48m Dem Jobs, Indictments in Nevada, Free Speech and Genocide, Christie Challenges GOP Cowardice, Fighting Gilead
The Hopium Community Gathers On Wed, December 13th at 7pm EST - RSVP Today!
Friends, sending a long a few things I am thinking about today:
Current, Relevant Hopium Work and Events
Next Hopium Gathering is Wed, Dec 13th, 7pm EST - RSVP Today!
Dems Keep Outperforming Expectations, and A Few More Notes On The Limits of Polling
Stat Of The Day - Since 1989, and a new age of globalization began, 50 million jobs have been created in America. 48 million of those, 96%, have been created under Democratic President. Essentially all of them.
Nevada Grand Jury Indicts 6 Republicans Incl The State Party Chair - More than a thousand insurrectionists have already plead guilty or been convicted. The President has been indicted for his leadership of the GOP party-wide effort to overturn a Presidential election and end American democracy. Now legal action is speeding ahead in 5 states - GA, MI, NM, NV, WI. Here is what went down in Nevada yesterday:
A Nevada grand jury has indicted the six Republicans — including the chair of the Nevada Republican Party — who falsely pledged Nevada’s electoral votes to Donald Trump following the 2020 election despite President Joe Biden’s victory in the state.
Attorney General Aaron Ford, a Democrat, announced the indictments Wednesday of state party chair Michael McDonald, national committeeman Jim DeGraffenreid, Clark County Republican Party chair Jesse Law (who announced plans to run for state Assembly on Wednesday), state party vice chair Jim Hindle III, Shawn Meehan and Eileen Rice.
In a press release, the attorney general’s office said all six individuals had been indicted on two felony charges — offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument by submitting fraudulent documents to state and federal officials. The charges carry penalties of category C and D felonies, respectively, with punishments up to a maximum of four and five years in prison and a minimum of one year in prison. A grand jury in the Eighth Judicial District Court in Clark County indicted the six Republicans.
“When the efforts to undermine faith in our democracy began after the 2020 election, I made it clear that I would do everything in my power to defend the institutions of our nation and our state,” Ford said in a statement. “We cannot allow attacks on democracy to go unchallenged. Today’s indictments are the product of a long and thorough investigation, and as we pursue this prosecution, I am confident that our judicial system will see justice done.”
Here’s what’s going on with another Republican state party chair, this one in Florida:
Chris Christie Calls Out Republicans For Their Historic Cowardice - From the GOP debate last night, just watch:
Free Speech, Genocide and Nazism - I send along a video released yesterday by the University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill in response to the uproar over her Congressional testimony earlier this week. I’m sharing because the issues she raises here are important, and I want to stoke a conversation here in Hopium about it. Historically we’ve understood political speech as covered by the 1st Amendment, as she says here. But what happens when that speech is a call for killing and/or extermination of an entire people?
I’ve struggled with this issue for many years. We know that if any of us went to a neighbor’s house and started threatening to kill them they would could call the police and they would come, and even potentially arrest us. Why doesn’t that same principle apply to calls for Jewish genocide or slaughter, or people wearing full on Nazi gear protesting harassing people outside synagogues?
I’ve always found it remarkable that the use of Nazi symbolism in particular could be an acceptable form of political speech in America, for it is a political belief system built around the elimination of Jews - and not the aspirational elimination of Jews, but actual real world genocide, concentration camps, gas ovens, mass killings, the whole bit. Nazism isn’t white supremacy, or white power, it is about the murder of me and my family and every other Jew in the world. Is there any political speech in America that is a direct threat of death to a particular group here? I don’t think there is, which is why I think it is possible to view this speech differently than other forms of political speech. But I don’t know, and I am still flabbergasted that we are even discussing these things, in America, in 2023.
Weigh in here peeps. Watch the video. Kick it around and let me know what you think.
Fighting Gilead - An important victory in the fight for reproductive freedom in Texas today:
A Texas judge on Thursday granted an emergency order allowing a pregnant woman whose fetus has a fatal diagnosis to get an abortion in the state.
Late last month, Kate Cox, a Dallas-area mother of two, found out that the developing fetus has trisomy 18, a condition likely to cause stillbirth or the death of the baby shortly after it’s born, according to her attorney Molly Duane.
Texas law prohibits almost all abortions with very limited exceptions. So Cox and her lawyers sought a temporary restraining order that would block the state’s abortion bans and enable her to terminate her pregnancy.
“Kate Cox’s life and future fertility are at great risk, and according to her doctor, the medical care that she needs is an abortion,” Duane said in the hearing. She added that within the last two days, Cox had to visit an emergency room for a fourth time “for pregnancy symptoms including severe cramps leaking fluid and elevated vital signs.”
“Many of Miss Cox’s health risks during this pregnancy will put her life in danger if left untreated, and carrying this pregnancy to term will significantly increase the risks to her future fertility, meaning that she and her husband may not be able to have more children in the future,” Duane said.
Judge Maya Guerra Gamble quickly granted the requested order.
“The idea that Miss Cox wants desperately to be a parent, and this law might actually cause her to lose that ability is shocking and would be a genuine miscarriage of justice,” the judge said when she announced her decision.
Keep working hard all. We have a lot of work to do - Simon
I wish I could say that this is a complicated issue, but to me, it is not. If a group of white nationalist students marched around the campus shouting, “blacks must die “ or “genocide to gays,” it would take less than one second for people to understand that this is not just speech, but threatens physical violence. It speaks volumes that some very fine university presidents have been unable to understand that point when it comes to calls for “genocide,” which, in English, means murder of everyone in a particular group.
Hey Simon, I have not seen you mention it but it might be worth adding to your list that Biden is currently on tract to have the fewest Layoffs and Discharges of any Presidential term since the Fed started keeping records. (At least as far as I can tell)
I think layoff data might mean more to people than some other measures. Everyone knows someone who has been laid off and can see how devastating that is to people and communities. I know that some people point to insecurity in the job market long term, as a reason for economic uncertainty. More knowledge of the Layoff data being at historic lows might be an easy to show and feel measure.
It might also resonate more than something like Unemployment because it is a confusing measure that sometimes goes up in good times and down in bad.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDL