Elon Musk plans to reinstate nearly all previously banned Twitter accounts — to the alarm of activists and online trust and safety experts.
After posting a Twitter poll asking, “Should Twitter offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam?” in which 72.4 percent of the respondents voted yes, Musk declared, “Amnesty begins next week.”
The Twitter CEO did not respond Thursday to a request for comment from The Washington Post. The poll garnered more than 3 million votes
The mass return of users who had been banned for such offenses as violent threats, harassment and misinformation will have a significant impact on the platform, experts said. And many questioned how such a resurrection would be handled, given that it’s unclear what Musk means by “egregious spam” and the difficulty of separating out users who have “broken the law,” which vary widely by jurisdiction and country.
“Apple and Google need to seriously start exploring booting Twitter off the app store,” said Alejandra Caraballo, clinical instructor at Harvard Law’s cyberlaw clinic. “What Musk is doing is existentially dangerous for various marginalized communities. It’s like opening the gates of hell in terms of the havoc it will cause. People who engaged in direct targeted harassment can come back and engage in doxing, targeted harassment, vicious bullying, calls for violence, celebration of violence. I can’t even begin to state how dangerous this will be.”
Finally Friday Reads: History Repeats
Posted: November 25, 2022 Filed under: just because | Tags: American NAZIs, O. John. ROGGE, Rachel Maddow's Ultra, Rob Denbleyker banned from Twitter, Twittler and the Chief Twittler 7 Comments
Good Day Sky Dancers!
I finished Rachel Maddow’s Ultra on Wednesday. I’m not exactly going to spoil the ending for you but let me say this, truth, justice, and the American way did not work on the American NAZIs in the end. Most of the bad guys returned to their little corner of the country and continued. Only a few were held to account, mainly by the ordinary Americans who knew them and held them accountable for their Pro-NAZI sentiments and actions. Then President Truman actually covered up the findings from the NAZI records on their program to subvert America’s stand on the war. A DOJ prosecutor was fired and later leaked what he had discovered there in a book no one reads and appears hard to find. If you want to be surprised by who was motivated by the American First Committee, look here.
You should listen to the podcast too, but at least review this radio interview on Meet the Press in 1946 with fired Federal Prosecutor O. John Rogge. He went public on everything he knew about how involved many US politicians and cultural figures were actually part of a bigger NAZI plot to make America neutral, at the very minimum, to the Hitler regime.
I intend to read his book as soon as I can get it into my kindle or in my mailbox. The Official German Report: Nazi Penetration, 1924-1942 has everything that Truman did not want you to read. (by O. John. ROGGE | Jan 1, 1961). Only the Father Coughlin story showed up in my American History classes. The rest needs to be known. Around 26 US senators and representatives had NAZI sympathies or actual participation in NAZI Germany’s plan for America.
Several news stories are germane today to that same fascist, Nazi, Anti-Semitic movement we have seen Trump lead since he took an escalator in Trump Tower that would lead him to the White House. First, the selling of Twitter to Elon Musk has become a purge of people with “Antifa” sentiments or sympathies. You can visit there today and see the number of folks, including Canadian cartoonist Rob Denbleyker whose little stick figures were a common fixture on the site.
While the NAZIs, Anti-Semites, Racists, and all of the worst of the ists have been freed from banishment. Bans on other content providers are now rampant. Here’s a brief discussion of this at Newsweek. “Activists Accuse Elon Musk of Banning ‘Anti-Fascist Accounts’ on Twitter.”
In the latest complaints from Twitter users under Elon Musk‘s leadership, the CEO is being accused of banning “anti-fascist accounts” while previously suspended conservative users are being reinstated.
Steven Monacelli, an independent journalist, reported on Tuesday that the group Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club (EFJBGC)—a leftist group based in Texas that volunteers as armed protection for LGBTQ events—had been suspended after breaking Twitter’s content rules.
According to a screenshot posted by Monacelli, the group was suspended for violating the platform’s rules “against hateful conduct,” citing two recent tweets from the club.
On Wednesday, clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic Alejandra Caraballo reported that Chad Loder, an outspoken anti-fascist from Los Angeles, California, had also been suspended. Loder had reportedly been keeping track of anti-fascists who had recently been banned from the platform, according to a screenshot posted by Micah Lee, a writer at The Intercept.
Monacelli posted that he had reached out to Loder to ask if he had received a “suspension report” from Twitter explaining why his account had been banned. Loder reportedly said he had yet to receive one.
This is from The Washington Post. “‘Opening the gates of hell’: Musk says he will revive banned accounts. The Twitter chief says he will reinstate accounts suspended for threats, harassment, and misinformation beginning next week.” The doors from the hell realms are opened. The wisdom beings are banned. Sounds like a perfect NAZI program to me. #BlackTwitter has already headed to Mastadon.
Meanwhile, this is happening everywhere in America, including Seattle/Tahoma’s SeaTac airport. This guy loves Hitler, hates people of the Jewish Faith, and spews your basic NAZI diatribes.
After over a week of deadly mass shootings, the last thing anyone expects is these fanatical open displays of Nazi sentiments. But, hey, let me see you one random NAZI in the airport plus one in charge of Twitter banning anyone that sounds slightly to the left of Hitler and raise you one Exiled Ex-President. Same as it ever was. From Axios, “Trump talks with white nationalist Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago dinner.”
Former President Trump dined and conversed with white nationalist Nick Fuentes and rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Tuesday night, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Why it matters: Trump’s direct engagement with a man labeled a “white supremacist” by the Justice Department, one week after declaring his 2024 candidacy, is likely to draw renewed outrage over the former president’s embrace of extremists.
- Fuentes, who frequently promotes racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, had been spotted with Ye at Mar-a-Lago, but reports erroneously suggested he did not have dinner with the former president.
What they’re saying: “Kanye West very much wanted to visit Mar-a-Lago. Our dinner meeting was intended to be Kanye and me only, but he arrived with a guest whom I had never met and knew nothing about,” Trump said in a statement.
- Fuentes did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Driving the news: Ye, whose Twitter account was recently restored after being restricted for anti-Semitic comments, posted a video on Thursday night titled “Mar-a-Lago debrief.”
- Ye claims in the video that Trump was “really impressed” with Fuentes because “unlike so many of the lawyers and so many people that he was left with on his 2020 campaign, he’s actually a loyalist.”
- A source familiar with the conversation told Axios Trump took a phone call during the dinner, and his demeanor toward Ye seemed to change when he got off the call. Trump made some nasty comments about Ye’s ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, and told the rapper to pass them on.
- Ye, who has lost major sponsorships over his anti-Semitism and recent far-right associations, has said he wants to run for president in 2024. The rapper claims Trump started “screaming” at him at the dinner and told him he would lose — “most perturbed” by Ye asking Trump to be his running mate.
This analysis of the meeting is from Politico. “Donald Trump dined with white nationalist, Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. The president hosted Fuentes and Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago. He said it was “quick and uneventful.” “
In a post to his social media site, Trump confirmed the gathering.
“This past week, Kanye West called me to have dinner at Mar-a-Lago,” he wrote. “Shortly thereafter, he unexpectedly showed up with three of his friends, whom I knew nothing about. We had dinner on Tuesday evening with many members present on the back patio. The dinner was quick and uneventful. They then left for the airport.”
However eventful, the dinner reflects a remarkable moment in an extremely early 2024 campaign cycle: the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination breaking bread with a man who frequently posts racist content and Holocaust revisionism, brought there by a rapper who is launching his own presidential campaign under the shadow of his own antisemitic remarks.
“If it was any other party, breaking bread with Nick Fuentes would be instantly disqualifying for Trump,” said Democratic National Committee spokesperson Ammar Moussa. “The most extreme views have found a home in today’s MAGA Republican party.”
It underscores how few guardrails currently exist within the former president’s political operation, with few aides there to screen guests or advise against and manage such gatherings.
And in this country, women struggle to regain full citizen status. Reproductive Freedom is on the ballot and on the gratitude list. While men air their NAZI grievances, women want their rights back. This is written by Nikiya Natale at The Nation. “We’re Thankful for Our Abortions. Many people who have abortions celebrate their experience. Here’s why my colleagues and I at We Testify are thankful.”
This holiday is founded on the unforgivable genocide of Native Americans, and my commitment to justice for all people makes it difficult for me to celebrate things I am thankful for. And the harsh reality is that the utter disregard for all Indigenous people in the 1800s fuels the same systems of white supremacy that dehumanize all of us today. Black lives are taken by the police and the prison-industrial complex, any sense of LGBTQ+ peace and tranquility has been obliterated by gun violence and hate, and, ultimately, the small promise of abortion access guaranteed by Roe v. Wade was stripped away by an illegitimate Supreme Court.
When I look at the state of this nation, the anger piles up, and my gratitude is depleted.
And yet, gratitude is what I am searching for in this moment. I am grateful to spend the long weekend with my young son, who is here because I was able to plan a pregnancy when I was ready to parent. I am grateful to have accessed my abortions in Texas while it was still legal in the state, and that my multiple abortion experiences now guide my work.
When I express this gratitude for my abortions, sometimes, I and other abortion storytellers at We Testify, which is an organization dedicated to the leadership and representation of people who have abortions, are met with questions and chiding from family members or loved ones who believe that we shouldn’t “celebrate” or be “thankful” for our abortions. “I’m pro-choice, but it’s nothing to celebrate,” they say.
But I am thankful for both of my abortions. I am thankful that I didn’t want to be a parent then, so I didn’t have to be a parent then. The blessing to plan a pregnancy and have a child when I wanted to have a child is something I have immense gratitude for. I really am thankful for it, particularly in this political climate and moment.
The BBC reports that France wants to establish this right in its Constitution.
France’s National Assembly has backed a bid to enshrine the right to abortion in the constitution, prompted largely by increased restrictions elsewhere.
Lawmakers voted by a large majority to include a clause guaranteeing “the effectiveness and equal access to the right to end pregnancy voluntarily”.
Left-wing MP Mathilde Panot, who is behind the change, said it was to protect against the “backsliding” seen in the US and Poland.
But the bill will face a tough passage.
Last month the upper house, the Senate, rejected a similar proposal and is thought unlikely to back the new amendment. Right-wing parties – which dominate the Senate – argue that abortion rights are not under threat in France.
A change of constitution would also have to go to a referendum, although opinion polls suggest more than 80% of French voters are behind it.
Ms Panot’s amendment went through after securing the support of MPs in Emmanuel Macron’s ruling Renaissance party, but a reference to the right to contraception was scrapped.
Macron MP Aurore Bergé had been due to present her own abortion amendment next week but withdrew it, telling MPs how her mother had endured an abortion without anaesthetic before it was legalised in 1974.
“The question of access to abortion and of protecting it isn’t a whim; it shouldn’t be politicised; it’s not a matter of party politics,” she said.
Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti also backed changing the constitution and praised the “historic” vote.
Last February, the French parliament voted to extend the legal timeframe for abortion from 12 to 14 weeks, similar to neighbouring Spain. It is lower than other European countries, including Sweden, the Netherlands, England, Wales and Scotland.
Ms Panot dedicated Thursday’s vote to women in the US, Poland and Hungary. Her push to change constitution was triggered by a vote in the US Supreme Court to end the national guarantee to abortion access, overturning the landmark Roe v Wade ruling in 1973.
Thirteen US states have since begun enforcing abortion bans, while voters in states including California backed proposals this month to enshrine the right to abortion in their constitution.
The struggle continues,
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Thanksgiving Day Open Thread
Posted: November 24, 2022 Filed under: just because 14 Comments
Autumn, by Andrew Wyeth
Good Morning!!
It has been a difficult week in America. I’m not even going to post suggested reads, because there is so much violence and hate in the news. Just for today I’m choosing to be grateful to be alive and sober; to have a safe and comfortable home; and to have family to spend the holiday with. And I’m grateful for this blog and for all of you. I hope you have a nice, peaceful day today.
Tuesday Reads
Posted: November 22, 2022 Filed under: Afternoon Reads, just because | Tags: Club Q, Colorado Springs mass shooting, GOP hate mongering, Hingham MA Apple Store, homophobia, LGBTQ bigotry, UNO terroristic threats, Vehicular homicide 14 CommentsGood Afternoon!!
Today I decided to follow up on stories from yesterday’s post by Dakinikat, including the Colorado Springs mass shooting, the terroristic threats at the University of New Orleans, and the horrific vehicle crash in Hingham, Massachusetts that I wrote about in the comments. I thought it would be a good idea to update what we know about the stories we were discussing yesterday.
Club Q Massacre Commentary
https://twitter.com/MoiraDonegan/status/1595071430793859074?s=20&t=mtdLEGtiPY5tLnN5fJqtjA
Moira Donegan at The Guardian: The US right is stoking anti-LGBT hate. This shooting was no surprise.
There’s a grim routine, these days, to the mass shootings in America. Some elements remain constant from shooting to shooting. Usually, the gunman is a young white man, and usually, he has a history of violence against women. There will have been mental health episodes, or previous run-ins with police. But none of this history will have stopped him from getting a gun. American mass shooters tend to use automatic or semi-automatic long guns, the kind that aren’t available to civilians in other countries. Almost always, they purchased them legally….
In the hours after a gunman stormed into Club Q, a morbid kind of box checking began. Yes, it was a young white man who committed the rampage – this time a 22-year-old. Yes, the shooter had a history of violence against women: the attacker was arrested last year after an hours-long standoff with police after making a bomb threat against his mother. He was charged with multiple felonies, but, yes, he still had access to guns. Yes, the killer used an AR-style long gun to murder his victims. And yes, the killer appears to have rightwing ties: he’s the grandson of a far-right California state assemblyman who supported the January 6 insurrection. On Monday, the shooter was charged with five counts of murder and several hate crimes.
There’s a morbid randomness to American gun violence – that fatal combination of scarce mental health treatment and superabundant firearms that makes America, and only America, a place where mass public massacres are common even when the nation is ostensibly at peace. But if the Colorado attack was enabled by America’s pervasive gun violence problem, it seems to have been prompted by the tenor of rightwing media, both broadcast and online, which over the past years has turned a virulent, conspiratorial and obsessively hateful eye towards the LGBT community.
In the coming days, the massacre at Club Q will be cast as an isolated tragedy, and those who point out the right’s complicity in the violence will be accused, with predictable cynicism, of politicizing the tragedy. But what happened in Colorado Springs this past weekend was the foreseeable continuation of a trend of escalating violence targeting gay spaces, and drag shows in particular.
It’s a good article; read the whole thing at The Guardian.
Brian Broome at The Washington Post: The Colorado massacre cannot be blamed on mental illness. It’s rooted in hate.
After the shooting at the LGBTQ Club Q in Colorado Springs, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), gun rights advocate and representative for her state’s 3rd Congressional District, tweeted the following: “The news out of Colorado Springs is absolutely awful. This morning the victims & their families are in my prayers. This lawless violence needs to end and end quickly.”
In her tweet, Boebert left out the “news” that a lone gunman entered an LGBTQ space and began shooting, killing five and injuring at least 25. I’m betting Boebert did not mention these specifics because that would ruin her brand: the gun-toting, queer-hating, God-loving, outlaw whose job it is to own the liberals. If she had tweeted the specifics of the night and its tragic outcome, it might cause some of her followers to see LGBTQ people as human beings. And she can’t have that.
I don’t go to clubs and bars anymore. But when I was younger, queer spaces were a lifeline. They weren’t just bars; they were shelters where I could escape all the judgment of the world. All the Christians who seemed to delight in telling me that I was hell-bound. All the pressure to be a “real man.” All the pretending to be someone I wasn’t, just to fit into a social order that I didn’t understand. They were, in short, places where I felt free.
Everyone should have such a place. For heterosexual people, that place is the whole wide world. For heterosexual people, that place includes public parks and restaurants and any street they care to walk down, hand in hand. But LGBTQ people must find — or more accurately — create those spaces. And because of the shooting at Club Q, there is, for now, one fewer place for the queer community of Colorado Springs to go.
You know who will get the blame for Colorado Springs, right? Each time these things happen, the right-wing go-to is to blame “mental illness.” That’s what some thought drove Robert Bowers to the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh to kill 11 human beings. That’s what others believed made Dylann Roof stroll into a Black church in Charleston, S.C., to murder nine human beings. And, sooner or later, conservatives will say it was “mental illness” that drove this newest killer of the marginalized to commit the latest atrocity.
But are we ever going to ask why so many supposedly mentally ill people seem to carry right-wing talking points along with their AR-15s?
Read the rest at the WaPo.
Michelle Goldberg at The New York Times: The Massacre at Club Q Was Only a Matter of Time.
The massacre this past weekend at Club Q, an L.G.B.T.Q. club in Colorado Springs, was at once shocking and entirely predictable, like terrorist attacks on synagogues and abortion clinics.
The police are still investigating the motive behind the shooting, in which five people were killed and at least 18 others wounded. But we know that the suspect is facing hate crime charges, and that the attack took place in a climate of escalating anti-gay and anti-trans violence and threats of violence.
We also know that, in recent years, the right has become increasingly fixated on all-ages drag shows, part of a growing moral panic about children being “groomed” into gender nonconformity. Club Q hosted a drag show on Saturday night and had an all-ages drag brunch scheduled for Sunday. Perhaps we’ll learn something in the coming days that will put these murders, which took place on the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance, into a new light, but right now, it seems hard to separate them from a nationwide campaign of anti-L.G.B.T.Q. incitement.
During the early years of Donald Trump’s administration, conservatives downplayed the contempt for homosexuality and gender nonconformity that had once been central to their movement, foregrounding racial resentment instead. Opposition to gay marriage had become a political loser, and it was hard to pose as champions of wholesome family values while enthusiastically supporting a thrice-married libertine who’d made a cameo in soft-core porn. But in recent years, as growing numbers of kids started identifying as trans, the puritanical tendency on the right has come roaring back, part of an increasingly apocalyptic worldview that sees the erosion of traditional gender roles as a harbinger of national collapse.
Chris Rufo, the entrepreneurial activist who made critical race theory into a major political issue, shifted his focus to “gender ideology” in public schools. Lawmakers began to target pro-L.G.B.T.Q. teachers, and to accuse anyone who opposed them of being “groomers.” When Florida was debating legislation restricting classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity, Gov. Ron DeSantis’s press secretary wrote on Twitter, “If you’re against the Anti-Grooming Bill, you are probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8 year old children.”
The language of “grooming” recapitulated old homophobic tropes about gay people recruiting children, while also playing into the newer delusions of QAnon, which holds that elite liberals are part of a sprawling satanic child abuse ring. Conservatives hoped to turn this conspiracy theory into political power; according to the Human Rights Campaign, Republicans and Republican-aligned groups spent at least $50 million on anti-L.G.B.T.Q. ads in the midterms.
Read the rest at the link. Goldberg really spells out the ways in which the right has targeted LGBTQ people to light the fires of hate in voters.
University of New Orleans Terroristic Threats
I found some more details on the story Dakinikat posted about yesterday.
WDSU News: UNO threat suspect arrested and identified; classes will resume Tuesday.
According to UNO, the suspect was a former student who entered a classroom last week and began acting erratically.
The New Orleans Police Department, Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, UNO Police, and the United States Marshal’s worked together to arrest 22-year-old Karam Mohammed in connection with terrorizing, stalking, and unlawful disruption of the operation of a school.
This story has more details:
4WWL: UNO threat suspect arrested and identified; classes will resume Tuesday.
A former University of New Orleans student is under arrest for alleged terrorizing.
The New Orleans Police Department identified the suspect as 22-year-old Karam Mohammed Alhatel. Mohammed Alhatel was charged with terrorizing, stalking, and unlawful disruption of the operation of a school.
In an email to students and faculty, UNO President John Nicklow said the threats were serious enough to close campus on Monday.
According to Nicklow, last week Mohammed Alhatel entered a classroom and acted in an erratic and disruptive manner.
Sources on campus say he threatened a teacher in the chemistry department and a group of students in the library.
Nicklow’s email also indicated UNO police officers discovered a video posted Friday on one of the suspect’s social media accounts, showing him purchasing an assault-style rifle at a gun store, and additional photographs of him brandishing the firearm were posted across the suspect….
UNO officials said local and federal authorities kept tabs on Mohammed Alhatel over the weekend.
Officers from New Orleans, Jefferson Parish, and the U.S. Marshal’s office arrested him overnight.
It certainly sounds like the university and law enforcement averted a possible tragedy.
Hingham, Massachusetts Apple Store Crash
It’s now 20 injured. Fourteen ambulances and multiple fire trucks were called to the scene. Injured people were taken to at least three different hospitals, some–presumably the most serious cases–were sent to Boston and Worcester. Some victims were still waiting for surgery this morning.
The man accused of driving an SUV into a Hingham, Massachusetts, Apple store, killing one person and injuring 20 others, has been identified as Bradley Rein, a prosecutor’s office tweeted Tuesday.
The 53-year-old has been charged with “reckless homicide by motor vehicle,” the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office said in the tweet. Rein was arrested Monday night and is scheduled to be arraigned in Hingham District Court, the tweet said without providing a date and time.
First responders described a chaotic scene after the SUV crashed through the window of the busy Apple store in the town about 20 miles southeast of Boston. Emergency services responded to the Derby Street Shops following 911 calls for help around 10:45 a.m., Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz said.
A dark-colored SUV smashed through the store’s window at an undetermined speed and hit people, Cruz said.
“First responders found coworkers and other bystanders rendering first aid to multiple victims in need of urgent care,” his office said in a news release.
People were injured in front of the store and inside it, including victims who were pinned against the wall by the vehicle, Hingham Fire Chief Steve Murphy said. Seven fire engines and 14 ambulances responded, he said.
Police identified Kevin Bradley, 65, of New Jersey, as the victim killed at the scene, Cruz said, noting the investigation into the crash is active and ongoing.
There were “life and limb-threatening injuries.” One story I read said that a witness estimated the SUV was going about 60mph when it drove into the store.
First responder Dr. William Tollefsen, from South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, described using a restaurant near the Apple store to triage people and keep them out of the cold. The injured included people with head trauma and mangled limbs, he said.
South Shore was treating patients for life- and limb-threatening injuries, some of whom were still awaiting surgery Monday afternoon, said Dr. Christopher Burns, the hospital’s chief of trauma. The medical center was treating 17 patients from the crash as of Monday evening, Cruz’s office told CNN. Two other injured people initially taken to South Shore were transferred to hospitals in Boston.
More details on the driver from the Quincy Patriot Ledger: ‘It was an accident’: Driver says his foot was stuck on accelerator in fatal Derby Street crash.
A 53-year-old man told police his foot got stuck on the accelerator of his 2019 Toyota 4Runner on Monday, causing him to plow into the Apple store at Derby Street Shops. One person was killed and at least 19 more were injured, including five who were taken to hospitals in Boston.
Bradley Rein, of 108 Bickerton Way in Hingham, faced Judge Heather Bradley in Hingham District Court on Tuesday on charges of motor vehicle homicide by reckless driving, a felony, and reckless driving, a misdemeanor. At his arraignment, bail was set at $100,000.
He is not allowed to drive while the case is pending, and he must seek permission of the court to leave the state. He is due back in court Dec. 22….
State Trooper Andrew Chiachio wrote in a police report, “While driving in the area of Barnes and Noble, Mr. Rein stated his right foot became stuck on the accelerator and his vehicle accelerated. Mr. Rein stated he used his left foot to try to brake, but was unable to stop the vehicle and crashed through the front of the Apple store.”
Chiachio said Rein told him he was at Derby Street Shops to repair a lens in his eyeglasses, which he was not wearing at the time of the crash. He was given an alcohol breath test at the police station, which registered a 0.00% blood alcohol level.
More Stories to check out today
The New York Times: Army Veteran Went Into ‘Combat Mode’ to Disarm the Club Q Gunman.
The Washington Post: From Europe, Trump special counsel takes over Mar-a-Lago, Jan. 6 probes.
The Bulwark: Mike Pence’s Day-By-Day Account of Trump’s Pressure Campaign Against Him.
The Washington Post: Graham at Ga. grand jury for testimony in probe of 2020 election.
The Daily Beast: Court Docs Rip Into DOJ for ‘Fiddling Away’ on Matt Gaetz Case.
The New York Times: Chaos on Twitter Leads a Group of Journalists to Start an Alternative.
Jennifer Rubin at The Washington Post: Beware, DeSantis is as much a threat to America as Trump.
NBC News: Ian was one of the most lethal hurricanes in decades. Many of the deaths were preventable.
Vox: How one man quietly stitched the American safety net over four decades.
Ronald Brownstein at CNN: Why fewer states than ever could pick the next president.
That’s it for me. What stories are you following today?
Mostly Monday Reads: The American Gun Fetish
Posted: November 21, 2022 Filed under: just because | Tags: American Gun Fetish, Colorado Springs Shooter, Kenosha Shooter, Lax Gun Laws, LBGTQ Community, No more safe places 21 Comments
Madonna with a Machine Gun, Kārlis Padegs, 1932
Good Day Sky Dancers!
I’m not exactly sure how the connection from being your basic angry, miserable guy turned into being your basic angry, miserable guy who goes out to kill a bunch of people developed in this country. It seems to be a feature today, and it’s a bad one. The Colorado Springs shooter is a prime example of what happens when law enforcement ignores red laws, and a community stirs hate and resentment towards a minority community. It’s hard to feel safe anyway with that kind of shitpot stirred vigorously by right-wing politicians and more than a few churches.
The Q Club Shooting in Colorado is not the first of its kind. It will not be the last of its kind, given the current political and social environment we’re enduring right now. “Club Q shooting follows year of bomb threats, drag protests, anti-trans bills. Right-wing demonstrators have increasingly mobilized over the past year against the LGBTQ community, experts say.” This analysis was written by Casey Parks for The Washington Post.
In the hours after the shooting, investigators did not say what led someone to open fire Saturday night in a Colorado gay bar, killing at least five people and injuring 25 others. But LGBTQ advocates across the country believe a surge of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and laws is at least partially to blame.
“When politicians and pundits keep perpetuating tropes, insults, and misinformation about the trans and LGBTQ+ community, this is a result,” Colorado Rep. Brianna Titone (D) tweeted Sunday.
Titone, Colorado’s first openly trans legislator, and the chair of the state’s LGBTQ legislative caucus, said anti-LGBTQ lawmakers, including one of her colleagues, have used hateful rhetoric to directly incite attacks against LGBTQ people.
Though the most recent FBI data shows the number of hate crimes against LGBTQ people remained relatively flat between 2008 and 2020, an independent analysis by the research group Crowd Counting Consortium shows that right-wing demonstrators have increasingly mobilized over the past year against the LGBTQ community.
Already this year, armed protesters and right-wing groups such as the Proud Boys have used intimidating tactics to disrupt drag-related events in Texas, Nevada and Oregon, as well as other states. Children’s hospitals across the United States are facing growing threats of violence, including bomb threats, driven by an online anti-LGBTQ campaign attacking the facilities for providing care to transgender kids and teens. And in October, a man attacked a transgender librarian in Idaho before yelling homophobic slurs and attempting to hit two women with his car. Idaho is one of 18 states that does not have hate crime protections for LGBTQ people, though many local law enforcement agencies still track those crimes.
Every year, at every event that celebrates this beloved community in New Orleans, the most fanatical white evangelical men that are angry and miserable goosestep into town. I guess they have to find something else to do with their time since there’s now a limited number of women’s clinics for them to stalk.
According to Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, the executive director of the National Center of Transgender Equality, a quarter of those violent deaths happened in Texas and Florida. Those states have proposed dozens of anti-trans laws and regulations in the past two years or put in place anti-trans policies, such as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s order to investigate parents for child abuse if they provide gender-affirming care for their children.
“Anti-trans legislation, fearmongering, and disinformation put the trans community and trans lives at risk,” Heng-Lehtinen tweeted.
If I have been quieter than usual this weekend, it’s because of this, although I’m not on campus this semester.
https://twitter.com/UofNO/status/1594486155395096578
This followed today.
Master of Calamarca, Archangel with Gun, Asiel Timor Dei, before 1728
I suppose I should be thankful that the Campus police are actual police with all the authority of the New Orleans Police Department. They knew what to do and prevented it. So here is what the news is reporting. This is from a message from UNO President John Nicklow.
“I want to provide you with more details on the reason for today’s campus closure. Last week, a former student entered a classroom and acted in an erratic and disruptive manner. Once this was reported to the UNO Department of Public Safety, our officers responded immediately and began an investigation into the individual, which led to a confirmation of suspicious activity. Our officers discovered a video posted Friday on one of the suspect’s social media accounts, showing him purchasing an assault style rifle at a gun store. Additional photographs of him brandishing the firearm were posted across the suspect’s social media accounts. It was at this point that multi-agency surveillance of the suspect began and continued throughout the weekend. The suspect’s off-campus location was continuously monitored, and thus no imminent threat to campus existed. We were not able to share this information with you until now because it would have compromised the investigation.
“The UNO Department of Public Safety worked closely with the New Orleans Police Department’s Intelligence Division, Violent Offender Warrant Squad (VOWS) and the 3rd Police District to secure arrest warrants for Terrorizing, Stalking and Unlawful Disruption of the Operation of a School. The New Orleans Police Department’s Intelligence Division and U.S. Marshals Task Force conducted a joint operation during the overnight hours with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, which arrested the suspect without incident. The suspect is in custody and no longer poses a potential threat to the UNO community or the larger community.
Information about the shooter in Colorado Springs is turning into a rather sordid, creepy tail. This is from Heavy. His mother’s father is a Maga State Senator in California who praised the January 6 Insurrection. The shooter was known to the police, and his mother thought he had mental health issues. The Shooter did not have a social media presence, but the mother did.
Online records show Aldrich living at an apartment complex address in Colorado Springs. Online records indicate he shares that address with his mother, Laura Voepel, 44, who works as a support engineer and previously lived in California.
Laura has praised her father, outgoing California state Representative Randy Voepel, in Facebook posts, writing, “Keep up the work Dad~~ You work hard to improve our lives and a lot of us take notice.”
On Aldrich’s birthday, Laura Voepel wrote on Facebook, “My boys 15 birthday! He got head to toe (6’3″) ghillie military suit ànd he is surfing cloud 9.” She tagged her mother, Pamela Pullen, in the post, who Ancestry.com records confirm is Randy’s ex-wife.
Heavy was not able to find any social media profiles for Aldrich. But Facebook posts made by his mother reveal he had been dealing with mental health issues. She posted often about her son in a Facebook group for women involved in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Colorado Springs area.
In one post in July 2021, she asked for help finding a criminal defense attorney: “Hello Sisters. Does anyone know of a fantastic defense attorney? I ask this with a heavy heart but my family really needs some help at this time. We have cash to retain good counsel. Thank you.” Her post about needing a criminal defense attorney came just after her son was arrested.
Boy with a Flintlock Rifle, 1817, Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun
The police and criminal justice response to his arrest for threatening his mother with a possible bomb were underwhelming, to say the least. This is from ABC News. “Gay club shooting suspect evaded Colorado’s red flag gun law. The suspect in the Colorado Springs gay nightclub shooting allegedly threatened his mother with a homemade bomb last year.”
A year and a half before he was arrested in the Colorado Springs gay nightclub shooting that left five people dead, Anderson Lee Aldrich allegedly threatened his mother with a homemade bomb, forcing neighbors in surrounding homes to evacuate while the bomb squad and crisis negotiators talked him into surrendering.
Yet despite that scare, there’s no public record that prosecutors moved forward with felony kidnapping and menacing charges against Aldrich, or that police or relatives tried to trigger Colorado’s “red flag” law that would have allowed authorities to seize the weapons and ammo the man’s mother says he had with him.
Gun control advocates say Aldrich’s June 2021 threat is an example of a red flag law ignored, with potentially deadly consequences. While it’s not clear the law could have prevented Saturday night’s attack — such gun seizures can be in effect for as little as 14 days and be extended by a judge in six-month increments — they say it could have at least slowed Aldrich and raised his profile with law enforcement.
“We need heroes beforehand — parents, co-workers, friends who are seeing someone go down this path,” said Colorado state Rep. Tom Sullivan, whose son was killed in the Aurora theater shooting and sponsored the state’s red flag law passed in 2019. “This should have alerted them, put him on their radar.”
But the law that allows guns to be removed from people deemed dangerous to themselves or others has seldom been used in the state, particularly in El Paso County, home to Colorado Springs, where the 22-year-old Aldrich allegedly went into Club Q with a long gun at just before midnight and opened fire before he was subdued by patrons.
Gwenn Seemel, 2018, Terrorist
One year after killing two people and injuring another because he felt threatened by the bad libtards, manchild Kyle Rittenhouse is talking about running for Congress. Who could forget his pudgy face and that poorly-acted crying jag? This is from The Chicago Tribune. ” One year after acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse, the battle to define his public image rages on.” Why does he have a public image, you may ask? Well, he’s still a celeb in the right-wing gun-fetish Republican Party and talking about a run for Congress.
Rittenhouse was just 17 when he shot two men to death and wounded a third during a night of unrest in 2020 that followed the police shooting of Jacob Blake, who is Black.
Kenosha County prosecutors charged him with homicide but he claimed self-defense. At the end of a 15-day trial, jurors declared him not guilty.
His lead defense attorney told reporters at the time he hoped Rittenhouse would keep a low profile following the verdict, but that hasn’t happened. Despite initially expressing a reluctance to be “a cause person,” Rittenhouse has embraced the attention, becoming a figurehead in conservative politics and the gun rights movement.
“I’m just getting warmed up,” he told a critic on Twitter earlier this month. “Get comfortable.”
But while Rittenhouse promises to bring down the legal hammer on his detractors, he remains entangled in his own court proceedings. The family of Anthony Huber, one of the men Rittenhouse killed, is suing him and a host of Wisconsin law enforcement officials for allegedly conspiring to deprive Huber of his constitutional rights.
Rittenhouse’s attorneys filed papers in August trying to get him dismissed from the case, arguing among other things that a private detective who scoured the country for the teen delivered a summons to a home in Florida where Rittenhouse doesn’t actually live (the Tribune couldn’t reach Rittenhouse for comment, but his Twitter page gives his location as Texas).
A judge has yet to rule on the motion.
Rittenhouse and his backers are raising money for both legal fights. The Media Accountability Project, a Nevada-based LLC Rittenhouse introduced on the Fox News show “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” is accepting donations “to hold the media accountable in court for their malicious lies, defamation and propaganda.”
The teen has also endorsed a video game called “Kyle Rittenhouse’s Turkey Shoot” that he said is meant to fund his lawsuits. Footage of the game, which is supposed to be released before Thanksgiving, shows an avatar that resembles Rittenhouse firing at “fake news turkeys.”
A GiveSendGo campaign is raising money for his defense in the Huber lawsuit, as is the National Foundation for Gun Rights, which depicts the case as a battle for the Second Amendment.
William Burroughs, Shooting Art
As for the Congressional run, this is from HuffPost. “Kyle Rittenhouse Meets With GOP House Caucus. The Kenosha shooter appeared to stoke his right-wing celebrity ambitions with a weird Capitol photo. “ Why wouldn’t you want to be called a shooter with this glam treatment?
Rittenhouse repeated his self-serving defense and held a question-and-answer session, The Hill reported. He has been hailed as a right-wing celebrity since the killings.
The caucus is chaired by Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). Rittenhouse posed for a photo with both of them, and with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).
He also posed for a wild Twitter photo in front of the Capitol, writing: “T- 5 years until I can call this place my office?” Given Twitter’s meltdown, it was unclear whether it was an actual message, though his profile did have a “verified” blue check.
Earlier this month, a federal judge in Texas declared that it was unconstitutional to prohibit domestic abusers under a protective order from having a gun.
It’s one of the latest examples in a troubling trend initiated by the Supreme Court’s June ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which signaled the potential for a wave of court-mandated rollbacks of gun regulations. An oft-overlooked consequence of this is how relaxing gun laws prevents police officers from doing their jobs properly.
In Bruen, the court held New York’s licensing of handguns violated the Second Amendment. The state had required applicants for concealed carry permits to show “proper cause,” or, in other words, a specific need for a gun. As of the time of the ruling, six other jurisdictions — including Maryland, where one of us is from — had similar “proper cause” rules regulating gun carrying, all of which were imperiled by the Supreme Court’s ruling.
So far this year, officers have seized more than 2,200 guns illegally carried on the streets of Baltimore. Without Maryland’s gun licensing law, which relies on a proper cause standard, officers are left with a dangerously vague uncertainty about whether to approach someone carrying a gun to determine whether it is illegal or not — let alone remove the gun from the streets. This means police will be required to make more split-second decisions that risk tragic outcomes on both sides of the badge.
Four months after the Bruen ruling, a West Virginia judge invalidated part of a federal law prohibiting the possession of a firearm with an altered or removed serial number. Those serial numbers are critical to helping police solve crimes and distinguish responsible gun owners from violent criminals.
As the tide moves in the direction of more guns on the streets and fewer regulations, police chiefs are the first to point out that this trend makes their jobs more difficult and puts officers at a higher risk of injury or death. That danger extends to everyone in the community — children, the elderly and passersby on the street.
Rather than reserving their firearms for the most dangerous situations, law enforcement officers now have to worry that nearly every civilian has the means to use deadly force. Tensions will rise, and trust will decline.
My first duel [frog with gun]
I’m unsure how we stop turning every public location into the OK Corral. I’m pretty sure MTG and the one from Colorado got their seats for being big gun fetishists, among other unappealing personality traits. The MAGA cheerleaders aren’t going anywhere, it seems. Yet, a majority out there wants this madness to end. This is from Steny Hoyer’s site. The Poll was taken in May of 2022.
A POLITICO/Morning Consult poll out this morning shows that Americans overwhelmingly favor common-sense legislation to address gun violence.
- 88% of Americans support requiring background checks on all gun sales.
- In 2021, House Democrats passed H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act, which would require background checks on all gun sales.
- House Democrats also passed H.R. 1446, the Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2021, which would close the ‘Charleston Loophole’ and work to prevent firearms from reaching the hands of prohibited gun owners.
- 84% of Americans support preventing sales of all firearms to people reported as dangerous to law enforcement by a mental health provider.
- During the first week of the June work period, the House will take up legislation to enact a national Red Flag law that would prevent those who pose a threat to themselves or others from being able to legally possess a firearm.
Senate Republicans should listen to the American people and work with Democrats on common-sense gun legislation that will take important steps towards ending gun violence in America.
That sounds like a good start.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Lazy Caturday Reads
Posted: November 19, 2022 Filed under: cat art, caturday, just because | Tags: Dobbs decision, DOJ, Elon Musk, Hobby Lobby decision, Jack Smith, January 6 investigation of Trump, Mar-a-Lago documents investigation, Merrick Garland, obstruction of justice, Special Counsel, Supreme Court, Twitter 15 Comments
By surrealist artist Ophelia Redpath, 1965
Happy Caturday!!
I wish I had kept a record of my sleep patterns and accompanying political events over the past 7 years. I know I rarely slept through the night during the first couple of years of Trump’s “presidency.” I would stay up late, sleep a couple of hours and wake up at 3AM to obsessively check twitter for news, and still get up early the next day. Now I’m going through a period of time when I can’t get to sleep until very late–around 1:00-2:00AM–and then sleeping until 10:00 or 11:00AM. I’m also getting old–I’ll be 75 soon–and it takes me awhile to get going in the morning. Anyway, I slept until 10:00 today, so I’m once again very late in posting. If only we knew what is going to happen with the Trump investigations, maybe I would be able to go back to sleeping like a normal person.
As everyone knows by now, yesterday Merrick Garland announced the appointment of a special prosecutor to decide whether to indict Trump in the Mar-a-Lago documents and January 6 insurrection cases–including whether Trump has obstructed justice.
CNN: DOJ announces special counsel for Trump-related Mar-a-Lago and January 6 criminal investigations.
Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday appointed a special counsel to oversee the criminal investigations into the retention of national defense information at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and parts of the January 6, 2021, insurrection.
Both investigations implicate the conduct of Trump, who on Tuesday declared his candidacy in the 2024 presidential race, making him a potential rival of President Joe Biden.
“Based on recent developments, including the former president’s announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election, and the sitting president’s stated intention to be a candidate as well, I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel,” Garland said at the Justice Department on Friday.
Jack Smith, the former chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, where he investigated war crimes in Kosovo, will oversee the investigations….
The prosecutions of those who physically breached the US Capitol have been the most public aspect of the Justice Department’s January 6 probe, and those will remain under the purview of the US Attorney’s office in Washington, DC. But behind the scenes, prosecutors have subpoenaed scores of witnesses close to the former president for documents and testimony in the probe.
White Cat by Igor Galanin
“I intend to conduct the assigned investigations, and any prosecutions that may result from them, independently and in the best traditions of the Department of Justice,” Smith said in a statement Friday. “The pace of the investigations will not pause or flag under my watch. I will exercise independent judgment and will move the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate.” [….]
According to multiple sources, both the Mar-a-Lago investigation and the January 6 investigation around Trump are aiming to gather more information and bring witnesses into a federal grand jury in the coming weeks. Prosecutors sent out several new subpoenas related to both investigations in recent days, with quick return dates as early as next week.
Some of the witnesses being pursued in this round had not spoken to the investigators in these cases before, according to some of the sources.
Most of the TV/Twitter legal experts are saying this was a good decision by Garland. One dissenter is Neal Kaytal, who says it is a big mistake.
From Raw Story: Legal experts: Special counsel investigating Trump will move very quickly.
Former top DOJ official Andrew Weissmann believes that newly-appointed special counsel Jack Smith will move with haste in his investigations of former President Donald Trump.
Speaking with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, after the host said Smith may become the “most important prosecutor in human history,” Weissmann discussed his history with the new special prosecutor.
“So I’ve known Jack for decades,” Weissman said.
“I was the chief of the criminal division when he started in the U.S. Attorney’s office,” he explained.
“And Jack, as you noted, has had all sorts of positions that make him really perfect for this job in the sense of his experience, he’s a career prosecutor, he’s completely apolitical — in public integrity, they prosecuted Democrats and Republicans,” Weissmann said. “They don’t care, if you committed a crime, it doesn’t matter what party you’re in or whether you’re in no party.”
He noted he learned from Robert Mueller that “you can’t slow things down to use as an excuse not to move forward.”
“For people who are worried about this slowing down, I have the exact opposite reaction.”
Marcy Wheeler suggested another reason why Garland might have taken the step of appointing a special counsel:
I think that makes sense. Of course Trump and Republicans will still claim the investigations are political, and I’m pretty sure Garland knows that. This morning at Politico Playbook, Rachel Bade summarized the political reactions so far: A new special counsel sets Washington ablaze.
Attorney General MERRICK GARLAND’s decision to name a special counsel to helm DONALD TRUMP-related probes at the Justice Department roiled the political world on Friday.
In an afternoon statement delivered before cameras at Main Justice, Garland argued the appointment of veteran DOJ hand JACK SMITH was necessary given that Trump and JOE BIDEN could be facing off for the presidency in 2024. “Such an appointment underscores the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters,” Garland said.
Some good it did him. On cue, Republicans called foul — and rushed forward to defend an ex-president who had appeared to be losing his grip on the GOP following the party’s disappointing election performance.
By François Batet
AT MAR-A-LAGO … After 10 days of midterm recriminations, the announcement put Trump back in his most comfortable posture: portraying himself as the victim of his corrupt enemies. During a fancy black-tie affair at his Florida resort, Trump told Fox News’ Brooke Singman that he won’t participate in the probe and blasted the DOJ for the “worst politicization” of the department ever.
— “I have been proven innocent for six years on everything — from fake impeachments to [former special counsel ROBERT] MUELLER who found no collusion, and now I have to do it more?” Trump told them. “It is not acceptable. It is so unfair. It is so political.”
ON CAPITOL HILL … Rep. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-Ga.) tweeted that Republicans should “IMPEACH MERRICK GARLAND!” and insisted her party “refuse to appropriate any funding to Merrick Garland’s Special Counsel and defund any part of the DOJ acting on behalf of the Democrat party as a taxpayer funded campaign arm for the Democrat’s 2024 presidential nominee.”
— The latter is particularly noteworthy: It sets up a new and explosive spending clash that could easily prompt a government shutdown in the next Congress. Why? MTG and likeminded Trump loyalists will press KEVIN McCARTHY (or whoever else manages to become speaker) to toe a hard line while Democrats will absolutely refuse to defund the investigations. Watch this space.
IN LAS VEGAS … Even former Vice President MIKE PENCE blasted the special counsel appointment as “very troubling” during an appearance at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual meeting, according to another good-get interview by Fox’s Brooke Singman and Paul Steinhauser.
— “No one is above the law, but I am not sure it’s against the law to take bad advice from your lawyers,” he said. Pence went on to suggest that the DOJ has been politicized by Democrats and and to knock the FBI for conducting a raid on Mar-a-Lago to fish out classified information Trump had taken to his post-presidency residence. (Note that Smith won’t only be managing the documents probe, but Jan. 6-related matters as well.).
Bade notes that Republicans were all in on the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified documents while she was running for president. You can also read a bit of background on Jack Smith at The New York Times.
One more on the Smith appointment from Jennifer Rubin at The Washington Post: Merrick Garland was right to appoint a special counsel.
Advocates of swift action against Trump no doubt will be alarmed by the announcement, but there is less here than meets the eye. For starters, Smith needs no introduction to the Justice Department. He was appointed first assistant U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee in February 2015. Before that, he worked as head of the department’s Public Integrity Section and as investigation coordinator in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court. He also worked in the U.S. attorney’s office in the Eastern District of New York.
Hold That Tiger by Jeanette Lassen
Most important, the attorney general announced that the career staff who have been working on these cases will continue in their roles. That, Garland suggested, will mean the query will “not slow down.” Smith will make a recommendation to Garland on whether to prosecute Trump. Until then, Garland will have no direct supervision over Smith.
Did Garland need to wait until Trump’s campaign launch to make the appointment? Perhaps not, but so long as Trump was not an active candidate, there was little reason for Garland to step aside. Now that Trump is a potential opponent to Biden, Garland believes it is essential to add a layer of separation between himself and the line prosecutors.
Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe tells me, “Looking over Jack Smith’s decades of prosecutorial experience, it’s hard to imagine anyone better prepared to hit the ground running and to sew together whatever loose ends remain as he puts together a comprehensive prosecution of the leaders of the attempted coup, with the former president at its center, as well as a powerful prosecution of the former president for his theft of top secret documents as he absconded to Mar-a-Lago.” He adds that, while he previously “publicly urged that there was no need to appoint a special counsel, my principal concern was the need to avoid delay, and it appears that this appointment will solve that problem.”
Norman Eisen, who served as co-counsel to the House impeachment managers during Trump’s first impeachment, agrees. “I have no concern that a special counsel will shy away from charging, and Jack Smith has outstanding experience,” he tells me. Eisen also thinks the move will not cause much of a delay. He observes: “Mr. Smith should move with alacrity. Here, where any other American who had removed the even one classified document would be subject to likely prosecution, and where the former president took dozens, the rule of law demands fast action.”
In other news, The New York Times has an important story about a Supreme Court leak that–like the recent leak of the draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade–involves Justice Sam Alito: Former Anti-Abortion Leader Alleges Another Supreme Court Breach.
As the Supreme Court investigates the extraordinary leak this spring of a draft opinion of the decision overturning Roe v. Wade, a former anti-abortion leader has come forward claiming that another breach occurred in a 2014 landmark case involving contraception and religious rights.
In a letter to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and in interviews with The New York Times, the Rev. Rob Schenck said he was told the outcome of the 2014 case weeks before it was announced. He used that information to prepare a public relations push, records show, and he said that at the last minute he tipped off the president of Hobby Lobby, the craft store chain owned by Christian evangelicals that was the winning party in the case.
Both court decisions were triumphs for conservatives and the religious right. Both majority opinions were written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. But the leak of the draft opinion overturning the constitutional right to abortion was disclosed in the news media by Politico, setting off a national uproar. With Hobby Lobby, according to Mr. Schenck, the outcome was shared with only a handful of advocates….
Joan Barber, Girl stroking cat
The evidence for Mr. Schenck’s account of the breach has gaps. But in months of examining Mr. Schenck’s claims, The Times found a trail of contemporaneous emails and conversations that strongly suggested he knew the outcome and the author of the Hobby Lobby decision before it was made public.
Mr. Schenck, who used to lead an evangelical nonprofit in Washington, said he learned about the Hobby Lobby opinion because he had worked for years to exploit the court’s permeability. He gained access through faith, through favors traded with gatekeepers and through wealthy donors to his organization, abortion opponents whom he called “stealth missionaries.”
The minister’s account comes at a time of rising concerns about the court’s legitimacy. A majority of Americans are losing confidence in the institution, polls show, and its approval ratings are at a historic low. Critics charge that the court has become increasingly politicized, especially as a new conservative supermajority holds sway.
Read the rest at the New York Times.
From Georgia–NBC News reports that: In win for Democrats, Georgia judge allows early voting in Senate runoff on Saturday after Thanksgiving.
A Fulton County judge ruled Friday that the Georgia Secretary of State cannot prohibit counties from voting on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, a victory for the state Democratic Party and Sen. Raphael Warnock’s campaign.
The order comes after a brief legal battle between Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office and the Democratic Party of Georgia over the Dec. 6 Senate runoff between Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker.
Raffensperger, a Republican, had maintained that changes to Georgia voting laws meant that there could be no early voting on Nov. 26, the only Saturday when it would have been possible for Georgians to cast an early vote in the hotly contested race.
Democrats and Warnock’s campaign filed suit challenging Raffensperger’s determination, and Judge Thomas A. Cox agreed with their arguments in a ruling late Friday afternoon. “The Court finds that the absence of the Saturday vote will irreparably harm the Plaintiffs, their members, and constituents, and their preferred runoff candidate,” the judge wrote.
By Glenn Harrington
Raffensberger’s office will appeal the decision.
The dispute centers on a provision of Senate Bill 202, signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in March 2021, which stipulates early in-person voting must end the Friday before the runoff. This year, that would be Friday, Dec. 2.
The law also stipulates early in-person voting not be held on any Saturday that follows a “public or legal holiday” on the preceding Thursday or Friday. Raffensperger contended that meant there would be no early in-person voting on Nov. 26, the Saturday following Thanksgiving. (It could not be held this weekend because the general election vote is not being certified until Nov. 21.)
Attorneys for the Democrats and Warnock argued the section of the law Raffensperger cited applies to primaries and general elections, but not to runoffs. Cox agreed.
Of course there is tons of news about Twitter and Musk. Here are some links to check out if you’re interested:
Yoel Roth at the New York Times: I Was the Head of Trust and Safety at Twitter. This Is What Could Become of It.
The Guardian: How Elon Musk’s Twitter reign magnified his brutal management style.
The Washington Post: Musk summons engineers to Twitter HQ as millions await platform’s collapse.
The New York Times: Elon Musk’s Twitter Teeters on the Edge After Another 1,200 Leave.
What are your thoughts on all this? What other stories are you following today?
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