Political Heat

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...