STRANGE WEATHER: Bette’s Sunday Letters on Media’s Leonard Leo Failure, a Word About Predators, and Music for the Resistance
Media professionals Tom Carter and Jill Cody write laments on reporters who had a duty to warn and predators in Trump’s orbit, plus a soundtrack for resistance
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When times get hard, music gets good.
Sharing my muse DJ Oisin Lunny’s latest mixtape. He opens with the sublime Do You Realize? by Willie Nelson, pays tribute to Quincy Jones, and please do pause to check out Keren Ann’s Strange Weather.
If you haven’t heard my interview with the Irish DJ, please check it out:
Get on his mailing list. He sends a new two-hour mixtape every two weeks, and we all can use some inspiro, as the weather forecast in the US predicts a thousand years of darkness. Unless, of course, we resist.
On these pages in coming days you will be learning about resistance efforts that work. Among them:
The Civil Rights movement in the United States
The Greensboro sit-ins, the Birmingham Children's Crusade, and the Selma to Montgomery marches led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
The Maidan Revolution in Ukraine People rose up in 2014 against Putin puppet Victor Yanukovych, who was forced to flee to Russia and convicted of treason. Trump and Yanukovych had the same groomer: Paul Manafort.
The Indian independence movement
Mohandas Gandhi led a decades-long nonviolent campaign that resulted in the British giving up their occupation of India.
The Polish Solidarity movement
From 1980–1989, Poles organized an independent trade union and took back their country from Soviet rule.
The Velvet Revolution
In 1989, protests and strikes led to a peaceful transition from communism in Czechoslovakia.
The anti-apartheid movement in South Africa
Boycotts and other nonviolent sanctions were used for decades to end apartheid in South Africa in the early 1990s.
The Arab Spring
Starting in Tunisia in December 2010, the Arab Spring uprisings resulted in the fall of rulers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen in 2011.
The Hong Kong protests
Hong Kongers have been protesting for decades to defend freedoms and demand democracy.
Watch The Battle of Algiers — there will be a Happy Hour dedicated to the great 1966 Ennio Moriconne-scored film. Have you bought your post-its yet? You will need them. And a Bette member sent this link on 10 ways to be prepared and grounded now that Trump has won.
In addition, I need you to reach out to all the independent investigative reporters, researchers, and historians who have educated you and let them know their work has mattered to you. Many are ready to quit, because we lost the war for the America to the transnational mob. Scan the list above and know that the world turns on people who resist. It’s what we do. Please also support the work of the independents — we need it.
Deus Ex Machina MIA
I pray for a deus ex machina — I want Joe Biden to hold a presser tomorrow that our enforcement agencies arrested Trump, Musk, Thiel, Vance, Bannon, Stone, Flynn, etc., for being traitors to the United States of America. He has the power to do so, but it’s as likely to happen as aliens coming down from the sky. Three years ago Jim Stewartson told me democracy would die with norms, and for the record, Jim has been correct.
Democrats are serving us platitudes, when what we need is protection from monsters and traitors.
In our platitude, hopium-free zone, we continue the labor of democracy.
I just published an important investigation by Zarina Zabrisky, an American reporter covering the war in Ukraine, who detailed the Russian oligarch ties behind Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. Read it please:
In Cult of the Genius Tech Bro, I exposed that Silicon Valley has always been a Russian influence operation.
Now, let’s get on with Bette’s Sunday Letters.
Below are letters from Bette members and veteran scribes Tom Carter and Jill Cody. Carter exposes the reporters who missed the tsumani threat of Leonard Leo, and Cody writes how we need to call the criminal cabal by their proper name — predators.
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The Silence of the Journos
by Tom Carter
Author’s note: Carter is a veteran newsman who spent 15 years trying to wake up legacy media to the threat of Leonard Leo, a lobbyist responsible for loading the Supreme Court with half a dozen Catholic extremists whose rulings have brought this darkness upon us. Here, Carter offers his post-mortem:
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." - Martin Luther King Jr.
There has been a blue tsunami of weeping and wailing, gnashing of teeth about what went wrong.
It was educated elite. Biden. Bad messaging. The arrogant liberals, the economy. Kamala’s failure to connect with white supremacist racists, misogynists, rapists or criminal trash.
It was the vast right wing media. Fox, Sinclair, Murdoch.
Or, my favorite, it was MSM mainstream media, NYT and WaPo for sanewashing trump’s insanity and equating both sides: trumpy fascism vs imperfect Kamala democracy.
I agree with much of the media bashing, but I blame the “silence of our journo friends” in MSM, who failed to recognize, or worse, ignored the danger of Leonard Leo, when he might have been stopped.
I use a medical analogy. Both the common cold and Ebola present with the same symptoms early on. But if the doctor diagnoses and treats the wrong virus, you die.
Hidden away, undiagnosed and without media scrutiny, Leo turned out to be the infection fatal to democracy.
What did reporters miss?
First, there is no Trump without Leonard Leo. Leo’s promise to stack the courts with anti-abortion judges in 2016 was the magic ingredient in persuading the Evangelicals to back their rapist, con man messiah.
Second, there is no extreme right Catholic Supreme Court without Leo. Leo picked and vetted each Supreme and spent nearly $600 million getting them confirmed. Google Judicial Crisis Network, Carrie Severino and Neil and Ann Corkery.
Third, there is no Opus Dei Project 2025 without Leo. See the Guardian reports on Kevin Roberts, or Stopthecoup2025.org.
And finally, the Hail Mary. There is no conversion of Trojan Horse JD Vance by Dominic Legge/Tim Busch/Patrick Deneen to Opus Dei adjacent Catholicism without Leo.
Recently, a few reporters have done groundbreaking work on Leo, most notably Greg Olear, author and multiplatform internet influencer, Heidi Schlumpf at National Catholic Reporter and Heidi Przybyla at Politico. Also, special mentions to Nina Burleigh at New York magazine and Heidi Cuda at Byline Times.
Simon & Schuster just published a book, Opus, by UK financial reporter Gareth Gore, that details and meticulously documents Leonard Leo’s Washington, DC Opus Dei world, with implications for the next four years.
But still no still no MSM deep dive on Leo and his Holy Warrior faith driven politics.
I tried for 15 years to warn DC reporters about Leo. I spent countless hours and sent 10s of thousands of emails, which I have archived, trying to raise the alarm. But democracy died in darkness.
The reporters listed below, each received a deep briefing on Leo, and decided Leo was the common cold, not Ebola.
There are many reasons Trump was re-elected. I will go to my grave believing that DC’s elite media failure to investigate and expose Leonard Leo years ago is near the top of list. These so-called watchdog reporters owe this country an apology.
And here we are, days away from the Leonard Leo, Chistofascist Opus Dei America.
Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome!
1. David Corn - Mother Jones - 6/21/2010
2. WaPo - 3/02/2012
3. Robert Draper - NYT - first talked re Leo Spring 2012 1st email 11/22/2012 - detailed 2014
4. Viveca Novak/Peter Stone - 4/22/2015 - Guardian Union Station
5. Eric Lipton - NYT 3/2017 (Skype in Mexico)
6. Ian Millhiser - Think Progress (now Vox) - 6/5/17 Peregrine Coffee Eastern Market, DC.
7. Jack Jenkins - Religion News Service - 6/5/17 w Millhiser
8. Rob Boston - 8/2017
9. Ruth Marcus - 2/01/2019
10. Carl Hulse - NYT - 8/01/2019
11. Yagneh Torbati - Propublica (now WaPo) 11/6/2019 - met 11/2019
12. Issac Arnsdorf - Propublica (now WaPo) 11/2019 at Ted’s Bulletin
13. Jon Ward - yahoo
14. Andy Kroll - 08/22/2022 - ProPublica - Kroll sent dozens of emails asking me to talk - I was reluctant after previous experience w PP Torbati and Arnsdorf. Ultimately, after promise after broken promise to write about Leo’s faith, I agreed to a total of six hours of interviews with Kroll. PP published “No One Talks about Leonard,” Oct. 2023 based almost entirely on documents published by AP in 2008 and Guardian 2016. “He’s not Opus Dei. He told us,” said Kroll, award winning investigative reporter.
Linked below are the first three emails I sent a reporter re Leonard Leo - to Mother Jones David Corn in 2010-2011.
Emails to NYT Robert Draper, other Leo related opeds, are published on my Medium page. Medium.com/@thcarter123.—Tom Carter
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Author’s note: When I first interviewed Tom Carter for RadPod, Bette Dangerous, and Byline Times, a few lines stuck out to me, and I repeated them for the Bette community over and over. It was related to his exasperation from an email exchange he had with a high-profile reporter, who ignored his pleas to report on the threat of Leonard Leo. The reporter demurred Carter’s urgent requests due to a family tie to someone in Leo’s orbit, prompting Carter to write:
Imagine you are a NYT reporter in 1935 Berlin and you meet and begin dating a blonde, blue-eyed Aryan woman. Turns out your new girlfriend is the daughter, or niece or goddaughter of a high ranking Nazi. You are welcomed into Berlin’s Nazi social circuit. Access. Check. Sources. Check. Amour. Check. You get invited into Nazi homes and cocktail parties. Do you tell your editor back home, I can’t write about this, my girlfriend would not approve? I’m friendly with these people. They love God. They love Germany. They are actually very nice, except for what they have planned for the Jews.
Coming up on November 2024 and a possible Leonard Leo Christofascist takeover of the United States, as detailed in his 900-page Project 2025, it looks like 1930s Germany to me.
—Tom Carter, email to a NYT reporter
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The Predators Have Won
by Jill Cody
Author’s note: Jill Cody is a best-selling author, political scientist and radio show host and podcaster, who I met through Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s Lucid community. She interviewed me two days before the election on her show for KSQD radio ‘Be Bold America’ and in our pre-show conversations, she told me something very important, that her father about a decade ago told her ‘the crooks have won.’ When she said it, the words sounded so true for our current moment, even though I wished to believe otherwise. But wishes are horses, and after receiving an email that attempted to be uplifting regarding the election, Cody responded by laying down some cold truth:
About 10 years ago, my father (a world renowned philosopher) said to me bluntly, “The crooks have won.” Today, I update that observation to say, "The predators have won.”
Bezos has been a predator who rubbed out small business. And, any small business that was successful on his Amazon website, he would copy their product and undercut that person just trying to eke out a living.
Musk is a predator. He took a well-respected social media platform and turned it into a Nazi-infested communication platform (Nazis are known for being predators, by definition) but, in addition, Musk has been made wealthy beyond any comprehension because of US government contracts. He preys on the middle class tax dollar. He wants more and will be given direct access when appointed to a cabinet position. Grifter appoint grifters.
A recession must also be created so that the billionaires can prey on any assets that we and our country still holds. The uber-rich always makes money in a recession, because they’re the only ones who have the money to "buy low." Recessions are great wealth-generating opportunities for the rich. The coming recession will be a feature of Trump’s regime. Not a bug.
These are just examples. The Trump regime will be complete with predators. It is their time.
I have seen many attempts of uplifting stories in this moment. They are good to read to keep us inspired. Having said that, none of us has the imagination to prepare for what is coming. In America, we have held certain truths and they have governed our thinking all of our lives. Our framing has always been created by them. Hence, we will not be prepared for what is coming.
As a quick example already … we have taken the fourth estate, our media, as part of our everyday lives. Just this morning, Trump is saying that he will send the IRS to audit media personalities he hates. This is something he can do without congress or the DOJ. He did it before with James Comey and several other FBI agents he hated during his first administration. Wrapping them up in years of audit battles and making their lives miserable. How long will our individual journalists be able to stand up against the personal vendettas he will exercise? Actions such as these he can do without punity. Just wait until he has control of the FBI and the DOJ. He already has a Secretary of Retribution in mind for when he takes control in January.
I write this rant to not only vent, but to also get those I care about to think more deeply about the future and begin preparing themselves emotionally.—Jill Cody
Cody will be joining us for an upcoming Speakeasy zoom salon to discuss her books: America Abandoned: The Secret Velvet Coup That Cost Us Our Democracy — americaabandoned.com; and Climate Abandoned: We’re on the Endangered Species List is a #1 Amazon Bestseller — climateabandoned.com.
Cody’s tough love reminded me of something the Bette community learned from Keir Giles, our upcoming Founder’s Day guest, from one of his appearances on RadPod about how misfits, revenge-seekers, and sexual deviants make the ideal target for the Kremlin to turn them into Russian assets and agents:
Remember, the people who just seized power in America are criminals. All dictators fall, it’s a matter of how quickly.
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Related:
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Begin each day with a grateful heart.
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Bansky, NOLA 2008.
So looking forward to our coming zoomies together … learning from prescient folks like Jill Cody. A privilege to have $upported you in the past, and will continue to do so. You are seeing what I see, you understand a history that resonates strongly with what has seeped into my brain the last 6 decades (but could not share with others). I figure you will provide insight into a front line I can go to join in the coalescing opposition to this successful fascist coup ending this past iteration of democracy. We will watch the coup morph into a cruel fascist dictatorship … and perhaps, be alive to see a new democracy rise from the inevitable ashes of another group of dead tyrants.