Of all the people in all the world there is probably just one person who has the very least right to ask “how did we get here?” to what he calls “the age of impeachment.” Who is that one person?

From a different corner of humanity, via Rosa Freedman:

So now the Senate Republicans are trying to figure out how they can possibly ignore what Bolton wrote.

Republican sources thought Saturday they were confident that they had the votes to defeat a motion for additional witnesses and documents, leading to an acquittal vote by the end of the week.

Pause a moment to absorb that – the fact that Senators wanted (and of course still want) to block all witnesses and documents that would show Trump’s criminal effort to weaken Ukraine and thereby the US for the sake of his own political gain. The Republican Senators wanted and still want to hide all that from us, so that Trump can continue doing things like that, and more and worse. This isn’t a parking ticket we’re talking about here.

“I can’t begin to tell you how John Bolton’s testimony would ultimately play on a final decision but it’s relevant,” Romney told reporters Monday. “And therefore, I’d like to hear it.”

He’d like to hear it, as if it were some optional extra, like grated cheese on the salad.

GOP sources expect the Senate Republican leadership to reiterate to their conference the arguments they’ve been making for weeks: That seeking Bolton testimony would raise constitutional and executive privilege concerns — and argue that going through a protracted legal fight for his testimony would accomplish very little since Trump is expected to be acquitted anyway. One GOP aide told CNN Monday morning that Bolton news doesn’t change the Republicans’ underlying point — if you aren’t going to vote to remove him, why drag the process out with witnesses?

Excuse me? Their argument is that they are going to acquit him no matter what, and that’s why there’s no need for witnesses? They’re openly saying that even now that there’s stark testimony from a key official they refuse to pay any attention to it because they are going to acquit him no matter what? So I guess Trump could invited Putin to tea and hand him the keys to everything and still the Republicans would say they’re going to acquit him no matter what. Interesting.

From the Times scoop by Maggie Haberman and Michael Schmidt:

President Trump told his national security adviser in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens, according to an unpublished manuscript by the former adviser, John R. Bolton.

The president’s statement as described by Mr. Bolton could undercut a key element of his impeachment defense: that the holdup in aid was separate from Mr. Trump’s requests that Ukraine announce investigations into his perceived enemies, including [the two Bidens].

So why hasn’t Bolton testified? The trumpies told him not to of course but they can’t stop him. He doesn’t work for them any more.

Mr. Bolton’s explosive account of the matter at the center of Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial, the third in American history, was included in drafts of a manuscript he has circulated in recent weeks to close associates. He also sent a draft to the White House for a standard review process for some current and former administration officials who write books.

Oh, I see, well that’s quite different. He has a book to sell. Of course that’s far more important than the survival of Ukraine and the survival of the US with Donald Trump still squatting in the Oval Office. Never mind then Mister Bolton, you go right ahead and put yourself first.

Over dozens of pages, Mr. Bolton described how the Ukraine affair unfolded over several months until he departed the White House in September. He described not only the president’s private disparagement of Ukraine but also new details about senior cabinet officials who have publicly tried to sidestep involvement.

New details about how courageous and public-spirited they are?

For example, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged privately that there was no basis to claims by the president’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani that the ambassador to Ukraine was corrupt and believed Mr. Giuliani may have been acting on behalf of other clients, Mr. Bolton wrote.

Yet now he’s bullying Mary Louise Kelly for asking him about it. What a tower of integrity.

Mr. Bolton also said that after the president’s July phone call with the president of Ukraine, he raised with Attorney General William P. Barr his concerns about Mr. Giuliani, who was pursuing a shadow Ukraine policy encouraged by the president, and told Mr. Barr that the president had mentioned him on the call. A spokeswoman for Mr. Barr denied that he learned of the call from Mr. Bolton; the Justice Department has said he learned about it only in mid-August.

And we know Barr would never lie about anything.

Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, said the Bolton manuscript underscores the need for him to testify, and the House impeachment managers demanded after this article was published that the Senate vote to call him. “There can be no doubt now that Mr. Bolton directly contradicts the heart of the president’s defense,” they said in a statement.

Republicans, though, were mostly silent; a spokesman for the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, declined to comment.

Nothing makes any difference; nothing ever will make any difference. They’re all criminals and they know it and they’re not going to stop.

Well that’s interesting.

So…the White House will say no, but it’s too late?

But the Republican Senators will look fixedly in the other direction so it still won’t matter.

I saw the news of the CPS “pack” via LGB Alliance, who have apparently read it (someone has a password).

EXCUSE me? How are they defining “reject”?

They say rejecting someone is a hate crime (these are prosecutors, remember) and they don’t say what they mean by “rejecting.”

The bullies’ rejection, meaning things like you can’t sit at our table, should be prevented by school staff to the extent that they are able. Just plain choosing your friends or romantic prospects is not for the school to manage, let alone prosecutors.

It’s as if Stonewall has some kind of magic power to hypnotize people.

The Crown Prosecution Service has issued a new “schools pack” on ” LGBT+ Bullying and Hate Crime.”

Before we even get to the content, I have to say I don’t understand what prosecutors are doing issuing such things in the first place. Prosecutors prosecute, they don’t teach or preach or create content for schools (or hospitals or factories or any other institution). I don’t get it. Do UK schools have whole rows of “packs” that tell children what they can’t do if they want to stay out of the slammer?

So now for the content of this bizarre CPS news item:

“Hate incidents and hate crimes can have a devastating effect on the individuals and communities who are targeted for simply being who they are. Everybody has the right to live free of persecution, but hate crime tramples upon this right.”

So said Chris Long, Chief Crown Prosecutor and CPS national lead on hate crime at the launch of a new LGBT+ Bullying and Hate Crime Schools Project pack.

He’s not wrong, but I don’t see why or how he has jurisdiction over schools. I’m not familiar with a world where prosecutors or cops provide schools with content of this kind. Schools for sure should have policies against bullying, and the staff at schools should know how to watch for it and how to prevent it and stop it. But that should be the schools’ job, not that of law enforcement.

The pack aims to protect potential victims by deterring would-be abusers and encouraging and supporting victims of identity based bullying to report incidents.

Why not just bullying tout court? It’s no more fun to be bullied for being too small or fat or nerdy or shy than it is to be bullied for “identity.”

Plus they’re not even complete about the “identity,” but they don’t admit that until later.

It has been developed by the CPS in partnership with a number of organisations, including Stonewall, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Gendered Intelligence and NASUWT.

Of course it fucking has. So it will be terrible then. Stonewall and Gendered Intelligence are shit on this subject.

In the 2018 National LGBT Survey, almost half (40%) of respondents said they had experienced things such as verbal harassment or physical violence for being LGBT+.

Nobody is “LGBT+”. That’s a grab-bag of items and no one can be all of them. If the thinking is that woolly before they even get to the content, the whole thing is going to be hopeless.

Chris Long, Chief Crown Prosecutor and CPS national lead on hate crime, said: “We know lots of hate crime isn’t reported. We hope this refreshed schools pack can help to educate young people and support victims in reporting homophobic and transphobic abuse.

“Education and working with young people is key to tackling hate crime generally. This is not about prosecution of youths, but about prevention and educating future generations on homophobic and transphobic hate crime and supporting victims in reporting hate crime.”

But, again, how is that the business of prosecutors? If it’s not about prosecution, why is the Prosecution Service meddling in it?

Now we get to the incomplete part.

A hate crime is:

“Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice, based on a person’s disability or perceived disability; race or perceived race; or religion or perceived religion; or sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation or transgender identity or perceived transgender identity.”

See what’s missing? Of course, because it always is. Sex. Sex or perceived sex. I guess there’s no such thing as hostility or prejudice based on a person’s sex any more. Misogyny? Sexism? What’s them? Never heard of them.

The CPS takes hate crime very seriously, and is determined to hold those responsible to account. Last year, the CPS secured convictions in 84% of the hate crime cases it prosecuted and, due to the severity of hate crime, the courts increased the sentences handed down in 74% of these convictions. This sends a clear message that hate crime is a scourge on Britain and will not be tolerated.

The new pack contains an updated glossary of terms and an additional scenario and exercises to help students understand the impact of homophobia and transphobia and be aware of how to report hate crime and identity-based bullying.

Teachers and schools can download the pack from this website. This is a resource for schools, so a password is required to download the pack. This can be requested by emailing LGBTHatecrimeschoolspack@cps.gov.uk.

A password is required to see what’s in this thrilling new “pack” brought to you by criminal prosecutors.

Mind how you go.

Welllllll that’s scary.

In today’s snake eats its own tail story, NPR reports on Pompeo’s abuse and lies aimed at NPR’s reporter.

Notice I simply assume Pompeo’s claims are lies. I do, yes. He has form in this area. He works for the colossal shameless brazen liar Donald Trump. He backs Trump’s lies. Kelly works for a reputable news organization, one that has its flaws (way too much fake “balance” in my view) but doesn’t just peddle lies the way Fox does. Between the two of them, it’s not Pompeo I’m going to believe.

One day after a contentious interview that was followed by an expletive-filled verbal lashing of NPR host Mary Louise Kelly, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is publicly accusing her of lying to him — “twice.”

In a statement released by the State Department on Saturday, Pompeo says Kelly first lied “in setting up our interview.”

Let’s not lose sight of how wack that is. An official State Department statement, by the Secretary of State, calls a public radio reporter a liar. That would be wack even if it were true, and since it’s not…

He does not explain how and offers no evidence. In their recorded interview from Friday, the nation’s top diplomat declined to respond when Kelly asked whether he owed an apology to Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. She was ousted from that post last year afterallies of President Trump accused her of disloyalty.

“I agreed to come on your show today,” Pompeo replied, “to talk about Iran.”

Kelly pushed back, telling Pompeo, “I confirmed with your staff last night that I would talk about Iran and Ukraine.” She later said she specifically flagged her intention to do so in writing, noting, “I never agree to take any topics off the table.”

And why should she? Why does Pompeo think he gets to stonewall us on an issue very much of public concern? He’s not hiding sensitive intel, he’s refusing to discuss Trump’s grotesque crimes against Ukraine and all of us. It’s not national security or diplomatic secrets, it’s omertà.

Pompeo asserts Kelly again lied “in agreeing to have our post-interview conversation off the record.”

Now why the hell would she do that? Why would she want to hear from Pompeo off the record? She’s not there to gossip with him, she’s there to report on him. She doesn’t want to swap secrets, she wants to know wtf he thinks he’s doing, for a news story, because we all want to know and we have a right to know.

In his statement on Saturday, Pompeo further berates Kelly. “It is shameful that this reporter chose to violate the basic rules of journalism and decency,” he writes. “This is another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President Trump and this Administration. It is no wonder that the American people distrust many in the media when they so consistently demonstrate their agenda and their absence of integrity.”

In other words “wa wa wa wa wa wa wa.”

He ends the statement with an assertion that appears to falsely imply Kelly was unable to locate Ukraine on a map.

“It is worth noting,” he concludes with no further explanation, “that Bangladesh is NOT Ukraine.”

The childish stupidity and cheapness of that simply astound me.

I’m not the only one.

Five Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — ranking member Bob Menendez of New Jersey; Cory Booker, also of New Jersey; Ed Markey of Massachusetts; Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Tim Kaine of Virginia — responded caustically on Saturday to Pompeo’s statement.

“We write to express our profound disappointment and concern regarding your irresponsible statement this morning about NPR Reporter Mary Louise Kelly and the corrosive effects of your behavior on American values and standing in the world,” the senators wrote in a letter to Pompeo. “At a time when journalists around the world are being jailed for their reporting — and as in the case of Jamal Khashoggi, killed — your insulting and contemptuous comments are beneath the office of the Secretary of State.”

Exactly. This is not what Secretaries of State are supposed to do.

Way beneath.

Originally a comment by G Felis on The caucus has become a mob.

An interesting fact about cognitive dissonance development theory: From the start (Leon Festinger in the late 50s), it was more or less just an article of faith that the unpleasantness of cognitive dissonance is a spur for people to resolve it, and so a direct cause of cognitive developments such as attitude or belief change. Eventually, someone came along and asked the obvious question: whether cognitive dissonance is actually unpleasant for everyone, or if it’s variable like most psychological phenomena. It turns out, it’s the latter. Discomfort at cognitive dissonance is not universal, it’s distributed across the population in slightly skewed bell curve, just like nearly every feature of psychology, with some people feeling very high levels of discomfort with dissonance, others feeling none at all, and most falling somewhere in the middle (with what appears to be a slight skew towards more rather than less discomfort). Many people simply experience no discomfort at all from believing A and not-A simultaneously, or even from contradicting themselves from one breath to the next. Claire’s comment recognizes the variability by noting that cognitive dissonance is agonizing “for most people,” but I want to add that Senators simply aren’t “most people.”

The connection between a lack of discomfort with cognitive dissonance and the Cluster B personality disorders is pretty obvious if you’ve ever had experience with Cluster Bs: Narcissists especially not only feel no discomfort at all with cognitive dissonance, they will deliberately inspire cognitive dissonance in others through gaslighting. And narcissism, sadly, is an all-too-common pathology among career politicians. So I don’t think Republican Senators are unable to back down due to cognitive dissonance or any sort of moral “sunk cost” of the dark road they’ve come down; they’ve all deliberately courted and encouraged the darkest impulses of their electorate for decades for their own benefit. The “southern strategy” of aligning the Republican Party with white supremacy dates back to Goldwater and Nixon campaigns in the 60s, after all. Even Republican politicians who haven’t actually drunk that Kool-Aid have been serving it up for their entire career at this point, and they clearly have no compunction whatsoever about it. Thus, their fear is almost certainly a matter of prosaic calculating self-interest, not any sort of cognitive dissonance. They know that a majority of the Republican base is highly invested in their racist authoritarian hero, and they fear the electoral consequences of not toeing the Trumpist line. With regard to everyone who ISN’T a part of the Republican voter base, they also fear the electoral consequences of covering up for a transparently corrupt and incompetent president, which is why they’re trying to make the whole impeachment trial go away as quickly and with as little fuss and attention as possible. Happily, that strategy doesn’t seem to be working very well.

Behold the disgusting blob of flesh who pretends to be a real boy.

For completeness, here is Pompeo’s nasty stupid childish “statement” in full, on official State Department letterhead.

NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly lied to me, twice. First, last month, in setting up our interview and, then again yesterday, in agreeing to have our post-interview conversation off the record. It is shameful that this reporter chose to violate the basic rules of journalism and decency. This is another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President Trump and this Administration. It is no wonder that the American people distrust many in the media when they so consistently demonstrate their agenda and their absence of integrity. 

It is worth noting that Bangladesh is NOT Ukraine. 

He actually said that. He told her she doesn’t even know where Ukraine is, she disputed his claim, he had his stooges bring them an unmarked map and she pointed to Ukraine on the map. Nobody said anything about Bangladesh.

What.a.tool.

The other day in Quebec:

A man charged with killing a Quebec City sex worker was allowed to have what the Parole Board of Canada deemed “inappropriate” sexual relations with women — despite the “serious and worrisome risk.” 

Eustachio Gallese had been allowed to meet women “only for the purpose of responding to [his] sexual needs,” since he was granted day parole in March 2019, according to parole board documents.  

What was he in prison for? Murdering a woman.

He was in prison for murdering a woman, so they gave him day parole so that he could get his “sexual needs” met…by another woman. Whom he murdered.

Heads up: there is no such thing as “sexual needs.” Wants, yes, urgent intense importunate wants yes, but needs, no. Nobody dies of wanting sex. If you frame male sexual wants as “needs” you make it seem as if women owe men sex, and that’s just to institutionalize rape.

Gallese, 51, was charged Thursday with second-degree murder in the death of 22-year-old Marylène Levesque, whose body was found by police in a hotel room in Quebec City’s Sainte-Foy neighbourhood on Wednesday evening.

Gallese’s desire for sex was not more important than Marylène Levesque’s life. That’s not even a close call.

Gallese was sentenced in 2006 to life in prison with no chance of parole for 15 years for the 2004 second-degree murder of Chantale Deschênes who, according to parole documents, he struck on the head with a hammer and stabbed several times, enraged by her decision to leave him. 

So, maybe possibly not the kind of guy who should be on day parole to get his sexual “needs” met? Granted, many violent criminals mature out of their violent tendencies, and long prison sentences are not a self-evident social good, and retribution is even less so, but all the same…if they’ve decided he’s not safe to release yet, they have no business deciding he’s safe to release for the few hours it takes to fuck and then kill a woman.

Véronique Hivon, the justice critic for the Parti Québécois, said the case shows a certain “nonchalance” in the way violent crimes against women are treated. 

Coupled with a deadly seriousness about the idea that men have sexual “needs” that require giving them access to women’s bodies.

Sandra Wesley, the director of Stella, a Montreal-based sex workers’ organization, said the case is “very concerning” because the parole board appears to have given Gallese tacit permission to hire prostitutes, knowingly putting them at risk.

“They identified that this man was a potential danger to women and wasn’t ready to have proper relationships with women but figured that he could then go see sex workers.”

Oh no, I’m sure they were thinking he could find a genuine girlfriend in the course of an afternoon.

Pompeo thinks we don’t yet understand what a pig he is, and he wants to make sure we grasp the true depth of his piggishness.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday attacked an NPR correspondent who reported that he berated and cursed at her following questioning over Ukraine, claiming “she lied to me” and describing her actions as “shameful.”

“NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly lied to me, twice. First, last month, in setting up our interview and, then again yesterday, in agreeing to have our post-interview conversation off the record,” Pompeo said in a statement. “It is shameful that this reporter chose to violate the basic rules of journalism and decency.”

Kelly says she told them what she was going to ask about, and that she never said their post-interview “conversation” was off the record. Now which of them are ya gonna believe? Does Pompeo have a history of integrity we can turn to for help in believing his claims?

listens

I’ll take that as a “no.”

Pompeo did not challenge the details of Kelly’s claims about his statements or demeanor during their conversation.

He said what he said and did what he did, but he’s outraged, outraged, that she reported both.

“This is another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President Trump and this Administration. It is no wonder that the American people distrust many in the media when they so consistently demonstrate their agenda and their absence of integrity,” Pompeo said Saturday.

Says the guy who did nothing while Trump ruined Marie Yovanovitch’s life.

Oh puhleeeeze.

NBC reports:

Senate Republicans said lead impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff insulted them during the trial on Friday night by repeating an anonymously sourced report that the White House had threatened to punish Republicans who voted against President Donald Trump.

Bull. shit. Republicans can’t be insulted any further than they already have been by their own slavish surrender to the evil lying shit befouling the Oval Office.

Schiff, who delivered closing arguments for the prosecution, was holding Republican senators rapt as he called for removing Trump from office for abusing his power and obstructing Congress. Doing anything else, he argued, would be to let the president bully Senate Republicans into ignoring his pressure on Ukraine for political help.

“CBS News reported last night that a Trump confidant said that key senators were warned, ‘Vote against the president and your head will be on a pike.’ I don’t know if that’s true,” Schiff said.

After that remark, the generally respectful mood in the Senate immediately changed.

Republicans across their side of the chamber groaned, gasped and said, “That’s not true.” One of those key moderate Republicans, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, looked directly at Schiff, shook her head and said, “Not true.”

Rachel Maddow pointed out last night that speaking is forbidden on pain of imprisonment.

But more to the point – what the hell were they groaning and gasping about? It’s not as if that doesn’t fit a pattern after all. Trump threatens people all the time, in public, while we watch in fury and shame.

“Not only have I never heard the ‘head on the pike’ line,” Collins said in a statement, “but also I know of no Republican senator who has been threatened in any way by anyone in the administration.”

And if you believe that, I have a castle on the Florida coast not at all infested with rats that I would love to sell you.

“That’s when he lost me,” Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican moderate, said about Schiff’s remark, according to her spokeswoman. She denied having been told what the network reported about the White House. Schiff’s invocation of it, she added, “was unnecessary.”

Riiiiiight. The so-called “moderates” are not at all using this as their excuse for voting with the Jim Jordans and Devin Nuneses.

Originally a comment by Claire on Fairly judging the facts.

There comes a point where those in power no longer seek to maintain or increase that power for a reason but simply for the sake of power itself. It’s a black hole, the power sucks you in and once you’ve passed that event horizon, it’s pretty much impossible to get back out. Backing out means coming to terms with what you did to get there in the first place. For most people that is unbelievably painful because cognitive dissonance is agonizing.

Related to my comments on another post, I’m fascinated by cognitive dissonance, how it works and the way it is capable of drawing ordinary people into doing extraordinarily horrifying things. Interviews with people in Germany and countries occupied by the Nazis in WWII are illuminating. The Gestapo was effective, despite being relatively small in numbers, because people believed they were everywhere. In fact, most of the arrests of people targeted by the Gestapo were instigated by denunciations by their neighbors, their friends, even their families. Much of the information was incredibly flimsy, but nobody cared because the point wasn’t really to find undesirables, although that was a useful side effect. The point was terror. The Salem Witch Trials industrialized and formalized to intimidate people into conformity.

The same thing is happening here. Whips in the US Congress don’t have the power or the ability to instigate fear that the Whips in the House of Commons in the UK have. British whips can threaten MPs with all kinds of terrifiying things, including deselection. US whips can’t do that. This gives senators and congressmen more power to act on their own conscience. In theory. In practice, a new kind of intimidation power has arisen and it has the same effect. Not a single GOP representative or senator wants the rest of the caucus to stand and point at them screaming “Witch!”. The caucus has become a mob and once you have a mob, you can no longer appeal to the reason of the individual. And if you dare defy the mob, you are out on your ass.

We all knew Pompeo is awful, but…yikes. CNBC reports:

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cursed out an NPR reporter after she pressed him to answer questions about the removal of former U.S. ambassador Marie Yovanovitch from her post in Ukraine, the outlet reported Friday.

The reporter, “All Things Considered” co-host Mary Louise Kelly, interviewed Pompeo on Friday amid President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate, which centers around the president’s dealings with Ukraine.

He refused to answer all her questions about Ukraine, saying he’d agreed only to talk about Iran.

You can hear her not letting him shout her down.

NPR reported that “immediately after the questions on Ukraine, the interview concluded. Pompeo stood, leaned in and silently glared at Kelly for a period of several seconds before leaving the room.”

He’s big. He’s a big, scowly, angry-looking man. It’s interesting to learn that he feels entitled to use that fact to try to intimidate a female reporter.

An aide to the Cabinet official asked Kelly to follow Pompeo to his living quarters at the State Department without a recording device, but did not specify that the ensuing exchange would be off the record, according to NPR.

“Inside the room, Pompeo shouted his displeasure at being questioned about Ukraine,” NPR reported. “He used repeated expletives, according to Kelly, and asked, ‘Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?’”

On a radio program for NPR that aired Friday, Kelly provided more details about her unrecorded exchange with Pompeo. 

“I was taken to the Secretary’s private living room, where he was waiting, and where he shouted at me for about the same amount of time as the interview itself had lasted,” Kelly said. 

“He used the F word in that sentence, and many others. He asked if I could find Ukraine on a map I said yes. He called out for his aides to bring him a map of the world with no writing, no countries marked,” Kelly said.

“I pointed to Ukraine,” she said. “He put the map away. He said, ‘People will hear about this,’ and then he turned and said he had things to do, and I thanked him again for his time and left.”

The Secretary of State, ladies and gentlemen.

But however good Schiff is at making the case, this is what we’re dealing with:

Malicious contemptuous lying, is what we’re dealing with. Schiff didn’t say “we can’t trust American voters to decide who should be their next president.” He said “we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won,” meaning, we can’t be assured of that because Trump and his gangsters and Putin will cheat. It’s not about the voters being stupid, it’s about Trump being a criminal. Schiff didn’t express any “disdain for opinion of the American people,” he expressed conviction that Trump will do again what he did before, which is to solicit help from Russia and various crooks to steal the election.

I watched this as it happened last night. It’s extraordinary. Dude’s got rhetorical chops.

Also, he kept saying Truth Matters.