Last Call For Vote Like Your Country Depends On It, Con't

Arizona Republicans are proposing to gerrymander the state's most populous county, Maricopa, into four smaller counties and to put nearly all of the state's Latino and Black residents in one of them, starving them out for resources and letting Republicans run the other three. Michael Greenberger at WaPo's Monkey Cage blog:

Counties oversee the administration of presidential elections, and elect their own important officials such as sheriffs, school superintendents and election administrators. That makes them critical units of political organization. As The Washington Post reported, critics of the push to divide Maricopa County see this as an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of elections, which are administered at the county level. The new counties, Republicans must calculate, will either vote for Republicans legitimately, or be more likely to be run by election officials who will support attempts to paint future elections as fraudulent.

In my research, I’ve analyzed the history of county division during the Jim Crow era. There I’ve found that newly created counties, like those proposed in Arizona, were more likely to administer fraudulent elections. I also find that these new counties hurt Black voters and Black officeholders the most.

From 1865 to 1920, the period from the Civil War through the early 20th century, state legislatures created more than 300 counties and significantly adjusted the borders of 1,000 existing ones. This geographic manipulation happened during the same period that the federal government ceased enforcing Reconstruction, enabling the former Confederate states to abandon democratic elections and voting rights for African Americans. During this time, new counties were created to target Black voters and officeholders, helping the then-white-supremacist-aligned Democratic Party solidify control over the South and institute Jim Crow rule.

I used the Newberry Library’s online atlas of historical county boundaries, which has data on the historical boundaries of every county in the United States, to detect changes to county boundaries and track the emergence of new counties from 1865 through 1920. Of the roughly 1,500 total counties that existed as this period ends, about 300 were established in the South during the Jim Crow era. Then, using historical election and demographic data, I compared new counties created in the South and counties targeted for manipulation with other counties in the South to see whether they had been targeted for political or racial reasons. By comparing the demographics, turnout, and partisanship of newly created counties and the counties from which their land was taken, I can determine whether the geographic changes were made with racial and political factors in mind. I also looked at whether these changes benefited the party that controlled that state’s legislature.

Over the years leading up to and during Jim Crow in the South, I find that Democratic state legislatures disproportionately ``packed’’ Black voters into new counties, thus reducing their voting power statewide by concentrating their electoral influence in fewer political units.

New counties had a much higher proportion of Black residents than the counties that were divided or adjusted to allow the new county to be created. While most counties in the South had only small concentrations of Black residents, making up from zero to roughly 20 percent, most new counties had between 20 and 75 percent Black residents — leaving the old counties disproportionately White.

Putting all of a minority group into a single county or district, which scholars of congressional gerrymandering call “packing,” served several purposes — just as it would in Arizona today. First, the new counties that are more likely to vote in line with the political goals of the state legislature — Democrats in the Jim Crow South, Republicans in contemporary Arizona — would elect more like-minded political officers and would certify election results favorable to the state legislature. Second, the new counties packed with non-White residents can be policed in ways that discourage voting or have the results manipulated for fraudulent outcomes.

 

What Arizona wants with three new blood red GOP counties are three new county boards of voting officials that will stack the deck to steal the 2024 election for the GOP.

Black Lives Still Matter, Con't

Black Lives Still Matter. Even Republican ones, as a Black New Jersey Borough Councilwoman, Eunice Dwumfour, was found dead from multiple gunshot wounds last night.

 

Eunice K. Dwumfour, a 30-year-old councilwoman serving her first term in Sayreville, N.J., was fatally shot on Wednesday night, officials said.

The authorities said they received reports of a shooting at 7:22 p.m. in Parlin, an unincorporated area of Sayreville, according to a statement by the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office. Officers with the Sayreville Police Department found Ms. Dwumfour in her car with multiple gunshot wounds. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

The authorities did not say whether there is a suspect in the crime and have not offered any information about a possible motive. An investigation is ongoing.

Victoria Kilpatrick, the mayor of Sayreville, said in a statement that “the fact that she was taken from us by a despicable criminal act makes this incident all the more horrifying.”

Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey said he was “stunned” by the “act of gun violence,” adding that Ms. Dwumfour “had already built a reputation as a committed member of the Borough Council who took her responsibility with the utmost diligence and seriousness.”

Sayreville, with a population of about 45,000 people, is in Middlesex County, about 30 miles south of New York City.

Ms. Dwumfour was elected to the Sayreville Borough Council in 2021 after she and another Republican candidate, Christian Onuoha, unseated two Democratic incumbents on the six-person council. She was serving a three-year term.

 

She was murdered and found in her crashed SUV outside her own home. Really no doubt as to what happened, but who killed her?

 

Now, the Right-Wing Noise Machine is already calling this an "Antifa assassination" and all, but the suspect needs to be brought to justice. Her life mattered.

Black Lives Still Matter.

 

The Turtle Snaps Back

 GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had his own petty vengeance moment this week as he went after his fellow Republicans who came for his job last month and failed.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has pulled Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who tried to oust him as the Senate’s top Republican in a bruising leadership race, off the powerful Commerce Committee.

McConnell also removed Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who supported Scott’s bid to replace McConnell as leader, from the Commerce panel, which has broad jurisdiction over a swath of federal agencies.

The GOP leader insisted last year that he didn’t take the attempt to end his leadership reign personally, but the latest move sends a clear message to conservatives that challenging McConnell’s leadership carries a cost.

“McConnell got to pick. He kicked me off; he kicked Lee off,” Scott confirmed in an interview.

Scott acknowledged that running against McConnell was the likely reason he was booted from the panel despite his relative seniority on the committee and experience running a major company.

“I probably ran the biggest company almost any senator in the history of the country has ever run. I was governor of the third-biggest economy in the United States, Florida. I’ve got a business background,” Scott said, ticking off his credentials.

But Scott and Lee have teamed up to challenge McConnell’s leadership of the GOP conference on fiscal and spending decisions, and Lee gave one of the nominating speeches for Scott’s bid to take over as GOP leader.

Scott said he learned of the decision in a text message.

One personal familiar with the episode described the Florida senator as “furious.”

Other conservatives agree the leadership fight was a major factor in the decision to remove Scott and Lee from Commerce.

 

While I'm always glad to see Batboy end up in the "and find out" stage of the proceedings, this little tiff doesn't address the problems with Scott's mismanagement of the NRSC, and how he's almost certainly guilty of campaign finance shenanigans that would make "George Santos" blush.

Mitch won't address that, of course. But cutting Scott off from his main source of corporate lobbyist grifting is a calculated move, and both men know it.

We'll see if Scott responds in the future.

Last Call For Vote Like Your Country Depends On It, Con't

Once again, the voter fraud in America is revealed to be Republicans in red states voting extra times for the fascists.

 

To the extent that the United States has a retirement community known to national audiences, it’s probably The Villages in central Florida. As regular readers probably recall, it has also earned a reputation as a far-right Republican stronghold.

A few years ago, for example, when Donald Trump promoted a video showing a parade of supporters in golf carts — one of whom shouted, “White power!” — it was recorded at The Villages.

It was against this backdrop that we learned in 2021 that three residents of The Villages were charged with voter fraud. A fourth soon followed. As we discussed at the time, according to local police reports, the accused tried to game the system by voting in Florida, while also trying to cast absentee ballots in other states. Not surprisingly, they got caught.

Whatever happened to these charges? I’m glad you asked.

Circling back to our earlier coverage, two of the accused — Charles Barnes and Jay Ketcik — pleaded guilty to a third-degree felony. Though the charges could’ve resulted in prison sentences, both received probation. They were joined by Joan Halstead, who pleaded guilty last summer and also received probation.

This week, the final member of the quartet followed suit. WKMG in Orlando reported:

All four residents of The Villages charged with voting twice in the 2020 election have now admitted to the crime, court records show. John Rider, 62, recently entered into a pre-trial intervention program that will allow him to avoid potential prison time if he successfully completes court-ordered requirements and refrains from violating the law.

It’s worth noting for context that Rider originally pleaded not guilty. Evidently, he changed his mind ahead of a plea agreement in which he received probation.

 

Old white GOP voters in red states who knowingly vote twice get probation.

 

Black women in red states who accidentally vote at all without being eligible? Five years in prison. 

Thus endeth the lesson.

Ron's Gone Wrong, Con't

As we enter Black History Month here in the US, GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis is announcing a proposal to all but remove both the teaching of that history and the descendants of those who survived it from Florida's public schools and universities completely.

 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that he intends to ban state universities from spending money on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in hopes that they will “wither on the vine” without funding.

“It really serves as an ideological filter, a political filter,” the Republican said while speaking in Bradenton, Florida.

The proposal is a top priority for DeSantis’ higher education agenda this year, which also includes giving politically appointed presidents and university boards of trustees more power over hiring and firing at universities and urging schools to focus their missions on Florida’s future workforce needs. DeSantis, who is said to be weighing a potential 2024 presidential bid, has seen his standing among conservatives soar nationwide following his public stances on hot-button cultural and education issues.

In a press release about the announced legislation, the governor’s office called diversity, equity and inclusion programs “discriminatory” and vowed to prohibit universities from funding them, even if the source of the money isn’t coming from the state.

Diversity, equity and inclusion programs are intended to promote multiculturalism and encourage students of all races and backgrounds to feel comfortable in a campus setting, especially those from traditionally underrepresented communities. The state’s flagship school, the University of Florida, has a “Chief Diversity Officer,” a “Center for Inclusion and Multicultural Engagement” and an “Office for Accessibility and Gender Equity.”

Tuesday’s announcement was foreshadowed in December when the governor’s office asked all state universities to account for all of their spending on programs and initiatives related to diversity, equity and inclusion or critical race theory.

DeSantis announced his higher education agenda in Bradenton, a 15-minute drive from New College of Florida, a public liberal arts college where DeSantis has installed a controversial new board with a mandate to remake the school into his conservative vision for higher education. DeSantis said his budget will include $15 million to restructure New College and hire faculty.

The new board met on Tuesday, leading to protests on the campus.

One of DeSantis’ new board members, Eddie Speir, wrote in an online post that he planned to propose in that meeting “terminating all contracts for faculty, staff and administration” of the school, “and immediately rehiring those faculty, staff and administration who fit in the new financial and business model.”

 

On top of all that, DeSantis says he will radically change the curriculum of Florida's public education system as well. 

 

Mr. DeSantis’s embrace of civics education, as well as the establishment of special civics programs at several of the state’s 12 public universities, dovetails with the growth of similar programs around the country, some partially funded by conservative donors.

The programs emphasize the study of Western civilization and economics, as well as the thinking of Western philosophers, frequently focusing on the Greeks and Romans. Critics of the programs say they sometimes gloss over the pitfalls of Western thinking and ignore the philosophies of non-Western civilizations.

“The core curriculum must be grounded in actual history, the actual philosophy that has shaped Western civilization,” Mr. DeSantis said. “We don’t want students to go through, at taxpayer expense, and graduate with a degree in Zombie studies.”

 

And you can say goodbye to Black history, gender study, and any queer history courses in the state, too. We're teaching "Western history" now, and those people aren't welcome here anyway. If you want a real education, you won't get it in Florida after DeSantis gets done.

 

Of course, if he ends up in the White House, you will see all those courses gone all over America as Department of Education funding and accreditation will be cut off from any school in America that dares teach anything other than the Approved Glory Of Whiteness.

 

Believe me when I say when it comes to stripping Black folk of our history, he will have plenty of help.

After heavy criticism from Gov. Ron DeSantis, the College Board released on Wednesday an official curriculum for its new Advanced Placement course in African American Studies — stripped of much of the subject matter that had angered the governor and other conservatives.

The College Board purged the names of many Black writers and scholars associated with critical race theory, the queer experience and Black feminism. It ushered out some politically fraught topics, like Black Lives Matter, from the formal curriculum.

And it added something new: “Black conservatism” is now offered as an idea for a research project.

When it announced the A.P. course in August, the College Board clearly believed it was providing a class whose time had come, and it was celebrated by eminent scholars like Henry Louis Gates Jr. of Harvard as an affirmation of the importance of African American studies. But the course, which is meant to be for all students of diverse backgrounds, quickly ran into a political buzz saw after an early draft leaked to conservative publications like The Florida Standard and National Review.

In January, Governor DeSantis of Florida, who is expected to run for president, announced he would ban the curriculum, citing the draft version. State education officials said it was not historically accurate and violated state law that regulates how race-related issues are taught in public schools.

The attack on the A.P. course turned out to be the prelude to a much larger agenda. On Tuesday, Governor DeSantis unveiled a proposal to overhaul higher education that would eliminate what he called “ideological conformity” by among other things, mandating courses in Western civilization.

In another red flag, the College Board faced the possibility of other opposition: more than two dozen states have adopted some sort of measure against critical race theory, according to a tracking project by the University of California, Los Angeles, law school.

David Coleman, the head of the College Board, said in an interview that the changes were all made for pedagogical reasons, not to bow to political pressure. “At the College Board, we can’t look to statements of political leaders,” he said. The changes, he said, came from “the input of professors” and “longstanding A.P. principles.”

So this Black History Month, remember that Black history will soon be outlawed under a DeSantis administration...

A Taxing Problem, Black Taxpayers Matter Edition

Black taxpayers are three times more likely than white taxpayers to face IRS audits, even adjusting for all other factors, and the system has been designed to do that in the wake of Republican cuts to the agency.

 

Black taxpayers are at least three times as likely to be audited by the Internal Revenue Service as other taxpayers, even after accounting for the differences in the types of returns each group is most likely to file, a team of economists has concluded in one of the most detailed studies yet on race and the nation’s tax system.

The findings do not suggest bias from individual tax enforcement agents, who do not know the race of the people they are auditing. They also do not suggest any valid reason for the I.R.S. to target Black Americans at such high rates; there is no evidence that group engages in more tax evasion than others.

Instead, the findings document discrimination in the computer algorithms the agency uses to determine who is selected for an audit, according to the study by economists from Stanford University, the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago and the Treasury Department.

Some of that discrimination appears to be rooted in decisions that I.R.S. officials made over the past decade as they sought to maintain tax enforcement in the face of budget cuts, by relying on automated systems to select returns for audit.

Those decisions have produced an approach that disproportionately flags tax returns with potential errors in the claiming of certain tax credits, like the earned-income tax credit, which supplements low-income workers’ incomes in an effort to alleviate poverty. Those tax returns are more often selected for audits, regardless of how much in owed taxes the agency might recover.

The result is audit rates of Black Americans that are between three and five times the rate of other taxpayers, even when comparing that group to other taxpayers who also claim the E.I.T.C.

The I.R.S. does not detail how it selects returns for audit. But the researchers were able to isolate several apparent explanations for why Black taxpayers are targeted so much more frequently. One is complexity: It is much harder for the agency to audit returns that include business income, because that process requires expertise from individual auditors. Such returns appear to be audited less often than returns from otherwise similar taxpayers who do not report income from a business.

Black taxpayers are far less likely than others to report business income. And Black taxpayers appear to disproportionately file returns with the sort of potential errors that are easy for I.R.S. systems to identify, like underreporting certain income or claiming tax credits that the taxpayer does not qualify for, the authors find.

In effect, the researchers suggest that the I.R.S. has focused on audits that are easier to conduct and as a result, finds itself disproportionately auditing a historically disadvantaged group rather than other taxpayers, including high net-worth individuals.

“What the I.R.S. chooses to focus on when it conducts audits can either undercut or complement our progressive tax system,” said Daniel Ho, an author of the study who is the faculty director of Stanford’s Regulation, Evaluation and Governance Lab, known as RegLab, where the study originated.

 

Auditing low-income taxpayers is much, much easier than auditing high-income taxpayers, and the poorest taxpayers are much more likely to be Black.

 

In other words, decades of systemic Black poverty makes Black folk easier targets for the IRS to pick on. We're the low-hanging fruit and the easiest to beat more money out of.

God forbid the IRS went after, say, Donald fucking Trump or Elon Musk, right?

No wonder Republicans want to eliminate the IRS and drop a 30% sales tax on everyone. They want to provide "subsidies for the poor" but of course red states will simply refuse to have that particular program for anyone, and surprise, it's as regressive as it gets.

The cruelty skips the middleman.

Last Call For Fantasma Santos, Con't

With Merrick Garland and the feds closing in on his millions in campaign finance fraud, GOP Rep. "George Santos" is desperately trying to keep his job as a majority of his district, Republicans, Democrats and independents, want his resignation.

 

Embattled Republican Rep. George Santos of New York will recuse himself from serving on House committees, he told his GOP colleagues in a closed-door meeting on Tuesday, amid ongoing scrutiny about his background and questions about his future in Congress.

Santos was assigned to the House Small Business Committee and Science, Space and Technology Committee earlier this month by House Republican leaders. In a statement, the New York Republican said "ongoing attention" surrounding investigations into his personal and campaign finances prompted his request to be temporarily recused from the panels.

"This was a decision that I take very seriously. The business of the 118th Congress must continue without media fanfare," Santos said. "It is important that I primarily focus on serving the constituents of New York's Third Congressional District and providing federal level representation without distraction."

Santos told CBS News that he was "confident" he would be cleared in the investigation because he has "nothing to hide."

His decision to forgo his seats on the two panels comes a day after Santos met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Capitol Hill, during which Santos asked the speaker if he could recuse himself from committees, according to McCarthy.

 

The second Santos resigns, McCarthy's time left as Speaker gets reduced to ashes. Without Santos, McCarthy won't have the votes to keep his own job, and everyone knows it.

 

The question is not whether Santos resigning from committees will sate the calls for his ouster. It won't.

 

The question is how much Kevin McCarthy has left to give in order to save Santos and himself. McCarthy literally cannot afford to lose a single GOP vote in the House for his caucus. He has to gamble it all or lose it all.

We'll see how he tries to worm his way out of this.

 

Ron's Gone Wrong, Con't

Florida parents are Very Concerned™ about library books being banned from teacher's classrooms because they aren't on the approved fascist checklist, as teachers are facing felony prison time for GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis's "Stop WOKE Act".

 

Districts across the state -- including Duval County Public Schools -- are performing a mass review of all classroom libraries and media centers after the Florida Department of Education handed down directives intended to comply with state law.

“The Florida Department of Education has trained all Florida schools districts to ‘err on the side of caution’ in determining if a book is developmentally appropriate for student use,” DCPS said in a blog post about the decision.

The law says that all books, specifically in elementary school libraries, must be looked over by a certified media specialist who has undergone state training on the new policy.

Parents, however, have been surprised to find their schools’ bookshelves empty during the review process.

“It actually blew my mind that we were living in a world where we were removing books from classrooms,” parent Brian Covey said.

Some parents say the review came as a shock to them and their children, and they what to know when the books will be returned or replaced.

“How do we live in a world where books are being banned from the classroom,” said Covey, whose children attend Greenland Pines Elementary School. “They said that before school, all the teachers had to pack up their stuff, the librarian apparently tearfully announced that she no longer had a resource class to do. And she had to review all the books in the school. They also took all of the library books that had been checked out, and kids were in the middle of reading and said that they can’t continue to read those books until they’ve been reviewed.”

This week, a teacher in Manatee County covered up the books in his classroom and put up a sign that reads: “Closed by order of the governor.”

 

Certainly looks terrible for DeSantis, but remember, this is what Florida voters overwhelmingly approved of in November. None of the Republican voters who cast their ballots for the GOP ever expected their kid's teacher to have to empty out the classroom bookshelf. We were just stopping THE WOKEIES™.

PS, we're all the Wokeies now.

Documenting The Atrocities, Con't

The push by our "liberal" media to make President Biden's document issue the exact same as Trump's refusal to cooperate and outright admitted theft of classified documents has now been fully achieved, and that's all that matters. 

An equal number of Americans — 67% — say they are as concerned about classified documents found at President Joe Biden’s residence and former office as they are about those found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, despite clear differences in how the two men responded to these controversies.

In addition, half of Americans disapprove of the job President Biden is doing and give him low marks on uniting the country, as well as on having the necessary mental and physical health to be president — even after a string of recent political and legislative victories.

And majorities believe the new Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives will be too inflexible in dealing with Biden and will spend too much time investigating the president instead of focusing on other priorities.

These are the major findings of a brand-new national NBC News poll conducted at the beginning of the new 118th Congress, ahead of Biden’s upcoming State of the Union address next month and after news of classified documents that were found at Biden’s and Trump’s private homes.

The survey also underscores just how little has changed since last November’s midterm elections, and just how dissatisfied the public remains as the 2024 presidential election begins to take shape.

“The calendar may read 2023, but you’d excuse someone if they continue to see 2022 in the country’s outlook and in our politics,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies.

“Elections are supposed to act as a chance to refresh and reset, and that did not happen,” McInturff adds.

The poll finds an American public that’s equally concerned about the discovery of classified documents found at Biden’s and Trump’s homes, even though the current president and ex-president handled their situations in different ways.

(Biden and his lawyers have argued that they turned over these classified documents — from his time as Barack Obama’s vice president — as soon as they were discovered and have cooperated with investigators, while Trump failed turn over all requested documents and has lashed out at investigators.)

 

Trump is still committing crimes, and is still refusing to fully cooperate. Biden is not. But trwo-thirds of Americans find they are the same, and perception and nuance does not matter in the least to the Body Politic.

 

People still hate the House GOP Circus of the Damned, but they hate Joe Biden too, and nothing ever changes.

 

Mission accomplished!

Last Call For Orange Meltdown, Con't

Trump and his inner circle of crooks are heading closer to indictment in state cases this week as New York opens a new grand jury, and Georgia moves to warn people that a decision on charges is imminent. First, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is opening a new grand jury to investigate Trump's hush money scandal.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office on Monday will begin presenting evidence to a grand jury about Donald J. Trump’s role in paying hush money to a porn star during his 2016 presidential campaign, laying the groundwork for potential criminal charges against the former president in the coming months, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The grand jury was recently impaneled, and witness testimony will soon begin, a clear signal that the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, is nearing a decision about whether to charge Mr. Trump.

On Monday, one of the witnesses was seen with his lawyer entering the building in Lower Manhattan where the grand jury is sitting. The witness, David Pecker, is the former publisher of The National Enquirer, the tabloid that helped broker the deal with the porn star, Stormy Daniels.

As prosecutors prepare to reconstruct the events surrounding the payment for grand jurors, they have sought to interview several witnesses, including the tabloid’s former editor, Dylan Howard, and two employees at Mr. Trump’s company, the people said. Mr. Howard and the Trump Organization employees, Jeffrey McConney and Deborah Tarasoff, have not yet testified before the grand jury.

The prosecutors have also begun contacting officials from Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, one of the people said. And in a sign that they want to corroborate these witness accounts, the prosecutors recently subpoenaed phone records and other documents that might shed light on the episode.

A conviction is not a sure thing, in part because a case could hinge on showing that Mr. Trump and his company falsified records to hide the payout from voters days before the 2016 election, a low-level felony charge that would be based on a largely untested legal theory. The case would also rely on the testimony of Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former fixer who made the payment and who himself pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the hush money in 2018.

Still, the developments compound Mr. Trump’s mounting legal woes as he faces an array of law enforcement investigations: A district attorney in Georgia could seek to indict him for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state, and he faces a special counsel investigation into his removal of sensitive documents from the White House.

Mr. Bragg’s decision to impanel a grand jury focused on the hush money — supercharging the longest-running criminal investigation into Mr. Trump — represents a dramatic escalation in an inquiry that once appeared to have reached a dead end.

 

And second, Fulton County, Georgia DA Fanit Willis is letting everyone know the decision to indict Trump and his inner circle is coming much, much sooner rather than later.

 

Former President Donald Trump and his allies have been put on notice by a prosecutor, but the warning didn’t come from anyone at the Justice Department.

It was from a Georgia prosecutor who indicated she was likely to seek criminal charges soon in a two-year election subversion probe. In trying to block the release of a special grand jury’s report, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis argued in court last week that decisions in the case were “imminent” and that the report’s publication could jeopardize the rights of “future defendants.”

Though Willis, a Democrat, didn’t mention Trump by name, her comments marked the first time a prosecutor in any of several current investigations tied to the Republican former president has hinted that charges could be forthcoming. The remarks ratcheted anticipation that an investigation focused, in part, on Trump’s call with Georgia’s secretary of state could conclude before ongoing federal probes.

“I expect to see indictments in Fulton County before I see any federal indictments,” said Clark Cunningham, a Georgia State University law professor. 

 

I would expect February is going to be another dismal month for Trump. Merrick Garland is simply not going to act until he's ready. The states will have to take the lead.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Homeschooling your kids is a choice millions of parents are making, and while I know people who have done that for reasons I approve of, there's also plenty of people homeschooling their kids so that they can do damage to public schools, and then there's the type who basically indoctrinate them into awful cults. Now, sometimes when I say "awful cults" I mean quasi-religious scary stuff that these kids spend the rest of their lives trying to break", and sometimes when I say "awful cults" in 2023, I mean "actual neo-Nazi white supremacists."

 

Earlier this month, while the rest of the country was celebrating the achievements of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., parents and children in the “Dissident Homeschool” network opened a lesson plan and were greeted with the words: “As Adolf Hitler wrote…”

The contents of the MLK lesson plan would be shocking for almost anyone, but for members of the 2,400-member “Dissident Homeschool” Telegram channel, this was a regular Monday at school.

“It is up to us to ensure our children know him for the deceitful, dishonest, riot-inciting negro he actually was,” the administrator of the network’s Telegram channel wrote, alongside a downloadable lesson plan for elementary school children. ”He is the face of a movement which ethnically cleansed whites out of urban areas and precipitated the anti-white regime that we are now fighting to free ourselves from.”

Since the group began in October 2021 it has openly embraced Nazi ideology and promoted white supremacy, while proudly discouraging parents from letting their white children play with or have any contact with people of any other race. Admins and members use racist, homophobic, and antisemitic slurs without shame, and quote Hitler and other Nazi leaders daily in a channel open to the public.

VICE News joined the group simply by clicking on a link, though the list of members was not publicly visible.

What’s even more disturbing, however, is that the couple who run the channel are not only teaching parents how to indoctrinate their children into this fascist ideology, they’re also encouraging them to meet up in real life and join even more radical groups, which could further reinforce their beliefs and potentially push them toward violent action.

The “Dissident Homeschool” network is run by a husband and wife team who use the aliases “Mr. and Mrs. Saxon.” This week the antifascist research group Anonymous Comrades Collective published a detailed report that unmasked the Saxons as Logan and Katja Lawrence, who live in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, with their four young children.

The researchers were able to identify the Lawrences through biographical details they shared in the Telegram channel’s group chat and on podcast appearances. One of the key clues to identifying them came when they revealed that they owned a German Shepherd called Blondi—the same name as Hitler’s dog.

The researchers found photos that Katja posted on Facebook with her German Shepherd, and were also able to confirm Katja Lawrence’s ownership of this dog through the Wyandot County dog licensing website dog search feature.

The Lawrences did not respond to multiple emails, text messages, social media messages, and phone calls from VICE News to discuss the contents of the report and their neo-Nazi homeschooling group.

Katja Lawrence, who is in her mid-30s, launched the channel in October 2021, because she “was having a rough time finding Nazi-approved school material for [her] homeschool children,” as she told the neo-Nazi podcast “Achtung! Amerikaner” last year.

Later in the same podcast episode, Lawrence expanded on her view on why she wanted to educate her children at home. “We have our children’s best interest at heart and nobody can do a better job than we can because it’s our child. We are so deeply invested into making sure that that child becomes a wonderful Nazi,” she said.

 

So yeah, Ohio Homeschooling Nazis, wanting to recruit people to join domestic terrorist militia groups. Yeah, I'd say there's probably a lot more networks like this that haven't been exposed yet. And remember, one of our political parties is doing everything they can to run cover for these actual, literal Nazis.

Countdown Shutdown, Armageddon Edition, Con't

House GOP Circus Of The Damned Ringmaster Kevin McCarthy is predicting that President Biden will fold and give the GOP Clown Car the trillions in cuts to infrastructure, health care, and social programs Biden championed over the last two years, because the GOP is more than happy to crush the economy and throw us into a UK-style decade-long depression.

 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Sunday he thinks President Joe Biden will come to an agreement with him regarding the debt ceiling, despite the Biden administration’s previous assertions that they wouldn’t negotiate with House Republicans on the issue.

“His staff tries to say something different, but I think the president will be willing to make an agreement together,” McCarthy said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” The pair are scheduled to meet Wednesday, McCarthy said.

Biden previously confirmed he planned to meet with the House speaker to talk about raising the nation’s borrowing limit, in order to pay back money that’s already been spent.

McCarthy has taken the opportunity to attempt to force government spending cuts; the U.S. needs to both lift the nation’s debt ceiling and “take control of this runaway spending,” McCarthy told host Margaret Brennan on Sunday.

The Biden administration has argued Congress has the responsibility to pass a debt limit increase without conditions attached, noting that Congress did exactly that three times during former President Donald Trump’s tenure.

Asked about White House concerns that some Republicans are seeking cuts to Social Security and Medicare, McCarthy said, “Let’s take those off the table.”

Cuts to defense spending, however, are still in play, McCarthy suggested.

“I want to look at every dollar no matter where it’s being spent,” he said, when asked specifically about defense. “I want to eliminate waste wherever it is.”

 

The last "agreement" that the House GOP extracted out of a Democratic president was sequestration, which prolonged the Great Recession by years.  Biden learned his lesson a dozen years ago.

 

In 2011, after faltering debt limit negotiations with House Republicans brought the U.S. to the brink of economic calamity, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden sat by the fireplace in the Oval Office, with their top aides on the couch. While relieved at having narrowly averted disaster, they were stunned by what had transpired.

Obama and Biden made a vow: Never again.

They agreed that going forward, “Nobody can use the threat of default or not increasing the debt limit as a negotiating tool,” said a former Obama official involved in the fiscal discussions, who recounted the Oval Office meeting and the “lesson of 2011” they all discussed. “It made you hold your stomach. You couldn’t believe you were at this situation," the official said.

The U.S. had just suffered its first credit downgrade. Markets were rattled. Consumer and business confidence was shaken. Stocks took a hit. And the recovery from the Great Recession was in question. Democrats averted the cliff — by acceding to $2 trillion in spending cuts the GOP had demanded after negotiations on a “grand bargain” broke down — but Obama and Biden agreed that the mere threat of default had taken a serious toll.

“They said: This is the sad lesson we’ve learned,” the Obama official said, describing the mood in the room. “It was an unimaginable self-inflicted wound in 2011.”

Twelve years later, Biden is executing on that lesson as he faces down a new Republican-controlled House that is similarly demanding spending cuts as a concession for extending the debt ceiling. He says there won’t be any negotiations, and Congress must allow the government to pay its bills. “I will not let anyone use the full faith and credit of the United States as a bargaining chip,” Biden said Thursday in Virginia.

 

Having said that, Obama and Biden's hard lesson prolonged the Great Recession well into 2014 and Black families still haven't recovered. The Black middle class in this country is gone and it's likely never coming back.

Another blow like sequestration would finish off tens of millions of Americans, and Biden knows that.

That's The Sound Of The Police, Con't

Once again, Democrats want a "national conversation" on police brutality, violence, and murder of civilians and especially Black folk, but America is not and never will be in my lifetime ready for a serious conversation on anything involving race.

Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin said Sunday that the brutal footage of Memphis police beating Tyre Nichols demonstrated the need for “a national conversation” on law enforcement.

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” the Illinois Democrat said, “We need a national conversation about policing in a responsible, constitutional and humane way. These men and women with badges put them on each day and risk their lives for us. I know that, but we also see from these videos horrible conduct by these same officers in unacceptable situations.”

Durbin told host Martha Raddatz “that law enforcement, by and large, is a state and local responsibility,” but added that Congress can insert itself into the conversation, noting a package of police reforms that Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) had been working on after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police in May 2020.

That legislation stalled. One factor was a debate over the question of whether to retain “qualified immunity” for police officers.

“I think,” Durbin said of Booker, “he and Senator Scott should sit down again quickly to see if we can revive that effort.”

Nichols died Jan. 10, three days after being beaten repeatedly after a police stop by five Memphis officers, who have since been fired and charged in his death.

As for his own reaction to the footage of the beating of Nichols, Durbin said he was aghast.

“It was horrible. Inhumane. My heart goes out to the Tyre Nichols family to think that their son went through this,” he said, adding later: “What we saw on the streets of Memphis was just inhumane and horrible.”

First-term Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) said she found Nichols’ death horrifying but not surprising, saying it was not the first time the nation has seen an African American mother grieve in response to her child’s death.

“There are so many Black cities across the country that have re-lived this,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But it’s painful every single time and never gets any easier.”

 

The conversation on police and race is "Actual effective police reforms, oversight, and consequences of police violence against Americans they are supposed to be protecting will never happen, because it would deprive the national white supremacist party of one of its most effective tools in enforcing white supremacy."

You can dance around it all you want to, but the millions of law enforcement officers in America are there to chiefly oppress the descendants of slaves for the last 160 years. The "conversation" has been going since long before I was born, all of my life, and will be going long after I'm dead and gone as even a digital memory.

Democrats at least acknowledged the problem exists at the systemic level. They don't know what to do, and can't do much at all without Republicans blocking, destroying, and reversing it, but at least they know we're dying out here.

The other guys, well, they're actively assisting the killing.

Sunday Long Read: Fit As A Fiddle

This week's Sunday Long Read comes to us from Chicago Magazine and Elly Fishman, who answers the question "Who do you call when you have a sick Stradivarius?"

It’s a few minutes past 10 in the morning, and John Becker stands just inside the door to his company’s office in the Fine Arts Building downtown. He wears a black workman’s apron, which he fits to his body by wrapping the ties around his torso twice. With his shoulders slightly hunched, he quietly observes the almost surreal scene unfolding before him.

A few feet away, Joshua Bell and James Ehnes, two of the most prominent solo violinists on the planet, hover over an Arts and Crafts–style wood table. Normally, Bell, a former child prodigy known for his virtuosic, animated playing, and Ehnes, a musician’s musician celebrated for his technical prowess, would be the superstars in the room. Both have won multiple Grammy Awards, and between the two of them, they have performed in nearly every major concert hall and with all the best orchestras in the world. But here, in Becker’s studio inside his office, another icon takes center stage.

“I’m really nervous and excited,” says Bell, his hands stuffed in his pockets. “It’s like meeting my wife again after two months. I’m a little overwhelmed.”

“Oh yeah, I understand the feeling,” Ehnes chimes in, his tone nearly giddy. His eyes are set on an object perched on a gray cloth that covers the tabletop. “I’ve never seen this violin before. It’s incredible. It’s so beautiful.” He pauses as though to take in every contour. The spruce wood — a swirl of orange and red hues — glows under the morning light. “It’s stunning.”

The violin in question belongs to Bell. The 310-year-old instrument, which Bell has said is worth as much as $15 million, is among the roughly 650 made by the renowned 18th-century Italian craftsman Antonio Stradivari that survive today. Bell left it with Becker for repairs, and over the past two months, the master luthier applied protective polish to preserve the original varnish, removed the top to make internal repairs, and handcrafted several cleats to reinforce tiny cracks in the wood. Bell has flown in from New York to retrieve the violin, which has been his concert instrument since 2001, before he departs on a tour of South America and Italy.

Ehnes plans to leave his own Strad with Becker for more minor repairs — a bridge adjustment, a varnish touchup, a new sound post — which will take only a day. The Canadian has made this essential stop before heading to concerts in South Korea and Japan.

Becker turns to Bell and asks if he wants to give the violin a try. It may look beautiful thanks to the fresh polish, but after 213 hours of painstaking work, the true test is how it feels and sounds.

“Yes, I do,” Bell responds, eagerly picking up the instrument.

Becker doesn’t play violin, but his ears are more attuned to the famed sound of Stradivarius instruments than perhaps anyone else’s in the world. He steps back as Bell raises his bow.

 

It pays to remember that some of the greatest artists in the world don't play music or paint pictures or sing arias, they allow those artists to keep doing so with their own talent and dedication to the craft. To read about two world-famous violinists fanboying out over the master who keeps their multi-million dollar instruments in top condition is gratifying to say the least.

Last Call For Hammer Heads

The security video of Paul Pelosi's attacker being released this weekend should end the ridiculous conspiracy theories, but as Vanity Fair's Bess Levin reminds us, we all know that the Right-Wing Noise Machine will just move the goalposts.

 

In the immediate wake of a man breaking into Nancy Pelosi’s San Fransisco home and viciously attacking her husband, the right-wing media, Republicans, and their conservative followers got into formation to do what they do best: spread baseless rumors about the assault and mock the victim.

Tucker Carlson fueled conspiracy theories that Paul Pelosi and his attacker, David DePape, were lovers. Elon Musk, who’d become the owner of Twitter just three days prior, shared a story with his 112 million followers from a website known to traffic in false information, that the man was a prostitute with whom Pelosi had gotten into a dispute. (He later deleted the tweet but not before writing, “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.”) Donald Trump Jr. retweeted a “Paul Pelosi” Halloween costume made up of simply underwear and hammer, writing: “The internet remains undefeated.” Representative Claudia Tenney commented “LOL” on a photo of a group of men holding hammers beside a gay pride flag, before deleting the tweet. Charlie Kirk, the conservative YouTube host, said on his podcast he hoped an “amazing patriot” would go bail out DePape, “ask him some questions,” and become a “midterm hero.”

On Thursday, Fox News host Sean Hannity had a guest on his show who speculated that set-to-be-released footage of the attack would “not help the prosecution” and raise “more questions than it answers.”

On Friday, footage of the attack was released. In addition to being deeply difficult to watch—viewers can see the moment when DePape beats the 82-year-old Pelosi with a hammer—it also makes the gang at Fox News and beyond not only look very stupid but like the depraved ghouls they are. Will they see it that way and apologize to the victim and his family? We’re going to go out on a limb and assume the answer starts with an “h” and ends with a “—ell f--king no.” Are you familiar at all with how these people operate? They’re about to double down, if they haven’t already.

 

Yep. This is going to be an enduring conspiracy theory, and your Fox-watching uncle will go to his grave believing it.