Tennessee Lobbyists Oppose New Lifesaving Exceptions In Abortion Ban

Posted on by John Light

This story first appeared at ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

In Tennessee, Republican lawmakers are considering whether patients should be forced to continue dangerous pregnancies, even while miscarrying, under the state’s abortion ban — and how close to risking death such patients need to be before a doctor can legally intervene.

At a legislative hearing last week, a lobbyist who played a dominant role in crafting the state’s abortion legislation made his preference clear: A pregnant patient should be in the process of an urgent emergency, such as bleeding out, before they can receive abortion care.

Some pregnancy complications “work themselves out,” Will Brewer, who represents the local affiliate of the anti-abortion organization National Right to Life, told a majority-male panel of lawmakers Feb. 14. When faced with a patient’s high-risk condition, doctors should be required to “pause and wait this out and see how it goes.”

Top Republicans like Gov. Bill Lee have defended the state’s abortion law, one of the strictest in the country, as providing “maximum protection possible for both mother and child.” But currently, the ban has no explicit exceptions, not even for the pregnant patient’s health.

It only includes an “affirmative defense” for emergencies, a rare legal mechanism that means the burden is on the doctor to prove abortion care was necessary because the patient risked death or irreversible impairment to a major bodily function.

The penalties for getting it wrong are three to 10 years in prison and up to $15,000 in fines. Doctors could expect to lose their medical license just for being charged. Concern over how the unprecedented law will be interpreted by prosecutors and the courts has already resulted in patients with high-risk conditions having to rush across state lines for care.

Some Republicans are proposing a modest change. An amendment to the law introduced in the House Population Health Subcommittee last week would remove the affirmative defense and clarify that it is not a crime to terminate a pregnancy to prevent an emergency that threatens the pregnant patient’s life or health, among other provisions.

“No one wants to tell their spouse, child or loved one that their life is not important in a medical emergency as you watch them die when they could have been saved,” said Republican Rep. Esther Helton-Haynes, a nurse and the bill’s sponsor.

But the word “prevent” is a sticking point for the anti-abortion groups who wrote the law.

“That would mean that the emergency hasn’t even occurred yet,” Brewer told the committee. He made a distinction between immediate, urgent emergencies — “A patient comes into the ER bleeding out” — and what he calls “quasi-elective” abortions.

Brewer, who has no medical experience, defined those as “abortions that aren’t necessary to be done in the moment but are still performed in an effort to prevent a future medical emergency.” He called for an “objective” standard.

When reached for comment, Brewer said his statements as summarized by ProPublica had been mischaracterized but did not provide additional details. “Ending the life of the baby should not be used as treatment for non-life-threatening conditions or to prevent some unknown possibility in the future,” he said. He did not respond to follow-up questions seeking clarification.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said laws that try to limit or define medical exceptions are dangerous because they interfere with a doctor’s ability to assess fast-moving health indicators in unpredictable situations and don’t account for people’s different thresholds for risk.

Kim Fortner, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist practicing in Tennessee for more than 20 years, testified to the committee and pushed back on Brewer’s characterizations. She described a patient she saw recently whose water broke too early — the fetus still had a heartbeat, but there was virtually no chance it would survive and a very high risk the patient would get an infection.

But because of the law, the woman was sent home without the option of abortion care. She came back with emergency bleeding and sepsis, a life-threatening infection.

“It is not always so clear, and things don’t always just work themselves out,” Fortner said. “It is a significant, in my mind, misuse of resources, if she did not need to have six units of blood that could have gone to the trauma victim or the gunshot wound. Blood is a limited resource. Just because she can wait and come back in and she still lives to talk about it today — one, that won’t always happen, and two, it also is a significant misuse of an ICU bed. It is a preventable occurrence.”

Andy Farmer, a Republican state representative, agreed with her.

“These things need to be addressed early on,” he said, adding that he didn’t want doctors to feel they needed to consult a lawyer before offering care that could stop a condition from progressing into an emergency.

Brewer, however, said he believed giving doctors that kind of power would be too subjective. “Once one doctor is let off the hook in a criminal trial, it would be open season for other doctors who wanted to perform bad faith terminations,” he said.

Brewer’s position appears to be out of step with public opinion on abortion, even in a deeply red state. A recent poll found about 75% of Tennesseans support abortion exceptions, including for pregnancies caused by rape and incest.

Yet his organization exerts outsize influence on Republican state politics. Tennessee Right to Life issues an annual scorecard rating lawmakers on their fealty to “pro-life” positions and plows money into primary campaigns to unseat candidates viewed as insufficiently loyal. Already, they retracted the endorsement of one Republican lawmaker who publicly advocated for clear medical exceptions.

Signs of frustration emerged over the course of the hearing as lawmakers grilled Brewer on how his preferred positions may harm pregnant patients and accused him of trying to intimidate legislators.

“You’ve made a statement that you are fine with the current trigger law as it is, and nothing more needs to be done,” said Republican state Rep. Sabi Kumar, a retired surgeon, referring to the state’s abortion ban. “Did you believe that?”

Brewer responded: “That is our most preferential position, although we would accept an objective standard.”

Kumar said he was surprised Brewer did not appear to be taking into account other changes the bill addresses that are not in the current law, such as exceptions for cases of fatal fetal anomalies, where a baby is not expected to survive, and ectopic pregnancies, which implant outside the uterine cavity, are non-viable and can lead to rupture and death.

“Those things need to be corrected,” he said. “In the face of that, it is difficult for you to say that that is your preferential thing.”

Kumar also asked Brewer to consider the plight of doctors. Physicians carry malpractice insurance, but Kumar noted it doesn’t cover costs associated with criminal charges, which can be financially ruinous. Kumar didn’t think they should be threatened with prison time for acting to avoid an emergency.

“I would have liked to see you, as a friend, be as concerned about a physician who was under that degree of emotional stress and pressure, trying to save the life of a baby and worried about being prosecuted,” he said. “I would have liked you to be gushing with sympathy for that.”

He and others pointed out that the bill’s changes would not affect the vast majority of pregnancies, where abortion would continue to be outlawed. The bill explicitly states abortions are prohibited for mental health reasons, such as a patient threatening suicide, and it has no provisions allowing abortion for pregnancies due to rape or incest.

But Brewer suggested that lawmakers who vote in support of the bill might stand to lose the endorsement of Tennessee Right to Life.

“I would not consider this a pro-life law,” Brewer said. “And in discussions with our [political action committee], they have informed me that they would score this negatively for those members that wish to vote for it.”

Brewer’s invocation of the anti-abortion group’s scorecard provoked a strong response. As the hearing wrapped up, Tennessee’s House speaker, Cameron Sexton, appeared in the chamber.

“Something happened that I’ve never experienced in my time down here, which was somebody on a committee testifying tried to intimidate our members by telling them they’re gonna score them a vote,” he said. “You can have those conversations in your room, you can have those conversations in email. But to do it in the committee — to try to intimidate this committee to go a certain direction — is uncalled for.”

The rare public rebuke of an anti-abortion activist by a top Republican lawmaker may be a sign of growing GOP support for the modest amendments to the law. However, the bill’s path is not guaranteed. It will need to pass in three more committees before reaching final votes in the state’s House and Senate.

Republican state Rep. Bryan Terry’s reaction provided a preview of potential challenges ahead. He was the only member of the committee to vote against the amendment, and he leads the House Health Subcommittee, where the bill is headed next week.

In an email to ProPublica, Terry said that he does want to see changes to the law, but that the word “prevent” would need to be removed or redefined in the measure before he could consider voting for it.

“There are a multitude of medical emergencies that can occur during a pregnancy, but they usually never materialize,” Terry, who is an anesthesiologist, said. “A concern with the current amendment language is that an abortion could be performed in an instance when it wasn’t ‘medically necessary treatment.’”

ProPublica followed up to ask if he would consider conditions such as premature rupture of membranes, preeclampsia, cancer or heart conditions “medically necessary” reasons for abortions. He did not respond.

Three days after the hearing, Tennessee Right to Life sent a “legislative alert” obtained by ProPublica to its members, calling on them to oppose the bill at the next hearing.

The email described changes in the bill as “loopholes” making the current law “unenforceable.”

“Tragically, some pro-life legislators are currently supporting this bill,” the email read. Below, it listed the nine lawmakers who voted in favor of it.

The Idea Of The Lone, Violent White Extremist Is A Myth, And It’s Dangerous

Posted on by John Light

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.

On Feb. 15, 2023, a judge informed Payton Gendron — a white 19-year-old who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo Tops market in 2022 — that “You will never see the light of day as a free man ever again.”

The week before, Patrick Crusius — a white 24-year-old who gunned down 23 people at an El Paso Walmart in 2019 — received 90 consecutive life sentences.

The threat of domestic terrorism remains high in the United States — especially the danger posed by white power extremists, many of whom believe white people are being “replaced” by people of color.

I am a scholar of political violence and extremism and wrote about these beliefs in a 2021 book, “It Can Happen Here: White Power and the Rising Threat of Genocide in the US.” I think it’s important to understand the lessons that can be learned from events like the Buffalo and El Paso mass shootings.

After decades of research on numerous attacks that have left scores dead, we have learned that extremists are almost always part of a pack, not lone wolves. But the myth of the lone wolf shooter remains tenacious, reappearing in media coverage after almost every mass shooting or act of far-right extremist violence. Because this myth misdirects people from the actual causes of extremist violence, it impedes society’s ability to prevent attacks.

The vast majority of far-right extremists are, in fact, otherwise ordinary men and women. They live in rural areas, suburbs and cities. They are students and working professionals. And they believe their extremist cause is justified. This point was illustrated by the spectrum of participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.

The lone wolf extremist myth is dangerous

FBI Director Christopher Wray said in August 2022 that the nation’s top threat comes from far-right extremist “lone actors” — who, he explained, work alone, instead of “as part of a large group.”

Wray is wrong, and the myth of the lone wolf extremist — the mistaken idea that violent extremists largely act alone — continues to directly inform research, law enforcement and the popular imagination.

I think that Wray’s focus on extremism is much needed and long overdue. However, his line of thinking is dangerous and misleading. By focusing on individuals or small groups, it overlooks broader networks and long-term dangers and so can impede efforts to combat far-right extremist violence — which Wray has singled out as the country’s most lethal domestic threat.

Not a new trend

Far-right extremists may physically carry out an attack alone or as part of a small group of people, but they are almost always networked and identify with larger groups and causes.

This was true long before the social media age. Take Timothy McVeigh. He is often depicted as the archetypal lone wolf madman who blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building in 1995.

In fact, McVeigh was part of a pack. He had accomplices and was connected across the far-right extremist landscape.

The same is true of Gendron and Crusius, who were also characterized in media coverage as lone wolves.

“He talked about how he didn’t like school because he didn’t have friends. He would say he was lonely,” a classmate of Gendron said shortly after Gendron carried out the mass shooting.

Both were active on far-right extremist social media platforms and posted manifestos before their attacks. Gendron’s manifesto discusses how he was radicalized on the dark web and inspired to attack after watching videos of Brenton Tarrant’s 2019 massacre of 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Almost a quarter of Gendron’s manifesto is directly taken from Tarrant’s, which was titled “The Great Replacement.” This fear of white replacement, centered around perceived white demographic decline, was also a motive for Crusius. His manifesto pays homage to Tarrant, before explaining his attack was “a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

The lone wolf myth also suggests that extremists are abnormal deviants with anti-social personalities.

After Gendron’s rampage, for example, New York Attorney General Letitia James called him a “sick, demented individual.” Crusius, in turn, was described by the White House and news articles as “evil,” “psychotic” and an “anti-social loner.”

The vast majority of far-right extremists are, in fact, otherwise ordinary men and women. They live in rural areas, suburbs and cities. They are students and working professionals. And they believe their extremist cause is justified. This point was illustrated by the spectrum of participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.

Two people face towards a large red brick building and a small pile of flowers, balloons and an American flag.
People hug at a memorial outside the Walmart in El Paso, Texas, where a shooter killed 23 people in 2019. Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images

Tracing the lone wolf mythology

How did the lone-wolf metaphor come to misinform the public’s view of extremists, and why is it so tenacious?

Part of the answer is linked to white supremacist Louis Beam, who wrote the essay “Leaderless Resistance” in 1983. In it, he called for far-right extremists to act individually or in small groups that couldn’t be traced up a chain of command. According to his lawyer, McVeigh was one of those influenced by Beam’s call.

After Beam formulated this idea, both far-right extremists and law enforcement increasingly used the lone wolf term. In 1998, the FBI even mounted an “Operation Lone Wolf” to investigate a West Coast white supremacist cell.

The 9/11 terrorist attacks further turned U.S. attention to Islamic militant “lone wolves.” A decade later, the term became mainstream.

And so it was not a surprise when, after the Buffalo shooting, New York State Senator James Sanders said, “Although this is probably a lone-wolf incident, this is not the first mass shooting we have seen, and sadly it will not be the last.”

The tenacity of the lone wolf myth has several sources. It’s convenient — evocative and powerful enough to draw and keep people’s attention.

By using this term, which individualizes extremism, law enforcement officials may also depoliticize their work. Instead of focusing on movements like white nationalism that have sympathizers in the various levels of government, from sheriffs to senators, they focus on individuals.

The lone wolf extremist myth diverts from what should be the focus of deterrence efforts: understanding how far-right extremists network, organize and, as the Jan. 6 insurrection showed, build coalitions across diverse groups, especially through the use of social media.

Such understanding provides a basis for developing long-term strategies to prevent extremists like Gendron and Crusius from carrying out more violent attacks.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Not Just A Crypto Scam: SBF Accused Of Massive Campaign Finance Violations, Too

Posted on by David Kurtz

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

Biggest Campaign Finance Case In Decades

We learned back in December that Sam Bankman-Fried was accused of more than just crypto-related scamming. A single count of the original indictment alleged significant campaign finance violations. But a superseding indictment publicly released yesterday offered considerable new detail about that aspect of the case, including the use of straw donors and corporate funds.

The new information makes this one of the largest campaign finance cases in recent decades. Consider the numbers from the superseding indictment: “over 300 political contributions, totaling tens of millions of dollars.”

The gist of the new allegations is that while SBF was known before his crypto exchange FTX came crashing down as a major Democratic donor (the sixth largest, with nearly $36 million contributed in the 2022 cycle), he was also allegedly giving to Republicans and “left-leaning causes” in significant amounts using corporate funds but through straw donors to keep it hidden from the public.

SBF, 30, had already admitted as much after the FTX collapse, as Mother Jones notes:

“All my Republican donations were dark,” Bankman-Fried said in an interview after FTX’s collapse. “The reason was not for regulatory reasons, it’s because reporters freak the fuck out if you donate to Republicans. They’re all super-liberal, and I didn’t want to have that fight.”

Prosecutors alleged that SBF designated one FTX executive as a donor to liberal causes and candidates, and another FTX executive as a conservative counterpart. The NYT points fingers, but delicately:

Besides Mr. Bankman-Fried, the two largest contributors to political campaigns who worked at FTX were Nishad Singh and Ryan Salame. Neither has been charged with any wrongdoing, according to campaign finance records. Mr. Singh, like Mr. Bankman-Fried, largely contributed to Democratic candidates and Mr. Salame mainly to Republican candidates.

The new indictment, while adding some new details, still leaves a lot out:

  • Who were the recipients of SBF’s allegedly illegal political contributions?
  • How much in total did SBF secretly contribute?
  • Who exactly were the straw donors?

One hint of the scope of illegal giving comes up obliquely in the new indictment:

The internal Alameda spreadsheets, however, “noted over $100 million in political contributions, even though FEC records reflect no political contributions by Alameda for the 2022 midterm elections to candidates or PACs.”

For your additional reading pleasure:

Mother Jones: Sam Bankman-Fried Was Indicted for Hundreds of Illegal Campaign Donations. Who Else Knew?

Law&Crime: Sam Bankman-Fried’s secret campaign donation strategy was ‘woke s***’ for liberals and ‘dark’ money for GOP, indictment says

NYT: New Details Shed Light on FTX’s Campaign Contributions

Latest On the Jack Smith Investigations

A few new developments for those tracking Special Counsel Jack Smith closely:

  • Smith has filed a motion to compel former Vice President Mike Pence to testify to a DC grand jury investigating 2020 election subversion. Notably, it appears to be in response to former President Trump’s legal team raising executive privilege to block Pence’s testimony, not Pence’s own announced gambit to avoid testifying using the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause.
  • The DC Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on whether the Speech or Debate Clause bars the Justice Department from accessing the contents of the phone of Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA). It didn’t go particularly well for the Justice Department.
  • The chief district judge in DC declined a media request to unseal some of the secret legal proceedings involving the Jan. 6 grand jury and Trump’s claims of executive privilege.
  • New details on one subset of classified materials ultimately found at Mar-a-Lago, via The Guardian.

Trump Win in 2024 Will Unleash A Wave Of Retributions

A taste of what’s to come:

A conservative non-profit group allied with former President Donald Trump urged “Hill staffers and their colleagues” to cut off meetings with any former Jan. 6 committee staffers who have since joined firms that lobby.

In a letter sent to hundreds of recipients on the Hill, the dark money group American Accountability Foundation listed the names of the former committee staffers and their titles — along with their new employers and links to their firms’ clients — all of whom they urged to blacklist.

Strzok And Page May Get To Depose Trump And Wray

The illicit affair between the two senior FBI figures played prominently in Trump’s attacks on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Peter Strzok and Lisa Page have each filed separate lawsuits against the government arising from the that whole fiasco, and they’re one step closer now to being able to depose former President Trump and FBI Director Chris Wray.

Steven Bannon Sued By His Own Lawyer

A law firm that represented Steve Bannon in two of his federal prosecutions claims he still owes it nearly half a million dollars for services rendered.

Intolerable

Joyce Vance on former Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich deplorable conduct in pushing the Big Lie and burying his office’s own investigation debunking it.

Carlos Watson Arrested And Charged With Fraud

A year and a half after Ben Smith’s bombshell media column (“bombshell media column” is something no one has ever typed, right?), Ozy Media and CEO Carlos Watson have been charged with fraud in a federal indictment in Brooklyn.

Josh Marshall On Pence 2024

Simon Rosenberg Is Leaving NDN

Ron Brownstein: Why This Democratic Strategist Walked Away

Quite A Map

Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know

‘​​It Was An International Conspiracy’: Lawsuit Follows A Half Century Of Pain And Questions For Malcolm X’s Family

Posted on by Hunter Walker

A planned lawsuit from the family of slain civil rights leader Malcolm X follows decades of trauma and lingering questions for his daughters. The $100 million wrongful death suit was announced on Tuesday by attorney Ben Crump, who said he was providing “formal notice” to the City and State of New York, the FBI, and the CIA, as well as other federal agencies. 

“For this great injustice, we will be filing a wrongful death lawsuit against these governmental entities for $100 million on behalf of his daughters that are coming forward,” Crump said. “But there is no measure of money, there is no measure of explanation that they could ever offer this family. The only thing they can do is try to right a historic wrong, not just for his family, but for his people and this world. We have to right this historic wrong.”

Malcolm X was shot and killed on February 21, 1965 at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City. Multiple gunmen were involved in the assassination. Three men were arrested and convicted of taking part. Two of them have since been exonerated. 

Crump announced the lawsuit at The Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center, which is inside the former ballroom. Crump was flanked by two of Malcolm X’s daughters, Ilyasah and Qubilah Shabazz, who would be among the plaintiffs in the suit. 

Qubilah, who has rarely spoken to the press, did speak with me in 2010 as I was completing a Columbia University School of Journalism master’s thesis project on the assassination. She discussed the experience of losing her father and her persistent belief that a government conspiracy was behind his death. 

“I have never gotten over it. My father loved me and that was taken from me. My life was a total nightmare after he died,” Qubilah said in an interview for the project, which has not previously been published outside of the university. 

During a brief telephone conversation conducted during the 2010 research project, another one of Malcolm X’s daughters, Gamilah Shabazz, who Crump also identified as one of the plaintiffs, suggested she too believed there were larger forces behind her father’s death before declining to comment further. 

“You know, it was an international conspiracy,” Gamilah said. 

Ilyasah Shabazz, another one of Malcolm X’s daughters who is bringing the suit, is the only member of his family who spoke at Crump’s press conference. Her family is looking for “the truth” and to put an end to their “unanswered questions,” she said. 

“We want justice served for our father,” said Ilyasah, who did not immediately respond to an interview request for this story.  

Qubilah, who was four years old when her father was killed, said during her 2010 interview with me that she “blocked out a lot” for a year or two after his death and “didn’t cry for a few years” until seeing a photo of his body brought the memories flooding back.

“My father was the soft, caring, playful parent… my father never gave us speeches at home, he gave us love,” Qubilah said. “When he died, that was all gone.”

Qubilah declined to comment on record for this story. Gamilah could not be reached.

Police look down from the top of a nearby building (background) as Malcolm X addresses a Black Muslim rally in Harlem. (Getty Images)

It’s Not Just About The Triggermen

There are extensive questions about Malcolm X’s killing. Only one man, who was named Talmadge Hayer, has admitted to shooting Malcolm X. Hayer, who later became known as Mujahid Halim, was arrested at the scene of the crime after being shot in the thigh by one of Malcolm X’s bodyguards. Over the years, witnesses have offered conflicting accounts of what happened that day, stating that there were anywhere from three to five people involved in the shooting.

Two other men, Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson, were convicted along with Hayer in 1966 and subsequently sentenced to life in prison. All three men were members of the Nation of Islam, a Black Muslim group that Malcolm X helped lead in the first years of his political career. Both Butler and Johnson consistently maintained their innocence, but they were not released from prison until the 1980s. Hayer, who was paroled in 2010, confessed to taking part in the killing. However, he said on multiple occasions that the other two men convicted alongside him were innocent and claimed he had four other accomplices.  

In November 2021, following a joint investigation conducted by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and lawyers for the two men, Butler and Johnson, who are now known as Muhammad Abdul Aziz and Khalil Islam, had their convictions thrown out. Former Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance launched the investigation after a Netflix documentary series released between 2019 and 2020 explored the case. According to the New York Times, investigators ultimately determined prosecutors, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the New York City Police Department withheld exculpatory evidence and “failed to disclose the presence of undercover officers in the ballroom at the time of the shooting.”

At the press conference announcing the lawsuit, Crump said it was prompted by the exonerations. Crump, who did not immediately respond to requests for comment on this story, also suggested he has uncovered further evidence.

“The district attorney’s office in the city … admitted that these gentlemen were wrongfully convicted and that there was exculpatory evidence that would have exonerated them that they did not release or reveal,” Crump said. “There are many things that will be put forth in our lawsuit that speaks to this factual evidence, things that many people have speculated over the decades, but were not substantiated. We believe that now it could be substantiated based on the recent exonerations.”

Crump, who has become a prominent civil rights leader in his own right while seeking civil judgments for Black people in high profile cases of alleged injustice, also said his team will use the suit to pursue more new evidence. 

“We plan on taking depositions of many of the figures that were involved — either rightfully or wrongfully — in the assassination of Malcolm X. It’s not just about the triggermen. It’s also about those who conspired with the triggermen to do this dastardly deed that killed that 39-year-old young father,” Crump said, later adding, “We believe we’ll be able with the force of law to subpoena and depose any individual that has relevant information. That’s what has never happened in the aftermath of the assassination of Malcolm X.” 

In response to a question from a reporter, Crump said he believed government agencies were involved in Malcolm X’s death. 

“The conspiracy included many, many individuals and many, many government entities … and many affiliates of those agencies,” Crump said.

Crump specifically named the FBI and its former director J. Edgar Hoover, who spearheaded aggressive efforts to surveil and sabotage civil rights activists. Malcolm X’s FBI file, which has been partially declassified, shows that, during his life, Malcolm X was monitored by the bureau and a slew of other government agencies including the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department, Army, Air Force, and Naval Intelligence Units, the Department of Justice, the Secret Service, and several local police departments including the NYPD. 

Crowds and police officers stand outside the Audubon Ballroom. (Getty Images)

Staring At The Fire

Malcolm X was killed shortly after a bitter break with his former allies in the Nation of Islam. In his autobiography, which was originally published in the year before his death, Malcolm X wrote about how he was a “hustler” as a young man. He described selling drugs and engaging in burglaries. He joined the Nation of Islam during a stint in prison between 1946 and 1952. Upon his release, he rose to become one of the top evangelists for the religion, which blended the Koran and Black nationalist ideology. However, by the late 1950s, Malcolm X began to drift apart from the Nation of Islam’s leader, Elijah Muhammad. 

In March 1964, Malcolm X formally broke away from the Nation of Islam. He went on to found two organizations of his own: Muslim Mosque Incorporated and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. MMI was a religious organization while the OAAU was focused on self-defense programs and presenting the concerns of Black Americans in front of the United Nations. The 11 months between Malcolm X’s departure from the Nation of Islam and his death were marked by constant and escalating infighting between his allies and Elijah Muhammad’s inner circle. Both Muhammad and Malcolm X claimed the other threatened their life through intermediaries.

On February 14, 1965, a week before his death, the threats turned to violence. Unidentified assailants threw a molotov cocktail at Malcolm X’s home in Queens, New York while he and his family slept. Quibilah Shabazz told me she was awoken by the blaze. 

“I woke up because I’m hot, and I open my eyes, and there are flames coming through the window,” she said. 

“I thought it was kind of neat to see fire flying through the window, and as I’m staring at the fire, some sparks hit me in the left eye and that’s when I decided to call for my father,” Qubilah recounted. 

According to Qubilah, Malcolm, who was wearing “his long johns,” grabbed his family and his rifle and ran out into the driveway. As his wife and daughters fled to a neighbor’s house, Qubilah said Malcolm kept watch outside, gun in hand. 

“If that Molotov cocktail had gone through the window rather than hitting my house and dropping, it would have hit my bed,” said Qubilah. 

In the week following the firebombing, Malcolm X’s wife, Betty Shabazz, who was pregnant, and her daughters stayed with family friends. Malcolm X moved between hotels to avoid detection. 

On the day Malcolm X was shot, he appeared at an OAAU rally at the Audubon. Due to the explosive climate, women and children were advised not to come to the Audubon rally. However, Qubilah Shabazz said that, shortly before he was due to appear, Malcolm called his wife, Betty, and asked her to bring the other four children to see him speak. Qubilah isn’t sure why he made this last-minute request. 

“No one knows why he changed his mind,” said Qubilah. “He probably wanted to see his family one last time.” 

Malcolm X’s wife and daughters were sitting in the ballroom when the shots rang out. 

“It was total mayhem,” Qubilah said, “I can remember there being chairs knocked over, people rushing to get out of there.” 

Policemen who were stationed across the street at Presbyterian Hospital did not secure the scene, even as Malcolm X’s bodyguards implored them to stop the assassins from escaping. Despite the large crowd, NYPD officers only took three witness statements.

Betty Shabazz and her attorney, Percy Sutton, leave the morgue at Bellevue Hospital in New York after identifying the body of her husband. (Getty Images)

In July 1995, Qubilah was arrested and charged with attempting to hire a hitman to kill Louis Farrakhan, who was one of Elijah Muhammad’s top lieutenants and now heads the Nation of Islam. Qubilah maintained the government was trying to frame her. Farrakhan, who has apologized to Malcolm X’s family for contributing to the volatile climate that led to Malcolm X’s death, supported Qubilah’s defense. Farrakhan’s position and the government’s reliance on a criminal informant led to the charges against Quibilah being dropped. 

For her part, in the 2010 interviews, Qubilah said she believed “the government” was “behind” her father’s killing. However, she also suspected the people who wanted Malcolm X dead had help from inside of his inner circle. 

“I want to know who actually facilitated it,” Qubilah said at the time. 

While she and her sisters have deep questions about the circumstances of her father’s killing, as of 2010, Qubilah doubted she would ever get answers. 

“I can’t see that there will ever be any closure on this. The powers that be, I think they believed my father got what he deserved,” Qubilah said, later adding, “Justice has definitely not been done.”

Now, after more than half a century, that may be about to change. 

A Trump-DeSantis Origin Story

Posted on by Josh Marshall

A friend sent me an article from back in March 2016 which provides some interesting perspective on the current resurgence of Social Security politics and the various Republicans vying to be the “post-Trump” candidate for President while Trump refuses to leave the stage. It also has particular relevance to Ron DeSantis, which we’ll get to in a moment.

But first some context.

The piece is a Times article from March 2016. So it is early in the Trump takeover of the GOP but when it still wasn’t entirely clear he’d be able to pull it off. The subtext of the article is that while many Republicans focused either on the power of Trump’s chaotic personality or the red meat of immigrant bans and xenophobia to explain his success, there was something else in the mix. There was a whole population of people who had closed the door on ever supporting Democrats but were left entirely cold by the GOP’s reflexive focus on tax cuts, free trade and cutting “entitlements.”

Continue reading “A Trump-DeSantis Origin Story” →

DeSantis Begins Courting Another Breed Of Trump Supporter

Posted on by Kaila Philo

As the 2024 presidential race kicks off, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has begun to soft launch his own campaign. And he appears to be testing the waters of a tempestuous Red sea to see if he can catch the big fish: each faction of former president Donald Trump’s fanbase.

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Oath Keeper Alaska Rep Unanimously Censured By Colleagues Over Abused Children Remarks

Posted on by Emine Yücel

State Rep. David Eastman (R), a member of the Oath Keepers, was formally reprimanded with a censure Wednesday by the Alaska House of Representatives for asking whether there could be economic benefits to the deaths of abused children.

The vote was 35-1 with Eastman being the only one to vote no.

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Scott Perry Fights To Block DOJ From Accessing His Cell Phone

Posted on by Josh Kovensky

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing arguments on Thursday over whether to allow federal prosecutors to access the cell phone of Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA).

Continue reading “Scott Perry Fights To Block DOJ From Accessing His Cell Phone” →