Quo Vadis GOP?

[Zanza]

Ah, the party of free markets. 

[crazy canuck]

Ah, the party of free markets. 

Free Markets are like Free Speech - for the right wing, they are free when they operate as desired.

[Zanza]

It is so ridiculous that a few posts back we read that Utah schools must tout American capitalism and now we read that Texas boycotts Goldman Sachs, the very embodiment of that American capitalism. But somehow the culture war allows their supporters to ignore that hypocrisy. 

[crazy canuck]

It is so ridiculous that a few posts back we read that Utah schools must tout American capitalism and now we read that Texas boycotts Goldman Sachs, the very embodiment of that American capitalism. But somehow the culture war allows their supporters to ignore that hypocrisy. 

 

[Sheilbh]

It is so ridiculous that a few posts back we read that Utah schools must tout American capitalism and now we read that Texas boycotts Goldman Sachs, the very embodiment of that American capitalism. But somehow the culture war allows their supporters to ignore that hypocrisy. 

Isn't their argument that ESG investing, stakeholder capitalism etc are subversions of American capitalism? Actually all Goldman Sachs should care about is turning a profit for their investors not ESG criteria.

I think from someone who supports ESG objectives that the state should use its financial power placing debt (and with public sector pensions) to prioritise finance with ESG criteria. If you oppose those criteria I don't really see an issue with directing the state's financial power away from it.

Also it doesn't seem mad to me that if you're in a state and your politics are in support of limiting abortion or expansive gun rights that you don't want to do business with companies campaigning against you on those issues - especially if that effectively means they're directing money away from your state. I'm not sure Texas, for example, benefits from financial power "who oppose fossil fuels, voter suppression, and the criminalizing of reproductive rights as part of their investment strategies". Feels a little bit turkey voting for Christmas.

Edit: And on the other hand I might back ESG investments - but progress will not be delivered at the hands of fund managers.

[grumbler]

Isn't their argument that ESG investing, stakeholder capitalism etc are subversions of American capitalism? Actually all Goldman Sachs should care about is turning a profit for their investors not ESG criteria.

But Goldman Sachs is competing in a marketplace, and clearly believes that ESG-aware policies will increase their appeal.  That's the essence of a free market.
 

I think from someone who supports ESG objectives that the state should use its financial power placing debt (and with public sector pensions) to prioritise finance with ESG criteria. If you oppose those criteria I don't really see an issue with directing the state's financial power away from it.

Also it doesn't seem mad to me that if you're in a state and your politics are in support of limiting abortion or expansive gun rights that you don't want to do business with companies campaigning against you on those issues - especially if that effectively means they're directing money away from your state. I'm not sure Texas, for example, benefits from financial power "who oppose fossil fuels, voter suppression, and the criminalizing of reproductive rights as part of their investment strategies". Feels a little bit turkey voting for Christmas.

But if you are a state official, your personal interests shouldn't drive your decision-making.  You should do what's best for your constituents, which isn't paying more for loans because you personally don't like some policies of the lender.

[Sheilbh]

But Goldman Sachs is competing in a marketplace, and clearly believes that ESG-aware policies will increase their appeal.  That's the essence of a free market.

Sure. But I don't think that necessarily meets their idea of what is American capitalism in that Utah bill.

There is a market for ESG, there is a market for "woke capital" and companies that emote - that's why they do it. Either because it helps them in their market or it helps them recruit.

Though that is delivered by the market, I think for Utah Republicans or Desantis that is a subversion/"wokifying" of American capitalism which is red in tooth and claw and only focused on the bottom line. Although I'd query if that ever really existed or if it is just a construct.
 

But if you are a state official, your personal interests shouldn't drive your decision-making.  You should do what's best for your constituents, which isn't paying more for loans because you personally don't like some policies of the lender.

They're elected officials - both of them from what I understand on platforms that are keen on fossil fuels, voter suppression and anti-abortion policies. That's their mandate - not simply delivering the best return on public pension funds or getting the lowest rate for debt.

I don't really see an issue with them using finance to deliver any more than I'd have an issue with a left-wing Governor directing their treasury to only work with funds that have certain ESG or certified labour rights standards - even if that also meant there was a lower return or a higher rate.

Both would be attempts to use the heft of their states to shift the behaviour of the market to favour their political agenda.

If someone wants to actually run on actual capitalism and just getting the best deals on the market they can - not sure how well that platform would do though.

Edit: And I think this is also a big part of the GOP's project now - taking power and using all levers of the state (financial as well as legislative and regulatory) to deliver the culture war stuff they want - and I think a lot of it is directly inspired by Orban

[Jacob]

I see most of your points Sheilbh, but I don't think "delivering on a platform of voter suppression" is acceptable.

[Sheilbh]

I see most of your points Sheilbh, but I don't think "delivering on a platform of voter suppression" is acceptable.

Oh I totally agree - they're wrong. And their platform is bad to be really clear I think Desantis especially is dangerous (precisely because of stuff like this - I think he knows how to use power and whatever leverage is available).

But I don't think there's an issue with elected officials using the state's purchasing power as well as law-making to try to deliver on the change they want - or think that the state should just chase the best deal regardless of the political implications. And I don't think it necessarily contradicts forcing schools to teach that American capitalism's the peak of human society.

As I say I think it's reverse of lefties calling for state investments to focus on ESG/divest from fossil fuels - I think that's a good idea and I don't think it necessarily means they're now accepting that capital is their preferred solution.

[The Larch]

The first one to mention the Handmaid's Tale gets a cookie.

Virginia governor clears path for 'extreme' bill allowing police to seek menstrual histories
Glenn Youngkin blocks bill passed in Democratic-led state senate to ban search warrants for menstrual data on tracking apps

The Republican governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, appears to have thwarted an attempt to stop law enforcement obtaining menstrual histories of women in the state.

A bill passed in the Democratic-led state senate, and supported by half the chamber's Republicans, would have banned search warrants for menstrual data stored in tracking apps on mobile phones or other electronic devices.

Advocates feared private health information could be used in prosecutions for abortion law violations, after a US supreme court ruling last summer overturned federal protections for the procedure.

But Youngkin, who has pushed for a 15-week abortion ban to mirror similar measures in several Republican-controlled states, essentially killed the bill through a procedural move in a subcommittee of the Republican-controlled House.

Citing unspecified future threats to the ability of law enforcement to investigate crime, Maggie Cleary, Youngkin's deputy secretary of public safety, told the courts of justice subcommittee it was not the legislature's responsibility to restrict the scope of search warrants.

"While the administration understands the importance of individuals' privacy ... this bill would be the very first of its kind that I'm aware of, in Virginia or anywhere, that would set a limit on what search warrants can do," she said, according to the Washington Post.

"Currently any health information or any app information is available via search warrant. And we believe that should continue to be the case."

The panel voted on party line to table the bill, meaning it is unlikely to resurface during the current legislative session.

Abortion rights advocates contend that with Youngkin's efforts to push a 15-week abortion ban, with limited exceptions, failing to advance in either legislative chamber, the governor is looking for other avenues.

"The Youngkin administration's opposition to this commonsense privacy protection measure shows his real intentions, to ban abortion and criminalise patients and medical providers," said Tarina Keene, executive director of Repro Rising Virginia, in a statement provided to the Guardian.

Youngkin has insisted that any abortion restrictions would target doctors, not women who have the procedure.

The administration has also attempted to portray a united front among Republicans for abortion restrictions, arguing it is a consensus issue. But the defection of the nine senate Republicans over the menstrual data bill follows one of their number, Siobhan Dunnavant, speaking out last month against Youngkin's 15-week proposal.

Dunnavant, an ob-gyn doctor, condemned the bill as "extreme", according to the Virginia Mercury, and said she could not support it unless it contained an exception for severe fetal abnormalities to 24 weeks. Under current Virginia law, the procedure is legal for all women until the 27th week of pregnancy.

The wrangle over menstrual data tracking has parallels with a controversy in Florida, in which high school athletics officials last week backed away from a "humiliating" proposal requiring girls who wanted to play sports to answer questions about menstruation on medical forms.

Critics said the requirement aligned with a push by the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, to curtail transgender rights, an allegation denied by high school officials.

[The Larch]

Also in the news recently, the Bible as basis for international relations.

Pompeo says Israel has biblical claim to Palestine and is 'not an occupying nation'
Trump's secretary of state makes comments on podcast to defend former administration siding more openly with Israel

Mike Pompeo, the former US secretary of state, has defended Israel's decades-long control of the Palestinian territories by claiming that the Jewish state has a biblical claim to the land and is therefore not occupying it.

Pompeo told the One Decision podcast that his religious beliefs, US strategic interests and his view of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, as a "known terrorist" underpinned his support as the Trump administration's top diplomat for the shift in US policy away from mediating a two-state solution and toward more openly siding with Israel.

"[Israel] is not an occupying nation. As an evangelical Christian, I am convinced by my reading of the Bible that 3,000 years on now, in spite of the denial of so many, [this land] is the rightful homeland of the Jewish people," he said.

Pompeo, who referred to the occupied West Bank by its Israeli name of Judea and Samaria, declined to support a two-state solution of an independent Palestine alongside Israel – an increasingly diminishing prospect after years of failed negotiations and the rise to power of politicians in Israel who advocate annexing the occupied territories.

"I'm for an outcome that guarantees Israeli security and makes the lives better for everyone in the region," he said.

Pompeo, who once suggested that God sent Trump to save Israel, was speaking ahead of publication of a book, Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love, that has fuelled speculation he is laying the groundwork for a presidential run.

As secretary of state he reversed a number of longstanding US policies, including overturning legal advice from 1978 that declared Israel's settlements in the West Bank "inconsistent with international law". Most western governments, such as the UK, say the settlements and Israel's annexation of occupied East Jerusalem are a breach of the Geneva conventions and are therefore illegal.

Pompeo was Trump's CIA director before his appointment as secretary of state in 2018. He played an instrumental role in an administration that recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moved the US embassy to that city from Tel Aviv. The move was widely criticised, including by Washington's allies, as pre-empting a final agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Pompeo said it is in the US's interests to back Israel whatever its policies, and he blamed the Palestinians for the failure of peace negotiations.

"What's in America's best interest? Is it to sit and wait for Abu Mazen [Abbas], a known terrorist who's killed lots and lots of people, including Americans ... to draw a line on a map? That's what the state department would do," he said.

"The previous secretary of state ran back and forth from Tel Aviv to Ramallah and tried to draw lines on a map. We said: 'That's not in America's best interest. Let's go create peace,' and we did."

Pompeo was part of the Trump administration team that negotiated the Abraham accords normalisation agreements between Israel and several formerly hostile countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan. At the time he said the accords were part of the administration's efforts to ensure that "that this Jewish state remains".

"I am confident that the Lord is at work here," he said.

[Syt]

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/15/politics/matt-gaetz-justice-department/index.html

First on CNN: DOJ officially decides not to charge Matt Gaetz in sex-trafficking probe

The Justice Department has informed lawyers for Rep. Matt Gaetz and multiple witnesses that it will not bring charges against the Florida Republican after a yearslong federal sex-trafficking investigation.

Senior officials reached out to lawyers for multiple witnesses on Wednesday, a source familiar with the matter told CNN, to inform them of the decision not to prosecute Gaetz.

The final decision was made by Department of Justice leadership after investigators recommended against charges last year.

"We have just spoken with the DOJ and have been informed that they have concluded their investigation into Congressman Gaetz and allegations related to sex trafficking and obstruction of justice and they have determined not to bring any charges against him," Gaetz's lawyers, Marc Mukasey and Isabelle Kirshner, said in a statement.

Tim Jansen, a high-powered lawyer representing the congressman's ex-girlfriend, said that DOJ officials reached out to him Wednesday and told him they would not be charging Gaetz. The ex-girlfriend was a key witness in the case and had testified before the grand jury in Orlando last year.

The congressman's office said in a separate statement that the department informed them the investigation has ended and no charges will be brought.

The DOJ's formal decision not to charge Gaetz, who has been serving in Congress since 2017, marks the end of a long-running investigation into allegations that the congressman violated federal law by paying for sex, including with women who were younger than 18 years old.

Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Prosecutors working on the case recommended against charging Gaetz in September, in part, because of questions over whether central witnesses in the investigation would be perceived as credible before a jury, CNN reported at the time.

But the final decision not to move forward with charges came from senior department officials. The DOJ declined to comment.

The investigation into Gaetz began in late 2020 under then-Attorney General Bill Barr, but ramped up significantly after Gaetz's close friend, Joel Greenberg, pleaded guilty to six federal crimes, including a sex-trafficking charge, and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Greenberg's cooperation led investigators to look at Gaetz, along with other allies of Greenberg, for any alleged sex trafficking or obstruction of justice.

The investigation also scrutinized several Gaetz associates including Dr. Jason Pirozzolo, who accompanied Gaetz on a 2018 trip to the Bahamas that was a key focus of investigators. Pirozzolo was pushed out of his medical practice after his name surfaced in some reports about the investigation.

In a statement, his attorney, David Haas, said, "Today we were informed by the Department of Justice that it is ending its investigation... Dr. Pirozzolo requests that he and his family's privacy be respected as the last few years have been extremely difficult to endure."

Two other people in Gaetz's orbit also became key cooperators, including the ex-girlfriend who worked on Capitol Hill and has been linked to Gaetz as far back as the summer of 2017, and a Florida radio host who began cooperating after pleading guilty in a separate bribery scheme.

Then, by late 2022, there were several signs that the Justice Department's case had nearly ground to a halt. The most obvious indicator was that prosecutors finally agreed to schedule a sentencing date for Greenberg after months of delays while he continued to cooperate with the ongoing Gaetz probe.

Greenberg was sentenced to 11 years in prison in December.

[The Larch]

As one could expect, not even Fox News really believes their own lies.

Carlson and Hannity among Fox hosts who didn't believe election fraud claims – court filings
Number of conservative political commentators expressed doubts about claims being aired on their network

Hosts at Fox News didn't believe the allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election that were being aired on their programmes by supporters of former president Donald Trump, according to court filings in a $1.6bn defamation lawsuit against the network.

"Sidney Powell is lying," about having evidence for election fraud, Tucker Carlson wrote in a message on 16 November 2020, according to an excerpt from an exhibit that remains under seal.

The internal communication was included in a redacted summary judgment brief filed on Thursday by attorneys for Dominion Voting Systems.

Carlson also referred to Powell in a text as an "unguided missile," and "dangerous as hell". Fellow host Laura Ingraham told Carlson that Powell was "a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy," referring to former New York mayor and Trump supporter Rudy Giuliani.

Sean Hannity, meanwhile, said in a deposition "that whole narrative that Sidney was pushing, I did not believe it for one second," according to Dominion's filing.

Dominion, which sells electronic voting hardware and software, is suing both Fox News and parent company Fox Corporation. Dominion says some Fox News employees deliberately amplified false claims that Dominion had changed votes in the 2020 election, and that Fox provided a platform for guests to make false and defamatory statements.

Attorneys for the cable news giant argued in a counterclaim that the lawsuit is an assault on the first amendment. They said Dominion has advanced "novel defamation theories" and is seeking a "staggering" damage figure aimed at generating headlines, chilling protected speech and enriching Dominion's private equity owner, Staple Street Capital Partners.

"Dominion brought this lawsuit to punish FNN for reporting on one of the biggest stories of the day – allegations by the sitting president of the United States and his surrogates that the 2020 election was affected by fraud," the counterclaim states. "The very fact of those allegations was newsworthy."

Fox attorneys also said that Carlson repeatedly questioned Powell's claims in his broadcasts. "When we kept pressing, she got angry and told us to stop contacting her," Carlson told viewers on 19 November 2020.

Fox attorneys say Dominion's own public relations firm expressed skepticism in December 2020 as to whether the network's coverage was defamatory. They also point to an email from just days before the election, in which Dominion's director of product strategy and security complained that the company's products were "just riddled with bugs".

In their counterclaim, Fox attorneys wrote that when voting-technology companies denied the allegations being made by Trump and his surrogates, Fox News aired those denials, while some Fox News hosts offered protected opinion commentary about Trump's allegations.

Fox's counterclaim is based on New York's "anti-SLAAP" law. Such laws are aimed at protecting people trying to exercise their first amendment rights from being intimidated by "strategic lawsuits against public participation", or Slapps.

"According to Dominion, FNN had a duty not to truthfully report the president's allegations but to suppress them or denounce them as false," Fox attorneys wrote. "Dominion is fundamentally mistaken. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press would be illusory if the prevailing side in a public controversy could sue the press for giving a forum to the losing side."

Fox attorneys warn that threatening the company with a $1.6bn judgment would cause other media outlets to think twice about what they report. They also say documents produced in the lawsuit show that Dominion has not suffered any economic harm and do not indicate that it lost any customers as the result of Fox's election coverage.

A trial is set to begin in mid-April.

And to think that this is only being aired because the company that makes the voting machines decided to sue the pants off of them...

[Solmyr]

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/15/politics/matt-gaetz-justice-department/index.html

First on CNN: DOJ officially decides not to charge Matt Gaetz in sex-trafficking probe

Does DOJ ever charge anyone with anything?

[grumbler]

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/15/politics/matt-gaetz-justice-department/index.html

First on CNN: DOJ officially decides not to charge Matt Gaetz in sex-trafficking probe

Does DOJ ever charge anyone with anything?

Only if they are innocent.