It may be a stunt, but one with a point (New York Times):
Democrats in Congress are making a fresh push for the nearly century-old Equal Rights Amendment to be enshrined in the Constitution, rallying around a creative legal theory in a bid to revive an amendment that would explicitly guarantee sex equality as a way to protect reproductive rights in post-Roe America.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Representative Cori Bush of Missouri are set to introduce a joint resolution on Thursday stating that the measure has already been ratified and is enforceable as the 28th Amendment to the Constitution. The resolution states that the national archivist, who is responsible for the certification and publication of constitutional amendments, must immediately do so.
[…]
“In light of Dobbs, we’re seeing vast discrimination across the country,” Ms. Gillibrand said in an interview. “Women are being treated as second-class citizens. This is more timely than ever.”
If the GOP can conduct sham investigations into Hunter Biden and the FBI for their frothing base, why shouldn’t Democrats remind half the population that the authoritarian right considers them no more than birthing vessels?
The measure is unlikely to garner the 60 votes necessary to advance in the Senate, but could remind the almost “80 percent of Americans” who support the Equal Rights Amendment which party is and is not on their side. Senate Republicans in April blocked a different Democratic attempt to extend the expiration date for ratification.
Given enough oxygen by the press, of course. That’s the problem. The press falls all over itself to cover GOP clown shows from the likes of Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene while yawning at Democrats’ attempts at, you know, governing.
At issue is the complex procedure for adding an amendment to the Constitution, which requires passage by both houses of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states, in this case, within a seven-year deadline. Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972, and subsequently enacted a law extending that deadline to 10 years. But by 1982, only 35 states had ratified. Since then, three more states — Nevada, Illinois and Virginia — have ratified the amendment, surpassing the threshold, but some others have rescinded their ratifications.
That has left the amendment in a legal and political limbo, its fate left in the hands of Congress and the courts.
Russ Feingold, the former Wisconsin senator who serves as president of the American Constitution Society, said he supported the Democrats’ new strategy.
“For the institution that actually put this limitation of the deadline on to say, ‘Actually, it doesn’t matter’ really is significant,” Mr. Feingold said. “The White House and members of Congress are beginning to see that credible legal scholars are saying this is already part of the Constitution.”
Since the reference to the deadline is in the amendment’s preamble, not the text itself, Gillibrand now argues, “President Biden can just do this. I’m going to make the legal and political argument over the next several months that this is something he can do.”
Whatever she/they do, it had best be splashy or the press will dismiss the effort as another boring, inside-the-Beltway process issue.
Bush contends that the amendment’s core “is packed with potential to protect access to abortion care nationwide, defeat bans on gender-affirming health care, shore up marriage equality, eliminate the gender wage gap, help end the epidemic of violence against women and girls, and so much more.”
In Chicago for the next few days for the Netroots Nation conference, so please excuse the abbreviated postings.
A taste of Kiev
Air raid sirens screamed out across downtown Chicago multiple times and cell phone alerts chirped through the hotel to warn of tornadoes touching down in the area, a rare event according to one report. Friends were stuck on the tarmac at O’Hare Airport until the weather service called all-clear. They texted that could see the tornado from the plane (AP):
The weather service warned Wednesday evening that a confirmed tornado was on the ground near Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Passengers took shelter and the storm disrupted hundreds of flights, but there were no immediate reports of injuries. A short time later, the weather service said the Chicago forecast area was “currently tornado warning free.” The storm moved into Michigan before passing through the state and into Canada early Thursday. Tornado watches that were in effect for parts of Michigan, Indiana and Ohio all expired.
The twister tore the roof of a motel west of the city.
There’s a lot of handwringing and gnashing of teeth over that headline today. Oh my God! The Democrats are blowing it … again!!!! But it seems to me that the headline is totally missing the point.
We already knew that the GOP had higher turnout. This new study by Pew just reinforces the early data so I don’t think anyone should be surprised by it. Mid-terms always have higher turnout by the out party! Isn’t that the moldiest political trope in the world?
In most midterm years, the party that is not in the White House fares well. And while Republicans enjoyed a turnout advantage in 2022, they nevertheless fell short of expectations and did not match Democrats’ turnout advantage in 2018, the first midterm election after Mr. Trump took office.
Still, midterm voters historically skew older and whiter than voters in presidential years, a phenomenon that tends to benefit Republicans. The 2018 midterms were, in many ways, the exception to that rule, with increased turnout across age groups, but especially among young people. The 2022 electorate was more in line with historical trends.
The article goes on to spell doom and gloom for the Democrats because of this. I honestly don’t see why that should be. The Dems did very well and Donald Trump wasn’t even in the White House or on the ballot. He will be in 2024 and that’s likely to juice Democratic turnout substantially.
I’m not saying that Democrats shouldn’t work very, very hard to get turnout up in their base demographics like the Black community and Latinos. Nobody can be ignored, needless to say. I just don’t think this particular study tells us anything except that the 2022 election featured a traditionally Republican mid-term turnout and they tanked anyway. It seems to me that’s the real story.
Maybe you’re tired of hearing about DeSantis’ epic failure but I just can’t get enough of the schadenfreude. Just inject it straight into my veins:
It was often said that when Bill Clinton walked into a room, each person thought he noticed them in particular. Clinton was the ultimate retail politician: he liked people and they knew it. When Ron DeSantis shows up, even those who want to support him feel that he harbours a special dislike for them. Being a black hole in terms of charisma is not automatically fatal to a candidate’s prospects. When your target is the diabolically charismatic Donald Trump, however, you are working at a big disadvantage.
The story of how DeSantis went from being the favourite, or near-favourite, Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential race to America’s most rapidly falling meteor in years, tells us a lot about the mindset of US conservatism.
The Florida governor’s campaign began with every advantage. He had huge sums of money, name recognition, powerful backers and the sense that he was the only Republican capable of replacing Trump. Yet he has singularly failed to perform. One of his detractors memorably called this “electile dysfunction”.
In theory, the case for DeSantis was very good. Republicans would embrace Trumpism without Trump: in Florida’s youthful governor, they could have their war on woke before breakfast, lunch and dinner without the personality flaws of its namesake. DeSantis was Trump without the indictments and future jail sentences. He was Trump minus the drama. He would offer the kind of Trumpism that college graduates could vote for without apology. It turns out there was a serious flaw: Maga voters cannot get enough of the Trump drama.
The case against Trump in 2016 was that he was not electable. His base nevertheless recklessly voted for his nomination, then he went on to win. If part of the thrill of backing Trump is precisely because he is not electable — that he is unsafe and not respectable — it takes some brass to announce yourself as the electable version of Trump.
It is now clear that the DeSantis hypothesis is a fatal misreading of what Maga wants. Unfortunately for DeSantis, he is doubling down on his theory. I have seen some bad campaign advertisements in my time. But the latest DeSantis offering, which accuses Trump of being a friend of the LGBTQ community, takes first prize. The ad has to be watched a couple of times to digest its full awfulness. Plenty of things can be said about Trump. One of them is decidedly not that he is too woke. The ad’s message, spliced with the oddly homoerotic images of oiled body builders, is that DeSantis is the answer to America’s alleged crisis of masculinity. Running to the right of Trump is one thing. Doing so in this manner is surpassingly strange.
DeSantis is setting himself up to be the most promising also-ran of US politics. He would join an august list of diminished former hopefuls. The names Scott Walker, Howard Dean and Bill Bradley spring to mind. As the only candidate who could have ejected Trump yet failed, DeSantis would top that list. But we are not quite there yet.
Though Trump leads DeSantis by around 30 points in the polls — a near reversal since the turn of the year — his slump is not beyond the point of no return. The Republican debates start next month. Trump’s next flurry of indictments from his alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia is probably near. And Trump’s ability to self-destruct is always in the offing.
To retrieve his prospects, DeSantis needs two things. The first is luck. The second is to grasp that he is dealing with a cult. If the example of DeSantis’s candidacy has delivered one benefit it is to remove all doubt about the nature of today’s Republican party. It is in the grip of a personality cult that defies any common sense rules of democratic politics.
Disbanding this cult cannot be done by focus group or contrived positioning. You have to slay the dragon or die trying. In this regard, DeSantis has it all wrong. His pretence at being a macho man — indeed a fearless superhero — is belied by his instinct to tiptoe around the dragon. The point is not to get to the right of the dragon. It is to plunge your spear into its heart.
Yeah. Good luck with that.
It’s hard to say at this point if he will flame out in the grand fashion of Scott Walker who was widely considered to be the Great Whitebread Hope of the Republican party in 2015. He had been groomed for the presidency by the Koch Brothers network and didn’t even make it to the first primary — after burning through millions with nothing to show for it. If this dynamic doesn’t change it’s hard to see how DeSantis makes it past New Hampshire.
A growing group of donors who have supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ run for president are worried about the trajectory of his campaign, even after he raked in $20 million since entering the race in May.
Despite those big fundraising numbers and his entry into the race on a wave of hype, DeSantis is lagging well behind frontrunner Donald Trump in polls.The Murdoch family, led by conservative Fox Corp. and News Corp. mogul Rupert Murdoch, reportedly is souring on DeSantis. And as concerns for DeSantis mount across the board, several donors have told fundraisers about their worries, according to people familiar with the matter.
It’s rumored that Rupert is pushing Glenn Youngkin to enter the race. Lol. That’s rich…
We are destined to repeat our mistakes over and over again
When it comes to media criticism and China analysis there is no one I trust more than James Fallows. Over the course of many decades he has proven himself to be fair and knowledgeable about many things but these two issues are his wheelhouse. This piece On “Breaking the News” about the reporting on the Wuhan Lab theory is a must read. (I urge you to subscribe to his newsletter. It’s always good.)
This post is a followup on the highly-publicized report last fall from ProPublica and Vanity Fair about Covid’s origins. (Henceforth PP and VF.) It’s prompted by another PP item five days ago, revisiting and revising their approach to this enormously consequential topic.
I realize that what follows could be confusing. I’m going to be talking about three government reports, and three journalistic stories. Here’s a guide, with names I’ll try to use consistently (and will place in bold).
The three reports are:
The House Report, which came out in August, 2021. It was from the Republican staff of the House Foreign Affairs committee and it argued that Covid had begun with a “lab leak” in China. (Ie, that it wasn’t natural “zoonotic” spread from wild animals.) You can read it here.
The “interim report” was an early version of a report by GOP staffers on the Senate committee on on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. It came out in October, 2022, and also argued for a lab leak. You can download a PDF here.
The DNI report, from the Director of National Intelligence. This is a declassified version of the pooled views of US government intelligence agencies. It came out in May, 2023, after a Congressional vote in March mandating that such information be declassified and released. It concluded that no possibility could be ruled out, but that more agencies doubted “lab leak” than believed in it. It is short, clear, and highly readable. You can read it here, and I hope you will.1
Now, the three stories:
The original story was published by VF and PP on October 28, 2022. It relied heavily on the interim report and indirectly on the House report to make a lab-leak case
The Editor’s Note was in PP in late November 2022, in response to criticisms of the original story.
The “final story” was in PP five days ago, July 7, and reflected the DNI report assessment that nothing could be ruled out.
And, while I’m at it, two disclosures:
I recognize and celebrate ProPublica as a crucial investigative and civic champion of our times. What PP’s Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, Alex Mierjeski, and colleagues have unearthed about Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and the corruption of the current Supreme Court is only the latest and most powerful example. ProPublica has defended the public interest in countless other realms. Its handling of the Covid story seems atypical.
This is a post about journalistic practice. I am explicitly not taking a position in the enormously complex lab leak debate. I don’t know enough to judge the possibilities and the expert views. The DNI report, from people who are experts, said that the origins of Covid might never be known, unless Chinese officials decide to be more forthcoming. Perhaps even those officials are in the dark.
Now, what this all amounts to.
Late October 2022: The ‘original story’ makes a splash.
Last October, the jointly produced PP/VF “original story” was seen as providing significant evidence in favor of the “Chinese lab leak” hypothesis.
In both outlets the opening spread was illustrated by a large, dramatic, spooky black-and-white photo, evoking the secrecy and mystery of what the reporters were about to unveil. To emphasize the significance of these findings, VF billed the story this way in its sub-headline:
The Wuhan Institute of Virology, the cutting-edge biotech facility at the center of swirling suspicions about the pandemic’s onset, was far more troubled than previously known, explosive documents unearthed by a Senate research team reveal.
Explosive documents. Unearthed. These are terms you choose, on purpose, when you want to signal big news.
But immediately the story provoked curiosity. Why this atypical joint venture, between two organizations you don’t normally think of as peers or partners? What was the division of labor between those organizations, and the two authors? (The byline was shared by Katherine Eban of VF and Jeff Kao of PP.) How did the story get started in the first place? And how did the authors come across the US government employee who was the central figure in their narrative? And get early access to the interim report?
PP declined my requests, and I assume requests from others, to answer questions or say anything more about the story.
A spokesperson from PP suggested that I have an off-the-record discussion with one of PP’s senior figures. I declined. Among other reasons, that would put me in the position of knowing things I was not allowed to reveal or discuss. “Off the record” is mainly for when you are gathering information that might put a source in jeopardy. It’s not a normal arrangement with the person or organization you are writing about. I believe that most PP reporters and editors would decline such an offer in comparable circumstances.
Early November, 2022: The criticisms roll in.
Critical reaction to the original story came in almost immediately. It involved some points of detail, some of which PP later acknowledged and corrected. But it had two main themes, both of which were connected to this story’s heavy reliance on the Interim report and implicitly also on the House report.
One was that the “explosive documents” at the heart of the story amounted to one specific American official’s translation of internal Chinese government memoranda, which he claimed he understood better than almost anyone else.
This person was a State Department employee named Toy Reid. The story quoted Reid as saying that the version of Mandarin used in Chinese bureaucratic documents was “almost like a secret language”—and one that he happened to have the rare ability to comprehend. As PP and VF credulously put it:
For 15 months, Reid loaned this unusual skill to a nine-person team dedicated to investigating the mystery of COVID-19’s origins.
According to the original story, Reid’s linguistic talent and research had allowed him to unearth powerful documentary indications of a lab leak. In Reid’s interpretation, the coded language of some memos indicated panic and chaos of the sort that would accompany a laboratory emergency:
Reid studied the words intently. Was this a reference to past accidents? An admission of an ongoing crisis? A general recognition of hazardous practices? Or all of the above? Reading between the lines, Reid concluded, “They are almost saying they know Beijing is about to come down and scream at them.”
And that, in fact, is exactly what happened next, according to a meeting summary uploaded nine days later.
And that, in Reid’s view, is exactly what happened next, according to a meeting summary uploaded nine days later.
To spell this out, “in fact” has been changed to “in Reid’s view,” without an indication from VF or PP of the change or how the story was originally phrased.
Other issues lost in translation.
It turned out that a lot of people other than Toy Reid also think they can understand bureaucratic Mandarin. Many of them, including many whom I’d known as translators and interpreters during the years when I lived in China, quickly spoke up to challenge crucial parts of Reid’s translation that bolstered the lab leak view. I went into some of this in an interview with Brendan O’Kane, a well known translator.
There was even an important element of mistranslating numbers in the circumstantial evidence for a lab leak. This was not specifically cited in the PP/VF story or the interim report but was a prominent part of the House Report that bolstered the lab-leak hypothesis:
Two of the strongest governmental indicators of chaos following a lab leak were Toy Reid’s translation of the memos, and strange budgetary patterns for the Wuhan lab that might have indicated a post-crisis cleanup. The House report cited the startling fact that the Wuhan lab had received a sudden appropriation of more than $600 million to redo its air-purifying systems at just the time when a lab leak might have happened. Like the memos Toy Reid translated, this could have been a sign of a true emergency.
As it happens, that claim was off by a factor of 1,000. The actual air-conditioning grant was for around $600,000, a more routine sum. The error apparently arose from confusion about the Chinese character万, which means ten thousand. (Details are below.
Who the “Senate researchers” were.
The other big problem with the PP / VF report was the nature of the dedicated “nine-person team” that Toy Reid was sharing his views with, and through that team with PP and VF.
Although it was nowhere mentioned in the original story, this team was the Republican staff of a Senate committee. The story repeatedly calls them “the Senate researchers,” not mentioning a party affiliation. The closest it came was once calling the group a “minority oversight staff”—”minority” referring to the Republicans’ minority status in the Senate then and now.
Why was this omission of the word “Republican” significant? Because of the recent track record of other GOP-controlled Congressional “research teams” and “oversight staffs” on politicized topics. For instance, former Rep. Trey Gowdy’s research team that led to the multi-year Obama-era Benghazi “investigation,” and current Rep. Jim Jordan’s research team on the purposeless Dunham report.
Obviously partisan identification doesn’t disprove any group’s views. But the information is relevant—as PP itself seemed to acknowledge in its final story last week, which takes pains to identify the “Republican oversight staff” in when referring to the report.
Late November 2022: The ‘Editor’s Note.’
A month after the original story appeared, PP published an Editor’s Note, signed by its editor-in-chief, Stephen Engelberg. It said that PP and VF had reviewed their reporting and writing and deemed it proper. As Engelberg’s note put it:
Over the past several weeks, reporters and editors at both publications have taken a hard look at those criticisms.
Our examination affirms that the story, and the totality of reporting it marshals, is sound.
OK. And many details followed. But who conducted this examination? Was it the same reporters and editors who oversaw the original work? Did any outside reviewer play a role? Who were the independent translators PP and VF consulted to vet Reid’s all-important phrasing—and who judged it merely “plausible”? Could anyone follow up to ask them about their larger views on the project? And, again, how did the whole enterprise begin? Did the Republican staffers come to VF and PP? Or did the two bylined authors seek them out? Since the project involved a Republican staff report, why wasn’t that made clear? And… and …
I raised those questions and others with PP. I was told again that the organization would have no comment beyond Engelberg’s note.
It may be churlish to point this out, but: The central theme of PP’s remarkable Supreme Court coverage is that people shouldn’t be left to judge their own propriety. That’s true in flagrant fashion of Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. The press should bear the principle in mind about itself.
The discussion unfolds this year
Then a sequence of other events ensued:
-In February, news reports said that the FBI and the Department of Energy had sided in favor of the lab-leak hypothesis.
-In March, the Congress unanimously passed a bill mandating that the grounds for these and other government conclusions be declassified and made public.
-In May, the DNI report containing the declassified results came out. As noted above, it said that the intelligence community was divided; that more agencies doubted lab-leak than supported it; but that Chinese intransigence meant that no one could rule out any possibility or be sure.
-On June 28, Katherine Eban of VF wrote a response to the DNI report. Its headline said that the DNI report “suggests that the lab-leak wars will never end.” And last week, on July 7, PP published its final story noting this new intelligence-community assessment.
News for a summertime Friday.
What caught my eye in this latest ProPublica update? Several things:
—The story had no byline, unlike the original story by Eban and Kao and the Editor’s Note by Engelberg, the editor-in-chief. Were the original authors revisiting and revising their work? Had someone else stepped in? Was this an “official” statement from the editor? You can’t tell.
—The story was as underplayed as the original report was trumpeted. When I looked, it had modest placement on the PP site. Its headline was deadpan: “Intelligence Report Says Safety Training at Chinese Government Lab Complex in Wuhan Before the Pandemic Appears Routine.” It came out on a summertime Friday. As Julian Barnes of the New York Timesput it when discussing a different government Covid report, “this is traditionally a time when administrations put out news they want buried or ignored.”
—The story emphasized repeatedly something missing in the original report: that it had been a Republican Senate staff doing the earlier lab-leak report, not just “Senate researchers.”
Why the change in tone? Why the missing byline? What had ProPublica learned from the episode? I asked and received this response from a PP representative two days ago, which I quote in its entirety:
Our story Friday speaks for itself. There were additional developments that we felt our readers should learn about, so we published an update.
The story does speak for itself, but perhaps not in the way they had in mind.
Wherever this virus came from, we can assume that more such threats are on the way. Coping with their effects doesn’t depend on resolving the Covid-19 origin story: Once a pandemic begins, it’s up to the public-health and medical systems. But knowing more about how this disaster started would obviously provide clues and insights for reducing future outbreaks.
Gaining accurate insights in turn depends on transparency from all involved. Chinese officials have most to answer for, because of their secrecy and concealment. But many other institutions could make themselves more open and accountable. Including the press.
The legislation was passed during a rare one-day special session called by Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) for the “sole purpose” of enacting new restrictions on abortion. Reynolds celebrated the bill’s passage in a statement late Tuesday and said she will sign it on Friday. “Justice for the unborn should not be delayed,” she said.
Iowa’s House and Senate passed the legislation alongmostly partisan lines late Tuesday after hours of hearings and sometimes heated protests. It is expected to face legal challenges.
Abortion is currently legal in Iowa up to 22 weeks of pregnancy.
In a statement, Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart accused state Republicans of “ignoring the will of their voters” and praised Democratic lawmakers for opposing abortion restrictions “that the majority of Iowans do not support.”
Hundreds of demonstrators packed the Iowa Capitol in Des Moines, some shouting “Bans off our bodies” while others yelled “Abortion is murder.” According to the Des Moines Register, at one point supporters and opponents of the bill had to be separated by a state trooper.
After the legislation cleared House and Senate committees Tuesday afternoon, lawmakers began floor debates that sometimes became contentious. “If they are not ready to have a baby, they shouldn’t have sex. A lot of people need to review their birds and bees,” Republican Rep. Brad Sherman said at point, while Democrats called the bill “disrespectful” and “obscene.”
Once it is signed into law, the bill, which passed 56-34 in the House and 32-17 in the Senate, will add Iowa to the wave of conservative-leaning states — including North Dakota and South Dakota — that have put in place abortion restrictions since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion last summer. The Iowa restrictions further limit access to the procedure in the Midwest.
“I believe the pro-life movement is the most important human rights cause of our time,” Reynolds said last week as she ordered the special session and promised to sign the bill.
After the Supreme Court ruling last year,Reynolds asked a district court to allow a roughly six-week abortion ban that had passed in 2018 but was challenged in court to take effect. After the court declined to do so, she took the request to the Iowa Supreme Court, which deadlocked on the matter earlier this year. After the deadline, Reynolds called for the special session.
During Tuesday’s House debate, some Democrats quoted one of the justices, Thomas Waterman, who called the state’s attempt to revive the 2018 six-week abortion ban “an unprecedented effort to judicially revive a statute that was declared unconstitutional.”
Thelegislation passed Tuesday bans most abortions after fetal cardiac activity has been detected,often around six weeks into a pregnancy. The bill says a provider must perform an abdominal ultrasound on a patient, and if “a fetal heartbeat” is detected, an abortion is prohibited.
The measure includes a few exceptions, such as for rape and incest, provided that the cases are reported to law enforcement. It also includes exceptions for fetal abnormalities that are “incompatible with life” and for medical emergencies in which a pregnant person faces death or serious harm to their health.
Democrats said the legislation would put someone experiencing a miscarriage at risk by forcing doctors to take extra time determining whether they qualify for an abortion. It also sets unrealistic time constraints for someone to report rape or incest to qualify for an abortion exception under the bill, they said.
Before the bill was passed, Democratic state Sen. Janice Weiner said it should not go into effect immediately. The rushed process shows “incredible disrespect” to Iowa doctors who would need time to understand the new rules, she said.
Joy Reid featured an Iowa woman who speaks for most of us who are appalled at this Handmaid’s Tale bullshit:
.@JoyAnnReid leads #TheReidOut tonight with the Republican party forcing its vision on America of more restrictions on abortion, despite voters across this country saying no, we don't want this, and fighting to protect their access to abortion care. pic.twitter.com/G5ME6ZePZO
This isn't hyperbole, it is verbatim what their own leaders preach. If we want to keep our country, we must cannot let hate groups like Moms 4 Liberty normalize their message of division. pic.twitter.com/ngGuLZmtku
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 11, 2023
And people wonder why they have been designated as an extremist organization.
As the historian Michelle Nickerson demonstrates, the period surrounding the cold war is a useful lens for understanding how mothers’ movements became a pillar of American conservatism. LikeMoms for Liberty, these groups responded to cultural change by condemning the spread of progressive ideologies through public school systems. Fueled by anti-communist panic, they fought for the removal of textbooks, teachers and administrators they judged to be tainted by progressive ideals. A defining feature of these groups was how they leveraged cultural beliefs surrounding motherhood for political ends. They invoked motherhood to argue that they were uniquely connected to the domestic sphere and childrearing and therefore uniquely able to speak for the moral interests of parents, families and children.
Moms for Liberty pulls deeply from this established playbook of “housewife populism”. Behind their challenges to school policies rests a repeated assertion: as mothers, they possess a right to speak for the welfare of children, as opposed to government bureaucrats, educational elites or teachers’ unions (who they deride as the “K-12 mafia”). This insistence rests at the heart of the slogan that defines the group: “We don’t co-parent with the government”. In the Moms for Liberty worldview, parents hold an “innate” or “natural” right to decide what their children should be learning, the health protocols they should observe, or the ideas they are exposed to. And parents must wield this right in an uncompromising, militant sense to protect their children against elite campaigns of “woke indoctrination”.
The specific aims pushed by Moms for Liberty reflect a more troubling thread from the history of rightwing mothers’ activism. Scholars such as Elizabeth Gillespie McRae have detailed how white mothers’ organizations were some of the most committed players in the mid-century project of “massive resistance” fought to preserve the Jim Crow order. This segregationist battle was particularly concerned with legal mandates for school desegregation. And one of its battlegrounds remains central to the mission of Moms for Liberty: textbooks and school curricula. In the south and beyond, mothers’ organizations fought to eliminate books and teachings that highlighted white violence or white supremacy. Furthermore, they routinely attempted to remove books from the curriculum that highlighted Black contributions to the nation, its history, or its culture.
The challenges posed by Moms for Liberty, then, exceed its disruptive brand of activism, its ties to far-right organizations, or the campaigns of harassment its members have allegedly waged against school boards or rival parent groups. More broadly, the group’s mission resonates with an established history of rightwing mothers’ movements that focused on schools in order to block movements for social equality and to preserve structures of white supremacy.
Moms for Liberty channels this troubled racial legacy while broadening its exclusionary mission to sexuality and gender identity. Group chapters persistently invoke motherhood and parental rights as cudgels to shape public schools toward their particular vision of history, race, sexuality and faith. Narratives that complicate conservative visions of gender identity are demonized as efforts to corrupt children and are targeted for removal. In this way, Moms for Liberty weaponizes family rights to undercut equal access to schools for other families with other values. This project becomes more ominous yet through the group’s cozy relationship with Republican officials who have pushed for policies to limit support and visibility for already vulnerable LGBTQ+ students.
The culture wars have long fastened upon schools as institutions that shape the future of the nation. The threats posed by Moms for Liberty exceed business as usual in the culture wars. Instead, group chapters routinely exploit the moral authority of the family to erase other ways of experiencing race, gender, or sexuality – while reshaping schools and curricula around their own fears, interests, and beliefs.
In doing so, Moms for Liberty continues one of the most troubling aims pursued by historical rightwing mothers’ groups: to hijack public institutions to stall the tides of cultural change.
I don’t think they’re going to prevail. There are bigger forces at work that are starting to push back. And cheering Hitler is just plain stupid. But they can make a lot of people’s lives miserable in the meantime.
Sen. Roger Marshall: "I wish that President Zelenskyy would take more about peace. And that's why I'm against all the fighting." pic.twitter.com/LiVQ43o6wD
There have always been eccentric, senile and downright simple-minded members of congress. That’s democracy in action. But there is an unusually high number of them these days and they are all right wing Republicans.
We’re accustomed to the House MAGA chaos agents’ preposterous escapades. Like this, for instance:
Greene: My amendment directs the President to withdraw the United States from NATO. They are not a reliable partner… pic.twitter.com/cnv1OFAMaT
It’s hard to know if Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene still doesn’t understand how the government works or how the world works but she does have a way of getting attention. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy couldn’t be more happy with her. He told Axios, “I think Marjorie Taylor Greene is one of the best members we have, I think she’s the one of the most conservative members and one of the strongest legislators. I support Marjorie Greene very strongly.” (That was in response to a question about her ouster from the Freedom Caucus which is reportedly because she can’t be trusted not to share their strategies with McCarthy.)
The House has always been the more fractious of the two houses of congress, more partisan and subject to volatility. The idea was that the Senate with its longer terms and larger constituencies would be the “saucer that cools the tea.” With its slower processes and the advantage of not having to run for re-election constantly it was assumed that the Senators could be more deliberate in their actions and temper any radical shifts in policy that would be dangerously destabilizing.
I’m not sure that’s ever been entirely true — there have always been eccentric or radical Senators but this latest crop of Republicans seems to be intent upon giving the House a run for the crazy money. This week’s MAGA Senate Star is Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the former college football coach who replaced Democrat Doug Jones in 2020. He doesn’t seem to know a whole lot about how the congress works in any case but he certainly hasn’t signed on to any role as a “cooling” agent.
Despite his very brief time in politics he has not taken the opportunity to keep his head down and learn the ropes in the first couple of years, as most novice Senators do. He has, presumably at the prodding of a far right ideological staff, thrown a monkey wrench into the US Military. As the NY Times put it, Tuberville is single handedly obatructing the “smooth transfer of power at the highest echelons of the armed forces, including in the ranks of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” If that isn’t “Ultra-MAGA” I don’t know what is.
Tuberville is objecting to military policy that allows time off and travel reimbursement to members of the military who must go out of state to receive abortion care now that the Supreme Court overturned Roe Vs wade and many states with military installations have pretty much banned it. The policy does not pay for abortions but Tuberville apparently insists that the military force its personnel to go AWOL if they need one. (I would imagine he is in favor of throwing anyone who does that into the brig as well.) In order to force the military to do his bidding, he is holding up the promotions of all officers and blocking the confirmations of successors to the Joint Chiefs of Staff who are scheduled to depart over the next few months. Just this week the Marine Commandant retired and no one has been confirmed to take his place.
Back in May, Tuberville told a local news reporter that he calls white nationalists “Americans” and elaborated by saying that he considers a white nationalist a Trump Republican because “that’s what we’re called all the time.” He seemed to be completely clueless about what he was admitting. His staff tried to walk all that back but they apparently forgot to tell the boss because he said it again on TV this week.
Tuberville: My opinion of a white nationalist.. it’s an American. If that white nationalist is a racist, I’m totally against them.
After the media went into a frenzy on Tuesday, he did finally relent and admit that that white nationalism is racist but it’s pretty clear that he doesn’t believe that.
Like his brethren in the House Freedom caucus, Tommy Tuberville is a MAGA performance artist and he put on quite a show. Whether he’s dim or whether he’s calculated it really doesn’t matter.
But he’s hardly alone. The Senate GOP caucus has quite a few showboaters playing for the right wing media. The granddaddy, of course, Is Texas Sen. Ted Cruz who paved the way a decade ago when he strategized with the Tea Party caucus in the House to help shut down the government during budget negotiations with the Obama administration. He’s still at it, joined by another old timer, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, who’s given Oscar worthy performances in the last few years defending Donald Trump.
Third term Sen. Ron Johnson has also made a name for himself pushing snake oil cures for COVID among other things and just this week said that while he feels for the families of 9/11, he loves golf even more. He is always good for a laugh:
Ron Johnson wonders to Maria Bartiromo why Biden hasn't been more magnanimous in his treatment of Trump, like Trump was to Hillary Clinton pic.twitter.com/6E6Yzgv01e
And then we have Rand Paul, R-Ky., who may be the most obnoxious of all:
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) complains about how antitrust laws impact college sports at a hearing on the PGA Tour-LIV merger:
“Now everybody that plays basketball in college is gonna be driving a Bentley or a Rolls. I mean, we’re gonna be seeing rap stars instead of basketball stars.” pic.twitter.com/raasfga8XC
I’ll say one thing for these men. They aren’t subtle.
A couple of newbies deserve to be mentioned as well because I think they are going to be the heart and soul of the Senate MAGA caucus. The first is the newly elected J.D. Vance of Ohio who has hit the ground running by responding to Trump’s indictment on 37 federal charges by vowing to put a hold on all DOJ nominees. He also took it upon himself to pen a letter to several colleges issuing a demand that they comply with the recent Supreme Court ruling outlawing Affirmative Action or there would be hell to pay.
And then there is the freshman Sen. from Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, an election denier and former cage fighter who told a labor leader “shut your mouth” during a testy hearing and proclaimed “I don’t want reality” during a committee meeting about teaching children about race. He suggested that they teach “Jesus loves the little children” instead. And then this happened:
An attention-seeking union Teamster boss is trying to be punchy after our Senate hearing. Okay, I accept your challenge. MMA fight for charity of our choice. Sept 30th in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ll give you 3 days to accept. pic.twitter.com/9WpvuTpDlG
Whatever pretensions the Senate may have once had as the more staid house of congress where the business of government gets done among sober statesmen they are gone now. More and more GOP Senators are unserious people putting on a show to entertain their base and keep the Fox News hits coming. Marjorie Taylor Greene would feel right at home among them.
Intense rainstorms inundating the Northeast are turning streets into rivers, forcing evacuations and have prompted officials in Vermont’s capital, Montpelier, to close the downtown area.
“Make no mistake, the devastation and flooding we’re experiencing across Vermont is historic and catastrophic,” Gov. Phil Scott told reporters Tuesday.
Floodwater continues to rise in some places, the governor said, “and have surpassed levels seen during Tropical Storm Irene,” he added. Irene hit the US as a hurricane in August 2011 and left entire communities submerged, killing more than 40 people in several Eastern states.
My 14 and I are on the road in Midwest. Wife & 9 close to this. I know we’ve all been thru it now, and I know Twitter will punish me for saying this, but — Eff you to the coal rollers, the “skeptics,” & also , yes, the libs who won’t recognize now is time to step up. https://t.co/wMJMFqmY1c
Worst case scenarios easing a bit in Vermont as dam concerns ease and rivers crest. This Wrightsville dam above Montpelier encompasses a two-mile reservoir and has risen fifty feet, so you can just imagine the enormous amount of water every inch of rise encompasses. pic.twitter.com/iJfze39wEK
Floodwaters in Montpelier, Vermont, are receding after an historic inundation. Yes, I am I fact kayaking past the Vermont State Capitol as I report. pic.twitter.com/gB6WqHI2LI
In recent weeks, plaintiffs who are suing to invalidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s “Stop Woke Act” have been confronting its defenders with a seemingly loaded question: Would the law, which restricts school discussion of race, prohibit a public university professor from endorsing affirmative action in a classroom setting?
Surprisingly, lawyers defending the DeSantis administration just answered this question with a qualified “yes.” Which exposes a core truth about his anti-woke directives: They really do constitute efforts at state censorship, not just of concepts he likes to call “woke indoctrination” but also of viewpoints that are contested yet remain squarely within mainstream academic discourse.
Ron DeSantis's own lawyers just made a remarkable concession: They all but admitted that a professor who endorses affirmative action in class could be deemed in violation of the law.
This provides a useful glimpse into how anti-woke mania really works. 1/https://t.co/xWFzFVfqp0
A provision in the law prohibits instruction that “espouses” or “promotes” certain ideas. Affirmative action, for instance:
The state’s filing essentially agrees that this provision could potentially ban public agreement with affirmative action. It reiterates the state’s argument that public university professors are state employees, giving the state broad control over what they teach. And it says this:
If by “affirmative action,” plaintiffs mean … “discriminating against” a person “by virtue of his or her race … to achieve diversity, equity, or inclusion”… then yes, the state may prohibit its educators from endorsing racial discrimination while speaking on behalf of the state, in a state classroom, and in return for a state paycheck.
That has the air of a snide joke, and the reasoning is qualified — if affirmative action is “discrimination” in pursuit of DEI, then endorsing it could be prohibited. But nonetheless, it’s a significant admission. It suggests that in certain scenarios, the state actually could determine that a professor’s agreement with affirmative action constitutes unlawfully espousing discrimination, notes Scott Wilkens, senior counsel at the Knight First Amendment Institute.
Under Florida's own interpretation of DeSantis's Stop Woke Act, a professor wouldn't have to worry about opposing affirmative action in class, but at minimum would have to be cautious about endorsing it.
DeSantis has already fielded election police. They’ve come up empty, says the Brennan Center, in uncovering any “shadowy network of deep state operatives” working to unbdermine elections. The few cases of citizens caught voting after being approved to do so have been thrown out. No matter. Increase their funding 20 percent.
What DeSantis’ Florida needs now are Thought Police. Maybe re-education camps.
Jeffrey Sachs, a political scientist who tracks state-level censorship efforts, points out that under the state’s own interpretation of the Stop Woke Act, professors would plainly not have to worry about expressing opposition to affirmative action, but at a minimum would have to be cautious about supporting it.
