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Dana Milbank: Trump Forgot But We Should Not

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2024 //
16

Dana Milbank, columnist for The Washington Post, wrote that Trump is counting on voters to forget how chaotic it was when he was President. Even now, we are daily inundated with the chaos that, as Nikki Haley said, always follows in Trump’s wake.

Milbank reminds us of the character of the man who would be President again or dictator for a day:

The Very Stable Genius is glitching again.
This week, he announced that he is not — repeat, NOT — planning to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He apparently forgot that he had vowed over and over again to do exactly that, saying as recently as a few months ago that Republicans “should never give up” on efforts to “terminate” Obamacare.

“I’m not running to terminate the ACA, AS CROOKED JOE BUDEN DISINFORMATES AND MISINFORMATES ALL THE TIME,” the Republican nominee wrote this week on his Truth Social platform. Rather, he said, he wants to make Obamacare better for “OUR GREST AMERICAN CITIZENS.”

Joe Buden disinformates and misinformates? For a guy trying to make an issue of his opponent’s mental acuity, this was not, shall we say, a grest look.

The previous day, Trump held a news conference where he nailed some equally puzzling planks onto his platform.

“We’ll bring crime back to law and order,” he announced.

Also: “We just had Super Tuesday, and we had a Tuesday after a Tuesday already.”

And, most peculiar of all: “You can’t have an election in the middle of a political season.”

If he can’t recall that elections frequently do overlap with political seasons, then he surely can’t be expected to remember what was happening at this point in 2020. “ARE YOU BETTER OFF THAN YOU WERE FOUR YEARS AGO?” he asked last week. The poor fellow must have forgotten all about the economic collapse and his administration’s catastrophic bungling of the pandemic.

Or maybe he didn’t forget. Maybe he’s just hoping the rest of us will forget. In a sense, Trump’s prospects for 2024 rely on Americans experiencing mass memory loss: Will we forget just how crazy things were when he was in the White House? And will we forget about the even crazier things he has said he would do if he gets back there?

This week, the Supreme Court heard arguments from antiabortion forces who want to ban mifepristone, the pill used in about 60 percent of abortions. But just as the justices were taking up the case, Trump’s own proposal to ban the abortion pill vanished.

The Heritage Foundation-run Project 2025, to which Trump has unofficially outsourced policymaking for a second term, said that a “glitch” had caused its policies — including those embracing a mifepristone ban — to disappear from its website. The Biden campaign said it was “calling BS on Trump and his allies’ shameless attempt to hide their agenda,” and the missing documents returned — including the language calling abortion pills “the single greatest threat to unborn children” and vowing to withdraw regulatory approval for the drugs.

About seven in 10 Americans believe the abortion pill should be legal. So it’s easy to see why Trump might wish to erase his plan to ban the pill — just as he would like to erase his calls for the repeal of Obamacare, which has the support of 6 in 10 Americans.

The extremism isn’t just at Project 2025, stocked with former Trump advisers. The House Republican Study Committee, which counts 80 percent of House Republicans as members, put out a budget last week that would rescind approval of mifepristone, dismantle the “failed Obamacare experiment” and embrace a nationwide abortion ban from the moment of conception.

Trump and some vulnerable congressional Republicans might wish that Americans will forget such things by November. But it’s all there in black and white.

Trump is a man of greatness. So says Trump. “It is my great honor to be at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach tonight, AWARDS NIGHT, to receive the CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHY & THE SENIOR CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHY,” he proclaimed over the weekend. “I WON BOTH!

So much winning. “Congratulations, Donald,” President Biden tweeted. “Quite the accomplishment.”

Trump won a more significant victory on Monday, when an appellate panel reduced the bond he needs to post as he appeals a fraud verdict against him to $175 million from $454 million. Trump didn’t have enough cash to secure the larger bond. But at a news conference he assured reporters that he was still really, really rich: “I have a lot of money … I don’t need to borrow money. I have a lot of money. … I have a lot of cash. … I have a lot of cash and a great company. … I have very low debt. … I built a phenomenal company that’s very low leverage, unbelievably low leverage with a lot of cash, a lot of everything else.”

Give that man another trophy.

Trump seemed particularly hurt that the judge in the fraud case valued Mar-a-Lago at $18 million, he said, when “half of the living room is worth more than that. So it’s worth anywhere from 50 to 100 times that amount.”

Give that man $1.8 billion for Mar-a-Lago, and another trophy.

Actually, Trump’s supporters have already given him about $5 billion this week — at least on paper — for doing nothing at all. His Truth Social went public, and even though it had a loss of $49 million in the first nine months of 2023 on revenue of just $3.4 million, it was valued at more than $8 billion. That’s because Trump’s fans, wanting a piece of the action, bid up the price. The stock in the company will almost certainly collapse. The only question is whether Trump can unload his shares before then (he’s supposed to keep them for six months) and leave his supporters once again holding the bag.

Trump uses Truth Social to post doctored articles about him that omit negative details, and now he’s making up stuff about Truth Social. He said he didn’t list the company on the New York Stock Exchange because it would be “treated too badly in New York” by Democratic officeholders. So he instead listed the company on Nasdaq, which is based in … New York. Trump said the “top person” at the NYSE “is mortified. … He said, ‘I’m losing business.’ ” As CNN pointed out, neither the president nor the chair of the exchange is a “he.”

Trump must not have a lot of faith that he’ll make off with his billions before the Truth Social bubble bursts, because he’s actively seeking other ways to grift. This week he started hawking bibles.

“Happy Holy Week! Let’s Make America Pray Again,” Trump posted. “As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless the USA Bible.” He directed his supporters to a website selling the Good Book for $59.99 a copy.

The website boasts: “Yes, this is the only Bible endorsed by President Trump!” Read on and you find out that the bible mongers are using Trump’s name and likeness “under paid license from CIC Ventures LLC,” a company owned by Trump.
Trump is getting kickbacks for selling the gospel — marketing God the same way he sold Trump-branded “Never Surrender High-Tops” sneakers last month for $399 a pair and, before that, digital trading cards showing Trump as a superhero.

“All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many. It’s my favorite book,” Trump said in the video promoting his new bible hustle.
Trump has an arms-length relationship with the Bible, which he brandished outside a church near Lafayette Square after protesters were dispersed with tear gas; he once referred to a passage from Second Corinthians as “Two Corinthians” and, at another point, couldn’t come up with a favorite Bible verse.

But the man does have a God complex. His campaign has promoted a video at rallies announcing that “God Gave us Trump.” He has called himself “the chosen one” and has shared a post calling him “the second greatest” after Jesus.

This week, Trump shared another post with a verse from Psalms, topped by a message likening Trump’s suffering in the fraud case to the Crucifixion: “It’s ironic that Christ walked through His greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you,” the message said, along with Trump’s reply: “Beautiful, thank you!”

A crucial difference, however, is that Jesus was not facing a trial over hush money paid to a porn actress. The judge in that case, Juan Merchan, said the trial will begin on April 15. Trump responded to this news by attacking the judge because his daughter works for a Democratic consulting firm. The judge slapped a gag order on Trump blocking him from harassing jurors and people who work for the judge or for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and their families. Trump responded with another attack on the judge and his daughter (who weren’t included in the gag order). Merchan is “suffering from an acute case of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Trump said of the judge, postulating that “maybe the Judge is such a hater because his daughter makes money by working to ‘Get Trump.’”

If there is a trophy for pretrial self-sabotage, Trump wins that one, too.

Trump’s stranglehold on the Republican Party grew yet tighter this week. The Post’s Josh Dawsey reported that those seeking employment at the Republican National Committee have been asked during job interviews whether they believe the 2020 election was stolen. (The correct answer, from the RNC’s perspective, is “Hell yes.”)

Trump daughter-in-law Lara Trump, installed as RNC co-chair this month as part of a pro-Trump purge, this week brought Scott Presler to party headquarters. “Exciting things to come!” she promised. No doubt: Presler was on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021, promotes QAnon conspiracy ideas, planned “stop the steal” events, and organized “March Against Sharia” protests in his work for an anti-Islam group.
As for the Trump effort to win over disenchanted Nikki Haley voters, Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman report in the New York Times that he has opted to “bypass any sort of reconciliation” with her. Said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon: “Screw Nikki Haley — we don’t need her endorsement.”

But the MAGA takeover goes far deeper than personnel. Consider the wild conspiracy theories that came from the Trump crowd right after a massive cargo ship lost power and struck Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, collapsing it. “Is this an intentional attack or an accident?” asked Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), demanding an investigation. Fox’s Maria Bartiromo invited speculation about the “potential for foul play given the wide-open border.” Others blamed racial-diversity policies.
Nothing shows the thoroughness of the MAGA takeover of the GOP as well as the House’s Republican Study Committee budget. The group is the GOP mainstream now, counting some 172 of the 218 House Republicans as members, including many from swing districts and five — Juan Ciscomani and David Schweikert (Ariz.), Mike Garcia (Calif.), Don Bacon (Neb.) and Brandon Williams (N.Y.) from districts Biden won.

Yet here the RSC is, embracing a nationwide abortion ban without exceptions; a ban on the abortion pill, an increase in the retirement age for Social Security; defunding the police (through cuts to the Community Oriented Policing Services program); ending Amtrak funding and selling it off; eliminating broadband provided by the Affordable Connectivity Program; and blocking the “red flag” provisions that keep guns from dangerous people.

This is what Republicans will do next year if Trump wins the White House and Republicans control Congress. Don’t forget it.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Extremism, For-Profit, Republicans, Stupid, Trump

William S. Becker: How to Fix the Supreme Court

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2024 //
6

William S. Becker is a former U.S. Department of Energy central regional director who administered energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies programs. He is executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project, a nonpartisan initiative founded in 2007 to develop action plans for facing the climate crisis.

In this post, he proposes ways to restore the integrity of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court is the ultimate authority on the Constitution and the nation’s laws. But who judges the justices when they violate the public trust? 

It’s not a hypothetical question. In recent decisions and revelations, the current court has shown it is co-opted by right-wing ideology and corrupted by a certain ex-president trying to escape justice on more than 90 felony charges. 

So, who ultimately judges the justices?  

As usual, the answer is voters. Our Supreme Court must abide by higher standards for objectivity and fairness than any other government institution. Yet public respect for the court has been declining for years.  

Earlier this month, a Politico poll found that a big majority of Americans want Donald Trump to stand trial before the November election. A third said his conviction would make a difference in how they vote, but 75 percent don’t fully trust the Supreme Court to be fair and nonpartisan.   

Unfortunately, voters have no direct authority to restore the court’s integrity. The people’s recourse is to elect a Congress willing to force the court to reform. The next opportunity is Nov. 5. 

So, what are the several ways the Roberts Court has undermined public trust?  

Until recently, it refused to subscribe to the ethics standards set for other members of the federal judiciary. Even after the news media found at least two members engaged in apparent conflicts of interest, the justices hesitated for months before adopting an ethics code. It turned out to be neither binding nor enforceable. 

Second, the court has abandoned the standard of judging without fear or favor. Its conservative majority has bent over backward to protect Trump from accountability for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. The justices even agreed to hear Trump’s specious claim that he enjoys total immunity for his alleged crimes. It delayed oral arguments until next April, making it unlikely Trump’s trial will occur before the election. 

In another case, the justices decided to protect Trump by rewriting the Constitution rather than enforcing it.  

The 14th Amendment disqualifies people from public office if they swear to support the Constitution, then aid an insurrection. It says oath-swearing insurrectionists can escape disqualification only with a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate. The court’s conservatives gave Congress a new role, saying no insurrectionist can be sanctioned unless Congress says so, apparently on a case-by-case basis. So, a highly partisan body, rather than the Constitution, will make these decisions. 

Third, the justices disregard “settled laws” decided by and repeatedly affirmed by previous courts. The most egregious example was its reversal of Roe v. Wade. Now, state politicians decide whether women have the right to make their own reproductive decisions. The court also gutted the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, reasoning, perhaps naively, that racism is no longer a problem in the South. 

Fourth, the court opened the floodgates for corporations to make unlimited anonymous monetary contributions to political campaigns. The majority reasoned unrealistically that campaign contributions don’t influence how members of Congress vote. It also stretched credulity by ruling that money is speech and corporations are people. As a result, corporations and wealthy Americans gained even more power to shape the nation’s laws to their benefit. 

So, Supreme Court reform should be a top objective for voters this year. That requires a Congress committed to the goal. In a previous article, I pointed out that Congress has the necessary powers. Democrats (ideally joined by moderate Republicans and independents) should promise to use them if voters give them a trifecta: control of the White House, House, and Senate.  

Congress could: 

  • Allow President Biden to create better ideological balance on the court by adding four new justicesduring his second term; 
  • Establish by rule that the Senate’s duty in confirming Supreme Court nominees includes maintaining ideological balance on the court. The rule also should require that the Senate act on presidential appointments to the court regardless of their proximity to elections; 
  • Require the Judicial Conference of the United States to create and enforce a strict code of ethics for justices, including mandatory disclosure of potential and apparent conflicts of interest. The code should require justices to recuse themselves from cases where real or apparent conflicts exist; 
  • Establish term limits of 18 years for justices and require them to retire at or before age 70. This would bring the Supreme Court in line with the District of Columbia and 32 states that have set mandatory retirement ages for appellate court judges; 
  • Send President Biden legislation to restore Roe v. Wade and a strong Voting Rights Act as the laws of the land; 
  • Pass legislation to strengthen the Federal Elections Commission, end gerrymandering and voter suppression, and eliminate unlimited and anonymous campaign contributions.  
  • By statute or proposed constitutional amendment, clarify that the president of the United States a) does not have absolute immunity for violating laws, b) can be prosecuted while in office, and c) can be permanently disqualified from public office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment without an act of Congress. 
  • Under Article III of the Constitution, strip federal appellate courts including the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over certain classes of cases, including those involving women’s reproductive rights and the obligation of governments to protect “public trust assets” for current and future generations. 
  • Discourage growing abuses of the First Amendment by racists, militants, domestic terrorists, accelerationists and other extremists by compelling the court to define unprotected speech by contemporary standards. For example, pass a law that clarifies when predictions of civil violence and “blood baths” cross the line into true threats; when hate speech becomes discriminatory harassment; and when threats of violence or death constitute unprotected “true threats.” 

These and other commitments for reforming the Supreme Court should be part of the next Congress’s Contract with America. 

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Billionaires, Corruption, Democracy, Elections, Extremism, Justice

Timothy Snyder on Putin’s Paranoia

By dianeravitch
March 30, 2024 //
3

Timothy Snyder, the Yale University scholar of European history, tries to disentangle Putin’s lies about the terrorist attack on a concert hall in the suburbs of Moscow. ISIS-K claimed responsibility but Putin blames Ukraine. Of course.

Snyder writes:

            A week ago, four men associated with Islamic State attacked civilians in a concert venue near Moscow known as Crocus City Hall.  Islamic State (IS-K) claimed responsibility for the horrifying mass murder, and released videos recorded the terrorists’ perspective (don’t watch them).  Russia has since apprehended four men, who seem to be the perpetrators. 

            Russia has been engaged with Islamic State for some time.  Russia has been bombing Syria since 2015.  Russia and Islamic State compete throughout Africa for resources.  All four of the accused are Tajiks, a people subjected to discrimination inside Russia.

            These are the facts, subject to further verification and interpretation — and inherently unpredictable, as facts always are.  What was entirely predictable (and predicted) was that, regardless of the facts, Putin and his propagandists would place the blame for the attack on Ukraine and the United States.  On the internet (and in the Russian and Serbian press) this version is present.

            It is not hard to see why.  If Ukraine and the West are guilty, then Russian security services do not have to explain why they failed to stop Islamic terrorists from killing so many Russians, because Islamic terror vanishes from the story.  And if Ukrainians are to blame, then this would seem to justify the war that Russia is prosecuting against Ukraine.

Aftermath of Russian ballistic missile strike on Kyiv, 25 March

            Russian officials make a highly circumstantial argument: the terrorists’ car was stopped near Bryansk, which is in western Russia, and so vaguely near Ukraine, which means that the four Tajiks in a Renault were intending to cross the Ukrainian border, which means that they had Ukrainian backers, which means that it was a Ukrainian operation, which means that the Americans were behind it.  The reasoning here leaves something to be desired.  And the series of associations rests on no factual basis.

            The suspects were in a car near the west Russian city of Bryansk.  This much seems to be true.  The first version of the story was that they were headed for Belarus, which would make more sense, given the route.  Anyone with local knowledge would make a still more telling point. Because of the special relationship between Russia and Belarus, the Russian-Belarusian border is porous.  Once inside Belarus, it is relatively easy to pass into the European Union, because the Belarusian regime enables human smuggling into Lithuania and Poland.  Four Tajiks in a Renault would have been, in this sense, welcome in Belarus.  They would have had a decent chance to pay a smuggler to get them into the Schengen zone and thereby escape.

            The idea that the suspects were headed for Ukraine seems to be entirely invented and is extremely implausible.  As of this writing, none of the suspects seem to have said anything about Ukraine, despite the fact that they have been tortured, presumably with such a confession in mind.  And the notion of a Ukrainian escape route makes no sense.  The Russian-Ukrainian border is a place where Russian security forces are concentrated.  It is a site of combat.  It is the last place terrorists would want to go.  Four Tajiks in a Renault would have needed some very, very high-level Russian protection to get anywhere near the Russian-Ukrainian border. 

            Russian propagandists have told the population that it was not Islamic State but Ukraine who is to blame.  ISIS is just a “fake.”  The propagandists need not give reasons, and don’t.  In the press, one finds the wildest chains of association.  Britain is to blame for the attack (goes one claim) because one of the suspects was once in Turkey and the Turkish president knows the head of British foreign intelligence.

            Only Putin is permitted to set the theoretical tone for the argument for Ukrainian involvement, and yesterday (25 March) he gave that a shot.  His version went like this: Ukrainians are Nazis; Nazis do bad things; a bad thing happened; therefore Ukraine is to blame.  One does not have to be a logician to find the holes.  They are disturbingly large.   While it is true that Nazis do bad things, it does not follow that all bad things are done by Nazis. 

            And the factual premise is empirically false. One should not have to say this at this point of the war, but the Ukrainians are not the Nazis in this conflict.  The Ukrainian far right has never done well in elections, and is far less prominent than in any European state you care to name, let alone the United States.  Ukrainians have an active civil society, a vibrant press, multiple political parties, and freedom of speech.  Ukraine’s president won a free and fair election.  He is also, incidentally, Jewish.  The Ukrainian minister of defense, for that matter, is a Muslim.  The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces was born in Russia, where his parents still reside.  This kind of political and social pluralism is unusual by any standards.

By contrast, Russia under Putin is a one-man dictatorship. If “Nazi” stands for dictatorship, suppression of speech and the press, then Russia is the Nazi state.

Open the link to finish the essay.

Categories Evil, Extremism, International

Alert the Secret Service and FBI! Trump Circulates Images of Biden as Victim of Violence

By dianeravitch
March 29, 2024 //
29

It may be a federal crime to threaten the life of the president of the United States. Who would know this better than a former President?

Yet Trump posted an image of President Biden, kidnapped and bound with rope lying in the back of a truck.

Olga Lautman posted this on her blog, Trump Tyranny Tracker.

Earlier today, Trump exhibited his alarming inclination towards violence by sharing a video on Truth Social depicting President Joe Biden bound in the back of a pickup truck. This disturbing act is just the latest instance of Trump injecting political violence into our national discourse. The recollection of Ambassador Yovanovitch’s ordeal stands as a stark reminder of Trump’s perilous nature and the threats he poses to democracy.

The Meidas Touch blog has similar images. Apparently Trump saw these Trump trucks while visiting on Long Island and liked them so much he posted them on “Truth Social.”

Some MAGA Republicans have been displaying this graphic depicting President Joe Biden bound with rope and laying in the bed of a pickup truck apparently kidnapped. Trump is now encouraging such imagery.

The bound Biden graphic on another pickup truck

This is loathsome. It also might be criminal. The Secret Service and FBI should investigate those who encourage violence against the President.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Elections, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Trump

Wake-Up, New Hampshire! Koch and ALEC Import “Young Americans for Liberty” to Cancel Democracy

By dianeravitch
March 29, 2024 //
3

New Hampshire is under siege by Koch-funded libertarians who want to eliminate public services, government and democracy.

Former State Senator Jeanne Dietsch issues a warning about this invasion. New Hampshire already has a “Free State Movement” that promotes anti-government sentiment and elects representatives to the Legislature to oppose any government services.

Now comes Koch money and ALEC plans to advance the movement of selfish individualism.

Log on to Granite State Matters to watch a 17-minute video about the siege of New Hampshire.

In her newsletter, she reports:

“Wake Up NH” News Update

Teams are powering up! Will we alert enough people in time?

More people are waking up to the millions pouring into New Hampshire to buy our elections. Seats were full at all the “Wake Up” presentations in key swing districts. In its first two weeks, the Wake Up video has had hundreds of views. Over 500 copies of “NH: Battleground in the Fight to Dismantle Democracy” have already been distributed for reading and passing along. Five percent are in Spanish. Even as I am writing this, someone called asking for more books.

Many New Hampshire residents do not even know who the Free Staters are. Or they think they are just gentle, harmless hippies who want to smoke weed and shoot guns. They do not realize that FSP “movers” are urged to run for town office shortly after they arrive. As they move into positions of power in towns, they defund police, libraries and other town services. At the county level, they privatize nursing homes. Residents reliant only on Medicare or Medicaid are forced to leave. At the state level, they use tax funds for vouchers and deny taxpayers the right to audit or quality-control the recipients. All in the name of “Liberty.”

State Representative candidates used to spend less than $1000 on an average campaign even five years ago. Now, in swing districts, Young Americans for Liberty pays students to canvass, telephone and postcard for their priorities and their candidates; 25,825 doors, 118,800 phone calls and 21,755 mailers in 2022. One Democratic candidate reported that he raised $30,000, but his “liberty” opponent was given $70,000 in campaign funds.

Who are the ‘Liberty’ promoters?

The number of Free Staters and Liberty Alliance members in New Hampshire is small. At the annual NH Liberty Forum, fewer than 300 people attended, and some of those were from out-of-state. But the desire to turn New Hampshire into their model “Libertarian Homeland” is intense.

Walking into the Forum felt a little like walking into the Red Sox bleachers with a Yankees cap on. But almost everyone was very polite. The most common complaint was “Why didn’t you put me on your extremist list?” The ones already on the list sported yellow buttons proudly announcing the fact. I explained that they can apply through the signup button. A few have. They seem to believe that announcing they want to end democracy in our state will increase their popularity. The message is reinforced in their social media and clubs.

I found that FSPers love to discuss the reasons they detest majority rule by democracy. They seem unconcerned about the consequences of removing environmental regulations. They did not expect billionaires’ 10,000:1 spending advantage over the median American would be a problem.Turning NH into the ‘Wild West’

When asked to name an example of a Libertarian Utopia, Free Staters often cite the “Wild West.” Before becoming states, these territories had little formal law and even less enforcement. Survival of the fittest, or the best armed, ruled.

What they never mention, however, is settlers’ encroachment upon native people. These original residents were pushed out or moved onto reservations so settlers could have their “liberty.”

In Prospera, a flagship libertarian project in Honduras, poor, native Hondurans are being bought out. Peter Thiel and other VCs have bought a third of the island, now privately governed. A newly elected Honduran government is trying to get rid of them, but the billionaires have taken the nation to World Bank arbitration. 

Libertarians in New Hampshire want to push current residents out…

Everyone can do something to stop libertarians 

[Jeanne recommends actions here.]


We currently have 94 YAL members in the NH legislature. Whether you are housebound, shy or broke, you can still help wake up your friends, neighbors, communities and networks…

Still time for May 14 town meeting & ballot candidate filing

  • Ballot April 9 Towns Deliberative session & candidate filing past
  • Town Meeting May 14 Candidate filing, Mar 27-Apr 5
  • Ballot May 14 Towns Deliberative Mar 30 – Apr 6; Candidate filing Mar 27- Apr 5

May 14 meeting and ballot towns still have a chance to make sure you have trustworthy pro-democracy candidates for every seat. Even openings for Cemetery Trustee and Planning Board are important. Anti-democracy candidates are coached to start in innocuous positions to build name recognition before running for higher office. Preparing for State Elections

Candidates for state office register June 5-14. Now is the time to ensure that your districts have good options for electable pro-democracy candidates. Remind House candidates that if they have a majority, they can vote the first day of session to allow remote attendance at hearings. This can make a huge difference in the burden of serving. How to Identify Anti-democracy Candidates

How can voters identify those trying to thwart democracy? Watch for a candidate who wants to:

  • DEFUND, CLOSE, OR TOTALLY DEREGULATE what they’re elected to run. For instance, a zoning board candidate might point out a harmful zoning law and then conclude that all zoning regulations should be repealed.
  • HARASS OR THREATEN those managing the town, county, or other employees. For instance, they may demand extra reviews, audits, copies, meetings, or forms.
  • PROMOTE anti-intellectual and anti-scientific attitudes and policies, for instance, encouraging the legalization of inappropriate medications.
  • HIDE FROM TAXPAYER SCRUTINY the use or outcomes from taxpayer spending, such as educational vouchers.
  • MAKE ELECTIONS & VOTING MORE DIFFICULT by requiring hand counts, unusual documentation, complicating absentee voting and so on.

If you identify new candidates who meet these crtieria, please let us know so we can add them to the watch list.

*******************

News about Concord
Muzzle-the-people bill goes down in flames! 

A bipartisan majority of the NH House voted 211-129 to “indefinitely postpone” HB 1479. This was an ALEC look-alike bill being pushed across the nation to muzzle any state or local official from testifying. It would have barred any advocate from a membership organization, like NH Municipal Association, from testifying for or against laws that affected towns. It would have barred staff of any nonprofit that took a state grant from testifying on behalf of children, or mentally ill or whomever they represent.
     Sean Themea came to NH last week to speak at the NH Liberty Forum. Themea is COO of the Texas-based, Koch-funded Young 

Americans for Liberty, Texas resident Themea asked the NH audience to support HB 1479. He stated that the bill would keep lobbyists funded by NH DOT from asking to increase gas taxes. NH road maintenance funding has been flat over 12 years. But higher gas taxes eat into petroleum demand and profits.
  The bill’s impacts would have far exceeded petro profits. HB 1479 would have muzzled the voices of NH teachers, town officials, and activists not funded by plutocrats.
    This was not “Liberty” legislation. It was a pay-to-have-your-say bill. And the NH House defeated it, soundly, bipartisanly! The following people voted “Nay”, meaning they supported this look-alike bill put forward by plutocrats to muzzle those who oppose their interests:

Alexander, Joe, Hills. 29
Ammon, Keith, Hills. 42
Ankarberg, Aidan, Straf. 7
Aron, Judy, Sull. 4
Aures, Cyril, Merr. 13
Avellani, Lino, Carr. 4
Aylward, Deborah, Merr. 5
Bailey, Glenn, Straf. 2
Ball, Lorie, Rock. 25
Bean, Harry, Belk. 6
Belcher, Mike, Carr. 4
Berezhny, Lex, Graf. 11
Berry, Ross, Hills. 39
Bickford, David, Straf. 3
Boyd, Stephen, Merr. 10
Brown, Richard, Carr. 3
Burnham, Claudine, Straf. 2
Coker, Matthew, Belk. 2
Comtois, Barbara, Belk. 7
Connor, James, Straf. 19
Corcoran, Travis, Hills. 44
Cordelli, Glenn, Carr. 7
Costable, Michael, Carr. 8
Davis, Arnold, Coos 2
DeSimone, Debra, Rock. 18
Dolan, Tom, Rock. 16
Doucette, Fred, Rock. 25
Drago, Mike, Rock. 4
Dumais, Russell, Belk. 6
Dunn, Ron, Rock. 16
Erf, Keith, Hills. 28
Ford, Oliver, Rock. 3
Gagne, Larry, Hills. 16
Gorski, Ted, Hills. 2
Gould, Linda, Hills. 2
Granger, Michael, Straf. 2
Greeson, Jeffrey, Graf. 6
Griffin, Gerald, Hills. 42
Harrington, Michael, Straf. 18
Harvey-Bolia, Juliet, Belk. 3
Hill, Gregory, Merr. 2
Hoell, J.R., Merr. 27
Janigian, John, Rock. 25
Janvrin, Jason, Rock. 40
Kaczynski, Thomas, Straf. 5
Kelley, Diane, Hills. 32
Kennedy, Stephen, Hills. 13
Kenny, Catherine, Hills. 13
Khan, Aboul, Rock. 30
King, Seth, Coos 4
Kofalt, Jim, Hills. 32
Kuttab, Katelyn, Rock. 17
Ladd, Rick, Graf. 5
Lascelles, Richard, Hills. 14
Layon, Erica, Rock. 13
Leavitt, John, Merr. 10
Lekas, Alicia, Hills. 38
Lekas, Tony, Hills. 38
Lewicke, John, Hills. 36
Love, David, Rock. 13
Lynn, Bob, Rock. 17
Mannion, Dennis, Rock. 25
Mannion, Tom, Hills. 1
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McGuire, Dan, Merr. 14
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Moffett, Michael, Merr. 4
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Categories ALEC, Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Citizenship, Dark Money, Democracy, Deregulation, Disruption, Education Industry, Elections, Extremism, Funding, Koch Brothers, New Hampshire, Privatization

Dan Rather: What Was NBC Thinking When It Hired Trump Apologist Ronna McDaniel?

By dianeravitch
March 26, 2024 //
21

The commentators at NBC and MSNBC are furious that NBC top brass hired Ronna Romney McDaniel as a paid commentator for the network. Presumably, the executives thought it would broaden their audience to bring on someone who had led the Republican National Committee for the past eight years.

They now face an internal rebellion. As Dan Rather explains on his blog Steady, prominent newscasters at NBC were apoplectic. The commentators at MSNBC—where Trump is despised—were assured that they did not have to invite her onto their programs.

Last night, I watched MSNBC, and every commentator lashed out against the hire. Joy Reid, Jen Psaki, Rachel Maddow, and Laurence O’Donnell expressed their outrage. They did not care that she was a Republican. They did not care that she was a conservative. They cared that she was an election denier and a liar. She did whatever Trump wanted, and he booted her anyway. She was actively involved in the fake electors scheme in Michigan. She even dropped her middle name (Romney) to please Trump. She lacks integrity. She insulted the media, as Trump did. As Jen Psaki said, she is not honest.

Dan Rather shared their views:

Journalism Lesson #1 for 2024:

The mainstream media should not normalize Donald Trump’s behavior, nor should they give a platform to his lies or those of his sycophants, who for years have spread disastrous untruths that may have irreparably damaged our nation.

But in one fell swoop, NBC News has managed to do both. By hiring former Republican National Committee chief Ronna McDaniel, NBC has given credence and legitimacy to a Republican who has been in lockstep with the lies, helping spread plenty of the former president’s falsehoods. Allowing McDaniel to be in the same area code as NBC News is a huge mistake and will only further shred the small amount of trust Americans still have in the mainstream media. I don’t blame journalists at NBC. They have long been some of the finest in the business. But one wonders what the hell executives at the network were thinking.

Before she sold her soul, Ronna McDaniel was considered Republican royalty. She’s the granddaughter of George Romney, former GOP governor of Michigan, and niece of Senator Mitt Romney, former Republican presidential nominee and former governor of Massachusetts. She has been the chair of the RNC since the day Donald Trump took office in 2017. And she has been loyal to him at all costs, especially the truth.

During her tenure, she was a prolific fundraiser yet oversaw the net losses of Republican governorships and congressional seats. But her biggest claim to fame during her seven years on the job is that she was a Trump supporter, loyalist, and apologist above all else.

One could argue that this is the role of the head of a political party: to support the highest-ranking member of said party. Yes, that is typically true. But McDaniel spent years repeating Trump’s disinformation, making cases for his lies and paying his legal bills. Here are just a few of her misdeeds:

  • Told CNN’s Chris Wallace of Joe Biden’s election win, “I don’t think he won it fair.”
  • Characterized the January 6 insurrection as “legitimate political discourse.”
  • Orchestrated the censure of Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the two Republican January 6 Committee members.
  • Encouraged Michigan canvassers not to certify the 2020 election results, promising them lawyers.
  • Took part in Trump’s scheme to assemble fake electors.
  • Refused to condemn QAnon to George Stephanopoulos on ABC News.
  • Mocked Senator John Fetterman and President Biden for speech impediments.
  • Warned that those Republicans who didn’t embrace Trump’s policies “will be making a mistake.”

McDaniel made her NBC News debut on this Sunday’s “Meet the Press.” At the top of the broadcast, host Kristen Welker disclosed McDaniel’s new role. She said, “This interview was scheduled weeks before it was announced that McDaniel would become a paid NBC News contributor. This will be a news interview, and I was not involved in her hiring.”

During the interview, McDaniel defended her time as chair with what may be the quote of the year. “When you’re the RNC chair, you kind of take one for the whole team. Now I get to be a little bit more myself, right?”

No, Ms. McDaniel, you don’t get to have it both ways. The truth does not change depending on who signs your paycheck. Whom are we supposed to believe, your RNC or NBC self?

McDaniel walked back some of her more outrageous statements, sort of. As of yesterday, she now admits that Joe Biden won the election “fair and square.” However, she continued to insist there were issues with the election. When pushed, she mentioned the huge increase in mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania and suggested voter fraud. Reminder: No significant fraud of any kind was found in any state in the 2020 election.

In defending their hire, NBC News’s Carrie Budoff Brown, senior vice president of politics, said, “It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team.”

Many on the NBC team vehemently disagreed. “We weren’t asked our opinion of the hiring, but, if we were, we would have strongly objected to it for several reasons,” Joe Scarborough, the “Morning Joe” co-host, said at the top of the broadcast Monday. Mika Brzezinski added, “We hope NBC will reconsider its decision. It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on ‘Morning Joe’ in her capacity as a paid contributor.”

Chuck Todd, NBC’s chief political analyst, could barely contain his anger and disbelief on “Meet the Press.”. “She [McDaniel] wants us to believe that she was speaking for the RNC when the RNC was paying for it. So she has — she has credibility issues that she still has to deal with. Is she speaking for herself or is she speaking on behalf of who’s paying her?”

He continued, “There’s a reason why there’s a lot of journalists at NBC News who are uncomfortable with this because many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the last six years have been met with gaslighting, have been met with character assassination.”

Now we come to the why. Why would NBC News hire someone as controversial as Ronna McDaniel? 

News gathering is a business, as unfortunate as that is. As a business, it needs to make money. In television news, more viewers equals more money. So news organizations feel they need to appeal to the broadest spectrum of viewers possible. We will exempt Fox, which calls itself a news organization but is more of a propaganda outfit for the GOP.  

The mainstream middle is a much more crowded field that is bombarded by accusations of bias and liberalism. So they feel the need to show their Republican bona fides by hiring conservative voices.

But that is the crux of the problem. Which Republicans? Trump loyalists who are election deniers and January 6 apologists? Never-Trumpers who are as likely to appeal to many Republican viewers as progressives? How do they represent the political right without alienating their loyal viewers and their correspondents? These are the new political realities ushered in by Donald Trump. And another reason independent journalism is essential right now, essential to provide unvarnished coverage in one of the most important elections in American history and to hold the mainstream media accountable.

Categories Accountability, Bias, Character, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Lies, Media, Republicans, Trump

North Carolina: GOP Candidate for State Superintendent of Schools Is a QAnon Homeschooler

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2024 //
9

The Republican nominee for State Superintendent of Public Instruction is a homeschooling parent who has espoused extremist views, calling for the deaths of Obama, Biden, and other prominent Democrats. She attended the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, though she says she did not enter the building. Her opponent in the race is Mo Green, who was educated at Duke University, practiced law, worked at a major foundation, served as school superintendent of Guilford County Schools, and supports public schools.

Ned Barnett, an opinion writer in the North Carolina News & Observer said that Morrow could be elected with Trump at the top of the ballot. Barnett wrote:

A low-turnout primary dominated by the party’s most conservative voters denied the Republican nomination to incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt. The party’s nominee is Michele Morrow, a relatively unknown conservative activist whose caustic social media posts put her not only on the far right, but around the bend.

CNN discovered her incendiary tweets and sent a crew to interview her.

The far-right Republican candidate running to oversee public schools in North Carolina decried “extreme agendas that threaten our children’s future”, after being confronted by reporters over tweets in which she called for the executions of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.“Don’t let extreme agendas threaten our children’s future,” Michele Morrow said on social media on Thursday, posting an address in which she said she was “facing the most radical extremist Democrats [that] have ever run for superintendent in the history of North Carolina”.

But Morrow, who is running for superintendent of public instruction, also had to respond to a CNN crew who confronted her about posts, unearthed by the same network, in which she advocated violence against leading Democrats.

Comments made by Morrow between 2019 and 2021 and reported by CNN included a May 2020 tweet in which Morrow said Obama should be the subject of “a Pay Per View of him in front of a firing squad”, adding: “I do not want to waste another dime on supporting his life. We could make some money back from televising his death.”

In December 2020, when Biden, as president-elect, said he would ask Americans to wear masks against Covid-19 for 100 days, Morrow – a nurse – wrote: “Never. We need to follow the constitution’s advice and KILL all TRAITORS!!!”

Other Democrats that Morrow said should be executed, CNN said, included the Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar; the North Carolina governor, Roy Cooper; former New York governor Andrew Cuomo; the former first lady, senator, secretary of state and presidential nominee Hillary Clinton; and the New York senator Chuck Schumer.

Morrow also called for the executions of Anthony Fauci, a senior public health adviser to Donald Trump during the Covid pandemic, and Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder and vaccination campaigner.

She also promoted slogans and claims associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory….

With a bigot running for Governor of North Carolina on the GOP slate along with an extremist running for state superintendent of schools, this once sane and progressive state is in a heap of trouble unless citizens rise up and demand responsible leadership.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Education Reform, Extremism, North Carolina, Republicans

Thom Hartmann: Was the Terrorist Attack in Moscow Akin to the Reichstag Fire of 1933? Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid.

By dianeravitch
March 24, 2024 //
16

Thom Hartmann wrote an ominous column about the possible origins and consequences of the terrorist attack in Moscow that killed scores of people at a concert.

He fears that Putin may use this horrific event as a pretext to step up his attacks on Ukraine and do to Ukraine what he did to Chechnya, which was to reduce the would-be breakaway region to a wasteland.

In his article, he recalls the Reichstag fire, which Hitler used as a pretext to initiate his dictatorship, crush democratic institutions, and round up dissidents.

He draws other analogies of leaders who were warned of pending catastrophes, but chose to ignore the warnings in order to solidify their hold on the population and secure their power.

In that group, he includes President George W. Bush, who ignored warnings about 9/11, and Benjamin Netanyahu, who ignored warnings about a likely attack by Hamas from the Gaza Strip. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has written about the IDF “spotters,” the young women who watched activity at the Gaza border and warned their superiors about the military exercises they observed; they were ignored. Almost every one of these unarmed 18-and 19-year-old women were killed or taken hostage.

Hartmann wrote:

Like Hitler, Netanyahu, and Bush all did, Putin just claimed that up is down, that the terrorist attack he knew was coming was an unprovoked surprise, and that it came from Ukraine, not ISIS-K…

Friday, a group of ISIS extremists claimed credit for the attack on a Moscow theater that killed at least 133 people and left the building a smoldering ruin. But Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his public comments today, didn’t mention ISIS-K: instead, he placed the blame on Ukraine….

We’ve seen this movie before, both here, in Israel, and Germany, and it never ends well…

Ukraine, of course, has denied any involvement or knowledge of the attack. But don’t be surprised if Putin uses this as an excuse to massively bomb Kiev the way he utterly destroyed Grozny the capital of Chechnya, to subdue that nation. The attacks could begin as early as this coming week.

If that happens, it could provoke a stronger response from EU countries who see Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Moldova as being next on Putin’s menu: both he and his spokesmen have already said as much. 

And that could lead to a major escalation of the Ukraine war beyond the borders of Ukraine and into Poland or the Baltics, triggering Nato’s Article 5 mutual defense provision, which would instantaneously draw the US directly into the conflict.

All because Republicans have convinced Putin that they can prevent further US aid, so he believes now is a good time to use the time-tested “pretext of an unexpected attack” strategy to go from a “military operation” to an all-out war. 

In fact, just yesterday afternoon his official spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that the country is now officially “at war.”

That Ukrainian conflict, particularly if Putin-aligned Republicans like Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, Mark Johnson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, etc. are able to continue to prevent the US from helping Ukraine push Russia into a stalemate, could make China’s dictator Xi Jinping think it’s a great time to attack Taiwan.

And that, particularly since we recently stationed troops on Taiwanese territory, throws us straight into WWIII, regardless of Republican obstructionism and isolationist rhetoric.

I hope I’m wrong. Praying, frankly, that I’m wrong.

Categories Corruption, Evil, Extremism, Fraud, History, International, Lies

Texas Claims Control of International Border; SCOTUS Agrees; Circuit Court Disagrees

By dianeravitch
March 20, 2024 //
18

Between January 2017 and January 2021, Trump stacked the federal courts with rightwing ideologues. Three were added to the U.S. Supreme Court. Many more were approved for federal District Courts and Appellate Courts. We are now seeing the results of putting extremists in charge of consequential decisions. Women’s reproductive rights, a 50-year-old precedent, were overruled and left to the states. Some have imposed bans that prevent abortions even in cases of rape, incest, and to protect the life of the mother.

In the current instance, the U.S. Supreme Court gave Texas approval to implement Senate Bill 4, a state law that takes precedence over federal law in regulating the international border with Mexico. For at least a century, federal courts have ruled that federal law governs international borders.

To complicate matters, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a stay on implementation of SB 4. Decades ago, the Fifth Circuit was one of the most liberal appeals courts, and it took the lead in enforcing desegregation. It is now one of the most conservative courts.

The Washington Post described the conflicting court decisions as “whiplash”:

The law’s fate is yet another flash point in the nation’s polarized debate over immigration, which Republican candidate and former president Donald Trump has made a central theme of his campaign against Biden. Whatever the 5th Circuit decides, the status of the law is likely to end up back before the Supreme Court.
The high court’s order Tuesday afternoon set off a fast-moving round of legal maneuvering in the lower court that has kept the law’s status in limbo.

The Supreme Court urged the 5th Circuit to decide quickly whether the law would remain in effect while litigation continues, and hours later a three-judge panel said it would convene a hearing by Zoom on Wednesday morning.
Then, in a highly unusual move, just after 11 p.m. Tuesday, two of the judges on the 5th Circuit panel blocked enforcement of the law in advance of the Wednesday hearing.

The brief order did not explain the reasoning of the two judges — Priscilla Richman, a nominee of George W. Bush, and Irma Carrillo Ramirez, a Biden nominee. The dissenting judge — Andrew Oldham, a Trump nominee — said only that he would have allowed the law to remain in effect before Wednesday’s hearing.

“It’s Ping-Pong,” Efrén C. Olivares, director of strategic litigation and advocacy at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said in a phone interview, describing the back-and-forth rulings.

Olivares said it is unclear whether the three-judge panel will rule immediately, since a preliminary injunction from a lower court remains in place, and the state law is not in effect. Texas conceivably could ask the full circuit court to review the panel’s decision blocking the law temporarily, he said, but he noted that is uncommon.

The law makes it a state crime for migrants to illegally cross the border and gives Texas officials the ability to carry out their own deportations to Mexico.

How they will do so remains unclear. The Mexican government said Tuesday that it would not accept anyone sent back by Texas and condemned the law as “encouraging the separation of families, discrimination and racial profiling that violate the human rights of the migrant community.”

Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday referred to the Texas law as Draconian.

“It disrespects human rights, it’s a completely dehumanizing law, it’s anti-Christian, unjust, it violates precepts and norms of human co-existence, Lopez Obrador said. “It doesn’t just violate international law but [the teachings of] the Bible. I say this because those who are applying these unjust, inhumane measures go to church, they forget that the Bible talks about treating the foreigner well, and of course, loving your neighbor.”

The Texas law was passed last year as part of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s push to expand the state’s role in immigration enforcement — historically the purview of the federal government and its jurisdiction over international borders.

The Supreme Court’s decision drew dissent from the three liberal justices, two of whom said the majority was inviting “further chaos and crisis in immigration enforcement.”

“This law will disrupt sensitive foreign relations, frustrate the protection of individuals fleeing persecution, hamper active federal enforcement efforts, undermine federal agencies’ ability to detect and monitor imminent security threats, and deter noncitizens from reporting abuse or trafficking,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson…

Luis Miranda, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said federal immigration agencies do not have the authority to assist Texas with the implementation of the state law. The only deportations that U.S. agents are allowed to conduct must involve federal orders, he said.


“Immigration is within the exclusive purview of the federal government,” Miranda said in a statement.


U.S. District Court judge David A. Ezra temporarily blocked the Texas law last month, saying it was probably unconstitutional and “could open the door to each state passing its own version of immigration laws.” Ezra said the law intruded into federal matters even more than an Arizona immigration law that the Supreme Court partially struck down in 2012.


But the 5th Circuit quickly froze Ezra’s decision without explanation and said the Texas law could be enforced, at least temporarily, unless the Supreme Court weighed in.

The Supreme Court did weigh in, allowing Texas to control the border. And a panel of 5th Circuit judges froze the law’s implementation.

Think about it. The U.S. Supreme Court recently decided that one state (Colorado) couldn’t disqualify an oath-breaking insurrectionist because each state would write its own rules. Now the SCOTUS allows one state to control its international border. This makes no sense.

Here is some additional background.

LoneStarLeft, a Texas blogger named Michelle Davis, was horrified by the SCOTUS approval of SB 4. She wrote yesterday:

Today, the Supreme Court ended the pause on SB 4’s implementation and allowed this blatantly unconstitutional law to be enforced while litigated in court. This ruling does not indicate that the law is constitutional; only Texas can implement it while it is being challenged. This is terrible news for many of Texas’ residents. 

SB4 would grant Texas Law Enforcement Officers the authority to deport undocumented immigrants independently, bypassing due process and federal oversight. This move by Texas Republicans aims for quick political gains. The bill would allow officers and state agencies to escort individuals to ports of entry to guarantee adherence. Should immigrants resist compliance with a directive to return, they could be accused of a second-degree felony, risking up to 20 years of incarceration.

Watch Representative Jolanda Jone (D-Harris County) blast this SB4 as it went through the House: 

…Now, under Texas law, any Keystone Cop can decide to drive a person they deem undocumented to the international border and demand they go back into Mexico (even if they are not from Mexico). If the person doesn’t walk across the bridge, they are arrested and imprisoned for up to twenty years.

The Constitution of the United States of America states that the Federal Government’s job is to manage international treaties, our borders, and citizenship issues. SB4 crosses a major line.

Here is a statement put out today by the Mexican Government: 

This bill will even remove people who have been here for decades, living lawfully and paying taxes.

Within SB4, the term “alien” is defined as an individual who is neither a citizen nor a lawful permanent resident. Thus, a person who was once denied a visa but presently holds a valid visa (for example, tourism or marriage) is STILL considered committing an offense, even though they are lawfully present in the country.

Cruelty is the point.

SB4 passed straight down party lines. Every single Republican voted for it, and every single Democrat voted against it. When they tell you who they are, you need to listen. A lot of non-voters need to become voters, the GOP’s authoritarian laws are on our door step…

ALL Latinos should be very concerned right now. 

This immigration law will allow any brown person to be rounded up for any possible violation. SB4 will allow any law enforcement agent in Texas (even school resource officers) the ability to demand a brown person prove they are a citizen (“Show Me Your Papers”). If that person can’t prove their citizenship, they risk deportation to Mexico, no matter their origin. 

The law’s implementation will lead to racial profiling, separate families, and harm Black and brown communities across the state, regardless of immigration status. 

That directly conflicts with the United States Constitution, which states that everyone, regardless of race or immigration status, has the freedom to move and thrive.

Republicans have already committed to opening up shuttered prisons to make room for 80,000 immigration prisoners. Under SB4, police will act as immigration agents and arrest people who “look” like they’re undocumented. Half of Texans are Latino and could “look” undocumented to a racist cop.

Categories Extremism, Immigration, Justice, Texas

Laurence Tribe and J. Michael Luttig: The Supreme Court Should Not Have Ignored the Constitution

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2024 //
67

Laurence H. Tribe, the eminent professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School (Democrat), and Judge Michael Luttig, a retired federal judge (Republican), co-authored a lengthy article in The Atlantic, condemning the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overrule the Colorado Supreme Court, which removed Trump from the 2024 ballot.

It seemed, after the Court’s decision, that Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendnent had been excised from the Constitution. But just yesterday the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by a New Mexico man who was convicted for taking part in the January 6 insurrection.

Couy Griffin was convicted for his role as a member of the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol. Because he previously served as a member of the Otero County board of commissioners, the courts in New Mexico said he was ineligible to hold office ever again. Griffin was a founder of Cowboys for Trump and an outspoken purveyor of lies about election fraud.

The Supreme Court concluded that states could disqualify persons from attempting to hold state offices, but Congress had to enact legislation to implement the disqualification of federal officials.

Since Congress is unlikely to muster a majority of both Houses—or 60 votes in the Senate to avoid a filibuster—oath-breaking insurrectionists will not be barred from seeking or holding federal offices.

One good thing: the Griffin decision implicitly agreed that the mob action of January 6 was an insurrection.

Last week, before the Griffin decision, Tribe and Littig wrote in The Atlantic:

The Supreme Court of the United States did a grave disservice to both the Constitution and the nation in Trump v. Anderson.

In a stunning disfigurement of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court impressed upon it an ahistorical misinterpretation that defies both its plain text and its original meaning. Despite disagreement within the Court that led to a 5–4 split among the justices over momentous but tangential issues that it had no need to reach in order to resolve the controversy before it, the Court was disappointingly unanimous in permitting oath-breaking insurrectionists, including former President Donald Trump, to return to power. In doing so, all nine justices denied “We the People” the very power that those who wrote and ratified the Fourteenth Amendment presciently secured to us to save the republic from future insurrectionists—reflecting a lesson hard-learned from the devastation wrought by the Civil War.

For a century and a half before the Court’s decision, Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment was the Constitution’s safety net for America’s democracy, promising to automatically disqualify from public office all oath-breaking insurrectionists against the Constitution, deeming them too dangerous to entrust with power unless supermajorities of both houses of Congress formally remove their disability. This provision has been mistakenly described by some as “undemocratic” because it limits who may be elected to particular positions of power. But disqualification is not what is antidemocratic; rather, it is the insurrection that is antidemocratic, as the Constitution emphatically tells us.

In any event, all qualifications for office set by the Constitution limit who may be elected to particular positions of power. And no other of these disqualifications requires congressional legislation to become operative, as the Court now insists this one does. To be sure, the other qualifications—age, residence, natural-born citizenship—appear outside the Fourteenth Amendment, whose fifth section specifically makes congressional action to enforce its provisions available. But no such action is needed to enforce the rights secured to individuals by Section 1 of the same amendment, so deeming congressional action necessary to enforce Section 3 creates a constitutional anomaly in this case that the majority could not and did not explain. For that matter, no other provision of the other two Reconstruction amendments requires congressional enforcement either. As the concurring justices explained, the majority “simply [created] a special rule for the insurrection disability in Section 3.”

To read the rest of this brilliant article, open the link or subscribe to The Atlantic.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Failure, Injustice, Trump
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