Steve Thomas

DC insider explains a 'fundamental truth' about Trump's Jan. 6 coup attempt by Robert Reich December 31, 2021 https://www.rawstory.com/trump-coup-2656201435/ “But even with this help, Trump’s attempted coup could not have gotten this far without something more basic: A substantial portion of the American population feels an anger and despair that has made them susceptible to Trump’s swagger and lies. It is too simplistic to attribute this solely to racism or xenophobia. America has harbored white supremacist and anti-immigrant sentiments since its founding. The despair Trump has channeled is more closely connected to a profound loss of identity, dignity and purpose, especially among Americans who have been left behind – without college degrees, without good jobs, in places that have been economically abandoned and disdained by much of the rest of the country. The wages of these Americans have not risen in forty years, adjusted for inflation, even though the economy is now three times larger than it was four decades ago. The norm of upward mobility has been shattered for these Americans. Through their eyes, the entire American system is now rigged against them. This part of America yearns for a strongman to deliver it from despair. Trump has filled that void. To be sure, he’s filled it with bombast, lies, paranoia, and neofascism. But he has filled it nonetheless. The challenge ahead is to fill it with a democracy and economy that work for everyone. Unless we understand and respond to this fundamental truth, we will miss the true meaning of January 6.” Steve Thomas

Amanda Gorman’s new poem: May this be the day We come together. Mourning, we come to mend, Withered, we come to weather, Torn, we come to tend, Battered, we come to better. Tethered by this year of yearning, We are learning That though we weren't ready for this, We have been readied by it. We steadily vow that no matter How we are weighed down, We must always pave a way forward. * This hope is our door, our portal. Even if we never get back to normal, Someday we can venture beyond it, To leave the known and take the first steps. So let us not return to what was normal, But reach toward what is next. * What was cursed, we will cure. What was plagued, we will prove pure. Where we tend to argue, we will try to agree, Those fortunes we forswore, now the future we foresee, Where we weren't aware, we're now awake; Those moments we missed Are now these moments we make, The moments we meet, And our hearts, once all together beaten, Now all together beat. * Come, look up with kindness yet, For even solace can be sourced from sorrow. We remember, not just for the sake of yesterday, But to take on tomorrow. * We heed this old spirit, In a new day's lyric, In our hearts, we hear it: For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne. Be bold, sang Time this year, Be bold, sang Time, For when you honor yesterday, Tomorrow ye will find. Know what we've fought Need not be forgot nor for none. It defines us, binds us as one, Come over, join this day just begun. For wherever we come together, We will forever overcome. Steve Thomas

https://scv-kirby-smith.org/#front-page-3 Wait. What? Steve Thomas

Sandy, ‘I Alone Can Fix It’ book excerpt: The inside story of Trump’s defiance and inaction on Jan. 6 By Philip Rucker and Carol D. Leonnig July 15, 2021 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/15/jan-6-i-alone-can-fix-it-book-excerpt/ “After first evacuating congressional leaders to the secure area of the Hart Building, Capitol Police decided to err on the side of caution and transported leaders, including Pelosi, McConnell, Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, to Fort McNair, an Army post in Southwest Washington. At 3:15 p.m., Dan Sullivan called Milley. “This is really f----- up down here,” said the Republican senator from Alaska. Sullivan told Milley that the senators were safe in a secure location and that Capitol Police had a tentative plan to evacuate them by bus. Sullivan, who had military training, thought the movement would put them in more danger.” The Secret Service tried to get Mike Pence to evacuate the Capitol, and he refused. There has been some suggestion in the last couple of days that the military was hesitant about sending in the National Guard, fearful that Trump would try and repurpose it. If they had succeeded in evacuating the Capitol, and the National Guard was sent in to "protect the Trump supporters", who knows when the Legislature would have been able to reconvene to certify the results of the Electoral College. With the Speaker of the House and the Vice President gone, the whole line of succession would have been broken. Steve Thomas

Michigan's GOP Senate majority leader has some bad news for Trump Sky Palma December 24, 2021 https://www.rawstory.com/michigan-candidates-endorsed-by-trump/ “Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R) says the influence of an endorsement from former President Donald Trump for candidates who are loyal to him is waning, The Detroit News reports. "We shall let the results speak for themselves, but I will go on record right now predicting that most of the endorsements will fail," he told Jackson TV this Wednesday. "We can play this back a year from now and find out what happened," Shirkey added. As The Detroit News points out, Trump has endorsed several state House and Senate candidates as well as candidates for Michigan attorney general and secretary of state who have echoed his voter fraud conspiracy theories. "Local clerks, both Republican and Democratic, conducted more than 250 audits of the 2020 election and affirmed President Joe Biden's 154,00 vote victory over Trump in Michigan. Countless court rulings also have upheld Biden's victory in Michigan," The Detroit News reports. "The GOP-led Senate Oversight Committee took more than 28 hours of committee testimony from about 90 people and reviewed thousands of subpoenaed documents before concluding there was no evidence of significant acts of fraud in the 2020 election." In a statement, Shirkey and then-House Speaker Lee Chatfield said that they had "not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan and, as legislative leaders, we will follow the law and follow the normal process regarding Michigan’s electors, just as we have said throughout this election." Speaking to Jackson TV on Wednesday, Shirkey said there's "a lot of things that happened in that election that need to be tightened up but, in Michigan in particular, President Trump lost. He just simply lost." Read more at The Detroit News. Steve Thomas

Trump name officially removed from Vancouver hotel building By Amy Judd Global News Posted December 23, 2021 https://globalnews.ca/news/8471179/trump-hotel-vancouver/?utm_medium=Twitter&utm_source=%40globalbc “The Trump name has officially been removed from one of Vancouver’s tallest buildings. Crews have now removed all the Trump branding on the outside of the 63-storey tower that was known as the Trump International Hotel & Tower Vancouver when it opened in 2017. It was not a success and the hotel closed in 2020.” This project was suspected to have been financed with money laundered out of Malaysia. Steve Thomas

Donald Trump's Petition to the Supreme Court to block release of his Presidential Records filed 12/23/21 https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-932/206268/20211223101028235_21- Petition.pdf Steve Thomas

Convicted Arsonist Named Acting Chief of Illinois Fire Department MAKES SENSE by Justin Rohrlich Published Dec. 21, 2021 https://www.thedailybeast.com/convicted-arsonist-jeramie-simmons-named-acting-chief-of-saint-clair-county-illinois-fire-department?ref=home “An Illinois man who pleaded guilty to torching a vacant home and a high school in 1998 is now running the Prairie Du Pont Volunteer Fire Department in St. Clair County, Illinois. Jeramie Simmons, who was 18 at the time of the arson attacks and received probation for his crimes, was named acting chief of the department at a fire district board meeting on Monday, Fox2Now.com reported. When Simmons’ appointment was announced, 10 of the department’s 13 firefighters resigned on the spot, according to the outlet. Simmons will replace Chief John Rosencranz, who was removed from the position for what board members say are “good reasons,” which they have not made public. Simmons, who has had other run-ins with the law since, was reportedly later pardoned by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.” Police say mayor's son had a vape during strip club clash. Others say he had a gun. By George Pawlaczyk and Beth Hundsdorfer Updated July 03, 2018 9:25 AM https://www.bnd.com/news/local/article213982269.html "An altercation at a strip club involving the son of a local mayor who also heads the 911 program for St. Clair County raised the question: Did the suspect pull a handgun or a vapor cigarette from his front pants pocket? The question was important to Jerame Simmons, a 38-year-old felon convicted of arson, because if there was probable cause that he had held a gun he could have been charged with another felony. Instead, he was charged with a Class C disorderly conduct misdemeanor that is still winding its way through St. Clair County Court." My wife and I have made a vow to each other, that whatever happens to us in our lives, we will never move there. Steve Thomas

Larry, Larry, Larry, *Sigh* Don't you know he went there to get airport runway clearance for the plane he was going to hijack and fly to Cuba? Marina said so. Steve Thomas

Larry, I've been trying to figure out why the CIA would use an impostor to pose as a man whom the Russians considered (as far back as his foray into Russia circa 1959-60), to be mentally unstable. Surely the Cubans would have asked the Russians if they knew anything about this guy. Perhaps that was the plan. If they could then, later on, reveal that the Russians and the Cubans were meeting with a nut job, they could then cast aspersions. Maybe Oswald was being set up as a patsy even then. Steve Thomas

Larry, Yes, that March -April time frame is exactly right. What I have is about 10 pages of raw notes. I'll be happy to share those with you as a wp document attachment in an email. They involve a guy named Jerry Buchanan and a ship called the Violin III. (owned by Alexander Rorke, if I remember right). It also drags in Fairhope, AL, where Alpha 66 had an office, and where Carlos Bringuer lived. It also involves a guy named Sanchez, who was one of Veciana's closest allies. It's all kind of fascinating to me. Steve Thomas

Larry, This is completely off topic, but I think they tried to do the same thing down in Miami in late March, 1963. Some guy calling himself Oswald showed up on a dock in Miami and tried to infiltrate a raiding party headed for Cuba. He was so obnoxious about trying to muscle his way aboard, the Captain had to punch him in the mouth and knock him down. When the raiding party showed up in the Bahamas to re-outfit, the authorities were waiting for them. The Captain said it felt like the authorities knew they were coming. Steve Thomas

Michaleen, This goes all the way back to ancient Egypt when succeeding pharaohs would chip off the faces of their predecessors, and chip off their cartouches from historical records. It never works in the long run. Steve Thomas

Jim, The summary is dated 11/26/63. As Hoover said, "It's all very confusing". Why would they send pictures of a guy who is obviously not Oswald" Why would they send tape recordings of guy who is obviously not him? Some kind of delaying tactic maybe? Or a distraction? As a ruse, or an obfuscation, it certainly didn't fool anyone. It leads one to ask, what were they trying to cover up? "Here... here. Look at this shiny object, and focus your attention on this, while we hide what we're really doing". Steve Thomas

Bill, What they are warning about is chaos within the ranks of the military, and the need to teach soldiers how to recognize unlawful orders. That's always been my greatest fear, ever since Donald Trump rose to power. We saw the beginnings of that back in Lafayette Square, I think. Steve Thomas

Larry, It wouldn't surprise me if they did do some kind of spectrum analysis, in using the word "identical". They didn't write, "sounds like", or "similar". They used the word "identical". I wondered in reading what Hoover said to Johnson, if he remembered back in 1960 when he wrote that there were suspicions that someone was using Oswald's birth certificate in his sojourn to the Soviet Union. Did Hoover suspect "at the time" that the CIA was running a doppelgänger? He said something later on about the chicanery the CIA was running down in Mexico City. Steve Thomas

Martin, https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2021/docid-32341711.pdf How did the CIA know that the voice, known to be Oswald's, was identical to the voice on the October 1 tape? Who in the CIA was familiar with Oswald's voice? FEEDING PERSISTENT SUSPICIONS By Walter Pincus November 16, 1993 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1993/11/16/feeding-persistent-suspicions/c2d3f186-19d0-4a6e-bca2-6e65fb5c1057/ “The morning after the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of President John F. Kennedy, his successor in the White House, Lyndon B. Johnson, was told by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover that the bureau had "the tape and the photograph" of a man who "claimed" to be Lee Harvey Oswald visiting the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City less than two months before the murder. "That's one angle that's very confusing," Hoover said. "That picture and the tape do not correspond to this man's {Oswald's} voice, nor to his appearance. In other words, it appears that there is a second person who was at the Soviet Embassy down there."” Steve Thomas

Letter from House Select Committee to James Waldron: https://january6th.house.gov/sites/democrats.january6th.house.gov/files/Longworth%201016_20211216_163925.pdf This is not just objecting to a State’s Electors. To disrupt an official proceeding of Congress is a crime. This is quickly becoming a criminal matter. Steve Thomas

Tracy, I feel the same. We might not always agree on some things, but that's OK. As far as this particular document goes, I have to admit that I haven't studied the whole Mexican trip in any depth, so I can't speak very authoritatively on it. I'm just a newbie. I don't know if there are any other CIA documents that say he got there by car. That would be nice to find. I have always wondered what happened to the two people who allegedly visited Sylviia Odio with Oswald. They just seem to have disappeared from the historical record. Did they drive him down to Mexico? I don't know. They don't seem to show up in Alice, TX either. As far as the WC/FBI goes, as I understand it, the WC relied on the FBI almost exclusively for their investigative work. The information that shows up in the WC Report about the "bus trip" is almost entirely FBI information. Just as a side note,, one thing I was interested in was that Oswlad supposedly took a Continental Trailways bus. Frank Brandstetter was heavily involved in Continental. He owned all their kitchens. Is there some coincidence there? I don't know. There's a lot I don't know. Steve Thomas

Tracy, Yes, but that document is billed as a "summary" of relevant information that they had, so it must have been drawn from several sources. Steve Thomas

The CIA said he arrived by car. The FBI said he arrived by bus. The CIA said that one of the recorded voices matched Oswald's. The FBI and (as Hoover told Johnson), it didn't. This is like the old Mad Magazine cartoon Spy vs. Spy. The spooks must have been tearing their hair out trying to get their stories straight. Can you imagine the bureaucratic battles that must have been going on behind the scenes? David Joseph spent a lot of time and energy proving the whole bus thing was "ersatz" as Jim DiEugenio called it. Steve Thomas

This is just wild. Let's just tase them and leave them out there in the desert. That's what I say. Drone TASES a migrant at the border as part of plan to use a 'wall of drones' to protect the US in promotional video for tech start-up - but founder says plan has now been ditched and was wrong 'ethical direction' Brinc, founded by Blake Resnick, 21, apologized for the promotional video By Jack Newman https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10316619/Tech-start-proposed-using-drones-tase-interrogate-migrants-Mexico-border.html “The 'wall of drones' would operate in place of a physical wall at a third of the price and would be able to detect and track the 'criminals' trying to enter the US, the glossy promotional video claims. A tech start-up proposed using drones armed with tasers to attack migrants attempting to cross the border into the US, a previously unreleased promotional video has revealed. Blake Resnick, 21, said he set up drone company Brinc in response to the 2017 Las Vegas shooting with the aim of creating non-violent robots to aid with law enforcement, committing to 'never build technologies designed to hurt or kill'.” https://videos.dailymail.co.uk/preview/mol/2021/12/16/8423110121819884082/636x382_MP4_8423110121819884082.mp4 Steve Thomas

Trump ENDORSES Lauren Boebert for her 2022 race By Katelyn Caralle https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10316985/Trump-ENDORSES-Boebert-2022-amid-pressure-punish-joke-Ilhan-Omar-suicide-bomber.html “Donald Trump endorsed embattled Congresswoman Lauren Boebert on Wednesday as the Colorado Republican continues to face calls for punishment after anti-Muslim comments aimed at Ilhan Omar. 'Congresswoman Lauren Boebert has done a fantastic job in her first term representing Colorado's Third District,' the former president released in a statement from his Save America PAC. 'She is a fearless leader, a defender of the America First Agenda, and a fighter against the Loser RINOs and Radical Democrats,' Trump added. 'She will continue to be tough on Crime, strong on Borders, and always protect our under-siege Second Amendment.'” That;s all we need... A Congress full of Lauren Boebarts. Steve Thomas

Lawrence, Also the date. That nails down the timing of the Odio visit. Steve Thomas

David, Thanks for the info on the photographer angle. Someday, it would be interesting to compile all the professions he claimed to be. Import/export agent, photographer... Steve Thomas