Black Lives Still Matter, Redlined Edition

Racism has been a tax on Blackness in America for centuries, and even with laws supposedly protecting us, being Black in America always has an unspoken and very real price.

Last summer, Nathan Connolly and his wife, Shani Mott, welcomed an appraiser into their house in Baltimore, hoping to take advantage of historically low interest rates and refinance their mortgage.

They believed that their house — improved with a new $5,000 tankless water heater and $35,000 in other renovations — was worth much more than the $450,000 that they paid for it in 2017. Home prices have been on the rise nationwide since the pandemic; in Baltimore, they have gone up 42 percent in the past five years, according to Zillow.com.

But 20/20 Valuations, a Maryland appraisal company, put the home’s value at $472,000, and in turn, loanDepot, a mortgage lender, denied the couple a refinance loan.

Dr. Connolly said he knew why: He, his wife and three children, aged 15, 12 and 9, are Black. A professor of history at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Connolly is an expert on redlining and the legacy of white supremacy in American cities, and much of his research focuses on the role of race in the housing market.

Months after that first appraisal, the couple applied for another refinance loan, removed family photos and had a white male colleague — another Johns Hopkins professor — stand in for them. The second appraiser valued the house at $750,000.

This week, Dr. Connolly and Dr. Mott sued loanDepot, which is based in Foothill Ranch, Calif., as well as 20/20 Valuations and Shane Lanham, the owner of 20/20 Valuations. Mr. Lanham is the appraiser who conducted the first appraisal.

“We were clearly aware of appraisal discrimination,” said Dr. Connolly, 44. “But to be told in so many words that our presence and the life we’ve built in our home brings the property value down? It’s an absolute gut punch.”

The home appraisal industry, which relies partly on subjective opinions to translate home values into dollars and cents, has faced a firestorm of criticism over the past two years.

More than 97 percent of home appraisers are white, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and since the summer of 2020, when conversations on race and discrimination in America rose to the forefront following the murder of George Floyd, dozens of Black homeowners have alleged discrimination in the home valuations they received. Some have filed lawsuits, and the Biden administration in March announced a set of planned reforms to overhaul the appraisal industry and dismantle systemic bias.

Dr. Connolly and Dr. Mott live in the North Baltimore neighborhood of Homeland, known for its strong public schools and colonial architecture, which has earned it a place on the National Register of Historic Places. A majority of their neighbors are white. According to their complaint, which was filed in Maryland District Court on Monday, the couple applied to refinance their mortgage with loanDepot in May 2021. The lender approved a loan at a rate of 2.25 percent and, according to the complaint, told the couple that their home was likely now worth $550,000 or more.

 

Being Black cost this family hundreds of thousands of dollars in wealth.

 

Folks, discrimination in America isn't "I'm not going to offer you my services because you're Black." It's "I'm going to short-change you, charge you more, and give white folk better deals because you're Black."

 

The Black Tax is real. It costs us millions in a generation, billions in a lifetime, trillions over the course of America's existence.

 

Black Lives Still Matter.

Last Call For Here Comes The Gov, Con't

Kyle Kondik over at Sabato's Crystal Ball notes that Democrats have a long road to get back to evening up the country to go from 22 to even 25 governor's mansions this year. Even with big pickups in Maryland and Massachusetts from outgoing Republicans Larry Hogan and Charlie Baker, Dems have a lot of heavy lifting to do in order to defend seats in nearly a dozen competitive races...including Oregon.

Republican incumbents are in great shape to hold New Hampshire and Vermont. Elsewhere in New England, Gov. Ned Lamont (D-CT) has posted surprisingly robust approval ratings as he faces a rematch with businessman Bob Stefanowski (R). Next door, Gov. Dan McKee (D-RI) — who took over when his predecessor, Gina Raimondo (D), became Secretary of Commerce — has to get through a primary against, most notably, Rhode Island Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea (D) and former CVS executive Helena Foulkes (D). The primary victor is likely to face newcomer Ashley Kalus (R). If things break right for Republicans down the stretch of the election, Connecticut or Rhode Island might be like New Jersey’s race was last year — surprisingly close and competitive.

As of now, the hottest race in New England comes in Maine, where Gov. Janet Mills (D) is seeking a second term against her predecessor, former Gov. Paul LePage (R). Our understanding is that while this race remains a viable Republican target, it has not moved into true Toss-up territory yet. It definitely remains worth watching, though, as we can imagine LePage — who has been on decent behavior recently, given his typical penchant for stirring controversy — rallying the state’s large cadre of white, working-class voters to victory once again.

A key thing to watch in Pennsylvania is whether the well-heeled Republican Governors Association actually decides to spend there; as it is now, Shapiro has a ton of money to spend while Mastriano hardly has any. The Keystone State is so competitive that we would not expect Shapiro to win by the big margin that some polls show given what we still expect to be a Republican-leaning overall political environment, but it does appear that Shapiro retains the edge. The same is true of Whitmer in Michigan, which is really the only swing state that appears likely to have a statewide ballot issue on abortion this year. That issue dominating the race is just fine for Democrats, who have already highlighted GOP nominee Tudor Dixon’s (R) stringent anti-abortion stance.

As noted above, GOP incumbents DeSantis in Florida and Kemp in Georgia both appear to be ahead in their races. One very clear bright spot for Republicans is that, in our eyes, all of their incumbent governors are favored to win. Kemp is really the only one who appears locked in a legitimately close race. We’ll see if Florida comes online at some point, but the political trendlines for Democrats in that state are bad even as it remains competitive. We might as well mention Texas in this group; Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is seeking a third term against former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D, TX-16). Like Abrams in Georgia, O’Rourke gives Democrats in Texas an energetic and well-funded challenger — but also gives Republicans a useful foil to inspire their own turnout.

We may not have a strong handicap in aforementioned Wisconsin until the weekend before the election — and even then, we might not feel very confident about it. In picking businessman Tim Michels (R) as their nominee, Republicans probably rolled the dice a bit more than if they had picked former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch (R): Michels may have some added appeal as more of an outsider candidate, although he’s also less vetted than Kleefisch, who served a couple of terms as former Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) no. 2. Next door in Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) faces former state Sen. Scott Jensen (R), a one-time moderate who moved to the right during the political battles over the pandemic. The environment will be the main determinant of how vulnerable Walz truly is.

Kansas, where Gov. Laura Kelly (D) is seeking a second term, remains the most obvious Republican pickup opportunity, if only because it is by far the reddest state that Democrats are defending. But Kelly, despite running in a clearly Republican-leaning state, is not dead in the water, and there are questions about how strong of a campaign her opponent, state Attorney General Derek Schmidt (R), is running. Kelly’s approval rating remains above water, it appears, and she may be able to thread the needle much like Gov. John Bel Edwards (D-LA) did in 2019. Edwards, like Kelly, initially won office by defeating a weak Republican opponent — Edwards beat scandal-plagued then-Sen. David Vitter (R), while Kelly beat the very right-wing Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) in 2018. Edwards then survived in 2019 against businessman Eddie Rispone (R), who was a better candidate than Vitter but was not exactly top-tier, either. Schmidt is probably comparable in candidate quality to Rispone, and that very well may be sufficient for him to win. But we thought this race might’ve drifted into clear Leans Republican territory by now, and our understanding is that it has not. Pro-abortion rights forces just won a major victory on abortion in Kansas earlier this month as voters strongly rejected a statewide ballot issue that would have given the state’s GOP legislature the power to restrict abortion rights. We do wonder if the Democratic intensity over abortion will remain in this state, or if the August vote put the issue more on the backburner for November (certainly Republicans are hoping for the latter, given the lopsided margin against their side in the vote a couple of weeks ago).

Nevada is another Toss-up defended by a Democratic incumbent, Gov. Steve Sisolak (D). Back in June, Republicans picked Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo (R) as their standard-bearer, and he was probably the best candidate running. Most of the time, one wouldn’t consider a county-level official to be all that prominent, but in Nevada — which is in some ways a city-state — Las Vegas’s Clark County casts about 2/3rds of the statewide vote. With crime an issue, Sisolak and Lombardo are trying to see whether they can blame the other. The Senate and gubernatorial races likely will run fairly closely to one another — in 2018, Sisolak won by 4 points and now-Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) won by 5 — and as we wrote a couple of weeks ago, we think Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) is the most vulnerable Democratic senator this year. If that’s the case, then it stands to reason that Sisolak is awfully vulnerable too.

We mentioned above that we are moving Oregon’s open-seat race from Leans Democratic to Toss-up. This is despite the state’s blue lean and the fact that Republicans have not won a gubernatorial race there since 1982. However, the state is hosting an unusual 3-way race among a trio of women who are all recent members of the state legislature: former state House Speaker Tina Kotek (D), former state House Minority Leader Christine Drazan (R), and former state Sen. Betsy Johnson, an unaffiliated, former Democrat who is more conservative than most of the members of her former party and who has been backed by Nike co-founder Phil Knight. The race sets up an unusual situation where the winner may not need to crack even 40%. Additionally, the 3 candidates all served concurrently in the state legislature, which should provide the campaigns ample opportunities to draw contrasts among the candidates. Outgoing Gov. Kate Brown (D) is deeply unpopular, and there may be some desire for change in the Beaver State. Johnson, the independent, would still be the most surprising winner, and Kotek and Drazan both will be working to try to prevent their voters from flocking to her banner. There’s just enough uncertainty here that we’re looking at the race as a Toss-up now.

We are not quite there yet in another western blue state, but it’s becoming clearer to us that Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM) is locked in what appears to be a very close contest with 2020 Senate nominee and former TV meteorologist Mark Ronchetti (R). Unlike many other Republicans, Ronchetti has tried to show some nuance on the abortion issue, and Lujan Grisham has a number of vulnerabilities, as documented by Axios’s Russell Contreras and Josh Kraushaar, that by themselves aren’t much, but could be harmful to her taken together. We still give Lujan Grisham a small edge, owing to incumbency and the state’s overall lean.

Next door, in Arizona, is another open Toss-up. Republicans have nominated a fringe candidate, former TV newscaster Kari Lake (R), who just won the GOP nomination with a backward-looking campaign over imagined voter fraud in the 2020 election. She faces Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D), who had to belatedly apologize last year over an employment discrimination controversy dating back to her time as the state Senate minority leader (a Black woman was fired from her job as a Senate aide and successfully sued over the matter). We ultimately have some questions about how well Hobbs can capitalize on Lake’s problems, making Arizona a pure Toss-up, still.

 

In other words, while Dems are going to pick up two states in MD and MA, Republicans can win ME, CT, RI, NV, OR, KS, WI, NM, MN, MI, and PA, 11 states which currently have Democratic governors. I expect all of these races to be very close, and frankly Republicans have a better chance in all 11 of these states than Dems do picking up Georgia, Florida or Texas.

We've concentrated on House and especially Senate races so far this year, but Dems absolutely need to get going on the Governor front, and now.

Vote like your country depends on it, because it does.

Bragging...Rights, Or, I Owe Alvin An Apology

It looks like Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg got an across-the-board guilty plea deal with cooperation out of Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, meaning that the now extremely guilty executive will have to testify as a star witness against the Trump Organization itself in just a few months.

 

Allen H. Weisselberg, for decades one of Donald J. Trump’s most trusted executives, has reached a deal to plead guilty on Thursday and admit to participating in a long-running tax scheme at the former president’s family business — a serious blow to the company that could heighten its risk in an upcoming trial on related charges.

Mr. Weisselberg will have to admit to all 15 felonies that prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office accused him of, according to people with knowledge of the matter. And if he is called as a witness at the company’s trial in October, he will have to testify about his role in the scheme to avoid paying taxes on lavish corporate perks, the people said.

But Mr. Weisselberg will not implicate Mr. Trump or his family if he takes the stand in that trial, the people said, and he has refused to cooperate with prosecutors in their broader investigation into Mr. Trump, who has not been accused of wrongdoing.

Even so, his potential testimony will put the Trump Organization at a disadvantage and is likely to make Mr. Weisselberg a central witness at the October trial, where the company will face many of the same charges.

On cross-examination, the Trump Organization’s lawyers could accuse Mr. Weisselberg of pleading guilty only to spare himself a harsher sentence; under the terms of the plea deal, Mr. Weisselberg, who was facing up to 15 years in prison, will spend as little as 100 days behind bars. They might also argue that it would be unfair to hold the Trump Organization accountable for a crime that was not committed by the Trump family, who control the company.

But Mr. Weisselberg’s testimony — an acknowledgment from one of the Trump Organization’s top executives that he committed the crimes listed in the indictment — would undercut any effort by the company’s lawyers to contend that no crime was committed.

The indictment placed Mr. Weisselberg at the center of a conspiracy that prosecutors said allowed him to avoid paying taxes on leased Mercedes-Benzes, an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and private school tuition for his grandchildren.

Prosecutors have said other employees benefited from a similar arrangement, but no one else has been charged with a crime. Mr. Weisselberg’s testimony could help prosecutors prove their broader claims.

The prosecutors also essentially accused him of conspiring with the Trump Organization, which he will have to acknowledge at his plea hearing on Thursday and at the trial if he is called as a witness.

 

After pillorying Bragg for essentially sandbagging the Manhattan DA's office investigation into Trump itself, I have to say that I'm shocked that it now looks like Bragg may actually be able to bring charges against the Trump Organization and have the company's CFO admit in trial that there was a conspiracy to commit corporate fraud with the Trump family at the center.

 

I'm okay with admitting when I was wrong upon receiving new information, and apologizing to Bragg, even though he'll never know who I am. He knew what he was doing after all, and his office has a massive win here that will lead to serious problems for Trump, weeks before the midterms.

Take a bow, Mr. Bragg.

You got a righteous victory here.

The Big Lie, Con't

I will say this until I'm blue in the face, but if Trump election deniers win these secretary of state, attorney general and gubernatorial races races in 2022, they will absolutely wholesale nullify Democratic wins in 2024, full stop.

The Republican nominee for secretary of state in Arizona is a self-proclaimed member of the far-right extremist group the Oath Keepers who repeatedly shared anti-government conspiracies and posts about stockpiling ammunition on social media. 

CNN's KFile team uncovered previously unreported posts from Mark Finchem, an Arizona state representative who won his party's nomination with the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, on several social media websites linked from his since-deleted former Twitter account. 

The posts included a Pinterest account with a "Treason Watch List," and pins of photos of Barack Obama alongside imagery of a man clad in Nazi attire making a Nazi salute; Finchem also shared photos of the Holocaust claiming it could happen in the United States. 

The Oath Keepers, of which Finchem self-identified as a member since 2014, is an anti-government, far-right militia composed of former and active military and law enforcement that purports to defend the US Constitution. The group is perhaps best known for providing security for the January 6, 2021, "Stop the Steal" rally preceding the Capitol riot. Eleven members, including its leader, were charged by the Justice Department with "seditious conspiracy" related to the Capitol attack. 

Finchem, who attended the January 6 rally before the attack on the US Capitol but has denied he participated in the riot and has not been charged with any crimes, campaigned extensively on the false claim the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. If Finchem wins his race against Democrat Adrian Fontes, a former county clerk of Maricopa County, Arizona, Finchem would be tasked with running the state's elections in 2024. In Arizona, the secretary of state is second in line to the governorship. 

Finchem said CNN is not credible and declined to comment.

 

I still believe that in states where these jackasses already control the government, like Texas, there's a good chance that if a Democrat wins anything but the most gerrymandered races, they'll simply be annulled and awarded to the Republican. Beto O'Rourke, for example, will never be allowed to win, even if he does win. He'll be accused of massive voter fraud, the seat will be awarded to Ted Cruz, and Cruz will smile and nod and lie and gladly take it.

Watch.

Last Call For Bad Religion, Con't

The reaction by the fascist "Christian" hard right to last week's Mar-a-Lago warrant being served by the FBI is proof enough that most churches need to lose their tax-exempt status, frankly.

Right-wing Christian media kicked into high gear in the days following the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, coalescing around a defense of former President Donald Trump based on a smorgasbord of persecution complexes, whataboutism, conspiracy theories, lies, and misinformation about law enforcement and the judicial process. The Christian right and its GOP allies are counting on their base consuming a steady diet of these radio shows, podcasts, social media posts, and email blasts, tuning out any coverage that conflicts with their image of Trump as both a virile hero and a victim besieged by radical leftists at the FBI. For them, God anointed Trump, choosing an “unlikely” leader to restore Christian America. It is precisely because Trump is singularly capable of resurrecting the Christian nation, this thinking goes, that the radical leftists of the deep state want to bring him down.

On the night of the raid, Tony Perkins, president of the leading Christian right political organization the Family Research Council, tweeted, “Who trusts the FBI to pursue justice? The agency has become so politicized that even if their actions were justified half the nation still would not trust them.” The next day, Franklin Graham, scion of the evangelist Billy Graham, also stoked distrust of the FBI, invoking the 1992 standoff at the Ruby Ridge compound of the anti-government, white supremacist extremist Randy Weaver. “Last night as we watched the events that unfolded at Mar-a-Lago, I couldn’t help but think that the FBI and DOJ are losing credibility and the trust of the American people again,” Graham wrote on Facebook. He then invoked the conspiracy theory, now pervasive in right-wing circles, that new funding in the Inflation Reduction Act to boost collection of taxes owed by the wealthy was “a step in weaponizing the IRS to act against people, organizations, and businesses who have a voice of dissent against government agendas.”

A central theme of the Christian right’s coverage is that the raid was politically motivated to stop Trump from running for president again in 2024, and to dampen his influence in the 2022 midterms. “Was it driven by politics or national security? Why did we not see the same with Hillary Clinton?” asked Perkins on his radio program, Washington Watch, on August 12, the day after Attorney General Merrick Garland publicly explained the legal process by which the search warrant was obtained and executed. Just the fact that Clinton’s home was never the subject of a search warrant — never mind whether there was any basis to seek or obtain one — was evidence enough that Trump had received unequal treatment.

Perkins even lauded the Trump administration for not investigating Clinton because “they didn’t want to create a political circus like we see happening right now.” (Trump, of course, is well-known for not creating political circuses, and for his magnanimous treatment of Hillary Clinton.) Perkins went on to say that Clinton “was not paraded out in handcuffs,” a verbal sleight of hand that suggested (falsely) that Trump was. (He was not even present at Mar-a-Lago the night of the raid.) Then Perkins waved off the ubiquitous “lock her up” chants at Trump rallies, and said, “I don’t even think many conservatives would want political leaders, even of the other side, mistreated, or treated in such a fashion that shakes our very concept of justice and dignity in this country.”

Themes of war — actual and spiritual — abounded, a call to arms for Trump’s Christian followers who are being primed to believe that just as law enforcement came after Trump, it will come after them. Eric Metaxas, a popular evangelical author, Trump promoter, and radio host, called the FBI “thugs.” He interviewed Charlie Kirk, the founder of the right-wing campus group Turning Point USA and also a rising star in the evangelical world, who declared the raid a “rubicon” moment for the left. “It wasn’t a raid, it was a military occupation,” Kirk told Metaxas, adding “I looked at it as a political invasion. I looked at it as they invaded us.” Stephen Strang, an influential evangelical publisher and author of four laudatory books about Trump, wrote, “I believe God raised up Donald Trump and there is warfare going on — satanic activity that is trying to tear down the fabric of this country.” He urged “Americans who are concerned about religious freedom and the threat of communist agendas to this country” to “stand up and voice their support for President Trump.”

 

Again, all this is in service to a pig of a human being. The imagery of Christian soldiers killing the unclean to conquer America and make it into a Christian fascist theocracy is not just a recruiting tool, armed religious fascism is the actual plan.

 

This toxic brew of conspiracy theories, incendiary language, and veneration of Trump is likely to only get uglier and more dangerous as this and other investigations of Trump progress. Christian right figures are repeating Trump’s claim that FBI agents searched his wife Melania’s closet, feeding right-wing paranoias that the “deep state” is filled with sexual deviants. On one side is Trump, whom God anointed. On the other are creepy thugs who rummage through his wife’s intimate belongings.

Kirk, in particular, effectively sanctified Mar-a-Lago as an untouchable holy place, one that the base would fight to defend. “You want a rallying cry?” he asked Metaxas. “They occupied Mar-a-Lago!” The resort, Kirk went on, is “not just the president’s home. It’s a piece of presidential history. It’s the place where treaties were signed and important meetings happened. They desecrated a core point of American history, for what? For Melania’s shawl? Or to spend an hour in her closet?”

Kirk, though, thinks he has a solution: lawless revenge. “State attorneys general that are Republican have to authorize raids against Soros groups, BLM, Planned Parenthood, the alphabet mafia, groomers, chemical castration of children, now,” he said. (“Alphabet mafia” is a right-wing slur for the LGBTQ movement, and “chemical castration” maligns gender-affirming care for trans kids.) He told Metaxas he has texted state attorneys general that he knows, including Texas’ Ken Paxton and Lousiana’s Jeff Landry, to encourage them to execute their own raids on such organizations as retaliation, even if they did not expect to make any arrests.

In this upside-down world, Trump is sanctified and besieged, and everyone else is getting away with unspeakable crimes. If the past week’s worth of Christian right media coverage of the Mar-a-Lago raid is any indication, we should expect ongoing, escalating attacks on anyone perceived to be an enemy of God’s anointed, persecuted president.

 

So yeah, when indictments are announced, I would absolutely expect lethal violence across the country as a result. People will fight, kill, and die in Trump's name.

 

The only question is how many they take down with them.

Water Logged On The Colorado

For the second year in a row, Western states will have to make significant cuts to water usage as the Colorado River and the Lake Mead reservoir has now reached Level 2 water shortage status.

 

The drought in the Colorado River basin is reaching "a tipping point," Camille Calimlim Touton, the Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner, said. Her remarks come as the bureau announced its forecast for the water system in the West at a time when the region is experiencing a multi-year megadrought made worse by the climate crisis.

Touton said the Colorado River basin is in its 23rd year of a "historic drought." This year's forecast prompted the bureau to declare a Tier 2 water shortage on the Colorado River — forcing several Southwest states to make mandatory water cuts for the second year in a row.

The commissioner said Lake Powell and Lake Mead — the country's two largest reservoirs — are also at "historically low levels."

“The system is approaching a tipping point and without action we cannot protect the system and the millions of Americans who rely on this resource," Touton said.

By taking conservation actions, like water cuts, she said the bureau needs to ensure communities, tribal nations and the environment are sustained, not just next year but for the future

"Protecting the system means protecting the people of the American West," she said.

 

There's no reason to believe things are going to get better anytime soon, environmentally or politically.

According to a new projection from the Department of the Interior, Lake Mead’s water level will be below 1,050 feet above sea level come January — the threshold required to declare a Tier 2 shortage starting in 2023.

Lake Mead’s level has been around 1,040 feet this summer, just 27% of its full capacity.

The Tier 2 shortage means Arizona, Nevada and Mexico will have to further reduce their Colorado River use beginning in January. California will not have cuts made to to their Colorado River yet. (The threshold for California’s first cut is 1,045 feet in January.)

Of the impacted states, Arizona will face the largest cuts — 592,000 acre-feet — or about 21% of the state’s yearly allotment of river water.

“Every sector in every state has a responsibility to ensure that water is used with maximum efficiency. In order to avoid a catastrophic collapse of the Colorado River System and a future of uncertainty and conflict, water use in the Basin must be reduced,” Interior’s assistant secretary for water and science Tanya Trujillo said in a statement.

Interior’s projections show that by January of next year, Lake Mead’s water surface elevations will be at 1,047.61 feet. Meanwhile, Lake Powell’s water surface elevation will be at 3,521.84 feet – 32 feet above minimum power pool, or the amount needed to generate electricity from hydroelectric operations.

Separately, US Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton and other federal water officials said they are prepared to take additional administrative actions needed to protect the Colorado River, Lake Powell and Lake Mead from falling to “critically low levels.”

Earlier this summer, Touton set a deadline of mid-August for the seven Colorado River states to come up with a plan to cut as much as 25% of their river water usage. It became apparent early this week that those negotiations have stalled, which led some lawmakers and state water officials to call on the federal government to take aggressive action on their own.

Interior has not yet outlined next steps in Touton’s demand for the states’ plan.

 

If you thought the fight between white supremacist terrorists in the Southwestern US and the Biden administration was bad before, wait until Arizona declares war on California over water restrictions.

Does anyone believe GOP crackpot Kari Lake, if elected governor of Arizona, would comply with Biden Interior Department water regulations for a moment?

This has all the makings of a real, actual battle over resources, and it's only a taste of what's coming in the months and years ahead.

Daughter Of Darkness, Defeated Decisively

I have to admit, I was wrong about GOP Rep. Liz Cheney's Wyoming primary. I thought she was going to lose by 15-20 points in an embarrassing collapse of her political career, crucified by Wyoming GOP voters and Donald Trump as revenge for her role in his impeachment and as co-chair of the House January 6th Committee. But I was wrong.

 

She lost by 37 points instead. 

Trump and his allies have spent the spring and summer turning Republican primaries across the political map into bitter fights in which loyalty to the former President was the central factor.

He lost some high-profile battles, including in Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger held off Trump-back challengers. 

But in most open-seat races, Trump's candidates triumphed. And on Tuesday in Wyoming, Trump, who had endorsed Hageman on the day she entered the race against Cheney, claimed his biggest victory yet. 

Cheney is now the eighth of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump following the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol to exit the House. Four have opted not to seek reelection, and four more have lost GOP primaries. 

In the lead-up to Tuesday's primary, Cheney insisted she was trying to win. 

But her strategy -- attempting to convince the Republican electorate in a state the former President won by a margin of 43 percentage points in 2020 to turn on him -- suggests she'd made a different choice: to go down swinging. 

She infuriated Republicans by urging Wyoming Democrats and unaffiliated voters to switch their party registration and vote in Tuesday's GOP primary. 

Surrounded by US Capitol Police officers on the campaign trail, Cheney opted for small, private events over rallies. She lambasted Trump in television interviews. 

Her campaign's closing message was a TV ad featuring her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, calling Trump a "coward" who lies to his supporters and "tried to steal the last election" using violence. 

Her election night event, on a ranch in Jackson Hole with the sun setting over the Grand Tetons in the background, didn't feature any television screens for supporters to watch results tabulated in a race Cheney was all but certain to lose. 

She told supporters that she could have cozied up to Trump and did what she'd done in the primary two years earlier: win with 73% of the vote. 

"That was a path I could not and would not take," Cheney said. "No House seat, no office in this land, is more important than the principles that we are all sworn to protect. And I well understood the potential political consequences of abiding by my duty." 

 

She went down swinging, she stuck to her guns, yes. But as I said last night on Twitter:

 

The lesson from Wyoming tonight is that Republican primary voters, given a choice between the lesser of two evils, jammed on the “Greater Evil” button like it dispensed cocaine and shrimp pad thai.

— Miscellaneous Top Zandar Documents (@ZandarVTS) August 17, 2022

 

She refused to go along with Trump's lie and was butchered for it. But the GOP primary voters in Wyoming were more than happy to break out the long knives. Republicans don't want principles, or duty, or anything of the sort. They want bloody vengeance against Democrats and their voters, and they want to elect people who will destroy their "enemies" and who will permit them to join in the lynchings. 

There were never "good" Republicans left.  Hell, there aren't even sane ones left. Trying to "save" this party is a fool's errand because there's no saving it. Last night proved that. There are no good Republicans left.

Just inchoate rage goblins.

That includes Liz Cheney.

 

The three-term congresswoman has not said what her next political move will be -- including whether she'll run for president in 2024 as a foil for Trump. 

But she used her speech to preview a continued fight against Trump, without laying out exactly what that means. 

"I have said since January 6 that I will do whatever it takes to ensure that Donald Trump is never again near the Oval Office, and I mean it. This is a fight for all of us, together," she said. 

"I'm a conservative Republican. ... But I love my country more. So I ask you tonight to join me: As we leave here, let us resolve that we will stand together, Republicans, Democrats and independents, against those who would destroy our republic." 

As she left the stage, Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down" blared over the event's speakers.

 

Stopping Trump would mean electing Democrats, not finding Republican alternatives who will be purged from the party and left in piles of politically irrelevant smoking wreckage, conning the rubes into giving them money.

 

Guess which road  Cheney will take?

No, don't feel bad for her. The answer, as it has always been in the last several decades, is vote Blue.

Last Call For Trump Cards, Con't

Donald Trump is telling us his exact authoritarian GOP plans that will destroy the country piece by piece, and he's outlined them publicly in his hate rallies across the country over the summer.

For the first time since leaving office, former president Donald Trump has started getting specific about what he would do if he wins a second term in the White House.

The pitches he’s made onstage over the past month in speeches from D.C. to Dallas to Las Vegas are a stark contrast from ordinary stump speeches. He promises a break from American history if elected, with a federal government stacked with loyalists and unleashed to harm his perceived enemies.

There has never been a potential candidate like Trump: a defeated former president whose followers attacked the Capitol, who still insists he never lost, and who openly pledges revenge on those he views as having wronged him.

As his 2016 campaign and administration showed time and again, from the border wall to the Muslim ban, he and his aides worked furiously to translate rally slogans into official policy — whether or not there were legal or political barriers to overcome. And if Trump does return to the White House in 2025, this time he will be surrounded by fewer advisers interested in moderating or restraining his impulses.

Instead, his administration would probably be staffed by dedicated loyalists, and would have the advantage of an emboldened conservative majority on the Supreme Court. He and his advisers would also have more experience in how to exert power inside the federal bureaucracy and exploit vulnerabilities in institutions and laws.

Trump has strongly hinted that he wants to run for president again and has been considering an early announcement ahead of the November midterms. Last week’s search of his Mar-a-Lago residence and club added urgency for those of his advisers who favor an early launch, a person with direct knowledge told The Washington Post, but Trump hasn’t committed to a timeline.

 

What are his plans?

 

1. Federal death penalty for drug dealers.
2. Round up homeless into massive tent cities and leave them there.
3. Use the DC National Guard or even the US military against political protesters.
4. Fire tens of thousands of federal civil service workers.
5. Eliminate the Department of Education and run all schools from state and local school boards.
6. Eliminate early, mail, and absentee voting.
   

It's nuts across the board, and very, very fascist.

And pay attention, because whoever wins the 2024 GOP nomination will be pushing on all of these plans and more.

The Road To Gilead Goes Through Louisiana

Louisiana's Supreme Court allowed the Republican near-total post-Dobbs ban on abortion to take effect on Friday, and as a result, the state's last three remaining abortion clinics are leaving the state, saying legally they have no choice. 

“I'm just not ready to walk away,” Kathaleen Pittman, the administrator of Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport, told New Orleans Public Radio of the decision to relocate.

Hope, Women’s Health Care Center in New Orleans and Delta Clinic of Baton Rouge are all in the process of moving to states where abortions remain legal, though staff for those clinics declined to say where they would relocate to.

The Shreveport clinic has been the plaintiff, along with Medical Students for Choice, in a challenge against the state’s near-total ban since the days immediately following the overturning of Roe v. Wade. A spokesperson for the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is part of the team representing the clinic, said litigation against the ban is still ongoing despite the state Supreme Court’s ruling Friday.

Pittman called the Louisiana’s Supreme Court’s decision to keep the law in effect, “devastating, when I think of the women who are now going to be denied care.”

Louisiana’s law bans abortions except in rare cases to save a pregnant person’s life or when the fetus wouldn’t survive birth. The law has no exceptions for rape or incest.

Louisiana’s ban has caused uncertainty and fear inside hospitals, where doctors fear prosecution for providing reproductive health care. A woman who was 16 weeks pregnant when her water broke was denied an abortion because of the law, and was forced to deliver a non-viable fetus.

Staff said the New Orleans and Baton Rouge clinics – which have the same owner – expect to move within the next three months. Pittman did not provide a timeline for the Shreveport clinic’s move.

In a statement, Pittman said Louisiana’s near-total ban has made it “impossible” for Hope to keep its doors open. Clinic employees shifted their duties to answering phones and helping Louisiana women find abortion clinics by directing them to abortionfinder.org and ineedana.com.

“I feel as if I'm in the Twilight Zone, and this dimension where nothing really makes sense,” Pittman said.

Supporters of the Hope clinic, which opened in 1980, have launched a $100,000 GoFundMe campaign to help with the clinic’s moving costs.

 

And so women in ed states will be made to suffer. In some cases, laws like these will kill them.

 

That's the entire point, of course.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

More and more MAGA CHUDs are choosing to throw their lives away in the name of their dark messiah, like this cement-head in Pennsylvania.

A Mercer County man threatened online to murder FBI agents after the bureau's search of former president Donald Trump's Florida estate last week, saying "come and get me you piece of [expletive] feds" and "I am going to [expletive] slaughter you," according to a federal complaint filed Monday in Pittsburgh.

Adam Bies, 46, is charged in U.S. District Court with influencing, impeding or retaliating against federal law officers.

He appeared briefly by video before a federal magistrate judge on Monday afternoon and will remain in U.S. custody pending a detention hearing Thursday. The judge said she'd likely appoint a lawyer for him after she had a chance to review his financial records.

According to an FBI affidavit, Mr. Bies issued a variety of threats on Gab after the Aug. 8 search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago complex in which agents removed boxes of classified documents.

According to records unsealed after the search, federal authorities are investigating Mr. Trump for potential violations of the Espionage Act.

The FBI's action has prompted a flood of violent rhetoric and threats from far-right extremists.

In the affidavit for Mr. Bies, the FBI said he compared bureau agents to the Nazi SS of World War II and the Soviet-era KGB and said everyone at the FBI, from agents to janitors, deserves to die.

"My only goal is to kill more of them before I drop," Mr. Bies wrote on Thursday. "I will not spend one second of my life in their custody."

The case began when an FBI national threat team received a tip from a domestic terrorism tracking group that someone calling himself "BlankFocus" was issuing threats on Gab.

"If you work for the FBI then you deserve to die," the poster wrote.

 

The FBI doesn't exactly take threats like this lightly after their Cincy field office was attacked last week. 

 

Enjoy prison, sucker.

 

Last Call For Orange Meltdown, Con't

Two major developments in the Fulton County, Georgia case against Trump for election interference, first, a federal judge in Atlanta has ruled that Sen. Lindsey Graham must testify under oath about his role in the possible GOP interference in the 2020 Georgia elections.

A federal judge in Atlanta has denied GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham's motion to quash a subpoena, ruling that he must testify before a Fulton County grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. 

In her written decision on Monday, US District Judge Leigh Martin May sent the case to the Superior Court of Fulton County to hear further proceedings on the US Constitution's "Speech or Debate" clause, the centerpiece that Graham's attorneys argued immunized the US senator from South Carolina from having to testify in this case. 

"Because the record must be more fully developed before the Court can address the applicability of the 'Speech or Debate' clause to specific questions or lines of inquiry, and because Senator Graham's only request in removing the subpoena to this Court was to quash the subpoena in its entirety, the Case is REMANDED to the Superior Court of Fulton County for further proceedings," May wrote in the ruling. 

The South Carolina Republican is scheduled to appear as a witness in Atlanta in front of the special grand jury on August 23. 

In her ruling, May wrote that there are "considerable areas of inquiry" that are not "legislative in nature" and said that the District Attorney's office has shown "extraordinary circumstances and a special need for Senator Graham's testimony on issues relating to alleged attempts to influence or disrupt the lawful administration of Georgia's 2020 elections." 

Five other attorneys who worked with Trump and spoke with Georgia election officials in the aftermath of the 2020 election have also received subpoenas to testify before the special purpose grand jury, and at least three of the lawyers are trying to fight their subpoenas in state courts this week. 

 

A federal judge absolutely believes ol' Huckleberry Graham here has testimony germane to a grand jury and this case is moving quickly. 

The second major development is that Rudy Giuliani and several other Trump/GOP officials are now direct targets of the Georgia investigation.

Former President Donald Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, has been informed that he is considered a "target" of the Georgia criminal investigation probing the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election in that state, according to sources familiar with the matter.

An attorney for Giuliani received a call Monday informing them that he is a "target" of the investigation, the sources said.

The move comes just two days before Giuliani is set to testify before the Fulton Country special grand jury probing the case, as the investigation appears to be ramping up.

Giuliani is still expected to testify on Wednesday, the sources said.

Last week, an attorney for Giuliani said in court that Giuliani's legal team had been asked the district attorney "whether or not Mr. Giuliani is a target of this investigation," but had "not yet received a response."

The judge in the case, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, said he "would implore" the DA to "at least address that before [Giuliani] gets here."

Earlier, 16 so-called "alternate electors" in the state were informed that they are also considered "targets" of the probe.

 

So yes, we're liable to see Giuliani indicted and soon.

The Big Lie, Con't

At this point, all the actual election fraud in 2020 was apparently committed by Trump partisans looking for "election fraud".

A team of computer experts directed by lawyers allied with President Donald Trump copied sensitive data from election systems in Georgia as part of a secretive, multistate effort to access voting equipment that was broader, more organized and more successful than previously reported, according to emails and other records obtained by The Washington Post.

As they worked to overturn Trump’s 2020 election defeat, the lawyers asked a forensic data firm to access county election systems in at least three battleground states, according to the documents and interviews. The firm charged an upfront retainer fee for each job, which in one case was $26,000.

Attorney Sidney Powell sent the team to Michigan to copy a rural county’s election data and later helped arrange for them to do the same in the Detroit area, according to the records. A Trump campaign attorney engaged the team to travel to Nevada. And the day after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol the team was in southern Georgia, copying data from a Dominion voting system in rural Coffee County.

The emails and other records were collected through a subpoena issued to the forensics firm, Atlanta-based SullivanStrickler, by plaintiffs in a long-running lawsuit in federal court over the security of Georgia’s voting systems. The documents provide the first confirmation that data from Georgia’s election system was copied. Indications of a breach there were first raised by plaintiffs in the case in February, and state officials have said they are investigating.

“The breach is way beyond what we thought,” said David D. Cross, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, who include voting-security activists and Georgia voters. “The scope of it is mind-blowing.”

A drumbeat of revelations about alleged security breaches in local elections offices has grown louder during the nearly two years since the 2020 election. There is growing concern among experts that officials sympathetic to Trump’s claims of vote-rigging could undermine election security in the name of protecting it.

The federal government classifies voting systems as “critical infrastructure,” important to national security, and access to their software and other components is tightly regulated. In several instances since 2020, officials have taken machines out of service after their chains of custody were disrupted.

State authorities have opened criminal investigations into alleged improper breaches of equipment in Michigan, a case that involves several people who appear in the new records. In Mesa County, Colo., a local elections official, Republican Tina Peters, was indicted on felony charges including conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation and attempting to influence a public servant.

In two counties, SullivanStrickler’s examinations were permitted by courts, though many details surrounding those efforts have not been public. The records show how Powell’s group discussed, exchanged and paid for elections-system data. The plaintiffs intend to bring them to the attention of the judge in the case and provide them to the FBI as well as state and local elections authorities in Georgia, Cross told The Post.

 

This isn't "we hacked into the network in order to find vulnerabilities because we didn't believe the network admins", this is "We robbed the banks in order to prove the money was still there" kind of criminality, the completely self-serving kind.

 

Hopefully this means the disbarrment and arrest of multiple Trump lawyers and several state elections officials that enabled this massive data theft.

 

Oh, and if you believe 2022 and especially 2024 elections will actually be safe, fair and secure, understand that more than half of Republicans running for statewide office in 2022 are on-the-record Trump Big Lie election deniers. If elected, they will simply nullify any Democratic party wins.

 

Vote like your country depends on it, because it does.

 

Necessary Evil But Not Believeable

The White House response to the Mar-a-Lago search last week, led by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, is that of strict neutrality towards the Justice Department, and even I have a hard time believing it.

The White House continues to stress they had no private knowledge of last week's FBI raid on former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate or the status of the ongoing Department of Justice investigation, citing the "complete independence" of the DOJ from politicization.

"We do not interfere. We do not get briefed. We do not get involved," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told ABC "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl in an exclusive interview on Sunday.

Pressed repeatedly by Karl, Jean-Pierre repeatedly declined to comment on any aspect of the federal investigation into Trump, including whether President Joe Biden is concerned about national security implications of the highly classified materials that federal agents said they found in Trump's possession. (Through a spokesperson, Trump claimed the files were declassified.)

"I hear your question, but it would be inappropriate for me as the press secretary to comment on this. It would be inappropriate for any of us, including the president or anyone in the administration, to comment on this," Jean-Pierre said. "This is a law enforcement matter. And the Department of Justice is going to move forward as they see fit."

Responding to Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik's contention that "the FBI raid of President Trump is a complete abuse and overreach of its authority," Jean-Pierre said that is "not true."

"This is not about politicizing anything. ... I would remind our folks on the other side that the FBI director [Christopher Wray] was appointed by the president's predecessor. I would remind the folks on the other side that when Merrick Garland was indeed confirmed, it was a bipartisan fashion," she said.

She told Karl that Biden had not even "discussed" the raid with law enforcement and that the White House had been learning of updates in the investigation through media reports.

 

Observations:

 

One, after a rocky start to her tenure, Karine Jean-Pierre is shaping up to be on the Jen Psaki side of things. That's good. 

Two, KJP's answer here is 100% correct, if not technically perfect.

Three, I don't believe a word of it.

Look, I know in a vacuum of neutrality that the White House wasn't going to be informed because it's the DoJ's play here and not Biden's. But it strains credulity to believe that sending an FBI team to recover stolen nuclear TS/SCI documents from Trump's fucking pool closet doesn't warrant a highly unofficial White House heads up hours if not days ahead of time.

I truly do believe that Joe Biden had no part in the decision process for the Mar-a-Lago search. But I don't believe for a moment that the White House didn't know it was coming. This is arguably the most politically consequential search warrant issued in my lifetime, and yeah, Biden knew.

I understand why we're seeing this kabuki play. I don't agree with it. Even a simple "The White House was informed only after the warrant was being executed" would suffice. But "not even discussed" by the White House, given the stakes that Trump had stolen nuclear classified materials, when the FBI had been there before with a subpoena?

I call bullshit, and it pains me to do so.  We'll find out this truth in a couple weeks or so, but it's just a dumb, unforced error. The White House wasn't blind on this. Being honest, given the scope of Trump's little collection and the extant threat to national security it represented, was the way to proceed, I'm sorry.

This was a bad call. Disagree with me in the comments and make your case, but I think this was the wrong move even if it had to be done.

Last Call For What Real Censorship Looks Like

A horrific reminder this weekend to the whiny incel neckbeard kids on the right: having a death sentence over your head for three decades because of your writings and being stabbed and critically wounded on stage is what actual persecution of your free speech looks like.

“The Satanic Verses” author Salman Rushdie was taken off a ventilator and able to talk Saturday, a day after he was stabbed as he prepared to give a lecture in upstate New York.

Rushdie remained hospitalized with serious injuries, but fellow author Aatish Taseer tweeted in the evening that he was “off the ventilator and talking (and joking).” Rushdie’s agent, Andrew Wylie, confirmed that information without offering further details.

Earlier in the day, the man accused of attacking him Friday at the Chautauqua Institution, a nonprofit education and retreat center, pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault charges in what a prosecutor called a “preplanned” crime.

An attorney for Hadi Matar entered the plea on his behalf during an arraignment in western New York. The suspect appeared in court wearing a black and white jumpsuit and a white face mask, with his hands cuffed in front of him.

A judge ordered him held without bail after District Attorney Jason Schmidt told her Matar, 24, took steps to purposely put himself in position to harm Rushdie, getting an advance pass to the event where the author was speaking and arriving a day early bearing a fake ID.

“This was a targeted, unprovoked, preplanned attack on Mr. Rushdie,” Schmidt said.

Public defender Nathaniel Barone complained that authorities had taken too long to get Matar in front of a judge while leaving him “hooked up to a bench at the state police barracks.”

“He has that constitutional right of presumed innocence,” Barone added.

Rushdie, 75, suffered a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and an eye, Wylie said Friday evening. He was likely to lose the injured eye.

The attack was met with shock and outrage from much of the world, along with tributes and praise for the award-winning author who for more than 30 years has faced death threats for “The Satanic Verses.”

Authors, activists and government officials cited Rushdie’s courage and longtime advocacy of free speech despite the risks to his own safety. Writer and longtime friend Ian McEwan called Rushdie “an inspirational defender of persecuted writers and journalists across the world,” and actor-author Kal Penn cited him as a role model “for an entire generation of artists, especially many of us in the South Asian diaspora toward whom he’s shown incredible warmth.”

 

I hope Mr. Rushdie is able to recover and it looks promising, but he's also a 75-year-old man who suffered grievous injury and has been man wanted dead by Iran for a third of a century now.  Your Trumpian bleating about how everyone is mean to you because the civilized universe thinks you're a fart in the wind is not "persecution". This is.

An Elegy For Hillbilly Elegy

For the right-leaning Cincinnati Enquirer to even publish this op-ed from former Rob Portland aide John Bridgeland on why Democratic US Senate candidate Rep. Tim Ryan should be Ohio's next senator over Republican author JD Vance is a hell of a thing, but the op-ed itself makes a pretty good case as to why nobody should be voting Republican in 2022 in the Buckeye State.

The 2022 election for U.S. Senate in Ohio calls the question on what kind of representatives we seek and nation we want to be. I have the privilege of knowing both candidates and am forming “Republicans for Tim Ryan.”

I’m a Republican because I believe in big citizenship rather than big government, in respecting individual rights as well as responsibilities, and in tapping the goodness and entrepreneurial spirit of Americans to solve problems rather than relying on distant government bureaucracies.

It has been the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and many others who served in times of national crisis. The party has had leaders who both represent the American people and inspire the better angels of our nature. Many Democrats and independents also share these values.

Over the last 20 years, I have worked to address the high school dropout crisis. In the process, a U.S. congressman from Ohio I didn’t know called my cellphone and spent 45 minutes talking about how we could improve outcomes for children in low-performing schools. He listened, probed for evidence of effective reforms and remains a national champion for boosting the life prospects of children. I was struck by this congressman’s character, intelligence and passion for helping people. His name is Tim Ryan.

In recent years, dear friends of mine joined forces with the author of a book called "Hillbilly Elegy" to boost entrepreneurship across America. I was interested because my father grew up in poverty in Akron and Bellville, Ohio. I invited the author to join me as a keynote speaker at a national conference with the country’s public media stations. He was smart and shared thoughtful insights. His name is JD Vance.

Since then, as I have followed Ohio’s Senate race, I have been alarmed that Vance has become unrecognizable to me and many who know him much better. After calling candidate Donald Trump “reprehensible” and an “idiot” and comparing Trumpism to opioid addiction, he reversed course when running for the Republican nomination for Senate.

Vance then promoted the myth that Trump won the presidential election, even though Republican reviews of court cases show no consequential evidence of fraud.

Vance also said that he did not care one way or another what happened to Ukraine as millions suffered. I know of the suffering, because we organized the Ukrainian-American community to help find sponsors for those fleeing Ukraine.

Vance went on to do anything to win an endorsement from a former president who incited an insurrection to overthrow the will of the people and undercut our democracy. Lives were lost, including police officers who defended our Capitol.

The test of our character is found not in times of comfort, but in times of challenge. Running for public office is such a test.

If Vance is willing to undermine his own integrity and character for public office, imagine what he might do if he were a U.S. senator – I fear whatever it took to remain in office.

Vance’s campaign has also been anemic, lacking the energy of the U.S. senator he is trying to replace – Rob Portman, who worked hard in every county in Ohio and brought people together instead of tearing them apart.

In contrast, I have been impressed by Ryan’s energy on the campaign trail, his love of our democracy, many of his policies and his good character. The same man who reached out to a Republican like me 10 years ago is reaching out to Ohioans across politics and other divisions – to farmers, small-business leaders, veterans, parents, teachers, students and people in heavily Republican counties – to understand their concerns.

 

Ohio Republicans don't do this. The Ohio GOP has become one of the most corrupt, lawless, greedy, hateful and bigoted state parties in America, more than happy to lock in their own power regardless of the law and the state's constitution, and to use that ill-gotten power against Black, brown, and Asian folk and everyone else in-between. 

 

Even more so than Florida or Texas, Ohio's Republican party is deliberately breaking the law every day and getting away with it because they have near-supermajorities in both chambers and can do whatever they want without any accountability.

And yet here we have a legitimate argument that JD Vance is a step too far. He's a parsec too far, frankly, but Tim Ryan picking up this seat would be massive.

Here's hoping.