Crooked Media - What A Day: Marco of the beast

Most Americans knew that the end of Roe would be ugly. What they didn’t know was how far Republicans were willing to go to punish anyone who tried to fight back. 

• A new internal report has revealed that the FBI opened nearly 10 times as many investigations into cases of abortion-related domestic terrorism in 2022 after the Dobbs decision as it had in 2021. The report does not provide a breakdown of how many of the incidents were from abortion-rights supporters and how many were anti-abortion, but over the past few years, Congressional Republicans—like smooth-brained Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)—have increasingly called for the FBI to investigate what they call “pro-abortion terrorism.” 

• Rubio wrote in an opinion piece last June that “Pro-abortion terrorism is sweeping our nation,” and particularly targeted the small activist group Jane’s Revenge, which firebombed an anti-abortion pregnancy center in June 2021, but Rubio himself admitted that the other incidents of so-called “terrorism” he describes has not killed or seriously injured anyone. Kowtowing to Republican pressures (as they always do) Facebook later designated Jane’s Revenge as a terrorist organization in June 2022. 

• But Rubio is not alone in this scheme to even further suppress pro-choice activism. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) also urged the FBI to “identify and investigate cases of abortion-related violence across our country,” in a June 27, 2022, letter he wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray. This time last year, Rubio and Grassley were senior members on the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Judiciary Committee, respectively, both of which oversee the FBI. Their complaints, although largely unfounded, were nevertheless taken very seriously by federal law enforcement. During that same period in which investigations into pro-choice activists skyrocketed, the FBI investigations into “racially or motivated extremists” and “anti government / anti-authority” groups declined precipitously. You know, the right-wing demographics who do actually kill and seriously injure people? Isn’t that interesting! I’m sure Chuck Grassley and Marco Rubio were appalled that investigations into their dear friends dropped.

But wait, unfortunately, there’s more. 
 

• Majority rule in the United States isn’t just about elected Republicans imposing wildly unpopular policies on the majority of Americans. It’s also about the handful of consultants and lobbyists who lead Republicans to those decisions. A small group of right-wing medical professionals called the American College of Pediatricians has gained enormous political influence over the past few years despite its research and conclusions being widely uncorroborated and even discredited by the medical establishment. Leaked meeting minutes from inside the organization describe how it has worked with religious groups to “affect the idea makers through the high courts, professional literature, and legislatures.” The group promotes conversion therapy, banning health care for transgender minors, and severe abortion restrictions. 
   

• The American College of Pediatricians sounds pretty legitimate, doesn’t it? It’s intended to. The group wants to project itself as on-par with the actually legitimate 67,000-members of the American Academy of Pediatrics, 95 percent of whom are physicians who disavow the former group’s “medical” conclusions. The right-wing ACP is, by contrast, composed of 700 members nationwide, and only 60 percent of those members attest to having medical degrees. The Southern Policy Law Center designated the American College of Pediatricians a hate group in 2012 for its anti-LGBT positions. It’s also the group behind the lawsuit seeking to ban the abortion drug mifepristone based on unfounded studies, and has become a key part of the right-wing disinformation machine generally, using scientific jargon and an official-sounding name to convey authority on medical issues where little, if any, exists. 

A reminder that Lovett or Leave It will be kicking off the Errors Tour in San Francisco at The Palace of Fine Arts on June 22 and 23. 

Join me and a great lineup of guests including Chris Flemming, Casey Newton, Dylan McKeever, Adam Savage, and more!

Head to CROOKED.COM/EVENTS to get your tickets today! 

The Justice Department released an 89-page report on Friday excoriating the Minneapolis Police Department for its systemic use of excessive force and discrimination against racial minorities in the years leading up to the 2020 murder of George Floyd. Attorney General Merrick Garland made a statement on Friday alongside Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, summarizing the results of the sweeping, two-year DOJ investigation. The report cites the repeated use of “dangerous tactics and weapons” such as neck restraints and Tasers by MPD for petty offenses, or against those who had not committed crimes at all. They punished people who criticized the police. They patrolled neighborhoods disparately according to racial makeup. They discriminated against people with mental and behavioral health problems. They pulled over Black drivers 6.5 times more often than White drivers, and Native American drivers 7.9 times more often. The report described MPD’s accountability structures and internal misconduct investigations as “fundamentally flawed” as legitimate complaints were routinely dismissed without investigation by senior managers. Former MPD officer Derek Chauvin, who was sentenced to 21 years in prison for the murder of George Floyd, had at least 22 civilian complaints in his 19 years on the job.

The union representing 340,000 UPS workers voted overwhelmingly (97 percent!) to authorize a strike on Friday if the company will not come to the table in contract negotiations to increase worker pay (in light of booming profits and productivity), improve driver safety, and end excessive hours. 

Jim Trusty, a member of Donald Trump’s legal team who quit the former president’s criminal defense last week, has now withdrawn from Trump’s lawsuit against CNN, citing “irreconcilable differences” with his client. 

Robert Bowers, the man who committed the single-largest act of antisemitic terrorism in U.S. history when he killed 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA, in 2018, was convicted of all 63 criminal counts he faced, including hate crimes resulting in death. 

In the latest iteration of a truly draconian stunt, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) announced on Wednesday that he’d sent a busload of 42 migrants—including eight children—to Los Angeles on a 23-hour ride with no food, and baselessly blamed it on “President Biden’s refusal to secure the border.” The migrants originated from Central America, South America, and Africa. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued a statement shortly after their arrival, saying, “It is abhorrent that an American elected official is using human beings as pawns in his cheap political games.” She added that she had been instructing departments to prepare for this kind of “despicable stunt that Republican governors have grown so fond of,” since she took office. The city’s Emergency Operations Center was activated on Wednesday to assist in coordinating local and state partners as well as community organizations. Los Angeles officials reported that among the migrants subjected to the day-long bus trip were babies, toddlers, and school-aged children. Greg Abbott: the heartless little bitch we always knew he was.

The Iowa State Supreme Court declined to reinstate a near-total abortion ban, upholding a 2019 district-court decision that blocked the law. 

German archeologists uncovered a more than 3,000-year-old sword from the Bronze age that is so well-preserved they say it “almost still shines.”

After over a century, Japan has finally raised the legal age of consent from 13 to 16 as part of an overhaul of the country’s sex-crimes laws.