The latest turning point in America's civil war
Nick Anderson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist.
Opinion
Everything Trump has done since returning to power was to distract from this bombshell
Let’s break that down, shall we?
Trump’s protectors spent a lot of time trying to spin the ICE murders in Minneapolis in their usual blame-the-victim ways, but the available footage of Alex Pretti’s execution by seven masked agents has been seen from every possible angle and studied as intensely as the Zapruder film. The narrative that began with Pretti supposedly attacking the cosplaying Proud Boys eventually led to Trump threatening MAGA’s beloved Second Amendment.
But don’t forget why ICE was occupying the streets of another Blue city, fomenting violence: MAGA shill Nick “Baby Teeth” Shirley was dispatched to Minneapolis to film Somalian day care centers as the newest scapegoat distraction from the Epstein files.
MAGA has long targeted Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), as demonstrated by their endless online bullying, pushing Putin-y propaganda about her family. Omar has been ferociously resistant to such tactics, even when one of them showed up at her Town Hall and sprayed her with something.
Instead of seeing a woman defending herself like a powerhouse Shero, MAGA went the Angry Black Woman route, shaming Omar for defending herself. So much easier than admitting her attacker was one of their own.
You know what would’ve happened if the situation were reversed, and someone did that to a white woman like Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC). You can imagine their false outrage, because if there’s anything MAGA loves more than ignoring truth, it’s their own hate.
There’s no winning narrative with the MAGA cult mentality. You can’t expect reasonable behavior from people who refuse to listen to reason.
In the scapegoating hierarchy, Trump usually starts with Black women or women of color, then Black men or men of color, then liberal white women, and finally, any liberal white man who speaks out.
Trump has also scapegoated entire cities, states, and countries as distractions — says the Portland resident, who also lived in Georgia for eight years and knows a thing or two about how MAGA operates so Dear Leader is never forced to take responsibility.
Ask Blue states about their FEMA funds and SNAP benefits. Also, notice how nobody has really spoken about Greenland in the past five days? In contrast, Venezuela is making a wee comeback, thanks to Nicolás Maduro potentially saying he helped Joe Biden steal the 2020 election in exchange for a pardon. Which we all know is a lie, but that didn’t stop Sundowning Paw Paw from rageposting all night on Truth Social.
He’s now demanding the arrest of Barack Obama, because he wouldn’t let him win in 2020. He also didn’t win in a landslide in 2016, but then again, his brain is rancid rice pudding riddled with rancid raisins.
While we were all still parsing what exactly is going to happen in the wake of the FBI raid on Fulton County and how it might impact the midterms, Don Lemon was arrested while covering the Grammys on Thursday night in Los Angeles for … checks notes … Doing A Journalism At A Church Protest While Black.
Three others were also arrested after being indicted by a Minnesota Grand Jury: independent journalist Georgia Fort, Black Lives Matter Minnesota leader Trahern Crews, and Jamael Lundy, an intergovernmental affairs manager married to St. Paul City Council Member Anika Bowie.
And what do they have in common, aside from having their First Amendment rights violated by the Trump regime?
Weird, huh?
A Minnesota grand jury has indicted all four on charges related to the interruption of a religious service at a church where a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official serves as a pastor.
The First Amendment applies to all of us equally. This is an egregious move by the Trump regime, to silence anyone telling the truth.
This is a nice moment to share that Trump blocked me on Twitter in August 2015 and has never unblocked me, so he’s technically been violating my First Amendment rights for over a decade. If only I could somehow monetize this already.
What a cowardly fragile thin-skinned bully.
But Friday, Jan. 30, that’s the real date to remember. Because the previous week was all meant as a pre-distraction from the bombshell release of millions of pages of files related to Jeffrey Epstein. Now they’re here, and they’re the most damning yet for Trump and his protectors.
The remaining MAGA cult is going to have a hard time disputing the new release, but you know they’re still going to try. I’d say horrific details like these should be enough to finally uncult themselves, but they also can’t ever be wrong about anything. The ostrich method of ignoring all the truths they don’t like about Trump is about to finally suffocate them.
Screenshots are forever, MAGA.
The fallout will continue, hopefully starting with Lemon et al suing the federal government, followed by something that resembles consequences for Trump and his fellow conspirators.
It’s up to us to keep pressure on our elected officials to see this through. We’ve all seen more than enough death and violence on our streets. We’ve seen children traumatized by ICE, fellow citizens murdered by government agents, and a blatant attack on too many of our Constitutional rights.
The entire Trump regime must be removed, before it can do any more damage to our fragile democracy.
- Tara Dublin is a political writer/commentator based in Portland, OR, who has been blocked by Donald Trump on Twitter since August 2015 and can occasionally be heard as a fill-in host on SiriusXM Progress. She is also the author of The Sound of Settling, a rock ‘n’ roll love story available at taradublinrocks.com
Here's the real story of the FBI raid on Fulton County, Atlanta
This is all about 2026 and 2028. Look at a map. Fulton County is the heart of “Blacklanta.” And Atlanta is the electoral heart of Georgia. And Georgia is the swingiest of swing states. If Republicans don’t cut down the Black vote in Atlanta, they lose the crucial seat now held by Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff. And in 2028, the GOP, if they don’t suppress the vote in Fulton, they lose the White House. Fulton was the fulcrum of Trump’s loss in 2020 and could spell doomsday for Republicans in 2028.
So, how exactly do you stop Fulton County Black folk (and the LGBTQ community and the hipsters who left rural Georgia because they hate their parents) from voting? The answer is: DROP-BOX.
Surveillance footage of a drop box in Atlanta, used in the film 2000 Mules as evidence of a "mule" whom filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza claimed was paid to stuff this and 26 other ballot boxes. According to D'Souza, this was "the smoking gun! O.J. Simpson ... leaving the scene of a crime!" But it doesn't show anything more than a Black man voting.
Follow me on this.
First, let me explain to my white readers a fact about African Americans: In the majority, they vote early, having suffered the cruel absurdity of six-hour lines on Election Day. (And remember, it’s a FELONY crime in Georgia to give an elderly voter standing in line, thirsty, a bottle of water). From long, sad experience, Black voters have learned to use early voting opportunities, especially mail-in ballots that can be placed in a drop-box.
For example, in the election run-off following the 2020 vote, which put two Georgia Democrats into the US Senate, over a million mail-in ballots (1,084,021) were cast, mainly in drop-boxes, mostly in Fulton/Atlanta.
Republicans took note. So, in a bill signed by GOP Governor Brian Kemp, the infamous SB202, the state declared all-out war on early voting, especially early votes placed in secure drop-boxes.
First, the state slashed the number of drop-boxes allowed in Atlanta and Savannah the two big cities with the urban Black population, by 77 percent.
Early voting days, when you can use the drop box, were cut from 60 to just seven. (!) And drop boxes — meant to serve voters who can only vote when they get off work at night — were sealed up at night in state office buildings.
The result, not reported by a single US outlet (except, God bless him, Thom Hartmann) was that the number of mail-in ballots cast dropped by 83 percent — 83 percent! — from over a million to 0.2 million (191,286) by the run-off of 2022.
Why? It goes back to what Donald Trump calls, correctly, one of the most influential documentaries of all time: 2000 Mules. The film, premiered by Trump at Mar-a-Lago, accused 2000 Black men of taking $10 from George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg and Stacey Abrams to stuff drop-boxes with tens of thousands of fraudulent ballots, especially in Fulton County. It was the perfect Sturm for the right, a stimulating concoction of racism and antisemitism.
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There wasn’t a bit of evidence, of course, but it looked convincing to MAGA-nauts. Every single drop-box in Georgia has a video camera over it to prevent fraud, and the videos are public. So, the Trump front called True the Vote, showed videos of Black men “stuffing” the drop boxes with extra ballots.
Except it wasn’t true. The “star” criminal was a Black man accused of “running from the scene of crime like OJ Simpson.” In fact, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is Republican controlled, ran all over the state to arrest each Black alleged ballot stuffer (a felony crime) — but found that every one, EVERY ONE, was a legal voter. The man accused of thievery was Mark Andrews, who is a Verizon executive who legally dropped his family’s ballots in the drop box. But, as LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter says, “He was seen guilty of a crime because he was Black.” That, literally, was the only “evidence” of the crime.
Early voting, mail-in voting and casting an early vote in a drop were the keys to Joe Biden’s victory in 2020, key to a huge surge in minority and student votes nationwide.
And massive suppression of early, mail-in and drop-box votes were key to Trump’s triumphant return. (Did anyone note that, seen from the Oval, the demolition of the East Wing only leaves the Right Wing.)
Reporter Greg Palast at Fulton County elections office drop-box in 2020. Photo by Zach D. Roberts for the Palast Investigative Fund. Used by Permission
Following the 2020 election, over 20 red states passed laws eliminating or restricting drop-boxes. And in every single case, legislators cited the bull---t “evidence” of 2000 Mules. Fact check: The state of Georgia recounted and reviewed every single Fulton County drop-box and mail in ballot and didn’t find one single forged ballot. Every vote had an identified, verified vote. Not ONE ballot.
White Democrats don’t seem to understand how important early drop-off votes mean to Black and student communities. But the Republicans understand it completely. In fact, GOP Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said that, had he not gone to court and stopped Houston from mailing out absentee ballots to all voter, “Donald Trump would have lost Texas.” Texas! (Note: Houston has the largest number of Black voters of any city in America.)
By seeking every envelope from drop-box and absentee voters, Attorney General Pam Bondi is saving her job by saving the GOP from the voters’ wrath. The game is to force a state (i.e. Republican) takeover of Fulton County voting (possible under SB202). And you can’t separate the invasion of Atlanta voting offices from the Purge’n General Blondi’s demand that Minnesota hand over its voter rolls.
The underlying purpose of Blondi’s seizure of Minnesota’s voter files is the restoration of two other racially poisonous vote suppression tricks. One is the return of the “Interstate Crosscheck” purge program and its sister, the purge of “aliens” from the rolls. Interstate Crosscheck cost nearly one million voters their registrations in 2016, key to Trump’s first election. Crosscheck was ruled illegal through a grassroots campaign led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sen. Bernie Sanders and litigation brought by PUSH, the NAACP and the ACLU based, I’m proud to say, on the evidence presented to the courts by the Palast Investigative Fund. But. now, Crosscheck is BAAAACK! Want to know about Crosscheck. Read my investigation for Rolling Stone.
And there’s the canard of allegedly MILLIONS of alien voters swimming the Rio Grande just to vote for Democrats. When Florida used the ICE lists to purge 187,000 (!) voters from the rolls, mostly Hispanics, it turns out only ONE was an illegal alien: A Republican from Austria.
But that’s a story for another day — and for our film, Vigilantes Inc. Grab some popcorn and save America.
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- Investigative reporter Greg Palast is the author of several bestsellers including The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. His latest film is Vigilantes Inc, America’s New Vote Suppression Hitmen, produced by Martin Sheen and narrated by Rosario Dawson. Sign up for more reports at https://gregpalastinvestigates.substack.com/