While everybody was losing their minds that @GaSecofState was meeting minimum standards of his job, I forgot to tell y’all a wild-ass story about a *different* GA Secretary of State, fighting a contested election with a whole other pack of racist honking geese!

BEN FORTSON 🍑🧵

Ben Fortson was the longest-serving SecState in GA history. TEN governors he served with (90% of whom were total shitbirds, Jimmy Carter being the reliable exception).

I’m not trying to rehab the reputations of old-timey segregationists here, but Ben Fortson was a BAMF.

I’m going to tell you a story from the late 1940’s, but the background history you need to know is this:

Georgia did not always elect a Lt. Gov, but in 1946, the state figured there ought to be a backup.

(Of note, Gov/Lt Gov are still elected independently. Not a ticket race.)

So! 1946, Georgia elects a new Governor— Eugene Talmadge. And also elected the state’s very first Lt. Gov as well; a dude named Melvin Thompson.

Talmadge was a thoroughbred shit, and I’ll hear no arguments otherwise.

He died in December 1946, before he could take office.

The legal protocol would seem clear to us today— newly-elected Lt. Gov Melvin Thompson gets sworn in as Governor, right? Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

But this is Georgia.

So you know these chicken lip politicians are going to make it difficult difficult, lemon difficult.

🍑🧵Our voting rights litigation was instrumental to winning Georgia in the 2020 election. As a result of our lawsuits, over 3,000 ballots were cured statewide. The post-cure rejection rate DECREASED by 6% since 2016. How did we get there?

On behalf of the @dscc, @dccc and @GeorgiaDemocrat, we sued and obtained a favorable settlement with the state regarding #GA's signature matching laws and Gwinnett County's absentee ballot design. Why was this so important? (2/16)


Up until our settlement, VBM ballots were being thrown out in #GA for no lawful reason due to standard-less signature matching processes that failed to notify voters. As I warned in my #FourPillars, signature matching laws drive disenfranchisement.

Under the terms of the settlement, #GA agreed to provide prompt notification of absentee ballot rejections and increased signature matching regulations and trainings. Gwinnett County also adopted a clearer absentee ballot envelope design in the settlement. BIG wins!🥳 (4/16)

Our victory was critical in the face of #COVID19. Like other states, #GA experienced a giant surge in VBM. Our settlement installed stronger guardrails against VBM disenfranchisement and set the tone for what states had to do to protect their voters amid the pandemic. (5/16)

Here's a quick thread on the chronology leading up to today's vote in the Scottish Parliament on whether ministers should go to court to investigate the finances of Donald Trump's Scottish resorts via a legal mechanism known as an Unexplained Wealth Order.👇

Intrigue surrounding the source of Trump's finances here is by no means new. An editorial in @TheScotsman questioned where the money was coming from back in *2008*. But the UWO issue came to prominence last Feb during exchanges in the Scottish Parliament.

The issue returned to parliament last November, when First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said any consideration or application for an UWO were "properly matters for the Crown Office, not for the Scottish ministers."

This argument went against the explicit definition of who is able to apply for a UWO, as set out in the Criminal Finances Act 2017 / Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, which states that "the Court of Session may, on an application made by the Scottish ministers, make an UWO"

The leading advocate, Aidan O'Neill QC, has also said Scottish ministers alone are responsible for decisions around UWOs, and that transferring responsibility to the Crown Office or Lord Advocate "does not and can not" change its legal responsibilities.

For my followers who aren't experts on middle eastern politics, here's a summary and explanation of all that stuff I've been tweeting about for the last few days - Turkey, Gare, all that stuff.

Gare is a mountain in the autonomous region of Kurdistan, in Northern Iraq (also known as Başur, or South Kurdistan). It's held by the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK), a formerly Maoist group who share an ideology with the YPG. They're pretty great.

Last week the Turkish Army launched an operation in the area, bombarding it with planes and dropping troops from helicopters. They're a long way from home here, and had to rely on the bases of local collaborators to launch the attack.

The initial assault appears to have gone badly, with Turkish troops forced to retreat some way down the mountain. A second front, seemingly aimed at preventing PKK reinforcements from arriving, may have been more successful.

The full aim of the operation isn't clear. They may have hoped to cut Gare from other nearby mountains, and they may have been trying to destroy specific facilities. The only thing we're sure of is that an attempt was made to free a group of high value POWs.

The Republican Party is an authoritarian power structure.

For decades, it embraced greedy nihilists in order to win elections.

In the last 10+ years, a well-funded insurgency has infiltrated and captured it.

They are now threatening & purging any remaining opposition.

We can’t address the threat they pose to democracy without addressing the methods by which they maintain popular support.

This requires action across multiple fronts.

In terms of public policy, we are working on the right things:

-Bills to eliminate the GOP’s counter-majorian control (voting security, eliminating vote suppression)

-Exposing dark money networks who are funding them (forcing transparency for anonymous shell companies)

-Addressing the immediate socio-economic pain that places people in anxiety-laden debt traps, makes them feel isolated, and makes them ripe targets for disinformation/authoritarian messaging appeals (fighting Covid with a plan, financial relief, genuinely empathetic leadership)

Biden and the Dem Congress are working on all of these things already.

This is moving us in the right direction, and shows that they get what needs to be done here. This is good.

There are three areas that still concern me, that I have been trying to call attention to...

Q: What’s missing?
A: Exactly

1) All of us are disgusted & fed up with the Republican Party (except a few perpetual grifters in DC).

2) There are calls for a new "Patriot" or "MAGA" Party. I get it. Good intentions. But there are structural reasons why a new party will fail & why we have to take over the GOP

3) When I say "structural" some people gloss over that as if it's unimportant.

It's fundamental. You don't build a house on a bad foundation. If you set up a commerce site, you have a structure as to how you take payments.

You may wish you could go outside that structure . . .

3) contd . . . but if you want your money, you have to either work in the structure or completely obliterate the site. You can't have two competing sites for your money.

4) Likewise if you want to get in your house, you may have 20 keys, but the car key usually won't let you in

5) The structural basis of parties is unchangeable. It was set in the 1820s by Martin Van Buren as a way to protect slavery with the DemoKKKrat Party. But it's also embedded in the Constitution with the "winner take all/single member district" system of representation.

6) This has resulted in a 200-year-old system that is set in place. First, Van Buren, to get people to support a party that would protect slavery, had to reward them with something big.

Jobs.

He created the "spoils system" of rewarding loyalists with party & gubment jobs.

You're hearing a lot of talk about "irregularities" in the election of 1876 that led to a "disputed" outcome. What is being referred to in this hazy terms?

Across the state of South Carolina, white conservatives had used terror and massacre to deter former slaves from voting in 1876. Here's the story of an attack upon the small town of Hamburg in July

Hundreds of black South Carolinians were killed by white conservative militias. Blacks fought back in many places, but they were out-gunned.

The killings were not spontaneous outbursts. They were part of planned campaign of anti-black voter

Some of the elements of the conservative plan to suppress black votes in South Carolina in 1876 sound queasily familiar in our own time, adjusting for the antique language and technology.

But back of it all was terror and violence, more violence than could be contained by the limited federal forces in the area - who were anyway constrained by the white conservative Democratic House majority elected in 1874.

Jan 3rd: FBi sends intel to Capitol Hill police of violent plans to storm Capitol Hill. Trump authorizes National Guard. DC mayor issues stand down order. DC police reject NG assistance.

Jan 6th: CIA Syria trained Antifa assets pose as Trump supporters and incite insurrection.

I shared my thoughts on the election in the introduction of today's "Wolf Den Newsletter." Although it was written for paid members, I thought it appropriate to share it on Twitter as well for election day.

Here is the thread, I hope it helps you remain calm.

1/ Keep Calm And Carry On.

This phrase was emblazoned on a motivational poster produced by the British government in 1939 in preparation for World War II.

2/ The poster was intended to raise the morale of the British public, threatened with widely predicted mass air attacks on major cities.

The importance of these words rings true in every age, particularly today - Election Day in the United States.

3/ The people of the entire world are collectively holding their breath, awaiting the results of the US election. Markets are bracing for impact and people are boarding up windows, closing up shop and preparing for the worst.

4/ This is a huge moment, and the result will have implications that reverberate for years to come.

But everything will be ok… no matter who wins and no matter what happens in the coming days, weeks and months.

Take a deep breath.

A couple of months back I put together a thread on 🇨🇳 along with @17Commentary and @GemmaSilent. When I cleaned up my account, I deleted it. I feel it is quite relevant now so I am going to repost it here.

Weve seen so much come to light since I first posted this ➡️

18 December 2020 #MAGAanalysis #Overturn

Initial Guidance Is Coming In

Not on Parler, I did not see this message a couple of days ago. I have stated again and again, I follow @GenFlynn and @realDonaldTrump. Their guidance is my command.

2) Here are the key points. We'll take them one by one.

3) "Now is the time for Patriots to stop standing BEHIND Trump" (emphasis added). I was absolutely stunned when I read that. Behind. He's our leader. But no. We must STOP being followers now. We must wait no longer. Deep breath. Okay...

4) "we now must stand up for...in front of...and beside him..."

For is not hard. In front of? Wow! Beside is amazing. He's just a man. We are men and women no different. We stand side by side beside him. But more, we must stand IN FRONT of him. I'd never have thought of that.

5) We must give him our cover. We know that in combat, cover is everything. Cover is life. As the enemy's bullets are flying, if we have no cover we die. Pure tactics. This is that moment when our great @POTUS needs the cover that only we can provide. We stand in front of him.

Background
The following transcripts were released on January 15, 2021, by the Senate Judiciary Committee. They were not released entirely searchable, so The Black Vault has processed them all to have a searchable format.

The Judiciary Committee also released a press release regarding them, which reads as the following:

The Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), today released transcripts of interviews conducted during its inquiry into the origins and aftermath of the Crossfire Hurricane Investigation.

“I consider the Crossfire Hurricane investigation a massive system failure by senior leadership, but not representative of the dedicated, hardworking patriots who protect our nation every day at Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice.

“As chairman of the Senate JudiciaryCommittee, I have decided to release all transcripts of depositions involving the committee’s oversight of the CrossfireHurricane investigation. We have released as much material as possible,but some classified material has still been withheld.

On loving one's neighbour/enemy.

The often-quoted "Love your enemies" (Mt. 5:44, Lk. 6:27) reads "diligite inimicos vestros," αγαπατε τους εχθρους, and not "diligite hastes vestras".

No mention is made of the political enemy. What’s the difference here? The political enemy is the outside. Is “hostis”. “Inimicus” is within the order.

To illustrate an example, within the order of Catholic Christendom, two politically competing orders, say the Dominicans and Franciscans in the late Middle Ages, are inimicus. They should love each other.

As Carl Schmitt points out, Never in the millennia of political struggles between Christians and Muslims did it occur to Christians to surrender rather than defend Europe out of love toward the Saracens or Turks.

The enemy in the political sense, hostis - the definition of which clearly demarcates an exteriority, need not be hated personally, but with regards to interior factions, only then does it make sense to love one's “enemy”, i.e., one's adversary.

As @AndrewSparrow at the @guardian points out, Johnson led Vote Leave and then wrote the following in the Telegraph after the referendum result. Line by line analysis of the key part?: /1

"I cannot stress too much that Britain is part of Europe, and always will be."

Well, he can't change geography, but the centre of gravity in politics and economics in Europe is not in the UK, and the UK is relegated to the periphery with a very limited relationship to the EU. /2

"There will still be intense and intensifying European cooperation and partnership in a huge number of fields: the arts, the sciences, the universities, and on improving the environment."

No: no partnership and none will intensify. Env only because EU insistence on LPF? /3

"EU citizens living in this country will have their rights fully protected, and the same goes for British citizens living in the EU."

No: 'settled status' not the same for EU citizens and Windrush-type scandal expected. /4

"British people will still be able to go and work in the EU; to live; to travel; to study; to buy homes and to settle down."

No: free movement ('proudly') ended. Short visits only, visas for work, massive bureaucracy. Only Brits with a 2nd nationality keep the benefits. /5

43. Military Intelligence Contact Update continued...
. . . He is confirming info from Mark Baughman last Fri 1/22, a former DEA agent and crime analyst for First Coast News Jacksonville FL, that the top patriots’ real plan in the war against the Deep State has been “to go...

Let's talk about the Director of NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE.

"The Director of National Intelligence serves as the head of the Intelligence Community."

"The U.S. Intelligence Community is a coalition of 17 agencies & organizations, including the ODNI."

https://t.co/jzyAXxyVTx