President Biden has endorsed three important reforms to the Supreme Court. He’s asking for binding code of conduct, which is long overdue. He wants no immunity for former presidents accused of crimes while in office. And the biggie is that he’s asking for terms limits for Supreme Court Justices.
The right wing is having a fit as usual. They love corruption so that’s not surprising. But it’s the term limits that have them screaming. Unfortunately, as with so many issues, they are on the wrong side of that one too:
Even most Republicans think it’s a good idea. But the “influencers” are very up in arms. Keep it up.
Bolts has a very important primer on the Arizona primaries tomorrow. It’s interesting because the GOP slate is full of MAGA weirdos and that’s going to have an effect on what happens in November (just as it did in 2022.) If Arizona is in play for the Democrats it could be decisive:
Donald Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 presidential race have rocked Arizona politics in recent years, causing threats against election officials, and leading many conservatives to demand election audits, resist certifying elections, and push for new voting restrictions.
Now these aftershocks are showing up all over this swing state’s Republican primaries.
There’s the fake Trump elector from 2020 who is now running for Congress.The lawmaker who proposed a bill locking in the state’s 2024 electoral votes for Trump. The election deniers who want to take over local election administration. The Republicans who never conceded their own statewide losses two years ago and are now mounting comebacks, including Kari Lake and Mark Finchem.
To help guide you through these races, here’s your Bolts primer on what to follow on July 30.
Also on the menu, Democrats are hosting several noteworthy contests—including a sheriff’s race in Tucson marked by disagreements over immigration enforcement, and an expensive Phoenix-area U.S. House race to replace Ruben Gallego, who is running for Senate.
Be sure to return to this page on election night: We’ll update this page with results. And note that this guide is not exhaustive; it is Bolts’ selection of important races to monitor.
The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins took a look at the prayers people say at Trump rallies. Yikes. It’s not that there aren’t always prayers at political events in America. I’ve always found it a little presumptuous but it is what it is. But the praying at Trump rallies is different. It’s not just done to appeal to God for protection or what have you. They have changed over the years to be a celebration of Donald Trump as God’s anointed representative on earth and his political opponents as instruments of Satan if not actual demons themselves:
[I]t’s easy to see the danger in internalizing the concept of politics as spiritual combat. Trump’s rallies become more than mere campaign events—they are staging grounds in a supernatural conflict that pits literal angels against literal demons for the soul of the nation. Marinate enough in these ideas, and the consequences of defeat start to feel existential. “This is not a time for politics as usual,” a Pentecostal preacher declared at a Trump rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, last year. “It’s not a time for religion as usual. It’s not a time for prayers as usual. This is a time for spiritual warriors to arise and to shake the heavens.”
As I was reviewing these prayers, I wondered what Trump’s most zealous religious supporters would do if they didn’t get the result they were praying for in November. With so much riding on the idea that Trump’s reelection has a divine mandate, what would happen if he lost? A destabilizing crisis of faith? Another widespread rejection of the election’s outcome? Further spasms of political violence?
It wasn’t until I came across a prayer delivered in December in Coralville, Iowa, that a more urgent question occurred to me: What will they do if their prayers are answered?
Onstage, Joel Tenney, a 27-year-old evangelist with a shiny coif of blond hair and a quavering preacher’s cadence, preceded his prayer with a short sermon for the gathered crowd of Trump supporters. “We have witnessed a sitting president weaponize the entire legal system to try and steal an election and imprison his leading opponent, Donald Trump, despite committing no crime,” Tenney began. “The corruption in Washington is a natural reflection of the spiritual state of our nation.”
For the next several minutes, Tenney hit all the familiar notes: He quoted from 2 Chronicles and Ephesians, and reminded the audience of the eternal consequences of 2024. Then he issued a warning to those who would stand in the way of God’s will being done on Election Day.
“Be afraid,” Tenney said. “For rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. And when Donald Trump becomes the 47th president of the United States, there will be retribution against all those who have promoted evil in this country.”
Yes, that’s unnerving. And it appears that Trump knows exactly what he’s dealing with when he says, “don’t worry, you won’t have to vote after this election, my beautiful Christians.”
After having spent most of the last two years playing golf and dining with his paying fans at Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump picked up the pace of his campaign a little bit this past weekend. He met with a Christian group on Friday night and then made two appearances back to back, first at a Bitcoin convention in Tennessee followed by a rally in Minnesota.
You might think that just coming off of the RNC 10 days ago and after last weeks dramatic events in the Democratic Party going to a Bitcoin convention might not be among your top priorities. But Trump is always hungry for money and his campaign’s been collecting Bitcoin donations for a couple of months while observing that large cryptocurrency PACs have put over $180 million into some congressional races. So he went there along with some other high profile Republicans and Vivek Ramaswamy to make a bunch of promises at the behest of donors which he clearly didn’t understand and make a pitch for votes from people who had listened to independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr the night before.
He promised to create a “Bitcoin and crypto presidential advisory council” made up of people who “love your industry, not hate your industry.” When he promised to fire Gary Gensler, the Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman, the crowd went wild prompting Trump to exclaim, “I didn’t know he was that unpopular. Let me say it again: On day one, I will fire Gary Gensler.” Look for him to repeat that one on the trail even though your average MAGA follower probably won’t know what he’s talking about. But there’s nothing unusual in that.
Gensler is hated by this crew because he has filed lawsuits and fined members of the industry when they put the system at risk such as when one of the founders of an exchange was convicted of fraud and his exchange collapsed. Trump wants to fire anyone who wants to enforce the rule of law against fraudsters, especially himself.
Speaking of enforcing the law, judging from his rally speech in Minnesota and his incessant posting on social media, he seems to think he’s found the poison arrow that will destroy Vice President Kamala Harris. Rather than immigration, which I thought they’d emphasize over everything else, aside from some half-hearted slams at her for being the “border czar”he’s been attacking her relentlessly for allegedly saying that she wanted to “defund the police” when she was running for president. He’s repeatedly posted and reposted a misleading CNN headline claiming that she said it. (What she actually told The New York Times was that she agreed with the idea of assessing “what public safety looks like” and the size of police budgets, “but, no, we’re not going to get rid of the police. We all have to be practical.”)
This might be a good attack line against a former prosecutor and Attorney General if it weren’t for the fact that Trump himself is a convicted criminal who has promised to pardon hundreds of fellow criminals he incited to assault police officers on January 6th.
Perhaps he would like to explain his own calls to defund law enforcement?
As Steve Benen at MSNBC’s Maddowblog chronicled, Trump has nothing but contempt for any law enforcement agency he doesn’t see as loyal to him over the rule of law:
In recent months, the former president has equated the FBI with “the Gestapo.” He’s told the public that the bureau is led by “Marxist Thugs.” He’s promoted a piece that referred to the FBI as “the Fascist Bureau of Investigation.” He’s condemned the FBI as “corrupt” and “crooked.” He’s described FBI officials as “mobsters” and a “real threat to democracy.” He’s slammed the FBI as the “Fake Bureau of Investigation,” before accusing the bureau of secretly paying people to “steal” the 2020 election from him, as part of the FBI’s plot to “rig” the election and “illegally change” the results.
Last March his minions in the U.S. House of Representatives did his bidding and voted to cut the FBI by 6% and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) by 7 percent. They were disappointed it couldn’t be more but they have promised to return to it as soon as they are back in power. And needless to say, if they are able to fulfill the Project 2025 agenda of firing all civil service employees who do not pledge fealty to Donald Trump, they will then provide full funding for the new East German STASI-style FBI. Until then, they are an enemy of the cult.
Trump said a few other weird things this weekend. He spoke at a Turning Point Actions conference on Friday night where he offered up an astonishing promise to his Christian followers that they won’t have to vote anymore after four years if they elect him:
Trump: You have to get out and vote. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four years, it will be fixed, it will be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore.. In four years, you won’t have to vote again. pic.twitter.com/DBGcBr3Wht
If it weren’t for his constant praise for dictators and tyrants and his repeated comments that he should be allowed to stay in office beyond two terms, I might be willing to believe some people’s interpretations of this startling remark to mean that he will fix everything in four years so they will have no reason to be involved in politics after that. But that makes no sense since unless he means he’s not leaving office, people will always have to vote lest their opponents reverse their gains as Trump himself is promising to do right now. No, he said what he said and we know what he means.
“I want to be nice,” Mr. Trump said. “They all say, ‘I think he’s changed. I think he’s changed since two weeks ago. Something affected him.’”
But to a cheering crowd of thousands, Mr. Trump quickly conceded the point. “No, I haven’t changed,” he said. “Maybe I’ve gotten worse. Because I get angry at the incompetence that I witness every single day.”
He must be talking about his campaign. It’s understandable that he’s angry but he has no one to blame but himself. Despite having been given a priceless gift with that awful debate and an assassination attempt that mercifully missed, he’s now slipping in the polls and is saddled with a national joke of a Vice Presidential candidate. He was born lucky but he has a unique gift for squandering it through hubris and ineptitude. And yes, he’s gotten worse.
Donald Trump’s selection of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) for his running mate is the biggest Republican candidate blunder since Sen. John McCain of Arizona chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to join him in defeat. But stupidity is not a crime. Insurrection is. Don’t let the press forget it. Nor his attempts to overthrow the democratic process. He’s planning another coup if he loses in November.
Trump is doing everything he can to delegitimize democracy.
The press needs to put the coming coup attempt and his last attempt in context, explains Marcy Wheeler.
I emphasized over the weekend that the press will move on from Trump’s promise to Christian nationalists to a) end all elections in his second term, or to b) render elections (the consent of the governed) irrelevant. The press will move on to the next news cycle. You must not.
Marcy Wheeler agrees, but castigates “horse race journalists” for finding it initially “more important to repeat and therefore magnify Trump’s latest slur on Vice President Harris” before acknowledging his threat to democracy. Only hours later did that story surface.
That story included Trump’s comment about voting, along with Gold’s spin of it as a claim that Trump would address the concerns of Christian voters sufficiently that they would no longer have to vote, buried in ¶14.
At the end of his speech, Mr. Trump urged the religious crowd to vote in November, suggesting that if elected he would address their concerns sufficiently enough that they would no longer need to be politically active. Earlier, he had lamented that conservative Christians do not vote proportionately to their size, a complaint he has made repeatedly in recent weeks.
“Christians, get out and vote. Just this time,” Mr. Trump said on Friday. “You won’t have to do it anymore, you know what? Four more, years, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”
Let it be noted that one of NYT’s allegedly professional horserace journalists believes that the white Evangelical Christians who have been among Trump’s most important supporters vote in disproportionately low numbers or that any Republican would forego that most important part of their coalition. (That said, for demographic reasons Trump can’t change with a speech, white Evangelicals make up an increasingly smaller proportion of the voting public, which poses an entirely different kind of threat than apathy.)
In spite of disinterest by journalists paid to write horserace stories, the clip went viral on social media, setting off a debate about what Trump meant. Right wing trolls pushed the same horseshit claims of low turnout (again, we’re talking about the in-person and TV audience for a Turning Point conference!) that Gold provided. Others attributed it to Trump’s narcissism, a suggestion that he only cares about votes so long as he would be on the ballot.
Three Sunday morning shows dealt with it — all abysmally.
Martha Raddatz for example, let Chris Sununu dismiss the comments as a “classic Trumpism,” without asking what he meant by “this stuff” when he said it “can be fixed.” Then she went back to the horse race.
Only, at that point, before Joe Biden had dropped out of the race, Trump said,
I said, we don’t need votes. And Charlie Kirk is helping. He’s got his army of young people. These are young patriots. They don’t want to see happen what’s been happening in our country.
Thank you Charlie.
[USA chants]
And I said to Charlie, and I said to Michael [Whatley], listen, we don’t need votes. We’ve got more votes than anybody’s ever had. We need to watch the vote, we need to guard the vote.
We need to stop the steal.
In mid-June, before Biden dropped out, Trump wasn’t concerned about turnout. Now he is.
This comment — to the people Charlie Kirk had assembled to listen to Donald Trump — is best understood as a comment about Trump’s plan to win. As the January 6 Committee discovered, when Trump decided in late December 2020 that he was going to speak and march to the Capitol, Carline Wren turned to Kirk to help turn out bodies. Turning Point was also allegedly used to launder speaking fees to Don Jr and his girlfriend. As it happened, Kirk backed out of attending and deleted his boasts about arranging dozens of busses so others could do so. He pled the Fifth rather than explain to the January 6 Committee anything about all that.
But nevertheless, Charlie Kirk got busloads of people to Trump’s insurrection.
To the extent that Trump needs lots of bodies to be somewhere, Charlie Kirk is a key part of that process. And in June, he wanted them out to surveil polling centers, once again mobilizing Stop the Steal. Friday, he emphasized he actually needs some people to show up to the polls.
If you follow Tim Alberta, he’s reported that Trump axed the GOP’s field operation and turned it over to “allied organizations such as Turning Point Action, America First Works, and the Faith and Freedom Coalition.” But especially to Turning Point. Kirk’s org had become a punch line among the GOP’s strategists after promising to win big in Kirk’s Arizona in 2022 and losing bigger. The RNC wanted to invest in field, in GOTV. Trump would rather invest in “election integrity,” that is, in blocking the vote, Alberta reported:
The marching orders were clear: Trump’s lieutenants were to dismantle much of the RNC’s existing ground game and divert resources to a colossal new election-integrity program—a legion of lawyers on retainer, hundreds of training seminars for poll monitors nationwide, a goal of 100,000 volunteers organized and assigned to stand watch outside voting precincts, tabulation centers, and even individual drop boxes.
Doubling down on the Big Lie is a helluva tell, Wheeler notes. But that was before Biden dropped out. Now he needs GOP turnout too.
I’d noted an important Blue Sky thread by Sarah Posner but could not get to commenting. Wheeler does:
The point is, Trump’s audience of Christian nationalists do view taking over government in apocalyptic terms. They did, on January 6. And it nearly worked the first time.
This was only a Trumpism, as Sununu called it, to the extent that Trump is an epic conman who knows how to mobilize his audience, even Christian nationalists with whom Trump shares little more than a fondness for authoritarianism.
So sure: Perhaps this was just an attempt to juice more turnout out of a group that already turns out in high numbers, almost exclusively for Republicans. Or maybe — as his comments in June were — it’s part of a larger effort to delegitimize democracy.
But even beyond Trump’s last coup attempt, there’s a context here, one you need to at least acknowledge if you’re going to claim to assess his comments.
Trump is too good at wiggling out of trouble. The press is going to move on to the next heat in the horse race. We have to hold him accountable for his words and his plans in the streets, on people’s doorsteps, and on social media. The press will not.
A couple of Democratic events here in WNC over the last week drew far bigger crowds than I’ve seen in nearly two decades. A fundraiser for a county commission candidate at a nearby farm on Thursday drew hundreds. A district-wide gathering featuring a slate of statewide candidates at a rural farm west of here drew 400-500. An ice cream social at a city park shelter on Sunday exploded to 300 and became a local happening.
Local ice cream social exploded to 300 attendees, Asheville, NC. Photo by Paul King.
On Saturday afternoon, around 500 golf carts reportedly paraded through the Villages, a retirement community in Central Florida, in support of Kamala Harris for president — roughly 200 more than the number that reportedly showed up for President Biden ahead of the 2020 election.
With roughly 30% of Florida voters affiliated with neither the Republican or Democratic parties, per the Tallahassee Democrat, some attendees saw the turnout as a sign of a notable shift for the largely conservative community.
500+ golf carts for Kamala Harris parade around in the villages in Florida.
Jennifer Rubin suggests this morning that the way to fight autocracy is with optimism, joy, and humor. Less-engaged voters want to support the winning team. Democrats need to start acting like winners.
Hundreds join statewide candidates at rally in rural Transylvania County, NC on Saturday. (Photo by author.)
But while the Trump-Vance ticket has shown itself to be a joke, what it represents is not. This is still a serious fight. Rubin attended the Anti-Autocracy Conference last week featuring totalitarianism expert, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who told the assembly:
This is an anti-autocracy conference because autocracy is what we are looking at if Donald Trump is reelected.
I know many Americans feel this is hyperbole, even after MAGA attemped [sic] to overthrow the government to keep Trump in office illegally. In my line of work, we call this a coup attempt. Even now, Trump is continuing to use his rallies to market strongman rule to Americans. Just a few days ago he praised Xi Jinping, a Communist dictator, as “brilliant” because he rules with an “iron fist.”
What’s important in pushing back against this dark movement is finding the common ground most Americans share:
Norm Eisen, co-founder of State Democracy Defenders Action✓ — which hosted the conference together with conservative group Principles First and advocacy group Democracy Forward — told me, “There is much more that unites us as Americans than divides us.” He laid out 10 principles at the conference that “define what a long-term right, left and center coalition would look like to unify the vast majority of Americans against Trump’s authoritarianism and ensure that the American democratic tradition continues — and that Trump led autocracy is permanently banished from the American political scene.” These principles boil down to:
Democracies rest on rule of law; someone who denies the sanctity of the Constitution and serially violates our laws cannot be president.
Democracy cannot survive without truth, facts, science and evidence.
Free and fair elections are the essence of democracy, where power resides in the people.
Civil discourse must be the means to resolve differences; compromise is essential to governance.
A democratic government cannot operate without an independent, nonpartisan civil service, and subject matter expertise is essential to good government.
An ethical government free from corruption and self-interest is essential to our democracy.
The United States is the indispensable nation for international stability, economic prosperity and democracy. Our military takes an oath to the Constitution, not to a single leader.
Democracies require and ensure widespread prosperity. Democracies that deliver economically for citizens require a domestic calm, commitment to the rule of law and opposition to cronyism.
A vibrant, independent press is vital to democracy.
Equality and civil rights (“All men [and women] are created …”) are foundational to our American creed.
What surprised Rubin was (despite the serious topic) the atmosphere of “camaraderie and humor.”
Adam Gallagher and Anthony Navone wrote that humor “disrupts dominant discourses and challenges power ‘by disrupting the language and symbols used by those in power to represent reality in a particular way and providing alternative interpretations of that reality.’” Moreover, “Authoritarian leaders and regimes rely on projections of unshakable power; using fear to maintain control,” the authors wrote. “No wonder they hate jokes.” (Not coincidentally, Trump has said he hates being laughed at.)
Americans are anxious for connection, for in-person relationships and for fun. Especially when enlisting previously apolitical people, optimism, joy and, yes, humor can help hold movements together. No wonder Vice President Harris’s laugh is already is unnerving MAGA scolds; perhaps they grasp the power of happy warriors.
It helps that Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, is, as Harris campaign co-chair Mitch Landrieu told CNN, “one of the most unprepared people that we have ever put up to hold the vice presidency of the United States.” Vance barely meets the minimum requirement to be 35 years old and native-born, Landrieu said:
“He didn’t even run a business. He’s never run anything. And he’s about to be one heartbeat away from the largest entity in the world, and the one that’s the most important,” Landrieu said. “So it’s a fair question to ask: How would we know whether you have the capability to run domestic and national security policy for the most powerful country in the world, which you may be called to do on a moment’s notice?”
Expect the contrast with Harris’s upcoming VP pick to be stark, starker even than the choice Sen. John McCain’s made in 2008 to choose Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska . She saw her role as spokesmodel. What helped sink McCain’s candidacy then will help sink Trump’s now.
Plus, as America has seen recently, Trump the Unhinged is becoming more unhinged. His act is old and stale, and he is now the old man in the race facing an energized Democratic Party and a happy warrior in Kamala Harris.
Anecdotally here, independents are getting off their couches and getting involved in the fight.
The lighthearted memes cropping up around the Harris campaign feed the excitement. So what if they are silly or unintelligible to older voters? They’re working. As Barack Obama once cautioned, don’t be buzzkills.
The US could have avoided almost 250,000 Covid-19 deaths if every state had adopted stricter mask and vaccine requirements seen in the Northeast during the height of the pandemic, according to a new study.
The research from University of Virginia public policy and economics professor Christopher J Ruhm, published Friday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Health Forum, analyzed mortality data between 2020 and 2022, comparing it to a baseline of 2017 through 2019.
“These study findings do not support the views of those opposing COVID-19 restrictions who erroneously believe the restrictions did not work,” Ruhm writes. “To the contrary, the package of policies implemented by some states probably saved many lives.”
“If all states had imposed restrictions similar to those used in the 10 most restrictive states, excess deaths would have been an estimated 10% to 21% lower than the 1.18 million that actually occurred during the 2-year analysis period,” according to the study.
“Conversely, the estimates suggest counterfactual increases of 13% to 17% if all states had restrictions similar to those in the 10 least-restrictive states.”
All the elderly and immunocomprised as well as the workers in necessary workplaces who didn’t have a choice in this were among those who died in those red states. It’s shameful. Wearing a mask was hardly the end of the world but they had to act like fools and hundreds of thousands died.
Unfortunately, they have not learned their lesson. They never will.
Authors Peter Dreier, who teaches politics at Occidental College and Maurice Isserman who teaches history at Hamilton College warn people who care about the Palestinian people not to protest at the DNC next month if they don’t want to set back their cause:
In a democracy, protest movements can play a vital role in reshaping the national debate on important issues. But they have to hone their message and choose when and how to make their case. There were major protests at all three Democratic conventions in the 1960s. Two of them eventually got the results they hoped for. One backfired.
In 1960, when John F. Kennedy was nominated in Los Angeles, civil rights protesters, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., carefully orchestrated a 5,000-person march and daily pickets at the convention demanding a strong pro-civil rights plank in the Democratic platform. It was a first at a convention, and Kennedy was cautiously supportive, though it took several more years of protests before he embraced the Civil Rights Act, which became law in 1964, the year after his assassination.
When Lyndon B. Johnson was nominated that same year in Atlantic City, civil rights activists, now driving for voting rights, supported the integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegates in place of the all-white regular Mississippi delegation. They didn’t unseat the regulars, but their impact on delegates and public opinion was undeniable. A year later, with Johnson’s support, Congress passed the watershed Voting Rights Act.
The convention protests of 1960 and 1964 followed a sophisticated and pragmatic strategy of working within and without the party apparatus. The leaders crafted demands that appealed to the best in the American democratic tradition — equal rights for all. They delivered historic gains for African Americans.
In 1968, when Hubert Humphrey was nominated for president in Chicago, it was a different story. Protesters again showed up in the streets outside the convention, this time to demonstrate their opposition to the Vietnam War. That opposition was justified. Targeting that convention that year, and their wild rumpus approach, was not.
Due mostly to the brutal tactics employed by the Chicago police, the result was bloody chaos in the streets. Some protest organizers believed dramatic televised images of confrontations would strengthen their cause, winning the sympathy of the viewing public.
They were wrong. Polling revealed that most television viewers — 56%, according to a Gallup poll — blamed the protesters, not the “police riot,” for the disturbances. Republican Richard Nixon, campaigning to restore “law and order,” defeated Humphrey that November. He prolonged the Vietnam War well into the next decade.
Antiwar protests ultimately helped shift public opinion away from the U.S. military intervention in Vietnam. They produced a new wave of liberal and progressive politicians. But the protests at the 1968 Democratic convention set back the cause.
Today, those who want to protest the war in Gaza need to think about how to further that goal. Will the cause of peace and Palestinian rights be helped or hindered by demonstrations at this year’s Democratic convention in Chicago?
[…]
If this year’s Chicago protests produce scenes of chaos in the streets and Democratic-leaning voters decide to abstain or choose a doomed third-party candidate — who will benefit? In a remarkable bit of political jujitsu, the Republicans, instigators of the Jan. 6 insurrection, are campaigning as the party of law and order.
Protests may achieve changes we want to see. But this time, it’s too risky. Instead of demonstrating against Democrats, we’re going to campaign and vote for them. You should too.
I hope this doesn’t turn out to be another Chicago shit-show. I doubt it will. The energy is way, way different. But they make good points. We are dealing with a whole other level of threat with Trump, the country is closely divided. If you actually care about the Palestinian, which I’m not sure all of these folks do, I’m going to guess these protests aren’t going to help, especially if they do what they did in DC this week and celebrate Hamas, which is just felony stupid.
Sonya Massey’s last words before a Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office deputy shot and killed her in her Springfield, Illinois, home earlier this month were, “I’m sorry.”
The 36-minute body camera footage released Monday depicting her July 6 killing showed her interaction with the officers she called for help began calmly enough. At times, it even appeared to veer into light-hearted conversation as they responded to her 1 a.m. local time report of a possible home invasion. But the tone changed suddenly just under 15 minutes into the exchange after the 36-year-old Black woman went to remove a pot of boiling water from her stove at the direction of Deputy Sean Grayson, who informed her with a laugh as she did so that he was distancing himself to get away “from your steaming hot water.”
“Away from the hot steaming water? Oh, I’ll rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” she replied with a seemingly playful tone before repeating the phrase more neutrally in response to the officer’s confusion.
“You better f**king not or I swear to God I’ll f**king shoot you in the f**king face,” Grayson said suddenly, drawing his firearm.
Massey crouched behind the counter with her hands raised. She apologized, though nothing she had done up to this point appeared to warrant one. Still, it didn’t matter. Within seconds, Grayson fired three shots, striking her just under the eye. He’d go on to make clear to his colleagues he believed he’d opened fire on an imminent threat, call her a crazy “f***ing b***ch” and reject the other deputy’s attempt to render aid to Massey because “she’s done.”
“From looking at the bodycam footage, it’s clear that the space is not a space of distress in the sense that it’s somebody’s home. The pace and everything about the video that I saw did not seem that the police officer was under distress, either,” said Christen Smith, a professor of anthropology and African American studies at Yale whose research focuses on gendered anti-Black state violence. “It just seems to me that the threat that was perceived was simply the threat of a Black woman and not anything else, and that’s something that we need to really think about.”
In a press conference Monday, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Massey’s family, said that she had previously experienced mental health challenges but did not show any aggression. Massey’s family also confirmed she had previously been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, according to The Guardian. “She needed a helping hand,” Crump said. “She didn’t need a bullet to the face.”
Just as her family and community mourn their loss and Americans decry the brutality she faced with cries of “Say Her Name,” Massey’s killing underscores the disproportionate amount of police violence that Black people and disabled people face in the United States — and the reality that Black disabled Americans, like Massey, bear the brunt of it.
She had called them to look for a prowler. They didn’t find one but came into her house and demanded that she produce ID for some reason. She couldn’t immediately locate it and went to the stove to remove the pot of water. And that’s when it happened. The fcop was all the way across the room. This frail woman couldn’t have hit him with the water if she wanted to and it really didn’t seem she did.
It’s horrible. Horrible.
The officer had a history of bullying behavior. No surprise there. And Trump wants to give police officers like this one, who clearly overreacted and killed this poor woman, rather than simply back out of the room if he felt threatened, immunity. No.
