Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of April 10

From a week ago:

Liberals take over Wisconsin Supreme Court — with major implications for abortion (Politico)

Liberals flipped the ideological makeup of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court on Tuesday. Janet Protasiewicz’s win in a high-stakes race for an open court seat means the new 4-3 majority is much more likely to strike down a controversial 19th century abortion ban there.

Protasiewicz, a liberal judge from Milwaukee County, won her race, 56.9% to 43.1%, when the Associated Press called the race at 9:53 pm. She defeated conservative former state Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly. The court is technically nonpartisan, but now has a 4-3 liberal majority through at least 2025.

[…]

The race was the most expensive state judicial race in American history. As of late last week, over $45 million has been spent on the contest, according to WisPolitics.com.

That is roughly three times the previous record.

The election will have wide-sweeping effects on the state, including, in the nearest-term, access to abortion in Wisconsin. The state has a 1840s law on the books that bans abortion in nearly all instances in the state. State Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, has brought a lawsuit challenging that law in state court that is widely expected to eventually land in front of the state Supreme Court.

In Tennessee, second expelled Black Democratic lawmaker is reappointed (Washington Post)

Justin Pearson, one of two Black Democratic lawmakers expelled by Republican state representatives for leading a gun-control protest on the Tennessee House floor, was reappointed to the office Wednesday, returning to his seat after a tumultuous week that deepened partisan rancor in the state and transformed the pair into national political figures.

[...]

In what some observers viewed as a nod to demonstrators’ demands, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) on Tuesday signed an executive order strengthening background checks for gun purchases and called on state lawmakers to pass a red-flag law that would temporarily remove guns from people deemed dangerous.

China rehearses Taiwan blockade as US deploys destroyer

https://www.dw.com/en/china-rehearses-taiwan-blockade-as-us-deploys-destroyer/a-65269953

NPR to quit Twitter after being labelled ‘state-affiliated media’
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/apr/12/npr-leaves-twitter-elon-musk-state-media

National Public Radio (NPR) said on Wednesday it will no longer post fresh content to its 52 official Twitter feeds after the US organization was labeled as “state-affiliated media” by the social media platform.

Twitter was not immediately available for comment. Prior to a takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk, the label was reserved for propaganda networks like Russia’s RT and China’s Xinhua News Agency.

NPR is a nonprofit media organization, based in Washington, that syndicates more than 1,000 local public radio stations across the US.

The majority of NPR’s funding comes from corporate and individual supporters and grants. The organization also receives programming fees from various member stations. The member stations receive about 13% of their funds from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other state and federal government sources, NPR said.

“The whole point isn’t whether or not we’re government funded,” said the organization’s CEO, John Lansing. “Even if we were government funded, which we’re not, the point is the independence, because all journalism has revenue of some sort.”

“NPR receives public funding, but is not state-controlled, meaning Twitter’s listing could pose risks for journalists reporting from areas where suggestions of government affiliation have negative connotations,” he said.

Leaker of U.S. secret documents worked on military base, friend says (Washington Post)

It's a long interview with a member of the Discord group that received the classified documents:

The man behind a massive leak of U.S. government secrets that has exposed spying on allies, revealed the grim prospects for Ukraine’s war with Russia and ignited diplomatic fires for the White House is a young, charismatic gun enthusiast who shared highly classified documents with a group of far-flung acquaintances searching for companionship amid the isolation of the pandemic.

United by their mutual love of guns, military gear and God, the group of roughly two dozen — mostly men and boys — formed an invitation-only clubhouse in 2020 on Discord, an online platform popular with gamers. But they paid little attention last year when the man some call “OG” posted a message laden with strange acronyms and jargon. The words were unfamiliar, and few people read the long note, one of the members explained. But he revered OG, the elder leader of their tiny tribe, who claimed to know secrets that the government withheld from ordinary people.

[...]

In those initial posts, OG had given his fellow members a small sip of the torrent of secrets that was to come. When rendering hundreds of classified files by hand proved too tiresome, he began posting hundreds of photos of documents themselves, an astonishing cache of secrets that has been steadily spilling into public view over the past week, disrupting U.S. foreign policy and aggravating America’s allies.

This account of how detailed intelligence documents intended for an exclusive circle of military leaders and government decision-makers found their way into and then out of OG’s closed community is based in part on several lengthy interviews with the Discord group member, who spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity. He is under 18 and was a young teenager when he met OG. The Post obtained consent from the member’s mother to speak to him and to record his remarks on video. He asked that his voice not be obscured.

His account was corroborated by a second member who read many of the same classified documents shared by OG, and who also spoke on the condition of anonymity. Both members said they know OG’s real name as well as the state where he lives and works but declined to share that information while the FBI is hunting for the source of the leaks. The investigation is in its early stages, and the Pentagon has set up its own internal review led by a senior official.

[...]

The member estimated that the server hosted people from Europe, Asia and South America. “Just about every walk of life.” Of the roughly 25 active members who had access to the bear-vs-pig channel, about half were located overseas, the member said. The ones who seemed most interested in the classified material claimed to be from mostly “Eastern Bloc and those post-Soviet countries,” he said. “The Ukrainians had interest as well,” which the member chalked up to interest in the war ravaging their homeland.

[...]

All winter, OG uploaded documents to the server. No one talked about sharing them elsewhere. Then, unbeknown to the group, on Feb. 28, another teenage user from the Thug Shaker Central server began posting several dozen photographs showing classified documents on another Discord server affiliated with the YouTuber “wow_mao.” Some of the documents offered detailed assessments of Ukraine’s defense capabilities and showed how far U.S. intelligence could see into Russia’s military command.

I expect it won't be too long before many of them are arrested.