Last Call For Housing, Afire

The housing market is absolutely going to fold soon, it's just unsustainable with rent gouging like what's going on in New York City, where you now need well into three times the median national wage to even be considered for an apartment at four times the median rent.

 

New York City’s housing market has always been competitive, but renters are facing a particularly tough flat hunt now. The median monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan reached $3,995 in April, a record 38% year-over-year increase and well above pre-pandemic levels, data from the real estate brokerage Douglas Elliman showed.

In New York City, it’s standard for landlords to apply what is known as the 40x rule to judge someone’s ability to pay their rent. In order to qualify as a tenant, a person’s annual gross income should be at least 40 times the monthly rent. To rent a one-bedroom at Manhattan’s current median price, that means an income of $159,800 or more. In Brooklyn, where the median one-bedroom apartment goes for $2,900 a month, anyone with an income of less than $116,000 annually will also struggle to qualify.

Meanwhile, the median household income in New York City was $67,046 from 2016 to 2020, according to the latest data available.

New York City rents point to a deepening affordable housing crisis in the city as it struggles to bounce back from the pandemic. It also calls into question the feasibility of mayor Eric Adams’ repeated pleas to have employees return to work in person.

Rising rents impact New Yorkers particularly hard because two-thirds of the population rent, twice the national rate, according to a report by The New York Times. The pain extends to aspiring home owners too—a recent Zillow survey found that half of US home buyers are crying during the process.

Prices are forecasted to rise even higher in the summer. The warmer months have always been primetime for moving as it catches new students who relocate to the city, and families with kids tend to use the school holidays to move.

In April, bidding wars accounted for more than one in five new lease signings in Manhattan, according to Douglas Elliman. In those instances, landlords received an average premium of nearly 11% above asking price. It’s a sharp contrast to just a year ago when landlords were regularly handing out one month’s free rent and other concessions like waived utilities and amenities fees to attract tenants.

Several theories exist for surging rent prices. The one-bedroom flat is reportedly the most in demand as couples forced to spend more time with their other halves during the pandemic split up, sending more single flat hunters into the market.

It also coincides with large corporates, including JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Google, recalling workers back to the office. With the future of work likely some kind of hybrid, people are willing to spend more money on their apartments to have space for a home office.

Another factor is Airbnb, which is distorting the market. There are more entire-apartment Airbnb rentals available in New York City than standard rental apartments by several thousand units, Curbed reported recently, squeezing supply even further.

So how do people get around these expensive prices? Many shack up with someone—a roommate, a partner, or they find a guarantor with at least 40x the rent who agrees to pay if the tenant defaults.

Another option is to downsize. The median studio rent was $2,994 in Manhattan and $2,674 in Brooklyn for the month of April. However, even at those lower rates, anyone not earning six-figures will be put out.

 

It won't be long either.  Be careful, because once the housing market augurs into the tarmac, the economy goes with it.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Greg Sargent looks at the growing Proud Boys seditious conspiracy being charged by the federal government over January 6th and what it means for the white supremacist domestic terror networks in 2022.

 

It’s tempting to dismiss all the 1776 talk as something akin to adolescent revolutionary cosplay. But the way 1776 comes up in the indictment — combined with some surprising new details it reveals — should prompt a serious look at how far-right extremist groups genuinely think about the long struggle that they envision themselves waging.

In short, groups such as these generally are driven by a dangerous vision of popular sovereignty. It essentially holds that the will of the truly authentic “people,” a flexible category they get to define, is being suppressed, requiring periodic “resets” of the system, including via violent, extralegal means.

Such groups aren’t going away anytime soon. We should understand what drives them.

 

I mean it's white supremacist dogma, but there is somewhat more to it than that.

In this context, while all the 1776-oriented talk might seem like posturing, it points to something real and enduring on the far right.

It isn’t easy to pin down the Proud Boys, who tend to define themselves as defenders of Western civilization. But Kathleen Belew, an expert in right-wing extremism, has discerned hints of white power ideology in some of the group’s symbolism and messaging.

As Belew notes, the white power movement includes opponents of non-white immigration, militia groups, and white supremacists, loosely bound by an ideology centered on the violent defense of whiteness. On Jan. 6, numerous such groups and adherents attacked the Capitol.

Tarrio’s views appear pretty convoluted. In a 2021 interview, he admitted that the 2020 election had not been stolen from former president Donald Trump, and went through the motions of disavowing the Jan. 6 violence. Yet he openly celebrated the “fear” that members of Congress felt of “the people,” and helped mobilize Proud Boys to mass around the Capitol that day.

So how to make sense of that, as well as the broader tangle of ideologies on the far right?

A helpful framework comes from Joseph Lowndes, a scholar of the right wing at the University of Oregon. As Lowndes notes, a longtime strain in American political culture treats procedural democracy as itself deeply suspect, as subverting a more authentic subterranean popular will.

For such ideologues, what constitutes “the people” is itself redefined by spasmodic revolutionary acts, including violence. The people’s sovereignty, and with it the defining lines of the republic, are also effectively redrawn, or even rebirthed, by such outbursts of energy and militant action.

In this vision, Lowndes told me, the “people” and the “essence of the republic” are “made new again through acts of violent cleansing.” He noted that in this imagining, the “people” are something of a “fiction,” one that is essentially created out of the violent “act.”

“This regeneration through violence is going to be with us for a long time," Lowndes said, "because it is fundamental to the right-wing political imagination.”

Lurking behind all the 1776 cosplay, then, is a tangle of very real radical and extreme ideologies. Importantly, they’re sincerely believed in, and they aren’t going away.

 

Straight white Christian men are "we the people" and everyone else is suspect. Rights, citizenship, and lives can be taken at a whim.

 

In the end, they're bullies.

 

Bullies need to get punched in the mouth.

Another Day In Gunmerica, Con't

As mass shooting numbers continue to mount this year, and Americans are dying daily from gun violence, a new CBS News poll finds an overwhelming majority of Americans believe that Congress and President Biden can do something about Gunmerica, but nearly half of Republicans say that mass shootings are the price we pay for being free.

Most Americans continue to favor stricter gun laws, but feel that getting them passed is stymied by big money and inaction by politicians. And Americans say the nation's gun debate — no matter where they stand on it — is influenced more by partisanship than public safety. Polling shows they're partly right.

There is bipartisan support for measures that are applied to people — such as background checks and a federal "red flag" law, which most Americans think could do a lot to help prevent mass shootings. But there are more partisan differences over what to do about the guns themselves.

Democrats look for more gun restrictions — including banning AR-15s — and fewer people having guns in general, and also support background checks and more mental health services. But Republicans tend to oppose AR-15 bans and feel that allowing more people to carry guns and more armed security would stop mass shootings. They think that these measures, along with better mental health screening, would be most effective in preventing mass shootings.

Americans overall overwhelmingly believe mass shootings can be prevented, if we try. But Republicans, in particular, are less likely to think so — four in 10 Republicans say mass shootings are, unfortunately, something we have to accept in a free society.

In all, most don't expect Congress to pass any significant changes to gun policy in the coming months.

 

Americans overwhelmingly want Republicans in Congress to stop blocking measures.

 

 

 

But the only issue that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and President Manchin will allow to be considered is a red flag law. Everything else is already off the table in Senate negotiations, as the bill being considered will almost certainly be a copy of Florida's red flag laws under then GOP Gov. Rick Scott.

The senators at the helm of negotiating gun legislation are looking to the Florida law passed in 2018 after the school shooting in Parkland as a potential blueprint for the nation, Sen. Chris Murphy said Sunday.

Murphy (D-Conn.) said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the bill passed by a Republican legislature and signed into law by then-Republican Gov. Rick Scott has elements that senators are considering as they look to pass gun legislation following a school shooting that took place in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 children and two teachers.

“Well, Sen. Scott, then-Gov. Scott, passed that law in Florida because it was the right thing to do, but also because Republicans saw it as good politics. We have to make the case for Republicans that right now this is good politics,” Murphy said.

The Florida law, known as the red flag law, raised the age to buy long guns, including AR-15s, from 18 to 21, added a three-day waiting period, created a program to allow trained school staff to carry guns and invested $400 million in mental health and school security.

“The template for Florida is the right one. Which is do some significant mental health investment, some school safety money and some modest, but impactful, changes in gun laws,” Murphy said. “That’s the kind of package we’re putting together right now. That’s the kind of package I think can pass the Senate.”

 

It won't pass the Senate, despite McConnell singing on to his own bill. It won't get more than five or six Republican votes for a filibuster, meaning it will come up well short of sixty votes, and everyone will go "oh well". 

Nothing's going to happen.  Nothing ever will happen, not with Senate Republicans and with Joe Manchin. The 70%+ people who expect nothing from Republicans are right.

It's just another day in Gunmerica.

Boris, Bad Enough

With all the truly nasty stuff happening here in America it's important to know that Trump's fall in 2020 is looking like it could be the end of multiple clones of himself in other countries. I noted that Trumpy Australian PM Scott Morrison lost elections last month to Labor leader Anthony Albanese, and now in the UK, Boris Johnson faced a no-confidence vote today that could very well end his career.

It was, the prime minister believed, a return to business as usual. On Monday Boris Johnson and his most senior aides gathered in No 10 for their 8am meeting, tucking into bacon rolls as they discussed how to move on from the Downing Street parties scandal.

Johnson, allies said, felt liberated with Sue Gray’s report on the scandal finally behind him and believed that a £21 billion package to tackle the cost of living would answer the concerns of many backbenchers.

The prime minister’s hopes of a respite, however, were short-lived. Over the next three days a further seven Tory MPs went public with criticism of Johnson, bringing the total number to 48.

The Bishop of Buckingham joined calls for Johnson to resign, saying he “obviously” lied over lockdown parties.

The Rt Rev Dr Alan Wilson told Times Radio: “It’s not the parties actually. It’s the lying. I think that’s the problem... I think it’s very difficult to trust a liar.”

When parliament returns from recess and the Platinum Jubilee celebrations on Monday, Johnson will be stepping into the unknown, with whips privately admitting they have no idea how close the prime minister is to the 54-letter threshold needed to trigger a vote in his leadership.

As Guto Harri, the prime minister’s director of communications put it after attending an open-air production of Julius Caesar last week. “Wonderful change from politics,” he said on Facebook. “Or was it?!” Some cabinet ministers have been alarmed by what they view as complacency in Downing Street. In the wake of the Gray report on Wednesday and Rishi Sunak’s spending package on Thursday last week the Downing Street grid appeared to be almost empty. The main offering after a week in which the prime minister had faced down yet another existential crisis was a consultation on a return of imperial measurements.

Senior figures in the campaign to save Johnson — described as Operation Save Big Dog — were also on holiday for much of last week.

“The vote is going to happen,” a government aide said. “There is an awful sense of inevitability about it all. It’s like a pack of Pringles: once you pop, you can’t stop. The lack of an Operation Save Big Dog has been a problem.” There was particular concern in No 10 after Dame Andrea Leadsom — until this week considered a loyalist — accused the prime minister of “unacceptable failings of leadership”.

Several public interventions later by Johnson’s critics and his praetorian guard finally sprang into action. Priti Patel, the home secretary, Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Brexit opportunities minister, were all despatched to defend the prime minister.

Johnson’s allies are withering — privately and publicly — about attempts to remove the prime minister. “I’m getting quite f***ing angry with colleagues who are frothing at the mouth . . . in the way that the public is not,” one cabinet minister said.

 

In other words, Boris Johnson thought he had survived "Partygate" and that everything was fine last week, if not over the weekend. They were wrong.

The Tory rebels got their 54 needed to trigger a no-confidence vote over the weekend, and he needed at least 180 votes from Tory MPs to survive and got 211. Odds were he was going to get that number, the issue was presumed that if the vote wounded him badly enough that like his predecessor Theresa May, Johnson will have to resign soon anyway.

We'll see.

Another Day In Gunmerica, Con't

At this point Republicans no longer fear being wildly racist assholes, because they figure blaming Biden for $5 gas will win them 280 House seats and 54 in the Senate and they can say the quiet part out loud with an entire stadium PA system.

Tech investor and Arizona Republican Senate hopeful Blake Masters acknowledges that the United States has a gun violence problem. But he also has a theory about why there’s a problem—it’s “Black people, frankly.”

Masters boiled the issue down in an April 11 interview on the Jeff Oravits Show podcast, telling the host that “we do have a gun violence problem in this country, and it’s gang violence.”

“It’s people in Chicago, St. Louis shooting each other. Very often, you know, Black people, frankly,” Masters clarified. “And the Democrats don’t want to do anything about that.”

It’s unclear why Masters—who has pushed the baseless “great replacement” conspiracy theory narrative—felt compelled to single out Black people. Moments earlier in the interview, during a discussion about Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings, Masters told Oravits that “most Americans just, you know, just want to stop obsessing about race all the time,” adding that “the left’s biggest tool in their toolkit is just to divide people on the basis of race, and that’s really messed up.”

Republicans frequently cite urban gang violence, most often in Chicago, in attempts to tap out of the gun control debate. While their redirections are often as misleading as they are cliche, those officials aren’t always as forthright as Masters about the racial undertones.

But Masters, whom the white nationalist website VDARE fêted last year as an “immigration patriot,” was quite clear about his vision of two Americas.

After pinning gun violence on gangs and Black people—and saying, falsely, that Democratic administrations “don’t want to do anything” about gang shootings—the Stanford-educated libertarian went on to complain to Oravits that gun control efforts target “law-abiding people like you and me.”

“When they ban ‘ghost guns’ and pistol braces, that’s all about disarming law-abiding people, like you and me, that’s what it’s about,” Masters said, referencing government efforts to crack down on the surge in privately made, untraceable firearms. “They care that we can’t have guns to defend ourselves.”

 

So at this point we're at straight up "We need the Second Amendment so we can shoot us some ni-CLANG!" 

Once again I implore you, your Republican voting relatives, I know the entire point of the GOP is to hurt anyone who isn't a straight white male and put everyone else as second-class citizens with malleable, disposable rights, but the rest of us outnumber them. We can beat this, and it's the rest of these folks who are siding with the GOP who are hoping they'll get secondary power that need to be convinced otherwise.

We all know people like that. Some of them are relatives or even significant others or spouses.

Please, help us. I know a lot of them don't care who they hurt as long as it's marginalized groups, but talk to them anyway. Real people are going to be destroyed here. Real lives are at stake.

Make a difference.

Help us escape Gunmerica.

Last Call For It's A Gas, Gas, Gas, Con't

Former NFL running back Herschel Walker is the GOP's US Senate in Georgia, going up against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, and it seems Walker will do anything to win, including outright voter bribes at the pump in Atlanta's Black community.

A long line of cars formed at a Chevron gas station south of downtown Atlanta on Saturday as word spread that a political action committee was handing out $25 vouchers. Now the pro-Herschel Walker group’s giveaway is fueling a different sort of backlash.

The initiative by 34N22 was designed to highlight rising gas prices, a top issue for Republicans hoping to capitalize on inflation and economic uncertainty to unseat U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock.

Motorists in the heavily Democratic area were handed vouchers totaling $4,000 along with flyers promoting Walker, a former football player who is now the Republican nominee. Outside the gas station, volunteers held signs declaring “Warnock isn’t working.”

Democrats and voting rights groups quickly criticized the stunt, questioning how offering fuel vouchers to support a political candidate could be allowed in a state that bans groups from distributing refreshments to waiting voters in line to cast ballots.

“This is illegal,” declared LaTosha Brown, a cofounder of Black Voters Matter.

“Meanwhile, also in Georgia, giving out water to those waiting to cast a ballot is considered illegal voter influence,” said state Sen. Michelle Au, a Johns Creek Democrat.

The PAC referred to a memo from attorney Kory Langhofer that asserted the program was “entirely lawful and permissible” because the vouchers were given without any condition, such as a requirement to vote for Walker or appear in an advertisement.

“Warnock’s campaign is upset about 34N22′s community outreach program, not because of any earnest legal concerns, but because they don’t want the public to know Warnock has contributed to record gas prices and the pain Georgians are feeling at the pump,” wrote Langhofer, whose experience includes serving as a lawyer for Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign.

Aides to Warnock, who backed a federal gas tax suspension earlier this year to lower prices, didn’t comment on the initiative.

But several influential Democrats argued that the PAC’s move could have violated Georgia law that states: “Any person who gives or receives, offers to give or receive, or participates in the giving or receiving of money or gifts for the purpose of registering as a voter, voting, or voting for a particular candidate in any primary or election shall be guilty of a felony.”

Among them was state Rep. Bee Nguyen, a Democratic candidate for secretary of state who recalled how the office of Georgia’s top election official sent an investigator to a metro Atlanta precinct in 2020 “with firearm on hip and demanded all food and water to be removed.”

“Giving away gas vouchers and Herschel Walker flyers at the same time isn’t legal. Are they gonna do something about it?”

 

Of course they aren't. Laws like this only get enforced against Democrats in a state like Georgia. There's enough gray area here to say it's legal, so it will be legal when Walker does it, and it will be legal when other Republicans repeat the tactic in other states.

And keep in mind, Walker's camp wouldn't be stooping to this level, this early, if Warnock wasn't already whooping Walker's ass in the race.

Now that Herschel Walker is officially the Republican Senate nominee in Georgia, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock has started to mine the treasure trove of opposition research out there on the former NFL star. 

A new ad from Warnock's campaign features Walker talking to right-wing pundit Glenn Beck about Covid-19. Here's the text of what Walker tells Beck: 

"Right now, you know what, I'm gonna say something I probably shouldn't. Do you know right now, I have something that can bring you into a building that would clean you from Covid as you walk through this dry mist. As you walk through the door, it will kill any Covid on your body. When you leave, it will kill the virus as you leave. This here product -- they don't want to talk about that. They don't want to hear about that." 

Near the end of the commercial, this text appears onscreen: "Is Herschel Walker really ready to represent Georgia?" 

The clip comes from an August 2020 appearance Walker made on Beck's podcast. It's not clear what product Walker is referring to, as it could be dangerous for a person to walk through a disinfecting spray or mist that kills the coronavirus. 

Walker's comments evoke the pitch made by then-President Donald Trump in April 2020, when he suggested that ingesting disinfectants or sunlight might help patients battling Covid-19. 

The new Warnock ad serves as a stark reminder of how incredibly untested Walker is -- and what a massive gamble the former football star represents for Republicans in what is widely expected to be one of the closest and most expensive Senate races in the country this fall. 

Walker has never before run for elected office. He hadn't lived in Georgia for years before launching his bid for Senate last year.

 

Walker is a time bomb, frankly.  Even CNN's Chris Cillizza has figured it out.

CNN reported last year that several women have accused Walker of making threats against them. In 2002, one Texas woman told police that Walker had threatened and stalked her. Over the years, two other women -- Walker's ex-wife and an ex-girlfriend -- have also accused him of making threats, telling authorities Walker claimed he would shoot them in the head. 

(At the time of CNN's report, a spokeswoman for Walker declined to respond to the allegations or police report, citing his past struggles with mental health and saying that he was unfairly being targeted as a Republican Senate candidate. Walker's spokeswoman also denied the claims made by the candidate's ex-girlfriend.) 

More recently, Walker has run into trouble when asked for his views on issues, most notably guns. Here's what Walker told Fox when asked about the mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and what, if anything, he believed should be done about it on the legislative front: 

"Cain killed Abel and that's a problem that we have. What we need to do is look into how we can stop those things. You know, you talked about doing a disinformation -- what about getting a department that can look at young men that's looking at women, that's looking at their social media. What about doing that? Looking into things like that and we can stop that that way. But yet they want to just continue to talk about taking away your constitutional rights. And I think there's more things we need to look into. This has been happening for years and the way we stop it is putting money into the mental health field, by putting money into other departments rather than departments that want to take away your rights." 

Uh ... 

Walker wasn't any clearer on the issue when speaking recently with CNN's Manu Raju. Asked whether he supported new gun laws in the wake of Uvalde, Walker said: "What I like to do is see it and everything and stuff." 

Is it possible that Walker's celebrity status -- and the likely Republican lean of the national playing field -- means that voters in Georgia won't much care about his Covid claims or his inability to offer any thoughts on guns in American society? Sure. But as Warnock's latest ad makes clear, nominating Walker was a major risk for Republicans in a critical state to their majority math.

 

Walker needs some help, and is absolutely unfit for office, but it's not like that stopped voters before in the case of Trump himself... 

We'll see.

Another Day In Gunmerica, Con't

At least one Democrat wants to tax sales of new AR-15 rifles by a whopping 1,000%, and because it's a taxation issue, it could get through the Senate in budget reconciliation.

The recent violence is prompting one House Democrat to draft a measure aimed at severely restricting access to the AR-15-style weapons used by different gunmen in the carnage. Rep. Donald Beyer of Virginia, a member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means panel, wants to impose a 1,000% excise tax on assault weapons.

"What it's intended to do is provide another creative pathway to actually make some sensible gun control happen," Beyer told Insider. "We think that a 1,000% fee on assault weapons is just the kind of restrictive measure that creates enough fiscal impact to qualify for reconciliation."

New AR-15-style guns range from $500 to over $2,000 depending on location, NBC News reported. That means a 1,000% tax on the weapon would add $5,000 to $20,000 to their final sales price — and would probably keep it out of reach from many younger Americans.

Some details of the bill still aren't finalized, such as when the tax would kick in and what to do with any revenue raised. It's also unclear how much money it would generate. One out of every five weapons purchased in the US in AR-15 style rifle, per the National Shooting Sports Foundation in a 2014 court brief. Gun sales have surged since then and reached their second-highest level recorded last year.

Law enforcement agencies and the US military wouldn't be subject to the tax, Beyer said. The legislation would also apply only to future assault weapon sales — and not to the 20 million AR-15-style rifles already estimated to be in circulation across the US. Other guns used for hunting and other recreational purposes would also be exempt.

Bullets wouldn't be subject to the new tax. But high-capacity magazines that can carry more than 10 rounds of ammunition would be aggressively taxed at that level.

Beyer's definition of an assault weapon closely mirrors a measure that Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island is pushing. That bill would ban weapons with at least one military characteristic like a pistol grip or a forward grip.

House Democrats are rallying around their own expansive gun-control package separate from ongoing Senate negotiations on a narrower bill centered on mental health, red flag laws, and a modest expansion of background checks. The House bill is expected to fall flat in the upper chamber due to stiff GOP resistance.

That outcome prompted Beyer to eye reconciliation, the legislative tactic allowing proposed laws to bypass the Senate's 60-vote threshold known as the filibuster and pass with a simple majority. Democrats employed the maneuver in 2021 to approve both the stimulus law and the House-approved Build Back Better bill over united GOP resistance.

One expert says his measure likely qualifies for inclusion in a smaller spending bill containing pieces of President Joe Biden's climate and tax agenda. Democrats hope to revive it by summer's end.

"Taxes get more deference in budget reconciliation than other policies from a parliamentarian point of view," Zach Moller, director of the economic program at the center-left Third Way think tank, told Insider.

"So a pure excise tax that isn't set so high as to end all sales should pass the Byrd rule," Moller said, referring the rule governing what meets the requirements to be included in a filibuster-proof bill.

The federal government already imposes a 10% tax on the importation and sale of handguns, per the Tax Policy Center. The tax rate is 11% for other guns and ammunition.

Beyer said he was open to negotiating the 1,000% tax rate. "There's nothing magical about that thousand percent number. It's severe enough to actually inhibit and restrict sales. But also successful enough that it's not seen as an absolute ban."

There are instances stretching back decades of Democrats seeking massive tax increases on guns and ammo to make them unaffordable. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York said in 1993 that he wanted to tax handgun ammunition "out of existence" to curb crime, The New York Times reported.

Then in 2020, a pair of Democrats introduced similar measures to raise taxes on weapons to prevent gun violence, though not at the scale Beyer is seeking. Both Rep. Hank Johnson and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts put forward plans to triple the tax on handguns to 30%, as well as nearly quintuple the tax rate on shells and cartridges to 50%.

Those went nowhere in Congress — and the Beyer plan faces steep hurdles as well. Democrats will likely be wary of Republicans further casting them as tax-and-spend liberals in an election year where the party faces major headwinds to keep control of Congress. It may also violate Biden's pledge to not increase taxes on people earning under $400,000.

 

I guarantee you that the bill will never pass the Senate anyway, it won't have 50 votes as long as Joe Manchin is needed to get that total, and it being a midterm year, I doubt the measure would even have 40 votes.

 

Besides, Republicans will simply "DEMOCRATS WANT TO TAX GUNS BY A THOUSAND PERCENT" in every ad that goes out, and those ads will work in swing states. This wouldn't stop private gun sales, and while yes, it would slow down "I'm going to buy an assault rifle today" sales, the Roberts Court would kill it anyway.

I appreciate the "do something!" aspect, and it does make sense, but it'll never happen.

We live in Gunmerica.

No, this is a horrible idea, and someone in the Democrat

Sunday Long Read: All The President's Crooks

As the January 6th Committee's live hearings get under way later this week, our Sunday Long Read comes from none other than the legendary Watergate-breaking, Nixon-destroying pair of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, writing in the Washington Post with their take on the man they call far worse than Nixon: Donald Trump.

President George Washington, in his celebrated 1796 Farewell Address, cautioned that American democracy was fragile. “Cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government,” he warned.

Two of his successors — Richard Nixon and Donald Trump — demonstrate the shocking genius of our first president’s foresight.

As reporters, we had studied Nixon and written about him for nearly half a century, during which we believed with great conviction that never again would America have a president who would trample the national interest and undermine democracy through the audacious pursuit of personal and political self-interest.

And then along came Trump.

The heart of Nixon’s criminality was his successful subversion of the electoral process — the most fundamental element of American democracy. He accomplished it through a massive campaign of political espionage, sabotage and disinformation that enabled him to literally determine who his opponent would be in the presidential election of 1972.

With a covert budget of just $250,000, a team of undercover Nixon operatives derailed the presidential campaign of Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine, the Democrats’ most electable candidate.

Nixon then ran against Sen. George McGovern, a South Dakota Democrat widely viewed as the much weaker candidate, and won in a historic landslide with 61 percent of the vote and carrying 49 states.

Over the next two years, Nixon’s illegal conduct was gradually exposed by the news media, the Senate Watergate Committee, special prosecutors, a House impeachment investigation and finally by the Supreme Court. In a unanimous decision, the court ordered Nixon to turn over his secret tape recordings, which doomed his presidency.

These instruments of American democracy finally stopped Nixon dead in his tracks, forcing the only resignation of a president in American history.

Donald Trump not only sought to destroy the electoral system through false claims of voter fraud and unprecedented public intimidation of state election officials, but he also then attempted to prevent the peaceful transfer of power to his duly elected successor, for the first time in American history.

Trump’s diabolical instincts exploited a weakness in the law. In a highly unusual and specific manner, the Electoral Count Act of 1887 says that at 1 p.m. on Jan. 6 following a presidential election, the House and Senate will meet in a joint session. The president of the Senate, in this case Vice President Mike Pence, will preside. The electoral votes from the 50 states and the District of Columbia will then be opened and counted.

This singular moment in American democracy is the only official declaration and certification of who won the presidential election.

In a deception that exceeded even Nixon’s imagination, Trump and a group of lawyers, loyalists and White House aides devised a strategy to bombard the country with false assertions that the 2020 election was rigged and that Trump had really won. They zeroed in on the Jan. 6 session as the opportunity to overturn the election’s result. Leading up to that crucial date, Trump’s lawyers circulated memos with manufactured claims of voter fraud that had counted the dead, underage citizens, prisoners and out-of-state residents.

We watched in utter dismay as Trump persistently claimed that he was really the winner. “We won,” he said in a speech on Jan. 6 at the Ellipse. “We won in a landslide. This was a landslide.” He publicly and relentlessly pressured Pence to make him the victor on Jan. 6.

On that day, driven by Trump’s rhetoric and his obvious approval, a mob descended on the Capitol and, in a stunning act of collective violence, broke through doors and windows and ransacked the House chamber, where the electoral votes were to be counted. The mob then went in search of Pence — all to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. Trump did nothing to restrain them.

By legal definition this is clearly sedition — conduct, speech or organizing that incites people to rebel against the governing authority of the state. Thus, Trump became the first seditious president in our history.

 

This is the article that we should have gotten sixteen months ago from these two, making it very, very clear that Trump should have been expelled from the White House, and that Washington's Republicans were too cowardly, too enmeshed, and too ambitious to stop him, mainly because dozens of them wanted Trump's power for themselves, to remake the country in their image, to complete the dark work that Trump narrowly failed. 

It's good to finally see it, and yes, when the news will be filled with these hearings, this article gives a much-needed perspective on what needs to happen in the weeks ahead.

Last Call For Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

A former Wisconsin county judge was assassinated yesterday in his home, with the gunman trying to take his own life afterwards. On the gunman allegedly: a list of other political targets, including Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.

Former Juneau County Judge John Roemer was shot and killed in his home in the Township of New Lisbon Friday morning.

Officials say when SWAT entered the home, they found Roemer zip-tied to a chair and fatally shot.

The Department of Justice says Douglas Uhde was found in the basement with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

A law enforcement official says a "hit list" was found in Uhde's vehicle which included Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

It all started at 6:30 a.m. on Friday when the Juneau County Sheriff’s Office received a call notifying law enforcement of an armed person and two shots fired in a residence.

The caller had left the home and contacted law enforcement from a nearby home.

Following failed attempts to negotiate with the person in the home, at approximately 10:17 a.m. the Juneau County Special Tactics and Response Team entered the residence and located Roemer dead.

Dispatch recordings have also revealed that Roemer's son may have been a witness to the deadly scene.

Uhde, 56, was found in the basement with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. He is in critical condition.

Law enforcement began life-saving measures, and Uhde was taken to a medical facility.

A firearm was recovered at the scene.

Kaul said the judicial targets have been notified.

Kaul said investigators are looking into whether this was related to court cases.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Annette Kingsland Ziegler released a statement on Roemer's death:

"The state's judicial family is shocked and saddened by this tragedy. Judge Roemer dedicated much of his career to public service in the law. Before taking the bench in 2004, he had served as an assistant district attorney and as an assistant state public defender. He was known by colleagues for his sharp legal mind and his willingness to share his time and knowledge with others. His work made a tremendous difference in the lives of many people in Juneau County and elsewhere in the state. Our deepest sympathy goes to Judge Roemer's family at this time."

The investigation is being handled as both a homicide and possible case of domestic terrorism.

 

So, we've gone beyond the "attempted plot phase" in Wisconsin and now we're at the "targeted political assassinations phase" of the ongoing terrorist insurrection, with all the targets having something to do with what the gunman considered a corrupt legal and political system in the US.

I guarantee you this guy thought all four people were enemies of Donald Trump.

I guarantee you more local and state politicians, judges, and civil servants are going to be killed in the months ahead, too.

We're in a ludicrously dangerous time right now.

Another Day In Gunmerica, Con't

GOP Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine says he will sign legislation passed this week in order to arm teachers in schools.

 

Ohio school districts could begin arming employees as soon as this fall under legislation approved by Republican lawmakers and set to be signed by GOP Gov. Mike DeWine.

Democrats said the proposal, which is optional for schools, sends the wrong message a week after the massacre of 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Republicans say the measure could prevent such shootings. Lawmakers fast-tracked the legislation to counter the impact of a court ruling that said, under current law, armed school workers would need hundreds of hours of training.

The bill will protect children by ensuring instruction is specific to schools and including significant scenario-based training, DeWine said late Wednesday in announcing his support.

The measure is opposed by major law enforcement groups, gun control advocates, and the state's teachers' unions, which asked DeWine to veto the measure. It's supported by a handful of police departments and school districts.

Under the latest version of the bill, school employees who carry guns would need up to 24 hours of initial training, then up to eight hours of requalification training annually.

DeWine, who is expected to sign the bill later this month, also announced that the state's construction budget will provide $100 million for school security upgrades in schools and $5 million for upgrades at colleges.

 

So the response to school shootings in Ohio is:

 

• Put more guns readily available in classrooms
• Give teachers a day's training to keep packing
• Turn schools into prison complex fortresses
• Continue to terrorize kids with shooting drills 
• Waste $100 million that should go anywhere else
  

 

In any other country this would considered insanity, Ohio would serve as a dark cautionary tale, and DeWine's career would be over. Instead, because this is Gunmerica, Louisiana is going to allow teachers to start packing heat too and I expect several other states will follow.

 

By the way, police officers in Ohio need hundreds of hours of training before going on the job, over 600 in fact.  Teachers, well, we'll give them 3 days.  Still, that's more than security guards get, they only have to have 20 hours and 4 each year for recertification, so that's good right?

Kids are actually going to die in Ohio classrooms where they will be shot and killed by Ohio teachers in entirely preventable deaths, but do go on about school safety.

There's also some good and bad news out of Buffalo this week too.

Rep. Chris Jacobs, an Orchard Park Republican, said Friday that he was withdrawing as the GOP and Conservative candidate for Congress in the newly redrawn 23rd District, acknowledging that his newfound views on gun control place him at odds with the parties that endorsed him.

"This obviously arises out of last Friday, my remarks, statements on being receptive to gun controls," Jacobs said in an interview. "And since that time, every Republican elected (official) that had endorsed me withdrew their endorsement. Party officials that supported me withdrew, most of them, and those that were going to said they would not. And so obviously, this was not well received by the Republican base."

What's more, both the Republican and Conservative parties were circulating petitions for candidates to run against Jacobs in the Aug. 23 congressional primaries.

"I truly believe that I could win this, but it would be an incredibly divisive race for our party, for the district," Jacobs said. "There's a high likelihood that there would be a lot of outside money coming in, so it would make this gun issue the issue. And that divisiveness not good in any effort to move this discussion forward in a productive way."

It's good news because there are no good Republicans who are staying in the party and Congress, so Rep. Jacobs leaving because he knows he can't win in Buffalo as a gun safety Republican, and he still voted against Biden 75% of the time anyway. We're all better of with him being replaced.

 

The bad news is that remaining Republicans are even more nuts than Jacobs.

 

Just another day in Gunmerica.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Team Trump knows they have to get this month's January 6th Committee hearings off the news, and they have plans to go wall-to-wall on FOX, Newsmax, OANN, and other online right-wing noise machine outlets to make their own news and drown out coverage.

 

Former President Trump and his allies, in conjunction with top House GOP leadership and conservative groups, have begun pulling documents and coordinating a behind-the-scenes effort to counterprogram the Jan. 6 committee's televised hearings this month, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: Republicans face a daunting challenge in the coming messaging war. The committee has been building toward this moment for months, hoping to use the blockbuster summer hearings to paint a vivid picture of how close Trump and his supporters came to subverting democracy. 

Republicans are plotting to compete with wall-to-wall cable coverage by using their own platforms to argue the committee is a partisan fishing expedition that lacks legal legitimacy. That framing will be central to their hopes of defanging whatever negative revelations come to light during the hearings.

What we're hearing: Trump and his inner circle will rely heavily on members of Congress — from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) — to drive counterprogramming, sources familiar with their planning tell Axios.Trump himself has not ruled out making some sort of an appearance, one of the sources says. 

People close to Trump have been working closely with members of Congress, the RNC and outside groups like the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) to collaborate on their offensive narrative. Matt Schlapp, former Trump White House political director and chairman of CPAC, has been a leader in the effort, sources say.

A crucial component is ensuring these surrogates have the tools they need to fight back, according to Republicans.That includes digging up old documents and logs from the White House to help provide Trump surrogates with a full picture of what happened both in the lead-up to and on Jan. 6, 2021.

What to watch: These surrogates will be fanning the airwaves — especially on networks and social media platforms they feel are more favorable to their cause.That includes Fox News, Steve Bannon's "War Room," "Real America’s Voice," Facebook and Trump's own Truth Social and Save America PAC. 

Members of Congress and other conservative "influencers" are also planning to write op-eds and push their own rapid responses through their personal social media. Which witnesses the committee calls to testify publicly will dictate the coordinated response, the sources say.

Details: Members of House Republican leadership and would-be GOP members of the Jan. 6 committee are planning to meet early next week to go over potential strategy, two senior congressional aides tell Axios.

Jordan and Banks, whom House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) barred from the Jan. 6 panel last year, will seek to hammer the message that the committee "lacks merit and legitimacy" and is hyperpartisan, one of the aides emphasized. 

Another leading point Republicans plan to make is that the priorities of Democrats are "out of touch" with what Americans are most concerned about: inflation, spiking gas prices, the baby formula shortage and recent mass shootings. 

They're betting voters have Jan. 6 "fatigue," a House GOP leadership aide said. "We’ve got to be rigid and responsible, but a lot of Republicans think if Dems want to just talk about Jan. 6 between now and the midterm election — good luck," the aide added.

 

Of course, all this leads to the following observations:

 

1) Trumplandia is scared stiff.  They know what's coming, because they're the ones that committed insurrection against the United States. They wouldn't risk a major Streisand Effect incident by bringing more attention to January 6th among their own voters unless they knew that anything has to be better than America finding out the truth in these hearings.

2) They're setting the stage to punish the January 6th Committee Members in 2023. The screaming about the Committee itself being illegitimate is the biggest part of this. Documenting the hearings as "evidence to be used later" and as justification for, say, removing all the committee members from their other committee assignments in January (or worse) is the goal should Republican retake control of the House.

3) The pressure for media to cover the "Republican response" in order to "both sides" the hearings will be massive.  Expect cable news coverage teams on the networks like CBS, NBC, and ABC to feature at least some Republicans, as they will demand "equal time" for hours of hearings. News divisions will give it to them too, because of the access game they feel will be necessary next year. This will be a deliberate choice by the media when it happens.

So yes, the Trump plan is to flood the zone with bullshit and more, and we'll see if the Committee can rise above it later this month.

Last Call For Ron's Gone Wrong, Con't

Florida continues its descent into authoritarian control as GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis says he will now veto a $35 million training facility of MLB's Tampa Bay Rays after the Rays dared to speak out about gun violence and pledged a $50k donation to gun safety organization Everytown. 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis plans to veto a $35 million legislation for a Pasco County facility that’s earmarked for the Tampa Bay Rays’ spring training, OutKick has learned.

DeSantis’s decision is in response to the Rays politicizing recent shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde ahead of a matchup with the Yankees in May.

Here’s what the Rays posted before the start of the game:

 

pic.twitter.com/9DpyuwEzJo

— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) May 26, 2022

 

The decision follows DeSantis’ response to Disney earlier this year. In April, DeSantis revoked Disney’s special tax and self-governing privileges after the company injected itself into the debate over a Florida parental rights law, inaccurately dubbed as “Don’t Say Gay.”

DeSantis is giving a voice to the people who do not want their sports and children’s companies on the front lines of the cultural divide.

Florida residents had called for DeSantis to veto the spending anyway, saying that Floridians’ tax dollars should not help fund a facility for a professional sports team.

The Florida Senate has argued against this case, by listing the proposal as a “Sports Training and Youth Tournament Complex” and not mentioning the Rays. However, the Tampa Bay Times first reported the money would mostly help cover a new facility for the Rays.

 

In other words, this was the Florida GOP trying to sneak a fastball over the plate, but DeSantis instead now has his reason to take his ball and go home and make it all about punishing a company for daring to disagree with him.  There's probably nothing the Rays can do here, but DeSantis is more than happy to be a tyrant here.

Plenty of voters want a tyrant these days.

Another Day In Gunmerica, Con't

President Biden gave a White House speech to the nation last night about gun safety legislation, but it almost certainly fell upon deaf ears.

In remarks from a candle-lined Cross Hall at the White House, Biden recalled his visits to the memorials of recent mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York. Fifty-six candles burned behind him to represent victims of gun violence in all US states and territories. 

"Standing there in that small town like so many other communities across America, I couldn't help but think there are too many other schools, too many other everyday places, that have become killing fields -- battlefields -- here in America," Biden said of his visit to Uvalde. 

He added, "For God's sake, how much more carnage are we willing to accept?" 

The remarks amount to Biden's most fulsome speech about guns since a massacre at a Texas elementary school last week. 

He said the recent spate of horrific mass shootings must impel the nation to take action to prevent further massacres by passing gun restrictions. 

After meeting families mourning their slain loved ones in Buffalo and Uvalde, Biden said the message from them was clear: "Do something." 

"Nothing has been done," Biden said. "This time that can't be true. This time we must actually do something." 

He issued a call to reinstate a ban on assault weapons that he said had helped prevent horrific murders but expired in 2004. 

'We should reinstate the assault weapons ban," Biden said, seeking a new prohibition on the types of high-capacity weapons used in the Uvalde and Buffalo shootings. 

Biden said that in the 10 years the law was in place, mass shootings decreased. 

"After Republicans let the law expire in 2004, those weapons were allowed to be sold again. Mass shootings tripled," the President said. 

He said the weapons inflicted gruesome damage on their victims, particularly children, and he used very vivid language to describe the shootings and their aftermath. 

"The damage is so devastating, and in Uvalde, parents had to do DNA swabs to identify the remains of their children, 9 and 10 years old," he said. 

In the little more than a week since the Uvalde shooting, a string of additional mass shootings have unfolded in states across the country, including in Tulsa on Wednesday. That shooting left five dead, including the gunman. 

It's the second time that Biden has delivered an emotional evening speech at the White House on mass shootings, also speaking in the wake of the Robb Elementary School assault. Since then, however, Biden has only selectively waded into the debate over gun control, stopping short of endorsing any specific legislative action to prevent further carnage. 

However, he broke with that trend on Thursday. Biden said the age to purchase assault weapons must be raised from 18 to 21 if lawmakers cannot agree on an outright ban on those firearms. 

"We must at least raise the age to be able to purchase one to 21," the President said.

 

It was a good speech, with Biden laying out specific legislation that he wants. Nancy Pelosi will be in the House taking up all of these measures in the days ahead.

The problem of course is that the legislation will never get past Mitch McConnell and the GOP, and there isn't one Republican voter who will suddenly have a change of heart and want to punish the GOP for blocking every single bit of this.

Not only will voters not punish the GOP for this in November, they will most likely reward them with control of the House and Senate assuring no gun safety legislation is even considered.

And so "never again!" will be "until the next time it happens and Republicans are rewarded for it."

Just another day in Gunmerica.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Proud Boys white supremacist domestic terrorists are increasingly taking over Republican party positions at the local and county level, and their biggest success so far is Miami/Dade County in Florida.

The concerted effort by the Proud Boys to join the leadership of the party — and, in some cases, run for local office — has destabilized and dramatically reshaped the Miami-Dade Republican Party that former Gov. Jeb Bush and others built into a powerhouse nearly four decades ago, transforming it from an archetype of the strait-laced establishment to an organization roiled by internal conflict as it wrestles with forces pulling it to the hard right. The conflict comes at a pivotal moment for Republicans nationally, as primary voters weigh whether to wrench the party from its extremist elements — or more fully embrace them.

“Yes, we have fringe elements,” said René García, the chairman of the approximately 125-member Republican committee in Miami-Dade County, who is also a county commissioner and former state senator. “Yes, we have different points of view in our party. That’s how we are. And my job as Republican chairman is to protect everyone’s First Amendment right, however wrong they may be.”

The Proud Boys spent nearly half a decade engaged in often violent protests across the country over issues such as the removal of Confederate statues and the unsubstantiated spread of Shariah law. After the Capitol attack, however, as Proud Boys were being investigated by law enforcement and charged with federal crimes, they lowered their profile. The group dissolved its national leadership and encouraged chapters to get involved in local issues, with the goal of amassing support in advance of this year’s midterm elections.

“The plan of attack if you want to make change is to get involved at the local level,” Jeremy Bertino, a prominent member of the North Carolina Proud Boys, told The New York Times last year in the midst of the shift.

What they intend to do with their power is unclear. Still, following a trend pushed by far-right figures like Stephen K. Bannon, Proud Boys started showing up at school board meetings to protest coronavirus mask mandates and the teaching of antiracist curriculum.

In California’s Central Valley, members of the group have intimidated protesters who did not want a church to buy an L.G.B.T.Q.-friendly theater in Fresno. A Proud Boy declared his candidacy for the Oregon Legislature. A former Proud Boy in Kansas lost a race for a Topeka City Council seat.

The Proud Boys’ encroachments into the Miami-Dade Republican Party are, by far, the group’s largest political success. The Fontainebleau incident was the latest to cause unrest within the party as a small but growing number of Proud Boys have deepened existing divisions and injected an unusual degree of aggression into routine dealings.

Such a rightward shift mirrors the evolution of state and national Republicans but is remarkable for Miami-Dade, Florida’s most populous county, which Democratic presidential candidates have won since 1992. Republicans vastly improved their showing in 2020, a swing that has soured Democrats’ prospects.

Chris Barcenas, a Republican committeeman and Proud Boy, said he started thinking about running for a committeeman seat about a year ago.

“Instead of sitting on the sidelines complaining about RINOs or whatever,” he said, referring to “Republicans in name only,” “I realized that in order to make changes, I had to be involved and be part of the process.”

Mr. Barcenas, 34, voluntarily testified a few months ago to the House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6 about his understanding of the Proud Boys’ role in the Capitol attack. He protested at the Capitol that day but did not go into the building and has not been charged with any crimes.

Gabriel Garcia, 37, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges from the Capitol attack, said the party was once the province of country-club Republicans.

“I know a lot of people on the committee way before me were supporting people like Jeb,” said Mr. Garcia, who lost a State House bid in 2020. “But when Trump won, pretty much everyone started falling in line.”

 

Again, these are January 6th domestic insurrectionist terrorists now taking over local GOP offices and purging the "RINOs" from the party. They are telling Cuban Americans that Democrats have abandoned them, all the way up to "Well if you don't want to end up like the Blacks, you'd better vote Republican."

It's working. Miami/Dade is going to be lost for a generation to the GOP if Democrats don't get their shit together and go after the actual January 6th terrorists running the GOP in the county.

Last Call For The Road To Gilead, Con't

More Americans define themselves as "pro-choice" in Gallup's latest poll, approaching the 1995 record of 56%.

A Gallup poll conducted mostly after the draft of a Supreme Court decision addressing abortion rights was leaked finds a marked shift in public attitudes over the past year. After a decade in which Americans' identification as "pro-choice" varied narrowly between 45% and 50%, the percentage has jumped six points to 55% in the latest poll, compared with the prior measure a year ago.

Pro-choice sentiment is now the highest Gallup has measured since 1995 when it was 56% -- the only other time it has been at the current level or higher -- while the 39% identifying as "pro-life" is the lowest since 1996.

Similarly, for the first time in Gallup's trend on the moral acceptability of abortion, originating in 2001, a majority of Americans (52%) consider abortion morally acceptable, while a record-low 38% call it morally wrong.

The latest survey was conducted by telephone May 2-22 with a nationally representative sample of 1,007 U.S. adults. A leaked draft of the Supreme Court's opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization was reported by Politico on the evening of May 2, shortly after the start of interviewing for the new poll.

The opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito provides the court's reasoning behind its preliminary decision to uphold a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. In this first draft, Alito argues that the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that affirmed a constitutional right to seek abortion was wrongly decided and must be overturned.

The increase in pro-choice identification over the past year is mainly driven by Democrats; 88%, up from 70% last year, consider themselves pro-choice.

The poll also shows significant increases in pro-choice identification among Democratic-leaning groups, including younger adults and women. Pro-choice identification increased by nine percentage points to 61% among women, 12 points to 67% among adults aged 18 to 34 and nine points to 58% among adults aged 35 to 54. The percentage "pro-choice" did not change significantly among Republicans, independents, men or older Americans.

 

The question is whether or not this is going to move the needle on the 2022 midterms when half of American women no longer have access to abortion as health care by July 4th. I think it will, but it may not be as much as inflation/price gouging (which is a real problem right now) and the general consensus that we're heading into a recession (which isn't actually true...yet).

Still, when this really slams home and abortion become criminalized in half the US, I think the backlash will be very swift and powerful.