(🔐) ICYMI: The new PROOF report on Sen. Chuck Grassley has gone viral.

It contains info on Grassley’s role in the events of Insurrection Eve that most Americans haven’t seen.

“The Coming Collapse of Trump’s January 6 Conspiracy, Part 4: Chuck Grassley”: sethabramson.substack.com/p/new-the-comi… (PS) Right now I’m working on a shocking follow-up to this article. By “shocking” I mean that it’s literally full of things that I didn’t previously know and am shocked by. Its focus will be not just on Grassley and—critically—his staff, but also on Clarence Thomas’s wife Ginni.

(🔐) NEW: PROOF readers have been asking for this report for a long time—and rightly so.

On January 6, 2021, Sen. Grassley was third in line to the presidency—and is a more important witness than Kevin McCarthy.

I hope you’ll subscribe, read and RETWEET. sethabramson.substack.com/p/new-the-comi… 1/ Americans already know the information House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy would testify to before the House January 6 Committee (though to be clear, PROOF still believes he must be subpoenaed and deposed).

We know what he’ll say because he’s said it publicly at least twice.

Rep. Kinzinger (@AdamKinzinger), note too that in the video Cruz shows it's domestic terrorist Tim Gionet—who was subsequently arrested for storming the Capitol, and from his own livestream always intended to do so—who starts the "Fed!" chant Cruz now deems inculpatory of *Epps*.

https://twitter.com/AdamKinzinger/status/1482390146150449157

PS/ And @AdamKinzinger, PROOF published more sections from the Gionet-Epps exchange that explain *why* Gionet began a "Fed!" chant. Epps had already mentioned storming the Capitol to Gionet on camera—before which Gionet tried to stop him *because he didn't want the words filmed*.

If you follow the far right closely, you’ve noticed that with greater and greater frequency it is employing a particular disinformation technique on a key topic: it repeatedly—and falsely—says “the left” wants “civil war” as a means of moving the Overton Window in that direction.

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1482079060247334917

(PS) Needless to say, these far-right media personalities would retreat to their bunkers or take a long vacation overseas if there were ever to be widespread civil unrest in America. They’re stoking violent fervor on the right because it gets them attention and makes them money.

I wrote a book on the first Russian invasion of Ukraine (Proof of Corruption, 2020), then took to Twitter to say that the evidence we see now—and all we know about Putin—suggests he’ll invade again. For some reason, folks got angry. Well, see what happens. cnn.com/2022/01/14/pol… (PS) Putin’s scheme in Ukraine is *so transparently obvious* that not only is it apocalyptically condescending that he’s going through certain motions to pretend he won’t invade, but it’s almost *as* condescending that the federal government keeps telling us this can be avoided.

(🔐) PROOF: "The Story Behind the 'Ray Epps' Conspiracy Theory Now Burning Through Congress and Far-Right Social Media"

This is both absolutely unbelievable *and* absolutely believable. The depths insurrectionists sink to to cover their trail are amazing. sethabramson.substack.com/p/the-story-be… 1/ The key point here is that Ray Epps was *chosen*—he was selected to be the target of this conspiracy theory, and *not* for the reasons the insurrectionists say. (This is why the conspiracy theory makes no sense; it started with a need to "get" Epps, not any coherent evidence.)

One day America will wake up and realize that if Donald Trump’s political plants inside the Secret Service get VP Pence into that car in the Capitol garage on January 6, 2021, events—and American democracy—turn out very differently.

That’s how close we came to losing everything. The January 6 scandal inside the Secret Service that PROOF has reported on repeatedly should be a major topic of conversation in America. I’ve detailed a concerted effort by Trump to infiltrate the Secret Service in a way he aimed to exploit on January 6. sethabramson.substack.com/p/a-january-6-…

(1 of 3) I get in trouble if I say that there’s way too much Marvel right now. Also:

MCU—PHASE FOUR

{movies}

1️⃣ Black Widow
2️⃣ Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
3️⃣ Eternals
4️⃣ Spider-Man: No Way Home
5️⃣ Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
6️⃣ Thor: Love and Thunder (2 of 3)

MCU—PHASE FOUR (CONT.)

7️⃣ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
8️⃣ The Marvels
9️⃣ Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3
1️⃣0️⃣ Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
1️⃣1️⃣ Fantastic Four*

*Reboot.

{television}

1️⃣2️⃣ WandaVision
1️⃣3️⃣ The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
1️⃣4️⃣ Loki (Season 1)

(🔐) NEW: The Coming Collapse of Trump’s January 6 Conspiracy, Part 3: Corey Lewandowski

You don't want to miss this—it's a wild ride that ends with maybe the most useful witness the House January 6 Committee could subpoena now. I hope you'll read and RT. sethabramson.substack.com/p/new-the-comi… 1/ I think this is about a 30-minute read or so. It's one of those slow boilers that simultaneously has individual sentences within it—including early on—that are absolutely critical and shocking but also easy to miss. This happens when one is curating *many* major-media sources.

(TRUMP INTERNATIONAL HOTEL WAR ROOM THREAD) The most widely read report in PROOF history relates to what may have been the most influential war room Trump had on Insurrection Eve—and it was at Trump International, not the Willard. I hope you'll read/share. sethabramson.substack.com/p/january-5-me… (🔓) PROOF UNLOCKED: "More Revelations About Secretive January 5 War Council at Trump International Hotel"

I hope you'll share this thread widely—the harrowing story of Trump's TIH war room remains largely unreported almost a year after I wrote about it. sethabramson.substack.com/p/more-revelat…

I’m starting to think 1/6 is more emotional for me than I realized. At the time, it prompted me to make a number of big life decisions—the most public of which was starting PROOF and dedicating myself to chronicling the insurrection when I thought I’d stop my writing on politics. That day was a turning point for so many of us. We had felt such joy at the election of a man who promised to bring some dignity and integrity back to our government, and it felt like before we could even settle in it was *scratched* out of our hands by Trump—an actual monster.

You misread me, my intentions, how I see myself, and what I was trying to achieve.

My aim was to help and not hurt.

You should feel good about having ended this attempt by a journalist to draw attention to #nesdev.

I’ve removed the article and will end the project immediately.

https://twitter.com/SoleGoose/status/1479151351422722055

(PS) The methodology article preceding the rankings—which everyone skipped—made clear that I'm not perfect and that mistakes would be made and that I would try to continually improve the work. I made countless edits in response to suggestions.

All of that good faith was ignored.

(🔐) NEW at PROOF: The Coming Collapse of Donald Trump’s January 6 Conspiracy, Part 2: Roger Stone

This exposé on the dirtiest man in U.S. politics reveals more signs that the January 6 conspiracy is collapsing. I hope you will subscribe, read, and share. sethabramson.substack.com/p/new-the-comi… 1/ We can all be forgiven for not following the life and times of Roger Stone closely. It's a bizarre, exhausting, thoroughly despicable spectacle that makes one feel dirty just in being exposed to it. But we can't ignore what Stone's been up to over the last 90 days. It matters.

I love Jon Stewart; I love the Harry Potter films; I don't think Rowling is anti-Semitic, or that the Harry Potter movies are anti-Semitic; and I know—as Stewart and every Jew in America knows—that the appearance of these goblin bankers is *1000%* drawn from an anti-Semitic trope (PS) Believe me, when we Jews get together in our secret enclaves (/s) there is no fuzz on this question whatsoever

(THREAD) AG Merrick Garland said all correct things today—as we knew he would. The question was whether he'd go beyond being correct and be *illuminating*. As an attorney and former criminal investigator, here's my assessment of how he did on that score. I hope you'll read/share. 1/ First, it's important to understand that—separate from criticisms DOJ has received from lay members of the public—the criticism Garland has received from attorneys and legal analysts like me *isn't* that he hasn't charged any high-level coup plotters yet. That's not the issue.

Now that everyone is talking about Peter Navarro, how about we discuss the fact that he was in the war room at *Trump International* on January 5—as confirmed by multiple men who were there—and thereafter lied to the AP about it

Why did he lie

What happened in that room at THI Did I mention that the room (in fact a town house) Peter Navarro was in on Insurrection Eve is Donald Trump’s personal residence in DC, and that that’s where the war room at THI was held? Did I mention that PROOF published a list of *everyone in that war room* almost a year ago?

This is the first time I've seen my Con Law professor since the early 2000s—whoa!

We did not see eye to eye, especially on the rights of people with disabilities, but he was a good prof overall. (A "B" from him and "A+" from Dershowitz—which I'm still processing 20 years later.)

https://twitter.com/amanpour/status/1468693927360352259

(PS) I've gotta say, it sounds like Prof. Fried has come around to my way of thinking rather than the other way around. Good for him—I'm learning as I get older that it gets harder and harder to change in certain ways, even as it gets easier and easier in others. Hard to explain.

(🔓) RETRO UNLOCKED: Here it is—free to the public and open to comment from anyone. This research on the thriving NES homebrew scene (tag: #nesdev) took months, scores of hours, and (I'll add) much more money than I expected. I hope you'll share it widely! retrostack.substack.com/p/the-retro-to… 1/ As a cultural theorist as well as someone who teaches video games at the university level and has been a video game journalist for many years, I find the ever-evolving "homebrew" scene—which started in the 2000s but has blown up over the last few years—endlessly enthralling.

(RETRO) The RETRO Top 100 NES Homebrew Games ranking is coming Tuesday. Tell your friends!

This'll be a good chance for folks who didn't realize it to discover that the Nintendo of their youth is back—and in a surprising number of cases, better than ever. retrostack.substack.com (PS) RETRO has play-tested, assessed and curated so many NES homebrew games that tomorrow's debut Top 100 will include *fifty* honorable mentions. So the total number of gamers and game development studios that I think will take an interest in tomorrow's reveal is...considerable.

(NOTE) Unbeknownst to me, Twitter turned off my feed's tip button when I signed up for Twitter Blue (which I did to catch typos pretweet). The button should be live now, so if you enjoyed this feed in 2021 and want to use Venmo to tip whatever you think it was worth, now you can! (PS) I think the button may only be visible if you're viewing this feed on your phone, but someone will have to tell me if that's right—this tip feature is super squirrelly. In any case, obviously there is no pressure to tip! I just know that some folks do at the end of the year.

There are myriad lenses through which we can assess the quality and achievement and influence of a musical act and under absolutely none of them are The Beach Boys better than the Beatles

I say this as a Beach Boys fan

https://twitter.com/emilybrooksnews/status/1476714669293375490

The historically bankrupt view that the Beach Boys are better than the Beatles is in many (if not all) instances just anachronistic culture-war wishcasting by far-right Americans whose taste in and understanding of music is on par with their taste in and understanding of politics