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On Wednesday evening, a U.S. District Court judge in Austin blocked Gov. Greg Abbott’s ban on mask mandates at schools. According to the ruling from Judge Lee Yeakel, Abbott’s actions violate federal law because they present a special danger to students who are at high risk due to preexisting medical conditions. Because of this, refusing to allow schools to institute mask mandates, according to Yeakel, is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). 

“The spread of COVID-19 poses an even greater risk for children with special health needs. Children with certain underlying conditions who contract COVID-19 are more likely to experience severe acute biological effects and to require admission to a hospital and the hospital’s intensive-care unit.”

Yeakel makes a series of very simple, and easily defensible, points in his ruling:

• Students with special health concerns are at higher risk.
• Schools say that mask mandates will help protect those students in a way that voluntary mask use will not.
• Evidence supports the idea that near-universal mask-wearing helps slow the spread of COVID-19.
• Forcing kids at higher risk to participate in classrooms without a mask mandate puts them at higher risk than their peers.

If this ruling holds up, it could affect not just mask mandates in Texas, but in multiple states were Republican governors, legislatures, and attorneys general have attempted to prevent schools from requiring masks. 

Throughout the entire pandemic, it seems that Republican governors have been scrambling to one-up each other on how willing they are to endanger their citizens. A whole series of steps have become de rigueur—especially for any Republican who believes she or he has a chance of bumping Trump from the slot on the 2024 GOP playbill. That’s included stripping power from local officials to institute their own social distancing rules, taking away authority from state and county health officials, punishing businesses that seek to keep employees safe, punishing employees who seek to avoid unsafe workplaces, fining schools that attempt to keep students safe, and making it illegal for anyone—private or public—to require vaccination. 

The number of players in this game is almost as long as the list of GOP governors, and there has been some outstandingly awful behavior from governors such as South Dakota’s Kristi Noem and Tennessee’s Bill Lee. However, few governors have dueled for the title of Most Willing To Kill Citizens for Political Points the way that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have gone at it.

DeSantis often grabs the headline for his habit of treating each downturn in the rate of new cases as an excuse to claim that his policies have worked—while ignoring Florida’s top 10 status in both the rate of cases and of deaths. But Abbott has matched his Florida rival almost step for step when it comes to punishing everyone with good intentions.

For both Abbott and DeSantis, it hasn’t been enough not to impose a statewide mask mandate. Both have issued executive orders that prohibit local authorities from instituting such mandates, both have issued orders to prohibit such mandates in most government facilities, and both have threatened to fine or punish schools that violate the rules. In Florida, the DeSantis-appointed Board of Education has already moved to withhold funds from schools that require masks—not just endangering students, but directly threatening their education. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had already launched prosecutions against a number of school districts, but both Paxton and Abbott were set back on their spurs when dozens of districts rebelled against the ban.

Texas is almost certain to appeal Yeakel’s ruling, especially since Paxton is, in almost every measurable way, worse than Abbott when it comes to reflexive attacks on reasonable policies. However, for the moment, not only can schools in Texas feel safer while making kids safer, there are implications that go way beyond one state and way beyond schools.

If a ban on mask mandates is a violation of the ADA, then this is true not just in Texas, but in Florida, South Dakota, Tennessee, and every other Republican-controlled state that has moved to block these mandates. And if this is true for schools, it must be true for everywhere else as well, in public and private space.

Abbott’s own executive order makes it clear that mask mandates have value, because he exempts hospitals, nursing homes, and jails from the ban on such mandates. This is easily recognized as giving value to such mandates. 

With a ruling that touches on the ADA in hand, this is certain to become a fight that will be joined by multiple Republican attorneys general. Because it seems dead simple to extend this ruling to support the idea that cities, counties, government facilities, and private businesses of all types cannot be banned from issuing mask mandates.

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The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Leading Off

● ID-Gov: Donald Trump waded into the Republican primary on Tuesday evening by endorsing far-right Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin’s bid to take down Idaho Gov. Brad Little. Trump did not mention Little in his not-Tweet, which he instead used to laud McGeachin as “​​a true supporter of MAGA since the very beginning.” Whoever wins the nomination in May should have no trouble prevailing in the 2022 general election in what has long been one of the reddest states in the nation.

While Trump has been eager to end the careers of Republican governors and members of Congress who have pushed back on his 2020 election lies, Politico’s Zach Montellaro notes that Little himself doesn’t appear to have done anything to provoke Trump’s wrath. Indeed, Montellaro notes that it was just last week that the GOP leader recognized Little at an event held at Mar-a-Lago. “We also have Gov. Brad Little, who is a terrific gentleman,” Trump said, adding, “Thank you Brad. He’s working on a project.”

There’s no word on what Trump meant by that last line, but McGeachin has made headlines multiple times for taking part in some very dangerous projects of her own. The lieutenant governor has spent the pandemic blasting Little for his efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus, which included a video where she suggested the pandemic “may or may not be occurring.” She also once posted a photo taken at the state Capitol with members of the so-called Three Percenters, a faction in the extremist anti-government “militia” movement.

Campaign Action

McGeachin has also tried to back up her talk with actual action multiple times when Little’s powers passed to her while he was out of state. In May, while the incumbent was attending a Republican National Governors event in Tennessee, McGeachin announced she was issuing an executive order forbidding schools and public buildings from requiring face masks, a directive Little repealed about 24 hours later when he was back in Idaho.

The governor himself declared that he “opposed a statewide mask mandate” but argued that the decision should be left to local governments and that McGeachin’s actions ran “contrary to a basic conservative principle – the government closest to the people governs best.”

McGeachin was far from deterred, though. Last month, she received national attention when she took advantage of another Little trip, this time to Texas, to talk to Major General Michael Garshak about sending the Idaho National Guard to the border with Mexico. Garshak responded, “I am unaware of any request for Idaho National Guard assistance under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) from Texas or Arizona … As you are aware, the Idaho National Guard is not a law enforcement agency.”

McGeachin also used the occasion to issue another executive order that included a rule preventing any ​​state agencies from requiring proof of vaccination or testing. Little responded four minutes later by saying he would be “rescinding and reversing any actions taken by the Lt. Governor when I return.” However, while the governor bashed his nominal number two for “political grandstanding,” her antics seem to have found a very eager audience in Trump.

McGeachin isn’t the only far-right icon aiming to take down Little, though. Anti-government militant Ammon Bundy kicked off a campaign in June, and he may have enough of a base to cost McGeachin some much-needed support.

Redistricting

● AK Redistricting: Alaska’s redistricting commission agreed on a new state Senate map on Tuesday, with the board’s three Republican appointees voting in favor and its two independent members against. The commission also recently approved a new map for the state House, though legal challenges to both plans are likely.

● FL Redistricting: A committee in Florida’s Republican-controlled state Senate released four different draft maps for Congress and four for its own chamber on Wednesday, which you can find here. The congressional maps are all quite similar to one another and largely preserve the status quo, with the addition of one new district that the state earned in reapportionment. That seat would be numbered the 15th, a swingy district in east Tampa that would have narrowly gone for Joe Biden, which would also make the adjacent 14th District (held by Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor) less blue. Republican Rep. Scott Franklin, who represents the current 15th, would instead find himself in the redder 28th District.

● GA Redistricting: Georgia’s Republican-run House passed the GOP’s new map for the chamber on Wednesday on a largely party-line vote, with all Democrats and two Republicans voting against. The plan now goes to the Senate, which already passed its own map earlier in the week. In most states where lawmakers control the redistricting process, each chamber will generally craft a map for itself, with approval from the other house typically a formality.

● MD Redistricting: Lawmakers in Maryland’s Democratic-run legislature have released four different draft maps for the House, two of which would maintain the party’s 7-1 advantage in the state’s congressional delegation and two of which would target the 1st District, the lone Republican seat. However, even under the most aggressive proposal, the 1st would remain very swingy.

Democratic partisans have advocated for an 8-0 plan for more than a decade—and drawn many, many hypothetical maps that would ensure all eight districts would be safely blue. HuffPost’s Kevin Robillard even reported in January that one Maryland operative suggested Democrats might finally go for the jugular following Congress’ vote to certify the results of the Electoral College on Jan. 6: That evening, Republican Rep. Andy Harris nearly instigated a fist-fight after Pennsylvania Rep. Conor Lamb called out Republicans for their lies that had incited the invasion of the Capitol earlier that day.

Barring the introduction of additional maps, however, it does not appear Maryland Democrats are willing to take this step.

● ND Redistricting: North Dakota’s Republican-run state legislature has passed a new legislative map, sending it to Republican Gov. Doug Burgum. Both chambers use the same districts, with each electing two representatives and one senator, though the new map adds two exceptions to that pattern: Two House districts based around Indian reservations would now be divided in half, with each half electing its own member, in order to improve Native representation.

● UT Redistricting: Both chambers in Utah’s Republican-run legislature swiftly passed the GOP’s new congressional map on Wednesday, which lawmakers had only introduced on Monday afternoon. The plan creates four safely Republican seats by cracking the state’s lone blue bastion, Salt Lake County, four ways.

Activists with a group called Better Boundaries said ahead of the vote that they plan to put a measure on the ballot “to repeal and replace the heavily gerrymandered district maps.” However, because the plan passed with a two-thirds vote in both the state Senate and House, it cannot be subject to a veto referendum, which would have blocked the map from taking effect as soon as it qualified for the ballot—had it been able to.

Organizers could instead seek to pass their own map at the ballot box, but Republican lawmakers would be able to repeal it even if it passes since voters can only initiate statutes instead of constitutional amendments, much as they did when they gutted the measure creating a new redistricting commission that Better Boundaries helped pass in 2018.

● VA Redistricting: As expected, Virginia’s new bipartisan redistricting commission has missed the final deadline to produce a new congressional map, punting the task to the state Supreme Court. The commissioners previously failed to come up new legislative maps, meaning the justices will draw those as well. Many Democrats have expressed concern that the court, which has a 5-2 conservative majority, will craft districts that favor Republicans.

Senate

● AL-Sen: While Rep. Mo Brooks and his allies have released several polls showing the Trump-backed congressman with a huge Republican primary lead over former Business Council of Alabama head Katie Boyd Britt, Britt’s side has now dropped a pair of surveys giving her the edge.  

Cygnal, polling in early November on behalf of the pro-Britt Alabama Conservatives Fund, finds her outpacing Brooks 24-22, with Army veteran Mike Durant in third with 9%. Britt’s campaign has also publicized a TargetPoint Consulting poll that gives her a tiny 31-30 lead against Brooks, with Durant taking a similar 12%.

● GA-Sen: If you were waiting with bated breath to find out whom ​​Newt Gingrich, the long ago Georgia congressman, two-term House Speaker, and undoubtedly the inspiration for many terrifying costumes at 1990s-themed parties, is supporting in the Republican Senate primary, your time of trial is over: Gingrich is for NFL player Herschel Walker.

● NH-Sen: WMUR reports that wealthy businessman Bill Binnie, who took a distant third in the 2010 Senate Republican primary, is interested in another try, but there’s no word from Binnie himself.

● UT-Sen: Former Rep. Ben McAdams, who is arguably the most prominent Democrat in Utah, has endorsed independent Evan McMullin’s campaign against Republican Sen. Mike Lee.

● WI-Sen: When asked once again Wednesday if he’ll be running for re-election, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson said, “It’ll all be revealed in the next few weeks.”

Governors

● AR-Gov: Former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders lost her last notable Republican primary foe on Tuesday night when Attorney General Leslie Rutledge announced that she was switching to the race for lieutenant governor. The Trump-backed Sanders, who enjoyed a massive financial lead over Rutledge, earned endorsements the following day from Sens. John Boozman and Tom Cotton.

● PA-Gov: Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman postponed his planned “special announcement” after the Republican tested positive for COVID-19; Corman says his symptoms are mild.

House

● IA-01, IA-03: Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks announced Wednesday that she would run for the new 1st District, which contains the vast majority of her current 2nd District. Miller-Meeks’ home of Wapello County was moved to the 3rd District, and the congresswoman has not yet said if she’ll be moving.

● IL-03: Chicago Alderman Gilbert Villegas, who’d been considering a bid for Illinois’ redrawn 3rd Congressional District, became the first candidate to enter the Democratic primary on Wednesday. The Chicago Sun-Times‘ Rick Pearson adds that state Rep. Delia Ramirez and Eira Corral Sepulveda, a commissioner on Chicago’s Metropolitan Water Reclamation District commissioner, are also both interested, though neither woman is quoted.

● IL-17: Two new Democrats announced campaigns for Illinois’ revamped 17th Congressional District on Wednesday, former state Rep. Litesa Wallace and former TV meteorologist Eric Sorensen.

Wallace was first appointed to the legislature in 2014 to fill a vacancy and won two terms in her own right before an unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor in 2018. Sorensen, meanwhile, served as chief meteorologist for WREX in Rockford for a decade, then held the same position at WQAD in Moline for many years before retiring earlier this year. They join Rock Island County Board member Angie Normoyle and Rockford Alderman Jonathan Logemann in the Democratic primary.

● MI-08: Former Republican Rep. Mike Bishop told The Hill this week that he was considering a comeback bid, though he added that he was waiting for the state’s redistricting commission to complete its work before deciding.

Bishop lost a very expensive 2018 race to Democrat Elissa Slotkin 51-47, but a new map could forestall a rematch even if they both ran in 2022. Last month, MIRS’ Kyle Melinn reported that Slotkin was likely to run for a seat based around Lansing’s Ingham County, while Bishop said he would likely campaign for a district containing Macomb and Oakland counties in the Detroit suburbs.

● NC-04: This week, former Fayetteville Mayor Nat Robertson became the first notable Republican to announce a campaign for the new 4th District, an open seat that, according to data from Dave’s Redistricting App, favored Donald Trump 53-46. Robertson was last on the ballot in 2017 when he lost his bid for a third term to Democrat Mitch Colvin by a lopsided 59-41 margin.

● NC-13: Former Mecklenburg County Commissioner Karen Bentley has filed paperwork with the FEC for a potential bid for the new 13th District, which went for Donald Trump 60-39.

● NJ-05: Marine veteran Nick De Gregorio said Wednesday that he’d seek the Republican nod to take on Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer in what is currently a competitive North Jersey seat. De Gregorio has not run for office before, though the New Jersey Globe wrote back in June that he was being advised by prominent consultant Chris Russell and had ties to state GOP chair Bob Hugin.

● NY-24: Air Force veteran Sarah Klee Hood, who just won a seat on the DeWitt Town Board last week, kicked off a bid for New York’s 24th Congressional District on Wednesday. She joins two other former members of the military, Navy veteran Francis Conole and Army veteran Steven Holden, in the Democratic primary.

● TX-15: Republican Monica De La Cruz, who is running for Texas’ open 15th Congressional District, was accused of physically and verbally abusing her 14-year-old stepdaughter in documents filed last month by her husband as part of the couple’s divorce proceedings. In a petition to the court, Johnny Hernandez alleged that De La Cruz had once pinched his daughter, whom he says has struggled with mental health issues, to force her to stop crying. He also says that De La Cruz threatened to divorce him “if he brought the child, who has at times been hospitalized, back to live at their home.” De La Cruz, who has House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s endorsement, called the accusations “false.”

● TX-35: State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, who’d recently filed paperwork for a possible bid, announced on Wednesday that he’d enter the race for Texas’ open 35th Congressional District. He joins Austin City Councilman Greg Casar in the Democratic primary.

Secretaries of State

● WA-SoS: Gov. Jay Inslee announced Wednesday that he was appointing state Sen. Steve Hobbs to succeed Republican Secretary of State Kim Wyman, a move that will make Hobbs both the first Democrat to serve as Washington’s chief election official since the 1964 elections and the first person of color to hold this office. This post will next be on the ballot in November of 2022 for a special election for the final two years of Wyman’s term; Wyman herself is resigning next week to join the Biden administration to oversee election security.

Hobbs, as Inslee himself noted in his statement, is a moderate. The Seattle Times writes that the state senator, who was elected in 2006, has “broken with the party over the years, and more recently, has clashed with the governor over Inslee’s climate-change proposals.” Hobb’s elevation could allow Democrats to replace him in the upper chamber with a more progressive voice: Under state law, Democrats will submit three names to the county commission in Snohomish County, which is the only county in the 44th Legislative District, and the commissioners will pick one to be the new state senator.

Hobbs has also unsuccessfully sought a promotion three times in the last decade. In 2012, he campaigned in the top-two primary to succeed none other than Inslee in the 1st Congressional District but took a distant fifth place with 7% of the vote. Hobbs ran for lieutenant governor four years later and won fourth with 15% in a crowded race. He launched another campaign for that office in 2020 but dropped out just ahead of the filing deadline.

Prosecutors

● Hennepin County, MN Attorney: Saraswati Singh, who works as a prosecutor in neighboring Ramsey County, this week became the fourth candidate to enter next August’s nonpartisan primary to succeed longtime incumbent Mike Freeman, who announced two months ago that he would not seek re-election. Singh joins former Hennepin County Chief Public Defender Mary Moriarty, Richfield City Council Member Simon Trautmann, and Minnesota House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler in the race to succeed Freeman as the top prosecutor in Minnesota’s largest county.

● San Francisco, CA District Attorney: Local election officials announced this week that District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s detractors had turned in enough valid signatures to force a recall election. The race will take place in June of next year at the same time as California’s regularly-scheduled statewide primary. If a majority votes to oust Boudin, San Francisco Mayor London Breed would appoint his successor; no matter what, the next election for a four-year term will take place in 2023.

● Tarrant County, TX District Attorney: Republican incumbent Sharen Wilson said Tuesday that she would not seek re-election next year, an announcement that the Fort Worth Star-Telegram‘s Bud Kennedy characterized as a “shock.” Wilson’s departure will set off an open seat race in Tarrant County, a populous and politically competitive community that’s home to Fort Worth and Arlington. Joe Biden’s 49.3-49.1 victory made him the first Democratic presidential nominee to carry the county since native Texan Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 landslide, but Republicans held the Fort Worth mayor’s office this year.

Two Democrats were already campaigning here before the incumbent announced her retirement: Albert Roberts, who lost to Wilson 53-47 in 2018; and former prosecutor Tiffany Burks. Any other politicians looking to succeed Wilson will only have a few weeks to decide, as the statewide candidate filing deadline is Dec. 13. Party primaries occur on March 1, with runoffs taking place in late May for any races where no one earned a majority of the vote, and the new district attorney will be elected next November.

Obituaries

● Former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, whose 1996 victory made him the last non-incumbent Democrat to win one of the Peach State’s Senate seats until this year, died Tuesday at the age of 79. Cleland, who lost three of his limbs while serving in Vietnam, lost re-election in 2002; in that election, Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss aired an infamous commercial that featured photos of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

Cleland was an Army captain during the Battle of Khe Sahn in April of 1968, days after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered, when he picked up a live grenade that exploded before he could toss it to safety. The future senator, as The Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes, spent decades believing that the weapon that cost him both his legs and his right arm had been from his belt and had fallen because of his own mistake. However, David Lloyd, the Marine who was the first person to reach the wounded Cleland, told him in 1999 that an unnamed “newbie” had accidentally dropped that grenade.

Cleland, sporting a pair of prosthetic legs he would later give up in favor of a wheelchair, returned to his home state of Georgia and in 1970 won a seat in the state Senate. He sought a promotion in 1974 when he campaigned in a crowded primary for lieutenant governor with the backing of termed-out Gov. Jimmy Carter, but he narrowly failed to reach the runoff; the eventual winner was Zell Miller, who went on to become governor and later Cleland’s Senate colleague.

In 1977, the new President Carter tapped Cleland to lead the U.S. Veterans Administration, which is now the cabinet-level Department of Veterans Affairs, but his fellow Democrat was far from done with elected office. Cleland ran for secretary of state in 1982 in a primary against David Poythress, who had been appointed to the post three years before, and narrowly beat him 52-48 in the primary runoff. Cleland won the general election that fall in a landslide in what was still a Democratic-dominated state.

Cleland considered running for governor in 1990 but didn’t go forward with it after audio surfaced of what the AJC characterizes as “a phone sex tape of him and a former girlfriend.” The Democrat later wrote of the incident, “It not only raised my profile in the state in a way no amount of political advertising could, it also showed that I was, despite my handicaps, a full-blooded American male.” That incident also didn’t stop him from easily winning two more terms as secretary of state.

Cleland in 1996 won the primary to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn without any opposition, but he was in for a very difficult general election against businessman Guy Millner, the Republican who had only narrowly lost the 1994 gubernatorial race to Miller. (Millner won the Senate nomination after a close runoff against future Sen. Johnny Isakson.) Cleland ended up prevailing 49-48 even as Bob Dole was carrying Georgia 47-46, and he quickly established himself in D.C. as a moderate who nevertheless usually voted with his party.

The senator faced a tough race in 2002 against Chambliss in a state that was rapidly moving to the right, but he still looked like the favorite for most of the race. Chambliss, though, did whatever he could to depict Cleland as “too liberal for Georgia,” an effort that included commercials accusing the Democrat of supporting partial-birth abortion and needle exchanges and asking, “Why would he do that?” Cleland pushed back with ads starring the far more conservative Miller, his long ago rival-turned-fellow Senator, vouching for the incumbent.

Cleland himself voted to authorize the war in Iraq during the campaign, later saying that this was “the worst vote I cast.” The senator argued, “It was obvious that if I voted against the resolution that I would be dead meat in the race, just handing them a victory,” but that vote hardly deterred Chambliss’ infamous ad. That spot, which began with pictures of bin Laden and Hussein, featured a narrator declaring, “As America faces terrorists and extremist dictators, Max Cleland runs television ads claiming he has the courage to lead. He says he supports President Bush at every opportunity, but that’s not the truth.”

That commercial set off a firestorm, with GOP Sens. John McCain and Chuck Hagel both condemning it, but Team Blue didn’t get the backlash they wanted. Chambliss unseated Cleland 53-46, a result the Democrat said was “the second big grenade in my life.” Cleland never sought elected office again, though he remained active in public life as a member of the 9/11 Commission, the Export-Import Bank board, and secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission.

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The Washington Post has a long piece looking at these regular folks who took a break from their regular folks’ life to storm the U.S. Capitol, attack the police officers who defended it, and contribute to an attempt to overthrow the government. What it doesn’t have is much in the way of actual explanations.

That’s a bit of a disappointment, considering that we know quite a bit about how the crowd was radicalized. Then again, if it were The New York Times we were talking about we’d have three reporters all tag-teaming us to show that each Biff and Mary Jane in the crowd were just trying to be “real Americans” who flew into Washington D.C. directly on the wings of an airborne diner and were only wandering through the haze of tear gas because somebody told them there was another diner just off the Senate cloakroom. We’ll take what we can get.

Still, though, the facts remain. While many of those who took place in an orchestrated attempt to intimidate Congress into nullifying a Republican election loss were “were an array of everyday Americans that included community leaders, small-business owners, teachers, and yoga instructors,” and while “about 573” of those facing prosecution “have no known affiliation with an extremist group,” Ma and Pa America came to town specifically to answer a call from Donald Trump asking for warm bodies to come “march” on the U.S. Capitol as plan to overturn a democratic election.

They’re affiliated with an extremist group, all right. It’s the extremist group known as “people propagandized into believing democracy had collapsed because a delusional narcissist who—backed by a majority of the Republican Party, conservative media, and the dregs of Facebook—insisted without evidence that he—a man who oversaw a half million pandemic deaths, was impeached for corruption, cratered the U.S. economy and is now widely known as a rapist and tax cheat—could not possibly have lost a U.S. election unless the liberals and the socialists stole it from him.”

We’re working on a shorter identifier. “Seditionists” will work fine, however.

Despite the wide representation of lifestyles represented by those who responded to Trump calls— featuring everyone from white conservative real estate agents who believed themselves too important to go to jail to white conservative yoga instructors who believed themselves too important to go to jail—everyone in the crowd shared a common belief that they acted on well before they partnered with violent militia members to storm the Capitol by force. Each were there that day because:

• They were furious that Donald Trump had not won the election.

• They were willing to believe, based solely on Republican propaganda claims, that he had not won the election because their political enemies had “stolen” it from their rightful winner.

• They were willing to respond to a call to come to Washington, D.C., for a “rally” or “march” specifically sold as an attempt to intimidate Congress into overturning the results of the election so that Trump could retain power.

They agreed to take part in an attempted coup not when they turned violent and caused the certification of the election results to be temporarily halted as lawmakers fled from the mob. They agreed to take part in an attempted coup when they responded to Trump’s call to assemble in Washington for the explicit purpose of challenging the election. Each in the crowd was of the belief, in that moment, that their own personal feelings were reason enough to challenge the peaceful transfer of power that marks our democracy.

Whether they believed the lies justifying the attempt or did not is irrelevant; even if they did, their proposed solution was to demand that Congress ignore the Constitution and erase the election’s results. They did not care that none of the supposed legal experts on the case were able to provide proof compelling enough to convince a single federal court of their claim. They did not care that, of the uncountable number of officials whose jobs center on protecting the integrity of their elections, none were stepping forward to provide evidence of such corruptions.

They came to the conclusion that because nobody else inside or outside their movement had been successful in validating Republican claims of fraud, they would use their own bodies to assist an effort to erase the election loss regardless. They knew what Trump had called them there to do. They knew that it was timed to coincide, exactly, with the official acknowledgment of the election’s results by a joint session of Congress. They knew that their purpose was to assemble to help foil that constitutional task.

If the crowd was self-selected for those willing to quickly descend into violence to get what they demanded, it is not a surprise. The crowd consisted of those in America who were specifically willing to challenge the Constitution and the election both, rather than abide a loss. It was a crowd of those both eager to believe conspiracies and convinced that they themselves were the tools that would set things right. If those real estate agents or yoga instructors were only haphazard in their violence, compared to the professional militants who more methodically attacked police and went hunting for lawmakers, it was due to their inexperience.

I do not think we need to have much sympathy for Trump supporters whose first acts of political violence were in support of an American insurrection that threatened, however incompetently and implausibly, the peaceful transfer of democratic power. Attempting to erase an election through the use of physical intimidation is an unforgivable crime against the country, whether or not the resulting violence was premeditated or only opportunistic. It is absolutely the sort of crime that should ruin a person’s career and social status, and the sort of crime that suggests the perpetrator values the grievances bouncing around in their own head far more than they value the society and laws that look to constrain them.

Yes, a number are sorry now that they understand that Republican leaders fed them a series of absolute lies in order to goad them into action. But they were still goaded into action. Even if the lies they believed had been true, it was this crowd that decided the appropriate response was to ignore the elections officials, courtroom rulings, and law, taking it upon themselves to erase it all and declare themselves the final arbiters of which elections are valid and which are not.

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This week, Daily Kos won a stunning (albeit preliminary) victory in a California court over Nazi-cavorting anti-vaxxer Robert Kennedy Jr.  

Kennedy is suing Daily Kos, trying to force us to reveal the identity of one of our community members. We’re telling him to go pound sand. Lawyers are involved. You can get the background here, here, here, here, here, and here. The great folks at Public Citizen are providing that community member with pro bono legal services.

This is a big deal, and a real challenge to not just our free speech rights, but your ability to engage in the political process without the fear of being persecuted in your community, workplace, or social circle. We have asked you to help fund the expensive legal process, which spans two states (New York and California), and you’ve delivered. Together, we’re not going to let Kennedy’s unearned wealth violate your rights.

To summarize where things stand, Kennedy sued us in a New York state court. The trial judge allowed Kennedy to issue a subpoena for the identity of our community member, a decision we believe to be grossly in error and have just appealed. Pending appeal, we asked for a stay on the subpoena, but the New York court has so far refused.

Kennedy’s problem is that New York courts can’t enforce a subpoena against a California company. (Public Citizen’s Paul Alan Levy explains why in this blog post, if you’re interested in the legal rationale.) And we sure as hell weren’t (and aren’t) about to volunteer the information. Therefore, Kennedy had to sue us in California court to enforce that subpoena.  

After months of legal wrangling, the California court finally issued its decision, and it was essentially one big “nope” to Kennedy, for now.

In short:

1) the subpoena is stayed pending the resolution of the New York appeal (in other words, it’s currently unenforceable),

2) the California court will take notice of the legal standard used by the New York court in making its decision,

3) if New York doesn’t use the same standard that California courts use or something similar (giving anonymous speech a high degree of First Amendment protection) and rules for Kennedy, then:

4) the case will still need to be litigated in California, and Kennedy will have to show that the subpoena the New York court allowed to issue is actually enforceable in California against a California company. My home state currently has stronger First Amendment laws than New York, though our New York appeal is trying to change that.

The end result is that New York has become just the first hurdle to Kennedy’s effort to dox our community member. Even if Kennedy wins in New York, he will still need to persuade a California judge to enforce the subpoena, and he’ll have to do it under legal standards specifically developed by California courts to protect constitutional rights and guard against the kind of harassment that Kennedy is attempting.

As a practical matter, there’s zero reason for Kennedy to continue this case, except that we know that there’s nothing rational about this case to begin with. Kennedy claims it’s about being defamed, but he hasn’t sued any of the other media organizations that reported on his attendance at the Berlin Nazi rally. He hasn’t sued Daily Kos for repeating, over and over again, that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cavorted with Nazis at an anti-vaxx rally that was organized and promoted by fascist right-wingers. This has always been about unmasking an online critic and nothing more.

I’ve appended the full California decision below. We’ve been able to fight this (ongoing) battle because you’ve had our back, helping fund this litigation. Furthermore, Public Citizen has stepped up to defend pro bono the community member Kennedy is trying to unmask. As always, I urge you to donate to Public Citizen for their courageous defense of our rights to political participation, as well as to Daily Kos so we can continue to fight this as long as Kennedy insists on tilting at this windmill.  

———-

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF ALAMEDA

Date: 11/08/2021
Time: 8:14 AM
Dept: 16
Judge: Michael Markman

The Court, having taken the matter under submission on 11/02/2021, now rules as follows:  

Petitioner Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. seeks to reveal the true identity of an anonymous blogger using the handle “DowneastDem.” DowneastDem posted an entry on the “Daily Kos” site about Mr. Kennedy’s speech to an audience in Germany. Mr. Kennedy says DowneastDem’s post was defamatory. He persuaded a court in Westchester County, New York to issue a pre-suit subpoena to Kos Media, LLC d/b/a Daily Kos (“Daily Kos”) seeking to obtain information about DowneastDem’s identity. KK

The Westchester County decision is on appeal in New York. Nonetheless, on June 23, 2021, the DowneastDem blogger filed a Petition to Quash Subpoena pursuant to sections 1987.1, 1987.2, and 2029.600 of the California Code of Civil Procedure (RG21102647). And on July 30, 2021, Mr. Kennedy filed a Petition to Compel Kos Media, LLC to Comply with the Subpoena (Case No. HG21107215). Since the identity of DowneastDem is unknown, the Court will refer to the blogger with “they/them” pronouns.

A different bench officer previously denied an ex parte motion to consolidate the two cases without prejudice to a noticed motion. On its own motion, the Court now consolidates the two cases. The two cases concern the same subpoena, and the issues raised in the two cases are substantially similar. Consolidating the cases will benefit all concerned by coordinating hearings and by ensuring consistent adjudication of overlapping identical issues.

The Court will exercise its discretion to STAY both the Petition to Compel and the Petition to  Quash pending the outcome of the appeal of the Decision and Order by the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Westchester County, in Kennedy, Jr. v. Kos Media, LLC (Index No.:  65319/2020), dated April 16, 2021 (the “New York Decision”).

Daily Kos and DowneastDem are collaterally attacking the New York Decision here. Many,  though not all, of the arguments raised by Daily Kos in opposition to the Motion to Compel, and by DowneastDem on their Motion to Quash, were raised in the first instance in the New York action. There, the New York court determined that Mr. Kennedy “alleges sufficient facts, which  fairly indicate that he has a claim for defamation and is thus entitled to pre-action discovery limited to obtaining the identity of prospective defendants.”

New York authorities are apparently split concerning the test for determining whether to issue a  subpoena to reveal the identity of an anonymous speaker. One of New York’s four appellate departments—the Second Department—has held that it is sufficient to simply allege facts that would support a claim for defamation. (See New York Decision at 3 [citing Matter of Konig v.  WordPress.com, 112 AD3d 936, 936 [2d Dept. 2013]; Matter of Toal v. Staten Island Univ.  Hosp., 300 AD2d 592, 592 [2d Dept. 2002]].) Westchester County apparently looks to the law of the Second Department, and the New York Decision follows that approach. 

California law, however, typically requires a prima facie showing with evidence to support a  defamation claim before permitting the use of a subpoena to pierce a speaker’s anonymity (California thus appears to be in line with New York’s other three appellate departments). In Krinsky v. Doe 6 (2008) 159 Cal. App. 4th 1154, 1172, the Court of Appeal conducted a searching analysis of the law at the time concerning the use of subpoenas to reveal the identity of an anonymous speaker. The Krinsky court ultimately concluded:

We therefore agree with those courts that have compelled the plaintiff to make a prima facie showing of the elements of libel in order to overcome a defendant’s motion to quash a subpoena seeking his or her identity. Where it is clear to the court that discovery of the defendant’s identity is necessary to pursue the plaintiff’s claim, the court may refuse to quash a third-party subpoena if the plaintiff succeeds in setting forth evidence that a libelous statement has been made. When there is a factual and legal basis for believing libel may have occurred, the writer’s message will  not be protected by the First Amendment.

(Id.)

Daily Kos and DowneastDem argue at length that the New York Decision is wrong. They argue both that Mr. Kennedy both failed to allege facts sufficient to state a claim for defamation, which would not pass even the Second Department’s test, and failed to present evidence to support a prima facie claim for defamation, in violation of the test set out in Krinsky (as well as the test used by New York’s First, Third, and Fourth Departments, according to the parties’ arguments at the hearing in this case).

A stay of this case may permit the New York appellate process to address whether the New York  Decision made an error in holding that Mr. Kennedy set out allegations sufficient to state a claim under New York’s defamation laws. As the Krinsky decision illustrates, this Court must look to New York’s defamation laws to determine whether Mr. Kennedy adequately alleged facts sufficient to state a claim for defamation. Further, this Court’s interpretation of New York law will determine whether, under Krinsky, Mr. Kennedy has made a prima facie case (with admissible evidence) to support his defamation claim such that this Court may enforce the subpoena issued in New York. That question may be determined with finality in connection with the appeal—particularly if the New York Second Department comes in line with the First, Third, and Fourth Departments (and Krinsky).

Stated another way, if the New York appeal applies Krinsky and finds that Mr. Kennedy satisfied that test, then full faith and credit would seem to dictate that this Court should enforce the subpoena. If the New York appeal declines to apply Krinsky but finds that Mr. Kennedy failed to adequately allege a defamation claim, then again full faith and credit would seem to dictate that this Court should not enforce the subpoena. If the New York appeal declines to apply Krinsky, and finds that Mr. Kennedy adequately alleged a defamation claim, then this Court will seek further briefing on (a) the full faith and credit question, and (b) the distinction between issuance and enforcement of the subpoena, so that the Court can determine what test to apply to the enforcement of the subpoena.

In summary, the New York court must determine whether the subpoena was properly issued in the first instance. If it turns out that the subpoena was not properly issued, then the question of enforcement of the subpoena will become moot. If Mr. Kennedy prevails, the appellate decision could well be relevant to findings that this Court would need to make concerning enforcement of the subpoena. The parties would also be in a better position to more accurately brief the issue of full faith and credit along with the issues of claim and issue preclusion that typically would bar a collateral attack on the New York Decision.

Daily Kos and DowneastDem raise a number of arguments that are not discussed in the New  York Decision. Those arguments do not impact this Court’s decision to await the outcome of the New York appeal before rendering a decision on enforcement of the subpoena. Daily Kos and DowneastDem further argue that California’s shield law for news reporters should apply to DowneastDem. And they argue that California law protecting disclosure of a confidential source might apply to Daily Kos.

DowneastDem further contends the New York courts lack personal jurisdiction over them. The personal jurisdiction issue seems to be a red herring, however, because the New York action concerns a subpoena directed to Daily Kos concerning DowneastDem’s identity (and not a  subpoena to DowneastDem). There appears to be no question concerning whether the New York court had jurisdiction to hear a case about a subpoena to Daily Kos. And the parties do not point to law that a pre-suit subpoena in New York to identify potential defendants must be for purposes of filing the lawsuit in New York rather than in some other jurisdiction.

As interesting as it could be to decide all of these issues right now, discretion is frequently the better part of valor. The Court finds that a stay “will promote the ends of justice” by allowing the New York appellate system to adjudicate the attack on its trial court’s subpoena. (See Cal. R. Ct. 3.515(f).) During the oral argument on the motion, Daily Kos confirmed that it agreed with the Court’s tentative ruling to await the outcome of the New York appeal.

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Rachel Siegel, Andrew Van Dam, and Laura Reiley of The Washington Post report on the largest rise in consumer prices in 30 years.

The growth in October prices reported Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was driven by soaring energy prices and ongoing supply chain backlogs, such as those in the used-car market. Gasoline prices are up 49.6 percent from a year earlier, and higher energy costs are pushing up the prices of just about every other good, economists say, pinching an already strained supply chain.

A surge that began in narrow sectors now appears to be spreading throughout the economy, with the BLS noting “broad-based” higher prices propelled by not just energy and used cars, but also by shelter, food and new vehicles. Prices for medical care, household furnishing and operations, and recreation all increased in October.

Overall prices rose 0.9 percent from September to October, tying June for the biggest one-month increase since the Great Recession. Only a few categories saw prices fall last month, including airfare and alcohol.

The data underscores how inflation has emerged as a controversial political and economic issue during the pandemic era. For years, inflation remained tamely below the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent annual target and off politicians’ radar. But the clash of supply chain backlogs, labor shortages, and ongoing uncertainty amid a public health crisis has turned inflation into a crucial test for policymakers and economists — and it’s unclear when that will change.

Stephen Collinson of CNN reports on yet more political storm clouds over the horizon for President Joe Biden because of inflation.

The White House has sometimes been slow to respond to flashing red political warnings — for instance, over immigration. But there were clear signs of a shift in tone on Wednesday after officials spent months insisting that higher prices were merely a transitory byproduct of the pandemic. Biden first issued a statement saying he would work to bring prices down. Then in a trip to the Port of Baltimore to tout his newly passed bipartisan infrastructure bill, the President went out of the way to show he cared and understood the issue.

“Everything from a gallon of gas to a loaf of bread costs more, and it’s worrisome,” Biden said. “Many people remain unsettled about the economy and we all know why. They see higher prices, they go to the store or go online, they can’t find what they always want and when they want it.”

Referring to one of the big economic problems slowing the economy — a clogged up supply chain — the President did a good job in his speech explaining why a closed factory in Malaysia could make life more expensive in the US. But the political task ahead of him requires a relentless daily focus and repeated strong messaging that has not so far been a strength of the Biden White House.

Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post writes about the paradoxical nature of a speech Liz Cheney gave at a First Amendment Award ceremony at St Anselm College’s institute of Politics in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Given how few other elected Republicans are willing to take on the GOP, no one should be stingy in praising someone who displays the moral courage needed from her party. It is no easy thing to risk one’s career and the support of one’s “tribe” for principle.

Nevertheless, her remarks were flawed in two key respects. For starters, Cheney does such a good job of portraying Republicans as utterly unfit to hold power that one wonders why she wants voters to put them back in the House majority. “We need a Republican Party that is led by people who remember that the peaceful transfer of power is sacred,” she said. “We need Republican leaders who remember that fidelity to the Constitution, fidelity to the rule of law — those are the most conservative of conservative principles.”

Given that such a party does not presently exist and that those seeking to keep their seats have failed to live up to their constitutional obligation, dare we give them the reins of power? It’s a contradiction at the heart of her decision to remain a loyal Republican.

Peter Dreier writes for TalkingPointsMemo on the possible national implications of the results of municipal races across the country.

President Joe Biden’s declining approval rating — influenced in part by the Democrats’ inability to pass his popular legislative package because of opposition from Senators Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) — has been pegged by pundits as a clear factor in the race for governor in Virginia, where Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin prevailed in a state that went for Biden last year with 54 percent of the vote.

The national political climate also shaped municipal races across the country. Two issues — crime and housing — galvanized voters, but in opposite directions. Centrist Democrats typically ran on law-and-order rhetoric and attacked their opponents as proponents of “defund the police,” an unpopular idea among every income and racial group. Calls to reign in police abuses and reform the biased criminal justice system captured wider appeal. Progressives made headway on housing issues, as most cities have faced fast-rising rents and widespread evictions, symptoms of out-of-control gentrification and the hardships facing renters during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

But Abdallah Fayyad of The Boston Globe wonders why we should pay much attention to  the “national implications” of municipal elections at all.

Though there’s an apparent appeal for observers to cherry-pick elections to demonstrate what ought to succeed electorally, the reality is that there’s only so much someone can learn from Wu’s win. After all, Wu, like Adams, won in an off-year municipal election and with low voter turnout — hardly the kind of election that can give anyone a sense of what’s possible in the broader electorate.

That’s why pundits and party insiders should stop trying to nationalize a winning strategy for Democrats. What worked for Adams in New York would not have worked for Wu in Boston. (And it didn’t for her opponent, Annissa Essaibi George.)

It’s true that it’s difficult for Democrats to deliver a coherent message at the national level when the party is so ideologically diverse that someone as conservative as Joe Manchin caucuses alongside democratic socialists. And so it may be tempting to believe that less disagreement within the party and its candidates — specifically by avoiding bold positions on the more polarizing issues like policing — might win over voters in the middle. But that’s not how democracy works. Progressives like US Representatives Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota all won reelection in landslides last year, and they ought to keep fighting loudly for the voters who sent them to Congress, no matter how moderate some conservative Democrats think the overall electorate is. Indeed, when only one of the two major parties is at least trying to respect the rules of democracy, it’s especially important for that party to embrace its ideological diversity rather than suppress it.

The next two stories deal with the issue of elected officials working second jobs. First, Heather Stewart of the Guardian reports on BoJo the Clown’s speech in Glasgow saying that while it’s OK for MP’s to work second jobs and that some MP’s have always done so, that MP’s also need to “follow the rules.”

Amid a flurry of claims about MPs’ lucrative second jobs and whether they create conflicts of interest, Johnson said in many cases the public believed this outside work “has actually strengthened our democracy”. He said for a hundred years MPs had also worked as “doctors or lawyers or soldiers or firefighters”.

But Johnson stressed that if such second jobs were to continue, “it is crucial that MPs follow the rules” by devoting themselves primarily to their constituents and avoiding “paid advocacy”.

“Anybody who breaks the rules, who engages in paid advocacy in the House of Commons, should be punished,” he said.

Parliament’s standards committee found Paterson had committed an “egregious” breach of the rules by repeatedly lobbying the government on behalf of two companies paying him more than £100,000 a year.

I mean, what else can you say after the House of Commons damn near revolted because The Clown tried to change the rules regarding the political lobbying scandal of MP Owen Paterson? The scandal resulted in Paterson’s resignation.

On this side of the pond, there’s an almost identical issue in Philadelphia that’s at the center of the bribery and corruption trial of Councilmember Bobby Henon. The Editorial Board of The Philadelphia Inquirer has long held a policy that no member of the Philadelphia City Council should hold employment outside their public service jobs.

The charges against Henon center on outside employment with a local union in addition to his job on Council. Taken together, his and other high-profile cases make clear that in order to ensure public accountability and to prevent any potential conflicts of interest, it is essential that City Council prohibit its members from holding second jobs.

While it isn’t illegal for City Council members to have more than one employer, that doesn’t make it ethical, a position this board has long held. Three other Council members currently hold outside jobs: Councilmember Derek Green is “of counsel” at the politically influential Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel law firm, which describes him as a practicing attorney. Councilmember Brian O’Neill is a retired counsel with Fox Rothschild, another well-connected law firm. Councilmember Allan Domb has been a well-known businessman in the city for decades. In addition, Council members David Oh and Isaiah Thomas both have ownership stakes in local small businesses.

Henon’s situation is somewhat distinct, as the main responsibilities of his role with the city’s powerful electricians union seems to have primarily involved lobbying on its behalf with his fellow Council members and in other quarters of city government. This is odd, given that on past disclosure forms, Henon lists his position with the union as simply “electrician.”

The question on the floor: should any elected official hold any type of second jobs, given the opportunities for ethical abuse and/or corruption inherent?

(FTR, it’s difficult for me to look at some of the salaries of city councilmembers in that chart at The Philadelphia Inquirer link and not, at the very least, see the need for some hold a second job in some municipalities)

Don Calloway pens an oped for The Washington Post on the importance of the protests taking place at Howard University.

These protests are significant because HBCUs produce a lion’s share of Black leadership and therefore a substantial presence within American leadership at large. In 2000, Andrew Gillum led Florida A&M University students in a massive march on the Florida Capitol to protest then-Gov. Jeb Bush’s higher education budget cuts. In 2001, as a student leader at Alabama A&M University, I myself led discussions around campus transport and facility quality. In 1992, Stacey Abrams led her Spelman College sisters in a protest on the steps of the Georgia Capitol in which they burned the state flag. In 1969, Samuel L. Jackson was expelled from Morehouse College for locking the board of trustees, including Martin Luther King Sr., in a building for two days — holding them physically hostage — in a battle over student views that the curriculum was too conservative.

Not only did each of the above protests materially succeed at the time, but also those who participated have taken the spirit of organized protest for a righteous cause into our professional lives.

Regardless of the issue, protest provides HBCU students the opportunity to organize disparate groups around a common cause and to execute in service of that cause. The protests have all the elements of both classical and modern issue campaigns, including messaging, oratory, polling, constituent mobilizing, presenting before governing authority and consensus-building. These elements foster specialized skills that alumni take into courtrooms, boardrooms and civic organizations after graduation.

Paul Egan of the Detroit Free Press reports on a federal judge approving a $626.25 million settlement for Flint residents due to the water crisis.

A major selling point of the settlement is its focus on those most impacted by the lead poisoning: those who were children at the time and whose development could be most adversely affected by the toxin. Nearly 80% of the payments would go to those who were under 18 at the time of the crisis.

But many are unhappy that Flint adults are unlikely to get more than $1,000 individually, unless they can show specific injuries.

Former Flint Mayor Karen Weaver drew unfavorable comparisons between the Flint settlement, to be shared among about 50,000 residents who are predominantly people of color, and other recent settlements impacting mostly white communities. She pointed to: MSU’s $500 million settlement with 332 women sexually abused by former sports doctor Larry Nassar; Penn State’s $109 million settlement with about 40 men molested by former football coach Jerry Sandusky, and USC’s $852 million settlement with about 710 women abused by a former campus gynecologist.

“I am here to tell you today that this is not justice for Flint,” Weaver, who was mayor from 2015 to 2019, said at the July fairness hearing. “We will not settle for the crumbs that have been set before us.”

Quin Zapoli, writing for the Michigan Daily, the student newspaper of The University of Michigan, says that if gerrymandering can’t outright be banned, then Democrats need to do some extreme gerrymanders in the states where they can do so.

Admittedly, gerrymandering in blue states is blatantly hypocritical, particularly while Democrats are decrying Republican gerrymandering efforts around the country. Continuing to abuse the redistricting process contradicts a critical part of the left’s voting rights agenda, too. Congressional Democrats have sponsored bills like H.R. 1, the For the People Act, which plainly bans gerrymandering. It would put all potential maps to an objective statistical test, striking any that give a party a statewide electoral advantage. The pared-down Freedom to Vote Act supported by the entirety of the Democratic caucus — even the stalwart centrists — contains similar measures to restrict gerrymandering. The Freedom to Vote Act has, unsurprisingly, stalled in the Senate. Democrats have offered to restrict gerrymandering through federal legislation, Republicans have refused to allow a vote, forcing Democrats to gerrymander or enter the 2022 midterms at a disadvantage.  

Of course, banning gerrymandering need not be tied to any electoral reform. Gerrymandering is wildly unpopular: 93% of Americans see it as a problem in U.S. elections. If Democrats are serious about their desire to end gerrymandering and Republicans truly want to avoid increasingly gerrymandered blue states, a simple act of Congress should please both. But refusing to gerrymander in the few states they still can is a political stunt which, however noble, will only hamper Democrats’ ability to legislate in the remainder of Joe Biden’s presidency. If they are able to win enough seats they could pass H.R. 1 and ban partisan gerrymandering, something Congressional Republicans have not yet proposed. Yes, action in Illinois and New York represents escalated Democratic gerrymandering compared to ten years ago, but it is necessary to match Republican efforts across the country. Instead of moderate gerrymandering in dozens of states, Democrats’ only option is extreme gerrymandering in a few blue states. It is not needless partisanship as much as a necessary counterbalance.

I had no idea that polls had shown that gerrymanders was that unpopular and even if you limit yourself to the 67% saying that gerrymandering is a major problem, that still meets the definition of “wildly unpopular.”

Jeffrey Barg, The Grammarian writes for The Philadelphia Inquirer and muses on the eventual fate of the word “meta.”

There’s a slightly newer word, meta, that is commonly mishandled, overused, and abused. It’s a stupid prefix-turned-standalone-word, rarely functioning on its own without an adverb (as in, “That’s so meta”). Now that Facebook has rebranded its parent company as Meta, could meta face the same fate as face book?

One can hope. But first, a look at history.

The Oxford English Dictionary pins the first citation of face book to 1974, in The Daily Princetonian. The end of the 20th century saw face books proliferate, but after the website Facebook arrived in 2004, it obliterated the lowercase face book. Today’s college first-years wouldn’t know what a physical face book is. The OED notes that lowercase face book’s usage is now among words that are “almost exclusively terms which are not part of normal discourse and would be unknown to most people.” A few of the most common (and most fabulous) words it puts in this category: absterge, ennead, scintillometer.

In other words, face book is dead. Long live Facebook.

Finally today, Tom Palaima and Al Martinich write for USA Today, asking that on this Veterans Day, we all try to walk a mile in a veteran’s shoes.

This Veterans Day, we are not involved in a major war for the first time in two decades. We should give thanks. But we also should take care to internalize what veterans who live and work among us have gone through and continue to go through.  

It’s unfortunate that we have not done what Iraq War veteran Phil Klay urged us to do seven years ago – to use our experiences of suffering to feel what service members have experienced.

All of us have suffered in our own lives. Our trauma may not be as deep or wide as those of veterans who have experienced the pain of soldiers and civilians harmed in war. But, as Klay emphasized, we can imagine and extrapolate from our own suffering to get a sense of what veterans endured.

If we take in what veterans are saying and how they say it, we can develop empathy through our common humanity. To deny that we can understand what they went through is to insulate ourselves from their suffering.  

Everyone have a great day!

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In the news today: Conservative book-burning fever spreads. Republicans are looking to elect yet another unapologetic white nationalist extremist who promises to arrest the party’s enemies, and yet again Arizona is the state they think will vote to do it. And new reports and documents yet again confirm that Trump’s Republican administration had few qualms about breaking whatever rules they wanted to break.

Meanwhile, the Kyle Rittenhouse trial continues with … ick. Just ick. Here’s some of what you may have missed during a very busy news day:

• Kansas school district pulls 29 books off library shelves, including major award winners

• Newly revealed memo firing former Defense secretary reveals unsettling influence of Trump’s stooges

• Office of Special Counsel concludes that at least 13 Trump officials violated the Hatch Act

• GOP gubernatorial front-runner Kari Lake is the latest candidate aiming to be more Trump than Trump

• Kyle Rittenhouse forces out a tear, points the finger at his dead victim

Community Spotlight:

• Celebrating 100 Years of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Also trending from the community:

• The consequences of The Great Acceleration has arrived—global food crisis in 2022

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For someone who continually touts his winning bona fides, Donald Trump sure loses a lot. He lost his casinos, $1 billion in cash over a decade, the popular vote (twice), the 2020 election, the House, the Senate (thanks to his nonstop whining), two wives, most of his hair, and, on or about Jan. 6, his effing mind.

And as one of the most litigious presidents people in our nation’s history, he’s been pummeled into Flamin’ Hot Cheeto dust more times than any of us can remember.

Tuesday night, Trump was introduced to his alter ego Lumpy Loserman once again, as federal Judge Tanya Chutkan gave the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 the green light to access hundreds of pages of documents Trump had sought to protect. In her ruling, Chutkan stated, “His position that he may override the express will of the executive branch appears to be premised on the notion that his executive power exists in perpetuity. But Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.”

No, he’s not president, is he? Why? Say it with me, now: Because he’s a yuge loooooooooser.

Indeed, Axios has a short rundown on some of the Big Failure’s largest recent losses:

A top watchdog found that 13 senior Trump officials, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, violated ethics law and helped create “a taxpayer-funded campaign apparatus within the upper echelons of the executive branch.”

[…]

A second grand jury has been empaneled in New York’s criminal investigation of the Trump Organization (NBC News).

An Atlanta district attorney is moving toward convening her own grand jury in an investigation of Trump’s attempts to overturn the election in Georgia (N.Y. Times).

And that’s just a recent list.

Remember when Trump lost 59 election lawsuits, all attempting to change the 2020 election results?

That was awesome.

Remember when Trump claimed he never settles cases and so would never, ever settle with the plaintiffs suing him over his fake university?

“I don’t settle cases,” Trump claimed during the March 2016 Republican presidential debate. “I don’t do it because that’s why I don’t get sued very often, because I don’t settle, unlike a lot of other people.”

Yeah, he settled—and lost $25 million in the process. And actually, he settles a lot.

Remember when Trump sued Bill Maher for breach of contract after Maher joked that he’d contribute $5 million to charity if Trump could prove his father wasn’t an orangutan? He withdrew that one. 

Then there was Trump’s high-profile lawsuit against author Timothy O’Brien, who dared to write that Trump was worth less than Trump liked to claim he was. That one was tossed, though not before Trump sat for an uncomfortable deposition that poked numerous holes in his giant Jenga tower of lies. 

And those are just the tip of a very large, very filthy iceberg.

I get as frustrated as anyone when Trump wriggles out of situations that would cut other people off at the knees. Trump’s superpower is his shamelessness, and it’s been a shield that’s seemingly protected him more than once. But his luck may not last forever: He managed to bluster his way out of trouble when he was president, but he holds no public office now, and this idea that he’s somehow bulletproof is not borne out by history. (A Republican-controlled Senate was never going to convict Trump in his two impeachments. The court system, on the other hand, is not quite so friendly to lawless con artists.)

Indeed, his post-presidential legal peril is significant. The Manhattan district attorney is still waiting in the wings after having successfully won the right to look at Trump’s tax records, which he protects like Jeffrey Dahmer guarding a basement freezer.

Meanwhile, Scotland is looking into his golf courses, and as mentioned above, Fulton County, Georgia, DA Fani Willis is investigating that ridiculous call to Secretary of (the Peach) State Brad Raffensberger, among other Trumpian attempts to subvert democracy. New York Attorney General Letitia James is also still on the case; and who knows what goodies the Jan. 6 committee will eventually dig up? Sure seems like things aren’t going his way so far.

As Trump continues to go through the legal wringer—and as we wait, and wait, and wait some more for the wheels of justice to grind him into grainy, bitter-tasting Tang powder—we can seek solace in the fact that Trump is a longtime loser who only pretends to win.

Sure, he’s a slippery one, but the nets are closing in—and judging by his latest losing streak, Trump’s luck may finally be running out.

Fingers crossed, folks.

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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High school can be a treacherous experience for many people, especially if you were in any way different from your peers. Teenagers (like, frankly, adults) can be cruel, exclusive, and often live with many complex emotions, traumas, and obstacles they don’t know how to express or seek help about. With all of that in mind, it’s no surprise that reports about school bullying and harassment are consistently concerning, especially when it comes to a notably vulnerable population: trans youth. 

Clay Sentell, a 16-year-old high schooler in North Carolina, says he was secretly recorded by bullies while using school bathrooms. Sentell spoke to The Shelby Star about his experience in the boys’ bathroom, where he says one video shared to Snapchat featured him washing his hands, while another was taken while he was in a bathroom stall at Burns High School. Now, Sentell and his mom want answers and accountability from the school. 

The high school junior told the outlet he felt like his privacy was “invaded” and felt “terrified” after a friend showed him one of the videos already shared on social media. 

“The way I dress doesn’t equal my gender identity,” Sentell explained. “I know a lot of people see those as hand in hand. [My clothes] are just how I express myself; it is how I want to be. The fact I am being recorded in the bathroom for it is insane.” Sentell is transgender and uses both she/her/hers and he/him/his pronouns. 

In speaking to Channel 9 News, Sentell said he asked the school to use the girls’ bathroom, but ultimately agreed to use a private bathroom near the school’s office. However, that bathroom was far away from his classes, so Sentell said he used the men’s room close by. That’s where peers recorded him. 

“It’s just who I am,” Sentell said about his identity and presentation. “It’s how I express myself.”

According to Sentell’s mother, Annie Sentell, students were playing a virtual “tag” by sharing videos of her son. “It’s almost like I got one of him, so now tag you are it, kind of thing, I think,” she told the outlet. 

Since the discovery of these videos, the Sentell family has protested outside of the school. Sentell, his mother, and his sister, Abby, stood in front of the school on Friday, holding signs calling for changes from the school administration. According to Sentell’s mother, the impetus for the protest was the administration telling her she’d have to wait almost a week to meet with them, which she felt was too long given the circumstances.

From there, however, Sentell’s mother said the school principal called her and described the family’s signs as “distracting,” and Sentell’s mother has since decided to keep Clay at home. According to Channel 9, Sentell’s mother is looking into options for legal action against the school and alternatives for her child’s education.

And Clay? He said he’s still going to “love” the people that bullied him and that he’s going to pray for them to be more “open” and “accepting.” 

Literal years’ worth of research shows that LGBTQ+ youth—and especially trans youth—report disproportionately high rates of bullying, harassment, and even physical and sexual violence from peers. Trans youth are especially likely to become homeless and leave school without a diploma. Being essentially forced out of school can create a domino effect in a world that’s already hostile to trans folks—harder to get a job, for example, or to qualify for an apartment or house, or to have the financial resources to access affirming medical care.

All of this is part of why it’s so bizarre and damaging that Republicans are hyper-focused on sports, for example, when trans youth are so deeply marginalized and vulnerable. It’s cruel, it’s traumatic, and on the least emotional level, it’s an enormous waste of time and resources. Then again, that description sums up the Republican party pretty damn well. 

Sign the petition: Demand the Senate pass the Equality Act and protect the LGBTQ community from discrimination.

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Those wondering why no jurisdiction has actually brought criminal charges against Donald Trump and his minions need to remember that when done properly, a criminal investigation is supposed to take time. A good prosecutor is supposed to build a Mount Everest-sized trove of evidence against a defendant—and do so in a way that the defendant’s claim of innocence is slowly and painstakingly strangled. Such a thorough investigation is certainly the only way to bring down a former president who maintains a cult-like following.

It looks like one of the many prosecutors investigating Trump is poised to begin the next phase of her strangulation. Namely, Fani Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia—home to almost all of Atlanta. The New York Times reports that Willis is about to empanel a special grand jury to investigate election interference by Trump and his deceitful buddies. Of course, the most infamous part of that interference is Trump’s attempt to bully Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger into helping him “find 11,780 votes” that would overturn Joe Biden’s lead in Georgia.

This is the biggest sign that Willis’ investigation, which began in February, is ramping up to a level that would be perilous for Trump.

That Willis is taking this case to a special grand jury should tell you something about how seriously she’s taking this investigation—and its potential import.

Instead of impaneling a special grand jury, Ms. Willis could submit evidence to one of two grand juries currently sitting in Fulton County, a longtime Democratic stronghold that encompasses much of Atlanta. But the county has a vast backlog of more than 10,000 potential criminal cases that have yet to be considered by a grand jury — a result of logistical complications from the coronavirus pandemic and, Ms. Willis has argued, inaction by her predecessor, Paul Howard, whom she replaced in January.

By contrast, a special grand jury, which by Georgia statute would include 16 to 23 members, could focus solely on the potential case against Mr. Trump and his allies. Ms. Willis is likely to soon take the step, according to a person with direct knowledge of the deliberations, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the decision is not final. Though such a jury could issue subpoenas, Ms. Willis would need to return to a regular grand jury to seek criminal indictments.

That grand jury would have plenty of evidence to consider besides Trump’s attempt to shake down Raffensperger. Before that fateful call, Trump also tried to push Raffensperger’s chief investigator into finding evidence of “dishonesty” in Georgia. He also tried to get Byung Pak, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, which covers Atlanta, to push lies about voter fraud in Georgia. Pak told the House Jan. 6 committee that he resigned rather than go along with the scheme. 

Additionally, Trump may have talked himself into further legal peril at a rally in September. He told the crowd that he tried to press none other than Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to resolve the “election-integrity problem” in his state, possibly by calling a special election.

Last month, a bipartisan group of legal experts wrote an analysis of the case for the Brookings Institution. They concluded that Trump’s actions put him “at substantial risk” for a host of state charges—including racketeering, solicitation of election fraud, and conspiracy to commit election fraud.

They also noted that Trump’s comments in September could make it far easier to prove he intended to get lawmakers to join him in an attempt to steal an election he didn’t win. One of the authors, former Obama White House ethics counsel Norm Eisen, said that Trump’s conversation with Kemp was evidence that he intended to get Kemp to join him on this fishing expedition; as Eisen put it, Trump’s comments “offered the prosecution free admissions about the content of that exchange.”

Willis already gave a loud indication of where she’s going with this case when she tapped John Floyd, the man who literally wrote the book on prosecuting a state racketeering case, to assist in the investigation. That amounted to capital letters announcing that she was seriously considering hitting Trump with the legal equivalent of napalm. Georgia’s version of RICO makes false statements to state officials a predicate act.

That prospect alone should have Trump, along with everyone else in on that now-infamous call to Raffensperger, crapping themselves. If they weren’t then, they definitely should be now that it looks like Willis believes she has enough to call in a grand jury whose specific task will be to assist her with her investigation. 

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Newsmax host Eric Bolling has found a home on the bleeding edge of right-wing reality television. Bolling left Fox News in disgrace after an investigation revealed he was sending unsolicited graphic photos of male genitalia and text messages to female employees. Good times! Since then, Bolling has joined fellow unhinged right-wing personality Grant Stinchfield in berating everyone not conservative enough to drink the fascist Kool-Aid Trump and the GOP are pushing these days.

What is the “bleeding edge” of conservatism these days? Big Bird from Sesame Street is a communist and Big Bird is trying to trick your kids into getting vaccinated against COVID-19. Sen. Ted Cruz has been on the frontlines of this new “culture war” and Eric Bolling used his Tuesday show to point out that he has always known that the Muppets and other Jim Henson creations were secret commies. Don’t believe an adult man would say that on video while not performing on a comedy sketch show?

Check it out.

Bolling first went through the Sesame Street campaign to promote COVID-19 vaccinations for kids, including an “interview” appearance on CNN. Bolling was boiling!* Kapow! He began by showing the vaccine promotion clip, saying “Big Bird from Sesame Street, indoctrinating our 5-year-olds…”

Coming back from the clip, where Bolling fumed over the use of a teddy bear as a comfort tool for a child getting a shot, he proceeded to seethe, explaining that “then the giant pigeon took to Twitter to announce to everyone how it felt getting the shot.” But lest you believe this is a new thing for the educational show’s puppets, Eric Bolling is here to remind you that Sesame Street has always been a bastion of feel-good commie sentiment.

ERIC BOLLING: Not the first time these little felt communists tried to infect the minds of our youngest and most vulnerable children, a decade ago, way back in 2011, I called out Kermit, that cute little green monster commie.

That’s verbatim. How did he call out Kermit the Frog? It seems that the 2011 Muppet film starring Academy Award winner Chris Cooper as Tex Richman, the villain of the piece, really freaked Bolling out. Bolling believed that Kermit and his friends should have been happy and impressed by the sociopathic fictional oil man trying to displace the Muppets so he can get at the oil under their studios. Instead, they treated him like a villain, proving once and for all that the message being sent to kids is that rich people are bad. Bolling’s view is that any person who has become rich is an important and impressive person who has worked harder than everybody else.

Don’t believe me? Bolling explains his problem with the Muppets: “Well here’s what happened, the Muppets were blaming [an] oil baron for closing down the studio. That’s cute, you little oppressive Muppets! They didn’t even try to hide their disdain for success by naming the guy Tex Richman. Eh? But I took them to task.”

And boy did he. He proceeded to show an appearance on Fox News’ The Five, where he took a Kermit puppet and demanded he debate him about the Muppets’ “anti-capitalist” leanings. He then continued his decade-long battle with the Muppets, showing a clip of Miss Piggy holding a press conference talking about how silly Bolling was—in 2011.

Back to 2021 and Eric Bolling: “Guess what? The invite’s still open Ms. Piggy, if you or your emasculated frog boyfriend, Kermit, ever wanted to join this desk, it’s free. So yeah, at first I thought they were mere ideologues and now I think they’re just stuck on stupid.”

I don’t have the words.

*Trademarking that joke!