Charlottesville Still Reverberates
If you read one thing today, make sure it’s Christopher Mathias’ exclusive for TPM on Marshall Rawson, the Republican nominee for a seat in the Florida House of Representatives who marched alongside neo-Nazis at the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, according to video and a photo we unearthed.
Rawson isn’t publicly touting his presence at the “Unite the Right” rally, but he’s not exactly distancing himself either, telling TPM: “Over the entire span of my adult life, I’ve been very active defending historical monuments from destruction or removal, and I feel that way about almost all monuments, not just those associated with southern history.”
Rawson’s successful GOP primary campaign against the son of the term-limited incumbent received significant financial support from a number of figures in the white supremacy movement. I’m not sure that’s enough on its own to make Rawson some kind of Manchurian candidate of right-wing extremism, nor does it mean they represent him, but it does suggest they think he represents them.
This is the fruit of the permission structure President Trump created for right-wing extremism. After Charlottesville, President Trump rolled out the “very fine people, on both sides” false equivalency. It was a precursor to his “Stand back and stand by” in 2020, which became a catalyst for the Jan. 6 attack.
Trump has been feeding this fire almost uninterrupted for a decade now. We see it in congressional staffers turned Groypers, in campaign staffers toying with Nazi imagery, and in the sheer delight in transgressive behavior as a tribal marker.
Each of these incidents not only sows seeds for future division, hatred, and extremism, but does so without shame or opprobrium. It is open and brazen and unapologetic. Each incident gives birth to new legions of supporters who are steeped in the common experiences of their movement.
Detect a Pattern?
Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) fired his re-election campaign’s political director after the WaPo revealed he had once used a photo of Nazi SS soldiers as his Facebook photo
Today in Overt Racism
Bo French is the GOP nominee for statewide office in Texas:
Election Interference Watch
The WaPo has good roundup of why the biggest threat to the midterm elections is the Trump administration itself.
Late Sunday, a second federal judge more fully blocked the Trump administration from proceeding with the new USPS rule on mail-in ballots. The order came from U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee in D.C.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) is siding with the Trump administration against Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, also a Republican, who is fending off federal demands for private voter data under threat of criminal prosecution.
Great Read: War on Women Edition
A great NYT piece on the extraordinary lengths Republican men in Utah have gone to restructure government to curtail the power of Republican women, especially judges.
Hmmm …
Joe diGenova abruptly resigned from the Trump DOJ the day after he signed a grand jury subpoena for the testimony of former CIA Director John Brennan in the sweeping “grand conspiracy” investigation, according to a new filing this morning by Brennan’s attorney in his preemptive lawsuit against the Trump administration.
If the account offered by Brennan attorney Kenneth L. Wainstein is accurate — and he’s no slouch — then the DOJ confirmed to him what’s been generally reported already: that that there are two investigations involving Brennan, the “grand conspiracy” case in south Florida and a lying to Congress case in DC:
A reminder that Kurt Olsen came straight to DOJ from the Trump White House, where he was the president’s “Director of Election Security and Integrity.”
Another Wrinkle in Slush Fund Case
I just can’t let it go that the Trump DOJ engaged in a new bit of brazen gamesmanship to do the president yet another solid in his lawsuit against the IRS — even though it’s a bit in the weeds.
After failing to even enter an appearance in defense of Trump’s lawsuit, let alone defending against it, and then reaching a collusive settlement that gave Trump IRS immunity and created the $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund … after ALL OF THAT … the Trump DOJ notified U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams on Friday that it is now appealing her order that found the settlement to be “non-adversarial, collusive, and jurisdictionally improper” and imposed sanctions on Trump’s lawyers.
While the notice of appeal filed by newly installed acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter was still timely, it comes more than a month after Trump and his lawyers appealed Judge Williams’ order. It’s all part of maintaining the charade that DOJ is not on the same side of the case as the president.
Unlawful Deportations Start to Add Up
Nearly 30 people have been unlawfully deported since Trump returned to office, either in violation of court orders, legally mandated due process protections, or immigration court orders, an analysis by Politico shows.
Criminalizing Dissent Watch
Prosecutions of protesters flop: The Trump DOJ has failed to secure felony convictions against most of the 102 protesters arrested in Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, Oregon, and Washington, D.C. last year on charges of assaulting federal immigration agents, the AP reports.
Joint Task Force Vanguard: Under orders from President Trump to target left-leaning ideology, the Trump DOJ is going after randos online.
Thread of the Day:
Canada Yokes Its Future to the EU
I find it so painful to watch Canada, abandoned by the United States, seek deeper ties with the EU, including a possible “associate member” status envision by Prime Minister Mark Carney.
The Most Important News Today
The Trump administration is expected to announce today that the federal government will no longer regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants — dooming for the foreseeable future efforts to rein in carbon pollution even as the metastasizing effects of global warming are becoming abundantly clear.
As the NYT reports:
The power sector is the second largest source of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the United States. … if the U.S. power sector were its own country, it would be the fifth-largest climate polluter in the world after China, the entire United States, India and Russia.
To remove greenhouse gas emissions from the protections of the Clean Air Act, the Trump administration has to conclude that they do not endanger human health or the environment.
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And the racists feel free to shout their filth at anyone, at any time
"Very fine people..." will forever live in infamy as the epigrammatic MAGA calling card.