Here are this week’s SWAJ Research Links, compiled by SWAJ Team Member Mark Kurth.
National Inquiries
A nun commends Dodgers’ handling of Pride Night controversy. Some archbishops call it blasphemy
Indeed, three high-ranking U.S. Catholic leaders this week suggested the team had committed blasphemy.
The Dodgers have been holding Pride Nights for 10 years, but this year’s edition on Friday night became entangled last month in a high-profile controversy.
Under a barrage of criticism from some conservative Catholics, the team rescinded an invitation to a satirical LGBTQ+ group called the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to be honored at Pride Night. The Sisters’ performers — mostly men who dress flamboyantly as nuns — are active in protests and charitable programs.
How one DeSantis speech captured the dynamic that could decide 2024
DeSantis spent the first part of his address in an evangelical church outside of Des Moines highlighting all the vulnerabilities on issues such as inflation and the border that have suppressed Biden’s job approval ratings since late summer 2021.
But then DeSantis spent nearly the next half hour detailing an ambitious, exhaustive and aggressively conservative agenda on social issues (such as a six-week abortion ban, and the removal of books from school classrooms and libraries). Those messages thrilled his right-leaning audience, but risk alienating many of the swing voters who have recoiled from former President Donald Trump, particularly in the suburbs of large metropolitan areas across the battleground states.
After DeSantis’ first section, many swing voters might have nodded in agreement with his case against Biden’s America; after the second section, many of those same voters might have questioned whether they wanted to live in the America that DeSantis was promising.
Creeping Shariah Has Nothing on the Woke Mob
Seven years later, as the battle against wokeness has supplanted the war on terror in the right-wing imagination, conservative sympathies are reversing. “Republicans are wooing Muslim voters by promising to protect them from L.G.B.T.Q. rights advocates whose demands conflict with their faith,” David Weigel reported in Semafor this week. The Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who once called for banning Muslim immigration from the Middle East, recently ran a sympathetic segment about Muslim parents in Maryland who want their kids to be exempt from reading books with L.G.B.T.Q. characters or themes. “Us Catholics and other Christians, other people of faith, have been waiting for the Muslims to step up on this issue,” Ingraham told her guest, a Muslim father and activist named Kareem Monib.
House GOP flirts with Jan. 6 extremism
At times, GOP lawmakers insist they’re uninterested in relitigating an attack that is political poison for the party outside of deep-red areas. But at other times, some Republicans have stoked narratives that falsely pin blame for the attack on police, Democrats or far-left agitators — or downplay the violence at the Capitol. The latter approach has seen a noticeable uptick of late.
As the nation celebrates Juneteenth, it’s time to get rid of these three myths about slavery
Juneteenth has since become known as “America’s Second Independence Day.” Now a federal holiday, it will be celebrated by parades, proclamations, and ceremonies throughout the US. Though it commemorates a moment when enslaved African Americans were freed, the US is still held captive by several myths about slavery and people like Cummins.
One of the biggest myths that historians and storytellers have successfully challenged in recent years is that enslaved African Americans were docile, passive victims who had to wait until White abolitionists and “The Great Emancipator” Abraham Lincoln freed them. Black soldiers, for example, played a pivotal role in winning the Civil War. This new understanding of slavery has led to a rhetorical shift: It’s no longer proper to refer to people like Cummins as simply “slaves.”
Trump offers dizzying new justifications for classified documents as former Cabinet secretaries sound the alarm
And as for the classified Pentagon document, which CNN first reported Trump is on tape acknowledging he held onto, the former president offered a new answer. He told Baier the paper he waved in front of people – which, according to the indictment, did not have security clearance – was not the document in question.
“I didn’t have any document per se,” he said, claiming the papers he had were newspaper and magazine articles.
And he denied to Baier that the Iran attack plan was ever in the boxes of documents – “not that I know of,” he said.
Will Trump face federal indictment over Jan. 6? Some ex-prosecutors say DOJ moving too slowly.
For nearly a year, some legal analysts and former federal prosecutors publicly have questioned whether Attorney General Merrick Garland and his team of prosecutors have moved quickly enough to investigate the events leading up to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and Trump's potential role in any related conspiracies to keep him in power.
Federal Policy on Homelessness Becomes New Target of the Right
Republican lawmakers, backed by conservative think tanks and programs denied funding by Housing First rules, want to loosen the policy’s grip on federal dollars. While supporters say that housing people without preconditions saves lives by getting them off the streets, critics say it ignores clients’ underlying problems and want to shift funding to groups like rescue missions that demand sobriety or employment. Some even blame Housing First for the growth in homelessness.
UMass Poll: 60% of adults believe gender cannot be changed
Jesse Rhodes, a UMass professor of political science and the co-director of the poll, said in a statement that the belief of the American majority that gender cannot be changed based on how a person identifies is “in contrast with available medical and social scientific evidence.”
The results showed a noticeable gulf between liberal and conservative opinions on gender identity.
The poll found that 76% of self-described liberals believe gender is based on how a person identifies, while 93% of conservatives and 65% of political moderates hold that a person’s gender at birth is permanent.
The sleeper legal strategy that could topple abortion bans
So when Missouri’s abortion ban took effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, Barnes and Taves decided to fight back. Along with rabbis and ministers across several denominations, they joined a first-of-its-kind lawsuit arguing Missouri blurred the line between church and state, imposed a particular Christian idea of when life begins over the beliefs of other denominations, and threatened their ability to practice their religions.
Justice Samuel Alito faces scrutiny over trips with GOP donor, pens defensive op-ed
According to ProPublica’s investigation, Alito in 2008 flew on billionaire Paul Singer’s private jet on a trip that included room and board at Alaska’s pricey King Salmon Lodge. That was paid for by then-owner Robin Arkley II, who is a prolific donor to conservative legal causes, like Singer, according to the report. Singer had connections with corporate entities who later made cases in front of the Supreme Court and won with Alito’s support.
Adam Schiff Gets John Durham to Admit Russia Helped Trump
Schiff, a former impeachment manager against Trump, questioned Durham about whether President Trump flaunted information that was released by Russian hackers during the 2016 election. Durham repeatedly insisted he had no knowledge of the matter. But in the midst of the exchange, Durham clearly stated he doesn’t doubt the validity of evidence showing Russia was trying to help Trump—something many Republicans have vehemently denied.
House Republican Strategy of Elevating Unstable Clown People Reveals Itself to Have Downsides
To understand why, consider what drew Greene and Boebert into conflict—their competing resolutions to impeach President Joe Biden. “You copied my articles of impeachment after I asked you to cosponsor them,” Greene is said to have told Boebert on Wednesday. Greene filed articles of impeachment against Biden in May; Boebert filed hers this week, but as a “privileged resolution,” which means they must be considered immediately.
Samuel Alito and the Donald Trump School of Self-Immolation
Alito, who shares with Donald Trump a toddler’s lack of impulse control, once again demonstrated his inability to plan more than one move ahead at a time after the investigative news outfit ProPublica emailed a list of questions for its story pegged to his flight to a comped 2008 luxury fishing trip in Alaska on a hedge fund billionaire’s private jet.
‘Just the beginning.’ An uncertain future for abortion a year after Roe’s overturn
Since the high court’s Dobbs vs. Jackson ruling that left abortion decisions up to the states, conservative lawmakers have introduced nearly 400 bills to restrict access — even as as polling has found that 61% of Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
Abortion is now completely banned, unavailable or sharply restricted in 15 Republican-led states across the South and Midwest. And though the procedure is legal and protected in more than 20 states, battles are being waged in courtrooms across the nation after several new restrictions have been temporarily blocked by litigation.
States Fights
Iowa Supreme Court deadlocks on 6-week abortion ban and leaves block in place
In a 3-3 decision, the state’s high court could not reach a consensus on whether it should overturn a lower court decision to strike down Iowa’s restrictive “fetal heartbeat” law, which was passed in 2018. The law sought to prevent doctors from performing an abortion if a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can happen as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, before many women even know they are pregnant.
Calling the case “extraordinary,” Justice Thomas D. Waterman explained in an order that lifting the block would be akin to bypassing the state legislature.
Federal judge temporarily blocks Indiana law banning gender-transition care
The law was set to take effect July 1 but on Friday, U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Indiana James Patrick Hanlon issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit brought by four transgender youth, their parents, and a medical provider who said it violated the U.S. Constitution.
A Utah city violated the First Amendment by denying a drag show permit, federal judge rules, marking an LGBTQ victory
Southern Utah Drag Stars, headed by CEO Mitski Avalōx, had hoped to put on the show in April 2023. After not receiving the permit, Avalōx and the group sued the city in May 2023. St. George has been in the national spotlight since HBO Max's "We're Here" — a reality show that recruits people from towns across the US to participate in one-night-only drag shows — filmed an episode in one of the city's parks, according to the Associated Press.
"Challenging times give us an opportunity to re-examine fundamental principles of our government and, once again, determine to adhere by them," US District Judge David Nuffer wrote in his ruling Friday. "We recognize that just as we enjoy and prize our rights, we must value and respect the rights of others. This case presents an opportunity for our recommitment."
'I've kept her safe': Families flee states with transgender care bans to protect their children
They are part of a new migration of Americans who are uprooting their lives in response to a raft of legislation across the country restricting health care for transgender people.
Missouri, Florida, and Texas are among at least 20 states that have limited components of gender-affirming health care for trans youth. Those three states are also among the states that prevent Medicaid — the public health insurance for people with low incomes — from paying for key aspects of such care for patients of all ages.
Wisconsin Republicans Sowed Distrust Over Elections. Now They May Push Out the State’s Top Election Official.
Now Wolfe is eligible for a second term, but her reappointment is far from assured. Republican politicians who helped sow the seeds of doubt about Wisconsin election results could determine her fate and reset election dynamics in a state pivotal to the 2024 presidential race. Her travails show that although election denialism has been rejected in the courts and at the polls across the country, it has not completely faded away.
Federal judge strikes down Arkansas’ ban on gender-affirming treatment for trans youth
“Rather than protecting children or safeguarding medical ethics, the evidence showed that the prohibited medical care improves the mental health and well-being of patients and that, by prohibiting it, the State undermined the interests it claims to be advancing,” the judge wrote.
“Further, the various claims underlying the State’s arguments that the Act protects children and safeguards medical ethics do not explain why only gender-affirming medical care – and all gender-affirming medical care – is singled out for prohibition,” he continued. “The testimony of well-credentialed experts, doctors who provide gender-affirming medical care in Arkansas, and families that rely on that care directly refutes any claim by the State that the Act advances an interest in protecting children.”
Utah school district returns the Bible to shelves after appeals and outcry
The committee’s reversal is the latest development in the debate over a Utah law allowing parents to challenge “sensitive materials” available to children in public schools. Parents’ rights activists successfully lobbied for the legislation in 2022 amid a wave of new laws targeting the materials accessible in schools and libraries — particularly about race, gender and sexuality.
Federal judge knocks down Florida’s Medicaid ban on gender-affirming treatment
U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle on Wednesday ruled against the ban by using some of the same conclusions and language that he used in another recent decision where he determined three Florida transgender minors could receive “puberty blockers” and other types of gender-affirming care despite a state-enacted prohibition on such treatment for those under the age of 18. In both rulings, Hinkle has stated that “gender identity is real. The record makes this clear.”
Vocal Locals
He’s Deeply Religious and a Democrat. He Might Be the Next Big Thing in Texas Politics.
Religion and politics have always been intertwined for Talarico. He grew up the son of a single mother going to St. Andrew’s Presbyterian, a church that the Rev. Jim Rigby had turned into something of a refuge for progressive Christians in Austin. Rigby began ordaining gay and lesbian clergy in the 1990s, and, as a result, was put on trial by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) denomination. Rigby remains Talarico’s pastor and encouraged him to pursue seminary. He even invited Talarico to deliver his first sermon at the church last fall. Talarico chose the subject of abortion — not exactly a topic you’d expect a pastor to tackle. “Did they teach you in Sunday school that Jesus Christ himself was a radical feminist,” he asked the parishioners that day.
Beaver Leavers
Successful passage would make Wallowa the 12th Oregonian county to officially consider swapping the Beaver State for the Gem State. It’s all part of the so-called Greater Idaho movement, a 3-year-old initiative that aims to move the Oregon-Idaho border westward so as to absorb eastern Oregon’s whiter, more militant, more Republican, and more rural enclaves. Idaho’s politics, always very conservative, have taken an extreme far-right turn in the post-Trump era, thanks to an influx of white nationalists and conspiracy theorists who’ve fled Democrat-run areas. And some Oregonians want in.