Clarifying Ocasio -Cortez' $21 Trillion Pentagon Waste Gaffe

WaPo columnist Aaron Blake (Monday) continues the Post's  "Pinocchio" campaign against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)  now claiming she "has made a bigger splash than any freshman in the 116th Congress — in either the House or Senate."   Quickly adding that:

"And a big reason is an often-overzealous conservative effort to knock her down a few pegs. The congresswoman has put on a PR master class in using those efforts to build her profile and social media following. (Her retort to the overblown dancing-video kerfuffle last week has been viewed nearly 20 million times.)"

So what?  I have seen it and have no problems with it.  The conservos bellyaching needed a good slapping down and putting in their place anyway, and Alexandria delivered it.  Besides, it's not the conservos'  business to "knock her down a few pegs"  - or to dismiss her as a "commie" because she belongs to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) like I do..  Blake then goes on:

"But she’s also shown a tendency to exaggerate or misstate basic facts. And her defense of this in a Sunday interview with “60 Minutes” was very bad. When Anderson Cooper confronted her with The Washington Post Fact Checker’s Four-Pinocchio verdict on her claim about $21 trillion in waste at the Pentagon, Ocasio-Cortez offered this (emphasis added):

COOPER: One of the criticisms of you is that-- that your math is fuzzy. The Washington Post recently awarded you four Pinocchios --

OCASIO-CORTEZ: Oh my goodness --

COOPER: -- for misstating some statistics about Pentagon spending?

OCASIO-CORTEZ: If people want to really blow up one figure here or one word there, I would argue that they’re missing the forest for the trees. I think that there’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right.

COOPER: But being factually correct is important--

In the case of the $21 trillion, Ocasio-Cortez was suggesting that this was all Pentagon waste and that cleaning it up could pay for two-thirds of the estimated $32 trillion price tag for single-payer health care, which she and others are referring to as Medicare-for-all.

 

$21 TRILLION of Pentagon financial transactions ‘could not be traced, documented, or explained,’" Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a tweet that still appears on her timeline and has been shared more than 26,000 times. "$21T in Pentagon accounting errors. Medicare for All costs ~$32T. That means 66% of Medicare for All could have been funded already by the Pentagon.”

Okay, I think it's time here to take a deep collective breath and inquire what Blake and the Post's "Pinocchio" designators are so worked up about.. In fact, it turns out Ms. Ocasio-Cortez main gaffe was simply conflating the magnitude of the Pentagon's accounting scams with actual money being available, i.e. for "Medicare for all'. This is based on the recent extensive investigative piece ('Exposing The Pentagon's  Massive Accounting Fraud',)  by David Lindorff, appearing in The Nation (Jan. 7, 2019, pp. 12- 16).  As Mr. Lindorff write (p. 13):

"As a result of the Pentagon's accounting shenanigans some $21 trillion - yes, trillion- worth of financial transactions cannot be accounted for. That number caught the eye of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio -Cortez who tweeted )on Dec. 2) to her 1.47 million followers that this missing $21 trillion cold have been used to fund a Medicare for All program.

However....there is no $21 trillion pot of money hidden inside the Pentagon. what there has been instead is a systematic, long standing, unconstitutional effort by the Department of Defense to feed  phony numbers to Congress and thereby inflate the DOD's budget by billions of dollars each year.   NO one knows for sure, though informed estimates put it as high as $100 billion - not enough to fund Medicare for All but a good down payment on a Green New Deal..."

So there you have it: Ocasio-Cortez basically was over optimistic regarding the money available from the Pentagon's funny money accounting gimmicks. For example, one method entails laundering "one year money" pools into "five year money" pools.   The reason? The unspent money in the latter (longer ) pool doesn't have to be returned during the 5-year period.  The phony numbers arising are then referred to as "plugs"  (as in plugging a hole) by the Pentagon's money wonks and paper pushers.

As Lindorff puts it (p. 14):

"Such nippering can be repeated multiple times - according to one Pentagon budgeting veteran- 'until the funds become virtually untraceable'"

Of course, this deplorable fudging of budgets and accounts didn't just pop up recently. Former defense analyst Chuck Spinney  - as long ago as 2000 (on Bill Moyers' PBS NOW program)-  reported on the Pentagons' accounting gimmicks and 'plug' rackets to the extent of being unable to account for $1.1 trillion - at that time.

Enter now Thomas Hedges who reported for The Guardian  in March 2017 - after Trump proposed a $52 billion increase in military spending -  "the Pentagon has exempted itself without consequence for 20 years now, telling the Government Accountability Office that collecting and organizing the required information for a full audit is too costly and time-consuming."   

Exempted itself!?  Are you kidding me?  As Chuck Spinney pointed out on Bill Moyers' NOW program, if a gov't  agency declines fiscal accountability we are no longer a democracy because the agency or department is no longer accountable to the citizens - the taxpayers. It is then a law unto itself, and we are short steps from fascism.  Lindorff himself also references Spinney's previous efforts at examining the mess, i.e. :

"For Spinney, the Pentagon accounting fraud is deja vu all over again.  Back in the 1980s he and a handful of reform-minded colleagues exposed how the Defense Department used a similar accounting trick to inflate its spending and to accumulate money for 'off the books' programs. Spinney recalls: 'The DOD routinely overestimated inflation rates for weapons systems. When actual inflation turned out to be lower than the estimates, they did not return the excess funds to the Treasury as required by law. They slipped them into something called a merged surplus account. In that way the Pentagon was able to build up a slush fund of almost $50 billion, or about $120 billion in today's money."

OK, so Ocasio-Cortez basically erred by mixing up Pentagon slush fund money accrued from sleazy accounting with a total amount ($21 trillion) missing from the ledgers on account of such a ruse'.  But she's young and still learning, so should be forgiven. I warrant she didn't lie (with implies intention) but simply "shot from the hip" in not really investigating the fiscal mechanics behind the shady accounting using 'plugs'.  In other words, she's not guilty of "Pinnochios" but rather laziness.  After all, it's not that there doesn't exist ANY money from the Pentagon's accounting tricks for social uses, only it just isn't enough to support a Medicare for All program.   What we do know is right now there is a desperate need to provide a much wider social safety net, and we need to find any and all means - including higher taxes- to pay for it! 

See also:

Paul Buchheit

Article Tools E-mail | Print Comments (1)

Economic Policy

By the Best Definition, the Poverty Rate Should Be Tripled

by Paul Buchheit | January 8, 2019 - 6:26am | permalink

And:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez | Media

How the Media’s Hidden Biases Feed the Right-wing Agenda

by Cody Fenwick | January 7, 2019 - 7:21am | permalink

Sorry! You Have NO Constitutional Right To Own An AR-15!

Justice Antonin Scalia - your total conservative - asserted in the Heller case that no citizen has the right to own an assault weapon.

Seeing the Parkland, FL kids this a.m. confront the hidebound Reepo lawmakers in the Florida legislature was dumbfounding.  The kids had been assembled in groups of 10 to thrash out questions with these nitwits but soon learned they could as well pound sand or talk to walls.  One girl asked the leader of the House why such vicious weapons were needed at all, such rifles that are military issue and designed specifically for combat. The fool actually responded that they were often used by his constituents for hunting, especially for wild Boar!

This ought to have brought the kids to peals of howling laughter, but most took him seriously because - obviously - they lacked any inkling or knowledge of what hunting such game was like in the past. But to most of us who grew up in the sixties, the idea of hunting a wild Boar with a military style weapon is laughable. What? You think you're going against an Abrams tank!? It's a fuckin' animal, for god's sake!

In the olden days we'd select a  Remington 30.06 with hollow points to do the job, but nowadays the real hunter -  as opposed to a frightened dwarf (who needs a semi-automatic)-  would more probably choose the the Savage 11 FCNS Hunter, simply because it's totally capable of bringing down a 300 lb. boar from 400 yards away.   The point is that it's laughable any real man or hunter would resort to an AR-15 to kill a hog unless he was ass-faced pathetic and a total loser and weakling who needs an unfair advantage against game. That's why that FLA House idiot's response was codswallop.  As blogger David Lindorff put it recently:
,
An AR-15 is not a hunting weapon. In fact there’s a reason it’s called an “assault rifle.” As a hunter, unless you’re an atrocious shot and are hunting random flocks of small birds, you certainly don’t need to be able to fire powerful ammunition of two bullets per second — the rate at which experts sayan ordinary person could be able to pull the trigger."

But the kids, at least for now seem to have bought this daft rationalization of why military style weapons are needed in civilian society.

The larger point is that NO one has the constitutional right to own an AR-15 or any other assault weapon, by which I mean all semi-automatics originally designed for military use.  I already cited the controversial 1939 case wherein FDR's Solicitor General framed the argument to the Court:

"The Second Amendment grants people a right that is not one which may be utilized for private purposes but only exists where the arms are borne in a militia or some other military organization provided by law and intended for protection of the State."

The SC decision was unanimous. 

Now, fast forward to 2008 and  Justice Antonin Scalia, writing the majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the Supreme Court reversed a long-held position and ruled that the Second Amendment did give Americans an individual right to own firearms.  The court said the District’s ban on handguns in private homes went too far, but that regulation of gun ownership was compatible with the Second Amendment:

Scalia wrote at the time:

"It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service — M-16 rifles and the like — may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right.”

To get the language straight, and in Scalia's terms, it is useful to replace "assault weapons,”  with  the phrase:  “the kinds of weapons that Justice Antonin Scalia has defined as ‘dangerous and unusual’ and subject to regulation or an outright ban under the Second Amendment.”  And, if these weapons are subject to regulation, then they do not make for a "constitutional right".

As Joe Scarborough put it this morning: "Some say this is embedded in the constitution. It is not!"

Adding:

"Go back and read Heller, 2008, what Scalia and the Supreme Court said. You're right, you can have handguns in your home, and shotguns to protect your family. But the court has allowed states  - like Maryland (2017)  to ban assault style weapons.  They let this and other laws stand   - without challenge - as constitutional ."

This is important to know, because without being armed by facts, and in the heat of argument, the assault weapons defenders will throw all kinds of lies and BS at you, as that Florida House moron tossed at the Parkland student,  re: needing an AR- 15 to hunt wild boar.

As Joe Scarborough put it:

"On the substance of the matter let's be clear because there's so many people that say so many stupid things every day. Ignorant things about guns like on my twitter feed. Like rights to assault weapons. But look,  those are not constitutionally protected rights because states can limit those rights  Like the first amendment, second amendment rights are limited.

If you want to make the argument that the Supreme Court should protect your rights to have military style weapons, that's legitimate.  But if you say it is your God-given constitutional right to have an AR-15 that is not what the second amendment says. And it's not what Justice Scalia says or the Supreme Court says."

The Stoneman Douglas students need to learn and process these facts when they go up against those who try to tell them owning these weapons is an American "right". No it is not. It may be a desire for some 5 percent of guntards, but it is no right.

Footnote:  In the guntards' most recent setback, a "2nd amendment"  challenge to California's 10-day mandated waiting period for gun purchase, the Supreme Court by an 8-1 verdict again set limits on their "rights" - siding with the state.

"Guns don't kill people"? Countering The Rationalizations and Memes Employed By The NRA

"This weapon, the AR-15, was actually the weapon the military was trying to use - instead of the M 16- in Vietnam, because it was more lethal." - Joe Scarborough yesterday morning

Even as one hundred activist students - survivors of the Valentine's Day massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High -  march to the Florida state capitol today, they have to know they will be confronting hard- headed lawmakers. Especially on the Reepo side, i.e. those who sold out their brains long ago to the NRA for a few campaign bucks.  The kids, part of the newly activated #NeverAgain movement, with allies across the nation, will have to be able to counter the specious arguments that will be hurled back at them.

This begs the question of why, apart from campaign largesse, it is so difficult to change minds. Well, one reason is the penchant of the NRA to trot out  glib rationalizations and facile arguments,  with which it seeds the susceptible  brains of so many.

How effective are these canards and rationalizations? A poll reported this morning on CBS shows that the nation is nearly evenly divided on an assault weapons ban - among the few things that would actually work to limit mass shootings - ask Australia!   The poll showed only 50 percent support such a ban and 46 percent oppose. WHY do so many oppose it? I submit because they are victims of one or more NRA mind viruses that have infected their brains and spread by the minions of the NRA.

For example: "Guns don't kill people, people kill people".

Which is one of the most popular because it catches so many would-be opponents off guard. They are then left to flap gums, i.e. "B-b-but y-you can't say that!!"  As opposed to offering a powerful retort,  for example:

"But if you had taken that AR-15 out of that kid's hands and replaced it with just a kitchen knife would he have still killed so many?"  In other words, the weapon used also factors in, just as the use of an accelerant by an arsonist to burn down an apartment bldg. That accelerant - like the AR-15 or any other assault weapon -dramatically increases the body count. This isn't rocket science and you don't need a Mensa level IQ to get it.

This tack effectively puts  them on the defensive. Of course, then the usual reply - again thanks to the NRA - is: "So what?  You now want to ban all kitchen knives too?"

NOOOOOO... But you fail to process that there is a logical difference between a prosaic, everyday implement that can sometimes be used as a weapon, and a military style rifle that is specifically designed to kill. In this case, a rifle that was once earmarked for possible use in Vietnam to make killing easier than the older model M16.  In other words, Roscoe, how many mass killings have been done by knives? It is easy to mock the notion of "knife laws" but when you hold their feet (and brains) to the fire on a logical basis they are the ones usually spluttering.  

Or maybe not. CBS interviewer John Blackstone tried to do that with the couple ( James and Kimberly Snead)  that took  in  Nikolas Cruz, even confronting them about allowing him to have a case of "five or six guns"  including the AR-15 assault rifle. The guy - a total dope - was nonchalant,  telling Blackstone when asked about this, "It was his right".  His right?! A nineteen year old twerp whose brain is still forming? So these Sneads  also appear to be brain- jacked idiots who perhaps had imbibed too much NRA hog swill.   Confirmation? When Blackstone asked James Snead  if he felt differently about it now after the massacre, he replied, "No, not at all." In other words,  this guntard would let another kid into his home to have his own gun case too. It is morons like this that confirm again the need for parental (or guardianship) licensing tests, and  blacken this country's name and make us all look like damned fools.

It was two days ago that I came across another favorite NRA trope that I've seen in various guises. It appeared on my Facebook home page, and it clearly showed why banning assault weapons is often made to appear ridiculous. The canard was compliments of a nephew who is part of my "Friends" group. It went like this:

"A DUI driver gets rightly blamed and prosecuted for killing 3 people in a crash he caused. A guy shoots up 17 kids with an assault rifle -  and the rifle gets the blame.  Typical liberal logic."


Most of us have to admit this "reasoning"  is mind blowing in its simplicity and precisely for that reason is dangerous, because it can lull those without critical thinking skills to accept it.  This is what I call an example of sophistry often employed by those who'd seek to defend the purchase and ownership of a weapon which - as Joe Scarborough notes at the top - was actually considered for use in Vietnam because of its lethality. In other words, its staunch defenders are full tilt embracing the right to own and operate a weapon that is specifically dedicated to slaughter the enemy in a war theater.

Now, let's take step back and process merely what the old fashioned M 16 could do as reflected in this image after a whole village was wiped out by Lt. William Calley's platoon in the Mai Lai massacre:
















Dozens of men, women and children were slain in that rogue exercise engineered by the war criminal Calley and it is surely difficult to process how a more lethal scenario could emerge. But - if the AR- 15 had been used instead it would have snuffed out  the few surviving villagers.. Yet that weapon - at least ownership of it - is what the assault weapons' folks defend.  WHY?

Let's go back to the specious argument posted on Facebook and see why it is specious.  Consider the case of the DUI - such as occurred in Denver barely a month ago-  when three members of a family were wiped out of existence by that inebriated driver. He was surely to blame as his blood alcohol level was later found to be 0.3. There is no issue on who was to blame, and the car was merely the instrument for the killing. However, the extent of the death was self limiting by the capacity of the car.

In the case of an AR-15 (or other assault rifle) there is no self limiting factor - and a gunman (like Nikolas Cruz) could move at will - say floor to floor, room to room- slaughtering as many as his trigger finger speed and aim permit.  Now, this is crucial  - the ability to do that is a function primarily of the weapon,  not just the mobility of the gunman. Again, leave him with just his "fists" - as my AR-15 owner pal put two days ago, i.e. "more people are killed with fists than guns" - and I promise you 17 do not die.

Hence, the AR-15  example is qualitatively and quantitatively distinct from the DUI deaths.  For sure, the gunman is also to blame - but his choice of instrument must also be factored in, to the extent of contributing to the body count. In other words, it's the combination of shooter and weapon that's most important. Or to use the words of journalist Hava Leipzig Holzhauer, writing in the Broward Sun-Sentinel:

"This combination is a threat to our way of life in America."

As I posted in a response comment, take the AR-15 out of Cruz's hands and substitute a knife -  whatever one you  choose- and 17 don't lose their lives. You can take that to the bank. What has been done is to replace one of the most lethal weapons with a much less lethal one. In the first case, the weapon,  a cousin to the M16, is expressly designed to kill and do so with maximal efficiency.  Moreover, it is expressly designed to kill people, not hunt prey. As blogger David Lindorff put it:

"An AR-15 is not a hunting weapon. In fact there’s a reason it’s called an “assault rifle.” As a hunter, unless you’re an atrocious shot and are hunting random flocks of small birds, you certainly don’t need to be able to fire powerful ammunition of two bullets per second — the rate at which experts say an ordinary person could be able to pull the trigger."

By contrast, the knife  -- no matter how sharp or large- must usually be wielded by an assailant in an up close and personal manner. It isn't like taking aim from 20 or more feet away and dispatching victims with the touch of a trigger.  To kill seventeen people  even in the same room - the assailant would have to work demonically, stabbing from one to the other, and there is no assurance any given slash would be a fatal one  say like an  AR-15 bullet fired into a chest.  Even if it took only 3 seconds per stab, this  is much longer than firing 2 rounds per second. And you can't assume the people will just stand there like dummies and let you do them in, oh no. They will react and more than likely several will gang up to take the assailant down

This is the first point that the assault rifle lovers must be forced to admit, that it is far more difficult to kill with a knife than an assault weapon. Now, the FLA AR-15 owner in his response cited a stat where he said: "you're more than twice as likely to be killed from being kicked or punched than being shot".

Which merely goes to show how statistics can be used to disguise the nature of a threat if not carefully considered.   What was my retort? Well, I said I would gladly face any flying fists or feet rather than an AR-15 (or AK 47) any day. If he believed he'd sway me to accepting that owning an AR-15 was ok because I'd more likely get offed by a latter day Bruce Lee with a karate kick, he was mistaken.

His argument actually derived from then Texas AG  Greg Abbott's 2013 Facebook post. But that post did not include homicides the FBI attributed to handguns (6,220), firearms whose type was not stated (1,587) and "other guns" (97). Those numbers mean handguns were used in 72 percent of all firearm murders in 2011 and slightly under half of all murders using any kind of weapon that year.

These sort of stats have also been used by assault rifle defenders to argue that the risk of being shot  by an assault rifle in a mass shooting is so freakishly small it is not worth fretting about.

But the exact same logic can be applied to terror attacks by Islamic extremists.

It was  columnist Gideon Rachman of The Financial Times  who first pointed out that the number of Americans killed by terrorists since 1960 is "about the same as the number killed over the same period in deer accidents". For example, cars careening into a deer and being driven into a ditch.  The probability turned out to be roughly 1 in 18,000.

But look at what we are dealing with, despite the rarity of terror attacks!  TSA searches of bags etc.  at all the airports, alerts, blockages of roads and mobilized tactical and other police forces after each terror attack. So why this huge reaction difference if the odds are so minuscule?  Because we treat the threat of a terror attack - say on a plane or in NYC on New Year's Eve -   as a code red security threat that must be dealt with accordingly.  So my question is, "Why not treat mass shootings ALSO as terror attacks?"

If we adopt the arguments of the assault rifle lovers  i.e. that mass shootings are just a "distortion" of overall gun deaths, then why do most of them also support the anti-terror strategies?  I mean if the odds of being killed in a terror attack are 1 in 18,000 and the odds of being murdered in a mass shooting by a homegrown nut wielding an AR-15  are 1 in 11,000  why not adopt the same threat response for both?

There is only one logical reason for the difference in response: the rank and file of the AR-15 defenders and NRA gun lobby fear the Islamic extremists who carry out terror attacks more than the white boys who do mass shootings.  This is why I stated in a tongue- in -cheek manner that if most or all of these mass shootings were done by Islamic extremists (or black gang members)  you'd see action on gun control faster than a  tachyon's flight..

Look, the gun insanity will not stop until our population of assault weapon owners are forced to confront these contradictions and provide coherent explanations. Also,  why they continue to support a loophole in the gun laws that enables any extremist to buy an assault weapon,

Added to the gun debate there is added confusion now that Russian bots are evidently entering as well. As reported in the NY Times:

One hour after news broke about the school shooting in Florida last week, Twitter accounts suspected of having links to Russia released hundreds of posts taking up the gun control debate.

The accounts addressed the news with the speed of a cable news network. Some adopted the hashtag #guncontrolnow. Others used #gunreformnow and #Parklandshooting

Those automated Twitter accounts have been closely tracked by researchers. Last year, the Alliance for Securing Democracy, in conjunction with the German Marshall Fund, a public policy research group in Washington, created a website that tracks hundreds of Twitter accounts of human users and suspected bots that they have linked to a Russian influence campaign.

The researchers zeroed in on Twitter accounts posting information that was in step with material coming from well-known Russian propaganda outlets. To spot an automated bot, they looked for certain signs, like an extremely high volume of posts or content that conspicuously matched hundreds of other accounts.

All this shows me we have  a lot of work to do in order to combat and counter the NRA sophistry. We now also need to be aware many of the assault rifle defenders may well be Russian bots  seeking to stir up even bigger shit storms.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/cesar-chelala/77791/a-student-s-message-to-politicians-about-the-florida-massacre

And:


http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-lindorff/77748/us-mass-killers-crucially-abetted-by-nuts-who-won-t-ban-assault-weapons-and-high-capacity-clips

COS Socialists' Infiltration By Cops Shows Left Is Still Scapegoated In US Of A

Colorado Springs Socialists march downtown recently. Infiltration by police has come to light, but it's nothing new for left groups in the U.S..


The news that Colorado Springs Socialists were infiltrated by local police should not come as news for most deep politics researchers. Indeed, we'd seen this show before with the attempted infiltration and spying on Occupy Wall Street.  Recall, by early October,2012,  the movement arrived in Houston, Texas, whereupon law enforcement officials and the city’s banking and oil industry executives went ape shit even more so than they did in some other cities. The push-back took the form of violent assaults by police on Occupy activists, federal and local surveillance of people seen as organizers, infiltration by police provocateurs—and, as crazy as it sounds, a plot to assassinate the “leaders” of this non-violent and leaderless movement. (Don’t take my word for it. Here’s what the document obtained from the Houston FBI said as related by David Lindorff : http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1494 )

In fact, trained snipers were to be assembled for attacks on protesters in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and other cities, e.g.


In addition, anyone alive in the late 60s knows it was the FBI's COINTELPRO  program which actually infiltrated multiple protest groups including the Weather Underground, Yippies, the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society)  as well as less well known groups.  More on this below.

So the template has been used for some time, and the infiltration in COS is not new. As reported by The Colorado Springs Independent, the infiltrators were

"Two undercover Colorado Springs Police officers serving with the Metro, Vice, Narcotics and Intelligence Division (Metro VNI) whose intelligence-gathering work relies on anonymity." 

In the case of the two spy cops in the Springs, their cover was partially blown as a result of an operation on March 26. That day, the officers went undercover to embed in a “March Against Imperialism” organized by the Colorado Springs Socialists, which culminated in the citation of four marchers for obstructing a roadway and failure to disperse. When the City Attorney’s office turned over the evidence via discovery, the defendants viewed body camera footage that revealed the undercovers in their midst.

The Socialists were alarmed to learn in the aftermath that law enforcement had infiltrated their peaceful assembly, particularly given CSPD’s history of spying on (generally leftist and environmentalist) activist groups. In truth, the Socialists should not have been alarmed given the history of American law enforcement busting into left groups dating all the way back to the Wobblies in the 20s. (Google it!) 

Fast forward to the late 60s, early 70s, and infiltration of left groups went on "steroids" with  the FBI's COINTELPRO  operations. The basic strategy was to dress these undercover agents like hippies (bell bottoms, long hair, floral shirts) then have them "join" the groups and spread havoc from within by telling lies or planting false info. (Google COINTELPRO and learn more about it.)   It is perhaps true that the most radical misfits in those 60s Left groups (like the Weather Underground) spurred much more targeting and infiltration  of the left-leaning "normal" groups.

I guess one might go along with the old saw "Peter got to pay for Paul" or some such, i.e. if "Peter" is relatively innocent -merely exercising his free speech - but "Paul" is the real bad guy. In this case, the violent acts of the Weathermen definitely led to all other Left groups - even peaceful - being targeted by COINTELPRO.    One could therefore say, with some plausibility, the aggressive surveillance of the Occupy Wall Street groups as well as infiltration of Socialists in the Springs by local cops is a carryover of that mindset.


But one also shouldn't be surprised  that Socialists nationwide would insist on much more respect after a Democratic Socialist (named Bernie Sanders)  had run in the 2016  presidential campaign - and won some 20 -odd states in the Democratic primaries. 

It was therefore not too surprising that - as reported by the  Indy-  the COS Socialists "hired the powerhouse civil rghts firm:  Killmer, Lane & Newman LLP out of Denver. They  filed a motion to dismiss based on “outrageous police misconduct,” arguing police violated federal regulations when they infiltrated a group with no history of or clear intent to commit violence. "

According to testimony by the two undercover police and Metro VNI Lt. Mark Comte at the Dec. 6 evidentiary hearing, the intelligence-gathering operation began early this year, when they became interested in local leftists based on “national trends” — particularly the proliferation of black bloc, a tactic most closely associated with anti-fascism (Antifa) in which protesters wear black and mask up to hide individual identities from law enforcement, disapproving employers and/or right-wing enemies.

Hyper wary of the Socialists (who have nada to do with Antifa)  Comte sent “Mark” and “Amy” to an open meeting, organized by the Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists, in the back room of the downtown Wild Goose Meeting House in January. The meeting was organized to plan how to “shut down” right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos during his scheduled appearance at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. (Yiannopoulos as most know is a convicted sex offender who goes around the country gaslighting everyone and everything a la Steve Bannon's playbook).

There,  according to the Indy account:  “Mark” said he heard some attendees propose rushing the stage and disabling the sound system. During cross-examination, he told David Lane, lead defense attorney, that pulling power cords could be considered violent in his opinion. That particular proposal was never incorporated into the group’s plan and the protest was nonviolent. Despite that, the undercover operation continued.

As for why an interest in Antifa would lead to surveillance of Socialists, the prosecution argued "there’s ambiguity and overlap between the memberships."   Of course, this is bare balderdash. The only "overlap" is that both often wear black.  So the Socialists' lawyers had to point out the distinct differences, namely that Antifa tends to align with anarchism, i.e. they want to abolish the state, while the Socialists are mainly Marxist-Leninists.

That means they WANT the state to be expanded, i.e. to take over industrial, health, and other operations for the betterment of all. This , as opposed to having national institutions, pensions, and even water supplies and utilities privatized by greedy capitalists - impoverishing and exploiting even more millions of hapless citizens  As one of the seated Socialists pointed out for the peanut gallery regarding differences with Antifa: “We don’t even like each other.”

Note, Antifa - in addition to the differences from Socialists noted above-  doesn’t, in fact, have members. It’s instead a zeitgeist, a motive cultural -social tendency, not a fixed  organization with a charter, membership list and objectives - like the COS Socialists.  The spy cops didn't get this difference so naturally conflated the Antifas with the Socialists. As Mark put it, quoted by the Independent

“[I saw] him show up to a protest wearing black bloc clothing,”  

Well, let us hope there are no Baltimore Ravens' fans hanging around the Springs, because their normal NFL gear is black jackets and/or sweatshirts along with caps and slacks to match. 

I mean, we wouldn't now want local Ravens' football fans (like wifey) to be lumped in with Antifa and Socialists as well.

Fortunately, Judge Kristen L. Hoffecker is expected to rule on the defense’s motion to dismiss in the coming weeks. Once that's finished the Socialists can continue fielding more candidates for the  Ds in the 2018 midterms, having already taken one seat in VA last month. Socialists are also busy training hundreds more to vie for spots on school boards, especially in Florida - where a large Puerto Rican diaspora (from the hurricane disaster that Trump ignored) have poured in by the hundreds of thousands. This means a "revenge vote" will be forthcoming and ensure whatever Dem presidential candidate (maybe Socialist Bernie Sanders) unseats dumb fuck traitor Dotard.

On the other positive side, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are now grooming dozens of candidates to run in the mid terms, following the success in the recent primaries - including Virginia.

See also:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/11/10/what_democratic_socialist_lee_carter_s_upset_win_suggests_about_the_left.html