Daily Archives: December 7, 2021

How Donald Trump Could Subvert the 2024 Election – The Atlantic

Posted: December 7, 2021 at 5:18 am

Technically, the next attempt to overthrow a national election may not qualify as a coup. It will rely on subversion more than violence, although each will have its place. If the plot succeeds, the ballots cast by American voters will not decide the presidency in 2024. Thousands of votes will be thrown away, or millions, to produce the required effect. The winner will be declared the loser. The loser will be certified president-elect.

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The prospect of this democratic collapse is not remote. People with the motive to make it happen are manufacturing the means. Given the opportunity, they will act. They are acting already.

Who or what will safeguard our constitutional order is not apparent today. It is not even apparent who will try. Democrats, big and small D, are not behaving as if they believe the threat is real. Some of them, including President Joe Biden, have taken passing rhetorical notice, but their attention wanders. They are making a grievous mistake.

The democratic emergency is already here, Richard L. Hasen, a professor of law and political science at UC Irvine, told me in late October. Hasen prides himself on a judicious temperament. Only a year ago he was cautioning me against hyperbole. Now he speaks matter-of-factly about the death of our body politic. We face a serious risk that American democracy as we know it will come to an end in 2024, he said, but urgent action is not happening.

For more than a year now, with tacit and explicit support from their partys national leaders, state Republican operatives have been building an apparatus of election theft. Elected officials in Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and other states have studied Donald Trumps crusade to overturn the 2020 election. They have noted the points of failure and have taken concrete steps to avoid failure next time. Some of them have rewritten statutes to seize partisan control of decisions about which ballots to count and which to discard, which results to certify and which to reject. They are driving out or stripping power from election officials who refused to go along with the plot last November, aiming to replace them with exponents of the Big Lie. They are fine-tuning a legal argument that purports to allow state legislators to override the choice of the voters.

By way of foundation for all the rest, Trump and his party have convinced a dauntingly large number of Americans that the essential workings of democracy are corrupt, that made-up claims of fraud are true, that only cheating can thwart their victory at the polls, that tyranny has usurped their government, and that violence is a legitimate response.

Any Republican might benefit from these machinations, but lets not pretend theres any suspense. Unless biology intercedes, Donald Trump will seek and win the Republican nomination for president in 2024. The party is in his thrall. No opponent can break it and few will try. Neither will a setback outside politicsindictment, say, or a disastrous turn in businessprevent Trump from running. If anything, it will redouble his will to power.

As we near the anniversary of January 6, investigators are still unearthing the roots of the insurrection that sacked the Capitol and sent members of Congress fleeing for their lives. What we know already, and could not have known then, is that the chaos wrought on that day was integral to a coherent plan. In retrospect, the insurrection takes on the aspect of rehearsal.

Even in defeat, Trump has gained strength for a second attempt to seize office, should he need to, after the polls close on November 5, 2024. It may appear otherwiseafter all, he no longer commands the executive branch, which he tried and mostly failed to enlist in his first coup attempt. Yet the balance of power is shifting his way in arenas that matter more.

Trump is successfully shaping the narrative of the insurrection in the only political ecosystem that matters to him. The immediate shock of the event, which briefly led some senior Republicans to break with him, has given way to a near-unanimous embrace. Virtually no one a year ago, certainly not I, predicted that Trump could compel the whole partys genuflection to the Big Lie and the recasting of insurgents as martyrs. Today the few GOP dissenters are being cast out. 2 down, 8 to go! Trump gloated at the retirement announcement of Representative Adam Kinzinger, one of 10 House Republicans to vote for his second impeachment.

From the November 2020 issue: Barton Gellman on the election that could break America

Trump has reconquered his party by setting its base on fire. Tens of millions of Americans perceive their world through black clouds of his smoke. His deepest source of strength is the bitter grievance of Republican voters that they lost the White House, and are losing their country, to alien forces with no legitimate claim to power. This is not some transient or loosely committed population. Trump has built the first American mass political movement in the past century that is ready to fight by any means necessary, including bloodshed, for its cause.

At the edge of the Capitol grounds, just west of the reflecting pool, a striking figure stands in spit-shined shoes and a 10-button uniform coat. He is 6 foot 4, 61 years old, with chiseled good looks and an aura of command that is undimmed by retirement. Once, according to the silver bars on his collar, he held the rank of captain in the New York Fire Department. He is not supposed to wear the old uniform at political events, but he pays that rule no mind today. The uniform tells the world that he is a man of substance, a man who has saved lives and held authority. Richard C. Patterson needs every shred of that authority for this occasion. He has come to speak on behalf of an urgent cause. Pelosis political prisoners, he tells me, have been unjustly jailed.

Patterson is talking about the men and women held on criminal charges after invading the Capitol on January 6. He does not at all approve of the word insurrection.

It wasnt an insurrection, he says at a September 18 rally called Justice for January 6. None of our countrymen and -women who are currently being held are charged with insurrection. Theyre charged with misdemeanor charges.

Patterson is misinformed on that latter point. Of the more than 600 defendants, 78 are in custody when we speak. Most of those awaiting trial in jail are charged with serious crimes such as assault on a police officer, violence with a deadly weapon, conspiracy, or unlawful possession of firearms or explosives. Jeffrey McKellop of Virginia, for instance, is alleged to have hurled a flagpole like a spear into an officers face. (McKellop has pleaded not guilty.)

Patterson was not in Washington on January 6, but he is fluent in the revisionist narratives spread by fabulists and trolls on social media. He knows those stories verse by verse, the ones about January 6 and the ones about the election rigged against Trump. His convictions are worth examining because he and the millions of Americans who think as he does are the primary source of Trumps power to corrupt the next election. With a sufficient dose of truth serum, most Republican politicians would likely confess that Biden won in 2020, but the great mass of lumpen Trumpers, who believe the Big Lie with unshakable force, oblige them to pretend otherwise. Like so many others, Patterson is doing his best to parse a torrential flow of political information, and he is failing. His failures leave him, nearly always, with the worldview expounded by Trump.

We fall into a long conversation in the sweltering heat, then continue it for weeks by phone and email. I want to plumb the depths of his beliefs, and understand what lies behind his commitment to them. He is prepared to grant me the status of fellow truth-seeker.

The Stop the Steal rally for election integrity was peaceful, he says. I think the big takeaway is when Old Glory made its way into the Rotunda on January 6, our fearless public officials dove for cover at the sight of the American flag.

What about the violence? The crowds battling police?

The police were seen on video in uniform allowing people past the bicycle-rack barricades and into the building, he replies. I mean, thats established. The unarmed crowd did not overpower the officers in body armor. That doesnt happen. They were allowed in.

Surely he has seen other video, though. Shaky, handheld footage, taken by the rioters themselves, of police officers falling under blows from a baseball bat, a hockey stick, a fire extinguisher, a length of pipe. A crowd crushing Officer Daniel Hodges in a doorway, shouting Heave! Ho!

Does Patterson know that January 6 was among the worst days for law-enforcement casualties since September 11, 2001? That at least 151 officers from the Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police Department suffered injuries, including broken bones, concussions, chemical burns, and a Taser-induced heart attack?

Patterson has not heard these things. Abruptly, he shifts gears. Maybe there was violence, but the patriots were not to blame.

There were people there deliberately to make it look worse than what it was, he explains. A handful of ill-behaved, potentially, possibly agents provocateur. He repeats the phrase: Agents provocateur, I have on information, were in the crowd They were there for nefarious means. Doing the bidding of whom? I have no idea.

On information? I ask. What information?

You can look up this name, he says. Retired three-star Air Force General McInerney. You got to find him on Rumble. They took him off YouTube.

Sure enough, there on Rumble (and still on YouTube) I find a video of Lieutenant General Thomas G. McInerney, 84, three decades gone from the Air Force. His story takes a long time to tell, because the plot includes an Italian satellite and Pakistans intelligence service and former FBI Director James Comey selling secret U.S. cyberweapons to China. Eventually it emerges that Special Forces mixed with antifa combined to invade the seat of Congress on January 6 and then blame the invasion on Trump supporters, with the collusion of Senators Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

In a further wrinkle, Pelosi, by McInerneys account, became frantic soon afterward when she discovered that her own false-flag operation had captured a laptop filled with evidence of her treason. McInerney had just come from the White House, he says in his monologue, recorded two days after the Capitol riot. Trump was about to release the Pelosi evidence. McInerney had seen the laptop with his own eyes.

It shook me that Patterson took this video for proof. If my house had caught fire 10 years before, my life might have depended on his discernment and clarity of thought. He was an Eagle Scout. He earned a college degree. He keeps current on the news. And yet he has wandered off from the empirical world, placing his faith in fantastic tales that lack any basis in fact or explicable logic.

McInerneys tale had spread widely on Facebook, Twitter, Parler, and propaganda sites like We Love Trump and InfoWars. It joined the January 6 denialist canon and lodged firmly in Pattersons head. I reached the general by phone and asked about evidence for his claims. He mentioned a source, whose name he couldnt reveal, who had heard some people saying We are playing antifa today. McInerney believed they were special operators because they looked like SOF people. He believed that one of them had Pelosis laptop, because his source had seen something bulky and square under the suspects raincoat. He conceded that even if it was a laptop, he couldnt know whose it was or what was on it. For most of his story, McInerney did not even claim to have proof. He was putting two and two together. It stood to reason. In truth, prosecutors had caught and charged a neo-Nazi sympathizer who had videotaped herself taking the laptop from Pelosis office and bragged about it on Discord. She was a home health aide, not a special operator. (As of this writing, she has not yet entered a plea.)

The generals son, Thomas G. McInerney Jr., a technology investor, learned that I had been talking with his father and asked for a private word with me. He was torn between conflicting obligations of filial loyalty, and took a while to figure out what he wanted to say.

He has a distinguished service record, he told me after an otherwise off-the-record conversation. He wants whats best for the nation and he speaks with a sense of authority, but I have concerns at his age that his judgment is impaired. The older hes gotten, the stranger things have gotten in terms of what hes saying.

I tell all of this and more to Patterson. McInerney, the Military Times reported, went off the rails after a successful Air Force career. For a while during the Obama years he was a prominent birther and appeared a lot on Fox News, before being fired as a Fox commentator in 2018 for making a baseless claim about John McCain. Last November, he told the WVW Broadcast Network that the CIA operated a computer-server farm in Germany that had helped rig the presidential vote for Biden, and that five Special Forces soldiers had just died trying to seize the evidence. The Army and U.S. Special Operations Command put out dutiful statements that no such mission and no such casualties had taken place.

Of course, Patterson wrote to me sarcastically, governments would NEVER lie to their OWN citizens. He did not trust the Pentagons denials. There are seldom words or time enough to lay a conspiracy theory to rest. Each rebuttal is met with a fresh round of delusions.

Patterson is admirably eager for a civil exchange of views. He portrays himself as a man who may be wrong, and if I am I admit it, and he does indeed concede on small points. But a deep rage seems to fuel his convictions. I asked him the first time we met if we could talk about whats happening in the country, not the election itself.

His smile faded. His voice rose.

There aint no fucking way we are letting go of 3 November 2020, he said. That is not going to fucking happen. Thats not happening. This motherfucker was stolen. The world knows this bumbling, senile, career corrupt fuck squatting in our White House did not get 81 million votes.

He had many proofs. All he really needed, though, was arithmetic. The record indicates 141 [million] of us were registered to vote and cast a ballot on November 3, he said. Trump is credited with 74 million votes out of 141 million. That leaves 67 million for Joe; that doesnt leave any more than that. Where do these 14 million votes come from?

Patterson did not recall where he had heard those figures. He did not think he had read Gateway Pundit, which was the first site to advance the garbled statistics. Possibly he saw Trump amplify the claim on Twitter or television, or some other stop along the storys cascading route across the right-wing mediaverse. Reuters did a good job debunking the phony math, which got the total number of voters wrong.

I was interested in something else: the worldview that guided Patterson through the statistics. It appeared to him (incorrectly) that not enough votes had been cast to account for the official results. Patterson assumed that only fraud could explain the discrepancy, that all of Trumps votes were valid, and that the invalid votes must therefore belong to Biden.

Why dont you say Joe Biden got 81 million and theres only 60 million left for Trump? I asked.

Patterson was astonished.

Its not disputed, the 74 million vote count that was credited to President Trumps reelection effort, he replied, baffled at my ignorance. Its not in dispute Have you heard that President Trump engaged in cheating and fraudulent practices and crooked machines?

Biden was the one accused of rigging the vote. Everybody said so. And for reasons unspoken, Patterson wanted to be carried away by that story.

Robert A. Pape, a well-credentialed connoisseur of political violence, watched the mob attack the Capitol on a television at home on January 6. A name came unbidden to his mind: Slobodan Miloevi.

Back in June 1989, Pape had been a postdoctoral fellow in political science when the late president of Serbia delivered a notorious speech. Miloevi compared Muslims in the former Yugoslavia to Ottomans who had enslaved the Serbs six centuries before. He fomented years of genocidal war that destroyed the hope for a multiethnic democracy, casting Serbs as defenders against a Muslim onslaught on European culture, religion, and European society in general.

By the time Trump unleashed the angry crowd on Congress, Pape, who is 61, had become a leading scholar on the intersection of warfare and politics. He saw an essential similarity between Miloevi and Trumpone that suggested disturbing hypotheses about Trumps most fervent supporters. Pape, who directs the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats, or CPOST, called a staff meeting two days after the Capitol attack. I talked to my research team and told them we were going to reorient everything we were doing, he told me.

Miloevi, Pape said, inspired bloodshed by appealing to fears that Serbs were losing their dominant place to upstart minorities. What he is arguing in the 1989 speech is that Muslims in Kosovo and generally throughout the former Yugoslavia are essentially waging genocide on the Serbs, Pape said. And really, he doesnt use the word replaced. But this is what the modern term would be.

Pape was alluding to a theory called the Great Replacement. The term itself has its origins in Europe. But the theory is the latest incarnation of a racist trope that dates back to Reconstruction in the United States. Replacement ideology holds that a hidden hand (often imagined as Jewish) is encouraging the invasion of nonwhite immigrants, and the rise of nonwhite citizens, to take power from white Christian people of European stock. When white supremacists marched with torches in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, they chanted, Jews will not replace us!

Trump borrowed periodically from the rhetorical canon of replacement. His remarks on January 6 were more disciplined than usual for a president who typically spoke in tangents and unfinished thoughts. Pape shared with me an analysis he had made of the text that Trump read from his prompter.

Our country has been under siege for a long time, far longer than this four-year period, Trump told the crowd. Youre the real people. Youre the people that built this nation. He famously added, And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you dont fight like hell, youre not going to have a country anymore.

Just like Miloevi, Trump had skillfully deployed three classic themes of mobilization to violence, Pape wrote: The survival of a way of life is at stake. The fate of the nation is being determined now. Only genuine brave patriots can save the country.

Watching how the Great Replacement message was resonating with Trump supporters, Pape and his colleagues suspected that the bloodshed on January 6 might augur something more than an aberrant moment in American politics. The prevailing framework for analyzing extremist violence in the U.S., they thought, might not be adequate to explain what was happening.

When the Biden administration published a new homeland-security strategy in June, it described the assault on the Capitol as a product of domestic violent extremists, and invoked an intelligence assessment that said attacks by such extremists come primarily from lone wolves or small cells. Pape and his colleagues doubted that this captured what had happened on January 6. They set about seeking systematic answers to two basic questions: Who were the insurgents, in demographic terms? And what political beliefs animated them and their sympathizers?

Papes three-bedroom house, half an hours drive south of Chicago, became the pandemic headquarters of a virtual group of seven research professionals, supported by two dozen University of Chicago undergraduates. The CPOST researchers gathered court documents, public records, and news reports to compile a group profile of the insurgents.

The thing that got our attention first was the age, Pape said. He had been studying violent political extremists in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East for decades. Consistently, around the world, they tended to be in their 20s and early 30s. Among the January 6 insurgents, the median age was 41.8. That was wildly atypical.

Then there were economic anomalies. Over the previous decade, one in four violent extremists arrested by the FBI had been unemployed. But only 7 percent of the January 6 insurgents were jobless, and more than half of the group had a white-collar job or owned their own business. There were doctors, architects, a Google field-operations specialist, the CEO of a marketing firm, a State Department official. The last time America saw middle-class whites involved in violence was the expansion of the second KKK in the 1920s, Pape told me.

Yet these insurgents were not, by and large, affiliated with known extremist groups. Several dozen did have connections with the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, or the Three Percenters militia, but a larger numbersix out of every seven who were charged with crimeshad no ties like that at all.

Kathleen Belew, a University of Chicago historian and co-editor of A Field Guide to White Supremacy, says it is no surprise that extremist groups were in the minority. January 6 wasnt designed as a mass-casualty attack, but rather as a recruitment action aimed at mobilizing the general population, she told me. For radicalized Trump supporters I think it was a protest event that became something bigger.

Papes team mapped the insurgents by home county and ran statistical analyses looking for patterns that might help explain their behavior. The findings were counterintuitive. Counties won by Trump in the 2020 election were less likely than counties won by Biden to send an insurrectionist to the Capitol. The higher Trumps share of votes in a county, in fact, the lower the probability that insurgents lived there. Why would that be? Likewise, the more rural the county, the fewer the insurgents. The researchers tried a hypothesis: Insurgents might be more likely to come from counties where white household income was dropping. Not so. Household income made no difference at all.

Only one meaningful correlation emerged. Other things being equal, insurgents were much more likely to come from a county where the white share of the population was in decline. For every one-point drop in a countys percentage of non-Hispanic whites from 2015 to 2019, the likelihood of an insurgent hailing from that county increased by 25 percent. This was a strong link, and it held up in every state.

Trump and some of his most vocal allies, Tucker Carlson of Fox News notably among them, had taught supporters to fear that Black and brown people were coming to replace them. According to the latest census projections, white Americans will become a minority, nationally, in 2045. The insurgents could see their majority status slipping before their eyes.

The CPOST team decided to run a national opinion survey in March, based on themes it had gleaned from the social-media posts of insurgents and the statements theyd made to the FBI under questioning. The researchers first looked to identify people who said they dont trust the election results and were prepared to join a protest even if I thought the protest might turn violent. The survey found that 4 percent of Americans agreed with both statements, a relatively small fraction that nonetheless corresponds to 10 million American adults.

In June, the researchers sharpened the questions. This brought another surprise. In the new poll, they looked for people who not only distrusted the election results but agreed with the stark assertion that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president. And instead of asking whether survey subjects would join a protest that might turn violent, they looked for people who affirmed that the use of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.

Pollsters ordinarily expect survey respondents to give less support to more transgressive language. The more you asked pointed questions about violence, the more you should be getting social-desirability bias, where people are just more reluctant, Pape told me.

Here, the opposite happened: the more extreme the sentiments, the greater the number of respondents who endorsed them. In the June results, just over 8 percent agreed that Biden was illegitimate and that violence was justified to restore Trump to the White House. That corresponds to 21 million American adults. Pape called them committed insurrectionists. (An unrelated Public Religion Research Institute survey on November 1 found that an even larger proportion of Americans, 12 percent, believed both that the election had been stolen from Trump and that true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.)

Why such a large increase? Pape believed that Trump supporters simply preferred the harsher language, but we cannot rule out that attitudes hardened between the first and second surveys. Either interpretation is troubling. The latter, Pape said, would be even more concerning since over time we would normally think passions would cool.

In the CPOST polls, only one other statement won overwhelming support among the 21 million committed insurrectionists. Almost two-thirds of them agreed that African American people or Hispanic people in our country will eventually have more rights than whites. Slicing the data another way: Respondents who believed in the Great Replacement theory, regardless of their views on anything else, were nearly four times as likely as those who did not to support the violent removal of the president.

The committed insurrectionists, Pape judged, were genuinely dangerous. There were not many militia members among them, but more than one in four said the country needed groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. One-third of them owned guns, and 15 percent had served in the military. All had easy access to the organizing power of the internet.

What Pape was seeing in these results did not fit the government model of lone wolves and small groups of extremists. This really is a new, politically violent mass movement, he told me. This is collective political violence.

Pape drew an analogy to Northern Ireland in the late 1960s, at the dawn of the Troubles. In 1968, 13 percent of Catholics in Northern Ireland said that the use of force for Irish nationalism was justified, he said. The IRA was created shortly thereafter with only a few hundred members. Decades of bloody violence followed. And 13 percent support was more than enough, in those early years, to sustain it.

Its the communitys support that is creating a mantle of legitimacya mandate, if you would, that justifies the violence of a smaller, more committed group, Pape said. Im very concerned it could happen again, because what were seeing in our surveys is 21 million people in the United States who are essentially a mass of kindling or a mass of dry wood that, if married to a spark, could in fact ignite.

The story of Richard Patterson, once you delve into it, is consonant with Papes research. Trump appealed to him as an in-your-face, brash America First guy who has the interest of We the People. But there was more. Decades of personal and political grudges infuse Pattersons understanding of what counts as America and who counts as we.

Where Patterson lives, in the Bronx, there were 20,413 fewer non-Hispanic white people in the 2020 census than in 2010. The borough had reconfigured from 11 percent white to 9 percent.

Patterson came from Northern Irish stock and grew up in coastal Northern California. He was a lifetime C student who found ambition at age 14 when he began to hang around at a local fire station. As soon as he finished high school he took the test to join the Oakland fire department, earning, he said, outstanding scores.

But in those days, he recalled, Oakland was just beginning to diversify and hire females. So no job for the big white kid. The position went to this little woman who I know failed the test.

Patterson tried again in San Francisco, but found the department operating under a consent decree. Women and people of color, long excluded, had to be accepted in the incoming cohort. So, again, the big white kid is told, Fuck you, we got a whole fire department of guys that look just like you. We want the department to look different because diversity is all about an optic. The department could hire the Black applicant instead of myself.

Patterson bought a one-way ticket to New York, earned a bachelors degree in fire science, and won an offer to join New Yorks Bravest. But desegregation had come to New York, too, and Patterson found himself seething.

In 1982, a plaintiff named Brenda Berkman had won a lawsuit that opened the door to women in the FDNY. A few years later, the department scheduled training sessions to assist male firefighters in coming to terms with the assimilation of females into their ranks. Pattersons session did not go well. He was suspended without pay for 10 days after a judge found that he had called the trainer a scumbag and a Communist and chased him out of the room, yelling, Why dont you fuck Brenda Berkman and I hope you both die of AIDS. The judge found that the trainer had reasonably feared for his safety. Patterson continues to maintain his innocence.

Later, as a lieutenant, Patterson came across a line on a routine form that asked for his gender and ethnicity. He resented that. There was no box for Fuck off, so I wrote in Fuck off, he said. So they jammed me up for thatthis time a 30-day suspension without pay.

Even while Patterson rose through the ranks, he kept on finding examples of how the world was stacked against people like him. I look at the 2020 election as sort of an example on steroids of affirmative action. The straight white guy won, but it was stolen from him and given to somebody else.

Wait. Wasnt this a contest between two straight white guys?

Not really, Patterson said, pointing to Vice President Kamala Harris: Everybody touts the gal behind the president, who is currently, I think, illegitimately in our White House. It is, quote, a woman of color, like this is somelike this is supposed to mean something. And do not forget, he added, that Biden said, If you have a problem figuring out whether youre for me or Trump, then you aint Black.

What to do about all this injustice? Patterson did not want to say, but he alluded to an answer: Constitutionally, the head of the executive branch cant tell an American citizen what the fuck to do. Constitutionally, all the power rests with the people. Thats you and me, bro. And Mao is right that all the power emanates from the barrel of a gun.

Did he own a gun himself? My Second Amendment rights, like my medical history, are my own business, he replied.

Many of Pattersons fellow travelers at the Justice for January 6 protest were more direct about their intentions. One of them was a middle-aged man who gave his name as Phil. The former Coast Guard rescue diver from Kentucky had joined the crowd at the Capitol on January 6 but said he has not heard from law enforcement. Civil war is coming, he told me, and I would fight for my country.

Was he speaking metaphorically?

No, Im not, he said. Oh Lord, I think were heading for it. I dont think itll stop. I truly believe it. I believe the criminalsNancy Pelosi and her criminal cabal up thereis forcing a civil war. Theyre forcing the people who love the Constitution, who will give their lives to defend the Constitutionthe Democrats are forcing them to take up arms against them, and God help us all.

Gregory Dooner, who was selling flags at the protest, said he had been just outside the Capitol on January 6 as well. He used to sell ads for AT&T Advertising Solutions, and now, in retirement, he peddles MAGA gear: $10 for a small flag, $20 for a big one.

Violent political conflict, he told me, was inevitable, because Trumps opponents want actual war here in America. Thats what they want. He added a slogan of the Three Percenters militia: When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. The Declaration of Independence, which said something like that, was talking about King George III. If taken seriously today, the slogan calls for a war of liberation against the U.S. government.

Yo, heyhey, Dooner called out to a customer who had just unfurled one of his banners. I want to read him the flag.

He recited the words inscribed on the Stars and Stripes: A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.

George Washington wrote that, he said. Thats where were at, gentlemen.

I looked it up. George Washington did not write anything like that. The flag was Dooners best seller, even so.

Over the course of Trumps presidency, one of the running debates about the man boiled down to: menace or clown? Threat to the republic, or authoritarian wannabe who had no real chance of breaking democracys restraints? Many observers rejected the dichotomythe essayist Andrew Sullivan, for instance, described the former president as both farcical and deeply dangerous. But during the interregnum between November 3 and Inauguration Day, the political consensus leaned at first toward farce. Biden had won. Trump was breaking every norm by refusing to concede, but his made-up claims of fraud were getting him nowhere.

In a column headlined There Will Be No Trump Coup, the New York Times writer Ross Douthat had predicted, shortly before Election Day, that any attempt to cling to power illegitimately will be a theater of the absurd. He was responding in part to my warning in these pages that Trump could wreak great harm in such an attempt.

The Ticket podcast: Barton Gellman on how Trump could tamper with the 2020 vote

One year later, Douthat looked back. In scores of lawsuits, a variety of conservative lawyers delivered laughable arguments to skeptical judges and were ultimately swatted down, he wrote, and state election officials warded off Trumps corrupt demands. My own article, Douthat wrote, had anticipated what Trump tried to do. But at every level he was rebuffed, often embarrassingly, and by the end his plotting consisted of listening to charlatans and cranks proposing last-ditch ideas that could never succeed.

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How Donald Trump Could Subvert the 2024 Election - The Atlantic

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Treat Other Counsel How You Wish to Be Treated: The Rules Versus the Golden Rule – Lexology

Posted: at 5:17 am

When a plaintiff serves a statement of claim, the Rules of Civil Procedure (the Rules) require that a defendant must serve a statement of defence within a prescribed time (usually 20 days), failing which the plaintiff can note the defendant in default and obtain default judgment. Default proceedings are a crucial mechanism for ensuring that defendants respond to claims and take them seriously.

The following is a situation that every plaintiff-side lawyer has been in before:

As counsel for the plaintiff, you have done everything right: you have courteously agreed to an extension and put in writing that no more extensions will be given. Counsel for the defendant did not heed your warning. Wouldnt you be completely within your rights under the Rules to note the defendant in default for failing to serve a defence in time?

So you go ahead and note the defendant in default.

According to Justice Myers in Strathmillan Financial Limited v. Teti, 2021 ONSC 7603, this isnt a grey area where there is room for professional discretion. Notwithstanding that the Rules allow for it, noting the defendant in default in these circumstances is wrong.

Strathmillan Financial Limited v. Teti

The plaintiff in this case sued the defendants for unpaid invoices.

Masters2 Decision

The plaintiff would not agree to set aside the noting in default. The defendants were required to have the noting in default set aside by a case management master, on a full motion. The master awarded $7,500 in costs against the plaintiff. The plaintiff sought leave to appeal the cost award (but not the decision to set aside the default), which is how the case came before Justice Myers.

Decision on Leave to Appeal Cost Award

An outrageous misuse of the default process under Rule 19 is how Justice Myers described the decision by plaintiffs counsel to note the defendants in default. He denied leave to appeal and ordered a further $6,000 in costs against the plaintiff.

Justice Myers went into detail regarding the responsibilities of counsel in these circumstances and what actions are, or more importantly are not, appropriate:

Advocates, and not the client, have the sole discretion to determine the accommodations to be granted to opposing counsel and litigants in all matters not directly affecting the merits of the cause or prejudicing the clients rights. Advocates should not accede to a clients demands that the advocate act in a discourteous or uncooperative manner.

Even if the client refuses the extension, absent actual prejudice, counsel must agree.

How Does This Affect How We Litigate a Case?

For starters, anyone who responds to the official looking letter described above with We will agree to X deadline, failing which we will take steps to note your client in default needs to revise their templates. The underlined words have no practical meaning and effective letter writing should not include making empty, meaningless threats. Based on Justice Myers comments, the response should say: failing which we will write to the court to request a case conference pursuant to Rule 50.13(1).

In cases where a delay creates real prejudice for the plaintiff, noting a party in default may not be as egregious. However, seeing as every plaintiffs counsel believes an action needs to be adjudicated immediately, the best course of action is likely still to request a case conference under Rules 50.13(1), but on an urgent basis.

This does create an opening for serious mischief on the part of a defendant who is participating in the action but doesnt deliver a defence. Counsel for the plaintiff is required to grant indulgences and extensions and does not have the ability to note a defendant in default. The plaintiff can request a case conference, but that request comes with its own delays before the case conference will be heard, particularly in a time where the court is backed up due to COVID-19.

Rule 57.01 sets out the factors in making a cost order and specifically provides that any conduct by a party to lengthen unnecessarily the duration of a proceeding should be considered when making a cost order. While Justice Myers determined that the demand from counsel for the plaintiff to justify why more time was needed was improper, that doesnt mean that a defendant will not be held accountable if there was in fact no justifiable excuse for the delay. In order to prevent defendants from abusing the law set out in Justice Myers decision, case management associate justices can hold defendants accountable for forcing the plaintiff to a case conference by imposing strict timelines for the action and making cost orders against defendants who make plaintiffs jump through these hoops unnecessarily.

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Boris Johnsons rule is a throwback to the 18th-century golden age of sleaze – The Guardian

Posted: at 5:17 am

Corruption is a word used nervously in the UK. Were quite happy applying it to other countries; but in Britain even critics of the status quo can be surprisingly reluctant to describe as corrupt our societys tight, often concealed circulation of power and rewards.

Partly, this is because corruption is a slippery concept. There has never been a single, fixed, universal definition, wrote Mark Knights of Warwick University in 2016. Notions about what is unfair, unjust or immoral change over time.

As a small, centralised country with a huge capital city, Britain has for centuries been run by elites with overlapping memberships and interests, and offered a wide range of services to foreigners with dubious fortunes. To attack this system as corrupt is to risk being called unworldly and experience feelings of deep frustration and futility. From the House of Lords to the City of London, the capital is lined with ancient institutions that anti-corruption campaigners have failed to cleanse.

Yet there are periods when the charge of corruption suddenly acquires potency. Having struggled for two years to find an effective way of criticising Boris Johnsons government, Labour seems finally to have discovered one. Corruption, said the partys deputy leader, Angela Rayner, on Monday, is rife right through this Conservative government. Keir Starmer, often too measured, has become just as blunt about the issue.

Johnsons response I genuinely believe that the UK is not remotely a corrupt country has been floridly unconvincing even by his standards. Most voters disagree with him. According to YouGov, 80% think there is a lot or a fair amount of corruption in British politics, and only 1% think there is none . Since the corruption controversy took off, the Tories have dropped in the polls.

The word corruption sometimes suggests something past its peak and beginning to decay. And despite their efforts to pretend otherwise, the Conservatives have been in office for a long time. But more often corruption suggests something spreading, swelling, mutating, becoming monstrous. The constant acquisition of power and resources by Johnsons Tories and their corporate allies has those qualities: from the appointment of cronies to public office to the funnelling of state funds to Tory constituencies to the awarding of government contracts to friends, relations and supporters a practice for which the Omicron variant may open up more opportunities.

Previous governments have done sleazy things, but few have done them so systematically and blatantly. When Tony Blair was prime minister, the anti-corruption group Transparency International gave the UK scores in the 80s (out of 100) in its annual index: good, but not outstanding by the groups standards. Under Johnson, the UK scores in the 70s.

Appropriately for an administration that shows contempt for parliamentary democracy, the British ruling culture that Johnsons increasingly resembles is a pre-democratic one: the once-infamous Old Corruption of the 18th and 19th centuries. Government jobs were routinely sold and public money was distributed to people with political leverage. As the state grew, expanded by wars rather than a pandemic, new functions were carried out by private companies whose ability to win contracts and extract profits far exceeded their operational effectiveness. The prime minister sat contentedly at the centre of this system. A satirical cartoon from 1740 shows Robert Walpole an Old Etonian like Johnson, who governed for more than 20 years as a giant figure stretched over ye Doors of all ye Publick Offices, waiting for supplicants to kiss his exposed buttocks.

Johnson is like an 18th-century politician, with his shamelessness, elaborate but untrustworthy rhetoric, and enrichment of favourites. And, like his style of government, at first Old Corruption seemed immune to criticism. It took a century of campaigning by radicals such as the journalist and MP William Cobbett for the system to start being dismantled.

We live in faster times now. Johnsons ascendancy has lasted little more than a 10th as long as Walpoles, and already there are signs it could be ending. The exposure of corruption may be particularly damaging for this government because Johnson has so emphatically promised to spread resources and opportunities more widely not to hand them to an even narrower circle. Setting up VIP lanes for companies with Conservative links is hardly levelling up.

Such inside-dealing is part of a bigger Tory project that predates the Johnson government. During George Osbornes period as chancellor, his grand strategy, according to his biographer Janan Ganesh, was the calculated use of [government] policy to change Britain in his partys favour. Austerity was intended to shrink one of Labours main bases of support: public sector employees. Under Johnson, patronage of certain firms is intended to create an even more Tory-friendly private sector.

The coherence and cleverness of all this should not be overstated. The Tory governments since 2010 have often been haphazard, with last-minute policies and limited capacity for longterm thinking, as the frustrated departures of more ambitious strategists such as Dominic Cummings and Steve Hilton have indicated.

Yet one of the lessons of the past 11 years is that even mediocre Tory governments can be transformative. They act as conduits for powerful forces, such as corporations wanting to run state services. The Johnson governments corruption stems as much from modern Conservatisms emptiness as its over-confidence.

Labours response to all this works as a political message. With the rectitude of a former prosecutor, Starmer promises a truly independent anti-corruption and anti-cronyism commission. A Starmer government would almost certainly be much less sleazy.

But after a reshuffle that left the shadow cabinet with few fundamental critics of our economys incestuous workings and one of them, Ed Miliband, effectively demoted any Labour anti-corruption drive feels likely to be limited. The Johnson government may end in disgrace, but Britains insiders will keep prospering.

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The unwritten rules of clubbing in Australia – Red Bull

Posted: at 5:17 am

Froomes still remembers her first night out clubbing. It was with my best friend and her older sister and we went to Rats, which was this club in Melbourne in the CBD, she recalls. Cool, indie people would go. Youd get the photographer to take photos of you doing the peace sign or looking down at the ground.

If you havent logged quite as many hours on the dancefloor as Froomes, fear not. In the lead up to RedBull Curates: Welcome To Summer, we asked Froomes to share her expertise and offer some words of advice for those new to the brave new world of nightlife. From what to wear to how to meet new people, consider this the beginners guide to clubbing.

Dont ditch your friends

This is what Froomes considers a golden rule of clubbing: if one of your friends doesnt get in, dont let them go home alone.

I did that a few times and it's just never worth it, she says. Because clubs are great, but the whole point of it is partying with your friends and getting funny stories. Whatever happens, she says, stick with your friends and have fun.

but dont be afraid to go out alone

Thats not to say you cant hit the clubs solo you can and absolutely should, Froomes says.

Don't be afraid to go out on your own and dance by yourself because it's a really nice way to find new friends. You can meet so many good people at clubs, she says. I've met so many friends, and almost all of my exes, at clubs.

It's a great environment to meet new people, have fun and dance with them. Because I think you can find out a lot about a person and what theyre like in a social setting when you go out clubbing with them.

There are, however, rules to striking up a convo on the dancefloor.

Harassing people that clearly don't want to talk to you, and that goes for men and women, [is a no-no]. Try and read the room be open to talk to people, but don't expect them to entertain you. Put yourself out there, but if someone doesn't want to take it, just move on.

Theres also ways to communicate without opening your month. If there's somebody you want to talk to, just give them the eyes, Froomes advises.

The club is the place where you can really go the extra mile with your outfits.

Don't be afraid to dress up. Don't be afraid to be overdressed, Froomes says. It's nice to get dolled up or put your best clothes on. So I would say there's no fashion faux pas.

That includes footwear: People really bag high heels and think, oh theyre uncomfortable. If you get a really good pair of platform heels, it's so fun going out in heels.

Comedian and content creator Froomes.

Yasmin Suteja

Preparation, Froomes says, is the key to clubbing success.

You need to get a bag that is comfortable and that you can wear crossbody." As for what you should put in that bag? "Wet wipes."

Another mistake I made when I was younger was hopping between clubs thinking there's always going to be better clubs to go to, as opposed to just committing to the club youre in,

Froomes recalls. Stick it out. If you start to get bored give yourself another half an hour, another song. If you take away the expectation it can be really fun.

An added bonus: stay in one place and youll also save money on cover charge.

Once I paid $40 to skip the line somewhere and it was shithouse, she remembers. I ended up seeing my ex-boyfriend kiss another girl. So it was a very expensive way to get my heart broken.

Respect the bathroom line

Another golden rule: Never, ever cut the line to the bathroom. Its a really dog act and it will come back to bite you, Froomes says. If you need to piss really bad, everybody else needs to piss really bad as well.

Another bodily functions-related faux pas? Farting on the dancefloor, obviously.

Adhere to drink etiquette

The time will come where you bump into someone and spill their drink. Its unavoidable. As for what you should do next?

I would definitely apologise and offer to get them another drink if they want to come with me to the bar, but I'm not going to go be a sorry little bitch and go get them a drink, Froomes says. But definitely profusely apologise and use it as a bonding technique.

And if they're really sooky about it, well, that's collateral damage. That's what you get for going to a club, so get over it, wise guy.

Tick off the institutions

There are certain clubs that hold a hallowed place in the mind of ravers. You should make it your mission to experience them all.

And, um delete your Uber?

Froomes has one final piece of advice for the, uh, frugal among us.

Before you go to pre-drinks, Delete your Uber app and lie to everyone and say that you got banned from it or something so you dont have to pay for the ride there, she says. Thats a fun one.

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Justice and Equity The Distinction is Important – spokanefavs.com

Posted: at 5:17 am

By Pete Haug

Its not fair! wailed my 4-year-old grandson as his father carried him into the house. He had just thrown a rock at his sister as his father watched through the kitchen window. I didnt know you could see me!

Even from age 4, we have perceptions of justice. What, exactly, is fair? What is justice? Definitions abound. Consider this one, the principle of moral rightness. Even this begs more questions than it answers. What is moral? What is rightness?

A recent FVS column on justice called for a higher standard, one that will reflect the teachings of Christ such that they will become visible in our own life by the way we show unity and love in a world of division and violence. This principle of moral rightness is encapsulated in the Golden Rule, an ideal rarely realized, but stated variously in most religions. For example, Bahaullah wrote: And if thine eyes be turned towards justice, choose thou for thy neighbor that which thou choosest for thyself.

Elsewhere he wrote, Thebestbelovedof all things inMysightis Justice; turn not away therefrom if thou desirest Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in thee. He goes on to suggest that justice provides inherent wisdom: By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy neighborVerily justice isMygift to thee and the sign ofMyloving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes.

The word equity is often confused with justice. Equity implies a justice that transcends the strict letter of the law and is in keeping with what is reasonable rather than what is merely legal. This is an important distinction. Put another way, justice is the letter of the law; equity is its spirit.

Justice as practiced is complicated. The concept seems straightforward, but applying a law equitably often seems impossible, partly because of precedents. Is it just to prosecute a trespasser who cant read the No Trespassing sign? What would be an equitable application of this law?

The Bahai writings distinguish between justice and equity. Bahaullah writes: Justice and equity are twin Guardians that watch over menthe cause of the well-being of the world and the protection of the nations.

His son Abdul-Baha drives the point home: The Almighty hath not created in man the claws and teeth of ferocious animals, nay rather hath the human form been fashioned and set with the most comely attributes and adorned with the most perfect virtues. The honor of this creation and the worthiness of this garment therefore require man to have love and affinity for his own kind, nay rather, to act towards all living creatures with justice and equity.

This advice plays out in our dealings with all living things, and the non-living elements that support them. Ecosystems provide sustenance, life itself. Is it equitable toward humanity at large for some of us to degrade and damage systems that support all of us? For example, some of us create pollution and greenhouse gases that affect our entire planet. These are not easy questions to resolve, but resolve them we must if we are to avoid further consequences of our reckless behavior past, present, and future.

A standard of behavior based on justice and equity was described by Shoghi Effendi, grandson of Abdul-Baha. He calls for a rectitude of conduct, with its implications ofjustice, equity, truthfulness, honesty, fair-mindedness, reliability, and trustworthiness.

High standards indeed! Yet essential if we are to overcome division and violence. Solving these problems must both transcend and employ economic and technological solutions. It will require morality justice, and equity for all humanity, sisters and brothers sharing our planet.

Its unlikely any of us can meet all the above standards, yet we can try even knowing we wont attain them. Staying aware of such standards is a good beginning. We can bring ourselves to daily account and ask, Howd I do? And we can respond truthfully.

The most vital duty, Abdul-Baha has written, is to purify your characters, to correct your manners, and improve your conductshow forth such character and conductthat the fragrance ofholiness may be shed upon the whole world, and may quicken the dead, inasmuch as the purpose of the Manifestation of God and the dawning of the limitless lights of the Invisible is to educate the souls of men, and refine the character of every living man.

This education begins with parents prayers before the birth of each child. It continues as a child learns to speak and pray, and to love the Creator. Such love generates a spiritual sense of equity and justice in us all.

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The 18 Best Places to Order Meat Online in 2022 – gearpatrol.com

Posted: at 5:17 am

Crowd Cow

Theres an essential question the world should ask itself about mail-order meat: Why order it?

Online meat purveyors offer more diverse, more interesting and frankly better cuts of meat than what's found at a standard grocery store. And where does the intrepid cook whose town doesnt have a proper butcher get their hands on heritage chickens? Or aged Osso Buco? Or internationally-renowned country ham and bacon? Or just a steady stream of meat to put on the table thats better than whatever is available to them? Without these companies, the answer is nowhere. These are the best places to buy meat online in 2022.

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Crowd Cow

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Crowd Cow was founded when its founders caught wind that their friends were all going in on a cow from a local ranch. They thought that this practice could be streamlined and simplified, so they created Crowd Cow, which essentially acts as crowdfunding for the purchasing of beef. Instead of calling up a dozen ranches, coordinating shipping and storing what is frankly way too much meat, Crowd Cow allows you to buy high-quality meats (its not just beef) from local ranchers at fairer prices.

Editor's Pick: Beef ($6+)

Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors

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There is little fame to be had in the world of meat production. Unless youre Pat LaFrieda, whos been called the Magician of Meat. His company supplies beef to some of the best restaurants in the country and just so happens to offer a good portion of its protein online. LaFriedas client list speaks to the quality, but if youre going to try the marquis meat purveyor of almost 100 years, youd be wise to steer toward the burger mixes, which are equal parts revolutionary and plain delicious.

Editor's Pick: Dry-Aged Burger Blend ($27)

Porter Road

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Porter Road started because chefs James Peisker and Chris Carter were annoyed with a lack of truly good meat for their newborn catering business. That frustration turned into a full-service butcher shop, which has since evolved into a sizeable online collection of beef, chicken, lamb and pork. All of Porter Roads meats are raised sans antibiotics or filler feed. Theyre also priced moderately and arrive (unfrozen) within two days of ordering. As an added bonus, the cooling foam inside the packaging can be disposed of by running it under the sink for a few seconds.

Editor's Pick: Loose Chorizo Sausage ($8)

DeBragga

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The self-proclaimed "New York's Butcher" has been around since the early 1920s, but they've relocated to Jersey City. Its meats are humanely raised and free of antibiotics and hormones. DeBragga has a seemingly endless selection of meats and cuts along, as well as meal kits, spices and cured meats.

Editor's Pick: Moulard Duck Legs ($55)

Thrive Market

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Thrive Market is basically an online grocery store. Get your meat needs, and everything to accompany it like spices and even wine. Its meat selection includes curated boxes that have all you need to induce the meat sweats.

Editor's Pick: Pasture-Raised Chicken Wings ($13)

Rastelli's

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The family-run Rastelli's offers curated meat boxes, but shopping a la carte is where the fun is at. Browse a wide selection of meat, poultry and seafood, and shop with confidence knowing that Rastelli's is bringing you only the best quality food. The butchery works with reliable farmers and fishermen, who prioritize sustainable practices and care about the food they raise as much as you care about the food you eat.

Editor's Pick: Veal Rib Chop ($45)

Holy Grail Steak

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Holy Grail Steak operates under what it calls the the Golden Rule of the Cow, which dictates that a steak only tastes as good as it was raised. This mantra led the mail-order meat outlet to become one of six retailers of certified Kobe beef, and the only official online retailer of Kobe beef, whats widely considered the most sought after meat in the world.

Editor's Pick: Kobe Japanese A5 Wagyu Strip Steak ($349)

Umamicart

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Umamicart is an online grocery store that specializes in Asian groceries. That means you can expect products that will help you make Asian dishes, like beef short ribs for Korean kalbi. Orders are shipped and delivered quickly to ensure freshness, and new products are constantly being added to the store.

Editor's Pick: Beef Short Ribs ($22)

Butcher Box

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Subscribe to a monthly box of meat with Butcher Box. Either curate your own selection with a curated box, or let the company do the picking for you, with boxes filled with poultry, beef, pork or a combination of the three. Each box can contain up to 14 pounds of meat, which could work out to about $5 a meal.

Editor's Pick: Custom Box ($149)

E3 Meat Co.

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Major league level beef brought to you by former major leaguer Adam LaRoche and his Fort Scott, Kansas cattle ranch. All beef E3 sells is antibiotic-, added hormone- and steroid-free. The red and black angus cows are permitted to roam and graze before a grain finishing, a process which adds a final bit of tasty fat to the eventual cuts. Plus, it's all processed in-house and wet-aged for nearly a month by E3's butcher team.

Editor's Pick: Beef Ribs ($60)

Bentons Country Ham

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Allan Benton was a high school guidance counselor. Now, his name is on menus at some of the best restaurants in the country. Bentons Bacon, which by sheer prestige has made itself a proper noun, is prized by chefs and pork lovers across the country. Whats available on his web store changes with regularity (peak holiday season will see less of the good stuff available as demand eclipses a limited supply), so bookmark and wait for what you want.

Editor's Pick: Hickory Smoked Country Bacon ($36)

Halal Pastures

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For those looking for halal meats, check out Halal Pastures. The farm, based out of New York with nationwide delivery, carries a wide array of meats and cuts that cater to those who eat halal.

Editor's Pick: Organic Whole Chicken ($23)

DArtagnan

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As the name might imply, DArtagnan is luxurious. Its store is filled to the brim with game birds, duck fat, foie gras, wagyu beef, lamb racks and all other things that trigger thoughts of drooling and thoughts of bank accounts past. The outlet partners with local farms and farmers with tight ethical and quality standards.

Editor's Pick: Duck Foie Gras Terrine ($56)

Snake River Farms

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Founded in 1968, Idahos Snake River Farms produces a lot of headliners American wagyu, dry-aged tomahawk steaks, huge hams among them. But the crowd-favorite is the Kurobuta pork, which is often described as the Kobe beef of pork, and Snake River Farms is one of few to carry it, much less sell it online.

Editor's Pick: Kurobuta Boneless Pork Chops ($16)

Peter Luger Butcher Shop

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Peter Luger Steakhouse may be shorter on hype and blog posts than the small plate restaurants that pepper the surrounding neighborhood, but it does not need those things. Named best steakhouse in New York since 1984, the restaurant famous for its porterhouses, sky-high prices and a prickly wait staff was good enough to earn a Michelin star in 2006. It is a destination restaurant for anyone with a taste for steaks, and nowadays a load of its house-aged beef is available online.

Editor's Pick: Peter Luger Steak Pack ($292)

Heritage Foods

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Heritage Foods ethically sources, butchers and sells a wide variety of meats turkey, chicken, beef, pork and so on. But the Brooklyn-based company is perhaps most notable for its treatment of goat through its No Goat Left Behind program, which supports farms that allow goats to mature more before heading to the abattoir. The result is a meat thats lighter than lamb and carries a naturally herbaceous flavor.

Editor's Pick: Leg of Lamb ($187)

Chop Box

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For the past 100 years, Chop Box has been shipping out high-quality meat from its New Jersey warehouse. The brand partners with farmers who engage in sustainable farming practices, and meats are butchered the same day they're shipped out.

Editor's Pick: Filet Mignon Center Cut ($23)

Harry & David

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You might know Harry & David for its gift baskets filled with snacks, but the brand recently launched its new online butcher shop. Shop from a range of meats including beef, poultry and seafood, and orders are shipped as efficiently and quickly as other gift sets.

Editor's Pick: Boneless Carving Ham ($23)

Where to Buy Wine Online

Quit whining about having to go outside to buy wine.

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One on One: Blame the Scots-Irish – Chapelboro.com

Posted: at 5:17 am

Why are we the way we are?

Can we blame it on somebody else, like the British colonists, for instance?

By we I dont mean just you and me, or even necessarily include us. I am thinking about folks who live in North Carolina and the surrounding regions.

You know the kind I mean.

Hardnosed, sometimes rebellious, resistant to direction from perceived know-it-alls, suspicious of people in charge, unwilling to give up individual choice to group direction.

It is not just those anti-vaxxers those who will not accept an infinitesimal risk to themselves or their children in order to reduce to great risks all of us face from the ongoing series of COVID epidemics. It is not just them whom I am talking about.

Nor is it just the Republicans.

Or the Democrats.

Lots of us on both sides of the political divide share a common resistance to authority.

How do we explain it?

Writing in The New Yorker on October 4, the author and columnist Joe Klein gave it a try, writing, The divide between maskers and anti-maskers, vaxxers and anti-vaxxers is as old as Plymouth Rock. It is deeper than politics; it is cultural.

For his ideas, Klein credited a 1989 book, Albions Seed: Four British Folkways in America, by David Hackett Fischer. This book, Klein says, explains how the history of four centuries ago still shapes American culture and politics.

Focusing on the South, Klein says the original settlers were, a wild caste of emigrants from the borderlands of Scotland and England. They brought their clannish, violent, independent culture, which had evolved over seven centuries of border warfare.

According to Fisher, these emigrants came from a society of autonomous individuals who were unable to endure external control and incapable of restraining their rage against anyone who stood in the way.

Fisher writes that the Scots-Irish in the Southern hill country were intensely resistant to change and suspicious of foreigners. In the early 20th century, they would become intensely negrophobic and antisemitic.

Other parts of colonial America were settled by different groups.

For instance, Klein writes about the Virginia-Cavalier tradition, The Virginia definition of freedom was complex, contradictory and remains problematic. It was hierarchical, the freedom to be unequal. I am an aristocrat, John Randolph of Roanoke said. I love liberty; I hate equality. Freedom was defined by what it wasnt. It wasnt slavery. It was the freedom to enslave. It was a freedom, granted to the plantation masters, to indulge themselves, gamble and debauch.

Over time, Klein continues, this plutocratic libertarianism found natural allies, if strange bedfellows, in the fiercely egalitarian Scots-Irish hill country folk.

Neither wanted to be ruled by a strong central government.

Klein says things were just the opposite in New England. For the Puritans, Everything was regulated.

Order was an obsession.

Local officials reported on the domestic tranquility of every family in their jurisdiction. Cotton Mather defined an honorable person as one who was studious, humble, patient, reserved and mortified.

About a different group of settlers, Klein writes, The Quakers seem an afterthought, but their migration was larger in size than that of the Puritans or Cavaliers. And their version of liberty seems most amenable today. It was reciprocal freedom, based on the golden rule.

Fischer notes the Scots-Irish practiced the opposite: Do unto others as they threatened to do unto you.

The Scots-Irish, Virginia, Puritan, and Quaker legacies are very different and are, perhaps, diluted over the almost 300 years since these immigrants came.

But the influence of each continues.

The Scots-Irish influence in our region is still tenacious, which explains why the Do unto others as they threatened to do unto you rule is widely practiced by people across the political spectrum.

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5 Fun and Productive Activities to Try With Your Bible Study Group – Patheos

Posted: at 5:17 am

Are you tired of planning the same old activities for your Bible study group? Maybe youre stuck in a rut and need a few new ideas to spark members interest and spread Christs love.

Well, look no further. This article is full of faith-filled projects for people of all ages. Whether you teach Sunday school or an adult study group, everyone is sure to have fun and grow their faith in the process.

Christmas is almost here, which means theres no time like the present to break out the songbooks and go caroling. Share the joy of Christs birth and spread holiday cheer with classic hymns like Silent Night, Hark the Herald Angels and Deck the Halls. You can even sing a few contemporary songs by the likes of Josh Groban and Carrie Underwood.

Stick to a 10-song repertoire and sing one or two at each house you visit. You can even invite the household to church if they enjoy your performance. As long as everyone knows the lyrics and can at least match the key, youre bound to have a wonderful time.

Psalm 118:24 reminds Christ-followers that this is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. What better way to celebrate Gods blessings in your life than by making a gratitude wall?

Instead of keeping your words in a journal, write your thanksgiving on sticky notes and put them up for everyone to see. Invite other group members to join in and add their own blessings to the wall. In a few months, youll have dozens if not hundreds of reminders celebrating Gods goodness. Encourage your fellow believers to start their own walls at home so their families can participate.

The most famous verse in Leviticus might be the command to love your neighbor as yourself. This deceptively simple calling is often more difficult than it sounds. Luckily, the holidays provide plenty of opportunities to love those around you.

One great way to share Christs love and practice the golden rule is to clean someones home. Maybe an elderly church member or someone within your own Bible study group could use a few helping hands. Provide a quick clean-up by decluttering cabinets, sweeping the floors, dusting nooks and crannies and wiping down hard surfaces. Working together will save a ton of time so you can still enjoy your study after the house is clean and tidy.

Does your group love arts and crafts? Make a few no-sew blankets. This project is fun for all ages and super simple to get the hang of. All you need are a few big pieces of fleece, scissors and a spare half hour. Have everyone pick out their favorite pattern so you can gather the materials and have them ready for Bible study night.

Depending on how many members you have, your Bible study could make a dozen or more blankets in a single night. All you have to do is tie the fringes together and, voila! You have a cozy cover to wrap up in. Donate your creations to a local hospital, homeless shelter or community center to bless someone else this Christmas.

If youre not the crafty type, assemble a few care packages instead. Make shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child, gather toiletries for your local food bank or send a few packages overseas to support the troops. If you donate to people or organizations within the local area, be sure to include an invite to church or a small pamphlet about how much God loves them.

Turn this holiday-inspired idea into a weekly or monthly activity to support missionaries, first-responders, those with disabilities, minority populations and anyone else who might need some encouragement and care. Ask group members for ideas and get involved in your community by distributing Gods love year-round.

Whether your Bible study group is full of Gen Zs or brimming with Baby Boomers, theyre sure to enjoy engaging in these productive activities. Not only are they fun, but theyre helpful to the community as well. More importantly, they share the good news of Christ and deepen your own faith in the process.

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Succession: Is Kendall Roy dead at the end of season 3 episode 8? – HITC

Posted: at 5:17 am

Season 3 episode 8 of Succession aired last night and everyone is asking the same question; is Kendall Roy actually dead?

Sunday evenings are top-dog for fans of fantastic television.

One of the biggest series to air new episodes each Sunday is the hard-hitting Succession, which broadcast episode 8 of its third season on December 5th.

The episode Chiantishire certainly caused a few ripples in the Roy household, but it was Kendall himself making ripples as he ended up in the pool.

So, from everything we know so far, is Kendall Roy really dead in Succession season 3 episode 8?

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To put it simply, the fate of Kendall Roy is purposefully left ambiguous by the showrunners, with the character floating face down in a pool when the credits rolled on episode 8.

It was a tough episode for fans of Kendall, who joined his family in Italy for the wedding of Caroline and Peter.

The first blow to his mental health comes in the form of his own mother, who reveals that Logan has requested an itinerary that didnt allow him and Kendall to be in the same space.

The second is from the podcast investigating the Roy family. Whilst Kendall thinks appearing on the show is a good business decision, the team are going to dig up some dark family secrets including the death of the former waiter.

Finally, Kendall is pushed over the edge by Logan himself, who not only gets Kendalls son to taste his food (thinking its poisoned), but also humiliates him by asking about the waiter.

The episode ends with Kendall extremely drunk and face down in the pool, with the camera pointing upwards from the pool floor, Kendall lets go of his beer bottle as the screen fades to black.

So, whilst Kendalls death is certainly implied in season 3 episode 8 of Succession, fans are unconvinced that this is actually the characters final send-off.

On the one hand, the golden rule of cinema is If you dont see a character actually die, they arent dead. This is the case with Kendall, who is shown in a fatal situation, but not outright shown to be dead. Not only that, but he is one of the main characters in a series that has already been renewed for a fourth season they wouldnt change protagonists for the final act, would they?

However, the ending to season 3 episode 8 was very ominous, and would be an appropriate death for Kendall considering he caused the waiter to drown in the season 1 finale.

We will have to wait and see until next weeks episode to find out if someone rushes to save Kendall from the pool, or if he has bowed out in a similar manner to the aforementioned waiterdrowning.

Season 3 of Succession will consist of nine individual episodes, meaning that next week will mark the season finale!

The first two broadcasts of the hit drama series had 10 episodes, but a reason for the decrease in season-length has not been revealed.

The good news is that season 4 has already been ordered, so fans should expect a dramatic cliff-hanger ending next week.

With the third season of Succession set to conclude next week, its interesting to look at how the latest instalment has been rated.

At the time of writing, Succession season 3 is scoring a solid 9/10 on IMDB; higher than the series average of 8.7.

A similar performance can be seen on MetaCritic, where season 3 is scoring a 92% in comparison to the first at 70% and the second at 89%.

However, on Rotten Tomatoes, the third instalment is ranking at an 81% which may be higher than the debut broadcast but is lower than season 2.

In terms of viewership, Succession has maintained a solid average audience, but has also experienced a steady decline in viewers across its third season.

According to data from the Nielsen Media Research group, via TV Series Finale, season 3 of Succession has had a reduction of 19.3% in demographic and 10.8% in number of average viewers.

Despite still having one episode to go, Succession did feature on Varietys best television series of 2021 in 3rd and 7th place from the two authors.

By Tom Llewellyn [emailprotected]

In other news, Money Heist season 5: How much is 90 tons of gold worth?

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Cincinnati Fan Curses The Bearcats By Stomping All Over Alabama In TikTok Video – BroBible

Posted: at 5:17 am

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The University of Cincinnati claims that it wants Alabama. However, history would say otherwise and now the Bearcats are cursed.

Alabama and Cincinnati have played one another on five occasions dating back to 1908. The Crimson Tide have won all five games by a combined score of 156-27. Oof.

After the College Football Playoff committee made it official on Sunday, the Bearcats are being presented a chance for revenge. No. 1 Alabama will face No. 4 Cincinnati in the CFP Semifinal Cotton Bowl game on New Years Eve.

As a result of the fact that the two teams have not played since 1990, Cincy fans are unfamiliar with the modern day rules. The first rule of playing Alabama is tonever disrespect the Tide. Nick Saban and his program feed off of hatred, negativity and disrespect he calls it Rat Poison.

Thus, it is easier to accept that Alabama is a dominant program and give them their respect. For example:

Well, a Bearcats fan named Ryan Brady recently broke the golden rule. In turn, he has cursed Cincinnatis chances of winning the game.

Nippert Stadium, where the 2021 ACC Champions play, is open to the public at all times. Fans can enter the stadium and the field at all hours of the day.

Brady did just that, but he took it one step too far. He proceeded to walk to midfield, place an Alabama t-shirt on the ground, and danced all over it.

Brady did not respect the Tide. He stomped all over them. In turn, it is a safe bet to place your mortgage on Alabama to cover.

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Cincinnati Fan Curses The Bearcats By Stomping All Over Alabama In TikTok Video - BroBible

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