A billion-dollar Sword of Damocles continues to hang over the heads of some of Donald Trump’s closest allies.
Continue reading “Judge Greenlights Dominion’s $1.3B Lawsuits Against Rudy, Powell, MyPillow Guy”
More Alarming Details Emerge About The Extent Of The Coup Campaign At DOJ
House and Senate committees are getting a clearer picture of the depth and breadth of former President Trump’s campaign to enlist the Justice Department in his effort to overturn the results of last year’s election.
Continue reading “More Alarming Details Emerge About The Extent Of The Coup Campaign At DOJ”
The Feral Minority and the Schools
As we’ve discussed a number of times, Republican leaders made a clear decision over the winter of 2020-21 to embrace and cater to anti-vax, anti-mandate sentiment to supercharge their midterm election odds. I’ve seen some debate over whether GOP elites convinced GOP voters or GOP voters dragged along the elites. I think it’s a bit of both but mainly a non-issue. Unsurprisingly, elected officials and voters in a political party tend to think in similar ways. They decided to become the anti-vax party and thus helped usher in the fourth COVID wave.
But something happened on the way to the party: the Delta variant.
Get Ready For The Redistricting Wars
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things.
The Battle Begins
The Census Bureau will release its redistricting data today, kicking off the inevitable fight over partisan gerrymandering ahead of the 2022 elections.
- States will draw and formally set their district maps at different paces (and you better believe that there’ll be legal battles galore), so we won’t know the new overall partisan makeup of the country’s districts for a while.
- What we do know is that most of the states that gained House seats in this decade’s reapportionment process were in the south and west. Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina and Oregon each gained one new seat while Texas won two.
- We also know that California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia each lost a seat.
Texas Democrats Under Arrest
The Texas House sergeant-at-arms on Wednesday delivered civil arrest warrants to the legislative offices of the 52 Democrats who ran from the state to stall Republicans’ anti-voting legislation. House Speaker Dade Phelan (R) had signed the warrants the day before.
House sergeant at arms just delivered a warrant for Ina Minjarez at her Capitol office. They’re walking around to the offices of all 52 House Dems with warrants delivering them now. #txlege pic.twitter.com/cYtF6CDO60
— Morgan O'Hanlon (@mcohanlon) August 11, 2021
This is them serving that arrest warrant at Houston @RepThierry146’s office at the Capitol. @KHOU pic.twitter.com/plabRDxxHR
— Janelle Bludau (@JanelleKHOU) August 11, 2021
TODAY: The House Sergeant-at-Arms is delivering the civil arrest warrants to the offices of House Democrats still breaking quorum. This is when he walked into Rep. @Senfronia4Texas’ office. She wasn’t there, but one of her staffers was. @KXAN_News #txlege pic.twitter.com/tmXJmDO0BZ
— Maggie Glynn (@maggie_glynn1) August 11, 2021
A Subtle Insurrection
This Washington Post story gets into how an onslaught of threats sparked by Trump’s lies about the election has election workers scared for their safety, and many are thinking about quitting before 2024.
Scoundrels Of The Day
- Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), one of the most outspoken Republicans against COVID-19 mitigation efforts, belatedly disclosed on Wednesday that his wife bought stock in Gilead Sciences, a biopharmaceutical company that makes an antiviral drug that treats COVID-19, early in the pandemic in February last year.
- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) patted himself on the back for his borderline fanatical attacks on school mask mandates even as his state holds the highest child hospitalization rates in the country.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL): "People are gonna look back and they say, 'You know what, Florida stood by its kids.'"
(Florida currently has the highest rate of children hospitalized with COVID in the U.S.) pic.twitter.com/Jntq3uUr3z
— The Recount (@therecount) August 11, 2021
A New Page?
New York Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), who’s gearing up to take the reins once accused sexual harasser Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) leaves office in less than two weeks, promises that “no one will ever describe my administration as a toxic work environment” and that she would get rid of any “unethical” Cuomo staffers.
“At the end of my term, whenever it ends, no one will ever describe my administration as a ‘toxic’ work environment,” New York Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul says regarding AG report against Gov. Andrew Cuomo. https://t.co/070yJ4GKze pic.twitter.com/PNhfxC9d1X
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) August 11, 2021
By the way, Times Union editor Casey Seiler in Albany notes that there’s a dam ready to break now that the governor’s on his way out:
Do you people have any idea how many stories about @NYGovCuomo are going to come out once he loses the vast retaliatory powers of the Executive Chamber?
— Casey Seiler (@CaseySeiler) August 11, 2021
Kissing Trump’s Ring
More than 45 candidates have crawled to Trump’s properties in the months after he left office, according to analysis by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a government watchdog group.
Must-Read
“The Insurrectionists in the Boardroom” – Insider
Trump Ghoul Rehabilitation Watch
Ex-Human Health and Services secretary Alex Azar has been given a plum adjunct professor gig at the University of Miami.
- Former Rep. Donna Shalala (D-FL), who was the president of UM and currently works as a professor there, praised Azar’s hiring and said she was “very much looking forward to having him join me in the classroom.” No comment.
Rudy Straight-Up Admits He’s A Liar
During a 2018 interview, Rudy Giuliani told investigators from the Justice Department inspector general’s office that it’s normal to lie in electoral politics, saying twice that “you could throw a fake.” The interview was part of the inspector general’s investigation into whether Giuliani had been getting leaks from the FBI on James Comey’s Clinton email probe.
- But Giuliani got a little too honest with investigators at some points during the interview; he told them that the last time he remembered talking to an FBI agent was when he received some kind of an “agent” award, “which my wife liked because it came with handcuffs” (“Strike that from the record,” the investigator responded, according to the transcript).
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The Great School Mask Schism Of 2021
Multiple local county school boards and superintendents have been pushing back against state-level Republican bans on school mask requirements as students prepare to return to their classrooms in the fall.
Meanwhile, Republicans’ war on masks has led to a pressure cooker situation where school board meetings looking at mask policies have been disrupted by furious anti-mask protesters who shout down board members and health officials in attendance.
The bubbling tension serves as an illustration of the depth of the U.S.’s vaccine divide — a place where public health best-practice meets outrage over personal freedom, as the Delta variant rips through under-vaccinated communities and the half-vaccinated country heads into what could be a deadly fall.
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Where Things Stand: Biden Sends Ventilators To FL. DeSantis Wants Nothing To Do With It
The Biden administration reportedly sent 200 ventilators and 100 nasal oxygen kits to the state of Florida this week as the state sees an unprecedented spike in COVID-19 cases. As we’ve reported, the number of people hospitalized with the virus increased by 1,173 just in the last two days — putting the total number of confirmed hospitalizations in the Sunshine state at 14,787.
But Gov. Ron DeSantis claims he didn’t ask the feds for the life-saving equipment.
NYT: Ex-US Attorney Tells Senators Trump Fired Him When He Wouldn’t Support Big Lie
Former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Byung J. Pak told Senators on Wednesday that he resigned from his position in January because Trump was going to fire him for refusing to declare that the election was corrupt, the New York Times reported.
Go Manchin, Joe Manchin
So a few thoughts on Manchin.
We’ve said repeatedly there’s going to be a lot of drama and haggling before this gets settled. Well, see: I was right. Does this change the global picture? I don’t think so.
READ: Judge Says House Dems Can Get Some Of Trump Tax Records
A federal judge partly upheld a subpoena that House Democrats issued for former president Trump’s tax records, ruling that a Supreme Court decision last year rendered portions of the subpoena unenforceable.
Continue reading “READ: Judge Says House Dems Can Get Some Of Trump Tax Records”
The Conspiracy Theory Tour Spreading The Gospel Of Election Audits
In between the assertions that 9/11 was an inside job, that Zionists aren’t real Jews and that satanic pedophilia fuels world commerce and politics, attendees at the “Arise USA!” tour in recent weeks have heard another pitch: We need to audit the 2020 election.
Continue reading “The Conspiracy Theory Tour Spreading The Gospel Of Election Audits”