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🤯 POLITICS: (SADLY) YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP! — Bess Levin @ Vanity Fair With The (Very) Low Down On MAGAMIKE!

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/10/everything-to-know-about-mike-johnson?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=vf&utm_mailing=VF_HIVE_102823&utm_medium=email&bxid=5bd67c363f92a41245df49eb&cndid=48297443&hasha=8a1f473740b253d8fa4c23b066722737&hashb=26cd42536544e247751ec74095d9cedc67e77edb&hashc=eb7798068820f2944081a20180a0d3a94e025b4a93ea9ae77c7bbe00367c46ef&esrc=newsletteroverlay&mbid=mbid%3DCRMVYF012019&source=EDT_VYF_NEWSLETTER_0_HIVE_ZZ&utm_campaign=VF_HIVE_102823&utm_term=VYF_Hive

Election Denial, “Sexual Anarchy,” Noah’s Ark: All the Mike Johnson Details We Regret to Inform You Of

By Bess LevinOctober 26, 2023

There’s a lot that’s concerning!

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

On October 25, after several weeks that saw dysfunction, chaos, humiliation, and anonymous threats to at least one lawmaker’s wife, Republicans finally elected a Speaker of the House to succeed Kevin McCarthy: Mike Johnson, a representative from Louisiana who has the distinction of being the least experienced Speaker in more than a century.

At the time of Johnson’s accession, a lot of Americans likely had no idea who he was; actual Republican senator Susan Collins, for one, told a reporter she didn’t know Johnson but planned to remedy that by googling him. And if you weren’t familiar with Johnson, you might’ve assumed that that was maybe even a good thing—that he was just a quiet Republican who hadn’t gotten wrapped up in the insanity plaguing the GOP over the last seven or so years. He didn’t have the name recognition of, say, Jim Jordan or Matt Gaetz, but perhaps that simply spoke to the fact that he wasn’t leading a series of absurd hearings in an attempt to take down Joe Biden; or bragging about being so devoted to Donald Trump that he answered his phone calls during sex. Maybe, you might have thought, he wasn’t someone you’d have to constantly worry about re: undermining democracy or trying to take away people’s rights.

Unfortunately, that is not the case with Johnson, who may not have been well known prior to being given one of the most powerful jobs in government but is very much someone whose extremist views and actions should keep you up at night.

Herein, a running list of the absolute most WTF things the new Speaker has said and done on everything from the 2020 election to abortion to LGBTQ+ rights and more.

Abortion

Johnson is proudly antiabortion. When Roe v. Wade was overturned last year, he called it “a great, joyous occasion,” later writing, “We will get the number of abortions [in Louisiana] to ZERO!!” As an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, now known as the Alliance Defending Freedom, he worked on efforts to shut down abortion clinics in the state. In Congress, he cosponsored legislation that would have banned abortions at about six weeks of pregnancy, i.e., a time when many people do not even know they’re pregnant. He’s beloved by the antiabortion organization Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which has given him an A+ rating. In 2015, he blamed school shootings on abortion, telling writer Irin Carmon, “When you break up the nuclear family, when you tell a generation of people that life has no value, no meaning, that it’s expendable, then you do wind up with school shooters.”

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In some real Handmaid’s Tale shit, he declared during a House hearing that if women were forced to have more children, a.k.a. “able-bodied” workers, there would be more funding for Social Security and Medicare:

On at least one occasion, he declared that doctors who perform abortions should be sentenced to “hard labor”:

Oh, and like many antiabortion zealots, Johnson doesn’t seem to like contraception either.

LGBTQ+ rights

Hoo boy, where to start? Here are some things that Johnson has said about LGBTQ+ people, same-sex marriage, and gay sex between consenting adults:

“Your race, creed, and sex are what you are, while homosexuality and cross-dressing are things you do. This is a free country, but we don’t give special protections for every person’s bizarre choices.”

“You can call [homosexuality] sinful or destructive—ultimately it’s both.”

“States have many legitimate grounds to proscribe same-sex deviate sexual intercourse, including concerns for public health…safety, morals, and the promotion of healthy marriages.”

“Homosexual relationships are inherently unnatural and, the studies clearly show, are ultimately harmful and costly for everyone. Society cannot give its stamp of approval to such a dangerous lifestyle. If we change marriage for this tiny, modern minority, we will have to do it for every deviant group. Polygamists, polyamorists, pedophiles, and others will be next in line to claim equal protection. They already are. There will be no legal basis to deny a bisexual the right to marry a partner of each sex, or a person to marry his pet.”

“Experts project that homosexual marriage is the dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic.”

In his work as an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, Johnson also argued in court that same-sex couples should not receive domestic partnership benefits, and officially opposed the Supreme Court’s decision to decriminalize gay sex between consenting adults. In the Louisiana House of Representatives, he proposed a bill that critics say would have made it easier to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people. (In response, he claimed he was not a “bigot,” adding: “I know that I brought this bill for the right reason.”) Meanwhile, in Congress, he introduced a national bill seemingly modeled after Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law; voted against the 2022 bipartisan bill to codify gay marriage; and last year cosponsored a bill making it a crime to provide gender-affirming care to anyone under 18, despite the American Academy of Pediatrics backing such care.

“I would be hard-pressed to think of a worse member to be elected Speaker of the House,” Allen Morris, policy director for the National LGBTQ Task Force, told The 19th.

Separation of church and state

If you guessed that Johnson doesn’t believe in it, you guessed right. In April—as in, just a few months before he was elected Speaker—the congressman railed against what he referred to as the “so-called separation of church and state,” saying, “The founders wanted to protect the church from an encroaching state, not the other way around.”

In 2018, Johnson argued for prayer in public schools.

Evolution

In addition to blaming abortion for mass shootings, Johnson has also claimed that the teaching of evolution has played a part. In a 2016 sermon, he told the audience, “People say, ‘How can a young person go into their schoolhouse and open fire on their classmates?’ Because we’ve taught a whole generation—a couple generations now—of Americans, that there’s no right or wrong, that it’s about survival of the fittest, and [that] you evolve from the primordial slime. Why is that life of any sacred value? Because there’s nobody sacred to whom it’s owed. None of this should surprise us.”

In related news, a year prior, Johnson filed a lawsuit for an organization to receive tax subsidies to build a Noah’s Ark–focused theme park in Kentucky. “When the Ark Project sails, everybody will benefit,” he wrote in an op-ed, “even those who are stubbornly trying to sink it.” The Ark Encounter is operated by a fundamentalist Christian group that believes in creationism.

Climate

Where does Johnson, not exactly a man of science, land on global warming? Well, per The New York Times:

Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana, the newly elected House Speaker, has questioned climate science, opposed clean energy, and received more campaign contributions from oil and gas companies than from any other industry last year. Even as other Republican lawmakers increasingly accept the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is dangerously heating the planet, the unanimous election of Mr. Johnson on Wednesday suggests that his views may not be out of step with the rest of his party.

A former constitutional lawyer, he does not sit on committees that decide the fate of major energy issues. But he has consistently voted against dozens of climate bills and amendments, opposing legislation that would require companies to disclose their risks from climate change and bills that would reduce leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from oil and gas wells. He has voted for measures that would cut funding to the Environmental Protection Agency.

In 2017, Johnson opined: “The climate is changing, but the question is, is it being caused by natural cycles over the span of the earth’s history? Or is it changing because we drive SUVs? I don’t believe in the latter. I don’t think that’s the primary driver.”

The 2020 election

By now you’ve likely heard that Johnson spent a significant amount of time and energy trying to overturn the 2020 election—an effort that included leading the amicus brief signed by more than 100 GOP lawmakers that asked the Supreme Court to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Johnson also objected to the certification of Biden’s win on January 6; his arguments for doing so were adopted by a significant number of Republicans, leading the Times to call him “the most important architect of the Electoral College objections.” One day prior, per Politico, he told colleagues, “This is a very weighty decision. All of us have prayed for God’s discernment. I know I’ve prayed for each of you individually,” before pressing them to oppose the Electoral College results. Oh, and he was a Dominion truther:

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Where does Johnson stand on the 2020 election now? Before the floor vote, he refused to answer a reporter’s question about the matter, and after officially becoming Speaker, he did just the same:

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Not really the kind of endorsement you want these days

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Thank God the GOP is now free to get back to the important, not-at-all-made-up issues

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Elsewhere!

Could Mike Johnson, the New House Speaker, Undermine the 2024 Election?

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Georgia’s congressional map violates Voting Rights Act, court finds

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Donald Trump’s 2020 Cronies Appear to Be Ditching Him One by One

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“Get the right cases to the Supreme Court”: inside Charles Koch’s network

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More Great Stories From Vanity Fair

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Go on over to the Levin Report at the above link to get all the gory (perhaps an understatement) details on America’s Retrograde Speaker!

MAGAMike often pretends as if the his interpretation of the Bible, not the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, were our founding document.

But, believe it or not, the founding fathers were actually “revolutionaries,” not “reactionaries,” who overthrew tradition to arrive at a different place. In the process they incorporated what in those days were some “enlightenment” ideals to replace “traditionalist” regressive principles like the “divine” right of kings and a purely hierarchical society where there was no escape from the status assigned at birth!

One can debate the exact religious beliefs of the founders. But, they certainly foresaw a non-static society, open to change, and tolerating more than one viewpoint. They weren’t theocrats, and they weren’t wedded to the view that society can’t change and evolve to adapt to new norms and practical realities.

One could read the teachings of Christ as promoting love, kindness, tolerance, forgiveness, perspective, and siding with society’s outcasts. MAGAMike and his zealots appear to have a quite different “take.” That’s their prerogative. But, they shouldn’t be allowed to impose their peculiar, wayward views on the rest of us.

Faced with his first national tragedy, and a chance to show some real guts, leadership, and humane, common-sense principles derived from Christianity, all the self-professed “Man of God” and “protector of the unborn” (but “rejector of the born”) could muster was the same old trite “hearts and minds” garbage that flows from spineless GOP politicos. Compare MAGAMike with Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) who apologized and changed his position to favor an assault weapons ban. See, e.g., https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiJ35iN1puCAxVBk2oFHWs3CX8QvOMEKAB6BAgQEAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fpolitics%2F2023%2F10%2F26%2Fmaine-shooting-gun-control-laws%2F&usg=AOvVaw1NdJWXqX0pvd75g3dguKa_&opi=89978449.

Jesus would have valued assault weapons over human lives? Gimmie a break!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-29-23

🔫WELL, ACTUALLY, TOTALLY CONTRARY TO THE GOP BS, GUN CONTROL LAWS DO SAVE LIVES! — “The states with America’s lowest rates of gun-related deaths all have strict gun laws; in states that allow easy availability of guns, more people die from them.”

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=e8e45d47-c3b3-4b69-862f-6cc848e9bb43

David Lauter in the LA Times:

WASHINGTON — Time was — not that long ago — that after a mass shooting, gun rights advocates would nod to the possibility of compromise before waiting for memories to fade and opposing any new legislation to regulate firearms.

This time, they skipped the preliminaries and jumped directly to opposition.

“The most effective tool for keeping kids safe is armed law enforcement on the campus,” Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said to MSNBC a few hours after a shooter killed at least 21 people in Uvalde, Texas. “Inevitably, when there’s a murder of this kind, you see politicians try to politicize it. You see Democrats and a lot of folks in the media whose immediate solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. That doesn’t work.”

The speed of that negative reaction provides the latest example of how, on one issue after another, the gap between blue America and red America has widened so much that even the idea of national agreement appears far-fetched. Many political figures no longer bother pretending to look for it.

Broad agreement

on some measures

And yet, significant agreement does exist.

Poll after poll has shown for years that large majorities of the public agree on at least some limited steps to further regulate firearms.

A survey last year by the Pew Research Center, for example, showed that, by 87% to 12%, Americans supported “preventing people with mental illnesses from purchasing guns.” By 81% to 18% they backed “making private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks.” And by a smaller but still healthy 64% to 36% they favored “banning high-capacity ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.”

The gunman in Uvalde appears to have carried seven 30-round magazines, authorities in Texas have said.

So why, in the face of such large majorities, does Congress repeatedly do nothing?

One powerful factor is the belief among many Americans that nothing lawmakers do will help the problem.

Asked in that same Pew survey whether mass shootings would decline if guns were harder to obtain, about half of Americans said they would go down, but 42% said it would make no difference. Other surveys have found much the same feeling among a large swath of Americans.

The argument about futility is one that opponents of change quickly turn to after a catastrophe. It’s a powerful rhetorical weapon against action.

“It wouldn’t prevent these shootings,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said on CNN on Wednesday when asked about banning the sort of semiautomatic weapons used by the killer in Uvalde and by a gunman who killed 10 at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket 10 days earlier. “The truth of the matter is these people are going to commit these horrifying crimes — whether they have to use another weapon to do it, they’re going to figure out a way to do it.”

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott made a similar claim at his news conference on Wednesday: “People who think that, ‘well, maybe we can just implement tougher gun laws, it’s gonna solve it’ — Chicago and L.A. and New York disprove that thesis.”

The facts powerfully suggest that’s not true.

Go back 15 years: In 2005, California had almost the same rate of deaths from guns as Florida or Texas. California had 9.5 firearms deaths per 100,000 people that year, Florida had 10 and Texas 11, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics.

Since then, California repeatedly has tightened its gun laws, while Florida and Texas have moved in the opposite direction.

California’s rate of gun deaths has declined by 10% since 2005, even as the national rate has climbed in recent years. And Texas and Florida? Their rates of gun deaths have climbed 28% and 37% respectively. California now has one of the 10 lowest rates of gun deaths in the nation. Texas and Florida are headed in the wrong direction.

Obviously, factors beyond a state’s laws can affect the rate of firearms deaths. The national health statistics take into account differences in the age distribution of state populations, but they don’t control for every factor that might affect gun deaths.

Equally clearly, no law stops all shootings.

California’s strict laws didn’t stop the shooting at a Taiwanese church in Laguna Woods this month, and there’s no question that Chicago suffers from a large number of gun-related homicides despite strict gun control laws in Illinois. A large percentage of the guns used in those crimes come across the border from neighboring states with loose gun laws, research has shown.

The overall pattern is clear, and it reinforces the lesson from other countries, including Canada, Britain and Australia, which have tightened gun laws after horrific mass shootings: The states with America’s lowest rates of gun-related deaths all have strict gun laws; in states that allow easy availability of guns, more people die from them.

Fear of futility isn’t the only barrier to passage of national gun legislation.

Gun law opponents harden positions

Hard-core opponents of gun regulation have become more entrenched in their positions over the last decade.

Mostly conservative and Republican and especially prevalent in rural parts of the U.S., staunch opponents of any new legislation restricting firearms generally don’t see gun violence as a major problem but do see the weapons as a major part of their identity. In the Pew survey last year, just 18% of Republicans rated gun violence as one of the top problems facing the country, compared with 73% of Democrats. Other surveys have found much the same.

Strong opponents of gun control turn out in large numbers in Republican primaries, and they make any vote in favor of new restrictions politically toxic for Republican officeholders. In American politics today, where most congressional districts are gerrymandered to be safe for one party and only a few states swing back and forth politically, primaries matter far more to most lawmakers than do general elections.

Even in general elections, gun issues aren’t the top priority for most voters. Background checks and similar measures have wide support, but not necessarily urgent support.

. . . .

********************

Read David’s complete article at the link.

Unfortunately, the much ballyhooed polls on this issue turn out to be highly misleading. The polls showing widespread support for gun control suggest that there should be a heavy political price to pay for GOP gun zealots who mock the need for rational measures to protect kids, worshippers, shoppers, and others from mass firearms’ assaults.

However, the exact opposite is true. As Chuck Todd recently pointed out on NBC News, even in the “post-Sandy-Hook” era, no incumbent politician has lost his or her position for opposing reasonable firearms controls. The converse is not true.

Todd also pointed out that we now have more guns than people in the U.S., a situation that didn’t exist a decade ago. The irrational response to more gun deaths, lead by the NRA and GOP politicos, has been more guns — NOT common sense, concern for the common good, or courageous bipartisan problem solving.

That perhaps explains how sleazy immoral characters like Gov. Greg Abbott, Sen. Ted Cruz, VA Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and a host of other corrupt “guns are the answer to all problems” GOP politicos remain in office as innocent kids and others die and the problem gets worse.

As the article suggests, lack of urgency and priority also might be a reason why the polls are so completely misleading on this issue. For the “guns trump human lives crowd,” adhering to positions promoting irresponsible “absolutist” firearms agendas are a “litmus test.” Apparently, for too many of those in the “majority,” saving some kids and other human lives is in the “nice to have, but not essential” category.

So, despite their immoral and irrational stand on guns, the GOP controls a majority of state and local Governments. Nationally, thanks to the electoral college, gerrymandering, and local control of national voting, the GOP appears poised to sweep back into power on the national level and impose their anti-individual-liberty, anti-democracy, anti-humanity, pro-guns and big corporations agenda on all until the last shadow of American liberal democracy is wiped out.

It’s clear from the “in your face” reactions of Cruz and other GOP pols that they expect no fallout from their latest, deadly policy failures. Indeed, I think they fully anticipate a political boost from their ridiculous and widely-panned suggestions and their ever more outrageous fact-free “shoot ‘em up — ignore the real problem” proposals. Kid deaths and grieving parents who can be fobbed off or ignored have become a “gold mine” for valueless GOP politicos to exploit and demean.

Sadly, they probably are correct. Despite the perhaps “over coverage” by the media obsessed with public demonstrations, the GOP has little to fear politically from outraged parents of dead kids, students walking out of classes, newspaper editorials, or demonstrators outside the NRA Convention.

Unless and until gun control proponents can find a way to make arrogant GOP pols on all levels “pay a price” for their immoral actions and horrible positions, the latest “surge in public sentiment” will be just as meaningless as the polls they engender. That means reaching out to the rural Americans who drive the GOP’s pro-gun agenda and changing at least some minds with facts. That’s something that Dems as a whole have failed to do over decades, as the GOP developed a stranglehold over rural America.

While GOP politicos like Abbott and Cruz (who, let’s remember, fled with his family to a resort in Mexico while ordinary Texans suffered through Abbott’s mismanagement of the power grid) babble nonsense, parents who have lost children understand exactly who is to blame for preventable mass murders:

“There’s no reason for just an average citizen to have these types of weapons,” she said. Adding, “What for? What do you need them for? Is it worth my kid? These kids?”

https://apple.news/ABvfx3I_pRjubQAjtOz4c-A

Of course, as the article acknowledges, gun control won’t solve all problems or prevent all mass shootings. But, contrary to widely promoted GOP myths, such laws would be a major step in the right direction that demonstrably would preserve some human lives.

The GOP gun lobby’s outrageous “expand the universe of gun ownership and military-style firepower” agenda clearly results in more unnecessary deaths. Even more significantly, there is no case for the proposition that reasonable firearms restrictions and limitations on military assault-type weapons place any unreasonable burden on sportsmen, target shooters, or other types of legitimate gun owners.

No private citizen in America needs an assault weapon for self defense or sporting purposes! Pro-gun commercials suggesting that assault weapons are necessary for self-defense at home or to “protect America” are the pure BS! But, they apparently are much more effective than angry demonstrations, school walkouts, or tearful testimonials from those deprived of their loved ones and colleagues by preventable mass gun violence.

Tougher laws might, however, stop at least a few kids or angry folks from getting their hands on military-grade weapons of mass destruction and murder.

Significantly, it now appears that about the only folks who “did the right thing at the right time” during the Uvalde mass murder were the unarmed kids who, risking their lives, called, sometimes repeatedly, those authorized to use deadly force and assault-style weapons for public protection. But, it was largely to no avail, as the so-called “good guys with guns” stood around as kids died — they were afraid they might get shot by an 18-year-old kid armed like a combat soldier. Their teachers, not the “good guys with guns” were the ones willing to sacrifice their lives in an attempt to save others.

Also, while Texas seems to revel in “anti-Federalism,” it’s worth noting that the slaughter only stopped when Federal Border Patrol Officers ignored local police leaders and confronted the shooter.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-29-22

DAHLIA LITHWICK @ SLATE: How Corrupt GOP Minority Rule Is Destroying America! — “ The Republican howls about an unruly minority of socialists and protesters who seek the removal of this president misconstrue the fact that a majority of Americans do not agree to be governed by diktat.”

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/01/richmond-to-impeachment-senate-minority-rule-rules.html

Lithwick writes:

On Monday, Kellyanne Conway responded to a reporter’s question about why the president’s public schedule of events included no function to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr., on a holiday designated to honor him. Conway decided to answer this question by claiming that Dr. King would have hated impeachment: “The president … agrees with many of the things that Dr. Martin Luther King stood for and agreed with for many years, including unity and equality,” she said. “He’s not the one trying to tear the country apart through an impeachment process and a lack of substance that really is very shameful at this point.”

If this claim—that really it’s the impeachment process that’s tearing this nation apart—sounds familiar, it’s because it was also the lament of GOP House members as impeachment unfolded there. Yes, the day before the president’s impeachment trial opens in the Senate, and on the selfsame day Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell introduced rules that will, he hopes, preclude the calling of witnesses, hearing of evidence, and any other indicia of a “trial” in the Senate trial, the GOP has fallen perfectly in line behind the “stop tearing the country apart” argument as its impeachment defense. It’s the new authoritarian’s lament.

“This is a sad day for America,” intoned Ohio Rep. Bill Johnson, as the House debated the articles of impeachment in December, before calling for a moment of silence to memorialize the 63 million Americans who voted for Trump. As Michelle Goldberg noted at the time, “On the surface it seems strange, this constant trumpeting of a vote total that is more than two million less than the total received by Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton. Trump didn’t just lose the popular vote—he lost it by a greater margin than any successful presidential candidate in American history. … But as I watched impeachment unfold, it seemed like something more than that—an assertion of whom Republicans think this country belongs to.” The Republican howls about an unruly minority of socialists and protesters who seek the removal of this president misconstrue the fact that a majority of Americans do not agree to be governed by diktat. A new CNN poll shows that 51 percent of Americans want Trump removed from office, 74 percent of them are closely watching impeachment coverage, and 69 percent want to hear witness testimony. In other words, the majority of America does not consent to authoritarian Senate procedures and rules, and it is not some small faction of illiberal Democrats who are tearing the country apart, as Conway suggests. The majority of Americans are not willing to submit to autocracy, though we will turn to the Senate Tuesday to see if the majority of Americans’ wishes are to be trammeled by Senate Republicans. Spoiler alert: It seems all but inevitable that they will be, which tells you a good deal about how the Senate represents American voters.

The Republican howls about an unruly minority of socialists and protesters who seek the removal of this president misconstrue the fact that a majority of Americans do not agree to be governed by diktat.

If you would like to see another example of what minority rule feels like, kindly turn your attention to the 22,000 people who showed up in Richmond, Virginia, for what is now being described in the media as a “peaceful” march and a triumph of peaceable assembly. Armed with assault-style weapons and body armor, militia members were seen wearing masks and carrying semi-automatic rifles outside the seat of government. The biggest star of the rally—identified by the Washington Post as Brandon Lewis—brandished his .50-caliber Barrett M82A1 rifle, as passersby expressed admiration. “This sends a strong visual message,” Lewis, cradling the firearm and decked out in a helmet and bulletproof vest, told the Post. “The government is not above us. They are us.” The Washington Post clocked another protester wearing full-body camo, with a bulletproof vest, a handgun and an AR-15–style assault rifle. The protesters were overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly male and overwhelmingly dedicated to a vision of “peace” that looks like this. They were there to refuse to abide by any democratically passed gun control measures, and they stood outside the state capitol chanting First Amendment–protected threats to oust Virginia’s democratically elected governor. More than 100 counties, cities, and towns in Virginia have declared themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries and vowed to oppose any new “unconstitutional restrictions” on guns, presumably following the lead of one of Monday’s speakers, a county sheriff who last month promised to “deputize” gun owners if lawmakers continue to push gun control measures. This nullification will be attempted despite the fact that the great majority of Virginia voters actually favor Democratic proposals to limit gun access, a Washington Post–Schar School poll found in October.

Todd Gilbert, the Republican Leader of the Virginia House of Delegates, issued a statement on Jan. 10 after the decision was taken to declare a temporary state of emergency, banning all weapons from the Capitol grounds from Friday at 5 p.m. until Tuesday at 5 p.m. Gilbert’s statement deplored that action as “disgusting and wrong.” The same Todd Gilbert reversed himself on Sunday, issuing a statement opposing protesters who would spread “white supremacist garbage,” hate, civil unrest, or violence, after multiple white supremacists and Nazis were arrested and it became clear that there was at least a possibility of violence at the march. The threat of violence is only as serious as your most recent FBI briefing, it seems. That doesn’t make for a peaceful demonstration—it puts you at the mercy of the armed marchers.

But because there was no violence in the end, we are told, the rally was “peaceful.” As Jim Geraghty at National Review noted smugly, the threatened violence never occurred, which means that the media panic (and apparently that of Todd Gilbert) was overblown. The march was apparently peaceful, he writes, because “perhaps the hateful types decided to stay away.”

Perhaps there were violent people who decided to stay away from Richmond on Monday. But there were also nonviolent people who decided they needed to stay away from Richmond on Monday. As Garrett Epps notes, those who stayed away included many other groups who had equally compelling First Amendment statements to offer:

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence had also planned to assemble and petition for gun-control legislation—as it had done in peaceful competition with gun-rights groups in previous years. This year, because of the threats of armed violence surrounding the gun-rights march, that gun-control demonstration had to be canceled. The delegate from Manassas, Lee Carter, the South’s only socialist legislator, went into hiding because of death threats. Carter had not, in fact, sponsored an anti-gun measure, but gun-rights groups spread disinformation on the internet that he had done so; his life—and his ability to function as a legislator—was endangered.

Pages from the Legislature’s page program were told to stay home. Many legislators asked their staffs to stay away or work from home. The rally forced officials to reschedule the city’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day vigil for the first time in 28 years. New Virginia Majority—one of the largest progressive groups in the commonwealth—postponed its annual MLK Day of Action due to threats from armed racist groups and because “we cannot protect our people from individuals committed to acts of violence.” Mothers Demand Action stayed off the streets and held phone-banking events, and it almost goes without saying that virtually all people of color stayed home. And so a “peaceful” march, as fêted in the media and fêted by those who seek to blur the line between First Amendment speech and Second Amendment threats, will now include in its definition mass marches in which participants are armed with assault weapons, many of whom were also wearing masks. (Only one person in a mask was arrested Monday despite the fact that hundreds were masked. She was unarmed.)

******************

I have always found ridiculous the GOP’s disingenuous claim that removal of Trump would “disenfranchise 63 million voters,” when more than 71 million voters didn’t vote for him and have basically been dismissed by Trump and the GOP who have pandered almost exclusively to the parochial interests of the minority. Included in the majority who didn’t vote for Trump are the nearly 66 million people who voted for Hillary Clinton.

It’s clear that the GOP won’t remove Trump from office no matter how overwhelming the evidence against him. But, even if he were removed, it would in no way be a “reversal” of the 2016 election.

Trump would be replaced not by Hillary Clinton or any other Democrat, but by his hand-picked GOP toady Mike Pence, who was actually elected with him. So, the most corrupt and lawless GOP President in history would be succeeded by a perhaps somewhat less overtly corrupt GOP politico.

To the extent that Trump voters wanted a regime motivated by White Nationalism, religious intolerance, hate, disenfranchisement of voters of color, intellectual dishonesty, and lots of tax breaks for the wealthy few, Pence wouldn’t disappoint them. It’s possible that Pence wouldn’t be as chummy with authoritarian dictators and wouldn’t publicly treat our allies with contempt and disrespect. He might also cut a deal with the Dems on infrastructure improvements or some other relatively non-controversial topic. And, he seems capable of speaking and writing in complete, largely grammatical sentences. But, Trump voters should be able to live with that, particularly since removal from office wouldn’t remove Trump from Twitter.

PWS

01-23-20

TRUMP SEES MASS MURDER AS OPPORTUNITY TO SPREAD LIES, HATE, RACISM, & DIVISION, WHILE TOUTING HIS “PERSONALITY CULT” — Hits On Leaders of Dayton, El Paso, While Upping Racial Tensions That Undoubtedly Will Lead To More White Supremacist Domestic Terror In The Near Future!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-lashes-out-at-beto-orourke-and-the-media-ahead-of-visits-to-el-paso-and-dayton/2019/08/07/b0aa8afc-b8fb-11e9-b3b4-2bb69e8c4e39_story.html

Ashley Parker
White House Reporter
Washington Post

From the Washington Post:

By Ashley Parker ,

Philip Rucker ,

Jenna Johnson and

Felicia Sonmez

August 8 at 12:01 AM

EL PASO — On a day when President Trump vowed to tone down his rhetoric and help the country heal following two mass slayings, he did the opposite — lacing his visits Wednesday to El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, with a flurry of attacks on local leaders and memorializing his trips with grinning thumbs-up photos.

A traditional role for presidents has been to offer comfort and solace to all Americans at times of national tragedy, but the day provided a fresh testament to Trump’s limitations in striking notes of unity and empathy.

When Trump swooped into the grieving border city of El Paso to offer condolences following the massacre of Latinos allegedly by a white supremacist, some of the city’s elected leaders and thousands of its citizens declared the president unwelcome.

In his only public remarks during the trip, Trump lashed out at Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, both Democrats, over their characterization of his visit with hospital patients in Dayton.

“We had an amazing day,” Trump said in El Paso as he concluded his visit. “As you know, we left Ohio. The love, the respect for the office of the presidency.”

Trump also praised El Paso police officers and other first responders and shook their hands, telling one female officer, “I saw you on television the other day and you were fantastic.”

None of the eight patients still being treated at University Medical Center in El Paso agreed to meet with Trump when he visited the hospital, UMC spokesman Ryan Mielke said. Two victims who already had been discharged returned to the hospital with family members to meet with the president.

“This is a very sensitive time in their lives,” Mielke said. “Some of them said they didn’t want to meet with the president. Some of them didn’t want any visitors.”

Before Trump’s visit Wednesday, however, some of the hospitalized victims accepted visits from a number of city and county elected officials, as well as Reps. Veronica Escobar (D-Tex.) and Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.).

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said the president and first lady Melania Trump met with “victims of the tragedy while at the hospital” and were “received very warmly by not just victims and their families, but by the many members of medical staff who lined the hallways to meet them. It was a moving visit for all involved.”

El Paso and Dayton were not merely the latest in the multiplying series of American mass shootings. The carnage in El Paso is being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism, with parallels between a racist manifesto posted minutes before the shooting and the president’s own anti-immigration rhetoric.

President Trump is greeted by Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio on Wednesday. (Ty Greenlees/AP)

This has thrust Trump into the center of a roiling political and societal debate, with some Democratic leaders saying the president has emboldened white supremacy and is a threat to the nation.

Former vice president Joe Biden, who is running to unseat Trump in 2020, said in a speech Wednesday, “We have a president with a toxic tongue who has publicly and unapologetically embraced a political strategy of hate, racism and division.”

When the Mayor of Dayton first saw @realDonaldTrump tweet about her pic.twitter.com/Z8YdyeebXp

— Scott Wartman (@ScottWartman) August 7, 2019

Both in Dayton and El Paso, Trump kept almost entirely out of public view, a marked break with tradition, as presidents visiting grieving communities typically offer public condolences.

Trump avoided the Oregon district where the shooting in Dayton took place, and just a short drive from Miami Valley Hospital, which he did visit. Whaley said he would not have been welcome in the Oregon District, where scores of demonstrators congregated, holding anti-Trump signs and chanting “Do something!” in a call for stricter gun laws.

Brown and Whaley described the visit by the president and first lady in favorable terms.

“They were hurting. He was comforting. He did the right things. Melania did the right things,” Brown told reporters. “And it’s his job in part to comfort people. I’m glad he did it in those hospital rooms.”

Whaley added: “I think the victims and the first responders were grateful that the president of the United States came to Dayton.”

Both Brown and Whaley, however, were also sharply critical of Trump’s divisive rhetoric and Republican resistance to gun-control legislation.

Whaley later responded to Trump’s comments about her and Brown by calling him “a bully and a coward.” She said on CNN, “It’s fine that he wants to bully me and Sen. Brown. We’re okay. We can take it.”

The traveling press corps was not allowed to observe Trump’s visit with three victims who remained hospitalized. It fell therefore to White House aide Dan Scavino to proclaim in a tweet that Trump “was treated like a Rock Star inside the hospital.”

[‘Hispanic invasion’: A white nationalist version of Texas that never existed]

Trump and the first lady also met with police officers, fire officials, trauma surgeons and nurses at the facility, which treated 23 victims of the shooting. The hospital invited victims who had already been released to come back and meet with the president and the first lady.

“It was an authentic visit,” hospital president Mike Uhl said, praising Trump as “attentive, present and extremely accommodating.”

Trump offered his own affirmation on Twitter: “It was a warm & wonderful visit. Tremendous enthusiasm & even Love.”

Grisham said journalists were kept out of the hospital visit because staff did not want it to devolve into “a photo op” and overwhelm the victims with media.

The White House, however, distributed its own photos of Trump smiling for pictures with first responders, along with a slickly produced video, helping make the president the center of attention.

Trump’s reception in El Paso was less hospitable, and not only because so many local leaders have said they believe his rhetoric inspired Saturday’s slayings at a shopping center near the U.S.-Mexico border. Although he won the state of Texas in the 2016 election, Trump captured just 25.7 percent of the vote in El Paso County, the worst performance recorded here by a major-party presidential candidate in at least two decades.

An ever-growing makeshift memorial has sprouted near the shooting scene that features piles of colorful flowers, a row of white crosses, a line of prayer candles, as well as messages to the president. “Mr. T, Respect our sorrow and grief. Do not ‘invade’ our city,” reads one note, a reference to Trump’s repeated warnings of a migrant “invasion” at the border.

Just before Trump arrived in El Paso — where he and the first lady met with law enforcement personnel at an emergency operations center following their hospital visit — several hundred people gathered in opposition to his trip .

Congregating under the hot midday sun in a baseball field for an “El Paso Strong” event, some held homemade signs. “Go home! You are NOT welcome here!” read one. “This was Trump-inspired terrorism,” read another. “Trump repent,” read a third.

At one point, the crowd chanted, “Send him back!” — a nod to the incendiary “Send her back!” chant about Somali-born Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) at one of Trump’s campaign rallies last month.

“We feel like right now we should be in mourning, and we feel like we should be collecting our thoughts, we should be doing vigils and we should be gathering together as a community. We believe it is an insult that the president is coming here,” said one of the organizers, Jaime Candelaria, a 37-year-old singer and songwriter.

[‘Be quiet!’: Trump claims Beto O’Rourke uses a ‘phony name to indicate Hispanic heritage’]

Escobar said onstage, “In this moment, someone is visiting … I felt it was important that we come together and not focus on the visitor, but focus on El Paso.” She added, “We will not stop resisting the hate! Resisting the bigotry! Resisting the racism!”

In the crowd at the El Paso Strong event was Shawn Nixon, 20, a Walmart employee who was at work restocking the school supplies area when the gunman opened fire Saturday morning. At the sound of the shots, Nixon said he fell to the ground, pulling with him a young child who had been shopping with his mother.

“All I’m just asking for Donald Trump, for the president, to do is to say ‘sorry,’ ” Nixon said. “He created this crime. He created it because of his words. Every time that he’s on TV, that’s what he’s doing.”

During his flight home from El Paso, Trump attacked Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.), the twin brother of presidential candidate Julián Castro, tweeting that he “makes a fool of himself every time he opens his mouth.” The congressman has come under scrutiny for publicizing a list of San Antonio donors who have contributed to Trump and accusing them of “fueling a campaign of hate.”

On Saturday in El Paso, authorities said, a man opened fire inside the Walmart, killing 22 people and injuring two dozen others. At 1:05 a.m. Sunday, a gunman killed nine people and injured 27 others outside a bar in Dayton, police said.

All week, Trump has zigzagged between two competing instincts: unite and divide.

In the immediate aftermath of the shootings, Trump remained cloistered at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., issuing only short statements on Twitter. Back at the White House on Monday, the president delivered a scripted speech in which he preached harmony.

“Now is the time to set destructive partisanship aside — so destructive — and find the courage to answer hatred with unity, devotion and love,” Trump said, reading from teleprompters.

The president did not heed his own advice, however. Late Tuesday night, he took to Twitter to attack Beto O’Rourke, the former El Paso congressman running for president who has said Trump bears some responsibility for the shooting there because of his demonization of Latino immigrants.

Trump tweeted: “Beto (phony name to indicate Hispanic heritage) O’Rourke, who is embarrassed by my last visit to the Great State of Texas, where I trounced him, and is now even more embarrassed by polling at 1% in the Democrat Primary, should respect the victims & law enforcement — & be quiet!”

Then, as he departed the White House on Wednesday morning en route to Ohio, Trump told reporters he would refrain from attacking his adversaries during the trip.

“I would like to stay out of the political fray,” the president said. Asked about his rhetoric, he said he thinks it “brings people together” and added, “I think we have toned it down.”

[Gannett building in McLean evacuated after reports of man with weapon]

That detente lasted only a few minutes. Answering a reporter’s question about Biden, Trump pounced. “Joe is a pretty incompetent guy,” the president said. “Joe Biden has truly lost his fastball, that I can tell you.”

By the time the president had left Dayton, he was back on Twitter and sniping at Democrats, a tirade triggered by his consumption of cable television news aboard Air Force One.

“Watching Sleepy Joe Biden making a speech. Sooo Boring! The LameStream Media will die in the ratings and clicks with this guy,” the president wrote.

Then he lashed out at Brown and Whaley, falsely accusing them of “totally misrepresenting” the reception he received at Miami Valley Hospital. He alleged that their news conference immediately after the president’s visit “was a fraud.”

But neither Brown nor Whaley said Trump received a poor reception at the hospital.

When Whaley first saw Trump’s tweets criticizing her and Brown, she paused for a moment to read them on a cellphone and said, “I don’t — I mean, I’m really confused. We said he was treated, like, very well. So, I don’t know why they’re talking about ‘misrepresenting.’

“Oh, well, you know,” the mayor added with a shrug. “He lives in his world of Twitter.”

Parker and Johnson reported from El Paso, and Rucker and Sonmez reported from Washington. Arelis R. Hernández in Dayton, Robert Moore in El Paso, and Colby Itkowitz and John Wagner in Washington contributed to this report.

*************************************

Totally lacking in human decency. Totally unqualified for any office, let alone the highest one in the land. Will enough folks ”wise up” and stand up to this cowardly bully before it’s too late for all of us?

PWS

08-09-19

SHOCKER: Trump’s Shockingly Disingenuous & Inappropriate Speech About El Paso Is Perceived By Many El Pasoans As . . . Shockingly Disingenuous & Inappropriate! — Fails To Mention Or Reach Out To Majority Latino/Hispanic Community Targeted By His Consistent Message Of Hate & Dehumanization!

https://apple.news/AvS_y1RcRTB66pEMhqUbLPg

Suzanne Gamboa reports for NBC News:

Some El Paso residents outraged by Trump’s speech that ‘failed to mention Latinos’

EL PASO, Texas — President Donald Trump condemned white supremacy from the White House Monday, but left Hispanics and Latinos out of his speech.

It’s a significant omission and a stark difference from the written document that has been linked to the 21-year-old gunman who allegedly opened fire on weekend shoppers Saturday at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. The shooter’s alleged document mentions a Hispanic invasion, the increasing Hispanic population and a decision by its writer to target Hispanics after reading a right-wing conspiracy theory asserting Europe’s white population is being replaced with non-Europeans.

The death toll in the El Paso attack, which is being investigated as domestic terrorism, rose to 22 on Monday.

“We’ve got dead bodies. The majority are Hispanic. Some are foreign nationals from Mexico and we got a manifesto describing what he intends to do and why,” said state Rep. Cesar Blanco, a Democrat who represents El Paso.

“I think it’s telling; he failed to mention Latinos,” Blanco said of the president. “He failed to mention that our community is majority Latino, but it doesn’t surprise me.”

The Mexican government confirmed that eight of the victims identified so far were Mexican citizens, not unexpected considering the city of El Paso and surrounding communities of El Paso County, Texas are about 83 percent Latino.

Add to that the number of shoppers and workers from Mexico who legally cross the international border each day to shop, dine, work and visit family. The Walmart is part of a complex of retail outlets, with a Sam’s Club and the Cielo Vista mall next door. There is also a theater close by along with many restaurants and hotels.

Trump did say in the speech that he had sent his condolences to Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, because eight citizens from Mexico were among the dead. But he didn’t make specific mention of El Paso’s residents of Latino descent, who comprise the majority of the community.

Jeramey Maynard, 26, a local artist and restaurant manager, said Trump’s response has been largely political, exemplified by the president’s call to combine gun regulation reforms with immigration reform.

“He’s choosing his words without saying Hispanic or immigrant and making it about other things,” Maynard said. “He’s been having these racist comments. When it comes time to defend the community, of course we are not going to hear him say anything about the Hispanic community.”

Maynard added that he thought Trump “would paint it with the broadest brush he can. Why would he say something he thinks supports the Democratic Party?”

‘Target on our back’

Trump launched his 2016 election campaign with disparaging words, seen by many as racist, about people in the United States who have come from Mexico.

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re not sending you, they’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems,” Trump said to a largely white crowd at Trump Tower in New York. “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists and some, I assume, are good people …”

Some defended the president saying he was referring only to immigrants who commit crimes and not speaking of Latinos in the United States as a whole.

But then Trump went on to question the ability of a U.S. district court judge to be impartial because he is of Mexican descent.

Trump’s political rallies have often been filled with chants of “Build the Wall” in reference to his pledge to build a wall across the entire border and make Mexico pay for it.

He responded to the influx of Central Americans seeking asylum by separating children from their parents and allowing border officials to hold them in chain-link pens.

In the past several days, many Latinos have been vocal about what they see as a through line between the president’s rhetoric and the shooting in El Paso.

Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat whose district includes El Paso, said she had hoped Trump would have apologized for his rhetoric, which she said put a target on the city’s back.

“I would encourage him to do that,” she said.

The city has seen stark evidence of fear that exists among families because of the Trump hardline on immigration, according to several residents.

Marisa Limón Garza, deputy director of the Hope Border Institute, said the organization fielded calls from families who were directly affected by the shootings and families who were looking for loved ones.

They were afraid to go to the hospital or to interact with police and border enforcement, who responded to the shooting.

“If you are undocumented or of a mixed status household, the last place you want to go is where there is a tremendous amount of police presence,” Limón Garza said. Immigrants often are part of families that may include a mix of citizens, legal residents and people without legal status.

Her organization has been working with families to help them get the help they need, but she said it is a daily occurrence for people without legal permission to be in the country to be afraid to go to the hospital.

“This is just another layer of psychological trauma that this community has to face when we have already been ground zero for so many other challenges,” she said.

‘The illness is racism and xenophobia’

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus pushed Trump to commit to no longer using “invasion“ to describe Hispanic communities, immigrants or refugees to the country.

The caucus also asked the Trump administration to “acknowledge the threat of white supremacy and domestic terrorism” and to “combat this state of emergency head-on” with federal resources.

Rep. Joaquín Castro, D-Texas, twin brother of presidential candidate Julián Castro, said in a statement that the caucus is grateful Trump addressed the El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, tragedies.

But he said, “this does not make up for the years of attacks by President Trump on Hispanic Americans and our immigrant communities.”

“During the president’s address, he blamed the Internet, news media , mental health and video games, among others … Unfortunately, he did not take responsibility for the xenophobic rhetoric that he has frequently used to demonize and dehumanize Hispanic Americans and immigrants over the past four years.”

But Limón Garza said the tragedy has not been confined to immigrants.

“Here in El Paso we are a community that is over 80 percent Latino and that means people that are immigrant themselves and then people who have been here for generations,” she said. “It’s clear it was not just a random attack. It’s clear that this cannot be called someone with a mental illness. This illness is racism and xenophobia.”

Follow NBC Latino on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

****************************

Trump delivered a dishonest, divisive, and totally insincere condemnation of White Supremacy designed and delivered primarily to reassure his White Supremacist supporters that he’s really still on their side.

His ridiculously inappropriate upcoming visit to El Paso is a totally dishonest and divisive self-promotion stunt which all residents should either ignore or peacefully protest.

There is no human good, empathy, or redeeming quality in Donald Trump. Decent folks have to stop looking for that which doesn’t (and never did) exist and band together and use what remains of our Constitutional system to remove him from office before he destroys our country and everyone in it. It won’t be easy, but the lives of generations to come and the world’s future are at stake.

PWS

08-06-19

MITCH McCONNELL & HIS GOP CRONIES ARE INSURING THAT OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN WILL CONTINUE TO BE IN UNNECESSARY DANGER OF RIGHT-WING TERRORIST GUN VIOLENCE NO MATTER WHO IS PRESIDENT – Judges Can Be “Stooges” Too, & That’s The Litmus Test For The NRA’s Wholly-Owned Subsidiary, GOP Enterprises & Its “CEO!”

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/senate-republicans-gun-control-judges.html

Mark Joseph Stern writes for Slate:

The Republican Party has no real plan to stop the epidemic of mass shootings that has turned American life into a gruesome Hobbesian nightmare. It’s easy to see why. All available evidence confirms that the guns are the problem: The United States’ patchwork of lax firearms laws allows Americans to slaughter civilians with astonishing ease. To stop mass shootings, lawmakers will need to tighten both federal and state gun laws, which Republicans refuse to do. We must remain sitting ducks, waiting to learn—in Sen. Marco Rubio’s memorable phrasing—whose “turn” it is next to be massacred.

Shortly after the El Paso, Texas, shooting on Saturday, the New York Times published an article that inadvertently presaged Republicans’ nonresponse to the imminent bloodbath. Senate Republicans, the Times noted, have passed virtually no legislation of any kind so far this year. In the face of mounting crises, the Senate’s GOP leaders have allowed little deliberation and few votes. They certainly won’t bring H.R. 8, a universal background check bill that already passed the House of Representatives, to the floor.

Instead, the Senate operates as “an approval factory” for Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, the Times found. Under Trump, the Senate has confirmed two Supreme Court justices, 99 district courts judges, and 43 federal court of appeals judges. Today, nearly 1 in 4 judges on the powerful courts of appeals was nominated by Trump. The president is reshaping the judiciary in the image of the Republican Party’s far-right conservative wing.

Today, nearly 1 in 4 judges on the powerful courts of appeals was nominated by Trump.

It would be a mistake to claim that the Senate has taken no action on gun control. While the House passes gun safety measures, the Senate installs judges who are eager to strike such measures down. Republican lawmakers have taken the long view: They may lose majorities in Congress and state legislatures, but Trump’s judges will sit on the bench for decades to come. Any future firearms restrictions may be invalidated; many existing gun safety laws are in serious jeopardy. The GOP may have no plan to stop mass shootings, but it does have a plan to ensure that Democrats can’t stop them, either.

To understand the dynamic here, it’s important to remember that the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment decisions have been fairly narrow. In 2008’s District of Columbia v. Heller, the court ruled that the amendment protects law-abiding individuals’ right to keep handguns in the home for self-defense. In 2010’s McDonald v. Chicago, the court held that this right applies against state and local governments. Thus, the Constitution prevents the government from outlawing the possession of a handgun in the home. Under current precedent, the Second Amendment poses no threat to the vast majority of proposed gun regulations.

Try as it might, the National Rifle Association and its allies have failed to persuade the Supreme Court to go any further. The court has declined to hear challenges to a ban on assault weapons, a requirement that guns be stored in a lockbox, a prohibition on concealed carry, and a mandatory waiting period between firearm purchases. A majority of the justices have simply refused to expand Heller and McDonald to curb Americans’ ability to protect themselves from the gun massacres that plague us today.

Trump’s judges are desperate to change that. Start with his Supreme Court nominees, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. In 2017, Gorsuch joined Justice Clarence Thomas in declaring that states may not ban civilians from carrying concealed weapons in public. Their dissent accused the court of treating “the Second Amendment as a disfavored right.” By joining Thomas’ opinion, Gorsuch signaled that he would force every state to allow concealed carry—even though states with looser concealed carry laws have more gun deaths. Gorsuch and Thomas also dissented from the Supreme Court’s refusal to block the Trump administration’s ban on bump stocks, which were used in the 2017 Las Vegas shooting.

Kavanaugh, too, proved to be a gun extremist during his tenure on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. In a 2011 dissent, Kavanaugh declared that D.C.’s ban on assault weapons infringed upon the Second Amendment. The District argued that the ban would save lives, since these guns are disproportionately used in mass shootings. Kavanaugh, however, claimed that Heller established a right to purchase assault weapons because there “is no meaningful or persuasive constitutional distinction” between semi-automatic handguns and rifles. (In fact, a typical semi-automatic rifle bullet exits the muzzle with far more powerthan the typical semi-automatic handgun bullet, making it substantially more devastating to the human body.)

Trump’s lower-court nominees are now openly lobbying the Supreme Court to strike down more gun laws. These judges have advanced an ambitious argument that limitations on the right to bear arms must pass strict scrutiny, the most stringent constitutional standard available. A strict scrutiny test would effectively kill any legislation that was not “narrowly tailored” to advance a compelling state interest—and preventing a mass shooting may not be a good enough reason.

In July 2018, four of Trump’s nominees to the 5^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals condemned a federal law that bars licensed dealers from selling handguns to out-of-state residents. The law does not ban interstate gun transfers; it merely requires handguns to be transferred to a dealer in the state where the buyer resides.

There is nothing especially burdensome about this law. Congress intended dealers to ensure that every handgun transfer complies with the laws of the state where the buyer resides. A panel of judges for the 5^thCircuit upheld the law, and the full court voted not to disturb that ruling. Yet seven judges, including four Trump nominees, dissented, arguing that the law is unconstitutional. Judge James Ho, one of Trump’s most outwardly partisan nominees, scorned the government’s reasoning that “to protect against the violations of the few, we must burden the constitutional rights of the many.” Ho applied strict scrutiny, arguing that because there are “less restrictive alternatives,” like “better information sharing,” the law is not narrowly tailored.

In December, Judge Stephanos Bibas, another Trump nominee, wrote a similar dissent to a decision by the 3^rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A panel of judges upheld New Jersey’s ban on large-capacity magazines (or LCMs). The majority noted that LCMs “have been used in numerous mass shootings” and result “in increased fatalities and injuries.” Without access to LCMs, shooters “must reload more frequently,” giving bystanders opportunities to flee or intervene. Applying intermediate scrutiny, the majority found that the New Jersey law “reasonably fits the State’s interest in promoting public safety.”

Bibas’ dissent could’ve been ghostwritten by the NRA’s lawyers. “The Second Amendment is an equal part of the Bill of Rights,” he wrote. “We may not water it down and balance it away based on our own sense of wise policy.” Bibas argued that the New Jersey law impaired the “core right” of self-defense and must therefore be subject to strict scrutiny. He found that the statute flunked that test, dismissing the “armchair proposition that smaller magazines force shooters to pause more often to reload.”

Many of Trump’s nominees appear to agree that some unknown number of people must be shot to death before the government can limit access to firearms.

“Armchair proposition”? Here, Bibas questioned a fact that countless mass shooting survivors can confirm: When a shooter pauses to reload, his intended victims have more time to escape. Bibas’ casuistry demonstrates a flaw in the conservative approach to the Second Amendment. Trump nominees keep demanding that any firearm restriction be subject to heightened scrutiny. But this test is a chilling mismatch for the Second Amendment, because when we talk about “tailoring” gun restrictions, we are really asking how many people must die before the government can justify its laws.

U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez, a George W. Bush nominee, illustrated this grisly truth in June 2017. Benitez blocked a California measure that outlawed large-capacity magazines, finding that it failed heightened scrutiny. Why? “Of the ten mass shooting events that occurred in California,” Benitez wrote, “only two involved the use of a magazine holding more than 10 rounds.” The ban’s “marginal good effects”—that is, the lives it would’ve saved—did not justify it. Because “only two” California mass shootings involved LCMs, the law was not reasonably tailored to protect the public.

The next year, a man walked into a bar in Thousand Oaks, California, and killed 12 people. He used large-capacity magazines that he purchased legally. The weapons would have been illegal if Benitez had not blocked California’s ban on LCMs.

Many of Trump’s nominees appear to agree that some unknown number of people must be shot to death before the government can limit access to firearms. Others take an even more extreme approach. In his 2011 dissent, Kavanaugh suggested that courts must look to “text, history, and tradition” to gauge the legality of gun control laws. They cannot deploy any kind of “interest-balancing test.” Unless a gun restriction is “longstanding,” Kavanaugh wrote, it is unconstitutional. This standard—which Ho cited favorably—would prohibit the government from experimenting with any new gun safety law. We would be stuck with the small set of regulations deemed “longstanding” by the courts. No matter how many bodies piled up, we would be helpless to protect ourselves against the butchery.

Trump’s judges are hoping the Supreme Court will kickstart this Second Amendment revolution. They might not have to wait long. This fall, the justices will hear a challenge to New York City’s restriction on the transportation of guns outside the home (unless it’s dismissed as moot). They may use the opportunity to enshrine a new Second Amendment standard into law. The conservative majority could demand that gun laws survive strict scrutiny. Or it could hold that any law that’s not “longstanding” be struck down, as Kavanaugh prefers.

Whatever the justices decide, scores of Trump judges in the lower courts will be waiting to vigorously enforce their decision, knocking down as many gun restrictions as possible. Republican senators will continue to confirm judicial nominees at a record pace. To the extent that the GOP has a plan to address mass shootings, this is it: stack the courts with more judges who will prevent American from addressing gun violence. Trump and the Senate are working together to build a judiciary that renders our government permanently powerless to take action against the bloodshed.

*****************************************

No perversion too great, no cause too grotesque for the GOP and their “Head Turtle.” While Mitch & Co. might think that their kids, because of their White Supremacist lineage, will be immune from bullets fired by White Supremacists and other hate mongers, there is no scientific evidence that is true. On the other hand, to be in today’s GOP is to ignore scientific evidence (except for the pseudo-science behind racism and restrictionist immigration policies).

At some point after the U.S. disappears as a nation, historians will look back in awe at how stupid a supposedly advanced country could be by empowering scam artists like Trump, McConnell, and the GOP. Indeed, “fiddling while Rome burns” would be an apt analogy for most of today’s GOP on gun control, immigration, climate change, heath care, debt control, income inequality, realistic taxes, retirement security, infrastructure, education, global cooperation, trade, and a host of other pressing issues.

PWS

08-05-19

THE DAILY INTELLIGENCER: AMERICA’S “TOADY IN WAITING”

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/12/mike-pence-first-toady.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily Intelligencer – December 6, 2017&utm_term=Subscription List – Daily Intelligencer (1 Year)

Ed Kilgore reports for The Daily Intelligencer in NY Maggie:

“Most reactions to McKay Coppins’s vast new profile of Vice-President Mike Pence have focused on an October 2016 incident wherein the then-candidate for veep offered to replace Donald Trump at the top of the ticket in the wake of the Access Hollywood revelations, which for a moment looked likely to bring the mogul down.

But the far more enduring picture Coppins paints is very different: Mike Pence as a man who decided early on in his relationship with Trump that no one could look in the mirror at night and see a browner nose.

In Pence, Trump has found an obedient deputy whose willingness to suffer indignity and humiliation at the pleasure of the president appears boundless. When Trump comes under fire for describing white nationalists as “very fine people,” Pence is there to assure the world that he is actually a man of great decency. When Trump needs someone to fly across the country to an NFL game so he can walk out in protest of national-anthem kneelers, Pence heads for Air Force Two.

This willingness to serve as First Toady was evident in Pence’s initial interview — on a Trump golf course — as a potential running mate:

Pence had called Kellyanne Conway, a top Trump adviser, whom he’d known for years, and asked for her advice on how to handle the meeting. Conway had told him to talk about “stuff outside of politics,” and suggested he show his eagerness to learn from the billionaire. “I knew they would enjoy each other’s company,” Conway told me, adding, “Mike Pence is someone whose faith allows him to subvert his ego to the greater good.”

True to form, Pence spent much of their time on the course kissing Trump’s ring. You’re going to be the next president of the United States, he said. It would be the honor of a lifetime to serve you. Afterward, he made a point of gushing to the press about Trump’s golf game. “He beat me like a drum,” Pence confessed, to Trump’s delight.

This set the pattern for Pence, notwithstanding anything he might have contemplated during the brief but intense hours after the Access Hollywoodrevelations.

What makes Coppins’s take on Pence especially valuable is his understanding that sucking up to Trump was entirely in keeping with the Hoosier governor’s sense that God was working through the unlikely medium of the heathenish demagogue to lift up Pence and his godly agenda to the heights of power. Just as it has been forgotten that the Access Hollywood tapes nearly brought Trump down, it has rarely been understood outside Indiana that Pence was down and possibly out when Trump reached out to him to join his ticket.

The very fact that he is standing behind a lectern bearing the vice-presidential seal is, one could argue, a loaves-and-fishes-level miracle. Just a year earlier, he was an embattled small-state governor with underwater approval ratings, dismal reelection prospects, and a national reputation in tatters.

Pence’s apparent demise, moreover, came after his careful plans to position himself to run for president in 2016 went awry via his clumsy handling of a signature “religious liberty” bill and a fatal underestimation of the resulting backlash from the business community.

All of a sudden, he was lifted from this slough of despond and placed a heartbeat away from total power thanks to his ability to, as Kellyanne Conway put it, “subvert his ego” in the presence of his deliverer, whose own ego has no limits. He clearly has not forgotten this lesson of an ambition fed by self-abasement rather than self-promotion. And according to Coppins, he even has a theological justification for blind loyalty to Trump:

Marc Short, a longtime adviser to Pence and a fellow Christian, told me that the vice president believes strongly in a scriptural concept evangelicals call “servant leadership.” The idea is rooted in the Gospels, where Jesus models humility by washing his disciples’ feet and teaches, “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave.”

Usually the idea is to be the “slave” of one’s followers and of the less fortunate, not the slave of the billionaire POTUS, but Pence has the “humility” part down pat.

Pence’s presumed reward in this redemption story could, of course, extend beyond the power he exercises as one of the more influential vice-presidents in history, and as Trump’s designated mediator with the Christian right and with those Republican elected officials who aren’t themselves in the great man’s retinue. He would be the obvious successor to Trump in 2024, when he will still be a relatively youthful 65 — whether or not Trump wins a second term in 2020. And in the meantime, as in the panic-stricken hours after the Access Hollywood tapes were released, Republicans will look to Pence as a reassuring and unifying figure whenever Trump’s presidency is endangered, whether it’s by the Mueller investigation or his own erratic conduct.

Pence has indeed come a long way since he was airlifted out of what was probably a losing gubernatorial race to the role of worshipful sidekick to Donald Trump. And he’s earned his actual and potential power via a habit of slavish loyalty that he may consider godly, but others find infernally corrupt if effective.”

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I’ve called Pence a sycophant. But, sycophant, toady, you get the picture: spineless, and when you get beyond the disgustingly un-Christian and un-Jesus brand of intolerant religious zealotry that Pence passes off for Christianity (thus giving Christians a “bad name”) you get a guy that no thoughtful American should want for President. Doesn’t, of course, mean that he won’t be President; just that he shouldn’t be.

Now, there is a school of thought around “The Swamp” that “Mikey the Toady” is “going down” along with The Trumpster in “Russiagate,” leaving us with the “Weaselly Badger” Paul Ryan as President. Before you get too excited about that prospect, however, best to read the following article to understand that in addition to being a spineless coward who isn’t as smart as he and his backers think he is, Ryan is a “Joint Venture” (50-50 ownership for you non-corporate types) of the National Rifle Association and the Koch Brothers. Yeah, I know that this is a “fake news” satirical piece by none other than the New Yorker’s Andy Borowitz. Sadly, however, it contains more accuracy than a standard White House press briefing by Sarah Huckabee Sanders (a disturbingly low standard to be sure — where oh where is “Spicey” when we need him?). In the end, he could turn out to be just as damaging to America and the world as Trump and Pence.

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/koch-brothers-and-nra-reach-timeshare-agreement-over-ownership-of-paul-ryan

“WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a unique accord, the billionaire Koch brothers and the National Rifle Association have reached a timeshare agreement over the ownership of House Speaker Paul Ryan, representatives of both parties have confirmed.

Speaking on behalf of the Kochs, Charles Koch said that he contacted the N.R.A.’s executive director, Wayne LaPierre, with the timeshare proposal “so that we could all get the maximum enjoyment out of owning Paul.”

The arrangement is intended to minimize conflicts between the Kochs and the gun group that have arisen in the past when both co-owners have wanted to use Ryan at the same time, Koch said.

“I said to Wayne, ‘This is craziness,’ ” he said. “ ‘Let’s work something out where you get Paul half the year, and we’ll take him the other half.’ ”

Under the timeshare deal, the Kochs will have the exclusive use of Ryan during the months when tax cuts and environmental deregulation are put to a vote, while the N.R.A. will have him for the months when gun legislation is to be defeated.

Additionally, each co-owner is responsible for insuring that Ryan is well maintained and in good condition when the other’s period of using him commences.

Koch indicated that, if the timeshare agreement is a success, the two parties are likely to work out a similar deal for their longtime joint ownership of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.”

So, what’s a self-respecting country to do? The answer is actually pretty obvious. Stop putting Republicans in elective office. No, that won’t cure all the country’s ills; indeed, just repairing the damage already done by this Administration could take decades.

But, at least we’ll have some folks in office who are working for the common good and trying to solve the nation’s and the world’s problems (yes, amazingly, they are interrelated) rather than actively making them worse every day. And, that would be a start!

PWS

121-08-17

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

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David Lauter in the LA Times:

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