Gop8 BAK
7 26 CAPT
GOP8726
EST 11 24
MERRI OK
see trump trans 2 --> fascism musk plus 12 oligarchs govt shutdown 12 24
SEE FASCISM MASS DEPORT CRUEL CONC CAMP
SEE POL VIOLENCE 5
SEE DOGE COUP
see trump cult 2
SEE BIG BEaUT BILL
SEE GERRY
SEE DIRTY TRICKS gerry TEXAS MIDTERM REDISTR
SEE LIE PWR ANY MEANS VOTER SUPPRESS ELECT INTEGRITY BS
SEE MINORITY RULE SUPPRESS DEMOC BALLOT INITIATIVES
TUCKER BAILS 6 26 IRAN WAR
see lie gaslight revision esp jan 6 ALT FACT EARTH2
all trolls gubmint soc med now?
see trump judge aileen cannon tries quash jack smith report
see red states
SEE VOODOO INEQUALITY SOCIAL SAFE 3 2 santas
:{homophobe trans // cruel?:{ xiAN NATL}:
BAK 7 26
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PSEUDO- POP?
an 6 26
Speaking for his podcast Can’t Be Censored (https://www.newsweek.com/tucker-carlson-breaks-with-gop-im-out-trump-12105209), conservative commentator Tucker Carlson said he is leaving the Republican Party — and he blames President Donald Trump’s ostensible support for Israel.
“I would not support the Republican party, there's no chance I would support the Republican party,” Carlson declared in his Thursday episode, with him reposting the clip on X on Monday (https://x.com/HQNewsNow/status/2069095105663750242?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2069095105663750242%7Ctwgr%5Efd11b00651df702394bf449125b381e1d6fb600c%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsweek.com%2Ftucker-carlson-breaks-with-gop-im-out-trump-12105209). “How could I support a political party that is not loyal to the United States. I voted Republican my entire life, I have been a consistent defender for 35 years of the Republican party, but there is no defending this. I'm out.”
Carlson argued that, by starting a war against Iran in February, he prioritized Israel’s interests over those of the United States. Despite Trump’s claims to the contrary, Carlson asserted that the president was unduly influenced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to enter a war that America has “effectively lost already.” He added that he believes Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign was funded by individuals whose “loyalty to Israel” does not align with American foreign policy priorities.
The right-wing podcaster’s split with Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) over Israel is part of a broader pattern on both sides of the aisle. A February poll taken by Gallup (https://news.gallup.com/poll/702440/israelis-no-longer-ahead-americans-middle-east-sympathies.aspx) found support for Israel has dropped among Democrats, Republicans and independents alike. Independents support Palestinians over Israel by 41 to 30 percent and Democrats do so by 65 percent to 17 percent. Republicans still overwhelmingly support Israel, by 70 percent to 13 percent, but this still counts as a 10-point drop since 2024. Overall American support for Israel has fallen from 46 percent to 33 percent in favor of Israel in 2025 to 41 percent to 36 percent against Israel in 2026.
Speaking exclusively to AlterNet, former Harvard law professor, former lawyer for Trump and Zionist activist Alan Dershowitz argued that rising anti-Semitism on both sides of the aisle will compel Israel and the Jewish community to become “stronger” and more cautious about the future.
“The alternative is to be strong,” Dershowitz told AlterNet. “The alternative is to prepare for the worst. The alternative is for Israel to be completely self-reliant, for Jews not to expect help from other people, but to do it on their own, the way they did it when they were the best musicians, the best chess players, the best inventors, the best entrepreneurs.”
He added, "I think Jews have to realize that they're not going to get, they can't count on the kindness of strangers, and they shouldn't give up any of their security in the name of public relations.”
When asked about the rise of anti-Israel sentiment from both the right and left, Dershowitz characterized it as anti-Semitic and compared the current historical moment to the World War II era.
“The antisemite to the right, antisemite to the left have more in common than they are different,” Dershowitz said, then comparing the current movements to those of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. “And that goes back to [Joseph] Stalin and [Adolf] Hitler. Stalin and Hitler had only one thing in common, that they both hated Jews.”
Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s war against Gaza has led to 72,835 fatalities as of May (https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiODAxNTYzMDYtMjQ3YS00OTMzLTkxMWQtOTU1NWEwMzE5NTMwIiwidCI6ImY2MTBjMGI3LWJkMjQtNGIzOS04MTBiLTNkYzI4MGFmYjU5MCIsImMiOjh9), according to the World Health Organization. The initial Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7th led to 1,195 Israeli deaths, including 815 civilians (https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/07/17/october-7-crimes-against-humanity-war-crimes-hamas-led-groups), as well as 251 additional civilians who were taken hostage, according to Human Rights Watch.
Speaking with AlterNet in March (https://www.alternet.org/maga-fall-guy/) about the tendency to blame Israel for America’s war against Iran, Brandeis University historian Jonathan Sarna said that one can criticize Israeli government officials without being anti-Semitic just as one can criticize American government officials without hating America. The challenge, he added, is discerning when those criticisms are used to denounce all Israelis, delegitimize Israel’s right to exist or hold Israel to a double standard compared to its predominantly Muslim neighbors.
“I can be critical of President Trump without being un-American,” Sarna told AlterNet. “Most people who criticize President Trump or the Republicans would assure you how much they love America and hold a fundamentally positive view of it. It seems to me that it's deeply important for us to do the same with Israel — that is, to make clear that there is a huge difference between disliking the policies of the Prime Minister of Israel and hating Israel itself.”
He continued, “If you wouldn't equate criticism of the President with hating America, there is no reason — and indeed it is wrong and wicked — to do so with regard to Israel.”
Ironically, Israel itself is starting to turn on Trump (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/20/israelis-betrayed-angry-after-iran-peace-deal-donald-trump), with many Israelis believing that his tentative settlement with Iran will leave the nation as powerful as before and just as capable of attacking Israel directly or through proxies like Lebanon’s Hezbollah. As restaurateur Daniel Dorfmann, an Israeli in the town of Metulla which is close to the Lebanon border, angrily told The Guardian, “Everyone was very pleased with the war [against Iran] but the US agreement is really not good for Israel … It’s a big mistake.”
While Carlson is officially leaving the Republican Party over Israel, this is not his first deviation from the GOP on policy matters. Speaking with this journalist for Salon in 2019 (https://www.salon.com/2019/01/26/salon-interview-tucker-carlson-bashes-capitalism-says-he-might-vote-for-elizabeth-warren/), Carlson challenged Republicans for seeming to prioritize capital over labor.
“My intention in writing it was to remind the Republican Party that these are now issues of concern for you, because for a hundred years you represented capital over and against labor,” Carlson told Salon at the time regarding an editorial he composed on the need for the party to be more pro-labor. “I mean that’s kind of the purpose of the Republican Party. They used to represent the investor class, right? So the conventional criticisms of the Republicans as the party of management were 100 percent true, obviously.”
He added, “What I wanted to remind Republican lawmakers was that it’s no longer true, that’s not your constituency anymore. You have a new constituency and it’s people who are primarily wage earners and primarily — not low income, but lower income.”
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AN 5 26
On Tuesday, far-right commentator Ann Coulter spent the morning tweeting a flurry of criticisms of the White House and the wider Republican party, pointing out the hypocrisy to their recent behavior and expressing support for Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY). Coulter, a former all of President Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump), is one of many high-profile MAGA figures who have broken with the president over Massie and other issues.
Coulter’s tweet storm began in the small hours of Tuesday morning. In response to a far-right podcaster asking why Democratic Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) has endorsed Massie, suggesting that the latter is not a true “America First” conservative, Coulter brought Trump and convicted sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein into the discussion.
“Because he and Massie together wrote the most universally beloved bill in the history of the Republic, vehemently resisted — then finally supported by all members of the House and Senate (but one) and signed into law by your master, Donald J. Trump, to release the Epstein files” she replied (https://x.com/AnnCoulter/status/2056606970493165895?s=20). “Why a Republican wouldn't want to release the files raises suspicions… You should probably rest your tiny brain and save it for remembering to breathe.”
Shortly after that, Coulter retweeted a video of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who was campaigning against Massie in Kentucky on Monday, taking the opportunity to deliver some all-caps mockery (https://x.com/AnnCoulter/status/2056612009987150302?s=20): “The war with Iran is existential! Iran could bomb a U.S. city! Americans must impoverish themselves to stop Iran from getting a nuke! A civilization will die tonight! ... Man in charge of war: ‘Excuse me — I need to fly to a small Kentucky county to campaign against a Republican House member.’”
Then later in the morning, she responded to a commenter who noted that Massie had only voted with the GOP around 77 percent of the time.
“This term,” she said (https://x.com/AnnCoulter/status/2056699156840792266?s=20), “House Republicans voted four times for the Iran War, passed multiple foreign aid bills totaling $50 billion, and voted to fund the Democrats' ‘Disinformation’ office. Voting 77 percent with Republicans this term is the pro-American position. He's MAGA, you're Make Other Countries, Raytheon, Boeing, Dead School Girls and Censorship Great Again.”
Coulter’s tweet eruption represents the latest in a MAGA breakup that has been underway for several months. While there has been grumbling from some of Trump allies since early in his second term, the cracks in the movement really began to show after, as Coulter noted, Congress had to force the White House to release the Epstein files, which had been a key campaign promise. Then Trump’s decision to launch war against Iran received major push back from the “America First” camp, and the resulting economic consequences further fractured MAGA. By that point, many prominent far-right figures like Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene and others had experienced highly visible fallings out with the president.
Now MAGA is in full-on civil war over Massie (https://www.alternet.org/trump-massie-2676908763/). A former advisor to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and top conservative commentator is accusing (https://www.alternet.org/trump-slush-fund-2676910382/) Trump of “looting billions of taxpayer funds.” The military has no confidence (https://www.alternet.org/trump-2676909958/) in Pentagon chief Hegseth. And a former Trump advisor who attempted to help him steal the 2020 election has declared that no matter how the Massie primary turns out, Trump and the GOP lose while “the Left wins. (https://www.alternet.org/trump-massie-2676909710/)”
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RWW
05/12/2026
by
Kyle Mantyla (https://www.peoplefor.org/post_author/kyle-mantyla)
Rick Green says (https://youtu.be/2Oe-I-hwUTo?si=GToNfR1NYJGWovP9&t=636) the Democrats "do such evil" that "maybe it's time for the party to be destroyed."
Mark Meckler claims (https://www.youtube.com/live/mSPNGrtw1tI?si=JfqcBNeZ5c5KAaEd&t=574) that fascism is "literally the endgame of all liberalism": "All liberalism ends in fascism."
Tony Perkins worries (https://youtu.be/Jj5y415fIbw?si=ps9TQvNz9IwfuNMu&t=225) that Republican efforts (https://apnews.com/article/redistricting-republicans-voting-primaries-black-voters-c12196b188922ae2c03319bcb9533431) to redraw congressional districts ahead of the midterm elections will end up creating "more moderate" districts that will actually make it harder for the GOP to govern.
Dale Partridge declares (https://x.com/dalepartridge/status/2054014439784153507) that "homosexual adoption must be outlawed": "To allow a child to be placed in the home of a sexual deviant is a national tragedy."
Finally, Joel Webbon proclaims (https://youtu.be/nygVjcrLwD4?si=HsKe7wWr9GPByP7k&t=369) that if Christians nationalists want to wield political power, they must "hijack, train, and disciple" the GOP.
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AN 5 26 PRETY GOOD LIST OF DAMAGE BY CABINET
Nikita Khrushchev famously said, “We will bury you” (“My vas pokhoronim”) to Western ambassadors in Moscow on November 18, 1956. Seventy years later, it appears that Russia’s goal is being realized.
Putin called Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) last Wednesday and they talked for almost two hours. Fewer than three days later, America announced we’re pulling 5,000 US troops out of the NATO forces in Germany (https://www.rawstory.com/tag/germany), accomplishing a 60-year-long Russian goal. Trump also ended sanctions on Russian oil, handing the Putin regime billions in revenue, while continuing to block U.S. weapons delivery to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, HHS Secretary brainworm-infected heroin addict Bob Kennedy has hollowed out America’s core public health infrastructure and elevated anti-vaccine messaging, undermining trust in immunization and disease prevention. The result is a sicker and more vulnerable America as measles and whooping cough outbreaks spread across the nation and U.S. science leadership in the world has been kneecapped.
Over at the Pentagon, Whiskey Pete Hegseth, whose mother says he abuses women, has purged senior career leadership of women and Blacks and weakened the independence of the JAG corps, eroding professional military norms and devastating morale. He’s stupidly burned through so much ordnance with his illegal, unconstitutional Middle East war crimes that our military readiness and deterrence capacity are at an all-time low in the modern era.
Through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Nazi-saluting, multiple-baby-producing billionaire Elon Musk has impaired basic federal functions and hollowed out institutional expertise. When he destroyed the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), killing millions in the Third World, both China and Russia swept in to fill the vacuum and secure key natural resources and strategic military outposts.
Over at the Voice Of America, conspiracy nut Kari Lake has turned the network from independent journalism into a right-wing propaganda operation that delights Putin and damages U.S. credibility abroad, weakening a cornerstone of America’s advocacy for democracy and soft power.
With ICE and an ever-expanding network of concentration camps, brutal racist Stephen Miller has driven hardline immigration policies that gut asylum processes and expand detention (even for children), straining courts, destroying our reputation around the world, and devastating tourism.
Over at the Office of Management and Budget, billionaire-lapdog and neofascist ideologue Russell Vought has weaponized budget authority to illegally defund agencies and programs Congress authorized, concentrating power in the hands of the president, undermining constitutional checks, and destabilizing federal operations.
The FBI has been weaponized by the unqualified drunk Ka$h Patel (as he brands himself), politicizing investigations and purging career officials, weakening the bureau’s independence and ability to fight actual crime, while complicating intelligence cooperation with allies.
After showboat Kristi Noem destroyed the credibility of DHS with mass detention policies and multiple unaccountable murders of American citizens, former plumber Markwayne Mullen continues to gut civil liberties safeguards and execute Miller’s vision of a nearly-all-white America.
Wrestling billionaire Linda McMahon is actively vandalizing the Department of Education, cutting support for public schools and student protections in ways that widen inequality and weaken long-term workforce competitiveness.
Climate change denier and fracking company CEO (https://substack.com/redirect/03ff96af-de03-4e6a-8b39-a0fd89a29555?j=eyJ1IjoiMzFwZmRnIn0.u1a6lf1QuXg3Hu2t-taT1fXBEkW_mutbNV9Vt3LSGLI) Chris Wright now runs the Department of Energy, which has been redirected toward aggressive fossil fuel expansion while obliterating clean-energy initiatives, making America weaker and more vulnerable to both climate disasters and oil supply disruptions.
Under fossil fuel shill Doug Burgum’s leadership at Interior, the National Park Service is being dismantled by political interference, workforce depletion, corruption, and the systematic erasure of American history. He’s prioritized drilling and mining over conservation, producing long-term environmental damage, while corruptly moving (https://substack.com/redirect/36686665-9738-4b4d-9406-118eaa142b9f?j=eyJ1IjoiMzFwZmRnIn0.u1a6lf1QuXg3Hu2t-taT1fXBEkW_mutbNV9Vt3LSGLI) $100 million in our tax dollars over to a group run by Trump loyalists.
At the Department of Justice Pam Bondi (who dropped an investigation into Trump University (https://www.alternet.org/2017/01/trump-university-refunds) when he gave her campaign $25,000), and now Trump’s former criminal defense attorney and Ghislaine Maxwell buddy Todd Blanche continue to hide the Trump-Epstein files and have gutted enforcement against polluters, fraudsters, and other white-collar criminals while pushing hard to torment and bankrupt with malicious prosecution those individuals who’ve called out Trump’s corruption.
Failed reality-TV star Sean Duffy now runs the Transportation Department, where oversight has been loosened in key safety and infrastructure areas. The result is increased risk for the traveling public in aviation, rail, and roadway systems while much-needed modernization has been delayed or killed off altogether.
Billionaire Scott Bessent controls America’s Treasury as he pushes deregulation and financial concentration, helping his fellow billionaires while increasing the systemic risk that inevitably hits homeowners, small investors, and ordinary working people like it did in 2008.
Billionaire and former Epstein Island buddy Howard Lutnick now runs the Commerce Department, pushing Trump’s tariffs and politicized trade decisions, disrupting supply chains and straining longstanding relationships with trading partners while exploding inflation here at home.
Real estate billionaire Steve Witkoff, with no diplomatic experience whatsoever, has screwed up our negotiations with Iran (https://www.rawstory.com/tag/iran) to the point that gas is now pushing five bucks a gallon here and the world is horrified. His sons hooked up with the Trump kids to make millions off their dads’ government jobs, as Witkoff himself regularly travels to Moscow to consult with Putin.
Rightwing crank Brooke Rollins runs USDA programs that have been reshaped to favor large agribusiness over small and mid-size farms while stripping millions of American children from food stamps and school meals, hitting rural America particularly hard.
At the Environmental Protection Agency, carbon hustler Lee Zeldin has rolled back pollution and climate regulations while reducing enforcement capacity, delighting Putin and increasing profits for fossil fuel billionaires.
Scott Turner is turning HUD from a pro-housing agency into one that pushes rightwing talking points (https://substack.com/redirect/fe9781b1-acfd-41a8-b163-3aaf84bb9b8b?j=eyJ1IjoiMzFwZmRnIn0.u1a6lf1QuXg3Hu2t-taT1fXBEkW_mutbNV9Vt3LSGLI) and is shedding programs designed to give housing access to low-income and homeless families.
Putin-friendly Tulsi Gabbard now oversees the nation’s Intelligence agencies, politicizing their assessments while sidelining career analysts and distorting threat reporting. As a result, our allies have become less willing to share sensitive intelligence and Russia’s power is increased.
And at the State Department, Marco Rubio (https://www.rawstory.com/tag/marco-rubio) has hollowed out diplomatic staff and reduced emphasis on alliances and multilateral engagement, weakening U.S. influence and opening space for Russia and China to set the agenda.
This list is an operational blueprint, the kind of document a hostile foreign intelligence service might draw up if it had been handed unlimited access to the executive branch and told to dismantle the American republic from inside without firing a single shot:
— Hollow out the public health system so disease can do its work,
— Demoralize the officer corps and burn through munitions in unconstitutional wars,
— Terminate the diplomats and intelligence professionals who keep allies aligned,
— Replace independent journalism with state propaganda at Voice of America,
— Defund the agencies Congress created,
— Abandon the clean energy transition that would have weakened OPEC and Russia simultaneously,
— Politicize the FBI and DOJ so they target dissenters instead of crooks,
— And turn armed, masked ICE thugs loose to terrorize immigrant communities while training the rest of us to accept anonymous federal agents disappearing our neighbors into massive concentration camps.
Every line item that would appear on such a plan has been checked off in the last 14 months, executed by a Cabinet of grifters, ideologues, and 13 billionaires whose loyalty runs to Trump and the morbidly rich rather than to the nation whose Constitution they swore an oath to defend.
When Louise and I lived in Germany back in the 1980s, we could feel what the American military presence meant to the Germans we shared meals and beers with. The GIs at Ramstein and Grafenwöhr weren’t an abstraction or a budget line; they were the visible, daily reassurance that the United States had learned the lessons of 1914 and 1939 and that we would never again let Europe sleepwalk into catastrophe.
Older Germans I met would talk about the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Airlift the way Americans of that generation talked about Pearl Harbor or the moon landing, with a kind of stunned gratitude that another country had voluntarily done such a thing for them.
That moral capital, accumulated over eight decades and across both Republican and Democratic administrations, is precisely what Trump’s people set on fire this week, with the Pentagon’s announced 5,000-troop withdrawal coming on the heels of that nearly two-hour Putin call and Trump’s weekend promise that we’re cutting “a lot further” still.
In Europe, Boris Pistorius, Donald Tusk, Friedrich Merz, and Keir Starmer are now openly discussing how to defend the continent without us, which is exactly the world Vladimir Putin has been trying to engineer ever since the day he first took over the Kremlin.
The grim irony of Khrushchev’s famous threat is that he never literally meant we’d be “buried” by a tank or warhead (although rightwingers loved to claim it did).
The Russian phrase “My vas pokhoronim” was a Marxist taunt lifted from Marx’s line about the proletariat being capitalism’s gravedigger, and what Khrushchev was actually saying — as he later explained at length in Yugoslavia — was that history itself would do the work because socialism would outlast and replace what he called the rotting capitalist order.
He was wrong on the substance, of course, since the Soviet Union itself collapsed in 1991, buried by its own corruption and by the open society it had spent half a century trying to subvert. But he may have been right about something deeper than ideology: a great power can absolutely be killed from the inside by people who pretend to govern while methodically removing every load-bearing wall in the structure just to enrich themselves.
That’s the project Trump’s Cabinet is executing in plain sight right now, and the only force on earth capable of stopping it is the same force that both beat back fascism in 1945 and, after the Republican Great Depression, built the very institutions we’re watching get demolished: ordinary Americans deciding we’ve finally had enough.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjuD0nACraM
It's Not Both Sides. It Never Was.
Takes™ by Jamelle Bouie
74.3K subscribers
April 22, 2026.
Around 2012, two veteran Washington analysts — Thomas Mann of Brookings and Norman Ornstein of AEI — published a book arguing that American political dysfunction wasn't a "both sides" problem.
They argued that the Republican Party, had veered hard to the right, abandoned norms of fair play, and embraced a winner-take-all politics aimed at delegitimizing the opposition. Washington largely ignored them. More than a decade later, their diagnosis looks not just correct but understated.
Democrats have moved left on economics and culture — that's real — but they remain committed to elections, democratic norms, and governing for the whole country. The Republican Party, meanwhile, has gone completely off the rails, exemplified by the rise of Donald Trump.
To frame the core problems in American politics as a question of "both sides" is a failure of basic observation. One party is trying to preserve American democracy. The other isn't.
...
If you want more of my work you can read me over at the New York Times or subscribe to my podcast Unclear and Present Danger on the political and military thrillers of the 1990s.
https://www.nytimes.com/by/jamelle-bouie
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
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AN 4 267
Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) can never admit that he lost an election, anywhere, at any time, under any circumstance. And I’m not just talking about swing states like Georgia.
Take California, for instance. In the 2024 presidential election, Trump lost California by 20 points. No shame in that, right? California is one of the most liberal states in the country, and is also the home state of his opponent, Kamala Harris (https://www.rawstory.com/tag/white-house). Of course Trump lost it.
But according to Trump, he won California. Or rather, he lost California only because the election had been “rigged” against him. He not only won the state, he says he won it “by a lot.”
In one sense such talk is so ridiculous as to be almost funny. In another sense, it has real consequences, because Republicans being Republicans, they are forced to pretend to believe whatever Trump tells them to believe. And here in Georgia, based on no more evidence than he had to claim that he won California, Trump continues to tell them that he won the state in 2020.
So Georgia Republicans have to pretend that’s true, and try to do something about it.
Two years ago, Georgia’s GOP legislators pretended it was true by passing a new law requiring a whole new way of casting and counting ballots, touting the new system as necessary to prevent the fraud that didn’t happen in 2020. They set a deadline of this summer to have the new system in place and running in time for the upcoming midterm elections.
Then, to prove just how serious they were about election integrity, they neglected to authorize the funds needed to buy the new machines and train elections staff on the new system that they had mandated. Here we are, less than three months from the deadline that they themselves wrote into state law, and not a damn thing has been done.
Wait.
It gets worse.
State legislators gathered in Atlanta in January for the latest session of the General Assembly. They were here in January, February, March and into April, knowing full well that the deadline was looming and could never be met. All they needed to do was pass a bill delaying the deadline that they themselves had set, while authorizing money to pay for that new equipment and training.
They did neither.
To review:
They invented an election-fraud problem that didn’t exist, then they claimed to have fixed the election fraud problem that didn’t exist, then they failed to fund their solution to the problem that didn’t exist, thus creating an actual major, real-life problem, and then they refused to fix that problem of their own making.
And these people make fun of how Fulton County runs elections?
Legislators have now gone home, back to their districts. Leaders of the House and Senate, along with Gov. Brian Kemp, say they may try to call them back into special session before the July deadline to fix things.
Or, they say, maybe not.
“Maybe not” means they’ll dump the problem they created onto the laps of state and federal judges. “Maybe not” means they’ll be able to whine later about the unfairness of whatever solution those judges impose. “Maybe not” means even more election chaos, and even more public doubt about the credibility of the electoral process. They have to know how irresponsible they would be to do that.
Or maybe not.
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AN 3 26
Kai Schwemmer, political director of College Republicans of America (CRA), was attempting damage control when he stated that he was "not a groyper" — a reference to followers of white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
Schwemmer drew criticism from Jewish groups (https://noticias.foxnews.com/media/college-republicans-america-stands-new-political-director-amid-scrutiny-past-controversial-comments) for streams on Cozy.tv, a platform founded by Fuentes — and Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, in a March 13 post on X (https://x.com/JGreenblattADL/status/2032534790243758189), formerly Twitter, warned, "Appointing Kai Schwemmer, a longtime ally of white supremacist Nick Fuentes, as political director signals the College Republicans of America is normalizing antisemitism and white supremacy, full stop. Fuentes holds strong influence over his fans, the 'Groyper Army,' and regularly jokes about the Holocaust. Schwemmer has appeared at Fuentes' conferences, streams on his platform and has spread conspiracy theories about 'Zionists' in America."
CRA President Martin Bertao is doubling down on his decision to hire Schwemmer as political director, writing that he will "apologize…. to absolutely NOBODY."
In an article published on March 30 (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/30/kai-schwemmer-college-republicans-livestream), however, The Guardian's Jason Wilson stresses that Schwemmer has become a liability for Republicans on college campuses.
"The newly appointed College Republicans of America Political Director Kai Schwemmer has made racist, antisemitic, homophobic and sexist statements while espousing extremist right-wing views on abortion, a Guardian review of livestream recordings can reveal," Wilson reports. "Schwemmer said he would accept a world in which slavery was legal if abortion was criminalized, describes himself as 'very much an anti-universal-suffrage guy' and accepts a supporter's description of him as 'our Mormon Nick Fuentes' — referring to the white nationalist influencer whose platform he streamed on for years. The comments were made after Schwemmer's return from a two-year Mormon mission to Argentina, a period he recently claimed had seen him undergo a 'process of growth' that led him to abandon previous racist beliefs."
Wilson adds, "Schwemmer had previously expressed extremist and bigoted views. The streams, many of which are not publicly available but remain accessible behind a paywall on Schwemmer's Gumroad page, also contain previously unreported material from his earlier broadcasts. In one, he walks a user through a sequence of antisemitic leading questions on the Omegle platform before directing her to Fuentes' streaming site. In others, he claims gay men are 'weaponizing' gyms 'to give you AIDS' and celebrates a DNA test he says proved 'I'm 0% Jewish.'"
Jeff Tischauser, a senior researcher for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), is skeptical about claims that Schwemmer is distancing himself from Fuentes and the groyper movement.
Tischauser told The Guardian, "Any time someone claims they have left the movement, you need to watch them closely to see if their actions match their rhetoric, and if they are being sincere. It does not seem like Kai Schwemmer is being sincere."
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an 3 26
With the 2026 midterms a little over seven months away, one Republican lawmaker after another has decided against seeking reelection. Democratic resignations from Congress are occurring as well, but the number is larger among GOP lawmakers.
MS NOW's Steve Benen, in a March 30 column (https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/republican-retirements-congress-trump), stresses that Republicans are leaving Congress at am historically rapid pace — and he doesn't see this trend letting up anytime soon.
"It's worth emphasizing that nailing down the precise number of congressional retirement announcements is a little tricky because of the details: Some members have said they're ending their political career, while others are giving up their seat to pursue other office," Benen explains. "Some members have already resigned in the middle of their term, while other members have died during their current term. In some instances, we've even seen incumbent lawmakers step down in order to serve in the Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) Administration. But pulling all of the data together, what we see is an electoral landscape in which 61 U.S. House members — 22 Democrats and 39 Republicans — are giving up their seats. That number, one of the highest in the past century, might very well grow in the coming days and weeks, either voluntarily or as a result of possible primary defeats."
Benen continues, "As for the Senate, the upper chamber is seeing plenty of turnover, too. Nine incumbents — four Democrats and five Republicans, are retiring. Two other GOP senators are running for governor, and two more Democratic senators — Colorado's Michael Bennet and Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar — are also running for governor, though they're technically not retiring because their terms are not yet up."
The "Rachel Maddow Show" producer notes that according to reporting in the New York Times, the "number of Republicans departing the House this cycle is one of the highest since 1930."
"Capitol Hill just isn't a great place to work lately," Benen argues. "Congress, at an institutional level, has become increasingly paralyzed and dysfunctional — a problem made worse by the fact that Republican leaders have surrendered many of their powers to the White House. Between this and GOP officials' fears of a voter backlash in November, there's no great mystery as to why the chambers are poised to see a dramatic personnel shift."
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Five months before the August Primary Elections, Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) is out.
The Wall Street Journal reported (https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/powerful-house-republican-joins-retirement-wave-5558870c?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqcweWI0APHICKW3Q2M7PRmJIgtEEqnHcnS9i2qp7ZEJb-wnJLMv2nl0PimMMB4%3D&gaa_ts=69c66c59&gaa_sig=7Up6pKoHPhpoO4H1wt822oU2DGX5wiEQt9nxyhIW9JJ5DnHsbqbR0YD-97-uT2CJD9FfkeN5CTv9C3H_pEUFOw%3D%3D) that Graves made the announcement exclusively to them that he is withdrawing his reelection paperwork. He'll be leaving Congress after 13 terms and 26 years in office because he's tired.
“I think it is time for me to step down,” Graves told the Journal in an interview. “I filed for re-election, and I was still kind of evaluating…my next chapter in life, and what that might look like.”
He told the paper that he made the decision earlier this week.
There were already two GOP candidates in the primary who were expected to run against him in the northern Missouri district, but this could mean even more candidates shift to go after the now-open seat.
There has been a tidal wave of retirements (https://www.alternet.org/congress-2674843078/) (52) announced this year, most of them (36) from the GOP as they face what is expected to be a very difficult election for candidates in President Donald Trump's party.
A few of those Republicans ended up leaving before their term was even finished, (https://www.alternet.org/trump-republican-retirements/) leaving an open seat that required an appointment or a quick special election where the winner would turn around and run again less than a year later.
"Graves said his departure wasn’t tied to the rough and tumble state of the House or to any concerns about re-election. While Missouri is one of the states that has joined a redistricting fight to carve out more seats and keep the House GOP majority, Graves’s seat was affected very little and he said it didn’t play a role in his decision," the report said.
Graves confessed he's not sure what he'll do next, but it won't be running for any other offices. His comments seem to indicate he wants to be a lobbyist.
“I would love to be able to help business steer its way through the legislative process, or associations, companies, whatever the case may be, and help them achieve what their outcome is,” he said.
Before leaving Congress, Graves said that he wants to figure out a way to modernize the nation’s air-traffic control system. His chief accomplishment, he said, is passing the 2024 Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization signed by President Joe Biden.
It was part of a huge effort under former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg with funding under Biden's infrastructure bill (https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-begins-investing-1b-bipartisan-infrastructure-law-funding-air-traffic-control-system) that sought to overhaul everything from roads and bridges to power, water, internet and other utilities. A large sum was used to recruit air traffic controllers to ensure a more sustainable pipeline.
“He’s always been a very reasonable, pragmatic, solutions-oriented member. And I think people always appreciate that,” said Paul Sass, who previously worked with Graves on the Transportation Committee before joining a lobbying firm.
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SEE PENSION PARDON CORRUPT GRIFT
an 3 26
Conservative Dispatch CEO and editor Steve Hayes visited Bonita Springs, Florida, during campaign season and says (https://thedispatch.com/article/madison-cawthorn-chris-collins-florida-byron-donalds-donald-trump-maga/) he found the kind of political personalities you get in “Trump country.”
Former U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn was one of the first personalities Heyes shined a light on trying to nab Florida’s 19th Congressional District. In his article, titled “Meet the Has-Beens, Never-Weres, and Felon Locked in a Trumpy Primary,” he makes clear he is not impressed.
“That Cawthorn is a viable candidate — indeed, given his name recognition and MAGAworld celebrity status, he’s considered a real contender—says a lot about the contest in this dark red corner of Florida’s Gulf Coast and about the state of the Republican Party in the Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) era,” said Hayes, recounting Cawthorn’s congressional service beginning “with a rousing speech to the pro-Trump mob at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021,” where he praised the mob’s “willingness to fight, declared the 2020 election fraudulent, and later voted against certification.”
But that same career ended with “a flurry of bizarre and discrediting moments over the weeks leading up to the GOP primary for his reelection campaign,” said Hayes.
“A week after he lost that primary contest, the House Ethics Committee announced it was investigating the congressman for a possible improper relationship with a staffer and for a potential conflict of interest in his promotion of the LGB (Let’s Go Brandon) cryptocurrency,” for which he was ultimately fined $15,000,” said Hayes.
Another Trump Republican with a legal background would be former New York U.S. Rep. Chris Collins, who was charged with lying to the FBI in 2018, on top of charges related to insider trading. Republican leaders stripped Collins of his committee assignments. And even though he initially insisted on his innocence, two months later he accepted a plea deal. Three months after that he confessed his guilt at his sentencing hearing.
“Jonathan Barr, another lawyer for Collins, told Judge Vernon Broderick: ‘He accepted responsibility for his crimes, he has demonstrated sincere remorse. There is no excuse for the conduct. He doesn’t make any excuses for the conduct,” reports Hayes.
At the community meeting in Florida Hayes said Collins “used his opening remarks to emphasize (again and again) his coziness with Trump, [but] he left out the best evidence of their close relationship: Trump pardoned Collins after his guilty pleas and let him out of prison just two months into a two-year sentence.
But being an ally of Trump is what really matters in this deep-red Trump district, said Hayes. In fact, of all the candidates (and there are many more than Cawthorne and Collins) the only candidate whose website didn’t lead with Trump is Jim Oberweis, said Hayes. But of course his campaign—like all the others—is “nudging the White House political team for a Trump endorsement.
Every candidate is allied on policy, so the only advantage is which one gets the presidential nod, said Hayes.
“Nobody’s really campaigning — except to campaign to Trump,” said Francis Rooney, the former representative for the district. “The idea of Trump, the impact of Trump and MAGA is so overwhelming right now that the people want to be in that tent. And so they’re focusing on the things that are going to get the attention of the MAGA leadership.”
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AN 3 26
MAGA accuses Oklahoma’s new GOP senator of being a 'rabid anti-Trump congressman' - Alternet.org (https://www.alternet.org/news-politics/maga-2676613163/)
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Women are fleeing the MAGA right’s rampant misogyny: conservative (https://www.alternet.org/cathy-young-trump-maga/)
Alex Henderson (https://www.alternet.org/author/alex-henderson)
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RWW 3 26
Claire Heddles @ The Miami Herald (https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article314928484.html): ‘Nazi heaven’: Inside Miami campus Republicans’ racist group chat
The secretary of Miami-Dade County’s Republican Party started a group chat primarily for conservative students last fall — and within three weeks it was filled with racist slurs, someone wrote dozens of ways of violently killing Black people and the chat was renamed after what one member described as “Nazi heaven.”
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an 3 26
colo state rep
Republican Colorado Rep. Scott Bottoms told parishioners at his church Sunday that the FBI was responsible for the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump (https://www.rawstory.com/trump-news/), 9News reports. (https://www.9news.com/article/news/politics/national-politics/colorado-state-rep-says-fbi-behind-attempted-assassination-trump/73-66200689-b5e8-4024-9c09-ee6b748185fc)
“I believe it's the FBI,” Bottoms, who had no evidence to back up his claim, said from the church pulpit, according to 9News. “I’m not talking about the Democratic Party. I’m talking about the people that are controlling our country. The people that have been controlling the FBI, controlling the State Department.”
Bottoms is the pastor at the Church of Briargate in Colorado Springs and is notorious for espousing Q-Anon conspiracy theories and extremist far-right rhetoric. He was elected to represent Colorado Springs in 2022.
Bottoms said Sunday the reason Trump survived the attack is because God protected the former president, 9News reports, and that there will not be an election in November unless Trump is dead. His claims were without any evidence.
“This is just the beginning,” Bottoms said. “They need that man dead.”
Bottoms previously sparked controversy by claiming the FBI facilitated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and by calling his fellow lawmakers “pedophiles,” according to Colorado Politics. (https://www.coloradopolitics.com/news/julie-mccluskie-reprimands-elisabeth-epps/article_0f374fcc-af12-11ee-8a42-0b337c7657d2.html)
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an 3 26
CNN's Manu Raju reported that two sources told him that Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) waited until the last minute to withdraw from his Senate race for a key reason.
Writing Thursday, Raju (https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/05/politics/daines-senate-race-block-democrats) said that Daines was scared that a popular Democrat would announce they'd run for the open seat and win.
On Wednesday, Daines' announcement was made just eight minutes before the candidate filing deadline closed in Montana. It means there was only a tiny moment for well-known Democrats like former Sen. Jon Tester or former Govs. Brian Schweitzer and Steve Bullock to declare their intentions to run. With such a Democrat on the ballot in a year that is expected to be a blue wave, it would have put the Montana Senate seat in play.
The following day, Thursday, NBC News reported (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/rump-kristi-noem-replacements-dhs-secretary-congress-hearings-rcna261915) that Daines is among two possible candidates being considered to replace Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
The President is reportedly furious with her after her testimony this week before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees
The White House has already contacted Daines’ office, the two sources told NBC News. The report didn't indicate if anyone else was contacted by the White House.
Independent candidate Seth Bodnar said in a statement that Daines “has so little respect for Montana Republicans that he withdrew at the last minute to coronate his handpicked successor instead of giving them a voice at the ballot box.”
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an 3 26
Yet another Republican lawmaker is refusing to seek reelection in 2026, when President Donald Trump’s second term experiences its likely-costly midterm elections.
Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) told reporters on Wednesday that he will not seek reelection (https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5768186-utah-gop-rep-retires/), saying in a statement that “after prayer, reflection, and many long conversations, I have decided that I will not seek reelection in 2026. I will complete this term fully committed to my work in Washington, DC, and then step away from elected office.”
He added, “I began this political journey over six years ago with a simple question: Can I do more to advocate for our at-risk children? That question led me into public service, with a focused passion on education where the cancer of hopelessness and training for ‘social advocacy’ has taken hold in too many of our public schools.”
Owens, who has served in the House since 2021, joins a total of 53 US House members and nine US senators (https://www.alternet.org/send/trump-republicans-2675538756/) who have announced they will not seek reelection this year. Of this group, 37 of the retiring lawmakers are Republicans. Also seeing the writing on the wall, the conservative magazine The Bulwark argued (https://www.alternet.org/trump-tariffs-2026/) last month that voters are connecting higher prices with Trump’s unpopular tariffs.
“Voters are rarely able to connect policy to outcomes, but they have done so in the case of tariffs,” wrote The Bulwark’s Mona Charen. “Back in 2024, Americans were about equally divided on the question of trade, with some favoring higher tariffs and roughly similar numbers opting for lower tariffs. Experience has changed their views.”
Robert Kagan, a conservative historian with an extensive history writing about foreign policy, warned CNN’s Christiane Amanpour last month that Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) is planning on rigging the midterms because his Republican Party is likely to do poorly in them.
“The U.S. Congress — both parties — are unwilling to really fight Trump,” Kagan told Amanpour (https://www.alternet.org/trump-democrats-midterms/), later continuing that “I am worried, as I have said and others have been pointing out, about whether we will even have free and fair elections in 2026, let alone in 2028. I think Trump has a plan to disrupt those elections, and I don't think he's willing to allow Democrats to take control of one or both houses as could happen in a free election.”
White House spokeswoman Abigail T. Jackson told AlterNet in response to these criticisms (https://www.alternet.org/trump-bogus-election-claims/) that the administration is only trying to root out voter fraud.
“President Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections, and that includes totally accurate and up-to-date voter rolls free of errors and unlawfully registered noncitizen voters,” Jackson told AlterNet. “The President has also urged Congress to pass the SAVE Act and other legislative proposals that would establish a uniform standard of photo ID for voting, prohibit no-excuse mail-in voting, and end the practice of ballot harvesting. Noncitizen voting is a crime. Anyone breaking the law will be held accountable.”
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an 2 26
Mitch McConnell's staff abandons him to support Trump - Alternet.org (https://www.alternet.org/mitch-mcconell-trump/)
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RWW
02/24/2026
by
Kyle Mantyla (https://www.peoplefor.org/post_author/kyle-mantyla)
Hafiz Rashid @ The New Republic (https://newrepublic.com/post/206952/donald-trump-drops-case-democrats-message-troops): Trump Team Quietly Drops Case Against Dems in “Illegal Orders” Video
The Washington U.S. Attorney’s office previously failed to get a grand jury indictment of the group.
Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog (https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/as-trumps-election-conspiracy-theories-take-an-ugly-turn-the-search-for-evidence-flails): As Trump’s election conspiracy theories take an ugly turn, the search for evidence flails
The key detail the administration’s search for voter fraud shares with its search for weaponization: Looking for mirages inevitably fails.
Colby Hall @ Mediaite (https://www.mediaite.com/opinion/kash-patel-is-acting-like-a-wannabe-influencer-not-an-fbi-director/): Kash Patel Is Acting Like a Wannabe Influencer, Not an FBI Director
Kash Patel, the director of the FBI, using a government plane to attend a hockey game overseas. Locker room beer chugging. The sitting president on speakerphone. Reports of a girlfriend traveling with a security footprint. Banners bearing President Donald Trump’s image hanging outside the Justice Department building. All while high-profile cases linger, victims seek justice, cartel violence escalates, and a wannabe assassin was killed by authorities at Mar-a-Lago.
Tessa Stuart @ Rolling Stone (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/tony-gonzales-sex-scandal-calls-resign-maga-lawmakers-1235521634/): MAGA Lawmakers Call for Republican to Resign Following Release of Disturbing Texts
House Speaker Mike Johnson won’t say whether Rep. Tony Gonzales should step down, as the GOP clings to a slim majority.
Tony Gonzales Sex Scandal Leads to Calls to Resign from MAGA Lawmakers (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/tony-gonzales-sex-scandal-calls-resign-maga-lawmakers-1235521634/)
Will Sommer @ The Bulwark (https://www.thebulwark.com/p/why-wont-the-white-house-cut-tucker-carlson-loose-huckabee-israel): Why Won’t the White House Cut Tucker Loose?
He makes life miserable for Trump officials and the drama is endless. But he’s still scoring presidential invites.
Wiktoria Gucia @ The Daily Beast (https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-favorite-sentenced-for-blowing-campaign-cash-on-vegas-trips/): MAGA Favorite Sentenced for Blowing Campaign Cash on Vegas Trips
The failed GOP candidate embezzled approximately $250,000.
A failed congressional candidate with a fondness for QAnon conspiracy theories and Donald Trump has been sentenced to four years in federal prison on fraud charges.
Omar Navarro, 37, made a name for himself by repeatedly failing to unseat Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters from Congress, only to later be accused of helping himself to campaign funds. He was charged with embezzling approximately $250,000 from his political campaign in a scheme involving his mother and a friend, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said in a statement. (https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/four-time-congressional-candidate-sentenced-4-years-federal-prison-funneling-campaign)
Navarro was indicted on 43 federal charges (https://www.thedailybeast.com/failed-gop-candidate-omar-navarro-accused-of-funneling-donor-money-to-fund-vegas-escapades/) in 2023, including 13 counts of wire fraud, 26 counts of falsifying records, three counts of prohibited use of campaign funds, and one count of conspiracy. He pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in June 2025.
Navarro failed four times to unseat Rep. Maxine Waters, who has served as the U.S. representative for California's 43rd congressional district since 1991.
“Navarro knew and understood that campaign funds raised by him and others for his campaign were restricted to supporting his election efforts and could not be used for his own personal use or enjoyment,” the statement read. (https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/four-time-congressional-candidate-sentenced-4-years-federal-prison-funneling-campaign)
Maxine Waters Foe Exits Jail, Tries to Destroy GOP OpponentMAN ON THE RUN (https://www.thedailybeast.com/california-rep-maxine-waters-foe-omar-navarro-gets-out-of-jail-and-attempts-to-destroy-fellow-republican/)
Will Sommer, (https://www.thedailybeast.com/author/will-sommer)Sam Stein (https://www.thedailybeast.com/author/sam-stein)
(https://www.thedailybeast.com/california-rep-maxine-waters-foe-omar-navarro-gets-out-of-jail-and-attempts-to-destroy-fellow-republican/)
Over his four congressional runs between 2016 and 2022, Navarro conspired with his mother, Dora Asghari, 61, and his friend, Zacharias Diamantides-Abel, 37, to convert campaign donations for personal use.
Both Navarro’s mother and friend pleaded guilty to their individual charges, with Asghari facing up to five years in prison at her April sentencing hearing.
Navarro spent donor money on video games and vacations.KHALED DESOUKI/KHALED DESOUKI/AFP via Getty Images
“To use these funds for personal use and to fund his lavish lifestyle, Navarro illegally transferred campaign checks to himself by sending payments to Asghari and Abel,” federal prosecutors said in the statement.
“Navarro’s scheme deprived the campaign and its donors of approximately $268,932 in campaign funds,” they said.
The Republican candidate is said to have used his donors’ money for trips to Las Vegas, Nintendo Switch video games, a private investigator, and personal criminal defense lawyers as he faced previous legal troubles.
Boebert Used Campaign Funds to See Rumored Rockstar LoverROCK RECEIPTS (https://www.thedailybeast.com/lauren-boebert-torched-for-using-campaign-funds-to-see-rumored-rockstar-lover/)
Adam Downer (https://www.thedailybeast.com/author/adam-downer)
[
In 2019, Navarro was arrested for felony stalking (https://www.thedailybeast.com/maxine-waters-trump-loving-challenger-omar-navarro-arrested-for-stalking/), criminal threats, and attempted extortion related to his ex-girlfriend and conservative activist DeAnna Lorraine Tesoriero, after he appeared near her apartment despite a restraining order issued against him earlier that year.
Navarro has been in legal trouble previously.Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast
Nancy Mace Solicits Donations on Fox, Flouting House Rules‘PRINCIPLED STAND’ (https://www.thedailybeast.com/nancy-mace-solicits-campaign-funds-on-fox-flouting-house-rules/)
Justin Baragona (https://www.thedailybeast.com/author/justin-baragona)
(https://www.thedailybeast.com/nancy-mace-solicits-campaign-funds-on-fox-flouting-house-rules/)
“I think a lot of this power has gotten into his head. He has a lot of money now from campaign donations,” Tesoriero told the Daily Beast at the time.
Navarro eventually pleaded guilty to a stalking charge (https://www.thedailybeast.com/california-rep-maxine-waters-foe-omar-navarro-gets-out-of-jail-and-attempts-to-destroy-fellow-republican/) and was sentenced to six months in a San Francisco jail, claiming he only pleaded guilty because he would have become a “political prisoner” otherwise.
The 37-year-old was also convicted in 2016 for attaching an illegal electronic tracking device to his then-wife’s car and was sentenced to 18 months of probation. (https://www.dailybreeze.com/2017/10/19/congressional-candidate-omar-navarro-on-probation-for-illegal-use-of-tracking-device/)
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AN 2 26
Solomon Peña, a New Mexico GOP candidate who lost a November election, was arrested (https://apnews.com/article/new-mexico-state-government-crime-albuquerque-shootings-fbed4efadff3bc7469f83a01dd888e63) as a key suspect in a series of drive-by shootings that specifically targeted Democratic lawmakers’ homes, The Associated Press reports.
Peña suggested that the election was “rigged” after he lost to incumbent state Rep. Miguel P. Garcia by approximately 3,600 votes.
NBC reported in November (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/spiral-violence-fear-creating-angst-many-voters-ahead-midterm-election-rcna55740) that many “Republicans fear democracy is in peril because they believe that elections are rigged against them” and that former president Donald Trump’s false claim of voter fraud have encouraged his supporters to “use force or intimidation” — hence the Jan. 6 insurrection. Peña has confirmed (https://twitter.com/SolomonPena2022/status/1592012995902640129?s=20&t=BWXO7BKrib-BJANFaoTM7Q) in a tweet that he was in Washington, D.C. on the day of the attack.
READ MORE:Law professor’s Jan. 6 takeaway: the 'threat of political violence' is 'far from over' (https://www.alternet.org/january-6-committee-2658988065/)
Later that month, Peña also tweeted a photo (https://twitter.com/SolomonPena2022/status/1592733859216773120?s=20&t=BWXO7BKrib-BJANFaoTM7Q) of himself wearing a "Make America Great Again" sweatshirt, with the caption "Trump just announced for 2024. I stand with him. I never conceded my HD 14 race. Now researching my options." Around the same time, the 39-year-old Albuquerque resident took it upon himself to show up at the homes of elected officials uninvited, in an attempt to prove that he won the election. Not too long after that, the shootings began on December 4 (https://apnews.com/article/new-mexico-state-government-crime-albuquerque-shootings-fbed4efadff3bc7469f83a01dd888e63).
Harold Medina, Albuquerque Police Chief called Peña a “mastermind” (https://apnews.com/article/new-mexico-state-government-crime-albuquerque-shootings-fbed4efadff3bc7469f83a01dd888e63) of a “politically motivated conspiracy” that resulted in the shootings, which occurred at the homes of Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboas, New Mexico Rep. Javier Martinez, Bernalillo County Commissioner Debbie O’Mally — whose home received “more than a dozen rounds” of bullets — and lastly, New Mexico Senator Linda Lopez, who confirmed that three bullets grazed her 10-year-old daughter’s room.
Peña, although the key suspect, is not the only one. The “failed Republican candidate” (https://apnews.com/article/new-mexico-state-government-crime-albuquerque-shootings-fbed4efadff3bc7469f83a01dd888e63) paid four other men cash to execute the shootings using stolen cars, although he, himself, did “pull the trigger” in one of the shootings.
A few hours after investigators detected gunfire rippling through Sen. Lopez’s neighborhood, an officer discovered bullet casings in a car driven by Jose Trujillo and registered under Peña’s name. The car contained over 800 fentanyl pills and two firearms.
READ MORE:New report destroys GOP talking points blaming Dems for crime: Trump states have 8 out of the 10 highest murder rates (https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/mccarthy)
The New Mexico GOP responded to Peña’s arrest in a statement, saying, “If Peña is found guilty, he must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
More arrests and charges are on the horizon (https://apnews.com/article/new-mexico-state-government-crime-albuquerque-shootings-fbed4efadff3bc7469f83a01dd888e63), according to police, and the investigation remains ongoing.
READ MORE:'Not just an aberration': Hillary Clinton blasts the GOP's embrace of calls for political violence (https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/not-just-an-aberration-gop)
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an 2 26
anec but still
A 23 year-old British woman was shot dead by her own father after the two had a heated argument about then-President-elect Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump), according to a new report.
The Daily Beast reported Tuesday (https://www.thedailybeast.com/british-woman-shot-dead-by-father-after-arguing-about-donald-trump/) that Lucy Harrison was fatally shot by her father, Kris, in early 2025 while she was visiting him at his home in Texas. According to the Beast, Kris Harrison moved to Prosper, Texas (a suburb of Dallas) when his daughter was a child. The argument reportedly took place on January 10, 2025, before Trump officially began his second term.
While Prosper police investigated Lucy Harrison's death as a manslaughter case, a grand jury in Collin County, Texas ultimately declined to indict Kris Harrison. Now, Lucy Harrison's death is being investigated by Cheshire Coroner's Court in her home country.
According to reports, Lucy Harrison's boyfriend, Sam Littler, recalled in a recent court hearing that his girlfriend had a "big argument" with her father in the aftermath of Trump's reelection. Lucy Harrison had brought up the multiple allegations of Trump assaulting women, and asked her father of Trump: "How would you feel if I was the girl in that situation and I’d been sexually assaulted?"
According to Littler, Kris Harrison responded that because he had two other daughters living in his home, he wouldn't be too distraught if Lucy Harrison was assaulted by Trump. The 23 year-old reportedly became "quite upset" and left the room. Later that day, Kris Harrison took Lucy Harrison by the hand and led her to his bedroom. Just seconds later, Littler said he heard a loud "bang" and then heard Kris Harrison call for his wife.
"I remember running into the room and Lucy was lying on the floor near the entrance to the bathroom and Kris was just screaming, just sort of nonsense," Littler recalled.
Kris Harrison argued that he and Lucy were watching a news segment on gun violence, when he asked her if she would like to see his gun. He then said he led her into his bedroom to show off his Glock 9mm semi-automatic handgun. Kris – who is a recovering alcoholic – said he relapsed on the day of his argument with Lucy and drank an entire bottle of white wine.
"As I lifted the gun to show her I suddenly heard a loud bang," he said. "I did not understand what had happened. Lucy immediately fell."
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an 2 26
President Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) and his Republican Party are in danger of losing one or both houses of Congress during the upcoming midterm elections, according to NPR (https://www.npr.org/2026/02/09/nx-s1-5704794/trump-house-of-representatives-republicans-midterm-elections) — and there is more than one reason why this is the case.
NPR points to five specific variables that suggest Trump and the Republicans will suffer significant losses in November. Trump’s approval rating is currently at 39% and has remained below 40% since November, even though parties whose presidents have less than 50% approval ratings lose an average of 32 House seats during midterm elections. On average, the president’s party has lost 27 House seats and four Senate seats since World War II. Because of Trump’s unpopular economic, immigration and foreign policies, he is polling poorly among key groups that he won during the 2024 election, including independents, young voters and Latinos.
Honing in on the economy, NPR pointed out as its second observation that 54% of Americans feel Trump should prioritize lowering prices and only 36% approve of his handling of the economy. Almost three out of four voters (72%) say his economy has been either fair or poor, while roughly three out of eight (38%) say they believe conditions will worsen. More than half (52%) say Trump’s policies have made things worse.
NPR’s third point is that Democrats have recently overperformed in special elections, including a recent Texas State Senate race held in a district that Trump won by 17 points in 2024 but was won by the Democratic candidate by 14 points, indicating a 31-point swing. Overall Democrats have overperformed their 2024 margins by an average of nearly 16 points in the various congressional, gubernatorial and special elections that have occurred during Trump’s second term.
Making matters more ominous for Republicans, NPR’s observes as its fourth point that 30 Republican House members are retiring this cycle compared to only 21, both reflecting on Republicans’ feelings of vulnerability and because — with only a four-vote margin in the current House (https://pressgallery.house.gov/member-data/party-breakdown) — the nine-vote deficit eliminates House Republicans’ potential incumbency advantage.
Finally, Democrats currently hold a roughly 5-point advantage over Republicans when voters are asked which party they want to control Congress, a significant shift from when Republicans led on this question last year.
Further fleshing out Republicans’ midterms dilemma, Press Pass author and Bulwark congressional correspondent Joe Perdicone (https://www.alternet.org/trump-midterms-republicans-retiring/) explained that Trump’s dominance over the Republican-controlled Congress has actually hindered individual members’ ability to serve their constituents’ local needs.
“Mike Johnson does everything that Trump says and he doesn't allow anything that Trump won't allow. And, so, the House doesn't get to do anything,” Perticone said. “You don't get to prioritize your little pet projects. A lot of these members of Congress, they like to do things that are very specific to their interests. But when you have this paralyzed floor, you have a very thin majority. So they're not having fun right now and they know it's only going to get worse when they're in the minority. So, you know, go find a job elsewhere. Go get rich lobbying.”
Many of Trump’s critics worry that, in anticipation of losing the midterm elections and facing potential impeachment, he will try to rig them in his favor. Trump has lent credibility to these concerns by baselessly claiming the 2026 midterm elections will be rife with fraud and that he therefore may need to send ICE to monitor them. The White House even recently announced a position of FBI Election Executive (https://www.alternet.org/trump-fbi-2675106928/), a seemingly-new position they claim is not an original creation.
To explain Trump’s actions, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday that there is “horrible corruption on elections — and the federal government should not allow that. The federal government should get involved.”
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AN 2 26 LOUDERMILK
Mass exodus of Republicans continues as 30th GOP rep announces retirement from Congress
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RWW
01/20/2026
by
Kyle Mantyla (https://www.peoplefor.org/post_author/kyle-mantyla)
Sean James @ Mediaite (https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/trump-proclaims-god-is-very-proud-of-his-first-year-back-in-the-white-house/): Trump Proclaims ‘God Is Very Proud’ of His First Year Back in the White House
The Good Lord is smiling down approvingly at President Donald Trump — according to the president.
Ashley Parker @ The Atlantic (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/01/trump-first-year-democracy/685658/?gift=c_badRqhhaNnVNIbhIguY_34R2YHMQCNjo3q7H0_5v4): Trump Exhaustion Syndrome
Among the greatest tricks Donald Trump ever pulled is convincing significant portions of the population that the slow erosion of their rights is not, actually, that big of a deal.
New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/01/20/opinion/editorials/trump-wealth-crypto-graft.html): How Trump Has Pocketed $1,408,500,000
One year ago, Donald Trump took an oath to serve the American people. Instead, he has focused on using the presidency to enrich himself.
Alex DeLuca @ Miami New Times (https://www.miaminewtimes.com/music/video-miami-club-plays-heil-hitler-for-right-wing-influencers-40518757/): Miami Club Plays ‘Heil Hitler’ for Right-Wing Influencers
The group was seen throwing up Nazi salutes inside the Miami Beach nightclub.
Andrew Kordik @ Salon (https://www.salon.com/2026/01/20/moms-for-liberty-could-have-the-last-laugh/): The revival of Moms for Liberty
After setbacks and scandals, the group's efforts have expanded — and its role in public education is growing.
Olivia Little @ Media Matters (https://www.mediamatters.org/nick-fuentes/nick-fuentes-instagram-takeover): Nick Fuentes’ Instagram takeover
An army of groypers is spamming Instagram with Fuentes’ content, netting millions of views.
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an 1 26
One high-ranking Republican state lawmaker in New Hampshire was recently seen advocating for racially segregated public schools in her state, according to a new report.
In a Wednesday article (https://granitepostnews.com/2026/01/14/leaked-signal-chat-shows-nh-house-education-chair-advocating-whites-only-schools/), Granite Post – the New Hampshire-based website for the liberal Courier Newsroom media brand – reported that state representative Kristin Noble (R), who is the vice chair of the House Education Policy and Administration Committee, posted favorably about separating students by race in a group chat for Republican lawmakers. A screen recording of the "EdPolicy2026" group chat (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CgjpVewdPp4MM3jAcNGJXlToAZCY-2td/view) an unnamed member of the Education Committee leaked to Granite Post shows a user using the vice chair's first and last name talking about "fun stuff" that could be done "when we have segregated schools."
"Imagine the scores though if we had schools for them and some for us," Noble wrote.
Republican state representative Katy Peternel – who is the assistant majority leader in the New Hampshire House of Representatives – responded to Noble's message with a laughing-crying emoji.
Noble's comments were roundly condemned by Democrats. State representative David Landau, who is the ranking member of the House Education Funding Committee, said Noble's remark was "more than shocking" and "disgusting."
"It’s not who we are as a state. It’s not who we are as a country. And we’re better because we go to schools together and because we learn together and we work together, because ... that’s how life is," Landau told Granite Post.
According to the outlet, Noble has sponsored 2026 legislation that would ban the teaching of "critical race theory," or CRT, in public schools. The NAACP has previously argued (https://naacp.org/articles/naacp-condemns-anti-critical-race-theory-bills-and-calls-teaching-about-american-slavery) that the push to ban CRT is rooted in a desire by conservatives to limit curriculum teaching students about slavery and Black history.
AlterNet has reached out to Rep. Noble for comment.
Click here (https://granitepostnews.com/2026/01/14/leaked-signal-chat-shows-nh-house-education-chair-advocating-whites-only-schools/) to read Granite Post's report in full.
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GREIVance IN A BIGGER SENSE // STORY 1
AN 12 25
In his New York Times column and frequent appearances on MS NOW, journalist David French isn't shy about attacking President Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) from the right. Like other Never Trump conservatives — from attorney George Conway to MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace to The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson — French believes that Trump and the MAGA movement have been terrible for the GOP and terrible for conservatism.
But French examines MAGA's belief system in his December 14 column for the Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/opinion/maga-right-wing-young-voters.html). MAGA, according to French, believes that Trump is fighting to save the United States from a "death spiral" — and that combination of anger and "despair" is one of the things that makes MAGA and the "New Right" so dangerous.
"In this telling," French explains, "the 'strong men' of the American past had created a glorious and powerful nation. Our peace and prosperity had spawned a weak and feckless generation that had squandered America's strength and cultural identity, and now, it was time for hard men to arise to reclaim what was lost. This view of America's glorious past is indispensable to understanding MAGA's appeal — and the extremism of MAGA youth. After all, the slogan, 'Make America Great Again' implies the loss of greatness."
French continues, "This sense of loss provides the intellectual and — crucially — emotional foundation of the right's authoritarian turn. It's hard to overstate how much the New Right idealizes America's past. Online spaces are full of memes and images, for example, of families from the 1950s in idyllic settings, often with the caption, 'This is what they took from you.'"
The New Right, French observes, typically "contrasts its vision of a glorious past with a miserable present."
"Now, combine that hyperbole with smartphones and social media, and you've got a recipe for a nonstop sense of alarm," the conservative New York Times columnist warns. "I can open my Twitter feed and see video after video of outrageous conduct, and no amount of telling myself that these are isolated incidents in a nation of over 340 million people can blunt their emotional impact."
*David French's full New York Times column is available at this link (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/opinion/maga-right-wing-young-voters.html) (subscription required).
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DIFFERENT FRACTURES FOR DIFF SUB-GP REASONS?
Who’s afraid of Candace Owens?
A movement built to support Donald Trump can’t cordon off conspiracy theories
Written by Matt Gertz (https://www.mediamatters.org/author/matt-gertz)
Published 12/11/25
Long-simmering feuds among right-wing influencers reached a boiling point this week when Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika used an appearance on Fox News to denounce people she said (https://x.com/FoxNews/status/1998817529293078816) were “making hundreds of thousands of dollars” by pushing conspiracy theories about her husband’s killing. Her plea for those individuals “to stop,” obviously intended for her husband's former colleague, the popular streamer Candace Owens, triggered an outpouring of criticism on the right against “extremists” promoting “hateful conspiracy theories” who had somehow been allowed into the movement.
But in a sign of the durable position such conspiracy theorists hold within the movement — and the immense demand for their work — many of the high-level pundits trying to lay down guardrails did not mention by name either Owens or her primary ally in the MAGA schism, Tucker Carlson.
“The Right’s media apparatus is how the Right teaches its followers how to think, and it’s currently getting consumed by conspiracy, psychodrama, and tabloid conflicts,” The Manhattan Institute’s Chris Rufo said (https://x.com/christopherrufo/status/1998888641243001114?s=46) in one such salvo. “If left unchecked, it will turn the audience into the equivalent of a Third World click farm.”
Can you imagine?
It is patently absurd to claim that right-wing media figures injecting deranged lies into their audience is somehow a new phenomenon. The right is dominated by President Donald Trump, the poster child for “conspiracy, psychodrama, and tabloid conflicts.” And Rufo’s ilk were happy to foster such insanity as long as it was pointed at the left in the service of electing Republicans.
But now the same tools are being turned inward, against other right-wingers, and while they’re furious that this is happening, the apparatus they helped build is so powerful that they are unable to name their foes.
A fight over Charlie Kirk’s legacy — and the Jews
Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel caused a split (https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2025/06/13/the-maga-split-over-israel-00405778) in a right-wing commentariat otherwise united around Trump. One side includes conservative Jews like Ben Shapiro and Laura Loomer, who supported Israel’s subsequent brutal campaign in Gaza and traffic in anti-Muslim (https://www.mediamatters.org/laura-loomer/laura-loomer-pitches-banning-muslims-running-office-members-congress) invective (https://www.mediamatters.org/ben-shapiro/foxs-chris-wallace-ignores-ben-shapiros-history-bigotry-and-misinformation). On the other side are “America First” figures like Owens and Carlson who both opposed the campaign and used it as an opportunity (https://www.mediamatters.org/elon-musk/mask-week-right-wing-antisemitism) to revive noxious antisemitic (https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2024/03/22/candace-owens-antisemitism-daily-wire-shapiro/) conspiracism (https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/tucker-carlson-pushing-nazi-apologias-and-holocaust-denial-he-addressed-rnc-just). The divide has repeatedly made headlines, particularly in November (https://www.mediamatters.org/nick-fuentes/following-tucker-carlsons-interview-nick-fuentes-fault-lines-have-emerged-right-wing) when Carlson gave a friendly interview to Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist streamer who regularly (https://www.mediamatters.org/diversity-discrimination/nick-fuentes-jews-are-running-society-women-need-shut-fuck-blacks-need-be) rails (https://www.mediamatters.org/nick-fuentes/nick-fuentes-goes-rant-about-powerful-jews-their-trauma-their-community-their-jokes) against (https://www.mediamatters.org/white-nationalism/nick-fuentes-lets-get-all-towel-heads-one-side-well-get-all-tiny-hats-other-and) “the Jews,” who he has claimed “are destroying this country (https://www.mediamatters.org/white-nationalism/nick-fuentes-jews-are-destroying-country-because-country-doesnt-want-support).”
Owens has been claiming since Charlie Kirk’s tragic killing (https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/killing-charlie-kirk-political-violence-and-rights-response) in September that at the time of his death, he was coming around (https://www.axios.com/2025/09/17/charlie-kirk-israel-candace-owens-ackman) to her view of Israel. Based on that premise (which Kirk allies deny), she has speculated that Kirk may have been assassinated (https://www.mediaite.com/media/candace-owens-drops-yet-another-charlie-kirk-conspiracy-theory-the-u-s-military-was-involved/) by pro-Israel henchmen worried that he was turning on them, perhaps with help from elements within TPUSA (https://www.mediaite.com/media/podcasts/charlie-kirk-producer-hits-back-at-candace-owens-accusing-her-of-inciting-harassment-of-those-close-to-him/) and the U.S. military. These sorts of wild claims are typical of Owens’ oeuvre: She is currently being sued (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/conservative-influencer-candace-owens-sued-for-defamation-over-claims-that-frances-first-lady-is-a-man) for claiming that the first lady of France is secretly a transgender woman (https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/candace-owens-transvestigation-series-targeting-frances-first-lady-reaching-new-audiences), and has told her followers that she has been targeted for death (https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-874818#google_vignette) by an assassination squad composed of French law enforcement and “at least one Israeli.” Her claims have been denounced by the likes of Shapiro (https://nypost.com/video/candace-owens-fires-back-at-ben-shapiro-after-he-alleges-she-made-shocking-claim-about-charlie-kirk-murder/) and Loomer (https://x.com/LauraLoomer/status/1975396445344678147), but cheered on by Carlson (https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1998850838362792377) and fellow traveler Alex Jones (https://x.com/RealAlexJones/status/1975707171133202532).
Erika Kirk appeared (https://x.com/FoxNews/status/1998817529293078816) on Fox’s Outnumbered on Wednesday to address in part what host Harris Faulker described as “hate” and “conspiracies” in the wake of her husband’s death.
“Come after me, call me names, I don't care,” she said. “Call me what you want, go down that rabbit hole, whatever. But…when you go after the people that I love and you're making hundreds of thousands of dollars every single episode going after the people that I love because somehow they're in on this? No.”
“My message to them is to stop — to stop,” she concluded.
Neither Erika Kirk nor Faulkner mentioned Owens’ name. But Owens immediately recognized that the segment (https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1998875562782441863) had been “about me.” And rather than stopping at the widow’s request, she doubled (https://x.com/DefiantLs/status/1998901794517180439?s=20) down (https://x.com/TheRightMelissa/status/1998897474237247916?s=20).
The Fox segment encouraged other right-wing pundits who typically avoid weighing in on intramovement controversies to speak out — albeit without mentioning who they were talking about.
Fox star Sean Hannity used his radio show on Wednesday to call out (https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/sean-hannity-calls-out-online-commentators-who-are-saying-most-incendiary-outrageous) online commentators for “saying the most incendiary, outrageous, bizarre, conspiratorial, in some cases, outright racist, white nationalist, virulent antisemitism, and they make money off the, quote, clicks that they can then monetize because, you know, people like the shock value of it.” After praising Erika Kirk’s Fox appearance, he lashed out at “people with no evidence spreading the most vile, hateful conspiracy theories about Charlie's assassination,” calling them “grifters” who are “not MAGA.”
The hosts of Fox & Friends likewise aired (https://www.mediaite.com/media/tv/fox-friends-slams-tucker-carlson-and-candace-owens-for-charlie-kirk-conspiracies/) Erika Kirk’s remarks and criticized unnamed persons pushing conspiracy theories about her husband’s death on Thursday. “People are making money. They have unsubstantiated theories and are running with it,” Brian Kilmeade said.
MAGA slop king Benny Johnson (https://www.mediamatters.org/benny-johnson/maga-influencer-benny-johnsons-job-have-no-principles-business-booming) also posted (https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1998823312458203504) the video of Erika Kirk going “absolutely SCORCHED EARTH against evil people monetizing Charlie Kirk's death and attacking her family and the families of those close to Charlie and TPUSA,” adding: “Thank God we are finally here. The Demons are Screaming.” He has not mentioned (https://x.com/search?q=owens%20%28from%3Abennyjohnson%29&src=typed_query&f=live) Owens by name on X since posting in April 2024 about a potential Owens/Shapiro debate over antisemitism.
For Fox contributor Hugh Hewitt, meanwhile, this is a tempest in a teapot. Responding to a discussion started by Rufo’s post on Wednesday, he claimed (https://x.com/hughhewitt/status/1999094310474523076?s=46) that such (unnamed, of course) “grifters” only have the “illusion of influence,” while “center-right to conservative media is flourishing.” Citing podcasts with relatively small audiences and Fox’s Special Report, “the most watched news show by serious people in the country,” he commented (https://x.com/hughhewitt/status/1999094310474523076?s=46), “A handful of extremists cannot pollute the sea of offerings but it’s still best just to ignore them.”
It is certainly possible in a fractured media environment for a Republican apparatchik with intellectual pretensions (https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/new-msnbc-host-hugh-hewitt-sean-hannity-glasses) to find some voices who will make him feel good about the choices he’s made. But Owens and Carlson both host podcasts (https://podcastcharts.byspotify.com/) on Spotify’s top-10 list, and the latter spoke (https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/convention-preaching-unity-cant-feature-tucker-carlson) at the 2024 Republican National Convention after shepherding the selection of JD Vance (https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/jd-vance-donald-trumps-vp-pick-owes-everything-tucker-carlson) as the next vice president.
The guardrails are gone and all the conspiracy theorists are here
The MAGA movement that everyone on both sides of the divide supported during the 2024 presidential election worships a notorious fabulist (https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/what-journalists-can-do-when-president-liar) who emerged in GOP politics thanks to his role as the nation’s chief birther (https://www.mediamatters.org/rush-limbaugh/how-years-right-wing-medias-obama-hatred-paved-way-trump), reshaped his party around the twin lies that he actually won (https://www.mediamatters.org/axios/no-donald-trump-hasnt-stopped-lying-2020-election-was-rigged) the 2020 election and that the ensuing January 6 riots by his supporters were righteous (https://www.mediamatters.org/january-6-insurrection/january-6-and-people-who-knew-better), and is constantly lifting up the most noxious online slop (https://www.mediamatters.org/january-6-insurrection/january-6-false-flag-claim-made-it-president-0) imaginable.
Trump’s emergence speaks to both the willingness of mainstream right-wing institutions to accept a conspiracy theorist at the highest level of power, and the eagerness of the right-wing audience to buy the sort of lies he was selling. And his ascension has made it virtually impossible (https://www.mediamatters.org/laura-loomer/why-maga-movement-cant-cut-loose-toxic-liabilities-tucker-carlson-and-laura-loomer) for the resulting movement to draw lines and fully cut loose people who promote deranged falsehoods and bigotries.
Owens and Carlson became right-wing stars by promoting the same types of feverish claims while climbing established institutional pathways. New York magazine detailed (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/04/how-social-autopsy-fell-for-gamergate-trutherism.html) Owens’ conspiratorial habits of thinking all the way back in 2016, before her tenure at TPUSA, her nearly 200 appearances on Fox weekday shows over a five year span, or her time as Shapiro’s colleague at The Daily Wire (https://www.mediamatters.org/candace-owens/candace-owens-leaves-cancel-culture-comes-daily-wire). And Carlson had spent years mainstreaming white nationalist talking points as a Fox host before the network finally showed him the door (https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/why-did-fox-news-cuck-tuck). The pair assembled loyal audiences thanks to those right-wing institutions, which have found themselves able to take away their jobs but not able to stop viewers from following them to their new spaces.
And Carlson and Owens profited not in spite of their conspiracy theories, but because they fit neatly within a right-wing echo chamber that seemed purpose-built (https://www.mediamatters.org/hurricanes/it-takes-bubble) for their generation and propagation (https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/paul-pelosi-attack-video-shows-rights-conspiracy-theory-machine-out-control). People like Rufo and Hannity were happy to play along with bullshit about Haitian immigrants (https://www.mediamatters.org/immigration/local-officials-and-residents-around-country-keep-having-debunk-right-wing-media-hoaxes) eating pets or the Democrats assassinating (https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/how-sean-hannity-became-champion-seth-rich-conspiracy-theory) a party staffer when they could use such claims for the benefit of Trump (https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/maga-propaganda-machine-helped-carry-trump-back-white-house-and-its-not-done-poisoning) and the GOP. But now that the same habits of mind that made a swath of the right into QAnon adherents (https://www.mediamatters.org/qanon-conspiracy-theory/fox-news-dangerous-dance-qanon) are turned inside the tent, they are deeply concerned.
Meanwhile, neither Trump (https://www.axios.com/2025/11/17/trump-tucker-carlson-nick-fuentes-interview) nor Vance (https://www.mediamatters.org/nick-fuentes/what-are-jd-vance-and-sean-hannity-so-afraid) seem at all interested in trying to reestablish guardrails. Indeed, their administration is filled (https://www.npr.org/2025/05/30/nx-s1-5417902/trump-ingrassia-antisemitism-ethics) with conspiracy (https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-administration-taps-controversial-conservative-journalist-top-job/story?id=118369945) theorists (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/trump-names-conservative-podcaster-dan-bongino-deputy-fbi-director-rcna193395) seemingly (https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/dojs-new-voting-lawyer-has-web-of-ties-to-election-conspiracy-theorists/) picked (https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/14/politics/robert-f-kennedy-donald-trump-hhs) for that very (https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/26/dhs-election-security-2020-election-conspiracy-00527453) reason (https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5642391-gregg-phillips-fema-trump-election-denier/), indicative of a political movement that is marbled through (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/14/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-john-ganz.html) with crackpots and extremists (https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/14/private-chat-among-young-gop-club-members-00592146). And the worst is surely yet to come (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/opinion/nick-fuentes-kirk-successor.html).
MMA
//
- ### What are J.D. Vance and Sean Hannity so afraid of? (https://www.mediamatters.org/nick-fuentes/what-are-jd-vance-and-sean-hannity-so-afraid)
11/14/25 11:40 AM EST
- ### Candace Owens leaves as cancel culture comes to The Daily Wire (https://www.mediamatters.org/candace-owens/candace-owens-leaves-cancel-culture-comes-daily-wire)
03/22/24 3:27 PM EDT
- ### A mask-off week for right-wing antisemitism (https://www.mediamatters.org/elon-musk/mask-week-right-wing-antisemitism)
11/21/23
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SEE RETALIATION
an 12 25
Politico reports (https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/05/trump-allied-pacs-target-indiana-republicans-blocking-redistricting-push-00678520) a group of Trump-aligned super PACs are working to oust Indiana Republicans who have opposed flagrant mid-decade redistricting giving Republicans a boost in preserving their House majority.
Andrew Kolvet, spokesperson for Turning Point, told POLITICO that the group would partner with other aligned PACs to dedicate an “eight-figure spend” to “primary people that are standing in the way of the president’s agenda.”
“We look at Indiana as a test case and a cautionary tale, potentially one or the other, it’s their choice,” said Kolvet. “This is a super high priority, and we’re going to be working with the local, grassroots to make sure their voices heard and their priorities are not steamrolled by an out-of-touch elected class.”
Politico reports Indiana state House Republicans released a draft congressional map earlier this week that would flip the state's congressional map from a Republican advantage of 7-to-2 to 9-to-0. But the effort has faced resistance from some of the state’s Republicans, including Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, who remains opposed to the plan.
Other opposition comes from state senator Michael Bohacek (https://www.alternet.org/trump-gerrymander-slur/) (R), who announced he would not be supporting Trump's mid-decade redistricting plan after he called Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) a slur. The Republican lawmaker said on his official Facebook page that as a parent of a child with Down Syndrome, he couldn't endorse Trump's plan due to his use of the word.
Despite Republicans having a 40-10 supermajority in the chamber, it has repeatedly rejected Trump’s calls (https://www.alternet.org/trump-gop-2674362863/) — including by recent vote to adjourn. Around the same time that was happening in mid-November.
Some Indiana Republicans are already getting threats of violence (https://www.alternet.org/republican-lawmaker-trump-threats/) from MAGA elements angered that they are opposing the power grab, with nearly a dozen state lawmakers reporting that they have been the victims of SWAT or doxing attempts.
Read the Politico report at this link (https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/05/trump-allied-pacs-target-indiana-republicans-blocking-redistricting-push-00678520).
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AN 1225
US Sen. Rick Scott, former CEO of the company that was at the center of the biggest Medicare fraud scheme in American history, has emerged as the most vocal Republican proponent of healthcare reform, warning his fellow GOP lawmakers that continued refusal to engage with the issue risks a “slow creep” toward single-payer healthcare.
On Thursday, according to (https://www.axios.com/2025/12/03/rick-scott-republicans-affordable-care-act) Axios, Scott (R-Fla.) is “convening a group of House and Senate conservatives on Capitol Hill to pore over fresh polling to develop GOP alternatives to the Affordable Care Act.”
Late last month, Scott unveiled his own proposal (https://www.rickscott.senate.gov/2025/11/sen-rick-scott-introduces-bill-to-fix-obamacare-and-drive-down-health-care-costs) titled the More Affordable Care Act, which would keep ACA exchanges intact while creating “Trump Health Freedom Accounts” that enrollees could use to pay for out-of-pocket costs. Scott’s plan, as the health policy group KFF explained (https://www.kff.org/affordable-care-act/the-new-aca-repeal-and-replace-health-savings-accounts/), would allow enhanced ACA tax credits to expire and let states replace subsidies in the original ACA with contributions to the newly created health savings accounts.
“Unlike ACA premium tax credits, which can only be used for ACA Marketplace plans, the accounts in the Scott proposal could be used for any type of health insurance plan, including short-term plans that can exclude people based on preexisting conditions,” KFF noted. “States could also waive certain provisions of the ACA, including the requirement to cover certain benefits.”
“While ACA plans would still be required to cover people with preexisting conditions under the Scott proposal,” the group added, “it is likely that the ACA marketplace would collapse in states that seek a waiver under his approach.”
Last month, amid the longest government shutdown in US history, Scott leapt at the opportunity (https://x.com/SenRickScott/status/1987165587890717168) to champion possible Republican alternatives to the healthcare status quo, despite his ignominious record.
In 2003, the US Justice Department announced that the hospital chain HCA Inc.—formerly known as Columbia/HCA—had agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties and damages to settle what the DOJ characterized as the “largest healthcare fraud case in US history.”
Scott resigned as CEO of Columbia/HCA in 1997, days after federal agents raided company facilities as part of the sweeping fraud probe. The federal government and company whistleblowers said the hospital giant “systematically defrauded” Medicare, Medicaid, and other healthcare programs through unlawful billing and other ploys.
“In 2000, Scott invoked the Fifth Amendment 75 times in a deposition as part of a civil case involving his time leading the company,” Florida Phoenix reported (https://floridaphoenix.com/2024/05/13/sen-rick-scott-again-maintains-that-clinton-doj-went-after-me-when-he-led-his-hospital-chain/) last year. A former HCA accountant accused (https://www.tampabay.com/hca-whistleblower-revives-claim-that-scott-knew-of-fraud/2200916/) Scott, who was never directly charged in the case, of leading “a criminal enterprise.”
Scott later served two terms as governor of Florida and is now one of the wealthiest members of Congress, and he maintains he was the victim of a politically motivated DOJ investigation.
“The Clinton Justice Department went after me,” Scott complained during his 2024 Senate reelection campaign.
It’s unclear whether Scott’s healthcare ideas will gain sufficient traction with President Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) and Republican lawmakers, who have seemed content to bash the existing system without proposing anything concrete or viable to replace it. Trump was supposed to unveil his own healthcare proposal (https://prospect.org/2025/11/25/trump-obamacare-plan-affordable-care-act/) last month, but the White House pulled the plug amid GOP pushback.
Some members of the Democratic caucus, meanwhile, are making the case (https://www.commondreams.org/news/van-hollen-medicare-for-all) for the very system Scott is warning his colleagues about.
“Let’s finally create a system that puts your health over corporate profits,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said earlier this week. “We need Medicare for All (https://www.commondreams.org/tag/medicare-for-all).”
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an 11 25
On Newsweek’snew video podcast "The 1600," constitutional scholar and lifelong conservative Justin Stapley warns that the MAGA movement’s (https://www.alternet.org/rot-maga-mind/) problems run far deeper than any single election cycle.
Stapley, host of The Conservative Underground (https://conservativeunderground.substack.com/) podcast, argues that the "GOP’s outward strength under President Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) masks a partyincreasingly defined by internal division, (https://www.newsweek.com/republican-realignment-matrix-the-fight-to-control-post-trump-maga-11089630) ideological drift, and the growing influence of populism and online-driven extremism," Newsweeksays (https://www.newsweek.com/maga-trump-republicans-reagan-justin-stapley-1600-carlo-versano-11115071?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawOUHhtleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFNSWo2eTZ0Ykp6a0hucFNkc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHnW6ZZoAy4v_S4upIkxjMk-StU4s-7k0KL_epANKu079SAYhrZ9NL1i4HNJl_aem_syekcep8Er37VdfIa5npAw#Echobox=1764179245).
"Speaking with Newsweek's Carlo Versano, Stapley warns that Trump’s personal dominance has masked the extent to which traditional conservatism (https://www.newsweek.com/topic/conservatism) has been sidelined, leaving Republicans (https://www.newsweek.com/topic/republicans) unprepared for what comes after Trump," they write.
In response to Versano saying "Republicans got smoked" in the November elections, Stapley, who is also the state director of the Utah Reagan Caucus, says the problem runs deeper than just one election cycle.
"What we’ve discovered is that the last 10 years haven’t been a direct ideological shift so much as a propaganda coup," he says.
"People will walk up with a swagger, red MAGA (https://www.newsweek.com/topic/maga) hat, angry look, and say, 'Oh, we've got a zombie Reaganite over here.' And then everyone else will stop and say, 'Wait, I thought we liked Reagan.' There’s confusion among ordinary Republicans," he adds.
Those "ordinary Republicans," he explains, are not part of the MAGA movement and are still steeped in Reaganism. (https://www.alternet.org/trump-maga-2674308777/)
"Ordinary Republicans still embrace Reaganism and traditional conservatism because they understand the country is built on deep philosophical roots," he says. If people want to abandon all that because it's 'holding us back,' that’s not what many Republicans signed up for."
Stapley is no Trump fan, saying, that while we've had some bad presidents before, "he’s worse because we’ve gutted the checks and balances (https://www.alternet.org/trump-autocracy-american/) that used to exist."
"Congress has become almost an empty branch of government — even though it was meant to be the 'first among equals.' The modern presidency has grown and grown. Congress has become the president’s foot soldiers," he says.
Stapley also explains that there is a crack in the MAGA base because Trump "can't please everyone," and he sees MAGA morphing into something entirely different that what it is currently.
"We may soon see 'America First' meaning something very different from MAGA," he says.
"Trump still holds the MAGA brand, but you have people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson (https://www.newsweek.com/topic/tucker-carlson), Matt Walsh saying 'I’m America First, and I’m America Only.'"
Without Trump on the ballot in 2028, Stapley says Republicans have work to do.
"Republicans need to figure out their identity. People say they’ve remade themselves into a blue-collar populist party with a bigger coalition. But that coalition doesn’t show up without Trump," he says.
They also need to realize the truth about Trump.
"Even with Trump, we’ve overestimated his strength. He’s run in three consecutive presidential elections and never broken 50 percent," he says. "He has a 47 percent ceiling unless he’s running against a candidate who’s mentally not there or one who didn’t go through a Democratic selection process."
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MMA
November 23, 2025, edition of MSNOW's The Weekend
EUGENE DANIELS (MS NOW HOST): Angelo, you spend a lot of time, probably more than anyone at this table, looking through right-wing media apparatus and kind of the world that is happening there. What we keep hearing from folks, whether it's here on MS NOW or other news organizations that are saying there's cracks in the MAGA base because Marjorie Taylor Greene is leaving and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah — but you spend a lot of time — is there actually cracks in the MAGA base, or is this something that we're over reading?
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): I think that, I wouldn't use the word base, right? The narrative is starting to unravel a little bit, and that's why it seems like there's this chaos or cracks. There is dissension. There certainly is. I mean, part of what we've been dealing with for so long is a consistent narrative coming out of the right-wing media. That's why we call it an echo chamber. And in a way, Trump has been the conductor for that chorus, which has helped him sort of not just have political power, but control the story. And what you're seeing in the last, you know, month or so are these cracks, Marjorie Taylor Greene being one example of that, the Tucker stuff with Nick Fuentes, lots of other examples. And I think what that — there are discrepancies. And I think it is reflective of two things. One, Trump does not have his finger on the zeitgeist the way that he typically does. He just isn't as connected to that audience and that's given him the ability to bob and weave and sort of control them and layer in things and sort of anticipate where it's going and that's why Marjorie Taylor Greene had a leg up on this.
DANIELS: Does it feel different this time? Because we've seen these cracks. You talked about Elon Musk. But like for years, since 2015, we've seen the Republican Party figure out how to love Trump again, whether it's Ted Cruz, who Trump called his wife ugly, to Marco Rubio who's now the secretary of state when he was talking about Trump's hands. Does this time feel different, the cracks, the dissension?
CARUSONE: Yeah, it does, it does. And now that does not mean that Trump is not dangerous. That's not to diminish his political power, his destructiveness. There's clearly a lot of it there. But what's different this time is sort of a much more — a forward looking idea. And they're all sort of looking beyond 2028. I mean, Tucker even did it explicitly, something they don't talk about. He was doing an interview with Paul Dans not that long ago where they were talking about it's time to start thinking about what happens after Trump. But that is like taboo — a year, six months ago, three months ago, that would have been taboo. But now that is a topic that they all want to think about and that's been the difference. So now I think it's fair to call him a lame duck. They would not have called him a lame duck a month ago. And Marjorie Taylor Greene is one part of that storyline unraveling. And I also think it's reflective on the larger media is that we all love a heel turn and we have to be careful.
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an 11 25
In Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right (https://archive.ph/o/VCk2H/https://bookshop.org/a/12476/9780691255262), political theorist Laura K. Field explains how "under \President Donald] Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump), post-liberal intellectuals have abandoned tradition for radicalism and scholarship for vulgarity," [according to a review in The Atlantic (https://www.theatlantic.com/books/2025/11/how-trump-corrupted-intellectual-right/685021/?utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawORXmNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEea8fV3joi79vG9QJ56g3cytNgps0UqgXIfGPGUMiO9fAMkNDqVWa6w1GX0CU_aem_CgssoilLDlje6xEVMbvkmg).
"For the past decade or more, the intellectual energy in American politics has been on the right," writes George Packer.
"The MAGA ideologues who provide America’s new ruling elite with any claim to having a world view should be understood as offspring of a shared parentage, not unlike the Lovestoneites, Trotskyites, and Shachtmanites of 1930s and ’40s communism," he continues.
"More reactionary than conservative, their political ancestry is in the underground of the American right — Strom Thurmond (https://archive.ph/o/VCk2H/https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/why-racial-polarization-is-still-central-to-south-carolina-politics/251765/), Joseph McCarthy (https://archive.ph/o/VCk2H/https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/08/laura-loomer-trump-era-joseph-mccarthy/683928/), Patrick Buchanan — rather than the forward-looking Reaganite libertarians who dominated the Republican Party for four decades," he adds.
MAGA's modern hero, Packer says, aren't philosophers or even a Nazi theorist of authoritarianism.
"They share a revulsion toward liberalism and pluralism, which, they believe, have corroded the moral and spiritual fiber of America by accommodating false ideologies and harmful groups. Their modern hero is Viktor Orbán (https://www.alternet.org/news-politics/trump-maga-brand/)," he writes, of the authoritarian Hungarian president.
Field's book explains how this affects American democracy today.
"The American experiment in egalitarian, multiethnic democracy fills these intellectuals with anxiety, if not loathing," Packer writes.
"As Field notes, they often express undisguised hostility toward women, sexual minorities, the 'woke Marxists' of the left, and the cultural elites of the 'soulless managerial class,'" he explains.
The mood of MAGA intellectuals, Packer notes, is "overwhelmingly negative."
“The movement is, in many respects, untethered from the ordinary decency and common sense that characterize America at its idealistic best, and from the pluralistic reality of the country as it exists today," Fields says.
Packer says that Field's "background perfectly positions her to deliver this lively, devastating taxonomy and critique of MAGA’s ideologues."
"She was originally trained in Straussian scholarship — a reading of classical political thought that criticizes the modern turn away from the sources of moral authority toward liberalism and, in Strauss’s view, nihilism," he explains.
Packer notes that "anti-liberal intellectuals made a Faustian bet that this coarse real-estate developer and reality-TV star would be the vehicle for realizing the Good, the Beautiful, and the True."
"Trump was the strongman brought to bring liberalism to heel,” Field writes.
Packer says that "in attaching themselves to MAGA, they did less to influence the new regime than Trump did to corrupt (https://www.alternet.org/trump-lies-hypocrisy/) them."
"The MAGA right has filled a vacuum created by popular disenchantment with globalization, neoliberal economics, mass immigration, political corruption, technological power and democracy itself," Packer adds.
There's one thing Field doesn't have the ability to explain in her book, Packer writes.
"A question that Field touches on but never analyzes in depth is why liberal minds haven’t produced an equally potent answer" to the MAGA right.
"Liberals are in the necessary but untenable position of having to defend democracy from right-wing assault in an age of broad discontent," Packer explains.
"They need their own theorists and influencers, their own institutes and manifestos, to undertake the historic task of not only reversing America’s self-destruction, but showing the next generation why liberal democracy offers the best chance for a good life," he concludes.
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AN 11 25
It’s been a hallmark of most of the noteworthy political movements that have emerged and risen to power in modern times that their leaders aspired to use government power to improve society. Plenty of these movements were deeply flawed or downright fraudulent, but virtually all – even some of the worst authoritarian parties and leaders –have at least professed to have a plan for using the levers of power in an intentional way to make life better for average people.
Here in the U.S., until recently, even archconservatives who opposed many social welfare programs were still committed to strengthening the national defense in order to help defend the nation and its allies against foreign adversaries, and to boosting basic components of societal infrastructure that they saw as aiding in that effort — like public education, transportation and public health.
Weirdly and disturbingly, however, this is not the case with the MAGA movement. While it’s true that Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) regularly dispenses absurd and delusional promises to magically solve every societal ill – promises that not even his most ardent supporters take seriously – when it comes to fashioning a real agenda for getting things done, the modern right is consistently and harmfully silent.
Indeed, save for their efforts to: a) enhance state police power vis a vis immigrant communities and women seeking to control their own reproduction, and b) strengthen their own capacity to remain in power through gerrymandering and election-rigging tactics, it’s clear that the main objective of MAGA conservatives when it comes to public structures is tearing things down.
Nowhere is this better exemplified than in North Carolina where, after a decade and a half of conservative Republican dominance in state government, it’s virtually impossible to identify any public system or structure – public and higher education, public health, environmental protection, transportation, courts and corrections — in which things are demonstrably better than they were at the start of GOP rule.
And nowhere is this sad pattern better exemplified today in North Carolina than in the current destructive budget stalemate between conservative leaders at the General Assembly.
North Carolina is now almost five months into the 2025-26 fiscal year, and it continues to operate without a new state budget. As a result, numerous core public structures and systems – perhaps most notably, its already fragile and dramatically under-resourced Medicaid health insurance program – are operating under old law and old, inadequate appropriations.
Mind you, this is not – as an outsider might superficially surmise – the result of a conflict between the state’s Republican-controlled legislature and its Democratic governor.
No, in this case, GOP legislative leaders never even passed a comprehensive budget bill for Democratic Gov. Josh Stein to consider. Instead, the state is being held hostage to their internal disputes over how drastically and rapidly to further eviscerate the state’s regressive and inadequate income tax structure, as well as a series of other mostly petty matters – like Senate Leader Phil Berger’s need to appear sufficiently reactionary as he tries to fend off a far-right Republican primary challenger in 2026 (https://www.wral.com/story/grassroots-slugfest-a-sheriff-in-a-cowboy-hat-is-trying-to-topple-one-of-nc-s-most-powerful-republicans/22237569/).
Gov. Stein has done his best to break the logjam and direct public attention to the destructive impact the stalemate is having – particularly on the Medicaid program, where the lack of funding certainty has forced his Health and Human Services department to slash reimbursements to providers to maintain program solvency. Earlier this month, he took the extraordinary step of calling lawmakers to Raleigh for a special legislative session (https://governor.nc.gov/news/press-releases/2025/11/06/governor-stein-calls-extra-session-fund-medicaid) to address the rapidly metastasizing problem that is likely to soon lead to preventable deaths of people no longer able to access health care.
It was precisely the kind of strong and common-sense leadership that North Carolinians undoubtedly expected when they elected Stein by a wide margin last November. The session was supposed to have commenced on Monday.
Unfortunately, legislative leaders were unmoved. Much like the Republicans in Washington who, despite their control of both Congress and the White House, allowed their own internal conflicts to translate into a record-breaking federal government shutdown and huge new health insurance rate hikes for millions of Americans, state Senate and House leaders have simply ignored Stein’s directive (https://ncnewsline.com/briefs/north-carolina-lawmakers-refuse-governors-call-for-special-session-on-medicaid/) and, in true Trumpian fashion, tried to disavow blame for the Medicaid crisis that their own failure to act has created.
And so, it appears that, absent a hard-to-imagine political 180, Republican leaders will stick to their plan to hold no further votes during the on-again, off-again 2025 legislative session, thereby allowing the Medicaid program – and dozens of other vitally important public structures and services — to wither on the vine while thousands of North Carolinians needlessly suffer.
And once again, instead of coming together to intentionally use the levers of government power to make life better for the many, Republican leaders will, in true MAGA fashion, remain committed to a do-nothing agenda for which the only discernible unifying principles are dysfunction and cruelty.
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newsom strong 11 25 post prop 50 blowout 2:1
an 11 25
In their latest look at how the 2028 presidential election (https://www.alternet.org/trump-2028-maga/) is shaping up on the Republican side of things, the Washington Post analyzes the early field (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/11/09/presidential-contenders-2028-republicans/), but says there's room for 'some surprises.'
The standouts, they write, include Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State and one-time Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) foil Marco Rubio (https://www.alternet.org/donald-trump-3rd-term/).
Because Vance has "done little set himself apart from Trump," they write, he is at the top of the list, according to September YouGov poll (https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/52959-who-do-democrats-and-republicans-want-as-their-2028-presidential-nominees).
Rubio, they write, is frequently mentioned as Trump's successor (https://www.alternet.org/trump-power-maga/), and even the president sees both Rubio and Vance as his heirs apparent.
"Marco’s great,” Trump said, adding of Vance and Rubio: “I’m not sure if anybody would run against those two. I think if they formed a group, it would be unstoppable.”
In what the Postdescribes as "the middle of the pack," are Trump's son Donald Jr (https://www.alternet.org/news-politics/trump-maga-2674263350/)., Ron DeSantis, the lame duck governor of Florida (https://www.alternet.org/trumpism-democrats-ezra-klein/) whom Trump publicly humiliated and eviscerated in the ephemeral 2024 Republican primary, and Senator Ted Cruz (https://www.alternet.org/bernie-moreno-jacky-rosenp/) (R-TX), another one-time Trump enemy turned rabid loyalist.
Donald Jr., writes the Post, "seems to be making the case that he’s the rightful heir to MAGA, saying (https://www.nj.com/politics/2025/10/is-america-ready-for-another-trump-in-the-white-house-new-poll-suggests-republicans-are.html) recently of his desire to run: “That calling is there. I think my father has truly changed the Republican Party. I think it’s the America First party now, the MAGA party, however you want to look at it.”
As for DeSantis, "His run as governor of Florida ends in 2027, so he will have to build momentum for a presidential run while out of public office," the Post reports.
And though Cruz is now a reliable Trump loyalist, the Post writes, "he has also been differentiating himself in small yet notable ways.
Cruz blasted the Trump administration’s threats to cancel (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/09/19/ted-cruz-carr-fcc-jimmy-kimmel/) late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over protected speech as "dangerous as hell", has warned against Trump’s tariffs, and recently said (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cruz-cannot-support-trumps-kuwait-ambassador-pick-over-muslim-brotherhood-remarks) he can’t support Trump's allegedly antisemitic pick (https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/10/28/congress/another-doomed-trump-nominee-00625374)for Kuwaiti ambassador.
Then there are the "dark horses," the Post says, including "Trump himself," in reference to his taunts of an illegal third term (https://www.alternet.org/bannon-seize-control/), and Department of Homeland Security leader Kristi Noem (https://www.alternet.org/krugman-trump-great-gatsby/), whom Trump considered as his vice president when she was governor of South Dakota.
Noem, the Post says, has led the mass deportations which have "become one of Trump’s best-known — and controversial — policies, and Noem has owned it."
Another dark horse, the Post says, is health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr (https://www.alternet.org/idiotic-hot-take-maha-doc-claims-to-know-why-trump-is-confused-and-cankly/)., who has convinced Trump to regularly share "unfounded vaccine skepticism," despite recently getting vaxxed himself.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is another dark horse, as is Utah's governor "Spencer Cox or another not-quite-MAGA candidate," the Post says, adding that "Republican strategists expect someone like Cox — or perhaps former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley or even former vice president Mike Pence (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/11/03/mike-pence-conservative-republican-book/)— to run for president as an alternative to Trumpism."
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AN 11 25
ANOTHER CIVIL WAR? // 5?
NO LNX
‘The whole thing is imploding’: Inside the rebellion at America’s top right-wing think tank
David Badash andThe New Civil Rights MovementNovember 09, 2025
Founded in 1973, the Heritage Foundation has become what its president, Kevin Roberts, now hails as the “intellectual backbone” of the conservative movement. It crafted the policy blueprint that powered President Ronald Reagan’s right-wing revolution — and today, under Roberts’s leadership, it’s once again shaping the machinery of power. Through its highly controversial Project 2025 — a plan widely credited to Roberts as its chief architect — Heritage laid out a road map for President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda. But Roberts’s recent missteps have rattled the institution, raising strong questions about his leadership — and the future direction of the conservative movement itself.
Roberts gained widespread attention in July 2024 when he issued a warning to Democrats: “we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
At the time, Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer said, “they are threatening violence.”
As did others.
“Kevin Roberts is threatening violence to anyone not following his dear leader,” former Republican and former U.S. Congressman Denver Riggleman wrote. “Every network should cover this."
Roberts’s remarks had come just after the U.S. Supreme Court recognized a new constitutional principle of “presidential immunity” for official acts — a decision critics say President Donald Trump has wielded to expand his power.
Late last month, Roberts came under tremendous criticism after throwing his support behind former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who had a two-hour interview with far-right extremist leader Nick Fuentes, whom many see as promoting Christian nationalism, white supremacy, racism, antisemitism, misogyny, and Islamophobia.
"There has been speculation that @Heritage is distancing itself from @TuckerCarlson over the past 24 hours," Roberts wrote on October 30 when posting the video that sparked this current firestorm. "I want to put that to rest right now."
The editors of the right-wing National Review in a scathing editorial explained the issue: “Tucker Carlson, knee-deep already, has taken another step into the muck with a friendly interview with Nick Fuentes.”
HERITAGE "WILL ALWAYS DEFEND OUR FRIENDS ... THAT INCLUDES TUCKER CARLSON"
Roberts had wasted no time in coming to Carlson's defense.
“The Heritage Foundation didn’t become the intellectual backbone of the conservative movement by canceling our own people or policing the consciences of Christians. And we won’t start doing that now,” he said in his video supporting Carlson.
Roberts insisted that Heritage "will always defend our friends against the slander of bad actors who serve someone else’s agenda. That includes Tucker Carlson, who remains, and as I have said before, always will be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation.”
Criticism of Roberts was immediate.
Journalist Yashar Ali called it a "watershed moment."
"In his statement," Ali wrote, "Kevin condemns what he calls a 'venomous coalition' that is 'sowing division' by attacking Tucker. That 'venomous coalition,' includes MAGA Republicans as well as Jewish conservative commentators, activists, and donors."
"Kevin also frames Nick Fuentes’s rhetoric as worthy of debate, rather than something to be condemned outright. A shift like this would’ve been unthinkable for Heritage just three years ago."
Condemnations came, and continue to do so — from both outside and inside Heritage.
CNN's Andrew Kaczynski on Thursday reported on what one senior staffer called the "absolute s--" swirling inside Heritage.
"The staff that we talked to told us the Heritage Foundation is in open revolt over the president's defense of Carlson," Kaczynski explained.
That senior staffer also told CNN that Roberts had "lost control over the organization."
Kaczynski noted that they also "said there's an open rebellion, and this really all came to a head [Wednesday], where they had this all hands meeting ... this was kind of going around social media, where Roberts publicly apologized, according to her recording we obtained, Roberts told employees, 'I made a mistake. I let you down. I let this institution down. I'm sorry.'"
"But," Kaczynski added, Roberts "also made clear he has no plans to resign."
On Friday, Reason senior editor Stephanie Slade wrote that at a Thursday night event, "I was asked if the crisis at Heritage Foundation seemed to be blowing over. This morning I received a message from someone inside the building about Kevin Roberts: 'He needs to be made to resign by the [Heritage] Foundation Board of Trustees.'"
"In speaking to current and former Heritage staffers over the last week," Slade continued, "the emotion I've most commonly encountered is disgust and the words I've most commonly heard are 'Kevin Roberts has to go.'"
By Wednesday, as Ali noted, Roberts had "made his fourth public statement on the Tucker Carlson/Nick Fuentes situation ... over the course of six days." After the initial video that ignited the firestorm, Roberts made three other attempts to "clean up" his remarks.
According to The Wall Street Journal's Elliot Kaufman, Heritage senior fellow Amy Swearer, in remarks before Heritage staff, told Roberts, "over the last week, you have shown a stunning lack of both courage and judgment."
She called Roberts' initial defense of Carlson "at best ... equal parts incoherent, unhelpful and naive."
"At worst, it was more akin to a master class in cowardice that ran cover for the most unhinged dregs of the far right."
"LOST MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN DONATIONS"
Heritage also appears to be losing important donors.
"One major donor, whose organization contributes more than a half million dollars annually to Heritage Foundation, told us that they had totally lost faith in Roberts," Kaczynski reported.
"They said, 'I see how things play out, but if Kevin remains as president, we will not be giving to Heritage.'"
"Likewise, the Zionist Organization of America, that's actually the oldest pro-Israel group in the United States, announced that it has withdrawn from Heritage's initiative on antisemitism, unless Roberts publicly apologized, and retract his praise for Carlson."
Newsmax reported that "Zionist Organization of America President Morton Klein told Newsmax Friday that Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts should resign immediately."
"My organization has many of the same donors as Heritage," Klein also said. "They've told me that they're stopping all funding for Heritage until they get rid of Kevin Roberts, so yes, they have lost millions of dollars in donations since this controversy arose."
Klein also "pointed to longtime Heritage fellow Stephen Moore's recent departure."
"He doesn't want to be involved with Heritage, which is now tainted as an antisemitic, bigoted organization," Klein told Newsmax. "It's harmed everything else they do."
Mark Goldfeder, CEO of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, told The Wall Street Journal on Friday that “Any tent that is big enough for them ...is too big for me,” referring to Fuentes and his allies.
The Journal reported that "Goldfeder resigned from Heritage’s National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism in the aftermath of Roberts’s video."
"CIVIL WAR AT THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION"
Other critics outside Heritage have also been observing Roberts' crumbling support, and what it means for the future of the organization, its president, and the conservative movement.
"The civil war at the Heritage Foundation is far more consequential than most people realize," noted Mike Madrid, the prominent Latino Republican political consultant. "The divide seems irreconcilable and it could splinter the American right irreversibly."
Conservative New York Times opinion columnist David French wrote on Sunday, "I don’t know if Roberts will survive at Heritage."
"I do know that Carlson and Fuentes and their constellation of friends and allies are far too popular to cancel or even to contain," he noted, and observed: "The fight for the future of the Republican Party is underway."
And pointing to a Washington Post article on the crisis at Heritage, Madrid declared: "The whole thing is imploding."
---
// CORRUPT?
AN 11 25
President Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) went on a Sunday night pardon spree, granting full clemency to at least 77 individuals involved in promoting alternate electors in battleground states after the 2020 election, including former Trump attorneys John Eastman (https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/feds-seize-john-eastman-electronics) and Rudy Giuliani (https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/the-press-has-a-rudy-giuliani-problem) and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows (https://www.alternet.org/mark-meadows-flips-on-trump/), according to Axios (https://www.axios.com/2025/11/10/trump-pardons-giuliani-fake-electors-2020-election).
Announced by U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin (https://www.alternet.org/trump-2026-midterms-2674279322/), the pardons cover potential federal offenses but exclude Trump himself and do not affect ongoing state prosecutions in Georgia, Arizona, and Michigan.
Others who received pardons include attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, attorney and Acting Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget Jeffrey Clark, and attorney and former Trump strategic advisor Boris Epshteyn.
Legal experts describe the action as largely symbolic, given the absence of federal charges against the recipients, but critics excoriated the pardons on social media.
One wrote on X (https://x.com/Buffawoes/status/1987845759023128727) that this move means the country is "waving goodbye to democracy again."
Chef Courtney Brown wrote that (https://x.com/chefcourt1/status/1987845755038798006)"AmeriKKKa has lost its way! This is an absolute disgrace!"
"The fact that NO ONE will be held to account for conspiring to illegally keep Trump in office is one of the most distressing and infuriating consequences of the 2024 election," posted another (https://x.com/AJazzmom98/status/1987774438742593945) critic on X.
An x user by the name of America First Democrat posted (https://x.com/America1stDem/status/1987752626872631402), "So basically no one who participated in efforts to illegally overturn the 2020 election can be held accountable? The lawlessness of this administration knows no bounds."
Retired Naval reservist and self-described "JFK Libertarian" David Rouse said (https://x.com/USNRCEC/status/1987839346372710607), "This only reflects #Trump (https://x.com/hashtag/Trump?src=hashtag_click)'s total disdain for the #Constitution (https://x.com/hashtag/Constitution?src=hashtag_click) he swore to "protect, preserve, and defend". Pardoning his accomplices in an attempt to overthrow the 2020 fair election that he lost, makes a mockery of the #Rule_of_Law (https://x.com/hashtag/Rule_of_Law?src=hashtag_click) and endangers us all!"
Tech CEO Simon St-Onge wrote (https://x.com/lestechnomages/status/1987775721419186288), "When people see injustices, criminals pardoned because they know the leader, they lose faith in the justice system, and take their own defence in to their own hands. That’s a premise for barbarism and violence, and war amongst citizens. We should never tolerate injustice, I pity America, the land of the free is no longer so. It will take years, to make it great again. The USA is alone now, with a few other countries lead by autocratic leaders, demented narcissistic men, like Trump and Putin, devoted to themselves, and themselves alone."
"It's about the political whims of Donald Trump," said MSNBC's justice and intelligence reporter Ken Dilanian.
---
---
SCHISM? ESP AFTER 11 25 ELECTION?
RWW
11/06/2025
by
Kyle Mantyla (https://www.peoplefor.org/post_author/kyle-mantyla)
Andrew Kaczynski and Steve Contorno @ CNN (https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/politics/nick-fuentes-tucker-carlson-heritage-foundation-kevin-roberts?cid=ios_app): Fierce backlash within GOP after Tucker Carlson gives White nationalist Nick Fuentes a platform
Nick Fuentes, the well-known White nationalist and Holocaust denier, has ignited a civil war within the Republican Party — and inside one of Washington’s most prominent conservative think tanks.
Clyde McGrady @ The New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/us/politics/nick-fuentes-trump.html): Nick Fuentes’s Rise Puts MAGA Movement in a ‘Time of Choosing’
After Mr. Fuentes’s interview with Tucker Carlson, Republicans are considering just how far his views are from the nationalism embraced by President Trump’s followers.
James Kirchick @ The New York Times (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/11/06/tucker-carlson-nick-fuentes-heritage-foundation-antisemitism/): How Tucker Carlson instigated an inevitable war within MAGA
Finally, the battle lines are being drawn as conservatives grapple over a bigotry in their midst.
Jane Lee, Isabella Corrao, Harrison Ray and Rob Savillo @ Media Matters (https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-demanded-presidents-know-whom-they-pardoned-then-trump-said-he-didnt-know-crypto): Fox News demanded that presidents know whom they pardoned. Then Trump said he didn’t know the crypto tycoon he pardoned.
Fox News has spent 1 hour and 23 minutes discussing Biden’s use of the autopen while airing only 3 minutes of coverage on Trump's pardon of founder of Binance. Trump claimed on 60 Minutes that he knew “nothing about” the pardon.
Ryan J. Reilly @ NBC News (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/dc-sandwich-guy-verdict-rcna242142): Jury acquits D.C. 'sandwich guy' charged with chucking a sub at a federal agent
Sean Dunn faced a single misdemeanor after federal grand jurors refused to indict him on the felony charge sought by prosecutors.
---
an sn 10 25
A Politico article about a leaked group chat of Young Republican leaders from across the country making racist, homophobic and misogynistic comments includes two people from Arizona, one of whom has documented ties to the white nationalist groyper movement.
The group chat of top officials in Young Republican Federation chapters from across the country, dubbed “RESTOREYR,” was leaked to Politico, which reported on a litany of comments made by participants. Offensive comments included making racist remarks about Black people, talking about putting Democrats in gas chambers, forcibly raping their enemies and more. The chat includes more than 250 slurs and one person saying “I love Hitler,” according to Politico.
One of the members of the chat was Arizona Young Republican Chairman Luke Mosiman, 25, who was alleged to have made racially charged comments about Black people (https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/14/private-chat-among-young-gop-club-members-00592146?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR60p-qM2W7chd1z5h16eF_4vQocajH4gV9RjDyTqfJK4VZRb_6EL0w3OZssKQ_aem_zaVyqqFdDL-XzS8Orl-j_w#::text=When%20Luke%20Mosiman%2C%20the%20chair%20of%20the%20Arizona%20Young%20Republicans%2C%20asked%20if%20the%20New%20Yorkers%20in%20the%20chat%20were%20watching%20an%20NBA%20playoff%20game%2C%20Giunta%20responded%2C%20%E2%80%9CI%E2%80%99d%20go%20to%20the%20zoo%20if%20I%20wanted%20to%20watch%20monkey%20play%20ball.%E2%80%9D%20Giunta%20elsewhere%20refers%20to%20Black%20people%20as%20%E2%80%9Cthe%20watermelon%20people.%E2%80%9D) and even floated an idea of linking their opponents in an election over control of the Young Republican National Federation to white supremacist groups — before saying it could backfire because it could result in the Young Republicans they needed to win the elections instead backing their opponent.
The Young Republican National Federation released a statement (https://xcancel.com/yrnational/status/1978188660915777973?s=42) following the Politico report condemning the comments and calling for those involved to resign “from all positions within their state and local Young Republican organizations.”
In Kansas, the chairman of the state’s Republican Party announced that their Young Republicans chapter, which was involved in the chat leaks, was shut down (https://kansasreflector.com/2025/10/14/kansas-young-republicans-shut-down-after-politico-report-on-racist-violent-encrypted-chat/). And he Arizona Republican Party came out strongly against the “disturbing language” used by Young Republican leaders in a statement released (https://x.com/AZGOP/status/1978223273285496872) shortly after the story was published Tuesday
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But Mosiman and the Arizona Young Republicans resisted the call that he and Rachel Hope, whose comments in the group chat were also mentioned in Politico’s story, resign. In a written statement released late Wednesday, the group instead cast Mosiman and Hope, who is the organization’s events chair, as victims, saying they “firmly reject any involvement in the ongoing political witch hunt targeting fellow Young Republican members.”
Their statement called it “disheartening” to “witness the double standard” displayed by their opponents within the conservative movement. They also lashed out at critics, saying some have failed to condemn violent texts (https://virginiamercury.com/2025/10/15/jones-text-scandal-reshapes-virginias-attorney-general-race-and-tests-spanbergers-ticket/) by Virginia Democratic Attorney General candidate Jay Jones or social media posts (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz0x4e3zn2jo) celebrating the death of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, who was killed last month.
However, the group did condemn “Nazi ideology,” though its statement fell short of acknowledging what was said or apologizing for it.
“We express our sincere regret and unequivocally condemn any rhetoric that could be interpreted as sympathetic to Nazi ideology,” the statement says. The lengthy statement also says that the group has concerns over the way the messages were obtained and their validity.
Far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos (https://www.huffpost.com/archive/au/entry/how-australia-is-trying-to-normalise-milo-yiannopoulos-after-nazi-links_au_5cd37a22e4b0acea95016b6f) has claimed online, posting a sworn affidavit (https://x.com/Nero/status/1978495467378897142), that the chats were leaked by Gavin Wax, a staffer in Trump’s State Department who formerly led the New York Young Republican club, whose own problematic chats were revealed in 2023 (https://www.dailydot.com/viral-politics/liberty-conservative-leaked-chats-gavin-was/).
Mosiman has been viewed by some as a rising star in Arizona conservative politics, but he also has close ties with the far-right and had courted controversy long before the group chat.
Hitler’s birthday
In April 2022, U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar was listed as a “special guest” at an event in Tempe scheduled for April 20, a date that is revered by white supremacists (https://www.adl.org/resources/news/neo-nazis-stage-events-commemorating-hitlers-birthday-and-legacy) and neo-Nazis (https://www.adl.org/resources/news/hitler-birthday-events-feature-former-ss-soldier) because it is Adolf Hitler’s birthday.
The event had been organized by the American Populist Union, a white nationalist (https://politicalresearch.org/2021/07/20/forgotten-gamers-america) group that is closely aligned with groypers, the name for a group of young, male white nationalists (https://www.azmirror.com/2022/02/22/the-groyper-army-is-looking-to-make-white-nationalism-mainstream-it-has-key-allies-in-arizona-politics/) who strive for their ideas to become a part of the Republican mainstream and are largely followers of white nationalist Nick Fuentes (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/06/who-is-nick-fuentes-and-why-is-a-us-rep-buddying-up-to-the-segregationist-holocaust-denying-gen-z-influencer/). In 2021, Gosar was the first elected official to speak (https://www.azmirror.com/2021/03/01/paul-gosar-spoke-to-a-white-nationalist-conference-and-they-chanted-his-name/) at Fuentes’ America First Political Action Conference.
After the Mirror reported on Gosar’s promotion and anticipated attendance (https://azmirror.com/briefs/paul-gosar-to-attend-white-nationalist-social-gathering-on-hitlers-birthday/) at the event and spurred national media coverage, Gosar pulled out. His office said he was never planning to attend, even though he promoted it on his social media accounts.
Mosiman attended, and was later featured in photos posted by APU (https://populistunion.com/images/f/a/7/7/3/fa7734323299248cce4488ee3540072f07514b31-18c4c394129631362643ea8d1d5a6063278cdfmv2.png) and in
(https://youtu.be/5SlmjAwdu5Q?si=QGIpeapI45pfzwTT&t=35). Mosiman also follows a number of accounts connected to the groyper movement on his X account.
“Like it or not, Nick Fuentes is becoming a force in the GOP, you all need to understand that,” Mosiman said in a March 2021 tweet. “Stop acting like it’s a few nut cases, it’s not. Ignoring it isn’t working.”
Mosiman went on to say that he wasn’t a Fuentes supporter but he had watched his “Afpac speech” and it “was not bad.”
In that 2021 AFPAC speech, Fuentes called the Jan. 6 insurrection, where seven people died (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/us/politics/jan-6-capitol-deaths.html), “lighthearted mischief” and stressed white nationalist talking points (https://irehr.org/2021/03/10/advance-of-the-groypers-inside-afpac-ii/). Mosiman was also photographed (https://www.instagram.com/p/CTXt8rdPzV_/?igsh=MWoyOGN3Ym10M29oZg%3D%3D) in September 2021 protesting U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly by the groyper-aligned Arizona College Republicans United (https://azmirror.com/2023/10/09/asu-paid-11k-in-security-costs-for-a-white-nationalist-who-spoke-on-campus-in-2022/). The photograph was posted in Instagram with the caption “CRU executed a protest with Groypers against Senator Mark Kelly.”
Far-right YouTuber John Doyle (https://x.com/BenLorber8/status/1422935706176040965?s=20&t=hG9sh_zo8F9BScEqXaoFmw), one of the featured speakers at the April 2022 APU event, organized a “Stop the Steal” rally in Michigan with Fuentes (https://politicalresearch.org/2021/07/20/forgotten-gamers-america) and has posted highly misogynistic content, such as saying that women shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Doyle, along with other members of APU, were also in attendance at the first 76Fest, which one of its organizers dubbed “Hitler Youth, without the Hitler (https://politicalresearch.org/2021/08/17/hitler-youth-without-hitler).”
Mosiman also promoted an event in December 2021 that he called “one of the most based events of the year” which was being put on by Republicans for National Renewal, which has ties to ethno-nationalism (https://www.adl.org/resources/article/young-right-wing-americans-forging-ties-european-ethno-nationalists), and co-hosted by APU.
That event brought local politicians face to face (https://azmirror.com/2021/12/23/turning-point-usa-event-brought-extremists-and-politicians-together-in-phoenix/) with a host of far-right extremists, including a number of prominent groypers.
APU has denied ties to white nationalism (https://populistunion.com/blog/the-mainstream-media-tried-to-cancel-our-event-we-did-it-anyways) or knowledge of the significance of the date of its 4/20 event.
TPUSA and Arizona lawmakers
But Mosiman’s involvement in Arizona politics goes beyond the groyper movement.
Online, Mosiman often interacted with many local politicians, and in recent years started coming to the defense of conservative youth organization Turning Point USA.
“I used to be not a huge fan of TPUSA, but after seeing hard working and effective conservatives like (Austin Smith) and (Tyler Bowyer), I changed my mind,” Mosiman wrote on X in 2022, referring to two of the Arizona-based group’s leaders.
Both Smith (https://bsky.app/profile/azrww.bsky.social/post/3lqnxbb5ep22u) and Bowyer are listed as members of the advisory team (https://archive.ph/SMclS) for the Arizona Young Republicans chapter that Mosiman leads. TPUSA did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Neither did Nancy Cottle, Republican state Rep. Matt Gress and GOP state Sen. Jake Hoffman, who were also listed as advisory board members.
The website for the Arizona Young Republicans went offline on Wednesday, but archived snapshots were still online.
“Without a doubt, Turning Point Action had the most meaningful grassroots impact on Arizona,” Mosiman wrote on X on Nov. 11, 2024, shortly after last year’s election. “Hats off to (Tyler Bowyer) and his phenomenal staff.”
Bowyer is the Chief Operating Officer of Turning Point Action, the political action arm of Turning Point USA.
TPUSA has long been a target of the groyper movement (https://www.mediamatters.org/white-nationalism/nick-fuentes-we-will-make-sure-turning-point-completes-its-groyper-conversion) ,but in recent years has seen itself move farther to the right (https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/turning-point-usa-case-study-hard-right-2024/) and courting controversy for hiring racists (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/turning-point-usa-racist-tweets_n_5ad65b06e4b029ebe01ed1ac).
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AN 10 25
In an exclusive story (https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/14/private-chat-among-young-gop-club-members-00592146), Politico got access to thousands of private messages revealing young GOP leaders (https://www.alternet.org/be-like-charlie-slain-activist-kirk-focus-of-republican-youth-conferences-first-night/) joking about gas chambers and slavery, among other "insensitive and inexcusable" topics.
The chats took place on theTelegram app (https://www.alternet.org/teen-trump-assassination/), Politico reports. In them, they "referred to Black people as monkeys and 'the watermelon people' and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers."
Kansas Young Republicans (https://www.alternet.org/sports-bros-trump/) vice chair William Hendrix, former vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans Bobby Walker and Chairman of the Association of New York State Young Republican Clubs Peter Giunta were among the Republican leaders named in the report.
“Can we fix the showers?” Joe Maligno, who previously identified himself as the general counsel (https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000199-e2df-d575-ab9d-e3dfc48e0000) for the New York State Young Republicans, replied.
“I’m ready to watch people burn now,” Annie Kaykaty, New York’s national committeewoman, said.
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The 2,900 pages of chats shared among young Republicans between January and mid-August also featured members talking "about the pressure to cow to Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) to avoid being called a RINO."
Giunta, Politco reports, apologized, saying “I am so sorry to those offended by the insensitive and inexcusable language found within the more than 28,000 messages of a private group chat that I created during my campaign to lead the Young Republicans."
“While I take complete responsibility, I have had no way of verifying their accuracy and am deeply concerned that the message logs in question may have been deceptively doctored," Giunta said.
Social media, however, wasn't so accepting of the apology, nor were they surprised about the context of the messages.
"Shocked. Shocked I tell you. Who could have expected this from them?" wrote veteran Kirk Wolffon X (https://x.com/Kirk_Wolff/status/1978149540873011637).
"This is Charlie Kirk's legacy," wrote (https://x.com/DrewSmith_33/status/1978151007088447507) Drew Smith on X.
"They can't even scream liberal 'fake news!' cause it was leaked by Republicans," wrote Profiteroles Carmichael on X (https://x.com/jehawks/status/1978152459374608598).
"This is sickening, the rhetoric needs to be toned down on both sides, and even though I voted for Pres Trump 3 times, he needs to stop it too, we need a calm leader who wants to unite the country, not childish memes and name calling," wrote Sherri Twigg on X (https://x.com/TwiggySheri/status/1978153254656639222).
---
GGL 9 25 Search Assist
The Missouri GOP is currently pushing to gerrymander the state's congressional districts, which would favor Republican candidates and potentially silence voters' voices. This effort is part of a broader strategy to maintain their supermajority in the legislature. komu.com (https://www.komu.com/news/state/missouri-senators-use-controversial-tactic-to-end-democrat-filibuster-of-rules-for-special-session/article_6bfa3a9b-6b71-4e1d-9980-158c3375ef8e.html)
democraticredistricting.com (https://democraticredistricting.com/ndrc-statement-on-missouri-house-passage-of-republicans-extreme-gerrymander/)
Overview of Missouri GOP's Redistricting Efforts
The Missouri Republican Party is currently pushing for significant changes to the state's congressional districts. This effort is part of a special legislative session called by Governor Mike Kehoe.
Key Proposals
Gerrymandering Congressional Districts: The proposed congressional map aims to favor Republican candidates by altering district boundaries, particularly affecting the Kansas City area. This would extend districts into more conservative rural regions.
Changes to Initiative Petition Process: Another proposal seeks to modify how citizens can place measures on the ballot, potentially making it more difficult for voters to pass amendments to the state constitution.
Legislative Actions
Filibuster and New Rules: Senate Republicans used a controversial tactic to end a Democratic filibuster against these proposals. They passed new rules that prioritize House bills, allowing them to fast-track the redistricting measures.
Democratic Opposition: Democrats argue that these changes undermine their ability to propose important legislation and are primarily aimed at maintaining Republican power.
Public Response
Protests and Criticism: There has been significant public outcry, including rallies organized by Democrats and various voting coalitions opposing the redistricting efforts. Critics claim that the proposed changes do not address pressing issues like unemployment and economic challenges in Missouri.
komu.com (https://www.komu.com/news/state/missouri-senators-use-controversial-tactic-to-end-democrat-filibuster-of-rules-for-special-session/article_6bfa3a9b-6b71-4e1d-9980-158c3375ef8e.html)
democraticredistricting.com (https://democraticredistricting.com/ndrc-statement-on-missouri-house-passage-of-republicans-extreme-gerrymander/)
---
an 9 25
The Missouri Senate died at 1:42 p.m. Friday afternoon when Republican leaders refused to allow debate on a measure weakening the initiative petition process (https://missouriindependent.com/2025/09/12/gerrymandered-congressional-map-initiative-petitions-limits-sent-to-missouri-governor/), GOP state Sen. Lincoln Hough said in an interview with The Independent.
A two-week special session to gerrymander Missouri’s congressional map and make it virtually impossible for voters to amend the state constitution ended Friday when Senate Republicans voted to cut off debate and steamroll both bills across the finish line.
Hough was one of only two Republicans who opposed every motion to cut off debate and voted against the bills.
About 20 minutes after the Senate adjourned, Hough said Senate President Pro Tem Cindy O’Laughlin visited his office and removed him as chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. Hough has been chairman or vice chairman of the committee since he joined the Senate in 2019.
“She said, ‘we are tired of fighting with you,’” Hough said. ”To which my response was, ‘did you fight with me this week, or did I just go out here and vote no on something that was handed down to the Missouri Senate and a bunch of elected members who are not allowed to talk?’”
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It was the second time Hough has bucked his party this year when it sought to deploy procedural maneuvers to shut down debate. The first came in near the end of the 2025 session in May on bills repealing voter-approved laws expanding sick leave and protecting abortion rights.
“What I’ve seen at the end of last session, and what I saw this week, is a dismantling of what the Senate is supposed to be,” Hough said.
O’Laughlin did not respond to text messages seeking comment on Hough’s removal as chairman or his description of how it occurred. As of Saturday morning, the change in the committee line-up had not been posted (https://senate.mo.gov/Committees/CommitteeDetails/3) to the Senate website.
Hough said he is not sure if he is still a member of the committee.
“I’ll be honest with you,” he said. “When the news was delivered to me, I didn’t ask a lot of follow up questions.”
The other Republican who broke with his party on Friday was state Sen Mike Moon of Ash Grove. Reached by text message Saturday, Moon said he had not been told of any changes in his committee assignments. He chairs the Veterans and Military Affairs Committee and the Select Committee on Equal Protection and DEI.
Moon, who has been punished by Senate Republican leadership in the past for some of his actions, declined to comment on the removal of Hough as Appropriations Committee chairman.
Lawmakers were meeting in their second special session of the year to do the bidding of President Donald Trump (https://missouriindependent.com/2025/07/25/trump-white-house-pressing-missouri-republicans-to-redraw-congressional-map/) and gerrymander the 5th Congressional District to unseat U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Kansas City Democrat. The Senate passed the new map first, shutting off debate after letting Democrats speak against it for about four hours.
Next came the proposal added to the agenda by Kehoe to require both a majority of statewide votes and a majority of the votes in all eight of the state’s congressional districts to pass constitutional amendments proposed by initiative petition.
But along with the motion to take up the measure, state Sen. Brad Hudson, a Republican from Cape Fair, sent the motion to cut off debate before it began.
“My understanding of how this process is supposed to work is, if someone brings a bill before the body, then members are given the opportunity to have a conversation about it,” Hough said. “Maybe, I mean, call me crazy, but maybe even draft amendments and think about ways to improve something or change something.”
Republicans used several unprecedented maneuvers to muscle the two measures to final passage. The steps were orchestrated from the start to get the bills finished by Friday afternoon.
When the Senate convened, O’Laughlin presented a new set of rules intended to sidestep every opportunity Democrats could use to stall proceedings.
As a result, no senator was allowed to introduce a bill during the special session, the daily journal was never presented to the body for approval and House-passed legislation became the chamber’s top official priority for the first time in its existence.
The procedural step to shut off debate, called the previous question, is commonly used by the majority in the 163-member Missouri House, where no member can speak for more than 15 minutes on a topic, to move priority legislation.
But until this year, it was a rare move in the Senate, where the rules allow a member to speak as long as they like on any subject once they have the floor. Invoking the rule requires a motion signed by 10 senators.
The previous question has been used to move four bills this year, twice in the regular session and twice in the special session. It was also used to implement the new Senate rules.
But it had never before been used to pass a bill without any debate at all.
“It’s pretty easy to pass legislation in the Missouri Senate if you don’t have to talk about it, and you can just bring it before the body and say, we’re not, we’re not going to have any discussion whatsoever,” Hough said.
The Republican Party, he said, is suppressing every element that doesn’t walk in lockstep with the Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) White House.
“It seems that if you have any independent thought, or even just raise a question, you have a problem with this Republican Party,” Hough said. “And that is not the Republican Party that, 15 years ago when I first ran for the House, that I was part of.”
His disagreement with the procedures used to pass the legislation didn’t upset the progress of the bills. Shutting off debate requires 18 votes, and the fewest on any motion was 19.
“This is a dark day in the Missouri Senate,” Hough said. “It is a dark day when policy differences lead to the dismantling of the institution and the removal of individuals from chairmanships.”
In his seven years on the appropriations committee, Hough has shown himself as detail-oriented and able to build consensus while taking a tough negotiating position during final budget talks with the House.
With one more legislative session in his term-limited tenure, Hough won’t have to worry about pleasing leadership.
The upcoming budget could prove to be the most difficult to write in many years. When Kehoe vetoed $300 million in spending items (https://missouriindependent.com/2025/06/30/missouri-governor-hits-earmarks-with-veto-pen-as-he-signs-state-budget/) in June, the news release accompanying the action said the state budget office was forecasting a general revenue shortfall of nearly $1 billion in the coming fiscal year.
“We’re definitely,” Hough said, “going to have some conversations about the direction of the state’s finances next year.”
---
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an 9 25
House and Senate Republicans are lashing out at Democrats en masse, blaming them for rhetoric they say led to Wednesday’s assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
U.S. Rep. Bob Onder (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=%22Bob+Onder%22) (R-MO), in a speech Thursday on the floor of the House of Representatives, attacked the left, charging that even those who are “well-meaning” abide by an ideology of “hate” that mirrors communist authoritarians and revolutionaries.
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“Well, everything has changed,” Congressman Onder claimed. “If we didn’t know it already, there is no longer any middle ground.”
“Some on the American left are undoubtedly well-meaning people. But their ideology is pure evil,” he charged. “They hate the good, the truth, and the beautiful, and embrace the evil, the false and the ugly.”
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READ MORE: ‘Fascist Playbook’: Trump Blasted for ‘Gas on the Fire’ Kirk Assassination Address (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/09/fascist-playbook-trump-blasted-for-gas-on-the-fire-kirk-assassination-address/)
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“And they literally will kill those with whom they disagree just as their predecessor leftists—Marx, and Stalin, and Lenin, and Pol Pot, and Fidel Castro, did. “We must know that.”
Onder is not the only GOP lawmaker on Capitol Hill attacking the left in the wake of Kirk’s killing, despite the killer having not yet been identified or captured.
U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) told (https://x.com/atrupar/status/1966133923517219061) Newsmax on Thursday morning that “what we are finding is that when you do have those strong conservative voices speaking truth to power you will find that when the left can no longer debate it, they can’t deny the truth, the only way they can silence those voices is through violence.”
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U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) went even further, vowing (https://x.com/RepClayHiggins/status/1966114479042593251) to use “Congressional authority” to “cancel” anyone who “belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk.”
READ MORE: ‘I Love the 90s’: RFK Jr. Mocked for Latest Outdated Take on Mass Violence (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/09/i-love-the-90s-rfk-jr-mocked-for-latest-outdated-take-on-mass-violence/)
“I’m basically going to cancel with extreme prejudice these evil, sick animals who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination,” he wrote.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) declared on Wednesday that “Democrats own what happened today.”
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“Some raging leftist lunatic put a bullet through his neck,” she declared.
As of now, there is no suspect in custody, and the FBI has announced a $100,000 reward (https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c206zm81z4gt) for information leading to a suspect’s arrest.
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an 8 25
no lnx
Arnold Schwarzenegger is right — but also so wrong
Sabrina Haake, Raw Story August 25, 2025
Arnold Schwarzenegger, a lifelong Republican, has benefitted the world in immeasurable ways.
As California’s 38th governor, he reduced the state's greenhouse gas emissions by moving the state away from fossil fuels and toward renewables, particularly hydrogen and solar. He sought and obtained a waiver to allow California to adopt more stringent greenhouse gas emissions standards for passenger vehicles than those mandated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He’s been named an EPA Climate Change Champion for his work in green energy, clean technology and the overall struggle against climate change.
Schwarzenegger’s climate progress is even more impressive considering the size of California’s economy, now the fourth-largest in the world. With a $4.1 trillion GDP, California’s economy is larger than that of almost all countries, including Japan, Russia, and India. Only the economies of China, Germany, and the US are larger.
Given the cost and complexity of transitioning industries away from fossil fuels, especially 20 years ago, Schwarzenegger’s success demonstrates deep intelligence and an ability to see beyond the immediate. His prescience makes his “vow to fight” California’s redistricting efforts all the more puzzling.
Texas is rigging the midterms
At Trump’s insistence, Texas is passing a law designed, by intent and craft, to rig future elections beginning with the 2025 midterms.
Sensing voter backlash, Trump demanded that Republicans gerrymander Texas years ahead of its scheduled census. Having just completed its congressional maps in 2021, Texas wasn’t due to re-draw them until 2031. On Wednesday, the Texas House of Representatives obliged, creating five new Republican-leaning Congressional seats. The Texas Senate is following suit and Abbott will soon sign it into law.
Republicans don’t hide the fact that they’re manipulating voting boundaries to carve up Democratic voters, merging them with heavily Republican districts where their votes will be outnumbered. The practice got the green light in 2019 in Rucho v. Common Cause, when the Supreme Court ruled that partisan gerrymandering was a political question beyond the reach of the federal courts.
Rigging elections to protect Trump in perpetuity portends too many disastrous consequences to list. So California Gov. Gavin Newsom is pushing back with a plan to redistrict five Congressional seats. Newsom vowed only to move forward with his plan if Texas states continued theirs. Texas is moving forward, and now Trump is pushing other red states to do the same.
Arnie is right about gerrymandering
Newsom’s “Election Rigging Response Act” is a defensive move to counteract what Trump and Republicans are doing. The challenge for California is that in 2010, when Schwarzenegger was governor, an independent commission approved by voters redrew maps with the laudable goal of reducing partisanship in districting.
Although Newsom’s plan would only temporarily suspend the commission's authority, Schwarzenegger has come out swinging against it, hoping to “terminate gerrymandering.”
Schwarzenegger, who successfully campaigned for independent redistricting in California, argues correctly that gerrymandering undermines democracy and voter trust. His spokesperson said Schwarzenegger “calls gerrymandering evil, and he means that. He thinks it’s truly evil for politicians to take power from people.”
Schwarzenegger isn’t wrong. It is truly evil, as well as despotic, for politicians to choose their voters instead of the other way around. But if Newsom and other Democrat governors fail to counter Trump’s partisan redistricting war in Texas and elsewhere, Republicans will seize power nationwide, possibly permanently.
Schwarzenegger’s ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’ principle is no defense to concentration camps, book bans, state forced births, and Trump’s ever-spreading police state, to say nothing of accelerated climate destruction.
Welfare state v. donor state
Compared to California, Texas is a welfare state. In 2022, Texas received approximately $71.1 billion more from the federal government than it paid in. In contrast, California taxpayers pay far more than they receive from the federal government. In financial year 2023-24, California’s total federal taxes were $806 billion — nearly twice as much as Texas, which contributed $417 billion.
Comparative economic health is relevant here because most of the Republican-led states seeking to rig elections for Trump are also welfare states presenting drains on federal resources.
California leads not only Texas, but the nation in Fortune 500 companies, high-tech industries, new business start-ups, venture capital access, manufacturing output, and agriculture.
Despite their decades-long campaign claims, Republican economies create poverty, not wealth. Nineteen of the 20 richest states are predominantly Democratic, while 19 of the 20 poorest states are predominantly Republican. Letting poverty-producing states steer the national economy is economically backward, especially as they reject science, pretend climate change is a hoax, and ignore evidence that climate devastation is accelerating.
The partisan redistricting fight could deliver a fatal blow to democracy. Schwarzenegger is right about that, as he’s been right about so many existential challenges. The Brennan Center for Justice warns of an extremely dangerous time for American democracy: “Gerrymandering … flips the democratic process on its head, letting politicians choose their voters instead of the other way around.”
But that’s where we are: the president’s party is committed to seeking power at all costs.
As Schwarzenegger continues to lead globally on climate, pushing back against ignorance from the right that threatens to drown coastal regions and incinerate habitats out of existence, he should see that California’s redistricting response is a matter of survival. California voters will stand on Schwarzenegger’s ceremony at the nation’s peril.
Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
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AN 8 25
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is being mocked after it posted what it said is a “Top-secret Democrat memo found on DC street” that “reveals their ‘Project 2026′ nightmare agenda.” They claim the document was “leaked.” The “memo” contains the logo for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and reads: “LEAKED MEMO: Democrats’ ‘PROJECT 2026’ AGENDA Internal Strategy Memo – Not for Public Distribution.”
The “memo” goes on to claim that it was prepared by the “DCCC Braintrust.”
In it, it lists eight alleged parts of a “plan to fundamentally remake America.”
They include:
“Repeal the Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) Tax Cuts. Raise Taxes on the Middle Class.”
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“Open Borders. Full Stop.”
READ MORE: Revealed: Pentagon Planning Rapid-Deploy ‘Reaction Force’ to Quell Civilian Dissent (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/08/revealed-pentagon-planning-rapid-deploy-reaction-force-to-quell-civilian-dissent/)
“End Fossil Fuels, Gas Stoves, Cars, and Common Sense.”
“Nationalize the Grocery Aisle.”
“Impeach President Trump. Again. And Again.”
“Rewrite the Constitution via Executive Order.”
“Bring Back Wasteful Government Spending and High Crime.”
“More Woke, Less Rational.”
At the very bottom of the two-page “memo” it includes an admission it is from the NRCC: “NRCC NOTE: This is the America Democrats want to build.”
No such disclaimer appears on the NRCC’s social media post (below), although a Fox News (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-mocks-democrats-memo-about-wildly-unpopular-project-2026-goals-dems-shoot-back) article the NRCC later linked to calls the memo “satirical.”
Critics slammed House Republicans for the “memo.”
“Everyone hates how we are governing so to keep power we will embrace a new strategy of forging documents,” wrote (https://x.com/Fritschner/status/1955251225307295798) Aaron Fritschner, Deputy Chief of Staff for U.S Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA).
“This gives me solace. I’ll never be worse at my job than this,” remarked (https://x.com/monicavenzke/status/1955261311505322227) Monica Venzke of the progressive group American Bridge.
READ MORE: Trump Melts Down Over Elizabeth Warren’s Accusations (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/08/trump-melts-down-over-elizabeth-warrens-accusations/)
Former Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (https://www.rawstory.com/tag/white-house) spokesperson Seth Schuster wrote (https://x.com/Seth_Schuster/status/1955276499747012764): “somehow people believe this s— is real.”
“Apparently using your rival’s letterhead/logo without permission is fair game now per NRCC. Get to downloading and copypasta-ing, everybody!” observed (https://x.com/JNicholsonInDC/status/1955278385560605022) journalist Jonathan Nicholson.
“Honey wake up, Republicans are embarrassing themselves again,” commented (https://x.com/MarcusWRobinson/status/1955266498462728207) Marcus W. Robinson, Senior Spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee.
See the NRCC’s post below or at this link (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/08/top-secret-democrat-memo-house-gop-group-mocked-for-satirical-leaked-project-2026-plan/).
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an 7 25
A sweeping new report from the Brennan Center for Justice warns that the Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) administration, backed by Republican legislators and allied state actors, is mounting what one civil‑rights coalition calls a “coordinated scheme” to rig voter rolls and control election machinery to stay in power regardless of how the public votes.
In an article forPeople's World (https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/trump-plan-to-end-free-elections-in-2026-and-2028-revealed/)published Monday, journalist Mark Gurenberg highlighted the key elements of this strategy that surfaced in an executive order signed March 25 titled “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.”
It mandates documentary proof of U.S. citizenship, such as a passport or naturalization certificate, for any voter registration using the federal form, and bars counting mail‑in ballots if they arrive after Election Day, irrespective of postmark date. States that do not comply risk losing federal election funding and may face enforcement actions by the Department of Justice or other agencies.
:{:{READ MORE:DC insider won't minimize Trump's repugnance (https://www.alternet.org/trump-repugnance/):}:
The article highlighted the Brennan Center report's finding that more than 21 million eligible U.S. citizens — many low‑income voters, married women, seniors and people of color — lack ready access to the documentation required. This means that the order and its legislative counterpart in Congress, the proposal known as the SAVE Act, would likely prevent millions from ever registering to vote.
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The center's report said: “A president has no right to rewrite the country’s election rules or regulate federal elections on his own."
“As a federal court recently put it, ‘The Constitution vests none of these powers in the president.’ In issuing the order, the president claimed extraordinary unilateral authority to regulate federal elections and usurp the powers of Congress, the states, and the (U.S.) Elections Administration Commission, an independent, bipartisan federal agency," it added.
“It’s a solution in search of a problem,”said (https://www.texasobserver.org/gop-continues-to-stonewall-efforts-to-improve-voter-access-in-texas/) one civil‑rights leader in April who testified before the Senate Rules Committee.
READ MORE:'Middle-aged Manson girls': Far-right 'bloodthirsty' MAGA women mocked in scathing take-down (https://www.alternet.org/noem-gabbard-bondi/)
“The SAVE Act is a direct attack on our freedom to vote and a dangerous attempt to silence the voices of millions—particularly voters of color, low income families, women, and young people … It is not about safeguarding elections. It is about stripping power from the people and undermining our democracy," the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights said (https://civilrights.org/2025/03/31/watch-civil-rights-leaders-and-impacted-voters-speak-in-opposition-to-the-save-act/) in a statement in March.
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AN 7 25
Sending 'a message': Red state GOP votes to disqualify Republicans who appoint Democrats (https://www.alternet.org/alabama-gop/)
Anna Barrett, Alabama Reflector (https://www.alternet.org/author/annabarrettalabamareflector)
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note fuckery
AN 7 25
President Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) has openly declared war on Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who has been a consistent thorn in his side throughout his second term. Now, the billionaires funding Trump's primary campaign against Massie are being unmasked.
In a Thursday report for Politico (https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/07/31/congress/maga-ky-super-pac-donors-00487931), journalist Jessica Piper identified the three Republican megadonors behind the effort to oust Massie out of his northern Kentucky congressional district. According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings, hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer (known for taking Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on a luxury fishing trip (https://www.propublica.org/article/samuel-alito-luxury-fishing-trip-paul-singer-scotus-supreme-court)) has so far contributed $1 million to the MAGA KY Political Action Committee (PAC), making him the leading funder of the anti-Massie effort.
In addition to Singer, hedge fund manager John Paulson has ponied up $250,000 to MAGA KY. And a super PAC tied to Miriam Adelson — the widow of Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson — has so far donated $750,000 to the effort. Singer, Paulson and Adelson have net worths of $6.2 billion, $3.8 billion and $33.5 billion, respectively.
READ MORE:'You're paying that!' Michael Steele says Trump 'taking money out of Americans' pockets' (https://www.alternet.org/michael-steele-trump-tariffs/)
The $2 million from Singer, Paulson and Adelson has so far more than paid for the $1.2 million that MAGA KY has spent so far on the 2026 race in Kentucky's 4th Congressional District, which Massie has represented since 2012. But the Kentucky Republican has a sizable war chest of his own, with Politico reporting that he ended June with $1.7 million in his campaign account.
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Trump singled out Massie after the six-term lawmaker joined all Democrats in voting against his "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" this summer. While Democrats opposed the legislation over its $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid (https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2025/06/29/congressional-budget-office-confirms-senate-republican-reconciliation-bills-medicaid-cuts-are-more-draconian-than-the-house-passed-bill/) and more than $100 billion in cuts to food stamps, Massie railed against the bill for its gargantuan deficit spending — most of which went toward extending Trump's tax cuts that disproportionately benefit (https://www.cbpp.org/blog/house-republican-tax-bill-extends-and-expands-costly-tax-breaks-for-the-wealthy) the wealthiest Americans.
Even though Trump has significant financial resources at his disposal to deploy against Massie, the Kentuckian is not likely to be an easy opponent for the president. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) called himself a "big supporter" (https://www.alternet.org/maga-trump-massie/) of Massie, and said he would be campaigning with him across the Bluegrass State in 10 different cities across Massie's district. And anti-Massie Republicans have yet to coalesce around a single challenger. According to Ballotpedia, the only Republican who has formally declared her candidacy in the district is Nicole Lee Ethington (https://ballotpedia.org/Nicole_Lee_Ethington), who is a registered nurse with no prior experience in elected office.
"They are wasting millions of dollars against me, and they are gonna lose the \House] majority because of that," [Massie told NBC (https://www.alternet.org/gop-massie-trump/#) earlier this month.
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an 7 25
A prominent U.S. Senator is warning the Republican Party that if it continues its promise to redistrict their states, eliminating some Democratic-held House seats, she will “go nuclear” and work to do the same. It is rare for a state to redistrict at any time except after the decennial census, but top Democrats have indicated they are prepared to take action (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/07/dems-launch-aggressive-house-map-blitz-as-red-states-plan-blue-seat-redraw/) in several states.
President Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) recently directed Texas to redistrict, declaring he wanted five of the 13 seats in the Lone Star State currently held by Democrats to become Republican. That alone would make Speaker Mike Johnson’s job easier — he currently oversees the narrowest margin in the House in nearly a century.
“I don’t know if it’s unprecedented what they’re trying to do in Texas,” U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) told Axios (https://www.axios.com/2025/07/23/texas-redistricting-democrats-nuclear-slotkin) on Wednesday (video below). “They’re trying to pick their voters, right? They’re trying to redraw the lines in the middle of a decade so that they have more seats, right? It is very open and obvious.”
READ MORE: Tuberville: Dems Must ‘Lawyer Up’ for Plot to Make America ‘Communist’ (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/07/tuberville-dems-must-lawyer-up-for-plot-to-make-america-communist/)
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Senator Slotkin went on to explain that in her home state of Michigan—a critical swing state—voters added a constitutional amendment against gerrymandering, in response to “how bad it is when politicians get to draw their own districts.”
She noted that when the citizens’ commission is in charge of redistricting her state, it makes it more competitive.
“But I will tell you this,” Slotkin warned, “if they’re gonna go nuclear in Texas, I’m gonna go nuclear in other places.”
“I’m not gonna, like, fight with one arm tied behind my back,” said Slotkin, a former CIA analyst and Department of Defense official. “I don’t want to do that, but if they’re proposing to rig the game, like, we’re gonna get in that game and fight.”
House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has indicated he wants to reorganize the congressional maps in California, New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, and Washington state, to help Democrats pick up as many seats as possible—if the courts allow it.
READ MORE: Trump Accuses Obama of ‘Treason’ in Wild Rant as Epstein Questions Swirl (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/07/trump-accuses-obama-of-treason-in-wild-rant-as-epstein-questions-swirl/)
“We have a responsibility of making sure that we look at every single state of the union and do what we can to ensure that we maximize fairness in those jurisdictions,” Jeffries told CNN (https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/20/politics/redistricting-2026-house-democrats). “Some of the best and brightest lawyers in the country are looking at every single aspect of what’s possible in these states.”
Elections analyst Philip Germain responded to Slotkin’s remarks.
“Senator Slotkin continues to understand the moment we’re in and charts a course more Dems should follow,” he wrote (https://x.com/PhilipJGermain/status/1948034236591595995). “Democrats cannot continue to ‘play nice’ at the expense of being forced into a competitive authoritarian system of government. We must fight now or get locked out of power.”
U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) on Tuesday wrote (https://x.com/RubenGallego/status/1947802348908081354):
“It’s time for Democrats to understand the existential threat. Republicans aren’t playing around and they will do this as long as it takes to keep power. It’s time we dilute VRA [Voting Rights Act] districts. There are plenty of Democratic districts that have 65-80% Dem performance.”
Watch the video below or at this link (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/07/get-in-that-game-and-fight-dem-threatens-nuclear-response-if-gop-redistricts-texas/).
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NOTE PROJECTION RUBBER REVERSE
AN SN 7 25
Do you think concentration camps are cool?
Does your heart fill with mean-spirited joy at the thought of human beings stuffed into tents and FEMA trailers parked on a disused airstrip in the heart of the Everglades in the middle of a Florida summer?
Do you get off on the idea of alligators and snakes killing people and admire bully capitalism hawking camo beverage coolers, stickers, and T-shirts with grinning reptiles proclaiming, “Nowhere to Run; Nowhere to Hide”?
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier (https://floridaphoenix.com/2025/06/30/floridas-leaders-are-swapping-class-for-crass/) certainly does: He’s raising campaign cash on his own little merch site.
Other paid-up members of the Cruelty is the Point cult do, too.
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Celebrating the erection of Florida’s own gulag, known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” the state Republican Party bosses trilled, “Don’t forget to pick up your swag to support our efforts to undo all of Joe Biden’s failures!”
We are ruled by sociopaths.
This prison, parked in the middle of Big Cypress National Preserve, has already received hundreds of detainees, packed into rough-and-ready structures that have not had to meet any building or environmental codes and may not be able to withstand a tropical storm.
Cult leaders can’t decide if the place is Devil’s Island or a charmingly rustic resort.
Showing Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) around the place, Ron DeSantis pointed to the razor wire, iron bunk beds, and bright new Astroturf on the ground.
The first batch of detainees don’t seem especially grateful. Those who’ve managed to make a phone call to the outside world say the guards have served them maggot-laced food, refused them medical attention (http://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/alligator-alcatraz-detainees-allege-inhumane-conditions-at-immigration-detention-center/), kept bright lights on all night, and either crank up the air conditioning until the detainees freeze or cut it off and let them swelter.
One alleged foreign malefactor says guards confiscated his Bible.
Gators in ICE caps
Trump loves this. He fantasizes about terrified detainees chased by Burmese pythons and “cops that are in the form of alligators (http://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/trump-joke-alligator-alcatraz-history-rcna216562).”
The White House has put out a Trump meme with a gaggle of gators in ICE caps.
The Trump administration is proud of this latest monument to hatred and gets very upset if anyone criticizes it.
Stephen Miller, architect of Trump’s immigration policy, flew into a tantrum the other day when a reporter told him inhabitants of the human world were calling the South Florida stalag “dehumanizing.”
“American citizens are stripped of their rights and their liberties by the invasion of illegal aliens!” he replied. “What’s ‘dehumanizing’ is when Democrats let illegal alien rapists (http://www.thedailybeast.com/white-house-aide-stephen-miller-melts-down-over-dehumanizing-alligator-alcatraz-criticism/)into the country to attack our children. That is ‘dehumanizing’!”
He failed to explain exactly how people fleeing murderous dictatorships in Venezuela, El Salvador, and Nicaragua take rights and liberties from citizens.
As for those hideous assaults alleged by Miller, American citizens commit far more crimes (http://www.migrationpolicy.org/content/immigrants-and-crime)than undocumented immigrants.
The administration knows this. Until a few weeks ago, a Department of Justice website contained information confirming it.
Attorney General Pam Bondi shut down the website for “review” in “accordance with recent Executive Orders and related guidance.”
Why let data get in the way of propaganda?
‘Not safe’
Miller, Trump, and DeSantis insist the people ICE rounds up are “the worst of the worst, the most heinous of the most heinous.”
Again, the data show this is not true. Only 8% (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-detentions-non-criminal-immigrants-violent-crime-convictions-analysis/)of undocumented detainees have been convicted of violent crimes.
This country is still — nominally — a nation of laws, and everyone thrown into an ICE dungeon is entitled to due process.
Even our supine Supreme Court agrees.
But Florida’s tropical tent prison makes it nearly impossible for detainees to consult with attorneys, meaning they could be deported without fair hearings.
A group of lawmakers, including Rep. Anna Eskamani and Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, tried to visit the facility a couple of weeks ago. Inmates from the Orange County jail — which is in Eskamani’s and Smith’s districts — had been transferred there without being charged with anything.
Legislators pointed out Florida Statute 944.23 allows them to visit state facilities “at their pleasure.”
But DeSantis’ people insist the Everglades prison camp is not technically a state facility, not under the jurisdiction of the Department of Corrections.
Even though the state of Florida’s paying for it.
‘Emergency’ powers
Actually, the Trump administration admits it’s a state facility.
In a filing asking a federal judge to deny a request by Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biodiversity to halt construction in Big Cypress, the administration argues the plaintiffs’ claim depends on showing a final federal “agency action,” which they can’t because the feds haven’t “implemented, authorized, directed or funded Florida’s temporary detention center.”
Indeed, they insist, “Florida is constructing and operating the facility using state funds on state lands. (http://www.wusf.org/courts-law/2025-07-03/feds-push-back-environmental-challenge-alligator-alcatraz-immigrant-everglades)”
DeSantis, Uthmeier, and Pam Bondi need to get their stories straight.
By last Saturday, legal problems had been overcome and the gulag had miraculously become “safe.”
A group of legislators got a curated tour, during which what you saw depended on who you were—and whether you gave a damn about the human beings locked up in there.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida) took a thermometer with her, reporting an indoor temperature of at least 83 degrees.
Another Democratic lawmaker said some detainees were shackled to benches.
Republican state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia insisted it’s pretty nice: “I actually laid down in one of the beds and it was really comfortable (http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/07/12/alligator-alcatraz-everglades-detention-center-democrats-tour/).”
Sure. And everybody’s talked to a lawyer, there are no mosquitoes, and tropical storms? No problem!
Meanwhile back in reality, DeSantis’ vanity project has already flooded at least once (http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/07/05/alligator-alcatraz-immigrants-detention-florida/).
Big Cypress is 96% wetlands. It’s wetlands’ job to flood.
When Ron DeSantis, claiming “emergency” powers, seized (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/first-immigration-detainees-arrive-at-alligator-alcatraz-in-florida-everglades) 39 square miles of Everglades land (nearly 25,000 acres) he claimed, “The environmental impact will be zero.”
DeSantis and the attorney general contend they’re merely taking over what Uthmeier calls “an old, virtually abandoned” airstrip.”
That airstrip is abandoned for a reason. It’s a relic of one of the most boneheaded ideas anyone in Florida ever had.
The Phoenix’s own Craig Pittman (https://floridaphoenix.com/2025/06/26/floridas-alligator-alcatraz-everglades-prison-ignores-both-environment-and-history/)recently recounted how in 1968 a really stupid plan to build a huge airport in the Everglades galvanized support for preserving Florida’s River of Grass.
Fun fact: It was Florida’s then-Gov. Claude Kirk and his top aide Nathaniel Reed — who went on to help pass the Clean Water Act in 1972 and co-write the Endangered Species Act in 1973 — who led the fight to save Big Cypress.
Both were Republicans.
Vandals
Back then, some conservatives wanted to conserve, not destroy.
DeSantis and Uthmeier belong to a new generation of environmental vandals.
They want us to believe Big Cypress is wasted space with a few snakes, some bugs, a cadre of demonic alligators programmed to chase brown folks.
Inconsequential. Nothing to see there.
The ignorance is embarrassing.
To the Miccosukee and the Seminoles, the land is holy (https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/state/2025/06/26/tribal-nations-denounce-building-alligator-alcatraz-on-sacred-land-florida/84331407007/): “We live here. Our ancestors fought and died here. They are buried here,” said one tribal leader. “The Big Cypress is part of us, and we are a part of it.”
The land is not empty, or “abandoned.”
Manatees and dolphins give birth to their young in the estuaries on the eastern side. Mullet, trout, grouper, silver perch, spiny lobster, oysters, and clams thrive amongst the mangrove roots.
The mangrove branches harbor herons, pelicans, and egrets; there are red cockaded woodpeckers, fox squirrels, and Florida panthers in the pinelands, and some of the world’s rarest orchids (http://www.nps.gov/bicy/learn/nature/ghost-orchid.htm)in the cypress swamps.
The land is a vital ecosystem for plants and animals and humans, too. Its water flows are essential to the aquifer on which South Floridians depend for their drinking water.
DeSantis likes to cast himself as the savior of the River of Grass and waxes petulant if you suggest his pet prison will damage the ecosystem: “I’m the governor who’s poured more money into Everglades restoration than anyone!”
And now he’s poured more money into Everglades destruction than anyone.
The camp will cost $450 million (http://www.cnn.com/2025/07/01/us/what-is-alligator-alcatraz-florida)a year to run.
Don’t be gaslit
Don’t let the man gaslight you: Claims they’re not desecrating Big Cypress are complete rubbish.
Friends of the Everglades has aerialphotographs (https://floridaphoenix.com/2025/07/07/photos-show-new-paving-in-everglades-detention-center-environmental-groups-seek-to-stop/) showing the building of new roads and paving once-wild areas.
Runoff from asphalt pollutes. The huge trucks lumbering in and out of the site, carrying construction materials, also pollute.
You can’t house and feed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people, without terrible damage to already fragile nature.
They’ll need pesticides to keep the Everglades’ vigorous mosquitoes at bay; they’ll need generators and microwaves and machinery to pump out the sewage.
The gulag is even sullying the night sky.
One of the lawsuits (https://earthjustice.org/press/2025/groups-sue-to-protect-everglades-from-reckless-detention-center)filed by conservation groups points out the huge prison lights make the place “look like Yankee Stadium, visible from 15-miles away.”
Big Cypress has been designated an International Dark Sky Place. You used to be able to see the Milky Way arching over the marshes and hammocks like a necklace of diamonds and pearls.
Trumpists probably don’t look up at the heavens. They don’t look down at the wonders of the earth.
So why would they care if one of Florida’s greatest treasures gets trashed?
Florida Phoenix (https://floridaphoenix.com/) is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
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'Not even bothering to Google': Republican fact-checked over China claim (https://www.alternet.org/tim-burchett-gop-trump/)
Ailia Zehra (https://www.alternet.org/author/ailiazehra)
an 7 25
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bresnahan
'Evil' Republican shamed for unloading Medicaid-related stock before voting to gut program (https://www.alternet.org/robert-bresnahan/)
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an 7 25
Over the weekend, Vox posted an interview with Vox journalist Christian Paz, who’d reported previously (https://www.vox.com/politics/418002/democratic-tea-party-zohran-mamdani-new-york-primary-incumbent?ueid=10b3a670165430d31fdd98f5af631883&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Tex%207/2/25&utm_term=Sentences) that the Democrats were ripe for a grassroots takeover like the alleged one that overtook the GOP. The headline claimed to explain “the Democrats’ Tea Party moment (https://www.vox.com/today-explained-newsletter/418824/democratic-party-tea-party-moment-zohran-mamdani-explained).”
But unlike the headline, in the interview Paz was more circumspect about the actual existence of a Tea Party-style movement inside the party. The best that can be said, he said (https://www.vox.com/today-explained-newsletter/418824/democratic-party-tea-party-moment-zohran-mamdani-explained), is that “the base has never really been as angry as it is right now. What we’re seeing is a combination of anti-Trump anger, wanting a change in direction, wanting a change in leadership, and also some folks who are like, maybe we should become more progressive as a party” (his stress).
What are they angry about?
To hear Paz tell it, Democratic voters are angry with party leaders for failing to concentrate on “a working-class vision for Americans. They should be more focused on kitchen table affordability issues” (his italics).
But if you listen to Democratic leaders, like Chuck Schumer in the Senate and Hakeem Jeffries in the House, that’s all they talk about. They speak endlessly about the need for the parties to come together and solve economic problems that all Americans share, and to rise above the bickering and the partisanship, and find common ground.
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But despite that, the Democratic base is still angry.
Why?
Brad Lander suggested it’s because the real division in the party isn’t, as Paz suggested, between “the establishment” and progressives, but between “fighters and folders.” New York City’s comptroller said that’s what voters saw in candidate Zohran Mamdani when they gave him victory over Andrew Cuomo in that city’s Democratic mayoral primary.
“People want someone to go to bat for working people, paint a real vision of a city people can afford, fight for it and get on the field,” Lander told CNN last month (https://bsky.app/profile/kenklippenstein.bsky.social/post/3lsmxrs4z3k2w). “And that’s what I think Zohran did.”
I have my own theories about the Democratic leadership. You can read more about them here (https://www.editorialboard.com/schumer-triggered-collapse-of-public-confidence-in-his-party/), here (https://www.editorialboard.com/schumer-and-the-democrats-still-take-their-own-for-granted/), here (https://www.editorialboard.com/trumps-job-approval-has-recovered-since-liberation-day-so-much-for-schumers-strategy/) and especially here (https://www.editorialboard.com/elite-dems-who-betrayed-biden-face-possible-tea-party-revolt/). Basically, it’s that leaders don’t want to fight, because fighting is risky. But I wanted to bring into the conversation someone who has deep insight into the party, and who understands its mechanics and what it takes to win.
So I got in touch with Dana Houle. He has worked in organized labor, was once a congressional chief of staff, and managed campaigns from the local to the statewide level. His Bluesky feed (https://bsky.app/profile/danahoule.bsky.social) is indispensable.
In this first of two parts of our conversation, Dana explained the true root of the problem: defeat in November. Whenever the Democrats, or the Republicans, lose a presidential election, Dana told me, there’s always a period of anger and distrust between the base and the elites.
Dana told me that as a consequence of this fundamental, it’s tempting to look for an “insurrection” of some kind, like the one that took place in 2010, when the Tea Party destabilized the old GOP establishment.
But, as Dana told me, the Tea Party is a terrible analogy. For one thing, it was a phony “revolt.” For another, it represented a serious policy fracture between Republican elites over the issue of immigration. Dana told me that the Democrats, meanwhile, agree on virtually everything, policy-wise. What they disagree on is style and strategy. More than anything else, however, the Democrats still believe in democracy.
“I don't think anyone has a clear idea of what the base-leadership tension will create, but I don't think it will lead to nihilism, and the Tea Party definitely was part of the GOP's devolution into nihilism.”
Do the Democrats have a trust problem? The base of the party is restless and its leaders don't seem to be hearing it. I am thinking of Zohran Mamdani's victory in New York City, but not only that.
Whenever a party is locked out of power at the national level, there's a trust problem. It was different in 2021 with the Republicans, because, well, almost everything is different with Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump). But Democrats in 2017, Republicans in 2009, Democrats in 2001-2006 – people get mad at their party for losing. And obviously the stakes are much higher now.
I'm not sure Mamdani fits here. First, it's a local race, in a city that's unique and that gets far more attention than LA or Chicago or Houston or Phoenix, because that's where the national media and the financial industry are based. Second, it was a weird race; other than Jerry Brown, it's hard to think of an ex-governor who ran for mayor.
Unlike Brown, Andrew Cuomo was disgraced, and he was also widely loathed. That's how the race started. Mamdani and Brad Lander joining together on the "don't rank Cuomo" and then seeing the results shows a lot of that race was "anyone but the sex pest." That's probably one of the reasons all the big players except Tish James stayed out of it.
There is, of course, the fact that both Democratic congressional leaders are in New York, but I don't think they were factors in the race, and I don't think the mayoral race has anything to do with their challenges and what people think of their performance as leaders.
https://bsky.app/profile/kenklippenstein.bsky.social/post/3lsmxrs4z3k2w (https://bsky.app/profile/kenklippenstein.bsky.social/post/3lsmxrs4z3k2w)
To what extent is the Tea Party angle within the Democratic Party real or imaginary? Lander said the true fault line in the party is not between moderates and progressives, but "fighters and folders." No is really saying "tea party" because it was mostly astro-turf, but lots of people want confrontation by the Democrats, a la the tea party.
That's an important point – that the Tea Party was largely astro-turf. I think Lander is correct, but if I had to look for a recent analogy I'd go back to 2002-2005, when disgust over too many Democrats supporting the Iraq War contributed to the rise of the Netroots (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netroots_Nation), propelled the campaigns of General Wesley Clark and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, and led to the election of Dean as DNC chair.
I don't think anyone has a clear idea of what the base-leadership tension will create, but I don't think it will lead to nihilism, and the Tea Party definitely was part of the GOP's devolution into nihilism.
Voxposted a headline recently thatasserted as fact the existence of a Tea Party-type movement (https://www.vox.com/today-explained-newsletter/418824/democratic-party-tea-party-moment-zohran-mamdani-explained)within the Democratic Party. But the interview was highly informed by Bernie Sanders' rhetoric, especially understanding the problem as between progressives and "the establishment." What are the real fault lines in the party?
The Tea Party is a horrible analogy for the current Democratic Party. The Vox piece made it sound like it was a response to deficits. That was part of the astroturf messaging, but that wasn't and isn't a fault line in the Republican Party: elites and the base care about deficits when Democrats are in charge, not when Republicans are in charge.
But there was a big policy rift in the Republican Party.
Remember when George W Bush, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Sam Brownback and most of the Republican leaders tried to pass comprehensive immigration reform along the lines of what the United States Chamber of Congress had wanted? That was a policy rift.
And it remained one that Trump exploited. In that first Republican primary debate, he mentioned ending birthright citizenship and most of the other Republicans on the stage were dumbfounded.
With Democrats, there really aren't those kinds of policy rifts.
In Congress, there's wide agreement on most policy matters, from the most moderate Democrat to the Congressional Progressive Caucus. That's in part, because much of the last 15 years has been about the ruralification and dumbification of the Republican Party.
In 2010, Democrats held three of the four Senate seats and both House seats in the Dakotas. They held both Senate seats and two of three House seats in West Virginia. They held three of the four House seats in Mississippi. Their congressional majority was still, as it had been since the Civil War, rooted in the South. That's all changed.
There are hardly any Democrats representing large numbers of rural whites. Democrats are no longer split between northern/urban liberals and white rural southerners. They're now the party of cities and suburbs, with some rural Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans.
And they largely agree on policy!
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...The legislation does name several individual officers, including Goodman, for their valor, saying “Capitol Police Officers Brian Sicknick and Howard Liebengood, Metropolitan Police Department Officer Jeffrey Smith, and those who sustained injuries, and the courage of Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman, exemplify the patriotism and the commitment of Capitol Police officers, and those of other law enforcement agencies, to risk their lives in service of our country.”
The 21 Republicans who voted against the bill are:
- Lauren Boebert of Colorado
- John Rose of Tennessee
- Andy Harris of Maryland
- Thomas Massie of Kentucky
- Bob Good of Virginia
- Louie Gohmert of Texas
- Barry Moore of Alabama
- Ralph Norman of South Carolina
- Matt Rosendale of Montana
- Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia
- Chip Roy of Texas
- Paul Gosar of Arizona
- Andy Biggs of Arizona
- Warren Davidson of Ohio
- Scott Perry of Pennsylvania
- Matt Gaetz of Florida
- Greg Steube of Florida
- Andrew Clyde of Georgia
- Jody Hice of Georgia
- Mary Miller of Illinois
- Michael Cloud of Texas
---
: Mike Lee Is A Real Piece Of Sh*t - by Evan Hurst}:
Wonkette
https://www.wonkette.com › mike-lee-is-a-real-piece-of...](https://www.wonkette.com/p/mike-lee-is-a-real-piece-of-sht)
38 minutes ago — Elon Musk, Charlie Kirk, Mike Cernovich, they've all lied about Boelter. ... D'Souza tweet with the picture of the “No Kings” fliers ...
Well, folks, they caught the motherfucker. (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/suspect-terrorized-minnesotas-political-leaders-deadly-shooting-found-rcna213181) We don’t know exactly what took so long to find the Christian nationalist anti-abortion activist (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/14/us/politics/minnesota-shootings-gunman-suspect.html) Trump supporter who impersonated a cop and assassinated Democrats in Minneapolis on Friday night, with plans to target many more, but they caught him. Maybe they were just looking the wrong places? We would have checked Republican politicians’ houses first, but that’s just us.
Anyway, they found him in a field.
Again, who this guy Vance Boelter is, it’s not shrouded in mystery, and it’s been out in the open from the beginning. He’s one of them. He’s just a typical Republican voter who decided to assassinate some Democrats. You’d think MAGA would be proud of what it’s wrought. And some of them are, to be sure.
But then there are piece of dogshit Republican senators like Mike Lee who have been lying since the beginning.
(https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Feacfbd1f-3904-49ef-ac24-f492e36ca95f_1100x1360.png)caption...
Why so ashamed, bud?
You’d think considering Mike Lee’s (https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/mike-lee-has-embraced-the-politics-of-extremism-and-division-says-evan-mcmullin-151713349872) extremist record, (https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2022/04/21/david-burns-mike-lees/)he might already be lobbying Donald Trump for any extra pardons he’s got lying around for Boelter.
Vance Boelter is a registered Republican. (https://twitter.com/micah_erfan/status/1934270965057257522?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1934270965057257522%7Ctwgr%5E5bf003829b2a908a024720b83fa97b9e91375fb9%7Ctwcon%5Es1&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.joemygod.com%2F2025%2F06%2Fsen-mike-lee-draws-outrage-with-post-on-mn-killer%2F)He’s an anti-gay, anti-abortion pig. (https://twitter.com/micah_erfan/status/1934294414685352184?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1934294414685352184%7Ctwgr%5E5bf003829b2a908a024720b83fa97b9e91375fb9%7Ctwcon%5Es1&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.joemygod.com%2F2025%2F06%2Fsen-mike-lee-draws-outrage-with-post-on-mn-killer%2F) He’s a conservative Christian preacher. Basically all the red flag characteristics that say “Here’s a guy you shouldn’t leave your kids alone with,” but that MAGA Americans find godly and manly. Again, why is Mike Lee so ashamed? He has a lot in common with this guy! Surprised they aren’t taking up a collection for this guy’s legal defense in Mike Lee’s church. He just reminds us so much of Mike Lee (or any other white Republican loser, they really do all look alike).
As Tim Miller from The Bulwark notes, (https://www.thebulwark.com/p/maga-push-lies-as-minnesota-shooter)a bunch of Republicans and MAGA conservatives have taken this tack, instead of embracing this guy who is just like them in so many important ways. Elon Musk, Charlie Kirk, Mike Cernovich, they’ve all lied about Boelter. Previously (?) Kremlin-funded (https://www.wonkette.com/p/how-did-evil-russians-manage-to-fool) weirdo Benny Johnson claimed (https://www.startribune.com/fact-check-did-vance-boelter-suspect-in-minnesota-shootings-have-close-ties-to-gov-tim-walz/601373519) Boelter was a “left-wing Tim Walz appointee.” Today Benny is rambling (https://www.joemygod.com/2025/06/maga-podcaster-mn-killings-are-leftist-false-flag/) about how the murders are a “leftist false flag.” Also something about “I’m sorry, but these are the same agencies that brought you the Whitmer Fednapping, that brought you January 6, that brought you the Epstein cases, that brought you Ghislaine Maxwell. These are the same people. These are the same people.”
Uhhhh okeydoke. We guess Kash Patel and Pam Bondi are now card-carrying members of the Deep State voices in Benny Johnson’s head community.
Musk tweeted that “the far left is murderously violent.” Laura Loomer said that “Walz’s goons are now assassinating lawmakers who support legislation Walz opposes.” (There’s a whole conspiracy theory they made up surrounding this that involves healthcare legislation in Minnesota, it’s too stupid to type, but you can read it if you want. (https://www.startribune.com/fact-check-did-vance-boelter-suspect-in-minnesota-shootings-have-close-ties-to-gov-tim-walz/601373519))
:{:{How Did Evil Russians Manage To Fool Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, AND Benny Johnson? Wow!}:
\Evan Hurst (https://substack.com/profile/9485412-evan-hurst)
·
September 5, 2024
\Read full story (https://www.wonkette.com/p/how-did-evil-russians-manage-to-fool)](https://www.wonkette.com/p/how-did-evil-russians-manage-to-fool)
Mike Lee also had another tweet about it that said “Nightmare on Walz Street.” Ohio Republican Senator Bernie Moreno — another Republican dude with a lot in common with Vance Boelter (https://www.wonkette.com/p/sherrod-browns-gross-republican-opponent) — tweeted this, a retweet of another right-wing liar connecting “No Kings” fliers found in Boelter’s car with Randi Weingarten and teachers unions somehow.
(https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F11f52827-9f70-4094-a58e-153aca68c51f_1158x1874.png)
He hasn’t removed it. None of the posts and tweets we’re referencing in this post have been removed.
[
Sherrod Brown's Gross Republican Opponent Pretty Sure Women Over 50 Too Old To Vote On Abortion
\Evan Hurst (https://substack.com/profile/9485412-evan-hurst)
·
September 24, 2024
\Read full story (https://www.wonkette.com/p/sherrod-browns-gross-republican-opponent)](https://www.wonkette.com/p/sherrod-browns-gross-republican-opponent)
A mouthy extremist Republican state senator in Tennessee named Brent Taylor, who represents a tiny slice of Memphis, a city that otherwise cannot stand him, posted a Dinesh D’Souza (https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=697678289546370&set=a.128705103110361&comment_id=1268400931676061¬if_id=1749948147655652¬if_t=feedback_reaction_generic&ref=notif) tweet with the picture of the “No Kings” fliers, because that’s how debased and pathetic he is. He then proceeded to babble like a dementia patient for 9,000 paragraphs about leftist violence:
The Left's violence masquerading as free speech is a stain on our republic, and it’s escalating at a terrifying pace. From assassination attempts on President Trump—twice in two months—to torching cars at Tesla dealerships during Tesla Takedowns. Members of “Progressive” groups like this have now turned to a call to arms.
Los Angeles burns under their orchestrated chaos, with anti-ICE riots seeing Molotov cocktails, looted businesses, and attacks on federal agents, all while Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass fumble, blaming others for their failures. […]
This is the Left’s legacy: burning cities, targeting conservatives, and excusing violence as “resistance.” Their hypocrisy is glaring—silent on their own extremists while attempting to demonize the Right. It’s time to call this what it is: a dangerous, unhinged movement that threatens our way of life.
Ahem OK sure, pal. Below that are comments from Memphis voters telling him to go drink piss in hell, which is something Memphis voters say to Brent Taylor a lot. (He’s a big buddy (https://twitter.com/toddstarnes/status/1903530181563949368?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1903530181563949368%7Ctwgr%5E2df9767ba23437040f31f30413f25acbbdae2408%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftennesseestar.com%2Fnews%2Ftennessee-republicans-glenn-jacobs-brent-taylor-todd-starnes-support-tesla-amid-protests-over-elon-musk-and-doge%2Ftpappert%2F2025%2F03%2F24%2F) of Todd Starnes, (https://www.wonkette.com/p/todd-starnes-writes-love-letter-to-donald-trumps-penis) which should tell longtime Wonkette readers what kind of guy we’re making fun of here.)
[
Todd Starnes Writes Love Letter To Donald Trump's Penis
\Evan Hurst (https://substack.com/profile/14358125-evan-hurst)
·
July 27, 2015
\Read full story (https://www.wonkette.com/p/todd-starnes-writes-love-letter-to-donald-trumps-penis)](https://www.wonkette.com/p/todd-starnes-writes-love-letter-to-donald-trumps-penis)
Again, there was never any mystery who this murderous piece of shit is. The story, from the beginning, was Typical, Unremarkable Trump Voter Assassinates Democrats. He’s an anti-abortion Christian extremist, which is no surprise, because that’s a really common thing to find in a terrorist profile. There were anti-abortion extremists all over the place among the domestic extremists who attacked the Capitol on January 6. Far-right extremists are the greatest domestic terrorist threat (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/far-right-violence-a-growing-threat-and-law-enforcements-top-domestic-terrorism-concern) to the United States, and have been for a long time, no matter how much the Trump Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security try to cover that up so they can blood libel people who aren’t white.
This is their dude, y’all.
Why they lyin’?
It couldn’t be shame causing them to do this, because white conservative Christian men and the people who serve them don’t have the capacity for that.
We guess they just find it extremely politically inconvenient right now, since everybody hates Trump (https://www.wonkette.com/p/everybody-hates-trump-and-his-little) and his agenda and his incompetent Cabinet, and Trump’s North Korean birthday parade was more poorly attended than a common wiener dog race at the county fair.
Not a great time to remind America just how much they hateall religious conservative Republican extremists, we reckon!
Everybody Hates Trump, And His Little Nazi Loser Friends Too}:
\Evan Hurst (https://substack.com/profile/9485412-evan-hurst)
·
Jun 12
\Read full story (https://www.wonkette.com/p/everybody-hates-trump-and-his-little)](https://www.wonkette.com/p/everybody-hates-trump-and-his-little)
Also Republican politicians are simply bad people who are going to hell when they die, and that’s why they’re doing this.
We probably needn’t try to psychoanalyze it any further.
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an 6 25
On Saturday morning, June 14, 2025 — before President Donald Trump's military/birthday parade in Washington, DC and nationwide protests expressing opposition to it got underway — some disturbing news broke in Minnesota (https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5350643-minnesota-former-house-speaker-assassination/).
MSNBC reported that two state lawmakers had been shot in their homes: Minnesota State Sens. John Hoffman and Melissa Hortman, both members of the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party. And Gov. Tim Walz, at a press conference, gave reporters details on the attack and the ongoing investigation.
Walz confirmed to reporters, "This was an act of targeted political violence."
READ MORE: 'Well planned out': Former FBI special agent shocked by sophistication of MN shooting (https://www.alternet.org/minnesota-shootings-msnbc-velshi/)
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The suspect, according to Minnesota officials, remains at large and is the target of an aggressive manhunt. Minnesota officials told reporters that the suspect impersonated a police officer and did so convincingly; one of them said the suspect's vehicle "looked exactly like a police vehicle."
Hortman, MSNBC confirmed, was killed — while Hoffman, at the time of the press conference, was still alive but undergoing surgery. MSNBC's Ali Velshi and former FBI special agent John D'Amico, after the press conference, were both surprised by how sophisticated the attack was and that the suspect, according to Minnesota officials, was so convincing — using a taser, a gun and a fake police vehicle.
In response to the tragedy, a No Kings Day protest in Minneapolis was canceled.
The suspect, according to Minnesota officials, had a "manifesto" in the vehicle and what appeared to be a list of people targeted for assassination.
READ MORE:'A huge flag': Bill Maher ignites controversy with bombshell Fetterman interview (https://www.alternet.org/bill-maher-fetterman-trump-bannon/?utm_source=push_notifications)
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On Thursday, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed legislation that, if signed into law, would strip federal funding from NPR and PBS. One of the four Republicans who voted against it is now speaking out.
Most of the $9.4 billion rescissions package (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-republicans-vote-claw-back-94-billion-funding-foreign-aid-npr-pb-rcna211740) (legislation in which Congress claws back money that was previously appropriated) is targeting foreign aid through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the African Development Foundation, with approximately $8 billion being cut from those agencies. However, the remainder of the money was allocated toward the two public broadcasting agencies that are partially funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
In a post to his website (https://amodei.house.gov/news-releases/amodei-statement-following-vote-rescissions-package), Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) slammed the cuts to NPR and PBS, saying that his constituents depended on their local public broadcasting affiliates to get basic information. And he called on his colleagues to not rush to strip funding from the CPB before having a larger conversation about what the impact of those cuts would be.
READ MORE:'Monarchy': Federal judge compares Trump to 'King George' (https://www.alternet.org/monarchy-trump-king-george/)
"If we do not have time to think about it, we sure as hell have time to talk about it before October 1st when the impacts of these rescinded funds would start to be felt,” Amodei said, referring to the start of Fiscal Year 2026. "This is forward funding. So, before we trigger major consequences for our local public broadcasting stations throughout the West and other rural areas, we need more discussion—rather than railroading folks over the East Coast’s editorials and indiscretions."
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"I agree we must make meaningful cuts to shrink our federal deficit; however, I would be doing a disservice to the thousands of rural constituents in my district if I did not fight to keep their access to the rest of the world and news on the air," he continued.
"Having the ability to discuss real impacts, beyond just the global perspective, is a healthy and necessary step," he added. "I’m sure we will be voting on this again before the cake is fully baked, so I look forward to working with my colleagues to improve and protect this infrastructure our rural communities rely on."
The rescissions package is Congress' first attempt to codify some of the cuts made by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) earlier this year. In addition to Rep. Amodei, Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) and Michael Turner (R-Ohio) also voted no.
READ MORE:'Hushed the entire chamber': Democrat confronts GOP rep on House floor in 'shouting fight' (https://www.alternet.org/democrat-confronts-gop-rep/#)
Click here (https://amodei.house.gov/news-releases/amodei-statement-following-vote-rescissions-package) to read Amodei's full statement.
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no lnx
A sick obsession is killing workers, democracy and our planet
:{:{Thom HartmannJune 02, 2025}:
It happens every few generations. It’s what drove the fascist oligarchs of the Confederacy to reach out and try to conquer the entire United States in the 1860s. It caused the Robber Barons to murder union organizers and ultimately crash America into the Republican Great Depression in the early decades of the 20th century. And it’s why wages have been stagnant while billionaires’ wealth has exploded in the years since the Reagan Revolution.
What I’m talking about here is the rise of greedy oligarchs who are driven by an identifiable mental illness, what’s either a subset of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) or a defect in impulse control called Hoarding Syndrome.
Because most hoarders never invite people into their homes, it’s an almost invisible illness. But, as Drs. Randy Frost and Gail Steketee write in their book Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things:
“Recent studies of hoarding put the prevalence rate at somewhere between 2 and 5 percent of the population. That means that six million to fifteen million Americans suffer from hoarding that causes them distress or interferes with their ability to live.”
That’s tough enough; people afflicted with hoarding syndrome are often tortured by their obsession and socially embarrassed to the point of removing themselves from all but the most essential social situations. They’re functionally invisible. But, from a societal point of view, they’re generally only harming themselves: hoarding syndrome is considered a psychiatric condition, not a crisis for democracy itself.
With one giant exception: morbidly rich people who are also afflicted with hoarding syndrome but don’t live in or even close to poverty.
When people with hoarding syndrome are born with or come into massive wealth, suddenly what was once a personal, psychiatric issue can become a crisis for all of society.
Like Scrooge McDuck of Disney comics fame, instead of filling their mansions with old newspapers, tin cans, and balls of string they obsessively fill their money bins, overseas bank accounts, and investment portfolios with billions of dollars.
And then, driven to continuously hoard more and more money — that now being the object of their addiction — they reach out to use the power of government itself to redirect more and more cash into their greedy hands.
As historian and political scientist Michael Parenti notes:
“Wealth becomes addictive. Fortune whets the appetite for still more fortune. There is no end to the amount of money one might wish to accumulate, driven onward by the auri sacra fames, the cursed hunger for gold.
“So the money addicts grab more and more for themselves, more than can be spent in a thousand lifetimes of limitless indulgence, driven by what begins to resemble an obsessional pathology, a monomania that blots out every other human consideration.”
It blots out their concern for their fellow humans. It blots out their willingness to take climate science seriously. It blots out their ability to see the damage they’re doing to their own country and its democratic institutions.
Ultimately, they don’t care about the damage they do to society; such considerations are overwhelmed by their obsession. They don’t care how many children must grow up in poverty or even die young to support their massive wealth. They don’t care about destroying everybody else’s future, so long as they can get more, more, more money!
We defeated Confederate oligarchs with this disease back in 1865. We beat money hoarders back again after the Republican Great Depression with FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society. We thought we were safe, as the middle class grew from around 10 percent of us to around two-thirds of us (with a single paycheck!) by the late 1970s.
But then, in 1978, in the Bellotti decision written by “Powell Memo” author Lewis Powell himself, five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court ruled that money is actually “free speech” and corporations are “persons.” It floated Reagan into office in 1981 on a tsunami of oil and banking industry money. Five other corrupted SCOTUS Republicans doubled down on that bizarre ruling in 2010 with Citizens United, creating an entirely new form of corrupt political bribery via something they created out of thin air that are called SuperPACs.
As a result, today these morbidly rich hoarders shovel small amounts (millions) into the pockets of captured politicians who then provide them with tax breaks, profit-driving deregulation, and government subsidies that return billions to them. And the impact on average Americans over the past 47 years that we’ve been living in the Reagan Revolution has been dramatic.
While every other developed country in the world offers free or nearly-free healthcare to its citizens, free or nearly-free education including college, and almost universal unionization and a high minimum wage, we’re stuck living in the nation these billionaires have forced on us just to satisfy their own avaricious obsession with more, more, more money:
— Almost 30 million Americans lack health insurance altogether, and 43 percent of Americans are so badly under-insured that any illness or accident costing them more than $1000 in co-pays or deductibles would wipe them out.
— Almost 12 percent of Americans, over 37 million of us, live in dire poverty, and 60% of us live in poverty, 201 million Americans. According to OECD numbers, while only 5 percent of Italians and 11 percent of Japanese workers toil in low-wage jobs, as CBS News reports, “For the bottom 60% of U.S. households, a minimal quality of life is out of reach.” (And low-income Japanese and Italians have free healthcare and college.)
— More than one-in-five Americans — 21 percent — are illiterate. By fourth grade, a mere 35 percent of American children are literate at grade level, as our public schools have suffered from a sustained, four-decade-long attack by Republicans at both state and federal levels to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.
— Fully a quarter of Americans (26 percent) suffer from a diagnosable mental illness in any given year: over half of them (54 percent) never receive treatment and, because of cost and a lack of access to mental health care, of the 46 percent who do get help, the average time from onset of symptoms to the first treatment is 11 years.
— Every day in America an average of 316 people are shot and 110 die from their wounds. Gun violence is now the leading cause of death for American children, a situation not suffered by the children of any other country in the world.
And these are just the tip of the iceberg of statistics about how Americans suffer from Reagan’s forty-year-long GOP war on working-class and poor people that has managed to make America the nation with the world’s largest number of the world’s wealthiest billionaires.
— Almost half (44 percent) of American adults carry student debt, a burden virtually unknown in any other developed country in the world (dozens of countries actually pay their young people to go to college).
— Americans spend more than twice as much for healthcare and pharmaceuticals than citizens of any other developed country. We pay $11,912 per person per year for healthcare; it’s $5,463 in Australia, $4,666 in Japan, $5,496 in France, and $7,382 in Germany (the most expensive country outside of us).
And we don’t get better health or a longer lifespan for all the money; instead, it’s just lining the pockets of rich insurance, pharma, and hospital executives and investors, with hundreds of billions in profits every year going to the morbidly rich. “Dollar Bill” McGuire, the former CEO of UnitedHealth, for example, took over a billion dollars in compensation.
— The average American life expectancy is 78.8 years: Canada is 82.3, Australia is 82.9, Japan is 84.4, France is 83.0, and Germany is 81.3.
— Our public schools are an underfunded mess, as are our highways and public transportation systems. While every other developed country in the world has high-speed train service, we still suffer under a privatized rail system that prevents Amtrak from running even their most modern trains at anything close to their top speeds.
In the forty-two years since the start of the Reagan Revolution, bought-off politicians have so altered our tax code that fully $51 trillion has moved from the homes and savings of working class Americans into the money bins of the morbidly rich money hoarders.
As a result, America today is the most unequal developed nation in the world and the situation gets worse every day: many of our billionaires are richer than any pharaoh or king in the history of the world, while a family lifestyle that could be comfortably supported by a single income in 1980 takes two people working full-time to maintain today.
In the years since the Court first began down this road in 1976, the GOP has come to be entirely captured by this handful of mentally ill billionaires and the industries that made them rich.
As a result, Republican politicians refuse to do anything about the slaughter of our schoolchildren with weapons of war; ignore or ridicule the damage fossil fuel-caused global warming is doing to our nation and planet; and continue to lower billionaire and corporate taxes every time they get full control of the federal or a state government.
All because our courts and politicians, now well-captured by rightwing billionaires, refuse to do anything about the ravages of hoarding syndrome among the very wealthy.
Solving this problem won’t be easy but also isn’t complicated. Just like we did with the Robber Barons, the first step is to identify and publicize the problem of mentally ill people among the morbidly rich having seized control of our political system.
We did this before.
As President Grover Cleveland — the only Democrat elected during that post-Civil War period — proclaimed in his 1887 State of the Union address:
“As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people’s masters.”
And as FDR pointed out when he began to pull America out of the Republican Great Depression:
“For out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. … It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over Government itself.”
FDR took on those “economic royalists” and defeated them. He explicitly called them out when the Democratic Party renominated him for president in 1936 in Philadelphia:
“These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America,” Roosevelt said. “What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power.”
He paused for a moment, then thundered, “Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power!”
The crowd roared, delighted that he’d turned back the Republican Great Depression and put millions to work while undoing the climate-destroying Dust Bowl by creating, among other three-letter agencies, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to plant millions of trees across the country. And he raised the top tax rate on the obscenely wealthy back up to 90 percent, while stopping an effort to kidnap him and turn the government fascist.
“In vain,” Roosevelt said, “they seek to hide behind the Flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the Flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.”
Cleveland’s and Roosevelt’s work now falls to us, as a new generation of obsessively money-hoarding Robber Barons have emerged from Reagan’s tax cuts and these horrible Supreme Court decisions. It’s thus now our job to educate the American people about the mental illness that’s frozen our economy and is dismantling our democracy.
Our task in this time of crisis is to create a societal consensus across America that we’re done indulging these wealthy pampered babies’ every desire, and begin the serious reforms necessary to put an end to this crisis and, like in the 1890s and 1930s, break up monopolies and raise their damn taxes so we can begin to pay down our nation’s debt and rebuild the middle class.
It’ll take a few years, in all probability, but it’s been done before. We can do it again.
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an 6 25
In their apparent eagerness to save money and do right by taxpayers, perhaps Kansas Republican leaders could try passing laws that don’t trample on the rights of their constituents.
That’s my only response to lawsuits filed throughout May that highlight the downright sloppy lawmaking that has become a hallmark of our state’s rushed, secretive legislative session (https://kansasreflector.com/tag/statehouse-scraps/). Bills are introduced and rubber-stamped in committee, testimony from experts is ignored, and the House and Senate send them through with nary a speed bump.
Afterward, the taxpayers of Kansas have to foot the bill for any carelessness.
Let’s take a quick look at the lawsuits and their subjects. Up first, Kansas Reflector editor in chief Sherman Smith, who reported the following May 28 (https://kansasreflector.com/2025/05/28/kansas-trans-kids-file-lawsuit-over-new-law-banning-gender-affirming-care/).
Two transgender teenagers and their parents are challenging a new Kansas law that bans gender-affirming care for minors.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and the national ACLU filed a lawsuit Wednesday in Douglas County District Court on behalf of a 16-year-old trans boy and a 13-year-old trans girl. The lawsuit argues the new law violates state constitutional rights for equal protection, personal autonomy and parenting.
Senate Bill 63 (https://www.kslegislature.gov/li/b2025_26/measures/sb63/) prohibits health care providers from using surgery, hormones or puberty blockers to treat anyone younger than 18 who identifies with a gender that is different from the sex they were assigned at birth. Health care providers who break the law may be subject to civil penalties and stripped of their license....
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AN 5 25
'Nuclear option': GOP senators threaten to cross 'red line' they warned Dems against
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no lnx
Republicans and the biggest political con of the last century
Thom Hartmann May 24, 2025
Neal deGrasse Tyson makes a very relevant point this week:
“If a foreign adversary snuck into our Federal budget and cut science research and education the way we’re cutting it ourselves — strategically undermining America’s long-term health, wealth, and security — we would likely consider it an act of war.”
Donald Trump’s administration just said you can’t get the Covid vaccine unless you’re over 65 or sick, setting up America for more death and disease. As Noah Berlatsky notes in his great Substack newsletter:
“This is the latest effort by Trump to try to kick start a major US pandemic and degrade the health and welfare of the country. Trump as also rolled back food testing, including testing for bacteria in infant formula. He’s made major cuts at the FAA, leading to fears for airline safety—and a number of dramatic airline safety failures already may be related to the destruction of capacity. Cuts at the NOAA may diminish the ability to warn about dangerous weather events. The Republican proposals for Medicaid cuts are likely to lead to tens of thousands of deaths. And of course Trump’s senseless tariffs are increasing inflation, destroying jobs, and could still easily end us in a recession.“
But why? What the hell is going on here?
Almost two-thirds of us Americans can’t afford the basic necessities of life, according to a new report from the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP) reported by CBS News. They point out that if unemployment numbers included the underemployed and those stuck in “poverty-wage jobs,” it would be around 24%, not the 4.2% recently reported, leading to an acknowledgement of a widespread misery that’s largely hidden by the way we currently calculate unemployment.
Income for the bottom 60% of Americans, for example, actually declined by 4% in the years 2001 to 2023 while costs — particularly for healthcare, housing, food, and education (college tuition, for example, is up 122% since 2001) — have exploded.
Before the pandemic, half of all homes on the market were affordable to a family earning $75,000 a year; today it’s only one out of five houses that such a family could afford to purchase.
The initial result of this post-Reagan Revolution economy was to kneecap the middle class and working class; now Republicans are using the same strategy they employed to destroy our middle class to dismantle our nation’s government and its core functions to leave us vulnerable to the predation of foreign nations, vulture capitalists, and the morbidly rich.
And nobody’s sure why.
The history of how we got here is shocking. And the place it’s taking us — gutting government functions while handing our role in the world over to China and Russia — is downright scandalous.
At first, it was simply a political strategy to claim the mantle of Santa Claus from the Democrats by “gifting” America with tax breaks. Then it became a program to force Dems to kill off their own social programs by driving up the national debt. And now it’s being used to disassemble the American government itself, abandoning what’s left of the middle class while handing America’s dominant role in the world to China and Russia.
You could call it treason, except that it’s become so normalized and institutionalized that most Americans wouldn’t even understand the reason for the label.
Republican policy weirdness that brought us to this moment began around the national debt in 1981.
The U.S. was significantly in debt following our Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War I, and World War II. Following the philosophy that a large national debt should only exist during a time of national emergency, in each case, after the end of each war, we began a serious effort to pay down that debt.
Andrew Jackson finished paying off the entire debt from the Revolutionary War in the 1830s. We’d largely paid off the debt from the Civil War by the end of the 19th century, and, as the Treasury Department notes on its debt history site, our “government ended the century with its finances in very good order.”
We paid the national debt for WWI down to a mere $17 billion by the time the Republican Great Depression hit, but between the cost of the New Deal and World War II, we entered the post-WWII era in 1946 with a debt equal to 106% of GDP, a ratio we hit again in 2015.
Republicans and Democrats quickly united around the idea of paying off our national debt in the post-war years, driving it down to a mere $800 billion ($0.8 trillion) between 1945 and 1981 when Reagan came into office.
And then, following Jude Wanniski’s “Two Santas” plan, the GOP embarked on an experiment that had never been intentionally tried in the U.S. or any other developed country in world history: drive up the national debt as high as possible with massive tax breaks for the very richest among us.
Reagan did this for two reasons:
— First, deficit spending with trillions in borrowed money (he ran the debt up to $2.4 trillion in a mere 8 years) stimulates the economy, so people thought Reagan had produced good times. (Give me a $2 trillion credit card, and I’ll show you what it looks like to live large, too!)
— Second, the rising debt gave Republicans the perfect excuse to follow Wanniski’s advice to force the Democrats to “shoot their Santa [of programs like Social Security and Medicaid] in the face.” Whenever a Republican is in the White House, Wanniski argued, Republicans should run up the debt as hard and fast as possible, so when a Democrat is in the White House they can squeal about “the debt our children will inherit! Oh, the humanity!”
The GOP has stuck to this strategy for 44 years now, running up $36 trillion in debt (and our entire Gross Domestic Product was a mere $27.7 trillion last year) and now, finally, we’ve reached the point where this unsustainable debt is not only costing us a trillion dollars a year in debt service (interest payments) but has led to a downgrade of our nation’s credit score.
At first, the main effect of the Two Santas strategy was merely to make the morbidly rich among us fabulously richer, while extracting much of that wealth from the homes, retirement plans, and savings of the middle class. It was, quite simply, a planned and successful transfer of roughly $50 trillion into the money bins of the rich, almost all of it coming out of the hides and lives of the rest of us.
When Reagan came into office in 1981, about two-thirds of Americans were solidly middle class with a single paycheck being able to buy a home, a car, raise a family, put the kids through school, and provide for a decent retirement.
Today, that same standard of living requires a bit more than two full-time jobs, and only about 47% of us are in the middle class (with two wage earners instead of just one in 1981).
“‘The middle class has been declining — we just haven't recognized it fully,’ LISEP Chairman Gene Ludwig told CBS MoneyWatch. ‘It’s really dangerous because it’s the kind of thing that leads to social unrest, and it’s not fair. The American dream is not that it’s given to you — it’s that if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead and achieve the things in life that you want to achieve. It’s not living in a tent, not having to steal.”
But now Trump, Musk, Vance, and congressional Republicans — having first crushed the American middle class — are doing everything they can to destroy America’s preeminent position in the world along with our social safety net.
— Instead of investing in education and science, they’re making it harder for students to get an education.
— Instead of promoting democracy around the world, they’re embracing murderous dictators while broadcasting rightwing neofascist propaganda on Voice of America.
— Instead of lifting up Americans by helping our veterans and providing food, healthcare, and shelter to the poor and disabled, they’re gutting the VA and the social safety net.
As a result, today nearly half of American children (45% or 34 million kids) rely on food and medical programs that are now targeted by “Christian” Mike Johnson’s House Republicans in their Big Brutal Bill providing trillions in tax breaks to billionaires. The proposed cuts to SNAP (food stamps) and Medicaid, for example, would be the largest in the history of the U.S.
Reagan’s Two Santas strategy has done serious harm to America, collapsing the economic futures of two entire generations.
And now they’re going after our government itself.
But, why? Nobody’s sure.
— Did Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, or both tell Trump and/or Elon Musk to destroy America?
— Are our country’s billionaires so psychopathically greedy that they’re willing to sell us all out for another few billion dollars in tax breaks?
— Do Trump’s allies believe that if they can impoverish Americans we’ll be more willing to go along with their authoritarian agenda the way Germans did after being immiserated by the Republican Great Depression of the 1930s?
— Are they following the “Dark Enlightenment” philosophers of Silicon Valley who argue that democracy is outdated and “we need to get over our dictator phobia” and let the tech giants run the country?
Nobody knows for sure. Nobody can really explain it.
Republicans are aren’t even pretending anymore; they’re not even bothering to proclaim BS like “trickle down” or the “need to support the job creators.“
Most distressing, there’s virtually no discussion of any of this in the mainstream press.
— The Two Santas strategy is easily documented, but never mentioned.
— The explosion of our national debt is all over economists’ websites, but when the American media mentions it, it’s always in the context of Democrats needing to “reduce spending” rather than the fact that virtually 100% of our debt today was put there exclusively by Reagan, Bush, and Trump tax cuts and Bush’s two illegal wars.
— Nobody, it seems, is speculating about why Trump and Musk would want to kill off USAID or kneecap the FAA and the National Weather Service. Qui bono (who benefits?) other than Putin and Xi? The savings are a drop in the billionaire’s bucket; there must be a larger agenda than just funding tax cuts for billionaires.
— And, they’re now holding their votes in the middle of the night; I think we all know what they are hiding and the credulous press is letting pass.
I don’t know why Republicans have been so enthusiastic about first destroying the American middle class and now our government itself, but the consequences have driven the explosion of rightwing anger, racism, and misogyny that’s been sweeping the nation since Trump’s appearance on the scene in 2015.
And now they’re threatening our position in the world, as well as possibly leading us all into a third world war.
Why do you think this is happening?
NOW READ: 'Trump's tactics are in fact communist': Former Tea Party congressman busts MAGA for what it is
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an 5 25
:{:{During the House’s marathon markup of President Donald Trump’s historic budget bill, the Chairwoman of the powerful Rules Committee lashed out at Democrats for plainly describing the legislation’s sweeping consequences (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-house-passed-trumps-big-beautiful-bill-heres-how-it-affects-taxpayers-and-businesses-110041500.html). Officially dubbed the “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act,” the measure narrowly passed in the early hours of Thursday by a 215–214 vote (https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/house-republicans-pass-trump-agenda-megabill-rcna208389). }:
It removes $800 billion in funding from Medicaid, would lead to $535 billion in cuts to Medicare (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/05/its-a-nightmare-trumps-beautiful-bill-slashes-500b-from-medicare-dems-warn/), and is projected to cause an estimated 8.6 to 13.7 million Americans (https://www.kff.org/affordable-care-act/issue-brief/how-will-the-2025-reconciliation-bill-affect-the-uninsured-rate-in-each-state-allocating-cbos-partial-estimates-of-coverage-loss/) to lose their health care. It will also add $3 trillion to the federal deficit—fueled by tax breaks heavily tilted toward the wealthy and the nation’s first-ever $1 trillion defense budget (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/05/leavitts-deficit-denial-and-the-first-ever-trillion-dollar-defense-budget-built-on-it/).}:
“I am concerned about what has been said about this bill and what it’s going to do,” Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) told the members of her committee Wednesday night. “The extreme comments that have been made about it, and how I believe that it is scaring people out there in the country unnecessarily.”
“The words I’ve heard, particularly today, are ‘cut,’ ‘rip,’ ‘gut,’ ‘kill,’ ‘cruel,’ ‘stealing food,’ ‘losing coverage,’ ‘jammed through,’ ‘biggest transfer of wealth from vulnerable to wealthy people,’ ‘irresponsible’.”
“That is not the way we ought to be talking about this bill.”
READ MORE: ‘Sovereignly Appointed’: Trump Praised in Pentagon Prayer Event Led by Hegseth and Pastor (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/05/sovereignly-appointed-trump-praised-in-pentagon-prayer-event-led-by-hegseth-and-pastor/)
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Many appear to disagree.
MSNBC columnist Michael A. Cohen, just after the bill passed Thursday morning, wrote (https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/republican-house-bill-medicaid-snap-cuts-tax-cut-trump-rcna208380): “What we do know about the legislation the GOP is calling the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’ is genuinely terrifying.”
“What makes this situation even worse is that Republicans, from the president on down, are consistently lying about what the bill would do,” Cohen charged.
“The House Republican budget plan would eviscerate Medicaid and food assistance and shift resources toward the wealthiest Americans,” the Center for American Progress (https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-house-republicans-budget-bill-guts-basic-needs-programs-for-the-most-vulnerable-americans-to-give-tax-breaks-to-the-rich/?fbclid=IwY2xjawKcF2FleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETF4emtqSkhqSk1GejlWYW1LAR558WbCapFJyQwEwNmLhqzA9FcjWOJ77tlKGP-J3V5t9aY4BOZYeIeT7oDXjw_aem_1SeLj8v2ZYcQzcJ5i2yYKw) (CAP) warned ten days ago, adding that it “would implement the largest cuts to both Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in history—kicking millions of Americans off their health insurance and taking food away from hungry children.”
“It would raise household electricity costs while trapping most middle-class and poor students in greater student loan debt to afford a higher education,” CAP’s Bobby Kogan, Senior Director for Federal Budget Policy wrote. “And it would make all these changes as a means to partially offset tax breaks that disproportionately go to the richest Americans, giving households in the top 0.1 percent a multihundred-thousand-dollar tax break on average while increasing deficits by trillions of dollars. Taken as a whole, the bill would add trillions of dollars to structural deficits despite these enormous cuts to critical services.”
“If enacted,” Kogan warned, “this would be the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in a single law in U.S. history.”
READ MORE: ‘Get Out of Here’: Trump Erupts, Calls for NBC Probe After Reporter Asks About Qatari Jet (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/05/get-out-of-here-trump-erupts-calls-for-nbc-probe-after-reporter-asks-about-qatari-jet/)
“Taken as a whole, this bill would harm Americans—particularly the most vulnerable people—and leave the country worse off. It would lead to preventable deaths by taking health care away from millions of people. It would worsen food insecurity by taking food away from the hungry, particularly kids.”
“Budgets showcase our morality because they force governments to decide how to prioritize limited resources. The House Republican budget plan would shift funding away from the sick and hungry and, instead, toward the wealthiest Americans.”
U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) responded (https://x.com/RepEscobar/status/1925360654422061342) to Foxx, saying, “In other words, ‘please don’t call this bill what it is or say what it does’.”
Watch the video below or at this link. (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/05/cut-rip-gut-kill-cruel-top-republican-lashes-out-over-dems-using-these-words/)
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no lnx
How MAGA got brainwashed: The science behind the right-wing’s 50-year propaganda campaign
Thom Hartmann May 14, 2025
Donald Trump has been lying to us ever since he came down that escalator. He just never stops lying because as a lifelong con man, it’s all he knows how to do.
He’s still insisting he won the 2020 election, despite having lost by about 7 million votes and being wiped out in the Electoral College. He lied at the State of the Union about having a mandate to cut Medicaid, as Rep. Al Green (D-TX) pointed out. Along with over 100 other lies he told that day. And now he’s lying about his trade deals with the UK and other governments. Every single day he adds to the pile of lies he’s inflicting on the American people and the world.
Science, it turns out, explains why this works for him.
Not the science of elections: the science of propaganda.
New findings from psychologists at universities in California and Georgia published in the journal Cognitive Research show that the more often a statement — regardless of its truthfulness — is repeated, the more emphatically it’s believed.
The researchers noted:
“Repeated information is often perceived as more truthful than new information. This finding is known as the illusory truth effect, and it is typically thought to occur because repetition increases processing fluency. Because fluency and truth are frequently correlated in the real world, people learn to use processing fluency as a marker for truthfulness.”
While modern science is affirming this truism, it’s been in use a long time. In the past century, for example, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called out Republicans for using what we today call the Big Lie around several issues. Running for re-election in 1944, he said:
“The opposition in this year has already imported into this campaign a very interesting thing, because it is foreign. They have imported the propaganda technique invented by the dictators abroad. Remember, a number of years ago, there was a book, Mein Kampf, written by Hitler himself.“The technique was all set out in Hitler's book — and it was copied by the aggressors of Italy and Japan. According to that technique, you should never use a small falsehood; always a big one, for its very fantastic nature would make it more credible — if only you keep repeating it over and over and over again.”
Back then Republicans were lying that Democrats had caused the Republican Great Depression (as it was called until the 1950s) and that FDR had “failed” to adequately prepare America for war with Germany or Japan (while Republican after Republican took to the floor of Congress to tell us, before the war, that “we can do business with Hitler”).
Now Trump’s lies (like about the election, immigrants, and what Elon Musk is up to) are parroted daily by Republican politicians and usually echoed in the media without pushback. After all, Trump reportedly slept with a collection of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside: he would be fluent in Hitler’s Big Lie strategy.
Besides the addition of Trump’s lies, Republican lies haven’t changed a lot since FDR’s era, although they’re more focused and now repeated daily by thousands of rightwing websites, bloggers, podcasts, Fox “News,” and talk radio shows.
Over the past 44 years, Republican billionaires have built an extraordinary nationwide media propaganda machine. Their goal was directed towards justifying tax cuts for the morbidly rich and the deregulation of polluting industries, but now it’s been taken over by Trump acolytes promoting, among other lies, the idea the Democrats torture children and drink their blood.
The “useful idiots” in this scheme have been the American corporate and billionaire-owned media, who dutifully echo or leave unchallenged the GOP’s regular lies.
One of the Republicans most egregious lies — that America is evenly split 50/50 between Republicans and Democrats and on the issues of the day — is constantly repeated on the political Sunday shows. Always without a single word of pushback from the show’s host.
While the Senate may be more-or-less split 50/50, Democrats in the Senate represent over 40 million more Americans than do Republicans. And on issues like tax cuts for billionaires, the right to unionize, access to Medicare/Medicaid, climate change, the right to abortion, privatizing Social Security, drug prices, Medicaid expansion, free college, and the minimum wage Americans are overwhelmingly on the side of Democrats.
So how did so many Americans end up believing the many lies that are daily pushed by the GOP?
In a word: repetition, just like the science shows works. Here are a few of their greatest hits, with each followed by my rebuttal:
'Tax cuts produce prosperity'
In a remarkable study published by The London School of Economics, looking at 18 wealthy OECD countries over 50 years, the researchers discovered, unambiguously:
“We find that major reforms reducing taxes on the rich lead to higher income inequality as measured by the top 1% share of pre-tax national income. The effect remains stable in the medium term. In contrast, such reforms do not have any significant effect on economic growth and unemployment.”
In other words, tax cuts for the rich make the rich richer and throw the nation into debt, but otherwise have no measurable effect on the economy.
Ever since Ronald Reagan, Republicans have been assuring us that if we just give more money to the “job creators,” they’ll use it to open new factories and raise wages. In fact, the morbidly rich simply put that extra money into their offshore accounts and money bins.
In fact, in the 44 years since Reagan started the practice of massive Republican tax cuts for the richest Americans, there has been a $50 trillion transfer of wealth from America’s working class into the money bins of our morbidly rich.
The idea that tax cuts for the rich and corporations would produce prosperity was a lie from the beginning and still is, but Republicans are still repeating it after nearly 50 years of disastrous experience with neoliberal Reaganomics.
...?
In fact, immigrants — legal and undocumented — are far less likely to commit crimes than American citizens. After all, who wants to either get deported or blow up their chances of becoming a citizen of the country they’ve taken such huge and often deadly chances to reach?
And the statistics aren’t even close. In a massive study funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Justice, published by the University of Wisconsin at Madison, scientists discovered American citizens are 200% to 400% more likely to commit violent felonies against persons, drug crimes, and felony property crimes than immigrants, regardless of their immigration status.
But that won’t stop rightwing media from hyping every exception-to-the-rule when an immigrant is caught committing a crime. Lies, after all, are the coin of their realm.
The minimum wage was established in 1938 and has been raised 22 times. If there had ever been — in all that time — even a single year when inflation increases could be tied to increases in the minimum wage, every Republican in America would have the year memorized.
“You don’t want what happened in 1958 to happen ever again!” they’d warn us while wagging fingers in our faces. Except there is not even one single example of an increase in the minimum wage increasing inflation, which is why they never cite a single statistic or year.
When researchers decided to seriously dig into the topic, they found that a massive 10% increase in the minimum wage may have as much as a 0.1% — one-tenth-of-one-percent, or ten cents on a $100 product — impact on inflation, but that’s never been recorded in American history. Wages simply aren’t that large a part of the price of most goods and even most services.
This is a favorite of the multi-billion-dollar union-busting industry to roll out in their mandatory “reeducation” sessions with captive workers who are considering voting for unionization. It’s a complete lie.
Unlike workers’ actual bosses, whose compensation typically goes up with profits, union “bosses” are simply employees of heavily regulated nonprofit organizations (unions) who work on a salary. They earn just a small fraction of what the actual corporate bosses take from the companies they’re trying to unionize.
When they’re successful, however, union bosses do reduce corporate profits by forcing companies to give their workers better pay and benefits. Which is why corporations are willing to pay millions of dollars a day, in some cases, to bring in these high-powered law firms to intimidate workers.
This one depends on how you define “corrupt.” If you mean that dead people are voting or people are voting multiple times in multiple states, that’s so rare as to compete with the Loch Ness Monster for headlines.
After all, with millions of dollars and over a hundred lawyers and lawmakers, Republicans tried in 60 courtrooms (including the U.S. Supreme Court) to prove even a single case of election fraud that may have affected the outcome of the 2020 election: they failed every time.
On the other hand, if you define “corrupt” as Republican elections officials purging millions of voters — most people of color, students, city-dwellers, and the working poor — from the voting rolls, then maybe there’s some truth to it. But that’s not the line Republicans are selling.
This is one of the deadliest lies Republicans promote. A massive study published in The Annals of Internal Medicine found that having a gun in the home doubles the risk of residents of that home being victims of homicide and triples the risk of successful suicide.
Nonetheless, the big gun manufacturers and their Russian-supported National Rifle Association shower millions on Republican politicians all across America, so now guns have become the top cause of death among children here, something that’s never happened in any developed country, anytime in history, anywhere else in the world.
America now has about 120 guns per 100 people, while in most other developed countries the ratio is around 20 guns per 100 people. In many countries — Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, for example — it’s fewer than one gun per 100 people.
We are awash in blood and gun violence because of this Republican lie.
This lie is vigorously promoted by the Christian nationalist movement, led by multi-millionaire preachers and televangelists who are not only profiting from it but also have acquired considerable political power through it.
America, in fact, was the first democracy in the world that was founded in an entirely and explicitly secular fashion. The only prominent Founder who promoted the idea of America as a Christian nation was “Give me liberty or give me death” Patrick Henry, who was Virginia’s largest slaveholder and refused to sign the Constitution when it was finished in the fall of 1787.
Jefferson, Franklin, Rush, Washington and numerous others among the Founders didn’t even consider themselves Christians, and those who did — most notably John Adams and James Madison — were outspoken about the dangers of mixing religion and politics.
President Madison’s first veto, in fact, was to strike down a law that gave a DC church money to run a poorhouse. He said in his veto message that it would strike a bad precedent for the American government to give any money whatsoever to any church for a function that government should run itself.
Madison, who was a regular churchgoer (Jefferson attended, too, because until the Revolution the law in Virginia required church membership and attendance as a prerequisite for running for political office), was concerned that government money would corrupt the religion he loved; Jefferson was worried that if “priests” ever became politicians it would lead to the ruin of the republic.
The two debated the issue of which was the greatest danger to America regularly: it turns out both were right.
This is so facially absurd it shouldn’t even require mentioning, but there is literally not a single elected Republican at the federal level (at least that I know of) who will contradict it.
Like with the gun industry, the fossil fuel industry pays their politicians very well, and, since the Supreme Court legalized political bribery with their Citizens United decision and its predecessors, that money has worked to hold the GOP in the blood-stained clutches of the industry.
And now these Republican lies about climate change threaten all life on Earth.
So much happened during the last Trump administration that Americans can be forgiven for forgetting that Trump, in 2019, promised Chinese President Xi Jinping that he wouldn’t object if Xi brutally crushed the Hong Kong independence movement.
Trump was working on getting Chinese trademarks for his daughter Ivanka’s fashion line and other Ivanka-branded items (including coffins, voting machines, and almost any other category available) so, as CNN reported on October 4, 2019:
“The remarkable pledge to the Chinese leader is a dramatic departure from decades of US support for human rights in China and shows just how eager Trump is to strike a deal with Beijing…”
Trump’s so-called “trade war” with China was a joke. He imposed a few cosmetic tariffs that backfired and the Chinese didn’t take seriously because they were done by executive order rather than an act of Congress.
After hubby Jared got $2 billion for selling America out to Saudi Arabia, Ivanka seems to have lost interest in her business dealings in China. But in the meantime, the democracy movement in Hong Kong was completely crushed and its advocates are now dead or in prison thanks to Trump.
Every one of these lies, among others, are vigorously promoted by GOP-aligned media.
Their constant repetition has led average Republicans to fervently believe them, to the detriment of both the United States and, particularly with climate change, the future of life on Earth.
And now Trump has rolled out a new Big Lie that the media is obediently repeating: surrendering Ukraine to Russia will bring about “peace.” It’s probably the most despicable lie he’s promoted in decades.
FDR was right to call out the Republican Party for their Big Lie strategy back in the day. Tragically, he was 80 years too early for today’s Americans to realize the long, deep roots of the modern GOP’s propaganda strategy.
Over the past 40 years, our media has been largely complicit, echoing these Republican Big Lies. It’s well past time for American media to take its responsibility to present the truth seriously.
NOW READ: The single stupidest statement about Trump ever made
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SEE BAD FAITH LIE TRUMP CONST SAYS NO CUT SOC SEC; GOP SAY SAME BUT PASS BILL TO CUT 800M NO OTHER WAY
an 525
'Under cover of night,' Republicans unveil plan to kick over 8 million off healthcare (https://www.alternet.org/medicaid-republicans/)
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an 4 25
GOP unveils plan to give $150B more to Pentagon amid threats of cuts to Social Security (https://www.alternet.org/social-security-pentagon/)
Jake Johnson (https://www.alternet.org/author/jake-johnson) Common Dreams (https://www.alternet.org/author/common-dreams)
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AN 4 25
President Donald Trump's top loyalists are angling to climb the political ladder to help secure the future for his ultra-MAGA movement—and position themselves for greater influence. House members like far-right U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) are looking at the U.S. Senate, and far-right U.S. senators like Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) reportedly see hope in governors' mansions.
Some critical U.S. senators on both sides of the aisle are retiring, like Republican former Majority and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and the second-highest-ranking Democrat senator, Dick Durbin of Illinois.
"Democrats anxious to deny Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) and his Republican Party a governing trifecta as soon as possible are feeling pretty good about their prospects for flipping the House in 2026, given the GOP’s fragile margin of control and the historical pattern of sizable midterm losses for the president’s party," New York magazine's "Intelligencer (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/senate-retirements-make-midterms-harder-for-democrats.html)" reported last month.
"But the Senate, which has the power to confirm Trump’s executive branch and judicial nominations, is really going to be a reach. Democrats would need to flip four Senate seats to win control of the chamber. And an already difficult landscape is being made even tougher by the retirements of Democratic incumbents Gary Peters of Michigan, Tina Smith of Minnesota, and now Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire. All three of these open seats could potentially trigger competitive races in 2026."
READ MORE: ‘Reeks of Eugenics’: RFK Jr.’s Autism ‘Registry’ Draws Nazi Germany Comparisons (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/04/reeks-of-eugenics-rfk-jr-s-autism-registry-draws-nazi-germany-comparisons/)
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Enter Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican who went from a freshman stripped of all of her committee assignments over incendiary language, to becoming chair of the Delivering on Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.) subcommittee. She also sits on the House Committee on Homeland Security.
Congresswoman Greene is now thinking about becoming Senator Greene. If successful, her controversial tactics could have a dramatic impact on what is supposed to be the "world's greatest deliberative body (https://www.senate.gov/about/origins-foundations/idea-of-the-senate.htm)."
Rep. Greene is reportedly eyeing a run to unseat Democratic U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff, and believes she would “crush” any GOP primary opponent—except Governor Brian Kemp, should he choose to enter the race—according to the right-wing website Daily Caller (https://dailycaller.com/2025/04/24/exclusive-marjorie-taylor-greene-believes-she-would-crush-senate-primary-if-kemp-opts-out-sources-say/).
"Republicans are laser-focused on defeating Ossoff, whose narrow victory over former Republican Georgia Sen. David Perdue in a January 2021 runoff election was partly responsible for costing Senate Republicans their majority during the 2020 cycle," Daily Caller notes, adding, "Ossoff is the only Senate Democrat running for reelection in a state that Trump won last November."
Could Greene beat Ossoff?
READ MORE: Trump’s SignalGate Sit-Down Mocked as a ‘Him in a Nutshell’ Moment (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/04/trumps-signalgate-sit-down-mocked-as-a-him-in-a-nutshell-moment/)
"This would be a dream for Dems in Georgia," should Greene run, observed (https://x.com/lpolgreen/status/1915522330052153510) veteran journalist Lydia Polgreen.
"Somewhere at the DSCC \Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee] some operative is frantically wondering if there is anything they can do to ensure this happens," [wrote (https://x.com/brianros1/status/1915496258325668214) University of Pennsylvania political and media historian Brian Rosenwald.
A Daily Caller source also suggested Ossoff would retain his Senate seat, especially should the election move into a runoff. And Ossoff "has been taunting (https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1168616437953245&id=1336293769761923&_rdr) Greene to jump into the race."
Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville is reportedly mapping out a run for the Alabama Governor's mansion.
"Tuberville told a group of donors at a private event on Wednesday night that his mind is officially made up," the conservative website Yellowhammer News (https://yellowhammernews.com/tuberville-hegseth-back-return-of-service-members-discharged-for-refusing-covid-vaccine/) reported. "Rather than seeking re-election to the U.S. Senate, he is ready to run his next race in Alabama, and serve the people of the state in Montgomery instead of Washington.
An official campaign announcement is imminent in the coming weeks, but latest reports offer insight into a finalized decision by Tuberville, who has been privately discussing jumping into the 2026 gubernatorial race for quite some time."
Senator Tuberville reportedly is "furious" at the leak, according to an opinion column at Alabama Political Reporter (https://www.alreporter.com/2025/04/25/opinion-tuberville-fumbles-his-own-governor-play-then-blames-the-ref/).
"Tuberville melted down like a plastic lawn chair in July. By Thursday morning, the whispers had turned into headlines. Then Tuberville took to Facebook — and things got weird."
“While I appreciate all the interest,” Tuberville wrote, “Suzanne and I are still praying about how to best serve the people of Alabama. When I have an official announcement about my future, you’ll hear it directly from me.”
U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn, a top "Trump loyalist (https://www.axios.com/2025/01/23/blackburn-tennessee-governor-frontrunner?utm_source=chatgpt.com)," is "strongly looking" at a run for the Tennessee governor's mansion.
The Tennessean (https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2025/03/24/tennessee-governor-election-2026-gubernatorial-race/82547688007/) reports that "early polling suggests she would likely be the Republican frontrunner. Some politicos across the state consider her success a foregone conclusion: at a Tennessee Chamber of Commerce event in January, attendees called her 'Gov. Blackburn.'"
And U.S. Rep. Jim Comer (R-KY), the chair of the powerful House Oversight Committee, has also said he would be interested in running for governor.
READ MORE: ‘Incompetent. Irresponsible. Negligent’: Calls Mount for Hegseth’s Ouster or Prosecution (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/04/incompetent-irresponsible-negligent-calls-mount-for-hegseths-ouster-or-prosecution/)
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NO LNX
Time's up for the GOP
Thom Hartmann April 25, 2025
We’ve spent years watching Donald Trump attack our democratic institutions, inflame divisions, and corrupt the public discourse.
But focusing solely on Trump misses the larger, more disturbing reality: Trump isn’t acting alone. He’s a dangerous pathogen that found the perfect host in today’s Republican Party, an organism already compromised and eager to be infected.
The evidence of this dangerous symbiosis is alarming and immediate. Just days ago, America crossed a threshold that should chill every citizen who still believes in the rule of law.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a young man living peacefully in Maryland with no criminal record, was ripped from his home and deported to El Salvador — not by rogue agents, not by mistake, but in deliberate defiance of multiple federal court orders.
A judge had explicitly ordered that Garcia not be deported. The U.S. Supreme Court had intervened. And still, the Trump-controlled Department of Justice — under Attorney General Pam Bondi — refused to comply.
Garcia vanished from U.S. soil like a political dissident in a dictatorship. Senator Chris Van Hollen flew to El Salvador to find him yesterday, only to be denied access. The Salvadoran government wouldn’t even confirm his location. Garcia now sits detained, alone in a foreign country, denied lawyers, family, or recourse.
He’s not a criminal — he’s a political hostage. His only crime was existing under an administration that believes it is above the law.
This isn’t abstract. This is what the death of democracy feels like. A court order ignored. A life uprooted. A senator stonewalled.
And it’s a precedent set: if the executive branch can disappear a legal US resident despite Supreme Court orders, democracy is already bleeding out right in front of our eyes.
To fully comprehend the gravity of our situation, we must recognize that Trump is both a symptom and a disease. Like any opportunistic virus, he didn’t invent the weakness — he exploited it. The Republican Party, drifting toward authoritarianism since Nixon, became the perfect host.
From the backlash to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, to Nixon's Southern Strategy, to the Tea Party’s billionaire-funded anti-government rage against our first Black president, the GOP built a party on grievance and fear. It corroded democratic norms for decades. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, union busting, judicial stacking, demonizing immigrants and queer people, rightwing propaganda media — all laid the groundwork.
Trump didn’t create this environment. He walked into it, flipped the switches, and set it ablaze. He didn’t poison the well. He found it already poisoned and drank deeply.
What’s particularly chilling is how methodical Trump’s attack on democracy has been.
He’s spent years convincing millions that elections are fraudulent — despite no credible evidence. This isn’t just the tantrum of a defeated candidate. It’s a calculated attempt to destroy the one institution that makes a republic function: trust in the vote. When citizens no longer believe their ballots count, democracy dies.
That was the goal. Undermine faith in the system so completely that only Trump — and those who pledge loyalty to him — are seen as legitimate.
His authoritarian instincts were never hidden. He praised dictators like Putin, Orbán, MBS, and Kim Jong Un. He demanded personal loyalty from government officials, attacked the judiciary, and labeled the free press “the enemy of the people.” Every move was pulled straight from the autocrat’s playbook, designed to erode checks on his power.
The insurrection on January 6 was not an outlier, but rather the inevitable outcome of years of lies, hate, and democratic erosion. Trump didn’t just incite a mob; he sat and watched — gleefully — as it ransacked the Capitol, hunted lawmakers, and shattered windows in the temple of democracy. He delayed help. He wanted it to succeed.
And the Republican Party? It shrugged. Which is the key to both understanding and stopping Trump.
None of this destruction would be possible without the Republican Party’s active complicity. They are not passive bystanders; they are eager enablers. Leaders who once called Trump “dangerous” and “unfit” now parrot his lies and excuse his crimes.
Why? Because they’ve traded principle for power. The “party of family values” excused porn star hush money because it helped rig the 2016 election. The “party of fiscal responsibility” celebrated massive tax cuts for billionaires that exploded our nation’s deficit. The “party of national security” turned a blind eye as Trump aligned with America's adversaries and vilified NATO.
They sold their souls. And for what? Judges? Tax cuts? A fleeting grip on power?
At the core of this transformation is the deliberate cultivation of cruelty as political strategy. Trump’s policies were never just misguided: they were purposefully cruel.
The separation of children at the border wasn’t a failure; it was a feature. Designed to cause pain. Designed to deter. Designed to send a message that America no longer welcomed the tired, the poor, the huddled masses, at least when their skin is not white.
His refusal to return Kilmar Garcia to his family and community (and over 200 others) is not an outlier. It’s the same cruelty repackaged. The same contempt for legal restraint. The same hunger for domination. And if he’s not stopped by Republicans on the Supreme Court or Republicans in Congress, history and his own words tell us he’ll be coming for you and me next.
Beyond policy, Trump has waged a relentless war on truth itself. He didn’t just lie; he declared war on the very idea of truth. He called climate change a hoax. He politicized a deadly pandemic. He turned science into a partisan enemy and transformed medical expertise into a battleground.
The result? Hundreds of thousands of unnecessary Covid (and now measles) deaths. A public so divided they couldn’t agree on masks or medicine. That wasn’t an accident. It was the point: destroy our shared reality, and you can then more easily destroy democracy.
Perhaps most destructive of all, Trump didn’t merely inherit America’s divisions: he weaponized them. He didn’t unify urban and rural, rich and poor, Black and white: he pitted them against each other for personal gain. Rage was his currency. Fear his strategy. When people are busy hating each other, he knows, they don’t notice who’s robbing them blind.
What we now face is no longer a political party but a vicious, cruel cult of personality. Today’s GOP isn’t defined by principles or policies: Disagree and you’re exiled — just ask Liz Cheney. Ask Adam Kinzinger. Ask Mitt Romney.
Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn’t represent a fringe any longer; she is the mainstream now. Her recent town hall — where dissenters were tased — wasn’t an aberration. It’s the new GOP, where violence is celebrated as a tool, not a last resort, and elected officials revel in their own cruelty, brutality, and ability to ignore the needs of their constituents while taking millions from their donors.
She’s the perfect reflection of Trump: His pathological narcissism drives much of his destructive behavior. A man who cannot tolerate criticism, admit fault, or share the spotlight will burn down democracy itself to protect his fragile ego.
When faced with a choice between national interest and personal gratification, Trump invariably chooses the latter. His demand for absolute loyalty — to him personally, not to the nation or the Constitution — reveals a man who sees America not as a nation to serve but as a stage for his own aggrandizement.
There’s also method in Trump’s chaos. By keeping the country in a constant state of outrage and crisis, he prevents organized resistance and meaningful accountability. The chaos isn’t accidental; it’s strategic, designed to exhaust opponents and normalize previously unthinkable behavior. Each new outrage makes the previous one seem quaint by comparison, creating a downward spiral of degraded expectations.
Trump has weaponized division for political gain. He doesn’t simply observe American divisions; he actively creates and exploits them. By turning Americans against each other — urban versus rural, white versus non-white, native-born versus immigrant — he creates tribal loyalties that override ethical concerns or policy considerations. A divided America is easier to manipulate and control than a united one.
What’s most terrifying about this transformation is that Trump has created a blueprint for future authoritarians. He’s shown how to destroy a developed, advanced democracy from within — legally, slowly, under the guise of patriotism.
And the Republican Party? It’s not just following the map. It’s paving the road.
The critical question before us isn’t whether Trump has damaged America. He has. The question is whether that damage is reversible.
— Can we still rebuild?
— Can Republican elders return to principle?
— Can billionaire donors withdraw their support and allow democratic values to reassert themselves?
— Will it take a second Republican Great Depression to shock the party awake?
Americans don’t yet know any of the answers here, but we do know this: inaction is surrender.
Our democratic survival depends on recognizing that Trump is the virus, but the Republican Party is the host. And if we don’t treat the host, the next authoritarian will be worse. Smarter. More effective. More dangerous.
What happened to Kilmar Garcia could happen again. It will happen again, in fact, if we let it. Our democratic immune system — the press, the courts, business and the legal profession, the voters — must fight back. Because we are running out of time.
Rebuilding what they’ve destroyed will require more than simply removing Trump from power; it will demand a fundamental recommitment to democratic values and institutions by the GOP.
Republicans: Wake up!
You are the last firewall. This is your reckoning. Your move.
NOW READ: Farmers in deep-red state spell trouble for Trump as he mocks the Constitution
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an 4 25
With President Donald Trump's tariff proposals causing considerable anxiety in the stock market, a combination of business leaders — including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon — and economists (including Paul Krugman and Robert Reich) fear the possibility of a recession.
If a recession occurs, many Americans will need help from the federal government — be it food assistance via the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or health insurance through Obamacare.
But according to Brendan Duke (https://www.salon.com/2025/04/10/just-the-first-set-of-cuts-expert-warns-budget-is-designed-to-collapse-the-social-safety-net/) (senior director for federal budget policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities), the 2025 federal budget being proposed by Republicans in Congress is designed to erode and undermine — not fund — the United States' social safety net.
READ MORE:'Compete mess': Trump slammed as Wall St. CEO says policies will 'probably' cause recession (https://www.alternet.org/jamie-dimon-trump-recession/)
In a Q&A interview with Salon's Chauncey DeVega (https://www.salon.com/2025/04/10/just-the-first-set-of-cuts-expert-warns-budget-is-designed-to-collapse-the-social-safety-net/) published on April 10, Duke warned, "Everywhere you look, you see an attack on core government functions. The Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) Administration is trying to degrade the Social Security Administration's ability to provide elderly and disabled Americans the benefits they're entitled to. They are firing people working at the National Weather Service who provide the data for the weather report you see on your phone. They're hamstringing billions of dollars of cancer research by putting on leave the people who make sure that the research dollars go to cancer researchers."
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Duke added (https://www.salon.com/2025/04/10/just-the-first-set-of-cuts-expert-warns-budget-is-designed-to-collapse-the-social-safety-net/), "The goal is not to let all of the horrible things distract you from doing your job, though. It's critical that people whose job it is to protect the programs that low- and moderate-income people rely on focus on the threats and opportunities that are appearing."
Duke cited specific safety-net programs (https://www.salon.com/2025/04/10/just-the-first-set-of-cuts-expert-warns-budget-is-designed-to-collapse-the-social-safety-net/) that GOP lawmakers are targeting for major cuts.
"The plans being talked about right now, such as cutting Medicaid and SNAP to finance tax cuts for the wealthy, are part of the standard conservative playbook," Duke told DeVega (https://www.salon.com/2025/04/10/just-the-first-set-of-cuts-expert-warns-budget-is-designed-to-collapse-the-social-safety-net/). "The difference is that our fiscal situation has gotten worse over the last 25 years — we're a long way off from the Clinton budget surpluses — so they feel pressure to cut programs instead of putting tax cuts for rich people on the credit card."
READ MORE:Donald Trump has an addiction: WSJ (https://www.alternet.org/trump-addiction/)
Duke continued (https://www.salon.com/2025/04/10/just-the-first-set-of-cuts-expert-warns-budget-is-designed-to-collapse-the-social-safety-net/), "We're still at the stage where they aren't providing specifics of how they're going to cut these programs, but the House Republican budget sets them on a course to cut Medicaid by 10 percent and SNAP by 20 percent. Those are enormous cuts. Some of the goodies they are planning to give to rich people include allowing high-income business owners to write off 20 percent of their profits, doubling the amounts the heirs of the largest estates can inherit tax-free from $14 million to $28 million per couple, and enacting hundreds of billions of dollars of tax breaks for businesses that don't need a tax break."
READ MORE:GOP’s defense of 'Dear Leader' Trump’s 'idiocy' resembles famous suicide cult: analysis (https://www.alternet.org/trump-cult-salon-marcotte/?utm_source=push_notifications)
*Chauncey DeVega's full Salon interview with Brendan Duke is availableat this link. (https://www.salon.com/2025/04/10/just-the-first-set-of-cuts-expert-warns-budget-is-designed-to-collapse-the-social-safety-net/)
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dirty tricks
an 4 25
Texas Governor Greg Abbott finally set a special election to replace Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-TX) after House Democrats threatened to sue (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/hakeem-jeffries-threatens-lawsuit-delayed-texas-special-election-rcna199362) the governor for allegedly dragging his feet to prevent an additional Democrat in the US House.
The date, however, still has critics furious.
“So, Greg Abbott just set our special election date for Congress: November 4th, 2025. They want us to go 8 months without a voice in Congress,” tweeted (https://x.com/isaiahrmartin/status/1909382481511358881) Democrat Isaiah Martin, who is running for Turner’s 18th District seat this year. TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION! But here’s the thing: Republicans can try to delay all they want — they can’t stop what’s coming!”
READ MORE:'Is that really where we should be?' Fox host fact-checks Trump official to his face (https://www.alternet.org/fox-host-fact-check/#)
Martin is confident a beleaguered Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) economy plagued with tariff-fueled chaos and GOP threats to cut Social Security could open a path for Democrats in the House for the upcoming midterm election.
Turner — who was both congressman and the former mayor of Houston (the fourth-largest U.S. city by population) — died of cancer on March 5, leaving behind a district with a high Latino and African American population that largely votes Democrat. Democrats seethed over Abbott delaying a special election long enough to prevent an earlier election.
“It's getting buried, but Houston will almost certainly not have representation in Congress until January 2027,” said (https://bsky.app/profile/brandonfriedman.bsky.social/post/3llwazck5hk2f) MSNBC columnist Brandon Friedman on X prior to Abbott's announcement. “Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner died nearly a month ago and Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott has simply decided not to call a special election to fill the seat.”
Houston Chronicle reporter Jeremy Wallace agreed Abbott’s delay means the 18th Congressional District won't have a vote in Congress for another 7 months, and he added this gives a distinct advantage to US House Republicans this year.
READ MORE:Judge Trump wants impeached has 'a lot in common' with one of his Supreme Court appointees (https://www.alternet.org/trump-judge-supreme-court/)
“It also gives House Speaker Mike Johnson 7 months with one less Democratic vote to worry about,” said (https://x.com/JeremySWallace/status/1909356977697779833) Wallace. “Currently Republicans have a 220-213 edge in House with two vacancies because of last month’s deaths of Turner and Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona.”
Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs set (https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/031425_special_election/az-governor-sets-cd7-special-election-following-grijalvas-death/) the special election to replace Grijalva, who died of lung cancer on March 13, for July 15. In contrast, Florida Gov. Ron Desantis set special elections to replace Trump appointees Matt Gaetz and Michael Waltz on April 1, after they left Congress in January.
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AN 4 25
NO LNX
Trump voters are pretending like they were duped. Don't believe it.
(Reuters)
John Stoehr April 06, 2025
The Dow dropped 1,700 points on opening this Friday morning. Thursday, it closed after falling to its worst level since the covid era. JP Morgan Chase said it was raising the odds of a recession to 60 percent.
This is all in reaction to the decision this week by the president to put an average 22 percent tax on all imports. He called it “Liberation Day.”
As I’m watching this unfold, I can’t help thinking about something that may seem unrelated to trade, economics and the harms coming our way, but in fact is central to it all. I’m talking about resentment.
Resentment is usually associated with the right. Time and again, over the last ten years, we were told that the people who voted for Donald Trump are deeply resentful about the state of the nation: about immigrants pouring over the border, about men competing in women’s sports, about the “radical woke agenda.” The list goes on and on.
It was on the strength of this resentment that voters in this country chose for president a convicted felon and failed businessman who promised to hurt everyone in the name of making America great again.
And what I want to say this:
If you thought that was resentment, just wait.
Only five months ago, the head economist for Moody’s said the economy under Joe Biden was the best he’d seen. Mark Zandi said “this is among the best performing economies in my 35-plus years as an economist.”
“Economic growth is rip-roaring, with real GDP up 3 percent over the past year. Unemployment is low, at near 4 percent, consistent with full employment.
“Inflation is fast closing in on the Fed’s 2 percent target.
“Grocery prices, rents and gas prices are flat to down over the past more than a year. Households’ financial obligations are light, and set to get lighter with the Fed cutting rates.
“House prices have never been higher, and most homeowners have more equity in their homes than ever.
“Corporate profits are robust, and the stock market is hitting a record high on a seemingly daily basis.
And now?
On March 30, before this week’s tariff news, Zandi said:
“I’m raising my odds that a recession will begin sometime this year to 40 percent, up from 15 percent at the start of the year. Last week’s economic data were disconcerting, including the slide in consumer confidence, punk consumer spending, and persistently high inflation. The intensifying trade war and DOGE cuts are behind all this and with last week’s announcement of big tariff increases on vehicle imports and the coming reciprocal tariffs, things are sure to get worse.”
How much worse?
The Financial Times: “one of the greatest acts of self-harm in American economic history. [Tariffs’ will wreak untold damage on households, businesses and financial markets around the world, upending a global economic order that America benefited from and helped create.”
The Economist: “The most profound, harmful & unnecessary economic error in the modern era. Almost everything he said — on history, economics and the technicalities of trade — was utterly deluded.”
This is where we are, but never forget: this was a choice.
It was made by people who were so resentful about something something, for now it doesn’t matter what, that they didn’t notice they’re wages were growing, their expenses were falling and they had more power in the workplace than they’d had in their whole lives.
Everything Trump claims to be doing – bringing jobs back home, supporting domestic industries, revitalizing infrastructure and investing in the future — Biden actually did. Most everyone prospered, including all those resentful people. As the former president was fond of saying, Trump talks a good game, but never built a damn thing.
But that wasn’t enough because seeing other people doing well, that is, Black and brown people doing well, hurt their feelings, like something was being taken away from them, which added to the resentment they felt about a government trying to serve everyone and not just them.
The harms coming won’t be an accident. Their cause will be easy to understand. Vice President Kamala Harris saw them. She tried to warn us. Most people didn’t listen. And because these harms were a choice, it’s entirely reasonable for those who didn’t make that choice, but who are now living with the consequences, to be resentful of those who did, especially if they didn’t understand the choice they were making.
They believed an ignorant and stupid story about ignorant and stupid Americans who were resentful of being looked down on for the fact of their ignorance and stupidity. And I’m telling you, if they keep talking about that, they’re going to learn the real meaning of resentment.
Perhaps fear of being held accountable explains why we are now seeing a slew of Trump voters who are whipping up stories about how they had absolutely no idea what he was going to do, they are victims of circumstance, totally innocent, and how they are so disappointed, not so much for themselves but for the country they claim to love.
An anonymous writer at www.betrayedbytrump.com is a case in point. “I didn’t sign up for this. I wanted reform, not cruelty. Strength, not delusion. I’ve been a lifelong Republican, and I know I’m not the only one starting to feel this way. We need to seriously ask ourselves: is this what we voted for, or just what we’ve been sold? It is hard to not feel conned. And I’m angrier than I’ve been in as long as I can remember.”
Oh, you're angry, huh?
Imagine the anger of those who didn’t choose this but are now living with it – the jobs gone, the savings gone, the future prospects gone.
Imagine the anger of those who voted in your interest in the hope of saving democracy, and protecting you from your worst self, and then hearing you moan and groan about how you’ve been done wrong.
Imagine the anger of those who tried to tell you, to reason with you, as if you were a child who doesn’t understand a goddamn thing but who might snap out of it and finally act like a responsible grown up.
Just imagine.
The worst part is there are still some Democrats who are willing to tell the rest of us that we shouldn’t look down on the ignorant and stupid, because looking down on them only makes them feel more resentful, which pushes them further and further into the arms of Trump.
Worst of all is hearing some Democrats choosing not to hold them accountable for their terrible choices in the hope they might one day vote for a Democrat, so that there’s never any downside to being ignorant and stupid, and there’s never any upside to growing up.
Resentment is usually associated with the right. If there were any justice, that would change. Trump voters would be ashamed and take responsibility for their actions. They never will, of course, meaning no one will ever take seriously the lasting resentment the rest of us feel.
NOW READ: Trump voters got exactly what they wanted — so why are people complaining?
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ymail 3 25
So now that Congress is writing spending bills — with lots of harsh cuts to important programs like Medicaid — the fossil fuel industry is looking for a return on its investment:
The fossil fuel industry is pressuring Congress to increase fossil fuel extraction on public lands and waters
The industry is pushing for Congress to prop up fossil fuel projects far into the future — decades longer than they’d otherwise be financially viable
And the industry is trying to preserve and even expand century-old tax loopholes so polluters can continue to profit at our expense
In total, the fossil fuel industry is pushing for giveaways that are estimated to cost the American people more than $170 billion over the next decade while increasing climate emissions and fossil fuel extraction.
...
public citizen
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an 3 25
The Democrats showed their disapproval of Trump’s Tuesday night speech to Congress, and MAGA is having a “full-blown meltdown,” the Daily Beast reported (https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-melts-down-over-dems-refusal-to-clap-during-donald-trumps-speech-to-congress/) on Wednesday.
Democrats held up signs, declined to clap and wore pink in protest. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) wrote notes on a white board. Rep. Al Green (D-Tex.) was removed after he stood up and yelled.
“Has there ever been a more disgraceful and pitiful and malicious display in politics than Congressional Democrats refusing to stand for heartbroken families and courageous heroes?” White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller asked on X (https://x.com/StephenM/status/1897127830074614169).
READ MORE: 'This is not normal': How Trump’s 'bitter' SOTU resembled a 'sordid campaign rally' (https://www.alternet.org/trump-sotu-guardian/)
“Democrats showed whose side they’re on — and it’s not the American people,”the White House said in a statement (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/03/democrats-showed-whose-side-theyre-on-and-its-not-the-american-people/).
The White House statement quoted Dana Perino on Fox News (https://x.com/Pfeiffer47/status/1897140004931166311). “The Democratic Party still has no common sense. They have no ideas and they have no heart. They couldn’t even stand for the most inspiring moments of the speech,” she said. Perino was White House press secretary under George W. Bush.
The statement then listed 35 bullet points of points where the Democrats did not applaud. They included “declaring America’s youth are perfect as God made them,” “removing illegal alien killers, rapists, and drug dealers from our streets” and simply “The United States of America.”
Some members of Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) world were incensed that Democrats did not cheer for Trump making 13-year-old cancer survivor DJ Daniel an honorary Secret Service agent.
READ MORE: 'I almost choked': Economist highlights gobsmacking moment of Trump’s speech (https://www.alternet.org/send/trump-economist-gobsmacked/)
“Democrats reminded us they are the party of insanity and hate — they could not even clap for a child battling cancer, or mothers who lost their children,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X (https://x.com/PressSec/status/1897145151824199844).
Donald Trump Jr. wrote a similar sentiment on X (https://x.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1897128747691860346). “If you can’t stand up and cheer for a kid with brain cancer being made an honorary member of the Secret Service, then you might be a deeply disturbed and f---ed up person!!!” he wrote.
“If you didn’t stand up and applaud this young cancer survivor and his amazing father, there’s something really sick and messed up about you,” conservative commentator Charlie Kirk posted on X early Wednesday (https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1897172141839409400), echoing Trump Jr. and Leavitt.
Trump advisor Elon Musk took issue with one moment where the Democrats did applaud (https://x.com/AutismCapital/status/1897132737288659202) — when the president said that the U.S. has sent hundreds of billions of dollars to support Ukraine.
READ MORE: 'Bet big, move fast, and never settle': Are the 'bros' 'abandoning Trump? (https://www.alternet.org/trump-poll-young-men/)
“The only flag being waved and the ONLY cheer by Democrats was for another country, he posted on his website (https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1897162759625937347). “They hate America,” he added.
Some Democrats addressed the lack of applause.
“Mr. President, we would all applaud if you found cures to horrific diseases.” Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) wrote on X (https://x.com/RepRichardNeal/status/1897112599990559122). “But how do you expect to accomplish that when you're cutting funding from the NIH?”
“There’s no standing ovation for cutting funding for cancer research, stripping Medicaid, and raising costs for working people,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) posted on X (https://x.com/RepJayapal/status/1897113262254383464).
READ MORE: Courts won't 'rescue us' from draconian Trump/DOGE Cuts — here's why (https://www.alternet.org/trump-doge-bulwark-epa/)
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OMFG
AN 3 125
As Americans face the reality of President Donald Trump's second term and the mass firings, takeover of federal agencies by billionaire mogul Elon Musk (https://www.commondreams.org/tag/elon-musk), and looming trade war that have come with it, the direct democracy advocacy group Fairness Project warned of a "major attack" on voters' rights taking place at the state level across the country.
While many in the U.S. have been focused on the actions of the Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) administration, said the group in a Thursday statement, legislators in over 15 states have introduced more than 100 bills to stop citizen-led initiatives from being placed on ballots in upcoming elections—and to stop them from becoming law even if a majority of voters support the measures.
"We're sounding the alarm: Direct democracy is being threatened right under our noses," said (https://x.com/FairnessProject/status/1895184425778061344) Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project. "Ballot measures have been a lifeline to working people in red and purple states, allowing them to make change even when politicians fail to represent their interests. Legislators are trying to systematically take that power away."
The Fairness Project has supported dozens of successful ballot measure campaigns to expand healthcare access, raise minimum wages, and win paid time off policies for roughly 18 million people across the country.
The group was the biggest funder of abortion rights ballot measures in the last election cycle, working to ensure campaigners in Missouri (https://www.commondreams.org/news/missouri-abortion-law) and Arizona (https://www.commondreams.org/news/arizona-abortion-on-ballot) collected enough signatures to get questions about expanding abortion rights on ballots. Both ballot initiatives were approved by voters in November.
The Fairness Project was also involved in a 2023 campaign (https://www.commondreams.org/news/ohio-issue-1) to stop a Republican-backed measure in Ohio that would have required a 60% supermajority to pass any future constitutional amendments.
In six of the states currently pushing attacks on ballot measures—Oklahoma, Arizona, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Idaho—Republicans are making similar attempts to raise the threshold for passing ballot measures from a simple majority to 60%.
If they succeed in passing the proposals, said the Fairness Project, the GOP will be "effectively enacting minority rule."
Lawmakers are also advancing bills that would apply onerous signature requirements to the ballot measure process.
In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis (https://www.commondreams.org/tag/ron-desantis)' proposed changes to ballot initiative laws include requiring (https://www.axios.com/local/tampa-bay/2025/01/22/desantis-florida-kiss-of-death-citizen-led-ballot-measures) individual voters to complete a petition in person at an election office or by mail in order to express support for a measure, instead of allowing sponsors to pay workers to collect signatures in public.
"They want to kill the process," Angelo Paparella, president of a group that has run several petition drives in the state, told (https://www.axios.com/local/tampa-bay/2025/01/22/desantis-florida-kiss-of-death-citizen-led-ballot-measures)Axioslast month.
The Arkansas state Senate this month passed (https://arkansasadvocate.com/2025/02/12/arkansas-senate-moves-several-bills-to-amend-states-petition-gathering-process/) several bills regulating how citizen-led initiatives make it onto ballots, including one requiring canvassers to request a photo ID from signers; one requiring potential signers to read the ballot title of a petition or have it read aloud to them; and one requiring canvassers to file an affidavit certifying they complied with state law when collecting signatures.
"This is their playbook: When cowardly politicians know they can't win with voters on the issues, they try to change the rules of the game," Hall said Thursday.
Earlier this week, Mississippi voters once again lost out on the chance to place measures on statewide ballots, which was permitted in the state until the state Supreme Court struck down the ballot initiative process in 2021.
Lawmakers allowed a proposal to partially restore the process to die ahead of a legislative deadline.
"This means voters still have no direct way to propose new state laws, to change state laws, or to change the Constitution," reported Taylor Vance of Mississippi Today.
Hall said the Fairness Project will continue fighting attacks on representative direct democracy nationwide.
"Voters are paying attention to this widespread attack on their constitutional rights, and they're fighting back," said Hall. "Americans deserve leaders who respect our democracy."
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Weakened 'ruthless' Mitch McConnell wields minimal influence in 2025 (https://www.alternet.org/mcconnell-trump-scotus/)
an 2 25
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an 2 25
Democrats are voicing strong opposition to House Speaker Mike Johnson’s budget framework, which narrowly passed Tuesday night by a razor-thin margin of 217-215 (https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/202550).
The framework is widely expected to cut $880 billion from Medicaid, a program that helps one in four Americans, and another $230 billion (https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/article/2025/02/26/house-passes-budget-bill-press-tax?utm_source=chatgpt.com) from SNAP, which helps feed about one in eight Americans (https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap/key-statistics-and-research) — while raising the debt ceiling by $4 trillion to provide a massive $4.5 trillion in tax cuts (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/25/republicans-spending-deal-medicaid-cuts), largely for the wealthiest of Americans (https://www.ft.com/content/f6e09ad2-7697-4068-83c2-954fafaca844?utm_source=chatgpt.com). People making less than $200,000 a year could effectively see their taxes rise, because Johnson’s legislation does not renew tax cuts from 2017. Johnson’s budget, supported by President Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump), requires a minimum of $2 trillion in cuts to the federal budget.
Every Republican except one voted for Johnson’s budget legislation. U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) was the only holdout, refusing to give in to pressure from GOP leadership.
Every Democrat present voted against the bill. Only one was not present due to his battle against cancer.
READ MORE: House GOP: Federal Employees Are ‘Bloated Bureaucrats’ Who ‘Do Not Deserve Their Jobs’ (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/02/house-gop-federal-employees-are-bloated-bureaucrats-who-do-not-deserve-their-jobs/)
But every other Democrat showed up and stood firm.
“After 3 surgeries, a blood clot, an infection, & being hospitalized for over a week – the moment I was discharged from the hospital, I immediately rushed to the airport so I could fly to D.C. and vote NO on Republicans’ disastrous budget plan. I’m proud to stand with @HouseDemocrats to fight Republican’s extreme agenda,” wrote (https://x.com/RepKevinMullin/status/1894559908491657383) U.S. Rep. Kevin Mullin, (D-CA).
Republicans refused to allow U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-CO), out on maternity leave, to vote by proxy, so she traveled across the country with her four-week old newborn, Sam, to vote against the GOP budget.
I have a message for Donald Trump: nobody fights harder than a mom.
Republican leadership may have denied my ability to vote by proxy but that didn’t stop us from voting against this disastrous budget that strips away health care and food for seniors, veterans, kids and… pic.twitter.com/rfoKNoyeVJ (https://t.co/rfoKNoyeVJ)
— U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen (@RepPettersen) February 26, 2025 (https://twitter.com/RepPettersen/status/1894768988367778035?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), largely seen as the loudest and most consistent voice on the left opposing President Donald Trump’s agenda, tore into Republicans.
“Good morning. The House voted yesterday to kick millions of off their health care, close rural hospitals, and shut down addiction clinics. All in order to afford a giant tax cut for Elon Musk, Donald Trump and their billionaire and corporate friends,” he charged (https://x.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1894740136983756954) Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Senator Murphy denounced the GOP’s “greed” at an outdoor press conference.
Calling the Republicans’ budget framework “the most massive transfer of wealth and resources from poor people in the middle class to the billionaires and corporations in the history of this country,” Murphy (video below) said, “You’re talking about 880 billion dollars of cuts to Medicaid.”
“Now I get it, like, $880 billion. Like, what does that mean? Right? That’s a huge number, nobody understands. Let me tell you what that means. That that means that sick kids die in this country. That means that hospitals in depressed communities and rural communities close their doors. Right? That means that drug and addiction treatment centers disappear. All across this country.”
:{:{READ MORE: Refusing to Publicly Reveal DOGE Head, White House Says It’s Been ‘Incredibly Transparent’ (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/02/refusing-to-publicly-reveal-doge-head-white-house-says-its-been-incredibly-transparent/)}:
“That means that millions of working families who have insurance today, because by the way, 24% of Americans get their health care from Medicaid, they all of a sudden don’t have their health care tomorrow,” he continued, adding, “the scope of this greed is something that we have never ever seen before in this country, and we should not accept it as normal in the United States of America.”
24% of Americans get their health insurance from Medicaid.
Seniors. Working families. Millions of kids.
Republicans voted tonight to burn Medicaid to the ground.
And for what? To fund a giant tax cut for their billionaire friends.
A moral abomination. pic.twitter.com/Xez9GmzJlC (https://t.co/Xez9GmzJlC)
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) February 26, 2025 (https://twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1894583268000833555?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) explained how Johnson’s budget legislation came together, and all the things Republicans voted against.
He said Democrats asked Republicans to “vote against tax breaks for people earning over $100 million per year.”
“Every Republican vote no,” he said, regarding that proposal, as well as on protections for large numbers of Americans who need support.
Republicans voted against assuring “the American people that they’re not gonna steal school meals from kids in order to give tax breaks for millionaires,” and on protecting Medicaid, which McGovern noted, “covers 41% of all births in the United States.”
“Nearly half of children with special healthcare needs and five in eight nursing home residents,” he said, are also covered by Medicaid.
“Democrats offered an amendment preventing tax giveaways for people earning over $1 million a year. Every Republican voted no,” the Massachusetts Democrat said. “We even offered an amendment preventing tax cuts for people with a net worth of over, get this, $1 billion. Every Republican voted no.”
McGovern: Democrats offered an amendment to protect Medicaid. Every Republican voted no.
Democrats offered an amendment to extend tax cuts for people making under $400,000 while ensuring that corporations and billionaires pay their fair share. Every Republican voted no.… pic.twitter.com/IiuC8skXc2 (https://t.co/IiuC8skXc2)
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 25, 2025 (https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1894445838715555964?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
Watch the videos above or at this link (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/02/democrats-condemn-gop-budget-moral-abomination-that-means-sick-kids-will-die/).
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AN 2 25
During President Donald Trump's first month back in the White House, many right-wing media outlets — from Fox News and its sister channel Fox Business to Newsmax TV — aggressively championed his policies, including mass layoffs at a wide range of federal government agencies.
Trump's alliance with SpaceX/Tesla/X.com CEO Elon Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), receives plenty of favorable coverage at Fox News. And the most controversial members of Trump's administration are being championed in right-wing media.
But the Washington Post's Philip Bump, in his February 24 column (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/02/24/trump-musk-town-hall-backlash/), stresses that Republican politicians are running into a disconnect between right-wing media coverage and public responses to Trump's policies.
READ MORE:[We've reached the moment of maximum peril for our nation and our freedoms
For example, Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wisconsin) — who won reelection by 22 percent in his district — was "booed upon his arrival at a town hall event near Oshkosh" on Friday, February 21. Many attendees were angry over the Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) Administration/DOGE layoffs.
"Why the divide? Unquestionably in part because Trump supporters exist in a disinformation bubble, to paraphrase a prominent foreign leader," Bump explains (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/02/24/trump-musk-town-hall-backlash/). "They don't see it that way, of course; in their view, their news diet represents an escape from falsehoods propagated by left-leaning elites. But the falsity of that framing is easily demonstrated."
Grothman and other GOP lawmakers who are being booed at town hall events, according to Bump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/02/24/trump-musk-town-hall-backlash/), "often spend most of their lives within the right-wing media universe, where Trump and Musk are treated with fervently policed admiration."
"That Republican legislators are now facing complaints from constituents is a reminder of the limits of the extent of the right's propaganda machine," Bump argues (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/02/24/trump-musk-town-hall-backlash/). "The mechanism Watters celebrates may reaches millions of people, but tens of millions of people voted against Trump in November despite that. Most Americans reject the idea that firing hundreds of thousands of government employees is necessary to fight waste and fraud."
READ MORE:Revealed: Emboldened terrorists 'quickly rebuilding' as MAGA takes over the DOJ (https://www.alternet.org/the-base-fbi-patel-doj/?utm_source=push_notifications)
*Philip Bump's full Washington Post column is available at this link (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/02/24/trump-musk-town-hall-backlash/) (subscription required).
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AN 2 25
OMG
While President Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk are making significant changes to federal agencies, Republicans in both the House and Senate are aiming to let banks ramp up overdraft fees.
That's according to a Tuesday article in Rolling Stone (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-admininstration-banks-raise-overdraft-fees-1235271368/), which reported that Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) — who chair the House and Senate Banking Committees, respectively — are introducing a bill to repeal a rule capping overdraft fees implemented by former President Joe Biden's administration. That rule capped overdraft fees at $5 (https://apnews.com/article/overdraft-fees-cap-cfpb-rule-0c15f3cb489ca2d37544ad66c524ce73), whereas they were previously as high as $35. It also allowed for banks to find ways to control overdrafts without needling customers with excessive daily fees. The legislation Hill and Scott rolled out would deem the rule to "have no force or effect (https://files.constantcontact.com/9f2b5e3d701/17383e24-6315-4c28-af04-3f5b5f32b59f.pdf)" if passed and signed into law.
Acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) director Russell Vought (also the director of Trump's Office of Management and Budget) said he was "grateful" (https://x.com/russvought/status/1891597803983708610) to Hill and Scott for introducing the bill. He added: "Passing this important legislation will immediately further President Trump’s deregulatory agenda."
READ MORE:'Nickel and diming Americans': GOP slammed for helping banks 'squeeze customers' with 'junk fees' (https://www.alternet.org/junk-fees-biden-house-gop/#)
According to the Associated Press (https://apnews.com/article/overdraft-fees-cap-cfpb-rule-0c15f3cb489ca2d37544ad66c524ce73), overdraft fees are a significant source of revenue for banks, allowing them to bring in roughly $8 billion annually. CFPB data shows that roughly 70% of overdraft fees were charged to accounts that had between $237 and $439, meaning that those fees disproportionately impact the poorest Americans.
The rule — which Trump and the GOP majorities in the House and Senate are likely to undo — is slated to go into effect in October of this year, and is projected to save bank customers about $5 billion per year, or $225 per household. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told Rolling Stone that Trump would be breaking his key campaign promise of lowering costs for working-class Americans if he allowed the rule to be eliminated.
“He is now sidelining the agency that over the last dozen years, has returned $21 billion directly to people who got cheated by giant financial institutions," Warren said. "In other words, his plan is to do nothing on reducing costs, but sure enough, put in place a plan to raise costs for people who are working hardest in our economy.”
Campaign finance data from OpenSecrets shows that both Hill and Scott are favorites of donors in the banking industry. The top two industry contributors (https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/french-hill/industries?cid=N00035792&cycle=2024) to Hill's campaign are securities & investment and commercial banks, respectively. The securities and investment sector is also the #2 industry for Scott's donors (https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/tim-scott/industries?cid=N00031782&cycle=2024).
READ MORE:Bank overdraft charges may be capped at $3 as new Biden rule ends 'junk fee harvesting' (https://www.alternet.org/bank-overdraft-fees-capped-biden/)
Click here (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-admininstration-banks-raise-overdraft-fees-1235271368/) to read Rolling Stone's report in its entirety (subscription required).
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AN 2 25
OMG
While President Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk are making significant changes to federal agencies, Republicans in both the House and Senate are aiming to let banks ramp up overdraft fees.
That's according to a Tuesday article in Rolling Stone (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-admininstration-banks-raise-overdraft-fees-1235271368/), which reported that Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) — who chair the House and Senate Banking Committees, respectively — are introducing a bill to repeal a rule capping overdraft fees implemented by former President Joe Biden's administration. That rule capped overdraft fees at $5 (https://apnews.com/article/overdraft-fees-cap-cfpb-rule-0c15f3cb489ca2d37544ad66c524ce73), whereas they were previously as high as $35. It also allowed for banks to find ways to control overdrafts without needling customers with excessive daily fees. The legislation Hill and Scott rolled out would deem the rule to "have no force or effect (https://files.constantcontact.com/9f2b5e3d701/17383e24-6315-4c28-af04-3f5b5f32b59f.pdf)" if passed and signed into law.
Acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) director Russell Vought (also the director of Trump's Office of Management and Budget) said he was "grateful" (https://x.com/russvought/status/1891597803983708610) to Hill and Scott for introducing the bill. He added: "Passing this important legislation will immediately further President Trump’s deregulatory agenda."
READ MORE:'Nickel and diming Americans': GOP slammed for helping banks 'squeeze customers' with 'junk fees' (https://www.alternet.org/junk-fees-biden-house-gop/#)
According to the Associated Press (https://apnews.com/article/overdraft-fees-cap-cfpb-rule-0c15f3cb489ca2d37544ad66c524ce73), overdraft fees are a significant source of revenue for banks, allowing them to bring in roughly $8 billion annually. CFPB data shows that roughly 70% of overdraft fees were charged to accounts that had between $237 and $439, meaning that those fees disproportionately impact the poorest Americans.
The rule — which Trump and the GOP majorities in the House and Senate are likely to undo — is slated to go into effect in October of this year, and is projected to save bank customers about $5 billion per year, or $225 per household. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told Rolling Stone that Trump would be breaking his key campaign promise of lowering costs for working-class Americans if he allowed the rule to be eliminated.
“He is now sidelining the agency that over the last dozen years, has returned $21 billion directly to people who got cheated by giant financial institutions," Warren said. "In other words, his plan is to do nothing on reducing costs, but sure enough, put in place a plan to raise costs for people who are working hardest in our economy.”
Campaign finance data from OpenSecrets shows that both Hill and Scott are favorites of donors in the banking industry. The top two industry contributors (https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/french-hill/industries?cid=N00035792&cycle=2024) to Hill's campaign are securities & investment and commercial banks, respectively. The securities and investment sector is also the #2 industry for Scott's donors (https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/tim-scott/industries?cid=N00031782&cycle=2024).
READ MORE:Bank overdraft charges may be capped at $3 as new Biden rule ends 'junk fee harvesting' (https://www.alternet.org/bank-overdraft-fees-capped-biden/)
Click here (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-admininstration-banks-raise-overdraft-fees-1235271368/) to read Rolling Stone's report in its entirety (subscription required).
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AN 2 25
House Republicans advanced their budget plan out of committee Thursday night after a 12-hour markup session during which they rejected dozens of Democratic amendments, including proposed changes that would have protected Medicaid and federal nutrition benefits from the deep cuts the GOP hopes to impose to help finance trillions of dollars in tax breaks for the richest Americans.
The House Budget Committee advanced the Republican resolution, unveiled earlier this week (https://www.commondreams.org/news/house-budget-resolution), in a 21-16 vote along party lines. Prior to the vote, GOP members agreed to adopt an amendment offered by Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.) that, according to (https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/02/13/congress/fiscal-hawks-tweak-house-republicans-party-line-framework-00204283)Politico, effectively caps "the cost of the tax cuts at $4 trillion, with a dollar-for-dollar increase in that ceiling if Republicans cut more spending, up to a total of $2 trillion in cuts."
Democrats on the panel offered more than 30 amendments (https://democrats-budget.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-budget.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/democratic-amendments-2025-2-13-budget-markup.pdf) to the budget resolution, all of which Republicans rejected.
"Each of our amendments was a direct effort to shield the American people from the reckless cuts embedded in this proposal, cuts that will hurt the most vulnerable while giving trillions of dollars of handouts to the ultra-rich," Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said in his closing remarks (https://democrats-budget.house.gov/news/press-releases/boyle-closing-statement-after-12-hour-committee-markup-republican-economic-plan) at Thursday's hearing. "We fought to protect Medicaid and Medicare, ensuring that seniors, low-income families, children, and people with disabilities don't see their healthcare stripped away."
"We proposed amendments to maintain funding for public education, ensuring that schools remain adequately resourced and that teachers don't bear the burden of budget shortfalls," Boyle continued. "And we stood up for veterans who risked their lives for this country and deserve more than empty rhetoric. They deserve fully funded healthcare, food assistance, and the benefits they earned through their service. Yet, despite the clear benefits of these proposals, Republicans oppose all of them."
"Instead of choosing to protect the American people," he added, "they chose to protect billionaires and corporations."
"This isn't government of, by, and for the people; it's government of, by, and for billionaires."
The Republican budget blueprint (https://docs.house.gov/meetings/BU/BU00/20250213/117894/BILLS-119NAih.pdf) calls for more than a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provide healthcare and food aid to tens of millions of low-income Americans.
"These aren't just numbers," Sharon Parrott, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, stressed (https://www.cbpp.org/press/statements/house-republican-budget-would-mean-higher-costs-less-help-for-families-more-tax) in response to the House GOP resolution. "The loss of Medicaid means, for example, a parent can't get cancer treatment, and a young adult can't get insulin to control their diabetes. Cuts to food assistance mean a parent skips meals so their children can eat or an older person who lost their job has no way to buy groceries."
In addition to advancing the GOP's far-right ideological project (https://www.commondreams.org/news/russ-vought-welfare-reform), such cuts would partly offset the costs of Republicans' proposed tax breaks—which would disproportionately benefit (https://americansfortaxfairness.org/atf-coalition-letter-opposing-extension-trump-tax-scam/?doing_wp_cron=1739534101.9676780700683593750000) the wealthiest people in the country, including the billionaires in President Donald Trump's Cabinet.
"Republicans are cutting Medicaid and SNAP to pay for tax breaks for the richest 1% of Americans," the progressive advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness wrote in a social media post on Thursday. "They are literally taking $1.1 TRILLION away from you, and giving it to the wealthiest people in the country."
IFrame Content (https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=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%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1890191721834901549&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alternet.org%2Fmike-johnson-house-gop%2F&partner=rebelmouse&sessionId=ce03992bfdd4b423674d5703eb83386b2403be9e&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2615f7e52b7e0%3A1702314776716&width=550px)
Thursday's vote marks a first step toward passage of a sprawling, filibuster-proof (https://www.americanprogress.org/article/how-does-budget-reconciliation-work/) budget reconciliation package that will include a slew of Republican priorities.
But the House GOP must resolve its differences with Senate Republicans, who are pushing for two bills instead of one (https://www.axios.com/2025/02/11/republicans-trump-reconciliation-mike-johnson). The Senate plan, which Republicans advanced out of committee earlier this week, also calls for major cuts (https://www.americanprogress.org/article/budget-committee-republicans-are-moving-to-take-away-food-and-health-care-from-americans/) to Medicaid and SNAP.
"This Republican budget opens the door to massive cuts for families," Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, said Thursday. "Democrats on the committee offered amendment after amendment to protect healthcare, housing, and education—all of the foundations working families need to thrive—and Republicans blocked every single one of them, all to later divert those cuts into massive tax breaks for the richest Americans."
"This is the Great Betrayal," Merkley added. "Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) campaigned on protecting families, but President Trump and Senate Republicans are all about protecting their billionaire friends. This isn't government of, by, and for the people; it's government of, by, and for billionaires."
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VOODOO TAX CUT
AN 2 25
A Washington Post columnist (https://www.rawstory.com/catherine-rampell-trump/) rebuked Republicans on Thursday night over their budget plans (https://www.rawstory.com/gop-budget-proposal/), which she said sounded like it was hatched by cold-hearted miser Ebenezer Scrooge.
Catherine Rampell (https://www.rawstory.com/trump-tariffs-2671083461/), a vocal critic (https://www.rawstory.com/trump-economics/) of President Donald Trump's economic plans (https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/trump-budget/), wrote Thursday that the GOP is eyeing taking food and health care away from the poor to subsidize tax cuts for the rich.
"That might sound like a stale, Scroogy stereotype. But it's not an exaggeration: It's laid out, in black and white, in GOP budget plans released this week," she said.
Republicans have sought for years to shrink government health programs and food supplements, she noted, and now they're "desperate to extend and expand" Trump's 2017 tax cuts. That means they're "especially motivated" this time around to "shred the safety net," as they have to find savings "somewhere," said Rampell.
Given the massive dollar amounts on Trump's economic agenda, his party now must fill a gaping budget hole.
"They claim they'll do it through a combination of fake math, nonbinding promises and shanking the poor," she chided. That includes what the writer called "ludicrous economic assumptions to paper over" the House's massive revenue losses in its budget plan, such as assuming productivity growth will, in the words of Manhattan Institute fellow Jessica Reidl, "magically nearly double" and then remain there forever.
The budget also includes a "wistful throwback" to the Reagan era "magic asterisk," she said, pointing to $3 trillion in "unspecified" savings government-wide.
Rampell called out three pieces specifically and decoded them: Forthcoming cuts by the Agricultural Committee — which oversees food stamps and farm supports — to the tune of $230 billion; looming cuts to Medicaid, included in materials distributed just last month by the GOP's budget committee chair; and planned cuts of $880 billion from the Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid and parts of Medicare.
" Trump (https://www.rawstory.com/trump-news/) has his enemies list, and lawmakers have theirs. The latter might just include your ability to feed your family," she concluded.
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an 2 25
Oregon’s Senate Republican leader shared debunked claims from a social media parody account about federal government spending in a state-issued email newsletter decrying “fear-mongering and misinformation.”
Sen. Daniel Bonham, R-The Dalles, dedicated the first 400 words of his official legislative newsletter on Monday night to “cutting through the rhetoric” on several of President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders.
“There has been a lot of fear-mongering and misinformation on Trump’s recent executive orders,” Bonham wrote. “While I am not surprised, the rhetoric is absolutely counterintuitive to having intellectually honest policy discussions. Agree or disagree, seeking truth around these policy decisions is important.”
He proceeded to describe examples of “gross mismanagement” uncovered by Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, a commission Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) created to slash federal spending. Bonham’s examples included more than half a billion dollars spent on sushi, hundreds of thousands on coffee and thousands on paper coffee cups — but those examples, which have spread like wildfire on conservative social media, aren’t real.
They originated with a Jan. 24, 2025, post on (https://x.com/iamnot_elon/status/1882756751008645281) X, Musk’s social media company, by a user named “Not Elon Musk” that is clearly marked and reads as a parody account:
“Good morning X! My experience with DOGE has been totally wild so far. I told you yesterday about the $600 million per year the Pentagon was spending on Sushi…
Well, I just found another wild one! The Air Force was spending $1,280 per paper coffee cup! Like literally those ones you find at the office. $1280!!! We also found that $230k per month was being spent by the IRS on Starbucks Cinammon Roast K Cups, but everyone was working from home!
Anyway, back to work! Have a great day!”
Right-wing users spread those claims around the internet, posting on Facebook and TikTok but without the parody disclaimer.
And on Monday they made it to Bonham’s newsletter.
In an email to the Capital Chronicle, Bonham said he didn’t know those claims originated from a parody account. He said they’re minor compared to billions “squandered” by the U.S. Agency for International Development, which handles most overseas humanitarian aid.
“I’m not without fault, but I definitely didn’t pull it from a parody account,” he said. “Those examples were all over the internet — shared widely. Your question feels like a smoke and mirror attempt to not cover the real issue — the gross mismanagement of spending.”
The Air Force does have a history with expensive coffee cups, but they weren’t paper cups: In 2018, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, pressed (https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-presses-air-force-answers-1280-cup) the agency for answers on why it spent nearly $1,300 apiece on special reheatable coffee cups that plugged into airplanes. The Air Force used them to heat coffee and soup on long flights and stopped buying them under congressional scrutiny in 2018, the Air Force Times reported (https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/10/23/air-force-puts-the-kibosh-on-the-1300-coffee-cup/).
After questions from the Capital Chronicle, Bonham sent his constituents a second newsletter on Wednesday morning, noting that he received questions about his analysis of federal spending. Moving forward, he wrote, he’ll use official government sources like USASpending.gov and the Government Accountability Office, as well as the nonprofit fiscally conservative watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste.
And this time, as Bonham decried spending he disagreed with — money for trans health care in Guatemala, purchases of Politico Pro’s legislation tracking and policy newsletters, and “improper” payments of the wrong amount or made to the wrong person — he cited his sources.
“The more I research the worse it gets,” he wrote. “On a positive note, while people are questioning sources of certain waste examples, more attention is brought to this glaring issue — and our nation will be better for it.”
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE (https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/subscribe)
Oregon Capital Chronicle (https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/) is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lynne Terry for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com.
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an 2 25
A top Arizona Republican is hoping the Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) administration will do what a federal court wouldn’t: overturn a national monument protecting lands around the Grand Canyon so that mining companies can extract uranium and other valuable minerals from the land.
Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen sent a letter to the U.S. Department of the Interior on Feb. 7 requesting a meeting with Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum to discuss ending the “government overreach” of the national monument and ban on uranium mining in the area.
At issue is the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, which President Joe Biden created in 2023 (https://azmirror.com/2023/08/08/arizona-gets-a-new-national-monument-as-biden-designates-baaj-nwaavjo-itah-kukveni/). Petersen and Ben Toma, who was at the time the speaker of the state House of Representatives, sued to have the designation revoked.
The GOP’s lawsuit (https://www.azsenaterepublicans.com/_files/ugd/2f3470_2b921ad7fc8749309f1530d147e3bb05.pdf) argued that Biden did not have the power to create the monument, which spans 917,618 acres the federal government already managed. They also claimed it harms both the state and local communities by permanently barring uranium mining — limiting the state’s potential future revenue — and complicating land development.
On Jan. 27, Judge Stephen McNamee ruled that the Arizona Legislature and the other plaintiffs did not have standing to sue (https://azmirror.com/2025/02/05/arizona-republicans-lose-bid-to-block-grand-canyon-monument-protections/) and dismissed the case.
The Grand Canyon is the ancestral homeland of multiple tribal nations across the Southwest, and tribes still rely on the canyon for natural and cultural resources that are significant and sacred to their communities.
The monument protects thousands of historical and scientific objects, sacred sites, vital water sources and the ancestral homelands of many Indigenous communities.
The monument’s name comes from the Indigenous names the Havasupai and Hopi gave to the area. In the Havasupai language, Baaj Nwaavjo means “where Indigenous peoples roam,” while I’tah Kukveni means “our ancestral footprints” in the Hopi language.
The monument restricts new mining within the area, but any mining rights in place before the designation have not been impacted.
Petersen called the Biden administration’s designation of Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni a “land grab,” and said keeping it in place contributes to high energy costs and the United States’ reliance on foreign powers.
“Ending the federal government’s hold of this piece of land falls in line with the Trump Administration’s goals of energy independence, job creation, and lower costs for Americans,” he said in a written statement.
Petersen said that government scientists believe that there is more than 300 million pounds of uranium is buried near the Grand Canyon.
“The energy that could be produced from this mineral is astronomical,” he said.
“I look forward to working with Secretary Burgum on this matter of importance for Arizona and the entire nation,” he added.
Arizona Mirror (https://azmirror.com/) is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com.
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AN 2 25
Scathing analysis shows House GOP budget would add '$4.5 trillion' to deficit while gutting safety net (https://www.alternet.org/budget-house-gop-snap/)
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an 2 25
inspired by President Donald Trump’s call to round up immigrants who are in the country illegally, Republican governors would send their National Guard troops into Democratic-led states without those leaders’ permission.
It’s a scenario that was so concerning to Washington state Rep. Sharlett Mena that she introduced legislation (https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=1321&Year=2025&Initiative=False) that would make uninvited deployments of out-of-state troops illegal. Her bill cleared a committee last week and has the backing of Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson, who pushed for the proposal in his inaugural address last month.
The legislation is about maintaining the state’s autonomy and authority, Mena, a Democrat, told her colleagues during last week’s hearing. “Without this bill, there’s nothing on the books to prevent this.”
Later, she added, “Other states may take matters into their own hands when they want to enforce federal laws.”
In December, 26 Republican governors — all but Vermont Gov. Phil Scott — vowed (https://www.rga.org/republican-governors-join-support-president-trumps-immigration-policies/) to assist Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) with deportations of immigrants “who pose a threat to our communities and national security.” Their pledge included the use of National Guard troops.
Mena has reason to be concerned, said Joseph Nunn, a counsel in the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a left-leaning New York-based pro-democracy institute.
“The Trump administration has made it quite clear that they intend to use the military to assist with immigration enforcement,” he said. “States who are opposed to that would be wise to take what measures they can to protect themselves and their states.”
This week, Texas signed an agreement (https://www.texastribune.org/2025/02/03/texas-national-guard-immigration-arrests/) with the Trump administration giving the state’s National Guard troops law enforcement powers to arrest and help detain migrants. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s four-year Operation Lone Star program has until now used the National Guard only for surveillance and logistical support for federal agents.
Other states opposed to Trump’s deportation program could be inspired by Washington’s legislation and introduce similar measures in the months ahead, Nunn said. And Mena pointed out that Idaho (https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/title46/t46ch1/sect46-110/), Kansas (https://www.kslegislature.gov/li/b2025_26/statute/048_000_0000_chapter/048_002_0000_article/048_002_0003_section/048_002_0003_k/), Montana (https://courts.mt.gov/External/library/docs/72constit.pdf), North Dakota (https://ndlegis.gov/cencode/t37c01.pdf), Oklahoma (https://oksenate.gov/sites/default/files/2022-05/os44.pdf), Rhode Island (https://webserver.rilegislature.gov/Statutes/TITLE30/30-12/30-12-4.htm), South Carolina (https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t25c001.php) and Texas (https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/GV/htm/GV.437.htm) have laws that prevent other states’ National Guard troops from entering without permission.
‘Anything we can do to help’: This Texas county is poised to play a key role in deportations (https://stateline.org/2025/01/03/anything-we-can-do-to-help-this-texas-county-is-poised-to-play-a-key-role-in-deportations/)
IFrame Content (https://stateline.org/2025/01/03/anything-we-can-do-to-help-this-texas-county-is-poised-to-play-a-key-role-in-deportations/embed/#?secret=g5n0fTIXGY#?secret=zSdhJGn6ip)
But, as she noted to her colleagues last week, if Trump were to federalize National Guard units, there’s nothing the state could do to prevent it; a presidential order preempts state authority.
Republican state Rep. Jim Walsh dismisses Mena’s concerns.
“I believe that legislation is unnecessary,” he told Stateline in an interview. “I think it’s what is generally considered a statement bill, but you have to treat it seriously. I’m not sure what they’re getting at here other than a swipe at Donald Trump.”
Washington state law prohibits state and local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement — which Walsh described as “horrible” public policy. Mena’s legislation would only add to that “dumb” approach to immigration enforcement, he said.
Federal law
While the National Guard is generally organized at and operates under state command using state funding, it can be called into federal service, operating with federal funding and placed under the president’s control. But there’s a murky middle ground in federal law that would make a measure like Washington’s relevant.
Under one federal statute, Title 32, a state’s National Guard can be commanded by the governor but operate using federal funding on a federal mission at the request of the president. While the policy was originally crafted in the 1950s as a way for Congress to pay for extensive training requirements, presidents have since expanded its use.
Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Trump, in his first term, all deployed (https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10121) National Guard troops to the southwestern border to assist with migration deterrence.
Trump’s mass deportation plan could rely on state cooperation (https://stateline.org/2024/11/01/trumps-mass-deportation-plan-could-rely-on-state-collaboration/)
IFrame Content (https://stateline.org/2024/11/01/trumps-mass-deportation-plan-could-rely-on-state-collaboration/embed/#?secret=CLS1MUMpxp#?secret=BqTnxNTtr3)
Trump also used the statute (https://x.com/KerriKupecDOJ/status/1270487263324049410) in 2020 to request that states send National Guard units to Washington, D.C., when he wanted to suppress the Black Lives Matter protests happening there. Eleven governors voluntarily sent troops, despite objections from the district’s mayor. The district does not enjoy the sovereignty of states.
“No state is more sovereign than another state, and their sovereignty is also territorially limited,” Nunn said. “Illinois’ sovereignty stops at the Indiana state line and vice versa. Indiana cannot reach into Illinois and exercise governmental power there without Illinois’ consent, even if the president asked Indiana to do this and even if Congress is footing the bill.”
Put simply: No state can invade another state.
‘An insurance policy’
Because of this, Washington state’s legislation might be redundant, said William Banks, a professor emeritus at Syracuse University College of Law who has studied and recently written (https://www.justsecurity.org/107030/invasion-executive-order-military-authorities/) about National Guard deployments and Trump’s rhetoric of a migrant “invasion.”
“It’s like an insurance policy,” he said of the bill. “It may be a very good idea to call attention to the independence of the state government and its perspective that they’d very much like to be in charge of their own internal affairs, including migration or whatever else might be going on.”
Banks said the measure, if passed as expected, could be something that state leaders point to if, for example, Idaho or Montana were considering deploying their National Guard units to Seattle to carry out Trump’s immigration enforcement.
However, he said, the whole discussion becomes irrelevant the moment Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, which would allow for federal military intervention in a nonconsenting state.
State, local officials plan for potential immigration enforcement at schools (https://stateline.org/2025/02/03/state-local-officials-plan-for-potential-immigration-enforcement-at-schools/)
IFrame Content (https://stateline.org/2025/02/03/state-local-officials-plan-for-potential-immigration-enforcement-at-schools/embed/#?secret=CMNsbDepAW#?secret=JrAqABCbV5)
The 1792 law has been used occasionally in response to unexpected crises that overwhelmed civilian authorities or when a state was obstructing federal civil rights laws or other constitutional protections. In theory, though, the president could frame one of his policy priorities, such as immigration, as a national emergency in need of a massive troop mobilization. Trump has already asked (https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/declaring-a-national-emergency-at-the-southern-border-of-the-united-states/) his deputies to study the use of the law.
“The Insurrection Act is a euphemism for when all hell breaks loose,” Banks said. “It’s an extreme measure for extreme times.”
Until that occurs, Washington lawmakers would be wise to adopt preventive measures, said Nathan Bays, deputy policy director for Washington’s governor. He told committee members during the bill’s hearing that it is “precautionary” and would not harm the readiness or training of the state’s National Guard.
“Washington will continue to be a strong partner with our other National Guard units across this nation,” he said.
But Republican state Rep. Rob Chase told Stateline that the legislation is a solution looking for a problem — wasting time when the legislature should be focused on real issues, such as public safety, homelessness, a housing shortage, fentanyl and education.
“This seems like more fear mongering by the ruling party in Olympia over what they perceive to be happening in the other Washington,” he wrote in an email.
Stateline (https://stateline.org/) is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.
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an 1 25
Chemtrail conspiracy theorists sway Republicans to support ban on geoengineering (https://www.alternet.org/chemtrails/)
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run in to save elon
an 2 25
During Wednesday’s heated House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing, Chairman Jim Comer and his Republican colleagues blocked a vote on Democratic Ranking Member Gerry Connolly’s motion to subpoena Elon Musk. The Director of President Donald Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency has been accused of systematically dismantling federal agencies one by one, while his associates have allegedly gained access to the private data of potentially millions of Americans, as well as vast amounts of federal government information—including, reportedly, some classified material.
In Wednesday’s hearing on “Rightsizing Government (https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/rightsizing-government/),” Ranking Member Connolly was quickly blocked when he attempted to subpoena the person in charge of all those efforts testify before them.
The Oversight Committee’s mission is to “ensure the efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of the federal government and all its agencies,” according to its website (https://oversight.house.gov/). “We provide a check and balance on the role and power of Washington – and a voice to the people it serves.”
READ MORE: ‘Democracy Weeks Away From Disintegrating’: Democratic Senator Issues Warning — and a Plan (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/02/democracy-weeks-away-from-disintegrating-democratic-senator-issues-warning-and-a-plan/)
Connolly had filed formal notice (https://x.com/metzgov/status/1886471607276781690) on Monday requesting that Comer “invite” Elon Musk “to appear as a witness.”
“Who is this unelected billionaire that he can attempt to dismantle federal agencies, fire people, transfer them, offer them early retirement, and have sweeping changes to agencies without any congressional review, oversight, or concurrence?” Connolly asked on Wednesday. “Mr. Chairman, given his prominence and his importance, I move that the committee subpoena Elon Musk to come to before it as a witness at the earliest possible moment.”
But Chairman Comer quickly squelched the Democrat’s motion, declaring it was “not debatable.”
A direction to “table the motion,” apparently from Comer, came, as Connolly asked, “Mr. Chairman, why don’t we want to debate Elon Musk coming in and talking to us about his work and how he’s enriched himself by 64 billion dollars?”
Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) then moved to formally block the motion, sparking a chaotic exchange as members talked over one another while Comer reprimanded a Democrat he deemed “out of order.”
U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) blasted Comer: “You will not even entertain a motion to bring him (Elon) in front of the Oversight Committee?”
“Yes, let’s have order in this country,” she exclaimed before adding, “Mr. Elon Musk is out of order!”
READ MORE: Dems Blocked From Entering USAID Offices: ‘Illegal and Corrupt’ (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/02/dems-blocked-from-entering-usaid-offices-illegal-and-corrupt/)
Comer accused her of “demagoguery.”
IFrame Content (https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=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%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1887164133810098468&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alternet.org%2Fcomer-republicans-subpoena-musk%2F&partner=rebelmouse&sessionId=41de6bb0f5403a8d4289e53abcc11082661ad88f&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2615f7e52b7e0%3A1702314776716&width=550px)
U.S. Congressman Maxwell Frost (D-FL) wrote (https://x.com/MaxwellFrostFL/status/1887161745883767010), “I’m in Oversight Committee right now. Ranking Member Connolly just called for a vote to subpoena Elon Musk. Republicans out-number us on this committee, but many aren’t in the room. We’ll see who wins this vote. We deserve transparency and answers.”
Just minutes later he added (https://x.com/MaxwellFrostFL/status/1887162694047850850): “Republicans ran into the room to SHEILD Elon Musk from having to come and speak to Congress. They want their billionaire takeover done behind closed doors. The people deserve transparency. No one elected Elon Musk.”
Responding to a video of the event Connolly wrote (https://x.com/GerryConnolly/status/1887172879646642264): “You read that right – blocked without debate. If Republicans are such big fans of Elon Musk’s hostile takeover of our government, why are they so afraid to hear from him? Because they know you, the American people, aren’t gonna like what he has to say.”
“They will stop at nothing to cover up Elon Musk’s lawlessness,” he added (https://x.com/GerryConnolly/status/1887162541261926565).
In a press release (https://oversight.house.gov/release/comer-oversight-committee-is-working-with-doge-to-improve-government-efficiency-eliminate-rampant-washington-waste/), Chairman Comer accused Democrats of “hyperventilating and sensationalizing the Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) Administration’s efforts to advance necessary reforms,” while he vowed to “continue working with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on solutions to make federal operations more efficient and effective for all Americans.”
IFrame Content (https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&features=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%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1887160582748377296&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alternet.org%2Fcomer-republicans-subpoena-musk%2F&partner=rebelmouse&sessionId=41de6bb0f5403a8d4289e53abcc11082661ad88f&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2615f7e52b7e0%3A1702314776716&width=550px)
Watch the videos above or at this link (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/02/demagoguery-comer-and-republicans-melt-down-when-democrat-tries-to-subpoena-musk/).
READ MORE: ‘Blind to What’s Happening on His Watch’: Rubio Slammed After ‘Cheap Shot’ at Aid Groups (https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2025/02/blind-to-whats-happening-on-his-watch-rubio-slammed-after-cheap-shot-at-aid-groups/)
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an 2 25
'Incites hostility': Republicans pass bill to require Ten Commandments in Montana schools (https://www.alternet.org/10-commandments/)
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an 1 25
One House Republican appeared to suggest that the tens of millions of kids on free and reduced school lunch programs are moochers who should have to work to earn food.
During a Tuesday interview on CNN, host Pamela Brown interviewed Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Pa.) (https://x.com/atrupar/status/1884274900132610398) about President Donald Trump's new announcement that he was imposing a 90-day pause (https://www.ctinsider.com/politics/article/trump-funding-freeze-connecticut-murphy-lamont-20060818.php) on all disbursements of federal money until agencies could ensure spending is line with Trump's agenda. The vaguely worded funding freeze — which is expected to begin at 5 PM Eastern Time and is already being challenged in court (https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/28/lawsuit-seeks-to-block-trump-funding-freeze.html) — could impact everything from Medicaid funding to food stamps and possibly even federal funding for school lunches.
McCormick — who joined Brown from Trump's Doral resort in Florida where House Republicans are having a retreat (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/28/house-republican-retreat-trump-national-doral/) — defended Trump's decision, and suggested that kids at risk of losing their school lunch benefits could instead learn the "value" of hard work.
READ MORE:GOP already 'chomping at the bit' to cut Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare: analysis (https://www.alternet.org/gop-social-security-medicare/)
"You talk about school lunches? Hey, I worked my way through high school. I don't know about you, but I've worked since I was 13 years old, picking berries in a field before we had child labor laws that precluded that," said McCormick, who is 56 years old and was born well after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt introduced child labor laws in 1938 (https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/history/flsa1938). "You're telling me that kids who stay at home, instead of going to work at Burger King, McDonalds during the summer, should stay at home and get their free lunch instead of going to work? I think we need to have a top-down review."
Brown pushed back, saying his remarks were "not necessarily a fair assessment" of the roughly 30 million kids (https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-us-children-receive-a-free-or-reduced-price-school-lunch/) who depend free or reduced lunches in school. McCormick argued that he was "absolutely not" agreeing with Brown's characterization of his statement as saying poor kids are "just sitting at home and not working." However, he argued that the funding freeze gives agencies a chance to see how federal money was being spent.
"Who can actually go and actually produce their income?" McCormick countered. "I mean how many people got their start in fast food restaurants when they were kids, versus just a blanket rule that gives all kids lunches in high school who are capable of going out and actually getting a job and doing something that makes them have value? Thinking about their future instead of thinking about how they're going to sponge off of the government when they don't need to?"
The Georgia Republican's remarks drew strong rebuke from journalists, commentators and various experts on social media. Texas Democratic Party executive committee member Micah Erfan tweeted (https://x.com/micah_erfan/status/1884290920977506558) that Republicans wanted "tax cuts for the rich paid for by eliminating school lunches for the poor." Council on Foreign Relations member Laurie Garrett responded by posting an excerpt of Charles Dickens' "The Christmas Carol" (https://x.com/Laurie_Garrett/status/1884295800416788821) in which Ebenezer Scrooge says he hopes the needy will die in order to "decrease the surplus population." TV producer Brittany Valenzuela quote-tweeted the clip of McCormick (https://x.com/BRITTANY_COHEN3/status/1884287437914136888) and wrote: "If you’re arguing against providing free FOOD FOR OUR YOUTH, you need to seek help."
READ MORE:'Biggest challenge': Even Republicans are nervous about Trump's new $4.6 trillion tax cut (https://www.alternet.org/republicans-trump-tax-cut/)
"What a p—k," tennis legend Martina Navratilova tweeted (https://x.com/Martina/status/1884286716573553032). "What about 10 year olds??? They are supposed to WORK FOR THEIR LUNCH!!!!?????"
Louisiana Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis responded to McCormick (https://x.com/davantelewis/status/1884281830381346895) by asserting the "Republican plan" was to "send your kindergarten\er] to afford breakfast and lunch at school." Globe and Mail editorial writer Peter Scowen called the Georgia Republican's comments part of "[the new American war on empathy (https://x.com/scowen13/status/1884290054119645526)."
"Children are lazy and should start picking berries to pay for their school lunches is a take," author Shannon Watts tweeted (https://x.com/shannonrwatts/status/1884277807284728240).
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an 1 25
In the Missouri Legislature, State Sen. David Gregory, a far-right MAGA Republican, is proposing a bill that, if passed, would give a $1000 reward (https://nypost.com/2024/12/07/us-news/david-gregory-introduces-bill-to-offer-1k-bounty-to-turn-in-illegal-migrants/) to anyone who reports someone who is in the United States illegally if the report leads to an arrest. And the bill is fueling heated debates among Missouri residents.
Gregory, who served in the Missouri House of Representatives before being elected to the Missouri Senate in 2024, vigorously defended his proposal during a hearing on Monday, January 27 (https://missouriindependent.com/2025/01/28/missouri-bill-putting-a-bounty-on-undocumented-immigrants-faces-fierce-resistance/).
Gregory told members of the Missouri Senate Transportation, Infrastructure and Public Safety Committee, "This bill seeks to create an ICE program at the state level. That's essentially all it does. This is an ICE program inside the state of Missouri."
READ MORE:Apocalypse Now: Extreme interpretation of Christian nationalism now guides Pentagon policy (https://www.alternet.org/the-most-extreme-interpretation-of-christian-nationalism/?utm_source=push_notifications)
But Democratic Missouri State Sen. Barbara Washington, whose district is in Kansas City, is calling out the bill as racist and argues that it encourages Missouri residents to file reports based on a person's skin color or proficiency in English.
During the January 27 hearing, Washington warned (https://missouriindependent.com/2025/01/28/missouri-bill-putting-a-bounty-on-undocumented-immigrants-faces-fierce-resistance/), "Don't tell me it is not going to happen because it is happening now."
Missouri Independent reporter Rudi Keller, in an article published on January 28 (https://missouriindependent.com/2025/01/28/missouri-bill-putting-a-bounty-on-undocumented-immigrants-faces-fierce-resistance/), explains, "Gregory, a Republican from Chesterfield, wants to authorize bounty hunters, usually employed by bail bond businesses to catch absconders, to track down people identified in tips. And if the tip proves accurate, the person arrested would be charged with 'trespass by an illegal alien,' and subject to life in prison without parole if federal immigration authorities declined to take custody."
The New York Post's Jon Levine noted (https://nypost.com/2024/12/07/us-news/david-gregory-introduces-bill-to-offer-1k-bounty-to-turn-in-illegal-migrants/) that Gregory's bill would "develop an information system for people to report violations of this act, which shall include a toll-free telephone hotline, e-mail and online reporting portal."
Washington wasn't the only person speaking out against Gregory's bill at the January 27 hearing.
READ MORE:'Left-wing narrative': OK schools chief accuses CNN host of 'gaslighting' on pro-Trump prayer video (https://www.alternet.org/christian-nationalism-trump/)
Gabriella Cepeda of the Hispanic Law Students Association at St. Louis University told attendees (https://missouriindependent.com/2025/01/28/missouri-bill-putting-a-bounty-on-undocumented-immigrants-faces-fierce-resistance/), "This bill fosters a climate of fear, where people feel unsafe engaging in even the most basic activities beyond going to work or school. They are terrified of being profiled or targeted (for) life in prison for simply existing in the state without documentation. It is not just extreme, it's cruel and unusual punishment."
Similarly, immigrant Aura Velasquez — who has been a U.S. citizen for five years — testified (https://missouriindependent.com/2025/01/28/missouri-bill-putting-a-bounty-on-undocumented-immigrants-faces-fierce-resistance/), "It is inhumane to say people should be hunted like a sport. It would turn neighbors against neighbors and friends against each other."
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alternet
It's not just social media that's giving violent white supremacists a pass
Thom Hartmann January 11, 2025
— The fossil fuel industry is apparently paying off Republicans — in a practice legalized by Republicans on the Supreme Court — to make sure Congress never passes legislation to hold them accountable for all the death and destruction they’ve caused by lying about climate change for the past 50 years. Here, for example, are the biggest recipients of their largesse, according to OpenSecrets: Romney, Mitt (R-UT) $8,291,262; Cornyn, John (R-TX) $4,678,062; Cruz, Ted (R-TX) $4,138,421; McConnell, Mitch (R-KY) $2,852,107; McCarthy, Kevin (R-CA) $2,581,832; Hutchison, Kay Bailey (R-TX) $2,332,021; Inhofe, James M (R-OK) $2,320,139; Pearce, Steve (R-NM) $2,236,714; Barton, Joe (R-TX) $2,211,987; Brady, Kevin (R-TX) $2,087,396; Scalise, Steve (R-LA) $1,847,013; Murkowski, Lisa (R-AK) $1,792,602. If you haven’t yet noticed the trend, just check out the party affiliation of each…..
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an 1 25
won by 14 after 20 tossed?
Minnesota GOPer: ‘We should not be seating that representative’ no matter what judge rules - Alternet.org (https://www.alternet.org/minnesota-gop/)
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an 1 25
A Republican’s vigorous defense of Donald Trump (https://www.rawstory.com/trump-news/) supporters who stormed the Capitol four years ago turned an on-air CNN discussion into a full-on debate about who was peacefully protesting, who was trespassing, and who should’ve been prosecuted.
The moment came Monday evening on CNN’s (https://www.rawstory.com/tag/cnn)“The Source” when GOP strategist David Urban said that not only was the issue of Jan. 6 (https://www.rawstory.com/jan-6-trump-2670351298/) litigated in the courts, but also in the last election – “and the American people dismissed it as well.”
“I agree the beating of police officers – Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) said it himself – violence is never acceptable,” Urban said Monday. “Those people that beat the police officers, that injured a police officer, should go to jail. There's no ifs, ands or buts.”
However, Urban added, “there’s a completely different story” on the Supreme Court side of the Capitol, where he said people “were allowed in” and officers “didn't seem frightened or outnumbered.”
He also told the panel that “to be factual” Ashli Babbitt “was the only person who died” on that day.
ALSO READ:'Bring it on': Defiant Raskin responds to GOP threats of retaliation for J6 investigation (https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/raskin-j6-retaliation/?utm_source=superhead)
But the longtime Republican’s separation of the violence didn’t sit well with CNN’s Kate Bedingfield or Sarah Matthews, Trump’s former deputy press secretary who resigned on Jan. 6, 2021, over the Capitol riot (https://www.rawstory.com/fbi-agents-january-6/).
“That is beyond splitting hairs,” Bedingfield said referencing the Capitol police officer who died (https://www.rawstory.com/brian-sicknick-2669010490/) the day after the attack. “Come on."
“She wouldn't have been there that day if Donald Trump didn't spread conspiracy theories about an election that he knew was not stolen,” Matthews told Urban. “And he told those people to go to the Capitol. And so, she was there as a result of him telling her. She would not have died if it weren't for Donald Trump refusing to accept the results of the election, and you know that.”
Urban concluded the dust-up by adding that he doesn't believe that Trump should pardon Jan. 6 defendants on day one.
“I think there are lots of things the American people care about much more so than January 6," he said.
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// NC state scotus?
an 1 215
Georgia's state legislature is about to gavel into session next week, and there are already several proposed new voting restrictions on the docket for lawmakers to consider.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Tuesday (https://www.ajc.com/politics/georgia-lawmakers-consider-even-more-election-changes-after-a-smooth-2024-election/DGPZ7NE45ZGKXOTQEJYKQQTCT4/) that Republican lawmakers emboldened by Trump's 2024 election victory in the Peach State are now hoping to have several GOP wish-list items signed into law that would make the voting process even more cumbersome in the critical swing state. Some of the bills include language mandating hand-counting of ballots and eliminating no-excuse absentee voting.
Some conservative activists are also reportedly advocating for legislation that makes it easier to challenge voters' eligibility, and for new rules to be put in place regarding county-level certification of election results. The renewed push for election changes comes after a fraught election cycle in which Georgia's Republican-controlled State Election Board attempted to ram through several last-minute changes (https://www.alternet.org/georgia-election-board-2024/#) that would have significantly delayed the counting of ballots.
READ MORE:'Ripe for abuse': GA elections chief now allowing anyone to cancel a voter's registration (https://www.alternet.org/georgia-voters/#)
“It was total nonsense what they were doing. It was a show unlike anything we’ve ever seen as election officials." Heard County election supervisor Tonnie Adams told the Journal-Constitution. "We’d like to see the entire rulemaking process changed.”
Democratic state representative Saira Draper is also pushing for an election-related law. Her legislation would make it illegal for the State Election Board to make changes to election laws during election years, arguing that election workers need time to be trained on how to follow and implement existing laws. She also wants to allow for parents with small children to be moved to the front of voting lines.
“The problem we’ve seen over and over again in election policy is responding to fears or made-up stories as opposed to actual facts,” Draper told the paper. “By playing to concerns of voter confidence, you’re basically changing policy for problems that don’t exist. I would like to see policies that are tethered to real issues as opposed to made-up issues for political purposes.”
Georgia Republicans have been pushing for sweeping changes to election laws ever since 2021, when President Joe Biden flipped the state blue after nearly 30 years. In 2022, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) was elected to a full six-year term, making it the first time since the 1990s that Georgia has been represented by two Democrats in the U.S. Senate.
READ MORE:'Inappropriate and unprofessional': Georgia election board chair turns on GOP colleagues (https://www.alternet.org/georgia-election-board-2024/#)
Click here (https://www.ajc.com/politics/georgia-lawmakers-consider-even-more-election-changes-after-a-smooth-2024-election/DGPZ7NE45ZGKXOTQEJYKQQTCT4/) to read the Journal-Constitution's report in its entirety (subscription required).
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an 1 25
Geoff Duncan, the former Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia, on Monday was expelled from the state's Republican Party over "alleged disloyalty," according to Fox 5 Atlanta (https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/georgia-gop-expels-former-lt-gov-geoff-duncan-over-alleged-disloyalty).
The Georgia Republicans announced Duncan's ouster via X, writing (https://www.alternet.org/geff-duncan-republican-party/:https://x.com/GaRepublicans/status/1876373581069975554): "MEDIA ADVISORY: Geoff Duncan having been formally expelled, we ask that you refer to him as 'expelled Republican Geoff Duncan' or 'ousted Republican Geoff Duncan' when you go to him for quotes trashing President Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) and the Republican Party.'"
The party tagged CNN and the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) in its announcement.
READ MORE:'Actually lay out some proof': Ex-GA GOP Lt. Gov. skewers Ted Cruz over baseless election claims (https://www.alternet.org/ted-cruz-kaitlan-collins-cnn/)
Aiming his response at party Chair Josh McKoon, Duncan replied (https://x.com/GeoffDuncanGA/status/1876393646439719034), "Hard to believe this is a good use of time for a party that’s only got a limited amount of time to figure out mass deportations, world peace and global tariffs. Learn how to take a victory lap not light another dumpster fire @JoshMcKoon (https://x.com/JoshMcKoon)"
According to Fox 5 (https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/georgia-gop-expels-former-lt-gov-geoff-duncan-over-alleged-disloyalty), the Georgia GOP's "resolution (https://mailchi.mp/gagop/duncanremoved) outlines a series of allegations against Duncan, including accusations of undermining Republican candidates, endorsing Democratic opponents, and leveraging his GOP affiliation for personal gain."
Weeks before President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race, the former Republican lieutenant governor announced that he planned to vote for the president's reelection.
"Unlike Trump, I’ve belonged to the GOP my entire life. This November, I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass," Duncan wrote in an op-ed published by the AJC.
READ MORE:'Herds of Republicans' may flock to Harris in hopes of saving party: Georgia Republican (https://www.alternet.org/gop-harris/)
The ex-GOP leader took his criticism of President-elect Donald Trump further when he announced that Vice President Kamala Harris (https://www.rawstory.com/tag/white-house) would get his vote.
*Fox 5 Atlanta's full report is available here.
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an 12 24
pres musk govt shutdn // kid cancer
'Unfathomable': Firefighters slam spending bill after Trump 'scuttled' 9/11 first-responders fund (https://www.alternet.org/firefighters-spending-bill-musk/)
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not trump judge but all GOP
yikes an 12 24
'Totally unfounded': Legal experts blast GA appeals court’s disqualification of Fani Willis
fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis is now officially disqualified from prosecuting President-elect Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) in his Georgia election interference criminal case, following a Thursday decision by the Georgia Court of Appeals (https://efast.gaappeals.us/download?filingId=cdec1774-027f-4de6-aaf5-fb6c9bb99270) (COA).
As NPR reported, the three-judge panel — all of whom were appointed by Republican governors (https://www.npr.org/2024/12/19/nx-s1-5234059/georgia-appeals-court-blocks-fulton-da-willis-from-election-interference-case) — ruled that Willis' relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade amounted to a conflict of interest that required her being removed from the case. Assuming she doesn't accept the court's decision, the matter will now go to the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of Georgia (https://bsky.app/profile/nobodyinteresting.bsky.social/post/3ldo4hpjjoc2g) (PACGA), according to Georgia criminal defense attorney Andrew Fleischman. However, Fleischman said this likely means' Willis case is "100% dead (https://bsky.app/profile/nobodyinteresting.bsky.social/post/3ldo4lcqpvs2g)," as the PACGA "declined to prosecute the one recused case it already got."
In a subsequent skeet (the term used for Bluesky posts), Fleischman opined that there was a "total lack of analysis (https://bsky.app/profile/nobodyinteresting.bsky.social/post/3ldo5oxf2nk2g)" in the COA's decision, saying there was "no rule or explanation here that any other criminal defendant could possibly use in their own case" and that "in such an important case, the court should explain itself."
READ MORE:Legal expert explains the one thing Fani Willis has to do to save her Trump investigation (https://www.alternet.org/legal-expert-fani-willis/)
Rolling Stone reporter Nikki McCann Ramirez posted excerpts of the dissent (https://bsky.app/profile/nikkimcr.bsky.social/post/3ldo6r2tn222w) authored by Judge Ben Land (appointed by Governor Brian Kemp). He argued that attorneys representing Trump "failed to show that the district attorney had an actual conflict of interest, failed to show that she received any material financial benefit as a result of her relationship with Nathan Wade, failed to show that she had a personal stake in the conviction of any defendant, failed to show that her relationship with Wade involved any impropriety on her part, and failed to show that their relationship, including their financial arrangements, had any actual impact on the case."
"Because there was some evidence presented to the trial court that supported these findings, we are bound to accept them," Land continued. "The majority does not dispute these findings. Rather, it holds, with the citation of no supporting authority and apparently for the first time in the history of our state, that the mere existence of an appearance of impropriety, in and of itself, is sufficient to reverse the trial court's refusal to disqualify the district attorney and her entire office."
Brookings Institution senior fellow Norm Eisen wrote (https://bsky.app/profile/normeisen.bsky.social/post/3ldo5ikuppc2o) that the COA's ruling was "totally unfounded," and noted that "bipartisan experts agree (https://www.justsecurity.org/91368/why-fani-willis-is-not-disqualified-under-georgia-law/)" that Willis' relationship with Wade wasn't disqualifying on its own. But he added that despite Willis' removal from the case, "the indictment stands" and should be pursued "vigorously." Eisen reminded his followers that —just as in the New York hush money cover-up case — the Georgia indictment is not subject to the Supreme Court's immunity protections for official presidential acts.
Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance pointed out (https://bsky.app/profile/joycewhitevance.bsky.social/post/3ldoaa33xds2r) that the decision means "a new DA will be selected to take over the case," adding that this would likely amount to "a slow death knell if not an outright death for the case." In his own response to the ruling, Federation of American Scientists director of global risk Jon B. Wolfsthal lamented (https://bsky.app/profile/jonatomic.bsky.social/post/3ldoadennbs2r): "The entire American system of justice is broken." Attorney Bradley P. Moss, however, wrote that Willis "has no one to blame but herself (https://bsky.app/profile/bradmossesq.bsky.social/post/3ldo5ldsads2f)" for her disqualification.
READ MORE:[Fani Willis in testy exchange: I'm not the one 'on trial for trying to steal an election'
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YIKES THUGSWARM INSITUTIONALIZED? DEMONIZATION REQUIRES RETALIATION --> FAscism
AN 12 24
any Never Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) conservatives have argued that the Republican Party's Ronald Reagan era officially ended when Donald Trump won the 2016 GOP nomination and went on to defeat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the general election.
Since then, the GOP has only grown more and more Trumpified. Many conservative Trump critics are no longer in Congress, including former Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Wyoming), ex-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin), and ex-Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Arizona). And outgoing Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) decided against seeking reelection.
Trump's narrow defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris (https://www.rawstory.com/tag/white-house) in the 2024 election only tightens his stranglehold on the GOP. The Dispatch's David M. Drucker, in an article published on December 17 (https://thedispatch.com/article/a-new-maga-republican-establishment-rises/), stresses that when he returns to the White House on January 20, 2025, he will be "flanked by an army of outside enforcers prepared to squeeze any Republican who resists his agenda."
READ MORE:'Damning information mounts': Trump's 'worst' nominees could be in for a rude awakening (https://www.alternet.org/worst-trump-nominees/)
"Once Trump is inaugurated," Drucker reports (https://thedispatch.com/article/a-new-maga-republican-establishment-rises/), "this MAGA-aligned network will shift to strong-arming obstinate House and Senate Republicans to support the president-elect's agenda, be it executive orders or legislative proposals. Critically, MAGA insiders tell The Dispatch, they won't be sitting around waiting for direction from Trump to join a particular fight."
One of those MAGA insiders is "War Room" host Steve Bannon, who told The Dispatch (https://thedispatch.com/article/a-new-maga-republican-establishment-rises/), "The ecosystem on the right is going to be a force multiplier…. What I think you're seeing now is the institutionalization of what had been a self-organizing effort."
Bannon, according to Drucker (https://thedispatch.com/article/a-new-maga-republican-establishment-rises/), is "describing" what "amounts to the rise of a new Republican establishment, complete with well-funded activist groups and influential media figures."
Bannon, now 71, has been involved in far-right politics for decades. But Trump's MAGA loyalists aren't necessarily Baby Boomers or members of Generation X.
READ MORE:'No one would design a system like the one we have': UnitedHealth CEO makes astonishing admission (https://www.alternet.org/united-healthcare-ceo-2670459823/)
In a New York Times article (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/16/us/politics/young-republicans-gala.html) published on Dec. 16, reporter Shawn McCreesh describes a New York Young Republican Club gathering that took place Sunday, Dec. 15.
Bannon was the keynote speaker, but many of the "true believers" in attendance were much younger. And according to McCreesh (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/16/us/politics/young-republicans-gala.html), they are fine with "retribution" against Trump's detractors — if unclear about the form it should take.
"This club's members are, by and large, a terminally online, trollish, far-right collective who would consider any sort of tack toward the center by Mr. Trump or those guiding him to be an act of betrayal," McCreesh reports (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/16/us/politics/young-republicans-gala.html). "They are the prime audience for retribution rattling. And yet, on Sunday, many seemed at odds about just how much retribution they could expect, or who precisely should be targeted, or how.
Preston Parra, a 22-year-old MAGA Republican at the gathering, said of Trump's foes (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/16/us/politics/young-republicans-gala.html), "We want to throw the book at them because they deserve it. They're godless demoniacs…. The leftist, elitist cabal, whatever you want to call it. Nancy Pelosi. Mitch McConnell."
READ MORE:['How long it’ll be until he sues an economist': Experts blast Trump's lawsuit against pollster
*Read The Dispatch's full article at this link (https://thedispatch.com/article/a-new-maga-republican-establishment-rises/)and the New York Times' reporting here (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/16/us/politics/young-republicans-gala.html) (subscription required).
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an 12 24
At least 27 House Republicans are urging President-elect Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) to end the Internal Revenue Service's Direct File program (https://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-trump-scrap-irs-free-direct-tax-filing-tool-2024-12) as soon as he returns to the White House and begins his second term. But Direct File also has plenty of supporters, including MSNBC's Hayes Brown (https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/tax-season-2025-direct-file-irs-gop-trump-rcna184183).
In an opinion column published on December 15 (https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/tax-season-2025-direct-file-irs-gop-trump-rcna184183), Brown argues that House Republicans have a motivation for wanting to abolish Direct File: making it more "painful" for Americans to file their taxes.
"In the fall of 2023, the Internal Revenue Service announced a pilot program that would allow some Americans to file their taxes directly to the agency — for free," Brown explains (https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/tax-season-2025-direct-file-irs-gop-trump-rcna184183). "The Direct File service managed to go against at least a half-dozen federal government stereotypes: it was new and novel in a system that loathes change, it allowed people to be more efficient with their time, and the people who used it this past tax season had plenty of good things to say about their experience."
READ MORE:[New Kristi Noem proposal would fund Christian ‘segregation academies’
Brown adds (https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/tax-season-2025-direct-file-irs-gop-trump-rcna184183), "In May, the IRS said the program would be expanded and made permanent. But of course, there are Republicans who would like nothing more than to strangle a popular government initiative in its cradle."
According to Brown (https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/tax-season-2025-direct-file-irs-gop-trump-rcna184183), House Republicans who oppose Direct File believe that abolishing the program will make it easier for their party to carry out tax cuts for wealthy Americans.
"The more friction in the system, the more visible of a target the IRS becomes for average Americans," Brown explains (https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/tax-season-2025-direct-file-irs-gop-trump-rcna184183). "The more people who are frustrated with the IRS, the better their case for cutting even more taxes for the wealthy. It also doesn't hurt to be in the good graces of massive tax preparation companies like Intuit, which have spent years and millions of dollars to ensure that filing taxes is as painful a process as possible. Among the reforms they blocked was a plan to go further than Direct File, letting many taxpayers file pre-populated forms for free."
Brown continues (https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/tax-season-2025-direct-file-irs-gop-trump-rcna184183), "The net effect is that there's no upside to murdering Direct File ahead of tax season beyond making the federal government less responsive and useful in the eyes of Americans. Republicans can falsely claim that they're trying to save taxpayers' money from the clutches of the IRS. It's clear what they're really trying to claw back is a massive refund of Americans’ time and energy in the name of making everything a little bit worse."
READ MORE:['Trump ’28': Bannon calls for third term
*Hayes Brown's full MSNBC opinion column is available at this link (https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/tax-season-2025-direct-file-irs-gop-trump-rcna184183).
ref 1 biz insider
IRS has gradually rolled out a program to allow Americans to directly file taxes with the IRS.
It's designed to make filing taxes simpler and easier.
A group of Republicans want Donald Trump to end it, saying it's government overreach.
More than two dozen House Republicans are asking President-elect Donald Trump (https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump) to terminate the Internal Revenue Service's free direct tax-filing system as soon as day one of his presidency.
Republican Reps. Adrian Smith of Nebraska and Chuck Edwards of North Carolina sent a letter (https://adriansmith.house.gov/media/press-releases/smith-edwards-colleagues-call-day-one-elimination-irs-direct-file) to the president-elect on Tuesday urging him to end the program via executive order, saying it posed a "threat to taxpayers' freedom from government overreach."
The letter was signed by 27 other Republicans and is also addressed to Elon Musk (https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk) and Vivek Ramaswamy (https://www.businessinsider.com/vivek-ramaswamy), the co-leads of the Department of Government Efficiency (https://www.businessinsider.com/doge-capitol-hill-musk-ramaswamy-visit-republicans-2024-12).
The program came about as the result of the Inflation Reduction Act (https://www.businessinsider.com/us-moving-closer-letting-americans-file-taxes-online-and-free-2022-9), which included $15 million in funding to study the creation of a website allowing Americans to directly file their taxes to the IRS for free. That led to the rollout of a pilot program that was available in 12 states (https://www.businessinsider.com/irs-file-taxes-free-tax-filing-eligibility-pilot-program-irs-2023-10) last year and is set to expand to 24 states in 2025.
A spokesperson for the IRS didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Many Americans rely on tax-prep companies such as TurboTax and H&R Block to do their taxes each year. The new program is designed to compete with those programs and make filing easier and less costly for Americans.
Smith and Edwards argued in their letter that the program represented a conflict of interest for the IRS — that the agency shouldn't be in charge of both assessing taxes and enforcing them. The duo wrote that the agency "has little incentive to ensure hardworking Americans do not pay more than they owe in taxes."
They also cast the free Direct File program as an example of the "weaponization of government against Americans," a long-standing focus of Trump and the MAGA-aligned right.
It's unclear whether Trump will take the lawmakers up on their request, and the Trump-Vance transition didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Republicans have broadly sought to roll back the $80 billion in additional funding for the IRS that was included in the Inflation Reduction Act, saying it will be used to enable the agency to target conservatives and ordinary taxpayers.
ref 2
MOFO BIZZARROWORLD
Smith, Edwards, Colleagues Call for Day-One Elimination of IRS Direct File
December 10, 2024
Press Release (https://adriansmith.house.gov/media/press-releases)
Washington, D.C. - Today, Congressman Adrian Smith (R-NE) and Chuck Edwards (R-NC) along with 27 House colleagues sent a letter asking President Trump to immediately end the IRS' unlawful Direct File pilot program upon taking office in January. Copies of the letter were addressed to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, Trump's selections to lead his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as well as Treasury Secretary-Designee Scott Bessent, and Trump's selection to lead the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Russell Vought.
Cosigners of the letter include:
Reps. Mike Kelly (R-PA), Carol Miller (R-WV), Mark Alford (R-MO), Rick Allen (R-GA), Don Bacon (R-NE), Vern Buchanan (R-FL), Mike Carey (R-OH), Ron Estes (R-KS), Michelle Fischbach (R-MN), Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), Kevin Hern (R-OK) Erin Houchin (R-IN), Young Kim (R-CA), David Kustoff (R-TN), Darin LaHood (R-IL), Greg Murphy (R-NC), August Pfluger (R-TX), Keith Self (R-TX), Pete Sessions (R-TX), Greg Steube (R-FL), Claudia Tenney (R-NY), William Timmons (R-SC), Beth Van Duyne (R-TX), Steve Womack (R-AR), Andrew Clyde (R-GA), Nathaniel Moran (R-TX), and Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY)
In the letter the members said:
"We write to urge you to take immediate action, including a day-one executive order, to end the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) unauthorized and wasteful Direct File pilot program. The program’s creation and ongoing expansion pose a threat to taxpayers’ freedom from government overreach, and its shaky rollout and structural flaws have already come at a steep price.
...
"This is deeply concerning and a clear conflict of interest.
...
"Under the Biden-Harris administration, the IRS has undertaken an aggressive expansion of its influence, fueled by the exorbitant $80 billion provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, in which it has repeatedly overstepped its authority and targeted hardworking Americans with audits...Even prior, the IRS has a long record of abusing its authority to target political opponents.
How can we entrust the IRS to responsibly prepare and enforce taxes when it has encroached on Americans’ individual liberties at every opportunity? And how can we trust future administrations to not do as the Biden-Harris administration has done in wielding the IRS as a tool to silence political opponents and control private citizens? We should act now to end Direct File to protect Americans from further overreach.
...
"Instead of Direct File, the IRS should be focused on improving its functionality and service to American taxpayers. Under the Biden-Harris administration, Americans experienced significant delays in receiving their tax returns, and the agency has failed to reduce the federal deficit despite the bloated enforcement funding provided by the Inflation Reduction Act. The agency’s existing issues will only be compounded by an expanded Direct File venture..."
Read the full letter here (https://adriansmith.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/adriansmith.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Letter%20to%20President-Elect%20Trump%20re%20IRS%20Direct%20File%20-%20Version%20%232%20-%2012-10-2024%20%40%2005-22%20PM.pdf).
BACKGROUND:
Smith and Edwards introduced legislation in July of this year to terminate (https://adriansmith.house.gov/media/press-releases/smith-edwards-introduce-bill-end-unlawful-irs-direct-file-program) the IRS’s unauthorized Direct File program. Smith also introduced legislation (https://adriansmith.house.gov/media/press-releases/smith-steel-statement-house-passage-family-and-small-business-taxpayer), passed by the House in January 2023, to repeal the Biden-Harris administration’s $80 billion IRS expansion.
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Dec 11th, 2024
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Republicans Want To ‘Throw Out’ Thousands Of Votes In North Carolina Supreme Court Race (https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/north-carolina-dem-supreme-court-incumbent-warns-republicans-want-to-throw-out-thousands-of-votes)
With House Veto Override Vote, North Carolina Republicans’ Power Grab Is Complete (https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/with-house-veto-override-vote-north-carolina-republicans-power-grab-is-complete)
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an 12 24
Republicans in the House of Representatives have a highly ambitious agenda that they want to pass even though they have a razor-thin majority that leaves them with no room for error.
The American Prospect's David Dayen (https://prospect.org/politics/2024-12-06-republican-legislative-fault-lines-start-to-emerge/) took a look at the daunting timeline Republicans face and has concluded that they really could fail to deliver on their vow to extend the tax-cut package they passed seven years ago.
First, he notes that Republicans are currently split on how to handle an ambitious budget reconciliation package, as they are debating over whether to cut their agenda into one or two packages.
Although the House GOP favors doing everything in one fell swoop, Dayen argues that path is still fraught with peril.
"Throwing everything into one bill just complicates the enormous number of issues that must be addressed," he writes. "As my colleague Bob Kuttner has laid out (https://prospect.org/economy/2024-12-05-billionaire-gifts-cuts-for-everyone-else/), Trump (https://www.rawstory.com/trump-news/) has made as much as $7 trillion in tax cut promises, and there isn’t much around in the way of obvious offsets to fill that gap, even though many in the caucus want the package to not increase the deficit (https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/29/republicans-major-fight-cost-tax-cuts-00191006). That much actual savings would require cutting deep into broadly popular programs."
Added to this, Dayen has found that there will be major divides between Republicans about what should and should not be concluded in the package.
"On the details, some Republicans want to keep parts of the IRA (https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-biden-climate-bill-renewable-energy-b3e5fe03) intact and some don’t," he notes. "Some want to raise tariffs legislatively (https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/11/07/congress/congress-considers-tariffs-00188362) as an offset and some don’t. Some are demanding a repeal (https://politicalwire.com/2024/11/20/lawler-says-salt-cap-must-go-to-pass-gop-tax-bill/) of the cap on state and local tax deductions and some see that as too expensive. Some want to deal with health care (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/gop-senator-eyes-health-care-overhaul-extending-trump-tax-cuts-one-big-rcna173707) in that tax bill and some don’t. Some want to cut Medicaid and food stamps (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/health/medicaid-cuts-republican-congress.html) and some don’t."
With all these balls in the air, Dayen concludes that not extending the Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) tax cuts, which he describes as "a fate worse than death" to Republicans, could really happen due to their own "incompetence."
Read the full analysis here (https://prospect.org/politics/2024-12-06-republican-legislative-fault-lines-start-to-emerge/).
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an 12 24
Republicans are already revealing their eagerness to cut earned benefits for millions of Americans, if one House Republican is to be believed.
In a recent interview (https://x.com/atrupar/status/1863970489414070299) with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, Rep. Richard McCormick (R-Ga.) said that he aims to convince his fellow lawmakers that "hard decisions" need to be made about Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid if his party is to succeed in its goal of making sweeping budget cuts.
"75 percent of the budget is nondiscretionary," McCormick said, referencing the three programs that provide income and health insurance to retirees, low-income Americans and the disabled. "There’s hundreds of billions of dollars to be saved and we know how to do it. We just have to have the stomach to actually take those challenges on."
READ MORE:Lawmaker vows 'strong resistance' if Musk agency recommends Social Security or Medicare cuts (https://www.alternet.org/khanna-doge-cnn-acosta/)
New Republic writer Hafiz Rashid highlighted McCormick's interview to make the point that Republicans are "chomping at the bit at some of their favorite targets" in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump's victory. And he noted that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has also mentioned the possibility of making cuts to those three programs in order to fatten the Pentagon budget, along with "the infamous conservative manifesto Project 2025."
"While McCormick pledges to talk to the Democrats about such cuts, the GOP is unlikely to get much traction with the opposing party, especially since Republicans will have a razor-thin majority (https://newrepublic.com/post/188885/house-republicans-majority-historically-small) in the House where a single vote or two could tank their legislative agenda.," Rashid wrote. "Even if the GOP manages to win over a couple of Democrats, any plans to cut Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid will get pushback (https://help.aarp.org/s/article/what-is-the-aarp-statement-on-funding-social-security-and-medicare) from powerful organizations such as the AARP. Older voters who rely on the programs also make up the base of the Republican Party, and politicians from both parties should be wary of provoking them."
Notably, McCormick didn't mention one of his party's more costly goals: Extending Trump's 2017 tax cut package that overwhelmingly benefited corporations and the rich. Politico estimated that an extension would require roughly $4.6 trillion over 10 years (https://www.alternet.org/republicans-trump-tax-cut/), which even some Republicans were worried about.
Watch the video of McCormick's comments below, or byclicking this link. (http://alternet.org/gop-social-security-medicare)
READ MORE:['Biggest challenge': Even Republicans are nervous about Trump's new $4.6 trillion tax cut
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In the 2024 election, many North Carolina voters were willing to split their ticket.
President-elect Donald Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) carried the state, but Democratic North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein defeated far-right GOP gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson and will be sworn in as governor in 2025.
North Carolina, a swing state, will have two Democratic governors in a row. But outgoing Gov. Roy Cooper and other North Carolina Democrats are slamming Republicans in the state legislature (https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/-a-lot-of-frustration-n-c-gop-moves-closer-to-enacting-bill-that-weakens-incoming-governor-226013253712) for making a "power grab" via Senate Bill 382 — which limits Stein's powers as governor in a variety of ways.
READ MORE:[Mehdi Hasan rips Nikki Haley over Biden jab: 'You hated Trump'
For one thing, SB 382 prevents Gov.-elect Stein from appointing members of the North Carolina Board of Elections and moves that power to GOP Auditor-elect Dave Boliek.
Cooper, during a Tuesday, December 3 appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," (https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/-a-lot-of-frustration-n-c-gop-moves-closer-to-enacting-bill-that-weakens-incoming-governor-226013253712) slammed the bill as an egregious "power grab." And Slate legal analyst Mark Joseph Stern has been equally critical of North Carolina Republicans and SB 382.
In a scathing post on X (https://x.com/mjs_DC/status/1863714090780184945), formerly Twitter, Stern wrote, "This is a hugely corrupt power grab by the North Carolina General Assembly's Republican supermajority, seizing authority from the governor and the courts to prevent any meaningful check on legislative abuses. Authoritarian stuff. A really dark day for democracy in N.C."
SB 382 also prevents Rachel Hunt, North Carolina's lieutenant governor-elect, from chairing committees on energy issues.
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mike j jokes about ~ ACA
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having secured control of both chambers of the U.S. Congress and the White House starting in January, Republicans are making no secret of their intention to pursue sweeping healthcare cuts that would raise costs and imperil insurance coverage for millions of people across the country.
Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), chairman of the House Budget Committee, told (https://twitter.com/BBKogan/status/1856704743747269086) reporters earlier this week that the GOP is looking to use the filibuster-evading reconciliation process to pursue cuts to "mandatory programs"—a category that includes Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, noted in response to Arrington's comments that Republicans attempted to cut both Medicaid and Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits that help enrollees afford health insurance.
The Republican Study Committee, of which Arrington is a member, proposed eliminating the ACA tax credits in its 2025 budget proposal (https://hern.house.gov/uploadedfiles/final_budget_including_letter_word_doc-final_as_of_march_25.pdf)—a move that could result in around 4 million people (https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2024-06/Who_Benefits_from_Enhanced_Premium_Tax_Credits_in_the_Marketplace.pdf)losing insurance.
:{:{The tax credits are set to expire next year, meaning Republicans could just do nothing and allow them to lapse.}:
Last time Republicans had a federal trifecta, they tried and failed to fully repeal the ACA—an effort that sparked a wave of civil disobedience (https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/07/31/people-not-politicians-beat-healthcare-repeal) on Capitol Hill.
Both President-elect Donald Trump (https://www.commondreams.org/tag/donald-trump) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said on the campaign trail that they're looking to try again.
"We're going to replace it," Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) said (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-calls-replace-obamacare-reopening-fight-republicans-tried-close-rcna170655) during his lone debate with Vice President Kamala Harris (https://www.commondreams.org/tag/kamala-harris) in September—while admitting that he did not have a fully formed alternative plan.
Johnson, for his part, said (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/30/us/politics/aca-obamacare-mike-johnson-trump.html) during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania last month that "healthcare reform's going to be a big part of the agenda." When a voter posed the question, "No Obamacare?" Johnson replied in the affirmative, "No Obamacare."
"The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work," he added, "and we've got a lot of ideas on how to do that."
Sarah Lueck and Allison Orris of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities wrote (https://www.cbpp.org/blog/trump-republican-congress-health-care-proposals-could-pose-risks-to-access-and-affordability) Wednesday that Trump's return to the White House and the GOP's capture of both chambers of Congress poses "big risks to people's ability to access and afford health coverage in Medicaid and the marketplaces."
"While Republicans have moved away from talking about their plans for changing health coverage in the U.S. as 'repeal,'" Lueck and Orris added, "Trump's first term and Republicans' recently released policy agendas suggest they may pursue policies that would have much the same result: higher costs for people, reduced access to care for vulnerable groups, and more people who are uninsured."
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Legislation that would have handed President-elect Donald Trump (https://www.commondreams.org/tag/donald-trump) sweeping power to investigate and shutter news outlets, government watchdogs, humanitarian organizations, and other nonprofits was defeated in the House of Representatives on Tuesday after a coalition of progressive advocacy groups and lawmakers (https://www.commondreams.org/news/501c3-nonprofit) mobilized against it, warning of the bill's dire implications for the right to dissent.
But 52 Democratic lawmakers—including Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), and Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.)—apparently did not share the grave concerns expressed by the ACLU and other leading rights groups (https://www.aclu.org/documents/civil-society-letter-to-congress-opposing-hr-9495), opting to vote alongside 204 Republicans in favor of the bill.
One Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, joined 144 Democrats (https://clerk.house.gov/evs/2024/roll458.xml) in voting no.
The measure ultimately fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to approve legislation under the fast-track procedure used by the bill's supporters, but progressives wasted no time spotlighting the Democrats who supported the measure.
"If you're looking for a handy list of Democrats who have no fucking clue what is about to hit and need their spines stiffened ASAP, this is a good place to start," wrote (https://x.com/leahgreenb/status/1856508869356228957?s=46&t=knFqAnLK5jO20xX335SI9g) Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of the advocacy group Indivisible.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (https://www.commondreams.org/tag/rashida-tlaib) (D-Mich.), who vocally opposed (https://www.commondreams.org/news/501c3-nonprofit) the legislation, wrote (https://x.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1856507864229261635) that "these 52 Democrats voted to give Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) the power to shut down any nonprofit he wants."
"The NAACP, ACLU, Planned Parenthood, no organization would be safe," Tlaib added. "Shameful."
If passed, the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act (https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/9495) would grant the Treasury Department—soon to be under the control of a Trump nominee—the authority to unilaterally strip nonprofits of their tax-exempt status by deeming them supporters of terrorism.
The bill could be revived (https://theintercept.com/2024/11/12/congress-vote-trump-nonprofits-tax-exempt-terrorism/) in the next Congress, which is likely to be under full Republican control.
Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel with the ACLU, told (https://theintercept.com/2024/11/12/congress-vote-trump-nonprofits-tax-exempt-terrorism/)The Intercept late Tuesday that "we will continue our sustained opposition."
It is already illegal under U.S. law to provide material backing for terrorism, and the executive branch has significant authority to target groups it considers terrorist-supporting.
"This isn't just an attack on our communities; it's a fundamental threat to free speech and democracy."
The ACLU noted (https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-urges-house-to-kill-bill-that-could-give-trump-admin-power-to-crush-dissent-and-go-after-political-enemies) ahead of Tuesday's vote that while the bill contains "a 90-day 'cure' period in which a designated nonprofit can mount a defense, it is a mere illusion of due process."
"The government may deny organizations its reasons and evidence against them, leaving the nonprofit unable to rebut allegations," the group said. "This means that a nonprofit could be left entirely in the dark about what conduct the government believes qualifies as 'support,' making it virtually impossible to clear its name."
Opponents of the bill warned that Palestinian rights organizations would be uniquely imperiled if it passed.
"This bill dangerously weaponizes the Treasury against nonprofit organizations and houses of worship—Christian, Jewish, or Muslim—that dare to support Palestinian and Lebanese human rights or criticize Israel's genocidal actions," said (https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-action-alert-urge-your-member-of-congress-to-vote-no-on-nonprofit-killer-bill-aimed-at-silencing-palestine-activism/) Robert McCaw, director of government affairs at the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
"Allowing such sweeping, unchecked power would set a chilling precedent, enabling the government to selectively target and suppress voices of dissent under the guise of national security," McCaw added. "This isn't just an attack on our communities; it's a fundamental threat to free speech and democracy."
Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman (D-97), a Palestinian American, echoed that sentiment (https://x.com/Ruwa4Georgia/status/1856504869521146184) following Tuesday's vote and condemned the legislation's 52 Democratic supporters.
"Every single Democrat who voted for this is not taking the threat of Trump remotely seriously and should be disqualified from any leadership positions moving forward," Romman wrote on social media. "This is no longer business as usual. To agree to give him this kind of power is beyond egregious."
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COMM DR
Government watchdogs on Wednesday said they are "not going anywhere" and will continue pushing for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump (https://www.commondreams.org/tag/donald-trump) to face accountability for his 34 felony counts and other alleged crimes, even as the Republican and his allies threatened the special counsel who has been prosecuting him.
"Trump (https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump) will still be sentenced for the 34 felony counts on which he has been convicted, and other pending legal proceedings must
also move forward," said (https://www.citizen.org/news/accountability-and-justice-are-the-only-path-forward/)Robert Weissman and Lisa Gilbert, co-presidents of consumer advocacy group Public Citizen (https://www.commondreams.org/tag/public-citizen), which spent Trump's first term exposing corruption and unethical profiteering in his administration.
The group pledged to "mobilize Americans to resist Trump's agenda of cruelty and corruption" as it was reported (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/special-counsel-jack-smith-expected-wind-trump-prosecutions/story?id=115571646) that Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Trump's alleged mishandling of classified documents and his role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, was in talks with the DOJ to wind down the federal prosecutions.
Under DOJ policy, a sitting president cannot face prosecution while in office.
Smith filed charges against Trump over the allegations, but the cases were thrown into uncertainty by the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling (https://www.commondreams.org/news/donald-trump-immunity-case) in July that held presidents have legal immunity for "official acts" while in office.
In legal filings that were unsealed last month, Smith argued Trump should not be entitled to immunity from prosecution because he "resorted to crimes" when he attempted to overturn the 2020 election results.
Trump said in recent weeks that he would fire Smith "within two seconds" if he won the presidency.
His allies, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), have also demanded an end to what they call "lawfare" against Trump, with Scalise saying (https://x.com/SteveScalise/status/1854203885155463570)Wednesday that the election results proved American voters want federal and state officials in to "immediately terminate the politically motivated prosecutions of President Donald Trump."
Graham wrote (https://newrepublic.com/post/188067/lindsey-graham-donald-trump-jack-smith-threat) on the social media platform X on Wednesday, addressing Smith and his team, that "it is time to look forward to a new chapter in your legal careers as these politically motivated charges against President Trump hit a wall."
Trump was convicted (https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-convicted) of 34 state felony counts in New York for falsifying business records related to a hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels. He is currently scheduled to be sentenced on November 26, but his lawyers are likely to ask for an indefinite delay. There's also state case in Georgia stemming from Trump's attempts to reverse his 2020 loss.
The work of ensuring Trump is "not about the law," said (https://www.citizen.org/news/accountability-and-justice-are-the-only-path-forward/) Weissman and Gilbert, "will continue in earnest [and] will be more important in 2025 than ever before."
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) said (https://x.com/CREWcrew/status/1854222706750996989) Trump's victory "is making the urgency of accountability and checks on the presidency clearer than ever before."
"We're going to keep standing up against corruption and authoritarianism," said CREW, "as we have been for years."
Public Citizen was among more than 200 groups that announced a virtual event (https://www.mobilize.us/electionresponsecenter/event/734596/)called "Making Meaning of the Moment," planned for November 7 at 8:00 pm. More than 20,000 people had registered as of Wednesday evening.
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