Tag: Republicans

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Carl Bernstein Names 21 GOP Senators Who Despise Trump

L-R Donald Trump, Carl Bernstein
Legendary Washington, D.C. journalist Carl Bernstein has publicly named 21 Republican Senators who he says have expressed their ‘extreme contempt for [Donald] Trump and his fitness to be POTUS.’ Bernstein, who was one of the two reporters who broke the Nixon Watergate scandal, declares in his tweets he’s ‘not violating any pledge of journalistic confidentially’ in sharing the names.

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Trump Invites Michigan GOP Leaders To WH Over Election Results

From CNN:

President Donald Trump has invited Republican state lawmakers from Michigan to the White House on Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter, as the President and his legal team are mounting an effort to overturn the results of the election he lost to President-elect Joe Biden.

Trump also called two Republican canvass board members from Wayne County, to Tuesday to offer his support, the person said, after they went back and forth on voting to certify the election results from the state’s largest county, which includes Detroit. The board members filed affidavits Wednesday seeking to “rescind” their votes to certify the election result.

Michigan law requires the election results to be certified by Monday, November 23. With no credible reports of fraud, observers are concerned state lawmakers could use the legislature to substitute Trump-supporting Electoral College electors in an effort to swing the state back to Trump. President-elect Joe Biden won the state by 3 percentage points and over 157,000 votes.

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Texas Republicans Lose Again Trying To Block Drive-Thru Voting

Drive-through voting in Harris County, TX (screen capture)
And stay out! First, the Texas state Supreme Court said ‘no.’ Then, a federal District Court judge said ‘no.’ Now, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has said ‘no’ to a bid by Texas Republicans to block Election Day drive-through voting in Harris County. From NPR:

In a terse order, the three-judge panel wrote: “It is ordered that appellants’ motion for injunctive relief to issue a preliminary injunction banning drive-thru voting on Election Day, November 3, 2020, is denied.” No explanation was given.

The move is yet another loss for Texas Republicans who had sought to challenge the legality of some 127,000 votes cast at drive-through voting sites in the Houston area.

On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen threw out that suit, ruling the plaintiffs don’t have legal standing to sue. The Texas Supreme Court dismissed a similar challenge on Sunday.

Harris County, Texas’ most populous county and majority Democratic, erected 10 drive-through sites, mostly tents, to expedite the early voting process as a way of allowing people to cast ballots safely during the coronavirus pandemic. They were also in place this summer before the state’s primary.

Noting that point, Hanen, a George W. Bush appointee, asked plaintiffs, “Why am I just getting this case?” He later said that the suit was not timely and that “this has been going on all summer.”

Harris County Clerk Christopher Hollins decided to shut down 9 of the ten Election Day drive-thru voting sites out of concern that the votes could later be thrown out via ongoing legal challenges filed by Republicans.

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Texas Republicans Ask Judge To Throw Out 117K Legally Cast Ballots

'Welcome to Texas' sign

Four months ago, the Texas Secretary of State approved drive-thru voting, informing Harris County (we’re talking Houston) election officials that they could use it for the general election. Now, after over 117,000 voters in the heavily Democratic county have used the process, Texas Republicans have asked a federal judge to declare the practice ‘unconstitutional’ and throw out all of those ballots. From Mark Joseph Stern at Slate:

Because Texas strictly limits mail-in voting, Harris County—which has a population of over 4.7 million people—has sought to make in-person voting safer during the pandemic. Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins, who runs the county’s elections, established 10 drive-thru voting locations for the 2020 general election.

Drivers pull into a large tent, where election officials confirm their identity, then give them privacy to vote. The process has proved wildly popular.

Harris County raised the idea of drive-thru voting in June, and Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughs promptly approved it. The county tested it in July and approved it in August. Yet Republicans did not contest drive-thru voting in court until Oct. 15, two days after the start of early voting.

On that day, the Harris County Republican Party, joined by several GOP operatives, asked the Texas Supreme Court to halt drive-thru voting. The court, which is entirely Republican, refused, over a single dissent.

So Republicans ran to federal court. On Wednesday, they asked U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen to declare drive-thru voting unconstitutional and void every ballot cast this way.

Judge Hanen has scheduled an emergency hearing on Monday. Over 117,000 Texans cast their votes via drive-thru venues because it was approved. Now, Texas Republicans want those votes thrown out a day before the election?

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100 Top Republicans Endorse Biden For President

Former Vice President Joe Biden (image via Instagram)
Via Reuters:

Nearly 100 Republican and independent leaders will endorse Democrat Joe Biden for president on Thursday, including one-time 2020 Republican presidential candidate Bill Weld and the former Republican governors of Michigan and New Jersey, people involved in the effort told Reuters.

The latest Republican-led effort to oppose the re-election of President Donald Trump also includes current and former Republicans in the key battleground state of Michigan that will help decide the outcome of the Nov. 3 election, the group’s members said.

Called ‘Republicans and Independents for Biden’, the group is headed by Christine Todd Whitman, a former Republican governor of New Jersey who has become one of Trump’s fiercest critics and who spoke at the recent Democratic National Convention in support of Biden.

While the group’s members come from all over the country, it’s notable that a fifth are from Michigan, where Trump barely eked out a win of less than a percentage point in 2016.

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GOP Votes To Leave Anti-LGBTQ Party Platform Unchanged For 2020

Donald Trump
Via Politico:

A vote by the Republican National Committee to leave the party’s 2016 party platform unchanged ahead of the November election has infuriated grassroots activists — including moderates who wanted to streamline its message and social conservatives who sought added language on emerging hot-button topics.

The decision by the party’s executive panel Wednesday means the GOP will maintain positions in the 4-year-old policy blueprint — including opposition to same-sex marriage and a nod to gay conversion therapy — and decline to stake out new positions on topics such as police reform, gender identity and third-trimester abortions.

Party officials and senior Trump campaign aides had previously discussed ways to pare down the 58-page document to a single notecard or abbreviated list of principles, but the effort broke down after several conservative groups registered complaints with the White House.

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Republicans Opposing Trump Riff On Reagan Slogan: ‘Mourning In America’

Riffing on Ronald Reagan’s iconic 1984 campaign ad, “Morning in America,” a group of Republicans who oppose Donald Trump’s policies and presidency released this devastating video, “Mourning in America.” The caption on YouTube reads, “Donald Trump’s failed presidency has left the nation weaker, sicker, and teetering on the verge of a new Great Depression. There’s mourning in America.” From AdAge:

Against a backdrop of scenes of empty streets and shots of people wearing masks, and underscored by plaintive classical music, an announcer says (in a script that directly echoes that of “Morning in America”).

The Lincoln Project launched in December with an op-ed in The New York Times headlined: “We Are Republicans, and We Want Trump Defeated.” The NYT bio line for the op-ed’s authors—George T. Conway III, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver and Rick Wilson—noted that they “have worked for and supported Republican campaigns.”

Predictably, Trump lashed out on Twitter raging at the group and specifically George Conway, husband to Trump’s White House chief counsel, Kellyanne Conway. Mr. Conway, who Trump nicknamed “Moonface,” clapped back.

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South Carolina Republicans Plan To Boost Bernie To Help Trump

First, Trump supporters called the Iowa caucus hotlines to jam up reporting the results – and now this. From the New York Post:

Republicans in South Carolina have hatched a plan to encourage GOP voters to support Sen. Bernie Sanders in the state’s upcoming Democratic primary, arguing that he poses the weakest threat to President Trump in the general election.

That plan has two goals: Boost the candidate the party believes will have the hardest time winning the state in November against Trump, and pressure Democrats to support their effort to have closed state primaries in the future.

South Carolina has open primaries, which means voters can participate in any primary without being required to register with a specific party.

   

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News Round-Up: February 7, 2020

Anthony Varrechia (via Instagram)
Some news items you might have missed: • InstaHunks: Like a LOT of folks, I find designer Anthony Varrecchia (above) to be sooo sexy. I’ve been meaning to point out, by the way, that I try to feature a wide range of InstaHunks – younger, older, muscular, beefy, bear-y, all races…Someone made a remark to me a few months ago on my ‘lack of diversity’ in the choices of eye-candy and I was like…whaaaat? • NY Times: Just hours after Donald Trump had Lt. Colonel Alex Vindman escorted from the White House, Trump has fired Gordon D. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union. Both testified in the House impeachment inquiry into Trump’s alleged quid pro quo with Ukraine. • New Hampshire: Two new polls show Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg leading the pack in the upcoming New Hampshire primary. A new NBC News/Marist poll finds Sanders gets support from 25 percent of likely Democratic primary voters in the Granite State, while Buttigieg gets support from 21 percent. The Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll puts the two even closer with Sanders at 24 percent and Buttigieg at 23 percent. • Courthouse News: At a record 20.4 million voters, California officials announced Thursday over 80% of the state’s eligible voters are registered to vote in next month’s Super Tuesday primary – the highest rate for a presidential primary since 1952. California Secretary of State Alex Padilla says there are currently over 3 million more registered voters compared to a similar point in the 2016 presidential election. • Washington Post: Just days after the earth saw its warmest January on record, Antarctica has broken its warmest temperature ever recorded. A reading of 65 degrees was taken at Esperanza Base along Antarctica’s Trinity Peninsula on Thursday, making it the ordinarily frigid continent’s highest measured temperature in history. • ABC News: In a rare dissent within party ranks, Republican Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont said during a news conference that he believes Donald Trump abused his power and shouldn’t be in office. He added the U.S. Senate should have been allowed to hear more from witnesses who could have provided evidence about the charges against Trump. • KIT212: Kenneth rounds up the what’s what in local gay rags across the country, like Ben McLaughlin and Lee Gonzalez on the cover of Chicago’s GRAB Magazine.

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House Republicans Attempt To Disrupt Impeachment Inquiry Testimony

Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) speaks to reporters (screen capture)
NBC News reports that some two dozen House Republicans staged a publicity stunt in which they attempted to storm the doors of the House Intelligence Committee as they hold the Trump impeachment inquiry. The attempt to squelch the negative news about quid pro quo occurred as Laura Cooper, deputy assistant to the Secretary of Defense, was scheduled to testify in the inquiry on Wednesday.

Led by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., the GOP members — who don’t sit on the committees that are questioning witnesses in the impeachment inquiry — entered the secure room, known as a SCIF, in the basement of the Capitol Visitor’s Center. Before entering, they protested Democrats’ handling of the probe, arguing that the process was not fair to Republicans or the president.

House rules only allow members to participate in depositions if they serve on the committees.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., told reporters that there were approximately 20 GOP members in the room who refused to leave, and said that they came into the secure room yelling that they be allowed inside. Some of these members brought their cellphones, which are not permitted.