Progressives Every Day: Living Above the Law
Progressives Every Day: Living Above the Law
In Wisconsin, in D.C., in North Carolina...
Welcome to the Friday night edition of Progressives Everywhere. Chaos reigns!
Tonight’s stories have a running theme: Republicans operating as if they are above the law. From Donald Trump’s commutation of Roger Stone’s prison sentence to the decisions of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, a racist small-city mayor in North Carolina, and new guidance for ICE, we’re seeing a total Republican disregard for the rule of law (let alone decency and equality) at every level of government. It’s a scary time, especially when senior Democratic leadership offers nothing but limp press releases and inert half-hearted attempts at oversight.
It’s up to us to fight back against both of these very real threats to the future of democracy, which may not have long if we aren’t successful this fall.
OK, enough happy talk, let’s get to the news!
The racist North Carolina mayor strikes again
Earlier this week, I relayed the sad saga of the small city of Graham, North Carolina and its mayor’s assault on free speech. Things looked to have calmed down there for a moment, but on Friday afternoon, Mayor Jerry Peterman decided to stir things up and set the stage for a very stressful, potentially violent weekend.
On June 25, Peterman issued an emergency ordinance that functionally banned all protests in the city. He did it to protect a Confederate monument at the Alamance County Courthouse that had drawn a smattering of protestors from the local Black Lives Matter movement, but instead of snuffing out the activists, he earned himself a lawsuit and state-wide attention. While Peterman pulled back the ban on July 1st, the ACLU filed a lawsuit in hopes of striking down an older ordinance that required protestors to get permits for public activity at least 24 hours in advance. A judge this week issued a restraining order against the restrictive permit process, which often sees protestors denied their right to peacefully assemble, suspending the requirement until a court hearing on July 20th.
Peterman didn’t fight the restraining order, but instead, decided on Friday to just ignore it entirely. Late this afternoon, Peterman issued a new State of Emergency declaration that restricts access to the courthouse area, where protestors planned on congregating on Saturday morning. He also hired the lawyers who represent the fringe-right group ReOpen NC, who have been trying to force Gov. Roy Cooper to reopen the state’s economy even as COVID-19 cases there continue to rise.
I love it when people show you who they really are.
A Supreme Bummer in Wisconsin
While the decisions handed down by the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday were a mixed bag for Gov. Tony Evers, Friday’s big decision was nothing but bad news. The conservative-controlled court struck down three major changes Evers made to the state budget via veto in 2019, bucking decades of precedent.
Why the sudden change? Well, that’s entirely unclear — the court’s conservative justices couldn’t even settle on a single legal rationale for doing so.
The court’s ruling in veto case was unusual in that enough justices joined together to strike down three of his vetoes, but they failed to coalesce around a majority opinion that explained their rationale for doing so. Instead, the justices, as individuals or in pairs, authored an array of opinions, sometimes at odds with each other, explaining how they arrived at their decisions.
In a separate case, the court dismissed a lawsuit that sought to strike down vetoes enacted by his Republican predecessor, Gov. Scott Walker. Golly, imagine that!
Absentee ballot battles rage on
In other Wisconsin news, the US Postal Service announced that hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots sent for state’s April primary election either never made it to voters or couldn’t be counted due to issues with their postmarks. Earlier this week, I touched on the difficulties created by the massive increase in votes cast by mail this spring and summer, especially in states where laws governing the use of absentee ballot are generally more restrictive.
It’s essential that these problems are addressed before the November election, especially as COVID-19 continues to spike across the country. Unfortunately, in some states, they’re being treated more as features than bugs.
Take North Carolina, where the ACLU filed a lawsuit on Friday to block the state’s requirement that all absentee ballot envelopes be signed by a witness. Generally, the law is even more onerous, mandating two signatures, but the legislature temporarily halved that for this year’s elections. For some reason, they’ll acknowledge that it’s dangerous to come into close contact with two people during the pandemic, but think being near one person is just fine and dandy.
North Carolina is one of three states that normally mandate two witness signatures for mail-in ballots. The Supreme Court last week declined to overturn a ruling that affirmed Alabama’s double signature requirement, so the ACLU is smartly positioning its lawsuit to travel up to North Carolina’s state Supreme Court, which is dominated by liberal justices.
A new battle in Georgia
Georiga Gov. Brian Kemp continues to do everything in his power to maximize the number of coronavirus cases in his state.
This evening, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who was diagnosed with COVID-19 herself earlier this week, announced that she was rolling back the city’s re-opening, mandating mask-wearing, and advising its half a million people to stay home unless absolutely necessary. With Georgia reporting a sharp spike in cases on Friday, Bottoms chided the state for reopening in “a reckless manner.”
The jab must have really triggered the governor, because a few hours later, Kemp popped up on Twitter to reassert his legal right to risk as many lives as possible:
Good stuff, Brian. Very productive. Amazing leadership.
Primal Scream!
The biggest headline tonight is that President Trump commuted the sentence of his slapstick svengali, Roger Stone. Recent history is repeating itself once again: Trump indulges in comically inappropriate corruption, senior Democratic leaders issue outraged press releases, we tweet about it, and then literally nothing happens.
Yesterday, I wrote about how Rep. Richard Neal intentionally slow-walked the subpoena for Trump’s tax returns and refused to request them from state prosecutors, thereby more or less guaranteeing that we’re not going to see them until after the election. The ossified Democratic leadership hates to wield power — they haven’t even installed any oversight head for the CARES Act, which is sending trillions of dollars to corporations, no strings attached. I’m frankly terrified that Joe Biden will win the election in November and decide that, in the interest of “national unity,” decide to not pursue investigations of the corruption that is rotting our government.
If Democrats win in November and don’t go full-blown Nuremberg on Trump and his third-rate grifter terrorists, they’re going to go down in history as just as responsible for what’s happening right now.
Admittedly, whether Roger Stone serves time in prison isn’t our biggest issue, but consider the fact that the Trump administration just yesterday told judges that immigrants who are being detained by ICE should not be freed from the deplorable, COVID-racked conditions of the deportation agency’s jails. The inequality and hypocrisy know no bounds.
Quibis
Houston’s hospitals have a problem: They’re being overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases.
This may come as a shock, but Tucker Carlson’s head writer is an avowed white nationalist.
Support local journalism. These people are heroes.
Yeahhhhhh!
My friend Anthony Breznican has been the leading authority on the DIY Princess Bride remake. He’s one of the nicest and most genuine people I know (which is pretty impressive, considering he covers Hollywood for a living), making him the perfect person to write this sweet story about Carl Reiner’s final performance.
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