Sunday, January 31, 2021

More coup attempt details

FBI agents around the country are working to unravel the various motives, relationships, goals and actions of the hundreds of Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Some inside the bureau have described the Capitol riot investigation as their biggest case since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and a top priority of the agents’ work is to determine the extent to which that violence and chaos was preplanned and coordinated.

[...]

FBI personnel in Norfolk were increasingly alarmed by the online conversations they were seeing, including warlike talk around the convoys headed to the nation’s capital. One map posted online described the rally points, declaring them a “MAGA Cavalry To Connect Patriot Caravans to StopTheSteal in D.C.” Another map showed the U.S. Congress, indicating tunnels connecting different parts of the complex. The map was headlined, “CREATE PERIMETER,” according to the FBI report, which was reviewed by The Washington Post.

“Be ready to fight. Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in,” read one posting, according to the report.

[...]

Investigators caution there is an important legal distinction between gathering like-minded people for a political rally — which is protected by the First Amendment — and organizing an armed assault on the seat of American government. The task now is to distinguish which people belong in each category, and who played key roles in committing or coordinating the violence.

[...]

Minutes before the crowd surge, at 12:45 p.m., police received the first report of a pipe bomb behind the Republican National Committee headquarters at the opposite, southeast side of the U.S. Capitol campus. The device and another discovered shortly afterward at Democratic National Committee headquarters included end caps, wiring, timers and explosive powder, investigators have said.

Some law enforcement officials have suggested the pipe bombs may have been a deliberate distraction meant to siphon law enforcement away from the Capitol building at the crucial moment.

  WaPo
Or...pipe bombs.
An indictment Friday night charged a member of the Proud Boys, Dominic Pezzola, 43, of Rochester, N.Y., with conspiracy, saying his actions showed “planning, determination, and coordination.” Another alleged member of the Proud Boys, William Pepe, 31, of Beacon, N.Y., also was charged with conspiracy.

[...]

One of the comments cited in the FBI memo declared Trump supporters should go to Washington and get “violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die.”

Some had been preparing for conflict for weeks.

[...]

Jessica Marie Watkins — an Ohio bartender who had formed her own small, self-styled militia group and had joined Oath Keepers, according to prosecutors — began recruiting and organizing in early November for an “operation.”

[...]

Days after the election, Watkins allegedly sent text messages to a number of individuals who had expressed interest in joining her group, which called itself the Ohio State Regular Militia.

“I need you fighting fit by innaugeration,” she told one recruit, according to court papers.

The same day, she also asked a recruit to download Zello, an app that allows a cellphone to operate like a push-to-talk walkie-talkie, saying her group uses it “for operations.”

In conversations later that month, Watkins allegedly spoke in apocalyptic terms about the prospect of Joe Biden’s being sworn in as president on Jan. 20.

“If he is, our way of life as we know it is over. Our Republic would be over. Then it is our duty as Americans to fight, kill and die for our rights. . . . If Biden get the steal, none of us have a chance in my mind. We already have our neck in the noose. They just haven’t kicked the chair yet.”

[...]

“Historically, within the right-wing extremist movements, leadership has produced rhetoric to spin up their members, increase radicalization and recruitment, and then stand back and let small cells or individual lone offenders follow through on that rhetoric with violent action,” said Thomas O’Connor, a former FBI agent who spent decades investigating domestic terrorists. “Domestic terrorism actually developed the leaderless resistance concept, taking the potential blame away from the leadership and putting it down into small groups or individuals, and I think that is what you’re starting to see here.”

[...]

Colin Clarke, a domestic terrorism expert at the Soufan Group, said the Jan. 6 attack represents a “proof of concept” for dangerous extremists.

“They talk about things like this in a lot of their propaganda, and the fact that the Capitol Police allowed this to happen, you can call it a security breach, or intelligence failure, but these people do not look at this as a failure, they look at it as an overwhelming success, and one that will inspire others for years.”

What the hell?


...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Coup attempt evidence


Perpetual war


Bilking the rubes is highly profitable


...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

World's worst client

I was hearing that Trump's impeachment lawyer, Butch Bowers, was actually a good lawyer.  I guess that explains why he quit.
Donald Trump has abruptly parted ways with the two lead lawyers working on his defence for his Senate impeachment trial, a source familiar with the situation said, leaving the former US president’s legal strategy in disarray.

Butch Bowers and Deborah Barberi, two South Carolina lawyers, are no longer on Trump’s team, the source said, describing the move as a “mutual decision”.

Three other lawyers associated with the team, Josh Howard of North Carolina and Johnny Gasser and Greg Harris of South Carolina, also parted ways with Trump, another source said.

  Guardian
Five of them!
A third source said Trump had differences with Bowers over strategy ahead of the trial. The president is still contending that he was the victim of mass election fraud in the 3 November election won by Joe Biden.

[...]

It was unclear who would now represent the former president at the trial.
Rudy? Lin Wood? Release the Kracken?


...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Saturday, January 30, 2021

Alex Jones is a crackpot, but is he telling the truth here?


The rally in Washington’s Ellipse that preceded the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol was arranged and funded by a small group including a top Trump campaign fundraiser and donor facilitated by far-right show host Alex Jones.

Mr. Jones personally pledged more than $50,000 in seed money for a planned Jan. 6 event in exchange for a guaranteed “top speaking slot of his choice,” according to a funding document outlining a deal between his company and an early organizer for the event.

Mr. Jones also helped arrange for Julie Jenkins Fancelli, a prominent donor to the Trump campaign and heiress to the Publix Super Markets Inc. chain, to commit about $300,000 through a top fundraising official for former President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign, according to organizers. Her money paid for the lion’s share of the roughly $500,000 rally at the Ellipse where Mr. Trump spoke.

Another far-right activist and leader of the “Stop the Steal” movement, Ali Alexander, helped coordinate planning with Caroline Wren, a fundraising official who was paid by the Trump campaign for much of 2020 and who was tapped by Ms. Fancelli to organize and fund an event on her behalf, organizers said. On social media, Mr. Alexander had targeted Jan. 6 as a key date for supporters to gather in Washington to contest the 2020-election certification results. The week of the rally, he tweeted a flyer for the event saying: “DC becomes FORT TRUMP starting tomorrow on my orders!”

The Ellipse rally, at which President Trump urged supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol, was lawful and nonviolent. But it served as a jumping-off point for many supporters to head to the Capitol.

Messrs. Jones and Alexander had been active in the weeks before the event, calling on supporters to oppose the election results and go to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Mr. Alexander, for instance, tweeted on Dec. 30 about the scheduled Jan. 6 count for lawmakers to certify the Electoral College vote at the Capitol, writing: “If they do this, everyone can guess what me and 500,000 others will do to that building.”

[...]

Messrs. Alexander and Jones said on Mr. Jones’s show that they tried to prevent protesters from entering the Capitol and sought to de-escalate the riot.

  WSJ
How did they do that?
At least five former Trump campaign staffers besides Ms. Wren assisted on the logistics of the Jan. 6 rally, according to the permit and Federal Election Commission records.
And let's not forget that Trump was tweeting invitations to attend, as it would be "wild".

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Destruction of insurrection evidence

In the days ahead of the January 6 Capitol riot, there were warnings, but no guarantee that the day would turn violent. But users of TheDonald.win, a major online pro-Trump forum, were preparing for a fight, posting maps of the Capitol and swapping messages about being ready to die.

In the wake of the carnage, law enforcement identified TheDonald.win as a key planning platform for the insurrectionists. And on Inauguration Day, the forum established a new domain, rebranding as Patriots.win. Alongside that transition, thousands of posts from lead up to the riot have disappeared from the site as though they were never there.

[...]

The posters’ deleted content included maps of the Capitol, manifestos about their intentions upon arriving, discussion about flouting D.C.’s strict gun laws, and praise of extremist groups like the Proud Boys.

Mother Jones‘s analysis of the site’s existing archives, conducted by cross-referencing what remains with other records, suggests the forum’s administrators removed all posts made between December 19 and January 6. [...] Holt thinks they may have been attempting to protect themselves or their users from legal repercussions. “I think there is a very fair question here whether moderators of The Donald destroyed evidence that would aid law enforcement investigation,” Holt says.

[...]

“By removing these communications you’re evidencing a consciousness of guilt. Removing evidence that would incriminate you could be inferred that you engaged in criminal activity.”

To Gershman, the maps of the Capitol, combined with people actually having breached the Capitol, “could be explosive evidence that shows a high degree of planning…It’s like having a blueprint of the bank before a bank robbery.”

  Mother Jones
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trump Org lawsuit moving forward

A judge in New York on Friday ordered a law firm serving as counsel to the Trump Organization to turn over documents related to the former president's business to the state's attorney general.

New York State Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron said in an order that he had completed a review of documents from the firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius and determined that at least some of them were not privileged and should be handed over to the attorney general's office, which had subpoenaed the firm and the Trump Organization.

The court found that many of the communications Morgan Lewis marked as privileged were communications addressing business tasks and decisions, not exchanges soliciting or rendering legal advice.

New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) is investigating whether former President Trump's company had falsified the value of certain assets in order to secure loans, tax breaks and investors.

  The Hill

Proud Boys conspiracy charges

Prosecutors said in a news release that two members of the far-right “Western Chauvinist” group [Proud Boys] conspired to obstruct law enforcement officers’ efforts to protect the Capitol from the mob. The members, Dominic Pezzola of Rochester, N.Y., and William Pepe of Beacon, N.Y., had already been charged with lesser offenses from their activities on Jan. 6.

[...]

Prosecutors said Pezzola and Pepe “engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct, influence, impede, and interfere with law enforcement officers engaged in their official duties in protecting the U.S. Capitol and its grounds on Jan. 6, 2021.”

[...]

Conspiracy charges were also previously announced against three members of the militia group the Oath Keepers over their alleged role in the chaos on Capitol Hill.

[...]

At least four other members of the Proud Boys have been charged thus far over the insurrection

[...]

Pezzola is also said to have ripped away a Capitol Police officer riot shield while the officer was trying to push back the rioters. Files retrieved when FBI agents raided his home indicated he had been examining “Advanced Improvised Explosives,” “Explosive Dusts” and “Ragnar’s Big Book of Homemade Weapons.”

Michael Scibetta, Pezzola’s lawyer, told The New York Times Friday night that he had not yet seen the new conspiracy charges and that he was being barred from seeing his client.

  The Hill
That sounds like trouble.

Unwanted in Palm Beach

The town of Palm Beach, Fla., confirmed to The Hill on Friday that it's performing a legal review of former President Trump's residency at Mar-a-Lago after suggesting that it might do so in December.

"Our town attorney is reviewing the agreement and the laws surrounding it," Palm Beach Town Manager Kirk Blouin told The Hill.

[...]

The former president's decision to make Mar-a-Lago his permanent residence could be a violation of rules set forward in a previous agreement with the town when he decided to convert the private residence into a club in 1993.

Among those conditions were that club members, including Trump, could only spend a maximum of seven consecutive days and no more than three weeks a year at the premises, CNN reports.

  The Hill
Oaky, that sounds like weird rules for club members.
A spokesperson for the Trump Organization previously told the Herald that "There is no document or agreement in place that prohibits President Trump from using Mar-a-Lago as his residence."
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Friday, January 29, 2021

The House insurrectionists

[In] signaling either overt or tacit support, a small but vocal band of Republicans now serving in the House provided legitimacy and publicity to extremist groups and movements as they built toward their role in supporting Mr. Trump’s efforts to subvert the outcome of the 2020 election and the attack on Congress.

[...]

Nearly 150 House Republicans supported President Donald J. Trump’s baseless claims that the election had been stolen from him. But [Arizona Rep Paul] Gosar and a handful of other Republican members of the House had deeper ties to extremist groups who pushed violent ideas and conspiracy theories and whose members were prominent among those who stormed the halls of Congress in an effort to stop certification of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.

Their ranks include Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, who like Mr. Gosar was linked to the “Stop the Steal” campaign backing Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the election’s outcome.

Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado has close connections to militia groups including the so-called Three Percenters, an extremist offshoot of the gun rights movement that had at least one member who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory, whose adherents were among the most visible of those who stormed the building, and she appeared at a rally with militia groups.

Before being elected to Congress last year, Ms. Greene used social media in 2019 to endorse executing top Democrats and has suggested that the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., was a staged “false flag” attack. The liberal group Media Matters for America reported on Thursday that Ms. Greene also speculated on Facebook in 2018 that California wildfires might have been started by lasers from space, promoting a theory pushed by followers of QAnon.

Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida appeared last year at an event also attended by members of the Proud Boys, another extremist organization whose role in the Jan. 6 assault, like those of the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters, is being investigated by the F.B.I.

It is not clear whether any elected officials played a role in directly facilitating the attack on the Capitol, other than helping to incite violence through false statements about the election being stolen from Mr. Trump. Officials have said they are investigating reports from Democrats that a number of House Republicans provided tours of the Capitol and other information to people who might have gone on to be part of the mob on Jan. 6. So far, no evidence has surfaced publicly to back up those claims.

[...]

An examination of many of the most prominent elected Republicans with links to right-wing groups also shows how various strands of extremism came together at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

[...]

Few Republicans have been more linked to extremist groups than Mr. Gosar.

“He’s been involved with anti-Muslim groups and hate groups,” said Mr. Gosar’s brother Dave Gosar, a lawyer in Wyoming. “He’s made anti-Semitic diatribes. He’s twisted up so tight with the Oath Keepers it’s not even funny.” Dave Gosar and other Gosar siblings ran ads denouncing their brother as a dangerous extremist when he ran for Congress in 2018. Now they are calling on Congress to expel him.

[...]

In the days after the 2020 election, Mr. Gosar and Mr. Biggs helped turn Arizona into a crucible for the Stop the Steal movement, finding common cause with hard-liners who until then had toiled in obscurity, like Ali Alexander. The two congressmen recorded a video, “This Election Is A Joke,” which was viewed more than a million times and spread disinformation about widespread voter fraud.

Mr. Alexander has said he “schemed up” the Jan. 6 rally with Mr. Gosar, Mr. Biggs and another vocal proponent of Stop the Steal, Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama. Mr. Alexander’s characterization of the role of the members of Congress is exaggerated, Mr. Biggs said, but the lawmakers were part of a larger network of people who helped plan and promote the rally as part of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the will of the voters.

[...]

After the election, Mr. Alexander emerged as a vocal proponent of the president’s stolen election claims, setting up a Stop the Steal website on Nov. 4 and making incendiary statements. On Dec. 8, he tweeted that he was willing to give up his life to keep Mr. Trump in office.

The Arizona Republican Party followed up, retweeting Mr. Alexander’s post and adding: “He is. Are you?” Mr. Alexander has since been barred from Twitter.

Ten days later, Mr. Gosar was one of the headliners at a rally in Phoenix that Mr. Alexander helped organize. Mr. Gosar used the rally to deliver a call to action, telling the crowd that they planned to “conquer the Hill” to return Mr. Trump to the presidency.

[...]

To some degree, the members of Congress have been reflecting signals sent by Mr. Trump.

During a presidential debate in October, he made a nod toward the Proud Boys, telling them to “stand back and stand by.” Two months earlier, Mr. Trump described followers of QAnon — several of whom have been charged with murder, domestic terrorism, planned kidnapping and, most recently, storming the Capitol — as “people that love our country,” adding that “they do supposedly like me.”

  NYT
“Conquer the Hill to return Mr. Trump to the presidency." Sounds like straight up insurrection to me.  You're not allowed to serve in office if you incite insurrection.  When will Gosar be thrown out of Congress?

..but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Republican Party should just rename itself to reflect its intent: The Anti-democratic Party

The Republican chair of Arizona's state House Ways and Means Committee introduced a bill Wednesday that would give the Legislature authority to override the secretary of state’s certification of its electoral votes.

GOP Rep. Shawnna Bolick introduced the bill, which rewrites parts of the state's election law, such as sections on election observers and securing and auditing ballots, among other measures.

One section grants the Legislature, which is currently under GOP control, the ability to revoke the secretary of state's certification "by majority vote at any time before the presidential inauguration."

  NBC
Imagine being told something like this five years ago.  You would have laughed it off.

GOP cult


Indeed, they're attacking Liz Cheney - one of the staunchest right-end Republicans they have.

Meanwhile in Afghanistan

The Taliban has accused the United States of violating a landmark deal signed between the two sides, after the Pentagon said the group had failed to meet its side of the agreement.

“The other side have violated the agreement, almost every day they are violating it,” Mohammad Naeem, a Taliban spokesman in Qatar, told AFP news agency on Friday.

“They are bombarding civilians, houses and villages, and we have informed them from time to time, these are not just violations of the agreement but violations of human rights.”

The US military has in recent months carried out air strikes against the Taliban fighters in defence of Afghan forces in some provinces.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid added on Twitter that the allegations against the group were “unfounded” and that it was “fully committed” to the agreement.

The Pentagon on Thursday said Taliban’s refusal to meet commitments to reduce violence in Afghanistan is raising questions about whether all US troops will be able to leave by May as required under the peace agreement signed in February 2020.

  alJazeera
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trump defense board packing plan reined in

The Trump administration last year abruptly removed a slate of members from the [Defense] business and policy boards and tapped people loyal to Trump to replace them.

[...]

[An] email that went out to advisory board members on Wednesday announced that effective immediately, "all appointments, reappointments and renewals" to the boards would be suspended “pending a thorough review by the new Administration.”

[...]

The move effectively prevents a number of Trump allies, including his 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and deputy campaign manager David Bossie, from actually serving on panels tasked with providing advice to the defense secretary, at least for the time being.

[...]

In addition, the Pentagon’s Senior Executive Management Office is halting the processing of appointments that were submitted previously, according to the email.

[...]

The freeze announced on Wednesday pertains only to appointees who have not yet been sworn in or have completed all the required paperwork, the people said. Several new board members, including Earl Matthews and Anthony Tata, were sworn in on Jan. 19 after pressure from the White House to push through as many appointees as possible before President Joe Biden’s inauguration. But others, including Lewandowski and Bossie, were still undergoing a lengthy financial disclosure and security clearance process that normally takes weeks or months, according to the people familiar.

[...]

After a push to move quickly on finalizing the new appointments, Matthews, Robert McMahon, Chris Shank and Bill Bruner were sworn in as members of the Defense Business Board on Jan. 19, the same day Tata, Scott O’Grady and Ambassador Charles Glazer were sworn in to the Defense Policy Board.

Tata, who was the Pentagon's acting policy chief, came under fire last year for tweets calling former President Barack Obama a "terrorist leader" and for calling Islam a violent religion. O'Grady, a former Air Force pilot who was shot down over Bosnia in 1995, has used his Twitter account to spread false claims that the election was stolen from Trump.

[...]

[T]he Biden team is looking into whether it can replace dozens of Trump’s last-minute appointments to boards and commissions across the U.S. government.

  Politico
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Thursday, January 28, 2021

The rare Republican conscience

A top official at the National Republican Congressional Committee abruptly decided to resign earlier this month after House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy and nearly 150 GOP lawmakers voted against certifying the Electoral College results, CNN has learned, in the latest sign of the civil war brewing inside the Republican Party as it seeks to rebuild in the post-Trump era.

Rob Jentgens, the chief financial officer at the NRCC, decided to leave his post after the vote and the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, an official familiar with the matter told CNN.

[...]

The resignation came after House Republicans had a strong election cycle, with all incumbents winning reelection in November and the party gaining 13 seats, increasing prospects for winning back the House majority in 2022.

  CNN
Dems better get off their asses.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Wednesday, January 27, 2021

A party of liars


Don't start, Joe


...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Mitt Romney - a voice in the GOP wilderness

“You have many of the Trump supporters in elected office, senators, congresspeople, governors, continuing to say the same thing, that the election was stolen,” Romney said.

But, he said, what they should tell people is that the Trump campaign “had a chance to take their message to the courts, the courts laughed them out of court. I’ve seen no evidence that suggests that there was widespread voter fraud.”

  Deseret News
If you're a MAGAt, you don't have to see evidence, you just have to feel it.
Romney said elected Republicans need to go on Fox News and say, “You know what, I was a big Trump supporter, I was really pulling for Donald Trump, but he lost fair and square.”

Romney made the comments to the Economic Club of Chicago during an online forum with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., titled “Governing from the Middle.”

[...]

Earlier Tuesday, Romney was among five Republicans who joined Senate Democrats in rejecting an effort by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., to declare the pending impeachment trial unconstitutional. The vote sent a strong signal Tuesday that there are not nearly enough votes to convict Trump of inciting an insurrection.

[...]

Romney said over the weekend that the impeachment trial is necessary to hold Trump accountable for his alleged conduct after the election and the deadly incursion at the U.S. Capitol.

“Five people died with the attack on the Capitol. Five human beings died. There’s no question but that the president incited the insurrection that occurred,” he said Tuesday. “How culpable is he? That’s something we will evaluate.”

[...]

Romney took issue with Republicans who say a Senate trial would further inflame passions in an already divided country.

“I say, first of all, have you gone out publicly and said that there was not widespread voter fraud and that Joe Biden is the legitimate president of the United States? If you said that, then I’m happy to listen to you talk about other things that might inflame anger and divisiveness,” he said.

“But if you haven’t said that, that’s really what’s at the source of the anger right now.”

[...]

A Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll released last week found that 65% of Utah Republicans believe there was widespread voter fraud and 56% believe Trump legitimately won the election.

“You’ve got to have that get into the rear-view mirror before you talk about the next stage,” Romney said.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Going in the wrong direction


Because of lies of the Trump cabal.

UPDATE:


TWO photo IDs!

Party of Law and Order


Marjorie Taylor Greene is a dangerous lunatic


UPDATE:


UPDATE:


UPDATE:




Fucking idiots

The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office has been tasked with attempting to return a $2 million stockpile of a malaria drug once touted by former President Donald Trump as a way to treat the coronavirus.

In April, Gov. Kevin Stitt, who ordered the hydroxychloroquine purchase, defended it by saying that while it may not be a useful treatment for the coronavirus, the drug had multiple other uses and “that money will not have gone to waste in any respect.”

But nearly a year later the state is trying to offload the drug back to its original supplier, California-based FFF Enterprises, Inc, a private pharmaceutical wholesaler.

  Read Frontier
Maybe Republicans aren't the best thing for Oklahoma.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Immigration/deportation - a little good, a little bad

In mixed fortunes for Joe Biden’s efforts to roll back Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies, the government rescinded the Trump-era “zero tolerance” policy that resulted in thousands of family separations at the US-Mexico border while, in a federal court, a judge blocked the new president’s 100-day moratorium on deportations.

  Guardian
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Proud Boys leader is an FBI snitch

Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys extremist group, has a past as an informer for federal and local law enforcement, repeatedly working undercover for investigators after he was arrested in 2012, according to a former prosecutor and a transcript of a 2014 federal court proceeding obtained by Reuters.

In the Miami hearing, a federal prosecutor, a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and Tarrio’s own lawyer described his undercover work and said he had helped authorities prosecute more than a dozen people in various cases involving drugs, gambling and human smuggling.

Tarrio, in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, denied working undercover or cooperating in cases against others. “I don’t know any of this,’” he said, when asked about the transcript. “I don’t recall any of this.”

  
I don't recall. Sure, it's easy to forget working undercover for the FBI.
In a statement to Reuters, the former federal prosecutor in Tarrio’s case, Vanessa Singh Johannes, confirmed that “he cooperated with local and federal law enforcement, to aid in the prosecution of those running other, separate criminal enterprises, ranging from running marijuana grow houses in Miami to operating pharmaceutical fraud schemes.”

Tarrio, 36, is a high-profile figure who organizes and leads the rightwing Proud Boys in their confrontations with those they believe to be antifa, short for “anti-fascism”, an amorphous and often violent leftist movement. The Proud Boys were involved in the deadly insurrection at the Capitol on 6 January.
Well his proud boy career is over.

Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Pray Schumer holds fast

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has announced that he will cave in the showdown that threatened to stall big parts of President Biden’s agenda. The Senate minority leader relented on his demand that Democrats commit to keeping the legislative filibuster, and instead will allow a power-sharing agreement to proceed, letting Democrats assume the majority.

  WaPo
Just read that again. The losing party "will allow a power-sharing agreement to proceed, letting the [winning party] assume the majority."  Unfuckingbelievable.
Superficially, it’s of course good news that McConnell backed down. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) correctly judged that McConnell would buckle if Democrats refused to rule out ending the legislative filibuster later. They’ll need to preserve that possibility as a future weapon against relentless McConnell obstructionism.

But the bad news is that en route to this point, two moderate Senate Democrats — Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — further dug themselves in against ending the filibuster at any point. Though that could change, for now it risks weakening Democratic leverage against McConnell’s use of it to frustrate Biden’s agenda.

[...]

Rachel Maddow pointed out that during Barack Obama’s presidency, Democrats offered extensive concessions to Republicans on health care, immigration and economic recovery spending, only to see them bail on compromises and instead engage in maximal obstruction. In response, Schumer pledged that this time, Democrats will not get lured in by GOP bad faith, and vowed that Democrats will respond with procedural aggressiveness against McConnell’s all-but-certain duplication of that performance.

[...]

After all, by Schumer’s own lights, if McConnell does engage in relentless obstruction, as we all know he will attempt, then he isn’t merely threatening to derail the Biden agenda and its ability to address the extraordinary challenges the country faces.

Nor is McConnell merely threatening to badly cripple governing so Biden takes the blame, costing Democrats in the 2022 elections, though that’s strategically important to McConnell, as Robert Reich points out:

No, what McConnell is threatening is even worse than all that. By Schumer’s analysis, successful McConnell obstruction would also continue undermining faith in democracy itself, making voters susceptible to another Trumpist demagogue.

In this telling, Democrats are now operating from the premise that hopes for restored faith in our democratic system — hopes for the defeat of Trump and the capture of the Senate by popular majorities leading to genuine civic renewal — rest less on achieving bipartisan cooperation for its own sake, and more on the scale of the program that Democrats deliver upon.

[...]

If Schumer and the Democratic caucus genuinely believe building on this requires delivering in a big way, that suggests a real shift in thinking, particularly if moderates are gravitating toward this idea, as Schumer claims.

But, importantly, it would appear to leave little choice but to be genuinely prepared to end the filibuster if McConnell and Republicans do succeed in stymying the Biden agenda.

Notably, Democrats plan to pursue a package of major reforms that would broaden access to voting, place tight limits on future voter suppression and counter-majoritarian tactics, and codify good governing norms that Trump tried to destroy.

This, too, will be filibustered. Its full defeat would scuttle a real opening to achieve democracy-strengthening reforms, paving the way for expanded anti-democratic tactics, a quick GOP return to power, and more dysfunction in the face of big crises. Given Democrats’ commitment to revitalizing civic faith, you’d think that would be seen as intolerable
And you would hope. If they Democrats don't do it this time around, they may never get another chance to try.

Better late than never?


By the way

Fuck Deborah Birx.

She carried water for Donald Trump and 400,000 Americans have died for it.  She doesn't get to sidestep her role.


...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

On the brink

They LOST, FFS

This headline is what is wrong with Democrats.


Democrats won but Republicans are calling the shots.

Republican state legislators are advancing a rush of new bills aimed at limiting voting access, and especially access to voting by mail, in the wake of President Biden’s victory last year in the highest-turnout election in American history.

The proposals come after months of pressure from former President Trump, who with the help of Republican allies spread false claims and conspiracy theories related to the election, including that widespread voter fraud cost him a victory.

[...]

“Rather than competing for voters, there are some politicians that instead would prefer to lock people out of the process.”

  The Hill
Why do you think that is?
Arizona state Rep. Kevin Payne (R) has filed legislation to eliminate a permanent early voting list, one that automatically sends absentee ballots to 3.2 million voters — three-quarters of the state’s registered voters. The permanent early voting list was created in 2007 at the behest of both Republican and Democratic county elections officials.

Payne has also introduced a bill to require a notary’s signature on any mail-in ballot, in a state in which the vast majority of voters cast their ballots by mail.

[...]

Top Republicans in Georgia are planning legislation to further restrict absentee voting, after Biden won the state’s electoral votes and Sens. Raphael Warnock (D) and Jon Ossoff (D) defeated two Republican incumbents. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) told a legislative panel last week he supported adding a photo identification requirement to absentee ballots.

“Many Georgians are concerned about the integrity of our election system. Some of those concerns may or may not be well-founded, but there may be others that are,” state House Speaker David Ralston (R) told the Georgia Chamber of Commerce earlier this month.

[...]

Pennsylvania Republicans have plans to hold more than a dozen hearings on election integrity over the next several months after Biden won the state by more than 80,000 votes. State Rep. Jim Gregory (R) has introduced legislation to repeal an expansion of mail-in voting.

In Michigan, state Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R) has said he will work on a new requirement that voters show a photo identification at the polls. Biden won Michigan, a state Trump narrowly carried in 2016, by more than 150,000 votes, almost 3 percentage points.

Wisconsin state Rep. Gary Tauchen (R) earlier this year introduced legislation that would allocate presidential electoral votes to the winner of each congressional district, rather than all 10 to the statewide winner.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Impeachment #2

The US House of Representatives has presented its article of impeachment against Donald Trump to the Senate, a step that formally sets in motion the Senate trial against the former United States president, which is expected to start next month.

Walking from one side of the US Capitol to the other, nine House managers appointed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi hand-delivered the impeachment document to the Senate on Monday evening.

The article charged Trump with “incitement of insurrection” in relation to the deadly storming on January 6 of the US Capitol building in Washington, DC by a mob of his supporters.

The House impeached Trump on January 13 on the same charge – making him the first president in US history to be impeached twice.

[...]

“President Trump repeatedly issued false statements asserting that the presidential election results were the product of widespread fraud, and should not be accepted by the American people, or certified by state or federal officials,” Raskin said.

The formal step kickstarts the trial phase of the impeachment process, in which all 100 senators will sit as jurors to hear evidence and legal arguments from the House managers and Trump’s defence team.

To be convicted, the Senate must secure a two-thirds majority on the impeachment charge.

  alJazeera
If they had any sense of their duty to the Constitution they would do it. But they don't, so they won't.
If that happens, a subsequent vote could bar Trump from running for public office again in the future.

[...]

Senate Democratic and Republican leaders have agreed on a timeline for the trial, which is expected to begin during the week of February 8.

[...]

Senators will be sworn in as jurors on Wednesday and a summons will be sent by the Senate to the former president, requiring him to answer the article of impeachment.
This is one hell of a creepy picture, though.

Monday, January 25, 2021

Here right matters


Don't let up for a second

Do you realize how close to the brink we are?

The reason to convict Trump and bar him from office forever is rather simple: No sitting president has ever incited a violent attack on Congress. Allowing Trump to do so without sanction would invite a future president with autocratic ambitions and greater competence to execute a successful overthrow of the federal government, rather than the soft echo of post-Reconstruction violence the nation endured in early January. The political incentives for the Republican Party in convicting Trump may be unclear, but the stakes for democracy are not. The Senate must make clear that attempted coups, no matter how clumsy or ineffective, are the type of crime that is answered with swift and permanent exile from American political life.

That Trump is responsible for the assault on the Capitol is clear far beyond a reasonable doubt. Trump informed the assembled crowd on January 6 that “if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election,” and that “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” He then directed the mob at the Capitol, falsely telling the rioters he would accompany them, retreating to the White House instead. Those arrested after the attack have themselves told the authorities they were acting on the president’s admonitions. Behind the scenes, Trump was attempting to orchestrate an autogolpe using the Justice Department to force states to overturn their vote tallies; he was foiled only by the threat of mass resignations. The mob was his last resort.

[...]

Any president from any party who incites a violent attack on another branch of government in order to seize power should be forever barred from holding office.

If Congress cannot uphold that principle, it will not survive the next attack if it comes.

  The Atlantic
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The real world


Shun him



Ruin him

Sunday, January 24, 2021

Take him down

A legal group filed a bar complaint on Thursday against Rudy Giuliani, claiming that the former New York City mayor’s “flagrant and persistent lying” about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election and the incitement of rioters at the U.S. Capitol show that he is unfit to practice law and ought to be suspended.

Lawyers Defending American Democracy (LDAD) delivered its 18-page grievance to New York’s First Judicial Department in Manhattan, demanding the ethics committee conduct an investigation into Giuliani’s for his “false public claims, on behalf of former President Trump, that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by fraud, and for filing lawsuits without legal or factual support.”

[...]

LDAD also asked that asked the committee to immediately suspend Giuliani’s license to practice law until the probe is completed.

  Law and Crime
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Let us out of here

The law firm that handled the tax affairs of Donald Trump and his company during his presidency said it would stop representing him and his business.

The firm, Morgan Lewis & Bockius, is currently wrangling with the New York attorney general’s office over documents related to its work for the former president’s business, the Trump Organization. Led by Democratic Attorney General Letitia James, the office is conducting a civil-fraud probe into Mr. Trump’s financial dealings.

“We have had a limited representation of the Trump Organization and Donald Trump in tax-related matters,” a Morgan Lewis spokeswoman said. “For those matters not already concluded, we are transitioning as appropriate to other counsel.”

The spokeswoman didn’t provide a reason for the firm’s decision.

  WSJ
We can guess.
Morgan Lewis joins other firms that have distanced themselves from Mr. Trump in recent days. After the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Seyfarth Shaw LLP said it had notified the Trump Organization it would no longer represent the company. “We are working with the company to secure new counsel for its ongoing commercial matters to ensure a smooth transition in accordance with our ethical obligations,” a Seyfarth spokesman said.
Sad!

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Let the lawsuits against Alex Jones commence

Without comment, the Lone Star State’s highest civil court found that America’s foremost conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones, and his flagship media outlet, InfoWars, are subject to liability in four separate defamation lawsuits filed over the past two-plus years. Those lawsuits were filed by parents of children who were killed during the Sandy Hook massacre and by a man Jones and his network falsely identified as the perpetrator of the Parkland massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Each of the four lawsuits were filed in Travis County, the largest of three counties contained in the City of Austin, the Texas state capitol. With an ever-present image in the once-sleepy college town home to the nation’s leading “Public Ivy,” the University of Texas, Jones is something of a household name after spreading the false gospel for well over two decades after getting his start in the freewheeling world of public-access cable programming.

[...]

Immediately after the 2012 shooting that left 20 children and six teachers dead in Newtown, Connecticut, Jones used his by-then vast platform to spread the idea that the murders were part of a “false flag” operation meant to scare the population into giving up their guns and Second Amendment rights. Jones also smeared the parents of the dead children, calling them “crisis actors.” None of those claims were true but the pernicious ideas gained traction among the easily-influenced.

[...]

“Our clients have been tormented for five years by Mr. Jones’ ghoulish accusations that they are actors who faked their children’s deaths as part of a fraud on the American people,” Bankston said in a statement at the time, “Enough is enough.”

[...]

“These baseless and vile accusations, which have been pushed by InfoWars and Mr. Jones a continuous basis since the shooting, advance the idea that the Sandy Hook massacre did not happen, or that it was staged by the government and concealed using actors, and that the families of the victims are participants in a horrifying cover-up. InfoWars knew its assertions were false or made these statements with reckless and outrageous disregard for their truth.”

  Law and Crime
Take that asshole down.

Saturday, January 23, 2021

Sad!


Unconscienable

The Pentagon blocked members of President Joe Biden’s incoming administration from gaining access to critical information about current operations, including the troop drawdown in Afghanistan, upcoming special operations missions in Africa and the Covid-19 vaccine distribution program, according to new details provided by transition and defense officials.

The effort to obstruct the Biden team, led by senior White House appointees at the Pentagon, is unprecedented in modern presidential transitions and will hobble the new administration on key national security matters as it takes over positions in the Defense Department.

[...]

Biden openly decried the treatment his aides were receiving at the Pentagon in December, calling it “nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility” after meetings were canceled ahead of Christmas. He said his people were denied information on the SolarWinds hack, and said his team “needs a clear picture of our force posture around the world and our operations to deter our enemies.”

But people involved with the transition, both on the Biden team and the Pentagon side, gave POLITICO a more detailed picture of what was denied, saying briefings on pressing defense matters never happened, were delayed to the last minute, or were controlled by overbearing minders from the Trump administration's side.

[...]

“They really should not be allowed to get away with this. It’s just completely irresponsible and indefensible,” said one transition official. “To play politics with the country’s national security is just really unacceptable.”

  Politico
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Hell yes


One last cover for his golf club walls


Attempted coup

The Justice Department’s top leaders listened in stunned silence this month: One of their peers [Jeffrey Clark], they were told, had devised a plan with President Donald J. Trump to oust Jeffrey A. Rosen as acting attorney general and wield the department’s power to force Georgia state lawmakers to overturn its presidential election results.

[...]

The department officials, convened on a conference call, then asked each other: What will you do if Mr. Rosen is dismissed?

The answer was unanimous. They would resign.

[...]

Their informal pact ultimately helped persuade Mr. Trump to keep Mr. Rosen in place, calculating that a furor over mass resignations at the top of the Justice Department would eclipse any attention on his baseless accusations of voter fraud. Mr. Trump’s decision came only after Mr. Rosen and Mr. Clark made their competing cases to him in a bizarre White House meeting that two officials compared with an episode of Mr. Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice,” albeit one that could prompt a constitutional crisis.

[...]

He also pressed Mr. Rosen to appoint special counsels, including one who would look into Dominion Voting Systems, a maker of election equipment that Mr. Trump’s allies had falsely said was working with Venezuela to flip votes from Mr. Trump to Joseph R. Biden Jr.

[...]

Mr. Clark said that this account contained inaccuracies but did not specify, adding that he could not discuss any conversations with Mr. Trump or Justice Department lawyers because of “the strictures of legal privilege.” “Senior Justice Department lawyers, not uncommonly, provide legal advice to the White House as part of our duties,” he said. “All my official communications were consistent with law.”

  NYT
Well, that's good enough for us.
When Mr. Trump said on Dec. 14 that Attorney General William P. Barr was leaving the department, some officials thought that he might allow Mr. Rosen a short reprieve before pressing him about voter fraud. After all, Mr. Barr would be around for another week.

Instead, Mr. Trump summoned Mr. Rosen to the Oval Office the next day.
Dear God.Anyone who's been paying attention would have forseen that.
He wanted the Justice Department to file legal briefs supporting his allies’ lawsuits seeking to overturn his election loss. And he urged Mr. Rosen to appoint special counsels to investigate not only unfounded accusations of widespread voter fraud, but also Dominion, the voting machines firm.

(Dominion has sued the pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, who inserted those accusations into four federal lawsuits about voter irregularities that were all dismissed.)

Mr. Rosen refused. He maintained that he would make decisions based on the facts and the law, and he reiterated what Mr. Barr had privately told Mr. Trump: The department had investigated voting irregularities and found no evidence of widespread fraud.

But Mr. Trump continued to press Mr. Rosen after the meeting — in phone calls and in person. He repeatedly said that he did not understand why the Justice Department had not found evidence that supported conspiracy theories about the election that some of his personal lawyers had espoused. He declared that the department was not fighting hard enough for him.

[...]

As December wore on, Mr. Clark mentioned to Mr. Rosen and [deputy attorney general, Richard P.] Donoghue that he spent a lot of time reading on the internet — a comment that alarmed them because they inferred that he believed the unfounded conspiracy theory that Mr. Trump had won the election. Mr. Clark also told them that he wanted the department to hold a news conference announcing that it was investigating serious accusations of election fraud. Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue rejected the proposal.

[...]

As Mr. Trump focused increasingly on Georgia, a state he lost narrowly to Mr. Biden, he complained to Justice Department leaders that the U.S. attorney in Atlanta, Byung J. Pak, was not trying to find evidence for false election claims pushed by Mr. Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and others. Mr. Donoghue warned Mr. Pak that the president was now fixated on his office, and that it might not be tenable for him to continue to lead it, according to two people familiar with the conversation.

That conversation and Mr. Trump’s efforts to pressure Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to “find” him votes compelled Mr. Pak to abruptly resign.

[...]

Mr. Clark was also focused on Georgia. He drafted a letter that he wanted Mr. Rosen to send to Georgia state legislators that wrongly said that the Justice Department was investigating accusations of voter fraud in their state, and that they should move to void Mr. Biden’s win there.

Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue again rejected Mr. Clark’s proposal.

On New Year’s Eve, the trio met to discuss Mr. Clark’s refusal to hew to the department’s conclusion that the election results were valid. Mr. Donoghue flatly told Mr. Clark that what he was doing was wrong. The next day, Mr. Clark told Mr. Rosen — who had mentored him while they worked together at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis — that he was going to discuss his strategy with the president early the next week, just before Congress was set to certify Mr. Biden’s electoral victory.

Unbeknown to the acting attorney general, Mr. Clark’s timeline moved up. He met with Mr. Trump over the weekend, then informed Mr. Rosen midday on Sunday that the president intended to replace him with Mr. Clark, who could then try to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College results. He said that Mr. Rosen could stay on as his deputy attorney general, leaving Mr. Rosen speechless.

[...]

Mr. Rosen said that he needed to hear straight from Mr. Trump and worked with the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, to convene a meeting for early that evening.

[...]

Even as Mr. Clark’s pronouncement was sinking in, stunning news broke out of Georgia: State officials had recorded an hourlong call, published by The Washington Post, during which Mr. Trump pressured them to manufacture enough votes to declare him the victor. As the fallout from the recording ricocheted through Washington, the president’s desperate bid to change the outcome in Georgia came into sharp focus.

[...]

Mr. Donoghue convened a late-afternoon call with the department’s remaining senior leaders, laying out Mr. Clark’s efforts to replace Mr. Rosen.

[...]

Mr. Rosen planned to soon head to the White House to discuss his fate, Mr. Donoghue told the group. Should Mr. Rosen be fired, they all agreed to resign en masse. For some, the plan brought to mind the so-called Saturday Night Massacre of the Nixon era, where Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and his deputy resigned rather than carry out the president’s order to fire the special prosecutor investigating him.

The Clark plan, the officials concluded, would seriously harm the department, the government and the rule of law. For hours, they anxiously messaged and called one another as they awaited Mr. Rosen’s fate.

Around 6 p.m., Mr. Rosen, Mr. Donoghue and Mr. Clark met at the White House with Mr. Trump, Mr. Cipollone, his deputy Patrick Philbin and other lawyers. Mr. Trump had Mr. Rosen and Mr. Clark present their arguments to him.

Mr. Cipollone advised the president not to fire Mr. Rosen and he reiterated, as he had for days, that he did not recommend sending the letter to Georgia lawmakers. Mr. Engel advised Mr. Trump that he and the department’s remaining top officials would resign if he fired Mr. Rosen, leaving Mr. Clark alone at the department.

Mr. Trump seemed somewhat swayed by the idea that firing Mr. Rosen would trigger not only chaos at the Justice Department, but also congressional investigations and possibly recriminations from other Republicans and distract attention from his efforts to overturn the election results.

After nearly three hours, Mr. Trump ultimately decided that Mr. Clark’s plan would fail, and he allowed Mr. Rosen to stay.
And then he incited a direct attack on the Capitol.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:






The GOP must be squeezed out of existence

At least 21 state and local Republican officials attended the Jan. 6 rally in Washington, D.C., that turned into a violent riot, according to a new HuffPost tally, many of whom are now under pressure to resign.

They traveled from 16 different states, arriving for the “Stop the Steal” demonstration on the White House Ellipse, where they watched President Donald Trump tell incendiary lies about having been robbed of reelection. He then told the crowd of thousands to march on the Capitol.

In the crowd that day were 13 members of state Houses or Assemblies; three state senators; a county commissioner; a city council member; a GOP congressional district chair; a district director; and a co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party. The group also includes a QAnon conspiracy theorist; a self-described member of a fascist militia; and a man who once declared that “the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.”

Only two of those GOP officials appear to have breached the Capitol property itself that day, and have since been arrested, but the prevalence of Republican legislators and party functionaries at the demonstration underscores the party’s rank complicity in fomenting a historic insurrection.

  HuffPo
Names are named in the article.

Friday, January 22, 2021

Lindsey Graham should be visited by the ghost of John McCain


The modern GOP

This is true, and McConnell will do it again. It's what Republicanism has become in America. They don't want unity; they want capitulation. They call themselves patriots, and they are, in fact, unamerican.


...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

It's a start

Seven Senate Democrats filed an ethics complaint Thursday against Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, over their Jan. 6 objections to the November presidential elections.

[...]

By objecting to the certification, Cruz, and Hawley, "lent legitimacy" to the violent mob of pro-Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol, the letter sent to incoming Senate Ethics Committee Chairman Chris Coons, D-Del., and Vice Chairman James Lankford, R-Okla., said.

The letter, spearheaded by Rhode Island Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, asked for an investigation into the two members to "fully understand their role" as it relates to the attack on the Capitol and to determine whether disciplinary action is needed.

Whitehouse and the six other Democrats who signed the letter want information on whether Hawley, Cruz or their staffers were in contact or coordinated with the organizers of the rally; what the senators knew about the plans for the Jan. 6 rally; whether they received donations from any of the organizations or donors that funded the rally; and whether the senators "engaged in criminal conduct or unethical or improper behavior."

Until those questions are cleared up, "a cloud of uncertainty will hang over them and over this body," the letter said. Sens. Ron Wyden, Tina Smith, Richard Blumenthal, Mazie Hirono, Tim Kaine and Sherrod Brown also signed.

[...]

Under the Constitution, Congress has the exclusive power to discipline its members --though it is rare for members to face punishment.

The Senate can expel or censure its members. Expulsion requires a two-thirds vote in the chamber. Censure requires a majority vote.

[...]

The seven Democrats who drafted the letter to the Ethics Committee believe Hawley and Cruz violated the Code of Ethics for Government Service, which requires elected officials to "[p]ut loyalty to the highest moral principles and to country above loyalty to persons, party, or Government department" and "[u]phold these principles, ever conscious that public office is a public trust."

Sen. Smith, D-Minn., said Thursday that she believes Hawley and Cruz should be removed from the Senate.

"Sens. Cruz and Hawley deserve a fair process and a chance to explain themselves and their role in the January 6 Capitol siege," Smith wrote in a tweet. "But unless we learn something new, based on what we've seen so far, I don't believe they deserve to remain in the Senate."

  NPR
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.