These Disunited States, Con't

A new PRRI poll finds a majority of Americans now believe that the country was better off before the Civil Rights era.

 

Fewer Americans believe that American culture and way of life has mostly changed for the better (44%) than changed for the worse (55%) since the 1950s. Republicans (73%) are more likely than independents (57%) and Democrats (34%) to believe it has mostly changed for the worse.

Nearly nine in ten Americans who most trust far-right news (89%), seven in ten Americans who most trust Fox news (71%), and nearly six in ten Americans who do not watch TV news (58%) believe American culture and way of life have mostly changed for the worse. Under half of Americans who most trust mainstream news (45%) believe the same.

Majorities of white Christians — including white evangelical Protestants (77%), white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (60%), and white Catholics (57%) — believe American culture and way of life has mostly changed for the worse. Hispanic Catholics, Black Protestants, and non-Christian religious Americans are more divided. By contrast, religiously unaffiliated Americans are less likely to say American culture and way of life has changed for the worse (43%) than for the better (57%).

While younger Americans are not optimistic, they remain less likely than older Americans to believe that American culture and way of life have mostly changed for the worse: 49% of Generation Z and millennials, 58% of Generation X, 60% of baby boomers, and 67% of the Silent Generation.

The majority of white (58%) and Hispanic Americans (54%), and nearly half of Black Americans (47%), agree that America’s culture and way of life have mostly changed for the worse.

Americans without a college education are more likely than college-educated Americans to believe that America has changed for the worse, including 61% with some college and 60% with a high school education or less, compared with 46% of college graduates and 43% of postgraduates.

Americans in urban areas are divided on this question (50% better vs. 49% worse), compared with majorities of those who live in suburban (55%) and rural (67%) areas who believe that America’s culture and way of life have changed for the worse.

 

It gets a lot more disturbing when Americans are asked about how to fix things.

Just under four in ten Americans (38%) agree with the statement, “Because things have gotten so far off track in this country, we need a leader who is willing to break some rules if that’s what it takes to set things right,” while 59% disagree.

About half of Republicans (48%) agree with the need for a leader who is willing to break some rules, compared with four in ten independents (38%) and three in ten Democrats (29%). Majorities of Americans who most trust Fox News (53%) or far-right outlets (52%) agree that we need a leader who breaks the rules, compared with smaller shares of those who do not trust TV news (40%), or who most trust mainstream news (32%). Republicans with favorable views of former President Donald Trump are notably more likely than those with unfavorable views of Trump to agree with the need for a leader who is willing to break some rules (54% vs. 32%).

A slim majority of Hispanic Catholics (51%) agree with this statement, along with nearly four in ten religiously unaffiliated Americans (38%), white evangelical Protestants (37%), white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (37%), non-Christians (37%), white Catholics (36%), and Black Protestants (35%). White Americans who attend religious services weekly or more (29%) are less likely than those who attend monthly or a few times a year (39%) or those who seldom or never attend services (37%) to agree with the need for a leader who is willing to break some rules.

Americans who believe that the country has changed for the worse since the 1950s are substantially more likely than those who say that it has changed for the better to agree with the need for a leader who is willing to break some rules (43% vs. 31%).

 

And more and more Americans are ready to turn to violence to try to solve the country's political problems, especially Republicans.

Disturbingly, support for political violence has increased over the last two years. Today, nearly a quarter of Americans (23%) agree that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country,” up from 15% in 2021. PRRI has asked this question in eight separate surveys since March 2021. This is the first time support for political violence has peaked above 20%.

One-third of Republicans (33%) today believe that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country, compared with 22% of independents and 13% of Democrats. Those percentages have increased since 2021, when 28% of Republicans and 7% of Democrats held this belief. Republicans who have favorable views of Trump (41%) are nearly three times as likely as Republicans who have unfavorable views of Trump (16%) to agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.

Americans who believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump are more than three times as likely as those who do not believe that the election was stolen from Trump — 46% to 13%, respectively — to agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.

Over three in ten white evangelical Protestants (31%), along with 25% of white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants, 24% of Black Protestants, 23% of non-Christians, 23% of religiously unaffiliated Americans, 21% of Hispanic Catholics, and 20% of white Catholics agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country. Among white Christians, there are no differences by church attendance on this question.

Americans who believe that the country has changed for the worse since the 1950s are more than twice as likely as those who say that it has changed for the better to agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country (30% vs. 14%).

 

Again, one-third of Republicans believe in resorting to political violence. That number jumps to nearly half among people who believe the 2020 presidential election was "stolen". These numbers are only going to go up the closer we get to the November 2024 election, or to any real legal consequences in Trump's trials. 

Be careful out there.

Trump Cards, Con't

As Marcy Wheeler explains, Trump's defense against Judge Tanya Chutkan's gag order in his January 6th case argues that Trump is not only entitled to unrestricted "free speech" by rallying his legion of MAGA chuds to rage against Chutkin herself, but that the rights of his followers to echo and spread that rage are being violated as well.

A substantial portion of the 33-page motion speaks for the First Amendment rights of his mob to hear, respond to, and amplify Trump’s speech. To defend this principle, Trump cites, among other things, the Missouri v. Biden that SCOTUS just agreed to review over the objections of Sam Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch.

Under the First Amendment, violating the rights of a speaker inflicts an equal and reciprocal constitutional injury on the listener. “Freedom of speech presupposes a willing speaker. But where a speaker exists, . . . the protection afforded is to the communication, to its source and to its recipients both.” Virginia State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U.S. 748, 756 (1976) (emphasis added) (collecting many cases); see also, e.g., Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. F.C.C., 395 U.S. 367, 390 (1969) (“It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount.”); Packingham v. North Carolina, 582 U.S. 98, 104 (2017) (recognizing the right to “speak and listen, and then … speak and listen once more,” as a “fundamental principle of the First Amendment”); Missouri v. Biden, — F.4th –, No. 23- 30445, 2023 WL 6425697, at *11 (5th Cir. Oct. 3, 2023) (holding that the “right to listen is ‘reciprocal’ to the … right to speak” and “constitutes an independent basis” for relief). Thus, injuring President Trump’s ability to speak injures the First Amendment rights of over 100 million Americans who listen to him, respond to him, and amplify his message.

The claim to have 100 million listeners is a bit like calling his NY penthouse 33,000 square feet, insofar as it relies on overlapping numbers, including the 87 million followers he has but does not tweet to on Xitter.

Trump necessarily dedicates a very long footnote to explaining how he has standing to appeal this gag on behalf of his mob.

3 President Trump unquestionably has third-party standing to defend the rights of his audiences in this context. The Supreme Court is “quite forgiving” of third-party standing requirements “[w]ithin the context of the First Amendment.” Kowalski v. Tesmer, 543 U.S. 125, 130 (2004). The First Amendment’s overbreadth doctrine, for example, relieves the third-party plaintiff of the burden to show the usual “close relationship” and “hindrance” required by the third-party standing doctrine, id.; instead, Article III injury is all that is required. See id.; United States v. Sineneng-Smith, 140 S. Ct. 1575, 1586 (2020) (Thomas, J., concurring) (“Litigants raising overbreadth challenges rarely satisfy either requirement [‘close relationship’ and ‘hindrance’], but the Court nevertheless allows third-party standing.”) (citing Dombroski v. Pfister, 380 U.S. 479, 487 (1965)); N.J. Bankers Ass’n v. Att’y Gen., 49 F.4th 849, 860 (3d Cir. 2022) (noting that “the requirement that an impediment exist to the third party asserting his . . . own rights” does not apply when the challenged government action “substantially abridges the First Amendment rights of other parties not before the court”). Further, as the Supreme Court held in Bantam Books Inc. v. Sullivan, it is particularly important to allow third-party standing to vindicate First Amendment interests because “freedoms of expression … are vulnerable to gravely damaging yet barely visible encroachments” and must be protected by “the most rigorous procedural safeguards.” 372 U.S. 58, 66 (1963); see also id. at 64 n.6 (upholding the third-party standing of book publishers to assert the rights of distributors because “[t]he distributor … is not likely to sustain sufficient economic injury to induce him to seek judicial vindication of his rights,” whereas the seller has a “greater . . . stake” in vindicating those rights). In addition, the doctrine of third-party standing applies “when enforcement of the challenged restriction against the litigant would result indirectly in the violation of third parties’ rights.” Kowalski, 543 U.S. at 130. Here, the interference and restriction of President Trump’s First Amendment rights “would result indirectly in the violation of third parties’ rights,” id.—i.e., the rights of his audiences to receive, respond to, and amplify his speech.

I think this footnote is suspect, legally and practically. I mean, the notion that Stephen Miller’s NGO for fascism couldn’t vindicate these rights is nonsense. But it is nevertheless telling.

Trump makes that argument even while complaining that Judge Chutkan had to rely on the potential actions of others — that very same mob riled up by the amplified false victimization of Trump — to justify the gag itself.

Unable to justify the Gag Order based on President Trump’s actions, the prosecution pivots to third parties, alleging that unnamed others, outside of President Trump’s control, acted improperly before this case began. Such concerns cannot justify the Gag Order. The Supreme Court has repeatedly explained that citizens of this country cannot be censored based on a fear of what others might do. Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969) (“[T]he constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy . . . except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”).

[snip]

In entering the Gag Order, the Court relied heavily on the anticipated reactions of unidentified, independent third parties to President Trump’s speech. The Court found that “when Defendant has publicly attacked individuals, including on matters related to this case, those individuals are consequently threatened and harassed.” Id. at 2. But the Court cited no evidence that President Trump’s statements—as distinct from the statements of millions of others—caused such alleged threats or harassment, let alone that the statements were directed to inciting imminent lawless action.

Remember, Trump has repeatedly denied that the indictment accuses him of mobilizing the mob against Congress. Even after DOJ disabused Trump of that fantasy, he is playing coy about the fact that the crime he is alleged to have committed significantly involves riling up a mob to use as a weapon.

Indeed, Trump admits this is the plan to get elected: to rile up the mob again, this time by using this prosecution as a trigger.

The prosecution filed the indictment in this matter on August 1, 2023. Doc. 1. As this case is pending, President Trump continues to campaign for President, and one of his core messages is that the prosecutions against him are part of an unconstitutional strategy to attack and silence the Biden Administration’s chief political rival. To advance this message, President Trump has made many public statements criticizing individuals he believes are wrongly prosecuting him, including President Biden, Attorney General Garland, and Special Prosecutor Jack Smith and his team. This viewpoint—that the prosecution is politically motivated—is one shared by countless Americans.

[snip]

President Trump’s speech in support of his re-election campaign—which is inextricably intertwined with this prosecution and his defense—lies “at the core of our electoral process of the First Amendment freedoms—an area . . . where protection of robust discussion is at its zenith.” Meyer v. Grant, 486 U.S. 414, 425 (1988) (citations and quotations omitted); see also Buckley v. Am. Const. Law Found., Inc., 525 U.S. 182, 186–87 (1999); McIntyre v. Ohio Elec. Comm’n, 514 U.S. 334, 347 (1995) (“[C]ore political speech” encompasses any “advocacy of a politically controversial viewpoint.” “No form of speech is entitled to greater constitutional protection than” core political speech.).

Some of this is just cynicism: by claiming all this is political speech, Trump does base his appeal on the most expansive First Amendment precedent. The legal arguments here, some of them, anyway, are not frivolous.

But he’s not wrong about his campaign strategy. The key to Trump’s political success since he was sworn in was to polarize the electorate based off false claims that any investigation of Trump’s crimes is an attack on him and his mob.

Wheeler is right, of course. The whole "You can't prosecute me because you're hurting the people who voted for me" nonsense is literally Trump claiming he's immune from legal repercussions because he has a giant mob at his beckon call and that the "injury" done to his supporters by even investigating Trump renders him invincible.

If that's somehow the accepted legal justification, then no politician in the country can be touched because it unfairly hurts their supporters, voters, and followers, and Trump's legal team goes on to say that this is the highest form of democracy.

It's mob rule over all other things, and whoever has the biggest mob wins. 

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

MAGA terrorists continue to get closer and closer towards assassinating Democratic politicians, and enabling them to do so is being done on purpose by GOP lawmakers.

 

A man illegally brought a loaded handgun into the Wisconsin Capitol, demanding to see Gov. Tony Evers, and returned at night with an assault rifle after posting bail, police said Thursday.

The man, who was shirtless and had a holstered handgun, approached the governor’s office on the first floor of the Capitol around 2 p.m. Wednesday, state Department of Administration spokesperson Tatyana Warrick said. The 43-year-old man said “he would not leave until he saw Governor Evers” so he could talk about “domestic abuse towards men,” Capitol police said in a bulletin sent to lawmakers and their staffs.

Evers was not in the building at the time, Warrick said.

A Capitol police officer sits at a desk outside of a suite of rooms that includes the governor’s office, conference room and offices for the attorney general.

The man was taken into custody for openly carrying a firearm in the Capitol, which is against the law, Warrick said. Weapons can be brought into the Capitol if they are concealed and the person has a valid permit. The man arrested did not have a concealed carry permit, Warrick said.

The man posted cellphone video of his arrest on his Facebook page, which one of his Facebook friends downloaded and provided to The Associated Press. In the footage, the man tells police as they speak to him outside of the governor’s office that he is armed “to defend myself” from people who he says police won’t protect him from.

“I am not a threat,” the man tells police. His dog is with him.

When told by officers that it’s illegal for him to openly carry a firearm in the Capitol, the man says, “I will admit that I broke that law.”

Warrick said she was not aware of the video and could not comment on it.

The man was booked into the Dane County Jail but later posted bail.

He returned to the outside of the Capitol shortly before 9 p.m., three hours after the building closed, with a loaded assault-style rifle and a collapsible police baton in his backpack, Warrick said. He again demanded to see the governor and was taken into custody.

The man said “he did not own a vehicle and it is likely he has access to a large amount of weapons and is comfortable using them,” police said in the bulletin sent to Capitol workers.

Capitol police named the suspect, but court records show that no charges had been filed as of late Thursday afternoon. The AP normally does not name suspects until they are charged and efforts are made to get comments from them, their lawyer or other representative.

Madison police reported Thursday that the man was taken into protective custody and taken to the hospital. He could not be reached by the AP, and a spokesperson for the police department did not return an email seeking additional details.

So yeah, when MAGA chud terrorists show up in state capitols with guns looking to "have a talk" with Democratic governors twice in the same fucking day and when FOX News "comedian" Greg Gutfeld openly calls for that Second Civil War I keep tagging because it's the only way he feels he can deal with politicians he doesn't like because "elections don't work"  then maybe we should start paying attention to the fact right-wing terrorists are outright calling for deadly mass violence against their political enemies.

Those political enemies include all of us, folks.

 

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Donald Trump continues to attack judges, prosecutors and court officers running his criminal and fraud trials on social media, despite now being under multiple gag orders, and as I have been saying for a while now, he's doing it on purpose in order to dare someone to put him in jail.

Trump continued to complain online after arriving in court on Wednesday.

"Just arrived at the Witch Hunt Trial taking place in the very badly failing (so sadly!) State of New York, where people and companies are fleeing by the thousands," he wrote. "Corrupt Attorney General, Letitia James, is a big reason for this. Statute 63(12) is meant to be used for Consumer Fraud. It has never been used before on a 'case' such as this, especially since I did absolutely nothing wrong. I borrowed money, paid it back, in full, and got sued, years later, with a trial RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF MY CAMPAIGN. I am not even entitled, under any circumstances, to a JURY. This Witch Hunt cannot be allowed to continue. It is Election Interference and the start of Communism right here in America!"

"Despite the gag order — which again, is limited only to the judge's staff — Trump is back on Truth Social this morning with a post taking aim at New York Attorney General Tish James and filled with words from a Trump legal bingo card," tweeted MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin.

Attorney Bradley Moss argued that the post itself "does not cross the line," opining that "this post was reviewed by the lawyers" before it was sent.

While the Truth Social posts may not have violated the judge's order, some legal experts predicted that he would "almost certainly" violate it.

"If we're gonna ask, is Trump gonna violate a gag order? Almost certainly, yes," former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal told MSNBC. "It's more likely that he'll violate the gag order than almost anything... I mean, we're talking a significant probability he's going to violate the gag order, and then the question is: Will the judge at that point take the really heavy medicine of putting a former president in jail, or will there be some sort of warning and monetary fine first?" he said, adding he expects the latter but the outcome would depend on exactly how Trump violates the order.

"It's kind of like failing kindergarten," Katyal added. "To get a gag order imposed, you have to try. Trump managed to work at it and do it. And succeed. But it took a lot of work on his part. Now, I think the judge is basically saying, you attack a member of my staff, there will be serious sanctions, including even up to jail."

CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams suggested during Wednesday's edition of "CNN This Morning" that a prison stint is the only way to get the former president to comply with the gag order.

"In order to have a serious sanction against a defendant who's a billionaire, you really have to be sanctioning him hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars to really sort of stick it to him," Williams said. "And that's just not going to happen under the laws of New York court policy or procedure.

"You could put him in prison," he continued, addressing host Poppy Harlow. "You could do that. It's less likely but it's certainly doable and, frankly, Poppy, that's the one thing I think will work at this point because — just think about it — nothing has worked whether it is warnings, threats of gag orders or anything else. You've got one penalty left, right?" 

 

Luckily, Judge Engoron still has other options other than trying to jail Trump.

 

Trial attorney Bernard Alexander, who specialized in employment law and civil rights cases, told Insider, however, that Trump is unlikely to incur those kinds of penalties even if Engoron finds he's failed to comply with the gag order. Any decision the court makes, Alexander said, will have to strike a balance between maintaining the former president's right to free speech and the legal objective of holding a fair trial.

"For one thing, the judge can prevent Trump's legal team from presenting certain evidence. But judges prefer not to put their thumb on the scales of justice that way," Alexander told the outlet, adding that if Trump's trial had a jury, the judge could instruct the jury to consider the violation in their decision.

Alexander went on to say that the court could also impose a fine against Trump, "but that would be meaningless," and noted that judges in civil cases usually don't order people to go to jail, so Engoron will have to be creative in the sanction he chooses to issue to dissuade Trump from theoretically continuing to violate the order.

"Trump has money and he uses it to bully people. He can keep paying fines amounting to thousands of dollars – which is what would have to be imposed in a case like this – without giving it a second thought," Alexander told Insider. "The sanction must be something effective to reign Trump in, in order for him to take it seriously."

Alexander expressed that he was not surprised the order was issued and deemed it the correct course of action for Engoron.

"The judge is trying to maintain the integrity of the court and proceed with as light a touch as possible to allow the case to progress without any hint that the court is being impartial. The more Trump violates the rules, the more the judge has to act to maintain integrity and control," he said.

 

Trump is trying to get into as much trouble as possible in order to raise MAGA outrage and to sink the entire legal process.  Trump is already appealing the fraud liability finding by Judge Engoron even as the trial continues. It's a mess but a calculated one. 

Trump is trying to break the system to the point where it can't be used to punish him. We keep saying that Trump is not above the law, but he's also an unprecedented bad actor with considerable power to harm the country. Keep that in mind.

And no, he's not going to get locked up for violating gag orders as Liz Dye explains.

 

Shorn of all of the BS, Trump’s argument against a gag order boils down to “I’m running for president, and telling me to keep quiet is going to be a massive interference in the political process.” There’s also an unspoken element of “You and what army?”

The reality is that, absent a conviction, no judge is going to lock up the former president, who is running to return to office and who has a secret service detail and millions of angry followers. In some sense, every party to this transaction already knows that the court simply cannot treat Trump like any other defendant. And so they’re trying to fashion a solution which will nudge the former president to behave slightly better, knowing that a severe restriction is likely to provoke a showdown which will gum up the works for everyone.

In practical effect, this boils down to putting the squeeze on Trump’s lawyers and hoping that they’ll do their best to keep their client in line.

In an earlier round of motions, prosecutors argued for a protective order blocking Trump from disclosing any evidence turned over in discovery. Trump’s lawyers howled that this was a violation of their client’s First Amendment rights, just as they’re doing now. Judge Chutkan wound up imposing a narrower order blocking the disclosure of “sensitive information” such as grand jury transcripts, witness interviews, and personally identifying information. In practical effect, she ordered Trump not to post witness information on Truth Social.

But more than that, she imposed an obligation on Trump’s lawyers to safeguard that information by refusing to let Trump keep copies or take notes on it. And she put the kibosh on Trump’s plans to share that information with “volunteer attorneys or others without paid employment arrangements to assist with the preparation of this case” — a category of people which might include unindicted co-conspirators like Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Trump’s fixer Boris Epshteyn. By placing the onus on Trump’s counsel to control the flow of sensitive information, Judge Chutkan has so far managed to keep Trump from posting it online. Because while no judge wants the chaos that will come from sanctioning Donald Trump for his speech, they’ll happily sanction his lawyers in a heartbeat.

Trump’s desire to postpone his trial provides another lever Judge Chutkan can use to keep him in line. At an August hearing on the parameters of the first protective order, she tacitly warned Trump that the more he potentially poisoned the jury pool, the less inclined she would be to delay the trial.

“Even arguably ambiguous statements from parties or their counsel, if they can be reasonably interpreted to intimidate witnesses or to prejudice potential jurors, can threaten the process,” she said. “The more a party makes inflammatory statements about this case which could taint the jury pool … the greater the urgency will be that we proceed to trial quickly.”

Judge Chutkan has scheduled an October 16 hearing on the motion for a gag order. This would not appear to indicate that she views the matter of Trump’s social media posts as particularly urgent. In the meantime, the former president has directed most of his ranting toward Justice Engoron as the New York trial unfolds this week. Perhaps the sheer volume of Trump’s legal woes will keep him out of trouble with judges, if only because every time he gets tempted to do something deeply damaging in one case, he’ll be distracted by proceedings in another.

 

Having said all that, Trump's going to continue to Trump. Whether or not real pain can even be applied to him, well, we'll see.

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.

Last Call For Georgia On My Mind, Con't

I'm glad to see Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis taking security in the Trump RICO case seriously. As with any organized crime boss on trial, the possibility of witness tampering and jury tampering is extremely high, and DA Willis made her case to Judge Scott McAfee to protect the identities of the jurors until the trial is over.

 

A judge granted Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' request to restrict identifying information about jurors in the Georgia election interference case, a new court filing shows.

In a two-page order Monday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee imposed strict limits regarding the identities of jurors involved in any trial in the case against former President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants.

The court’s standing rules restrict using photographic or electronic equipment without a judge’s consent. McAfee’s order offers additional protections by prohibiting drawing in an identifiable manner or otherwise recording images, statements or conversations of jurors or prospective jurors.

He further ordered that jurors and prospective jurors be identified only by their numbers in court filings while the trial is pending, and he prohibited disclosing juror information that would reveal their identities, including names, addresses, telephone numbers or identifying employment information.

McAfee allowed exceptions for recording audio of the jury foreperson’s announcement of a verdict or questions to the judge.

The order applies to the trial of Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, whose joint trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 23, and a subsequent trial for the 17 other defendants, including Trump.

 

Given Trump's usual m.o. it means he'll have a source "accidentally" leak the identities of the jurors to FOX News sometime during the proceedings, but really Trump only has to get one juror for an acquittal. Besides, how many Atlanta cops are Republicans? Only would take one.

We're not ready for a Trump trial at this point. The system's not designed for it. When, not if, Trump violates this order, what will the consequences be?

Threats against grand jurors that indicted Trump in Georgia are still being investigated. We know what's coming.

Last Call For Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Once again, the open threat of Trump's stochastic violence cannot be allowed to dissuade his prosecution. But we have to have that national conversation about the fact that innocent people are almost certainly going to get hurt or killed as those prosecutions move forward.

As the prosecutions of Mr. Trump have accelerated, so too have threats against law enforcement authorities, judges, elected officials and others. The threats, in turn, are prompting protective measures, a legal effort to curb his angry and sometimes incendiary public statements, and renewed concern about the potential for an election campaign in which Mr. Trump has promised “retribution” to produce violence.

Given the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, scholars, security experts, law enforcement officials and others are increasingly warning about the potential for lone-wolf attacks or riots by angry or troubled Americans who have taken in the heated rhetoric.

In April, before federal prosecutors indicted Mr. Trump, one survey showed that 4.5 percent of American adults agreed with the idea that the use of force was “justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.” Just two months later, after the first federal indictment of Mr. Trump, that figure surged to 7 percent.

 

Seven percent of US adults is about 15 million people. The number is higher now, and will increase.

 

The indictments of Mr. Trump “are the most important current drivers of political violence we now have,” said the author of the study, Robert Pape, a political scientist who studies political violence at the University of Chicago.

Other studies have found that any effects from the indictments dissipated quickly, and that there is little evidence of any increase in the numbers of Americans supportive of a violent response. And the leaders of the far-right groups that helped spur the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 are now serving long prison terms.

But the threats have been steady and credible enough to prompt intense concern among law enforcement officials. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland addressed the climate in testimony to Congress on Wednesday, saying that while he recognized that the department’s work came with scrutiny, the demonization of career prosecutors and F.B.I. agents was menacing not only his employees but also the rule of law.

“Singling out individual career public servants who are just doing their jobs is dangerous — particularly at a time of increased threats to the safety of public servants and their families,” Mr. Garland said.

“We will not be intimidated,” he added. “We will do our jobs free from outside influence. And we will not back down from defending our democracy.”

Security details have been added for several high-profile law enforcement officials across the country, including career prosecutors running the day-to-day investigations.

The F.B.I., which has seen the number of threats against its personnel and facilities surge since its agents carried out the court-authorized search of Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida, in August 2022, subsequently created a special unit to deal with the threats. A U.S. official said threats since then have risen more than 300 percent, in part because the identities of employees, and information about them, are being spread online.

“We’re seeing that all too often,” Christopher A. Wray, the bureau’s director, said in congressional testimony this summer.

The threats are sometimes too vague to rise to the level of pursuing a criminal investigation, and hate speech enjoys some First Amendment protections, often making prosecutions difficult. But the Justice Department has charged more than a half dozen people with making threats.

This has had its own consequences: In the past 13 months, F.B.I. agents confronting individuals suspected of making threats have shot and fatally wounded two people, including one in Utah who was armed and had threatened, before President Biden’s planned visit to the area, to kill him.

 

It's good to see protection for prosecutors, judges, and other court officers and investigators. But we need to talk about the fact that these assholes have a number of softer targets to choose from and the increase in violence will include more schools, synagogues, supermarkets, community centers, abortion clinics, LGBTQ+ centers,  malls, and more.

These folks won't have federal protection, just sayin'.

Last Call For The NC GOP Just Stole Your Vote

The most horrifying result of the defection of Democratic state Rep. Tricia Cotham to the NC GOP, giving Republicans a veto-proof supermajority in the General Assembly over Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has just made itself clear: Republicans in the legislature can now determine the winner in every single election in the state.

North Carolina Republicans on Friday passed a major power grab, stripping the state’s Democratic governor of the authority to appoint a majority of members to state and county election boards and giving the heavily gerrymandered GOP legislature far more influence over how elections are run and certified in the battleground state.

In North Carolina, the governor dictates the political makeup of the state and county election boards, which are each composed of five members. Under Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, the boards have three Democrats and two Republicans. The governor appoints the members of the state board and the chair of the county boards. Under the new bill, those bodies would be evenly divided, with legislative leaders choosing the members of the state and local boards.

While that is theoretically more bipartisan, it is a recipe for gridlock that could hand sweeping new powers to Republicans in the legislature, who have a supermajority in both chambers due to the gerrymandered maps they drew in 2021.

If the state election board deadlocks and cannot certify a winner of an election, that power would instead go to the legislature. That means Republicans could determine the state’s presidential electors and potentially subvert the popular vote winner of the state if a Democrat carries North Carolina. “The legislature now gets to decide the outcome of all of our elections,” says Melissa Price Kromm, executive director of North Carolina Voters for Clean Elections, a pro-democracy coalition in the state. “When people vote is the will of the people still going to be accepted in North Carolina?” (State and federal courts could still order that elections be certified, and in presidential elections the legislature would need to comply with the revamped Electoral Count Act passed by Congress in 2021, which makes it harder for rogue legislatures to overturn the will of the voters.)

The bill also makes it easier to overturn elections in another way: only five of eight members of the new state board need to vote in favor of redoing an election, compared to four out of five members under the previous law (the board would grow in size from five members to eight under the new bill).

In addition to subverting fair election outcomes, the bill could lead to a huge decrease in voter access as well. Local election boards currently determine the number of early voting sites in a county, but if those boards deadlock under the new legislation there would only be one early voting location per county. That would dramatically limit the number of early voting sites in large urban counties that favor Democrats, leading to much longer lines at the polls. In 2020, for example, Wake County, home to Raleigh, had 20 early voting sites used by 374,000 voters, according to WRAL News. “There would only be one early voting location in counties with more than a million people,” says Price Kromm. “Can you imagine how long the lines would be?”

More than half of North Carolinians used early voting in 2022 and Democrats were more likely to cast a ballot that way. “In the state’s 2022 Senate race, writes Daniel Walton of Bolts magazine, “in-person early voters favored Democratic candidate Cheri Beasley by five percentage points, even as she lost the election overall by more than three percentage points to Republican Ted Budd.”

That’s not all. The legislation could also lead to the ouster of the current executive director of the state board of elections, Karen Brinson Bell, who is widely respected but has been targeted by election deniers for extending the deadline for returning mail ballots during the pandemic. If the state board cannot come to an agreement on the board’s executive director by July 15, 2024, Republicans in the legislature would get to make the selection, allowing them to put in place someone who is more allied with the GOP just months before the 2024 election.

And thanks to the villainous Tricia Cotham, the NC GOP has the margin to overturn Gov. Cooper's veto of the plan.  The state Senate has already passed the bill, and if Cooper's veto is overridden, North Carolina ceases to become a democracy.

Understand that there's not a reason to pass this bill other than to steal elections. It's specifically designed to allow Republicans to deadlock a county or state election board and have the legislature name the winner. Who or what will stop Nc Republicans from declaring the party's candidate the winner in every single election in the state?

What are Democrats in NC going to do about this? Because if the answer isn't "fight this until they win" then democracy is 100% lost in my home state.

Orange Meltdown, Contempt Of Court Edition

I'll be the first to admit that Thursday's Jeffrey Goldberg hagiography of former Trump Defense Secretary Gen. Mark Milley in The Atlantic laid it on thick enough to be mistaken for repairs on a DC brutalist concrete edifice. It's not that Gen. Milley did a bad job of stopping Trump's coup, it's that it was necessary in the first place.

But that leads us to yesterday, where Trump absolutely displayed why Judge Tanya Chutkan's targeted order is necessary and should be implemented immediately, because Trump turned to his social media outlet to attack Gen. Milley and all but call for his execution.

Former President Donald Trump is lashing out at U.S. Army General Mark Milley as a "woke train wreck" just before his retirement as the country's top military officer.

Milley is set to step down October 1 as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a position to which he was appointed by Trump in 2019. The general's relationship with the former president deteriorated significantly by the time Trump left office in January 2021 and has since become adversarial.

In a Truth Social post on Friday, Trump denounced Milley for enacting "perhaps the most embarrassing moment in American history" by withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan. While the withdrawal happened during the administration of President Joe Biden and was ordered by the current president, Trump had also ordered a full withdrawal before leaving the White House.

The former president suggested that all Americans should "celebrate" Milley's retirement and said that the general would have been executed for treason in "times gone by" over reports claiming that he called his Chinese counterpart in 2020 and said that he would warn China if Trump ever decided to launch a military attack.

Trump suggested in the post that any military officer who "failed America" as much as Milley did in Afghanistan would historically be put to death. You know, by following Trump's orders.

Still, Milley is a probable witness in Trump's January 6th trial, and calling for the execution of a witness against you in a trial just might be considered witness intimidation that Judge Chutkan cautioned Trump over earlier last month.

As I've said, Trump 100% wants to make this gag order necessary. The plan is to turn up the heat to the point to where Judge Chutkan has no choice, in which case Trump will continue to violate the order again and again until Chutkan is forced to act with possible contempt orders that put Trump behind bars.

Trump knows the moment that happens, he's an instant martyr for the MAGA cause, and the expected retribution from tens of millions at the ballot box -- and more than a few using a bullet box -- will put him back in the White House to finish America off.

This is all according to Trump's plan, and Judge Chutkan has to know this.

We may not even make it to any trials.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Me, last week, on the gag order requested by Special Counsel Jack Smith given Donald Trump's threatening social media outbursts against Smith, Judge Tanya Chutkan, and other court officers:

This is hardball stuff on the part of Smith and the DoJ, and of course nobody should be surprised by the part where Trump violated this order almost immediately Friday evening and is risking Chutkan citing him for contempt.  In fact, I expect Trump will absolutely push this as far as he can because he wants the process to break down. He wants riots and violence and bloodshed if she does try to put him behind bars, and he's going to all but openly dare her to do so.

 

Conservative former WSJ columnist Jason Willick writing in the NY Times about the gag order request:

I think the election interference case against Trump is legally flawed and — to the extent that it is valid — unwise to prosecute in the middle of an election season. The criminal-legal system, with all its punitive strictures, wasn’t designed to function with leading presidential candidates as defendants. And the presidential election system, with all its fierce competition and vituperative debate, wasn’t designed to function with defendants as candidates.

But there’s no going back. Smith’s insistence on indicting Trump over the 2020 election and trying him in the 2024 election year, combined with Republican voters’ insistence on making Trump their party’s presidential front-runner, has set up an inexorable clash between democratic politics and the law. There’s no fine-tuning it, no gentling of the legal and political processes to satisfy both. This is a head-on collision, and one or the other must yield.

I’m tempted to condemn Smith’s request for a gag order as an intrusion on the 2024 election, but that would miss the point. The Justice Department has already decided to thrust itself into the middle of the election. It might as well follow through: Prohibit Trump from attacking the proceedings, and when he doesn’t comply, jail him for contempt mid-campaign. Isn’t that what Attorney General Merrick Garland means when he says “no person is above the law”? Prosecutors have made their bed; they should lie in it.

 

Willick goes on hitting every conservative talking point on the January 6th case: that Trump cannot be prosecuted as a former president or current candidate (meaning Trump is above the law), that this is really a first amendment case that should be dismissed out of court (which it's not given the dozens of charges in Smith's case), that the people won't stand for the prosecution (when the majority of Americans do support the prosecution), that Democrats will suffer the most in the future being rounded up and jailed (which is all the more reason to make Trump an example), that only the voters should be able to determine Trump's fate (which they have, twice) and that this doesn't happen in civilized countries (where South Korea, Mexico, France and plenty of other US allies have prosecuted former presidents and PMs.)

 

In other words, it's steaming bullshit. But the taunting of Willick for Merrick Garland to follow through on ringing up Trump for violating the gag order is again, deliberate.

 

Trump wants this in order to justify massive national violence, and Willick is well aware of the plan. 

We'll see if Trump forces Judge Chutkan's hand, but if it happens, it's going to have consequences.

The Moose Lady Is Loose: Civil War Edition

In a bid to make herself relevant in GOP politics again, Alaska's biggest loser called on people to rise up after Trump's arrest on Newsmax on Thursday night. 

 

Sarah Palin responded to Donald Trump’s arrest in Georgia on Thursday night by talking up the possibility of civil war. Speaking to Eric Bolling as the former president was booked at the Fulton County Jail on election interference charges, Palin slammed “those who are conducting this travesty and creating this two-tier system of justice.” “I want to ask them: What the heck?” the former Alaska governor said. “Do you want us to be in civil war? Because that’s what’s going to happen. We’re not going to keep putting up with this.” Addressing Bolling, Palin went on to say: “I like that you suggested that we need to get angry. We do need to rise up and take our country back.

 

If you didn't have Moose Lady on your bingo card calling for open revolt against the US, well, nobody did because she's the kind of GOP "luminary" that has to go on Newsmax to get any attention at all, and while it's pretty disturbing to see he call for civil war, I'm betting she'll have a good time with the attention she'll get in the near future...from federal law enforcement. 

All proving that we dodged a bullet with John McCain's loss to Obama, Jesus.

Sunday Long Read: For Christ's Sake

There is a deeply damaged section of evangelical Christianity that is dangerous, political, and violent that is openly preparing for conflict with the nation, and in this week's Sunday Long Read, Frederick Thompson at Salon notes that this brand of "prayer warriors" just so happens to be targeting the biggest swing state that went for Biden in 2020 and where Dems flipped a US Senate seat to boot: Pennsylvania. 

"You've got a friend in Pennsylvania!" was the theme of the state's ad campaign to promote tourism in the 1980s. That was a veiled historical reference to the Society of Friends, better known as the Quakers, the liberal Christian sect to which William Penn, for whom Pennsylvania is named, belonged. But since the early 2000s there has been a quiet campaign in the Keystone State and beyond to unfriend anyone outside certain precincts of Christianity — and most Quakers would almost certainly be among the outcasts.

That campaign got a lot less quiet this April, as many leaders of the neo-charismatic movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation, who have been hiding in plain sight for a generation, began ramping up a contest for theocratic power in the nation and the world. Their first target is Pennsylvania.

On April 30, Sean Feucht, a musician and evangelist for conservative Christian dominion, spoke at Life Center Ministries, the Harrisburg megachurch of Apostle Charles Stock. (The honorific "Apostle" designates a leading church office in the NAR. That said, there are many apostles in the movement, and not all of them pastor churches.) During his appearance, Feucht highlighted his national tour of state capitals, called Kingdom to the Capitol, that he was conducting along with Turning Point USA, the far-right youth group led by Charlie Kirk. "[W]e are going to end this 50-state tour here in Harrisburg," he announced.

It will probably be three to four weeks before the general election. This is a state, it's the Keystone State — the seed of a nation — God is not done with this state.

The "seed of a nation" refers to the famous 17th-century words of William Penn. (Much more on this below.)

Sometimes Feucht's tour has ventured into darker terrain. He told an audience in Austin, Texas, that "no one has hope for" their city:

 

Why are we going to all these 50 capitals — because they're amazing cities? … they're actually not. They're the most horrible cities in America.

 

Indeed. Feucht and his movement consider the 50 state capitals to be demon-infested bastions of ungodly government. His tour has openly become a campaign to "unfriend" the nation. He wrote in an "Open Letter to Church Leaders" on April 23:

 

Unfriend? That seems a little harsh for some. Yet [New Testament author] James didn't seem to think so — "Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God."

Feucht's effort to connect young people with what his movement considers William Penn's ancient vision for Pennsylvania is part of the wider, epochal campaign of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), a movement at the cutting edge of Pentecostal and Charismatic evangelicalism, which is now the second largest Christian faction in the world after the Roman Catholic Church and the largest growth sector in American and global Christianity.

This is a central story of our time, and one that has scarcely penetrated our national consciousness. Sean Feucht's ministry, for example, is overseen by NAR apostles — but media coverage does not reflect that context.

The goal here is to capture entire states and then the country as theocratic dominions of a God that sees anyone else as enemies to be exterminated in His name. People like Charlie Kirk and Sean Feucht want not just a Second Civil War, but a Holy Crusade to boot. 

They will do everything they can to get both.

 

Last Call For Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Right-wing "Christian" churches are increasingly delivering radical calls to terrorist action, and next time you see Republican lawmakers scream about how the FBI is "targeting" churches, understand that the FBI has every reason to do so.

 

Kent Christmas, the radically right-wing pastor of Regeneration Nashville, used his sermon last Sunday to urge those in his congregation to show the same sort of “passion” that drives radical Islamic terrorists to be willing to “die for their beliefs.”

Christmas, a Trump–loving MAGA pastor and conspiracy theorist who has repeatedly declared that God will soon start killing “wicked” elected officials, got himself worked up during his sermon by falsely asserting that the state of Vermont recently passed legislation declaring that “it is legal, up to 21 days after full-term birth, that you can kill a baby.”

“I am at war with evil!” Christmas ranted. “This is one preacher that is not backing down. I can tell you this: I will give my life for the Gospel.”

“You want to know why the Muslim faith has had its advancements?” he continued. “It’s because the Muslims were willing to die for their beliefs. They were willing to strap bombs to their chest. They believed in the afterlife.”

“God, give us some men and women that will get a hold of some passion in their spirit and say, ‘I will lay down my life for the Gospel!'” Christmas thundered. “This thing was born in blood.”

 

Understand these are Christmas's actual words.

And let's remember that downtown Nashville was hit by a terrorist suicide bombing not more than a few years ago.

So yeah, if I were the FBI, I'd absolutely be keeping an eye on this asshole and everyone attending sermons of suicidal, terrorist hatred like this.

Last Call For Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

The FBI has finally caught up with and arrested two suspects in a Planned Parenthood clinic firebombing that happened in March of last year.

Two California men, one of them a Marine, were arrested Wednesday and accused of firebombing a Planned Parenthood clinic in Costa Mesa last year, federal authorities said.

Tibet Ergul, 21, of Irvine, and Chance Brannon, 23, of San Juan Capistrano, an active-duty Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton, are charged with using an explosive or fire to damage real property affecting interstate commerce, the U.S. attorney’s office for Central California said in a statement.

A criminal complaint alleges they ignited and threw a Molotov cocktail at the clinic’s entrance early March 13, 2022.

Damage was estimated at $1,050, and appointments for about 30 patients had to be rescheduled, the complaint says.

"My office takes very seriously this brazen attack that targeted a facility that provides critical health care services to thousands of people in Orange County," U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in the statement. "While it is fortunate that no one was physically harmed and responders were able to prevent the clinic from being destroyed, the defendants’ violent actions are entirely unacceptable.”

Security videos show two people wearing hooded sweatshirts and masks approach the Planned Parenthood around 1 a.m. and throw a flaming device at the front door, federal prosecutors said.

Investigators found burn marks on the entrance door and the adjacent wall, according to the complaint. Prosecutors said an analysis showed that a glass container and other materials collected from the scene contained gasoline.

The FBI in January released a poster announcing a reward of up to $25,000 leading to the identifications, arrests and convictions of the suspects, according to the complaint.

And once again, we have domestic terrorism suspected from someone with a military or law enforcement background, as we have seen so often in the past several years. An entire machine churning out a generation of radical right-wing cultists ready to commit horrific acts in the name of "making the country great again" should surprise no one at this point. I've been documenting this movement for years now.

It will continue until the head of the snake is dealt with. Luckily, we saw the effort to do just that take a huge step forward in the last week.

Last Call For Orange Meltdown, Peach State Edition, Con't

If the Washington Post is correct, Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis has a significantly bigger case building against Donald Trump than reported previously.

 

An Atlanta-area investigation of alleged election interference by former president Donald Trump and his allies has broadened to include activities in Washington, D.C., and several other states, according to two people with knowledge of the probe — a fresh sign that prosecutors may be building a sprawling case under Georgia’s racketeering laws.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) launched an investigation more than two years ago to examine efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn his narrow 2020 defeat in Georgia. Along the way, she has signaled publicly that she may use Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute to allege that these efforts amounted to a far-reaching criminal scheme.

In recent days, Willis has sought information related to the Trump campaign hiring two firms to find voter fraud across the United States and then burying their findings when they did not find it, allegations that reach beyond Georgia’s borders, said the two individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the investigation. At least one of the firms has been subpoenaed by Fulton County investigators.

Willis’s investigation is separate from the one at the Department of Justice being led by special counsel Jack Smith, but the two probes have covered some of the same ground. Willis has said she plans to make a charging decision this summer, and she has indicated that such an announcement could come in early August. She has faced stiff criticism from Republicans for investigating the former president, and the ever-widening scope suggests just how ambitious her plans may be.

The state’s RICO statute is among the most expansive in the nation, allowing prosecutors to build racketeering cases around violations of both state and federal laws — and even activities in other states. If Willis does allege a multistate racketeering scheme with Trump at its center, the case could test the bounds of the controversial law and make history in the process. The statute calls for penalties of up to 20 years in prison.

“Georgia’s RICO statute is basically two specified criminal acts that have to be part of a pattern of behavior done with the same intent or to achieve a common result or that have distinguishing characteristics,” said John Malcolm, a former Atlanta-based federal prosecutor who is now a constitutional scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “That’s it. It’s very broad. That doesn’t mean it’s appropriate to charge a former president, but that also doesn’t mean she can’t do it or won’t do it.”

Among Willis’s latest areas of scrutiny is the Trump campaign’s expenditure of more than $1 million on two firms to study whether electoral fraud occurred in the 2020 election, the two individuals said. The Post first reported earlier this year that the work was carried out in the final weeks of 2020, and the campaign never released the findings because the firms, Simpatico Software Systems and Berkeley Research Group, disputed many of Trump’s theories and could not offer any proof that he was the rightful winner of the election.

In recent days, Willis’s office has asked both firms for information — not only about Georgia, but about other states as well. Trump contested the 2020 election result in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Ken Block, the CEO of Simpatico Software Systems, declined to comment on what he has turned over to investigators. A lawyer for the Berkeley Research Group also declined to comment. A spokesman for Willis declined to comment on the investigation. Lawyers for Trump also declined to comment.

 

We know Willis has asked Fulton County and state officials to be ready to respond to possible charges later this summer. If Willis really is pursuing a massive RICO case, then all bets are off. Trump could go to prison for the rest of his life, and MAGA America will absolutely revolt.

It has to happen, but again, we're not having any serious conversations about the second and third order effects here, and who is going to be hurt the most by the response.

Last Call For Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

A man showed up at the Fairfax, Virginia office of Democratic Rep. Jerry Connolly and when the office staff told him Connolly wasn't there, the man proceeded to beat the tar out of two staffers with a baseball bat, putting both of them in the hospital.

 

A person armed with a baseball bat attacked two congressional staff members at a district office in Representative Gerald E. Connolly, the congressman said in a statement.

Mr. Connolly, a Democrat, said the individual committed “an act of violence” at his Fairfax, Va., office against two members of his staff, who were taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Sgt. Lisa Gardner, a spokeswoman for the Fairfax City Police, said at a news conference on Monday afternoon that the assailant, a man who is believed to be a constituent of Mr. Connolly’s, walked into the office around 10:30 a.m. with what appeared to be a metal baseball bat and struck two staff members in the upper body.

Sergeant Gardner said that a motive was not immediately known, and that charges against the suspect, whose name was not immediately released, would be forthcoming.

Both staff members were conscious when the police arrived about five minutes after a 911 call, she said.

“You could absolutely tell that the people inside were scared, they were hiding,” she said.

“It’s quite frankly scary that someone can walk up to an office with a baseball bat and just start swinging at innocent victims,” she added.

Mr. Connolly represents a swath of the Northern Virginia suburbs west of Washington, D.C. He was first elected to Congress in 2008. In a statement after the attack, he said he has “the best team in Congress.”

“My district office staff make themselves available to constituents and members of the public every day,” Mr. Connolly said in the statement. “The thought that someone would take advantage of my staff’s accessibility to commit an act of violence is unconscionable and devastating.”

The attack comes amid a rise in threats and violent political speech against members of Congress in recent years. In October, an intruder bludgeoned Representative Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, inside their San Francisco home after he shouted “Where is Nancy?”

The most-watched network in America regularly calls Democrats frauds, crooks, and much worse on a regular basis, and the last guy in the Oval Office continues to do much the same and has for years. Somebody once again took up the right-wing stochastic terrorism noise machine on their call to cause violence to Democrats.

The violence will continue and only get worse, and the main thought I have is "If the suspect had brought an AR-15 instead of a baseball bat, we'd be having a far different conversation right now."

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

The Proud Boys terrorists arrested and charged in the January 6th insurrection are now official seditious conspirators, guilty of conspiring against the United States of America.

 

AFTER A TRIAL that stretched nearly four months, four Proud Boys have been found guilty of seditious conspiracy in connection to the insurrection of Jan. 6.

The jury delivered guilty verdicts for Enrique Tarrio, the former chairman of Proud Boys; Ethan Nordean, who was the leader on the ground in Washington; Zachary Rehl, a top Proud Boy from Philadelphia, and Joseph Biggs, one of the best known militants, with a big social media following.

A fifth Proud Boy, Dominic Pezzola — who smashed out a window — at the Capitol was found guilty, along with the other four, on a secondary charge of obstructing Congress.

In one of the last, major high-profile cases stemming from the insurrection, prosecutors succeeded in proving the Proud Boys defendants engaged in sedition. The verdict builds on the previous convictions of numerous Oath Keepers on the same seditious conspiracy charge.

The verdict was a partial one, and before it was entered, the judge urged the jurors to continue working for unanimity on the remaining counts.

The Proud Boys are a far-right drinking and fighting club that promotes “Western Chauvinism” — which they define as a refusal “to apologize for creating the modern world.” The Associated Press dubs them “a neofacist group” and they are deemed a terrorist entity by the government of Canada.

The Proud Boys are infamous for brawling with antifa activists during street protests. At the bitter end of the Trump era, the group had become increasingly militia-like in its M.O., and staunchly backed the MAGA president. Trump even said during a debate ahead of the 2020 election that the group should “stand back and stand by.” Tarrio’s lawyer said during closing arguments on Tuesday that the directive led the Proud Boys to “grow so large that vetting became difficult.”

 

This should be the end of a number of Republican careers, starting with MTG, Lauren Boebert, and Donald Trump.  It won't be, all three will run on overturning the convictions and Trump in particular will promise to pardon them.

Republicans supporting convicted seditious conspirators should be grounds for expulsion from Congress and the end of Trump's campaign, but sadly, it will only benefit them as they rally around these new MAGA martyrs and ensure that yet more domestic terrorist attacks will continue.