Hi, everyone: I realized I had something out of order, so I may have been misunderstood on the Black Woman Supreme Court justice part. The “joke” referred to Noah’s tweet.
Book Banning
The made-up controversy about critical race theory in schools has now morphed into Republicans banning books they dislike.
- Ridgeland Mississippi Mayor Gene McGee is withholding $100,000 in school funding because he wants to see LGBTQ-themed books banned from school libraries.
- As a candidate for governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin ran an add suggesting that Toni Morrison’s Beloved should be banned from schools.
- A school board in Tennessee banned the graphic novel, Maus.
I suspect the latest book banning isn’t actually to ban books but to stoke white grievance.
The book banning creates crisis and spectacle, gives right-wing voters something to be afraid of, and distracts them from noticing that their leaders are fine with them dying.
People are pointing out that the banned books are on bestseller lists as if this proves that the goal of the book-banners failed. Maybe this is what they wanted: They want everyone talking about these books because this scares and motivates their voters.
A Black Woman Supreme Court Justice
Biden confirmed that he will appoint a black woman to the Supreme Court–and the right-wing lost its mind.
At first, I thought this was a joke.
For most of our history, Black women were disqualified in a stroke because of their race and gender. Finally appointing a Black woman is not an affront to equal justice under the law.
Of course, both Reagan and Trump promised to appoint a woman. Pointing out that fact didn’t stop the right-wing fury. Such comments kept coming:
There is, of course, a difference between a woman and a Black woman. It is that difference that brought out rabid racism on the right. Maybe Biden is a master strategist here. The most important (and reliable) Democratic voting bloc are Black voters. When they turn out, we win. Nothing like the appointment of a Black woman–and in-your-face right-wing racism just before the midterms to turn out a vital part of the Democratic coalition.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was asked how many women on the Supreme Court will be enough. She said: “When there are nine.” Her audience was startled. She explained: When there were nine men on the Court, nobody thought anything of that. So why not nine women?
“Freedom”
Here is what we’re up against: Yesterday I tore a sign off the traffic light near my house that said this: 
It’s easy to come up with catchy and appealing slogans when you’re not worried about truth and you are targeting people who resist nuance.
I posted this on Twitter and followers pointed out the irony of this sticker on a traffic sign:
Yes, the right-wing kooks in my neighborhood put stickers on public property. I do my public duty by tearing them down.
The owner of a business in my area put up a sign that said she was having trouble hiring people because of Biden’s socialist handouts. I asked her whether she offers benefits and a good wage. The conversation didn’t go well after that.
Ever since then, I’ve been doing her a great service: I’ve been making sure everyone I know goes to a different place of business. That way she won’t suffer from being shorthanded.
The only way we win this is to show up in large numbers where it matters, particularly for local elections.
John Eastman Lost
A federal judge shot down John Eastman’s attempt to block a Jan. 6 committee subpoena, saying his efforts could be counted among the “influencing factors” of the Jan. 6 attack. The decision is here.
John Eastman, remember, is the former law professor who wrote the memo on how Pence and the Republicans can overturn the election and install Trump as president. I wrote about his memo here.
The court begins (as always) by summarizing the facts. Despite the lack of evidence of fraud a significant portion of the population came to believe the election was tainted by fraud.
Despite the lack of any evidence of voter fraud or election tampering, “a significant portion of the population came to believe the election was tainted by fraud, disregard of state election law, misconduct by election officials and other factors.”
(We all know how that happened. So does the judge.)
If a plaintiff cannot show likelihood of success on the merits of any claim, the Court need not reach any of the other preliminary injunction factors.
Dr. Eastman argues that the subpoena to Chapman is invalid because the Select Committee is improperly constituted and seeks information without a legitimate legislative purpose. The Court finds that the Select Committee is acting within its authorit
The Court shoots this down and says yes, it is legitimate. (I talked about this particular argument here.)
“The Speaker shall appoint 13 Members to the Select Committee, 5 of whom shall be appointed after consultation with the minority leader.” H.R. Res. 503 § 2(a).
And:
The appointment process unquestionably included “consultation” with the Minority Leader in line with the plain language of the organizing Resolution.
Eastman then tried to argue that the committee lacks a legislative purpose for requesting these particular documents. The court says nope, there was a valid legislative purpose. The court then quotes Resolution 503:
.And here’s the part that has to hurt:
Dr. Eastman’s actions clearly fall within the bounds of an investigation into “the influencing factors that fomented such an attack on American representative democracy.
The court then lists the evidence that he had a part in fomenting an attack on American representative democracy. To begin with, he wrote that memo on how Pence could just declare Trump the winner. He also told legislators they could ignore election results and appoint their own electors. And he spoke at the pre-attack rally. (Notice that speaking at the rally is considered by the court to be helping to “foment” the attack. A lot of important people spoke at that rally.)
The court then gives legislative purposes for investigating Eastman, including amending the electoral count act so that future vice presidents don’t get the idea that they have the authority to reject electors.
Now we come to another argument raised in all of these lawsuits (including Trump): the committee is really doing law enforcement, which is executive branch work. The court said the fact that the investigation might uncover evidence of crimes is “not a valid objection to the investigation that it might possibly disclose crime or wrongdoing.”
I always thought this was a curious argument. Why should he care if the committee is overlapping with law enforcement unless he broke laws? Moreover, as the Court pointed out, the Surprem Court has held that a legitimate congressional investigation may turn up evidence of crimes.
The court also shot down Eastman’s First Amendment argument because he gave no specifics of how his rights would be infringed. Eastman also raised a Fourth Amendment defense, arguing that the subpoena was “so broad and indefinite as to exceed the lawfully authorized purpose” of the Select committee. Nope, said the court. It isn’t too broad.
Finally, Eastman argued that the subpoena should be rejected because some requested docs violate attorney-client privilege. The court rejected the argument but will let him try to assert privilege over individual documents.
Whew! Done! I hope you were taking notes. What? You didn’t know there would be a test?
