Donald Trump is a terrible leader his incendiary rhetoric is stirring up the entire nation when his job is to call for healing- God Bless Erika Kirk

Editorial echo published by the Baltimore Sun newspaper:

If the Charlie Kirk memorial last Sunday in Arizona was a test of faith — if all those in assembly wanted to demonstrate their support for the slain conservative activist, for his religious beliefs he held, for the causes he espoused and for his grieving family — then it was mission accomplished. 

HELLO❗With one notable exception❗ 💥When the final speaker took the podium to eulogize the 31-year-old head of Turning Point USA and father of two young children, the man so many before him had praised for his commitment to his family and his Christian faith, that individual was clear and unambiguous in his views on forgiveness and redemption and second chances.

He was having none of it.

Whom the gods would destroy, they first fill with hate.

“He did not hate his opponents,” Donald Trump said of Kirk. “He wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponents, and I don’t want the best for them. 🙄I’m sorry.”😕😠

Hate, as Captain Ahab discovered in Moby Dick, is ruinous. It metastasizes like cancer, reproducing itself at warp speed. And to hear Trump embrace it, even as thousands prayed, sang to Christian contemporary music and spoke of better days ahead at the combination religious service and political rally, was deeply disappointing. Not entirely surprising, but disappointing nonetheless.
What a contrast to Kirk’s widow. Erika Kirk 😢echoed Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, in expressing forgiveness, not hate, for her husband’s assassin. Tearful, sometimes shaking and looking upward as if to meet her late husband’s gaze from heaven, she spoke with the magnanimous spirit of Jesus in Luke 23:34, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

It was jarring, appalling and churlishly rude (add "sinful") that Trump would reject that spirit of the moment — and the will of the Kirks — in celebrating hate. So unabashedly. So myopically. 

So narcissistically. Trump fulminated at Charlie’s funeral. Given this remarkable opportunity to bind the nation’s wounds, as a certain president once sought to do, he instead spoke of hate.

Such hatred is unbefitting of anyone. It is especially unbefitting for a president who is supposed to be a role model for the country.

Do many of Trump’s opponents reciprocate his hate? Absolutely, but that is no excuse. President Abraham Lincoln was reviled unmercifully by many during the Civil War. Yet in his second inaugural address, the great man preached, “With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Hate engendered the climate that provoked Kirk’s assassin. Continuing down that path risks more of the same. 

Where is the adult in the living room who will tell Trump, “No,” even with the high risk of provoking retribution❓ No nation can survive without courage. It occupies the summit of virtues because it makes all others possible.

We strongly urge Donald Trump to retract his embrace of hate. His stated ambition is to surpass George Washington as the greatest U.S. president. He can start by following Washington’s admonition at the constitutional convention: “Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest may repair.” Let us at least attempt to have a civil conversation about our disagreements — or at least not boast about our hatred for each other.

Baltimore Sun editorial writers offer opinions and analysis on news and issues relevant to readers. 

No More Kings protests grass roots organized in record time by 50501 with more to follow

50501- All 50 states on one day: A grass roots activist group organized to protest the illegal anti-democratic Trumpziisms.
This group organized via social media without any money!

 ‘No kings on Presidents Day’ rings out from protests against Trump and Musk. Echo report by the Associated Press by Michael Casey*.

BOSTON (AP) — Protesters against President Donald Trump and his policies braved frigid temperatures in parts of the U.S. Monday, shouting “No kings on Presidents Day” in East Coast cities and attempting to enter the Arizona Statehouse to oppose a bill that would bolster fast-changing federal immigration enforcement.

In Florida and California, local media outlets reported on hundreds of protesters carrying out “Not my Presidents Day” protests. The “No Kings” theme was orchestrated by the 50501 Movement, and marked the second set of protests criss-crossing the nation in less than two weeks. A similar nationwide event on Feb. 5 drew participants in dozens of cities. Both sets of rallies denounced Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk, the leader of Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, a government organization designed to slash federal spending.

Nearly 1,000 people marched in the snow from the Statehouse in Boston to City Hall, chanting “Elon Musk has got to go” and other slogans. The temperature was below freezing, with wind chills in the teens.

Boston protesters, some dressed in Revolutionary War-style clothing, carried signs saying such things as “This is a Coup” and “Cowards Bow to Trump, Patriots Stand Up.” One sign had a depiction of Uncle Sam saying “I Want You to Resist.”

“I thought it was important to be here on Presidents Day to demonstrate for what America stands for,” said Emily Manning, 55, a Boston engineer who came to the rally with her two teenage sons. “American values are not the values of the plutocracy or the limited few rich people.”

Organizers of Monday’s "No Kings Day" protests, which were focused on state capitals and major cities including Washington, D.C.; Orlando, Florida; and Seattle, said they were targeting “anti-democratic and illegal actions of the Trump administration and its plutocratic allies.”

One sign at the rally that attracted hundreds in the nation’s capital said, “Deport Musk Dethrone Trump.”

Many demonstrations were slated for cities where temperatures were well below freezing as a polar vortex worked its way across the country.

The rallies followed a series of Trump evil executive orders and came just days after layoffs across federal agencies as part of an effort to reduce the government workforce.

In Phoenix, hundreds of protestors gathered in front of the Capitol carrying signs reading “No Kings” and “Resist Fascism.” Security barred protesters from entering the building after a few tried to get inside. Demonstrators were seeking access to a state Senate committee hearing on legislation that would require law enforcement officers across the state to support federal immigration policy.

Protest organizer December Archer said her goal was to keep the event civil. She quickly came between someone trying to enter the Statehouse and a security guard who pushed the protestor back through the doorway.

“We’re trying to make sure everything stays civil and stays respectable because again, we’re here to make a statement not be the statement,” Archer said.

*Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; and Sejal Govindarao in Phoenix contributed to this report.

Gun violence is caused by guns! Full Stop! Republicans want security for their cult leader but forget about shcool children

Echo guest opinion published in The New York Times by former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords*:

A victim of gun violence who survived:  After every shooting, blame and rationalizations fly. I know, because I was shot in the head at a 2011, congressional event near my home in Tucson, Ariz. Eighteen other people were shot at that event, six of whom died. In the weeks that followed, there were all kinds of arguments as to why and how that could have happened. 

To me, only one rang true: Someone dangerous had access to a gun.

There have now been two assassination attempts on Donald Trump in just over two months. Two separate assailants, in possession of semiautomatic weapons, came terrifyingly close to inflicting great harm on him. But the through line here isn’t Mr. Trump. The through line isn’t the Secret Service. The through line isn’t heated rhetoric. The through line is, as it always is, the guns.

We are a country weary of repetitive gun violence. When that happens, you have a school shooting on a Wednesday and the country’s attention has moved on by Friday. You have a country where shootings on interstate highways appear to be a pattern and students in Kentucky miss several days of school during a manhunt for the perpetrator of the most recent interstate shooting. I imagine many people reading this right now might not even know about that shooting, or that manhunt, or those kids in Kentucky, doing schoolwork at home because it’s not safe to go to school.

Political rhetoric matters — but rhetoric wasn’t in the bushes around Mr. Trump’s golf course, or on the interstate in Kentucky, or in the school hallways in Georgia, or at the Trump rally in Butler, Pa. Dangerous people with guns were. The most recent would-be attack on the former president, on Sunday, is an indicator of where we are as a nation: a place where no one is safe from gun violence.

There’s no doubt that our political debate needs to cool down. We live in a participatory democracy with a wide range of opinions. We always have times when emotions are running hot; it’s inevitable.

What’s not inevitable is angry or inexplicably violent people having such easy access to guns. In Pennsylvania, a gunman too young to buy a beer nonetheless got his hands on a semiautomatic rifle. In Georgia, the high school shooting suspect was 14, and used an AR-15-style rifle. In Kentucky, the suspected gunman reportedly sent a text message declaring his intention to “kill a lot of people” and then opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle. Nothing about these episodes was inevitable.

I didn’t grow up in a country with a lot of school shootings, or mass shootings generally. The gun industry was granted broad legal immunity by Congress in 2005 through the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, a major contributing factor to the soaring number of gun sales. That was great for gun company profits, and terrible for public safety. With the saturation of guns and loosening of gun laws came, unsurprisingly, a saturation of violence. Gun deaths have skyrocketed since the gun industry received that immunity. 

OMG❗ 😱 So when Senator JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, says school shootings are a “fact of life,” ❓❗ but he should know: They weren’t a fact of life in this country until guns proliferated and loopholes in our laws allowed dangerous people to get them.

I am, at heart, a political moderate. I believe that successful governing requires a measure of moderation — pragmatic concessions that lead to the breakthroughs that move us forward. The value of moderation is that it allows us to find common purpose and to act on solutions. But moderation without action is merely a different kind of talk, and talk is not what’s wanted or needed now.

How can we tell Americans it’s safe to send their kids to school, to head to the grocery store, to attend concerts or houses of worship — or political events with their families — if we won’t acknowledge the danger that weak gun laws present, and won’t take reasonable steps to keep them secure? All over the country parents are having to answer their children’s questions about whether school is protected, about why these guns threaten their childhoods and their lives.

One thing I learned as a candidate and elected official myself was never to try to talk people out of their own reality. Americans know the dangers of gun violence. They see it in their communities and on their news every week. Now they’ve seen a heavily guarded former president as the target of gun violence twice in just over two months.

And Americans know the difference between action and inaction. Recent research from my gun violence protection organization, Giffords, found that 95 percent of likely voters in battleground House districts — including 91 percent of people who voted for  Trump in 2020 — support background checks on all gun sales, which would make it harder for dangerous people to get guns. Seventy-four percent of those survey respondents support banning weapons like the AR-15 and the AK-style rifles, the weapons implicated in the events this week, last week and the week before.

I have fought so hard to recover from my grievous wounds. I’ve fought hard to work, to stand shoulder to shoulder with other survivors and demand different gun laws. I’ve worked so hard to find my voice — as hard as it is, as much as I struggle to find the right words — to share not just my story of violence but also my deep belief in the American people, that we can find a different, safer way of living.

It’s Monday morning as I write this. Earlier today, students threw books and papers into their backpacks, grabbed lunch or their water bottles and headed out to school. We have promised them safety, but how can we look them, or their parents, in the face and pretend that the answer is anything other than changing easy access to guns? Our path forward requires us all — leaders, voters, Americans — to name the problem clearly and to take action.

*Gabrielle Giffords was a Democratic U.S. representative from Arizona from 2007 to 2012. She is the founder of Giffords, a national organization dedicated to saving lives from gun violence.

DonOLD Trump receives written criticism from music icon Linda Ronstadt

Super star singer Linda Ronstadt rebukes Donald Trump, endorses Kamala Harris in blistering letter. The iconic singer is none too pleased that Trump is speaking at a venue bearing her name.

Linda Ronstadt on YouTube

Echo report published in Billboard by Melinda Newman:

Taylor Swift isn’t the only famous cat lady throwing her support behind Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and VP candidate Tim Walz. 

Super star Taylor Swift

In a missive posted to Instagram on Wednesday night (Sept. 11th), Linda Ronstadt gave the two her endorsement, but not before writing a scathing screed (strong opinion) directed at former president and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who is holding a rally Thursday (Sept. 12) in a Tucson, Arizona hall named after the legendary singer.

“It saddens me to see the former president bring his hate show to Tucson, a town with deep Mexican-American roots and a joyful, tolerant spirit,” Ronstadt, who included a photo of her holding a kitten, writes.

Donald Trump is holding a rally on Thursday in a rented hall in my hometown, Tucson. I would prefer to ignore that sad fact. But since the building has my name on it, I need to say something.

It saddens me to see the former President bring his hate show to Tucson, a town with deep Mexican-American roots and a joyful, tolerant spirit.

I don’t just deplore his toxic politics, his hatred of women, immigrants and people of color, his criminality, dishonesty and ignorance — although there’s that.

For me it comes down to this: In Nogales and across the southern border, the Trump Administration systematically ripped apart migrant families seeking asylum. 

Family separation made orphans of thousands of little children and babies, and brutalized their desperate mothers and fathers. It remains a humanitarian catastrophe that Physicians for Human Rights said met the criteria for torture.

There is no forgiving or forgetting the heartbreak he caused.

Trump first ran for President warning about rapists coming in from Mexico. I’m worried about keeping the rapist out of the White House.

From Linda Ronstadt

P.S. to J.D. Vance:

I raised two adopted children in Tucson as a single mom. They are both grown and living in their own houses. I live with a cat. Am I half a childless cat lady because I’m unmarried and didn’t give birth to my kids? Call me what you want, but this cat lady will be voting proudly in November for @kamalaharris and @timwalz .

American women must fight against forced to birth and strongly oppose 1864 draconian law

Echo opinion letter published in the Canton Repository newspaper, in Canton Ohio: Stand up against Donald Trump and his cohorts

How Arizona's 1864 abortion ban stayed on the books

Abortion rights demonstrators in Scottsdale on April 15, 2024
The ban was first enacted in 1864, as part of the Howell Code — the original set of laws that governed the Arizona territory.

Wake up, everybody❗ 

No more backward thinking (this ain't 1864❗). Time for thinking ahead (this is 2024). How long will we allow Donald Trump and his cohorts to think they are above the law? No one is. After everything he has done, now he's saying there will be a "bloodbath" if he's not re-elected. So what does he mean? Another "Civil War"? Or he's going to get in the tub and give us what we want? Violence is never the answer.

Whereas we should be judged by the content of our "character" and not the color of our skin, we are all created equal. America is and will always be great, sometimes greater than others, but still great. Americans, show the world are greatness, for they are truly watching. Stand up and do the right thing. "Don't hate − be great."

#Vote Blue 2024 #Vote Biden-Harris 2024 #Vote Democrat

From Percy Keller, in Massillon Ohio

Tennessee Three defy the super Republican majority in the state legislature

• On March 27, 2023, a mass school shooting occurred at The Covenant School, a Presbyterian Church in America parochial elementary school in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee, left six people, including three children dead.
• Two dead in shooting, including the DJ, at South Nashville lounge on April 23, 2023.

First Lady Dr. Jill Biden attended  memorial for the victims of the Tennessee Covenant Christian School shootings.

Echo opinion letter to the editor of Tuscon.com in Arizona:

It is bad enough that the Republican super majority of the Tennessee Legislature intended to expel members for voicing their opinion that the Legislature should do something about gun violence in the wake of the horrible, but sadly routine, Nashville shooting where . How could the Republican Legislature make that position any worse? Yet they found a way - only expelling the two young black males members while sparing the one white female member. 

Now, the three are proudly labeled "The Tennessee Three!"

(From Left) Rep. Justin Pearson, Rep. Justin Jones and Rep. Gloria Johnson "The Tennessee Three"

Ideological differences were not enough for the Republican majority. They had to stoop to overt racism. Is uppityness a word?

From Rick Jones in Downtown Tucson, AZ

Vote Democrat to save democracy: Rep. Liz Cheney and truth

https://www.axios.com/local/phoenix/2022/10/06/rep-liz-cheney-arizona-kari-lake-mark-finchem-threat-democracy

Liz Cheney says 2 Arizona GOP candidates are a threat to democracy- Reported in Axios by Jessica Boehm.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) warned during an ASU (Arizona State University) event Wednesday that the outcome of Arizona's governor and secretary of state elections will impact the future of American democracy.

The "democracy dialogue" was hosted by the McCain Institute* for International Leadership.

Why it matters:

 Ms. Cheney is a vocal critic of #TFG Trump and has pledged to campaign against candidates who promote his lies about Democrats "stealing" (#fakenews!) the 2020, election, including Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.

The big picture: Cheney's criticism of Trump has made her a household name, but it, unbelievably, her position proved unpopular with her Wyoming constituents. She, unfortunately, lost her August primary to the "Evil-Trump-backed" - the right wing hideous candidate Harriet Hageman.

Zoom in: Cheney called out Lake and secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem, saying she's never voted for a Democrat, but "absolutely would" if she lived in Arizona. Both Lake and Finchem will only honor the results of elections if they agree with them, Cheney said.

What she's saying: "If you care about our democracy and you care about the survival of our republic, then … we cannot give people power who have told us that they will not honor elections."

#VoteBlueToSaveDemocracy

* Leadership Matters. Character Matters.
At the McCain Institute for International Leadership, we are fighting to secure democracy and alliances, defend human rights, protect the vulnerable and advance character-driven leadership, both at home and around the world.

Republican's intend to destroy Social Security

Republicans continue to chant meaningless one liners about inflation and the economy, but do not offer a coherent plan in response to their own rhetoric. One life supporting policy the GOP would like to destroy is the Social Security safety net. This slash and burn idea makes no sense.

An echo opinion letter published in the Arizona Pinal Central news supports Social Security*, and describes why!

Before voters, like Arizonians, are pulled by our collective purse strings to the November 2022, election, some thoughts that might be a little more rational than a knee jerk reaction to cutting Social Security are important to understand.

Our American Social Security program came about during a grim time in U.S. history 87 years ago. It has made a helpful difference to U.S. workers in their retirement years. It is comprehensive. While it doesn't settle recipients into luxury in retirement, at least there is a little something for everybody based on each individual's earnings.

Funded by U.S. workers' contributions, the program was tapped many years later to benefit people who, through no fault of there own, suffer — such as children who are suddenly without responsible, wage-earning parents for one reason or another. That could be due to a parent's untimely death, debilitating injuries, alcohol or drug abuse, or abandonment. Truly, there is a need but those programs should never have operated on funds that were contributed by U.S. workers.

"Maybe we should privatize Social Security?" No! 

GOP emergency alert!  Do not cut Social Security! 

Instead, maybe we should cull out the odd programs that drain Social Security and privatize them. (Or, an even better idea, is to prevent the Congress from borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund's investments, just because they can!)

Restore Social Security as it was originally intended for U.S. workers and their surviving spouses. To even think about tampering with this uniquely American program that has been a help for 87 years to those who pay into it seems un-American.

From Barbara Fox, Casa Grande

*President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Bill into law on August 14, 1935, only 14 months after sending a special message to Congress on June 8, 1934, that promised a plan for social insurance as a safeguard "against the hazards and vicissitudes of life." The 32-page Act was the culmination of work begun by the Committee on Economic Security (CES), created by the President on June 29, 1934, and became, as he said at the signing ceremony, "a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete."

American obsession with guns is literally destroying us

A woman wipes tears after a shooting at the Highland Park Fourth of July parade. (Nam Y. Huh/AP)

Echo opinion letter published in Tuscon.com

https://tucson.com/opinion/letters/letter-american-carnage/article_2e53a880-fd37-11ec-b71a-e7ede84449d8.html

CNN reports: In an upper middle class Chicago suburb, seven people were shot dead, dozens more were wounded and sparked a manhunt for a gunman who fired on unsuspecting attendees from a rooftop, authorities said.  The shooting in Highland Park, about 25 miles north of Chicago, began shortly after 10 a.m., Central Time, as people enjoyed a sunny Fourth of July parade along Central Avenue.

Members of the FBI evidence response team work at the scene a day after the shooting in downtown Highland Park on July 5.
(Charles Rex)

Firearm evidence was found on the rooftop of a nearby business, police commander Chris O'Neill said. The shooter used a ladder attached to the building on a wall in an alley to access the roof, said Sgt. Chris Covelli of the Lake County Major Crime Task Force.

The gun was a "high-powered rifle" and the attack appeared to be "random" and "intentional," Covelli said.

Dear Editor: And so we add another place to the litany of locations linked to mass murder--Highland Park, Illinois.

A body is transported from the scene of the shooting on July 4th in Highland Park, Illinois. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/AP)

I grew up in a Chicago suburb much like Highland Park and raised my children in another one. 

My son and his family live in another town nearby. We enjoyed holiday celebrations much like this. We felt safe, happy, enjoying friends and neighbors.

I grieve for the generations to come that they won't be able to fully experience this freedom and joy. The American obsession with guns is destroying us--literally.

From Karen Schickedanz in Saddlebrooke, Arizona

Ginni Thomas (Mrs. Clarence Thomas) has a lot of explaining to do!

January 6th panel sends letter asking (Mrs. Clarence Thomas) Ginni Thomas to testify: The chairman of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection says the panel has asked Virginia Thomas for an interview.

Dinner-table chitchat with Ginni and Clarence Thomas

Wife of Supreme Court Justice Causes Chaos on Capitol Hill

Why does Ginni Thomas think her voice counts more than mine?

Ginni Thomas, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's wife, was texting Trump's Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, to overturn the results of the national election on January 6. 

Turns out that earlier she called AZ legislators to get them to elect a "clean slate of electors," or rather electors that would overturn the will of Arizona voters and elect Trump rather than Biden.

That's my vote she wanted to throw out!  Who does she think she is? Oh yes, Clarence Thomas' wife. Remember him? He is in the majority of the leaked Supreme Court opinion that would throw out Roe v Wade, and with it, the power of women all over the country to make choices about their own bodies. Recognize a theme? These people think they deserve to rule our lives. Stand up for voting rights and for a future Supreme Court that represents the people, Arizonans!

From Molly Hunter in Midtown, Phoenix Arizona

Vaccine arithmetic 101: Vaccines are effective and free

Cases of ivermectin poisoning.

Echo opinion letter published in Tuscon.com

After reading about the use of Ivermectin (use to treat infections caused by some parasitic worms, and head lice and skin conditions- used by #TFG cult to treat COVID), one opinion writer reflects growing up in Wyoming. 

Right Wing #TFG cult would rather pay for horse medicine! 

My Tweet:

Juliana L'Heureux@julianawriter
@FoxNews More evidence about #TFG cult are arithmetic challenged! These obsessed #AntiVaxxer people would rather pay average retail price for the useless anti-worm drug #Ivermectin taken by idiots is $107.99 but @pfizer @moderna_tx & @JNJNews is #FREEVaccine @CNN #VaccinesWork

Local ranchers used an array of veterinary medicines; antibiotics for infections, vaccines to prevent infection and anti-parasitics to deworm.

Following misinformation from (snake oil sales!) conservative commentators and podcasts, many are self treating with an “off the shelf” dewormer, now resulting in overloading ER’s and ICU’s. Ivermectin apparently is effective on cattle, horses, jackasses and “delusional” elephants . 

After discharge from treatment, at least those users should be parasite free. But the rest of us, after an exasperating four years, see the continued side effects of the worst (stupidity!) parasite to ever infect America . Please be considerate of your fellow human being as we are all on this small planet together. Educate , Vaccinate and Vote !!!

Jonathan Schultz - Northwest side Tuscon Arizona

Republicans deliberately instigate expensive election chaos

Associated Press echo report:

#RepublicansAreTheProblem

PHOENIX (AP) — Ten months after Donald Trump lost his 2020, reelection bid in Arizona, supporters hired by Arizona Senate Republicans were preparing to deliver the results of an unprecedented partisan election review that is the climax of a bizarre quest to find evidence supporting the former president’s false claim that he lost because of fraud.

Arizona 2020 election audit in Maricopa County turned out to increase the President Biden 2020, winning vote margin.

Nearly every allegation made by the review team so far has crumbled under scrutiny. Election officials in Arizona and around the country expect more of the same Friday from the review team they say is biased, incompetent and chasing absurd or disproven conspiracy theories.

“Every time Trump and his supporters have been given a forum to prove this case, they have swung and missed,” said Ben Ginsberg, a longtime Republican election attorney and vocal critic of Trump’s push to overturn the election.

The unprecedented partisan review — focused on the vote count in Arizona’s largest county, Maricopa — is led and funded largely by people who already believe that Trump was the true winner, despite dozens of lawsuits and extraordinary scrutiny that found no problems that could change the outcome. They’ve ignored the detailed vote-counting procedures in Arizona law.

Despite being widely mocked, the Arizona review has become a model that Trump supporters are eagerly pushing to replicate in other swing states where Biden won. Pennsylvania’s Democratic attorney general sued Thursday to block a GOP-issued subpoena for a wide array of election materials. In Wisconsin, a retired conservative state Supreme Court justice is leading a Republican-ordered investigation into the 2020 election, and this week threatened to subpoena election officials who don’t comply.

No matter what the reviews in Arizona and elsewhere purport to find, they cannot reverse Biden’s victory.

In Arizona, five people are scheduled to publicly outline the findings for two top Republicans in the state Senate chamber, including Doug Logan, the CEO of Cyber Ninjas, a cybersecurity consulting firm with no election experience. He served as the head of the review team despite his prior work to promote “stop the steal” election conspiracies.

Shiva Ayyadurai, who has developed a loyal following for promoting COVID-19 misinformation on social media, will discuss his review of signatures on mail ballots. It’s not clear why he is qualified to do so. Ayyadurai, who is known as Dr. Shiva to his fans, has a Ph.D. but is not a medical doctor.

Ben Cotton, a computer forensics expert, will outline his analysis of vote-counting machines. Cotton has walked back his allegation that a key elections database was deleted.

Also scheduled to speak are Ken Bennett, a former Republican secretary of state, and Randy Pullen, a former chairman of the Arizona Republican Party. Both served as liaisons between the Senate and the review team.

They’ve been tight-lipped about their findings, but Bennett told a conservative radio host this week that he will “have a brief report about where Maricopa County failed to meet and comply with state statutes and election procedures.”

A document purported to be a leaked draft of the Cyber Ninjas report circulated late Thursday. It said a hand count of ballots confirmed Biden’s victory and showed a net gain of 360 votes for him. It also outlined a series of alleged shortcomings and recommended changes to state election laws.

Republican Senate President Karen Fann said in a text message the document was “a leaked draft from three days ago,” but did not dispute its authenticity. 

In fact, Fann would not say if the findings from the draft had changed over the course of the week, citing a nondisclosure agreement. (OMG!)

“I have signed an NDA,” she said. “I will not break my word.”

The hand count’s confirmation of a Biden victory goes against Trump’s narrative that widespread election fraud cost him the election. It also undercuts claims by some of this closest allies that vote-counting machines from Dominion Voting Systems, which were used in Maricopa County, changed votes.

“Unfortunately, the report is also littered with errors & faulty conclusions about how Maricopa County conducted the 2020, General Election,” Maricopa County officials said on Twitter.

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, controlled 4-1 by Republicans, has vehemently defended the vote count. Republican Chairman Jack Sellers has called the review “a grift disguised as an audit.” GOP Supervisor Bill Gates said Thursday that the review’s reliance on funding from out-of-state Trump allies means the findings won’t be believable.

“The people who are funding this audit, the people who have called for this audit, we all know what they want it to find,” Gates said. “They want it to find that Donald Trump won Maricopa County.”

The Senate has agreed to spend $150,000 on the audit, plus security and facility costs. That pales in comparison to the nearly $5.7 million contributed as of late July by Trump allies.

Another Republican county supervisor, Clint Hickman, has been the subject of an outlandish conspiracy theory claiming a fire that killed 120,000 chickens at his family’s egg farm west of Phoenix was a ruse to destroy evidence of Trump’s victory.

Maricopa County’s vote count was conducted in front of bipartisan observers, as were legally required audits meant to ensure voting machines work properly. A partial hand count spot check found a perfect match.

Two extra post-election reviews by federally certified election experts also found no evidence that voting machines switched votes or were connected to the internet. The Board of Supervisors commissioned the extraordinary reviews in an effort to prove to Trump backers that there were no problems, but Fann and others backing her partisan review were unpersuaded.

Election experts predict the report could misinterpret normal election procedures to claim something nefarious or elevate minor mistakes into major allegations of wrongdoing.

“They’re minor procedural issues, and to try and amplify them to the point where they cast doubt on the election is nothing more than sore loserism,” said David Becker, a former lawyer in the U.S. Department of Justice voting section who founded the Center for Election Innovation and Research.

Biden won Maricopa County by 45,109 votes and Arizona by 10,457 votes. Minor procedural issues wouldn’t affect a margin that large, Becker said.

In July, Logan laid out a series of claims stemming from his misunderstanding of the election data he was analyzing, including that 74,000 mail ballots that were recorded as received but not sent. Trump repeatedly amplified the claims. But they had innocuous explanations.

Friday’s report stems from a process that began nearly a year ago. Trump and his allies, after their claims of election fraud were repeatedly dismissed in court, searched frantically for a way to block the certification of Biden’s victory on Jan. 6. Two top Republicans in the Arizona Senate came through, issuing a sweeping subpoena for all ballots in Maricopa County, the machines that counted them and a trove of election data. They said they would use the materials to conduct a “forensic audit.”

A court battle over the validity of the subpoena delayed the delivery of materials until April, three months after Biden took office. The review was supposed to take about 60 days but has been repeatedly set back, most recently because Logan and four others on his team contracted COVID-19.

The review has energized Trump supporters who hope it will prove he was the legitimate winner of the election and lead to his return to the White House, despite extraordinary scrutiny finding no fraud that would affect the election’s outcome.

Fann, the Republican Senate president, says the review is not intended to overturn the 2020 election but will find ways the Legislature can improve election laws.

Not all Republicans, even in the Senate, trust whatever results will come out of the review.

“They’re going to have to justify their existence, so they’re going to have to come up with something,” GOP Sen. Paul Boyer said Thursday. “And God knows what that is.”
___

Associated Press writer Bob Christie contributed.

Fact checking the Former Guy (TFG) to protect against conspiracy theories

You know better!

Echo editorial board opinion published in the The Topeka Capital-Journal newspaper, in Kansas.

The world is, most of the time, exactly as it appears. There are no giant secrets, no great conspiracies. Fact checking in real time prevents the toxic spread of conspiracies. 

#TFG- deluded by ego

There are good people and bad people, honest folks, and thieves and most of us try to muddle through, day to day.

Yet over the past half-decade, encouraged by an ex-president (aka #TFG), deluded by ego and will to power, everyday folks — including Kansans just like us — have begun believing nonsensical things.

Lies! Barack Obama was born in Kenya. The “Deep State” was out to destroy right-thinking Americans. Ballots in Arizona were secretly printed in China. The list goes on and on, with each claim more outrageous and easily disproved than the last.

But we were especially dismayed by an especially recent example.

Shortly after the partial collapse of an oceanfront condominium in Surfside, Fla., the rumors sprang up. They claimed that John McAfee — the antivirus software entrepreneur and international fugitive — owned a condo there.

According to these tall tales, McAfee was hiding evidence against the government at Champlain Towers South Condo. And surely that explained his death by suicide in a Spanish prison June 23, awaiting extradition to the U.S. on criminal tax evasion charges,

It didn’t matter that the rumor was untrue. As USA Today reported, a Tweet offered as evidence was doctored. The rumor felt scandalous and a little exciting, and thus spread like wildfire through Instagram, Twitter, Reddit and blogs of dubious provenance.

Folks can’t be banned from falsifying tweets and starting lies on the internet. Goodness knows, if it was possible, someone would have figured out how to do so by now. 

But seriously, what’s the point?

#TFG versus the truth! "...I have never seen a president in American history who has lied so continuously and so outrageously..." (Yahoo.news) 

If you don’t want to undermine democracy and alarm your friends and neighbors unduly (and who would want that?), please check those rumors first.

There are a number of legitimate, nonpartisan fact-checking sites you should go to first: USA Today ● FactCheck ● Truth or Fiction ● PolitiFact ● Snopes ● Washington Post.

Every one of us, the great teeming mass audience of social media, has a responsibility. Before sharing a rumor or tall tale, ask yourself: Do I know this information is accurate? 

Does it seem too incredulous to be true? Am I being gullible?

You know better.

Florida catastrophe- a tragic environmental harbinger for our time

"Republicans refusal to vote for Biden’s infrastructure and climate change plans, because ' it will cost too much', is the epitome of short sightedness."

echo opinion letter published in Tuscon.com Arizona Daily Star

Surfside condo failure!

"...the building's owners had not yet begun a mandatory safety recertification process required 40 years after it was built." (Reuters)

So it seems like the board that ran the condo that collapsed in Florida were aware of the seriousness of the buildings problems for some time, but could not get it together to decide what to do about it. There was no doubt the situation would only get worse and cost even more to fix the longer they dithered. But they waited too long.

The similarities between what happened to those people and what will happen to the whole world if we don’t get our act together, real soon, are clear and terrifying. The Republicans refusal to vote for Biden’s infrastructure and climate change plans, because “ it will cost too much” is the epitome of short sightedness. It is insanity. What do you suppose the board members of that condo ( that lived), who kept voting to delay the repairs because they didn’t want to spend the money are thinking now? What the hell are Republicans thinking? Are they all crazy?

Robert Scanlon, Midtown (Phoenix) Arizona

Votes! Seventy-four million votes for President Elect Joe Biden

President Elect Joe Biden on 6 November, 2020, beside his running mate Kamala Harris in Wilmington, Delaware addressed the president’s attempts to block votes, the coronavirus, and “partisan warfare" that he urged to come to an end.

Here is a transcript of his President Elect Joe Biden's remarks:

We don’t have a final declaration of victory yet, but the numbers tell a clear and convincing story: We are going to win this race.Just look at what has happened since yesterday.

We’re winning Arizona. We’re winning Nevada. In fact, our lead just doubled in Nevada.

We’re on track for over 300 Electoral College votes.

We’ve gotten over 74 million votes. Let me repeat that: 74 million votes. That's more than any presidential ticket has ever gotten in the history of the United States of America. And out vote total is still growing.

We’re beating Donald Trump by over 4 million votes, and that margin is still growing as well.

One of the things I’m especially proud of is how well we’ve done across America.

We are going to be the first Democrat to win Arizona in 24 years.

We are going to be the first Democrat to win Georgia in 28 years.

And we re-built the blue wall in the middle of the country that crumbled just four years ago: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin – the heartland of this nation.

I know watching these vote tallies on TV move very slowly, and as slow as it goes it can be numbing.

But never forget: the tallies aren’t just numbers – they represent votes and voters, men and women who exercised their fundamental right to have their voice heard. And what is becoming clearer each hour is that a record number of Americans – from all races, faiths, religions – chose change over more of the same.

They have given us a mandate for action on Covid, the economy, climate change, systemic racism. They made it clear they want the country to come together – not continue to pull apart.

But while we’re waiting for the final results, I want people to know we are not waiting to get to work done and start the process.

Yesterday, Senator Harris and I held meetings with groups of experts on the public health and economic crises this country is facing.

The pandemic as you know is is getting more worrisome all across the country. Daily cases are skyrocketing, and it is now believed that we could see spikes as many as 200,000 cases in a single day.

The death toll is approaching 240,000 lives lost to this virus.
That’s 240,000 empty chairs at the kitchen tables and dining tables across America.

We’ll never be able to measure all the pain, the loss, and the suffering so many families have experienced. I know how it feels to lose someone, and I want them to know they’re not alone. Our hearts break with you.

And I want everyone to know on Day One, we are going to put our plan to control this virus into action.

We can’t save any of the lives that have been lost, but we can save a lot of lives in the months ahead.

Senator Harris and I also heard yesterday about how this recovery is slowing because of the failure to get the pandemic under control.

More than 20 million people are on unemployment. Millions are worried about making rent and putting food on the table.

Our economic plan will put a focus on a path to a strong recovery.

We both know tensions can be high after a tough election, the one like we’ve had. But we need to remember, we need to remain calm, patient, and let the process work out as we count all the votes.

You know, we’re proving again what we have proved for 244 years in this country: democracy works. Your vote will be counted. I don’t care how hard people try to stop it. I will not let it happen. People will be heard. Our journey toward a more perfect union, and it keeps moving on.

In America we hold strong views, we have strong disagreements, and that’s OK.

Strong disagreements are inevitable in a democracy, and strong disagreements are healthy.

They’re a sign of vigorous debate, of deeply held views.

But we have to remember: the purpose of our politics isn’t total, unrelenting, unending warfare.

No. The purpose of our politics, the work of the nation, isn’t to fan the flames of conflict, but to solve problems, to guarantee justice, to give everybody a fair shot, to improve the lives of our people.

We may be opponents – but we are not enemies. We are Americans.

No matter who you voted for, I’m certain of one thing: The vast majority of the 150 million Americans, they want to get the vitriol out of our politics. We’re certainly not going to agree on a lot of the issues, but we can at least agree to be civil to one another.

Let’s put the anger and the demonization behind us.

It’s time for us to come together as a nation and heal.

It’s not gonna be easy, but we have to try.

My responsibility as president will be to represent the whole nation. And I want you to know that I will work as hard for those who voted against me as for those who voted for me.

That’s the job. That’s the job. It’s called a duty of care, for all Americans.

We have serious problems to deal with — Covid, the economy, racial justice, climate change,

We don’t have any more time to waste on partisan warfare.

And more than that, we have such an incredible opportunity to build the future we want for our kids and grandkids.

I’ve said it many, many times: I’ve never been more optimistic about the future of our nation. There is no reason we can’t own the 21st century. We just need to remember who we are. This is the United States of America, and there has never been anything, anything we’ve been unable to do when we’ve done it together.

I hope to be talking to you tomorrow. I want to thank you all. May God bless you all, and may God protect our troops.

Guilty Roger Stone gets off because he protected Donald Trump

Roger Stone must be forced to tell the truth!

Echo opinion published in the Arizona news Tuscon.com

Donald Trump's commutation of Roger Stone's sentence is a body blow to two core democratic values.

The first, and most immediate, is the principle of fair and impartial justice for all. It is a travesty that Stone - who was plainly guilty of serious crimes, who snubbed his nose repeatedly at the justice system, who continues to challenge his convictions - is now a free man. There is little that can be done now to reverse that injustice.

The second principle is the public's right to know, in this case about the full story of the 2016 election and the Trump campaign's complicity in Russia's attack on American institutions. Here Stone may yet be called to account, and that should be a goal shared across political boundaries.

The perversion of justice in Stone's case stinks. The commutation vividly illustrates Trump's corrupt two-tiered system: the full force of law for everyone but his cronies and supporters. The special status of Trumpers provided Stone a pass on the most basic of the norms associated with such executive branch actions: People convicted of crimes are not supposed to be eligible for commutation until they begin to serve their sentences and cease challenging their convictions, neither of which Stone has done.

In fact, Stone's commutation is arguably the most corrupt use of the president's constitutionally granted "pardon power" in history and one of the most corrupt acts of Trump's abysmal presidency. Other controversial pardons in history have provided preferential treatment to friends of the president; this one served to directly protect Boss Trump himself. Trump got Stone's silence, Stone got freedom, and the public got shafted.

The exact nature of that shafting is not trivial. As special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's report makes clear, Stone's lies and his obstruction, including witness tampering are major reasons why to this day, there are large gaps in our understanding of the Russian attack on the 2016 election and the Trump campaign's complicity in it.

Stone is the key witness on two not fully answered questions. The first is whether Trump and the campaign knew in advance about or even collaborated on the WikiLeaks dump of purloined emails from the Clinton campaign. Indeed, freshly unredacted material in the Mueller report indicates that Paul Manafort told Mueller that Stone had been tipped off and had passed that info along to Trump or the campaign. The second question is whether Trump lied in his written answers to Mueller when he claimed he couldn't remember the specifics of any conversation with Stone in the six months before the election.

On both issues, the government should not be finished with Stone. He can and should be made to testify under penalty of perjury.

If he is subpoenaed Stone could assert his 5th Amendment right not to incriminate himself. Because his sentence was commuted, as opposed to his being pardoned, his convictions stand and the book is not fully closed on the crimes. His further testimony could be used against him as regards those crimes.

But there's a fairly easy workaround, as Mueller's deputy Andrew Weissmann explained in a New York Times op-ed this week. If Stone takes the 5th, the government could grant him immunity, and his liability would disappear.

Immunity isn't something the government offers casually, but it is appropriate when the value of witness testimony is paramount - as is the case here - and there is no other way to get it. Once immunized, if Stone were to persist in refusing to answer questions, he could be jailed for civil contempt until he agreed to talk. And if he lied (again), he would be subject to brand new perjury charges.

Where should this testimony take place? I suggest Congress, either as part of regular congressional hearings or, possibly, under the aegis of a broad-based commission on Russian election interference, much like the commissions that investigated 9/11 and the Kennedy assassination. Such investigations are specifically meant to inform the American people.

It is galling that the president has managed to foil nearly every effort to impose punishment on his cronies and himself. The ledger is not yet closed, however, and a fuller reckoning may await them after Trump leaves office.

In the meantime, the American people and their lawmakers urgently need to get the fullest possible account of exactly what happened to our election infrastructure in 2016. Examining systemic failures and enemy attacks is what democracies do, not least because it is the only way to reduce the risk of similar harms going forward.

Trump seems to believe that by commuting Stone's sentence he closed the book on what Stone knows, ensuring his buddy's lifelong silence. Trump has the power to keep Stone out of prison for the felonies he has been convicted of, but keeping him silent is another matter. Commutation notwithstanding, it's likely the day will come when Stone has to sing or sink.

Writer Harry Litman is a former U.S. attorney and the host of the podcast "Talking Feds."

Visit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com