Tag: Trump big lie

Texas GOP move to overhaul voting laws: What you need to know

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The war over voting access that has roiled Georgia is headed next to Texas, where Republican legislators are working through an omnibus elections overhaul package that would dramatically change the way some voters cast a ballot in future contests.

The measure has been labeled a priority by both Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), who controls the state Senate. It follows on the heels of election overhauls that passed in 2017 and failed in 2019, but after a chaotic election held amid a pandemic, it aims to crack down on several practices that supporters say ran afoul of current state law.

“We want a system that people can trust, we want it to be accurate, and we want folks to know that it’s accurate,” said state Sen. Bryan Hughes (R), the measure’s prime sponsor. “If folks don’t trust the system, they’re not going to vote.” Continue reading.

Boehner slams Trump: He ‘incited that bloody insurrection for nothing more than selfish reasons’

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Former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is blaming former President Trumpfor the deadly Jan. 6 rioting at the U.S. Capitol, saying he riled the crowd to commit violent acts for “selfish” political reasons. 

“Whatever they end up doing, or not doing, none of it will compare to one of the lowest points of American democracy that we lived through in January 2021,” Boehner wrote in a new book set to be published this month, excerpts of which were obtained by The New York Times. 

The former Speaker also wrote that Trump “incited that bloody insurrection for nothing more than selfish reasons, perpetuated by the bullshit he’d been shoveling since he lost a fair election the previous November.” Continue reading.

MAGA Riot Lawsuit Against Trump Keeps Getting Bigger

The NAACP’s expanded suit will include more members of Congress, and the amended complaint adds additional information regarding the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

A federal lawsuit alleging that former President Donald Trump, his lawyer, and far-right extremists at the U.S. Capitol conspired to deprive Americans of their civil rights by disrupting the count of Joe Biden’s electoral college victory with the Jan. 6 riot is expanding this week.

Lawyers for the NAACP, which brought the suit early this year on behalf of Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), are set to file an amended complaint on Wednesday adding 10 new plaintiffs, two people familiar with the matter saie. The new plaintiffs will include other members of Congress, and the amended complaint is said to include additional information about the deadly Jan. 6 riot in Washington, D.C., which then-President Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani are accused of inciting, the sources added.

The addition of new plaintiffs was first reported by The New York Times on Tuesday. Continue reading.

Ex-officer texted ‘We stormed the Capitol’ during Jan. 6 riot, feds say, and tipsters turned him in

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A former Salt Lake City police officer was arrested Friday for allegedly taking part in the mob that breached the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, joining a growing list of current and former law enforcement officers charged in the riot.

Federal authorities said Michael Lee Hardin, 50, entered the building with hundreds of other pro-Trump rioters and posed for a picture in the Capitol Crypt, then bragged about his actions in text messages with friends and family.

Hardin, who served on the police force for nearly two decades before retiring in 2017, is charged with knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building, disorderly conduct, and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. Continue reading.

HP, Dow, Under Armour among nearly 200 companies speaking out against voting law changes in Texas, other states

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After Georgia, voting rights activists call for corporate pushback against proposed voting bills in Texas and dozens of other states.

Nearly 200 companies on Friday joined in a strong statement against proposals that threaten to restrict voting access in dozens of states, in a further sign of corporate willingness to speak out on social justice issues.

As Major League Baseball announced that it will be moving this summer’s All-Star Game out of Atlanta in response to the passage of Georgia’s restrictive voting law, executives from at least 193 companies — including Dow, HP, Twitter and Estée Lauder — urged the protection of voting rights across the country.

“There are hundreds of bills threatening to make voting more difficult in dozens of states nationwide,” executives wrote in the statement, which also included signatures from the CEOs of Under Armour, Salesforce and ViacomCBS. Continue reading.

More GOP-led states risk corporate backlash like Georgia’s

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The corporate backlash against Georgia’s new voting law is putting other states on alert.

Texas, Florida and Arizona are among the Republican-led states considering similar legislation, setting the stage for potential clashes with companies headquartered there.

Industry experts are closely watching how things unfold in Georgia to see whether there is a boycott and loss of business similar to what North Carolina experienced with regard to its “bathroom bill” from 2016. That picture became clearer on Friday when Major League Baseball announced it won’t hold this year’s All-Star Game in Georgia as initially planned. Continue reading.

Capitol cop beaten with a skateboard by Florida music student during Trump’s insurrection: prosecutors

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Grady Douglas Owens, a 21-year-old music student in Winter Park, FL, remains held in jail on some of the most serious charges filed among the hundreds arrested in connection with the January 6 Capitol riot.

Boyle over the head with a skateboard during the melee at the Capitol. Boyle suffered a concussion and a finger injury from the attack, its report stated.

Owens was denied bail Friday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel Irick. The FBI complaint shows that he faces charges of assaulting an officer, violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, along with the trespassing and obstruction charges faced by other protesters. Owens faced up to 36 years in prison. Continue reading.

Oath Keepers founder, associates exchanged 19 calls from start of Jan. 6 riot through breach, prosecutors allege

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Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, his deputy and three members who guarded Roger Stone exchanged nearly 20 phone calls over three hours on Jan. 6, coinciding with the first assault on police barricades protecting the U.S. Capitol and spanning the time the three members breached the building, prosecutors charged Thursday.

In a new indictment adding previously charged Stone guards Joshua James, 33, of Arab, Ala., and Roberto Minuta, 36, of Prosper, Tex., to an Oath Keepers conspiracy case that now has 12 defendants, prosecutors bluntly laid a path to Rhodes and a person they said he put in charge of his group’s operations that day.

Prosecutors identified that individual only as “Person 10.” Rhodes in interviews has said he tapped a former Army explosives expert and Blackwater contractor nicknamed “Whip” as on-the-ground team leader. Continue reading.

Florida firm hired to oversee Maricopa County, Arizona vote audit promoted Trump’s debunked election fraud lies

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Once a deep red state that was synonymous with the GOP conservatism of Sen. Barry Goldwater and his successor, Sen. John McCain, Arizona has evolved into a swing state where Democrats won the 2020 presidential election and now occupy both of its U.S. Senate seats. Democrats have fared especially well in Maricopa County, Arizona, which includes Phoenix — and the Arizona State Senate has hired a technology company to oversee a recount of 2020 general election ballots in that county. According to the Arizona Republic, that company, the Florida-based Cyber Ninjas, has a history of promoting bogus election fraud claims.

Arizona Republic reporters Andrew Oxford, Jen Fifield and Ryan Randazzo explain, “Cyber Ninjas will lead a team that includes three other firms as part of a $150,000 contract the Senate has awarded to conduct an unprecedented audit of the election results in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county. But a deleted Twitter account that appears to belong to Cyber Ninjas founder Doug Logan suggests he has already made up his mind about the security of Arizona’s elections. It includes a litany of unsubstantiated allegations about fraud in the last election.”

A Twitter post that Logan shared in late 2020, according to the Arizona Republic reporters, read, “I’m tired of hearing people say there was no fraud. It happened, it’s real, and people better get wise fast.” And Logan, they add, “also appears to have shared posts by Sidney Powell, an attorney who supported former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results, and U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., a prominent proponent of conspiracy theories about the last election.” Continue reading.

Mother of injured DC officer unloads on the GOP after Trump claims Capitol rioters were ‘hugging and kissing’ police

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Speaking to CNN’s Don Lemon this Monday, the mother of a DC Police officer who was brutally assaulted during the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 said that she and her family are outraged at former president Donald Trump’s claim that the rioters posed “zero threat” and were even “hugging and kissing” police.”

“For us, for our family, and for each and every police officer that I know that Michael’s in touch with constantly, it’s outrageous. It’s so dehumanizing. It’s so devaluing,” Terry Fanone said.

“The thing that is so profound is after [Trump] made those statements, the silence that followed — and where was the outrage from other people who were there … and the silence to me implies indifference, and I could be wrong, but indifference and complicity,” she said. Continue reading.