Steve Thomas

In response to speculation that he used prepaid burner phones to talk with allies during a key seven-hour period on January 6, 2021, former President Donald Trump on Tuesday denied even knowing what burner phones were. "I have no idea what a burner phone is, to the best of my knowledge I have never even heard the term," Trump claimed. However, former Trump national security adviser John Bolton now tells The Washington Post's Robert Costa that he's not buying Trump's explanation. Specifically, Bolton tells Costa that he recalls Trump discussing burner phones multiple times and being generally aware of what the devices are used for. People who do not wish to have their communications tracked or monitored typically buy burner phones, which come with a finite number of prepaid cellular minutes and that do not require users to register an individual account with wireless carriers. In fact, Bolton tells Costa that he remembers Trump talking about how people have used such phones to avoid having their calls scrutinized. It's always that pesky cover-up. Steve Thoma

Paul, Peter Millett, Ambassador to Libya, Tripoli: https://blogs.fcdo.gov.uk/petermillett/2014/03/05/the-worst-form-of-government/ “Winston Churchill once said that: “democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried.”” Steve Thomas

South Dakota Tribal Leaders Say Hotel Banning Native Americans Is Trespassing A hotel owner wrote a racist rant against Native Americans. Now the Great Sioux Nation is asking the hotel to evacuate its lands immediately, citing treaties. By Andre Ellington Mar. 28, 2022 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/native-americans-south-dakota-racism_n_6242242be4b0742dfa55b114 “In a now-deleted Facebook post, Connie Uhre, owner of the Grand Gateway Hotel in Rapid City, wrote that she wouldn’t allow Native Americans to enter the hotel after a shooting took place there, citing vandalism and “Natives killing Natives.” “[Due] to the killing that took place at the Grand Gateway Hotel on March 19, 2022 at 4 am plus all the vandalism we have had since the Mayor and Police Department are working with the non profit organization (Dark Money). We will no longer allow any Native American on property,” Uhre wrote, adding that she would also ban Native Americans from the sports bar inside the hotel. “ “Meanwhile, tribal leaders issued a Notice To Trespass order to the hotel over the weekend, citing the hotel for being in violation of provisions of the “Treaty with the Sioux, April 29, 1868.” The treaty states that “no white person or persons shall be permitted to settle upon or occupy any portion of the [land north of the North Platte River or east of the summits of the Big Horn Mountains]; or without the consent of the Indians first had and obtained, to pass through the same.” The Great Sioux Nation is instructing the Grand Gateway Hotel to evacuate immediately. “You are further notified that the Great Sioux Nation, in order to prevent further trespass upon said land, may … take possession, destroy, or remove said property at your expense,” the order states. “” Good enough for ya. Steve Thomas

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Abraham Lincoln November 19, 1863 Steve Thomas

Ginni Thomas and the truckers' convoy: Why the right seeks refuge in conspiracy theories by Amanda Marcotte, Salon https://www.rawstory.com/peoples-convoy-2657054319/ “Ultimately, what Thomas and the truckers are coming up against is a problem that's plagued the GOP for so long that I wrote an entire book about it: Their actual beliefs are indefensible by any reasonable or evidence-based standard. So, instead of making their arguments directly, they swaddle them in lies and conspiracy theories. They rail against vaccine mandates that don't exist. They rave about election theft that didn't happen. All to justify that which cannot be justified on its own: Their belief that they are entitled to rule no matter what. And the more unjustifiable their actual beliefs become, the deeper they dive down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, rather than face the truth of what they've become." Steve Thomas

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840.260.0.pdf Based on the evidence, the Court finds it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021 Based on these repeated meetings and statements, the evidence shows that an agreement to enact the electoral count plan likely existed between President Trump and Dr. Eastman. Deceitful or dishonest means Obstruction of a lawful government function violates § 371 when it is carried out “by deceit, craft or trickery, or at least by means that are dishonest.”248 While acting on a “good faith misunderstanding” of the law is not dishonest, “merely disagreeing with the law does not constitute a good faith misunderstanding . . . because all persons have a duty to obey the law whether or not they agree with it.” The Court discussed above how the evidence shows that President Trump likely knew that the electoral count plan was illegal. President Trump continuing to push that plan despite being aware of its illegality constituted obstruction by “dishonest” means under § 371 DISPOSITION Dr. Eastman and President Trump launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history. Their campaign was not confined to the ivory tower—it was a coup in search of a legal theory. The plan spurred violent attacks on the seat of our nation’s government, led to the deaths of several law enforcement officers, and deepened public distrust in our political process. With this limited mandate, the Court finds the following ten documents privileged: 4553; 4793; 4794; 4828; 5097; 5101; 5113; 5412; 5424; 5719.289 The Court ORDERS Dr. Eastman to disclose the other one hundred and one documents to the House Select Committee. DATED: March 28, 2022 DAVID O. CARTER UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE Steve Thomas

Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and other peace negotiators suffer suspected poisoning symptoms by Travis Gettys March 28, 2022 https://www.rawstory.com/roman-abramovich-ukraine/ “Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and other Ukrainian peace negotiators reportedly suffered symptoms of a suspected poisoning earlier this month. Abramovich and other negotiators, including Crimean Tatar lawmaker Rustem Umerov, developed symptoms including red eyes, constant and painful tearing, and peeling skin on their faces and hands after a meeting in Kyiv, although they have since improved and their lives are not in danger, reported the Wall Street Journal. "They blamed the suspected attack on hard-liners in Moscow who they said wanted to sabotage talks to end the war," the newspaper reported. "A person close to Mr. Abramovich said it wasn’t clear who had targeted the group."” Russia's version of the Deep State doesn't mess around. Steve Thomas

- Madison Cawthorn (R_NC) - "The sexual perversion that goes on in Washington, I mean being kind of a young guy in Washington with the average age of probably 60 or 70," said Cawthorn. "And I look at all these people, a lot of them that I, you know, I've looked up to through my life. I've always paid attention to politics guys that, you know, then all of the sudden you get invited to like, well, hey, we're going to have kind of a sexual get together at one of our homes. You should come there, like... What, what did you just ask me to come to? And then you realize they're asking you to come to an orgy. Or the fact that, you know, there's some of the people that are leading on the movement to try and remove addiction in our country and then you watch them doing, you know, a key bump of cocaine right in front of you and it's like wow this is wild." "As one observer noted, Cawthorn doesn't generally "hang out" with Democrats. He hangs out with other Republicans, so his observations are coming from those he's observed." Hmmm... Inquiring minds want to know. Steve Thomas

http://https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-kyiv-health-europe-frankfurt-55fae67ceebbe88e8edf04ce387d374b Holocaust survivors flee from Ukraine to Germany for safety "In an unexpected twist of history, some of the 10,000 Holocaust survivors who had been living in Ukraine have now been taken to safety in Germany — the country that unleashed World War II and organized the murder of 6 million Jews across Europe." "Her eyes welled up with tears as she remembered how she hid under the table from the bombs during World War II, and eventually fled with her mother to Kazakhstan when the Nazis and their henchmen started massacring ten of thousands of Jews in Odesa." "An unexpected twist of history..." Steve Thomas

Ahead of his Georgia rally, Trump spoke to Newsmax, explaining about his rally crowd: “They’ve never had a crowd this big in this big area of big crowds." Steve Thomas

W. I'll have to read up on Tannenburg. I read a story today about a regimental tank commander who killed himself. He sent in for replacement tanks. Of the ten tanks he received, only one of them worked. 9 out of the 10 were missing engines, didn't work, or wouldn't fire. The parts had been stolen out of the warehouse. 108 years later... Steve Thomas

Ginni Thomas’ West Wing contacts raise new questions for another Trump ally: John Eastman The Jan. 6 select committee has evidence that Eastman expected Justice Clarence Thomas to back his dubious legal theory to block Joe Biden's victory. By Kyle Cheney 03/26/2022 https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/26/ginni-thomas-west-wing-trump-john-eastman-00020675 “The select committee has evidence that when a top Pence aide challenged Eastman’s plan on Jan. 4, 2021, Eastman initially told him he believed two Supreme Court justices would back him up. One of them was Ginni Thomas’ husband, Justice Clarence Thomas. Eastman’s assertion, described by Pence’s counsel Greg Jacob to the select committee earlier this year, appeared to be a guess based on analysis of Thomas’ long legal career. Eastman had reason to know Thomas’ views well: He clerked for the George H.W. Bush appointee in the 1990s before becoming a mainstay in deeply conservative legal circles. But the revelation that Thomas’ wife kept in contact with Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows in the weeks after Trump’s defeat — pressing him to keep trying to overturn the election — adds a new wrinkle to the timeline.” Steve Thomas

This is beginning to look like the Battle of Kursk in WW II. Battle of Kursk WW II July 5th - 23rd, 1943 Largest tank battle in history. http://https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/battle-of-kursk-tank.html?andro=1&chrome=1 The Soviets claimed to have destroyed 1,500 German tanks and killed or captured 500,000 men. The Germans claimed to have destroyed 1,800 tanks on the southern flank alone. But while the Germans had inflicted more casualties, their losses were far heavier relative to equipment https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html Attack On Europe: Documenting Equipment Losses During The 2022 Russian Invasion Of Ukraine Tanks (300, of which destroyed: 128, damaged: 4, abandoned: 42, captured: 126) Steve Thomas

Possible source of income for Roy Truly. The Dallas Trust Corp: Roy Truly - Fred Korth connection posted by Greg Wagner in the ROKC Forum 12/23/17 Roy Truly: "Born August 9 1907. ·Began work for the Texas Book Depository in 1934 as head of the Miscellaneous Dept. – the same job Bill Shelley was filling in 1963 ·Became superintendent in 1944 and at some stage was made a co-director of the company" “Corsicana Daily Sun” from Corsicana, Texas March 31, 1970 Page 10 https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/41268447/ “The building (the Texas School Book Depository) is owned by the Dallas Trust Corp. The majority stockholder of the firm, Col. D. Harold Byrd, 69, has decided to liquidate some of his holdings.” 1961 Dallas City Directory page 387 https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth806907/m1/723/?q=Byrd D.H. Byrd_Dallas Trust_Utah_1958 Clipped from The Salt Lake Tribune Salt Lake City, Utah 14 Jul 1958, Mon Page 16 https://www.newspapers.com/clip/20603777/dh_byrddallas_trustutah1958/ Steve Thomas

I just got up and I just want to make sure I've got this straight. The wife of a Supreme Court Justice conspired to overthrow the government of the United States, all the while, invoking the name of Jesus Christ. Alrighty then. Steve Thomas

Also on Thursday: http://https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10648965/Trump-tells-appeals-court-House-Democrats-want-tax-returns-political-reasons.html "Donald Trump's lawyer on Thursday urged a federal court to block House Democrats from getting his tax returns, insisting lawmakers are seeking the ex-president's financial information for political reasons. Attorney Cameron Thomas Norris is representing Trump in an appeal of a lower court's December 2021 decision that stated House Ways and Means Committee Chair Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) has a right to obtain the returns. 'The key question in these cases is whether the committee has a legitimate legislative purpose,' Norris said, according to The Hill. 'If we didn't plausibly allege a non-legislative purpose here, then no one ever could.' " Steve Thomas

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.610157/gov.uscourts.flsd.610157.1.0.pdf UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA CASE NO. DONALD J. TRUMP, Plaintiff, v. HILLARY R. CLINTON, HFACC, INC., DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE, DNC SERVICES CORPORATION, PERKINS COIE, LLC, MICHAEL SUSSMANN, MARC ELIAS, DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, CHARLES HALLIDAY DOLAN, JR., JAKE SULLIVAN, JOHN PODESTA, ROBERT E. MOOK, PHILLIPE REINES, FUSION GPS, GLENN SIMPSON, PETER FRITSCH, NELLIE OHR, BRUCE OHR, ORBIS BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE, LTD., CHRISTOPHER STEELE, IGOR DANCHENKO, NEUSTAR, INC., RODNEY JOFFE, JAMES COMEY, PETER STRZOK, LISA PAGE, KEVIN CLINESMITH, ANDREW MCCABE, JOHN DOES 1 THROUGH 10 (said names being fictious and unknown persons), and ABC CORPORATIONS 1 THROUGH 10 (said names being fictitious and unknown entities) COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES AND DEMAND FOR TRIAL BY JURY 1. In the run-up to the 2016 Presidential Election, Hillary Clinton and her cohorts orchestrated an unthinkable plot – one that shocks the conscience and is an affront to this nation’s democracy. 9. In short, the Defendants, blinded by political ambition, orchestrated a malicious conspiracy to disseminate patently false and injurious information about Donald J. Trump and his campaign, all in the hopes of destroying his life, his political career and rigging the 2016 Presidential Election in favor of Hillary Clinton. When their gambit failed, and Donald J. Trump was elected, the Defendants’ efforts continued unabated, merely shifting their focus to undermining his presidential administration. Worse still, the Defendants continue to spread their vicious lies to this day as they unabashedly publicize their thoroughly debunked falsehoods in an effort to ensure that he will never be elected again. The deception, malice, and treachery perpetrated by the Defendants has caused significant harm to the American people, and to the Plaintiff, Donald J. Trump, and they must be held accountable for their heinous acts. Dated: March 24, 2022 Steve Thomas

The bodies of Russian soldiers are piling up in Ukraine, as Kremlin conceals true toll of war https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/23/europe/ukraine-war-russian-soldiers-deaths-cmd-intl/index.html Lviv, Ukraine (CNN) — “The first warm, sunny days of spring in the southern Mykolaiv region are ushering in a grim new reality: the smell of the dead. As the frost melts and ground thaws, the bodies of Russian soldiers strewn across the landscape are becoming a problem. "The problem with Russian bodies is really huge. It's thousands of them. Before the war, the weather was cold, it was okay but now we have problems because Russians don't want to take the bodies," Andrusiv said. "I actually don't know what we will do in the next weeks with their bodies."” Steve Thomas

‘It’s a Sh*tshow’: Russian Troops Are Now Turning on Each Other https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-troops-are-now-turning-on-each-other-its-a-shtshow-one-soldier-is-recorded-telling-another?ref=home?ref=home MADHOUSE “Even in Chechnya, there was nothing like this,” a soldier tells friend in an intercepted call, as reports emerge of another getting so fed up he ran over his colonel with a tank.” Ukrainian journalist Roman Tsymbaliuk reported Wednesday that two tactical groups of Russian soldiers in Makarov, in the Kyiv region, lost at least half of their men in battles against Ukrainian forces. “One of the Russian soldiers “blamed the commander of the group, Col. Yury Medvedev, for the deaths of his friends,” Tsymbaliuk wrote on Facebook. “Having waited for the right moment, during battle, he ran over the commander with a tank as he stood next to him, injuring both his legs. Now Col. Medvedev is in a hospital in Belarus, waiting for monetary compensation for combat wounds received during the ‘special military operation to protect the Donbass.’” “Basically, it’s a sh**show here, I’ll put it that way,” an unnamed soldier near Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine can be heard telling a colleague in a recording released by Ukraine’s Security Service late Tuesday. After telling his friend that Ukrainian forces “tore apart” a column of Russian forces sent along with his own unit, he described complete disarray among the Russian military, with 50 percent of the unit suffering from frostbite on their feet. “But they don’t plan to treat them in the [field] hospital,” he said. Now they've started fragging their officers. Steve Thomas

Man 'hurls a burning Molotov cocktail at the Kremlin walls' amid reports Russia has now rounded up 15,000 anti-war protesters http://https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10643471/Man-hurls-burning-Molotov-cocktail-Kremlin-walls.html "This is the shocking moment a furious man appears to throw a burning Molotov cocktail at the walls of the Kremlin in Moscow. Video shows the man, who has not been identified, gesticulating angrily at the red walls of the Kremlin as he looks up at a burning section of the brickwork." And so it begins. Steve Thomas

Czech PM Says Putin Will Create New Soviet Union if We Don’t Stop Him Now https://www.thedailybeast.com/czech-pm-petr-fiala-says-putin-will-create-new-soviet-union-if-we-dont-stop-him-now?ref=scroll "Prague appears to be firmly on the side of Ukrainians. Blue and yellow flags can be seen in many windows, on flagpoles or on the front of buses and trams. Even some street signs have been replaced, unofficially. One street in Prague that has been for decades called Russia has been renamed by Prague residents: “Russian battleship, go xxxx yourself.”" Steve Thomas

Russian tabloid posts — then removes — report on Defense Ministry's count of Russian soldier deaths in Ukraine From CNN's Paul P. Murphy, Vasco Cotovio http://https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-putin-news-03-21-22/h_a213420135eab380f17aa89f50fa890d "The Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda published, then later removed, a report that the Russian Ministry of Defense had recorded 9,861 Russian Armed forces deaths in the war in Ukraine. The report from the tabloid originally read, "According to the Russian Defense Ministry, during the special operation in Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces lost 9861 people killed and 16153 wounded." Seconds after CNN read the original article — at 9:56 p.m. Moscow time according to the HTML code — the story was updated and removed all references to the death count. That update on the outlet's website came shortly after the article began to get attention from social media posts, which referenced the death count. " 10,000 people a month? That can't last long. Steve Thomas

W., That article reminded me a lot of the testimony of Paul Raigorodsky before the Warren Commission on March 31, 1964. https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/raigorod.htm Steve Thomas

How Putin’s invasion became a holy war for Russia "Kirill's response to the war was the culmination of a decade-long effort to wrap Russia’s geopolitical ambitions in faith" March 19, 2022 Jack Jenkins http://https://religionnews.com/2022/03/19/how-putins-invasion-became-a-holy-war-for-russia/ "Two days before he launched a bloody invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin sat alone in front of a camera and delivered a rambling, hour-long address. It outlined the ideological justification for what would ultimately become his “special military action” in Ukraine — an invasion that, as far as Putin was concerned, had more than a little to do with religion “Ukraine is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space,” he said. Two days later, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, spoke to military leaders and published a statement in honor of Defender of the Fatherland Day. The cleric congratulated Putin for his “high and responsible service to the people of Russia,” declared the Russian Orthodox Church has “always striven to make a significant contribution to the patriotic education of compatriots,” and lauded military service as “an active manifestation of evangelical love for neighbors.” Within hours, bombs began to rain down on Ukraine. This religious ramp-up to war was the culmination of a decade-long effort to wrap Russia’s geopolitical ambitions in faith — specifically, the flowing vestments of the Russian Orthodox Church. Fusing religion, nationalism, a defense of conservative values that likens same-sex marriage to Nazism and a version of history that seeks to define Ukraine and other nearby nations as mere subsets of a greater “Russkiy mir” (Russian world), the partnership of Putin and Kirill laid the ideological and theological groundwork for the current invasion.")" "Kirill has long perpetuated a version of history that insists many countries that made up the former Soviet Union are one people with a common religious origin: namely, the 10th century baptism of Prince Vladimir I of Kiev, known as St. Vladimir. It’s often paired with a geo-political (and geo-religious) vision hundreds of Orthodox theologians and scholars recently decried as a heresy: a “transnational Russian sphere or civilization, called Holy Russia or Holy Rus’, which includes Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (and sometimes Moldova and Kazakhstan), as well as ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking people throughout the world.” Steve Thomas

California MAGA candidate says she’s running because Jesus spoke to her son in a closet David Badash, March 18, 2022 https://www.rawstory.com/rachel-hamm/ "California Republican Rachel Hamm is running for Secretary of State in the June primary. Like many candidates, she is speaking about her motivation for running. Like many GOP candidates, she is claiming God was involved in her decision. Unlike any other candidate, Hamm says Jesus spoke to her son in a closet and told her to declare her candidacy." Closet's a good a place as any, I guess. Steve Thomas