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A chilling video of an incident in North Charleston, South Carolina, showing dozens of kids and adults scrambling for cover as a barrage of gunshots rings out has left a community traumatized.

In the video, as gunfire is heard, a frightening scene unfolds Monday night at the Dixie Youth league baseball game, leaving players, coaches, and parents running for safety. The video was taken by Lori Ferguson, a parent at the game, The Post and Courier reports.

North Charleston police report that no one was injured, according to ABC News-4, but one of the team’s coaches took immediate action to petition that games no longer be played in North Charleston due to recent violence in the area.

RELATED STORY: Report: 2020 marks first time guns were the leading cause of death for kids and teens

SEE THE VIDEO BELOW: 

Witnesses told officers that prior to the gunshots, several teens pulled into the parking lot next to the baseball field and began fighting.

Blake Ferguson told WCSC-5 News he believes he heard between 50 to 75 shots before the teens drove off. 

“And then all of a sudden, boom, boom, and ‘Get down, everybody, get down!’ And you’re at a park. My kids are not with me directly and you just see everybody scattering,” Lori Ferguson told WCSC. “And my son’s on the pitcher mound by himself and it was just the most traumatic thing as a mother, as a citizen of this city, that you just feel helpless. I felt completely helpless.”

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Ferguson says she was disappointed by the police response, telling WCSC that none of the officers came to the field to check on families or players, adding that her children were “traumatized” by the incident.

“Now, I understand we could walk down the street, something could happen. We could be at church, something can happen. One-hundred percent understand that,” she told WCSC. “My kids asked me where the police were to protect them. They didn’t want to take a shower, in our own home, because now they’re traumatized by what happened tonight.”

A spokesman for the North Charleston Police Department, Harve Jacobs, told The Post and Courier that “NCPD officers are actively investigating this incident to the fullest extent of the law and will do everything in their power to locate and arrest the individuals involved in this heinous and reckless act.” He added, “We will leave no stone unturned in bringing these suspects to justice.”

According to Count on News-2, North Charleston Police Department reports that there have been 11 homicides in 2022 so far. 

“The ages of the victims and the alleged killers have gotten very young and that’s very scary because the younger and younger these gentlemen get we have to start asking ourselves what type of culture are we embracing,” Shakem Ahket, the co-founder of the Community Resource Center, told Count on News-2.

This latest event comes as a recent report from the University of Michigan Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention (IFIP) found that in 2020, gun violence became the second leading cause of death among children and teens in the U.S. 

The “change was driven largely by firearm homicides, which saw a 33.4% increase,” the report reads.  
Dr. Jason Goldstick, a researcher with IFIP and co-author of the letter, told The Guardian, “We knew gun violence had increased, but I was surprised by the level of increase for just one year … I can’t remember ever seeing that before.”

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We now know that Senate Minority Bleater Mitch McConnell was “exhilarated” after Jan. 6 because he thought the events of the day had finally discredited Donald Trump. But apparently he taught his Sith soldiers the dark arts of deflection and projection a little too well, because Cheesus’ most devoted disciples have since spirited him from his political tomb, replaced the nougat in his arteries with spicy McNugget sauces, refitted his brain with bionic parasites, and trundled his creaking corpus back onto the world stage like he somehow hadn’t incited a coup against the legitimate government of the United States.

Of course, resurrecting a two-time popular-vote loser makes zero sense unless your party isn’t a party so much as a cult of personality. Enter Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who prefers an evil far more chaotic and redolent of curly fries than the quotidian, pro-plutocrat variety McConnell has traditionally offered.

Based on a tranche of text messages former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows somehow let slip through his bony Skeletor fingers and into the hands of the House select committee investigating Jan. 6, we now know that some Republicans, including Greene, were concocting an egregious lie about the Capitol insurrection even as it was underway.

The Washington Post:

At 2:28 p.m., while the insurrection was in full swing, Greene texted Meadows to say: “Please tell the President to calm people,” adding that “This isn’t the way to solve anything.” She knew the rioters were people who would listen to Trump.

But then at 3:52 p.m., Greene texted Meadows again: “Mark we don’t think these attackers are our people. We think they are antifa. Dressed like Trump supporters.” Presto, the pro-Trump insurrection became a false flag operation!

Greene wasn’t the only one. Just minutes earlier, Trump adviser Jason Miller had texted Meadows to suggest that Trump should tweet that “Bad apples, likely ANTIFA or other crazed leftists” had “infiltrated” the alleged “peaceful protest” by Trump supporters.

The “it was really antifa” hypothesis is absurd on its face, of course. Why would a left-wing group attack the Capitol to disrupt the certification of an election outcome they’d welcomed? And if you want to make Trump cultists look bad, you don’t need to launch a pretend insurrection. You could just put an M&M in a box with a hole big enough for an unclenched hand to go in but too small for a fist to come out, and then watch them walk around for three weeks with a box on their arm.

Of course, Greene wasn’t the only GOP guppy who quickly floated and/or hewed to the “antifa did it” conspiracy theory. Fox News’ biggest Trump apologists, including Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity, began sowing their bogus “it was antifa” seeds before the feces on the walls of the Capitol had fully dried. And Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, proving that even failed insurrections can’t be too young for him to exploit, claimed, without evidence, that “some of the people who breached the Capitol today were not Trump supporters. They were masquerading as Trump supporters and in fact, were members of the violent terrorist group antifa.”

Putting aside for the moment the absurdity of Joe Biden’s supposed antifa supporters trying to stop the transfer of power from a wannabe fascist to, well, Joe Biden, this raises another pressing question: How does one masquerade as a Trump supporter? Sure, anyone can wear a red hat and wave a goofy-ass flag, but can a mere civilian really perfect the languorous, thousand-mile Cheez-It stare they’ve all independently mastered? 

But this is the right-wing spin machine in a nutshell. Their talking points don’t need to make sense. They simply need to be repeated ad nauseam, and before long, they’re taken as gospel. Though, in this case, it is remarkable that Greene and her pals were crafting dishonest talking points even as their workplace had essentially become a Mardi Gras parade with bear spray and baseball bats instead of beads.

But that’s what happens when people follow an idol who has absolutely no shame or allegiance to the truth. They tend to act in lockstep with Dear Leader’s dictates instead of following the simple evidence of their eyes and ears. And now MTG’s first fleeting stab at a bullshit rationalization for her own tribe’s inexcusable behavior has metastasized into a monster tumor that threatens the future viability of Western democracy itself.

Not a bad day’s work for a freshman representative who, at that point, had served just three days in Congress.

Of course, it’s also possible that the antifa lie was concocted before the insurrection—by some of the coup plotters themselves. According to court documents, Proud Boys Chairman Enrique Tarrio suggested his members involved in the coming unpleasantness might consider wearing black, which could be interpreted as a ploy to make it look like a false-flag antifa operation: “We will not be wearing our traditional Black and Yellow,” Tarrio wrote. “We will be incognito and we will be spread across downtown DC in smaller teams. And who knows … we might dress in all BLACK for the occasion.”

Either way, the majority of Republicans have now chosen the word of a clammy game show host over the future health of our 246-year-old republic. They should be drummed out of polite society for doing it, but sadly, this dreadful, anti-democratic beat goes on.

What will McConnell do now? I have a feeling he’s feeling less and less “exhilarated” as this country sinks deeper into the undemocratic morass he helped create.

It made comedian Sarah Silverman say, “THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT,” and prompted author Stephen King to shout “Pulitzer Prize!!!” (on Twitter, that is). What is it? The viral letter that launched four hilarious Trump-trolling books. Get them all, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE. 

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We’ve usually thought of Trumpism as being an essentially mainstream-conservative movement with expanding extremist elements. But its post-Jan. 6 metastasis, bringing these elements together, suggests it has become its own kind of extremism: wildly conspiracist, militantly if not fanatically religious, and fundamentally violent.

A recent New York Times piece about how evangelical churches are building an army of Trump fans who believe the 2020 election was stolen through fraud gives us a clear and disturbing portrait of the emerging shape of Trumpism. It is framed by three key elements that are merging into a whole: Christian nationalists, the authoritarian QAnon conspiracist cult, and the Proud Boys.

Playing a central role in the coalescence of these three elements under Trumpism are evangelical megachurches and the rolling tent revival-style political rallies that QAnon-loving Trumpists have organized as national tours, particularly the ReAwaken America Tour, “a traveling roadshow that has featured far-right Republican politicians, anti-vaccine activists, election conspiracists and Trumpworld personalities,” not to mention megachurch pastors like Greg Locke, who has a social media following in the millions.

Listen to Jennifer Fernandez Ancona from Way to Win explain how Democrats must message to win on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast with Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld

ReAwaken America, as the story notes, has attracted massive audiences numbering in the thousands to these megachurch venues, held in nine states this year. All but one of the tour’s stops have been hosted by megachurches, and the tour is sponsored by a charismatic Christian media company.

The performances wrap the narrative of election fraud in a megachurch atmosphere, complete with worship music and prayer, and have drawn criticism from some Christian clergy. When the tour came to a church in San Marcos, California, this month, a local Methodist minister denounced it as an “irreligious abomination” in an opinion essay.

A central figure at the rallies has been Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s onetime national security chief who became a prominent QAnon promoter after being fired for lying to the FBI (and later pardoned by Trump). Flynn played a leading role in the QAnon-led campaign to overturn the 2020 election.

Locke, similarly, was present at the Capitol on Jan. 6—speaking alongside Alex Jones of Infowars at a “Rally for Revival” the night before, at which he offered a prayer for the Proud Boys and its imprisoned leader, Enrique Tarrio, who had been jailed two days before on charges related to his arson of a Black Lives Matter banner three weeks before. Since then, Tarrio has been indicted on conspiracy charges for his role in the insurrection.

Both Flynn and Locke appeared at the ReAwaken America event earlier this month in Keizer, Oregon, a Salem suburb. The rally was part of a nationwide tour by far-right “alpha male” Clay Clark, featured leading QAnon figure Michael Flynn and other Trumpist media stars: Eric Trump, “My Pillow” executive Mike Lindell, notorious homophobe Sean Feucht, and a large cast of others.

It was a nonstop circus of right-wing conspiracism and Christian nationalism. At one point, Flynn introduced a video appearance from Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the onetime Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S., who launched into a pro-Putin, anti-Ukraine rant. Viganò told the audience (as he has done elsewhere) that the Russian military is actually preventing Deep State aggression and combatting the “globalist cabal.” He also claimed that the Ukrainian neo-Nazi Azov Battalion were present at the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.

The event drew about 4,000 attendees, with people arriving from around the Pacific Northwest. Counterprotesters also turned out. Left Coast Right Watch reports that “this was absolutely a QAnon event”:

It featured former QAnon promoters like Ann Vandersteel, Gene Ho, John Chambers, and cranks like Lori Gregory, who appeared on a QAnon show to promote antivaxx conspiracy theories. There were, in total, 38 featured speakers, at least ten of which were there specifically to promote antivaxx and COVID paranoia. It was also a highly religious event—six people on the list had “Pastor” in front of their names with other evangelical figures speaking as well.

Julianne Jackson, founder of Black Joy Oregon, told the Salem Statesman-Journal that the rally made her feel unsafe in her own community—particularly after social media postings advertised a post-rally celebration of “Anglo American identity.”

“It’s very important to read between the lines and know that means whiteness,” Jackson said. “And that means danger for people like me and people that look like me.”

Besides being present in the crowd, far-right candidate Marc Thielman was publicly endorsed onstage by speaker Kevin Jenkins, and happily acknowledged the plug. Also among the crowd: Dan Tooze, the Proud Boys organizer who is running for a state House seat from Oregon City’s District 40. He took a selfie there with the Oregon Proud Boys vice president, Carl Todd.

Thielman and Tooze have a well-documented relationship of mutual avid support. Thielman, the former superintendent of schools in rural Alsea who stepped down after defying COVID-19 mask mandates, is scheduled to speak at an April 15 fundraiser for Tooze. He’ll be joined by two local Republican candidates, Clackamas County Commissioner Mark Shull and commission candidate Steve Frost.

The Proud Boys-evangelical connection has been building in the past year, notably when pastors organize political events at which the street-brawling neofascists can provide “security.” There were two such events last year in Oregon.

The Times notes that white evangelical churchgoers are extremely prone to buy into the narrative of a stolen election. It cites one poll, released in November by the Public Religion Research Institute, which reported 60% of white evangelicals persist in believing that Trump was only beaten with fraud, compared to 40% of white Catholics, 19% of Hispanic Catholics, and 18% of Black Protestants who believed the same.

Another Trumpist evangelical organization, F.E.C. United (“Founded on the Three Pillars of Society: Faith, Education, and Commerce”), organizes events at megachurches and similar venues around the country. Among them is The Rock, a nondenominational evangelical church in Castle Rock, Colorado, which in February hosted an F.E.C. United event featuring two major figures in the stolen election narrative: Shawn Smith, a founder of U.S. Election Integrity Plan; and Tina Peters, the clerk and recorder of Mesa County.

Smith made headlines at the event when he accused Colorado’s Democratic secretary of state, Jena Griswold, of election fraud. He went on: “If you’re involved in election fraud, you deserve to hang.”

Peters, who first grabbed attention in January 2021 by claiming she had evidence that Dominion’s voting systems were producing fraudulent results, became a celebrity at Trumpist events last summer, appearing onstage with figures like Flynn and My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, another “Stop the Steal” conspiracy theorist. Peters was indicted last month on charges that she devised a scheme to copy voting machine hard drives and share the data with prominent 2020 election conspiracists.

The rallies often operate under different names, but they seem to share a rotating cast of stolen election celebrities, including Douglas Frank, a former Ohio math teacher whose second career as a (widely debunked) elections “expert” has taken off; Seth Keshel, a former Army captain and military intelligence analyst who worked alongside Flynn spreading disinformation in the weeks immediately after the election; Lindell, Flynn, and various other QAnon-connected figures.

At the churches, pastors often step up and endorse the conspiracy theories. “This will be your opportunity to find out real information about what really happened at the polls,” D.J. Rabe, a pastor of The House Ministry Center, a nondenominational church in Snohomish, Washington, told his congregation at an August worship service featuring a talk by Keshel. “Here’s what we’re going to find out: What everyone thinks happened didn’t really happen. The information is coming out.”

The rallies are readily adapted to strictly political settings as well, such as the “Save the Vote” event (a “Restoring Faith in Elections Rally”) planned in Payson, Arizona, on May 15. Featuring Keshel and Frank as the headliners, it’s primarily a campaign booster for Trumpist Republicans like Mark Finchem, a state legislator who was present at the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington running for secretary of state; and Ron Watkins, the man closely associated with QAnon when he oversaw operations at the message board 8kun. Watkins is running for the GOP nomination for a congressional seat.

Finchem, for his part, filed a bill last September in the Arizona Legislature seeking to overturn the certification of the state’s 2020 presidential election count—even though the dubious “audit” he based the legislation on established again that Joe Biden had defeated Trump in the state.

Flynn turned up most recently in Ohio, where he campaigned for MAGA candidate Josh Mandel, who is seeking the nomination for a U.S. Senate seat with a Trumpist agenda—even though Trump himself endorsed his rival J.D. Vance. That did not daunt Flynn (“I think he’s been poorly advised,” he told reporters) or Mandel.

“Let me say it very clear: I believe this election was STOLEN, from Donald Trump,” Mandel told the audience, adding that even without the endorsement, he’s got the grass-roots. He’s “getting outspent heavily,” but is still “winning because we have this army of Christian warriors.”

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Rep. Madison Cawthorn is in the news again! No, not because he was busted for a second time trying to get on a plane with a loaded firearm. I mean, yes, yes that happened and was reported on today, but that’s not what this new news is! The Washington Examiner has put together a pretty damning bit of circumstantial evidence, brought to them by “multiple watchdog groups,” concerning Cawthorn being guilty of insider trading on a cryptocurrency stock.

The stock in question is the Let’s Go Brandon cryptocurrency (LBG) put together by hedge fund manager James Koutoulas. Koutoulas and Cawthorn seem to be buddies; a social media post from a day before NASCAR driver Brandon Brown announced he would be sponsored by the meme coin for all of 2022—leading to a huge spike in the coin’s value—has set off warning flares for watchdogs of insider trading, who say this is a clear case that needs investigation.

It seems Koutoulas and Cawthorn are social buddies as the founder of the Let’s Go Brandon crypto currency has quite a few posts with Cawthorn, including an Instagram post from Dec. 29, 2021 at an outdoor function, where Koutoulas wrote “Never get sick of a Madison Cawthorn bro out.” After reading that (and subsequently recovering from nausea), you can check out Cawthorn’s reply in the Instagram post, saying, “Tomorrow we go to the moon!” Going to the moon is a phrase the kids use in regards to buying cryptocurrencies with the belief that the currency’s market value will skyrocket.

Listen to Jennifer Fernandez Ancona from Way to Win explain how Democrats must message to win on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast with Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld

And even before that very intensely coincidental social media post, Cawthorn was clearly hanging out with the crypto hedge funder Koutoulas. Here they are a few weeks earlier.

It is illegal to purchase stocks with insider information. It is a crime. But as Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen told the Examiner, Cawthorn would have to disclose whether he purchased more than $1,000 worth of the coin regardless of whether or not it was considered a security for regulatory purposes. “Owning cryptocurrency would be an asset subject to disclosure of a lawmaker’s annual financial disclosure form. It also could constitute a ‘personal benefit’ under the STOCK Act, making any official actions taken by Cawthorn to specifically and substantially benefit its value a violation of the STOCK Act.”

Most (if not all) crypto stocks have shown themselves to be poorly regulated pump and dump schemes, and so far the LGB cryptocurrency has played out much the same way as the Let’s Go Brandon meme coin: The coin’s value jumped to $570 million shortly after the Dec. 30 announcement only to drop to $0 by the end of January.

Koutoulas said in a Feb. 20 livestream that two factors led to LGBCoin’s precipitous decline: First, NASCAR rejected LGBCoin’s sponsorship deal with Brown on Jan. 4, and then later that month, unidentified insiders that owned an outsize share of the coin dumped all their holdings at once, causing the coin’s market value to evaporate.

Subsequently, the coin has been relaunched as just “LGB.” The creators of the the LGB meme coin are now the subjects of a recently filed class-action lawsuit for this very reason. Cawthorn is not named in that lawsuit, but to be sure, Cawthorn promotes the coin.

Whether or not Cawthorn will pay for any of his crimes remains to be seen.

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The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments today around the Biden administration’s attempt to end the previous administration’s anti-asylum Remain in Mexico policy. While the president first ended the inhumane policy nearly a year ago, one “bizarre” ruling from a judge appointed by the insurrectionist president eventually led to its forced reimplementation. 

Whether the Biden administration can end this policy once and for all is now before the conservative court. This case matters, not only because real lives are at stake, but because justices will be deciding whether an incumbent president has the power to legitimately end a predecessor’s flawed policy.

RELATED STORY: Dozens of groups file brief opposing Remain in Mexico policy as Supreme Court arguments approach

A wide coalition of groups rallied in front of the Supreme Court building as oral arguments approached, including signatories from a recent legal brief supporting the administration’s attempt to end Remain in Mexico, which is officially known as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). The policy forces asylum-seekers to wait in dangerous regions of Mexico for their U.S. immigration court dates.

Among the vulnerable people named in that legal brief were Roberto and his son Mario, who were targeted by cartels just days after being sent back to Mexico. While Mario managed to get away, he has no idea what happened to his dad. Internal government emails have since warned of “heavily armed members of criminal groups” operating “with impunity” in regions where already vulnerable asylum-seekers are sent to wait.

“Everyone has a legal and human right to seek asylum here, yet dehumanizing and deadly anti-Black policies like ‘Remain in Mexico’ and Title 42 have gutted our country’s asylum system and left thousands vulnerable to violent atrocities, including sexual assault, kidnapping, and murder,” said United We Dream Senior Advocacy Manager Juliana Macedo do Nascimento in a statement received by Daily Kos.

While she warned the court’s ruling “will have far-reaching implications on the future of asylum in the U.S,” the ruling could impact any policy decision the Biden administration lawfully chooses to undertake. The lower courts, including the appeals court that backed Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling, have already made it no secret that they believe Democratic presidents have no right to govern. Just yesterday, a Louisiana judge issued a ruling against the Biden administration’s decision to end the anti-asylum Title 42 policy. That judge was also appointed by the insurrectionist president.

In a widely celebrated decision two years ago last summer, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that the previous administration had unlawfully ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. But the case in front of the justices today is very different. “In the DACA case, everyone, even those suing the Trump admin, agreed that DHS could terminate DACA if it went through the right procedures,” American Immigration Council Senior Policy Counsel Aaron Reichlin-Melnick tweeted.

“In today’s case, a judge said the Biden admin can’t end MPP, even if it goes through the right procedures,” he continued. “That’s the key difference.” Like the video embedded above from the #SafeNotStranded campaign notes, Kacsmaryk’s ruling states that Remain in Mexico has to remain in place until the government has infrastructure to detain every single asylum-seeker.

“Biden v. Texas will not simply determine whether the Remain in Mexico program can end,” Vox reported. “It could also allow Trump’s judges to entrench one of Trump’s policies—even when the American people voted to reject Trump.” This case is about vulnerable children and families who have already suffered so much and are simply asking for safety here. But it’s also about whether a duly elected president will be allowed to govern.

RELATED STORIES: Supreme Court to decide whether one federal judge can sabotage Biden’s immigration agenda

Conservative appeals court’s decision keeping Remain in Mexico in place slammed as ‘nonsensical’

Biden admin again tries to end Remain in Mexico policy, citing ‘endemic flaws’ and ‘human costs’

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“He led the team in prayer in the locker room before each game, and some players began to join him for his postgame prayer, too, where his practice ultimately evolved to include full-blown religious speeches to, and prayers with, players from both teams after the game, conducted while the players were still on the field and while fans remained in the stands,” Smith wrote.

One of the main concerns the Supreme Court will be looking at is whether Kennedy was praying as a private citizen or as an assistant coach and school employee. The Ninth Court of Appeals had ruled that the coach was acting as a public employee and thus not authorized to pray in the area because the First Amendment doesn’t apply. 

Kennedy, however, claimed that accommodations for religion were too far from players, making it difficult for him to perform his duties as a coach should he want to pray. “There were no accommodations that were feasible,” he said.

“It was tough,” he added, “to be taken away from the thing that you love.”

However, the Bremerton School District told the Supreme Court last year that school officials had heard complaints from players’ parents that their children felt forced to participate in the prayers because of who was conducting them and where. One parent even said his son felt “compelled to participate” out of fear he would lose out on playing time.

School officials noted to combat this issue, they offered Kennedy time and space to pray before and after games, such as in the press box, but he insisted on praying on the field where students were close by. 

“For seven years this was Kennedy conducting prayer on the field, leading it, delivering it to the students,” said Richard Katskee, vice president and legal director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which is representing the school district.

The former coach put “himself on the 50-yard line and he makes a spectacle of things,” Katskee said. “There’s nothing about that that’s personal or private.”

Prior to losing his job, Kennedy was asked to stop the prayers and even put on leave when he failed to do so in 2015. As he continued to dismiss the school district’s requests not to pray on the field, in 2016 an evaluation of his performance determined he should not be hired for the next season, citing failure to follow district policy and failure to supervise student-athletes after games.

As a result, Kennedy chose not to reapply for his coaching position at Bremerton High School and instead filed suit against the Bremerton School District in federal district court in Tacoma, Washington.

The case brings up the constitutional question of how accommodating public schools must be to the religious beliefs of employees. Many have used the case to bring up the idea of separation of church and state. The Supreme Court ruled in 1962 that public schools could not offer prayers, even if participation by students is voluntary. Often students felt compelled to pray even if they were not comfortable because of the fear of teachers or higher authorities retaliating. 

Speaking to this and referring to Kennedy in conversation with CBS News, Rachel Laser, the president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said:

“When a coach uses the power of his job to be in a place and have access to students at a time when they’re expected to encircle him and come to him, that’s an abuse of that power and a violation of the Constitution.

“Religious freedom is not the right to impose your religion on others. We all need to have it, so that’s why the free exercise and establishment clause work together to protect religious freedom for all of us,” Laser added.

According to USA TODAY, some are concerned that if the conservative majority Supreme Court rules in favor of Kennedy, whether teachers can recite a prayer before classroom lessons will become the next topic of discussion.

The Supreme Court is expected to make a decision in the case this summer.

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Last winter, when it looked like there was a sliver of hope that Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) cared enough about our country to break the filibuster to protect voting rights, Republican Sen. Susan Collins (ME) was deputized by her leadership to create a bipartisan gang to divert them. It worked. Sinema made sure that any hope of passing voting rights legislation was extinguished in what will be remembered as the longest and easily most craven speech of her career. Manchin joined her in refusing to vote with Democrats to pass his own bill.

Collins’ effort is apparently still limping along, with the gang reportedly still meeting to reform the Electoral College Act (ECA) of 1887. That law sets up the process by which Congress certifies Electoral College votes, allowing for members of the House and Senate to submit objections to the electoral results of any state, and to have those objections voted on. If a simple majority of both chambers votes to sustain an objection, it stands. The law also allows the governor of a state to certify which slate of electors goes to Congress in the event that multiple slates are submitted. A majority in both the House and Senate would be needed to reject a slate. Which all worked as it was supposed to, until Donald Trump and his efforts to exploit the ambiguities of the law.

The reform group is working on tightening up those ambiguities, but mostly trying to make sure that they do not do anything to actually make sure the election that happens before the ECA matters is conducted freely and fairly. Collins made sure to make a point of that Monday.

RELATED STORY: Reforming the Electoral Count Act is necessary, but not sufficient, to save our democracy

“We’ve reached consensus on some of the key issues, such as the role of the vice president, to have language making clear that it’s ministerial; increasing the threshold in both the House and the Senate that is necessary to trigger a challenge; and some issues involving the transition period. And a few other issues,” she said. But, she said “some in our group” want to include voting rights provisions. “I would much prefer that we keep this focus on the ECA. It’s 135 years old. It was a source of confusion and ambiguity on Jan. 6. And we need to take care of it.”

Listen to Jennifer Fernandez Ancona from Way to Win explain how Democrats must message to win on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast with Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld

She expanded on that, telling Politico “There are some Democrats who feel very strongly about going back and revisiting the Voting Rights Act provisions. And my worry is that it will kill the bill.”

Of course she doesn’t want to restore voting rights. She’s a Republican. She wants to be perceived as doing something to protect presidential elections so people don’t notice she’s backing the white supremacist Republican efforts to keep Black, brown, young, and otherwise marginalized people from being able to exercise their most fundamental right in this country: voting. She and the other Republicans (and Manchin) insist that the problem in the 2020 election was solely about what happened on Jan. 6.

This is a substantial backslide from where Collins started with this whole diversionary tactic. Back in early January, when she was trying to make sure voting rights legislation was stopped in its tracks, Collins was talking about securing elections, as well. She said then that they needed to reform the ECA and were also “ looking at additional protections against violence and threats for poll workers and election officials.”

A group of Senate Democrats quickly drafted  their own version of ECA reform, the Electoral Count Modernization Act. They worked with “with legal experts and election law scholars” from “across the political spectrum” to “establish clear, consistent, and fair procedures for the counting and certification of electoral votes for the presidency” and address the ambiguities in the 1887 Electoral Count Act.

While those senators—Maine’s independent Sen. Angus King, Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Senate Majority Whip and Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL)—insisted that they also want to see voting rights legislation passed, they offered this to “clarify ambiguities in the electoral process after Election Day to truly ensure the will of the voters will prevail.”

That includes measures to keep bad partisan actors at the state level from hijacking the process and prohibiting state legislatures from appointing electors after Election Day to prevent the appointment of electors who would try to overturn election results. It would also make sure there is another layer of protection by allowing “limited judicial review” to make sure that courts could ensure that electors appointed by a state “reflect the popular vote results in the state.”

Those provisions are probably what Republicans like Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (WV) are complaining about when they say the Democrats want too much. She complained that “I don’t think we’ve made much progress over the last two weeks.” Asked if the bill could possibly pass, she said “I think we do. But it’s going to have to be a narrow bill to get it done.” Translation: There are not 10 Republicans who would be willing to make sure that our elections are free of voter suppression and that all elected officials abide by the will of the voters.

Democrats participating in the talks, meanwhile, remain cautiously optimistic. “We want to see what we can agree on, and hopefully we can move forward on that. I would hope that whatever we agree on we can vote on this year,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, (D-NH) said. “Now, we may not be able to agree on broader issues than just what’s in the Electoral Count Act. But if we reach agreement, I hope we can vote on that.” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said “It’s very much alive. […] We can get a deal. We can get a deal, and we could get a whole bunch of votes in the Senate for it.”

Sure. It’s not terribly surprising that Collins is spearheading this play-act at elections reform. After all, while she fretted over the events of Jan. 6, she refuses to rule out supporting Trump if he runs again in 2024. So any Democrat counting on her to be working with them in good faith should keep that in mind.

Let’s be clear that passing electoral count reforms and doing away with the ambiguities of a 135-year-old law is critical. But it’s also not sufficient to restore our democratic processes. Passing this bill matters. But it’s not enough.

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Are we even surprised that a candidate endorsed by Donald Trump is up to some shady business? A congressional campaign has denied text messages that indicate plans to commit election fraud after they were leaked by a fired former campaign manager. Congressional candidate Joe Kent’s team claims the texts are fabricated, but a former campaign manager insists they were not.

The texts were first published by right-wing blog Red Voice Media, which posted screenshots of the texts on Thursday. While the article did not specify how the texts were received, it noted that “the allegations against Kent are both heavy and concerning.”

The texts were then confirmed to be authentic to The Dispatch by former campaign manager Byron Sanford. Sanford was fired by Kent in December. He told the outlet that days before being let go, Kent sent messages to current Campaign Manager Ozzie Gonzalez via the secured app Signal, alleging he would buy the votes of less fortunate folks.

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According to Sanford, Kent planned to use cigarettes and pizza to bribe homeless people and undocumented immigrants to register to vote. He then planned to sort through their ballots to ensure they chose him as their desired candidate.

When asked about the texts, Kent told The Dispatch that his campaign has “been through this before … This is why I got rid of the guy—I just simply couldn’t trust him,” he added, speaking of Sanford.

Kent maintained the claim he made to the outlet in September that his campaign was dedicated to “election integrity”—an odd claim from someone supported by Trump who has cried about a stolen election without evidence for almost two years.

But here’s the plot twist: When investigating the issue, The Dispatch found that there was more drama to the campaign than shared. Sanford admitted to falsely accusing the Kent campaign of creating other Signal messages meant to hurt his reputation. That false accusation tarnished Sanford’s credibility, raising questions on whether these newly published texts too are false. However, through weeks of consistent investigation, The Dispatch verified they were from Gonzalez’s phone.

One text read:

“I’m 1000% down to register homeless people for cigarettes. I’ve been looking for nonprofits or existing orgs that will let us piggyback off their infrastructure but we’re just going to have to do it on our own. Should not be hard. Show up at a camp with 30 dominoes pizzas. Same with every ethnic minority. The stupider the better. Central Americans are perfect”

Another indicated the campaign’s intention to illegally secure votes:

“I’m also down to take all the trash bags of ballots back to my place to make sure they voted the correct way by shining a flash light through the envelope.”

And following in the words of Trump the intent of another text couldn’t be more clear:

“I’m literally going to steal the election. I’ll collect every ballot I can with some trust worthy [sic] Patriot prayer guys and then we will sort through them in my basement and burn the bad ones.”

Gonzalez defended himself, telling the outlets that not only was Sanford lying, but he “was found with my cell phone several times when it went missing at events throughout the summer.” He added: “Most media was captured on my phone and it got passed around frequently.”

To further tarnish Sanford’s credibility, Gonzalez shared screenshots with The Dispatch that he allegedly had of Sanford’s texts in which he claimed Sanford used offensive and ignorant language, including saying “fucking kikes,” “heil fucking Kent,” and “allah fucking akbar.” According to The Dispatch, the same verification process used to confirm Gonzalez’s texts was used to confirm the messages came from the Signal account associated with Sanford’s phone number.

While he initially denied the claims, Sanford later admitted to sending the antisemitic texts.

“I’ve donated to Jewish causes and I’m a staunch supporter of a one-state solution with Israel annexing the West Bank. I used a poor choice of wording to Ozzie but that’s how you work on Joe’s campaign with his current staff,” he told The Dispatch. “The reason Joe’s people are using this is because I told the truth about his campaign.”

Whether or not Kent was involved in this attempt to “steal the election” is not clear, but what is clear is that this campaign is a hot shady mess.

But of course, it comes as no surprise because this isn’t the first time Kent has made headlines. Kent has faced criticism for being connected to not only white nationalism but supporting the neo-nazi conspiracy of “replacement theory.” The conspiracy theory suggests that white people native to their countries are being replaced by non-white immigrants.

During appearances on conservative talk shows, Kent expressed anger towards people who label those who talk about “replacement theory” as racist. 

“[Democrats] are elite whites who have no issue whatsoever bringing in that unskilled cheap labor from country—you name the country, you name the ethnicity, that’s going to displace, a working-class white, a working-class Hispanic, or working-class Black African American,” Kent said. “And you know, they’ll say oh if you even mention that, then you’re some sort of neo-Nazi, white nationalist. That’s the replacement theories.

“Well no, you’re literally trying to replace an American—but you’re not, you’re doing it because you want cheap labor,” Kent added.

The outlet Salon even included Kent in their list of dangerous Republican candidates, noting that the candidate for Washington’s 3rd District was backed by the “Insurrection Caucus,” including Trump allies like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Madison Cawthorn, and Matt Gaetz.

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Wisconsin Republican House Speaker Robin Vos just can’t get out from under the sham 2020 election investigation he created to placate Donald Trump.

The taxpayer-funded probe, with an estimated price tag of $680,000, has turned up exactly no evidence of fraud but it sure has fueled a movement of deluded election deniers. Vos originally tapped former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman to run what has evolved into a total debacle. Now Gableman’s contract with the state Assembly is up, and Vos is seeking to end the probe and cut his losses.

Enter Donald Trump, who is threatening Vos with a primary challenge if he shuts it down, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

“Anyone calling themselves a Republican in Wisconsin should support the continued investigation in Wisconsin without interference,” Trump said.

“I understand some RINOs have primary challengers in Wisconsin. I’m sure their primary opponents would get a huge bump in the polls if these RINOs interfere,” he added, wielding an acronym for “Republicans In Name Only” that’s synonymous with traitor in Trump circles.

Trump didn’t name Vos, but he didn’t have to. Controversy over Vos’ costly, unproductive, and ongoing investigation has been raging since last year.

Vos originally announced the probe to appease Trump—a fool’s errand. The investigation served only to stoke false hopes among election deniers and give political opportunists a toehold.

Vos was left desperately trying to disabuse election deniers of the notion that state lawmakers could vote to decertify the 2020 election, part of an ongoing plot being pushed by Trump attorney John Eastman, author of the Jan. 6 scheme to deny congressional certification of Joe Biden’s win.

Gableman, who’s being compensated $11,000 per month, has missed several deadlines to file his report. He also seems to be terrorizing mayors, election officials, and others by targeting them with overly broad subpoenas, then asking a judge to jail them for noncompliance. Gableman’s targets dispute his characterization that they are violating the law. They are also insisting that he interview them in a public setting rather than privately, according to the Journal Sentinel.  

Vos is pressuring Gableman to close out his daily duties this week. But a hearing on those subpoenas is set for July and a favorable ruling for Gableman would result in several weeks or months more of deposition work. Gableman has also graced the airwaves of Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast to lobby for an extension.

Gableman’s cause has been taken up by some GOP state lawmakers, too.

“If Speaker Vos shuts down the Office of Special Counsel’s investigation now, not only will he be condoning cheating, he’ll be legalizing it,” said GOP Rep. Janel Brandtjen, who chairs the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections.

In the meantime, Vos and Gableman have been embroiled in several lawsuits related to cases filed by the liberal watchdog group American Oversight.

The drip, drip, drip of Wisconsin GOP drama comes amid a midterm effort that historically should favor Republicans. But a Marquette Law School poll in late February posted some daunting numbers for Republicans.

President Joe Biden’s job approvals (43% approve/52% disapprove) aren’t exactly great, but Trump’s favorability rating has plummeted to 36% favorable/57% unfavorable.

The favorables for incumbent GOP Sen. Ron Johnson, who’s up for reelection, are similarly dismal, with just 33% of Wisconsin voters viewing him favorably, while 45% view him unfavorably—his worst numbers in 10 years of Marquette polling.

At the same time, incumbent Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is faring relatively well in this polarized environment, with 50% job approval to 41% disapproval.

Oh, and Vos’ bottom-of-the-barrel favorables sit at 13% favorable, 28% unfavorable, and 50% who “hadn’t heard enough.”

Please proceed, Trump. Wisconsinites need to feel your continued presence in the state.

Want to help progressive organizers in Wisconsin get out the vote? Contribute here to their critical grassroots work.

—>>Later today, we will be hosting Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, on The Brief, from 4:30 PM ET to 5:30 PM ET. You can catch it below!

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The attempts to get ex-cop and convicted murderer Derek Chauvin out of jail after he kneeled on George Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes just keep rolling in. This time, they’re coming in the form of an 82-page brief filed on Monday to detail Chauvin’s believed grounds for an appeal.

Chauvin filed a notice of appeal last September and argued in that document that the “District Court abused its discretion when it denied Appellant’s motion for change of venue or a new trial.” In the recent brief, attorney William Mohrman expounded. 

RELATED STORY: Derek Chauvin files for appeal after murdering George Floyd

“The threat of violence here was real in the extreme,” he wrote in the brief. “The courthouse was surrounded by barbed wire and soldiers during the trial. Prior to jury deliberations, National Guard troops were deployed throughout Minneapolis, businesses boarded up their buildings and schools were closed ‘bracing for a riot’ in the event Chauvin’s acquittal. The jurors, because they were not sequestered, saw this every day.”

Listen to Berkeley Law professor Ian Haney López discuss how Democrats can talk about race on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast

Mohrman claimed pre-trial publicity was “more extensive than in any trial ever in Minnesota”; that “every potential juror and seated juror admitted detailed knowledge of both Floyd’s death, Chauvin’s involvement and the riots”; and prosecutorial misconduct was overlooked.

Many of them aren’t exactly new elements of the defense’s attempt to get a murderer out of jail. They were laid out in the notice of appeal. In that document, attorneys accused the state of committing “prejudicial prosecutorial misconduct” and abusing its discretion when it didn’t sequester the jury throughout the trial.

Attorneys also accused the court of failing “to make an official record of the numerous sidebar conferences that occurred during trials,” and not giving due consideration to an earlier motion for a new trial due to alleged “juror misconduct.”

The integrity of a particular juror in Chauvin’s trial was called into question just days after Chauvin was sentenced because that juror attended a march for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., CBS-affiliated WCCO reported last May.

Rachel Moran, a law professor from the University of St. Thomas, told WCCO then that an important consideration in the case is whether lawyers did their job in investigating jurors. The juror, Brandon Mitchell, said in a questionnaire WCCO obtained that he never took part in a protest about police brutality and that the phrase “Black lives matter” simply means Black people “want to be treated as equals and not killed or treated in an aggressive manner simply because they are Black.”

“If he had been asked about it and he tried to hide it, that could be an issue,” Moran said. “But at this point, I don’t see anything, any evidence that he tried to hide it.”

RELATED STORY: Derek Chauvin murders George Floyd in broad daylight, but Black juror is called into question

Another repeated defense refrain laid out in the appeal brief is this belief that Chauvin was sentenced too harshly. 

Well, the prosecution pushed for an upward departure from sentencing guidelines, and Judge Peter Cahill agreed with four of five of its claims that there were “aggravated sentencing factors” to qualify a longer sentence for the ex-cop in a pre-sentencing court document filed last May. Cahill found that Chauvin abused a position of trust and authority; was particularly cruel; committed an act of crime in the presence of children; and committed a crime as part of a group of at least three other people.

The one aggravating factor Cahill parted with the prosecution on was that Floyd was “particularly vulnerable” in comparison with other murder victims.

RELATED STORY: What to expect when Derek Chauvin is sentenced: Attorneys weigh in

Chauvin, who’s being held at a maximum security prison, was sentenced to 22.5 years last April. He pleaded guilty of depriving Floyd of his rights in the federal case against Chauvin late last year.

RELATED STORY: Derek Chauvin changes plea to guilty in federal case against him