justinspoliticalcorner

[justinspoliticalcorner]

A groundbreaking study that was sponsored by the International Olympic Committee and released late last week sought to compare a range of athletic abilities between trans athletes and their cisgender counterparts. The finding that trans women athletes are at a relative disadvantage in many key physical areas relating to athletic ability and perform worse on cardiovascular tests than their cisgender counterparts could be the first step in fighting back against the conventional wisdom conservatives have spread that trans women’s participation is inherently unfair. Over the last several years, few anti-LGBTQ policies have taken off as quickly within mainstream politics as those banning trans women and girls from women’s and girls’ sports. Prompted by the success of trans college swimmer Lia Thomas, who won a national championship during her senior year, dozens of conservative states and sports administrators rushed headlong into outright bans on trans women’s rights to participate equally in sports. The political argument seemed simple; natural, even. We all know men are superior athletes to women, conservatives argued, so allowing trans women to compete with women would be inherently unfair. Because it  felt like common sense to a lot of people, it made for a compelling political argument. But the study that the IOC commissioned, and the University of Brighton conducted, found that while trans women are stronger in some respects, like grip strength, cis women have stronger lower bodies. The study also found that trans women have a similar bone density as their cis women counterparts, which rebuts a frequent refrain from conservatives who’ve argued otherwise to justify banning trans girls and women from sports. All the participants in this study participated in competitive sports or took part in physical training at least three times a week. The 35 trans athletes had to have completed at least one consecutive year of hormone replacement therapy. It’s just one study, so we should avoid drawing grand conclusions from it, but, at the very least, the study shows that the bodies of trans women who’ve been on at least one year of hormone replacement therapy are very, very different from cis men’s bodies. In their conclusion, researchers cautioned against hurdling into blanket bans on trans women’s participation in women’s sports and declared that using data comparing cis men and cis women’s bodies to justify these bans is wrong. It has become commonplace for anti-trans campaigners to make arguments against trans participation in sports by citing the difference between cis men’s and cis women’s bodies; in other words, pretending that trans women’s bodies are identical to those of cis men’s. [...] Then again, the trans athlete debate has never really been about fairness or safety in women’s sports. It’s always been about putting laws on the books that legally define trans women as men as a precedent for passing more anti-trans laws unrelated to sports. So this research will likely not make a difference in red state legislatures.

Katelyn Burns for MSNBC.com on the new study partially backed by the IOC that refutes anti-trans claims about trans athletes (04.22.2024)

Katelyn Burns wrote an opinion column on MSNBC.com pushing back against the anti-trans justifications used to ban trans women in women's sports, as a new study funded partially by the IOC published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine reveals that that trans athletes are at a disadvantage compared to their cisgender counterparts.

See Also:

PinkNews: Trans athletes could actually be physically disadvantaged in some areas, IOC-backed study finds

LGBTQ Nation: Trans women athletes may actually have disadvantages compared to cis women

#Katelyn Burns #MSNBC.com #Transgender #Transgender Sports #Sports #LGBTQ+ #IOC #British Journal of Sports Medicine #University of Brighton #Hormone Replacement Therapy #HRT #Opinion

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Miles Klee at Rolling Stone:

YOU CAN’T PLEASE all the people all of the time — even if you’re as popular as Taylor Swift. Having attained a somehow higher level of mega-celebrity with her record-breaking Eras Tour and a closely followed romance with Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs (who are headed back to the Super Bowl as the defending NFL champs), the singer now faces the perplexing wrath of MAGA conspiracy theorists who have decided the league and the relationship are rigged to help Joe Biden’s chances in the 2024 presidential election. The premise is as disconnected from reality as it sounds, but it’s all the stranger given that this courtship between a pop icon and football star — both white, Christian, good-looking, wholesome public figures — should fit the all-American conservative ideal. And Swift herself long retained her mass appeal with a mostly apolitical presence on the world stage, only voicing liberal positions and endorsing a select few Democrats from 2018 onward. But it was, in part, this late entry into civic discourse that allowed right-wingers to sell themselves a narrative of Swift as a propaganda puppet, after years in which some ardently worshiped her as a blonde, blue-eyed avatar for white supremacy. Here’s the complete timeline of how the far right fell in, and out of, love with Taylor Swift.    

Pre-2016: Country Roots

Swift came up in the Nashville scene, from the age of 14, as a country singer-songwriter inspired by the likes of Dolly Parton and Shania Twain. Her debut single, “Tim McGraw,” alluded to her love of another country legend — and her early hits climbed the genre’s charts along with heartland tunes full of cowboy twang and pickup trucks. Whatever the identities of individual performers, this music has always been conservative-coded, and its biggest names have rarely shied away from an aggressive style of red-meat patriotism. Swift, of course, was a teenager singing about innocent young love: She only happened to suit the fantasy of a small-town girl next door that informs so much Americana. (And she certainly didn’t have Parental Advisory stickers on her CDs.) It was when she started to drift from these roots on Red (2012), and fully embraced electronic pop with 1989 (2014), that fans could begin to think of her as totally distinct from the traditionalist milieu of her early career. The latter’s “Welcome to New York” signaled a new, cosmopolitan life far from the backroads of country radio. In fact, a civilian Donald Trump was blasting the album’s second single, “Blank Space,” while driving around with wife Melania and son Barron, as seen in a 2014 video Melania shared on her Facebook page [...]

The ascendant alt-right, shitposters by nature, saw a chance to disingenuously claim Swift for their own, as both a secret Trump supporter and neo-Nazi. (It didn’t seem to matter that she had previously expressed her happiness at Barack Obama taking the White House in 2008, her first election.) The attempt to rebrand her had older, murky origins, including 4chan in-jokes and a Pinterest user who in 2013 went viral for images falsely attributing Hitler quotes to Swift, but picked up steam as Trump did. Andrew Anglin, founder of the white supremacist website the Daily Stormer, declared her an “aryan goddess,” while Milo Yiannopoulos, in a column for Breitbart, explained why she was an “alt-right pop icon,” noting her whiteness, blondeness, unrevealing clothes, lack of piercings, and occasional mini-scandals over music videos accused of racist undertones. It probably didn’t help that Swift endorsed neither Hillary Clinton nor Trump, leaving room for misinformation about how she secretly voted for the GOP candidate. Following Trump’s victory, some Democrats vented their frustration at Swift’s silence during the campaign, believing she could have moved the needle for Clinton. [...]

In the following months, the #MeToo movement shed light on how often sexual misconduct is dismissed or covered up to the perpetrator’s benefit, and Swift became one of the founding signatories of Time’s Up, an advocacy group for survivors, and donated to its legal defense fund.  None of this was likely to endear Swift to conservatives who had already begun to argue that #MeToo had “gone too far,” yet she continued to press the issue, gracing the cover of Time’s Person of the Year issue along with fellow “silence breakers.” And the next year, she finally waded into electoral politics, sharing on Instagram that she would be backing Democratic congressional candidates in Tennessee for the 2018 midterms. [...]

2019-2020: The Activist

By 2019, Swift’s politics were no mystery. She was openly in favor of gun-control reform, took a pro-choice stance against government attempts to crack down on abortion, gave a surprise performance at New York’s Stonewall Inn for that year’s Pride celebration, and urged the senate to pass anti-discrimination laws. Any far-right fan clinging to the notion that she harbored extremist views would’ve been in clinical denial. For the most part, conservative commentators got in the habit of attacking her as they would any other liberal entertainer with a massive platform. Ben Shapiro, for one, complained of her “abrupt and obviously pandering shift into a political wokescold.”    At last, Swift also formally denounced any admiration from the racist far right in a cover story interview with Rolling Stone. “There’s literally nothing worse than white supremacy,” she said. “It’s repulsive. There should be no place for it.” She explained that she feared a 2016 endorsement of Hillary Clinton could have backfired, since Clinton’s celebrity support was “used against her in a lot of ways.” As for conservatives who had once assumed she was on their side, she quipped, “I don’t think they do anymore.” [...]

2021-2024: Taylor Derangement Syndrome

The “aryan goddess” interpretation of Swift had been more or less put to bed by the time Biden assumed office. But the reorganizing MAGA right had little reason to single her out among the legions of professional entertainers who express their distaste for Trump here and there. She didn’t endorse candidates in the 2022 midterms, either, though she did communicate her dismay at the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Conservatives who bothered to take a swipe at her tended toward lazy outrage bait: calling her boring, overrated, or a lonely cat lady (mind you, she was in a long-term relationship with actor Joe Alwyn that was heavily covered by the tabloids). In 2021, Swift embarked on the formidable project of rerecording her first six studio albums after the rights to that catalog were sold to a company run by controversial music mogul Scooter Braun, and released the hit record Midnights in 2022.

It was in 2023 that American conservatism launched into an enduring freakout about Swift, her cultural dominance, and her potential influence on voters. Anyone dimly aware of the Eras Tour — an unprecedented run of sold-out stadium shows — could see she had reached another pinnacle of success, and amassed a near-cultish audience of millions who hung on her every utterance. We got plenty of think pieces on whether this was a good or bad phenomenon, with varied musings on how Swift had created her own monoculture. The sheer saturation of Taylor content was enough to irk those less disposed to her vibe — and there were gripes about that, too.

[...] The release of The Tortured Poets Departmentlast Friday, April 19, inevitably (and unfortunately) brought a new round of grousing. Sean Feucht,  the far-right “MAGA Pastor,” raised the alarm on social media, saying “half the songs” on the album “contain explicit lyrics (E), make fun of Christians, and straight up blaspheme God.” And lest you think he’s “just being religious & overreacting,” Feucht shared several apparently offending lyrics that certainly dabble in classic religious imagery, but in the most basic, writerly way imaginable. Among the most harrowing lines, to Feucht: “I would’ve died for your sins, instead I just died inside” (from “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived”); “What If I roll the stone away / They’re gonna crucify me anyway” (“Guilty as Sin”); and “God save the most judgmental creeps / Who say they want what’s best for me / Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I’ll never see,” from “But Daddy I Love Him,” which definitely seems more critical of Swift’s own fans than an entire religion.  And, of course, Shapiro got back in on the action as well with a YouTube video dubbed, “Taylor Swift’s New Album Is GARBAGE” and nuanced opinions like, “Can we stop pretending she’s high art?” and, “She’s so tortured that she’s worth billions of dollars for singing songs that are most appropriately sung by 16 and 17 year old girls.” 

Rolling Stone has an in-depth report on the timeline of Taylor Swift's career that led to the eventual right-wing sour grapes-fueled culture war against her, especially in the last few years or so.

#Taylor Swift #The Tortured Poets Department #Donald Trump #4chan #MeToo #Sean Feucht #Milo Yiannopoulos #Ben Shapiro #Swift Derangement Syndrome

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

On Tuesday, Gov. Janet Mills of Maine signed LD 227, a sanctuary bill that protects transgender and abortion providers and patients from out-of-state prosecution, into law. With this action, Maine becomes the 16th state to explicitly protect transgender and abortion care in state law from prosecution. This follows several bomb threats targeting state legislators after social media attacks from far-right anti-trans influencers such as Riley Gaines and Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok. An earlier version of the bill failed in committee after similar attacks in January. Undeterred, Democrats reconvened and added additional protections to the bill before it was passed into law.

The law is extensive. It asserts that gender-affirming care and reproductive health care are "legal rights" in Maine. It states that criminal and civil actions against providers and patients are not enforceable if the provision or access to that care occurred within Maine’s borders, asserting jurisdiction over those matters. It bars cooperation with out-of-state subpoenas and arrest warrants for gender-affirming care and abortion that happen within the state. It even protects doctors who provide gender-affirming care and abortion from certain adverse actions by medical boards, malpractice insurance, and other regulating entities, shielding those providers from attempts to economically harm them through out-of-state legislation designed to dissuade them from providing care.

The bill also explicitly enshrines the World Professional Association of Transgender Health’s Standards of Care, which have been the target of right-wing disinformation campaigns, into state law for the coverage of transgender healthcare.

The bill is said to be necessary due to attempts to prosecute doctors and seek information from patients across state lines. In recent months, attorneys general in other states have attempted to obtain health care data on transgender patients who traveled to obtain care. According to the United States Senate Finance Committee, attorneys general in Tennessee, Indiana, Missouri, and Texas attempted to obtain detailed medical records "to terrorize transgender teens in their states… opening the door to criminalizing women’s private reproductive health care choices." The most blatant of these attempts was from the Attorney General of Texas, who, according to the Senate Finance Committee, "sent demands to at least two non-Texas entities." 

[...] Despite these threats, legislators strengthened both the abortion and gender-affirming care provisions and pressed forward, passing the bill into law. Provisions found in the new bill include protecting people who "aid and assist" gender-affirming care and abortion, protections against court orders from other states for care obtained in Maine, and even protections against adverse actions by health insurance and malpractice insurance providers, which have been recent targets of out-of-state legislation aimed at financially discouraging doctors from providing gender-affirming care and abortion care even in states where it is legal.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) signs gender-affirming care and abortion sanctuary state bill LD227 into law despite the best efforts of right-wing anti-trans extremists such as Riley Gaines, Courage Is A Habit, and Libs of TikTok who sought to thwart its passage and signature into law.

#Maine LD227 #Maine #Janet Mills #Transgender Safe Refuge #Transgender Sanctuary State #Abortion Sanctuary State #Abortion #Gender Affirming Healthcare #LGBTQ+ #Transgender Health #Transgender #WPATH

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Joan E. Greve at The Guardian:

Summer Lee, a Pennsylvania congresswoman, easily beat back a primary challenge on Tuesday, delivering progressives one of their most significant victories yet of this election cycle as they brace for a wave of pro-Israel funding targeting pro-ceasefire candidates. The Associated Press called the 12th district Democratic primary at 9.21pm, roughly an hour and an half after Pennsylvania polls closed at 8pm ET. Lee defeated local council member Bhavini Patel, who had criticized the progressive “Squad” member over her calls for a ceasefire in Gaza. Patel had pitched herself as a “pro-Biden Democrat”, suggesting she would better support the president’s agenda in Congress.

But Lee waved off that criticism, and she often pointed to the $1.2bn in government funding she delivered for her Pittsburgh-based district over her first term as evidence of her legislative effectiveness. “I am so humbled and proud to win my first primary re-election to be the congresswoman for this incredible district I’ve spent my life fighting for,” Lee said in a statement celebrating her victory. “Our campaign was built on a record of delivering for our democracy, defending our most fundamental rights, and expanding our vision for what is politically possible for our region’s most marginalized communities.” That argument appeared to sway many of Lee’s constituents as well as local Democratic leaders. In February, the Allegheny county Democratic party formally endorsed Lee for the first time, after the group backed her rival in the 2022 primary.

Lee’s 2022 primary made national headlines because of the involvement of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac). According to OpenSecrets, the Super Pac United Democracy Project, which is affiliated with Aipac, spent a total of $3.3m against Lee in 2022. She ultimately defeated her opponent, Pittsburgh attorney Steve Irwin, by less than 1,000 votes, or 0.9 points. This year, progressives largely expected pro-Israel groups like UDP to again invest heavily in attack ads against Lee. But surprisingly, they chose to stay out of Lee’s primary, a choice the congresswoman’s allies credited to her popularity and legislative record. Despite the absence of the pro-Israel lobby, one Super Pac did get involved in Lee’s primary to boost Patel’s campaign. The Moderate Pac, which aims to support centrist Democrats and is largely funded by Republican megadonor Jeffrey Yass, spent more than $600,000 supporting Patel. Lee and her allies turned Yass’ involvement in the race into a campaign issue, lambasting the billionaire’s Super Pac contributions.

[...] Although UDP opted to stay out of Lee’s race, progressive leaders believe her successful campaign strategy could still be instructive for other pro-ceasefire lawmakers expected to be targeted by pro-Israel groups in their primaries. Aipac and its political affiliates reportedly plan to spend $100m this election cycle, after pouring nearly $50m in to the 2022 midterms. At least two other “Squad” members, Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri, have already attracted primary challengers, and Aipac has already endorsed their opponents. Lee alluded to Bowman and Bush on Sunday, telling supporters that her victory would reverberate around the country.

AIPAC and pro-Israel Apartheid groups got handed an L last night, as incumbent pro-Gaza Ceasefire progressive Dem Summer Lee holds on in the PA-12 primary, fending off Bhavini Patel.

#Summer Lee #2024 Pennsylvania Elections #2024 Elections #2024 US House Elections #Pennsylvania #Bhavini Patel #Jeffrey Yass #AIPAC #United Democracy Project #Ceasefire NOW

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Alex Bollinger at LGBTQ Nation:

Businessperson Chris Miller is running in the GOP primary for governor of West Virginia next month, and his campaign has one clear message: he simply hates transgender children. His recent ads have focused on promising to roll back the rights of transgender students, lying about gender-affirming care to make it sound scarier, and accusing his opponents of supporting gender-affirming surgery on minors, something that is almost never performed on minors.

One ad released by Miller’s campaign earlier this month accused one of his primary opponents, state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R), of lobbying for a “woke hospital” that wanted federal funds for “sex changes for minors.” “His pronoun? Money-grubbing liberal,” the voiceover said, accusing Morrisey of “mutilating kids for cash.” Gender-affirming care for minors generally involves supporting their gender expression and possibly taking puberty blockers and other reversible hormonal treatments. Presenting this kind of health care – which is supported by major medical associations in the U.S. as the standard of care for trans youth – as “mutilation” is a common transphobic tactic. “The Pat transitioned from lobbyist to politician, masquerading as one of us,” the voiceover says. “But the real Pat Morrisey is a pro-trans liberal.” The ad then shows a picture of Julia Sweeney’s early-90s SNL character “It’s Pat.”

West Virginia Gubernatorial candidate Chris Miller is running for the GOP nomination, and he's doing so by making his campaign about anti-trans animus. Miller's attack ads have baselessly painted AG Patrick Morrisey as a "pro-trans liberal." #WVGov

#2024 Gubernatorial Elections #2024 Elections #2024 West Virginia Elections #West Virginia #Chris Miller #Transphobia #Anti Trans Extremism #2024 Election Ads #Patrick Morrisey

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Walter Einenkel at Daily Kos:

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene spoke with alleged conman and former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon on his “War Room” show Monday. The interview was what anthropologists might call … bananas.  Greene, who is hopping mad about everything, always, is almost incoherently angry that over the weekend, Congress finally passed long-delayed foreign aid funding for our allies in Ukraine. Greene characterized sending aid to Ukraine as throwing good money after bad. “It doesn't guarantee a Ukrainian victory because everyone knows they're going to lose eventually. It just is a matter of when," she whined. Bannon and Greene then spent the rest of the interview accusing House Speaker Mike Johnson and his Republican supporters of not being MAGA enough. Greene seems to talk only with people who agree with her.

[I've not seen people this angry since November of 2020. I mean, they are off the charts, off the charts, angry ...They're angry on a whole 'nother level. And here's what really worries me. They're done with the Republican Party. They are absolutely done with Republican leadership. Like Mike Johnson, who totally sold us out to the Democrats, would join the “uniparty” faster than anyone we've ever seen in history, and literally made a night and day change in a matter of months, betrayed everyone, betrayed the entire Republican Party, betrayed Republican voters, betrayed the Republican conference. And voters are so angry this time that I'm really worried. I am really worried. They're so angry. They're not going to give us the majority back in 2025.]

Bannon says that there are no longer two major political parties, identifiable as Democrats and Republicans. Instead, it is a war between the “populist nationalists” and “globalist elite.” Greene fears Johnson’s leadership is going to lose the GOP control of Congress.

Far-right pro-Kremlin troll Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is leading the charge to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) from his job over securing funding for Ukraine.

See Also:

MMFA: Marjorie Taylor Greene is on a right-wing media tour promoting her efforts to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson

From the 04.22.2024 edition of Real America's Voice's War Room:

#Stephen Bannon #Marjorie Taylor Greene #Real America's Voice #War Room #Ukraine Aid #Foreign Aid #Ukraine #Mike Johnson

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Matt Gertz at MMFA:

Donald Trump’s MAGA media propagandists are so deep in the tank for the former president that they’ve been praising him for repeatedly falling asleep during his New York City hush money trial. Since April 15, Trump has regularly been in a Manhattan courtroom, where he faces charges of falsifying business records in order to conceal payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Prosecutors say these payments were intended to keep Daniels’ claims that she had an affair with Trump from becoming public during the 2016 presidential election.  Trump, age 77, often mocks President Joe Biden as “Sleepy Joe,” suggesting that Biden is too old and frail to fulfill his duties. But reporters in the courtroom have repeatedly observed Trump appearing to fall asleep during the trial — most recently on Monday morning before opening statements began. 

[...] Meanwhile, Baier’s colleagues and their ilk spent last week attempting to turn Trump’s proclivity for nodding off in public into a virtue — apparently unphased by their years of denigrating Biden as an addled old man whose energetic speeches can only be the result of performance-enhancing drugs. 

Right-wing media making excuses for Donald Trump falling asleep during the People of New York v. Trump trial is the pail of hypocrisy, considering that they attacked Joe Biden as "a feeble old man."

#People of New York v. Trump #Donald Trump #Sleepy Joe #Joe Biden #GOP Hypocrisy

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Taiyler S. Mitchell and Sanjana Karanth at HuffPost:

College campuses across the country have become home to protests and encampments against Israel’s war on Gaza — leading to hundreds of arrests. The protesters across the numerous universities are calling for a permanent cease-fire and university divestment from companies making money off of the war, according to Reuters. Additionally, they are also demanding that the U.S. stops military assistance for Israel, and that disciplined student or faculty protesters are given amnesty, per the outlet. In one high-profile instance at Columbia University in New York, more than 100 people were arrested Thursday as students and faculty protested the university’s Israel-related investments. The demonstrations mirror a week of protests at the university in 1968 over the Vietnam War, which led to more than 700 arrests and nearly 150 reported injuries.

The present-day Columbia demonstrations seem to have added fuel to numerous other demonstrations across the country despite the arrests. On Monday, 120 protesters were arrested at New York University, 47 students were arrested at Yale University, and three people were arrested at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt. On Tuesday, nine people at the University of Minnesota were arrested, and two were arrested at Ohio State University. The demonstrations at Columbia and across the country have been labeled as antisemitic and unsafe for Jewish students. But many of the protesters at these campuses’ “solidarity encampments” are themselves Jewish students calling for Palestinian freedom.

[...] “We condemn any and all hateful or violent comments targeting Jewish students; however, in shutting down public protest and suspending students, the actions of the University of Columbia are not ensuring safety for Jewish students ― or any students ― on campus,” progressive group Jewish Voice for Peace said in a statement on Monday. The White House joined university administrators earlier this week in condemning the protests, presuming that Jewish students in the U.S. automatically support Israel’s military offensive in Gaza ― a dangerous assumption that JVP said is “actively harming Palestinian and Jewish students.”

Protests over Israel's genocidal Gaza campaign have flared up at college campuses across the nation that began at Columbia University with Gaza Solidarity Encampments.

Their goals are to divest from funding companies making money off the Gaza Genocide campaign, permanent ceasefire, ending US military funding for Israel, and amnesty for disciplined students and faculty.

Pro-Israel Apartheid supporters have baselessly called these protests "antisemitic", forgetting that Jewish folks are joining in support of the protests.

#Gaza Solidarity Encampment #Gaza Genocide #Gaza #Israel/Hamas War Protests #Israel/Hamas War #Israel Apartheid #Israel #Columbia University #Ceasefire NOW Protests #Gaza/Israel Conflict

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jonathan Nicholson at HuffPost:

Soon after Iran’s April 13 attempted airstrike on Israel — a massive bombardment of about 300 missiles and drones — a Ukrainian YouTuber couldn’t help but notice the difference in global reaction. U.S. forces, including fighter jets, joined by French and British forces, helped Israel down almost all of the incoming fire in an impressive display of military resources and Western know-how. It was a lesson not lost on the Ukrainians. A Ukrainian-born YouTuber who goes by Yewleea, who says she left New York to return to her home country to help with the war, called it “kind of incredibly fucking hypocritical,” given Israel’s state-of-the-art air defense system and unrealized Western promises of aid to Ukraine. “That was done specifically to make a point,” she said in a livestream. “They didn’t need the help. Ukraine does need the help. And Ukraine was promised all the help. Yet we’re not receiving it.”

That same attack, though, ultimately ended up freeing about $60.8 billion in U.S. military and economic aid for the beleaguered Eastern European country by pushing the stalled funding to the forefront in Washington. A week after Ukrainians saw footage of the global powers rushing to knock out of the sky the same kind of Iranian Shahed drones they face nightly alone, many tuned into C-SPAN to watch 72% of the House vote Saturday, after months of delay, to give Ukraine the desperately needed aid. “It’s been said it’s never too late to do the right thing. Well, we’re coming really close,” said Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), a co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus, on the House floor. But the road to get there, for Ukrainians and their allies, began with the Iran attack and the world’s reaction to it. “This night Ukrainians got a clear view of what we truly mean for the US. We’re not allies, never have been,” Stas Olenchenko, a Kyiv-born analyst living in Europe, posted on social media.

[...] “Unfortunately, in Ukraine and our part of Europe, we do not have the level of defense that we saw in the Middle East a few days ago. Our Ukrainian sky and our neighbors’ skies deserve the same level of security,” he said. “And I appreciate everyone who sees our need for security as a need for equal security for all, because all lives are equally valuable.” The White House greeted the complaint by noting how much aid had already been sent to Ukraine or saying there were substantive differences between the two situations.

[...] Neither Ukraine or Israel is in NATO. While Ukraine has, like many post-Soviet countries, had big issues with corruption, its president, unlike Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, has not entered the fifth year of a corruption trial. In terms of longevity, the U.S. has recognized Israel since 1948, within minutes of the Jewish state’s creation. But it also signed the Budapest memorandum in 1994, convincing Ukraine to abandon its nuclear weapons. On Tuesday, after a pro-Ukraine rally on the U.S. Capitol grounds, Daniel Balson, director of public engagement with the advocacy group Razom for Ukraine, said Ukrainians didn’t “begrudge” the help Israel received. “It simply reinforces the fact that with additional ammunition, both for the fighting on the front as well as for air defenses, there could be a very different story coming out of Ukraine today,” Balson said.

The news that both houses of Congress voting to fund aid to Ukraine has been greeted with cheers in Ukraine.

#Ukraine #Foreign Aid #118th Congress #Russian Invasion of Ukraine #Foreign Policy #Ukraine Aid #Israel/Hamas War #Israel

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Paul Blest at More Perfect Union:

The Federal Trade Commission voted Tuesday to ban new noncompete agreements for all workers and make existing noncompetes null and void for everyone except senior executives. These agreements are used to restrict 30 million American workers from changing jobs or starting their own businesses due to claims that they could use “trade secrets” in their new roles.  Noncompete agreements can restrict job mobility based on geographic area (i.e., a doctor joining a new practice within 50 miles of their old one) or a time period after leaving the position (anywhere between several months to more than a year). They have been banned in multiple states in the past few years. 

But the FTC has issued a uniform ban that will cover hundreds of millions of workers following a 180-day period for for-profit companies to enter into compliance. More than 26,000 comments were submitted on the rule, more than 25,000 of which supported a noncompete ban, FTC staff said Tuesday.  The FTC estimated that the new rule will increase workers’ wages by up to $488 billion over 10 years, which FTC staff said would mean a $524 increase in annual wages for the average worker. The FTC also estimated that the rule would lead to more than 8,500 new businesses per year.   “Right now workers are stuck in place because of these noncompetes,” FTC chair Lina Khan told More Perfect Union in an interview about the rule. “So even if they get a better job opportunity with higher wages, with better benefits, they can't actually switch jobs, which is bad for those workers. It's also bad for other workers who won't have the opportunities that are not being created because of these noncompetes.”

Five states have passed bans on noncompetes, not including New York, where lawmakers passed a ban last year that was then vetoed by Gov. Kathy Hochul. After Oregon banned noncompete agreements in 2008, researchers found, average hourly wages for all workers were boosted by up to 3 percent; the same analysis found that low-wage workers subjected to noncompetes saw a substantial negative impact on their wages.  The final rule differs from the proposal in that “senior executives,” those in a “policy-making position” making more than $151,000 per year, will still be subjected to noncompete agreements signed before the effective date of the new rule.

Since announcing the proposal in early 2023, the FTC’s rule has come under fire from the business lobby. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said before Tuesday’s meeting that it will file a lawsuit to block the proposal as soon as Wednesday. A top Chamber official said earlier this week that the rule “opens up a Pandora’s box where this commission or future commissions could be literally micromanaging every aspect of the economy,” Bloomberg reported.  But the FTC argues that noncompete agreements are “an unfair method of competition” that affect both high- and l0w-wage earners. In the medical profession, nearly half of all physicians are subject to noncompete agreements, according to the American Medical Association, which backs the effort to end the practice. (The FTC estimated that the new rule will result in “$74-$194 billion in reduced spending on physician services over the next decade.”)

The Federal Trade Commission voted to ban competition-stifling noncompete agreements except for senior executives.

#Noncompete Agreements #Business #FTC #Federal Trade Commission #Workers' Rights

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Walter Einenkel at Daily Kos:

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem did her best to avoid discussing abortion rights during an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday. When asked about her state’s near-total abortion ban—which classifies abortion as a Class 6 felony unless performed to save the mother’s life—Noem deflected the question back to a discussion on states’ rights. 

When Bash pushed her to answer the question, Noem offered up a word salad sandwich, with the real answer stuck right in the middle. “We rely on South Dakota, on the fact that I'm pro-life and we have a law that says that there is an exception for the life of the mother, and I just don't believe a tragedy should perpetuate another tragedy,” she said, implying that she does not support abortion in cases of rape and incest. As for the “exception for the life of the mother” Noem chirps about, lawmakers in South Dakota are trying to create an instructional video to help doctors understand what that means exactly so they don’t receive a prison sentence of up to 2 years, a fine of $4,000, or both.

Appearing on CNN's State Of The Union with Dana Bash on Sunday, South Dakota Governor and potential Veepstakes candidate Kristi Noem (R) struggled to defend her state's retrograde abortion ban that has no rape or incest protections.

From the 04.21.2024 edition of CNN's State Of The Union:

#Dana Bash #Kristi Noem #Donald Trump #2024 Veepstakes #2024 Presidential Election #2024 Elections #CNN #CNN's State Of The Union #Abortion Bans #South Dakota

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Victoria Bekiempis at The Guardian:

A former tabloid publisher testified on Tuesday in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial that he promised to be the “eyes and ears” of the 2016 presidential campaign, helped to suppress harmful stories and even arranged to purchase the silence of a doorman. David Pecker, the ex-president’s longtime ally and ex-publisher of the National Enquirer – who prosecutors contend was integral in illicit, so-called catch-and-kill efforts to prevent negative stories about Trump from going public – was on the stand again as a prosecution witness after a brief appearance on Monday following opening statements.

He told the court about being invited to a meeting with Trump and his then lawyer, Michael Cohen, in New York in 2015 after Trump had just declared his candidacy for president and was seeking a friendly and powerful media insider.

“They asked me what can I do – and what my magazines could do – to help the [election] campaign … I said what I would do is I would run or publish positive stories about Mr Trump and I would publish negative stories about his opponents, and I said that I would also be the eyes and ears because I know that the Trump Organization had a very small staff,” he said.

[...] Pecker first took the stand on Monday and provided brief testimony of his work as a tabloid honcho. “We used checkbook journalism and we paid for stories. I gave a number to the editors that they could not spend more than $10,000 to investigate or produce or publish a story, anything over $10,000 they would spend on a story, they would have to be vetted and brought up to me, for approval. Pecker said he had final say over the content of the National Enquirer and other AMI publications. Prosecutors contend that Pecker was at the center of a plot to boost Trump’s chances in the 2016 election. The alleged plan with Trump and Cohen was, if Pecker caught wind of damaging information, he would apprise Trump and Cohen, so they could figure out a way to keep it quiet. That collusion came to include AMI’s $150,000 payoff to the Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claimed to have had an extramarital affair with Trump, prosecutors have said. This kind of “catch-and-kill” tactic did not happen with Trump before he ran for president, Pecker said. The alleged plot to cover up a claimed sexual encounter between Daniels and Trump is the basis of prosecutors’ case.

Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker took the stand in the People of New York v. Trump business record falsification criminal trial, and he revealed that he was "eyes and ears" of the 2016 Presidential campaign of Donald Trump by using "catch and kill" tactics to prevent negative stories about Trump from going public.

#David Pecker #People of New York v. Trump #National Enquirer #Stormy Daniels #Donald Trump #Donald Trump Trial #Catch and Kill #American Media Inc. #Karen McDougal

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ryan Adamczeski at The Advocate:

Forced outing has devastating consequences for LGBTQ+ people, and queer youth are at an even greater risk. One-third of LGBTQ+ minors who were outed without their consent were more likely to experience depression, as well as face less support from their families, according to a new study from the University of Connecticut. Two-thirds said that the event caused significant stress. Outing is the act of revealing a person's sexual orientation or gender identity without their consent. The UConn study analyzed responses from 9,200 queer youth ages 13 to 17 in the Human Rights Campaign's 2017 LGBTQ National Teen Survey which showed a correlation between outing and stress.

The data also showed that LGBTQ+ youth experience stress from outing differently, as transgender, nonbinary, and asexual respondents reported higher stress levels than cisgender gay, lesbian and bisexual participants. In all cases, respondents reported lower stress when they also reported have parents or guardians who are educated on sexuality and gender identity. More than 550 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were introduced across the U.S. in 2023, and 80 were passed into law. In 2024, 487 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced and 20 have passed into law, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. There are currently five states that mandate schools report transgender children to their parents if they request to go by a different name or pronouns. Another six “promote” forced outing, according to the Movement Advancement Project.

A new study from UCONN that came out reveals that anti-LGBTQ+ forced outing policies lead to higher rates of depression and familial rejection among LGBTQ+ youths.

#LGBTQ+ #Studies #Forced Outing #LGBT Youth #University of Connecticut #Transgender Youth #Movement Advancement Project

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Adriana Gómez Licón at AP, via HuffPost:

MIAMI (AP) — The social media company founded by former President Donald Trump applied for a business visa program that he sought to restrict during his administration and which many of his allies want him to curtail in a potential second term. Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind Truth Social, filed an application in June 2022 for an H-1B visa for a worker at a $65,000 annual salary, the lowest wage category allowed under the program. Federal immigration data shows the company was approved for a visa a few months later. The company says it did not hire the worker. Filing for the visa sets the image of Trump the candidate, who has proposed a protectionist agenda for companies to “hire American,” in conflict with Trump the businessman, who has said his companies will use every tool at their disposal. Records show the investment firm started by Trump’s son-in-law and White House adviser, Jared Kushner, also filed an application and was approved to hire a foreigner as an associate under the same visa program.

[...] An H-1B visa petition can cost companies about $5,000 per employee. Companies can withdraw petitions even after being approved.

Donald Trump, who previously opposed H-1B visas, applied the program for Trump Media and Technology Group (the company behind TRUTH Social) workers.

#Donald Trump #TRUTH Social #Visas #H1B Visas #Immigration #TMTG #Trump Media and Technology Group

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ian Millhiser at Vox:

On Thursday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Trump v. United States, the case where former President Donald Trump claims that he is immune from prosecution for any “official acts” that he committed while in office. It is, frankly, very difficult to care about this case or to spend mental energy teasing out what the justices may say in their opinions. That’s because Trump has already won.

Trump’s arguments in this case are exceedingly weak, and it is unlikely that even this Supreme Court, with its 6-3 Republican supermajority, will hold that Trump was allowed to do crimes while he was president. Trump’s immunity argument is so broad that his lawyer told a lower court that it would apply even if he ordered the military to kill one of his rivals. (Though Trump does concede that he could be prosecuted if he were first impeached and convicted.) But this case was never actually about whether the Constitution allows a sitting president to avoid prosecution if he uses the powers of the presidency to commit crimes. Trump’s goal is not to win an improbable Supreme Court order holding that he can assassinate his political adversaries. It is to delay his criminal trial for attempting to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election for as long as possible — and ideally, from Trump’s perspective, until after the 2024 election.

And the Supreme Court has been his willing patsy. As a general rule, federal courts only permit one court to have jurisdiction over a case at a time. So once Trump appealed trial Judge Tanya Chutkan’s ruling that, no, presidents are not allowed to do crimes, Chutkan lost her authority to move forward with Trump’s criminal trial until after that appeal was resolved. Special prosecutor Jack Smith understands this problem as well as anyone, which is why he wanted the Supreme Court to bypass an intermediate appeals court and rule immediately on Trump’s immunity claim last December. The justices denied that request. After the appeals court ruled, they also denied Smith’s request to resolve the case on an much more expedited schedule.

[...]

The legal arguments in the Trump v. US case, explained in case anyone actually cares

Trump’s lawyers seek to blur the line between civil lawsuits — the president actually is immune from being sued for official actions taken while in office — and criminal prosecutions. Under the Supreme Court’s precedents, all government officials, from a rookie beat cop all the way up to the president, enjoy some degree of immunity from federal lawsuits filed by private citizens. If you follow debates about police reform, you’ve no doubt heard the term “qualified immunity.” This is a legal doctrine that often allows police officers (and most other government officials) to avoid liability when they violate a private citizen’s rights. As the Supreme Court held in Harlow v. Fitzgerald (1982), “government officials performing discretionary functions, generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.”

The purpose of this immunity is to protect government officials from the kind of liability that might deter them from performing their jobs well. Harlow argued that qualified immunity ensures that the stresses of litigation won’t divert “official energy from pressing public issues.” It prevents lawsuits from deterring “able citizens from acceptance of public office.” And the Court in Harlow also warned about “the danger that fear of being sued will ‘dampen the ardor of all but the most resolute, or the most irresponsible [public officials], in the unflinching discharge of their duties.’” Yet, while qualified immunity often prevents civil lawsuits against police and other government officials from moving forward, it’s never been understood as a shield against criminal prosecution. Just ask Derek Chauvin, the police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd. The Supreme Court has also ruled that a short list of government officials — prosecutors, judges, and the president — have “absolute immunity” from civil suits. This is because people who hold these three jobs are unusually vulnerable to harassment suits filed by private litigants. Prosecutors perform duties that require them to antagonize potential litigants: criminal defendants. And judges’ duties necessarily require them to rule in favor of some parties and against others — who might then turn around and sue the judge.

[...]

The best defense of the Supreme Court’s behavior in this case

The Court’s decision to delay Trump’s trial for months, rather than expediting this case as Smith requested, cannot be defended. That said, in an op-ed published in the New York Times shortly after the Supreme Court decided to delay Trump’s trial, University of Texas law professor Lee Kovarsky made the strongest possible argument for giving the justices at least some time to come up with a nuanced approach to the question of whether a former president is sometimes immune from criminal prosecution.

Trump, Kovarsky argues, should not be given immunity from prosecution for attempting to overturn an election. But he warns that “American democracy is entering a perilous period of extreme polarization — one in which less malfeasant presidents may face frivolous, politicized prosecutions when they leave office.” For this reason, Kovarsky argues that “the Supreme Court should seize this opportunity to develop a narrow presidential immunity in criminal cases” that would prevent a future president from, say, prosecuting President Biden for the crime of being a Democrat. The problem with this argument, however, is that even if the current Supreme Court could come up with a legal framework that would allow Smith’s prosecution of Trump to move forward, while also screening out any future case where a president was prosecuted for improper reasons, there’s no reason to think that a future Supreme Court would hew to this framework. Kovarsky is arguing that the Court should use the Trump case to establish a precedent that can guide its future decisions. A precedent like Roe v. Wade. Or like Lemon v. Kurtzman. Or like Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. Or like United States v. Miller. Or like any other precedent that this Supreme Court has tossed out after that decision fell out of favor with the Republican Party.

Donald Trump won the delay battle in Trump v. United States, even as the court hasn't issued a ruling yet on whether or not he has total presidential immunity.

#SCOTUS #Capitol Insurrection #Trump v. United States #Total Immunity #Donald Trump #Jack Smith #Tanya Chutkan

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Joyce Vance at Civil Discourse Substack:

For starters, some important news: The state of New York will make daily transcripts of the trial available. They announced each day’s transcript would be available by the end of the following day. You can also find key pleadings and orders at the link. Bookmark it and you can follow up on any specific parts of the day’s proceedings that interest you.

Today, the gag order hearing will certainly catch a lot of attention. We discussed the Judge’s option under the law Monday night, in the “Week Ahead” edition of the newsletter (scroll down to paragraph 17). Today, there was more. Donald Trump walked out of the courtroom and violated the gag order again. This statement was a clear violation of the gag order: “When are they going to look at all the lies that Cohen did in the last trial … He got caught lying. Pure lying. When are they going to look at that?” The gag order prohibits Trump from talking about witnesses’ involvement in the investigation or the trial. The violation is plain. Then, Trump moved on to an interview on Real America's Voice, Steve Bannon’s network, where he reportedly said, "That jury was picked so fast. 95% are Democrats. The area is mostly all Democrat. You think of it as a purely Democrat area. It's a very unfair situation that I can tell you." The gag order also prohibits him from making comments about “any juror.” Perhaps, in true Trumpian fashion, he’ll claim the comment was directed towards the whole jury, not any individuals. That’s all he has left, some sort of appeal to a hypertechnical reading of the gag order to claim he didn’t violate.

We’re at the point we began to discuss weeks ago where Judge Merchan will have to either show Trump the gag order has teeth or concede that it’s meaningless and that Trump can do whatever he wants. Like he did today. Judge Merchan being a thoughtful, experienced jurist, I expect we’ll see him begin to enforce it tomorrow. That means we’re in for a day of Trump’s theatrics and an appeal to his base. But the Judge has a case to try in front of a jury, and if that jury is going to avoid both prejudice and threat at Trump’s hands, the Judge will have to act decisively tomorrow. As for today, we got opening statements from both sides and a few minutes of testimony from the first witness who, as expected, turned out to be David Pecker. We’ll leave his testimony for tomorrow, when we’ve seen more of it, and focus first on the opening statements. Before they began, Judge Merchan gave the jury the same instructions that jurors receive in every criminal case. But they had a fresh resonance here with Donald Trump in the dock. He instructed them that a defendant is not required to prove he is not guilty and that it is up to the people to prove each element of the charged crimes. The Judge instructed jurors that if they were not “convinced beyond a reasonable doubt” that Trump is guilty, then they must find him “not guilty.” But, he told them, if the government proves its case beyond a reasonable doubt, “you must find him guilty.”

[...]

The People

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo's first line: "This case is about a criminal conspiracy and a cover-up." He told jurors that Donald Trump tried to corrupt the 2016 election, then he covered up that conspiracy by “lying in his New York business records over and over and over again.” This is the statutory charge that Trump created false business records to aid in the commission of or conceal another crime.

[...]

The Defendant

Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, started with this: “President Trump is innocent. President Trump did not commit any crimes. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office should never have brought this case.” Blanche’s job in opening was different than the prosecution’s. Instead of building a base to develop, he’s looking for one or more holdout jurors and hoping to give them a strong narrative they can hold onto, to refuse to convict. While there’s a chance the defense might be able to exploit some technical flaw in the prosecution’s case and seek a true acquittal, that would be unusual. Having two lawyers on the jury who may be in tune with technicalities, though, means that the prosecution will have to be extremely thorough. It’s as likely that Blanche was talking to those jurors as to anyone else when he began to set the table for a “not guilty” narrative.

Yesterday began opening arguments for the People of New York v. Trump criminal trial in the election interference/business record falsification case.

#People of New York v. Trump #Donald Trump Trial #Donald Trump #David Pecker #Juan Manuel Merchan #Michael Cohen #Todd Blanche

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Coral Murphy Marcos at The Guardian:

The US supreme court will consider whether “ghost guns” – firearms made from kits available online that people can assemble at home – can be lawfully regulated. On Monday, the justices agreed to take up the appeal by the Biden administration in favor of regulations aimed at reining in the so-called ghost guns. A lower court invalidated the administration’s attempt to regulate the firearms, a decision the supreme court temporarily stayed last summer before reinstating the federal regulation at Joe Biden’s request. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives approved a regulation in 2022 that required companies that sell unassembled firearm kits to add serial numbers to incomplete frames and components known as receivers, a key part of a homemade firearm kit, and to conduct a background check on prospective buyers.

Several companies that manufacture the ghost gun kits argued the regulation was not permitted under law. The federal rule only applies to unfinished frames and receivers, the primary components of a ghost gun. A US district court in Texas ruled against the ghost gun regulation in July 2023, a decision the supreme court later put on hold. The US district judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, found that the administration exceeded its authority under a 1968 federal law called the Gun Control Act in implementing the rule relating to ghost guns. Such firearms lack the usual serial numbers required by the federal government.

In October 2023, the justices stepped in again, barring two Texas-based manufacturers from selling products that could be assembled into ghost guns, after O’Connor’s September injunction. The Biden administration has said that police departments are facing an “explosion of crimes involving ghost guns” in recent years. Policymakers have also said that ghost guns are attractive to criminals and others prohibited from lawfully buying firearms, including minors.

SCOTUS set to hear ghost guns law case Garland v. Vanderstok to determine the legality of ghost gun regulations. #SCOTUS #GhostGuns

#Guns #SCOTUS #Ghost Guns #Garland v. Vanderstok