On Monday, the ACLU sued Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall on behalf of the West Alabama Women’s Center and the Alabama Women’s Center, both providers of women’s medical care and support. They sued because Alabama is trying to extend its state abortion ban beyond its borders by making it illegal for people to help Alabamians access abortion in states where it remains legal.
You’ll recall the underlying premise of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, when it upset 50 years of abortion rights. The Court said the decision about whether – and to what extent – abortion should be legal would be left up to each state. Post-Dobbs, some states have continued to permit women to make their own medical decisions, while others have imposed bans, some near-total. But even a near-total ban is not enough for Alabama, where the Attorney General has announced his intention of trotting out a never-used 1896 conspiracy provision to criminally prosecute those who assist individuals who want to travel across states lines – something we are all free, as Americans, to do – in order to obtain legal abortion care outside of Alabama.
This is the next frontier in expanding newly-permissible state bans on abortion care. The courts will have to decide whether the Supreme Court meant it when it said abortion was an issue for each state to decide for its residents. Because now that conservative states have expanded abortion bans as far as they can within their borders, the push to extend them beyond their borders is on, in lieu of a highly unpopular national ban. This is the next fight.
Alabama Attorney General Marshall threatened to prosecute people who help Alabamians travel out of state to obtain abortions where they are legal. Attorneys general in red states like Idaho, where there is litigation pending as well, and Alaska, have said they will seek criminal penalties against those who help pregnant people obtain out-of-state abortions.
Strangely, Marshall has conceded that “There’s nothing about [Alabama] law that restricts any individual from driving across state lines and seeking an abortion in another place.” And yet, he publicly made the threats to prosecute those who do and who help others to do so. That’s the heart of the concern here: making the threat chills people’s exercise of their constitutional rights. Fear about the threat of prosecution accomplishes what the state knows it cannot do constitutionally: prosecuting people for leaving or helping someone leave the state to visit another state and do something there that is entirely legal.
The Plaintiffs, who currently provide non-abortion reproductive health care to pregnant patients in Alabama, are afraid that if they provide information, counseling, or other forms of practical support to assist pregnant people who may end up going out of state to obtain care, they’ll be prosecuted as conspirators or accessories. To avoid the chill on exercise of rights to which all of this uncertainty leads, they ask the courts to clarify that Alabama cannot prosecute them for assisting Alabamians who want to travel across state lines and access legal abortion care.
Meagan Burrows, an ACLU attorney representing the plaintiffs, characterized the lawsuit this way: “Because Alabama cannot constitutionally ban abortion in states that have chosen to keep abortion legal, the Attorney General is instead trying to have the same effect by criminalizing the provision of information and assistance to Alabamians seeking to exercise their constitutional right to cross state lines for lawful abortion care. But this too is blatantly unconstitutional. We’re hopeful that the Court sees through this attempted end-run around the constitutional limits on Alabama’s power.”
One important question is whether the plaintiffs have standing to bring the case. No one has been prosecuted yet, and as students of the last Supreme Court term know, plaintiffs must have standing to sue, which means there must be an actual case or controversy for the court to resolve. While standing may not be apparent here, there is actually a strong argument the court should hear this case now. This is a classic pre-enforcement challenge, allowing the plaintiffs to challenge Alabama before it takes any enforcement action to avoid scaring people out of exercising their constitutional rights. Situations like this are why pre-enforcement of the law challenges exist.
Many of the people who need access to abortion services are low-income Alabamians who lack the resources to negotiate the patchwork quilt of abortion laws that blanket the country. They need to be able to get advice they can trust from their doctors. Depriving them of that kind of assistance realistically ends their right to travel to another state. This kind of interstate travel advice doesn’t seem to be a problem when people can take advantage of marijuana tourism. Abortion is not different. Medical professionals have a First Amendment right to provide advice, and pregnant people have a right to take advantage of it and to travel if they choose to.
In his Dobbsconcurrence, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh acknowledged the right Americans have to travel between states in this context. “For example,” he said, “may a State bar a resident of that State from traveling to another State to obtain an abortion? In my view, the answer is no, based on the constitutional right to interstate travel.” Alabama’s Attorney General, while paying lip service to that legal principle in one breath, seemed determined to roll it back in the next. He has said that he intends to enforce Alabama’s abortion ban to its fullest extent, which means not just in-state, but out of state, too. The plaintiffs in the newly-filed case are taking him at his word – which leaves them unable to “provide specific information, counseling, and other forms of practical support to assist individuals who are seeking to exercise their constitutional right to cross state lines and obtain legal medical care outside of Alabama” – and we should too, unless and until a court says otherwise.
The impact of Attorney General Marshall’s actions and the outcome of this lawsuit will have a ripple effect far beyond the borders of Alabama. This case may shape the contours of Americans’ rights across the country. A decision that Alabama’s Attorney General can sacrifice Alabamians’ rights on the altar of his political views will mean the same for people throughout the United States. It’s essential that the courts protect people’s rights in the face of the intransigence of states like Alabama that want to impose their own views on others.
FILE – Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, talks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, May 16, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)AP
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This is an opinion column.
Don’t blame Tommy Tuberville for losing Space Command.
Blame Kay Ivey.
As Alabama governor, she is supposed to be our state’s first, best champion.
Don’t blame Tommy Tuberville for losing Space Command.
Blame Tommy Battle.
As Huntsville mayor, he is supposed to look out for the interests of his city.
Don’t blame Tommy Tuberville for losing Space Command.
Blame Katie Britt.
Coach isn’t Alabama’s only U.S. senator.
Tuberville’s manipulation of Senate rules to stonewall military promotions isn’t a novel, genius political tactic. He’s a toddler who found a pistol on the nightstand. And when the gun goes off, and somebody gets hurt, it’s not the kid that’s to blame. It’s the grownups who didn’t do anything to stop it from happening in the first place.
Alabama is short of responsible grownups willing to stop Tuberville, so now it’s time to hold some of these grownups responsible.
Want to know who they are? Look around at who’s trying to blame somebody else.
Ivey, Britt and every member of our Congressional delegation — including the lone Democrat, Terri Sewell — shook their fingers and clucked their tongues at the president.
Fine. But what else did they expect? Of course, President Biden had every incentive to put Space Command in Colorado. As Birmingham Mayor Richard Arrington once said after he was accused of giving business to his friends, “Who am I supposed to give it to? My enemies?”
The time for sanctimony has passed. Bluster and bravado are worthless.
“This fight is far from over,” U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Saks, tweeted.
Ahem. It’s over.
What’s remarkable about Biden’s decision is how long it took. He could have flipped this switch the moment Donald Trump copped to rigging the game for Alabama on the Rick & Bubba Show. Trump’s dumb comments — which were probably another lie — gave Biden cover to do for Colorado what Trump claimed to have done for Alabama.
What Biden needed was a veneer of plausibility. He needed a general to say this was the right thing to do.
And what Alabama needed was military brass to say, “No, Mr. President, Colorado is not the best place for this. We did a study and …”
But who’s going to do that when Alabama’s senior senator is being a jerk to the very folks Alabama needed on our side?
In the end, the Associated Press reported, it was General James Dickinson, the head of Space Command, who persuaded the president that Colorado was the best choice.
In politics, sometimes you have to make enemies, but you always have to make friends. Tuberville doesn’t get that. And a man who’s lost his shirt in two ponzi schemes isn’t likely to learn from his mistakes.
If your senior senator can’t do that, then someone needs to tell the senator to sit down and shut up. Someone needed to put Tuberville in a corner.
Alabama’s top public officials weren’t willing to do that. Officials who knew better whispered to each other and looked nervously around the room waiting for somebody else to do something.
Meanwhile, the political delinquent acted out as he pleased.
Republicans don’t like calling out Republicans — not for Ronald Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment, or whatever. Rather, an iota of dissent could get you labeled a liberal Democrat, if not a groomer. They’re terrified they’ll get booed, like those Republican primary candidates who bring up Trump’s indictment.
If Alabama were a two-party state that would be fine. Democrats would savage Republicans for their failure and balance would be restored. There would be billboards at the gates of every Alabama military base saying “We wouldn’t hurt you like this.”
But not here. Alabama Democrats can’t run a Twitter account, much less an effective messaging strategy. They’re too busy fighting with each other to keep Republicans honest.
And what’s the result? Well, that might be the saddest thing of all.
Hidden in plain view is a clear indicator of how leaderless and desperate Alabama has become.
After decades of bribing auto manufacturers with tax breaks and cheap labor (some of it children), what do we have left when it comes to economic recruitment?
Our strategy for economic growth was having the president of the United States order people to move to Alabama, no matter if they wanted to or not.
Get much more desperate than that and you’ll trigger an Amber alert.
Alabama has to attract business and development by making itself attractive. We need elected leaders with vision, smarts and guts.
The folks we have now don’t have any of those qualities. I’m not sure they’re really in control and they certainly aren’t looking out for us. They’re just here for the ego fulfillment — not so much different than Tuberville.
Ultimately, blame doesn’t stop at these officials. If our Republican officials won’t hold Tuberville accountable, and if Democrats can’t hold Republicans accountable, then we, the voters, have to be the grownups. We have to make better choices.
We elected a day-trading, Florida-living, mediocre football coach to the U.S. Senate.
The blame lands where the responsibility always was.
We put the toddler in the room with the loose gun, and now we caught a bullet in the groin.
This one’s on us.
Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for AL.com and the 2023 recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Sign up for his weekly newsletter and get “Alabamafication” in your inbox every Wednesday.
Donald Trump tried to overthrow the American republic because he lost an election. Nearly every single Republican member of Congress helped him do it by suborning his ceaseless and premeditated lies. They stoked the fires of incitement that led to Trump’s coup as his collaborators and partners. Ambition and fear overwhelmed their duty and patriotism.
The wretched truth is that with scant exceptions the entirety of the Republican Party from its elected officials, party officials, donors, activists and volunteers abandoned America in favor of their faction. George Washington’s fears had come to pass just as his warnings went unheeded by this generation of Americans. In his farewell address on September 17, 1796, he said the following:
However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
Every American has an absolute obligation and duty to read the details of the most important criminal indictment in American history carefully and thoroughly. The language is stark, vivid and declarative. The indictment rejects the jaundiced notion that there is dispute around the details of the election. Instead, it boldly embraces reality in a way that the overwhelming majority of the American media has refused to do so on a consistent basis. It declares flatly and directly:
He absolutely did lose the 2020 presidential election. Yet, he wanted power. What he did was try and take it through a conspiracy of lies and thuggery. Though he knew he lost, he didn’t care. What followed was the most reprehensible actions in American history by an American president. They represent a betrayal of stupendous dimensions. What Donald Trump did was amoral, illegal and nearly cataclysmic.
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Donald Trump desecrated the sacrifices and patriotism of the men and women who laid down their lives so America could endure and survive. He tried to take America away from all of us. Donald Trump isn’t just a failed and seditious president and an accused criminal, he is an abomination and every loyal citizen should be enraged by what he did. He assaulted our ancestors and our descendants, while trying to burn down our way of life and taking our right to choose our leaders from us. It cannot be forgiven, excused, rationalized or minimized. The propaganda of Fox News and all of its derivative media cannot hide the simple truth. Trump tried to destroy the United States. He is a domestic enemy.
We must not allow the ambitions of one man and his cabal to destroy the American way of life. It cannot happen. It must be fiercely opposed. Donald Trump and his cause are a national cancer, and it remains deeply embedded in our politics. This age of extremism must yield, or democracy will be lost.
The only thing that matters is that the Republican frontrunner doesn’t believe in democracy. He is running on a platform of revenge and retribution.
Everything is on the line in 2024. Will it be America’s last election not decided in advance?
Let’s hope not, and let’s work very hard to make sure it isn’t.
First off tonight, I want to thank all of you who sent emails and left comments about my Mom. I appreciate all of them, I’ve read through them and continue to read them. I’ve gained a lot of strength from your support, and I’m touched and honored by the stories you’ve shared. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Today, Tuesday, August 1, 2023, was the day the Justice Department indicted the wretch of a former president for trying, and damn near succeeding, in preventing American voters from determining the outcome of the presidential election in 2020. It’s about time.
The January 6 investigation was massive, and it’s remarkable Jack Smith got to this point so quickly. He owes a huge debt of gratitude to the House January 6 Committee, which did prosecutors’ work, unearthing much of the evidence that was used to indict. In a very real sense, prosecutors in this case stand on the shoulders of the members of the House who insisted on pursuing the investigation and made Americans believe that accountability for the former president was possible.
The conduct, the swarm of different angles Trump worked to try and steal the election, makes for a complicated prosecution. It was a massive effort at political interference in the constitutional processes that make our country a republic. The factual basis for the charges, even though we’ve lived through the events themselves, is not simple like the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case is. There you can readily wrap your mind around the basics and understand Trump kept classified documents he wasn’t entitled to and obstructed the government’s efforts to get them back. You can’t do the January 6 investigation in one sentence like that. Trump had a lot of moving parts in play to try and hold onto power, some legal, and many others not.
So the question has always been, how would Jack Smith make sense of it all, organize the conduct, and charge this case? It has to be done in a way that, legally speaking, is air tight—there’s no point in fighting for a conviction that you lose on appeal—but it also has to make sense out of a morass. For instance, we all understand now that there was a scheme to use fake slates of electors to try and interfere with the count of votes under the Electoral CountAct. But in the wake of the election, as news of an event here and another there began to emerge, we didn’t have the roadmap we have now for understanding the component pieces, which include efforts in swing states, the attempt to pervert DOJ, the pressure campaign on Pence, and so on. That’s the challenge: draft an indictment that will make compelling sense to 12 jurors in a courtroom who get to hear all the evidence and make a decision based on it. Which of Trump’s many crimes do you charge him with?
Now we know.
Tonight, I want to give you a bit of a guide for reading the indictment for yourself. I think it’s important to do that. Set aside an hour or two, or find ten minutes here and there over the course of the next week. You’ll understand it better if you read it for yourself. The indictment is written in a manner that makes it clear prosecutors wanted it to be comprehensible to anyone who wanted to read it.
The indictment is a speaking indictment—the story of the three conspiracies that are charged is told in detail.
First off, you get some framing in the introductory paragraphs. The government alleges that Trump “spread lies” and that he “knew that they were false.” And it sets up some parameters: Trump could legally lie about the election and say it was tainted by fraud. That’s okay—what I would call awful but lawful. He could challenge the results in court and seek recounts. But DOJ draws the line in paragraph 4 and says that what he can’t do is pursue “unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.” In other words, some of what he did, the lawsuits for instance, was lawful. His lies to the public were distasteful and inappropriate but still, not crimes. But then Trump crossed the line into criminal. That’s the conduct, we learn in the introduction, that we’re going to hear about in the rest of the indictment.
It’s done artfully; it clarifies that this isn’t about going after Trump for his speech, which is arguably (at least in his view) protected by the First Amendment. It’s about his conduct, illegal conduct. In the opening lines of the indictment, prosecutors effectively gut the First Amendment defense Trump has been floating for the last two years.
There is only one defendant, Donald Trump. That’s likely a strategy for streamlining the process to get the case to trial as quickly as possible. He has six uncharged and therefore unnamed (but as good as identified) co-conspirators. We’ll get to them in a moment. The indictment alleges three separate conspiracies:
one to defraud the United States by interfering with the lawful processes that are used to collect, count, and certify the presidential election (18 USC § 371)
one to obstruct the January 6 congressional proceeding in which the results are counted and certified (18 USC § 1512)
one to defeat citizens’ right to vote and have their votes counted (18 USC § 241)
It alleges that each conspiracy was fostered by the “widespread mistrust the Defendant was creating through pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud.” There is also one substantive charge of obstruction related to the second conspiracy.
The penalties are serious. 18 USC § 371 carries a five-year maximum. The two charges under 18 USC § 1512 each have a 20-year maximum penalty. And the maximum penalty for violating 18 USC § 241 is 10 years. While the sentencing guidelines often set a lower range the judge is advised to sentence within, here, and especially if Trump has picked up one or more prior convictions before he’s sentenced, there is serious time associated with conviction on any one of these charges.
Here’s the trick to understanding the indictment. Because the same facts underlie each of the charges, the government sets them out only once, in the first count. Then it adopts them as the factual basis for each of the next three charges. That means that the first count, which begins on page 3, takes up the bulk of the indictment. It concludes on page 42. But once you’ve read it, you have the facts and the key aspects of each of the conspiracies that are charged. If you want a refresher on the basics of conspiracy law before you get started, we did that here at Civil Discourse, back in July of 2022, with chicken videos to explain the finer points of the law: “Conspiracy! Understanding the basics (with chickens).”
First, we get the “purpose of the conspiracy.” This is a standard inclusion in conspiracy indictments. In essence, here, it’s the purpose of all three conspiracies. The government alleges Trump’s purpose “was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government functions by which those results are collected, counted, and certified.” The plain, legal prose is so dry that it almost masks what this is about: a president who wanted to take away the right of Americans to vote.
The next section clarifies who the “co-conspirators” referred to throughout the indictment are. But because they aren’t charged in the indictment, DOJ policy says they can’t be identified by name. Instead, we get descriptions that all but identify them after informing us that Trump “enlisted co-conspirators to assist him in his criminal efforts to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election and retain power.” I’ve added their likely identities in italics following the language describing them from the indictment:
a. “Co-Conspirator 1, an attorney who was willing to spread knowingly false claims and pursue strategies that the Defendant’s 2020 re-election campaign attorneys would not.” Rudy Giuliani
b. “Co-Conspirator 2, an attorney who devised and attempted to implement a strategy to leverage the Vice President’s ceremonial role overseeing the certification proceeding to obstruct the certification of the presidential election.” Trump lawyer JohnEastman, whose communications were disclosed after a judge found the crime–fraud exception meant the attorney–client privilege should be set aside
c. “Co-Conspirator 3, an attorney whose unfounded claims of election fraud the Defendant privately acknowledged to others sounded ‘crazy.’ Nonetheless, the Defendant embraced and publicly amplified Co-Conspirator 3’s disinformation.” “Kraken” lawyer Sidney Powell
d. “Co-Conspirator 4, a Justice Department official who worked on civil matters and who, with the Defendant, attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud.” DOJ environmental lawyer and AG wannabe Jeffrey Bossert Clark
e. “Co-Conspirator 5, an attorney who assisted in devising and attempting to implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.” Kenneth Chesebro, another lawyer involved in devising the fake electors scheme
f. “Co-Conspirator 6, a political consultant who helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding.” Identity unclear
Next up is a section entitled “Federal Government Function” that manages to explain, in one paragraph, how the electoral college system works. It will also make you wonder why we still use this godforsaken system that unduly focuses presidential selection power in less populated parts of the country, but we’ll leave that for another day. Like all conspiracy indictments, this one has an involved section on “Manner and Means,” which is an overview that explains how they did it. Here, it’s a helpful summary of all the conduct that’s laid out next. There is the use of fake fraud claims to try and subvert the outcome of state elections, the fraudulent slates of electors, the attempted subversion of DOJ, the pressure campaign on Vice President Mike Pence, and Trump’s exploitation of the violence at the Capitol on January 6 to try and convince Congress to delay certification of the vote.
Before the indictment dives into the details of those means of effectuating the conspiracies, we get a section you don’t normally see in indictments, where the government sets forth its evidence that Trump knew the fraud claims he was making about the election were false. We discussed the importance of the government being able to use circumstantial evidence to establish what was going on inside of Trump’s mind, notably, that he knew he’d lost the election but lied about it. The government uses three and one half pages of the indictment to set out its evidence in that regard in detail. With that important detail established, we then get a detailed layout of each of the “Manner and Means” of executing the conspiracy, and it’s here that you may want to spend some time. Most of the contours are familiar; we know about the events in Georgia, for instance, but some of the detail is informative, and it’s an excellent refresher to make sure you remember the details you first learned while watching the January 6 Committee hearings.
So we get a speaking indictment, or as MSNBC anchor Ari Melber quipped tonight, a shouting indictment. We still have some unanswered questions. The status of the unindicted co-conspirators isn’t clear. Often, people identified that way are cooperators, but that doesn’t appear to be the case here. It seems likely that some or all of these people will face charges in the future. Their crimes are set out clearly in the indictment, and there’s little rationale other than expediency, a weak one at best, for permitting them to escape accountability for their conduct. But there are other people who appear to be working with the government. Mike Pence, after trying to fight off his subpoena with all sort of excuses, testified and would seem to be the only possible source of information about his personal conversations with Trump, which includes this fascinating passage in paragraph 90:
On January 1, the Defendant called the Vice President and berated him because he had learned that the Vice President had opposed a lawsuit seeking a judicial decision that, at the certification, the Vice President had the authority to reject or return votes to the states under the Constitution. The Vice President responded that he thought there was no constitutional basis for such authority and that it was improper. In response, the Defendant told the Vice President, “You’re too honest.” Within hours of the conversation, the Defendant reminded his supporters to meet in Washington before the certification proceeding, tweeting, “The BIG Protest Rally in Washington, D.C., will take place at 11.00 A.M. on January 6th. Locational details to follow. StopTheSteal! [emphasis added.]
Still more interesting is the question of Mark Meadows’ status. In paragraph 28, there is information that seems like it would have to have come from him: “On December 23, a day after the Defendant’s Chief of Staff personally observed the signature verification process at the Cobb County Civic Center and notified the Defendant that state election officials were ‘conducting themselves in an exemplary fashion’ and would find fraud if it existed, the Defendant tweeted that the Georgia officials administering the signature verification process were trying to hide evidence of election fraud and were ‘[t]errible people!’” If Meadows is actually cooperating, in the sense that he’s finally decided to share everything he knows about Trump with prosecutors, that would be big. But there’s little additional information in the indictment to suggest that. Prosecutors aren’t obligated to reveal all of their evidence, but in the event they want to convince some of the six unindicted co-defendants to cooperate, they might want to show off a little more evidence to help them understand the peril of their situation if they don’t. Five of them, after all, are lawyers, and all quite capable of assessing the evidence. It’s surprising we don’t get more here if Meadows is in fact on board.
So, take some time when you can, and read the indictment for yourself! Encourage others to do it, too. Most importantly, don’t accept the defeatist mentality that no Trump supporters can take in the information and change their minds. While his hardcore base may not, there are others who may support him for policy or political reasons, but who, when confronted with the hard facts about his complicity, including Count Four where he is charged with a conspiracy to interfere with Americans’ right to vote, may finally decide they’ve had enough.
Finally, cameras in the courtroom. Chief Justice Roberts could ensure these proceedings were made publicly available. He can order that there be cameras in the courts. And he should. That final charge makes it clear that we are all victims of this crime. We have the right to watch the proceedings.
Because this isn’t a case about classified information. We’ll see more of the proceedings in public, and it should kick into gear more quickly, with arraignment scheduled for Thursday afternoon. The Judge, Obama appointee Tanya Chutkan, confirmed in the Senate by a vote of 95-0 in 2014, has signaled she means business with that prompt kickoff. But given the time it takes to get cases to trial in the District of Columbia’s courts, often over a year and a half, we’ll have to wait to see if there’s even a prospect of this case, so highly important and certain to be aggressively litigated, getting to trial ahead of the election.
Today was one of the good days for people who believe in the Republic. No man should be above the law. Trump is finding out that democracy and the Constitution are for real.
We’re in this together,
Joyce
p.s.: If you’re not already a paid subscriber and you’re enjoying Civil Discourse, I hope you’ll consider up-subscribing (if that’s a word). But we live in challenging times, and I understand that not everyone can or wants to buy a paid subscription. I’m happy to have you here either way! I’m glad we’re all committed to saving the Republic. Tonight, it feels like we’re making progress.
America is being vandalized. Specifically, the American people are being abused and denigrated by their politicians. More precisely, they have become the targets of systemic gaslighting from the MAGA radicals and fascists who seek power by overturning democracy — lest they be forced to share it with a political opposition.
This era has shown that cowardice, dishonesty, idolatry and a bottomless disregard for shame are a potent rocket fuel for advancement within the corrupted ranks of the MAGA sewer. The abandonment of principle, integrity and decency have become credentials in a toxic culture in which grievance, entitlement and taking are virtuous, while empathy, duty and responsibility are for losers. This is the polluted river in which Kevin McCarthy is a champion swimmer.
His noxious pablum is unrestrained by reality, truth or any worry that he will ever be asked about it again after sundown. Here is a a perfect example from CNN quoting the oft-lying Speaker and the only one ever called a p***y on the floor of the House by another member of Congress. Here’s McCarthy being taken at face value by CNN, which seems oblivious to his Orwellian slop. McCarthy asks:
How do you get to the bottom of the truth? The only way Congress can do that is go to an impeachment inquiry.
Yes, the truth. Kevin McCarthy has certainly shown himself its staunch defender. Lol.
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Anyway, this pursuit for truth, which apparently includes launching an impeachment inquiry against the president of the United States without any evidence whatsoever, and assailing his son for cruelty’s sake and satisfying the bloodlust of a political mob, has led the kitty of the House to a familiar figure when it comes to grotesque hypocrisy and impeachments. CNN sets the stage perfectly for the sinister arrival of Newt Gingrich, the last GOP speaker to illegitimately impeach a Democratic president over nonsense. Proving that anything remains possible in America, that very same speaker would one day be able to accompany Callista Gingrich, his former mistress and now wife, to the Vatican where Donald Trump honored Catholics and their faith by making her ambassador to the Holy See.
According to CNN:
Speaker Kevin McCarthy in recent weeks has heard similar advice from both a senior House Republican and an influential conservative lawyer: prioritize the impeachment of President Joe Biden over a member of his Cabinet.
Part of the thinking, according to multiple sources familiar with the internal discussions, is that if House Republicans are going to expend precious resources on the politically tricky task of an impeachment, they might as well go after their highest target as opposed to the attorney general or secretary of homeland security.
And McCarthy – who sources said has also been consulting with former House GOP Speaker Newt Gingrich on the issue – has warmed up to an idea that has long been relegated to the fringes of his conference.
“The fringes of his conference” is quite a description and declaration of naïveté from CNN about reality. There is no fringe in the MAGA majority. It is an undulating blob of layered imbecility, cowardice, vice, extremism, ignorance, ambition, incompetence and scheming, bubbling and gurgling together in a ceaseless assault against democracy. The fringe and its middle are identical. MAGA is round and without edges.
The proposition at hand for the country is whether a majority will tolerate the lies, corruption, malice and cruelty offered by the MAGA GOP because of the imperfections of the Democratic Party. There is no comparison between the two in terms of comportment, ethics and political morality. MAGA tried to overthrow the government, and is running on a scorched earth platform of revenge and retribution. Alongside the confederacy, Jim Crow and McCarthyism, MAGA is amongst the most odious concoctions ever created from the fumes of American nativism and know- nothingness. It is a pestilence.
In the end, the American people have to decide what the future of the nation will be. Perhaps the majority is ready to end the American experiment begun in 1776 and passed down for nearly 250 years. Are you? I’m definitely not.
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Earlier this week, the Burnet Consolidated Independent School District in Texas posted an official call for prayer leading up to the new school year.
Their image was even titled “Pray to the First Day,” with each of the next 22 days dedicated to a different school or group of adults, with the students themselves saved until the very end.
Needless to say, a public school district has no business telling people to pray, even if it doesn’t go into detail regarding which religion or what to say.
On Thursday, the Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter to the district urging officials to “cease promoting prayer and remove this post from its official social media.” Anne Nicol Gaylor Legal Fellow Samantha Lawrence wrote:
The District serves a diverse community that consists of not only religious students, families, and employees, but also atheists, agnostics, and those who are simply religiously unaffiliated. By promoting prayer, the District sends an official message that excludes all nonreligious District students and community members. Thirty-seven percent of the American population is non-Christian, including the almost 30 percent who are nonreligious. At least a third of Generation Z (those born after 1996) have no religion, with a recent survey revealing almost half of Gen Z qualify as “nones” (religiously unaffiliated).
This wasn’t a lawsuit. It wasn’t a threat. It was a reminder that calls for prayer shut out every member of the community who isn’t religious. And let’s be honest: The implication is that these are Christian prayers, so non-Christians are excluded too.
If a church in the area wants to waste its time praying for a better school year, that’s their business. But it sure as hell shouldn’t be something district officials call for.
The good news is that the Burnet CISD has already relented. In an email to FFRF sent less than 90 minutes after the initial letter went out, Superintendent Keith McBurnett wrote, “The Facebook post referenced has been removed, and the District will refrain from posting anything similar in the future.”
Problem solved… unless people notice and complain, in which case it’ll be interesting to see how district officials respond.
In any case, if the people in the community actually want to make a difference, then they should demand the Republican-dominated state legislature give educators raises to keep them in the profession and reverse a statewide teacher shortage, stop banning books that challenge students’ minds, end the assault on LGBTQ students, and do more to prevent gun violence instead of putting more armed guards in schools.
They won’t. Instead, they’re just praying (for nothing in particular in most cases) while voting to make schools worse. 78% of the county voted to re-elect Republican Greg Abbott as governor in 2022. Other Republicans on the ballot won by similar margins.
The end result is that students will continue to struggle because most of the adults in their lives have no clue how to fix the problems they’ve created.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is a living symbol of national decay. Her prominence is fueled by the preeminence of dimwittedness, ignorance and idiocy over intelligence, wisdom and common sense within the United States Congress.
Let’s watch:
Truly, there are no words. Serious political parties from serious nations do not elevate people like this. She is a fool and a hypocrite of such stupendous dimensions that it is almost impossible to comprehend the totality of it all. MTG is a conspiracy theorist. Yet in 2023, she is a GOP front runner to be Trump’s vice presidential running mate.
Tommy Tuberville is another MAGA politician who is unfit for a position of public responsibility as a senator in the United States Senate. The vapid former Auburn football coach seems like he was cooked up in a boiling pot of cliches about southern football coaches who can barely read, function or think off of the gridiron. Here is how Wikipedia describes the addled airhead from Alabama:
At Auburn, Tuberville participated in the Auburn Church of Christ.[124]
Tuberville’s interests include “NASCAR, golf, football, hunting and fishing, [and] America’s military”. He enjoys country and western music.[125]
It is most unfortunate for hundreds of America’s most senior career military officers that the “coach” has taken an interest in their careers and the institutions they have served for most of their adult lives. Tuberville is currently holding up the promotions of more than 265 senior military officers, and has the potential to instruct the promotions of more than 650 military officers by the end of the year. It is quite an accomplishment for a man who has repeatedly lied and exaggerated about his father’s World War II service, from making up stories about his five Bronze Star and Purple Heart decorations to his involvement in the liberation of Paris.
Here is how Stars and Stripes has framed the issue, and the outrage of hundreds of military families whose lives have been thrown into chaos as part of the collateral damage from Tuberville’s war on the US military:
Hundreds of military spouses are demanding Senate leaders find a way to end an Alabama Republican senator’s single-handed blockade of more than 280 senior officer promotions.
Roughly 500 spouses in a petition delivered Monday on Capitol Hill blasted Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s procedural hold on all general and admiral promotions as an “inappropriate and unpatriotic” political maneuver that harms the impacted officers and their families. Tuberville has blocked the Senate from confirming batches of general and admiral nominations by voice vote since February in protest of a Pentagon policy that reimburses service members for travel expenses incurred to seek certain reproductive health care banned in several states, including abortions, and allows them to use their personal leave to do so.
“No matter your political beliefs, we must agree that service members and military families will not be used as political leverage,” the Secure Families Initiative, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that advocates for military spouses and families, wrote in the letter to Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the upper chamber’s majority and minority leaders, respectively. “It’s time to end this political showmanship and recommit to respect the service and sacrifice of those who pledge to defend this nation.”
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had this to say about the matter, which was also reported by Stars and Stripes:
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters at the Pentagon that he expected Tuberville’s hold on military promotions was making U.S. adversaries “pretty happy that we create this kind of turbulence [and] put that on our force.”
It is an incredible comment. The Secretary of Defense is remarking that hostile powers are delighted with the chaos a US Senator from Alabama is causing in the US military. It is frightening, unacceptable and infuriating.
There is a simple truth about this rancid age. Atop the list of national threats are many of America’s politicians who reside in a spectrum of craziness, ignorance, certitude and arrogance that is unbound by concepts such as patriotism, duty, obligation or responsibility. The American people deserve better. However, in order to get it, they are going to have to care a lot more than they do now. Looking at MTG and Tommy Tuberville, it is clear that the inmates are running the congressional asylum.
That’s a bad thing — for all of of us.
On Sunday, I shared my thoughts after seeing ‘Oppenheimer.’ I haven’t stopped thinking about it as it serves as a perfect reminder of the dangers of electing someone as corrupt and evil as Donald Trump, and giving them the ability to start a nuclear war. In this commentary, I also talk about how sycophants like Kevin McCarthy and others only serve to increase the danger we all face by submitting to Trump’s every whim:
The “Gadget,” the first atomic bomb, explodes in Los Alamos, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945 (Corbis via Getty Images)
“Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” — J. Robert Oppenheimer
‘Oppenheimer’ is an extraordinary and stunning movie. Seventy-eight years have passed since the Trinity test site outside of Los Alamos, New Mexico. It marked the beginning of a new epoch in history, where mankind harnessed the powers of the gods and became capable of triggering Armageddon.
Matt Damon plays General Leslie Groves, the architect of the Manhattan Project. He perfectly captures 2023 America’s lassitude towards the weapons that remain poised to destroy human civilization. Here is what Damon said:
How did I forget about this? It’s like the Cold War ended and my brain played a trick on me and said, ‘OK, let’s put that away, you don’t have to worry about that anymore’ — which is absurd.
But as soon as Russia invaded Ukraine “suddenly overnight it became the most important thing for us all to think about again.
Damon is one of the greatest actors of his generation, and among the most thoughtful as well. His comments aren’t an expression of vapidity or disinterest, but rather a spot-on assessment of how the overwhelming number of Americans think about the weapons that can destroy 10,000 years of human civilization and history in an instant.
I’ve written about this subject before. General Douglas MacArthur was the first person to speak directly to the existential issues raised by the dawn of the nuclear weapons age. They remain dire and true 78 years later.
Even though nuclear weapons have not been deployed in combat since 1945 does not mean that they no longer exist. There are thousands of them under the control of the following nations: United States, Russia, China, UK, France, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and India. The most nuclear arsenal in the world belongs to the United States, and it consists of three elements. The United States can deliver its nuclear weapons to any spot on Earth via airplane, land-based intercontinental ballistic missile and submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missile. The weapons are under the command and control of the US Armed Forces, and can be launched on orders from the president of the United States. Since Harry Truman, the following Americans have held the unilateral power to destroy the world: Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. One of these men is unlike the others.
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During the hectic days after January 6, Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously queried Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley about the security of America’s nuclear arsenal. Milley responded that he had everything under control. Overwhelmingly, the American media and people yawned at the news, and believed what Milley told Pelosi — which is absolutely not true. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff isn’t part of the decision-making process when it comes to Armageddon. The president alone has that authority.
Everything in the American government is designed to move slowly — except one thing. The launch of the nuclear weapons are the exception. Should the president give the order, it will be carried out by highly-trained professionals who will not hesitate to execute it. In fact, right now, in this second, they are at their duty posts at the bottom of a silo, under the seas or in the air, awaiting the order.
What Matt Damon said is true for most of us in 2023 because no sane society would choose Donald Trump as the person to hold the power of extinction. Yet, we did.
The world came extremely close to nuclear war in October of 1962. Perhaps the only reason it didn’t was the profound wisdom, steeliness and courage of John Kennedy. Today, we have replaced wisdom with a deluded moral infancy and addlement that makes a mockery of the life and death issues that rest on the president’s desk.
We live in a cynical time in which there is so much evil operating in plain sight all over the world. Yet, after 78 years of having the power to destroy the planet, mankind has not pulled the trigger. It is a blink of an eye and an eternity all at once. What lies ahead is unknown, but it will be dangerous and deadly. What keeps us safe is judgement and morality. When that disappears all that is left is the mushroom cloud.
Why have we stopped believing these weapons exist — like all weapons — to be used?
‘Oppenheimer’ helps us remember the world in which we live. I recommend that you go to see it.
Richard L. Fricks 