Republicans, NRA cheer US Supreme Court decision overturning New York concealed-carry restrictions
June 23, 2022, 8:03 PM ET
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Over the last decade, Wisconsin has taken a sharp turn to the right, with former President Donald Trump taking the state in 2016 and President Joe Biden just barely scraping together enough votes to win it back in 2020.
However, Politico reports that the overturning of Roe v. Wade has put the Badger State back on a progressive trajectory, best exemplified by liberal judge Janet Protasiewicz's double-digit defeat of right-wing rival Dan Kelly in a state Supreme Court election earlier this year.
Wisconsin Democratic operatives tell Politico that the Republican base's hardline stance on abortion rights has significantly damaged the party in their state, and they don't see that changing in the near future.
"This abortion issue, that’s where they have to be scared to death,” Democratic pollster Paul Maslin tells Politico. “It hurt them everywhere, but it especially hurt them in Wisconsin.”
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Maslin noted that Democrats benefited this spring from a turnout surge in blue areas of the state that he said was "mind-boggling, numbers nobody has ever seen."
On the GOP side, Waupun Mayor Rohn Bishop tells Politico that the recent elections show just how toxic of an issue abortion rights has become for Republicans.
What's more, he thought that it showed that the GOP base had increasingly unrealistic expectations about its demands from GOP lawmakers on total abortion bans.
“We got our butts kicked,” he lamented. “What the Republican base demands and what independent voters will accept are growing further apart."
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MSNBC's Joe Scarborough ripped Donald Trump's "hateful" Memorial Day message comparing himself to slain service members.
The "Morning Joe" host ranked the Truth Social post among the former president's worst holiday statements, saying Trump went out of his way to issue the most "disrespectful" message possible.
"President [Joe] Biden's most likely 2024 opponent, Donald Trump, had a less reflective Memorial Day message," said co-host Mika Brzezinski. "On his social media website, the former president compared himself to the country's fallen heroes, wishing a happy Memorial Day to, quote, 'those in line of a very different but equally dangerous fire stopping the threats of terrorists, misfits and lunatic thugs who are working feverishly from within to overturn and destroy our once great country.'"
"It's brutal, Joe," Brzezinski added. "I mean, I don't even know what to say. I guess it's a step up from what he said in the past about our fallen heroes."
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Scarborough said Trump had a well documented history of insulting slain services members, questioning why they had sacrificed their lives for the country.
"I mean, what he said in the past, I mean, you look at The Atlantic article in 2020, he basically called men and women who gave their all 'suckers,'" Scarbrough said. "It's always been his attitude about it. He has contempt for those who would sacrifice for their country. This is, again, we're not surprised by what Donald Trump says. I will say, I'm surprised there's still such a large number of Americans, at least telling pollsters, that they'd still support this man. Whether it's Memorial Day, Mothers Day, the Fourth of July, whatever it is, he tries to be as hateful and disrespectful as possible."
"Again, I'm not, you know, I'm not catastrophizing here," he added. "He just, I was saying earlier, there were Republicans who were grown-ups. Most would never do something like this, yet the person that runs the party right now is the most hateful, has been the most hateful, and even stains days like Memorial Day, where we should stay focused on those men and women who gave their all in battle and across the world so we could be free."
Watch the video below or at this link.
05 30 2023 06 11 00 youtu.be
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Texas GOP passes bills allowing Abbott appointee to take over Democratic county's elections
May 30, 2023
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo on Sunday warned that Republican state legislators had made a "shameless power grab" by passing a pair of bills aimed at allowing the state government to take control of elections in the Democratic stronghold, which includes Houston.
Senate Bill 1933 passed on Sunday as the state's legislative session came to a close, with lawmakers sending to GOP Gov. Greg Abbott's desk a bill that could give Secretary of State Jane Nelson—who was nominated by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate—the authority to run elections under circumstances in any county with more than 3.5 million residents.
The legislation was passed two days after Senate Bill 1750, which also applies to counties above that population threshold and would abolish the nonpartisan county elections administrator position.
Harris County, which President Joe Biden won by 13 points in 2020, is the only county is Texas with a population above 3.5 million, making both bills apply only to its elections.
Hidalgo denounced the legislation as two "election subversion bills" and warned that they will set a "dangerous precedent" for Republican governors who wish to take control of voting in heavily Democratic counties.
"These bills are not about election reform," said Hidalgo at a press conference last week, as the legislation was advancing. "They're not about improving voters' experience. They are entirely about suppressing voters' voices. The reasoning behind these bills is nothing but a cynical charade."
Hidalgo and other officials said at that event that they plan to file a lawsuit against Abbott's administration if the governor signs the bills into law. The Texas Constitution bars state lawmakers from passing laws that apply only to specific jurisdictions, but Republicans' use of a population threshold instead of naming Harris County itself in the legislation may be used at their defense if the lawsuit moves forward.
S.B. 1750 requires Harris County to change how its elections are overseen starting September 1, when Houston will be two months away from voting for its next mayor. Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth and County Assessor Ann Harris Bennett will oversee elections in the county starting in September.
If, after Hudspeth and Bennett take over, Nelson finds "good cause to believe that a recurring pattern of problems with election administration or voter registration exists in the county," the secretary of state would be permitted to take legal action to remove the two women from office and to install members of her staff in the county's election offices.
Republicans have said Harris County didn't have enough poll workers in the March 2022 primary and that polling locations opened late and ran out of ballots during the November 2022 general election.
"The fact of the matter is, there has not been a single successful lawsuit that proves that there were any kind of problems," said Hidalgo on Sunday. "And I hope that anybody talking about this understands that you are amplifying exaggerations and rumors when you repeat the excuses that these folks are using."
The legislation was passed two-and-a-half months after Abbott's administration announced its takeover of the Houston Independent School District, which has made recent improvements in academic performance that were achieved despite chronic underfunding.
"Houstonians," Emily Eby French, a staff voting rights attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project, said last week, "will soon live in a different Texas than the rest of us."
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