In today’s news - Part 3

Approaching ice/winter storm in Texas and Ted talks...

Takeovers starting. This is accomplished...

California voters hand county over to militia allies -- thanks to Connecticut billionaire out for revenge
Travis Gettys
February 03, 2022

Voters ousted a California county official and handed control of its board of supervisors to a group aligned with a local militia, with the help of an out-of-state billionaire with a grudge against the local government.

Nearly 53 percent of Shasta County voters elected to recall supervisor Leonard Moty, a Republican former Redding police chief, following almost two years of threats and conspiracy theories over the board's pandemic safety measures, reported the Sacramento Bee.


“I think it’s going to be a change in our politics,” Moty told The Guardian. "I think we’re going to shift more to the alt-right side of things. I really thought my community would step up to the plate and they didn’t, and that’s very discouraging.”

Moty's ouster tips the majority of the five-member board to a movement aligned with the Cottonwood militia, with his likely replacements as either construction superintendent Dale Ball or school board member Tim Garman -- who are separated by only 33 votes, and each of them celebrated their "victory" with militia members.

"This feels very much to me like the Nazi Party in the early '30s of Germany," Moty told KQED-TV, "where, you know, they came out with their brown shirts and they intimidated people. They bullied them into silence."

Moty, his family and supporters faced threats from militia members and their allies, including militia member and mask opponent Carlos Zapata, over public health measures and what some saw as insufficient support for gun rights.

"It's not going to be peaceful much longer, okay, and this isn't a threat," Zapata told the board of supervisors during an August 2020 meeting. "I'm not a criminal, I've never been a criminal, but I'm telling you good citizens are going to turn to real concerned and revolutionary citizens real soon."

“Distrust in government has permeated the most local levels,” said terrorism expert Colin Clarke. “I’m familiar with the indicators of extremism and radicalization. I see them in places I never expected to see them. If you had told me as terrorism expert I’d be talking about school boards, I’d have said you’re crazy.”

The recall also attracted the interest of Connecticut film producer Reverge Anselmo, who donated $450,000 to the recall's political action committee, nearly two years after donating $100,000 to the successful campaign of current county supervisor Patrick Jones -- who celebrated Moty's ouster.

"I'm really proud of all the people that took part in this," Jones said. "It was a grassroots movement, mainly by women, the stay-at-home moms and grandmas and business owners, and they worked their tails off to get these signatures to certify the recall election."

The 60-year-old Anselmo spent years unsuccessfully battling Shasta County in court after officials ordered him in 2007 to stop work on the 670-acre Bear Creek Ranch near Shingletown, where he had hoped to establish a restaurant, ranch and winery.

"Funded by an out-of-state millionaire who is seeking revenge against the county, the recall effort has done nothing more than sow hate and division in our community. If the voters chose a different direction, which is probable, then they’ll get what (Reverge) Anselmo was willing to buy," Moty told the Record Searchlight. "I’m proud that I stood against anarchists, extremists, and white supremacists wanting to take over our county. As a lifelong resident of Shasta County, I’m very concerned with this change in leadership and its effect on our community."

www.rawstory.com/reverge-anselmo-shasta-county/

GETTR may be a goner!

On Thursday, the conservative site Washington Examiner reported turmoil at GETTR, the right-wing alternative to Twitter founded last year by a controversial alum of former President Donald Trump's campaign.

"Social media upstart GETTR fired over a dozen staff members late last year, including two key executives and its entire IT and cybersecurity teams, amid rapid growth and what former employees said were funding problems," reported Nihal Krishan. "The layoffs came even as interest in the company, founded by Jason Miller, a spokesman for former President Donald Trump, exploded. But three people who were canned say that behind the scenes, GETTR is struggling with more than just growing pains, warning that the recent round of layoffs may have jeopardized the platform’s security."
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One of these employees reportedly told the Examiner, "In all honesty, in all my years of doing cybersecurity, I’ve never seen a company this poorly run from business operations all the way to IT. It looks like a high school operation."

www.rawstory.com/gettr-2656544750/

Cheney and Kinzinger are really growing on me. I never thought those 2 Republicans who voted with Trump 85-90% of the time would be the reasonable ones. The rest of the party has abandoned integrity and ethics in a desperate attempt to maintain power. This is a great quote from Cheney. She’s absolutely right. History will not be kind to the rest of the Republicans.

Cheney said: “Leaders of the Republican Party have made themselves willing hostages to a man who admits he tried to overturn a presidential election and suggests he would pardon Jan. 6 defendants…some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy. I’m a constitutional conservative and I do not recognize those in my party who have abandoned the Constitution to embrace Donald Trump. History will be their judge.”

The Pence video will enrage former!!

Donald Trump is wrong!!!
Spoken at the Federalist Society!!

I'm picturing T-rump beating Pence on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper, & Pence just taking it.