Alexei Navalny being led away by officers upon return to Russia

Dear Commons Community,

A Russian judge yesterday ordered opposition leader Alexei Navalny jailed for 30 days, after the leading Kremlin critic returned to Russia from Germany where he was recovering from nerve agent poisoning that he blames on President Vladimir Putin’s government. As reported by the Associated Press.

“The ruling followed a hastily set up court hearing at a police precinct where Navalny was being held since his arrest at a Moscow airport on Sunday evening, which sparked sharp reactions both at home and around the world.

A crowd of Navalny supporters outside the precinct shouted “Shame!” as the judge announced the ruling and Navalny’s allies immediately called for protests. His arrest had already prompted a wave of criticism from U.S. and European officials, adding to existing tensions between Russia and the West.

His top strategist, Leonid Volkov, announced preparations for “large rallies” on Saturday “all across the country.”

“Don’t be afraid, take to the streets,” Navalny said in a video statement released after the ruling was announced. “Don’t come out for me, come out for yourselves and your future.”

At least 13 protesters were detained yesterday outside the police precinct where the court hearing was held, and at least 55 demonstrators were rounded up by police in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, according to activists.

The 44-year-old Navalny, Putin’s most well-known critic, campaigned to challenge him in the 2018 presidential election but was barred from running. He has issued scores of damning reports over the years about corruption in Russia under Putin’s regime. After recuperating for months in Berlin after his Aug. 20 poisoning, he returned to Russia on Sunday evening despite the warrant for his arrest.

As expected, Navalny was detained at passport control at Sheremetyevo Airport after the plane was diverted from landing at another Moscow airport in what was seen as an attempt to foil supporters who had gathered to cheer their hero’s arrival.

Russia’s prison service said Navalny had violated probation terms from a suspended sentence on a 2014 money-laundering conviction, which he says is contrived and politically motivated. The service said it would seek to have Navalny serve his 3½-year sentence behind bars.

Navalny described the move as an attempt by the Kremlin to deter him from coming back to Russia to continue his political activities.

A court hearing on the prison service’s motion to have Navalny serve his suspended sentence in prison is scheduled for Feb. 2, according to his lawyers.

Amnesty International, which called Navalny a prisoner of conscience, denounced Monday’s court hearing as a “mockery of justice.”

Calls for Navalny’s immediate release have come from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and top officials of other EU nations.

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s pick for national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, also called on Russian authorities to free Navalny, and the outgoing U.S. secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said the U.S. “strongly condemns” the decision to arrest the opposition leader.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday that the stream of Western reactions to Navalny’s arrest reflected an attempt “to divert attention from the deep crisis of the liberal model of development.”

“Navalny’s case has received a foreign policy dimension artificially and without any foundation,” Lavrov said, arguing that the detention was a prerogative of Russian law enforcement agencies. “It’s a matter of observing the law.”

Navalny spent the night at the police precinct outside Moscow. In a highly unusual development, the court hearing on Monday was held right at the precinct, and his lawyers said they were notified only minutes before.

“It is impossible, what is happening over here,” Navalny said in a video from the improvised courtroom that was posted on his page in the messaging app Telegram. “It is lawlessness of the highest degree.”

The judge ordered that Navalny be remanded in custody until Feb. 15. Navalny’s lawyers said they would appeal the ruling.

Navalny fell into a coma while aboard a domestic flight from Siberia to Moscow on Aug. 20. He was transferred from a hospital in Siberia to a Berlin hospital two days later. Labs in Germany, France and Sweden, and tests by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, established that he was exposed to a Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent.

Russian authorities, however, insisted that the doctors who treated Navalny in Siberia before he was airlifted to Germany found no traces of poison. Russia refused to open a full-fledged criminal inquiry, citing a lack of evidence that Navalny was poisoned, and Russian officials have challenged Germany to provide proof of the poisoning.

Last month, Navalny released the recording of a phone call he said he made to a man he alleged was a member of a group of officers of Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, who purportedly poisoned him in August and then tried to cover it up. The FSB has dismissed the recording as fake.

Navalny has been a thorn in the Kremlin’s side for a decade, unusually durable in an opposition movement often demoralized by repression. Russian authorities have launched multiple criminal investigations against him, and he has been tried and convicted in two separate criminal cases widely seen as politically motivated.”

I don’t know enough about Russian internal politics, but I sense that this is not going to end well for Mr. Navalny.  I hope I am wrong.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Organizers for President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday finished setting up about 200,000 flags yesterday, representing the American people who cannot travel to the inauguration amid a worsening coronavirus pandemic and extraordinary security precautions. The Presidential Inaugural Committee also lit up the “Field of Flags” with 56 pillars of light that represent the 50 states and U.S. territories. The flags also are meant to honor the 400,000 Americans who have died from COVID-19.  

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Today we celebrate and remember Martin Luther King, Jr., whose message of love brought some peace to our world. We could use his message today to bring peace again.  We could have used his message on January 6^th.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Huffington Post has an article  this morning describing how some far-right Trump supporters are abandoning him.  For months, President Donald Trump’s message to his supporters was clear: The election was being stolen from him, and they needed to fight to take it back. Here is an extended excerpt from the article (Jesselyn Cook reporting).

“So on Jan. 6, during a Trump-promoted rally to “Stop the Steal,” thousands laid siege to the U.S. Capitol in a stunning attempt to do just that. The fallout of their failed insurrection, which resulted in five deaths, was swift: Trump was deplatformed from nearly every major social network and, on Wednesday, impeached for a historic second time.

When he emerged on camera a short while later, tail tucked between his legs, to condemn the rioters whom he himself had incited, and to call for a peaceful transfer of power to President-elect Joe Biden, his base felt betrayed.

“So he basically just sold out the patriots who got rounded up for him,” one person wrote in a 15,000-member pro-Trump Telegram group. “Just wow.”

In online havens for MAGA extremists, including Gab, CloutHub, MeWe, Telegram and far-right message boards such as 8kun, the tone toward Trump is shifting. HuffPost reviewed thousands of messages across these platforms and found that a growing minority of the president’s once-devout backers are now denouncing him and rejecting his recent pleas for peace. Some have called for his arrest or execution, labeling him a “traitor” and a “coward.” Alarmingly, many of those who are irate about Biden’s supposed electoral theft are still plotting to forcibly prevent him from taking office — with or without Trump’s help.

“We don’t follow you,” another Telegram user wrote, addressing Trump, after the president put out his video urging calm and order. “Be quiet and get out of our way.”

It has become apparent that now — after his mass radicalization campaign of voter-fraud disinformation and conspiracy-mongering — even Trump can’t stop the dangerous delusion he’s instilled across the country, or the next wave of violence it may soon bring.

Federal authorities are urgently warning of armed protests being planned in all 50 state capitals in the days leading up to Biden’s inauguration. Politically motivated extremists “will very likely pose the greatest domestic terrorism threats in 2021,” according to a new joint intelligence bulletin from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and National Counter-terrorism Center. The document, first obtained by Yahoo News, attributes this threat to “false narratives” that Biden’s victory “was illegitimate, or fraudulent,” and the subsequent belief that the election results “should be contested or unrecognized.”

Ahead of last week’s riots, Trump supporters openly planned their attack on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other mainstream platforms, where they shared materials including flyers titled “Operation Occupy the Capitol.” These sites have since cracked down aggressively on such behavior, causing extremists to migrate to lesser-known corners of the internet to plan their next move.

While this has hindered their ability to spread propaganda and enlist new recruits, their new social channels are subject to less scrutiny and have already exploded in reach. CloutHub, MeWe and Telegram shot to the top of the charts of popular free apps on the App Store and Google PlayStore in the wake of the siege. Gab has also reported a massive surge in new users, with about 10,000 people signing up every hour.

In these spaces, HuffPost has observed calls to “burn down” the Capitol, launch “an armed revolt,” “pop some libtards” and “TAKE THIS COUNTRY BACK WHATEVER IT TAKES!!” Some posts are more specific: “Civil War is here. Group up locally. Take out the News stations,” one person declared. “LET’S HANG THEM ALL,” another implored. “LET’S FINISH THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.”

The Boogaloo Bois, a far-right militia organizing to foment civil war, is capitalizing on the unrest to issue online a renewed call to arms. The FBI has warned specifically of potential Boogaloo violence during planned rallies at state Capitol buildings in Michigan and Minnesota on Sunday.

“There’s a war coming, and cowering in your home [while] real patriots march with rifles … will make you a traitor,” commented a member of an encrypted Boogaloo chat.

Some extremists, however, are urging each other not to attend any of the upcoming armed protests. The Proud Boys, a rabidly pro-Trump neo-fascist group that helped storm the Capitol, is cautioning its followers that such demonstrations could be “fed honeypot” events set up by authorities in order to seize attendees’ guns.

It seems that even the Proud Boys are losing faith in Trump: A Telegram channel run by the group reposted a message with Trump’s video along with the text “The Betrayal of Trumpist base by Trump himself continues.”

For four years, the president’s supporters have worshipped him like a god. His rallies have been likened to cult gatherings. Nearly half of his campaign donations came from small donors, trouncing Biden’s 39%. For most of his presidency, Trump enjoyed strong support from the Republican base, polling well above 90% with that group. But after the Jan. 6 riots, his support is plummeting at record rates.

MAGA world has stood unwaveringly by Trump’s side through multiple allegations of sexual assault (including rape), an impeachment for abuse of power, revelations that his administration literally caged children, a historic rise in national debt, countless lies, blatant self-enrichment by him and his family members, a pandemic that has claimed close to 400,000 American lives under his leadership — nearly a fifth of all deaths worldwide — and more.

So to see his “America First” army suddenly begin to turn on him is truly remarkable. It’s happening broadly among his supporters, and even among the far-right extremist communities that have flourished online during Trump’s presidency.

Among the recent messages excoriating Trump in dedicated pro-Trump networks:“tbh: I hope they hang Trump at this point”; “He deserves what’s coming to him”; “he is literally done he will die in jail”; “Seriously hoping they’ll lock him up or lynch [him]”; “Guy is the biggest cuck ever at this point”; “Can’t wait til the left locks up his bitch ass. Rot in prison.” Several people have proclaimed that at this point, Trump can only redeem himself by declaring martial law to maintain power by force.

After losing to Biden, Trump systematically attacked the allies that propped up his presidency in a desperate effort to keep his re-election fantasy alive.

He first turned his adherents against Fox News, which stoked his ire by accurately projecting Biden’s electoral victory in Arizona before a few other networks did so. Then, when some Republicans ― including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ― declined to play along with his unsupported claims of mass voter fraud, Trump sicced his base on them. After that came Trump’s own vice president, Mike Pence, who refused Trump’s unconstitutional demand to reject votes in favor of Biden. (“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution,” Trump tweeted on the afternoon of Jan. 6, provoking chants of “Hang Pence” during the riots.)

Now that Trump himself appears to finally be backing away from his “Stop the Steal” hoax, a growing faction of his supporters is through with him, too.

But after the dramatic failure of his slow-motion coup, as he counts down the days until his return to life as a private citizen, Trump presumably has more pressing concerns than maintaining his followers’ devotion. Aside from the hundreds of millions of dollars in personal debt hanging over his head, it seems increasingly likely that he could face criminal prosecution, from which he will no longer be immune. And following his latest impeachment, if the Senate convicts him, it can also vote to disqualify him from ever running for office again.

With so much at stake and no sane hope of clinging to power, it’s now in the president’s best interest for his base to avoid further violence, which could increase his chances of conviction. But the reality is that the monster Trump created doesn’t need him anymore.

“He can promise and call for peace all he likes,” one Gab user wrote. “Won’t make a blind bit of difference.”

We could see this backlash coming.  I was surprised that the media did not make more of it especially at his rally, when he said he would walk with his followers to the Capital and then disappeared, leaving them to run on a rampage.

Tony

Congressman Jaime Raskin

Dear Commons Community,

Columnist, Michelle Goldberg, reviewed Donald Trump’s fall from power in yesterday’s edition of The New York Times. She covered a lot of ground reviewing his misdeeds and bombastic rhetoric that have fueled division and polarization in this country. She also comments that Trump has been skilled at surviving his transgressions. She then directs the reader to the impeachment proceedings that should begin soon in the Senate, maybe as early as next week. 

“That is part of the work of the second impeachment. This impeachment may be as much a burden for Democrats as for Republicans; a Senate trial would surely postpone some of the urgent business of the Biden administration. It has gone forward because Democrats had no choice if they wanted to defend our increasingly fragile system of government.

She quotes Representative Jamie Raskin, the Democrats’ lead impeachment manager, “So we have to use every means at our disposal to reassert the supremacy of constitutional government over chaos and violence.”

…

“The very fact that Raskin will lead the prosecution of Trump in the Senate is a sign of the solemnity with which Democrats are approaching it. As you’ve perhaps read by now, Raskin recently suffered the most gutting loss imaginable. Tormented by depression, his 25-year-old son, “a radiant light in this broken world,” as Raskin and his wife wrote in a eulogy, took his own life on Dec. 31, “the last hellish brutal day of that godawful miserable year of 2020.”

Raskin buried his son on Jan. 5, the day before he went to the Capitol to count the electoral vote. His youngest daughter didn’t want him to go; he felt he had to be there but invited her and his other daughter’s husband to come with him. When the mob breached the building, Raskin was on the House floor, and his daughter and son-in-law were in an office with his chief of staff. “The kids were hiding under a desk,” he said. “They had pushed as much furniture as they could up against the door, but people were banging at the door.”

That day, Raskin began working with his colleagues to draft both an article of impeachment and a resolution calling on Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment.

I asked him why, after all he’s endured, he wanted to lead the effort to bring Trump to trial. “I’ve devoted my life and career to the defense of our democracy and our people,” said Raskin, who was a constitutional law professor before he was a congressman. Then he said: “My son is in my heart, and in my chest I feel him every day. And Tommy was a great lover of human freedom and democracy and he would want me to be doing whatever I’m asked to do to defend democracy against chaos and fascism.”

It is not yet clear who Raskin will be up against. Prominent law firms have refused to represent Trump in his postelection legal fights, and Bloomberg News reports that lawyers who have defended the president in the past don’t want to do so anymore. For four years, as Trump has brought ever more havoc and hatred to this country, many have wondered what it would take to dent his impunity. The answer appears to be twofold: Committing sedition, and losing power.”

We grieve with Mr. Raskin and wish him well as he proceeds with the impeachment.

Tony

Haim Saban

Dear Commons Community,

President Donald Trump lost his megaphone on social media when Twitter and Facebook took down his accounts last week, but he has remained in the spotlight with around-the-clock coverage from cable news focused on the impeachment proceedings — which may stretch past the end of his presidency.

In a recent interview with Yahoo Finance, billionaire media investor and Democratic mega-donor Haim Saban, commented that Trump’s level of relevance and power as an ex-president will depend on the amount of attention he garners from television news, and Saban urged such outlets to turn their coverage elsewhere.

“If they cut him off like the online entities cut him off,” Saban says. “If he’s cut off from the media, he won’t be able to have the same impact.”

“Fox News is a special animal within itself,” Saban acknowledged. But he said he hopes “all the other television media simply don’t give [Trump] a platform.”

Saban, a power broker often aligned with the moderate wing of the Democratic Party, said television news channels should learn from the run-up to the presidential election in 2016, when Trump received more coverage than Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Trump will retain power “if the media gives him the platform they gave him before the elections worth billions of dollars of exposure,” Saban says.

Saban spoke to Andy Serwer in an episode of “Influencers with Andy Serwer,” a weekly interview series with leaders in business, politics, and entertainment.

Known for his entertainment industry savvy, Saban currently serves as chairman and CEO of the private investment firm Saban Capital Group, which specializes in media and entertainment.

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump for “incitement of insurrection” related to his role in the siege of the Capitol a week prior. In the aftermath of the siege, Trump was stripped of his accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner objected in recent days when aides attempted to give Trump an outlet on social media through alternative platforms like Gab, which have been know to house conversations among extremists, CNN reported on Wednesday.

After the social media ban, Trump said he has “been in negotiations with various other sites” about establishing a presence on their platforms, and has suggested he may start his own.

While urging media organizations to forego covered of Trump’s post-presidency, Saban said such a move could alleviate political polarization.

“If Trump is cut off from the media, we’re going to see that division really calm down,” Saban says. “There will be no one to fan those flames.”

I agree fully with Mr. Saban.  I hope CNN and MSNBC especially cut back on Trump’s coverage once he leaves office.  However, they will probably lose viewership and hence revenue.  So be it!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The National Rifle Association (NRA), the gun industry’s chief advocate, said yesterday  it was leaving New York for Texas and would seek bankruptcy protection.

The NRA excoriated New York’s government and justice system in a statement, saying the state has a “toxic political environment.” Based in Fairfax, Virginia, the organization has operated as a New York-registered nonprofit since its founding in 1871.

The group will explore moving part of its operations to Texas, the NRA said.

As reported by NBC News (Dennis Romero reporting)

The planned actions, including a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in Texas, come five months after New York state Attorney General Letitia James filed a civil suit that seeks to dissolve the association for and accused executives of using millions of NRA dollars for personal uses, including private-jet travel, trips to places including the Bahamas and pricey meals.

The NRA countered with its own suit against the attorney general, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and others for allegedly attempting to “blacklist” the group.

“The NRA’s claimed financial status has finally met its moral status: bankrupt,” James said in a statement yesterday. “While we review this filing, we will not allow the NRA to use this or any other tactic to evade accountability and my office’s oversight.”

Shannon Watts, founder of gun-safety group Moms Demand Action, said in a statement, “The NRA can try to run from its years of deception, decadence, and self-dealing, but it can’t hide.”

Kris Brown, president of the group Brady: United Against Gun Violence, had similar sentiments in his own statement Friday evening: “The NRA cannot be allowed to declare bankruptcy to try to escape potential criminal and civil accountability in New York.”

NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre, named in the attorney general’s lawsuit, blamed the state of New York for the organization’s woes.

“Obviously, an important part of this plan is ‘dumping New York,'” LaPierre said in a statement. “The NRA is pursuing reincorporating in a state that values the contributions of the NRA, celebrates our law-abiding members, and will join us as a partner in upholding constitutional freedom.”

“The NRA abandons a state where elected officials have weaponized the legal and regulatory powers they wield to penalize the Association and its members for purely political purposes,” the NRA said.

Oliver North, the retired Marine lieutenant colonel who became the NRA’s president in 2018, stepped down in 2019 after alleging financial improprieties at the association.

His departure revealed an internal power struggle between North and LaPierre.

Saying it’s in its strongest financial shape in years, the NRA said it would seek court approval to incorporate as a nonprofit in Texas, where 400,000 of its claimed 5 million members reside, according to the NRA.

The organization plans to undergo restructuring “to streamline costs and expenses,” according to its statement.

Good  riddance, but don’t let LaPierre and company off the hook for their fiscal improprieties.

Tony

.@brikeilarcnn rolls the tape on Republicans who have spread false election fraud claims and enabled Pres. Trump’s rhetoric but are against impeachment because it’s “too divisive.”

“They are kowtowing to insurrectionists. To racists. To conspiracy theorists.” pic.twitter.com/GefFbBm9UO

— CNN News Central (@NewsCentralCNN) January 14, 2021

Dear Commons Community,

CNN’s Brianna Keilar yesterday took on the hypocritical Republicans who voted against the second impeachment of Donald Trump because they claimed it would be too divisive.

“The very people who have been saying for months that Trump won an election that he did not ― who are knowingly telling supporters this lie, who have enabled a president who wants to break the system as he tries to harness the rage of extremists and racists for his own self preservation ― are telling people who want accountability to let it go. It’s ‘too divisive.’”

Trump on Tuesday spoke out about the impeachment proceedings, claiming that it was causing “tremendous anger,” after he spent months spreading disinformation about the presidential election and fomenting political unrest that culminated in a violent insurrection on the U.S. Capitol from his supporters, who sought to overturn the election results.

The House voted 232-197 on the resolution Wednesday, with 10 Republicans joining Democrats on the vote to impeach.

Many Republicans in Congress argued that impeachment would inflame tensions that could lead to further violence.

“They are kowtowing to insurrectionists. To racists. To conspiracy theorists,” Keilar said. ”More than 90% of House Republicans voted against impeaching the president for inciting the deadly siege ― despite the fact they were witnesses to it.”

“This is a get-out-of-jail-free card, cynically cloaked in a call for unity,” she added.

Let the impeachment proceed!

Tony