Author: Data and Research Manager

Here’s how extremism not only goes unpunished in today’s GOP — it is encouraged

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Joe Scarborough, the Never Trump conservative and former Republican congressman who co-hosts “Morning Joe” on MSNBC with his liberal wife, Mika Brzezinski — and who rooted for now-President Joe Biden in the 2020 election — recently described his former party as consisting of ultra-conservative politicians like Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and QAnon extremists who think Cheney is too far to the left. Journalist Molly Jong-Fast, in an op-ed published by the Daily Beast on July 8, discusses extremism with the 2021 GOP and argues that extremism is difficult to resist among modern Republicans.

“This is the Republican brand now: death before decency,” Jong-Fast writes. “What Roy’s colleague Paul Gosar learned from Trumpism is that working with terrifying far-right extremists is totally cool. Gosar is now even more far-right than Steve King, who was censured for his white nationalist statements back when Republicans at least pretended to give a shit. Now, Gosar is being praised by White nationalist Nick Fuentes — and minority ‘Leader’ Kevin McCarthy is fine with that, just like he’s fine with Marjorie Taylor Greene raving about the Jews and Matt Gaetz (R-Sex Creep) staying on the House Ethics Committee so that he could question the head of the FBI while continuing to be investigated by the FBI.”

Jong-Fast continues, “Meanwhile, Stop the Steal speaker Mo Brooks is now running for Senate in Alabama. Brooks, who was a planner of the January 6 rally, according to a deleted video from Ali Alexander, claims in a new civil filing that he only spoke at the rally-turned-riot because the White House told him to. That was in the same legal filing in which he said he believes that Trump still won the election. Trump did not.” Continue reading.

Nullification is the true threat to voting rights in America

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As Republican lawmakers continue their efforts to prevent voting expansion across the United States, it appears there are bigger issues than just voter suppression. In a piece published by The Bulwark, the author Linda Chavez explained how and why the bigger problem actually centers on nullification. 

“The biggest threat to democracy now is less that voting laws are too restrictive than it is that votes, once lawfully cast, are counted and the results accepted by losers as well as winners,” she wrote.

Expressing concern about Republican efforts to reconstruct the Voting Rights Act (VRA) she touched on how dangerous their efforts are to democracy. “Instead of trying to re-write the VRA to overturn court decisions that were anything but radical, democracy advocates should concentrate on limiting the power of partisan losers to overturn the will of the people.” Continue reading.

Why There’s Even More Pressure Now on Congress to Pass a Voting Rights Bill

Congress faces growing pressure to pass new federal voting legislation in the wake of a Supreme Court decision last week that will make it more difficult to challenge a spate of new Republican-backed state-level voting restrictions. 

Democrats already wrestling with a loaded agenda on voting rights now face the additional complication of how to address the ruling, beyond a slew of stronglyworded statements. 

Congressional leaders say legislation to expand ballot access is their top priority in the aftermath of the 2020 election, but they have struggled to advance it. Last month, a sweeping package that would have set a new national baseline for election laws while overhauling campaign finance and government ethics provisions ran into a solid wall of Republican opposition in the closely divided Senate.  Continue reading.

Trump ripped William Barr as a ‘phony’ who would have ‘licked the floor’ if he’d won: new book

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Donald Trump ripped into Attorney General Bill Barr as a “phony” who “would have licked the floor if I won,” after the former president unsuccessfully tried to get U.S. attorneys in swing states to open investigations into his false claims of election fraud, according to Landslide, a new book from journalist Michael Wolff.

The Daily Beast reports that it obtained a copy of Landslide in advance of its publication next week. 

“‘Trump had been personally calling around to various U.S. attorneys in swing state districts, among them his appointee William McSwain in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania,’ to try and convince them to open their own probes,” the Daily Beast reports. “When they did not, Trump blamed his A.G., saying that ‘if I had won, Barr would have licked the floor if I asked him to. What a phony!'” Continue reading.

The rapid decline of White evangelical America?

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New data suggests a bigger decrease than previously understood — including in the GOP

If there was an epitome of Donald Trump’s hostile and often puzzling takeover of the Republican Party, it might have been his alliance with evangelical Christians. The thrice-married playboy who until relatively recently supported abortion rights became their champion. He did so despite demonstrating remarkably little familiarity with the Bible. The uneasy alliance culminated in Trump flashing the Good Book as a political prop in Lafayette Square last summer.

But new data suggests that whatever pull evangelicals have in American politics, it’s declining pretty significantly.

The Public Religion Research Institute released a detailed study Thursday on Americans’ religious affiliations. Perhaps the most striking finding is on White evangelical Christians. Continue reading.

‘They’re playing the long game’: Legal experts warn post-Trump Supreme Court ‘laying foundations’ for right-wing turn

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The U.S. Supreme Court that Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell rigged in their favor did not veer quite as far to the right in this past term as some feared, but legal experts cautioned that they’re “laying foundations” for a more conservative future.

The twice-impeached one-term president managed to ram through a third justice weeks before losing the Nov. 3 election, but analysts were somewhat surprised by the number of unanimous rulings and the decisions on the Affordable Care Act and a few other cases, reported The Guardian.

“I think we at the ACLU can to some degree breathe a sigh of relief,” said David Cole, national legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union. “It’s nowhere near as bad as people thought.” Continue reading.

Toyota to stop donating to GOP lawmakers who objected to certifying Biden’s win

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Toyota announced Thursday that its political action committee would no longer make donations to Republican members of Congress who objected to certifying the presidential election results in January, after uproar over newsthat the automaker’s corporate PAC had supported those lawmakers at a higher level than other PACs.

“Toyota is committed to supporting and promoting actions that further our democracy,” the company said in a statement Thursday. “We understand that the PAC decision to support select Members of Congress who contested the results troubled some stakeholders. We are actively listening to our stakeholders and, at this time, we have decided to stop contributing to those Members of Congress who contested the certification of certain states in the 2020 election.”

Supporters of President Donald Trump overran the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, in large part to protest the certification of Joe Biden’s victory because Trump asserted, and they might have believed, that the election was “stolen.” The violent siege left five people dead, including a police officer; two other officers who were on duty that day later died by suicide. Continue reading.

CPAC Agenda Shows Trump Still Controls the Republican Party

A key upcoming conservative event features a list of participants – and notable absentees – that displays the former president’s continued grasp over the Republican Party.

They lost the White House, control of the U.S. Senate and failed to gain back control of the House. But conservatives are partying like it’s 2019.

Donald Trump – no longer president, not yet a candidate – will be the headline speaker this weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference meeting in Dallas. Also speaking will be his son Donald Trump Jr. and a slew of Trump loyalists, including former Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and former Trump medical adviser Ronny Jackson of Texas.

Not scheduled to appear? Conservatives like Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, both of whom voted against Trump during the 45th president’s impeachment and Senate trial. Nor are there announced appearances by those who might be mulling a 2024 run, such as former Vice President Mike Pence or former Trump Cabinet members Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley. Continue reading.

DFL Party Statement on Representative Thompson’s Recent Actions

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SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA — Yesterdayday, DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin released the following statement: 

“Nobody is above the law, including our elected officials. We expect all of our elected officials, regardless of party, to not only follow the law, but to hold themselves to the highest standards. Whether they like it or not, their words, actions, and behavior are going to be scrutinized by the public. As such it is important for people in positions of power and influence to model the type of behavior we expect from everyone. Representative John Thompson fell short of that standard, and I am disappointed by his recent actions.”

Trump Called Kimberly Guilfoyle After Her Roaring RNC Speech, Compared Her to Eva Perón

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After Kimberly Guilfoyle’s RNC speech became a target of memes and talk-show mockery, sources confirm President Trump called her and said, “That was fantastic…so amazing.”

On Monday night, former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, a top fundraiser for the Trump reelection effort and girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., delivered a booming, scenery-chewing speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention that immediately went viral. 

It concluded, her arms outstretched, with Guilfoyle’s bellowed vow, “The. Best. Is. Yet. To. Come!”

CNN personalities were flabbergasted by it, with correspondent Dana Bash remarking, “Oh, my goodness. I just feel like that was so intense, and so dark.” Late Show host Stephen Colbert mocked the pretaped address as a series of “very nuanced screams.” Continue reading.