17 January, LVI A.S.

9sense Episode List, Year LVI A.S. Episode List / / 9sense, Creature Feature, Highest Embodiment of Human Life, History of Clan Campbell, Infernal Informant, QAnon Destroying Republicans, Reverend Campbell, The Devil's Advocate, Trump's Mishandling of Records

1. The Devil’s Advocate

Time Stamp: 3:22

  • We embrace reality
    • Not just of the world around us, which is essential in Lesser Magic
    • But of ourselves also. This allows us to continually improve and grow
    • We do not bloviate our own ego. We acknowledge our own strengths and flaws.
    • We acknowledge our carnal roots, that we are in fact animals with an immense capacity for raising ourselves up or self destruction
  • We do not forget why culture, religion and society are they way they are, and use that as a guide to discover uncomfortable third side perspectives
  • We have tools at our disposal in the form of Satanic Magic. Lesser Magic or applied psychology and Greater Magic or psychodrama. This allows us to manipulate those around us, refocus ourselves when clouded and drive with intention through life.
  • We question all things, Satanism included. We challenge established dogmas as we stand outside of them with a whole perspective. 
  • We are learned. We demand study not worship. Of course when applied to Satanism, but to our lives as well. 
  • We champion the idea of the Magic of Mastery. That to be truly great, it takes effort, skill, drive and desire. This is real world accomplishment in action.
  • We welcome change in ourselves and environments that are driven by us. An ever evolving sense of personal aesthetics, and the crafting of total environments.

2. Infernal Informant

Time Stamp: 20:17

  • Will Trump’s mishandling of records leave a hole in history?
    • https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-technology-politics-vladimir-putin-russia-65748b70e3cf3f7eecffa265da9ccae7
    • The public won’t see President Donald Trump’s White House records for years, but there’s growing concern the collection won’t be complete, leaving a hole in the history of one of America’s most tumultuous presidencies.
    • Trump has been cavalier about the law requiring that records be preserved. He has a habit of ripping up documents before tossing them out, forcing White House records workers to spend hours taping them back together.
    • “They told him to stop doing it. He didn’t want to stop,” said Solomon Lartey, a former White House records analyst. He said the first document he taped back together was a letter from Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., about a government shutdown.
    • The president also confiscated an interpreter’s notes after Trump had a chat with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Trump scolded his White House counsel for taking notes at a meeting during the Russia investigation by former special counsel Robert Mueller. Top executive branch officials had to be reminded more than once not to conduct official business on private email or text messaging systems and to preserve it if they did.
    • And now, Trump’s baseless claim of widespread voter fraud, which postponed for weeks an acknowledgement of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, is delaying the transfer of documents to the National Archives and Records Administration, further heightening concern about the integrity of the records.
    • “Historians are likely to suffer from far more holes than has been the norm,” said Richard Immerman at the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. In the Trump White House, “not only has record-keeping not been a priority, but we have multiple examples of it seeking to conceal or destroy that record.”
    • Lack of a complete record might also hinder any ongoing investigations of Trump, from his impeachment trial and other prospective federal inquiries to investigations in the state of New York.
    • But even with requests by lawmakers and lawsuits by government transparency groups, there is an acknowledgment that noncompliance with the Presidential Records Act carries little consequence for Trump.
    • In tossing out one suit last year, U.S. Circuit Judge David Tatel wrote that courts cannot “micromanage the president’s day-to-day compliance.”
    • The Presidential Records Act states that a president cannot destroy records until he seeks the advice of the national archivist and notifies Congress. But the law doesn’t require him to heed the archivist’s advice. It doesn’t prevent the president from going ahead and destroying records.
    • Most presidential records today are electronic. Records experts estimate that automatic backup computer systems capture a vast majority of the records, but cannot capture records that a White House chooses not to create or log into those systems.
    • Moving a president’s trail of paper and electronic records is a laborious task. President Barack Obama left about 30 million pages of paper documents and some 250 terabytes of electronic records, including the equivalent of about 1.5 billion pages of emails.
    • The records of past presidents are important because they can help a current president craft new policies and prevent mistakes from being repeated.
    • “Presidential records tell our nation’s story from a unique perspective and are essential to an incoming administration in making informed decisions,” said Lee White, director of the National Coalition for History. “They are equally vital to historians.”
    • The Biden administration can request to see Trump records immediately, but the law says the public must wait five years before submitting Freedom of Information Act requests. Even then, Trump — like other presidents before him — is invoking specific restrictions to public access of his records for up to 12 years. Six restrictions outlined in the law include national security, confidential business information, confidential communications between the president and his advisers or among his advisers and personal information.
    • Around Trump’s first impeachment and on other sensitive issues, some normal workflow practices were bypassed, a second person familiar with the process said. Apparently worried about leaks, higher-ups and White House lawyers became more involved in deciding which materials were catalogued and scanned into White House computer networks where they are automatically saved, this person said.
    • Trump was criticized for confiscating the notes of an interpreter who was with him in 2017 when the president talked with Putin in Hamburg, Germany. Lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to obtain the notes of another interpreter who was with Trump in 2018 when he met with Putin in Helsinki, Finland. It’s unclear whether the two presidents talked about Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Many people suspected the subject did come up because at a news conference afterward, Trump said he believed Putin when Putin denied Russian interference despite U.S. intelligence agencies finding the opposite.
    • Several weeks ago, the National Security Archive, two historical associations and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sued to prevent the Trump White House from destroying any electronic communications or records sent or received on nonofficial accounts, such as personal email or WhatsApp.
    • They also alleged that the White House has already likely destroyed presidential materials.
    • Trump faces several legal challenges when he leaves the White House. There are two New York state inquiries into whether he misled tax authorities, banks or business partners. Also, two women alleging he sexually assaulted them are suing him.
    • Presidential records were considered a president’s personal property until the Watergate scandal under President Richard Nixon prompted Congress in 1978 to pass the Presidential Records Act over worry that Nixon would destroy White House tape recordings that led to his resignation.
    • After that, presidential records were no longer considered personal property but the property of the American people — if they are preserved. Lawmakers have introduced legislation to require audits of White House record-keeping and compliance with the law.
  • GOP Senator Ben Sasse warned that the QAnon conspiracy theory movement is destroying the Republican Party
    • https://www.businessinsider.com/qanon-senator-sasse-says-conspiracy-is-destroying-the-republican-party-2021-1
    • Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska has warned that the QAnon conspiracy theory movement is destroying the GOP in a blistering op-ed for The Atlantic. 
    • In the article, Sasse describes how devotees of the movement played a prominent role in the Capitol’s January 6 riots. 
    • “The violence that Americans witnessed—and that might recur in the coming days—is not a protest gone awry or the work of “a few bad apples.” It is the blossoming of a rotten seed that took root in the Republican Party some time ago and has been nourished by treachery, poor political judgment, and cowardice,” writes Sasse.
    • He praises Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman for luring a mob led by a man wearing a QAnon shirt away from a chamber where senators and Vice President Mike Pence were present during the unrest. 
    • “We can dedicate ourselves to defending the Constitution and perpetuating our best American institutions and traditions, or we can be a party of conspiracy theories, cable-news fantasies, and the ruin that comes with them,” he continues. “We can be the party of Eisenhower, or the party of the conspiracist Alex Jones. We can applaud Officer Goodman or side with the mob he outwitted. We cannot do both.”
    • The QAnon conspiracy theory movement arose on messaging boards 4Chan and 8Chan in 2017 and has gone on to be embraced by a swath of the Republican grassroots, praised by President Donald Trump and seen an adherent, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, elected to Congress. 
    • The movement believes groundlessly that Democrats and Hollywood stars run child abuse networks, which Trump is working to dismantle. Adherents who stormed the Capitol believed that they were triggering The Storm, an event in which they believe that Trump will mass execute his political foes. 
    • In the essay, Sasse describes Greene as a “cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.” He ascribes the growing strength of movements founded on conspiracy theories to factors including America’s “junk food” media diet, the collapse of faith in institutions, and a pervasive loss of meaning. 
    • He writes of a growing fissure in the GOP between Republicans who have backed impeaching Trump for instigating the riots and those who have refused to do so.
    • Sasse is one of a small group of GOP senators who have openly opposed Trump’s election fraud conspiracy theories that sparked the riots and has left open the possibility of convicting Trump in his second impeachment trial. 
    • Sasse said that many party colleagues privately said they were afraid of backing Trump’s impeachment because they “believed a vote to impeach the president would put their lives, or the lives of their families, at risk,” from hardline Trump supporters. 
    • Sasse calls for the party to show courage in emphatically rejecting the conspiracy theories embraced by swaths of the US right and for efforts to rebuild the party.
    • “Until last week, many party leaders and consultants thought they could preach the Constitution while winking at QAnon. They can’t. The GOP must reject conspiracy theories or be consumed by them. Now is the time to decide what this party is about,” writes Sasse.

3. Creature Feature

Time Stamp: 44:36

  • A History of Clan Campbell, Volume 1
    • https://www.ccsna.org/a-history-of-clan-campbell-books
      https://www.ccsna.org/store/a-history-of-clan-campbell-volume-1
    • The three were commissioned by the Clan Campbell Education Foundation (CCEF) and were funded through the generous donations of Campbells and other lovers of Scottish heritage.  
    • Alastair Lorne Campbell of Airds was the Chief Executive of Clan Campbell, appointed by the Chief of the Clan, Mac Cailein Mor the 12th Duke of Argyll.  He was also Unicorn Pursuivant (1986-2008) to the Lord Lyon, King of Arms.  He has managed, as Archivist, the cataloguing of the volumes and artifacts in the Jacob More Library at Inveraray. Since 2008 he has been Islay Herald of Arms Extraordinary in the Court of the Lord Lyon.
    • The Clan Campbell Education Foundation is a 501(c)(3), non-profit, tax-exempt charitable and educational Foundation founded by and closely aligned to the Clan Campbell Society (NA).  The purpose of the CCEF is to educate the public regarding the Clan Campbell, Scots and Scotland, and to increase the understanding of the American public of the Scots and Scottish heritage.  In particular, we promote the study, promotion, and perpetuation of Scottish culture, including history, music, dance, art, athletics, language, and cuisine and to carry on and conduct charitable and educational programs.
    • Volume I: Spans the years from the earliest times to 1513 and the death of the second Earl of Argyll at the Battle of Flodden Field;
    • The book is illustrated with seven maps, a genealogy, and twenty pages of plates of which four are in colour. Substantial appendices explain the structure of the clan and its septs and include a definitive account of the clan tartan.
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