Yes, Tuesday began with a state court unsealing 34 counts of feloniously altered business records. I had desperately hoped there would be a simple charge of “fraud” or “tax evasion” among the 34. No, all 34 counts sprung directly from the Stormy Daniels charges. More importantly, all 34 must piggyback a federal offense in order to be a felony in New York. Last week, I wrote that leading off with a New York State case was a liberal’s worst nightmare. New York could wait. It’s tenuous. People who are serious about holding Trump accountable for the crimes that threaten our very democracy point to Georgia, Jan. 6th, and the case of the file. It was almost disheartening. Almost. Any accountability with respect to Trump is a good thing.
For the first time in history, an ex-president was charged with a crime. And it wasn’t the most important news of the week. Indeed, it’s up top because nearly everything below is more important.
America suffered much more grievous injuries, ones that are systemic, the body politic will not regain any semblance of health until the 40% that votes out of rage and hatred of the left snap out of it - which won’t happen soon enough. There are, perhaps, 18 months left to stop this plummet toward fascism.
Too Strong?
One Week:
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Wisconsin Supreme Court Race
On that very same Tuesday, Dan Kelly, a conservative, lost the most expensive judicial election in American history to the liberal Janet Protasiewicz, giving progressives a majority on Wisconsin’s high court for the first time in more than a decade. Wisconsin has gone blue in many statewide races recently, including the governor and one Senator. It is a 50-50 state… with a super-majority Republican legislature.
How do you have a 50-50 state and a super-majority Republican legislature? Easy. The first thing you need to do is shove all the warm feelings for democracy aside and gerrymander as if your kid’s life depended on it. Then, use the brute force of modern computing power to get districts down to a block and run the numbers over and over. Oh, and you have to have a population that either doesn’t care enough or is conditioned to see this as normal.
The race was a win for Democrats. The liberal court will do something to uphold women’s reproductive health and scale back the super-majority legislature… if allowed.
Yes, if allowed. That supermajority legislature was already talking about impeaching this justice. They would impeach her over stating her values and winning - both impeachable offenses to the modern MAGA party. Even her opponent couldn’t lose graciously. Dan Kelly, the typically-connected, white conservative man said:
“I wish, in a circumstance like this, I would be able to concede to a worthy opponent but I do not have a worthy opponent to which I can concede. The most deeply deceitful, dishonorable, despicable” one he’d ever seen run for the courts, and called his opponent “a serial liar” who “has demeaned the judiciary with her behavior.”
This is a Republican boilerplate now, and it would be the stated basis for the legislature to impeach this new justice. Do you see anything that would hold them back? We don’t know. For now, the win was a good sign, if one believes in democracy… no longer a given.
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North Carolina Bait and Switch
On Thursday, a deeply cynical “switch of parties” by Rep. State Rep. Tricia Cotham, who just last fall won a blue district by 20 points, switched her allegiance from the Democratic party to the Republican party. Doing what? Giving a 50-50 state with a Democratic governor a Republican supermajority that is now veto-proof.
Her justification? She doesn’t have one beyond being purchased or “persuaded” in some nefarious way because she said:
The modern-day Democratic Party has become unrecognizable to me. I am no longer a Democrat, but I remain a public servant, that is what I am called to do. The party that represents me and my principles and what is best for North Carolina is the Republican Party.
If we are to take her at her word, the Democratic party has changed itself beyond her recognition in less than six months. Moreover, she damn well knows the power-play she is making and it’s against the wishes of a 20% majority of the voters in her district, voters who believed in democracy, only to have it blow up in their faces.
North Carolinians elected Democrat Roy Cooper as governor to keep a check on the now super-majority Republican party (In a 50-50 state). Governor Cooper is now unable to stop the Republicans from running roughshod over the 50% of North Carolinians who voted for a Democratic governor.
One woman, one switch, deep cynicism, disregard for democracy, and the willingness to use the brute strength of new computing power to gerrymander districts. And democracy dies, even in the pretty outer banks, a national treasure:
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Three Volunteers in Tennessee
What happened in Tennessee on Thursday needs no explanation, everyone saw it live on television. In a Capitol just a few miles from where three nine-year-olds and three committed school employees were butchered down by that satanic “Assault rifle,” we saw what happens when a super majority of Republicans is angry about the power of democracy, one’s voice, who wields it, and ultimately, who isn’t allowed.
The Republicans knew what they were doing. These young black men, both 27, were (are) rising stars for being unapologetically black, deeply intellectual, eloquent, and their unwillingness to bow before no man. They had already been marked. But when Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson stood with the kids protesting being shot at - for God’s sake! - enough was enough. Jones, Pearson, and Rep. Gloria Johnson were put up for an expulsion vote, something that had happened twice in the state’s post-Civil War history, a history with far more grievous behavior.
To make it art, the Tennessee legislature saved the white woman, Rep. Gloria Johnson, while depriving two districts that elected young, up-and-coming superstars, of their democratically elected officials. In terms of policy, Tennessee is so red that it’s meaningless. In terms of democracy, Tennessee is so red that it clearly doesn’t want it anymore.
Ironically, the Tennessee legislature gave Jones and Pearson far more power than any first-year state representative would ever dream of having, now rock stars for a cause… but will it be enough? In Tennessee? No. But maybe nationally people will look at Tennessee and turn away from the state and toward these two men.
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On that exact same Thursday, a peculiar story about Justice Thomas appeared and took a full day to appreciate, given all else that is going on.
In short, Ginni and Thomas are continuing their life’s mission of proving that our government and especially our SCOTUS is free from any political constraints and that true impeachment is impossible in a polarized country.
Thomas has made a mockery of the thought of an “independent” judiciary, but now he’s living rich off it, too. From Insider:
According to the report, Thomas has vacationed with Crow on his 162-foot yacht around the world, flown around on Crow's Bombardier Global 5000 jet, and stayed at his private resort in the Adirondacks almost every summer.
A June 2019 Indonesia vacation that Thomas and his wife went on, thanks to Crow, could have cost more than an estimated $500,000 if Thomas had chartered the yacht and plane himself, according to the report.
To make it even worse, Harlan Crow has a backyard full of statues of dictators and a Hitler-signed copy of Mein Kempf. This is Justice Thomas’s “friend.”
To fully appreciate the slap in the face to “judicial independence,” think about your local magistrate. Typically, young local magistrates meticulously follow the rules of ethics for lawyers and judges and withdraw from any “conflict” or anything that gives “the appearance of a conflict” to keep the court’s integrity beyond repute.
Crow is a Republican Megadonor. Who here doesn’t believe:
A. Politics isn’t discussed during these vacations with Crow, Thomas, and Ginni.
and
B. Crow can’t pull up a phone at any point and tell Thomas he needs him to do something?
Oh, and to cap it off? Thomas failed to report the trips (Worth $500K if purchased) on his financial declarations, which justices must update every year because - in theory - there is to be transparency as to who has a conflict on what. Cute theory. But if you are going to rid yourself of democracy, you need a SCOTUS that can handle being openly one-sided.
We have an openly one-sided super majority SCOTUS that no longer cares about judicial ethics or even appearing ethical and independent.
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On Friday, a judge in Texas ordered the FDA to “halt” its approval of a drug that has been on the market for 23 years, essentially saying that the court knew more about pharmaceutical safety than the FDA. But, of course, this isn’t about safety, it’s about abortion. U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk ordered that mifepristone, a drug so safe that it’s used in two-thirds of the nation’s abortions, be pulled from approved use.
My 15-year-old daughter is old enough to remember when being “pro-life” meant that they wanted the constitutional guarantee overturned and the matter left up to the states. It hasn’t even taken a year to nationalize the ban by fiat. Or at least, that’s what is intended here.
This ruling is part of a much larger plan that goes even beyond abortion and fits right into this week’s theme, a dying democracy. In 2022, the Republicans were supposed to crush the Democrats and take the House by a massive majority and win the Senate. Instead, the abortion ruling rang as a wake-up call, not only to the Right’s willingness to overturn a 50-year “normal” constitutional protection but to give up normalcy altogether. The signs were everywhere. The vote in 2020 and 2022 can both be seen as a desperate attempt to save democracy and normalcy from Trump and his cult.
As for the judicial ruling, the judge stayed his order for one week, giving DOJ a week to appeal. Meanwhile, a judge in Washington wrote a counter-order to the FDC, ordering it to not pull the drug from distribution. The two irreconcilable orders mean that the ruling may go to the Supreme Court, the one that overturned Roe in the first place and wants to “revisit” other rulings such as gay marriage. A national abortion ban (in essence) is now at the steps of the court that killed Roe.
One week.
Count the blows to democracy this country sustained in just one week. They are all coming from one side. They are all deeply cynical, dismissive of anyone who disagrees with them, all of them a statement; “This is what we’re willing to do.”
We knew what they were willing to do. This week, one week, they did a lot. But at least people are now listening, the outrage is palpable. The true MAGA conservatives are very much a minority, probably not 40%… which is why democracy must go.
If they can’t do it by brute force in changing the Constitution and all political norms, they will do it by simply brute force. January 6th has been called a rehearsal because it was.
There is no conceivable way that Trump can win a normal election in 2024 against this environment. However, we don’t live in a real democracy anymore and won’t have a normal election. Trump may very well find himself in the Oval Office again, except this time he’ll never leave.
One week.
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If that entire column left you depressed, good. It should. And the only way to get yourself out of such a depression is to “do something.” The single biggest thing you can do is correct people in conversations when they have their facts wrong, or just inform others who are not political but do not want to see democracy overrun by “brute force,” aka “Fascism.”
***** See you on Wednesday, and from Alabama’s turquoise waters: