Ongoing attacks by Republicans in the 2020 presidential election

Republican groups in various states are passing resolutions that call Biden's victory illegitimate. 

In Montana:

Republican central committees in Ravalli and Lewis and Clark counties have in the last two weeks passed near-identical resolutions that “reject” the results of the 2020 presidential election and claim Joe Biden “was not legitimately elected” to the presidency of the United States. The resolutions urge the Montana Legislature to do “everything in their power” to put “the responsibility of election integrity and accountability back into the hands of We the People.”

The Texas Republican Party Platform Committee writes:

Resolution 1 

2020 Election: We believe that the 2020 election violated Article 1 and 2 of the US Constitution, that 1582 various secretaries of state illegally circumvented their state legislatures in conducting their elections in 1583 multiple ways, including by allowing ballots to be received after November 3, 2020.We believe that 1584 substantial election fraud in key metropolitan areas significantly affected the results in five key states in 1585 favor of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. 1586 

We reject the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph 1587 Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States. We strongly urge all 1588 Republicans to work to ensure election integrity and to show up to vote in November of 2022, bring your 1589 friends and family, volunteer for your local Republicans, and overwhelm any possible fraud.

Maricopa County Arizona Republican Committee Executive Board:

Be it resolved by the Executive Board of the Maricopa County Republican Committee:

WHEREAS In solidarity with the Republican Party of Texas and their recent Resolution on the 2020 Election;

WHEREAS We believe the 2020 Election violated Article 1 and 2 of the US Constitution, that various secretaries of state illegally circumvented their state legislatures in conducting their elections in multiple incorrect ways, including allowing ballots to be received after November 3, 2020;

WHEREAS The 2000 Mules Documentary irrefutably proves election fraud occurred in Maricopa County during the 2020 Election in the form of ballot trafficking through drop boxes;

WHEREAS We believe that substantial election fraud in key metropolitan areas significantly affected the results in five key states in favor of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.;

WHEREAS The Arizona Senate audit of the 2020 Election found significant inconsistencies and discrepancies;

NOW, THEREFORE, We reject the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States. We strongly urge all Republicans to work to ensure election integrity and correct all fraud and weaknesses identified in the 2020 Election.

The Republican Party of Langlade County Wisconsin:

A Resolution to reject the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election
Date: June 30, 2022
Be it resolved by the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Langlade County:

WHEREAS In solidarity with the Republican Party of Texas and the Republican Party of Maricopa County AZ and their recent Resolutions to reject the 2020 Election;

AND WHEREAS We believe the 2020 Election violated Article 1 and 2 of the US Constitution, that various Secretaries of State throughout the Country and the Wisconsin Election Commission (WEC) illegally circumvented their State Legislatures in conducting their elections in multiple illegal ways, including allowing ballot harvesting, ballot trafficking, the use of ballot boxes not under the observation of election officials, encouraging people to register as indefinitely confined, not following the law related to voting at nursing homes, encouraging clerks to cure ballots with incomplete information, and registering voters without verified picture identification;

AND WHEREAS The 2000 Mules Documentary, using publicly collected evidence of geo tracking and municipal video surveillance, irrefutably proves election fraud occurred in Milwaukee County during the 2020 Election in the form of ballot trafficking through drop boxes;

AND WHEREAS We believe that substantial election fraud in key metropolitan areas significantly affected the results in five key States in favor of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.;

AND WHEREAS The Legislative Audit Bureau report, The Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections investigation and hearings, The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) investigation and report, and Michael Gableman’s investigation and Second Interim Investigative Report, which was presented to the Assembly Committee on March 1, 2022, all found significant inconsistencies and discrepancies in the 2020 election;

NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, The Republican Party of Langlade County Wisconsin formally rejects the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States. We strongly urge all Republicans to work to ensure election integrity and correct all fraud and weaknesses identified in the 2020 Election.

AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, We ask and encourage the Wisconsin State Legislature to do everything in their power to dissolve and de-fund The WEC and put the responsibility of election integrity in the hands of the elected position of Secretary of State, and that the Wisconsin Legislature also do everything in their power to complete all ongoing investigations of the 2020 election, including Michael Gableman’s investigation, to ensure no cheating happens in future elections.

AND BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, We encourage every other Republican County Party in both the State of Wisconsin and all other States that experienced voter fraud and cheating to issue a similar resolution to reject the 2020 election results.

This resolution approved unanimously by the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Langlade County on June 30, 2022

This kind of Republican Party lies- and hate-fueled propaganda and fascism is not going to end. These are direct, public attacks on a free and fair election. The 2000 Mules Documentary has been discredited as lies based on no evidence. Detailed refutations of the lies and the allegations of fraud (e.g., here, and here) makes no difference at all. None. Much of the Republican Party is a radicalized cult focused on (1) worshipping a deranged, corrupt tyrant wannabe, and (2) replacing democracy with fascism.

An open question is what portion of Republicans are principled conservatives who believe in facts and reason and what portion is radical cult who believe in lies and crackpottery? 60% principled? 40% principled? Less? What Republicans tell polls now may not fully translate into what Republican voters do in the 2022 and 2024 elections.

What about the Libertarian Party?

What about the LP? It's gone full-blown MAGA!!

I post this rather wonky blast to (i) point out that the Republican Party and its poisonous ex-president have unleashed something that has a poisonous life of its own, and (ii) suggest where some or most of the moral responsibility for their anti-democratic poison should lie. 

Ex-libertarian Andy Craig, complains:

I was an active member of the party for nearly 10 years, until I resigned last year along with many others unwilling to stick around for a takeover by the illiberal far right. During that time, I was a party officer at the state and local level, served on national committees, including the ones responsible for writing the party’s platform and bylaws, was twice a candidate for office myself, and also worked as a senior staffer on the Johnson campaign in 2016.

Under the direction of the so-called Mises Caucus, the LP has become home to those who don’t have qualms about declaring Holocaust-denying racists “fellow travelers” and who don’t think that bigots are necessarily disqualified from the party. They even went out of their way to delete from the party’s platform its nearly 50-year-old language stating: “We condemn bigotry as irrational and repugnant.” The caucus is also reversing the party’s longstanding commitment to open immigration policies in favor of border enforcement. The new chair, Angela McArdle, proclaims that the party will now be dedicated to fighting “wokeism.” People with pronouns in their Twitter bios aren’t welcome anymore, but, evidently, white nationalists and Holocaust deniers are.

But that’s not all. Various members of the new leadership have averred that: Black folks owe America for affirmative action; Pride Month is a plot by degenerates and child molesters aiming for socialism; and a country with zero taxes but more trans murders would be more morally acceptable than the reverse. Though some Mises Caucus figures insist they want to offer solutions to the culture wars, in practice, that means obsessively weighing in on the side of the far right.

Former Republican congressman Ron Paul has been paleolibertarianism’s most visible promoter. His 2008 and 2012 bids for the Republican presidential nomination initially ignited considerable grassroots enthusiasm, even among non-libertarians, thanks to his staunch opposition to war, among other things. But eventually Paul’s candidacy went down in flames in no small part due to the emergence of racist newsletters penned under his name some 20 years prior by a Rothbard acolyte. The author, Lew Rockwell, founded the Mises Institute, from which the Mises Caucus gets its name. (It can’t be emphasized enough that Ludwig von Mises, the Austrian economist after whom the institute is named, was a liberal champion of toleration and cosmopolitanism who would have roundly condemned his namesake’s twisted agenda.)

To believe that there was a kumbaya compromise possible with those whose vision is fundamentally incompatible with liberal values speaks to a profound moral confusion. You can have an organization that welcomes bigots or one that welcomes the targets of their hate, but you can’t have both under the same tent.

The same pathology that afflicts the GOP now also afflicts the LP, namely, orienting itself not by reference to its principles but by single-mindedly focusing on its enemy: progressives and anybody else to the left of the far right. This alignment bodes ill for the future of American politics, now that the nation’s largest third party is an adjunct of Trumpism rather than an opponent of it.

From that, one can see the authoritarian mindset has been with us for a long time. At least since the US Constitution was ratified by my reckoning. It also hints at the influence that corrupt or authoritarian elites have on many Americans. They have convinced millions to embrace lies, bigotry, theocracy and fascism. They have normalized vulgarity, incompetence and corruption. Surely they deserve some responsibility for what radical right authoritarians have done to us.

Off topic

An American Pica gathering food 

to store for winter

An additional important point regard the pending Moore v. Harper Supreme Court case

Moore v. Harper could go a long way to killing the role of voters in deciding elections. It is a long-standing dream of fascist Republicans to diminish the power of both elections and voters. They want to shift power to themselves and other chosen radical right elites in American society. A decision will most likely be made public in June of 2023.

The Week published an article on the Moore case that brought up a couple of fascinating and terrifying facts in this case that I was unaware of. The Week wrote:

Could this SCOTUS case push America toward one-party rule?

North Carolina House Speaker Timothy Moore (R) is suing a voter named Rebecca Harper as part of a dispute over a federal electoral map drawn by the state's Republican-controlled legislature. According to The Carolina Journal, the case will test a legal theory known as the "independent state legislature doctrine," which asserts that "only the state legislature has the power to regulate federal elections, without interference from state courts."

Proponents of the "independent state legislature doctrine" argue that this clause gives state legislatures the power to draw congressional districts, set rules for federal elections, and appoint presidential electors, and that state courts have no power to interfere — even if the legislature blatantly violates the state constitution.

Which, in this case, it totally did. The North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in February that the proposed map, which would have guaranteed Republicans easy wins in 10 of the state's 14 districts, was "unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt under the ... North Carolina Constitution."

The situation in North Carolina is not so clear-cut, however. Robert Barnes noted in The Washington Post that the state's General Assembly passed a law two decades ago empowering state courts to review electoral maps and even create their own "interim districting plan[s]." Moore's lawyers must therefore prove that the legislature violated the U.S. Constitution by abdicating its own authority over redistricting.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the case in March but agreed on June 30 to hear it. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh have all signaled their openness to Moore's argument. The Washington Post's editorial board suggests that Chief Justice John Roberts — who three years ago left open the possibility that state courts could override partisan gerrymanders — is now "poised" to side with Moore as well. The board considers Justice Amy Coney Barrett "a possible swing vote." All three of the court's liberals are expected to reject the independent state legislature doctrine.

The case will be heard during the term beginning in October 2022, with a decision expected in the summer of 2023 — just in time to upend the 2024 elections.  

In January, Ryan Cooper wrote for The Week that the state of Wisconsin "effectively exists under one-party rule." Democrats can still win statewide elections — say, for governor or U.S. Senate — but state legislative districts are hopelessly gerrymandered in favor of Republicans. If the Supreme Court sides with Moore, GOP-controlled legislatures in states like Wisconsin would have full authority to rig not only their own states' legislative elections, but elections to the U.S. House of Representatives as well.  

And it might not stop there. Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution empowers each state to "appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors" equal to that state's number of senators and representatives. The clause doesn't say anything about the popular vote. This means, in theory, that state legislators can appoint whoever they want to the Electoral College. If SCOTUS side with Moore next summer on the question of federal redistricting, they're likely to apply the same reasoning to presidential elections. This interpretation was floated by conservative justices — including Thomas — during the Bush v. Gore (2000) case that handed George W. Bush the presidency.  

The Electoral Count Act of 1887 stipulates that each state's slate of electors must be certified by the governor of that state. In states like Wisconsin— which has a Democratic governor — this law could prevent the Republican-led legislature from handing the state's electoral votes to a losing Republican candidate.

But wait — if the independent state legislature doctrine is correct, then the governor has no right to usurp the legislature's constitutionally granted powers. That provision of the Electoral Count Act (ECA) would be struck down.

This idea "is quickly becoming dogma among Republican legal apparatchiks," Cooper wrote. Convincing Republican-controlled states won by President Biden to submit alternate slates of Republican electors was a key part of Trump lawyer John Eastman's strategy to overturn the 2020 presidential election. His plan also rested on the assumption that the ECA is "likely unconstitutional."  

"It is difficult … to see the desire to put sole control of election rules in the hands of a partisan legislative body as anything more than a power grab," argued Christine Adams in The Washington Post. Laurence H. Tribe and Dennis Aftergut were even blunter in the Los Angeles Times: "Adopting the independent state legislature theory would amount to right-wing justices making up law to create an outcome of one-party rule."

I was unaware of information in the parts of the article I highlighted. Republican fascists are going after the entire Electoral Count Act (ECA). 

Think about that. The fascist Republican Party is now arguing in the Supreme Court that a state legislature cannot delegate any of its allegedly exclusive authority over redistricting. That is the narrow point. The broader, catastrophic point is obvious if the fascists win this case. As I see it:

If a state legislature cannot abdicate any of its asserted essentially sole authority over elections and the ECA itself is unconstitutional, state legislatures can simply override the results of any state legislature, House or White House election result the legislature does not like. Contrary majority votes will be subordinated to the will of the gerrymandered legislature. The radical right's argument is that the independent state legislature doctrine cannot be infringed by any state law.

This is hard core radicalism and authoritarianism coming from the Republican Party. Based on the article, it looks like there are probably enough Republican votes for this new, authoritarian electoral landscape. That is enough to usurp democracy as we know it. It would allow Republicans to install fascism in the federal government and red states. Over time, blue state resistance will be worn down by adverse federal court decisions and every other kind of assault that radical right fascists can bring to bear on them. 

Blue states are in a troubling, apparently weak defensive posture. They cannot break out and go on a pro-democracy offensive unless voters vote Republicans out of office in 2022 and 2024. If 2022 leaves Republicans in power, even if it's just enough power to filibuster bills to death in the Senate, what the fascists want to do to this country and democracy may be unstoppable. Both of those elections must be significant losses for Republican candidates. If that doesn't happen, we and democracy are in deadly serious trouble

The fascist threat here is significantly more deadly and urgent than I believed.

Besieged American democracy

The more I understand it, 

the more terrifying it looks

China's deep surveillance state meets some public resistance

China's massive efforts to build a dictatorship that cannot be overthrown has been of personal interest since I came to understand its goal. What is going on in China is a fascinating and terrifying experiment in how far tyrants can go in monitoring and controlling a modern society. 

The government there is building what it hopes will be an impenetrable tyranny. The tyranny infrastructure uses sophisticated digital surveillance technology, human cognitive biology and social science. The goal includes government attempts to literally shape people's perceptions of reality, how they think about what they think they see, and what their options might be based on government-shaped thinking. The basis for this experiment lies in modern digital surveillance technology, and cutting edge cognitive biology and social behavior science.

A recent huge data hack in China led some Chinese citizens to complain and to try to resist the growing penetration of intense surveillance into the lives of average people. As usual, dark free speech from the government is thick and mostly effective. But, there are signs of some restlessness with what the government is doing and how much control it exerts over most activities that average people routinely engage in.

 The New York Times writes:

China’s Surveillance State Hits Rare Resistance From Its Own Subjects

Beijing’s swift move to censor news about one of the largest known data breaches shows keen awareness of how major security lapses can harm its credibility.

Chinese artists have staged performances to highlight the ubiquity of surveillance cameras. Privacy activists have filed lawsuits against the collection of facial recognition data. Ordinary citizens and establishment intellectuals alike have pushed back against the abuse of Covid tracking apps by the authorities to curb protests. Internet users have shared tips on how to evade digital monitoring.

As China builds up its vast surveillance and security apparatus, it is running up against growing public unease about the lack of safeguards to prevent the theft or misuse of personal data. The ruling Communist Party is keenly aware of the cost to its credibility of any major security lapses: Last week, it moved systematically to squelch news about what was probably the largest known breach of a Chinese government computer system, involving the personal information of as many as one billion citizens.

The breach dealt a blow to Beijing, exposing the risks of its expansive efforts to vacuum up enormous amounts of digital and biological information on the daily activities and social connections of its people from social media posts, biometric data, phone records and surveillance videos. The government says these efforts are necessary for public safety: to limit the spread of Covid, for instance, or to catch criminals. But its failure to protect the data exposes citizens to problems like fraud and extortion, and threatens to erode people’s willingness to comply with surveillance.

“You never know who is going to sell or leak your information,” said Jewel Liao, a Shanghai resident whose details were among those released in the leak.

China, which has been racing to create one of the world’s toughest data privacy regimes, frequently excoriates companies for mishandling data. But the authorities rarely point fingers at the country’s other top collector of personal information: the government itself.

Security researchers say the leaked database, apparently used by the police in Shanghai, had been left online and unsecured for months. It was exposed after an anonymous user posted in an online forum offering to sell the vast trove of data for 10 Bitcoin, or about $200,000. The New York Times confirmed parts of a sample of the database released by the anonymous user, who posted under the name ChinaDan.

In addition to basic information like names, addresses and ID numbers, the sample featured details that appeared to be drawn from external databases, like instructions for couriers on where to drop off deliveries, raising questions about how much information private companies share with the authorities. Of particular concern for many, it also contained intensely personal information, such as police reports that included the names of people accused of rape and domestic violence, as well as private information about political dissidents.

The government has sought to erase nearly all discussion of the leak. At a cabinet meeting led by China’s premier, Li Keqiang, last week, officials made only a passing reference to the question of privacy, emphasizing the need to “defend information security” so that the public and businesses could “operate with peace of mind,” according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Now, there are signs that people are growing wary of the government and public institutions, too, as they see how their own data is being used against them. Last month, a nationwide outcry erupted over the apparent abuse of Covid-19 tracking technology by local authorities.

Protesters fighting to recover their savings from four rural banks in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou found that the mobile apps used to identify and isolate people who might be spreading Covid had turned from green — meaning safe — to red, a designation that would prevent them from moving freely.

A routine street surveillance post in Shanghai

“There is no privacy in China,” said Silvia Si, 30, a protester whose health code had turned red. The authorities in Zhengzhou, under pressure to account for the episode, later punished five officials for changing the codes of more than 1,300 customers.

On Wednesday, a blogger in Beijing posted on Weibo that he was refusing to wear an electronic bracelet to track his movements while in isolation, saying the device was an “electronic shackle” and an infringement on his privacy. The post was liked around 60,000 times, and users flooded it with responses. Many said the bracelet reminded them of the treatment of criminals; others called it a ploy to surreptitiously collect personal information. The post was later taken down by censors, the blogger said.

Other comments in the NYT article indicate that some citizens are protesting in little ways, but they understand that at this point, the government will get everything it wants in terms of surveillance intrusiveness. They are just hoping for a brief respite from creeping intrusions into their private lives. If that is the best the Chinese people can do at this point in the great experiment in forever tyranny, it looks like the tyrants just might succeed in building a society that cannot ever throw off its oppressors.

China is leading the way is technology-based tyranny. After Russia invaded Ukraine, Putin realized he had to go all in on surveillance and information control just like China has done. Putin is building his version of Chinese tyranny in Russia. Tyrants everywhere are watching these experiments very carefully. If this social control experiment works in China and Russia, it could work just about everywhere. And, as surveillance technology continues to advance, the tyrants will implement it nationwide as soon as possible.

This is a significant part of the reason that I see democracy vs. tyranny as a global war. If democracy loses and tyrants really can build an impenetrable authoritarian state that citizens cannot breach, we could be witnessing the beginning of the end of a period for human flourishing and liberty. Not only would the American experiment end in tyranny, democracy worldwide would end.

Q: Is it reasonable to think that in time America could potentially succumb to the same kind of authoritarian police state that the tyrants in China and Russia are trying to build right now?[1] 

Footnote: 

1. There seems to be no shortage of authoritarian-minded people willing to cooperate and participate in tyranny. Because of that there will very likely (99% chance) always be more than plenty of workers, implementers and self-interested opportunists who foster and support tyrants at the expense of individual liberty. China's and Russia's surveillance states are not building or maintaining themselves. That takes hundreds of thousands of willing participants, maybe millions.

Moore v. Harper: The end of free and fair elections (and democracy) is on the horizon

Background

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators. -- US Constitution, Article 1, Section 4

Explanation & context: Sec. 4 specifies that state legislatures control the times, places and manner of federal elections, but Congress can pass law to overturn state law. Sec. 4 does not mention (i) what jurisdiction state courts have, if any, or (ii) how conflicts between a state election law and a state constitution are to be handled. The radical right wants to neuter state courts so radicals are free to pass laws that neuter the results of federal elections, even if it conflicts with the state constitution. Key points:

• The concept of free and fair elections is not in the US Constitution but it can be found in state constitutions.
• Republicans control the legislatures of 30 states.
• If federal elections of 30 Republican-controlled state legislatures are rigged for partisan advantage, Democrats will very likely not be able to control the House of Representatives or the White House. Senate elections cannot be rigged because they are statewide elections and there are no voting districts to rig.  
• Republicans could act to eliminate state constitution provisions that protect free and fair elections, but it is easier and far better political optics to not be seen as opposing free and fair elections. Therefore, get the Supreme Court to give state legislatures the power to get state courts out of the way as the last line of defense of free and fair elections. Republicans will simply deflect blame to the Constitution, Democrats and/or the Supreme Court for whatever public blowback there might be from rendering of federal elections a purely partisan sham.
• Republicans already have the power to freely rig elections for state legislatures for partisan advantage, so their lock on control of state legislatures seems to be baked in for decades to come. That means that Democrats will very likely be locked out of the House and White House for decades to come, unless enough red states turn blue and the blue states play the same hardball rigged elections game that radical Republicans are playing.
• Some blue states have already unilaterally surrendered the game because they have state constitutions or laws that limit election rigging in defense of free and fair elections. For example, California has 9 contested House voting districts because a commission draws districts to protect voters. If that law went away, the number of competitive House districts would drop from 9 to maybe 3 or 4, maybe less.
• As long as Congress remains gridlocked, Republicans will block all proposed federal laws designed to defend free and fair elections. Senate Democrats cannot get past the filibuster, so they are 100% neutered.
• To hint at the depth of Republican cynicism and fascist belief that elections are just crap that need to be neutered, consider HR1. HR 1 was the first bill the House passed after Democrats took control of the House in Jan. 2021. The proposed bill expands voting rights, changes campaign finance laws to reduce the influence of money in politics, bans partisan gerrymandering, and creates new ethics rules for federal officeholders. Nearly all Republicans in congress bitterly oppose HR 1. It is dead in the Senate because the Democrats cannot override a Republican filibuster. 
• Many or most regular conservatives (assuming any are left) and nearly all or all radical right Republicans see HR 1 as vicious, partisan hardball tactics. If protecting free and fair elections is vicious, partisan hardball tactics, then the fascists are right. But if so, then what does one call what the fascists are trying to accomplish in Moore v. Harper (discussed below), eliminating free and fair elections? Softball politics? 

Moore v. Harper, the end of free and fair elections 

and the rise of American fascism 

A couple of weeks ago, the Supreme Court accepted a case called Moore v. Harper. Radical right Republicans intend to use that case to make a legal argument called the “independent state legislature” theory the law of the land. At the same time, the radical right wants to obliterate the concept of free and fair elections. This is something that Republican fascists have been dreaming about for decades. The concept of free and fair elections stands in the way of the radical right’s insatiable lust for much more power and wealth for elites. 

In essence, the radicals want the Supreme Court to declare that state courts have very little jurisdiction to rule on state laws that potentially limit a legislature’s ability to rig elections for partisan advantage. At present, state courts can rule that a legislature’s gerrymander or overturn the results of a popular vote is unconstitutional under the state’s constitution. If the Supreme Court decides that the independent state legislature theory is the correct interpretation of Art. 1, Sec. 4 of the Constitution, that would hand power to fully obliterate the free and fair concept and replace it with raw partisan power in deciding elections. The popular vote becomes irrelevant.

The Moore case comes out of North Carolina where the state courts rejected a radical Republican gerrymander of federal voting districts for the House of Representatives.[1] One legal analysis comments:

In rejecting petitioners’ Elections Clause challenge, the North Carolina Supreme Court cited Rucho v. Common Cause, 588 U.S. ­­­___ (2019), for the proposition that “state constitutions can provide standards and guidance for state courts to apply” in addressing partisan gerrymandering, and claimed “a long line of decisions” by the U.S. Supreme Court confirms the more general proposition that “state courts may review state laws governing federal elections to determine whether they comply with the state constitution.” The General Assembly responded by preparing a revised congressional map. The trial court rejected that map, however, and adopted one prepared by three Special Masters it had appointed to assist in the remedial process. The North Carolina Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court denied petitioners’ motion for a stay, though four Justices wrote to note the importance of the Elections Clause issue.

Petitioners [the radical right Republicans] argue that “[t]o secure self-government, [the Elections Clause] vests the power to regulate federal senate and congressional elections in each State’s legislature, subject only to supervision by Congress. The state supreme court’s usurpation of that authority—pursuant to vague and indeterminate state constitutional provisions securing free speech, equal protection, and free and fair elections—simply cannot be squared with the lines drawn by the Elections Clause.” Petitioners insist that “’the Legislature’ means now what it meant [at the founding], ‘the representative body which ma[kes] the laws of the people.’” “The Constitution thus grants the state ‘Legislature’ primacy in setting the rules for federal elections, subject to check only by Congress.”

There is is, right out in the open: Four radical right Supreme Court justices want to blow off free speech, equal protection and free and fair elections. Equal protection is targeted because it can be used as a basis to argue that a rigged election violates the rights of people whose votes have been trashed by Republican tyrants. 

The importance of this case ranks right up there with Dobbs v. Jackson, the Supreme Court decision that obliterated Roe v. Wade. Arguably it is significantly more important. Moore is a direct fascist attack on one of the last lines of defense of democracy. The radical Republican goal here is crystal clear and undeniable: They want to neuter the power of people’s votes. 

Footnote: 

1. Politico comments on the Moore case:

But the Republican legislators argued in an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court that the state court had extremely limited authority to police the legislature on federal election matters — a theory known as the “independent state legislature” theory.

The theory holds that state legislatures have near-uncheckable authority to set procedures for federal elections — and state courts have either a limited or even no ability to rule on those laws. The theory is based on a pair of clauses in the constitution, the Electors Clause and the Elections Clause, that mention state legislatures but do not explicitly mention the judiciary.

Republicans have increasingly promoted the theory as a way around state courts that have recently struck down redistricting maps as partisan gerrymanders.

The next front in the radical right war on democracy: Turning political groups into religions

A core goal of the Christian nationalist political movement is to aggressively protect and expand tax breaks for its growing scope of allegedly religious activities. Rapacious Christian gold diggers are claiming religious freedom for more and more activities. Those activities are qualifying for IRS tax status and direct payment from governments or indirect tax subsidies. The Supreme Court significantly expanded the reach of religion into state revenue streams in its recent decision requiring states to support religious schools (Supreme Court Rejects Maine’s Ban on Aid to Religious Schools -- The decision was the latest in a series of rulings forbidding the exclusion of religious institutions from government programs).

Apparently, radical right Republican political groups are waking up to the idea of going from non-profit groups with some tax breaks to religious organizations with much better tax breaks. Key reasons to convert from a "charity" to a "religion" are (1) more tax breaks, and more importantly (2) protection from mandatory divulging of financial information. Unlike charities, religious organizations do not have to make their finances public. Fascist Republicans want to do their dirty work in private.

ProPublica writes:

The Family Research Council’s multimillion-dollar headquarters sit on G Street in Washington, D.C., just steps from the U.S. Capitol and the White House, a spot ideally situated for its work as a right-wing policy think tank and political pressure group.

From its perch at the heart of the nation’s capital, the FRC has pushed for legislation banning gender-affirming surgery; filed amicus briefs supporting the overturning of Roe v. Wade; and advocated for religious exemptions to civil rights laws. Its longtime head, a former state lawmaker and ordained minister named Tony Perkins, claims credit for pushing the Republican platform rightward over the past two decades.

What is the FRC? Its website sums up the answer to this question in 63 words: “A nonprofit research and educational organization dedicated to articulating and advancing a family-centered philosophy of public life. In addition to providing policy research and analysis for the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the federal government, FRC seeks to inform the news media, the academic community, business leaders, and the general public about family issues that affect the nation from a biblical worldview.”

In the eyes of the Internal Revenue Service, though, it is also a church, with Perkins as its religious leader.

According to documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act and given to ProPublica, the FRC filed an application to change its status to an “association of churches,” a designation commonly used by groups with member churches like the Southern Baptist Convention, in March 2020. The agency approved the change a few months later.

The FRC is one of a growing list of activist groups to seek church status, a designation that comes with the ability for an organization to shield itself from financial scrutiny. Once the IRS blessed it as an association of churches, the FRC was no longer required to file a public tax return, known as a Form 990, revealing key staffer salaries, the names of board members and related organizations, large payments to independent contractors and grants the organization has made. Unlike with other charities, IRS investigators can’t initiate an audit on a church unless a high-level Treasury Department official has approved the investigation.

[Not surprisingly,] the FRC declined to make officials available for an interview or answer any questions for this story. Its former parent organization, Focus on the Family, changed its designation to become a church in 2016. In a statement, the organization said it made the switch largely out of concern for donor privacy, noting that many groups like it have made the same change. Many of them claim they operated in practice as churches or associations of churches all along.

Warren Cole Smith, president of the Christian transparency watchdog MinistryWatch, said he believes groups like these are seeking church status with the IRS for the protections it confers.

“I don’t believe that a lot of the organizations that have filed for the church exemption are in fact churches,” he said. “And I don’t think that they think that they are in fact churches.”

Unlike the Southern Baptist Convention, whose website hosts a directory of more than 50,000 affiliated churches, the FRC’s site does not list these partners or mention the word “church” anywhere on its home page. The FRC’s application to become an association of churches didn’t include this list of partner churches, nor did it provide the names to ProPublica.

The organization’s claim to be an association of churches is disingenuous, said Frederick Clarkson, who researches the Christian right at nonpartisan social justice think tank Political Research Associates.

“The FRC can say whatever bullshit things they want to,” he said. “The IRS should recognize it as a bad argument.”

Three experts told ProPublica that the IRS is failing to use its full powers to determine who gets the special privileges afforded to churches. And when a group like the FRC appears to push the limits of what charities are allowed to do — particularly relating to their partisan political activity — the IRS doesn’t often step in to crack down. [Not surprisingly,] the IRS did not answer a list of detailed questions for this story or make anyone available for an interview.

The American Family Association, a Tupelo, Mississippi-based group that runs the influential American Family Radio network, as well as a film studio and magazine, changed its designation to a church in early 2022, according to IRS data. The association sends out frequent “action alerts” to subscribers asking them to sign petitions opposing government appointees or boycott media and brands that it has identified as supporting LGBTQ rights or abortion access. [Not surprisingly], the organization declined to respond to a request for comment.

It is really important to understand that the fascist Republican assault on democracy, secularism and civil liberties is well-funded, aggressive, multi-pronged and increasingly successful. Both Christian nationalists and laissez-faire capitalists are exploiting every angle of attack they can exploit. In essence, in addition to controlling society, they want to gain full control of the federal government, all sources of tax revenues and more tax subsidies. 

In other words, Republican fascists are hell-bent on using our tax dollars and subsidies against us to take away our democracy and civil liberties. After decades of focused effort, the radical right is starting to succeed on a massive scale. We are in urgent, grave danger.