OKLAHOMA CITY – Races for the statehouse on Tuesday saw some surprises.
Sen. Greg McCortney, R-Ada, lost to Republican challenger Jonathan Wingard, of Ada.
McCortney, considered to be more moderate than some of his GOP colleagues, was the Senate Majority floor leader and was slated to become the next president pro tem.
He did not immediately return a message left seeking comment.
No Democrat, Libertarian or independent filed, so Wingard will represent Senate District 13.
House Appropriations and Budget Chairman Kevin Wallace, R-Wellston, faces a runoff with Republican Jim Shaw, of Chandler, for state representative District 32. They were the top two vote getters in a three-way race.
Wallace was a key player in budget negotiations.
Sen. Cody Rogers, of Tulsa, lost to Republican challenger Aaron Reinhardt, of Jenks, in the Senate District 37 race.
Reinhardt faces independent Andrew Nutter, of Tulsa, in the general election.
Gov. Kevin Stitt recently campaigned for Rogers, telling supporters that special interest groups were out to get the incumbent, who does not always vote the way Senate leadership wants him to vote.
Rogers recently said he was the target of a smear campaign and dozens of negative mailers had been sent out against him.
Sen. Jessica Garvin, R-Duncan, lost her primary to Kendal Sacchieri, of Blanchard, in Senate District 43. Sacchieri faces a Democrat in the general election.
Garvin said she spent four years doing good work.
“I am really thankful for that opportunity,” she said.
Garvin was not sad about the outcome and looked forward to spending more time with her family and growing her business.
Sen. Shane Jett, R-Shawnee, narrowly avoided a runoff, winning in a four-way primary that included Ron Sharp, R-Shawnee, who Jett previously defeated.
No Democrat, Libertarian or independent filed for the post, so Jett secured reelection to Senate District 17.
Sen. Casey Murdock, R-Felt, narrowly defeated Republican challenger Cody Anderson, of Ringwood, to secure reelection to Senate District 27.
Molly Jenkins of Coyle was elected to House District 33 after defeating Rep. John Talley, R-Stillwater. No Democrat, Libertarian or independent filed for the post.
Rep. Jeff Boatman, R-Tulsa, will leave the Legislature, losing his race for Senate District 25.
In the race for House District 98, Rep. Dean Davis heads to a Aug. 27 runoff with challenger Gabe Woolley.
Both are Republicans from Broken Arrow.
The winner will face Democrat Cathy Smythe, of Broken Arrow.
Sen. Blake Cowboy Stephens will face Julie McIntosh, of Porter, in the Republican runoff. They were the top two vote getters in a three-way race for Senate District 3. The winner faces independent Margaret Cook of Tahlequah in the general election.
Stephens said he was pleased with his performance Tuesday.
“Voters responded to a cowboy who will shoot you straight and has never missed a day of work,” he said.
Sen. Micheal Bergstrom, R-Adair, secured reelection to Senate District 1 after defeating Houston Brittain of Pryor.
In the race for Senate District 11, Democrat Rep. Regina Goodwin, D-Tulsa, easily defeated Democrat Joe Williams. She will replace Sen. Kevin Matthews, D-Tulsa, who is termed out.
No independent, Libertarian or Republican candidates filed for the seat.
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Editor’s note: To commemorate Juneteenth, we share excerpts of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech at Stanford University in April 1967. We hear in this speech many of the themes that would animate King’s career but are too often forgotten: Economic equality and justice, the historical context of white backlash, and optimism as an ethos. The speech has been edited for length.
I’d like to use as a subject from which to speak this afternoon, the other America. And I use this subject because there are literally two Americas. One America is beautiful for our situation. And in a sense, this America is overflowing with the miracle of prosperity and the honey of opportunity. This America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies and culture and education for their minds, and freedom and human dignity for their spirit. In this America, millions of people experience every day the opportunity of having life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in all of their dimensions. And in this America, millions of young people grow up in the sunlight of opportunity.
But tragically and unfortunately, there is another America. This other America has a daily ugliness about it that constantly transforms the buoyancy of hope into the fatigue of despair. In this America, millions of work-starved men walk the streets daily in search for jobs that do not exist. In this America, millions of people find themselves living in rat-infested, vermin-filled slums. In this America, people are poor by the millions. And they find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty, in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.
…
The struggle for our civil rights and the struggle to make these two Americas one America is much more difficult today than it was five, 10 years ago… We’ve fought across the South, in various struggles to get rid of legal, overt segregation and all of the humiliation that surrounded that system of segregation. In a sense, this was a struggle for decency. We could not go to a lunch counter and get a hamburger or a cup of coffee. We could not make use of public accommodations. Public transportation was segregated, and often we had to sit in the back. In transportation within cities, we often had to stand over empty seats because sections were reserved for whites only. We did not have the right to vote, in so many areas of the South.
…By the thousands, we protested these conditions. We made it clear that it was ultimately more honorable to accept jail cell experiences than the accept segregation and humiliation. By the thousands, students and adults decided to sit in at segregated lunch counters, to protest conditions there. And when they were sitting at those lunch hours, they were, in reality, standing up for the best in the American dream and seeking to take the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy, which were dug deep by the founding fathers in the formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
…
It’s much easier to integrate a lunch counter than it is to guarantee a livable income and a good, solid job.
– Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
But we must see that the struggle today is much more difficult. It’s more difficult today because we are struggling now for genuine equality, and it’s much easier to integrate a lunch counter than it is to guarantee a livable income and a good, solid job. It’s much easier to guarantee the right to vote than it is to guarantee the right to live in sanitary, decent housing conditions. It is much easier to integrate a public park than it is to make genuine quality integrated education a reality.
…
It’s something that is often overlooked, but Negros generally live in worse slums today than 20 or 25 years ago. In the North, schools are more segregated today than they were in 1954, when the Supreme Court’s decision on desegregation was rendered. Economically, the Negro is worse off today than he was 15 and 20 years ago. And so the unemployment rate among whites, at one time, was about the same as the unemployment rate among Negros. But today, the unemployment rate among Negros is twice that of whites. And the average income of the Negro is today 50% less than whites.
…
Now the other thing that we’ve got to come to see now, that many others didn’t see too well during the last 10 years, and that is that racism is still alive in American society, and much more widespread than we realize. And we must see racism for what it is. It is a myth of the superior and the inferior race. It is the false and tragic notion that one particular group, one particular race, is responsible for all of the progress, all of the insights in the total flow of history. And the theory that another group or another race is totally depraved, innately impure, and innately inferior. In the final analysis, racism is evil because its ultimate logic is genocide.
…
This leads me to say something about another discussion that we hit a great deal, and that is the so-called white backlash. I would like to honestly say to you that the white backlash is merely a new name for an old phenomenon. It’s not something that just came into being because shouts of Black power or because Negros engaged in riots in Watts, for instance. The fact is that the state of California voted a fair housing bill out of existence before anybody shouted Black power or before anybody rioted in Watts. It may well be that shouts of Black power and riots in Watts and the Harlems and the other areas are the consequences of the white backlash, rather than the cause of them.
What it is necessary to see is that there has never been a single, solid, monistic, determined commitment on the part of the vast majority of white Americans on the whole question of civil rights and on the whole question of racial equality. This is something that truth impels all men of goodwill to admit.
…
Our nation has constantly taken a positive step forward on the question of racial justice and racial equality. But over and over again, at the same time, it made certain backwards steps. And this has been the persistence of the so-called white backlash.
In 1863, the Negro was freed from the bondage of physical slavery. But at the same time, the nation refused to give him land to make that freedom meaningful.
And at that same period, America was giving millions of acres of land in the West and the Midwest, which meant that America was willing to undergird its white peasants from Europe with an economic flower that would make it possible to grow and develop, and refused to give that economic flower to its Black peasants.
And this is why Frederick Douglass could say that emancipation for the Negro was freedom to hunger, freedom to the winds and rains of heaven, freedom without roofs to cover their heads. He went on to say that it was freedom without bread to eat, freedom without land to cultivate. It was freedom and famine at the same time.
…
Here’s another notion that gets out. It’s around everywhere. It’s in the South, it’s in the North, it’s in California and all over our nation. It’s the notion that legislation can’t solve the problem, it can’t do anything in this area. And those who project this argument, contend that you’ve got to change the heart, and that you can’t change the heart through legislation.
Now, I’ll be the first one to say that there is real need for a lot of heart changing in our country. And I believe in changing the heart. I preach about it. I believe in the need for conversion, in many instances, and regeneration, to use theological terms. And I would be the first to say that if the race problem in America is to be solved, the white person must treat the Negro right, not merely because the law says it, but because it’s natural. Because it’s right. And because the Negro is his brother.
And so I realize that if we are to have a truly integrated society, men and women will have to rise to the majestic heights of being obedient to the unenforceable.
But after saying this, let me say another thing: Although it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. Even though it may be true that the law cannot change the heart, it can restrain the harvest. Even though it may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, it can restrain him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important also.
And so while the law may not change the hearts of men, it can and it does change the habits of men. And when you begin to change the habits of men, pretty soon the attitudes will be changed. Pretty soon, the hearts will be changed. I am convinced that we still need strong civil rights legislation. And there’s a bill before Congress right now to have a national, federal open housing bill. A federal law declaring discrimination in housing unconstitutional. And also a bill to make the administration of justice real, all over our country.
Now, nobody can doubt the need for this. Nobody can doubt the need, if he thinks about the fact that since 1963, some 58 Negros and white civil rights workers have been brutally murdered in the state of Mississippi alone, and not a single person has been convicted for these dastardly crimes.
…
The Negro came to this country involuntarily, in chains, while others came voluntarily… No other racial group has been a slave on American soil. The society placed a stigma on the color of the Negro, on the color of his skin. Because he was Black, doors were closed to him that would not close to other groups. And need to say to people that you are to lift yourself by your own bootstraps, but it is to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.
And the fact is that millions of Negros, as a result of centuries of denial and neglect, have been left bootless. And they find themselves impoverished aliens in this affluent society. And there is a great deal that the society can and must do, if the Negro is to gain the economic security that he needs.
Now, one of the answers, it seems to me, is a guaranteed annual income, a guaranteed minimum income for all people and for all families of our country. It seems to me that the civil rights movement must now begin to organize for the guaranteed annual income, begin to organize people all over our country and mobilize forces, so that we can bring to the attention of our nation, this need and this something which I believe will go a long, long way toward dealing with the Negro’s economic problem and the economic problem with many other poor people confronting our nation.
…
Now, let me say, finally, that we have difficult days ahead. But I haven’t despair. Somehow, I maintain hope in spite of hope, and I’ve talked about the difficulties and how hard the problems will be, as we tackle them.
But I want to close by saying this afternoon that I still have faith in the future. And I still believe that these problems can be solved. And so I will not join anyone who will say that we still can’t develop a coalition of conscience. I realize and understand the discontent and the agony and the disappointment, and even the bitterness of those who feel that whites in America cannot be trusted. And I would be the first to say that there are all too many who are still guided by the racist ethos.
…
I say that if the inexpressible cruelties of slavery couldn’t stop us, the opposition that we now face, including the so-called white backlash, will surely fail. We’re going to win our freedom.
Because both the sacred heritage of our nation and the will of the almighty God are embodied in our echoing demands.
And so I can still sing we shall overcome. We shall overcome because somehow the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.
We shall overcome because Carlisle is right. No lie can live forever. We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right. Truth crushed to earth will rise again. We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell is right. Truth forever on the scaffold wronged, forever on the throne. Yet that scaffold sways the future.
With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope, this faith. We will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nations into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
With this faith, we will be able to speed up the day when all of God’s children, Black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and live together as brothers and sisters, all over this great nation. That will be a great day. That will be a great tomorrow. In the word sure to speak symbolically, that will be the day when the morning stars will sing together and the sons of God will shout for joy.
Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com. Follow Minnesota Reformer on Facebook and X.
Milwaukee mayor Cavalier Johnson knocked down Donald Trump's attempt to whitewash his insults of Wisconsin's largest city, which will host the Republican National Convention in a matter of weeks.
Trump held a campaign rally Tuesday in Racine, days after he reportedly called Milwaukee a "horrible city" and hours after reports indicated he would not stay there during the RNC but instead bed down in his hotel in Chicago, and the presumptive GOP nominee tried to make amends.
“I love Milwaukee," Trump told a crowd of supporters. "I was the one who picked Milwaukee."
However, the city's mayor strongly disputed Trump's characterization of that decision during an appearance late Tuesday on CNN.
"You know, it is really, really interesting, Abby, to hear former president Trump say now that he all of a sudden loves Milwaukee and that he even selected Milwaukee," Johnson told CNN's Abby Phillips. "Look, Abby, as you mentioned, I'm a Democrat and the mayor of the largest city in the state, and we're proud to host the Republican National Convention. We worked really, really hard to get the convention though. Folks at the RNC have been great. Right before I was initially elected mayor, I took time off the campaign trail to go to Washington, D.C., to go to the RNC headquarters, do the final pitch to bring the RNC here, and it was the RNC that selected Milwaukee."
"I think I would remember if Donald Trump had anything to do with that," Johnson said. "He was nowhere to be found. That is a complete fabrication. I am stunned by that."
Johnson, who is the city's first Black mayor, helped court the RNC even before he was elected in April 2022 and met with then-chairwoman Ronna McDaniel during his campaign to make his pitch to for the city to host the convention, which comes four years after the COVID-19 pandemic forced Democrats to hold their convention virtually instead of in Milwaukee.
Donald Trump took the stage in Racine Tuesday afternoon crowing the praises of Milwaukee, a week after he was reported to have said the city where the Republican National Convention will take place in July “is a horrible city.”
At an outdoor arena in Downtown Racine on the shores of Lake Michigan, Trump went on to spend an hour and a half describing President Joe Biden’s presidency as a disaster that he will end if voters return him to the White House in November after a four-year absence.
“We were respected all over the world. None of this stuff would have been happening that’s happened now, with Russia and Ukraine and the attack on Israel,” Trump declared.
“We’re going to make it better and bigger and stronger than ever before,” Trump said. “But you had a president who put America first — I put America first. They don’t put — under kooky Joe Biden the world is in flames, our border is overrun, inflation is raging, Europe is in total chaos, the Middle East is exploding, Iran is emboldened, China is on the march, and the worst, most incompetent, most corrupt president in history is going to drag us into World War III.”
Well into his speech, Trump ticked off a couple of hot-button topics — mocking transgender athletes competing on women’s teams and vowing as president to deny funding to any school district with vaccine mandates.
And throughout he returned to the claim that the 2020 election, which Biden won by 21,000 votes in Wisconsin and 7 million votes nationwide, was rife with voter fraud, a charge that has been repeatedly refuted.
But the bulk of his speech returned again and again to immigration as he reeled off debunked claims about the flow of immigrants into the U.S. across the southern border. Trump also rewrote the economic and public health history of his last year in office and amplified false claims about Biden’s mental acuity.
A day of firsts
The adulation for Milwaukee with which Trump opened his speech marked his latest pivot on the subject of the RNC convention city
since his comment calling it “a horrible city” in a closed-door meeting with Republican members of Congress a week ago. Trump initially admitted the comment, saying he was speaking of crime and the city’s 2020 vote count, which he lost decisively, and several of the Wisconsin representatives present corroborated the choice of words.
Trump later denied the account on his social media platform, however. And Tuesday he declared, “I love Milwaukee,” as supporters cheered. “I was the one that picked Milwaukee,” Trump claimed. “I was the one that had these nice people that, they say, ‘Oh he doesn’t like Milwaukee.’ I love Milwaukee. I said you’ve got to fix the crime. We all know that you’ve got to make sure the election’s honest. But I’m the one that picked Milwaukee.”
While Milwaukee city and civic leaders conducted an aggressive campaign to make the city the GOP convention site, its
selection was all but assured after the city of Nashville withdrew from the competition.
Trump
had planned to spend his nights during the convention at the Trump hotel in Chicago, according to the New York Times, citing three people who had been briefed on Trump’s logistics. “That changed midafternoon on Tuesday, after reporters for The New York Times and an ABC station in Chicago contacted his campaign for comment,” the Times reported.
The Racine visit marked the first time Trump addressed the Milwaukee “horrible city” claim in Wisconsin — just one of three firsts for the former president.
It was also Trump’s first visit to Racine County since 2018, when he joined then-Gov. Scott Walker at a groundbreaking for the
Foxconn development that Trump promised would be the “eighth wonder of the world.” Despite a deal giving the company $700 million in local taxpayer funds and a prospective $3 billion in tax credits, Foxconn never achieved its promise to employ 13,000 people. Trump made no mention of Foxconn Tuesday.
That fulfilled a prediction that Kelly Gallaher, chair of the Racine County Democrats and a long-time critic of the Foxconn project made earlier in the day.
“I would not be surprised if he doesn’t actually mention it at all,” Gallaher said after a press conference Democrats held to deliver a counter message to Trump’s visit. “It’s the whopper of failed projects.”
The Democratic Party bought time on an electronic billboard visible to southbound drivers through Racine County on Interstate 94. Alternating messages played on Trump’s “horrible” comment and contrasted the loss of jobs in Wisconsin when Trump was in office against job growth under Biden.
Rep. Greta Neubauer (D-Racine), said that Microsoft’s investment in the Foxconn site, putting a $3.3 billion data center on some of the land originally developed as part of the Foxconn project, “would not have happened without Joe Biden and his work on the CHIPS Act” — a 2022 bill to boost domestic manufacturing of semiconductors and other high tech components.
The Biden administration has also directed federal support for community health, electric buses and violence prevention to the community, Neubauer said.
“Racine is a working class and middle class community, and we need President Joe Biden who will look out for us rather than Donald Trump, who is only running for president to enrich himself and his friends and the wealthiest people in this country,” she said. “I’ve been out knocking on doors and talking to people in Racine County and I think that they understand that President Biden is fighting for them.”
Criminal indictments ‘a badge of honor’
Tuesday was also Trump’s first visit to Wisconsin since he was
convicted of 34 felony counts by a New York City jury for falsifying business records to disguise hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels to influence the 2016 presidential election outcome.
Trump blamed his conviction — on charges of violating New York law and brought by a New York prosecutor — on a “weaponized” U.S. Justice Department that had no role in the case. Returning to the subject later, he boasted about the number of criminal cases still pending against him.
“Every time the radical left Democrats, Marxists, communists and fascists indict me, I consider it a great badge of honor,” Trump said. “Remember, I got indicted more than Alphonse Capone.”
After riffing on the 1930s Chicago mobster’s reputation for brutality, Trump said, “Never forget our enemies want to take away my freedom because I will never ever let them take away your freedom. That’s why they want to silence me because I will never let them silence you.”
Immigration took up more than half of the speech, however, with Trump asserting that “this is an invasion of our country.”
He attacked the executive order that Biden
announced earlier Tuesday, which provides protections from deportation for long-term undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens as well as faster work permit approvals for people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Trump claimed the Biden administration policies were a ploy to flood the voter rolls with noncitizens — a claim that in January PolitiFact assigned its
most extreme rating for falsehood, “Pants on Fire!”
“Inflation has killed our economy,” Trump said, asserting that inflation “was 10 for the last couple of years.”
“And if you add different categories, I think inflation is between 40 and 50%,” he said. “They say it’s at 22%, 22% — a lot,” he said, although who “they” are wasn’t clear in context. “That’s a record, but I think you could double it.”
According to the
St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, inflation spiked to just under 9% in June 2022 and has been falling since then, reaching 3% in February.
When he was president, “we had gasoline down to $1.87 a gallon,” Trump said.
According to the federal
Energy Information Agency gas prices in late April 2020 dropped below $1.80 a gallon. That was also when the U.S. registered a record low in monthly vehicle travel, coinciding with the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic during which much of the population stayed home.
Trump also gave shoutouts to former Govs. Tommy Thompson, who gave a fiery introduction, and Scott Walker, as well as Republican U.S. Reps. Glenn Grothman, Derrick Van Orden and Bryan Steil. He attacked Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who is running for a third term, and gave Eric Hovde, the likely Republican nominee to challenge her, a three-minute time slot.
“All of you and you are gonna fire Joe Biden and Tammy Baldwin,” Hovde told the crowd. “Let’s take back America. Make America Great. And restore the American Dream.”
Wisconsin Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Wisconsin Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Ruth Conniff for questions: info@wisconsinexaminer.com. Follow Wisconsin Examiner on Facebook and X.
Democratic strategist Maria Cardona on Wednesday openly laughed at Trump 2016 campaign staffer Bryan Lanza after he tried to defend the former president's mental acuity.
"There's a lot of reporters who have interviewed President Trump and none of them have stated that they've ever seen President Trump have any type of cognitive issues," he said.
He then proceeded to claim that President Joe Biden has "cognitively declined" to the point where "he can't find his way off the stage."
As Lanza spoke, Cardona openly laughed at him and proceeded to rip into Trump's mental state.
"You had CEOs say in a recent meeting that he was meandering, he couldn't hold a thought, he was talking gibberish," she said. "You've seen clips of Donald Trump mistaking Nancy Pelosi for Nikki Haley, talking about sharks, talking about windmills."
She then made the case for reelecting Biden even as she acknowledged that both he and his rival have had their share of senior moments.
"It is an issue for both men and we are going to see this at the debate," she said. "Look, both dudes are old. But I prefer old and steady to old and crazy."
Today, June 19, or “Juneteenth,” commemorates the end of slavery in the defeated South. The date reflects the timing of the announcement by Union General Gordon Granger in Galveston, Texas, the day after he’d arrived to occupy the city.
A similar announcement had already happened in Florida’s capital city on May 20, 1865 — the different timing reflecting the uncertainties surrounding the end of the Civil War and difficulties of communications as rebel states fell under federal control.
“In Florida, the process began in May 1865. Union General Edward M. McCook arrived in Tallahassee to receive the surrender of Florida’s Confederate troops on May 10th. On May 20th, McCook formally announced President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation from the steps of the Knott House, effectively ending slavery in the state. As a result, many Floridians celebrate May 20th as Emancipation Day.”
President Joe Biden
signed legislation in 2021 recognizing Juneteenth National Independence Day as a federal holiday.
However, Florida
does not recognize Juneteenth as a holiday for state workers — not even as an unpaid day of commemoration, although it does mark Robert E. Lee’s birthday on Jan. 19, Confederate Memorial Day on April 26, and Jefferson Davis’s birthday on June 3.
Abraham Lincoln’s birthday on Feb. 12 is not a paid holiday but Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday on Jan. 15 is.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and X.
In 2021, as the Republican Governor of Nebraska, Pete Ricketts signed a "largely symbolic" proclamation declaring The Cornhusker State a “Second Amendment Sanctuary.” Now, calling the legislation a "show vote," U.S. Senator Ricketts has blocked a Democratic bill that would have restored a ban on bump stocks, like the one used in the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.
Just four days ago, in a 6-3 decision along partisan lines, right-wing justices on the U.S. Supreme Courtruled a bump stock, that effectively turns an AR-15 into a machine gun, cannot be regulated under current law. Justice Clarence Thomas authored the majority opinion. The device is so dramatically lethal pro-gun President Donald Trump banned it in 2018.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Samuel Alito made clear: if lawmakers want to ban bump stocks, they can, by passing a federal law:
"Congress can amend the law—and perhaps would have done so already if ATF had stuck with its earlier interpretation. Now that the situation is clear, Congress can act."
On Tuesday, Senator Ricketts blocked a bipartisan bill banning bump stocks – what the Supreme Court suggested and what Donald Trump had done – which was sponsored by Senators Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and Susan Collins (R-ME).
Bump stocks increase the rate of fire from approximately 45-60 rounds per minute, to 400-800 rounds per minute.
Senator Ricketts called the vote on banning the lethal accessory that effectively increases the rate of fire by a factor of ten, "another day in the Democrat summer of show votes," and called the legislation “a gun-grabbing overreach."
“This bill will not pass,” Ricketts also said, as the Associated Press reported. “It won't pass because enough people in this building still believe in the Constitution, and the Constitution affords Americans the right to own a firearm.”
Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) blocks Democrats' unanimous consent request to ban bump stocks:
"[Schumer] claims this bill will ban bump stocks ... If you actually read the bill, that's not what it does at all. The Bump Act targets common firearm accessories, not just bump stocks." pic.twitter.com/2zSuF149rR
— The Recount (@therecount) June 18, 2024
Donald Trump may have inadvertently called attention to a report that business leaders were startled by his inability to "keep a straight thought" by promoting another report that disputed those claims.
CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin spoke to CEOs who attended Business Roundtable’s quarterly meeting last week, and they told him the presumptive Republican nominee "was all over the map" and "remarkably meandering," but Trump posted an excerpt on Truth Social from a right-wing media site that countered his reporting.
“The attendee who spoke with The Daily Signal said Sorkin’s interpretation is wrong," reported The Daily Signal's Rob Bluey, adding that the publication granted the attendee anonymity to speak candidly about the private meeting. "‘There was never a moment of meandering,’ the attendee said. ‘He was focused. In fact, he received a loud ovation at the end.’ The attendee added: ‘There was not one CEO who wasn’t impressed with what they heard from Trump. Everybody was clapping.’"
The Daily Signal was founded a decade ago by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which is developing the Project 2025 blueprint for radically reshaping the federal government to favor conservative interests, but the website became independent earlier this month.
President Joe Biden's campaign highlighted Sorkin's report, which also came on the heels of another report from CNBC that attendees at the meeting laughed at Trump's proposal to eliminate taxes on worker tips.
"Trump then told the CEOs a story about how excited tipped workers were about his proposal, prompting laughter from the corporate leaders, according to multiple people," CNBC reported, citing multiple sources who were present.
Look at her 2020 congressional campaign ad where she fires a semi-automatic rifle into targets symbolizing Democratic policy concerns such as climate change and gun control.
“She comes across sometimes like a girl version of Yosemite Sam, just kind of ‘pew, pew, pew, pew,’” said Wendy Davis, a former city commissioner for Rome, Ga., who ran and lost in the 2022 Democratic primary for the 14th District seat. “Not just because of her seemed love of guns, but just that firing off at the slightest thing.”
But the MTG that Americans see on the national stage isn’t always the same fiery character in person. Sometimes she is, but other times she’s “very nice” and asks “politely worded questions,” her constituents tell Raw Story.
MTG in the wild
Raw Story traveled to Greene’s 14th Congressional District to speak with some of her constituents, both Republicans and Democrats, who’ve had an opportunity to see her in-person.
Together, they paint a picture of what the headline-grabbing congresswoman is really like off camera when engaging with her community.
Mary Bramblett, a member of the Floyd County Republican Women, recalled once seeing Greene while Christmas shopping at a local Hobby Lobby with her cousin. Bramblett’s cousin wanted a photo, so they followed Greene around the store, which “she didn’t seem to mind at all,” Bramblett said.
Bramblett also heard Greene speak in-person at a meeting for the Floyd County Republican Women.
“Her speeches, you know how she can become so, well, like Trump? She’s so down to earth … she was great,” Bramblett said. “Very passionate, even the day she spoke to us, she was just so passionate about everything wanting to be more perfect, which is what she said.”
Maggie Combs, another member of the Floyd County Republican Women, said of meeting Greene at the party event, “She's a very nice person. Very, very out front, and that's what matters.”
Nedra Manners, the owner of Yellow Door Antiques and Art and a member of the Floyd County Democratic Party, said she met Greene at a fundraiser in September 2020. Manners described Greene as “fine in person” and “real nice.”
But Greene did question the decision to move the fundraiser from its usual spot on a popular pedestrian bridge to a hotel courtyard where more social distancing was possible during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Manners said.
“It was smaller, but tables were spread around, and everybody felt real comfortable out there,” Manners said. “So, I was introduced to her, and we had this magazine that showed the event on the bridge, and her question was, ‘why didn't y'all have it out there this year?’ Because she didn't get it.”
Davis was in the same room as Greene when they both were supervising vote recounts for their respective parties in 2020.
“She has this capacity to be this flame throwing ‘la, la, la,’ loud, loud, loud, angry, mad, ‘everybody else is bad’ energy when she's trying to be in front of a camera,” Davis said. “When she's in smaller spaces, she's smaller. She's more like a regular person.”
Davis said Greene would make comments on camera about how “this election was probably stolen,” but then “she comes inside, and she's just asking legitimate, nicely, politely worded questions, and just watching, right, not making a spectacle of herself.”
Added Davis: “Why do you have to be two different things? Just be who you are.”
Kelly Thurman, an employee with the Murray County Sheriff’s Office, and his wife, Michelle Thurman, a dental assistant and office manager, said Greene frequently visits Murray County in Greene’s sprawling district.
“She believes in values that a lot of small town people have, I guess, and so that's one reason everybody likes her,” Michlle Thurman said. “She likes to stand behind the people themselves. A lot of people don't want to stand behind the people, just the politics. But she's definitely for the people.”
One of the values that Greene best represents in the community is her belief in “gun laws and the right for us to carry,” Michelle Thurman said.
Lamar Wadsworth, chair of the Polk County Democratic Party, said he saw Greene from a distance in the parking lot of a local grocery during her first campaign. He said she spoke from the back of a pickup truck to about 10 people.
“I don't know what attracts people to her except Trumpianity is the dominant religion here, and she’s wholeheartedly in the Trump cult. I don't really remember anything standing out. There’s simply nothing about her that qualifies her,” Wadsworth said. “A lot of people who are just decent people are fed up with her antics. You know, her behavior would get her suspended in middle school.”
Numerous other constituents in Greene’s district previously told Raw Story they’ve never had a chance to meet her and find her presence in the district to be lacking, particularly as her district office is not publicly listed and only available to visit by appointment.
Greene’s spokesperson, Nick Dyer, did not respond to Raw Story’s interview request.
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough on Wednesday called out Donald Trump's racist attacks on Black cities.
The presumptive Republican nominee trashed Milwaukee, the host city for the party's convention next month, during a meeting with lawmakers last week, which drove the "Morning Joe" host to crack open a tall boy of Milwaukee's Best last week on the air and spurred another conversation Wednesday about Trump's racial animus.
" Trump, of course, has been on the defensive about his views on Milwaukee after telling Republican lawmakers in a private meeting last week that the city was, quote, 'horrible,'" Scarborough said. "One week later when he's in Wisconsin he's saying that he, quote, 'loves Milwaukee.' Again, you think they can handle this a little bit better, but the guy obviously has contempt for Milwaukee. It doesn't matter how much people spin it on Fox News."
Trump remains on the defensive after reports that he would stay 90 miles away in one of his branded hotels in Chicago during the convention rather than Milwaukee, and the Rev. Al Sharpton pointed to a troubling trend about cities the former president insults.
"I notice he's been very selective on the cities that he attacks," Sharpton said. "They usually have Black mayors and usually have a large urban community, and I had the mayor of Milwaukee on 'Politics Nation' the other night and we talked about that. You know, he never attacks certain cities who have some of the same challenges, but I think that we're getting ahead of ourselves. He has a sentencing four days before the convention, and who knows, the judge may have other accommodations prepared for him, I don't know. It's maybe unlikely, but I wouldn't rule it out."
Scarborough agreed, saying that Trump felt the same way about some American cities as the African and Caribbean nations he slurred as "sh*thole countries."
"The rev really just broke the code, really," Scarborough said. "After Trump trashed Milwaukee, people said, 'Oh, he would never say that.' Okay, well, we found out that he did say that and they made a lot of different, [saying] it was about crime, it was about the Brewers' middle relievers. It was about this, it was about that. No, it wasn't. He trashed Milwaukee, but if you read the articles surrounding it, Republicans in Wisconsin have been trashing Milwaukee for a very long time, and it's all the as the rev said, it's about cities with urban populations, with Black mayors. Republicans have always talked that way about Philadelphia. 'Oh, they are going to just sit and wait and see how many Black votes they can steal in Philadelphia because Philadelphia is so corrupt or Detroit.'"
"David Frum has a piece out of Donald Trump trashing Detroit," Scarborough added. "We heard what he said about Africa and Caribbean nations. He might as well say it about cities, too, where there's a predominantly Black population chances are very, very good that Donald Trump is not going to like that city."
The House Ethics Committee has reportedly obtained testimony from a witness who claims that she was paid for sex by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL).
ABC News reports that one witness specifically told the committee that Gaetz sent her money through the payment app Venmo that was in exchange for a sexual encounter.
Other witnesses have told the committee that they were "paid to attend parties that Gaetz also attended and that featured drugs and sex," ABC News reports.
Gaetz was long the subject of a Department of Justice probe over potential sex trafficking of an underage girl, although in the end the DOJ declined to bring charges against the Florida congressman.
According to ABC, the House Ethics Committee has now obtained records of Gaetz's Venmo payments, which could be key evidence against him.
"The committee has obtained Gaetz's Venmo records after issuing the company a subpoena," reports ABC. "During the DOJ investigation into Gaetz, public reporting, including by The Daily Beast, largely focused on Venmo records from [former Seminole County, Florida tax collector Joel] Greenberg, who according to his plea agreement used his account to "pay for commercial sex acts" with women he also introduced to others. The committee obtaining Gaetz's records, which ABC News has not seen, could help provide Congressional investigators with a roadmap for payments the Congressman may have made while he was friends with Greenberg."
With just 400 votes separating them, a Trump-backed challenger declared victory late Tuesday over incumbent Republican Bob Good in Virginia’s contentious 5th District primary, a race marked by Trump’s fierce denunciations and accusations of backstabbing against Good.
The race gained national attention in recent days when Good, the chair of the incendiary House Freedom Caucus, found himself in the crosshairs of a formidable enemy: former President Donald Trump. Trump openly attacked Good after he endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' ill-fated rival 2024 presidential campaign.
"John is running against Bob Good, who is actually bad for Virginia, and who will stab you in the back like he did me," Trump said in the video ahead of the primary."
Far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) also jumped into the race, urging other members of the Freedom Caucus to oppose Good as well. According to Greene, Good was likely to stab them in the back "just like he did with President Trump."
As of midnight Tuesday, McGuire, a state lawmaker and accused Jan. 6 attendee, held a lead by the slimmest of margins. With about 94 percent of the votes tallied, McGuire earned 31,411 votes — about 50.26 percent — to Good's 31,084 votes, or 49.74 percent.
Video posted online by reporter Reese Gorman showed McGuire pumping his fist and beginning a "hooyah" chant with his supporters.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the votes are in and the people have spoken," McGuire began. "It is an honor to be your Republican nominee ... [inaudible]."
Good, meanwhile, did not concede defeat as of midnight.
"Right now, we’re still waiting on the final election results of today’s Primary," he wrote in a post on X. "As we wait, I wanted to thank you for your support thus far. You made sure your vote was cast."
Good thanked his staff and volunteers — "several of you had tough conversations to ensure people knew the truth about this race"— as well as poll workers. He also blasted what he called the "entire DC Swamp," which he said was aligned against his campaign and supplied more than $10 million in attack ads.
"No matter the outcome, you’ve shown the DC Swamp that you won’t back down from standing for what’s right. Keep the faith and don’t stop fighting now," Good said.
Even before Trump handed down his endorsement of McGuire, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) already signaled he was unlikely to commit resources to defending Good in his primary.
Virginia's 5th District is a right-leaning constituency in the central and southern parts of the state, which also includes the heavily blue community of Charlottesville.
While its boundaries and partisan composition have varied somewhat over the years, the district centered here hasn't elected a Democrat in a congressional contest since 2008. However, one Republican elected in this district during that time, Rep. Denver Riggleman, became an outspoken Trump opponent and helped the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 conduct its investigation.
Both Good and McGuire spent the campaign trying to prove their Trump bona fides to voters, with the two traveling to Manhattan during the former president's criminal trial to denounce the proceedings.
However, in the final days of the campaign, Trump officials slapped Good with a cease-and-desist order for using Trump's campaign symbols on his own yard signs, implying an endorsement. Asked for comment, Good dismissed Trump's opposition, calling it a "stupid topic."
"We watched clips of the show together," Setoodeh explained of one interview he conducted where they watched episodes of Trump's hit TV show "The Apprentice." "We watched the theme song, he really lit up. He watched firing — the first firing of Omarosa [Manigault Newman]."
Trump, he said, became crestfallen when the subject of the presidency came up.
"And then he would talk about what he did at the White House and he would become gloomy and resentful and unhappy and refer to Afghanistan and Joe Biden," he said.
Setoodeh said Trump then appeared to believe he was still in power — despite being relegated to a civilian.
"He also seemed to think that he still had some foreign policy powers," said Setoodeh. "And there's one day where he told me he needed to go upstairs to deal with 'the Afghanistan' – even though he clearly didn't."
Collins was stunned.
"He told you that ... while you were interviewing him at Trump Tower, he told you he needed to go upstairs to deal with Afghanistan," she asked, as if to make sure she correctly heard what he said.
"With quote, 'the Afghanistan' is how we referred to it," Setoodeh replied.
The book has already drawn scorn from the Trump campaign.
"President Trump was aware of who this individual was throughout the interview process, but this ‘writer’ is a nobody and insignificant so of course he never made an impression," Trump 2024 communications director Steven Cheung stated. "After recognizing the importance of The Apprentice and its significant cultural impact on a global scale, this ‘writer’ has now chosen to allow Trump Derangement Syndrome to rot his brain like so many other losers whose entire existence revolves around President Trump."
