January 2025
VOTE SUPPRESSION (bomb threats in over 80 precints): https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalHumor/comments/1i5ey70/comment/m83x6qr/
Matthew DePerno stealing the tabulator
Lions of Judah
Trump saying he doesn't need the votes
Russian bomb threats
Joe Rogan's comments on Elon's magic early results app
Border crossing info: https://www.newsweek.com/southern-border-illegal-crossings-trump-biden-compared-chart-2019770
Leonard Leo
Leonard Leo is the definition of a shadow king. The vast majority of Americans have never heard of him, but he is the man most responsible for architecting our decades-long slide into neofascism. He (and/or his organization):
Is the chairman of the Federalist Society, an extreme right wing group that is the largest and most influential legal organization in the country
Created and leads the largest and widest reaching network of anonymous right-wing donors and political organizations
Orchestrated the hijacking of the Supreme Court by:
Forcing Bush, who initially wanted to appoint right-leaning moderates, to instead appoint more extreme right-wing justices that were former or current members of his society (like Alito)
Pushing the strategy of maximum obstruction during the Obama administration, especially when it came to judicial nominations
Hand-selecting, “training”, leading the campaigns for, and funding every single one of Bush’s and Trump’s SCOTUS appointees, as well as 43 out of Trump’s 51 appellate court appointees
And is therefore responsible for the most horrific of SCOTUS decisions this century, like Citizens United, Dobbs, and overturning Chevron.
Oh, and as a fun bonus: he has deep connections to Opus Dei, a powerful and extreme fundamentalist Catholic cult that has a streak of supporting authoritarian governments. He has called progressive Americans “barbarians, secularists, and bigots”, and that his efforts to roll back progress in this country represents “nothing less than a war with the devil”.
World Economics Forum risk report puts misinformation at the top: https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risks_Report_2025.pdf
Facebook and Instagram blocked and hid abortion pill provider's posts: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/23/technology/instagram-facebook-abortion-pill-providers.html?unlocked_article_code=1.rk4.cZEX.seaOptElN-2r
FTC report on Pharmacy Benefit Managers: the ‘Big 3 PBMs’—Caremark Rx, LLC (CVS), Express Scripts, Inc. (ESI), and OptumRx, Inc. (OptumRx)—marked up numerous specialty generic drugs dispensed at their affiliated pharmacies by thousands of percent, and many others by hundreds of percent. Such significant markups allowed the Big 3 PBMs and their affiliated specialty pharmacies to generate more than $7.3 billion in revenue from dispensing drugs in excess of the drugs’ estimated acquisition costs from 2017-2022.
https://www.ftc.gov/reports/specialty-generic-drugs-growing-profit-center-vertically-integrated-pharmacy-benefit-managers
https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/PBM-6b-Second-Interim-Staff-Report.pdf
DOJ evaluation if investigation into Tulsa Race Massacre: https://www.justice.gov/crt/media/1383756/dl
DOJ report on Jim Jordan's (Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee) investigation into the advertisers which have declined to spend money on Twitter after Musk gutted Twitter's Trust and Safety team and re-instated far right accounts. https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/hjc_dem_atr_report_-_delusion_of_collusion.pdf
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/01/10/congressional-report-accuses-jordan-musk-of-weaponizing-govt-to-silence-critics/
platform, accusing them of “colluding” to hurt the company’s profits.
Foreign governments are throwing millions at D.C. think tanks. top 50 think tanks took in some $110 million over the past five years from foreign governments and related entities, including nearly $17 million from the United Arab Emirates, the largest single foreign donor. Leading Pentagon contractors, meanwhile, kicked in nearly $35 million over the same period. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/01/03/foreign-money-think-tanks-00196252
Democratic measure of states (which citizens are eligible to vote and how burdensome it is for them to do so, how responsive state policies are to public opinion, the fairness of electoral maps, and finally how secure the state’s elections are.): https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/12/23/overall-american-states-are-becoming-more-democratic
December 2024
Ukraine is not only the breadbasket of Europe; it is also a mineral superpower, with some of the largest reserves of 117 of the 120 most widely used minerals in the world. Of the 50 strategic minerals identified by the United States as critical to its economy and national security, many of which are quite rare yet key to certain high-value applications, Ukraine supplies 22. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/12/18/trump-ukraine-gas-mineral-russia-peace-deal/
Republicans cut IRS funding by $20B. Through the continuing resolution passed last week, funding the government through March and cutting $20 billion in supplemental funding for the taxation agency, Congress automatically extended cuts passed by the GOP in 2023 to a massive IRS investment.
Republicans kill Office to Combat Foreign Propaganda: The State Department’s Global Engagement Center, responsible for leading efforts to combat foreign disinformation, was shut down this week after Republican lawmakers at the last minute removed its funding from the spending bill to avert a government shutdown.
$5.9B in Ukraine aide: https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-announces-25-billion-fresh-military-aid-ukraine-2024-12-30/. The U.S. Congress has approved $175 billion in total assistance for Ukraine since Russia's invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. A U.S. official said the $3.4 billion in budget funding brings the total in U.S. budget aid to Ukraine to just over $30 billion since Russia's invasion in February 2022. Most of those funds are used to keep Ukraine's government running by paying salaries to teachers and other state employees. Washington has separately provided approximately $61.4 billion in security assistance to Kyiv since the start of the war, according to the Pentagon.
2022 overstay report: https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-07/23_0707_FY22_FY23_CBP_Integrated_Entry_Exit_Overstay_Report.pdf. 2019 citing visa overstays far surpassing border crossings, and for 7th year in a row: https://www.npr.org/2019/01/16/686056668/for-seventh-consecutive-year-visa-overstays-exceeded-illegal-border-crossings
House Ethics Committee report on Matt Gaetz: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/12/23/us/ethics-report-on-gaetz.html
Trump/RNC project 47: https://rncplatform.donaldjtrump.com/?_ga=2.238996800.1564822060.1734627546-1260128120.1734377194
Senate Judiciary Committee report on Supreme Court ethics: https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/71db41a9ee771d6f/db1c566b-full.pdf
November 2024
National debt: https://www.propublica.org/article/national-debt-trump
October 2024
Washington Post reports that Jeff Bezos killed Washington Post endorsement of Kamala Harris.
On October 11, Patrick Soon-Shiong, who bought the newspaper for $500 million in 2018, informed the paper’s editorial board that the Los Angeles Times would not be making an endorsement for president
September 2024
VOTE SUPPRESSION (Alabama): The U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit Friday against Alabama and its top election official, alleging a state program violated federal law by removing voters from its election rolls too close to this fall’s general election. On Aug. 13, 84 days before this fall’s Election Day, Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen, a Republican, announced an effort to “remove noncitizens registered to vote” in the state. According to a press release, Allen identified and instructed county election officials to remove from their voter rolls 3,251 registered Alabama voters who had been “issued noncitizen identification numbers by the Department of Homeland Security.” Allen also acknowledged in the press release that “some of the individuals who were issued noncitizen identification numbers have, since receiving them, become naturalized citizens and are, therefore, eligible to vote.” https://www.npr.org/2024/09/27/nx-s1-5131578/alabama-noncitizen-voter-purge-lawsuit
VOTE SUPPRESSION (Georgia): This year, however, a three-member pro-Trump majority consisting of Rick Jeffares, Janice Johnston and Janelle King, passed a spate of new election rules that even has Republicans concerned. The two rules that have raised the most eyebrows are the “reasonable inquiry” rule, passed in August, and a hand-count rule passed last week. The first rule allows county election officials to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” — an undefined term — before certifying the results of an election. This rule appears to defy state law, which says county officials “shall” certify the vote. The second rule requires three separate election workers to hand count the total number of paper ballots in each of Georgia’s 2,400 precincts, which counted some 5 million votes in 2020. They also require the poll workers to sort the ballots into stacks of 50 for the purposes of the hand count. In the eyes of the 16 signatories of the letter, the hand-count rule “risks delaying certification, which could prevent Georgia from certifying election returns by December 11, 2024.” https://www.salon.com/2024/09/28/even-alarmed-by-new-georgia-rules--but-experts-worry-nothing-will-be-done/
VOTE SUPPRESSION: earlier this week, when asked if he would certify the results of the 2024 election, Speaker Mike Johnson said he would do so only “if we have a free, fair and safe election.” https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/mike-johnson-election-denialism-congress-2024-results-rcna172657
VOTE SUPPRESSION: North Carolina purges 747,000 voters. NC only has a population of 10 million. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/north-carolina-removes-747000-from-voter-rolls
Report: Commission on National Defense Strategy: https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/nds_commission_final_report.pdf?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20240923&instance_id=135026&nl=the-morning®i_id=92276377&segment_id=178568&te=1&user_id=eff308e1a07774c578ec28d9e5699552
Vote Suppression: Harris' name left off Montana absentee ballots. https://i.redd.it/awsyun4i3fqd1.jpeg
Chief Justice John Roberts:
Dismantled the Voting Rights Act
Undermined the first significant healthcare reform effort in decades
Citizen's United ensured a government by corporations, for corporations, and opens the doors to foreign election interference in ways that have completely reshaped our politics in a way that overwhelming benefits Republicans
Declared presidents are in fact kings
Invents special "religious liberty" protections for Christians
Dismantled Roe vs Wade
Defends unprecedented levels of personal corruption by Alito and Thomas
August 2024
Vote Suppression: Texas suspends 2.1 million voters: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/elections/2024/08/05/texas-voter-suspense-list-tops-21-million-heres-what-to-do-if-youre-on-it/
July 2024
More PRoject 2025: https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/16h9fqe/comment/k0hfgpn/
April 2024
Cybersecurity board review of Microsoft Exchange intrusion: https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/2024-04/CSRB_Review_of_the_Summer_2023_MEO_Intrusion_Final_508c.pdf
Late Wednesday afternoon, the GOP-controlled House Financial Services Committee voted to advance a bill that would repeal a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rule that drastically reduces the caps on credit card late fees — from $30-$41 to $8. The legislation would also repeal the CFPB’s ban on automatic adjustment of late fees due to inflation. In the Democratic-controlled Senate, where the bill is expected to fail, a similar repeal measure was introduced by Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee Ranking Member Tim Scott (R-S.C.) — who has recently devoted most of his energy to fawning over Donald Trump — and co-sponsored by 12 other Republicans. According to Republicans on the committee, however, lowering late fees will “harm consumers by shifting costs to responsible consumers who pay on time in the form of higher annual fees and higher interest rates,” while remov[ing] incentives for timely payments.”
Medicaid: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/04/05/medicaid-unwinding-purge-disenrollment/
March 2024
Vote suppression: Georgia makes it easier to purge votes via GA SB189, passed in middle of night. https://newrepublic.com/post/180273/georgia-republicans-bill-rewrite-election-law
Vote suppression: Supreme Court delays so long a lower court has to step in: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-delay-prompts-federal-judges-act-south-carolina-redistri-rcna145267
Alexander Smirnoff and Hunter Biden accusations: An American company that allegedly paid an indicted FBI informant accused of lying about Joe Biden and his son’s business dealings has ties to former President Donald Trump, according to a report. Economic Transformation Technologies (ETT), the company, paid Alexander Smirnov, the once-FBI informant, $600,000 in September 2020, a February court filing states, reported The Guardian. This hefty payment was made “in exchange for a stake in an Israel-based crypto trading platform” that Mr Smirnov was trying to launch, the Wall Street Journal reported in February. ETT’s CEO is Christopher Condon, a shareholder in the London-based ETT Investment Holding Limited, which has since been dissolved, The Guardian reported, The other two shareholders, Shahal Khan and Farooq Arjomand are connected to Mr Trump through the former president’s associates, according to the outlet.
J.D. Vance (R - O.H.): https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/03/15/mr-maga-goes-to-washington-00147054?cid=apn and https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/01/04/jd-vance-hillbilly-elegy-radicalization/
Center for Renewing America think tank https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/20/donald-trump-allies-christian-nationalism-00142086
Project 2025 summary: https://www.salon.com/2024/03/01/project-2025-is-more-than-a-playbook-for-trumpism-its-the-christian-nationalist-manifesto/
Society for American Civic Renewal : https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/inside-a-secret-society-of-prominent-right-wing-christian-men-prepping-for-a-national-divorce
February 2024
Timeline of Hunter Biden informant: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/23/how-bill-barr-assignment-led-biden-impeachment-effort-based-lie/
Republican Governor Bill Lee signed House Bill 878 into law on Wednesday. The measure simply states, “A person shall not be required to solemnize a marriage.” This means that any government official can refuse to certify a marriage license for any reason whatsoever. this stops marriage quality.
QUITTING surprise announcement of the departure of Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.). Next came the retirement announcement from House Homeland Security Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.). . Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) announced plans to leave. Gallagher’s decision to quit was described by the news section of The Wall Street Journal as “a blow to the establishment wing of the Republican party, Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), the GOP congresswoman with the longest tenure in the House, announced late last year she was quitting. Granger is chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. In January, Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) announced his departure from the House after 14 years in Congress. Ronna Romney McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, is reportedly also leaving under pressure from Trump loyalists who deem her insufficiently supportive of Trump’s presidential bid.
$355m civil fraud ruling against Trump: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/16/nyregion/trump-fraud-engoron-decision-annotated.html
Rep. French Hill (R - ): “We need to shut the border.… The president could take executive action to do it today—doesn’t need more money. It needs action, and this is what’s disappointing to people, and that’s why Mayorkas is gonna pay this public relations price by being impeached for the first time since 1876,” Hill said. On the first vote Representatives Ken Buck and Tom McClintock—voted against on the grounds that the impeachment crusade is a political sham and in violation of the Constitution. https://newrepublic.com/post/178988/republican-congressman-french-hill-real-reason-mayorkas-impeachment
Social media news, Gen Z: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-02-09/youtube-tiktok-instagram-news-consumption-grows-as-traditional-media-shrinks?srnd=businessweek-v2
MONEY: Publix and opiods and Republicans: https://popular.info/p/publix-versus-the-public
Heritage Foundation plan to institutionalize Trumpism: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/21/magazine/heritage-foundation-kevin-roberts.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20240203&instance_id=114211&nl=from-the-times®i_id=92276377&segment_id=157246&te=1&user_id=eff308e1a07774c578ec28d9e5699552
QUOTE: Trump lawyer: “This was a riot,” he said. “It was not an insurrection.”. Trump: “They kept saying about what I said right after the insurrection,” he said outside Mar-a-Lago after arguments concluded in Washington, D.C. “I think it was an insurrection caused by Nancy Pelosi. "
REPORT: National Intelligence Council report Foreign Threats to the 2022 Election: https://www.odni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/NIC-Declassified-ICA-Foreign-Threats-to-the-2022-US-Elections-Dec2023.pdf
QUOTE: Among Republican politicians, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has led the way in normalizing extremist pro-Russian propaganda, making a public appearance at a pro-Putin rally and calling the defense of Ukraine a corrupt scheme. She citied a Russian propaganda outlet that was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department over alleged interference in the 2020 presidential elections as her source.
QUOTE: On the US Senate side, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama blames Democrats, claiming Democrats “created” the war in Ukraine - exactly parroting the Kremlin influence operation, and has gone so far as to green-light a Russian takeover of Ukraine, opining against all contrary evidence that he sees no risk of further Russian aggression once Ukraine is subdued.
MONEY: Texas has spent more than $124 million sending buses of migrants to sanctuary cities, according to records obtained by Nexstar. 2,245 buses year to date, an average of 45 migrants per bus.. Almost $1200/person. https://www.kxan.com/investigations/records-abbotts-migrant-busing-has-cost-texas-124-million/
QUOTE: A bill under consideration in the House would, among other things, expand the child tax credit to the benefit of parents earning $40,000 a year or less. But Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) isn’t sure about the legislation. After all, he said on Wednesday, “passing a tax bill that makes the president look good — mailing out checks before the election — means he could be reelected, and then we won’t extend the 2017 tax cuts.”
MONEY: According to a new report from the Center for Political Accountability, which tracks corporate political spending, the RSLC has accepted more than $188 million from publicly-traded companies and their lobbying groups since 2010 — a sum that represents more than half of the $340 million total raised by the group during this time. The amount the corporations gave to the Republican committee absolutely dwarfed the sum they gave to its Democratic counterpart, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which raised just $52 million from corporations and lobbying groups over the same period. The DLCC’s entire fundraising haul over the last 14 years — $185 million — doesn’t match what corporations alone gave to Republicans in that time. (The Republican State Legislative Committee did not respond to a request for comment.)
Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) complained about what he called "the FCC's totalitarian overreach," which he said "goes against the very core of free market capitalism." The FCC defined digital discrimination of access as "policies or practices, not justified by genuine issues of technical or economic feasibility, that differentially impact consumers' access to broadband Internet access service based on their income level, race, ethnicity, color, religion, or national origin or are intended to have such differential impact."
January 2024
QUOTE: Senator Josh Hawley (R - Mo) on immigration bill: “I hope so,” Hawley said. “It should be. If it’s not dead yet it should be dead. There is absolutely no reason to agree to policies that would further enable Joe Biden.”
Arizona State Sen. Anthony Kern, who was one of the fake electors and photographed in the 06Jan crowd, has proposed Senate Concurrent Resolution 1014 would override current law and the Arizona legislature would have the sole authority to appoint the presidential electors — regardless of which candidate actually received the most votes.
IRS FinCen report on employee retention credit (CARES Act) fraud: https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/shared/FinCEN_ERC_Fraud_Alert_FINAL508.pdf
DoD Inspector General report on White HOuse pharmacy use: https://media.defense.gov/2024/Jan/09/2003373440/-1/-1/1/DODIG-2024-044_REDACTED%20SECURE.PDF
DOJ report on Uvalde: https://portal.cops.usdoj.gov/resourcecenter/content.ashx/cops-r1143-pub.pdf
December 2023
QUOTE: House leader Mike Johnson (R): “I’ll tell you a secret since the media’s not here,” The Lord impressed upon my heart a few weeks before this happened that something was going to occur. And the Lord very specifically told me in my prayers to prepare but to wait. I had this sense that we were going to come to a Red Sea moment in our Republican conference and the country at large. Look, I’m a Southern Baptist. I don’t want to get too spooky on you, OK? But the Lord speaks to your heart. And he had been speaking to me about this. And the Lord told me very clearly to prepare. OK, prepare for what? I don’t know. “We’re coming to a Red Sea moment.” “What does that mean, Lord?” I started praying more about that. And the Lord began to wake me up through this three-week process we were in, in the middle of the night, and to speak to me. And [I began] to write things down, plans and procedures and ideas on how we could pull the conference together. I assumed the Lord was going to choose a new Moses. And “Oh, thank you, Lord: You’re going to allow me to be Aaron to Moses.” [In the Hebrew Bible, Aaron is Moses’ brother and a priest who aids him.] I worked to get Steve Scalise elected. And then Jim Jordan. And Tom Emmer. Thirteen people ran for the post. The Lord kept telling me to wait. And I waited and waited. And it came to the end, and the Lord said, “Now, step forward.” “Me? I’m supposed to be Aaron.” “Only God saw the path through the roiling sea,”
November 2023
GOP voter fraud crackdown: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/12/20/voter-fraud-prosecutions-2020/
Limiting birth control: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jd-vance-republicans-limit-birth-control-access-1234922493/
MONEY UKRAINE “Blood is on their hands,” Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) said of Democrats. “Blood is on their hands in Ukraine. Blood will be on their hands here. And blood will be on their hands in Israel, and blood will be on their hands when the Chinese Communist Party thinks they can take Taiwan.” no. “Because we would vote for each one of these,” he said, referring to the four components of a proposed supplemental: Ukraine aid, Israel aid, money for Taiwan, and sweeping policy changes to border policies. “It is the administration's fault if they don’t get this done,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) said Tuesday. “I’m very disappointed,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA). “I really thought that the White House was going to engage in a meaningful way and my Democratic colleagues were. I’m surprised but more than being surprised, I’m really, really disappointed.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/republicans-try-to-blame-dems-for-gop-inaction-on-ukraine-aid?utm_campaign=owned_social&via=twitter_page&utm_medium=socialflow&utm_source=twitter_owned_tdb
MONEY Ukraine aide: While three of the eight Republican members of Congress from Pennsylvania have been voting against funding to help stop Russia's invasion, the data shows the Keystone State has received $2.364 billion - the most of any state - in spending and investments to build arms and ammunition, according to documents seen by Reuters. In Texas, 18 of the 25 Republican U.S. representatives have voted against Ukraine aid. At the same time, Texas has received $1.45 billion to produce 155 millimeter shells and other weapons. In Arizona, three of six Republican representatives voted against aid while $2.196 billion poured into the state. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-funding-ukraine-arms-has-poured-into-pennsylvania-arizona-texas-2023-11-28/
MONEY: The Heritage Foundation distributed over $1.67 million in grants in 2022 — including a total of $965,000 to organizations on the advisory board of Project 2025, tax records show. These donations accounted for 58% of Heritage’s total grant-making in 2022. It also distributed $400,000 to its political arm, Heritage Action for America. By comparison, in 2021, the foundation contributed only $174,000 to other nonprofit organizations. In 2022, contributions to the Heritage Foundation also increased, to $95 million, a jump of 26% compared to the previous year The filing was first shared with NBC News by Accountable.US, a progressive advocacy group.
voter fraud: Kim Taylor, the wife of an Iowa county supervisor, was found guilty of 52 counts of voter fraud Tuesday, concluding a months-long case into her interference in the 2020 election. Federal prosecutors said Taylor attempted to “generate votes” in the 2020 primary and general elections in Iowa in order to help her husband, Woodbury County Supervisor Jeremy Taylor, win the primary for Rep. Steve King’s (R-Iowa) former seat. https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4322071-iowa-officials-wife-found-guilty-voter-fraud/
House Ethics Committee report on George Santos: https://ethics.house.gov/sites/ethics.house.gov/files/documents/Committee%20Report_52.pdf
Guiliani's Biden sources are charged by Ukraine as Russian agents: https://newrepublic.com/post/176934/giuliani-top-ukraine-allies-charged-putin-agents
MONEY Heritage Foundation has spent $20m on Project 2025: https://www.axios.com/2023/11/13/trump-loyalists-2024-presidential-election
MONEY Friends and patrons of Clarence and Ginni Thomas: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/11/09/clarence-thomas-ginni-harlan-crow-gifts/
MONEY Nikki Haley and foreign lobbyists. https://abcnews.go.com/US/nikki-haley-slams-foreign-lobbyists-fundraising/story?id=99704708
Oswaldo “Ozzie” Palomo of Chartwell Strategy Group—has worked on behalf of the Georgian government and the Social Democratic Party of Romania, and he has become one of Haley’s top contributors. In February, Palomo made a $6,600 donation to Haley’s joint fundraising committee, which was properly disclosed in Chartwell’s federal lobbying filing the next month. https://www.thedailybeast.com/nikki-haley-cant-shake-her-foreign-lobbyist-problem
Youngkin (R-VA) purges 3400 voters "by mistake." https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/29/youngkin-virginia-elections-voter-rolls/
House proposes giving Israel $14b by cutting IRS revenue by $14b. CBO says this would create $26b revenue shortall (https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2023-11/CBO_Estimate_for_the_Israel_Security_Supp_Approp_Act_2024.pdf). https://rules.house.gov/sites/republicans.rules118.house.gov/files/ISRAELFINAL_xml.pdf
October 2023
2018 oil waiver by Trump allowed South Korea to buy Iranian oil, which funded the $6 billion that Biden traded for hostages. https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-oil-waiver-iran-hamas-israel-1833864
Bush and Trump tax cuts add $10 trillion to deficit. Spending is down, but lower revenue causes budget deficits. https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-bush-tax-cuts-fuel-growing-deficits
VOTE Republicans remove 27,000 votes from voter rolls in Ohio AFTER critical vote on abortion amendment but before primary election. https://www.rawstory.com/ohio-election-2666067762/
Mike Johnson (R-La), one of "primary architects" of stop the steal, is now speaker of the house. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/us/politics/republican-election-objectors.html
CRAP Mike Johnson (R-LA): https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/10/everything-to-know-about-mike-johnson
MONEY Russian nationals—Konstantin Nikolaev, Mikhail Yuriev, and Andrey Kunatbaev channel tens of thousands through American Ethane company to Louisiana Republicans including Mike Johnson. Nikolaev backed Marina Butina, who was convicted as a spy.
Jordan (R-OH) was in repeated, direct contact with Trump and other plotters immediately before and during Jan. 6 (as I’ve said before: this clip, forever.) He refused a subpoena to give evidence to the January 6 investigation. And of course, he’s used his power as chair of the House Judiciary Committee to attempt to undermine prosecutors and interfere in their criminal investigations of Trump. https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7bp94/jim-jordan-steve-scalise-trump-house-gop
Sanders report on non-profit hospitals: https://www.sanders.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/Executive-Charity-HELP-Committee-Majority-Staff-Report-Final.pdf
Texas reportedly paid a private company $75.5 million in the span of a year to transport migrants to sanctuary cities across the U.S. Transaction data provided by the Texas Department of Emergency Management shows the state paid Wynne Transportation $75,561,032.72 from Aug. 19, 2022, through Aug. 23, 2023, to bus migrants out of state.” That’s around $1,400 per person for a one way bus ticket out of town. https://abc13.com/texas-bus-migrants-bussing-to-other-cities-wynne-transportation-sanctuary/13889625/
August 2023
VOTE SUPPRESSION. Texas Supreme Court allows state to abolish Harris County election head. https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/texas-supreme-court-harris-county-18310341.php. Under Senate Bill 1750, eliminating the county's EA (Election Administrator) position only applies to counties with 3.5 million residents on Sept.1, 2023. When the law goes into effect in a few weeks it will only apply to Harris County.
The conservative group arguing the abortion pill case has made frequent payments to the spouse of James Ho, who just helped threaten access to the medicine. https://www.levernews.com/trump-judges-anti-abortion-ruling-followed-payments-from-group-leading-case/
https://www.salon.com/2023/08/18/judges-actual-argument-for-abortion-bans-doctors-are-harmed-without-cute-sonograms/
Excess death rates during COVID in Ohio and Florida: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2807617
Super PAC behind Robert F. Kennedy Jr: American Values 2024, reported receiving $5m from Timothy Mellon, a wealthy businessman from Wyoming, according to NBC News and Politico. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/02/robert-f-kennedy-jr-republican-donor-super-pac
Michigan Republicans tampering with voting machines in 2020: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/08/01/michigan-indictment-2020-election-voting-machine-tampering/
July 2023
MONEY Utility companies and lobbying: https://cleantechnica.com/2023/06/18/how-utility-companies-fight-to-keep-their-monopoly-status-using-your-money/
MONEY Lively is not acting alone: the US Christian right spent at least $280m abroad between 2008 and 2019, an investigation by the British news site openDemocracy found. Lively, however, is among the most infamous, having made his name from his 1995 book The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party, which claimed Hitler and Nazi leadership were gay, and gay men were behind the Holocaust. undamentalist US groups like Family Watch International, whose leader, Sharon Slater, has said LGBTQ+ rights are “fictitious”, and The Family, a secretive group that reportedly helped author the bill. OpenDemocracy found it spent $20m in Africa between 2008 and 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/09/us-religious-right-lgbtq-global-culture-fronts
Pay most in taxes, least in benefits. takers and makers. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/07/07/states-federal-benefits/
Ohio Republicans plan to spend opioid money in secret after a former house speaker was sentenced for bribery. State lawsuits against opioid manufacturers, distributors, and retailers are expected to yield more than $50 billion in settlement money to be distributed across the country. Ohio alone will eventually receive more than $1 billion. So in 2021 the state, led by Republican Governor Mike DeWine, created the nonprofit OneOhio Recovery Foundation to distribute the majority of it. https://newrepublic.com/article/174116/ohio-republicans-rotten-scheme-spend-opioid-settlement-money-secret
Gun deaths stats from John Hopkins center on gun violence: https://publichealth.jhu.edu/sites/default/files/2022-05/2020-gun-deaths-in-the-us-4-28-2022-b.pdf
May 2023
MONEY The Foundation for Government Accountability, a Florida-based group primarily funded by IL billionaire Richard Hihlein and affiliated with the alliance of conservative thinktanks called the State Policy Network, has played a key role in recent efforts to raise the threshold for passing citizen ballot initiatives from a simple majority to a supermajority, and to make it harder to place measures on the ballot in the first place in states such as Ohio, Missouri, South Dakota and Arkansas.. In effect, FGA and its allies seek to give 41% of the voting population an effective veto over the wishes of the other 59%. Dick Uihlein gave $1.1m to the newly created “Save Our Constitution PAC” in Ohio. A foundation controlled by Uihlein is also the largest known source of FGA’s funding, giving $17.6m since 2014. Uihlein has also been one of the key funders of election denial. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/23/foundation-government-accountability-democracy
MONEY US power companies have made political donations of at least $215m to dark money groups in recent years. Example: in Arizona when, in 2014, power company Arizona Public Service gave $10.7m to dark money groups that donated to key regulatory commission races. The two Republican commissioners backed by the groups won. In 2017, they went on to support the power company’s request for a $95m-a-year increase in electric bills, which ultimately was passed down to customers. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/15/us-power-companies-political-lobbying-donations-nonprofit
Tax cuts are primarily responsible for increasing debt ratio. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/tax-cuts-are-primarily-responsible-for-the-increasing-debt-ratio/
MONEY ESG Republican lawmakers in 37 states introduced a stunning 165 pieces of anti-ESG legislation, according to the new report from the strategic research and advisory firm Pleiades Strategy. Majority of bills bear strong resemblances to model bills crafted or circulated by four influential rightwing thinktanks: the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Heritage Foundation, the Heartland Institute and the Foundation for Government Accountability. Each of the four organizations is affiliated with the far-right thinktank coalition State Policy Network, whose members have also fought to pass punitive anti-pipeline protest laws and which has received funding from groups linked to fossil fuel billionaires Charles and the late David Koch.Advocacy for many of the bills was also led by fossil fuel-tied groups, including the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), which has accepted at least $8.8m from organizations linked to the Kochs since 2012, and has also received funding from ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron. The TPPF began attacking ESG as far back as 2020 and says it was behind a pioneering anti-ESG bill passed in Texas in 2021.
21June: House Republicans pushed through a resolution formally censuring California congressman Adam Schiff on Wednesday. As chairman of the Intelligence Committee from January 2019 to January 2023, Schiff was an abiding presence in nearly every investigation and impeachment of the former president. The party-line vote was 213–209, with Republican members of the House Ethics Committee, who will now investigate Schiff according to the terms of the censure resolution, voting “present.” Sponsor freshman R-FL Anna Paulina Luna had removed the $16m fine.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett spoke 5 times at an Alliance Defending Freedom (Christian PAC) training program. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/coney-barrett-christian-law-fellowship-blackstone/2020/09/27/7ae41892-fdc5-11ea-b555-4d71a9254f4b_story.html
“And what does the device of two years do?” North Carolina Representative Dan Bishop posed incredulously on Tuesday, flanked by far-right colleagues like Lauren Boebert and Byron Donalds. “It removes the issue from the national conversation during the presidential election to come. How could you more successfully kneecap any Republican president than to take that issue out of his or her hands?” The admission by Bishop follows Matt Gaetz’s acknowledgment last week that the debt limit talks were just about holding the government (and America) “hostage.”
REPORT by Kansas City Fed: Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City calculated that in 2021, when inflation reached an annualized rate of 5.8%, corporate markups grew by 3.4%. The upshot: Markups “could account for more than half of 2021 inflation.” “Between 1960 and 1980, markups averaged 26% above marginal costs,” Joseph E. Stiglitz and Ira Regmi of the Roosevelt Institute noted in December. “The average markup charged in 2021 was 72% above the marginal cost.”
MONEY N.C. abortion law veto override. The evidence now strongly suggests that Cotham’s fraud was part of a deliberate plan by the Republican Party of North Carolina to steal a State House seat through fraud. No longer electable in Mecklenburg county by winning voter support on their own merits, Republicans resorted to backing a Trojan horse candidate in Tricia Cotham Cotham raised a whopping $54,000 for her primary election – an eye-popping amount. Even for the child of a powerful Mecklenburg county commissioner (Pat Cotham, who made a max-out $5,600 contribution to her daughter’s primary), most state-level corporate PACs do not normally get heavily involved in primaries. Yet for Tricia Cotham, state PACs – most of them strongly Republican-aligned – mobilized, and wound up funding more than two-thirds of her primary. For comparison, Yolanda Holmes, the second-place finisher in the primary, raised a grand total of $14,600. https://carolinaforward.org/blog/defrauding-voters-mecklenburg/
EcoHealth Alliance Receives NIH Renewal Grant for Collaborative Research to Understand the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Spillover Emergence
REPORT Corporate profits and inflation per Kansas City Fed: https://www.kansascityfed.org/research/economic-review/how-much-have-record-corporate-profits-contributed-to-recent-inflation/
April 2023
MONEY In January 2012, Leo instructed the GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill a nonprofit group he advises and use that money to pay Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the documents show. The same year, the nonprofit, the Judicial Education Project, filed a brief to the Supreme Court in a landmark voting rights case. Leo, a key figure in a network of nonprofits that has worked to support the nominations of conservative judges, told Conway that he wanted her to “give” Ginni Thomas “another $25K,” the documents show. He emphasized that the paperwork should have “No mention of Ginni, of course.” In all, according to the documents, the Polling Company paid Thomas’s firm, Liberty Consulting, $80,000 between June 2011 and June 2012, and it expected to pay $20,000 more before the end of 2012. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/05/04/leonard-leo-clarence-ginni-thomas-conway/
CRAP Texas Senate passed bill allowing Governor Abbot to throw out Houston election results: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/texas-republicans-seek-overturn-elections-mishaps-18073334.php
CRAP Texas lawmakers in 2021 passed a ban on lessons teaching that any one group is “inherently racist, sexist or oppressive”.....Tucked into page 8 is a stipulation outlawing all assignments involving “direct communication” between students and their federal, state or local officials. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/01/texas-civics-students-democratic-participation
MONEY Scalia Law School at George Mason University (named after Scalia after a $30m gift from Leonard Leo) paid for a $10k trip to Italy. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh have received about $30k/year. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/30/us/supreme-court-scalia-law-school.html and https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/04/gorsuch-scalia-law-school-corruption-supreme-court/
Trump-Epstein court documentL https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/Johnson_TrumpEpstein_Lawsuit.pdf
Republican investigation of Kavanaugh lied about sexual harrassment evidence. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/28/brett-kavanaugh-investigation-omissions-senate-sexual-assault-claims
MONEY And life was indeed good for the Robertses, at least for the years 2007 to 2014. During that eight-year stretch, according to internal records from her employer, Jane Roberts (wife of Chief Justice Roberts) generated a whopping $10.3 million in commissions, paid out by corporations and law firms for placing high-dollar lawyers with them. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23791123/2-of-8-sworn-affidavit-of-kendal-b-price-12-02-2022.pdf Placements: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23792001/jane-roberts-redacted-managing-director-mla-placements-2007-2015_sanitized_opt.pdf
MONEY In 2011, Justice Clarence Thomas amended 13 years of forms, some of which had wrongly claimed that his wife Ginni had no outside income, when in fact she'd been paid more than half a million dollars by the conservative Heritage Foundation.
VOTE H.R.2811 - Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023 (28April. not in Senate yet)
suspends the debt limit through March 31, 2024, or until the debt increases by $1.5 trillion, whichever occurs first;
establishes discretionary spending limits for FY2024-FY2033 that include decreases in discretionary spending;
rescinds certain unobligated funds that were provided to address COVID-19 and to the Internal Revenue Service;
nullifies certain executive actions and regulations for cancelling federal student loan debt and implementing an income-driven repayment plan for student loans;
repeals or modifies tax credits for renewable and clean energy, energy efficient property, alternative fuels, and electric vehicles;
establishes new work requirements for Medicaid and expands the work requirements for SNAP and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program; and
requires major federal rules (e.g., rules likely to result in an annual economic effect of at least $100 million) to be approved by Congress before they take effect.
Republicans: 217 yes, 4 no, 1 NV
Democrats: 211 no, 2 NV
MONEY: He and his wife closed on the house a month later, paying $1.825 million, according to a deed in the county’s record system. Gorsuch, who held a 20 percent stake, reported making between $250,001 and $500,000 from the sale on his federal disclosure forms. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/25/neil-gorsuch-colorado-property-sale-00093579
CRAP: Ted Cruz plotting to steal the election: https://www.thedailybeast.com/ari-melber-on-msnbc-airs-bombshell-audio-showing-ted-cruz-scheming-to-steal-election
Creeping fascism: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/13/us-conservatives-love-to-warn-of-creeping-fascism-do-they-understand-what-it-is
REPORT IRS information technology report: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-104719
CRAP Florida democrat lawmaker arrested because of abortion protest: https://apnews.com/article/florida-abortion-protest-arrests-d01ec41bde4a1d264af167fcf482c05e
CRAP Tennessee House expels 2 black democrats over guns protest. 1 other democrat almost expelled: https://apnews.com/article/tennessee-lawmakers-expulsion-d3f40559c56a051eec49e416a7b5dade
Texas federal judge opinion on abortion pill: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23746119-read-texas-federal-judge-ruling-on-abortion-pill also https://www.reuters.com/world/us/texas-judge-abortion-pill-lawsuit-often-rules-conservatives-2023-04-08/
VOTE SUPPRESSION: In Virginia, though, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, has decided that his administration will choose which Virginians convicted of felonies should be allowed to vote. https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/glenn-youngkin-virginia-voting-rights-rcna77100
GUNS https://www.visualcapitalist.com/30-years-of-gun-manufacturing-in-america/
REPORT A Pentagon study revealed that 77 percent of young Americans do not qualify for military service without a waiver due to being overweight, drug use, or mental or physical problems. https://americanmilitarynews.com/2023/03/77-of-young-americans-too-fat-mentally-ill-on-drugs-and-more-to-join-military-pentagon-study-finds/
MONEY Crowdsourcers for Culture and Liberty, A little-known conservative activist group led by Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, collected nearly $600,000 in anonymous donations to wage a cultural battle against the left over three years. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/03/28/ginni-thomas-crowdsourcers-anonymous-donations/
States that opted against Medicaid expansion, or had just recently adopted it, accounted for nearly three-fourths of rural hospital closures between 2010 and 2021, according to the American Hospital Association. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/28/us/politics/mississippi-medicaid-hospitals.html
Medicaid's continuous coverage requirements were enacted early in the Covid-19 pandemic to help vulnerable people maintain insurance amid the health emergency, resulting in record-high Medicaid enrollment. But at the end of last year, congressional negotiators agreed on a bipartisan basis to set April 1 as the beginning of the "unwinding" process for the continuous coverage mandates, which prevented states from conducting regular eligibility screenings for Medicaid recipients. The bipartisan deal gave states 12 months to determine who is still eligible for Medicaid, but some states—including Arkansas and South Dakota—are jumping at the opportunity to quickly remove people from the program. https://www.commondreams.org/news/medicaid-purge-begins
March 2023
Iowa bans gender-affirming care. Arkansas has already done this. https://apnews.com/article/reynolds-iowa-transgender-ban-bathroom-e1651a8785586274f66819dad28b471e
Biden vetoes bill banning consideration of ESG investments. https://apnews.com/article/house-republicans-veto-override-esg-woke-investment-1fb8a23144d68b59c820c48c34152664. Override fails on 219-200 vote.
The former Florida lawmaker who sponsored the controversial law critics call “Don’t Say Gay” pleaded guilty Tuesday to committing $150,000 in COVID-19 relief fraud. Joseph Harding, a 35-year-old Republican. https://apnews.com/article/florida-lawmaker-covid-relief-fraud-guilty-014bc3d2acfbafbe6648b2820cacd5f7
Ohio and Iowa became the latest Republican-led states to signal they would be pulling out of a bipartisan interstate voter program.... They are the sixth and seventh Republican-led states to drop out of the Electronic Registration Information Center — ERIC — over the last year, joining Florida, West Virginia, Missouri, Louisiana and Alabama. Other states could soon be on the way as well. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/18/republican-states-depart-from-interstate-voter-list-program-00087728
The exodus of GOP officials from the once-uncontroversial group comes as some prominent Republicans — most notably former President Donald Trump — have publicly attacked it, falsely saying it is a liberal plot to control the county’s voter rolls.
Republican-controlled state government in Texas wrested control of the House Independent School District from local leaders. State Education Commissioner Mike Morath, appointed by Texas's Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, will be able to replace all the elected leaders of the school board with his own people in the Houston district.
REPORT: House staff report: Trump administration failed to disclose foreign gifts: https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/2023.03.17%20COA%20Democrats%20Foreign%20Gifts%20Interim%20Report%20FINAL.pdf
Silicon Valley Bank: In 2018, ignoring the vocal warnings of experts and advocacy groups, the then-Republican-controlled Congress passed legislation that weakened post-financial crisis regulations for banks with between $50 billion and $250 billion in assets : Sen. Mike Crapo's (R-Idaho) Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (SVB had about $212b in assets. https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-era-deregulation-deemed-a-key-culprit-in-failure-of-silicon-valley-bank
MONEY: Leonard Leo and Teneo (co-founded by Josh Hawley). https://www.propublica.org/article/leonard-leo-teneo-videos-documents
Freedom Caucus demands to raise the debt ceiling: https://www.commondreams.org/news/freedom-caucus-debt-ceiling-demands
Eliminate Biden's $400 billion student debt cancellation plan; Rescind unspent Covid-19 relief funds; Nix nearly $400 billion worth of clean energy investments approved in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA); Repeal the IRA's roughly $80 billion funding boost for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS); Restore Clinton-era work requirements on welfare recipients; Require congressional approval before any major federal regulations can take effect; Cap future federal spending at 2022 levels for the next 10 years; and Find "every dollar spent by Democrats that can be reclaimed for the American taxpayer."
MONEY: Akron-based FirstEnergy and other utilities paid tens of millions into an effort to elect friendly lawmakers in 2018 who would vote to make [Larry] Householder speaker the following year. Immediately after taking the speaker’s gavel, Householder worked furiously to pass a $1.3 billion bailout, the vast majority of which benefited FirstEnergy subsidiary FirstEnergy Services. The company was being dragged down by losses from its nuclear and coal plants and executives were seeking a bailout. While it got more than $1 billion out of the deal, Householder got political power as well as more than $500,000 personally, jurors found. When opponents started gathering signatures to repeal the bailout law, House Bill 6, FirstEnergy poured $36 million into an effort to block it. https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a43276502/ohio-firstenergy-kickback/
Staff REPORT on GOP witness in Jim Jordan (R - OH) Judiciary committee investigating weaponization of government: https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/2023-03-02-gop-witnesses-report/55a2148d9afabab3/full.pdf
NTSB preliminary report on East Palestine, Ohio train derailment: https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Documents/RRD23MR005%20East%20Palestine%20OH%20Prelim.pdf
February 2023
MONEY The recently revived Florida State Guard would more than triple in size and add aviation and maritime equipment, with funding going from $10 million to more than $95 million, under Gov. Ron DeSantis’ proposed budget. https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-ne-nsf-desantis-funding-increase-florida-state-guard-20230207-4q6yk564jrch5no53b35s2t674-story.html
CRAP Two Republican lawmakers in Idaho have introduced a bill that would make it a misdemeanor for anyone in the state to administer mRNA-based vaccines—namely the lifesaving and remarkably safe COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. If passed as written, it would also preemptively ban the use of countless other mRNA vaccines that are now in development, such as shots for RSV, a variety of cancers, HIV, flu, Nipah virus, and cystic fibrosis, among others. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Tammy Nichols of Middleton and Rep. Judy Boyle of Midvale, both staunch conservatives who say that stand for freedom and the right to life. But their bill, HB 154, proposes that "a person may not provide or administer a vaccine developed using messenger ribonucleic acid [mRNA] technology for use in an individual or any other mammal in this state." If passed into law, anyone administering lifesaving mRNA-based vaccines would be guilty of a misdemeanor, which could result in jail time and/or a fine.
MONEY: A Woodlands man will spend a year and a half in prison for funneling illegal foreign contributions from a Russian national to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign to secure a photo with the former U.S. president. . Trump got $25k, Benton kept $75k.
Free speech and NYT vs Sullivan: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/02/16/stifling-free-speech-is-now-a-core-plank-of-republicans/
Office of Inspector General report on Blanton: https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/oig-reports/AOC/2021-0011-INVI-P-Oversight-Post-Final_0.pdf
Desantis and Medicare cuts: https://www.businessinsider.com/ron-desantis-voting-record-vulnerabilities-congress-2024-trump-biden-2023-2?amp
MONEY Servant Foundation/Signatry: https://jacobin.com/2023/02/christian-super-bowl-ads-he-gets-us-servant-foundation-abortion-gay-rights
Servant Foundation, Signatry (a donor advised fund)
$19m to Alliance Defending Freedom, an SPLC designated anti-LGBTQ hate group, wrote model for MS abortion ban ($50m 2018-2020)
$8m to Answers in Genesis, fundamental ministry behind Creation Museum
$1m to Campus Crusade for Christ, rebranded as "Cru"
$374,800 to Al Hayat Ministries, which is anti-Isam Arabic language Chrisitan satellite TV org
at least one is David Green, founder of Hobby Lobby
$14m for 60s airtime on Superbowl
Georgia grand jury report: no election fraud, possible criminal indictment coming: https://fultonclerk.org/DocumentCenter/View/1706/EX-PARTE-ORDER-OF-THE-JUDGE-2-16-2023-Report
TheSignatry spends $20m on Superbowl "He Gets Us" ads, part of a $100m campaign. Plan on spending $1b. https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/11/us/he-gets-us-super-bowl-commercials-cec/index.html
MONEY From the day he left office through the end of last year, the coup-attempting former president’s various political committees spent $905,570 at his properties, according to a HuffPost analysis of new Federal Election Commission filings. Trump Tower, in fact, remained the single biggest target for Trump committee spending over the past two years, receiving a total of $412,958 from the “Make America Great Again PAC,” his renamed and reconstituted 2020 campaign committee, in the form of $37,542 monthly payments for 11 months. Although the payments were described as “rent” in FEC filings, no political committee work occurred there. The practice stopped immediately after HuffPost published an article about it. Trump’s New York City hotel received $336,218 in Trump committee money, and Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, where Trump also lives during the winter months, received $137,272. That amount includes $68,988 the business received after it became the locale for Trump’s 2024 campaign announcement on Nov. 15.https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-campaign-self-dealing_n_63e42fd1e4b07f036b9a5944
VOTE H.R. 9 to denounce socialism (yea, nea, present, NV)
Rep: 218,0,0,4
Dem: 109,87,13,3
REPORT: U.S. healthcare from a global perspective: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2023/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2022
Secret Service report on mass attacks in public spaces: https://www.secretservice.gov/newsroom/reports/threat-assessments/mass-attacks-public-spaces/details-1
Resolution against Ilhan Omar: https://maxmiller.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/maxmiller.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/omarremov.pdf
MONEY: He Gets Us campaign is funded by Servant Foundation, which is funded by Signatry (a donor advised fund). They donated $19m to Alliance Defending Freedom, an SPLC designated anti-LGBTQ hate group, wrote model for MS abortion ban, $8m to Answers in Genesis, fundamental ministry behind Creation Museum, $1m to Campus Crusade for Christ, rebranded as "Cru", $374,800 to Al Hayat Ministries, which is anti-Isam Arabic language Chrisitan satellite TV org, $14m for 60s airtime on Superbowl. At least one member is David Green, founder of Hobby Lobby
January 2023
Florida House of Rep implements dress code for women: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article271727237.html
The FBI’s former top spy hunter in New York, Charlie McGonigal, was charged Monday with taking secret cash payments of more than $225,000 while overseeing highly sensitive cases, and breaking the law by trying to get Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska removed from a U.S. sanctions list. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/01/23/mcgonigal-deripaska-indictment-fbi/
Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) proposed the Fair Tax Act which would abolish the IRS—a major gift to wealthy tax cheats—and eliminate the payroll taxes that finance Medicare and Social Security. The bill would also nix the individual income tax, the corporate income tax, the estate tax, and other taxes, establishing in their place a sales tax of 30% for calendar year 2023.
MONEY Trump made a secret $1m donation to Cyber Ninjas. who ran the Arizona vote audit. Cash passed from Trump’s fund through an allied conservative group, and from there to a shell company which in turn handed the money to contractors and individuals involved in the Arizona audit. Cyber Ninjas, the Florida-based company that led the Arizona audit, disclosed in 2021 that $5.7m of its budget came from several far-right groups invested in the “stop the steal” campaign to overturn Joe Biden’s presidential victory. It was later divulged that a further $1m had supported the audit from an account controlled by Cleta Mitchell, a Republican election lawyer who advised Trump as he plotted to subvert the 2020 election.
The Supreme Court did not disclose its longstanding financial ties with former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. the court in recent years has privately contracted with The Chertoff Group for security assessments, payments reached at least $1 million.
House Oversight and Accountability Committee: GOP's 'all-star' oversight panel features 13 election deniers, 10 impeach-Biden-world advocates, and 3 congressional subpoena dodgers. New GOP committee members Lisa McClain (Mich.), Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Scott Perry (Pa.), William Timmons (S.C.), Tim Burchett (Tenn.), Gary Palmer (Ala.), Greene and Gosar all voted to overturn the election on Jan. 6, 2021. And all five of the GOP freshmen on the committee — Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (Fla.), Russell Fry (S.C.), Nick Langworthy (N.Y.), Chuck Edwards (N.C.) and Eric Burlison (Mo.) — have either fully denied that Biden won, raised questions about his win or simply refused to say what they think. Reps. Kelly Armstrong (N.D.) and Mike Turner (Ohio) are the only new GOP members on the panel, out of 15, who haven’t dabbled in lies and conspiracies about the election. “top priority” is a probe into a web of conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden, Big Tech and the idea that they suppressed damaging information about Biden’s family businesses ahead of the 2020 election.
North Dakota S.B. 2199 would fine organizations that receive state funding if those involved use pronouns that align with people’s genders rather than the sex they were assigned at birth. $1500 fine
Under the Fair Tax bill sponsored by Rep. Buddy Carter, a Georgia Republican, all income, capital gains, estate, gift, corporate, and payroll taxes would be eliminated. They would be replaced by a flat 30 percent national sales tax on everything you buy.
REPORT George Santos opposition report: https://dccc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/George-Santos-Research-Book.pdf
REPORT: Supreme Court report in leak investigation: https://www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/press/Dobbs_Public_Report_January_19_2023.pdf
Two Santas Strategy: https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/thom-hartmann/two-santas-strategy-gop-used-economic-scam-manipulate-americans-40-years/, https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/10dpsbi/comment/j4mwmef/. Spend when in charge to boost economy and increase debt. Scream about national debt and spending cuts to safety net programs when not in control.
VOTE SUPPRESSION Ohio. Ohio Republicans quietly enacted a measure earlier this month that imposes sweeping new restrictions on voting access in the state, including more stringent voter ID requirements, cutting the early voting period and giving voters less time to return their mail-in ballots. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/18/activists-sue-ohio-republican-voting-access-restrictions
VOTE SUPPRESSION laws in 2021. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-december-2021
MONEY, VOTE SUPPRESSION: Tax filings reveal advocacy arm of Heritage Foundation spent $5m on lobbying in 2021 to block voting rights in battleground states. $5.1m. Part of Heritage Action’s two-year strategy is to promote what it calls “model election laws”, focusing initially on eight battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, Texas and Wisconsin. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/13/heritage-foundation-voter-suppression-lobbying-election-action-plan
VOTE SUPPRESSION Heritage action plan: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23560618/heritage-action-_election-integrity-plan_-2021.pdf
MONEY: A dark money non-profit linked to power utility DTE Energy funded a group behind the effort to repeal the emergency order powers of Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, and end the state’s Covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions. $100k. However, state and federal records show how the money probably moved between DTE and Unlock Michigan. IRS records reveal a 2020 donation made by Michigan Energy First, a DTE-linked dark money non-profit, to a dark money non-profit called Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/10/gretchen-whitmer-michigan-covid-policies-dark-money
article Britain: https://eand.co/why-britains-severely-underestimating-british-collapse-4d5f50550c62
The Republican-controlled Missouri House of Representatives used its session’s opening day Wednesday to tighten the dress code for female legislators, while leaving the men’s dress code alone. No bare arms
Federalism: https://newrepublic.com/article/169938/supreme-court-destroy-federalism
James Comer (R - Kentucky), the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, described a "pattern here with communist China, with Ukraine, with Russia, with our adversaries across the world" as they discussed planned investigations into the Biden family's business dealings and federal agencies.
House Republicans moved Tuesday to swiftly establish the marquee investigations of their new majority, voting to create panels focused on China and what they assert is rampant abuse of power in the federal government. Republicans officially labeled one of the committees as reviewing “the Weaponization of the Federal Government,” a name that from the outset suggests the panel’s investigations may be one-sided. Approved with party line vote of 221 - 211. The probe will be conducted under the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee, which is headed by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio Republicans also established a committee, with broad bipartisan support, to investigate “strategic competition” between the U.S. and China, in line with the party’s push for a more hardline approach to the Asian nation.
First Republican bill: Remove $80b of funding for IRS from Inflation Reduction Act.
Republicans voted to pass a new set of House Ethics Committee rules (220 - 213 party line vote) that could severely weaken attempts to investigate congressmen accused of wrongdoing, just as the House was weighing up whether to probe GOP lawmakers who defied their January 6 subpoenas. In a 220-213 vote on Monday, the new GOP-controlled House imposed a series of changes to the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), an independent body set up in 2008 to investigate allegations of misconduct against members of Congress. Among the changes would be to reintroduce term limits for members of the bipartisan board, which would force the removal of three of four Democrats who are on the panel. https://mcusercontent.com/301a28247b80ab82279e92afb/files/ec0a5aba-72c0-3626-75bf-0fe1b751c767/118th_Congress_Rules_Section_by_Section_v2.pdf. This stopped an investigation into GOP members who refused to comply with January 6th Committee subpoenas.
The Department of Defense announced more than $3 billion in additional aid to Ukraine on January 6, which would include around 50 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, 100 M113 Armored Personnel Carriers and additional ammunition for HIMARS, or high mobility artillery rocket systems. The White House has committed more than $24 billion in military aid to Ukraine since Moscow launched its February invasion.
MONEY donations to Sediction Caucus: top 10 corporate PAC donors since January 6th are Koch Industries ($1,374,500), Boeing ($936,500), Valero Energy ($827,500), Home Depot ($790,000), AT&T ($786,900), American Crystal Sugar ($745,000), United Parcel Services ($713,500), L3Harris Technologies Inc. ($663,000), Lockheed Martin ($652,500), and General Dynamics ($589,000). Six of these companies initially committed to pause or re-evaluate their giving. 1,345 corporate and industry group PACs have given $50.5 million directly to the campaigns or leadership PACs of members of the Sedition Caucus, and $18.9 million to the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/corporations-have-given-over-50-million-to-the-sedition-caucus/
Sedition Caucus: 147 Republicans voted against certifying the election. https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-TRUMP/LAWMAKERS/xegpbedzdvq/
MONEY Governor Abbot (R-TX) had allocated $1b of state money for wall work. https://www.texasobserver.org/abbott-border-wall-texas-facilities-commission/
MONEY CRAP Texas had spent $12 million on the efforts as of August, the Texas Tribune reported at the time. By November, the amount spent busing migrants out of state had risen to $20 million, according to local outlet WFAA.
McCarthy concessions: https://www.axios.com/2023/01/08/kevin-mccarthy-house-speaker-vote-republicans
(R-NE) Ben Sasse resigns from Senate to become University of Florida president (2 years into 2nd term). Sasse was 1 of 7 Republicans who voted to convict Trump of “incitement of insurrection”. Sasse was basically paid to leave his senate job by previous governor Pete Ricketts, who just stepped down because he hit his term limit. The former governor, Ricketts, will now take Sasse’s place. New governor Jim Pillen received tons of donations to his campaign from the Rickett family so he will nominate and appoint Ricketts. This is what sent Blagojevich to jail. Ricketts donated more than $100,000 of his own money directly to Pillen's campaign. Ricketts also gave nearly $1.3 million this year to the political action committee Conservative Nebraska, which ran a slew of attack ads against Pillen's primary opponents, including the Trump-backed candidate, Charles Herbster.
MONEY In 2016, Governor Ricketts spent $300,000 on a successful ballot measure that reinstated the death penalty after lawmakers voted to override his veto and abolish capital punishment. While Ricketts donated $100,000 to the ballot effort to require Nebraska voters to show a photo ID to vote, Ricketts' mother dropped $1.5 million into the ballot initiative, which voters passed in November.
Police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, say the homes or businesses of four local and state politicians have been shot at since early December. All are Democrats. In the three cases that involved homes, the shootings involved eight to 12 rounds, police said.
December 2022
REPORT: House Select Committee on Intelligence (minority report): UNCLASSIFIED SUMMARY of the SECOND INTERIM REPORT ON THE ORIGINS OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/final_unclass_summary_-_covid_origins_report_.pdf
CRAP: Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) sent more than 100 migrants to Vice President Kamala Harris' official residence, on what turned out to be the coldest night Washington has experienced in decades. Originally destined for NY, re-routed to DC due to weather. Arrived Christmas Eve.
Harvard Law Review: The Imperial Supreme Court. https://harvardlawreview.org/2022/11/the-imperial-supreme-court/
OMNIBUS SPENDING BILL
https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/HIGHLIGHTS%20DOCUMENT%20FY%2023.pdf
Employees at the Texas Department of Public Safety in June received a sweeping request from Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office: to compile a list of individuals who had changed their gender on their Texas driver’s license and other department records during the past two years.https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/14/texas-transgender-data-paxton/
Right wing extremist attacks on infrastructure, including Dept. of Homeland Security report warning about infrastructure attacks: https://www.reddit.com/r/Qult_Headquarters/comments/zcyxvy/comment/iz064j3/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Flip flops on opinion: https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/7hjdap/deleted_by_user/dqrjlun/
MONEY In a complaint to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) cited a November interview between Bankman-Fried and YouTuber Tiffany Fong, in which Bankman-Fried claimed to be “the second or third biggest Republican donor this year.” Bankman-Fried is widely known to have donated roughly $37 million to Democratic candidates in 2022. But in the interview, he claimed to have donated “about the same amount” to Republicans.https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sam-bankman-fried-republican-donations_n_6393898be4b0c28146435a2e
Supreme Court Justice Barrett makes discrimination argument for plaintiff. https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/lgbtq-rights-case-gets-conservative-supreme-court-treatment-rcna59800
MONEY Not only have the U.S. and foreign governments spent money at properties owned by Donald Trump, but the president’s own political campaign and affiliated political committees have also spent about $16.8 million at his businesses since he launched his 2016 bid for the presidency, according to an analysis of federal election spending records. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/poliltical-campaigns-18-million-trump-properties_n_5db7837be4b0bd61024fe1f1#
Republican state Representative for Florida House District 24, Joe Harding resigned following the DOJ indictment concerning allegations of wire fraud, money laundering, and making false statements. https://www.wcjb.com/2022/12/07/doj-indicts-state-rep-harding-defrauding-government/
A Republican lawmaker from North Texas filed a bill aimed at keeping children off social media. State Rep. Jared Patterson’s HB 896 would require social media users to be 18 years old to create an account. https://www.fox4news.com/news/texas-bill-would-ban-social-media-for-children-under-18
VOTE Citizenship for non-citizen U.S. Military would grant citizenship to immigrants who served in military.
Democrats: 214 yes, 0 no
Rep: 3 yes, 208 no
passes 217-208
CRAP According to former Guantánamo Bay detainee Mansoor Adayfi, DeSantis oversaw torture in Guantánamo, greenlighting everything from beatings to forced feedings of hunger-striking detainees. https://therealnews.com/gov-ron-desantis-oversaw-torture-in-guantanamo-as-a-military-lawyer
CRAP: militants with rifles show up at drag storytime at a church in Ohio, causing it to be canceled: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/holi-drag-storytime-children-canceled-right-wing-protesters-rcna59990
DeSantis' lawyer were forced to define "Woke": the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them."
November 2022
Trump: "So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great "Founders" did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections! "
REPORT: Senate Committee on Homeland Security report "Rising Threat of Domestic Terrorism" https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/221116_HSGACMajorityReport_DomesticTerrorism&SocialMedia.pdf
CRAP Pence Youtube video: recent claim that “Congress has no right to my testimony” about the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
MONEY Jesse Benton worked for Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell, Trump superPAC, pardoned by Trump, convicted of funneling money to Trump. https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/gop-operative-illegally-funneled-russian-money-team-trump-rcna57844
SUPREME COURT U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to face impeachment proceedings was renewed Monday after the right-wing judge indicated in an unsigned dissent that he would have blocked enforcement of the House January 6 panel's subpoena for the communications records of Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward. "His wife, Ginni Thomas, pressured Arizona officials to illegally overturn Trump's loss," noted one watchdog. "It's absurd that Thomas did not recuse." https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/11/14/fresh-call-impeach-clarence-thomas-after-latest-ruling-jan-6-insurrection
COURT DOCUMENT Trump and classified materials: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763.176.1.pdf
INFO right wing violence: Right wing violence is more than 10 times more commonplace than left wing, and has been for years (2017). Left wing violence has been declining for decades, while right wing violence is increasing (2020). You only think it's the norm because right winger's perceptions of how much violence is occurring are way warped, while left winger's perceptions are mostly accurate (2020). Which makes perfect sense considering conservative's brains are way more reactive to fear (2008), and are hypersensitive to emotional reactions to things ( 2011. Since 9/11, there have been 122 deaths by far right extremists, and that's not even counting the 17 deaths at the hands of misogynist/incels, and 1 death by a far left wing person (2022).
SUPREME COURT: Roberts delays handover of Trump tax returns: https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-donald-trump-business-john-roberts-congress-1b2241b1ddae3c9bbc7af28f372fe8a0. However, as has been noted by the Department of Treasury, Judge McFadden in the District of Columbia (a Trump appointee, not that it should matter), a panel from the D.C. Circuit Court, the D.C. Circuit's rejection of the request for an en banc review, and every legal expert who's reviewed the circumstances and the underlying statute, Congressional tax-writing committees have the legal right to receive any taxpayer's records, including those of the President or former President.
October 2022
MONEY An outside political advocacy group is spending an eye-popping $375,000 on TV ads for Joe Fischer's bid for the state Supreme Court. "The last thing people of Kentucky need is another far-left judge on the Supreme Court that will rubber-stamp the failed liberal agenda coming out of Washington D.C.," said Dee Duncan, president of the Republican State Leadership Committee's Judicial Fairness Initiative, which is funding the 30-second television ad. The single ad buy dwarfs the $54,000 Fischer, a state representative from Fort Thomas, has raised in his campaign to unseat incumbent Justice Michelle Keller for the 13-county judicial district that stretches from Northern Kentucky to Oldham and Shelby counties. https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2022/10/14/joe-fischer-supreme-court-race-group-pours-money-into-ads/69562939007/
CRAP: official Twitter account for Republicans on the House of Representatives’ judiciary committee – ranking member Jim Jordan – on 6 October. It said, simply and strangely: “Kanye. Elon. Trump.”
Racism, hate: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/23/republican-party-hate-racism-antisemitism-trump
MONEY Russia funnels $3.2b into U.S. media: Between April and the end of September, Russian state media group Rossiya Segodnya funneled $3,284,169 to Ghebi, a company that produces articles, newswires and a number of radio shows. During that same period, Ghebi spent $2,183,640.72 on behalf of its client, according to an October filing with the Department of Justice made under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
DOJ filing: https://efile.fara.gov/docs/6869-Supplemental-Statement-20221014-8.pdf
Texas goes permitless on guns: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/26/us/texas-guns-permitless.html
REPORT: 2022 National Defense Strategy: https://media.defense.gov/2022/Oct/27/2003103845/-1/-1/1/2022-NATIONAL-DEFENSE-STRATEGY-NPR-MDR.PDF
VOTE SUPPRESSION: Governor Ron DeSantis has made voting easier in certain Florida counties battered by Hurricane Ian – but only Republican-leaning ones. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/14/ron-desantis-florida-hurricane-ian-voting-rules
Mike Pence said yesterday on Fox Business that the First Amendment to the Constitution doesn’t provide “freedom from religion,” the idea that people shouldn’t have other people’s religious beliefs forced on them. “Well, the radical left believes that the freedom of religion is the freedom from religion. But it’s nothing the American founders ever thought of or generations of Americans fought to defend.” “The good news is that after four years of the Trump-Pence administration, I’m confident that we have a pro-religious freedom majority on the Supreme Court of the United States,” he continued. Despite Pence’s insistence, the First Amendment comes with two parts. He and Kudlow appeared to be familiar with the Free Exercise Clause, which says “Congress shall make no law… prohibiting the free exercise” of religion. But there’s also the Establishment Clause, which says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” In other words, the First Amendment gives people both freedom of and freedom from religion.
REPORT Justice Departmenet Bureau of Statistics 2021 data on criminal victimization:
https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv21_sum.pdf
https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/criminal-victimization-2021
SUPREME COURT Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife participated in the attempt to overturn the election, temporarily blocks Sen. Graham's subpoena from Georgia grand jury (https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/24/supreme-court-justice-clarence-thomas-temporarily-blocks-sen-grahams-subpoena-from-georgia-grand-jury.html)
MONEY Leonard Leo pushed courts right, now aiming at society (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/12/us/politics/leonard-leo-courts-dark-money.html) . former head of Federalist Society. To help administer the enterprise, the network’s nonprofits, including the 85 Fund and Concord Fund, have paid millions of dollars in consulting fees to private firms in which he has a financial interest, like CRC Advisors and the BH Group, enriching Mr. Leo in the process. The network’s nine core groups have spent nearly $504 million on policy and political fights, including grants to about 150 allied groups, between mid-2015 and last year, with roughly half of that spending since mid-2019, according to an analysis by The Times of dozens of tax filings. And his efforts have been turbocharged by an unusual $1.6 billion infusion from a Chicago electronics manufacturing magnate in late 2020 (Tripp Lite).
REPORT: Select Committee on Coronovirus: Trump administration control of CDC. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23165543/the-trump-administrations-unprecedented-campaign-to-control-cdc-and-politicize-public-health-during-the-coronavirus-crisis.pdf
MONEY Thiel contributions $28m and counting – has been directed towards two business proteges who, with his help, have established themselves as gadfly rightwing darlings: JD Vance, the best-selling author of the blue-collar memoir Hillbilly Elegy, who is running for Senate in Ohio, and Blake Masters, a self-styled “anti-progressive” and anti-globalist who is running for Senate in Arizona. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/oct/15/peter-thiel-who-is-he-republican-donor-tech-entrepreneur
MONEY Trump’s leadership PAC, Save America has contributed about $8.4 million so far directly to Republican campaigns and committees, while devoting $7 million to Trump’s lawyers and another $2 million to the nonprofits. single biggest check in the last 20 months was $3-million payment went to a Florida law firm representing the former president in the Justice Department’s investigation of his handling of government documents at Mar-a-Lago. https://tinyurl.com/3bmezck7
MONEY Larry Ellison has reported giving $20 million to Opportunity Matters superPaC, accounting for 78% of all the money the Tim Scott (R-South Carolina)-aligned super PAC has raised this cycle. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2022/10/12/tech-billionaire-larry-ellisons-record-political-giving-funds-election-deniers-in-midterms/?sh=2d363d412934
MONEY Diane Hendricks (ABC Supply) has donated more than $40 million since 1992 to Republican candidates. That includes over $5 million in gifts to former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and $50,000 to Scott Pruitt, Trump’s infamous EPA administrator, so he could pay his legal bills resulting from a bevy of ethics scandals.
MONEY Desantis and insurance: That opposition was reportedly led by State Farm, the nation's largest insurer. State Farm is also a major donor to and fundraiser for DeSantis. On August 1, 2022, DeSantis collected "nearly 200 separate checks from insurance agents or their firms," totaling about $150,000. The effort, according to Politico, was "coordinated by State Farm." DeSantis met with the State Farm agent who spearheaded the effort and received the checks personally. Overall, DeSantis has received at least $700,000 from the insurance industry this cycle.
VOTE Continuing resolution to fund government through December. Included $18.8b in FEMA funds, Hurricane Ian aid, $12b for Ukraine.
Senate passed 72-25. Rick Scott voted against it. Marco Rubio was not present.
House passed 230-201. All FL House reps voted against it, including Matt Gaetz.
CRAP "I'm not going to mince words with you all," Greene said. "Democrats want Republicans dead. They've already started the killings." ...."Joe Biden has declared every freedom-loving American an enemy of the state," ...."We will take back our country from the communists who have stolen it and want us to disappear," she continued. "We will expose the unelected bureaucrats, the real enemies within, who have abused their power and have declared political warfare on the greatest president this country has ever had." (Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene)
September 2022
VOTE Food Security for All Veterans Act was passed by a 376-49 vote, sending the bill to the Senate for approval to establish an Office of Food Security at the Department of Veterans Affairs .
VOTE Mental Health Matters Act passed House on 220 to 205 on a largely party line vote, with all 205 “no” votes coming from Republicans. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pennsylvania) cast the sole Republican “yes” vote. Bill would provide grants for schools to hire more mental health experts and grow their mental health services, especially schools in areas with high need. It would also provide mental health protections to adults with private health insurance and children and staff in Head Start programs, which are aimed at serving low-income children from birth to age 5.
VOTE Fairness for 9/11 Families Act, advanced the House in a vote of 400-31, and includes a total of $3 billion to increase compensation for 5,000 victims of 9/11 as well as their spouses and dependents. Money will come from unspent funds from the 2020 COVID-19 relief law. 30 Repubs and 1 Dem voted against it.
MONEY Last year Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida appointed his longtime friend and financial adviser Bernie Navarro to an advisory committee that helped select potential nominees for federal judgeships, even though Navarro had no law degree and no legal experience. Just three months earlier, Navarro — who runs a private equity mortgage lender — extended Rubio a short-term "bridge loan" of $850,000 that allowed the Republican senator to purchase a house.
MONEY Desantis. a Missouri-based railroad and transport company that contributed generously in support of his campaign saw an astonishing 280-fold increase in its Florida state government contract awards. A construction aggregates firm that contributed $82,500 was awarded $30 million in new contracts. And a highway and civil site contracting firm that gave $22,500 saw its contracts grow 15-fold.
https://theintercept.com/2022/09/27/florida-ron-desantis-campaign-fund/
The Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act, sponsored by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), would amend the Electoral Count Act of 1887 and reaffirm that the vice president has only a ministerial role at the joint session of Congress to count electoral votes, as well as raise the threshold necessary for members of Congress to object to a state’s electors. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) was the lone no vote on advancing the bill
MONEY Florida Republicans block probe of Chinese contributions to Trump PAC "Trump Victory https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article266420016.html, including $50k photos
REPORT MAGA and racism: https://www.prri.org/research/creating-more-inclusive-public-spaces-structural-racism-confederate-memorials-and-building-for-the-future/
MONEY: Clarence Thomas/Ginni Thomas and disclosure. Between 2003 and 2007, Virginia Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, earned $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, according to a Common Cause review of the foundation’s IRS records. Thomas failed to note the income in his Supreme Court financial disclosure forms for those years, instead checking a box labeled “none” where “spousal noninvestment income” would be disclosed. https://abovethelaw.com/2022/09/oh-look-another-clarence-thomas-ethics-scandal/
University of Chicago report: an estimated 13 million U.S. adults, or 5% of the adult population, agree that force would be justified to restore former President Donald Trump to the White House and an estimated 15 million Americans believe force would be justified to prevent Trump from being prosecuted. https://d3qi0qp55mx5f5.cloudfront.net/cpost/i/docs/CPOST-NORC_Support_for_Political_Violence_Survey_0922_Topline.pdf?mtime=1663783186
MONEY States that help billionaires hide money
https://ips-dc.org/billionaire-enabler-states/
The sharp reduction in US refugee admissions starting in 2017 costs the overall US economy today over $9.1 billion per year ($30,962 per missing refugee per year, on average) and costs public coffers at all levels of government over $2.0 billion per year ($6,844 per missing refugee per year, on average) net of public expenses. https://academic.oup.com/oxrep/article-abstract/38/3/449/6701682?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false
MONEY Koch Industries has poured over $1m into backing – directly and indirectly – dozens of House and Senate candidates who voted against certifying Joe Biden’s win on 6 January 2021. In addition, the Super Pac Americans for Prosperity Action to which Koch Industries has given over $6m since January 2021, has backed some election deniers with advertising and other communications support. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/23/koch-bankrolls-election-denier-candidates
Social media sites have amplified claims of election fraud: https://bhr.stern.nyu.edu/tech-big-lie
Top Rs Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) planning to repeal drug pricing measure in Inflation Reduction act. https://www.axios.com/2022/09/23/gop-drug-price-repeal-target
VOTE Senate Republicans voted Thursday to block the Disclose Act requireing organizations that spend money on elections to promptly disclose the identities of donors who give $10,000 or more during an election cycle. The body failed to invoke cloture on the measure, in a 49-49 vote. Every Republican present voted against the measure, while every Democrat voted for it.
MONEY Florida taxpayers paid $615,000 for DeSantis to fly 48 Texas migrants to island. https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/politics/2022/09/16/florida-taxpayers-paid-bill-desantis-send-migrants-marthas-vineyard/10399505002/. Montgomerie, president of Vertol, shelled out $2,700 to Matt Gaetz in 2016, as well as $5,000 to a super PAC named North Florida Neighbors in 2017, which was organized to support Gaetz. Federal records show donations were also made to the PAC by Vertol itself, with the company’s name on $7,500 worth of donations between 2016 and 2017.
Student debt relief fact sheet: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/09/20/fact-sheet-the-biden-harris-administrations-plan-for-student-debt-relief-could-benefit-tens-of-millions-of-borrowers-in-all-fifty-states/
Mike Lindell hired people to hack Dominion voting machines: https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/xe0ujj/read_fbis_mike_lindell_search_warrant_items_to_be/ioe57r1/
LAW: Section 274(a)(1)(A)(ii) of the Immigration and Nationality Act makes it a federal crime to transport undocumented persons across state lines.
REPORT Fog Data Science and mass surveillance: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/inside-fog-data-science-secretive-company-selling-mass-surveillance-local-police
Council for National Policy: https://newrepublic.com/article/167002/council-national-policy-documents-right-wing-conspiracy
REPORT: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says 338k Covid deaths could have been prevented by Medicare for all: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2200536119
Russia has spent $300m since 2014 to influence U.S. politics: https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/russia-spent-us300-million-to-covertly-influence-world-politics-says-us-20220914-p5bhv6.html
West Viriginia passes near total abortion ban:
New March of Dimes report ranks West Virginia near bottom for maternal and infant health
West Virginia ranked 50th in life expectancy, study says
Data Released Today Shows West Virginia Had 6th Highest Poverty Rate in the Country
SUPREME COURT The US Supreme Court has granted temporary permission for an Orthodox Jewish university in New York to deny official recognition to an LGBTQ student group. Yeshiva University turned to the court for an urgent ruling after a New York state judge said the school had to let the Pride Alliance register as a student association, which would give it access to certain facilities and services. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/10/us-supreme-court-lets-jewish-university-deny-recognition-to-lgbtq
CRAP Trump called President Joe Biden an "enemy of the state" while threatening a "backlash the likes of which nobody has ever seen" in response to the federal investigation into his possession of classified documents. at a "Save America" rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where he stumped for Republican gubernatorial candidate and "Big Lie" supporter Doug Mastriano and U.S. Senate hopeful and celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/09/04/trump-calls-biden-enemy-state-fully-unhinged-speech
August 2022
Wages/profit financial information: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/wages-and-employment-do-not-have-to-decline-to-bring-down-inflation/
Abortion statements: https://www.salon.com/2022/08/31/what-abortion-ban-candidates-abruptly-shift-positions-in-post-roe-scramble/
Mississippi governor sends back federal rental aid: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mississippi-will-send-back-cash-federal-rental-aid-program-even-renter-rcna42547
Mnuchin made 18 trips to Saudi Arabia over 4 years: https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/saudi-money-kushner-mnuchin-drawing-fresh-scrutiny-rcna30056
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/22/business/jared-kushner-steven-mnuchin-gulf-investments.html
DOJ response to Trump: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nxJHlu3jqN5njXLM8J8QTrzRsiE4M_p1/view
Desantis removed 4 elected officials (Dems) from Parkland school board : https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/26/us/desantis-broward-county-school-board.html
Parkland report: https://www.flgov.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Final-Report_Redacted-1.pdf
Who pays state by state: https://itep.org/whopays-map/
Houston Chronicle: most Texans pay more taxes than Californians: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/texans-pay-more-in-taxes-than-california-data-show-17390051.php?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=sftwitter
Justice department releases unredacted Barr memo: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22187584-barr-unredacted-memo
MONEY A new conservative nonprofit group scored a $1.6 billion windfall last year via a little-known donor — an extraordinary sum that could give Republicans and their causes a huge financial boost ahead of the midterms, and for years to come. The source of the money was Barre Seid, an electronics manufacturing mogul, and the donation is among the largest — if not the largest — single contributions ever made to a politically focused nonprofit. The beneficiary is a new political group controlled by Leonard A. Leo. Rather than merely giving cash, Mr. Seid donated 100 percent of the shares of Tripp Lite to Mr. Leo’s nonprofit group before the company was sold to an Irish conglomerate for $1.65 billion. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/22/us/politics/republican-dark-money.html
Daughter of Aleksander Dugin killed, Dugin summary: https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/wtp1zq/comment/il5rt5d/
REPORT PEW on crime: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/20/facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/
States with abortion bans are least supportive of mothers and children: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/28/upshot/abortion-bans-states-social-services.html
CRAP @LuisMiguelUS: “under my plan, all Floridians will have permission to shoot FBI, IRS, ATF and all other feds ON SIGHT! Let freedom ring”
U.S. Department of Education announced Tuesday that it will cancel all remaining federal student debt taken on by borrowers who were defrauded by ITT Technical Institute since 2005, delivering $3.9 billion in relief to some 208,000 people.
MONEY Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat who single-handedly thwarted her party’s longtime goal of raising taxes on wealthy investors (carried interest deduction), received nearly $1 million over the past year from private equity professionals, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists whose taxes would have increased under the plan.. During a two-week period in September alone, Sinema collected $47,100 in contributions from 16 high-ranking officials from the private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, records show. Employees and executives of KKR, another private equity behemoth, contributed $44,100 to Sinema during a two-month span in late 2021. https://apnews.com/article/sinema-took-wall-street-money-while-killing-tax-on-investors-0c07f73ba6db92f87fa33f1aad8dbeac
VOTE Inflation Reduction Act
$385 billion into combating climate change and bolstering U.S. energy production through changes that would encourage nearly the whole economy to cut carbon emissions.
$260B in clean energy tax credits
$80B in new rebates for electric vehicles, green energy at home, etc.
$1.5B in rewards for cutting methane emissions
$27B green bank
new oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska
permanently extend funding for the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund
$20 billion for agriculture subsidies to help farmers reduce emissions
$6 billion to reduce emissions in chemical, steel and cement plants
$3 billion to reduce air pollution at ports.
15% corporate minimum tax (if over $1b in profits) = hundreds of billions in revenue
$124B for IRS
1% tax on companies repurchasing their own shares
allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices for the first time and would prevent future administrations from refusing to do so
extend the ACA tax credits for three more years through 2025
should reduce federal deficit by up to $300B over 10 years
Illegal gerrymandered maps being used in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Ohio: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/08/us/elections/gerrymandering-maps-elections-republicans.html?smid=nytcore-ios-sharehttps://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/08/us/elections/gerrymandering-maps-elections-republicans.html?referringSource=articleShare
VOTE Senate Republicans on Sunday successfully stripped a proposed $35 per month cap on out-of-pocket spending on insulin for patients enrolled in private insurance from the tax and climate bill making its way through the Senate. Waiving the rules required 60 votes to succeed. Only seven Republicans sided with Democrats to keep the insulin cap in the bill with a 57-43 vote. (was part of climate bill I think). Some 7 million Americans require insulin daily. A Yale University study found that 14 percent of those insulin users are spending more than 40 percent of their income after food and housing costs on the medicine.
The uninsured rate in the United States has fallen to an all-time low: eight percent https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/04/dont-celebrate-record-low-uninsured-rate-yet/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3791912%2F62ed423ccfe8a216011c3e80%2F5972e6e6ae7e8a1cf4b231a2%2F55%2F72%2F62ed423ccfe8a216011c3e80&wp_cu=1dbe2400127a81bcd0572eee0fd6690c%7CC0D75FFF702A4D14E0430100007FBC7C
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg agreed to not fact-check political posts if the Trump administration would steer clear of any “heavy-handed regulations,” venture capitalist Peter Thiel told an associate. https://www.thedailybeast.com/peter-thiel-claimed-mark-zuckerberg-agreed-to-push-state-sanctioned-conservatism-under-trump-deal-book-says
FBI took direction from White House on Kavanaugh background investigation: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/08/brett-kavanaugh-fbi-investigation
REPORT Ohio laws: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/15/state-legislatures-are-torching-democracy
REPORT Republican destructionism: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/04/dana-milbank-republican-destructionists-book-excerpt/?utm_source=pocket_mylist
MONEY billionaire donations via Forbes
Est. Reported Donations Party Supported
Michael Bloomberg $1.4 Billion (including $1.1B to own campaign) (D)
Tom Steyer $635 million (including $318M to own campaign) (D)
Sheldon and Miriam Adelson $537 million (R)
Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein $194 Million (R)
George Soros $189 Million (D)
In the last election cycle, the Uihleins put more than $70 million into various conservative causes. Thirty million went into Restoration PAC and Americas PAC, which in turn spent $18 million trying to get Donald Trump reelected. Another $27 million went to the free market-oriented Club for Growth super PAC, a favorite of fellow billionaire megadonor Jeff Yass.
MONEY Kansas constitutional amendment “Value them Both”: The Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas gave approximately $2.5 million to the campaign this year. Last year, it contributed close to $500,000. The Catholic Diocese of Wichita contributed $550,000 this year, and the Kansas Catholic Conference added another $275,000. Kansans for Life provided close to $325,000. The Catholic Diocese of Salina and St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Leawood each contributed $100,000.
REPORT trends in income: https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WRA516-1.html
Biden task force reunites 400 children with migrant parents. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/biden-administration-task-force-reunites-400-migrant-families-separate-rcna41013
American Oversight filed a public records request for the communications of former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller and former Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy in the days after the attack on the Capitol. The disclosure follows news that numerous officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also had their messages erased during the transition, including former acting Secretary Chad Wolf and his deputy Ken Cuccinelli. https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/3585008-dod-wiped-phones-of-trump-era-leaders-erasing-jan-6-texts/
Support for political violence (1 in 5 adults condones justified political violence): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/19/one-in-five-us-adults-condone-political-violence-survey, https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.07.15.22277693v1
STUDY: higher minimum wage increases productivity, decreases profits. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/720397
July, 2022
interesting article on collapse: https://eand.co/the-final-stages-of-american-collapse-ad21774c4f2
20 Republican attorneys general sue federal government over school lunch guidance: https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/republican-attorneys-general-sue-federal-government-lgbtq-school-meal-rcna40250
REPORT Foreign Affairs on what makes a power great: national ambition, a culture of learning and adaptation, and significant diversity and pluralism. https://archive.ph/8ZxSl#selection-1963.762-1963.859
VOTE Maryland’s Republican voters have chosen their nominee for attorney general, and it’s a real doozy: Meet Michael Peroutka, a neo-Confederate former councilman who has espoused conspiratorial views about Sept. 11. He suggested 9/11 was a controlled demolition. Michael Peroutka, the GOP nominee for Maryland AG, was a member of the League of the South, a white supremacist group. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/michael-peroutka-neo-confederate-9-11-1390609/
SUPREME COURT: The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to freeze a lower court order that blocked the Department of Homeland Security from implementing new immigration enforcement priorities. https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/21/politics/supreme-court-immigration-jackson/, https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22111476-supreme-court-order-22a17
Census ranking tables: https://www.census.gov/acs/www/data/data-tables-and-tools/ranking-tables/
Uvalde TX shooting report:
https://house.texas.gov/_media/pdf/committees/reports/87interim/Robb-Elementary-Investigative-Committee-Report.pdf
https://www.vox.com/23269195/uvalde-texas-investigation-shooting-police
VOTE House Passes “Right to Contraception” bill after Dobbs. The measure passed 228 to 195, with eight Republicans joining Democrats in support. Half of the eight Republicans who broke with their party to support the measure are retiring from Congress, including Representatives Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, John Katko of New York, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Fred Upton of Michigan. The remainder — Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Nancy Mace of South Carolina and María Elvira Salazar of Florida — have sought to appeal to moderates and independent voters to bolster their re-election bids.
House passes “Respect for Marriage” act. Forty-seven Republicans joined Democrats in backing the bill, the Respect for Marriage Act, which would codify the federal protections for same-sex couples that were put in place in 2015, when the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges established same-sex marriage as a right under the 14th Amendment.
Former President Donald Trump's administration spent years trying to add a census citizenship question as part of a secret strategy for altering the population numbers used to divide up seats in Congress and the Electoral College, internal documents released Wednesday by the House Oversight and Reform Committee confirm. https://www.npr.org/2022/07/20/1044944618/census-citzenship-question-history-oversight-committee
REPORT House Oversight Committee on census question: https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/2022.07.20%20COR%20Census%20Memorandum.pdf
Robin Vos, the speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly, said in a Tuesday interview that the former president called him last week and encouraged him to decertify Joe Biden's win in the state — 20 months after the 2020 election. after the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled absentee-ballot drop boxes in the state illegal on July 8.
COURT The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday barred the use of most ballot drop boxes and ruled that voters could not allow other individuals to return their completed absentee ballots on their behalf, a major victory for conservatives who have sought to tighten voting rules since the 2020 presidential election. In a 4-3 ruling, the court stated that absentee ballots must be submitted via mail service, or the voter can bring their ballot to a local election office.
REPORT: death rates, republican vs democrat counties. In 2001, the study’s starting point, the risk of death among red and blue counties (as defined by the results of presidential elections) was similar. Overall, the U.S. mortality rate has decreased in the nearly two decades since then (albeit not as much as in most other high-income countries). But the improvement for those living in Republican counties by 2019 was half that of those in Democratic counties—11 percent lower versus 22 percent lower.: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-in-republican-counties-have-higher-death-rates-than-those-in-democratic-counties/
REPORT State rankings per US News: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings
MONEY: Right-Wing Think Tank Family Research Council Is Now a Church in Eyes of the IRS
The FRC, a staunch opponent of abortion and LGBTQ rights, joins a growing list of activist groups seeking church status, which allows organizations to shield themselves from financial scrutiny. https://www.propublica.org/article/family-research-council-irs-church-status
MONEY Richard Uihlein, the billionaire megadonor of far-right Republican candidates, who has donated $9 million of the $11.6 million Mr. Bailey has raised and sent another $8 million to a political action committee that has attacked Mr. Irvin as insufficiently conservative.
MONEY Ken Griffin (Citadel) spends $50m supporting Richard Irvin for governor, who loses to Darren Bailey
FEDERAL RESERVE report “Was the Paycheck Protection Program effective?” Only about one-quarter of PPP funds supported jobs that otherwise would have disappeared. Money flowed disproportionately to wealthy households. Taxpayers paid $4 for every $1 in wages and benefits received by workers in jobs saved by the federal government’s pandemic Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/2022/jul/was-paycheck-protection-program-effective
Ohio house bill 616 (from Ohio house bill 327) regarding the promotion and teaching of divisive or inherently racist concepts in public schools. To teach “both sides of the holocaust”
June 2022
VOTE HR 3967 veteran’s benefits
Yea
Nay
Dem
222
0
Republican
34
174
CRAP: New Mexico’s Supreme Court last week had to compel conservatives in rural Otero County to certify an election they had refused to because, conned by one of Mr Trump’s conspiracy theories, they mistrusted vote-counting machines. In Nevada, Republicans elected as their candidate for secretary of state, the office that certifies elections, a man who says he would not have recognised Joe Biden’s victory in the state. And on June 19th Texas’s state Republican Party declared Mr Trump the rightful president, Mr Biden an impostor, and vowed to abolish the 1965 Voting Rights Act that enfranchised black Americans in the South.
Concealed-carry laws boost gun crime by a third, study finds. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/concealed-carry-laws-boost-gun-crime-by-a-third-study-finds-11656316444?mod=hp_minor_pos25. https://www.nber.org/papers/w30190?utm_campaign=ntwh&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ntwg24
Supreme Court: Voting 6-3, the court said Bremerton School District in Washington state violated Joseph Kennedy’s constitutional rights by punishing him after he repeatedly took a knee alongside his players. The ruling adds to a line of recent Supreme Court decisions relaxing the separation of church and state. Earlier this month, the court strengthened the rights of parents to use public funds to send their children to religious schools. The court earlier ruled that ministers can play an active role in the execution chamber and that a Christian group should have been allowed to fly its flag over Boston’s City Hall, like other organizations. public school officials have a constitutional right to pray publicly, and lead students in prayer, during school events.
MONEY: Trump-Endorsed Candidates Have Funneled At Least $1.4 Million Into His Businesses. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who has spent $252,000 at Trump properties, 99% of which came between Trump’s election in 2016 and the end of his term. Herschel Walker of Georgia. A former Heisman Trophy winner who played for Trump’s New Jersey Generals of the now-defunct USFL, Walker has doled out $199,000 at Mar-a-Lago in less than a year. John Gibbs, who served as assistant Housing and Urban Development secretary under Trump and is now running for Congress in Michigan, has spent $98,000. Former Trump Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, now contending for governor in Arkansas, dropped $90,000. And Kari Lake, a one-time news anchor at a Fox affiliate in Phoenix, has shelled out $70,000 amid her bid to become governor of Arizona.
SUPREME COURT: Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf. Joining Alito were Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. The concurring opinion by Justice Thomas says in the future the court should also reconsider rulings that protected contraception, same-sex relationships, and same-sex marriage. Note that leaves out interracial marriage, as Thomas is married to a white woman.
Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 75 basis points
VOTE SFC Heath Robinson Honoring our PACT Act sailed through the Senate with bipartisan support – but 14 Republicans voted no. The Senate Republicans who voted against the bill healthcare for veterans bill include: Richard Burr of North Carolina, Mike Crapo of Idaho, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Mike Lee of Utah, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Rand Paul of Kentucky, James Risch of Idaho, Mitt Romney of Utah, Mike Rounds of South Dakota, Richard Shelby of Alabama, John Thune of South Dakota, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.
MONEY True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht has played a pivotal role in helping drive the voter fraud movement from the political fringes to a central pillar in the Republican Party’s ideology. the Texas-based nonprofit organization has engaged in a series of questionable transactions that sent more than $1 million combined to its founder, a longtime board member romantically linked to the founder and the group’s general counsel. (Reveal)
MONEY The Official Election Defense Fund — which, again, did not actually exist — raised $250 million, most of which did not go to election litigation, but to Trump’s newly created Save America PAC. The PAC then made contributions to Mark Meadows’ charity, to a conservative organization employing former Trump staffers, to the Trump Hotel Collection, and to the company that organized the rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol last Jan. 6.
SUPREME COURT: Court limits EPA's power to limit power plant emissions (https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/06/30/us/supreme-court-epa).
May 2022
REPORT Government Accountability Office "Trends of IRS Audit Rates and Results": https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-22-104960.pdf
VOTE HR 7790 $28m for baby formula shortage
Dem: 219 yeah, 0 nay
Republican: 12 yeah, 192 nay
VOTE HR 7790 oil and gas price gouging
Dem: 217 yeah, 4 nay
Republican: 0 yeah, 203 nay
Mnuchin, Kusher raising money in the Middle East: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/22/business/jared-kushner-steven-mnuchin-gulf-investments.html
MONEY: Honest Elections Project and vote suppression: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/27/honest-elections-project-conservative-voting-restrictions
MONEY The owners of the Georgia-based company Daniel Defense have donated more than $70,000 directly to GOP candidates for federal office this election cycle, according to a review of filings with the Federal Election Commission. Daniel Defense itself gave $100,000 last year to a PAC backing incumbent Republican senators. The arms maker put $100,000 into a super PAC that backed the Republican incumbents in last year’s Georgia runoff elections. And Daniel and his wife have put $20,000 this cycle into the National Shooting Sports Foundation PAC, whose largest beneficiaries are Reps. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Steve Scalise (R-La.), the No. 1 and No. 2 House Republicans.
CRAP CPAC in Hungary, Viktor Orban: control the media. https://newrepublic.com/article/166570/republicans-cpac-viktor-orban-fascism
Scientific American on gun control: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-science-is-clear-gun-control-saves-lives/
SUPREME COURT staunch conservative former Chief Justice Warren Burger noted years ago, the idea that the Second Amendment conveys an inviolable individual right to own firearms is “a fraud upon the American public.”
INFO Uvalde is population 16k and has a SWAT team. https://www.wsj.com/articles/suspected-shooter-at-texas-elementary-school-in-custody-after-incident-11653422735
INFO The Uvalde school district for Robb Elementary has its own police department with 5 cops and 1 security guard. The city of Uvalde's police department recieved just under 40% of the entire city's budget for the year and got a 500k grant from the state ($4m of $10m)
INFO Tax and policy: https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/ux7ej9/comment/i9wpraa/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
INFO After Buffalo NY supermarket shooting a parent was tased for being upset. Shooter was treated with respect.
VOTE U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, joined a bipartisan group of colleagues in announcing that their resolution S.Res.577 designating May 15 to May 21, 2022 as National Police Week has passed the Senate. (444 of them died of covid-19).
CRAP Florida textbooks may no longer teach “social justice,” according to new state guidance, part of Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ongoing attack on pluralistic democracy.
REPORT Southern Baptist convention report on sexual abuse allegations: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22031737-final-guidepost-solutions-independent-investigation-report?responsive=1&title=1
VOTE The bipartisan Small Business Covid Relief Act (S. 4008), which was meant to replenish the Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF) passed last year, was cosponsored by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), but still failed to get more than five Republican senators to support it. As a result, said Erika Polmar of the Independent Restaurant Coalition (IRC), "we estimate more than half of the 177,300 restaurants waiting for an RRF grant will close in the next few months."
Former President Donald Trump gave his "Complete and Total Endorsement" to Georgia Rep. Barry Loudermilk, who is being probed by the January 6 committee for a tour he gave the day before the riot.
Jacky Eubanks, a Trump-endorsed candidate for Michigan's legislature, said she would vote to make contraception illegal. Eubanks, who is running for Michigan's 63rd House district, backed a ban on contraception during an interview with right-wing news outlet Church Militant.
Desantis (Governor FL) margin of victor was less than FL’s reported covid death count.
Florida secretary of state Laurel Lee resigns after Desantis enactment of a law creating an office under the secretary of state tasked with investigating voter fraud
CRAP Ryan Kelly, Republican candidate for Michigan governor: Democracy equals socialism equals communism.
CPAC is in Hungary this year. Matt Schlapp, the head of the American Conservative Union and organizer of its influential conference series CPAC, told NPR this week that he was bringing his event to Hungary because it “represents Christian conservative values” and American conservatives want to replicate this in the U.S. by learning from the country’s ultra-right-wing authoritarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán.
Insurrection: Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, pressed Arizona lawmakers after the 2020 election to set aside Joe Biden’s popular-vote victory and choose “a clean slate of Electors,” according to emails obtained by The Washington Post.
VOTE H.R.7688 - Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act
Reps. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., Jared Golden, D-Maine, and Lizzie Fletcher, D-Tex., all joined their Republican colleagues in a vote against the measure, which passed along a narrow 217-207 vote.
CRAP: At a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday concerning abortion access, an expert witness called by Republicans made a head-scratcher of a claim: Washington, D.C., is literally powered by burning fetuses. “Bodies [are] thrown in medical waste bins, and in places like Washington, D.C., burned to power the lights of the cities’ homes and streets,” Americans United for Life President Catherine Glenn Foster proclaimed.
REPORT inspector general report on Vindman, the Ukraine assistance/impeachment whistleblower: https://www.dodig.mil/Portals/48/Documents/Reports/DODIG-2022-097.pdf?ver=aU6_d4rhoSHjvutHfuikiw%3d%3d
Texas grid deregulation, grid failure again. https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalHumor/comments/upnde3/comment/i8mosqt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
CRAP Ken Matta, Arizona head of election security, quits due to threats.
CRAP Both Governor Pete Ricketts (R – NE) and Governor Tate Reeves (R-MS) support abortion even for victims of rape or incest. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/pete-ricketts-rape-victims-abortion-1353635/
CRAP replacement theory. Tucker Carlson, about a year ago: ““I know that the left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term ‘replacement,’ if you suggest for the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World,” he said in April 2021. “But they become hysterical because that’s what’s happening, actually.” Last December, the Associated Press and NORC conducted a large national poll examining conspiratorial ideas including this one. They found that nearly half of Republicans agree to at least some extent with the idea that there’s a deliberate intent to “replace” native-born Americans with immigrants. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/09/nearly-half-republicans-agree-with-great-replacement-theory/?utm_source=reddit.com
Supreme Court: In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) can now hit up donors to help pay himself back for the $555,000 he loaned to his campaigns in 2012 and 2018. The case of Federal Election Commission v. Ted Cruz for Senate emerged in the final days of Cruz’s reelection campaign in 2018 against Democrat Beto O’Rourke. Cruz loaned his campaign $260,000, choosing this amount on purpose because it was $10,000 over the limit on post-election fundraising aimed at paying off personal loans. His intention in making the loan was to challenge this limit in court. And by winning he will not only get to recoup the $10,000 over the limit he loaned himself, but also another $545,000 he loaned his campaign in 2012 and hasn’t recouped.
SHOOTING mass shooting of at least 8 in Buffalo, NY supermarket
Inflation rates
February 2021 inflation rate: 1.68%
March 2021 inflation rate: 2.62%
April 2021 inflation rate: 4.16%
May 2021 inflation rate: 4.99%
June 2021 inflation rate: 5.39%
July 2021 inflation rate: 5.37%
August 2021 inflation rate: 5.25%
September 2021 inflation rate: 5.39%
October 2021 inflation rate: 6.22%
November 2021 inflation rate: 6.81%
December 2021 inflation rate: 7.04%
January 2022 inflation rate: 7.48%
February 2022 inflation rate: 7.87%
March 2022 inflation rate: 8.54%
April 2022 inflation rate: 8.30%
LINK California health etc. https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/up04fe/comment/i8j4ekt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
REPORT select subcommittee on coronavirus: how the Trump administration helped the meat packing industry block worker protections: https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/2022.5.12%20-%20SSCC%20report%20on%20Meatpacking%20FINAL.pdf
CRAP posts on Telegram call for assassination of Democrat appointed judges. Sitting alongside doxxes of the two Democratic judges listed—one a President Barack Obama appointee and person of color, the other a Jewish judge from the Midwest—are tech tycoons like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook, bankers, and a roster of officials serving on a federal vaccine board.
CRAP “They are sending pallets, pallets of baby formula to the border.” — Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.). “the Biden administration is happy to provide baby formula to illegal immigrants coming across our southern border.” — Joint statement by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) President Brandon Judd. Flores consent decree, which began as a class-action lawsuit regarding the treatment of migrant children. The Justice Department negotiated a settlement in 1997 during President Bill Clinton’s administration.
Republicans and conservative culture wars: https://old.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/uk9l3p/fascists_in_america/i7od2om/
CRAP J.R. Majewski, the Air Force veteran who won the GOP primary for Ohio’s new 9th Congressional District, was a January 6 rally participant and has repeatedly shared pro-QAnon material – including a video showing him painting his lawn to say Trump 2020 with “Q” replacing the zeros.
CRAP U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R – TN) this weekend called a landmark 1965 Supreme Court ruling legalizing access to contraception "constitutionally unsound" in comments criticizing the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the high court. (during Jackson hearings).
CRAP Arizona GOP candidate for Senate Blake Masters (venture capitalist backed by billionaire Republican donor Peter Thiel) against birth control: "I am 100% pro-life. Roe v. Wade was a horrible decision. It was wrong the day it was decided in 1973, it's wrong today, and it must be reversed. But the fight doesn't stop there," Master's campaign website reads. It goes on to pledge the candidate will "vote only for federal judges who understand that Roe and Griswold and Casey were wrongly decided, and that there is no constitutional right to abortion." (Griswold overturned state ban on birth control).
LAW: Governor Bill Lee (R – TN) signs law adding criminal penalties for abortion pill distribution by mail. https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2022/05/06/tennessee-gov-bill-lee-signs-bill-criminalizing-abortion-pill-distribution-via-mail/9673406002/
Alabama law making it a felony to provide gender-affirming medical treatment to transgender youth went into affect pending federal judge decision https://www.reuters.com/world/us/alabama-ban-gender-affirming-care-transgender-youth-takes-effect-2022-05-09/?utm_source=reddit.com
Southern Baptists were pro choice. After school integration, abortion was turned into a wedge issue. https://billmoyers.com/2014/07/17/when-southern-baptists-were-pro-choice/
LAW Justice Alito’s draft decision on Roe specifically referenced both Lawrence v. Texas, which legalized sodomy, and Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage, saying that “none of these rights has any claim to being deeply rooted in history.”
CRAP Governor Greg Abbott (R – TX) wants to get rid of public education next. The Austin American-Statesman reports that Abbott on Wednesday said Texas “will resurrect” a 1982 Supreme Court case requiring states to provide free public education to all children, including the children of undocumented immigrants. “Texas already long ago sued the federal government about having to incur the costs of the education program, in a case called Plyler vs. Doe,” (using argument that they shouldn’t bear cost of educating illegal immigrants).
LAW Louisiana wants to make abortion illegal at conception. A woman who gets an abortion would be charged with murder. IUDs and potentially other forms of birth control would be illegal. https://legiscan.com/LA/text/HB813
CRAP Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) says it may be true that vaccines cause AIDS. https://madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/sen-ron-johnson-says-it-may-be-true-that-covid-19-vaccines-cause-aids/article_b14bf2c0-9bf3-59a4-99ea-1639e53f7abb.html
Trump admin pushed $700m loan for Yellow Corporation. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/27/us/politics/trump-pandemic-loan-yrc.html
April 2022
COURT: Meadows met with R leaders to discuss ways to overturn the election: https://verdict.justia.com/2022/04/25/the-january-6-house-select-committees-new-filing-shows-us-why-attorney-general-garland-should-indict-mark-meadows
MONEY: Trump Hotel potentially made $3.75m from foreign governments: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2022/04/25/goodbye-to-trump-washington-hotel/?sh=4b226a93827f
MONEY: Jared Kushner’s new fund Affinity Partners gets $2 billion from the Saudi Private Investment fund (and $25m regardless of performance). the panel that performs due diligence for the Saudi fund concluded that no one in their right mind would give the former first son-in-law a dime. Among other concerns, the panel noted that management was “inexperience[d],” that the kingdom would be responsible for “the bulk of the investment and risk,” that its fee seemed “excessive,” and that the firm’s operations were “unsatisfactory in all aspects.” Given those reservations, it warned that the country’s Public Investment Fund should stay far, far away from Kushner’s firm—a recommendation that was overturned by the fund’s board, which happens to be led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/10/us/jared-kushner-saudi-investment-fund.html
update: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/05/jared-kushner-affinity-partners-saudi-arabia
MONEY: Steven Mnuchin’s fund Liberty Strategic Partners gets $1 billion from the Saudi Private Investment Fund.
MONEY: Senator Rick Scott (R – Florida) as National Republican Senatorial Committee chair. NRSC had $33 million in cash on hand at the start of 2022, compared with $20 million at the same point in 2020 and $15 million in 2018. Scott raised $6.6 million in 2021 for this high-dollar joint fundraising account, the Rick Scott Victory Fund, and diverted about 25 percent of it, or $1.6 million, to accounts that fund his own ambitions, according to federal filings. The rest went to the NRSC. His leadership PAC, Lets Get to Work, did give $100,000 to the NRSC in 2021. Public filings show he made in-kind donations of more than $600,000 for plane travel in 2021.
The Mitch McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund super PAC is booking $141 million in fall advertisements. the Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC’s moves to set aside $106 million in Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Georgia and Pennsylvania, with most of those ads beginning in August. Senate Leadership Fund will drop a whopping $37 million in Georgia this fall, $27 million in North Carolina, $24 million in Pennsylvania, $15 million each in Nevada and Wisconsin, $14 million in Arizona and $7.4 million in Alaska. The Schumer-connected Senate Majority PAC reserved $26 million in Pennsylvania, $22 million in Arizona, $21 million in Nevada, $12 million in Wisconsin and nearly $25 million in Georgia.
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said on Sunday that death threats — like those he received for voting for infrastructure spending — could "be a detriment getting good people to run" for Congress. Upton announced his retirement on April 5 after more than 30 years in Congress. Upton was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
VOTE: Wisconsin Supreme Court Approves Republican-Drawn Legislative Maps
The court had approved state maps drawn by the Democratic governor, but the U.S. Supreme Court struck down that decision, citing the federal Voting Rights Act. State legislative maps drawn by Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin, a Democrat, will not be used, essentially locking in overwhelming Republican majorities in the Assembly and the Senate for the next decade. In 2011, with control of the statehouse and Governor's office, Wisconsin Republicans gerrymandered the electoral maps to their advantage. But their governing isn't popular, and by 2018 they couldn't win a statewide election, losing both the Governor's office and a US Senate seat that fall. But they won a 63-36 majority in the Assembly, despite getting 200,000 fewer votes than their Democratic rivals.https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/us/wisconsin-districts-gerrymander-supreme-court.html?referringSource=articleShare
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is blocking Mexico border traffic as a stunt. Roughly $9 billion worth of fresh produce alone — 1.28 billion pounds — crosses into Texas from Mexico annually. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/14/greg-abbott-border-inspection-policy-hurt-texas-own-voters/?utm_source=reddit.com
MONEY: Disney since January donated $125,000 to the Republican Party of Florida and $65,000 to a committee that helps elect Republican state senators, Politico reports. Part of the money came after the Florida House had already passed the Don’t Say Gay bill.
MONEY: Six months after leaving the White House, Jared Kushner secured a $2 billion investment from a fund led by the Saudi crown prince, a close ally during the Trump administration
MONEY: The amount of the investment Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s firm, Liberty Strategic Capital — $1 billion — has not been previously disclosed.
Senate passes Postal Service Reform Act, $107 billion overhaul of USPS, lauding mail agency’s role in pandemic response. passed 79 to 19. Nearly half of all voters cast their ballots by mail during the 2020 election, and postal workers hauled packages from doorstep to doorstep amid surging e-commerce demand. Tuesday’s bill gives the agency a significant reprieve, removing $57 billion in past-due postal liabilities and eliminating $50 billion in payments over the next 10 years. It requires future postal retirees to enroll in Medicare, a move that would add minuscule costs to the public health-care system but would save taxpayers $1.5 billion over the next decade.
two Republican congressional conservatives, Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene, delighted Moscow last month by condemning Zelenskiy without evidence in conspiracy-ridden terms that sparked some bipartisan criticism. Cawthorn called Zelenskiy a “thug” and his government “incredibly corrupt”, while Greene similarly charged that Zelenskiy was “corrupt”. Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat made the wild claim that “what we’re seeing happening here [in America] is not so different from what we’re seeing happening in Russia”. More recently, Russian state TV lauded Gabbard as “our friend Tulsi”, when it introduced a Carlson interview with her in which Gabbard accused Biden of “lying” about his true motives in Ukraine.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmed as Supreme Court Justice 53-47 (Republicans voting for her were Murkowski (Alaska), Romney (Utah), and Collins (Maine)
Arizona attorney general finds no evidence of mass voter fraud: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/arizona-ag-report-finds-no-evidence-mass-fraud-maricopas-2020-election-rcna23336
House votes to investigate Ukraine war crimes; 7 Republicans voted against it. The seven who voted 'nay' were Arizona's Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, Ohio's Warren Davidson, Georgia's Marjorie Taylor Greene, Kentucky's Thomas Massie, Pennsylvania's Scott Perry and Wyoming's Liz Cheney (by mistake).
Eastman v. Thompson. The opinion, legally speaking, concerns the Jan. 6 Committee’s efforts to secure emails from John Eastman: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840.260.0.pdf
March 2022
VOTE HR 6833 lowering cost of insulin
Yea
Nay
Dem
220
0
Republican
12
193
LAW: Florida governer Desantis signs “Don’t Say Gay” bill. On March 28, DeSantis signed a law that prohibits instruction or teacher-led discussion on sexual orientation or gender identity “in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” (The law prohibits all such classroom instruction in kindergarten through third grade.)
LAW: Florida passes Stop Woke Act, state Legislature passing the “Stop WOKE Act” last month. That law, which DeSantis has indicated he will sign, prohibits public schools, including colleges and private companies, from “CRT-inspired ‘training’ and indoctrination,” as DeSantis said last December.
MONEY: As of this month, Trump has $108,046,100 saved in his Save America political fund, more than the Republican and Democratic national committees combined, and 12 times as much as the fund – Pac for the Future – for the Democratic House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.
Russian government memo to Russian media: feature Tucker Carlson: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/03/exclusive-kremlin-putin-russia-ukraine-war-memo-tucker-carlson-fox/
Where did covid money go? https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/03/11/us/how-covid-stimulus-money-was-spent.html
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) proposed Rescue America plan. The NRSC chairman is proposing a 10-year tax increase of more than $1 trillion, mostly on households making < $100k. Scott’s plan would also sunset — eliminate — all federal legislation over five years, under the (risky) assumption that worthy laws would be reenacted. https://rescueamerica.com/11-point-plan/
dual Russian-American national Elena Branson, also known as Elena Chernykh—stands accused of illegally pushing pro-Russia policies in the United States for nearly a decade, at the direction of top Kremlin officials, without registering under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), according to a criminal complaint federal prosecutors filed this week in the Southern District of New York. She gave money to only 1 politican – Tulsi Gabbard ($60). Justice Dept. release: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/dual-us-russian-national-charged-acting-illegally-russian-agent-united-states
San Diego-based Axos bank loans Trump $100m.
Alabama governor approves no-permit concealed carry.
DHS expected issues on January 6th, but did not escalate: https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2022-03/OIG-22-29-Mar22-Redacted.pdf
VOTE spending bill: The Senate passed a massive $1.5 trillion spending bill Thursday that would prevent a government shutdown and provide $13.6 billion in emergency aid for Ukraine. The legislation passed 68-31.
February 2022
REPORT: Congressional Budget Office on single payer health care: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57637.
https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2022-02/57637-Single-Payer-Systems.pdf
PEW Research: gun deaths in the US. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
SENATE: A former campaign staffer and the grandson-in-law of US Senator Rand Paul who received a presidential pardon from former President Donald Trump has been charged with directing Russian money into the 2016 presidential election, according to the US Department of Justice.
REPORT January 6 committee says Trump violated laws: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840.160.0.pdf
Governor Abbot (R-TX) orders state agencies to treat gender affirming care as child abuse: https://gov.texas.gov/uploads/files/press/O-MastersJaime202202221358.pdf
TRADE: Bown recently crunched the numbers to see how much China ended up actually buying. "In the end," Bown says, "China actually bought none of the additional $200 billion of exports that it promised in the agreement." it still hasn't even returned to buying the amount of stuff it had bought from America before the trade war began. A paper issued in 2019 by trade economists from the Federal Reserve and Columbia and Princeton universities reported that the trade war was costing the U.S. economy $1.4 billion per month by the end of 2018.
CIA has undisclosed data repository about Americans. Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico sent a letter to top intelligence officials calling for more details about the program to be declassified.
MONEY: David Schweikert (R-AZ) campaign committee has agreed to pay a $125,000 federal fine for misusing donor money and associated reporting violations, according to new Federal Election Commission disclosures.
The investigation, which found “reason to believe” that the violations were “knowing and willful,” was the FEC twin of a separate congressional ethics probe that fined the Arizona Republican $50,000 in 2020 for nearly a dozen violations.
MONEY: A HuffPost analysis of Federal Election Commission filings shows that Trump’s Make America Great Again PAC spent $37,541.67 in each of 10 months last year renting office space at Trump Tower, the former president’s 57-story mixed-use building near Central Park.
RELIGION: Elizabeth and Gabriel Rutan-Ram, a Tennessee couple, were denied access to a state-sponsored foster parent certification program because they are Jewish. The rationale? The foster agency (Holston United Methodist Home for Children) they applied to claims that they should be allowed to turn away Jewish people because they are a Christian adoption agency. Their lawsuit comes two years after Tennessee's Republican governor, Bill Lee, signed a bill giving legal protection to taxpayer-funded foster care and adoption agencies that deny services based on religion or sexual orientation.
MONEY: GiveSendGo, the Christian crowdfunding site that helped raise $8.7 million for the anti-vax “freedom convoy” in Canada, was hacked on Sunday night. 15% of donations are outside U.S./Canada. software billionaire Thomas Siebel, who donated $90,000.
MAGA-boosting Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) declared on Sunday morning that former President Donald Trump was “right on target” with his statement reacting to the latest developments in the Durham probe—a statement that suggested executions for Clinton-linked operatives.
VOTE House passes Postal Service Reform Act of 2021 on a bipartisan basis, 342 to 92, with all Democrats voting yes. Senate takes up bill next. https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/Postal%20Service%20Reform%20Act%202-Pager%20-%20FINAL.pdf
COURT BRIEF: Sydney Powell admitting she was lying Powell and Kleinhendler casually admit that everything they had been saying may not actually be true–but because lots of people were saying it at the time, they decided to include it. “Millions of Americans believe the central contentions of the complaint to be true, and perhaps they are,” the pair wrote in the briefing, admitting they are no longer sure of the veracity of those claims.: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21199215/powell-brief-2022-02-07.pdf
Republican deputy attorney general in Virginia Monique Miles resigned from her position Thursday after Facebook posts surfaced showing she had applauded Jan. 6 rioters and falsely claimed that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election.
MONEY: Senator Mike Crapo (R – ID) received $292k from pharmaceutical/health products companies in last 5 years.
VOTE: Republican Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho blocked Sen. Bernie Sanders' attempt Wednesday to force a vote on Cutting Medicare Prescription Drug Prices in Half Act legislation that would slash prescription drug prices
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Wednesday that he has launched an investigation into GoFundMe's decision to halt a fundraising effort for Canadian truckers who are protesting COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
LIST on reddit – fascism: https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/sm377p/comment/hvv7ogw/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
SUPREME COURT: In a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for Alabama to use its new congressional district map even though a lower court said it violated the Voting Rights Act by denying Black voters a new district. As a practical matter, the court’s action allows Alabama Republicans to use their map for this year’s elections.
VOTE House passes America Competes legislation that would pour nearly $300 billion into scientific research and development and shore up domestic manufacturing 222-210.
REPORT: PPP money results: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/01/31/americas-covid-job-saving-programme-gave-most-of-its-cash-to-the-rich
The Republican National Committee’s officially declared the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and events that led to it “legitimate political discourse,” voice vote to censure Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois at its winter meeting in Salt Lake City
Oklahoma bil: https://legiscan.com/OK/text/SB1470/id/2484266
No public school of this state, as defined pursuant to Section 1-106 of Title 70 of the Oklahoma Statutes, shall employ or contract with a person that promotes positions in the classroom or at any function of the public school that is in opposition to closely held religious beliefs of students.
MONEY Senator Kyrsten Sinema (AZ): According to new FEC filings, Sinema brought in $1.6 million in Q4, only $33,983 of which was unitemized, which designates donations of less than $200 (i.e., ones from ordinary people). Shane Goldmacher of The New York Times pointed out on Twitter that a lot of this big-money donor action comes from some familiar names: Harlan Crow, a massive GOP donor the Texas Tribune called “one of the biggest whales in the country”; Ken Langone, another massive GOP donor who felt “betrayed” by Trump and switched to Biden; Nelson Peltz, the aforementioned Manchin confidante; and Miguel B. “Mike” Fernandez, a Florida health care billionaire who threw his fortune behind Hillary in 2016 after Jeb Bush fizzled out. Fox Corp. PAC, gave her $5,000.
MONEY Senator Joe Manchin (VA): Sen. Joe Manchin’s reelection campaign raised nearly $300,000 from corporate political action committees and executives days after the conservative Democrat said he would oppose President Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion social and climate spending package, according to a CNBC analysis of Federal Election Commission filings. His campaign raised just more than $1.5 million in the fourth quarter, ending the period with over $6 million on hand. More than $280,000 from corporate PACs and influential donors came after Manchin announced on Fox News on Dec. 19 that he would not back Biden’s major spending bill, which is known as Build Back Better.
January 2022
Indiana bill SB 167 The bill prohibits kindergarten through 12th grade schools from teaching students that “any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation” is inherently superior, inferior, racist, sexist, oppressive. Teachers would also be prohibited from making individuals feel “discomfort, guilt, anguish, responsibility or any other form of psychological distress” when it comes to meritocracy and the notion that it was created by one group to oppress another.
January 2021
Michigan, Arizona, probably Wisconsin sent forged elector letters to National Archives: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/10/jan-6-committee-ramps-up-state-level-investigation-526752
Twitter suspended Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Account after she tweeted on Saturday, falsely, about “extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths.” She included a misleading chart that pulled information from a government database of unverified raw data called the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, a decades-old system that relies on self-reported cases from patients and health care providers.
Twitter said that Ms. Greene had a fifth “strike,” which meant that her account will not be restored. The company had issued her a fourth strike in August after she falsely posted that the vaccines were “failing.” Ms. Greene was given a third strike less than a month before that when she had tweeted that Covid-19 was not dangerous and that vaccines should not be mandated.
Michigan election audit: https://www.macombgov.org/sites/default/files/content/government/clerk/pdfs/audit-report-release.pdf,
Virginia GOP governor bans teaching critical race theory, mask mandates on first date in office: https://www.businessinsider.com/youngkin-bans-school-mask-mandates-critical-race-theory-2022-1
Biden announces offshore wind energy lease program, could create 80k jobs: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/01/12/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-races-to-deploy-clean-energy-that-creates-jobs-and-lowers-costs/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Recode%201.19.22&utm_term=Recode
Twenty-nine days after Barrett became Justice Barrett, she united with her fellow Trump appointees and two other hardline conservative justices in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo (2020), a decision striking down the very sort of occupancy limits that the Court permitted in South Bay in 2020. In the eight years of the Obama presidency, the Court decided just seven religious liberty cases, or fewer than one per year. By contrast, by the second anniversary of Barrett’s confirmation as a justice, the Court most likely will have decided at least seven — and arguably as many as 10 — religious liberty cases with Barrett on the Court.
MONEY: The Claremont Institute, once a little-known think tank often confused with the liberal-arts college of the same name, has emerged as a driving force in the conservative movement’s crusade to use bogus fraud claims about the 2020 election to rewrite voting laws and remake the election system in time for the 2022 midterms and 2024 presidential election. The Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation donated $240,000 to Claremont in 2020 and approved another $400,000 to be paid out in the future, tax records show. The Bradley Foundation donated $100,000 to Claremont in 2020 and another $100,000 in 2021, according to tax records and a spokeswoman for the group. The Sarah Scaife Foundation, one of several charities tied to the late right-wing billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, supplied another $450,000 to Claremont in 2020, according to its latest tax filings. Claremont’s own tax filings show that its revenue rose from 2019 to 2020 by a half-million dollars to $6.2 million, one of the highest sums since the organization was founded in 1979, according to the most recent available data.
.
December 2021
During the pandemic, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has become a near-ubiquitous source of false information about COVID-19 and vaccines. Earlier this year, Kennedy was named one of the “Disinformation Dozen” by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which says he and the Children’s Health Defense website are among the top spreaders of false information about vaccines online.
MONEY: The Republican Party has agreed to pay up to $1.6 million in legal bills for former president Donald Trump to help him fight investigations into his business practices in New York, according to Republican National Committee members and others briefed on the decision.
MONEY: Amazon has directly paid more than $40,000 to one of the nation's leading sources of vaccine misinformation, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC). https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/12/11/amazon-anti-vaccine-charity/
COVID deaths as of fall: As of this fall, 1 in every 240 Indigenous people have died, 1 in 390 Latinos, and 1 in 480 Black Americans; 1 out of 100 people older than age 65 have died.
VOTE: Congress passed the No Surprises Act as part of the 2020 year-end omnibus spending bill. https://www.cms.gov/nosurprises/Ending-Surprise-Medical-Bills
LOCAL: Missouri stripped power from Department of Health: https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/12/missouri-tells-health-depts-to-stop-enforcing-and-publicizing-covid-measures/
TRUMP powerpoint presentation for election overturn: https://web.archive.org/web/20210716135230if_/https://www.ingersolllockwood.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/voter-fraud.pdf
https://imgur.com/gallery/elH6EHb
MONEY: Sidney Powell group “Defending the Republic” raised $40m, not all accounted for. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/sidney-powell-defending-republic-donations/2021/12/06/61bdb004-53ef-11ec-8769-2f4ecdf7a2ad_story.html
HOUSE VOTE: House lawmakers voted 220-208 in favor of H.R. 5314, the Protecting Our Democracy Act, with just one Republican, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, joining every Democrat except two who did not vote in approving the measure (the full roll call is here). would require presidents and vice presidents, as well as major-party presidential and vice-presidential candidates, to disclose their income tax returns. It would also increase penalties for violations of the Hatch Act, ban presidential self-pardons, and strengthen Justice Department and congressional subpoena powers, among other reforms.
SENATE VOTE: In a 67-30 vote, the upper chamber rejected S.J. Res. 31, which was introduced by Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and would have halted the sale of 280 Raytheon AIM-120C-7/C-8 advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles, 596 LAU-128 missile rail launchers, along with spare parts, support, and logistical services to the Saudi monarchy for use in its war against Yemen. Duckworth and Durbin voted for it.
BILL: infrastructure bill: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/07/28/upshot/infrastructure-breakdown.html
VOTE: Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Thursday blocked a request to proceed to legislation passed by the House in March to expand background checks for gun sales, a priority that has languished in Congress for years. (require background checks on all firearms sales and transfers and to allow an expanded 10-day review for gun purchases.)
VOTE: House and Senate lawmakers on Thursday approved a bill to fund the federal government through 18Feb, narrowly averting a shutdown after some Republicans sought to seize on the imminent fiscal deadline to fight President Biden over his vaccine policies.
November 2021
CRAP: Republican Rep. Paul Gosar (R - AZ) posted a photoshopped anime video to his Twitter and Instagram accounts showing him appearing to kill Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Joe Biden.
MONEY: A key group of Republican attorneys general that donated $150,000 to co-sponsor the 6 January rally where Donald Trump pushed his false claims of election fraud before the Capitol attack. Done by group called the Rule of Law Defense Fund, a policy arm of RAGA. the group has received a hefty $5.5m from the dark money Concord Fund. RAGA’s executive director resigned after the attack.
INFLATION: Port of Vancouver closed from 17Nov to 07Dec due to flooding on major rail links.
PRESIDENT: Biden has basically ended drone strikes (4 this year).
PRESIDENT: Joe Biden Sets $15 Minimum Wage For Federal Contractors
PRESIDENT: Biden announces release from strategic petroleum reserve
MONEY Anti-CRT movement is funded by former Trump officials, Federalist Society, Koch, etc. (Fight for Schools, Parents against Critical Race Theory, Free to Learn Coalition, 1776 Project, Parents Defending Education) https://www.thedailybeast.com/right-wing-aristocrats-fund-critical-race-theory-backlash
Right wing coup: https://www.newsweek.com/we-are-way-right-wing-coup-cia-director-privately-warned-1647538
MONEY Sinema gets money from MLMs: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/05/kyrsten-sinema-multi-level-marketing-labor-519661
October 2021
REPORT: Director of National Intelligence report on covid-19 origin. No conclusive theory. https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Declassified-Assessment-on-COVID-19-Origins.pdf
MONEY: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) has received $1.1m in last 3 months. Nearly 90 percent of Sinema’s cash from individual contributors came from outside Arizona. She received $27,800 from PACs of pharmaceutical companies from July through September — up from $5,000 in the three months prior, according to her campaign finance filings. op donors included the pharma giant Gilead’s CEO, Daniel O’Day, who gave $5,000 this past quarter. Another $2,900 came in from Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks. The executive chair of Merck’s board, Kenneth C. Frazier, also gave $2,900, as did the chair and CEO of Bristol Myers Squibb, Giovanni Caforio. The CEO of Genentech, Alexander Hardy, gave $2,500. Meanwhile, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America’s executive vice president for policy and research Jennifer Bryant, senior vice president for federal advocacy Anne Esposito, and executive vice president for public affairs Debra DeShong each gave $1,000.
MONEY, TRUMP: Trump’s Save America PAC has been spending $100k/week on Facebook ads. Trump is banned from Facebook but Facebook allows it as Trump is not personally posting the ads. Through an aggressive push of text messages, emails, events and ads, advisers say, Trump has consistently been raising more than $1 million per week, with totals often nearing $2 million.
President: Biden gets agreement from Port of Los Angeles to run 24/7. Top importers such as Walmart, Fedex, and UPS will also run 24/7.
Governor: Greg Abbott ( R ) TX bans vaccine mandates. Texas leads country in Covid-19 deaths.
President: Biden to reverse a Trump-era policy barring health clinics that get federal family planning funds from providing referrals for abortions—a policy that critics had called the "domestic gag rule."
Money: Senator Joe Machin (D-WVA) founded coal brokerage Enersystems in 1998; his son now runs it. He owns up to $5m of the company and drew $500k in dividends in 2020. He also received $65k from Exxon. He is blocking anything associated with climate change.
House of Representatives voted on Thursday to hold Steve Bannon in criminal contempt for defying a subpoena issued by the Jan. 6 Select Committee. House Minority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) earlier this week instructed the party to vote against the measure, writing in a letter sent to representatives that Congress “does not have enumerated constitutional powers to conduct investigations or issue subpoenas outside of that scope.” Cheney was one of only nine Republicans to vote in favor of the measure. Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), Peter Meijer (R-Mich.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), Fred Upton (R-Mich.), John Katko (R-N.Y.), Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio), and Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) were the others.
MONEY: Florida strips federal funding from schools as further punishment for masking
The state withheld nearly $700,000 in funding from two counties
MONEY: Officials in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix Arizona, agreed last week to pay $3.1 million to cover the county’s portion of a settlement with a restaurant owner who alleged Sheriff Joe Arpaio defamed him and violated his rights when raiding his businesses. The payout takes to $100 million the attorney fees, settlements and other costs the county has paid from lawsuits stemming from Arpaio’s six terms over things such as jail deaths, failed investigations of the sheriff’s political enemies and immigration raids of businesses. That doesn’t include the separate $178 million and counting taxpayers have shelled out in a 2007 racial profiling case stemming from Arpaio’s signature traffic patrols targeting immigrants, though about 75% of that spending has occurred during his successor’s watch as he works to comply with court-ordered overhauls of the sheriff’s office.
https://apnews.com/article/immigration-business-arizona-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-fa5aab2f85ca6d7b22b2a028759eb44a
500,000 fewer students enrolled in college this year. In the fall of 2020, community college enrollment fell by roughly 10% nationally — a loss of over 544,200 students when compared with the fall of 2019. https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/npr/2021/10/26/1048955023/college-enrollment-plummeted-during-the-pandemic-this-fall-its-even-worse/
Supreme Court: The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday decided 6-3 it would not step in to block a COVID-19 vaccine requirement for health care workers in Maine, which does not offer religious exemptions.
September 2021
GUNS Starting Sept. 1, most Texans will be able to carry handguns in public without going through training or having to get permits. No background check. Law enforcement officers worry that could make their jobs more dangerous. Can buy rifle at age 18.
MISINFO in the long run-up to the 2020 US elections, Facebook’s most popular pages for Christian and Black American content were being run by eastern European troll farms. According to an internal Facebook report written in late 2019 and leaked to MIT Technology Review, troll farms were reaching 140 million users every month. Three-quarters of these users had never followed any of the pages: they’d had the content thrust upon them by Facebook’s engagement-hungry content-recommendation system.
Supreme Court on vaccines/freedom: The Supreme Court made this point more than a century ago (1905), when it upheld a fine against a Massachusetts man who refused to get the smallpox vaccine. In a majority opinion that echoes powerfully today, Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote, “Real liberty for all could not exist under the operation of a principle which recognizes the right of each individual person to use his own, whether in respect of his person or his property, regardless of the injury that may be done to others.”
“Constitutional carry” legislation goes into effect in Texas. allows most Texans who legally own a firearm to carry it openly in public without obtaining a permit or training. The number of shootings in Texas, not including suicides, increased 14% this year with roughly 3,200 shootings compared to the same period in 2020, which recorded roughly 2,800 shootings, according to data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive (GVA). Gun violence incidents this year represent a 50% increase over the same period in 2019, which saw 2,100 shootings, the data shows.
State law: Texas S.B. 8 goes into effect. The law, which went into effect after midnight in Texas on Wednesday, bars most abortions after as early as six weeks of pregnancy and allows private citizens to file civil lawsuits against abortion providers. It prohibits doctors from performing or inducing abortions if they have “detected a fetal heartbeat,” except in medical emergencies. The Supreme Court declined to block a Texas law banning most abortions in a 5-4 decision late Wednesday.
August 2021
REPORT PEW Government should do more to restrict misinformation: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/18/more-americans-now-say-government-should-take-steps-to-restrict-false-information-online-than-in-2018/
State Department order banning Russian arms/ammo over its use of a “Novichok” nerve agent in the August 2020 poisoning of Russian opposition figure Aleksey Navalny: https://www.state.gov/fact-sheet-united-states-imposes-additional-costs-on-russia-for-the-poisoning-of-aleksey-navalny/
J.D. Vance: And so Vance made a pilgrimage to Fox News to recant his previously held beliefs and earn a pardon. “Like a lot of people, I criticized Trump back in 2016,” he said. “And I ask folks not to judge me based on what I said in 2016, because I’ve been very open that I did say those critical things and I regret them, and I regret being wrong about the guy.”
Supreme Court suspends eviction moratorium
July 2021
Supreme Court: On Thursday, the Court handed down a 6-3 decision in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, which flips Citizens United’s approach to disclosure laws on its head. Americans for Prosperity was brought by two conservative organizations — the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a conservative advocacy group closely associated with the billionaire Koch brothers; and the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative law firm that claims it was formed to promote “America’s Judeo-Christian heritage” — against a California regulation requiring charities that wish to raise tax-deductible funds in California to disclose their largest contributors to the state attorney general’s office. So the actual law at issue in this case is fairly far afield from actual campaigns for political office. Justice Neil Gorsuch warned that the government could demand to see your “Christmas card lists” or to disclose your “dating history” to state regulators. Justice Samuel Alito spoke of “vandalism, death threats, physical violence, economic reprisals, [and] harassment in the workplace” directed against donors to an anti-LGBTQ campaign.
Supreme Court: The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld two Arizona voting restrictions that a lower court had said discriminated against minority voters, a ruling that suggests that it will be harder to successfully challenge a spate of new laws passed by state legislatures in the aftermath of the 2020 election. Those judges said that the state changed locations of voting places more often in minority communities, leading to voter confusion, and that the rates of discarded out-of-precinct (OOP) votes were far higher in Arizona than in other states. Arizona throws out the entire ballot, even if some races — for governor, for instance — are not affected by the voter’s precinct location. But Alito said the appeals court did not take into account the totality of Arizona’s voting regulations, which include early voting and other accommodations.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-1257_g204.pdf
House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to create a select committee that will investigate the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. The remaining 200-odd House Republicans either voted against the committee or didn’t vote at all. passed Wednesday with the support of just two Republican representatives, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Liz Cheney of Wyoming. Benghazi Committee spent two-and-a-half years and $7.8 million on a sprawling probe that lasted longer than past congressional investigations into the Pearl Harbor attack, Watergate, 9/11, and the Kennedy and King assassinations. Rep McCarthy: McCarthy fueled those criticisms when he appeared on Fox News and linked Clinton’s polling with the select committee’s work. “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?” he said. “But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.
President Joe Biden signed a sweeping executive order on Friday to promote more competition in the U.S. economy, urging agencies to crack down on anti-competitive practices in sectors from agriculture to drugs and labor. https://www.reuters.com/business/bidens-executive-order-promote-competition-us-economy-includes-over-70-2021-07-09/
Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order Friday directing the state's health and education departments to issue rules preventing the implementation of school mask mandates.
June 2021
Senate passes U.S. Innovation and Competition Act 68-23. House is uncertain.
authorizes $190 billion in spending
Invest $52 billion in chip manufacturing
Create a new Directorate of Technology and Innovation at the National Science Foundation
Add $10 billion for a lunar landing program.
also authorize an additional $17.5 billion for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency -- or Darpa -- over a period of five years.
House
Democrats 218
Republicans 212
Yes
No
Abstain
Senate
Democrats
Republicans
Yes
No
Abstain
President Joe Biden signed three separate laws Wednesday that dismantle part of the Trump era, blocking payday lenders from avoiding caps on interest rates, restricting climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas drilling and ending rules on how the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission settles claims.
Missouri governor Mike Parson ( R ) signs law banning vaccine passports. Last month, he told Missourians that they can’t trust the “propaganda” about COVID that they read in mainstream news outlets, and said federal agents would show up and shove needles into people’s arms.
May 2021
REPORT: Department of Treasury: American Families Plan tax compliance agenda: https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/The-American-Families-Plan-Tax-Compliance-Agenda.pdf
Missouri Will Not Expand Medicaid Despite Voters' Wishes, Governor Says https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/99661158/missouri-will-not-expand-medicaid-despite-voters-wishes-governor-says
Iowa governor Kim Reynolds (R) signs law preventing mask mandates in K-12 schools and prohibits cities and counties from requiring facial coverings in businesses.
Texas governor Greg Abbott ( R ) issued an executive order Tuesday prohibiting state governmental entities such as counties, public school districts, public health authorities and government officials from requiring mask wearing.
Florida governor Ron Desantis ( R ) signs law banning vaccine passports.
April 2021
REPORT: Air Force biennial acquisition report: https://www.af.mil/Portals/1/documents/2021SAF/04_Apr/FY19_FY20_Dept_of_the_Air_Force_Acquisition_Biennial_Report_final.pdf
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) on Friday signed a bill that allows people to purchase and carry handguns in the state without a permit. The bill passed in the Iowa House of Representatives last month in a 60-37 vote. Only one Democrat joined Republicans in support of the legislation. On March 22, the bill made it through the state Senate along party lines in a 31-17 vote. 22 states currently have laws in place that require background checks for all gun sales. The other states, including Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin, however, do not require background checks on all purchases.
Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson (R) signs law banning mask mandates in state.
WHITE HOUSE FACT SHEET: inconclusive evidence on Russians paying Taliban for killing U.S. soldiers: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/15/fact-sheet-imposing-costs-for-harmful-foreign-activities-by-the-russian-government/
March 2021
Biden imposes limits on drone strikes: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/03/us/politics/biden-drones.html
Protecting the Right to Organize Act, would amend a decades-old labor law to protect workers seeking to form a union from retribution or firing, strengthen the government’s power to punish employers who violate workers’ rights and outlaw mandatory meetings that employers often rely on to try to quash an organizing drive. It would also make it harder for companies like Uber and Lyft to classify workers as independent contractors, paving the way for a potentially dramatic expansion in the pool of workers eligible to unionize.
House
Democrats 218
Republicans 212
Yes
220
5
No
206
Abstain
Sanders amendment in Senate to increase federal minimum wage to $15
Defeated 58-42
Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine (King is a member of the Democratic caucus)
Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del.
Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H.
H.R. 1319: American Rescue Plan Act of 2021
House
Democrats 218
Republicans 212
Yes
220
0
No
1
210
Abstain
Senate
Democrats
Republicans
Yes
48+2I
No
49
Abstain
1
$86 billion aid package that has nothing to do with the pandemic. Rather, the $86 billion is a taxpayer bailout for about 185 union pension plans that are so close to collapse that without the rescue, more than a million retired truck drivers, retail clerks, builders and others could be forced to forgo retirement income.
Changes child tax credit to direct payments. top 10 states by average monthly payouts in August were Utah, Idaho, South Dakota, Alaska, Nebraska, Wyoming, North Dakota, Iowa, Kansas and Montana, which all went for Trump.
03March: Fed cuts rates
11March: President closes borders to European travelers
09March: Fed (New York Fed) made $150b available in overnight repo funding.
11March: Fed (NY Fed) increases repo backing from $150b to $175b
12March: Fed begins offering 1 month and 3 month repo in $500b batches
15March: Fed cuts rates to 0. Buys at least $500b in Treasuries and $200b in mortgate backed securities. Fed also eased terms on liquidity swap lines.
19March: Fed widens support to include mutual funds
23March Fed revived the Term Asset‑Backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF—one of the stalwarts of the 2008 crisis—to backstop auto, credit-card, small‑business, and student loans.
23March Fed notionally earmarked $500 billion to support short‑term notes issued by large cities, counties, and states
January 2021
147 Republicans voted to overturn election results. 8 Senators, 139 House Reps. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/07/us/elections/electoral-college-biden-objectors.html
2020
December 2020
Texas attorney general Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit arguing that Pennsylvania and three other states won by Joe Biden had harmed Texas by expanding mail- and early-voting access during the pandemic. He asked the Supreme Court to strip those states of their Biden electors and instruct their legislatures to replace them with new ones, effectively making Trump the victor of the 2020 election.
November 2020
President: Trump issues order on 11November2020 to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan before Trump leaves office. He rescinds the order 8 days later.
October 2020
VOTE SUPPRESSION: Gov. Abbott (TX) reduces ballot drop boxes in Harris Country (Houston had 11) and Travis County (Dallas) to 1. https://www.texastribune.org/2020/10/27/texas-voting-elections-mail-in-drop-off/
Supreme Court: 3 Bush vs. Gore alum will be on Court. https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/17/politics/bush-v-gore-barrett-kavanaugh-roberts-supreme-court/index.html
Seventeen House Republicans voted Friday against a bipartisan resolution condemning QAnon, the viral pro-Trump movement, and rejecting its baseless conspiracy theories, days after a Democratic congressman said he was receiving death threats from followers of the group. The House overwhelmingly passed the measure, led by Representatives Tom Malinowski, Democrat of New Jersey, and Denver Riggleman, Republican of Virginia, in a 371-18 vote, with Representative Justin Amash, Independent of Michigan, also opposed.
August 2020
Senate committee concludes Russia used Manafort, WikiLeaks to boost Trump in 2016: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-senate/senate-committee-concludes-russia-used-manafort-wikileaks-to-boost-trump-in-2016-idUSKCN25E1US
REPORT: Department of State GEC: Pillares of Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda ecosystem: https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Pillars-of-Russia%E2%80%99s-Disinformation-and-Propaganda-Ecosystem_08-04-20.pdf
July 2020
REPORT: Intelligence and Security Committee of the House of Commons Russia Report: https://isc.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/CCS207_CCS0221966010-001_Russia-Report-v02-Web_Accessible.pdf
May 2020
MONEY: Honest Elections Project PAC run by Leonard Leo working to restrict voting. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/27/honest-elections-project-conservative-voting-restrictions
President: Trump wanted to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, which would allow him to deploy troops to quash the protesters. He especially wanted the elite 82nd Airborne division (whose specialty is crisis response, often by parachuting into hostile areas — not civil disturbance and crowd control), a suggestion military leaders weren't keen to go along with.
Esper, in a press conference the day before, clearly stated that his opposition to the idea, telling reporters that active-duty forces "should only be used as a matter of last resort, and in the most urgent and dire of situations." "I don't give a fuck about your fucking transcript!" Trump shot back, according to the book.
Governor Ron Desantis (R – FL) fires state department of health data scientist employee Rebekah Jones for reporting accurate covid death info in an online portal.
April 2020
Trump removes PPP inspector general: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-removes-inspector-general-who-was-to-oversee-2-trillion-stimulus-spending/2020/04/07/2f0c6cb8-78ea-11ea-9bee-c5bf9d2e3288_story.html?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWJpZCI6IjI3MDA4MzAxIiwicmVhc29uIjoiZ2lmdCIsIm5iZiI6MTY2MTQ4NjIzMywiaXNzIjoic3Vic2NyaXB0aW9ucyIsImV4cCI6MTY2MjY5NTgzMywiaWF0IjoxNjYxNDg2MjMzLCJqdGkiOiIzYmI5YmQ0NC03ZDY0LTQxNWYtYjQyMi1lYTAyNTA5OTNiODkiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy53YXNoaW5ndG9ucG9zdC5jb20vbmF0aW9uYWwtc2VjdXJpdHkvdHJ1bXAtcmVtb3Zlcy1pbnNwZWN0b3ItZ2VuZXJhbC13aG8td2FzLXRvLW92ZXJzZWUtMi10cmlsbGlvbi1zdGltdWx1cy1zcGVuZGluZy8yMDIwLzA0LzA3LzJmMGM2Y2I4LTc4ZWEtMTFlYS05YmVlLWM1YmY5ZDJlMzI4OF9zdG9yeS5odG1sIn0.5UtZ3sEvVmf7HiJ9YCiemViO1EE8-b-Vt7JH-npjSuU
March 2020
TIMELINE Jared Kushner and Qatar: https://www.justsecurity.org/69094/timeline-on-jared-kushner-qatar-666-fifth-avenue-and-white-house-policy/
The Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act was enacted on March 6, at a cost of $8.3 billion.
House
Democrats
Republicans
Yes
222
192
No
0
2
Abstain
10
3
Senate
Democrats
Republicans
Yes
44
51
No
0
1
Abstain
1
1
(Senator Rand Paul)
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act = $2 trillion
Send $1,200 to each American making $75,000 a year or less.
Add $600/week to unemployment benefits for four months.
Give $100 billion to hospitals and health providers and increases Medicare reimbursements for treating coronavirus.
Give $750 million to food banks, to Puerto Rico and the other territories for food assistance, and to programs for food distribution on American Indian reservations.
Make $500 billion of loans or investments to businesses, states and municipalities, and $32 billion in grants to the airline industry.
House
Democrats
Republicans
Ind.
Yes
230
189
0
No
3
3
1
Abstain
3
6
Senate
Democrats
Republicans
Yes
45
49
No
0
1
Abstain
0
4
There were failed cloture votes
2020
February 2020
REPORT study in Lancet: found that Medicare for All will save Americans $450 billion and prevent 68,000 unnecessary deaths each and every year. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/15/sanders-applauds-new-medicare-all-study-will-save-americans-450-billion-and-prevent
Afghanistan DOHA agreement: https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/02.29.20-US-Afghanistan-Joint-Declaration.pdf
President: Trump signs Doha agreement with Taliban, setting a date for US troop withdrawal by May 2021
January 2020
Lev Parnas persuades Trump to remove ambassador to Ukraine: https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/woeyx4/documents_retrieved_from_maralago_could_include/
TRADE: U.S. and China signed the “phase one” trade agreement in January 2020, and its “centerpiece” was China’s pledge to purchase $200 billion more in U.S. goods and services in 2020 and 2021, according to the PIIE report. By that measure, the deal flopped: The U.S. trade-deal–related exports to China last year fell more than 40% short of the target amount.
2019
August 2019
Trump issues a request for list of top U.S. spies. By 2021 CIA reports a high number of agents being murdered. during Mara Lago search, FBI finds more documents with U.S informants listed on them
July 2019
Trump has private meeting with Putin
REPORT Senate Judiciary Committee: Gun massacre deaths dropped during assault weapons ban. “Gun massacres of six or more killed decreased by 37 percent for the decade the ban was active, then shot up 183 percent during the decade following its expiration. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/dem/releases/studies-gun-massacre-deaths-dropped-during-assault-weapons-ban-increased-after-expiration
March 2019
Trump discusses sending migrants to democratic voting cities: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-desantis-immigration-marthas-vineyard-sanctuary-cities-1234599500/
February 2019
REPORT: Trump Administration efforts to transfer sensitive nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia: https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/Trump%20Saudi%20Nuclear%20Report%20-%202-19-2019.pdf
A 2007 law signed by President George W. Bush made saving energy from lightbulbs a national goal. But before new energy-efficiency standards could take effect, the Trump administration rolled them back on the grounds that they were “not economically justified.”
President: Trump scheduled a colonoscopy at Walter Reed hospital. He did not inform anyone. He also skipped anesthesia in order to avoid handing power to Pence.
According to the then-Republican-led Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the ultrasensitive campaign information that Manafort passed to a Russian spy “identified voter bases in blue-collar, democratic-leaning states which Trump could swing,” including in “Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota.”
Pardoned after Barr resignation
2018
Report from Office of U.S. Trade Representative: FINDINGS OF THE INVESTIGATION INTO
CHINA’S ACTS, POLICIES, AND PRACTICES RELATED TO TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER,
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, AND INNOVATION UNDER SECTION 301 OF THE TRADE ACT OF 1974 , https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/Section%20301%20FINAL.PDF
Trump himself appears to have intervened in FBI HQ move so that a competing hotel could not get the site. https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/2018-10-18.EEC%20DeFazio%20Connolly%20Quigley%20Titus%20to%20Murphy-GSA%20re%20FBI%20Headquarters.pdf
Jeff Sessions’ zero tolerance memo: https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1049751/download
2017
TAXES Congressional Budget Office letter on Tax Cuts and Jobs Act raising taxes on lower income people: https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/115th-congress-2017-2018/reports/53429-distributionhr1.pdf
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) made an unannounced trip to visit Assad in Syria.
VOTE Rand Paul votes against adding Montenegro (where there was an attempted coup) to NATO. John McCain accuses him of working for Putin: “I note the senator from Kentucky leaving the floor without justification or any rationale for the action he has just taken. That is really remarkable -- that a senator blocking a treaty that is supported by the overwhelming number, perhaps 98 at least of his colleagues, would come to the floor and object and walk away…The only conclusion you can draw when he walks away is he has no argument to be made.
2016
VOTE: Trump won Michigan by 11,000 votes. But 277,000 eligible Black people didn’t vote. He won Wisconsin by 23,000 votes, but 93,000 eligible Black voters did not cast ballots. Trump’s 200,000-vote win in Georgia was helped when 530,000 eligible Black voters did not vote. Trump slipped by in North Carolina by a margin of 173,000 votes, while 233,000 Black voters stayed home. Much the same in Pennsylvania, which Trump won by 44,000 votes.
Select Intelligence Committee Report on Snowden: https://www.congress.gov/114/crpt/hrpt891/CRPT-114hrpt891.pdf
Stop the Steal existed in 2016: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/controversial-pro-trump-group-warns-members-avoid-election/story?id=43372037
2015
Noam Chomsky on the Republican party: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBJeBu0lBKQ
Federal Maritime Commission report on port congestion: https://www.fmc.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/PortForumReport_FINALwebAll.pdf
Congressional gridlock network visualization: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/23/a-stunning-visualization-of-our-divided-congress/
2012
Texas Republican party platform and education: Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/texas-gop-rejects-critical-thinking-skills-really/2012/07/08/gJQAHNpFXW_blog.html
REPORT: GOP post election report after losing to Obama: https://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/RNCreport03182013.pdf
Sam Brownback (R governor or Kansas) and the republican supermajority in the KS legislature slashed taxes for the ultra wealthy, including massive income tax cuts, sales tax cuts, and the elimination of non-wage income tax. The massive cuts for the rich shifted the tax burden to the poor, and created a budget shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars. The impacts were wide ranging, including massive cuts to public services and the gutting of public education. Moreover, the job growth rate fell to the lowest in the country, and the state's credit rating was downgraded as a result of his policies. Kansas hasn't yet recovered from the Brownbackistan days.
2011
In a televised Republican presidential debate, Rick Perry says he'd get rid of the Department of Education. No one corrects him.
2010
Michael Flynn whitepaper on intelligence failures: https://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/AfghanistanMGFlynn_Jan2010.pdf
2009
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.) “began his presentation at a House Republican leadership retreat in Annapolis, Md., with an existential political question: ‘If the purpose of the majority is to govern … what is our purpose?’ The answer was not to promote Republican policies, or stop Democratic policies, or even make Democratic bills less offensive to Republicans. ‘The purpose of the minority is to become the majority,’ Sessions wrote. ‘That is the entire conference’s mission.’” Grunwald called this the “Party of No” approach. In 2016, after Donald Trump unexpectedly won the White House, Grunwald declared in a Politico piece that the Party of No had won. The obstructive strategy, he argued, “helped Republicans take back the House in 2010, the Senate in 2014, and the White House in 2016.”
As governor, Joe Manchin supported an unusual detail in a clean energy bill that was moving through the West Virginia Legislature in 2009. The provision classified waste coal as an alternative energy. Only now Manchin has enormous influence over federal climate policy.
2006 Postal service pension law
2006 law called the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. Passed at the height of Bush-era enthusiasm for privatization for Social Security, the bill required the Postal Service to pre-fund its pension and retiree health benefits for current and future workers over 10 years. Critics such as New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez point to this law as an albatross around the agency’s neck.
2004
Diebold voting machines and Ohio: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2005/03/hitchens200503
2003
A little over 10 years ago, George W. Bush fired his economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, for saying that the total cost of invading Iraq might come to as much as $200 billion. Bush instead stood by such advisers as Paul Wolfowitz, who said that the invasion would be largely "self-financing" via Iraq's oil, and Andrew Natsios, who told an incredulous Ted Koppel that the war's total cost to the American taxpayer would be no more than $1.7 billion.
1981
The U.S. office glut traces its roots to a 1981 change in the tax code, brokers and analysts say. In a bid to boost the economy, the Reagan administration allowed investors to depreciate commercial real estate much more quickly than before, among other changes, lowering their tax bills. Savings-and-loan associations showered developers with easy loans, brokers say. That helped ignite an office-development boom in the 1980s that drove up vacancies to record levels and contributed to the savings-and-loan crisis, when many such institutions failed. Vacancy rates slowly fell in the 1990s, but surged again after the bursting of the dot-com bubble and the subprime mortgage crisis.