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A plan by Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to block residents from gaining access to health insurance via the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace has been suspended by a very sensible President Joe Biden.

Kemp obviously doesn’t care about the 700,000 Georgians who signed up for coverage through the marketplace.

Georgians for a Healthy Future Director Laura Colbert is not a fan of Kemp’s plan.

In an email statement sent to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Colbert said, “Any plan that would meaningfully disrupt health insurance for 700,000 folks should be carefully considered.” She added, “Georgia leaders have refused to answer questions about their plan to separate from healthcare.gov, and disregarded evidence that their plan will mean some hard-working Georgians lose their coverage.”

RELATED STORY: Game on! Georgia DA impaneling special purpose grand jury for Trump investigation

Kemp’s “waiver” plan, approved by former President Donald Trump in 2020 before he left office, would redirect shoppers from plans on healthcare.gov to individual companies or private brokers, the AJC reports.

Listen to Markos and Kerry Eleveld talk Ukraine and speak with Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler on how hitting back at Republicans helps win elections on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast

The “waivers” allow states such as Georgia to waive the federal order and mold the ACA or Medicaid to the needs of the state. During Trump’s term, he urged more and more allowances to chip away at the ACA and give the states’ private insurance carriers more power.

In September 2020, the Center on Budget and  Policy Priorities wrote that Kemp’s 1332 waiver proposal could “force consumers to navigate the type of fragmented insurance system of brokers and insurers the ACA was intended to remedy” and would end up “decreasing enrollment, raising premiums, and leading more Georgians to enroll in substandard plans instead of comprehensive coverage.”

On April 29, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) sent a 26-page letter to Grant Thomas, director of the Office of Health Strategy and Coordination, suspending the 1332 waiver and giving the state until July 28, 2022, to send a “corrective action plan” in “compliance with the statutory guardrails,” ensuring Georgians “that the waiver will provide coverage to a comparable number of residents, that the coverage will be at least as comprehensive and affordable as coverage provided without the waiver, and that the waiver will not increase the federal deficit.”

Kemp has long advocated for private insurance as a better alternative for Georgians. But who can trust a lawmaker who would also propose that in order for residents to receive Medicaid coverage, a low-income adult would need to prove they worked 80 hours a month, were enrolled in an education program or were a volunteer for a qualifying organization?

Bill Custer, a health insurance expert at Georgia State University, told The Current in June of 2021: “None of these work requirements have passed muster in the courts … The courts have said these violate the original purpose of Medicaid.”

Both of Kemp’s proposals will likely end up in court.

“If the governor is feeling an urgency to act and get Georgians covered, the quickest and easiest way to do that would be through Medicaid expansion,’’ Colbert told The Current.

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President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats are mulling the idea of using the contrast between them and the Trump-loving, fascist, insurrectionist Republicans in 2022’s midterm elections and, well, yes.

IT’S ABOUT GODDAMNED TIME!

That might indicate that there’s just a smidgen of urgency among Democrats who hold the Congress and the White House that democracy is hanging by a pretty thin thread. Maybe we should be talking about that right now ahead of an election that could bring the fascists to power and end America as we know it.

“This ain’t your father’s Republican Party,” Biden said last week, testing out the new line of attack. “You know, but all kidding aside, this is the MAGA party now. It’s—you know, you got the senator from Texas and others. These guys are a different breed of cat.  They’re not like what I served with for so many years.”

They need to work on sharpening that up a little, but it’s the right idea. “And the people who know better are afraid to act correctly, because they know they’ll be primaried,” he continued. “I’ve had—I won’t mention any of them; I promised I never would, and I won’t—but up to six come to me and say, ‘Joe, I want to be with you on such and such but I can’t. I’ll be primaried. I’ll lose my race. I’ll lose my race.’”

That’s not a bad tactic, either. Make them start doubting each other. Make Trump doubt them. Inject a little more vitriol and paranoia into the GOP. Republicans turning on each other might be the best hope for Democrats in 2022.

Listen to Markos and Kerry Eleveld talk Ukraine and speak with Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler on how hitting back at Republicans helps win elections on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast

But also exposing them as fascists. That’s good, too. The Jan. 6 committee hearings, which Rep. Jamie Raskin promises will tell the “story of the worst presidential political crime against the union in American history,” should help.

All of this means getting Biden to abandon the Senate guy that he’s been for his entire adult life, for him to really absorb and reflect what he said about Republicans: they are not the same people he served with all those decades. They are not going to help him govern because they care far more about the party than the country.

What this will also mean is cutting Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema and their bipartisan gangs loose, and not worrying about angering them. It’s not like they’re really going to let Biden accomplish legislative goals before the midterms, anyway. Hell, Manchin is out there cutting primary ads for Republicans that crow about how he killed Biden’s ambitious agenda.

Biden’s team is also, reportedly, looking ahead to the return of Trump to an Elon Musk-owned Twitter, supposing Musk goes through with the purchase and Trump comes back. That’s a potential double-edged sword, Politico reports Biden aides are thinking. “While the former president would eat up an extraordinary amount of political oxygen, it’s also possible that he would push the Big Lie or feud with fellow Republicans and damage the GOP’s otherwise strong chances of regaining at least one house of Congress.” But on the whole, their thinking according to Politico, is that “more the election becomes about Trump, the better the Democrats’ chances become.”

That’s if they do a good job of cementing that contrast—that whole sedition and insurrection thing. The resounding victory of French President Emmanuel Macron over far-right Marie Le Pen last month has helped solidify the Biden team’s thinking on that. That too was previewed after the French election, by White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain.

Yes, running against a fascist party by defining it as fascist works in a democracy. Let’s do that!

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Jurors didn’t think much of former New York City police officer Thomas Webster’s self-defense theory: They found him guilty on Monday of assaulting police at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

This marks another victorious verdict for the Justice Department as jurors wholesale and unanimously rejected Webster’s premise that he was merely defending himself when he descended on the Capitol and proceeded to thrash at an on-duty cop with a metal flagpole before shoving that officer to the ground and choking him with the chin strap of the gas mask he was wearing. 

Webster faces up to 20 years in prison for assaulting Metropolitan Police officer Noah Rathbun. 

Related: Ex-cop charged with assaulting police on Jan. 6 wants jurors to believe it was self-defense

US v. Webster Verdict Form by Daily Kos on Scribd

During the trial, Webster’s defense attorney James Monroe worked to paint Webster as a patriotic American worn down by the mistreatment of fellow protesters at the Capitol on Jan. 6. 

When he took the stand, Webster recounted his frustration, saying his hackles were raised when he saw “weeping children” and injured elderly people toward the back of the crowd. That prompted him to push his way through to a thin line of police defending the complex.  

But prosecutors unwound that defense, playing back video footage from the day that explicitly showed a red-faced Webster screaming at police officers who were surrounded by thousands of former President Donald Trump’s supporters, many of them armed.

“You fucking piece of shit,” Webster screamed at Rathbun on Jan. 6. “You fucking commie motherfuckers man. Gonna attack Americans? Fuck that. Fucking commie fuck. Come on, take your shit off. Take your shit off. You communist motherfuckers. Fuck you.” 

Webster shoved a metal bike rack separating himself from Rathbun. Webster admitted he was frustrated but when the officer ordered him to stop, he wouldn’t and Rathbun is seen very briefly lifting his open hand and making contact as he tries to push Webster away.

That moment was fleeting, according to the video footage, but Webster described it as being hit by a “freight train.” Rathbun, he said, caused him to “see stars.”

He described it as one of the “hardest hits of his life” and vowed that he wasn’t exaggerating.  

Another claim from Webster, that he only grabbed Rathbun’s gas mask during the fracas because he was trying to show him his hands and calm the already beleaguered Rathbun down, was also summarily dismissed Monday. 

One juror told CNN on Monday that 

“I almost felt like I was the cop and he was the protester,” Webster said at trial, according to NBC News.

Attempts to call Rathbun’s character into question dominated the defense’s strategy.

Playing up his police experience, Webster argued that Webster had “no grounds for defense” and that she didn’t find the former police officer credible. 

Another juror told CNN the guilty verdict was reached very quickly because it was “very obvious” what Webster did on Jan. 6.

In other footage presented by prosecutors before the trial’s conclusion, the former U.S. Marine is seen and heard calling for fresh help to occupy the Capitol. 

“Send more patriots,” he said. 

Webster told jurors he was joking. 

“I just said something silly just to get on camera. I didn’t mean it literally,” he said.

Webster did not answer any questions after the verdict was rendered.

His attorney, however, said they would give the verdict some thought and “decide where to go” next with the case. Monroe also told reporters gathered outside of the courtroom Monday he felt Webster would have done better in a venue outside of the nation’s capital. 

Prosecutors asked that Webster be thrown in jail before his sentencing on Sept. 2 but presiding U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta declined to keep him behind bars. Instead, he will continue to wear an ankle monitor and remain under home confinement. 

Mehta did not deem Webster a flight risk but said his decision was a “close call.”

Webster was found guilty on each of the counts he faced including assault of a police officer with a weapon, entering restricted grounds with a weapon, disorderly conduct with a weapon, physical violence with a weapon, engaging in an act of violence at the U.S. Capitol, and civil disorder. 

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In news we already knew but now know more, er, knowingly, a new book by ex-Trump secretary of defense Mark Esper confirms that yes, Donald Trump really did want to “just shoot” Black Lives Matter protesters rallying near the White House during the 2020 protests. Specifically, Trump said he wanted the U.S. military to “beat the fuck” out of the protesters, and told Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Gen. Mark Milley and other top administration officials to “just shoot them” on several occasions. When Milley and then-attorney general Bill Barr resisted due to the blazing illegality of such an order and, let’s assume, not wanting to spend the rest of their lives in prison on this bozo’s behalf, Trump modified his proposal to “just shoot them in the legs or something?”

We knew these incidents had taken place because a previous book profiting off the slow death of democracy described them last year; Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender’s 2021 book revealed them in similar detail, including Trump’s demands to use military force, “beat the fuck” out of protesters, and “shoot them in the leg” or “maybe the foot.”

That earlier book also gave us the heartwarming scene in which a fed-up Gen. Milley, tired of White House white nationalist Stephen Miller egging Trump on with claims that parts of the United States were now a “war zone” due to the protests, “spun around in his seat” and told Miller to “shut the fuck up, Stephen.” There is no military medal awarded to generals who personally tell Stephen Miller to “shut the fuck up,” but there ought to be. We’re all perhaps a bit disappointed Milley didn’t shoot Miller in the leg or “maybe the foot,” but there you go. That’s military discipline for you.

What Mark Esper’s new book brings to the scene is confirmation by another participant that yes, all of this really did take place and they took place just as previous accounts said. Donald Trump wanted to use the military, and he specifically wanted to use the military to kill protesters or, after meeting resistance from the rest of his staff, shoot them “in the legs” so that they could no longer march against his self-imagined greatness. That Black Lives Matter protesters might have had a legitimate point to make never crossed his mind; that he, as president, was not allowed to simply murder protesters outright was something he struggled to understand even as the top officials who would have to order such murders tried to explain it to him.

Truly, the worst president ever. Possibly the worst human being ever, though that’s a value judgment—and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is making his own bid for both positions, so Trump may last as America’s Worst President for no longer than George W. Bush did before him.

The purpose of Esper’s book is self-redemption. Esper was Trump’s secretary of defense during a time, post-impeachment, when Trump was widely purging the U.S. government of anyone thought to be disloyal, felt newly emboldened after Senate Republicans immunized him from the consequences of a Watergate-plus sized campaign of political corruption, and was increasingly deemed by many to be dangerously unstable—as he would go on to prove at numerous points during the 2020 campaign and post-election, culminating in an attempted coup. Esper was one of Trump’s enforcers, as Trump attempted to do to the military what he was doing everywhere else, only to be replaced after Trump’s November election loss with the more-toadying Christopher Miller.

Whatever career Mark Esper once had before Trump appeared on scene is now well and truly gone; he will remembered now alongside William Barr and other Republicans who protected Trump through years of corrupt, self-serving, often-delusional, nation-harming behaviors only to write up books afterwards mumbling that they were Actually against all of the outright evil things all along, or were against at least some vanishingly small number of them, and ought to still be served in public restaurants and invited to Washington parties.

If a sitting president of the United States repeatedly—no, incessantly—asks his staff to do criminal things, anything from the political extortion of an at-war government to further a propaganda effort to requesting that Americans protesting against him simply be murdered, refusing to do the murder part is not bold. Trump’s vast and wide-ranging ignorance made him an incompetent leader during every national crisis he was faced with. He could not grasp security briefings, forcing staff to include frequent mentions of him to at least keep him reading; he was so obsessed with self-promotion that he altered government hurricane maps and promoted the altered forecasts rather than admitting to a piffling Twitter mistake; his prescriptions for dealing with pandemic continuously did active harm to the nation, even as his lack of focus made more organized and sensible responses impossible.

All of this was a pattern and was being warned of, incessantly, both long before and during every winter day leading up to a Trump-led attempted coup. His own staff knew of his history of demanding illegal or corrupt actions—and, after his election loss, much of his stalwart-Republican staff helped him take those actions. Some, like chief of staff Mark Meadows, may have played a more pivotal role in attempting to nullify the election than the buffoonish Trump could himself even manage.

You do not get to say, “I worked for the man who soon afterward attempted to end United States democracy,” and append “but was of course against the coup part,” unless you can provide even a teaspoon of evidence of being “against” the government purges, political purges, manufacturing of hoaxes, flagrant daily lying, contempt for the American public, white nationalism, autocratic demands, and ingrained fascist beliefs that had been laying the groundwork for that outcome through Trump’s whole long, crooked descent. There’s now an entire cottage industry of hard-right Republican officials who helped Trump do extraordinarily bad and damaging things, but who are propping themselves up now on the pretense that, well, at least they did not support murdering protesters outright, or at least they did not support attempts to capture or murder Trump-opposed House and Senate leaders, or at least they did not help the rest of Trump’s staff in schemes to declare that the vice president could scrub out the votes of whatever Americans he wanted to, in order to arrive at whatever election outcome the current leaders of government wished to announce.

You especially cannot respond to an attempt to overthrow democracy itself by demanding that Americans move on while your party allies write new election laws to get around the flaws of the first coup attempt and make a second one easier to muster. You don’t get to say, “I am still a Republican,” without adding, “even though the party both plotted an election-nullifying coup and is continuing to protect its plotters.”

Take your books and shove them. Do something worthy of redemption before demanding it. William Barr, Mark Esper, the blizzard of propagandist-to-news-“analyst” career slides—Americans have every right to treat all of these people with contempt for their parts in normalizing horrific acts, bragging that they prevented even more horrific acts, and demanding the nation move on without any doled-out consequence or comeuppance. We’ve got library book bans now. We’ve got a party that has convinced the majority of American voters that our elections are illegitimate—based on a barrage of internet hoaxes and nothing more. White nationalism is now a party plank, such that even mentions of racism in American history are now fodder for public retaliation.

Stuff your books. Abandon your party or do your part to redeem it—or shut the fuck up, Stephen. Nobody has time to give you the attention you seek.

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Perhaps no other governor in modern U.S. history has racked up costlier political stunts than Texas’ Greg Abbott. The Republican’s since-rescinded policy that forced commercial vehicles to undergo redundant inspections that turned up nothing cost the state $4 billion in losses. 

Then there’s the Operation Lone Star stunt, which has forced thousands of soldiers to the southern border to do a whole lot of nothing. Wait, that’s not entirely true, because some were deployed to stand guard outside the homes of rich Texans. “The Texas Military Department estimates that the current deployment of 10,000 National Guard members will cost an additional $2 billion a year, nearly five times what the Legislature had budgeted for the deployment,” The Texas Tribune, ProPublica, and The Marshall Project recently reported.

But TMD’s head told Republican officials that funds for the stunt were set to run out by the end of May. So they’re solving the problem they created in typical GOP fashion: by raiding federal funds. Specifically, COVID-19 funding.

RELATED STORY: Texas remains secretive about actual results of expensive border theatrics because they didn’t work

“As foreshadowed by a top aide to Gov. Greg Abbott earlier this month, Texas will free up general-purpose state revenue that lawmakers previously budgeted for salaries of state workers by tapping federal coronavirus relief money,” The Dallas Morning News reports. Republican officials are taking more than $465 million in funds, with another $30 million to be yanked from a number of other state agencies.

“While some Democrats have fretted that Texas may be misusing federal COVID-19 relief aid to help finance Operation Lone Star, Abbott and top GOP lawmakers have denied that,” the report said. Of course, it’s not like Republican politicians would say, “You know what, we totally are misusing this funding!” But the report said there hasn’t been a peep from the Biden administration on this, and while Texas loves nothing more than suing the president over his lawful immigration policies, there’s been no court action here. “The series of bills Congress passed during the pandemic, signed by both Biden and former President Donald Trump, allowed states to use their federal funds for salaries of state public health and public safety employees,” the report noted.

But what about when it’s a political stunt that has likely violated federal and state laws? What about when it’s a political stunt where the governor’s office has fought public record requests because it would prove the whole thing is an expensive sham? What about when it’s a political stunt that has led to death? Late last month, a National Guard soldier deployed to the border by Abbott tragically drowned while attempting to aid migrants struggling in the Rio Grande. 

But reports later revealed Spc. Bishop Evans lacked a flotation device. TMD did not order any until February, “11 months after the mission began in March 2021,” The Texas Tribune and Military Times reported. They had clearly still not arrived by the time that Evans died.

“For any member of our Guard or DPS [Department of Public Safety] who are sent to the border along the river to not be assigned basic, inexpensive safety equipment is unforgivable,” state Sen. Roland Gutierrez said in the report. He’s requesting more information into the lack of equipment. “We believe the death of Bishop Evans was avoidable if he had been provided with the proper equipment.” Maj. Gen. Thomas Suelzer said that Evans jumped in because he saw someone in crisis. “(He) was a human being,” he said according to the Associated Press. “He saw a human being drowning and he jumped in the water to save them.” 

When previously confronted about the tragic deaths of other soldiers tied to the Operation Lone Star scheme, Abbott has blamed the president. He did it again following Evans’ death. “Is it too harsh to say that the Biden administration at least shoulders some responsibility for this young man’s death,” a Fox News personality asked Abbott. He agreed, “100%.” But the young man wasn’t there because the president sent him there; he was there because Greg Abbott sent him there. 

RELATED STORIES: Texas refuses to be transparent about Operation Lone Star. Probably because it’s all a scheme

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The investigation into a call former President Trump made to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger after losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden just got a whole lot more real.

Monday, prosecutors from the Fulton County District Attorney’s office will begin choosing residents for a special purpose grand jury. According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the jury will comprise 23 Fulton County residents and three alternates.

Although the special grand jury can’t approve indictments, it will assist Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis in building her case, as the group will have the power to issue subpoenas for documents and testimony. Ultimately, she will present her full case to a regular grand jury.

RELATED STORY: Trump’s COVID-19 pandemic response was second-rate and deceitful, a new report shows

More than 30 witnesses have refused to testify voluntarily since the investigation opened in Feb. 2021—including Raffensperger—and that won’t change until June 1, Willis told the AJC, in order to avoid any conflict with the May 24 primaries.

Listen to Markos and Kerry Eleveld talk Ukraine and speak with Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler on how hitting back at Republicans helps win elections on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast

Former Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter told the AJC Monday’s special jury selection is a “significant legal step.”

“I think (Trump) probably should be concerned in that now, instead of just investigators poking around the edges, he’s got a grand jury that can go directly to the heart of it and compel testimony… They may be able to compel his testimony.”

In addition to the call from Trump to Raffensperger, AJC reports that Willis will probe the resignation of U.S. Attorney Byung “BJay” Pak, who has testified he felt pressured to investigate bogus election fraud allegations; Sen. Lindsey Graham’s call to Raffeensperger to request he trash legally cast ballots in the state; erroneous statements from Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani during a Georgia Senate Judiciary Committee, and finally, the forged election docs falsely claiming that Trump won in 2020.

Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert C.I. McBurney will oversee the special grand jury and the DA’s entire investigation will be kept secret. The panel could meet for up to a year and at the end of their service, the group makes recommendations for the case.

“Anything’s possible because they don’t just sit there and listen to two sides present a case. They get to ask questions, they get to get involved,” Pete Skandalakis, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia told the AJC. “They can break out in committees if they want to look at different things, and then come back and report to the full body.”

Willis has remained steadfast in her investigation into Trump’s call to Raffensperger, vowing to hold him to account.

“I’m going to bring an indictment—I don’t care who it is,” Willis told the AJC in April.

In early February, Willis, who is Black, was forced to ask for additional security from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) after Trump lashed out at her during a rally in Texas.

The veteran DA alleged that since Trump’s speech, in which he called her a “racist,” she began receiving threats.

“If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta, and elsewhere, because our country and our elections are corrupt,” Trump said at the rally.

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Donald Trump was in Nebraska on Sunday rallying support for his chosen candidate in the Republican gubernatorial primary there. And go figure, Trump’s man in Nebraska was recently reported to be a serial groper. 

Eight different women, including a Republican state senator, have said Charles Herbster touched them inappropriately at public events. According to Trump, Herbster is “innocent,” and a “very good man” who’s been “maligned” with what Trump says are “despicable charges.” Trump himself has been accused of groping and worse by dozens of women.

RELATED STORY: GOP gubernatorial candidate accused of groping seven women, GOP state senator

Trump’s defense of Herbster was so heartfelt he even broke out a “sir” story.

“I defend people when I know they’re good,” Trump said. “A lot of people, they look at you and say: ‘You don’t have to do it, sir.’ I defend my friends.”

Herbster has insisted the allegations are a political ploy by outgoing Gov. Pete Ricketts, who has endorsed a rival primary candidate and placed himself squarely in a lineup of Republican men who’ve faced credible sexual misconduct allegations and triumphed.

“It’s a playbook from the past,” Herbster said on Steve Bannon’s podcast. “Look what they did to Clarence Thomas. Look what they did to Donald J. Trump. Look what they did to Brett M. Kavanaugh. Now, it’s Charles W. Herbster.”

”They” being women who objected to having been harassed or assaulted? 

Republican State Sen. Julie Slama has confirmed to the Nebraska Examiner that Herbster reached up her skirt and touched her inappropriately at a 2019 event. A witness to that was also one of three who saw Herbster grope another woman’s buttocks at the same event. A total of six women describe Herbster using photo ops or hellos and goodbyes as an opportunity to grab—not graze or brush—their butts. Another woman says Herbster once cornered her and kissed her against her will.

”Being a conservative Republican woman in politics, you just expect to be treated with respect. To be treated in that way in a public event, in front of everyone, just to prove, I believe, that he could get away with it, and not having recourse, it’s terrifying,” one woman told the Examiner.

“I’m scared for any young women that he would be dealing with in the future. Don’t send your daughters to work for this guy,” she added.

In addition to his endorsement from fellow groper Trump, Herbster at one point hired former Trump campaign aide Corey Lewandowski to help run his campaign … until Lewandowski was accused of sexually harassing the wife of a major Republican donor. It’s almost like there’s a pattern with these guys.

And in addition to the Thomas-Trump-Kavanaugh list Herbster was so eager to associate himself with, Trump’s endorsements “include Herschel Walker, a U.S. Senate candidate in Georgia who has been accused of threatening the lives of two women, as well as Sean Parnell, who ended his U.S. Senate campaign in Pennsylvania last year amid domestic abuse allegations, and Roy Moore, a 2017 candidate for U.S. Senate in Alabama who was accused by two women of initiating unwanted sexual encounters when Moore was in his 30s and they were 16 and 14,” as The Washington Post summarizes. 

Many Republican voters have decided that they just don’t care. “I don’t really think it matters. I don’t think there’s any body to it,” one Nebraska voter at the rally told the Post, while his wife agreed, “People are going to say whatever they’re going to say, no matter who it is.”

Today’s Republican Party: the party of coup attempts and repeatedly shrugging off sexual misconduct allegations. 

RELATED STORIES:

No alleged sexual assaulter is too gross for Donald Trump to campaign with

Trump pick for Nebraska governor attacks woman who accused him of assault in new ad

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Evangelical Christian and Growing Pains actor Kirk Cameron showed off every bit of white privilege he has in a video promoting his upcoming documentary, The Homeschool Awakening. In a YouTube video posted on Saturday, Cameron included a trailer for the documentary promoting homeschooling as an alternative to traditional public school. After that trailer played, he went on to describe what he considered to be failings of the public education system. I know what you’re thinking if you haven’t seen the video yet: Why, it must be an analysis of the funding inequities that have for decades led to fewer resources for schools serving Black and brown students. That would be a worthy critique. Cameron, however, didn’t even attempt to broach the subject. Instead, he went on a rant about perceived immorality in public school education. 

“Since the pandemic, we’ve been made grossly aware of the inaccurate and the immoral things that the public school system has been teaching our children and our grandchildren,” the actor said. “And it’s up to us as parents to cultivate the hearts and minds and souls of our children toward what is good, toward what is right, beautiful, and true.”

RELATED STORY: Kirk Cameron is here to tell you about The Gays, guys

Cameron never mentioned critical race theory by name. But given he recently gave evangelical podcast host Josh Daws a platform to critic the framework as in “conflict with the gospel,” it’s not difficult to read between the lines of Cameron’s latest video.

“And the public school system, unfortunately, has not been working with us, but actively working against us,” the actor said. “In my opinion, the public school system has become public enemy No. 1.”

He went on to say:

“We need to take back the education of our children because whoever controls the textbooks controls the future. Whoever’s shaping the hearts and minds and souls of our children will determine whether or not we live in a free country and we have freedom of speech, and economic freedom, and educational and political freedom, and religious freedom.”

It’s quite interesting that the response to Black people demanding an end to racial profiling, racism, and white supremacy is Republicans asserting that their freedom is being threatened. That presumed freedom to treat others as less than is as direct of an admission of white supremacy as we’re going to get.

Of course white supremacists would consider critical race theory a threat. That framework for interpreting law maintains racism has an undeniable effect on the legal foundation of American society. As such, the framework threatens to expose the white supremacists hiding among us. 

Still, it was never widely taught in K-12 classrooms, and it would be pretty exclusively confined to law schools if not for Republicans redefining it to mean anything that reveals the truth of racism or prejudice in America. Their push has been to ban that redefinition in classrooms, which has often translated to districts attempting to water down the already bland representation of Black history in K-12 education. And it hasn’t stopped at Black history.

After Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the disgusting Don’t Say Gay bill into law, which in effect bans educators from teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity, copycat legislative proposals followed in more than a dozen other states, NPR reported.

To name a few: Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

Stopping to think about what your neighbors really mean when they hang the American flag is simply frightening. I can only pray that everyone doesn’t homeschool their children because in some cases, public school is a child’s only chance to interact with those of us who are kind, loving, and liberated.

RELATED STORIES:

Republican governor signs cruel ‘Don’t Say Gay‘ bill into law and sets a dangerous precedent

Tennessee Republicans deem Ruby Bridges’ story critical race theory in effort to ban it in schools

From ‘critical race theory’ to ‘grooming,’ the real Republican agenda is ending public education

Architect of ‘critical race theory’ panic previews the next wave of attacks on public education

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Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis continues to investigate Republican efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, and we know there’s plenty to investigate. Selection begins Monday for a special grand jury Willis is convening in that investigation.

A recent court filing included urgent texts sent by Jordan Fuchs, then Georgia’s deputy secretary of state, to Mark Meadows, then the White House chief of staff, during the phone call on which Donald Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes needed to flip the state to Trump.

”Need to end this call,” Fuch texted Meadows. “I don’t think this will be productive much longer.” She made the stakes clear when she added, “Let’s save the relationship.” But Trump was not interested in saving the relationship. He was interested in overturning his election loss.

RELATED STORY: Fulton County DA to begin selecting special grand jury in Trump election tampering case on May 2

That phone call is at the dead center of Willis’ investigation, but there are lots of other things for her to look into when a special grand jury, which will exist to investigate rather than issue indictments, is convened this week. Willis has said she won’t call witnesses who are currently candidates for office until after the May 24 primary, but she’s not going to wait until November’s general election. This is more urgent than that.

One of the candidates in that primary is David Perdue, the former senator defeated by Sen. Jon Ossoff in the January 2021 runoff election. Perdue is Trump’s chosen vehicle to challenge Gov. Brian Kemp because of Kemp’s refusal to participate in the effort to overturn Trump’s loss. Perdue is all in on Trump’s Big Lie now, and investigations are turning up evidence that he was active in the coup attempt at the time.

Texts Meadows turned over to the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol show Perdue reporting on his efforts to lobby Georgia officials to do Trump’s dirty work.

“Carr won’t be any help with SOS,” Perdue texted Meadows on Dec. 13, 2020, referring to Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr. “I have a call into the Governor’s general counsel now to see if they might help.”

On Dec. 29, Perdue texted Meadows, “I’m trying to set up this call with state legislature leaders and Rudy [Giuliani]. I just want to make sure I’m doing what you and the president want.”

So Perdue has definitely earned a spot in the Georgia investigation, along with many others. In April, Willis told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that at least 50 people had voluntarily testified, while she planned to subpoena at least 30 more, including some of Trump’s inner circle. Raffensperger has told CNN he will cooperate if subpoenaed, and members of his staff have voluntarily testified. Raffensperger, Carr, Kemp, and Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan have all received document preservation requests, but have been informed by Willis that they are likely not targets of the investigation.

As selection for the special grand jury is held Monday, officials are closing roads around the courthouse and dramatically increasing security, while prosecutors have been issued bulletproof vests. These measures come after a string of racist threats. 

”I’ll tell your viewers and any other viewers: It does not offend me to call me Black. It just doesn’t. They’re wasting their time,” Willis on CNN in February. “However, they continue to send those very nasty messages. I’ve never been called the N-word so much in my life.” How surprising that the people opposing an investigation into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the election would go to racism in their threats. Nobody could have predicted.

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