‘US don’t want fascist takeover by Republican party’: McGovern vs Scott

Summary: A heated House hearing erupted as Rep. Jim McGovern and Rep. Austin Scott clashed over President Donald Trump's policies, the Republican agenda, and the upcoming November elections. McGovern accused Republicans of pushing a "fascist takeover," while Scott fired back in a tense exchange over the GOP's direction and voter sentiment. Watch the full confrontation and the biggest moments from this explosive congressional debate. 7/21/26

Anti-Globalism Conspiracy

 

Extremist Ideology Drives

Anti-Globalism, 

Christian Zionist Crusade



By Steve Rensberry 
Opinion / Analysis
_________________

   EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. - 11/9/2020 - Zionist, anti-globalist, and gun advocate Baruch Pletner is a man on a mission. Jewish, born in Russia, and fanatically pro-Israel, Pletner spent the first 10 years of his life in the Russian Federation before moving to Israel, according to an online bio, and served in the Israeli Air Force for a while, before making his way to Boston in 1973 as an engineer. In 2010 he immigrated to Canada, taking up residence in the province of Prince Edward Island. 


Dubbed the “High-Tech Traditionalist,” and a “scientist, entrepreneur and thinker,” Pletner speaks with a noticeable accent and the tone of an expert. He writes, blogs, participates in podcasts, tweets, and appears on talk radio and a handful of Youtube videos, most if not all catering to the views of America's far-right nationalists.

   The sad thing is that what Pletner embraces, in apostle-like fashion, is nothing but a regurgitation of old falsehoods, fears and prejudices. Pre-1990, it was the ominous “New World Order,” long a target of anti-government and fundamentalist Christian groups and a carry-over from the Cold War era, in which it was feared that a godless communism and collectivist world government would replace national sovereignty with totalitarian rule and a One World Government. Progressives, liberals, the United Nations, the welfare-state, international institutions and alliances, all can be seen as building blocks of the beastly globalism trend.

   Books such as the 1903 work, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (described as an antisemitic canard), H.G. Well's 1940 book, The New World Order, and the work of neo-theosophical occultist Alice Bailey -- a founder of the so-called New Age movement – and other literary works and figures have invigorated the anti-globalism conspiratorial mindset.

   In lockstep with our lame-duck president and others on the right, Pletner defines the Democratic Party as fundamentally evil and its supporters as criminals without honor, with a goal of complete destruction. The “Deep State,” always capitalized, figures prominently in his writing. Ironically, he fears that his enemies will completely destroy people like him if they win, yet nearly in the same breath he states that if they win, Trump will deal his enemies “a final crushing blow, a blow from which they will never recover.” He continues, echoing a belief that the existing establishment must be wiped clean or demolished entirely in order to rebuild the kind of nation they really want. “Yes, this will involve the destruction and rebuilding of many if not most of America's most cherished institutions, but it is the only way that America can be saved, the only way in which this first battle can also be the last one.”    

   That's some iron-clad, black-and-white thinking.

    Pletner writes about a coming civil war, about annihilating liberals, and about the collapse of nations -- a good thing in his mind, it seems, necessary to rid the world of bad people and to set things right. He may be educated in engineering and have experience abroad, but his essays lean heavily on exaggeration, misrepresentation, and inflammatory language. It is us vs them, and everything is on the table.

   “The globalist world order is in full collapse. Nobody is buying the wares that it is peddling. Extreme secularism, acceptance and glorification of LGBTx , extreme feminism, and 'wokeness,' are all being rejected in favor of nationalism, traditionalism, and renewed religiosity. There is and yet will be a lot of screaming at the sky, but this reality is undeniable. And so are its consequences,” Pletner writes. See: up for grabs

   In his last column before the election, Pletner called the Bidens a crime family with less honor even than the Cosa Nostra (Sicilian Mafia), and a worse choice for elected office than Al Capone or Meyer Lansky would have been. “These men may have been gangsters, but they loved America,” he says. Loyalty and allegiance are, apparently, Value No. 1. Morals and characer are somewhere further down the list.

   Former Utah Congressional candidate Debbie Aldrich has interviewed Pletner on her YouTube channel and radio show “Freedom Voice Radio.” Aldrich, meanwhile, is listed as an “On Air Talent/Roving Reporter on the CDMedia staff page, as well as author for the Center for Security Policy (CSP) – an organization categorized by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a hate group, primarily anti-Muslim. 

   As stated in the SPLC report: “Frank Gaffney, Jr. founded the neo-conservative-turned-anti-Muslim think tank CSP in 1988, following his tenure as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy in the Ronald Reagan administration. From the late '80s to the mid-2000s, CSP was seen as a mainstream though hawkish organization that favored the so-called 'peace through strength' doctrine popularized by President Reagan. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the CSP never left its Cold War mentality, and instead shifted its focus from battling Communism to fighting Islam.”

   In a 2018 article posted on myfintale.com about former Arizona state Sen. Kelli Ward, Aldrich was described thus: “Ward has done three interviews with Debbie Aldrich, a conservative pundit who made a failed bid to fill the seat of retiring Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) in a special election last year. On her Twitter feed, Aldrich falsely called Obama a Muslim and promoted the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. She blamed Obama and 'all his anti-white hate mongers' for 'inciting race riots,' and said he gave 'these #Black Thugs #BLM Carte Blanche to DESTROY AMERICA.'” 

   You might surmise that both Pletner and Aldrich are supporters of our lame-duck president Donald Trump, along with being big contributors to the broader far-right and conservative media networks that support him, and you would be right. Of note:

  • In addition to YouTube interviews and podcasts, Pletner and Aldrich are both contributors to CDMedia, a site run by far-right writer and conspiracy publicist L. Todd Wood. In addition to his own site, Wood's articles reach the Washington Times, Washington Examiner, New York Post, and a long list of other right-wing sites. 

  • Wood is featured on a podcast hosted by Steve Bannon (Breitbart, Trump admin), Raheem Kassam (former editor-in-chief of Breitbart) and Jack Maxey.

  • Wood hails from the financial industry as a bond trader (Cantor), Bannon as an investment banker (Goldman Sacs), as does another person on Wood's contributor list, Peter Cecchini (Cantor). See also: L. Todd Wood

  • Wood has a connection to some degree with the anti-Iranian M.E.K. group, which was once listed as a terrorist organization before rebranding itself and earning U.S. support, including from Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani, both of whom were in attendance at a 2012 rally in Paris for the M.E.K. Also in attendance: Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, former State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, and former Bush U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton. “The M.E.K.'s political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, has its headquarters in Paris.” See: Iranian terrorist group

  • Bannon's writing and reputation outpaces Wood's, but both make wide use of many of the same techniques. Bannon was heavily involved with the alt-right news site Breitbart and recently had his account suspended on Twitter after calling for the beheading of Dr. Anthony Fauci. Bannon also faced arrest in August in a case involving the suspected misuse of fundraising dollars. Wood's account was suspended, as well, for spreading fake news and misinformation related to the Bidens.

  • Bannon was VP of the Board of Cambridge Analytics, “a data-analytics firm which allegedly used illegal tactics to target American voters in the 2016 election and is owned largely by the Mercer family, the family that also co-owns Breitbart News.” He was appointed chief executive of Trump's presidential campaign 88 days before the 2016 election, but the two appeared to part ways under public pressure. See Bannon.

  • Bannon has described himself as an economic nationalist and “proud Christian Zionist.” He has also been described as an admirer of paleoconservative commentator Pat Buchanan, with an ideology that “is substantially similar to that of Stephen Miller, Tucker Carlson, Benny Johnson, Raheem Kassam and Matthew Boyle, the latter two having been protégés of Bannon at Breitbart.”  

   While there is widespread ideological agreement among each of these players, Pletner, interestingly, accuses Bannon in one of his articles of conducting a “counter-coup resting on rotten foundations of residual white bigotry, real and imagined white oppression, and white nostalgia for what never was and never will be,” while fully sharing Bannon's Zionist, Democratic-hating, anti-globalist world view. Both men, however, have been apologists, and publicists, for our 45th president. 

   As for the split between Bannon and Trump, read this paragraph from an article by “author and political analyst” Ava Armstrong. The article, titled, Is There a Secret Strategy to the Trump and Bannon Division and Feud?, was posted on the America Out Loud site after Bannon was given the boot from the White House early in Trump's presidency.

   “Consider this, Donald Trump is a very unconventional individual in his thinking and his tactics, a strategist, an asymmetric schemer and out-right pretty clever man,” Armstrong writes. “I believe this was by design, contrived by Trump and Bannon as a tactic of presenting an overt separation between the two – providing an appearance of severing of their political and perhaps ideological ties. But here’s the deception, nothing has really changed as they are clandestinely maintaining a covert dual track strategy designed to destroy the Establishment and the Swamp. This new tiff, albeit artificial and maybe made for politics and the media, perhaps is just part of the perception designed to provide the cover to create the illusion of a severing and separation between Bannon and Trump. The cover story so to speak, to all of this presents the belief that Trump no longer answers to Bannon … and no longer does Bannon have any association or influence with Trump." 

   This may only be one person's opinion, that of Armstrong's, but the attacks on established institutions and norms we've witnessed over the past four years would seem to bear it out, as well as from things Trump himself has said.

   If there's one thing that Pletner, Aldrich, Bannon, Wood, and all the rest seem fixated on it's destruction. They want to destroy their opponents, not merely win or beat them at the polls. They want to destroy the establishment, not merely improve it, build on it, or reform it, or even replace it. Concepts like diplomacy and compromise are rarely mentioned. And they assure themselves, without evidence, that their enemies want to destroy them in return.

   This is not a sign of healthy minds, nor of good intentions with respect to the future of our country and the world.

   On Nov. 7, 2020, Biden accepted the election results as president-elect of the United States, as the world awaits final certification of the results, as well as the results of various court challenges the Trump campaign has filed. Given the depth and history of the anti-globalist conspiracy, and the sheer number of voters who remained loyal to the president in his re-election bid, such fanaticism could very well intensify.

For further reading: 

Information and Politics

 

How Do You Know 

What You Know?

 
By James Grandone
Commentary
____________ 
 

EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. - 11/9/2020 - How do you get your information about politics, COVID-19 and local events? If you get most of it from friends and family, where do they get it?

Jim Grandone

Most likely the answer is from the media, either print or broadcast news or online news sources. I get mine from news aggregators online. They scour all the major news outlets and publish the most important stories every day from primary news sources, such as major daily newspapers, network news and cable news networks.

We cannot keep up with all the news because we can’t be everywhere news happens. That is the function of reporters.

Often news drives policy in Washington, D.C., state capitols and city halls. Politicians and our reactions to the news influence the formulation of public policy.

Most of the time, news outlets just report what is being debated in deliberative bodies like Congress and state legislatures. But what if the news outlets made policy directly by telling politicians what to support and what to oppose?

That is how Fox News Channel operates, according to a new book by CNN Media Correspondent Brian Stelter, “HOAX: Donald Trump, Fox News and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth.”

In a review of the book in The New Republic, Stelter says it was the late Roger Ailes who convinced Trump to do a weekly call in to Fox & Friends program. Rather than ask Trump what his position was on the day’s topics, Ailes told Trump what to say on the program.

These positions became Trump’s positions and contributed to his positions on issues and his fixation on news ratings in determining his actions as president. By the way, Fox does not have many reporters and gets most of its “news” from online news publications, including the right-wing conservative Breitbart and The Drudge Report. Makes sense. This affects the national divide in the United States over policy issues like gun control, Black Lives Matter and other controversial subjects. Fox has a very loyal following, and so does Trump. In most polling, it would seem that Trump has a solid 30 percent support, which comprises his “base.” Where does his base get their news? From Fox News Channel programming. Research has shown that a full 34 percent of voters get their news from Fox News Channel. Where does Trump get his position on issues? Fox News Channel and, in particular, his buddy Sean Hannity. See the circle?

The rest of us get our news from what is commonly called “mainstream news outlets.” They are staffed by journalists and reporters who adhere to standards of objectivity and fairness as best they can. Journalists who write news, rather than commentary, strive to present a story looking at all sides of an issue, rather than supporting an ideological point of view, like Fox News Channel. Local newspapers, such as The Intelligencer, often serve as the sole source of local news. The “I” recognizes that people have many options for national and world news and have chosen to be the best source for local news. It is a niche for other community newspapers to consider filling. So, it’s important to really think about what you know and how you know it. If you don’t watch television news or read newspapers and get most of your information from family and friends, from where do they get their information?

I think we should try to formulate our opinions based on all the information available. Then we can make a rational decision about voting for the best-qualified candidate.

 ------------------

Jim Grandone is a long-time resident of Edwardsville, Ill. He was the architect of the 'East County...If You Only Knew' marketing campaign promoting the Metro East to businesses in St. Louis in the 1990s. Grandone holds a BA in political science from the University of Illinois at Springfield and was a Coro Fellow and serves on a variety of boards. He lives in Leclaire with his wife, Mary.

 
Reprinted with permission. This article originally ran in the Edwardsville Intelligencer

Government Transparency


DHS, ICE Sued For Withholding

Documents On COVID-19 Precautions



By Steve Rensberry 
RP News
__________

EDWARDSVILLE - (RP News) - 11/9/2020 - Documents withheld by the Department of Homeland Security and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement involving the COVID-19 pandemic are the subject of a lawsuit filed on Nov. 6 by the American Civil Liberties Union.

According to a news release about the filing, ICE has reported 490 active cases of COVID-19 among those currently being detained. Critics suggest the number is much higher, however, given limited testing.

“We know, from discovery in more than 50 suits the ACLU has filed against ICE around the country, that the agency has fundamentally refused the basic precautions to keep people safe from COVID,” ACLU-DC Senior Counsel Arthur Spitzer said. “ICE claims it is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the medical needs of detained people, and yet they’re still getting sick, and some are dying. The American people deserve to know what horrors people are being subjected to on our soil.”

Requested records include the following:

  • The transfer or deportation of detained people who have tested positive for COVID-19 or exhibited symptoms.

  • Any documentation from the start of the Trump administration and onward related to planning for a possible infectious disease outbreak.

  • Models or predictions related to infection and mortality rates of detained people, ICE employees and contractors, and employees of third-party contractors.

  • Any suspected or confirmed exposures, infections, and deaths of people living or working in immigration detention facilities.

  • The risk of spreading COVID-19 to surrounding communities via staff, third-party contractors, visitors, detained people, and transfers.

  • Access to hygiene products and personal protective equipment, and the possibility of social distancing.

  • The testing of detained people, ICE employees and contractors, and employees of third-party contractors at ICE facilities, and testing, treatment, and care of detained people.

  • Directives, policies, protocols, and trainings related to COVID-19 in immigrant detention.

  • Congressional or state-based inquiries into coronavirus-related issues.

The notice said public health experts had been sounding the alarm for months that such centers could become COVID-19 hotspots, and that FY 2020 (ending Sept. 30) was one of the deadliest for ICE detention in 15 years. “This year has also seen numerous reports about the lack of even basic COVID precautions taken by ICE, as well as evidence that ICE has attempted to silence detainees who tried to speak out for better care,” the release stated.

“In a year with so many disasters in the headlines, the escalating humanitarian crisis at ICE detention centers has not received the kind of alarm it deserves,” said Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project. “The abuse, neglect, and degradation our clients regularly face in ICE custody have only worsened since the pandemic began: This year alone, we've seen allegations of sexual abuse, increased use of force, rampant use of solitary confinement, attempts by ICE to minimize its role in the deaths of detained people, and hunger strikes to protest the horrendous conditions. The decisions and policies that ICE uses to guide it during this pandemic are a matter of life or death for tens of thousands of detained people and the staff who work at these facilities. It is simply unacceptable that this agency thinks it can act with so little transparency and accountability.”

U.S. Elections

Civil Rights Organizations 

Fight Attempt to Block Valid Ballots


HARRISBURG, Penn. (ACLU) - 11/5/2020 - Voting rights organizations are fighting back against an attempt by Republican candidates in Pennsylvania to invalidate valid ballots cast by eligible voters.

   State representative candidate Joseph Hamm and U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, along with four voters, filed a lawsuit in Commonwealth Court on Election Day, claiming that county election officials who were following guidance from the Pennsylvania Department of State had violated state election law by notifying voters that their mail-in ballots had been rejected. The petitioners asked the court to invalidate all provisional or replacement ballots cast by Pennsylvania voters whose mail-in ballots were canceled, and all mail-in ballot that were “cured” after voters were notified about a problem with their initial ballot.

In an amicus brief filed Nov. 5, leading organizations representing voters came together to oppose the attempt to deprive Pennsylvanians of the opportunity to cast a valid ballot. The brief was filed by the Black Political Empowerment Project, Common Cause Pennsylvania, the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, and NAACP Pennsylvania State Conference.

These organizations were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Pennsylvania, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Public Interest Law Center, and pro bono counsel from Covington & Burling.

“This attempt to disenfranchise Pennsylvania voters must be rejected,” the brief reads. “Nothing in the Election Code prohibits a county board of elections from providing notice that a voter’s mail-in ballot has been rejected so that the voter can be contacted and afforded an opportunity to cast a valid ballot.”

A mail-in ballot can be canceled when the voter made certain technical mistakes, such as not using a secrecy envelope. By notifying voters that their ballots cannot be accepted, the amici assert, Pennsylvania counties have given voters a chance to make their voice heard. Invalidating provisional ballots would eliminate the only recourse that voters whose mail-in ballots would be rejected have to be able to participate in the election.

“Every vote counts, and this latest effort to discard valid ballots in Pennsylvania should be rejected,” said Sophia Lin Lakin, deputy director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project. “Every voter must have their voice heard. No more shenanigans by those who oppose this foundational principle of our democracy.”

Source: ACLU news release