The NC GOP Just Stole Your Freedom

A frightening provision in the NC GOP's state budget passed last month includes funding and authorization for a new police force under control of the state's legislative leaders to investigate, search without a warrant, and detain anyone getting public funds for "misuse" defined wholly by the same watchdog agency.

 

North Carolina’s new $300 billion state budget contains a provision that gives extraordinary investigative powers to a partisan oversight committee co-chaired by Senate Leader Phil Berger (R) and House Speaker Tim Moore (R).

The Joint Legislative Committee on Government Operations — or Gov Ops for short — is empowered to seize “any document or system of record” from anyone who works in or with state and local government during its investigations. The rule applies to contractors, subcontractors, and any other non-state entity “receiving, directly and indirectly, public funds,” including charities and state universities.

Moreover, Gov Ops staff will be authorized to enter “any building or facility” owned or leased by a state or non-state entity without a judicial warrant. This includes the private residences of subcontractors and contractors who run businesses out of their homes, lawmakers say.

Alarmingly, public employees under investigation will be required to keep all communication and requests “confidential.” They cannot alert their supervisor of the investigation nor consult with legal counsel. Violating this rule “shall be grounds for disciplinary action, including dismissal,” the law reads. Those who refuse to cooperate face jail time and fines of up to $1,000. In the event that Gov Ops searches a person’s home, these rules mean that the person 1) must keep the entry a secret, 2) cannot seek outside help (unless necessary for fulfilling the request, the law says), and 3) could face criminal charges if Gov Ops deems them uncooperative.

Moore and Berger claim these new rules are benign and necessary to exercise oversight of state funds. But Democrats and other critics say the changes turn Gov Ops into a “secret police force,” warning that the new policies have far-reaching implications.

During a legislative debate, State Senator Graig Meyer (D) asked lawmakers to consider a hypothetical scenario in which Gov Ops accesses personal health records like ultrasounds, which are required by the state to receive abortion pills. The Commission, Meyer said, could release these documents “to the public in a hearing.”

Gov Ops could also potentially enter and search “a law firm that receives state funding for court-appointed lawyers,” compromising “the sanctity of the attorney-client privilege,” State Representative Allison Dahle (D) said. Dahle added that these new powers will allow Gov Ops members to carry out grudges, empowering them to target political enemies as “backlash for previous actions.”

“I don’t think I have ever publicly called the GOP leadership ‘authoritarian’ because that’s not a term I take lightly, but their approach to seizing power and cover up their tracks now fits the bill,” Meyer told Popular Information. “The hypotheticals of how Gov Ops power could be abused are endless. Verbal assurances of restraint are inadequate; we need clear guardrails in law.” Meyer added that he “hope[s] that members of both parties can see what's happening before it's too late."

 

So who watches the watchmen here? Nobody, and that goes for the entire NC General Assembly as the same budget also exempts the state legislature from public records laws.

 

One provision repeals a law that required “communications regarding redistricting” be made publicly available when new legislative maps were adopted. As one of the most gerrymandered states in the nation, public records have been instrumental in challenging North Carolina’s redistricting maps. In 2022, a gerrymandering trial exposed a top Republican redistricting official for using “secret maps to help draft the state’s redistricting plan.”

This fall, Republican lawmakers are set to redraw voting maps after the new conservative majority on the state’s Supreme Court overturned a ruling and legalized partisan gerrymandering. Under the new budget, "lawmakers responding to public records requests will have no obligation to share any drafts or materials that guided their redistricting decisions."

Another provision allows North Carolina lawmakers to exempt themselves from public records requests. Current and former legislators, the law says, ”shall not be required to reveal or to consent to reveal any document, supporting document, drafting request, or information request made or received by that legislator while a legislator.” Under the state’s previous law, legislators were recognized as the custodians of their own records, but had to file a “specific exemption” to withhold records.

A third provision will allow legislators to “determine…whether a record is a public record.” Legislators can now decide to “retain, destroy, sell, loan, or otherwise dispose of'' their documents.

Moore claims that the change to public records requests seeks to “clarify the ambiguity in current statute and broadens the purview of what constitutes a public record, increasing transparency and efficiency in responsiveness from legislators.” Meanwhile, Berger alleges the provision was needed to “settle a dispute between the legislative services office and the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, which archives public records.” But the Department, through a spokesperson, said it was “not aware of any dispute,” the News & Observer reported. “This new provision appears to be the legislature entirely exempting themselves from the public records law and the archiving process that has retained government records throughout the state’s history,” the spokesperson told the local outlet.

Opponents say that these new rules will make it harder to uncover corruption and create accountability. In a letter to Berger and Moore, the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters expressed concerns that the changes will “permit the General Assembly to operate in secrecy, shielded from public view and accountability to those whom the members of the Assembly were elected to serve.” The North Carolina Press Association also objected to the new privileges, calling them a “significant threat to the public’s right to see public record.”

 

Combined, this means Republicans in my home state have a secret investigative force to use against Democrats, any records of use of that investigative power is automatically secret with exposing it leading to fines and possible dismissal, and the records of that closed.

Under no circumstances would that count as a democracy.

Red Caesar Or Orange Geezer?

As Jason Wilson at The Guardian reminds us, there's definitely a breed of right-wing nutjob that revels in the idea of a Trump second term where Democrats and their voters are punished endlessly by an authoritarian regime that tosses the Constitution and any notion of democracy out the window and reduces America to an authoritarian nightmare.

In June, rightwing academic Kevin Slack published a book-length polemic claiming that ideas that had emerged from what he called the radical left were now so dominant that the US republic its founders envisioned was effectively at an end.

Slack, a politics professor at the conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan, made conspiratorial and extreme arguments now common on the antidemocratic right, that “transgenderism, anti-white racism, censorship, cronyism … are now the policies of an entire cosmopolitan class that includes much of the entrenched bureaucracy, the military, the media, and government-sponsored corporations”.

In a discussion of possible responses to this conspiracy theory, he wrote that the “New Right now often discusses a Red Caesar, by which it means a leader whose post-Constitutional rule will restore the strength of his people”.

For the last three years, parts of the American right have advocated a theory called Caesarism as an authoritarian solution to the claimed collapse of the US republic in conference rooms, podcasts and the house organs of the extreme right, especially those associated with the Claremont Institute thinktank.

Though on the surface this discussion might seem esoteric, experts who track extremism in the US say that due to their influence on the Republican party, the rightwing intellectuals who espouse these ideas about the attractions of autocracy present a profound threat to American democracy.

Their calls for a “red Caesar” are now only growing louder as Donald Trump, whose supporters attempted to violently halt the election of Joe Biden in 2020, has assumed dominant frontrunner status in the 2024 Republican nomination race. Trump, who also faces multiple criminal indictments, has spoken openly of attacking the free press in the US and having little regard for American constitutional norms should he win the White House again.

The idea that the US might be redeemed by a Caesar – an authoritarian, rightwing leader – was first broached explicitly by Michael Anton, a Claremont senior fellow and Trump presidential adviser.

Anton has been an influential rightwing intellectual since in 2016 penning The Flight 93 Election, a rightwing essay in which he told conservatives who were squeamish about Trump “charge the cockpit or you die”, referencing one of the hijacked flights of 9/11.

He gave Caesarism a passing mention in that essay, but developed it further in his 2020 book, The Stakes, defining it as a “form of one-man rule: halfway … between monarchy and tyranny”.

The Guardian contacted Anton at his Claremont Institute email address, but received no response.

 

Nothing new, of course. Trump himself has made it very clear this is coming in a second term. He's made statement after statement at his two-hour hate rallies that this is precisely the behavior he will engage in, and the people around him are cheering for an authoritarian master who will reduce those people to powerless peasants while they reap the rewards.

The klaxons are blaring, but apparently tens of millions of our fellow Americans want a dictator. You know, as long as that dictator is on their side and all.

Steve M. weighs in:

The Democrats' Trump narrative is: You can't be seriously considering a vote for this criminal degenerate, can you? But every day that Trump's legal problems are in the news is a day when people who don't like how the country is being run are reminded that Trump is not one of the people running the country. So if they're on the fence about their 2024 vote and they're upset about high gas prices or some other meat-and-potatoes issue, they're reminded -- by Democrats and the mainstream media as well by Trump himself -- that Trump is a person the government does things to, not a person with government power.

We need these voters to think about what Trump would do with power if he's elected again. We need to link him to all the bad things Republicans are doing. Instead, we've got him in the dock, where he doesn't look as dangerous as he actually is.

 

My response is that voters are definitely thinking about what Trump would do with power because he doesn't hesitate to say what he would do with it, and they want him to have that power anyway.

The Butler Does It

Meet California's newest Senator, appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom: EMILY's List President and long-time labor activist Laphonza Butler. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom will appoint EMILY’s List President Laphonza Butler to fill the seat of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, elevating the head of a fundraising juggernaut that works to elect Democratic women who support abortion rights, according to a person familiar with the decision.

Newsom is moving swiftly to name the next senator, two days after Feinstein’s death and just as a perilously split Congress narrowly averted a government shutdown. Senate Democrats are in need of every vote in the closely divided chamber.

The announcement was expected to come Monday, and an adviser to the governor, Anthony York, told POLITICO that Newsom is making his appointment without putting limitations or preconditions on his pick running for the seat in 2024. That means Butler could decide to join the sprawling and competitive field of Democratic contenders seeking to succeed Feinstein, with special elections now layered on top of the March primary and November runoff.

Butler is expected to be sworn-in to the U.S. Senate on Wednesday by Vice President Kamala Harris.

Newsom’s selection of Butler comes at a moment of immense change in California’s political establishment, with millions of people still mourning the death of Feinstein, the barrier-breaking Senate lioness. Meanwhile the California governor, who was mentored by Feinstein, has been grappling with his own personal grief and the political ramifications of his choice to succeed her.

The people who spoke with POLITICO ahead of the announcement were granted anonymity to disclose internal deliberations. Butler is registered to vote in Maryland but will switch her registration to California.

Newsom faced considerable pressure around the decision after first pledging to name a Black woman to the seat. Several potential nominees said publicly they were not interested. Some others privately expressed trepidation about accepting a short-term appointment and then having to immediately gear up for what would be a five-month campaign.

The swift nature of Newsom’s appointment cuts politicians and their allies off from mounting more sustained efforts to lobby the governor and his inner circle over his pick. And it halts interest groups that were starting to apply pressure on him, including over the question of whether he would require them to serve only temporarily. On Sunday, Congressional Black Caucus Chair Steven Horsford wrote to Newsom urging him to appoint Rep. Barbara Lee, a candidate for the Senate whom the governor recently ruled out over worries about giving someone a leg up.

 

I have to admit, Gavin Newsom got himself out of the jam he was in with expert efficiency. He kept his promise to appoint a Black woman to the seat and he's doing so without picking a side in the current primary contest. He's allowing Butler to decide herself if she wants to join the primary fray, and I'll bet on Butler having already decided that she'll go back to EMILY's List in 2025.

I'm rarely surprised by a display of attempted Democratic political adroitness that ends up crashing into the ground by being too clever by half, but if this goes like I think it will, Gavin Newsom may have just made one of he all time great political maneuvers.

Bravo to Laphonza Butler as well. Impeccable bona fides as a politically connected Black activist leader, clearly showing readiness for a national stage by running one of the Dems' most important fundraising networks with the upcoming election year all about the GOP trying to destroy women.

Newsom's preparations for the moment were kept secret as well all the way until the day before, too. This was planned for some time and yet it could have been blown weeks ago. It wasn't.

I like it when the Dems show this level of crafty confident competence. More of this, please.

Last Call For The Gaetz Of Heck

With House GOP Clown Wrangler Kevin McCarthy having cut a deal with Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries to punt the shutdown ball 45 days down the field, it's now incumbent upon the House Clown Caucus to make good on their threat to remove McCarthy as House Speaker, and Rep. Matt Gaetz says he'll try to do just that this week.

Speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union,” the Florida Republican said he intends to file a motion to vacate this week, which would force a vote on whether McCarthy will keep his job.

“Speaker McCarthy made an agreement with House conservatives in January and since then he’s been in brazen, repeated material breach of that agreement,” Gaetz said Sunday. “This agreement that he made with Democrats to really blow past a lot of the spending guardrails we set up is a last straw.”

He added, “I do intend to file a motion to vacate against Speaker McCarthy this week. I think we need to rip off the Band-Aid. I think we need to move on with new leadership that will be trustworthy.”

That promise from Gaetz is an escalation in the monthslong standoff between McCarthy and the right flank of his conference, which forced him to go through 15 rounds of votes in January to finally win the speaker’s gavel. As part of winning the top job in the House, McCarthy made a deal that would allow just one member to advance a motion to vacate. That deal has kept the California Republican walking a tight rope with his conference throughout the year as he tried to appease the right-wing of his caucus while also attempting to do the basic work of governing.

McCarthy’s response to Gaetz later on Sunday was straightforward, telling the Floridian to “bring it on.”

“That’s nothing new,” McCarthy said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

“Yes, I’ll survive. You know, this is personal with Matt. Matt voted against the most conservative ability to protect our border, secure our border. He’s more interested in securing TV interviews than doing something.”

He added: “So be it, bring it on. Let’s get over with it and let’s start governing.”

McCarthy’s moment of reckoning may have finally come after President Joe Biden on Saturday signed the bill to keep the government open until mid-November just minutes before funding was set to expire at midnight. McCarthy made a sharp about-face earlier in the day and worked with Democrats to overwhelmingly pass a continuing resolution that would avoid a shutdown. The Senate also passed the bill on a bipartisan basis later on Saturday.

That move by McCarthy could well cost him his job, as Gaetz has been promising almost daily. CNN reported on Friday that Gaetz has been approaching Democrats about potential successors to McCarthy if he were to file a motion to vacate, which would force the House to vote on whether to oust the speaker.

McCarthy has been defiant and on Saturday challenged his detractors to try and push him out of the job.

“If somebody wants to make a motion against me, bring it,” McCarthy told CNN’s Manu Raju at a press conference. “There has to be an adult in the room. I am going to govern with what’s best for this country.”

The Florida Republican accused McCarthy of lying in negotiations over the continuing resolution.

“Look, the one thing everybody has in common is that nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy. He lied to Biden, he lied to House conservatives. He had appropriators marking to a different number altogether. And the reason we were backed up against the shutdown politics is not a bug of the system. It’s a feature,” he said.

A senior Democratic source told CNN that most members of their caucus are skeptical about saving McCarthy given that he has shown little interest in working with Democrats and launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden.

McCarthy, multiple sources said, has yet to reach out to Democratic leaders in a serious negotiation on this issue. But there could be some rank-and-file Democratic moderates who try to find a way to help McCarthy stay in power if they get something in exchange.

Another Democratic source said the caucus will give House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries room to navigate this and the caucus will discuss this week.

Still, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Sunday in a separate interview on “State of the Union” that she would “absolutely” vote to oust McCarthy.

“I think Kevin McCarthy is a very weak speaker. He clearly has lost control of his caucus. He has brought the United States and millions of Americans to the brink, waiting until the final hour to keep the government open, and even then only issuing a 45-day extension,” she said.

So now we get to see fully what Rep. Jeffries has learned at the feet of the best House Speaker to ever play this game, Nancy Pelosi. What will the price be for McCarthy to save his job? Can Chuck Schumer get the Senate compromise announced last week passed? Will Mitch McConnell knife McCarthy in the front and scrap any deal, meaning House Dems will pull out and leave McCarthy to the tender mercies of Matt Gaetz? 

I think the latter is the most likely outcome, as I've been saying. If Gaetz can oust McCarthy because McCarthy can't keep his end of the bargain -- and at this point Jeffries and the Dems would be crazy to trust McCarthy at all -- who will replace him?

This is the real show, and it's about to begin.

Caution: Spoilers Ahead

As I long suspected would happen, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is filing for a third party spoiler run to run against President Joe Biden in order to try to hand the country over to Trump.

 

2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to announce he will run as an independent on October 9 in Pennsylvania, Mediaite has learned.

Kennedy’s campaign machine is now planning “attack ads” against the Democratic National Committee in order to “pave the way” for his announcement in Philadelphia about running as an independent, according to a text reviewed by Mediaite.

“Bobby feels that the DNC is changing the rules to exclude his candidacy so an independent run is the only way to go,” a Kennedy campaign insider told Mediaite.

Kennedy, a notorious anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist challenging incumbent President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination, has been flirting with a third party run in recent weeks. The New York Times reported last week that he met with the chair of the Libertarian Party, raising the prospect of a departure from the party that decades ago became synonymous with his family name.

Kennedy remains far behind Biden in the polls. Yet while the Times reported “Democrats worry that a third-party run by Mr. Kennedy could draw votes away from Mr. Biden and help elect former President Donald J. Trump,” it’s unclear whether such a run would hurt the current president more than the Republican nominee.

Indeed, polls show Republicans have a far more favorable view of Kennedy than Democrats. As the National Review’s Jim Geraghty pointed out in July, when a survey asked New Hampshire Democrats to describe Kennedy in one word, the top responses were “crazy,” “dangerous,” “insane,” “conspiracy,” and “unknown.”

 

That he's kicking this off in Pennsylvania is no accident. If RFK Jr. can throw the state to Trump, it's all but over. Again, we don't know what kind of margin will be in the Keystone State in 2024, but if it's anything like 2016 or 2020, one percentage point could be enough. 50-75 thousand votes could give the state and country to Trump, and I suspect enough Republicans could get RFK Jr. onto the ballots of several battleground states, not just PA.

We'll see how bad this gets, but the potential for Bobby Kennedy's son to help destroy the country for good can't be overlooked.

 

Sunday Long Read: Sub-Optimal Outcomes

Our Sunday Long Read this week comes from Vanity Fair's Susan Casey, who takes a look at all the human mistakes, errors, disasters and bad choices that led to the end of OceanGate and the tragic underwater deaths of all aboard the Titan submarine.

 

FATE CLEARED UP the weather, blew off the fog, and calmed the waves, as the submersible and its five passengers dived through the surface waters and fell into another world. They entered the deep ocean's uppermost layer, known as the twilight zone, passing creatures glimmering with bioluminescence, tiny fish with enormous teeth. Then they entered the midnight zone, where larger creatures ghost by like alien moons. Two miles down, they entered the abyssal zone—so named because it's the literal abyss.

Deeper means heavier: pressures of 5,000, then 6,000 pounds per square inch. As it descended, the submersible was gripped in a tightening vise. Maybe they heard a noise then, maybe they heard an alarm.

I hope they watched the abyss with awe through their viewport, because I'd like to think their last sights were magnificent ones.

AS THE WORLD now knows, Stockton Rush touted himself as a maverick, a disrupter, a breaker of rules. So far out on the visionary curve that, for him, safety regulations were mere suggestions, "if you're not breaking things, you're not innovating," he declared at the 2022 GeekWire Summit. "To me, the more stuff you've broken, the more innovative you've been."

In a society that has adopted the ridiculous mantra "move fast and break things," that type of arrogance can get a person far. But in the deep ocean, the price of admission is humility—and it's nonnegotiable. The abyss doesn't care if you went to Princeton, or that your ancestors signed the Declaration of Independence. If you want to go down into her world, she sets the rules.

And her rules are strict, befitting the gravitas of the realm. To descend into the ocean's abyssal zone—the waters from 10,000 to 20,000 feet—is a serious affair, and because of the annihilating pressures, far more challenging than rocketing into space. The subs that dive into this realm (there aren't many) are tested and tested and tested. Every component is checked for flaws in a pressure chamber and checked again—and every step of this process is certified by an independent marine classification society. This assurance of safety is known as "classing" a sub. Deepsea submersibles are constructed of the strongest and most predictable materials, as determined by the laws of physics.

In the abyss, that means passengers typically sit inside a titanium pressure hull, forged into a perfect sphere—the only shape that distributes pressure symmetrically. That means adding crush-resistant syntactic foam around the sphere for buoyancy and protection, to offset the weight of the titanium. That means redundancy upon redundancy, with no single point of failure. It means a safety plan, a rescue plan, an acute situational awareness at all times.

It means respect for the forces in the deep ocean. Which Rush didn't have.

UNFORTUNATELY, June 18, 2023, wasn't the first time I'd heard of Rush, or his company OceanGate, or his monstrosity of a sub. He and the Titan had been a topic of conversation talked about with real fear, on many occasions, by numerous people I met over the course of five years while reporting my book The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean. I heard discussions about the Titan as a tragedy-in-waiting on research ships, during deep-sea expeditions, at marine science conferences. I had my own troubling encounter with OceanGate in 2018 and had been watching it with concern ever since.

Everyone I met in the small, tight-knit world of manned submersibles was aware of the Titan. Everyone watched in disbelief as Rush built a five-person cylindrical pressure hull out of filament-wound carbon fiber, an unpredictable material that is known to fail suddenly and catastrophically under pressure.

It was as though we were watching a horror movie unfold in slow motion, knowing that whatever happened next wouldn't be pretty. But like screaming at the screen, nothing that came out of anyone's mouth made any difference.

 

Every single choice documented here was inevitably going to lead to death and destruction, and et OceanGate and Stockton Rush --and the people around him -- let it happen anyway. So many failure points were passed were any one of them could have shut the farcical show down for good, but that only happened after the tragic end.

 

A man thought he was better than the hard science of diving. He thought the rules didn't apply to him. He was wrong, and people died as a result. 

It wasn't the first time, it turns out.

Last Call For Shutdown Countdown, Clown Town Edition, Con't

House GOP Speaker Kevin McCarthy bet it all on a 45-day extension on funding the government, minus billions in Ukraine aid. Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries let the Democratic caucus go along on the bill, and it passed. The question is, how long does Kevin McCarthy have left before he's deposed?

When he walked into the Capitol on Saturday, Speaker Kevin McCarthy knew exactly what he’d do to stave off a shutdown: Call up a bill that abandoned the border policy and spending cuts he’d preached for weeks.

McCarthy’s move marked an abrupt shift after spending most of the year trying to placate all corners of his party — including a dozen-plus hardliners who have made it next to impossible for him to maneuver anything onto the floor. After the vote, McCarthy all but taunted his critics to come after his gavel if they wanted to.

And their first chance to do that will be Monday night. Multiple House conservatives confirmed in interviews they will begin seriously mulling whether they will try to seize McCarthy’s gavel in the coming days.

“I think it is a surrender,” said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), one of multiple conservatives who warned McCarthy not to accept Democratic help to avoid a shutdown.

In the end, the 45-day funding patch that is on track to keep the government open passed with more Democratic than GOP votes, in a repeat of the spring debt vote that first inflamed McCarthy’s opponents.

The bill was finished just before midnight on Friday. But McCarthy didn’t unveil his plans to take up the bill until almost 11 hours later, after a choreographed parade of Republicans took the mic during a private 90-minute meeting to argue for exactly his proposal.

Dozens of conservatives ended up voting against the bill, which gave in on their two biggest priorities — spending cuts beyond McCarthy’s spring debt deal and hard-right border policies. Still, McCarthy wanted the groundswell of support for it to look like an organic move by his members, rather an order down from leadership.

Mere hours later, a majority of House Republicans backed the type of shutdown-averting bill that the California Republican had repeatedly sworn was unacceptable. McCarthy’s 180-degree turn could soon threaten his speakership, giving conservatives who have threatened to try to eject him plenty of fodder to make their move.

“You can’t form a coalition of more Democrats than you have Republicans who you’re supposed to be the leader of, and not think that there’s going to be serious, serious fallout,” Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) said. He confirmed that after Saturday’s spending vote, they would start discussions about ousting the speaker.

Freedom Caucus member Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) acknowledged that McCarthy’s speakership is “probably” in danger, but added: “I’m not even getting into that right now. There are other members that have to decide if they want to bring that or not.”

House Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Scott Perry (R–Pa.) said he did not expect an effort to oust McCarthy because Republicans didn’t “have any other option” but to bring up a clean spending patch after GOP holdouts tanked their own party’s plan.

But Perry — who has himself lost sway with some more conservative members — didn’t commit to opposing a McCarthy ouster. He told POLITICO: “The case has to be made. So we’ll listen to the argument.”

McCarthy’s biggest antagonist, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), has not yet declared that he intends to force a vote to boot the speaker over the Saturday vote.

“That will be something I will chat with my colleagues about,” Gaetz said, just before the bill passed on the floor.

 

On the Senate side, Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans scrapped their deal with Chuck Schumer to instead go with McCarthy's House bill.  The bill passed and the shutdown will be averted.

Whether McCarthy survives the week as Speaker, well, place your bets now. 

Either way, we get to go through this again in mid-November.

Orange Meltdown: LOL U LMAD Edition

The first of Trump's Georgia RICO case co-conspirators has taken a plea deal to turn state's evidence against the rest.

 

Bail bondsman Scott Hall on Friday became the first defendant in the Fulton County election interference case to take a plea agreement with prosecutors, signaling the probe has entered a dynamic new phase.

During an impromptu hearing before Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee with his attorney at his side, Hall pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties.

Hall agreed to testify truthfully when called, five years probation, a $5,000 fine, 200 hours of community service and a ban on polling and election administration-related activities. He also recorded a statement for prosecutors and pledged to pen a letter of apology to Georgia voters.

Hall was indicted last month in connection with the breach of sensitive voting data in Coffee County in South Georgia on Jan. 7, 2021. He had been charged with racketeering and six felony counts of conspiracy.

The agreement is a victory for prosecutors, who are preparing for at least two sets of trials involving what is now 18 defendants. Jury selection for the trial involving the first two defendants, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, is slated to begin on Oct. 20.

 

This is going to be a bad, bad weekend for Trump, as he'll wonder who else will turn on him.

 

Who else will play Let's Make A Deal with Fulton County DA Fani Willis? 

Like fellow Whose Line? veteran Drew Carey, Wayne Brady has made a 15-year second career filling the legendary shoes of a beloved game show host. He's made thousands of deals with contestants.

 

We're about to find out if Fani Willis can wheel and deal just as well, and I'm betting she can.

Prime Time Drama

The Biden Administration is filing an anti-trust suit against Amazon over having monopoly power large enough to "warp the entire internet economy".

 

The Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. government’s primary business regulator, sued Amazon on Tuesday, alleging that the company has used its market power to warp ecommerce across the internet.

The allegations focus on the company’s primary marketplace, Amazon.com, and paint a picture of a company able to use its size and power to pressure sellers to agree to its terms and warp the prices of goods.

“There is immediate harm that is ongoing here,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said at a news conference ahead of the lawsuit announcement. “Sellers are paying one of every $2 to Amazon. Shoppers are paying higher prices as a result, not just on Amazon but across the internet. And the public as a whole has been deprived of the benefits of open and fair and free competition. And so that’s what this case is really about, and those are the harms that we’re looking to fix.”

The FTC made the allegations in an antitrust lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington state, backed by the attorneys general of 17 states, including two Republicans. Amazon is based in Washington state.

The lawsuit is the most aggressive action yet by Khan, a longtime critic of Amazon who was brought in to the FTC by President Joe Biden to reinvigorate the government’s enforcement of competition laws particularly around technology companies.

The FTC alleges that Amazon deters sellers from discounting goods and lowering prices below what is available on Amazon, pushing prices higher across the internet. It also argues that Amazon pushes sellers into its fulfillment services, making it more expensive for sellers to offer their goods elsewhere.

California lodged similar complaints in a lawsuit filed just more than a year ago.

Kahn declined to directly address whether she hoped the suit would lead to a breakup of Amazon into smaller companies, but stressed that it showed Amazon had established an unfair advantage.

“Each element of Amazon’s monopolistic strategy here is working in tandem, and so the cumulative impact of Amazon’s unlawful conduct is greater than the harm caused by any particular element,” she said. “So you have a feedback loop between these different practices in a way that amplifies the overall exclusionary effects.”

In a statement posted to Amazon’s website, David Zapolsky, Amazon's senior vice president for global public policy, said: “The practices the FTC is challenging have helped to spur competition and innovation across the retail industry, and have produced greater selection, lower prices, and faster delivery speeds for Amazon customers and greater opportunity for the many businesses that sell in Amazon’s store.”

 

Amazon's defense is "Nu-uh, we're helping."

 

By the way, that $89 year of Amazon Prime is now $139, a nearly 50% price hike from just five years ago. On top of everything else, they get you coming and going.

As I've said before, breaking up Amazon, Google, and Meta needs to happen sooner rather than later. Lina Kahn may have lost a few battles, but this is the one she needs to win.

Last Call For Supreme Crooks, Cads, And Creeps, Con't

With the latest Supreme Court term starting next month, the Roberts Court has agreed to take up multiple cases that could change the face of the internet, government regulation, voting rights, gun safety, and more.

 

The Supreme Court said Friday it would wade into the future of free speech online and decide whether laws passed in Texas and Florida can restrict social media companies from removing certain political posts or accounts.

The justices’ decision to take the landmark social media cases came in an order that also added 10 other cases to the calendar for the Supreme Court term that begins Monday. The additional cases concern the FBI’s “no-fly” list, individual property rights and the ability of criminal defendants to confront witnesses against them.

Earlier this year, the high court had said it would tackle controversial issues in the coming term involving gun regulations, voting rights and the power of federal agencies. Those cases will be heard as the justices face intense pressure from Democratic lawmakers to address ethics issues confronting some of their colleagues, including potential conflicts in some of the cases.

Tech industry groups, whose members include Facebook and Google’s YouTube, asked the court to block Texas and Florida laws passed in 2021 that regulate companies’ content-moderation policies. The companies say the measures are unconstitutional and conflict with the First Amendment by stripping private companies of the right to choose what to publish on their platforms.

The court’s review of those laws will be the highest-profile examination to date of allegations that Silicon Valley companies are illegally censoring conservative viewpoints. Those accusations reached a fever pitch when Facebook, Twitter and other companies suspended President Donald Trump’s accounts in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The justices’ ruling could have significant implications for the future of democracy and elections, as Americans increasingly rely on social media to read and discuss political news. It could also have wide-ranging effects for policymakers in Congress and statehouses around the country as they attempt to craft new laws governing social media and misinformation. 

 

Needless to say, a ruling that finds that private tech and social media companies unable to moderate the content on their own platforms would be the end of those platforms as we know it, along with a ruling I have long warned about that would bring the end of executive agencies and their regulatory powers on everything else.

Having both of these go the GOP's way would dismantle much of the day-to-day infrastructure of America both physically and online, which is the point.

In preparation for a second Trump term, it would be the end of American democracy.

And that's if only those two rulings go to the conservatives. More would be coming.

Unionized, Galvanized And Ionized, Con't

Donald Trump went to a non-union auto plant in Michigan on Thursday, with non-union workers on a non-union floor, to demand that actual striking union auto workers support him in 2024 or else.

 

Former president Donald Trump sharpened a stridently nationalist pitch for a general election rematch against President Biden, trading the GOP primary debate stage for a factory floor where he demanded union support for his vision of more aggressive state intervention in industrial policy.

With public surveys consistently showing him with a double-digit lead over his Republican rivals nationally and in early nominating contests, Trump sought to portray the next election as a choice between certain doom for the auto industry or utopian-sounding industrial growth built on trade restrictions, fossil fuels and even expropriation of foreign assets.

“I’m here tonight to lay out a vision for a revival of economic nationalism,” Trump said. “The Wall Street predators, the Chinese cheaters and the corrupt politicians have hurt you. I will make you better. For years, foreign nations have looted and plundered your hopes, your dreams and your heritage, and now they’re going to pay for what they have stolen and what they have done to you, my friends.”

He added: “We’re going to take their money. We’re going to take their factories. We’re going to rebuild the industrial bedrock of this country.”

A campaign spokesman did not immediately clarify what Trump meant by taking “their” money and factories.

Without specifying how, Trump suggested he could restore domestic manufacturing immediately and with a pen stroke.

“A vote for President Trump means the future of the automobile will be made in America,” he said to chants of “USA.”

“It will be fueled by American energy. It will be sourced by American suppliers. It will be sculpted from American iron, aluminum and steel, and it will be built by highly skilled American hands and high wage American labor. We’ll do it first day in office; it’ll be signed out first day in office.”

Trump offered his support to striking members of the United Auto Workers but demanded the union’s official endorsement or else warned of their imminent extinction. He excoriated Biden administration policies encouraging domestic investment in electric vehicles, calling them an existential danger to U.S. manufacturing and describing efforts to limit planet-warming emissions as irreconcilable with auto industry jobs.

“It’s a government assassination of your jobs and of your industry, the auto industry is being assassinated,” he said. “To the striking workers, I support you when you go to fair wages and greater stability. And I truly hope you get a fair deal for yourselves and your families. But if your union leaders will not demand that Crooked Joe repeal his electric vehicle mandate immediately, then it doesn’t matter what hourly wage you get. It just doesn’t make a damn bit of difference because in two to three years you will not have one job in this state.”

A Biden campaign spokesman accused Trump of mischaracterizing the current administration’s policies. “Trump had the United States losing the EV race to China and if he had his way, the jobs of the future would be going to China,” spokesman Kevin Munoz said in a statement.

 

Open threats to auto workers to either join his nationalization of the auto industry or be destroyed. That's the kind of second term Trump wants, and he's making the threats very clear. He has been for months.

 

And still half the country is willing to re-elect him, not in spite of the carnage he'll wreak upon America, but so they can be backing up the bad guys. Penty of our neighbors, co-workers, and family want a healthy chunk of Americans reduced to second-class status so that they believe they can benefit, or at least stay out of the crosshairs for a while.

History of course tells us what happens to those collaborators.

 

 

California Senator Dianne Feinstein Passes At Age 90

News from California this morning that Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein passed away overnight, leaving behind a massive political legacy and an uncertain future for the state's Dems.

 

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a vocal advocate of gun control measures who was known for trying to find common ground with Republicans during her three decades in the Senate, has died, according to several sources familiar with the matter.

She was 90.

Feinstein, the oldest member of the Senate, the longest-serving female senator and the longest-serving senator from California, announced in February that she planned to retire at the end of her term. She had faced calls for her resignation over concerns about her health.

After she announced her retirement, President Joe Biden hailed his former Senate colleague, calling her “a passionate defender of civil liberties and a strong voice for national security policies that keep us safe while honoring our values.”

“I’ve served with more U.S. Senators than just about anyone,” he said in a statement at the time. “I can honestly say that Dianne Feinstein is one of the very best."

After Feinstein missed votes in late February, her spokesperson said on March 1: “The senator is in California this week dealing with a health matter," and "hopes to return to Washington soon.”

The California Democrat was a vocal advocate of gun control measures, championing the assault weapons ban that then-President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1994, and pushing for restrictive laws since the ban’s expiration in 2004.

s chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Feinstein led a multiyear review of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program developed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which led to legislation barring the use of those methods of torture.

A centrist Democrat, she was known for trying to find common ground with Republicans, sometimes drawing criticism from her party’s liberal members. She parted from them on a number of issues, including opposing single-payer, government-run health care and the ambitious Green New Deal climate proposal, which she argued was politically and fiscally unfeasible.

 

The question now, because the most populous state in the union is now short on Senate representation at a critical juncture in American history, is who replaces her in the interim. The question that Gov. Gavin Newsom has been trying to slow walk around is now the most important decision he will make in this term.

 

We'll see what happens, but with a GOP-led shutdown in the House almost upon us, getting out of the mess they created will need every Democratic vote possible. Newsom will have to act quickly.

Erik Loomis over at LG&M dissects Feinstein's complicated legacy over the decades.

The New York Times covers the coming decision for Feinstein's seat, and how Newsom has maneuvered himself into a no-win situation.

Last Call For An Unimpeachable Attack

The first impeachment hearing against President Biden by James Comer's crew went as badly as you'd expect from a House GOP clown show that will almost certainly shut down the government this weekend with their own incompetence.

 

On Thursday, the House Oversight Committee held its first hearing of their official impeachment inquiry investigation of as-yet-unproven allegations of “abuse of power, obstruction, and corruption,” by President Biden.

The GOP invited three witnesses to testify before the committee: Justice Department official Eileen O’Connor, law professor Jonathan Turley, and forensic accountant Bruce Dubinsky.

If Republicans were looking for a bombshell first hearing, they didn’t get it. All three witnesses agreed that they would not be presenting “any first-hand witness account of crimes committed by the president of the United States.”

Turley, who is also a legal analyst for Fox News, went so far as to say that despite generally supporting the inquiry, he does “not believe the current evidence would support articles of impeachment,” against the president.

Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley, one of the GOP's impeachment witnesses, says: "I do not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment… But I also do believe that the House has passed the threshold for an impeachment inquiry." pic.twitter.com/x3cfYKwr5o— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) September 28, 2023

Dubinsky emphasized that he was not present at the hearing “to even suggest that there was corruption, fraud, or any wrongdoing,” adding that in his opinion“more information needs to be gathered and assessed before I would make such an assessment.”

O’Connor, stated that she feels the inquiry is justified, but affirmed when asked that she was not a material witness and had no evidence to provide to the committee.

Democrats on the committee ripped the GOP in response.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called the spectacle an “embarrassment,” and pointed to the fact that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had circumvented a floor vote authorizing the inquiry, a vote that has typically been taken in past impeachment proceedings before moving forward with public hearings.

Ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) shared her sentiment. “They don’t have the votes because dozens of Republicans recognize what a futile and absurd process this is,” he said.

“They present us no basis [for impeachment] at all today, even after eight months of investigation. They invited three witnesses to testify today, not one of them an eyewitness to a presidential crime of any kind. Not one of them is a direct fact witness about any of the events related to Ukraine and Burisma. If the Republicans had a smoking gun or even a dripping water pistol they would be presenting it today. But they’ve got nothing on Joe Biden.” 

 

I'm beginning to think House Republicans might actually not be able to impeach Biden on an all GOP vote because they won't have the numbers.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) sparred with Chairman Comer when he declared that “these witnesses are not giving any basis [for this hearing].” Comer disagreed, cutting Frost off, but the Democrat persisted. “These witnesses are not giving any answers,” he exclaimed. “They’re just asking more questions.”

Despite how Comer may see it, Republicans on and off the Hill are already recognizing how badly the hearing flopped. According to CNN, one GOP insider called the display an “unmitigated disaster.”

“You want witnesses that make your case. Picking witnesses that refute House Republicans’ arguments for impeachment is mind-blowing,” the anonymous source said.

What a surprise. Not even Jon Turley wants to risk a lying to Congress charge by making up a false flag here.

 

It got worse for Comer's Clowns, of course.

 

Raw Story caught up with a few other members outside the hearing room to ask how they felt things were going.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) said when the hearing was announced, "My colleagues and I have spent nine months gathering information, vetting allegations, and establishing the concerning fact pattern upon which this inquiry is based."

Even in the hearing, his questions focused on the timeline of the shutdown and the impeachment hearings. He then pivoted to talk about whistleblowers and information on the investigations.

"I think it's — clearly, the Democrats are trying to lead us away from the purpose of this hearing and that purpose was gaining other peoples' perspective about the use of the inquiry," he said, explaining that the goal wasn't to provide evidence but have a holistic conversation about whether an impeachment was warranted.

"Today, there is not that direct link," Sessions said about the evidence gathered over the past several years. "The purpose of that inquiry is to determine if there is that link."

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) made similar comments, confessing that they don't have any evidence. He explained that the purpose of the first hearing "is to establish the predicate for going to get additional information that the committee needs to finish its investigation."

"Prof. [Jonathan] Turley said in a sense he needs to see more than what's been laid out, but that's the purpose of the inquiry," Donalds continued. "If we felt we had everything necessary for articles of impeachment, we would have dropped articles of impeachment. That's why we're in the inquiry phase, to get that information to get a final determination if an impeachment is warranted or not."

For all of the 2023 session, both the House Judiciary and House Oversight Committees have been investigating Hunter Biden and by extension his father. Comer hasn't explained how this inquiry is different from the previous inquiries.

 

They've got nothing.

 

Besides, the Clown Show is going to have a lot bigger problem in about 72 hours.

Throwing The Book At Them

Yet another big school district in Florida is pulling books from school libraries in order to comply with Commissar Ron's order banning LGBTQ+ folks from existing. From Judd Legum's Substack, Public Information:

 

Librarians in public schools in Charlotte County, Florida, were instructed by the school district superintendent to remove all books with LGBTQ characters or themes from school and classroom libraries.

Charlotte County school librarians sought guidance from the school district about how to apply an expansion of the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, better known as the "Don't Say Gay" law, to all grades. "Are we removing books from any school or media center, Prek-12 if a character has, for example, two mothers or because there is a gay best friend or a main character is gay?" the librarians asked. Charlotte County Superintendent Mark Vianello answered, "Yes."

The guidance by Vianello and the school board's attorney, Michael McKinley, was obtained by the Florida Freedom to Read Project (FFTRP) through a public records request and shared with Popular Information. FFTRP requested "electronic records of district and school decisions regarding classroom and library materials." In response, FFTRP received a document memorializing a July 24 conversation between Vianello and district librarians, known in Florida as media specialists.

The guidance made clear that all books with LGBTQ characters are to be removed even if the book contained no sexually explicit content. The librarians asked if they could retain books in school and classroom libraries with LGBTQ characters "as long as they do not have explicit sex scenes or sexual descriptions and are not approaching 'how to' manuals for how to be an LGBTQ+ person." Vianello responded, "No. Books with LBGTQ+ characters are not to be included in classroom libraries or school library media centers."

Vianello also says teachers must ensure that books with LGBTQ characters and themes do not enter the classroom, even if they are self-selected by students for silent reading. According to Vianello, books with "[t]hese characters and themes cannot exist."

The librarians were seeking guidance on how to interpret a revised version of The Principles of Professional Conduct for the Education Profession in Florida. The revised rules, issued by the Florida Department of Education earlier this year, expanded the restrictions imposed by the"Don't Say Gay" law. According to revised Rule 6A-10.081, educators in Florida "[s]hall not intentionally provide classroom instruction to students in prekindergarten through grade 8 on sexual orientation or gender identity." (A similar provision was included in a law Governor Ron DeSantis (R) signed in May.) The revised rule also extends that prohibition through grade 12, except where explicitly required by state standards or as part of "a reproductive health course or health lesson for which a student’s parent has the option to have his or her student not attend."

Governor Ron DeSantis (R) has insisted that allegations that his policies, including the "Don't Say Gay" law, are being used to ban a wide range of books is a "hoax." DeSantis claimed that the only books being removed from Florida libraries are "pornographic and inappropriate materials that have been snuck into our classrooms and libraries to sexualize our students violate our state education standards." But in Charlotte County, DeSantis' policies are being used to justify purging all books with LGBTQ characters, even if there is no sexual content.

In response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for Charlotte County Schools told Popular Information that books with LGBTQ characters were removed from libraries because “there are elementary schools that utilize their school library media center as classrooms… [for] elective courses that our students are officially scheduled into and attend on a regular basis.” Therefore, the library “is considered a classroom setting.” As a result, “our school board attorney advises that we do not make books with these themes available in media centers that serve as classrooms since this would be considered ‘classroom instruction’ and such instruction and/or availability of these themes may not occur in PreK- grade 8.” The spokesperson acknowledged that “high school media centers are not designated as classrooms,” but books with LGBTQ characters were excluded anyway because “if a teacher were to bring a class of students to the media center and provide instruction, books with these themes cannot be included in that instructional time unless supported by the academic standards of that course of study.”

 

And as Chris Geidner reports, Texas's statewide school book ban law is now being allowed to take effect thanks to the 5th Circuit.

A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit quickly acted Monday to issue another administrative stay, allowing the state of Texas to enforce its new law establishing a book-ban regime in the state’s schools.

The law, passed earlier this year, had not been allowed to go into effect due to significant constitutional concerns from the lower court, meaning that Monday’s stay — though presented as “administrative” — altered the status of state law in Texas, putting a new law in effect for the first time with no reasoning and in a one-sentence order.

The extraordinary move — from Judges Jennifer Elrod (George W. Bush), Catharina Haynes (George W. Bush), and Dana Douglas (Biden) — came after U.S. District Judge Alan Albright, a Trump appointee, had temporarily prevented enforcement of the law just before its effective date of Sept. 1 and then, just one week ago, issued a preliminary injunction against enforcement, finding the law likely unconstitutional on several grounds.

Texas is appealing the Sept. 18 order from Albright. The state also, on Sept. 20, asked the appeals court for a stay pending appeal or, in the alternative, an administrative stay. The court granted an administrative stay on Monday, five days later (including a weekend).

Among other requirements, the Restricting Explicit and Adult-Designated Educational Resources (READER) Act, H.B. 900, requires private companies to create and produce lists of every book they wish to sell to public schools, determining which books are to be banned as “sexually explicit” and restricted as “sexually relevant.” The law then allows a state board to change those lists, with no appeal apparently available to the booksellers. The timeline for when the lists need to be submitted goes into next year, but, as the plaintiffs and district court explained, harms will accrue immediately. First, it’s not clear what school districts are supposed to do between the law going into effect and the lists being posted. And companies are certainly going to have difficulty selling books that could even possibly be covered by the new law to those schools in the meantime — particularly given that the law also requires booksellers to “recall” books previously sold that are later deemed to be banned.

Additionally, and as Albright explained in his decision last week, the state lacked answers to many basic questions about the law and its enforcement.

Nonetheless, on Monday, the appeals court said the state could go ahead and begin implementing the new law for now. Again, with no reasoning, and posed as an “administrative” action.

Remember, Donald Trump not being able to threaten witnesses and taint a jury pool with tirades against judges, prosecutors, and court officers violates the First Amendment, but a law forcing schools to pull books for the crime of existing LGBTQ+ characters or whatever bowdlerization Texas wants, with no appeal mind you, is fine, if not necessary.

Funny old world, huh.

Hunting The Hunter, Con't

With a House Republican-caused government shutdown now less than 72 hours away, those self-same House Republicans are concentrating on the real issues: Hunter Biden's tax records.

 

Republican members of the House Ways and Means Committee released more than 700 pages of IRS whistleblower documents Wednesday, providing ample fodder for the newly launched House GOP impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden that will center on his son Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.

Democrats were quick to push back, asserting that GOP lawmakers cherry-picked information that gives a distorted view of the allegations against the Bidens.

Following the committee’s 24-17 party-line vote to release of the documents to the public, Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) asserted that the new materials — which include an assortment of business tax returns, interview transcripts and emails between investigators and prosecutors — show that Hunter Biden used his father’s lofty political standing as part of a global family influence-peddling scheme.

“This evidence makes clear Hunter Biden’s business was selling the Biden ‘brand’ and that access to the White House was his family’s most valuable asset,” Smith said.

Democrats panned committee Republicans for focusing on the impeachment effort as a government shutdown looms on Sunday that could put millions of federal employees out of work. Ranking Member Richard Neal (D-Mass.) said in his opening statement at the closed-door session that the whistleblower testimony consisted of uncorroborated allegations and heavily redacted documents cherry-picked by the IRS whistleblowers.

“Why waste precious time that could be put toward keeping the government open? Other than to distract from reality,” Neal said in the statement he provided reporters, noting that there’s pressure on Republican tax writers to release the material before House Oversight Committee James Comer’s (R-Ky.) first impeachment hearing, scheduled for Thursday morning.

 

Except of course, the documents don't actually show he was selling access to the WHite House. They showed he was in business with foreign nationals, which is okay when fraudster Donald Trump does it, I guess. 

Again, you'd think Jason Smith would look at the tax info from Jared (the Gallaria of Crime) Kushner and Ivanka Trump, which actually does show massive pay-for-play White House influence peddling to the House of Saud to the tune of $2 billion, but nobody on the R side seems to care about that.

Alas, today's impeachment hearings are more important. I guess when Grandma and Grandpa stop getting government checks, somebody might notice.