Political Heat

Maine has now joined with Colorado to deny former President Donald Trump access to the ballot in the 2024 presidential primary elections, likely affecting his ability to appear on the general election ballot in those two states, too, if he's named the GOP nominee. This action is entirely justified, and more states, where they're able to do so, should take it. Trump engaged in an insurrection against the United States and the Constitution when, on January 6, 2021, he used incendiary rhetoric and encouraged a mob of his loyalists to go to the U.S. Capitol building, to protest in person the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to now-President Joe Biden — that action resulted in the violent breach of the building, threatening the lives of lawmakers inside. For several hours after the attack, rather than encourage his mob to halt their actions or to order the National Guard to stop them, Trump reportedly watched the situation with glee , while also calling law...

I've been working as a professional journalist for quite a few years now, so I feel I can say with some authenticity that a peculiar thing happens this time of year: the news "slows down." That isn't to say that newsworthy stories aren't happening, but rather that there are fewer printings of these stories, or less attention given to them, than in other parts of the year. This is due to several reasons, including the fact that many journalists (like other workers) take off time during this part of the year. There is also less demand for the types of stories that are more popular at other times of the year, particularly political stories, which I believe happens because we have a desire to be less political overall when we're with family or loved ones during the holidays. So when a presidential candidate, indeed the likely nominee for the Republican Party in the 2024 election, delivers a Christmas message in which he tells his political opponents to "ro...

Ron Johnson, appearing on CNN this week, falsely claimed that Democrats "repeatedly" used fake electors, just like Republicans did in 2020, in previous presidential elections. Just don't ask him any follow-up questions on his assertion, because he's got nothing . Like so many internet trolls do, Johnson, when asked by CNN's Kaitlan Collins to provide evidence of his claim, told her to do her own research . Which, of course, isn't how real discourse works — if you make a claim within a debate, you have to be able to back it up . Ron Johnson doesn't abide by these rules. He merely makes a claim, and if you don't believe him, well, that's YOUR fault, I guess? Johnson stated that the 10 fake electors in Wisconsin — who recently admitted their actions were being used to further a scheme to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential race  to help Donald Trump — "did nothing different than what many Democrats have done in many stat...

Lawyers for Donald Trump are arguing that he's protected from attempts to have him disqualified for the presidency. The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution allows for the barring of a current or former lawmaker who formerly took an oath to the Constitution and "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the U.S., or otherwise gave aid to those who did (that last bit is important).  Some residents of various states -- including Colorado -- are suing to have Trump blocked from appearing on primary and/or general election ballots next year, due to what happened in his name on January 6, 2021, when the U.S. Capitol was attacked by loyalists to the former POTUS after he riled them up and ordered them to voice their discontent to lawmakers in person. According to reporting from the Associated Press, Trump's lawyers in Colorado are readying to use a First Amendment speech rights defense to say he should not be disqualified. From the AP : Attorneys for former Pres...

Serious checks and balances have been stripped from the redistricting plan offered up by Wisconsin Republicans this week What more can be said about the redistricting plan offered by Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) that hasn't already been said ? Well, here's my two cents for you anyway... When Vos  surprisingly announced he now supported enacting a nonpartisan redistricting plan  to combat gerrymandering, Democrats were skeptical — this guy and his allies in the state legislature, after all, are firing elections officials over false claims of election fraud and threatening to impeach a duly-elected Supreme Court justices over ideological disagreements.  Heck, years, prior, Vos and other Republicans even described the plan he's now touting as unconstitutional , a wrong assessment, to be sure, but noteworthy given his sudden embracing of it. So what changed? The details of the bill (which passed the state legislature on Thursday night and will likely be vet...

Donald Trump is ranting on his Truth Social site (quick sidebar: how long will that be around for? ) against the idea that he could possibly be denied the chance to run for office again under the terms of the 14th Amendment. Section 3 of that amendment reads as follows : No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. To put it in shorter terms , if someone engages in an act of insurrection, or gives aid to others ...

There will be ample debate over the age and physical/mental well-being of President Joe Biden in the coming months, up to Election Day 2024. With three-quarters of Americans viewing Biden as "too old" to lead , the issue is one he'll have to eventually confront. But at least one world leader believes Biden is more fit than the media (particularly on the right) makes him out to be: Russian President Vladimir Putin. From Business Insider : The Russian press had spent months portraying Biden as a fragile old man, a piece of spin that Putin had internalized. But when he greeted Biden, he seemed taken aback by his appearance. 'You look good,' he exclaimed," journalist Franklin Foer wrote in The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden's White House and the Struggle for America's Future, which was published on Tuesday.   Putin, Foer wrote, was so struck by the fact that Scranton Joe wasn't scrawny that he had to tell then-outgoing German Chancellor Angela M...

In a Labor Day message to Americans on Monday, President Joe Biden touted strong jobs growth and a good economy, stating that "Bidenomics is a blue-collar blueprint for America." Speaking to a union crowd at a parade hosted by the Philadelphia AFL-CIO, Biden added: My plan for the country is to make the economy work for people like you, because when it works for people like you, it works for everybody The message is likely one that Biden and his re-election team are going to try to repeat over and over again this coming year, as most Americans don't seem to be feeling the positive effects of "Bidenomics" or aren't personally aware of them yet. Polling from a recent Economist/YouGov survey finds that only 19 percent of Americans think the economy is "getting better," while 54 percent say it's "getting worse." Among independents, 62 percent say things have gone in the wrong direction. Biden's approval rating among voters on th...

White nationalism reared its ugly head in a Milwaukee suburb this Labor Day weekend. Dozens of flyers depicting white supremacist talking points and Nazi imagery were discovered in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, a community just a few minutes north of the city. The flyers urged residents to join a known neo-Nazi organization using hateful and bigoted language. Per WISN : [P]olice recovered more than 70 illegally distributed flyers containing hate speech. ... The flyer, on one side, reads "Who is working in the interest of white Americans?" The other side links to a website promoting white supremacy, displaying videos with Nazi imagery — using racist and antisemitic language. The flyers stated they were "distributed randomly without malicious intent," and referenced the "Aryan Freedom Network," a group recognized by the ADL as a neo-Nazi organization  that began in Texas but is spreading across the country. In a statement posted on Facebook  on Sunday, Vi...

 Gov. Tony Evers (D-Wisconsin) has signed a GOP-passed budget, but with more than four dozen line-item vetoes. Among those items, Evers crossed off a hyphen and a number "0" to give schools in the state the ability to increase funding now through the year 2425. From Wisconsin Public Radio : Schools will get an additional $325 per student in each of the next two fiscal years under the budget approved by Republicans. In a surprise move, Evers used his line-item veto to continue the annual increase for over the next 400 years.  And from The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel : It's the second time Evers, a former state superintendent and public school educator, has used his partial veto authority to increase funding for public schools.  Said Evers in his veto message: I object to the failure of the Legislature to address the long-term financial needs of school districts. This veto makes no changes to the per pupil revenue limit adjustment provided in the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school y...

During his CNN town hall event (seriously, we're doing more of these??), former VP Mike Pence, who announced he's running for president this week, denounced the idea of kids being able to get gender-affirming care -- even if their parents and physicians are OK with it/say they should do so. Gender-affirming care is a wide range of health care. It can be psychology; it can be puberty blockers; it can be hormone therapy. Some states are taking action to block these types of care for transgender kids, even though cisgender teens use them frequently , too. From HuffPost : The former vice president told moderator Dana Bash that although he supported restoring parents’ rights in schools and ending “politically correct nonsense,” he didn’t believe a parent should be able to decide if their child should be allowed to transition or seek medical care for gender dysphoria. “I strongly support state legislation that bans all gender transition, chemical or surgical procedures, for kids und...

A federal judge -- one appointed by former President Donald Trump, no less -- has ruled that the state's ban on drag show performances is unconstitutional. From The Associated Press : The law is both “unconstitutionally vague and substantially overbroad” and encouraged “discriminatory enforcement,” according to the ruling late Friday by U.S. District Judge Thomas Parker, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump. “There is no question that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment. But there is a difference between material that is ‘obscene’ in the vernacular, and material that is ‘obscene’ under the law,” Parker said. “Simply put, no majority of the Supreme Court has held that sexually explicit — but not obscene — speech receives less protection than political, artistic, or scientific speech,” he said.  Similar to other bans happening in conservative parts of the country, the Tennessee law banned "adult cabaret performances" at properties where mino...

Just Security -- which bills itself as "an online forum for the rigorous analysis of security, democracy, foreign policy, and rights" -- has released what it's calling a "model prosecution memo" that details the case, so far, for prosecuting Donald Trump over his retention of classified documents. Some quick facts, to remind you of how we got here: The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) tried for almost a year after Trump left the WH to get these docs back. At the time, during that year, it didn't know what kind of documents Trump had, only that they were government docs, which belong to the American people, not a former president. Only after the agency threatened to involve Congress in the matter did Trump and his lawyers relent , and allow NARA to collect SOME documents in early 2022. After doing so, NARA noticed that some of the docs they got back had classified markings. They alerted the Department of Justice (DOJ) , which later prompte...