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Dec 20, 2020Liked by Michelangelo Signorile

My non-hubby and I are spending Christmas at home, just the 2 of us. He has always been a homebody; I’m the opposite although my creative artist side has been perfectly happy staying put since the pandemic. I suspect my brother will roll the dice again re Covid exposure and go to Christmas family dinner with his ex-wife’s family.

Trump is really going beyond scraping the bottom of the barrel with Sidney Powell. Not surprised. And the GOP needs to stop the pretense of being shocked about the Russian hacking. They enabled it.

Michelangelo, I wish you and your husband a safe and joyous holiday. Thank you for helping all of us get through this horrific year. You definitely kept me from falling off the cliff. Looking forward to spending 2021 with you!

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founding

My concern is not tRump's wild fantasies, but the reaction by his cult followers. tRump is "stoking" up the planned protest on Jan 6th & giving his dog whistle imprimatur for that protest.....and that is gaining momentum amongst his "crazies". The statement by the self confessed criminal Flynn of military intervention will be "interpreted" by tRump followers like Proud Boys, QAnon, and the other white "terrorists" as their cue to be tRump's de facto "military" substitute led by the disgraced General Flynn. Pence is not leaving the country for nothing, he will be very aware of what will eventuate & intends to escape the aftermath kerfuffle that will ensue. The Disgraced Repugnants should come out of hiding and put a stop to this "crazy talk" military intervention leading to obvious violence by these domestic terrorists. I won't hold my breathe but it will be on the Repugnants leadership when things turn ugly.

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And also, the media for not focusing on the emergency situation this is.

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I'm sick and tired of this mentality from right-winger about how we must honor all veterans. Well I'm a veteran, and I can tell you that there are certain veterans I either knew personally or were like Michael Flynn who I wouldn't piss on to put out a fire.

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Dec 20, 2020Liked by Michelangelo Signorile

I can't believe you're not gonna have a gassy award this year. Because Rudy Giuliani would be a shoe-in! You don't even need special effects--just use the audio from his circus show in front of the Michigan House Oversight Committee.

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Well, not Gassy, but Turkeys -- and Angels -- on December 23rd, our annual awards!

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Stacey Abrams FTW!

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Agree Jeff! She is my top Angel choice also.

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I've had three glasses of white wine as I cook my spaghetti sauce this PM.

We will greatly miss you next week while you're on vacation but you deserve it. As usual, I think we're all feeling concerned about Trump's mental health decline in his last days.

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Bless you Sandra! the best thing to do.

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founding

Sandra...I hope you did the Italian thing and poured some of that good wine into your sauce....? Enjoy the spaghetti sauce and the "Silly Season"....Cheers Adrian B

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Thanks! Actually, I followed a NY Times recipe that recommended I put a dab of real butter in the sauce and it's excellent.

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I think during the week we'll do a threat on "What are eating?" Not just for Christmas, though that will be fun, but also, in general, since the pandemic, how has it change how and what you eat. anyway, save for answers for then but let me know if it's a good idea.

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Yes! This sounds good! I know you like to cook also!

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founding

Also, if you have guests who have acidic stomach issues,ie: tomatoes.....just add a little milk or cream prior to taking it off the heat...that will absorb some of the tomato acid.

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And some sugar, just a little bit.

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I haven't had anyone say they do but thanks for the suggestion. (I'm making lasagne for Christmas dinner)

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Donald Trump, as a desperate sociopath is more dangerous than ever as he goes out the door. He, I assume, would be perfectly willing to take us down along with him. Vigilance is in order. I am not so sure the military would be willing to go along with the idea of martial law.

We got hit with an INSANE snowstorm. I ski raced and have lived in New England my entire life and I have never seen so much snow fall in one storm. 44 inches Thursday.

I had the first shot in the Pfizer series on Wednesday and have had zero side effects. I was afraid I might get a sore arm with all the snow shovelling, but not so far.

Waiting for some takeout and then heading home to work on my Christmas baking.

Thanks Mike for what you do!

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Yes, we'll have to bake through this crazy 30 days! And we'll talk about cooking next week.

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Hi Katherine, I'm getting my vaccine next week. Glad you didn't have any side effects, I'm hoping I will be so lucky! Wow on the snow.

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Good. Hope it goes well. People ask me if I am sore from the shot. I hurt all over but it from shoveling!!!

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Hi Mike and Signorile Fam, well in SoCal it is about as bad as it can get with coronavirus. So we are staying close. Baking bread and making wild rice casserole for dinner. Did walk my 3 miles around the park today and pleased to say everyone was wearing their masks though didn’t pass too many others. People also give a wide berth.

In terms of Fake Bone Spurs he doesn’t stand a chance on any martial law bullshit, the military will NOT support him. But this is all extremely alarming because he’s lost his mind. The Russian hack is very scary. I think you, Mike, and many of your listeners have all said that we are going to find out that Trump’s doings while in office are much worse than anyone thinks. Pence’s political career is over as he will be carrying his support of this guy around like an albatross forever. It’s quite discouraging that the Cabinet never got to the 25th Amendment. And what is really weird is that his kids think this type of behavior is normal/ok.

32 days, everyone is just trying to hang on. Do any little or big thing to get Warnock and Ossoff elected. Another thing that might happen if we have a Dem majority in Congress is some new laws similar to post-Watergate. We can’t have an unfit grifter as President ever again.

Anyway enjoy your snow, we’ll enjoy our sun here! 😎

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So glad to hear about baking bread! I've wanted to do that this weekend or some time this week.

Yes, it's 32 days of a roller coaster ride and i don't know where it stops.

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Me and the wife will probably make pizza's. Hopefully next year I'll make some vanilla bean mint chocolate chip Cannolis for her office.

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Also very worried about the hospital situation there. So yes, stay safe.

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His cabinet will never attempt enforcing the 25th amendment because they are all part of the cult and like all talabangelicals, they never question their leaders.

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Agree, and it’s incredibly disgusting.

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Merry Christmas Chris!

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You too Sandra and Happy New Year, cannot get here fast enough!

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Yes! I hope our Democratic politicians will protect us until 01/20/2021.

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Trumper Covid-denying relatives invited me for Christmas but I'm staying in and having a Zoom Christmas with my best friend. In six months I hope this will all be over.

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Oh wow, how many people are having? When you say covid-denying, they just think it's nothing , like the flu, or the whole thin is made up?

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Probably 15 or so. Democratic hoax, overblown etc. But here's the thing Michael, one of our relatives who would have been at that table actually died of COVID a few months ago! But they claim well he was 90 so...

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It is time for any advisors or anybody else advising Trump to overturn the election be charged with sedition (especially anybody who took an oath to preserve and protect the constitution). Trump is not behaving rationally and it is also time for the 25th Amendment to be exercised. It is also time for any Republicans who care at all about country before party (if there are any such folks still left in the GOP) to strongly denounce publicly what is going on. The United States is on the verge of a major catastrophe and it is not being addressed by those who can actually do something about it!

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From my perspective, it's clear that Putin is toying with Trump. He's making it crystal clear that he has Trump by the crosshairs, and Trump is terrified of saying or doing anything to cross him. This is far more than simple admiration for a dictator and disdain for democracy. Putin has made an unmistakable statement, making GOP Senators look like comical stooges - with ever-more flailing efforts to justify their absurdity, and pushing Trump to ever-greater levels of madness trying to escape the spotlight of treason. Putin will continue to twist the knife because 'why not'. The United States looks like a hapless, helpless, leaderless ship of fools. The farce that is the Senate is exceeded only by the farce that is the House. The moral and intellectual rot of our government and half our populace is laid bare for the world and history to jeer. America grows more irrelevant and clownish every day. The media, who have dumbed down their coverage for 5 years are panicking, but it's way too late...they have helped to enable the hellscape that their children will be inhering. The pundits can continue the pretense, but unless there is a drumbeat of honesty by Democratic leaders, a brutally honest reckoning of the clear and present danger that we face, Covid-19 will outlast democracy.

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i agree, he is following Putin's lead, Putin's orders. Going silent on hacking -- leaving them embedded.

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Your perspective mind reading Putin at thousands of miles and dozens of time zones? Gullible you are.

After all the CIA AND DEMBOT "BOYS THAT CRIED WOLF," this one is EVEN LESS BELIEVABLE and completely and totally evidence free like the previous ones. Lots of words and rubbish but NO FUCKING EVIDENCE !!! Yet you and Signorile believers ... LIKE THE FUCKING MORMONS!

But I could be wrong?

Can any of you pontificating wannabe natsec pundits EVER say, 'hey, I might be wrong' or I might even be totally fucked up on this'?

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So Proud Boys are continuing to organize disturbances in DC including one in the next 2 days at BLM plaza and also on Jan 6, for the vote on the electoral college vote and then on Jan 20 to infiltrate in Biden gear and cause violence during inauguration day. They are doing this organizing openly on any social media that will still have them but heavily on Parler and also on a YouTube channel run by Joe Biggs.

What worries me the most is white liberals are not understanding that these events are much more important to show up to than coming to dance in the street on the Saturday that Biden's election was called. These groups will keep coming back until they are scared and humiliated to do so.

This does not require showing up to fight or engage in violence, it only requires numbers. That is bodies showing up to be counted in the streets. If numbers showed up in the numbers to celebrate Biden's win or god forbid numbers like the first women's march, they would not keep coming back because it would be clear they are not welcome and if their inferior number of participants try to do violence in that context, it will be obvious who is committing crimes and it would force the hand of police and mayor Bowser to do the right thing and stop obscuring the criminality of this gang with BLM protesters.

On August 12, 2018 I was so proud of our city that showed up in record numbers to oppose a small number of white supremacists who wanted to have an anniversary of the car terror attack that killed Heather Heyer and injured many of my friends. We cannot be complacent at this time. These are fascists trying to take public space and anyone against that who can sbow up to oppose it should. If you can show up to victory parties them you should show up to be counted on fights that don't need to be fights.

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Klo, I worry the Proud Boys are trying to spark riots, instigate other violence in infiltrators, so that Trump can then have an excuse to send in the military. What are your thoughts othat?

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It's unclear how much coordination between Trump and Proud Boys is actually happening right now. Enrique Tarrio posted photographs of himself at the white house last weekend saying he was invited, but the white house said he was on a public tour.

As far as the military getting involved, I don't think that is going to happen. I am more worried about the unmarked and unknown federal officers that we saw over the summer. They were completely unaccountable to anyone except Bill Barr. Even the mayor had no information on who or what these officers were.

The Proud Boys, whether coordinating with Trump or just taking cues from him are a real danger to everyone who wants to live in a civil society and especially to vulnerable people like POC and LGBTQ communities. I have spent 4+ years reading their own words and those of the group's that preceded them and they literally want to murder us. By us I mean the collective us as in the left and their definition of the left is more expansive than mine to include all democrats and anyone who believes in social justice. If our institutions were ever to collapse we will be in trouble from groups like the Proud Boys.

I can say definitively that they are currently recruiting and planning to infiltrate pro-Biden crowds on inauguration day and cause some sort of disturbance and possibly violence.

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That is very troubling, particularly since we don't really know what the inauguration will look like, in the midst of the pandemic.

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One more thing about the access and organizing of the Proud Boys that i wanted to point out is that in Feb. last year, Roger Stone was put under oath at an expedited hearing after posting a picture if Judge Amy Berman Jackson with crosshairs in the corner of the image. He was questioned about the post by the judge but also by the prosecuting attorneys. Under cross examination he claimed that "assistants" had access to his social media and could have been the people that made that post.

He was very careful to try to distance himself from saying that these actors were employees of any sort because he was also claiming destitution due to legal fees. While questioned by the special counsel and DC USAO he named four names as his assistants that would have access to his social media and the three I remember are Enrique Tarrio, Jacob Engel, and Tyler Whyte (not his real last name). The fourth name I do not remember right now and I have 4 years of court notebooks to go through if I want to find it. All his "assistants" are known Proud Boys. The impression that I took away from his sworn testimony was that these PBs were people who worked closely with Stone and were people who had access to both his his home and his digital presence. Many of them showed up in person for the trial as well. At one point they were confrontational inside the courthouse , coming looking for my boss because they were mad about our tweets. My boss was actually not there but I had to safely get our guest live tweeter away from the courthouse that day.

There may be some laundering of access between Trump and the PBs, but it is like one degree of separation and this is not something new and definitely by design.

PBs are a ground force but researching people like Stone has been very frustrating because he is publicly linked to every alt-right group that exists but there is no legal form of research that proves what he is doing with these groups.

In some ways I would say Stone is disciplined in how he operates to conceal his actual activities and access. Watching his prosecution makes me think we have only scratched the surface of what these people including Tump ate actually up to.

Sent from ProtonMail mobile

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Next year, the FBI needs to investigate and get rid of racists in all local and state police forces. I remember as far back as the mid-2000's when my father said hello to a Michigan State Police. Normally back in the 80's and before they would act normal and say hello back. But in this case the officer just gave him a thousand yard stare. It probably would have been a lot worse if we were black.

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The Biden administrations DHS must re-focus on domestic terrorism. All of the programs were pretty much destroy by cutting back or re-orienting to other priorities of the fascistic Trump admin. Proud Boys and others have been able to operate, there's no research like the kind DHS should be doing. We have to be real thankful that the FBI was able to stop the plot against Gov. Whitmer. But yes, a lot of these people have gone into state and local police forces.

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It's scary but the police have definitely chosen a side. They protect the fascists and racists every time they show up and brutalize anti-racist protesters. It would be a huge undertaking to route out all the racists in police departments.

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One place to start would be the Stormfront website. There's like a beehive of racists in there.

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Didn't want to spoil today's thread on Thanksgiving, Michelangelo, so coming back to this one to make my comment.

Just listened to Thursday's show via On Demand and, specifically, regarding Michael Tomasky: I think he's had his day and it's time to stop having him on the show. He used to be great but now comes across as a spoiled and overly erudite Washingtonian. He was making so many elitist assumptions about the election, about the electorate, about Biden and what's coming up in the new Administration. I imagined you cringing in your home studio, but you kept your cool and was respectful. I, however, was getting red in the face with what he was saying and how he was saying it. Michelangelo, there are so many other great journalists out there — we don't need the pessimistic, overly assuming, speaking-out-of-his-ass Tomasky anymore.

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BTW Mike, thanks, trolls just want attention. I also like the idea of a food thread and can’t wait for the Angels/Turkeys show this week!

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What the hell is going on with Sidney Powell's voice? Usually it's not until a person's in their 80's when they're voice goes like that.

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You MISSED THE BIGGEST NEWS OF ALL!

#FORCE THE VOTE, a campaign by internet comedian and political commentator JIMMY DORE to PRESSURE THE TEN PROGRESSIVE IN THE HOUSE TO

>>>>>>>WITHHOLD VOTES FROM PELOSI FOR SPEAKER

>>>>>>>UNLESS PELOSI SCHEDULES A VOTE ON MEDICARE FOR ALL!

That's right. after having to vote for segregationist prison guard Joe and cop Kamela, the people who fucking ELECTED them are pressuring THE SQUAD PLUS SIX to play hardball politics 101...

HARDBALL POLITICS 101 THE LYNDON BAINES GODDAM JOHNSON WAY ...

>>>>>you GET something when you GIVE something.

Everything is TRANSACTIONAL in this capitalist economy anyway EXCEPT FOR PROGRESSIVES IN CONGRESS!

SIGN THE PETITION! #FORCETHEVOTE at https://forcethevote.org/

Over and out...

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It is clear that Trump's threat of a veto of the NDAA and all the press whining that it would be the first time in six decades means some sacred cows hated by John F. Kennedy like the CIA and generally used-to-be-hated by LIB-RALS are fixing to get gored. This is to goad Trumpinto NOT VETOING the NDAA honeypot, wait and see.

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