How Alarmed Should We Be?

Trumpy Colorado County Clerk Launches Bid For State’s Top Elections Official

Fresh off her arrest last week, Tina Peters, the Republican clerk of Mesa County, Colorado who pushed former President Trump’s Big Lie, on Monday announced her bid to become the state’s top elections official.

Peters announced her campaign during an appearance on former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast. Peters told Bannon that she is running to “restore trust” and “put an end to government overreach in our election process.”

“Colorado deserves a secretary of state who will stand up to the Biden administration. … And, Steve, that’s why today I’m announcing that I’m running for Colorado secretary of state,” Peters said.

But as of Monday morning, Peters had not filed paperwork for her secretary of state candidacy, according to the Denver Post. Peters previously announced her intent to run for re-election as Mesa County clerk and recorder.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/tina-peters-colorado-county-clerk-secretary-of-state

The lunatics continue to try to take over the asylum.

 

It seems self-evident that the Republican Party — more a celebrity fan club than a political organization at this point — would, if left to its own devices, destroy the foundation of the republic. I never thought I’d write those words about any U.S. political party, but here we are.

It’s not just that Donald Trump and his imitators would blow up the integrity of our elections, or that they have expressly countenanced a violent insurrection against the federal government, or that they basically admit to having no governing agenda beyond the reclamation of some mythical White heritage.

It’s also that the Trumpist GOP advances the notion, in all kinds of ways, that citizenship alone doesn’t mean you belong here — that your race or ethnicity, the language that you speak, or the identity you choose can somehow make you less American than your neighbor.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/15/both-parties-extreme-ideas-repel-center-matt-bai/

Trumpery being fundamentally bigoted.

 

What the Pundits Get Wrong About Biden’s Presidency

The threat to American democracy constitutes the gravest moral crisis the nation has faced at least since the civil rights struggle. Both during the campaign and since taking office, Biden has said that his two great responsibilities are restoring American democracy and bringing the pandemic under control. It would have been startling — and grossly hypocritical — had he not marshaled whatever political capital he had behind legislation to prevent vote suppression and electoral rigging. The detractors have argued that the proposed bills would not prevent another Jan. 6; yet the Freedom to Vote Act would have eliminated partisan gerrymandering, criminalized threats to election workers and vastly increased access to the ballot. Biden would have felt justifiably proud had he been able to bring such a law to his democracy summit last December; his inability to do so constituted a very serious blow to America’s democratic bona fides.
https://www.politico.com/news/magaz...as-always-the-wrong-choice-for-biden-00009417

 

Texas’ Largest County Asks DOJ For Help As SB1 Causes Thousands Of Ballots To Be Rejected

Texas’ largest county has rejected thousands of absentee ballots and ballot applications due to Republicans’ restrictive new voting law — and now, officials there have asked the Department of Justice for help.

The new law, SB1, is “achieving exactly what its authors set out to do: erect more hurdles in front of the ballot box and systematically suppress the vote in Harris County,” wrote the county judge, county attorney and county elections administrator in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland flagged Thursday by Houston Public Media.

Harris County, home to Houston, has for weeks sounded the alarm about early warning signs that SB1 is resulting in unusually large rates of rejected ballot applications.

The trouble comes from Republicans’ new ID requirements for people eligible to vote by mail: The form of that required ID number (whether a driver’s license number, Social Security number, or state ID number) must match what the voter used to register with the state, sometimes decades earlier. Previously, absentee voters’ identities were confirmed by comparing their signatures to government records.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...b1-causes-thousands-of-ballots-to-be-rejected

Voter suppression say Repubs? What voter suppression?

 

GOP Arizona Guv Argues It’s Better To Have A White Nationalist In Office Than A Dem

Overton Window Dragged To Hell
On Thursday, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) defended his independent expenditures spending half a million dollars to support far-right Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers (R), who cozies up to white nationalists and spews white nationalist talking points, in the 2020 election against her Democratic opponent.

• Ducey made it clear he still stands by the cash boost, telling reporters that he’s “proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish.”
• Oh, “and she’s still better than her opponent, Felicia French,” the Republican governor said.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morni...ionalist-wendy-rogers-democrat-felicia-french

 

Thank you for a rather textbook case of TPM fraud. The headline "GOP Arizona Guv Argues It’s Better To Have A White Nationalist In Office Than A Dem" is entirely false and unsupported by the article.

 

It's completely supported by the article and by what Ducey said.

 

GOP pushes for an ‘earthquake in American electoral power’

A legal argument lurking in two Supreme Court cases could give Republican legislators in battleground states sweeping control over election procedures, with ramifications that could include power over how states select presidential electors.

Republicans from Pennsylvania and North Carolina challenged court-ordered redistricting plans in their states based on the “independent legislature” theory. It’s a reading of the Constitution, stemming from the 2000 election recount in Florida, that argues legislators have ultimate power over elections in their states and that state courts have a limited ability — or even none at all — to check it.

The Supreme Court turned away the GOP redistricting challenges on Monday, largely on procedural grounds. But at least four justices embraced the “independent legislature” theory to some degree, which would consolidate power over election administration in key states with GOP-dominated state legislatures, from the ability to draw district lines unchallenged to passing new restrictions on voting. Taken to its extreme, some proponents of the theory argue it would give legislators power to override the choice of presidential electors after voting in their states.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/...rthquake-in-american-electoral-power-00015402

The article goes on to say it's unclear how the impact of the cases will play out but that “the most maximalist position, it would be an earthquake in American electoral power.” This has the potential for subverting the will of the majority........Repubs like that.

 

At Least Four Supreme Court Justices Cosign Legal Theory That Existentially Threatens Fair Elections

On the surface, the Supreme Court’s order in a Republican challenge to North Carolina’s redistricting maps earlier this week was a win for voting rights advocates.

The majority refused to stay a congressional map drawn by the North Carolina Supreme Court after voters challenged the legislature’s version that heavily favored GOP candidates. That leaves the state court’s map in place, which is much fairer than the legislature’s concoction.

But the dissent authored by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, along with, to a lesser degree, a concurrence from Justice Brett Kavanaugh, offer a dark indication as to where the right wing of the bench would like to go. The dissenters say that North Carolina Republicans had the stronger argument and likely would have won on the merits to get the court’s map invalidated.

“That some of the justices rejected outright state court interpretations of state statutes is, frankly, a power grab by the Supreme Court,” Carolyn Shapiro, law professor and founder of Chicago-Kent’s Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States, told TPM. “It’s an astonishing shift of authority over election law from state courts to federal courts, but primarily to the Supreme Court.”
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...t-state-legislature-kavanaugh-gorsuch-barrett

It appears, now that the SC is about to criminalize abortions, the Repubs need a new issue to set their long range sights on. Usurping the power of the people to decide elections is it.

 

Actually it should be Republicans who are worried. The GOP is fast becoming the "do as I say and not as I do" party. The GOP is no longer the limited form of government, advocating free trade as a method of diplocay and economic security, and wants to export our form of Decocracy and values all over the world. Nowadays, its the party that if you don't think or act like a Anglo-Saxon-Aryan "Christian" person, then you have something nefarious to offer, that me comes first and think that is service to Country, and if you don't get your way, you act like a bunch of drama drag queens on steroids. That is what the GOP is fast becoming.

Democrats are going the same route but in a different direction. The progressives don't care what it costs or how much it will disrupt daily lives, but their impatience is what bothers me on many of their issues. People do not like change, or change too quickly. And becasue of their impatience, many of their policies, even with good intentions, are doomed to fail evenually. They will become more and more desperate to get their power base in play that it will do more harm than good.

 

Colorado elections clerk indicted in voting system breach

DENVER — A grand jury in Colorado has indicted a county election clerk who sowed doubt about the 2020 presidential election, alleging she was part of a “deceptive scheme” to breach voting system technology that is used across the country, according to the indictment made public Wednesday.

Tina Peters, a Republican elected in 2018 to oversee elections in Mesa County, was charged with seven felony and three misdemeanor counts, including attempting to influence a public servant, criminal impersonation and first-degree official misconduct. Also facing charges in the case is Deputy Clerk Belinda Knisley.

Over the past year, Peters has appeared onstage with supporters of former President Donald Trump who made false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Peters recently announced plans to launch a campaign for Colorado secretary of state, on the podcast of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/...-clerk-indicted-voting-system-breach-00015795

 

North Carolina Opens Probe Into Meadows After Report On Voter Fraud Allegations

North Carolina authorities launched an investigation into former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Thursday, following a report earlier this month that revealed a questionable address Meadows registered under to vote in the 2020 election.

Nazneen Ahmed, spokeswoman for North Carolina attorney general Josh Stein’s office, confirmed to The News & Observer newspaper that the State Bureau of Investigation is looking into allegations of voter fraud against Meadows.

“We have requested that the SBI investigate alongside the State Board of Elections,” Ahmed told the Observer. “At the conclusion of the investigation, we’ll review the findings.”
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...s-investigation-new-yorker-report-voter-fraud

Irony alert.

 

In Ohio, a Standoff Over Political Maps Threatens the Next Elections
Years ago, voters created a commission to make political maps fairer. Now the State Supreme Court is blocking maps drawn by the Republican-led commission, saying nothing has changed.

A bipartisan majority of Ohio Supreme Court justices has ratcheted up an extraordinary legal standoff over the state’s political boundaries, rejecting — for the third time in barely two months — new maps of state legislative districts that heavily favor the Republican Party.

The decision appears likely to force the state to postpone its primary elections, scheduled to take place on May 3, until new maps of both state legislative seats and districts for the United States House of Representatives pass constitutional muster.

The court’s ruling late Wednesday was a blunt rebuff of the Ohio Redistricting Commission, a Republican-dominated body that voters established in 2015 explicitly to make political maps fairer, but that now stands accused of trying to fatten already lopsided G.O.P. majorities in the state’s legislature and the U.S. House.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/17/...te=1&user_id=fecdfdffdaaa11107b72f0f4f6e429cc

Election rigging has become the POT's bread and butter.

 

Pssst, Trump isn't president and nobody but the left gives a s***.

As to how alarmed we should be? Highest inflation in decades, illegals crossing our boarders at the highest in history, Putin is on a war path, gas is the highest in history and what is the left doing?
Still whining about Trump

 

One Federal Judge’s Primal Scream About The Dramatic Erosion Of Voting Rights

When a judge writes nearly 300 pages in an order that may well be quickly overturned, they’re trying to send a message beyond the judicial action itself.

That’s what U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker of the Northern District of Florida did on Thursday, with a ruling knocking down several new Republican restrictions on voter registration groups, ballot drop boxes, and “line-warming,” or giving food and water to people waiting in line to vote.

Throughout the searing ruling, the judge, an Obama appointee, also retold the history of racist terrorism and voter suppression in Florida and tied that history to the U.S. Supreme Court’s modern attacks on voting rights.

From the very start, Walker signaled that his ruling was about more than one state law: In blocking most of SB 90’s elements, he said, “this Court recognizes that the right to vote, and the [Voting Rights Act] particularly, are under siege.” Then, he quoted Martin Luther King Jr. comparing the right to vote to the right to prayer.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...-scream-voting-rights-martin-luther-king-sb90

Voter suppression laws are a slow motion hostile takeover of government by Repubs.

 

Ohio Supreme Court Mulls Contempt For Top Republicans Amid Redistricting Power Grab

The most powerful politicians in Ohio are apparently willing to risk being held in contempt of court if it means they can pass state legislative maps gerrymandered in their own favor.

The politicians — including the state’s Republican governor, legislative leaders and secretary of state — are members of Ohio’s redistricting commission. And now, they could face consequences from the state’s Supreme Court for submitting yet another set of proposed state House and Senate maps that appear to violate state constitutional amendments against partisan gerrymandering.

After the Ohio Supreme Court rejected the commission’s third attempt at drawing the maps last month, saying for the third time that they unconstitutionally favored Republicans, the commission hired independent experts and appeared to be charting a different path toward fair and proportional legislative districts that mirrored the way Ohioans actually vote.

Then, with hours to go until the court’s midnight deadline last Monday, the commission set the independent mapmakers’ work aside and submitted their third map all over again, with just a few minor tweaks.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...top-republicans-amid-redistricting-power-grab

Repub lust for power is boundless.

 

GOP Rep. Upton, who voted to impeach Trump, will not seek reelection

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), one of 10 Republican lawmakers who voted to impeach President Donald Trump, will not seek reelection.

Upton announced his decision on the House floor Tuesday morning and in an email to supporters.

“Even the best stories has a last chapter. This is it for me,” Upton said. “Thanks, again, to the people of my district who placed their faith and confidence in me all these great years.”

Upton, who has served since 1987, also backed the bipartisan infrastructure bill and received death threats afterward for helping President Biden get a legislative win.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...voted-impeach-trump-will-not-seek-reelection/

He's not a rabid, RW extremist so there's no room for him in the POT.

 

In series of false claims, Republican Rep. Lisa McClain says Trump caught Osama bin Laden

Michigan Rep. Lisa McClain, a freshman Republican member of Congress, made a series of false claims in a short speech at former U.S. President Donald Trump's rally outside Detroit on Saturday -- notably including an assertion that Trump, who has endorsed her for re-election, was the president who caught terrorist Osama bin Laden.

McClain's office didn't respond to requests for comment on her false claims in the rally speech, which ran for under six minutes. McClain tweeted Monday: "Joe Biden misspeaks every single day and the media pays no attention to it. Isn't it ironic how I'm under attack for an honest mistake."

She didn't specify, however, which of the claims she was calling "an honest mistake." If she was referring to the remark about bin Laden, that wouldn't explain the three other remarks we debunk below.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/in-ser...n-says-trump-caught-osama-bin-laden-1.5847602

No wonder Don endorsed her.

 

The POT caucus has a batshyte crazy problem.

Murkowski, Collins, and Romney are pro-pedophile.
https://twitter.com/RepMTG/status/1511150070367985664?s=20&t=ut1vCR7CMclmu8H26xVXjQ

 

Ohio Republican Bob Gibbs to retire amid redistricting chaos
He faced a primary challenge from Max Miller, a Trump-endorsed candidate.

Republican Rep. Bob Gibbs announced Wednesday morning he will retire from Congress after six terms rather than face a stiff primary challenge in a substantially redrawn district in northeast Ohio.

His departure, which comes after ballots have been printed and early voting has begun in Ohio, is a big win for Max Miller, a former Trump official who secured the president’s endorsement last year when he launched a challenge against GOP Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, one of 10 Republicans voted to impeach the former president.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/06/bob-gibbs-to-retire-00023352

The purge continues.

 

The Growing Religious Fervor in the American Right: ‘This Is a Jesus Movement’

The Christian right has been intertwined with American conservatism for decades, culminating in the Trump era. And elements of Christian culture have long been present at political rallies. But worship, a sacred act showing devotion to God expressed through movement, song or prayer, was largely reserved for church. Now, many believers are importing their worship of God, with all its intensity, emotion and ambitions, to their political life.

At events across the United States, it is not unusual for participants to describe encountering the divine and feel they are doing their part to install God’s kingdom on earth. For them, right-wing political activity itself is becoming a holy act.

These Christians are joining secular members of the right wing, including media-savvy opportunists and those touting disinformation. They represent a wide array of discontent, from opposing vaccine mandates to promoting election conspiracy theories. For many, pandemic restrictions that temporarily closed houses of worship accelerated their distrust of government and made churchgoing political.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/06/us/christian-right-wing-politics.html

As if Repubs embrace of QAnon wasn't bad enough.

 

Texas’s voter suppression law got its first test. It worked like a charm.

The latest phase of the Republican war on voting just got an early test in the primary election in Texas. If you believe in democracy, it was a horror show. If you’re a Republican, it was a smashing success.

The Associated Press has released a new analysis covering 85 percent of the votes cast in the March 1 primary, the first held after Texas passed a bill imposing new rules and restrictions on voting, especially absentee voting. The results are stunning. A small number of absentee ballots always get rejected by election authorities if a voter didn’t follow instructions, such as failing to sign their ballot. Typical rejection rates are around 1 or 2 percent; in the 2020 general election, the national rejection rate was 0.8 percent, while in the 2018 midterm election, it was 1.4 percent. The rejection rate for absentee ballots in this year’s Texas primary was 13 percent.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/17/texas-republicans-voter-suppression-law/

 

DeSantis Has A Plan To Cram Much Of Florida Into New GOP Districts

Two days after Florida’s Republican legislative leaders publicly announced that they would let Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) draw the state’s new congressional map — an unprecedented move in its own right — the governor released a map Wednesday afternoon that was wildly slanted in his own party’s favor.

In a state that’s leaned only slightly to the right in recent years, DeSantis’ map would likely give Republicans control of four new congressional districts and take three away from Democrats: A 20-8 split, up from a 16-11 split today. (The state gained a new congressional seat as a result of population growth as reflected in the 2020 census.)
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...o-cram-much-of-florida-into-new-gop-districts

 

Ohio Supreme Court Strikes Down GOP Legislative Maps For A *Fourth* Time. Will It Matter?

By now, you may know the story: The Ohio Supreme Court, with three Democrats and its Republican chief justice making up a majority, has rejected a proposed state legislative map drawn by the GOP-dominated redistricting commission.

That’s what happened Thursday — for the fourth time. The maps, the court’s unamused majority said, were unconstitutionally slanted in Republicans’ favor, violating amendments supported by the vast majority of Ohioans against partisan gerrymandering. What’s more, the court’s majority said, the latest map was “materially identical” to the previous rejected one, and fell short on the same measures.

“As before, the commission did not adopt a plan using a process that Article XI [of the Ohio Constitution] and this court’s prior decisions require,” the court’s majority opinion read, referring to the Ohio Redistricting Commission, which includes high-profile pols like Gov. Mike DeWine (R) and Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R), pictured above.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...slative-maps-for-a-fourth-time-will-it-matter

Give the cheating attempts a rest.

 

This is what abuse of power looks like.

Florida Senate Bends Knee, Passes DeSantis’ Gerrymandered Congressional Map

The Florida Senate has approved along party lines a heavily gerrymandered congressional map after Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) vetoed the legislature’s proposal and demanded the erasure of a plurality-Black district in North Florida.

The map, proposed by DeSantis himself, would likely give the Republican Party control of more than 70% of the state’s congressional districts. By contrast, Donald Trump won 51% of Floridians’ votes in 2020, an outcome in line with other recent elections in the state.

The governor’s map is set to be approved by the state House tomorrow, and then signed into law.

The Republican gerrymander was achieved in part by slicing up two districts currently represented by Black Democratic Reps. Al Lawson and Val Demings, the latter of whom is challenging Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) for his seat in November.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...sses-desantis-gerrymandered-congressional-map


DeSantis Has A Plan To Cram Much Of Florida Into New GOP Districts
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...o-cram-much-of-florida-into-new-gop-districts