More Reasons For PA State Senator Doug Mastriano To Be Getting Nervous

OK, Y'know I could be writing this morning about how Wendy Bell got angry for being called "Comrade Wendy" this weekend:

Today befor her @newsmax re-run, Wendy Bell@takes to @Twitch to let her sheep know her fee fees are hurt because people are calling her Comrade Wendy for spreading Russian talking points.

PLEASE DO NOT CALL WENDY BELL COMRADE WENDY! pic.twitter.com/BeS3lFmRcR

— Comrade Wendy Fan Club (@JonInPGH) February 27, 2022

I was hoping she'd be upset at being outed for passing Russian misinformation but kudos to Jon for getting under the Angel of Death's skin like that.

No. I'd rather write about this from the Washington Post:

At roughly 8:15 a.m. on Jan. 6, 2021, a few hours before President Donald Trump and his allies whipped up thousands of supporters with false claims of election fraud, law enforcement was summoned to the rally grounds to deal with a “possible disorderly.”

The incident threatening to disrupt the event at the Ellipse wasn’t happening in the crowd. It was happening backstage.

A simmering feud between rally organizers, including longtime Trump adviser Katrina Pierson and Republican fundraiser Caroline Wren, over who should speak that day was boiling over, culminating in a call to the U.S. Park Police, according to interviews with people familiar with the incident as well as text messages and police radio recordings reviewed by The Washington Post.

Now you might be asking where I'm going with this.

Patience is a virgin, as Archie Bunker once said.

Your clue, grasshopper, is found here:

The call to police was made by Kylie Jane Kremer, executive director at Women for America First, a pro-Trump group that held the permit for the rally, who was aligned with Pierson in trying to keep some of Wren’s proposed speakers from addressing the crowd. Kremer confirmed in a statement to The Post that she called the Park Police.

Wren, who was listed on the permit for the rally as a “VIP ADVISOR,” had with others organized an initial spreadsheet of potential speakers that included far-right conspiracy theorists such as Alex Jones and Ali Alexander, planning documents obtained by The Post show. The final list of Jan. 6 speakers was personally approved by Trump and did not include Jones and Alexander, according to those documents and people involved in the planning, who like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity.

There it is - Women for America First.

Can you guess who was on their VIP list?

From The Uprising:

The Uprising has obtained internal documents from the planning of the January 6 “March To Save America” rally at the White House Ellipse that immediately preceded the attack on the U.S. Capitol building. 

These documents, which you can read below, include a four page list of 109 “important guests” from at least 18 states. The guests were invited to the rally by the pro-Trump organization Women For America First, which “largely organized” the event.

As I wrote last October, Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano was on that list. 

As pointed out by The Post, there were a number of competing groups vying for control of the rally.

Propublica wrote:

On one side stood Women for America First, led by Amy Kremer, a Republican operative who helped found the tea party movement. The group initially wanted to hold a kind of extended oral argument, with multiple speakers making their case for how the election had been stolen.

On the other was Stop the Steal, a new, more radical group that had recruited avowed racists to swell its ranks and wanted the President to share the podium with Alex Jones, the radio host banned from the world’s major social media platforms for hate speech, misinformation and glorifying violence. Stop the Steal organizers say their plan was to march on the Capitol and demand that lawmakers give Trump a second term.

And guess (just guess) who was on Stop The Steal's Wild Protest VIP list?

That would also be Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano - as I wrote about in January 2021.

So Doug. You seemed to be attached to both groups.

I haven't seen you comment on this publicly - why?

How entwined are you in the events leading up to the January riot?

Are you getting worried that the January 6 Committee is going to want to talk to you about it?

Last Night, On Saturday Night Live

The piece is "Молитва за Україну" ("Prayer for Ukraine") with lyrics by Oleksandr Konysky (1836-1900) and music by Mykola Lysenko (1842-1912).

As far as I can tell (I don't speak or read Ukrainian and I am only getting this from the score), the first and last stanzas of the anthem were sung last night:

Ukrainian:

Боже великий, єдиний,
Нам Україну храни,
Волі і світу промінням
Ти її осіни.

...

Дай йому волю, дай йому долю,
Дай доброго світу, щастя,
Дай, Боже, народу
І многая, многая літа.

English translation:

Lord, oh the Great and Almighty,
Protect our beloved Ukraine,
Bless her with freedom and light
Of your holy rays

...
 
Bless us with freedom, bless us with wisdom,
Guide into kind world,
Bless us, oh Lord, with good fortune
For ever and evermore.

SWPA's Own Wendy Bell Spreads Russian Misinformation

Earlier today, an astute reader emailed me one of Jon's tweets:

HUGE exposé out of Comrade Wendy Bell’s Broadcasting World Headquarters today!! Wendy exposes the REAL reason “Vlad” Putin invaded Ukraine!!!!

And, yes, it’s even more embarrassing than you think it will be. #PittsburghsBiggestEmbarrassment 1/ pic.twitter.com/tu7BJgAMaN

— JON (@JonInPGH) February 26, 2022

And this is what Wendy said:

Should we be able to ask, Why, why do we need 13 bio terrorism labs?

'Bio research labs' I should say - just in Ukraine.

Why, why is it that Vladimir Putin has been upset about this, so much in fact, he and China asked in 2015 the United Nations to look into this?

Hm. Interesting, isn't it?

What if, ladies and gentlemen - what if, in fact, Donald Trump called Vlad Putin's moves into Ukraine "genius" - and the whole planet went apoplectic. Oh what a monster! - what if Donald Trump knows exactly what is going on?

What if Donald Trump is calling out on the world's stage that Putin is doing something [long pensive pause] different than what we're told?

When was the last time Donald Trump tweet out something or said something that didn't turn out to be true?

And why would it be that Putin would say that anybody, any country that tried to deter him would suffer consequences the likes of which have never been known in history before?

Lots of Wendy-bullshit here but let me start with the easiest:

When was the last time Donald Trump tweeted out something or said something that didn't turn out to be true?

I can't tell you the last time Trump said something "that didn't turn out to be true" but I can tell you a recent utterance by the great orange vulgarity that certainly isn't true. In late January, MSNBC reported that he said:

“The left is now rationing live-saving therapeutics based on race, discriminating against and denigrating, just denigrating, white people to determine who lives and who dies,” Trump said. “If you’re white, you don’t get the vaccine or if you’re white, you don’t get therapeutics.”

Wendy, what Donald Trump said in January just isn't true. No one is being denied the vaccine or therapeutics based on race. Donald Trump is wrong. 

But that was the easy part. 

Let's look at Wendy's Russian misinformation about those labs.

Long story short, it's also not true. Here's now I know:

• Politifact:

  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought false claims on social media that Russian President Vladimir Putin is targeting U.S.-run biological weapons labs in his neighboring country. 

  False claims from Russia alleging bioweapon use by the U.S. aren’t new, and allegations of a network of such labs along Russia’s border were shared in state-run media in the weeks before the invasion.

• Snopes:

  In sum, there’s no evidence that Russia was targeting “U.S. biolabs” when they launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine in February 2022. This claim was just the latest iteration in a long-running disinformation campaign by the Kremlin and its supporters.

If we took a look at that second Politifact link, we'd see how, a few weeks ago Matt Field of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists traced the misinformation bit back to the Kremlin via a YouTuber named Tim Kirby:

Tim Kirby is a host on RT, the Russian state-owned media network. But that’s just one of the jobs the Ohio native says he’s had in Russia. According to his LinkedIn profile, he’s also a tight-end on the semi-professional Moscow Spartans football team, a prolific YouTuber, and a former drive-time radio host (or, as he puts it, the “#2 microphone” on a morning radio show called Sergey Stillavin and His Friends). On his YouTube channel, he recently divulged what would be a shocking revelation, if it were true: The United States is developing biological weapons in a network of labs right next door to Russia in Ukraine.

“Someone I’ve known for a few years has come forward,” Kirby told the almost 60,000 viewers who’ve watched the video so far, “to put together a picture of a network of bioweapons laboratories in Ukraine, that is very large and very Washington-supported that could be quite dangerous for us all.”

Far from representing simply his own personal musings, Kirby’s unsubstantiated allegations are being echoed at the highest levels of the Russian government. State media are repeating similar claims. The Kremlin’s alleged proxy media outlets are writing about them, and after President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping met recently, their two countries issued a joint statement decrying US bioweapons activities.

Anyway back to the labs. Field states some actual facts about them:

The labs at issue are part of a network of facilities with links to the Biological Threat Reduction Program, an element of a US government effort that began in the 1990s to reduce  the threat of the former Soviet Union’s weapons of mass destruction programs, including in countries like Ukraine that had once been a part of the communist country. The Soviet Union maintained a massive bioweapons program and part of the role of the US-linked labs is to take custody over left-over supplies, as is the case with a central reference laboratory in Kazakhstan. Disease surveillance and public health have since become the major focus of labs in the network.

Snopes has more actual facts:

Conspiracy theories are often fashioned from a small morsel of truth. In this case, the rumors are a distortion of the fact that the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and the Department of Defense of the United States of America entered into an agreement in 2005, while Republican U.S. President George W. Bush was in office, to “stem the threat of bio-terrorism by placing safeguards on deadly pathogens dating from a Soviet-era biological weapons program,” according to a contemporaneous news article in the Chicago Tribune. While the U.S. Defense Department’s Biological Threat Reduction Program provided some funding to upgrade biolabs in the Ukraine, these facilities are operated by the Ukrainian government under guidelines set under Ukrainian law.

And Snopes has some more actual facts about the misinformation:

The rumors in the aftermath of the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia were just the latest iterations of an ongoing disinformation campaign that has been waged by the Kremlin for years. Sophie Gelava of the Tbilisi-based Media Development Foundation (MDF), an organization that monitors Russian statements, said that the Kremlin has been “actively spreading black propaganda against the laboratory since the day it was established.”

See that? Wendy Bell, SWPA's own Angel of Death, is spreading Russian misinformation.

The only way out of this conundrum of hers would be if Wendy were to furnish some us with some actual facts to support her charge that Putin invaded Ukraine to shut down the US bio labs there.

Hahahaha! Yea, I know. I made a funny.

It's funny because nothing about Wendy's story is actually true.

PA State Senator Doug Mastriano HAS To Be Getting Nervous-er Over THIS

The Guardian is reporting:

Donald Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani is expected to cooperate with the House select committee investigating January 6, and potentially reveal his contacts with Republican members of Congress involved in the former president’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The move by Giuliani to appear before the panel – in a cooperation deal that could be agreed within weeks, according to two sources briefed on negotiations – could mark a breakthrough moment for the inquiry as it seeks to interview key members of Trump’s inner circle.

That is the case because even though Trump’s allies and Republican members of Congress already known to have been involved in such efforts have refused to help the panel, Giuliani is now in a position to inform House investigators about any possible culpability.

The Guardian goes on to say that Rudy is prepared to "produce documents" about Trump's scheme to keep himself in office and to "reveal his contacts and the roles played by Republican members of Congress".

And then there's this:

Giuliani is also prepared to divulge details about Trump’s pressure campaign on Pence to adopt the scheme, and the effort coordinated by him and the Trump White House to have legislatures certify slates of electors for Trump in states actually won by Biden.

How much of the above does not include connections to Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano?

From Go Erie:

When state Sen. Doug Mastriano claimed he wanted to find truth and transparency after the 2020 election, he called former President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. 

Mastriano, R-Franklin County, invited him to a makeshift hearing he organized with other GOP senators the day after state officials certified President Joe Biden defeated Trump in Pennsylvania by 81,000 votes.

During the hearing on Nov. 25 at the Wyndham Gettysburg, Mastriano multiple times referred to election "shenanigans" and perpetuated Trump's unfounded claims that the election was fraudulent.

Now the two will be back together on Saturday. 

Giuliani will headline a fundraiser for Mastriano in Chambersburg as Mastriano is expected to ultimately enter the Republican primary race for Pennsylvania governor.

I mean, c'mon. How can Rudy not talk about Doug?

And, my friends, @JoninPgh texted me this article late last night:

A Jan. 6 defendant who pleaded guilty to breaching the Capitol revealed Thursday she has met with the House select committee probing the attack four times — and described extensive ties with the Pennsylvania GOP.

Annie Howell, who faces sentencing on a misdemeanor charge next week, said in a letter to the judge in her case that she built relationships within the state GOP throughout 2020 and found herself invited to “an exclusive, invitation-only dinner with Eric Trump.” She said that after the election a “Trump adviser” who she counted as a close friend asked her to help solicit affidavits of election fraud.

BTW, she has a listing at the Insurrection Index.

Politico continues:

A handful of Jan. 6 defendants have publicly revealed their cooperation with the select committee — a number that has the potential to spike. Chief U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell, a prominent federal judge in DC, said defendants should be given sentencing credit for testifying to Congress in order to help prevent a future attack.

But no defendants until Annie Howell have publicly described ties that extend beyond the Jan. 6 attack and reach deeper into GOP establishment circles. She described selling pro-Trump bracelets on the Boardwalk in Ocean City, Md., in early 2020, which she parlayed into graphic design work for the PA GOP. She then began recruitment work with the party as a volunteer, which led her to be involved in a slew of events with prominent Republicans, saying she was “surrounded by Congressman, Senators, even Trump advisers.”

Uh-oh. A "slew" of events with prominent GOPers, you say!

Hey Doug! You're a prominent Pennsylvania Republican, right? A prominent PA Republican who's deeply involved in Trump's scheme to keep himself in office after the 2020 election, right? 

So let me ask you, did you ever meet Annie Howell?

And are you getting nervous over what she told the January 6 Committee? How about what Rudy might be saying about you when he testifies/produces documents?

 

 

Sifting Through The Times' Piece On Ginni Thomas

You can read it here.

There's a lot to digest.

But I have a question or two. Let's start at the top:

The call to action was titled “Election Results and Legal Battles: What Now?” Shared in the days after the 2020 presidential election, it urged the members of an influential if secretive right-wing group to contact legislators in three of the swing states that tipped the balance for Joe Biden — Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania. The aim was audacious: Keep President Donald J. Trump in power.

The group, the Council for National Policy, brings together old-school Republican luminaries, Christian conservatives, Tea Party activists and MAGA operatives, with more than 400 members who include leaders of organizations like the Federalist Society, the National Rifle Association and the Family Research Council.

The Council for National Policy. Sending a "call to action" to Pennsylvania. Hmm.

The Times continues:

As Trump insisted, without evidence, that fraud had cheated him of victory, conservative groups rushed to rally behind him. The council stood out, however, not only because of its pedigree but also because one of its newest leaders was Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas and a longtime activist in right-wing circles. She had taken on a prominent role at the council during the Trump years and by 2019 had joined the nine-member board of C.N.P. Action, an arm of the council organized as a 501(c)4 under a provision of the tax code that allows for direct political advocacy. It was C.N.P. Action that circulated the November “action steps” document, the existence of which has not been widely known. It instructed members to pressure Republican lawmakers into challenging the election results and appointing alternate slates of electors: “Demand that they not abandon their Constitutional responsibilities during a time such as this.”

That "call to action" from November would be this: 

Look in that yellow box. Remind you of anything?

If the CNP was the pitcher, PA State Senator Doug Mastriano was the catcher (at least in Pennsylvania).

So my question here for Doug: How much direct interaction have you had with the Council for National Policy (and it's advocacy wing, CNP Action) regarding the events of January 6?

You're running for Governor of Pennsylvania and I am a Pennsylvania voter and I'd like to know the answer to that question.

More On Sen Ted Cruz

For someone actually born in Canada, for someone who only renounced his Canadian citizenship in 2013, for someone who went to Hah-Vahd, Ted Cruz is certainly stupid.

Case in point:

This is what happens without the First Amendment. https://t.co/JrWDyHBnFm

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) February 21, 2022

On the one hand, Senator Cancun is correct. Canada, being another country, is not under any legal obligation to adhere to the US Constitution (where the Bill of Rights reside).

However, Canada does have what's known as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In it, there's the section titled "Fundamental Freedoms: and it looks like this:

2 Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

• (a) freedom of conscience and religion;

• (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

• (c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and

• (d) freedom of association.

Huh. Not that different from The First Amendment, is it?

How did the Canadian-born, former Canadian citizen, otherwise well educated Ted Cruz not know this?

Meanwhile, Outside

From the climate scientists at NOAA:

The global surface temperature for January 2022 was 0.89°C (1.60°F) above the 20th century average and the sixth highest for January since global records began in 1880. The last eight Januarys (2015–2022) rank among the 10 warmest Januarys on record. January 2022 also marked the 46th consecutive January and the 445th consecutive month with temperatures, at least nominally, above average.

Again, there's even a chart:

 

I know. The world is imploding before our very eyes, but it's still getting warmer out there.

PA State Senator Doug Mastriano Misunderstands CRT

We'll get to Sen. Doug in a few minutes.

Hey, before we get to it, did you know he was subpoenaed by the January 6 Committee?

The Committee is looking into his involvement with the January 6 insurrection - Donald Trump's failed coup attempt - and as part of that investigation they've subpoenaed PA State Senator Doug Mastriano.

So a sitting Pennsylvania State Senator (and candidate for Governor), a man who took an oath to "support, obey and defend the Constitution of the United States" has been subpoenaed to provide records and testimony to one of the three branches of government defined by the document he took an oath to obey.

So far PA State Senator Doug Mastriano has not said a damn word publicly about that subpoena. 

But this blog post is not about that. This blog post is about something else - something the insurrection adjacent Mastriano does want to talk about.

Let's start the story here:

The threatening 54-second voicemail left Sunday night at A.M. Kulp Elementary in Hatfield Township, which is now being investigated by local law enforcement and has caught the attention of the FBI, was at the heart of the North Penn School Board virtual-only meeting Tuesday night.

The phone call was triggered by an allegation that a fifth-grade teacher separated students by race and made white students apologize to Black students during a classroom exercise in May 2021.

According to the district, at last week’s Education/Curriculum/Instruction Committee meeting, Kulp Elementary School Principal Christina Carter took part in a Diversity, Education and Inclusion (DEI) presentation that highlighted the work being done at the school board’s request. Afterward, she was, according to the district, subjected to vicious attacks on social media. Fifth Grade Teacher Kelly Chappell was also harassed because of the activity, according to the district.

North Penn Now continues with the story:

[North Penn School Board President Tina] Stoll then said the board wanted to set the record completely straight on what occurred in the Kulp Elementary classroom.

“To be very clear, this board supports the DEI work being done in this district. One of our goals when we got elected was to advocate for policies that make sure every student that comes through North Penn feels welcome, safe, heard, represented and has every opportunity afforded to them to succeed,” Stoll said. “Part of that work is providing professional development lessons to our staff on these topics. Mrs. Chappell took a PD lesson on teaching Perspective and Empathy and tailored it to her fifth-grade students.”

“The students were asked to line up – and not by color,” Stoll said. “As students are asked to line up for things every day, they lined up in their groups of friends. They were asked a series of questions,” Stoll said.

According to the district, those questions were as follows:

1. Do you pack a lunch?
2. If English is your first language, take a step forwar
3. If you were told by your parents that you are smart or attractive, step forward.
4. If it’s expected of you that you go to college, step forward.
5. If you can find Band-Aids designed to blend with or match your skin tone, step forward.
6. If you never skip a meal or were hungry because there wasn’t enough money to buy food, step forward.
7. If both your parents are still married, step forward.
8. Live in a house?
9. Own a vehicle?
10. Own more than one vehicle?
11. Have your own bedroom?
12. Have a cell phone?
13. If your phone is latest iPhone or Android?
14. If your family has internet?
15. If you have a non-school computer?
16. Have been to Disney World twice?
17. Have a pool or pool membership?

What Stoll is describing is commonly referred to as a “privilege walk,” which is an exercise designed to show the differences in background between participants. With each yes answer, participants — in this case, students — take a step forward until all questions have been asked. Then, the distance between students is used to highlight the difference in background, societal advantages and perceived privileges.

And that's what triggered our voicemailer.

Here's an expletive deleted transcript of that voicemail.

This is for the administration. Pass it along. Ok? 

Apparently, you have a teacher making white kids apologize for their skin color? 

Well you got my phone number, come to Las Vegas and I'll apologize to you, at six foot nothing, 245 pounds. And I'll shove my you-know-what up your a** so far your mother will feel it, you c**t.

You fire that c**t.

A mass of people who know who you are. They will f**king see your head swinging from a pole, you f**king c**ts. Douche bag. F**king losers. Come and get some of these white mother-f**ckers.

B*tch.

Got the number. Do it.

F*gg*t.

Let's settle on a few facts here, Ok? A citizen and employee of the state of Pennsylvania was meant to be on the receiving end of that voice mail. The voice mail clearly threatens rape and murder.

And how did PA State Senator (and GOP candidate for Governor) Doug Mastriano respond?

With this: 

Senator Mastriano is demanding answers and accountability after hearing multiple accounts from parents at North Penn School District who say their children have been subjected to “privilege walks” as part of a broader critical race theory curriculum.

According to at least five parents of children attending AM Kulp Elementary School, the children were lined up against the wall and told to step forward for each attribute of “privilege” they possessed. According to the parents, certain students in the class were also made to feel ashamed or embarrassed for their “privilege.”

Wait, hang on. Critical Race Theory? Doug ignores the rape and murder threats and defends wants to talk about Critical Race Theory?

Yep. And it's dangerous:

A classroom made up of young impressionable minds is certainly not an appropriate place for fringe critical race theories, said Senator Mastriano. Any exercise that demonizes and separates certain students based on their race or privilege can have detrimental effects on a child’s mental health and lead to an increase in bullying in the classroom.

Does PA State Senator Doug Mastriano understand what Critical Race Theory actually is?

First off, it's a decades-old college level legal theory that isn't taught in Pennsylvania public schools.

The AP frames it this way:

Critical race theory is a way of thinking about America’s history through the lens of racism. Scholars developed it during the 1970s and 1980s in response to what they viewed as a lack of racial progress following the civil rights legislation of the 1960s.

It centers on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions and that they function to maintain the dominance of white people in society.

The architects of the theory argue that the United States was founded on the theft of land and labor and that federal law has preserved the unequal treatment of people on the basis of race.

And Derrick Bell, legal scholar and important proponent of CRT, framed it this way in 1995:

Although critical race theory is not cohesive, it is at least committed. As John Calmore observes, “almost all the critical race theory literature seems to embrace the ideology of antisubordination in some form.” It is our hope that scholarly resistance will lay the groundwork for wide-scale resistance. We believe that standards and institutions created by and fortifying white power ought to be resisted. Decontextualization, in our view, too often masks unregulated—even unrecognized—power. We insist, for example, that abstraction, put forth as “rational” or “objective” truth, smuggles the privileged choice of the privileged to depersonify their claims and then pass them off as the universal authority and the universal good. To counter such assumptions, we try to bring to legal scholarship an experientially grounded, oppositionally expressed, and transformatively aspirational concern with race and other socially constructed hierarchies.

And:

Professor Charles Lawrence speaks for many critical race theory adherents when he disagrees with the notion that laws are or can be written from a neutral perspective. Lawrence asserts that such a neutral perspective does not, and cannot, exist—that we all speak from a particular point of view, from what he calls a “positioned perspective.” The problem is that not all positioned perspectives are equally valued, equally heard, or equally included. From the perspective of critical race theory, some positions have historically been oppressed, distorted, ignored, silenced, destroyed, appropriated, commodified, and marginalized—and all of this, not accidentally. Conversely, the law simultaneously and systematically privileges subjects who are white.

If I am understanding CRT correctly (and let's remember, I am not an attorney and haven't seen the inside of a college classroom in decades) the legal system, for all of it's self-congratulatory claims of neutrality, actually privileges white supremacy by virtue of that neutrality.

I am sure there's a great deal more to it. It's a law-school level legal theory, for gosh sakes. Boiling it down to a paragraph or three (as I just did) will inevitably do it in justice.

For whatever it is, it isn't what Doug Mastriano is investigating in that classroom in Hatfield Township.

But none of this matters to our friends in the insurrectionist party:

“We have successfully frozen their brand—'critical race theory’—into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category,” Rufo wrote. “The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think 'critical race theory.’ We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.”

Anything that makes white conservatives uncomfortable about race is that evil CRT. 

With that in mind, let's get back to something else Doug said:

Any exercise that demonizes and separates certain students based on their race or privilege can have detrimental effects on a child’s mental health and lead to an increase in bullying in the classroom.

I'm not sure he realizes that he's correct here - but for the wrong reasons. If we view our legal system (or any governmental system, for that matter) through the lens of CRT, then we have to see that the system has already been separating students based on race and privilege. Has been for centuries.

He's just not seen it because the kids on the losing end of that separation weren't the kids of his white conservative supporters.

Oh, and let's all remember that a Pennsylvania citizen was threatened with rape and murder and in response, candidate for Pennsylvania governor Doug Mastriano wants to defend the same status quo that our Vegas caller is also looking to defend.

Uh-oh. Wendy Bell Feelings Are HURT! Wendy Bell MAD!

From twitter:

P.S. nice comparison of someone making fun of you to the Holocaust, @WendyBellPgh. 2/6,493 pic.twitter.com/TiKGvHUDiJ

— JON (@JonInPGH) February 18, 2022

What Wendy sez in that first clip

You don't really have the right, I don't believe, to criticize those of us who care so passionately about this land.

Let me stop you right there, Wendy-kins.

You're a public figure, Wendy,speaking publicly on political and social issues of the day. I have every right to criticize you for what you say.  Your self described patriotism does not make you immune to criticism.

The fact that you seem to think so speaks volumes about how you define free speech.

For example, I have every right to point out to the public (as I did only yesterday) that:

Every time you push misleading "information" onto your audience you're putting their health at risk. Some will get sick because they believe you. Some of them will even die because if it.

That's one of the main reasons I've taken to calling you The Angel of Death. If you think that's "rude or nasty" of me, I really don't care. It doesn't change the fact that the outcome of your spreading misinformation is that everyone's risk is higher.

And if that hurts your feelings (as it seems to have), I'm really not sorry. It's a fact and facts don't care about your feelings.

You do say something I agree with in this video-snippet:

Because it is not an understatement to say that we have a country to save.

I could not agree more. I am pretty sure, however, that we differ on who we need to save it from (hint: it's you.)

Then there's this from the second. After mangling Martin Niemöller's criticism of the Nazis (“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out…”), she goes on to defend the January 6 insurrection:

And I watch with such disgust the malleged January 6 Commission which is willy-nilly calling in patriots from around America who traveled with love of country in their heart to hear the President speak at the ellipse on January 6 and to try to do what The New York Times did to Sarah Palin in connecting dots that aren't connectable.

But creating this illusion of insurrection.

Sure, Wendy. This was an illusion:

This is what the Committee is investigating. (And BTW, a "committee" and not a "commission" Wendy. If you cared about accuracy then you'd know that.) They're not investigating the people who simply came to the ellipse to hear Trump speak, as per their own words:

The Select Committee is investigating the facts, circumstances, and causes of the January 6th attack and issues relating to the peaceful transfer of power, in order to identify and evaluate lessons learned and to recommend to the House and its relevant committees corrective laws, policies, procedures, rules, or regulations. The inquiry includes examination of how various individuals and entities coordinated their activities leading up to the events of January 6, 2021.

They're investigating the attack itself.  That was an attempted coup.

BTW, those words I quoted from the letter they sent to your good friend PA State Senator Doug Mastriano. The committee seems to think he knows something about some part of the insurrection and so he's been subpoenaed by that committee. 

Did you know that?

Angel of Death. You're on the wrong side of history on so many levels.

Wendy Bell Spreads Misinformation About The Vaccines. Again.

We'll start, as is tradition by now, with The Angel of Death's latest BS:

The dead giveaway is in the upper right hand corner:

Source: The Exposé UK

Wendy, wa-a-a-ay back in, oh, January of this year I asked you about your use of Daily Exposé as a source of information:

Wendy, you were once an award winning journalist, right? Don't they teach, somewhere in Journalism school, about assessing the credibility of your sources?

The Daily Exposé is not a source of credible medical information. 

But don't just take their word on it. Take a look at what's been debunked:

• They (incorrectly) claimed that the vaccines lead to AIDS. 
• They did that twice. 
• They (incorrectly) claimed the vaccines caused a rise in miscarriages. 
• They (incorrectly) claimed that the vaccines cause a rise in male infertility.
  

This is completely separate from their repeated misuse of the UK data. We've already discussed this:

• July 10, 2021
  
• January 12, 2022

So this is the third time you've lied this way.

Read this if you want to understand what you're doing wrong.

And let me repeat myself here, Wendy. Every time you push misleading "information" onto your audience you're putting their health at risk. Some will get sick because they believe you. Some of them will even die because if it.

Stop pushing the misinformation, Wendy. You'll be protecting your audience.

PA State Senator Doug Mastriano MUST Testify In Front Of Congress

Why?

Well, given that Donald Trump named him specifically in that infamous DOJ phone call:

Transcript:

but understand that the DOJ can't + won't snap its fingers + change the outcome of the election, doesn't work that way

Trump answers (p. 4-5 of the notes):

Transcript:

P: "Don't expect you do do that, just say the election was was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen."

Who are "the R. Congressmen" mentioned in the notes?

That would be Rep Scott Perry and PA State Senator Doug Mastriano.

So yea, I want to hear Doug answer some questions under oath.

And given that Steve Bannon purposely point out the importance of his November 2020 Gettysburg hearing:

Lots happened that Thursday. The York Daily Record reported:

Former Trump political strategist and conservative host of "War Room" podcast Steve Bannon came to Gettysburg Thursday night to speak at the Adams County GOP Eisenhower Dinner.  

This was his first public appearance after the U.S. House voted to hold Bannon in criminal contempt of court when he declined to comply with a subpoena to testify about the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Anyway, here's more from Panyard:

Before the event, Bannon spoke with Adams County GOP Chair Charlotte Shaffer for his "War Room" news show.

The pair spoke about the 3 November movement, a Trump-centered Republican movement seeking to prove election fraud.

“One of the reasons I accepted the gracious invitation of Charlotte Shaffer, the chairman, was that this was the railhead of where 3 November started, the counter reaction, the great conference,” Bannon said on War Room.

Bannon was referring to an event in Gettysburg at which former Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani publicly protested the election results. Mastriano organized that event as a member of the Pennsylvania Senate Majority Policy Committee.

So yea, I want to hear Doug answer some questions under oath.

Then given PA State Senator Doug Mastriano's dishonesty regarding his movements around The Capitol on January 6:

And let's remember what [PA State Senator Doug Mastriano] initially told The PGH City Paper:

My position on lawlessness is equally as clear. When it was apparent that this was no longer a peaceful protest, my wife and I left the area and made our way out of the area.

And yet: 

About four minutes and 30 seconds into the interview, Senator Mastriano remarks after leaving the speech and heading towards the West side of the Capitol, he approached a few police officers to ask where to go. The police officers directed him to the East side of the Capitol. According to a detailed timeline and analysis of the minute-by-minute actions of the rioters composed by the New York Times, the crowd at the Trump speech departed heading towards the West side of the Capitol around 12:17 pm. The rioters were already starting to gather there.

Senator Mastriano continues at the five-minute mark in the interview explaining the first signs of seeing “agitators” that were “kind of getting in the face of the police and jiggling the bicycle rack barricades they use.” According to the same New York Times timeline, the first barricades on the West side were breached at 12:53 pm as supporters surrounded the Capitol heading to the East side of the building. Senator Mastriano witnessed the first attempt to breach the Capitol on the West side of the building and still continued to the East side. [Emphasis added.]

So he witnessed the first breach but didn't immediately leave the area?

So yea, for those and for many other things, I want to hear Doug answer some questions under oath.

 

News of PA State Senator Doug Mastriano's Subpoena is GOING NATIONAL

Talking Points Memo:

The Trump campaign coordinated efforts to persuade Republican state lawmakers to send fake slates of electors to Congress on Jan. 6, the the Jan. 6 Committee said on Tuesday.

The statement came in the form of a fresh wave of subpoenas issued to several Trump campaign officials and three of the most outspoken state-level elected Republicans, part of an effort to investigation plans to mess with the certification of the 2020 election. 

And:

The subpoenas also went out to Pennsylvania state senator Doug Mastriano (R), who spoke with Trump before Jan. 6 and attended the rally that day, and to Kelli Ward, a former Arizona state senator and chair of the state’s Republican party.

Mastriano reportedly helped arrange for an alternate slate of electors from Pennsylvania to go to D.C. on Jan. 6. He continued to promote outlandish claims of fraud by taking part in an attempt to stage an audit in Pennsylvania to uncover the “truth” of the 2020 election. 

Oh, but there's so so much more.

It's hit the AP:

A Pennsylvania state senator who was in regular communication with Donald Trump as the then-president sought to reverse his 2020 election loss, and was outside the U.S. Capitol the afternoon of the Jan. 6 rioting, was subpoenaed Tuesday by the congressional committee looking into the insurrection.

Sen. Doug Mastriano, a former Army officer currently seeking the Republican nomination for governor, was asked by the Jan. 6 select committee to hand over documents and information about efforts to name a slate of alternate Electoral College electors for Trump.

And:

The Jan. 6 committee also noted his presence outside the Capitol the day of the insurrection, saying his public statements indicated “you witnessed ‘agitators ... getting in the face of the police’ and 'agitators ... start pushing the police up the Capitol steps.”

“We would like to better understand these statements and expenditures, events that you witnessed or in which you participated, and communications we believe you may have had with national, state and local officials” about the 2020 presidential election outcome, wrote U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who chairs the Jan. 6 committee.

PA State Senator (and candidate for Governor) Doug Mastriano has been subpoenaed by the January 6 Committee.

 

The January 6 Committee's Letter to PA State Senator Doug Mastriano

You can read it here.

The body of the letter:

Pursuant to the authorities set forth in House Resolution 503 and the rules of the House of Representatives, the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (“Select Committee”) hereby transmits a subpoena that compels you to produce the documents set forth in the accompanying schedule by March 1, 2022, and to appear for a deposition on March 10, 2022.

The Select Committee is investigating the facts, circumstances, and causes of the January 6th attack and issues relating to the peaceful transfer of power, in order to identify and evaluate lessons learned and to recommend to the House and its relevant committees corrective laws, policies, procedures, rules, or regulations. The inquiry includes examination of how various individuals and entities coordinated their activities leading up to the events of January 6, 2021.

The Select Committee has tremendous respect for the roles and responsibilities of federal, state, and local elected officials and we do not seek information from you that is related to official actions that you took as an elected lawmaker. At the same time, we have a solemn responsibility to investigate fully the facts and circumstances of these events.

Based on publicly available information and information produced to the Select Committee, we believe that you have documents and information that are relevant to the Select Committee’s investigation. For example, we understand that you have knowledge of and participated in a plan to arrange for an alternate slate of electors to be presented to the President of the Senate on January 6, 2021,1 and we understand that you spoke with former President Trump about your post-election activities.2 We understand you participated in these activities based on assertions of voter fraud and other asserted irregularities and based on a stated belief that under the U.S. Constitution the “state legislature has the sole authority to direct the manner of selecting elegates to the Electoral College.” 3 We have an interest in understanding these activities and the theories that motivated them.

Based on your public statements, we understand that you were present during the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and that you witnessed “agitators...getting in the face of the police” and “agitators...start pushing the police up the [Capitol] steps.”4

We would like to better understand these statements and expenditures, events that you witnessed or in which you participated, and communications we believe you may have had with national, state, and local officials about the outcome of the November 2020 election.

Accordingly, the Select Committee seeks documents and a deposition regarding these and other matters that are within the scope of the Select Committee’s inquiry. A copy of the rules governing Select Committee depositions, and document production definitions and instructions are attached. Please contact staff for the Select Committee at 202-225-7800 to arrange for the production of documents.

That last footnote is real important. It leads here.

That's the reporting in PA Spotlight quoting Mastriano saying he'd seen both breaches of The Capitol - evidence of his lying to the public when he said that he and his wife left the area at the first sign of trouble.

PA State Senator Doug Mastriano has been subpoenaed by the January 6 Committee!

Pennslyvania State Senator Doug Mastriano SUBPOENAED!

From twitter:

The Select Committee demands info on efforts to send false "alternate electors" and otherwise interfere with election certification.

The Select Committee issued 6 subpoenas:
•Michael A. Roman
•Gary Michael Brown
•Douglas V. Mastriano
•Laura Cox
•Mark W. Finchem
•Kelli Ward

— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) February 15, 2022

He took an oath to respect the Constitution. He must testify before Congress on what he knows about Trump's interference with the election certification.

Representative Guy Reschenthaler (A Former JAG Magisterial Judge) LIES On Twitter

We'll start with the tweet:

Looking forward to joining @toddstarnes at 2 pm ET to discuss evidence that Hillary Clinton and her campaign paid tech companies to plant evidence and fabricate a false narrative linking Donald Trump with Russia.

Tune in here: https://t.co/ddZdJeiN7X

— Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (@GReschenthaler) February 14, 2022

As far as I can tell, Rep Reschenthaler certainly was on Starnes' show but that's about it on the factual data in Guy's tweet.

Let's take a look at the facts that the former JAG judge chose not to tell any American citizens who happened to be listening to Todd Starnes on the 14th.

From the NYTimes:

When John H. Durham, the Trump-era special counsel investigating the inquiry into Russia’s 2016 election interference, filed a pretrial motion on Friday night, he slipped in a few extra sentences that set off a furor among right-wing outlets about purported spying on former President Donald J. Trump.

But the entire narrative appeared to be mostly wrong or old news — the latest example of the challenge created by a barrage of similar conspiracy theories from Mr. Trump and his allies.

Upon close inspection, these narratives are often based on a misleading presentation of the facts or outright misinformation.

Keep in mind that Guy said that Clinton and her campaign paid the tech companies to plant evidence and fabricate a false narrative.

None of that is actually in the motion.

Take a look:

The Indictment also alleges that, beginning in approximately July 2016, Tech Executive-1 had worked with the defendant, a U.S. investigative firm retained by Law Firm-1 on behalf of the Clinton Campaign, numerous cyber researchers, and employees at multiple Internet companies to assemble the purported data and white papers. In connection with these efforts, Tech Executive-1 exploited his access to non-public and/or proprietary Internet data. Tech Executive-1 also enlisted the assistance of researchers at a U.S.-based university who were receiving and analyzing large amounts of Internet data in connection with a pending federal government cybersecurity research contract. Tech Executive-1 tasked these researchers to mine Internet data to establish “an inference” and “narrative” tying then-candidate Trump to Russia. In doing so, Tech Executive-1 indicated that he was seeking to please certain “VIPs,” referring to individuals at Law Firm-1 and the Clinton Campaign.

Where is the part about "planting" evidence? If the above is true (and the Times explains that it's way off base) they were gathering data and not planting it.

From the Times:

The filing was ostensibly about potential conflicts of interest. But it also recounted a meeting at which Mr. Sussmann had presented other suspicions to the government. In February 2017, Mr. Sussmann told the C.I.A. about odd internet data suggesting that someone using a Russian-made smartphone may have been connecting to networks at Trump Tower and the White House, among other places.

Mr. Sussmann had obtained that information from a client, a technology executive named Rodney Joffe. Another paragraph in the court filing said that Mr. Joffe’s company, Neustar, had helped maintain internet-related servers for the White House, and that he and his associates “exploited this arrangement” by mining certain records to gather derogatory information about Mr. Trump.

The Times also points out that the filing never said that that tech company was being paid by the Clinton campaign.

But here's the big part:

Most important, contrary to the reporting, the filing never said the White House data that came under scrutiny was from the Trump era. According to lawyers for David Dagon, a Georgia Institute of Technology data scientist who helped develop the Yota analysis, the data — so-called DNS logs, which are records of when computers or smartphones have prepared to communicate with servers over the internet — came from Barack Obama’s presidency.

“What Trump and some news outlets are saying is wrong,” said Jody Westby and Mark Rasch, both lawyers for Mr. Dagon. “The cybersecurity researchers were investigating malware in the White House, not spying on the Trump campaign, and to our knowledge all of the data they used was nonprivate DNS data from before Trump took office.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for Mr. Joffe said that “contrary to the allegations in this recent filing,” he was apolitical, did not work for any political party, and had lawful access under a contract to work with others to analyze DNS data — including from the White House — for the purpose of hunting for security breaches or threats.

So exactly how much of Guy's tweet is factually correct?

Well, he was on Todd Starnes' show but that's about it.

Whether anything else in that motion is, in fact, true does not change the fact that US Representative Guy Reschenthaler (former Navy JAG Magisterial Judge, doncha know) lied to the public in his false description of it.

The Bell-O'Tooles ENDORSE PA State Senator Doug Mastriano!

Thanks to @JoninPgh for tweeting:

Oh my. Dr. O’Toole sitting next lying Wendy Bell saying he doesn’t think there is enough honesty is….quite rich.

Also, insurrection-curious Doug Mastriano appears to be a little desperate for endorsements. pic.twitter.com/KCVAtLrBw2

— JON (@JonInPGH) February 14, 2022

You can find it on one of the many Mastriano FB pages (official and astroturf).

A few questions for State Senator Mastriano:

Do you really want the this endorsement?

Wendy Bell is a fascist, you know. She was fired from KDKA Radio because she called for police snipers to shoot on sight American citizens protesting Confederate statues.

Wendy Bell is a racist, you know. She was fired from WTAE TV for posting a racist FB update.

Wendy Bell is an anti-vaxxer, you know. She's been lying to the public for years about the virus (that it's not that bad) and the vaccines (that they're dangerous). In doing so, she's putting the public's health at risk.

Do you really want this endorsement?

Apparently.

Why is that, exactly?

And as far as Dr O'Toole's endorsement, he calls you honest.

But didn't you lie to pubic about how close to The Capitol you got during Trump's attempted coup?

Apparently.

So Rudy's Looking To Testify In Front of the January 6 Committee

The NY Times is reporting:

Rudolph W. Giuliani, who as former President Donald J. Trump’s lawyer helped lead the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, is in discussions with the House Jan. 6 committee about responding to its questions, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The Times reports:

As a key figure in some of Mr. Trump’s attempts to stave off electoral defeat, Mr. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, would be in a position to tell investigators how much the former president knew about a series of extraordinary measures that were proposed to him last fall and winter in a bid to maintain his grip on power.

Among those efforts was a scheme to disrupt the normal workings of the Electoral College by persuading lawmakers in contested swing states to draw up alternate slates of electors showing Mr. Trump was victorious in states that were actually won by Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Pennsylvania is one of those swing states, doncha know.

Mr. Giuliani was subpoenaed with other members of a legal team that billed itself as “an elite strike force” and pursued a set of conspiracy-filled lawsuits on behalf of Mr. Trump in which they made unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the election. They were initially scheduled to testify this week, but were granted delays through discussions with their lawyers.

The subpoena sought all documents that Mr. Giuliani had detailing the pressure campaign that he and other Trump allies initiated targeting state officials; the seizure of voting machines; contact with members of Congress; any evidence to support the bizarre conspiracy theories he pushed; and any arrangements for his fees.

As we blogged a month or so ago, Rudy's troubles directly involve some good folks here in The Land Before Time.

In the ruling suspending his law license, on page 9, we read this:

Respondent repeatedly stated that in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania more absentee ballots came in during the election than were sent out before the election. The factual “proof” he claimed supported his conclusion was that although Pennsylvania sent out only 1,823,148 absentee ballots before the election, 2,589,242 million absentee 10 ballots were then counted in the election. This factual statement regarding the number of ballots mailed out before the election was simply untrue. The true facts are that 3.08 million absentee ballots were mailed out before the general election, which more than accounted for the over 2.5 million mail-in ballots that were actually tallied. Notwithstanding the true facts, respondent repeatedly advanced false statements that there were 600,000 to 700,000 fabricated mail-in ballots, which were never sent to voters in advance of the election.5 Respondent made these false claims during his November 8, 2020 radio program, Uncovering the Truth with Rudy Giuliani & Dr. Maria Ryan, during a November 25, 2020 meeting of the Republican State Senate Majority Policy Committee in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania [Emphasis added.]

In this story, all roads lead back to PA State Senator Doug Mastriano's meeting in Gettysburg on November 25, 2020.

Senator, now that the disgraced and disbarred Rudy Giuliani is negotiating to testify before the 1/6 Committee, are you nervous that your name will come up in the conversation? If only in reference to your part in the big lie?

I'm a Pennsylvanian and I'm a voter and I'd really like to know.

PA State Senator Mastriano Cited A Study To Support His Anti-Mask Position - Now Science Speaks Back About That Study

We'll start here:

I remember when we were labeled as "wreckless" for demanding an end to Gov. Wolf's lockdown measures in Spring 2020. The harm done to businesses, children's education, and to overall mental health were far greater than the "benefits" of the lockdown. https://t.co/u14Qy0gZrS

— Senator Doug Mastriano (@SenMastriano) February 2, 2022

I don't think the senator (or anyone else for that matter) was labeled as "wreckless" in this regard.

"Reckless" perhaps (because that's the correct spelling) but probably not "wreckless."

Cheap shot, I know. But hey. I'm not running for governor of Pennsylvania and I'm not the guy putting people's health at risk by pushing them away from getting vaccinated.

But let's look at that study, shall we?

In the 10 days since State Senator Mastriano's tweet, it's been factchecked a nonzero number of times:

Snopes:

The viral “Johns Hopkins study” about lockdowns was not the work of Johns Hopkins University, it was not peer-reviewed, and it was not written by epidemiologists. A number of researchers have also taken issue with the methods used in this study.

In a Feb. 4 thread on Twitter, Meyerowitz-Katz dug into the details of this study and found, among other things, that this paper was not peer-reviewed, that the analysis excluded all studies with a counter-factual model — thereby excluding nearly all epidemiological-focused papers — and that it heavily weighted studies that supported their conclusion.

Politifact:

But the study is not definitive. The research represents a non-peer-reviewed "working paper" by three economists affiliated with Johns Hopkins University. The institution did not endorse the study.

"The university hasn’t taken a position on this and typically wouldn’t in such a situation," university spokesperson Jill Rosen wrote in an email. 

"The working paper is not a peer-reviewed scientific study, and its authors are not medical or public health researchers," Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told PolitiFact in an emailed statement. "To reach their conclusion that ‘lockdowns’ had a small effect on mortality, the authors redefined the term ‘lockdown’ and disregarded many peer-reviewed studies. The working paper did not include new data, and serious questions have already been raised about its methodology."

Considering these very valid critiques Senator, will you be informing your constituents of the flaws that these scientists have found in the study you used to support your anti-mask position?

That would be the responsible thing to do, right? To fully inform your constituents about this very important public health issue?

So, probably not.

Lock Him Up! Lock Him Up!

From The Washington Post:

Some of the White House documents that Donald Trump improperly took to his Mar-a-Lago residence were clearly marked as classified, including documents at the “top secret” level, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Lock him up! Lock him up!

From NYMag:

The Presidential Records Act is one of the many rules and norms Donald Trump ignored with abandon during his time in office, defying its order to keep all presidential papers by ripping many of them up or reportedly throwing them in the toilet. According to the Washington Post, it wasn’t just routine memos Trump was keeping out of the National Archives: Of the 15 boxes of documents the agency recently seized at Mar-a-Lago, many papers were clearly designated as classified, including several documents restricted to top-secret clearance.

Lock him up! Lock him up!

Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post: 

From reporting in The Post, we learned this week that the National Archives and Records Administration had to recover 15 boxes of documents that Trump wrongly took with him to Mar-a-Lago, rather than sending them to the agency as required by law. From the Times, we learned that there may have been some classified material in those purloined documents. And now the National Archives and Records Administration has asked the Justice Department to investigate the matter.

We also know that some of the documents Trump did send to the Archives when he left office were pieced together with tape because of Trump’s habit of ripping up papers by hand when he finished with them — despite having been repeatedly warned, including by his chiefs of staff, that federal law required all those materials to be preserved. As Politico first reported in 2018, aides constantly had to fish torn bits of paper out of wastebaskets and painstakingly reassemble them.

Lock him up! Lock him up!

The New York Times: 

The National Archives and Records Administration discovered what it believed was classified information in documents Donald J. Trump had taken with him from the White House as he left office, according to a person briefed on the matter.

The discovery, which occurred after Mr. Trump returned 15 boxes of documents to the government last month, prompted the National Archives to reach out to the Justice Department for guidance, the person said. The department told the National Archives to have its inspector general examine the matter, the person said.

Lock him up! Lock him up!

18 U.S. Code § 2071: 

(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.

Lock him up! Lock him up!

Pennsylvania Senator Doug Mastriano Whines To Wendy Bell About Facebook Unfairness

But he doesn't get the irony of his situation.

Take a look at this from The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Just to be clear, Mastriano spent a day on Facebook whining like a little baby about how Facebook is censuring him.

This Facebook:

In April 2019, Facebook was preparing to ban one of the internet’s most notorious spreaders of misinformation and hate, Infowars founder Alex Jones. Then CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally intervened.

Jones had gained infamy for claiming that the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre was a “giant hoax,” and that the teenage survivors of the 2018 Parkland shooting were “crisis actors.” But Facebook had found that he was also relentlessly spreading hate against various groups, including Muslims and trans people. That behavior qualified him for expulsion from the social network under the company's policies for "dangerous individuals and organizations," which required Facebook to also remove any content that expressed “praise or support” for them.

But Zuckerberg didn’t consider the Infowars founder to be a hate figure, according to a person familiar with the decision, so he overruled his own internal experts and opened a gaping loophole: Facebook would permanently ban Jones and his company — but would not touch posts of praise and support for them from other Facebook users. This meant that Jones’ legions of followers could continue to share his lies across the world’s largest social network.

"Mark personally didn’t like the punishment, so he changed the rules,” a former policy employee told BuzzFeed News, noting that the original rule had already been in use and represented the product of untold hours of work between multiple teams and experts.

So yea, I am so sure that Facebook is screwing with Doug Mastriano.

Anyway, Chris Brennen sums things up at The Inky:

Mastriano on Tuesday called in to Wendy Bell Radio — which is streamed to 304,000 Facebook followers — complaining that the company sent him a message that he was posting too much information from his personal page. He said Facebook then suggested he had been hacked and locked his account.

Never one to pass by a conspiracy theory, Mastriano chalked this up to a “brilliant” scheme to censor him. His proof? The Facebook page he uses for Senate posts, with 203,000 followers, and the page he uses for his campaign, with 98,000 followers, still work just fine.

Mastriano, who made the same claims Tuesday in a video on his Facebook campaign page, suggested the company restricted access to the page where he has the fewest followers because it would draw too much attention to shut down his bigger pages.

Oh my God, Zuckerberg is so wicked smaht to snag Doug Mastriano that way!

So smaht!

There's more:

Mastriano, who did not respond to Clout’s hails, also told Bell he runs 67 other Facebook pages, one for each county in the state, for his campaign. They’re all up and running.

To sum up: Mastriano runs 70 Facebook pages. One of them experienced some sort of issue this week. So the company must be out to get him.

Now that part's interesting as it verifies Erin Gallagher's deep dive in November 2020 into Doug's Facebook army.

So yea, Doug. Facebook is censuring you.

What a WATB.

BTW, Doug. How's that legal defense going, Doug? Are your lawyers working on a response for you when/if you get called to testify in front of Congress about your part in Trump's attempted coup?

If they aren't, shouldn't they be?