#in a *swing-state* with R legislators

[aro-culture-is]

Aro working retail culture is resisting the urge to commit a felony /hj

.

[mariacallous]

Republicans are thrashing around trying to get themselves out of the abortion ban they have tried to win for so many decades. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was the first. In the fall of 2022, just months after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, he proposed legislation calling for a national abortion ban after 15 weeks. So far, this bill has gone nowhere. Then, in 2023, gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin of Virginia put the 15-week abortion ban at the center of his campaign to help the GOP take full control of the Virginia legislature. Rather than holding one house and picking up the other, he lost both. Recently, former President Donald Trump—who often brags about appointing the three Supreme Court justices who made possible the repeal of Roe v. Wade—offered his own way out of the thicket by applauding the fact that states now can decide the issue for themselves. And in Arizona, the Republican Senate candidate, Kari Lake, is trying to rally the party around the notion of a 15-week ban instead of the 1864 near total ban their court just affirmed, even though she’s facing criticism for this on the far right. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal came out with a poll showing that abortion was the number one issue—by far—for suburban women voters in swing states.

In each instance (and there will be more) we find Republicans desperately trying to find a position on the issue that makes their base and the other parts of their coalition happy.

It doesn’t exist, and here’s why—abortion is an integral part of health care for women.

Since 2022, when the Supreme Court eviscerated Roe in the Dobbs case, we have been undergoing a reluctant national seminar in obstetrics and gynecology. All over the country, legislators—mostly male—are discovering that pregnancy is not simple. Pregnancies go wrong for many reasons, and when they do, the fetus needs to be removed. One of the first to discover this reality was Republican State Representative Neal Collins of South Carolina. He was brought to tears by the story of a South Carolina woman whose water broke just after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Obstetrics lesson #1—a fetus can’t live after the water breaks. But “lawyers advised doctors that they could not remove the fetus, despite that being the recommended medical course of action.” And so, the woman was sent home to miscarry on her own, putting her at risk of losing her uterus and/or getting blood poisoning.

A woman from Austin, Texas had a similar story—one that eventually made its way into a heart-wrenching ad by the Biden campaign. Amanda Zurawski was 18 weeks pregnant when her water broke. Rather than remove the fetus, doctors in Texas sent her home where she miscarried—and developed blood poisoning (sepsis) so severe that she may never get pregnant again. Note that in both cases the medical emergency happened after 15 weeks—late miscarriages are more likely to have serious medical effects than early ones. The 15-week idea, popular among Republicans seeking a way out of their quagmire, doesn’t conform to medical reality.

Over in Arkansas, a Republican state representative learned that his niece was carrying a fetus who lacked a vital organ, meaning that it would never develop normally and either die in utero or right after birth. Obstetrics lesson #2—severe fetal abnormalities happen. He changed his position on the Arkansas law saying, “Who are we to sit in judgment of these women making a decision between them and their physician and their God above?”

In a case that gained national attention, Kate Cox, a Texas mother of two, was pregnant with her third child when the fetus was diagnosed with a rare condition called Trisomy 18, which usually ends in miscarriage or in the immediate death of the baby. Continuing this doomed pregnancy put Cox at risk of uterine rupture and would make it difficult to carry another child. Obstetrics lesson #3—continuing to carry a doomed pregnancy can jeopardize future pregnancies. And yet the Texas Attorney General blocked an abortion for Cox and threatened to prosecute anyone who took care of her, and the Texas Supreme Court ruled that her condition did not meet the statutory exception for “life-threatening physical condition.”

So, she and her husband eventually went to New Mexico for the abortion.

Obstetrics lesson #4—miscarriages are very common, affecting approximately 30% of pregnancies. While many pass without much drama and women heal on their own—others cause complications that require what’s known as a D&C for dilation and curettage. This involves scraping bits of pregnancy tissue out of the uterus to avoid infection. When Christina Zielke of Maryland was told that her fetus had no heartbeat, she opted to wait to miscarry naturally.

While waiting, she and her husband traveled to Ohio for a wedding where she began to bleed so heavily that they had to go to an emergency room. A D&C would have stopped the bleeding, but in Ohio, doctors worried that they would be criminally charged under the new abortion laws and sent her home in spite of the fact that she was still bleeding heavily and in spite of the fact that doctors in Maryland had confirmed that her fetus had no heartbeat. Eventually her blood pressure dropped, and she passed out from loss of blood and returned to the hospital where a D&C finally stopped the bleeding.

These are but a few of the horror stories that will continue to mount in states with partial or total bans on abortion. As these stories accumulate, the issue will continue to have political punch. We have already seen the victory of pro-choice referenda in deep red conservative states like Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, and Ohio; and in swing states like Michigan and in deep blue states like California and Vermont. In an era where almost everything is viewed through a partisan lens, abortion rights transcend partisanship.

And more referenda are coming in November. The expectation is that at least some, if not most, of the pro-choice voters likely to be mobilized by the abortion issue will help Democrats up and down the ballot. As a result, Democratic campaigns are working hard to make sure the public knows that Republicans are responsible.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

According to a Fox News poll released Wednesday, Kamala Harris holds a 2-point lead over Donald Trump. However, the most intriguing takeaway isn't the topline result, but rather the details on a growing Republican line of attack in 2024: transgender issues. When asked who voters trust most to handle a variety of topics, Harris leads on most, such as abortion, health care, and election integrity. However, her lead is among the strongest on one particular issue: transgender rights.

When voters were asked whom they trust to handle transgender issues, Harris leads Trump by 16 points. This margin mirrors her lead on abortion and is just slightly behind her advantage on climate change, where she performs best. Harris’s lead on transgender issues suggests that highlighting this topic in the election may backfire for Trump, potentially weakening his chances the more Republicans push the issue to the forefront. The situation for Trump does not improve when examining the crosstabs. Harris holds a commanding lead over Trump on transgender issues across several demographic groups, including some that might come as a surprise. For example, she is ahead by 10 points among men. Her advantage widens further among likely voters, where she leads by 17 points. Among voters aged 65 and older, her lead extends to 21 points. Even among Independents and swing state voters, Harris is ahead by 19 points and 10 points, respectively.

This focus on swing state voters is particularly significant, given the heightened attention on transgender issues in this election cycle. On September 1st, the prominent conservative super PAC, Senate Leadership Fund, launched the first wave of an $80 million ad buy targeting swing-state senators up for re-election in Ohio and Pennsylvania. A substantial portion of these ads center around anti-trans rhetoric, accusing Democratic Senate candidates of supporting policies that would “allow puberty blockers and sex change surgeries for minor children” and “permit transgender biological men to compete in women’s sports.” Trump himself has repeatedly featured anti-trans attacks against Harris during this election cycle. On multiple occasions, he has made the baseless claim that teachers are performing sex change surgeries on children, sending them home as “another gender.” He has also targeted Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for policies that establish Minnesota as a sanctuary state for transgender individuals fleeing anti-trans legislation in other states. Trump has promised to enact sweeping anti-trans measures on day one if elected, including a total ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth, the establishment of national bathroom bans for trans students, and the elimination of federal funding for all transgender care. Such policies could have devastating consequences, particularly for transgender adults who rely on health insurance marketplace subsidies to afford their care.

The latest Fox News Poll, in conjunction with Democratic-affiliated Beacon Research and Republican-affiliated Shaw and Company Research conducted between September 13th and 16th, revealed that Kamala Harris (D) is leading 50%-48% over Donald Trump (R)

The real eye-popper is that Harris leads Trump by 16% [56% KH-40% DT] on the transgender issues question, despite Republican attempts to use trans issues as a wedge to cleave off small parts of the Democratic coalition based on flimsy “protect women’s rights”/”protect the children” arguments.

[darkeagleruins]

BIDENBUCKS: The Biden-Harris regime used the 2022 election as a trial run to use federal tax dollars to replicate and expand Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan's so-called 'Zuckbucks' effort using HUD in 2020. This year they have expanded the effort to EVERY federal agency and they're refusing to allow ANY oversight from Congress.

Without any fanfare or mainstream media reporting HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge rolled out a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative-Style election effort in the 3,000+ Public Housing Agencies she managed. Secretary Fudge was given more than a billion dollars and orders to build a nationwide election infrastructure on top of the nation’s 3,000+ Public Housing Agencies. As a result, she was able to multiply the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s 2020 election successes by more than ten times - expanding it from five states to all fifty.

When Democrats learned that Mark Zuckerberg had decided to discontinue his effort to build election infrastructure they looked to the government to fill the void. The billionaire invested more than $400 million in the 2020 presidential election to help election officials in five swing states set up parallel election infrastructure consisting of thousands of ballot drop boxes, voter registration efforts targeted at Democrat communities, and the personnel to manage and maintain them. To fill that gap the Biden-Harris regime signed the Executive Order 14019 on Promoting Access to Voting on March 7, 2021. Six months later Biden allocated more than $5 billion for the effort including more than a billion dollars for the Department of Housing and Urban Development and outlined specific actions to be taken by the agency.

Secretary Fudge stepped down in March but her initiative was expanded to include ALL 15 cabinet secretaries - each of whom were directed to implement Executive Order 14019. Flush with more than $4 billion in taxpayer funds these political appointees have been able to use the infrastructure, personnel, and power of their federal agencies to duplicate HUD's efforts to mobilize voters in Democrat communities - under the guise of mobilizing 'historically disenfranchised groups'.

The Chairman of the House Administration Committee @RepBryanSteil correctly pointed out that this effort violates the Constitution's 'times, places, and manner of elections' clause. As a result Steil issued subpoenas to 15 cabinet secretaries on June 13, 2024, demanding they provide documents related to their strategic plans for implementing the executive order. These plans were originally supposed to be submitted to the White House under the guidance of then-Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice. Despite Steil's repeated requests, the agencies have only provided publicly available information effectively stonewalling the committee. The plan seems to be to run out the clock before the November election.

Democrats have repeatedly attempted to pass legislation that would nationalize federal elections. Their most recent effort was called “Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act” (H.R.5746) and would have turned over elections to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats from the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ which is headed by Kristen Clarke who has written extensively on race claiming that Blacks have “greater mental, physical, and spiritual abilities” than other races. Republicans blocked the legislation but Biden’s EO has opened the backdoor allowing for the creation of a de facto National Election Infrastructure.

HUD, flush with almost a billion dollars in startup capital on top of the $48 billion the agency already receives, features a majority-minority workforce almost completely made up of registered Democrats. These dedicated Democrats provide services to a majority-minority population who live in 958,000 public housing units and typically identify as Democrats but are traditionally unreliable voters. By using HUD’s massive footprint and infrastructure Democrats are guaranteed to bring these unreliable voters into the fold and provide a federal election beachhead into every state in the union. Observers have pointed out that having a federal employee actively running a de facto partisan election agency would violate the Hatch Act. In fact, the Office of Special Counsel investigated Fudge before she left office and determined she had, indeed, violated the Hatch Act issuing her a stern warning.

\

[tomorrowusa]

Donald Trump continues to prove how inept he is as a candidate. On July 31st he went racist at a meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ). Now he's feuding with Brian Kemp, the Republican governor of must-win swing state Georgia. And Trump attacked Kemp at a rally inside Georgia itself.

Former President Donald Trump’s rally in Atlanta on Saturday — in which he repeatedly attacked Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) — has evidently left GOP leaders in the all-important battleground state of Georgia absolutely furious. A pair of new reports from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Politico quote a number of prominent Republicans — some on the record, some on background — as being equal parts angry and confused by Trump’s attacks on Saturday night. “I’m sitting here scratching my head,” said former Kemp campaign manager Bobby Saparow, in an interview with Politico. “Attacking the popular governor of a pivotal swing state makes zero sense. If we want to actually unite, ask for the support of the guy who beat your endorsed primary opponent by 52 points and handily defeated Stacey Abrams.” “Attacking a successful and popular governor is not only wrong, it’s politically stupid,” added Cole Muzio — a close Kemp ally — in an interview with the AJC. “The stakes are too high for pettiness — and for the candidate to actively undermine his own chances.” During the rally, Trump told his supporters that Kemp is “a bad guy, he’s a disloyal guy and he’s a very average governor.” He added that on Kemp’s watch, Georgia has “gone to hell.” [ ... ] “A lot of republicans like me might just decide not to vote at all in the presidential election because of stupid antics like tonight,” former GOP legislator Allen Peake told the AJC. “Trump may have just lost Georgia.”

If Weird Donald isn't totally incompetent then the only other explanation I can think of is that he's actively trying to lose the election.

Actually, there may also be the possibility that his dementia is really starting to kick in – bigtime.

Whatever the reason, he's clearly unfit for any office.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 10, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUN 11, 2024

Former president Trump met with a New York City probation officer today for a pre-sentencing interview. They met over video for a first step in the sentencing process, in which an officer assesses the convicted criminal’s living situation, finances, mental health, addiction, and criminal record. Trump was expected to have his lawyer, Todd Blanche, with him when he linked in from Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach. Judge Juan Merchan will take the information from the interview into account when he sentences Trump. He will also consider that Trump was held in contempt 10 times during the trial for violating the gag order designed to stop him from attacking witnesses and court personnel and their families.

Ever since a New York jury unanimously found the former president guilty of 34 felonies on Thursday, May 30, he and his supporters have tried to assert that he is, in fact, in a strong position for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and for the November election itself. First, they insisted that his convictions made him more popular than ever, an assertion undermined by their own desperate avoidance of other trials and the demands of both Trump and House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to have the Supreme Court somehow step in to overturn a conviction by a state court.

Trump has also tried to reassert dominance by insisting in at least five interviews that he will seek “revenge” on Democrats for prosecuting him, and MAGA loyalists have echoed this threat. But as Greg Sargent pointed out today, this, too, is spin. 

There is a big difference between a prosecution advancing on the basis of evidence gathered by law enforcement, evidence that prompted grand juries to indict Trump, and his own threats to prosecute President Joe Biden and other Democrats simply because he had to endure a prosecution, not because there is any evidence that they have committed crimes. The first serves the rule of law, the second shatters it.

Since the conviction, as political analyst Simon Rosenberg points out, the right-wing Murdoch media empire “has gone into hyperdrive.” That empire, which includes the Fox News Channel, supports Trump and knowingly lied that the 2020 election had been stolen. On June 4, the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal printed a story saying that “behind closed doors, Biden shows signs of slipping,” but the piece quoted only former House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who previously had hammered Biden in public but privately assured colleagues he was mentally sharp.

One of the authors of the piece sparked outrage in October 2021 by tweeting that Biden, who was visiting the graves of his dead children and wife, “goes to church and walks through a graveyard in Wilmington as his legislative agenda is dying in Washington.” 

In November 2021, Biden signed into law the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. In June 2022 he signed into law the Safer Communities Act, a gun safety law. In August 2022 he signed into law the CHIPS and Science Act that invested billions in semiconductor manufacturing and science, and the Inflation Reduction Act that provided record funding for addressing climate change and permitted Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies over drug prices. Together, those legislative accomplishments rival those of Presidents Lyndon Baines Johnson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose congressional majorities were far stronger than Biden’s.

The Republicans’ frantic pushback on Trump’s conviction reveals both that it has hurt him badly, and that without Trump projecting the dominance of a strongman, they have little to fall back on except for personal attacks on Biden. 

Trump had counted on using immigration against Biden and ordered his loyalists to scuttle the bipartisan immigration measure the Senate hammered out in February in order to keep the issue alive. Swing voters took notice: in March a focus group showed that 9 out of 13 Wisconsin swing voters blamed Trump for killing the bill.

As soon as that measure failed, the administration began to talk of what Biden could do through an executive order, despite believing that such an order would be challenged in the courts. At the same time, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris continued their pressure on the Mexican government to increase its own immigration enforcement. That process worked, and undocumented migration has dropped sharply at the southern border. Meanwhile, the administration’s parole program for people from Venezuela, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Cuba has cut undocumented migration from those countries by almost 90%. 

Then on Tuesday, June 4, likely trying to get ahead of the usual summer rise in immigration, and after Senate Republicans once again killed the bipartisan border measure,  Biden issued an executive order permitting him to seal the southern border temporarily when undocumented crossings surge to more than 2,500 a day, a restriction stricter than that negotiated in the Senate measure Trump scuttled. This order looks more like Trump’s effort to curb migration—one that courts blocked—at least in part because without legislation, there is no new funding to provide the additional courts the administration wants in order to move asylum cases faster. 

As predicted, the order is likely to face legal challenges. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), who worked with Senator James Lankford (R-OK) on the Senate immigration bill, wrote in a statement: “I am sympathetic to the position the administration is in, but I am skeptical [that] the executive branch has the legal authority to shut down asylum processing between ports of entry on its own. Meaningful asylum reform requires a bipartisan solution in Congress.” 

Nonetheless, while Trump continues to demagogue immigration issues, the charge that Biden wants “open borders”—which was always disinformation—is now harder to make. 

Meanwhile, the measures Democrats advocate are so popular that Republican legislators are taking credit for projects funded by them even though they voted against the laws themselves. Katherine Tully-McManus of Politico pointed out today that Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) voted against the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that will deliver nearly $470 million to her district. She has attended a highway ribbon cutting and boasted of the modernization of locks and dams on the Mississippi River in her district despite her “no” vote.

Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) called the infrastructure law a “socialist wish list” and a “fiasco” but nonetheless celebrated a federal grant for nearly $26 million to invest in public transit in her district. 

This credit-taking is widespread among those who opposed the law. Just this weekend, Trump falsely asserted that it was he, not Biden, who lowered the cost of insulin to $35 a month. In fact, it was Biden who signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act that made such negotiations possible.

There is little else for Trump to stand on. The Republicans’ position on abortion is so unpopular that when Trump spoke today to the Danbury Institute, which calls for abortion to be “eradicated entirely,” he never mentioned the word abortion. Instead of delivering a keynote address, he spoke for less than two minutes and said that the attendees “can’t vote Democrat” because “[t]hey’re against religion.” 

Democrats pushed back on the Wall Street Journal’s article attacking Biden, calling it a “hit piece” and noting that their own quotations did not make the cut. Observers pointed out that reporters jump on Biden’s speech while Trump’s jumbled and offensive statements—like his crazy hash of MIT, electric batteries, boats, and sharks yesterday—rarely get reproduced.

The Biden campaign is addressing that lack with a new ad campaign, one that deliberately punctures the idea of Trump as a strongman. One ad shows foreign leaders laughing at Trump’s statements, and another, directed at Latino voters, shows Trump last week kissing former Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff Joe Arpaio, whom Trump pardoned after his conviction related to racial profiling. Another ad from the Biden campaign in the wake of the 80th anniversary of D-Day focuses on Trump’s quotations mocking the military as suckers and losers and quoting some of his other offensive statements about those who serve. 

Finally, the Biden team rushed to produce an ad today using Trump’s own words from a rally this weekend in the broiling Nevada desert in which he said he didn’t want people to keel over because: “We need every voter. I don’t care about you. I just want your vote. I don’t care.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[inspirevibesdaily1]

The Climax of USA Politics in 2024: A Turning Point for the Nation

USA elections

Click here to watch what Candidates are saying

As we approach the 2024 U.S. presidential election, the political landscape is more polarized and consequential than it has been in decades. The stakes are incredibly high, with voters feeling the pressure of making decisions that could reshape the country's future for years to come. The year 2024 marks a pivotal moment in U.S. politics, a climax of tensions that have been building for some time. Several factors are converging to make this election a watershed moment, not just for the United States, but for the global community as well.

Click here to watch what candidates are saying

Deepening Partisan Divides

One of the most defining characteristics of the 2024 political climate is the deepening partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans. This is not a new phenomenon, but it has intensified since the previous elections. The ideological rift between the parties is stark, with each side representing drastically different visions for the country. Democrats are likely to focus on progressive policies like climate change action, social justice, and healthcare reform, while Republicans may emphasize economic growth, reduced government intervention, and issues like border security.

Click here to watch what candidates are saying

The gap between these political ideologies is no longer just a matter of debate in Congress; it has trickled down into communities, families, and workplaces. As a result, the 2024 election could see record voter turnout, as citizens on both sides feel an urgent need to influence the outcome.

Click here to watch what candidates are saying

The Role of Third Parties and Independents

Another critical element of the 2024 political landscape is the rise of third-party candidates and independent voters. Dissatisfaction with the two major parties is at an all-time high, leading to increased interest in alternative candidates. While third-party candidates historically haven't performed well in presidential elections, 2024 could see a stronger challenge to the two-party system. Many voters, particularly younger generations, feel disconnected from the traditional Republican and Democratic platforms, seeking new leadership that speaks to issues like climate change, income inequality, and healthcare.

Click here to watch what candidates are saying

Independents, too, will play a significant role in the election's outcome. With a large portion of voters identifying as neither Democrat nor Republican, their votes could swing the results in key battleground states. Both major parties are keenly aware of this and are likely to tailor their messages to win over this crucial demographic.

Economic and Social Pressures

Economic factors always weigh heavily in U.S. elections, and 2024 is no exception. Rising inflation, income inequality, and concerns over job security will be hot-button issues. How each candidate plans to address these economic concerns will be a central theme in their campaigns. Additionally, healthcare, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, will remain a critical issue. Voters want solutions to make healthcare more affordable and accessible, a demand that will pressure candidates to propose bold reforms.

Click here to watch what candidates are saying

Social issues, such as racial equality, women’s rights, and LGBTQ+ protections, are also at the forefront of the 2024 election. Recent Supreme Court rulings and legislative battles over issues like abortion rights have energized voters on both sides of the spectrum. This social unrest adds to the intensity of the political moment, as voters look for candidates who reflect their values and priorities.

Global Implications

The 2024 election doesn't just impact the United States; it has global implications. America's foreign policy decisions in the coming years will shape the geopolitical landscape. Issues like the U.S.-China rivalry, relations with NATO, and climate diplomacy are critical to international stability. How the next president navigates these challenges will either reinforce or weaken America's role as a global leader.

Click here to watch what candidates are saying

In conclusion, the 2024 U.S. election is the culmination of years of escalating political, economic, and social tensions. The decisions made by voters this year will not only determine the direction of the country but will also reverberate across the world.

[bllsbailey]

Watch a CNN Host Wreck a Dem Senator's Pro-Biden Narrative on Live TV

Unlike Jake Tapper and Kasie Hunt, Sara Sidner decided not to toe the Democratic Party line, at least for this segment, when she threw brutal polls toward Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s (D-MN) way yesterday. Biden was far behind former President Donald Trump on all the key issues. From handling the economy to immigration, Trump is besting the president. These aren’t conservative-leaning polls; Marquette and Quinnipiac have Trump with a 12- and 21-point trust advantage on getting our economy rolling again.

The CNN host pointed out the elephant in the room with these surveys: Biden isn’t in good shape, and this debate could be make-or-break territory for the president. All Ms. Klobuchar could do is cite some phantom poll where she claims Biden is gaining ground, but with whom? Are there any specifics regarding swing states because Trump is dominating Biden there, too? 

CNN Host Grills Dem Senator On Polls Showing Trump Blowing Biden Out Of The Water On Key Issues pic.twitter.com/BaeyxyasBC— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 24, 2024

NEW EMERSON POLL: Trump is ahead in every single swing state, tied in Minnesota 🔥 pic.twitter.com/LQgoIc1Viw— johnny maga (@_johnnymaga) June 20, 2024

Klobuchar rattled off a list of accomplishments that mean next to nothing for working families. The top domestic item she mentioned was some inside-the-beltway legislation that made it easier to break up monopolies. How does that curb the runaway inflation forcing American families to donate kidneys to pay for trips to the grocery store? Trump already set in motion a plan to reduce the cost of drugs, specifically insulin, and Amy totally fumbled on immigration: she admitted that Biden had the power to issue executive orders on the matter. He already issued one, ma’am—an ineffective benchmark to shut things down once 2,500 encounters at the port of entry are logged. Instead, she blames Republicans in Congress for inaction. You don’t need congressional approval for the things that could regain operational control of the border. 

There was nothing about reducing inflation in this lengthy, bare-bones defense of Joe Biden’s miserable presidency. Nothing about job growth. Nothing about wages increasing. When Trump was running the show, small business and consumer confidence hit historic highs. That’s no longer the case with senility engulfing the White House. 

Also, Biden is not “leaning in,” evidenced by his lengthy stay at Camp David, where he’s practicing standing for 90 minutes. He’s not expected to return to the White House before Thursday night’s debate. He’s not leading and never has been. If Amy Klobuchar, who has more brain activity than Biden, can’t defend or even point to a legislative accomplishment that’s benefitted working Americans, you know this presidency is on life support. Expect Biden to be more ad hominem, like his State of the Union, and Trump shouldn’t take the bait. Let the old man talk, and then quietly, professionally, and presidentially gut Biden with a death-by-a-thousand-cuts-like takedown. Trump is smart, he can go line-by-line in how Biden hasn’t done much for the past four years, which is an extension of the man’s entire career in public life.

🚨#BREAKING: White House officials, say that President Joe Biden will not be returning to the White House before the CNN presidential debate— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) June 23, 2024

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[pashterlengkap]

Kevin Bacon & Kyra Sedgwick dance it out for the ACLU’s Drag Defense Fund

Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick came out swinging in defense of drag performers. Swinging in the sense that the Footloose star and his wife swayed their hips while wearing t-shirts bearing the slogan “Drag is an art and drag is a right.” In a video posted to Bacon’s Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok accounts on Sunday, the celebrity couple declared their opposition to legislation aimed at banning drag performances by dancing it out to Taylor Swift’s “Karma.” --- Related Stories Madonna adds Nashville tour date to protest Tennessee’s anti-drag and anti-trans laws “These so-called laws to protect our children are unfounded and pathetic.” --- “#DragBans are bad karma. Right now, drag performers and the LGBTQIA+ community need our help,” the posts’ captions read along with a link to purchase the t-shirt the couple wears in the clip through Bacon’s 501(c)3 org, Six Degrees. #DragBans are bad karma. Right now, drag performers and the LGBTQIA+ community need our help. Shop the @SixDegreesofKB campaign supporting the @ACLU Drag Defense Fund or make a gift https://t.co/Ef2Eiz8Mzg #DragIsARight pic.twitter.com/BUyfecVFA4— Kevin Bacon (@kevinbacon) April 23, 2023 The video has since gone viral, with over 14 million views on Twitter and nearly four million views on TikTok. In a follow-up video posted to TikTok on Monday, Bacon explains that “drag is a centuries old art form of creativity, expression, and self-exploration. It’s an opportunity to educate through entertainment, and it’s not dangerous. At Six Degrees, we believe in amplifying the voices of those that are experiencing injustice, so join us in supporting the ACLU Drag Defense Fund.” Proceeds from sales of the shirts and other merch with the same image and slogan designed by trans author Mason Kaye benefit the American Civil Liberties Union’s Drag Defense Fund. “Kyra and I are honored to support this important fund and we welcome you to do the same,” Bacon continued, adding in the video’s caption that “Drag performers and the LGBTQIA+ community are facing unwarranted censorship and threats across the country. Like all artistic expression, drag is protected by the First Amendment and should be respected.” @kevinbacon Drag performers and the LGBTQIA+ community are facing unwarranted censorship and threats across the country. Like all artistic expression, drag is protected by the First Amendment and should be respected. #SixDegreesOfKB is proud to support the @aclu Drag Defense Fund and the nationwide effort to protect the drag community’s right to creative expression. Tap the link in my bio to shop or make a gift. #DragIsARight ♬ original sound – Kevin Bacon A partnership between World of Wonder, MTV, and RuPaul’s Drag Race, the ACLU’s Drag Defense Fund supports the ACLU’s work defending LGBTQ+ rights, as state-level anti-drag legislation continues to advance across the country. After Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) signed the first state law in the nation banning drag performances last month, the ACLU of Tennessee issued a statement vowing to “challenge enforcement of this law if it is used to punish a drag performer or shut down a family-friendly LGBTQ event.” Earlier this month, a federal judge in Tennessee temporarily blocked the law, ruling that “the Court finds that the Statute is likely both vague and overly-broad.” In his decision, Judge Thomas Parker wrote that the law would bar venues that host drag performances “from engaging in protected First Amendment expression” under threat of criminal penalties. Meanwhile, Florida lawmakers recently passed legislation aimed at banning drag shows and, in the words of one state Republican, “erasing” the LGBTQ+ community. The ACLU condemned the bill, which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is expected to sign, calling it “an extreme governmental overreach of power.” http://dlvr.it/Sn5J4r

[blackmagicspecialist786-blog]

Giuliani Receives Grand Jury Subpoena for Records Related to Trump

WASHINGTON — Rudolph W. Giuliani, the legal advisor who managed previous President Donald J. Trump's lawful difficulties to the 2020 political decision, has gotten a terrific jury summon for records connected with his portrayal of Mr. Trump, including those that point by point any installments he got, an individual acquainted with the matter said on Monday. The summon, which was sent in November, bore the name of an examiner in the U.S. lawyer's office in Washington. It originated before the arrangement of Jack Smith, the extraordinary direction decided to assume control over the Equity Division's examination of the jobs that Mr. Trump and a few of his helpers and legal counselors played in looking to upset the consequences of the political decision. It stayed indistinct, nonetheless, if Mr. Smith and his group have taken command of the piece of the request connected with Mr. Giuliani. As a component of its examination, the exceptional guidance's office has been inspecting, in addition to other things, the inward operations of Mr. Trump's raising money vehicle, Save America PAC. The records summoned from Mr. Giuliani could incorporate a few connected with installments made by the PAC, as indicated by the individual acquainted with the matter. A few summons gave in the beyond a while have requested records concerning Save America PAC. The House panel that explored the Jan. 6 assault on the Legislative center additionally investigated Mr. Trump's gathering pledges activity during its own different request, and brought up issues about whether it had hoodwinked givers through deluding requests about political race extortion. A long-term partner of Mr. Trump, Mr. Giuliani successfully ran the previous president's endeavors to upset his loss in the official race and has for quite a long time been a main focal point of the Equity Division's expansive examination concerning the postelection time frame. His name has showed up on a few summons shipped off previous helpers to Mr. Trump and to a large group of conservative state authorities engaged with an arrangement to make counterfeit records of favorable to Best voters in states that were really won by Joseph R. Biden Jr. Grasp the Occasions on Jan. 6 In one of its last ventures, the Jan. 6 council alluded Mr. Giuliani and others, including Mr. Trump, for arraignment by the Equity Office. In any case, the development of the summon, which was accounted for before by CNN, was whenever proof first had surfaced recommending that Mr. Giuliani had become straightforwardly entangled in the investigation into the part that Mr. Trump played in the occasions paving the way to Jan. 6. Mr. Giuliani's summon was given around two months after examiners covered in excess of 40 different figures from Mr. Trump's White House with summons. In 2021, the Equity Division held onto Mr. Giuliani's cellphones and PCs as a feature of a different examination concerning his endeavors to uncover soil on Mr. Biden in Ukraine. While going about as Mr. Trump's attorney, Mr. Giuliani attempted a variety of endeavors for his benefit. He advanced a ridiculous paranoid fear that a secrecy of worldwide entertainers had hacked into casting a ballot machines created by Domain Casting a ballot Situation and involved them to fix the political decision for Mr. Biden — notwithstanding the way that an inner reminder from the Trump lobby had decided before that a large number of the stunning cases about Territory were false. Mr. Giuliani likewise made tenacious cases that the democratic had been damaged by far and wide cheating and inconsistencies at a progression of casual regulative hearings in key swing states around the country. However, when he by and by showed up in court in Philadelphia to protect a claim testing the political race, he recognized to the appointed authority for the situation that the suit had not claimed that misrepresentation had really happened. Before his summon was given, Mr. Giuliani had gone up against a variety of difficulties connected with his work for Mr. Trump. He is confronting a maligning claim from Territory, charging that he completed "a viral disinformation crusade" about the organization comprised of "evidently bogus" claims, to some degree to improve himself through lawful expenses and his web recording. In June 2021, his regulation permit was suspended after a New York court controlled he had made "verifiably bogus and deluding proclamations" while battling the consequences of the 2020 political race. He is likewise having to deal with comparative disciplinary penalties by neighborhood bar authorities in Washington. Read the full article

[beardedmrbean]

Democratic leaders want to crack down on Big Tech. Others in the party think it's too big of a risk.

Thoughts?

Submitted anonymously.

Just by the title alone I know it's going to be funny, gotta wonder how bad these bill have to be for them to actually have the self awareness that this legislation could cost them their seats. Makes me wonder why they'd vote for it in the first place if they know their constituents won't like it.

But let's see ___________________________________

A bipartisan legislative effort to rein in the nation’s largest tech companies is facing fresh resistance from a faction of Senate Democrats over complaints the measure could threaten their chances of holding their slim majority, 10 people familiar with the matter told POLITICO.

The internal opposition comes as Democratic leaders are pushing for a vote on the bill by summer, in an effort to pass what has become a central element of the party’s broader antitrust agenda.

The American Innovation and Choice Online Act, S. 2992 (117) — led by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) — would ban major tech firms like Amazon and Google from favoring their products over their competitors. For example, the legislation would bar Amazon from promoting its own private-label products over rival items on its e-commerce platform. The bill marks the most serious attempt at tightening oversight of the tech industry in years and passed the Senate Judiciary Committee with support from both parties earlier this year.

Yet in the days since Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told Klobucharhe would hold a floor vote as early as next month, several Democratic senators have privately expressed deep reservations about voting for the legislation, particularly with a midterm election looming, in their conversations with Schumer and other Democratic offices.

Tech lobbyists have claimed the bill could harm popular products like Amazon Prime or Google Docs. And among vulnerable lawmakers, there’s growing concern that the sweeping legislation is too contentious for an election year and would eat up valuable time Democrats should instead be spending addressing voters’ core concerns.

“We should be focused on items that will help consumers deal with rising costs,” said one Senate aide who criticized the legislation as a “pet project” with little political payoff. “Nobody can quite figure out why it would be a priority.”

On a caucus-wide call held with Democratic chiefs of staff last week, Marc Goldberg, chief of staff to Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), was among a handful of senior aides who raised objections,five people familiar with the matter said. They and others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss off-the-record conversations. Hassan is up for reelection in a highly competitive race this fall, and Goldberg cited the tech antitrust bill as an example of a potentially controversial vote that senators shouldn’t be forced to take just months out from the midterms.

His remark sparked a tense back and forth with Klobuchar’s chief of staff, Doug Calidas, who defended the bill and argued that the legislation would help, not hurt, reelection prospects for senators in swing states. A poll released this week showed about 76 percent support for the American Innovation and Choice Online Act among a random sample of voters in Georgia, New Hampshire, Nevada and Arizona. Several other recent polls have shown that voters are largely supportive of regulating the tech companies, though they often do not prioritize the issue above concerns like inflation and job loss.

A few others on the call, including the acting chief of staff to Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), who is also up for reelection this year, echoed concerns about Democrats’ legislative agenda ahead of the midterms, though not all directly criticized the antitrust bill.

Supporters of the legislation chalked up the last-minute anxiety from vulnerable Democrats to lobbying by the major tech companies, which have spent tens of millions of dollars campaigning against the bill.

“Anytime a corporate accountability bill gathers steam, the concern trolling heats up and some members try to block a vote because they don’t want to alienate powerful companies,” said Dan Geldon, former chief of staff to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — who has led the push to break up the largest tech companies. “But the idea that a popular bipartisan bill like this would hurt any of the re-elects doesn’t pass a straight face test. The polling is incredibly clear on that.” __________________

Whole lot more to go there, but that's ok. Looks like my first impression was incorrect it's not that they think the vote will hurt them it that they want showy things to go through it would appear.

They want to do something like Omar is doing

Rep. Ilhan Omar urges lawmakers to extend MEALS Act to feed children (school lunch vouchers and such)

Wish last year had been an election year then congress might have cared enough to extend the eviction moratorium.

But I digress, back to the point.

This looks like a bill that should be easy to get passed, people on both sides of the aisle are backing it so it should go fast and there's no really good reason why they should skip out on it.

Unless they think that going in on something the Republicans like too makes them look bad, but then it's good to get them out of office anyhow.

Should vote the way you feel is best for your district party be damned sometimes.

[tanadrin]

Honest question: how do you expect anyone to build a life that will be just fine irrespective of politics?Everything in my life which I’ve used to try and deal with shit has been destroyed by this pandemic, and the country is about to reelect the demagogue whose policy has been making that worse. This isn’t catastrophizing - the situation is a catastrophe. Is the solution just “move to a different country lol?” Because I imagine you know that’s actually rather hard.

if you’re American, and by “reelect the demagogue whose policy has been making that worse” you mean Trump

(if you’re not, and are referring to some other demagogue-led country, ignore this bit)

then I have to point out that 538 is giving Trump about a 12% chance right now, and he’s behind in both national and swing-state polls, and while 12% is not nothing, it is also only a 12% chance. multiply all pessimism contingent on a Trump victory by 12%, and all potential optimism contingent on a Biden victory by 88%. Remember that even a 2016-sized polling error does not give Trump a greater than 50% probability of winning; a Trump victory would require a Dewey-beats-Truman sized polling error, and while that’s happened before (when Truman beat Dewey, natch), it’s happened once before in the era of modern Presidential election polling. The odds right now of Democrats winning the Presidency, holding the House, and having a slim majority in the Senate are at about 70% (again, per recent 538 reporting), so catastrophism about the outcome of the American election is... well, catastrophism! Because the situation the US is facing is not actually catastrophe.

I know dirtbag left doomerism is popular on Twitter these days, but it’s, pardon my uncharitability, fucking stupid and just as divorced from reality as Fox News-poisoned right-wing conspiracism. On balance the likely outcome of this election is Democratic control of the legislative and executive branches, and--though this would be contingent on a strong Dem majority in the Senate, and popular appetite for it--there’s a nonzero chance of Dems packing SCOTUS and having control of all three branches of government. Small chance, to be sure, but far, far larger than it’s ever been in my lifetime.

(and if you think ACB being confirmed means a 99% chance that SCOTUS will steal the election... that is also stupid. the supreme court is only relevant in a handful of very specific circumstances where the election is nearly a tie, and those are not very likely circumstances! it would be very bad if we got Bush v Gore 2.0, yes; and being concerned about SCOTUS picks to avoid that kind of thing is reasonable; but letting fear of that scenario dominate your predictions for how the election will turn out would be extremely fucking stupid. I would put more money on the Dems packing the court in 2021 than I would on the court deciding the 2020 election. Not a lot, you understand; but I’d much sooner bet 50 euro on the former than the latter.)

(again, if you’re not American, ignore all the above; but AFAIK other likely demagogue led-countries you might be from, like Brazil, Poland, Hungary, Russia, the Philippines, and the UK, do not have upcoming elections.)

You build a life with meaning outside of politics the same way you build a life with meaning in general. Dan Savage (yeah yeah I know) talks about this w/r/t people who are lonely and have no short-term, or even long-term, prospects of a romantic relationship. You read, you have hobbies, you make friends, you refuse to let bitterness and rage consume you--and in this day and age, you get off social media, if that’s where your bitterness and rage is coming from--and you develop yourself as a well-rounded person so that if you do stumble into a scenario where a romantic relationship seems possible, you are an interesting and fun person to be in a relationship with, because you have a full and complete life outside that relationship.

So too with any other sphere of life. If thoughts of politics and anger against politicians is consuming your life, fucking stop consuming news about politics. It’s not doing you any good. By all means, vote in elections, even volunteer for political organizations, but also read, cultivate hobbies, make friends, get out of the house, get in shape, learn to bake--find out who you are in all areas of life besides the one making you miserable, in short. Yeah, coronavirus makes all this harder. It doesn’t make any of it impossible. I know it’s driving us all a little crazy--me included, and I’m a married Extremely Online homebody--but it won’t last forever. And you get to choose what to do with yourself in the meantime. You get to choose how consumed with resentment and frustration at the world you’re gonna be. You get to choose every day whether you’re going to let the fear that nothing is possible for you govern your behavior, or whether you’re going to try to accomplish something (however difficult, however small) despite the circumstances around you.

If you write 300 words a day--a short newspaper column--then in six or seven months you’ll have a novel. If you do 20 minutes of exercise a day, in six months you could be in the best shape of your life. If you spend an hour a day playing with Python, in six months you could be a fairly competent programmer. And so on and so forth. Mutatis mutandis, as far as the things you’re actually interested in, but the underlying point holds: just because the world feels like it’s going to hell in a handbasket doesn’t mean you can’t build up your life in other areas. The ‘rona doesn’t stop you from having an online or socially-distanced book club, or from hanging out with friends outdoors, or from getting drunk on raid night with your WoW guild (A++ can recommend, btw).

And if you really can’t, if the anxiety or the anger or the worry or the sheer overwhelming weight of it all means you can’t even manage modest effort in the things you care about, you should assign a much greater likelihood to the possibility that your brain is broken, that your thoughts are lying to you (they do that sometimes!) and that your life might be greatly improved by some combination of anti-anxiety medication/antidepressants and talk therapy. Because God is dead, depressive realism is horseshit, and we have to make our own meaning in the world; and the human brain is, in fact, usually very good at that when it’s firing on all cylinders.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

On Monday, Texas lawmakers gave a first glimpse at what the state’s new congressional districts may look like. The redrawn map was highly anticipated given that Texas gained two additional congressional seats — the most of any state — during the reapportionment process and because Republicans are fully in control of the state’s redistricting process. Yet the new map, if passed, would not substantially alter the topline partisan breakdown of Texas’s seats. It appears that Republican mapmakers prioritized defending the GOP’s current seat advantage over trying to significantly expand it.

Overall, this map creates 24 solid or likely Republican seats, 13 solid or likely Democratic seats and one swing seat in the Rio Grande Valley. (The state’s two new districts will be placed in the Austin and Houston metropolitan areas, as those two areas fueled much of the state’s population growth since 2010.) But this isn’t that much different than what Texas’s map currently looks like: At present, the delegation is made up of 23 Republicans and 13 Democrats.

This is still a very good map for Republicans, though, because mapmakers strengthened the GOP’s advantage in the state by making a number of potentially vulnerable seats held by Republicans much redder, with the newest Houston-area seat also drawn so that it’s favorable to Republican candidates. As the table below shows, the current map has 11 Republican incumbents in seats that were less than 20 points more Republican than the country as a whole, according to FiveThirtyEight’s partisan lean metric.1 But on the new map, all but one Republican-held seat would be R+20 or stronger for the GOP.

GOP incumbents are protected in Texas’s new proposed map

Change in partisan lean in Texas congressional districts held by Republicans, from the current map to the first draft plan proposed by the Texas Legislature

District Partisan lean GOP Incumbent Old New Old New Change Beth Van Duyne TX-24 TX-24 R+3.5 R+22.3 R+18.8 Dan Crenshaw TX-02 TX-38 R+9.1 R+26.6 R+17.6 John Carter TX-31 TX-31 R+11.2 R+27.3 R+16.1 Roger Williams TX-25 TX-25 R+16.4 R+31.8 R+15.4 Troy Nehls TX-22 TX-22 R+8.3 R+23.7 R+15.3 Michael McCaul TX-10 TX-10 R+9.2 R+24.5 R+15.2 Chip Roy TX-21 TX-21 R+10.2 R+24.5 R+14.2 Van Taylor TX-03 TX-03 R+10.5 R+23.6 R+13.0 Randy Weber TX-14 TX-14 R+24.6 R+35.3 R+10.6 Jake Ellzey TX-06 TX-06 R+11.2 R+21.0 R+9.8 Pete Sessions TX-17 TX-17 R+18.2 R+26.2 R+7.9 Tony Gonzales TX-23 TX-23 R+5.1 R+12.8 R+7.7 Michael Burgess TX-26 TX-26 R+23.3 R+26.4 R+3.0 Jodey Arrington TX-19 TX-19 R+52.1 R+53.3 R+1.3 Louie Gohmert TX-01 TX-01 R+50.3 R+49.9 D+0.4 Michael Cloud TX-27 TX-27 R+28.8 R+27.8 D+1 Lance Gooden TX-05 TX-05 R+29.8 R+27.0 D+2.8 Kay Granger TX-12 TX-12 R+30.2 R+24.3 D+5.9 Brian Babin TX-36 TX-36 R+50.7 R+34.9 D+15.8 Kevin Brady* TX-08 TX-02 R+49.7 R+29.9 D+19.8 Ronny Jackson TX-13 TX-13 R+65.9 R+45.1 D+20.8 August Pfluger TX-11 TX-11 R+64.3 R+41.0 D+23.3 Pat Fallon TX-04 TX-04 R+56.3 R+29.7 D+26.7

*Incumbent is retiring.

Incumbents were placed in the district that contains the largest population share of their old district. They may not necessarily seek reelection in that district.

Partisan lean is the average margin difference between how a state or district votes and how the country votes overall. This version of partisan lean, meant to be used for congressional and gubernatorial elections, is calculated as 50 percent the state or district’s lean relative to the nation in the most recent presidential election, 25 percent its relative lean in the second-most-recent presidential election and 25 percent a custom state-legislative lean.

Given that the GOP controls the redistricting process in Texas, it might seem strange that it wasn’t more aggressive in trying to flip a seat or two held by Democrats. But population growth and demographic shifts in Texas have arguably benefited Democrats so significantly that Republican mapmakers were mostly left playing defense — concerned that some GOP incumbents might soon become vulnerable.

At the top of that list is Rep. Beth Van Duyne, the only Texas Republican defending a seat that President Biden carried in 2020. The new map lines, however, would shift Van Duyne’s district between Dallas and Fort Worth nearly 20 points to the right, meaning that she likely has far more to worry about in a primary than in a general election now after winning by only 1.3 points last November.

Three other Republican incumbents in seats that were less than R+10 also saw their districts move at least 15 points to the right. Rep. Dan Crenshaw ranks among these members, although it’s not clear which seat he may run in: About one-third of his current district is in the new 38th District, but the same is true of the new 2nd District, too, which may also be open, considering Rep. Kevin Brady of the current 8th District is retiring. Either way, Crenshaw — a rising star in the GOP — would be far safer than he is now. 

Rep. Tony Gonzales of the 23rd District is the only Republican incumbent who wouldn’t end up in a seat that’s at least R+20, but his perennial battleground district would be reforged into a relative GOP stronghold: His district would be R+13 under the new lines. Like Van Duyne, Gonzalez would breathe far easier under this new map, after he only won by 4 points in 2020.

In order to make many of these seats safer for Republicans, GOP lawmakers moved more Democratic voters into seats that the GOP had previously targeted but now seem to have abandoned. For example, the seat held by Democrat Lizzie Fletcher, who unseated a Republican incumbent in 2018, would go from D+1 to D+25. Meanwhile, the Dallas-area seat represented by Democrat Colin Allred, who similarly ousted a Republican incumbent in 2018, would go from D+2 to D+25. It’s a similar story for almost every other Texas Democrat under this plan. (In some instances, Republican mapmakers also made some super-red seats a slightly paler shade, “unpacking” some GOP voters to boost Republican-held seats. For instance, Rep. Van Taylor’s 3rd District outside of Dallas shifted east to take some red turf from Rep. Pat Fallon’s 4th District.)

One of the biggest takeaways from this map is that almost every seat — Democratic or Republican — would be uncompetitive at its baseline. All but two seats would lean at least 10 points more Democratic or Republican than the country as a whole. 

And it’s heavily Hispanic South Texas that holds both of those exceptions. This is a potentially important development as that region might hold opportunities for the GOP since Biden performed worse there than past Democratic presidential candidates. Most notably, the 15th District, represented by Democrat Vicente Gonzalez, would become more Republican-leaning on the new map. He was already facing a difficult reelection bid, as he narrowly won his 2020 race by 3 percentage points after winning reelection by 21 points in 2018. But now under the new map, his district would go from D+2 to evenly split. Meanwhile, Rep. Henry Cuellar’s 28th District would actually become slightly bluer — it only moved from D+4 to D+7 — and could be in play in 2022. (Rep. Filemon Vela’s 34th District doesn’t fall neatly into this category because it went from D+5 to D+17, but it is the other border seat in Texas, and it seems to have gotten a little friendlier toward Democrats, although Vela won’t seek reelection.) 

Another notable change under the new map is that it would result in a smaller share of districts with Hispanic majorities despite the addition of two new congressional districts. This could make the map vulnerable to a racial gerrymandering lawsuit considering Texas’s Hispanic population has driven the bulk of Texas’s population growth since 2010. According to census data, the current congressional map included 18 districts with white majorities and nine with Hispanic majorities. But the newly proposed map doesn’t give Hispanic voters any more clout: There are now 19 districts that have white majorities and still nine districts with Hispanic majorities, based on the voting age population.

This is only the first draft of Texas’s new congressional map, so it could still change before it’s passed by the GOP-controlled legislature. The Senate Redistricting Committee is expected to take up the congressional map on Thursday. But remember the GOP ultimately controls the redistricting process in Texas. That said, past congressional maps proposed by Texas lawmakers have been endlessly litigated — and it’s possible that could happen again this time around.

[deltamusings]

The Democrats’ draft spending bill still includes huge changes to the nation’s migration laws, even after the Senate’s parliamentarian removed several amnesties from the multi-trillion dollar spending bill.

The bill would dramatically push up housing prices by expanding the inflow of chain migrants, and also would slash white-collar salaries by creating a new and uncapped migration category of college-educated workers for a huge variety of Fortune 500 jobs from coast to coast.

Together, both migration rules will transfer wages and wealth from employees to coastal investors, and will also shift corporate investment, real estate wealth, government spending, and political power from heartland states — such as Ohio, Montana, West Virginia, and Arizona — to the major coastal states of California and New York.

But the parliamentarian’s decision to exclude the amnesties from the bill may prompt Democratic leaders to drop the uncapped white-collar giveaway for the Fortune 500 companies and their investors.

“If we’re talking about getting [white-collar] visas so we can take care of businesses’ problems, I’m not supportive — in the absence of getting anything else done,” Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) told Bloomberg Government.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) also suggested that he might oppose the white-collar giveaway to the Fortune 500 if Democrats do not get their amnesties and new voters. “Bob [Menendez] and I have the same goal, which is to get as many people as possible on a path to citizenship,” he told Bloomberg.

However, Democrat leaders still want to turbocharge the chain migration process, even without the amnesties, Menendez indicated. “If we’re talking about recapturing visas for family backlogs … I certainly would consider that,” even without the amnesties, Menendez said.

For many years, Democrats have blocked business efforts to import more white-collar workers unless business leaders help them win more voters from amnesties. In January, for example, Menendez said, “we need the high-tech community who will benefit from the reforms we are proposing, to be an advocate of the overall [amnesty] reform movement.”

But “the chain migration [expansion] is something that is supported by the same left-wing activist community as the [excluded] amnesty, and so, as long as they get the chain migration, then the activist left will consider it a fair deal if the business community getting uncapped foreign workers,” former White House advisor Steven Miller told Breitbart News.

The underlying bargain– more cheap workers and consumers for the Fortune 500 in exchange for more poor voters for the Democrats — is cementing the strategic alliance between the progressives who run the Democratic Party and the corporate investors who run the Fortune 500, said Miller:

There’s a progressive-corporate alliance that has been forged inside of the Democratic Party and nowhere can it be seen more clearly than on migration and the current reconciliation bill. The progressive left wants unlimited chain migration and the corporate donors and lobbyists want uncapped foreign workers. The reconciliation bill delivers both. And if they’re also able to get an amnesty from the parliamentarian, which I fear they will be able to do in some form, then that will just further cement the alliance between powerful progressive and powerful corporations.

The Fortune 500 giveaway will allow companies to recruit an unlimited number of foreign graduates with dangled promises of green cards and citizenship, said Rob Law, the director of regulatory affairs and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies. “It will be the equivalent of having unlimited legal immigration for [foreign] college graduates,” he said.

The plan rewards the investor-run corporations that already use the green card workforce of at least one million imported H-1B, J-1, L-1, and OPT workers to drop white-collar salaries. The cheap and compliant workforce also excludes many outspoken American graduates from rewarding careers in healthcare, business, technology, design, or science.

Law continued:

These are the companies that have intentionally discriminated against American workers, have subjected American workers to training their unqualified foreign replacements as a condition of getting severance packages, and, and now it is going to be a permanent loop where they will have as many cheap foreign workers — with at least a college degree — as they want, and that will just further suppress wages.

Both of the huge immigration changes have been ignored by the establishment press, partly because their immigration reporters prefer to cover the fears and hopes of Haitians as they try to move from home in South America to jobs throughout the United States.

The proposed changes have been ignored by journalists even though they will damage the income and status of journalists — and of their friends and peers. With lower income and status, fewer journalists will be able to buy good homes and get their children into high-status universities.

The journalists have also failed to quiz critical swing-vote Democrats about the migration changes that would divert investments and jobs away from their homes states. So far, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Krysten Sinema (D-AZ), Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) have said little or nothing about the chain migration change or the white-collar indentured worker rule.

GOP leaders have also not challenged these proposed changes as violations of the Senate’s debating rules, even though both changes will damage GOP electoral support, and redirect wealth and political power from GOP-run states to Democrat-run coastal states.

GOP leaders have persuaded the Senate’s debate referee, the parliamentarian, to dismiss the Democrats’ proposed amnesties as policy changes disguised as budget changes. “The policy changes of this proposal far outweigh the budgetary impact scored to it and it is not appropriate for inclusion in reconciliation,” the parliamentarian wrote.

The amnesties are a direct threat to the jobs of GOP Senators because they would create many new Democratic voters.

But the silence about the chan migration plan and the white-collar giveaway reflects the reluctance of GOP legislators to protect Americans’ popular pocketbook interests amid donor demands for more migrants.

For example, on Wednesday, 34 House Republicans and 14 GOP Senators stayed silent as GOP leader Mitch McConnell approved a massive, expensive, and open-ended inflow of Afghans into Americans’ homes and jobs. The Senators were:

Roy Blunt (R-MO)

Richard Burr (R-NC)

Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)

Bill Cassidy (R-LA)

Susan Collins (R-ME)

John Cornyn (R-TX)

Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

John Kennedy (R-LA)

Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)

Mitt Romney (R-UT)

Mike Rounds (R-SD)

Richard Shelby (R-AL)

Thom Tillis (R-NC)

Todd Young (R-IN)

In September, Breitbart News described the still;-hidden chain migration expansion in the spending bill:

The Democrats’ amnesty bill quietly invites three million chain migration arrivals into the U.S. workforce, likely forcing Americans to pay higher rents.

“It’s a huge deal,” said Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies.

About four million people are now waiting many years to get one of the roughly 240,000 cards annually available for the foreign siblings and adult children of legal immigrants. The new bill would allow them to “Early File’” for conditional residency and work permits if they have been waiting for more than two years and can also fly into the United States.

…

The amnesty’s offer of residency to the 3 million chain migration migrants likely could create an additional inflow of 1 million per year — and an extra shortfall of roughly 800,000 apartments or homes.

Many states’ residents are already suffering from high housing costs. For example, several low-income Americans and immigrants died in early September when a storm flooded their affordable basement apartments in New York.

Breitbart has also described the bill’s plan to flood the job market for U.S. graduates with a massive supply of foreign graduates who will work for low wages plus the promise of U.S. citizenship for themselves and their families:

Democrat leaders “are blowing away all the numerical limits” on employers offering green cards to [college graduate] employees, said Rosemary Jenks, policy director for NumbersUSA. “There’s no limit anywhere.”

The pending bill would allow U.S. investors and executives to import and pay an unlimited number of foreign workers with the dangled reward of citizenship. That citizenship-for-work law would minimize executives’ need to recruit Americans or even offer good salaries.

The bill was revealed Friday, and on Monday, was quickly rushed through the House judiciary committee without C-SPAN coverage. Mark Zuckerberg’s astroturf empire is marketing it as a relief bill for deserving illegal migrants — but it boosts investors by dramatically expanding the flow of cheap workers, government-funded consumers, and room-sharing renters into the U.S. economy. Democrat leaders hope to squeeze the bill through the Senate via the 50-vote reconciliation process.

The expanded foreign worker pipeline will remain open until at least September 2031, even though many millions of Americans will need jobs during the next ten years after they graduate with debts and degrees in health care, accounting, teaching, business, design, science, technology, or engineering. “If you’re in the pipeline by September 30, 2031, you’re in [the 2021 amnesty bill],” Jenks added.

The push for cheap workers and more chain migration is being led by Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us network of coastal investors. They stand to gain financially from more cheap labor, government-aided consumers, and urban renters.

Their network has funded many astroturf campaigns, urged Democrats to not talk about the economic impact of migration, and manipulated coverage by the TV networks and the print media.

Migration is deeply unpopular because it damages ordinary Americans’ career opportunities, cuts their wages, raises their rents, curbs their productivity, shrinks their political clout, widens regional wealth gaps, and wrecks their democratic, equality-promoting civic culture.

For many years, a wide variety of pollsters have shown deep and broad opposition to labor migration and the inflow of temporary contract workers into jobs sought by young U.S. graduates.

This pocketbook opposition is multiracial, cross-sex, non-racist, class-based, bipartisan,  rational, persistent, and recognizes the solidarity Americans owe to each other.

[bustedbernie]

what do you have to say to a leftist who has most of the same criticisms of the Democratic Party as other leftists, but who has also voted for them in every election in which she's been eligible? "well you didn't vote dumbass" like, literally can't be the sum of your defense for every Democratic political failure, can it?

To be patient, that patience brings fruit. Large-scale change happens over timescales that exceed a presidency or two and if you’re not invested in the long-haul, you’re going to be disappointed. To hold officials accountable, write letters, show up to council meetings and other easily-accessible things, even go to congressional offices. And be aware that what we say and do can affect others and their perceptions. That a lot of what Bernie Bros said in the primaries were directly copy/pasted by republicans to attack us (and it worked in a lot of places) hah. That getting voter participation way up is one of our largest goals regardless of where you sit on the left and being hyper-critical of democrats, calling them failures or corrupt, just doesn’t help that cause. And on that point, democrats have universally excelled at expanding voter access in every place they’ve been empowered to do so. But then, I also don’t think democratic failures as presented by leftists are often democratic failures at all. 

The ACA is pointed to sometimes as a democratic failure by this type, but I just don’t see it as a failure. It was a massive step forward. I think too, on this issue, people see the UK with its NHS, Canada with its various provincial single-payer plans, or France with its Sécurité-Sociale and they want something like that here. But, all of those systems were constructed over time and continue to evolve. And we’re not starting in the aftermath of the war. I think our efforts also need to be framed in the context of our politics. And that’s just not a pill that’s easy for this type to swallow. I mean, how can democrats have failed truly in the last 10 years when Mitch McConnell hasn’t even allowed votes on the most basic of democratic proposals? Are democrats really failing or have we been deprived of the power to make effective change? Despite that, we made some decent progress just with Obama at the helm. When they criticize us for being happy that Trump is gone, are you (or your friend) forgetting that Obama DID somehow get some good things through? It was less stressful? That there was that hope that we could keep making those changes as time passed? 

I think it’s also facetious when they spend so much time talking about democratic failures. Regardless of whether or not this particular friend votes, there are many others like them that don’t. Doesn’t this friend bear some of the onus for these “failures” for not getting others like them to vote Democratic? Democrats have routinely been punished for progressive legislation proposals since the 90s. Part of why the ACA was such a massive win was due to the leftover bruises from when Clinton tried to pass his healthcare proposals. What is this friend doing to change the environment to make these proposals less scary? How do you get people that are open-minded to making changes but who currently are comfortable with the system on board? Because Bernie’s “ban private insurance” chased a lot of folks that would perhaps be in favor of wide healthcare reform away. Or “Castro was chill, he taught people to read...” This is a pretty consistent thing leftists do. If we aren’t meeting people where they are and where they are now, how can we win? 

I guess I’d tell your friend that democrats already do reflect on their failures and it’s an attribute that is built into the party apparatus. I’d ask them why they fail to reflect on their own failures, the failures of the progressive caucus in the most general sense, and the failure of the left itself to take accountability? At what point is this “democratic failure” just a projection to escape accountability? Because I’ve noticed that when AOC says most people in swing districts that supported M4A got reelected, she blocks people on twitter for pointing out that many of those “swing-districts” she cites are D+20 districts. Xochitl Torres-Small was hurt by AOC and Bernie Sanders in a R+2/5 district. How do leftists think anything we want (yes, we, because even most “moderate” dems want many of the same things as the leftists despite their claims), without those marginal districts? And how do we win the Senate at all if we can’t field candidates that can win state-wide? 

I think me and lot of the folks that follow this blog do call themselves leftists, or would call themselves leftists, but don’t want to associate with very vocal people like your friend because though we may be pleased that they are voting well, we are frustrated that this friend is hurting us in other ways. We are frustrated that they call our policy accomplishments half-measures or failures. We are frustrated by how many of our leftist allies are willing to sacrifice the need for social justice for perceived economic gains. There are so many domains and areas where we could really increase our margins that are stymied because we get written off as extreme. Progressives that have won council seats now talk about how getting progressive legislation is almost impossible with progressive language (and i use progressive to reference Bernie Sanders-type followers). Yet, they note that you can start making progress with other language. Parking minimums can be voted away by talking about more liberty for development, options for renters and owners, a healthier market, etc. “Incentive programs” are easier to pass than a new tax. Maybe leftists see these things as failures and an abortion of progressive values. But I think we see it as getting things done in a way that CAN be done, and be done now. 

I would ask your friend to look to examples where incrementalism has helped cement democratic power and led to real, physical changes. In this country, the slow embracing of public transit by a larger number of people is a good example. Those first light rail lines in Denver, Houston and Phoenix were heated. Pulling teeth. Sometimes even violent rhetoric was used. For a silly little train. But once you get that first little segment of light rail, over a decade or so, people adjust and it’s not so bad. Then they might even want it to serve THEIR neighborhood. Maybe so they could get to an airport without driving, or see a ball game without parking, or get drinks with friends and enjoy the conversation rather than pay attention to the road. They might even want to use it to get to and from work everyday. Or to run errands. And that’s exactly what has happened in each of those cities. Phoenix in particular defeated a Koch-backed ballot measure and voted to fund multi-mile extensions to its system and begin planning even more. Hopefully, in two more decades, those will bear lots of fruit, leading to more sustainable, humane cities, that are more accessible, cleaner, and dense. We also saw Maricopa County vote blue. Small things, over time, add up. Change happens. Attitudes move.  We can do that with healthcare. If we can get a public option added to the ACA, it will just naturally expose how wasteful insurance actually is. People will be more likely to buy into it. And it will help build trust with people who “don’t want the government involved with my doctor.” And given how we’ve seen the politics shift just since the ACA was passed, something akin to M4A would likely be right around the corner. 

So yeah, hold democrats accountable. But the thing is, we already mostly do that. I’d tell them to remember who the real enemy is, and if they are criticizing Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden or Kamala Harris or whomever more than they criticize Mitch McConnell and his fascist army, then i have to doubt how progressive your friend is in the first place, regardless of their voting habit. 

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 11, 2023

Heather Cox Richardson

Since Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) led Republicans in shouts of “Liar!” when President Biden said in his State of the Union address that “some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset every five years,” Republicans have been swamping social and news media with accusations that Biden was lying.

In the speech, Biden continued: “That means if Congress doesn’t vote to keep them, those programs will go away. Other Republicans say if we don’t cut Social Security and Medicare, they’ll let America default on its debt for the first time in our history.”

In fact, Biden’s statement was true. It was based on Florida senator Rick Scott’s 11-point plan, released in February 2022, which promised, “All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.” (It also promised to “sell off all non-essential government assets, buildings, and land, and use the proceeds to pay down our national debt,” without defining “non-essential.”)

Since Republicans won control of the House, the extremists have also said they would not approve a clean debt ceiling increase without spending cuts. The history of Republican calls for cuts to Social Security runs long and deep, but just reaching back to 2020: Trump vowed to make cuts in his second term; former vice president Mike Pence last week called for “modest reforms in entitlements,” including privatization; Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson has called for moving the programs to annual funding so they would have to be renewed every year; and the Republican Study Committee, which includes more than 150 Republican House members, has called this year for raising the age of eligibility from 66 or 67 to 70 for Social Security and from 65 to 67 for Medicare.  

Biden’s statement came from what was famously dubbed the “reality-based community” in 2002.

That year, a senior advisor to George W. Bush told journalist Ron Suskind that “guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’” Suskind responded by talking about the principles of the Enlightenment—the principles on which the Founders based the Declaration of Independence—that put careful observation of reality at the center of human progress. But Bush’s aide wanted no part of that, Suskind recalled: “He cut me off. ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality…. We’re history's actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

The statement that Biden won the 2020 presidential election also comes from the reality-based community.

Today, Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post reported that Trump’s campaign hired a consulting firm to try to prove that the election had been stolen. The Berkeley Research Group examined the election results in six swing states but could not find anything that would have changed the outcome. “They looked at everything,” a source told Dawsey: “change of addresses, illegal immigrants, ballot harvesting, people voting twice, machines being tampered with, ballots that were sent to vacant addresses that were returned and voted…. Literally anything you could think of. Voter turnout anomalies, date of birth anomalies, whether dead people voted. If there was anything under the sun that could be thought of, they looked at it.”

The consultants briefed Trump, chief of staff Mark Meadows, and others on their evidence that Biden’s election was legitimate in December 2020—before the events of January 6—but the Trump camp continued to insist the election had been stolen.

The rejection of reality has gone so far that we have in Congress Representative George Santos (R-NY), who appears to have fabricated his entire biography. Yesterday, Jacqueline Alemany and Alice Crites of the Washington Post revealed that the biography of another newly-elected right-wing representative, Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), is also suspect. Family members dispute her stories of an isolated and impoverished youth, there is no record of a nighttime home invasion she claims was formative, and her embrace of her Hispanic heritage—her mother’s family is Mexican-American—is recent enough that in 2015 she identified herself on a voting registration form as “White, not of Hispanic origin.”

After the story appeared, Luna’s lawyer issued a statement from her saying that “anyone who is a conservative minority is a threat to Leftist control. They can try to discredit me, but unfortunately for them the facts completely blow their story out of the water.”

There is a difference between political spin—which virtually all political operatives use and which generally means making a statement without full context so it is misleading—and rejecting the reality-based community in favor of lies and attacks. Political decisions that are not based on reality rob us of our right to make informed decisions about our government and what it will do.

Social Security and Medicare are currently financially unstable. They can be stabilized by cutting benefits, raising taxes, rearranging government funding, or by some combination of the three. Biden wants to raise taxes; Republicans want to cut benefits, but they won’t say which ones and now deny they meant Social Security and Medicare.

On Friday, Scott introduced a bill to rearrange government funding, saying it would “increase funding” for the programs, but in fact, it finds the money by achieving another Republican goal: cutting the $80 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act that restored funding to the Internal Revenue Service. That funding has enabled the IRS to answer 88.6% of taxpayers’ phone calls this year, up from 13% in the 2022 tax season and 11% the year before. Adding in automated phone support and chat features, 93.3% of taxpayers have been able to get support. Democrats will almost certainly not agree to stop this program, and Scott is likely hoping to get them on record as “voting against” more money for Social Security and Medicare.

Voters need fact-based information to elect people who will enact the policies a majority of us want.

We need politicians to participate in the reality-based community.

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON