Iowa: Today, voted down a bill to remove gender identity as a civil right

Erin Reed published an update a few minutes ago:

Today, in Iowa, Representative Jeff Shipley sponsored an anti-trans bill (House Bill 2082). At the state Capitol, he "began with an incendiary tirade against transgender people, labeling transgender women as 'creepy old men,'" and his primary witness claimed that trans women will spread bodily fluids and assault children in women's bathrooms.

This is what scaremongering is. This is what moral panic is.

Unfortunately, this is normal for Republicans.

What really got my attention in Reed's article was that Shipley referred to Iowa Code 216 as giving trans people "generous protections" (civil rights protections) that he "seriously questions" if we deserve. Why does he want to withdraw basic protections? Because (as he put it), when Chloe Cole spoke at the University of Iowa last October, people protested her. If you search for this incident online, you can indeed see videos of people chanting "trans lives matter!" Also, in advance of the event, some chalk-drawn sidewalk advertisements for Cole's talk were washed away, and a poster was ripped down.

So, because some individuals protested a talk (a thing they're allowed to do, a freedom everyone has), no transgender person deserves civil rights protections (as if basic rights are privileges anyone has to deserve)?

If you watch the video above (posted October 16, 2023), you can hear Jasmyn Jordan, chairwoman of Younger Americans for Freedom, say: "I believe that they think that right-leaning organizations are impeding on their rights and wanting to hurt them, which is very much not true. We just simply want to provide a different voice, a different perspective that they may not be used to." (0:36–50)

First of all: Why would someone think that a trans person isn't "may not be used to" a non-transgender voice? Have these people never heard that trans people indeed have empathy for cis people because trans people don't live in a trans bubble?

Secondly: Right-wing politics very much intend to hurt trans people. Removing us from civil rights protections qualifies as intention to hurt us. Changing the law to reframe what rights people do and don't have, without consulting the people who are affected, is, very literally, "impeding on their rights," and if intent to hurt us is in question, please see above mention of scaremongering.

Anyhow, today, lots of people turned up to testify and protest against the legislation, and it was voted down.

'It's dead! It's dead!' Iowans cheer demise of bill to end gender identity as a civil right, Stephen Gruber-Miller, Des Moines Register, January 31, 2024

If you're a politician, does everyone agree with your agenda — really?

For representative democracy to work, politicians must "know" and "react to" public opinion, including by "constrain[ing] their behavior to be consistent with" it. However, "elected representatives are more ideologically extreme and maintain a systematically distorted understanding of constituents' policy preferences" and their perceptions of what people think are often biased "in the conservative direction."

The people think what I think: False consensus and unelected elite misperception of public opinion
Alexander C. Furnas, Timothy M. LaPira
First published: 30 January 2024 https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12833
Verification Materials: The data and materials required to verify the computational reproducibility of the results, procedures, and analyses in this article are available on the American Journal of Political Science Dataverse within the Harvard Dataverse Network, at: https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/3VFVS7.

US: Republicans oppose a plan to increase presidential power over the border

"In July 2023, Texas began deploying a floating barrier of buoys designed to maim or kill whoever tried to get through the Rio Grande River along a 1000-feet stretch of the border in Eagle Pass, Texas, an area that had seen a particularly high number of border crossings. Within weeks, the Justice Department sued Texas...

...in December, a Federal Appeals Court ordered Texas to remove the floating barrier. Instead of complying, Abbott announced massive new funds for more border barriers shortly before Christmas and signed a law making it a state crime to illegally cross into Texas, declaring that Texas had a right to apprehend people who do, put them in jail, deport them, make all of these decisions on immigration on its own."

"The Texas Border Standoff Is an Acute Crisis with Terrifying Implications: Is this how America ends? Echoes of nullification crises and Civil War, and the dissolution of the Union." Thomas Zimmer. Democracy Americana (Substack). January 29, 2024.

Then, on January 11, Texas declared a disaster and took over control of a park near the Rio Grande River, kicking out federal agents. On January 22, the Supreme Court sided with the federal government. On January 24, Governor Abbott issued a statement: "The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States." As Mark Joseph Stern explains in Slate, Abbott appears to have borrowed language from "the very first line of the secession ordinances passed by slave states when they purported to leave the union."

Zimmer explains: "Abbott declared that the 'lawless border policies' by the 'lawless president' Joe Biden had failed to protect the state of Texas from the 'invasion' of migrants." Abbott said Texas has a right to self-defense, i.e., in Zimmer's words, "the right to ignore the decision of the Supreme Court as well as that of a Federal Appeals Court and to continue to militarize the border without permission from the federal government, under whose purview immigration and border protection clearly fall. 'Self-defense' means open defiance of the president’s authority and nullification of federal law."

Zimmer goes on to explain: "As of right now, it is basically a standoff between Texas, which has the explicit support by 25 other Republican-led states, and the federal government; and, on the ground, between federal border patrol agents on the one hand and the Texas National Guard, state troopers, and Texas Department of Public Safety officials on the other. This might well go back to the Supreme Court soon. It might escalate on the ground or it might not."

Adam Serwer begins his article: "Ulysses S. Grant once said that the Confederate cause, the defense of chattel slavery, was 'one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.' Texas’s embrace of neo-secessionist rhetoric in defense of letting children drown in the Rio Grande belongs somewhere on that same list." Let's think about this: "The Civil War settled this question; the union is perpetual, the federal government is sovereign, and states do not get to defy federal law simply because they don’t like when their preferred candidates lose the presidency. Perhaps the most significant through line between these two statements is the assertion that states are entitled to ignore the Constitution and the federal government if the rival party wins elections."
The Supreme Court Has Itself to Blame for Texas Defying Its Orders [gift article]: Greg Abbott is taking a stand to protect his state’s right to let children die in the Rio Grande, and four justices of the Supreme Court are encouraging him to do so. Adam Serwer, The Atlantic, January 29, 2024

This is also standard-issue Republican hypocrisy and refusal of bipartisan work to accomplish anything real

Republicans Who Screamed About A Crisis On The Border Now Oppose A Plan To Fix It
Many on the right claim the U.S. is being "invaded" by migrants but also want to wait until Donald Trump is elected president again to stop it. Igor Bobic, Arthur Delaney, Kevin Robillard, Daniel Marans. HuffPost, Jan 29, 2024

Republicans Agonize Over Supporting Bipartisan Border Bill They'd Insisted On: A bipartisan bill to address the surge of migrants at the southern border is sowing discord within the Senate GOP as Trump urges them to kill it. Igor Bobic, HuffPost, Feb 1, 2024

"For House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who saw his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), unceremoniously ousted for allegedly being too cooperative with Democrats, votes like Wednesday’s [January 31, 2024 tax bill] are preferable to getting nothing done or facing the same fate."
— House Republicans Are Such A Mess They’re Accidentally Doing Bipartisanship. But the right-wing House Freedom Caucus still has a final say. Jonathan Nicholson, HuffPost, Feb 3, 2024

Also

On February 1, 2024, Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) suggested murdering a reportedly undocumented migrant.

— GOP Congressman Shocks With ‘Pinochet Air’ Idea For Migrant, Then Makes It Worse: MSNBC’s Chris Hayes said the call “for murdering people using the Pinochet regime’s preferred method of dropping them out of helicopters is really not great.” Lee Moran, HuffPost, Feb 2, 2024

It's about the 2024 election

Robert Reich says: In the compromise bill, "Biden and Senate Democrats have caved to Senate Republican hardliners. Among other restrictions, the bill would make it much harder for people to apply for asylum." It also gives the president emergency authority to close the border.

BS on the border: Trump’s biggest issue in the campaign is neofascist bupkis, Robert Reich, Jan 30, 2024

Trump characterizes the bill as a "horrible, open-borders betrayal of America."

Hypocritical? Yes. "Just last year," Reich says, House Speaker Mike "Johnson argued that Congress must tighten immigration laws to strengthen the president’s hand. When he was president, Trump sought similar additional authority from Congress."

I'm sure Trump has no idea what's in the bill. He just doesn't want voters to think 'Biden' when they think 'border'. Trump wants to own that issue in everyone's minds. Whatever he says is good, whatever they say is bad.

See what other bipartisan plans they don't want

As HuffPost explains: A bill with changes to the Child Tax Credit was approved 40–3 by the House Ways and Means Committee and "would likely pass the House in a similarly overwhelming bipartisan fashion," but "if Johnson allows the House to vote on something bipartisan, then far-right members of the House Freedom Caucus might retaliate against him for collaborating with Democrats." In other words, if he stopped it from coming to a vote in the House, it would have nothing to do with whether the bill is good for U.S. parents, just whether it's good for Democrats.

"Freedom Caucus member Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) complained on Friday, for instance, that the legislation will allow 'illegal foreign nationals' to claim the credit, even though the bill does not change the requirement for children to have social security numbers to qualify.

'The Child Tax Credit reforms in this bill are pro-family policies that maintain the child tax credit structure of the Trump-era GOP tax reform,' Ways and Means chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who negotiated the bill with Senate Finance chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), said in a statement pushing back on the criticism. 'It halts any push for monthly checks and provides no special loopholes for illegal immigrants.'"

Returning to Serwer's article in the Atlantic, he says: "As with terrorism or crime however, for some people the metric of success for a particular policy on immigration is not whether it fixes the problem but whether it is sufficiently cruel."

Or whether it helps their team by giving them power to do anything (openly or in secret). Or whether they can take the credit for anything anyone else achieves.

Well, they did allow a vote. On January 31, the bill passed the House 357-70. This is how the GOP forms its agenda: "Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)...suggested that he opposed the bill because passing it 'makes the president look good' by allowing him to 'mail out checks before the election'..."

It's unclear if the Senate will pass the bill, with one Republican saying it “makes the president look good” by letting him “mail out checks before the election.”

Here's the compromise that President Biden says is great, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson says is terrible:

"On Sunday [Feb. 4], a group of Senators — James Lankford (R-OK), Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) — announced that they had reached a bipartisan "compromise" on a bill to overhaul the nation's immigration system and provide more funding for wars in Ukraine and Gaza. ... the proposal would create severe restrictions on asylum-seeking migrants that are similar — and in some ways harsher — than those imposed during the Trump administration. It would upend a bedrock principle of American immigration law: people who come to the country seeking asylum have a right to have their claims adjudicated." — Judd Legum, "The immigration 'compromise,'" Popular Information, February 6, 2024

HuffPost explains that Republicans:

"Lankford said he anticipated that Wednesday’s [Feb. 7] vote to advance the bill would fail. Moreover, he repeatedly declined to say whether he would vote in support of his own bill. [Lankford asked rhetorically:] '“Why would we force a vote on something that would kill it...' ... [Lankford] tried to argue that even if he votes against advancing his own bill this week, that it wouldn’t necessarily mean that he opposes it since it could still come up at a later date....[Republicans] were the ones who initially demanded linking border policy changes with the passage of aid to Ukraine. More time isn’t going to change anything, and many in the GOP would like to keep the border issue alive so they can hammer Democrats over immigration policy in the November presidential election."
— "In Huge Reversal, GOP Poised To Kill The Border-Ukraine Package It Demanded": Republican Sen. James Lankford, who spent months negotiating the border provisions the GOP demanded, said he may vote against his own bill this week. Igor Bobic, HuffPost, Feb 5, 2024

On Feb. 7, Lankford said in a speech on the Senate floor that, four weeks earlier, an unnamed "popular commentator" had warned him: "If you try to move a bill that solves the border crisis during this presidential year, I will do whatever I can to destroy you, because I do not want you to solve this during the presidential election." Radio host Jesse Kelly immediately said he was the one who said it.

Impeaching the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security

On January 31 (HuffPost), Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee

"approved two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — an entirely baseless effort aimed at helping Donald Trump look tough on border issues ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

The committee voted 18 to 15, along party lines, to approve the GOP’s impeachment resolution, which accuses Mayorkas of 'willful' refusal to comply with immigration laws and breaching public trust. The full House could vote as soon as next week to impeach him."

Did Republicans once care about "security issues"? Wasn't DHS a creation of the George W. Bush administration, supposedly to "fight terrorism"? Well, now Republicans just want to break government. If it's a government thing, and if Democrats wield any power within it, they'll smash it.

Journalism: Today's bad news & good news

Not good:

In "WTF is Happening in Journalism This Week?" (Jan 26, 2024), Parker Molloy lists the massive layoffs: Pitchfork, Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, TIME magazine, Business Insider, Forbes.

Similarly, Marisa Kabas says:

"After layoffs last week at the LA Times and Business Insider, and the complete annihilation of Sports Illustrated and Pitchfork, it started to feel like the dog days of the Trump administration when you weren’t sure how your brain could possibly absorb any new, bad information. It left me wondering, in the immortal words of Vincent Laguardia Gambini, 'Is there any more shit we could pile on?'

Every day in media is like the end of an episode of America’s Next Top Model where the image of the person who was voted off disappears from the group photo — except the group photo originally had like, a million people in it and now it’s down to approximately five."

— Today is the most depressing day to work in media since yesterday: On mass layoffs and massive ennui, Marisa Kabas, The Handbasket email, February 2, 2024

However, a HEATED email today (January 26) tells us:

"The Guardian is the U.K.’s leading progressive newspaper, and one of the world’s most trusted news outlets. The paper also has a massive U.S. bureau with more than 150 staffers, and it’s the only major newspaper to ban fossil fuel advertising.
Co-publishing an investigation with The Guardian is a huge win for our mission to increase the visibility of climate accountability reporting. While HEATED’s website gets, on average, about a half million views per month, The Guardian’s website gets more than 370 million visits per month."

Read the HEATED / Guardian story: The propane industry is trying to dupe you: Documents and recordings obtained by HEATED detail a multi-million dollar plan to spin the fossil fuel as 'clean' and 'renewable'." Arielle Samuelson, January 25, 2024.

If you're a journalist, what do you do?

Don't self-reject. Ask if you can write and get paid for it. Advice from Tim Herrera, interviewed by Parker Molloy and Mark Yarm:

“I’ve found myself kind of drawing a blank when I work with freelancers and they ask me who’s taking pitches, or how to frame a pitch for the current time or strategies for working through this, because I honestly don’t know,” Herrera says. “Freelancing is a tough business, but right now I feel like it’s the toughest I’ve seen as long as I’ve been working directly with freelancers.”

So what does an independent journalist do? “The advice I kind of fall back on is: No one has any idea what any newsroom’s freelance budget looks like right now, or what any given newsroom is going through internally, so you might as well cast a wide net and just pitch everyone,” he says. “Swing for the fences and pretend things are fine, because it’s either that or just give up entirely. At this point we really have nothing to lose by going after everything, so have at it, you never know. I always say the only way to get bylines is to get bylines, so just keep pitching like everything is fine.”

— Keep calm and query on: "Just keep pitching like everything is fine”: Freelancing guru Tim Herrera on how independent journalists can survive these dark days. Plus, Pitchfork’s Amy Phillips picks its most "magic" longform. Parker Molloy and Mark Yarm. Long Lead Presents: Depth Perception (Substack). January 30, 2024.

And from Marisa Kabas: "So what comes next? More collectives of independent writers, like Flaming Hydra? More worker-owned sites like Hell Gate and Defector? We’ll see!"

Louisiana: In the news

An info-collection related to Louisiana.

Photo: Swamp by bobmann from Pixabay

Child custody

If you have questions about child custody, visitation and child support, consult the online Louisiana Guide to Child Custody by Custody X Change. See also a study of alimony amounts that mentions Louisiana, which found it awarded high alimony compared to several other states.

If you prefer academic journal articles, see Katrina Disaster Family Law: The Impact of Hurricane Katrina on Families and Family Law (PDF). By Sandie McCarthy-Brown & Susan L. Waysdorf. Indiana Law Review, Vol. 42:721, 2009.

The novel My Sunshine Away by M. O. Walsh, which starts with an incident in 1989, is about a Louisiana divorce.

Homeschooling

Homeschool in Louisiana: Diploma, graduation sold at nonpublic school | AP News

Louisiana lawmakers vote to remove lunch breaks for child workers, cut unemployment benefits A House committee approved the bill along with others to reduce unemployment benefits and workers' compensation wages. James Finn, NOLA.com, April 18, 2024

Nature: What surrounds us

On October 23, 2023, smoke from marsh fires in the southern part of the state, together with fog, created a hazardous driving condition and led to a massive pile-up of cars. Since August, the Louisiana marsh fires have smelled like burning tires, says this person on Bluesky on November 5.

Oil spill tops 1 million gallons, threatens Gulf of Mexico wildlife As they work to contain the spill off the Louisiana coast, authorities are trying to determine if a pipeline was the source. Darryl Fears, Washington Post, November 21, 2023.

A ‘collapse’ is looming for Louisiana’s coastal wetlands, scientists say: Scientists say the overwhelming majority of the state’s wetlands — a natural buffer against hurricanes — are in a state of ‘drowning’ and could be gone by 2070. Brady Dennis and Chris Mooney. February 15, 2024

Redistricting

Supreme Court Unfreezes Louisiana Redistricting Case That Could Boost Power Of Black Voters (HuffPost, June 26, 2023) An appeals court has blocked the redrawing of Louisiana's congressional map (NPR, Sept 28, 2023)

Louisiana lawmakers approve a congressional map with a second Black-majority district, Fredreka Schouten, CNN, January 19, 2024

Solidarity and progress

"In Louisiana, during the chattel slavery system, the state followed the Code Noir, a French set of Christofascist laws that excluded Jewish people from living in any of the parishes or from owning slaves."
— Why Some Jewish People Believe Black People Owe Them Solidarity: Even though solidarity should not be transactional. Allison Wiltz, December 3, 2023.

Inside the collapse of Louisiana's Democratic Party: No cash, few candidates, internal fights (subscriber-only): Low turnout and poor enthusiasm about candidates underscore years of struggles for Louisiana Democrats. Sam Karlin and James Finn. Oct 20, 2023.

A new governor

Republican Jeff Landry Wins The Louisiana Governor's Race, Reclaims Office For GOP. Attorney General Jeff Landry has won Louisiana governor’s seat, fending off a crowded field of candidates. Sara Cline, HuffPost, Oct 14, 2023.

In April, just after Biden announced that Title IX would be expanded to explicitly cover trans people, "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."
(Erin Reed, Four States Tell Schools To Ignore Biden's New Title IX Rules Protecting Trans Students, April 25, 2024)

Incarceration

"Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands." Robin McDowell and Margie Mason, Associated Press, January 29, 2024

“We’re Going to Be Overwhelmed”: How Louisiana Just Ballooned Its Jail Population Louisiana's governor championed a raft of new laws that double down on punishment, fueling a cycle of incarceration that sends more money into local sheriffs' coffers. Piper French, Bolts Mag, March 8, 2024

Religion

"A handful of extremely concerning bills are rapidly advancing through the Louisiana legislature. SB123 and HB334 would allow chaplains in public schools as volunteers or employees. Unfortunately, both were advanced with strong bipartisan support. HB71 passed the House and will move to the Senate. It would make Louisiana the first state to require schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom. The bill’s Christian nationalist author, Representative Dodie Horton, successfully passed a bill last year requiring public schools to display “In God We Trust.” On her latest effort to insert religion in schools, Horton said, “The Ten Commandments are the basis of all laws in Louisiana, and given all the junk our children are exposed to in classrooms today, it’s imperative that we put the Ten Commandments back in a prominent position.” Last but not at all least, the state is poised to pass a universal school voucher bill, HB475, even after investigative reporters revealed existing school privatization policies in Louisiana have driven families into low-performing private schools with little oversight."
— American Atheists email, April 13, 2024

Louisiana High Court: Priests Have a “Property Right” Not to Be Sued For Sexual Abuse: The legal system will never run out of ways to transform real-world harms into meaningless abstractions—all in service of insulating the wealthy and powerful from accountability. Steve Kennedy, Balls and Strikes, April 9, 2024

Banning the Pride flag (attempts in the US and Canada)

In January 2023 in Pennsylvania, as Ian Kumamoto wrote ("These School Bans On Pride Flags Should Freak All Of Us Out", HuffPost Voices):

"...the Central Bucks school board, which oversees the third-largest school district in Pennsylvania, exemplified this idea by banning teachers from displaying rainbow flags as part of a larger effort to stop educators from advocating for 'political' issues.

The Central Bucks school board is just the latest group to frame LGBTQ-plus people as polarizing political subjects, rather than actual people just trying to live. In the past year, districts in Wisconsin, Michigan and New York have all cracked down on pride flags in schools, typically citing the belief that they are political in nature."

In January 2023, Chaya Raichik was harassing a school in Colorado because it was selling Pride flags.

By the way (Ian Kumamoto, HuffPost, January 13, 2023, thanks much):

"Unlike a political organization, there is no central LGBTQ organ, headquarters or single representative whom LGBTQ people take orders from (except maybe Cher). For these reasons and many others, the designation of pride flags as political symbols doesn’t make much sense. The argument is yet another pretense to pathologize and exclude queer and trans people and to galvanize voters against a common enemy."

In October 2023, Raichik threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) if it didn't remove her name from their Glossary of Extremism, and so the ADL...removed her, as she requested. As reported by The Advocate.

Florida, 2024

In January 2024, Florida Republican lawmakers advanced HB 901, co-sponsored by State Rep. David Borrero (R), that (as HuffPost explained) "would bar the display of any flag that represents a 'political viewpoint, including, but not limited to, a politically partisan, racial, sexual orientation and gender, or political ideology viewpoint.'" This "would ban teachers and government officials" (though not explicitly students) "from displaying pride flags and those that champion the Black Lives Matter movement." Additionally, "flags of sovereign states recognized by the United States" are OK, while, according to Borrero, "the flag of Palestine, which is not recognized by the U.S., would not be allowed, he told the AP. Teachers would also not even be allowed to wear a lapel pin bearing such flags."

U.S. federal government, 2024

While trying to pass a spending bill, Democrats managed to eliminate about 50 anti-LGBTQ provisions but did not manage to eliminate one that prevents U.S. embassies from flying the Pride flag. The Republicans insisted on that one.

Alberta, Canada, 2024

"Alberta town bans Pride flags, rainbow crosswalks after plebiscite": Residents voted in favour of the town flying only government flags and painting crosswalks in a white striped pattern. Jeremy Simes, The Canadian Press, in the National Post, Feb 23, 2024

Read more

See also: "Why a Homophobe Displays a Rainbow Flag". It's a 4-minute read on Medium.

Science denier admits starting wildfires & blaming it on government

Climate headlines. Today, from CNN.

Climate conspiracy theorist who said Canadian government deliberately lit wildfires pleads guilty to starting 14 himself Deadly fire ants are forming rafts to cross Australian flood waters Goats so exhausted by heat they’d rather risk the wolves at night: study Breathtaking photographs show how world’s largest iceberg is changing

From the article on the arsonist:

"Canada’s 2023 wildfire season was record-shattering, scorching around 18.4 million hectares (45.5 million acres) — an area roughly the size of North Dakota and more than double the previous record.

Weather that drove eastern Canada’s devastating wildfires made twice as likely by climate change Smoke from the fires poured southward, choking cities in the United States and even making it as far east as Europe."

In case you missed it

The social costs of greenhouse gas emissions in health care are astounding — and we’ve been ignoring them completely, David Introcaso, The Hill, January 12, 2024

Roger Stone allegedly wanted to assassinate Democratic lawmakers

Weeks before the 2020 election in the US, it is alleged that Roger Stone told his security guard, former NYPD cop Sal Greco, in a private conversation: "It’s time to do it. It’s either [Representative Eric] Swalwell or [Representative Jerry] Nadler has to die before the election."

There is a recording of the alleged conversation. Now, over three years later, U.S. Capitol Police and FBI are investigating the matter.

This is a reminder: There's a timeline of the January 6 United States Capitol attack. The attempts to overturn the election were broad and deep, and some of them started even before the election was held.

Sources

Falzone, Diana (January 16, 2024). "Capitol Police Investigating Roger Stone Remarks About Assassinating Members of Congress". Mediaite. Retrieved January 17, 2024.

Visser, Nick (January 17, 2024). "Roger Stone's Alleged Assassination Remarks Prompt Capitol Police Investigation: Report". HuffPost. Retrieved January 17, 2024.

Trumpism in 2024 threatens democracy

At the Iowa Republican caucuses on January 15, 2024 — the first in the nation to caucus or primary &mash; Donald Trump received 51% of the popular vote, Ron DeSantis was a distant second with a little over 21%, Nikki Haley was third with 19%. Vivek Ramaswamy approached 8% and Asa Hutchinson received less than 1%, but they've since dropped out. When Ramaswamy dropped out, he endorsed Trump. We can anticipate that some DeSantis or Haley voters will also vote Trump.

Trump supporters include both rich and poor people

A reminder:

Jamelle Bouie skeets today: "The Trump movement is both a movement of reactionary property owners and one of less advantaged people with an affective investment in the social order." That is, Trump supporters are both rich and poor. The rich are defending their money; the poor are defending their whiteness.

It's not an economic agenda, it's an anti-democracy agenda

More, though, they're attacking democracy. Whatever their personal character or intentions may be, that is the effect of their political choice. Parker Molloy has a good article today: We Really Don't Have to "Understand" Trump Voters Anymore: This isn't 2016 or 2020. It's 2024. We know who they are. (The Present Age, January 16, 2024):

"Empathy is vital in a divided society," Molloy grants, "but recognizing when choices breach ethical and democratic norms is equally important. The 2024 landscape has shifted dramatically. We're not just dealing with voters disenchanted by the perceived political establishment." Today's debate over Trump is about "endorsing a candidate whose tenure and post-presidential period are marred by unprecedented assaults on democratic institutions, numerous criminal investigations, and a proven track record of fostering division" and "comprehending why they [his supporters] continue to back someone who has repeatedly compromised the very essence of democracy." Trump supporters, Molloy continues, "are opting for a candidate whose actions consistently demonstrate a disregard for the rule of law and democratic principles. Supporting Trump after all that has transpired is an implicit endorsement of these actions and an acceptance of an America fundamentally incompatible with democratic values."

"What ongoing support for Trump represents," Molloy says, is something "beyond mere political preference" and isn't solely based on "someone’s economic situation or dissatisfaction with politics." The nature of the choice has changed. So, "we don’t need to understand this choice anymore. Instead, we must recognize it for what it is: a threat to the fundamental principles of democracy and to the very idea of America itself." Today, we need to "acknowledg[e] the consequences of their choice."

See this weird campaign behavior

Ramaswamy, endorsing Trump, is suddenly telling everyone else to stop running, even though he himself was running against Trump until January 15.

Vivek Ramaswamy Wants Trump’s Rivals To Drop Out Of The 2024 GOP Primary: “I think Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley would actually, at this point, do this country and this party a service by stepping aside,” the former GOP presidential candidate said. Marita Vlachou, HuffPost, Jan 17, 2024

Nikki Haley wants to be on a debate stage with Trump. It is mathematically possible she could pull into a close second place in time for a debate, but knowing what we know about the phenomenon of Trumpism, she's not going to outplace him by normal campaign tactics (like a good "debate" performance). She may be able to take the Republican nomination if Trump were to swiftly very go to jail (though realistically his criminal indictments are moving so slowly that they won't outpace the party nomination timeline), or even the presidency if a Trump–Haley ticket were elected in November and then (perhaps shortly before the election or at some point after the election or inauguration) Trump were to go to jail.

However, the New Hampshire primary election will come a week later, and there, Haley and Trump are each polling at 40%, with DeSantis effectively not a contender at 4%.

Anyhow, whatever Haley is thinking, ABC says there's no point having any more Republican debates:

ABC Calls Off Next GOP Debate After Nikki Haley Says She Won't Appear Without Trump: “The next debate I do will either be with Donald Trump or with Joe Biden," Haley said. Nick Visser, HuffPost, Jan 16, 2024

And Trump, of course, is being racist toward Haley, calling her by a name she doesn't use, solely for the purpose of "othering" her:

Trump attacks Haley while referring to her by her first name Nimarata, Kate Sullivan, CNN, January 17, 2024

On January 24, 2024, following his victory over Nikki Haley in the New Hampshire primary the day before, he posted to Truth Social: “Anybody that makes a ‘Contribution’ to Birdbrain [Nikki Haley], from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp. We don’t want them, and will not accept them..."

In Haley's January 31 radio appearance:

"'If that whole state says, 'We don't want to be part of America anymore,' I mean, that's their decision to make,' Haley said, though she also noted, 'Let's talk about what's reality. Texas isn't going to secede.'

Asked if she still believes that states generally have the right to secede, a sentiment she expressed on camera during her initial run for governor of South Carolina, Haley said that 'states have the right to make the decisions that their people want to make.'"

She walked it back, just as a few weeks earlier she'd walked back her claim that the Civil War was about “the freedoms of what people could and couldn’t do.”

Steve Bannon's agenda

Conor Lynch writes for Salon (Jan 20), in "The Supreme Court looks set to make Steve Bannon's dream come true," that Trump, shortly before Biden was elected in 2020,

"signed an executive order known as 'Schedule F,' which would have stripped civil service protections from tens or even hundreds of thousands of employees had it been implemented. ...[this] was an overt attempt to politicize the bureaucracy. It would have empowered the president to easily purge the civil service of any senior or mid-level officials deemed politically suspect or insufficiently loyal.

Today Schedule F has more or less become doctrine on the right. ... All the major Republican presidential candidates have promised to reinstate some version of the executive order, which President Biden rescinded upon entering office. Indeed, most candidates have even tried to outdo Trump in both their policies and rhetoric.

The supposed 'moderate' in the race, former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador under Trump, Nikki Haley, has put forward an even more radical plan than Schedule F that would not just strip civil service protections but introduce five-year term limits for all positions in the federal workforce — from air traffic controllers and public health inspectors to park rangers and Social Security administrators. As Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell notes, this would effectively 'destroy the basic machinery of government' — which might just be the point."

Canadians are saying

Already, "49 percent of Canadians believe the U.S. is becoming an authoritarian state," and 64 percent believe that "U.S. democracy cannot survive another four years of Donald Trump." (thenewcivilrightsmovement.com) The poll was conducted January 9–11, 2024.

He knows he's an outlaw

HuffPost tries out this message:

Trump For The First Time Concedes That His Actions May Have Been Illegal: In an all-caps, middle-of-the-night rant about his Jan. 6 case, the former president said that he deserved total immunity, even for things that "CROSS THE LINE." S.V. Date, HuffPost, Jan 18, 2024

Yes. It's just not shocking. He's been asking for immunity for a long time. That means he knows he looks guilty.

Right-wing agents have funding

"This Pa. activist is the source of false and flawed election claims gaining traction across the country," Carter Walker, Votebeat, Philly Inquirer

He's being mentored

"Viktor Orbán is taking his blueprint on dismantling democracy to Mar-a-Lago.

The Hungarian prime minister first won power through a democratic election, then proceeded to weaken the institutions of that democracy by eroding the legal system, firing civil servants, politicizing business, attacking the press and intimidating opposition parties and demagoguing migration.

Former President Donald Trump has left no doubt that he’d try something similar in the United States if he wins a second term – so the presumptive GOP nominee will presumably be eager to compare notes when he hosts Orbán in Florida on Friday.

The prime minister isn’t meeting Biden administration officials. (A Biden administration official told CNN’s Betsy Klein that no invitation for a meeting between the current US president and Hungarian leader was extended.) Instead, he’s choosing to meet the man he hopes will again be US president next year. The two men have a long history of mutual admiration. The fact that one of Trump’s first moves since becoming presumptive GOP nominee this week is to meet a European autocrat speaks volumes."

— "Orbán meeting offers preview of Trump’s 2nd-term strongman idealizations," Stephen Collinson, CNN, March 8, 2024

"'He's Looking For Dictatorship': Joe Biden Rips Viktor Orbán's Mar-A-Lago Visit: The U.S. president's remarks arrived on the same day that his predecessor praised the autocratic Hungarian leader as 'fantastic.'" Ben Blanchet, HuffPost, Mar 9, 2024

Behavior

"...a fundraiser for the Johnson County GOP featured an effigy of President Joe Biden that attendees could pay to physically assault.

Video...shows people punching, kicking and swinging a bat at a Biden mannequin wearing a “Let’s Go Brandon” shirt.

“This booth was hosted by a Karate school to promote their self defense class,” Maria Holiday, who chairs the Johnson County Republican Party, told The Kansas City Star.

Video of people kicking the Biden dummy was uploaded to the video platform Rumble, but later deleted."

— A Kansas GOP Fundraiser Let People Kick And Punch A Biden Effigy, The attacks on the Biden mannequin were later condemned by some state GOP officials. David Moye, Mar 11, 2024

The 'cis is a slur' trope serves a transphobic purpose

Erin Reed has a good article (Jun 22, 2023): 'Cisgender' Is No More A Slur Than 'Straight' Is - Elon Musk Restricts Term On Twitter: Elon Musk declared that 'cis' is a slur on twitter. The word is no more a slur than 'straight' or 'heterosexual,' and it has over a hundred years of use to describe gender identity or presentation."

She wrote: "Yesterday, in a stunning development, Elon Musk announced that Twitter would begin to consider the term 'cis' or 'cisgender' as a slur. The word, which is important in conversations that center on gender identity, is extensively employed by transgender people, as well as by medical professionals, researchers, service providers, and advocates, to differentiate between transgender and cisgender individuals and their distinct needs."

The result: "Musk is endorsing policies that squelch the speech of transgender people who use terms like 'cisgender,' which are essential in explaining lived experiences and unique circumstances to differing gender identities."

In October 2023, Musk tweeted: “The word ‘cis’ is a heterosexual slur. Shame on anyone who uses it.”
In response to which, on October 30, Ari Drennen tweeted: "They think 'cis' is a slur because they use 'trans' as a slur"

Yesterday, January 11, 2024, Musk similarly tweeted: “Cis is a heterophobic word. Shame on anyone who uses it.”

(Pink News)

Plainly, it isn't. If "heterosexual" and "straight" are not slurs for "not gay/bisexual," why would "cisgender" be a slur for "not transgender"?

People have written about this on Medium (unpaywalled links):

*

Cisgender Definitions Pax Ahima Gethen

*

No, “cis” is not a slur David Allsopp

*

Cis Is Not a Slur. It Does Not Belittle Who You Are. Emma Holiday

*

Cis Women Don’t Oppress Us. And Cis Is Not a Slur. Cassie Brighter

Transphobes reject the word "cis" because they don't want trans people to say things that make sense.

Trans people often use simple language to make obvious points like "people who aren't 'trans' are 'cis'," "anti-trans positions are transphobic," "anxiety about trans people is moral panic and scaremongering," "concern about hypothetical trans people being too trans is concern-trolling," etc.

Transphobes object to this language because it shows them exactly how they're being transphobic, a judgment they reject in its essence. To persist in their anti-trans agenda, they object to trans people using language that diagnoses anything at all as transphobic. They object to trans people using language that makes the relevant distinctions that will enable us to go on to diagnose anything as transphobic.

Republicans go after undocumented immigrants and transgender people simultaneously

For years, it's been apparent to me that Republicans target immigrants and transgender people because both groups have some degree of precarity in their legal situation, often especially with their identity documents.

Assigned Media points out:

"The 700,000 figure includes every undocumented migrant living in poverty in California who is becoming eligible for coverage under Medi-Cal, of whom an unknown and much smaller number would conceivably attempt to access gender-affirming treatments through the state’s low-income healthcare plan. ... If 1.6 percent of the 700,000 undocumented migrants are transgender this would be 11,200 Californians. If 31 percent of them seek hormone therapy, this would be fewer than 3500 people."

Also, those 3,500 people might access gender-affirming hormones at some point in their lives, not necessarily tomorrow.

California has 39 million people. That a few thousand people in poverty might access gender-affirming hormones through Medi-Cal over the coming year or so, and that these people are immigrants, isn't shocking. It's not the kind of news story Fox wants to make it.

Who can be the biggest transphobe?

Meryl Kornfield writes:

"Targeting transgender rights has become increasingly central to the pitch many Republican politicians are making across the country, a trend that has come sharply into focus here in Iowa. As the leading Republican candidates for president have barnstormed the state ahead of Monday’s Republican caucuses, they have put the issue at the forefront of their pitches, saying in some cases, without evidence, that transgender people are a threat to children or have a mental health disorder.

* * *

Nationwide, anti-trans bills led by conservative lawmakers doubled last year [2023], now targeting various aspects of the LGBTQ+ community, including drag shows and gender-affirming care for adults, particularly in states with Republican-controlled governments. In the run-up to the Iowa caucuses, Republican candidates have been battling each other to position themselves as the most vocal critics of transgender athletes’ in youth and college sports, pageant participants and gender-affirming care for transgender children, such as puberty blockers."

Thus, even though presidential candidate Nikki Haley has made the transphobic effort to claim that teen girls contemplate suicide because some athletes are trans, her rival Ron DeSantis is running ads claiming that "Tricky Nikki [Haley] supports the radical trans agenda" and criticizing Trump "for allowing transgender women to participate in Miss Universe and stumbling when asked, 'can a man become a woman?'" Of course, all three candidates are transphobic, all the time. That is their clear intent. Indeed they're exhausting themselves trying to prove who's the most transphobic.

The article: At Iowa’s oldest gay bar, fear over Republicans’ transgender rhetoric (subscriber gift link), Meryl Kornfield, Washington Post, January 14, 2024.

Miriam Nohemí Ríos Ríos assassinated yesterday

A Mexican local leader was assassinated yesterday.

"Miriam Nohemí Ríos Ríos, comisionada de Movimiento Ciudadano en Jacona, Michoacán, fue asesinada la tarde de este jueves."
Matan a comisionada trans de MC en Michoacán: Los primeros reportes señalan que la víctima se encontraba en su negocio de gorras ubicado en avenida Juárez, la colonia Libertad, cuando un grupo de armados le disparó. Redacción AN / AG. Aristegui Noticias. 11 Jan, 2024.

Barriers to Ohio trans people running for office

Jude Ellison S. Doyle posts today on Bluesky:

"Over at Xtra: I interviewed Vanessa Joy, the Ohio woman who was kicked off the ballot for not deadnaming herself, and asked how 'free' trans candidates really are to run for office in this system" [post 1]

"The details of this get more infuriating the more you look at it. For one thing, they only know her name change because she *told them about it* when dropping off her petition. For another, her entire life has been torn apart by local & right-wing press." [post 2]

Here's the Xtra article: "Archaic electoral system disadvantages trans candidates: ANALYSIS: Ohio trans candidate Vanessa Joy’s disqualification is part of a larger systemic problem"

Previously, on January 4, Erin Reed reported:

"In Ohio, a transgender candidate was removed from the ballot for not including her previous name under a seldom-used, decades-old law. Vanessa Joy was informed on Wednesday that, despite collecting enough signatures to run, her petition to run for office was denied by the Stark County Election Commission according to news first reported by local journalist Morgan Trau of Ohio. The law requires any candidate running for office to include name changes on their petition if the name change occurred within the last five years. At least two other transgender candidates could be impacted by this law, which seems to have been selectively enforced against Joy.

... This requirement is waived for many reasons, including name changes due to marriage. There is no such exception for transgender people."

— "Transgender Candidate Removed From Ballot In Ohio Over Decades Old Name Change Law. In Ohio, a transgender candidate has been removed from the ballot after not including her deadname. Erin Reed (Substack), January 4, 2024.

And then: Second transgender woman’s candidacy for Ohio House is challenged: The challenge to Arienne Childrey’s candidacy comes a week after another trans woman, Vanessa Joy, was disqualified from running for not disclosing her birth name. Matt Lavietes. NBC News. Jan. 9, 2024.

Trans candidates face challenges to get on Ohio ballots over ‘deadnames’ A decades-old, rarely enforced law has left one candidate disqualified and two others facing reviews in their runs for seats in the state House. Anumita Kaur. January 22, 2024

Furthermore, Gillian Branstetter notes on Bluesky, "Last year, two trans state reps--Mauree Turner in OK and Zooey Zephyr in MT--were censured for speaking against anti-trans bills. All of this comes as Sarah McBride is likely to join the US House next year".

Ohio transgender candidates’: GOP opponents pitch cross-party attempts to disqualify office seekers, Jeremy Pelzer, Cleveland.com, April 3, 2024

Ray Blanchard's latest tweet

Ray Blanchard yesterday on X:

What's bad about this? My attention draws itself to his presumption that trans people are confronted only with bad options; hence, that a trans person's goal ought to be to identify "one of [the] 'least-worst' options" which, in utilitarian terms, will "probably maximize" our "overall quality of life"; furthermore, that the support we truly need is "advice" from "gender clinicians" who can steer us away from the worst-worst options we're likely to choose if we don't hear their opinion, so that we may make the "realistic choice," whatever that's supposed to mean.

Note that he explicitly calls trans identity a "clinical problem," one that moreover doesn't ever need to be addressed in terms of what political "right[s]" trans people have, as if those two characterizations were mutually exclusive. Even if you believe that some people's feelings or identities are psychologically abnormal and need treatment, you don't need to believe that those same people never need to worry about their rights. Dr. Blanchard speaks this way though.

This isn't what wise, benevolent concern looks like. Blanchard is just an ordinary paternalist. He thinks that trans people have inherently miserable lives and are doomed to choose between bad options, a choice for which we'd somehow benefit from his input, even though, as he acknowledges in the first sentence of this tweet, it's been three decades since he's worked at a clinic helping people transition.

These days (and for at least five years now, which is when it happened to me), his hobby is blocking trans people on X because they said something to him while being identifiably trans and not-identifiably shit-eating.

Here are some of his "greatest hits" on X. Remember that he blocks all critics.

His view: Being trans is a mental disorder.

In 2020, he expressed his opinion that being trans is a "problem," and one that's "clinical" rather than "political." (I don't suppose he'd care to reframe "people [being] fired for their opinions" as people having a clinical rather than a political problem?)

In 2019, he assumed it's his prerogative to give his "position on transgender people," though he himself is not trans, and trans people don't require him to give his position on us.

Pretty blunt here. He says: Being trans is a disorder, and if you support any and all trans people's genders, you're supporting their disorder. A clinician only supports a trans person, he says, when they try to decide if that person is and isn't validly trans. (Of course, every cis person likes to imagine themselves a clinician, so this is politicized to all cis people getting to decide all the time if every trans person is valid.)

Actually, facts and identity are not mutually exclusive. People construct our identities based on facts.

Saying that trans people's sex is a "legal fiction" and not recognizing that cis people's sex is equivalently a legal fiction because law is a construct.

He claims there's such a thing as "excesses of trans activism" and "extremist activism". What's that? Does he mean trans people whom he just doesn't understand or who make observations and hold opinions contrary to his?

He says, as far as I can tell, that pronouns are bad when trans people and trans-inclusive people use them but not when cis people use them. When trans people appear, pronouns are suddenly political.

A bit about transphobia in the UK

In the UK, as explained by Sarah TC, "the GCs claim to be a feminist movement and claim that trans rights are in direct opposition to women’s rights and that the Equality Act and the Gender Recognition Act need to be repealed to protect women."

And yet (Sarah TC continues), in the US, despite the so-called GCs' self-proclaimed feminism, this is happening:

"They are happy to accept funding and support from the far right to achieve this. It is well known that the Christian right think tank, the Heritage Foundation, has supported the LGB Alliance. As well as supporting the anti-trans agenda, the foundation campaigns against the right to abortion — even in cases of rape. Add to this their leadership of Project 25, which threatens democracy and a possible return of Donald Trump, a known sex offender, and well, you honestly couldn’t write this stuff. When Roe v Wade was repealed, ending the constitutional right to abortion in the USA, the silence from the GCs on X was deafening. The few that did mention it either blamed trans women for 'diluting' women’s rights or described it as collateral damage in their war against trans women."

— "The language of the gender critical movement: recycled homophobia and sexism." (7 min read), Sarah TC, Medium, January 8, 2024. This is my Friend of Medium link: unpaywalled for you, earning $ for the author.

Maybe that makes it a bit clearer for a US audience.

Previously, an Easter 2023 initiative to make teachers out kids to their parents:

@BadWritingTakes says on X (March 30, 2023) that "the Gender Critical movement & media are demanding removal of school safeguarding for trans children and the Prime Minister seems happy to sacrifice them."

@RoseSchmits on X (March 31, 2023): "There is no 'safeguarding' argument to be made for outing queer young people to their parents/guardians that isn’t rooted in transphobia"

@natachakennedy says on X (March 31, 2023) that "establishment oppression ... in the UK" is the Tories suggesting "transphobic 'guidance' for schools during the Easter holidays".

If you're in the UK, look up your MPs' voting history. If you don't know how you feel about transphobia, see what other political positions tend to coincide with it, which will give you a bigger picture.

Presidential immunity: Money and power

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) was a U.S. Supreme Court decision that allows corporations to contribute as much money as they like to political candidates.

The takeaway: If you have lots of money, you can give it to people who have lots of power so they can use their power so you can get more money.

(And, of course, "Most States Have Tax Codes That Are Rigged To Benefit The Wealthy: Report," Molly Redden, HuffPost, Jan 9, 2024)

Today, an appeals court is hearing arguments on whether presidents are immune from prosecution for crimes. The same topic was raised yesterday in a Georgia court. The issue may go to the U.S. Supreme Court. Where, of course, there's a corruption scandal.

What the takeaway would be, if presidents are deemed immune: If you have lots of money, and the thing you want done for you is very illegal, no worries as long as you give the money to the president, who can never be prosecuted for the thing you're asking him to do, because it isn't illegal for him to do it.

See

Trump’s immunity appeal sends a stark message about his plans for a possible second term, Stephen Collinson, CNN, January 9, 2024.

Collinson writes:

"Given the 45th president’s oft-stated belief that he had near omnipotent powers when he was in office – and that he still might be entitled to them – the history-making spectacle about to unfold is not that surprising."

"Not surprising" is relative. But that's a heavy antecedent: a president's claim that he was, and continues to be, nearly omnipotent. It takes a lot to make the consequent spectacle unsurprising.

Abby Phillip says for CNN (January 9):

"Raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, immunity on murders? Donald Trump lists a few of his favorite reasons why he's not a criminal. At this point, Trump is a collector of defenses like some people collect Pokemon. But there's almost too much to count at this point. And trust us, we tried.

He says he's immune, presidents can't obstruct justice. His intent wasn't corrupt. The case is moving too fast or moving too slow. It's an unfair venue. The judge is biased, and so are the clerks. The jury is too. He's never met her. He doesn't know her. She's not his type. It was his personal account, political persecution, witch hunt, perfect phone call, the deep state. It wasn't an insurrection. He wasn't notified that it was a crime. His lawyers advised him double jeopardy. The speech was peaceful. The students weren't defrauded. The Presidential Records Act. He was too busy. They were his documents. They're declassified. They aren't even classified at all, the First Amendment and the Fourth, the Fifth, the Sixth, and Tenth Amendments too."

Update

This is an actual NYT headline (January 10). Yes, Trump's lawyer did argue in court yesterday that a president can't be prosecuted for anything, even (specifically) ordering the military to assassinate a political rival, unless first the House were to impeach him and the Senate were to convict him. This is bad.

The NYT's description of this claim as "bold" is also bad.

Turns out, the first week of January, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas said he'd shoot people if President Biden would let him. He said on a podcast: “The only thing that we’re not doing is we’re not shooting people who come across the border, because of course the Biden administration would charge us with murder.”
— Governor Says Texas Isn’t Shooting Migrants Because Biden Would ‘Charge Us With Murder’
“We are using every tool that can be used," Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said on a podcast. Nick Visser, HuffPost, Jan 11, 2024

On February 21, 2024, Fox News aired an event in which Trump said: "We’re going to take over Washington, D.C. We’re going to federalize. We’re going to have very powerful crime, and you’re going to be proud of it again."

During April 25, 2024 arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court:

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked [Trump's lawyer Jack] Sauer, “If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person and he orders the military to assassinate him, is that within his official acts to which he has immunity?”
“That could well be an official act,” Sauer responded.
* * *
Justice Elena Kagan offered a few more hypotheticals to Trump’s attorney, including if a president would be immune from prosecution if they sold the country’s nuclear secrets to a foreign power.
“Likely not immune,” Sauer said, before adding a qualifier: “Now, if it’s structured as an official act, he’d have to be impeached and convicted first.”
“How about if the president orders the military to stage a coup?” Kagan asked.
“I think it would depend on the circumstances,” Sauer said.