USA News and Discussions

[caltrek]

Pence Rejects Claim He Could Have 'Overturned the Election'
by Dareh Gregorian
February 5, 2022

https://www.nbcnews.com/author/dareh-gr ... ncpn925686

Introdution:

(NBC News) Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday rejected former President Donald Trump's claim that he could have "overturned" the results of the 2020 election, saying, "The presidency belongs to the American people and the American people alone."

While Pence had previously resisted calling out his former boss by name, he did not hold back in a speech to the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization, in Orlando, Florida.

“I heard this week that President Trump said I had the right to overturn the election. President Trump is wrong," Pence said.

caltrek's comment: Pence is at least sticking to conservative principles, mainly that we are a nation of laws. Trump has adopted the fascist tactic of promoting the Big Lie upon which he now rests his claim to power.

[caltrek]

North Carolina Supreme Court Strikes Down Republican Gerrymanders
by Noah Y. Kim
February 6, 2022

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... ting-maps/

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) The North Carolina state Supreme Court has thrown out a set of district maps that were assailed as “racially gerrymandered” after being ushered through the Republican-controlled legislature, finding them to be an unconstitutional violation of voters’ civil rights.

Even though 49 percent of North Carolina voters cast ballots for Joe Biden in 2020, out of 14 House seats, the maps would have contained only four Democratic-leaning or competitive congressional districts. The nonpartisan Princeton Gerrymandering Project gave all three maps struck down by the court—the congressional map, and state house and senate maps—an F grade for pro-Republican partisan advantage. The maps’ state legislative districts would have put Republicans within spitting distance of veto-proof majorities; in the state senate, Republicans currently hold 28 out of 50 seats; the struck-down map was expected to out two more seats solidly in Republican hands, and leave Democrats with seven new vulnerable districts.

According to the court’s 4-3 ruling, issued along party-lines late on Friday, the maps’ skew violated the state constitution’s free elections, equal protection, free speech, and freedom of assembly clauses. “When, on the basis of partisanship, the General Assembly enacts a districting plan that diminishes or dilutes a voter’s opportunity to aggregate with likeminded voters to elect a governing majority… the General Assembly unconstitutionally infringes upon that voter’s fundamental right to vote,” the Democratic justices wrote. The court’s Republicans dissented, accusing the majority of having tossed “judicial restraint aside.”

After Democrats’ efforts to protect voting rights sputtered and died in the Senate, courts have emerged as a last line of defense against Republican gerrymandering. Ohio’s Supreme Court recently rejected a map that would have given the state’s roughly 55 percent of Republican voters anywhere from 75 percent to 80 percent of seats, in a ruling that compared Republican legislators to dealers who stack decks of cards. Federal judges also blocked a map drawn by the Alabama legislature for violating federal law by packing many of the state’s Black voters into a single seat.

In the next few weeks, courts will rule on Republican-drawn maps in Wisconsin, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania.

[wjfox]

Peter Thiel is backing a new generation of Trump-aligned Republicans

Updated 1540 GMT (2340 HKT) February 9, 2022

Peter Thiel, the controversial billionaire tech founder and investor, has used his fortune to encourage kids to skip college, to back a lawsuit that bankrupted Gawker Media and to donate to the presidential campaign of Donald Trump when many in Silicon Valley were strongly opposed to him.

Now, Thiel's exit from the board of Meta Platforms (neé Facebook) could free up more time for Thiel to double down on his political efforts and position himself as a new kingmaker in the Republican world.

Meta (FB) announced on Monday that Thiel — one of the company's longest-serving board members and a close adviser to CEO Mark Zuckerberg — would not stand for reelection as a board director at its annual meeting later this year. Zuckerberg suggested that Thiel is leaving his position on the board to "devote his time to other interests."

Multiple news outlets reported Monday that Thiel plans to focus his efforts on supporting Republican candidates in the US midterm elections following his exit from Meta. A review of his recent political donations indicates that he's aiming to elect a new generation of Trump-aligned Republicans to both houses of Congress. And leaving Meta doesn't just free up Thiel's time to pursue his political agenda, it may also make him less constrained by removing potential political headaches for Meta from his activities.

Political analysts say Thiel's intensified pivot to politics highlights his power to shape the Republican party and, by extension, the future of American democracy.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/09/tech ... index.html

[wjfox]

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warns there’s ‘a very real risk’ the US won’t be a democracy in 10 years

Feb. 14, 2022, 6:29 PM

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said “there’s a very real risk” that the US will return to Jim Crow policies and won’t be a democracy in the next 10 years in a new interview with The New Yorker.

“What we risk is having a government that perhaps postures as a democracy, and may try to pretend that it is, but isn’t,” Ocasio-Cortez told the New Yorker editor David Remnick.

While the New York congresswoman said the situation is “not beyond hope,” she argued the US is seeing “the opening salvos” of the end of democracy with a “targeted, specific attack on the right to vote across the United States, particularly in areas where Republican power is threatened by changing electorates and demographics” combined with “white-nationalist, reactionary politics.”

“What we have is the continued sophisticated takeover of our democratic systems in order to turn them into undemocratic systems, all in order to overturn results that a party in power may not like,” she added.

Ocasio-Cortez specifically predicted that the US would return to the Jim Crow area of disenfranchisement and oppression of Black Americans and other minority groups. She pointed to “Jim Crow-style” laws restricting voting access that have been proposed and passed in states like Texas, Florida’s state legislature watering down a ballot initiative rolling back the state’s formerly draconian felon disenfranchisement law, and efforts “to replace teaching history with institutionalized propaganda from white-nationalist perspectives in our schools.”

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/aoc- ... ars-2022-2

[caltrek]

Why There’s Been a Surge of Bipartisan Activity in Congress
by Li Zhou
February 15, 2022

https://www.vox.com/2022/2/15/22927345/ ... tal-reform

Introduction:

(Vox) In the past few weeks, Congress has been doing something that feels surprising: weighing a number of bipartisan bills on issues including sexual harassment and stock trading.

Given Republicans’ willingness to block many of Democrats’ biggest priorities, this sudden influx of bipartisan activity seems unexpected. In reality, it follows longstanding historical patterns.

One of the reasons lawmakers have turned to bipartisan bills is that more partisan measures have been unable to pass in recent months. Previously, the Freedom to Vote Act, legislation focused on voting rights protections, failed on the floor because it was blocked by Senate Republicans. The Build Back Better Act, Democrats’ sweeping social spending and climate measure, is also currently on pause as lawmakers scramble to figure out what Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) will accept.

In the interim, lawmakers have focused their attention on legislation that could potentially get 60 votes in the Senate. (Since there are 50 Democrats in the Senate, they need at least 10 Republicans to vote with them to overcome a filibuster on most bills in the upper chamber.)

“People realize we’re not going to get rid of the filibuster. If you want to get something done, you’ve got to work together,” Manchin told NBC News about the spike in bipartisan legislation.

caltrek's comment: Unfortunatley, bipartisan compromise measures may mean inadequate measures for such things as global climate change and the threat to democracy. Time will tell.

[weatheriscool]

Senate passes bill to prevent government shutdown, sends it to Biden
Source: CNBC

The Senate passed a short-term government spending bill, sending it to President Joe Biden's desk and preventing a government shutdown.

The legislation will keep the government running through March 11.

Lawmakers hope to reach a long-term spending agreement during those three weeks.

The Senate passed a short-term government funding bill, sending it to President Joe Biden's desk hours before a shutdown deadline.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... d=msedgntp

[wjfox]

^ (my Dad)

[raklian]

^ (my Dad)

Trump may have slammed shut of any chance of surviving a GOP primary in the 2024 election.

[weatheriscool]

@Breaking911
·
1h

BREAKING: Biden has chosen his Supreme Court nominee, with announcement expected as soon as Friday - CNN

[wjfox]