Justin's Political Corner

Republicans echo Trump with demand for military response to student protests

As anti-Israel protests have spread across many of the country’s most prestigious college campuses this week, several�Republicans in Congres

Daily Kos

As anti-Israel protests have spread across many of the country’s most prestigious college campuses this week, several Republicans in Congress have sought to burnish their pro-Israel credentials by calling for the U.S. military to respond.  Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton exhorted President Joe Biden to send in National Guard units, while obliquely encouraging motorists to run over protestors. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley similarly demanded a militarized federal response “to protect Jewish Americans,” while Mitch McConnell and John Thune penned a letter, signed by 25 of their fellow GOP senators, calling the demonstrators “anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist mobs” and demanding that “federal law enforcement” respond.

Meanwhile, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson paid a visit to Columbia University’s campus on Wednesday where he was greeted by catcalls and boos. Upon leaving, Johnson also declared he would be demanding that Biden deploy the National Guard to quell the protests if they continued.  As Adam Serwer, writing for the Atlantic, observes, these reflexive calls by Republicans for a military response to protests seem to be less rooted in genuine concern that the protests pose a serious danger to the public or Jewish people than “because these powerful figures find the protesters and their demands offensive.” Serwer points out that school administrators have, when necessary, called in local police to address potential violence, harassment, and property damage, and thus far, the protests do not evince the kind of “mass violence and unrest” that would normally suggest the need for federal involvement. He also notes that such a deployment of federal troops would likely escalate the protests. 

Without debating the relative merits or lack thereof of the protests themselves, then, it’s important to note that these demands for a federal militarized response are coming almost entirely from one side of the political aisle. As Serwer points out, they echo the same sentiments Republicans expressed in 2020 in response to the protests by Black Lives Matter over the police murder of George Floyd. 

In other words, thus far we have seen a markedly asymmetrical, political response by Republicans to  campus protests this week. But we are also witnessing something else: an explicit acceptance of a militarized solution to protests where Republicans find it politically advantageous. Notably, another well-known Republican has also proposed sending the U.S. military and National Guard units to quell anticipated public protests, albeit of a far different nature, should he be afforded another term in office. That person is Donald Trump, and the people he proposes to target are those Americans he suspects would turn out in the hundreds of thousands to protest the policies he intends to implement.

• Vox: Student protests are testing US colleges’ commitment to free speech
• The Nation: The Crackdown on Campus Protests Is Happening Everywhere

After a Pennsylvania school board canceled a gay actor's talk, the community fought back

Maulik Pancholy was scheduled to speak at a middle school about his experiences with bullying, until the school board suddenly canceled the

Advocate.com

A gay author has been re-invited to speak at a Pennsylvania middle school less than two weeks after he was banned over parts of his "lifestyle." Maulik Pancholy, known for his roles in 30 Rock and as a voice actor in Phineas and Ferb, was scheduled to speak at Mountain View Middle School in Mechanicsburg about his experiences with bullying, until the Cumberland Valley School District suddenly canceled the event, citing concerns that the actor’s LGBTQ+ advocacy would be too political for students. Board member Bud Shaffner, who introduced the resolution to cancel the event, justified the decision at the time by citing Pancholy's "lifestyle."

The board has since reversed their decision after an uproar from the local community at their Wednesday night meeting, according to the New York Times. Parents and students filled a high school auditorium late yesterday to berate the board members for several hours, slamming what many said were homophobic remarks. The board eventually voted 5-4 to re-allow Pancholy to speak, and Shaffner apologized for his "lifestyle" comment, claiming that he simply intended to reference the author's political activism and not his sexuality. “I will accept the blame because of the insensitive word I spoke on April 15,” he said at the start of the meeting. “I fully understand the interpretation of my poor word choice.”

• LGBTQ Nation: School board reverses decision to cancel gay author’s talk after community complaints

Four States Tell Schools To Ignore Biden's New Title IX Rules Protecting Trans Students

Republican officials in Oklahoma, Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina have directed schools to ignore Title IX rules passed by the Biden

erininthemorning.com

On Friday, the Biden administration released its final Title IX rules, which include protections for LGBTQ+ students by clarifying that Title IX forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The rule change could have a significant impact as it would supersede bathroom bans and other discriminatory policies that have become increasingly common in Republican states within the United States. As of Thursday morning, however, officials in at least four states — Oklahoma, Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina — have directed schools to ignore the regulations, potentially setting up a federal showdown that may ultimately end up in a protracted court battle in the lead-up to the 2024 elections.

Louisiana State Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley was the first to respond, decrying the fact that the new Title IX regulations could block teachers and other students from exercising what has been dubbed by some a “right to bully” transgender students by using their old names and pronouns intentionally. Asserting that Title IX law does not protect trans and queer students, Brumley states that schools “should not alter policies or procedures at this time.” Critically, several courts have ruled that trans and queer students are protected by Title IX, including the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in a recent case in West Virginia. In South Carolina, Schools Superintendent Ellen Weaver wrote in a letter that providing protections for transgender and LGBTQ+ students under Title IX “would rescind 50 years of progress & equality of opportunity by putting girls and women at a disadvantage in the educational arena,” apparently leaving transgender kids out of her definition of those who deserve progress and equality of opportunity. She then directed schools to ignore the new directive while waiting for court challenges. While South Carolina does not have a bathroom ban or statewide Don’t Say Gay or Trans law, such bills continue to be proposed in the state.

[...] Florida Commissioner of Education Manny Díaz Jr. also joined in in instructing schools not to implement Title IX regulations. In a letter issued to area schools, Díaz stated that the new Title IX regulations were tantamount to “gaslighting the country into believing that biological sex no longer has any meaning.” Governor Ron DeSantis approved of the letter and stated that Florida “will not comply.” Florida has notably been the site of some of the most viciously anti-queer and anti-trans legislation in recent history, including a Don’t Say Gay or Trans law that was used to force a trans female teacher to go by “Mr.” State Education Superintendent Ryan Walters of Oklahoma was the latest to echo similar sentiments. Walters has recently appointed the right-wing media figure Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok to an advisory role “to improve school safety,” and notably, Chaya Raichik has posed proudly with papers accusing her of instigating bomb threats with her incendiary posts about LGBTQ+ people in classrooms.

Donald Trump had a fantastic day in the Supreme Court today

It’s unclear if the Court will explicitly hold that Trump could commit crimes with impunity, or if they’ll just delay his trial so long that

Vox

Thursday’s argument in Trump v. United States was a disaster for Special Counsel Jack Smith, and for anyone who believes that the president of the United States should be subject to prosecution if they commit a crime. At least five of the Court’s Republicans seemed eager to, at the very least, permit Trump to delay his federal criminal trial for attempting to steal the 2020 election until after this November’s election. And the one GOP appointee who seemed to hedge the most, Chief Justice John Roberts, also seemed to think that Trump enjoys at least some immunity from criminal prosecution. Much of the Court’s Republican majority, moreover, seemed eager not simply to delay Trump’s trial until after the election, but to give him extraordinarily broad immunity from criminal prosecution should he be elected once again. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, for example, argued that when a president exercises his official powers, he cannot be charged under any federal criminal statute at all, unless that statute contains explicit language saying that it applies to the president.

As Michael Dreeben, the lawyer arguing on behalf of Smith’s prosecution team, told the Court, only two federal laws meet this standard. So Kavanaugh’s rule would amount to near complete immunity for anything a president did while exercising their executive authority. Justice Samuel Alito, meanwhile, played his traditional role as the Court’s most dyspeptic advocate for whatever position the Republican Party prefers. At one point, Alito even argued that permitting Trump to be prosecuted for attempting to overthrow the 2020 presidential election would “lead us into a cycle that destabilizes ... our democracy,” because future presidents who lose elections would mimic Trump’s criminal behavior in order to remain in office and avoid being prosecuted by their successor. In fairness, not all of the justices, or even all of the Republican justices, engaged in such dizzying feats of reverse logic. Roberts did express some concern that Trump lawyer John Sauer’s arguments could prevent the president from being prosecuted if he took a bribe.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, meanwhile, pointed to the fact that Sauer drew a distinction between prosecuting a president for “official” behavior (which Sauer said is not allowed), and prosecuting a president for his “private” conduct (which Sauer conceded is permitted). Barrett also argued that many of the charges against Trump, such as his work with private lawyers and political consultants to overthrow the 2020 election, qualify as private conduct and thus could still be prosecuted. Still, many of the Republican justices, including Barrett, indicated that the case would have to be returned to the trial court to determine which of the allegations against Trump qualify as “official” and which qualify as “private.” Barrett also indicated that Trump could then appeal the trial court’s ruling, meaning that his actual criminal trial would be delayed for many more months as that issue makes its way through the appeals courts.

In that world, the likelihood that Trump will be tried, and a verdict reached, before the November election is approximately zero percent. The Court’s decision in the Trump case, in other words, is likely to raise the stakes of this already impossibly high-stakes election considerably. As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned, the risk inherent in giving presidents immunity from the criminal law is that someone like Trump “would be emboldened to commit crimes with abandon.” It’s unclear if the Court is going to go so far as to definitively rule that the president of the United States is allowed to do crimes. But they appear likely to make it impossible for the criminal justice system to actually do anything about Trump’s attempt to overthrow the election — at least before Trump could be elected president again.

• HuffPost: Supreme Court Conservatives Likely To Give Trump What He Wants In Immunity Case: Further Delay
• Salon: SCOTUS majority abandons conservative principles to mount bizarre defense of Trump’s immunity claim

‘Bad Faith’ a Must-See for Americans Concerned About Christian Nationalist Threat to Democracy | Right Wing Watch

As the aggressive Christian nationalism that infuses the MAGA movement and Republican Party intensifies, journalists and filmmakers are payi

Right Wing Watch

As the aggressive Christian nationalism that infuses the MAGA movement and Republican Party intensifies, journalists and filmmakers are paying closer attention to the threat this political ideology and its adherents pose to freedom in America. A must-watch new documentary, “Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy,” will be available for streaming on AppleTV, Amazon Prime, and Google Play beginning Friday, April 26. Directed by Stephen Ujlaki and Christopher Jacob Jones and narrated by Peter Coyote, “Bad Faith” makes masterful use of archival and current footage of Christian nationalist religious and political figures, infographics, and interviews with scholars, religious leaders, political analysts, and even a former Trump administration official. The film draws a compelling through line from the scheming power-building of Paul Weyrich, the right-wing operative who recruited Jerry Falwell and other evangelical preachers to create the religious-right as a political movement in the late 1970s, to the institution-destroying antidemocratic ambitions of MAGA insiders like Steve Bannon, as well as Donald Trump’s dominionist “prophets” and “apostles” and the Jan. 6 insurrectionists they inspired.

“Bad Faith” explains how that transformation happened, documenting the role played by the Council for National Policy, a partnership between anti-regulation, economically libertarian oil barons and the religious-right leaders who intended to remake the Republican Party, take over the Supreme Court, and use their political power to enforce “traditional” views of family, sexuality, and gender on the rest of the nation. The Koch brothers poured tens of millions of dollars into “a state-of-the-art political data platform” that Council for National Policy groups use to collect personal information—including personal mental health, behavioral health, and treatment data—and use that information to micro-target individuals. (In “God & Country,” another documentary released earlier this year, Ralph Reed is shown bragging that his organization tracked “147 different data points” on the conservative Christians they targeted for turnout operations.) [...]

As “Bad Faith” makes clear, religious-right leaders viewed Trump as a powerful blunt weapon in a long-term political and spiritual war against the federal government and institutions dominated by progressive forces. “The Council’s gambit had paid off,” the film notes about Trump’s time in office. “Christian nationalists were firmly embedded at the highest levels of government. The Supreme Court had an absolute majority of justices poised to overturn landmark civil and women’s rights decisions. Paul Weyrich’s vision of a Christian nation was becoming a reality.” That explains why Christian nationalist leaders were willing to dismantle democracy to keep Trump in power. Members of the Council for National Policy and its political action arm went into “full combat mode” to promote Trump’s big lie, and, as Right Wing Watch documented, they supported his efforts to keep power after the 2020 election, portraying it as a holy war between the forces of good and evil. As Samuel Perry notes in the film, viewing politics as spiritual warfare between the forces of God and Satan makes it easy for those who see themselves on God’s side to “justify just about anything.”

A New York Times reporter anonymously linked the paper's publisher to its coverage of Biden's age. The volume of coverage is eye-opening.

Politico released a report about the “petty feud” between The New York Times and the White House that includes one staffer’s claim that Time

Media Matters for America

Politico released a report about the “petty feud” between The New York Times and the White House that includes one staffer’s claim that Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger “quietly encourages … tough reporting” on President Joe Biden’s age because Biden hasn’t sat for an interview with the paper.  Media Matters data shows that the Times mentioned Biden’s age more than any other of the top five U.S. newspapers by circulation over a five-month period last year. The Times was also less likely than three of those other papers to mention former President Donald Trump’s age when mentioning Biden’s. 

• One Times staffer claimed that the paper’s publisher A.G. Sulzberger is to blame for hash coverage. From Politico: “‘All these Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or whatever reporter they’re mad at that day,’ one Times journalist said. ‘It’s A.G. He’s the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn’t done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age.’” [Politico, 4/25/24] 

Will Trump’s Trial Deflate his Personality Cult?

Will Seeing Him Diminished Correct the GOP's TINA (There Is No Alternative) Situation?

lucid.substack.com

Last week’s essay addressed the question of how an authoritarian leader such as Trump would endure the experience of a criminal trial. Trump must feel rage and incredulity at being in this situation: a man who organizes spectacles around humiliating others now finds himself exposed and mocked daily (for his involuntary sleeping and farting).   This week I want to consider how the unprecedented criminal trial of a former president may also bring us another uncommon spectacle: the real-time deterioration of a personality cult built on omnipotence, invincibility, and control, including intimidating others with his physical presence. These are all qualities and situations which the courtroom setting foils.

What might be the long-term effects of this tarnishing of his cult on his domination of the Republican Party and his devoted base? Journalists and dismissed jurors who have seen Trump up close have commented on how diminished he looks with respect to his image at rallies, on television, and in the fantasies circulated by his fans. This is unsurprising. This trial is a huge mental and physical exertion for Trump. The daily sketches from court artists show a man straining to cope: hardly the powerful, statuesque, and untouchable being that Trump’s cult, like all such personality cults, has presented to the public. This situation will likely worsen as the Trump grows more worn out and angry and escalates his acting out with the judge, jurors, witnesses, and anyone connected to his trial. He has already violated the gag order imposed on him by Judge Juan Merchan so many times that the Secret Service is planning for his protection during a possible short-term confinement. Already, a new Trump persona has appeared in the media: a Trump who has lost his magical touch and his aura of command. “Trump was going to dominate in the courtroom. Instead, he is shrinking,” reads the headline of a recent column by the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin.

While it is still early in the trial, it is worth considering the effects of this shift in Trump’s image on the GOP, which has arranged itself around his personal desires and needs. Authoritarians use threat and corruption to impose the idea that they alone are qualified to lead the party and the nation: thus There Is No Alternative (TINA) to their domination.

TINA is why there is never talk of successors or other options in case something goes wrong. It is why the GOP is currently stuck around Trumpian hierarchies, such as Lara Trump heading the Republican National Committee, and loyalty requirements that police the speech and actions of GOP elites.

While Trump is currently the GOP nominee, the experience of seeing him in a vulnerable and haggard light could fuel existing private dissatisfaction with him as the face of the Republican party and give some GOP enablers an opening to violate Trump’s code of omertà (the Mafioso’s required silence out of loyalty). That would mean more public criticism of him from within the Republican party. As the cult that legitimates his authority is undermined, movement within the party could occur. We are looking here for criticism by sitting GOP officials, since former ones such as Chris Christie and Mike Pence have often declared they will not endorse him and/or vote for him. [...]

One takeaway is not to expect a collapse of Trump’s cult soon. Even if Trump is confined due to being in contempt, he has long used the specter of his imprisonment to emotionally manipulate this followers, who vow they would support him if he ends up in prison. It takes years to cultivate a personality cult, especially when you are forced to operate in a democracy, and it can take a long time for one to recede. Trump started his leader cult in 2015, building on established media relationships and associations of his billionaire persona with dominance and glamour. His strongman profile and propaganda points have been around for almost a decade. History shows that shifts in perception that can lessen leaders’ holds over their followers usually happen over time. Ian Kershaw describes the end of a personality cult as a "slow deflation." Kershaw wrote about Adolf Hitler, whose leader cult was enforced by a one-party dictatorship. It took being bombed by the Allies for people to realize that the infallible defender of the nation they had worshipped was a propaganda creation. In the USSR, Joseph Stalin’s personality cult famously disappeared almost overnight following Nikita Khrushchev’s 1956 speech condemning such “cults of the individual.” Yet millions continued to be devoted to Stalin, and Vladimir Putin built on this subterranean longing when he started rehabilitating Stalin’s legacy. Those are extreme situations, with dire consequences for nonconformity, but even in a democracy, disengagement from a leader cult such as Trump’s is a slow process. That’s because the behavior of many cult members is dictated by aversion to loss and intolerance of the cognitive dissonance that comes when the cult belief system is confronted with reality. The more an individual has invested in the cult world, the more they are reluctant to admit to others, and to themselves, that they have misplaced their trust and love. Just as cultivation and conversion leverage strong positive emotions (belonging, safety), so does disengagement evoke strong negative emotions (shame, humiliation) that many wish to avoid.

Trump: Deadly Charlottesville Neo-Nazi Rally A 'Peanut' Compared To Israel-Gaza Protests

A neo-Nazi drove his car into a group of anti-racist demonstrators during the 2017 hate rally, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.

HuffPost

Former President Donald Trump said a deadly 2017 neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was a “peanut” compared to protests happening across the U.S. condemning Israel’s killing of Palestinian civilians. “Crooked Joe Biden would say, constantly, that he ran because of Charlottesville,” Trump posted on Truth Social Wednesday night. “Well, if that’s the case, he’s done a really terrible job because Charlottesville is like a ‘peanut’ compared to the riots and anti-Israel protests that are happening all over our Country, RIGHT NOW.”

During the 2017 “Unite the Right” hate rally, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists took to the streets of Charlottesville carrying burning tiki torches and chanting, “Jews will not replace us.” Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal and anti-racist demonstrator, was killed after a neo-Nazi attendee drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing Heyer and injuring several others. In 2018, the killer was sentenced to life in prison. At the time, then-President Trump downplayed the violence, saying there were “very fine people on both sides.” Pro-Palestinian protests have popped up across the country and at college campuses, with some critics calling the demonstrations antisemitic despite many Jewish people and organizations taking part in calling for a cease-fire in Gaza amid Israel’s military campaign in the region that has resulted in more than 30,000 Palestinians being killed.

[...] “The fact is that Crooked Joe Biden HATES Israel and Hates the Jewish people,” Trump said elsewhere in his Truth Social post. “The problem is that he HATES the Palestinians even more, and he just doesn’t know what to do!?!?”

Trump Lawyer Tells SCOTUS That Even A Military Coup Order Would Be Immune From Prosecution

Whether Trump faces a criminal trial for his actions leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, is now in the hands of nine justices, three of whom he appo

HuffPost

WASHINGTON — A presidential order to the military to conduct a coup to keep him in office “might well be an official act,” Donald Trump’s lawyer told the Supreme Court Thursday on the question of whether Trump’s attempted coup is immune from prosecution. The extraordinary exchange was among several in lengthy oral arguments before the justices, who will now decide whether the former president will stand trial on federal charges based on his actions leading up to the violent assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump has been claiming that all his actions as president were “official acts” and therefore immune from prosecution entirely. While justices seemed skeptical of that assertion, most expressed concern that former presidents could be prosecuted in bad faith and for political reasons in the years to come.

“Reliance on the good faith of the prosecutor may not be enough,” Chief Justice John Roberts told Department of Justice lawyer Michael Dreeben. “I take that concern,” added Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. “I think it’s a real thing.” How justices decide to protect future presidents from prosecutions based on their legitimate official actions could decide whether Trump faces a trial at all before the November election on the Jan. 6 indictment. If the court orders trial judge Tanya Chutkan to hold an evidentiary hearing to weed out the “official” components of Trump’s actions versus the ones for his private or political gain, that hearing and potential appeals of her ruling could consume many more months. And if Trump wins back the White House, he could order prosecutors to drop all unresolved federal charges against him.

While Dreeben did not refer to the coming election at all, he repeated his boss special counsel Jack Smith’s request that the case be sent back to Chutkan with instructions that concerns about not punishing “official” acts be dealt with in jury instructions, rather than a separate hearing. “We would like to present that as an integrated picture to the jury so that it sees the sequence and the gravity of the conduct and why each step occurred,” Dreeben said. Trump’s lawyer, John Sauer, meanwhile came in for even more pointed questioning from most of the justices, but none more on point than Elena Kagan’s question about 40 minutes in.

“How about if the president orders the military to stage a coup?” Kagan asked. “That might well be an official act,” Sauer answered. Sauer also claimed that a presidential assassination of a political rival as well as the sale of nuclear secrets to a foreign power could also be defended as official acts immune from prosecution. Trump was not at the Supreme Court during the oral arguments Thursday but rather was in a different courtroom, in lower Manhattan, in the early phase of an unrelated criminal trial.

• HuffPost: Trump Lawyer Argues He Could Legally Order Assassination Of Political Rival

Right-wing cable news forgot about their voter fraud fixation after a right-wing candidate was accused of forging signatures

Media Matters for America

Turning Point Action senior director and Arizona state Rep. Austin Smith was named last week in a complaint alleging that he forged dozens of signatures, names, and addresses on his petitions to qualify for the state’s GOP primary ballot in July, quickly sparking a scandal that led the candidate to drop out of the race and resign from his position at TP Action just days later. Yet, for all of right-wing media’s handwringing about voter fraud in recent election cycles, a Media Matters analysis found no mentions of those allegations between April 15-23 on Fox News, One America News, and Newsmax — conservative cable outlets that have repeatedly peddled and fixated on debunked instances of supposed voter fraud.

According to an April 15 complaint filed by one of Smith’s constituents in state Superior Court, the first-term lawmaker “personally circulated multiple petition sheets bearing what appear to be forged voter signatures” in handwriting that bore a “striking resemblance” to his own. Additionally, several purported signers provided declarations claiming that they never signed Smith’s petitions. 

In a statement posted on X (formerly Twitter) on April 18, Smith refuted the allegations and announced that he would withdraw his candidacy to avoid the legal fees required to defend himself in court. (That same day, Smith resigned from his position at Turning Point Action.) He also claimed that the complaint was part of a “coordinated attack” and a “well-organized effort.” But as Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts noted, “If, in fact, this was some Democratic conspiracy to chase an innocent man from the Legislature, it’s curious that Smith wouldn’t defend himself. More curious still is the fact that not a single Republican legislator has called for his resignation in light of his refusal to answer allegations of election fraud.” Smith repeatedly claimed that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, and on the eve of the January 6, 2021, insurrection — in a now-deleted post on X — Smith reportedly urged his followers to not “get comfortable” and “fight like hell.” 

In a recent post, Smith promoted a colleague running against Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican official scorned by pro-Trump figures for pushing back on false election fraud narratives in his county. 

Exclusive: Trump brothers emerge as loyalty czars for dad's potential transition to White House

Neither would officially run the transition team but would take a lead in making sure government jobs are filled by vetted Republicans who p

Axios

Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have become key players in the early planning for a second Trump administration's transition team, and would focus on vetting potential officials and staffers for ideology and loyalty, campaign aides and close allies to their father tell Axios. Why it matters: Neither brother would officially run Donald Trump's transition team, but they'd take a lead in making sure government jobs are filled by Republicans aligned with Trump's vision for the party, the sources said.

• Don Jr.'s goal "is to keep the John Boltons of the world outside a second Trump administration," a person close to him told Axios, referring to Donald Trump's hawkish former national security adviser who wrote a bestselling book lambasting the former president.

The big picture: The brothers are stepping into the roles as their father is frustrated by other Republican groups such as the Heritage Foundation claiming they are leading the charge on scrutinizing the backgrounds of possible appointees.

• The groups' aim has been to pre-vet potential contenders for Cabinet-level and lower staff positions to aid Donald Trump's desire to remake the government in his image — without the resistance he faced from career civil servants and some Republicans during his presidency.
• Those efforts have included former Trump aides who could be in a future administration. Trump campaign advisers believe the groups can be helpful but have been infuriated as the Biden campaign has used the groups' policy papers to attack the campaign.
• Last November, top Trump aides Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said in a statement that "any personnel lists, policy agendas, or government plans published anywhere are merely suggestions. Policy recommendations from external allies are just that—recommendations."

Reality check: Even if they're annoyed, it will be hard for the Trump brothers or the campaign to be broadly effective without drafting off the outside groups' work.

• After Trump took control of the Republican National Committee recently, Eric Trump's wife, Lara, became co-chair of the RNC.

On Sex Ed, “Our Side” Is Finally Fighting Back

The new group EducateUS is creating a counter-movement to the conservative groups stoking a culture war over sexuality education.

The Nation

When the nation began to emerge from our collective Covid lockdowns two to three years ago, some public education advocates noticed that parents were developing strange new fears about what was going on in their children’s classrooms. Conservative groups like Moms for Liberty, the Family Policy Alliance, and others suddenly began translating the phobias that once powered debates over masking, vaccines and remote learning into curriculum battles, specifically over whether and how to teach sex education in public schools. In the past three years, urban and suburban districts in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, Colorado, and Georgia faced newly contentious school board meetings and suddenly contested school board races over sex ed, especially over the teaching of LGBTQ issues and anything related to “gender identity.” The backlash has been no mere red-state panic: In 2021, Republican Glenn Youngkin won an upset race for Virginia governor at least in part on parents’ fears of what was being taught in sex-ed classes.

Formerly quiet board rooms where new sex-ed curricula used to be calmly vetted blew up into shouting matches; educators accused of promoting “wrong” ideas faced death threats. That year, Education Week reported that at least 30 pieces of legislation around the country “would variously circumscribe LGBTQ representation in the curriculum, the pronouns that students and teachers can use, and put limits on school clubs, among other things.” When I covered this movement two years ago, many sex-ed advocates I spoke to lamented that there weren’t many—maybe not any—groups solely devoted to supporting sex ed in schools. But over the last few months, a team of organizers led by the group EducateUS: Changing Sex Ed for Good, building on research by Planned Parenthood, Advocates for Youth, and others, has been developing ways of building support for sex ed from the classroom to school board chambers to local libraries to the ballot box. With support from the Harnisch Foundation and the Equality Federation, the group hired Gutsy Media to develop three 30-second digital ads based on messages they honed through testing.

“Sex ed has been a third-tier priority for the left,” says Jaclyn Friedman, founder and executive director of EducateUS. “But we’re finding it can poll better than abortion.” Earlier research by Planned Parenthood found that roughly 96 percent of parents want sex ed taught in high school, and more than 80 want it taught in middle school. EducateUS shared its new data exclusively with The Nation. (You can view the ads here, and and get the background on the research here.)

In 2022, Moms for Liberty made its first round of political endorsements, winning a healthy number. But its success was short-lived. The group’s candidates won fewer than one-third of school board seats where they had sought Moms for Liberty’s endorsement in 2023. The Brookings Institution observed the largest change in the suburbs, where the win rate dipped from from 54 percent to 34 percent. EducateUS won three of the five seats where it backed school board candidates last year. But it is not declaring victory yet. “There are still a lot of places where people feel parents alone should be in charge of sex ed,” says Dr. Tarece Johnson-Morgan, a Gwinnett County School Board member in Georgia who has fought these battles on the ground. Last year, in a tough fight, the board adopted a new health curriculum, but opted to leave out its sex-ed components. They’ll revisit that decision this year, she says, and she believes EducateUS’s research and advertising will help her cause.

The ads that broke through and moved people to action are remarkably joyous, not ominous. One of them was nicknamed “Break the Isolation.” It deals with the incomplete business, even in 2024, of moving teenagers back into school and into their lives, comfortably, post-Covid. Sex ed “has been shown to reduce bullying, and help kids develop healthy relationships,” the ad notes. And yes, there’s a closing nod to sexuality, and it’s sweet. It ends with the tagline: “Sex ed: It’s not what you’ve heard, and just what they need.” This ad moved the most people to action, overall. Ads focused on fighting bullying were especially effective with men and conservatives.

Another ad, “Know Means Know,” spotlights the youth empowerment that sexual knowledge represents. “They trust us, because we trust them,” it begins, as a young man hops out of a parent’s car, excitedly, to begin his school day. This one has an edge: It identifies that there are forces opposed to sex ed. “But some don’t trust them with any of it, and they’re getting bolder every day.” We see images of angry parents carrying signs saying things like “Education not sexualization” and “Too much too soon.” The ad concludes: “The time to fight for sex ed is now—because know means know.” A third, “Liberation,” is a tribute to Black empowerment. “Black people have been fighting for bodily freedom since we came to this country,” a woman’s voice intones. “The fight for Black liberation continues. A vote for sex ed is a vote for bodily freedom.” Although the ad mainly features Black people, it motivated positive action among all races tested, but was far the most motivating to Black viewers.

Johnson demands Biden send in National Guard during raucous Columbia visit

The speaker faced an unruly crowd shouting "Mike, you suck!" and chants of “free Palestine.”

POLITICO

NEW YORK — Speaker Mike Johnson said he will call Joe Biden and demand the president send the National Guard to Columbia University — an escalation after protesters constantly shouted him and other Republicans down during a visit to the campus Wednesday.

Johnson, flanked by GOP lawmakers from New York and elsewhere, repeated his calls for the university’s embattled president to step down. But protesters shouted “who are you people?” “Mike, you suck!” and chanted “free Palestine,” making it almost impossible for the gaggle of reporters and others to hear the speaker. “This is dangerous. This is not the First Amendment, this is not free expression,” Johnson said. He later added: “If this is not contained quickly and if these threats and intimidation are not stopped, there is an appropriate time for the National Guard.” Johnson directly faced the Gaza Solidarity Encampment that has thrown the Ivy League campus into turmoil over the past week — demonstrations that have drawn bipartisan anger over incidents of antisemitism. Johnson earlier in the day called Columbia President Minouche Shafik a “weak and inept leader” who can’t guarantee the safety of Jewish students during a radio interview.

While he’s the most senior elected official so far to push for Shafik’s resignation, numerous Republican lawmakers — including New York’s GOP delegation — and at least one Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), are also pushing for her ouster. “My message to the students inside the encampment is go back to class and stop the nonsense,” Johnson said. “Stop wasting your parents’ money.” Johnson’s comments Wednesday capped off a week of chaos at the school that started when Shafik and other university leadership testified before House lawmakers, followed by her calling in police to arrest around 100 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had camped out on campus. The protests and arrests spawned similar demonstrations at NYU, Yale, MIT and beyond and have become the latest domestic flashpoint in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.

“Columbia University is in a free fall,” House Education Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) said Wednesday, accusing Shafik of presenting false testimony during the hearing. “I have a message for President Shafik and a message for you all too: The inmates are running the asylum,” she added.

[...] Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) — who has accused Columbia of bowing to “right wing pressure” with its arrests of students — dubbed Johnson’s visit as another tactic in a conservative attack on educational institutions and an effort to silence “anti-war and pro-Palestinian sentiment.”

• HuffPost: Speaker Johnson To Columbia Protestors: 'Go Back To Class And Stop The Nonsense'

What the backlash to student protests over Gaza is really about

The Columbia protests and the debate over pro-Palestinian college students, explained.

Vox

Protests over the war in Gaza erupted on Columbia University’s campus last week and have sparked demonstrations at other universities across the country. The demonstrations have resulted in some intense crackdowns and political scrutiny, all coming in the wake of recent congressional hearings on antisemitism on campus and amid an uptick in both antisemitism and anti-Muslim sentiment in the US. Protests have emerged across the country, including at Yale University, New York University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Miami University in Ohio, and Temple University in Philadelphia, among other campuses. Once again, top universities have become the locus around which America litigates questions about the US’s support of Israel amid its deadly war in Gaza, free speech, antisemitism, and anti-Muslim discrimination — and a convenient target for political elites looking to make a point. For example: Lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson today, are visiting Columbia’s campus.

The protests are calling on universities to divest from firms that they contend profit from Israel’s war and occupation in Palestine, more than six months after the start of the war and as the death toll in Gaza has exceeded 34,000. Some groups at universities that conduct military research, like New York University, are also requesting their schools end work contributing to weapons development as well. At Columbia, Yale, and New York University, students have faced mass arrests as administrators seek to quell the unrest. Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel protests have become a prominent feature on college campuses since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel. They reached a fever pitch in December when the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania gave controversial testimony before Congress about campus antisemitism, both real and hypothetical.

Tensions reignited last week after Columbia president Nemat Shafik gave congressional testimony that, per the Associated Press, focused on “fighting antisemitism rather than protecting free speech.” Students erected tents on Columbia’s main lawn to show solidarity with Gaza. Then Shafik took the controversial step of calling in the police to arrest those involved. That contentious decision wasn’t just jarring to Columbia students particularly because of the university’s history, but also sparked outrage among onlookers both at the site and on social media. The controversy at Columbia and other campuses has illustrated how universities have struggled to uphold their dual commitments to free speech and protecting their students during a fraught political moment when more young people sympathize with the Palestinian cause than with the Israeli government. Concerns about antisemitism at the protests (often attributed to students, but largely perpetrated by outsiders according to anecdotal reporting) also piqued national attention; amid this all, Columbia University switched to remote learning on Monday, April 22 — which also happened to be the first day of the Jewish holiday of Passover. [...]

There are antisemitic incidents in the United States, which represent real danger to Jewish communities and individuals — and they have increased since the Hamas attacks on October 7.

In December, the Anti-Defamation League reported that antisemitic incidents had increased by nearly 340 percent since then. Complicating its data, however, is the fact that the ADL does not always differentiate between violent antisemitic incidents like assault and anti-Zionist protests and calls in support of BDS. Removing all Israel-related incidents from their count, America has a smaller but still big problem: Non-Israel-related antisemitic incidents still rose by 65 percent compared to 2022, per their data. Columbia students aren’t alone in facing broad accusations of antisemitism. Students at Yale, the Ohio State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and others have all been called out by the ADL for engaging in Palestine solidarity protests as well as for specific incidents of antisemitism. Nor are they alone in facing arrest; NYU students and faculty and students at Yale have also been arrested. Police involvement in the protests — particularly on New York City campuses — has been met with backlash, particularly from university faculty and activists. [...]

In many ways, the demands of the protesters have been overshadowed by the controversy.

At Columbia, the protesters belong to a coalition, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), which formed in 2016 to demand Columbia and Barnard College disclose investments in and divest — or remove from its investment portfolio — from Israeli and American companies and institutions that support Israel, citing its wars in Gaza and oppression of Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. The coalition’s demands are of a piece with the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement started by Palestinian civil society groups in 2005. BDS cites as its inspiration the anti-apartheid activists of the 1980s who targeted South Africa’s apartheid government with boycotts. While that movement wasn’t decisive in bringing down that government, it was successful in alienating the apartheid government from major global players like Barclays bank, the Olympics, and the International Cricket Conference, forcing countries and international institutions to confront their complicity in South Africa’s racist policies.

In addition to divestment from “companies profiting from Israeli apartheid,” CUAD has a list of five other demands, including a call for an immediate ceasefire from government officials including President Joe Biden, and, importantly, an end to the dual degree program that Columbia has with Tel Aviv University. These demands echo those of student groups at other colleges and universities. NYU student activists are also demanding the university shut down its Tel Aviv campus and “divest from all corporations aiding in the genocide,” including weapons companies, and ban weapons tech research that benefits Israel. Critics allege that BDS and anti-Zionism are at their core antisemitic, arguing that BDS delegitimizes Israel and “effectively reject[s] or ignore[s] the Jewish people’s right of self-determination, or that, if implemented, would result in the eradication of the world’s only Jewish state, are antisemitic,” according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Manufacturing dissent

Turning campuses into theaters of disorder

donmoynihan.substack.com

A group of students assembled on the University of Texas at Austin campus to call for an end to the war in Gaza. They did not engage in violence. They did not disrupt classes or occupy administrative buildings. They set up tents on a lawn. They were met with a militarized response, ordered by Governor Abbott, and supported by University administrators. Students and journalists were arrested. Greg Abbott is one of many on the right that has bemoaned the death of free speech on campus. He signed a law to protect such speech in 2019. And then he calls for peaceful protestors to be arrested. So how can Abbott justify such a reversal to his call for free speech? The protestors are anti-semitic, he says. Really? How does Abbott and the police wading through the crowd know the students are anti-semitic? Because, as Dave Weigel points out, Abbott has broadened the definition of anti-semitism to incorporate support for a Palestinian state. Any protest for this cause is, therefore, anti-semitic, and therefore worth contravening his commitment to free speech, which, lets face it, was never meant to be especially binding.1

The absurdities that follow are almost funny. The University of Austin, the pretend university launched by IDW types like Bari Weiss, is preparing its “Forbidden Courses” for the summer. It stands silently by as the actual University of Texas at Austin is censored, safe in the knowledge that they are regime-approved. You don’t have to be blind to the real cases of anti-semitism in America to be troubled by accusations of anti-semitism to shut down the most visible protests to a military response that has become increasingly unpopular.

[...] There are the protests, and what the people off campus want to turn the protests into: sites of disorder and violence, a basis by which to discredit and control campuses, a reason to fear leftists radicals, and a campaign issue in the presidential election. For them, the George Floyd protests of 2020 were events of failure, of an insufficient will to crack down on dissent. (Though police did indeed crack down). They want the police to intervene aggressively, and with a sense of righteousness that comes from claiming to be on the right side of history. It does not matter if students are not engaged in meaningful violence or property damage. It does not matter if the worst forms of anti-semitism are occurring off campus, by non-students.

[...] These critiques serve two purposes. First, they erase the subject of the protest. The fundamental question of whether the protestors have a point is elided. Next time you read an opinion piece about protests on campus, ask yourself, did the author engage in the basic question of whether the war should continue, and whether the US government should continue to provide arms for it. It says something truly profound about the blinkered view of the American pundit class that they only way they can understand a real war is through their own worn culture war framings. They squint just enough to be outraged by the fact that students are protesting but refuse to engage in a discussion of what the students are protesting about.

Second, they serve to delegitimize the university itself. I’ve written about the tactics of delegitimzaiton, deconstruction and control before in the context of the administrative state, but it applies just as well to universities. As the work of political scientist Dan Carpenter points out, public organizations win autonomy based on building positive reputations; they lose that autonomy when they become viewed as incompetent or immoral. Creating reputational damage is a necessary precondition to justify removing autonomy from institutions. The narrative of a woke or disorderly campus justifies removing faculty or student input on who leads the institution, of legislators or donors establishing the contents of the curriculum. Those pushing that narrative will use any campus event to further it. Far too many people who should know better have gone along with it. This is one of the ways that what is happening on campuses now links to the campus speech wars, the censorship of speech related to race and gender, and removal of DEI offices, and the erosion of faculty and student governance. Universities, as a community, are permitted less and less to manage themselves based on their values. They will not be trusted to find the right balance. Ask yourself, is society better off with Elise Stefanik’s vision of higher education?

New York appeals court overturns Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction from landmark #MeToo trial

NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s highest court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein ’s 2020 rape conviction, finding the judge at the landmark

NewsNation

NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s highest court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein ’s 2020 rape conviction, finding the judge at the landmark #MeToo trial prejudiced the ex-movie mogul with “egregious” improper rulings, including a decision to let women testify about allegations that weren’t part of the case. “We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes,” the court’s 4-3 decision said. “The remedy for these egregious errors is a new trial.” The state Court of Appeals ruling reopens a painful chapter in America’s reckoning with sexual misconduct by powerful figures — an era that began in 2017 with a flood of allegations against Weinstein. His accusers could again be forced to retell their stories on the witness stand.

The court’s majority said “it is an abuse of judicial discretion to permit untested allegations of nothing more than bad behavior that destroys a defendant’s character but sheds no light on their credibility as related to the criminal charges lodged against them.” In a stinging dissent, Judge Madeline Singas wrote that the majority was “whitewashing the facts to conform to a he-said/she-said narrative,” and said the Court of Appeals was continuing a “disturbing trend of overturning juries’ guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence.” “The majority’s determination perpetuates outdated notions of sexual violence and allows predators to escape accountability,” Singas wrote. Weinstein, 72, has been serving a 23-year sentence in a New York prison following his conviction on charges of criminal sex act for forcibly performing oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006 and rape in the third degree for an attack on an aspiring actress in 2013.

MAGA figures are wrongly portraying Matthew Colangelo's job at the Manhattan DA's office as part of a grand conspiracy theory

Media Matters for America

Prominent right-wing media figures and others have reinvigorated their attacks against the lead prosecutor in former President Donald Trump’s New York hush money trial, Matthew Colangelo, with flimsy conspiracy theories and attempts to downplay the severity of Trump’s alleged crimes and to depict the case against him as tantamount to a political witch hunt.   On April 24, Axios documented Republican attacks against Colangelo since Trump’s criminal trial began, reporting that Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and other “top Trump allies on Capitol Hill have claimed that Colangelo, a former attorney with President Biden's Justice Department, left the DOJ specifically to go after Trump.” As the article notes, “Former DOJ official Michael Zeldin told Axios it's not unusual for a federal prosecutor to leave for a gig at the Manhattan DA's office.” (Indeed, a New York Times article about the hiring includes multiple explanations for why Colangelo was a good fit for the role; it also notes that he had already stepped aside as acting associate attorney general when a permanent associate attorney general was appointed.) Axios also explains, “Such comments continued a pattern of Trump and his backers going on offense against those prosecuting him — and trying to link cases that aren't in federal courts to Biden, though the Justice Department isn't involved in them.”

[...] The focus on Colangelo goes back to April 2023, when Davis, founder of right-wing legal organization the Article III Project, appeared across right-wing media networks to falsely claim that Colangelo is the link between Trump’s New York hush money trial and the Biden administration.