The French Disconnection, Con't

French President Emmanuel Macron's party will remain in power in the legislature after National Assembly elections on Sunday, but it will need a coalition government with second-place leftist coalition party NUPES to do so, and rival Marine Le Pen's authoritarian National Rally party had its best showing ever winning nearly 90 seats.

Voters in France’s legislative elections dealt President Emmanuel Macron a serious blow on Sunday as his centrist coalition lost its absolute majority in the lower house of Parliament to a resurgent far-right and a defiant alliance of left-wing parties, complicating his domestic agenda for his second term.

With all votes counted, Mr. Macron’s centrist coalition won 245 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, the lower and more powerful house of Parliament. That was more than any other political group, but less than half of all the seats, and far less than the 350 seats Mr. Macron’s party and its allies won when he was first elected in 2017.

For the first time in 20 years, a newly elected president failed to muster an absolute majority in the National Assembly. It will not grind Mr. Macron’s domestic agenda to a complete halt, but will likely throw a large wrench into his ability to get bills passed — shifting power back to Parliament after a first term in which his top-down style of governing had mostly marginalized lawmakers.

Mr. Macron’s government will likely have to seek a coalition or build short-term alliances on bills, but it was unclear Sunday night how it might go about doing so.

The results were a sharp warning from French voters to Mr. Macron, who just months ago convincingly won re-election against Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader. “The Slap” was Monday’s headline on the front page of the left-leaning daily Libération.

Élisabeth Borne, Mr. Macron’s prime minister — who won her own race in Normandy — said on Sunday that the results were “unprecedented” and that “this situation constitutes a risk for our country, given the challenges we must face.”

“Starting tomorrow we will work on building a majority of action,” she said, suggesting, without giving details, that the government would work with other political parties to “build good compromises.”

Mr. Macron appeared disengaged from the parliamentary elections and did little campaigning himself, seeming more preoccupied by France’s diplomatic efforts to support Ukraine in its war against Russia — which Sunday’s results should not impact, as French presidents can conduct foreign policy mostly as they please.

Speaking on an airport tarmac before a trip to Eastern Europe that took him to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, this past week, he had urged voters to give him a “solid majority” in the “superior interest of the nation.”

But many French voters chose instead to either stay home — only about 46 percent of the French electorate went to the ballot box, according to projections, the second-lowest participation level since 1958 — or to vote for Mr. Macron’s most radical opponents.

Several of Mr. Macron’s close allies or cabinet members who were running in the election lost their races, a stinging rebuke for the president, who had vowed that ministers who failed to win a seat would have to resign. Richard Ferrand, the president of the National Assembly, and Amélie de Montchalin, his minister for green transition, were both defeated.

“We disappointed a certain number of French people, the message is clear,” Olivia Grégoire, a spokeswoman for Mr. Macron’s government, told France 2 television on Sunday.

“It’s a disappointing first place, but it’s a first place nonetheless,” she said, adding that Mr. Macron’s coalition would work in Parliament with “all those who want to move the country forward.”

Final results gave the alliance of left-wing parties — which includes the hard-left France Unbowed party, the Socialists, Greens and Communists, and is led by the leftist veteran Jean-Luc Mélenchon — 131 seats, making it the biggest opposition force in the National Assembly. The National Rally, Ms. Le Pen’s far-right party, secured 89 seats, a historic record.

 

Ironically 46% turnout for a midterm election here in the states would be pretty good.

Macron will now have to make major concessions to the left, and considering both NUPES and National Rally want France to wash its hands of Ukraine and hand it off to Putin, things could get very interesting in the days ahead in Paris.

We'll see.

Last Call For Hearing Aides For America, Con't

As I have said multiple times, the primary goal of the January 6th Committee's publicly televised hearings is simple: to make the case to America for charging Donald Trump with criminal acts in connection with the effort to annul Joe Biden's win and to defraud America with a slate of illegitimate electors.

The latest ABC News poll finds that the hearings are working even better than I expected.

With the first full week of hearings for the House select committee's investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol now complete, nearly 6 in 10 Americans believe former President Donald Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the incident, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds.

Six in 10 Americans also believe the committee is conducting a fair and impartial investigation, according to the poll.

In the poll, which was conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News using Ipsos' KnowledgePanel, 58% of Americans think Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the riot. That's up slightly from late April, before the hearings began, when an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 52% of Americans thought the former president should be charged.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll that asked a similar question days after the attack in January 2021 found that 54% of Americans thought Trump should be charged with the crime of inciting a riot.

Attitudes on whether Americans think Trump is responsible for the attack on the U.S. Capitol remain relatively stable. In the new ABC News/Ipsos poll, 58% of Americans think Trump bears a "great deal" or a "good amount" of responsibility for the attack on the Capitol. This is unchanged from an ABC News/Ipsos poll in December 2021 and similar to the findings of an ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted just after the attack in January 2021.

The poll divides along party lines, with 91% of Democrats thinking Trump should be charged with a crime compared to 19% of Republicans. On whether Trump bears a "great deal" or a "good amount" of responsibility for the attack, 91% of Democrats and 21% of Republicans say he does.

Among self-described independents, 62% think Trump should be charged and 61% think he bears a "great deal" or a "good amount" of responsibility.

 

Again, a majority of Americans believe Trump should be charged. The country is not "tuning out boring hearings" like Republicans want you to believe...and even one in five Republicans think Trump should be indicted. That's about twice as much as I was expecting, meaning the hearings are changing some Republican minds as well.

More hearings are scheduled for Tuesday. More people are watching and paying attention.

That's a good thing, because even Republicans believe more violence is coming.

The GOP Mess In Texas

Texas Republicans held their annual state party convention last week, in which thousands of delegates from all over the state voted on the party's official platform. This being 2022 and Republicans being Republicans, the official Texas GOP platform is straight-up codified racism, fascism, and secession.

Meeting at their first in-person convention since 2018, Texas Republicans on Saturday acted on a raft of resolutions and proposed platform changes to move their party even further to the right. They approved measures declaring that President Joe Biden “was not legitimately elected” and rebuking Sen. John Cornyn for taking part in bipartisan gun talks. They also voted on a platform that declares homosexuality “an abnormal lifestyle choice” and calls for Texas schoolchildren should be taught “to learn about the Humanity of the Preborn Child.”

The actions capped a convention that highlighted how adamantly opposed the party’s most active and vocal members are to compromising with Democrats or moderating on social positions, even as the state has grown more diverse and Republicans’ margins in statewide elections have shrunk slightly in recent years.

Votes on the platform were collected at the end of the party's three-day convention in which party activists moved to add multiple items to their official platform. As the convention closed, two separate sets of ballots — one allowing delegates to choose eight of 15 legislative priorities and another allowing delegates to vote on the 275 platform planks — were gathered. Those will now need to be tallied and certified in Austin, but it is rare for a plank to be rejected, according to party spokesman James Wesolek.

The convention reinforced the extent to which former President Donald J. Trump’s unfounded claims of a stolen election continue to resound among the party faithful — even though his claims have repeatedly been debunked, including by many of his own former aides, and after a week of televised hearings about the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The denunciation of Cornyn represented a remarkable rebuke to a Republican who has served in the Senate since 2002. The hall at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston filled with boos on Friday as he tried to explain the legislation, which would allow juvenile records to be incorporated into background checks for gun buyers younger than 21 and encourage “red flag” laws that would make it easier to remove guns from potentially dangerous people, along with more funding for school safety and mental health.

Meanwhile, the party platform vote on Saturday by roughly 5,100 convention delegates would argue that those under 21 are “most likely to need to defend themselves” and may need to quickly buy guns “in emergencies such as riots.” It also would say that red flag laws violate the due process rights of people who haven’t been convicted of a crime.

Around 9,600 delegates and alternates were eligible to attend; organizers said the turnout was healthy.

The new platform would call for: 

• Requiring Texas students “to learn about the Humanity of the Preborn Child,” including teaching that life begins at fertilization and requiring students to listen to live ultrasounds of gestating fetuses.
• Amending the Texas Constitution to remove the Legislature’s power “to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime.”
• Treating homosexuality as “an abnormal lifestyle choice,” language that was not included in the 2018 or 2020 party platforms.
• Deeming gender identity disorder “a genuine and extremely rare metal health condition,” requiring official documents to adhere to “biological gender,” and allowing civil penalties and monetary compensation to “de-transitioners” who have received gender-affirming surgery, which the platform calls a form of medical malpractice.
• Changing the U.S. Constitution to fix the number of Supreme Court justices at nine and to repeal the 16th Amendment of 1913, which created the federal income tax.
• Ensuring “freedom to travel,” by opposing Biden’s Clean Energy Plan and “California-style, anti-driver policies,” including efforts to turn traffic lanes over for use by pedestrians, cyclists and mass transit.
• Declaring “all businesses and jobs as essential and a fundamental right,” a response to COVID-19 mandates by Texas cities requiring customers to wear masks and limiting business hours.
• Abolishing the Federal Reserve, the nation’s central bank, and guaranteeing the right to use alternatives to cash, including cryptocurrencies.

Not every far-right proposal was advanced. The party chair, Matt Rinaldi, ruled that a motion to defend the due process rights of those who rioted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and to “reject the narrative” that the riot was an insurrection was out of order, and could not be voted on.

Taken together, the new provisions would represent a shift even further rightward for the Republican Party of Texas, once known as the party of Presidents George Bush and his son George W. Bush. Land Commissioner George P. Bush, a grandson and nephew of the two presidents, was defeated handily last month in his race against Attorney General Ken Paxton, an arch-conservative who sued to challenge the 2020 election outcome and convinced voters that he was the truer Trump loyalist.

 

 

Sure, there's been whackoid platform planks in the past, the "reserve the right to secede" thing ends up in there every year it seems, but the  "Gay folks are deviants and trans folks are mentally ill" stuff is relatively new, and of course "Biden isn't president" is a huge red flag. And specifically, the platform is calling for a statewide referendum for secession to be put on the ballot in 2023.

This is once again a case of Republicans telling exactly how they will rule if given power, and telling us exactly who they will use that power against.

Pay attention.

Sunday Long Read: Teaching Those People A Lesson

Our Sunday Long Read this week of Juneteenth comes from ProPublica, the painful story of Cecelia Lewis, an award-winning Black middle school principal hired as the first diversity administrator in Cherokee County, Georgia's school district.

And then the county's wealthy white parents got a hold of Lewis and destroyed her life, her job, and her home in the name of "ending Critical Race Theory".

In April of 2021, Cecelia Lewis had just returned to Maryland from a house-hunting trip in Georgia when she received the first red flag about her new job.

The trip itself had gone well. Lewis and her husband had settled on a rental home in Woodstock, a small city with a charming downtown and a regular presence on best places to live lists. It was a short drive to her soon-to-be office at the Cherokee County School District and less than a half hour to her husband’s new corporate assignment. While the north Georgia county was new to the couple, the Atlanta area was not. They’d visited several times in recent years to see their son, who attended Georgia Tech.

Lewis, a middle school principal, initially applied for a position that would bring her closer to the classroom as a coach for teachers. But district leaders were so impressed by her interview that they encouraged her to apply instead for a new opening they’d created: their first administrator focused on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

DEI-focused positions were becoming more common in districts across the country, following the 2020 protests over the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. The purpose of such jobs typically is to provide a more direct path for addressing disparities stemming from race, economics, disabilities and other factors.

At first, the scope of the role gave Lewis pause. In her current district, these responsibilities were split among several people, and she’d never held a position dedicated to anything as specific as that before. But she had served on the District Equity Leadership Team in her Maryland county and felt prepared for this new challenge. She believed the job would allow her, as she put it, to analyze the district’s “systemic and instructional practices” in order to better support “the whole child.”

“We’re so excited to add Cecelia to the CCSD family,” Superintendent Brian Hightower said in the district’s March 2021 announcement about all of its new hires. (The announcement noted that the creation of the DEI administrator role “stems from input from parents, employees and students of color who are serving on Dr. Hightower’s ad hoc committees formed this school year to focus on the topic.”) Hightower acknowledged “both her impressive credentials and enthusiasm for the role” and pointed out that, “In four days, she had a DEI action plan for us.”

During her early visits, Lewis found Cherokee County to be a welcoming place. It reminded her of her community in southern Maryland, where everyone knew one another. But leaving the place where she’d been raised — and where, aside from her undergrad years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she’d spent most of her adult life — wasn’t going to be easy. Before her last day as principal of her middle school, her staff created a legacy wall in her honor, plastering a phrase above student lockers that Lewis would say to end the morning messages each day: “If no one’s told you they care about you today, know that I do ... and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it!”

Lewis was beginning to prepare for her move South, spending as much time with friends and family as possible, when she got a strange call from an official in her new school district. The person on the line — Lewis won’t say who — asked if she had ever heard of CRT.

Lewis responded, “Yes — culturally responsive teaching.” She was thinking of the philosophy that connects a child’s cultural background to what they learn in school. For Lewis, who’d studied Japanese and Russian in college and more recently traveled to Ghana with the Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad program for teachers, language and culture were essential to understanding anyone’s experience.

At that point, she wasn’t even familiar with the other CRT, critical race theory, which maintains that racial bias is embedded in America’s laws and institutions and has caused disproportionate harm to people of color. In a speech the previous fall, then-President Donald Trump condemned CRT as “toxic propaganda” and “ideological poison.”

The caller then told Lewis that a group of people in a wealthy neighborhood in the northern part of the county were upset about what they believed were her intentions to bring CRT to Cherokee County. But don’t worry, the district official said; we just want to keep you updated.

 

What happened next made national news, or at least, FOX News. Angry white racists mobilized thanks to astroturf groups specifically designed to "warn parents about the horrors of CRT" and they didn't just chase Lewis and her family out of Cherokee County, when she decided to quit and then get a job in Cobb County and Atlanta, the same parents hunted her down and told Cobb County schools that they would end up on FOX News next if they didn't fire her immediately. 

And they did fire her.  They chased Lewis out of the state entirely.

The same story is being repeated all over the country.  Every school teacher, administrator, and employee is suspect of belonging to the "cult of CRT" until proven innocent by a jury of enraged white parents.

Increasingly, public education is now the enemy of MAGAs

An enemy that needs to be destroyed by any way possible.

Vote Like Your Country Depends On It, Con't

I know Biden v. Trump polls are worthless 29 months out from a 2024 matchup, but as far as being a current snapshot of the electorate, the electorate apparently wants to give the country back to the seditious fascist because gas is $5 a gallon.

As inflation keeps rising and recession fears loom, a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that Joe Biden is currently in the worst shape of his presidency.

The survey of 1,541 U.S. adults, which was conducted from June 10-13, found that if another presidential election were held today, more registered voters say they would cast ballots for Donald Trump (44%) than for Biden (42%) — even though the House Jan. 6 committee has spent the last week linking Trump to what it called a “seditious conspiracy” to overturn the 2020 election and laying the groundwork for possible criminal prosecution.

Since Biden took office, no previous Yahoo News/YouGov poll has shown him trailing Trump (though Biden’s most recent leads have been within the margin of error, like this one is for Trump). One year ago, Biden led Trump by 9 percentage points. In 2020, Biden won the White House by more than 7 million votes.

Yet Biden’s job approval rating has been atrophying for much of the last year, and the new survey shows that it has never been weaker. A full 56% of Americans now disapprove of the president’s performance — the highest share to date — while just 39% approve. Three weeks ago, those numbers were 53% and 42%, respectively.

On average, Biden’s job approval scores are now a few points worse than Trump’s were at the parallel stage of his presidency.

Among all Americans, Trump (43%) now has a higher personal favorability rating than Biden (40%) as well. Meanwhile, nearly two-thirds of independents (64%) have an unfavorable opinion of Biden, and just 28% say they would vote for him over Trump.

The bad news for Biden comes as prices continue to increase at the fastest pace in 40 years, upending expectations and overshadowing other concerns. According to the poll, 40% of registered voters (up from 33% last month) now say inflation is “the most important issue to you when thinking about this year’s election” — more than four times the number for any other issue.

So inflation really is driving voters, especially white voters and more than a few Latino voters, right into the arms of the party who has made it very clear that the rights of anyone who isn't a white straight Christian male will be taken from them over the months and years ahead.

And that's 100% okay with a lot of people who aren't white straight Christian males because they think Daddy Trump will fix everything he helped cause and that Biden hasn't fixed it yet in 17 months.

A whole lot of people seem very eager  to vote for the guy currently under investigation for, you know, sedition, conspiracy, and fraud against the country itself, but fuck Joe Biden, right?

And yes, as I keep saying, white people and white-adjacent people voting for the party of white supremacy absolutely are voting for their self-interests, and at the direct expense of the rest of us.

As long as it gets gas back under $3, the rest of us can be hunted down and dealt with.

Jesus wept.

Hearing Aides For America, Con't

Just Security's Ryan Goodman asked multiple former Justice Department legal experts about the need to indict Trump given the revelations this week in the January 6th Committee hearings that 1) Trump was told his plan with Pence and alternate electors was illegal by several of his legal staff, that 2) former VP Mike Pence was indeed targeted by Trump for not following through on that plan, and 3) they knew that SCOTUS would still vote against them even if they pulled it off.

The results are pretty unanimous that Trump should face charges, and that Merrick Garland would have a winnable case.

 

The following questions relate to the potential criminal liability of President Trump.

As a former federal prosecutor or senior Justice Department official, what legal significance do you give to the above testimony and document in terms of determining an individual’s mental state?

In particular, what significance may that information hold for President Trump’s potential criminal liability under Obstruction of an Official Proceeding, 18 U.S.C. §1512(c)(2) (a charge brought against at least 275 January 6 defendants) or Conspiracy to Prevent an Officer from Discharging Any Duties,18 U.S.C. § 372 (one of the charges brought against Oath Keeper defendants), other federal offenses (e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 371)? Note, in a public court hearing of a January 6 defendant, a lead DOJ prosecutor told a federal court that someone could be guilty of obstruction in pressing Mike Pence to adjudge the certification in a particular way “if that person does that knowing it is not an available argument [and is] asking the vice president to do something the individual knows is wrongful … one of the definitions of ‘corruptly’ is trying to get someone to violate a legal duty.” Not necessary, but you may already be aware or want to consider how DC courts have addressed whether inducing another person to violate a legal duty in relation to an official proceeding meets the definition of acting with an unlawful purpose.

What are your views of these potential sources of criminal liability for President Trump’s course of conduct toward Mike Pence in light of the evidence presented by the Committee?

Please feel free to answer any or all of these questions or related issues that you consider relevant and important.

 

Goodman got several responses including:

Liam Brennan, a former federal prosecutor and head of Connecticut’s Public Corruption Task Force, currently serves as Inspector General in Hartford:

The testimony from the January 6th committee this week was explosive for multiple reasons. First, it made clear that Trump was advised that his actions to stop the certification of President Biden’s election were unlawful. While there has always been circumstantial evidence to this effect, this direct evidence is more persuasive. Second, John Eastman’s involvement in the scheme has always dangled the possibility that Trump could raise an advice of counsel defense to any prosecution, theoretically negating the corrupt mental state needed for conviction. With email evidence showing that Eastman admitting that he advised Trump that Vice President Pence could not unilaterally reject the electoral college results, any possible advice of counsel defense crumbles. Testimony to this effect is powerful enough, but the emails and Gregory Jacob’s memorandum to Mike Pence detailing these conversations provides a contemporaneous recording of the events that are always weighty pieces of evidence for any jury. The Department of Justice has indicted many defendants with much less evidence than this. These revelations put great pressure on the DOJ and raise the question of whether our criminal law system holds any authority over the actions of a president.

Stuart Gerson, former Acting Attorney General of the United States, Assistant Attorney General, and an Assistant United States Attorney:

The signal value of the Select Committee so far at least is its disclosure of evidence that utterly negates any defense that Donald Trump or his closest advisers somehow lacked intent with respect to their actions as to the January 6 insurrection. It is clear that weeks before January 6 the White House staff under Trump’s direction engaged in a pattern of firings, transfers and otherwise diminishing agencies that could have prevented the events of the day. In addition it is clear that Trump and others close to him were advised, and were aware, that their conduct would violate the Electoral Count Act and perhaps other statutes. It is clear also that Trump was advised and knew even through communications from his daughter and the former Attorney General that he had lost the election and that there was no cognizable evidence of fraud. Put all these things together and it is clear that Merrick Garland would have grounds to seek indictments and would be able to deflect any argument that the participants in the seditious conspiracy lacked criminal intent.

Mary McCord, former Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the U.S. Department of Justice, an Assistant U.S. Attorney, and is now Executive Director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP) and a Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center:

Section 1512(c)(2) requires that there be a nexus between the wrongful conduct and an official proceeding and that the obstructive conduct be done “corruptly.” The evidence produced at the June 16 hearing of the House Select Committee established both John Eastman’s proposal–for the Vice President to either reject the electoral votes from the states that submitted alternate uncertified slates of electors or to suspend the joint session and send the dueling slates back to the states in the hope that the state legislatures would change the outcome–had a direct nexus to the counting of the Electoral College votes required by the 12th Amendment. And the evidence that Eastman himself knew and told President Trump that his proposal would violate the Electoral Count Act, along with other evidence that the President was aware that there was no authority for the Vice President to overturn the election, establish that his efforts to pressure Vice President Pence to act unlawfully were done with corrupt intent. In other words, he knew he was pressuring the vice president to violate a legal duty. So did Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, who–based on the evidence produced at the hearing–joined in the apparent conspiracy to “obstruct[], influence[], or impede[]” the counting of the Electoral College votes.

Chris Mattei, former Chief of the Financial Fraud & Public Corruption Unit, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut:

It is important to remember that the entire predicate for the pressure campaign against Vice President Pence was the lie that electors from certain states were illegitimate and, therefore, could be rejected. The Committee has already presented direct evidence that the former President knew he lost fair-and-square and that there was no meaningful fraud in the so-called “contested” states. So, putting aside whether the former President actually believed that the Vice President could reject electors, he knew that there was no factual basis for doing so. That knowledge is compelling evidence that the former President acted corruptly when he and others acting at his direction repeatedly urged Vice President Pence to reject electors.

Prosecutors will want to pair that evidence with evidence that the former President also knew that the act of rejecting electors was itself unlawful. Here, the most damning evidence presented by the Committee is Eastman’s email admission that, after all the back and forth, he ultimately told the former President that the Vice President lacked the authority to reject electors. Yet, the former President continued to insist. To present that evidence, prosecutors will likely seek the testimony of others who similarly advised the former President (or Eastman’s testimony pursuant to a cooperation agreement and guilty plea). On this issue, it is not enough to prove that Eastman knew his plan was unlawful, which he clearly did. The key, of course, is to prove that the former President knew that as well.

If they can develop that evidence, DOJ can make a compelling case that the former President conspired with Eastman and others to corruptly obstruct, influence, or impede Congress’ counting of electoral votes, under 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2). Based on the evidence I’ve seen so far, I think this would be a more straightforward case than a prosecution under § 372. 

 

The responses continue down this vein. Nobody here says that Trump shouldn't be charged, and nobody says that Justice can't win such a case against Trump.

I've said all along that the entire point of the committee's public hearings was to lay out the legal case against Trump, and we're seeing just how effective that case is going to be.

Another Day In Gunmerica, Con't

Sen. Mitch Mconnell set up Senate GOP negotiations on new gun legislation in the wake of Uvalde to fail miserably, knowing he'd need all ten Republicans to overcome a filibuster. But putting Texas Sen. John Cornyn in charge, the GOP's Number Two in the Senate, was a brilliant move, because now Mitch looks reasonable, and Cornyn, arguably the only person who could reasonably run against Mitch for leadership next year, looks like an incompetent negotiator compared to McConnell.

Frustration inside the Senate GOP conference is boiling among conservatives at the way Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) is handling the bipartisan gun reform negotiations — putting the man who aspires to succeed Mitch McConnell as Republican leader in a political jam.

Why it matters: Some senators are viewing these negotiations as a test case for how Cornyn would fare as lead negotiator for the party should he replace McConnell one day.

Driving the news: Multiple sources with direct knowledge say the GOP senators who are uneasy about the negotiations include Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), among others.McConnell has thus far supported Cornyn's efforts, saying he's "comfortable" with the bipartisan gun deal and will support the bill if it "ends up reflecting what the framework indicated."

Behind the scenes: At Tuesday's private Senate GOP lunch, several senators questioned Cornyn about the proposal and pushed for specific details about what the legislation would entail.Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) "very vocally" requested more information from Cornyn on the substance of the framework. Those requests were rebuffed, three sources familiar with the lunch told Axios. 

The proposal to incentivize state red flag laws has been especially unpopular among conservatives. Sens. Crapo, Cruz and others have voiced their concerns to leadership about it potentially becoming too easy to strip Americans of their right to bear arms. 

And Scott, the chairman of the Senate Republicans' campaign arm, feels snubbed by the bipartisan group after holding early talks with Cornyn and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).
"No one's telling me anything. I've just asked for the text, and I haven’t gotten anything," Scott told Axios. "My whole goal is that we shouldn't be rushing something like this through; we should take our time."

Hawley told Axios he's "not a big fan of the framework as it's been announced ... I'm tracking what's been reported in the press. I understand the framework is shifting. But you know, I'm not a huge fan of it.""I'm at a disadvantage because I'm not part of the negotiations," Hawley added. "I don't know where they are. All I know is what I read secondhand from you all."

Between the lines: Several senators feel they've been shut out of the negotiating process and kept in the dark about crucial details, and will be asked to take a politically tough vote without enough time to digest the bill.One GOP senator, speaking to Axios on the condition of anonymity to be candid about his concerns, branded Cornyn's approach: "Shut up, and vote." 

"There's considerable unhappiness in the conference that we seem to be approaching a bill that will unite all the Democrats and divide the Republicans," said another senior Republican with direct knowledge of the internal talks. 

The senior Republican mentioned that Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) asked Cornyn during one lunch, "Are we focusing on gang violence and inner-city murders? And the response was, 'No, we're not focusing on that' ... And more than a few of us wondered why the hell not?" 

"It would be prudent, and I think Sen. Cornyn knows this … it would be prudent to give senators plenty of time to read the bill and research the issues," Kennedy told Axios.

"We're being told that Schumer wants to vote next week," the senior Republican added. "And that the Republicans engaged in negotiations are fine with that. Even though nobody's seen bill text, nobody's seen anything more than a couple of bullet points on a one-pager."

 

Keep in mind nothing was ever going to pass.  It was always going to be smoke and mirrors run by Actual Senate Majority Leader Mitch from behind the stage. But now Mitch gets to blame John Cornyn and Chuck Schumer, and he keeps his hands clean again. The one thing McConnell would allow a vote for was red flag laws, and he doesn't even have ten votes for that.

So in a couple of weeks or so, we'll see headlines like "Senate Fails Again To Pass Gun Laws" and most Americans won't know or care that Mitch and the GOP set this up to fail.

Just another day in Gunmerica.

Last Call For When It Rains...

Major flooding this week in Michigan has once again shuttered the Abbott baby formula plant in Sturgis, meaning that shortages will continue well into July.

Abbott has stopped production of EleCare formula in its Sturgis, Michigan, plant after severe storms led to flooding inside the plant, the company said, probably delaying production of new formula for a few weeks.

Production at the plant had restarted less than two weeks ago following a months-long closure that helped drive a nationwide formula shortage.

"Severe thunderstorms and heavy rains came through southwestern Michigan on Monday evening, resulting in high winds, hail, power outages and flood damage throughout the area," Abbott said in a statement Wednesday night. "These torrential storms produced significant rainfall in a short period of time -- overwhelming the city's stormwater system in Sturgis, Mich., and resulting in flooding in parts of the city, including areas of our plant.

"As a result, Abbott has stopped production of its EleCare specialty formula that was underway to assess damage caused by the storm and clean and re-sanitize the plant. We have informed FDA and will conduct comprehensive testing in conjunction with the independent third party to ensure the plant is safe to resume production. This will likely delay production and distribution of new product for a few weeks."

Abbott said that once the plant is re-sanitized and production resumes, it will restart EleCare production, followed by specialty and metabolic formulas. New formula being produced since the plant reopened was not yet available to consumers, and production had not started on popular brands available at grocery stores. Abbott said it will "work to restart Similac production at the plant as soon as possible."

In tweets Wednesday night, US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said, "We know Abbott is working quickly to assess the damage and will be reporting its progress to us in the days ahead. Once the company establishes a plan, FDA will be back in the facility working to ensure that they can restart producing safe and quality formula products quickly."

 

It's nowhere near Biden's fault, but he'll be blamed anyway.  Republicans will certainly find a way to do it. It depends on who listens.

Hearing Aides For America, Con't

Ginni Thomas, GOP activist (and apparently part-time conspirator) and wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, had a far more important role in the January 6th insurrection conspiracy than previously revealed.

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has obtained email correspondence between Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and lawyer John Eastman, who played a key role in efforts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to block the certification of Joe Biden’s victory, according to three people involved in the committee’s investigation.

The emails show that Thomas’s efforts to overturn the election were more extensive than previously known, two of the people said. The three declined to provide details and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

The committee’s members and staffers are now discussing whether to spend time during their public hearings exploring Ginni Thomas’s role in the attempt to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election, the three people said. The Washington Post previously reported that the committee had not sought an interview with Thomas and was leaning against pursuing her cooperation with its investigation.

The two people said the emails were among documents obtained by the committee and reviewed recently. Last week, a federal judge ordered Eastman to turn more than 100 documents over to the committee. Eastman had tried to block the release of those and other documents by arguing that they were privileged communications and therefore should be protected.

Thomas also sent messages to President Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and to Arizona lawmakers, pressing them to help overturn the election, The Post has previously reported.

While Thomas has maintained that she and her husband operate in separate professional lanes, her activities as a conservative political activist have long distinguished her from other spouses of Supreme Court justices. Any new revelations about Thomas’s actions after the 2020 presidential election are likely to further intensify questions about whether Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from cases related to the election and attempts to subvert it.

 

The Committee isn't leaning against dealing publicly with Thomas, GOP Committee co-chair Liz Cheney is against doing so, yet another reason not to trust her going forward. Outside of Trump's conspiracy itself, Ginni and Clarence Thomas's involvement in the insurrection is arguably the most vile revelation of the entire mess here, especially since Justice Thomas continues to hear and decide cases directly involved with efforts to use alternate slates of electors to overturn elections and who gets the final say in sending those elector slates to Washington.

This is far more damaging that what Trump tried and failed at, because it would give the next GOP presidential candidate, Trump or otherwise, a way to maintain power permanently.

Luckily, Liz Cheney isn't in charge. Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson is.

 

What they’re saying: “We think it’s time that we, at some point, invite her to come talk to the committee,” Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) told Axios.Thompson said of the committee's reasoning,

"We have discovered in those Eastman [emails] some information that refers to Ginni Thomas," but declined to go into further detail about what she'll be asked.

Asked when the invite will go out, Thompson said, "Soon."

 

Get the popcorn for that one.

The Big Lie, Con't

New CNN President Chris Licht has decided that abandoning the truth and going the FOX News route is the only hope for the cable news network, starting with siding with Trump when it comes to the Big Lie about the 2020 election.

New CNN president Chris Licht discouraged staff from using “the big lie” to refer to former President Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election, Mediaite has learned.

On a Tuesday conference call with management and show executive producers, Licht was asked for his thoughts on “the big lie,” and said he preferred that staff avoid the term. He made clear this was a preference, not a mandate, but staffers have taken it as a clear directive from the new boss.

He encouraged producers to instead use the terms “Trump election lie” or “election lies” in banners and graphics.

According to a source, Licht argued that using “the big lie” makes the mistake of adopting branding used by the Democratic Party, thereby weakening the objectivity of the network.

The term, which was first coined by Adolf Hitler and later used to describe Nazi propaganda efforts, was recently adopted by critics of Trump in response to his relentless promotion of the false claim he won the 2020 election.

The term has become ubiquitous on CNN. “Big lie” has been mentioned on the network 168 times this month, according to media monitoring service TVEyes.

The guidance, which comes as a House select committee holds hearings investigating Trump’s election lies and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol they inspired, has rankled some at the network.

“It’s worrisome that we’re being told how to talk about one of the worst things that ever happened to American democracy,” a CNN insider told Mediaite. “We have to call lies, lies, whether they’re small lies or big lies. Is there any lie bigger than that lie?”

They speculated that the directive could be coming from Warner Bros. Discovery board member John Malone, who has criticized CNN’s approach to news under former boss Zucker.

“It seems to indicate where things are headed,” they added. “We didn’t have this problem until John Malone was sitting on the board of this company.”

 

The Village is betting heavily upon the return of Republican control of Congress in January, and they are all re-establishing their Trump-era postures now in order to reap the ratings and access they anticipate next year.

The media won't save us from the fascists. If anything they'll encourage them.

Last Call For State Of The Keystone

A lot can happen between now and November, and almost certainly will, but for now, Pennsylvania Democrats John Fetterman and Josh Shapiro are leading two of the worst Republicans running this year.

A USA Today Network/Suffolk University poll in Pennsylvania released this week suggests a clear U.S. Senate frontrunner -- with a tighter race for governor.

According to the Suffolk University Political Research Center, Democrat John Fetterman holds a 9-point lead over Republican Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania's closely watched U.S. Senate race. The two are seeking to fill the seat being vacated by Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey.

In the state's gubernatorial race, Democrat Josh Shapiro has a 4-point advantage over Republican Doug Mastriano, which is within the poll's plus or minus 4.4-percentage-point margin of error. Green Party candidate Christina “PK” DiGiulio and Libertarian Party candidate Matt Hackenburg are polling at just 1% each.

The early leads for Fetterman and Shapiro come despite a Republican surge that's reduced Democrats' registration lead from 8 percentage points to 4 percentage points since 2018 in the state.

Fetterman and Shapiro also seem to be bucking the headwinds of a poor economy and disapproval of President Joe Biden. More than 44% of poll respondents said economic conditions in Pennsylvania are poor, while 36% said they are fair and just 16% said they are good.

"I use the words 'thread the needle' because I always think of campaigns as patchwork, as a political fabrics," Suffolk University Political Research Center Director David Paleologos said. "It's really a fine line given Biden's disapproval rate and the dire state of the economy."

 

Democrats are winning despite the economy in PA because the Republicans are so awful that they are largely unelectable. Dr. Oz is a quack huckster and Mastriano is a Trumpian lunatic on par with MTG or Boebert. People don't want to put them in charge, imagine that.

 

Midterm Madness, Con't

The special election for TX-34 went to Republican Mayra Flores outright, and Republicans are now predicting the end of the Democratic party and a permanent Hispanic voter shift to the GOP. Chickens are being counted before hatching, I suspect.

 

A U.S. House district in South Texas will send a Republican to Congress for the first time in its 10-year history.

Mayra Flores, a Republican and respiratory-care health aide, scored a significant victory in a special election on Tuesday for the party, which has been trying to capitalize on its successes in 2020 in the Democratic stronghold of the Rio Grande Valley. She will be the first Latina Republican from Texas in Congress.

Ms. Flores defeated three opponents in the special election to replace former Representative Filemon Vela, a Democrat who retired this year before the end of his term. She captured more than 50 percent of the vote in Texas’ 34th Congressional District, according to The Associated Press, and will avoid an expected runoff with Dan Sanchez, a Democrat and former commissioner in Cameron County.

Her win may only be temporary, however.

The special election was held to determine who would fill the remainder of Mr. Vela’s term until the end of this year. Voters in the general election in November will decide who will become the district’s permanent representative beginning in January. Representative Vicente Gonzalez, who currently represents a neighboring district, is the Democratic nominee for November, and is widely favored to win the race against Ms. Flores, who is also running to fill the seat permanently in November.

Republicans have directed enormous sums of money and attention to the race in recent weeks, seeking an early victory in a district that includes the border city of Brownsville. Ms. Flores raised 16 times the amount of money that Mr. Sanchez did. And she and her allies have spent more than $1 million on television advertisements, while Democrats have largely stayed off the air.

Republicans believe they have found an ideal candidate for the region in Ms. Flores, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico as a young child. Her parents spent years working as migrant farmworkers in Texas. She is the wife of a Border Patrol agent and has campaigned on strict immigration enforcement in the overwhelmingly Mexican American district.

 

SO It's all over, the Dems are doomed, no reason to vote, permanent GOP control, etc, except for the fact that Texas's redictricting for November's election actually makes it more likely a Democrat will win in November because of gerrymandering.

 

Dems did miscaulculate here on the special, narrowing their margin in the House for now, yes.

I bet November here has a different result. Indeed, Larry Sabato still rates this a leans Democratic win...but not a safe one by any means.

Vote like your country depends on it.

Vote Like Your Country Depends On It, Con't

The dry run for the 2022 GOP effort to disenfranchise millions of Democratic votes begins this week in New Mexico, where Republicans in Alamagordo are refusing to certify votes in the GOP primary because of "Dominion voting machines".

Votes in a New Mexico community are at risk of not counting after a Republican-led commission refused to approve primary election results over distrust of Dominion vote-tallying machines.

Democratic Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver on Tuesday asked the state Supreme Court to order the three-member Otero County commission to certify June 7 primary election results to ensure voters are not disenfranchised and that political candidates have access to the general election ballot in November.

On Monday, the commission in its role as a county canvassing board voted unanimously against certifying the results of the primary without raising specific concerns about discrepancies, over the objection of the county clerk.

“I have huge concerns with these voting machines,” said Otero County Commissioner Vickie Marquardt on Monday. “When I certify stuff that I don’t know is right, I feel like I’m being dishonest because in my heart I don’t know if it is right.”

Dominion’s systems have been unjustifiably attacked since the 2020 election by people who embraced the false belief that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. The company has filed defamation lawsuits in response to incorrect and outrageous claims made by high-profile Trump allies.

New Mexico’s Dominion machines have been disparaged repeatedly by David and Erin Clements of Las Cruces in their review of the 2020 election in Otero County and voter registration rolls at the request of the commission. The Clements are traveling advocates for “forensic” reviews of the 2020 election and offer their services as election experts and auditors to local governments. Election officials including County Clerk Robyn Holmes say the Clements are not certified auditors nor experts in election protocols.

The couple has highlighted problems during sporadic, hourslong presentations to the commission this year. Local election officials dispute many of the findings as mistaken or unfounded.

Members of the Otero County commission include Cowboys for Trump co-founder Couy Griffin, who ascribes to unsubstantiated claims that Trump won the 2020 election. Griffin was convicted of illegally entering restricted U.S. Capitol grounds — though not the building — amid the riots on Jan. 6, 2021, and is scheduled for sentencing later this month. He acknowledged that the standoff over this primary could delay the outcome of local election races.

County canvassing boards have until June 17 to certify election results, prior to state certification and preparation of general election ballots.

Under state law, county canvass boards can call on a voting precinct board to address specific discrepancies, but no discrepancies were identified on Monday by the Otero commission.

“The post-election canvassing process is a key component of how we maintain our high levels of election integrity in New Mexico and the Otero County Commission is flaunting that process by appeasing unfounded conspiracy theories and potentially nullifying the votes of every Otero County voter who participated in the primary,” Toulouse Oliver said in a statement. She accused the commission of willful violations of the state election code.

New Mexico uses paper ballots that can be double-checked later in all elections, and also relies on tabulation machines to rapidly tally votes while minimizing human error. Election results also are audited by random samplings to verify levels of accuracy in the vote count.

The Otero County commission voted last week to recount ballots from the statewide primary election by hand, remove state-mandated ballot drop boxes that facilitate absentee voting and discontinue the use of Dominion vote tabulation machines in the general election.

On Monday, Holmes said those instructions from the county commissions conflict with state and federal election law, and that she would only recount the election by hand under a court order.

“The election law does not allow me to hand tally these ballots or to even form a board to do it. I just can’t,” said Holmes, a Republican. “And I’m going to follow the law.”

Holmes noted that the state-owned vote tabulation machines from Dominion are tested by Otero County officials in public view and that the machines also are independently certified in advance. Griffin said he and fellow commissioners don’t see the process as trustworthy.

“That’s a source that we don’t have any control or influence over,” he said.

Mario Jimenez of the progressive watchdog group Common Cause New Mexico said the public can view testing of vote-tallying machines prior to elections in every county, and that certification notices are posted on every machine where voters can see them.

“They have no basis — other than ‘we just don’t trust the machine’ — for not certifying the election,” Jimenez said of the Otero County commissioners.

 

Understand that Republicans will be refusing to certify, or blocking certification, in multiple states in November, and every one of these refusals to certify will be of large, urban counties. Otero County, New Mexico doesn't seem like much, but if Republicans are able to block certification here, other Republicans may do the same in the months ahead.

There's no reasonable basis to refuse to certify, but that's not going to matter in November.  Tossing out millions of Democratic ballots will. Only by voting in numbers so huge that they can't get away with it is the cure.

Last Call For The Orange Coup-Coup Birds

Depositions from Trump's former cabinet staffers are pointing the fingers at Trump White House Deputy AG Jeffrey Clark, who had a plan for a coup in hand three days before he January 6th insurrection.

Three days before Congress was slated to certify the 2020 presidential election, a little-known Justice Department official named Jeffrey Clark rushed to meet President Donald Trump in the Oval Office to discuss a last-ditch attempt to reverse the results.

Clark, an environmental lawyer by trade, had outlined a plan in a letter he wanted to send to the leaders of key states Joe Biden won. It said that the Justice Department had “identified significant concerns” about the vote and that the states should consider sending “a separate slate of electors supporting Donald J. Trump” for Congress to approve.

In fact, Clark’s bosses had warned there was not evidence to overturn the election and had rejected his letter days earlier. Now they learned Clark was about to meet with Trump. Acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen tracked down his deputy, Richard Donoghue, who had been walking on the Mall in muddy jeans and an Army T-shirt. There was no time to change. They raced to the Oval Office.

As Rosen and Donoghue listened, Clark told Trump that he would send the letter if the president named him attorney general.

“History is calling,” Clark told the president, according to a deposition from Donoghue excerpted in a recent court filing. “This is our opportunity. We can get this done.”

Donoghue urged Trump not to put Clark in charge, calling him “not competent” and warning of “mass resignations” by Justice Department officials if he became the nation’s top law enforcement official, according to Donoghue’s account.

“What happens if, within 48 hours, we have hundreds of resignations from your Justice Department because of your actions?” Donoghue said he asked Trump. “What does that say about your leadership?”

Clark’s letter and his Oval Office meeting set off one of the tensest chapters during Trump’s effort to overturn the election, which culminated three days later with rioters storming the U.S. Capitol. His plan could have decapitated the Justice Department leadership and could have overturned the election.

Clark’s actions have been the focus of a Senate Judiciary Committee investigation and an ongoing probe by the Justice Department’s inspector general, and now are expected to be closely examined during June hearings by the House committee investigating the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.

 

Conspiracy to commit fraud and sedition against the United States of America. 

Prosecute it.

Transcending The Hate

More than a dozen GOP states have outlawed transgender women in school and college sports, and a new poll from the NY Times finds that the majority of Americans agree with the legislation.

 

The poll, conducted May 4 through 17 among 1,503 people across the United States, finds 55 percent of Americans opposed to allowing transgender women and girls to compete with other women and girls in high school sports and 58 percent opposed to it for college and professional sports. About 3 in 10 Americans said transgender women and girls should be allowed to compete at each of those levels, while an additional 15 percent have no opinion.

At the youth level, 49 percent are opposed to transgender girls competing with other girls, while 33 percent say they should be allowed to compete and 17 percent have no opinion.

The poll was taken as an increasing portion of Americans, particularly younger ones, identify as transgender and the issue of whether transgender females should compete against cisgender women and girls has become a point of social and political debate.

Last week, Louisiana joined at least 17 other states in banning transgender women and girls from competing on female sports teams. Much of that legislation across the country has been passed in the past year, led by Republican lawmakers. The Louisiana ban, which applies to all public and some private elementary and secondary schools and colleges, became law after the state’s Democratic governor declined to sign it or veto it.

The issue has become politicized despite the small share of people who identify as transgender and the limited number of specific situations in which participation has raised concerns.

A Pew Research Center poll released last Tuesday found that 0.6 percent of Americans identify as transgender, but among people age 18 to 29, the share rose to 2 percent. An additional 1 percent of Americans said they are nonbinary — neither a man nor a woman, or not strictly one or the other — a share that rose to 3 percent of people 18 to 29.

A 2021 Gallup telephone poll found 0.7 percent of adults identifying as transgender, while a slightly larger percentage identified as gay (1.5 percent), lesbian (1.0 percent), bisexual (4.0 percent) or another non-heterosexual identity (0.3 percent).

Among athletes, the controversy has centered on transgender females, in particular. Critics say they have an unfair physical advantage against cisgender females because of factors such as generally having a greater muscle mass and larger skeletal frame, bone density and testosterone levels, which can help boost athletic performance.

Critics of the bans say they deny transgender athletes’ right to compete in a space that aligns with their gender, further stigmatizing children who are at greater risk of mental health problems. Critics also say the bans overestimate the extent of trans girls’ and women’s participation in athletics.

The Post-UMD poll finds over two-thirds of Americans, 68 percent, say that transgender girls would have a competitive advantage over other girls if they were allowed to compete with them in youth sports; 30 percent say neither would have an advantage, while 2 percent say other girls would have an advantage.

A slim 52 percent majority say they are “very” or “somewhat” concerned that transgender girls’ mental health will suffer if they are not allowed to compete with other girls in youth sports; 48 percent are “not too” or “not at all” concerned about this.

Despite being mostly opposed to their participation in sports, the Post-UMD poll finds Americans’ general attitudes toward transgender people to be more positive than negative.

The poll also finds that 40 percent of Americans say greater social acceptance of transgender people is “good for society,” while 25 percent say it is “bad for society,” and another 35 percent say it is “neither good nor bad.” The percentage saying transgender acceptance is bad for society is down from 32 percent in a Pew Research Center survey one year ago.

 

Of course, the goal is to establish a baseline that it's okay to classify trans women as second-class citizens. Once you can get away with that, you can then classify trans women as, you know, illegal non-citizens, which is what several states are trying to do, notably Texas and Missouri.

The GOP continues to push issues like this in order to break the Obama coalition permanently, and frankly it's working, only this time it's going to lead to the deaths of trans women across the country.

Trans rights are human rights.