So many people don't yet realize how close we came on January 6th. Others don't care. How I miss my naive younger days when I thought we all supported the basic principle of majority rule.

Source: Associated Press

GARLAND, Texas (AP) — Dallas-area police have charged a 14-year-old with capital murder in a triple killing at a gas station and are warning that the boy is at large, armed and dangerous.

Police in Garland are seeking Abel Elias Acosta and said Wednesday that they have evidence showing he was the gunman who left three teens dead and wounded a fourth at the suburban gas station’s convenience store Sunday.

Acosta is the son of Richard Acosta, 33, who turned himself into police Monday and is also charged with capital murder for allegedly acting as a get-away driver in the shooting, police said in a statement. A juvenile court has issued an order to take the younger Acosta into custody, police said, and authorized them to publicly release his name.

Prosecutors will determine whether the teen is charged as a minor or an adult, said Lt. Pedro Barineau.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/texas-dallas-crime-shootings-162a3954c61c4ac3d60111800f6c2ca2

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Another multiple murderer. Police are saying the boy's father drove him there to do the killing with than 20 rounds from a .40-caliber pistol.

I thought some of you might be following this.

ETA: Link to prior DU discussion COVID outbreak on cruise ship approaching New Orleans

Source: The Guardian

The former US defense secretary Mark Esper claims in a lawsuit against the defense department that material is being improperly withheld from him as he seeks to publish an “unvarnished and candid memoir” of his time in Donald Trump’s cabinet.

The lawsuit, which was filed on Sunday in the US district court in Washington, describes the memoir, A Sacred Oath, as an account of Esper’s tenure as army secretary from 2017 to 2019 and his 18 months as defense secretary, which ended when Trump fired him in a tweet just days after the president lost his reelection bid.

The period in which Esper was Pentagon chief was “an unprecedented time of civil unrest, public health crises, growing threats abroad, Pentagon transformation, and a White House seemingly bent on circumventing the constitution”, the lawsuit says.

Esper and Trump were sharply divided over the use of the military during civil unrest in June 2020 following the killing of George Floyd. Other issues led the president to believe Esper was not sufficiently loyal while Esper believed he was trying to keep the department apolitical. Firing a defense secretary after an election loss was unprecedented, but the opening allowed Trump to install loyalists in top Pentagon positions as he continued to dispute his election loss.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/29/ex-defense-secretary-sues-over-withheld-material-from-trump-era-memoir-mark-esper

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Looks like the DoD is trying to torpedo Esper's forthcoming book.

Source: Salon

In what's being called the "biggest-ever leak of offshore data," a cache of nearly 12 million files published Sunday laid bare the hidden wealth, secret dealings, and corruption of hundreds of world leaders, billionaires, public officials, celebrities, and others.

The bombshell revelations—known as the Pandora Papers—were published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and include private emails, secret contracts, and other records obtained during a two-year investigation involving more than 600 journalists in 117 countries and territories.

"This is the Panama Papers on steroids," said ICIJ director Gerard Ryle, referring to the 2016 exposé of the tax-evading secrets of the super-rich. "It's broader, richer, and has more detail."

Read more: https://www.salon.com/2021/10/03/pandora-papers-biggest-ever-bombshell-leak-exposes-financial-secrets-of-the-super-rich_partner/

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The Panama Papers on steroids. This should get interesting.

This looks promising.

Source: CNN

Former President George W. Bush on Saturday called on Americans to confront domestic violent extremists, comparing them to violent extremists abroad and warning that they are "children of the same foul spirit."

In a speech marking the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Bush said the US has seen "growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders, but from violence that gathers within."

"There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home," Bush said. "But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit."

"And it is our continuing duty to confront them," he added.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/11/politics/george-w-bush-9-11-speech-domestic-violent-extremism/index.html

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The January 6 insurrectionists were terrorists. George W. Bush just indicted them.

Four conspiracy theorists marched into the Oval Office. It was early evening on Friday, Dec. 18 — more than a month after the election had been declared for Joe Biden, and four days after the Electoral College met in every state to make it official.

"How the hell did Sidney get in the building?" White House senior adviser Eric Herschmann grumbled from the outer Oval Office as Sidney Powell and her entourage strutted by to visit the president.

President Trump's private schedule hadn't included appointments for Powell or the others: former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, and a little-known former Trump administration official, Emily Newman. But they'd come to convince Trump that he had the power to take extreme measures to keep fighting.

As Powell and the others entered the Oval Office that evening, Herschmann - a wealthy business executive and former partner at Kasowitz Benson & Torres who'd been pulled out of quasi-retirement to advise Trump - quietly slipped in behind them.

https://www.axios.com/trump-oval-office-meeting-sidney-powell-a8e1e466-2e42-42d0-9cf1-26eb267f8723.html

Long read but well worth the time. If you want to know just how nutty Trump and his followers are, then here ya go.