First, remember the Central Bucks (County) School Board? This is the school board north of Philadelphia that got caught up in the Moms for Liberty tide in 2021 and then flipped back in 2023 when the locals — good upstanding folks, which I know from personal experience — got sick of the crap and turned out the Moms for Liberty crowd and gave Democrats a 6-to-3 majority on the board. This is the place where there was a very suspicious sweetheart deal cut with the departing superintendent — about which there’s now ongoing litigation. It’s also the stomping ground of our good friend “Cool Mom” Clarice Schillinger.
Well, now it turns out that two of the remaining three right-wingers — Lisa Sciscio and Debra Cannon — are done. Like they’ve resigned. First, they verbally resigned on February 13th. And apparently you can’t do that. So now they’ve resigned in writing, which you can. A special meeting of the board will be held this Friday to officially accept those resignations.
We spend a lot of time here looking backwards toward legal accountability for what Donald Trump has already done: cheat in the presidential elections of 2016 and 2024, hoard classified documents, rape and defame E. Jean Carroll, engage in fraudulent business practices for years. But what is to come in a second Trump term remains more potentially threatening, dangerous, and long-lived than any and all Trump transgressions to date.
To its credit, some solid political reporting has been done on what to expect in a Trump II. I’ll credit some of our own coverage in that regard, too, including our January story on the plan to target the independence of independent agencies and our December story on how Trump is laying the groundwork to co-opt the military.
This morning Politico has a new piece out on the effort to infuse Trump II with the fervor of Christian nationalism. It serves as a good reminder that while Trump himself remains dangerous he also serves in an additional role as a conduit for all sorts of bad actors, conspiracists, grifters, ne’er-do-wells, hangers-on, con artists, extremists, and ideological wackadoodles.
Some of the names coming in to a second Trump administration under the Christian nationalism rubric are familiar: former Trump OMB director Russell Vought, former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, and former Trump official William Wolfe.
As Politico notes:
Freedom of religion would remain a protected right, but Vought and his ideological brethren would not shy from using their administration positions to promote Christian doctrine and imbue public policy with it, according to both people familiar with the matter, granted anonymity to avoid retaliation. He makes clear reference to human rights being defined by God, not man.
The range of policy matters implicated by Christian nationalist precepts is as vast as the array of hot button social issues that the GOP draws from to drum up “culture wars” of one kind or another. But for Christian nationalists, it really is warfare.
For his part, Vought has complained about the term “Christian nationalist” being bandied about pejoratively:
“’Christian nationalism’ is actually a rather benign and useful description for those who believe in both preserving our country’s Judeo-Christian heritage and making public policy decisions that are best for this country,” he wrote in Newsweek in 2021. “The term need not be subjected to such intense scorn due to misunderstanding or slander.”
Brian Beutler: Trump’s Huge Fraud Verdict Is A Watershed Moment for Accountability—And New Corruption
Trump’s Cash Crunch
With several massive judgments against him, including Friday’s $355 million hammer in the NY civil fraud case, Donald Trump is facing the tricky choice of either paying judgments or posting appeal bonds.
In addition to hearing the cases already scheduled for argument, the Court will release orders on Tuesday and “may” announce opinions on Wednesday. The orders list on Tuesday could involve the Court’s decision on how the presidential immunity appeal will be handled, and, as a bonus, the opinions on Wednesday could include a decision in the 14th Amendment case. Note that the operative word for both is “could.” The Supreme Court does not signal in advance what orders or decisions it is going to hand down, only giving us a heads-up to be prepared for them in any of its pending cases.
The Death Of Alexei Navalny
WaPo: In video statement, Navalny’s mother pleads with Putin to release her son’s body
CNN: Trump avoids condemning Russia for Navalny’s death
Ishaan Tharoor: In Navalny’s death, Putin cements a new era of Russian dictatorship
The Alabama Supreme Court ruled Friday that frozen embryos are people and someone can be held liable for destroying them, a decision that reproductive rights advocates say could imperil in vitro fertilization (IVF) and affect the hundreds of thousands of patients who depend on treatments like it each year.
2024 Ephemera
MI-Pres: Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) is urging Democrats to register a protest vote against President Joe Biden over his Israel-Gaza policy in the Democratic primary.
Abortion rights advocates are struggling to fund their 2024 ballot efforts.
CO-04: Rep. Lauren Boebert tries to convince her new district that she’s not all drama.
The Biden Age Stories Are Getting Old
Josh Marshall: No. Ezra Klein is Completely Wrong. Here’s Why.
In a concession to automakers and labor unions, the Biden administration intends to relax elements of one of its most ambitious strategies to combat climate change, limits on tailpipe emissions that are designed to get Americans to switch from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles, according to three people familiar with the plan.
Quote Of The Day
Some folks are burned out on outrage.
Rebecca Lee Funk, founder of Outrage, a progressive activism group
Princeton historian Kevin Kruse was riffing about Presidents Day and casually dropped that “in practice most Americans assume the holiday is one meant to honor all presidents.”
This is a thing? President Day has lost in the popular mind its connection to Washington and Lincoln, around whose birthdays the holiday was consolidated? For real?
Daddy died in August of 2017…it was a terrible and painful death and he was only 61 years old. His last words to me were absolutely unfathomable and embarrassing: He begged for forgiveness for his behavior and his Facebook posts, since 2015. The MAGA mentality he had displayed since Trump came down that escalator. The point of contention in our formerly close relationship—the reason we had barely spoken in two years.
Always Be Hawking
He will never fail to tell you exactly who he is …
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA – FEBRUARY 17: Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump delivers remarks while introducing a new line of signature shoes at Sneaker Con at the Philadelphia Convention Center on February 17, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Sneaker Con was founded in 2009 and is one of the oldest events celebrating sneakers, streetwear and urban culture. Trump addressed the event one day after a judge ordered the former president to pay $354 million in his New York civil fraud trial. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
A number of you have written in to ask about Ezra Klein’s audio essay “Democrats Have a Better Option Than Biden: It’s requires them to embrace an old-fashioned approach to winning a campaign.” Is it a good argument? Does it change the equation? What do I make of it? Just for the purposes of cutting to the chase: my answers are “not really,” “no” and “not much.” But Klein is a smart, articulate guy and sitting at the top of the Times op-ed page he has vast influence. So I wanted to break the argument down into its moving parts.
Klein begins his essay by assuring us that he likes Joe Biden and actually thinks he’s done a good job as President. This is to soften the reader up and dispel any notion that he’s got some anti-Biden axe to grind. I don’t think Klein is disingenuous or cynical about this. I think he believes it. He not only doesn’t think age has hindered Biden in doing the job as President so far; he doesn’t think it would in a second term either. The issue for him, Klein says, isn’t about being President but running for President: Biden has slowed down considerably, even from his last run in 2019–2020, and Biden simply is not up to running a vigorous campaign in which the candidate is an asset, not a liability.
Sixteen years ago, things looked bleak for Ed Buckham. The former chief of staff to the House Majority leader had been swept up in a wave of scandal, found himself under investigation by the FBI and, ultimately, was forced to close down his lucrative lobbying firm.
The lawsuit seeks US$10 billion in damages and a court order to force the companies named in the lawsuit – including Smith & Wesson, Colt, Glock, Beretta and Ruger – to change the way they do business. In January, a federal appeals court in Boston decided that the industry’s immunity shield, which so far has protected gun-makers from civil liability, does not apply to Mexico’s lawsuit.
As a legal scholar who has analyzed lawsuits against the gun industry for more than 25 years, I believe this decision to allow Mexico’s lawsuit to proceed could be a game changer. To understand why, let’s begin with some background about the federal law that protects the gun industry from civil lawsuits.
Gun industry immunity
In 2005, Congress passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which prohibits lawsuits against firearm manufacturers and sellers for injuries arising from criminal misuse of a gun.
Importantly, there are limits to this immunity shield. For example, it doesn’t protect a manufacturer or seller who “knowingly violated a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing” of a firearm. Mexico’s lawsuit alleges that U.S. gun-makers aided and abetted illegal weapons sales to gun traffickers in violation of federal law.
According to the lawsuit, the manufacturers intentionally design their weapons to be attractive to criminal organizations in Mexico by including features such as easy conversion to fully automatic fire, compatibility with high-capacity magazines and removable serial numbers.
Mexico also points to industry marketing that promises buyers a tactical military experience for civilians. And Mexico alleges that manufacturers distribute their products to dealers whom they know serve as transit points for illegal gunrunning through illegal straw sales, unlicensed sales at gun shows and online, and off-book sales disguised as inventory theft.
In short, Mexico claims that illegal gun trafficking isn’t just an unwanted byproduct of the industry’s design choices, marketing campaigns and distribution practices. Instead, according to the lawsuit, feeding demand for illegal weapons is central to the industry’s business model.
In response, the gun-makers insist that Mexico’s attempt to hold them legally responsible for the criminal activity of others is precisely the type of lawsuit that the federal immunity shield was designed to block. They argue that merely selling a product that someone later uses in a crime does not amount to a violation of federal law that would deprive a manufacturer of immunity. Additionally, the gun-makers assert that, even if Mexico’s lawsuit were not barred by the immunity law, they have no legal duty to prevent criminal violence that occurs outside the U.S.
The next legal steps
In January 2024, a federal appeals court in Massachusetts decided that Mexico’s allegations, if true, would deprive the gun-makers of immunity, and it sent the case back to trial court. Mexico now needs to produce evidence to prove its allegations that the industry is not only aware of but actively facilitates illegal gun trafficking.
Additionally, to win, Mexico will need to convince a Boston jury that the manufacturers’ design choices, marketing campaigns and distribution practices are closely enough connected to street crime in Mexico to consider the companies responsible for the problem. This is known as “proximate cause” in the law.
For their part, the gun-makers have asked the trial judge to put the case on hold while they pursue an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. However, the Supreme Court has been reluctant to weigh in on gun industry cases until they have reached their conclusion in the lower courts, where most of them are dismissed and a few have settled.
High stakes for the industry
If Mexico does win at trial, its demand for $10 billion in damages could drive several of the nation’s largest firearm manufacturers into bankruptcy. Even if the case were to settle for much less, a victory by Mexico would provide a template for a wave of future lawsuits that could change the way the gun industry operates.
Similar theories about dangerous product designs, irresponsible marketing and reckless distribution practices in opioid litigation have transformed the pharmaceutical industry. Civil lawsuits have forced the drugmakers to take public responsibility for a nationwide health crisis, overhaul the way they do business and pay billions of dollars in judgments and settlements.
Mexico’s lawsuit holds out the prospect that the gun industry could be next.
Fulton County Superior Court is holding the second day of its hearing on whether to disqualify District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting the Donald Trump election interference RICO case over allegations that she received an improper financial benefit via a relationship with an attorney she contracted to prosecute the case.
Let me share some numbers with you. And let me preface this by saying that I am also very concerned about how perceptions of Joe Biden’s age and mental acuity are going to affect the outcome of this election. Emerson just released a new presidential poll which has Donald Trump up by 1 point over Joe Biden. It’s 45% to 44%. That’s in line with polls over the last month or so which show a very slight move back in Biden’s direction. (All margin of error but across numerous polls means a touch more.) It’s also a “registered voters” screen. And there’s decent evidence that those polls are understating Biden’s strength. They also polled Harris, Whitmer and Newsom. They were down, respectively, 3 points, 12 points and 10 points. Trump’s support was basically identical in every case. 45% with Biden and Whitmer, 46% with Harris and Newsom.
Importantly, this poll is generally in line with other polls going back many months. Most others I’ve seen don’t show Whitmer and Newsom quite that far back. But they’re consistent in showing the other top tier contenders to be no stronger than Biden and usually weaker.
I’m tempted to say, TPM gets results! But it’s not quite that simple, at least in terms of mainstream chronology.
But it’s still super good. So hold tight.
Yesterday I brought you the news of the war time school board of Douglas County, Nevada, which culminates in the hiring of a new superintendent who has the kind of rap sheet that might normally get you expelled from a public high school as a student. All true!
But I’d missed the latest development.
As I explained, last week, the Douglas County School District school board formally offered the job of superintendent to John Ramirez, Jr., by a 4-to-3 vote, notwithstanding the fact that, according to this article at local news site Carson Now and other reports, he has a long list of bad acts, misuse of school credits cards, alleged frauds and multiple formal complaints of sexual harassment. Even more dirty laundry came out in subsequent days. Then on Tuesday of this week a new board meeting was held.
Do you have five minutes to answer a few questions? We aren’t offering any gift card drawings, but on your deathbed you will receive total consciousness – which is nice – and you will help us learn more about how we can improve and adapt TPM to this increasingly volatile news environment. All answers are confidential and used only for internal research. Thank you!
Through two years of war, the people of Ukraine have kept their pets close despite challenging conditions.
A Ukrainian serviceman and a husky during a training session
A serviceman from the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Ground Forces is hunkering down by a Husky as he trains to use a 120mm mortar on December 28, 2023. (Photo by Ukrinform/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Ukrainian soldier in a trench with his dog
A Ukrainian soldier is seen with his dog in a trench in his fighting position in the direction of Gorlivka in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine on November 26, 2023. (Photo by Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Ukrainian tank crew with a dog nearby
This photograph taken on December 13, 2023 shows a dog sitting in the snow next to a Ukrainian tank crew in a position near to the town of Bakhmut, Donetsk region, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by ANATOLII STEPANOV/AFP via Getty Images)
A woman caring for abandoned pets in a frontline city
Lida takes care of several abandoned cats and dogs as the Russia-Ukraine war continues in the frontline city of Huliaipole, Ukraine on May 11, 2023. The city is still heavy damaged and being bombed by planes. The city has lacked water and electrical power since March 2022. (Photo by Andre Alves/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Woman walking her dog past her destroyed building
Tatiana Chvalun, 70, walks her dog Buru past her residential building, which was destroyed as a result of shelling in March 2022, killing 54 people, in the town of Izyum, Kharkiv region. (Photo by ANATOLII STEPANOV/AFP via Getty Images)
A woman walks her dogs next to damaged buildings
A local resident walks with her dogs next to a damaged residential building in Chasiv Yar, eastern Ukraine, on January 5, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images)
A Ukrainian soldier seen befriending a stray dog
Ukrainian soldier Genadi is seen with a stray dog in front of an armored vehicle as they continue in the direction of Bakhmut on the Donetsk front line. (Photo by Muhammed Enes Yldrm/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
A Ukranian police officer with his sniffer dog at a checkpoint
Andriy Symchuk, National Police officer of Lviv region, stands with “Bars,” his sniffer dog, at a checkpoint in Izyum, Kharkiv region, on September 25, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images)
A girl sits with her dog and cat in a subway station
A girl sits with her dog and cat in the Dorohozhychi subway station which has been turned into a bomb shelter on March 02, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
A man and his dog sheltering in an underground metro station
A man and his dog are seen resting at the metro station in Kharkiv. Citizens in Kharkiv have been forced to adopt to a new life underground in metro stations, as the second biggest city in Ukraine now faces constant threat of Russian bombardment and airstrikes. (Photo by Alex Chan Tsz Yuk/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
A girl is seen with her puppy in a railway station
A girl affected by the Dnipro river flood evacuates to Lviv from the Kherson railway station with her puppy. Many people near the river shore lost their home under the waters after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam by explosives, on June 11, 2023. (Photo by Celestino Arce/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Army sergeant plays with a dog while on duty in the Bakhmut district
Sergeant Runa plays with a dog during combat duty on November 10, 2023, in the Bakhmut District of Ukraine. Ukrainian forces continue to fight to retake Bakhmut, which was captured by Russian forces in May, following a yearlong war battle. Over the summer, Ukraine regained territory north and south of Bakhmut but Russia has held the city itself. (Photo by Kostya Liberov/Libkos via Getty Images)
A Ukranian soldier seen with a dog along the front line
A Ukrainian soldier is seen with a dog along the front line south of Kharkiv, Ukraine on July 21, 2022. (Photo by Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
A Ukrainian soldier plays with dogs as he holds his position at the front line
A Ukrainian soldier plays with dogs as he holds his position at the front line near the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Horlivka, Donetsk region, on December 14, 2023. (Photo by ANATOLII STEPANOV/AFP via Getty Images)
A man holds his dog while standing in front of a house in ruins
Oleksandr Ivashchenko holds his dog in his arms and stands in front of a ruined house on February 1, 2023 in Bilohirka, Kherson Oblast, Ukraine. At the beginning of the full-scale war, due to the Russian occupation, all the inhabitants of the village of Bilohirka in the Kherson Oblast, numbering up to a hundred, left. The Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated the settlement in September 2022, but the people have nowhere to return to — Russian shells destroyed all the houses. (Photo by Yurii Tynnyi/Suspilne Ukraine/JSC “UA:PBC”/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)
A woman and her dog asess the damage to their home following an attack
An elderly woman stands with her dog in her damaged house following a Russian shelling attack in Kherson in April 2023. (Photo by Aziz Karimov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
