Shutdown Countdown, Armageddon Edition, Con't

With House Republican Circus of the Damned Ringmaster Kevin McCarthy and President Biden reaching a tentative debt ceiling deal last night, it's now up to Republicans in the House and Senate to pass it, and there's no guarantee at all that McCarthy has the votes.

 

To get the legislation through a fractious and closely divided Congress, Mr. McCarthy and top Democratic leaders must cobble together a coalition of Republicans and Democrats in the House and the Senate willing to back it. Members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus have already declared war on the plan, which they say fails to impose meaningful spending cuts, and warned that they would seek to block it.

So after spending late nights and early mornings in recent days in feverish negotiations to strike the deal, proponents have turned their energies to ensuring it can pass in time to avert a default now projected on June 5.

“This is the most conservative spending package in my service in Congress, and this is my 10th term,” Representative Patrick T. McHenry, Republican of North Carolina and a lead member of Mr. McCarthy’s negotiating team, said at a news conference on Capitol Hill on Sunday morning.

House Republicans circulated a one-page memo with 10 talking points about the conservative benefits of the deal, which was still being finalized and written into legislative text on Sunday, hours before it was expected to be released. The G.O.P. memo asserted that the plan would cap government spending at 1 percent annually for six years — though the measure is only binding for two years — and noted that it would impose stricter work requirements for Americans receiving government benefits, cut $400 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for global health funding and eliminate funding for hiring new I.R.S. agents in 2023.

“It doesn’t get everything everybody wanted,” Mr. McCarthy told reporters on Capitol Hill. “But, in divided government, that’s where we end up. I think it’s a very positive bill.”

Mr. Biden told reporters that he was confident the deal would reach his desk and that he would speak with Mr. McCarthy on Sunday afternoon “to make sure all the T’s are crossed and the I’s are dotted.”

“I think we’re in good shape,” the president said. Asked what sticking points were left, he said, “None.”

Still, the deal, which would raise the debt ceiling for two years while cutting and capping some federal programs over the same period, was facing harsh criticism from the wings of both political parties.

“Terrible policy, absolutely terrible policy,” Representative Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington, said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” referring to the work requirements for food stamps and other public benefit programs. “I told the president that directly when he called me last week on Wednesday that this is saying to poor people and people who are in need that we don’t trust them.”

Ms. Jayapal, the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said she wanted to read the bill before she decided whether to support it.

Some on the right had already ruled out doing so before seeing the details.

“No one claiming to be a conservative could justify a YES vote,” Representative Bob Good, Republican of Virginia and a member of the House Freedom Caucus, wrote on Twitter. Representative Dan Bishop, Republican of North Carolina, posted his reaction to news of the deal: a vomit emoji.

Russell T. Vought, President Trump’s influential former budget director who now runs the Center for Renewing America, encouraged right-wing Republicans to use their seats on the House Rules Committee — which Mr. McCarthy granted them as he toiled to win their votes to become speaker — to block the deal. “Conservatives should fight it with all their might,” he said.

Some Senate Republicans, who under that chamber’s rules have more tools to slow consideration of legislation, were also up in arms.

“No real cuts to see here,” Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, said on Twitter. “Conservatives have been sold out once again!”

“With Republicans like these, who needs Democrats?” asked Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, who has vowed to delay the debt limit deal.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, was also critical — though for a much different reason. He called the deal too stingy, demanding more robust military funding, particularly for the Navy.

“I am not going to do a deal that marginally reduces the number of I.R.S. agents in the future at the expense of sinking the Navy,” Mr. Graham said on “Fox News Sunday."

So, a huge pile of sausage being made, Republicans get their Medicaid work requirements expansion, and get hundreds of millions in IRS, CDC, and Covid funding cuts, and yes, Biden's student loan forgiveness program remains all but dead after SCOTUS killed it.

Worse, Student loan repayments are going to have to restart later this year, and that's going to hurt millions of Americans, period.

But Biden is getting 98% of the funding passed last year in the Infrastructure and Green New Deal bills too, so...nobody's going to be happy with this bill.

Will it pass?

We'll see. I remind everyone who is complaining about this bill that you elected Republicans to run the House, and this is the direct result.

Maybe stop electing them?

Sunday Long Read: Record Breaking

Like everything else in the internet age, the Guinness Book of World Records has had to make some adjustments over the years, and while the record-keeping keeps on keeping on, not everyone is happy with the new official record of superlatives, as The Guardian's Imogen West-Knights records for us in this week's Sunday Long Read.

 

A couple of summers ago, I went to the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin. I’d spent a lot of time in the city before, but I’d never visited the brewery. The tour is good. You can learn about how barrels are made, get your face printed in the head of a pint and, at the end, have a drink in a bar with a 360-degree view of the city. But what stayed with me most was something I saw there by accident.

One of the exhibit rooms was closed off, but only partially. Curiosity got the better of me, and behind the door, I found a room that was empty but for a table. On the table, there were a handful of editions of the Guinness Book of Records. I hadn’t thought about this book since I was in primary school. Back then, the Guinness Book of Records meant a big, brightly coloured, hardback volume containing 500-odd pages of pictures of people doing things like growing their hair very long or juggling knives. These were books that children gleefully unwrapped on Christmas Day and argued over with their siblings. As I flicked through the old editions – 1994, 2005, 2012 – I thought about the connection between Guinness the stout and Guinness the book for the first time, as well as a hundred questions I hadn’t thought to ask as an eight-year-old marvelling at the man with the stretchiest skin or the most needles inserted into his head.

Even now, in the age of YouTube and TikTok, when you can catapult yourself into fame, riches and recognition for feats of all kinds with nothing more complicated than your phone, the Guinness Book of Records continues, somewhat incredibly, to exist. The book, which since 1999 has gone by Guinness World Records, is still an overwhelming blizzard of wacky pictures and hard data.

But the company that publishes the book, also called Guinness World Records, is not the same as when I held my first annual, the green and silver 2002 edition. Sales of the book have declined in recent times, and the company has had to find new ways to make money – not all of which have met with the approval of the GWR old guard. When I spoke to Anna Nicholas, who worked as the head of PR for the book in the 80s and 90s, she lamented how things had changed: records are now more sensationalist, she said, to meet the demand of an audience that can see extraordinary things whenever they like on social media. “Guinness seemed to have had no issues with shamelessly and unapologetically selling out its devoted audience,” claimed one once-ardent fan in a 2020 blogpost.

It is strange to think of Guinness World Records – a business named after a beer company, which catalogues humanity’s most batshit endeavours – as the kind of entity that could sell out. At first glance, it seems like accusing Alton Towers or Pizza Express of selling out. But the deeper I delved into the world of record breaking, the more sense it made. In spite of its absurdity, or maybe because of it, record breaking is a reflection of our deepest interests and desires. Look deeply enough at a man attempting to break the record for most spoons on a human body, or the woman seeking to become the oldest salsa dancer in the world, and you can find yourself starting to believe that you’re peering into humanity’s soul.

 

I certainly remember having a copy of the GBWR as a kid picked up at a Scholastic Book Fair and man I wore that thing out, fascinated by the trivia and pictures of the bizarre, but fame, even obscure Guinness records fame, still comes at a price.

Paxton Faces The Lone Star Law, Con't

The Texas House has overwhelmingly voted to impeach GOP state AG Ken Paxton on all 20 charges brought forth by the legislature committee investigating his years of wrongdoing.

 

Defying a last-minute appeal by former President Donald Trump, the Texas House voted overwhelmingly Saturday to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton, temporarily removing him from office over allegations of misconduct that included bribery and abuse of office.

The vote to adopt the 20 articles of impeachment was 121-23.

The stunning vote came two days after an investigative committee unveiled the articles — and two days before the close of a biennial legislative session that saw significant right-wing victories, including a ban on transgender health care for minors and new restrictions on public universities’ diversity efforts.

The vote revealed substantial divisions within the Republican Party of Texas — the largest, richest and most powerful state GOP party in the United States. Although the party has won every statewide election for a quarter-century and has controlled both houses of the Legislature since 2003, it has deep underlying fissures, many of them exacerbated by Trump’s rise.

Few attorneys general have been as prominent as Paxton, who made a career of suing the Obama and Biden administrations. One of Trump’s closest allies in Texas, along with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Paxton unsuccessfully sued to challenge the 2020 presidential election results in four states.

Attention next shifts to the Texas Senate, which will conduct a trial with senators acting as jurors and designated House members presenting their case as impeachment managers.

Permanently removing Paxton from office and barring him from holding future elected office in Texas would require the support of two-thirds of senators.

Impeachment was supported by 60 Republicans, including Speaker Dade Phelan. All votes in opposition came from Republicans.

The move to impeach came less than a week after the House General Investigating Committee revealed that it was investigating Paxton for what members described as a yearslong pattern of misconduct and questionable actions that include bribery, dereliction of duty and obstruction of justice. They presented the case against him Saturday, acknowledging the weight of their actions.

“Today is a very grim and difficult day for this House and for the state of Texas,” Rep. David Spiller, R-Jacksboro, a committee member, told House members.

“We have a duty and an obligation to protect the citizens of Texas from elected officials who abuse their office and their powers for personal gain,” Spiller said. “As a body, we should not be complicit in allowing that behavior.”

Paxton supporters criticized the impeachment proceedings as rushed, secretive and based on hearsay accounts of actions taken by Paxton, who was not given the opportunity to defend himself to the investigating committee. 

 

That's because Paxton will get his defense at his Senate trial, which presents its own set of problems: Paxton's wife Angela is in fact a Texas state senator. 

The good news is that the law prevailed, despite open and repeated threats by Paxton, GOP US Sen. Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump. Naturally, I expect those threats to be repeated against the Texas senate, which in this case would jury tampering, what Trump does best.

We'll see if Paxton survives this. There's got to be heavy pressure for him to resign, and let's not forget that the reason Paxton was impeached now is that by not doing so, Texas Republicans, who were asked by Paxton for millions in taxpayer dollars to pay off his whistleblowers, would have been culpable in the federal investigation into Paxton's bribery, still ongoing.

Stay tuned.

 

 

Orange Meltdown, Con't

As word is coming in that Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith is wrapping up his investigation and that AG Merrick Garland is nearing a decision on charges with the Trump team bracing for impact, the Washington Post is reporting that the Mar-a-Lago classified document shuffle was a song and dance number that was planned, practiced, and executed by members of Trump's staff.

Two of Donald Trump’s employees moved boxes of papers the day before FBI agents and a prosecutor visited the former president’s Florida home to retrieve classified documents in response to a subpoena — timing that investigators have come to view as suspicious and an indication of possible obstruction, according to people familiar with the matter.

Trump and his aides also allegedly carried out a “dress rehearsal” for moving sensitive papers even before his office received the May 2022 subpoena, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive ongoing investigation.

Prosecutors in addition have gathered evidence indicating that Trump at times kept classified documents in his office in a place where they were visible and sometimes showed them to others, these people said.

Taken together, the new details of the classified-documents investigation suggest a greater breadth and specificity to the instances of possible obstruction found by the FBI and Justice Department than has been previously reported. It also broadens the timeline of possible obstruction episodes that investigators are examining — a period stretching from events at Mar-a-Lago before the subpoena to the period after the FBI raid there on Aug. 8.

That timeline may prove crucial as prosecutors seek to determine Trump’s intent in keeping hundreds of classified documents after he left the White House, a key factor in deciding whether to file charges of obstruction of justice or of mishandling national security secrets. The Washington Post has previously reported that the boxes were moved out of the storage area after Trump’s office received a subpoena. But the precise timing of that activity is a significant element in the investigation, the people familiar with the matter said.

Grand jury activity in the case has slowed in recent weeks, and Trump’s attorneys have taken steps — including outlining his potential defense to members of Congress and seeking a meeting with the attorney general — that suggest they believe a charging decision is getting closer. The grand jury working on the investigation apparently has not met since May 5, after months of frenetic activity at the federal courthouse in Washington. That is the panel’s longest hiatus since December, shortly after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to lead the probe and coinciding with the year-end holidays.

 

The obstruction of justice charges are coming, but I think a lot more will be unveiled in the months ahead. As it stands, Team Trump is making the same kind of preparations that they did when Alvin Bragg's cards were about to be played.

This month, several legal and political counselors to Trump have bluntly informed him that they expect the Justice Department to charge him in the criminal investigation into his hoarding of highly classified documents following the end of his presidency, two sources familiar with the matter tell Rolling Stone. The feds have also been probing whether or not Trump tried to obstruct the investigation prior to last year’s FBI raid of the ex-president’s Florida estate.

This, of course, comes on the heels of Trump’s indictment by local prosecutors in Manhattan in April for falsifying business records. Later this summer, officials in Fulton County, Georgia, are expected to decide whether or not to indict Trump on election fraud charges.

Trump’s attorneys and confidants have told Trump that though they view the federal investigation as “bullshit,” they would be surprised at this point if he wasn’t charged — particularly for alleged obstruction of justice — and have urged Trump to prepare for yet another historic fight. “Looks like they’re going for it,” one of the sources says. “People close to the [former] president have discussed with him what we think is going to happen soon, and how he and everyone else needs to be ready for it … it would be crazy not to.”

In at least one of these recent conversations, the former president angrily complained in response to these predictions that if the Department of Justice is going to charge him for keeping classified documents, then “what about Joe Biden?” according to the other person familiar with the matter. (A small number of classified documents have been discovered at a number of locations connected to Biden, including his garage; the Department of Justice has named a second special counsel to look into the matter.)

It is still unclear if the Justice Department will ultimately bring charges against Trump, though there are signs that this particular investigation is nearing its final phase. Some in the broader conservative movement have also braced for the possibility that Trump — currently the front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination — will face indictment across a range of investigations. These potential indictments stem from the Georgia probe into election interference to the Mar-a-Lago documents probe.

“I would just presume indictments in all the jurisdictions,” Tom Fitton, president of the conservative group Judicial Watch and a close ally of Trump, said in a brief interview on Wednesday. “The Democrats are so nervous about Trump running, they’ll do anything.”

Trump’s own former attorney general, Bill Barr, also said in a recent interview that the documents case is the one Trump should be “most concerned about.”

“He wouldn’t get in trouble probably just for taking them. … The problem is what did he do after the government asked for them back and subpoenaed them,” Barr told CBS News. “And if there’s any games being played there, he’s going to be very exposed.”

 

You'll know it's actually coming when Trump screams about his impending arrest and tells his terrorists to go after federal law enforcement officers in order to save him. 

Until then, I expect Smith -- and Merrick Garland -- will keep his own schedule.

Last Call For Shutdown Countdown, Armageddon Edition, Con't

With Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen putting a hard date on June 5th for when the US can't pay the bills, House Republicans are trying to scuttle any notion of a reported deal as they want Biden's economy to pay the same price Trump did for Covid, only worse.

In response to reports about the details of the agreement, leading conservative lawmakers and budget experts raised strong objections, arguing that McCarthy had failed to extract sufficient concessions from the Biden administration in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. McCarthy pushed back in remarks to reporters on Friday, saying the criticisms were being leveled by people unaware of the substance of the deal.

Negotiators are closing in on an agreement that would raise the debt ceiling by two years — a key priority of the Biden administration — while also essentially freezing government spending on domestic programs and slightly increasing funding for the military and veterans affairs, said three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private deliberations. Although the deal is expected to include key GOP priorities, such as partially clawing back new funding for the Internal Revenue Service, a growing chorus of conservatives has balked at how little the deal appears to cut government spending overall — especially because it would also give up their party’s leverage on the debt ceiling until after the 2024 presidential election.

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a top member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, described what he has learned so far of the emerging deal as “watered down.” Norman urged McCarthy to hew closely to the legislation that conservatives helped craft and pass last month, which raised the debt ceiling only into next year and coupled the increase with larger spending cuts than the two parties are now discussing.

“This is totally unacceptable, and it’s not what we agreed to,” Norman said.

Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), another House conservative, complained about reports that the deal would raise the debt ceiling by more money than the bill approved by the House. Good said the emerging deal would do so “for a whole lot less in return that we need from a policy standpoint, from a fiscal standpoint.” He added: “And if that were true, that would absolutely collapse the Republican majority for this debt ceiling increase.”

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), another House conservative, added of the longer debt ceiling increase: “You’ve got to add things into it, not compromise things away.” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.), a key conservative leader, downplayed the idea that the deal would lead to McCarthy losing his speakership but added of the deal: “I think it’s an exit ramp about five exits too early.”

Asked by reporters about the criticisms on Friday, McCarthy said: “I’m not concerned about anybody making any comments right now about what they think is in or not it. Whenever we come to an agreement, we’ll make sure we will first brief our entire conference.”

The extent and ferocity of the conservative revolt could prove crucial to the ongoing debt ceiling standoff, as well as McCarthy’s future. But it was not exactly clear how many GOP lawmakers shared the objections voiced by Norman and Good. Since the beginning of the negotiations, McCarthy has been widely assumed to be able to lose the roughly three dozen members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus and still manage to pass the debt ceiling increase and retain his position as speaker. If he loses several dozen additional House Republican lawmakers, though, both the deal — and his grip on power — could be on shaky ground.

“These guys were never going to vote for it, so the question becomes how many of them you lose,” one GOP strategist said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal dynamics.

 

A deal was always going to require Democratic votes. McCarthy's issue is of course that if the deal is a majority Democratic one, he gets removed as House Speaker. A bill that a majority of the House GOP was going to accept and has enough Democrats on board to actually pass it, well, that's McCarthy's real problem, because it doesn't exist.

 

So now we watch as the circus ringmaster puts himself through the flaming hoops, and if he fails, the entire tent burns down and America along with it.

 

 

Ron's Gone Wrong (And Greedy)

The Authoritarian Dictatorship of Ron DeSantis is telling Florida lobbyists that in order to continue doing business with the state, that it's time to fork over millions in cash to DeSantis's presidential campaign or be shut out of operating in the Sunshine State.

 

Officials who work for Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration — not his campaign — have been sending text messages to Florida lobbyists soliciting political contributions for DeSantis' presidential bid, a breach of traditional norms that has raised ethical and legal questions and left many here in the state capital shocked.

NBC News reviewed text messages from four DeSantis administration officials, including those directly in the governor's office and with leadership positions in state agencies. They requested the recipient of the message contribute to the governor’s campaign through a specific link that appeared to track who is giving as part of a “bundle” program.

“The bottom line is that the administration appears to be keeping tabs on who is giving, and are doing it using state staff,” a longtime Florida lobbyist said. “You are in a prisoner’s dilemma. They are going to remain in power. We all understand that.”

NBC News is not naming the specific staffers who sent the text messages because it could out the lobbyists who received the messages and shared them.

DeSantis’ office did not return a request seeking comment, but one administration official acknowledged that they were fundraising for the campaign.

"I’m not sure what every EOG staffer does on their free time and after hours, with their first amendment rights, but I wouldn’t be shocked if team eog somehow raised more money than lobbyists," the administration official said in a text message, referring to an acronym for the governor's office. "I can confirm I (and many other staff) personally donated."

Generally, political staffers are charged with raising money for political campaigns, and aides on the official side are walled off from those operations.

The legality of the solicitations depends on a series of factors, including whether they were sent on state-owned phones, or if they were sent on state property. A longtime Florida election law attorney said that even if the DeSantis aides are fundraising for the campaign in their personal capacity, off the government clock, it still raised ethical questions.

“At a minimum, even if they are sitting in their home at 9 p.m. using their personal phone and contacting lobbyists that they somehow magically met in their personal capacity and not through their role in the governor’s office, it still smells yucky,” the attorney said. “There’s a misuse of public position issue here that is obvious to anyone paying attention.”

But the practice was still jaw-dropping for those who have long been involved in Florida politics.

NBC News spoke with 10 Republican lobbyists in Florida, all of whom said they couldn't remember being solicited for donations so overtly by administration officials — especially at a time when the governor still has to act on the state budget.

That process that involves DeSantis using his line-item veto pen to slash funding for projects that the same lobbyists whom they are asking for political cash have a professional stake in. Most of the lobbyists said they felt pressure to give to the governor's campaign.

 

I almost have to laugh at these lobbyist groups feeling sorry for themselves.

 

You got into bed with an authoritarian dictator in a single-party state where he has 100% control of politics and spending. Of course he's going to extort millions for his presidential campaign from you, and no matter how you feel about DeSantis's decreasing chances against Trump in the GOP primary, the fact is DeSantis still controls the state lock, stock and barrel.

So you'll pay up or be driven out by new legislation. What DeSantis can do to Disney, he can do to any business group operating in Florida. It's perfectly legal because DeSantis and crew made it so.

 

And everyone knows it. So these industry groups will be directly funding DeSantis's already failed campaign...

 

...or else.

Paxton Faces The Lone Star Law

Republicans in Texas's House heard the results of the investigation into corruption and abuse of power by Attorney General Ken Paxton this week, and it's bad enough that Paxton may actually face impeachment.

 

A Texas House committee heard stunning testimony from investigators Wednesday over allegations of a yearslong pattern of misconduct and questionable actions by Attorney General Ken Paxton, the result of a probe the committee had secretly authorized in March.

In painstaking and methodical detail in a rare public forum, four investigators for the House General Investigating Committee testified that they believe Paxton broke numerous state laws, misspent office funds and misused his power to benefit a friend and political donor.

Their inquiry focused first on a proposed $3.3 million agreement to settle a whistleblower lawsuit filed by four high-ranking deputies who were fired after accusing Paxton of accepting bribes and other misconduct.

Committee Chair Andrew Murr said the payout, which the Legislature would have to authorize, would also prevent a trial at which evidence of Paxton’s alleged misdeeds would be presented publicly. Committee members questioned, in essence, if lawmakers were being asked to participate in a cover-up.

“It is alarming and very serious having this discussion when millions of taxpayer dollars have been asked to remedy what is alleged to be some wrongs,” Murr said. “That’s something we have to grapple with. It’s challenging.”

Many of the allegations detailed Wednesday were already known, but the public airing of them revealed the wide scope of the committee’s investigation into the state’s top lawyer and a member of the ruling Republican Party. The investigative committee has broad power to investigate state officials for wrongdoing, and three weeks ago the House expelled Bryan Slaton, R-Royse City, on its recommendation.

In this case, it could recommend the House censure or impeach Paxton — a new threat to an attorney general who has for years survived scandals and been reelected twice despite securities fraud charges in 2015 and news of a federal investigation into the whistleblowers’ claims in 2020.

Erin Epley, lead counsel for the investigating committee, said the inquiry also delved into the whistleblowers’ allegations by conducting multiple interviews with employees of Paxton’s agency — many of whom expressed fears of retaliation by Paxton if their testimony were to be revealed — as well as the whistleblowers and others with pertinent information.

According to state law, Epley told the committee in a hearing at the Capitol, a government official cannot fire or retaliate against “a public employee who in good faith reports a violation of law … to an appropriate law enforcement authority.”

The four whistleblowers, however, were fired months after telling federal and state investigators about their concerns over Paxton’s actions on behalf of Nate Paul, an Austin real estate investor and a friend and political donor to Paxton.

“Each of these four men is a conservative Republican civil servant,” Epley said. “Interviews show that they wanted to be loyal to General Paxton and they tried to advise him well, often and strongly, and when that failed each was fired after reporting General Paxton to law enforcement.”

 

Imagine being so utterly, thoroughly corrupt that Texas Republicans are even considering a recommendation to remove another Texas Republican from office. Indeed, the committee's recommendation is that Paxton has to go.

 

In an unanimous decision, a Republican-led House investigative committee that spent months quietly looking into Paxton recommended impeaching the state’s top lawyer. The House could vote on the recommendation as soon as Friday. If it impeaches Paxton, he would be forced to leave office immediately.

The move sets set up what could be a remarkably sudden downfall for one of the GOP’s most prominent legal combatants, who in 2020 asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory. Only two officials in Texas’ nearly 200-year history have been impeached.

Paxton has been under FBI investigation for years over accusations that he used his office to help a donor and was separately indicted on securities fraud charges in 2015, but has yet to stand trial.

 

In fact, Texas state House Republicans moved quickly to file those recommended articles yesterday evening.

 

In an unprecedented move, a Texas House committee voted Thursday to recommend that Attorney General Ken Paxton be impeached and removed from office, citing 20 accusations that include bribery, retaliating against whistleblowers and obstruction of justice.

Around 8 p.m., the House General Investigating Committee filed its impeachment resolution with the House clerk. It included the 20 articles listing a yearslong pattern of alleged misconduct and lawbreaking that investigators detailed one day earlier. On the House floor, some lawmakers could be heard yelling the number of the newly filed articles, and several could be seen reading the document minutes after it was filed.

The House will next decide whether to approve the articles against Paxton, which could lead to the attorney general’s removal from office pending the outcome of a trial to be conducted by the Senate.

State Rep. Andrew Murr, chair of the investigating committee, followed by telling House members that the impeachment resolution alleged “grave offenses,” justifying the committee’s action.

“After a period of time for your review and reflection, I intend to call up the resolution adopting the articles of impeachment. If you have any questions at all, please come visit with me or any other member of our committee,” said Murr, R-Junction.

During a specially called meeting earlier Thursday afternoon, the committee voted unanimously to refer the 20 articles of impeachment to the full chamber.

 

If Paxton is impeached, he'll be removed from office pending the state Senate trial.

 

So maybe Paxton will finally fall.  We'll see.

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

The leader of one of America's worst white supremacist domestic terrorist organizations has just been sentenced to 18 years in federal prison for his role in the January 6th terrorist attack.

 

The founder of the far-right Oath Keepers has been sentenced to 18 years in federal prison in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol following his conviction on seditious conspiracy.

The sentence for Stewart Rhodes is the longest imposed on a Jan. 6 defendant to date. “You, sir, present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country and to the republic and to the very fabric of this democracy," Judge Amit Mehta said before handing down the sentence.

Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy in November along with Kelly Meggs, a fellow Oath Keepers member who will be sentenced later Thursday afternoon.

"They won't fear us until we come with rifles in hand," Rhodes wrote in a message ahead of the Jan. 6 attack. After the attack, in a recording that was played in court during his trial, he said his only regret was that they “should have brought rifles.”

When given the chance to speak before sentencing, Rhodes, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, called himself a "political prisoner" and said he believes the only crime he committed was opposing those who are “destroying our country.” He added that he hopes former President Donald Trump wins in 2024.

Mehta told Rhodes that he was found guilty of seditious conspiracy “not because of your beliefs, not because you supported the other guy, not because Joe Biden is president right now,” but because of the facts of the case, and his actions before, during and after Jan. 6.

“You are not a political prisoner, Mr. Rhodes,” Mehta said.

Rhodes and Meggs were put on trial alongside Jessica Watkins, Kenneth Harrelson and Thomas Caldwell, fellow Oath Keepers who were convicted of obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting, but not seditious conspiracy. Watkins and Harrelson will be sentenced on Friday.

 

Rhodes is hoping Trump wins because Trump has already promised to pardon and other January 6th terrorists as soon as he takes office, and has made that promise on multiple occasions. Whether or not Trump would actually do that is up in the air, Trump's view of other people is 100% transactional in nature, but I suspect Trump would employ Rhodes and his crew as armed enforcers if he did.

 

Ron DeSantis says he'd consider pardoning all the January 6th terrorists as well, so it's not just Trump. Any Republican presidential winner would be under heavy pressure to do so.

Hopefully Rhodes stays in his new home until 2041 or so, or he leaves early in a bag, I'm fine with either...

Another Supreme Disaster For The Environment

As we close in on the last six weeks of this year's US Supreme Court session, we get to the major rulings that chance the face of America as the Roberts Curt continues to reshape the country into a Christian conservative corporatocracy, and today's Sackett v. EPA ruling is as bad as critics of the court's conservative bloc expected, if not worse.

 

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled against the Environmental Protection Agency in a dispute over its authority to regulate certain wetlands under the Clean Water Act, long seen as a key tool to protect waterways from pollution.

In an opinion authored by Justice Samuel Alito in the case known as Sackett v. EPA, the high court found that the agency's interpretation of the wetlands covered under the Clean Water Act is "inconsistent" with the law's text and structure, and the law extends only to "wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies of water that are 'waters of the United States' in their own right."

Five justices joined the majority opinion by Alito, while the remaining four — Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — concurred in the judgment.

The decision from the conservative court is the latest to target the authority of the EPA to police pollution. On the final day of its term last year, the high court limited the agency's power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, dealing a blow to efforts to combat climate change.

That dispute involved the Clean Air Act, and the Supreme Court now has addressed the EPA's authority under the Clean Water Act, which regulates discharges of pollutants into what the law defines as "waters of the United States." Under regulations issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, "waters of the United States" is defined to include "wetlands" that are "adjacent" to traditional navigable waters.

The long-running case dates back to 2007, when Michael and Chantell Sackett began building a home on a lot in a residential neighborhood near Priest Lake, Idaho. After the Sacketts obtained local building permits and started placing sand and gravel fill on the lot, the EPA ordered the work to stop and directed the couple to restore the property to its natural state, asserting the land contained wetlands subject to protection under the Clean Water Act.

 

In other words, millions of acres of wetlands whose waters feed into America's rivers and lakes are no longer under EPA protection, and corporations can do whatever they want with the land as far as building, pollution and environmental damage that will almost certainly end up in our water supplies.

So far this term the Roberts Court has gutted the Clear Air Act, and now it has gutted the Clean Water Act.

 

Expect the Cuyahoga RIver to catch fire again pretty soon.

Ron And Elon Have Gone Wrong

Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis launched his 2024 residential bid on Wednesday using Elon Musk's broken toy and "things did not go well for them" is perhaps the greatest understatement in American politics so far this year.

 

It was the announcement not heard ’round the world.

Ron DeSantis plotted to open his presidential campaign early Wednesday evening with a pioneering social media gambit, introducing himself during an audio-only Twitter forum with Elon Musk. His 2024 effort began instead with a moment of silence. Then several more.

A voice cut in, then two — Mr. Musk’s? — only to disappear again.

“Now it’s quiet,” someone whispered. This was true.

“We got so many people here that we are kind of melting the servers,” said David Sacks, the nominal moderator, “which is a good sign.” This was not true.

Soon, all signs were bad. Hold music played for a spell. Some users were summarily booted from the platform, where hundreds of thousands of accounts had gathered to listen.

“The servers are straining somewhat,” Mr. Musk said at one point, perhaps unaware that his mic was hot, at least briefly.

For 25 minutes, the only person unmistakably not talking (at least on a microphone) was Mr. DeSantis.

The Florida governor’s chosen rollout venue was always going to be a risk, an aural gamble on Mr. Musk, a famously capricious and oxygen-stealing co-star, and the persuasive powers of Mr. DeSantis’s own disembodied voice. (“Whiny,” Donald J. Trump has called him.)

But the higher-order downsides proved more relevant. Twitter’s streaming tool, known as Spaces, has been historically glitchy. Executive competence, core to the DeSantis campaign message, was conspicuously absent. And for a politician credibly accused through the years of being incorrigibly online — a former DeSantis aide said he regularly read his Twitter mentions — the event amounted to hard confirmation, a zeitgeisty exercise devolving instead into a conference call from hell.

“You can tell from some of the mistakes that it’s real,” Mr. Musk said.

At 6:26 p.m., Mr. DeSantis finally announced himself, long after his campaign had announced his intentions, reading from a script that often parroted an introduction video and an email sent to reporters more than 20 minutes earlier.

“Well,” he opened, “I am running for president of the United States to lead our great American comeback.”

After ticking through a curated biography that noted his military background and his “energetic” bearing, Mr. DeSantis stayed on the line. Mr. Sacks, a tech entrepreneur who is close with Mr. Musk, acknowledged the earlier mess.

“Thank you for putting up with these technical issues,” he said. “What made you want to kind of take the chance of doing it this way?”

Mr. DeSantis swerved instantly to his Covid-era stewardship of Florida.

“Do you go with the crowd?” he asked, recalling his expert-flouting decision-making, “or do you look at the data yourself and cut against the grain?”

Rivals agreed: If he hoped to differentiate himself, Mr. DeSantis had succeeded, in his way.

“This link works,” the @JoeBiden account mocked, inviting followers to donate.

“‘Rob,’” Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social, a standard troll-by-misspelling, winding to a confusing (if potentially juvenile) punchline: “My Red Button is bigger, better, stronger, and is working.”

Even Fox News piled on.

“Want to actually see and hear Ron DeSantis?” read a pop-up banner on its website. “Tune into Fox News at 8 p.m. E.T.” (Urging donations once he got on the air, Mr. DeSantis wondered if supporters might “break that part of the internet as well.”)

 

Seeing both DeSantis and Musk turned into laughingstocks across the internet represents the kind of apotheosis of loserdom that far exceeded my wildest expectations of failure to launch. Two white guys with gobs of money and political power were exposed for the frauds and incompetents that they always have been, and both of them are done. 

Musk will slink off to be managed by Twitter's new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, the former global advertising chief for NBCUniversal. DeSantis will slink off and rule his little swamp kingdom for as long as he can before his campaign end up being chucked into the Everglades of failure. What little credibility either of these clowns had left due to political and financial inertia was stripped clean from them yesterday.

The only thing that makes this better is that my own clown of a congressman, Thomas Massie, hitched himself to this disaster from the start and crashed and burned along with them.

 

Good riddance to bad rubbish, as they say.

Last Call For Lake Of Fire, Con't

Failed Republican professional loser Kari Lake has lost yet again, with an Arizona judge ruling against her idiotic "election fraud" claims for the final time.

 

A Maricopa County judge has affirmed — again — Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs' win in November and rejected Republican Kari Lake's claims that improper signature verification and misconduct affected the outcome.

The ruling comes after Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson heard three days of testimony and argument in his Mesa courtroom May 17-19. That proceeding, an unusual second trial in Lake's legal challenge to her November loss to Hobbs, was limited to a single claim about signature verification.

Lake's legal team argued it could prove signatures were examined in a matter of seconds, so short a timeframe it did not count as verification under state law. Thompson, in a Monday night ruling, disagreed.

"Accepting that argument would require the court to re-write not only the (Election Procedures Manual) but Arizona law to insert a minimum time for signature verification and specify the variables to be considered in the process," he wrote.

Lake has not conceded the race, which she lost by 17,117 votes, or less than 1 percentage point. Instead, she's pressed forward in court asking judges to set aside Hobbs' win, and she is likely to appeal Thompson's latest ruling.

Defense lawyers welcomed Thompson's decision following the case that, while seemingly about signature verification, often veered into larger questions about securing elections and voter trust.

"The court's ruling only confirms what we have known all along: Arizona’s elections are safe, secure, and reliable, and those who help facilitate Arizona’s elections are honest, have the highest integrity, and are committed to the preservation of our democracy," said Craig Morgan, an attorney with Sherman & Howard who represented the secretary of state. "This is a victory for Arizona, our election processes, and voters across the state."

In a statement, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Clint Hickman, a Republican, critiqued Lake's false claims and her effort to "discard the valid votes of hundreds of thousands of Arizona voters."

"When 'bombshells' and 'smoking guns' are not backed up by facts, they fail in court," he said. "This is justice, and this is what happened today in Kari Lake’s election contest."

 

And with Lake's definitive court loss, Maricopa County is quickly pressing for additional fines and sanctions against Lake's legal team. 

Lawyers for Maricopa County have asked a judge to issue sanctions against former gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake's legal team for its "heinous and profoundly harmful" claims that the November 2022 election was "rigged."

In a request late Monday, deputy county attorneys laid out five "material misrepresentations of fact" made by Lake's lawyers leading up to and during a three-day trial last week. The attorneys ask the judge to order Lake's attorneys to pay a fine, although they leave the amount up to the court to determine.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson on Monday affirmed Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs' win in November and rejected Lake's claims that improper signature verification and misconduct affected the outcome.

If Thompson agrees to order sanctions, his would be the second court to do so in Lake's six-month legal effort to overturn her loss to Hobbs.

 

Of course, Lake doesn't care in the least. She has her eyes set on bigger things, like failing her way into the US Senate.

Former Republican candidate for governor Kari Lake on Tuesday pledged to appeal her latest courtroom loss in her effort to unseat Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.

"We're also going to continue to, not only raise funds, but energy, for our legal team to continue pushing our case to the United States Supreme Court," Lake said in a news conference outside her campaign headquarters that pivoted between grievances over 2022, looking forward to 2024, and taking on reporters in Lake's characteristic combative style.

 

Why should any Republican accept an election loss ever again?

In her news conference, Lake repeatedly made false claims that contradicted Thompson's latest ruling and that were not substantiated by two other courts — the state Court of Appeals and Arizona Supreme Court — that have considered the case. She called Hobbs a "fraud who is sitting in the Governor's Office" and alleged "criminals and crooks" operate elections.

“The courts just ruled that this corrupt election will stand," Lake said. "The courts just ruled that our elections can run lawlessly. The courts have ruled that anything goes. Well, we can play by those same rules.”

She also announced Tuesday a vague plan to register voters and "chase ballots," signaling a shift in her focus as her appeals continue to unfold. The former candidate said she would spend millions of dollars on that effort through her Save Arizona Fund. What her own political future holds is uncertain, and Lake repeated on Tuesday she was considering a run for U.S. Senate next year.

"I haven’t made up my mind on that," she told reporters.

 

In a three-way Senate race with Kyrsten Sinema and Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, I expect Lake would have an excellent chance at winning.

She Was Simply The Best

Absolute musical legend Tina Turner has passed at age 83.

 

Tina Turner, the unstoppable singer and stage performer who teamed with husband Ike Turner for a dynamic run of hit records and live shows in the 1960s and ’70s and survived her horrifying marriage to triumph in middle age with the chart-topping “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” has died at 83.

Turner died Tuesday, after a long illness in her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland, according to her manager. She became a Swiss citizen a decade ago.

Few stars traveled so far — she was born Anna Mae Bullock in a segregated Tennessee hospital and spent her latter years on a 260,000 square foot estate on Lake Zurich — and overcame so much. Physically battered, emotionally devastated and financially ruined by her 20-year relationship with Ike Turner, she became a superstar on her own in her 40s, at a time when most of her peers were on their way down, and remained a top concert draw for years after.

With admirers ranging from Beyoncé to Mick Jagger, Turner was one of the world’s most successful entertainers, known for a core of pop, rock and rhythm and blues favorites: “Proud Mary,” “Nutbush City Limits,” “River Deep, Mountain High,” and the hits she had in the ’80s, among them “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” “We Don’t Need Another Hero” and a cover of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.”

Her trademarks were her growling contralto, her bold smile and strong cheekbones, her palette of wigs and the muscular, quick-stepping legs she did not shy from showing off. She sold more than 150 million records worldwide, won 12 Grammys, was voted along with Ike into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 (and on her own in 2021) and was honored at the Kennedy Center in 2005, with Beyoncé and Oprah Winfrey among those praising her. Her life became the basis for a film, a Broadway musical and an HBO documentary in 2021 that she called her public farewell.

Until she left her husband and revealed their back story, she was known as the voracious on-stage foil of the steady-going Ike, the leading lady of the “Ike and Tina Turner Revue.” Ike was billed first and ran the show, choosing the material, the arrangements, the backing singers. They toured constantly for years, in part because Ike was often short on money and unwilling to miss a concert. Tina Turner was forced to go on with bronchitis, with pneumonia, with a collapsed right lung.

Other times, the cause of her misfortunes was Ike himself.

As she recounted in her memoir, “I, Tina,” Ike began hitting her not long after they met, in the mid-1950s, and only grew more vicious. Provoked by anything and anyone, he would throw hot coffee in her face, choke her, or beat her until her eyes were swollen shut, then rape her. Before one show, he broke her jaw and she went on stage with her mouth full of blood.

Terrified both of being with Ike and of being without him, she credited her emerging Buddhist faith in the mid-1970s with giving her a sense of strength and self-worth and she finally left in early July, 1976. The Ike and Tina Turner Revue was scheduled to open a tour marking the country’s bicentennial when Tina snuck out of their Dallas hotel room, with just a Mobil credit card and 36 cents, while Ike slept. She hurried across a nearby highway, narrowly avoiding a speeding truck, and found another hotel to stay.

“I looked at him (Ike) and thought, ‘You just beat me for the last time, you sucker,’” she recalled in her memoir.

Turner was among the first celebrities to speak candidly about domestic abuse, becoming a heroine to battered women and a symbol of resilience to all. Ike Turner did not deny mistreating her, although he tried to blame Tina for their troubles. When he died, in 2007, a representative for his ex-wife said simply: “Tina is aware that Ike passed away.”

 

The world loses another legend, and you keep thinking people as impactful and as legendary as Tina Turner are going to be around forever, and they're not.

 

Her music and performances will live on, however. As long as her songs are played and remembered, and as new generations find her, that will continue for decades to come.

Shutdown Countdown, Con't

With a week to go until the US defaults and the economy collapses, Kevin McCarthy and the GOP Circus of the Damned are only adding more and more hostage demands or they shoot America in the head and leave us to die on the side of the road.

During a closed meeting Tuesday morning at a GOP hangout a block from the U.S. Capitol, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) made a pointed plea: Do not break ranks over the debt ceiling crisis.

Ahead of another round of negotiations with the White House, McCarthy told Republicans they had the upper hand in the discussions and encouraged his members to show their support for colleagues facing tough reelection bids next year as a sign of unity, according to two people in attendance, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private talk. McCarthy urged members to make sure vulnerable lawmakers would have plenty of campaign money from GOP coffers — even pledging that they would not be outraised by their opponents in the 2024 election cycle, the people said of the meeting, which took place at the Capitol Hill Club. (McCarthy’s office declined to comment.)

The overture reflects the GOP’s determination to stay unified behind spending cuts even as the nation heads toward the brink of a default, despite a rapidly approaching deadline, a White House suddenly eager to compromise and a Democratic-led effort to push a petition that could force a vote on raising the debt ceiling over McCarthy’s objections.

After refusing to negotiate for months, President Biden’s aides last week offered the GOP substantial concessions on the federal budget — including a freeze on spending for two years — that nonpartisan estimates have projected could cut deficits by as much as $1 trillion over the next decade.

House Republicans do appear willing to drop some provisions in a bill the chamber approved last month to raise the debt ceiling, especially a call for Biden to abandon his student loan forgiveness program and to cancel some green energy tax credits. But they’re also determined to push for more concessions that weren’t even in that legislation. Not only have they ruled out Biden’s proposals to increase revenue by closing tax loopholes — traditionally a part of bipartisan deals to lower the deficit — but they are also insisting on increasing spending on the military, homeland security and veterans services while cutting funds for domestic programs. That would be a change from how a similar standoff was resolved in 2011, when the last bipartisan bill to raise the debt limit and cut spending passed — the Budget Control Act, which affected defense and nondefense budgets equally.

Asked Tuesday evening what Republicans were offering to get Democratic votes, Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.) gave a brief answer: “The debt ceiling.”

“That’s what they’re getting,” added Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.).

 

All this makes much more sense when you realize that House Republicans, and especially McCarthy, do not want a debt ceiling deal. What they want is another Covid-19 moment to hit the economy and to cost it 20 million jobs so they can blame President Biden. They want payback for what they see as a deliberate act to wreck Trump's "Best US economy ever", so they are going to manufacture a collapse to do just that.

 

The other issue is McCarthy knows any compromise that Democrats actually accept will cost him his job as Speaker. 

McCarthy and his top lieutenants have in recent days said the White House needs to agree to cut spending, not just keep it flat. The House GOP’s representatives have panned Biden’s negotiators, saying the White House isn’t showing enough urgency or sending people empowered to cut a deal. (White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Tuesday the claim was “ridiculous.”)

The standoff is increasing the chances lawmakers do not reach agreement by June 1, when the Treasury Department says the government could run out of money.

McCarthy’s hard line reflects the immense internal pressure he faces from far-right members who want aggressive budget cuts.

He must appease some of the demands made by the far-right House Freedom Caucus, which continues to insist that the House-passed legislation from last month should simply become law. But Biden and Senate Democrats have already said that won’t happen, which means GOP House leaders are trying to cut a bipartisan deal that can get a majority of their own lawmakers and also attract enough Democratic votes to pass. Without the Freedom Caucus, Republicans wouldn’t have 218 votes to raise the debt ceiling.

Getting a “majority of the majority,” a longtime GOP House principle, requires leaders to nudge legislation to the right. And conservatives worry that the party might get steamrolled in the negotiations. Adding a potential complication, McCarthy agreed when he was seeking conservative support for the speakership in January to allow any one House member to move to oust him. So far, though, the far-right bloc has not yet publicly discussed the option of forcing McCarthy from power.

 

So far.  That ends the moment he has to hold a must-pass vote to keep the country from blowing up and everyone knows it.

 

No, my prediction that there won't be a deal still holds, and the pressure this week on the White House to cave to massive spending cuts that will collapse the economy anyway will become shrill and deafening in the next few days.

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

My first question of course in this week's half-assed quarter-assed attempt on President Biden's life is "Where was this terrorist radicalized?"

 

A 19-year-old Missouri man, accused of driving a truck into barriers near the White House, made incriminating statements that have led investigators to believe he was seeking to harm the president, officials said Tuesday.

The driver was Sai Varshith Kandula of Chesterfield, U.S. Park Police said Tuesday morning.

The charges against Kandula for allegedly “threatening to kill, kidnap, inflict harm on a president, vice president, or family member,” stem from statements he made to multiple law enforcement agencies, according to a Secret Service representative.

The suspect was interviewed by Secret Service investigators Monday night, the agency representative said, during the ongoing probe that also involves United States Park Police, the FBI and U.S. Capitol Police.

Kandula was further charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, reckless operation of a motor vehicle and trespassing.

Authorities said the preliminary investigation indicates Kandula “intentionally crashed” into the bollards outside Lafayette Park. A Nazi flag was seized by authorities at the scene of the incident.

No one was injured.

A law enforcement official told NBC News that the suspect made threatening statements about the White House at the scene but was quickly detained. The truck was found to contain no weapons or explosives, the official said, without providing further details about the incident.

Asked for their reaction, the official said: “I don’t think there’s any place for a Nazi flag or the statements that he made.”

 

As the charged suspect was of South Asian descent, a reminder that you don't have to be white to be a white supremacist, nor do you have to be white to think supporting actual Nazis is a "good" idea. 

"There's always crazies out there" and yes there are, but not all of the crazies drive a U-haul truck into the White House traffic barriers designed to stop exactly this kind of thing, either.

Tales Of The Shattered Rainbow, Con't

Montana Republicans have declared that trans and non-binary folks simply do not exist under a new state law defining only male and female sexes will be recognized.

 

Republican Governor Greg Gianforte has signed a bill defining the word “sex” in state law as only male or female — joining Kansas and Tennessee, which have similar laws that LGBTQ+ advocates argue will deny legal recognition to nonbinary and transgender people.

Medical professionals say the laws also ignore that some people are born as intersex — a term that encompasses about 60 conditions in which a person is born with genitalia, reproductive organs, chromosomes and/or hormone levels that don’t fit typical definitions of male or female.

The sponsor of the bill said the change is needed to clarify from a legal standpoint that “sex” and “gender” don’t mean the same thing.

The Montana bill “is an attempt to erase trans, nonbinary and two-spirit people from the code, thereby removing the rights, privileges and considerations that trans, nonbinary and Two Spirit people would have under the law,” said SK Rossi last month, testifying against the legislation on behalf of the Human Rights Campaign.

“Two-spirit” is a Native American term for people with both male and female spirits.

The bill, which Gianforte signed on Friday, was approved during a legislative session that also passed a ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors and saw transgender lawmaker Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr expelled from the House floor, following a protest against Republican lawmakers who had silenced her.

Other states have or are considering adopting similar legislation to Montana’s, to define “sex,” which would block residents from changing the identifying labels on their birth certificates and driver’s licenses. Laws in Kansas and Tennessee are scheduled to take effect on July 1, while Montana’s would take effect on Oct. 1.

Transgender people opt to change the sex on their birth certificates and driver’s licenses so their documentation matches their identity.

Lauren Wilson, president of the Montana chapter of the American Academy of Pediatricians, said the bill’s assertion that there are exactly two sexes isn’t true from a medical standpoint.

The bill defines female as having XX chromosomes, and a reproductive and endocrine system that produces or would produce ova, or eggs. Male is defined as having XY chromosomes and a biological system that produces or would produce sperm.

The bill was amended to say that anyone who would fall under the definition of either male or female, “but for a biological or genetic condition,” would fall under the initial determination of male or female.

“The amendment added to address intersex people actually makes the bill more inaccurate as well,” Wilson said.

A bill before the Texas legislature was amended to allow a delay in reporting the biological sex of a child if it could not be determined at birth.

The Montana bill “has no basis in science and seeks to reduce every single one of our existences to our reproductive capacity,” argued Keegan Medrano, the policy director for the ACLU of Montana.

 

As I've said before, the Republican plan is to literally define away the existence of LGBTQ+ folks, which makes it far easier to deny them basic human rights, if not to get rid of them completely.  They absolutely want to grant no more than provisional status, rights, and existence to minority groups while screaming that white straight "Christians" are the "most oppressed people in the country's history".

 

Again, history from 90 years ago in Germany tells us exactly how this turns out.  The next step will be to criminalize the existence of enby and other intersex folks.

I'd say "just watch" but nobody should do that, we need to fight this on all fronts.