Vote Like Your Country Depends On It, Con't

Republicans are well aware that if they limit voting eligibility only to older, white people who can afford to take time off on a Tuesday in November and make it impossible for other people to do so, they'll win every time.

 

A top Republican legal strategist told a roomful of GOP donors over the weekend that conservatives must band together to limit voting on college campuses, same-day voter registration and automatic mailing of ballots to registered voters, according to a copy of her presentation reviewed by The Washington Post.

Cleta Mitchell, a longtime GOP lawyer and fundraiser who worked closely with former president Donald Trump to try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, gave the presentation at a Republican National Committee donor retreat in Nashville on Saturday.

The presentation — which had more than 50 slides and was labeled “A Level Playing Field for 2024” — offered a window into a strategy that seems designed to reduce voter access and turnout among certain groups, including students and those who vote by mail, both of which tend to skew Democratic.

Mitchell did not respond to a request for comment, and it is unclear whether she delivered the presentation exactly as it was prepared on her PowerPoint slides. But in addition to the presentation, The Post listened to audio of portions of the presentation obtained by liberal journalist Lauren Windsor in which Mitchell discussed limiting campus and early voting.

“What are these college campus locations?” she asked, according to the audio. “What is this young people effort that they do? They basically put the polling place next to the student dorm so they just have to roll out of bed, vote, and go back to bed.”

The GOP has not formally endorsed Mitchell’s plan but has worked closely with her since Trump left office. The presentation made clear that at least some key figures within the party remain intent on tightening rules for voting and elections. The persistence of the message as the 2024 vote approaches comes despite the fact that candidates who emphasized Trump’s stolen election narrative were repudiated in many key statewide races in the 2022 midterms.

After the presentation, Mitchell was seen at the Four Seasons hotel bar, meeting with donors and Republican strategists.

“As the RNC continues to strengthen our Election Integrity program, we are thankful for leaders like Cleta Mitchell who do important work for the Republican ecosystem. Our guests in Nashville were grateful for her to travel to the event and share her efforts,” said Keith Schipper, an RNC spokesman.

Mitchell told her RNC audience that her organization, the Election Integrity Network, “is NOT about winning campaigns,” according to the text of the presentation. But the slides gave little other rationale for why campus or mail voting should be curtailed. At another point in the presentation, she said the nation’s electoral systems must be saved “for any candidate other than a leftist to have a chance to WIN in 2024.”

 

They don't want you to vote.

 

That's the whole story.

 

Vote.

Here Comes The Judge, Con't

It looks like Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is going to have to face Jim Jordan's circus proceedings whether he wants to or not, because the federal judge in today's hearing made it very clear the House GOP has the right to interfere in his case against Donald Trump.

 

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s legal team lost their bid to block the deposition of his former deputy on Wednesday, as a federal judge appointed by former President Trump quickly rejected the prosecutor’s request for a restraining order after a fiery hearing.

In a 25-page opinion and order issued within two hours of the hearing, U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil deployed a phrase often used against Trump and repackaged it for Bragg’s ex-deputy Mark Pomerantz.

“The subpoena was issued with a ‘valid legislative purpose’ in connection with the
‘broad’ and ‘indispensable’ congressional power to ‘conduct investigations,'” she wrote. “It is not the role of the federal judiciary to dictate what legislation Congress may consider or how it should conduct its deliberations in that connection. Mr. Pomerantz must appear for the congressional deposition. No one is above the law.”

Earlier on Wednesday, Judge Vyskocil interrupted Bragg’s attorney Theodore Boutrous repeatedly throughout the hourlong hearing, accusing him of playing politics.

“There’s politics going on here on both sides here,” Vyskocil said. “Let’s be honest about that.”

When reports emerged that a grand jury was gearing up to indict Trump, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan started scrutinizing Bragg in a series of letters that capped off in a letter to his former deputy Mark Pomerantz. Bragg accused Jordan of an unprecedented campaign of interference into a local prosecutor’s investigation. The DA eventually sued Jordan and his committee in federal court.

Vyskocil rattled off at length about her view of the political backdrop of the spat toward the end of the opinion, which includes 17 footnotes.

“In our federalist system, elected state and federal actors sometimes engage in political dogfights,” she wrote in her conclusion. “Bragg complains of political interference in the local DANY case, but Bragg does not operate outside of the political arena. Bragg is presumptively acting in good faith. That said, he is an elected prosecutor in New York County with constituents, some of whom wish to see Bragg wield the force of law against the former President and a current candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Jordan, in turn, has initiated a political response to what he and some of his constituents view as a manifest abuse of power and nakedly political prosecution, funded (in part) with federal money, that has the potential to interfere with the exercise of presidential duties and with an upcoming federal election. The Court does not endorse either side’s agenda. The sole question before the Court at this time is whether Bragg has a legal basis to quash a congressional subpoena that was issued with a valid legislative purpose. He does not.”

 

So, no, Bragg is going to have to answer Jordan's raft of subpoenas, and this judge is going to make sure that Bragg gets investigated, intimidated, delayed, stopped, sabotaged, frustrated and delayed at every single turn.

Jordan and the House GOP couldn't have asked for a better judge if it was Trump himself presiding over the hearings, because "There’s politics going on here on both sides here, Let’s be honest about that.”

So, both sides, yay.

Bragg is quite possibly screwed at this point, and we may not see this case for years, if at all, because this Judge thinks House GOP is operating in good faith, Jesus.