Everyone scratched their head when pro-choice liberal North Carolina Democrat abruptly switched parties and voted for a draconian abortion ban. Everyone wondered, was it money? Was it blackmail? What could make someone completely reverse course like this and betray every value she had previously held — and do it practically overnight. I’m still not sure I buy the following explanation but maybe this person is really as shallow as she appears: Imagine campaigning for a Democratic politician—a thankless, low-paying job, especially at the state level—because you believe in what they stand for. The candidate gives powerful speeches about abortion rights that make you proud. You’re in a purple state, where every single seat in the legislature is critical to protecting abortion access. So you join the fight, help them win, and continue working for them in the legislature. Then inexplicably, in the middle of their term, that politician does an about-face, switches parties, and votes in favor of an extreme abortion ban, delivering Republicans the one vote they needed to override a veto and actually shutter clinics in the state.
Uncategorized
Trump’s takeover of GOP helped him to write the delegate rules. The number winner-take-all states has grown from seven to 17 I don’t think people have truly grasped what this means: Republicans seeking to keep Donald Trump from becoming their party’s nominee will have to overcome rules even more favorable to the former president than the ones that helped him clinch the 2016 nomination. In 2024, more states will award delegates through winner-take-all primaries — a system that helped Trump when opponents divided the vote, allowing him to be awarded all or most of the delegates with less than majority support. Is it possible that the field will be cleared of everyone but DeSantis (or one of the other candidates) and they will win a majority and Trump will be defeated. But it is highly unlikely. Trump dominates the GOP primary electorate and will probably win a majority in most states even if they manage to clear the field. And, as we know, it matters where you win. If he takes the biggest states with large numbers of delegates, he wins again.
NC’s Democratic governor rallies support behind a veto North Carolina rallied on Saturday to sustain Gov. Roy Cooper’s public veto of Republicans’ recently passed 12-week abortion ban. Politico: The Democrat decried the legislation, which he vetoed at a rally in downtown Raleigh, as a “complicated and confusing monster bill” that makes patients “navigate a wicked obstacle course just to get care.” “Standing in the way of progress right now is this Republican supermajority legislature that only took 48 hours to turn the clock back 50 years on women’s health,” Cooper said. “Let’s be clear: This bill has nothing to do with making women safer and everything to do with banning abortion.” With the GOP holding veto-proof margins in both legislative chambers, Democrats (if even they can maintain a unified front) will need the defection of at least one Republican in either chamber to sustain Cooper’s veto. The blowback on that member would be fierce.
Just I and me They are still out there. Moose Lodge #whatever, or the Elks, relics of a 19th century, white- male America that survive somehow in the 21st. Like Mother’s Day that way, another quaint 19th century tradition that holds on in a time when Americans in increasing numbers harbor suspicions about one another and mutual mistrust is more persistent than inflation. Ian Ward writes at Politico: “National divorce” — a term that frames America’s current political crises as symptoms of a deeper social breakup — is suddenly a well-worn phrase. Over a quarter of Americans believe that it might soon be necessary to take up arms against their government. It would be a shocking number if not for the violent assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Ward explores the national mood with Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam (“Bowling Alone,” 2000). Putnam examined the meaning behind the decline of civic organizations like the Moose and the Elks. Social capital in decline.
So much happens at the margins The authoritarian right takes an Everything Everywhere All at Once approach to undermining, well, most everything that undergirds this democracy. A friend at Daily Kos pointed to this notice from the League of Women Voters: HARRISBURG, Pa. — Today voting rights advocates agreed to dismiss a lawsuit that pitted them against conservative activist group Judicial Watch, in a lawsuit Judicial Watch originally filed in 2020 to force three Pennsylvania counties to remove thousands of voters from the rolls ahead of the 2020 election. The settlement agreed to by the parties simply requires the Department of State to separately publish online data it already collects and publishes under Pennsylvania law. Under the settlement, the Department will carve out the data for five county defendants and publish it separately. The lawsuit did not show any failure of the state of Pennsylvania to comply with either federal or state law governing voter roll list maintenance. Judicial Watch was unsuccessful in forcing any purges of the voter rolls.
Or get busy watching freedom die Blue America‘s Howie Klein (Down With Tyranny) points to an old idea still current and still popular: FDR’s proposed Economic Bill of Rights (1944). Our political bill of rights, FDR saw, was inadequate for assuring “equality in the pursuit of happiness.” “I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.” “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”January 20, 1937 As a record number of people die on America’s streets, Abdul Curry fights to stay alive. Howie excerpts FDR’s speech: It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people— whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth— is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.
Looks like Erdogan demanded @elonmusk censor his political opposition a day ahead of the election and he immediately complied. Musk is either the world’s most sanctimonious hypocrite, coward and fraud or actually wants to censor the opposition to help Erdogan. Or both. If you want to buy the platform to help right wing governments around the world, just say it with your chest. It’s your money, go for it, but spare us the free speech BS. Old twitter rejected 50% of these demands, which isn’t perfect. New Twitter complies 100%. “to ensure twitter remains available” clearly means Erdogan threatened to block twitter completely if it didn’t serve his regime. @elonmusk said ok cool you got it boss. Good luck at the polls tomorrow. Originally tweeted by Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) on May 13, 2023. Musk is a right winger who is pretending to be a “free speech” absolutist. That should be obvious by now. I’m sure most of you know that Pepe the frog is an alt-right, white nationalist symbol.
… as long as the victim is a designated enemy of wingnuttia The latest from the worst Governor in America: Gov. Ron DeSantis voiced his support for Daniel Penny, the Marine charged in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely, in a tweet Friday. “We must defeat the Soros-Funded DAs, stop the Left’s pro-criminal agenda, and take back the streets for law abiding citizens,” DeSantis wrote in a tweet with a fundraiser for Penny’s legal funds. “We stand with Good Samaritans like Daniel Penny. Let’s show this Marine… America’s got his back.” This is a man who wants to be president of the United States. And people keep telling me that he would be better than Donald Trump. Why? Basically, this law and order candidate is declaring that unarmed mentally ill people who make people uncomfortable can be killed with impunity. There’s a big story in the NY Times today about how DeSantis is “re-tooling” his sputtering campaign. Here’s an excerpt: In six short months from November to May, Mr. DeSantis’s 2024 run has faltered before it has even begun. Allies have abandoned him.
Scary stuff happening in Florida schools DeSantis has the nerve to accuse these people of “grooming” and “indoctrination:” Adam Tritt, a high school English teacher in Palm Bay, Florida, was shocked when his school’s librarian – eager to comply with Florida’s new law restricting “inappropriate” books in schools – removed one-third of the books on his classroom shelves, including a collection of Emily Dickinson’s poetry that was not on her list of approved books. Vivian Taylor, a seventh-grade teacher in Miami, says she was told to hardly discuss Emmett Till – the 14-year-old victim of one of the US’s most notorious lynchings – in her civics classes because under Florida’s year-old “stop woke” law, “people say you’re not supposed to talk about that because it will make children uncomfortable”.