Last Call For Like A Wolverine

Trump and the GOP were all watching Georgia and DC when it came to his legal troubles, but people should have been paying attention to Michigan.

 

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Tuesday that she has filed charges against 16 people who signed paperwork falsely claiming that President Donald Trump had won the 2020 election as part of a scheme to overturn the results.

Presidents are technically voted in by slates of electors from each state who cast their votes for the candidates selected by their states’ popular votes. In December 2020, as Trump tried to overturn the results of the election, his allies readied alternative slates of electors in several states.

They appear to be the first charges filed against fake electors.

The announcement came the same day Trump said he has been notified that he is the target of an investigation by a Washington-based grand jury examining the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The 16 people being charged in Michigan allegedly met in the basement of the state's Republican Party headquarters and signed multiple certificates claiming they were “the duly elected and qualified electors for president and vice president of the United States of America for the state of Michigan,” Nessel said in recorded remarks.

“That was a lie. They weren’t the duly elected and qualified electors, and each of the defendants knew it,” she said.

Some of the electors tried to deliver the false documents to the state Senate but were turned away, she said; the documents were later sent to the U.S. Senate and the National Archives "with the intent that Vice President Pence would overturn the results of the election, using the false electoral slate," she said.

Nessel said the "false electors" are being charged with eight felony counts each, including forgery.

"The false electors' actions undermine the public's faith in the integrity of our elections and not only violated the spirit of the laws enshrining and defending our democracy, but we believe also plainly violated the laws by which we administer our elections in Michigan and peaceably transfer power in America," she said.

The 16 people include state GOP co-chair Meshawn Maddock and state Republican National Committeewoman Kathy Berden. Michele Lundgren, who was also charged, has told NBC affiliate WDIV of Detroit that she thought she was signing an attendance sheet for a meeting.

"I didn't even know what an elector was, let alone a fake elector," she told the station

Berden and Lundgren did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

When reached for comment, Maddock called the charges "political persecution," saying the country and judges would "put a stop to this to restore our judicial system."

"The democrats know they can’t beat Trump in 24 so they have to use lawfare to try to imprison their opponents," Maddock wrote in an email to NBC News.

 

It's one thing to see Trump indicted again and for Republicans to respond with "Boring, nobody cares".

 

It's entirely another thing to see other Republicans go down because of Trump.  I figure the same will happen in Georgia very, very soon, and let's remember that Jack Smith has been looking into possible federal charges for months now. Felony fraud charges may just be the beginning.

I hope there's a lot more coming.

Trump Cards, Con't

Looks like Trump is going to get his federal documents trial delayed until 2024 after all.

 

The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s criminal case in South Florida said Tuesday she doesn’t think the 2024 election will be a deciding factor for her in determining when the ex-president's historic trial begins.

U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon made the comment during a nearly two-hour public hearing on the 37-count criminal indictment that Special Counsel Jack Smith secured in June against Trump and his personal valet and co-defendant, Walt Nauta.

Among Cannon's top early priorities is establishing a schedule for the legal proceedings, and Tuesday's hearing marked the first time she's brought together federal prosecutors and defense attorneys for Trump and Nauta to discuss the matter.

Smith's team has been pressing for a mid-December beginning to the Trump trial, while lawyers for Trump and Nauta want the entire proceeding postponed until after the 2024 election that the former president is running in with the hope of winning back his old White House job.

During Tuesday's hearing, Smith's team appeared to concede their December proposal was aspirational.

"We feel it is very important that we have a trial date to work from, realizing that the trial date may not be set in stone," said Jay Bratt, the Chief of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section of the Justice Department's National Security Division.

Such a schedule may depend on whether the cases against Trump and Nauta are labeled complex, a designation that the government has opposed. Cannon appeared inclined to find that it was, pressing prosecutors on whether any similar Espionage Act case had such an ambitious schedule. Bratt appeared to concede that he couldn't find one, though he added that Trump's case was different from the fold in an important aspect. The evidence has been available for nearly a year, since the FBI searched and seized the documents at issue in the case in August 2022.

Pressing both the government and the defense, Cannon similarly showed little interest in basing her ultimate decision on waiting until the November 2024 election has passed.

"I can appreciate that more time is necessary, but we need to set a schedule," Cannon told Trump's attorney, Todd Blanche, early in the afternoon session.

Cannon, a Trump appointee, did not issue a decision on a trial date during Tuesday's hearing. Instead, she said she'd be weighing a number of other factors in determining a schedule, including the volume of discovery materials Smith team will be handing over to Trump's defense so it can prepare for the trial.

Court watchers have viewed the trial schedule as a key test for Cannon, whose rulings in favor of the 45th president of the United States received a blistering rebuke late last year.

After the FBI seized the documents from Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, Cannon issued an injunction blocking the government from using them in their investigation. A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit overturned that order in a blistering rebuke that accused Cannon of undertaking a “radical” restructuring of criminal procedure on behalf of the ex-president.

In the shadow of that decision, Cannon shot down attempts by Trump's team to weigh the case's political backdrop into her consideration, or for prosecutors to respond to insinuations of political persecution by the former president's legal team. Trump's attorney Christopher Kise previously hinted, but had not outright stated, that they wanted to postpone a trial until after the 2024 election.

At one point, Cannon pressed Kise to go on-the-record about that desire.

"Your position is there can be no trial until after the election?" the judge asked.

After Kise answered in the affirmative, Cannon told him that the volume of discovery and anticipated motions would provide a more "suitable" framework for her under the Speedy Trial Act. Trump's attorneys previously accused the government of seeking an "expedited" criminal trial, but special counsel attorney David Harbach said that this formulation gets it backwards.

"It's not a speedy trial that has to be justified," Harbach noted. "It's deviation from a speedy trial that has to be justified."

Despite the unprecedented Justice Department prosecution of a former president, Harbach argued that Trump was no different from any other "busy, important person" who's been indicted.

 

Judge Cannon was all but begging Trump's lawyers to give her a discovery excuse, that the volume of documents would be too much for Trump's team to handle before at least this time next year or something perverse like that.

I don't know exactly how she's going to delay this case until after the election, but it looks like she's going to try.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Lawfare's Ben Wittes makes a convincing argument that Trump will be indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith's grand jury on January 6th charges as soon as Friday and the indictment unsealed next week. Once again the reasoning is fueled by the fact Trump can't keep his damn mouth shut as he went on a Truth Social tirade on Tuesday over Smith naming Trump as a target of his January 6th investigation.

There are very few facts in Trump’s statement, but it does seem to say clearly enough that on Sunday evening, Trump received a target letter from Special Counsel Jack Smith in the Jan. 6 investigation. Trump also claims that the letter gave him “a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury.”

Trump is not a reliable narrator on factual matters, but he has twice before announced that he expected to be indicted and been right both times. There seems to me little reason to suspect that he would make up his receipt of a target letter—especially because we know from news reporting that the Jan. 6 grand jury has been active and was clearly approaching the decision-making phase of its work. Indeed, only on Friday, I noted that the absence of a target letter story in the press was the only reason to think an indictment wasn’t yet imminent at that time: “It sure looks like we’re basically at decision time. Except for one thing—and I think the one thing is overwhelmingly likely to happen before an indictment does. We have not seen a story about a target letter, a meeting with Trump’s lawyers, a negotiated surrender, or an indictment filed under seal.”

Well, thanks to Trump, that one thing is now in place. A target letter almost always precedes an indictment by only a short time. So it’s reasonable to infer that if Trump has received one, the indictment will follow soon.

Trump offers another useful factual claim, which is his vague reference to a time frame. It’s not clear precisely what he means by “giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury,” but I suspect it means that prosecutors have invited him to testify before the grand jury and given him a deadline of Thursday to do so. That would likely mean an indictment will immediately follow the lapse of that deadline, assuming Trump does not actually show up. The indictment will likely be filed under seal so as to allow an orderly process for Trump to show up for surrender and arraignment—as happened with the Mar-a-Lago indictment.

A few additional inferences are possible. This indictment will take place in Washington, D.C. We know this not merely because Trump claims it in the last paragraph of his statement. We know it also because the grand jury has been meeting for months at the courthouse here in Washington, and unlike with the Mar-a-Lago case, that has continued up until the present; the locus of activity has not shifted elsewhere as it did in the Mar-a-Lago case, which was taken up late in the game by a grand jury in Florida.

One thing Trump gives no sign of in his statement is what he will be charged with. The possibilities here are broad. There has been a lot of talk in the press about possible wire fraud charges in connection with some of the post-election fundraising. There is also the possibility of charges in connection with the pressure exerted on Vice President Pence and other elected officials or Trump’s efforts to procure fake electors. The subject matter of the indictment also has implications for the possibility of possible co-defendants—if any—a subject on which Trump is also silent. We do know, however, because of the subject matter of the grand jury investigation and the limitations of Smith’s jurisdictional mandate that the charges will concern Jan. 6 in some meaningful sense.

There is no point speculating about these matters at this stage, although that surely won’t stop cable news pundits from doing so incessantly until the text of any indictment becomes public. The most one can responsibly say is that a third indictment appears to be forthcoming, and that it’s reasonable to expect the grand jury to act as early as the end of this week.

 

Which explains in part why Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis is waiting until next month to unveil her state charges against Trump, letting Jack Smith go first with those "possibly broad" charges. Rolling Stone's Jana Winter:

THE SPECIAL COUNSEL’S letter to Donald Trump related to Jan. 6 listed the federal statutes under which Trump is expected to be charged, including conspiracy, obstruction, and civil rights violations, according to a source with knowledge of the contents of the target letter.

Special counsel Jack Smith sent the letter to Trump on Sunday, informing him he was a target of the Justice Department. Trump on Tuesday announced he’d been sent the letter via a post on the social media platform Truth Social.

The letter mentions three federal statutes: Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud the United States; deprivation of rights under color of law; and tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant. It does not offer further details, nor does it detail how the special counsel believes Trump may have violated the statutes, the source tells Rolling Stone.

The letter does not mention statutes on sedition or insurrection, according to the source. Trump is the only person named in the letter, the source says.

 

Sedition and insurrection are going to be hard to prove in court. Defrauding the United States with a false slate of electors and witness tampering, well, Trump has kinda already admitted to that publicly and on several occasions, hasn't he?

Stay tuned. This weekend could be a hell of a ride.

Last Call For Tales Of The Shattered Rainbow, Con't

House Republicans are doing everything they can to punish the LGBTQ+ community for existing, and that means millions of dollars in cuts to eliminate federal projects entirely.

 

House Republicans struck three Democratic projects that would provide services to the LGBTQ community during Tuesday’s fiscal 2024 Transportation-HUD Appropriations markup, enraging Democrats on the committee.

The three earmarks total $3.62 million, with two in Massachusetts and one in Pennsylvania. The projects were eliminated as part of a Republican en bloc amendment that advanced a range of Republican cultural priorities, including a provision that would ban flying gay pride flags over government buildings. The vote was along party lines, 32-26.

Subcommittee ranking member Mike Quigley, D-Ill., then introduced an amendment to add the three projects back into the bill.

That amendment remained pending as the committee recessed around 3:45 p.m. as it awaited advice from the parliamentarian, after Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., asked that a statement Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis. made be struck from the record.

“There’s a saying, how do you show you’re a bigot without saying you’re a bigot," Pocan said during debate over the GOP amendment. "I’m just saying, there’s a saying."

Pocan also said Harris was too tired from reading the websites of the organizations he opposes to listen to what Pocan was saying, another comment Harris objected to.

Earlier in the meeting, Pocan said the committee’s move to strip the earmarks was “bigoted” and described his own experience getting attacked leaving a gay bar that left him unconscious.

“This is what you guys do, by introducing amendments like this,” Pocan said. “Taking away from people’s earmarks is absolutely below the dignity of Congress, and certainly the Appropriations Committee.”

The earmarks that are set to be stripped include two in Pennsylvania: $1.8 million that Rep. Brendan F. Boyle requested for an expansion project at the William Way Community Center in Philadelphia and $970,000 that Rep. Chrissy Houlahan requested for a transitional housing program at the LGBT Center of Greater Reading.

“This cruel and unjust decision is not rooted in any legitimacy, but instead in bigotry and hatred,” Houlahan said on Twitter.

The third project is $850,000 that Rep. Ayanna S. Pressley, D-Mass., requested for LGBTQ Senior Housing Inc. to convert a former Boston Public School building into 74 units of affordable housing for seniors.

Harris criticized the Greater Reading center for offering services to children as young as 7, and argued the Philadelphia center promotes protests held by the Young Communist League of Philadelphia. And he said the Massachusetts project would discriminate against those who are not LGBTQ or allies.

Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont. said taxpayers should not be paying for the resources for transgender individuals that the LGBT Center of Greater Reading offers.

“The question is, should taxpayers pay for this?” he said. “The answer is no.”

 

And there you are. 

 

Republicans are now instituting a dollar cost for keeping the T in LGBTQ+ in an effort to punish and split the community. Pretty soon it's going to be a legal and criminal cost as well if Republicans have their way in states they control, but these cuts are specifically happening in blue states too.

And yes, this is all part of hundreds of billions in cuts that House Republicans want to defund from President Biden's infrastructure and green energy bills.

A series of GOP bills to finance the federal government in 2024 would wipe out billions of dollars meant to repair the nation’s aging infrastructure, potentially undercutting a 2021 law that was one of Washington’s rare recent bipartisan achievements. The proposed cuts could hamstring some of the most urgently needed public-works projects across the country, from improving rail safety to reducing lead contamination at schools.

Some of the cuts would be particularly steep: Amtrak, for example, could lose nearly two-thirds of its annual federal funding next fiscal year if House Republicans prevail. That includes more than $1 billion in cuts targeting the highly trafficked and rapidly aging Northeast Corridor, which runs between Boston and Washington, prompting Amtrak’s chief to sound early alarms about service disruptions.

In recent days, Republicans have defended their approach as a fiscally responsible way to reduce the burgeoning federal debt. They’ve largely tried to extract the savings by slimming down federal agencies’ operating budgets next year, technically leaving intact the extra funding that lawmakers adopted in the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

But the effect would be the same: The GOP bills would reduce the federal money available for repairs. The cuts would come at a time when the country is grappling with the real-life consequences of its own infrastructure failures, from train derailments in Ohio and Pennsylvania to the collapse of a key portion of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia last month.

I guarantee you that these same House Republicans will blame Democrats when these cuts are forced into must-pass legislation later this year. 

The cruelty is the point.

Retribution Execution, Con't

Donald Trump is at this point exercising in villain monologuing, telling us exactly what his evil plans are if he is elected to anyone who will listen.

 

Donald J. Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters return him to the White House in 2025, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.

Their plans to centralize more power in the Oval Office stretch far beyond the former president’s recent remarks that he would order a criminal investigation into his political rival, President Biden, signaling his intent to end the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.

Mr. Trump and his associates have a broader goal: to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review of his campaign policy proposals and interviews with people close to him.

Mr. Trump intends to bring independent agencies — like the Federal Communications Commission, which makes and enforces rules for television and internet companies, and the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces various antitrust and other consumer protection rules against businesses — under direct presidential control.

He wants to revive the practice of “impounding” funds, refusing to spend money Congress has appropriated for programs a president doesn’t like — a tactic that lawmakers banned under President Richard Nixon.

He intends to strip employment protections from tens of thousands of career civil servants, making it easier to replace them if they are deemed obstacles to his agenda. And he plans to scour the intelligence agencies, the State Department and the defense bureaucracies to remove officials he has vilified as “the sick political class that hates our country.”

“The president’s plan should be to fundamentally reorient the federal government in a way that hasn’t been done since F.D.R.’s New Deal,” said John McEntee, a former White House personnel chief who began Mr. Trump’s systematic attempt to sweep out officials deemed to be disloyal in 2020 and who is now involved in mapping out the new approach.

“Our current executive branch,” Mr. McEntee added, “was conceived of by liberals for the purpose of promulgating liberal policies. There is no way to make the existing structure function in a conservative manner. It’s not enough to get the personnel right. What’s necessary is a complete system overhaul.”

Mr. Trump and his advisers are making no secret of their intentions — proclaiming them in rallies and on his campaign website, describing them in white papers and openly discussing them.

“What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them,” said Russell T. Vought, who ran the Office of Management and Budget in the Trump White House and now runs a policy organization, the Center for Renewing America.

The strategy in talking openly about such “paradigm-shifting ideas” before the election, Mr. Vought said, is to “plant a flag” — both to shift the debate and to later be able to claim a mandate. He said he was delighted to see few of Mr. Trump’s Republican primary rivals defend the norm of Justice Department independence after the former president openly attacked it.

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s campaign, said in a statement that the former president has “laid out a bold and transparent agenda for his second term, something no other candidate has done.” He added, “Voters will know exactly how President Trump will supercharge the economy, bring down inflation, secure the border, protect communities and eradicate the deep state that works against Americans once and for all.”

 

Hey folks?

 

If you're not a MAGA Republican cultist?

 

You're the "deep state" that Trump will eradicate.  

To recap, imagine the FCC yanking the licenses for any network that displeases Trump. Imagine the FTC and SEC fining "woke" businesses billions. Imagine the FBI, IRS, Border Patrol and US Marshals used against Democratic lawmakers and the people who voted for them. Imagine the EEOC or HUD saying there are too many Black employees or homeowners in a certain area that needs to be reduced in order to stop racism against white folks. Hell, imagine the FAA ending all commercial flights to California airports. If the guy can figure out how to use the EPA to shut off water to blue cities, he'll do that, too.

 

Keep laughing, because Trump and his merry band of fascist assholes are dreaming of this nonsense right now, and betting on a SCOTUS that will allow them to do whatever they want. You thought Dick Cheney's plenary executive era was bad? Wait until Trump gets back in power.

 

While Republicans continue to bleat and fart about Biden "politicizing the Justice Department" not only is Trump planning to order that same DoJ to go after Biden, Obama, Clinton, Pelosi, Schumer and every other Democratic politician, he's planning to use every other executive agency to do it too. 

Again, telling you his evil plans, because he figures nobody's going to stop him.

Unless we do that in 2024, nobody will ever stop him.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Didn't take more than a couple of business days for Georgia's state supreme court to flush Team Trump's dumbass argument to try to end Fulton County DA Fani Willis's investigation into his 2020 election interference in the state.

The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday unanimously rejected former President Donald Trump’s bid to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the 2020 presidential election probe and to quash a special purpose grand jury’s final report that recommends people be indicted.

Acting promptly to address Trump’s motion filed late Thursday, the state’s highest court said the former president’s legal team had failed to present “extraordinary circumstances” that warranted its intervention. As for Willis, Trump “has not presented in his original petition either the facts or the law” necessary to warrant her disqualification, the court said in an unsigned five-page order.

Willis has signaled that in the coming weeks she will ask one of two recently seated grand juries to hand up an indictment in the election probe. She has not said who could be formally charged, but Trump is expected to be one of the defendants.

With that on the horizon, Trump’s lawyers asked the state Supreme Court to put a halt to the grand jury proceedings and let their motion be heard. It also sought to prevent Willis from using any evidence obtained by the special grand jury, which heard testimony from almost 75 witnesses.

The state Supreme Court said the normal course of action would be for Trump’s legal team to file a petition first before a Fulton Superior Court judge, whose decision could then be appealed. Trump, the order said, cannot turn to the state’s highest court to try and “circumvent the ordinary channels for obtaining the relief he seeks without making some showing that he is being prevented fair access to those ordinary channels.”

Trump’s lawyers did file such a petition in Fulton Superior Court, saying they had done so out of an abundance of caution. No ruling has been issued in that case, which was filed Friday.

The state high court’s order indicated the Superior Court case is likely going nowhere. Even if Trump’s petition had been filed in an appropriate procedural posture, Trump “has not shown that he would be entitled to the relief he seeks,” the state Supreme Court’s order said.

I don't expect Trump will get anything, and Willis's indictment is expected sometime in the next six weeks or so, if not sooner. So we'll see Trump arraigned a third time this year on charges, and as Steve M notes, it'll probably raise his approval rating. 

Trump's numbers have improved. Gallup says his polling average while he was president was 41%; in his final poll while he was in office, he was at 34%. In other words, he's 12 points more popular than he was in the immediate aftermath of January 6. Presidents' poll numbers tend to rise after they leave office -- but other presidents haven't been repeatedly indicted on felony charges. Trump's legal woes haven't hurt his polling at all -- just the opposite, in fact. Two indictments haven't hurt him. A third one probably won't either. Even if he's convicted somewhere, he'll appeal and tell everyone that the conviction wasn't the last word. His poll numbers suggest that half the country will accept that argument. 

I want everyone to understand that all the things we find repulsive about Donald Trump are shrugged off by nearly half the public -- while Joe Biden's poll numbers are mediocre at best. As a result, Trump is polling better against Biden than he did in 2020, and he's polling better than he ever did against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Remember that he doesn't need to win the popular vote to win the Electoral College -- Republicans have a built-in advatange in the Electoral College now, primarily because Democrats' popular vote totals include millions of excess votes in California, and millions of votes in states where they're all but guaranteed to fall short (Florida, Ohio, Texas). And next year Biden will lose votes to whoever runs on the No Labels line, as well as to Cornel West on the Green Party line (who's getting campaign help from Jill Stein).

I know I'm repeating myself, but Biden is facing a much more difficult lift than most people realize. The evidence is in plain sight.

Trump will be at even higher numbers after the Georgia RICO charges and Jack Smith's remaining federal charges on 2020 election interference and now January 6th related crimes. There still could be other charges related to Trump's inaugural financing.  If things keep going at this rate, he's going to be well above 50% as more and more Americans decide they want to be on the "winning" side when the purges start in 2025.

Watch.

Last Call For The Road To Gilead, Con't

An Iowa state judge has blocked GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds' six-week abortion ban, meaning Iowans can continue to receive abortion services for pregnancies up to 20 weeks.

 

An Iowa judge on Monday temporarily blocked the state’s new ban on most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, just days after Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the measure into law.

That means abortion is once again legal in Iowa up to 20 weeks of pregnancy while the courts assess the new law’s constitutionality.

The new law prohibits almost all abortions once cardiac activity can be detected, which is usually around six weeks of pregnancy and before many women know they are pregnant.

The Republican-controlled Legislature approved the measure in a rare, all-day special session last week, prompting a legal challenge by the ACLU of Iowa, Planned Parenthood North Central States and the Emma Goldman Clinic. Judge Joseph Seidlin held a hearing on the matter Friday, but said he would take the issue under advisement — just as Reynolds signed the bill into law about a mile away.

Abortion providers said they scrambled last week to fit in as many appointments as possible before the governor put pen to paper, preemptively making hundreds of calls to prepare patients for the uncertainty and keeping clinics open late.

Reynolds swiftly put out a statement underscoring her intention to fight the issue all the way to the state Supreme Court.

“The abortion industry’s attempt to thwart the will of Iowans and the voices of their elected representatives continues today,” she said.

The ruling Monday does specify that while the law is temporarily paused, the state’s Board of Medicine should proceed with creating rules for enforcement, as the law specifies. That way the guidance for health care providers would be well defined if the law were to be in effect in the future.

There are limited circumstances under the law that would allow for abortion after the point in a pregnancy where cardiac activity is detected: rape, if reported to law enforcement or a health provider within 45 days; incest, if reported within 145 days; if the fetus has a fetal abnormality “incompatible with life;” or if the pregnancy is endangering the life of the pregnant woman.

Seidlin specified that his ruling today hinges on the “undue burden” test, which is an intermediate level of scrutiny that requires laws do not create a significant obstacle to abortion.

The state Supreme Court, in its latest rulings on the issue, said that undue burden remains in effect “with an invitation to litigate the issue further,” Seidlin wrote. “This, perhaps, is the litigation that accepts the invitation.”

Using that standard, abortion advocates are likely right to say the new law violates Iowans’ constitutional rights, Seidlin said, which led him to grant the temporary block.

Lawyers for the state argued — and will likely continue to argue — that the law should be analyzed using rational basis review, the lowest level of scrutiny to judge legal challenges.

“We are deeply relieved that the court granted this relief so essential health care in Iowa can continue,” said Abbey Hardy-Fairbanks, medical director of the Iowa City-based Emma Goldman Clinic, in a statement. “We are also acutely aware that the relief is only pending further litigation and the future of abortion in Iowa remains tenuous and threatened.”

 

It the "undue burden vs. ration basis" argument that's the key. Banning abortion before most women find out they are pregnant is kind of one of those burdens, and it's why Iowa Republicans have lost the battle on abortion bans before, but Reynolds keeps trying.

 

The problem is one of these six-week bans that has been blocked is going to reach SCOTUS, and then we're going to see just how much a state can limit abortions, if not completely outlaw them.

After that point, things get really dicey.

Ukraine Grain In The Membrane

Russia says it will let the UN-brokered grain export deal for Ukraine through Black Sea ports expire in retaliation for a Ukraine security forces attack last week on the main land bridge to Crimea.

 

The announcement appeared to be the most serious blow yet to a year-old agreement that had been a rare example of fruitful talks between the warring nations, and had helped to alleviate part of the global fallout from Russia’s full-scale invasion. Ukraine is a major producer of grain and other foodstuffs, and the United Nations had warned that some countries in the Middle East and Africa faced famine if Kyiv could not export its goods via the Black Sea.

A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told journalists on Monday that the agreement was “suspended,” but added that the decision was not connected to the attack hours earlier on the Kerch Strait Bridge linking Russia to occupied Crimea. Russian officials blamed Ukraine for the bridge attack, but Kyiv has not taken responsibility.

Speaking about the grain agreement, Mr. Peskov said: “As soon as the Russian part is fulfilled, the Russian side will immediately return to the implementation of that deal.”

Russia has repeatedly complained about the agreement, which it considers one-sided in Ukraine’s favor. Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Monday issued a statement that emphasized its objections, including what it described as continued Ukrainian “provocations and attacks against Russian civilian and military facilities” in the Black Sea area, and said that the United Nations and Ukraine’s Western allies had not addressed Russian demands.

“Only upon receipt of concrete results, and not promises and assurances, will Russia be ready to consider restoring the ‘deal,’” the statement said.

The deal, known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative and brokered by the United Nations and Turkey, had been set to expire on Monday.

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said he would speak to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia about the agreement and signaled hope that he would agree to rejoin it.

“Despite the statement today, I believe the president of the Russian Federation, my friend Putin, wants the continuation of this humanitarian bridge,” Mr. Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul.

Last week, the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, sent a letter containing proposals for Mr. Putin in an effort to meet Russia’s conditions for extending the deal. U.N. and Turkish negotiators spent the weekend awaiting a response from Moscow as the clock ticked down. Grain exports from Ukraine’s ports had dwindled almost to zero in the days before the deal expired.

The deal successfully eased shortages that resulted from blockades in the first months of the war, which caused global wheat prices to soar. It allowed Ukraine to restart the export of millions of tons of grain that had languished for months, and it has been renewed multiple times, most recently in May.

But Moscow has argued that while the deal has benefited Ukraine, Western sanctions have restricted the sale of Russia’s agricultural products. In an effort to address Russia’s demands, Mr. Guterres sent Mr. Putin proposals that he said would “remove hurdles affecting financial transactions” through Russia’s agricultural bank while allowing the Ukrainian grain shipments to continue.

In addition to its hope for smoother financial transactions, Russia has sought guarantees that would facilitate exports of its own grain and fertilizers, and the reopening of an ammonia pipeline that crosses Ukraine.

Ukraine has exported 32.8 million tons of grain and other food since the initiative began, according to U.N. data. Under the agreement, ships are permitted to pass by Russian naval vessels that in effect have blockaded Ukraine’s ports since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The ships are inspected off the coast of Istanbul, in part to ensure they are not carrying weapons.

 

Wheat prices were up by more than 3% in the Chicago commodities market after the announcement. Grain prices are nowhere near where they were in Spring of 2022 when the Russian invasion of Ukraine triggered a massive rise in wheat and grain prices worldwide, but if this agreement is suspended for too long things could get very bad, very quickly.

We'll see what happens with Turkey mediating.

No Labels, Yes Spoilers

I believe Joe F'ckin Lieberman even less than I trusted him 15 years ago when I started this blog, so when the old bastard says his No Labels group isn't going to be a third-party spoiler that throws the election to Trump, I believe him precisely as far as he can throw me.

The third-party No Labels group will stay out of the 2024 U.S. presidential race if polling shows its candidate would play a "spoiler" role by helping to elect either the Democratic or Republican nominee, co-chairman Joe Lieberman said on Sunday.

The group will on Monday release what it calls a "common sense" agenda of policies meant to help unite the country behind a cooperative moderate alternative to the partisanship that characterizes contemporary U.S. politics.

Lieberman, a former U.S. senator and unsuccessful vice presidential candidate, said No Labels hopes to offer a legitimate "third choice" candidate.

"We're not in this to be spoilers," Lieberman told ABC's "This Week" program. He spoke a day before the group was due to release its agenda in New Hampshire, an early primary state.

"If the polling next year shows, after the two parties have chosen their nominees, that in fact we will help elect one or another candidate, we're not going to get involved," he said.

Others involved in No Labels include businessman John Hope Bryant, civil rights leader Benjamin Chavis Jr., Republican former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, and Republican former North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory.

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin was due to speak at Monday's No Labels event in New Hampshire, feeding speculation that he could be weighing a third-party candidacy.

Opinion polls suggest the November 2024 election will again pit Democratic President Joe Biden against Republican former President Donald Trump. Both have disapproval ratings above the 50% mark.

 

Bullshit they won't get involved. I guarantee you their candidate, almost certainly a ticket like Manchin and a blue state GOP governor like Larry Hogan, will stay on the ballot in swing states with the express intent of helping Trump get into office in 2024.

 

Steve M has the right of it:

 

 

There aren't very many swing voters in America these days, but remember, in 2020 Biden came within 44,000 votes of an Electoral College tie, which would have been resolved by the House in Trump's favor. If roughly half of the swing voters who voted for Biden that year would be willing to ditch him for a No Labels-y candidate, then the group could easily throw the election to Trump.

I write this at a moment when No Labels has just released a policy document that -- it kills me to say this -- is not laughable or easily dismissed. I'm not saying that I agree with it. But it's easy to imagine swing voters nodding in agreement.

The document is equal parts reasonableness, neoliberal boilerplate, and GOP-donor-friendly deficit hawkery. (Obviously, there's quite a bit of overlap in the last two categories.) To moderate voters, much of this will be appealing:

On the issue of abortion, No Labels avoids taking a stand on what point in a pregnancy abortion should be allowed, but rather argues that the issue needs to be reframed with “empathy and respect” to reflect the mixed results of public polling.

“Most American do not support a total ban on abortion and most Americans do not support unlimited access to abortion at the later stages of pregnancy,” the document reads....

The group seeks a similar middle ground on transgender debates. The group argues that most Americans support laws that protect transgender people from discrimination, while they also “don’t want sexuality and gender issues taught to young children in elementary schools and do want fairness in women’s sports.”

We should create a path to citizenship for Dreamers ... but we should also stop letting so many undocumented immigrants stay in the country. We should improve math and reading scores and make sure no child goes hungry ... oh, and charter schools are awesome. We should have universal background checks and not allow gun purchases by those under 21 ... but we need to respect an individual right to own firearms.

This will all seem reasonable to many voters, but probably not many Republican voters. For them, absolutism on guns, immigration, abortion, and trans people, to name just four issues, is an ingrained part of personal identity. By contrast, moderate Democratic voters (and voters who lean Democratic when the Republican opponent is Trump) aren't really invested in liberal ideas. So, yes, the No Labels candidate will absolutely appeal to more 2020 Biden voters than 2020 Trump voters.

 

No Labels doesn't have to win a state. They just have to make sure Biden can't get to 270. All they'd need is fewer than 50,000 votes in states like Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and if they flip any of those to Trump, it's over.

And yet, No Labels knows this and is going ahead with it. No, they won't drop out of the race. They will absolutely stay in it as long as they have the money, and they'll have millions on tap for that. And Never Trump Republicans will vote for Trump just like they did in 2020 and 2022.

It's all a ratfucking. Any group that has both Joe F'ckin's in them is bad, bad news.

Last Call For Trump Cards, Con't

Federal Judge Aileen Cannon is running the show in Donald Trump's trial over federal documents kept illegally at Mar-a-Largo, and he made clear today that appointing her to the federal bench in the first place is a favor he expects to be paid back.

 

Former President Trump praised the judge overseeing his classified documents case as his legal team seeks a postponement of his trial in Florida.

Trump’s motion for a continuance of the trial, filed last Monday, awaits a decision by Judge Aileen Cannon, an appointee of the former president who presided over his initial challenge to the FBI search of his Florida home.

Asked on “Sunday Morning Futures” on Fox News whether he believes the judge will grant the motion, Trump said he did not know.

“I know it’s a very highly respected judge. A very smart judge, and a very strong judge,” Trump said.

When host Maria Bartiromo noted that Trump appointed the judge in the case, Trump said, “I did, and I’m very proud to have appointed her.”

“But she’s very smart and very strong, and loves our country,” Trump said. “We need judges that love our country so they do the right thing.”

 

Trump wants Judge Cannon to delay the trial until 2025 or so, after the election, where he expects to be back in the Oval Office and he can then order the Justice Department to drop the case. It's glaringly obvious what's going on here, but nobody's going to do anything about it.

Given her history with this case, everyone should expect Cannon to "do the right thing" for Trump, and soon.

Ron's Gone Wrong, Con't

With 2nd quarter fundraising numbers upon us for 2023, Ron DeSantis is now entering the crash and burn phase. 

 

Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign has fired roughly a dozen staffers — and more are expected in the coming weeks as he shakes up his big-money political operations after less than two months on the campaign trail.

Those who were let go were described to NBC News by a source familiar as mid-level staffers across several departments whose departures were related to cutting costs. The exits come after the departures of David Abrams and Tucker Obenshain, veterans of DeSantis’ political orbit, which were first reported by Politico.

Sources involved with the DeSantis campaign say there is an internal assessment among some that they hired too many staffers too early, and despite bringing in $20 million during its first six weeks, it was becoming clear their costs needed to be brought down.

Some in DeSantis’ political orbit are laying the early blame at the feet of campaign manager Generra Peck, who also led DeSantis’ 2022 midterm reelection bid and is in the hot seat right now.

“She should be,” one DeSantis donor said.

“They never should have brought so many people on, the burn rate was way too high,” said one Republican source familiar with the campaign’s thought process. “People warned the campaign manager but she wanted to hear none of it.”

“DeSantis stock isn’t rising,” the donor added. “Twenty percent is not what people signed up for.”

The person noted that DeSantis has a penchant for switching out staff, which means that he has no core team that has worked together before. DeSantis had three different campaign teams for each of his three runs for Congress, and notably had a huge campaign shakeup during his first run for governor in 2018.

"Americans are rallying behind Ron DeSantis and his plan to reverse Joe Biden’s failures and restore sanity to our nation, and his momentum will only continue as voters see more of him in-person, especially in Iowa. Defeating Joe Biden and the $72 million behind him will require a nimble and candidate driven campaign, and we are building a movement to go the distance," DeSantis campaign spokesman Andrew Romeo told NBC News.

 

Did I mention that DeSantis is losing his home state of Florida by 20 points to Trump? Because he is, and that's not going to get any better in the months ahead for him. Remember, everyone else in the race is running for Trump's veep slot and that includes DeSantis, even if nobody in his campaign will admit it.

 

The fact remains however that the media dog pile on DeSantis is now in full effect.

 

DeSANTIS IN DISARRAY? — This morning, with FEC filings in hand, one thing is clear: Serious doubts now cloud the future of RON DeSANTIS’ presidential campaign.

When you’re running for office, there are a few words and phrases you never want to see up top in news articles about your campaign …

1. ‘SOLVENCY’: If that’s in the lede of an article, good news is almost certain not to follow. And yet, there it was in an NBC piece that blew up group chats all over D.C. shortly after being published last night:

“DeSantis tapped out top donors and burned through $7.9 million in his first six weeks as a presidential candidate, according to an NBC News analysis of his new campaign finance disclosure,” wrote Jonathan Allen, Bridget Bowman, Ben Kamisar and Alexandra Marquez. “The numbers suggest, for the first time, that solvency could be a threat to DeSantis’ campaign, which has touted its fundraising ability as a key measure of viability.”

Those numbers, in brief: DeSantis raised $20.1 million between mid-May and the end of June.About $3 million of that can only be used in the general election — making it irrelevant to his fight against DONALD TRUMP.Of that $20.1 million, more than two-thirds came from donors who are now maxed out and can’t give him any more money.About 40% of the money DeSantis raised has already been spent. A decent chunk of that went to payroll: Notably, DeSantis had 92 people on his campaign staff — “by far the biggest staff footprint of the GOP presidential candidates,” NBC notes. Which brings us to number two …

2. ‘SHEDDING STAFF’ and ‘CASH CRUNCH’: “DeSantis’ presidential campaign is shedding staff as it navigates a cash crunch and looks to refocus resources on Iowa,” Alex Isenstadt scooped last night.

“Fewer than 10 staffers were let go by the Florida governor’s campaign Thursday … Each of the aides was involved in event planning, and some of them may soon wind up at an allied outside group. Never Back Down, the pro-DeSantis super PAC, has received resumes from staffers who’ve been let go.”

3. ‘SKEPTICISM’ and ‘PRIVATE CONCERNS’ and ‘INSULARITY’: “More than seven weeks in, skepticism about the Florida governor’s 2024 bid has grown,” report WaPo’s Hannah Knowles, Josh Dawsey, Michael Scherer and Marianne LeVine. “Some people who have advised and supported DeSantis have raised private concerns about his message, and the effectiveness and insularity of his campaign operation, according to people familiar with the comments, among the more than 30 people interviewed for this story.

“The doubts extend to long-friendly Fox News … and its owner, the conservative media magnate RUPERT MURDOCH, according to another person who speaks regularly with Murdoch about the presidential race. ‘He was excited about him at the beginning, but the more he shows himself, the less appealing he is,’ said this person, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations and talk more freely. Murdoch will ‘come back to Trump if he thinks Trump can win,’ this person added. A representative for Murdoch declined to comment Saturday.”

How is the DeSantis camp shifting in response? “The campaign has started rolling out national policy — economic issues next, then foreign policy in August — and plans to do more mainstream media interviews around those proposals,” the Post reports.

Those lines caught the eye of Bill Scher, the savvy politics editor at Washington Monthly: “Lordy, the ELIZABETH WARREN white paper strategy is not going to help,” Scher tweeted. “Team DeSantis refuses to see the race for what it is. The race is not about who has the best tax plan. The race is: Trump, yes or no.”

One sign the DeSantis media pivot is underway: CNN just announced that on Tuesday the Florida governor will sit down with JAKE TAPPER for an interview in South Carolina.

WHAT IT ALL ADDS UP TO: The “DeSantis in decline” storyline is a body blow to one of the central arguments for his campaign: that he’d be a competent, disciplined version of Trump. Trump without the chaos. Trump, but with a more professional operation.

That’s an easier sell when things are going well: People on the team are generally satisfied, and there’s no need to point fingers.

But things are not going well for DeSantis. At the start of the year, the average national GOP primary poll had Trump at 43% and DeSantis close behind at 37%, according to FiveThirtyEight. Compare that to today: Trump averages just under 50%, while DeSantis has sunk to 21%. Since DeSantis announced his campaign on May 24, he has gained just 0.4 percentage points in the national polling average.

This is not just an issue of financial solvency. It’s an issue of strategy.

A negative narrative is taking hold about his campaign — that it is bloated, is overconfident, lacks a clear strategy, etc. Pair that with preexisting negative impressions about the candidate himself (that he is combative, not personable, awkward in retail settings, etc.) and a press corps that is — let’s be honest — somewhat tired of Trump and remains fascinated by the Florida governor, and there are real hurdles ahead for DeSantis.

The good news for him, if we can call it that, is that narratives can change, and the six months between now and the Iowa caucuses provide ample time to turn things around. But that’s also a whole lot of time for new articles to be published about him and his campaign — and they may contain phrases altogether more damning than “cash crunch” and “private concerns.”

 

If DeSantis has lost Team WIN THE MORNING, he's in dire straits. 

 

Having said that, Trump is not 100% inevitable as the 2024 GOP candidate. There are things that could stop him, and most of all that's Trump himself.

More indictments for Trump will be coming. Whether or not that will be enough to break his run and give DeSantis a window, we'll see.

Bottom line is these are still very much the bad guys. Anyone not named Trump will still try to implement 99% of Trump's racist, hateful, bigoted and unconstitutional policies. Don't be fooled. They're all just as bad.

 

Or worse.

Sunday Long Read: The Neighbors From Hell

Our Sunday Long Read this week comes from the Washington Post's Tim Carman, detailing a small-town northern Virginia restaurant ran by a gay couple that was doing perfectly fine until their new neighbors moved in, and started a war against the idea that a restaurant ran by a gay couple in small-town anywhere should be allowed.

 

As soon as she spotted the lifeless vermin, Tiffany Foster had a hunch about how it appeared near the trash bins behind the Front Porch Market and Grill in The Plains, Va. The general manager went inside, pulled out her phone and reviewed security-camera footage. Her suspicion was confirmed: The dead rat had been tossed onto the property.

The suspect? Mike Washer. The businessman and his wife, Melissa, first complained to the Front Porch proprietors about pre-dawn vendor deliveries in 2019, not long after the conservative Christian couple moved their financial firm right next door to the restaurant, which flies a gay Pride flag. The renovated building doubles as the Washers’ residence, where they have a front-row view of the Front Porch’s operation.

By the time the rat appeared last summer, the relationship between the two businesses had devolved. A year earlier, the Washers had started filing complaints about their neighbor’s trash with the health department. Fed up with what they viewed as harassment, the Front Porch owners filed a no-trespassing order against their neighbors. The Washers responded by installing signs to prevent diners from parking in spaces the Washers own in the shared lot. They confronted or towed drivers who ignored the signs. Their attorney threatened legal action against the restaurant’s suppliers if their trucks continued to “trespass” in the lot. The same attorney wrote a town official, challenging the restaurant’s right to operate under its existing permit.


Still, when she spotted the rat last August, Foster was not prepared for what she saw on the video: Mike Washer flipping the rodent onto the Front Porch’s property and taking photos of it, in what she assumed was a staged effort to flag health officials about an infestation. Foster remembers thinking, “I cannot believe that someone would stoop so low to try to put someone out of business.”

The Washers don’t deny Mike’s actions but dispute the motivation: They say they have no interest in closing the Front Porch. They claim the rat was first dumped near their back door by restaurant employees, and Mike was returning the favor.

What’s more, the Washers say, the dead rat was just one more insult that the couple, who once planted an “all lives matter” sign in their front yard, have endured since moving next door to a restaurant owned by a gay couple. They are not the harassers, the Washers argue. They are the harassed. They say they are being treated unfairly because they are conservative. They say they have been insulted by staff, including Foster, have lived with a bright security light shining into their home, and have found used chewing tobacco next to their car doors.

“We still feel like somebody put it there to, excuse me, eff with us,” Melissa Washer said about the rat. “Because they had done so many other little s---ty things to us.”

This conflict has dragged on for years, creating friction where friendships used to be and often forcing residents to pick sides. The conflict has dragged on so long that some people in The Plains, population 250 or so, have been left to develop theories about what’s driving it, some perhaps more rooted in reality than others: Some fear the Washers’ actions could break the town financially with hearings, lawsuits and paperwork. They even fear the couple’s legal challenge could end up compromising The Plains’ ability to maintain its old-world charm.

“Part of what makes our community special are long-standing social networks and special traditions built on trust,” the Rev. E. Weston Mathews, rector of Grace Episcopal Church in The Plains, said in a statement to The Washington Post.

“But like so many places in our country, our community is not immune to dangerous conspiracy theories, extremism and tribalism,” Mathews continued. “In my view, what began as a difficult dispute between two neighboring businesses has become something much greater, is accelerating through social media and is damaging our sense of trust in each other as neighbors in a close-knit village.”

The Washers — the newcomers in a village where families that have lived there 20 years still feel like outsiders — say they’re misunderstood. They love this tiny town. They’re not out to destroy it, or remake it.

 

This is a story of the classic conservative "I'm the real victim here having to put up with those people!" fight that consumed an entire village. One side of the fight is an older Gen X gay couple making pancakes and the other side is an older Gen X straight couple who went to DC on January 6th, 2021. Not even the WaPo's bothsiderism can hide the level of pure hate radiating from the right-wing assholes here. The rat was just one part of it.

As a bigger picture in America of the 2020's, this one is going to stick with you.

The Road To Gilead, Con't

Iowa GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds has signed one of America's most draconian state bans on abortion into law, making the procedure illegal after just six weeks of pregnancy. and the ACLU (now having lots of experience fighting these bans across the US) has already sprung into action, asking a state judge to block the law for now.

 

Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a new "fetal heartbeat" law Friday, banning nearly all abortions after cardiac activity is detected in the embryo, which happens at about six weeks of gestation. Abortion providers say that will prohibit the vast majority of abortions in Iowa.

At the same time, in a courthouse less than a mile away from the bill signing, Polk County District Judge Joseph Seidlin heard arguments from abortion providers and the state about whether the law should be allowed to remain in effect as a legal challenge continues.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and abortion providers asked Seidlin to block the bill immediately. He refused but said he will try to issue a ruling by the end of the day on Monday.

Seidlin said the case requires his "strong and lengthy attention."

"I cannot think of anything that would be more insulting to either side than for a judge, who, before Wednesday at 11 o'clock, had no idea that he was going to be involved in any of this, to listen to arguments and to rule from the bench," Seidlin said at the hearing's conclusion.

A nearly identical law passed in 2018 was blocked. On Friday, Reynolds condemned abortion providers' attempt to once again impede the restrictions.

"As we gather here today, at this very moment, the abortion industry is in the court trying to prevent this law from taking effect and stop once again the will of the people," Reynolds said.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, the Emma Goldman Clinic and Dr. Sarah Traxler filed a lawsuit against the law Wednesday, before it was signed.

The plaintiffs seek a temporary injunction, which would block the new restrictions from being enforced until a court decides otherwise.

They sought to prove that the law would “irreparably harm” Iowans if it were enacted and enforced — and that they will be able to make a solid case to strike it down permanently.

Peter Im, a staff attorney for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, argued Friday that the law would prohibit the “vast majority” of abortions that take place in Iowa, forcing pregnant people to carry their pregnancies to term, to “self-manage” their abortion, or to seek care out of state.

 

Of course, the Iowa 2018 law was deemed unconstitutional before Dobbs. Now, it's anyone's guess. And if you think the right is going to stop at making women travel hundreds of miles to get healthcare, I have bad news for you.

 

Mississippi authorities need access to information about residents who obtain abortions or gender-affirming care in other states, Attorney General Lynn Fitch told the Biden administration in a June 16 letter. Attorneys general from 18 other states attorneys general signed onto the letter.

Fitch’s letter calls on U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to drop a proposed rule change that would prevent states from obtaining private health information “for a criminal, civil, or administrative investigation into or proceeding against any person in connection with seeking, obtaining, providing, or facilitating reproductive health care … outside of the state where the investigation or proceeding is authorized” and “is lawful in the state where it is provided.”

Fitch’s letter accuses the Biden administration of pushing “a false narrative that States are seeking to treat pregnant women as criminals or punish medical personnel who provide lifesaving care.”

“Based on this lie, the Administration has sought to wrest control over abortion back from the people in defiance of the Constitution and Dobbs,” the letter says. “… The proposed rule defies the governing statute, would unlawfully interfere with States’ authority to enforce their laws, and does not serve any legitimate need.”

 

The road to Gilead is as clear as day. Red states arresting women and anyone who assists them in getting an out-of-state abortion, filling jails and prisons, leaving people in fear?

 

That was always the plan.

 

Your womb belongs to the state, ladies.

Last Call For The Devil Went Down To Georgia, Con't

Donald Trump's legal team is asking Georgia's state supreme court to toss Fulton County DA Fani Willis's entire investigation into Trump's 2020 election interference conspiracy in the state, claiming Willis has no legal right to investigate Trump or to bring charges against him for acts he may have taken while in the Oval Office.

 

Weeks before he’s expected to be indicted in Fulton County, former President Donald Trump revived his push to disqualify District Attorney Fani Willis from investigating him for election interference.

In a petition filed before the Georgia Supreme Court, Trump’s attorneys also sought to quash the final report of a special purpose grand jury that recommended people be indicted. Additionally, they requested a ruling that would forbid Willis from using any evidence obtained by the investigative jury, which heard testimony from about 75 witnesses between May 2022 and Jan. 2023.

The motion filed on Thursday asks Georgia’s highest court to put a halt to any ongoing proceedings “related to and flowing from the special purpose grand jury’s investigation until this matter can be resolved.” This would include any consideration of a possible indictment for alleged criminal meddling in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election by one of two regular Fulton grand juries that were seated on Tuesday.


Trump’s attorneys — Drew Findling, Marissa Goldberg and Jennifer Little — acknowledged that such a petition filed before Georgia’s highest court is typically a long shot. But they said “extraordinary circumstances” justify it now.

“Even in an extraordinarily novel case of national significance, one would expect matters to take their normal procedural course within a reasonable time,” the motion said. “But nothing about these processes have been normal or reasonable. And the all-but-unavoidable conclusion is that the anomalies below are because petitioner is President Donald J. Trump.”

In March, Trump’s attorneys filed a motion in Fulton Superior Court also asking officials to disqualify Willis and toss out the special grand jury’s findings. They noted this time that Judge Robert McBurney, the supervising judge of the special grand jury, has yet to rule on the motion and that Willis has notified local court officials and law enforcement she is likely to seek an indictment at some point between July 31st and Aug. 18th.

“Stranded between the supervising judge’s protracted passivity and the district attorney’s looming indictment, (Trump) has no meaningful option other than to seek this court’s intervention,” the motion said.

Willis’s office previously said Trump’s arguments for dismissal were barred by lack of standing, untimeliness and other procedural flaws. The Republican’s efforts were premature because no one has been charged with a crime yet, prosecutors said.

“If an investigation results in actual criminal charges against (Trump), the justice system ensures they will have no shortage of available remedies to pursue,” the DA’s May response argued.

Trump’s lawyers also filed a similar motion in Fulton Superior Court on Friday, saying they did so out of an abundance of caution.

A spokesman from the DA’s office declined to comment on the state Supreme Court filing. McBurney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.


Both motions contend that Willis and McBurney “at every turn” have trampled on the procedural safeguards and rights of Trump and others under investigation.

“The whole of the process is now incurably infected,” the motion said. “And nothing that follows could be legally sound or publicly respectable.”

It asserted that the Georgia statute allowing for the operation of special grand juries was unconstitutionally vague. It said that publication of excerpts of the final report would violate the former president’s rights to fundamental fairness and due process and lead to “irremediable injury” to his reputation as he runs for the GOP nomination for president for a third time.

“(Trump) now sits on a precipice,” his lawyers’ motion said. “A regular Fulton County grand jury could return an indictment any day that will have been based on a report and predicate investigative process that were wholly without authority.”

 

The motion is nonsense, of course. It assumes plenary executive immunity to state crimes, and assumes that indictments will wreck Trump's 2024 campaign run, which won't actually happen (it should) but that's not a reason to grant Trump immunity and wipe out the investigation.

It's a long shot but the play here is victimization, setting the table for what Trump's lawyers know is coming: criminal charges that he can't absolve himself of if convicted.

Of course, Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp could do exactly that, so...

We'll see.

Retribution Execution, Con't

ABC News's Tal Axelrod is mostly right about his article today documenting Trump's campaign promise of revenge against the federal government. Mostly.

 

Donald Trump has told supporters not to just see him as a candidate but as "your retribution."

In his comeback bid for the White House, the former president -- twice impeached but twice acquitted and now twice indicted -- has vowed that if reelected, he will wield his power to personally remake parts of the federal government to a degree that historian Mark Updegrove said was unprecedented. Trump has promised to hamstring perceived enemies, including in the Department of Justice, which is currently investigating him, and target Republican bogeymen like President Joe Biden.

He swore in June to appoint a special prosecutor to "go after" the Bidens and that he would "totally obliterate the deep state," referring to a conspiratorial view of how the government operates.

"This is the final battle. ... Either they win or we win," he said in March.

Among Trump's policy proposals is reviving an executive order from the final months of his presidency, revoked by Biden, that observers say would let him essentially turn broad swaths of federal workers into at-will employees whom he could fire and replace -- rather than terminating them only for cause, such as bad performance, and after satisfying certain employment protections.

Shortly after being indicted in New York in April on felony charges of falsifying business records, which he denies, related to money paid to an adult film actress during his 2016 campaign, Trump exhorted Congressional Republicans via social media to "DEFUND THE DOJ AND FBI UNTIL THEY COME TO THEIR SENSES."

He's also directed ire at longtime nonpartisan institutions, deriding national security and intelligence workers as "corrupt," and he's crassly attacked both the special counsel who is investigating his alleged mishandling of government secrets -- and the prosecutor's family.

Experts says all of this is stretching -- maybe snapping -- the boundaries of how past presidential candidates have criticized the very government they hope to lead.

"Time and time again, we have seen Donald Trump attempt to remake our government in his image, not based on our country’s ideals and traditions, but based on a personal agenda," said Updegrove, a presidential historian and ABC News contributor.

But conversations with GOP insiders and attendees at recent Trump campaign events confirm the base's appetite hasn't waned for the revenge he promises. According to FiveThirtyEight, early polls show Trump is the clear front-runner for his party's nomination, with his support not stifled by either of his two historic indictments, to which he has pleaded not guilty.

"It makes me more supportive and more prone to help him in any way I can," Larry Miller from Merrimack, New Hampshire, told ABC News earlier this month at an event Trump held in New Hampshire.

Another attendee at that event, Krisia Santiago, said she was a two-time Trump voter who was sticking with him. She spoke bluntly: "They're scared because he can finish this war. … If you believe in him, you're gonna be a supporter no matter what."

 

What Trump is promising isn't retribution against the "federal government" though, what he's really promising is retribution against Democrats, some "RINO" Republicans, and the people who voted them into office. 

 

That subtext, that Trump will use the power of a government he controls to immiserate those people, is increasingly becoming overt policy. It's not just revenge but purge, anyone who isn't destroyed outright will be rendered a second-class citizen with optional, situational rights.

That's the actual promise Trump is selling, and tens of millions of Americans are buying the dream of a country where they are making the choices and the rest of us have to live with it. Or, die with it.

They'll be powerless of course, Trump's donors will be the ones making the choices. But at least white MAGA voters figure they'll be last on the list for revenge because they will submit freely to their cult leader.

Maybe that's true.

Maybe.