Monthly Archives: July 2022

Barbara Marx Hubbard: Godmother of Transhumanism and Synthetic Spirituality

Posted: July 4, 2022 at 11:23 pm

In 2016, the Global Future Councils of the World Economic Forum (WEF) posted a video entitled 8 Predictions for the World in 2030, which infamously forecasted a technocratic New World Order in which [y]oull own nothing. And youll be happy. It doesnt take a stretch of the imagination to ponder how WEF oligarchs plan to roll out sustainable development policies which will ration consumer goods in a global sharing economy that employs transient gig workers who will be rendered into propertyless serfs under a techno-communitarian rendition of neo-feudalism. But how will the globalist technocrats of the WEF sway the virtual peasant class to be happy with their permanent state of digitally indentured servitude?

Enter New Age guru Barbara Marx Hubbard and her endorsement of the HeartMath Institutes Global Coherence Initiative [1][2], which is propagating transhumanist neurofeedback wearables across the planet in order to digitally synchronize humanitys collective heart rhythms and brainwaves into electronically induced states of synthetic spiritual bliss. With Hubbards transhumanist blessings, HeartMaths global neurotech network is primed to lull plebs and proles into happy compliance with the New Normal of the Fourth Industrial Revolutions techno-feudal stakeholder economy.

In this first installment of my series on Hubbards legacy contributions to the post-humanist religion and techno-fascist economy of the neo-eugenic Fourth Industrial Revolution, I will historicize how Rockefeller philanthropies bankrolled Hubbards Foundation for Conscious Evolution in order to digitally engineer humankind into a new transhuman species baptized in the name of tech-Gnostic Christ Consciousness [3]. Furthermore, I will expose how Hubbard collaborated with globalists at the World Business Academy, corporatists at Singularity University, and Eupsychian human potential psychologists in connection with the Esalen Institute in order to establish a techno-communitarian spiritualism that worships transhumanist evolution controlled by Big Tech companies which dominate the stakeholder economy of the Fourth Industrial Revolution [4]. Finally, I will document how Hubbard advanced the globalization of HeartMath Institutes transhumanist biofeedback wearables which can neuro-technologically mesmerize the precariat into virtual states of happy subservience to the New Normal.

In the coming installments of this series, I will reveal how Hubbards transhumanist mission to steer conscious evolution is steeped in Malthusian-eugenic population control. Additionally, I will unveil how Hubbards transhumanist allies from the World Future Society, the Human Potential Movement, and the Foundation for Conscious Evolution are entangled with networks of alleged pedophiles and sexual abuse cults.

Ever since the announcement of COVID-19 lockdowns, there has been a spate of propaganda campaigns from government bureaucrats, corporate oligarchs, and globalist technocrats who have been lecturing about the necessity to acclimate to the New Normal. You probably never heard this post-COVID slogan until 2020, but Hubbard was prophesying the dawning of a New Normal at least as far back as 2008. In fact, Hubbard foretold that 2020 would mark the pivotal year of the global Shift toward the New Normal that is transitioning the world into the futurist Singularity envisioned by Googles Director of Engineering, Ray Kurzweil, who is a founder of Singularity University, which is a post-humanist think tank where Hubbard promoted her dreams of harnessing conscious evolution to engineer a new transhuman species.

In Hubbards book, 52 Codes for Conscious Self Evolution: A Process of Metamorphosis to Realize Our Full Potential Self, Code 33 called for human beings to Come Forward as a New Norm in order to evolve the human species from Homo sapiens sapiens to Homo universalis [5]. Later, in 2012, Hubbard published another book, Birth 2012 and Beyond: Humanitys Great Shift to the Age of Conscious Evolution. In a section titled from 2012 to 2020 and Beyond, Hubbard proclaimed that [t]he eight years after the [2012] Birth, leading up to 2020, will be critical for implementing the shifts necessary for us to gently grow into the next era . . . evolving into fully formed evolutionary communities . . . around the world where each person can learn to transform themselves and our world into a transhumanist New World Order [1].

Even prior to 2008, for decades, Hubbard foretold the coming of a new transhumanist age in which humankind will merge with technology through conscious evolution. As a crusader for the Human Potential Movement, Hubbard networked with psychologists at the Esalen Institute and corporatists at Singularity University to pave the way for human consciousness to collectively co-evolve with the noetic consciousness of the cosmos through transhumanist technologies [6]. Bankrolled by Rockefeller philanthropy [3], Hubbard established the Foundation for Conscious Evolution, which has been pushing the synergistic advancement of biotech, nanotech, and supercomputing artificial intelligence (AI) that can be globally converged through the internet-of-things (IoT) and the internet-of-bodies (IoB) in order to engineer a new transhuman species. To help build the collective cybernetic nervous system of an evolving transhuman superorganism, Hubbard promoted the HeartMath Institutes Global Coherence Network of wearable neurofeedback technologies that interlink human biorhythms through smartphones across the planet [1].

In An Evolutionary Synthesis: A New World View (Weaving Together a New Memetic Code for the Optimum Future for Humanity), which was published in 2008 by the Foundation for Conscious Evolution, Hubbard forecasted how, [f]rom the perspective of the Evolutionary Trans-humanism we see a possible convergence of our expanded consciousness with our technologically-enhanced body/minds . . . as the next stage of our evolution when there will be a cosmic cultural convergence of life between trans-human and eventually post-human life, including silicon-based life. Foreshadowing the post-COVID New Normal of 2020, Hubbard added that, [i]n Evolutionary Trans-Humanism the Universal Human appears for the first time on this Earth as a new norm: as a person incarnating our spiritual, social and scientific/technological capacities.

As the techno-fascist exploitation of COVID lockdowns manifests the theme of Hubbards 1993 book, Our Crisis Is a Birth [7],the coronavirus crisis is birthing a technocratic New Normal in which human life is being increasingly mediated through computer screens and digital IDs that are primed to be tracked and traced by IoTIoB cybernetics. Hence, it appears that the turning point of 2020 has lined up with Hubbards predictions for a Great Shift toward the Birth of a Conscious Evolution in which humankind begins to synergize with digital computer technologies in order to be reimagined as a new transhuman cyborg species.

If you dont like the idea of Big Tech biotechnologically engineering you into a digital computer product, dont worry. Hubbards global HeartMath initiative can hook you up to biofeedback wearables that will electronically hypnotize you into copasetic obedience as you are techno-eugenically engineered into a transhuman underling who will happily own nothing, not even your own body, in the New Normal that is the techno-fascist Fourth Industrial Revolution.

To be sure, Hubbards vision of the transhuman future wasnt magically gleaned from peering into a crystal ball. Rather, Hubbard was closely involved with many of the transhumanist architects of the technocratic New Normal which, for several decades, they have been plotting for 2020.

Hubbards vision of trans-evolution through a superorganic cyber-nervous system was inspired by the tech-Gnostic prophesies of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and the design science revolution of R. Buckminster Fuller [8]. Teilhard de Chardin was a eugenicist Jesuit priest who preached a trans-Gnostic gospel of spiritual, or noetic, evolution through the awakening of universal consciousness through the noosphere. Fuller was an eminent futurist and the godfather of the design science revolution, which prototyped synergetic models of evolutionary architecture, such as the geodesic dome. Both Teilhard de Chardin and Fuller professed their faith in the Cosmic Christ Consciousness of noospheric evolution, which Hubbard likewise idolized as the crux of humankinds cybernetic evolution into a trans-technological collective.

During Hubbards 2015 speech to members of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), she traced the awakening of her own conscious evolution to her reading of Teilhard de Chardins Phenomenon of Man: the minute I read that . . . I dedicated myself to the noosphere. Derived from the pre-Socratic philosopher Anaxagorass concept of the nous, which is the omnipresent mind of the cosmos, the noosphere is, according to Teilhard de Chardin, the tangential energy of the universe that is evolving through human consciousness. In Hubbards speech at the 2015 IONS International Conference, she pontificated how, through the tangential energies of noetic evolution, the planet has grown a new nervous system in the last 15 years. And its internet. Its Facebook; its Twitter; its 7 billion cellphones and counting. . . . An enormous nervous system has been given, and its open to us.

In brief, Hubbard believed that the noospheric expansion of consciousness is evolving the human biological nervous system into an extended technological network of smartphones that are interlinked with internet social media. By ostensibly branching human nervous systems collectively out through mobile phones across satellite telecommunications, online social networks are, according to Hubbard, building evolutionary stepping stones toward a transhuman zenith in which brain-computer interfaces and nanotech implants will unite human consciousness with the cosmic consciousness of the noosphere by merging organic biological intelligence with hi-tech artificial intelligence.

In her 2001 book, Emergence: The Shift from Ego to Essence (10 Steps to the Universal Human), Hubbard relayed how Teilhard de Chardins noosphere is what we might call the thinking layer of Earth, or the mind sphere. Think of this noosphere as an invisible, yet all pervasive, superorganism. Here, each of us lives, much as our own cells live inside of our body. The noosphere is composed of our collective consciousnesses . . . as well as the intelligence that is creating our extended bodies in the form of rapidly growing technology, including the Internet, biotechnology, and nanotechnology [9].

During her 2017 speech, Awakening the New Species in You, at the Global Purpose Movements Purpose Summit in San Francisco, Hubbard declared that Teilhard de Chardins noosphere is now the internet nervous system of the planet, and theres enough of us now to wake up our planetary nervous system through hi-tech . . . artificial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics, genetics, all of that . . . being the powers of our mythological gods.

In sum, Hubbard believed that, by harnessing biotech and nanotech robotics, genetically engineered human bodies can be melded with quantum AI, which will evolve human beings into transhuman cyborgs who can achieve godhood by summoning the collective consciousness of the noosphere through the internet of things (IoT) and the internet of bodies (IoB).

Inverting the Biblical gospel of how God humbled himself to descend from Heaven in order to be incarnated in the human body of Jesus Christ, Hubbard preached Teilhard de Chardins trans-Gnostic gospel of how humans must exalt themselves as gods by technologically evolving into ultrahumanmachine hybrids capable of ascending to the Christ Consciousness of the noosphere. During her IONS speech, Hubbard relayed how Teilhard de Chardin prophesied that, [w]hen the mind sphere . . . gets its collective eyes, we will experience . . . the Christification of the Earth.

According to Hubbard, the mind spheres, or noospheres, collective eyes are being opened through the worldwide web of internet social media. In Hubbards vision of the future, these digital social networks would spread across the globe and saturate the planet through what R. Buckminster Fuller called the design science revolution. In the final equation, Hubbards Fuller-inspired technetronic revolution will culminate in a noetic nexus of satellite telecommunications and mobile computer devices that will consciously evolve into a transhumanist IoTIoB Singularity, resulting in the so-called Christification of the Earth, which will anoint the collective human species as god on Earth.

This tech-Gnostic gospel of Christ Consciousness was also preached by Fuller, who believed that his design science revolution would harness advances in science and industry to technocratically usher in a utopian heaven on Earth. Like Hubbard and Teilhard de Chardin, Fuller envisioned that, by means of the design science revolution, the universal mind, or cosmic Christ consciousness, would evolve through the transhumanist synergy of human intelligence and technological progress. In Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, Fuller pontificated that the Universe is technology and that, in the emerging epoch of the new age, the design science revolution would technocratically meld the Christ consciousness of the noosphere with the human consciousness of the biosphere, resulting in a cosmic-transhumanist singularity that would bring about a paradise on Earth.

Finding a nous-mate in Hubbard, Fuller laureled her as the heir to his futurist vision of Christified technocratic evolution through his design science revolution. In Hubbards 2015 book, The Evolutionary Testament of Co-Creation: The Promise Will Be Kept, she recorded how Fuller declared, [t]here is no doubt in my mind that Barbara Marx Hubbardwho helped introduce the concept of futurism to societyis the best informed human now alive regarding futurism and the foresights it has produced [3]. With great pride, Hubbard took on Fullers mantle and carried the torch for his techno-Christified design science revolution.

In her speech titled How Do We Get Ready for 2012: A Vision for Humanity, which was orated during The Prophets Conference: 2012 Tipping Point at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, Hubbard told a story about how both she and Fuller had Christ Consciousness experiences that brought together their esoteric journeys toward hi-tech conscious evolution:

Buckys Christ experience was that he was walking along the streets in Chicago; . . . he saw a light; he got lifted up by the light, and he heard the words, Bucky, you are the first mini-Christ on Earth, and what you attest to is true. Fuller revealed this vision to her on an occasion when Hubbard shared her own Christ experience with him. Hubbard explains that, one day, I had written this book about the New Testament of an evolutionary Christ. Bucky asked to see me alone. He put his arms around me . . . and he said, darling, I had the same experience. And he put his temple onto mine, and I feel he zapped me with the design science revolution.

In a nutshell, both Hubbard and Fuller professed their faith in noospheric Christ Consciousness, and Hubbard believed that her shared Christ experience with Fuller noetically transmuted his revolutionary design science mission into her own conscious evolution.

Carrying on the message of Fullers design science revolution, Hubbard paraphrased a passage from his Utopia or Oblivion in her 1995 book, The Revelation: A Message of Hope for the New Millennium. In a section titled The Journey, Hubbard relayed Fullers utopian forecast of how the metaphysical, or noetic, consciousness of universal intelligence is cosmically evolving in tandem with the collective-conscious evolution of human intelligence through the transhumanist technological progression of the design science revolution:

[t]he universe is . . . building up toward even higher order because it is increasing in intelligencethough us!

Intelligence, proclaimed Fuller, is not physical, it is metaphysical . . . Our technology is becoming ephemeralized, miniaturized, and aesthetic, like natures technologies: photosynthesis, DNA, the human brain. We now have the technology, resources, and know-how, Fuller said, to make of this world a 100 percent physical success. . . .

The growing edge of technology is giving us the power to transform ourselves as well as our world. . . .The individual human has enormous untapped potential. The planet is evolving toward a quantum leap, wherein all of its members will experience themselves as part of one body. We have the ability to overcome physical lack, and even to change our physical natureour body/mind systems. These great evolutionary goals are the meaning of power.

Stated differently, Hubbard touted Fullers postulation of how, as technology evolves, it will become increasingly ephemeralized until it is so condensed that it can be fused into human biology. In turn, this ephemeralized amalgamation of biology and technology will, according to Hubbard, transform body/mind systems by melding them with the digital infrastructure of the world economy.

To put it all together, Hubbard was an evangelist for conscious transhumanist evolution through the globalization of a collective cybernetic nervous system that will be vitalized by the techno-industrial revolution of Fullers synergetic design science and the noospheric awakening of Teilhard de Chardins Cosmic Christ Consciousness.

To midwife the tech-noetic trans-evolution of the universal Christ mind idolized by Fuller and Teilhard de Chardin, Hubbard set up the Foundation for Conscious Evolution, which was seed-funded by Laurence Rockefeller [3]. The brother of John D. Rockefeller III, David Rockefeller, Nelson Rockefeller, and Winthrop Rockefeller, Laurence was a president and a founding trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which is a corporate philanthropy that finances social impact investments in biotechnology and digital technology. These, of course, are key building blocks in the IoT-IoB matrix at the crux of Hubbards transhumanist dreams of collective-conscious evolution. Laurence also bankrolled esoteric studies into Gnostic Christ Consciousness and noetical parapsychology.

In the prelude to her Evolutionary Testament of Co-Creation, which was dedicated to Laurence Rockefeller, Hubbard lauds how he was instrumental in helping her found the Foundation for Conscious Evolution: [w]ith great gratitude I dedicate Evolutionary Testament: [sic] The Promise Will Be Kept to Lawrence [sic] Rockefeller, who recognized its purpose to help bring forth the Christ of the 21st Century and supported me in forming The Foundation for Conscious Evolution to bring it forward into the world [3].

According to the official website of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution, this Rockefeller-funded tax-exempt foundation advances synergistic transhuman evolution driven by the [t]he advent of radical evolutionary technologies such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, quantum computing, space exploration, etc. . . . [T]he tools are there to transform ourselves, our bodies and our world. We can and are actually moving beyond the creature human condition toward a new species, a universal humanity, capable of coevolving with nature. In other words, fueled with Rockefeller money, the Foundation for Conscious Evolution advocates for humankind to merge with biotech and nanotech quantum computers in order to evolve humanity into a new transhuman species, which Hubbard has dubbed Homo Universalis.

Not only did Rockefeller provide the seed financing for Hubbards Foundation for Conscious Evolution, but he also bankrolled many of the hi-tech industries, including biotech, nanotech, and quantum computing, which the Foundation for Conscious Evolution sees as vehicles for conscious transhuman evolution.

In 1946, Laurence Rockefeller and his brothers, David, Nelson, Winthrop, and John D. III, founded one of the very first venture capital firms, Rockefeller Brothers Inc., which is today known as Venrock. Laurence kicked off Venrock ventures by investing in Silicon Valley corporations, such as Intel and Apple. In fact, Venrock held a board seat for nearly 20 years at Apple.

Other Venrock ventures into Big Tech industries include investments in online behavioral advertising companies, including AppNexus and DoubleClick, the latter of which is now owned by Google. Of course, behavioral advertising analytics are at the core of the data-mining algorithms that power what Hubbard referred to as the collective cybernetic nervous systems of social media networks.

Meanwhile, Venrock has also financed several biotech corporations, biopharmaceutical enterprises, gene-sequencing companies, and genetic-modification businesses, including Abbott Laboratories; Unity Biotechnology; Element Biosciences; REGENXBIO; 10X Genomics; Targeted Genetics; the Genetics Institute; Centocor, which is owned by Johnson & Johnson; Adnexus Therapeutics, which is owned by Bristol-Myers Squibb; Idun Pharmaceuticals, which is owned by Pfizer; andSirna Therapeutics, an RNA interference (RNAi) technology startup that was acquired by Merck.

Furthermore, Venrock has bankrolled quantum computing companies, including Atom Computing, and nanotech corporations, such as Nanosys. Additionally, Venrock is invested in blockchain startups, including Dapper and Flow.

In sum, Laurence Rockefeller funded the development of a nexus of transhumanist technologies, including internet Big Data, biotech, and nanotech, while simultaneously propagating Hubbards trans-evolutionary ideology by financing her Foundation for Conscious Evolution. It is worth noting that Laurences funding of transhumanism, which is fundamentally a hi-tech rendition of eugenic engineering, is rooted in the Rockefeller familys long history of financing past iterations of eugenics, such as American eugenics programs at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and eugenic programs at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes of Nazi Germany.

On top of financing the transhumanist technologies and trans-evolutionary theories espoused by Hubbard, Laurence also advocated for Hubbards noetic spirituality by backing her New Age evangelism. This was done with grants from his Fund for the Enhancement of the Human Spirit. In the Acknowledgement section of her Book of Co-Creation, Hubbard highlighted how [t]he publication of this book and its associated outreach program was made possible through a generous grant from Laurence Rockefellers Fund for the Enhancement of the Human Spirit [7]. In the expanded edition of this book, which is titled The Revelation: A Message of Hope for the New Millennium, Hubbard copied this same acknowledgment of how Rockefeller bankrolled the publication [9].

Similarly, Rockefeller also advanced noetical mysticism by funding the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research(PEAR) program, which studied parapsychological phenomena, including psychokinesis and remote viewing. PEAR launched the Global Consciousness Project, which is a satellite of the Institute of Noetic Sciences where Hubbard, who endorsed IONS in her book, Birth 2012 and Beyond [1], expressed her belief in tech-noospheric evolution through the collective-conscious cyber-nervous systems made possible by internet social media networks. The PEAR program is now restructured as the International Consciousness Research Laboratories.

It is worth noting that Rockefeller also provided the financing for Roger A. Weirs Gnostic books about a secret relationship between Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. Weirs Gnostic interpretation of the life of Jesus dovetailed with his New Age synthesis of hermeticism, Eastern mysticism, cosmic evolution, and esoteric consciousness. For instance, echoing the Christ Consciousness Gnosticism of Hubbard, Fuller, and Teilhard de Chardin, Weir taught the following New Age courses at the Bodhi Tree Bookstore Meeting Room in West Hollywood, California: Mary Magdalene & Jesus Great Way: Shared Presence Transforms of Civilization and Species; Hermetic America Future;Homo Sapiens Stellaris: Star Wisdom Man; Quintessential Dimensions of Consciousness: An Ecology of Four Dimensions in Complementarity in Spacetime; and Parayana: The Way Beyond.

To sum up, Rockefeller bankrolled noetic science research, Gnostic Christ Consciousness literature, and transhumanist tech along with Hubbards Foundation for Conscious Evolution, which advocates for the post-human synergism of a tech-noospheric trans-evolution that will culminate in a new Christified cyborg species.

Ultimately, Hubbard and Rockefeller were aligned on essentially every front. More than a source of monetary support, Rockefeller was fondly endeared by Hubbard. In her 1998 book, Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential, Hubbard lauded her support from Rockefeller: [m]y heartfelt thanks goes to my beloved patron Laurence S. Rockefeller who has supported this work with fidelity, inspiration and generosity [2]. Then, in the Dedication section of her 2001 Emergence: The Shift from Ego to Essence, Hubbard wrote, [t]o my benefactor, Laurence S. Rockefeller, who supported this work for ten years, bringing it to this point of fulfillment [9]. Fourteen years later, in 2015, Hubbard also dedicated her Evolutionary Testament of Co-Creation to Rockefeller [3], marking 24 years of support.

Laurence Rockefeller also advanced a conscious evolution towards transhumanism by pushing the Human Potential Movement. He did this through his investments in the Human Potential Foundation and the Esalen Institute. Hubbard likewise pursued this philosophy of conscious trans-evolution through the Human Potential Movement, which was spawned from the humanistic and transpersonal psychological theories of her mentor, Abraham Maslow, who coined the psycho-spiritual principle of self-actualization. Maslow preached his trans-psychological gospel of self-actualization at the Esalen Institute, which was also endorsed by Hubbard [1]. Meanwhile, Hubbard allied with Maslow and his Eupsychian Network of Esalen New Agers to promote the evolution of transhuman potential through biofeedback wearables and other computerized technologies that can hack consciousness [4].

A protg of behavioral psychologist E. L. Thorndike, Gestalt psychologist Max Wertheimer, and psychodynamic psychologist Alfred Adler, who was a colleague of Sigmund Freud, Maslow combined the first force of psychology, stimulus-response behaviorism, and the second force of psychology, Freudian psychoanalysis, to produce a third force of psychology [4]. This third force was humanistic psychology, which would then evolve into a fourth force of transhumanist psychology known as transpersonal psychology [4]. In the Preface to the second edition of his book, Toward a Psychology of Being, which was financed by the Ford Foundations Fund for the Advancement of Education, Maslow writes, I consider Humanistic, Third Force Psychology to be transitional, a preparation for a still higher Fourth Psychology, transpersonal, transhuman, centered in the cosmos rather than in human needs and interest, going beyond humanness, identity, self-actualization, and the like [4]. It should be noted here that Maslows transpersonal psychology of self-actualizing transhuman potential was heavily influenced by the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche, whose concept of the ubermensch, or superman, went on to inspire Nazi eugenics, which itself played a role as a precursor to transhumanism.

Maslow, like Buckminster Fuller, took Hubbard under his wing. In her 1989 autobiography, The Hunger of Eve: One Womans Odyssey Toward the Future, Hubbard writes, I wrote to Abraham Maslow, telling him his book Toward a Psychology of Being had saved my life. . . . He wrote back immediately that . . . he would like to meet me. He came to lunch at the New York apartment. . . . He said I was an example of his theory of self-actualizing people [6].

Anointing her as an evangelist for his super-potentializing psychology, Maslow connected Hubbard with a network of New Age organizations, such as the Esalen Institute, which baptized proselytes in the name of his new transhumanist psychology. According to Hubbards Emergence,Abraham H. Maslow called this the Eupsychian Network, the society of self-actualizing and self-transcending people [7]. In her autobiography, Hubbard historicized how, in an effort to help her on her mission to win converts to Maslows trans-potentializing psychology:

[h]e [Maslow] offered his Eupsychian Network, a list of the good people he had collected over a lifetime, those who would form for the Good Society. This was before the human potential movement had surfaced. . . . The Eupsychian Network were people in the growth mode. Many were humanistic psychologists founding growth centers, such as Carl Rogers, Victor Frankl, Michael Murphy of Esalen, to help people move toward full health. . . . My list soon totalled [sic] over 1,000, each one a precious being, sensitive to the emerging civilization [6].

In The Revelation: Our Crisis Is a Birth, Hubbard tells the story of how she wrote to everyone in Maslows [Eupsychian] network, asking for their positive views on our future. Many responded and I published their responses in The Center Letter [7], which was Hubbards futurist newsletter on evolutionary transformation. Thanks to these publications of prominent Eupsychians, according to Hubbard, The Center Letter spread . . . all over the world, from Africa to behind the Iron Curtain . . . Within six months I [Hubbard] was connected to leaders of the emerging world [7].

A list of such key Eupsychian individuals and institutions is printed at the end of the second edition of Maslows Toward a Psychology of Being. In the preface to this concluding section, which is titled Addendum: The Eupsychian Network, Maslow describes Hubbards Eupsychian comrades as a cadre of globalist bent on the collective-conscious evolution of transhumanist potential:

I [Maslow] call it the Eupsychian Network because all these groups, organizations, and journals are interested in helping the individual grow toward fuller humanness, the society grow toward synergy and health, and all societies and all peoples move toward becoming one world and one species. The list can be called a network because the memberships overlap considerably and because these organizations and individuals more or less share the humanistic and transhumanistic outlook on life even prior to confirmation of that outlook. [4]

Stated differently, Maslows Eupsychian Network, which teamed up with Hubbard, was a clique of transhumanist[s] determined to establish a one world order in which humankind will actualize its super potential by collectively evolving and unifying into one species.

Following the prelude to the Addendum, Maslow cataloged his Eupsychian Network of globalist transhuman potentializers, such as Barbara Marx Hubbard and Michael Murphy, along with their affiliated institutions, including the Esalen Institute. In addition to Mike Murphy, Pres. [President] of the Esalen Institute, Maslows Eupsychian directory included Willis Harmans Education for the Future project at Stanford Research Institute [4], which had pioneered AI engineering on top of launching the first iterations of internet communications in collaboration with the US militarys ARPANET. Harman also co-founded the World Business Academy (WBA), which is a corporate-futurist think tank where Hubbard was a Fellow along with New Age guru Deepak Chopra. Chopra, another Esalen affiliate, has proclaimed that Hubbard was the voice for conscious evolution of our time, according to The Evolutionary Testament of Co-Creation [3]. A key leader in the Human Potential Movement, Harman also spent twenty years as the President of the Institute of Noetic Sciences where Hubbard gave a speech in which she praised her collaborations with Ervin Lszl, who was also a WBA Fellow. In the Appreciations section of her Book of Co-Creation, Hubbard named Willis Harman, Michael Murphy, and Abraham H. Maslow as [c]olleagues and teachers of conscious evolution [7].

Malsow cataloged several other Esalen-connected organizations, including human potential centers, in his menu of Eupsychian institutions:

Other human potential and humanistic psychology institutions listed in Maslows Eupsychian Network include the National Center for Exploration of Human Potential; the American Association of Humanistic Psychology; the American Humanist Association; and the Fellowship of Religious Humanists [4].

To tie it all together, Maslow inducted Hubbard into his Eupsychian Network of human potential organizations where allied with the presidents of the World Business Academy, the Institute for Noetic Sciences, and the Esalen Institute to push the globalization of transhumanist psychology.

The Esalen Institute, which was bolstered by Maslows Eupsychian Network and endorsed by Hubbard in her Birth 2012 and Beyond [1], is best known as a New Age self-actualization retreat led by a host of Eastern mysticist gurus and hippie psychedelics enthusiasts who have propelled the Human Potential Movement. However, Esalen has also been a hub for behavioral psychologists, such as B. F. Skinner, humanistic psychologists, such as Abraham Maslow, and transhumanist computer engineers, such as Mikey Siegel, who have been driving a Transhuman Potential Movement aimed at steering the noetic evolution of the human species through trans-eugenic technologies, such as consciousness-hacking brain-computer interfaces.

This year, in 2022, there will be an Esalen workshop titled Superhuman Evolution, which will explore evolutionary esotericism by examining the intersections across technology, psychedelic[s], Darwinian . . . transformations, and metaphysical revelation . . . that might point to or even manifest the future human (or superhuman). It should be noted here that Darwinism was a predecessor of eugenics, which itself is the precursor to transhumanism.

Darwins cousin, Francis Galton conceptualized eugenics as the science of harnessing Darwinian evolution by selectively breeding elite bloodlines while culling unfit gene pools. Later, in 1957, British Eugenics Society President Julian Huxley, who was a close friend of fellow eugenicist Teilhard de Chardin, coined the term transhumanism to denote the next phase of eugenics in which the old-school methods of artificial genetic selection will take a backseat to biological engineering through human-machine mergers. Julians brother, Aldous Huxley, who authored the dystopic novel Brave New World, coined the term human potential, and he energized the Human Potential Movement as a trendsetter at the Esalen Institute where Hubbards mentors, Abraham Maslow and Buckminster Fuller, were both leading figures.

There have always been integral connections between the Esalen Institute, the Human Potential Movement, hi-tech transhumanism, and noetic Gnosticism. In 2013, H+ Magazine, otherwise known as Humanity+ Magazine, which is the popular publication of the organization formerly known as World Transhumanist Association, posted an article titled Producing and Consuming the Posthuman Body in Superhero Narratives. This H+ article historicizes how:

[s]everal scholars have linked the superhero narrative with the emergence of a human potential movement which became popular in the 1960s. In places such as the Esalen Institute, the philosophy of the cosmic posthuman was put into practice. . . with the intention of unlocking latent abilities. In his weighty tome theFuture of the Body: Explorations into the Further Evolution of Human Nature,Esalen co-founder Michael Murphy examines . . . evidence of metanormal human functioning. . . . Like the human potential movement, Transhumanism is also the offspring of the sixties counterculture.

At the same time, this article also links Esalens transhuman potential movement to a theological, or Gnostic narrative. In a section titled Silver Age Superheroes and the Emergence of Tranhumanism, this H+ article explicates how [t]ranshumanism, in some forms, presents a world in which science and magic are conflated through the spread of numerous hybrid spiritual or religious movements variously dubbed techno-paganism or cyber-shamanism, which reconfigure shamans as low-tech cyborgs.

Another H+ Magazinearticle, which was published in 2014, explores the ways in which the Human Potential Movement and the Neurosingularity Project dovetail together through intersections between genetics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, psychedelics, and a range of psychotechnologies that coalesce in transhumanist evolution. Entitled Mindapps and The Neurosingularity Project, this article, details how, [a]mong current tributaries to the Neurosingularity Project are: 1) multistate theory, 2) transhumanisn, 3) psychedelics, and 4) the human potential movement.

More specifically, in a section titled The Human Potential Movement and Positive Psychology, this article expounds how [m]ultistate theory, psychedelics, transhumanism, transpersonal psychology, and the human potential movement can all contribute to their mutual fulfillment and to the Neurosingularity Project with the HPM [Human Potential Movement] being a precursor of transhumanism. Additionally, this article postulates how, [i]nstead of using only electronic information technologyor biology hybridized with ITto augment human intelligence, milestones in genetics are advancing us down the path toward producing better human brains and other extropic and human potential goals.

In sum, these H+ articles propound how hi-tech transhumanism is an outgrowth of the Human Potential Movement that was spearheaded by the Esalen Institute, which was part of Maslows Eupsychian Network where Hubbard cavorted with other Gnostic trans-eugenicists to advance the noetic evolution of the human species through human-computer interfaces that can hack consciousness.

More recently, in 2018, Esalen hosted a Consciousness Hacking workshop run by Mikey Siegel: a transhumanist computer engineer who has developed Intelligent Robotics and social robotics at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, respectively. On the Esalen website, Siegels biography states that he uses technology to facilitate a path toward higher consciousness, self-realization, awakening, and transcendence. To industrialize transhumanist consciousness hacking into a global corporate enterprise, Siegel, according to Wired Magazine, helped found the Transformative Technology Conference, which convenes a mixer for technologists, futurists, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists trying to turn consciousness hacking into a multi-billion-dollar business on a par with the fitness industry.

Kickstarting the consciousness-hacking industry during the year before his Esalen workshop, Siegel conducted an experiment titled One Thousand Minds Connected Live, which hooked people up to cognition headband[s] that recorded their electroencephalogram (EEG) brainwaves while they all watched a movie called MindGamers. By concurrently data-mining the electrical brain activity of this massive audience, Siegel aimed to digitally record the first image of a mass-connected mind. Commenting on this experiment, Siegel hyped how, as a result of such brain-computer interfaces, we are actually changing as a species . . . [The brain is] actually changing the landscape of human culture. Were profoundly different than what we were 20, 30 years ago.

Assisting Siegel with the Thousand Minds experiment was Tim Mullen. According to TheWrap, Mullen is the CEO of Qusp Labs a neurotechnology firm and has developedwearable brain-computer interface (BCI) technology similar to whats being used in these [Thousand Minds EEG] headbands. Elaborating on the experiment, Mullen laid out [t]he overarching vision that in the future we will have the ability to link the nervous systems of humans . . . [T]he groundwork for that is being laid right now . . . Its accelerating so fast so its really possible to imagine that in one generation we might see that fundamental link established.

In brief, these brainwave-hacking wearables, designed by Siegel and Mullen, are building the next noospheric layer of transhumanitys cybernetic nervous system which, according to Hubbard, has consciously evolved from internet IT infrastructure into online social media networks that can now be augmented through collective webs of biofeedback neurotech. From Mikey Siegels Transformative Technology Conferences, back to Michael Murphys Esalen Institute, all the way back to Abraham Maslows Eupsychian Network, there are branches of transhumanist psychology, neurotechnology, and human-potentializing spirituality that share common roots in Barbara Marx Hubbards noetic prophesies of collective-conscious evolution through global cybernetics.

To mind-meld global human consciousness through brain-computer neurotech, Hubbard evolved the Human Potential Movement into the Social Potential Movement [2], which she used to promote the HeartMath Institute (HMI) [1] [2]. The non-profit HMI is a synergistic satellite of the for-profit HeartMath Inc. corporation that carries out multilevelmarketing schemes to sell biofeedback wearables, such as emWave and Inner Balance, which are similar to the EEG headbands designed by Siegel. Programmed to socially synchronize an individuals heart coherence with the global community by uploading users electrocardiogram (ECG) analytics to online cloud databases, HeartMaths biofeedback technologies are being propagated across the planet through HMIs Global Coherence Initiative (GCI) in order to harmonize the worlds ECG wavelengths into a singular hivemind resonance.

In pursuit of his consciousness-hacking venture, Siegel has also engineered a collective biofeedback wearable called HeartSync, which he piloted at a Burning Man festival. The transhumanist HeartSync headsets can interlink as many as 24 people to a single computer in order to synchronize the groups breathing and heartbeats. At Siegels co-hack house, his Consciousness Hacking MeetUp group, which has hosted at least 15,000 members in at least 30 communities, attendees engage in collective meditation while wearing HeartSync headgear hooked up to a computer. On Project Nights at Siegels co-hack house, startup founders pitch their prototypes, such as the LucidCatcher, a sleep band that stimulates your brain with small electrical pulses, supposedly letting you control your dreams.

According to Siegels business partner, Josh Whiton, who is a personal friend of Elon Musk and Tony Robbins, HeartSync can be used to have a board meeting and you hook everyone up to a headband and a heart-rate sensor to get into state of coherence [sic] . . . You get people out of their ego states and into a group state, thinking as one. Other applications of HeartSync, along with other AI biofeedback devices, neurotech brain stimulators, and immersive VR, include psychotherapeutic and psychedelic consciousness hacks that can digitally induce mindfulness and enlightenment.

Siegels HeartSync neurotech is similar to the emWave and Inner Balance biofeedback wearables that are sold through the HeartMath Institute, which is endorsed by Hubbard in her Birth 2012 and Beyond. In this book, Hubbard lists the Institute of HeartMath as a Birth 2012 Campaign Sponsor along with the World Business Academy and the Global Coherence Initiative (GCI), which is a satellite of the HeartMath Institute [1]. In addition to these Birth 2012 Campaign Sponsors, Hubbard cataloged a directory of Shift Network Allies, including the Esalen Institute and the Institute of Noetic Sciences where Siegel has served as an Advisor to the IONS Innovation Lab [1]. Siegel and his BioFluent Technologies corporation, which is the company that produces HeartSync biofeedback wearables, are also profiled on the list of Industry Partners and Advisors at the Transformative Technology Lab (TTL) where HeartMath President and CEO, Deborah Rozman, whom Hubbard names as an all[y] of the Birth 2012 Campaign [1], is also profiled on list of TTL Industry Partners and Advisors.

Along with Rozman, there are several other GCI Steering Committee and Advisory Board members whom Hubbard endorsed as allies of the of the Birth 2012 Campaign [1]:

Additionally, there are several other GCI Steering Committee and Advisory Board members who hold prominent positions at the Institute for Noetic Sciences:

Also serving on the GCI Scientific Advisory Board is Roger Nelson, who is founder and director of the Global Consciousness Project and was the longtime coordinator of research at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) laboratory at Princeton University, which was financed by Hubbards benefactor, Laurence Rockefeller. In addition, Nelson is a member of the Esalen Institute Center for Theory and Research.

Towards the end of Birth 2012 and Beyond, Hubbard anthologized a chapter by Claudia Welss, who is another Steering Committee Member of HeartMaths Global Coherence Initiative; a Board Member of Hubbards Foundation for Conscious Evolution; and a member of the extended research faculty of the Institute for Noetic Sciences [1]. In Claudia Welsss Birth 2012 and Beyond chapter, which is titled Energizing Social Synergy for the Shift, she details how HeartMaths biofeedback wearables can be implemented to globally synchronize the EKG heart coherence rhythms of individuals and communities across the planet in order to artificially stimulate a worldwide shift in evolutionary consciousness [1].

Defining heart coherence, Welss describes it as a measurable psychophysiological state that can be quantified with [b]iofeedback measurements [1]. According to Welss, HeartMath has demonstrated that we can intentionally change our heart signal pattern to a coherent waveform in which [h]eart-brain alignment is created, causing a favorable cascade of neural, hormonal, and biochemical changes as systems synchronize and connect, facilitating system-wide communication [1]. In a section titled Scaling Heart Coherence for Social Synergy, Welss elaborates how:

[r]eseach at HeartMath has confirmed that a persons [heart] coherent electromagnetic signals can be detected in the nervous systems of other people as well as in animals. Heart coherence thus appears to enliven our connections through resonance, not only with each other and with nature but, conceivably, with the mind of the cosmos [or noosphere], enabling the parts to be in communication with the whole. [1]

To harmonize the heart coherence waves of global communities with the collective-consciousness of the noosphere, Welss calls for the worldwide coordination of HeartMath biofeedback synchronization through [t]he Global Coherence Initiative, a project of HeartMath, [which] is based on the belief that [heart] coherence scalesfrom the personal, to the social, to the planetary . . . If heart coherence does indeed scale, our attempts at social synergy would benefit on all levels [1]. Citing the evolutionary theories of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who was the godfather of epigenetic theory, Welss posits how:

the Global Coherence Initiative estimates that three-hundred and fifty thousand people measurably increasing their heart coherence baselines may be enough to create a global coherence heart-field environment . . . through the sustained repetition of this new behavior by a critical mass of individuals . . . By intentionally generating this field of global coherence for the Shift, we may . . . emerge as a positive, conscious evolutionary force. [1]

In a separate chapter titled A Map to Cross the Gap, Hubbard herself calls for heart coherence synchronization of 350,000 wearers of HeartMath biofeedback devices by practicing Quick Coherence and Heart Lock-In [1], which are HeartMath-trademarked mindfulness techniques, through a special group setting online [1]. This online biofeedback collaborative is known as [t]he Global Birthing Care Room, a project of the Institute of HeartMaths Global Coherence Initiative, [which] provides a digital representation of practitioners, portraying them as points of light across the globe [1].

In sum, the HeartMath Institute has commissioned a transhumanist network of wearable Global Coherence Apps to interlink brainwaves and heart rhythms across the planet in order to Shift the collective-consciousness of the human species into a one-world Social Potential Movement that is synchronized with the cosmic evolution of the noosphere through the cybernetic nervous system of internet social media. In turn, these transhumanist neurofeedback wearables are in position to biorhythmically induce synthetic states of bliss that will psychologically condition global populations to happily comply with the corporate-communitarian mandates of the techno-fascist Fourth Industrial Revolution.

If you think the global biofeedback synchronization of human conscious sounds like a virtuous means of unifying hearts and minds across the planet into a utopian one-world community, it should be noted that the HeartMath Institute and HeartMath Inc. are steeped in corporatism. Hence, rather than arouse sincere socioemotional bonds across all socioeconomic classes, and instead of elucidating minds with true spiritual enlightenment, HeartMaths commercial neurotech is primed to lull the precariat into blissed out trances that render them submissive to the corporate-technocratic mandates of the surveillance capitalist Fourth Industrial Revolution.

By distributing Global Coherence Apps and other neurofeedback wearables through multilevelmarketing schemes and networks of partnerships with multinational companies and business consulting firms, HeartMaths Global Coherence Initiative is driven by a brand of corporatism known as evolutionary entrepreneurship, which has been promoted by Hubbard and her colleagues at Singularity University. Notwithstanding the flowery love and light rhetoric from Hubbard and GCI spokespeople, the corporate nexus of evolutionary entrepreneurs connected to HeartMath is primed to steer global biorhythm coherence to comply with a techno-fascist Social Credit economy of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

To recruit participants to the Global Coherence Network of wearable biofeedback sensors linked to smartphones, HMI and HeartMatch Inc. employ multilevel-marketing schemes that convert HeartMath practitioners into certified HeartMath Mentors and Trainers who offer heart coherence coaching through HeartMath Resilience workshops. It is keen to note here that multilevel marketing stratagems, which Hubbard advocates in Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential [2], are rooted in the self-actualization workshops of the Human Potential Movement. In fact, the multilevel marketing giant, Amway, has been one of the biggest corporate adherents to the channeling of the Human Potential Movements self-actualization mantra to con salespeople into pyramid scams.

It is also worth noting that the heir to Richard DeVoss Amway fortune is former US Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, who has financed Neurocore biofeedback ed-tech. In my article, Secretary DeVos, Neurocore, and Competency-Based Workforce Training, I documented how the Neurocore corporation, where Betsy sat on the Board of Directors, is part of a burgeoning socioemotional-learning industry that traffics in biofeedback ed-tech which includes the emWave wearables distributed by HeartMath. For instance, HeartMath LLC holds the corporate license for the Macquarie Institute, which facilitates HeartMath workshops, such as the Resilient Educator program that teaches attendees how to utilize emWave biofeedback wearables in order to enhance classroom learning at Primary and Secondary School[s].

By leveraging multilevel-marketing tactics to propagate GCIs Global Coherence Network of transhuman-potentializing biofeedback wearables, the HeartMath Institute is actualizing what Hubbard deemed to be an enterprise of evolutionary entrepreneurship that melds neurotechnology and collective biorhythmic consciousness into the futurist Singularity , as envisioned by Googles Director of Engineering, Ray Kurzweil.

In 2018, at a Singularity University Global Summit, which was titled The Future of Entrepreneurship: Living in Exponential Creativity, Hubbard was interviewed by Mark Donohue: an associate of both Kurzweil, who is Co-Founder and Chancellor of Singularity U, and Peter Diamandis, who is the Executive Founder and Director of Singularity U. During this interview, Donohue and Hubbard hyped how Maslow-inspired . . . evolutionary entrepreneurs are at the forefront of ushering in a transhumanist Singularity through Maslowean business practices that pivot on synergistic convergences. Donohue highlighted how

Barbara was a seminal leader in the 70s at running what are called SYNCONs, so bringing together the best of whats working to create a synergistic convergence to create a whole new out of the disparate parts. . . . So thats a whole synergistic convergence process which were inviting and believe Singularity [U] is part of, but we feel is another level of convening the exponential technology, the exponential leaders, to actually have a convergence thats more directional and curated by Singularity [U] to take it to the next level.

Concurring with Donohues exaltation of evolutionary entrepreneurs, Hubbard declared that the exponential entrepreneur has the power to shift the system, and if the exponential entrepreneurs feel themselves to be connected with evolution, the guidelines of greater consciousness . . . applied to exponential entrepreneurship actually is the shift point. This shift point, according to Hubbard, will result in humankind becoming a new species. If you combine hi-tech with evolutionary spirituality with greater consciousness, . . . if you combine exponential evolutionary technologies with the new power of humanity . . . , you have a new species . . . Its not only that we are becoming new individuals and to some degree a new species with this power, but the whole system . . . is going to radical newness.

Donohue affirmed Hubbards shift point prediction as he proclaimed that Singularity University will be instrumental in thrusting the human species forward into conscious transhuman evolution: Were upon the birth of what Barbara has named Homo Universalis. . . . The new whole will be far greater than has ever existed before, and ultimately, Singularity [U] is a catalyst and a leader in the awakening of this new species to fulfill our full human potential [inaudible] within the evolutionary story by creating synergistic convergences at the next level. Hubbard concluded the interview by celebrating Singularity U as a driver of conscious transhuman evolution: its a great privilege to see what Singularity [U] is able to do to help initiate this movement. If we want to say a new movement is . . . moving in the direction of evolution, I would say Singularity University is taking a tremendous role to initiate that.

Through the synergistic convergences of exponential entrepreneurs, corporate industries, consumer stakeholders, and futurist think tanks like Singularity U, the Human Potential Movement is expanding into a Social Potential Movement, propelling Hubbards transhumanist dreams of collective-conscious evolution through global technology markets.

In her book, Conscious Evolution: Awakening of Our Social Potential, which was edited by Donohue, Hubbard devoted six chapters to Part III: The Social Potential Movement [2]. Throughout Part III, Hubbard laid out her vision of Social Evolution through the technocratic globalization of public-private partnerships. For example, Hubbard printed a chart of Donohues Golden Innovations wheel, which graphs how the Social Potential Movement is being rolled forward through a Global Collegium that synergistically converges Economics/Business, Science/Technology, Government/Law, Media Communications, Education, Health, and Spirituality/Religion. To cultivate a global Community of CoCreators [sic] through the sphere of Economics/Business, Hubbard promoted corporate foundations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Center for What Works, along with impact-investing firms, such as the Social Venture Network.

In sum, Hubbard called for public-private partnership to push the collective-conscious evolution of social potential into the futurist Singularity through the globalization of transhumanist neurofeedback technologies, such as the emWave and Inner Balance biofeedback wearables that are distributed through the multi-level marketing schemes of HeartMaths Global Coherence Initiative. It is worth noting here that, at Singularity University, Kurzweil has partnered with the founder and CEO of SingularityNET, Ben Goertzel, who presented his AI research at the 2013 Annual Conference of the World Future Society, which was co-founded by Hubbard [1]. Goertzel is also listed on the roster of the Transformative Technology Labs Industry Partners and Advisors along with the President and CEO of HeartMath.

For almost 20 years, Kurzweil has forecasted that the year 2045 will mark the emergence of the transhuman Singularity. Prior to Kurzweils prediction, Hubbard foretold that 2020 would mark the year of the global consciousness shift that would tech-noetically thrust human evolution into the transhuman Singularity of 2045.

During her speech at the 2015 IONS International Conference, Hubbard propose[d] that we develop a new world purpose . . . by 2020, and the date has been picked by some other people [such as] Stephen Dinan, who is a former Director of the Esalen Institutes Center for Theory and Research, a former Director of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and the author of the Foreword to Hubbards Birth 2012 and Beyond [1]. In her IONS speech, Hubbard postulated that:

[i]f we took the next 5 years, and said our purpose would be, by 2020, we would connect enough of the co-creators in health, education, economics, in every sector of human endeavor in every culture . . . and show up by 2020 as the beginning of the next stage of human self-evolution . . . [then] [w]e would become the Gnostic human; we would become humans that actually incarnate the genius of evolution, the supramental powers of evolution.

Now that 2020 has ushered in the post-COVID New Normal, which is rolling out the Great Reset for the technocratic Fourth Industrial Revolution, it appears that Hubbards predictions for trans-technological evolution are coming true, and as Kurzweil forecasted, the Singularity is near.

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Simulacra in the Growing Armory of Thanatos – CounterPunch

Posted: at 11:23 pm

Needs must when the devil drives

Common saying/proverb

The concept of simulacrum is central to anthropocentric history construed and the control and manipulation of the ecosystem upon which all life now brought to be dependent upon? This; in the sense of man is what he eats or drinks; or indeed what accepted into the body as via vaccination?

With apologies to Husserl.

Regardless of the economy we live or rather as more likely subsist within, we in the 21st C. are as to be further fucked over courtesy or contingent upon the presence of but simulacra as a plurality polymorphous ; this by virtue of the truly fugly fact that there the inevitable as growing presence of technology as the fruit of empiricism, and which satisfies material need is increasingly being globally intermediated?

Such the fuck of resource transfer?

Feed on the GMO as much as m.RNA accepted intramuscular and such the modalities as would be unseen?

Man is indeed what he eats alas, as transhuman is as the acceptance of genetic modification under a paradigm of consumerism as an enantiodromiata whereby Eros becomes Thanatos?

(The alas in the above being generic as much as one would really not subsist under material need)

The modalities of effecting the simulacraic transformation from man to transhuman as you read being rolled out such the innovation, such the determinism; the growing armory of thanatos is being deployed in a sense as Keynes put it concerning finance that not one man in a million would be able to understand?

Injection is effete now, such the new bioweapons as of the armory being deployed?

Such as there more ways to kill a cat than choke it with butter?

Simulacra of the deep state as globalized as would be unknown as unrecognized right up to whence it bites you and yours in the ass deadly as quietly such the surplus population but to be culled under deployment of the growing armory of simulacra within a shrinkflating paradigm of simulacraic determination?

Enron was but a boys game?

Traditional cultures as have largely as tragically been killed off or (even worse disappeared into the memory hole globalized) assimilated as incorporated they yet evidenced the use of simulacra which are contingent upon empirical abstraction: for all technology is but a fucking simulacra; an abusive artifice of craftsmanship which manufactures as abstracts and generalizes phenomenologically as externalizes?

A spear, for example as can be thrown or thrust is a form of simulacra, as is a blowpipe, as is a bow and arrow, as is indeed is a spade. Or a kitchen faucet as of Flint, Michigan. What is unique concerning the anthropocene is that an evolutionary trajectory was predicated upon simulacra externalised as opposed to being evolved internal by way of physiology; the tools of a bear are by way of muscularity and razor sharp claw and tooth; that of an eagle the wings and beak, of a snake the development of powerful musculature or fangs capable of delivering toxin as metabolized. Similarly , humble herbivores as cows developed a unique physiology of gut structure as much as goats can as a result of internalised as physiological/ metabolic simulacrum eat food as would otherwise prove to be toxic.

By contrast the tools of man are simulacraic as externalized phenomenologically this alas, sense of Thoreau as some outstandingly perspicacious metapoltical American guy acknowledged

Nota bene that is guy as opposed to goy such the apartheid denied. As much as we all Palestinians now as surplus population prototyped to be Nakbad under the new religion of AI.?

Nakba being a euphemism for death?

As much as Zionism evidenced philanthropic to reflect a hegemony of the philanthropy of AI such the resource transfer as usury become in cyberspace such the universal deceit as social credit intimates? A social credit in a cyberspace as not so much universal as metaversial?

Is the sentiment Fuck the Talmud! as being to be rendered as impermissible such the control and issue of currency as to a care not hegemonic as to a divide et impera pumped up as

about to be dumped under the intermediation of AI as mere usury transcendant as quasi autonomous?

Life is alas as yet remains (?) a war against material need; a continual battle for survival, and this is not unique to man but a common factor concerning all life currently known.

What is different about Homo Sapiens is that simulucra have been externalized the evolutionary trajectory as an ascendance based upon phenomenological rather than physiological factors to make a crude distinction. What, for example, the difference between the sonar of dolphins, the geolocational iron in the brains of Australian aborigines and the brains of homing pigeons?

Just your everyday thoughts as the contemplation of simulacra goes mundane as censored?

The price of such externalization of simulacra is now but another forbidden subject: this is undoubtedly a tragedy deterministic as much as censorial; as much as the evolutionary opportunity cost of traditional cultures foregone contemplated is verboten as deemed unworthy under a growing bubble hegemony of the simulacraic? (Latter phrase could have been a contender for title this small article such the waterfront as ideological oasis, indeed. The neologism simulcraic being defined as of or arising from simulacra in action )

But digression.

Really the subject here such the apperception under denial of orthodoxy is as of the bubble fuck which the embrace of simulacra represents under determinism; and it is to be alas a bubble which very soon to be pricked as burst as apocalyptic, such the revelation; the veil soon to be revealed way of universal fuckover as to ephemeraliy explicated?

Thirteen of fourteen of us to die, such the sheer fucking madness of Thanatos?

The utlimate simulcraic externalization of pump and dump; such the end of the evolutionary trajectory premature ,such the apotheosis is to constitute the form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as as part of the armory of Thanatos deployed to point of entropy?

The transition as intermediated from the immediacy of the natural such the simulcraic bubble grows more deadly as pernicious by the very day as hour alas; the mainstream media as force fed to us under the increasingly pernicious algorithms of AI as under an embrace of the unnatural to accrete as to a final mass formation as to expression of the inevitable? The collective psychoses globalized under such a bubble is far as from bodes well such the distinction yet to be made between Eros and Thanatos?

The deadly cloud it grows as would be over our heads as to imminently rain down Thanatos?

In mine seventh decade of involuntary immersion as but a humble epiphenomenon in this growing virtual reality as under a bubble; rendered as blown; it occurs that the very term bubble has been extrapolated upon as increasingly intermediated.

Viz;

The term bubble boy used to be applied to the rich; it referred to an intermediation whereby experience constrained; the rich live in a world of experience which is but a simulacrum of political reality; purposive to thanatos hey have no relationship rendered to the reality of life for the majority as the comedian Billy Connolly puts it concerning such alienation and marginalization:

the Queen lives in a world as smells of fresh paint?

Under AI the world as a bubble is continuously being painted fresh as anew as would not the decay or progression of disease as mass formation be cognized; such the step by step of algorithmic intermediation as the final bubble to be pumped up before burst philanthropic to R2P the world by way of surplus population reduction effected?

Not so much the medium is the message as AI deployed gently, gently captures monkey so denied under a panopticon of simualacra over mind such the bubble as soon to burst; finally as transhumanistically : as much as genes as nature held in eugenical abeyance; memory holed under algorithmic as goose stamped towards the simulacrum of cloud consciousness as an orthodoxy?

Yo! I got pretensions such the bastard dystopia as to a new consciousness as would be un intermediated as to an austere apotheosis denied; as under such bubble would be rendered but phenomenologically as existentially but some parallel to a busted flush/ dodo such the genocide effected as under a quiet spring; a silent summer?

Such the armory of thanatos now being deployed such the rollout as ramped?

Hey, but one exists now as all but but virtual in this metaversial realm of simulacra ; as to existence such the phenomenological suck of universal deceit become, such the cypto currency necrotrophic contemptoraneous (sic)?

What is really difficult under the assault of the armory of thanatos being deployed; and these small quarters unable to further elaborate as to modality, alas, for no executive of DARPA or indeed privy as a chosen member of the WEF by way of being a global leader or shaper is to maintain hope as erotic.

It seems that memento mori indeed is applicable not only to epiphenomenology as of individual life but applicable such the extrapolation by way of Thanatos to evolutionary trajectory?

Homo Sapiens are dead all hail the new transhumanism!

Indeed.

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POLITICO Playbook: Growing doubts about Trump and Biden in ’24- POLITICO – POLITICO

Posted: July 3, 2022 at 3:58 am

With help from Eli Okun and Garrett Ross

The Jan. 6 committees work is sowing doubts about Donald Trump on the right. | Chet Strange/Getty Images

SOME GOOD FOURTH OF JULY NEWS N.Y. Mag: Someone Finally Turned Nathans Hot Dogs Into Ice Cream

SOME BAD FOURTH OF JULY NEWS WSJ: The average cost of a summer cookout rose 17% from last year.

MORE DOUBTS ABOUT THE FRONTRUNNERS Its going to take a long time to process the events of June 2022. Two monumental storylines unfurled last month that will shape politics for the foreseeable future: the Supreme Courts transformational decisions on guns, climate regulation and abortion and the Jan. 6 committees evidence of potential criminality by DONALD TRUMP.

On Friday, we looked at how the Supreme Courts flurry of decisions pushing the country rightward is sowing doubts about Biden on the left.

For more on that, check out these two numbers in the latest Harvard CAPS/Harris poll:

64% of registered voters think Joe Biden is showing he is too old to be President.

71% of registered voters say Bidenshould not run for a second term.

But today we want to look closer at how the Jan. 6 committees work is sowing doubts about Trump on the right. The same poll reports:

61% of registered voters say Trumpshould not run for president.

The reasons?

He's erratic: 36%

He will divide America: 33%

He's responsible for Jan. 6: 30%

Two must-read pieces are chock-full of on-the-record quotes from Republicans who want to move on from the former president:

Via APs Steve Peoples and Thomas Beaumont:

Youd be hard-pressed to find people in this area who support the idea that people arent looking for someone else, said DAVE VAN WYK, a transportation company owner. To presume that conservative America is 100% behind Donald Trump is simply not the case.

People are concerned that we could lose the election in 24 and want to make sure that we dont nominate someone who would be seriously flawed, CHRIS CHRISTIE said.

His approval among Republican primary voters has already been somewhat diminished, Maryland Gov. LARRY HOGAN said in an interview. Trump was the least popular president in American history until Joe Biden.

Republican activists believed Donald Trump was the only candidate who could beat Hillary, MARC SHORT said. Now, the dynamic is reversed. He is the only one who has lost to Joe Biden.

If it looks like theres a place for me next year, Ive never lost a race, Im not going to start now, NIKKI HALEY told reporters. Ill put 1,000% in and Ill finish it. And if theres not a place for me, I will fight for this country until my last breath.

I just dont know if [Trumps] electable anymore, [KATHY DE KONING of Iowa] said.

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Via NYTs Michael Bender, Reid Epstein and Maggie Haberman:

Republicans want to win badly in 2022, and it is dawning on many of them that relitigating the 2020 election with Trumps daily conspiracy diatribes are sure losers, said DICK WADHAMS, a Republican strategist and former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.

Theres some evidence that some Republican voters are trying to slow-walk from Donald Trump, said SCOTT JENNINGS, a Republican strategist. Jennings said he was not surprised by Mr. Trumps eagerness to jump into the presidential race. If youre in his shoes, you have to try to put that fire out. Because the more it burns, the more it burns.

Ms. Hutchinson would be the star member of a womens Republican club a committed conservative, no reason to say anything but the truth, said Senator BILL CASSIDY of Louisiana, who voted to convict in Mr. Trumps second impeachment and has been a target of Mr. Trumps since. He was one of the few lawmakers who spoke on the record. It gives power to a testimony that allows Americans to judge for themselves.

There will be a number of Republicans who many Republicans feel cannot only unite the party but would govern with strong, conservative policies, said JASON SHEPHERD, a former NEWT GINGRICH aide who is a Georgia Republican Party state committeeman.

Theres just too many people who dont really like him, [NICOLE] WOLTER said. We want everyone to kind of rally around him and be able to get the independents, and I just think that if he ran, he wouldnt be able to pull that off.

Wishful thinking by the usual GOP suspects? Or evidence that something has really changed?

More: NBCs Marc Caputo on how Trumps fear factor shows signs of waning as 2024 Republican hopefuls jockey.

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WEEKEND LISTEN: TIM MILLER and ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN sat down with Ryan this week to discuss their respective journeys navigating Trumpism and what CASSIDY HUTCHINSONs testimony could mean for the future of Trumps grip on the Republican Party.

Why is MIKE PENCE letting Cassidy testify? Mike Pence knows about all this stuff better than anybody, Miller said. And he's not going to be the president. If anybody knows how derelict Donald Trump was on that day, it's Pence. Listen to Playbook Deep Dive

BIDENS SATURDAY: The president has nothing on his public schedule.

VP KAMALA HARRIS SATURDAY (all times Eastern):

12:10 p.m.: The vice president will depart Los Angeles en route to New Orleans.

5:15 p.m.: Harris will attend the 28th ESSENCE Festival of Culture, where she will participate in a fireside conversation with KEKE PALMER.

8 p.m.: Harris will depart New Orleans to return to Los Angeles.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

WNBA star Brittney Griner is escorted to a courtroom for a hearing in Khimki, just outside of Moscow, Russia, on Friday, July 1. | Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo

ALL POLITICS

TRUMP VS. HOGAN Dems meddle in Trump-Hogan proxy war in Maryland, by Zach Montellaro: DAN COXs campaign for governor of Maryland got an early endorsement from Donald Trump last fall. And now, Democrats want Republican primary voters to know all about it.

The Democratic Governors Association launched a new ad Friday blasting Cox, a state lawmaker, for his ties to Trump, for being 100 percent pro-life and for refusing to support any federal restrictions on guns. But the end goal of the ad is not to sink Cox. Instead, Democrats are hoping to boost him in the July 19 Republican primary for governor, which has turned into a tight battle for the nomination with former state Commerce Secretary KELLY SCHULZ term-limited GOP Gov. LARRY HOGANs preferred successor.

KNOWING MARKWAYNE MULLIN He was prepared to kill Jan. 6 rioters. Now MAGA voters may give him a Senate seat, by WaPos Paul Kane in an analysis piece on the Oklahoma GOP representative.

JAN. 6 AND ITS AFTERMATH

THE NOT-SO SECRET SERVICE Jan. 6 inquiry thrusts Secret Service back into center of controversy, by WaPos Carol Leonnig: The new depiction of the Secret Service which has endured a decade of controversy from a prostitution scandal and White House security missteps during the Obama years to allegations of politicization under Trump has cast new doubt on the independence and credibility of the legendary presidential protective agency.

Accounts of Trump angrily demanding to go to Capitol on January 6 circulated in Secret Service over past year, by CNNs Noah Gray and Zachary Cohen

ABORTION FALLOUT

HEADS UP Texas Supreme Court blocks order that resumed abortions, by APs Paul Weber, Anthony Izaguirre and Stephen Groves: It was not immediately clear whether Texas clinics that had resumed seeing patients this week would halt services again. A hearing is scheduled for later this month.

SOMETHING TO WATCH House GOP women are a crucial piece to partys next move on abortion, by WaPos Marianna Sotomayor: There are 32 women in the House GOP conference, the largest number in history. And their ranks are expected to grow in a midterm year.

THE DEM DONOR REACTION Democrats swiftly raised $80M after court overturned Roe, by APs Brian Slodysko

IN THE STATES As Ohio restricts abortions, 10-year-old girl travels to Indiana for procedure, by the Indianapolis Stars Shari Rudavsky and Rachel Fradette

TRUMP CARDS

FOR YOUR RADAR Trump hires former 9th Circuit judge Kozinski for Twitter court fight, by Reuters Jacqueline Thomsen and Mike Scarcella

WHERE ARE THEY NOW She helped get Trump elected. Now shes raising crypto for Ukraine, by WaPos Steven Zeitchik: BRITTANY KAISER, the provocative Cambridge Analytica veteran, has become critical to the government of Volodymyr Zelensky. Not everyone is enthusiastic.

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CLICKER The nations cartoonists on the week in politics, edited by Matt Wuerker 15 funnies

GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Ryan Lizza:

How Do You Prepare for a School Shooting? by NYTs C.J. Chivers, with photos and captions by Lindsay Morris and Jake Nevins: In a gruesome new American ritual, mass casualty simulations confront first responders with agonizing choices they would face in a real attack.

The Other Cancel Culture: How a Public University Is Bowing to a Conservative Crusade, by ProPublicas Daniel Golden and Kirsten Berg: With a rising national profile and donor base and relatively little state funding, Boise State University should be able to resist pressure by the Idaho Legislature. Instead the university, led by a liberal transplant, has repeatedly capitulated.

Did This Trump-Loving, Leopard-Hunting Dentist Kill His Wife? by Rolling Stones Matt Sullivan: Larry Rudolph built an empire in strip-mall suburbia, and a reputation as a gun-culture hero. Then came the love triangle, the allegations of fraud, and a mysterious death in Africa. Was it a tragic accident? Or murder?

Unsettled, by The Verges Makena Kelly: The Afghan refugee crisis collides with the American housing disaster.

He was acting strangely. Then he vanished into the Virginia wilderness, by WaPos Lizzie Johnson: The disappearance of 18-year-old Ty Sauer set off a frantic search in a densely wooded area of Shenandoah National Park.

Leonard Cohens Hallelujah Belongs to Everyone, by The Atlantics Kevin Dettmar: What is it about the once virtually unknown song that inspires so many musicians to make it their own?

Jason Brassard Spent His Lifetime Collecting the Rarest Video Games. Until the Heist, by Vanity Fairs Justin Heckert: The porn trilogy for Nintendos. Atari games from the 1980s. Pristine nostalgia, potentially worth millions, gone in a night.

Pete Buttigieg educated his Twitter followers about flight cancellations.

Elon Musk broke his Twitter silence on Friday, posting a photo with Pope Francis.

Jerry Hall has filed for divorce from Rupert Murdoch.

Enda ODowd, an Irish Times video journalist, documented the lowlights from the Arizona GOP gubernatorial debate.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD Kristen Soltis Anderson, founding partner of Echelon Insights and a CNN contributor, and Chris Anderson, software engineering manager at Sweetgreen, on Tuesday welcomed Eliana Christine Anderson. Pic

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Playbooks own Setota Hailemariam Jonathan Capehart Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.) and Randy Weber (R-Texas) Eric Fanning of the Aerospace Industries Association Brad Todd of On Message POLITICOs Cristina Rivero The Verges Brooke Minters Scott McGee of Kelley Drye Derek Gianino of Wells Fargo Matthew Dybwad of Xandr Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots Courtney Geduldig of Micron Technology Matthew L. Schwartz Snaps Gina Woodworth Arkadi Gerney ... Sam Nitz ... Emily Stanitz Reed Howard former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu former Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) Luci Baines Johnson Jeremy Garlington (53) NBCs Tom Llamas and Keith Morrison Abbey Rogers of Rokk Solutions Billy Constangy of Rep. Richard Hudsons (R-N.C.) office Collin Davenport of Rep. Gerry Connollys (D-Va.) office TikTok's Brooke Oberwetter

THE SHOWS (Full Sunday show listings here):

ABC This Week, anchored by Martha Raddatz: Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). Panel: Alex Burns, Molly Ball, Mary Bruce and Brittany Shepherd.

FOX Fox News Sunday: Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves John Kirby. Panel: Marc Thiessen, Mollie Hemingway, Howard Kurtz and Juan Williams.

CBS Face the Nation: DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) Henning Tiemeier German Chancellor Olaf Scholz Jan Crawford Debora Patta.

CNN State of the Union: South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.). Panel: Bakari Sellers, Linda Chavez, Jess McIntosh and Scott Brown.

CNN Inside Politics: Jill Dougherty. Panel: Jonathan Swan, Jackie Kucinich, Laura Barrn-Lpez, Christopher Cadelago, Camila DeChalus and Ariane de Vogue.

NBC Meet the Press: Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra Danny Cevallos. Panel: Matthew Continetti, Jeh Johnson, Marianna Sotomayor and Ali Vitali.

MSNBC The Sunday Show: Linda Villarosa Deborah Watts Kurt Bardella Judith Browne Dianis.

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POLITICO Playbook: Growing doubts about Trump and Biden in '24- POLITICO - POLITICO

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There Are 11 Types of Donald Trump Enablers. Which One Are You? – POLITICO

Posted: at 3:58 am

You dont say.

The committee members felt that taking on this oh-so-altruistic act on behalf of America meant that they didnt have to publicly reckon with the moral compromise of working for someone like Trump. Somehow this justification persisted even after they no longer worked for him and were using their access to make it rain in the private sector. Convenient!

Not a single one of the brave warriors on the Committee to Save America endorsed the only person who could actually save America from Trump his opponent in the 2020 election.

Despite this logical incongruence, it was the self-flattering messiahs who won the argument among Republicans in D.C. Their demand that good people do everything in their power to protect the country from the horrific realities of the president eventually extended not just to those in the national security apparatus but to mid-level political offices throughout town.

From their wake emerged their messianic junior partners who worked as Trump aides and Hill staffers and campaign flacks. They may not have convinced themselves they were saving the world exactly but were justified in the knowledge that if they did not take a glamorous White House job or continue working for a white-bread rational senator, the country would be saddled with someone far worse. Maybe even a white nationalist! Whos to say? (The fact that a white nationalist might be their replacement did not seem to strike many of the juniors as something that required reflection on the nature of their employment.)

These Junior Messiahs told themselves they were patriots, sacrificing on behalf of the American people, who deserved dedicated public servants like them. This belief was buttressed by the fact that they often had a point: The staffer who would replace them or the politician who would upend their boss in a primary was almost assuredly more terrible. In Trumps GOP, entropy was taking hold. From the cabinet to the Senate to the school board, the stodgy erudite men of yesteryear were being replaced by ambitious MAGA-fakers who were in turn being replaced by psychotic true believers, giving credence to the conceit that they used to comfort themselves anytime doubt crept in.

The Demonizers were the quickest to drink the Trumpian orangeade as a chaser to liberal tears. For some this was a dogmatic response to any signs of Democratic hostility to people of faith or the free market (or both, for those with the in-home Milton Friedman shrine).

For others, it was cultural, a rejection of the liberal pieties that ground their gears, a discomfort with how fast the script around gender and race was changing. For still others it seemed more personal, emanating from a bitterness over the snooty know-it-allism of the liberals in their life. They clung to anger over the way the left and the media had treated decent Republicans over the years, concluding that, if Mitt Romney and John McCain were going to be tarred as sexist, racist warmongers, then they had no choice but to throw in with the real sexists and racists.

This notion of anger driving support for Trump echoes what a lot of elite conservatives have admitted on the record. Rich Lowry, the nebbish National Review editor (and frequent POLITICO contributor), wrote on the eve of Trumps losing reelection bid that supporting Trump was a middle finger to the cultural left. This seemed to me to be an unbelievably asinine, if understandable, mindset coming from a fussy, middle-aged, Manhattan-dwelling white conservative who resents his more culturally ascendant neighbors. But what caught me off guard was how many of my peers felt the same. Over drinks in Santa Monica, a friend who I had gradually lost touch with over her rabid Trump fandom, stopped me cold when explaining her rationalizations. Despite being a socially liberal, urban-dwelling Millennial, she still had absorbed a deep well of hatred for woke culture.

I just dont feel the need to drive around my Prius drinking a coffee coolata with a coexist bumper sticker and checking the box like Ive solved climate change, she said. Me moving from plastic to paper straws is not actually moving this needle. The liberal culture of judgment, of do as I say, not as I do. John Kerry flying places in private jets. Thats why I was so drawn to Trump. I was at a breaking point.

I was genuinely dumbstruck by this. As someone who loves a chocolate shake, I also find forcible paper straw usage to be an utterly moronic inconvenience of modern urban life. But connecting that to support for Donald Trump? Being upset with Joe Biden about private companies switching to deteriorating straws? This anger didnt click with me at all.

Whatever the underlying reason, these Demonizers have decided that the left, the media, the Lincoln Project, the big-tech oligarchs, the social justice warriors, the people who put they/them pronouns in their email signature, the parents who take their kids to drag queen story hour, the Black Lives Matter protesters and the wokes who want to make stolen land acknowledgments at the start of meetings are all so evil that there is no need to even grapple with the log in their own eye. Trump was a human eff you to the bastards they thought were out to get them. Once youve decided that the other side are the baddies, everything else falls into place rather quickly.

Then you had the LOL Nothing Matters Republicans. This cadre gained steam over the years, especially among my former peers in the campaign set. It is a comforting ethos if you are professionally obligated to defend the indefensible day in and day out. Their arguments no longer needed to have merit or be consistent because, LOL, nothing matters. Right? The founder of the Trumpy right-wing website The Federalist, Ben Domenech is, I believe, the one who coined it. He said the LOLNMRs were inherently fatalist, believing that the most apocalyptic predictions about right and left are happening no matter what and that the lights will go down in the West. Now, from my vantage point, thats a rather ostentatious way of describing the standard-issue prep school man-child of privilege contrarian cynicism that has been memorialized in teen cinema for ages . . . but you get the point. The LOLNMRs had decided that if someone like Trump could win, then everything that everyone does in politics is meaningless. So they became nihilists. Some eventually took jobs working for Trump; others flipped from center-right normie game players to MAGAfied populist warriors in a flash; still others gave themselves a cocoon of protection working for the Mitch McConnells of the world, staying Trump adjacent so as to not have to challenge their newly developing worldview. But all of them avoided any of the hard questions of the era, wrapping themselves in the comfortably smug sense of self-satisfaction that comes with a lack of concern for consequences.

The professional Tribalist Trolls overlap in their tactics with the Nothing Matters crowd but are different in that they at least have an ethos. Whatever is good for their side is good. And whatever is bad for the other side is good. Simple as that. In the early social media era, I was attracted to this mindset, and for a time when the stakes seemed lower, I was even a member of their ranks. But during the Trump years, I became aghast as it spread like a virus to peoples parents and friends and well . . . some days it feels like pretty much everyone? Or at least everyone who is part of the online political discourse.

If you want to know if you are a Tribalist Troll, ask yourself this when something horrible happens in the news, does your mind impulsively hope someone from the other tribe is responsible? Nobody wants to admit that they do this. But social media has laid bare our darker angels, and we can now see in real time that a large swath of the participants in our civic dialogue have reduced themselves to the most base type of Tribalist. Veterans of the very online Washington wars have warped themselves to such a degree that every news item, every action, is not something that requires a real-world solution that mitigates the suffering, but is just the latest data point in our online forever war. Many people believe the bullshit they are being sold about their opponents to such a degree that there is an internet culture adage Poes law, which indicates that no matter how over-the-top your parody may be of your political opponent, some of your followers will believe it to be real because theyve been so conditioned to hear the other sides awfulness. This insidious Weltanschauung has infected everything from sports message boards to recipe websites to online gaming, which are all now consumed by politicized power users who want to turn every corner of our society into their battlefield. This has created a reinforcing feedback loop up to the politicians and media personalities who are rewarded for constantly embiggening their troll game and expanding the remit outside the bounds of campaign politics. Ive seen decent people become so warped by this imaginary battle that they began to appreciate Trumps skill at trolling it even if they were personally repulsed by him. Of all the categories of enablement, this might be the most pernicious and inexpiable.

Naturally, in Washington there are those who dont need complex ideological justifications for their actions because they are pure old-fashioned Strivers. Some, especially the politicians, are motivated by a blind ambition that is just frankly not that interesting. The fact that pols want to attain higher office so they contort themselves to the whims of the crowd is not a new or unique phenomenon, nor does it merit much deep examination. Its the first subcategory to the worlds oldest profession. But theres a uniquely Washington class of Striver that was drawn to Trump like moths to an orange flame. This species doesnt necessarily want to move up the career ladder for ambitions sake, but instead, they crave merely the possibility of being in the mix.

Every Striver city has a drug that best suits its residents. In New York its money . . . and coke. In Los Angeles its fame . . . and coke. In Silicon Valley its the chance to be a revered disruptor, changer of worlds . . . and microdosing. In D.C. the drug of choice is a little more down-market. All political staffers really want is to be in the mix. Its not even the power itself that they crave. That would be less pathetic, frankly. Its the proximity to power. For these Little Mixes, its the ability to tell your friends back home that you were in the room where it happened. (If its possible for an entire body to cringe while typing, thats what mine did when I wrote in the room where it happened.)

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There Are 11 Types of Donald Trump Enablers. Which One Are You? - POLITICO

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As Trumps star wanes, another rises: could Ron DeSantis be the new Maga bearer? – The Guardian US

Posted: at 3:58 am

He was the most powerful man in the world, the possessor of the nuclear codes. Yet he behaved like a deranged manchild who threw temper tantrums and food against the wall.

That was the tragicomic story told to America last Tuesday at a congressional hearing that had even seasoned Donald Trump watchers lifting their jaws off the floor and speculating that his political career might finally be over.

In two seismic hours in Washington, Cassidy Hutchinson, a 25-year-old former White House aide, told the panel investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol that the former president had effectively gone haywire.

She described how Trump knew a mob of his supporters had armed itself with rifles, yet he asked for metal detectors to be removed. She also recounted how his desire to lead them to the Capitol caused a physical altercation with the Secret Service, and how in a fit of rage he threw his lunch against a White House wall, staining it with tomato ketchup.

Trump, who once called himself a very stable genius, vehemently denied the allegations but the political damage was done. Infighting and plotting engulfed a Republican party that had hoped the House of Representatives committee hearings would pass as a non-event.

Instead they have exceeded all expectations and could prove terminal to Trumps ambition of regaining the presidency in 2024 if Republican leaders, donors and voters run out of patience and decide to move on.

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinsons Tuesday testimony ought to ring the death knell for former President Donald Trumps political career, said an editorial in the Washington Examiner, a conservative news website. Trump is unfit to be anywhere near power ever again.

The column concluded: Trump is a disgrace. Republicans have far better options to lead the party in 2024. No one should think otherwise, much less support him, ever again.

Seemingly aware of his growing political vulnerability, Trump is reportedly considering announcing another run for the White House sooner than expected. He has teased the prospect at recent rallies and, according to the New York Times, told advisers that he might declare his candidacy on social media without warning even his own team.

Such a move could have the added impetus of heading off a new star rising in the Republican firmament. Ron DeSantis, the pugnacious governor of Florida, is widely seen as his heir apparent and biggest rival for the Republican presidential nomination in two years time. At 43, DeSantis is more than three decades younger and is free of Trumps January 6 toxicity.

Speaking from Tallahassee, longtime Republican strategist Rick Wilson of Florida said: Ive picked up the same rumors that everybody else is hearing that Ron DeSantiss people are practically picking out curtains in the White House after Tuesday.

Apparently they feel like this was a phenomenal day for them, that it was a great breakdown of Trumps malfeasance and they didnt have to bring the attack it was brought by one of his former loyalists. If you look at it in terms of the 2024 nomination process, it was a consequential day.

Wilson, author of Everything Trump Touches Dies, cautioned that the twice impeached former president has been written off countless times before only to bounce back. But Trump has not faced a challenger like DeSantis.

DeSantis has been very carefully building out a presidential campaign for 2024 to primary Donald Trump, raising money, building relationships, going out there and quietly whispering: Hes crazy, Im not, Im younger, Im smarter, Im thinner, Im better looking. I can deliver more for you than the crazy old orange guy, Wilson said.

DeSantis certainly has political buzz. Ed Rollins, another Republican strategist, also believes Trump could be done, and has launched a group called Ready for Ron to gather details of DeSantis supporters ahead of an expected presidential bid.

An opinion poll released last week in the state of New Hampshire, traditionally the site of the first presidential primary, showed DeSantis in a statistical tie with Trump among likely Republican voters.

The University of New Hampshire poll found 39% supported DeSantis, with 37% backing Trump a big swing from October, when Trump had double the support DeSantis did. Former vice-president Mike Pence, who is exploring a 2024 campaign after breaking with Trump post the Capitol insurrection, was in a distant third at 9%.

There have been other clues that Trumps hold on Republican voters is not what it was. He has seen mixed results for his most high-profile endorsements in key states during this years midterm elections, in which DeSantis is seeking reelection as Florida governor.

DeSantis has proved himself a financial powerhouse, raising more than $120m since winning office in 2018. Recent financial disclosures showed his political accounts had over $110m in cash in mid-June.

Trumps Save America group, meanwhile, had just over $100m in cash at the end of May.

Republican donor Dan Eberhart told the Reuters news agency that three-quarters of roughly 150 fellow donors with whom he regularly interacts backed Trump six months ago, with a quarter going for DeSantis. But now the balance has shifted and about two-thirds want DeSantis as the 2024 standard bearer.

Eberhart was quoted as saying: The donor class is ready for something new. And DeSantis feels more fresh and more calibrated than Trump. Hes easier to defend, hes less likely to embarrass and hes got the momentum.

And the January 6 hearings are far from over. The six sessions so far have pointed the finger firmly at Trump as the unhinged architect of a failed coup who pushed conspiracy theories about voter fraud he knew to be false and was willing to let his supporters hang his own vice-president.

A survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 48% of American adults say Trump should be charged with a crime for his role. The crisply presented hearings would have been enough to bury any other politician for good.

Political scientist Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, said: If the testimony stands as delivered, many Republicans will begin to ask themselves whether it wouldnt be preferable to find a candidate with Mr Trumps views but not his vices.

And, of course, there is such a candidate waiting in the wings. Tuesdays hearing was a Ron DeSantis for president rally because it underscored the risks of sticking with Mr Trump for a third consecutive presidential election.

Galston, a former senior policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, described DeSantis as the distilled essence of what the post-Reagan Republican party has become. In addition, its clear to the Republican base that, like Trump, hes a fighter. Like Trump, he is not at all deterred by liberal criticism.

Some believe the cumulative effect of the January 6 hearings could be enough to persuade many in the Make America great again base that, even while they remain devoted fans of Trump, he is no longer the pragmatic choice to oust Democrat Joe Biden from the Oval Office.

The big question for Republicans moving forward is: do they want to carry this baggage of Trump into 2024? said the director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, Larry Jacobs.

When youre battling to win over independent voters and when youre going to be handed a platform that could very well present a referendum on the insider party, the Democrats, it doesnt make sense even for a lot of Republican Trump supporters. Trump and his influence and his future prospects are fading fast.

But the populist-nationalism that the ex-president branded America first does look set to survive him, Jacobs added.

In the primaries, theres going to be a battle of who can carry Trumpism without Trump and thats going to be ethnic nationalism, attacks on the liberal cultural tilt of this moment, Jacobs said. You go to a Trump rally, a lot of those lines are going to be evident.

For Democrats, it may be a case of being careful about what you wish for. DeSantis was a relatively obscure congressman when Trump endorsed him for Florida governor in 2018 and has proven a worthy disciple, sparring with everyone from journalists to Disney to what he calls the woke left.

After the coronavirus pandemic took hold in 2020, he relaxed restrictions on businesses and schools in defiance of federal guidelines and overruled local officials who sought to preserve mask mandates.

DeSantis has also enacted numerous conservative bills with the help of Floridas Republican-controlled legislature, including an election police force dedicated to investigating alleged voter fraud, new voting limits and banning teachers from discussing gender identity with young children which critics decry as the dont say gay law.

He also effectively commandeered the redistricting process from Floridas state legislature, vetoing their congressional map and substituting his own proposal that eliminated two majority-Black districts while delivering four additional seats to Republicans.

Some fear that, as president, DeSantis would represent Trump 2.0 a refined, purified version without the incompetence, more efficient and ruthless and able to get things done.

Wilson, the longtime Republican consultant and Trump critic from Florida, commented: Ron DeSantis in Florida has accumulated enormous power. He has taken power away from the legislature. He is attempting to take power away from independent colleges and universities and to literally replace governance at every institution in Florida from top to bottom with the governors office.

I grew up in a time where Republicans thought a hyper powerful executive was not a great thing but Ron DeSantis has a very different opinion of executive power and he, as president, would engage in its use at a scale that would be dangerous for the country at a lot of levels.

The first nominating contests for the 2024 election are more than 18 months away, and the long term impact of the January 6 hearings remains uncertain. Lou Marin, executive vice president of the Florida Republican Assembly, does not think they will change minds. People who are paying attention realize that its a kangaroo court, he said. They need to move on and start doing their job instead of wasting taxpayer dollars.

DeSantis will also be wary of peaking too early and keenly aware that Trump, who famously boasted that he could shoot someone and not lose any voters, remains his partys most popular figure. A Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll this week found 56% of Republican voters said they would back the former president well ahead of DeSantis on 16%.

Former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said: A lot of people want to put a tombstone on the grave but Donald Trump is still above ground. Hes still walking the earth and has a lot of political clout with a lot more people inside the party than folks may want to admit.

Those bridges are in front of us. We havent come to them yet to see exactly what these extra revelations will now present in terms of further chiseling away Donald Trumps hold on the party.

Some Democrats argue that DeSantis would be preferable because, unlike Trump, he would not threaten the foundations of Americas constitutional democracy.

But Steele warned: Whos the better thief, the one who breaks the window to get into your house or the one whos craftily picked the lock? DeSantis knows how not to trip the alarm system.

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As Trumps star wanes, another rises: could Ron DeSantis be the new Maga bearer? - The Guardian US

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Donald J. Trump, meanest of mean girls: He so doesn’t want to be our friend anymore – Salon

Posted: at 3:58 am

Testimony before the House Jan. 6 committee has often been cringeworthy, primarily because what Donald Trump was actively trying to do his steadfast intent, in the face of all evidence and most of the advice from the approximately sane people around him is abundantly clear to anyone who has an open mind.

But it gets especially excruciating when we have to hear accounts of Trump getting all hissy and hurt, his tantrums turning to vindictiveness, like an immature, petulant high school student. (Most likely a ninth-grader with emotional problems.)

None of that behavior is surprising, because Donald John Trump has always shown everyone around him and indeed everyone, period precisely who he is, a shameless man-boy who lies andcheats to get ahead and takes pleasure in bullying others, all the while bleating about how others treat him unfairly because they accurately point out that he's a liar, cheat and bully.

RELATED:Did "surprise witness" Cassidy Hutchinson save America from Trump's comeback?

He's a human Mbius strip of misdirection, misinformation and misappropriation of funds from his supporters.

We've always known that Trump was happy to encourage violence among his followers, so while it was shocking to hear about him reportedly throwing White House lunches and dinners against the wall or onto the floor, or about his henchmen's alleged efforts to influence witnesses, mob-style, it wasn't exactly surprising.

Everybody's talking about Cassidy Hutchinson's bombshell testimony but let's go back to the Jan. 5 session when Trump tried to browbeat Mike Pence.

In its sessions so far, the Jan. 6 committee has covered a lot of ground. While everyone and their uncle is talking about former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson's bombshell testimony during the surprise hearing on June 28, let's not forget the session that focused on Trump's relationship with his fanboy vice president, whom we now know Trump was willing to see hanged in front of the Capitol by the armed mob he had summoned to Washington and whipped into a fury.

In meeting with Mike Pence and John Eastman the attorney full of imaginative schemes who later on just wondered about that pardon on Jan. 5, 2021, the eve of You Know What, Trump reportedly pressed the veep to do his bidding in his usual mature manner: "You can either go down in history as a patriot, or you can go down in history as a pussy." (We don't know whether any of the White House china wound up on the floor during this encounter.)

When Pence correctly responded that he had no constitutional authority to stop or reject the certification of the electoral votes, according to the account in "Peril," by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, Trump tried to appeal to some untapped adolescent side within the pious Hoosier, asking him: "But wouldn't it almost be cool to have that power?"

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

While it's a bit of a stretch to call Mike Pence a hero, his backbone had apparently been stiffened by conversations with former Vice President Dan Quayle and retired federal judge J. Michael Luttig (man of exceedingly slow answers), and he continued to resist. That was when Trump pulled out his big guns, threatening Pence with the horror of taking away his friendship:

When Pence did not budge, Trump turned on him.

"No, no, no! Trump shouted, according to the authors. "You don't understand, Mike. You can do this. I don't want to be your friend anymore if you don't do this."

One is reminded of the queen bee character played by Rachel McAdams in Tina Fey's spot-on 2004 film "Mean Girls." She wouldn't have been so pathetically direct about it, but manipulating others by leveraging her "friendship" was certainly how she rolled.

But that wasn't the final card pulled by Mean Girl Trump in the climactic Pence meeting. When the vice president refused to play along with Trump's plot to subvert the Constitution and undo the outcome of a legitimate election, Trump called on his public, via social media and speeches and anything else he could think of, to "tell on" Pence and ramp up the pressure for him to "do the right thing." What's more, he kept that up well after he had to know that Pence was in real physical danger at the Capitol.

People inside the White House, including the former president's daughter Ivanka, have testified that Trump phoned Pence on the morning of the insurrection and during a final heated conversation called him a "wimp" and a "pussy."

Trump's deepest fear, through all this, was that he might wind up being thought of as a loser. Asreported by the New York Times, the day before Trump and his many co-conspirators in the West Wing, in the "war room" at the Willard hotel and in the Capitol itself kicked off the insurrection for real, he admitted as much to people around him:

The president has told several people privately that he would rather lose with people thinking it was stolen from him than that he simply lost, according to people familiar with his remarks.

That is so, so high school. And there it is again, the knowledge that what he was doing was based on a lie (in case "Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen" wasn't enough for you). Trump always planned to say the 2020 election was stolen if he didn't win. He started undermining the process in the eyes of his supporters back in the 2016 primaries and then when he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million.

As we have learned from the committee hearings, Trump also understood that his Big Lie about election fraud presented him another opportunity for grift. He reportedly brought in some $250 million from his supporters for a nonexistent election defense fund (which was supposed to investigate nonexistent election fraud), emailing his small-dollar donors dozens of times a day.

People of my generation are always hoping that members of the younger generation will step up and save us from ourselves. Cassidy Hutchinson, a well-spoken 25-year-old, did just that. It was remarkably brave of her to do the right thing, to tell the truth about what she saw and heard in the mob social club of the Trump White House. (It's also reasonable to ask what she thought she was doing there in the first place.)

The ultimate lesson of these hearings so far is clear: The former president of the United States still thinks it might be "cool" to destroy democracy, and if you don't want to go along with that he definitely won't be your friend anymore and might just encourage his followers to string you up.

As Salon columnist and longtime White House correspondent Brian Karem noted recently, if our democracy is to survive, this dangerous mean girl must finally face the consequences of his actions. Seeing Trump and his enablers prosecuted would only be a first step toward our national recovery, but a vitally important one. It might make sure that future presidents don't emulate his example and remind them that "being our friend" isn't actually part of the job.

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Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson won’t back ‘risk to the nation’ Donald Trump – New York Post

Posted: at 3:57 am

Outgoing Republican Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson vowed Friday that he would not support Donald Trump if the former president decides to make another White House run in 2024 with Hutchinson saying Trump constituted a risk to the nation in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.

As you can see from the testimony on Jan. 6, then and subsequent to the election where he was challenging the legality of it, the lawful transfer of [power] yes, that was a threat to our democracy. That was a threat to our institutions of government, Hutchinson told CBS Mornings. And thats not the behavior we want to see in a responsible president.

Hutchinson, who is likely to be succeeded as governor by former Trump White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, added that he did not believe the House select committee investigating last years Capitol riot had proven criminal wrongdoing by Trump in connection with the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

When asked if he agreed with select committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) that Trump constituted a danger to the US, Hutchinson eventually agreed.

Everybody phrases a different way, the governor said. I would not be supporting him for 2024. He acted irresponsibly. During that time, he was a risk to the nation, absolutely.

Trump has yet to announce whether he intends to run for president again, though he has teased a final decision to follow this Novembers midterm elections.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is widely seen as the most credible challenger to Trump, but the former president has expressed optimism over the outcome of any potential primary contest, telling the New Yorkerrecently I think I would win a showdown with DeSantis.

AR Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) says Jan 6 testimony shows Trump was a "threat to our democracy."

"I would not be supporting him for 2024. He acted irresponsibly, during that time he was a risk to the nation, absolutely," he tells @edokeefe. pic.twitter.com/HbrdFOzy61

Asa Hutchinsons comments came three days after Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top aide in the Trump White House, testified before the Jan. 6 committee and made several bombshell claims including that Trump knew several of his supporters were armed at the Stop The Steal rally that preceded the Capitol riot and that he made a lunge at a Secret Service agent after he was unable to travel to the Capitol building that same day.

Her testimony has since been called into question by sources close to the Secret Service, who claim the lunge never happened.

Asa Hutchinson, who is not believed to be related to Cassidy Hutchinson, praised her testimony as very compelling Friday.

I think she clearly demonstrated her concern and love for our country, the governor said. She came across with a great deal of credibility, but whats the challenge with the committee is theyre not having cross-examination. Theyre not having other points of view, and so that makes it more difficult Secondly, they got into hearsay and thats where, if they cant back that up, it undermines that testimony.

The committee will hold at least one more hearing this month and hopes to wrap up its work by the beginning of next year, when Republicans are expected to take control of the House of Representatives.

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Swedish official says Donald Trump threatened trade war to have A$AP Rocky released from prison – NME

Posted: at 3:57 am

Swedens Justice Minister, Morgan Johansson, has reportedly claimed that former US President Donald Trump threatened a trade war against the European nation in his bid to have A$AP Rocky released from prison.

The rapper (real name Rakim Mayers) was arrested in Stockholm on June 30, 2019, and spent close to a month imprisoned in the city he was held in police custody from July 3 to August 2 before ultimately being found guilty of assault against a 19-year-old man. After a two-week trial, Mayers was handed a conditional sentence and ordered to pay damages.

Trump became embroiled in the drama midway through July 2019, when a report claimed that Kanye West and his (now ex-)wife Kim Kardashian lobbied the former Presidents administration to secure Mayers release. Trump himself then corroborated the report, Tweeting that he will be calling the very talented Prime Minister of Sweden to see what we can do about helping A$AP Rocky.

Trumps intervention in the matter proved controversial, earning the ire of both Mayers fellow musicians and the Swedish government, a representative of whom declared that everyone is equal before the law and the government cannot interfere in legal proceedings.

In a new interview with Swedish news outlet Dagens Nyheter, Johansson reportedly expounded on the way Trump approached his plea to have Mayers released, saying the country was warned about trade restrictions they would face if the rapper was not freed. As The Independent reports, Trump allegedly sought additional support from the European Commission.

This story demonstrates how important it really is to stand up for our legal principles and not to take our democracy for granted, Johansson is said to have argued. If you can try and do something like this against Sweden, what will you then try and do to slightly weaker countries that dont have the European Union behind them?

Trump was the first to break the news of Mayers eventual release from Swedish prison, though it was reported that he turned against the rapper less than a month later, when Mayers and his manager allegedly didnt thank Trump and his team for their involvement in his release.

Mayers later denied that he didnt express any gratitude towards Trump. Last June, however, he reflected on the situation and admitted that Trumps interference in it made it a little worse.

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Donald Trump Jr.’s July 4 Message Is Being Roasted On Twitter – The List

Posted: at 3:57 am

To his credit, Donald Trump Jr.'s holiday message was simple and uncontroversial. He tweeted, "Happy 4th of July America," followed by three American flag emojis. However, apart from the lack of punctuation, the tweet had just one teeny flaw: he posted it on July 1, three days early.Twitter rushed to set the former first son straight. "Today's the 1st, Einstein," replied a follower. Another respondent followed up, "His math has never been good. His timing even worse."One commenter had a simple wish: "Just go away. That is what America wants for this birthday."

Many responders noted the irony of celebrating the holiday just days after the reversal of Roe v. Wade, a decision that will have far-reaching effects for the country. Several replied with the meme,"4th of July has been canceled due to a shortage of independence. Sincerely, Women." Then there was the person who took issuewith Trump Jr. calling the holiday "July 4." They posted a meme saying, "Remember, it's INDEPENDENCE DAY, not the 4th of July. We celebrate sweet liberty and the founding fathers, not a calendar date."

Still, Trump Jr. did have a few supporters. One pointed out that the holiday falls on a long weekend in 2022, so he might be busy on the 4th. "Everyone says it logging off for the end of the week. How's this a criticism to celebrate freedom for 3 days? Should be celebrated 365."

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The January 6 Committee Is Going to Have the Final Word – The Atlantic

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During its astonishing Tuesday hearing about Donald Trumps actions on the day of January 6, the House select committee investigating the insurrection made clear that the integrity of its work is under threat. The same people who drove the former presidents pressure campaign to overturn the election are now trying to cover up the truth about January 6, warned committee chair Bennie Thompson. But thanks to the courage of certain individuals, the truth wont be buried. The main individual he seemed to have in mind was Cassidy Hutchinson, once an aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who testified to the former presidents violent and bizarre behaviordemanding that rally-goers with guns and knives be allowed onto the Ellipse to hear his speech and exploding in rage when his security detail refused to drive him to the Capitol, as rioters there began to overwhelm law enforcement.

At the hearings end, the committee displayed messages received by some of those interviewed by investigators, apparently in an effort to push them to toe Trumps party line rather than speak honestly. (Reporting has since revealed that one of those messages was sent to Hutchinson herself.) Speaking again of Hutchinson, Thompson declared to witnesses who had bowed to such threats or participated in making them: Because of this courageous woman and others like her, your attempt to hide the truth from the American people will fail.

David A. Graham: The most damning January 6 testimony yet

As Thompsons comments suggest, the January 6 committee has made the work of uncovering truth the lodestar of its public hearings. In a sense, of course, every congressional hearing is an effort to establish facts: Witnesses commonly swear, as Hutchinson did, to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; false statements before Congress can be prosecuted even if theyre not made under oath. And as a committee established to uncover what happened on January 6, naturally the panel would be focused on the truth of the matter. But the January 6 committees hearings have so far been unusually powerful as a paean to the value of facts. The committee seems to take seriously its responsibility to establish an official record of the insurrection, and to communicate that record to the public in as accessible a manner as possible. That clarity is bracing in a political moment fogged with lies.

Almost from the beginning of this series of blockbuster hearings, the committee has been up-front about its intention not just to tell the truth, but to do so bluntly and directly. During the committees first open session in June, Thompson attempted to cut through legal jargon that might be off-putting to viewers, telling them that all discussion of arcane criminal statutes and legal culpability boils down to this: January 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup. Trump and his supporters, Thompson argued, had tried to rewrite history by playing down what happened. And so, Thompson said, it was crucial that the committee remind youthe publicof the reality of what happened that day.

The absence of pro-Trump Republicans on the committeethanks to an early decision by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy that the GOP leadership reportedly now regretshas allowed investigators an unusual degree of freedom in pinning the blame for January 6 exactly where it belongs: on Trump himself. Each of the six public hearings convened so far has zeroed in on different aspects of Trumps personal involvement with the Big Lie and efforts to overturn the 2020 election. This is a notable shift from the very first congressional report on January 6, released last year by the bipartisan Senate Rules and Administration Committee and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. That document cataloged a cascade of failures across the Capitol Police, the Pentagon, and the Justice Department, but pulled its punches when it came to the question of the former presidents involvementreportedly, according to The New York Times, because Republicans have refused to ask questions about the riot that could turn up unflattering information about Mr. Trump or members of their party.

No such soft-pedaling was evident during the select committees Tuesday hearing, when Hutchinson testified again and again about Trumps enthusiasm for the riot. He thinks Mike deserves it, she remembered Meadows saying of Trumps response to insurrectionists chants of Hang Mike Pence. Likewise, previous January 6 hearings were brutally blunt in displaying the disturbing violence of the insurrection and its lasting effects on the Capitol Police officers who were injuredand the ugliness and racism of the threats leveled by Trump supporters against election officials who were trying to do the essential work of counting votes.

This stands in contrast to the sheer volume of election lies produced by Trump and his campaign. The committee emphasized how the Trump campaign sent millions of fundraising emails to Trump supporters between Election Day and January 6, built on false claims of fraud. Likewise, the former Justice Department official Richard Donoghue testified that there were so many of these allegations of voter fraud that even when officials provided Trump with a very direct answer on one of them, he wouldnt fight us on it, but he would move on to another allegation. As a colleague, the former Lawfare managing editor Jacob Schulz, observed to me, the committee has presented Trump and his campaigns approach to selling the Big Lie as essentially a project of spamming: drowning out the facts of what really happened, and the possibility of understanding that truth, with an endless barrage of falsehoods.

Sorting through this flood of information (and disinformation) to figure out whats really true is a difficult taskwhich is why the committees focus on providing viewers with a clear, easy-to-follow narrative is so valuable, especially after a year and a half of intentional obfuscation by Republicans about what happened. The panel is reestablishing the facts in a fashion that leaves the GOP with little room to confuse people once again. Investigators have been aided by former ABC News President James Goldston, who has helped produce the hearings as something more akin to an engaging television series than a typical congressional panel. With each days hearing, the Jan. 6 committee has committed to a single story with a narrative arc, NPRs media critic, David Folkenflik, wrote. One television producer told The New York Times, For the first time since Trump became president, there is a clarity of message and a clear story that is being told.

The committees use of journalistic tools points to something important. In recent years, many discussions of the falsehoods drowning out American political discourse have framed the battle for attention as a fight between a dwindling number of media organizations committed to the facts, on one side, and shameless liars pursuing their own self-interest, on the other. But as the committee is vividly demonstrating, other institutions can have a commitment to the truth as welleven a political institution such as Congress.

The legislative branch is not usually known as a temple to candor. Yet the committees work shows just how much Congress can be capable of when it tries. As Thompson; the committee vice chair, Liz Cheney; and others on the committee have emphasized, as members of Congress they have all sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution. That oath, Cheney declared during the committees first hearing, must mean somethingarguing for the significance of the committees work and the integrity of the democracy it seeks to protect. The committee is creating a definitive record and insisting on the importance of the values that Trump sought to undermine, truth among them.

Anne Applebaum: The reason Liz Cheney is narrating the January 6 story

Trump himself seems to recognize the effectiveness of the panels approach, reportedly complaining about how the absence of pro-Trump Republicans on the committee makes it difficult to complicate the story with his version of events. But the former president and his allies are still doing their best to muddy the waters. In response to Hutchinsons damning testimony, Trump seized on her memory of being told that the president had lunged for the steering wheel of the SUV carrying him away from the Ellipse, grappling with a Secret Service agent to try to direct the car toward the Capitol. Her Fake story is sick and fraudulent, he wrote on his Twitter look-alike, Truth Social. After anonymous sources close to the Secret Service suggested to reporters that the altercation hadnt taken place, the far-right Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene argued that Congress should focus its energy on taking apart the SUV story.

There seems to be at least some degree of legitimate confusion about what happened in the SUV. But in large part, these criticisms are bad-faith attacks by people uninterested in what the committee has to say. They intentionally ignore the fact that the Secret Service reportedly does not dispute that Trump wanted to go to the Capitol after his speech on the Ellipsewhich is far more relevant in evaluating Trumps intentions to gin up the riot than a tussle over a steering wheel. By focusing on one minor if salacious anecdote, they also draw attention away from the volumes of other incriminating and undisputed material in Hutchinsons testimony about Trumps role in engineering the insurrection. Meanwhile, committee members have expressed confidence in what Hutchinson had to say, noting that she swore an oath to tell the truth in front of millions of viewersunlike many of those challenging her testimony in anonymous comments to reporters.

All the same, this odd sideshow underlines just how difficult creating a definitive factual record isparticularly of an event that involved so many different narrative threads, and in which so many liars were involved. Its easier to confuse than to clarify, and its easier to lose trust than to regain that trust after a mistake is made.

So the committees investigators are engaged in a perilous high-wire act. But so far, they havent fallen.

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