Today’s Self-Reliance: Charles Hugh Smith and Gordon Long

Charles Hugh Smith: Our Tax System is an Unfair Mess: Here’s How to Fix It – Make the U.S. attractive to labor and capital with low rates and a simple, fair tax system and the populace and economy will benefit.

Slate: Trump’s Lawyers Made Some Very Odd Strategic Choices in the Supreme Court Ballot Case – Trump or his lawyers must have calculated that a technical argument would be more appealing to the conservative majority. (by Rick Hasen, via Election Law Blog)

Lawfare Media: What Justice Scalia Thought About Whether Presidents Are “Officers of the United States” – In a 2014 concurrence and a short letter elaborating on it, Scalia indicated that the president was an “officer of the United States.”

Seth Godin nails it again, identifying powers that we all have but might not be aware of:

The power to speak up, to participate, to invent, to lead, to encourage, to vote, to connect, to organize, to march, to write, to say ‘no’ or to say ‘yes’.
https://seths.blog/2024/01/unaware/

James Gallagher’s post on “The indie web” is getting some notice, but here is the quote I like the best: “The indie web is all about people sharing what they want to share and doing so on their own platform.” That is what I try to do with every post! Keep it up, James!

Mike Hall talks about Newsboat, a command line RSS reader, and highlights a neat feature – the ability to ignore certain URL patterns. Reminds me some of the Checkbox News concept, but in reverse. Nice!

The Big Lie continues in 2024

Kaitlan Collins presses Rep. Norman on 2021 text message calling for martial law

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) about a 2021 text message he sent to Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, pleading for the former president to declare martial law. Norman also references other alleged incidents of voter fraud, which Kaitlan Collins refutes.

Source: CNN

Additional links:

X: Kaitlan Collins post on this video

The New Republic: Republican Rep. Has No Regrets About That “Marshall Law” Text – Years later, Ralph Norman still stands by his infamous text to Mark Meadows after the 2020 election.

South Carolina Public Radio: Leaked 2021 text from SC Rep. Ralph Norman calls for martial law; Congressman says message came from ‘frustration’

Voting Booth: Election Defenders’ Top 2024 Worry: Online Rumors, Deceptions, Lies Swaying Masses

The Fulcrum: Scholars unmask Trump election lawyers’ use of falsified evidence – Study finds a cottage industry of bogus claims and statistics – the post links to a working paper (Dropbox link to PDF) analyzing 38 claims of election fraud “…Regardless of the reason why, every claim we analyze fails to provide evidence of illegality or fraud.” (page 3) (via Election Law Blog)