Monthly Archives: April 2023

American Retrograde

04/30/2023 – 08:05 AMApr
Posted in Dirty side of Politics, Information, politricks, postings from others
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According to the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute, legislatures in at least ten states have set out to weaken federal child labor laws. In the first three months of 2023, legislators in Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, and South Dakota introduced bills to weaken the regulations that protect children in the workplace, and in March, Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law repealing restrictions for workers younger than 16.

Those in favor of the new policies argue that fewer restrictions on child labor will protect parents’ rights, but in fact the new labor measures have been written by the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), a Florida-based right-wing think tank. FGA is working to dismantle the federal government to get rid of business regulations. It has focused on advancing its ideology through the states for a while now, but the argument that its legislation protects parental rights has recently enabled them to wedge open a door to attack regulations more broadly.

FGA is part of a larger story about Republicans’ attempt to undermine federal power in order to enact a radical agenda through their control of the states.

That goal has been part of the Republican agenda since the 1980s, as leaders who hated federal regulation of business, provision of a social safety net, and protection of civil rights recognized that a strong majority of Americans actually quite liked those things and getting Congress to repeal them would be a terribly hard sell. Instead, Republicans used their control of federal courts to weaken the power of the federal government and send power back to the states.

Historically, states have been far easier than the much larger, more diverse federal government for a few wealthy men to dominate. After 1986, Republicans began to restrict voting in the states they controlled, giving themselves an advantage, and after 2010 they focused on taking over the states through gerrymandering. This has enabled them to stop Congress from enacting popular legislation and has created quite radical state legislatures. Currently, in 29 of them, Republicans have supermajorities, permitting them to legislate however they wish.

The process of taking control of the states by choosing who can vote got stronger today when the North Carolina Supreme Court, now controlled by Republicans, revisited an earlier ruling concerning partisan gerrymandering. Overruling the previous decision, the court green-lighted partisan gerrymandering, opening the door for even more extreme gerrymanders in the future. The court also okayed voter restrictions that primarily affect Black people.

Gutting the federal government and throwing power to the states makes it easier for business leaders to cozy up to legislators and slash business regulations. It also enables a radical minority to enact its own worldview despite the wishes of the state. This dynamic is very clear over abortion rights and gun safety.

Last June, quite dramatically, the Supreme Court overturned federal protection of the right to an abortion guaranteed in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. In the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision the right-wing court said that decisions about abortion rights belonged to voters at the state level.

But as the last ten months have made clear, the right wing does not really intend to let the voters of the states make decisions that contradict right-wing ideology.

After the Dobbs decision, Republican-dominated legislatures immediately began to restrict the right to abortion, although it remains popular in the country and voters have rejected extreme abortion restrictions in every special election held since the decision. Now Republican legislators in Ohio are trying to head off an abortion rights amendment scheduled for a popular vote in November by requiring 60% of voters, rather than 50%, to amend the state constitution.

Gun safety shows the same pattern. A new Fox News poll out yesterday shows that 87% of voters favor background checks for gun purchases, 81% favor making 21 the minimum age to buy a gun, 80% want mental health care checks on all gun buyers, 80% want flags for people who are dangerous to themselves or others, 77% want a 30-day waiting period to buy a gun, and 61% want an assault weapons ban.

And yet, Republican majorities in state legislatures are rapidly rolling back gun laws. Republican lawmakers in the Tennessee legislature went so far recently as to expel two young Black representatives when they encouraged protesters after the majority quashed their attempts to introduce gun safety measures after a mass shooting in Nashville. But they were not alone. Last week, when the Nebraska senate passed a permitless concealed carry law, Melody Vaccaro, executive director of Nebraskans Against Gun Violence, shouted “Shame!” multiple times. She has since been “barred and banned” from the Nebraska statehouse.

The attempt of a radical minority to enforce their will on the rest of us, who constitute a majority, by stealing control of the states and then, through them, control of the federal government is precisely what the Confederates tried to do before the Civil War: it is no accident that one of the insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, carried a replica of a Confederate battle flag.

And yet, in the wake of the Civil War, when former Confederates tried to dominate their Black neighbors despite the defeat of their ideology on the battlefields, Congress tried to make it impossible to pervert our democracy by capturing the states. It passed and in 1868 the states ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, putting into our fundamental laws the principle that the federal government trumps state power.

It reads, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” and it gives Congress the “power to enforce…the provisions of this article.”

—

Notes:

Child labor laws are under attack in states across the country: Amid increasing child labor violations, lawmakers must act to strengthen standards

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/is-ikea-the-new-model-for-the-conservative-movement

Click to access FGA-Annual-Report-2021.pdf

https://www.foxnews.com/official-polls/fox-news-poll-voters-favor-gun-limits-arming-citizens-reduce-gun-violence

https://northplattepost.com/posts/3603f063-d69f-43d0-8227-5be82ba4fdfd

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/04/20/cleta-mitchell-voting-college-students/

https://apnews.com/article/north-carolina-redistricting-voting-maps-bfe03c47daeca14444f15bc9e6438d4a

I warned Republicans about their debt ceiling bill. I was right.

04/23/2023 – 08:05 AMApr
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Tagged politricks, Posting From Others
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April 23, 2023, 5:00 AM CDT

By Rosa DeLauro, representative for Connecticut’s 3rd congressional district

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s bill holds the economy hostage in exchange for slashing investments important to American families.

On Wednesday, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy unveiled a bill he claims will fulfill our debt limit obligations. In truth, the bill holds the economy hostage in exchange for slashing investments important to American families.

In exchange for a short-term increase in the debt ceiling, the speaker’s proposal drastically cuts spending for 2024, then compounds those reductions by capping investments for the next 10 years. To be clear, Republicans are threatening a default on our debt unless we gut vital programs.

As the lead Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, which oversees government funding, I have warned for months that cuts of this magnitude will be devastating, no matter how you slice them. Because Republicans have refused to specify the fallout of their indiscriminate cuts, earlier this year I asked federal agencies about the potential impact.

The cuts introduced by Republicans would endanger our public safety and our national security.

But McCarthy and his allies are moving ahead with their reckless plan, even after those agencies have laid out its disastrous consequences. This should outrage all of us.

For months, I have heard my Republican colleagues claim that defense, veterans’ health care and border security would be protected. This bill does not keep that pledge. It either puts this funding on the chopping block or forces further cuts to other critical government programs by more than 22%. As much as Republicans want to pretend otherwise, these caps are cuts. They would ensure that resources for critical programs remain below current levels for the next 10 years — all for less than one year of preventing a default.

Instead of building upon these investments to keep our communities safe, the cuts introduced by Republicans would endanger our public safety and our national security. They would make our borders less safe by allowing hundreds of thousands of pounds of drugs across our borders. They would cut law enforcement by taking thousands of cops off the streets. They put veterans’ health and well-being at risk by delaying access to health care and benefits they have earned. And they weaken our national security by undermining military readiness, damaging efforts to deter the Chinese Communist Party and decreasing our ability to recruit and retain service members.

Not only would Republicans make our communities less safe, but they would also increase costs for hardworking families at a time when families are struggling to get by. They would kick 300,000 children out of child care and Head Start, slash nutrition services for more than 1 million seniors and turn off the heat in 5 million low-income homes. They make health care more expensive and less accessible for 2 million vulnerable people who rely on community health centers. They make college more expensive by reducing the maximum Pell Grant award by nearly $1,000 for the 6.6 million recipients, as well as 80,000 who will no longer receive those grants. They make it more costly to run a small business, and they even make it more difficult and less safe to travel by shutting Federal Aviation Administration operations at 125 air traffic control towers and increasing Transportation Security Administration wait times to more than two hours at large airports.

McCarthy’s dangerous scheme would cause irreparable damage to our communities.

And to top it all off, these cuts undermine American workers by cutting jobs and job training programs, robbing workers of back pay, and making work environments less safe.

McCarthy wrongfully claims that this path would “restore fiscal discipline.” I know, and the American people know, that there is nothing disciplined about threatening the full faith and credit of the United States to force indiscriminate cuts to the yearly spending process — a process under which we funded critical programs with bipartisan support as recently as December. These annual bills lower costs, create jobs and support American communities.

McCarthy’s dangerous scheme would cause irreparable damage to our communities by gutting programs every single American relies on. This bill all but guarantees more chaos and increases the likelihood of going from one debt limit and government shutdown fight to the next. This is not what the American people elected us to do. I will continue to lead House Appropriations Democrats in rejecting these dangerous plans and protect American children and families with the urgency and focus they require. I urge my Republican colleagues to do the same.

Rosa DeLauro

Rep. Rosa DeLauro serves as ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee. She represents Connecticut’s 3rd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

A Lesson From Wisconsin

04/17/2023 – 08:05 AMApr
Posted in Dirty side of Politics, Information, postings from others
Tagged current-events
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Judge for yourself

ELLIOT KIRSCHNER

AND

DAN RATHER

APR 5, 2023

Wisconsin is a state known for its cheese, but now it may also be known for its tea leaves.

You can make a strong case that the biggest political news from yesterday was not the courtroom appearance of a former president in New York, but rather a state supreme court election in the Badger State.

These are the kinds of races that usually elicit more yawns than a kindergarten class after recess. But not this year. Not in Wisconsin. Not in our current political environment.

Officially, the race for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court was a nonpartisan affair. Officially. But there was no secret about where the political affiliations of the two candidates lay. Janet Protasiewicz telegraphed herself as a “progressive,” and her opponent Daniel Kelly is a “conservative.” And with an existing “conservative” justice retiring, the future balance of a court that had been evenly split hinged upon yesterday’s outcome.

This is especially important when you consider that Wisconsin may be the most embattled of battleground states. With the exception of President Obama’s victories in 2008 and 2012, it has been decided by around a point or less in every presidential election from 2000 onward.

In 2022, the Democratic candidate for Senate barely lost to the Republican incumbent. It was a race that many Democrats now believe they let slip away.

Two places you won’t see evidence of Wisconsin’s battleground status, however, are its state legislature and its congressional delegation. They are both overwhelmingly Republican. And that’s telling. Republicans made the state among the most gerrymandered in the nation. It’s so bad that you might be hard-pressed to call Wisconsin a fully functional democracy.

This was the backdrop for yesterday’s Wisconsin election. And so was the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent dismantling of women’s reproductive rights. Abortion is currently illegal in Wisconsin due to a 174-year-old ban that took effect once Roe v. Wade was overturned. A liberal majority on the state supreme court is likely to change that.

And it could overturn the gerrymandering and revisit a host of other policies Republican politicians and judges have pushed through.

With all that at stake, it’s understandable that both sides poured money into the race — an eye-popping $42 million. For a single judgeship. Not surprisingly that total smashed all previous records of spending in court races.

In the end, the headlines weren’t only that Protasiewicz won, but the margin of her victory — 10 points — which in Wisconsin counts as a landslide.

There are a lot of lessons one can take from the results. First, the anger that many Americans feel about the U.S. Supreme Court’s abortion ruling has not dissipated. It was a motivating factor in the 2022 elections, in which Democrats overperformed. And it remains so in 2023. Should we expect that to extend into 2024?

There is also a sense that the Midwest gains Trump made in 2016 may be diminishing for the GOP. At least somewhat. The Republicans lost big in Michigan and Pennsylvania in 2022. And now here again in Wisconsin.

Against this backdrop, it is worth reminding ourselves that we are generally in an era of a politicized judiciary. But to be fair, we’ve been there for a while. In a different world, one could hope that the judiciary would not be so politicized. But to start worrying about that only now in the wake of this race is to conveniently forget what we’ve seen over the last decades.

While both political parties have long histories of appointing judges to the bench who share their general world views, there has seldom, if ever, been anything like what the Republicans have attempted at both the state and federal levels over roughly the last 40 years.

If you want a perfect definition of “politicians in robes,” you need go no further than the current U.S. Supreme Court, which is handing down decision after decision that hews to Republican orthodoxy, but which they could never achieve legislatively — on abortion, guns, the environment, voting rights, workers’ rights, and on and on.

Nothing has defined the tenure of the Republicans’ Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, more than filling the bench with true believers. And blocking Democrats from filling the open seat left by the death of Antonin Scalia.

Finally, if we are really worried about politicized judges and elections, then we need to consider the overall health of our democracy. If Wisconsin weren’t so gerrymandered, if the state legislature weren’t so out of touch with so many of the voters, if it hadn’t banned abortion and subverted representative government, then we probably wouldn’t have had a state supreme court race making such headlines.

But this is where we are. And if you try to suppress the will of the people, eventually they will find a way to try to reset the balance. What just happened in Wisconsin is an encouraging example.

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Drug War

04/16/2023 – 08:05 AMApr
Posted in Information, politricks, postings from others
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April 14, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

April 14, 2023 (Friday)

The Biden administration today announced a series of actions it has taken and will continue to take to disrupt the production and distribution of illegal street fentanyl around the world. The efforts involve the Department of Justice, including the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the State Department; the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP); the Office of National Drug Control Policy; and the Office of Foreign Assets Control in the Treasury Department.

On a press call today, various administration officials gave an overview of the crisis. Calling street fentanyl “the deadliest drug threat that our country has ever faced,” an official from the DEA explained that all of the street fentanyl in the U.S. comes from Mexico at the hands of two cartels: the Sinaloa and the Jalisco.

Most of the street fentanyl in the U.S. is distributed by the Sinaloa cartel, which operates in every U.S. state and in 47 countries. This cartel used to be led by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who began serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison in 2019 after Mexican authorities arrested him and extradited him to the U.S. Now four of his sons run it: Ovidio, Iván, Joaquín, and Alfredo, who are known as the “Chapitos.” DEA administrator Anne Milgram said they took their father’s “global drug trafficking empire” and “made it more ruthless, more violent, more deadly—and they used it to spread a new poison, fentanyl.”

According to the DEA official, the Chapitos started the manufacture and trafficking of street fentanyl and are behind the flood of it into the U.S. in the past 8 years. It is a global business. While illicit drugs used to be plant-based, newer ones like street fentanyl are made with synthetic chemicals. The cartels import the chemicals necessary to make fentanyl from China into Mexico and Guatemala. Then they manufacture the drug, distribute it in the U.S., and launder the money, much of it through cryptocurrency.

They have hundreds of employees and are equipped with military-grade weapons. The Department of Justice added that they “allegedly used cargo aircraft, private aircraft, submarines and other submersible and semi-submersible vessels, container ships, supply vessels, go-fast boats, fishing vessels, buses, rail cars, tractor trailers, automobiles, and private and commercial interstate and foreign carriers to transport their drugs and precursor chemicals. They allegedly maintained a network of couriers, tunnels, and stash houses throughout Mexico and the United States to further their drug-trafficking activities…to import the drugs into the United States,” where they kill as many as 200 people a day.

Rather than simply targeting individual traffickers, which would leave the operation intact, the DEA mapped the cartel’s networks in 10 countries and 28 U.S. cities. Its officers identified the cartel’s supply chain and all its leaders, including the people in China and Guatemala supplying them with chemicals to make the illegal fentanyl, the production managers, the enforcers around the world, the trafficker leaders who moved both drugs and guns, and the money launderers.

That information has enabled the Department of Justice to bring new charges against 28 of the cartel’s key figures (some were already facing charges) for fentanyl trafficking, narcotics, firearms, and money laundering. Seven of them were arrested in Colombia, Greece, and Guatemala several weeks ago and are in extradition proceedings. Mexican authorities arrested Ovidio even before that.

At the same time, the State Department increased the reward money offered for information that leads to the arrest or conviction of drug traffickers operating in other countries, and said it is working with partners to disrupt the supply chain for the drug’s manufacture, by which it appears to mean the precursor chemicals and manufacturing equipment coming from China. The White House also released a joint statement from Canada, Mexico, and the United States vowing to work together to stop the inflow of chemicals and manufacturing equipment to Mexico from China, a vow that somewhat gives Mexico a way to deflect blame for the crisis away from the factories in its own country to the supply chains based in China.

The Department of Homeland Security noted today that seizures of illegal fentanyl by U.S. Customs and Border Protection are up 400% since September 2019 and continue to increase. DHS has seized more fentanyl and arrested more traffickers in the past two years than it did in the previous five.This increased interception comes from new inspection equipment to find the drug in vehicles, and also from a focus on finding those incoming chemicals in plane and ship cargoes. It has also focused on catching equipment—pill presses, for example—whose loss stops production.

In March the Department of Homeland Security announced Operation Blue Lotus, which in its first month of operation seized more than 2,400 pounds of illegal fentanyl at U.S. ports of entry—as well as more than 3,500 pounds of methamphetamines and nearly 1,000 pounds of cocaine—and arrested 156 people. CBP has captured another 800 pounds of fentanyl. To build on these operations, the Department of Homeland Security has stationed labs at ports of entry to test substances instantly.

Notably, the Treasury Department added its own weight to this effort. It announced sanctions against two companies in China and five people in China and Guatemala who, they allege, provide the Mexican cartels with the chemicals to make fentanyl. Acknowledging that it’s been hard for U.S. officials to talk to their counterparts in China, administration officials say U.S. diplomats have been working with friends and partners to pressure China to stop the export of the chemicals that make drugs not only because it hurts the U.S., but because it is hurting the world.

Asking for support against drug trafficking on moral grounds is fair enough, but the sanctions against the chemical producers and the money launderers will bite. All properties the sanctioned companies and people have in the U.S. are blocked; their owners cannot do business with anyone in the U.S.

For all that the effort to neutralize the scourge of illegal fentanyl is vital to our country, what jumped out at me about this story was the power of the Treasury Department to disrupt what drug trafficking is really about: money. At the end of the day, for all their violence and deadliness, the Chapitos are businessmen, and the U.S. can cut them off at the knees through our financial power.

But that power is not guaranteed. Today, Sarah Ferris and Jordain Carney of Politico reported that House speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans continue to insist they will refuse to lift the debt ceiling unless they get massive spending cuts and policy changes. These are not normal budget negotiations, which Biden and the Democrats welcome, but a threat to let the U.S. default on its debt. Their willingness to hold the Treasury hostage until they get their way threatens to rip the foundation out from our global financial power.

As I read about the U.S. Treasury sanctions on fentanyl supply chains today and then thought about how Treasury sanctions against Russia have hamstrung that nation without a single shot from U.S. military personnel, I wondered if people really understand how much is at stake in the Republicans’ attack on our financial system.

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Notes:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-charges-against-sinaloa-cartel-s-global-operation

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/04/14/background-press-call-by-senior-administration-officials-on-the-administrations-counter-narcotics-efforts/

https://www.state.gov/u-s-actions-targeting-transnational-criminals-for-illicit-fentanyl-activity/

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2023/04/14/operation-blue-lotus-stops-over-4000-pounds-fentanyl-first-month

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/04/14/joint-statement-from-canada-mexico-and-the-united-states-following-the-first-north-america-trilateral-fentanyl-committee-meeting/

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1413

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/04/11/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-strengthened-approach-to-crack-down-on-illicit-fentanyl-supply-chains/

04/14/2023 – 08:05 AMApr
Posted in Dirty side of Politics, politricks, postings from others
Comments Off on Thousands to lose aid under Iowa bill backed by lawmakers

Story by By SCOTT McFETRIDGE, Associated Press • Yesterday 6:53 PM

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Thousands of Iowa residents would be expected to lose Medicaid and food stamp benefits under a bill given final legislative approval Thursday and sent to Gov. Kim Reynolds.

FILE – Rep. Joel Fry, R-Osceola, center, carries a box from his desk following adjournment of the legislative session on June 5, 2015, at the Statehouse in Des Moines, Iowa. Thousands of Iowa residents would be expected to lose Medicaid and food stamp benefits under a bill given final legislative approval Thursday, April 13, 2023, and sent to Gov. Kim Reynolds. Fry said the bill takes nothing away from people who are eligible for benefits. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)© Provided by The Associated Press

The state House approved the bill, which would change eligibility requirements and require more checks that people qualify for benefits, ultimately resulting in the removal of an estimated 1% of recipients and saving the state roughly $8 million annually beginning in 2027. A legislative analysis found that 1% would translate to the removal of about 8,000 Medicaid recipients and 2,800 recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps.

FILE – State Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, D-Story, speaks during debate on a bill on Jan. 23, 2023, at the Statehouse in Des Moines, Iowa. The Iowa House on Thursday, April 13, gave final legislative approval to a bill that would change eligibility requirements and require more background checks for people who seek benefits such as Medicaid and food stamps. Wessel-Kroeschell opposed the bill, arguing people would lose benefits because they make mistakes in filling forms. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)© Provided by The Associated Press

The Senate previously approved the measure, which passed both chambers with only Republican support. The bill now goes to Reynolds, a Republican who is expected to sign it into law.

Republican Rep. Joel Fry said the bill takes nothing away from people who are eligible for benefits.

“If you’re eligible for the benefit, you will receive the benefit,” Fry said. “It protects the program for those who need it most, and I would suggest to you that we are creating a safety net today that is sustainable for the long term.”

Shades of 1880’s? or 1980’s

04/12/2023 – 08:05 AMApr
Posted in Dirty side of Politics, Information, politricks, postings from others
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HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 12, 2023

The dramatic events in Nashville last week, when Republican legislators expelled state representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, two young Black men, for speaking out of turn when they joined protesters calling for gun safety, highlighted a demographic problem facing the Republican Party.

Members of Gen Z, the generation born between 1997 and 2012, grew up doing active shooter drills in their schools, and they want gun safety legislation. And yet, Republicans are so wedded to the gun industry and guns as part of party members’ identity that today, one day after five people died in a mass shooting in Louisville, Kentucky—including a close friend of Kentucky governor Andrew Beshear—the Indiana Senate Republicans passed a resolution honoring the National Rifle Association (NRA).

Later this week, Republican leaders will speak at the NRA’s annual convention in Indianapolis, where firearms, as well as backpacks, glass containers, signs, and umbrellas, are prohibited. Those speakers will include former president Trump and former vice president Mike Pence.

The resolution and the speeches at the NRA convention seem an unfortunate juxtaposition to the recent mass shootings.

Abortion rights are also a place where the Republican Party is out of step with the majority of Americans and especially with people of childbearing age. Last Tuesday, Janet Protasiewicz, who promised to protect reproductive rights, won the election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court by an astonishing 11 points in a state where elections are often decided by less than a point. Victor Shi of Voters of Tomorrow reported that the youth turnout of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, increased 240% since the last spring general election in 2019. Youth turnout at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, increased 232%. Almost 90% of those young people voted for Protasiewicz.

And yet the party needs to grapple with last Friday’s ruling by Trump-appointed Texas federal judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk that the Food and Drug Administration improperly approved mifepristone, a drug used for more than 50% of medically induced abortions, and that it must be removed from the market. The party also must grapple with a new Idaho law that makes it illegal for minors to leave the state to get an abortion without the consent of their parents.

In New York today, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg pushed back against Republican overreach of a different sort when he filed a lawsuit in federal court against Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) in his official role as chair of the House Judiciary Committee, the committee itself, and Mark Pomerantz, whom the committee recently subpoenaed, in response to a “brazen and unconstitutional attack by members of Congress on an ongoing New York State criminal prosecution and investigation of former President Donald J. Trump.”

The lawsuit accuses Jordan of engaging in “a transparent campaign to intimidate and attack District Attorney Bragg” and to use congressional powers to intervene improperly in a state criminal prosecution. Like any defendant, the lawsuit says, Trump had every right to challenge his indictment in court. But rather than let that process play out, Jordan and the Republican-dominated Judiciary Committee “are participating in a campaign of intimidation, retaliation, and obstruction” that has led to multiple death threats against Bragg. Bragg’s office “has received more than 1,000 calls and emails from Mr. Trump’s supporters,“ the complaint reads, “many of which are threatening and racially charged.”

“Members of Congress are not free to invade New York’s sovereign authority for their or Mr. Trump’s political aims,” the document says. “Congress has no authority to ‘conduct oversight’ into District Attorney Bragg’s exercise of his duties under New York Law in a single case involving a single defendant.”

While Jordan and the Republicans defend Trump, there is a mounting crisis in the West, where two decades of drought have brought water levels in the region’s rivers to dangerously low levels. According to Benji Jones of Vox, who interviewed the former director of the Water Resources Program at the University of New Mexico, John Fleck, last year about the crisis, the problem has deep roots.

One hundred years ago, government officials significantly overestimated the water available in the Colorado River System when they divided it among Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming through the Colorado River Compact of 1922. The compact provided a formula for dividing up the water in the 1450 miles of the Colorado River. It was designed to stop the states from fighting over the resource, although an Arizona challenge to the system was not resolved until the 1960s. On the basis of the water promised by the compact, the region filled with people—40 million—and with farms that grow much of the country’s supply of winter vegetables.

Now, after decades of drought exacerbated by the overuse permitted by the Colorado River Compact and by climate change, Lake Powell and Lake Mead have fallen to critical levels. Something must be done before the river water disappears not only from the U.S., but also from Mexico, which in 1944 was also guaranteed a cut of the water from the Colorado River. The seven states in the compact have been unable to reach an agreement about cutting water use.

Today the Interior Department released an environmental review of the situation that offered three possible solutions. One is to continue to follow established water rights, which would prioritize the California farmland that produces food. This would largely shut off water to Phoenix and Los Angeles. Another option is to cut water distribution evenly across Arizona, California, and Nevada. The third option, doing nothing, risks destroying the water supply entirely, as well as cutting the hydropower produced by the Glen Canyon and Hoover dams.

There is a 45-day period for public comment on the plans, and it appears that the threat of the federal government to impose a solution may light a fire under the states to come up with their own agreement, but it is unlikely they will worry much about Mexico’s share of the water. Historically, states have been unable to agree on how to divide a precious resource, and the federal government has had to step in to create a fair agreement.

Meanwhile, back in Tennessee, the fallout from last week’s events continues. Judd Legum has reported in Popular Information that Tennessee House speaker Cameron Sexton, a Republican, doesn’t live in his district as state law requires. And Tennessee investigative reporter Phil Williams of News Channel 5 reports that state representative Paul Sherrell, “who recently suggested bringing back lynching as a form of capital punishment, has been removed from the House Criminal Justice Committee.”

—

Notes:

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3815975-state-legislatures-need-more-young-people-but-most-cant-afford-to-run/

https://fox59.com/indiana-news/indiana-senate-republicans-honor-nra-one-day-after-louisville-mass-shooting/

https://fox59.com/indiana-news/former-pres-trump-former-vp-pence-gov-holcomb-to-speak-at-nra-convention-in-indy/

https://fox59.com/news/national-world/louisville-bank-employee-livestreamed-attack-that-killed-5/

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/11/republicans-face-reckoning-young-voters-00091453

Holy cow. Youth turnout at the University of Wisconsin Madison increased 240% since the last spring general election in 2019 & at University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, youth turnout increased 232%. Once again, the youth aren’t just alright—they will save us. Absolutely incredible.
— Victor Shi (@Victorshi2020) April 9, 2023

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/11/politics/alvin-bragg-lawsuit-jim-jordan-trump/index.html

Adam’s Legal Newsletter

Mifepristone and the rule of law, part II

On April 7, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued an order overturning the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. The order will take effect within seven days unless it is stayed or reversed by a higher court. In my prior post…

2 days ago · 32 likes · 26 comments · Adam Unikowsky

https://www.vox.com/2022/9/23/23357093/colorado-river-drought-cuts

Click to access crcompct.pdf

https://www.usbr.gov/lc/phoenix/AZ100/1960/supreme_court_AZ_vs_CA.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/01/31/colorado-river-states-water-cuts-agreement/

https://www.usbr.gov/ColoradoRiverBasin/SEIS.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/04/11/colorado-river-biden-review/

https://www.usbr.gov/lc/phoenix/AZ100/1940/mexican_water_treaty.html

Popular Information

UPDATE: Tennessee Speaker admits his family lives hours away from the district he represents

a day ago · 599 likes · 104 comments · Judd Legum

GOP FALLOUT IN TENNESSEE: Rep. Paul Sherrell, who recently suggested bringing back lynching as a form of capital punishment, has been removed from the House Criminal Justice Committee by Speaker @CSexton25. Sexton's office claims Sherrell was "very agreeable to this change." 1/ pic.twitter.com/IEfBrLW70s
— Phil Williams (@NC5PhilWilliams) April 11, 2023

JUSTICE PREVAILS

04/11/2023 – 08:05 AMApr
Posted in Dirty side of Politics, politricks, postings from others
Comments Off on JUSTICE PREVAILS

Heather Cox Richardson

April 10,2023

6 hr ago

“Justin Jones is reentering the chamber at the Tennessee State Legislature to tremendous applause.”

So said an MSNBC commentator today, after the Nashville Metro Council voted to return Democratic state representative Justin J. Jones to the Tennessee General Assembly. Last week, Republicans expelled Jones and his colleague Justin Pearson, who represents parts of Memphis, for breaches of decorum after they joined with protesters to call for gun safety legislation in the wake of a school shooting last week that left six people, including three 9-years-olds, dead. The colleague who protested with them, Gloria Johnson, survived a motion to expel her, too, by a single vote.

The vote to reinstate Jones to the legislature in an interim seat, until a new election can be held, was 36 to 0.

After the vote, Jones led a march of thousands of people—mostly young people, from the look of the video—back to the Tennessee Capitol building where he was sworn back into office on the Capitol steps.

Once sworn back into office, Jones reentered the legislative chamber arm in arm with Representative Johnson. To great applause, he walked through the chamber, fist held high, past Republican representatives who sat silent and pretended not to see him, as the galleries cheered.

The Shelby County Commission will vote on a replacement for Representative Justin J. Pearson on Wednesday. It can, if it chooses, return Pearson to his former seat until a special election can be held.

In a statement yesterday, Chair Mickell Lowery of the Shelby County Board of Commissioners, a Democrat, said, “The protests at the State Capitol by citizens recently impacted by the senseless deaths of three 9-year-old children and three adults entrusted with their care at their school was understandable given the fact that the gun laws in the State of Tennessee are becoming nearly non-existent. It is equally understandable that the leadership of the State House of Representatives felt a strong message had to be sent to those who transgressed the rules.” Lowery went on to say: “However, I believe the expulsion of State Representative Justin Pearson was conducted in a hasty manner without consideration of other corrective action methods.“

Mickell noted that he was one of the more than 68,000 citizens stripped of their state representation by the state legislature and said he was “certain that the leaders in the State Capitol understand the importance of this action on behalf of the affected citizens here in Shelby County, Tennessee, and that we stand ready to work in concert with them to assist with only positive outcomes going forward.”

Yesterday, representatives Jones and Johnson flew from Nashville to Newark, and it happened that Joan Baez, the folk music legend, was on the same airplane. In the Newark airport, Jones asked Baez to sing with him. As Johnson filmed them, together they sang two spiritual-based freedom songs that became anthems in the Civil Rights Era: “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me ‘Round” and “We Shall Overcome.”

—

Notes:

Justin Jones returns pic.twitter.com/QDIMEZClwg
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 10, 2023

Nashville Council Sends Rep. Justin Jones Back to Tennessee House

WOW. Rep. Justin Jones is leading a march with thousands of people back to the Tennessee Capitol building right now. This is what democracy & a movement look like. Republicans messed around & they’re about to find out. Sweet, poetic Justice. pic.twitter.com/BarQstTdZl
— Victor Shi (@Victorshi2020) April 10, 2023

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/10/1169154500/tennessee-rep-justin-jones-unanimously-reappointed-to-house-by-nashville-council

Hard to see but @brotherjones_ is down there with @TNDemocrats being sworn back into the @TNHouseReps. pic.twitter.com/eBpvrzzAmj
— Blaise L Gainey (@BlaiseGainey) April 10, 2023

https://www.wkrn.com/news/tennessee-politics/justin-pearson-reinstatement-vote/

LIVE: @brotherjones_ is being sworn in on the Capitol steps pic.twitter.com/FMA5j7PdhB
— Justin J. Pearson (@Justinjpearson) April 10, 2023

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A post shared by Joshua Bodwell (@joshuabodwell)

Joan Baez Sang Two Songs At The Newark Airport With Rep. Justin Jones Of The Tennessee Three

https://www.wkrn.com/news/tennessee-politics/justin-pearson-reinstatement-vote/

04/08/2023 – 08:05 AMApr
Posted in Dirty side of Politics, Information, postings from others
Comments Off on ‘The stupidity, it burns’

‘The stupidity, it burns’: Charlie Sykes warns Tennessee expulsions will hurt GOP everywhere

Story by Travis Gettys • Yesterday 6:08 AM

Tennessee Republicans voted to expel two Black lawmakers \– but not a white Democratic woman — for a protest on the statehouse floor, and conservative Charlie Sykes denounced the move as “political malpractice.”

The GOP supermajority expelled Democratic state Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, while an attempt to expel state Rep. Gloria Johnson failed by one vote, and Sykes condemned the partisan stunt as “vindictive retaliation.”

“My problem with this whole story is the stupidity, it burns,” Sykes said. “What were the Republicans in Tennessee hoping to accomplish here? They look horrible. They have made superstars out of the Tennessee three. These are three extraordinarily impressive and eloquent figures that you never would have heard of if it weren’t for this vindictive retaliation by the Republicans, who decided, ‘We have a supermajority and we can do this.'”

He said state legislatures in other Republican-dominated states could be emboldened to undertake similar moves.

“Of course, that’s the same story in Wisconsin, where the Republicans have a supermajority and why they’re quietly talking about, ‘Hey, we could impeach liberal Supreme Court justices if they make rulings we don’t like,'” Sykes said. “Legislators I talked to say, ‘We’re not going to do that, it would be chaotic, futile and stupid.'”

However, former president Donald Trump has been pressuring Republicans to punish his enemies, and that seems to be what the GOP base wants.

“We’ve seen this pattern before, where the base demands this kind of action all you need is one tweet or bleat out of Mar-a-Lago where Donald Trump says, ‘Why aren’t the RINOs in Wisconsin expelling members of the legislature? Why aren’t they impeaching justices?'” Sykes said. “What happens they cave in this story out of Tennessee is extraordinary to me because it is such a case of political malpractice.”

It Is Unfortunate That GOP Members Benefit From the Measures They Want to Cut-For Politics

04/04/2023 – 08:05 AMApr
Posted in Dirty side of Politics, Information, politricks, postings from others
Comments Off on It Is Unfortunate That GOP Members Benefit From the Measures They Want to Cut-For Politics

Heather Cox Richardson

5 hr ago

On Saturday, April 1, the emergency measures Congress put in place to extend medical coverage at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic expired. This means that states can end Medicaid coverage for people who do not meet the pre-pandemic eligibility requirements, which are based primarily on income. As many as 15 million of the 85 million people covered by Medicaid could lose coverage, although most will be eligible for other coverage either through employers or through the Affordable Care Act. The 383,000 who will fall through the cracks are in the 10 states that have refused to expand Medicaid.

The pandemic prompted the United States to reverse 40 years of cutbacks to the social safety net. These cuts were prescribed by Republican politicians who argued that concentrating money upward would promote economic growth by enabling private investment in the economy. That “supply side” economic policy, they said, would expand the economy so effectively that everyone would prosper. In 2017, Republicans passed yet another tax cut, primarily for the wealthy and for corporations, to advance this policy.

As the economy fell apart during the coronavirus pandemic, though, it was clear the government must do something to shore up the tattered social safety net, and even Republicans got on board fast. On March 6, 2020, Trump signed the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, allocating $8.3 billion to fund vaccine research and give money to states and local governments to try to stop the spread of the virus. On March 18, he signed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which provided food assistance, sick leave, $1 billion in unemployment insurance, and Covid testing. On the same day, the Federal Housing Administration put moratoriums on foreclosure and eviction for people with government-backed loans.

On March 27, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES), which appropriated $2.3 trillion, including $500 billion for companies, $349 billion for small businesses, $175 billion for hospitals, $150 billion to state and local government, $30.75 billion for schools and universities, individual one-time cash payments, and expanded unemployment benefits.

Trump signed another stimulus package on April 24, 2020, which appropriated another $484 billion. And on December 27, 2020, he signed another $900 billion stimulus and relief package.

When he took office, President Joe Biden promised to rebuild the American middle class. He and the Democratic Congress began to shift the government’s investment from shoring up the social safety net to repairing the economy. On March 19, 2021, he signed the American Rescue Plan into law, putting $1.9 trillion behind economic stimulus and relief proposals.

Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Law, also known as the Bipartisan infrastructure Act, on November 15, 2021, putting $1.2 trillion into so-called hard infrastructure projects: roads and bridges and broadband.

On August 9, 2022, he signed the CHIPS and Science Act, putting about $280 billion in new funding behind scientific research and the manufacturing of semiconductors. And days later, on August 16, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Law, putting billions behind addressing climate change and energy security while also raising money to pay for new policies and to reduce the deficit by raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy, funding the Internal Revenue Service to stop cheating, and permitting Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies over drug prices.

This dramatic investment in the demand side, rather than the supply side, of the economy helped to spark record inflation, compounded by supply chain issues that created shortages and encouraged price gouging. To combat that inflation, the Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates. Numbers released Friday show that inflation cooled in February, suggesting that the Federal Reserve is seeing the downward trend it has been hoping for, although there is concern that the sudden decision of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) this weekend to slash production of crude oil might drive the price of oil back up, dragging prices with it.

That investment in the demand side of the economy also meant that the child poverty rate in the U.S. fell almost 30%, while food insufficiency fell by 26% in households that received the expanded child tax credit. The U.S. economy recovered faster than that of any other G7 nation after the worst of the pandemic. Wages for low-paid workers grew at their fastest rate in 40 years, with real income growing by 9%. MIddle-income workers’ wages grew by only between 2.4% and 3.9% after inflation, but that, too, was the biggest jump in 40 years. Unemployment has fallen to its lowest level since 1969, and a record 10 million people have applied to start small businesses.

This public investment in the economy has attracted billions in private-sector investment—chipmakers have planned almost $200 billion of investments in 17 states—while it has also pressured certain companies to act in the public interest: the three major insulin producers in the U.S., making up 90% of the market, have all capped prices at $35 a month.

As the economy begins to smooth out, Biden and members of his administration are touting the benefits of investing in the economy “from the bottom up and the middle out.” They have emphasized that they are working to support unions and the rights of consumers, taking on “junk fees,” noncompete agreements, and nondisparagement clauses. After the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank, the administration has suggested that deregulation of banking institutions went too far, and Biden has continued to push increased support for child care and health care.

A recent Associated Press–NORC poll shows that while 60% of Americans say the federal government spends too much money, they actually want increased investment in specific programs: 65% want more on education (12% want less); 63% want more on health care (16% want less); 62% want more on Social Security (7% want less); 58% want more spending on Medicare (10% want less); 53% want more on border security (23% want less); and 35% want more spending on the military (29% want less).

This puts the political parties in an odd spot. A week ago, Biden and members of the administration began barnstorming the country to highlight how their policy of “Investing in America” has been building the economy: “unleashing a manufacturing boom, helping rebuild our infrastructure and bring back supply chains, lowering costs for hardworking families, and creating jobs that don’t require a four-year degree across the country,” as the White House puts it.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are doubling down on the idea that such investments are a waste of money, and are forcing a fight over the debt ceiling to try to slash the very programs that the administration is celebrating. Ignoring that the 2017 Trump tax cuts and spending under Trump added about 25% to the debt, they are focusing on Biden’s policies and demanding that the government balance the budget in 10 years without raising taxes and without cutting defense, veterans benefits, Social Security, or Medicare, which would require slashing everything else by an impossible 85%, at least (some estimates say even 100% cuts wouldn’t do it).

As David Firestone put it today in the New York Times: “Cutting spending…might sound attractive to many voters until you explain what you’re actually cutting and what effect it would have.” Republicans cut taxes and then complain about deficits “but don’t want to discuss how many veterans won’t get care or whose damaged homes won’t get rebuilt or which dangerous products won’t get recalled.” Firestone noted that this disconnect is why the House Republicans cannot come up with a budget. “The details of austerity are unpopular,” Firestone notes, “and it’s easier to just issue fiery news releases.”

—

Notes:

Click to access ERP-2023.pdf

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/31/economy/pce-inflation-february/index.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/31/medicaid-millions-to-lose-coverage-as-covid-safety-net-dismantled.html

https://www.investopedia.com/government-stimulus-efforts-to-fight-the-covid-19-crisis-4799723

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/20/politics/biden-laws-passed-priorities-to-get-done-executive-orders/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/15/politics/biden-signing-ceremony-infrastructure-bill-white-house/index.html

A most unusual recovery: How the US rebound from COVID differs from rest of G7

A Look at the Economic Effects of the Pandemic for Children

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wages-surged-lowest-paid-americans-pandemic-covid-19/

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/03/us-unemployment-hit-a-historic-low-economists-arent-sure-itll-stick.html

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gas-prices-opec-output-cut/

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7ewy7/non-disparagement-clauses-are-retroactively-voided-nlrbs-top-cop-clarifies

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/sanofi-insulin-price-cap-rcna75346

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2023/03/06/biden-industrial-policy-business-government/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-30/yellen-says-bank-deregulation-may-have-gone-too-far

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/19/biden-fdr-clinton-center-triangulation/

https://apnews.com/article/spending-budget-poll-biden-cd55f1c3859b62a861cdbdc0cd23bd79

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/03/24/president-biden-to-kick-off-investing-in-america-tour-in-north-carolina/

0.https://www.norc.org/About/Departments/Pages/the-associated-press-norc-center-for-public-affairs-research.aspx

Marching Towards Civil War?

04/02/2023 – 08:05 AMApr
Posted in Information
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Heather Cox Richardson

3 hr ago

04/02/2023

Although no one has seen the charges, MAGA Republican lawmakers reacted to the decision of a grand jury of ordinary citizens to charge a former president by preemptively accusing Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg of abusing the power of the government against MAGA Republicans.

“[C]orrupt Socialist District Attorney Alvin Bragg [and] the radical Far Left” (New York representative Elise Stefanik) “irreparably damaged our country” (House speaker Kevin McCarthy) “for pure political gain” (Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin). It is “a direct assault on the tens of millions of Americans who support [Trump]” (Ohio senator J. D. Vance), and “[the House Republicans] will hold Alvin Bragg accountable” (Stefanik, again).

The lawmakers have reached their position after extensive coordination with Trump, with whom Stefanik, Jordan, and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) speak regularly to keep him abreast of what they know about investigations and to plan policy. As Stephen Collinson pointed out on CNN, they are taking to a new level what they have been doing since Trump took office: weaponizing the government to put Trump back into power.

As the Manhattan grand jury’s investigation got close to a decision, McCarthy backed an investigation of the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Promptly, committee chairs Jim Jordan (R-OH, Judiciary), James Comer (R-KY, Oversight and Accountability), and Bryan Steil (R-WI, House Administration) demanded that Bragg turn over all documents and testimony related to the investigation and appear before them to answer questions. As the counsel for the district attorney’s office, Leslie B. Dubeck, pointed out in response, these demands are “an unprecedented and illegitimate incursion on New York’s sovereign interests” and amount to “unlawful political interference.”

Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, told Washington Post reporter Greg Sargent: “This is an extreme move to use the resources of Congress to interfere with a criminal investigation at the state and local level and block an indictment.” It is, he said, “the kind of political culture you find in authoritarian dictatorships.”

At Axios today, Sophia Cai and Juliegrace Brufke ran the numbers of Trump backers in Congress. Thirty-seven Republicans have already endorsed him, and in the House, McCarthy has put them into key positions. Trump supporters make up more than a third of the Republicans members on the Committee on the Judiciary, which oversees the legal system, and the Committee on Oversight, which oversees government accountability. Nine of the 25 Republicans on the Judiciary Committee support him; 11 of the 26 Republicans on House Oversight do, too.

What is actually in the indictment remains unknown, but the language Republicans are using to attack it reveals that what it says doesn’t particularly matter. Their claim that “the Left” is “weaponizing government” against the right echoes “post-liberal” ideology. This worldview explains why the right wing continues to lose ground in society despite Republican victories at the polls. The problem is not that right-wing positions are unpopular, post-liberal thinkers insist, it’s that the “left” has captured the nation’s institutions.

They argue that the ideas that underpin democracy—equality before the law, separation of church and state, academic freedom, a market-driven economy, free speech—have undermined virtue. These values are “liberal” values because they are based on the idea of the importance of individual freedom from an oppressive government, and they are at the heart of American democracy.

But post-liberal thinkers say that liberalism’s defense of individual rights has destroyed the family, communities, and even the fundamental differences between men and women, throwing society into chaos. They propose to restore the values of traditional Christianity, which would, they believe, restore traditional family structures and supportive communities, and promote the virtue of self-sacrifice as people give up their individualism for their children (their worldview utterly rejects abortion).

The position of those embracing a post-liberal order is a far cry from the Reagan Republicans’ claim to want small government and free markets. The new ideologues want a strong government to enforce their religious values on American society, and they reject those of both parties who support democratic norms—for it is those very norms they see as destructive. They urge their leaders to “dare to rule.”

Those who call for a new post-liberal order want to “reconquer public institutions all over the United States,” as Christopher Rufo put it after Florida governor Ron DeSantis appointed him to the board of New College as part of a mission to turn the progressive school into a right-wing bastion. “If we can take this high-risk, high-reward gambit and turn it into a victory,” Rufo told Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times, “we’re going to see conservative state legislators starting to reconquer public institutions all over the United States.”

To spur that process, Republicans have turned to so-called culture wars, but as David Kurtz of Talking Points Memo notes, issues are becoming heated not in some vague way, but because Republicans are deliberately making normal processes partisan to destroy consensus about them. So, for example, Rufo pushed the idea that the legal framework “critical race theory” was being pushed in public agencies and public schools in order, he told Benjamin Wallace-Wells of the New Yorker, “to politicize the bureaucracy.” He hoped to “take some of these essentially corrupted state agencies and then contest them, and then create rival power centers within them.”

The Republican attacks on Bragg reflect this process. They are quite deliberately destroying public faith in the justice system, declaring Trump’s looming indictment a political attack even before we know what’s in it, and attributing the indictment to a single man—a Black man— rather than to a jury of ordinary citizens. That attack, as Raskin pointed out, is their own attempt to politicize the Department of Justice and then take it over.

It is important to understand the pattern behind these attacks on American institutions. They are not piecemeal; they are a larger attack on democracy itself.

Republicans are wrong, not only in their attacks on Bragg, but also in their premise that liberal democracy is immoral. It has not destroyed families or communities, or ended self-sacrifice: just the opposite.

The principles of liberal democracy made nineteenth-century writer Harriet Beecher Stowe turn her grief for her dead eighteen-month-old son into the best-selling novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which showed why no mother’s child should be sold away from her. It made Rose Herera sue her former enslaver for custody of her own children after the Civil War. It made Julia Ward Howe demand the right to vote so her abusive husband could not control her life any longer.

It made Black mathematician and naturalist Benjamin Banneker call out Thomas Jefferson for praising liberty while denying it to Black Americans; Sitting Bull defend the right of the Lakota to practice their own new religion, even though he did not believe in it; Saum Song Bo tell The New York Sun he was insulted by their request for money to build a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty when, three years before, the country had excluded people like him; Dr. Héctor García realize that Mexican Americans needed to be able to vote in order to protect themselves; Edward Roberts claim the right to get an education despite his physical paralysis; drag king Stormé DeLarverie throw the first punch at the Stonewall riot that jump-started the gay rights movement.

And self-sacrifice? Americans trying to push the United States to live up to its principles have always put themselves on the line for freedom rather than permitting democracy to fall to white supremacists or theocrats. As James Meredith recalled of his long struggle to desegregate the University of Mississippi in the 1960s: “My entire crusade at Ole Miss, you see, was a love story. It is a story about my love for America….”

—

Notes:

Kevin McCarthy @SpeakerMcCarthy

Alvin Bragg has irreparably damaged our country in an attempt to interfere in our Presidential election. As he routinely frees violent criminals to terrorize the public, he weaponized our sacred system of justice against President Donald Trump. The American people will not… https://t.co/hq3ARmVfoR 10:51 PM ∙ Mar 30, 2023113,811Likes25,624Retweets

Glenn Youngkin @GlennYoungkin

It is beyond belief that District Attorney Alvin Bragg has indicted a former President and current presidential candidate for pure political gain. Arresting a presidential candidate on a manufactured basis should not happen in America.11:25 PM ∙ Mar 30, 202314,115Likes2,276Retweets

Rep. Elise Stefanik @RepStefanik

This is unprecedented election interference from corrupt Socialist District Attorney Alvin Bragg. The radical Far Left will stop at nothing to persecute Joe Biden’s chief political opponent President Trump ahead of the election. The @HouseGOP will hold Alvin Bragg accountable.11:40 PM ∙ Mar 30, 20232,693Likes748Retweets