J.D. Vance is a walking disaster. That much we know but as the days go by more and more negative informaiton comes out about him. The Vance/Walz vice presidential debate is tomorrow. It’s already shaping up to be problematic. CBS News will not be fact checking the candidates in real time as ABC News did during the Trump/Harris debate. I think this is an egregious mistake. I don’t know if it’s too late now to modify that policy or if we just have to live with it. I suspect the latter.
With its plans, CBS News is clearly indicating it wants to take a step back from the heat generated by calling attention to misleading statements by candidates. Some argue that offstage fact-checking is too little, too late and not seen by many people who watch the event.
Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the international fact-checking network at the Poynter Institute, said she has seen examples of moderators who have successfully encouraged candidates to keep their opponents honest.
“I’ll be interested in seeing how this works in practice,” she said. “Having said that, you’re basically off-loading one of your journalistic responsibilities onto the candidates themselves, so I don’t think that it’s ideal. It takes journalistic courage to be willing to fact-check the candidates, because the candidates are absolutely going to complain about it. I don’t think the moderators’ first goal is to avoid controversy.”
There you have what’s wrong with our system of media in a nutshell. Lies are encouraged by media outlets, in essence, because the media refuses to fact check the lies. The fact checking of lies should not be a rare and unusual event, it should be the norm. Woe is us, it is not.
That’s the warm up for how strange this story really gets now. J.D. Vance met with a *controversial* Evangelical wingnut recently, Lance Wallnau. Wallnau is the one who calls Kamala Harris Jezebel and calls himself a Christian Patriot as opposed to a Christian Nationalist. Get ready for some strange reflections of the Wallnau/Vance confab from Popular Information.
Over the weekend, Republican Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance was a featured speaker at a conference, the Courage Tour, hosted by radical preacher Lance Wallnau. In a September 19 appearance on “FlashPoint,” Wallnau said that he was shown by God that “Kamala Harris was the one the devil was going to use to push through the White House.” According to Wallnau, he had a “vision from the Lord” that a Harris presidency is “how the devil intends to bring in the destruction of this country.” Wallnau said the Courage Tour, with stops in key swing states, is an effort by God to stop Harris and the devil.
At the conference, Wallnau described himself as a “Christian patriot,” not a “Christian nationalist,” because the latter term was “contrived by the left to create a negative brand image.” But, during the conference, Wallnau used “Christian nationalism” and “Christian patriotism” interchangeably. “Yes, I am a Christian nationalist,” Wallnau said in a 2021 Facebook video, “I will take the flag that God gave us with his blessed freedom and blessed government and blessed nation. And I will take that flag and lead them to the cross.”
Three years ago, Wallnau described his plan to use Jesus to restore Trump to power. “If we can get the gospel to the rallies, in the name of Jesus, I’m praying that Donald Trump will entertain this idea,” Wallnau said. “Because when those 30 million low hanging fruit, souls, come to Jesus—that love America and realize without a move of God, without an awakening, without divine intervention, we’re sunk because we’re up against the beast that is far better entrenched in the high places than we are—if we can get that 30 million out there, if we can get 20 million out there, my God, you have any idea how that will shift permanently the political landscape of America?”
The Courage Tour is how Wallnau is executing this strategy. In a presentation shortly before Vance’s town hall, Wallnau suggested America was faced with a choice between anarchy, a Satanic agenda channeled through Democrats, and embracing Christianity under Trump’s leadership.
This is sheer mental illness. And it is widespread. Tina Peters, who is getting sentenced to prison for her participation in interfering with the legal process of vote counting in Colorado in 2020, is also framing the situation as a holy war. That’s how out of touch with reality she is. I think these people are dangerously insane. A lot of people laugh at them, I never have. That’s because I’ve met Evangelicals and the ones I’ve met are unhinged.
Religious fanaticism and election monitoring is a recipe for disaster. And that’s what Wallnau and his compatriots have in mind.
Right after Vance’s appearance, there was a presentation detailing how Christians who believe Trump’s lies about election fraud can become paid election workers “in 4 easy steps.” Joshua Standifer, founder of the Lion of Judah, said that participants can “monitor polling stations for suspicious activity,” and when “they kick all the volunteers out, you can be on the inside making a difference.” Standifer described this as a “Trojan Horse” strategy. […]
Wallnau recalled in one speech over the weekend how he had been included in a meeting of evangelical leaders at Trump Tower in New York in the early days of Trump’s 2016 campaign. He also reminded the audience that he had been one of the first prophets to predict Trump’s victory that year.
According to Taylor, Wallnau and other NAR leaders played a key role in the build up to the January 6, 2021 insurrection. They held events in swing states throughout the election season, similar to the Courage Tour, promoting the idea that Donald Trump was God’s chosen candidate. Speakers at these events not only included NAR leaders like Wallnau, but also right-wing conspiracists like Alex Jones and Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers. Rhodes is currently serving 18 years in prison for his role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
These NAR events in 2020 mobilized Christian election-deniers, Taylor said, and provided networking opportunities for future insurrectionists. Wallnau and other NAR leaders were present at the rally that preceded the insurrection, but did not enter the capitol building themselves.
All of the dots connect. MAGA, Charlie Kirk, Stewart Rhodes, Lance Wallnau, J.D. Vance and Donald Trump. Once again I’m going to state my premise that if Trump would get back in power he would never leave. There is a coup d’etat plan in place right now, under the guise of *monitoring* an election. If Trump wins, the people named above, and others of their ilk, will be running the government. Or, if it can be made to appear that perhaps Trump might have won and the matter goes to the Supreme Court like in 2020. The GOP is fine with all of this. It’s been known for some time that if conservatives can’t win democratically, they won’t abandon conservatism, they’ll abandon democracy.
This is the blueprint to abandon democracy. It involves infiltrating polling places and disrupting the election. And bear in mind, we have a Supreme Court that has proven that it is only too willing to side with Donald Trump and these kinds of right-wing forces and give him unlimited power.
Right now in Georgia the Democratic party has presented a court challenge to the election officials who are insisting, against legal advice, on all paper ballots.
This is real. There is a coup d’etat plan afoot to install a mentally ill man in the White House because the mentally ill man won’t be running the show. J.D. Vance and these characters will be running the show. And then truly woe is us.
They won’t fact check during the debate because the orangebaby cried and complained and they in the media bend over backwards to appease and please him.
‘Fact” checking could well be a two edged sword.
So, the fact checkers are urged to be “even handed.” The conclusion then, MUST BE: each candidate should have the same number [quantity] of facts checked.
Republican allegation fact checked: The sky is green. Check: no it is blue
Democratic fact checked: My opponent said the sky is green. Check: controversy surrounds the color of the sky.
Or they just complain that all their ‘facts’ are being checked and their opponents aren’t, so the ‘fact-checkers’ must be biased.