Thursday, November 10, 2022
Rep. Slotkin wins reelection in close Michigan House race
The race for the 7th District, which includes congressional lines drawn last year, could prove to be pivotal in overall control of the House of Representatives.
Judge orders Newt Gingrich to testify in Georgia 2020 election probe | PBS NewsHour
The petition says Gingrich was involved along with others associated with the Trump campaign in a plan to run television ads that "repeated and relied upon false claims about fraud in the 2020 election" and encouraged members of the public to contact state officials to push them to challenge and overturn the election results based on those false claims…
Wednesday, November 9, 2022
Ad goes too far with claim Joe Biden promotes surgery for trans teens - PolitiFact
The ad says: "Joe Biden and the New Left even promote surgery on teens and young adults, removing breasts and genitals." Experts in the field, LGBTQ advocates, and even critics of gender-affirming care, say they find the message misleading.
What is Mastodon, the social network users are leaving Twitter for? Everything you need to know | Twitter | The Guardian
The servers on that list have all signed up to the "Mastodon covenant" which promises "active moderation against racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia"...
Oh, and as this is a volunteer-run system, there are no paid-for ads in your feed…
The Wall of Liars and Deniers: the artwork compiling the biggest US election lies
Buehler stated that lots of people come up and tell him "thank you" and share feelings of anxiety around the election and the enormous numbers of voters who believe Trump's big lie that the election was stolen. "Someone told me, 'you hear about the big lie, but when you see how many people are spreading it, and on top of all the other lies Trump told, it hits you in a new way. You're not just reading it, it's visualized, that brings it to the forefront.'"…
This Is When Trump’s Staffers Realized He Was Out of Control
"Donald Trump would call up the Secretary of Defense [James] Mattis at night and say, 'We've gotta strike the North Koreans now,' and Mattis' response would be 'Interesting idea, Mr. President, maybe we should talk about it tomorrow' and other people had to do the same thing," he says...
Crenshaw: Election deniers tell the truth ‘behind closed doors’
"It was always a lie. The whole thing was always a lie. And it was a lie meant to rile people up."
Political violence "must always be an option," says far-right Catholic outlet | Salon.com
Church Militant made headlines with MTG's "Satan" interview. Now it warns, "Sometimes violence must be unleashed"…
Trump and Far-Right Users Declare Midterm Election Fraud Before Votes Even Counted
Trump has also previously suggested that election fraud is happening in Michigan and Pennsylvania, and urged his followers to "Protest, Protest, Protest!" in Detroit. A judge in Michigan already dismissed a lawsuit making claims of election fraud, writing in an opinion that the baseless suit "raised a false flag of election law violations."…
https://www.insider.com/far-right-donald-trump-voter-fraud-baseless-claims-midterm-elections-2022-11
11 French bishops accused of sexual abuse, Catholic Church says - The Washington Post
Last year, a report from an independent French commission found that French Catholic clerics had abused more than 200,000 minors over the past 70 years. The report estimated the number of perpetrators to be at least 3,000.
"One doesn't get to those kinds of levels without there being significant problems at the very top," said Hiner, who said abuse accusations against "people at the highest levels of the Catholic Church" have proliferated...
Tuesday, November 8, 2022
How a GOP Congress Could Roll Back Freedoms Nationwide - The Atlantic
Over the past two years, the 23 states where Republicans hold unified control of the governorship and state legislature have approved the most aggressive wave of socially conservative legislation in modern times. In highly polarizing battles across the country, GOP-controlled states have passed laws imposing new restrictions on voting, banning or limiting access to abortion, retrenching LGBTQ rights, removing licensing and training requirements for concealed carry of firearms, and censoring how public-school teachers (and in some cases university professors and even private employers) can talk about race, gender, and sexual orientation.
With much less attention, Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate have introduced legislation to write each of these red-state initiatives into federal law. The practical effect of these proposals would be to require blue states to live under the restrictive social policies that have burned through red states since President Joe Biden's victory in 2020...
Republicans sue to disqualify mail ballots in swing states - The Washington Post
In Michigan, Kristina Karamo, the Republican nominee for secretary of state, sued the top election official in Detroit last month, seeking to toss absentee ballots not cast in person with an ID, even though that runs contrary to state requirements. When asked in a recent court hearing, Karamo's lawyer declined to say why the suit targets Detroit, a heavily Democratic, majority-Black city, and not the entire state...
Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin admits interfering in US elections | Russia | The Guardian
"Gentlemen, we interfered, we are interfering and we will interfere," Prigozhin, who has been accused of running a "troll factory" to influence the outcome of votes in several western countries, said in a statement quoted by his team.
"Carefully, precisely, surgically and the way we do it, the way we can," Prigozhin quipped…
Stephen Miller's racist ads accuse Joe Biden of being anti-white
Like so many political ads, these from Miller's group are flat-out wrong. The Washington Post's Fact Checker gives the commercials three Pinocchios (its designation for any claim that has "Significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions"). Using clever language, chopped up out-of-context sentences by Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the ads are, as the newspaper points out, a "disingenuous stew that claim the Biden administration and liberals are harming Whites with policies intended to deal with racial inequities, such as minority communities being more affected by the coronavirus pandemic." FactCheck.org also points out that the claims about the alleged "anti-white" policies and statements don't hold up...
Yevgeniy Prigozhin, Putin ally, boasts he ‘interfered’ in U.S. elections - The Washington Post
"Since at least 2014, Project Lakhta has used, among other things, fictitious online personas that posed as U.S. persons in an effort to interfere in U.S. elections," according to the Treasury Department.
Graphika reported that the Russian network made "direct attempts to undermine support for Democratic candidates in Pennsylvania, Georgia, New York, and Ohio," from August and September. A prime vehicle was the release of political cartoons, "almost certainly intended to go viral."…
GOP elections committee chair in Wisconsin sues to sequester military ballots | PBS NewsHour
The Republican chair of the Wisconsin Assembly’s elections committee along with a veterans group and other voters have filed a lawsuit seeking a court order requiring the sequestering of military absentee ballots in the battleground state.
The lawsuit from state Rep. Janel Brandtjen, filed Friday in Waukesha County Circuit Court, comes after a top Milwaukee County elections official was charged with fraudulently requesting three military ballots using fake names and having them sent to Brandtjen as way to expose vulnerabilities in Wisconsin elections. Kimberly Zapata, deputy director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, was fired last week and now faces charges of felony misconduct in office and three misdemeanor counts of election fraud.
Climate change threatening 'things Americans value most,' report says - The Washington Post
"The United States — exclusive of Alaska — is warming about two-thirds faster than the planet as a whole," said Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at Berkeley Earth.
That shift means significant parts of the country now must grapple with growing threats to safe drinking water, housing security and infrastructure. A hotter atmosphere creates a litany of health hazards, makes farming and fishing more difficult and unpredictable and imperils key ecosystems...
20 Examples of Johnson Amendment Violations, Experts Say — ProPublica
Under the law, pastors can endorse candidates in their personal capacities outside of church and weigh in on political issues from the pulpit as long as they don't veer into support or condemnation of a particular candidate. But the law prohibits pastors from endorsing candidates during official church functions such as sermons.
Violations can lead to the revocation of a church's tax-exempt status…:quality(70)/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/f80939b7596d30f590769861cf9b91d8/UniteFF.png)
COVID Superspreader Events Still Exist. Here's What They Look Like Now. | HuffPost Life
Most people with immunity will be well protected against serious disease if they do get COVID, Jokela said. Even so, while we're seeing less severe cases from superspreading events than we did in 2020, COVID is still a leading cause of death in the U.S., indicating that substantial transmission is still occurring. Not to mention the fact that there's still a risk of long COVID if you're infected ― even with a mild case...
We Badly Underestimated Just How Terrible Elon Musk Is At Business; Update on Jan 6 Investigation and Prosecutions (Opening Arguments podcast OA645)
Hooooo boy. Ok, Elon Musk officially owns Twitter. Does that mean a big “Andrew was wrong?” Well…. kinda but it’s complicated. We really just did not fathom how irrational Elon is. His wealth has taken a perhaps unprecedented hit as a result of this terrible deal. Listen for the details!
Then, Liz Dye joins us for an update on Jan 6!
Interview:
Monday, November 7, 2022
'Blasphemy': DeSantis slammed for 'heretical' re-election ode to himself - Raw Story - Celebrating 18 Years of Independent Journalism
"If Barack Obama had made an ad like this, evangelicals would have burnt down the country in a ragegasm," wrote Lee Papa, better known as The Rude Pundit.
Opinion | Cartoon by David Horsey - The Washington Post
The History of the Separation of Church and State in the US
In June 2022, a divided U.S. Supreme Court handed down two decisions on how to balance the two freedom of religion provisions of the First Amendment. The Justices took a dramatic turn from the history of judicial interpretation of those two provisions.
In campaign between Ron Johnson and Mandela Barnes, race is a central issue - The Washington Post
The senator is drawing sharp rebukes for how he invokes race when talking about his Black opponent…
Arizona Republicans urge voters to vote early after warning against it - The Washington Post
Some in the party worry their assaults on early voting could ultimately suppress GOP turnout…
Obama says ‘we’d have a very different Supreme Court’ if Democrats had kept the Senate in 2014 | The Hill
"You deserve leaders who will stand up for a woman's right to control her own body and make her own health care decisions," he said.
The problem(s) with Jordan’s report on DOJ, FBI ‘politicization’
"The other 50 pages are a who's who of Fox News-flavored grievances and conspiracy theories, dinging the FBI for everything from the "unprecedented raid" of Mar-a-Lago to going easy on Hunter Biden to supposedly targeting parents for resisting "a far-left educational curriculum" to inflating domestic violent extremism stats. Many of their gripes and allegations are old — that Hillary Clinton was given "kid-glove treatment" in comparison to Donald Trump — and animated by perpetual, ongoing right-wing complaints, including that "big tech" is censoring conservative viewpoints."
Biden on people calling him a socialist: ‘Give me a break, what idiots’ | The Hill
The president warned in his remarks that millions of Americans would lose health care coverage, benefits and protections under congressional Republicans' plans. Some Republicans have pledged to repeal aspects of the Inflation Reduction Act, which was passed earlier this year with only support from Democrats, if they take control of Congress this midterm cycle...
Top Extremism Expert OBLITERATES and EXPOSES Trump and MAGA Movement | The Weekend Show
Anthony Davis chats with disinformation researcher Kristofer Goldsmith about how dangerous right wing conspiracy theories lead to political violence and threaten the very fabric of our democracy.
Interview:
Inside the unhinged midterm election conspiracy theories on Truth Social
In recent days, despite users' apparent satisfaction with Truth Social, the main interest has been Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, and how it might impact the Democratic party in elections and beyond.
Musk's vague promise to overturn Twitter bans has had people giddy with excitement, claiming it could open the door to a glorious era of Republican reign.
"Democrats are not going to be able to handle free speech and the corrupt Democratic Party will fall apart after hearing the truth," one Truth Social user gravely intoned after Musk purchased Twitter…
‘He was chosen’: the rightwing Christian roadshow spreading the gospel of Trump
The show is part Trump Stop the Steal rally, part charismatic religious service, part QAnon and anti-vaxxer conspiracy theory all rolled into one...
There is less arch humour in the mix than there was when Trump descended the golden escalator in June 2015 – now it's more resentment and menace…
‘It was like an apocalyptic movie’: 20 climate photographs that changed the world
'It was like an apocalyptic movie': 20 climate photographs that changed the world
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/05/20-climate-photographs-that-changed-the-world
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/05/20-climate-photographs-that-changed-the-world
Wells are running dry in drought-weary Southwest as farms guzzle water to feed cattle overseas | CNN
Gary Saiter, a longtime resident and head of the Wenden Water Improvement District, said the water was moving because it was being pumped rapidly out of the ground by a neighboring well belonging to Al Dahra, a United Arab Emirates-based company farming alfalfa in the Southwest…
Residents and local officials say lax groundwater laws give agriculture the upper hand, allowing farms to pump unlimited water as long as they own or lease the property to drill wells into. In around 80% of the state, Arizona has no laws overseeing how much water corporate megafarms are using, nor is there any way for the state to track it…
Africa is being devastated by a climate crisis it didn’t cause. Cop27 must help
The failure of developed countries to honour their commitments is not just an injustice and a failure of global solidarity. It contributes to the serious tensions and divisions that are preventing global action on a host of other issues, from peace and security to human rights. As the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu said: "Exclusion is never the way forward on our shared paths to freedom and justice."…
Could Russia collapse?
So is it speculative to talk about a future Russian collapse? Yes. Is there evidence it is imminent? No.
But in many ways that's the problem: when authoritarian regimes implode, they tend to do so very quickly, and with little warning.
Hence in the Russian case, it's important to consider all possible eventualities, even if they might appear implausible at the moment...
With conservative Supreme Court, religion always wins | The Hill
The trouble is that the whole point of certain provisions of the Constitution is to end some tradition. The13th Amendment abolished slavery. The 14th prohibited the subjugation of the former slaves. The Establishment Clause rejected a long tradition of official religion. For each of these provisions, history matters, but not in the way that the Court thinks. One must understand the historical wrong to discern the scope of the prohibition...
Sunday, November 6, 2022
The History of the Separation of Church and State in the US
While increasingly attacked by legal scholars and even some justices, the Lemon test was until very recently still the standard for lower courts to use in assessing establishment clause litigation. Twenty years ago, it provided the Justices with the precedent they used in Santa Fe v. Doe in holding unconstitutional the policy of allowing student-led prayers at school football games, because the practice had a religious, not secular, purpose. As recently as 2005, litigants specifically asked the court to overturn Lemon and the Justices refused to do so.
In 2019, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for himself alone, insisted that "the Lemon test is not good law." Justice Clarence Thomas said he would overrule the precedent.
Finally, in 2022, they abandoned Lemon. In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, by a 6-3 vote, the justices said the school district was wrong to fire a coach for ignoring orders not to lead midfield prayers after football games. Henceforth, they decreed, the courts in considering conflicts between the two religious freedom clauses of the First Amendment should use not the Lemontest but "historical practices and understandings."
Scoop: House Republicans cry politics over IRS outreach
Don't forget: The words "President Donald J. Trump" appeared on the memo line on $1,200 pandemic checks sent out to 70 million Americans in 2020...
Eric Trump’s ‘Tinfoil Hat-Wearing’ Claims Get The Treatment On Twitter | HuffPost Latest News
Never mind the tweets. This short video is a must-see.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/eric-trump-tinfoil-hat-claim_n_6366067de4b0eb51ab105a32
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/eric-trump-tinfoil-hat-claim_n_6366067de4b0eb51ab105a32
How Michigan Republicans’ campaign is a ‘direct attack on democracy’
Roebuck, like clerks in other counties, has sought to reassure voters with greater transparency about how the counting process works and in the training of poll workers. He said that many of them are persuaded of the legitimacy of the vote once they see the system at work. But, like Thomas, he said there was a small hardcore intent on challenging any outcome they do not like.
"There's probably about a 10% portion of the population that has truly bought into the notion that our elections were stolen, and I'm not sure how successful I will be in convincing those folks because I have had a lot of those conversations where it's just very difficult to get through to people with the facts," he said...
…One Michigan county clerk hired a Trump supporter to recruit poll workers who was filmed urging people to storm the Capitol in Washington on 6 January 2021 and joined white nationalist Proud Boys rallies at the state legislature.
All of this leaves Roebuck despairing of his own party: "Our voters deserve honesty. Sometimes it can be a political advantage for candidates to go down a different path to use talking points about election integrity or election misinformation, but I don't think it's an advantage to our society in the long term," he said…
The problem(s) with Jordan’s report on DOJ, FBI ‘politicization’
Obviously, the public is supposed to see the number of pages as evidence of merit. "Well, Judiciary Committee Republicans must've found a ton of incriminating information," Americans are apparently expected to say. "After all, just look at all of those pages!"
There is, however, a small problem. As Talking Points Memo explained, "All but about 50 pages of the 1,050-page report are old letters Republicans already sent to the Biden administration. In one instance, they attached a five-page letter they'd previously sent to all U.S. attorneys 93 times."…
"The other 50 pages are a who's who of Fox News-flavored grievances and conspiracy theories, dinging the FBI for everything from the "unprecedented raid" of Mar-a-Lago to going easy on Hunter Biden to supposedly targeting parents for resisting "a far-left educational curriculum" to inflating domestic violent extremism stats. Many of their gripes and allegations are old — that Hillary Clinton was given "kid-glove treatment" in comparison to Donald Trump — and animated by perpetual, ongoing right-wing complaints, including that "big tech" is censoring conservative viewpoints."
Husband of Minnesota candidate heard promoting formation of 'SWAT team' to police poll workers - ABC News
Minnesota elections officials are working to coordinate law enforcement responsibilities on Election Day after the husband of a GOP nominee for the state's top election post was heard on a leaked recording calling for off-duty law enforcement officers to police poll workers at election sites -- in apparent violation of state regulations...
Racist bullying shook a small US town. Then came the bomb threats
The debate that consumed the town for two years and culminated in threats of violence illustrates how a Republican strategy to mischaracterize discussions of race and gender as political indoctrination can prevent schools from protecting students from documented acts of racism and bullying…
44% of voters see "secret cabal" in stunning QAnon poll
"We wanted to test QAnon's language that the world is controlled by a secret cabal."
Saturday, November 5, 2022
The News Roundup – Domestic and International (The 1A) 2022-11-04
Domestic
The first days of Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover have been dull of change. The Tesla co-founder fired the company’s board of directors and is planning to lay off about half the existing workforce in an attempt to cut costs. Musk also plans to end the company’s “work from anywhere” policy.Musk also spent some time this week giving oxygen to conspiracy theories surrounding an attack on the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. A man broke into the politician’s house intending to harm her. Upon finding she was absent, he attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer. Police say the suspect had a list of other targets.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week, including those in a case involving the future of affirmative action at U.S. universities.
Interview:
International
The Ethiopian government and Tigrayan forces have agreed to end a two-year conflict at peace talks in South Africa this week. The war has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands since it began two years ago. Eritrea, which fought alongside Ethiopia’s government forces, was notably absent from the peace talks, and has said nothing about whether it would withdraw its troops and abide by the ceasefire agreement.Israel held elections this week and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conservative coalition has won a majority with the help of ultra-nationalist politicians who gained notoriety for fostering anti-Arab sentiment.
Far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro lost the presidential election this week to former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Many Brazilians feared Bolsonaro would not peacefully transition power if he lost. However, the incumbent has signaled he will hand over the country’s reins without issue.
Interview:
Andrew Seidel Is Here! But NOT To Yell About a New SCOTUS Disaster! (Opening Arguments podcast OA644)
Just wanted to clarify right off the bat in case the very sight of Seidel’s name on our feed might send you into a panic that some fresh church/state separation obliterating hell was dealt to us by the court. That hasn’t happened at LEAST in the last few days. No, Andrew Seidel joins us to talk about his brilliant new book, American Crusade!
Interview:
US election deniers spread false claims about Brazil vote - PolitiFact
Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro did not announce a "military audit" of his country's Oct. 30 election and did not seek to arrest judges in his first public remarks following his defeat. He initiated the peaceful transition of power to the incoming administration…
Scoop: House GOP to release 1,000-page road map for Biden FBI probe
Jordan has made clear he will use the committee to make the next two years of Biden's presidency as painful as possible for Democrats, with this document serving as a road map for how he'll navigate one of his key priorities…
Trump's gifts from foreign leaders under scrutiny from House Oversight committee - The Washington Post
"He said, 'They gave me these, these are my gifts,' " said Kelly, recounting his conversation with Trump. "But I'd say, 'No sir, they gave these to the president of the United States. You have to look at that as an official gift from a country.' He would be totally against that. He was adamant that they were his gifts and he couldn't understood why he couldn't keep these gifts."
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