A year and a half after Mother Jones exposed how Oklahoma courts were imprisoning mothers for longer than their abusers, state lawmakers passed a bill that could allow some of those mothers’ sentences to be shortened. But this week, Gov. Kevin Stitt vetoed the legislation. In an award-winning investigation in 2022, I told the story of Kerry King, a mom in Tulsa who got 30 years in prison under the state’s “failure to protect” law because she couldn’t stop her abusive boyfriend from beating her 4-year-old daughter. He received significantly less time behind bars for committing that violence. When my colleague Ryan Little and I conducted a groundbreaking review of Oklahoma’s court records, we identified hundreds of people like King who had been charged under the state’s law since 2009 for allegedly failing to protect their children from another adult’s harm. About 90 percent of those imprisoned under the statute were women, disproportionately Black mothers. Many of them experienced abuse from the same person, often a romantic partner, who harmed their children. In recent weeks, Oklahoma’s legislature overwhelmingly approved the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act, which would allow courts to shorten prison sentences for people who can prove their crime stemmed from domestic violence. The legislation could help mothers like King who are convicted for “failure to protect,” as well as others who killed an abuser in self-defense, or committed a crime while attempting to escape from the abusive relationship, or followed an abuser’s order to break the law for fear of retribution. It would apply to both new and old cases, theoretically helping people with active trials or those who want to retroactively shorten their sentences. It’s a big deal that this legislation passed with so much support: As I’ve reported before, only a few other states have laws like this, including New York. And none of those states are as conservative as Oklahoma. But the issue appears to have struck a chord on both sides of the Sooner State’s political aisle. “This may be the first time in my life I agree with someone from San Francisco,” then-Rep. Todd Russ, who is Republican and now Oklahoma’s state treasurer, wrote to me in 2022 after I emailed him from California to share our investigation. In March, the state Senate unanimously approved the Oklahoma Survivors’ Act, and in April the state House approved it with a vote of 84-3. Despite such broad support, Republican Gov. Stitt vetoed the bill on Tuesday. He described the legislation as “bad policy,” arguing that “untold numbers of violent individuals who are incarcerated or should be incarcerated in the future will have greater opportunity to present a threat to society due to this bill’s impact.” (Our investigation found that the vast majority of women in Oklahoma convicted for failure to protect—a nonviolent crime—had no prior felony record.) In his veto message, the governor also warned that defendants could point to abuse that happened years ago as justification for crimes they were committing today, something he described as “a bridge too far.” But that’s not how the bill would actually work. The Oklahoma Survivors’ Act applies only in cases where someone was experiencing abuse at the time they committed the offense, and only if they can prove the abuse was “a significant contributing factor” causing them to commit it. “He either has no grasp of this policy or doesn’t care enough to get involved to inform himself,” Senate Pro Tempore Greg Treat, a Republican who authored the bill, said in a statement. “Whichever it is, it’s embarrassing, especially for our state that has such a high rate of domestic violence.” Oklahoma ranks first in the country for the most domestic violence cases per capita, according to one recent study, and many women in the state’s prisons are survivors of abuse. “Women, especially in Oklahoma, are overpunished,” Amanda Ross, whose aunt got a life sentence for killing an abuser, told the Oklahoma City-based television station KFOR-TV. Under the bill, sentences of life without the possibility of parole could be reduced to 30 years or less; sentences of 30 years or more could be reduced to 20 years or less. The Oklahoma District Attorneys Council supports the veto, arguing the bill is too broad. But criminal justice reform advocates haven’t given up on the legislation. On Wednesday, the state Senate overrode the governor’s veto with a vote of 46-1. If the state House overrides it too, the bill could still become law. Incarcerated “survivors have been waiting and praying for the opportunity to return to their children and families,” Alexandra Bailey, a campaign strategist for the nonprofit Sentencing Project, which supported the legislation, said in a statement. Kerry King is now nearly a decade into her 30-year sentence and has tried her best to stay in touch with her four kids, the oldest of whom was about 9 when she was convicted. She calls them as often as she can and writes them letters, and sends them socks and blankets with yarn she bought at the commissary. When I visited three of her kids in 2022, they were confused and devastated about why she was still locked up. “Like, I kind of know why she’s in jail, but I know she’s not supposed to be there,” 11-year-old Lilah said, holding back tears. “I just really miss her,” she said. “You can’t really make memories on a phone.” To learn more about King’s case and the incarceration of other survivors in Oklahoma, read our investigation and watch the documentary I helped make with filmmaker Mark Helenowski below. | ↑ |
The first criminal trial of a former US president is underway, with Donald Trump facing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush-money payments allegedly made in 2016 to cover up an affair he had with adult film star Stormy Daniels. Here’s the latest—the key updates and absurd moments—from the historic trial. Public birthday wishes are a tricky art. Some are cute! Others give the ick. But on the 54th birthday of Melania Trump, a new entry into the canon of birthday messages has emerged—and it defies neat categorization. “I want to start by wishing my wife Melania a very happy birthday,” Donald Trump told reporters on Friday. “It would be nice to be with her but I’m at a courthouse for a rigged trial.”
Trump is correct in that he is legally restricted from being anywhere but the Manhattan courthouse where he faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to an alleged affair he had with adult film star, Stormy Daniels. The trial, however, is not rigged and is instead the direct result of an alleged extramarital relationship, which reportedly involved spanking and hours of watching Shark Week together, carried out just months after Melania had given birth. So how does Melania feel about her name being invoked this morning before dozens of cameras, especially for a birthday message that mostly served as a template to rail against prosecutors? The former first lady remains largely sequestered in Mar-a-Lago and has not accompanied her husband at his many court appearances (nor has any Trump family member for that matter). So I doubt we’ll hear from her. As Trump’s lawyers argue, rather needlessly and hazardously, that Trump never had sex with Daniels or the other two women allegedly involved in potential cover-up payments, Melania’s silence should not be lost on any of us. I interpret it as the only sensible response to the humiliation of marrying Donald J. Trump. | ↑ |
I became reacquainted with Raffi in the spring of 2020, around my son’s first birthday. These were the early days of the pandemic: People had barely stopped hoarding toilet paper; we’d started going to the car wash for fun. It was on one of these drives that I first burst into tears to Raffi’s “All I Really Need.” Ostensibly, I was playing the track for my baby, who was babbling in his car seat behind me as I drove through eerily quiet San Francisco, trying to forget Trump had just suggested we all drink bleach. The lyrics were a balm for my frayed nerves: All I really need is a song in my heart, food in my belly, and love in my family… Raffi Cavoukian, should you need a refresher, is a widely beloved Canadian children’s singer with a deep, kind voice. He’s sold more than 15 million records during his nearly 50-year career, but he’s best known for his hits from the ’80s and early ’90s: “Baby Beluga,” “Down by the Bay,” and “Bananaphone.” Before the advent of streaming services birthed a thousand on-demand entertainment options aimed at young children, Raffi was—and for many of us adults who grew up with his music, known as “Beluga grads,” still is—a superstar. He inhabited the same stratosphere as Mr. Rogers: a calming, nearly hypnotic, and constant presence in our living rooms and inner worlds. Though he’s faded a bit from the limelight, Raffi, now 75, has never stopped making music; his 24th album, Penny Penguin, dropped April 19. In the last three decades he’s also become a vocal climate activist, performed for Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama, rejected an offer to make ungodly sums of money with a Baby Beluga movie from the producers of Shrek, and established the Raffi Foundation for Child Honouring, a nonprofit organized around the singer’s “children-first” vision of sustainability. You can read about all this and more in his memoir, one of three books he’s published for adults. But the best way to learn about Raffi’s movements (as I learned in the spring of 2020 after wondering, through tears, “What has that guy been up to?”) is to follow him on Twitter. There, he maintains perhaps the most earnest, sweetly radical feed in the history of the internet. A typical Raffi Twitter day in 2024 includes dismay at the 1 percent (“don’t need no billionaires / need to breathe clean air”) and the right-wing legislators who enable them (#fascists); calls for a ceasefire in Gaza; a Wordle score; a retweet of a climate expert; some pop culture opinions (he’s a Swiftie, and he loved Barbie); quotes about the importance of nurturing children; descriptions of his healthy dinners; and commentary on whatever hockey game he’s watching (sometimes in poem form). The cumulative effect is charming, occasionally hilarious, and—in a sea of painstakingly curated celebrity political statements so vague and careful they fail to say anything—incredibly refreshing. Ahead of the release of Penny Penguin, Raffi’s first real record in five years, I spoke to the musician over Zoom from his home on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia. Our conversation has been lightly edited and condensed. Your new record, Penny Penguin, is a collaboration with the group Good Lovelies. What were its inspirations? I was watching a Netflix series, Atypical, about a family with a 16-year-old boy on the autism spectrum, and his great love was penguins, especially in Antarctica. He would always be on about this penguin in this aquarium he would go to—drawing penguins, everything. That kind of stayed with me. Fabulous series, by the way. Other songs, like “My Forest Friend,” I wrote for my forest that I live with. I live on a few acres of land, and no matter what, this forest keeps on going. Its roots are deeply embedded in the ground. Even though the island I live on is a rock, so the root system has to go horizontal! I mean, the forest finds a way. Then about a year ago, I met this wonderful musical trio in Toronto named the Good Lovelies—three women in their 40s, all Beluga Grads. They were doing a house concert near where I live. I was in the first row and I was knocked out. And apparently they were knocked out that I was there. We struck up a friendship very quickly, and I asked them to sing on a few songs. I wound up being so taken with their creativity and their work ethic that they ended up singing on 10 out of the 14 songs on the album. Your music was such a ubiquitous part of childhood for so many people—I don’t remember a time before I knew your songs. Do you recall your earliest awareness of music? This would have been in my Armenian family home in Cairo, Egypt, where I was born and grew up, and I remember, to this day, the songs from pop radio at that time—the early 1950s—that I used to hear on my parents’ stereo. When I came to Canada at the age of 10, I had to learn songs like “Baa Baa Black Sheep” word for word, because they weren’t part of my growing up. I think that’s sort of interesting, this outsider’s sense of discovery. In terms of vocal songs, that would have been my mother singing me lullabies. And my father was a great accordionist and a fabulous singer; he and I used to sing in the Armenian church choir in Toronto for years. He was something. Your parents landed in Egypt after fleeing the Armenian genocide during World War I. Were you aware of what that meant, growing up, that you came from people who had been persecuted? Were there conversations in your house about it, or was it sort of just in the water? A little of both. My mother’s often-repeated phrase was “How we suffered.” And when she said that she was echoing her parents as well. I do think it’s partly what makes me such a passionate defender of democracy—you see me on social media writing “fight fascism.” I believe it’s everybody’s duty. I mean, you’ve heard it said “Democracy is not a spectator sport.” I think it’s the duty of every citizen to fight fascism, because our ancestors fought in wars and died defending liberty. The least we can do is defend the democracies that others gave their lives trying to protect. Your career spans so many social justice movements—civil rights, the anti–Vietnam War movement. Are you surprised by where we’re at right now politically? I’m shocked. Especially at the [rollback] of women’s rights in your country. But I also remember that we’ve always lived in troubled times. You can go back millennia, and the spiritual and political heroes that inspire us lived in very difficult times. It’s not like they waited for things to get okay, and then they did their thing, right? You can think of Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King. These people, they responded with their entire being, their whole humanity. And that’s what we are called to do—to be fully human, to be eyes wide open to what’s happening. Are you a spiritual person? Sure. In the sense that I know that we are spiritual beings in human form. Because I remember, when my grandma passed away, looking at her body in the casket, knowing that it wasn’t grandma, it was just her body. That was an early signal to me that we are the spirit, the life force, that animates the body. It’s all magic, of course. Including spinning on the third planet from the sun, and there’s gravity, and we don’t fall off. The whole thing is magic. Our task is to learn about the magic and how to navigate it. It helps if we remember that our spirit is essentially love. So the learning in the school of life is how to galvanize that love that we’re born with into a positive force. But the thing is, for every infant, that inborn love needs affirming from the outside. A caregiver needs to hold a mirror that affirms and gives a sense of purpose to a child’s innate love. That’s why it’s so critically important that we as children feel seen and respected for who we feel we are. You seem to be deeply in touch with who you were and what you needed as a small child. Why do you think that is? A lot of therapy! [Laughs.] In my late 30s, it became clear to me that I needed to do some emotional growth work, and I was lucky enough to be with one or two very skilled therapists, and they helped me to address many of the challenges that I had. In my early childhood, growing up in a fairly authoritarian family, my parents loved me greatly. But it was at times a coercive love, not exactly a respectful love. And I felt sometimes like a possession. So there was a lot I had to work out. I’m really glad I did it, because I learned a tremendous amount not only about myself, but about how it works with humans, that the love we are born with is dependent on caregivers and their respect and love for us. As author Jean Liedloff said in her book The Continuum Concept, the young of the human animal has a need to feel right, good, and welcome in the world. And when you don’t feel that way as a youngster, that’s when the false self arises, because you need the external love so badly, you do anything to get it. Therapists tell me this is how it works. Let’s talk social media: You were vocal about its dangers, especially for young people, in your 2013 book, Lightweb Darkweb: Three Reasons to Reform Social Media Before It Re-Forms Us. But you clearly enjoy it, and you’re a regular Twitter user. What’s your social media diet like these days? Is it the first thing you do in the morning? The first thing I do is usually Wordle. [Laughs.] It just awakens the mind, you know? But really, on social media, I’m defending democracy, first and foremost. Expressing my utter sadness at what’s happening in the Middle East and in Ukraine. Solidarity with all victims. Like I said, we’ve always lived in troubled times. You can point to various hotspots around the world—there’s been a civil war in Syria going on for 13 years. I mean, you can go crazy trying to keep up with everything that’s going on in the world, right? What you can do is try to learn, and find ways to be in solidarity with the innocents of our world. And to me, that means children, because they’re the most innocent in any conflict. They did nothing to bring on any of it. So my heart goes out primarily to the innocents. And then that way I find my bearing. Since October, it’s been interesting to watch celebrities assess if, how, and when to speak out about the Middle East, doing this dance of “What’s the most prudent position to take?” I think you were one of the first public figures I saw clearly criticizing the actions of the Israeli government and calling for a ceasefire. I’m curious where you think that sense of freedom comes from. Well, I thought we lived in free countries! Each one of us has both a duty and an opportunity to speak out. Of course you try to be as sensitive as possible. In terms of what’s happening between Israelis and Palestinians, I was lucky enough to have written a song called “Salaam Shalom” back in 2004. If you search that song, you’ll see me singing it with a 300-voice choir. Back in 2004, I was saying: “Sing a new song. Walk a new path. Make a circle where we all belong.” I’m very fortunate to have some Jewish friends who are among the most progressive voices who, with great compassion, want to see an area that is secure and in the healthy bonds of coexistence. At some point two sides or more have to sit down and forge a pathway of new peace. There is no other solution. So our hearts break. Our tears fall. But we have to keep in mind the lasting peace that we all seek. I have to ask about the controversy with the 17th-century Armenian rug that you posted on Instagram in December, which upset some people because it had swastikas in its pattern. You apologized and deleted the post. There’s nothing much to say. I posted a rug in all good faith, and I was showing a thing of beauty from my Armenian heritage. A 17th-century rug with a symbol that the Nazis took and distorted. It used to be a fertility symbol, from what I know, representing four seasons. I mean, for anyone to think that I, in any way, after writing “Salaam Shalom,” would be presenting something injurious would just be wrong. So that’s why I deleted it. I didn’t want any misunderstanding. When you’re on Twitter calling Trump a fascist, has there ever been a moment where you thought, ‘Oh, I’m reducing my fan base by a bit’? Not at all. When the stakes are this high, you have to call it as you see it. There was never a person more unfit to be in the highest office of the land. He was a Putin puppet. He still is. He’s a threat, and I think more and more people see him for who he is. And that leads me to think that if the voting public shows up in great numbers that democracy will stand. And that’s our challenge. That’s our duty. Every single person who reads this article, I urge you, I exhort you to vote. Do your duty as a citizen and vote democracy. What do you say to people who are frustrated by the limitations there? I know so many young people who feel disappointed and angry, heading into this presidential election, that these are our choices. I say vote, and also run for office. Widen the choices. Press for a more democratic Democratic Party. In Canada, we work hard towards proportional representation. That still eludes us, but we work hard. The right things are worth fighting for. It’s always been that way. I grew up in the civil rights movement. “This Little Light of Mine” was a civil rights song. So, let it shine, baby. We just need caring souls. I think what so many people are grappling with is this feeling of cynicism and helplessness. You know, I’ve been voting my whole life, I’ve been to lots of protests. Roe v. Wade was still overturned. Exactly. But we also have a lot of information as to why it was overturned, how decades of funding from the extreme right wingers caused the democratic norms to slide—even going to Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision to give corporations a power they should never have. So you become educated. And when you see that things have developed for decades to shape current negative events, then you also understand that it may take decades to undo that. But that’s okay, because that’s your duty. It’s not, “I’m going to give this six months and then I’m going to pass.” No, you can’t. You have to remain engaged in democracy as long as it takes. I’m curious how you balance staying engaged with current events, especially these devastating, violent conflicts—and then put the phone down and write a song about a penguin, and think about bringing joy to children and families. Well, my songs have often been inspired by the beauty of the natural world, including the animal kingdom. And I’m so lucky that I have the creative capacity, in music making and specifically songwriting, to help me feel like I’m practicing the magic of inspiring and delighting. I’m also sustained by the truths that I know in my life. Essentially, we are love. And from that love comes responsibilities, including kindness. Whenever I remember that love exists, that children exist—and they are, as Leonard Cohen wrote in his beautiful song “Suzanne”: There are children in the morning / they are leaning out for love and they will lean that way forever. How can I not be there for those children? How can any of us not be there? They need us. | ↑ |
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The world’s 3,000 billionaires should pay a minimum 2 percent tax on their fast-growing wealth to raise about $313 billion a year for the global fight against poverty, inequality, and global heating, ministers from four leading economies have suggested. In a sign of growing international support for a levy on the super-rich, Brazil, Germany, South Africa, and Spain say a 2 percent tax would reduce inequality and raise much-needed public funds after the economic shocks of the pandemic, the climate crisis and military conflicts in Europe and the Middle East. They are calling for more countries to join their campaign, saying the annual sum raised would be enough to cover the estimated cost of damage caused by all of last year’s extreme weather events. “It is time that the international community gets serious about tackling inequality and financing global public goods,” the ministers say in a Guardian comment piece. “One of the key instruments that governments have for promoting more equality is tax policy. Not only does it have the potential to increase the fiscal space governments have to invest in social protection, education, and climate protection. Designed in a progressive way, it also ensures that everyone in society contributes to the common good in line with their ability to pay. A fair share contribution enhances social welfare.” Brazil chairs the G20 group of leading developed and developing countries and put a billionaire tax on the agenda at a meeting of finance ministers earlier this year. The French economist Gabriel Zucman is now fleshing out the technical details of a plan that will again be discussed by the G20 in June. France has indicated support for a wealth tax and Brazil has been encouraged that the US, while not backing a global wealth tax, did not oppose it. Zucman said: “Billionaires have the lowest effective tax rate of any social group. Having people with the highest ability to pay tax paying the least—I don’t think anybody supports that.” Research from Oxfam published this year found that the boom in asset prices during and after the Covid pandemic meant billionaires were $3.3 trillion—or 34 percent—wealthier at the end of 2023 than they were in 2020. Meanwhile, a study from the World Bank showed that the pandemic had brought poverty reduction to a halt. The opinion piece, signed by ministers from two of the largest European economies—Germany and Spain—and two of the largest emerging economies—Brazil and South Africa—claims a levy on the super-rich is a necessary third pillar to complement the negotiations on the taxation of the digital economy and the introduction earlier this year of a minimum corporate tax of 15 percent for multinationals. “The tax could be designed as a minimum levy equivalent to 2 percent of the wealth of the super-rich. It would not apply to billionaires who already contribute a fair share in income taxes. Those, however, who manage to avoid paying income tax would be obliged to contribute more towards the common good,” the ministers say. “Persisting loopholes in the system imply that high-net-worth individuals can minimize their income taxes. Global billionaires pay only the equivalent of up to 0.5 percent of their wealth in personal income tax. It is crucial to ensure that our tax systems provide certainty, sufficient revenues, and treat all of our citizens fairly.” The ministers say there would need to be steps to counter the use of tax havens. The levy would be designed to prevent billionaires who choose to live in Monaco or Jersey, for example, but make their money in larger economies such as the UK or France, from reducing their tax bills below a global agreed minimum. If one country did not impose the minimum tax, another country could claim the income. “Of course, the argument that billionaires can easily shift their fortunes to low-tax jurisdictions and thus avoid the levy is a strong one. And this is why such a tax reform belongs on the agenda of the G20. International cooperation and global agreements are key to making such tax effective. What the international community managed to do with the global minimum tax on multinational companies, it can do with billionaires,” the ministers say. Zucman said there was overwhelming public support for this proposal, with opinion polls showing up to 80 percent of voters in favor. Even so, the economist said he was prepared for stiff resistance. “I don’t want to be naive. I know the super-rich will fight,” he said. “They have a hatred of taxes on wealth. They will lobby governments. They will use the media they own.” | ↑ |
Donald Trump is on trial in Manhattan facing 34 counts of falsifying business records as part of another crime: conspiring to influence the 2016 election. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg argues that, to squelch negative publicity that might hurt Trump’s 2016 campaign, Trump directed the creation of fake records to hide hush-money payments to women who claimed they’d had extramarital sex with him. That’s a complicated case to prove. And one in which it does not matter one whit, at least legally, who Trump actually had sex with. All Trump’s lawyers have to argue is that the payoffs, while perhaps unseemly, were legal. And they’re doing that. Yet Trump’s lawyers are also going further, asserting that the former president didn’t have sex with any of the three woman whose possible encounters with him resulted in payoffs for silence. In one case—a $30,000 payout to a doorman who claimed to know of Trump fathering an out-of-wedlock child—the underlying allegation in fact seems to be false. But it’s striking that Trump’s defense includes denials that he slept with porn star Stormy Daniels (who received $130,000) and Playboy model Karen McDougal ($150,000). That’s because, to exaggerate only a bit, no one believes him. The ongoing testimony of David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, who helped spearhead the so-called “catch and kill” scheme to buy the rights to stories about Trump’s alleged encounters in order to suppress the claims, drives home that point. Pecker on Thursday indicated that he, former Enquirer editor Dylan Howard, and Trump fixer Michael Cohen all believed McDougal’s account of a year-long sexual affair with Trump. What’s more, according to Pecker, Trump did nothing at the time to counter that impression. Pecker recounted a June 2016 call with Trump which came while Pecker’s company was in the process of buying the rights to McDougal’s story. Trump, who Pecker said knew of McDougal’s claims and the talks about paying her to stay quiet, remarked that “she is a nice girl,” Pecker recalled. Trump then asked: “What do you think I should do?” Pecker said. Pecker said he suggested paying her. Trump, that is, did not deny McDougal’s claims. Nor, according to Pecker, did Trump dispute her claims in a January 2017 Trump Tower meeting in which he thanked Pecker for “handling” the matter. Pecker was less involved in a payout made to suppress Daniels’ claim of a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, during which she claims to have spanked him with a magazine with his own picture on its cover. But Pecker in his testimony has not mentioned Trump or his team seriously disputing her claims. Contrast that with the story pushed by the former doorman. Pecker said Cohen angrily disputed the claim in a phone call and conveyed an offer by Trump to take a DNA test proving he was not the child’s father. (Nevertheless Cohen and Pecker arranged to pay the doorman for his silence.) These exchanges came as Pecker testified that his efforts to bury stories about Trump’s alleged trysts were part of an ongoing scheme to help Trump’s campaign. “We purchased [McDougal’s] story so that it wouldn’t be published by any other organization,” Pecker testified. “We didn’t want the story to embarrass Mr. Trump or embarrass or hurt the campaign.” Pecker said that he assumed Trump wanted sex stories silenced to help his campaign, not as Trump later claimed, to protect his family, since neither Trump nor Cohen ever mentioned a familial concern but did reference the effect on his candidacy. Pecker also said that he understood that his payouts amounted to illegal campaign contributions. “I wanted to protect my company,” Pecker said later, explaining why he had lied to journalists in effort to dispute reporting on his payment to McDougal. “I wanted to protect myself, and I wanted also to protect Donald Trump.” That testimony could prove damning for Trump, helping prosecutors make their case that the phony business records Trump allegedly okayed were part of a plot to influence the election. Who Trump did or didn’t have sex with matters much less. He is not going to go to prison for adultery. But the dubious denials by Trump’s lawyers, seemingly made at his behest, might matter. While the attorneys can reasonably question the Manhattan DA’s case, they risk undermining their credibility with jurors with unnecessary and unpersuasive denials. | ↑ |
On Thursday, the Supreme Court held oral arguments over former President Donald Trump’s claims that he enjoys absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for engaging in what he contends were his official duties while in office. And one justice, Samuel Alito, offered a particularly wild theory about how to preserve American democracy and the rule of law. The case centers on whether special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election can proceed or whether—as Trump contends—he is above the law when it comes to his conduct leading up to the January 6 insurrection. Much of Thursday’s hearing revolved around a debate over which of two possibilities poses a greater threat to American self-government: that defeated presidents might fear prosecution by vindictive political enemies upon leaving office, or that sitting presidents—secure in the knowledge that their legal misdeeds cannot be punished—might reign with impunity. Based on their questions, it seems possible that a majority of the justices prefer the latter. At the very least, the court appeared likely to rule in a way that would immunize at least some of Trump’s efforts to steal the presidency, an outcome that could delay his trial until after the 2024 election, if it happens all. During oral arguments, several Republican-appointed justices expressed concern that without immunity, former presidents might suddenly begin to face criminal prosecution with regularity. But Alito took this entirely hypothetical concern to an absurd conclusion: He worried that if presidents believed theirs successors could prosecute them, they might refuse to leave office peacefully when they lose reelection. Put another way, presidents need immunity from prosecution in order to encourage them to accept electoral defeat and preserve American democracy. Considering that this entire case is about a president who sought to illegally remain in office—and whose supporters staged a violent insurrection to help him do just that—this was a stunning argument to make. In Alito’s own words:
Attorney Michael Dreeben, representing the special counsel, responded: “I think it’s exactly the opposite, Justice Alito.” The next question went to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who tried to rebut the idea that to preserve American democracy, we must exempt the president from the nation’s laws. “A stable democratic society needs the good faith of its public officials, correct?” she asked. “And that good faith assumes they follow the law?” Sotomayor then pushed at the logic underpinning Alito’s hypothetical and the broader concern of her GOP-appointed colleagues that despite checks meant to protect against politically motivated prosecutions, former presidents might become frequent targets of vengeful presidents and rogue prosecutors. “There is no failsafe system of government,” she said. “Justice Alito went through, step-by-step, all of the mechanisms that could potentially fail” to prevent abusive prosecutions. “In the end, if it fails completely, we’ve destroyed our democracy on our own.” If a future of politically motivated prosecutions of former presidents comes to pass, she argued, America will already have lost its democracy. The irony of using Trump as the vehicle for enhancing presidential immunity out of a fear of increased instances of political prosecution never came up. But it’s worth remembering that Trump was elected in 2016 on a platform of locking up his political opponent. Throughout his presidency, he tried to use the Justice Department to launch politically motivated prosecutions and was dismayed that the norm of the department making its own prosecutorial decisions did not break down. He has even complained bitterly that his attorney general and other federal prosecutors refused to help him steal the election. However, should he become president again, Trump plans to tear down the post-Watergate norm of DOJ independence and wield the department as a prosecutorial weapon upon his opponents. “I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Trump said last year. Trump is literally threatening to do what Alito, along with Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, openly fretted about on Thursday. Clearly, a president attempting to use the government to prosecute political rivals is exactly the kind of person who should not be granted more authority to break the law. Earlier in the arguments, Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson helped explain the moral hazard of creating an executive who is immune from prosecution. “If someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority, could go into office knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes,” she said, “I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is from turning the Oval Office into the seat of criminal activity in this country.” Alito and his judicial allies appeared open to that bargain—that in order for a president to act unimpeded, and without the fear of prosecution upon leaving office, he should be above the law. If the court ultimately combines this bizarre logic with endless legal delays to help Trump return to the Oval Office, it will usher in the very parade of horribles the conservative majority claims to fear. | ↑ |
The attorney running the Republican National Committee’s “election integrity” effort has been criminally charged by the state of Arizona for her efforts to help Donald Trump steal the 2020 election. This turn of events highlights the Orwellian meaning of the phrase “election integrity,” as used by Trump and the Republican Party: An effort to win at all costs. Bobb endeared herself to the former president as a fervent supporter who worked as both a Trump associate and a journalist as part of various efforts to help Trump overturn the 2020 results. As Mother Jones reported when the RNC hired her last month:
Now Bobb has joined the list of Trumpists who have been charged with a crime. (Bobb’s name and charges have been redacted in the indictment until she is served, but multiple outlets have reported she is among the Trump allies charged.) Arizona charged each of the state’s 11 fake electors, which include sitting members of the state legislature and leaders in the state GOP. Arizona also charged Trump allies Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Boris Epshteyn, Mike Roman, John Eastman, and Jenna Ellis with related crimes. While the indictment does not detail attempts to overturn the election after January 6, 2021, Bobb’s work in Arizona continued after that point. As we wrote last month:
It was apparently this type of record that the RNC was looking for when staffing out its election integrity team, which tells you everything you need to know about the true motives of that effort. Indeed, Bobb’s indictment doesn’t appear to jeopardize her current role working for Trump. “Another example of Democrats’ weaponization of the legal system,” Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung said in response to a request for comment from Bobb or the RNC. “Christina Bobb is a former Marine Corps officer, who served our nation and the President with distinction. The Democrat platform for 2024: if you can’t beat them, try to throw them in jail.” | ↑ |
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Campus organizers at three universities filed legal complaints on Monday arguing that their schools’ investments in planet-heating fossil fuels are illegal, the Guardian has learned. The students from Columbia University, Tulane University, and the University of Virginia each wrote to the attorneys general of their respective states calling on them to scrutinize their universities’ investments. They accuse their universities of breaching the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act, a law adopted by 49 states that requires nonprofit institutions to consider their “charitable purposes” when investing, and exercise “prudence” and “loyalty.” “[T]he privileges that Columbia enjoys as a non-profit institution come with the responsibility to ensure that its resources are put to socially beneficial ends,” the Columbia students wrote. Investments in coal, oil, and gas violate each of the three schools’ stated missions and pledges to prioritize climate action and research, the complaints say. From a purely financial standpoint, investments in fossil fuel stocks are also volatile, the students argue. “Despite the demonstrable financial and social benefits of institutional fossil fuel divestment, the Board has remained steadfast in its support of an industry whose business model is based on environmental destruction and social injustice,” the University of Virginia students wrote. The investments from influential, moneyed institutions set a dangerous example, the students say. “Universities occupy a unique position as a bastion of values and morals the best of society should strive for,” said Nicole Xiao, 19, a second–year Columbia student studying climate systems science. “When Columbia refuses to commit to divestment, it hinders those very same principles and continues a blatant disregard of the important climate work its own faculty, students, and affiliates do.” The complaints, filed on Earth Day, come as officials at Columbia University face staunch criticism for directing New York City police to remove students protesting against Israel’s war in Gaza and calling on Columbia to divest its finances from corporations with links to Israel. “In light of current campus events occurring at Columbia, this complaint further highlights the University’s responsibility to uphold stringent standards on socially responsible and ethical investments, with respect to fossil fuels and beyond,” said Xiao. The filings are each signed by faculty, staff and alumni, as well as local, national and international climate organizations. They estimate that the three schools each have millions of dollars invested in coal, oil, and gas. The students say their concerns are compounded by “conflicts of interest” on each of the three campuses. Staff and board members at each school accept payments for roles at fossil fuel companies, and polluting corporations have also funded research at each of the three institutions. The complaints build on pre-existing fossil fuel divestment efforts at each of the three universities, and follow 19 similar initiatives at colleges around the US filed over the past four years. They come amid increasing scrutiny of the role fossil fuel money plays in the US academy. On Sunday, the Guardian revealed that Louisiana State University had not only accepted major funding from oil major Shell, but also let the company weigh in on faculty research activities. Bill McKibben, the veteran environmental activist and author, supports the students’ efforts. He noted that Columbia University is where James Hansen, the US scientist who warned the world about the greenhouse effect in the 1980s, pioneered his study of the climate crisis. “It’s nuts that schools like these would try to profit off the climate crisis,” he wrote in an email. Each of the filings was written with help from nonprofit environmental law organization Climate Defense Project. State officials have not affirmed any of the legal filings yet, but students have met with state officials in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Mexico, Alex Marquardt, executive director of the Climate Defense Project, said. Several schools—including Harvard, Cornell, and Princeton—also voluntarily committed to divest from fossil fuels shortly after complaints against them were filed, he noted. Maille Bowerman, 21, a senior at the University of Virginia who studies urban planning and environmental studies and organizes with DivestUVA, said student organizers on her campus think the filing is a “next step in getting our message through to the university and showing that the situation is urgent and requires drastic action.” The students from each of the universities noted that the climate crisis—primarily caused by fossil fuels—had devastated each of their institutions’ home cities. These effects have been especially severe in Tulane University’s city of New Orleans, Louisiana, which is “arguably one of the cities most imperiled by the climate crisis in the United States,” said Emma De Leon, 20, a junior who is majoring in environmental studies and communication. “The fossil fuel industry’s actions and infrastructure accelerate coastal erosion, which in combination with rising sea levels could result in New Orleans and Tulane’s campuses being inundated in the future,” said De Leon, who organizes with the sustainability and divestment committee of the Tulane Undergraduate Assembly. “During this semester alone, there have been two flooding events on campus that resulted in me either walking through water up to my calves or being stuck inside a building.” Thomas Sherry, professor emeritus at Tulane University’s department of ecology and evolutionary biology, who signed the complaint, said the school has refused to divest from fossil fuels in its portfolio since he started his job on the campus in 1989. Even Hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans in 2005 and was one of the deadliest hurricanes in US history, did not prompt officials to take the leap. “I understand that taking bold action, essentially against fossil fuels, is politically perilous in Louisiana, but I also would have expected more leadership from Tulane administration and trustees,” he said. “It’s ethically immoral at this juncture for institutions like Tulane to ignore its own contributions to, and inactivity regarding, climate change threats.” The Guardian has contacted officials at Columbia University, Tulane University, and the University of Virginia for comment. | ↑ |
This story was produced by Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action. In 2018, the Akron, Ohio-based utility FirstEnergy donated $2.5 million to a Republican Governors Association-affiliated dark money group backing GOP nominee Mike DeWine in a competitive race for Ohio governor, according to newly released records. The records show FirstEnergy’s extensive behind-the-scenes work to get DeWine elected. “This Fall Governor race is very important to FirstEnergy from both a legislative and regulatory perspective and getting Mike across the finish line is critical,” then-CEO Chuck Jones wrote in an August 14, 2018 email invitation to a DeWine fundraiser.  In this email, obtained by a public records request, then-FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones emphasized the importance of electing Mike DeWine in 2018. Jones has since been indicted on charges related to HB 6, the utility bailout bill Gov. DeWine signed in July 2019. The $2.5 million donation, which had never been disclosed, reveals how invested the power company was in the outcome of the Ohio governor’s race between DeWine and Democratic challenger Rich Cordray. At the time, FirstEnergy wanted to bail out two nuclear plants then owned by a subsidiary—but faced opposition from Ohio leaders including then-Gov. John Kasich.  The Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Lake County, Ohio, is at the core of bribery allegations involving FirstEnergy, two of its former executives, and former state officials. FirstEnergy/Flickr via Floodlight Both DeWine and Cordray had promised to save the two northern Ohio nuclear plants if they became governor, and the company chipped in publicly disclosed money to both the Republican Governors Association and the Democratic Governors Association. DeWine has not been implicated in the ongoing bribery scandal surrounding the nuclear bailout. Eight people, including the state’s former House Speaker Larry Householder, have been indicted. Two of those charged in the multimillion-dollar scandal stemming from the passage of the bailout bill have taken their own lives, including Sam Randazzo, the former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, who was found dead earlier this month from suicide. According to the newly released records, FirstEnergy donated $2.5 million in three installments to State Solutions, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit affiliated with the Republican Governors Association that is not required to disclose its donors. One installment of $500,000 is labeled “DeWine;” the other two are listed as “RGA,” according to records released by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, Floodlight, Ohio Capital Journal, and the Energy News Network. The documents, including emails among high-level FirstEnergy executives, show multiple efforts by the power company to keep its support of DeWine out of the public eye by using dark money donations. The records show that on August 14, 2018, Jones—now criminally charged in the scandal—held a fundraiser for DeWine and running mate Jon Husted, calling Husted a “good friend” to the utility. Then DeWine met with FirstEnergy executives at an RGA fundraiser in downtown Columbus on October 10, 2018, the Dayton Daily News first reported. Shortly after, FirstEnergy Solutions donated $500,000 to RGA, according to tax records. FirstEnergy also donated $200,000 to the Citizens Policy Institute, which blasted Cordray for being “Republican Lite,” according to released records. Cleveland restaurateur Tony George, a close FirstEnergy ally, was behind the group, as BuzzFeed News reported at the time. In November 2018, DeWine defeated Cordray, 50.4 percent to 46.7 percent as Democrats swept elections across the country. In 2019, FirstEnergy helped Republican lawmakers craft HB 6, an energy overhaul measure that included $1 billion for the two nuclear plants. DeWine signed the bill within hours of it hitting his desk. When asked if the donations influenced DeWine’s support of nuclear energy, DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney said: “Gov. DeWine’s support for nuclear energy is documented well prior to 2018, including during his tenure as United States senator.” FirstEnergy spokeswoman Jennifer Young said the company was unable to comment on pending litigation; shareholders sued FirstEnergy after federal investigators revealed an extensive pay-to-play scandal bankrolled by the Ohio utility. That federal investigation led to a 20-year prison sentence for Householder, a five-year sentence for ex-Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges, and the firing of several FirstEnergy executives. A parallel state-led criminal investigation has brought charges against two FirstEnergy executives and Ohio’s former chief energy regulator. Attorneys in the shareholder lawsuit have sought to subpoena records from DeWine and depose Husted, but neither faces any criminal accusations. FirstEnergy donated $1 million through a dark money group to back Husted’s campaign in 2017, according to previously released records. Husted and DeWine were competitors until they merged campaigns.  In 2017, Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, seen here at a November 2022 election night party, benefitted from a $1 million donation by FirstEnergy to a conservative 501(c)4 nonprofit called Freedom Frontier. Jay LaPrete/AP In 2018, the owner of the nuclear plants, FirstEnergy Solutions, was in bankruptcy. So creditors raised concerns about a $1 million payment earmarked to help DeWine’s campaign, according to emails exchanged on August 11, 2018. “They cited it is very large compared to DeWine’s current fundraising.” Senior Vice President of External Affairs Michael Dowling tried to allay concerns by explaining that donors can back DeWine’s bid in several ways, including giving to DeWine’s campaign fund, the Republican Governors Association, State Solutions, and the Ohio Republican Party’s state candidate fund. “Theoretically, DeWine/Husted could have a balance of $10M in their campaign account and the RGA could spend $40M in support of DeWine in Ohio,” Dowling explained in an email. “My point is that comparing the size of a contribution to the RGA to what the DeWine campaign has raised or what the DeWine Campaign’s current balance is can be done, but I’m not sure is logical.” Republican fundraiser Brooke Bodney, who worked with the RGA, confirmed: “All factually accurate.” Meanwhile, FirstEnergy Solutions’ David Griffing reassured Akin Gump partner Rick Burdick that there was no connection between State Solutions and DeWine’s campaign. Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld is a powerful law firm that represented FirstEnergy Solutions during its bankruptcy and lobbied for House Bill 6. The issue was important because exchanging a political favor for a campaign donation would be illegal, a quid pro quo. “Thanks,” Burdick wrote. “Just to confirm there is also no understanding with the DeWine campaign re his position on regulatory relief for nuclear plants related to this contribution.” “Correct,” Griffing replied. Mario Alejandro Ariza is an investigative reporter at Floodlight; Jessie Balmert reports for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau. | ↑ |
When House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) emerged onto the steps of Columbia University’s Low Memorial Library on Wednesday afternoon, he was greeted with a deafening sound: hundreds of booing students. Johnson had just emerged from meetings with Jewish students at the university to discuss what he, other Republicans, and some Democrats allege is rising antisemitism on campuses nationwide. Columbia, specifically, has become the epicenter of a politicized fight over the policing of mostly peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters, after CU President Minouche Shafik ordered the NYPD to sweep a Gaza solidarity encampment students set up at the school last Thursday—the day after she testified before a Congressional committee hearing on allegations of antisemitism on campus in the wake of Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. Police arrested more than 100 protesters, and NYPD Chief John Chell told the student newspaper, the Columbia Spectator, that “the students that were arrested were peaceful, offered no resistance whatsoever, and were saying what they wanted to say in a peaceful manner.” But remarks by Johnson and the other Republican politicians he brought to the campus on Wednesday—Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.), and Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.)—painted a very different picture of events, one that an organizer at the encampment said does not represent their ethos. “Columbia has allowed these lawless agitators and radicals to take over,” Johnson said. He said Jewish students he met with described experiencing “heinous acts of bigotry” on campus, including allegedly being chased down, shouted, and sworn at. (Spokespeople for Columbia didn’t respond to questions from Mother Jones about how many antisemitic or anti-Palestinian incidents they’ve tracked on campus since October 7.) “Anti-Israel encampments are popping up in universities all across this country,” Johnson continued. “The madness has to stop.” But as I’ve reported in my tracking of the growing number of Gaza solidarity encampments nationwide, many—including Columbia’s—appear peaceful, with student protesters calling for their universities to divest from companies that fund corporations closely connected to Israel’s military operations, and for administrators to allow pro-Palestinian protesters to peacefully demonstrate without threats of disciplinary action. At Columbia’s encampment—re-established since police cleared it last week—a sign by the entrance clearly lays out their demands: financial divestment from companies and entities that profit from Israel’s war on Gaza; an academic boycott of Israeli institutions; a public statement from the university calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire; an end to policing on campus; and an end to displacement both in Palestine and around Columbia’s Harlem campus.
Sherif Ibrahim, a student and organizer with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, told me inside the encampment organizers believe Republican politicians like Johnson “are getting it completely wrong because they want to get it wrong, and they want to label us as antisemitic when it couldn’t be further from the truth.” “If you spend time here in the camp, it will be crystal clear to you, but they did not,” he added. “They came and they spoke on the steps, and they left, because it’s a moment to gain political capital, and it’s something that they can make use of because there’s a lot of attention here toward our organizing and toward Columbia.” Many students who showed up to protest Johnson’s remarks also cast him as an opportunist. They interrupted him throughout his remarks, chanting “free, free Palestine,” and shouting “liar,” “get off our campus,” and “criticism of Israel is not antisemitism.” At one point, when students’ chants of “we can’t hear you” became overwhelming, Johnson paused and smirked before quipping, “enjoy your free speech.”
And before he wrapped up his remarks, he relayed a message to the protesters at the encampment outside Butler Library, just across campus: “Go back to class,” Johnson said, “and stop the nonsense.” When a reporter asked about Johnson’s “message to anti-Zionist Jews inside the camp celebrating Shabbat,” the House speaker replied, “I don’t know who’s in that camp over there, but I will tell you that this is unacceptable.”
Ben Gelman, a Jewish student at Columbia Law School I met outside Low Library after Johnson left, seemed to be a rarity among the students who came to hear Johnson speak: He told me he was glad the politicians showed up. Gelman said he was in an earlier meeting with Johnson, and that the Speaker told students “he’s going to work tirelessly to make sure that Jews can feel safe at Columbia again, that we aren’t intimidated.” I asked Gelman if he experienced antisemitism firsthand at Columbia, and he referred to a video that has circulated on social media showing some protesters outside Columbia’s gates chanting, “burn Tel Aviv to the ground” and “Hamas, we love you, we support your rockets too.” “I actually hold Israeli citizenship, and for people telling me that a country that I’m a citizen of should get burned down—that was not comfortable at all, and quite frankly, it shocked and angered me,” Gelman told me. When I headed to the encampment a bit later and met Ibrahim, one of the organizers, he told me he hadn’t seen the video Gelman referred to, and said, “To all these critiques, we say there’s a definitive, declarative difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, and we oppose discrimination of all forms and all kinds vehemently.” Inside the encampment, things were peaceful and orderly: entry was tightly controlled, and students were sitting outside tents, eating and working on their laptops. Tables of food were set up in one corner of the camp, and as I milled around with a colleague, students began laying down blue tarps on the grass so Muslim students could pray. Ibrahim also mentioned that the camp hosted a Passover Seder a few nights ago. Yesterday, Shafik emailed students saying that they had to clear the encampment by midnight or face “alternative options for clearing the West Lawn,” prompting many protesters to fear the police would return. Shortly after midnight, organizers said administrators extended the deadline to 4 a.m., and this morning, administrators said they were having “constructive dialogue” with encampment organizers and would extend the deadline to disperse by another 48 hours. One student I met outside the Low Library after Johnson’s speech, who only identified himself by an initial, K, summed up the dissonance between Johnson’s description of the protesters and the reality of the encampment: “It’s as if there’s some kind of armed insurrection here—there isn’t,” K told me. “There’s maybe, like, 100 students sleeping in tents on a lawn.” | ↑ |
