Here are this week’s SWAJ Research Links, compiled by SWAJ Team Member Mark Kurth.
National Inquiries
Inside Mike Johnson’s Ties to a Far-Right Movement to Gut the Constitution
For the last 10 years, the “Convention of States” movement has sought to remake the Constitution and force a tea party vision of the framers’ intent upon America. This group wants to wholesale rewrite wide swaths of the U.S. Constitution in one fell swoop. In the process, they hope to do away with regulatory agencies like the FDA and the CDC, virtually eliminate the federal government’s ability to borrow money, and empower state legislatures to override federal law.
“Speaker Mike Johnson has long been a supporter of Convention of States,” Mark Meckler, co-founder of Convention of States Action (COSA), told me when I asked about Johnson’s ascension. “It shows that the conservative movement in America is united around COS and recognizes the need to rein in an out-of-control federal government which will never restrain itself.”
Authorities investigating 'suspicious' envelopes sent to election offices in 5 states
The FBI said that "in at least four instances, preliminary tests … indicated the presence of fentanyl," according to a bulletin disseminated to state and local law enforcement and obtained by ABC News.
An image of one of the letters obtained by ABC News indicates the intent was to "end elections now."
"We are in charge now and there is no more need for them," the letter reads.
Trump suggests he would use FBI to go after political rivals if elected in 2024
Trump made the comments during an interview with the Spanish-language television network Univision. The host Enrique Acevedo asked him about his flood of legal problems saying: “You say they’ve weaponized the justice department, they weaponized the FBI. Would you do the same if you’re re-elected?”
“They’ve already done it, but if they want to follow through on this, yeah, it could certainly happen in reverse,” Trump replied. “They’ve released the genie out of the box.
Trump and allies plot revenge, Justice Department control in a second term
In private, Trump has told advisers and friends in recent months that he wants the Justice Department to investigate onetime officials and allies who have become critical of his time in office, including his former chief of staff, John F. Kelly, and former attorney general William P. Barr, as well as his ex-attorney Ty Cobb and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, according to people who have talked to him, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Trump has also talked of prosecuting officials at the FBI and Justice Department, a person familiar with the matter said.
In public, Trump has vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” President Biden and his family. The former president has frequently made corruption accusations against them that are not supported by available evidence.
Republicans Advocate Transphobic, Authoritarian ‘Project 2025’’ Even After Election Failures
As the country looks ahead to the 2024 presidential election, a conservative initiative known as Project 2025, which includes transphobic policies, is facing controversy over its overtly anti-LGBTQ+ aspects.
Championed on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast and closely tied to former President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, the initiative is a stark embodiment of the retribution Trump has promised against his foes who have abandoned the MAGA movement.
At the heart of this project is a lengthy 900-page document, the 17-page forward of which is titled “A Promise to America” by Kevin D. Roberts, president of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which has drawn scrutiny for its transphobic rhetoric.
Biden faces a warning sign from younger voters critical to his coalition
For all of the warning signs facing the president a year before the election, apathy and skepticism from young voters is high on the list. A spokesman for the Biden campaign called the election “deeply consequential for young people,” and pledged to build on a strong turnout from younger voters in the 2022 midterm elections.
Yet a respectful resistance toward the president comes alive in one conversation after another, with the deepest concerns touching on his age – he turns 81 next week – the economy and the Israel-Hamas war.
“If they can fund a war, they can find the money to pay off our student loans,” said Rachael Carroll, who cast her first vote for president for Biden. “The cost of living is way too high right now. I don’t think the economy really caters to young people.”
There’s another Christian movement that’s changing our politics. It has nothing to do with whiteness or nationalism
Fain’s sermonette was remarkable because labor leaders don’t typically cite the Bible in such detail to justify a strike. But they once did. Fain’s decision to blend scripture with a strike is straight out of the Social Gospel playbook.
The Social Gospel turned religion into a weapon for economic and political reform. Its message: saving people from slums was just as important as saving them from hell. At its peak, the movement’s leaders supported campaigns for eight-hour workdays, the breaking up of corporate monopolies and the abolition of child labor. They spoke from pulpits, lectured across the country and wrote best-selling books.
He Claimed God Sent Hitler to Create Israel. Now He’s Speaking at the Pro-Israel Rally. What?
He claimed God sent Hitler to create Israel. And on Tuesday, he is prominently featured in one of the country’s biggest pro-Israel demonstrations since the conflict began on October 7.
John Hagee, a mainstay in right-wing politics for decades, is reportedly invited to speak on Tuesday at the March for Israel event alongside Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), former CNN personality Van Jones, and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa). It’s expected to garner an attendance in the tens of thousands and will reintroduce America’s most prominent Christian Zionist and his controversial and violent views to a new generation of listeners.
I Was Obama’s 2012 Campaign Manager. There’s No Need to Panic Over Biden.
This will be a very close election, and there will be plenty more times Democrats will feel nervous. But what will make a difference is the work itself, engaging voters and spreading a positive message about his accomplishments, economic policies, and views on issues like abortion and freedoms. Biden has been counted out time and time again, and he’s proved pollsters and pundits wrong. His campaign (along with the rest of us) needs to ignore the noise and build the strong campaign it needs to win — just like in 2020. And Democrats need to remember what I learned back in 2011: Voters decide elections, not polls.
6 things to know about the Supreme Court’s new ethics code
Laid out over five “canons” that span eight pages, the code is written in turgid legal prose and is accompanied by a one-paragraph introductory statement and a five-page “commentary.” Signed by all nine justices, it has all the makings of a compromise engineered by Chief Justice John Roberts, who 12 years ago defended the court’s lack of a binding code but undoubtedly has been shaken by the court’s growing crisis of public confidence and Congress’ escalating overtures at oversight.
Here are six of the biggest loopholes, ambiguities and unresolved questions in the court’s new code of conduct:
Ex-Trump allies detail efforts to overturn election in Georgia plea videos
A former attorney for Donald Trump has told Georgia prosecutors that a top presidential aide said to her in December 2020 that “the boss” did not plan to leave the White House “under any circumstances,” according to a video recording obtained by The Washington Post.
Suppose They Threw a Cage Match Between Fascism and Democracy and Nobody Cared
It’s been under a week since he announced in an interview on Univision that he’d cheerfully “weaponize” the power of the Justice Department to indict his rivals for no other reason than that they were “beating me very badly.” Also less than a week ago, he delivered his chilling Veterans Day promise to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, lie, steal, and cheat on elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and the American dream.” The news of his plans to carry out mass deportations while rounding up millions of undocumented immigrants and interning them in sprawling detention camps, as well as his hope to cancel U.S. visas—for lawful green-card and student visa holders—who harbor “anti-American” views is also very recent.
Trump’s Recipe for a Shockingly Raw Power Grab
Trump and his think tank loyalists are collecting the ingredients and refining the recipe for an authoritarian regime should he win the 2024 presidential election. According to a page one story in The Washington Post Monday, Trump plans on the first day of his new administration to invoke the Insurrection Act so he can dispatch the military to counter any demonstrations that might resist his policies.
Trump’s Fascistic Rhetoric Only Emphasizes the Stakes in 2024
As he leads the 2024 Presidential polls nearly a year out from Election Day, he’s taking the sort of hateful rhetoric that in the past he’s used about immigrants and minorities and applying it to his political enemies and legal antagonists.
This shift largely reflects the embattled position that Trump finds himself in, as he faces criminal indictments in four different courts—and his eagerness to save his own skin, regardless of the costs to American democracy. Just as the Fascists’ hateful rhetoric during the interwar period was intended to dehumanize, delegitimize, and intimidate its targets, Trump is trying to do the same thing to the individuals and institutions on his enemies list, which seems to include anybody who won’t forgive his attempt to overturn the 2020 election results or who supports the subsequent efforts to hold him to account. The foes he is targeting appear to include President Joe Biden, congressional Democrats, Never Trump Republicans, the Justice Department, the courts, senior military officers, and the media—i.e., many of the central institutions of American democracy.
Biden assails Trump’s ‘vermin’ remark and compares it to Nazi rhetoric
He singled out Trump’s recent use of the word “vermin” to describe his political rivals, likening it to Nazi terminology. The former president’s use of the word amounted to “a specific phrase because it’s just a specific meaning,” Biden told the donors, recalling “language you heard in Nazi Germany in the 30s.”
States Fights
Nonbinary teacher at Florida school fired for using 'Mx.' as courtesy title
Over the course of 15 years, Vary has taught in the Orlando area and in Maryland. Most recently, Vary taught at the Florida Virtual School, a statewide online public school for kindergarten through 12th grade students.
But on Oct. 24, Vary was terminated from FLVS after refusing to change the courtesy title used on school materials and communications from "Mx." to "Ms.," "Mrs." or "Miss."
Vary is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns. AV Vary is not their full legal name, but they requested to only be referred to as such out of concern for their privacy.
She Fled Tennessee for Abortion Care. Now She’s Running for State House So Others Won’t Have To.
Allie Phillips, a 28-year-old running as a Democrat for the Tennessee House of Representatives in District 75, has told her abortion story countless times. She has explained it to her followers on TikTok, to the lawyers helping her sue her state over restrictions to reproductive care, and to the lawmakers who failed her.
20 women are now suing Texas, saying state abortion laws endangered them
The case was originally filed in March with five patient plaintiffs, but more and more patients have joined the suit. The total number of patients suing Texas in this case is now 20 (two OB-GYN doctors are also part of the lawsuit). After a dramatic hearing in July, a district court judge agreed with the plaintiffs that the law needed to change, but the state immediately appealed her ruling directly to the Texas Supreme Court. That move allows Texas' three overlapping abortion bans to stand.
Outrage grows after ‘chilling call for genocide’ by Florida Republican
The remarks came during a debate in the state legislature about calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s invasion of Gaza, which has so far killed more than 10,000 Palestinians, many of whom are children. The assault came after Hamas fighters attacked Israel from Gaza, killing at least 1,400 people and taking more than 200 hostage.
In the speech in support of the ceasefire resolution, the Democratic Florida state representative Angie Nixon said: “We are at 10,000 dead Palestinians. How many will be enough?”
“All of them,” Michelle Salzman called in reply.
Florida Republicans target scholarships, grants for students supporting Hamas
The idea is the latest attempt by Florida policymakers to punish college students who are expressing support for Palestinians as the Israel-Hamas war rages on with tensions enflamed on campuses across the country. Already, Florida has attempted to disband Students for Justice in Palestine groups at two state universities while Gov. Ron DeSantis on the GOP presidential campaign trail pledges to cancel student visas for anyone sharing “common cause with Hamas.”
City Ordinance Banning Public Homosexuality Reaches Rutherford County Libraries
A municipal mandate enacted this past June in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, is now being used to target books in the local library system. The ordinance, outlawing "indecent behavior" in public and prohibiting "indecent materials," is alarmingly vague in its delineation of indecency. This definition used in the law links back to a city statute that explicitly bans public homosexuality or materials promoting homosexuality. The code has already been used to target local Pride events. Now, the code’s enforcement has reached the local library system, where at least four books, all containing LGBTQ+ themes, have been pulled from the shelves.
Republican faction seeks to keep courts from interpreting Ohio’s new abortion rights amendment
“To prevent mischief by pro-abortion courts with Issue 1, Ohio legislators will consider removing jurisdiction from the judiciary over this ambiguous ballot initiative,” said the mix of fairly new and veteran lawmakers who are all vice-chairs of various House committees. “The Ohio legislature alone will consider what, if any, modifications to make to existing laws based on public hearings and input from legal experts on both sides.”
Supreme Court says Florida can’t enforce anti-drag law
The 2023 law makes it a misdemeanor to knowingly admit a child to a sexually explicit adult live performance that would be obscene for the “the age of the child present.”
A district court judge in Florida blocked the law in June, holding it likely violated the Constitution’s free speech and due process protections and that it was unconstitutionally vague. The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals declined Florida’s emergency application for a stay of the district court’s injunction, triggering the state’s ask to the Supreme Court for relief.
The high court’s order Thursday means that state officials cannot enforce the law at all before the legal challenge to it is resolved. The case could reach the justices again, but it will likely be months before the lower courts finish their review of the law and any accompanying appeals.