#Missouri State Public Defender

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A bill that would add child sex trafficking and statutory rape to the crimes eligible for the death penalty was debated Monday in a Missouri Senate committee — despite conflicting with U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

The legislation is sponsored by state Sen. Mike Moon, an Ash Grove Republican who said Monday that one of the “principal purposes of government” is to “punish evil.”

Rape of children under 14 and child trafficking of children under 12 would be crimes eligible for the death penalty under his bill.

“And what’s more evil than taking the innocence of the child during the act of a rape? Children are in large part defenseless and an act such as rape can kill the child emotionally,” he said.

“And so I believe a just consequence, after a reasonable opportunity for defense, is death.”

The Senate Judiciary and Civil and Criminal Jurisprudence Committee heard the bill Monday.

State Sen. Karla May, a Democrat from St. Louis, pointed to Moon’s stance of “believing in life” as an outspoken opponent of abortion without exception for rape or incest, yet supporting expanding the death penalty.

“A 12 year old who gets pregnant, you believe that she should bring that child in the world, am I correct?” May asked.

“What crime did that child, that developing human child, commit to deserve death?” Moon replied.

“…But you believe in killing the father to that child?” May asked, if the father is a rapist.

“Yes,” Moon said. “If an attacker commits a heinous crime such as the ones that I mentioned in this presentation, I believe that if they’re charged and convicted, absolutely.”

The Rev. Timothy Faber testified in support of Moon’s bill, pointing to the “lifelong repercussions” of child rape and trafficking.

“It’s also a well established fact that those who commit sexual crimes seldom if ever change their ways,” he said. “Once a sexual offender, always a sexual offender.”

Elyse Max, co-director of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty, opposed the bill during Monday’s hearing.

“If the goal is to overturn established U.S. Supreme Court precedent, it’s far from a guarantee,” Max said, “and the amount of resources the state of Missouri would have to spend as well as the trauma to child victims during the process cannot be understated.”

The U.S. Supreme Court in the 2008 case Kennedy v. Louisiana ruled giving the death penalty to those convicted of child rape violates the constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment unless the crime results in the victim’s death or is intended to. Only homicide and a narrow set of “crimes against the state” can be punishable by death, the court ruled.

“Adding statutory rape and trafficking as death-eligible crimes are a slippery slope,” Max said, “of expanding the death penalty to non-murder crimes that would bring the constitutionality of Missouri’s death penalty into doubt.”

“Instead of spending millions of dollars to possibly change long-standing precedent, Missouri resources should be spent to protect children from abuse in the first place, and ensure survivors have access to mental health treatment and proper support, following the offense,” Max said.

Moon said, regarding the Supreme Court precedent, that it’s worth challenging.

“That’s something that we need to start the conversation about,” he said, “and those things need to be challenged.”

Florida passed a similar law for victims of rape under age 12 last year. It received bipartisan support. In December, prosecutors in that state announced they’d seek the death penalty in a case of a man accused of sexually abusing a child.

Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis has said the state’s bill could lead the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit the issue.

Mary Fox, director of Missouri State Public Defender, which provides defense for the majority of death penalty cases in the state, argued Monday that the death penalty is “no deterrent to a crime.”

Fox also noted that an 18 year old dating a 14 year old could be executed under Moon’s legislation because that would be considered statutory rape.

Mei Hall, a resident of Columbia who also said she was a victim of sexual abuse, also testified in opposition.

“I don’t wish my abuser death,” Hall said. “I wish them to be sequestered away and unable to harm more people, for sure. But I don’t think it’s the state’s place to kill people in general and I don’t think it’s the state’s place to make it more difficult for child victims to come forward.”

Lobbyists from Empower Missouri and Missouri Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers also testified against the bill. A lobbyist from ArmorVine, testified in support.

Missouri was one of only five states to carry out death sentences last year, along with Texas, Florida, Oklahoma and Alabama. There are two executions scheduled for this year.

Three House bills filed this year would eliminate the state’s death penalty, but none has made it to a committee hearing.

[brostateexam]

Can you provide a definition for the word woman?”

Tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn lobbed this query at Ketanji Brown Jackson during her 2022 Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Blackburn was doing her bit for her party’s effort to enforce transphobic gender conformity, positioning herself as a defender of womanhood as something fixed and narrow. When Jackson declined to provide Blackburn with a definition, noting that she was not a biologist, the senator took the opportunity to dial it up a notch. “The fact that you can’t give me a straight answer about something as fundamental as what a woman is underscores the dangers of the kind of progressive education that we are hearing about,” Blackburn said with lip-smacking satisfaction.

Two years later, Republicans remain cruelly closed to the realities of gender fluidity and trans existence. But how the party understands — and represents — womanhood more broadly? Well … that’s getting weird. As we cruise toward November with two ancient white men on the presidential ticket and the rights of millions of people who are not white men in the balance, the public performance of Republican womanhood has become fractured, frenzied, and far less coherent than ever.

“A true conservative woman,” Valentina Gomez, one of several Republican candidates vying to be Missouri’s next secretary of state, told me in an email this spring, “speaks the truth, works hard, loves and knows how to use guns of multiple calibers, cares for the wellbeing of children and her family, doesn’t sleep with multiple men and most important, does not murder babies.”

(x)

[mariacallous]

The overturning of Roe v. Wade and this term’s Supreme Court abortion cases have understandably kept attention riveted on abortion. But while the abortion battle rages on, people are losing sight of the second front of the war to secure women’s reproductive autonomy: birth control.

As state abortion bans proliferate in the post-Roe era, the use of reliable birth control to prevent unintended pregnancies is more crucial than ever. Moreover, defenders of reproductive rights now must guard against an additional challenge—the offensive far-right conservatives are mounting against contraception.

Unplanned pregnancy is more common than most people realize. According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 42% of all pregnancies are unintended, meaning that the pregnancy was either unwanted or seriously mistimed.

While abortion is an important line of defense in preventing unplanned parenthood, it should be a last resort. The easiest way to prevent unplanned parenthood is to prevent an unintended pregnancy from occurring in the first place.

There are compelling reasons to support the use of effective birth control. A long and robust economic literature has shown that improving access to contraception reduces maternal morbidity and mortality. It also leads to healthier babies, less child poverty, better living circumstances for children, and improved educational and career opportunities for women.

In addition, birth control offers the most politically unifying approach to secure women’s reproductive autonomy. While just over one-third of the U.S. public doesn’t think abortion should be legal under any or most circumstances, nearly 9 in 10 approve the use of contraception, including 86% of Republicans. Birth control is also a more effective way to reduce abortion incidence than current state-level abortion bans which so far have not translated into fewer abortions nationwide. But if unplanned pregnancies essentially disappeared, there would be vanishingly few abortions.

And yet, despite birth control’s benefits and broad popularity, some conservatives are now targeting contraception.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas opened the door to these attacks when he argued that the same legal reasoning used to overturn Roe implies that “in future cases” the Court should “reconsider” Griswold v. Connecticut, the landmark case that established the Constitutional right to contraception in 1965. Since then, legislation to ban or restrict access to certain forms of contraception has already been discussed or proposed in Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, and Missouri.

The Heritage Foundation as part of its Project 2025 initiative has called for a potential future Trump administration to restrict access to certain types of birth control. When asked about the topic in a recent TV interview, former President Trump said he was “looking at” policies that would restrict access, adding that “some states are going to have different policy than others.” He later walked back those comments, but many of Trump’s actions as president, including his decision to halve the patient capacity of the Title X program that provides affordable birth control and related services, foreshadow what may be his real intentions.

Senator Chuck Schumer recently led an effort to codify the right to contraception nationwide. All but two Senate Republicans present voted against the measure.

Central to Republicans’ attacks against contraception have been efforts by anti-abortion religious groups to falsely equate certain forms of birth control with abortion. That position is contrary to the consensus among medical experts that contraception, unlike abortion, does not terminate pregnancy and instead prevents pregnancy from occurring in the first place. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, for example, has stated: “None of the FDA-approved contraceptive methods are abortifacients because they do not interfere with a pregnancy and are not effective after a fertilized egg has implanted successfully in the uterus.”

Amid far-right attacks, defenders of women’s reproductive autonomy should focus more attention on effective contraception.

As a safe and virtually foolproof form of birth control, the surging popularity of long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) which includes IUDs and implants is especially promising. For a typical couple using a condom, the risk of pregnancy within five years is 63%. For those relying on the pill, it is 38%. With a LARC, it is less than 4%. LARCs change the default so that users can “set it and forget it” without losing sleep over concerns about getting pregnant.

Many women are taking notice. The share of women using LARCs increased sevenfold between 2002 and 2018. LARCs are now the third most common contraceptive method used by women after sterilization and the pill. Early evidence suggests more women and men are seeking out effective contraception including LARCs in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Beyond the increased use of LARCs, the first-ever over-the-counter birth control pill hit the shelves of major drug stores earlier this year. That is important because nearly one-third of women using the pill say they have missed taking their dosage because they were unable to get their next supply in time.

But what more could be done?

Primary care physicians should screen all women of reproductive age for their pregnancy intentions to encourage patients who don’t want to get pregnant to focus on the risks of sex and their contraceptive options for reducing them. We also need to ensure all healthcare providers, not just doctors, are trained in the use of LARCs, have them on hand, and can provide same day insertion. Where these approaches have been tried, unintended pregnancy and abortion rates have both declined dramatically.

In addition, more funding for Title X is needed. One rigorous study has shown that eliminating cost sharing for low-income patients seeking birth control would significantly reduce unintended pregnancies and abortions and save more than one billion dollars in Medicaid expenses in the first year alone.

The overturning of Roe v. Wade was a Pandora’s box that unleashed an invigorated assault on women’s fundamental freedoms. As the onslaught intensifies, defenders of women’s reproductive autonomy must fight back to fortify the first and strongest line of defense in protecting a woman’s right to choose if and when to seek a pregnancy.

[probablyasocialecologist]

In a position paper published Wednesday, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders Michel Forst chronicled the increasing criminalization of environmental activists in Europe and argued for states to protect protesters and listen to their demands instead of harassing, intimidating and repressing those engaged in peaceful acts of civil disobedience.  Meanwhile, the International Center for Not-For-Profit Law tracks state and federal legislation introduced in the U.S. that restricts first amendment rights to peaceful assembly and has found 42 currently enacted laws and 25 pending bills that would restrict these rights.  Examples include new or expanded “critical infrastructure” laws in Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and West Virginia that explicitly protect pipelines and mining operations, ramping up fines and multi-year prison sentences for trespassing or impeding operations. Some states will also fine those conspiring with individuals found in breach of critical infrastructure laws up to $100,000. At the U.N., Forst’s analysis followed a year-long inquiry in a landscape of rising risk for environmental defenders: As global public demand for decisive climate action grows and activists engage in more frequent and targeted forms of civil disobedience, there’s been an uptick in violent crackdowns from law enforcement, harsh sentencing for protesters and legislation to make it harder for protesters to engage in peaceful demonstrations. 

[justinspoliticalcorner]

David Smith at The Guardian:

God’s army is on the march. And many of its foot soldiers are wearing “Make America great again” regalia, sensing that their unlikely standard-bearer, former US president Donald Trump, is once again close to the promised land. “I do not believe that America can survive another four years of Joe Biden,” Ralph Reed, founder and chair of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, told a gathering of the religious right in Washington on Friday. “I haven’t felt this way since Jimmy Carter was president.” The audience burst into knowing laughter. Reed promised they would knock on 10m doors of Christian and conservative voters in every battleground state, make 10m phone calls, send 25m text messages and put 30m voter guides in 113,000 churches, producing “the biggest turnout of Christian voters in American history”. The election result will be clear, he added. “This time there aren’t gonna need to be any lawsuits. We’re not going to have to go to court and we’re not going to have to wait until 2.30 in the morning for Donald Trump to declare victory. He’s going to do it at 9 o’clock at night!”

With Trump running ahead of Biden in many swing state polls, religious right voters scent a historic opportunity to impose a radical agenda that could ban abortion nationwide, curb LGBTQ+ rights and blur the separation of church and state. At Friday’s conference, speaker after speaker framed it as righteous crusade and the only way to resist a tide of liberal secularism sweeping America. Ben Carson, a former housing secretary in Trump’s first term, praised Republican-dominated Louisiana for becoming the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every government school classroom. “Aren’t you glad that yesterday the governor of Louisiana signed into law – put the Ten Commandments back in the schools?” he said to cheers and applause before warning of a 60-year communist project to change America by taking over schools, churches and Hollywood and removing God from the public square.

Josh Hawley, a Republican senator for Missouri, warned of a “radical anti-faith agenda” gripping the country. He said: “Who’s dividing America is the radical left and that’s why I say to you we don’t need less Christian influence in our society, we don’t need less Christian witness in our society; we need more in every part of government, in every part of society.” To approving roars from the audience, Hawley added: “We ought to take the Pride flag out of schools and put the Bible back in. You know what? We ought to take the trans flag down from all of our federal buildings and over every federal building in America write the words: ‘In God we trust.’ In God we trust. Amen.”

The couching of an Armageddon election, in which religious truth itself is at stake, with victory representing divine providence and defeat spelling total catastrophe, was crystallised by Monica Crowley, a rightwing political commentator and former assistant secretary of the treasury. She described the election as a “hinge moment” comparable to the American revolution, American civil war, second world war and September 11 terrorist attacks. She spoke of a “war” against “the enemy within” that has spent nearly half a century “infiltrating, undermining and destroying” America with “godless philosophies”. Crowley lamented that Hollywood no longer produces “patriotic films” like those of John Wayne and, extraordinarily, defended the communist witch-hunts of the 1950s. “Senator Joe McCarthy was right, and he was trying to ring the bell in the 1950s about communist infiltration in our government and the same deep state that is now going after Donald Trump,” he said.

[...] Religious conservatives’ pact with Trump appears to be holding. Some were sceptical about the thrice-married reality TV star when he first ran for president in 2016 but the concerns were assuaged by his running mate, born-again evangelical Christian Mike Pence, and by a first term that saw him shift the judiciary to the right. Not even Trump’s conviction in New York last month on 34 felony counts in a trial involving hush-money payments to an adult film star has shaken his grip on this constituency. Many who complain that their faith is under siege regard him as a blunt instrument with which to fight back against the radical left. They often rationalise their vote by saying they are choosing a president, not a pastor. Some evangelicals have likened him to Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who, according to the Bible, enabled Jews to return to Israel from their exile in Babylon.

Why is the religious right sticking behind Donald Trump, who is not a sincere Christian and has been charged with 34 felonies? They view him as an useful instrument to push their wicked far-right agenda into law: eroding the separation of church and state, abortion bans, and anti-LGBTQ+ laws.

These same folks were all “character counts” when Bill Clinton was facing sex scandals, but jettisoned them when Trump has done the same and a lot more.

[offender42085]

Post 949

MIchael Keith Humphrey, Missouri inmate 1264642, born 1984, incarceration intake in 2022 at age 38, sentenced to life with parole

Murder

In January 2023, the man convicted of helping kill a prominent snake breeder in Montgomery County sought for a new trial.

Attorneys for Michael Humphrey filed his appeal on Jan. 26 in the state's Eastern District Court of Appeals. The appeal says Judge Jason Lamb should not have allowed a key witness to testify about what a co-defendant in the murder case of Ben Renick told him about who did it.

A jury convicted Humphrey in October 2021 of first-degree murder and armed criminal action for killing Ben Renick at his farm in 2017. Prosecutors changed his charge to second-degree murder and recommended a life sentence with parole in exchange for his testimony against Renick's wife, Lynlee Renick.

Lynlee Renick was convicted in December 2021 of second-degree murder and armed criminal action. She was sentenced to the jury's recommendation of 16 years in prison.

Special public defender Kevin Schriener said in his only point that Brandon Blackwell should not have been allowed to testify at Humphrey's trial. Blackwell told Missouri State Highway Patrol investigators that Lynlee Renick told him about the shooting when they started dating after Ben's death. Blackwell claimed Lynlee recruited Humphrey to help her get a gun and kill Ben as the couple struggled with their marriage.

Schriener said courts can't allow statements made about a defendant's possible participation in a crime after the fact without that person being present when made.

"Mr. Blackwell’s testimony that Ms. Renick had told him everything that she and Mr. Humphrey did was inadmissible hearsay as it was not in furtherance of the conspiracy and there is no evidence that Mr. Humphrey was present when Ms. Renick made it to Mr. Blackwell and acquiesced in its making," Schriener said. "Even without trial counsel objecting to this testimony, the trial court should have recognized its inadmissible nature and taken action to correct it."

Humphrey's attorneys did not object to Blackwell's testimony at trial, nor did they file a motion for a new trial. Appellate judges will need to find that Lamb committed plain error in allowing Blackwell to testify, which attorney Jennifer Bukowsky said is a higher bar than if the issue had been raised at trial.

Blackwell was in the Boone County Jail at the time of his 2020 interview with the patrol on accusations he violated a protection order Lynlee Renick had against him. A judge had ordered no bond for him, but lowered it following his talk with investigators. Those criminal charges were dropped following Lynlee Renick's sentencing. Lynlee Renick sued Blackwell for defamation in 2022.

Blackwell did not testify in Lynlee Renick's trial. Her attorneys said Blackwell invoked his Fifth Amendment rights during depositions before the case.

3u

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Nick Anderson Editorial Cartoons Page

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 31, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUN 01, 2024

Today felt as if there was a collective inward breath as people tried to figure out what yesterday’s jury verdict means for the upcoming 2024 election. The jury decided that former president Trump created fraudulent business records in order to illegally influence the 2016 election. As of yesterday, the presumptive Republican nominee for president of the United States of America is a convicted felon. 

Since the verdict, Trump and his supporters have worked very hard to spin the conviction as a good thing for his campaign, but those arguments sound like a desperate attempt to shape a narrative that is spinning out of their control. Newspapers all over the country bore the word “GUILTY” in their headlines today.

At stake for Trump is the Republican presidential nomination. Getting it would pave his way to the presidency, which offers him financial gain and the ability to short-circuit the federal prosecutions that observers say are even tighter cases than the state case in which a jury quickly and unanimously found him guilty yesterday. Not getting it leaves Trump and the MAGA supporters who helped him try to steal the 2020 presidential election at the mercy of the American justice system.  

After last night’s verdict, Trump went to the cameras and tried to establish that the nomination remains his, asserting that voters would vindicate him on November 5. But this morning, as he followed up last night’s comments, he did himself no favors. He billed the event as a “press conference,” but delivered what Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times described as “a rambling and misleading speech,” so full of grievance and unhinged that the networks except the Fox News Channel cut away from it as he attacked trial witnesses, called Judge Merchan “the devil,” and falsely accused President Joe Biden of pushing his prosecution. He took no questions from the press.

Today the Trump campaign told reporters it raised $34.8 million from small-dollar donors in the hours after the guilty verdict, but observers pointed out there was no reason to believe those numbers based on statements from Trump’s campaign. Meanwhile, Trump advisor Stephen Miller shouted on the Fox News Channel that every Republican secretary of state, state attorney general, donor, member of Congress must use their power “RIGHT NOW” to “beat these Communists!” 

The attempt of MAGA lawmakers to shape events in their favor seemed just as panicked. Representative Jim Banks (R-IN) posted on social media that “New York is a liberal sh*t hole,” and Jim Jordan (R-OH) today asked Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case against Trump, to testify before the House Judiciary’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government about “politically motivated prosecutions of…President Donald Trump.” Representative Dan Goldman (D-NY) noted that Trump is a private citizen and Congress has no jurisdiction over the case, but that Jordan is using his congressional authority illegally to defend Trump. 

MAGA senators were even more strident. Republican senator Mike Lee of Utah melted down on X last night over the verdict, and today he led nine other Republican senators in a revolt against the federal government. Lee, J. D. Vance of Ohio, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Eric Schmitt of Missouri, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Rick Scott of Florida, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Marco Rubio of Florida, Josh Hawley of Missouri, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin issued a public letter saying they would no longer pass legislation, fund the government, or vote to confirm the administration’s appointees because, they said, “[t]he White House has made a mockery of the rule of law and fundamentally altered our politics in un-American ways. As a Senate Republican conference,” they said, although there were only 10 of them, “we are unwilling to aid and abet this White House in its project to tear this country apart.” 

It was an odd statement seemingly designed to use disinformation to convince voters to stick with them. Ten senators said they would not do the federal jobs they were elected to do because private citizen Trump was convicted in a state court by a jury of 12 people in New York, a jury that Trump’s lawyers had agreed to. The senators attacked the rule of law and the operation of the federal government in a demonstration of support for Trump. A number of the senators involved were key players in the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. 

Awkwardly, considering the day’s news, a video from 2016 circulated today in which Trump insisted that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who he falsely insisted had committed crimes even as he was the one actually committing them, “shouldn’t be allowed to run.” If she were to win, Trump then said, “it would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis. In that situation, we could very well have a sitting president under felony indictment and, ultimately, a criminal trial. It would grind government to a halt.” 

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo put it correctly: this is not an “outpouring of rage and anger,” so much as “an overwhelming effort to match and muffle the earthquake of what happened yesterday afternoon with enough noise and choreography to keep everyone in Trump’s campaign and on the margins of it in line and on side.”

Still, there is more behind the MAGA support for Trump than fearful political messaging. Trump has been hailed as a savior by his supporters because he promises to smash through the laws and norms of American democracy to put them into power. There, they can assert their will over the rest of us, achieving the social and religious control they cannot achieve through democratic means because they cannot win the popular vote in a free and fair election. With Trump’s conviction within the legal system, his supporters are more determined than ever to destroy the rules that block them from imposing their will on the rest of us. 

Today the Federalist Society, which is now aligned with Victor Orbán’s Hungary, flew an upside-down U.S. flag as a signal of national distress. Their actions were in keeping with Russian president Vladimir Putin’s statement that Trump is being persecuted “for political reasons” and that the cases show “the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy.”

Ryan J. Reilly of NBC News reported today on a spike in violent rhetoric on social media targeting New York judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw Trump’s Manhattan election interference trial, and District Attorney Bragg. Users of a fringe internet message board also shared what they claimed were the addresses of jurors. “Dox the Jurors. Dox them now,” one user wrote. Another wrote, “1,000,000 men (armed) need to go to [W]ashington and hang everyone. That’s the only solution.”

This attack on our democracy was the central message of a crucially important story from yesterday that got buried under the news of Trump’s conviction. In The New Republic, Ken Silverstein reported on a private WhatsApp group started last December by military contractor Erik Prince—founder of Blackwater and brother of Trump’s secretary of education, Betsy DeVos—and including about 650 wealthy and well-connected “right-wing government officials, intelligence operatives, arms traffickers, and journalists,” including Representative Ryan Zinke (R-MT), who served as Trump’s secretary of the interior. 

Called “Off Leash,” the group discussed, as Silverstein wrote, “the shortcomings of democracy that invariably resulted from extending the franchise to ordinary citizens, who are easily manipulated by Marxists and populists,” collapsing Gaza into a “fiery hell pit,” wiping out Iran, how Africa was a “sh*thole of a continent,” and ways to dominate the globe. Mostly, though, they discussed the danger of letting everyone vote. “There is only one path forward,” Zinke wrote. “Elect Trump.” Another member answered, “It’s Trump or Revolution” “You mean Trump AND Revolution,” wrote another. 

And yet the frantic MAGA spin on the verdict reveals that there is another way to interpret it. Americans who had lost faith that the justice system could ever hold a powerful man accountable as Trump’s lawyers managed to put off his many indictments see the verdict as a welcome sign that the system still works. 

“The American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed,” Biden said today. “Donald Trump was given every opportunity to defend himself. It was a state case, not a federal case. And it was heard by a jury of 12 citizens, 12 Americans, 12 people like you. Like millions of Americans who served on juries, this jury is chosen the same way every jury in America is chosen. It was a process that Donald Trump's attorney was part of. The jury heard five weeks of evidence…. After careful deliberation, the jury reached a unanimous verdict. They found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts. Now he’ll be given the opportunity as he should to appeal that decision just like everyone else has that opportunity. That's how the American system of justice works. And it's reckless, it's dangerous, and it's irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don't like the verdict. Our justice system has endured for nearly 250 years and it literally is the cornerstone of America…. The justice system should be respected, and we should never allow anyone to tear it down. It’s as simple as that. That's America. That's who we are. And that's who we will always be, God willing.”

Today the publisher of Dinesh D’Souza’s book and film 2000 Mules, which alleged voter fraud in the 2020 election, said it was pulling both the book and film from distribution and issued an apology to a Georgia man who sued for defamation after 2000 Mules accused him of voting illegally.  

MAGA Republicans confidently predicted yesterday that the stock market would crash if the jury found Trump guilty. Today the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained almost 600 points.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[disregardcanon]

a timeline of major events leading up to and following the mormon rebellion

1839- the mormons, fleeing missouri, start their own super special theocratic city state of nauvoo

july 1844- having a super special theocratic city state culminates in its mayor-prophet-general being murdered

still 1844- after a struggle between different factions over succession, brigham young becomes the new president of the church and prophet. planning starts as to Where To Go and How

1846- the trip to utah starts and they winter in omaha

1847- HELL YEAH DESERET FOREVER BABY! time to establish a theocracy in the desert in that area that mexico owns on paper, but really, GOD owns it ;)

february 1848- control of deseret is officially transferred to the united states in the aftermath of the mexican american war

later 1848- young and his associates draft a petition to the US government for a territorial government headed by himself and others. they don't end up submitting it to the united states government, though, because of fears that a territorial government would not give them enough freedom. they will wait it out for either statehood or independence

1849- the government is declared as "the free and independent state of deseret" to remain so until the united states admits them as a state. which especially pre civil war would have given them a TON of leeway over what they're allowed to do. like keep a lot of their We're a Desert Theocracy With a Governor-President-Prophet in Charge!

1850- the us government doesn't care about your desert theocracy or the name you want to give it. you're the territory of utah and you're gonna LIKE IT! we'll let you keep your guy as governor though. i guess

1850-1851- non-mormons traveling to oregon and california winter in utah and have a Very Bad Time. people are not nice to them. the court system is BAD and the systems are rigged against the federal officers brought in to do these jobs.

brigham young tries to rally the different native american tribes in the region to his cause, because mormon theology teaches that they're also lost israelites. but he didn't consider any of their actual motivations or try to cater to those so beyond a few conversions and some fair weather friends who will work with anyone for the most money, he gets No Alliances TM

1852- polygamy is PUBLIC now! orson pratt let the rest of the world know that it's a thing we do and now we have to publicly defend it! ruh roh

1856- HEYOOO WE'RE DOING RELIGIOUS REVIVAL! right here! right now! you're confessing to sins! and you're confessing to sins! and YOU'RE confessing to sins! ones you probably didn't commit! heyooo come get your charismatic revivalism. time to atone for your sins with blood and then you'll get into heaven!

there were quite a few different recorded murders of mormons trying to leave at this time, including the famous parrish murders, where a father and one of his sons were killed trying to leave the territory. the other son escaped and ran to his uncle's, where he had to pretend nothing happened.

1857- mr. young you have been removed as governor of this territory, effective immediately.

brigham young: actually we are our OWN country none shall pass through our lands without a permit and we totally have talked to all of the native american tribes and they all will do exactly as i ask and i only hold them off as a gesture of goodwill ;) (this is not accurate! and we all know that!)

september 1857- this was the mountain meadows massacre. i'm not going to try to make a joke about the mountain meadows massacre because from around a hundred and twenty people traveling from arkansas to oregon were murder in cold blood AFTER they surrendered to the mormon militia. there isn't a single joke to be made here, and this event was covered up in various forms for a very long time.

the mormon militia burns and destroys US military supplies as the military escort comes with the new governor.

the church forces residents of the north and salt lake city to relocate south with the intention of destroying the settlements to make a statement. while they don't end up following through with the plan to destroy these homes, the forced relocation still happens.

when the military and the new governor arrives, the new governor decides to be The Lamest Stooge to Ever Lame. and basically lets brigham young tell him what to do and what to say, continuing a very similar line of power to what was already there. not to mention the presidential pardon that young and all involved got for most of the Illegal Dealings that they participated in that are known at the time.

the military isn't able to stay very long because the president has decided that accepting the "new governor" is basically enough, and with the looming threat of a proper civil war (which is just on the cusp of breaking out) there's not enough resources to expend on utah.

a judge tries very hard to uncover the truth of what happened at mountain meadows, which has been blamed entirely on native americans (only a few of which participated, all as free agents separate from a tribal affiliation) and he's not able to make things happen before the military is entirely recalled and along with that, any authority he had to make these things happen.

he DOES go on to help found nevada and take a large swath of territory out of brigham young's gaping maw, though, so that's. something.

i need to do more research from some additional sources but like. jesus CHRIST the... everything here. it's just so much

1877- brigham young finally drops dead and loosens his hold on the territory of utah

[anotherpapercut]

super frustrating seeing people talk about the Missouri law that led to the house attempting to cut all public library state funding like it's fine because the law only makes it illegal for school librarians to give "explicitly sexual material" to minors. even if you disregard the vague wording which saw nearly 300 books banned between the law going into effect in August 2022 and 3 months later in November you are literally just falling for the conservatives "reasonable request" trap

they start off with something that is very easy to defend and hard to attack. why would people have a problem with banning pornography in school libraries? then when it seems like the public is on board they introduce even more restrictions. and if you think I'm being alarmist, it's already happening! Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft proposed a rule in October of last year (2 months after SB 775 went into effect) for public libraries which includes this line

(prurient means "having or encouraging an excessive interest in sexual matters")

notice how unbelievably vague this is? this is absolutely 100% going to be leveraged against LGBTQ+ books. and they are already attempting to make this Missouri law through house bill 1159! I just don't think this problem is Missouri exclusive either. listen to what librarians are telling you right now and stop shrugging this off

[beardedmrbean]

The first openly transgender woman set to be executed in the U.S. is asking Missouri's governor for mercy, citing mental health issues. Lawyers for Amber McLaughlin, now 49, on Monday asked Republican Gov. Mike Parson to spare her.

McLaughlin was convicted of killing 45-year-old Beverly Guenther on Nov. 20, 2003. Guenther was raped and stabbed to death in St. Louis County.

McLaughlin is scheduled to be put to death on Jan. 3, CBS affiliate KMOV reported. A petition to stop the execution has garnered over 1,500 signatures.

There is no known case of an openly transgender inmate being executed in the U.S. before, according to the anti-execution Death Penalty Information Center.

"It's wrong when anyone's executed regardless, but I hope that this is a first that doesn't occur," federal public defender Larry Komp said. "Amber has shown great courage in embracing who she is as a transgender woman in spite of the potential for people reacting with hate, so I admire her display of courage."

McLaughlin's lawyers cited her traumatic childhood and mental health issues, which the jury never heard, in the clemency petition. A foster parent rubbed feces in her face when she was a toddler and her adoptive father tased her, according to a letter to Parson. She tried to kill herself multiple times, both as a child and as an adult.

Parson spokeswoman Kelli Jones said the governor's office is reviewing her request for mercy.

"These are not decisions that the Governor takes lightly," Jones said in an email.

Komp said McLaughlin's lawyers were scheduled to meet with Parson this week.

A judge sentenced McLaughlin to death after a jury was unable to decide on death or life in prison without parole.

A federal judge in St. Louis ordered a new sentencing hearing in 2016, citing concerns about the effectiveness of McLaughlin's trial lawyers and faulty jury instructions. But in 2021, a federal appeals court panel reinstated the death penalty.

McLaughlin's lawyers also listed the jury's indecision and McLaughlin's remorse as reasons Parson should spare her life.

Missouri has only executed one woman before, state Corrections Department spokeswoman Karen Pojmann said in an email.

McLaughlin's lawyers said she previously was rooming with another transgender woman but now is living in isolation leading up to her scheduled execution date.

Pojmann said 9% of Missouri's prison population is female, and all capital punishment inmates are imprisoned at Potosi Correctional Center.

"It is extremely unusual for a woman to commit a capital offense, such as a brutal murder, and even more unusual for a women to, as was the case with McLaughlin, rape and murder a woman," Pojmann said.

[foreverlogical]

A federal judge restricted Biden administration officials and agencies on from communicating with social media companies on content moderation in a preliminary injunction Tuesday.

Why it matters: The decision in an ongoing lawsuit from Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, who allege the Biden administration's efforts to encourage social media companies to crack down on COVID disinformation and other matters is "sprawling federal 'Censorship Enterprise,'" could have major First Amendment implications.

The attorneys general in court filings accuse the Biden administration of "the most egregious violations of the First Amendment in the history of the United States of America" through its communications with companies including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

Driving the news: Although he has yet to produce a final ruling in the case, U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty in Louisiana said in the injunction Tuesday the attorneys general "have produced evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content."

The Trump-appointed judge consequently blocked certain officials from meeting with, calling, emailing, sending letters or text or meet with social media firms "for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted" online.

Of note: Officials affected by this ruling include Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, along with Department of Justice and FBI employees.

Zoom in: "During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian 'Ministry of Truth," Doughty wrote.

Doughty said the evidence produced thus far depicts an "almost dystopian" scenario.

"This targeted suppression of conservative ideas is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech," he said. "American citizens have the right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country."

What they're saying: A White House official said in a statement to media the DOJ is reviewing the injunction and will evaluate its options.

"This Administration has promoted responsible actions to protect public health, safety, and security when confronted by challenges like a deadly pandemic and foreign attacks on our elections," the official added.

"Our consistent view remains that social media platforms have a critical responsibility to take account of the effects their platforms are having on the American people, but make independent choices about the information they present."

[awkwardpariah]

To Arms - Shortly after Florida became the first state to vote to recognize Donald Trump Jr. as President, a wave of rioting and civil unrest explodes across the country. Magats attack government buildings, abortion clinics, and prominent progressive institutions. In the most extreme cases, Deputy Gangs and Police Unions organize to either leave local governments to their fate or join the right wing mob outright. In some cases, like in LA and Houston, Police forces attempt to capture local officials and establish municipal juntas. While initially slow to respond, President Harris invokes the Insurrection Act and deploys the National Guard and US Army to suppress the rioters. In many cases, loyal civilians organize to suppress the riots themselves. In LA, the Crips, Bloods, and Latin Kings band together with protestors and manage to stop the cops from taking power before the National Guard can get mobilized, and actually form a loyalist militia unit that would help pacify the Central Valley. Trump's Army -  In Mar-a-Lago, the MAGA regime formed a government nearly a month before the official Inauguration Day. Its first act was to consolidate the various state defense forces into a single National Défense Force, and impose the first Draft since the Vietnam War to raise 300,000 troops. Its members are mostly retired US military and ex-cops who's departments were provincialized by state governments over the last 4 years. Their equipment and vehicles are primarily military surplus donated to police departments over the last 40 years via the DoD's 1033 program, however a good deal also includes donated surplus from private citizens. While the structure of the NDF is still being set up, State Defense Forces begin seizing military arsenals and moving against loyalist National Guard units. In Illinois a joint invasion by the Indiana and Missouri state guards carries out an attack against Scott AFB near Belleville, and actually captures the base and 71 aircraft. The few planes that manage to escape do so with no ammo or munitions in a colossal embarrassment for the Air Force and the Illinois National Guard. A few weeks after the inauguration of Alexandria-Ocasio-Cortez, the Illinois National Guard has been fallen back and been bottled up in Springfield and Rock Island, with only a small garrison in Chicago left to defend the city from a mob of right wing militants and the NDF. AOC's First 100 Days - Immediately upon taking office AOC orders the US Navy to deploy to the Great Lakes to provide air cover to those cities along I-80 and begins pulling American forces from overseas deployments. The House of Representatives has been whittled down to 299 members, 201 Democrats, and 98 former Republicans, now barred by an act of Congress from affiliating with the GOP. Most form ranks around Mitt Romney's National Union Party which has a grand total of one former Democrat among its members: former Senator Krysten Sinema now representing David Schweikert's old district. With supermajorities in both houses, and progressive control of the Democratic Caucus, AOC is able to push through dozens of bills in her first few days on the job. The first is a new version of the ERA authored by Katie Porter that passed the House in 2028 and can now clear the Senate. To the shock of the more moderate members of the Democratic Party, AOC puts forward her Green New Deal virtually unchanged. In a public address she ties the GND explicitly to the war effort: domestic oil sources and most of the country's refineries are in Republican hands, contested, or still flooded after the last hurricane season; most of the country's coal reserves are similarly in rebel hands; meanwhile the Green Zones, those areas controlled by the Federal Government, are home to most of the country's renewable energy sources. At the President's urging Congress raises taxes, establishes a wealth tax, and authorizes trillions in new spending to restructure the economy of the two main Green Zones into full war production. Congress also supports the wartime suspension of Habeus Corpus, but is less supportive of the President re-establishing the Office of War Information which places unprecedented restrictions on online media and brings the mainstream press to heel in an effort to stop the spread of disinformation from foreign and domestic bot farms and to cut through the noise and opinion pieces that were preventing people from getting often life saving information. This executive order comes in the middle of impeachment proceedings for Supreme Court justices accused of aiding and abetting the Trump regime, much to the irritation of Congress. Thomas remains in DC defiant of Congressional oversight, while Alito and Kavanaugh flee to Mar-a-Lago, taking some of the heat off the President. The Everything Shortage - While new battery plants and renewable energy sources come online the US is forced to seek foreign sources of oil and gas once again. By July the Gulf Coast oil refineries have been mostly recaptured, and Chicago itself is secure enough to gain access to its refineries which when combined with those in New Jersey and California produce enough fuel to avoid catastrophe in uncontested regions, at least with wartime fuel rationing. Food security is addressed as early as April through a series of executive orders to compel farms in the Central Valley of California to tear down their orchards and wineries, avoid planting water intensive crops, and cover the central valley in fields of wheat, soy, and potatoes. In the Southwest, huge algae farms blanket the desert to provide a source of plant-based proteins. In the highly contested Midwest, the situation is far more grim. By late fall temperatures have fallen to minus 70 with the wind chill and people loyal to both factions are left to freeze or starve in their homes. Fully half of the population of these states become DPs and are forced to flee to neighboring states or into Canada in hopes of riding out the war in safety. 16 million DPs will stream into Ontario by the end of the year, far exceeding Ottawa's ability to manage the situation. American refugees pick supermarket shelves clean, stretch public services past the breaking point, and overwhelm the RCMP and local cops' ability to keep order. By year's end Canada is begging Washington to help get its citizens under control while they try and deal with their own group of White Christian Nationalist rebels in Alberta. The most the US government can do is ask NATO for support, and include Canada in the Continental Air Lift, a program initiated to supply loyalist holdouts too far inland to be supplied by the Navy or by overland convoy. It won't be enough. The New World Factory - Not all is gloom and doom by the end of the First Year of this second civil war. The Surplus in solar energy in the southwest has made it possible for the US military to continue to operate as a mechanized force in the region, using civilian electric vehicles to maintain supply lines, and secure much of New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado. With the surge in Green New Deal dollars, and new immigrant labor incentives the Southwest experiences a manufacturing boom, providing everything from microchips to munitions to the war effort. Most who come to the southwest have to do so on foot or by boat from overseas after the US suspends all non-essential air travel to conserve fuel. Refugee camps are emptied out after the Department of Housing seizes most of the country's unsold houses and apartments, and unoccupied offices. War Crimes - It took the MAGA regime all of five minutes to show its true colors. One of the first bills passed by the Republican Congress was their own suspension of Habeus Corpus, but this would not just be used to conduct the mass arrest of essentially anyone the MAGA movement deemed a threat. Political dissidents, religious minorities, LGBT people, women who sought any form of reproductive care and any doctors who provided it, all found themselves rounded up and tossed into prisons. To "solve" the problem of prison overcrowding the MAGA regime took the broadest possible interpretation of the  Punishment Clause as possible and effectively reinstituted chattel slavery for any non-whites who did not fall in line. As for those unfortunate enough to be rounded up into prisons, a campaign of extermination began almost immediately. All of this went largely unnoticed by the Federal Government until the Marines and Navy Bluejackets reached Angola prison at the end of October 2029. The Farm was well known, and most expected to find the pre-war form of penal slavery that had been in place for generations. What they found instead were tens of thousands of half starved slaves in the fields living in shipping containers, and in the main prison complex what the President called, "a monument to cruelty." At least 10,000 people were in the prison walls, emaciated and beaten, but still alive. There were another 30,000 dead bodies in an open mass grave. Most were dead as exposure to hydrogen-cyanide gas, though there were newer bodies that had clearly been shot in an attempt by the guards to hide their crimes prior to retreating. AGEAST's military governor, upon finding out about this, reportedly vomited his guts out before ordering the conscription of every civilian in his territory, age 16 to 80, to aid in the identifying of bodies and the digging of graves. South Texas - For much of 2029, southern Texas remained heavily contested as loyal partisans and troops from Fort Hood battle to keep at least the Southern Half of the Texas Triangle in Union hands. Many call the Texas front a Civil War within a Civil War. The end of the year brings a well needed victory to the Democratic forces at the Battle of Houston, which finally secures the Gulf Coast from Brownsville to New Orleans. Leaders of the Free Texas movement use this as an opportunity to form a new government. Free Texas is recognized as the official government of Texas by Congress, and the state essentially gives itself the power to secede from itself using the Tyler-Texas treaty as a pretext to form the new state of South Texas. Although Congress will debate the admission of the 53rd State for at least another year.

Part 1

[kp777]

By Brett Wilkins

Common Dreams

April 12, 2023

Literacy and civil liberties defenders on Wednesday excoriated Republican state lawmakers in Missouri after they gave their final approval to a budget that would completely defund the state's public libraries and other essential services.

In addition to cutting the $4.5 million allocated for public libraries in Missouri's $45.6 billion state budget, the final package approved on Tuesday cuts all government support for diversity initiatives, childcare, and pre-kindergarten programs, Heartland Signal reports.

Read more.

[mariacallous]

In 2018, Rebecca Varney could have used Josh Hawley’s help.

Hawley, currently a U.S. senator, was Missouri’s attorney general at the time. Among the key responsibilities of that office is to enforce the state’s Sunshine Law, which governs public access to records and meetings.

Varney, who lives in Edgar Springs, was being harassed by city officials in that south-central Missouri town as she sought to use the Sunshine Law to figure out what was going on in City Hall. Things got so bad that city attorney Brandi Baird banned Varney from the public building, even when there were public meetings going on there.

Around the same time, Hawley, a Republican, had his own Sunshine Law problems. Despite being elected in large part because of the “Lock Her Up” crowd — Republicans who were angry over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server — Hawley had been engaged in similar activity. In 2017, Hawley’s campaign consultants, using private email to communicate with public employees, set up a raid on a massage parlor to portray Hawley as tough on human trafficking.

By 2019, both Varney and Hawley were wrapped up in lawsuits. Varney, since she didn’t get any help from the state, hired attorney David Roland of the Freedom Center of Missouri to make sure she had access to City Hall. Hawley was sued by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for hiding records the committee had sought in a Sunshine Law request.

Last week, both of the lawsuits came to their inevitable conclusions. Hawley’s got the most attention, of course. He’s a sitting U.S. senator and the person who defended him in the lawsuit, current Attorney General Eric Schmitt, was just elected as Missouri’s second U.S. senator.

The two senators lost the lawsuit badly. Cole County Circuit Court Judge Jon Beetem, a fellow Republican, chided Hawley, and by inference Schmitt, for the “insincerity” of the arguments in the lawsuit. Beetem found that Hawley “deliberately withheld these documents without any plausible, lawful rationale for doing so.” He fined the attorney general’s office $12,000, the maximum possible, and ordered that it pay attorneys fees, which will be significantly higher than the fine.

It’s a stunning decision that exposes the worst kind of abuse of the public trust by a politician — hiding public records that might have had an impact on his election. “It’s cheating,” says attorney Mark Pedroli, who won the lawsuit along with the Elias Law Group.

But it’s more than that. It’s an indictment of how broken the Sunshine Law is in Missouri, primarily because the attorney general’s office has been using its power to evade the law rather than enforce it.

You can’t truly appreciate the impact of Hawley’s abuse of the law without understanding its effect on people like Varney. In Varney’s case, Phelps County Circuit Court Judge John Beger fined the city of Edgar Springs $600 and secured Varney’s access to City Hall to see and inspect public records.

“Public access to public records is not a new or novel policy for this state,” Beger wrote.

But it is often treated that way by state and county officials, as well as cities. Too many public officials believe they can get away with violating the Sunshine Law because there has not been a Missouri attorney general who would take the law seriously and bring lawsuits against government bodies on behalf of citizens. Instead, the work has been left to private attorneys.

Those attorneys include Pedroli and Roland. Also, Elad Gross, Jean Maneke, Bernie Rhodes and Joe Martineau (who represents the Post-Dispatch). These attorneys have won Sunshine Law actions in the past few years that reinforce Beger’s obvious statement. Each of those lawsuits could have been brought by the attorney general or avoided altogether if the office worked harder to enforce the law.

In that vacuum, cities and counties regularly violate the Sunshine Law with impunity.

That means citizens are often left on their own. They know nothing about the Sunshine Law until the bulldozers are in the backyard. That’s what happened to Jason Maki, who took on the city of Parkville because he couldn’t get help from Schmitt’s office after filing Sunshine Law requests that were ignored. Maki was seeking information about a proposed development near his house.

Last year, he won a $195,000 settlement from the small city northwest of Kansas City.

“It became obvious that I had to take things in my own hands,” Maki told me last year.

It is telling that Hawley, the former attorney general, was found to have deliberately withheld public records the same week Varney won her battle for records with Edgar Springs.

Such is the state of play for public accountability in Missouri. The office that is supposed to enforce the Sunshine Law is leaving citizens to go to court themselves when they get locked out of City Hall.

[thatstormygeek]

Back when he expected to be governor, Ashcroft told reporters he would “have to quit” if being in that office meant defending a woman’s right to end a pregnancy. So you know he hated putting that initiative on the ballot. Now, in the unkindest cut of all, Ashcroft has unwittingly become the fall guy for a last-ditch effort by abortion opponents to stop a vote on Amendment 3. The irony here is rich, because Ashcroft used every trick at his disposal to thwart a public vote on abortion rights.  He wrote outlandish ballot language, invited legal challenges, delayed and delayed some more in hopes of running out the clock on signature-gathering efforts.  None of it worked. The campaign, known as Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, gathered 380,000 signatures in short order. Ashcroft waited until Aug. 13, the last day possible under Missouri law, to place the initiative on the Nov. 5 ballot.  And then — because this is Missouri, where the will of the people is always at risk — some anti-abortion legislators and lawyers went to court to claim that the secretary of state erred when he placed the amendment on the ballot. 

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Elsie Carson-Holt at LGBTQ Nation:

Eris Montano—a transgender woman who used the locker room at Life Time Gym in suburban St. Louis, Missouri—has become the flashpoint of an anti-trans protest, calls for the gym to be boycotted, and an investigation launched into her by the state’s Republican attorney general. Montano joined the gym on Sunday and used the gym’s women’s locker room the next day. Another woman in the sauna approached her, misgendered her, and said she did not belong there, Montano said, according to The Maine Wire. After the woman continued harassing her, Montano said she tugged at her own bikini top to emphasize her breasts to the woman, demonstrating “that I am a real woman.” Montano said that she had met with the general manager previous to becoming a gym member because she wanted to know the center’s policies regarding trans members. She said that the reaction of other gym patrons was largely positive, besides the woman who confronted her.

Montano then went to the manager, who revealed that the club gym had received other complaints about her use of the women’s locker room.  [...] The following Friday, dozens of protesters demonstrated at the gym to protest Montano’s use of the women’s locker room. Some protestors and online commenters called for a boycott. The public attention prompted Missouri’s Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey to announce an investigation into the gym’s policies. Bailey sent a letter to Life Time that repeatedly misgendered Montano and told the gym that its policies “are enabling potentially criminal behavior” including public trespassing (even though gym’s policies allow her to use the locker room). Bailey wrote, “As Attorney General, I will vigorously defend and enforce Missouri’s laws. You face both potential criminal and civil liabilities.”

Missouri's deranged anti-trans culture warrior AG Andrew Bailey (R), who recently fended off fellow MAGA puppet Will Scharf, has whipped up transphobic protests at the Ellisville Life Time Fitness location over Eris Montano, a trans woman, using the women's facilities.

See Also:

KMOX: Ellisville gym revokes membership of transgender woman at center of investigation by Missouri Attorney General