Sometime over the past two days the sunflowers that were planted and growing outside of the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C. were ripped from the ground and left sitting on the sidewalk.

Benjamin Wittes tweeted about it after seeing the handiwork of he and a group of pro-Ukraine friends who planted the floral symbol of the country under attack by Russia.
https://twitter.com/cpappalardo80/status/1551280638694760448
https://twitter.com/cpappalardo80/status/1551282405067132930
https://twitter.com/benjaminwittes/status/1551341682297298944

Doug Mastriano consultant and Gab CEO Andrew Torba has a message for right-wing Jewish commentators including Ben Shapiro and Dave Rubin: You’re not welcome in our movement unless you “repent” and renounce your Jewish faith.

Mastriano is a QAnon supporter and January 6 insurrectionist who is running for governor in Pennsylvania. ....

On July 15, as Right Wing Watch documented, Torba responded in a video to criticism of him and Mastriano by singling out right-wing commentators Dave Rubin and Ben Shapiro as examples of people he doesn’t want in his movement. Rubin and Shapiro are both Jewish; Rubin is also gay.

Torba stated: “These people aren’t conservative. They’re not Christian, right? They don’t share our values. They have inverted values from us as Christians. So don’t fall for the bait, right? Don’t fall for the bait of Populism Inc. Don’t fall for the bait of this pseudo-conservatism, big tent nonsense. This is a Christian movement, and this movement needs to be centered on the gospel and truth of God’s word and of Jesus Christ, our lord and savior and king. That is the only way that this is going to work.”

Doug Mastriano consultant and Gab CEO Andrew Torba has a message for right-wing Jewish commentators including Ben Shapiro and Dave Rubin: You’re not welcome in our movement unless you “repent” and renounce your Jewish faith.

Mastriano is a QAnon supporter and January 6 insurrectionist who is running for governor in Pennsylvania. ....

On July 15, as Right Wing Watch documented, Torba responded in a video to criticism of him and Mastriano by singling out right-wing commentators Dave Rubin and Ben Shapiro as examples of people he doesn’t want in his movement. Rubin and Shapiro are both Jewish; Rubin is also gay.

Torba stated: “These people aren’t conservative. They’re not Christian, right? They don’t share our values. They have inverted values from us as Christians. So don’t fall for the bait, right? Don’t fall for the bait of Populism Inc. Don’t fall for the bait of this pseudo-conservatism, big tent nonsense. This is a Christian movement, and this movement needs to be centered on the gospel and truth of God’s word and of Jesus Christ, our lord and savior and king. That is the only way that this is going to work.”

Doug Mastriano consultant and Gab CEO Andrew Torba has a message for right-wing Jewish commentators including Ben Shapiro and Dave Rubin: You’re not welcome in our movement unless you “repent” and renounce your Jewish faith.

Mastriano is a QAnon supporter and January 6 insurrectionist who is running for governor in Pennsylvania. ....

On July 15, as Right Wing Watch documented, Torba responded in a video to criticism of him and Mastriano by singling out right-wing commentators Dave Rubin and Ben Shapiro as examples of people he doesn’t want in his movement. Rubin and Shapiro are both Jewish; Rubin is also gay.

Torba stated: “These people aren’t conservative. They’re not Christian, right? They don’t share our values. They have inverted values from us as Christians. So don’t fall for the bait, right? Don’t fall for the bait of Populism Inc. Don’t fall for the bait of this pseudo-conservatism, big tent nonsense. This is a Christian movement, and this movement needs to be centered on the gospel and truth of God’s word and of Jesus Christ, our lord and savior and king. That is the only way that this is going to work.”

“Even after these folks had to experience this trauma, for the next five years they were tormented by Alex Jones with vicious lies about them,” attorney Mark Bankston of Houston law firm Farrar & Ball told HuffPost in 2018. “And these lies were meant to convince his audience that the Sandy Hook parents are frauds and have perpetrated a sinister lie on the American people.”.....

Jones cycled through lawyers as if they had an expiration date, but managed to retain attorney Norm Pattis, who most recently was seen at a comedy club with his pants down and saying the N-word during a stand-up set.......

Ultimately, it was Jones’ refusal to provide court-ordered documents that led to his already shaky defense crumbling. In September, Jones lost two of his Sandy Hook defamation cases after Texas Judge Maya Guerra Gamble ruled for default judgments against Jones for not turning over documents. The ruling meant he and Infowars were found liable for all damages.

Later that same week, Gamble again ruled default judgment against Jones in the defamation case brought forward by Sandy Hook parent Heslin, adding to Jones’ third legal loss. And finally, just over a month after Gamble’s ruling, Connecticut Judge Barbara Bellis also ruled default judgement against Jones in the case brought forward by several Sandy Hook families......

“After ten years of tormenting these parents, and after four years of trying to sabotage their lawsuit, Mr. Jones will finally face the long-awaited public reckoning for committing the most vile and despicable campaign of slander in American history,” Bankston told HuffPost in a statement. “We are eager to show this jury the previously hidden details of Mr. Jones’ monstrous acts of revenge against the parents who begged him to stop peddling his lies.”

“Even after these folks had to experience this trauma, for the next five years they were tormented by Alex Jones with vicious lies about them,” attorney Mark Bankston of Houston law firm Farrar & Ball told HuffPost in 2018. “And these lies were meant to convince his audience that the Sandy Hook parents are frauds and have perpetrated a sinister lie on the American people.”.....

Jones cycled through lawyers as if they had an expiration date, but managed to retain attorney Norm Pattis, who most recently was seen at a comedy club with his pants down and saying the N-word during a stand-up set.......

Ultimately, it was Jones’ refusal to provide court-ordered documents that led to his already shaky defense crumbling. In September, Jones lost two of his Sandy Hook defamation cases after Texas Judge Maya Guerra Gamble ruled for default judgments against Jones for not turning over documents. The ruling meant he and Infowars were found liable for all damages.

Later that same week, Gamble again ruled default judgment against Jones in the defamation case brought forward by Sandy Hook parent Heslin, adding to Jones’ third legal loss. And finally, just over a month after Gamble’s ruling, Connecticut Judge Barbara Bellis also ruled default judgement against Jones in the case brought forward by several Sandy Hook families......

“After ten years of tormenting these parents, and after four years of trying to sabotage their lawsuit, Mr. Jones will finally face the long-awaited public reckoning for committing the most vile and despicable campaign of slander in American history,” Bankston told HuffPost in a statement. “We are eager to show this jury the previously hidden details of Mr. Jones’ monstrous acts of revenge against the parents who begged him to stop peddling his lies.”

A basic premise of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was that the Constitution can protect the right to abortion only if it is “deeply rooted in our history and traditions.” This statement complements Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s concept of originalism, or the idea that the court should interpret the Constitution by trying to infer “the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it.”

Alito’s evidence that abortion was always considered a criminal act, and thus something the Constitution should not protect, consisted of a single criminal case that was prosecuted in 1652 in the (Catholic) colony of Maryland. He then jumped ahead to laws that states enacted, mostly in the mid-to-late-19th century, to criminalize abortion. This cursory survey of abortion in early America was hardly complete, especially because it ignored the history of abortion in the years in which the Constitution was drafted and ratified.....

Therefore, the more historically accurate conclusion is Justice Harry A. Blackmun’s majority opinion in Roe v. Wade (1973), that “at the time of the adoption of our Constitution, and throughout the majority of the 19th century, abortion was viewed with less disfavor than under most American statutes currently in effect. Phrasing it another way, a woman enjoyed a substantially broader right to terminate a pregnancy than she does in most States today. ”

Though Marshall’s notes on Commonwealth v. Randolph are extensive, this episode is poorly documented in the county court records, and, thus, no formal case law was generated. Regardless, the episode begs examination as it involved key Founders who occupied vastly different positions on the political spectrum, both nationally and in Virginia. The Federalist Marshall believed in a strong national government. Jefferson mostly supported a decentralized system. Henry was a populist. Yet all three tacitly agreed that abortion in this case was a private matter, not a criminal act worthy of further investigation and prosecution. In a remarkable coda, Nancy went on to marry Gouverneur Morris of New York, an influential signer of the Constitution, who was well aware of her backstory.

If anything, the saga demonstrates that the concept of abortion as a private matter was “deeply rooted” in the minds of our nation’s Founders. As Americans consider their next move on the abortion issue at the state level, they should be mindful of the precedents followed by these early giants of our republic.

A basic premise of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was that the Constitution can protect the right to abortion only if it is “deeply rooted in our history and traditions.” This statement complements Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s concept of originalism, or the idea that the court should interpret the Constitution by trying to infer “the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it.”

Alito’s evidence that abortion was always considered a criminal act, and thus something the Constitution should not protect, consisted of a single criminal case that was prosecuted in 1652 in the (Catholic) colony of Maryland. He then jumped ahead to laws that states enacted, mostly in the mid-to-late-19th century, to criminalize abortion. This cursory survey of abortion in early America was hardly complete, especially because it ignored the history of abortion in the years in which the Constitution was drafted and ratified.....

Therefore, the more historically accurate conclusion is Justice Harry A. Blackmun’s majority opinion in Roe v. Wade (1973), that “at the time of the adoption of our Constitution, and throughout the majority of the 19th century, abortion was viewed with less disfavor than under most American statutes currently in effect. Phrasing it another way, a woman enjoyed a substantially broader right to terminate a pregnancy than she does in most States today. ”

Though Marshall’s notes on Commonwealth v. Randolph are extensive, this episode is poorly documented in the county court records, and, thus, no formal case law was generated. Regardless, the episode begs examination as it involved key Founders who occupied vastly different positions on the political spectrum, both nationally and in Virginia. The Federalist Marshall believed in a strong national government. Jefferson mostly supported a decentralized system. Henry was a populist. Yet all three tacitly agreed that abortion in this case was a private matter, not a criminal act worthy of further investigation and prosecution. In a remarkable coda, Nancy went on to marry Gouverneur Morris of New York, an influential signer of the Constitution, who was well aware of her backstory.

If anything, the saga demonstrates that the concept of abortion as a private matter was “deeply rooted” in the minds of our nation’s Founders. As Americans consider their next move on the abortion issue at the state level, they should be mindful of the precedents followed by these early giants of our republic.