Be careful what you wish for in #Russia? Russian commission says @navalny requested painkiller injections in prison, after an open letter from Russian doctors asked for medical assistance for his severe back & leg pain. But Navalny's lawyers don't seem to know of the request.
@navalny Maybe I'm too cynical. But I worry about Navalny getting injections in a Russian prison. What a convenient way to harm him. Putin is a killer after all. And Navalny wouldn't be in prison if he wasn't a serious threat to Putin. Navalny should have his doctor administer injections.
@navalny I mean, Putin already had a death squad smear a chemical weapon on Navalny's underpants while the guy was traveling. Now he's a sitting duck. Why wouldn't killer Putin use Navalny's back pain as an opportunity to kill him in prison? Want more than ibuprofen? Sure thing, Alexey.šØ
š„Dominion Voting Systems Files Defamation Suit v. FOXNEWS, accused of pushing disinformation & lies for profit
"Fox took a small flame and turned it into a forest fire⦠sold a false story of election fraud in order to serve its own commercial purposes" cnn.com/2021/03/26/medā¦
āAs the dominant media company among those viewers dissatisfied with the election results, Fox gave these fictions a prominence they otherwise would never have achieved.ā
When does Dominion sue Trump? He tweeted lies about its voting machines 34 times. The 1st: 186K retweets. Altogether ~1.4 MILLION RTs. Trump lies were integral to FoxNews lies, together creating a firehose of disinformation so toxic, radicalized terrorists attacked US Capitol.
US Army reservist arrested in Jan.6 Capitol attack was a known white supremacist. Coworkers said Timothy Hale-Cusanelli of Colts Neck NJ was a Nazi sympathizer and even grew a āHitler mustacheā while working as a Navy contractor with security clearance. washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03ā¦
US Army reservist was so openly racist about killing Jewish, Black & disabled people, coworkers were afraid to report him. Arguably worse: His supervisor said he knew Hale-Cusanelli was a Nazi sympathizer & Holocaust denier but didnāt mention it b/c he wasnāt personally offended.
š³Neo-Nazi Capitol rioter & Army reservist Hale-Cusanelli told ppl
ā¾ļøHitler shouldāve finished the job
ā¾ļøBabies born w/ disabilities should be shot
ā¾ļøHeādāve killed all the Jews & eat them for breakfast lunch & dinnerāw/o seasoning b/c the salt from their tears would be flavorful
šØKremlin crackdown Saturday: Police in Moscow Raid Pro-Democracy Forum, arrest over 180 people from across #Russia, including elected officials, activists & journalists. Among them @vkaramurza, victim of 2 assassination attempts per @bellingcatvoanews.com/europe/police-ā¦
@vkaramurza@bellingcat#Russia: āI've never seen a whole conference arrested⦠Kafka would probably envy whatās happening in our country. He couldnāt possibly have had enough imagination,ā opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza said of today's raid on a pro-democracy educational forum in Moscow.
@vkaramurza@bellingcat#Russia|n authorities can't get their pretexts straight. First they said they raided the pro-#democracy Independent Deputies Forum b/c "undesirable" NGO Open Russia sponsored it.
"Novichok was precisely chosen to cause fearā¦a sinister warningā that any Kremlin critic would suffer same fate as #Navalny.
UN #HumanRights experts sent #Russia a letter last December detailing evidence of š·šŗgovt officialsā involvement in poisoning. Kremlin never responded.
āGiven the inadequate response,ā¦use of prohibited chemical weapons,ā¦pattern of attempted targeted killings,ā UN human rights experts call an international investigation into #Navalny poisoning a āmatter of urgency.ā
āCriticalā now b/c heās in prison under #Russiaās control.
I've heard a lot of gaslighting, but @RonJohnsonWI calling Trump supportersācoming from a Trump rallyā"Jovial, friendly and earnest" takes the cake.
@RonJohnsonWI GOP Senators complicit in a TERRORIST attack on the US Capitol by PARAMILITARY EXTREMISTS to keep Trump in power are today whitewashing, gaslighting, deflecting their own complicity. They have no business overseeing any investigation into a deadly insurrection they helped incite.
@RonJohnsonWI I don't know if Ron Johnson is Russian asset, but he's surely Putin's favorite Senator. His history of advancing Russian disinformation & conspiracy theories is long. Seems noticeably worse after GOP Senators' 2018 July 4th trip to Russia, after which he urged lifting sanctions.
Paramilitary Oath Keeper indicted in Jan.6 conspiracy says she was providing security to Trump rally speakersāand legislatorsāmarching to Capitol. Says she met w/ Secret Service, given VIP rally pass.
Getting closer to Roger Stone. He was fundraising for security for Jan 5-6.
š¤ÆThis is the coup Trump plotted, getting paramilitaries to storm US Capitol. Indicted Watkins said the OathKeepers wore military gear on Jan. 6 expecting to "have a role" when Trump invoked the Insurrection Act to use the military to overturn the election.cnn.com/2021/02/21/polā¦
Watkins' defense basically says she wasn't overthrowing the govt b/c Trump was POTUS & he ordered it. She thought she was doing her duty. But she was just one of Trump's "suckers & losers," manipulated by a conman to betray her country. She should be furious. He ruined her life.
Like all things Trump, the #ImpeachmentTrial hovers somewhere between high drama & high farce. The Senate just broke out in laughter b/c Trump's personal injury lawyer demanded 100 witnesses be deposed, and in his office in Philly, dammit. Senators now voting on witnesses.
First it was 4, then Lindsey Graham changed his vote.
Meanwhile, McConnell will acquit Trump w/ or w/o witnesses. He also says that Republicans can vote their conscience. Which just highlights how Banana Republican the GOP is. They have to be told to vote their conscience by their leader who has none. #ImpeachmentTrial
NEW: Trump had NO intention of calling the rioters off. Kevin McCarthy pleaded w/ him on a call on Jan 6. But Trump didn't care. He wanted it to happen. He knew the danger. And facilitated it by doing nothing.
.@JakeTapper: So during the insurrection, GOP leader calls Trump to call off the mob. And Trump says, "well, Kevin, I guess they care more about the election than you do." As terrorists attack the Capitol & kill people.
@jaketapper Here's the story: New details about Trump-McCarthy shouting match show Trump refused to call off the rioters. A furious McCarthy told Trump rioters were breaking into his office through the windows, and said, "Who the f--k do you think you are talking to?" cnn.com/2021/02/12/polā¦
Trump's legal case today will be short. Expect an onslaught of diversionary #whataboutism & false equivalenceāthe propaganda content from Foxnews & RW media maligning BLM racial justice protests w/ cherrypicked images of Black people yelling & buildings burning. #ImpeachmentTrial
Bigly gaslighting & whataboutism hits every agitprop point: Witch hunt, completely divorced from facts. No serious person could believe Trump incited insurrection. Nothing in the text could ever be construed⦠Russia didn't hack the election⦠Cancel culture! š#ImpeachmentTrial
Schoen says Dems rely on rumorsāEven on reporter @AndrewFeinberg who once worked for Sputnik! Then plays disinformation montage of people saying "reportedly". Says, Doubt the evidence b/c Ds manipulated video & tweets. But admits a tweet's wrong date was fixed. #ImpeachmentTrial
DeGette: The crowd chanted the same words as Trumpāat the rally and again during the Capitol siege: "Fight like Hell, Fight for Trump. Stop the Steal." They responded to his calls and followed his instructions. They said he invited them, he told them to do it. #ImpeachmentTrial
Raskin: Michigan Capitol siege was a dress rehearsal for storming US Capitol. Trump praised it, sided w/ the extremists against Gov Whitmer. Even after violent extremists were arrested for assassination plot, Trump vilified HERānot the violent insurrectionists. #ImpeachmentTrial
If you're not shaking, you're not paying attention. Trump's sociopathy is fully exposed. He unleashed violent extremists & radicalized Americans to turn against each other so he can stay in power. He happily incites violence, even civil war. A Putin goal BTW. #ImpeachmentTrial
Raskin: Trump praised, encouraged & cultivated violence. He became the Inciter-in-Chief. The Jan 6 mob organized openly. They were sent here by the President. They were invited here by him. When they showed up, he whipped them into a frenzy to "fight like hell." #ImpeachmentTrial
.@RepJoeNeguse: This wasn't just a speech. It didn't just happen. Trump's words were carefully chosen. They had specific meaning to that crowd. He repeated the same wordsāthe drumbeatāfor wks: Election was stolen āStop the StealāFight Like Hell to Stop the Steal #ImpeachmentTrial
Rep Neguse: Trump's speech was part of a carefully crafted plan. The crowd understood his words b/c they had heard them beforeāfor months. His rally speech ended w/ a final call to arms, to the mob he assembled & incited to violently stop the transfer of power. #ImpeachmentTrial
āIf thatās not an impeachable offense, there is no such thing.āāLead #Impeachment Manager @RepRaskin says, after showing the #ImpeachmentTrial Exhibit-1āa harrowing montage of video from Jan 6, from Trump speaking at StopTheSteal rally to the pro-Trump mob attacking the Capitol.
@RepRaskin "Presidents cannot inflame insurrection in their final days and then walk away."ā#Impeachment Manager @RepJoeNeguse, after presenting the constitutional arguments based on plain text, precedent & conlaw scholarship that Senate has jurisdiction & must try Trump. #ImpeachmentTrial
@RepRaskin@RepJoeNeguse .@davidcicilline: After a betrayal like this, there can be no unity w/o accountability. Trump incited a violent mob to attack the Capitol to overturn an election he lost. People died. This was a national tragedy. A disaster for our standing in the world. #ImpeachmentTrial
KGB operatives told Trump he should enter politics. āIt was a charm offensiveā¦he was extremely vulnerable intellectually, and psychologicallyā¦prone to flattery." Russians pretended to be impressed w/ Trump. Told him he should be POTUS one day; that he could change the worldš
KGB flattered Trump while feeding him talking points on a 1987 trip to Russia. Soon after returning to US, Trump began exploring a run for GOP nomination, held a campaign rally in NH & bought full-page ad in NYT, WaPo & Boston Globeāexpressing skepticism about US paying for NATO.
šStanley: Fascism is a way of seizing power that uses a particular style of propaganda. If we only think of fascism as a type of govt or an ideology, we may recognize it too lateāAFTER itās transformed our political system. The goal is to stop fascism BEFORE it becomes a regime.
"You can have a regime that's a democracyā¦but if you have massive racial injustice & massive inequality, then youāre going to have fascist social & political forcesā¦to deal w/ potential uprisings from its impoverished minority neighborhoods that protect its fancy neighborhoods"
Prof Jason Stanley: Fascism is usually a cult of the leader who promises national restoration in the face of supposed humiliation by immigrants, minorities & leftists.⦠So we need to think about fascist tactics & all the background conditions that make these tactics effective.
Since itās #HolocaustRemembranceDay , letās connect the dots between far-right domestic terrorism & QAnon. Marjorie Taylor Greene isnāt just a conspiracy theorist nutjob. Sheās pushing modern-day Nazism, rebranded for US racists, using tropes & language of anti-Semitic propaganda
QAnon conspiracy theory builds on centuries-old anti-Semitic tropes & lies. Its main tenetāa global cabalāis familiar from Nazi fascism. QAnon members openly blame JewsāRothschilds & perversely George Sorosāhimself a Holocaust survivorāfor their grievances.insider.com/qanon-conspiraā¦
QAnon Is a Nazi Cult, Rebranded. Genocide scholar says Q conspiracy theory is early warning sign of genocidal violence, citing parallels to Protocols of Zion, notorious Blood Libel conspiracy theory created by Russian propagandists & taught in Nazi schools.justsecurity.org/72339/qanon-isā¦
Coup plot twist: A witness told the FBI a woman took Speaker Pelosiās computer device during the Capitol siege intending to sell it to āa friend in Russiaāāwho planned to sell it to the SVR foreign intelligence agency. The witness said the transfer fell thru for unknown reasons.
Hmm. This tweet about Riley WILLIAMS "in jail" has been deleted. Apparently only an arrest warrant has been issued, charging Williams with violent entry or disorderly conduct, and entering the restricted space of the Capitol (Per CNN). But Williams has NOT been arrested. Yet.
Proud Boys heard Trump loud & clear: "The messages show the group repeatedly invoking President Trumpās rhetoric in the weeks leading to the Jan. 6 protest"āWSJ, after review of 1000s of posts on Parler, Telegram & Gab where the extremists rallied ppl to come to DC. #CapitolSiege
"On Parler, where the groupās official account had more than 340,000 followers before the platform went offline last week, Mr. Tarrio saidā¦Proud Boys would be able to put a thousand āBOOTS ON THE GROUNDā and "ā¦in record numbers on Jan. 6.ā
Flyer: POTUS WANTS YOU IN DC ON 1/06
After Trump tweet to "be there, will be wild" about Jan. 6 rally, the Proud Boys Long Island chapter posted that Trump supporters have been āWAITING FOR THE GREEN LIGHT FROM THE PRESIDENT.ā
āEveryone who said āMr. President, just say when?ā He just did."
Heās back in #Russia. Alexey @Navalny exits airplane & takes shuttle to Sheremetyevo Airport, diverted from Vnukovo, where supporters and journalists were arrested awaiting his return from Berlin, Germany, where he recovered from assassination attempt.
@navalny@navalnylive Alexey @Navalny: "I am going home like normal. This is normal. I feel normal. I am not afraid because I know that I am right. I know that any criminal charges against me are fabricated." #Russia
Here's the WaPo piece Russian media cited: One of those arrested in the Capitol siege riot needed a Russian language interpreter in court to explain "unlawful entry" washingtonpost.com/local/legal-isā¦
More on the 2 Russian women from Oregonāmother and daughterāwho were among those arrested in the Capitol siege riot. The mom spoke Russian during her arraignment in court & needed an interpreter. Her daughter is vice chair of Young Republicans in Oregon.
š„Lordyā tapes! On recorded call Trump suborned election fraud! He literally begged Georgia Secy of State Raffensperger to ārecalculateā election votes to give him a fraudulent win >> āI just want to find 11,780 votesā washingtonpost.com/politics/trumpā¦
š„Caught in the act >> Rambling & desperate, Trump begged to rig the election in Georgia:
āā¦thereās nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that youāve recalculated.ā
āSo look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votesā
š§Who else did this criminal beg??
š³Trump even threatened Georgia Secy of State to āfind votesāāaccusing him & his lawyer of letting ācriminalā acts take place in election: āIām notifying you that youāre letting it happenā
This is criminal. And all recorded on audio! What states besides Georgia did he threaten??