Category: National Issues

New report thoroughly discredits GOP’s claims of widespread voter fraud

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In states all over the country, former President Donald Trump and Republican officials, leaders, and lawmakers raised concerns about claims of voter fraud. To make matters worse, multiple attorneys general and prosecutors in various states also echoed the same baseless claims despite not having substantial evidence of voter fraud. 

While there were isolated reports of voter fraud, many of those cases actually involved Republican voters casting illegal votes for Trump. Now, a new report reveals how sparse claims of voter fraud have been, undercutting the conservative outcry alleging election rigging.

According to Bloomberg Government: Continue reading.

Trump’s PAC collected $75 million this year, but so far the group has not put money into pushing for the 2020 ballot reviews he touts

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Former president Donald Trump’s political PAC raised about $75 million in the first half of this year as he trumpeted the false notion that the 2020 election was stolen from him, but the group has not devoted funds to help finance the ongoing ballot review in Arizona or to push for similar endeavors in other states, according to people familiar with the finances.

Instead, the Save America leadership PAC — which has few limits on how it can spend its money — has paid for some of the former president’s travel, legal costs and staff, along with other expenses, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the group’s inner workings. The PAC has held onto much of its cash.

Even as he assiduously tracks attempts by his allies to cast doubt on the integrity of last year’s election, Trump has been uninterested in personally bankrolling the efforts, relying on other entities and supporters to fund the endeavors, they said. Continue reading.

House passes bill to authorize 8,000 more visas for Afghan allies

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Protections also would be extended to Afghan family members of special visa applicants who were killed

The House on Thursday overwhelmingly passed legislation to authorize an additional 8,000 special immigrant visas for Afghan interpreters, contractors and other vulnerable U.S. allies.

The bill would also expand eligibility to family members of SIV applicants who have been killed, as well as Afghans who worked with certain nongovernmental organizations and could face persecution but would not qualify under the program’s current requirements. It passed with a 407-16 vote.

“Some members of this body, including me, may not be here today without the service and self-sacrifice of Afghans who answered the call to serve shoulder to shoulder with us,” said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan. Continue reading.

Pennsylvania decertifies county voting system following private company audit promoted by pro-Trump state senators

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Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of state has decertified a county’s voting system for future elections after it was subjected to a review by a private company in an effort promoted by a group of state senators supporting former president Donald Trump’s baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

Acting secretary of state Veronica W. Degraffenreid said in a statement Wednesday that Wake TSI’s examination of the Fulton County ballots earlier this year violated the state’s election code.

Pennsylvania is the second state where officials have decertified election equipment because of questionable audits requested by Republicans. Arizona’s Maricopa County said in June that it will replace voting equipment that was turned over to a private contractor for a Republican-commissioned review of the 2020 election. Continue reading.

Biden’s public lands nominee, once linked to eco-saboteurs, advances with key Senate vote

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Republicans say Tracy Stone-Manning’s past affiliation with eco-saboteurs makes her unqualified to run the Bureau of Land Management

Tracy Stone-Manning, President Biden’s pick to be the top public lands manager, moved one step closer to becoming director of the Bureau of Land Management on Thursday as the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee advanced her nomination solely with Democratic support.

For weeks, Republicans have adamantly called on Biden to withdraw Stone-Manning’s nomination due to her decision as a University of Montana graduate student to send a letter on behalf of eco-saboteurs in 1989. The group drove metal spikes into trees in Idaho set to be cut down — an act designed to make it more dangerous for loggers to saw through the trunks.

“It is hard to imagine a nominee more disqualified than Tracy Stone-Manning,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the top Republican on the committee, at one point holding up a gray metal spike. He was among the 10 Republicans on the panel who voted against her nomination. Continue reading.

Pelosi says GOP antics won’t stop Jan. 6 panel’s work

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday said the panel looking into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol “will not let” GOP “antics stand in the way” of the investigation, offering her first detailed remarks on her rejection of two Republican lawmakers for the committee.

“It’s my responsibility as Speaker of the House to make sure we get to the truth on this, and we will not let their antics stand in the way of that,” Pelosi said at a press conference on Thursday.

Drama unfolded on Wednesday after Pelosi announced that she was rejecting two of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) five nominees, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Jim Banks (R-Ind.). Continue reading.

Alabama district attorney aims to prosecute a woman for taking a prescribed drug while pregnant

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Kim Blalock’s spine is a mess. At 36, the Alabama mom is battling a degenerative disc disease as well as arthritis and chronic complications from back surgery. Two months before she got pregnant with her sixth child, a car crash compounded her agony.

Now she has been indicted on a felony charge because, when she was eight months’ pregnant, she refilled a legitimate opioid prescription to treat her crippling pain. If Blalock were to be convicted, her case could set a dire precedent, not only for pregnant people, but for anyone seeking a prescription for a controlled substance in the state.

Blalock says her orthopedist never asked if she were pregnant when she came in to refill her hydrocodone prescription, which she’d had for years. Weeks later, she gave birth to a baby boy with no sign of neonatal abstinence syndrome. A positive drug screen, however, triggered an investigation. Investigators confirmed Blalock had a valid prescription. A pill count proved she’d been taking her medication as prescribed.

As GOP supporters die of Covid, the party remains split in its vaccination message

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Analysis: Top Trump supporters keep casting doubt on Covid-19 vaccines. Ahead of next year’s midterms, that means missing a chance to give Trump credit.

WASHINGTON — As the delta variant of the coronavirus courses through the American bloodstream, the Republican Party can’t make up its mind about vaccines.

Former President Donald Trump has said that people should get inoculated but also that he wants to respect their right to choose not to. For the most part, he’s been as reluctant to urge vaccinations as his political base has been resistant — perhaps leery of crossing his own voters, even though deaths are higher in traditionally conservative regions.

While Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., urged Americans to get dosed this week and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., released a photo of his injection, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., was suspended from Twitter for spreading misinformation that played down the risk of the virus, which has killed more than 600,000 people in the U.S. Continue reading.

Black officers say CBP forced them to profile. A study in one state backs them up.

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With nonstop tension along the Mexican border, it’s easy to forget the relatively tranquil boundary with Canada can also be the scene of serious problems.

A study by the Michigan ACLU shows how the Border Patrol operates far from the border and considers the entire state of Michigan to be within the agency’s operational zone. The report accuses the agency of using that broad reach “to instill fear in Michigan’s immigrant communities” through racial profiling and over-policing.

This report was issued just two weeks after a March racial profiling lawsuit lodged by three Customs and Border Protection officers in Port Huron, Mich. It charged the agency with targeting African American drivers, while discriminating and retaliating against Black officers who protested that treatment. Continue reading.

Businesses condemned Georgia’s voting law, then gave thousands to its backers

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Comcast is among several corporations that raised alarm about voting restrictions but donated to Georgia politicians who supported the state’s legislation

Three months ago, Comcast responded to the passage of Georgia’s sweeping voting lawby saying, “Efforts to limit or impede access to this vital constitutional right for any citizen are not consistent with our values.”

That was then.

On June 30, the telecommunications giant contributed $2,500 to Georgia’s attorney general, Chris Carr, who has vigorously defended the law, which critics say will curtail voting access, including by limiting use of drop boxes for absentee ballots and making it a crime for third-party groups to hand out food and water to voters standing in line. President Biden’s Justice Department sued Georgia over the measure last month, saying it discriminated against Black voters, while the bill’s proponents maintain it is necessary to shore up confidence in the state’s elections. Continue reading.