Here are this week’s SWAJ Research Links, compiled by SWAJ Team Member Mark Kurth.
National Inquiries
US vetoes Israel ceasefire resolution at the UN
“We do not support calls for an immediate cease-fire,” Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Robert Wood said Friday in New York. “This would only plant the seeds for the next war, because Hamas has no desire to see a durable peace, to see a two-state solution.”
Condemnation for the veto from human rights groups and NGOs was swift. Human Rights Watch said in a statement Friday that “[by] continuing to provide Israel with weapons & diplomatic cover as it commits atrocities, including collectively punishing the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza, the US risks complicity in war crimes.”
Judges dubious of Mark Meadows’ bid to avoid facing charges in Georgia state court
All three members of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals panel raised sharp questions about Meadows’ argument that his role as Donald Trump’s chief of staff requires federal courts — rather than the courts in Fulton County, Ga. — to oversee the case in which he, Trump and 17 others were charged in an alleged racketeering conspiracy.
Giuliani ordered to pay $148M for spreading lies about Georgia election workers
The eight-member panel awarded Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss about $16 million apiece for claims that Giuliani defamed them, as well as $20 million apiece for the emotional distress they experienced after Giuliani’s allegations were followed by a deluge of threats, harassment and professional consequences.
Despite recent Supreme Court wins, Christian schools must still fight religious bigotry to open
Charter schools are publicly funded but privately run. According to a recent study , charter school students “show greater academic gains than their peers in traditional public schools.” And as one commentator at the National Assessment of Educational Progress observed , “If Catholic schools were a state, they would be the highest performing state in the country.”
But because no good deed for children goes unpunished by secularists, St. Isidore is embroiled in a legal battle.
The state’s recently elected attorney general filed a lawsuit against the state’s charter school board, arguing that state laws and regulations “strictly prohibit the sponsorship of a sectarian virtual charter school.”
“Today, Oklahomans are being compelled to fund Catholicism. Because of the legal precedent created by the Board’s actions, tomorrow, we may be forced to fund radical Muslim teachings like Sharia law. ... That is a gross violation of our religious liberty,” he said in a press release announcing the suit.
Paul Ryan calls Trump a ‘populist, authoritarian narcissist’
After already blaming him for repeated Republican election losses, former House Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday didn’t mince words and blasted former President Donald Trump for what he characterized as acting like an “authoritarian narcissist.”
“Trump’s not a conservative,” Ryan said at a virtual event hosted by Teneo, a consulting firm that advises CEOs. “He’s a populist, authoritarian narcissist. So, historically speaking, all of his tendencies are basically where narcissism takes him, which is whatever makes him popular, make him feel good at any given moment.”
Kamala Harris pushes White House to be more sympathetic toward Palestinians
In internal conversations about the war in Gaza, Harris has argued that it is time to start making “day after” plans for how to handle the wreckage of the war once the fighting ends, one senior administration official said.
One person close to the vice president’s office said she believes the United States should be “tougher” on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; she has called for being “more forceful at seeking a long-term peace and two-state solution,” this person said.
Small segment of voters will wield outsize power in 2024 presidential race
Once rare, the frequency with which the electoral college has skewed the overall result has increased: The “general mass” — now called the popular vote — has been won in two of the past six contests by someone who lost the White House. In both cases, the Republican candidate benefited.
At the same time, the count of swingable states has narrowed. The 2024 presidential campaign is likely to target a smaller share of Americans than at any point in the modern era, despite massive increases in spending due to online fundraising, a Washington Post analysis found.
During the last election, just 10 states and two congressional districts were targeted by Republican or Democratic nominees’ campaigns. It was a precipitous drop from the 26 states on average that were targeted each year between 1952 and 1980, according to a forthcoming book by political scientists Daron R. Shaw, Scott Althaus and Costas Panagopoulos. The research is based on internal campaign documents, interviews with campaign leaders and media reports.
Trump defends dictator comments amid NYC soiree filled with MAGA diehards
“[Peter] Baker today in the New York Times said that I want to be a dictator,” Trump said, referencing an article from the newspaper’s chief White House correspondent.
“I didn’t say that. I said I want to be a dictator for one day. You know why I wanted to be a dictator? Because I want a wall, and I want to drill, drill, drill,” Trump said, adding that Democrats’ “newest hoax” is to label him a threat to democracy.
Supreme Court will consider fast-tracking Trump appeal in D.C. trial
The decision by the nation’s highest court doesn’t mean that the justices will definitely short-circuit the typical appeals process, but it means they are going to hear arguments from both sides about whether they should act quickly. Trump’s lawyers were told to file briefs on the issue by Dec. 20.
The quick response by the Supreme Court came hours after Smith’s office filed its request seeking to essentially leapfrog an appeals court process that Trump has already started but which could take months to resolve. A lengthy appeal could slow the Justice Department’s push for a March trial for Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
Rifts between Biden and Netanyahu spill into public view
The divides, which until now had mostly been contained behind the scenes, reflected growing differences between the two staunch allies as the civilian death toll in Gaza mounts.
Speaking to Democratic donors in Washington, Biden voiced criticism of Israel’s hardline government and said Netanyahu needed to alter his approach.
“I think he has to change, and with this government, this government in Israel is making it very difficult for him to move,” Biden said, calling Netanyahu’s government the “most conservative government in Israel’s history.”
US increasingly alone in Israel support as 153 countries vote for ceasefire at UN
Cheers and clapping echoed around the general assembly chamber in New York as the emergency vote was announced. A thumping 153 member states out of the 193 total membership backed the resolution, with only 10 including the US, Israel and Austria voting against, and 23 – including the UK and Germany – abstaining.
The Palestinians had been hoping for an emphatic result as a demonstration of the unequivocal global desire for an end to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza – and they got it. By contrast, the previous UN resolution calling for a “humanitarian truce” on 27 October attracted 120 votes in favor, 14 against, with 45 abstentions.
The vote highlighted the stiffening consensus around the world for the need for a stop to Israel’s relentless assault on Gaza which has left more than 18,000 Palestinians dead. Reports indicate that up to 70% of the fatalities have been women and children.
Supreme Court to decide whether to restrict abortion drug nationwide
The Supreme Court said Wednesday it will consider whether to restrict access to a widely used abortion drug — even in states where the procedure is still allowed.
The case concerns the drug mifepristone that — when coupled with another drug — is one of the most common abortion methods in the United States.
The decision means the conservative-leaning court will again wade into the abortion debate after overturning Roe v. Wade last year, altering the landscape of abortion rights nationwide and triggering more than half the states to outlaw or severely restrict the procedure.
Pope Francis takes on unprecedented attacks from American opponents
In one corner: Pope Francis, who insists on a merciful Catholic Church open to everyone, a “field hospital” ready to bind up the wounds of a suffering humanity. In the other corner: a small but vocal minority that has set itself against the Pontiff and his reforms.
A showdown between the two is underway.
The unofficial leader of the opposition is US Cardinal Raymond Burke, one of the church’s legal experts and a figure whose style and approach harken back to the church of a different era and whose views closely align with those in its traditionalist wing. Francis, while maintaining he upholds the church’s doctrine and principles, has tried to move the church on from some of those customs he sees as hampering its mission.
Opinion: The conversation we can’t avoid about pro-Palestinian campus protests
The Anti-Defamation League and Brandeis Center urged administrators to investigate SJP chapters, suggesting that students are “materially supporting” terrorists. Some schools, among them Brandeis, George Washington University and Columbia, banned or suspended their SJP chapters. Columbia also suspended Jewish Voice for Peace, a Jewish anti-Zionist organization in solidarity with Palestinians’ freedom struggle.
For sure, some individuals and groups over the past two months have expressed criticism of Israel in ways that are questionable or perhaps even objectionable, leaving some Jewish students feeling unsafe. But there have also been a lot of unfair and inaccurate accusations against pro-Palestinian activism, as last week’s hearing illustrated.
Constitution in the Crosshairs: The Far Right’s Plan for a New Confederacy
A Constitutional convention dress rehearsal held by Convention of States at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia earlier this year showed exactly what the right has in mind. At the end of the three-day meeting, Republican legislators from forty-nine states acting as “delegates” voted to propose six amendments to the Constitution that would lock in conservative control of the U.S. Supreme Court, impose Congressional term limits, hamstring federal spending, severely limit the Commerce Clause (the basis for most federal environmental, labor, consumer, and civil rights protections), and allow a simple majority of states to overturn any federal law, Executive Order, or administrative ruling they don’t like.
“The Convention of States project’s proposed Commerce Clause Constitutional amendment would eliminate wide swaths of civil rights and environmental laws and regulations,” Georgetown law professor David Super tells The Progressive in an email.
States Fights
Texas Supreme Court temporarily blocks pregnant woman from emergency abortion
The court froze a lower court’s ruling that would have allowed Kate Cox, who sued the state seeking a court-ordered abortion, to obtain the procedure. “Without regard to the merits, the Court administratively stays the district court’s December 7, 2023 order,” the order states.
The court noted the case would remain pending before them but did not include any timeline on when a full ruling might be issued. Cox is 20 weeks pregnant. Her unborn baby was diagnosed with a fatal genetic condition and she says complications in her pregnancy are putting her health at risk.
Dems want to focus on abortion rights. A Trump ally may have just helped.
Democrats have since seized on the case and Paxton’s decision to intervene and appeal it to the state’s supreme court, believing it highlights two of their central arguments: women’s rights are in jeopardy under a GOP-controlled government and the system of checks and balances is under attack.
Biden officials focused on reproductive rights have been monitoring Cox’s case. But Paxton’s threat Thursday elevated the issue among those in President Joe Biden’s orbit, alarming allies who saw it as a direct attack on Cox and her doctors in defiance of a court order. The move also raised concerns that it could further confuse a medical establishment still struggling to manage the fallout of last year’s Dobbs decision.
Pregnant woman in lawsuit challenging Kentucky’s abortion bans learns her embryo has no ‘cardiac activity,’ attorneys say
The woman, identified as Jane Doe, is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit filed in Jefferson County Circuit Court last week, which challenges the state’s trigger law and six-week abortion ban because “the government has denied her access to the care she needs,” the American Civil Liberties Union said in a news release.
It marks the first time a pregnant woman in Kentucky has filed a lawsuit of this kind, ACLU of Kentucky spokesperson Angela Cooper told CNN.
Jane Doe’s attorneys from the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project declined to say whether she will continue her legal fight after receiving the news about the lack of cardiac activity in the embryo.
Teachers sue Florida over pronoun restrictions in schools
The group, represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center, contend that the law passed by state Republicans and lauded by Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this year amounts to sex discrimination and violates their constitutional rights, putting them at risk of losing their educator credentials — or jobs — for being “who they are.”
Vocal Locals
Redding City Council flouts convention in choice of new mayor
On Tuesday, the Redding City Council chose Tenessa Audette as mayor and Julie Winter as vice mayor, picking members with ties to the local Bethel megachurch.
"Mr. Mezzano has spent four years, he's earned it, he's worked harder than any other council member that I've seen during this time. And to do otherwise and make Ms. Audette mayor is just, pardon my French, bulls**t," he said. "It’s giving the finger to the 20,000 people that voted for Mr. Mezzano and saying to them, ‘We don’t care. We’re going to do what we’re going to do because we’re the Bethel juggernaut,’ and it’s wrong."