Three Deadlines
The First Deadline, the 2022 mid-term, has passed.
We survived, overall. We defied “conventional wisdom” in some ways, we advanced on several fronts, but we also suffered a serious setback, narrowly losing the Speaker’s gavel to the zombie death cult and its orc captains.
This talk will address the Second Deadline, the 2024 federal election.
Mystical Ward Healer
Merriam-Webster definition -
ward heeler (noun): a worker for a political boss in a ward or other local area
Yes, I declare it unequivocally, unabashedly, I am acting as a mystical ward healer for the Democratic Party in the 2024 election.
I say a “mystical ward healer” because I am not just using a political rational, or the political calculus, I am also drawing on the mystical rationale, the occult rationale, the spiritual rationale, the existential rationale, the HUMAN rationale, the HUMANE rationale.
My goal is to reach as many of you as possible. And to call on you for the sake of all sentient beings to CHOOSE SIDES and VOTE. Not just for President, but for Senator and Congressional Representative, for Governor, and Secretary of State, and State Attorney General, and Mayor, and School Board, all of it, every line on the ballot, up and down the ballot …
Red Deer Medicine
Over the years, since I started speaking out in 2010, I have often referred to what my Yoda, the legendary American sage Joe Miller, called “the Power of Nothing” and also to the critical “100 Years” that he told me about late one night in the early 1980s. So I am not going to go back over all that again here. You can look it up in “Wyrds of Power” “I, the Dragon” and “Secret Engine”
All three touch on those vital insights.
But for here and now, in this talk, hurtling toward this particular deadline, I will add a third theme to go along with “the Power of Nothing” and “the 100 Years” - Red Deer Medicine.
The red deer of Eurasia live in large herds, spending lots of time either grazing or lying down to ruminate. Some deer are ready to move on before others are, and scientists have noticed that herds only move when 60 percent of the adults stand up — essentially voting with their feet. Even if a dominant individual is more experienced and makes fewer mistakes than its underlings, herds typically favor democratic decisions over autocratic ones. A major reason for this, according to research by biologists Larissa Conradt and Timothy Roper, is that groups are less impulsive: "Democratic decisions are more beneficial primarily because they tend to produce less extreme decisions, rather than because each individual has an influence on the decision per se." - Seven examples of animal democracy, Mother Nature Network, November 4, 2012, Center for Biological Diversity
I want you to feel into this conviction that Democracy isn’t only a human concept or something exclusive to humans, it’s not just a human scheme. It exists elsewhere in Nature, it is something that has occurred to Gaia, in her scintillant, limitless intelligence. And indeed it has emerged from within Gaia herself, not for every species, but also not just for ours alone, for many other species as well, from honey bees to chimpanzees, in one way or another.
Now we not a pure democracy. Nor would we really want to be. We are a democratic republic. The Constitution, which is an ever evolving organism, provides structure, e.g. the three branches of government, and establishes verities, e.g. the Bill of Rights. We are a republic that uses democratic institutions to determine its direction. It doesn’t always work out in the best way, the highest way, the deepest way, the most human/humane way, but it often does, and in our experience here in America, at the most crucial moments, at the most critical moments, at the most perilous moments, the herd, the multitude, the majority does move in the wiser direction, the better direction … This happens when enough of us click into our innate common sense, achieving critical mass, and then a collective common sense arises. It happens when enough of us click into our innate conscience, achieving critical, so that a collective conscience arises. It is this luminous individual and collective common sense, this pulsating individual and collective conscience that can, that will, that must bring us through.
In the West, this maxim bubbled up among the ancient Greeks … It made Aristotle uncomfortable, so that’s good … It got more traction in the Renaissance, with that period’s Hermetic and Neo-Platonist influences ... Bruno, Paracelsus & Robert Fludd …
“Chop Wood, Carry Water”
This saying is from a well-worn Chan/Seon/Zen tale.
The sage is asked, “What did you do before you came to direct, immediate realization of the nature of reality?” “I chopped wood and carried water.”
“What did you do after you came to direct, immediate realization of the nature of reality?” “Chopped wood and carried water.”
Most of us have heard both these poetical, philosophical sayings many times.
Familiar with them, we hear what we want to hear or have been told to hear. They are shiny, clean, reassuring, even calming … BUT in the course of this talk I am going to reveal some other dimensions of meaning to both.
Politics is HOLY. UGLY and HOLY. Likewise, Geopolitics, UGLY and HOLY. These two so much more than poetical maxims apply directly to both. Yes, Microcosm within Macrocosm, & Macrocosm within Microcosm. Politics and Geopolitics. What happens in one intimately interacts and influences what happens in the other. And voting, protesting, engaging, raising money, donating money, volunteering at call banks, showing up, raising your voice, whispering, reaching out, and yes staying somehow in touch with what’s really going on, or at least relying on a trusted friend who does, all of this is … Chopping Wood and Carrying Water …
We will start this exploration at the Macrocosmic Level -
So, in 2010, the true voice of my deepest inner guidance spoke to me: “It’s time to make your move.” That’s what I heard, and felt, and knew. When I opened my mouth to speak, I found myself talking about “THE SINGULARITY IN ANTICIPATION OF I”
That’s what the moment felt like to me. Indeed, the title of the first series of talks (there would be many more) & by extension the title of the first in a series five books became “Between Shadow & Light, The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself” (2012).
These are the five books that would eventually by compiled in & subsumed by “Wyrds of Power” (2017).
While ”the Best & the Brightest” were all (& still are) fretting debating mentally masturbating over an AI Singularity, I was suggesting that we ourselves this species had become a Singularity an Impossibility which would either result in our extinction or lead to something utterly new version of us, a new iteration of our species.
EXCERPT: What I suggest to you is that the human race, in its journey of self-discovery, has created a singularity; the life we have made for ourselves is unsustainable, our genius for developing has eclipsed our capacity to reduce the mass of our ignorance, our population is growing beyond all nature’s built-in checks and balances, our demand for fresh water and our exploitation of soil have outstripped the capacity of these vital resources to renew themselves, our climate is deteriorating, our oceans are dying, our collective footprint has begun to crush the world on which we depend, we are no longer walking in this world, we are walking over this world, and crushing it beneath us. The political, economic and religious structures with which we frame our shared reality have caved in on themselves. With our genius and our ignorance, we have created an impossibility, and we are fueling it every moment of every day. There is no way out of this impossibility, because what could lead us out is leading deeper into it at every twist and turn. We cannot turn, we cannot change course. We cannot stop sliding backward, and yet we cannot stop hurtling forward. Our problems have become our solutions; our solutions have become our problems. This impossibility is our crisis. It has a created a singularity. What will come from this singularity? If anything but extinction (or near extinction) comes from this crisis, it will be because something unforeseen, something unprecedented, something miraculous, something utterly new emerges from this singularity, i.e., from within us, in the midst of our meltdown, after everything has gone on full-tilt. We are the singularity, and we are poised here in anticipation of what will emerge from the unthinkable, unimaginable collapse of our collective self. Therefore, we must learn to see in the dark. - Richard Power, Wyrds of Power: New Language for A New Reality (2017) [Otiginally, “Between Shadow & Night” (2012) and republished in “Wyrds of Power” (2017)
In 2010, I wrote and spoke of “The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself” In 2017, a year into Trump, I declared ”The Singularity has Arrived”
There is some context for my premise, my postulate, I found a couple of strands of occult cosmology that offer a backdrop …
There is legend which relates to it all, & there is even math …
HP Blavatsky wrote of a “Ring Pass Not” that quarantines the Solar System.
One of the many occult terms found in H. P. Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine is what is called the “Ring-Pass-Not,” an intriguing term found in Śloka 6 of Stanza V ... In his Occult Glossary, G. de Purucker provides a definition that only deepens the mystery: A profoundly mystical and suggestive term signifying the circle or bounds of frontiers within which is contained the consciousness of those who are still under the sway of the delusion of separateness … It does not signify any one especial occasion or condition, but is a general term applicable to any state in which an entity, having reached a certain stage of evolutionary growth of the unfolding of consciousness, finds itself unable to pass into a still higher state because of some delusion under which the consciousness is laboring, be that delusion mental or spiritual. Purucker goes on to explain that although the phenomenon of a Ring-Pass-Not applies to globes, planetary chains, solar systems, and so forth, the main point to remember is that it pertains in some mysterious way to “phases or states of consciousness.” Blavatsky adds to the mystery when she says, ‘The full Initiate knows that the Ring ‘Pass-Not’ is neither a locality nor can it be measured by distance …’”THE MYSTERY OF THE “RING-PASS-NOT”
The human race will not be able to physically travel beyond the “Ring Pass Not” around this solar system unless and until it has evolved beyond its pathologies, its “seven deadly sins,” its cruelty, its short-sightedness …
In 1961, astrophysicist Frank Drake produced “a probalistic argument used to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way” (Wikipedia).
Drake's Equation:
N = R* • fp • ne • fl • fi • fc • L
Where,
N = The number of civilizations in The Milky Way Galaxy whose electromagnetic emissions are detectable.
R* =The rate of formation of stars suitable for the development of intelligent life.
fp = The fraction of those stars with planetary systems.
ne = The number of planets, per solar system, with an environment suitable for life.
fl = The fraction of suitable planets on which life actually appears.
fi = The fraction of life bearing planets on which intelligent life emerges.
fc = The fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space.
L = The length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.
fc = The fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space.
L = The length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.
That’s it right there, right around fc and L, that’s where we have been for a while now. This is where we are. With one foot we are stepping into the great shift toward a green, woke, feminist civilization, and yet, SIMULTANEOUSLY, with our other foot we are stepping off the cliff and into the abyss. We are at the cusp, forward from this moment, it’s either the upward, onward arc of human evolution, OR the downward spiral of devolution into an Age of the Orcs. The Ring-Pass-Not is coded into us. Either we choose altruism and sustainability, and the Vulcan ambassador will lead a delegation welcoming us to the “Federation of Planets,” or we degenerate. That’s what these three thresholds are all about.
This Singularity is us, our civilization in the “Ring-Pass-Not” moment of truth. It’s Pass or Fail. This is either the beginning or the end. This century.
There is no call to action more urgent, no need that is more desperate.
The Gulf Stream system could collapse as soon as 2025, a new study suggests. The shutting down of the vital ocean currents, called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (Amoc) by scientists, would bring catastrophic climate impacts. Amoc was already known to be at its weakest in 1,600 years owing to global heating and researchers spotted warning signs of a tipping point in 2021. The new analysis estimates a timescale for the collapse of between 2025 and 2095, with a central estimate of 2050, if global carbon emissions are not reduced. Evidence from past collapses indicates changes of temperature of 10C in a few decades, although these occurred during ice ages … Amoc carries warm ocean water northwards towards the pole where it cools and sinks, driving the Atlantic’s currents. But an influx of fresh water from the accelerating melting of Greenland’s ice cap and other sources is increasingly smothering the currents. A collapse of Amoc would have disastrous consequences around the world, severely disrupting the rains that billions of people depend on for food in India, South America and west Africa. It would increase storms and drop temperatures in Europe, and lead to a rising sea level on the eastern coast of North America. It would also further endanger the Amazon rainforest and Antarctic ice sheets - Damian Carrington, “Gulf Stream could collapse as early as 2025, study suggests,” Guardian (7/25/23)
Here @climate.change.communications shows how:
“Five facts. Ten words. It’s real. It’s us. It’s bad. Scientists agree.There’s hope.”
Hope!?!? Yes.
@climate.change.communications has numbers too:
- 70% of Americans say “no” to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
- 74% of Americans think CO2 should be regulated as a pollutant
- 75% of Americans say schools should teach about global warming
- 81% support creating more parks and green spaces in low income communities and communities of color
- 82% support federal funding to help farmers improve practices to protect and restore the soil so it absorbs and stores more carbonThe Red Deer have gotten the message.
In one way, in a very real way, we are already in the throes of WW3. Putin is waging 21st Century information warfare against the democracies of the West. It all started in 2014, when Putin attacked the sovereign nation of Ukraine and seized the Crimea. In 2016, the conflict escalated further with Putin’s fueling of Brexit in Britain & Trump/MAGA in the U.S.A. These two psychological black ops were designed to weaken the Western alliance & thereby contribute to the overturning the established world order that relies heavily on that alliance. Using PSYOPS & cyber war, leveraging the hypnotic power & vast reach of social media, while also utilizing old-fashioned spy craft ala “Red Sparrow” and “Killing Eve,” Putin has exploited the inherent vulnerabilities of democratic societies.
So Much More Than Hashtag Slogans
So YES, WW3 is a war on women and girls, a war on Gaia Herself, a war on the Ascending of the Feminine, the Deep Feminine … In several dimensions -- societal, political, economic, psychological, evolutionary, mystical …
Just as the Climate Emergency and the Sixth Great Extinction reflect the enslavement of Gaia in the Age of Patriarchy and Oligarchy, so too the aggression that led to these three hashtag slogans reflect a reactionary backlash against the Ascendancy of the Feminine and the civilizational shift that depends on it … A green, woke, feminist civilization, that’s where we’re going, that’s what is being birthed, that is our aspiration, that is what our circumstances call for, that Gaia demands of us. We want to L-I-V-E. Spell L-I-V-E backwards? Yes, E-V-I-L. And E-V-I-L die hard. That’s why this is such a dangerous moment in human herstory.
Ever since 2016, friends have asked me “how is it all going?” My answer throughout has been “It’s all going very well, therefore, we are in great danger.”
The three entities that these hashtag slogans target - Putin’s Russia, the so-called “the Islamic Republic of Iran” and Hamas - are all allied.
Iran provides weapons for Russia in its war against Ukraine. Russia and Iran are Hamas’ sponsors. And all three are using rape as a weapon of war.
- Rape constitutes a war crime under the Geneva Conventions that establish international legal standards for conduct of armed conflicts. Widespread or systematic sexual violence amount to crimes against humanity. Rape is used as a part of a Russian terror tactic arsenal. Its use meant not only to devastate individual victims, but to send out a message of intimidation, punishment, and subjugation to the targeted country ... According to Think Global Health, sexual violence during war can be divided into three overarching categories: 1) Deliberate war tactic, widely committed with an intentional purpose; 2) Tolerated, but not specifically ordered, by leaders; 3) Committed independently -- @Saint Javelin
Mariupol “City of Mary” - 540,000 population, 400,000 became refugees, 140,000 were trapped there, 8 weeks of bombing, fell to the Russians in May 2022, as many as 25,000 Ukrainians died in Mariupol, at the hands of the Russians
- On Mar. 16, 2022, Russia conducted an air strike on the #Drama Theatre in #Mariupol, #Donetsk region. At the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of #Ukraine, the theatre was a shelter for more than a thousand Mariupol residents, including #women and #children. People wrote “CHILDREN” on the ground in front of the building to protect themselves. As a result of the Russian attack on the Mariupol Drama Theatre, approximately 300 people [innocent civilians] were estimated to have been killed. - @weareukraine.info
- Bucha and Bucha district. 33 days of occupation. More than 1,400 deaths, including 37 children. More than 175 people were found in mass graves and torture chambers. - @saintjavelin
- Russian forces committed more than 9,000 war crimes in Kyiv Oblast's city of Bucha and its district, Ukraine's Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin said on March 31. - @kyivindependent_official
- The International Criminal Court has issued (March 2023) an arrest #warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova. The ICC alleges Putin is responsible for war crimes, including the unlawful deportation of #children from #Ukraine to Russia - @weareukraine.info
- The so-called "stolen generation," of Ukrainian children are usually adopted by Russian families and brainwashed with Russian propaganda, stripping them of their Ukrainian identity and taking them away from living relatives. The deportation of Ukrainian children to Russian territory is a war crime and constitutes genocide according to one of the five definitions given in the United Nations' Genocide Convention - @kyivindependent_official
- “Castration, gang-rape, forced nudity: How Russia’s soldiers terrorise Ukraine with sexual violence” – Telegraph (11/28/22).
- Russian troops are using violence against women as a weapon of war with rape victims as young as 4 and as old as 85, according to Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska. In a speech to MPs and peers on Tuesday evening, Zelenska – the wife of Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy – accused Russian forces of sexual violence and rape during the months-long Ukraine crisis, which is now heading into a long winter. - Olena Zelenska: Russian troops raped four-year-old girl in Ukraine, Yahoo News (11/30/23)
#WomenLifeFreedom
- For decades, gender inequality and discrimination against women have been legally enshrined in Iran. Under Iran's Islamic Penal Code, Iranian women's rights are severely restricted, a form of gender apartheid. Women must comply with the Islamic Republic’s mandatory hijab laws from the onset of puberty, and they are unequal in matters of marriage, divorce, custody, inheritance and more. In the Fall of 2022, hundreds of protesters, including dozens of children, have been killed by Iranian authorities. These nation‑wide protests were triggered by the tragic death of 22 year old Mahsa Jina Amini who died in police custody after being arrested by Iran’s “morality police” for failing to properly cover her hair. - https://www.womanlifefreedom.today/
- Armita Abbasi, a 20-year-old woman from Karaj, near Tehran … Armita had multi-colored dyed hair and an eyebrow piercing. She wrote about her life, cats and dreams on Instagram until she was arrested in October 2022 for joining the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protest movement triggered by the September death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police … A lot of what we know about Armita’s detention was revealed in a shocking report published by US television news network CNN on November 21, 2022. The report was titled “How Iran’s security forces use rape to quell protests.” Earlier, private Instagram messages between medical staff of Karaj’s Imam Ali Hospital circulated on social media and mentioned the case of a young woman who was brought by security forces to the hospital one week after her arrest. This woman was suffering from symptoms associated with violent sexual assault such as hemorrhage and rectal lacerations. The security agents took Armita away before her family arrived at the hospital. The young woman’s head was shaved, and she was trembling out of fear. The medics wrote about the horror they felt when they saw evidence of brutal rape. “When she first came in, [the officers] said she was hemorrhaging from her rectum…due to repeated rape. The plainclothes men insisted that the doctor write it as rape prior to arrest,” one of the messages reads … - “She Suffered Beyond Belief:” 20-Year-Old Armita, A Symbol Of Iranian Resistance, Iran Wire, 1/31/23
Putin and the “Islamic Republic” are sponsors of Hamas. And lo and behold, here again is rape as a weapon of war.
Evidence points to systematic use of rape and sexual violence by Hamas in 7 October attacks, Guardian, 1/18/24
"Prof Ruth Halperin-Kaddari said she saw footage of women in several locations whose condition left her in "no doubt" that they had been raped. There has been anger over the delay of some UN bodies to acknowledge claims of Hamas's sexual atrocities on 7 October."
- Examiners found evidence that conflict-related sexual violence took place on October 7
- There is “clear and convincing information” that sexual violence continues and hostages are still at risk.
- The UN report should put to rest deniers’ appalling claims that allegations of sexual violence by Hamas on October 7 are unsupported
- Hamas’ use of sexual violence as a weapon of war is clear.
- Hamas must be held accountable.
The leaders of Hamas who live in luxury far from Gaza were paid very well for their blood sport. Hamas is not a liberation movement, it is more like the Wagner Group. I pray that your eyes are opened. Rape is not an act of resistance, nor is self-immolation. Please do not excuse the one or exalt the other. Such horrors. Yes, many have been so deeply played.
What must happen?
Hamas must be destroyed. Netanyahu & his cronies must be removed from power & face accountability for their crimes. There must be a two state solution. BTW, that’s something neither Hamas or the Israeli right wing really want. Yes, it’s much more complicated than you want it to be. Hamas instigated this war, & welcomed the deaths of its own innocents ...
Putin needed this distraction from his war crimes in Ukraine. The “Islamic Republic” needed this distraction from its own ongoing femicide. Netanyahu needed this distraction from the massive protests against him in the streets of Tel Aviv. And yes, Trump needed this distraction from Biden’s success and his own numerous civil & criminal trials. Make no mistake about what is really going on. Putin wants Trump to win so he can succeed in his war on Ukraine. Netanyahu wants Trump to win so that he can do what Trump has publicly exhorted him to do -“finish the job”
Through line to the U.S.A. Putin sponsors MAGA.
There is a through-line from Putin’s war on Ukraine to Putin ally Iran’s war against its own female population to the Putin/Iran Sponsored Hamas’ femicidal attack on 10/7 to the Putin sponsored Trump/MAGA subjugation of Red State women & girls.
Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, in the Red States, misogynistic MAGA rulers are inflicting unbearable suffering to American women and girls.
Kate Cox, the 31-year old mother of two who recently sued the State of Texas for the right to terminate her fatal nonviable pregnancy, has fled Texas to receive an abortion according to her lawyers at the Center for Reproductive Rights ... From a statement from the Center for Reproductive Rights: After a week of legal whiplash and threats of prosecution from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, our client Kate Cox has been forced to flee her home state of Texas to get the time-sensitive abortion care needed to protect her health and future fertility. Kate has been unable to get an abortion in Texas, even though her fetus has a fatal condition and continuing the pregnancy threatens her future fertility. – Meidas Touch, Kate Cox Forced to Flee Texas After Court Halts Her Abortion, 12/11/23
In an authoritarian state, women are as much the enemies of the strongman as the press, prosecutors, and the opposition. We can correlate the appeal of strongmen to moments when men feel their status is threatened due to changes in gender roles and distributions of economic and social power.Control over female bodies in the name of population growth is a throughline of authoritarianism, as are persecutions of LGBTQ+ individuals ...In Europe and America, the century-long focus of the far right on demographic emergencies supposedly created by declines of White births and upticks in non-White immigration have created support for controls on female bodies. These controls are predicated on negating the personhood of women and consigning them to roles as vessels of population growth.For men to preserve their “natural” right to dominate, and White Christian civilization to continue, women must be deprived of reproductive rights and demeaned, disciplined, and criminalized if they resist.This larger frame of authoritarian gender politics is key for understanding the assaults on abortion rights that are making news today, as in the new ban on abortion in Arizona that has no exceptions for rape or incest. - Ruth Ben-Ghiat,The Republican War on Women is Straight Out of the Authoritarian Playbook, Lucid, 4/11/24
Please share this with everyone you know - the 'unbelievable' story behind Arizona's 1864 abortion ban (which the AZ State Supreme Court just upheld post-Roe):
Altruism v. Sociopathy, Democracy v. Authoritarianism
It is very important that you understand what MAGA may try to do between the election and the inauguration, & what they are preparing to do after the take power whether legitimately or illegitimately.
What They Are Planning for the Time Between the Election Itself & the Inauguration
First, Republicans need to make sure they’re in control of the House of Representatives on January 6th, 2025, when the new president will be certified. To do that, even though Democrats might have won enough seats to take back the House in the 2024 election, Speaker Johnson will refuse to swear into Congress on January 3rd a handful of those Democrats, claiming there are “irregularities” in their elections that must be first investigated …
There’s nothing Democrats can legally do to stop Speaker Johnson from pulling this off: he can postpone swearing a member in for as long as he wants. That keeps Speaker “MAGA Moscow Mike” Johnson in charge of the House, so they can also refuse to accept the Electoral College certificates of election from a handful of states where they claim there are “problems” … Then, regardless of how many votes Biden won by, electoral or popular, the House simply refuses to certify the electoral college votes of enough states that the minimum of 270 isn’t reached. Under the 12th Amendment, like with the election of 1876, that throws the election to the House, where each state has one vote. While a majority of Americans live in a state run by Democrats, a majority of the states themselves are run by Republicans. Each state gets one vote for president in the House, and right now 26 state delegations are GOP-controlled, meaning that a majority of the House would simply vote to put Trump back into the White House, 26-23 (Pennsylvania’s delegation is 50/50). All totally legal. The Putin/Trump caucus in the House — led by Speaker Johnson — has largely given up on democracy when elections don’t give them power. As outrageous as this scenario sounds, they justify it to themselves as being essential to “save America” from “woke” Democrats … The best way to prevent this from happening is to widely publicize their scheme so public opinion will become so intense that they fear the consequences. It’s a thin thread holding our republic together, but at least it’s something. Pass it along. – Thom Hartmann, “The New ‘Over the Top’ Secret Plan on How Fascists Could Win in 2024” (2/26/24)
What Are They Planning to Do If They Regain Power
Project 2025 is an initiative of the Heritage Foundation, a rightwing think tank that has helped staff and set the agenda for every Republican administration since Ronald Reagan … GOP operatives have already crafted an expansive blueprint, 887 pages long, laying out in painstaking detail how they intend to govern, including plans to leverage virtually every arm, tool and agency of the federal government to attack abortion access. The document explicitly names their intention not just to rescind FDA approval for the abortion pill if they regain control of the White House in 2024, but to revive a 150-year-old law that criminalizes sending or receiving through the mail any “article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine or thing” that could be used to facilitate an abortion ... - Rolling Stone, Inside the MAGA Plan to Attack Birth Control, Surveil Women and Ban the Abortion Pill, 12/22/23
Former President Trump's allies are pre-screening the ideologies of thousands of potential foot soldiers, as part of an unprecedented operation to centralize and expand his power at every level of the U.S. government if he wins in 2024, officials involved in the effort tell Axios ... Hundreds of people are spending tens of millions of dollars to install a pre-vetted, pro-Trump army of up to 54,000 loyalists across government to rip off the restraints imposed on the previous 46 presidents …His inner circle plans to purge anyone viewed as hostile to the hard-edged, authoritarian-sounding plans he calls "Agenda 47” … - Axios, “Behind the Curtain: Trump allies pre-screen loyalists for unprecedented power grab” (11/13/23)
Former top officials from Donald Trump’s administration are warning he is likely to use a second term to overhaul the nation’s spy agencies in a way that could lead to an unprecedented level of politicization of intelligence … POLITICO talked to 18 former officials and analysts who worked in the Trump administration, including political appointees from both parties and career intelligence officers, some who still speak to the former president and his aides and had insight into conversations about his potential second term. - Politico, “The prospect of a second Trump presidency has the intelligence community on edge,” 2/26/24
A Rare Opportunity
So what will it look like if we survive this threat, if we shift through, if we emerge from the worm hole on the other side of this singularity?
Before answering, that question, please consider what Bide-Harris have done:
§ senschumer: With @POTUS, this Senate Democratic Majority has confirmed:188 judges to lifetime appointments on the federal bench!That includes120 womenAND120 people of colorAll excellent, all well-qualified, and all helping to ensure that the federal bench looks more like America!
§ American Rescue Plan
“Helped create millions of jobs. Delivered relief to American households. Reopened all K-12 schools. 79% of adults fully vaccinated.”
§ The Most Aggressive Climate Action in American (and Global) History
o “America now positioned to achieve its climate goals of cutting emissions in half by 2020 and net-zero by 2050”
§ Bi-Partisan Infrastructure Law
o “Largest investment in public transit in American history. Builds first ever national network of EV charging stations. Largest investment in rebuilding our roads and bridges since the Interstate Highway System. Creates good paying jobs in every part of the country …”
§ Restoring American Leadership Internationally, Reinvigorating NATO & Mobilizing the Democracies of the World for the Defense of Ukraine
§ Student Loan Forgiveness
o $136 billion forgiven. 3.7 million borrowers. More to come.
§ Pardoning Marijuana Sentences
o Pardons for 13,000 Americans
§ Symbolism: Joe Biden joined a Union of Auto Workers’ strike to become the first POTUS to ever walk a picket line, Kamala Harris went to Minnesota to become the first VP (or POTUS) to ever visit an abortion center.
And so much more … Remarkable, unprecedented … truly .. AND so much more they WOULD have done if the narrow Senate majority hadn’t been weakened by the duplicity of Manchin and Sinema, AND/OR if we hadn’t narrowly lost the Speaker’s gavel in the 2022 mid-terms, e.g., passing serious, substantive voting rights protection, raising the Minimum Wage, making the child tax credit permanent, AND twice as much spending to address the Climate Emergency!
What should we expect if the Democrats win control of the WH, Senate and House of Representatives in November AND are sworn in next January?
§ Codifying of Women’s Reproductive Rights
§ An Assault Weapons Ban
§ Passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Act
§ Doubling down on the Biden-Harris climate action investment & accelerating the shift away from fossil fuels …
§ Making the child tax credit permanent
§ RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE
Now please listen to the mystical ward healer, TO DO THIS, we need to crush the zombie death cult that has wrapped itself in the dried skin shell of the Republican Party we need the house the senate and the white house for at least two election cycles – so from 2024 to 2026 and from 2028 … For decades, candidates were told to not run on reproductive rights, not run on gun control, not run on climate change … the mainstream news media establishment marginalized these issues, That’s all changed now – look at the numbers – decisive majorities of American votes support reproductive rights, and an assault weapons ban, and real action on the climate emergency.
This is the demographic shift in alignment with the evolutionary arc. And it is all being driven by WOMEN, YOUNG PEOPLE & PEOPLE OF COLOR.
- Mueller Report. The 448 page investigative report, including 10 actionable incidents of Trump obstructing justice.
- Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on Russian Active Measures Campaigns & Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Vol 5: Counterintelligence Threats & Vulnerabilities, Part 1: 490 pages, Part 2: 500 pages.
- January 6th Committee Final Report. 531 pages. “a comprehensive investigation into the events surrounding the attack on the United States Capitol that occurred on January 6th, 2021”
- The Four Trump Indictments. Two federal criminal indictments, two state criminal indictments (GA & NY). 400 pages.
And yet the dangers of Trump and MAGA still loom over the 2024 election. What is wrong with us, with our body politic, with our system of government? How could this be? How could Trump be running again? How is he still the apparent choice of tens of millions of Americans? Like the real answers to most real questions, it isn’t simple. (It certainly isn’t because of any failure on the part of Robert Mueller, or even Merrick Garland. Twitterati who impugn the integrity or competency of these honorable public servants are just misdirecting their followers into despair and defeatism.)
The release of the Mueller Report and its damning findings was sabotaged by Trump’s AG Bill Barr. In a healthy America, Mueller revelations would have led to Trump being forced out of office, like Nixon. Likewise Trump’s two impeachment trials could have, would have, should have led to a forced resignation or removal from office. But one of the two major parties, the Republican Party, has lost its mind and its soul, and so our two party system has collapsed.
The Mueller Report, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report and the January 6th Committee Final Report informed those among us willing to accept who and what Trump really is, and they also succeeded in snatching the factual narrative from the fire, preserving that factual narrative for history, or more accurately, moving forward, for HERSTORY. All of vital importance.
The Four Trump Indictments are of a different order. All four indictments were issued in 2023. The first indictment has turned into the first trial. It focused on election interference and hush money payments. It is now to begin in New York on April 15th, after having been delayed thirty days. The Georgia case as yet to receive a trial date, having just weathered a failed attempt to remove prosecutor Fani Willis. Federal prosecutors are battling through delays thrown in their way by corrupt judges are attempting to delay these trials until after the election, so that Trump can shut it all down should he win in November. Cannon in Florida, and radical right-wing Supreme Court (with three "justices" appointed by Trump himself). These four criminal indictments are real. They will result in convictions, if and when they are brought to trial. It is imperative that Biden wins to protect the DoJ’s two prosecutions, IF they are successfully delayed until after the election. We must prevail in the 2024 election. This is the Second Deadline. The decisive battle.
We will see Trump politically defeated, financially ruined and convicted, and we will see the MAGA movement dwindle, diminish, deteriorate, with it’s worst elements slipping back into the sewers of psyche, and the rest of those who got swept up in the madness just trying to slip quietly back into normative ideological frames. Evil dies hard, yes, but this fascist movement will be brought down, it must be.
- 3 years later, Jan. 6 by the numbers: More than 1,200 charged. Prosecutors have secured more than 718 guilty pleas in Jan. 6 cases, 171 others have been found guilty at trial or otherwise found guilty. More than 460 imprisoned for their role in Capitol attack, hundreds of others have been sentenced for lesser offenses to periods of home detention or probation." - ABC News, 1/5/24
- "In remarks Friday, Attorney General Merrick Garland described the Justice Department's sprawling probe of the Capitol attack as "one of the largest and most complex and resource-intensive investigations in our history.
“Historically speaking, it is very significant when conservatives break with fascists.” – Tim Snyder (@timsnyder)
- "I think Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it’s infected a good chunk of my party’s base," says House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) - CNN, Republican lawmaker says Russian propaganda has 'infected a good chunk' of GOP base, 4/7/24
- Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), chairperson of the US House intelligence committee, says some of his fellow Republicans are “absolutely” repeating Russian propaganda on the chamber floor, echoing a similar claim made recently by another rightwing American lawmaker. “It is absolutely true we see, directly coming from Russia, attempts to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor,” the Ohio congressman told CNN’s State of the Union show. - Guardian, "House intelligence chair says Republicans are ‘absolutely’ repeating Russian propaganda," 4/8/24
One of the bulwarks of this Greatest Bi-Partisan Action in American History, Republican Voters Against Trump, is investing tens of millions of dollars in advertising to tell the story of disaffected Republican voters and hopefully encouraging even more into not voting for Trump:
- A Republican group dedicated to opposing former President Donald J. Trump is planning to spend $50 million to stop him through a series of homemade testimonial videos of voters who backed him in past elections but say they can no longer support him in 2024. The group, Republican Voters Against Trump, first emerged in the 2020 campaign and made a return appearance for the 2022 midterm elections. It is run by Sarah Longwell, a leading figure in Never-Trump politics whose focus groups and polling are a staple of center-right podcasts and have made her a go-to figure for political reporters aiming to decipher the motivations behind Trump supporters. Unlike Democratic organizations that aim to help President Biden by promoting his record in office, Ms. Longwell’s group focuses solely on attacking Mr. Trump through the voices of his former backers. The Republican Voters Against Trump website features 100 videos, from one to three minutes long, of Republicans speaking to a computer or mobile-phone camera about why they voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 or 2020 and will not do so in 2024. - NYT, Anti-Trump Group of Republicans Lays Out $50 Million Plan of Attack, 3/12/24
"Of 44 members of former President Donald Trump's cabinet, less than 10% have publicly endorsed him in his 2024 presidential run." - Business Insider, "Just 4 of Donald Trump's 44 former cabinet members have publicly endorsed his 2024 run," 7/30/23
Mike Pence is easy to mock, NEVERTHELESS, Trump’s VP, was on the right side of history on 1/6/21, when he refused to violate his oath to the Constitution, and he is on the right side of history now in refusing to endorse Trump in 2024.Another GOP senator announces she won’t vote for Trump in 2024 And then there were two: Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney are incumbent Republican senators who’ve publicly said they won’t vote for Donald Trump in 2024. - Steve Benen, MSNBC, "Another GOP senator announces she won’t vote for Trump in 2024," 3/4/24
"The fact that Trump's Vice-President is not backing him is not getting enough attention. That is historic. That is a big deal." - Alyssa Farah Griffin, Trump's WH Director of Strategic Communications & Assistant to the President
The right-hand photo features RFK, Jr. posing with Flynn and Roger Stone.
Nor is the MAGA enthusiasm for RFK, Jr. limited to Stone and Flynn.
- Steve Bannon is apparently a huge RFK Jr. supporter, floating Kennedy as “an excellent choice for President Trump to consider” as a running mate. Roger Stone called a Trump-Kennedy ticket a “dream.” Infowars’ Alex Jones was struck by Kennedy’s anti-vaccine conspiracies and told listeners he was “definitely awake.” Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk and QAnon-linked Michael Flynn both said they like the guy as a presidential candidate too. So why are all these right-wingers supporting a Democrat? It could be that he kind of sounds like them: He talks about government institutions betraying the trust of the American public, and published a whole book attacking Anthony Fauci. But there’s also very likely another reason. It seems important to mention here that Kennedy, to put it mildly, is a crank. As conservative Noah Rothman wrote in National Review, “Kennedy has promoted the view that the COVID vaccines were concocted only to enrich the medical establishment, that 5G cell towers are designed to ‘control our behavior,’ and that Microsoft founder Bill Gates is engaged in an effort to ‘genetically modify’ humanity" ... For years RFK Jr. has lurked in the shadows as the anti-vaxxer Kennedy; now his politics not only have a base among the MAGA right—he’s proving politically expedient for Republicans as well ...Republicans are worried; they know that indictments don’t help grow the electorate. They know that as the chasm between the mainstream and the primary voters grows, so do the chances of a Biden reelection. There are few options left to help pump up their guy. RFK Jr. is one. - Molly Jong Fast, "Of Course the Right Has Welcomed RFK Jr. With Open Arms," Vanity Fair, 6/21/23
Indeed, this is treachery. Period. Full stop.