Category Archives: Democrat

After the testimony of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, is there any doubt that Donald Trump fomented the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021?

There are no longer any innocent explanations for what he did that day. Select Committee testimony has demonstrated that he knew he had no good factual or legal basis for his claim that the election was stolen, that he knew Vice President Mike Pence was not going to save him and that his only chance to remain in the White House was to stop the final ratification by Congress on Jan. 6. The testimony has also demonstrated that he knew some in the crowd assembled to hear him speak were armed, that a mob was heading to the Capitol, and that it was clearly in his power to call off the insurrection but instead of trying to stop the violence, he chose to do nothing.

The question is: Can anything be done, short of a criminal conviction, to prevent Trump from seeking to recapture the presidency?

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment disqualifies a person from being president who, while holding a federal office, participated in an insurrection against the United States.

That prohibition must surely apply to Donald Trump, and that is what the House sought to establish in Trumps second impeachment; however, because the impeachment trial was held before a full investigation of the insurrection charge had taken place, much of the most damning evidence uncovered by the Select Committee was not available. Thus, while the House will not get a second chance, there are other means of achieving Trumps disqualification, although they have never been tested in a court before now.

Whether President Biden runs in 2024, it is certain that there will be a Democrat on the ballot, and thus the Democratic Party, on behalf of all of its candidates, could bring suit in federal court right now, seeking a ruling that Donald Trump participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection and an order precluding him from even being a candidate for president.

Trump would first have to decide whether to fight the lawsuit, which would mean saying whether he was running in 2024, something he would prefer to announce at a time and place of his choosing, not when and where he is sued.

After making some procedural motions in an effort to have the case dismissed, the former president would then have to respond to discovery, including being subjected to a deposition in which he would have to answer questions under oath. Unlike the situation with the Select Committee, he would have no arguable claims of presidential privilege, so that if he refused to answer questions, the court could draw adverse inferences against him from his refusals, meaning he could no longer argue that his conduct was justified if he would not provide a factual basis for his repeated assertions that the election was stolen.Moreover, ifthe suit were filed now, there would be plenty of time for discovery, a trial, and an appeal before the primaries start in early 2024.

Like every other American, Trump would have the option of claiming the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. That path would be rather awkward for any candidate for public office, but especially for him in light of what he said during the 2016 campaign about employing that tactic:The mob takes the Fifth If youre innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?

Unlike most laws, section 3 provides a special means to avoid disqualification, which the Democrats might like as much as the trial: Two thirds of each House can vote to grant him amnesty that would require Republican Senators and Representatives to go on the record on whether Trump should be entitled to be a candidate for president, despite having been found to have been part of the insurrection.

Will this lawsuit succeed? No one can know for sure, but it seems as if there is nothing to lose, or at least not if the Department of Justice does not indict Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Alan B. Morrison is an associate dean at George Washington University Law School where he teaches constitutional law.

Read more here:

Democrats should use 14th Amendment insurrection clause to keep Trump off the ballot in 2024 - The Hill

Democrats have been awfully active in the 2022 Republican primaries. Thats right, GOP nominating contests, which are usually decided by the partys most faithful, fervent, and consistent voters.

Democrats see a batch of political opportunities in the 2022 midterm elections in helping to choose who ends up being nominated by Republicans in a range of contests, based on the logic that these flawed GOP office-seekers would be the easiest to beat in November. All the while, Democrats are on defense over President Joe Bidens sinking approval ratings, the worst inflation in 40 years, spiking gas prices, and a range of other political problems.

ANGRY ANTI-BIDEN LIBERALS MAY BE DEMOCRATS' ONLY HOPE TO AVOID MIDTERM ELECTION WIPEOUT

The Democrats' handiwork is clear in a batch of contests. In the Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial nomination fight, Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro's campaign ran ads aimed at boosting state Sen. Doug Mastriano, known for bolstering former President Donald Trump's false claims of 2020 election fraud. The gambit has worked so far, as Mastriano easily captured the GOP nomination on May 17, but trails Shapiro in the polls.

The GOP governor primary in Maryland saw similar Democratic efforts to promote the candidacy of state Del. Dan Cox in the Aug. 2 gubernatorial primary, over the more centrist Kelly Schulz. Cox is widely seen as too conservative to win statewide in deep blue Maryland. He's best-known clashes with retiring Gov. Larry Hogan, a fellow Republican, over COVID-19 restrictions.

In the Colorado Republican Senate primary, state Democrats tried to elevate Ron Hanks, who supported former Trumps baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Hanks would have been a tough sell in November to an electorate that's increasingly Democratic. But GOP primary voters weren't having it, choosing instead construction company owner Joe O'Dea, a more traditional business-minded conservative.

And the Arizona Democratic Party is disparaging a Republican gubernatorial candidate, Karrin Taylor Robson, in an apparent attempt at helping Trump-endorsed GOP rival Kari Lake, figuring the latter would be easier to beat in November.

Theres nothing particularly new about the tactic. Democrats have, sporadically for decades, tried to ensure the weakest Republican nominee emerged to fight in the general election. And Republican hands aren't totally clean either, having at times tried to prop up seemingly weak Democratic general election candidates.

After all, the Watergate scandal that drove President Richard Nixon from office in 1974 was based in part on efforts by him and his cronies to ensure the weakest possible 1972 Democratic nominee. Targets of "dirty tricks" (or the earthier "rat-f***ing" as it's known in the campaign business) included Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine, who was knocked out of the Democratic primary process early. Nixon and Co. got their man in Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota, a liberal Democrat who won a scant 17 Electoral College votes (Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.) to incumbent Nixon's whopping 520.

While the meddling has sometimes worked, it can also backfire. The nominee deemed to be the weakest fall opponent can turn out to be unexpectedly strong on the campaign trail. Also, rivals doing the primary meddling can look ham-handed and clumsy in trying to engineer their fall opponents.

Along those lines, here are some of the greatest hits and misses when Democrats have tried to choose Republican nominees.

Notable wins

California governors race, 2002: Democratic Gov. Gray Davis and his team knew they could be in for a tough ride for reelection after cruising into the governorship in 1998. The self-admitted charisma-challenged veteran of state government saw the biggest Republican threat in former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.

Riordan was a popular former mayor of the nations second-largest city. His amiable, grandfatherly demeanor set him apart from his main Republican gubernatorial primary rival, investor Bill Simon. Riordan was to Simon's left on a range of social issues. Davis, meanwhile, suffered from low approval ratings amid rolling blackouts across the state and a broader energy crisis.

But Riordans political fortunes began to plummet when Daviss campaign pumped as much as $10 million into a blitz of television commercials that portrayed the former mayor as changing his positions on abortion, the death penalty, and other issues. That gave an opening to his Simon, son of the late William E. Simon, a treasury secretary in the Nixon and Ford administrations. Simon ran as an ardent social conservative and, as a first-time campaigner, committed a series of gaffes his campaign was frequently forced to defend.

The Davis team's political instincts proved spot-on. Elevating Simon helped ensure a Davis reelection win, though relatively narrow. The Democratic incumbent won 47% to 42%, suggesting he might very well have lost had Riordan been the Republican nominee.

But the victory for Davis was short-lived. Within a year, Davis faced a statewide recall, with actor and former bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, as the leading choice to replace him. This time, there was no GOP alternative for Davis to promote, and he was tossed from office, making him only the second governor to be recalled in American political history.

Missouri Senate, 2012: Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskills reelection bid won a place in the annals of strategic campaigning by touting Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri in his competitive Republican primary. McCaskill and her campaign team knew Akin had a penchant for verbal self-inflicted wounds, but even they likely didnt imagine how well their audacious political gamble would pay off.

McCaskill, a veteran of Missouri state politics, narrowly beat a Republican incumbent in the 2006 Democratic wave. Six years later, with Missouri moving rightward, McCaskill faced a tough reelection challenge.

Several prominent Republicans had lined up for the right to oppose McCaskill, including Akin, who was first elected to the House in 2000 and known for his anti-abortion fervor going back to his days in Jefferson City as a state legislator.

Democrats believed that Akin would be the weakest Senate Republican nominee. To that end, the McCaskill campaign ahead of the Aug. 7 primary ran ads calling Akin too conservative, which were a form of thinly veiled support for Akins nomination in a red-trending state. Akin won the Republican nomination with a plurality in a close three-way race, with the McCaskill ads widely credited as having boosted his candidacy.

Less than two weeks after Akins Republican primary win, the congressman in an interview with St. Louis television station KTVI-TV, made the claim that women victims of what he described as legitimate rape rarely experience pregnancy from rape.

Not surprisingly, Akin was put on the defensive over his remarks. And McCaskill, who favored abortion rights, wasnt shy about pointing out the comment to voters. She went on to crush Akin 55%-39%, even as President Barack Obama, elected to a second White House term, lost Missouri to Republican nominee Mitt Romney 54% to 44%.

Meddling that backfired

California governors race, 1966: Its nearly unimaginable now, but San Francisco, known as Americas largest liberal city, once had a string of Republican mayors. The last one was George Christopher, who was in office from 1956 to 1964. Like other San Francisco mayors, Christopher had statewide ambitions and sought Californias governorship in 1966.

First, though, Christopher had to get through the Republican primary against a political rookie coming off a Hollywood career named Ronald Reagan. Democratic Gov. Pat Brown was seeking a third term, after eight years in office presiding over Californias rapid growth. Brown and his strategists wanted to get the more centrist Christopher out of the way so the governor could instead face Reagan, the conservative political newcomer the incumbent thought would be weaker.

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So, Democratic operatives dug up Christophers old conviction for violating milk-pricing law from the days when the former San Francisco mayor owned a dairy. Democrats leaked it to a friendly columnist. Though the matter had been used against Christopher in previous campaigns, it stuck. Reagan went on to win the Republican nomination by a nearly 2-to-1 margin.

And soon after, Democrats realized they had created a political monster. Reagan proved a much more formidable candidate than Brown and Democrats had expected. Reagan ran on a tough-on-crime platform and promises to crack down on college campus protests, among other issues. Reagan beat Brown 58%-42%, setting him on the road to winning the presidency 14 years later.

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Heres when Democratic meddling in GOP primaries worked best and when it backfired - Washington Examiner

As a scholar studying working-class and rural whites, I have written about this subtle but consequential divide. I have also lived it. I grew up working-class white, and I watched my truck driver father and teachers aide mother struggle mightily to stay on the settled side of the ledger. They worked to pay the bills, yes, but also because work set them apart from those in their community who were willing to accept public benefits. Work represented the moral high ground. Work was their religion.

We lived in an all-white corner of the Arkansas Ozarks, so my parents werent fretting about the Black folks Ronald Reagan would later denigrate with the welfare queen stereotype. They were talking about their lazy neighbors. They called these folks white trash, the worst slur they knew.

Though Vance described this divide in Hillbilly Elegy, readers unfamiliar with the white working class may not have picked up on it. Vances beloved grandparents, Mamaw and Papaw, represented hard work. Papaw had a steady job at the Armco steel millone good enough to draw him and hundreds like him out of the Appalachian Kentucky hills to Middletown, Ohio. Indeed, it was such a good job that Mamaw could stay home and take care of the kids. Though they were crass and unconventional by polite, mainstream standards, Papaw and Mamaws work ethic positioned them in the settled working class.

Vance (bottom) grew up in the shadow of the steel mills in Middletown, Ohio (top), where he became very familiar with two distinct groups of working-class whites. Academics refer to these groups as the settled working class and the hard living.|Al Behrman/AP Photo and Drew Angerer/Getty Images

From that perch, Vances grandparents harshly judged neighbors who didnt work. They even judged their daughter, Vances mother, Bev. Though shed trained for a good job, as a nurse, Bevs drug use and frequent churn of male partners led to the instability associated with the hard living. Indeed, at one point Vance uses that very term to refer to his mother: Moms behavior grew increasingly erratic, Vance writes. She was more roommate than parent, and of the three of us Mom, [my sister], and me Mom was the roommate most prone to hard living as she partied and stayed out til the wee hours of the morning.

Given the childhood trauma associated with his mothers behavior, its perhaps not surprising that Vance came to emulate his grandparents judgmental stance toward the hard living. This is illustrated by his condemnation of shirking co-workers at a warehouse job and those who used food stamps (SNAP) to pay for the groceries he bagged as a teenager. (It seems that Vance also inherited his familys pugilistic tendencies, which have come in handy with his conversion to Trumpism; words like scumbag and idiot, which readers of Hillbilly Elegy can easily imagine coming out of Mamaws mouth, have become staples of Vances campaign vocabulary).

Ultimately, of course, Vance traveled far from his modest roots to graduate from Yale Law School and become a venture capitalist. For this success, he credited the hard work and boot-strapping mentality he learned from his grandparents. What Vance didnt credit not explicitly, anyway were the structural forces that benefitted him and his grandparents. For Vance, these included an undergraduate degree from an excellent public university (Ohio State) and opportunities in the military. For his grandparents, these included that good union job at Armco Steeleven as Papaw complained about the union. (A significant faction of workers believe that hard-working people like themselves dont need unions, that unions simply protect slackers from hard work. My own fathers pet peeve was unionized loading dock employees whose generous breaks delayed getting his truck loaded or unloaded and thus back on the road earning money. The naming of right-to-work laws plays to this mindset.)

Like Vance, settled white workers tend to see themselves living a version of the American dream grounded primarily if not entirely in their own agency. They believe they can survive, even thrive, if they just work hard enough. And some of them are doing just that. Because they lean into the grit of the individual, they tend to downplay structural obstacles to their quest to make a living, e.g., poor schools and even crummy job markets, just as they downplay structural benefits. They also discount white privilege because giving skin color credit for what they have achieved devalues the significance of their work. This mindset is also the reason that when Obama said in 2012, if youve got a business, you didnt build that, the remark landed so badly among the settled working class. Theyre not accustomed to sharing credit for what they have perhaps especially when they dont have much.

Vance and my parents are mere anecdotes, yes, but scholars have documented the phenomenon they represent. Kathryn Edin of Princeton University, Jennifer Sherman of Washington State University and Monica Prasad of Northwestern University have studied folks like them in both urban and rural locales. What settled and hard living express as cultural phenomena, Edin and colleagues express quantitatively as the second-lowest income quintile dissociating from the bottom quintile the very place from whence many had climbed. Edin described that disassociation as a virulent social distancing suddenly, youre a worker and anyone who is not a worker is a bad person.

Journalists have also brought us illustrations of the settled working class. Alec MacGillis did so in a 2015 New York Times essay, introducing us to Pamela Dougherty of Marshalltown, Iowa, a staunch opponent of safety net programs. As a teenaged mother who divorced young, Pamelas own journey had been rocky, and she had benefitted from taxpayer-funded tuition breaks at community college to become a nurse. But at the dialysis center where Pamela worked and where Medicare covered everyones treatment regardless of age, she noticed that very few patients had regular jobs. Pamela resented this. She thought the patients should have hoops to jump through to get the treatment, just as shed had to keep up her grades when she was getting assistance with college. She thought they should have some skin in the game.

Atul Gawande brought us a similar tale in a 2017 New Yorker article about whether health care should be a right. He introduced us to Monna, a librarian earning $16.50 an hour in Athens, Ohio. After taxes and health insurance premiums were deducted, Monna was taking home less than $1,000 a month, and her health insurance annual deductible was a whopping $3,000. It was her retired husbands pension, military benefits, and Medicare all benefits considered earned, not handouts that kept them afloat. In spite of this struggle, Monna didnt support health care as a right because it was another way of undermining responsibility. Noting that she could quit her job and get Medicaid for free like some of her neighbors were doing, Monna explained that she was old school and not really good at accepting anything I dont work for.

Exit polls from 2016 also reflect this division, with the lowest-income voters supporting Clintonand therefore safety-net programs associated with Democratsby the greatest margin, 53 percent to 41 percent over Trump. It was folks earning $50,000 to $99,000, those who depending on region and family size might be considered settled working class, who preferred Trump by the greatest margin of all income brackets 50 percent to 46 percent.

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There Is a Major Rift Dividing the White Working Class And Democrats Are Clueless - POLITICO

Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried is running for the Democratic nomination for governor to unseat Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.Wilfredo Lee/AP Photo

Nikki Fried is running for the Democratic nomination for governor to face off against Ron DeSantis.

Florida will soon ban abortions after 15 weeks.

"Voters now have the power again," Fried told Insider in an interview.

The Supreme Court's decision to leave the legality of abortion up to the states will upend the midterm elections, said Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Nikki Fried.

"Voters now have the power again," Fried said in an interview with Insider on Friday. "The power was in the Supreme Court and they neglected the will of Americans all across the country. And now it goes back into the people's hands and making sure they are electing and voting for pro-choice candidates up and down the ballot."

Fried is Florida's agriculture commissioner who is running for the Democratic nomination for governor against Rep. Charlie Crist, whose district includes St. Petersburg. Crist was formerly a Republican and was the state's governor from 2007 to 2011.

Fried's comments came after the conservative majority of the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to to uphold a Mississippi ban on abortion after 15 weeks in Dobbs v. Jackson. The justices also voted 5-4 to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that has been on the books since 1973.

The decision turns the legality of abortion to the states unless Congress unifies to pass a national guarantee for abortion rights or unless a future GOP majority passes a national ban or other restriction.

Florida has long allowed abortions for up to 24 weeks into a pregnancy, but on July 1 a new law will take effect that will ban abortions after 15 weeks, with no exceptions for rape, incest, or human trafficking. The restrictions will affect not just Florida patients but people who travel there from nearby states and from Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, and South America.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis one of the biggest stars in the Republican party who is up for reelection signed Florida's ban into law and on Friday and issued a statement on Twitter applauding the ruling. He also hinted that more restrictions on abortions in Florida were ahead.

Story continues

"Florida will continue to defend its recently-enacted pro-life reforms against state court challenges, will work to expand pro-life protections, and will stand for life by promoting adoption, foster care and child welfare," he said.

Fried told Insider that DeSantis' statement "turned my stomach."

"He has to be now held accountable to the people of our state," she said, pointing to polling that showed most Floridians support legalized abortion.

Fried will be attending an abortion rights rally in Miami's Wynwood neighborhood on Friday evening, and had appeared at a Planned Parenthood rally in downtown Miami before her interview with Insider. She said the Supreme Court's decision "changes our race significantly" and was a "mobilizing call."

It's still possible that Florida's Supreme Court might strike down the 15-week ban because the state constitution guarantees the right to privacy, though the court is now majority conservative after DeSantis made several appointments and after Crist made one appointment when he was a GOP governor.

Fried slammed Crist for his actions when he was governor, and said that if elected to the role she would side with challengers of the ban.

Crist is currently the Democratic frontrunner and has made inconsistent remarks on abortion throughout his career, including calling himself "pro-life." Crist now says he is "running for governor to protect Roe v. Wade." On Friday he released a video calling the Supreme Court's decision "a gut-wrenching day for women and reproductive freedom in our country."

If elected, Fried vowed to support a constitutional amendment to ensure the state's constitution was clear on abortion rights. One approach to enshrine the rights would be to petition to get the issue on the ballot. Then, voters would have a direct say on abortion laws.

In her interview, Fried also hit DeSantis regarding the rumors that he'll be running for president in 2024. DeSantis has not said he's running for president, but he also hasn't committed to bowing out if former President Donald Trump runs as several other Republicans, including former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, have done.

"He is listening to primary voters in a presidential run in 2024 and he's doing it on the backs of Floridians," Fried said. "If he continues on this trajectory there is no doubt in my mind that I am going to be elected governor of our state."

It's not yet clear whether abortion rights will be the lighting-rod issue Democrats need to win races in November. They're running at a time when President Joe Biden's approval ratings are sagging and people are struggling with high inflation, as well as high costs of gas, housing, and food.

Fried said she saw abortion as another issue for voters to consider, along with economic issues, healthcare access, and new gun laws.

"It's an encompassing of: This is what's wrong with our state," Fried said. "We have had 28 years of one-party rule of our state and people are suffering at the local level and add this on top of all the other issues.My goal is to make sure voters know that there is a way out of all of this."

Read the original article on Business Insider

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Democrat Nikki Fried, who's running for Florida governor to unseat Ron DeSantis, says the Roe decision upends the race - Yahoo News

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) A recount in Texas affirmed Democrat U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar as the winner Tuesday of his primary race against progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros, who had trailed by fewer than 200 votes following a runoff in May.

Cuellar, a nine-term congressman, defeated Cisneros by 289 votes, according to the results of the recount announced by the Texas Democratic Party.

The Associated Press had not previously declared a winner in the race because it had been too close to call.

It is the second time that Cisneros, a 29-year-old immigration attorney who once interned for Cuellar, has lost a challenge to her former boss, whose moderate record along Texas heavily Hispanic southern border has aligned him at times with Republicans on issues including abortion and guns.

This time Cisneros got even closer than in 2020, when she lost by 4 percentage points behind national support from the partys progressive leaders, including Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. They endorsed her again in the rematch along with abortion-rights groups that swooped into the raceas the U.S. Supreme Court signaled it might overturn Roe v. Wade.

WATCH: How Georgia, Arizona officials defended the election from Trump pressure

With this close of a margin, its clear that without their aggressive interference in the lives of South Texas families, we would have won, Cisneros said. The biggest thing holding us back from pursuing the change we deserve is their fear. Fear of change, fear of the future. But the only way you defeat fear is with courage and determination that in the richest nation in the world, we all deserve to thrive.

Cuellar is one of the last anti-abortion Democrats in Congressand has also bucked the party for years over his support of gun rights and a tougher stance on immigration. But he still kept the support of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic leadership.

To those who did not vote for me, as your congressman I will continue to work diligently for you in Washington, Cuellar said. While we may differ on certain positions, we share a common ground on many issues to improve our communities and strengthen families.

Cuellar will face Republican Cassy Garcia in November in a district that remains favorable to Democrats, But the GOP has growing confidence in South Texas, a longtime Democratic stronghold, after Republican Mayra Floresflipped an open congressional seat in a special election Tuesday.

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Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar declared winner in Texas recount - PBS NewsHour

The Federal Election Commission is sowing chaos. So say three of the agencys six commissioners.

In a May 13statement, Republican Commissioners Allen Dickerson, Sean Cooksey, and Trey Trainor noted that lawsuits have been filed against the Commission for failing to act even though the FEChasacted. The problem stems from the Democratic commissioners refusal to administratively close out complaints that the Commission deemed not worthy of investigating.

The failure to publicly disclose that the complaint has been dismissed has affirmatively misled those charged with irregularities into thinking that the complaints against them are still active.

The three Democratic commissioners have also refused to authorize the FEC to defend itself against lawsuits arising from their failure to close out cases that wont be pursued. This means the FEC is misleading federal judges by not informing them that the agency has already reviewed and dismissed the cases in question.

Put simply, the Democratic commissioners are violating federal law. By refusing to disclose that meritless complaints have been dismissed, they are misleading the public and the courts and aiding and abetting their allies attempts to smear their political opponents. As their fellow commissionersnoted,this cynical abuse of power exercises a corrosive influence on the commission and undermines fundamental fairness and foundational notions of due process for candidates, political parties, and independent organizations who participate in the political process.

>>>Dirty Tricks Are Only More Sophisticated 50 Years After Watergate

First, some background. The FEC is an independent federal agency charged with civil enforcement of the Federal Election Campaign Act, the federal law that governs how all congressional and presidential campaigns raise and spend funds. It is run by six commissioners nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

By law, no three commissioners can be affiliated with the same political party. To further ensure that the FEC does not engage in partisan law enforcement activity, the lawrequiresthe votes of four commissioners for the agency to take any action. This ensures bipartisanship in enforcement and is supposed to prevent one party from controlling the FEC and using it to target the candidates and supporters of the other political party for partisan purposes.

Now, however, the three Democratic commissionersSteven Walther, Shana Broussard, and Ellen Weintraubare breaking the law, giving the public and the courts the false impression that certain enforcement cases remain open when they have, in fact, been terminated.

Why would they do this? To facilitate private lawsuits filed by their political friends against their political opposition.

Heres how they are doing it. Once the FEC receives a complaint that someone or some organization has violated federal campaign laws, the target of the complaint is asked to file a response with the FEC. The commissioners then review the complaint and the response to determine if there are sufficient grounds to believe that a violation has occurred and that a formal investigation should be initiated.

Unless at least four commissioners vote to open an investigation, the matter ends there. The Commission has decided there is no merit to the complaint.

In the past, when that occurred, the Commission would then take a quick, purely ministerial vote to administratively close the file. This, in turn, triggered another provision of the law.

While an FEC complaint is under active consideration and investigation, it must remain confidential. However, once a matter is closede.g., when a majority of commissioners does not believe there is even sufficient evidence to open an investigationthe general counsel of the FECmustnotify all the parties involved and make the documents public within 30 days. The commissioners who decided there was no violation of the law are also required to provide a Statement of Reasons explaining their decision.

This gives the targets of meritless complaints closure. If whoever filed the complaint believes the FEC acted contrary to law by refusing to open an investigation, the public disclosure allows them to file suit against the agency. Those Statements of Reason are crucial to a court being able to determine whether the FEC acted contrary to law.

However, more than a year ago, Commissioners Walther, Broussard, and Weintraub began refusing to administratively close a file after a final vote determined there were insufficient votes to open an investigation. This prevented the parties, the public, and the courts from being notified that the FEC had reviewed the complaint and determined there wasnt enough evidence to justify an investigation.

While these cases remain in FEC limbo, partisan lawfare operations like the Campaign Legal Center are able to sue the accused, even though the Commission has already decided no violation of the law occurred. Liberal media and the organizations filing the dubious complaints may also continue to publicly defame and malign the targeted organizations by claiming they violated federal law.

This perversion of the system has hit close to home for me. I work for the Heritage Foundation, a 501(c)(3) educational organization that does not lobby or support candidates. But we have a related organization, Heritage Action for America, that does get involved in advocating for conservative policies.

>>>Best Practices and Standards for Election Audits

The Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint against Heritage Action. The FEC subsequently concluded, more than a year ago, it had no merit. But the three Democratic-appointed commissioners refused to approve closing the file and making the decision public. Heritage Action had to use the Freedom of Information Act to get a copy of the recorded vote documenting that the original complaint was dismissed.

In the meantime, however, the Campaign Legal Center got permission from a federal judge to file a lawsuit directly against Heritage Action. The FEC never notified the judge that it had already acted and decided no violation of the law had occurred.

According to the Republican commissioners, seven other organizations are in the same fix, with complaints against them dismissed by the FEC but where the three Democratic commissioners refuse to administratively close the files and have essentially ignored them.

As the Republican commissioners note, their colleagues are weaponizing a nominal housekeeping act to create the public impression that the FEC is not doing its job, even though we have actually finished it. It also allows liberal advocacy groups to generate frivolous, time-consuming, expensive lawsuits against conservative organizations like Heritage Action.

Heritage Action is now suing the FEC over the unethical behavior of its Democratic commissioners. But others should act as well. The federal judges who are being misled by the agencys nondisclosures should force the FEC to disclose all records pertaining to complaints and other matters that are the subjects of the lawsuits filed in their courts.

And there should be consequences for the three commissioners (two of whom served with me when I was on the FEC in 2006 and 2007) who are refusing to abide by their oath of office to uphold the law.

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Democrat Commissioners Weaponize FEC Against Heritage Action, Other Organizations - Heritage.org

The House of Representatives voted Friday to pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, sending the legislation to President Joe Bidens desk.

The legislation, negotiated by ten Republicans and ten Democrats in the Senate, incentivizes states to institute red flag laws and offers block grants for mental health services. The upper chamber passed the bill Thursday night, with 15 Republicans joining all 50 Democrats in support.

The House passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act 234-193, with 14 Republicans joining all 220 Democrats in support. All no votes came from Republicans. (RELATED: Senate Votes To Begin Debate On Bipartisan Gun Control Legislation Shortly After Releasing Its Contents)

While it isnt everything we would have liked to see in legislation, it takes us down the road, the path, to more safety, saving lives, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said at a press conference shortly before the vote. Let us not judge the legislation for what it does not do, but respect it for what it does. And what it does is something that our inspiration for all of us on the House side, Rep. Lucy McBath, has said to us, we must get something done. For the children.'

Some conservatives have expressed concern about the red flag provision, noting that individuals who are subject to it will not be provided with attorneys for legal proceedings. Another provision extends limits on gun ownership for individuals convicted of domestic violence-related offenses, closing what some call the boyfriend loophole.

Five of the 14 Republicans who voted in favor have already announced their respective retirements, while a sixth South Carolina Rep. Tom Rice lost to a primary challenger.

Link:

14 House Republicans Join With Every Democrat To Send Gun Control Bill To Bidens Desk - Daily Caller

Texas Democratic SheriffsTexas Democratic District AttorneysTexas Democratic County Judges & CommissionersTexas Democratic ConstablesTexas Mayors

We are writing to you, leaders and chiefs of your respective local governments and law enforcement agencies, to urge you to use your legal authority and discretion to refuse to enforce the provisions of Senate Bill 8, Senate Bill 4, and House Bill 1280: all new laws passed by our extremist, Republican controlled legislature in 2021.

District Attorneys and local law enforcement agencies have significant discretion to decide what cases to prioritize and pursue. Four Texas DAs have already promised not to prosecute abortion-related crimes.

Today, with the overturning of Roe V. Wade by the Supreme Court, Texans in every corner of the state are fearful for their safety, health, and lives. When the Texas Legislature passed SB 8 (87R), their intention was to subject women and the LGBT community to a second-class status where they would no longer be in control of their own bodies, and thus, their own destiny. As Texas Democrats, we denounce todays decision and those who enabled these extremists to take away a deeply personal and private right afforded to every woman in America.

The Texas Democratic Party Platform is crystal clear Texas Democrats fully support the legal right to a safe abortion because this is an important medical procedure. SB 8 and similar legislation are a clear assault not only on Texans, but our values as Democrats.

No matter what the United States Supreme Court says: abortion is a valid, safe, and important healthcare procedure that should never be restricted by any power or authority. No group of Americans understand that more than Texans as their right to an abortion has been under assault here for decades.

The health, safety, and rights of Texans are not up for negotiation. By passing these laws, they are putting your departments and communities reputation at risk. They are making your job, and the job of your rank-and-file law enforcement officers, more difficult. They are compromising your relationship with the communities you serve.

When you assumed office, you took an oath to uphold constitutional rights, and to keep your communities safe. You signed up to make hard decisions that would save the lives of your constituents. Now is the time to take action the health and safety of Texans, and our constitutional rights, are at stake. Please do what is right and refuse to enforce every provision of Texas abortion prohibition.

Sincerely,

Gilberto HinojosaTexas Democratic Party Chair, Cameron County

Shay Wyrick CatheyTexas Democratic Party Vice Chair, Dallas County

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Texas Democratic Party Leaders Call On Local Governments and Law Enforcement Agencies to Protect Texas Women and Healthcare Providers by Refusing to...

When Joe Biden was hitting the campaign trail in 2020, he bragged about how during his decades in the U.S. Senate he was able to work with right-wing Republicans, find common ground and get productive legislation passed. Many of today's MAGA Republicans, in contrast, brag about refusing to compromise with Democrats and act as though millions of Democratic voters simply don't exist or don't matter.

That mindset was evident when Gavin Wax, president of the New York Young Republican Club, made aJune 2 appearance on One America News a cable news outlet that's known for promoting far-right conspiracy theories and prides itself on being to the right of Fox News and Fox Business. OAN's Kara McKinney brought Wax on the show "Tipping Point," which she hosts, to discuss gun control, and Wax's comments went beyond the usual gun lobby and National Rifle Association (NRA) talking points.

Wax told McKinney, "We certainly have a lower rate of mass shooting from many other countries across the world, and if you take out some of the big cities in the U.S. and the gang and drug-related instances of mass shootings, the United States is actually one of the safest places in the world. But of course, you know, the Democrats and the media are going to politicize and weaponize this issue because their end goal is to disarm law-abiding U.S. citizens and make us a less free country as a result."

First, the U.S. is much more violent than countries in Europe are known for being. Residents of the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Austria, Sweden and many other European countries are horrified by how common mass shootings are in the U.S., where a May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas left 19 children and two teachers dead. It came less than two weeks after a May 14mass shooting in Buffalo, New Yorkthat claimed ten lives.

Second, Wax's comments showed total indifference to residents of major urban areas, many of whom vote Democrat. Those comments reflect a MAGA mindset that the concerns of voters don't count if they live in large cities.

But Wax is hardly the only Republican who thinks that way. Just as Wax implied that voters who are worried about violence don't count if they are urban dwellers,Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisianarecently commented that his state's high rate of maternal mortality isn't bad if you don't focus too heavily on African-American women.

Cassidy, in May, told Politico that when it comes to pregnancy-related deaths, "If you correct our population for race, we're not as much of an outlier as it'd otherwise appear."

Journalist Tat Bellamy-Walker, reporting on Cassidy for NBC News, explained, "Louisiana has some of the highest Black maternal death rates in the country. Areport from the state's health departmentshows that four Black mothers die for every White mother and two Black babies die for every one White baby. In the United States, Black mothers are three times more likely to die in childbirth than White mothers."

The fact that so many of the maternal deaths in Louisiana involve African-American women doesn't mean that Louisiana doesn't have a major problem with maternal deaths; in fact, it underscores the problem.

Following the 2020 presidential election, far-right Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit seeking tothrow out millions of votesin four states that Biden won: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia. The fact that Biden was the clear favorite in Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee and Atlanta all of which have a lot of Black voters didn't matter to Paxton, who couldn't have cared less about the will of voters in those cities. And he wanted their votes invalidated.

In aop-ed/essay published by the New York Timeson June 3, journalist Mimi Swartz executive editor of the Texas Monthly expresses her extreme frustration with Gov. Greg Abbott, arguing that he is totally indifferent to millions of Texans who aren't "hard-right culture warriors."

During his June 2 appearance on OAN, Wax angrily railed against "RINOs" (Republican in Name Only) who are willing to work with Democrats on gun control legislation. Wax's mindset is very much an us-versus-them mentality, and in today's Republican Party, it isn't at all uncommon.

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To the right-wing, Democrat votes don't count - Salon

Former Rep. Max Rose (D-NY) went against his party to condemn Hunter Biden's involvement in Ukrainian energy company Burisma as a conflict of interest.

Rose, who was ousted in the 2020 elections from his seat in a swing district covering Staten Island, said the New York Post got a "raw deal" when its report on Biden's laptop being abandoned at a repair shop in Delaware was censored across several social media. Other organizations have since corroborated the October 2020 report showing evidence that Biden and his father, who was the vice president at the time, held a meeting with Burisma Holdings adviser Vadym Pozharskyi.

"There is no doubt in my mind that what Hunter Biden did was wrong, being on the Burisma board and engaging in whatever else he dealt with, Rose said.

ADDICTION, INFIDELITY, AND SHAME: HUNTER BIDEN'S EX-WIFE OPENS UP ABOUT MARRIAGE

The former congressman served in President Joe Biden's administration as a senior adviser on COVID-19 to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. After serving in the administration for a year, Rose gave the president a "B-" grade.

"Theres no doubt that the actual execution of the withdrawal was tragic in nature," the former Afghan veteran said. "It was difficult to see."

Rose, who is running against his successor, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), to reclaim the Staten Island district, alluded to other members of his party shying away from tough primary battles. He swiped at the decision of Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY), who represents the 17th Congressional District, not to run in either of the newly drawn 16th or 18th Districts after the map was finalized in the wake of the 2020 census, but rather to run in the 10th District, roughly 40 miles south of his home.

What kind of message does it send when Democrats run away to different districts because they think having to earn the votes of Republicans and independents means their political career is over? Rose said Monday. If we can only win in seats where Joe Biden won by more than 10 points, then we will never build the coalition we need to end gun violence, protect a womans right to choose, and make this country affordable. And frankly, the Democratic Party doesnt deserve to win if its willing to give up earning the trust of every American.

The centrist backs some preferred Republican policies, such as hardening schools with increased security and increasing drilling on U.S. soil to relieve high gas prices.

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Democrats across New York have scrambled to find new home districts after the lines drawn by a special master were finalized in late May. The new map drew the homes of some representatives, including Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, out of the districts they represent and pitted incumbents, notably longtime Reps. Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, against each other.

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'What Hunter Biden did was wrong': Democrat blasts the first son - Washington Examiner