From Alien to Triangle of Sadness, the power of the gross-out scene

Feel sympathy for the members of the January 6 House Select Committee.

They were handed a task simultaneously easy and arduous: demonstrating to the American public that a president—fully supported by one of the nation’s two main political parties—plotted to overturn election results to remain in office, incited violence to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, and on the day of the riot willfully and malevolently abandoned his duties as a defender of the Constitution.

This is akin to arguing the case that the sky is blue. It’s a simple proposition—unless you are addressing people who refuse to believe reality. The committee’s investigation has confirmed and expanded the ugly story of January 6, reinforcing its importance for Americans who already feared the Trumpian war on democracy, and perhaps encouraging those who haven’t paid close attention to the consequences and implications of that day to do so.  Persuading Trumpland was never in the cards. The sky there is not blue.

The committee’s hearing on Thursday—which is assumed to be its last before the midterm elections, and perhaps its final public session (especially if the Republicans win back the House)—was a retelling of Trump’s attempts to steal the 2020 election, with a few new and startling pieces of evidence sprinkled in.

A key element of demagoguery and authoritarianism is to deny truth, and Trump has illustrated the power of relentless disinformation.

The sordid basic details are well established: Trump prepared to declare victory and claim the election was rigged even before Election Day. Afterward, he hurled a multitude of false allegations and promoted unsubstantiated and loony conspiracy theories. He initiated multiple (and perhaps illegal) schemes to overturn the results, pressuring state leaders, Department of Justice officials and, ultimately, his own vice president, to join the various plots. He encouraged his irrationally irate supporters to flock to Washington on January 6 and then, though he’d been told that many in the crowd were armed with weapons and tactical equipment, urged them to march on the Capitol. As the insurrectionist riot spread, he inflamed the marauders with a tweet attacking VP Mike Pence, watched the violence unfold on Fox News, and for hours did nothing to call off his cherished mob.

The congressional committee investigating January 6 on Thursday revealed new evidence that Donald Trump had a preexisting plan to falsely declare victory on election night in 2020—part of a plot to use made-up voting fraud claims in an attempt to retain power.

For the second time, the committee played leaked audio first reported by Mother Jones in which Trump adviser Steve Bannon, during an October 31, 2020, meeting, said that Trump had a “strategy” to prematurely assert he had won on Election Day. Explaining the so-called “red mirage,” in which Trump would show early leads in key states before mail-in ballots favoring Joe Biden were counted, Bannon said: “Trump’s going to take advantage of it. That’s our strategy. He’s gonna declare himself a winner.”

“He’s gonna declare victory,” Bannon said. “But that doesn’t mean he’s a winner. He’s just gonna say he’s a winner.”

On November 1, 2020, before Election Day, Axios first reported Trump’s plan. But Trump denied it at the time. And he and his supporters have since claimed that he was not lying when he announced—just hours after the polls had closed—that he had won. He legitimately believed election fraud cost him victory, they claim.

The committee, however, presented new evidence Thursday that Trump actually knew he had lost—he admitted it to aides—and that his victory declaration was part of plan to rally his supporters to help him stay in office anyway.

New York Attorney General Letitia James asked a judge on Thursday to appoint an independent financial monitor to oversee Donald Trump’s finances until her $250 million civil fraud lawsuit against him is resolved. James cited what she said was ongoing evidence of continuing fraud on the part of Trump and his company, including the creation of an entirely new corporate entity named “Trump Organization II LLC” on September 21, the same day James originally filed her suit. The new company could be part of an attempt to hide assets, James said.

James’ lawsuit accuses Trump, his adult children, and his companies of fraudulently manipulating statements detailing the former president’s net worth to get better deals from banks and insurance companies. 

“Since we filed this sweeping lawsuit last month, Donald Trump and the Trump Organization have continued those same fraudulent practices and taken measures to evade responsibility,” James said in a statement Thursday. “Today, we are seeking an immediate stop to these actions because Mr. Trump should not get to play by different rules.”

Besides asking for $250 million to make up for the financial benefits James says the Trumps improperly received thanks to fraud, James is also asking that the Trumps and Trump’s companies lose their business licenses to operate in New York and be banned from commercial real estate transactions for five years. Obviously, the newly created company was not a target of James’ suit and, for now at least, is not included on the list of companies that could be punished if her suit is successful. James’ filing on Thursday asks a judge to order the Trumps not to transfer their assets in an effort to escape her jurisdiction. James also wants the judge to require that any efforts by the Trumps to move assets be approved in advance by the court. Finally, James is requesting the appointment of an independent overseer to monitor Trump’s finances to make sure he’s complying with all of the rules. 

Trump’s attorney in the case, Alina Habba, did not return a request for comment. However, in an email from Habba to James’ office that James included with her filing on Thursday, Habba wrote that her clients have no problem agreeing not to remove assets from James’ jurisdiction.

 

vladimir nabokov said:

i confess i do not believe in time
in BEING AND TIME, poor heidegger
didn’t finish the time part in time
to publish it with the being part
so everything-now must be not-being
there is a pine needle stuck in the screen
the side nearest me must be the being side
the one further away’s the time side
nabokov only said the first line
even when you have nothing to do
there’s not enough time in the day

there are 5 stinkbugs on the back porch—the stinkbugs don’t make you feel good or likable. but the one beautiful tree we have that i can see is still fulsome. in years past it’s always been the best & most long-lasting foliage tree & now, even in this year of all the leaves blown down & drabness, as i see it, it’s a glorious tree between the locusts, acting as if there’s not a stinkbug around.

When Sen. Raphael Warnock addressed several dozen supporters at Atlanta’s East Point Avenue United Methodist Church on Wednesday night, what he didn’t say spoke more loudly than what he did.

Warnock’s speech at this outreach event for Latino voters was full of religious and pro-immigration sentiments. “I am a Senator for all Georgia—no matter what country you’re from, and no matter what language you speak,” the reverend said. “The Bible tells us to welcome the stranger.” But it was also surprisingly hospitable to Warnock’s scandal-plagued opponent. That’s because Warnock did not criticize or even mention Herschel Walker once. During his comments, simultaneously interpreted into Spanish, Warnock didn’t bring up that Walker has been accused of holding a gun to his ex-wife’s head. He didn’t mention that Walker has criticized absentee fathers, while also having been accused of being one. Nor did Warnock mention the most recent allegation: that Walker, who supports total abortion bans without exception, has been credibly accused of urging a woman to get an abortion, and paying for the procedure. 

Perhaps Warnock has decided that the allegations against the famed 1982 Heisman Trophy Winner are garnering plenty of attention on their own, or that the mud-slinging that has become customary among such high-profile elections is unbecoming of a man who first rose to political prominence as the senior pastor at Atlanta’s Ebeneezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King, Jr. once presided.

Asked why he hasn’t commented on the abortion allegations against Walker, outside of once calling them “disturbing,” Warnock told Mother Jones: “I’m focused on the job that the people of Georgia have hired me to do. And I think at the end of the day, the contrast—the deep differences between me and him—will be exceedingly clear.” 

But the stakes of his nice-guy gamble couldn’t be higher. National polls averaged by FiveThirtyEight show just a 4-point lead for Warnock in an election that very well may be a factor—or even the final determinant—in whether Democrats retain their narrow control of the Senate. Georgia’s elections decided Senate control in 2020, when Sen. Jon Ossoff and Warnock both won their races in run-offs. Out of 50 states, just Georgia and Louisiana require run-offs when no candidate receives a majority of ballots cast in general elections. Elsewhere, candidates win when they have a plurality of votes. (If Georgia’s election concludes with neither Warnock or Walker winning more than 50 percent of the vote tally because the Libertarian candidate claims even a small percentage of the votes, a second election will take place about a month later.)

Why the Victorian language of floriography is now back as a way to communicate

Andy was in Warsaw on Tuesday to witness Shakhtar Donetsk – a team playing thousands of miles from their home and made up of mainly Ukrainian players – draw with the European champions, Real Madrid. He tells Dotun and David Cartlidge about what it was like to be there and how the players are feeling as Russia’s invasion continues.

Elsewhere, Club Brugge make it to the Champions League knockouts for the first time ever having still not conceded – what are they doing so well? Antoine Griezmann finally signs for Atlético, João Félix picks a fight with Diego Simeone, and… Kylian Mbappé again, is it? We discuss his mismanagement of the simmering tensions at PSG.

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How 140 blocks of wood summon up a forgotten history