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A Good Night for Sanity and Democracy

By dianeravitch
November 9, 2022 //
104

As you know, it is customary for the party in power to lose a large number of seats in the midterms. As I write, at 1:33 am, John Fetterman was elected to the Senate. Maggie Hassan was re-elected to the Senate in New Hampshire. Mark Kelly was leading in Arizona. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker were in a virtual tie in Georgia. The loss of seats by Democrats in the House appeared to be minimal. Control of both houses of Congress was unresolved.

There was no red wave.

Trump’s only big winner was J.D. Vance in Ohio, who beat the far better qualified Tim Ryan. Trump does not have a winning touch, and DeSanctimonious is planning to take him down.

Lauren Boebert, the gun-toting Colorado Congresswoman, was apparently defeated. As was election denier Kari Lake in Arizona.

The fabulous Katie Porter, Congresswoman from California, was re-elected, as was Michigan Governor Whitmer and New York Governor Hochul, both defeating Trump lackeys.

I told you not to believe the polls and pundits who predicted a red wave. They were wrong. The only ballot that counts is the one you and your fellow citizens cast.

Democracy is alive. Challenges remain. The Republican Party still must resolve whether it is a party of sensible, responsible people or a party of lunatics. Maybe this election will help them break free of Trump‘s Dead Hand.

It will take days or weeks to know which party controls the Senate and the House.

But this much is clear: this election went against tradition. The red wave was a trickle.

Categories Democracy, Democrats, Elections, Republicans

Denis Smith: Take Republicans at Their Word

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2022 //
27

Denis Smith is a retired educator in Ohio. He urges voters to take Republicans at their word. When they say they will cut Social Security and Medicare, believe them. When they say they will enact a national ban on abortion, believe them. When they say they will cut taxes for big corporations, believe them.

He writes:

What Are You (We) Going to Do About It? It’s Very Simple. Take Republicans at Their Word.


According to some recent polling, Americans, concerned about rising energy and consumer prices, are expected to give control to Republicans for at least one house of Congress, most likely the House of Representatives. Yet other polls show that the Democrats are on the rebound, with many House and Senate races still too close to call.
How appolling is this? Pun.


Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post framed the ambiguous forecasting this way:

“Will an issue such as abortion motivate voters who usually skip midterms, turbocharging Democratic turnout? Will unease about the economy tip the scales toward change, boosting the GOP across the board?”


“The fact that we don’t know is unnerving…”


But while the result of the midterms might be in doubt, all of us should have no doubt about what will happen if Republicans regain control of one or both houses of Congress.


In their own words, Republicans have told us what to expect if they are victorious on November 8. We should have learned to trust them by now in looking at what they’ve said as a predictor of what they will do.

Some examples:


Social Security and Medicare. The two most popular government programs may be subject to attempts to sunset them as a way to wreak havoc on the debt ceiling. How ironic that the mastermind of the sunset plan is Florida Senator Rick Scott, who famously took the Fifth Amendment 75 times in a case involving the biggest Medicare fraud in American history that occurred during his tenure as CEO at healthcare giant Columbia/HCA.


Tax Cuts for Corporations. The GOP has promised to make permanent corporate tax levels enacted five years earlier in the first months of the Trump administration, reverting to their modus operandi of starving other programs to pay for such largesse. But to be a Republican means that you are a walking contradiction, driven to revert to past bad behavior by favoring corporations and high-income taxpayers at the expense of everyone else, including seniors.

The Post’s Jeff Stein painted this picture of what to expect in a Republican victory.


“Many economists say the GOP’s plans to expand the tax cuts flies against their promises to fight inflation and reduce the federal deficit, which have emerged as central themes of their 2022 midterm campaign rhetoric.”


Defund the IRS. Republicans plan to curtail plans for increased spending at the IRS to replace 1970s systems and increase customer service levels to avoid future backlogs on processing tax returns. Some of the new funding would go toward
hiring additional auditors to “crack down on high-income and corporate tax evaders who cost the American people hundreds of billions of dollars each year.” At least 50,000 IRS staff are expected to retire soon, but the GOP has spread wild
claims that staffing levels will increase by 87,000 when in fact the funding will be needed to replace retiring staff, invest in new technology, and add more robust auditing for tax cheats, both individual and corporate.


Defund Ukraine. From the looks of it, the defense of democracy may be waning in the Republican congressional caucus. In the last month, House Leader Kevin McCarthy has warned about not giving a “blank check” in the future for more aid to
Ukraine, as have other Republicans who want more money to build a wall on the southern border. Never mind that any pullback from support for Ukraine will seriously undermine NATO, something that Donald Trump wanted to do all along by his desire back in 2018 to withdraw American membership from the North
Atlantic Alliance.

“These guys don’t get it. It’s a lot bigger than Ukraine – it’s Eastern Europe. It’s NATO. It’s real, serious, serious consequential outcomes,” said Joe Biden about GOP plans to cut support for Ukraine.

Help Big Pharma – At Your Expense. In the recently enacted Inflation Reduction
Act, you will be shocked, shocked to learn that Republicans want to help pharmaceutical companies at the expense of consumers. The Ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee has vowed to roll back caps on drug
costs allowed in the IRA “because those drug provisions are so dangerous, by discouraging investment in life-saving cures.” The legislation allows Medicare to negotiate its costs for the most expensive drugs and cap out-of-pocket costs for
seniors at $2,000 per year.

Investigations Ad Nauseum. Remember Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi? In an interview on Fox News a full year before the 2016 presidential election, House Leader Kevin McCarthy opined that “…everybody thought Hillary Clinton was
unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi Special Committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.”
You can bet your bottom dollar that if Republicans take control of Congress, we won’t have to wait long to discover probes into the Departments of Justice for alleged prosecutorial activism, Homeland Security for border issues, and for the
current president for having the same surname as Hunter Biden. You can also bet that all active congressional probes related to the January 6 insurrection will be stopped as quickly as you can say stop the steal, with the effect of absolving
possible criminal behavior on the part of some members of Congress and White House staff who may have aided and abetted the aborted coup in some fashion.


And we also need to be reminded that if the Republicans take control of the
House of Representatives, the likely new chairman of the Judiciary Committee will be Jim Jordan, the less than urbane resident of Urbana who helped to give us Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi a decade ago. His clownish antics back then may
prove to be his dress rehearsal for wielding a gavel to create more chaos and circus-like behavior in what was in another era referred to as the people’s house. In order to drive home the strong probability of chaos in the new Congress,
consider Jordan’s new 1,000 page report, where he alleges that both the FBI and the Justice Department have been politicized. Hmm, he must have never heard of William Barr. At any rate, the “report” is filled with air, containing hundreds of
pages of letters, signature pages, and only 46 pages of narrative. As is typical with Jordan, there is nothing but hot air and bluster as he wrestles in incessant witch hunts.

And last but not least:


Impeachment. Revenge. Payback. Impeachment will be on the table if the Republicans win in November. Ask Ted Cruz. Ask Marjorie Taylor Greene. For that matter, just ask the lunatic fringe that is now in control of the Republican Party. And the reason for a new impeachment? No, not for a president pressuring the Ukrainian leader to help him with collecting dirt on a political opponent, not for violation of the Emolument Clause in charging the Secret Service more than $1,600 per night for lodging in his properties, and certainly not for being central to a conspiracy for overthrowing a democratic (small d) election that led to the January 6 coup attempt at the nation’s Capitol. And the charges? Details. Details. They’ll fabricate something later because after all, the subject is revenge. Payback. “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” Ted Cruz said in September.
For once, Lyin’ Ted, as Trump christened him, was being straightforward.

So if you know all of this now, what are you going to do about it? In 1871, the great cartoonist Thomas Nast posed that same question.
When it comes to the Republicans’ upcoming agenda, we should believe Ted Cruz. And Kevin McCarthy. And all the rest of an anti-democracy, anti-government, election denying lunatic cult that once was identified as a responsible, conservative political party.


But perhaps the scariest part is that what has been detailed here merely represents the short list of Republican objectives in January if they win. After all, that’s what the GOP (Great Obstructionist Party), with no plan for providing principled governance yet having a detailed plan for obstruction and mayhem, is all about.


Yes, that is the GIP.


No, that’s not a typo. The GOP is also becoming known as the GIP, the Great Insurrectionist Party. When you threaten to cut Medicare and Social Security and take funds from Ukraine, a democratic country fighting for its life against an authoritarian onslaught, the result is that we’ve been GIPped.


And never forget that the leader of the rape of Ukraine is a former KGB agent who was defended by Donald Trump in 2018 at a meeting in Helsinki against allegations by 17 American intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.


“No prior president has ever abased himself more
abjectly before a tyrant, the late Senator John McCain said at the time about
Trump’s performance in defending a brutal dictator who murders journalists and
jails those who dare to object to his tyranny.


In the end, if you now know about this agenda that the GOP is expected to unleash but you go ahead and vote for any Republican who denies the validity of elections and supports the authoritarianism personified by Donald Trump, you are guilty of aiding and abetting the dissolution of our democracy.


Election Day is at hand. What are you – and what are we – going to do about it? From the looks and sounds of it, we are running out of time.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Elections, Privatization, Republicans

Michael Hiltzik: The Republicans Have No Plan to Reduce Inflation

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2022 //
34

I have been surprised that Democrats have been so mealy-mouthed about inflation. Yes, inflation is bad, and it hurts everyone, especially those living from paycheck to paycheck. Gasoline costs more than we are used to paying (while the big gas and oil corporations are reporting record profits).

But why don’t Democrats tell the facts: Inglation is a global problem. The Ukrainian war—Putin’s war—has cut off energy supplies and raised prices. Europeans have as much inflation as we do, maybe more. There have been mass protests against inflation in other countries.

To hear Republican ads, Joe Biden is uniquely responsible for inflation. Is he causing inflation around the world or shouldn’t we be talking about the “Putin tax”?

Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times reveals an important truth: the Republicans have no plan to reduce inflation. It’s their biggest issue, by far, and they have not said what they would do to curb inflation.

A look at the GOP’s election manifesto, the “Commitment to America” recently issued by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), reveals no specifics. Nor have Republican candidates done so during the multitude of appearances they’ve made on cable talk shows, despite specific and pointed questions by the hosts….

Here, for example, is Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) on Aug. 21, responding on “Meet the Press” when Chuck Todd asked, “What is the Republican plan to deal with inflation other than not supporting Joe Biden policies?”

“Well, we have a positive agenda. We have a commitment to America, and we’re going to get back to basics. … We don’t need more IRS agents. We need more Border Patrol agents. And we have a common sense plan to reduce the cost of living, to lower the cost at the pump.”

But what that “common sense plan” was, Barr didn’t disclose.

Nothing is new about this campaign technique from a minority party. It consists of repeatedly citing a problem and tying it to the party in power, assuming that voters’ impulse to “throw the bums out” will deliver electoral victory…

The “Commitment to America” also claims to have a scheme to “regain American energy independence and lower prices at the pump.” A couple of problems with that. One is that the U.S. already is energy-independent — it’s been a net exporter of oil almost every month since the last quarter of 2019 and a net exporter of natural gas since mid-2017, according to government statistics.

When McCarthy says he intends to “maximize production of reliable, American-made energy” as though that will bring prices down at the pump, he’s emitting vapor.

Additional production of energy within the U.S. will simply enter the international market, where it will be subject to global price pressures such as the supply reduction caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and by OPEC’s decision to reduce its own output. Those are the influences driving up gasoline prices here, not the pace of production from U.S. wells….

Republicans would extend the tax cuts they enacted in 2017, when they controlled both chambers of Congress and the White House — a giveaway mostly to the rich and corporations that blew a hole in the U.S. budget estimated at $1.5 trillion to $3 trillion over 10 years — and one without any lasting positive effect on economic growth.

They’re talking about benefit cuts for Social Security and Medicare recipients, which would certainly make it harder for those households to make ends meet. They’ve talked about refusing to increase the government’s debt ceiling next year, using it to extract benefit cuts. As I’ve reported, this is playing with fire….

Undoubtedly, more can be done. President Biden is jawboning oil companies about their huge run-up in profits, but that’s just one industry. Corporate profits have soared since mid-2020 while average worker earnings have remained muted — a little-noticed spur to inflation.

Has the GOP embraced those ideas? Of course not — corporate managements and the big oil companies are its patrons. Instead of pointing the finger at them, Republicans complain that Social Security beneficiaries are collecting too much and the rich are staggering under the burden of the lowest marginal federal tax rates in more than half a century.

If you want to know why that party has nothing to offer on inflation, it’s because anything that really would address it in a way that helps average Americans would hurt its friends. We can’t have that, can we?

Categories Accountability, Biden, Economy, Elections, Republicans

Paul Cobaugh: Moral Courage Is on the Ballot in Texas

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2022 //
8

Paul Cobaugh, a military veteran, moved to Texas in 2005. He registered as a Republican because he considers himself a principled conservative in the mold of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

But today, he writes, the Texas Republican Party today is a party of radical extremists who trample on the rights of those who disagree with them.

He writes:

I’m deeply ashamed of the extremists running the TX Republican Party, that control our state, destroy our American/ Texas values and built their 2022 election platform on conspiracy theories and lies. Maybe it’s because I consider myself an, “Eisenhower-Republican” or just for the simple reason that I’ve worked against extremists in combat zones and beyond. There is no difference today between the TX GOP and the Taliban. Yes, please reread and remember that last sentence.

Like most Texans, I’m proud of our state and its accomplishments. Principled conservatives and liberals built much of what we’re proud of. I frankly don’t give a damn if someone is left/ right, Republican/ Democrat or liberal/ conservative. America does better when principled and well-informed “sides” debate issues. When extremism is not only present, but dominates one side, all else fails. For the record, one of my deep, professional specialties is terrorism, extremism and counter-terrorism, that include several combat deployments prior to my retirement.

We see this in TX at every level of state responsibility. I’ve seen the same in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and other less-than-hospitable parts of the world. I refuse to stay silent when extremism rears its evil head here in my home state. The nation I’ve sworn to defend is now threatened by the soul-scorching, extremism of a party with an insatiable appetite for conspiracy theories and fascist ideals. Someone must have the courage to stand up for integrity and truth. I won’t speak for the left’s dysfunction, but I can guarantee that Abbott and his party are NOT the ones to demonstrate moral courage. We all have a citizen’s duty to be well and accurately informed. It was front and center in the minds of our founders….

In plain language, TX, like most of America, the extremists controlling today’s GOP, seek more power for their own personal gain and immorally use an anti-constitutional, social agenda, to achieve it. The opposition has little to no power in TX because they cannot agree on which individual interest has priority, but collectively ignore the big picture that clearly demonstrates the potentially lethal injury, today’s GOP is causing to the soul of our nation and worse, our national values….

The word conservative in TX is a “sacred cow” of sorts. The problem is that the current TX Republican party is now, like the national party, controlled by extremists. They are not, “conservatives.” Principled conservatives have zero voice. America, just like TX 122, is now engaged in an actual war over our unique, lofty and constitutional values versus extremism. That is what’s on the ballot in a few days: Extremism vs. reality

In TX, like most of the nation, GOP candidates run for office on extremist, unconstitutional views, while claiming to be principled, conservative patriots. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Cobaugh lists issues that typify extremism in the GOP. Education is one of them:

Critical Race Theory

a. Nearly every, so-called conservative in the nation is talking CRT, Critical Race Theory. I am yet to have one of these voters or candidates state, what it is and admit that it is not part of public education, K-12

i. Yes, I know this because my wife retired from teaching TX public school last year and… I do research for a living. Anyone that can read and that has integrity knows the truth. Still, Dorazio is willing to publicly lie about this, like his other R extremists

ii. I would also like to point out, that in conjunction with this CRT dishonesty that the TX Republican party wants to put religion into public schools. Yes, it’s written into their platform. This violates some of the most basic constitutional principles of our nation and TX.

“31. Prayer, Bible, and Ten Commandments in Schools: We support prayer, the Bible, and the Ten Commandments being returned to our schools, courthouses, and other government buildings”

– TX GOP Platform/ 2022

Pg. 6

iii. The effort by these nuts is in support of vouchers which would allow public funding to pay for charter schools that could indoctrinate TX kids with extreme religious and political views.

iv. The CRT insanity cascaded into the book banning and burning craze. Yes, the same party that has run TX for 27 years exclusively, all of a sudden decided to ban books that they’d already approved, while blaming it on the left who has had very little say in those years.

Categories Accountability, Elections, Extremism, Republicans, Texas

GOP Is NOT Tough on Crime: They Want Everyone Armed!

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2022 //
35

The Republicans have made a big campaign issue of crime. They claim that Democrats are “soft on crime,” while they are “tough on crime.”

Don’t believe it. It’s a bald-faced lie!

Republicans oppose any legislation to limit access to guns. They vote against “red flag” laws, that seek to keep guns away from people who pose a danger to others. They oppose background checks. They oppose raising the minimum age for buying a gun from 18 to 21. They oppose laws that are commonplace in civilized nations.

The United States has the highest murder rate in the world. Could it be because we have so many guns and so few limits on guns?

Texas, for example, now allows anyone to carry a gun without a permit. Let that sink in: anyone can carry a gun without a permit.

Consider this recent story:

Texas Goes Permitless on Guns, and Police Face an Armed Public

A new law allowing people to carry handguns without a license has led to more spontaneous shootings, many in law enforcement say.

HOUSTON — Tony Earls hung his head before a row of television cameras, staring down, his life upended. Days before, Mr. Earls had pulled out his handgun and opened fire, hoping to strike a man who had just robbed him and his wife at an A.T.M. in Houston.

Instead, he struck Arlene Alvarez, a 9-year-old girl seated in a passing pickup, killing her.

“Is Mr. Earls licensed to carry?” a reporter asked during the February news conference, in which his lawyer spoke for him.

He didn’t need one, the lawyer replied. “Everything about that situation, we believe and contend, was justified under Texas law.” A grand jury later agreed, declining to indict Mr. Earls for any crime.

The shooting was part of what many sheriffs, police leaders and district attorneys in urban areas of Texas say has been an increase in people carrying weapons and in spur-of-the-moment gunfire in the year since the state began allowing most adults 21 or over to carry a handgun without a license.

Far from an outlier, Texas, with its new law, joined what has been an expanding effort to remove nearly all restrictions on carrying handguns. When Alabama’s “permitless carry” law goes into effect in January, half of the states in the nation, from Maine to Arizona, will not require a license to carry a handgun.

The state-by-state legislative push has coincided with a federal judiciary that has increasingly ruled in favor of carrying guns and against state efforts to regulate them.

But Texas is the most populous state to do away with handgun permit requirements. Five of the nation’s 15 biggest cities are in Texas, making the permitless approach to handguns a new fact of life in urban areas to an extent not seen in other states.

In the border town of Eagle Pass, drunken arguments have flared into shootings. In El Paso, revelers who legally bring their guns to parties have opened fire to stop fights. In and around Houston, prosecutors have received a growing stream of cases involving guns brandished or fired over parking spots, bad driving, loud music and love triangles.

“Tough on crime?” Hardly.

Categories Democrats, Extremism, Guns, Republicans, Safety, Texas

Please Watch This Explanation of the GOP Agenda

By dianeravitch
October 22, 2022 //
41

This is one of the best summaries I have seen of what Republicans will do if they are elected and gain control. It’s about two minutes. Please watch and share.

She leaves out one salient point, made by Kevin McCarthy. The Republicans will cut aid to Ukraine and use the money to finish building Trump’s Great Wall (that Mexico was supposed to pay for).

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Economy, Extremism, Freedom, Inequality, Privatization, Republicans

The Republican Party of 1956

By dianeravitch
October 16, 2022 //
38

One of the blogs I follow is that of Andrew Tobias, who writes about finance and politics. He recently posted the platform and goals of the 1956 Republican Party, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was running for re-election against Adlai Stevenson.

The Eisenhower Republicans were sane and deeply respectful of today’s Republicans, who are controlled by extremists and religious zealots.

Tobias posted this:

1956 REPUBLICAN PLATFORM

  1. Provide federal assistance to
    low-income communities
  2. Protect Social Security
  3. Provide asylum for refugees
  4. Extend minimum wage
  5. Improve unemployment benefit
    system so it covers more people
  6. Strengthen labor laws so
    workers can easily join a union
  7. Assure equal pay for equal work
    regardless of sex

Here is the full GOP platform of 1956.

SHARE IF YOU MISS THE GOOD OLD DAYS!

Categories Democracy, Elections, Republicans, Unions

Maurice Cunningham: Foot-Soldiers for Ron DeSantis

By dianeravitch
October 14, 2022 //
19

Don’t be fooled by “Moms for Liberty,” writes political scientist Maurice Cunningham. They may appear to be a garden-variety group of rightwing extremists, but they are more than that. Keep your eye on the Dark Money that funds them.

He writes:

The group, which claims to be about “parent rights,” has ties to the January 6 insurrection and is expected to provide “foot soldiers” for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Moms for Liberty (M4L) claims the organization was started by moms.

[Insert uproarious laughter.]

But it is hard to believe that three mothers in Florida could start up a grassroots group on January 1, 2021, and then, within a matter of weeks and months, wind up on Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson’s show, Glenn Beck, and Fox News. However, there is a shadowy network of money and influence in right-wing political circles that could arrange that easily.

Among M4L’s financial supporters and profile boosters are some of the most influential organizations, media operations, and wealthy donors in the vast theater of the right-wing propaganda machine.

And it would be a mistake to believe M4L’s agenda is exclusively about maternal concerns over what children learn in schools. Instead, most of the organization’s purported success seems to be in helping to advance a much broader right-wing political agenda through electoral politics. In its short history, M4L has already been credited with helping to engineer a “massive victory,” according to Salon, and ensuring a string of wins for a number of Republican candidates in school board elections across Florida.

Looking ahead at the upcoming elections, M4L is expected to provide the “foot soldiers” for the reelection bid of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and many also expect to see the M4L soldiering for DeSantis in the 2024 presidential race.

The Rise of Moms for Liberty…

M4L was born into a full-scale right-wing media rollout. As Olivia Little of Media Matters reported in July 2022, M4L debuted on The Rush Limbaugh Show in January 2021—right out of the cradle. M4L representatives have since appeared “on Fox News at least 16 times and Steve Bannon’s War Room at least 14 times,” according to Little. As her reporting and my own investigation in April 2021indicated, M4L initially had practically no members or state infrastructure. But appearances on Fox and fawning treatment in right-wing outlets like Breitbart News and Glenn Beck propelled its growth.

By June 11, 2021, M4L threw a fundraisercalled “Fearless: An Evening with Megyn Kelly,” the former Fox News celebrity. The highest-priced ticket of $20,000 for the “presenting sponsor” included 20 tickets to a meet-and-greet along with a photo with Megyn Kelly and came with many other benefits. There were other offers that included lesser benefits for donors making contributions of $15,000 or $10,000 and the general admission was $50….

M4L’s grandest event thus far has been its national summit, which took place between July 14 and 17, 2022 in Tampa, Florida. The national summit featured speeches by DeSantis, Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis, Carson, former Florida Governor and current U.S. Senator Rick Scott, and Trump’s former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who advocated for the abolition of the department she had led, according to Florida Phoenix….

When asked, the leaders of M4L say they raise a lot of money from T-shirt sales. [Cue loud laughter.]

But Cunningham knows that’s not the main source of their funding.

Open the link to learn who turned this “parent-led” group into a Dark Money political powerhouse.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Fake, Propaganda, Republicans

Ruth Marcus: Get Ready for Reactionary Decisions by an Arrogant Supreme Court

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2022 //
23

Ruth Marcus, deputy editor of the Washington Post editorial page, writes a warning: if you thought the Supreme Court’s decisions were bad last year, this year will be even worse. Their solid five votes of hard-right conservatives, occasionally teen forced by a sixth vote from Chief Justice John Roberts, has removed all constraint, any need to negotiate with their liberal colleagues. Mitch McConnell created the most conservative court in almost a century, with help from Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society. They seem determined to roll the clock back a century.

She writes:

Last term, in addition to overruling Roe v. Wade, the conservative majority expandedgun rights, imposed severe new constraints on the power of regulatory agencies and further dismantled the wall of separation between church and state….

If there was a question, at the start of that term, about how far and how fast a court with six conservatives would move, it was answered resoundingly by the time it recessed for the summer: “Very far, very fast,” said Donald B. Verrilli Jr., who served as solicitor general under President Barack Obama. “I hope the majority takes a step back and considers the risk that half the country may completely lose faith in the court as an institution.”

Maybe it will, but for now, the court is marching on toward fresh territory, taking on race, gay rights and the fundamental structures of democracy — this even as the shock waves of the abortion ruling reverberate through our politics and lower courts grapple with a transformed legal regime. And there’s every indication that the court intends to adopt changes nearly as substantial — and as long sought by conservatives — as those of last term…

In assembling its cases for the term, the conservative wing has at times displayed an unseemly haste — prodded by conservative activists who have seized on the opportunities presented by a court open to their efforts to reshape the law. The court reached out to decide a dispute about when the Clean Water Act applies to wetlands, even as the Environmental Protection Agency rewrites its rules on that very issue. It agreed to hear a wedding website designer’s complaint that Colorado’s law barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation violates her free speech rights to oppose same-sex marriage, even though Colorado authorities have not filed any complaint against her. It took the marquee case of the term — the constitutionality of affirmative action programs at colleges and universities — although the law in this area has been settled and there is no division among the lower courts.

“They’re impatient,” Harvard Law School professor Richard Lazarus said of the conservative justices, especially the longest-serving, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. “They’ve spent a lot of time waiting for this majority to happen, and they don’t plan to waste it.”

Categories Bigotry, Civil Rights, Democracy, Elections, Environment, Republicans

Federal Judge Delivers Blistering Rebuke to the Republican Party For Failing to Defend the Constitution

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2022 //
32

Judge Amy Berman Jackson, the federal judge who sentenced insurrectionist Kyle Young, gave a stern lecture to the Republicans who refused to defend the nation’s Constitution and its democratic process.

For those of us old enough to remember the Republican Party of Dwight D. Eisenhower, today’s Republicans are pusillanimous cowards who worship at the feet of a man who has no intellect, no character, no ethics, and no sense of history. The fact that such a man dominates a once-honorable party is appalling.

Judge Jackson did not mince words, according to Politico.

Kyle Cheney writes:

A federal judge delivered a blistering rebuke of Republican Party leaders Tuesday for what she said was a cynical attempt to stoke false claims of election fraud of the kind that fueled the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson said former President Donald Trump had turned his lies about the election into a litmus test for Republican candidates and that “high-ranking members of Congress and state officials” are “so afraid of losing their power” that they won’t contradict him. That fealty, she said, comes even as law enforcement and judges involved in cases related to the former president are facing unprecedented threats of violence.

It’s up to the judiciary, she added, to help draw the line against those dangers.

“The judiciary … has to make it clear: It is not patriotism, it is not standing up for America to stand up for one man — who knows full well that he lost — instead of the Constitution he was trying to subvert,” said Jackson, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama.

In addition, Jackson said, Trump and his allies are using rhetoric about the multiple criminal probes connected to Trump that contain dangerous undertones.

“Some prominent figures in the Republican Party … are cagily predicting or even outright calling for violence in the streets if one of the multiple investigations doesn’t go his way,” Jackson said…

She’s not the first federal judge to rebuke Trump in the context of Jan. 6 riot prosecutions. Judge Amit Mehta lamented that many of the low-level rioters were duped by powerful figures, including Trump, into marching on the Capitol, only to suffer criminal consequences as a result. Judge Reggie Walton called Trump a “charlatan” for his conduct related to the election. And a federal judge in California, David Carter, determined that Trump’s actions related to Jan. 6 likely amounted to a criminal conspiracy to subvert the election.

But Jackson’s comments were the most stinging assessment not only of Trump but those in the upper echelons of elected GOP leadership who have echoed him. She also pushed back at claims by some Trump allies that Jan. 6 defendants had been targeted for political reasons.

“You were not prosecuted for being a Trump supporter. You were not arrested or charged and you will not be sentenced for exercising your first amendment rights,” she said to Young. “You are not a political prisoner … You were trying to stop the singular thing that makes America America, the peaceful transfer of power. That’s what ‘Stop the Steal’ meant.”

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Democracy, Elections, Extremism, Hypocrisy, Ignorance, Injustice, Republicans, Trump
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