Month: September 2022
‘Lying motherf***er’: In private, Lindsey Graham told the truth about Trump. In public, not so much
With few notable exceptions—Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the drunk gremlin inside Louie Gohmert who controls his mind and wakes him up when he’s about to drown in shallow bowls of SpaghettiOs—congressional Republicans all know damned well that Donald Trump is a dangerous liar.
Yet for some reason, or combination of reasons—cowardice, blackmail, lust for power, free omelets—South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham has been a Trump super-sycophant. But it’s unlikely that Graham’s 2016 assessments of Trump—including “I think he's a kook; I think he's crazy; I think he's unfit for office”—ever really changed. What changed was Lindsey’s semi-gelatinous backbone, which miraculously—and almost overnight—transformed into a thin slurry of dead spinal tissue.
As if we needed more evidence that Sen. Graham is slouching toward fascism with his eyes wide open, there’s new reporting about his true feelings toward Adderall Hitler.
RELATED: In leaked audio, Sen. Lindsey Graham calls Biden 'maybe the best person to have' as president
In their upcoming book The Divider: Trump in the White House 2017-2021, authors Peter Baker and Susan Glasser recall how they met with Mr Graham outside a Washington DC steakhouse less than 48 hours after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced an impeachment inquiry into whether Mr Trump had extorted the president of Ukraine in a now-infamous July 2019 phone call. The Independent obtained a copy ahead of its 20 September publication date.
Standing on the sidewalk on 19th Street in Northwest Washington, Mr Graham bragged about his access to Mr Trump and told the husband-and-wife author duo about Mr Trump’s boasts regarding his closeness with evangelical pastors who’d met with him the day before. He said Mr Trump had told him: “Those f***ing Christians love me.”
“Those fucking Christians love me” is one of the Trumpiest quotes I’ve ever read, honestly. I’m sure he uttered that without the barest whiff of irony.
RELATED: As white nationalists, Jan. 6 extremists embrace Christian nationalism, even darker forces revive
Of course, Graham, who voted against convicting Trump in our fugazi führer’s first impeachment trial, nevertheless admitted to the authors that he knew who Trump really was:
“He’s a lying motherf***er,” Mr Graham said, adding the caveat that Mr Trump was also “a lot of fun to hang out with.”
Well, if he’s fun to hang out with, I guess that makes everything he’s done—from blackmailing foreign heads of state to inciting an insurrection to stashing highly classified government documents in random TrapperKeepers in his basement—totally excusable. “Gang, meet Vladimir. He’s committing mass genocide as we speak, but check it out, he brought Pocky!” But Graham didn’t lean on delicious Japanese cookie sticks to justify his defense of Trump. What he actually used as justification for his loyalty is far worse: MAGA devotion to the GOP leader. “[Trump] could kill 50 people on our side and it wouldn’t matter,” he said.
I used to think that if this nation were ever faced with a credible fascistic threat, both major parties—and the mainstream media—would move heaven and Earth to excise the cancer. Instead, they’re leveraging this clear and present danger to Western democracy in order to marginally increase their political influence and sell more books.
RELATED: Maggie Haberman: Just another person 'willing to let democracy die on the altar of a book deal'
RELATED: New book catalogs how Trump worked to weaken American democracy, and to deliberately spread COVID-19
Might have been nice of Baker and Glasser to expose this bit of Graham duplicity years ago, before he helped normalize Goofball Satan and his ongoing quest to turn America into a fascist Cracker Barrel. But hey, if this country is going to irrevocably transform itself into a dystopian hellscape anyway, might as well make a few bucks off it and save it for the book, right?
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House passes bill strengthening whistleblower protections for federal employees
The House passed a bill on Thursday strengthening protections for whistleblowers in the federal government.
The legislation, titled the Whistleblower Protection Improvement Act, passed in a 221-203 vote. Two Republicans — Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.) and Nancy Mace (S.C.) — joined all voting Democrats in supporting the measure.
The bill seeks to prevent retaliation against federal employees who expose wrongdoings, including retaliatory investigations. Such wrongdoings can include breaches of the law, mismanagement, abuse of authority or actions that pose a danger to public health.
If the Office of Special Counsel determines that an inspector general referral was retaliatory, however, the measure would require that the special counsel make note of the discovery to the inspector general, who would use that information when deciding whether or not to open or continue an investigation.
Additionally, the bill calls for limiting the disclosure of the identity of whistleblowers, and clarifies that federal government employees — including the president, vice president and congressional lawmakers — are not allowed to hinder or strike back against a whistleblower who provides information to Congress.
“Today’s bipartisan passage of the Whistleblower Protection Improvement Act brings us one step closer to ensuring that any federal employee who steps forward to report wrongdoing is protected from retaliation,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), the sponsor of the bill and the chairwoman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said in a statement after the bill passed on Thursday.
“Whistleblowers are the first line of defense to hold those in power accountable. Congress relies on whistleblowers to exercise our constitutional oversight responsibilities, safeguard taxpayer dollars, improve federal programs, and even save lives,” she added.
House passage of the bill came roughly four months after the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General found that Army Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman — the brother of Retired Army Col. Alexander Vindman, who was a key witness in former President Trump’s first impeachment — was likely the target of retaliation from Trump officials.
“We found, based on a preponderance of the evidence, that the Complainant was the subject of unfavorable personnel actions from administration officials,” the office of the inspector general wrote in a statement.
The Vindman brothers raised alarm about Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in July 2019, which led to Trump’s first impeachment. The Pentagon’s report said Alexander Vindman told his concerns to his brother, and the pair then reported the worries to higher authorities.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), ranking member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, argued on the House floor Wednesday that the whistleblower legislation “is a step too far.”
“The whistleblower protection improvement act is a step too far and would help further entrench federal government employees in their job,” he said.
“Whistleblowers in the federal government are covered by some of the most comprehensive protections for employees in the country. Whistleblowers serve a valuable role in our government — especially under an administration like the Biden administration, which is subject to almost no oversight by Congress. But giving this bill a great title, Whistleblower Protection Improvement Act, does not and should not provide cover for the actual requirements and consequences of this bill,” he added.
Comer also referenced Trump’s first impeachment in his argument against the bill.
“In large part this bill is just an excuse to further idolize the people who pushed the sham impeachment against former President Trump,” he said.
— Updated at 7:35 p.m.
House passes whistleblower bill that GOP says rewards those who pushed Trump impeachment
‘Thanks for stopping by’: Biden fires back after Rick Scott flaunts toxic ‘Plan to Rescue America’
Our Illustrious Overlord Dark Brandon of House Biden—Vanquisher of Jabronis, Doter of Grandchildren, and Dread Scourge of Dandelions—has been a right saucy rogue lately.
Whereas in the past he’s appeared content to seek common ground with uncommonly gross Republicans, something has lit a fire under Joe Biden lately, and he’s come out swinging. And sometimes—even when he’s not speaking—you can detect a rakish glint in his eye.
The latest? Florida Sen. Rick Scott, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Medicare fraudster extraordinaire, is sarcastically urging President Biden to spread the word about his 12-point “Rescue America Plan”—and Uncle Joe is sarcastically (and wisely) doing just that.
RELATED: Going into the midterms, Democrats can be seriously grateful that Rick Scott is on the other side
Shot:
Chaser:
Wait, why would both these guys—one who loves America and one who loves stealing Medicare funds from America—want you to read a Republican plan to “rescue” America? Well, because the plan is arboreal ape shit. And not the top-shelf variety.
And while the plan isn’t nearly as noxious as it used to be—when pretty much everyone from across the political spectrum panned it—it’s still pretty bad.
RELATED: Rick Scott made the mistake of telling voters what Republicans stand for. It's a polling disaster
The major revision Sen. Scott made to his plan involved removing a policy plank insisting that everyone—including people who make little to no money—should be forced to pay income tax. (Guess that’s more important than requiring that all corporations pay a little something in taxes, huh?)
But the plan is still problematic, particularly if voters figure out that it’s an existential threat to Social Security and Medicare, which Sen. Scott probably sees as a corrupt boondoggle because it’s so comically easy to defraud.
Of course, Moscow Mitch McConnell, who understands better than most how to gaslight the plebes, did not like Scott’s plan one bit. Scott rolled it out in February, and fled a GOP press conference on March 1, moments before McConnell addressed what are arguably its two most worrying proposals:
“If we’re fortunate enough to have the majority next year, I’ll be the majority leader. I’ll decide in consultation with my members what to put on the floor,” McConnell said.
[...]
McConnell continued: “Let me tell you what will not be on our agenda. We will not have as part of our agenda a bill that raises taxes on half the American people and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years. That will not be part of the Republican Senate majority agenda.”
RELATED: Rick Scott kicks off final push to midterms by escalating his war with Mitch McConnell
Yet six months later, the part about sunsetting the vital programs millions of seniors and others depend on to keep eating and breathing? That’s still in there.
As Democratic political analyst and columnist Ed Kilgore noted in in New York magazine:
In any event, Scott was so worried about the stink of the tax-hike idea that his revised plan has 12 points rather than 11; the new one loudly advertises hatred of all taxes and includes the very dumb idea of making it even harder than it already is to avoid an economy-crushing debt default. But what interests me is the fact that he did not take the time to get rid of some of the other howlers in the original plan while he was at it. The five-year sunset on all federal laws that McConnell considered as bad as the minimum tax is still there. So is the truly stupid idea of a 12-year “term limit” on all federal nonmilitary employment, which would impose costs and inefficiencies nearly as severe as Scott’s other proposal to force the relocations of federal agencies outside Washington.
Also, while Lindsey Graham and friends are doing their best to keep the toxic (for Republicans) abortion issue front and center, vaporizing long-held reproductive rights remains an integral part of Scott’s plan:
- Abortion kills human children. To deny that is to deny science.
- Whether you believe in God or not, as a civilized people who accept science, we must protect babies, born and unborn, from all acts of violence.
- All government policies will favor having more babies adopted, not aborted.
This reminds me of the good old days during Trump’s first impeachment, when Neck-Wattle Nero kept telling his followers to read the transcript, and we were all, “Yes, by all means, read the transcript! It shows Trump blackmailing a foreign head of state in order to manufacture dirt on a political opponent!”
Meanwhile, even Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is now getting in on the act, effusively thanking Republicans for punching themselves in their own arrogant faces.
(Partial) transcript!
SCHUMER: “… Americans from every walk of life are seeing the contrast: What are Democrats doing? Talking about new jobs, cheaper costs. What are the MAGA Republicans doing? A nationwide abortion ban.
“That’s the contrast between the two parties, plain and simple. … Republicans are twisting themselves in a pretzel trying to explain their position on abortion. Let me be clear: Again, what Sen. Graham is introducing is a MAGA Republican nationwide abortion ban. If it walks like a nationwide abortion ban and talks like a nationwide abortion ban, it is a nationwide abortion ban.
“So, that’s the contrast. The split screen is unmistakable for all Americans to see for themselves. We’re focused on job creating, inflation fighting. They’re focused on an extreme agenda that hurts women.”
Sen Schumer is right. There are clear and striking differences between the two parties right now, and Democrats seem keen to highlight them. For some reason, Republicans do, too. And that may finally be their downfall.
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Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.
Portrait of late Rep. Elijah Cummings unveiled at the Capitol
At portrait of the late Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) was unveiled at the Capitol on Wednesday.
Cummings, who was first elected to the House in 1996, died in October 2019 at the age of 68. He was serving as chairman of the powerful House Oversight and Reform Committee at the time of his death.
Baltimore-based artist Jerrell Gibbs painted Cummings’s portrait, which will hang in the Rayburn House Office Building’s Oversight and Reform Committee hearing room.
According to the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), commissioning an official portrait is a customary honor for congressional lawmakers who serve as chairs of committees.
Cummings, who died during his 13th term in Congress, lay in state in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall. His office at the time said he died “due to complications concerning longstanding health challenges.”
The son of a sharecropper, Cummings was born on Jan. 18, 1951, in Baltimore. He graduated from Howard University and received a law degree from the University of Maryland. Before serving in Congress, the Maryland Democrat spent 13 years in the state House of Delegates.
Cummings was a frequent figure in the news in the weeks before his death for his involvement in the House impeachment inquiry focused on then-President Trump. As the chairman of the Oversight and Reform Committee, Cummings was one of the top three lawmakers leading the inquiry.
A number of lawmakers delivered remarks honoring Cummings at the portrait unveiling on Wednesday, including Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.).
“He was my Baltimore brother,” Pelosi, who was born in the Maryland city, said at the ceremony on Wednesday.
“He was so astute, so smart, so wise, so strategic and the rest, and that's why he made such a big difference. He was a leader of towering integrity. Everybody knows that. A man whose life embodied the American dream,” Pelosi added, calling him “the north star of the House of Representatives.”
The Speaker noted that the room where the portrait unveiling took place is the same location where the Jan. 6 House select committee has held its public hearings.
“Elijah said, ‘When we’re dancing with the angels, when we’re dancing with the angels, what would we have thought that we could have done to make the future better for our children, for our democracy?’ That’s what they’re doing in this room. When we’re not honoring Elijah directly, we are indirectly for his patriotism,” she said.
The Speaker said she still has Cummings on her speed dial, adding, “I can’t separate myself.”
“I go to it frequently and just try to think of what he would be thinking of what is going on,” she added.
—Updated Thursday at 4:32 p.m.
Conservative Actor Jon Voight Promises to Show Trump’s ‘Beautiful Side’ in Upcoming Documentary
Conservative actor Jon Voight, previewing an upcoming documentary and exclusive interview with Donald Trump, promises to reveal the former President’s “grace,” “humility,” and his “beautiful side.”
Voight, an Academy Award-winning actor, perennial favorite at The Political Insider, and staunch supporter of Trump, has produced an exclusive documentary highlighting the historic Abraham Accords achievement of the former President.
Viewers, according to the actor, will be surprised by how Trump comes across in some portions of the interview.
“You’ll see a side to him that you’ve never seen before — or most people haven’t seen before,” Voight said. “A side of patience, of grace, even humility, I must say. It was it’s a very beautiful side to him that is exposed here.”
“The Abraham Accords” is set to air on Newsmax this Sunday at 8 p.m.
Israel and The Abraham Accords with Donald Trump and Jon Voight. Airing 9/15 on @JewishLifeTV & 9/17 on @newsmax. More info on @JewishLifeTV pic.twitter.com/BhnwpC9OqB
— Jon Voight (@jonvoight) September 9, 2022
RELATED: Hollywood Conservative Jon Voight Calls On Joe Biden To Be Impeached
Jon Voight Promises a Whole New Side to Trump
The Abraham Accords, which then-President Donald Trump aptly described as “the dawn of a new Middle East,” were signed by former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the leaders of several Arab and Muslim-majority nations.
UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan and Bahrain Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalif initially signed the agreement, which involved establishing embassies, exchanging ambassadors, and instituting a process to work together as partners.
Morocco and Sudan soon followed.
ABRAHAM ACCORDS: What Trump “created was quite monumental,” @jonvoight tells Newsmax’s @EricBolling.
“Peace, for the first time in that area, was brought forth.” pic.twitter.com/4wetzkrfJp
— Newsmax (@newsmax) September 13, 2022
Democrat Rep. Ted Deutch (FL) praised the Accords, noting bipartisan support.
“It provided a transformative, positive lens through which we can all now look at what is sometimes a challenging region,” Deutch said.
An Unprecedented Movement Toward Peace
Trump’s efforts with the Abraham Accords earned him two Nobel Peace Prize nominations, something the media failed to promote even though peace in the Middle East had once been thought unheard of.
“It’s an unbelievable thing, a movement towards peace of this kind; it was unprecedented,” Voight told Newsmax host Eric Bolling.
“It’s really been quite a remarkable thing what happened — peace for the first time in that area was brought forth.”
America First Policy Institute celebrated 2 years of the historic Abraham Accords.
With the Trump Administration, Israel & its Arab neighbors found a unifying purpose for peace in the Middle East.
Many presidents tried, but it was President Trump who led the way #AbrahamAccords pic.twitter.com/6HekAYrF5w
— Gunnery Sergeant Jessie Jane Duff (@JessieJaneDuff) September 14, 2022
And he accomplished something that former Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry completely dismissed as a possibility.
“There will be no separate peace between Israel and the Arab world,” Kerry said, indicating it couldn’t be done without including Palestinians in the negotiations. “I want to make that very clear with all of you.”
John Kerry with a 2016 Middle East take that aged like milk in a sauna. pic.twitter.com/2Vae6yDJFt
— Noam Blum (@neontaster) September 16, 2020
Then-White House senior adviser Jared Kushner explained the exact opposite approach is what led to The Abraham Accords.
“Faced with the same Palestinian rejectionism that had stymied previous negotiators, Kushner focused on accomplishing the possible rather than the impossible,” Newsweek wrote.
The signing of the Abraham Accords is one of the most historic and transformative achievements of the Trump Administration—not only for the American people but for the Middle East and for the world!@jaredkushner @A1Policy @Peace_Accords pic.twitter.com/xMMgK1GgWk
— Linda McMahon (@Linda_McMahon) September 12, 2022
“When they signed the Accords, the mainstream media, of course, didn’t want to do anything to encourage any praise for Trump, so they kept it quiet,” Voight told Newsmax.
He posted a video this past summer calling for the impeachment of President Joe Biden.
Can we all see eye to eye? pic.twitter.com/DQeqYOe9In
— Jon Voight (@jonvoight) June 28, 2022
“He must be impeached,” Voight said. “Don’t let this President Biden tear down every inch that was sacrificed with blood, sweat, and tears for his dictation of lies.”
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The post Conservative Actor Jon Voight Promises to Show Trump’s ‘Beautiful Side’ in Upcoming Documentary appeared first on The Political Insider.
Durham investigation ends after three years of searching, $40 million spent, and nothing found
On May 13, 2019, then-Attorney General Bill Barr let it be known that at Donald Trump’s “request,” he was conducting an investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation. To conduct this investigation, Barr appointed his very own special prosecutor, U.S. Attorney John Durham. For the next three-and-a-half years, Republicans made confident predictions that “Bull” Durham was going to be the man to finally “lock ‘er up.” Surely Durham, unleashed with no deadline, budgetary limit, or constraint on where he looked, would prove conclusively that every conspiracy theory pushed by Trump was true.
But after more than three years and more than $40 million spent, Durham managed to produce just a single charge: accusing Democratic-linked attorney Michael Sussmann of lying to the FBI for not revealing secondhand connections to Hillary Clinton’s campaign when talking to them about Donald Trump’s Russia dealings. In May, a jury found Sussman not guilty of the ridiculous charge.
Now The New York Times reports that the grand jury seated in connection with Durham’s investigation has been allowed to expire. Several members of Durham’s team have already left, and those who remain are now working to complete “a final report.” A report that shows they found absolutely nothing.
Durham had a solid background as a man who would twist any law to assist the Republican cause, such as when he decided there was absolutely nothing wrong with the kidnapping and torture the Bush administration practiced before and during the invasion of Iraq. The U.S. attorney signed on to help to create a false narrative about the Russia investigation, rewriting the order of events and insisting that there was no cause to involve the Department of Justice or the FBI. He even accompanied Barr overseas as they tried to talk U.S. allies into lying about intelligence sources.
In the runup to the 2020 election, Republicans regularly played on the idea that Durham was going to provide them with an “October surprise” by reversing the Russia narrative, absolving Trump of the crimes he committed in his first impeachment, and just generally stomping on Democratic faces. That lust for a coming bombshell grew even greater when Durham let it be known that his investigation had “evolved into a criminal investigation” and that a grand jury had been seated. Surely all those “lock ‘er up” chants were about to be fulfilled.
But before that bombshell could arrive, Durham’s lead investigator left the team, there were indications that Durham’s investigation was coming up dry, and sad news that his report “was unlikely to be ready in time for the election.”
There would be no report. Not in time for the election. Not in the next two years.
In fact, by September 2020 Durham seemed to have already lost the thread of what he was supposed to be investigating and was instead taking a deep look at the Clinton Foundation, apparently checking into Q-anon conspiracy theories about “deep state” connections. He found absolutely nothing. By that point, his investigation had already been underway for 16 months, a time period in which Robert Mueller’s investigation issued 31 indictments, accepted five guilty pleas, filed 190 charges, and successfully prosecuted four cases resulting in prison sentences.
Even though Durham had nothing to show for nearly two years of searching, Barr, supposedly oh-so-upset over Trump’s lies about the election, gave Trump a parting gift before he left the White House: He changed Durham’s status to that of special counsel, expanding his reach still further, and gave him forever to dig up anything he could.
For MAGA Americans, the Durham investigation was an answer to prayer. They had a prosecutor who could go anywhere, subpoena anyone, and investigate anything in order to find all those pizza tunnels and lizard men hiding at the bottom of the deep state. It all made for a super tasty bit of revenge fantasy. Just as their Q-notes insisted that Trump was always about to return from Mar-a-Lago and reveal that he had really been in charge all along, John Durham was always about to come smashing through the doors at Democratic Party HQ with a fist full of arrest warrants.
After all, the memes were unstoppable!
Now it seems there finally is going to be a Durham report. And like everything else Durham is done, it’s going to be a pointless exercise in finger-pointing unsupported by evidence and good for nothing but boosting his chances of being a “legal commentator” on Fox News.
Durham’s investigation is coming to an end without ever laying a single charge against Hillary Clinton or anyone with more than a passing connection to her campaign. It’s coming to an end without finding anything like a conspiracy to use the FBI against Trump. It’s coming to an end … and that’s about the only good thing that can be said about it.
This is exactly the conclusion that everyone should have expected on day one. John Durham was hired as a professional witch hunter, and there simply are no witches to find. Everything about the FBI’s investigation into Trump was already well known. There were no secrets. No conspiracy.
That didn’t stop Durham from making that claim in court when prosecuting Sussman. The verdict shows exactly what the jury thought of his unsupported statements.
A month before Barr revealed that Durham’s report wasn’t yet baked, the Senate Intelligence Committee, then led by Republican Sen. Richard Burr, issued its own final report on the Trump campaign’s connection with Russia. That report found more than 100 contacts between Trump’s team and Russian agents. It found that Trump’s campaign directly collaborated with Russia on multiple occasions and in various ways to alter the outcome of a U.S. election. It found that multiple members of Trump’s campaign lied to investigators about these connections. It found that the coordination of Trump’s campaign and the Russian government “represented a grave counterintelligence threat.”
Those are the facts of what happened. Durham was never going to find anything that made this any less true. What Durham needs to report is all the conspiracy theories he investigated and found to be false.
But don’t worry. Just because Durham’s investigation is ending without a single conviction to stand on, that doesn’t mean right-wing media is going to stop claiming he found something huge. They’re certainly not stopping today. In fact, the Durham investigation is likely to go on endlessly in the MAGA mind. If Donald Trump can be secret president, running the country from Mar-a-Lago while Biden wonders why his red button does nothing, then surely John Durham can keep on investigating forever. No grand jury? Who needs one. Durham will be always about to come through Democratic doors, laser grenade and electro-whip of justice in hand.
He’ll always be just one rabbit hole away,
The last sad cry for help ...
Monica Lewinsky weighs in on Ken Starr’s death: ‘I imagine it’s painful loss for those who love him’
Viral tweet about MyPillow man’s subpoena is a window into the career of a far-right influencer
On Tuesday, the FBI served MyPillow Man Mike Lindell with a search warrant and seized his cellphone at a Hardee’s in Minnesota. That move came as the FBI investigates Tina Peters, the Mesa, Colorado, county clerk under indictment for tampering with voting machines after the 2020 election. Lindell is a prominent election denier who has poured money into trying to overturn Donald Trump’s big loss.
The MyPillow guy being arrested at a Hardee’s is a fun enough story, but then Millie Weaver, aka Millennial Millie, went and made it better. Weaver is a former Infowars correspondent and minor-league far-right influencer whose Millennial Millie show has recently been airing on “Lindell TV,” and you cannot make me take the scare quotes off those things. Weaver was feeling a little dramatic about the seizure of Lindell’s cellphone, so she reached for the often-quoted words of German pastor Martin Niemöller, written in 1946 about the rise of the Nazis.

Yes, she is comparing cases of people being subpoenaed and searched for evidence of crimes to the Holocaust. She’s doing that. People receiving due process and their day in court are, to Weaver, akin to people being transported to Nazi death camps and concentration camps. The far-right’s victim complex knows no bounds whatsoever.
It would be understandable to read this and think it was a parody. I’m pretty sure there have been parody tweets along these exact lines about earlier cases of far-right figures being served with subpoenas or investigated for lawbreaking. But friends, this is no parody. Not unless it’s an extremely long con, dating back at least to late 2015. Because that’s how long Weaver has been building her Trump babe (more on that in a bit) influencer persona.
Early on in her time on Instagram, in 2011 and 2012, Weaver was just another young woman posting duck-lipped thirst traps and pictures with friends. Sometimes she wasn’t even wearing makeup. The pictures from this time have almost no comments, and what comments there are are much more recent, from fans who’ve gone back through her feed. “No wonder you have a couple kids bet your husband can't keep his hands off you he's a lucky man,” a 2020 comment on a 2012 picture of Weaver in a bikini reads.
A little more recently, it’s baby pictures. Sprinkled throughout are occasional pictures of animals and organic foods. Then, in January 2016: a “Millennial Millie game face” selfie, followed directly by two brief videos about why she’s not a feminist.
“There’s nothing feminine about being a feminist nowadays. They pretty much throw out everything it is to be a feminine woman as a whole. Can’t be a mom, can’t be pretty, can’t be hot, can’t be sexy, can’t have a husband.”
May 2016: A posed studio shot in front of an array of Infowars supplements with the comment, “This is Millie. Millie uses Infowars Life products and is very healthy. Millie is not a mindless trendy. Millie is Smart. Be like Millie. #Infowars #Infowarsgear”
July 2016: A selfie in a MAGA hat, with the comment, “Make America Great Again! Trump 2016! If you don't like it...Kiss My Ass! #trump #trumpbabes.” (That #trumpbabes hashtag is a whole world of silicone and Trump bikinis and “Let’s Go Brandon” shirts cropped high enough to show ample underboob.)
From there, Weaver’s identity as an Infowars/Trump wannabe influencer mostly takes over her feed. In front of a “Hillary for Prison” sign. Shooting a gun, apparently off the back porch of a home. Promoting her YouTube channel for the first time in August 2016. Pictures with right-wing luminaries like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nigel Farage, Rudy Giuliani, James O’Keefe, Milo Yiannopoulos, Mike Cernovich, next to Roger Stone and Alex Jones at an event, and more. Pictures of two White House visits.
By now, Weaver has 452,000 YouTube subscribers. In that first Instagram promotion of her YouTube channel, she had just over 3,500 subscribers. The oldest video on her channel is an entry for an Infowars "Make fun of Hillary" contest. A few months later, she’s putting a wig and makeup on her brother and sending him into a Target to ask people if they’d be comfortable with him using the women’s restroom with their daughters. For a while, she’s all over the map of Infowars-type obsessions: “SJW’s Ban St. Patrick’s Day.” “Is Wind Energy Actually Clean?” “EXCLUSIVE: Inside The Secret Pedophile Marketplace.” “Consensus: CNN is Fake News.” “Unsolved Mysteries of Liberal Logic.”
Weaver was fired from Infowars in 2020 after she was arrested for robbing her mother (the charges were dropped). But by the time of her arrest, Weaver was already working on Shadow Gate, a “documentary” claiming to have whistleblowers telling how secret contractors “hired by government officials to frame the Trump campaign, set him up for the Russia collusion investigation, provided witnesses for the impeachment hearings and provided administrative support services to the Department of Justice during the Mueller investigation.” On election night 2020, Weaver's livestream had 300,000 viewers as she spread disinformation, claiming a video of a TV cameraman with his equipment was footage of ballot-stuffing in Detroit, and saying to a guest, “It looks like the election is being stolen.” The top video on her channel, the one that autoplays when you visit, is titled “Election Night Coup D’etat Plot Exposed!”
She has built a career, of sorts, around this persona. Pretty, hot, sexy, mom … for Trump, turned hard-hitting “reporter,” where what’s reported is largely conspiracy theory and trolling. Weaver isn’t alone in this. You've heard of Alex Jones and James O’Keefe and Dinesh D’Souza and Diamond and Silk and Candace Owens, but there’s this whole far-right ecosystem of highly specific influencers. Ones who gain their right-wing currency by deploying their Blackness to help insulate Trump and Republicans from charges of racism. Ones who deploy their exaggerated femininity for culture wars leverage and for sheer pervy page views. But they’re tied together by their willingness to embrace conspiracy theories and undermine democracy.
And when they compare Mike Lindell having his cellphone seized in a Hardee’s to the Holocaust, they are not kidding.