Should Israel be held accountable for “ecocide”?

Palestinians are inspecting the damage caused by Israeli bombardment in Al-Zawayda, central Gaza Strip, on February 22, 2024. Majdi Fathi / AP

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

When reports emerged in late December that the Israeli military planned to pump seawater into the underground tunnel networks used by Hamas fighters in Gaza, scientists and advocates around the world raised alarm over the prospect of an environmental disaster. Flooding the tunnels threatened to permanently salinate the land, making it impossible to cultivate crops. Seawater could also seep underground and into an aquifer that the majority of Gazans rely on for water. Palestinian rights groups and protesters around the world were already accusing the Israeli government of committing genocide against the Palestinians, with more than 20,000 killed by Israeli bombings on Gaza since Hamas’ attack on southern Israel last October. Now, another term has entered the conversation: “ecocide.” 

Broadly defined as the severe, widespread, and long-term destruction of the environment, ecocide isn’t considered a crime under international law. At the moment, the only way to prosecute vast environmental destruction internationally is as a war crime in the International Criminal Court, or ICC, based in The Hague, Netherlands. But a growing number of countries, advocates, and legal experts are trying to change that. While some, like representatives from the island nation of Vanuatu, are motivated by the escalating climate crisis, and others, like Ukraine, are more interested in prosecuting environmental war crimes, they ultimately share the same goal: making ecocide the fifth international crime the ICC could prosecute, along with crimes against humanity, war crimes, crimes of aggression, and genocide. 

Their campaign reached a major milestone in 2021, when a panel of legal experts worked over six months to create a legal definition of ecocide. Afterward, a number of countries and the European Union incorporated at least part of this definition into new legislation, which, experts said, increases the likelihood that it will eventually be adopted by the International Criminal Court. While there are plenty of obstacles to making such a law effective, advocates interviewed for this story said that the symbolic importance could have far-reaching consequences. Creating a law against ecocide could eventually force government officials and corporate executives to think twice before polluting rivers, poisoning the air, or destroying the land.

“It would make clear what we care about and what we think cannot be left to individual states to regulate,” said Kate Mackintosh, the executive director of the Netherlands-based UCLA Law Promise Institute Europe, which provides training for students interested in international law. She explained that to be a crime under international law, an act must be a violation against not only its direct victims, but all of humanity. “Destroying our environment has got to be on that level.”

The term “ecocide” was coined during the Vietnam War after the US military sprayed more than 90 million liters of Agent Orange and other herbicides across South Vietnam’s countryside. The chemical’s 20-year half-life can increase to more than 100 years if it’s buried beneath the soil, and people in southern Vietnam are still living with its effects more than half a century later. After visiting the region in the early 1970s and observing the chemicals’ devastating effects, a group of American scientists and legal experts began a campaign against using herbicide as a weapon of war. Their efforts led to an executive order by President Gerald Ford in 1975 renouncing the use of defoliants in future wars and to a UN convention in 1978 prohibiting the “hostile use of environmental modification techniques.” 

But none of these official declarations made ecocide prosecutable as a crime under international law, experts pointed out, underscoring the significance of the current campaign to codify it as one.

After the adoption of the UN convention, the movement against ecocide died down for the next several decades. When it reemerged in the early 2000s, it was tied to concerns about climate change. A UK-based campaign helmed by the late lawyer and environmentalist Polly Higgins gained traction at the ICC’s annual assembly in 2019, when Vanuatu called for the court to consider recognizing the crime of ecocide. The South Pacific island nation, where sea-level rise has eaten away coastlines and saltwater has contaminated most sources of drinking water, is widely considered to be a leader in the global fight against climate change. 

Vanuatu’s petition “put ecocide back on the diplomatic table,” said the British environmentalist Jojo Mehta, who founded the Stop Ecocide campaign with Higgins in 2017. It was the impetus for that panel of lawyers to convene in 2021 with the aim of developing a legal definition of ecocide that could be adopted by the ICC. After months of deliberation, they settled on the meaning of ecocide as “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts.”

Mackintosh, who was on the panel, emphasized that this definition allows prosecutors to pursue legal action simply if they can prove the intent to cause environmental harm. “The crime is not making the damage happen,” she explained. “It’s creating substantial risk of that damage.” 

This distinction fills an important gap in the ICC’s legal code. The Rome Statute, the treaty that established the court in 2002, criminalizes environmental damage under its war crimes statute. Prosecutors must prove that the damage to the environment is “widespread, long-term, and severe”—that is, the damage must already be done. But there hasn’t been a single successful prosecution of environmental crime under this statute, not even in seemingly clear-cut cases, such as the Russian military’s destruction of the Kakhovka Dam in southern Ukraine last summer. The hydropower facility, more than 1 mile long,  held back one of Europe’s largest reservoirs, and when it burst, a torrent of water flooded over 230 square miles, killed scores of people, and spread chemical pollution across the land. 

While there is no clear path for codifying ecocide as a crime under international law, Mehta said, the campaign has already cleared several hurdles, particularly with the European Union’s adoption of its own ecocide law in November. In the coming years, the Stop Ecocide campaign will focus on getting together an informal group of countries willing to propose a law at the ICC’s annual assembly. “It’s not really a question of if,” she said. “It’s a how and a when.”

The campaigners pushing for an international ecocide law have two main objectives. The first would be to bring specific people, such as the military officers behind the Kakhovka Dam’s destruction, to justice, because the ICC requires that defendants be individuals rather than governments or corporations. That presents some challenges, said Richard Falk, a veteran legal expert and environmental advocate. (Falk, along with the biologist Arthur Galston, was the first to use the term “ecocide” in the 1970s.) For instance, if the ICC wanted to prosecute the fossil fuel giant Shell for contaminating vast swaths of the Niger Delta with crude oil, it would have to pin the blame on individuals within the company, rather than on the company itself. “That would make the proof of intent extremely difficult,” though not impossible, to establish, Falk said. 

The second major objective of an international ecocide law would be to prevent widespread environmental damage. On this point, experts Grist spoke to were torn about the effectiveness of an international ecocide law. For one, prosecuting any crime takes time, during which the environmental destruction may continue. What’s more, Falk said the ICC has previously behaved as a “policy instrument” of Europe and the US and often votes with the flag rather than the law. In a case like the war in Gaza, countries might defend their diplomatic allies rather than trying to judge their guilt or innocence in good faith, he said. 

Rob White, a professor of criminology at the University of Tasmania who has written extensively about ecocide, wrote in an email that he agreed with this perspective, adding that “one could well argue” that Israel’s actions in Gaza fit the existing Rome Statute’s standard of “widespread, long-term, and severe” environmental destruction. “However, as the genocide unfolding in Gaza also illustrates, international law is basically useless” in stopping the ongoing aggression, he said. 

All four of the ecocide experts interviewed for this story said that Israel’s actions in Gaza could plausibly fit the definition of ecocide, as determined by the panel. Evidence of immense environmental devastation is everywhere in the Gaza Strip, from the razing of farm lands with heavy machinery to the use of white phosphorus on porous soil. The Israel military confirmed in late January that it had started flooding underground tunnels with seawater, raising fears that it will contaminate the main source of drinking water for the strip’s 2 million people. 

While Mehta acknowledged that it would be difficult to stop acts like these even with an ecocide law in place, she is optimistic that the law would have a deterrent effect. She offered the example of the United Kingdom’s Children Act of 1989, which made it illegal for parents to hit their children, helping to turn a once acceptable behavior into a taboo. The law has “actually got a kind of cultural force to it, which I think is super, super important,” Mehta said.

The experts Grist interviewed insisted that an ecocide law would, at the very least, serve an important symbolic purpose. 

“The impact of this kind of decision, even if it’s not enforced, does have a legitimating and mobilizing effect on civil-society activism,” Falk said. He pointed to his and scientists’ efforts after the Vietnam War, which led to Ford’s executive order and the UN declaration that effectively made the use of Agent Orange taboo. “It’s the most you can expect from the law,” he said.

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‘Three lessons from Biden and Albanese on how Labour hits the ground running’ – LabourList

Transitions from one governing party to another are rare in recent British history, with power changing hands just twice in the last 40 years. If Labour wins the next general election, 85% of its shadow ministerial team will have never served in government before and the party will not have managed a transition for over 27 years.

That daunting task is made more challenging still by the overnight nature of UK transitions, in stark contrast to many other democracies. As soon as the votes have been counted, if there is a clear winner then the new prime minister enters Downing Street and starts governing immediately. There is no US-style 11-week gap between election and inauguration.

There are international examples of conservative-to-progressive transitions

Yet a well-managed transition can mean the difference between a new government delivering on its election promises straight away, building momentum behind its programme, or having to spend months recovering from a shaky start.

The stakes are always high at such moments, but are even more so right now given Keir Starmer’s ambition not just to implement a different policy agenda to the Conservatives but to embed a fundamentally different, mission-driven approach to governing into the British system.

That’s why The Future Governance Forum (FGF), a new progressive think tank focused on fixing Britain’s broken system of government, has been speaking to senior figures in the US Democrats and Australian Labor to determine principles and recommendations for an effective conservative-to-progressive transition.

Published today, FGF’s latest report Into Power 01: Lessons from Australia and the United States calls on Labour to look to its progressive sister parties for insights into how to set up an incoming progressive administration to govern well.

Transition is political , so set a clear direction and tone

Transition is not an administrative task with a political flavour; it is an inherently political task. Should Labour win in 2024, its move into power will be a ‘Starmerite’ transition, whether intentionally so or not, because it is being undertaken by this leader and this top team.

This is something Australian Labor strategists sought to make a virtue of by being explicit about it: posing challenging questions to party leader Anthony Albanese about the kind of prime minister he wanted to be, the way he wanted to govern and what a successful first term would look like.

UK Labour should be asking itself those same questions today, so that everyone involved in transition planning knows they are delivering on a clear vision set at the very top. Taking the time to do this now will pay dividends later: as attention and resources are (rightly) pulled more and more into the campaign, it is vital that the transition team can be confident it is delivering on the leader’s wishes and with his authority.

Think first 96 hours as well as first 100 days

Ever since Franklin D Roosevelt established the term almost a century ago, politicians and journalists have fixated on what a new government can achieve in its first 100 days.

That remains a vital milestone, and a transition must include a plan for it, including staffing all departments, policy announcements, major set pieces, overseas trips and media interventions.

But some of those days are more important than others. Members of Albanese’s transition team told us the importance of an almost hour-by-hour plan for the first 96 hours – the “high-risk time”, as one of our interviewees put it – when the new government has maximum political capital but is also at its most inexperienced.

Pick the best people – and establish a ‘beachhead’?

An incoming government has hundreds of roles to fill, and yet in the UK this process is often opaque and informal. This risks an administration that is not representative of the people it has been elected to serve and that cannot identify and hire the very best people it needs to govern well.

In 2020, then president-elect Joe Biden told his transition team he wanted his administration to “look like America”, and they delivered.

While the UK may be some way off having the scale of a US transition operation – including the establishment of ‘talent banks’ on which an incoming government can draw when recruiting – Labour should embed the principles of open, transparent recruitment and ensuring diversity of background and experience when making appointments.

Another lesson from American recruitment that Labour should consider is the establishment of ‘beachhead’ teams: temporary hires who enable a new government to start delivering from the word go and lay the foundations while permanent appointees are being put in place. This could be particularly beneficial given the UK system’s near-instantaneous handover of power.

It is vital Labour thinks about winning power, but also how it would exercise that power

As we inch closer to the next general election, it is vital Labour thinks not just about winning power, but how it would exercise that power in office. The recent experiences of Biden’s Democrats and Albanese’s Labor Party offer valuable lessons for their counterparts here in the UK as they prepare for the possibility of office.

How well Labour handles this crucial pre-election period will determine whether a future government can begin delivering quickly on its election promises, whether it can govern well and effectively, and ultimately whether it can change life for people in this country for the better. Getting it right matters for everyone.

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Newslinks for Wednesday 28th February 2024 | Conservative Home

Anderson ‘threatens to defect’ to Reform UK…

“Lee Anderson has held private talks with the leader of Reform UK, it has been reported, as he publicly threatened to defect and said that Rishi Sunak “made a mistake” in suspending him. The former Tory deputy chairman said that he had “not done anything wrong” in claiming that Sadiq Khan was controlled by Islamists and said that he had been given “phenomenal” private support from Conservative MPs. GB News, where he made his original comments, has reported that Anderson held “one to one” talks on Sunday with Richard Tice, leader of the right-wing populist party founded by Nigel Farage. Many Tory MPs are concerned that if Anderson defects to Reform, it would be the “final nail in the coffin” for the red wall seats in the north of England…” – The Times

  • He ‘warns Sunak’ that he speaks for Tory voters – Daily Express
  • Cleverly urges Anderson to apologise – The I
  • Khan ‘faces death threats from Islamist extremists’ – The Guardian
  • Illegal migration minister fails six times to say why Anderson’s comments were wrong – The Daily Telegraph
  • Ex-Tory chair says public supports him over Khan comments – The Guardian
  • ‘Almost 11,000 people’ sign petition calling for Anderson’s return – The Daily Telegraph
  • It’s time our virtue-signalling ruling class stopped pandering to people who despise Britain – Matthew Goodwin, The Daily Mail
  • Anderson put his foot in it, but Islamists pose a very real threat to our democracy – Allison Pearson, The Daily Telegraph
  • While Westminster bickers over Anderson, thugs are sending death threats to Reform – Richard Tice, The Daily Telegraph

>Today:

…as Braverman says Tory Islamophobia row is ‘hysteria’…

“Suella Braverman has condemned the ongoing row over Islamophobia in the Tory party as “hysteria” and called on Rishi Sunak to urgently tackle Islamist extremism. The former home secretary is understood to believe that it was an overreaction to strip Lee Anderson, the former Conservative deputy chairman, of the Tory whip over his claims that “Islamists” have “got control” of Sadiq Khan…On Monday night, Mrs Braverman urged Mr Sunak to shift his focus to the “big problem” of “Islamist extremism in the UK”… On Monday, Mr Sunak warned that British democracy was under threat and condemned aggressive efforts to shut down debate over the Israel-Hamas conflict, but refused to describe Mr Anderson’s remarks as Islamophobic or racist.” – The Daily Telegraph

  • MPs must stand up to the Islamist threat – Editorial, The Daily Mail
  • ‘Islamophobia’ is today’s blasphemy – wrongspeak may be criminalized – Philip Johnston, The Daily Telegraph
  • I’ve been smeared for trying to speak out about Islamist extremists – Robert Jenrick, The Daily Telegraph
  • Islamist fanatics are the most serious threat to Parliament since Fawkes – Robert Tombs, The Daily Telegraph

…and as Scully apologises for ‘no-go’ areas comment

“Conservative MP and former minister Paul Scully has said sorry for labelling parts of London and Birmingham “no-go areas” — but locals branded him “ignorant” for his “damaging” remarks. He apologised after singling out east London’s Tower Hamlets and Birmingham’s Sparkhill for containing a tiny minority who were “abusing” their religion to make others feel uncomfortable. He made the comments while reacting to MP Lee Anderson’s claims that “Islamists” had gained control over London and that mayor Sadiq Khan had given away the city “to his mates”. But Scully, 55, told BBC Radio London that he “put his hands up” for using language he now regretted and said the comments lacked nuance.” – The Times

Anne McElvoy: Tory moderates are preparing to fight back

“The more immediate trial for Sunak is that this kind of eruption is a foretaste of the battle that Tory moderates are readying to wage against a power grab from the right, in the highly likely event of a rousing Conservative defeat. And that makes any decisive fightback on the Prime Minister’s part look doomed: if one ill-informed inflammatory remark by a mouthy backbencher can tie Sunak up in knots in the run-up to a vital March Budget, what hope is there of keeping hold of a settled Conservative message in the heat of election battle? Increasingly, though, the centre and left of the party has clocked that quiet loyalty is pointless – they might as well be in the fight…So jockeying is under way between potential leaders to contest what may well be a “rump election” for a new Tory leader.” – The I

Sunak faces fresh by-election as Benton suspended…

“Rishi Sunak is braced for another byelection after former Tory MP Scott Benton was suspended from the Commons for 35 days over his role in a lobbying sting. MPs approved the suspension of the Blackpool South MP on Tuesday evening without the need for a vote. The length of the suspension means that Benton is now facing a recall petition. If 10% of his constituents sign it, a byelection will be triggered in his seat. It would take the number of byelections held during Sunak’s time as prime minister to 11. Benton, 36, had the Tory whip removed in April 2023 after suggesting to undercover reporters at the Times that he would be willing to break lobbying rules for money. Benton had offered to lobby ministers on behalf of the gambling industry…” – The Guardian

  • He was caught offering to lobby ministers on behalf of gambling investors – The Daily Telegraph
  • Can the Tories win again in Blackpool if by-election is called? – The I

…as a Welsh farmer is branded a ‘traitor’ for meeting with the Prime Minister

“A farmer has received death threats for protesting against Welsh government agricultural reforms and been branded a “traitor” by Welsh nationalists for meeting the prime minister. Gareth Wyn Jones, 56, will join a protest outside the Senedd on Wednesday against the devolved government’s plans to force farmers to have 10 per cent of their land covered by trees and 10 per cent dedicated to wildlife habitat to receive basic subsidies. The upland farmer and social media personality, whose family has farmed for more than 350 years in Llanfairfechan on the North Wales coast, has been forced to install a security system after police warned him about a recent death threat made against his family for his outspoken views.” – The Times

Budget 1) Hunt ‘struggles to find goodies’ as he faces fiscal ‘headlock’

“Jeremy Hunt, Britain’s chancellor, is struggling to escape a fiscal “headlock” imposed by his official forecasters as he tries to find space for tax cuts and lift pre-Budget gloom among Conservative MPs. Hunt will prioritise personal tax cuts on March 6, but his allies say his room for manoeuvre is limited because of increasingly tight fiscal forecasts produced by the spending watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility. Tory MPs still hope Hunt can spring a surprise by cutting national insurance rates by 2p at a cost of about £10bn, although the chancellor’s aides have insisted this was “impossible at the moment, let alone difficult”. To try to find cash to fund tax cuts Hunt is looking at targeted tax rises… while he hopes to unlock future savings by [raising] public sector productivity.” – The Financial Times

  • The Government must ‘be true Tories again’ by bringing in tax cuts, MPs warn the Chancellor – The Daily Mail
  • They call on Hunt to tackle ‘stealth tax’ thresholds as he mulls 1p cut – The I
  • UK tax burden to hit record high regardless of Budget, analysis finds – The Financial Times
  • The Chancellor’s last chance to be bold – Editorial, The Daily Telegraph

Budget 2) Afolami: Tories should encourage ‘inherently capitalist’ younger voters by lowering taxes

“Young people are “inherently capitalist” and the Conservatives should support their “entrepreneurial ambition” by lowering taxes, a Treasury minister has said ahead of the Budget next week. Bim Afolami…will use a speech on Wednesday to urge the Conservatives to deliver more opportunities for future generations or risk an “existential” challenge at the general election later this year. Mr Afolami is expected to say: “I think many people in politics make the mistake of assuming that our young people are either woke revolutionaries or red-blooded reactionaries. In fact, they are inherently capitalist – they are commercially minded, entrepreneurial and ambitious.” Fewer than one in five 25 to 29-year-olds owned a home of their own in 2020…” – The Daily Telegraph

Cleverly 1) He says to pro-Palestinian demonstrators: You’ve made your point – now end Gaza protests

“The home secretary has told pro-Palestinian demonstrators to stop their regular Gaza protests because they have “made their point” and are putting a “huge pressure” on policing. James Cleverly said the demonstrations, which are now taking place every fortnight in central London, are “not really saying anything new”. In an interview with The Times, Cleverly said it was vital that no MP felt “bullied” into changing their stance on the Israel-Gaza war in light of the protests. “I think the organisers should recognise that they’ve made their point, they’ve made it loudly and they’re not adding to it by repeating themselves,” Cleverly said. The government will consider changing protest rules to require organisations of a demonstration to give police more than the current six days’ notice…” – The Times

  • Home Secretary: ‘What are these protests genuinely hoping to achieve? They’re not saying anything new’ – The Daily Telegraph

Cleverly 2) He also announces guards to patrol MPs’ events in £31 million security drive in wake of anti-Semitic attacks

“Security guards are to be deployed at events held by MPs as part of a £31 million drive to protect politicians amid increased threats following the Israel-Hamas conflict. MPs at risk will be able to use private security guards for constituency events or surgeries, in an announcement Home Secretary James Cleverly pledged would “safeguard the people, processes and institutions upon which our democracy relies”. Since the Oct 7 attack on Israel, pro-Gaza activists have held demonstrations and been accused of intimidating politicians in an effort to force them to support a ceasefire. The MPs at highest risk will also be able to call on private bodyguards to protect them 24/7 because of the physical threats to their safety.” – The Daily Telegraph

  • Candidates will also have access to an officer able to answer any concerns – The Times
  • Sunak rejects Harman’s call to allow MPs to WFH – The Daily Mail

>Today:

Cleverly 3) He says Statue of Liberty ‘Give Us Your Poor’ promise is ‘unsustainable’ in current border crisis

“British Home Secretary James Cleverly warned today that the US can no longer live up to the Statue of Liberty’s promise to embrace ‘poor, tired huddled masses’ amid an escalating border crisis that is fast becoming ‘unsustainable’. Speaking at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York City…Cleverly instead advised the Biden administration to deter migrants by helping their native countries to become more livable. ‘We’ve got the Statue of Liberty in the harbor, it was an implicit promise for the poor and dispossessed of the world in times, when people coming to the US for example would come one steam boat at a time. That was manageable, the kind of scale we are seeing at the moment I don’t think we can make the same kind of offer,’ Cleverly said.” – The Daily Mail

  • Failing to confront ‘community tensions’ caused by immigration will fuel far-right, Cleverly warns – The Sun
  • The economic case for mass migration has finally collapsed – Sam Ashworth-Hayes, The Daily Telegraph

Post Office chief executive under investigation, says Staunton…

“A public spat between the ousted chair of the Post Office and the UK government descended into further mudslinging on Tuesday after he claimed the state-owned company’s boss was under investigation for misconduct. Henry Staunton told MPs that chief executive Nick Read was the main focus of an 80-page HR review by the Post Office and had threatened to resign on no less than four occasions over the matter. Staunton, a City of London veteran who was sacked by business secretary Kemi Badenoch in late January after a little more than a year in the job, had himself been investigated for what he called “politically incorrect” comments… Staunton and Read were appointed after the scandal to rebuild the organisation’s reputation.” – The Financial Times

  • Who is Staunton? Ex-Post Office chairman in vicious row with Badenoch – The Times
  • He claims a ‘nod and wink’ told him to delay Horizon payments – The I
  • Post Office branded ‘complete shambles’ – The Sun
  • Evidence to MPs suggests the Post Office management remains dysfunctional – Editorial, The Times
  • The latest political blockbuster? Staunton vs The World – Tim Stanley, The Daily Telegraph
  • Staunton’s scandalous drama turns into a horror show – Tom Peck, The Times

…as sacked UK borders inspector tells MPs he was removed ‘for doing his job’

“The UK’s sacked borders inspector has told MPs he was removed “for doing his job”, as refugee charities told the home secretary that the sacking of David Neal had left the asylum system at risk. Neal, who was fired last week as the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, told a parliamentary committee of “shocking leadership” at the top of the Home Office. He also claimed No 10 had blocked his reappointment before he was dismissed during a Microsoft Teams video call. In a letter…more than 40 refugee charities have told James Cleverly that a failure to appoint a new borders watchdog “creates a vacuum” of independent oversight. Neal was removed amid complaints that the Home Office was delaying the publication…of his inspectorate’s reports.” – The Guardian

  • Neal, the former immigration inspector, said he lost his position after a row with the Home Office over his concerns about airport security – The Times

BBC is ‘institutionally anti-Semitic’ says former attorney general

“The BBC is “institutionally anti-Semitic” and its reporting of the Israel-Hamas war has contributed to attacks on British Jews, a former attorney general has claimed. Sir Michael Ellis told MPs that the BBC’s senior management had “fundamentally failed” to deal with bias…[He] claimed that “the relentless bias of BBC News coverage has contributed to the record levels of intimidation and attacks on British Jews”.‌.. [He] quoted a Survation poll which found that 77 per cent of Jews in Britain believe BBC coverage of the conflict in Gaza is biased…‌ “Dozens of current Jewish employees at the BBC are understood to have filed formal complaints about their concerns over anti-Semitism, describing it as a grim and frightening time to be Jewish at the corporation,” [he] said.” – The Daily Telegraph

Britain ‘rejects Macron’s plan to send NATO troops to Ukraine’

“Britain has rejected a French plan to send Nato troops into Ukraine, warning that it would be a “major escalation” in the war. Emmanuel Macron had suggested that several EU and Nato countries were considering deploying soldiers to the battlefield. The French president…said boots on the ground should “not be ruled out” as he urged the West to do “everything needed so Russia cannot win the war”. In parliament on Tuesday, Stéphane Séjourné, France’s foreign minister, stressed that troops could be sent to Ukraine on training missions or to build weapons without breaching a “belligerence threshold”. However, the Kremlin warned that any deployment would “inevitably” lead to all-out war between Russia and Nato.” – The Daily Telegraph

  • How Western boots on the ground in Ukraine could play out – The Daily Telegraph
  • Hunt ‘faces fury’ by rejecting calls to boost funding for the armed forces – The Daily Mail
  • By hinting at European troops in Ukraine, Macron has lobbed a grenade into the status quo – Henry Samuel, The Daily Telegraph
  • Whatever happened to the Tories being the party of defence? – Tom Harris, The Daily Telegraph

>Today:

Tory party ‘more concerned with reputation than sex assault claim’

“An alleged victim of sexual assault by a Conservative MP has said that the party was more concerned with protecting its reputation than her welfare after it failed to investigate her complaint formally. The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said that she informed party whips about the alleged attack immediately after it happened. The woman said that no internal investigation took placnewse and that her mental health deteriorated, resulting in Conservative Party headquarters paying £15,000 for her to receive treatment at a private hospital. She said that she was upset at the party for failing to investigate the MP and that she believes that its poor handling of misconduct complaints continues to put people at risk.” – The Times

Trump needs a British ambassador he gets along with…like me, says Farage

“Britain will need a US ambassador Donald Trump likes if he regains power, not one with a “double first from Oxbridge”, Nigel Farage has said following his Mar-a-Lago meeting with the presidential candidate. The former Brexit Party leader met with Mr Trump at his palatial residence and private club in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday. Mr Farage…said it was important that the role went to someone who had a relationship with Mr Trump. He told The Telegraph: “I just think that whoever represents the UK needs to be someone that knows him and can get on with him. So if not me, then someone who fits that bill.” Mr Farage added that career civil servants with a “double first from Oxbridge” were probably not the “right people” for the role.” – The Daily Telegraph

>Today:

Labour vows to be ‘laser-focused’ on Net Zero despite £28 billion U-turn

“Ed Miliband has insisted a Labour government will be “laser-focused” on decarbonising the UK’s electricity system by 2030, in his first major speech since the party dropped its £28bn a year green investment pledge. Labour’s energy security and net zero secretary, speaking on Tuesday at the International Energy Week conference in London, said his party would also remove a de facto “ban” on new onshore wind farms in England that has been in place since 2015. The comments come after Sir Keir Starmer, Labour leader, dropped his pledge to spend £28bn annually on green infrastructure, raised almost entirely from borrowing, if the party wins the general election expected this year. As energy secretary Miliband said he would seek to accelerate planning decisions…” – The Financial Times

  • Labour yet to convince 40 per cent of target voters, new poll suggests – The I
  • Reeves sisters ‘plot to make history’ – The Sun

News in Brief:

  • Can Hunt actually afford to cut taxes? – Kate Andrews, The Spectator 
  • How Islamophobic is Anderson? – Giles Fraser, UnHerd 
  • The truth is out there – Robert Hutton, The Critic 
  • The death of the death tax would not be mourned – James Price, CapX 
  • Where does the DUP go from here? – Eliot Wilson, The Ideas Lab 

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‘Mental Health Counselor’ Doesn’t Think a Therapist Could Have Helped Aaron Bushnell

As you know, an airman has died after setting himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. Sunday. “Rest in power” was trending for Aaron Bushnell, which caused a slight controversy over whether or not “Rest in power” belonged to the black community exclusively.

Slate writer Mark Joseph Stern tweeted this:

As we reported, Wajahat Ali claimed there was no evidence that Bushnell suffered from mental illness, aside from the setting himself on fire part. Self-immolation is just the “most extreme” sort of protest, Ali argued, adding that Bushnell’s final words were, “Free Palestine.”

A self-described mental health counselor called Stern’s tweet “cowardly, dishonest, and dehumanizing.”

Recommended

PATIENT: “I’m thinking of setting myself on fire in protest.”

MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELOR: “That’s awesome, here, take my lighter!”

Perhaps a competent counselor could have steered Bushnell to express his feelings on Palestine in a more productive, less lethal way. Let’s not pretend his death (or “act of protest”) changes anything anywhere.

Are you really helping, though, by trying to prevent someone from setting themselves on fire because it’s the right cause?

***

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Preview of Supreme Court bump stock case

Tomorrow, February 28, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Garland v. Cargill; the case challenges the administrative prohibition on bump stocks imposed by the Trump and Biden administrations, via interpretation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE). The Supreme Court docket is here.

I co-authored an amicus brief in the case. The brief is on behalf on 9 U.S. Senators, led by Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), 10 law/history professors, and the Independence Institute (the Denver think tank where I work).

Garland v. Cargill v. is not a Second Amendment challenge. The case is about administrative law: is BATFE’s new interpretation of the relevant federal statute (the National Firearms Act of 1934) correct?

Despite the procedural posture, some gun prohibition advocates have been sending frantic emails to prospective donors, warning that if Cargill prevails, all of the bump stock laws enacted by state and local governments will be overturned. This is false. Presuming that the state and local laws were enacted according to proper procedures by state legislatures or city councils, a decision in favor of Mr. Cargill would have no effect on these laws.

The right to arms appears in the case only by implication, as explained in an excellent brief by the Second Amendment Law Center and other civil rights organizations: if BATFE in Cargill can get away with an egregious misinterpretation of the National Firearms Act, then BATFE’s next step could be to declare that all semiautomatic firearms are “machineguns.”

There are two main issues in Cargill v. Garland: first, principles of statutory interpretation. Second, interpretation of the statute at issue. The Senators’ amicus brief addresses both.

Regarding principles of interpretation, the Senators are, unsurprisingly, much in favor of Article I of the Constitution, especially regarding federal criminal laws. Because criminal laws are so consequential, they should be clearly authorized by Congress, and should be clearly written so that citizens can obey them.

In two other cases this term, the Supreme Court is currently considering what do with the Chevron doctrine. (Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo; Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce.) As applied by lower courts, this doctrine holds that any reasonable interpretation by an executive branch of an ambiguous statute is lawful. The Senators argue that even if the Court decides to retain Chevron for certain matters, such as business regulation, Chevron should not be applied to criminal law. Citizens should not be made criminally liable for changing whims of regulatory agencies; here, for example, BATFE ruled 10 times that bump stock devices like those at issue in Cargill are not machine guns. Then, on orders from the President, BATFE adopted a completely contrary, novel interpretation.

Before the Supreme Court, the Solicitor General is not relying on Chevron deference. However, BATFE invoked Chevron deference when announcing its anti-precedential new interpretation, and several lower courts in other circuits upheld the new interpretation on the basis of Chevron.

A second interpretive rule is the Rule of Lenity: in criminal law, an ambiguous statute should be construed against the government. As the Senators argue, Congress has a duty to write clear laws, and enforcement of the Rule of Lenity provides an incentive to do so.

According to the Senators’ amicus brief, once all the normal rules of statutory interpretation have been applied, if the statute is still ambiguous, then the Rule of Lenity controls.

However, some (not all) Supreme Court precedent suggests that the Rule of Lenity applies only if there is “grievous” ambiguity. The amicus brief argues that the traditional standard (any reasonable doubt as to statutory meaning) is better rooted in the Anglo-American legal tradition, starting with the universally-accepted principle of the Founding that criminal statutes must be strictly construed.

The Supreme Court followed this approach in a 1992 case involving the very same section of the U.S. Code at issue in Cargill, 26 U.S.C. sect. 5845. See United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Co., 504 U.S. 505 (1992). There, the plurality (Justice Souter) and the concurrence (Justice Scalia) both applied the standard rules of statutory interpretation, found that the statutory subsection was still ambiguous, and then immediately applied the Rule of Lenity, without considering whether the ambiguity was “grievous.”

As for the statutory language at issue in Cargill, the National Firearms Act defines a “machinegun” as a that firearm fires “automatically more than one shot … by a single function of the trigger.” 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b). Later, the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act of 1986 outlawed the acquisition of new machine guns (manufactured after May 19, 1986) by persons other than government employees, and also treated machine gun conversion kits the same as machine guns.

A bump stock does not fit within the statutory definition. A bump stock device makes a firearm operate much more rapidly; like a machine gun, an ordinary gun with a bump stock can fire about four times as fast as an ordinary semiautomatic. However, a gun with a bump stock still fires only one shot per “function” of the trigger.

The Solicitor General and her amici argue at length that “single function of the trigger” should be interpreted to mean “single pull of the trigger.” But, obviously, this is not what the statute says. If Congress had enacted a statute that instead said “single pull,” then the statute would have exempted the WWI-era Maxim and Vickers machine guns, whose trigger is pushed rather than pulled.

As a fallback, the Solicitor General and amici claim that Congress meant for the National Firearms Act to apply to all rapid-fire guns. But this plainly is not true. The Gatling gun, first patented in 1861, could fire 300 rounds per minute, and by the 1880s could fire 1,200 per minute. It is undisputed that the National Firearms Act does not apply to traditional Gatling guns, which are operated by a hand crank. (Electric-powered Gatling guns are another matter.) The BATFE has twice so ruled.

Notably, neither the Solicitor General nor her amici address the contradiction between their claims of what they want the NFA mean versus the undisputed fact that rapid-fire Gatling guns are not covered by the NFA. If Congress in 1934 had meant to restrict firearms that have more than a particular rate of fire, Congress could have enacted a statute that did so. Given the words of the statute that Congress actually did enact, Cargill v. Garland ought to be an easy case.

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‘Christian Nationalism’ Is the Left’s Complaint as It Loses Power

Is America on the verge of establishing a theocracy? The Left’s recent warnings about the rise of “Christian nationalism” suggest that a powerful, conservative Christian cabal is pulling the strings behind the scenes to forcibly convert the entire nation, or something.

In the past week, Politico’s Heidi Przybyla has been hammering the drum on this issue, first claiming—apparently without concrete evidence—that former Trump administration official Russell Vought has prioritized “Christian nationalism” by name in documents for a potential Trump second term, and then defining Christian nationalism as the doctrine that rights come from God, not government.

“The thing that unites them as Christian nationalists—not Christians, by the way, because Christian nationalism’s very different—is that they believe that our rights as Americans, as all human beings, don’t come from any earthly authority, they don’t come from Congress, they don’t come from the Supreme Court, they come from God,” Przybyla said in an appearance on MSNBC. She also complained that “it’s men” determining “what God is telling them.”

Although Przybyla admitted that “so-called natural law” has done some good in the civil rights movement, she went on to warn against “an extremist element of conservative Christians who say that this applies specifically to issues including abortion, gay marriage,” and in vitro fertilization. She later noted that conservatives are applying natural law to surrogacy and “sex education in schools” as well.

Shortly after Przybyla’s article about Vought, radical leftists have widely echoed her rhetoric and suggested that America’s future may resemble a dystopian “Handmaid’s Tale.”

What’s really going on here?

First, Przybyla’s fearmongering has nothing to do with reality. According to her definition of “Christian nationalism,” the Declaration of Independence is a Christian nationalist document.

Not only does the declaration ground Americans’ ability to declare independence from Britain in “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God,” but it explicitly roots the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” in an endowment from the “Creator.” It addresses its appeal “to the Supreme Judge of the world,” with “a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.”

That’s not exactly subtle.

Przybyla’s real problem with “Christian nationalists” isn’t the whole rights-derive-from-God thing. It’s the content of those rights and the mere whiff of a possibility that the government won’t impose her preferences for what those rights should mean.

America isn’t on the verge of a Christian nationalist theocracy, you see. No one is seriously arguing that we should throw out the Constitution and replace it with the Bible, or that we should make citizens, candidates for office, or government officials recite the Nicene Creed before they may enjoy legal rights.

What conservatives are seriously arguing, however, is that some rights of the sexual revolution should be curtailed in the interests of more fundamental rights.

Przybyla unwittingly revealed her cards when she addressed the issues she thinks should be off-limits for these “extremist Christian nationalists.” The heart of her complaint isn’t some quibble with the Fourth Lateran Council but with the very idea that natural law should apply to abortion, same-sex marriage, surrogacy, in vitro fertilization, and sex education in schools.

You see, Christian nationalism isn’t the real threat to the free exercise of religion in America today. The real threat is the ideology of the sexual revolution imposed on the people by government force, and Przybyla can’t stand the idea of that establishment being challenged.

That’s why the Left has a conniption when the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade and allows the states to make their own laws on abortion. According to Catholic Vote, vandals attacked at least 88 pregnancy centers and pro-life groups after the leak of the Supreme Court’s draft opinion in that ruling, and they also attacked 236 Catholic churches since the leak.

The Biden administration moved to aggressively support abortion, even though President Joe Biden himself had been a staunch defender of the Hyde Amendment, which previously barred federal funds from supporting the killing of the unborn. A Department of Justice official even said the overturning of Roe increased the “urgency” of DOJ efforts to enforce a law disproportionately applied against pro-life protesters at abortion facilities.

The Left demonized all the conservative justices on the Supreme Court after the ruling, with ProPublica launching an inquisition into Justice Clarence Thomas.

The Left isn’t objecting to the Right’s imposing its worldview on Americans by force—it’s objecting to the Right’s finally getting a say on issues springing from the sexual revolution. We’re not witnessing the rise of Christian nationalism, but the weakening of an anti-Christian establishment.

Other news items should make it clear what’s actually happening in America today.

Last week, the Supreme Court refused to take up a case in which a person who holds traditional views on sexual morality is considered “presumptively unfit to serve on a jury in a case involving a party who is lesbian.” As Justice Samuel Alito noted, this case exemplifies a danger he warned about when the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), “that Americans who do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct will be ‘labeled as bigots and treated as such’ by the government.”

Oregon’s Department of Human Services treated a widowed mother of five children in this way when it denied her the right to adopt a pair of siblings from foster care. Why? Because she disagrees with Oregon’s state religion, the religion of LGBTQ identity.

The Biden administration is also considering a rule to bar “non-affirming” parents from foster care. People who dare to dissent from the idea that a male can become female just by saying so have no business raising children in Biden’s America, it seems.

As for sex education in schools, parental rights groups such as Moms for Liberty are reacting to the Left’s extreme overreach in education. They’re not “banning books,” they’re calling for sexually explicit materials to be removed from school libraries.

Many of these groups exist because parents got a sense of what their kids were “learning” in school when the kids “attended class” via Zoom during the pandemic—and leftist indoctrination in racial lessons and transgender identity rightly shocked moms and dads.

This isn’t some exclusively Christian movement, either. Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, atheists, and others have joined Christians of every denomination in supporting parental rights to opt their kids out of having to read sexually explicit books.

I’ve reported exhaustively on the Southern Poverty Law Center because I see that organization as the tip of the spear in the Left’s efforts to demonize any dissent from its agenda, and its ties to the Biden administration horrify me. The SPLC brands mainstream conservative Christian organizations as “hate groups” in an effort to raise money and to demonize its opponents into silence. It represents the institutionalization of the effort against “Christian nationalism.”

Many Americans think the Civil War was about slavery, and they’re not entirely wrong. Abraham Lincoln didn’t actually oppose slavery when he ran for president in 1860, though. He ran against the expansion of slavery into the federal territories.

You see, the Southern Democrats had such a stranglehold on the federal government that they couldn’t imagine needing to compromise. They had also begun to think of slavery as a positive good, not the “necessary evil” the Founders called it.

Southern Democrats couldn’t live with losing the ability to force their ideology on the rest of the country, and that ambition became their undoing.

“Christian nationalism” is the modern equivalent of Southern Democrats’ demonizing Lincoln, kicking and screaming as they lose the ability to foist their beliefs on the rest of the country. If history is any guide, this trend does not bode well for the Left—or America’s civil tranquility.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email [email protected], and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state. 



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Is Biden’s Fitness to Stand Trial Relevant to Presidency?

President Joe Biden’s fitness to stand trial and his fitness to serve as president are not comparable standards, the forensic psychiatrist who led the movement to oust Donald Trump from the presidency via the 25th Amendment contends.

Dr. Bandy X. Lee, who edited “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President,” first released in 2017, said earlier this month that she did not judge Biden’s cognitive decline to be a danger to his service as a president. 

Last week, several Republican lawmakers responded to her comments, with many alleging a “double standard” for judgments of Trump and Biden. 

In a detailed email sent Friday to The Daily Signal, Lee responded to both GOP lawmakers’ comments and The Daily Signal’s coverage of her comments in what she called “too many misconceptions” by lawmakers and in the news story. 

The investigative report that special counsel Robert Hur released on Feb. 8 looking into Biden’s mishandling of classified documents said Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen” at his home and office. 

However, Hur said he would not seek charges because Biden would appear to a jury to be an “elderly man with a poor memory” and because his “diminished faculties” make it less likely he intentionally violated the law.

“Robert Hur is not a mental health professional, and he commented on capacity to stand trial, not capacity to serve,” Lee told The Daily Signal in the detailed email. 

Several Republican lawmakers have made the comparison of Biden’s capacity to stand trial and his ability to do the job of president. 

Among those lawmakers, Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., argued, “Either President Biden is fit to stand trial, or he is unfit to serve as president. There is no middle ground.”

Lee, who has worked for Yale, Columbia, and Harvard, responded, “On the contrary, fitness to stand trial and fitness to serve are two different standards.”

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, a Republican, made a similar comment to Tenney, to which Lee said, “Actually, you can [compare fitness to stand trial versus fitness to serve as president], because they are two different standards.”

Lee insisted that she and other mental health professionals conducted an evaluation of special counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report and determined Trump was not fit to be president. Mueller investigated allegations of a conspiracy between Trump and Russia to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.

Lee disagreed with a statement from a previous Daily Signal story on Wednesday that “Neither Trump nor Biden were evaluated by medical professionals for mental fitness,” which was meant to convey that neither man was personally examined. She contends the review of the Mueller report counted as an actual evaluation. 

“Again, there was a formal mental capacity evaluation done by a panel of the nation’s top mental health experts, for which Donald Trump failed every criterion,” Lee wrote about her colleagues’ and her review of the Mueller report. 

While the Mueller report “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” several aspects of the report indicated temperament issues with Trump. 

The press release that accompanied Lee’s and her colleagues’ 2017 evaluation said, “Without diagnosing, these top experts on mental health demonstrate, through a standard procedure, that the president clearly poses a danger to the nation and the world in his role as commander in chief.”

She also responded on Friday to several Republican members of Congress who said there was a “double standard” among the people who called for ousting Trump for supposed mental health reasons but who apparently have no problem with Biden. 

In extended comments in her email to The Daily Signal, Lee was also dismissive of a cognitive test that Trump took in person while in office. She said this was a 10-minute screening. 

“He [Trump] passed a 10-minute cognitive screen by his personal physician who did not have proper qualifications or the training to do a fitness test,” Lee told The Daily Signal. 

Lee is the co-founder of the Violence Prevention Institute and is the president of the World Mental Health Coalition, a coalition specifically created to critique Trump’s mental health, and author “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.”

Last week, Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., told The Daily Signal, “There has been a glaring double standard. … The same people who questioned President Trump’s mental stamina after he passed a cognitive test are now defending Biden’s mental acuity.”

Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., told The Daily Signal, “The only reason you’d refuse a cognitive test is if you can’t pass it.”

Lee scoffed at this presumption. 

“If he [Collins] is referring to the one Donald Trump passed, there is another reason: it would be an insult, if not a grave concern, for a president to have to take that 10-minute screen (not a full test),” Lee wrote in the email. 

Referring to another lawmaker’s comment, Lee wrote, “Again, Donald Trump did a 10-minute screen, which if he did not pass, he would be in a nursing home.” She also noted, “That was a 10-minute screen, on which hospitalized psychiatric patients get perfect scores.”

Lee expressed that she was not happy with how Wednesday’s Daily Signal news story came out. The story included comments from several GOP members of Congress. 

“I was told that a publication by The Heritage Foundation would at least be intellectual,” she said (Heritage is the parent organization of The Daily Signal). “There were just too many misconceptions, I had to respond.”

She took exception to the story’s reference that she “defended” Biden. 

“A psychiatrist does not ‘defend’ a president; she detects (or not) signs of unfitness, regardless of person,” Lee said. 

She also disputed the previous Daily Signal stories that said making an assessment of either Trump or Biden without an in-person evaluation could violate the “Goldwater Rule.” Lee countered that it actually “fulfills” the rule.   

The “Goldwater Rule” prevents psychologists from offering a “professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement.” The American Psychiatric Association adopted the rule after a group of partisan Democratic psychology professionals declared that 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater was “psychologically unfit to be president.” 

Lee said her previous evaluation of Trump didn’t violate the rule. “Rather, it fulfills the ethical guideline that precedes 7.3 (“the Goldwater Rule”), which is 7.1: ‘Psychiatrists are encouraged to serve society by advising and consulting with the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches of the government.’”

Specifically, the 25th Amendment to the Constitution allows for the vice president and a majority of presidential Cabinet secretaries to determine whether a president is physically or mentally unfit to carry out the duties of the office. If the president is deemed unfit, the vice president would become acting president on a temporary basis. 

Under the amendment, Congress could remove the president from office permanently with a two-thirds vote of both the House and Senate. That is a higher bar than for impeachment, which requires only a simple majority in the House to vote for impeachment and a referral to the Senate for a trial and possible removal from office.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email [email protected], and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.



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Bragg To Trump: STFU!

Mark your calendars, March 25 is coming! 

That’s the day MOST PERSECUTED MAN IN HISTORY Donald J. Trump has to post bond or pay out for being such a losing loser in the New York state business fraud case that proved he’s a fraudy fraud, and also the day jury selection is due to begin in his criminal porn-star-hush-money case, aka 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, aka “INJUSTICE BASED ON THE NOW ANCIENT ‘NO AFFAIR’ STORY OF STORMY ‘HORSEFACE’ DANIALS!!!” [sic]

PREVIOUSLY!

Preparing for kickoff, both sides have been filing filings, with Trump lawyer Todd Blanche trying to exclude Trump’s “grab ‘em by the pussy” Access Hollywood tape, as well as testimony from Stormy Daniels, Karen MacDougal, and poor Michael Cohen, who allegedly ponied up $130k of his own money to buy off Stormy, had a tough time getting it back from Trump, and went to prison for his efforts. Why not exclude all the testimony? Why not just forget all of this ever happened? If you don’t ask, you can’t get!

Now Team Bragg has asked the judge to shield the jury’s info, and restrict Trump’s “extrajudicial comments” on the case, aka his tendency to smear, threaten and harass anyone and their children and housepets related to his cases. Yep, it’s the old Trump gag-order song and dance again. 

Extrajudicial comments, why, him? In case anyone has forgotten, Bragg and co. have helpfully prepared a phone-book-sized compendium of the past years of Trump’s deranged and rambling threats to DA Bragg himself, as well as other courts, judges, law enforcement, judges’ families, and jurors (though many of those pages are single-pagers of his ‘Truth’ sharts). He is a Tasmanian devil cartoon, argablarghablarghing a path of destruction in all caps at any and every perceived enemy who crosses his path, until someone can lure him back into a crate with a song or booby trap.

Will he get a gag order? Will he violate it immediately? Will Judge Juan Merchan finally be the one to lock him up? Yes, probably, and doubtful, though we aren’t Dionne Warwick so we can’t predict everything.

Anyway, you’re used to Trump’s threats, but this filing treats you to a whole garbage bag full.

He called the Special Counsel a “thug”; a “deranged lunatic” and “psycho”; and a “sick and deranged sleazebag.” […] He attacked the Special Counsel’s wife and his sister-in-law. […] And he attacked a potential witness in the case, former Attorney General William Barr, calling him a “Gutless Pig” and a “disgruntled former employee,” who is “lazy,” and “weak & totally ineffective.”

The firehose of threats Bragg’s office has already gotten before trial even starts are in here, along with “Liddle” Mike Pence, Mark Meadows, Fani Willis getting doxxed, “SleazeBag Lawyer” Michael Cohen, Ruby Freeman, and the more recent attacks on Judge Engoron’s clerk, his wife, and his daughter:

 A New York court security official attested in a sworn affirmation that defendant’s public attacks on Justice Engoron and his law clerk had “resulted in hundreds of threatening and harassing voicemail messages” that, when transcribed, spanned “over 275 single spaced pages.”

The tome of threats also serves as a compendium of the judiciary’s earlier failures to protect Trump jurors. Remember when the grand jurors in Fulton County had their names released because no one in the DA’s office moved to restrict it, so their addresses and photos were on right-wing websites within minutes? Not great!

Or the more innocent days of United States v. Stone? Geriatric bad boy Roger Jason Stone Jr., that is. Stone and his Nixon tramp stamp have popped up somewhere in every Republican presidential campaign since Dirty Dick’s, though he resigned as a consultant from Bob Dole’s campaign and got more into lobbying with his fellow wife-swapper Paul Manafort after The Enquirer uncovered his personal ad in a DC swinger’s magazine, which read, “Hot, insatiable lady and her handsome body builder husband, experienced swingers, seek similar couples or exceptional muscular well-hung single men.” He describes himself as “try-sexual, I’ll try anything!” Guess Bob Dole was a bit of a prude.

And so now Stone and The Enquirer are together again, at least in spirit for this case. The “newspaper” allegedly caught and killed the MacDougal and Daniels tell-alls on Trump’s behalf, because it did not want your inquiring mind to want to know! David Pecker is a loathsome man, but he’s got one juicy vault.

Anyway, Stone’s 2019 case was in a lot of ways the dry run for Trump’s trials, with Stone going balls-out with all the threats to the judge, argablarghablarghing and limit-testing that Trump enjoys pulling today. Stone worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign, and you may recall was on trial in DC for being one of the witches in the RUSSIA WITCH HUNT. He was convicted of seven charges: obstruction of a congressional investigation, five counts of making false statements to Congress, and one for tampering with a witness, after he got busted serving as an intermediary between WikiLeaks and the Russian hacker who stole Hillary Clinton’s buttery emails and John Podesta’s risotto recipe. But the real show was on Stone’s Instagram, where he simply would not shut the fuck up, amassing followers as he posted pictures of federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson with crosshairs behind her, while ranting and raving:

Through legal trickery Deep State hitman Robert Mueller has guaranteed that my upcoming show trial is before Judge Amy Berman Jackson , an Obama appointed Judge who dismissed the Benghazi charges again [sic] Hillary Clinton and incarcerated Paul Manafort prior to his conviction for any crime. #fixisin Help me fight for my life at @StoneDefenseFund.com

Back then it was the craziest shit we’d ever seen, and Judge ABJ eventually went as far as to ban Stone from using social media entirely. Stone was convicted, but that was not the end! Two jurors were naive enough that they publicly identified themselves, and immediately they were harassed and menaced with phone calls, mail, and threats by Alex Jones and Trump himself, who Tweeted and ranted in speeches:

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There has rarely been a juror so tainted as the forewoman in the Roger Stone case. Look at her background. She never revealed her hatred of ‘Trump’ and Stone. She was totally biased, as is the judge. Roger wasn’t even working on my campaign. Miscarriage of justice, sad to watch!

But Stone never really left his campaign, did he? Trump commuted his 40-day sentence days before he was supposed to start serving it, and on December 23, 2020, pardoned him completely, just in time for him to pop up again at the Willard Hotel on January 6. They may have their disagreements, what with Stone raging about Trump’s “abortionist daughter” after it became clear Stone wasn’t going to get that second pardon he was asking for, but how long can he stay mad? They’re peas in a pod.

Judge Merchan has yet to rule on Trump and the prosecution’s requests, but we’ll keep you posted!

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Lee Rotherham: Sunak still has the time to implement real Conservative policies. Without them, disaster beckons. | Conservative Home

For some months now, archivists at Victoria Tower in the Palace of Westminster have been toiling. Many of their documents are being moved across to Kew. Judging by the stream of pallets by the doorway that’s been a major task.

Although a sad loss for those with local access, the idea is a sensible one, given the lack of study space for visiting researchers as well as the building’s track record: those precious archives that were previously held on site went up in flames in the blaze of 1834. Curators have maintained a ‘grab bag’ of the most important items, which they can snatch and save in case of sudden catastrophe.

After a fashion, this takes us to modern-day politics.

A year ago, I penned a piece for ConservativeHome looking at the electoral prospects of the Conservatives. It came at the matter from the viewpoint of the risk analyst, and applied the cone of probability – the prospect of something happening shown by whether or not it sat within the cone, and by how much. The cone shrinks with time, meaning that improbable prospects nearer the edge shift towards the impossible.

At the time it was clear that the odds did not wildly favour a Tory general election victory. Nevertheless, exterior forces – foreign wars, Blob madness, Labour incompetence – would have a part to play, and still do. More importantly, conscious political choices do. A bold set of policies, I argued, which made tough and long-ducked calls would be respected by the voter, while delivering what was needed for the country.

That meant legal immigration in the tens of thousands, rather than running at more than half a million. A functional system to deter illegal arrivals. An end to the default of rewarding civil service failure. Criminals getting caught and doing time. Removing the NHS from. its impossible pedestal. Rewarding YIMBYs, and building more homes. Dropping the cult of environmentalism in favour of traditional countryside values. Sapping political correctness. Gripping HR, and the red tape twins of Health and Safety. Pursuing lower and flatter taxes. Chasing deregulation as the default setting.

A golden thread is accepting that many of these issues are interlinked and must be fixed in parallel. Central to that circuitry was accepting the ECHR has morphed and we need to completely reshape our legal relationship with human rights and social obligations.

These are not revolutionary ideals. They may, indeed, be politically difficult ones. But that is a different matter.

Unfortunately, opportunities have only partially and hesitantly been taken, with ministers too often hampered by collegial inertia or systemic opposition. For instance, the Whitehall OODA Loop around fighting political correctness seems to be driven by whatever Steven Edginton of the Telegraph finds out.

It is a recipe for disaster to default to the strategy of the Cabinet Office, of stating deep concern about an issue (such as the shortage of housing) while suggesting that it might feature as an action item in a distant manifesto.

Hence the current state of polls suggesting a Labour majority so big, all the bench space across both sides of the Commons wouldn’t have room to sit every returned Labour MP. John Hayes once wrote a pamphlet called Who Represents Rural Britain? Looking at the seats back then, the answer was “Not you, Tony Blair”. Yet now we find a Country Land and Business Association poll that sees Conservate representation drained even from its countryside heartlands.

Punters can look up other bleak betting odds for themselves. But there is another curious poll out there out there, different from the others. That is the YouGov poll associated with David Frost, featured prominently in the Telegraph. The striking thing here was not the poll results, nor the ongoing mystery of who generated it. It was the fact that respondees in huge numbers wanted the Government to deliver on precisely the sort of things we listed earlier, and would reward whoever did it at the polls. Of course, it’s in the Left’s interest to dismiss that, since those failures are the inevitable consequences of slopey-shoulder socialism. But that’s no reason for Conservatives to do so too.

Inaction on delivery leaves us sliding almost out of the cone of probabilities. It sees us now confronted with two possible options – to embrace the remaining opportunities, or to embrace disaster.

Disaster is easier to deliver but for obvious reasons tends to get badly prepped for. This is dangerous. Effective opposition is a rare skill set. It needs media streetfighters, issue probers, and green bench guerillistas. Without a new generation of Eric Forths and David Macleans, and fresh backup for Christopher Chopes and Jacob Rees-Moggs on the green benches, a return to power will be a long time coming.

A massive Labour majority would armour-plate Keir Starmer against failure and scandal by sheer parliamentary numbers. I see few signs that the Conservatives are selecting candidates who would excel at this counter-revolutionary role.

Far better though to deliver, to apply an existing parliamentary majority, and to get the things done that need doing. Too much time has slipped away to deliver on many projects, but some can still be embraced and others run their first lap. With delicious timing, Sheffield Forgemasters have just revealed a cutting-edge technique that reduces the time it takes to make core components of modular nuclear reactors from five months to a few hours. That ought to inspire ministers to do likewise with planning permissions.

So forget the polls, or the question of polling day; just govern as Conservatives. To use a maligned West Wing analogy: let Bartlet be Bartlet. There still remains enough time to leave a genuine and defining legacy, that frames where the next government is heading, and reaffirms that Conservatism truly does seek to make people’s life better.

Everyone knows an emergency policy for the conflagration. They are hardly grand secrets. But will Rishi Sunak actually be willing to seize the opportunity?

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#Lee #Rotherham #Sunak #time #implement #real #Conservative #policies #disaster #beckons #Conservative #Home

Here Are the Best, Most Unhinged MELTDOWNS Over Winsome Sears Calling a Man ‘Sir’ in the Senate and LOL

As Twitchy readers know, Winsome Sears referred to trans woman Sen. Danica Roem as sir, and he stormed out of the chamber. Hey, just because he wants to be a woman doesn’t actually make him a woman and Sears gendered him correctly.

Which of course has Virginia Democrats losing their MINDS. How DARE Winsome call a man, sir?! THE NERVE! You guys, we’re not even kidding, the responses from Democrats in the Commonwealth have been unhinged and hilarious. And while we would love to include them all, we’d be here all day if we did SO we snagged a few of our favorites. You’ll notice the woman who was caught doing online sex work with her husband is outraged at Winsome …

Yeah, this is some funny shizit.

First up, the mayor of Richmond, Levar Stoney:

Stoney made a name for himself by tearing down the famous Robert E. Lee statue … and giving the job to his friends. Ahem.

But you know, Winsome called a man SIR and that must be denounced!

Heh.

The same citizens Democrat Ralph Northam forced to stay out of church? The same citizens he took school from? The same citizens he forced to mask? Spare us.

Recommended

When we mocked Henrico for being racist they got really fussy.

As Democrats do.

Sheesh, you’d think calling a man, ‘sir’ is being respectful.

This one though … this one is *chef’s kiss*.

Susanna is the Democrat who was caught doing online sex work, and she’s talking about sullying the Governor’s mansion. HA HA HA HA HA

Too easy.

Pun intended.

Empowering men to pretend they’re women is disgraceful. Erasing women is disgraceful.

Callin a man, ‘sir,’ is not disgraceful.

We. Got. Nothin’.

Please note we did not make a joke about his neck trying to eat his head.

Wait, oops.

Our bad.

ARGLE BARGLE RAR.

Well, she’s a guy, so … 

But you know, Winsome is classless for calling a man, ‘sir’. K.

Senator, SIR.

Guys, there are many many many many more. 

Our main takeaway here, besides the fact that this meltdown has been hilarious, is actually written perfectly in this tweet, right here:

Good question.

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Go HOME Google, You’re Drunk: Megyn Kelly’s Post ROASTING Google and Their Woke AI is Brutal PERFECTION

Law Prof Explains How Fani Willis’ Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very-Bad Month is About to Get Even WORSE

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Editor’s Note: Hi there. I know it’s been some time since we changed this up but changing it up now to see if any of you read this far. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Also, if you are reading this far please sign up for Twitchy VIP and help us continue bringing you the truth, especially the truth Biden and his Big Tech goons don’t want us sharing.



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#Unhinged #MELTDOWNS #Winsome #Sears #Calling #Man #Sir #Senate #LOL