it took them just two days? I'm sure they read every word of Judge Pitman's 131 page superb ruling. Let's see -- late Friday evening, five page unsigned ruling by the Shadow Docket... oh, yes, the Supreme Court wouldn't touch the "Heartless" Law. All these midnight shenanigans means Roe v. Wade is on the chopping block. It is time for a Women's Revolution! The last one a hundred years ago was to get the right to vote. A hundred years later, that still hasn't given women equal standing in the courts or any place else. The hypocracy of individual freedom meaning you don't have to wear a mask vs. imposing no such freedom on a woman is infuriating. So, let's get out the vote for pro women candidates, let's boycott the donors of the authors and sponsors of this draconian law, let's strike frequently. I'm ready to fight. Governor Abbott promised to eliminate rape in Texas... as his top priority. Let's hold him to it! Let's all get behind the Women's Health Protection Act that the US House passed. We've got to get the Senate to pass it. And, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote act. Stop gerrymandering and dark money so we can get these horrible incumbents out of office in 2022. Reform the Supreme Court. We need a movement to get this done! It's time for the People to unite against all this tyranny of the oligarchic kleptocracy. We the People, All of Us this time!

¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!

The people united shall not be defeated!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F_9FEx7ymg

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Morning, all!! Morning, Dr. R!! So on the heels of Dr. R's birthday, this Monday will see President Biden becoming the first President to commemorate Indigenous Peoples' Day:

https://wapo.st/3iI9xuY

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I wish I had some confidence that the former president or any of the perpetrators of these crimes against our Democracy were going to be held accountable.

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Prior to joining the Trump administration, Bannon had amassed enough money, moved to Rome, Italy and engaged in a scheme to oust Pope Francis and arrest the “globalism” of the Catholic Church. In August of 2020, Steve “we build the wall” Bannon was criminally charged in a Federal Court with defrauding his financial supporters of millions of dollars and wire fraud. After the November 2020 election, President Trump summarily pardoned Bannon. The charge against Bannon was that he collected millions thru wired donations and then converted the collected funds to his own personal use. In 2016-17, Bannon was an inside advisor to Trump, but was dismissed because “Sloppy Steve’s delusions” were too far-fetched for President Trump. After his dismissal, Bannon returned to Breitbart News and was appointed executive director by the Mercer family. During his short tenure at Breitbart, Bannon questioned Trump’s “mental fitness” and was summarily dismissed by Rebekah Mercer. Now Bannon is defying a federal subpoena to produce documents and testify before a Congressional Committee. He claims he has “shock troops” ready to take over the USA. Should Bannon not appear and testify and/or produce the requested documents, the House Committee can only hold him in contempt. Then, the contempt citation must be approved by a majority vote of the House. Once and if approved, the contempt citation is turned over to the US Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia. As this process unfolds, it will be stage time for Bannon and the Trumpsters hurling more baseless claims and engaging in theatrics. Somehow the Committee needs to figure out how to have Bannon arrested and jailed assuming the House by a majority vote finds him in contempt. Needless to say, Bannon will be appealing all the way, but let him do it from behind bars.

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“Those Who Tell The Stories Rule The World” stated today’s email update from the Cameo Cinema of St. Helena, CA.

“To change the world, change the metaphor” stated Joseph Campbell.

Through these two comments, I'm reminded that the predominant conversation in the country becomes the predominant conversation in the country. When the left and liberals learns this, we will leave the zeitgeist of the fascistic conservatism of this society.

But as long as we focus on their narrative (trump, non-masking, abortion, etc), we will be living in their reality - NOT our own reality.

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Over on my Substack blog the other day, I recommended people not read histories about the fall of the Roman Republic. I'll re[peat that advice here. History may not repeat, but it rhymes, and there is a lot of rhyming going on.

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Bannon is a self proclaimed terrorist. Not sure whether he is domestic or international because he promotes terrorism against the US and other nations from every country that gives him support.

The FBI or CIA should take him into custody and hold him in Guantanamo. Finally, we have a real use for that prison. After 20 years, someone can decide if he should be brought to trial. Or maybe he should just disappear there. No doubt Bannon expects Trump or a Trumpet to become President and pardon him.

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So what's keeping the House from "swiftly" (as promised) referring these bozos for criminal contempt?

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For a group of brilliant, well educated people, we sure are stupid. Bannon may or may not have "shock troops", McConnell may or may not blink over the debt ceiling, critical race theory, the 1776 project, "witch hunts" etc etc, are just ways to hijack the narrative to Republicans advantage. It seems to be working. Are we talking about the failed policies of 45? No. Are we talking about ways to secure and expand the Democratic base? No - even though Stacie Abrams has shown us a way to do that. Are we talking about a strategy that will enable Democrats to keep the House and Senate in 2022? No, even though it seems highly unlikely that they will.

Instead, we write about a weird political operative who likely is suffering from mid-stage alcoholism. We all but miss the Texas Superior Court decision reinstating the "heart(less) beat law" there (thank-you Cathy L!). I get we need a place to bond and complain, but it can't be all we do. It poisons our attitudes and shrinks our thinking to the point it can't even recognize, much less address, the issues at hand.

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Happy birthday, Dr. R!

https://www.smashups.com/display/v1/3452529/n515/m9

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On September 29th Bannon spoke at the Capitol Hill Club "at the invitation of a new organization called the Association of Republican Presidential Appointees, which was formed to create a resource for future GOP officials tapped to fill federal jobs."

NBC reported Bannon using the words "shock troops" on October 2nd following an interview with him. In the NBC interview Bannon said, "If you’re going to take over the administrative state and deconstruct it, then you have to have shock troops prepared to take it over immediately". Since then, Bannon has repeated his shock troop statement..

We are just now discussing this new threat when it's been out there for several days. These people mean business, they are.mobilizing. Their threats need to be taken seriously before it's too late.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/bannon-fires-shock-troops-next-gop-white-house-n1280591

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And now we’ll hope-hope-hope that the DOJ will show some serious enforcement teeth regarding anyone who disregards a Congressional subpoena.

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Happy birthday, Heather! I'm glad you slid your letter in relatively early! Surely a good night's sleep is a lovely present to yourself.

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The Letter began with 'By midnight last night...', I happened to be awake, and saw these headlines, 'What do we do about Facebook?', 'Kyrsten Sinema Is Said to Want $100 Billion Cut From Climate Plans', 'School shootings are increasing — and changing. Easily accessible guns are to blame', 'These Texas teens stayed silent about racism. Then their Black principal was suspended.'

Eugene Robinson, Opinion Columnist in the Washington Post, writes: 'Read the headlines and try not to weep: 'How dumb can a nation get and still survive?'; 'America is sleepwalking towards fascism'; 'Follow the money: Understanding the deep roots of Donald Trump's coup attempt'; 'Will Republicans really try to impeach Biden? Sure — he's wounded, and they smell blood'; 'Tucker Carlson prepares white nationalists for war: Don't ignore the power of his rhetoric'.

Okay, just to let you know, I have read most of the articles under these headlines. One read just a day ago brought absolute dread.

'The Battle of January 6th Has Just Begun'

The following are excerpts from Susan Glasser's article:

'I understand and sympathize with the impulse to believe that Trump is done and over with, even if he has refused to go off into the largely silent retirement from public life embraced by his predecessors. Time marches on; he’s already seventy-five years old. He’s talking about running again, but maybe—probably, hopefully—he won’t.'

'When a new Pew Research Center poll, released this week, showed that forty-four per cent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents wanted Trump to run for President again in 2024, the Republican former representative Barbara Comstock, a rare Never Trump holdout, tweeted, “Most Rs realize Trump is a once and future Sore Loser. Stop fearing this dangerous and delusional man.” If only that were the case.'

'Trump is, per Pew and other recent polls, both the overwhelming favorite among Republicans for 2024 and their continuing spiritual leader. (Two-thirds of the Republicans and Republican-leaning independents that Pew surveyed wanted Trump to continue to be a major national figure, a total that’s gone up by ten points since January. Yes, that’s not a typo—it’s gone up.) Just as important, he has succeeded in selling his party on his Big Lie about the 2020 election, on January 6th revisionism, and on taking a series of specific actions—from changing how states certify elections to purging state Republican officials who did not go along with his 2020 coup attempt—that will affect American democracy for years to come, whether or not Trump runs again.'

'Consider one metric I’ve been obsessed with: the increase in the percentage of Republicans who believe Trump’s falsehoods about the election. In January, a CNN poll found that seventy-five per cent of Republicans said that Biden was not legitimately elected President. In April, that number declined to seventy per cent, but now, according to the most recent CNN survey, it has risen to seventy-eight per cent. Yes, more Republicans believe that the 2020 election was stolen now than did when the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol.'

“Republicans initially started down the road to a post-Trump party, as opposed to a Trump party . . . and they backed up in record time,” Larry Sabato, the director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, told me, on Thursday. “They have missed the historic opportunity to put Trump in the past.” The result is that the political crisis today is worse than it was, not better. The unacceptable has been accepted by a shockingly large part of the population and its political leadership.'

'What strikes me most, however, about the latest iteration of our endless what-to-do-about-Trump debates is how much the country’s political divisions have worsened since we began having them. Sabato’s center put out an extraordinary survey last week, in conjunction with a group called Project Home Fire, that documented this crisis in ways I haven’t seen before. The survey, which is worth reading in its entirety, shows that this is not a problem of ideology or policy or the other markers of conventional American politics. It is something much deeper and more intractable: two parties whose members now hate one another with a fierce, anti-democratic, Constitution-threatening passion. Eighty-four per cent of Trump voters said that Democratic officials are a “clear and present danger” to society; seventy-eight per cent of Trump voters also said that Americans who strongly support Democrats are a “clear and present danger.” This level of antipathy is fully reciprocated by Democrats; eighty per cent of Biden voters surveyed said that Republican officials represent a “clear and present danger,” and seventy-five per cent of them said the same about Americans who strongly support Republicans. Things are so bad that fifty-two per cent of Trump voters and forty-one per cent of Biden voters said that they would favor seceding from America.' (New Yorker) See link below:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/the-battle-of-january-6th-has-just-begun

When I read a piece, which suggests believable ways to address this terrifying American condition, I'll bring it directly to you. Until then, the color of leaves are beginning to turn and scary jack-o-lanterns will soon light the night.

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