Insurrection Investigation, Con't

As the January 6th Committee considers whether or not to charge former Trump WH Chief of Staff Mark Meadows with contempt and Steve Bannon's own contempt trial gets underway in the weeks ahead (probably), Trump has named a third player he expects to keep his mafia code of omerta in the latest round of January 6th Committee subpoenas in former Trump trade representative Peter Navarro. 

 

Former President Donald Trump told his former White House trade adviser to defy a House committee that subpoenaed him in a probe into the Trump administration’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I’m telling Peter Navarro to protect executive privilege and not let these unhinged Democrats discredit our great accomplishments,” Trump said in a statement on Saturday.

Peter Navarro, who was director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy and assistant to the president, was subpoenaed Thursday by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus. Trump’s directive opens up another front in his effort to keep former aides and allies from cooperating with congressional inquiries and demands.

Trump lawyers have already instructed several others, including Steve Bannon and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to defy subpoenas to testify and turn over documents to a House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Whether executive privilege grants them immunity is a question that’s likely to take some time to wind through the courts.

Democrats who control the House voted in October to hold Bannon in criminal contempt of Congress for his defiance and referred the matter to the Justice Department for prosecution. A federal grand jury indicted him on two counts of contempt of Congress this month.

Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, the Democrat who chairs the coronavirus panel, has said Navarro was subpoenaed after refusing to cooperate with requests from the committee.

The subpoena demands that Navarro produce documents by Dec. 8 related to his work on the administration’s pandemic response and to appear for a deposition on Dec. 1. That includes evidence that he complied with federal laws on the preservation of presidential records.

 

The Committee was willing to burn Bannon in a court fight that will almost certainly be dragged out until SCOTUS can bury it and the Committee's mandate expires at the end of next year. Bannon will never testify, and worst case for him is he flees the country. Meadows, as I linked at the top of the post, still has hopes of being in the next Republican administration or a major lobbyist player, so he'll most likely cooperate. 

Navarro I think will follow suit. We'll see, as much of the Committee's work will stop in the next six weeks due to the holidays. But the larger point is that time is not on the Democrats' side here. It's already been ten months, and we've gone through almost half of the Committee's max of two years.

After Mueller and impeachment, it's definitely time to temper expectations here.

Sunday Long Read: Time To Unplug Big Tech

Not only are Facebook and Google destroying information systems around the globe with their clickbait ad greed, it turns out they are actively funding disinformation brokers around the world in order to profit from it, and the results are an open door to destabilize a nation-state or three if you have the money or the resources.

 

In 2015, six of the 10 websites in Myanmar getting the most engagement on Facebook were from legitimate media, according to data from CrowdTangle, a Facebook-run tool. A year later, Facebook (which recently rebranded to Meta) offered global access to Instant Articles, a program publishers could use to monetize their content.

One year after that rollout, legitimate publishers accounted for only two of the top 10 publishers on Facebook in Myanmar. By 2018, they accounted for zero. All the engagement had instead gone to fake news and clickbait websites. In a country where Facebook is synonymous with the internet, the low-grade content overwhelmed other information sources.

It was during this rapid degradation of Myanmar’s digital environment that a militant group of Rohingya—a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority—attacked and killed a dozen members of the security forces, in August of 2017. As police and military began to crack down on the Rohingya and push out anti-Muslim propaganda, fake news articles capitalizing on the sentiment went viral. They claimed that Muslims were armed, that they were gathering in mobs 1,000 strong, that they were around the corner coming to kill you.

It’s still not clear today whether the fake news came primarily from political actors or from financially motivated ones. But either way, the sheer volume of fake news and clickbait acted like fuel on the flames of already dangerously high ethnic and religious tensions. It shifted public opinion and escalated the conflict, which ultimately led to the death of 10,000 Rohingya, by conservative estimates, and the displacement of 700,000 more.

In 2018, a United Nations investigation determined that the violence against the Rohingya constituted a genocide and that Facebook had played a “determining role” in the atrocities. Months later, Facebook admitted it hadn’t done enough “to help prevent our platform from being used to foment division and incite offline violence.”

Over the last few weeks, the revelations from the Facebook Papers, a collection of internal documents provided to Congress and a consortium of news organizations by whistleblower Frances Haugen, have reaffirmed what civil society groups have been saying for years: Facebook’s algorithmic amplification of inflammatory content, combined with its failure to prioritize content moderation outside the US and Europe, has fueled the spread of hate speech and misinformation, dangerously destabilizing countries around the world.

But there’s a crucial piece missing from the story. Facebook isn’t just amplifying misinformation.

The company is also funding it.

An MIT Technology Review investigation, based on expert interviews, data analyses, and documents that were not included in the Facebook Papers, has found that Facebook and Google are paying millions of ad dollars to bankroll clickbait actors, fueling the deterioration of information ecosystems around the world.

It's not just the US media that Facebook and Google are deliberately destroying in order to become the only media sources in town. And this is just an astonishing reminder that the disinformation these companies are pushing has very bloody real-world consequences.

 

Even more, it's deliberate.

Time to break up the tech giants.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Several white supremacist domestic terrorism groups are celebrating the Rittenhouse acquittal, and they see it as proof they can kill as many non-white folk and white allies as they want to "purify" the nation.

In the minutes after a jury acquitted 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse on all counts, jubilation lit up on social media spaces where far-right extremists gather.

In one Telegram channel for the far-right Proud Boys, some noted they had taken the day off work to await the verdict. "There's still a chance for this country," wrote one. In another channel, a member stated that political violence must continue. "The left wont stop until their bodied get stacked up like cord wood," he wrote.

Rittenhouse himself is not known to be a member of an extremist group. But the trial, which from its beginning became a cause and rallying cry among conservatives who champion gun rights, has been particularly alarming to extremism researchers.

As it played out against the backdrop of an increasingly polarized nation, experts of far-right movements say opportunists found a growing audience for their violence-fueled messaging that targets the left. Now that a jury has found that Rittenhouse acted in self-defense, those concerns are recentering on the question of whether it may embolden others to engage in political violence.

"This might be interpreted across the far right as a type of permission slip to do this kind of thing or to seek out altercations in this way, believing that there is a potential that they won't face serious consequences for it," said Jared Holt, a resident fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council. "I worry that that might end up being interpreted by some people as a proof of concept of this idea that you can actually go out and seek a 'self-defense situation,' and you'll be cheered as a hero for it."

Holt said the verdict also prompts questions about whether far-right extremists may become more visible at public demonstrations.

"Broadly speaking, the far right has been a bit reluctant to turn out in person for things, especially on larger national scales or on issues with a lot of national attention," he said. "But this could change that dynamic."

 

I don't know if this will spawn copycat killings, where lunatics will test "stand your ground" laws during Black Lives Matter demonstrations or rallies. All I know for sure is that Black folk are going to be made to suffer.

You should be terrified of angry white men as CNN's John Blake points out.They have free license to kill.

The Brute. The Buck. And, of course, the Thug. 

Those are just some of the names for a racial stereotype that has haunted the collective imagination of White America since the nation's inception. 

The specter of the angry Black man has been evoked in politics and popular culture to convince White folks that a big, bad Black man is coming to get them and their daughters.
I've seen viral videos of innocent Black men losing their lives because of this stereotype. I've watched White people lock their car doors or clutch their purses when men who look like me approach. I've been racially profiled.

It's part of the psychological tax you pay for being a Black man in America -- learning to accept that you are seen by many as Public Enemy No. 1. 

But as I've watched three separate trials about White male violence unfold across the US these past few weeks -- the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, the Ahmaud Arbery death trial and the civil case against organizers of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville -- I've come to a sobering conclusion: 

There is nothing more frightening in America today than an angry White man. 

It's not the "radical Islamic terrorist" that I fear the most. Nor is it the brown immigrant or the fiery Black Lives Matter protester, or whatever the latest bogeyman is that some politician tells me I should dread. 

It's encountering an armed White man in public who has been inspired by the White men on trial in these three cases.

Fear. Terror. Anguish.

Every day for us.

The psychic damage is enormous.

But Black Lives Matter.

The Big Lie, Con't

I'm beginning to think the Big Lie folks like MyPillow exec Mike Lindell, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney "The Kraken" Powell and the rest of the merry band of Trump election fiddlers are about to get hit with some serious federal election tampering charges.

Federal and state investigators are examining an attempt to breach an Ohio county’s election network that bears striking similarities to an incident in Colorado earlier this year, when government officials helped an outsider gain access to the county voting system in an effort to find fraud.

Data obtained in both instances were distributed at an August “cyber symposium” on election fraud hosted by MyPillow executive Mike Lindell, an ally of former president Donald Trump who has spent millions of dollars promoting false claims that the 2020 election was rigged.

The attempted breach in Ohio occurred on May 4 inside the county office of John Hamercheck (R), chairman of the Lake County Board of Commissioners, according to two individuals with knowledge of the incident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigations. State and county officials said no sensitive data were obtained, but they determined that a private laptop was plugged into the county network in Hamercheck’s office, and that the routine network traffic captured by the computer was circulated at the same Lindell conference as the data from the Colorado breach.

Together, the incidents in Ohio and Colorado point to an escalation in attacks on the nation’s voting systems by those who have embraced Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was riddled with fraud. Now, some Trump loyalists pushing for legal challenges and partisan audits are also targeting local officials in a bid to gain access to election systems — moves that themselves could undermine election security.

An FBI spokeswoman confirmed Thursday that the bureau is investigating the incident in Lake County but declined to comment further. Investigators are trying to determine whether someone on the fifth floor of the Lake County government building improperly accessed the computer network and whether any laws were violated.

Investigators with the office of Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) believe a government official appears to have facilitated the attempted breach of the election network in Lake County, a spokesman for LaRose said.

Asked in a telephone interview whether he knew of the attempted breach or participated in it, Hamercheck said he was advised not to discuss the investigation. “I’m aware of no criminal activity,” Hamercheck said, and added: “I have absolute confidence in our board of elections and our IT people.”

Ahead of the incidents in Ohio and Colorado, county officials in both places — including Hamercheck — discussed claims of election fraud with Douglas Frank, an Ohio-based scientist who has done work for Lindell, according to people familiar with Frank’s role, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions.

Frank, who has claimed to have discovered secret algorithms used to rig the 2020 election, has been traveling the country trying to convince election officials that the vote was riddled with fraud — and that they should join the effort to uncover it, he told The Washington Post in a series of interviews.

Frank has told The Post in recent months that he has visited “over 30 states” and has met with about 100 election administrators. He would not say how many local election administrators he has persuaded to join his cause. “I deliberately protect my clerks. I don’t want anybody to know who they are,” Frank said.

 

The good news is if these idiots are leaving a forensics trail visible from Alpha Centauri, it's going to be pretty easy to toss them in the clink.

 

The bad news of course is Republicans are only going to try to make this all as legal as possible at the state level in places like Wisconsin, Georgia, and Ohio. My greatest fear is that by the time 2022 actually gets done, we'll be looking at a 2023 where Republicans will rule all but the Mid-Atlantic, new England, and the Left Coast, with Illinois in the middle, and Biden will be under siege.

 

And in the majority of states, elections simply won't matter. Not when Republicans will control 75%+ of US House and state legislature seats even with 45-48% of the state's votes. Democracy won't be able to survive that. 

Look at Ohio's new congressional district map approved Friday.

Gov. Mike DeWine has signed a bill creating new Ohio congressional districts for 2022 and 2024 that likely will strengthen Republicans’ already-dominant share of the state’s congressional delegation.

The bill, approved by Republican state lawmakers earlier this week, favor Republicans to win 12 out of Ohio’s 15 congressional districts. Only two districts would be safely Democratic, with a third Democratic-leaning district joining Akron with suburban Cleveland projected as a toss-up, according to modeling from Dave’s Redistricting App, a widely used redistricting website.

Because the map was approved without Democratic votes, it will expire after four years, instead of the typical 10 years bipartisan maps would have been in effect. It will almost certainly be challenged in court. Because the map lacks Democratic support, it also will face tougher legal requirements, forbidding it from “unduly” being noncompact or benefitting either political party or its incumbents.

The map is the first approved under Ohio’s new redistricting rules, overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2018 as an anti-gerrymandering reform. The new system was designed to encourage bipartisan support. But Republicans approved both the congressional map and new state legislative maps finalized in September without gaining a single Democratic vote.

 

So instead of 12-4 Republicans, it's now 12-3, and most likely 13-2.  Instead of 75% of districts with 51% of the vote, Republicans in Ohio would get 86%. And four years from now, Ohio Republicans will just update the map to keep it this bad. They get to redistrict every four years now instead of ten.

What a great update to Ohio's state constitution. No wonder Republicans were happy to put it on the ballot, it gives them permanent control of the state in perpetuity.

This is what we're up against.

The era of mass disenfranchisement.

Vote Like Your Country Depends On It, Con't

The inestimable Will Bunch lays out the dark future ahead unless Democratic voters get the hell over themselves and vote in 2022.

Despite the polls and the ugliness this past week on the House floor, most punditry and many political junkies remain more fixated on 2024 — the return of Trump to the main stage, or questions over Biden running again — than the political crisis that seems likely to come before it. If the Democrats aim to pull off a “do you believe in miracles? ... yes!” comeback in the midterm elections, there are a couple of things that need to happen. The first is to make clear to an electorate that gave Biden a 7-million vote margin in 2020 what the consequences of GOP rule in Congress will be ... such as:

— A Biden impeachment. The most extreme Republicans on Capital Hill have been champing at the bit to hold Biden impeachment hearings. In fact, four GOP House members filed lost-cause impeachment articles against the 46th president back in September, citing a hodgepodge of supposed causes such as the temporary chaos in Afghanistan, last spring’s surge in migrants at the border, and his handling of the then-eviction moratorium. Given the party’s Trump-inspired push for tit-for-tat revenge against Democrats, it’s not hard to picture a 2023 effort to put Biden on a par with POTUS 45, who was impeached twice for the Ukraine scandal and the January 6 insurrection.

— The end of accountability for January 6 and Trump’s failed coup. Within weeks of arguably the most dangerous day for American democracy since the end of the Civil War, the overwhelming majority of GOPers on Capitol Hill made clear their belief that any investigations into the causes and the leaders of the insurrection are a partisan witch hunt over what they now insist was over-caffeinated Capitol rotunda “tourism.” Any lingering threads from the current House probe will be left hanging, and it’s possible that Attorney General Merrick Garland would himself be impeached if he attempted to criminally charge Trump or other ring leaders.

— A revenge-obsessed 118th Congress that will spend most of its time on Benghazi-style hearings aimed to embarrass members of the Biden administration as well as the president and vice president, and on efforts to censure the left-wing members of the so-called Squad that includes Ocasio-Cortez and lightning-rod allies like Rep. Ilhan Omar, and to remove them from committees as happened with Gosar and GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Any issue-related bills from a McCarthy-led House would likely ignore the economy or other critical issues, in favor of banning abortion and the teaching of “critical race theory.”

There are number of reasons to fear this scenario and yet also feel a bit baffled. Any GOP “wave election” in 2022 would be driven by independent swing voters who are said to be disappointed that Biden hasn’t done more to stop inflation or end the COVID-19 crisis, yet there’s no Republican agenda for dealing with these, or any of the other actual problems facing America. Of course, GOP candidates like Virginia governor-elect Glenn Youngkin succeeded not with ideas but by whipping up cultural resentments.

Democrats are being politically naive (not exactly a new phenomenon) in thinking that a strong package of spending bills — on infrastructure and probably to expand pre-K and extend child tax credits — or that even rosy predictions from no less than Goldman Sachs of record-low unemployment in 2022 will change the dynamic. They need to remember that Biden won last year not so much on his economic promises but by framing the election to Trump-exhausted voters as “a battle for the soul of America.”

So far, 2021 has only showed that winning a key battle did not end this war. If anything, what Republicans are willing to do with Trump out of power could ultimately prove an even greater threat to democracy than actually having the authoritarian-yet-inept Trump in the White House. Democrats need to begin sounding this alarm today — that voters who turned out in near-record numbers in 2020 to defeat the culture of Trumpism need to defy history and show up next November, to prevent something even worse. Yes, today’s electorate is tired of chaos, but they should wait until 2023 — because they ain’t seen nothing yet.

 

Let's take a look at what a GOP-controlled America would look like, starting in Wisconsin.

Republicans in Wisconsin are engaged in an all-out assault on the state’s election system, building off their attempts to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential race by pressing to give themselves full control over voting in the state.

The Republican effort — broader and more forceful than that in any other state where allies of former President Donald J. Trump are trying to overhaul elections — takes direct aim at the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission, an agency Republicans created half a decade ago that has been under attack since the chaotic aftermath of last year’s election.

The onslaught picked up late last month after a long-awaited report on the 2020 results that was ordered by Republican state legislators found no evidence of fraud but made dozens of suggestions for the election commission and the G.O.P.-led Legislature, fueling Republican demands for more control of elections.

Then the Trump-aligned sheriff of Racine County, the state’s fifth most populous county, recommended felony charges against five of the six members of the election commission for guidance they had given to municipal clerks early in the pandemic. The Republican majority leader of the State Senate later seemed to give a green light to that proposal, saying that “prosecutors around the state” should determine whether to bring charges.

And last week, Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican, said that G.O.P. state lawmakers should unilaterally assert control of federal elections, claiming that they had the authority to do so even if Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, stood in their way — an extraordinary legal argument debunked by a 1932 Supreme Court decision and a 1964 ruling from the Wisconsin Supreme Court. His suggestion was nonetheless echoed by Michael Gableman, a conservative former State Supreme Court justice who is conducting the Legislature’s election inquiry.

Republican control of Wisconsin elections is necessary, Mr. Johnson said in an interview on Wednesday, because he believes Democrats cheat.

“Do I expect Democrats to follow the rules?” said the senator, who over the past year has promoted fringe theories on topics like the Capitol riot and Covid vaccines. “Unfortunately, I probably don’t expect them to follow the rules. And other people don’t either, and that’s the problem.”

The uproar over election administration in Wisconsin — where the last two presidential contests have been decided by fewer than 23,000 votes each — is heightened by the state’s deep divisions and its pivotal place in American politics.

Some top Republican officials in Wisconsin privately acknowledge that their colleagues are playing to the party’s base by calling for state election officials to be charged with felonies or for their authority to be usurped by lawmakers.

Adding to the uncertainty, Mr. Johnson’s proposal has not yet been written into legislation in Madison. Mr. Evers has vowed to stop it.

“The outrageous statements and ideas Wisconsin Republicans have embraced aren’t about making our elections stronger, they’re about making it more difficult for people to participate in the democratic process,” Mr. Evers said Thursday. The G.O.P.’s election proposals, he added, “are nothing more than a partisan power grab.”

Yet there is no guarantee that the Republican push will fall short legally or politically. The party’s lawmakers in other states have made similar moves to gain more control over election apparatus. And since the G.O.P. won control of the Wisconsin Legislature in 2010, the state has served as an incubator for conservative ideas exported to other places.

“In Wisconsin we’re heading toward a showdown over the meaning of the clause that says state legislatures should set the time, manner and place of elections,” said Kevin J. Kennedy, who spent 34 years as Wisconsin’s chief election officer before Republicans eliminated his agency and replaced it with the elections commission in 2016. “If not in Wisconsin, in some other state they’re going to push this and try to get a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on this.”

 

Again, some brutal Supreme Court decisions are going to make it very clear next summer what will happen if the GOP gets back in power. I don't care if the Democrats disappointed you. Hell, they disappoint me daily.

But I will be damned if I give this country back to those Republican assholes. 

Vote, America.

StupidiNews: Rittenhouse Acquitted

After 4 days of deliberations, the jury in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse has acquitted him on all charges stemming from killing two and injuring a third in Kenosha, Wisconsin last year during unrest over Black Lives Matter.

Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager who killed two people and shot another during unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was acquitted Friday of first-degree intentional homicide and four other felony charges. 

Rittenhouse, wearing a dark jacket with a burgundy tie and shirt, stood behind the defense table as each not guilty verdict was read. He tried to hold back tears, then sobbed and appeared to collapse forward on the table, where he was held by one of his lawyers. 

The panel of five men and seven women deliberated more than 25 hours over the past four days in a closely watched case that polarized an already divided nation. 

They had asked the court a handful of questions, including requests Wednesday to rewatch much of the video evidence of the shootings. In the end, the panel agreed with the defendant's testimony that he feared for his life and acted in self-defense. 

The judge praised the jury, saying he "couldn't have asked for a better jury." 

After the verdict was announced, lead prosecutor Thomas Binger told the court, "The jury has represented our community in this trial and has spoken."

 

I will say that quite frankly, "stand your ground" laws like this were designed to produce not guilty verdicts when the killer is white, and the victims are non-white or allies of those who are non-white. Rittenhouse went to Kenosha that night with the intent to use deadly force at his discretion, and the law allowed him to do so. 

Working as intended for him.

For the rest of us, it's always been open season on taking our lives at a moment's notice. I am Black in America and I only continue to draw breath as a living being because a cop or armed white person hasn't decided to take my life yet.

 

All of us Black and brown folk live with this reality daily, and hey, other white folk who side with us can now be killed with impunity too.

Remember that.

Stay safe.

Ridin' With Biden, Con't

Americans are convinced that the economy is in the dumpster and on fire, even though it's far better than this time a year ago, and they are Very Angry At Daddy Biden™ for not fixing it faster.

Reeling from Republican wins in elections earlier this month, Democrats are pounding the pavement ahead of next year's midterm elections.

But President Joe Biden's success passing the bipartisan infrastructure bill is bumping up against the facts that the country's inflation rate has reached a 30-year high and Americans increasingly feel the economy is in trouble.

A new ABC News / Washington Post poll found that 70% say the economy is in bad shape, a 12-point increase since last spring. More than half of those polled -- 55% -- disapprove of Biden's handling of the economy while 39% say they approve. But that approval number has plummeted six points since September and 13 points since the spring.

While only 50% blame Biden directly for inflation -- which has now reached a 6.2% increase compared with the same period last year, 3% of Democrats say the economy is excellent, 47% say it's good, 35% say it's not so good and 14% say it's poor.

In a series of ABC News follow-up interviews with poll respondents who were Biden voters but expressed disappointment with the state of the economy, people expressed a range of views about what they think went wrong and who is to blame.

Judith Steele, a registered Democrat from California, told ABC News she feels the Biden administration did a bad job in preparing for economic woes faced by certain Americans.

"His administration has been behind the curve in anticipating how bad this was going to get for lower- and middle-class families -- that they tend to take a 'wait and see approach,' or, 'this is going to pass,' and then it's too late," Steele, who plans to switch her party affiliation from Democrat to Independent, said in an interview.

Steele assigns some of the blame for the poorly-performing economy to legislative squabbles in Congress.

"They should have gotten the infrastructure bill done months ago. They had the votes to do it. But they had to push. I do like the second bill, but they should have gotten the first one passed and signed, and started putting people back to work at decent union jobs," she said. "I don't know what they're ever going to get done with this. And they're always consumed with investigations and committee work and not getting anything done."

Although Biden's overall approval rating reached a new low (41%) in a new ABC/ Washington Post poll, his legislative plans have majority approval among respondents, with 63% support for the $1 trillion infrastructure bill passed by Congress and 58% support for the now nearly $2 trillion social spending bill still under debate.

 

So Biden signs bill into law that has the programs and policies you wanted, your response is "Screw the Democrats, I'm an independent now!" 

Sadly, assholes like Ms. Steele here vote too. Not going to matter much in California, but there you are.

But in other states, Biden is being openly trolled by Republicans who have a higher approval rating than he does, and they're having fun doing it.

 

Florida’s special legislative session can be summed up in one phrase: What Gov. Ron DeSantis wants, he gets.

DeSantis called the special session in October to fight the Biden administration’s coronavirus vaccine mandates and after just three days the Florida House and Senate approved four bills that undermine President Joe Biden’s vaccine push.

DeSantis never made an appearance during the special legislative session in Tallahassee but used his huge political sway over the Republican-dominated Legislature to get his bills passed.

One measure gives workers exemptions if they don’t want to get the shot and includes a provision fining small businesses $10,000 and larger companies $50,000 for firing workers who don’t want the vaccine.

“The governor can do anything he wants to do,” state Rep. Ardian Zika (R-Land O’ Lakes) said this week. He spoke on the House floor while Democrats grilled him over a measure giving the governor $1 million to study the state withdrawing from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which wrote the Biden administration’s plan to mandate vaccines for large businesses.

Lawmakers also approved a bill barring the state surgeon general from mandating vaccines during a health emergency and another that keeps hidden from the public complaints filed by employees who weren’t given vaccine exemptions.

DeSantis, though, never commented on the process or publicly stepped foot in the Capitol. The governor is widely popular with Republicans across the country and has an increasingly large platform as he prepares for reelection and a potential 2024 White House bid. As a result, Republicans in the state Legislature both do not want to cross DeSantis for fear it could hurt their own political futures, but also don’t want to do anything to sap momentum from his political ascent.

“Ultimately this is about power, right?” said state Rep. Fentrice Driskell (D-Tampa). “This entire special session was a power play on the governor, so it does not behoove the legislative leadership, who seems to be in lockstep with this governor, to speak out in a way that would be contrary to him.”

It was a common line of attack from Democrats who were outnumbered and could do very little to slow passage of the bills. Democrats also noted that the Republican-led Legislature previously would fight GOP governors’ legislative priorities, including during the tenure of former Gov. Rick Scott.

“I’ve seen this room where the governor calls for something and we bat it down vociferously. ... We are now not seeing that,” said state Rep. Nicholas Duran (D-Miami) during a lengthy floor session speech. “We are cheapening the reason for a special session.”

So at this point, Florida businesses, and businesses in several other red states, will face fines if they don't vaccinate employees under federal law, and fines if they do vaccinate employees under state law. The Supreme Court siding with DeSantis and blowing a hole in the country as we know it may actually be the Dems' best chance in 2022.

School Of Hard-Right Knocks, Con't

President Biden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona are making good on promises to protect the civil rights of kids in schools, under attack as they are in states like Texas.

 

The U.S. Education Department’s civil rights enforcement arm is investigating allegations of discrimination at the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, Texas, the agency and the school district confirmed Wednesday.

The department’s Office for Civil Rights notified the suburban school district’s officials last week that it had opened three investigations into complaints about discrimination against students based on their race, gender and national origin. The agency declined to provide details on the allegations and doesn’t comment on pending investigations, a spokesman said.

Karen Fitzgerald, a Carroll spokeswoman, confirmed that the district had received three notification letters and is “fully cooperating with this process.”

“Our focus will always be what is best for our students as we prepare them for their next steps in their educational journey,” she said, noting that federal law prohibits her from commenting on cases involving specific students.

The Carroll school system’s handling of discrimination allegations has been the focus of national media attention this year, placing Southlake at the center of a growing political battle over school programs, books and curricula on race, gender and sexuality that some conservatives have misbranded under the umbrella of critical race theory.

The Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, is responsible for enforcing federal laws that protect students from discrimination. Brett Sokolow, president of the Association of Title IX Administrators, a consulting firm that advises school districts on how to resolve civil rights complaints, said when the agency opens an investigation, it’s often the beginning of a process that can take months or years. If the investigation confirms violations of students’ rights, the agency can require a school district to make policy changes and submit to federal monitoring.

“Opening a complaint means that OCR believes that there is a likely violation based on the complaint,” he said. “And then they’re going to do their due diligence to find out more information.”

The federal investigations come three years after leaders in the Carroll school system, 30 miles northwest of Dallas, promised and ultimately failed to make sweeping changes to address racism in the district following the release of a video of white high school students chanting the N-word. After the video went viral, dozens of parents, students and recent graduates came forward with stories of racist and anti-LGBTQ harassment at Carroll, a majority-white district that has grown more diverse in recent years.

The district’s proposal to address the issues, the 34-page Cultural Competence Action Plan, would have required diversity training for all students and teachers, a new process to report and track incidents of racist bullying, and changes to the code of conduct to hold students accountable for acts of discrimination, among other changes. But after the district unveiled the plan in August 2020, conservative parents packed school board meetings, formed a political action committee and funded a civil lawsuit to block the changes.

They argued that the plan would have created “diversity police” and amounted to “reverse racism” against white children. Opponents took particular issue with a district proposal to track incidents of microaggressions — subtle, indirect and sometimes unintentional incidents of discrimination.

 

Now, we'll be treated to months of "Biden's corrupt Justice Department targeting concerned parents!" but that was going to happen for the rest of this administration anyway, there's no point in giving in to these clowns. 

The right move here by Education Department.

The Big Lie, Con't

The FBI has long been investigating Mesa County, Colorado Clerk Tina Peters over possible election tampering and using her position to feed Trump's Big Liars like MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, and yesterday the feds raided Peters's office and home.

 

A law enforcement task force searched four western Colorado locations amid an investigation into allegations that an elections clerk was involved in a security breach of elections equipment earlier this year, a district attorney said.

The FBI, the Colorado Attorney General’s office and local authorities conducted the searches, which were authorized by a federal court, on Tuesday in Mesa and neighboring Garfield counties, Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein told Colorado Politics.

Rubinstein didn’t disclose the locations that were searched, telling The Associated Press in an email that “all documents related to these operations are sealed” by court order. The searches involved ”potential criminal activity by employees of the Mesa County Clerk and Recorder’s Office and others associated with those employees,” Rubinstein’s office said in a statement Wednesday.

Tina Peters, the elections clerk for Mesa County, which includes the city of Grand Junction, said her home was searched, the Colorado Politics media outlet reported.

“The FBI raided my home at 6 a.m. this morning, accusing me of committing a crime,” Peters said. “And they raided the homes of my friends, mostly older women. I was terrified.”

The FBI office in Denver didn’t immediately respond to an email requesting comment. Lawrence Pacheco, spokesman for Attorney General Phil Weiser, said the state is working with Mesa County on an investigation into the alleged election system breach but could not comment further on the continuing probe.

The searches came amid an ongoing dispute between Peters, who presided over elections in conservative Mesa County in 2020, and Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat and vocal presence nationally for ensuring election integrity.

Peters has become an advocate for those who believe, without evidence, that the 2020 election was fraudulent — although she has said elections in Mesa County, which voted overwhelmingly for Trump, were secure and accurate. In contrast, Democrat Joe Biden handily defeated Trump in Colorado in 2020, and Democrats control the governor’s office, the state Legislature and all statewide offices.

Colorado Politics reported that Peters commented about the searches during an appearance on an online channel operated by Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO and a supporter of Peters and former President Donald Trump who has repeatedly made discredited claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

Peters, a Republican, is being investigated by the FBI and by Colorado state officials in an alleged breach of elections equipment in Mesa County in May. Griswold successfully sued to have Peters and a deputy, Belinda Knisley, prohibited by a judge from administering the November midterm election. Peters has denied any wrongdoing.

 

Once again, the actual election fraud and voting fraud in 2020 were committed by Republicans. I hope Peters goes away for a long time.

StupidiNews!

• Two Republicans joined all House Democrats in a 223-207 vote to censure GOP Rep. Paul Gosar over a viral video he posted showing him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
• A Trump voter was arrested on Monday on charges of making threats against Connecticut Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont, his bail was set at $30,000.
• The Biden Administration has reportedly asked non-OPEC nations such as Japan, China, and India to release strategic crude stockpiles in order to lower the global cost of energy.
• Nine states are offering COVID-19 booster shots to all adults as CDC experts caution that state health officials may be "jumping the gun" and going against CDC guidelines.
• A European company has introduced a new firefighting tool to help first responders put out fires caused by electric vehicle batteries.
  

Last Call For Sinema Verite', Con't

Democratic (for now) Sen. Kyrsten Sinema really wants you to know she's friends with senators in the other party but she's a Democrat. No really. Arizona Maverick!

Sinema laid out some of her thinking, explaining that she generally supports adding paid leave to the Democrats’ social spending bill but not raising tax rates on corporations and some high-income earners, saying she “will not support tax policies that have a negative impact on our economic climate.” And, unlike her colleague Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), she views the bill’s climate provisions as the “most important part of what is under discussion.”

Yet, even after an extended interview, the first-term Democrat holds onto the air of mystery that’s become a signature part of her political brand. Sinema won’t say she’s running for reelection, nor will she respond to Rep. Ruben Gallego’s (D-Ariz.) flirtations with a primary challenge.

And even though she’s quietly informed Democrats for weeks that she’s supportive of Biden’s social spending and climate bill and publicly signaled she wants to clinch a deal, she still won’t explicitly say she’ll back it — even after the House passed her infrastructure legislation.

“If you're in the middle of negotiating things that are delicate or difficult ... doing it in good faith directly with each other is the best way to get to an outcome,” Sinema said just a few minutes after returning from Biden’s signing ceremony. “I'm still in the process of negotiating the second provision of the president's agenda … and I don't negotiate in the press.”

However, she will criticize her party for its complicity in setting unachievable, sky-high expectations, just like the Republicans who promised to repeal Obamacare under former President Donald Trump. A $3.5 trillion social spending bill, sweeping elections reform, a $15 minimum wage and changes to the filibuster rules were always a long shot with Sinema and Manchin as the definitive Democratic votes in the Senate.

“You’re either honest or you’re not honest. So just tell the truth and be honest and deliver that which you can deliver,” Sinema said. “There's this growing trend of people in both political parties who promise things that cannot be delivered, in order to get the short-term political gain. And I believe that it damages the long-term health of our democracy.”

 

Sure. It's her Republican friends like Mitch McConnell who make sure Dems can't deliver, and you're doing everything you can to make sure they maintain that power, but Dems overpromising is why  America's in trouble.

Jesus, this woman is obnoxious as, well, a Republican.

Here's the kicker though:

There are some signs that Sinema’s approach could pay off politically too, provided she survives a primary. A September poll from OH Predictive Insights found she had a 40 percent favorability rating among Republicans, a contrast to fellow Arizonan Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly. The same poll found that 73 percent of Republicans viewed Kelly unfavorably.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a prospective successor to McConnell, went as far as to say he “would be surprised if Republicans tried to unseat her” in 2024 if she runs.

Sinema sometimes even serves as a go-between with Republicans for her Democratic colleagues, capitalizing on the years she spent in both the House and Senate cultivating relationships with the GOP. She insists those relationships are not transactional but instead reflect the fact that “I’m a human who has friends.”

 

Steve M. makes it very clear what Sinema's game is here. 

This is news. Assuming Sinema either survives a Democratic primary in 2024 or runs as an independent, the GOP might just take a dive and let her win.

That, of course, is what happened in Connecticut in 2006, when Senator Joe Lieberman, running for reelection and still a big supporter of George W. Bush's war in Iraq, lost the Democratic primary and then ran as an independent: The Republican candidate, Alan Schlesinger, all but disappeared, spending only $38,001 on the race (Lieberman and Democratic nominee Ned Lamont each spent millions). In Arizona three years from now, Republicans might well decide to save their money and nod-and-wink to their voters that they should support Sinema, too. (Expect her to make frequent appearances on Fox News during the general election capmaign.)

Why not? On the one thing Republicans really care about -- pampering rich people -- Sinema is in complete agreement with their party. And if she runs indie and they need her in order to attain a Senate majority, I'm sure she'll agree to caucus with them once she's safely reelected. Just don't ask her during the campaign whether she might do that -- she'll undoubtedly say it's a rude question and she's entitled to her privacy.

 

Unless Dems have a larger majority, a tall order given trends, Sinema will be an independent in 2024. 

And odds are good she'll be siding with the GOP if reelected.

Infrastructure, Weak, Con't

Who could have guessed that Republican voters are suddenly completely against the infrastructure bill?

Our latest POLITICO/Morning Consult survey found 50% support overall for the legislation. That’s down from 58% when Morning Consult first asked the question in mid-August, shortly after the Senate passed the bill.

While support among Democrats (roughly 80%) and independents (45 to 50%) has remained relatively steady, there’s been a striking drop among Republicans. In mid-August, 40% of Republicans supported the bill; now, just 22% do. GOP support dropped 10 points over the past two weeks, when Morning Consult surveyed voters after the House approved the bill.

 

Gosh, what happened in the last two weeks?

Oh, right.

Former President Donald Trump on Sunday denounced Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Republicans over the passage of President Joe Biden's infrastructure bill through the lower chamber.

The U.S. House passed Biden's infrastructure bill late Friday in a 228-206 vote largely along party lines. 13 Republican representatives broke with the party to vote in favor of the bill.

At least one said their rationale was mostly to hit back against progressive Democrats, six of whom voted against it.

"Very sad that the RINOs in the House and Senate gave Biden and Democrats a victory on the 'Non-Infrastructure' Bill," Trump said in a statement. "Where only 11% of the money being wasted goes to real infrastructure."

"How all of those Republican Senators that voted thinking that helping the Democrats is such a wonderful thing to do, so politically correct. They just don't get it!," he continued.

 

So yeah, that was ten days ago.  FOX News has been attacking the bill since it passed the House and made it very clear the money is being "wasted" on "Democrat special interests" and that the 13 Republicans who voted for the bill must be destroyed.

 

In the days and months ahead, expect every awful, racist, demonstrably false, ridiculous and mind-numbingly terrible charge to be flung at this bill. Just like Obamacare. Just like everything else the Democrats do to save the country.

Insurrection Investigation, Con't

Another day, another Jon Karl tidbit kept from voters until well after the 2020 and 2021 elections as our Republic faced mortal peril in the form of Trump's coup attempt. It wasn't just his "brain trust" pressuring VP Mike Pence to sent the electoral count to the states (and a Trump win), it wasn't just the January 6th insurrection, it was also drafting the US Armed Forces to step in and intervene in the damn election too.

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, some of Donald Trump's closest allies embarked on an unprecedented effort to get the Department of Defense to chase down outlandish voter fraud conspiracy theories in hopes of helping Trump retain power, ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl writes in his new book.

In "Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show," scheduled to be released today, Karl reports that former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump attorney Sidney Powell tried to enlist a Pentagon official to help overturn the election.

According to the book, Flynn -- who had just received an unconditional pardon from President Trump after pleading guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI during the Russia probe -- made a frantic phone call to a senior Trump intelligence official named Ezra Cohen (sometimes referred to as Ezra Cohen-Watnick), who previously worked under Flynn at both the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the National Security Council.

"Where are you?" Flynn asked the DoD official, who said he was traveling in the Middle East.

"Flynn told him to cut his trip short and get back to the United States immediately because there were big things about to happen," according to the book. Karl writes that Flynn told Cohen, "We need you," and told the DoD official that "there was going to be an epic showdown over the election results."

Flynn, according to the book, urged Cohen that "he needed to get orders signed, that ballots needed to be seized, and that extraordinary measures needed to be taken to stop Democrats from stealing the election."

"As Flynn ranted about the election fight, [Cohen] felt his old boss sounded manic," Karl writes in the book. "He didn't sound like the same guy he had worked for."

"Sir, the election is over," Cohen told Flynn, according to the book. "It's time to move on."

Flynn, according to Karl, fired back: "You're a quitter! This is not over! Don't be a quitter!"

Karl writes that after a heated few minutes, Flynn hung up the phone -- and that was the last time the two men talked.

 

So it seems in addition to everything else, Jon Karl was sitting on evidence of a seditious conspiracy involving Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, and Trump's Middle East pointman at the Pentagon, Ezra Cohen. 

And Karl didn't think it prudent to inform the American people that this was going on, months earlier?

These people are absolute ghouls.

StupidiNews!

• Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee has declared a state of emergency due to flooding along the Canadian border, closing Interstate 5 and knocking out power to thousands.
• A Nevada Trump voter who illegally used his late wife's mail ballot to vote in the 2020 election was sentenced to probation and a $2,000 fine for voting fraud.
• The House will vote today on censuring and committee removal for GOP Rep. Paul Gosar for posting a video showing several Democrats, including President Biden, being harmed or killed.
• President Biden says he will announce this week whether he will reappoint Fed Chair Jerome Powell or bring in Fed governor Lael Brainard.
• Video game maker Activision's CEO Bobby Kotick is facing an employee walkout and calls to resign after a report found failure to inform board members of widespread claims of harassment.
  

Last Call For The Road To Gilead, Con't

Americans are overwhelmingly in support of Roe v Wade as settled legal precedent and access to abortion as a Constitutional right, but that of course doesn't matter in the slightest, only the opinions of nine SCOTUS justices do.

Americans say by a roughly 2-to-1 margin that the Supreme Court should uphold its landmark abortion decision in Roe v. Wade, and by a similar margin the public opposes a Texas law banning most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The lopsided support for maintaining abortion rights protections comes as the court considers cases challenging its long-term precedents, including Dec. 1 arguments over a Mississippi law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

The Post-ABC poll finds 27 percent of Americans say the court should overturn Roe, while 60 percent say it should be upheld, attitudes that are consistent in polls dating to 2005. More broadly, three-quarters of Americans say abortion access should be left to women and their doctors, while 20 percent say they should be regulated by law.

While Americans have long supported limiting access to abortion after the first trimester of pregnancy, the poll suggests Americans widely oppose recent efforts in conservative-leaning states to enforce more severe restrictions.

Asked about a Texas law that authorizes private citizens anywhere in the country to sue anyone who performs or aids someone in obtaining an abortion in Texas after about six weeks of pregnancy, the Post-ABC poll finds 65 percent say the court should reject the law, while 29 percent say it should be upheld. The Supreme Court is considering the role federal courts can play in evaluating the Texas law, which was intended to avoid federal court review. A separate question finds 36 percent support state laws that make it more difficult for abortion clinics to operate, while 58 percent oppose such restrictions, including 45 percent who oppose them “strongly.”

 

Americans are overwhelmingly for a lot of things that Republicans in Congress and conservatives in the courts are against, but it sure doesn't seem to matter when it comes to voting the GOP out of office. Republicans keep blocking gun safety legislation, voting rights legislation, civil rights legislation,  women's rights legislation, and LGBTQ+ equality legislation, all popular with a broad spectrum of American voters including Republicans, but they keep electing the people against it.

Then they complain about why the Democrats can't pass anything if they control Congress, and go back to watching Ben Shapiro videos on Facebook, and decide that voting is for suckers anyway because both sides screw the little guy, so why bother?

And down the road to Gilead we go.