Here are this week’s SWAJ Research Links, compiled by SWAJ Team Member Mark Kurth.
National Inquiries
Poll: Republicans see Trump as a ‘person of faith’ ... more so than Mitt Romney, Mike Pence and others
Among Republicans, 53% said Trump was a person of faith, ahead of every other person on the list — although he was statistically tied with Pence, who came in at 52%.
Trump also led several of his other opponents in the Republican presidential primary, with 47% of Republican respondents saying Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a person of faith, 31% for Sen. Tim Scott, 31% for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, 30% for entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and 22% for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Only 23% of Republicans said Biden is a person of faith, while 12% said the same of Vice President Kamala Harris.
Clarence Thomas’ Latest Pay-to-Play Scandal Finally Connects All the Dots
According to ProPublica, the justice developed a friendship with the Kochs as they were funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into right-wing causes, many of which ended up before the Supreme Court. The brothers then used Thomas to raise money for their sprawling network, inviting him to speak at “donor events” that brought in millions of dollars. He disclosed none of these activities on his annual disclosure forms, an obvious violation of federal ethics law.
New York judge finds Donald Trump liable for fraud
The ruling came in response to the lawsuit by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is seeking $250 million in damages, a ban on the Trumps from serving as officers of a business in New York and to stop the company from engaging in business transactions for five years.
A trial is expected to begin next week on the amount of damages owed, and the full breadth of Engoron’s ruling – or how it will play out – remains unclear.
The judge canceled the business certifications of the Trump entities that are defendants in the case, including the Trump Organization – a major blow to the business that has been so synonymous with the former president’s personal brand.
‘Full fascist’ Trump condemned after ‘treason’ rant against NBC and MSNBC
The US media was “almost all dishonest and corrupt”, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, “but Comcast, with its one-side and vicious coverage by NBC News, and in particular MSNBC … should be investigated for its ‘Country Threatening Treason’.”
Listing familiar complaints about coverage of his presidency – during which he regularly threatened NBC, MSNBC and Comcast – Trump added: “I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I win the presidency of the United States, they and others of the lamestream media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events.”
Trump also used familiar terms of abuse for the press: “the enemy of the people” and “the fake news media”.
Observers reacted to Trump’s threat to NBC, MSNBC and Comcast with a mixture of familiarity and alarm.
Rep. Gosar’s Homophobic Sunday Rant Is Deranged—Even for Him
The diatribe came in a section commenting on former Capitol Police Chief Stephen Sund’s testimony to the House Committee on Administration last week, in which Sund discussed the Capitol riot. Sund called the events of Jan. 6 “an intelligence failure” and said he wished several agencies and individuals—from the Pentagon to then-President Donald Trump—had reacted more swiftly to provide back-up for local law enforcement.
But in Gosar’s recantation of the day’s events, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) remained the villain of the riots, though it was Milley—“the homosexual-promoting-BLM-activist Chairman of the military joint chiefs”—who delayed the deployment of the National Guard, Gosar claimed.
“Of course, we now know that the deviant Milley was coordinating with Nancy Pelosi to hurt President Trump, and treasonously working behind Trump’s back,” Gosar wrote in a screed far-removed from the truth. “In a better society, quislings like the strange sodomy-promoting General Milley would be hung.”
Is the FBI coming after traditional Catholics?
The bureau has recently prioritized dealing with domestic terrorism, especially from white nationalists, and is apparently concerned that violent extremists are seeking alliances with this far-right segment of conservative Catholicism.
The memo has been condemned by Barry Knestout, the Catholic bishop of Richmond, and others as a threat to the "constitutionally protected free exercise of religion." Conservative Catholics have seen it as further evidence of the Biden administration's antagonism toward religion in general and the Catholic Church in particular.
Twenty Republican state attorneys general, including Virginia's, wrote U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray saying, "Anti-Catholic bigotry appears to be festering in the FBI, and the Bureau is treating Catholics as potential terrorists because of their beliefs."
Our new poll shows just how much GOP voters have diverged from everyone else on vaccines
Before 2020, polls showed little overall difference along partisan lines on issues related to vaccination, such as whether students should be inoculated against measles to attend public schools. But since Covid, Republican voters have diverged from everyone else.
A new POLITICO | Morning Consult poll, conducted as part of POLITICO’s ongoing series about the rising anti-vax movement, shows Republican voters are less likely than Democrats or independents to say vaccines are safe for children. It also shows that as many Republicans now say they care more about the risks of vaccines than they do about the health benefits.
Her son was an accused cult leader. She says he was a victim, too.
Colleen Protzman listened on, despondent. The man talking on the tape was her son, Michael Protzman.
“And the thing is,” she said, “he believes that.”
Her son had become the leading figure in a QAnon off-shoot that believed John F. Kennedy Jr., who died in a plane crash off Martha’s Vineyard in 1999, was alive and secretly working with former President Donald Trump to save the United States from an evil cabal.
Deion Sanders’ ‘audacious Blackness’ makes him the hero African Americans want right now
He talked bluntly about racism and football in a way that few Black coaches at an elite level are willing to do.
“We’re doing things that have never been done, and that makes people uncomfortable,” Sanders said. “When you see a confident Black man sitting up here talking his talk, walking his walk, coaching 75% African Americans in the locker room, that’s kind of threatening. Oh, they don’t like that.”
We know what Sanders’ critics say. He’s got a big mouth. He plays the race card when he should just coach football. His “hype train is about to derail.”
Anti-vaxxers are now a modern political force
The Covid-19 pandemic has produced a remarkable financial windfall for anti-vaccine nonprofits. Revenue more than doubled for the Informed Consent Action Network and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense in 2021 compared to the year prior, according to a POLITICO analysis of tax filings. The nonprofits that survived on operating budgets of around a few million dollars just a few years prior are now raking in more than $10 million each.
Democrats are running on abortion everywhere — even in Kentucky
The investment in abortion rights messaging comes after Democrats have seen the issue deliver for them electorally again and again — especially after a blowout victory in conservative-leaning Ohio in a proxy war over abortion rights just last month.
Kentucky’s Democratic governor is laying into his opponent about the deep-red state’s strict abortion ban. Virginia Democrats are re-running a message that failed them two years ago. And an Ohio ballot initiative is trying to codify abortion rights in a state President Joe Biden lost by eight points.
The ads home in on a message Democrats successfully used last year, and tailors it even more sharply to try winning voters over who may have not been moved in the past: limited access to abortion is no longer a theoretical issue. Many of the ads focus on real stories, including from rape victims. In bluer states, the message is about abortion rights and health care. In Kentucky, Democrats’ ads don’t mention the word “abortion” at all.
House impeachment inquiry off to an awkward start
During the House Oversight Committee's first impeachment-related hearing since Speaker Kevin McCarthy formally launched an inquiry into Biden, multiple witnesses called by the majority undercut the GOP's core message against Biden.
One of the GOP witnesses, Jonathan Turley, told the committee that he did not believe “that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment." The inquiry, he said, was fair game.
A second GOP witness, forensic accountant Bruce Dubinsky, also told the panel on Thursday that he was “not here today to even suggest that there was corruption, fraud, or any wrongdoing" by Biden, saying more information would be needed before making that determination.
States Fights
DeSantis top aide grilled over map that dismantled seat held by Black Democrat
The trial, scheduled to stretch over the next week or so, kicked off with a back and forth with Alex Kelly, the acting chief of staff for DeSantis who was the chief mapmaker who drew up the plan that ultimately netted the GOP four seats and helped them win back the U.S. House during the 2022 elections.
During his lengthy testimony, Kelly faulted past rulings by the Florida Supreme Court related to redistricting, questioned how the Legislature handled redistricting at times and made comments that appeared at odds with statements he made in his own depositions.
The Alabama Legislature Got the Kick In the Arse It Deserved Over Its Redistricting Plan
That state's legislature learned on Tuesday that, while the carefully manufactured conservative majority on the Supreme Court may despise voting-rights legislation, it hates having its rulings ignored even more. Suppress all the votes you want, says the Court, but you will respect my authoritah!
Supreme Court rejects Alabama’s attempt to avoid creating a second Black majority congressional district
The one-line order reflects that the feelings on the court haven’t changed since June when a 5-4 Supreme Court affirmed a lower court that had ordered the state to redraw its seven-seat congressional map to include a second majority-Black district or “something quite close to it.”
The justices’ action will have immediate consequences in Alabama and perhaps nationwide in the 2024 elections. There are currently six Republicans and one Democratic member of Congress from Alabama, but the changing makeup of the districts is likely to mean the state will pick up a new Democratic member of Congress.
Black voters lean Democratic in other states with redistricting battles underway as well.
North Carolina Republicans Just Passed a Massive Power Grab to Seize Control of Elections
In North Carolina, the governor dictates the political makeup of the state and county election boards, which are each composed of five members. Under Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, the boards have three Democrats and two Republicans. The governor appoints the members of the state board and the chair of the county boards. Under the new bill, those bodies would be evenly divided, with legislative leaders choosing the members of the state and local boards.
Vocal Locals
‘Whatever it takes’: students at 50 US high schools launch climate initiative
The campaign, coordinated by the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate justice collective, is a reaction to rightwing efforts to ban or suppress climate education and activism at schools. The national effort could include teach-ins and walkouts, as well as targeted petitions to school boards and districts in the coming weeks, organizers with Sunrise told the Guardian, ahead of the Monday launch.