anti-govt bak
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">619 sorta opposite of dis-ambiguation? aggregation of similar nodes</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">this is distinct from fed overreach RAGA scam</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see libtard</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">this is getting more generic, powell memo, koch bros libtard 5/21</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">html parasites</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">gop took a hard right turn, even more trumpista?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/gop-extremism/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/gop-extremism/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When President Barack Obama was reelected in 2012 and defeated Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, pundits offered a variety of explanations for Romney's loss. Some pundits on the far right insisted that Romney wasn't conservative enough — that he lost because he was a RINO: Republican In Name Only. Others, however, argued that Romney's campaign was doomed by wingnuts in his party. <b>Two of the people who warned that extremists were taking over the Republican Party were Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein</b>, and according to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/23/politics/republicans-extremists-worse-than-2012/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">CNN's John Harwood</a>, their warnings about the GOP of 2012 are still relevant in 2021.<strong /></font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On April 27, 2012 — when the presidential election was still over half a year away — the Washington Post published an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lets-just-say-it-the-republicans-are-the-problem/2012/04/27/gIQAxCVUlT_story.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">op-ed by Mann and Ornstein</a> headlined, "Let's Just Say It: The Republicans Are the Problem." Mann was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, while Ornstein was a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Mann and Ornstein wrote, "The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics.<b> It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition. </b>When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country's challenges…. It is clear that the center of gravity in the Republican Party has shifted sharply to the right. Its once-legendary moderate and center-right legislators in the House and the Senate — think Bob Michel, Mickey Edwards, John Danforth, Chuck Hagel — are virtually extinct."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>That op-ed from nine years ago, according to Harwood, shows that the Republican Party was overrun by extremists long before Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Harwood explains, "It didn't mention Marjorie Taylor Greene, the deadly January 6 insurrection or Donald Trump's Big Lie. In fact, the words 'Donald Trump' did not appear at all. Published in 2012, that Washington Post piece demonstrates more than the foresight of its political scientist authors, Tom Mann of the center-left Brookings Institution and Norm Ornstein of the center-right American Enterprise Institute. It shows the disease within the Republican Party had spread long before Trump metastasized it."</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">One of the Republicans Mann and Ornstein slammed as a kook in their op-ed was then-Rep. Allen West</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> who claimed that "78 to 81" House Democrats of 2012 were communists. The Bulwark's William Kristol, now a Never Trump conservative, remembers believing that the op-ed exaggerated the influence of extremists in the GOP; Harwood quotes Kristol as saying, "People like me were thinking, 'Yeah, there are some kooky people around, but c'mon.'"</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But since 2012, Harwood writes, Kristol has been "slugged by reality." For The Bulwark</b>, Kristol has written countless articles slamming the GOP as a party that has been hijacked by dangerous authoritarians. And in 2020's presidential election, Kristol and his Bulwark colleagues endorsed Joe Biden.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mann, nine years after that Post op-ed, told Harwood, "I don't get much satisfaction out of being right. A country, and a system, like ours has to have two strong governing parties. The fact is, we only have one." And Ornstein told Harwood, "It's a grim picture for the foreseeable future. We have a serious risk of losing our democracy."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Harwood notes what has happened to the Republicans of 2012. Romney and Rep. Liz Cheney are now pariahs in much of the GOP for rejecting Trumpism, while West now chairs the Texas GOP</b>. And Harwood says of West, "His 2021 successors have grown loonier. Greene won a House seat from Georgia last year after expressing support for bizarre QAnon fantasies, which link Democrats with pedophilia."</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to Harwood, "When Mann and Ornstein wrote their 2012 piece, Tea Party Republicans had menaced the American economy with a debt crisis. But this year's insurrection created physical menace — for Capitol Police, lawmakers of both parties, even then-Vice President Mike Pence. Cheney warns that Trump may incite further violence."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another person who believed that Mann and Ornstein exaggerated in their 2012 op-ed was former Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania. But now, Dent (who chaired the House Ethics Committee) finds the GOP's direction to be increasingly disturbing.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I don't like where we're heading," Dent told Harwood, "but (I) don't think it's inevitable that we get to that terrible place."</font></p><div class="around-the-web" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="from-your-siteheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</font></div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; list-style: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><li class="from-your-siteitem"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/gop-extremists/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">'Destroying' the GOP is the only way to 'save it' from the 'dystopian ... ›</a></font></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/far-right/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">'Completely nuts': Behind closed doors, Republicans are grappling ... ›</a></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/john-boehner-gop/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">John Boehner slams 'extremists' and 'whacked-out lunatics' who ... ›</a></li></ul><div class="around-the-webheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</font></div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; list-style: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><li class="around-the-webitem"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.courant.com/opinion/op-ed/hc-op-rosen-gop-embracing-extremism-20210309-cunqockn3favznza2bostuh2zi-story.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">GOP embrace of extremism began long before Trump - Hartford ... ›</a></font></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/02/republican-extremism-and-john-birch-society/617922/" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Republican Extremism and the John Birch Society - The Atlantic ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/14/politics/republican-extremism-trump-impeachment/index.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-weight: lighter; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Is the GOP's extremist wing now too big to fail? - CNNPolitics ›</a></li></ul></div></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/billionaire/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/billionaire/</a></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As we're struggling to recover from Trump's half-million unnecessary Covid deaths here in America, fighting to get a clear picture of how extensive the sedition was among Republicans in Congress around January 6th, and trying to pass legislation to ensure clean and safe elections and put the country back into shape, <b>dark money, foreign oligarchs and rightwing media groups are hard at work tearing this nation apart.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><a href="https://hartmannreport.com/p/blowing-up-the-billionaires-con-thats" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article was originally published at The Hartmann Report</font></a></strong></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>And they're having considerable success.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">About 75 percent of Americans trusted the federal government to "do what is right" when polled during most of the last years of the Eisenhower 1950s administration and early years of Lyndon B. Johnson's 1960s presidency.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2019, when the Pew Research Center released its most recent poll of public trust in the government, only 17 percent of Americans trusted their government.</span> It's so bad that throughout <b>2020 armed protesters showed up nationwide to protest the "tyranny" of having to wear masks during a pandemic,</b> and then stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the election, all cheered on by the then-President of the United States and multiple rightwing media outlets.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This is no accident; it's the result of a five-decades-long campaign by some of America's richest people to tear apart the governing fabric of our nation, formally kicked off by their man, Ronald Reagan, proudly proclaiming at his January 20, 1981, inauguration that, "[G]overnment is not the solution to our problem; government <em>is</em> the problem."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Put yourself in the place of the heirs to a multimillion-dollar fossil fuel empire, a situation akin to the "heroic" brother and sister who inherited a railroad from their dad in <b>Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged:</b></font></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><ul class="ee-ul" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></font></font></font></font></font></font><li><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If you don't have to pay to dispose of cancer-causing byproducts from your refineries but can simply vent them into the air, and you make more money.</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></li></ul><ul class="ee-ul" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px;"><li>If you can cut wages and threaten employees because they don't have a union, you make more money.</li></ul><ul class="ee-ul" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px;"><li>If you can run a pipeline across sacred Native American land atop a major national aquifer with minimal safety oversight, you make more money.</li><li>If you can hide your money from the IRS because the agency has had its budget slashed so badly that it can no longer do expensive audits of morbidly rich people, you can keep more of the money you've made.</li><li>If you can get the government to cut social programs and public education, thus lowering your taxes, you can keep more of the money you've made.</li></ul><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">So how do you pull this off, when every one of these things hurts average Americans?</font></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Easy. Just embark on a 50-year-long campaign, through think tanks, right-wing media, and massive PR efforts to convince average Americans that government is the cause of, not the solution to, their problems. Convince working-class Americans that gutting government is a good thing that will ultimately help them in some mystical, magical way through the incredible "invisible hand" of the marketplace.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Lewis Powell, a lawyer for Big Tobacco, launched the movement to do just this with his infamous memo in 1971, and billionaires have funded and promoted politicians who jump on board the "government is evil" bandwagon ever since.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>And it's largely worked,</b> if the "trust in government" statistics compiled by the Pew Research Center since 1958 are accurate.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Years ago I was up late one night watching, as I recall, Bloomberg News on a hotel TV. The American host was interviewing a very wealthy German businessman at a conference in Singapore.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Amidst questions about the business climate and the conference, the host asked the German businessman what tax rate he was "suffering under" in his home country. As I recall, the businessman said, "A bit over 60 percent, when everything is included."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"How can you handle that?" asked the host, incredulous.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The German shrugged his shoulders and moved the conversation to another topic.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A few minutes later, the American reporter, still all wound up by the tax question, again asked the businessman how he could possibly live in a country with such a high tax rate on very wealthy and successful people. Again, the German deferred and changed the subject.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The reporter went for a third try. "Why don't you lead a revolt against those high taxes?" he asked, his tone implying the businessman was badly in need of some good old American rebellion-making.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The German businessman paused for a long moment and then leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees, his clasped hands in front of him pointing at the reporter as if in prayer.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>He stared at the man for another long moment and then, in the tone of voice an adult uses to correct a spoiled child, said simply, "I don't want to be a rich man in a poor country."</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">There are a few wealthy Americans who understand this. But the billionaires and foreign oligarchs who fund the Republican Party and right-wing media think it's perfectly fine to rip the financial and political guts out of their own nation and turn its people against each other if it makes them a few extra bucks.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">They've funded and facilitated movements like the Tea Party and rightwing paramilitaries, media outlets like Fox News and Breitbart, and organizations like the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation, and ALEC. They throw piles of money at </span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Republican politicians, so long as they never stray far from the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">"deregulate, cut, denigrate"</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> line about American government. They sponsor climate denial to increase their own profits.</span></b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And over and over again, they've been successfully pulling this off for the past 50 years. The most recent example is the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">disaster we're seeing in Arizona where the majority of <b>Republicans in the Arizona Senate, totally owned by rightwing billionaires, went along with Trump and started a phony "audit" </b>to further erode Americans' faith in our government. Reaganism has become Trumpism, and it's all pointing toward destroying faith in democracy in America just to make a buck.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Similarly, a Morning Consult poll about saving Americans from the Covid crisis a few months ago had this headline: "With Congressional Stimulus Fight Looming, 76% of Voters Back $1.9 Trillion Plan, Including 60% of Republicans." Yet every single billionaire-owned Republican in Congress opposed it, and now they're opposing President Biden's efforts to rebuild our infrastructure, both hard and soft.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As this nation recovers from a deadly pandemic that — unnecessarily — killed more than 500,000 of our fellow citizens, and struggles with rightwing hate groups that are trying to provoke a second Civil War, let's remember how this all came about. And all for a few extra pieces of gold.</font></p><div class="around-the-web"><div class="from-your-siteheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</font></div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; list-style: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><li class="from-your-siteitem"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/gilbert-chagoury/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: lighter; 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</font></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The next day, Carrillo left Amaya's house. According to prosecutors, he picked up another Boogaloo Boi, Robert Justus Jr., and drove to downtown Oakland. It was 9:15 p.m., and crowds had gathered on Oakland's streets to protest and mourn Floyd's death. Meanwhile, blocks away, the two men drove a white Ford van around Oakland's federal courthouse, where <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">David Patrick Underwood, a federal protective security officer, staffed a two-person guard hut. Prosecutors say Carrillo was in the back seat near the sliding door, carrying a short-barreled rifle, a <b>“ghost weapon" with no serial number</b>, making it almost impossible to trace. According to the FBI, it was an illegal machine gun optimized to fire bursts of shots automatically, with an added silencer.</span></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hours before, Carrillo had posted on Facebook that if “it's not kicking off in your hood then start it." Now, according to prosecutors, Justus drove toward the guard hut while Carrillo slid the van's door open and fired multiple bursts, killing Underwood and seriously wounding a second guard. “<b>Did you see how they fucking fell?" Carrillo said as the van drove off, according to an account Justus gave investigators after turning himself in.</b></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">“In his mind, Steven was on a mission just like in the Air Force, except the enemy was the police," Amaya said.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A lawyer for Justus, who has been charged with aiding and abetting Underwood's murder, declined to discuss his client's alleged involvement with the Boogaloo Bois. Instead he pointed to court filings that describe what Justus told investigators. According to those records, Justus insisted to investigators that he felt he had to participate because he was “<b>trapped in the van." He also claimed he told Carrillo, “I am not cool with this," and tried to think of ways to “talk Carrillo out of his plan," only for Carrillo to respond by pointing a rifle at him and asking if he was “a cop or a rat."</b></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">The shooting of both guards aligned neatly with Boogaloo ideology. “Use their anger to fuel our fire," Carrillo had written on Facebook that morning. “We have mobs of angry people to use to our advantage." Sure enough, some conservative commentators rushed to blame Underwood's murder on antifa and Black Lives Matter protesters.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Four hours after Underwood's death, Carrillo received a text message from Hunter urging him to attack police buildings, court records show.</font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Carrillo's response: “I did better lol."</font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That weekend, when Carrillo returned to Amaya's house, he seemed “on edge and distracted," she recalled. He asked for a week's leave at Travis Air Force base and sent $200 to Hunter, congratulating him for “doing good shit out there." <b>Most of the time, she said, Carrillo was glued to Facebook, following the news and commenting on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/14/nyregion/nypd-george-floyd-protests.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">viral videos of police clashing with protesters</a>. “Who needs antifa to start riots when the police do it for you," read one of his posts.</b></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">In the days after the Oakland shooting, Carrillo communicated regularly with Rush and other members of the Grizzly Scouts on a WhatsApp group they called “209 Goon HQ," prosecutors say. (The area code for Mariposa County, home turf of the Grizzly Scouts, is 209.) Via WhatsApp, they repeatedly made references to the “Boog" and “discussed committing acts of violence against law enforcement," prosecutors allege.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">On Saturday, June 6, Carrillo drove to his father's house in Ben Lomond. It was about 2 p.m. when Gutzwiller, a sergeant in the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office, and two more deputies arrived at the<b> property, which was guarded by a dog wearing a bulletproof vest and monitored by security cameras.</b> They were responding to a call from a passerby who had spotted a suspicious white Ford van loaded with what appeared to be firearms and bomb-making material. When the deputies learned the van was registered to Carrillo's father, they pulled up to his house to question him.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">The deputies did not realize Carrillo was above them, perched just 40 feet away in a covered, well-concealed position up a steep embankment, aiming the same “ghost" weapon that prosecutors say he had used in Oakland.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Based on the WhatsApp text messages that prosecutors say he sent at this time, Carrillo appeared to be trying to guide his fellow Grizzly Scouts on how they could join forces with him in a coordinated attack on the law enforcement officers gathering to search for him.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“Theyre waiting for reenforcements," he texted.</b></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>And this: “Theres inly one road in/out. Take them out when theyre coming in."</b></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>According to police, Carrillo “sniped" Gutzwiller, killing him with a single shot to the chest. Another deputy was also shot in the chest, but was saved by his bulletproof vest.</b></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During the mayhem and bloodshed that followed, Carrillo engaged in a running gun battle with law enforcement officers, hurling pipe bombs and hijacking vehicles. In his own blood, he scrawled “BOOG" and “I became unreasonable" and “Stop the Duopoly" — all common Boogaloo slogans — on the hood of a car he had stolen. And at some point, he sent one more WhatsApp message to his fellow Grizzly Scouts: “Dudes i offed a fed."</font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For all of Carrillo's urgent appeals for reinforcements, there is no indication any Grizzly Scout tried to come to his aid. While questioning Carrillo's fiancée in August, Henry Montes, an investigator for the Santa Cruz County District Attorney's Office, offered a possible explanation. Some members of the Grizzly Scouts, he said, had told investigators that <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Carrillo was too extreme for them. “The things that he was saying made them think he wants to kill policemen," Montes told Amaya, according to a recording of the interview obtained by the news organizations.</span></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“We spoke with some people who were no longer part of that group because they were afraid of Steven," Montes said.</font></font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">A Jailhouse Wedding</font></h3><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In interviews, Carrillo's siblings describe a brother who suffered from years of severe mental health problems and didn't get the support and medical treatment he needed from the Air Force. “I could see his pain," Carrillo's sister, Ruby, said.</b></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Over two hours of interviews, Carrillo himself did not attribute any of his actions to mental illness. Instead, he forthrightly proclaimed his support for the Boogaloo Bois and repeatedly challenged what he views as misconceptions about the group.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">“I just want to say, the Boogaloo movement, you know, there's a lot in the paper that I feel like people don't understand," he said. “And that is the Boogaloo movement, it's all inclusive. It includes everyone. It's not a thing about race. It's about people that love freedom, liberty, and they're unhappy with the level of control that the government takes over our lives. So it's just a movement, it's a thought about freedom. It's just a complete love for freedom."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Meanwhile, as Carrillo sits in jail awaiting trial, his political evolution continues. In a letter he wrote to reporters in October, he referred to Joe Biden as a man who “sniffs kids," echoing QAnon, a pro-Trump conspiracy theory that falsely accuses the Democratic Party of running a Satan-worshipping child sex-trafficking ring.</font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Carrillo's defense lawyers declined to comment.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/orwell/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/orwell/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">salon quite long</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"If people lived without accepting lies/ they would ripen like apples, and be scented like pippins/ in their old age," wrote D.H. Lawrence in his poem "Beautiful Old Age." Unfortunately, living with accepted lies is just an everyday part of being American.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Patently misleading words and phrases that could have come straight out of Orwell's "1984" have long polluted our political language, yet continue to be taken at face value and used routinely. The most consequential has been the replacement of "war" by "defense" in the titles of the War Department and the secretary of war cabinet post in 1949, a change practically simultaneous with the publication of Orwell's novel<em> </em>and one that, in effect, defined all of our subsequent military actions as defensive — hence justified and not open to question. We stretched the idea of defense with regard to our own actions to cover aggression. By changing a single word, we authorized ourselves to transform a perceived or alleged threat into an actual one, justifying any response we chose to make. (Later we extended the same privilege to Israel.)</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nineteen forty-nine was a watershed year, a kind of clincher for the Cold War, its covert actions, its hot war interludes, and its various sequels. Immediately preceded by Harry Truman's upset victory over Thomas Dewey and the rout of Progressive Party candidate Henry Wallace, it was the year we lost our monopoly on nuclear weapons to the Soviet Union, the year we "lost" China to the Communists led by Mao Zedong, and the year we formed NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) with Canada, Iceland and nine European countries, The next year came the Korean War and Sen. Joe McCarthy.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"1984," which introduced the term "newspeak," quickly became a propaganda weapon for our side, that of the "free world." So it was understood from the outset that we could never countenance the abuses of language and human decency the novel depicts. We were immune — at the end of ideology, if not yet of history. Appropriating Orwell, we secured ourselves from him.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Compare the knee-jerk howls of derision over "political correctness" in language — such facers of facts we are! such disciples of St. George! away with the "thought police"! no liberal prissiness for us! (ignore that mealy-mouthed "defense" or, better, savor it as a delicious joke, a word with invisible quotation marks) — compare those howls to the virtual silence over the older, more extensive and deadly abuse of language for propaganda by government and the media — language not to be questioned, much less derided, language that is politically <em>mandatory</em>, the empire's clothes.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Noam Chomsky likes to refer to official euphemisms and pejoratives, rather coyly, as "technical terms." ("Fatal fictions" would be more like it.) The wonder is that we have accumulated so many of them, that a political culture full of professing Orwellians should be awash in newspeak. But such is the establishment's need to confuse the public to make it more malleable — or, on a more generous view, to pull the wool over its own eyes, the better to deceive and manipulate the public with a good conscience. So it fell to us to devise the perfect cover for the Big Brother of Orwell's novel — a government-orchestrated campaign against "big government." We paid the novel the supreme compliment.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The term "big government," a choice example of newspeak American-style, involves putting forward a false distinction to conceal the true one. The campaign against "big government" does not reflect a disagreement over the proper size and reach of government, as the issue is always framed, but a more basic one over whose interest government exists to serve, those at the top or the population as a whole. As an epithet, "big government" serves as a big stick with which politicians, in service to a corporate/military state, beat up on the derisively named "nanny state," which is alleged to squander taxpayer dollars on the undeserving, breed dependency, stifle initiative, constrain business and individual liberty, and generally emasculate. (Somehow, the doom of dependency does not hang over those who inherit wealth. Opponents of the estate tax never heard of it.)</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In other words, the campaign against "big government" is a means for government to marshal public support for shedding its responsibility to the public (enlarged so recklessly during the last century!) so as to devote itself even more to its biggest and most important clients. As if we shared a common interest, the leaders of this campaign invite <em>us</em> to join forces against <em>them</em>, the freeloaders using government to pick <em>our</em> pockets.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This, then, is the real meaning of the "small" or "limited" government ideal, though such a government is small only in the sense of the constituency to be served, which in turn <em>requires</em> that it be highly intrusive, coercive and manipulative as well, in order to keep everyone else in line.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For the interests of the few to prevail, they must have government behind them, and a government powerful and resourceful enough to neutralize dissent. At the same time, the few and their government and media allies agitate against "big government": 1) to hide their dependence on it; (2) to undermine government social programs, disparaged as "entitlements," seen both as rivals for government dollars and as potential source of booty; (3) to pose as champions of the people; and (4) to remind government to watch its step. Their fear of big government is real, because government can act against their interests, should it become so inclined, as well as for them. The stakes are real even if the issue, as posed, is not.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Don't leaders in business and finance, arch-foes of "big government," shuttle in and out of top government posts all the time? Don't corporate lawyers sit on the Supreme Court? Who runs the Commerce Department? Treasury? The Federal Reserve? Even, on occasion, the War Department and State? Who advises the president on economic matters? Who sets trade policy? Energy policy? Don't top brass regularly leave government service to enlist with military contractors and other private firms? But perhaps those who move in and out of top federal posts are viewed as uncontaminated by government service, unlike career civil servants, disparaged as "government bureaucrats."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ah, the power of government, business and the military marching in lockstep! There is "small government" for you! The War Department, the costliest government department by far, the very model of a bloated, wasteful bureaucracy; the National Security Agency; the CIA; the Department of Homeland Security, the newest and third largest department — after War and Veterans Affairs — legacy of a "small government" Republican administration; the DEA, another Republican bequest to "small government" — Republicans have no objection to "alphabet soup" when the government agencies are the right sort; the FBI; the world's largest prison system; the Agribusiness Department (aka the USDA); the U.S.-led World Bank and International Monetary Fund — but then, how can government be small and still keep all those billions in line at home and abroad, those un-Americans and non-Americans and anti-Americans? "Getting government off our backs" — getting and keeping the <em>public</em> off government's back — translates into replacing a monkey with a gorilla.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Beginning with Jimmy Carter's presidency, disparagement of "big government" has become bipartisan. Ditto the attack on, and whittling away of, the welfare and regulatory state.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bipartisan allegiance to the warfare state is of even longer standing and has only grown stronger over time, becoming almost impregnable. The imperative for Republicans and Democrats to compete over fealty to U.S. power and business interests, taking turns accusing each other of being weak on "defense," of allowing the U.S. to fall behind, of being "soft" in foreign policy, dates from the end of World War II, when our military and economic dominance was, briefly, beyond challenge.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why do liberals respond to attacks on "big government" by defending it, playing into their opponents' hands, instead of exposing the utter fraudulence of the attacks? Liberals have been committed to the warfare state longer than conservatives, their warrior credentials are better and their commitment to the warfare state remains as solid as their commitment to the welfare state has become shaky. In addition, liberals find it hard to admit that democracy has so many enemies (witting and unwitting), some of them very powerful — an admission tantamount to questioning American exceptionalism and thus risking influence. Better to go along with the pretense that what agitates the anti-democracy crowd, Trump's constituency, <em>is</em> big government. They are good democracy-loving Americans all, if somewhat misguided.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Foes of "big government" want a government that <em>rules</em> in the name of some higher power that bends wayward humans to its will — be it God, America, the market or natural selection. (The first three are almost interchangeable, and all four complement each other.) They want a government that disdains and overrides or controls the will of the people, not one that, however imperfectly, <em>serves</em> it. For them, any government without the sanction of some absolute authority — blessed and interpreted by them — lacks legitimacy. Bottom line: They want a government that keeps inferiors (people lower in the social and racial scale) in their place. If it fails to do so, they are prepared to step in and play vigilante. For them, big corporations offer a better model of social organization than democracy; the military, a better one still.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Authoritarians say, "You can't change human nature" (understood as basically bad or sinful), and therefore you can't do much to improve human societies. Even to attempt it is to defy God or the natural order. Christ was not concerned with anything as illusory or transitory as earthly justice but with saving souls for the afterlife. We are born to suffer and should be grateful to our supposed oppressors. They are really salvation facilitators and the prime movers of civilization and progress. Freedom for the few, servitude for the many — that is the right and inescapable condition (given proper policing) of humankind. The will of the people is just the opiate of the people.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">God, America (aka the "country" or the "nation"), the market or natural selection vs. the Will of the People. The first four seem awesomely impersonal but are only giant scarecrows shielding a privileged, supposedly superior few. At the same time, those below this ruling elite may enjoy a measure of privilege themselves owing to nationality, gender, race, ethnicity, class and/or religion, to say nothing of the vicarious pleasure of identifying with wealth and power. Rule by a few, in their own interest, has been the norm in history. It is natural, in that it is easy. The will of the people, by contrast, stands for faith in our ability to resist manipulation and to work together, as equals, across all dividing lines, to improve society. It's a daunting task.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If "government" is an object of distrust, contempt and resistance — for taxing away our hard-earned dollars to support people unwilling to support themselves, for example — "America" is where all the good people live, the "real Americans," people who take care of themselves and ask nothing of others, people who have nothing to hide or fear from Big Daddy. "America," which is not to be confused with the well favored but flawed country invoked in "America the Beautiful," is an object of devotion and sacrifice, a source of identity and pride. It is a bastion of the white race, perfect, incorruptible and blessed by God. Especially in time of war, and that for us now is all the time.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The insistent, contrived opposition between venerated "America" and detested "government" is useful to maintaining the status quo because otherwise a citizen might begin to wonder, as wars and military interventions go on and on, with accompanying infringement of civil liberties, whether constantly being called to rally 'round the flag is any different in effect from the dread "collectivism" and regimentation associated with the term "state," as in "totalitarian state" or "deep state." We might realize that government, corporations — including the media corporations ever ready to beat the drums for war — financial institutions and the military make a truly fearsome foursome. Happily, the opposition between "America" and "government" helps conceal and make palatable the reality of a Big Daddy state.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This opposition plays well because distrust of government and idolatry of country go hand in hand. "America" can do no wrong; "government" can do nothing but wrong (particularly if the Democrats are in charge). "Government" is the flak-catcher for "America." A citizen's doubts and misgivings about the U.S. can be offloaded onto "government," leaving "America" untarnished and fully charged. Hence the slogan "Love My Country/Fear My Government." Distrust "government," which taxes workers to support shirkers, illegal immigrants and high-living seniors depriving later generations of their future. Follow "country," which is not afraid to crack heads and keeps order in the world, blindly.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition, the country/government opposition allows a citizen to submit to Big Daddy without forfeiting his sense of pride and independence. He can even make a show of pride and independence by weaponing up — hence the castration anxiety over gun control — though patriotism alone is often sufficiently belligerent to serve both purposes, especially in a condition of permanent war. Under Trump, the armed wing of the supposedly anti-government constituency, puffed up by the leader's flattery, showed its true colors as the bully boys of authoritarian government. But who pointed out the contradiction?...</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">meme remix recycling?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/qanon-2650129695/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/qanon-2650129695/</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no travis view twt</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump's QAnon fans are not giving up hope that he will be reinstalled in the White House this year, with a new theory that has them planning on celebrating his inauguration on March 4th.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>According to a report from Vice, the latest theory being passed around by right-wing extremists is based upon writings from members of the fringe "sovereign citizen" movement and <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/88akpx/qanon-thinks-trump-will-become-president-again-on-march-4" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">a unique interpretation of American history</a>.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As the Vice report notes, "Sovereign citizens believe that a law enacted in<b> 1871 secretly turned the U.S. into a corporation</b> and did away with the American government of the founding fathers. The group also believes that President Franklin D. Roosevelt sold U.S. citizens out in 1933 when he ended the gold standard and replaced it by offering citizens as collateral to a group of shadowy foreign investors."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>With that in mind, QAnon supporters are making common cause with the sovereign citizens -- a new development -- and focusing on the 1871 conspiracy theory to reassert their claim that Donald Trump is still president.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">"Over the weekend, QAnon groups on Gab and Telegram, where most QAnon supporters have found a home since they were kicked off Twitter and Parler was de-platformed, commenters have been sharing documents describing the 1871 act, claiming it proves that Trump will be sworn in on March 4,"</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> the report states. "The source for this date is the fact that 1933 was also the year when inaugurations were changed from March 4 to Jan. 20 — to shorten the lame-duck period of outgoing presidents. QAnon followers believe that Trump will become the president of the original republic, and not the corporation that they believe the 1871 act created."</span>
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The belief that Trump might bolster the hopes of the QAnon followers who have been despondent that President Joe Biden <a href="https://www.rawstory.com/qanon-2650036600/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">wasn't arrested on January 20th</a>.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A deeper explanation of this latest theory -- and its genesis -- can be found below:...</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Corp of city of london? trump hotel spike prices?</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/qanon-march-4/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/qanon-march-4/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">raw story</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On CNN Wednesday, "QAnon Anonymous" podcast host Julian Feeld explained the strange new conspiracy theory that </span><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/qanon-march-trump-president-1567525" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Trump will be re-inaugurated on March 4th</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> as the "19th president" of the "restored" United States — and how it ties into long-standing "</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">sovereign citizen</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">" beliefs that the United States has been an illegitimate government for over a century.</span></b>
</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Can you explain the convoluted conspiracy theory that has begun to take hold that involved March 4th?" asked anchor Alisyn Camerota. "What are they expecting to happen on March 4th?"</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"The March 4th theory actually comes from sovereign citizen beliefs," said Feeld. "Now in the past, we haven't seen such a huge overlap, but in this case, QAnon — certain QAnon followers have borrowed whole cloth from a belief that the last legitimate president was the 18th president, so this goes back to 1871, and this is the belief that Trump will be actually inaugurated as our 19th president."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"Now, of course, this is illogical since he was the 45th, but what they believe is that there is — there has been no country known as the United States ever since it was unstuck from the gold standard and they don't believe that any amendment past the 16th Amendment is valid</b>," said Feeld. "They essentially believe that Ulysses S. Grant was the last American — valid American president. They believe — I mean, I think there's different beliefs, obviously, of what will happen on that day, but I think many are expecting a ceremony, and that ceremony may be accompanied in their mind by what QAnon believers called 'The Storm.' That would be, you know, as described a little earlier on the segment, the rounding up and often military tribunals, you know, for leading Democrats, but also some celebrities they believe falsely to be part of this pedophile cabal."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"So essentially people are still in this belief that Trump will come back and will become the president again. Obviously, falsely," he added.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Watch below:</font></p></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/michigan-kidnapping-whitmer/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/michigan-kidnapping-whitmer/</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no twt vid lnk</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Watch: Feds release disturbing footage of Whitmer kidnapping suspects' training drills with assault rifles</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Screenshot/MLive</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Meaghan Ellis October 17, 2020</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Federal prosecutors released disturbing footage created by the suspects involved in the plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D).</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On Friday, U.S. Attorney Andrew Birge publicly unveiled a trove of evidence, including text messages and recorded footage that was used presented in a hearing for the suspects identified as—Adam Fox, Barry Croft, Ty Garbin, Kaleb Franks, Daniel Harris, and Brandon Caserta—who now face charges for their involvement in the alarming plot.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The clip below captures several men participating in military-style drills while firing assault weapons. The video then shifts to Caserta who expressed disapproval of the U.S. government.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"If this st goes down... okay... if this whole thing starts to happen, I'm tellin' you what dude,</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> I'm takin' out as many of those motherfkers as I can. Every single one dude. Every single one. And if you guys are gonna give any of these motherfkers a chance, any of these gang fking criminal a </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">government thugs that rob people everyday, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">if you're even gonna give them a second to try to speak or tell their story, don't even fk with me dude.</span></b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"I have zero patience for immoral coward criminals," Caserta said, adding, "I'm sick of </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">being robbed and enslaved by the state.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Period... And these are the guys who are actually doing it."</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Videos show training for alleged governor kidnapping plot</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">youtu.be</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Additional disturbing details about the plot were also shared via Twitter by Fox 17 reporter Doug Reardon of Detroit, Mich. The evidence also included text message conversations with one message, in particular, appearing to suggest that Whitmer be killed.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>That message read, "Have one person go to her house. Knock on the door and when she answers it just cap her…</b> "</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The latest developments come as President Donald Trump continues to attack Whitmer.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In fact, he even attempted to blame her for the plot orchestrated against her due to the strict coronavirus shutdown orders she enforced. The president took to Twitter on last Thursday to verbally attack Whitmer as he falsely claimed she called him a "White Supremacist," according to CNN.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>"Governor Whitmer of Michigan has done a terrible job. She locked down her state for everyone, except her husband's boating activities," he wrote, urging her in another tweet to "open up your state, open up your schools, and open up your churches!"...</b></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Suspect in Santa Cruz ambush linked to federal officer killing in Oakland; charged with 19 felonies</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Suspect was a sergeant in the U.S. Air Force</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By NATE GARTRELL | ngartrell@bayareanewsgroup.com and JULIA PRODIS SULEK | jsulek@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">PUBLISHED: June 11, 2020 at 10:12 a.m. | UPDATED: <b>June 12, 2020 </b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A U.S. Air Force sergeant accused of ambushing Santa Cruz County deputies is also believed to be the gunman who shot a federal officer in Oakland, a law enforcement source confirmed Thursday, linking the extraordinary tragedies that may have been spurred in part by extremist, anti-law enforcement views found in the dark corners of social media.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The explosive claim connecting the cases comes the same day that Steven Carrillo, 32, was charged with 19 felonies, including murder, attempted murder, explosives charges and carjacking after the deadly rampage Saturday afternoon that terrorized the mountain community of Ben Lomond, where Carrillo grew up and lived with his father.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Related Articles</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">‘I became unreasonable’: Bloody message scrawled on car at Ben Lomond ambush]</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In a 14-page criminal complaint filed in Santa Cruz County Superior Court, Carrillo — who was on active duty at Travis Air Force Base — was charged with murder in the death of Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller and with the attempted murder of Deputy Alex Spencer, who was critically injured and remains hospitalized. They had been responding to a call from a concerned citizen in nearby Boulder Creek who reported seeing firearms and explosives in Carrillo’s white van.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In all, Carrillo was charged on Thursday with assaulting a firefighter and trying to kill three other law enforcement officers, as well as the resident who ultimately pinned him to the ground as he tried to steal the man’s car during a desperate run from police. The charges include special circumstances of lying in wait, which makes Carrillo eligible for the death penalty, though prosecutors have not said if they will pursue death.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">His first court appearance in that case will be a Friday afternoon arraignment in front of Judge Paul Burdick.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The complaint does not mention the Oakland case nor Carrillo’s increasingly hostile anti-government social media posts that alarmed Facebook friends. And it remains unclear why an active duty Air Force sergeant would target members of federal and local law enforcement.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“The link to the Oakland murder doesn’t necessarily surprise me,” said Troy Hunter, a Silicon Valley software engineer who was one of Carrillo’s alleged carjacking victims in Ben Lomond on Saturday.<b> Hunter thwarted Carrillo’s getaway when he removed the keys from the ignition and ran</b>. “It’s more surprising that this guy being an active Air Force member would go down that route. It’s absolutely a little alarming.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A memorial to fallen Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Deputy Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller in front of Sheriff Headquarters is filled with flowers on Sunday as more than 1,000 mourners attend a vigil for Gutzwiller, who was killed in Ben Lomond in the line of duty on Saturday. (Shmuel Thaler — Santa Cruz Sentinel) </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As the country grapples with the Black Lives Matter protests and police use of rubber bullets and tear gas, the rampage in Ben Lomond and the killing in Oakland of a federal officer, who was black, further entangle any notion of clear left and right political battle lines.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A former friend of Carrillo’s — Justin Ehrhardt, who served in the Air Force with him before retiring — said Carrillo’s Facebook posts point to a right-wing extremist group that includes former and active military members. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">In particular, Carrillo was sharing memes about the so-called “Boogaloo” movement that considers itself a libertarian anti-government citizen militia that is preparing for the next American civil war. Last week, the FBI arrested three adherents to the Boogaloo movement in <b>Nevada, charging them with inciting violence with Molotov cocktails and other explosives</b> a<b>t protests over the death of George Floyd.</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Carrillo considered himself a libertarian,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Ehrhardt said, speculating that police use of force during the protests may have pushed him over the edge.</span></b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Excessive use of force on unarmed civilians — that was a huge thing for him,” Ehrhardt said. “It was a mental tipping point for him.” Ehrhardt imagined it was Carrillo’s way of saying, “</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">If I’m going to fight for something, it’s going to be against the establishment.”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>According to the complaint, Carrillo killed Gutzwiller while “lying in wait” for officers on Saturday afternoon at his Ben Lomond home and opened fire and lobbed pipe bombs before stealing one vehicle and attempting to carjack several others. Carrillo ultimately was wrestled to the ground by a nearby, unnamed resident whom Santa Cruz Sheriff Jim Hart praised for a “remarkable, heroic” act.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Carrillo also is charged with the attempted murder of that resident, who Hart said knocked away a pipe bomb and firearm as he grappled with Carrillo before officers arrived.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On Thursday, a source close to the investigation confirmed Carrillo is also believed to be behind the May 29 Oakland shooting that claimed the life of Federal Protective Services officer Dave Patrick Underwood. Underwood had been patrolling the federal building in Oakland blocks from a protest as tens of thousands of people took to the streets in cities across the country after the Minneapolis police killing of Floyd.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Federal prosecutors are reviewing the Oakland case and are expected to make a filing decision in coming days.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Angela Underwood Jacobs gives her opening statement 10 June, 2020 during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC of the House Judiciary Committee about policing practices and law enforcement accountability prompted by the death of George Floyd while in police custody. (Photo by MICHAEL REYNOLDS / POOL / AFP) (Photo by MICHAEL REYNOLDS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) ]</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>In testimony before a congressional panel on Wednesday, Underwood’s sister, Angela Underwood-Jacobs, said her heartbreak and grief are unexplainable.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“My brother wore a uniform, and he wore that uniform proudly. I’m wondering, <b>where is the outrage for a fallen officer that also happens to be African American</b>?” Jacobs told the House Judiciary Committee. “I truly hope that you take your positions, your offices so seriously that you want to go back and really work together and collaborate, because if you can’t get it right, there’s no hope for the rest of us</span>.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Carrillo had been living with his father in Ben Lomond over the two years since his<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> wife, who was also in the Air Force, died by suicide while in South Carolina on a training program</span>. He has been a member of a security squadron at Travis Air Force Base since 2018</b>.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Carrillo has two school-age children who are living with his late wife’s parents.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Gutzwiller, the officer Carrillo is charged with killing, left behind a pregnant wife and young child. </b>More than a thousand people turned out the day after his death for a vigil, and while it was clear that the case had national political overtones, the tragedy was deeply personal for this local community.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“There’s a hole in all of our hearts now,” Hart said.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Staff Writer John Woolfolk contributed to this report.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Nate Gartrell | Contra Costa County courts reporter</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Nate Gartrell covers crime and corruption in Contra Costa County. He joined the Bay Area News Group in 2014.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Julia Prodis Sulek | Enterprise reporter</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Julia Prodis Sulek has been a general assignment reporter for the Bay Area News Group, based in San Jose, her hometown, since the late 1990s. She has covered everything from plane crashes to presidential campaigns, murder trials to immigration debates. Her specialty is narrative storytelling.</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</span></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">an 320</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/rush-limbaugh-argues-that-medical-experts-are-just-part-of-the-deep-state/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Rush Limbaugh argues that medical experts are just part of the ‘Deep State’</font></a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/rush-limbaugh-argues-that-medical-experts-are-just-part-of-the-deep-state/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;" /></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/alex-henderson/" title="Posts by Alex Henderson" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Alex Hender</a>son</font></font></h3></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rush Limbaugh argues that medical experts are just part of the ‘Deep State’</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Alex Henderson March 27, 2020</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Far-right talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, like President Donald Trump, has been a frequent source of nonsense during the coronavirus crisis: on his February 24 show, he equated COVID-19 with “the common cold.” And on Friday, the 69-year-old Limbaugh argued that health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) cannot be trusted because they are part of “the Deep State” and have an anti-Trump agenda.</b></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In audio that Media Matters has posted on its website, embedded above, Limbaugh can be heard on Friday telling listeners, </font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“We’ve talked about the Deep State all these years since Trump was elected — the Trump-Russia collusion, the FBI — well, the Deep State extends very deeply. And the American people did not elect a bunch of health experts that we don’t know. We didn’t elect a president to defer to a bunch of health experts that we don’t know.”</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">
</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Limbaugh added, “And how do we know they’re even health experts? Well, they wear white lab coats, and they’ve been in the job for a while — and they’re at the CDC, and they’re at the NIH…. But has there been any job assessment for them? They’re just assumed to be the best because they’re in government. But these are all kinds of things that I’ve been <b>questioning.</b>”</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Limbaugh, who lives in South Florida, went on to criticize social distancing measures in that part of the U.S.</b></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“I’ve been watching people routinely accept whatever the authorities say,” Limbaugh told listeners. “Where I live, the local town government is driving around town, trying to spot people violating the social distancing ordinances. And when they see it, they publish it on their web site: ‘This is very troublesome.</span> We at the town are very troubled by groups of people congregating, violating the social distancing.’ Well, what do you think people are going to do? People are not just going to sit around here and stop living.”</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Limbaugh and Trump have both repeatedly downplayed the coronavirus crisis. Back in February, when thousands of people were dying from it in mainland China, Trump insisted that his critics were exaggerating the threat posed to other parts of the world.</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On February 24, Limbaugh insisted that the mainstream media were exaggerating the threat posed by coronavirus as a way of attacking Trump, telling his audience, “It looks like the coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump. I want to tell you the truth about the coronavirus. I’m dead right on this. The coronavirus is the common cold, folks.”</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That day, Limbaugh also told listeners, “The<b> drive-by media hype</b> of this thing as a pandemic, as the Andromeda strain, as, ‘Oh, my God, if you get it, you’re dead’.… I think the survival rate is 98%. Ninety-eight per cent of people (who) get the coronavirus survive. It’s a respiratory system virus.”</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stephen King</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@StephenKing</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Rush Limbaugh says coronavirus no worse than the common cold. Sage advice from a lifelong cigar smoker who has lung cancer.</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In late February, Trump told reporters he had a “hunch” that the death rate from coronavirus was lower than what the World Health Organization (WHO) was reporting. And it was also during that period that Trump denounced coronavirus warnings coming from Democrats as a “hoax.” Since then, the number of deaths from coronavirus has passed 25,000 worldwide, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On March 11, Limbaugh argued that the cancelations of major events like basketball games and the South by Southwest convention in Austin, Texas were an overreaction.</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Where does this end?,” Limbaugh asserted. “Especially when you realize there are diseases out there that kill many more than are being killed by this.”</font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">dunno if this technically belongs here, but:</font></font></font></font></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">db</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Twitter Deleted Sheriff Clarke’s Wildly Reckless Coronavirus Tweets, So He Says He’s Quitting</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">TAKING HIS TALENTS ELSEWHERE</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">After being punished for promoting coronavirus disinformation on Twitter, the former Milwaukee sheriff claims he’ll move over to a social-media app popular with conservatives.</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Will Sommer</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Updated Mar. 16, 2020 6:10PM ET / Published Mar. 16, 2020 2:49PM ET </font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Shannon Finney/Getty</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Twitter on Monday deleted tweets from former Milwaukee Sheriff and staunch Donald Trump ally David Clarke Jr. that downplayed the severity of the coronavirus by calling for businesses to ignore local ordinances aimed at stopping the pandemic.</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">On Sunday night, Clarke sent a series of tweets suggesting that the newly enacted measures ordering bars and restaurants to shut down were part of a scheme to destroy capitalism. Clarke urged local businesses to defy the law and stay open. </font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“It is now evident that this is an orchestrated attempt to destroy CAPITALISM,” Clarke wrote in a since deleted tweet. “First sports, then schools and finally commercial businesses. Time to RISE UP and push back. Bars and restaurants should defy the order. Let people decide if they want to go out.” </font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Four Ways Experts Say Coronavirus Nightmare Could End</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">SCENARIOS</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Olivia Messer</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Clarke also told his more than 900,000 followers on Twitter, in a now-deleted tweet, that coronavirus is the “DAMN FLU.” Clarke also suggested that billionaire Democratic financier George Soros, a frequent target of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, was somehow involved in the pandemic.</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Clarke’s tweets were deleted for breaking Twitter’s policy against “encouraging self-harm,” according to a Twitter spokesperson. But several tweets from Clarke’s rant remained accessible on the site as of Monday afternoon, including the tweet mentioning Soros and a tweet urging Clarke’s followers to “GO INTO THE STREETS” and visit restaurants.</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">GO INTO THE STREETS FOLKS. Visit bars, restaurants, shopping malls, CHURCHES and demand that your schools re-open. NOW!</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">If government doesn’t stop this foolishness...STAY IN THE STREETS.</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">END GOVERNEMNT CONTROL OVER OUR LIVES. IF NOT NOW, WHEN?</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">THIS IS AN EXPLOITATION OF A CRISIS.</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">— David A. Clarke, Jr. (@SheriffClarke) March 15, 2020</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Twitter didn’t comment on why some of Clarke’s tweets had remained on the site. </font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Clarke, an outspoken Trump supporter who has claimed he was in the running for a Homeland Security job in the Trump administration, blasted Twitter for deleting the tweets in a statement to The Daily Beast that his press person demanded be printed in full (but which we’re not doing since we never agreed to do such a thing before he sent it).</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“I notice that everytime I get on a roll excoriating liberals and their policies, complaints about my Tweets start to pop up,” Clarke told The Daily Beast. “I find it interesting that The Daily Beast can actually get a hold of a live spokesperson at Twitter. I nor anybody else can do that as the<b> totalitarian fascist speech suppression bullies at Twitter</b> cleverly have a system that doesn’t allow anyone to reach a human being during its appeal process. All I get are computer generated responses.”</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Clarke said he would focus his energies in the future on Parler, a social-media app similar to Twitter that’s become popular with conservatives.</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“My tweets are not for the feint (sic) of heart and that won’t change,” Clarke wrote. </font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Clarke also sent The Daily Beast a critical meme about him, comparing the former sheriff to black-face-wearing actor Al Jolson and calling Clarke the “only black life that doesn’t matter.” </font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“I didn’t complain,” Clarke said in the statement. “Politics is a contact sport. You are going to hit and sometimes you will be hit. Mine aren’t this vile however. People including Twitter officials don’t like my content and I won’t seek their approval.”</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">RELATED IN POLITICS</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Trump Supporters Fuel ‘Election Year’ Coronavirus Claim</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">WH Privately Works Conservative Influencers on Coronavirus</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Trump Identifies the Real Coronavirus Victim: His Presidency]</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Clarke’s social media missives have raised difficult questions for the platforms; mainly, what role do they play in suppressing disinformation in a time of a global medical crisis and how exactly do they go about undertaking that task.</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Clarke isn’t the only prominent Trump supporter downplaying the risks associated with the coronavirus. On Sunday, former New York Police Department commissioner Bernard Kerik suggested that anti-coronavirus measures were hysteria “being created to destabilize the country.” </font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Why do I feel this hysteria is being created to destabilize the country, and destroy the unparalleled and historic economic successes of President @realDonaldTrump?</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Worldwide Deaths... Jan-Feb 2020</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">2,360: Coronavirus</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">69,602: Common Cold/Flu</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">240,950: HIV</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">— Bernard B. Kerik (@BernardKerik) March 16, 2020</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Some voices further on the right-wing fringe have also been able to advocate dangerous responses to the coronavirus. An account claiming to belong to</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Liz Crokin, a prominent promoter of the Pizzagate and QAnon conspiracy theories who has been banned from Twitter in the past, urged her 10,000 followers </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">not to wash their hands.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> The account claimed the idea of hand-washing to stop the spread of the coronavirus is “media propaganda.” </span></font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As of Monday afternoon, the tweet was still visible on Twitter.</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/jerry-falwell-jr-just-unmasked-conservatism-and-we-should-seriously-thank-him-for-it/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/jerry-falwell-jr-just-unmasked-conservatism-and-we-should-seriously-thank-him-for-it/</font></a></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jerry Falwell Jr. just unmasked conservatism — and we should seriously thank him for it</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by John Stoehr, The Editorial Board March 15, 2020</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>I suppose we owe Jerry Falwell Jr. a debt of gratitude. I’m serious.</b></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Falwell is the son of the late Jerry Falwell, the man most responsible for bringing fundamentalist Christianity out of the political wilderness during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Junior, along with Franklin Graham, himself a scion of a religious dynasty, is perhaps the president’s greatest champion among white evangelical Christians.</b></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>He appeared on “Fox & Friends” yesterday. </b>Among other things, he accused Donald Trump’s enemies, including the press, of hyping COVID-19, the new strain of the coronavirus spreading around the world, panicking global markets and closing down entertainment and cultural events here and elsewhere.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> He, like Tom Cotton, the fascist senator from Arkansas, believes the disease outbreak can be blamed on totalitarian regimes in the east. For Cotton, that’s China. For Falwell, that’s North Korea. (While Falwell was on air, the president announced a state of national emergency related to the outbreak, undermining his and Cotton’s search for a scapegoat for his sake</span>.)</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Falwell’s demagoguery isn’t what we should be thankful for. What we should be thankful for is his confessing, without appearing to know it, that a pillar of “principled conservatism” in the United States is no pillar at all. Not in practice. Once you see that this pillar rests on a bed of sand, rather than constitutional bedrock, you start seeing other “conservative principles” do, too. “States’ rights,” “gun rights,” “the right to life” and even “religious freedom” are nearly always about something other than what they seem to be. Falwell and his ideological confederates can’t be honest about it, though. If they were, they’d lose. Dishonesty, fraudulence and bad faith are central to their aims.</font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What would Jesus do? Not that.</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here’s some context, courtesy of the Christian Science Monitor (my italics):</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“As in many states, residents in parts of rural, conservative Virginia say they seem to inhabit an increasingly different daily reality than that of urban and suburban districts. That feeling of separation was compounded by last November’s Democratic sweep of the state’s elected offices. <b>Now residents in Frederick County are mulling a radical proposal: seceding from Virginia and joining neighboring West Virginia.”</b></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Apparently Falwell is part of the effort. He’s the head of something called “Vaxit,”</b> according to Fox & Friends. Whether that’s a real organization I have no idea, but that’s not what I’m most interested in. I’m most interested in expressing gratitude to the good reverend for admitting that “states’ rights” have nothing to do with conservatism.</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Think about it.</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If the principle of “states’ rights” meant what conservatives have said it meant to them, not one of them, not Jerry Falwell Jr. nor anyone calling him or herself a “principled conservative,” would dare suggest that a county secede from a state. If states are sovereign, as conservatives have alleged since Strom Thurmond ran as a Dixiecrat in 1948, calling for a county to secede from a state is traitorous. If “states’ rights” are as sacred as conservatives have said they are, the idea of secession is an abomination.</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In saying counties should leave the state as casually as ordering unsweet tea with his burger and fries, the Rev. Falwell told us without knowing he was telling us that conservatism in theory is authoritarianism in practice. It cannot and will not tolerate democratic change, despite change coming with the blessing of the majority. If the majority rules, Falwell and his confederates will abandon commitments to democracy.</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Once you abandon democracy—once you open the door to treason—there’s no end in sight. Once it seceded, “the Confederacy began to deny states’ rights,” wrote James W. Loewen in Lies My Teacher Told Me. </font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“Jefferson Davis denounced states’ rights as destructive to the Confederacy</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. The mountainous counties in western Virginia bolted to the Union. Confederate troops had to occupy east Tennessee to keep it from emulating West Virginia. Winn Parish, Louisiana, refused to secede from the Union. Winston County, Alabama, declared itself the Free State of Winston. Unionist farmers and woodsmen in Jones County, Mississippi, declared the Free State of Jones.”</font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By February 1864, Davis despaired: “Public meetings of treasonable character, in the name of state sovereignty, are being held.” Thus states’ rights as an ideology was contradictory and could not mobilize the white South for the long haul.</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What mobilized the white South was the defense of slavery. Falwell and his new breed of confederate aren’t doing that, of course, but the spirit of treason, if not the act of treason, is the same. Conservatives tell us they prefer slow and gradual change, and stand united against radical attempts to bring it swiftly. But that’s not their true face. Conservatism in practice is a radical ideology reserving the right to betray its stated principles, and to betray community and brotherhood, if it doesn’t get what it wants.</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thanks to Jerry Falwell Jr., that’s now easy to see.</font></font></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"></font></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/texas-border-militiaman-is-now-a-federal-fugitive-vowing-to-make-himself-a-martyr/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/texas-border-militiaman-is-now-a-federal-fugitive-vowing-to-make-himself-a-martyr/</font></a></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx vid</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Texas border militiaman is now a federal fugitive vowing to make himself a martyr</b></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by David Neiwert / Daily Kos<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>July 30, 2019</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A Texas militiaman who led a border-watch operation and was later convicted in 2015 on federal weapons charges has announced that he is becoming a fugitive after a warrant was issued for his arrest—and is vowing that he won’t be captured again.</font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Kevin Lyndel “KC” Massey, a 53-year-old from Quinlan, is the subject of a Federal Marshals Service warrant issued last week naming him “Most Wanted,” and warning that he is “armed and dangerous,” and moreover “has reportedly made threats to kill law enforcement that attempt to arrest him.”</font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It appears he intends to make himself a martyr to the <b>“Patriot” </b>cause in the mold of LaVoy Finicum, the Utah man shot in January 2016 by Oregon State Patrol officers after he refused arrest related to the armed standoff at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge.</font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On his Facebook page, Massey posted a warning:</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">KC is done playing the game of <b>unconstitutional courts</b> that already cost him 3+ years in federal prison for not even violating the law as written. The judge said in his statement, that the conviction was based on court precedent not on the written letter of the law. The feds continued to subject KC to their<b> tyranny</b> after release from prison, while serving a double jeopardy sentence of 3 years probation. KC is NOT going to allow himself to be <b>kidnapped again. Death before dishonor!</b></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Massey was arrested in 2015 by federal agents at the Mexico border, where he had been involved in an ongoing effort by a group of “Patriot” militiamen to prevent crossings by would-be immigrants at the Rio Grande. The group—who called their operation “Camp Lonestar”—was among the first such militias to actually detain border crossers with wrist ties and hold them for detention by Border Patrol.</font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The first arrest at the camp occurred when a participant named John Frederick Forrester, also a convicted felon, had an encounter in the brush with a Border Patrol officer that drew the agent’s gunfire. When more federal agents arrived to pursue a tip that Forrester was not the only armed felon in the camp, they found Massey—who had a 2003 conviction on his record—also in possession of a gun.</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Massey had become the chief media spokesman for Camp Lonestar, which had begun operating initially under a veil of secrecy. As is inevitably the case with such operations, rather than actually clamping down on illegal crossings, the group’s presence actually just complicated an already difficult situation. It also fairly dripped with conspiracist paranoia.</font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Camp Lonestar was particularly notable for its harassment and detention of would-be border-crossers. In one video, the militiamen could be seen rounding up a group of immigrants and holding them for Border Patrol. Massey posted an explanation on Facebook afterwards: “Sorry we had to ‘Detain’ them,” he wrote in a comment. “[B]ut they were wore out and just fell down and gave up while the other 7-8 ran like gazelles!”</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the post explained, the militiamen detained the people—described as Honduran, Guatemalan, and Mexican—after they encountered a group of about 11 border crossers, most of whom took off through the brush. The three men they kept were “ziptied, <b>debriefed, </b>and given water,” and U.S. Border Patrol officers eventually arrived and took them away.</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“WE DO NOT AIM TO DETAIN, we would much rather send them back into the river into Mexico and dissuade them and the <b>cartel from crossing on the property we patrol,”</b> the post explained. “All encounters were conducted in a <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">humanitarian, professional fashion.</span> Stay vigilant. Thank you for your support.”</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But behind the guise of humanitarian treatment was a not-so-subtle smirking contempt. “One of the guys pissed himself!” remarked Massey. Another chimed in, “Dude pissed himself bad.”</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Massey, the camp’s “<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">commanding officer,” had appeared in numerous videos posted on Facebook and elsewhere that showed the activities involved in Camp Lonestar.</span>They also featured their rationalizations for harassing people at the border: “I’m not anti-immigration,” he told reporters. “I have no problem with immigrants. I have a problem with<b> terrorists.</b> I have a problem with people who are coming to this country to<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> hurt my fellow Americans and to destroy my fellow Americans’ property and livelihood.”</span></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After Massey’s arrest, Camp Lonestar largely crumbled apart and ceased operation. The landowner whose property they operated from, Cuban “Rusty” Monsees, later told reporters that the experience “wasn’t that great.” “They jeopardized my safety and some other people’s safety by what they were doing,” Monsees said.</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Massey pleaded guilty in September 2015 to the federal weapons charges and served three years in prison. After his release, he remained on parole, but continued to claim that he had been unjustly prosecuted. The conditions of that parole appear to have led him eventually to revolt, which in turn brought the most recent warrant for his arrest.</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of Massey’s supporters penned a blog post suggesting that Massey was now following Finicum’s example of deliberate martyrdom:</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One thing I do know, like LaVoy, he will live to his last day out in the open, not in a cage…I don’t know about anyone else reading this but I don’t want another good patriot killed because the<b> government didn’t want their dirty secrets revealed or the “virus” known as the Constitution spreading</b>. I refuse to lose another good friend. I will do everything in my power to keep that from happening.</font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Commenters on Facebook not only supported this view, but suggested that Massey’s case might inspire a larger revolt. “10s of thousands doing the same thing only way this stops is if any and all<b> moron parasites and workers for them are removed</b> every attempt they make to <b>steal lifes time or property </b>they should at no time ever be allowed past to do it to another,” one of them wrote.</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another suggested that a team armed militiamen should intervene on Massey’s behalf, saying that “a team of solid mother fuckers need to <b>grow a pair </b>and hear his story and decide if they will help if not he will be <b>killed in cold blood </b>or put in prison its that simple <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">a facebook set of balls will do nothing</span>,” he wrote.</font></font></font></div></div><div><p style="line-height: 1.5em; margin-top: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="text-align: right; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div>