Category: News & Comment

Ultra-Right Federalist Society Scholars: Fourteenth Amendment Makes Trump Ineligible to Run for Office

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Ultra-Right Federalist Scholars William Baude, left, and Michael Stokes Paulsen (Photos: Federalist Society)

New York Times: “Two prominent conservative law professors have concluded that Donald J. Trump is ineligible to be president under a provision of the Constitution that bars people who have engaged in an insurrection from holding government office. The professors are active members of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group, and proponents of originalism, the method of interpretation that seeks to determine the Constitution’s original meaning.

“The professors — William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas — studied the question for more than a year and detailed their findings in a long article to be published next year in The University of Pennsylvania Law Review….

“[Baude] summarized the article’s conclusion: ‘Donald Trump cannot be president — cannot run for president, cannot become president, cannot hold office — unless two-thirds of Congress decides to grant him amnesty for his conduct on Jan. 6…’

“Steven G. Calabresi, a law professor at Northwestern and Yale and a founder of the Federalist Society, called the article ‘a tour de force.’”

DeSantis Replaces State Attorney with Federalist Society Judge

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Orlando Sentinel

To diffuse claims of racism for groundlessly removing Monique Worrell, a Black state attorney who was elected by a two-to-one margin, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis replaced her with a Black judge who is a member of the Federalist Society. But, according to the Orlando Sentinel, Andrew Bain is also not a very good judge:

In his time overseeing criminal cases in county court, Bain received low marks in a judicial qualifications poll by the Central Florida Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, ranking last among Orange County criminal judges, with respondents describing him as “state-leaning” or prosecution-biased.

At a press conference announcing his appointment, Bain offered a word-salad nonexplanation of why he’s a member of the Federalist Society, a powerful group that is uncannily influential in getting presidents and governors to name conservatives to top judicial posts, including the Supreme Court:

“I am a member simply for this reason: My grandmother was a sharecropper, so when she came time to harvest her harvest in her family and the landowner shorted her, she had no legal recourse because the judges made the laws,” he said. “And that’s purely unfair. And that stuff’s been going on forever.”
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Slate: DeSantis 3.0 ‘May Involve Fewer Depictions of Self as a Nazi Emperor God’

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DeSantis: Nazi Emperor God
DeSantis: Nazi Emperor God

Slate.com: “On Tuesday, the Daily Beast published a piece about a Twitter account called @DeSantisCams that is pro–Ron DeSantis and also, even by the standards of the contemporary American right, quite pro-Hitler.

“Last weekend, for instance, the account published a video that culminates in an image of soldiers marching in lockstep toward the Florida governor, whose head turns into a rotating Sonnenrad, or sun wheel. The symbol was installed by Heinrich Himmler in the SS’s Wewelsburg castle and has been adopted in recent decades by white supremacists, including the individuals who carried out mass shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and Buffalo, New York. Conservatives often argue that Democrats are being hysterical for saying that right-wing meme phenomena like the ‘OK’ hand gesture have fascist overtones; there would seem to be some difficulty involved in making that claim about a lightning bolt circle that was created by the leader of the SS for his occult Nazi castle.
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Ad: Keep Republicans Out of Your Bedroom

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The Wrap: “In what might be the subjectively raciest political ad ever, Democratic lobby group Progress Action Fund debuted a steamy sex scene takedown of the GOP this week…

“Per its website, the Progress Action Fund’s slogan is, “Democrats are afraid to fight back. We aren’t.” We’d say this ad at the very least is living up to that promise.”

Transcript via the Wrap:

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Memo: Desperate DeSantis Scrambling to Reassure Donors, Reignite Campaign

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NBC.com

An internal memo from the Ron DeSantis presidential campaign acquired by NBC News provides a rare insight into the inner workings of the Florida governor’s seven-week-old primary effort.

The document, dated July 6, lays out the campaign’s strategy of doubling down on New Hampshire, postponing spending on Super Tuesday and singling out Tim Scott as the only other candidate besides Donald Trump who DeSantis sees as a threat.

The memo sums up the candidate field as the DeSantis camp sees it this way:

As it has been for the last year, Trump and DeSantis remain the only viable options for two-thirds of the likely Republican primary electorate. While Tim Scott has earned a serious look at this stage, his bio is lacking the fight that our electorate is looking for in the next President. We expect Tim Scott to receive appropriate scrutiny in the weeks ahead. We’ve found low to no interest in Vivek, Burgum, and Nikki while far too many voters will not consider Pence and Christie for them to feel remotely viable.

Overall, the memo, which is called a “friends and family update” reads like a self–pep talk, an eho-chamber attempt to slap some lipstick on a pig of a campaign and make it seem like everything is going according to plan, rather than down the toilet, as the media have largely characterized it.

Steve Cortes Spokesman for DeSantis PAC: ‘We Are Way Behind’

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Steve Cortes

Politico: “A top spokesperson for Ron DeSantis’ super PAC is sounding a decidedly dour note on the Florida governor’s presidential prospects, saying his campaign is facing an “uphill battle” and is trailing badly in the key nominating states. Steve Cortes, who previously supported Donald Trump, also heaped praise on the former president, calling him a ‘runaway frontrunner’ and ‘maestro’ of the debate.

“‘Right now in national polling we are way behind, I’ll be the first to admit that,’ Cortes said in a Twitter spaces event that was recorded on Sunday night. ‘I believe in being blunt and honest. It’s an uphill battle but clearly Donald Trump is the runaway frontrunner.’

“Calling the DeSantis campaign the ‘clear underdog,’ he added: ‘In the first four states which matter tremendously, polls are a lot tighter, we are still clearly down. We’re down double digits, we have work to do.’”

DeSantis Losing Friends and Alienating People

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The Guardian: “By almost every measure, the rightwinger has had another lackluster week on the campaign trail, with ‘clumsy’ missteps in New Hampshire, Texas, California and New York. Now, barely one month after his glitch-ridden launch on Twitter, DeSantis finds himself sinking in the polls, closer to the large field of optimists below him than the twice-indicted, twice-impeached former president who retains a stranglehold over the Republican party.

“‘The more voters learn about him, the less they can stomach the idea of him running the country,’ the online magazine Jezebel concluded.”

These 25 Corporations Donated $13.5 Million to Anti-Gay Politicians Since 2022

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stryvemarketing.com

While major corporations continue to spend token amounts on marketing to the LGBTQ community, a Popular Information investigation reveals the same companies are spending millions backing anti-LGBTQ politicians. The investigation found that 25 corporations have donated $13.5 million to anti-LGBTQ politicians since January 2022.

Popular Information’s analysis includes:

1. Money donated by corporate PACs to the campaigns of members of Congress who received a zero rating on the latest Congressional scorecard produced by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s most prominent LGBTQ rights organization.

2. Money donated by corporate PACs to the leadership PACs of members of Congress who received a zero rating on the latest HRC Congressional scorecard.

3. Money donated by corporations and corporate PACs to state legislators who sponsored anti-LGBTQ legislation in Florida, North Carolina, North Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.

4. Money donated by corporations and corporate PACs to the governors who signed anti-LGBTQ legislation into law in those states.

5. Money donated by corporations to the primary 527 organizations that support anti-LGBTQ state legislators and governors: the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) and the Republican Governors Association (RGA).

Here’s the list:

All 25 corporations included in Popular Information’s analysis were highly rated by Human Rights Campaign’s 2022 Corporate Equality Index (CEI). Twenty of the 25 corporations received perfect scores (100) and none received a score below 85. Along with workplace policies, the Corporate Equality Index purports to measure corporations’ “public commitment to the LGBTQ community.” But HRC’s methodology excludes political donations.

Happy Pride Month!