Cassidy Hutchinson, Alyssa Farah Griffin, and Sarah Matthews appeared on ABC’s This Week on Sunday in an interview with Jonathan Karl to caution America about the dangers a second Trump presidency could bring. In retaliation, Trump took to his personal social media network, posting screenshots of old tweets and excerpts from articles and interviews where Griffin and Matthews were defending or praising him. While Trump seems to be framing these comments and posts as some sort of “gotcha,” many — but not all — were from before Jan. 6 and before Trump claimed the election was stolen.
During the interview, Griffin, who resigned from her position as White House communications director in early Dec. 2020, issued a stark warning about the dangers Trump could pose if he wins the 2024 election. “Fundamentally, a second Trump term could mean the end of American democracy as we know it, and I don’t say that lightly,” she said. Griffin, who now co-hosts The View, went on to say that Trump went to “historic and unconstitutional lengths” to “steal a democratic election” so he could remain in power.
EXCLUSIVE: Three women who served in former Pres. Trump's White House sat down with @JonKarl to discuss their experiences speaking out against Trump and the impact they say his reelection could have on democracy. https://t.co/iMX9XSt7WIpic.twitter.com/311XWJSp7n
“I’m very concerned about what the term would actually look like,” Griffin said.
“We don’t need to speculate what a second Trump term would like because we already saw it play out,” added Matthews, who served as a White House deputy press secretary and Trump campaign spokesperson until she resigned on Jan. 6, 2021.
“To this day, he still doubles down on the fact that he thinks that the election was stolen and fraudulent,” Matthews continued. She also noted that Trump has become “increasingly erratic” as he threatens to circumvent the Constitution and abuse his power to punish his enemies.
“Our singular focus needs to be, if he is the nominee, on making sure that he is not elected the president again next November,” said Hutchinson, who served as an assistant to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. After her bombshell testimony to the Jan. 6 committee aired, Hutchinson said she went into hiding due to threats against her.
The women said they are determined to ensure that Trump does not become president again. “I’ve never voted for a Democrat in my life, but I think that in this next election, I would put policy aside and choose democracy,” said Matthews.
Hutchinson also commented on Trump’s claim that he will act as a “dictator” if he has a second term: “The fact that he feels that he needs to lean into being a dictator alone shows that he is a weak and feeble man.”
The majority of Americans today are anxious; they believe their democracy is under threat.
In fact, democracies deteriorate easily. As was feared since the times of Greek philosopher Plato, they may suddenly succumb to mob rule. The people will think they have an inalienable right to manifest their opinions – which means to state out loud whatever passes through their minds. They will act accordingly, often violently. They will make questionable decisions.
Democracies may pave the way to tyrants. Self-serving leaders will appear. They will seek to rewrite national history by purging it of complexity and inconvenient truths. They will capitalize on the widespread frustration and profit from the chaotic situation.
So, one way democracies degenerate is because of cunning leaders. But democracies crumble also because of the people themselves. As an intellectual historian, I can assure you that the specter of an ignorant populace holding sway has kept many philosophers, writers and politicians awake.
The American founders were at the forefront in the battle against popular ignorance. They even concocted a plan for a national public university.
The men known as America’s Founding Fathers, likewise, were very sensitive to this issue. For them, not all voters were created equal. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton trusted the people – “the people” being, for them, white property-owning males, of course. But only if and when they had a sufficient level of literacy.
Thomas Jefferson was the most democratic-minded of the group. His vision of the new American nation entailed “a government by its citizens, in mass, acting directly and personally, according to rules established by the majority.”
He once gauged himself against George Washington: “The only point on which he and I ever differed in opinion,” Jefferson wrote, “was, that I had more confidence than he had in the natural integrity and discretion of the people.”
The paradox was that, for Jefferson himself, the “natural integrity” of the people needed to be cultivated: “Their minds must be improved to a certain degree.” So, while the people are potentially the “safe depositories” for a democratic nation, in reality they have to go through a training process.
“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people,” he kept repeating. It was an axiom in his mind “that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction.”
Education had direct implications for democracy: “Wherever the people are well-informed,” wrote Jefferson, “they can be trusted with their own government.”
A national university
In 1787, Benjamin Rush, the Philadelphia doctor and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, published an “Address to the People of the United States.”
One of his main topics was the establishment of a “federal university” in which “every thing connected with government, such as history – the law of nature and nations – the civil law – the municipal laws of our country – and the principles of commerce – would be taught by competent professors.” Rush saw this plan as essential, should an experiment in democracy be attempted.
In 1796, President George Washington gave his Eighth Annual Message to the Senate and the House of Representatives at Congress Hall in Philadelphia, seen here. He wanted to alert Congress to the ‘desirableness’ of ‘a national university.’ Montes-Bradley/iStock / Getty Images Plus
George Washington stressed the same idea. At the end of his second term as president, in December 1796, Washington delivered his Eighth Annual Message to the Senate and the House of Representatives. He wished to awaken Congress to the “desirableness” of “a national university and also a military academy” whose wings would span over as many citizens as possible.
In his message, Washington embraced bold positions: “The more homogeneous our citizens can be made,” he claimed, “the greater will be our prospect of permanent union.”
Democracy’s ‘safe depositories’
A national university homogenizing the American people would likely be ill-received today anyway. We live in an age of race, gender and sexual awareness. Ours is an era of multiculturalism, the sacrosanct acknowledgment and celebration of difference.
But Washington’s idea that the goal of public education was to make citizens somewhat more “homogeneous” is worth reconsidering.
Were President Washington alive today, I believe he would provide his recipe for the people to remain the “safe depositories” of democracy. He would insist on giving them better training in history, as both Rush and Jefferson also advised. And he would especially press for teaching deeper, more encompassing political values.
He would say that schools and universities must teach the people that in their political values they should go beyond separate identities and what makes them different.
He would trust that, armed with such a common understanding, they would foster a “permanent union” and thus save democracy.
What the framers said about the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause: Analysis
Steven Portnoy – December 29, 2023
The intent of the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause is central to the debate over whether former President Donald Trump’s name should be stricken from GOP primary ballots now that the issue has landed at the steps of the Supreme Court.
Judges and officials across many states around the country are now grappling with language that was written a year after the end of the Civil War. The words “insurrection” and “rebellion” had certain meanings to those who had them added to the Constitution, and a key question for arbiters now is whether the language drafted a century-and-a-half ago should be applied to Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 riot.
As it originally passed the House, the 14th Amendment’s third section was not nearly as broad as the version now being invoked to strike Trump’s name from the ballot. It was narrowly crafted to apply only to those who willingly took part in the Civil War, and it was only meant to deprive former confederates of their right to cast ballots in federal elections. It also had an expiration date.
PHOTO: Former President Donald Trump greets the crowd at a campaign rally, Dec. 16, 2023, in Durham, N.H. (Reba Saldanha/AP)
“Sec. 3. Until the 4th day of July, in the year 1870, all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late insurrection, giving it aid and comfort, shall be excluded from the right to vote for Representatives in Congress and for electors for President and Vice President of the United States,” the original, House-passed version read, according to congressional records of the era.
The Senate spent several days debating the House-passed amendment in the spring of 1866. While the birthright citizenship provisions in Section 1 earned a lot of time in debate, Section 3 was also the subject of an intense back-and-forth on the floor. The transcripts can be read in the Congressional Globe, a forerunner to the Congressional Record.
Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan, who led the Republicans in debate, insisted that it wouldn’t be enough to deprive the former confederates of their right to vote in federal elections — he wanted them banished from government service altogether.
“I should prefer a clause prohibiting all persons who have participated in the rebellion, and who were over twenty-five years of age at the breaking out of the rebellion, from all participation in offices, either Federal or State, throughout the United States,” Howard said on the Senate floor on May 23, 1866. “I think such a provision would be a benefit to the nation.”
After about a week of discussions with colleagues, Howard offered the Sec. 3 language that was ultimately ratified. Howard’s revision removed specific references to “the” rebellion and added an important qualifier: those who were to be excluded from government service would have to have violated prior oaths to defend the constitution by having “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against [it] or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
Senators rejected various attempts to re-insert the word “voluntarily,” or to restrict the exclusion to those who violated their oaths during the time they were still serving in office.
There was a great deal of concern voiced in debate that Howard’s exclusion clause might leave the South ungovernable, with so many confederates poised to be disqualified from serving, even in state posts. Opponents expressed fear that the provision might alienate Union-loyal supporters in state legislatures. Nevertheless, the version Howard introduced made it through the entire ratification process and became effective on July 9, 1868.
In 2024, the originalists on the Supreme Court will likely seek to determine whether the ratifiers could have had it in mind 158 years ago that Sec. 3 might not only be applied to the “late insurrection,” as the House-passed version originally had it, but also to any other rebellion that might later take place.
But originalists might take note of what Sen. Peter Van Winkle of West Virginia said as he sought to have the threshold for congressional amnesty in Howard’s version lowered to a simple majority, rather than two-thirds.
PHOTO: Former President Donald Trump greets the crowd at a campaign rally, Dec. 16, 2023, in Durham, N.H. (Reba Saldanha/AP)
“This is to go into our Constitution and to stand to govern future insurrection as well as the present; and I should like to have that point definitely understood,” Van Winkle said at the time.
It’s also worth noting that there was just a single reference in the Senate debate to the fact that the president and vice president were not explicitly mentioned in Howard’s draft as “officer(s) of the United States,” the way members of Congress and state officials had been itemized in the text. Would the disqualification clause of the amendment not cover the top posts in the executive branch?
“Why did you omit to exclude them?” asked Maryland Democratic Sen. Reverdy Johnson.
Maine’s Lot Morrill jumped in to clarify.
“Let me call the Senator’s attention to the words ‘or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States,'” Morrill said, ending the discussion on that point.
Earlier this week, the Colorado Republican Party asked the Supreme Court to answer whether the office of the president is covered by the amendment. Colorado district judge Sarah Wallace ruled last month that it is not. The Colorado Supreme Court overturned her finding last week and a majority of Colorado’s seven justices wrote that the former president “engaged in insurrection.”
Trump is facing more than a dozen tests over his ballot eligibility under the 14th Amendment in various state and federal courts, with challenges or appeals pending in about 15 states.
Michigan, Minnesota and California have kept Trump on their ballots despite efforts to disqualify him.
In a statement Thursday following the decision by Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows ruling Trump would not appear on the Republican 2024 ballot, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said they would “quickly file a legal objection in state court.”
He added that Bellows was a “hyper-partisan Biden-supporting Democrat who has decided to interfere in the presidential election.”
Trump is expected to appeal the decision to disqualify him from the Colorado ballot to the Supreme Court.
“The Colorado Supreme Court issued a completely flawed decision tonight …. We have full confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favor and finally put an end to these un-American lawsuits,” Cheung said in a statement, in part, after the ruling.
Seven ways the exodus of Western companies has cratered the Russian economy.
By Jeffery A. Sonnenfeld, the Lester Crown professor in management practice and a senior associate dean at the Yale School of Management, and Steven Tian, the director of research at the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute. – December 22, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds his year-end press conference at Gostiny Dvor exhibition hall in central Moscow.
This is perhaps the most dire moment for Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, with the military situation on the battlefield seemingly stalemated, Western political support wavering under the weight of political dysfunction, and war in the Middle East diverting resources and attention.
Nevertheless, many reflexive cynics in the Western press are going too far in crediting Ukraine’s adversary, Russian President Vladimir Putin, with one Wall Street Journal columnist even declaring Putin one of the “winners of the year.” We cannot fall into the trap of thinking that all is good for Putin, and we cannot jettison effective measures to pressure him. Just this week, the New York Times even suggested that the exit of more than 1,000 multinational companies from Russia has backfired by enriching Putin and his cronies.
All the evidence suggests there are, in fact, ample costs of the business exodus. Economic data clearly shows that the Russian economy has paid a huge price for the loss of those businesses. Putin continues to conceal the required disclosure of Russia’s national income statistics—obviously because they are nothing to brag out.
Transferring nearly worthless assets does not make Russia or Putin cronies wealthier. While Putin expropriated some assets of Asian and Western companies, most firms simply abandoned them, eagerly writing down billions of dollars in assets. They were rewarded for doing so as their market capitalization soared upon the news of their exits. Russia is not only suing foreign companies for leaving, as ExxonMobil’s and BP’s departures ended the technology needed for exploration, but Russian oil giant Rosneft even sued Reuters for reporting on it. The massive supply disruptions shuttering Russian factories across sectors were described in on-the-ground reporting by the Journal, which resulted in the arrest and now nine-month imprisonment of the heroic journalist who documented the truth.
Consider the following economic statistics we have verified.
Talent flight. In the first months after the invasion, an estimated 500,000 individuals fled Russia, many of whom were exactly the highly educated, technically skilled workers Russia cannot afford to lose. In the year-plus since, that number has ballooned to at least 1 million individuals. By some counts, Russia lost 10 percent of its entire technology workforce from this unprecedented talent flight.
Capital flight. Per the Russian Central Bank’s own reports, a record $253 billion in private capital was pulled out of Russia between February 2022 and June 2023, which was more than four times the amount of prior capital outflows. By some measures, Russia lost 33 percent of the total number of millionaires living in Russia when those individuals fled.
Loss of Western technology and knowhow. This occurred across key industries such as technology and energy exploration. For example, Rosneft alone has had to spend nearly $10 billion more on capital expenditure over the last year by its own disclosure, which amounts to roughly $10 of additional expenses for every barrel of oil exported, on top of difficulties continuing its Arctic oil drilling projects, which were almost solely dependent on Western tech and expertise.
Near-complete halt in foreign direct investment into Russia. Foreign direct investment (FDI) into Russia has come to a near-complete stop by several measures. There has been only one month of positive inflows in the 22 months since the invasion, compared with approximately $100 billion in FDI annually before the war.
Loss of the ruble as a freely convertible and exchangeable currency. With global multinationals fleeing in such droves, there was little to stop Putin from implementing unprecedented, strict capital controls on the ruble post-invasion, such as banning citizens from sending money to bank accounts abroad; suspending cash withdrawals from dollar banking accounts beyond $10,000; forcing exporters to exchange 80 percent of their earnings for rubles; suspending direct dollar conversions for individuals with ruble banking accounts; suspending lending in dollars; and suspending dollar sales across Russian banks. No wonder ruble trading volumes are down 90 percent, making Russian assets valued in rubles virtually worthless and unexchangeable in global markets.
Loss of access to capital markets. Western capital markets remain the deepest, most liquid, and cheapest source of capital to fund business and risk-taking. Since the start of the invasion, no Russian company has been able to issue any new stock or any new bonds in any Western financial market—meaning they can only tap the coffers of domestic funding sources such as Putin’s state-owned banks for loans at usurious rates (and still increasing, with the benchmark interest rate at 16 percent). And with multinational companies having fled, Russian business ventures have no alternative sources of funding and no global investors to tap.
Massive destruction of wealth and plummeting asset valuations. Thanks in part to the mass exodus of global multinational businesses, asset valuations have plummeted across the board in Russia, with even the total enterprise value of some state-owned enterprise down 75 percent compared with prewar levels, according to our research, on top of 50 percent haircuts in the valuation of many private sector assets, as cited in the Times.
The Liberian-flagged oil tanker Ice Energy (left) transfers crude oil from the Russian-flagged oil tanker Lana (right), off the coast of Greece, on May 29, 2022.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gestures with an open hand while speaking during a TV news interview. Zelensky is dressed in his typical black t-shirt and is seated at a desk in front of a bright blue wall.A woman poses for a photo in front of a tall decorated Christmas tree in front of a war-damanged building in Melitopol in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region with a Russian flag flying from a tall pole overhead.
These are just some of the costs imposed on Putin by the withdrawal of 1,000-plus global businesses; it does not consider the deleterious impact on the Russian economy of economic sanctions, such as the highly effective oil price cap devised by the U.S. Treasury Department. More than two-thirds of Russia’s exports were energy, and that is now slicedin half. Russia, which never supplied any finished goods—industrial or consumer—to the global economy, is paralyzed. It is not remotely an economic superpower, with virtually all of its raw materials easily substituted from elsewhere. The war machine is driven only by the cannibalization of now state-controlled enterprises.
Based on our ample economic data, the verdict is clear: The unprecedented, historic exodus of 1,000-plus global companies has helped cripple Putin’s war machine. At such a dire moment for Ukraine, it would be a mistake to be too Pollyannaish—just as it would be a mistake to be too cynical.
Russian military executes Ukrainian POWs near Robotyne, investigation initiated
The New Voice of Ukraine – December 27, 2023
Shell casings on the ground in a trench near the frontline in the east
Russian forces executed Ukrainian prisoners of war near Robotyne in Zaporizhzhya Oblast in December, leading to Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office launching an investigation.
Russian armed forces took three Ukrainian defenders captive during a skirmish with the Ukrainian Defense Forces. An hour later, the captives were shot by the occupiers, and the video surfaced on the internet, Prosecutor General’s Office reported on Telegram on Dec. 27.
The execution by Russians violates Article 3 of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war.
Law enforcement has initiated a criminal case on the fact of violating laws and customs of war, combined with intentional murder.
This is not the first instance where Ukraine has reported the execution of Ukrainian military personnel taken captive by Russian forces. In October, the United Nations documented six such cases in its report.
In early December, a video circulated on social media depicting two Russian military personnel shooting two surrendered Ukrainian soldiers with their hands held behind their heads. This was later confirmed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Preliminary findings from investigators place the execution in the vicinity of Stepove village in Pokrovsky district, Donetsk Oblast.
In early September, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said that some 90% of Ukrainian POWs had been tortured, raped, threatened with sexual violence, or otherwise ill-treated.
Mitch McConnell is out of step with the majority of Americans. He must go.
Charles Shor – December 27, 2023
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., once legislated on behalf of the interests of Americans. Today, he is nothing more than an opportunist who will sell out the American people to foreign interests and maintain his post as the leader of the Senate Republican conference at the expense of legislative victories. He must go.
Early in his career, McConnell resembled someone more aligned with today’s Republican base. Back then, McConnell supported American jobs and fought foreign imports. To name just a few examples, he took a hard line on China, pressured South Korea to open its markets, increased minimum export tonnage, promoted tourism, limited textile imports and promoted pharmaceutical exports.
Today, McConnell’s key characteristic is being on the wrong side of each and every policy issue facing the United States. Whether it is immigration where he has pushed multiple times for amnesty for illegal immigrants, the war in Ukraine − which he calls the “No. 1 priority for the United States” − or federal spending, McConnell is out of step with the majority of Americans and frankly recalcitrant toward the priorities of the Republican Party.
One explanation for McConnell’s “evolution” begins with the name Elaine Chao, his wife of 30 years, a perennial Washington establishment fixture as secretary of Labor under President George W. Bush (2001-09) and secretary of Transportation under President Donald Trump (2017-21).
The Chaos own and operate Foremost Group − an ostensibly American shipping company that just so happens to ship more than 70% of its present-day freight to China and maintains ties with its communist government. Much of the funding for their fleet has been obtained through banks in China.
Additionally, according to a 38-page inspector general report, she directed her Department of Transportation staff to handle personal tasks and work related to her family’s shipping company, such as arranging interviews, editing Wikipedia pages and planning trips.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and his wife, former Labor and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, celebrate his reelection in 2020 in Louisville, Ky.
Chao used her leadership position to benefit not just herself but also her husband. According to Politico, she assigned a special Transportation liaison to work with McConnell directly, opening the door to $78 million in grants for McConnell’s favored projects in Kentucky, conveniently timed to coincide with his 2020 reelection bid.
While it is ultimately unclear how much McConnell and his family have profited from their positions of influence, we know the two received a gift in 2008 that was reported on McConnell’s taxes as valued between $5 million and $25 million. A McConnell spokesman confirmed to The Washington Post that this was an inheritance for Chao after her mother died.
China isn’t the only place we see his ideology bending in the direction of personal opportunity. In 2019, for example, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley blamed McConnell for blocking bipartisan legislation that sought to lower prescription drug prices.
Why would the Senate Republican leader block legislation that was favored by 88% of Americans? The answer lies in his financial disclosures.
By December of the same year, $50,000 had been donated to McConnell’s campaign by political action committees and individuals tied to the pharmaceutical industry, according to American Journal News. Pfizer’s recent decision to contribute an unprecedented $1 million to expanding Kentucky’s Republican Party headquarters suggests that McConnell’s cozy relationship with the drug companies continues to this day.
What this brief rehearsal of McConnell’s shifting sensibilities and personal ambition shows us is not simply a hero who lived long enough to become the villain, but a man whose position has always depended on supporting whatever policies would benefit him and his inner circle.
McConnell would rather drag down the party than sacrifice his ability to use it as a way to increase his own power and influence.
Whenever opportunity knocks, Mitch McConnell will be the first to answer, even if it means sacrificing American interests at the altar of the almighty yen. It’s time we take away his key to the congressional kingdom and hand it to someone we can trust.
“Terrifying”: Republicans warn court that Trump’s “dangerous argument” opens door to more crimes
Igor Derysh – December 27, 2023
Donald Trump Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
A group of former Republican federal officials on Tuesday warned a federal court to reject former President Donald Trump’s presidential immunity claim in his D.C. election subversion case.
The group in an amicus brief filed to the Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia warns that ruling that Trump is immune from prosecution would “encourage” future presidents to commit crimes to stay in power.
“Nothing in our Constitution, or any case, supports former President Trump’s dangerous argument for criminal immunity,” the brief said, according to Business Insider.
The Republican authors argued that Trump’s claim that he is immune in the case because he was president at the time is “especially weak.”
“The last thing presidential immunity should do is embolden Presidents who lose re-election to engage in criminal conduct, through official acts or otherwise, as part of efforts to prevent the vesting of executive power required by Article II in their lawfully-elected successors,” they wrote.
Allowing future presidents to commit crimes to alter election outcomes would turn the Constitution “on its head,” they added.
“These terrifying possibilities are real, not remote,” wrote the group, which included former UN Ambassador and Sen. John Danforth, former Reagan Solicitor General Charles Fried, and former CPAC Chairman and Rep. Mickey Edwards.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected Trump’s immunity argument, writing that the presidency “does not confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass.” The appeals court is set to review the matter after the Supreme Court last week rejected special counsel Jack Smith’s request to fast-track it.
Though the appeals process is likely to delay the case beyond the scheduled March trial date, legal experts widely expect Chutkan’s ruling to hold up.
“It’s kind of ridiculous,” Paul Saputo, a Texas defense lawyer, told The Daily Beast. “We’re not even going to have a 5-4 decision. I don’t think it’s going to be a close call. They realize that in order for them to really keep the country together, it’s got to be pretty unanimous.”
But Michael Waldman, the head of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, acknowledged that there is “not much precedent” on post-presidential prosecutions.
“There have been so few presidents as crooked as Trump,” Waldman told the outlet, adding that the Justice Department’s policy against indicting a sitting president relies on the assumption that “you can prosecute someone after-the-fact.”
“Even if the Supreme Court doesn’t want a president always looking over his back… if they want to try to draw a line, what they can say is, ‘This was not just some random act he did while in office,” Waldman explained. “This was his attempt to overthrow the Constitution,” he said. “This was about the presidency. You can’t use presidential immunity… to cling to the presidency.”
Former U.S Attorney Harry Litman told CNN that the D.C. case poses “the biggest threat” to Trump because even with the delays the trial is likely to occur before the election.
“There is still a lot of space, even if we lose a couple months, for that to be tried and go to the jury, conviction, one might think,” he said. “Plenty of time before the election, though; not plenty of time before he secures the nomination. But, that to me, is coming at him with the most seriousness.”
It’s a trap! Small towns across US use traffic tickets to collect big money from drivers.
Matthew Prensky and Rob Johnson – December 26, 2023
Towns across America are once again relying on an old scheme to generate revenue: Turn their police forces into collection agencies to squeeze money out of the citizens they are sworn to protect.
From Texas to Ohio, municipalities are using law enforcement to counteract declining tax bases through the aggressive enforcement of fineable offenses such as speeding. A 2019 report estimated that nearly 600 jurisdictions nationwide generate at least 10% of their general fund revenue through fines and forfeitures.
Yet, the current initiatives erode community trust, harm public safety and violate Americans’ constitutional rights. And the scale, of both the number of tickets written and the amount of money collected, is astounding.
In Peninsula, Ohio, police used handheld speed cameras to issue 8,900 speeding tickets in only five months this year, generating at least $1.3 million in fines. That’s more than 16 tickets per resident in the community of 536 people.
The village, with an annual budget of about $1 million, collected $400,000 in fines. The private company that supplies the cameras, Targeting and Solutions Ltd., received more than $250,000 in fines issued to motorists.
Worse, Peninsula requires individuals to pay a $100 fee to contest a citation in municipal court. Those who can’t afford the fee are stripped of their constitutional right to due process. Even those who can afford the fee risk nearly doubling the cost of their ticket if the fine is upheld. Even if you believe you’re innocent, the rational thing to do is just to pay.
Other municipalities have enacted their own policing-for-profit programs. In Brookside, Alabama, the town of about 1,200 residents saw its revenue increase more than 640% in only two years, according to AL.com, after police began an aggressive traffic stop and ticket-writing campaign. Fines and forfeitures made up almost half of the town’s budget.
In Texas, Coffee City, with a population of about 250 people, hired 50 full-time and reserve police officers, who wrote more than 5,000 citations last year. The town collected more than $1 million in fines.
Moreover, these programs often violate other constitutional rights like protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, or the prohibition against the issuance of excessive fines.
Beyond these constitutional problems, a 2019 study performed by the Institute for Justice showed that a heavy reliance on fines or fees can reduce a community’s trust and cooperation with its police department. An unrelated 2018 study found cities that rely on fines solve violent and property crimes at significantly lower rates.
Nothing about these schemes has anything to do with helping the public. If it did, municipalities wouldn’t need to engineer bogus reasons to pull someone over or impose fees designed to dissuade individuals from appealing their tickets.
If Peninsula’s program was meant to promote public safety, as officials claim, the village would’ve done more to warn the 12,000 visitors who pass through town while visiting Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Instead, Peninsula warned its residents that the tickets would be coming, but provided no such alert to visitors.
Government shouldn’t treat citizens like a piggy bank
No government should be allowed to treat citizens like ATMs. The Constitution is meant to safeguard the American people from government abuses like this.
The Institute for Justice has sued dozens of local governments for infringing on citizens’ rights by collecting unreasonable fees through procedures that violate individuals’ rights to due process. In Peninsula, the institute warned village officials that they needed to bring their speed enforcement program into compliance with the Constitution or face a lawsuit.
These revenue-generating initiatives are a nuisance to communities across America. They abuse people’s civil liberties, destroy community trust and harm public safety. Luckily, the liberties enshrined in the Constitution can help Americans stand up to towns like Peninsula and force them to stop treating citizens like walking piggy banks.
Matthew Prensky is a writer and Rob Johnson is a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice.
Trump isn’t the real threat to democracy. Christian nationalism is
Herb Paine – December 26, 2023
Less than a year away from what is surely the most fateful presidential election in American history, warnings about the threats to democracy associated with right-wing extremism and Trumpist authoritarianism dominate media’s attention.
NACL’s mission is to “formulate model statutes, ordinances and resolutions based upon a biblical worldview for introduction in cities, states and the Federal government.”
NACL now has a legislative presence in more than 30 states, including Arizona, participating in the drafting of model legislation “to reestablish and protect conservative values in America.”
NACL’s initiatives to Christianize the nation and merge church and state (essentially dismissing the Constitution’s Establishment Clause) are inspired by Christian dominionism.
Its principles are “a world-changing strategy” to “bring Godly change” to America by transforming seven spheres of societal influence: religion, family education, government, media, arts and entertainment, and business.
As this year closes, the evidence grows that state legislatures and local school boards are the fronts on which the movement’s anti-constitutional and anti-democratic policies are being pursued.
How legislation played out in Arizona
In Arizona, the NACL’s objectives are reflected in a pattern of state policy initiatives that extend as far back as 2018 when Senate Bill 1289, modeled after the National Motto Display Act, established “Ditat Deus” (“God enriches”) as Arizona’s state motto.
That may sound benign, but, as a result, whenever ADOT sells an In God We Trust license plate, $17 goes to the Scottsdale-based Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-choice, anti-LGBTQ+ organization that files lawsuits to enshrine Christianity in government and jurisprudence.
It would a) “give religious organizations blanket immunity from all civil and criminal liability, as long as they claim to be exercising their faith while engaging in the unlawful conduct” and b) forbid the government from imposing fees, penalties, injunctions or damages against these entities.
This year, Rep. David Livingston, who serves as chairman of Arizona NACL, along with 34 other lawmakers, sponsored SB 1600, which would criminalize an abortion clinic, hospital or medical practitioner who fails to “take all medically appropriate and reasonable actions to preserve the life and health of the infant who is born alive,” regardless the newborn’s likelihood of survival.
They pushed book, transgender sports bans
In 2022, lawmakers passed SB 1164, last year’s variation of NACL’s model Heartbeat Bill, that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. It makes exceptions for medical emergencies but not for rape or incest.
The constitutionality of that bill is now before the state Supreme Court. However the court decides, the movement’s efforts to intrude upon a woman’s health and family planning choices will continue.
This year’s NACL legislative agenda corresponds to Civics Alliance’s “American Birthright Movement,” which prioritizes a curriculum that exalts America’s past as a Christian nation, its exceptionalism and its achievements, without reference to the nation’s history of repression and exploitation.
ban transgender girls and women from participating in girls’/women’s sports teams;
ban books in schools that discuss sexuality or race;
require schools to disclose information that could “out” LGBTQ+ students to their parents.
They have also introduced or passed legislation to undermine ethical investing strategies by corporations that address racial and gender equality and reproductive rights.
What’s next on Christian nationalist agenda
All these initiatives are a precursor of what is yet to come.
Pending actions include:
an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to recognize America’s Christian heritage;
the reinstatement of prayer in public schools;
the enshrinement of a “Christian nationalist interpretation” of American history in school curricula;
immigration restrictions; and
stronger governmental actions to restrict “immoral behavior.”
This Christian nationalism agenda is unfolding at school boards throughout the country and in the Phoenix area.
One was on the grounds that the teacher had presented her high school science students with sexually explicit material in the form of a PowerPoint (in fact, information about reproduction in a biology class).
The second had encouraged students and staff to wear transgender colors to celebrate the International Transgender Day of Visibility.
History has revealed the ability of small but tenacious and single-minded groups to overtake the majority.
We are compelled, therefore, amid a global anti-democratic trend, to be vigilant, speak out and vote!
Herb Paine is president of Paine Consulting Services, a social and political commentator, and former congressional candidate.
Alexei Navalny says he is ‘doing fine’ in special regime Arctic prison
Euronews – December 26, 2023
The imprisoned Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, whose fate is causing concern in the West, said on Tuesday that he was “doing well” after a long and “tiring” transfer to a remote prison colony in the Russian Arctic.
His family, who had had no news of him for nearly three weeks, announced on Monday that they had traced him to a penal colony in Kharp, in the Yamalo-Nenets region, beyond the Arctic Circle.
They claim that the Russian authorities are seeking to isolate him even further, a few months before the March 2024 presidential election in which Vladimir Putin‘s victory appears to be a foregone conclusion.
In his first message on social networks since his disappearance, Alexei Navalny said that the 20-day journey to his new place of detention had been “quite tiring”.
“But I’m in good spirits, like Father Christmas”, he added, referring to his “beard” which had grown during the long journey and his new winter clothes suitable for polar temperatures.
“Whatever happens, don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I’m relieved to have finally arrived”, he said.
Alexei Navalny, 47, a charismatic anti-corruption campaigner and Vladimir Putin’s number one enemy, is serving a 19-year prison sentence for “extremism”.
He was arrested in January 2021 on his return from convalescing in Germany for poisoning, which he blames on the Kremlin.
He disappeared at the beginning of December from the prison colony in the Vladimir region, 250 kilometers east of Moscow, where he had been held until then, which meant that he was likely to be transferred to another establishment.
‘Special regime’ colony
According to the verdict for “extremism” against Mr Navalny, the opponent must serve his sentence in a “special regime” colony, the category of establishments where conditions of detention are the harshest and which are usually reserved for lifers and the most dangerous prisoners.
He said he had arrived at his new prison colony on Saturday evening, after a discreet journey and “such a strange itinerary” that he did not expect to be found by his family until mid-January.
“That’s why I was surprised when the cell door opened yesterday and I was told: ‘A lawyer is here for you'”, he said, expressing his gratitude for the “support” he had received.
One of his close associates, Ivan Jdanov, accused the Russian authorities of trying to “isolate” him in the run-up to the presidential election.
a group of officers walk inside a prison colony in the town of Kharp, in the Yamalo-Nenetsk region. – AP/Human rights ombudsman of Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District
According to him, Alexei Navalny is being held in “one of the northernmost and most remote settlements” in Russia, where conditions are “difficult”.
In the West, his disappearance caused concern that was not entirely allayed by his reappearance in a very remote region.
On Monday, the United States said it was “deeply concerned” about Alexei Navalny’s “conditions of detention” and demanded his release.
Mr Navalny’s movement has been methodically eradicated by the authorities in recent years, driving his collaborators and allies into exile or prison.
In early December, the Russian authorities brought new charges of “vandalism” against the anti-corruption activist, which could add another three years to his sentence.
Vladimir Putin is aiming for a new six-year term in the Kremlin in the March presidential election, a term that would take him until 2030, when he turns 78.
