Let me count the ways Good heavens, this garbled mess from RNC co-chair Lara Trump. “We now have the ability at the RNC not just to have poll watchers… but people who can physically handle the ballots… So there was a moratorium for about 40 years on the RNC actually training people to work in these polling locations and the tabulation centers where the mail-in ballots come in. And last year, the judge who implemented that passed away, so that was lifted.” “Poll observers are NEVER permitted to touch ballots,” tweets exasperated Democratic election protection attorney Marc Elias. “She is suggesting the RNC will infiltrate election offices.” Observers physically handling ballots is BS, as Elias points out. But she’s just getting started on the wrongness. First, some terminology. Poll watchers or observers are citizens pre-approved to be present inside a polling location as observers during voting. At most (at least in my state), they may bring to the attention of the chief judge any observed infractions or misapplication of voting rules, and that’s all. They are to sit quietly.
Uncategorized
Think about this: In his first questions of the day, Associate Justice Neil M. Gorsuch asked Turner to parse exactly how close a patient needs to be to death under Idaho’s law. He asked whether the law would permit an abortion in the case of a molar or ectopic pregnancy — both of which are nonviable and can be life-threatening — but deny one in a case where a patient would probably die at some point, but not imminently. “It doesn’t matter whether it happens tomorrow or next week or a month from now?” Gorsuch asked. “There is no imminence requirement,” Turner said. “This whole notion of delayed care is just not consistent with the Idaho Supreme Court’s reading of the statute and what the statute says.” This is what these monsters are discussing in the Supreme Court today. They are actually turning over in their minds when it’s acceptable to let women die for their grotesque ideology. This whole argument is just horrifying. From what we have learned, it appears that the Supreme Court majority believes that states have the right to completely deny health care to pregnant women, even if it means they will die.
Except for the police unions, the unions are putting some real muscle behind Biden in this election:
The popularizer of “fake news” conspired to create it Projection. Long has the left used that term to describe conservative accusations against the left. When Republicans allege the left commits some infraction against, what — Decency? Patriotism? Rule of law? Election integrity? — then likely they themselves are secretly or more subtly doing the same. Inoculation is the underlying purpose. Loudly and often accuse your opponent of misbehavior in which you engage so that if ever caught in the act you can both-sides the affair. “Well, they do it too.” Fake news is another Donald Trump effort at inverting reality. Trump, authoritarian-in-training, has long attempted bending reality to his will. His inauguration crowd was not more bigly than Barack Obama’s? Photographs prove it? Fake news! His team would present “alternative facts” they knew were untrue but were the Trump-approved version of history. Period! Now on trial on criminal charges in Manhattan, Trump has summoned the MAGA cult, as he did on Jan. 6, 2021, to come by the thousands to protest unfairness like you’ve never seen.
Joe Biden’s the big winner — on policy anyway While most of the country was riveted by recaps of Donald Trump’s sordid hush money trial on Tuesday, something amazing was happening in Washington: the US Senate debated and then passed the national security package that’s been consuming the capitol for the last six months. With a lopsided vote of 79-18 the bills with aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan among some other things will finally be behind us. Notably, there is no increased funding for the border because Donald Trump ordered the Republicans to reject it so that he can keep demagoguing the issue during the campaign. It’s a big win for President Joe Biden and the Democrats. The GOP infighting has escalated in the wake of the House’s months long tantrum led by the far right extremists who seemed to truly believe that they could hold their breath until they turned blue and they would eventually get everything they wanted. Leading MAGA rebel Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., left town without calling for Speaker Mike Johnson to vacate the chair, demanding instead that he resign, which isn’t going to happen.
The Bulwark’s JV Last with a very interesting historical observation: In taking in the testimony of David Pecker, it is tempting to say that he was the Joseph Goebbels of the MAGA movement, but that’s not quite right. Pecker is much closer to Dietrich Eckart. Let’s talk about this villain. Dietrich Eckart was a German “journalist” who co-founded the German Worker’s Party, which was the precursor to the Nazi Party. Eckart met Adolf Hitler in 1919 and saw in him a kindred spirit. They became friends and Eckart was something of a mentor. He believed that Hitler was the man to lead German workers to power. To that end, in 1920 he convinced some Nazi financial backers to purchase a tabloid newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter (the “People’s Observer”). Eckart became the paper’s editor and this former tabloid suddenly started functioning as the house organ of the Nazi Party. The Völkischer Beobachter was not sympathetic to the Nazi Party. It did not have goals and beliefs aligned with the Nazi Party. It took direction from the Nazi Party.
What is he, three? Philip Bump did a nice rundown of the “tortured” right wing rationalizations over Trumps criminal behavior. (gift link)If you don’t watch Fox you will be surprised at just how stupid it really is: If last week is any guide, somewhere north of 2 million people tuned in to Jesse Watters’s prime-time show on Fox News on Monday night to hear him moan that Donald Trump was being tortured. That the treatment the former president was experiencing during his criminal trial in New York was equivalent to — or perhaps worse than? — that experienced by at Guantánamo Bay. “Donald Trump, been on the move his whole life,” Watters told viewers after describing the purported leniency Democrats had offered those detainees. “Golf. Rallies. Movement. Action. Sunlight. Fresh air. Freedom. This isn’t lawfare. It’s torture.” He played a clip of a podcast hosted by Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen — expected to testify against Trump in the Manhattan hush money case — and whimpered about how unfair it was.
Not bloody likely… Walter Shapiro in TNR runs down all the consequences we’ve seen so far from the Supreme Court decision to reverse Roe vs Wade and the political problem it’s caused for Republicans: Even a huckster with Trump’s disdain for the truth cannot spin away the fact that Republicans are on the unpopular side of the abortion debate. Fifty-nine percent of voters in a Fox News poll in late March said that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. And a Wall Street Journal poll in mid-March found that a stunning 39 percent of suburban women in swing states consider abortion to be their most important voting issue in 2024. It wasn’t supposed to be like this for Republicans. In the spring and early summer of 2022, as the Alito draft became the official opinion of the Supreme Court in the Dobbs case, the prevailing GOP view of the political aftereffects of the decision was, in effect, “It will all blow over.” No Republican predicted that abortion would still be a powerful weapon for the Democrats in 2024 and beyond.
Tennessee public education advocates chalk up a win Efforts to defund Tennessee’s public schools crashed and burned on Monday after weekend negotiations failed to advance Gov. Bill Lee’s universal voucher bill. The bill will be dead (for now) once the legislature adjourns for the year. Lee plans to bring it back next session. The Tennessean: “I am extremely disappointed for the families who will have to wait yet another year for the freedom to choose the right education for their child, especially when there is broad agreement that now is the time to bring universal school choice to Tennessee,” Lee said in an early Monday statement. “While we made tremendous progress, unfortunately it has become clear that there is not a pathway for the bill during this legislative session.” “Freedom to choose”? Remember when conservatives pitched vouchers as a way to help poor, minority kids escape “decaying” inner-city public schools, lives of poverty, drugs, etc. ? Nowadays they’ve dropped the facade.
For those who celebrate Four years ago today. How could I forget? The Biden-Harris campaign makes sure no one will forget Dr. Trump’s Magic Elixir. Matthew Yglesias: Happy Disinfectant Injection Day to those who celebrate. Raw Story’s Sarah Burris: Happy Stick a Light Up Your Ass Day and Bleach Injection Day to all who celebrate. Brian Beutler: Happy bleach injection day to all who celebrate. Be sure to re-Tweet, re-Thread, etc., and generally pile on every chance you get today. Also four years ago today: Donald Trump, “extraordinarily resilient” Man of Action, is unable to celebrate today. He is stuck in a courtroom having his brain and his body drained. Of bleach? Who? This reincarnation of rough-riding Teddy Roosevelt? This manly man with the constitution of a rhinoceros? This Adonis, this Übermensch with a Rocky Balboa physique of who can’t stand the sight of blood or walk 18 holes? What have “they” done to you? ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.