Gerry and Mander

If you blinked your eyes, you might have missed this one. But on Friday, the GOP leaning North Carolina Supreme Court reversed itself on a decision it rendered a year ago to control partisan gerrymandering. At the same time, the court said it was wrong to invalidate photo ID requirements at the polls, which the then-Democrat controlled court did in 2018.

Gerrymandering, by definition, is when a political group tries to change a voting district to create a result that either helps them or hurts the group that is against them. It's a loophole (or maybe a rabbit hole) in the U.S. Constitution that seems to have no remedy. At least, not in North Carolina. Not now.

It sounds illegal. It should be. It isn't.

Anyway, because of the reversal, the GOP can return to the old legislative maps that were clearly drawn on partisan lines and which could give them at least four more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. In other words, the court, and not the voter, is deciding issues. It also takes away a tool that basically gives the voter the ability to censure legislators. 

Currently, North Carolina has 14 representatives, seven from each party. After the new/old maps return, the GOP could have an 11-3 advantage. Democracy is wobbling.

And guess what? You can expect the Republican-controlled legislature to continue its onslaught on democracy with an assault on voting rights in North Carolina, perhaps targeting voting and same-day voter registration next.

We could become the next Florida. Book banning is getting closer. So is suppression of human rights.

There is currently a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, Moore v. Harper, waiting a decision. The Republicans are arguing that only state legislatures have the power to write election rules, based on a resurrected and broad legal argument known as Independent State Legislature Theory. The outcome could have national implications for our democracy.

And when did the courts become to politicized? I thought they were supposed to follow the law and not partisan politics. Even the U.S. Supreme Court rules on party lines, reversing decades-old decisions based on severely flawed opinions. Plus, it has an ethics problem to boot.

I'm not a lawyer. All of this is confusing enough to me and I hope I'm getting this correct. But it seems to me the key word here is "theory." Why are we dealing in theory and not common sense? All of this strikes me more as a power grab than a vote for democracy and the people.

If we are a nation trying to form a more perfect union with our experiment in democracy, why are we trying to make voting more difficult? We should be making it easier.

Blame Gerry and Mander.

 

Fox follies

I worked as a professional newsman (sports writer at a daily newspaper) for nearly 40 years before retiring, and through all of that time, I was always conscious of upholding the highest of journalistic standards whenever I wrote something for publication.

I still do, even as I write my blog. Old habits, I guess.

The very ultimate standard, of course, is to tell the truth. That would seem obvious, although there are times when one person's version of the truth can be another person's perceived disinformation. Not necessarily a lie, perhaps, but maybe an alternate truth? How do you distinguish between the two?

Malice could be a way. Malice is the intention to do harm or evil. And that's essentially what happened when Fox News settled its defamation case this past week with Dominion Voting Systems for a whopping $787.5 million. Without going into detail, Fox basically claimed Dominion committed fraud (with doctored voting machines, so they said) in the 2020 election that put Joe Biden and not Donald Trump in the White House.

In the lead-up to the trial, in the discovery phase, it was revealed that many Fox commentators (Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, et al) knew the elections were fair and honest, but reported fraud instead. They told their viewers lies, and the defendants knew they were lying. Some, like Carlson, said through email, texts and deposition transcripts, that he hated Trump "passionately." Other damning behind-the-scenes evidence was also revealed.

That makes Fox and company hypocrites and liars and vandals of American democracy, which is dependent upon a free press that reliably tells the truth.

I myself was waiting for an actual trial. The weight of the evidence against Fox seemed overwhelming. As difficult as it is to prove defamation, it was clear Fox didn't want to take its dirty laundry to trial. So it settled.

But it settled without a clear-cut apology for lying to its viewers. On the day of the settlement, Fox offered a statement that said, in part: "We acknowledge the court's rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false."

There it is. Fox admitting culpability. That's the best you're going to get from them.

And then this: "The settlement reflects Fox's continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards."

Wait. Didn't they just admit to lying to their viewers? An action which they now claim to be "the highest journalistic standards."

So they're still lying to you. There are no high journalistic standards at Fox.

The question now is how Fox viewers will absorb this settlement. Fox has hardly mentioned the settlement to its viewers. Some Fox viewers might not even be aware a defamation suit was filed against the network. Sometimes it's not just about the lies they tell you, but often it's about the truth they don't tell you. That's how pernicious Fox has become.

How dangerous is that? Ask yourself how many Jan. 6 rioters were Fox viewers who unwittingly consumed the Big Lie? We'll never know, but we can guess. Some of them have plenty of jail time to think about it.

Now, a second defamation suit filed by Smartmatic, another voting system corporation, is in the works. The discovery phase is in its early stages, so you can expect even more revelations about Fox's cynicism in the near future. Unless Fox is smart enough to settle early.

This is what I hope: This time I hope when Fox settles that Smartmatic forces Fox to make on-air apologies about lying to its viewers. I hope Fox begins each broadcast hour for a full year with a court-ordered disclaimer: "We at Fox lied to you about Smartmatic committing voter fraud. We lied to you about Dominion. We lie to you about everything."

That won't happen, of course. Dominion and Smartmatic are private corporations seeking compensation for damages, not the salvation of American journalism or democracy.

But it's a start. Dominion, for its part, has filed suit against other right-wing news organizations like Newsmax and OAN for similar damages. It's also filed defamation suits against individuals who lied on Fox, such as Rudy Giuliani, Sydney Powell and Mike Lindell.

I don't know. Maybe these viewers just like being lied to. They like being told what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear.

The truth is out there.

Carnage continues

The one thing that has really stuck with me for the past seven years or so is the phrase "American carnage."

That was the wrongful view former president Donald Trump offered us in his dispiriting inaugural address in 2016. I had no clue there was such a thing as American carnage, but as things turned out, that's pretty much what we have now. So Trump wasn't actually describing something that we were living through prior to 2016. It was, in my view, a miasma that he personally ushered into our society.

Carnage became the template for his administration. We live with it still. We are severely divided as a nation, between blue and red, rural and urban, black and white, the Second Amendment and gun control, (National) Christianity and just about every other religion there is.

And to my mind, there is a single thread that stitches all of this together: Trump.

You know. The guy who just recently became the first former president to ever be indicted. The guy who separated infants from their families as policy to stop illegal immigration; the guy who gave us Operation Warp Speed to bring Covid vaccinations to the country, then downplayed the importance of vaccinations in the first place as hundreds of thousands of his followers died; the guy who hijacked the formerly honorable Republican party and turned it into a cult of personality and a party of grievance and retribution with no interest in actual legislation; the guy who incited an insurrection where police officers were injured or killed; the guy who called for the suspension of the U.S. Constitution while pleading the Fifth Amendment himself more than 400 times during a recent fraud deposition in January; the guy who put enough conservative judges on the Supreme Court to overturn 50 years of Roe v. Wade, thus putting the lives of thousands of women in jeopardy; the guy who tried to dismantle NATO and blackmail Ukraine, which led directly to the Russian invasion of that country; the guy who claims the Black prosecutors in his cases are racist but never himself; the guy who calls for voter suppression by eliminating mail-in ballots while using them himself.

And that's only the ones I can think of on a Sunday morning.

Meanwhile, the carnage continues. It continues in front of our very eyes. 

So the question lingers: are our eyes open? Or are they closed?

 

The Tennessee Three

Well, there it was. On live television. For the whole world to see.

American racism at its most blatant worst.

The Republican-controlled Tennessee House of Representatives expelled two Black male Democrats from its ranks on Thursday for a violation of chamber "decorum" when they approached the well without being recognized to vocally support gun control demonstrators in the gallery and in the halls. A third representative, Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, a white female, was spared expulsion by a single vote, even though she was standing along side colleagues Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin Pearson of Memphis.

But the incredibly arrogant and mostly white GOP supermajority booted the two Black guys without due process and possibly in violation of their First Amendment right to free speech for their few minutes of vocal protest. The body contains 75 seats of Republicans and only 23 Democrats. In order to expel a member, at least 66 votes – two-thirds of the legislature – were needed for removal in each instance. Jones was ousted with a 72-25 vote and Pearson was removed by a 69-26 count. Johnson kept her seat with a 65-30 vote, falling short of the required 66.

That certainly doesn't look good.

But the appearance of racism goes deeper than the expulsion of two duly elected Black members of the chamber. Jones and Pearson represent mostly black and brown districts in their respective cities and now those citizens are without representation, so the racism reaches an even broader level. Talk about suppressing the vote...

It's possible that both Jones and Pearson could be reinstated by their local governing bodies in their districts – as early as today – and then be eligible for an upcoming special election to fill their vacancies. Now wouldn't that be ironic? And correct.

What is astounding to me is how blatantly racist this whole process became, and how public it was. Republicans, especially those in supermajorities, don't even try to hide their bullying and hypocrisy any more. And guess what? There are now supermajorities in Wisconsin and North Carolina (thanks to a legislator in North Carolina who last week switched her affiliation from Democrat to Republican, thus betraying those who elected her to her seat).

It's a dangerous moment for democracy. It goes to the heart of gerrymandering districts for the political control of one party. It's why we have ideological judges in the courts making rulings that go against the majority of the people (like nullifying Roe v. Wade). It's why a single judge can make a ruling affecting the entire country (see Texas judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who ignored the science and invalidated a 23-year-old FDA approval of the drug Mifepristone). It's why a 70-30 issue like gun control can't get anywhere in congress, so more children are massacred in their schools. Almost daily, it seems.

It's minority rule. I'm pretty sure this isn't what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they were trying to put together a county of, by and for the people. What we have now in most red states are nothing more than gangs in the legislatures.

Stay tuned.

What a moment

I never thought I'd live in an era that has seen so much American history.

Most of it the result of one man.

For a president – and now an ex-president – Donald Trump has been a virtual history lesson. Twice impeached. Twice. Hush payments to a porn star. Inciting an insurrection. Supporting the call for the execution of his vice president during the Capitol riot. Calling for the imprisonment of his political opponents. Calling for the suspension of the U.S. Constitution.

And now, he's the first president – former or otherwise – to be indicted. He could be facing 30 or more charges for his alleged role in the hush money payment scheme and subsequent cover-up involving porn actress Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 election.

Trump's political supporters see the indictments as the weaponization of both the Department of Justice and the American judicial system. Of course they would. Would they see it that way if the target of an indictment was, say, one Hillary (Lock her up!) Clinton? Hmm?

Others, perhaps more rational, see the indictment as a moment of accountability that has finally arrived, that the wheels of justice are finally turning, that no man is above the law. Trump could soon be facing indictments in Florida for taking top secret documents, in Georgia for election interference, and Washington DC for the Jan. 6 insurrection.

In any event, we, as a nation, are on tenuous ground. This is the first time a president – current or former – has been charged with crimes. We've never been here before. And, as a nation, we're as divided as we can be. The Jan. 6 episode showed us that violence could erupt at any moment and for all the wrong reasons, such as believing in a lie. A big lie.

It's also a time for those of us who are pleased with the indictments to be cautious and wary. The actual charges have yet to be unsealed – we don't know what's in them. We need to let the judicial system play its course and accept whatever the final verdict is announced, calmly and with reason.

Because if we don't, it's only going to get worse.