Day: May 19, 2024

Background Briefing: May 19, 2024

The Insurrectionists on the Supreme Court Exposed

We begin with the shocking, but not surprising, revelation that Supreme Court Justice Alito flew the insurrectionist flag at his home a few days before Biden’s inauguration and 11 days after the January 6th insurrection. We discuss the party of law and order’s embrace of insurrection that started with Trump, but spread to the House with Speaker Mike Johnson and now has infected the Supreme Court since it is now evident that the wives of both Justices Thomas and Alito supported the insurrection and believe Trump’s “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen. Joining us is Caroline Fredrickson, a visiting professor at Georgetown Law and a strategic councilor on democracy and power at the Open Markets Institute. She served as the director of the ACLU’s Washington legislative office, and, during the Clinton administration, as special assistant to the president for legislative affairs. In 2021, she was appointed a member of President Biden’s Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States. The president emerita of the American Constitution Society, her books include The Democracy Fix: How to Win the Fight for Fair Rules, Fair Courts, and Fair Elections, and her latest, The Supreme Court, The Supreme Power: The Danger Posed by the Supreme Court in the United States and What to do About it.

 

The Texas Governor Frees a Racist Killer to Please Tucker Carlson

Then we look into the electoral consequences of the chilling action by Texas Governor Abbott who overturned the conviction of a racist murderer who shot dead a Black Lives Matter protester in cold blood, a case that was championed by Tucker Carlson who implied that the victim, a white protester, was a traitor to his race and deserved to be killed. Joining us is Matt Angle, who directs the Texas Democratic Trust and the Lone Star Project, a Political Action Committee that aims to be an aggressive “fact-checker” on the Republican Party, both at the state and national levels. Matt Angle has served as Executive Director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and was the Executive Director of the House Democratic Caucus.

 

Have Criminals Taken Over Mexico’s Elections?

Then finally we assess the extent of the criminal takeover of Mexican elections as cartels and criminal gangs either bribe candidates from the national to the local level or kill or threaten others to drop out. Joining us is Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University whose research focuses on Mexico-U.S. relations, organized crime, immigration, border security, and human trafficking. She was the Principal Investigator of a research grant to study organized crime and trafficking in persons in Central America and along Mexico’s eastern migration routes, supported by the Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. The President of the Association for Borderlands Studies, she is the author of Los Zetas Inc.: Criminal Corporations, Energy, and Civil War in Mexico and her new book is Frontera: A Journey Across the US/Mexico Border.