Here Come the (Secular) Fighters
Two secular House Democrats are vying to take on key leadership roles
Dec. 3: Raskin mounts fight to lead Judiciary Dems … Transgender lawyer to argue for transgender rights before extremist Christian Supreme Court judges … Non-Hunter Biden convicts push for pardons, too … Musk loses $56 billion …
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Burn-out happens for a reason. The person we invested our hopes and energy into is out of the game. The winner’s picking their team and announcing big, gross plans — weeks before there’s any process to thwart them. It’s hard to see where to channel energy, assuming we still have any.
But the solution to burn-out isn’t to tune out. Transitions are hard, and it’s not only RePresident Donald Trump who’s overseeing a transition. We all are.
Those committed to fighting for democracy and the people it’s supposed to serve also need time to transition. From previous goals to new ones. From joy to resolve. From old champions to new ones.
Yes, everyone needs to moderate their engagement to meet their needs — but it may help to know that there are new fighters emerging already.
People are abandoning old media outlets in favor of new and growing news sources like the one you’re fucking reading, cherished Newsfucker!
On the political landscape, there are battles going on right now that will determine the outcomes of big, important battles in the future and that will be determined by who’s engaged now.
TFN is doing its darnedest to focus on these battles and make sure you have emerging leaders on your radar…
…even if that means neglecting sweet, sweet SEO metadata keywords that drive traffic and revenue. #Biden #Pardon
While TFN maintains a strict anti-stanning policy, identifying leaders aligned at least loosely with your values is undeniably recharging. If they’re in the thick of it and they see hope, well, who are we to naysay? (Spoiler: We remain free to naysay!)
Climate change may be the single most important issue of this moment, but the single greatest obstacle to addressing it is Christian extremism. Yes, money is an issue, as well — but money only succeeds because Christian voters are buying what the money is selling and the media are turning a blind eye.
So basically TFN is saying that the single biggest issue is climate change. And Christian extremism. And money. And the media. It’s all a big, seething mix, yo!
The point in flagging the Christian extremism is that a number of Democrats are complicit with it. Knowingly or otherwise. And you better believe we’re on that, too.
But six years ago, a handful of Democrats decided it was time for secular members of Congress — including those who still believe in magic stuff but know to keep it out of their jobs and our governance — to ally as a coalition in defense of secular values.
And so, from this virgin birth, the Congressional Freethought Caucus was born. And as of yesterday, two of the co-founders stand poised to become Democratic leaders in the battle against Trump’s agenda.
Jamie Raskin for Justice
You likely know Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) from the impeachment battles and January 6 inquiry. Well, his next battle is against a fellow Democrat, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who holds the Democratic leadership on the very very fucking very much a lot wicked important Judiciary Committee.
The ranking member will be the top Democrat in the arena where all of Trump’s Justice Department corruption will be overseen and confronted. Or not.
Raskin announced yesterday that he wants Nadler’s job. Nadler said he intends to fight for it, saying, “I have stood up to Donald Trump my entire career.” Nadler apparently didn’t realize that Trump just won the presidency for a second time, suggesting that Nadler’s stooding up to Trump hasn’t worked out all that awesome.
Reportedly, Raskin is challenging Nadler not due to animosity — the two are friends — but because other House Dems pushed him to do it. Not a good sign for Nadler.
TFN recommends reading Raskin’s letter announcing his candidacy. Couple things that make me grumpy: Lack of secular championing or even naming the extremist Christian threat, and him touting giving then-Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) a leadership role on the Jan. 6 committee, which was either a devastating error or brilliant masterstroke, depending on which alternate universe you live in.
Other than TFN’s minor grumps, though, Raskin’s letter is a stirring call to action, a reminder of victories past that illuminates the path toward future victories. His glee in turning the impeachment of Pres. Joe Biden into a laughingstock … “even on Fox” … is especially infectious.
Jared Huffman at Natural Resources
The other Freethought Caucus co-founder running for a committee leadership role is Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) on the Natural Resources Committee.
This one’s got a lower profile — for now — because Raskin’s so well known, but also because there’s no fight here. Yet.
The current ranking member, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), said yesterday that he’s stepping down from that role. But Huffman could get a challenger, so stay tuned.
While we may see fireworks at Judiciary, the Natural Resources agenda may be slow-motion planetary destruction. Trump is planning on giving away America so that its illionaires can suck more gross shit out of the country for people to burn, frittering away the stuff that protects us from that lifegiving nuclear hellscape 92 million miles away.
Huffman, too, makes no mention of secularism or values in his own letter — boo! — but Natural Resources isn’t an obvious forum for secularism. Yet.
In reality, Biblically-based rejection of reality is a powerful driver of rapacious oil barons and the madding crowds cheering them on. And Huffman does cite Project 2025, so it’s not like he doesn’t know all this.
Plus, next year’s ranking members may well be 2027’s committee chairs. And either way, they’ll be in the room next year as House Democrats plot strategy — on issues with definite secular implications.
The point is, if you draw energy from seeing the leaders in the battles ahead, here ya go!
Transgender Lawyer to Argue for Transgender Rights Before Supreme Court’s Christian Extremists
On Wednesday, Chase Strangio will become the first (known) transgender lawyer to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court from the inside instead of yelling and protesting outside.
The case is U.S. v. Skrmetti. The issue is the ability of states to ban gender-affirming care for transgender children.
Although the Supreme Court is packed with theocratic Christian extremists, they have issued some rulings in favor of transgender and other LGBTQ+ rights in the past.
Strangio is a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union and a veteran of tons of high-profile cases. He also offers a sophisticated legal rebuttal when self-styled experts on gender-affirming care argue that people who transition are miserable: “I know you are, but what am I?”
A victory in Skrmetti could be a legal landmark, overturning gender-affirming care bans in lots of states, but also potentially offering precedent to challenge a range of related laws dealing with everything from bathrooms to sports.
The biggest threat, though, may not be the legal merits or even the Christian biases of the court. Once RePresident Donald Trump reoccupies the White House, his newly anti-civil rights Justice Department could withdraw the case from the Supreme Court.
The court could say “fuck you, too late” and issue a ruling anyway. Or it could…do something else. If you’re looking for reason to hope, a court so accommodating to Trump may well be looking for opportunities to demonstrate its independence, especially on an issue where they already have a track record.
Now Those 12,000 Other Pardons, Please and Thank You
As your outpointing TFN pointed out yesterday, Pres. Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter, history’s greatest monster, was premised on Biden’s belief that the his Justice Department was politicized and operating unfairly.
So, now, class, it’s time to get out your calculators and calculate the odds that the exact same Justice Department that somehow became politicized in one (1) case where the other side consisted of the president of the United States would never ever never also operate unfairly against thousands of poor people, some of whose questionable legal strategies included not being white for some reason.
Pencils down, Mathfuckers! The odds that the federal justice system is prejudiced against only one person, history’s greatest monster Hunter Biden, are 0%, as any Newsfucker knows. Politics isn’t just Democrats/Republicans, White House/Congress. It’s money/not money, resources/not resources, connections/not connections.
Pardons are supposed to be issued after the legal system exacts some punishment, after not just atonement but sustained demonstration of “Sorry I Was Evil Won’t Happen Again.”
Biden’s son got a pardon despite doing not all of that — and despite the fact tons of other people in MAGA’s crosshairs could also use pardons, please and thank you. Meanwhile, thousands of people who have gone through the process for non-presidential-scions could also really use a pardon, please and thank you.
Especially given that the next president loves punitive, infantile Bad-Guy-Punishing. Unfortunately, it’s also reported that Biden has been stingier with pardons than any other modern president.
And the lawyers for those pardon applicants are fucking pissed. Pardon my language.
“This pardon of Hunter Biden better be the first of a huge flurry of commutations,” New York University’s Prof. Rachel Barkow wrote in a way that scared the shit out of TFN. “There are so many cases even more deserving than this one that the [Justice Department] Pardon Attorney has recommended granting, and they’re just waiting for Biden’s signature.”
Biden has pardoned military veterans whose gay sex was so hot it was illegal until 2013. And Biden issued blanket pardons for federal convictions for weed possession.
But those are the easy ones — pardoning people for shit that everyone’s doing now. (Yes, everyone’s having gay sex.)
There are still 40 people on federal death row. Biden hasn’t executed anyone, but he also hasn’t gotten rid of the death penalty, and we all know where You-Know-Executing-Who stands on the death penalty. So maybe get those 40 out of harm’s way.
Then there are the almost 12,000 clemency requests that came into the pardon attorney. Biden has commuted 132 sentences and issued 25 pardons. The vast majority, in other words, are just sitting there.
In a system Biden now says is unjust. C’mon, man.
Genius Loses $56 Billion. Like a Genius
Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s unprecedented wealth makes him so stupid that he just lost a corporate case in Delaware. That’s like the Harlem Globetrotters losing a basketball game on Earth.
A judge ruled yesterday that, no, Musk can not have the Tesla pay package shareholders voted to give him when it was valued at a mere $56 billion.
Calm down, Musk will be fine. He still has some savings.
The judge ruled that the pay package was approved after Musk basically rigged the process to ensure that company directors handing him all that money were not independent of him. She cited “multiple, material misstatements in the proxy statement,” the info shareholders got before stupidly voting.
So weird that the guy who gave us self-driving taxis years ago might make a misleading statement.
Musk, like a dumb person whose excessive wealth renders him incapable of understanding things that are contrary to his wishes, wrote that “Shareholders should control company votes, not judges.” It’s not clear why Musk thought shareholders control judge—oh, I see, he meant to write, “Shareholders, not judges, should control company votes.” But he’s stupid.
Of course, Musk’s reasoning amounts to an argument that there should be no laws. Which is dumb and stupid. The judge didn’t control the vote, the judge enforced the laws governing the corporate actions on which the vote was predicated.
I wonder where Musk got the idea you can win a dirty election!
OTHER MUSK SCHADENFREUDE A movie production company is suing Musk and Tesla for stealing a scene they helped create for “Blade Runner 2049” and using it in some Tesla promotional bullshit. The suit informs Musk that they want more money…fucker.
Also, as of Jan. 20, 2025, some 295,000 journalists are going to stop posting on Twitter. The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) announced yesterday that they’re out because they can “no longer ethically participate in a social network that its owner has transformed into a machine of disinformation and propaganda.” (h/t)
EFJ President Maja Sever said, “The editorial evolution of X, since its acquisition by Elon Musk, is simply contrary to our humanist values, our commitment to press freedom and media pluralism, and our fight against all forms of hatred and discrimination.”
Patel’s Past
Didja miss last night’s TFN Bonus Story? TFN revealed that Kash Patel, RePresident-elect Donald Trump’s choice to head the FBI, once defended an arms dealer who tried to send explosives and hundreds of rifles to the West Bank. The 2010 case was considered terror-related, and Patel’s client ended up pleading guilty, getting a four-year sentence.
TFN also turned up that the prosecutor in that case is now the deputy to special counsel Jack Smith. Patel has been hammering her publicly…without ever disclosing that she beat him in that 2010 case.
TCB
CRAP I feel like there’s a bunch of other stories we haven’t got to, but is it really news that Israel violated its cease-fire with Hezbollah? I mean, maybe? But also it’s getting really late so I’ll just have to pack more in tomorrow’s TFN!
CAP-ITALISM The TFN Shop is live. And through Dec. 14, Newsfuckers can get a 10% discount using the codeword: FINGNEWS10. Here’s the front of the t-shirt:
SOCIAL-ISM Come find us on whichever social media isn’t banned in your country! We’re on Bluesky, Threads, Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, and Spoutible.
Go get ‘em, kids.
I disagree with your assessment of why Biden pardoned his son. It was the only thing he could do to keep Trump from waging war on Hunter, after Trump took office. Of course, he should pardon some other people, Leonard Peltier for starters. I also believe that since he now has immunity per the Supreme Court, there are other things that he could do to hamstring Trump when he comes in. Not that he would do that because it's probably not in his nature, but still.
I concur. That’s some good shit. I’ll take a t shirt and here’s a coffee on me.