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Month: April 2023

Mano a mano

Published by digby on April 14, 2023

Jamie Raskin is a fighter. You love to see it.

Punchbowl reports:

A messy confrontation between House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member, over panel rules dominated coverage last week. But the spat can’t change an uncomfortable reality for Democrats — when it comes to GOP investigations, there’s not much they can do in the minority.

So as Comer plugs away at his controversial, high-profile investigation of President Joe Biden’s family members and their business dealings, Raskin is doing his best to try to reorient the narrative. The progressive firebrand is crying foul at Comer’s methods while making sure the biggest committee news comes from the Democratic side, not from the Kentucky Republican.

The fight spilled into the open last week, incensing Oversight Republicans who argue Raskin is trying to distract from GOP breakthroughs in reviewing bank records tied to questionable Biden family deals.

In recent memos and letters sent both to Comer and Oversight Democrats, Raskin repeatedly complained that Comer isn’t playing by the rules. Raskin accused Comer of issuing “secret subpoenas” and failing to give Democrats “equal access” to information. Republicans, furious at Raskin’s claims, argued Raskin was spreading disinformation.

Along with Raskin’s procedural arguments, the Democrat has divulged major Oversight news within his missives. In a March letter upbraiding Comer for his treatment of the Mazars case dealing with Trump’s tax returns, Raskin announced Comer had subpoenaed a business associate of Hunter and James Biden. Raskin was at it again last week, writing that Comer had quietly subpoenaed four financial institutions and another Biden family associate.

Accompanying the subpoena news was an inside baseball dispute over whether Republicans were giving Democrats enough heads-up and access to information.

The issue is extremely niche and the arguments likely don’t make much difference to the American public. But the flashpoint still matters inside the committee and it’s sparked major conflicts.

To recap briefly: Raskin’s initial April 6 letter accused Comer of “efforts to shield information.” Comer responded by calling Raskin “untrustworthy.” A subsequent April 6 Raskin memo claimed Comer issued “secret subpoenas.” The House Oversight GOP Twitter account released an April 7 thread labeling Raskin’s claim “DEM DISINFO.”

Democratic aides rebutted the Twitter thread to us, arguing there was a difference between formal committee rules and a bipartisan agreement between the chair and ranking member. Here’s a statement from a Democratic Oversight Committee spokesperson slamming Comer for acting in bad faith. So that’s how strongly the two sides feel here.

Although this particular war of words is new for this Congress, the Comer-Raskin back-and-forth reveals a typical strategic dilemma. Minority parties in the House are powerless to issue subpoenas of their own — or block the majority’s subpoenas — and can do very little to obstruct investigations.

So the more the two sides bicker about procedure, the less attention is on the substance of Comer’s claims, Republicans argue.

“Democrats’ latest tactics are just more attempts to distract from the Oversight Committee’s efforts to hold President Biden and his administration accountable,” Comer said to us.

Raskin’s team insists these are serious concerns that deserve to be addressed.

In the meantime, Comer promised on Fox News this week that he’d hold a news conference in two weeks time with updates on his Biden family investigation. Until then, the partisan fights will rage on.

Raskin’s approach mirrors that of other House Democrats in similar positions. Weaponization of the Federal Government Subcommittee Ranking Member Stacey Plaskett (D-V.I.) wrote to Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in March accusing him of keeping her out of the loop on committee business.

“I must assume from these actions that you are not a professional, nor are you an honest broker,” Plaskett said to the Ohio Republican.

And House Judiciary Democrats also tried to preempt GOP investigations last month by releasing a sprawling staff report seeking to pre-but whistleblower testimony that Jordan conducted.

The abortion albatross around the GOP’s neck

Published by digby on April 14, 2023

If you are following the issue of abortion right now you almost surely have a headache. There is just so much happening all over the country that it’s very hard to wrap your head around what’s going on and how to fight it. This was the predictable outcome of overruling Roe v. Wade to “send it back to the states” because it was always part of the anti-abortion movement strategy. Instead of fighting on one front at the national level, pro-choice advocates would be forced to fight on many different fronts in many different ways while at the same time battling back one attempt after another in the federal courts to degrade the right in the states where it is legal. The final goal remains a national ban even if they have to get it done incrementally.

This was always obvious by the fact that while they always piously proclaimed that abortion is murder while at the same time insisting that they merely wanted to return the issue to the states, as if it was fine with them if some states decided to keep it legal. What they really wanted to do was disperse the resources and energy and wear down the opposition.

So far, it isn’t working.

If anything, they have galvanized the pro-choice majority and it’s wreaking havoc on Republican politics. In red states they have managed to enact all the draconian policies they dreamed of post-Roe — and that effort is ongoing. Just last night, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a ban on abortion after six weeks. But he did it in a closed door ceremony and didn’t announce it until 11 pm, illustrating how dicey abortion politics have become for politicians with national ambitions.

Here’s South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, who announced a exploratory committee for president this week, trying to answer the most obvious question anyone can ask in this election cycle. He sounds like he’s speaking in tongues:

Even Donald Trump is having trouble negotiating the issue with his most devoted followers. According to Rolling Stone, he’s been meeting with evangelical leaders and trying to convince them that abortion is a loser and they need to change their approach. He tells them they must stop talking about bans and start emphasizing “exceptions” instead because otherwise Democrats will paint him as an “extremist.” And when he’s asked about how he plans to advocate for their cause in the future, he resorts to bragging about his past accomplishments (which basically consists of signing the three Supreme Court nomination papers that were pressed into his hands by Mitch McConnell and the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo.)

His supporters were not amused. One wondered if Trump was “going to try to make us swallow getting next to nothing in return for our support?”

Apparently, Trump’s telling anyone who will listen that the Republicans are “getting killed” on abortion, which is true, and Republicans in Washington are freaking out, as Rolling Stone reports:

In recent weeks, numerous emergency meetings — focused on abortion-related messaging and the potential for compromises — have been held by conservatives in nonprofit organizations, on Capitol Hill, and in elite Republican and evangelical circles, multiple sources familiar with the situation attest. “The ‘Dobbs effect’ is real and maybe devastating,” says one Republican member of Congress, referencing the Dobbs v. Jackson case the Supreme Court used to overturn Roe v. Wade, who requested anonymity to speak freely. “And there isn’t a solution that everyone can rally around yet.” 

Trump seems to think that if the anti-abortion zealots will just agree to allow some exceptions for rape and incest (and maybe the health of the mother) that the whole thing will calm down and everyone can go back to the way it was. Sure, Don.

First of all, even if the anti-abortion zealots were to agree, the genie is out of the bottle. Roe was overturned and the battle for women’s autonomy isn’t going to magically disappear because they agree to allow for an exception for rape and incest, which until fairly recently was supported by most pro-lifers. The right to abortion is supported by a large majority of Americans and that majority is growing. Gallup polls from last May show support for abortion in all or most cases at 85%, higher than when polling began in 1975 (76%). With those numbers it’s not surprising that a recent PRRI poll found that in only seven states is there a majority against abortion rights: South Dakota (42% say it should be legal), Utah (42%), Arkansas (43%), Oklahoma (45%), Idaho (49%), Mississippi (49%) and Tennessee (49%). Not one state in the country had more than 14% saying it should be illegal in all circumstances.

Unfortunately, those numbers are not going to deter the anti-choice movement and the institutions that support it, including the churches that wield massive influence on the Republican Party. 

And there are activist right wing members of the judiciary ready to step in, as we’ve seen with the Texas judge who banned one of the medical abortion drugs and an appeals court which upheld one of the worst aspects of his ruling by calling up the archaic Comstock Act banning the use of the mail to transport it. In doing so, they’ve also put the FDA’s ability to regulate all drugs at the mercy of a full variety of zealots who seek to interfere in all Americans’ private medical decisions. (Just wait for the vaccine cases to hit the courts.) The Supreme Court will now have to sort it all out. What could go wrong?

And then there are the activists:

“If you’re ignoring abortion [as a 2024 Republican candidate], you do so at your own peril,” says Kristan Hawkins, president of Students For Life of America. Lila Rose, the founder of the like-minded group Live Action, argues: “What the GOP needs to be doing is doubling down on what makes them even have any kind of competitive advantage over the opposing party: that they defend families, they defend the vulnerable…”

Lila Rose believes the GOP’s national policy should be a total ban with no exceptions and she holds Trump responsible for going wobbly on the issue.

Meanwhile, the pragmatists in the party seem to be drifting toward some kind of 15 week “compromise” but they need look no further than Ron DeSantis who had already signed one into law yet felt compelled to push for the more draconian 6 week ban under pressure from the right as he tries to gain traction in the GOP primary. There is no reason to believe that he will be able to finesse this any better than Trump will.

They brought this on themselves. For decades they encouraged and enabled a religious right extremist faction in their party to seize power (even tacitly encouraging anti-abortion terrorism) secure in the knowledge that they would be thwarted in their goals by Roe v. Wade. They allowed them to demagogue the issue as murder, genocide and even a holocaust apparently thinking that it was all just politics. Now this has become inconvenient and these people are being asked to stand down. Apparently, they didn’t know that “sending it to the states” was just the anti-abortion movement’s strategy and they never meant a word of it. The GOP is stuck with a political albatross around its neck and it’s choking on it. 

Something vaguely familiar

Published by Tom Sullivan on April 14, 2023

Wanted to impress his friends, did he?

Airman 1st Class Jack Teixeira, 21, has been arrested by the FBI as the suspect in the leak of hundreds of classified military document to the internet (Washington Post):

The leak, probably the military’s largest in at least a decade, has revealed secrets about everything from gaps in Ukrainian air defenses to the specifics of how the United States spies on its allies and partners.

[…]

The crisis has blindsided the Pentagon, which did not become aware until last week that secrets had for weeks been spreading online, and forced the Biden administration to have awkward conversations with allies and partners about explosive issues. The FBI did not descend on the Teixeira home until after The Post revealed numerous details about the still-anonymous leaker on Wednesday night, and after the New York Times followed up on Thursday by naming Teixeira.

The FBI’s lag in response time may be explainable, but when they did after the press got there first, boy howdy!

He’s from a patriotic family — and allegedly leaked U.S. secrets, reads the Post headline.

The irony is not lost on you, Dear Readers, nor is it on Jeff Sharlet.

“At this late date this headline—structured to suggest these facts are at odds—constitutes mind-numbing know-nothingism at best and more likely journalistic malpractice,” Sharlet tweeted this morning.

The Guardian:

Teixeira was the leader of an online chat group who uploaded hundreds of photographs of secret and top-secret documents, according to the New York Times. The online group called itself Thug Shaker Central, made up of 20 to 30 young men and teenagers who shared their love of guns, racist memes and video games.

Members of the group have told the investigative journalism organisation Bellingcat, the Washington Post and the New York Times that the documents were shared on Thug Shaker Central in an apparent attempt to impress the group, rather than to achieve any particular foreign policy outcome.

Unless you’ve not had your second cup this morning, the young lad’s need to impress people by showing off top-secret materials to friends more than echoes the behavior for which a certain former head of state is under federal investigation. The FBI’s response in that stolen documents case was also a mite tardy. That one took months, and there’s still no arrest.

The photo above of Teixeira’s apprehension prompts a question: Why hasn’t Donald J. Trump received this kind of prompt, official escort? He was president, after all. Did he not also abscond with secret documents (allegedly) to show off to friends and resort guests? Is he not a patriot? Why the disrespect, DOJ?

Be Careful What You Wish For Dept.

Published by Tom Sullivan on April 14, 2023

DeSantis signs six week abortion ban

Stranger things have happend besides Donald Trump’s presidency and Demogorgons. So, it would be unwise to predict that Gov. Ron DeSantis signed away his Oval Office aspirations last night. But then, it’s Ron DeSantis (Washington Post):

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signeda bill Thursdaythat would ban abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, after the legislature passed the bill earlier in the day. The measure cuts off what has become a critical access point for abortion care in the South since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

DeSantis signed the bill late at night and released a photo just after 11 p.m. — a sharp contrast to how he celebrated a 15-week ban on abortion last spring with speeches and live media coverage at a church. The quiet passage underscored DeSantis’s reluctance to talk about the bill as he tours the country touting other legislative achievements.

DeSantis is giving the GOP’s rabid primary voters the Handmaid’s Tale America they demand while making as little public show about it in front of non-MAGA general election voters. Quite a high-wire act to perform in white rubber boots.

Driving the shift from 15 to six weeks is the increase in Florida’s abortion tourism in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Roe decision last June. The Post reports, “Over 82,000 people got abortions in Florida in 2022, more than almost any other state. Nearly 7,000 of those traveled to Florida from other states, a 38 percent increase from the year before.”

“If people from Florida are now going to be flooding into the Carolinas and Illinois … that is taking spots that Alabamians and Mississippians need right now,” said Robin Marty, director of operations at West Alabama Women’s Center, a clinic that provided abortions before Roe was overturned. “That’s a crisis that’s going to ripple all across the entire country.”

The bill will take effect 30 days after one of a few scenarios occurs — most likely, 30 days after the state Supreme Court issues a decision on the constitutionality of the 15-week ban that is already in effect. That decision is expected within the coming months.

Florida’s new law comes in the wake of polling showing that legal medication abortion, also under threat, is supported by Americans by over two-to-one and by 71% of women under 30.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) worried aloud to CNN this week that abortion is “an issue that Republicans have been largely on the wrong side of.” Axios reports, “Top Republicans are in a state of paralysis over abortion, watching — with one eye on the 2024 ballot box — as a cascade of new restrictions threaten to dig the party into a political hole.”

At the bottom of that hole is Ron DeSantis, Republican governor of the state where freedom goes to die. DeSantis and GOP legislators in Tallahassee, the Post’s Editorial Board writes, are “waging frontal assaults on press freedom, reproductive freedom, free enterprise and academic freedom.” In their spare time, they are scaling back gun safety rules and continuing attacks on undocumented immigrants.

Were he leading a foreign country during the Cold War, DeSantis would be considered enough of a threat to U.S. security for the Penatgon and the CIA to draft contingencies for ending his rule.

For voters who haven’t been keeping up, the Post’s Editorial Board presents a bill of particulars against DeSantis detailing his assaults on freedom of the press, on women’s bodily autonomy, on free enterprise, on public education, and on undocumented immigrants. Some of those DeSantis attacks he obscures behind acronyms like ESG, CRT, DEI and CBDC. Non-MAGA voters might need a glossary to identify them as his pretext for a introducing a new fascist order.

“If the bullying coming out of Tallahassee is an indication of what [DeSantis] means, we think most Americans won’t want what he is offering,” the Board concludes.

Yes, but that’s what we thought when Trump rode down his golden elevator. Florida’s new abortion ban might be the final nail in DeSantis’ presidential aspirations. That may depend on where El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago spends the 2024 primary season. His numbers are sinking faster than Florida beachfront property.

A little something to keep you up at night

Published by digby on April 13, 2023

Oh no:

Republicans have talked themselves into believing that 2024 is absolutely, positively, the last time they’ll have to deal with Donald Trump. Yesterday Benjy Sarlin brought the room down by arguing that even if Trump loses in 2024, he might run again in 2028, actuarial tables be damned.

Is that possible? Absolutely. If Trump loses in 2024, he could easily mount another campaign—though this is as much an indictment of Don Jr. as a plausible heir as anything else.

But let me take this a step further.

During the Republican primaries, one of the arguments that Good Republicans will deploy against Trump as a way of passively challenging him will be to say something along the lines of, “Trump is great! But if Trump is the nominee, we can only get four years, because he couldn’t run for reelection in 2028. We need a Republican nominee who can give us eight years.”

Well I come to you from the future and I’m here to tell you that Donald Trump will respond with the following:

A lot of people are saying that, actually, I could run again. I was treated so unfairly during my first term—the Russia hoax, the witch hunt, the lovers—more unfairly than any president in history. [sniffs] And so I should get a third term. Let me tell you that we’re looking into it and we’ll have a statement very soon. It’ll be a strong statement. And I think a lot of you are going to be very happy with it.

In response, his Republican challengers will gape and sputter and twist their toes in the dirt. But they won’t say that a third term is impossible. Elite Republicans in elected office will decline to comment. And the various precincts of Conservatism Inc. will either ignore this claim, coyly play along with it, or roll their eyes and say, “Well of course this is nonsense so it doesn’t matter. Trump just says stuff.”

Why am I certain that this future is coming down the pike?

Because Trump already did it in 2020.

Look, there was a lot going on in 2020. Impeachment. A pandemic. Massive unemployment. Hundreds of thousands of Americans dying. A presidential campaign. So much to keep track of.

So you probably don’t remember this moment at a rally in Wisconsin in August of 2020:

“We are going to win four more years,” Trump said at a rally in Oshkosh, Wisconsin on Monday. “And then after that, we’ll go for another four years because they spied on my campaign. We should get a redo of four years.”

The crowd went wild. Republican voters loved it. And this idea wasn’t a one-off bit of improv. It was a staple. In September at a Nevada rally he said,

And 52 days from now we’re going to win Nevada, and we’re going to win four more years in the White House. And then after that, we’ll negotiate, right? Because we’re probably — based on the way we were treated — we are probably entitled to another four after that.

Do you remember what Republican elected officials and people in conservative media said about the frequent assertion by their candidate that he would flout the Constitution in pursuit of a third presidential term?

All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again.

So get ready for the Trump Gets a Third Term argument. It’s coming.

I knew Trump would run again in 2024. I said it on the day after the election was called. But I’m not sure we’ll see him run again in 2028 if he loses. Losing twice seems like a death knell, even for him.

But this? I think there’s an excellent chance that he’ll argue that he deserves a third term because people were mean to him in his first. Would it work? Who Knows. But by that time we might not even be having elections anymore. And his status as a super-hero among the cult will be unassailable. Yes, it could happen.

Have a nice rest…

Fox News spills the beans

Published by digby on April 13, 2023

The Dominion case implicates Trump bigly

Of course they knew. And yet, one month later, Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger and asked him to “find” just one vote more than needed to declare victory.

There is no doubt that they were lying. And Fox News was a huge help. I’ll bet District Attorney Fanni Willis is thrilled to see this.

Meanwhile in Florida

Published by digby on April 13, 2023

Uh huh:

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ political operation has started calling Republican members of the Florida congressional delegation to consolidate support after four members publicly backed Donald Trump in his 2024 presidential bid.

Sources with four of the six members contacted by DeSantis’ team shared the outreach with NBC News; each requested anonymity to confirm the calls.

As Trump continues to lead in the polls for the GOP presidential nomination, DeSantis is trying to stop defections in his own backyard ahead of his expected run. DeSantis has no endorsements from the 20 Republicans in the state congressional delegation.

The efforts started after Trump picked up the backing of Rep. Byron Donalds, who has been a DeSantis ally. The three earlier endorsements were from Reps. Anna Paulina Luna, Matt Gaetz and Cory Mills, who are vocal Trump boosters and whose support wasn’t surprising.

Since Donalds came out for Trump, DeSantis’ team has called at least six members of Florida’s congressional delegation, asking that they hold off on making any endorsements in the near future. They are: Reps. Aaron Bean, Vern Buchanan, Kat Cammack, Mario Diaz-Balart, Laurel Lee and Greg Steube.

Ryan Tyson, a longtime GOP pollster and mainstay in DeSantis’ political orbit, has led the effort. Tyson has initiated the calls, reaching out to schedule later calls between the members of Congress and DeSantis himself.

“There is clearly some angst from the DeSantis camp that so many members of the state’s congressional delegation are throwing their support behind Trump,” said a GOP consultant for one of the members contacted by DeSantis’ team. “Gaetz going with Trump is one thing, but Byron’s endorsement of the former president undoubtedly rattled some cages.”

This hissing sound you hear? It’s the sound of the air going out of the DeSantis balloon.

Heckuva job Maga

Published by digby on April 13, 2023

I wonder why this is?

They won’t stop. They are living in an alternate universe. Right now they are focusing like a laser on Hunter Biden’s laptop and the Manhattan District Attorney.

“The rule of ideology, enforced with violence”

Published by digby on April 13, 2023

Radly Balko’s analysis of the vigilante case down in Texas is a must read in its entirety. He knows his stuff. It’s vitally important to understand what’s really driving these people. It’s not good:

Incredibly, Tucker Carlson just had Kyle Rittenhouse on his show to discuss Perry’s conviction. The far right has been eager to draw parallels between Rittenhouse and Perry. And the two cases are similar, just not in the way they’re claiming. As Texas criminal defense attorney Mark Bennett has pointed out, when it comes to self-defense law, if we’re going to compare the two cases, the person in a posture most similar to Rittenhouse’s is Foster, not Perry.

Rittenhouse may have been reckless rush to the Kenosha protests with his rifle (and I believe he was), but doing so wasn’t illegal, and under state law, he should not have been charged. According to Rittenhouse — and a good deal of the evidence — the protesters in Kenosha mistook his lawful carrying of a rifle as an immediate threat, attacked him, and, as a result, he was justified in using lethal force in response.

Similarly, whatever you may think of Foster’s decision to bring a rifle to the Austin protest, it was perfectly legal. The fact that he and other protesters were in the street might have been a misdemeanor, but as Bennett notes, that isn’t relevant to Perry’s self-defense claim. It was Perry’s actions that presented an immediate threat, and it was Perry who then mistook Foster’s legal actions as a threat.

The only difference between the two is their respective politics and the fact that Rittenhouse was more reckless (he took his gun and rushed into a hostile protest, Foster was among supporters), and Rittenhouse killed his mistaken attackers before they could seriously harm him. Foster showed restraint — and was killed for it. Yet Rittenhouse is made into a hero, while Foster is turned into a villain.

It’s also notable that Abbott and others defending Perry seem to think there’s something inherently illegitimate about a BLM protester with a gun, but not the armed militia members who shut down a Michigan legislative session. We’ve also seen far right activists bring rifles to protest drag events, or while milling about outside of polling places, yet when a member of the Black Panthers stood outside a polling place with a club, it made headlines on Fox for weeks.

These are contradictions, but it isn’t quite correct say the right is being inconsistent. What they’re doing is perfectly consistent; it’s just that it has nothing to do with the Second Amendment or self-defense. The consistent theme running through all of these positions — defending Rittenhouse, smearing Foster, legalizing running down protesters, the Michigan capital protest — is the legitimization of violence and the threat of violence against their political opponents.

For all the degeneracy on the political right in the Trump era, this is what I find most alarming — the dehumanizing of political opponents to the point where violence isn’t merely justifiable, it’s almost a moral imperative. Their opponents aren’t just wrong, they’re criminal. People accused of crimes aren’t just presumed guilty, they deserve to be abused by police. Immigrants aren’t just crossing the border illegally, they’re mostly rapists and criminals. Protesters aren’t merely misguided, they should be flattened by big-ass trucks.

You only valorize Garrett Foster’s killer if you’ve convinced yourself that Foster deserved to die. And the only real evidence against Foster offered up by the right has been that was participating in a Black Lives Matter protest. So the math here isn’t difficult.

If Abbott and the Texas pardon board want free Perry and clear his record, they have the power to do it. But we ought to be clear about why they’re doing it. This isn’t about the rule of law. It’s the rule of ideology, enforced with violence.

As Charlie Sykes noted in his newsletter: “This is how a cold civil war becomes a hot one.”

I disagree about Rittenhouse. I think it is incredibly dangerous to allow people to attend political events armed with assault weapons. It literally makes no sense to me. And the kid obtained that gun illegally and went looking for trouble. Of course he should have been tried. But unlike these freaks in Texas, I accepted the verdict.

The defining characteristic of the right these days is a total unwillingness to admit that they might be wrong, that people might disagree with them or that they might lose. They simply won’t accept it. It’s a case of mass arrested development. They are spoiled children. Dangerous spoiled children with guns.

Dazed and confused

Published by digby on April 13, 2023

Republicans are twisting themselves into pretzels talking about abortion

There are some who do have their rationale at the ready, however:

A Nebraska Republican state senator argued Wednesday for a six-week abortion ban by claiming there are too many foreigners living in the state, invoking a racist conspiracy theory.

Since Roe v. Wadewas overturned, abortion is allowed in Nebraska up to 21 weeks and six days of pregnancy. But on Wednesday, the Senate began debating a bill that would ban abortion after six weeks, before many people even know they are pregnant.

Senator Steve Erdman decided that the best argument in favor of the ban was the “great replacement theory,” which the Southern Poverty Law Center defines as a “racist conspiracy narrative [that] falsely asserts there is an active, ongoing, and covert effort to replace white populations in current white-majority countries.”

“Our state population has not grown except by those foreigners who have moved here or refugees who have been placed here,” Erdman told the chamber.

Erdman also said that all of the aborted fetuses “could be working and filling some of those positions that we have vacancies.”

Don’t kid yourself. The Great Replacement theory is a major motivation for these abortion bans on the right. The Viktor Orban doctrine is all about that.

I wonder if anyone has told Tim Scott about this?