Rudy recants the Big Lie.

July 27, 2023

          On Wednesday, a small measure of accountability was achieved when Rudy Giuliani retracted a heinous lie promoted to overturn the 2020 election. The truth prevailed, as it always does (over time). The retraction provides vindication and validation to those who believe in the truth. That hard-won victory was achieved because of the courage and determination of Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, two women who volunteered to count ballots in Georgia’s 2020 election. Their victory spotlights one of the most maddening aspects of the MAGA era: Watching politicians lie with impunity.

          It is not just that MAGA politicians lie with impunity. It is the fact that they know they are lying, and they know you know they are lying. But they don’t care. The lie is the point. Once spoken, it is impossible to completely undo the damage caused by a lie. And the damage caused always exceeds the narrow point of the lie. In a culture where leading members of a major political party do not condemn lies but celebrate them, lies become a solvent that dissolves the sinew of truth that binds our nation.

          Who benefits from a culture of lies? A party that believes it cannot fairly compete for control of a government grounded in principles, truth, and decency. A party that knows it has no future and nothing to lose by debasing itself in a cesspool of deceit. A party that has expelled its principled members to make way for grifters, narcissists, and criminals. The Republican Party.

          In the GOP’s effort to overturn the 2020 election, Trump and his co-conspirators falsely accused two civic-minded election volunteers of being “vote scammers” who delivered “suitcases” of fraudulent votes for Biden into a Georgia election center. The lie was so transparently false that no one truly believed it. But the lie was the point.

          The Georgia Secretary of State immediately disproved the lie with a careful explication of the video on which the lie was based. But the truth did not stop Trump or Rudy Giuliani from repeating the lie about Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. The lie, once uttered, took flight and gave permission to 80% of Republicans to claim that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election. And it destroyed the lives of Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.

          They had to flee their homes, disconnect their phones, and stop using their names because of death threats. Two private citizens were repeatedly and falsely attacked—by name—by the President of the United States and his mob lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. And leading Republicans did not merely stand by in silence. They supported the baseless lie by voting against the Congressional count of electoral ballots, demanding that the ballots be returned to the states for sham “investigations” of non-existent fraud to create an excuse for overriding the will of the people.

          In the GOP culture of lies, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss were acceptable collateral damage, innocent victims whose lives did not matter to the Republican Party.

          But Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss fought back. They sued Rudy Giuliani for defamation. They demanded that Giuliana turn over his phone so they could examine his text messages about the 2020 election to prove that Giuliani knew he was lying about Freeman and Moss.

Giuliani resisted their efforts to secure his phone, but they persisted. In desperation, Giuliani finally admitted that he lied about Freeman and Moss. He made the admission as part of a legal strategy to argue that the contents of his phone are no longer relevant to proving that he lied about Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. See CNN, Rudy Giuliani concedes he made defamatory statements about Georgia election workers.

          In the stipulation, Giuliani says he “does not contest” the following:

• That his statements about Freeman and Moss were “defamatory per se” [a concession that the statements were false and injured the reputation of Freeman and Moss].

• That his statements about Freeman and Moss were false.

• Freeman and Moss suffered damages because of Giuliani’s intentional infliction of emotional distress.

          Those admissions gut the claims of Trump, Giuliani, and others that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election in Georgia. The admissions are a HUGE deal that are orders of magnitude more significant than the stories about Hunter Biden that are headlining every news source known to man. A key conspirator in the attempted coup has admitted that one of the central lies animating the coup is false.

          That is big news, not merely because the truth prevailed. It is big news because, on the day the news broke, the GOP was unfazed that its “stolen election narrative” was gutted. It is big news because it demonstrates that Trump had no reasonable basis to believe his lies about Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.

And it is big news because finally, for once, there is blazing clarity in exposing the falsity of the Big Lie. Those occasions are rare. But when they occur, we should catch our breath and savor the moment of truth. And thank the two women who brought us to this point: Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.

The Hunter Biden non-story.

          The media lavished rapt attention on a federal judge’s review of Hunter Biden’s plea deal. This is a non-story. The only extraordinary thing about the hearing was that a private citizen was charged criminally for a late payment of his taxes and lying on a gun application form about drug use. Were it any other private citizen, neither of those charges would have been brought.

          Every second of airtime given to the story by major media outlets demonstrates the inability (or unwillingness) to separate shiny baubles from important stories. And they unavoidably amplify the attempts of the GOP to harass an admittedly flawed man driven by multiple drug addictions, all to score political points against his famous father. Shame!

The latest on Ron DeSantis.

          In an interview on Wednesday, Ron DeSantis said he would prosecute Dr. Anthony Fauci for lying to Congress and consider appointing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the CDC or FDA. See Mediate, ‘Embarrassingly Bad’: DeSantis Fans Pan Candidate For Offering ‘Loony Quack’ RFK Jr. a Job in His Administration.

          Trump will undoubtedly endorse DeSantis’s crazy suggestions—as will every other GOP candidate pandering for votes from Trump’s base. So, add prosecuting Fauci and appointing RFK Jr. to the CDC as reasons for doing everything possible to defeat the GOP nominee.

The Supreme Court gets a chance to restore an ounce of legitimacy.

          In June, the Supreme Court ordered the Alabama legislature to re-draw its congressional districts to create a second district with a majority of Black voters. In defiance of the Court’s order, Alabama re-drew its congressional maps to include only one district with a majority of Black voters.

          Many readers have emailed to express concerns that Alabama has defied the Court and provoked a constitutional crisis. Those concerns are real, but the moment of a constitutional crisis has not yet arrived. There is still time for the federal courts to fashion a remedy before the 2024 election—like appointing a special master to re-draw the maps or adopting a previously drawn set of maps with two districts with a majority of Black voters. Dennis Aftergut and Walter H. White explain how federal courts can enforce compliance with the Supreme Court’s order in their article in The Hill, Will Alabama be allowed to defy the Supreme Court?

          I hope that concerned readers find some hope and comfort in the article by Aftergut and White that “all is not lost.” But I want to drill down on one sentence in their article that touches on a thought I have been carrying for a week. They write,

[Alabama] has thrown a slow hanging curve ball down the middle of the plate if the Supreme Court has any interest in helping restore its legitimacy after repeated ethics crises and overturning Roe v. Wade. The justices ought to knock it out of the park.

They’ll have the opportunity. The citizens who brought the original 2021 lawsuit challenging Alabama’s map are renewing their legal battle.

          Is the Court interested in restoring its “legitimacy”? That is a compelling question that should interest all Americans. I have repeatedly argued that this Court is “illegitimate” because of the irregularities in the appointments of Neil Gorsuch and Amy Barrett, its multiple ethics scandals, and its precedent-free approach to re-interpreting the Constitution to conform to a white Christian nationalist agenda.

          Charlie Sykes recently wrote an op-ed in which he urged people (like me) to stop calling the Court “illegitimate.” See Charlie Sykes, The Supreme Court Will Be the Final Bulwark / Think twice before “delegitimizing” it. A dozen readers forwarded me copies of this article with notes cautioning me (as Sykes counsels) to stop calling the Court “illegitimate”—because we may need the legitimacy of the Court at some point in the future.

          Before I disagree with Sykes, let me say I respect him greatly and frequently cite his writings, even though I disagree with his politics on many issues. That said, the problem is not the Court’s critics who are invoking the word “illegitimacy.” The problem is with the Court acting in illegitimate ways. It does no good to pretend otherwise.  

          Before the 2022 election, the Supreme Court allowed the Alabama congressional district map to remain in place even though a three-judge federal panel ruled that the map was illegally drawn based on race (a conclusion the Supreme Court later endorsed in its opinion, Allen v. Milligan.) The Court allowed that outrageous result on the ground that there was insufficient time to re-draw the boundary before the 2022 election. That strategy awarded Republicans a seat in Congress resulting from racially gerrymandered district.

          The Supreme Court now has plenty of time to correct Alabama’s second attempt at racial gerrymandering before the 2024 election. Will the Court act quickly in granting review and deciding the case against Alabama (again) as it should? Or will the Court drag its feet and then declare, “Darn! There isn’t enough time to fix things before the 2024 election. Come back in two years.”

          If the Supreme Court takes offense over attacks on its legitimacy, it should act like an institution that is legitimately interested in enforcing the Constitution and statutes of the United States. Based on its sorry record over the last several years, my view is that the Court has fatally wounded its legitimacy. No amount of telling people like me to hold their tongues will change that result. The Court can repair its legitimacy—but it will take more than one decision reining in a racist state legislature to reclaim that legitimacy.

          Better yet, Congress should force the Supreme Court to change its ways and begin acting like an impartial, ethical institution designed to uphold the rule of law. Read on!

How can you help reform the Court?

          Reader Dale S. sent the following note regarding an event sponsored by Force Multiplier:

          Frustrated with the Supreme Court? Wondering what can be done? Our friends at Force Multiplier are hosting a timely event with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), member of the Judiciary Committee and sponsor of a recent bill that would overhaul ethics and transparency requirements for the Supreme Court. Senator Whitehouse literally wrote the book on the Supreme Court. He is co-author of The Scheme: How the Right Wing Used Dark Money to Capture the Supreme Court.

          Join Force Multiplier on July 31st at 7:00 PM Eastern for a question and answer with the Senator. Donations to this event will be split among Senators Baldwin, Brown, Rosen and Tester—Senators on the top of the GOP target list. Register Here ! 

Concluding Thoughts.

          I urge readers to exercise caution and skepticism regarding the wild claims that emerged from the House hearings today on “Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon.” The so-called “whistleblower” presented no evidence to support his claims. Instead, he said that he had talked to other people who allegedly had seen evidence of alien spacecraft and “non-human biologics” at alleged crash sites of alien spacecraft.

          The whistleblower exhibited the hallmarks of a conspiracy theorist: He claims “the “government” has been engaged in a massive cover-up for 75 years across multiple administrations of Republicans and Democrats; the cover-up involves thousands of people, none of whom have ever spoken to the press or presented evidence of universe-altering facts despite massive financial incentives to do so; and “they” are engaged in a campaign of retaliation to keep people like the whistleblower quiet.

          And then there is this: Are we to believe that alien spacecraft can navigate across tens of thousands of light years of space, but crash with alarming regularity on Earth? Or how about the fact that there are 15 billion cellphones with cameras on Earth, but we still have nothing more than fuzzy, shaky, pixelated photos of objects that could be alien spacecraft or hubcaps thrown into the air by bored teenagers?

          And finally, it simply does not make sense to say, “We see things we can’t explain, therefore aliens.” That leap is illogical and assumes incredibly unlikely and unprovable predicates like interstellar travel by intelligent beings that just happen to look like humans with a Hollywood makeover. If there is intelligent life out there (and I hope there is), there is no guarantee that it will be carbon-based, have DNA, or have a form that remotely resembles humans.

          Why am I being such a spoil-sport about what might have been a good old-fashioned prank on Congress by a whistleblower? Because belief in any conspiracy theory is an entryway into other conspiracy theories. Feel free to demand transparency from the Pentagon and CIA all you want. But don’t make the mistake of saying, “They aren’t giving me what I expect, therefore aliens.” Conspiracy theories are dangerous because they breed other conspiracy theories and undermine the truth.

          Yesterday I wrote about Elon Musk’s promotion of misinformation that Covid vaccines raise the incidence of myocarditis. As usual, I received an email from a reader chastising me for not believing that Big Pharma is concealing the fact that Covid vaccines are killing people at a high rate (and that the Covid infection itself was “no big deal.”) The (now former) reader had subscribed to the newsletter for years and, presumably shares the enlightened views of millions of Americans who believe in the positive impact of government and science in our lives. Except for vaccines. There, the reader believes the government is looking the other way to allow Big Pharma to kill us with impunity.

          We should follow the science where it takes us when that science is rigorously conducted, fairly reviewed, and capable of replication. We should maintain healthy skepticism (not cynicism) in the face of extraordinary claims. Claims of recovered alien spacecraft and bodies of alien pilots map neatly onto the plot of 1950s science fiction movies. I hope there is other life in the universe. But until someone provides evidence that can be scientifically validated, let’s avoid the temptation to believe that the US government has successfully concealed the existence of alien life for 75 years.

          Talk to you tomorrow!