States in U.S. Try to Quash Democracy – Part II

Updates and new states in their democracy issues:

Florida: Gov. Ron DeSantis begged for federal assistance in disasters, but he voted against $9.7 billion in aid to New York and New Jersey after they suffered from Hurricane Sandy in 2013. Just been sworn in as a House member, he said he didn’t believe in the “put it on the credit card mentality.” No problem with credit cards if help is for Florida. DeSantis also turned down $350 million for assistance to people in climate funding.

Abby Vesoulis vividly described the hurricane’s damage from 125 mph winds, including in areas not formerly affected by hurricanes. Idalia is the first hurricane since DeSantis orchestrated the rewrites of insurance law after Hurricane Ian, creating greater difficulty for victims to sue insurers for failing to pay claims for home damage. More hurricane descriptions here.

Georgia: Gov. Brian Kemp refuses to call a special session for Republican legislators to get rid of Fulton County DA Fani Willis. A new GOP law allows lawmakers to dump DAs who annoy them by accusing them of violating the oath of office. Kemp said that “some inside and outside of this building may have forgotten that” they are “to follow the law and the Constitution.” The fight isn’t over: Republicans plan hearings to investigate Willis’ use of funds.

North Carolina: The state Judicial Standards Commission is investigating and threatening to sanction state Supreme Court justice Anita Earls, the only Black woman on the court, because she discussed “implicit bias” and called for more Blacks and more women to make arguments before the court. Earls is suing the commission, citing her First Amendment right to free speech while protecting herself from the investigation and punishment for her statements. Last March, the commission also investigated her for an anonymous complaint about her disclosing confidential information under discussion in the court.

Alabama: The GOP fury about election fraud ends when it’s a member of their own party, especially a state legislator. Republican state Rep. David Cole was arrested for fraudulently voting at an unauthorized location, using someone else’s address as a resident for his election. The GOP has backed his election; Cole’s opposing Libertarian candidate pointed out the fraud and the legislator’s ineligibility to run from district. Alabama’s Secretary of State certified Cole as a candidate, and Cole’s colleagues ignored any problems with his residency—and fraud.

Nebraska: Gov. Jim Pillen is copying Oklahoma’s anti-transgender executive order with what he calls a “Women’s Bill of Rights,” asserting that “a person’s biological sex is defined at birth,” which can’t be changed. The order uses Pillen’s personal definitions of “woman, “girl”, “man,” and “boy.” It defines a female as a “person whose biological reproductive system is designed to produce ova” and a male as a “person whose biological reproductive system is designed to fertilize the ova of a female.” Male is “defined solely through its relationship to the female reproductive system,” according to out bisexual state Sen. Megan Hunt who has a transgender child. (My question is how Pillen defines an intersex person with both “reproductive systems.”)

Oklahoma: Democrats are seeking an impeachment probe of Ryan Walters, the state’s superintendent of public instruction, after two weeks of bomb threats to Tulsa’s schools. Threats began after Walters reposted a lie from Libs on TikTok about a high school librarian’s “woke” ideology, one of his “pattern of inflammatory language” in his attempt to make all state public schools religious after he succeeded with a state Catholic charter school.

Wisconsin: A lawsuit accuses Republicans of trying to nullify the election of a liberal state Supreme Court justice by telling her to recuse herself from hearing redistricting lawsuits to avoid gerrymandering in new maps. Republicans complain that the newly-elected justice has voiced criticism about existing maps but aren’t concerned about the large number of opinions from conservative justices regarding cases they may see in the court. Republicans have sufficient numbers in the legislative bodies for impeachment and conviction.

Michigan: Sixteen Republicans have felony charges for serving as fake electors in the 2020 presidential election. They include state GOP officials, an RNC member, mayor, town clerk, and school board member. With eight felony charges, a school board member, Amy Facchinello, faces a recall.

Arizona: The state must pay $2.1 million to the federal government for damage done to federal and tribal land from former. Gov. Doug Ducey paying $95 million to install a four-mile wall of 3,000 shipping containers at the Mexico border to block migrants and another $64 million to tear them down and transport them. The remaining 2,200 containers are for sale. The settlement will be used by the U.S. Forest Service to remedy damage. Texas still has several hundreds of feet of containers on the border near El Paso and Eagle Pass.

Maricopa County (AZ) Republican Committee voted to ask the state GOP to cancel the state’s primary system and hold its own vote on one day—only in-person, no mail-in, a hand-count of the ballots, and managed by the party. And they want the state party to pay the $15 million for the process; currently the state GOP has only $144,000. State law permits political parties to opt out of state-run presidential primary elections. If the state party agrees, they are responsible for finding staffing poll locations. Republicans claim they are stopping election fraud—non-existent, according to the highly expensive audit after the last presidential election.

Texas: Judges are using temporary injunctions to knock down Gov. Greg Abbott’s new punitive laws:

Books ratings: A federal judge appointed by former Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) ruled against the law that anyone not marking books sold to schools for “sexual content” will be banned from future sales. The lawsuit stated an unconstitutional restraint on the freedom to read and an untenable burden on book vendors tasked with rating millions of books. The law also permitted the Texas Education Agency to review the vendors’ ratings, forcing the TEA’s ratings on the vendor.

Drag shows: A Reagan-appointed federal judge temporarily blocked the criminalization of public drag shows, ruling that the law likely “violated the First Amendment” and caused “irreparable harm” to the plaintiffs. The judge said his final decision would come two to four weeks after the hearing. Texas is one of six states restricting drag performances; Florida, Montana, and Tennessee have blocked these laws.  

Removal of cities’ power: A Travis County judge declared a new state law unconstitutional that prevents cities and counties from passing ordinances going further than state laws. Called the “Death Star bill,” it may still go into effect, but the ruling eases state lawsuits against challenged ordinances. The new state law blocks ordinances providing sick leave to workers, protections for tenants facing evictions, and mandatory water breaks for construction workers.   

Transgender healthcare: In one loss for democracy and human rights, the state Supreme Court ruling permits the state to ban gender-affirming care for minors, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy, starting on September 1. Exceptions are for intersex patients and some minors already receiving gender-affirming care who will be forced to “wean off” any drugs for treatment. Other a dozen other states are moving toward this restriction, and a new advisory from Canada warns LGBTQ+ citizens from traveling to the U.S. because of the record number of anti-LGBTQ legislation.  

A federal lawsuit against Texas barriers in the Rio Grande River to keep migrants from crossing the southern border is still not decided. Focusing on brutal treatment of asylum seekers, Abbott has spent $4 billion of the $10 billion granted for “Operation Lone Star.” Part of it is for wire razor fencing and four-foot-wide buoys joined with circular saws on the Rio Grande River which are anchored to the river bottom with 68 concrete blocks weighing 3,000 pounds and nets underneath the buoys to prevent swimming beneath them. They rotate so that people cannot climb over them. At least two bodies have been found. Abbott also buses migrants to blue states, most recently in the middle of California’s Tropical Storm Hillary. Eighty percent of Abbott’s buoys are on the Mexican side, violating a 1970 U.S.-Mexico treaty putting the international boundary in the middle of the Rio Grande.

Abbott has been forced to disband the intelligence wing of Texas National Guard intelligence wing doing illegal surveillance of migrants in Mexico for Operation Lone Star. Two of at least four intelligence officers facing administrative discipline blame senior leaders for setting them up. The two of them warned the leaders about the surveillance legality, but the top brass refused to stop their mission.

 Another National Guard member deployed by Abbott, fired across the Rio Grande border into Mexico, injuring a 37-year-old Mexican man.  In January, a Guard member with Operation Lone Star shot another migrant in the shoulder but claimed he was wrestling with him. The wounded man, supported by other migrants, said the shot came from the kitchen into the living room.

Not enough room now for more Texas anti-democracy moves, but one more story from the state:

The Katy Independent School District (TX) with a population of over 85,000 students, banned new library books in all schools after a board member cited a parent complaining about Itty-Bitty Kitty-Corn, a cat that wants to be a unicorn. With starred reviews, the book is one in a series about friendship and accepting oneself, called “sexually explicit” in the complaint with other falsehoods. Winner of many prestigious awards, author Shannon Hale has written over 40 books.

 

More Indictment Stories, GOP in the States

The games start. Mark Meadows, chief of staff for Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) when he was in the White House, asked for his RICO charges on two counts to be moved from Fulton County (GA) to federal court where he plans to ask the case be dismissed. The indictment alleges Meadows pressured state legislators in two swing states and Georgia election officials. Meadows claims everything was done as part of his job, but pressuring states to change their votes doesn’t fit in that category. Meanwhile, he’s still part of Georgia’s Notorious Nineteen (right).

One mystery has been settled: a Fulton County clerk admitted to mistakenly posting “sample” document before the grand jury finished its exchanges and votes. The clerk’s office explained it was running a test of the system with a “sample working document.” That document, however, had the same charges from the grand jury. DDT’s attorneys are claiming “constitutional violations.”

A flash from the past: six months ago, DDT bragged that Fulton County’s grand jury had exonerated him—“Total exoneration.” Rational people knew his claim was absurd, some of them wondering it he knew the definition of the word. He continued his ridiculous statements a month later and “gained such respect for this grand jury [and] perhaps even the grand jury system as a whole.” After the indictment, however, it’s a “Witch Hunt” to DDT.  

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) still defends DDT, saying that the entire issue should be decided at the ballot box. Like in 2020? After DDT lost and further polarized the nation by making MAGA folk believe he actually won? All the scandal of DDT and his sycophants comes from their indifference that the U.S. voters decided DDT’s fate almost three years—at the ballot box. Graham said that making DDT legally accountable of his alleged crimes “is setting a bad precedent.” Like denying democracy and rejecting election results isn’t?

Keep your schedule open on August 21. DDT plans a press conference about the report from his team that will drop all charges. He will also divulge a “Large, Complex, Detailed but Irrefutable” report related to his ridiculous election conspiracy theories. He’s tried it before—unsuccessfully. The circus is coming to the media.

Let the fundraising roll. Jenna Ellis has already raised over $7,000 for her legal team. It’s much sweeter than DDT’s fundraiser: “I will NEVER SURRENDER our country to these tyrants.” After DDT’s third indictment, he boasted about needing only one more indictment to get elected. Since then, he’s changed his message.

The question is whether DDT remembers saying this to Acting AG Jeffrey Rose:

“Just say that the election was corrupt, and leave the rest to me.”

The Hunter Biden plea deal has entirely caved, and Biden’s lawyer Christopher Clark has resigned from his legal team with the possibility that he may be called as a witness in Biden’s trial. Meanwhile, the push to use Biden as a diversion may backfire if DDT’s son-in-law Jared Kushner moves more into the limelight. Economist analyst Steve Rattner gave an in-depth view of Kushner’s “$3.1 billion cash haul” to start a private equity firm. Saudi Arabia provide $2 billion of the funding after Kushner was supposedly the “peace broker in the Middle East.” Biden was never employed in his father’s administration as Kushner was in his father-in-law’s administration. Only $30 million of the $3.1 billion came from U.S. investors. Rattner said he had “been in this business 40 years [and] never seen somebody et two-thirds of their money from a single investor.”

Another GOP House chair admits that they can’t find evidence of President Joe Biden’s alleged corruption. Mike Turner (R-OH), Permanent Select committee on Intelligence chair, told reporters that Republicans lack proof, that bank records “are not” evidence of what the GOP wants.

Turner is responsible for an amendment in the House-passed  put an National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) making it illegal for military members to communicate with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). A group of 22 Marines declared Turner’s amendment dangerous: one of them was injured during a combat drill because his senior NCO was “witnessing” his Christian beliefs. The NCO also told his men that anyone seeking help from MRFF could be prosecuted under Article 91 of the UCMJ for disobeying a lawful order. According to a complaint, he said “he MUST ‘anoint’ [his subordinates] in the ‘blood of Christ’ or [they] will be “serving Satan” and that “he does this even during live combat action training drills.” Fortunately, the Senate version doesn’t have Turner’s amendment. Turner began to attack the MRFF seven years ago.

Republicans in the states:

Florida: Glenton Gilzean Jr., Gov. Ron DeSantis’ appointment to chair the state Commission on Ethics, is being investigated for violating the commission’s ethics rules. DDT’s allies at Make America Great Again filed a 15-page complaint about his “shadow presidential campaign.” Members on the commission cannot “hold any public employment,” but Gilzean is being paid $400,000 as the new administrator of DeSantis’ new Disney district.  

Wisconsin: Republican legislators who want to impeach a progressive Supreme Court justice should look at a right-wing member of the high court. Rebecca Bradley tried to hide her editing her personal Wikipedia page by adding her personal views such as comparing the state’s stay-at-home orders during the pandemic to World War II Japanese-American internment. She also edited her majority opinion in the 2021 redistricting case and the 2022 decision outlawing drop boxes for absentee ballots. Bradley said she did it because media members aren’t doing their job. Wikipedia prefer no editing or creating articles about the subjects or their families, friends, colleagues, companies, organizations, clients, or competitors.  

Iowa: ChatGPT picked which books to censor books from Mason City Community School District school libraries, with 19 of them pulled from the shelves. The question to AI was which books had “descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act.” When the question was asked of OpenAI’s program again, only four of the 19 removed titles contained “Explicit or Sexual Content.” Use of varying responses echo AI’s deficiencies of accuracy, analysis, and consistency.

Arkansas: The same day that Arkansas schools opened for the 2023-2024 session, the state education department announced that students would not receive credit for AP African American History. It claimed the course would violate the misnamed Learns (Literacy, Empowerment, Accountability, Networking and Safety) Act which limits curriculum on a variety of topics such as gender, sexual orientation, and the so-called “Critical Race Theory.” The announcement claimed to protect teachers from breaking the law. The state will also not cover the exam’s cost allowing high school students to earn college credit in the subject. Florida has already banned the course from its state high schools.

Virginia: DeSantis started the book banning trend in the red states, but one county wants a mandate keeping all visitors under 18 out of the library unless they are accompanied by an adult. The Board of Supervisors in Botetort County, population 34,000, didn’t vote on the proposal but didn’t object. They did unanimously adopt a resolution to actively support and defend First Amendment rights including freely reading, accessing information, and forming their own opinions. The resolution also does not permit parents to determine appropriate content for other families and their children.

Oklahoma: In 2019, DDT pardoned former Army lieutenant Clint Lorance for his second-degree murder convictions from war crimes in Afghanistan. Lorance graduated from Appalachia School of Law is sitting for the Oklahoma bar exam and applying to practice law in the state. His former military colleagues, witnesses to his murder of two innocent villagers, oppose his becoming a lawyer, and one of them asked the Oklahoma Bar Association to deny his certification to practice law. Details included Lorance’s “orders to shoot unarmed people, threatening women and children, and asking subordinates to cover it up” while declaring himself “the victim.” He has no remorse and fails to take accountability. Sentenced to 19 years in prison, DDT released him after six years, one of many war criminals who DDT pardoned.

Mississippi: In a primary, GOP voters may have killed the conservative movement by not electing ultra-right-wing state Sen. Chris McDaniel for the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor. McDaniel received over $1 million in out-of-state dark money. After his loss, he conceded the election and said he was leaving public life after a decade of moving the state further right. Ten of 11 endorsed conservatives challenging Republicans for “not conservative enough” also lost, most by substantial vote margins.

New Jersey exempts cemetery land from all taxes, rates, and assessments. People surmised that was the reason DDT buried his first wife near the first hole at his golf course in Bedminster in 2022, property he bought ten years after he divorced her. He may have failed to save money because most or all of a business’s activities need to be related to that industry to obtain the benefit. Perhaps that’s the reason DDT has no interest in keeping up the property and provided only a very small headstone. Even Richard Nixon’s dog, Checkers, got better attention.

DDT Arraigned, Life Goes On

Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) was arraigned just before 4:30 pm ET on August 3 for allegedly attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The process in which DDT pled not guilty took almost 30 minutes. He was released after he agreed to appear at a hearing on August 28 and agreed to not break any local, state, or federal laws including tampering with witnesses. His Florida appearance in a separate indictment is August 25.

In an attempt to divert attention from DDT’s third indictment and arraignment on August 3, Republicans are pushing the theory that Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son, took bribes from foreign countries. Democrats claimed that convicted witness, Devon Archer, had no damning information about either Biden, but Republicans disagreed. They even went so far as to accuse Special Counsel Jack Smith’s grand jury of indicting DDT at the same time as the hearing to divert attention from Hunter Biden’s “crimes.”

To prove their point, James Comer (R-KY), House Oversight Committee chair, released the transcript of the closed hearing. The transcript proves that Comer and Jim Jordan (R-OH), House Judiciary Committee chair, lied about their witness’s testimony. Instead, Archer challenged Comer’s and Jordan’s claims that the Ukrainian energy company wanted a corrupt prosecutor fired, that Zlochevsky paid bribes, and that Joe Biden had any involvement in the entire situation. Earlier, Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) had stated that the witness testified that Joe Biden never talked business with his son or son’s associates, that the president wasn’t party to any of his son’s business deals, and neither of them was bribed. The transcript proves he was accurate.

It’s a case of DAVRO: deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender. DAVRO is one of 17 manipulation strategies that an emotional abuser employs to attack their victims, to control a person by eroding self-confidence and developing a dependence on the abuse to keep the victim in the relationship. MAGA supporters are currently using it with the lie “Biden crime family” and exonerating all DDT’s alleged crimes. The Archer transcript. 

The basis of Smith’s case is evidence that DDT knew he lost the election but kept trying to overturn the results, and the first page of the indictment claims, “The Defendant knew [the claims] were false.” The fourth charge, a violation of the 1872 Ku Klux Klan act, doesn’t require that DDT know he is lying as the first three conspiracy charges do. In the last charge, DDT conspired against people’s right to have their vote counted.

John Lauro, DDT’s new lawyer, has announced in several TV interviews that DDT is innocent because of freedom of speech in the First Amendment, but DDT’s former AG Bill Barr disagrees, stating that the Constitution protects speech, not actions. A judge recently ruled that continued sincere belief in a stolen election is irrelevant if the defendant knew he was illegally disrupting congressional certification of the vote.

Ruth Marcus points out that the indictment clearly wrote about DDT’s “right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won.” DDT, however, is being prosecuted for “the actions he took to operationalize that contention and prevent the clear will of the voters from being realized, or what the indictment calls ‘unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.’”

Smith also has evidence that GOP government officials as well as his lawyers told DDT that no basis existed for a “stolen” election. Even lawyer John Eastman who talked DDT into trying to persuade former VP Mike Pence into delaying the certification said that it was illegal. Pence is now claiming that he always knew it was wrong and kept telling DDT that he couldn’t do it.  

Barr also asserted that DDT’s defense of following his lawyers’ advice would leave him open to cross examination. A common belief follows Barr’s added statement that cross examination “would not come out very well” for DDT.

In an interview with Fox’s Laura Ingraham after the arraignment, Lauro said that DDT acted on advice from Eastman, indicating that “advice of counsel” will be another Lauro defense tactic. Two days before the insurrection, however, Eastman told DDT that his scheme was against the law, that it violated federal statute. Greg Jacob, Pence’s counsel, heard the exchange at a White House meeting. That news has been publicly available for over a year. In addition, Eastman told DDT in December 2020 that DDT’s numbers about illegal voters were inaccurate. 

MAGA supporters of DDT are resuming their calls to “hang Mike Pence” on their right-wing social media platform. Calls for violence are at the top of comments on TheDonald.win after Smith’s indictment on August 1. According to the Rolling Stone, TheDonald.win was “a hub of plotting for the unrest at the Capitol, and a place where members of the then-Trump administration monitored their success in firing up the base.” Pence’s refusal to block the congressional certification of Joe Biden on January 6 ignited violent rage. Images of gallows hanging Pence have returned, with one person writing, “I want to pull the lever.” From there the commenters want to inflict violence on all the “traitors.”  

Lauro claims that rights to a “speedy trial” belong only to the defense, not to the government. At DDT’s arraignment, however, Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya was very clear about the deadlines. Government recommendations for the trial date and length will be provided to Judge Tanya Chutkan, who will hear the case. DDT’s illegal team has seven days in which to respond.

DDT committed his alleged crimes in Smith’s case in Washington, D.C., and a grand jury in the city recommended the charges for the indictment. Yet Lauro—and DDT—wants the case moved out of the city for fear of an unfair jury. Only 5 percent of D.C.’s population voted for DDT in 2020. DDT’s recommendation for the trial location is West Virginia where 69 percent of voters selected DDT.

The indictment also described six co-conspirators who Smith did not yet charge. The first five have been identified, but different media sources are trying to guess the identity of the sixth one, a DDT senior adviser, with varying names.

Meanwhile, news outside DDT’s arraignment continues:

On the day of DDT’s arraignment, two U.S. Navy sailors, Jinchao (aka Patrick) Wei and Wenheng (aka Thomas) Zhao, were arrested for passing sensitive national defense information and military secrets to Chinese intelligence officers in exchange for money. This included blueprints for radar systems, technical manuals for vessels, operational plans for military exercises in the Indo-Pacific, and details of defensive weapons to Chinese intelligence officers.

After Iranians have seized vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, the Pentagon is planning to put armed Marines and sailors on commercial ships if private companies and the countries under which they are flagged and registered wish. The plan will need final approval, and U.S. military officials are talking with Gulf Arab allies. Marines are already undergoing training, and thousands of them have been put into position. The Strait connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the open ocean; at least 20 percent of the world’s crude oil goes through the waterway. The U.S. has already deployed F-16 and F-35 jets, A-10 attack jets, and an additional Navy destroyer.

A three-judge panel for the 9^th Circuit Court approved Biden’s emergency request to resume its asylum restrictions on the southern border while the case goes through the courts and stayed a lower court’s ruling to terminate them. Appointed by DDT, one of the three judges on the panel lambasted the decision, complaining that the 9^th Circuit had refused DDT’s immigration policies but permitting those of Biden.

Newly released text messages among GOP operatives show a much more expansive plot to overturn the election that Smith described in the indictment. RNC Ronna McDaniel and former Arizona GOP chair Kelli Ward played leading roles in the alleged conspiracy from the beginning. Messages connected to DDT’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows describe McDaniel among those promoting DDT’s ballot box fraud in seven swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. DDT lost all these states. The scheme declared that over 30,000 non-citizens voted in the 2020 election.

Democrats now have a majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court after recently elected progressive Janet Protasiewicz was sworn in as a justice on August 1 for a ten-year term. She replaces a retiring conservative judge who served 20 years, including six as chief justice. A new lawsuit challenged the GOP gerrymandered Wisconsin legislative and congressional district maps will likely be filed within weeks. Before the court is also a case challenging the pre-Civil War abortion ban for the state, and rules for voting and elections are expected to come before the state high court in advance of the 2024 election. The liberal majority has already fired the director of state courts for six years as the court moves “in a different direction.”

A federal judge has ruled that the 20-year-old Abu Ghraib contractor torture of prisoners can go to trial. The lawsuit alleges that CACI Premier Technology conspired with U.S. military personnel to commonly subject prisoners to torture and other crimes. Up to 90 percent of them were innocent.