The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol is seeking phone records from telecommunications companies as part of its investigation. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told the telecommunications companies not to comply with the Congressional requests and threatened that if they did, the GOP “would not forget it” once they are in power. This is a brazen act of obstructing a congressional investigation. The Department of Justice must address this promptly or else there likely will be more obstructive conduct by McCarty and perhaps others, as lawlessness begets lawlessness.
Conservatism in Brazil
As socialism has risen over the past 15 years, Brazilian conservatives have grumbled about high taxes and corruption scandals in two successive leftist presidencies. Now, in a country where “conservative” had been a dirty word since the end of military rule in 1985, conservatism is making a comeback across politics, religion and the arts. The shift is driven by two major phenomena—the rise of evangelical Christianity and growing exasperation with lawlessness—and accelerates a continental trend that has had countries edging away from socialism since the end of the China-led commodities boom. The jailing of former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist icon convicted last year of corruption, marked a new low for Latin American socialism. It effectively removed him from October’s presidential election, and raised the prospects of army captain-turned-congressman Jair Messias Bolsonaro, running on a pro-gun, antiabortion and anti-gay-rights platform.
How Donald Trump Opened the Door to Roy Moore
There was evidence that the father was abusing the kids, who by 2002 were teenagers. He acknowledged whipping them with a belt and forcing them to sit with paper bags over their heads. He refused to send the younger children to summer school, even though their grades were bad. When the kids called their mother, their father taped the conversations. By the time the case got to the Alabama Supreme Court, a lower court had ruled in the mother’s favor. The Alabama Supreme Court reversed the ruling, with then Chief Justice Roy Moore writing in a concurring opinion that a gay person couldn’t be a fit parent.
“Homosexual conduct is, and has been, considered abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature, and a violation of the laws of nature and of nature’s God upon which this nation and our laws are predicated,” wrote Moore. He added, “The state carries the power of the sword, that is, the power to prohibit conduct with physical penalties, such as confinement and even execution. It must use that power to prevent the subversion of children toward this lifestyle, to not encourage a criminal lifestyle.”
.. But Moore’s victory is also a victory for Trumpism, a populist movement that has eroded normal limits on political behavior.
.. Fritz Stern, a historian who fled Nazi Germany, described the “conservative revolution” that prefigured National Socialism: “The movement did embody a paradox: its followers sought to destroy the despised present in order to recapture an idealized past in an imaginary future.”.. What Moore’s critics see as lawlessness, his fans see as insurgent valor. Trump’s most prominent nationalist supporters, including Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka, lined up behind Moore, describing him as part of the Trumpian revolution. Nigel Farage, a right-wing British politician and Trump ally, flew to Fairhope, Ala., to speak at a rally for Moore, saying on stage, “It is getting someone like him elected that will rejuvenate the movement that led to Trump and Brexit.”.. Back then, anti-gay prejudice was far more acceptable than it is today, but Moore’s messianic denunciation of a lesbian mother was still shocking. Trump is not a pious man, but by destroying informal restraints on reactionary rhetoric, he’s made his party hospitable to the cruelest of theocrats.Moore’s success is bound to encourage more candidates like him. The Republican establishment’s borders have been breached. Its leaders should have built a wall.