Last Call For The Devils Already Down In Georgia

As I have been predicting for months now, Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis is going to find indicting Donald Trump or any of his minions nearly impossible because she almost certainly will be stopped by Georgia Republicans under GOP Gov. Brian Kemp.

 

To Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Atlanta, several bills in the Georgia legislature that would make it easier to remove local prosecutors are racist and perhaps retaliatory for her ongoing investigation of former President Donald J. Trump.

To the Republican sponsors of the bills, they are simply a way to ensure that prosecutors enforce the laws of the state, whether they agree with them or not.

Two of the measures under consideration would create a new state oversight board that could punish or remove prosecutors for loosely defined reasons, including “willful misconduct.” A third would sharply reduce the number of signatures required to seek a recall of a district attorney.

The proposals are part of a broader push by conservative lawmakers around the country to rein in prosecutors whom they consider too liberal, and who in some cases are refusing to prosecute low-level drug crimes or enforce strict new anti-abortion laws.

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida last year suspended a Democratic prosecutor in the Tampa area, Andrew Warren, after Mr. Warren said, among other things, that he would not prosecute anyone seeking abortions. The Republican-controlled Pennsylvania House voted in November to impeach Larry Krasner, the liberal district attorney in Philadelphia. And a Republican-backed bill currently under consideration in the Indiana legislature would allow a special prosecuting attorney, appointed by the state attorney general, to step in if a local prosecutor is “categorically refusing to prosecute certain crimes.”

The debate in Georgia is unfolding amid mounting concerns over urban crime, particularly in Atlanta. But Ms. Willis has been a centrist law-and-order prosecutor who has targeted some prominent local rappers in a sprawling gang case. She is also part of the changing face of justice in Georgia: The state now has a record number of minority prosecutors — 14 of them — up from five in 2020, the year Ms. Willis, who is Black, was voted into office.

And of course, there is the Trump inquiry, the latest accelerant to the partisan conflagrations that have consumed the increasingly divided state for years. The subject of Ms. Willis’s investigation is whether Mr. Trump and his allies tried to flout Georgia’s democratic process with numerous instances of interference after his narrow 2020 election loss in the state.

Ms. Willis has said she is considering building a racketeering or conspiracy case. Anticipation is rising, particularly since the forewoman of a special grand jury charged with looking into the matter spoke publicly last month, saying that the jury’s final report, which is still largely under wraps, recommended indictments for more than a dozen people.

Ms. Willis must now decide whether to bring a case to a regular grand jury, which can issue indictments. A decision ‌could come as early as ‌May.

In the Republican-controlled legislature, as of Friday afternoon, the prospects seemed favorable for the bills creating an oversight committee. They were dimmer for the recall election bill, which would lower the number of registered voters required to sign a petition to prompt a recall of prosecutors from the current 30 percent, which is standard for local elected offices, to just 2 percent. The measure was introduced after some high-profile Trump supporters in Georgia promoted the idea of a recall campaign against Ms. Willis, even though such an effort would be unlikely to succeed in Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold.

Those supporters include United States Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who tweeted in August that Ms. Willis was using taxpayer funds “for her personal political witch hunt against Pres Trump, but will NOT prosecute crime plaguing Atlanta!”

Ms. Willis, who first described the bills as racist in a State Senate hearing last month, repeated the accusation in an interview at her downtown Atlanta office this week, pointing out that the majority of Georgians now live within the jurisdictions of the 14 minority prosecutors.

“For the hundreds of years we’ve had prosecutors, this has been unnecessary,” Ms. Willis said, referring to the bills. “But now all of a sudden this is a priority. And it is racist.”

Lawmakers have fired back. At the hearing last month, State Senator Bill Cowsert, a Republican who is the brother-in-law of Gov. Brian Kemp, said, “For you to come in here and try to make this about racism, that this bill is directed at any district attorney or solicitor because of racism, is absurd, and it’s offensive, and it’s a racist statement on its own.”

Senator Brian Strickland, a Republican who was presiding over the meeting, told Ms. Willis, “You’re being emotional.”

Lawmakers have insisted the new legislative push is unrelated to the Trump investigation. In an interview this week, State Senator Randy Robertson, a Republican sponsoring one of the oversight panel bills, said the legislation was inspired by the case of Mark Jones, a prosecutor from Mr. Robertson’s district who was imprisoned in 2021 for public corruption.

“Leading up to that, everybody was kind of scrambling around, saying, ‘How do we — you know, this guy’s doing a terrible job, how do we get rid of him?’” said Mr. Robertson, adding that existing remedies were insufficient. “There was really no avenue for individuals to go to.”

 

I nearly guarantee these measures will be passed and signed into law by Gov. Deal, and I guarantee you that Georgia Republicans will attempt to remove DA Willis from office. They will have to in order to stop Trump from going to state prison.

Willis will have to be disposed of. in some way, and this is the route they will take in the weeks and months ahead. The oversight board that I expect will be created later this spring will have one emergent goal, to remove Willis from office before she can indict Trump. Even if she does press charges, "willful misconduct" will be found and the case dropped.

I told you this was coming, and now the plan is pretty clear. Fani Willis's days as DA are numbered.

Wacky Fascism Round-Up, Con't

The fascists are at it again this week, folks. 

First, at the CPAC Shindig From Hell, Ben Shapiro minion Michael Knowles causally called for the "eradication' of transgender folks "from public life'.

 

THE RIGHT’S WAR on queer and trans people took center stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference as Daily Wire host Michael Knowles openly called for the public eradication of transgenderism. During his speech on Saturday, Knowles told the crowd, “For the good of society… transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology, at every level.”

A number of people on Twitter, including Media Matters’ John Knefel and Harvard Law Cyber Clinic’s Alejandra Caraballo, called his remarks genocidal. Tragically, Knowles’ ideology is right in line with Republican politicians who have enacted or introduced bans on drag performances, restrictions on transgender health care, bills that would ban trans people from using the bathroom corresponding with their gender identity, and laws like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” that bars teachers from teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity. The Movement Advancement Project (MAP), a group that tracks LGBTQ legislation, described these efforts as an ongoing “war against LGBTQ people in America and their very right and ability to openly exist.”

In his speech, Knowles used a convoluted line of thinking and false logic while trying to prove his horrifying point that trans people should not exist. “There can be no middle way in dealing with transgenderism. It can be all or nothing,” he said. “If transgenderism is true, if men really can become women, then it’s true for everybody of all ages. If transgenderism is false — as it is — if men really can’t become women — as they cannot — then it’s false for everybody too. And if it’s false, then we should not indulge it, especially when that indulgence requires taking away the rights and customs of many people. It if is false, then for the good of society — and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion — then transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology, at every level.”

 

And if you think "But federal law protects people from discrimination" like this, I have news for you from Alaska, that's now optional too.

In June 2020, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that workplace discrimination against people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity was illegal, Alaska quickly moved to follow suit.

It published new guidelines in 2021 saying Alaska’s LGBTQ protections now extended beyond the workplace to housing, government practices, finance and “public accommodation.” It updated the website of the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights to explicitly say it was illegal to discriminate against someone because of that person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

The executive director for the state commission co-wrote an essay describing the ruling as a “sea change under Alaska law for LGBTQ+ individuals’ rights to be free from discrimination.”

But a year later, the commission quietly reversed that position. It deleted language from the state website promising equal protections for transgender and gay Alaskans against most categories of discrimination, and it began refusing to investigate complaints. Only employment-related complaints would now be accepted, and investigators dropped any non-employment LGBTQ civil rights cases they had been working on.

An investigation by the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica found the decision had been requested by a conservative Christian group and was made the week of the Republican primary for governor, in which Gov. Mike Dunleavy was criticized for not being conservative enough. The commission made the change on the advice of Attorney General Treg Taylor and announced it publicly via its Twitter feed — which currently has 31 followers — on Election Day.

The LGBTQ advocacy nonprofit Identity Alaska called the reversal “state-sponsored discrimination.”

The group noted that discrimination against LGBTQ people can occur in a variety of domains, including housing, financing and other decisions by the state. “The real-world consequences of these policies are harms to LGBTQIA+ Alaskans,” Identity Alaska’s board said in a written statement to the Daily News and ProPublica.

 

In Florida, GOP Gov. Ron Desantis is openly expanding the state's "Don't Say Gay' laws that would make pronouns illegal.

 

Florida legislators have proposed a spate of new laws that would reshape K-12 and higher education in the state, from requiring teachers to use pronouns matching children’s sex as assigned at birth to establishing a universal school choice voucher program.

The half-dozen bills, filed by a cast of GOP state representatives and senators, come shortly before the launch of Florida’s legislative session Tuesday. Other proposals in the mix include eliminating college majors in gender studies, nixing diversity efforts at universities and job protections for tenured faculty, strengthening parents’ ability to veto K-12 class materials and extending a ban on teaching about gender and sexuality — from third grade up to eighth grade.

The legislation has already drawn protest from Democratic politicians, education associations, free speech groups and LGBTQ advocates, who say the bills will restrict educators’ ability to instruct children honestly, harm transgender and nonbinary students and strip funding from public schools.

“It really is further and further isolating LGBTQ students,” said Sarah Warbelow, legal director for LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign. “It’s making it hard for them to receive the full support that schools should be giving every child.”

Irene Mulvey, president of the American Association of University Professors, warned that the legislation — especially the bill that would prevent students from majoring in certain topics — threatens to undermine academic freedom.

“The state telling you what you can and cannot learn, that is inconsistent with democracy,” Mulvey said. “It silences debate, stifles ideas and limits the autonomy of educational institutions which … made American higher education the envy of the world.”

 

They're not stopping at making trans kids illegal in schools, either. 

A proposed bill making its way through the Florida State Senate would allow the state "emergency jurisdiction" over children who receive or are "at risk of" receiving gender-affirming care — or if their parent receives it themselves.

Senate Bill 254, introduced Friday by State Senator Clay Yarborough, would grant the court authority to take emergency custody of kids under the same statute that protects them from domestic violence and abuse.

The state could take temporary custody of children if "it is necessary in an emergency to protect the child because the child, or a sibling or parent of the child" is "at risk of or is being subjected to the provision of sex reassignment prescriptions or procedures," according to the proposed bill text.

The proposed bill defines sex reassignment prescriptions or procedures as hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and surgeries or procedures that "affirm a person's perception of his or her sex if that perception is inconsistent with the person's sex" at birth.

The court would also be granted "jurisdiction to vacate, stay, or modify a child custody determination of a court of another state to protect the child from the risk of being subjected to the provision of sex-reassignment prescriptions or procedures," according to the proposed bill text. "The court must vacate, stay, or modify the child custody determination to the extent necessary to protect the child from the provision of such prescriptions or procedures."

 

We're getting to the point where Florida and other fascist regimes are trying to make LGBTQ+ kids illegal, and trans kids specifically, like Texas is trying to do to all trans folks, no matter what age.

When they screech about 'eradicating' trans folks from public life, this is what they mean. Lives will be lost, and that's exactly what these monsters want.

 

Sunday Long Read: The Suck, 20 Years Later

Our Sunday Long Read this week has Rolling Stone's Spencer Ackerman taking a brutally honest look at the Iraq War, which began 20 years ago this month and defined the entire Millennial generation. How we got here, what we did, and where we're going all comes back to America's disastrous response to invading the wrong country over September 11th, and how we live in the Age of Gruft today.

THE QUOTE THAT would secure Jim Mattis’ reputation as the most celebrated Marine general of his generation came during meetings he hadn’t wanted to attend. It was April 2004, a half-mile east of the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which had exploded in an insurrection that threatened to doom the American occupation after barely a year. Mattis hadn’t wanted to take Fallujah, recognizing that flattening the City of Mosques would throw gasoline on a smoldering nationwide insurrection. But he followed White House-pushed orders to invade, and after roughly a week of intense urban fighting — leaving 39 U.S. troops dead, an estimated 616 Iraqi civilians killed, and Fallujah untaken — he followed orders to stop.

The first order was stupid, he thought, but combining it with the second was risible. It sent the message that America was not only idiotic during a crucial moment of challenge but also weak. Still, no matter how disastrous the order, no Marine general would ever resign his command as his Marines went through such a crucible, so Mattis reached for a different kind of weapon: his mouth.

In his 2019 memoir, Call Sign Chaos, Mattis recounts sitting down to discuss the future of Fallujah with local notables enlisted to guarantee its security. One of the sheikhs, evidently frustrated, “demanded” to know when the Americans would leave. Mattis replied that he had bought property on the Euphrates River, where he would “marry one of your daughters and retire there.” Then he warned the Iraqis: “I come in peace. I didn’t bring artillery. But I’m pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I’ll kill you all.”

It was quintessential Mattis: a threat of ultra-violence wrapped in a wit quick enough to make him as quotatious as Shaquille O’Neal. As reports of the comment spread, Mattis became something of a folk hero in American military circles and back home. One of his nicknames, much promoted by journalists, was “Warrior Monk,” emphasizing not only his martial expertise but also his devotion to his craft. Years later, the “kill you all” line would take pride of place in an adoring Twitter hashtag, #Mattisisms, celebrating not so much his deeds as his attitude.

The adulation obscured the fact that Mattis’ swagger didn’t really work. “The sheikhs did not act on my warning,” Mattis writes in Call Sign Chaos. “They were allowing their sons to be recruited by the insurgents while they were talking to me — unwittingly abrogating their own authority.” Maybe. Or perhaps they didn’t like a foreign invader pledging to fuck their daughters and kill everyone they know.

The Iraq War was supposed to showcase American potency after 9/11. But the fuck-around stage gave way within months to a finding-out stage that lasted for years. A war partially predicated on dealing a lethal blow to terrorism instead prompted the creation of the Al Qaeda affiliate that would become the so-called Islamic State. America’s 100-plus years of experience with imperial policing were no match for widespread Iraqi rejectionism. At home, the humiliations of the War on Terror were political fuel for those who said America needed to be made great again. As we approach the 20th anniversary of one of the most unjust and calamitous wars the U.S. ever waged, #Mattisisms read like a way for Americans to save face amid self-inflicted disasters that revealed their weakness.

Mattis, who through a spokesperson declined an interview request, doesn’t even crack the top 30 list of people culpable for the Iraq War. As a division commander, he was several rungs down from the decision-makers of George W. Bush’s administration. Mattis’ tour ended months before the Marines began another operation to take Fallujah — a grueling, bloody, urban battle that has passed into Corps legend. Yet his example is illustrative of an age of American hubris. Even when Mattis saw through the pretexts of the war — he suggests in his memoir that Saddam Hussein was “boxed in” before the offensive even began — he, like most officers, chose to serve rather than walk away, and expressed greater displeasure at the prospect of withdrawal from the war than the initial invasion. Ten years later, he was no more an obstacle when he joined the board of another doomed-to-fail enterprise based on deception.

That company was the now infamous Theranos, of con artist Elizabeth Holmes fame, and later still, Mattis became Trump's Pentagon chief. 

The biggest con operation in US history, leading to two more historic cons, all with Mad Dog Mattis involved.

It was always about the grift. We trained a generation to do it. Is it any wonder then why America is just one or two more con artist circus shows away from military state fascism?