A Year After Republicans Tried to Blow Up the Virginia Democrat Party

What a difference a year makes.  A year ago the Virginia Democrat Party was in crisis after a far right organization with ties to the Trump White House skillfully played for fools senior Virginia Democrats, most particularly Mark Warner (who in face to face encounters has never admitted he was played), and a number of LGBT organizations by the calculated release of racist photos from Governor Northam's medical school year book, allegations of sexual assault against Lt. Governor Fairfax and a forced confession from Attorney General Herring of having worn black face as a college student. The right wing/Republican goal was to destroy unity in the Democrat party in a desperate attempt to stave off loss of Republican control of the Virginia General Assembly,  At first, the fact that it was NOT Northam in the photos - they DO know who the individuals are despite EVMS's faux investigation and claims to the contrary- did not matter as the press and the black caucus went into a feeding frenzy.  Fortunately, none of the three targeted officials resigned and Democrats achieved their takeover of Richmond and a new progressive era in Virginia has begun.  A piece in the Virginian Pilot looks at how Northam and the others have prevailed. Here are highlights:

During his State of the Commonwealth address earlier this month, Gov. Ralph Northam spoke to Virginia lawmakers about taking an “honest look” at the state’s past.

After congratulating the new Democratic majority on their gains in the General Assembly, he listed the priorities of his “fair and equitable” legislative agenda.

Sitting behind him was Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who would soon preside over a Senate that would pass the Equal Rights Amendment.

Also in the audience was Attorney General Mark Herring, who has made marijuana decriminalization and legalization a top priority, saying current laws disproportionately affect people of color.

As lawmakers rose to applaud the governor every few seconds, it was hard to recall that nearly a year before, the state’s top three officials — all Democrats — were mired in scandal, with near-ubiquitous calls for their resignations.

Saturday marks one year since a racist photo on Northam’s Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook page surfaced, setting off a chain of events that nearly brought down the entire Democratic leadership in Virginia and handed unified control of state government to Republicans.

But it didn’t. In fact, it had the opposite effect.

[Northam] refused to step down, saying that would be the easy way out.

“If I were to listen to the voices calling on me to resign my office today, I could spare myself from the different path that lies ahead,” he said. “I could avoid an honest conversation about harmful actions from my past.”

Instead, he began repeating with a consistent drumbeat that he was going to focus the rest of his term — which runs until January 2022 — on righting wrongs and addressing Virginia’s harsh, racist history.

Throughout the year — indeed, even just a month after the blackface scandal — polls showed that most black Virginians didn’t want Northam to quit.

Theodore Johnson, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, thinks that’s because black voters are pragmatic. It doesn’t make sense for them to denounce Northam or his potential successors for something that happened decades ago, especially when the alternative was a Republican — Speaker of the House Kirk Cox, who under the state Constitution would have become governor if Northam resigned and Fairfax and Herring were both unable to succeed him.

“I don’t think we can say the scandal was good for black voters, but I do think we can say black voters leveraged the scandal for positive policy outcomes,” Johnson said. “It was black Virginians who told (Northam) the best way to make up for this would be to respond via policy.”

Here are a few of those policies he’s prioritized: a commission to look at racially discriminatory language in the state code. Another to look at how Virginia schools teach African American history.

A promise to end Virginia’s racial disparities in maternal deaths by 2025. A removal of references to Confederate president Jefferson Davis at Fort Monroe. A show of opposition to other Confederate monuments. A vow to veto any bills that increase mandatory minimum prison sentences, which the governor said disproportionately impact black Virginians.

Northam’s also done the other things the Democratic party expects him to do, Johnson said, including expand Medicaid, support the ERA ratification, and restore rights to felons. “He’s been a good party representative in terms of party objective, and he’s also the political capital that black Virginians accrued by not demanding his resignation,” Johnson said.

[I]t was an election year for Democrats, and rather than give Republicans more political fuel by showing division, they kept their heads down.

“Democrats didn’t want to generate any instability when it came to the party’s fortunes heading into the next election,” Lawless said.

Voters, too, drew distinctions between the Democratic Party as a whole and the top office-holders who were members of that party. Polls repeatedly showed a preference for the Democrats to control the legislature, despite the stain left on the party by the leaders’ scandals and the GOP campaign ads referencing them.

So voters elected a Democratic majority determined to protect women’s rights, pass stricter gun control, address criminal justice inequities, and make it easier to vote, work, live and go to school in Virginia without discrimination.  “Around issues pertaining to sex and race, the state has basically said, ‘Enough is enough, we’re not going to tolerate this,’” Lawless said.

Today, it seems things have gone back to normal in the state’s capital. Northam holds regular press conferences announcing his budget priorities. Fairfax presides over the Senate, posing for pictures with female ERA supporters and student doctors in the gallery. Herring signs on to lawsuits opposing various Trump administration actions. On Thursday, he was in Washington for a press conference announcing litigation to force federal officials to acknowledge that — thanks to Virginia — the ERA has enough votes to become part of the U.S. Constitution.

Hopefully Democrats - and LGBT organizations such as HRC and Equality Virginia - have learned a lesson and will never allow themselves to again be played for fools by operatives of the far right that oppose everything that needs to be done to move Virginia forward.

Russia's Ongoing Effort to Sow Racial Discord — and Violence — in the U.S.

If one wonders where Donald Trump and many on the far right - e.g., those who sabotaged Virginia Democrats in early February using race - who are fanning racial division in America got their agenda from, look no farther than Vladimir Putin's Russia. NBC News reports on newly reviewed documents connected to some of the Russian operatives indicted by Robert Mueller that indicate fanning racial discord - and even violence - was part of the 2016 Russian game plan to elect Trump and that the agenda , in fact continues and could be a problem in 2020.  In addition to causing division and racial hatred, a goal is to suppress the black vote and thereby help Republicans, namely Trump.  It's something blacks mentioned in a prior post ought to be conscious of as they wring their hands over Pete Buttigieg's "whiteness" (his gayness will likely also be targeted by the ever conniving Russian operatives who likely recognize the ease with which black pastors can be played).  Here are article highlights that ought to make thinking individuals of all races think twice before falling for Russia originated efforts at division and discord:

LONDON — Russians who were linked to interference in the 2016 U.S. election discussed ambitious plans to stoke unrest and even violence inside the U.S. as recently as 2018, according to documents reviewed by NBC News.

The documents — communications between associates of Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Kremlin-linked oligarch indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller for previous influence operations against the U.S. — laid out a new plot to manipulate and radicalize African-Americans. The plans show that Prigozhin’s circle has sought to exploit racial tensions well beyond Russia’s social media and misinformation efforts tied to the 2016 election.

The documents were obtained through the Dossier Center, a London-based investigative project funded by Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky. NBC News has not independently verified the materials, but forensic analysis by the Dossier Center appeared to substantiate the communications.

One document said that President Donald Trump’s election had “deepened conflicts in American society” and suggested that, if successful, the influence project would “undermine the country’s territorial integrity and military and economic potential.”

The revelations come as U.S. intelligence agencies have warned of probable Russian meddling in the 2020 election.

The documents contained proposals for several ways to further exacerbate racial discord in the future, including a suggestion to recruit African-Americans and transport them to camps in Africa “for combat prep and training in sabotage.” Those recruits would then be sent back to America to foment violence . . . There is no indication that the plan — which is light on details — was ever put into action, but it offers a fresh example of the mindset around Russian efforts to sow discord in the U.S.

The blueprint, entitled “Development Strategy of a Pan-African State on U.S. Territory,” floated the idea of enlisting poor, formerly incarcerated African-Americans “who have experience in organized crime groups” as well as members of “radical black movements for participation in civil disobedience actions.”

The goal was to “destabilize the internal situation in the U.S.”

Frank Figliuzzi, a former assistant director of counterintelligence at the FBI and an NBC News contributor, who reviewed the documents, said that they offer a warning to the U.S. . . . “The unfortunate reality is that we’re seeing an adversary that will consider virtually anything to get what it wants, and if it means violence or splitting America along racial lines or eroding our trust in institutions, they’ll do it.”

Some of the documents appear to have been sent by Dzheykhun “Jay” Aslanov, an employee of the Internet Research Agency, the St. Petersburg-based troll farm that played a key role in the 2016 Russian meddling campaign. Aslanov was one of 13 Russians indicted by Mueller in February 2018 for his role with the IRA.

The plan was shared with Mikhail Potepkin, a Russian businessman, who then circulated it more widely, according to communications reviewed by NBC News.

Both Aslanov and Potepkin have been linked to Prigozhin, a Russian catering magnate often described as “Putin’s chef.” Prigozhin was also indicted by Mueller for funding the IRA. Widely perceived as a Kremlin operative, he has been connected to a shadowy mercenary outfit known as the Wagner Group, whose guns-for-hire are reported to have been involved in Russian military operations in Syria and Eastern Ukraine, according to U.S. military officials.

The Mueller report exposed how Russian trolls, employed by associates of Prigozhin, deliberately inflamed racial tensions by spreading false and incendiary stories to African-Americans via social media. Among the objectives was to suppress black turnout in the 2016 U.S. election.

“Russia understands how critical the African American vote is to determining the outcome of elections,” said Demings, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee. “And because we have not effectively dealt with racism as a country ourselves, I believe we've made ourselves vulnerable to foreign powers like Russia to continue to try to undermine.”

The documents also discuss how to expand Russia’s clout on the African continent and win business there, from arms sales to mining contracts. They outline propaganda efforts to target Africans and stir up negative opinions about Europe and the U.S.

“Even though these kinds of initiatives from the Russians aren’t new to us, what is new is the rapidity with which they can get this message out on social media and saturate the American consumer with these kinds of thoughts,” said Figliuzzi, the former FBI official. “That puts the Russian initiative on steroids and should scare all of us.”

Sadly

Putin-Linked Think Tank Drew up Plan to Sway U.S. 2016 Election

The pathological liar that currently occupies the White House continues to deny that Russian efforts sought to throw the 2026 presidential election in his favor.  Likewise, he denies that he and his henchmen colluded in the Russian efforts.  Further, Vladimir Putin denies that Russia engaged in any such efforts.  Based on reports from Reuters, both Trump and Putin are lying. Documents obtained by American intelligence agencies reveal that a Putin directed Russian think tank drew up a detailed plan of actions to be used to sway the election and undermine American democracy in general.  The irony is that many far right American outlets that claim to be ultra-patriots in fact ran with the concocted lies that derived from Russian efforts.  Here are excerpts from Reuters:

A Russian government think tank controlled by Vladimir Putin developed a plan to swing the 2016 U.S. presidential election to Donald Trump and undermine voters’ faith in the American electoral system, three current and four former U.S. officials told Reuters.

They described two confidential documents from the think tank as providing the framework and rationale for what U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded was an intensive effort by Russia to interfere with the Nov. 8 election. U.S. intelligence officials acquired the documents, which were prepared by the Moscow-based Russian Institute for Strategic Studies [en.riss.ru/], after the election.

The first Russian institute document was a strategy paper written last June that circulated at the highest levels of the Russian government but was not addressed to any specific individuals.

It recommended the Kremlin launch a propaganda campaign on social media and Russian state-backed global news outlets to encourage U.S. voters to elect a president who would take a softer line toward Russia than the administration of then-President Barack Obama, the seven officials said.

A second institute document, drafted in October and distributed in the same way, warned that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was likely to win the election. For that reason, it argued, it was better for Russia to end its pro-Trump propaganda and instead intensify its messaging about voter fraud to undermine the U.S. electoral system’s legitimacy and damage Clinton’s reputation in an effort to undermine her presidency, the seven officials said.

The current and former U.S. officials spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the Russian documents’ classified status. They declined to discuss how the United States obtained them. U.S. intelligence agencies also declined to comment on them.

Four of the officials said the approach outlined in the June strategy paper was a broadening of an effort the Putin administration launched in March 2016. That month the Kremlin instructed state-backed media outlets, including international platforms Russia Today and Sputnik news agency, to start producing positive reports on Trump’s quest for the U.S. presidency, the officials said.

Russia Today and Sputnik published anti-Clinton stories while pro-Kremlin bloggers prepared a Twitter campaign calling into question the fairness of an anticipated Clinton victory, according to a report by U.S. intelligence agencies on Russian interference in the election made public in January. [bit.ly/2kMiKSA]

Russia Today’s most popular Clinton video - “How 100% of the 2015 Clintons’ ‘charity’ went to ... themselves” - accumulated 9 millions views on social media, according to the January report. [bit.ly/2os8wIt]

The report said Russia Today and Sputnik “consistently cast president elect-Trump as the target of unfair coverage from traditional media outlets."

Neither of the Russian institute documents mentioned the release of hacked Democratic Party emails to interfere with the U.S. election, according to four of the officials. The officials said the hacking was a covert intelligence operation run separately out of the Kremlin.

The overt propaganda and covert hacking efforts reinforced each other, according to the officials. Both Russia Today and Sputnik heavily promoted the release of the hacked Democratic Party emails, which often contained embarrassing details.

Five of the U.S. officials described the institute as the Kremlin’s in-house foreign policy think tank. 

How much more will it take before my Republican "friends" who voted for Trump admit that they were played for fools?  Or were Trump's calls to racism and white supremacy all they really cared about?