Disgraced ex-Trump adviser Michael Flynn tried to claim on Monday that he wasn’t throwing his support behind a potential coup in the U.S. like the one that occurred in Myanmar in February.
Continue reading “Flynn Insists He Wasn’t Endorsing A Coup When He Endorsed A Coup”
Fox News host Sean Hannity reportedly played a part in writing a campaign ad for former President Donald Trump’s failed 2020 election campaign.
Continue reading “Report: Hannity Played Role In Writing ‘Swamp Creature’ Trump Campaign Ad”
I took a peek at Joe Biden’s poll numbers yesterday evening. They’re holding up pretty well four months into his presidency. 538 has a composite approval rating this morning of 53.6%. By longterm historical standards that’s anemic for an incoming president. It’s decent by more recent standards. But what jumps out more than anything is the stability. Biden’s support has undulated only slightly in a narrow two or three point band. Indeed, Biden looks like the inverse of Donald Trump – with support in the low-mind 50s and disapproval hovering just over 40%. The same basic division is in place from last year to this, as though nothing had happened – except that that narrow majority – mid-low-50s – has their president in office.
President Joe Biden will announce plans on Tuesday to narrow the racial wealth gap and invest in Black businesses during his visit to Tulsa commemorating the centennial of its horrific massacre of hundreds of Black residents in its Greenwood district.
Continue reading “Biden Aims To ‘Narrow’ Racial Wealth Gap On Centennial Of Tulsa Massacre”
If it were anyone else but Benjamin Netanyahu it would be 100% clear his Prime Ministership is over and a new government will be sworn in later this week. That still seems highly likely. But since it is Benjamin Netanyahu, who has 900 political lives and has managed to remain Prime Minister after multiple losses and stalemate elections, no one can be sure.
Even with all this it is remarkable to watch the wild and desperate moves from Netanyahu and his supporters to upend what seems increasingly close to inevitable. They have unleashed a fusillade of attacks and incitement against Naftali Bennett and his political ally Ayelet Shaked, both members of the religious zionist Yamina party. Not a few have compared the current climate of incitement against these two and Yair Lapid, the architect of the new government, to that in weeks preceding the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet, has ordered increased security for Bennett and Shaked. Lapid already has a security detail as head of the opposition.
Gov. Greg Abbott (R) announced that he will veto the part of the state budget that funds the legislature, seeming retaliation for Texas Democrats’ walkout late Sunday that let them at least temporarily kill Republicans’ voting overhaul.
President Joe Biden declared a day of remembrance Sunday 100 years after the massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Continue reading “Biden Proclaims Day Of Remembrance 100 Years After Tulsa Massacre”
Here’s an article in Ha’aretz describing concerns about Israeli national security and foreign policy officials about the extent of damage to the country’s relationship with the Democratic party during Benjamin Netanyahu’s long reign. Not surprisingly they are less concerned about the high profile criticism of AOC or Rashida Tlaib than the uncharacteristically muted and equivocal support from stalwarts like Jerry Nadler and Robert Menendez.
Texas Democrats use gambit to kill Republicans’ voting overhaul at the last minute // Arizona Republicans go on their own mad-dash to upend election rules // Biden’s DOJ gets another top voting rights lawyer added to its leadership
Happy Memorial Day, readers! And a thank you to my colleague, Kate Riga, who helped me compile this week’s newsletter over the holiday weekend. The beginning of summer means we’re nearing the end of the state legislative push to overhaul voting practices. It also means that the U.S. Senate is entering crunch time for figuring out what comes next for Democrats’ big democracy overhaul. We’re covering that and more at The Franchise this week:
In the final hours of the legislative session, Texas Democrats devised a plan to kill a sweeping legislative package that would limit early voting hours, make it more difficult to vote by mail and restrict options like drive-through voting. The bill seemed guaranteed to pass through both Republican-majority chambers, and has the backing of Gov. Greg Abbott (R).
As the session inched closer to midnight, Democrats slowly but steadily trickled out. At around 10:30 p.m., the remaining Democrats left. All of a sudden, the House lacked the two-thirds of members needed for a quorum, and couldn’t vote on the remaining bills including the voting overhaul. Democrats congregated at a nearby Baptist church, thought to be a tacit protest against the provision in the bill that would curtail early voting hours on Sundays.
The governor and lieutenant governor, steamed at the Democrats’ gambit, are insisting that the legislation be passed in a special session.
Arizona lawmakers still have a budget to pass before they can say goodbye to the Copper Dome for the summer. But as part of the end of session budget horse-trading, they put another round of restrictive election bills on the statehouse floor last week, with mixed results for the voter advocates who oppose the legislation.
An ID bill that would have mandated new ID requirements for mail ballots went down on the state House floor Thursday. But another measure that threatens jail time for election officials who send out unsolicited mail ballots made it out of the legislature and onto Gov. Doug Ducey’s desk. However, Ducey vetoed that bill along with 21 others, an attempt to light a fire under GOP lawmakers to get the budget done. He pledged that he wouldn’t sign another bill until a budget is passed.
The most audacious election-related proposal of them all might be language that was tacked directly onto the legislature’s budget package. Republicans want to hamstring — but just for her term — Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs’ ability to get involved in elections litigation, after she opposed the fringe legal challenges to the 2020 results and opposed in court the current sham election audit. We’ll see if that blatantly partisan provision survives when the legislature picks up on the budget negotiations later this month.
Speaking of the Arizona audit … Things haven’t gone much smoother since the state Senate’s audit returned last week to its counting activities, after being forced to take a mid-May intermission because of graduation ceremonies being hosted at the audit site.
First, the subcontractor in charge of the hand recount — the only firm involved with actual election administration experience — bailed as soon as its initial contract ran out. Then, Senate President Karen Fann gave CNN a rocky interview, in which she sounded surprised that people are skeptical of her audit’s close relationship to OAN. And on Friday, a new poll showed that voters opposed the recount.
Meanwhile, the GOP-controlled state Senate is reportedly on the cusp of signing a deal with another company that would run yet another recount of Maricopa County’s ballots.
Despite Arizona’s fiasco, the frenzy for sham audits is spreading. And on Thursday, I reported where Trump supporters are targeting their recount fantasies now:
The state-level voting shenanigans are only increasing the anxiety about the paralysis Democrats’ big democracy overhaul bill finds itself in. The refusal of Republicans to back off a filibuster for the Jan. 6 commission bill foreshadowed the brick wall the legislation, known as S1, will run into when it’s brought to the Senate floor.
Leader Schumer said Friday that he’ll bring the bill to the floor the week of June 21st. He had previously floated August as a possible deadline for getting it passed.
Meanwhile, President Biden, according to the New York Times, has privately told congressional Democrats that they should start thinking about what pieces of the bill they could part with in order to get it through the Senate.
Are there other ways the Biden administration can step up to protect voting rights? That’s likely a question of the mind for Kristen Clarke, the prominent voting rights attorney whom the Senate narrowly confirmed on Wednesday to lead the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn told a cheering crowd over the weekend that a coup like the one that happened in Myanmar in February “should happen” in the United States.
Continue reading “Flynn Suggests That Myanmar-Like Coup ‘Should Happen’ In US To Cheering Crowd”
