September 23, 2023

Saturday, September 23, 2023. Annette’s News Roundup.

I think the Roundup makes people feel not so alone.

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Joe is always busy.

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Giuliani will soon be back in Judge Beryl Howell’s court.

Rudy Giuliani snubbed judge’s order in defamation case, election worker says

In a court filing, Ruby Freeman of Georgia said the former Trump attorney failed to comply with a federal judge's order to turn over information and pay her legal expenses.

Election workers Shay Moss (center) and her mother Ruby Freeman (rear) testified at J6 hearings.

Rudy Giuliani has failed to comply with a federal judge's order to turn over evidence and pay legal fees to election workers he defamed, according to a new court filing.

In papers filed Thursday, lawyers for Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss say Giuliani "failed to take any of the actions" a federal judge ordered him to carry out by Wednesday, including paying $89,000 in attorneys' fees for the two election workers.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington, D.C., issued the order last month in response to Giuliani's having failed to comply with earlier court orders.

An attorney and a spokesperson for Giuliani did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday night.

In her ruling last month, Howell blasted Giuliani for repeatedly ignoring court orders demanding he turn over required information to Freeman and Moss for their civil suit alleging he defamed them after the 2020 presidential election.

"The bottom line is that Giuliani has refused to comply with his discovery obligations and thwarted plaintiffs Ruby Freeman and Wandrea ArShaye Moss’s procedural rights to obtain any meaningful discovery in this case,” Howell wrote.

She granted Freeman and Moss a default judgment last month finding Giuliani "civilly liable on plaintiffs’ defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil conspiracy, and punitive damage claims."

Howell also ordered Giuliani to turn over personal and business financial documents by Wednesday and to pay Freeman and Moss' lawyers for legal costs tied to trying to get him to comply with court orders. Furthermore, she ordered his businesses to pay $43,684 for costs related to a similar motion, "with interest on that amount to accrue from September 20, 2023 until the date of final judgment against Giuliani personally if his eponymous businesses fail to comply."

In a separate ruling Thursday, before Freeman and Moss' filing, Howell set a Dec. 11 trial date to determine a dollar amount for damages in the defamation case.

Giuliani's former lawyers sued him this week, claiming he owed about $1.4 million in unpaid legal fees. Giuliani responded that the figure was "in excess to anything approaching legitimate fees."

In their lawsuit, Freeman and Moss accused Giuliani of turning their lives upside down by falsely claiming they'd committed election fraud while they were serving as election workers in Fulton County, Georgia.

Giuliani had claimed the pair were “passing around USB ports like they were vials of heroin or cocaine” as they were counting votes in the 2020 election. The House Jan. 6 committee’s report found they were passing a ginger mint.

Freeman was targeted with death threats because of Giuliani's repeated claims, which then-President Donald Trump echoed.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has criminally charged Trump and Giuliani over their roles in the harassment campaign, as well as other alleged schemes designed to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 victory in the state.

Both have pleaded not guilty. (NBC News)

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Here is the Plaintiff’s request to Judge Howell.👇 4 pages.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.238720/gov.uscourts.dcd.238720.100.0_3.pdf

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ProPublica drilled deep and uncovered more Clarence Thomas corruption.

Clarence Thomas Secretly Participated in Koch Network Donor Events.

Thomas has attended at least two Koch donor summits, putting him in the extraordinary position of having helped a political network that has brought multiple cases before the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was at the Bohemian Grove, a secretive all-men’s retreat in Northern California, with billionaire industrialist David Koch, right, and Ken Burns, whose films Koch has financially supported.

On Jan. 25, 2018, dozens of private jets descended on Palm Springs International Airport. Some of the richest people in the country were arriving for the annual winter donor summit of the Koch network, the political organization founded by libertarian billionaires Charles and David Koch. A long weekend of strategizing, relaxation in the California sun and high-dollar fundraising lay ahead.

Just after 6 p.m., a Gulfstream G200 jet touched down on the tarmac. One of the Koch network’s most powerful allies was on board: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

During the summit, the justice went to a private dinner for the network’s donors. Thomas has attended Koch donor events at least twice over the years, according to interviews with three former network employees and one major donor. The justice was brought in to speak, staffers said, in the hopes that such access would encourage donors to continue giving.

That puts Thomas in the extraordinary position of having served as a fundraising draw for a network that has brought cases before the Supreme Court, including one of the most closely watched of the upcoming term.

Thomas never reported the 2018 flight to Palm Springs on his annual financial disclosure form, an apparent violation of federal law requiring justices to report most gifts. A Koch network spokesperson said the network did not pay for the private jet. Since Thomas didn’t disclose it, it’s not clear who did pay.

Thomas’ involvement in the events is part of a yearslong, personal relationship with the Koch brothers that has remained almost entirely out of public view. It developed over years of trips to the Bohemian Grove, a secretive all-men’s retreat in Northern California. Thomas has been a regular at the Grove for two decades, where he stayed in a small camp with real estate billionaire Harlan Crow and the Kochs, according to records and people who’ve spent time with him there.

A spokesperson for the Koch network, formally known as Stand Together, did not answer detailed questions about his role at the Palm Springs events but said, “Thomas wasn’t present for fundraising conversations.”

The idea that attending a couple events to promote a book or give dinner remarks, as all the justices do, could somehow be undue influence just doesn’t hold water,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

“All of the sitting Justices and many who came before them have contributed to the national dialogue in speeches, book tours, and social gatherings,” the statement added. “Our events are no different. To claim otherwise is false.”

In a series of stories this year, ProPublica reported that Thomas has accepted undisclosed luxury travel from Crow and a coterie of other ultrawealthy men. Crow also purchased Thomas’ mother’s home and paid private school tuitionfor the child Thomas was raising as his son. Thomas has said little in response. In a statement earlier this year, he said that Crow is a close friend whom he has joined on “family trips.” He has also argued that he was not required to disclose the free vacations. Thomas did not respond to questions for this story.

The code of conduct for the federal judiciary lays out rules designed to preserve judges’ impartiality and independence, which it calls “indispensable to justice in our society.” The code specifically prohibits both political activity and participation in fundraising. Judges are advised, for instance, not to “associate themselves” with any group “publicly identified with controversial legal, social, or political positions.”

But the code of conduct only applies to the lower courts. At the Supreme Court, justices decide what’s appropriate for themselves.

“I can’t imagine — it takes my breath away, frankly — that he would go to a Koch network event for donors,” said John E. Jones III, a retired federal judge appointed by President George W. Bush. Jones said that if he had gone to a Koch summit as a district court judge, “I’d have gotten a letter that would’ve commenced a disciplinary proceeding.”

“What you’re seeing is a slow creep toward unethical behavior. Do it if you can get away with it,” Jones said.

The Koch network is among the largest and most influential political organizations of the last half century, and it’s underwritten a far-reaching campaign to influence the course of American law. In a case the Supreme Court will hear this coming term, the justices could give the network a historic victory: limiting federal agencies’ power to issue regulations in areas ranging from the environment to labor rights to consumer protection. After shepherding the case to the court, Koch network staff attorneys are now asking the justices to overturn a decades-old precedent. (Thomas used to support the precedent but flipped his position in recent years.)

Charles Koch.

David Koch.

Two years ago, one of the network’s groups was the plaintiff in another Supreme Court case, which was about nonprofits’ ability to keep their donors secret. In that case, Thomas sided with the 6-3 conservative majority in the Koch group’s favor.

Charles Koch did not respond to detailed questions for this story. David Koch died in 2019.

The Koch network is an overlapping set of nonprofits perhaps best known for its work helping cultivate the Tea Party movement in the Obama years. Recently rebranded as Stand Together, the network includes the powerful Americans for Prosperity Action, which spent over $65 million supporting Republican candidates in the last election cycle.

Though Charles Koch is one of the 25 richest people in the world, worth an estimated $64 billion, he raises money from other wealthy people to amplify the network’s reach. The network brought in at least $700 million in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available. It has more than 1,000 employees who, on paper, work for different groups.

But for all its complexity, the network is a centralized operation, staffers said. Many of the groups occupy the same buildings in Arlington, Virginia, and share leadership and often staff. Many of the donations go into a central pot, from which hundreds of millions of dollars are disbursed to the smaller groups focused on various political and social concerns, according to tax filings and former employees.

For decades, the Kochs have held deep antipathy to government regulation. When Charles Koch’s brother David ran for vice president on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1980, the party platform called for abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy and the Food and Drug Administration.

Every winter, the network holds its marquee fundraising event in the Coachella Valley in Southern California. Hundreds of donors fly in to learn how their money is being spent and plan for the coming year. Former staffers describe an emphasis on preventing leaks that bordered on obsession. The network often rents out an entire hotel for the event, keeping out eavesdroppers. Documents left behind are methodically shredded. One recent attendee recalled Koch security staff in a golf cart escorting their Uber driver out of the hotel to make sure he left. The former staffers spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation.

To score an invite to the summit, donors typically have to give at least $100,000 a year. Those who give in the millions receive special treatment, including dinners with Charles Koch and high-profile guests. Doling out access to powerful public officials was seen as a potent fundraising strategy, former staffers said. The dinners’ purpose was “giving donors access and giving them a reason to come or to continue to come in the future,” a former Koch network executive told ProPublica.

At the 2018 Koch donor summit in Palm Springs, California, a speaker touted the network’s accomplishments defeating taxes and government regulations.

Thomas has attended at least one of the dinners for top-tier donors, according to a donor who attended and a former high-level network staffer.

“These donors found it fascinating,” said another former senior employee, recounting a Thomas appearance at one summit where the justice discussed his judicial philosophy. “Donors want to feel special. They want to feel on the inside.”

A former fundraising staffer for the Koch network said the organization’s relationship with Thomas was considered a valuable asset: “Offering a high-level donor the experience of meeting with someone like that — that’s huge.”

Many details about Thomas’ role at the summits, including the specifics of his remarks, remain unclear. The network spokesperson declined to answer if Thomas’ appearances were ever tied to a specific initiative or program.

Thomas’ appearances were arranged with the help of Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society leader, according to the former senior network employee. “Leonard was the conduit who would get him,” the former employee said. During one summit, Thomas gave a talk with Leo in an interview format, the donor recalled.

“Justice Thomas attends events all over the country, as do all the Justices, and I was privileged to join him,” Leo said in a statement in response to questions about the Koch donor events. “All the necessary due diligence was performed to ensure the Justice’s attendance at the events was compliant with all ethics requirements.”

While attending the donor events would likely violate the lower courts’ prohibition on fundraising, experts said, the Supreme Court has a narrow internal definition of a fundraiser: an event that raises more money than it costs or where attendees are explicitly asked for money while the event’s happening.

On the Thursday before the January 2018 summit in Palm Springs, Thomas flew there on a chartered private jet, according to records reviewed by ProPublica. Four days later, the plane flew to an airport outside Denver, where Thomas appeared at a ceremony honoring his former clerk, federal Judge Allison Eid. The next day, it flew back to northern Virginia where Thomas lives.

Thomas’ financial disclosure for that year contains two speaking engagements: one in New York City and another at a Federalist Society conference in Texas. His trip to the Koch event in California is not on the form.

Thomas’ 2018 disclosure form did not include his trip to the Koch donor summit in Palm Springs.

For the event that year, the Koch network rented out the Renaissance Esmeralda Resort and Spa. On the main stage, donors heard from Hall of Fame NFL cornerback Deion Sanders, who was working with the Kochs on anti-poverty programs in Dallas. Another speaker delivered a report card on the group’s political wins large and small: “repealed voter-approved donor disclosure initiative”; “retraction of mining & environmental overreach”; “stopped Albuquerque paid sick leave mandate.”

During the event, the group announced a new initiative focused on getting conservatives on the Supreme Court and the federal bench. The network, which had already given millions of dollars to Leo’s Federalist Society, planned to mobilize its activists and buy advertisements to push senators to vote for President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees. They appointed a former employee of Ginni Thomas, the justice’s wife, to lead the effort.

The first glimpse of Thomas’ connection to the network came more than a decade ago. In 2010, reporters obtained an invitation sent to potential Koch donors that mentioned Thomas had been “featured” at one of the network’s previous summits.

After critics called for more information about Thomas’ attendance, the Supreme Court press office downplayed the episode. A court spokesperson acknowledged Thomas had been in the Palm Springs area during the Kochs’ January 2008 summit. However, she said he was there to talk about his memoir at a Federalist Society dinner that was separate from the donor summit but was also sponsored by Charles Koch. She added that Thomas made a “brief drop-by” at the network summit that year but said he “was not a participant.” (Thomas disclosed the 2008 Palm Springs trip as a Federalist Society speech.)

In the 15 years since, the Koch network has left a deep imprint on American society. Its advocacy is credited with helping stamp out Republican Party support for combating climate change, once an issue that drew bipartisan concern. The “full weight of the network” was thrown behind passing the 2017 Trump tax cut, securing a windfall for the Kochs and their donors. And the upcoming Supreme Court term could bring the network a victory it has pursued for years: overturning a major legal precedent known as Chevron.

While most Americans aren’t familiar with the 1984 case Chevron v. NRDC, it’s one of the Supreme Court’s most-cited decisions. Legal scholars sometimes mention it in the same breath as Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade. In essence, Chevron is about government agencies’ ability to issue regulations. After a law is enacted, it’s generally up to agencies across the government to make detailed rules putting it into effect. The Chevron decision said courts should be hesitant to second-guess the agencies’ determinations. In the years that followed, judges cited Chevron in upholding rules that protect endangered species, speed up the approval process for new cellphone towers and grant benefits to coal miners suffering from black lung.

The Koch network has challenged Chevron in the courts and its lobbyists have pushed Congress to pass a law nullifying the decision. It has also provided millions of dollars in grants to law professors making the case to overturn it.

The network’s position has become increasingly popular in recent years. Once broadly supported by academics and judges on the right, Chevron is now anathema to many in the conservative legal movement. And there’s no more prominent convert than Thomas.

In 2005, Thomas wrote the majority opinion in a case that expanded Chevron’s protections for government agencies. Ten years later, he was openly questioning the doctrine. Then in 2020, Thomas renounced his own earlier decision, writing that he’d determined the doctrine is unconstitutional after all — a rare reversal for a justice with a reputation for being unmovable in his views.

By last year, Koch network strategists sensed that victory could be at hand. During an internal briefing for network staff, Jorge Lima, a senior vice president at Americans for Prosperity, said the Supreme Court seemed primed to radically change its approach to the issue. The network was trying to find cases that could bring about major changes in the law, according to a video of the meeting obtained by the watchdog group Documented. “We’re doubling down on this strategy,” Lima told the crowd.

Several months later, the Supreme Court announced it would take up a case, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, in which Koch network staff attorneys represent the plaintiffs. If Thomas and his colleagues side with them this coming term, Chevron will be overturned once and for all.

Without Chevron, “any place you would need regulation to address a pressing social problem, it’s going to be more costly to get it, harder to implement it and it’s not going to go as far,” said Noah Rosenblum, a professor at New York University School of Law.

“​​Loper Bright is a case seeking to restore one of the core tenets of our democracy: that Congress, not the administrative agency, makes the laws,” the Koch network spokesperson said.

Ethics experts said Thomas’ undisclosed ties to the Koch network could call his impartiality in the case into doubt. This sort of potential conflict is why the judiciary has rules against both political activity and fundraising, they said. “Parties litigating in the court before Justice Thomas don’t know the extent of Thomas’ relationship with the parties on the other side,” said James Sample, a Hofstra University law professor who studies judicial ethics. “You have to be pretty cynical to not think that’s a problem.”

The Supreme Court itself said in a recent statement to The Associated Pressthat “justices exercise caution in attending events that might be described as political in nature.” But unlike with lower court judges, there is no formal oversight of the justices.

Two decades ago, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered the opening remarks at a lecture cosponsored by the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, a women’s rights group that filed friend-of-the-court briefs at the Supreme Court. It was a public event co-sponsored by the New York City Bar Association. But some judicial ethics experts criticized the justice for affiliating herself with an advocacy group.

Thirteen Republican lawmakers, including Mike Pence and Marsha Blackburn, who now sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, went further, calling on Ginsburg to recuse herself from any future cases related to abortion. The justice brushed off the criticism: “I think and thought and still think it’s a lovely thing,” she said of the lecture series. (Ginsburg died in 2020.)

Charles and David Koch’s access to Thomas has gone well beyond his participation in their donor events. For years, the brothers had opportunities to meet privately with Thomas thanks to the justice’s regular trips to the Bohemian Grove, an all-male retreat that attracts some of the nation’s most influential corporate and political figures. Thomas has been a regular at the Grove for 25 years as Harlan Crow’s guest, according to internal documents and interviews with dozens of members, other guests and workers at the retreat.

Charles Koch at the Grove. His hat features the club’s owl insignia.

“What we’re seeing emerge is someone who is living his professional life in a way that’s seeing these extrajudicial opportunities as a perk of the office,” said Charles Geyh, a judicial ethics expert at Indiana University law school. Judges can have social lives, he said, and there are no clear lines for when a social gathering could pose a problem. But the confluence of powerful political actors and undisclosed gifts puts Thomas’ trips far outside the norm for judges’ conduct, Geyh said: “There’s a culture of impartiality that’s really at risk here.”

The Grove is an exclusive, two-week party held in the Sonoma County redwoods every July. A member or his guest can wander from the Grove’s shooting range to a lecture by Blackwater founder Erik Prince, or from a mint julep party to a performance by the Grove’s symphony orchestra. Wine, sometimes at $500 a bottle, flows freely, and late at night, members consume clam chowder and chili by the gallon. More than one attendee recalled walking outside in the morning to find a former cabinet secretary who fell asleep drunk in the grass.

There’s a saying among the Bohemians, as the club’s members call themselves: The only place you should be publicly associated with the Grove is in your obituary. That privacy is paramount, members said, in part to allow the powerful to speak freely — and party — without worrying about showing up in the press. Only designated photographers are allowed to take pictures. Cellphones are strictly forbidden.

An entrance to the Grove.

Members typically must pay thousands of dollars to bring a guest. Several people ProPublica spoke to said that before the pandemic, they saw Thomas there just about every year. ProPublica was able to confirm six trips Thomas took to the retreat that he didn’t disclose. Flight records suggest Crow has repeatedly dispatched his private jet to Virginia to pick up Thomas and ferry him to the Sonoma County airport and back, usually for a long weekend in the middle of the Grove festival.

“I was taken with how comfortable he was in that environment and how popular,” a person who stayed in the same lodge as Thomas one year said. “He holds court there.”

In response to questions about his travel to the Grove with Thomas, Crow said Thomas is “a man of incredible integrity” and that he’s never heard the justice “discuss pending legal matters with anyone.” Neither Crow nor Thomas responded to questions about whether the justice reimbursed him for the trips.

(Other justices have Grove connections too. The mid-20th-century Chief Justice Earl Warren was a member. Among modern justices, Thomas appears to have been the most frequent guest. Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016, attended many years ago. Justice Stephen Breyer went in 2006; he told ProPublica he was the guest of his brother and that to the best of his memory, he paid his own way. Justice Anthony Kennedy went at least twice before he retired. Kennedy, who did not respond to a request for comment, did not disclose the trips. It’s unclear if he needed to because his son is a member and gifts from family don’t need to be reported.)

The annual Grove festival kicks off with a highly produced ceremony in which an effigy representing worldly cares and concerns is burned.

The Grove is broken up into more than 100 “camps,” essentially adult fraternity houses where the same group of men stay together year after year. Hill Billies was George H. W. Bush’s camp. Nancy Pelosi’s husband has been a longtime member of Stowaway. Thomas stays with Crow at a camp called Midway.

One of the ritzier camps, Midway employs a staff of cooks and personal valets and boasts an extensive wine cellar. The men sleep in private cabins that zigzag up a hillside. Known for its Republican leanings, Midway has a string of superrich political donors as members, including an heir to the Coors beer empire and the owner of the New York Jets. Charles Koch is an active member, as was his brother David. It’s not clear if Thomas has ever been the guest of a member other than Crow.

Bohemians, as the club’s members call themselves, mingle on the deck of Midway camp.

During the annual retreats, the Kochs often discussed political strategy with fellow guests, according to multiple people who’ve spent time with them at Midway. A few years ago, Brian Hooks, one of the leaders of their political network, was a guest at the camp the same weekend Thomas was there. A former Midway employee recalled the brothers discussing super PAC spending during the Obama years and complaining about government regulation.

Chevron was one of the big things the Koch brothers were interested in,” the former employee said. He did not remember if Thomas was present for any of the discussions of the doctrine.

Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire

But Thomas and the Kochs developed a bond over their years at the retreat, according to five people who spent time with them there. They discussed politics, business and their families. They often sat together at meals and sat up talking at night at the lodge. A photo obtained by ProPublica captures Thomas and David Koch smiling on Midway’s deck. David’s windbreaker features an owl insignia, the symbol of the club.

One tradition at Midway is a lecture series, often held beneath the redwoods on the camp’s deck. The weekend Thomas was there in July 2016, the Midway schedule featured a talk from Henry Kissinger and another by Michael Bloomberg and Arthur Brooks, then president of the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute. Over breakfast Friday morning, the author Bjorn Lomborg delivered a lecture on climate change. Lomborg has for years argued the threat of global warming is overstated, saying that rising temperatures will actually save lives.

A Midway schedule featured a talk by Thomas and other events.

Thomas spoke that year as well. He talked about his friend Justice Scalia, who had recently died, according to a person who attended. Scalia, a conservative luminary, had been a prominent advocate for the Chevron doctrine, but Thomas said he believed his colleague was coming around to Thomas’ revised view on it before his death.

Thomas didn’t explain what he meant by that. “It was an aside,” the person said, “like he assumed most of the people in the room knew his position.”

(ProPublica).

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There are good and capable people, even when the world lets someone down.

When He Missed a Beyoncé Concert, the Hive Went to Work.

Jon Hetherington missed the singer’s show in Seattle after an airline said it could not accommodate his electric wheelchair. Beyoncé’s fans worked to get him to another show.

Jon Hetherington was ready for Beyoncé. He had been ready for 25 years.

He had his outfit — black pants and a gray T-shirt with an image of the superstar and a cobalt-blue graphic for her song “Heated” emblazoned on the back. He arranged a ride to take him to the airport in Eugene, Ore. And most importantly, he had a highly coveted ticket to the Renaissance World Tour in Seattle, purchased after painstakingly navigating a competitive ticket sale process.

But when Mr. Hetherington got to his gate at the airport last Thursday, that plan quickly fell apart.

The airline could not accommodate the electric wheelchair Mr. Hetherington, who has cerebral palsy, relies on to get around. The crew tried to find Mr. Hetherington, 34, another flight on a plane that could accommodate his wheelchair; an Airbus could do it, he was told, but the only one available would get him there 12 hours too late.

“This is a systemic issue, this is ableism, this is what I’ve dealt with my whole life,” Mr. Hetherington said in an interview. “I was demoralized by the whole thing.”

He posted a video on social media detailing his ordeal, and Beyoncé fans, better known as the BeyHive, went to work, tagging the singer and her management company, and promising to reach out to contacts in their networks to see if anything could be done.

The mighty BeyHive strikes again.

Mr. Hetherington now had a ticket to see Beyoncé on Thursday night in Arlington, Texas, after representatives for the singer reached out to him. In addition to the concert, they also arranged for his transportation, including the flight. A representative for Beyoncé did not immediately return a request for comment.

“I’m really grateful and very much appreciate that this is all happening,” he said. When it comes to making spaces more accessible, he said, “I hope people will actually engage with this stuff and not just let it go. That’s what’s important to me.”

Mr. Hetherington, who originally attempted to fly on Alaska Airlines, said the situation was “bigger than one airline.”

“We have not built our society or this country in a way that is fully inclusive,” he said. “Day to day, we’re kind of ignored and invisible,” he said, referring to people with disabilities.

He may not have made it to Seattle, but it was not for lack of effort.

Gate attendants helped Mr. Hetherington into an airport wheelchair, and tried repeatedly to get his own wheelchair to collapse. Mr. Hetherington said the gate attendants were kind and helpful, but in the end, the chair was still four inches too tall. The airline said it would refund the cost of his flight, and a gate attendant helped him file a disability complaint with Alaska Airlines, which was later reviewed by The New York Times.

“We feel terrible about our guest’s travel experience with us,” the airline said in a statement. “We’re always aiming to do better as we encounter situations such as this one.”

The company confirmed the details provided by Mr. Hetherington, and said its Boeing planes have dimension limitations when it comes to loading electric wheelchairs into the cargo hold. Travelers are not required to alert them that they use a mobility aid but are encouraged to do so.

To make matters worse, he had flown the same route on the same airline just two weeks earlier, he said, on a trip to a different concert that had almost convinced him to skip Beyoncé’s show.

Mr. Hetherington, whose love of live music can best be summarized by the fact that he’s seen six Lady Gaga shows, had tickets to see the opening of Janelle Monáe’s tour at WaMu Theater in Seattle. The flight was delayed for about 20 minutes to load Mr. Hetherington’s chair onto the plane, he said. That was embarrassing, he said, but it paled in comparison to his attempt to leave the venue.

Mr. Hetherington has seen Lady Gaga in concert six times. He met her in 2014.

When the show ended around midnight, Mr. Hetherington said he tried again and again to get an accessible taxi, to no avail. The taxi service said it would send a ride when one was available, but none ever came, he said; Uber and the police both directed him to call the same phone line. So Mr. Hetherington tried to make his way back to his hotel on his own. But the GPS function on his phone stopped working, and Mr. Hetherington wound up wandering Seattle from midnight until 9 a.m., right after his chair lost power.

A friend’s father eventually came to his aid and booked him a new hotel room. Mr. Hetherington doesn’t normally travel with his wheelchair charger for quick trips, and had to have a friend send one overnight using Amazon. He eventually made it to the airport, where he had to charge his chair once again.

“I figured if this happened at Janelle, what was going to happen at Beyoncé?” he said. “I thought, maybe I just don’t go. Am I going to get stranded again?”

But no, Beyoncé was “a once-in-a-lifetime” experience, he said. Though he’s been a fan since he was about 9 years old, when Beyoncé first catapulted into the national spotlight with Destiny’s Child, Mr. Hetherington had never seen her perform live.

“You don’t get to see Beyoncé every day,” he said.

When Mr. Hetherington got to the gate in Eugene last week to head to the Beyoncé show, he said the gate agent recognized his chair from the last trip to see Ms. Monáe.

“I’ve been disabled since birth, ableism is a feature of my life, I’m used to it,” he said. “I can’t even do the ‘normal thing’ of booking concerts and having this experience. Everybody else can just do that. That’s what’s frustrating.”

People with disabilities risk personal injury, loss of equipment and lack of accessible bathrooms when navigating plane travel. Airlines are not required to comply with the Air Carrier Access Act if wheelchairs do not fit, said Jani Nayar, the executive director of the Society for Accessible Travel and Hospitality. That can be especially true for expensive custom wheelchairs or in small aircrafts.

If the chair does not fit through the plane door, “the airline really cannot do anything about it,” she said.

The concert obstacles have been just a small sliver of the hardships Mr. Hetherington, who uses his social media platforms to promote disability awareness, has faced. His life has been punctuated by sadness in recent years: the back-to-back deaths of his parents; the deaths of two brothers and a grandfather; and the near loss of his home in Cottage Grove, Ore., which was specially retrofitted to accommodate his needs.

Through it all, Mr. Hetherington has turned to music for solace.

“Music has always been a form of liberation for me, it’s fundamentally important,” he said. “That’s going back to Janelle and Beyoncé.”

Now, he says he’s finally in a place in his life “where I can kind of breathe and treat myself to these experiences.”

By Friday, Mr. Hetherington was basking in the joy of not only seeing Beyoncé, but meeting Beyoncé.

“Beyhive, you made this happen,” he wrote on Instagram. “You pushed and tagged like the internet has never seen. Tonight, for the first time ever, I had a seat on the floor for a concert. Welcome to the RENAISSANCE.”

(New York Times).

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50 years of Ms.Magazine, the book, is out.

The tour has begun.

https://twitter.com/msmagazine/status/1705369058017702129?s=61&t=I_Od53CbnPTsbLcD0baXPg

Touch 👇 to see the size of the crowd for the book signing.

It’s on our coffee table. Is it on yours?

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