In Louisiana, a dark turn in the post-Roe wars signals danger ahead
A new development in Louisiana illustrates why this question is urgent and how it constitutes another major conflict defining the post-Roe world. It concerns a lawsuit by women’s health-care groups to halt Louisiana’s “trigger laws,” which criminalized abortion in the immediate wake of Roe being overturned.
Numerous health-care providers in Louisiana just filed affidavits in the case, describing why the trigger laws are such a menace. The affidavits, which were submitted Tuesday morning, argue that the state has passed multiple trigger laws, creating a mishmash of directives to health-care providers that are too vague to be actionable.
Scott Patterson / WSJ:
Jan. 6 Hearings to Examine Role Extremist Groups, White House Played in Capitol Attack
Next public hearings are likely to focus on the extent of ties between extremist groups and associates of Donald Trump
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol is expected to zero in on two overlapping areas of its probe in coming hearings: the extremist groups that participated in the attack and a minute-by-minute account of what took place inside the White House that day.
The committee in its previous hearings has largely focused on efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election by pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence, senior official in the Justice Department and state officials to take actions that would reverse the results.
In the coming weeks, the committee will turn its attention to Jan. 6 itself and the alleged ways that extremist groups planned for and executed the attack on Congress as it met to count the Electoral College votes, committee members have said. Members of two of those groups, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, both far-right organizations, have been charged with seditious conspiracy in federal courts. Most have pleaded not guilty.
Politico:
Despite rebukes, Trump’s legal brigade is thriving
Their claims were dismissed as baseless, but many attorneys have never faced discipline and have found new business as go-to MAGA lawyers.
In total, at least 16 lawyers who represented plaintiffs in five federal lawsuits promoting Trump’s baseless election fraud claims in the key battlegrounds of Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin and Arizona remain in good standing or have no record of disciplinary action with their respective bar associations or licensing. authorities, according to a POLITICO review.
Fourteen of them have since engaged in additional work in support of the election fraud conspiracies or conspiracists behind Trump’s attempt to remain in power despite losing the election to President Joe Biden. These include defending accused Jan. 6 rioters, Consulting for partisan election “audits” or partaking in advocacy or legal cases sowing doubts about the integrity of the nation’s elections, POLITICO found.
Amanda Carpenter / Bulwark:
Doug Mastriano’s Election-Takeover Plan
Stop the Steal is only a pretense for seizing control.
Those are only the highlights of what Mastriano has done in the past. But what about the future? People like Mastriano are never going to let Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss go. If anything, Trump’s “Stop the Steal” lies provide a pretext for actions intended to ensure MAGA types win in future elections.
How will they do it? Well, Mastriano has some ideas. (Well above and beyond hiring Trump’s throne-sniffing flack Jenna Ellis as his legal adviser.)
Although Mastriano evades scrutiny by blockading typical media interviews, with some help from his insurrection-friendly friends, he does not hesitate to talk about his plans when he feels comfortable. Put those snippets together, and it shows Mastriano has a pretty well-thought-out election takeover plan in mind.
His platform includes the following:
- loosening restrictions on poll watchers to make it easier to challenge votes;
- repealing vote-by-mail laws;
- appointing a fellow 2020 election-denier to be secretary of state who could enable him to decertify every voting machine “with a stroke of a pen”;
- forcing all Pennsylvania voters to re-register; and
- defunding the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
ABC:
2024 rumblings loom over 2022, from Newsom v. DeSantis to a rematch for Trump and Biden
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a Democrat who won his party’s primary last week, said in a statement on Monday that “grief will not bring the victims back, and prayers alone will not put a stop to the terror of rampant gun violence in our country. “
His Republican challenger, Trump-endorsed state Sen. Darren Bailey, called for the state legislature to convene in a special session. Bailey once supported a now-failed fringe resolution that would have separated Chicago from the rest of Illinois.
Tobe Jaffe / The American Prospect:
How Much Will the Abortion Police State Cost?
In addition to the obliteration of privacy and criminalization of women’s health, it’s a waste of money.
For now, the “War on Abortion” will be led, and paid for, by state governments. Some states, most infamously Texas, had already begun pumping in money to set up authoritarian anti-abortion programs before the Dobbs decision. Most prominently, the state established the so-called Alternatives to Abortion program in 2006. Through the program, the Texas state government currently sends $ 100 million in taxpayer dollars to Christian anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy centers,” which use deceptive tactics to talk pregnant people out of having an abortion. Until 2017, neither lawmakers nor the general public were able to access even basic information as to what these crisis pregnancy centers did with taxpayer money. Moreover, specific data about pregnancies, abortions, and the general well-being of patients as it relates to these centers remains elusive. What is known is that the budget for the Alternatives to Abortion program in Texas grows every year, as a percentage of the overall budget. As a University of Texas law student named Audrey Gow pointed out In 2020, while COVID decimated the Texas state budget for social spending, the Alternatives to Abortion program was left untouched.
Texas has also spent millions of dollars in recent years on abortion-related legal fees.
Bloomberg:
7 Things We Learned So Far From the Jan. 6th Hearings
With at least two more hearings, more surprises loom.
Trump knew he’d lost
A slew of testimony shows that even after top-level administration and campaign aides had accepted and directly told Trump that he’d lost the election, he persisted with public claims it had been stolen or rigged.
Election defense fund was ‘big rip-off’
Trump’s campaign raised at least $ 250 million from supporters claiming the money was to be used by an “election defense fund” in a battle to prove the election was stolen via voter fraud. But committee member Zoe Lofgren of California said “big lie was also a big rip-off.”