U.S. News

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has threatened to withdraw all pay for lawmakers in the state House and Senate if they don't hold a vote on the GOP's voter suppression efforts. The problem, however, is that isn't exactly a threat.

Speaking to MSNBC, State Rep. Chris Turner, a Democrat, implied that Democrats didn't care about money, they're standing up for voting rights.

Speaking to MSNBC host Joy Reid on Tuesday, former FBI director of counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi warned that considering them as crazy and nutty is dangerous to the country.

"What you said we should go over, the stupid part and dangerous part," began Figliuzzi. "It's that ludicrous, silly part that keeps us from seeing that this has become an actual viable threat to our democracy. It's no longer acceptable to write this off as the rantings of some deluded people when we see what they were capable of on Jan. 6th and see that the desire has not gone away. Convicted felon Michael Flynn, former national security adviser, is actually saying, 'Yeah, we should have a military coup. Yup, yup, we should.' When we see the indictment that dropped on the Oath Keepers this weekend and planning of what happened. And what was it that actually kept the president from invoking the Insurrection Act? It was the fact, read the indictment, that no counter-protesters, BLM, Antifa, showed up and actually got into it with the insurrectionists. If they had, this would be the trigger, in their minds, that would have created an all-out conflict that would have allowed the president to invoke the Insurrection Act."

On Tuesday, WFAA reported that a Muslim woman is complaining a Southwest Airlines flight attendant discriminated against her for wearing the traditional hijab headscarf, barring her from sitting in the exit row.

"Fatima Altakrouri said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon that she and her sister wanted to sit next to each other in two empty seats on the emergency exit row as they were boarding the May 22 flight to Dallas," reported Eline de Bruijn and Kevin Reece. "They ended up returning to their original separate seats after the flight attendant allegedly denied Fatima. She said they have filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Transportation."

On Tuesday, writing for The Washington Post, conservative columnist Max Boot outlined how Republicans are rapidly moving from conspiracy theories about how the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump, to making active plans to steal the next one.

"Republicans have spent nearly seven months making bogus charges of fraud in the 2020 election under the banner of 'stop the steal.' Now they have segued into a 'start the steal' offensive to ensure that they will win the 2022 and 2024 elections — even if most voters once again support the Democratic Party," wrote Boot.

Legal experts with inside information into the grand jury in the Manhattan district attorney investigation into Donald Trump spoke to MSNBC's Ari Melber Tuesday about some of the information about the proceeding. Melber explained that there is a very real chance that at least one person at the Trump Organization will be indicted as part of the investigation.

Grand juries are secret, but witnesses can reveal some information. Former executive assistant for the Manhattan DA's office, Adam Kaufmann, who worked on white-collar crime, explained that no one would form a special grand jury like this one if indictments weren't coming.

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has tried to walk back and deny his endorsement of a military coup to overthrow the U.S. government at a QAnon convention in Dallas, Texas.

But, said political science professor Daniel Ziblatt on CNN Tuesday, the damage by his speech has already been done — and not just by Flynn himself, but by the Republicans who have not come out forcefully against his words.

Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) just scored a key endorsement for his third term in office. Texas doesn't have term limits for the gubernatorial seat as of the Reconstruction-era constitution of 1869. It's one of only 14 total states in the U.S. which doesn't have term limits.

"Greg is a staunch defender of the Second Amendment ... and is all in on Election Integrity (sic)," Trump said in a statement. Abbott has fought to restrict voter access to the polls. While the legislature didn't pass the strict voter ban bill, Abbott is threatening to call a special session to ensure the bill's passage. It's the key piece of legislation that Donald Trump wants in each state to prevent non-Trump voters from access to the polls.

On Tuesday, writing for the Knoxville News Sentinel, columnist Sam Venable laid into the eight Republican representatives and senators from Tennessee who refused to back the creation of a bipartisan commission to investigate the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.

"How much deadly violence against your own members would it have taken for you to think this incident was serious enough to be probed?" wrote Venable. "Vice President Mike Pence's lifeless body in the noose rioters had erected on Capitol grounds? Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's head on a pike? Rivers of blood flowing from the chambers where you hid as the building was being overrun by the mob?"

Over the weekend, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) proclaimed to CNN's Jake Tapper that even though there wasn't any actual voter fraud, that Texas should pass the voter suppression bills to make people feel better. MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace shouted through her television at him saying that it was he and Republicans like him who created the insecurity they now cite a need to fix.

"I think the intent, and I'm not in the state legislature, is to restore confidence in the elections that fraud isn't taking place," McCaul told Tapper. "Now, you make a good point, and I'm a federal prosecutor and in a court of law, that hasn't really been born to bear. This may be more of an optics issue, restoring confidence with the American people. In my state, they actually do believe there was tremendous fraud."

On Tuesday, at speech marking the centennial of the deadly Tulsa Race Massacre, President Joe Biden doubled down on his call to protect voting rights — and without mentioning them by name, took a swipe at two Senate Democrats who have been an obstacle to passing the legislation.

"I hear all the folks on TV saying, 'why doesn't Biden get this done?'" said Biden. "Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House and a tie in the Senate, with two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends."

The U.S. Justice Department announced this Tuesday that it has seized two domain names used in a hacking campaign that targeted U.S., foreign government agencies, and other groups, the Houston Chronicle reports.

Microsoft first disclosed the hacking campaign took place and traced it to a group of Russian intelligence operatives responsible for the massive SolarWinds hack.

A Sacramento hotel was the scene of a homophobic incident when a group of people witnessed two women kissing and flipped out.

The Black Bay Area Instagram account showed the white women losing their minds while queer Black women were kissing. They insisted they weren't racist, just homophobic, mentioning there were children.

Speaking on MSNBC this Monday, retired four-star U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey addressed recent comments from former national security adviser Mike Flynn, who seemingly suggested that citizens should form a coup to topple the U.S. government during a QAnon conference.

McCaffrey said Flynn's "dangerous rhetoric" is "harmful" to the country.