I find it one of the defining characteristics of this period of American history that the corruption of high officials is so great and known but not held accountable in any way.
Harlan Crow and Clarence Thomas. Credit: Chris Goodney / Bloomberg /Olivier Douliery / AFP
For months, Harlan Crow and members of Congress have been engaged in a fight over whether the billionaire needs to divulge details about his gifts to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, including globe-trotting trips aboard his 162-foot yacht, the Michaela Rose.
Crow’s lawyer argues that Congress has no authority to probe the GOP donor’s generosity and that doing so violates a constitutional separation of powers between Congress and the Supreme Court.
Members of Congress say there are federal tax laws underlying their interest and a known propensity by the ultrarich to use their yachts to skirt those laws.
Tax data obtained by ProPublica provides a glimpse of what congressional investigators would find if Crow were to open his books to them. Crow’s voyages with Thomas, the data shows, contributed to a nice side benefit: They helped reduce Crow’s tax bill.
The rich, as we’ve reported, often deduct millions of dollars from their taxes related to buying and operating their jets and […]
Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman, Reporters - The New York Times
Stephan:
The Republicans have pulled off their masks and made it clear who they are and what they want. The are fascists, and they want to restructure the United States as an authoritarian anocracy. I cannot believe how blatant they have become. And it is now clear, anyone who votes for a Republican is unequivocally a traitor to American democracy. The tragedy is millions of grievance voters will do that. The coming election is going to define whether America continues as a democracy and, at the state level, it will define how great the schism between the Red and Blue states becomes.
The agenda being pursued by Mr. Trump and his associates has deep roots in a longstanding effort by conservative legal thinkers to undercut the so-called administrative state. Credit: Doug Mills / The New York Times
Donald J. Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters return him to the White House in 2025, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.
Their plans to centralize more power in the Oval Office stretch far beyond the former president’s recent remarks that he would order a criminal investigation into his political rival, President Biden, signaling his intent to end the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.
Mr. Trump and his associates have a broader goal: to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review […]
Melissa Brown Kelly Puente, Reporter - The Tennessean
Stephan:
If you are a woman living in any of the 19 Red states whose Republican Attorney Generals have done as Tennesse has done, you are now a second class citizen whose private personal medical records can be seized by the government and used against you. If, for instance, you go out of state to get OB/Gyn care that the Republican men and a few compliant Republican women think you should not have access to they want to be able to go to the Blue state you went to for treatment and grab your medical records there. It is the position of the Republican Party that if you live in a state they control you do not have control of your body, the Republicans in control of your state have control.
Tennesse MAGAt Republican Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, one of 19 Red state attorney generals, demanding access to the private medical records of any woman or transgender person. Credit: Mark Zaleski / The Tennessean
Vanderbilt University Medical Center has turned over transgender patient medical records to the Tennessee Attorney General’s office, which confirmed Tuesday it is conducting an investigation into potential medical billing fraud.
VUMC, through a spokesperson, confirmed to The Tennessean on Tuesday the facility provided patient medical records to the attorney general.
The Tennessean reviewed a VUMC notice informing patients of the move, which the facility said was the result of an investigation into “billing for transgender care services provided to individuals enrolled in State-sponsored insurance plans.” The state requested medical records from Jan. 1, 2018 to the present.
The attorney general’s office said VUMC began providing relevant records in December 2022, and the state’s investigation is focused on the facility and certain providers, not patients.
The state has legal standing to seek the private medical records, per a health care legal expert. However, the move has sparked […]
The Republican obsession with sexual orientation has become so pronounced and weird it is a defining characteristic of the MAGAt world. As far as I can see this all centers on White MAGAt men having fragile egos about their manliness. And so they torture and abuse the LGBTQ community and seek to make their control over women enforced by law.
Republican attorneys general from seven states have signed a letter to Target, insinuating that the retailer’s LGBTQ youth content and merchandise may be considered obscene and in violation of law.
The letter criticizes Target for offering youth-sized clothing featuring Pride themes and asserts that the states are obliged to “enforce state laws protecting children” from “content that sexualizes them,” including obscenity laws. The letter also suggests that Target may be breaching the law by making decisions that are allegedly “unprofitable” and not in the best interests of its shareholders, citing this as a violation of the company’s fiduciary duty.
The letter, which is six pages long, does not provide specific details regarding potential legal consequences if Target continues to sell the merchandise in question. Notably, this follows a wave of bills introduced in various states that aim to ban LGBTQ content under obscenity laws, including measures to ban drag, ban books with LGBTQ characters, and restrict LGBTQ content in schools and libraries.
Earlier this year, Target was the focus of a vehement campaign led by far-right groups for offering LGBTQ merchandise. Figures like Matt Walsh played a leading role in this campaign, which resulted in an onslaught of […]
As this well researched article makes clear, concerns about existential manliness date back to the Founders. Periodically, it emerges as a major issue in the culture, but never before in quite this way. And that, I think, is because neither gender equality nor gender definition has ever before been a part of the manliness struggle.
Illustration by Nicole Natri / Politico
On opening night of the Stronger Men’s Conference in Springfield, Missouri, in April, an Army tank squatted incongruously on a church chancel. Not one of the pastors, sports figures or niche Christian influencers who sermonized about masculinity throughout the well-attended event, which was a literal come-to-Jesus affair with a power-ballad band and pep talks, remarked on it. Presumably the tank stood for the masculine virtue of lethality. Or maybe rigid defensiveness.
Other totems of virility, including Motocross champions, Fight Club references and a formal prize for densest chest hair, were on hand like citronella candles to shoo away gay vibes. To a crowd that looked all-male, Pastor Levi Lusko, a former porn addict, unfurled a highly disturbing sermon on how much he loves sex. He cited an old lyric by T-Pain and Flo Rida to explain Eve’s allure to Adam: Apple bottom jeans, boots with the fur.
But in spite of this camp machismo signaling, none of the speakers opened culture-war fire. Talk of politics was scant, even when Republican Senator Josh Hawley […]
