Month: April 2022

They love the fetus but hate the woman

The pain this is going to cause is just …

As conservative states enacted stringent abortion bans in recent decades, there was one threshold they were loath to cross: Abortion was nearly always allowed in cases of rape or incest.

It was a veneer of acceptance embraced by every GOP president from Reagan to Trump, and even the strongest abortion foes, that a woman should not be required to carry a rapist’s child.

Not anymore.

Just as states may be on the verge of regaining expansive authority to outlaw abortion, eliminating rape and incest exceptions has moved from the fringe to the center of the antiabortion movement.

In 2019, Alabama gained national attention by passing a state law banning all abortions with exceptions only for lethal abnormalities and serious health risks to the patient.

One in an occasional series of stories about the state of abortion as Roe vs. Wade faces its most serious challenge.

There was a brief backlash to Alabama’s law, but over the last four years, 10 states have enacted abortion bans in early pregnancy without rape or incest exceptions: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas. All were blocked by the court, except Texas’ law, which is in effect.

In recent weeks, several other legislatures have been racing to put abortion bans on the books. Arizona’s governor recently signed a 15-week abortion ban without rape or incest exceptions, although it is not yet in effect.

Similar 15-week bans without these exceptions are awaiting the governor’s signature in Florida. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed his state’s version on Friday, though Republicans likely have the votes to override him.

Oklahoma’s Legislature this week approved an almost total ban on abortion except for medical emergencies. It has not yet been signed by the governor.

The Supreme Court this summer will consider the constitutionality of one of those laws — Mississippi’s 15-week ban that excludes exceptions for rape and incest. In doing so, the court will decide whether to undo its 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

If Mississippi’s law is upheld and the court rewrites Roe, the lack of rape and incest exceptions could be replicated in many other conservative states.

The trauma of a rape or incest survivor being forced to bear their attackers child means nothing to them. Who cares about the birthing vessel? They might as well be animals for all they care.

That carries grave physical and psychological implications for sexual abuse survivors who become pregnant, according to Michele Goodwin, a UC Irvine professor who studies law and health and is the founding director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy.

“When there are no exceptions for a person who survived rape or incest, it means the state is coercing that person into a pregnancy they don’t want,” she said. Women and girls who have survived rape or incest have already been through one harm, “but here’s the state rubber-stamping a second harm.”

Her concern is deeply personal. Goodwin says she became pregnant by her father when she was 12 years old after two years of abuse.

Her father took her to a healthcare provider in New York, lied about her age, and got her an abortion. She didn’t need an exception. But as she watches states enact early abortion bans without exceptions, including Texas’ six-week abortion ban, she worries about girls who would have to somehow find abortion access in another state or carry a pregnancy if impregnated by an abuser.

“I tried to put myself in the deepest corners of closets as a child,” she said, recounting one of the ways she tried to escape her abuse as a child. Now she says she is grateful she had the opportunity to get an abortion and pursue an education and career, rather than being forced to carry a child when she was still one herself.

“One of the key steps of being a survivor is to be able to get your freedom back, to be able to get your autonomy back, to be able to get your decision-making back” Goodwin said.

Abortion opponents describe eliminating long-standing rape and incest exceptions as driven by their faith-based belief that life begins at the moment an egg is fertilized by sperm. They say they oppose all abortion, regardless of the circumstances.

“Your humanity doesn’t change with the circumstances of your conception,” said Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life, a 16-year-old antiabortion group that has pushed establishment conservative groups to eliminate exceptions. “You are valuable regardless of how you came into existence, or what your father did the night of your conception.”

A zygote, embryo, fetus is not a person. It’s absurd on its face. But a young girl who was raped by her father is a person, obviously. These people are saying that non-sentient bundles of cells are more important than a living breathing fully aware individual human.

Are Americans going to stand for this sophistry?

Here‘s where we are headed:

It was unclear whether Lizelle Herrera was accused of having an abortion or whether she helped someone else get an abortion.

Herrera was arrested on Thursday and remained jailed on Saturday on a $500,000 bond in the Starr county jail in Rio Grande City, on the US-Mexico border, sheriff’s major Carlos Delgado said.

“Herrera was arrested and served with an indictment on the charge of murder after Herrera did then and there intentionally and knowingly cause the death of an individual by self-induced abortion,” Delgado said.

Delgado did not say under which law Herrera had been charged. He said no other information would be released until at least Monday because the case remained under investigation.

Texas law exempts Herrera from a criminal homicide charge for aborting her own pregnancy, University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck said.

Homicide “doesn’t apply to the murder of an unborn child if the conduct charged is ‘conduct committed by the mother of the unborn child’,” Vladeck said.

A 2021 state law that bans abortions in Texas for women who are as early as six weeks pregnant has sharply curtailed the number of abortions in the state. The law leaves enforcement to private citizens who can sue doctors or anyone who helps a woman get an abortion. The woman receiving the abortion is exempted from the law.

Another Texas law prohibits doctors and clinics from prescribing abortion-inducing medications after the seventh week of pregnancy and prohibits delivery of the pills by mail.

However, some states still have laws that criminalize self-induced abortions “and there have been a handful of prosecutions here and there over the years”, Vladeck said, adding: “It is murder in Texas to take steps that terminate a fetus, but when a medical provider does it, it can’t be prosecuted” due to US supreme court rulings upholding the constitutionality of abortion.

Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women also noted the state law exemption.

“What’s a little mysterious in this case is, what crime has this woman been charged with?” Paltrow said. “There is no statute in Texas that, even on its face, authorizes the arrest of a woman for a self-managed abortion.”

Another Texas law prohibits doctors and clinics from prescribing abortion-inducing medications after the seventh week of pregnancy and prohibits delivery of the pills by mail. Medication abortions are not considered self-induced under federal Food and Drug Administration regulations, Vladeck said.

Multiple shooting at Georgia gun range

What else is left to say?

The owner of a Georgia gun range 50 miles southwest of Atlanta was murdered during a robbery Friday evening at his business along with his wife and grandson (Associated Press):

According to WSB-TV, Grantville Police identified the victims as the gun range owner, Thomas Hawk, 75; his wife, Evelyn, 75; and their grandson, Luke, 17.

Police Chief Steve Whitlock said the Hawk family was well-known and well-respected in their small, tight-knit community. The Hawks had operated Lock Stock & Barrel for nearly 30 years. Their grandson was on spring break, helping his grandparents at the shop.

“This is just a shock to everybody in the community,” Whitlock told The Associated Press. “We’re trying to do the best that we can to figure this out.”

The murderer or murderers made off with 40 firearms and the store’s video surveillance equipment. There are no suspects at this time and no video evidence. Police are asking for tips. Because of the number of guns stolen, federal authorities are now involved in the investigation.

The bodies were discovered after closing by the owners’ son, Richard Hawk, father of the 17-year-old. He is the county coroner.

We live with the horror by our own choice. What does it say about us?

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Jan. 6 panel reluctant to make Trump criminal referral

The House panel investigating the violent Jan. 6 attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election has sufficient evidence to make a criminal referral of former President Donald J. Trump to the Department of Justice. What investigators lack, reports The New York Times, is consensus on whether, colloquially speaking, to pull the trigger.

The House team plans to issue a report on its findings when finished but is wavering over whether political fallout could taint investigations by Attorney General Merrick Garland’s department. Those appear to be widening in recent weeks:

The shift in the committee’s perspective on making a referral was prompted in part by a ruling two weeks ago by Judge David O. Carter of the Federal District Court for Central California. Deciding a civil case in which the committee had sought access to more than 100 emails written by John C. Eastman, a lawyer who advised Mr. Trump on efforts to derail certification of the Electoral College outcome, Judge Carter found that it was “more likely than not” that Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman had committed federal crimes.

The ruling led some committee and staff members to argue that even though they felt they had amassed enough evidence to justify calling for a prosecution for obstructing a congressional proceeding and conspiring to defraud the American people, the judge’s decision would carry far greater weight with Mr. Garland than any referral letter they could write, according to people with knowledge of the conversations.

The members and aides who were reluctant to support a referral contended that making one would create the appearance that Mr. Garland was investigating Mr. Trump at the behest of a Democratic Congress and that if the committee could avoid that perception it should, the people said.

But can it?

The House voted Wednesday to refer criminal contempt charges against former Trump aides Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino to the DoJ. It did the same with former White House chief Mark Meadows in December, but the department has yet to bring an indictment.

Commenting on Garland’s inaction on Meadows, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told reporters (Politico) in March, “The Department of Justice has a duty to act on this referral and others that we have sent.”

“Without enforcement of congressional subpoenas,” Schiff continued, “there is no oversight, and without oversight, no accountability — for the former president, or any other president, past, present, or future. Without enforcement of its lawful process, Congress ceases to be a co-equal branch of government.”

Panel members Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) at the time vented frustration at Garland’s department.

“Attorney General Garland, do your job so we can do ours,” said Luria in March.

But now Lofgren argues that any referral of Trump would have no “legal impact.” She and other unnamed members believe a formal referral would be superfluous in light of evidence they have and that has been reviewed already by Judge Carter.

Luria disagrees.

“I think it’s a lot more important to do what’s right than it is to worry about the political ramifications,” Luria told MSNBC. “This committee, our purpose is legislative and oversight, but if in the course of our investigation we find that criminal activity has occurred, I think it’s our responsibility to refer that to the Department of Justice.”

Luria has the principled argument here. Garland himself has insisted his department will follow the evidence where it leads. The panel must do the same.

Having made multiple criminal referrals of White House staff in the course of its investigation, the panel’s punting on a criminal referral against Trump will reinforce public perception that politics trumps principle and that Trump stands above the law.

Republicans would make a criminal referral of a Democratic president whether or not any evidence supports it, and damn the consequences. See what they are passing in the states.

As for political fallout, what’s the worst that can happen? Democrats lose the House and Senate in November? The media promises daily that that is a virtual certainty. Should that happen, Democrats will be better off losing with their principles intact. Compromising for political expedience will demonstrate to voters across the political spectrum that Democrats do not have the Right Stuff to lead.

What Democrat and unaffiliated voters need to see is that justice is not dependent on position or power. They need to see Democrats willing to fight for justice and damn the political risks. No one gets excited about voting for the gutless.

Update: Fixed first name reference for Luria and Lofgren. (Had it out of order.)

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White extremists get the benefit of the doubt

Before you decide that the FBI entrapped those Militia members who were acquitted this week in the kidnapping and murder plot against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, please read this from Nina Burleigh who actually read all the documents in the trial and followed it from the arrest to the trial It’s not clear cut at all. There’s every reason to believe that the jury just thought that attempting to kill a female political leader is generally a good idea:

“Daddy … do you want a Dorito?” a little girl’s voice asked.

“Honey, I’m making explosives, can you get away from me, please?”

That recorded exchange between Delaware trucker Barry Croft Jr. and his daughter was just one of hundreds of examples of audio, video and online chatter prosecutors presented to the jury considering the fate of four men accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in the fall of 2020. 

The trial has been closely watched because of its potential implications for the increasingly bizarre relationship between Trumpist conservatives and law enforcement.

Croft and three other men charged in the alleged plot were associated with an armed anti-government gang called the Wolverine Watchmen, according to federal law enforcement. But on Friday, a federal jury did not convict any of the men: Brandon Caserta and Daniel Harris were found not guilty of conspiracy; the jurors deadlocked on Barry Croft and Adam Fox, with the judge declaring a mistrial on those counts. 

The trial has been closely watched because of its potential implications for the increasingly bizarre relationship between Trumpist conservatives and law enforcement. 

In fall 2020, during the final, tense, Covid-infested weeks before the election and with the prospect of political violence on the horizon, authorities arrested and charged 13 men with a crime simultaneously ridiculous and sinister. Prosecutors say members of a Michigan militia, enraged at their female governor’s Covid lockdown orders, spent months plotting and training with the stated aim of capturing Whitmer and either putting her on trial and executing her or abandoning her on Lake Michigan in a boat without an engine. 

Six of the men — Barry Croft Jr., Ty Garbin, Daniel Harris, Adam Fox, Brandon Caserta and Kaleb Franks — were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of kidnapping conspiracy, facing a maximum penalty of life in prison. Two of them, Garbin and Harris, pleaded guilty and testified against the others.

(Seven more men were charged in Michigan state courts with providing material support to terrorism. Those cases will be prosecuted by the Michigan attorney general.)

Defense lawyers have argued that the government entrapped politically outspoken but otherwise law-abiding men who were simply exercising their First and Second amendment rights to speak freely and collect weapons. Typically, entrapment is extremely hard to prove; U.S. law allows law enforcers to use the tactic against someone with a “predisposition” to commit a crime. Defendants must also essentially admit to the allegations, then prove that undercover agents or informants deceived them into the activities.

Defense lawyers have argued that the government entrapped politically outspoken but otherwise law-abiding men who were simply exercising their First and Second amendment rights.

Nonetheless, the pleadings of defense attorneys got mainstream coverage during the long period between arrests and trial and were enthusiastically amplified by the larger right-wing messaging machine. There is a bigger goal here. By eroding trust in law enforcement, the far right can continue to claim the Jan. 6 insurrection was nothing more than an exercise in free speech.

Fox News personality Tucker Carlson’s three-part documentary, “Patriot Purge,” went so far as to allege the attack on the U.S. Capitol could have been a false-flag operation devised by the so-called deep state to frame, trap and “purge” Trump voters in a “new war on terror.” (His claims are so baseless that several other conservative commentators left Fox in protest.)

Most of the evidence in the trial was collected by a man the pre-Trump political right might once have lauded as an American hero. Michigan postal worker Dan Chappel, an Iraq War veteran whose service got him a titanium leg, is a Second Amendment enthusiast who joined the Watchmen after Facebook’s algorithm pushed him toward the extremist site in spring 2020. 

The military cosplayers who made up the majority of the Wolverine Watchmen welcomed a man with actual military training. But after only a few interactions with them, Chappel became alarmed by the group’s seeming interest in killing police officers. Throughout the summer of 2020, Chappel says, he participated in semiautomatic weapons trainings and other activities in person and online, collecting incriminating audio and online chatter for the government, and made notes on other observations; he testified that Wolverine wives and girlfriends practiced knife and ax throwing while their men did “field training,” for example. The Wolverine Watchmen and their allies, paranoid that federal authorities were onto them, moved their conversations across a series of encrypted platforms — oblivious to the veteran in their midst providing access to the FBI.

Chappel’s evidence also suggested a wider community of like-minded enablers. And at a top level, the case reveals the degree to which tacit and active support for political violence is on the rise. Even the local sheriff opined to Fox News that the Wolverine boys were all talk — at least in 2020.

But again, this pattern extends far beyond the Mitten State, as conservatives desperate to whitewash the revolting spectacle of bat-wielding, police-beating Capitol insurrectionists who shared the same anti-government ideology as the Michigan men engage in Houdini-level logical contortions.

The acrobatic effort has welded together some of the strangest bedfellows in American history. Carlson, a backer of the police’s thin blue line if there ever was one, has been ridiculing and downplaying the seriousness of the alleged plot for more than a year. He has given a platform to a variety of activists who have made a cottage industry of comparing the Michigan case to what they now call the “entrapment operation” of the Capitol insurrection. Such claims are amplified across the right-wing echo chamber. (Osama bin Laden’s niece Noor bin Laden even wrote a letter to the U.N. on behalf of the jailed Jan. 6 “political prisoners.”)

Law enforcement overreach and entrapment accusations were not unusual when the alleged terrorists were Muslims and brown people guided by paid informants, although they found a far less sympathetic audience among far-right media personalities. The degree to which authorities overstepped in those cases is an important discussion, but it would be a mistake to assume all entrapment accusations are created equal.

Formerly true-blue supporters of police officers and veterans have — shockingly — turned apologists.

In closing arguments, Western Michigan U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler said: “They were filled with rage. They were paranoid because they knew what they were doing was wrong and they feared they could be caught.” Clearly, Kessler’s words failed to convince the jury.

But the rise of menace and political violence from the right in America has nonetheless become normalized. Formerly true-blue supporters of police officers and veterans have — shockingly — turned apologists for a clan of heavily armed men who at the very least fantasized about an outrageous act of political terror.

It remains to be seen precisely what swayed the jurors and whether the entrapment claims were effective. The names of the jurors have been kept confidential, but we know four of them conceded they own guns and others said they were fine with guns. Most indicated they were not much interested in news or aware of current events. Meanwhile, the two acquitted men will likely be allowed to arm themselves again if they so choose. One of the acquitted men, Brandon Caserta, is on video vowing to shoot and kill police. The other, Harris, was recorded by an informant saying about Whitmer, “just dome her, shoot her in the head.”

In my view, the four on trial in Michigan attracted right-wing support not in spite of but precisely because of the fact that their alleged operation was political. “We wanted to cause as much a disruption as possible to prevent Joe Biden from getting into office,” Ty Garbin, one of the Wolverines who testified against his former brothers in arms, told the court. “It didn’t have to be. It was just preferred.”

After the verdict, Whitmer released a statement alluding to this rising menace. “Today, Michiganders and Americans — especially our children — are living through the normalization of political violence. The plot to kidnap and kill a governor may seem like an anomaly. But we must be honest about what it really is: the result of violent, divisive rhetoric that is all too common across our country. There must be accountability and consequences for those who commit heinous crimes. Without accountability, extremists will be emboldened.”

It would be nice if she was proven wrong. But unfortunately, and especially for America’s elected women under siege, I believe it’s already too late.  

If you are unconvinced, do read this piece about elected women under siege. It’s pretty terrifying.

This time he’s threatening his neighbor states

Apparently, DeSantis already thinks he’s America’s dictator:

The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, predicted a “cold war” with Georgia if it elects the Democrat and voting rights campaigner Stacey Abrams as governor this year.

“If Stacey Abrams is elected governor of Georgia, I just want to be honest, that will be a cold war between Florida and Georgia,” DeSantis said at a press event in the north-west of his own state.

“I can’t have [former Cuban leader Raúl] Castro to my south and Abrams to my north, that would be a disaster. So I hope you guys take care of that and we’ll end up in good shape.”

DeSantis polls strongly among potential Republican nominees for president in 2024, with or without Donald Trump in the race. Accordingly, he has positioned himself as a major player on culture-war issues, recently signing a bill regarding the teaching of LGBTQ+ issues which critics labeled “don’t say gay”.

In California, Los Angeles county has banned business travel to Florida and Texas over anti-LGBTQ+ policies. Such moves have also led DeSantis into direct confrontation with Disney, a major employer and economic engine in his state.

On Friday, he said: “I don’t really care what the media says about that. I don’t care what, you know, very leftwing activists say about that. I do not care what big companies say about that. We are standing strong. We will not back down on that.”

Knowing Republican voters, Georgia GOP voters will immediately tug their forelock, get down on their knees and pledge fealty to this out-of-state Governor threatening them. They love being told what to do by big, white bullies.

Is it possible for him to go too far with this crap? I honestly don’t know anymore.

Two days after the election he declared “we have operational control”

I know we really need to see the lurid pictures on Hunter Biden’s laptop and any work he did while his father was out of office but this seems as if it might be of some interest as well:

Two days after the 2020 presidential election, as votes were still being tallied, Donald Trump’s eldest son texted then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that “we have operational control” to ensure his father would get a second term, with Republican majorities in the US Senate and swing state legislatures, CNN has learned.In the text, which has not been previously reported, Donald Trump Jr. lays out ideas for keeping his father in power by subverting the Electoral College process, according to the message reviewed by CNN. The text is among records obtained by the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021.”It’s very simple,” Trump Jr. texted to Meadows on November 5, adding later in the same missive: “We have multiple paths We control them all.”

Immediately before his text to Meadows describing multiple paths for challenging the election, Trump Jr. texted Meadows the following: “This is what we need to do please read it and please get it to everyone that needs to see it because I’m not sure we’re doing it.”

The November 5 text message outlines a strategy that is nearly identical to what allies of the former President attempted to carry out in the months that followed. Trump Jr. makes specific reference to filing lawsuits and advocating recounts to prevent certain swing states from certifying their results, as well as having a handful of Republican state houses put forward slates of fake “Trump electors.”If all that failed, according to the Trump Jr. text, GOP lawmakers in Congress could simply vote to reinstall Trump as President on January 6.

“We have operational control Total leverage,” the message reads. “Moral High Ground POTUS must start 2nd term now.”The text from Trump Jr. is revealing on a number of levels. It shows how those closest to the former President were already exchanging ideas for how to overturn the election months before the January 6 insurrection — and before all the votes were even counted. It would be another two days before major news outlets declared Joe Biden the winner on November 7.The text also adds to a growing body of evidence of how Trump’s inner circle was actively engaged in discussing how to challenge the election results.On March 28, Judge David Carter, a federal judge in California, said that Trump, along with conservative lawyer John Eastman, launched an “unprecedented” campaign to overturn a democratic election, calling it “a coup in search of a legal theory.”George Terwilliger, an attorney for Meadows, declined to comment for this story. A spokesperson for the House select committee declined to comment.

As we know, they did it. All of it.

Trump Jr.’s November 5 text to Meadows came as similar notions of faithless electors were starting to percolate publicly on conservative social media. Trump Jr. sent the text to Meadows at 12:51 p.m., just minutes after conservative radio host Mark Levin had tweeted a similar idea and suggested state legislatures have final say on electors.If secretaries of state were unable to certify the results, Trump Jr. argues in his text to Meadows that they should press their advantage by having Republican-controlled state assemblies “step in” and put forward separate slates of “Trump electors,” he writes.

“Republicans control Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina etc we get Trump electors,” Trump Jr. adds.Trump Jr.’s text, however, refers to an untested legal theory that state houses are the ultimate authority in elections and can intervene to put forward a different slate of electors than those chosen by the voters, when in reality this is a ceremonial process and the outcome is essentially a foregone conclusion.

“HERE’s an AGRESSIVE (sic) STRATEGY: Why can t (sic) the states of GA NC PENN and other R controlled state houses declare this is BS (where conflicts and election not called that night) and just send their own electors to vote and have it go to the SCOTUS,” Perry’s text message read.A spokesman for Perry told CNN at the time that the former Energy secretary denies being the author of the text. However, multiple people who know Rick Perry previously confirmed to CNN that the phone number the committee has associated with that text message is Perry’s number.

Trump Jr. also texts Meadows that Congress could intervene on January 6 and overturn the will of voters if, for some reason, they were unable to secure enough electoral votes to tip the outcome in Trump’s favor using the state-based strategy.That option, according to Trump Jr.’s text, involves a scenario where neither Biden nor Trump have enough electoral votes to be declared a winner, prompting the House of Representatives to vote by state party delegation, with each state getting one vote.”Republicans control 28 states Democrats 22 states,” Trump Jr. texts. “Once again Trump wins.””We either have a vote WE control and WE win OR it gets kicked to Congress 6 January 2021,” he texts Meadows.

We know that John Eastman followed through on all that.

And then there was this:

Trump Jr. ends his November 5 text by calling for a litany of personnel moves to solidify his father’s control over the government by putting loyalists in key jobs and initiate investigations into the Biden family.”Fire Wray; Fire Fauci,” he texts, referring to FBI Director Christopher Wray and White House coronavirus adviser Anthony Fauci. Trump Jr. then proposes making former acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell interim head of the FBI and having then-Attorney General Bill Barr “select Special prosecutor on HardDrivefromHell Biden crime family.”As Trump refused to concede in the days and weeks after the 2020 election, rumors swirled that he was still considering firing Wray, along with several other top officials with whom he had grown frustrated.

Trump and his allies sharply criticized Wray for failing to produce information that they claimed would be harmful to the President’s political enemies, including Biden. CNN previously reported that the prospect of Trump firing Wray hung over the FBI for weeks, dating to before Election Day.While Wray remains in his post and Barr resigned in mid-December 2020 without naming a special prosecutor to investigate the Bidens, Trump Jr.’s text underscores just how precarious the situation at DOJ was in the immediate aftermath of the election.The same is true for Trump Jr.’s recommendation that Meadows replace Wray with Grenell, someone who not only lacked the usual qualifications to lead the FBI but also had a proven track record of doing the former President’s bidding.

Grenell is a certifiable authoritarian wingnut who never should have been anywhere near the US Government. But you knew that.

This is an astonishing report showing that they must have been plotting since before the election to have come up with this even before the votes were counted. But recall that Trump had said it all out loud four years before. After refusing to say whether he would accept the results of the election in the last presidential debate, he said this:

They will if Tucker Carlson has his way

This is horrifying. Teachers are already in the line of fire from school shootings, rabid lunatics at school board meetings, and have been pilloried for being fearful of being in small, unventilated rooms full of COVID for 8 hours a day, now Tucker Carlson wants “dads” to storm classrooms and assault them. For real:

TUCKER CARLSON (HOST): I don’t understand where the men are. Like where are the dads? You know, some teacher’s pushing sex values on your third grader why don’t you go in and thrash the teacher? Like this is an agent of the government pushing someone else’s values on your kid about sex, like where’s the pushback? 

Pushback? Is that what they’re calling it now?

Teachers are a perfect target in the culture war: public schools are a government funded, unionized, majority female, racially and ethnically diverse, educated, socially tolerant workforce. They are “agents of the government.” They are the enemy.

With this new “grooming” and pedophile obsession they are solidly in the cross hairs. Tucker wants to put them in the cross hairs literally.

Nothing sticks to him. Nothing.

I suppose this ruling may very well be just. If they violated the contract, they violated the contract. But damn… will there ever be any accountability for this man?

The Trump Organization can continue to operate a city-owned golf course in the Bronx after a judge ruled on Friday that New York City had wrongly terminated the company’s contract following the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol in Washington.

New York City moved to cancel the lucrative contract at the course, the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point, just days after the attacks on the Capitol last year, when a mob loyal to former President Donald J. Trump stormed the building in an effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

At the time, Mayor Bill de Blasio said the decision had been made because Mr. Trump had incited violence in Washington, which he said qualified as criminal activity that gave New York City the right to sever ties. (Mr. Trump was impeached on the grounds that he had incited the riot, his second impeachment, but he was acquitted by the Senate after he had left office.)

But the city’s lawyers used a different justification, saying that the Trump Organization had defaulted on its contractual obligation to maintain “a first class tournament quality daily fee golf course.”

The city, in a termination notice, said the golf course had failed to attract a major golf tournament and was unlikely to do so after the Capitol riot made the Trump brand “synonymous with an insurrection against the federal government.”

The Trump Organization sued the city last June, arguing that its only obligation wast to maintain the course, not to hold high-profile events. The city’s move, it said, was politically motivated and had no legitimate legal basis.

In her decision, Justice Debra James of the State Supreme Court did not weigh in on the political aspects of the case, nor did she mention what had happened at the Capitol. But she sided with the Trump Organization, ruling that the city had not given a valid legal reason for ending the contract.

A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization, Amanda Miller, applauded the decision and again accused Mr. de Blasio of acting on political motivations.

“As we have said since the beginning, the city’s efforts to terminate our long-term license agreement to operate Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point Park were nothing more than a political vendetta,” Ms. Miller said in a statement. “This is not just a win for the Trump Organization; this is a win for justice, for the people of the City of New York, and for the hundreds of our hard-working employees at Ferry Point.”

Yeah, it’s a win for justice.

Get a load of this epic whine:

The only people who are allowed to investigate Trump and his cronies are people who love Trump.

I read that this morning and sighed heavily. Whatever happens in politics over the next few years, the one thing that will be a huge relief is when this miscreant is no longer part of it. He’s just so exhausting. And in my now long life, I’ve never experienced anything so profoundly disillusioning as the Trump phenomenon. The impunity under which he operates is like nothing I’ve ever seen and it seems clear that nothing in our system is equipped to deal with a man like him, especially now that he has millions of armed and angry followers.

My earlier post concerns Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s non-stance on allowing any non-Republican-pre-approved Supreme Court nominees to receive a vote in the U.S. Senate.

But there was more to Jonathan Swan’s Friday interview with McConnell.

Given that McConnell on Feb. 13, 2021 condemned President Trump as “practically and morally responsible” for provoking the Jan. 6 insurrection, Swan asked how McConnell could say two weeks later he would “absolutely” support Republicans’ 2024 nominee for president even if it is Trump. Where is your moral red line, Swan asked.

Maddowblog’s Steve Benen documents the atrocities:

McConnell seemed confused, and a little annoyed, by the question, explaining that he’s “very comfortable” with how he’s conducted himself in public life.

And so, Swan got more specific, noting McConnell’s pre-written remarks in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s second impeachment trial, followed by McConnell’s declaration that he’d support Trump’s 2024 candidacy anyway.

“As a Republican leader of the Senate, it should not be a front-page headline that I will support the Republican nominee for president,” McConnell said, adding, “I think I have an obligation to support the nominee of my party, and I will.”

When Swan pressed further, asking if there’s anything the former president could possibly do that would cause the senator to withhold his support for the former president, McConnell, appearing visibly frustrated, explained, “I don’t get to pick the Republican nominee for president. They’re elected by the Republican voters.”

In other words, asked about his “moral red lines,” the Senate minority leader conceded that such lines effectively do not exist, at least insofar as electoral politics is concerned.

Benen concludes:

McConnell feels an “obligation,” not to do what’s best for the United States, and not to honor his ethical principles, but to prioritize partisanship above any other consideration. For the Kentucky senator, his list of concerns is as follows:

1. Prioritize the Republican Party’s pursuit of power.
2. See Point #1.

“No Labels”? Meet No Morals.

Never-Trumper Tim Miller of The Bulwark sought to unconfuse Swan about McConnell’s ethics when the two appeared Friday on MSNBC’s Deadline White House with Nicole Wallace.

McConnell is being politically expedient, Miller explained. But McConnell is in a different catagory from politicians of both parties who, politics being politics, often balance their own morality against political expedience. For McConnell, Miller argues, “whatever he believes is politically expedient is moral.”

His contradictions are not contradictions. For him. “[H]is whole moral framework is, whatever I need to do to advance my power and my party’s power right now is the moral thing,” Miller continues.

Cue Inigo Montoya. I do not think that a will to power fits any standard definitions of morality. Amorality perhaps.

Miller then confirms that assessment, saying, “Post-Trump era, [Republicans] don’t consider the morals anymore.” So when Swan asked McConnell if he had any morals that supercede politics, the question left McConnell befuddled. The answer was “that does not compute.”

The louder the Party of Trump screams about principles and morals, the more certain you can be that it has none. McConnell this week madfe that clear. Losing Trump won’t change that.

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