8 votes

Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of August 1

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Tags: usa, politics, recurring.weekly

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

12 comments

  1. [2]
    skybrian
    Link
    Kansans resoundingly reject amendment aimed at restricting abortion rights (Washington Post)

    Kansans resoundingly reject amendment aimed at restricting abortion rights (Washington Post)

    The question presented to voters here was whether abortion protections should be stripped from the state constitution. A “yes” vote would allow Kansas’s Republican-led legislature to pass future limits on abortion — or ban it altogether — in its coming session in January. A “no” vote would leave those protections in place.

    With 90 percent of the vote counted, 60 percent of voters wanted to maintain those abortion protections compared with 40 percent who wanted to remove them from the state constitution. Turnout for Tuesday’s primary election far exceeded other contests in recent years, with around 900,000 Kansans voting, according to an Associated Press estimate. That is nearly twice as many as the 473,438 who turned out in the 2018 primary election.

    11 votes
    1. bkimmel
      Link Parent
      It is so resoundingly stupid for the GOP to have popped the bubble of Roe the way they did. I am gobsmacked: I always knew it was possible, of course, but "snatching defeat from the jaws of...

      It is so resoundingly stupid for the GOP to have popped the bubble of Roe the way they did. I am gobsmacked: I always knew it was possible, of course, but "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory" is just typically a thing only Dems do on this level. I think the House is back in play. The corporate/regulatory-capture end of the GOP is going to be so pissed about this. They don't give a flying fuck about abortion and they are going to lose a ton of leverage for the sake of it. Abortion was never more than a "means to an end" for them: "Don't mind us tearing apart the fabric of your communities for the sake of unadulterated greed... And we'll look the other way and fund your chip shots at Roe.
      . As long as you don't actually destroy it" was the social contract that served as the axis around which the entire GOP revolved. When/if they fail to capture the Speaker's gavel in November there is going to be a Reckoning. This proves something very important about abortion as a single issue: there are messy realities on both sides and a broad range of beliefs that defies a simple pro-/anti- dichotomy. What it all means in the end is a massive electoral disadvantage for whatever side finds itself defending the status quo... Which is now the GOP.

      9 votes
  2. kfwyre
    Link
    Election victories by Trump allies showcase his grip on the G.O.P. base (New York Times)

    Election victories by Trump allies showcase his grip on the G.O.P. base (New York Times)

    Primary victories in Arizona and Michigan for allies of Donald J. Trump on Tuesday reaffirmed his continued influence over the Republican Party, as the former president has sought to cleanse the party of his critics, install loyalists in key swing-state offices and scare off potential 2024 rivals with a show of brute political force.

    In Arizona, Mr. Trump’s choice for Senate, Blake Masters, won a crowded primary as did his pick for secretary of state, Mark Finchem, an election denier who has publicly acknowledged his affiliation with the far-right Oath Keepers militia group. By Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump’s pick in the governor’s race, Kari Lake, had taken a narrow lead over Karrin Taylor Robson, the candidate backed by Mike Pence, his former vice president.

    And in a particularly symbolic victory for Mr. Trump, Rusty Bowers, the Republican speaker of the Arizona House who gained national attention after testifying against Mr. Trump at the Jan. 6 congressional hearings, lost his bid for State Senate.

    In Michigan, a House Republican who voted to impeach Mr. Trump, Representative Peter Meijer, was defeated by a former Trump administration official, John Gibbs, and Mr. Trump’s last-minute choice for governor, the conservative commentator Tudor Dixon, who has echoed his false claims of election fraud, easily won her primary.

    6 votes
  3. [3]
    skybrian
    Link
    In boosting Trump acolytes, Democrats become what they once condemned - Megan McArdle [...] [...]

    In boosting Trump acolytes, Democrats become what they once condemned - Megan McArdle

    The DCCC intervened to help the Trumpiest candidate win — spending, in fact, more money boosting Gibbs than his own campaign did. Given the tight margins of the race, there’s a good chance its support was decisive.

    And why did it do this apparently insane thing? Why, because it thinks Gibbs will be easier to beat in November.

    [...]

    Last year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) urged the Republican Party to “take back the party,” saying, “Hey, here I am, Nancy Pelosi, saying this country needs a strong Republican Party, and we do, not a cult, but a strong Republican Party.” She was absolutely right, and yet somehow, a year later, her party is running a recruiting drive for the cultists. It’s not just Gibbs; Democrats have run the same playbook in several tight primary races, unfortunately with considerable success.

    [...]

    [P]oliticians and pundits were justifiably outraged when so many Republican politicians nonetheless kept supporting Trump. They were understandably just as lacerating about conservative pundits who made excuses for this craven capitulation. A thousand think pieces tried to pin down just exactly what combination of institutional rot and personal character flaws could lead a person, or a party, to behave like this.

    After Tuesday, however, Democrats can stop asking how Republicans could have sold out their principles and their country in a pathetic grab for some evanescent political advantage. Because now they know.

    6 votes
    1. [2]
      th0mcat
      Link Parent
      I actually had a coworker in 2016 register as a Republican and vote for Trump, with the same thought ("easier to beat"), and we all laughed because we knew it was true. Those were the days.

      I actually had a coworker in 2016 register as a Republican and vote for Trump, with the same thought ("easier to beat"), and we all laughed because we knew it was true.

      Those were the days.

      5 votes
      1. nukeman
        Link Parent
        It’s a valid, if scummy strategy. It won McCaskill her Senate re-election in 2012. But it can also end with a Trump scenario. Very much high-risk, high reward.

        It’s a valid, if scummy strategy. It won McCaskill her Senate re-election in 2012. But it can also end with a Trump scenario. Very much high-risk, high reward.

        5 votes
  4. [6]
    kfwyre
    Link
    Sandy Hook parents confront Alex Jones, say hoax claims created ‘living hell’ (Washington Post)

    Sandy Hook parents confront Alex Jones, say hoax claims created ‘living hell’ (Washington Post)

    Parents who lost their 6-year-old son in the Sandy Hook massacre confronted right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in a courthouse Tuesday, saying his claims that the deadliest elementary school shooting in U.S. history was a “giant hoax” created a “living hell” for them.

    Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, parents of Jesse Lewis, who was killed in the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Conn., are seeking $150 million in damages from the Infowars radio show and webcast host and his media company in a defamation trial.

    Heslin, who took the stand before Jones arrived at the Travis County Courthouse in Austin on Tuesday, spoke of his grief — compounded with death threats and abuse from strangers that led the parents to fear for their own lives. “I can’t even describe the last nine and a half years, the living hell that I and others have had to endure because of the recklessness and negligence of Alex Jones,” Heslin told the jury.

    5 votes
    1. [2]
      streblo
      Link Parent
      Alex Jones' lawyers accidentally handed over all of Jones' email to the lawyers representing the Sandy Hook parents. Wow. Yikes. I think we'll see more of this before we see less...

      Alex Jones' lawyers accidentally handed over all of Jones' email to the lawyers representing the Sandy Hook parents.

      Wow.

      These texts and emails are FINALLY revealing financials behind Infowars.

      Some days in 2018, InfoWars was making $800,000 a day.

      Yikes. I think we'll see more of this before we see less...

      12 votes
      1. kfwyre
        Link Parent
        Jan. 6 Committee prepares to subpoena Alex Jones’ texts, emails (Rolling Stone)

        Jan. 6 Committee prepares to subpoena Alex Jones’ texts, emails (Rolling Stone)

        On Wednesday, Sandy Hook victims’ attorney Mark Bankston told Jones that his attorney had mistakenly sent Bankston three years worth of the conspiracy theorist’s emails and text messages copied from his phone.

        Now — a source familiar with the matter and another person briefed on it tell Rolling Stone — the January 6th committee is preparing to request that data from the plaintiff attorneys in order to aid its investigation of the insurrection. These internal deliberations among the committee, which is probing former President Donald Trump’s role in causing the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot, began within minutes of the lawyer’s revelation being heard on the trial’s livestream on Wednesday afternoon.

        7 votes
    2. kfwyre
      Link Parent
      For anyone is interested in a book-length read regarding Jones, his misinformation regarding the Sandy Hook shooting, and the damage done to the families: Elizabeth Williamson's Sandy Hook: An...

      For anyone is interested in a book-length read regarding Jones, his misinformation regarding the Sandy Hook shooting, and the damage done to the families: Elizabeth Williamson's Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth is very good (fair warning: it's a genuinely tough read).

      5 votes
    3. [2]
      kfwyre
      Link Parent
      Alex Jones ordered to pay Sandy Hook parents more than $4M (Associated Press)

      Alex Jones ordered to pay Sandy Hook parents more than $4M (Associated Press)

      A Texas jury Thursday ordered conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay more than $4 million — significantly less than the $150 million being sought — in compensatory damages to the parents of a 6-year-old boy killed in the Sandy Hook massacre, marking the first time the Infowars host has been held financially liable for repeatedly claiming the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history was a hoax.

      The Austin jury must still decide how much the Infowars host should pay in punitive damages to Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose son Jesse Lewis was among the 20 children and six educators who were killed in the 2012 attack in Newtown, Connecticut.

      5 votes
      1. kfwyre
        Link Parent
        Jury awards $45.2 million in punitive damages in Alex Jones Sandy Hook trial (Reuters)

        Jury awards $45.2 million in punitive damages in Alex Jones Sandy Hook trial (Reuters)

        U.S. conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay the parents of a 6-year-old boy killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre $45.2 million in punitive damages - on top of $4.1 million in compensatory damages already awarded - for falsely claiming the shooting was a hoax, a Texas jury decided on Friday.

        7 votes