Fox News host Sean Hannity interviewed Michigan Rep. Tim Walberg regarding his state’s stance on abortion laws in the aftermath of the Supreme court overturning Roe v. Wade. While Hannity seemed absolutely certain that state would never ban the procedure even though Michigan imposed a trigger law in 1931 that banned abortions and curbed reproductive rights, exposing the right wing’s plan to ban abortion at the federal level.
“SEAN HANNITY (HOST): Hey, congressman, they’re also lying to everybody —
TIM WALBERG (R-MI): Yeah.
HANNITY: — Because abortion is not illegal. It’s not going to be illegal in your state of Michigan. I’d bet my last dollar that’s not gonna be the case. Am I wrong?
WALBERG: No, it is illegal in the state right now. In 1931, Michigan passed one of the first anti-abortion laws. It says that there is no abortion —
HANNITY: So, they have to have a trigger provision, but wouldn’t you expect with Governor Whitmer and the legislature as it’s currently configured, what do you expect that the likelihood of them changing that is going to be pretty swift?
WALBERG: Well, they’re gonna take action and, in fact, our attorney general, our lawless attorney general like Merrick Garland, is saying she will not enforce the law if Roe v Wade goes away. That’s the challenge we have, but we’re gonna fight it in the legislature. We have a pro-life legislature in the House and the Senate in Michigan. They have to get through that legislature if they’re gonna do it constitutionally, and we will battle back. But again Sean, that’s where —”
Mississippi State Speaker of the House Phillip Gunn is refusing to budge on making an exception to the state’s total abortion ban, even for 12-year-old girls who are victims of incest. When confronted with this specific scenario, Gunn asserted that he believes life “begins at conception” while his party refuses to do anything to combat child poverty in the state. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian discuss on The Young Turks.
“The Mississippi Republican Speaker of the House says there should be no exception to the state’s ban on abortion now that the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down the five-decade-old Roe v Wade ruling.
Asked specifically about 12-year-old girls who are victims of incest, Speaker Philip Gunn repeatedly stated his “personal belief” is “life begins at conception.” “What about the case of a 12-year-old girl who was molested by her father or uncle?” an Associated Press reporter, Emily Wagster Pettus, asked the Speaker on Friday, as the Mississippi Free Press reports.”
This is the second post just this morning fighting to overturn a law based on Alito’s wording in the Roe ruling that laws that are not historically long term in the laws of the US then it is not a right. Basically if the founders did not make it a right then it is not a right. Which means that every right bassicy has to be an amendment to the constitutionbecause even if congress passes a law it is not historically a law so not constructional if the 6 religious zeloate on the Supreme Court want to get rid of it or make it so. That is why codifying Roe into federal law won’t work right now, the six people ruling only on their view of what god wishes will simply say their god doesn’t want that so it has to go, they will rule it unconstitutional. Alito wrote that ruling to clearly say that his interpretation of his gods wishes was paramount of what the law should read. He wants to make his god happy, and so he will force you to make his god happy. Make no mistake these 6 have decided that pushing their religion on the public is acceptable and desirable in the US. Look at how they let that clearly illegal Texas bounty law on abortion stand simply because they wanted abortion to be illegal. It had nothing to do with the law, just their wishes. Hugs
D.C.’s many restrictions on where people can carry concealed handguns may face legal challenges in the wake of a pro-gun Supreme Court ruling.
Three D.C. residents and one Virginia resident are suing D.C. over its prohibition on carrying concealed handguns on Metrorail and Metrobuses within the city, kicking off a legal battle spurred by last week’s Supreme Court ruling that raised constitutional questions about an array of limits on carrying guns outside the home.
In the lawsuit, the four plaintiffs say that many of the existing restrictions in D.C. on where concealed handguns can be carried — they include schools, universities, government buildings, stadiums, bars and restaurants, and more — are likely justifiable and constitutional, but the ban on carrying while on public transportation is not.
“There is not a tradition or history of prohibitions of carrying firearms on public transportation vehicles,” reads the lawsuit, which was filed by George Lyon, a D.C.-based lawyer with Arsenal Attorneys who has filed multiple lawsuits in the past over the city’s restrictive gun laws. “Public transportation systems did not exist as they do today at the founding of the nation. However, there was plainly a tradition of firearms carry when citizens traveled from their homes. In modern parlance, Americans carried arms to prevent their gatherings from becoming soft targets.”
The nod to American history is linked to last week’s 6-3 Supreme Court decision that overturned New York state’s strict limitations on who can carry a gun outside their home. In the ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, Justice Clarence Thomas broadly implicated many other limits on carrying guns, saying that governments will now have to show that their restrictions are rooted in the country’s historic traditions, and are not simply justified by a significant government interest.
That, Lyon told DCist/WAMU earlier this week, opened up new avenues to legal challenges to D.C.’s restrictive gun laws. “I think that there is definitely some room there for litigation,” he said, hinting that some of it would come from him.
In his opinion for the conservative majority, Thomas wrote that jurisdictions would still be able to prohibit the carrying of guns in certain “sensitive places,” including government buildings, polling places, and courthouses. But he also opened the door to legal challenges to carrying a gun in other places, writing that “expanding the category of ‘sensitive places’ simply to all places of public congregation that are not isolated from law enforcement defines the category of ‘sensitive places’ far too broadly.”
D.C., for one, prohibits open carrying of handguns and restricts where people with concealed-carry permits can go. Currently, someone carrying a concealed handgun cannot enter government buildings; schools or universities; polling places; libraries; hospitals; public transportation; stadiums or arenas; any business the serves alcohol; the National Mall, U.S. Capitol, and around the White House; or within 1,000 feet of a protest or dignitary who receives police protection. (There are roughly 4,000 people in D.C. with concealed-carry permits, split evenly between D.C. residents and non-residents.)
But in the lawsuit Lyon and his four clients argue that public transportation should not be considered a sensitive place where the carrying of guns can be prohibited.
“The broad consensus of states regulate schools, courthouses, and most government buildings as sensitive locations” where guns cannot be carried, says the lawsuit. “Hospitals, polling stations, colleges and universities, sports stadia and events, and certain outdoor recreational locations are often treated as sensitive locations as well. But there does not appear a tradition to treat public transportation facilities as sensitive.”
Lyon is asking a federal judge to overturn D.C.’s ban on carrying handguns on public transportation.
Litigation of this sort — some of it filed by Lyon — has largely shaped D.C.’s existing gun laws, as well as the legal landscape nationally. Most prominently, the city’s longstanding ban on handguns led to the Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller decision, which declared an individual right to own a handgun and pushed the city to allow handgun ownership. Six years later, a federal judge overturned the city’s ban on carrying handguns outside the home, and a subsequent ruling declared that D.C. couldn’t require residents to show a good reason to carry a concealed handgun. D.C. officials opted not to appeal that ruling, fearing a Supreme Court ruling just like the one handed down last week in response to New York’s restrictive good-reason law.
The ruling authored by Thomas has again reshaped the legal debate over gun restrictions, with advocates on both sides of the debate conceding they do not know what the future holds in terms of litigation and court rulings.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the ruling doesn’t target the legal standing of existing requirements that states and cities may impose for letting someone carry a gun, like requiring payment of fees, training, and background checks — all of which D.C. has on the books. But the conservative majority’s ruling also said that some requirements could be challenged.
“[B]ecause any permitting scheme can be put toward abusive ends, we do not rule out constitutional challenges to shall-issue regimes where, for example, lengthy wait times in processing license applications or exorbitant fees deny ordinary citizens their right to public carry,” it reads. (In the Heller II case in 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit tossed out certain portions of the city’s registration requirements, while keeping others.)
“Maybe the D.C. regulatory regime is vulnerable after all,” mused Randy Barnett, a Georgetown University law professor who has a concealed-carry permit in D.C., in an analysis published on SCOTUSblog this week.
Lyon also told DCist/WAMU there may be interest in challenging D.C.’s prohibition on assault weapons and extended magazines. In the past, courts have upheld the city’s ban on assault weapons, but Thomas’s new requirement that gun restrictions comport with the nation’s historical traditions could change the calculus. And on Thursday afternoon, Lyon filed a separate lawsuit challenging D.C.’s law that limits how much ammunition people can have when they carry a concealed handgun; one of the plaintiffs is Dick Heller, namesake of the 2008 Supreme Court ruling.
Gun control advocates have broadly decried the court’s ruling and the impacts it may have. “The court has chosen to obstruct Americans from obtaining the common sense laws they want and need to protect their families and communities, a decision that defies centuries of gun regulation,” said Brady United in a statement last week.
D.C. officials have been similarly critical of the decision, saying it could hamper the city’s efforts to combat gun violence. Attorney General Karl Racine’s office declined to discuss any possible repercussions on the city’s gun laws from the court’s ruling, but said in a statement that it would fight any pro-gun litigation in court.
“OAG will continue to defend the District’s common-sense gun regulations and keep District residents safe,” it said. “As the Supreme Court said, the Second Amendment is not a license to keep and carry any weapon in any manner for any purpose.”
This post has been extensively updated to include the lawsuit filed against D.C. over its ban on carrying guns on public transportation.
Updated June 30, 2022 at 8:30 a.m. EDT|Published June 29, 2022 at 6:17 p.m. EDT
Antiabortion supporters celebrate outside the Supreme Court after it issued a ruling that overturns Roe v. Wade, on June 24. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
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Several national antiabortion groups and their allies in Republican-led state legislatures are advancing plans to stop people in states where abortion is banned from seeking the procedure elsewhere, according to people involved in the discussions.
The idea has gained momentum in some corners of the antiabortion movement in the days since the Supreme Court struck down its 49-year-old precedent protecting abortion rights nationwide, triggering abortion bans across much of the Southeast and Midwest.
The Thomas More Society, a conservative legal organization, is drafting model legislation for state lawmakers that would allow private citizens to sue anyone who helps a resident of a state that has banned abortion from terminating a pregnancy outside of that state. The draft language will borrow from the novel legal strategy behind a Texas abortion ban enacted last year in which private citizens were empowered to enforce the law through civil litigation.
The subject was much discussed at two national antiabortion conferences last weekend, with several lawmakers interested in introducing these kinds of bills in their own states.
The National Association of Christian Lawmakers, an antiabortion organization led by Republican state legislators, has begun working with the authors of the Texas abortion ban to explore model legislation that would restrict people from crossing state lines for abortions, said Texas state representative Tom Oliverson (R), the charter chair of the group’s national legislative council.
“Just because you jump across a state line doesn’t mean your home state doesn’t have jurisdiction,” said Peter Breen, vice president and senior counsel for the Thomas More Society. “It’s not a free abortion card when you drive across the state line.”
The Biden Justice Department has already warned states that it would fight such laws, saying they violate the right to interstate commerce.
In relying on private citizens to enforce civil litigation, rather than attempting to impose a state-enforced ban on receiving abortions across state lines, such a law is more difficult to challenge in court because abortion rights groups don’t have a clear person to sue.
Like the Texas abortion ban, the proposal itself could have a chilling effect, where doctors in surrounding states stop performing abortions before courts have an opportunity to intervene, worried that they may face lawsuits if they violate the law.
Not every antiabortion group is on board with the idea.
Catherine Glenn Foster, president of Americans United for Life, noted that people access medical procedures across state lines all the time.
“I don’t think you can prevent that,” she said.
While some antiabortion groups aspire to push Congress to pass a national abortion ban, restricting movement across state lines would represent another step in limiting the number of abortions performed in the United States.
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, left, and state House Speaker Matthew Shepherd watch as state Attorney General Leslie Rutledge signs the official certification to prohibit abortions in the state during a news conference in Little Rock, on June 24. (Stephen Swofford/The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/AP)
These kinds of bills could be proposed even before state legislatures reconvene for their regular 2023 legislative sessions, said Arkansas state Sen. Jason Rapert (R). His home state, he said, may soon address this issue in an already planned special session. Another Arkansas senator, he said, has expressed interest in introducing that legislation.
“Many of us have supported legislation to stop human trafficking,” said Rapert, president of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers. “So why is there a pass on people trafficking women in order to make money off of aborting their babies?”
In a television interview over the weekend, South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R) left the door open to restricting out-of-state abortions in her state, where a trigger ban took effect as soon as Roe was overturned. The governor, who has called a special session to discuss abortion legislation, said the topic may be debated in South Dakota in the future.
Dale Bartscher, the executive director of South Dakota Right to Life, the leading antiabortion organization in South Dakota, said he was “very interested” in stopping South Dakota residents from accessing abortion in other states.
“I’ve heard that bantered about across the state of South Dakota,” he said, though he would not discuss the goal of the upcoming special session.
The idea to restrict out-of-state abortions surfaced earlier this year, when Missouri state Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman (R), who is special counsel at the Thomas More Society, proposed legislation that relied on the Texas-style enforcement mechanism. While Coleman’s bill failed to pass in the 2022 legislative session, Coleman said she has heard from multiple lawmakers and antiabortion advocates in other states who are eager to pursue similar legislation.
The issue is particularly pertinent in Coleman’s home state of Missouri, which outlawed abortion with a trigger ban that took effect within an hour of the Supreme Court’s decision. As many as 14,000 people are expected to flood into southern Illinois this year, including thousands of Missouri residents, according to Planned Parenthood.
Coleman Boyd demonstrates outside the Jackson Women’s Health Organization in Jackson. Miss, on June 24. (Emily Kask for The Washington Post)
Several Democrat-led states have passed legislation this year to counteract laws that try to restrict movement across state lines.
Connecticut passed a law in April that offers broad protections from antiabortion laws that try to reach into other states. The measure would shield people from out-of-state summonses or subpoenas issued in cases related to abortion procedures that are legal in Connecticut. And it would prevent Connecticut authorities from adhering to another state’s request to investigate or punish anyone involved in facilitating a legal abortion in Connecticut.
“Legislators in [antiabortion] states have made clear that their intent is not only to ban abortion within their own state’s borders, but to ban it in states where it is expressly permitted,” Connecticut state Rep. Matt Blumenthal (D) said in an interview in April.
California passed a similar law Thursday, aiming to protect abortion providers and patients from civil suits.
N.Y. Planned Parenthood prepares for increase in abortions
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Georgana Hanson of Planned Parenthood Empire State Acts in Albany, N.Y., responds to the Supreme Court striking down Roe v. Wade. (Video: Erin Patrick O’Connor, Zoeann Murphy/The Washington Post)
The Justice Department has already signaled its intention to fight against these kinds of laws in court.
In a statement Friday, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe “does not eliminate the ability of states to keep abortion legal within their borders. And the Constitution continues to restrict states’ authority to ban reproductive services provided outside their borders.”
That declaration suggests that if a particular state did pass a law seeking to prevent women from traveling across state lines to receive an abortion, the Justice Department might file court papers opposing such a law. That strategy was ultimately unsuccessful in the Justice Department’s opposition to the Texas law limiting many abortions, but any new state law that involved interstate travel could raise additional legal questions for the courts.
Garland argued that the Constitution was unequivocal on the legality of crossing state lines for medical treatment.
“We recognize that traveling to obtain reproductive care may not be feasible in many circumstances. But under bedrock constitutional principles, women who reside in states that have banned access to comprehensive reproductive care must remain free to seek that care in states where it is legal,” Garland said, adding that the First Amendment safeguards anyone who offers information or counseling about “reproductive care that is available in other states.”
A Justice Department spokesman did not elaborate on the attorney general’s statement.
David Cohen, a Drexel University law professor who has studied these kinds of proposals, noted that Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh addressed interstate travel in a separate concurring opinion he wrote along with the ruling to overturn Roe, where he specified that people could not be prosecuted for out-of-state abortions.
But Kavanaugh’s concurrence does not address the civil enforcement strategy that is gaining traction among antiabortion groups, Cohen said.
“This is going to create state-against-state and state-against-federal chaos that we haven’t seen in this country in a long time.”
The Thomas More Society, a Catholic legal non-profit, has sued to overturn election results in multiple states and has filed numerous lawsuits against LGBT rights laws and protections of all kinds. They recently appeared on JMG when they won an $800,000 settlement for an anti-lockdown California megachurch. The SPLC lists them as an anti-Muslim hate group.
Antiabortion lawmakers want to block patients from crossing state lines https://t.co/5ERztHj2uY
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 30, 2022
And just for clarity, it’s because of bullshit like this that I refer to places where women can get the care they need as Free States and places where abortion has been banned as Slave States.
It’s remarkable that people are buying into DeSantis’ Free Florida slogan after all of the restrictive laws have passed in that state recently. It’s as if freedom is only for people like him and everyone else must be regulated.
On what fucking grounds? I’m her neighbor and was scandalized by her trip to a Free State? Or are we watching in real-time the return of “slave catchers”?
“Slave catchers” is a good analogy! What I can’t fathom is what damages some unrelated third party could possibly claim. Not that that will stop them from trying…
You are absolutely right….Youngkin is right on board with all of this nonsense because he’s auditioning for VP with DeSantis and the idiot Loudoun County women who elected him will go right along and support the Fascist.
Youngkin played it just right during his campaign for the governorship. He avoided the harsh far-right MAGAt rhetoric that he knew would turn off Virginian Independents and wishy-washy asshole Democratic voters.
Virginia brethren reading here can comment on my belief:
Youngkin is a through-and-through, dyed-in-the-wool Christofascist.
Dems are still mostly oblivious about what’s happening to them. This is what happened in Germany as their liberal republic was dismantled. It’s been so long since the History channel actually showed documentaries about the 3rd Reich that people can’t see it happening.
I see it more as akin to the Reconstruction, and with state governments at odds because of lack of federal codification of civil rights and regulatory authority. The series Aftershock: Beyond the Civil War highlights how violent things were after the war was technically over, highly recommended.
Yes this is horrifying. But if Republicans pick up a few more state legislatures this fall, they’ll be able to amend the US Constitution unilaterally. That will be even worse.
Yet Democrats persist in focusing on the presidency to the exclusion of down-ballot races.
Former President Donald J. Trump’s political organization and his allies have paid for or promised to finance the legal fees of more than a dozen witnesses called in the congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 attack, raising legal and ethical questions about whether the former president may be influencing testimony with a direct bearing on him.
The arrangement drew new scrutiny this week after Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide in his White House, made an explosive appearance before the House panel, providing damning new details about Mr. Trump’s actions and statements on the day of the deadly riot.
She did so after firing a lawyer who had been recommended to her by two of Mr. Trump’s former aides and paid for by his political action committee, and hiring new counsel. Under the representation of the new lawyer, Jody Hunt, Ms. Hutchinson sat for a fourth interview with the committee in which she divulged more revelations and agreed to come forward publicly to testify to them.
It was the second warning Cassidy Hutchinson had received before her deposition, cautioning her against cooperating with the panel
Mark Meadows walks with senior aide Cassidy Hutchinson before boarding Air Force One in July 2020. Photograph: Tom Brenner/Reuters
Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson received at least one message tacitly warning her not to cooperate with the House January 6 select committee from an associate of former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Ex-White House aide delivers explosive public testimony to January 6 panel
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The message in question was the second of the two warnings that the select committee disclosed at the end of its special hearing when Hutchinson testified about how Donald Trump directed a crowd he knew was armed to march on the Capitol, the sources said.
“[A person] let me know you have your deposition tomorrow. He wants me to let you know that he’s thinking about you. He knows you’re loyal, and you’re going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition,” read the message. The redaction was Meadows, the sources said.
The message was presented during closing remarks at the special hearing with Hutchinson by the panel’s vice-chair Liz Cheney, who characterized the missive as improper pressure on a crucial witness that could extend to illegal witness tampering or intimidation.
The exact identity of the person who sent Hutchinson the message – beyond the fact that they were an associate of Meadows – could not be confirmed on Thursday, but that may be in part because the select committee may wish to interview that person, the sources said.
That appears to indicate that the person who sent the message was a close associate of the former White House chief of staff who may themselves be a fact witness to what Trump and Meadows were doing and thinking ahead of the Capitol attack.
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Trump tried to grab car’s steering wheel to go to Capitol Hill, former aide testifies – video
Neither a spokesman for Meadows nor Hutchinson responded to a request for comment Thursday evening.
The other message was also directed at Hutchinson, the sources said; the quote displayed on the slide was one of several calls from Trump allies that Hutchinson recounted to House investigators.
“What they said to me is, as long as I continue to be a teamplayer, they know that I’m on the team, I’m doing the right thing, I’m protecting who I need to protect, you know, I’ll continue to stay in the good graces in Trump World,” the slide read.
“And they reminded me a couple of times that Trump does read transcripts and just to keep that in mind as I proceeded through my depositions and interviews with the committee.”
The identity of the people who called Hutchinson, warning her presumably not to implicate the former president, could not be established beyond the fact that they were people close to Trump, though the select committee is understood to be aware of all of the people.
Politico, which first reported that the message to Hutchinson came from an associate of Meadows, also reported that it came before her second interview with the select committee. Hutchinson changed lawyers before her fourth deposition that preceded her public testimony.
Notice that the reason stated for this change is a law passed by the Republicans that nothing can be taught that would upset white kids. Also they wanted to compare slavery with the immigration of Irish people. Hugs
The Texas State Board of Education, which is considering social studies curriculum revisions this summer, says the group has been asked to revise that phrasing.
A group of Texas educators have proposed to the Texas State Board of Education that slavery should be taught as “involuntary relocation” during second grade social studies instruction but board members have asked them to reconsider the phrasing, according to the state board’s chairman.
“The board — with unanimous consent — directed the work group to revisit that specific language,” Keven Ellis, chair of the Texas State Board of Education said in a statement issued late Thursday.
The working group of nine educators, including a professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, is one of many such groups advising the state education board to make curriculum changes. This summer, the board will consider updates to social studies instruction a year after lawmakers passed a law to keep topics that make students “feel discomfort” out of Texas classrooms. The board will have a final vote on the curriculum in November.
The suggested change surfaced late during its June 15 meeting that lasted more than 12 hours. Board member Aicha Davis, a Democrat who represents Dallas and Fort Worth, brought up concerns to the board saying that it wasn’t a “fair representation” of the slave trade. The board, upon reading the language in the suggested curriculum, sent the working draft back for revision. “For K-2, carefully examine the language used to describe events, specifically the term “involuntary relocation.”
“I can’t say what their intention was, but that’s not going to be acceptable,” Davis told The Texas Tribune on Thursday.
This group proposing second grade curriculum revisions was given a copy of Senate Bill 3, Texas’ law that dictates how slavery and race is taught in Texas. In it, the law states that slavery can’t be taught as a true founding of the United States and that slavery was nothing more than a deviation from American values.
“They were given Senate Bill 3 so that had to have influenced their mind with that being a document given to them right before they had to perform this review,” she said.
Ellis’ statement pointed out that slavery is currently not included in social studies instruction to second graders.
“The topic of slavery is not currently addressed in the 2nd Grade curriculum; this work is meant to address that deficiency,” he said.
Stephanie Alvarez, a professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and a member of the group, said she was did not attend the meetings when the language was crafted because of personal issues, but that the language was “extremely disturbing.” She would not comment any further because of her role in the work group, she said.
Part of the proposed social studies curriculum standards outline that students should “compare journeys to America, including voluntary Irish immigration and involuntary relocation of African people during colonial times.”
Annette Gordon-Reed, a history professor at Harvard University, said using “involuntary relocation” to describe the slavery threatens to blur out what actually occurred during that time in history. There is no excuse to use this language.
“Young kids can grasp the concept of slavery and being kidnapped into it,” Gordon-Reed said. “The African slave trade is unlike anything that had or has happened, the numbers and distance.”
If language like this is accepted and taught to children, it means the country is moving in the wrong direction, she said.
“Tell children the truth. They can handle it,” she said.
Texas is in the middle of developing a new curriculum for social studies, a process that happens about every decade to update what children should be learning in Texas’ 8,866 public schools.
This process comes as the state’s public education system has become heavily politicized, from lawmakers passing legislation on how race and slavery should be taught in schools to conservative political action committees pouring large amounts of money to put more conservatives on school boards who promise to get rid of curriculum and programs they consider divisive and make white children feel bad.
Last year’s SB 3 was designed to keep critical race theory, a university-level theory out of secondary schools even though the bill never mentions it. Critical race theory is the idea that racism is embedded in legal systems and not limited to individuals. It has become a common phrase used by conservatives to include anything about race taught or discussed in public secondary schools.
The work group that proposed this language change is one of several groups presenting their drafts to the state education board, which has the final say on whether to accept or reject them.
“I don’t like it because it’s a personal belief. I don’t like it because it’s not rooted in truth,” she said. “We can have all the discussions we want, but we have to adopt the truth for our students.”
A group of Texas educators proposed to the State Board of Education that slavery should be replaced with “involuntary relocation” in the second grade social studies curriculum.
It’s obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention that today’s Republican Party is one of the most virulently anti-Semitic elements in American society today.
Their support of Israel has nothing — zero — to do with love or respect for the Jewish people. It’s merely the party following the guidance of their christofascist puppet masters, the evangelical right.
“Israel must remain strong and vital in anticipation of the Second Coming, there, of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ who — in keeping with biblical truth — will then smite all non-believers, including the Jews.”
So as you read the story of how thugs enter a library and say they will prevent a event of reading to children and despite a 45 minute stand off with library staff asking them to leave, library security telling them to leave and the police coming and arguing with them, they get their way. Scared parents took their kids and left so the event was canceled. This is the brown shirts of the Republican party, scaring and threatening people to get their way and the police allowing it. This is stunning, it was a legal event supported by the patrons of the library and a gang of thugs was allowed to just stop it because they did not like it based on the rabid rantings of the Republicans in office and their rabid right followers. The accusations have no basis in fact, it is completely wrong. Yet this is the new fascist theocracy USA. Hugs
Minutes before a scheduled “Rainbow Storytime” program, about a half a dozen men walked into a reading room at the Tutt Branch of the St. Joseph County Public Library and demanded the event be shut down.
The men mostly wore black shirts and hats with yellow trim. At one point during the confrontation, one member unfurled a flag reading “Michiana Proud Boys,” appearing to identify the men as a local chapter of the white nationalist hate group.
In a video, the men badgered library staff and event attendees for around 45 minutes, calling the books that were to be read a “perversion” and belligerently asking “what gives you the right” to push sexuality on children.
Eventually the men left after being talked to by South Bend police officers and the library’s security personnel, though the reading event was postponed after most of the families went home.
“It is a shock and we are very disappointed an event celebrating LGBTQ+ communities was disrupted,” said Marissa Gebhard, communications manager for the library system. “Our staff are very affected by it.”
Gebhard added that the library will reschedule the event, which was planned in partnership with the Tree House Gender Resource Center, and will continue to offer programming “to all members of our community.”
“The library will always be a welcoming place for everyone of all viewpoints, so the library will continue to offer programs like this no matter what the response is,” Gebhard said.
She added that the books that were to be read were “carefully selected” and meant to promote gender inclusivity in an age-appropriate manner.
Though Monday’s standoff ended without violence, similar confrontations have played out in libraries and schools across the county in recent months as members of the Proud Boys have disrupted LGBTQ-themed events.
The Proud Boys has been designated as a hate group by multiple advocacy groups, and often engages in violence to further its white extremist agenda, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Local activist Tonna Robinson, who works with the Indiana Mutual Aid Coalition and Black Lives Matter South Bend, said the local Proud Boys chapter has not been active to her knowledge, but said the group’s attempt to target an LGBTQ-themed event at the library is part of the group’s national goal.
“This is an organized effort to disrupt and target LGBTQ people nationwide,” Robinson said.
Robinson pointed out altercations at libraries in San Fransisco, Wilmington, N.C, and Dallas in the last month, as well as an incident in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho where nearly three dozen members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front were arrested for planning a riot at a pride parade.
Earlier this month, federal prosecutors charged former Proud Boys national chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and four other group leaders with seditious conspiracy in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Locally, Gebhard couldn’t remember any other instances of library events being disrupted by white supremacist or any other groups.
Rainbow Storytime
A video posted by the Proud Boys appeared to depict the incident and begins by showing six men and their videographer walk into the library and stand in the middle of a room where staff were preparing for the Rainbow Storytime event. The event was set for 5 p.m. on Monday.
The men then accost a librarian setting up a whiteboard with questions about why she’s indoctrinating children with “sexuality.”
“You’re grooming these children’s minds,” one of the Proud Boys said. “This is our region and we will not have that in our region.”
A library patron then enters and begins debating with the group before a manager asks the group to leave. The group doesn’t and other staff and patrons come talk to and argue with the group for 20 to 30 minutes. One woman enters, identifies herself as a mother and also criticizes the event. Eventually, South Bend police officers show up and tell the group they can’t interfere the event.
Proud Boys members repeatedly deny disrupting the event, while also repeating the contradictory statement that they will not permit the event to take place.
At one point near the end of the video, an unidentified South Bend police officer tells the group they can remain at the library only if they quietly observe the event and not disrupt it. The members reiterate their intention to prevent the event, and the officer says, “You know the program is going to go on, right?” Less than a minute after police tell them they cannot stop the event, the video abruptly ends.
Rona Plummer, the St. Joseph Public Library’s director of branch services, arrived at the Tutt branch around 5:15 p.m. to a scene full of confusion as the Proud Boys confronted library staff, curious patrons and police. Plummer said library staff were concerned for their safety during the incident.
“The Proud Boys vocalized that the program was not going to happen, period. That’s where our concern was,” Plummer said. “It was very disruptive and it changed what was supposed to be a pleasant, positive experience into a confusing and negative experience.”
Gebhard and Plummer said they didn’t see any violence and don’t believe members of the Proud Boys were carrying weapons.
South Bend Police Department logs list the incident as a miscellaneous public report and show no arrests were made. A representative with the department did not respond to a message from The Tribune seeking more information about the incident.
Gebhard said the library has two security officers stationed at library’s main branch in downtown South Bend, as well as a few other officers at different branches. After Monday, library leadership is considering changes to security, Gebhard said, but nothing has been finalized.
— Indiana Mutual Aid Coalition (@INMutualAid) June 28, 2022
The Proud Boys recognized one person because Purple for Parents (a local hate group focused on schools) had doxxed her before.
This disruption is extremely concerning because it seems to be a part of coordinated disruptions of similar events across the country. 2/4 pic.twitter.com/QumqYn4Bxd
— Indiana Mutual Aid Coalition (@INMutualAid) June 28, 2022
In a video on their public Telegram channel the Proud Boys posted a video of themselves flashing white power hand signs during the disruption.
Hate like this cannot be tolerated, it is dangerous. At another disruption in Nevada a gun was pulled. 3/4 pic.twitter.com/L3HEBoffA8
— Indiana Mutual Aid Coalition (@INMutualAid) June 28, 2022
Far-right attacks on LGBTQ+ events are spiking around the country. In response, communities in North Texas are organizing for self-defense.
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Scottie's Playtime 