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In poll after poll over the past year, President Joe Biden’s economic plans have proven enormously popular, yet the same polls showed that barely any Americans knew what they were.

New polling from the progressive polling consortium Navigator Research finds that less than half of Americans are hearing about Biden’s economic plans. Just 15% said they had heard “a lot,” 31% reported hearing “some,” and 54% said either not much or nothing at all.

Navigator writes, “Independents and economically persuadable Americans are the least likely to have heard about the plan (65% and 67%, respectively).”

At the same time, the polling showed the economic plans of Biden and Democrats hitting an “all-time high level of support.” The Navigator question centers around Democratic efforts to expand Medicare for seniors to include hearing coverage, lower health care costs by allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices, and invest in clean energy like wind and solar power.

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But the problem all along with Biden’s Build Back Better agenda has been the fact that the massive economic package is simply too broad to message in discrete ways that were easy for most Americans to digest.

Democrats have structured several bills like this for a strategic reason: They needed to pack everything into a budget bill that could be passed by 50 Democratic senators alone, because Republicans were never going to back an economic agenda that helped Americans and was so broadly popular.

In other words, Democrats were doing their level best to deliver actual legislation that would help working families across the country. But as we all know, two recalcitrant Democratic senators have singlehandedly stymied the promise of improving the lives of tens of millions of Americans.

So it’s time for a total reset. We are now in the thick of election season, and the White House absolutely must restructure their legislative priorities in a way that shifts the burden of passage away from Democrats (48 of whom are trying to help Americans) and onto to Republicans (some 50 of whom have proven they have no desire to help Americans).

Practically speaking, that means the White House would pick several enormously popular policies—such as capping insulin prices and the child tax credit that recently expired—and take them up individually in the Senate, where they will automatically require 60 votes to pass. Moving away from the 50-vote reconciliation scheme to the 60 votes required to overcome a GOP filibuster shifts the burden of passage from Democrats to Republicans in an electoral year.

As former Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told The Focus Group podcast this week, “Look, if I was them, I would pick a fight on a few of these things. So you’re not going to get a $3.5 trillion piece of legislation, get into a fight about a larger prescription drug pricing bill, right. Run the vote on that.”

Exactly: Run the vote and get congressional Republicans voting against some very popular items, likely in lock step or close to it.

Importantly, all of the issues mentioned above can be framed around an effort to address voters’ No. 1 concern right now: inflation. The child tax credit, for instance, is an effort to help families who are struggling to pay for the rising costs of food, gas prices, and child care.

Capping insulin prices at $35 per month has the benefit of already being in process. House Democrats passed the Affordable Insulin Now Act two weeks ago, with 193 Republicans voting against it—nearly the entire GOP caucus.

Despite the bill’s unanimous Democratic support, a CBS News article summed up the next steps in the Senate this way:

For the legislation to pass Congress, 10 Republican senators would have to vote in favor. Democrats acknowledge they don’t have an answer for how that’s going to happen.

That’s where the messaging comes in: Democrats shouldn’t be answering for why Republicans won’t provide a mere 10 votes to pass popular bills through the Senate. When a reporter asks the question, Senate Democrats should respond, “Why don’t you ask Republican senators why they won’t vote for the bill?”

Senate Democrats must constantly drive home the fact that Republicans are filibustering these very popular common-sense items. But in order to do so, they must have single-issue bills and then run the vote in the Senate rather than strategically trying to attach them to some bigger bill.

Yes, it’s going to require a little showmanship and messaging discipline on the part of Democrats. But if the White House were driving the message from the top, it would trickle down through Congress and perhaps all the way into the districts and states that will ultimately decide who controls Congress in November.

The other benefit of the White House leading the fight is that it gives President Biden a chance to be out there championing policies that matter to working Americans—people he genuinely cares about. In both polling and focus groups alike, Americans constantly say they don’t hear enough from Biden, they don’t know what he’s doing, etc.

If Democrats and the White House were all singing from the same song sheet on several popular items, it would create a self-reinforcing echo chamber. Suddenly Biden wouldn’t seem so absent from the conversation because the White House messaging would be reverberating through Congress.  

Election season has begun in earnest, and Democrats must adjust to it in the legislative arena. Every day spent talking about Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona is a bad news day for Democrats and the White House.

If the White House sets its sights on two or three items specifically designed to help Americans weather inflation and then makes a spectacle of them, that would provide congressional Democrats with the contrast they need to prosecute an electoral campaign against Republicans and the big-money interests that control them.

One of Biden’s items, by the way, could be student debt relief, which the president could do by executive order. And if that executive action ends up in the courts, it’s another fight worth having on behalf of Americans struggling to emerge from crushing debt and the nation’s broken student loan system.   

On the Focus Group podcast, host Sarah Longwell noted that student debt cancellation comes up “all the time” in the Democratic focus groups. “Especially among young voters, nothing comes up more than that,” said Longwell, who routinely conducts the groups.

In short, Democrats need to show some fight, and to do so they must restructure their legislative battles in the Senate so the main feature becomes the contrast between Democrats fighting for working Americans versus Republicans protecting the interests of wealthy individuals and corporations. 

And by the way, if you want to see a real loser at the polls, GOP Sen. Rick Scott’s plan to raise taxes on roughly 100 million working Americans garners 27% support and 59% opposition in the latest Navigator survey.

That dystopian hellscape of a plan offers the perfect contrast for Democrats. Let Republicans fight over whether or not they would actually enact Scott’s 11-point plan if they regained their majorities. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has yet to articulate an alternative vision—Scott’s is the only one in writing. 

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GOP majority states are taking jab after jab on abortion rights. States across the country are passing their own versions of Heartbeat Bills or abortion bans that not only limit when abortions are possible but imprison doctors who perform them. While Texas has made headlines for its ban, Oklahoma has taken its ban even further.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Tuesday signed a bill that not only bans abortions but threatens those who perform abortions with prison time. The legislation, HB 4327, bans doctors in the state from performing abortions no matter how early in the pregnancy it is. The only exception would be if an abortion is necessary for saving a pregnant woman’s life. There is no exception for rape or incest.

“I promised Oklahomans that I would sign every pro-life bill that hits my desk and that’s what we’re doing today,” Stitt said. “We want Oklahoma to be the most pro-life state in the country. We want to outlaw abortion in the state of Oklahoma.”

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The bill “in support of protecting lives of unborn children in Oklahoma,” was first passed in the Senate last year and the House earlier this month. In addition to banning abortion, it threatens health care providers with up to 10 years in prison and a $100,000 fine, The Washington Post reported.

Oklahoma legislators have been after abortion for some time, partially due to an increase in abortion-related travel in the state. Last month, an Oklahoma Senate committee passed five anti-abortion measures, including one that barred abortion 30 days after conception, a time in which most pregnancies are not yet detected, the Associated Press reported.

The increase in abortion travel is in part to other state laws banning abortion. Daily Kos reported that Oklahoma saw a nearly 2,500% increase in Texas patients compared to the previous year after Texas’ law was enacted.

Unlike other states, the ban does not have an emergency clause that allows a bill to take effect as soon as the governor signs it. Instead, it is scheduled to take effect this summer—if the courts do not first block it.

“The ban signed today is cruel and if it takes effect this summer, will have a devastating impact on people in Oklahoma, neighboring Texans, as well as an entire region facing attacks on their rights to abortion access,” Melissa Fowler, the National Abortion Federation’s chief program officer, said in a statement, according to Reuters.

According to The Washington Post, if Oklahoma stops providing abortions, women in Texas and Oklahoma will have to seek the procedures in Arkansas, Kansas, or New Mexico. Clinics in those states are reportedly already fully booked.

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The South Dakota House of Representatives has voted to impeach state Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg in a 36-31 vote. Ravnsborg, a Republican, struck and killed a man while driving home from a Republican fundraiser on Sept.  12, 2020 but didn’t report the death until the next day, claiming that he believed his car hit a deer.

Investigators were immediately suspicious of that delay, both because it meant that Ravnsborg’s blood alcohol levels weren’t tested until long after the accident, and because Highway Patrol officers investigating the crash found the victim’s glasses inside Ravnsborg’s car. After nearly a year of delay, Ravnsborg pled no contest to misdemeanor charges, but faced no jail time. Ravnsborg had a prior history of traffic offenses and of using his position to avoid tickets when pulled over. A later investigation found evidence that he was reading a conspiracy website on his phone while driving.

Ravnsborg’s support inside the Republican-controlled House, however, continued to crumble, and when “new evidence” was presented that clarified the graphic details of “the length of time [the victim’s] body was on the AG’s car with his head inside of the AG’s car’s window,” the House reversed a March decision not to impeach. State Rep. Charlie Hoffman said the presentation by Highway Patrol officers included “irrefutable evidence” that Ravnsborg “knew exactly what he hit.” Republican Gov. Kristi Noem also called for Ravnsborg’s impeachment.

Ravnsborg will now be temporarily removed from office while the state Senate prepares for his impeachment trial. A two-thirds majority of senators will be necessary to convict him. Ravnsborg has been belligerent in his defenses, insisting both that he truly did not know that he had struck his victim and that calls for his impeachment are politically motivated.

RELATED STORIES:

GOP lawmakers consider impeaching Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg

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South Dakota attorney general pleads to misdemeanor, avoids jail time for killing man with his car

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Conservatives will do anything to attempt to control or even disrupt elections under the guise of voter fraud, aka the Big Lie and Stop the Steal.

Make no mistake: There’s a grassroots movement brewing to disenfranchise, intimidate, and criminalize Black and brown voters across the nation. If voting rights activists don’t step up, they’ll get away with it.

A prime example is taking place in Texas, where former Houston Police Department Capt. Mark Aguirre ran air conditioner repairman David Lopez off the road, held him at gunpoint, and searched and stole his truck—all because Aguirre believed Lopez was part of a massive conspiracy of secreting 750,000 fraudulent mail-in ballots, Bolts reports.

RELATED STORY: Another Republican caught voting twice in the same election. The latest is Trump aide Matt Mowers

Last year, Lopez filed a civil lawsuit against GOP activist Dr. Steven Hotze for his part in paying for and planning the violent investigation of Lopez, which resulted in Aguirre’s arrest. Hotze runs the nonprofit Liberty Center for God and Country.

According to court documents, Aguirre told police he was part of a “group of private citizens called ‘Liberty Center,’” and that the group was “conducting a civilian investigation into the alleged ballot scheme.”

According to the arrest affidavit, Aguirre told police Lopez was “using Hispanic children to sign the ballots because the children’s fingerprints would not appear in any database.”

Police officers on the scene when Lopez was stopped and searched found nothing inside the truck besides air conditioner parts and tools—exactly the kinds of items Lopez would be expected to have.

The Houston Chronicle reports that Aguirre, who was fired from the police department in 2003 after a raid gone bad, was indicted and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. During his indictment, the Harris County District Attorney’s office claimed Aguirre was paid “a total of $266,400 by the Houston-based Liberty Center for God and Country, with $211,400 of that amount being deposited into his account the day after the incident.”

“He [Aguirre] crossed the line from dirty politics to commission of a violent crime and we are lucky no one was killed … His alleged investigation was backward from the start—first alleging a crime had occurred and then trying to prove it happened,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said.

Of course, Hotze’s camp denies being behind Aguirre’s investigation.

“We would never endorse that, saying go pull someone over, put a gun up to their head and make them open up their truck,” Jared Woodfill, an attorney for Hotze, has said.

But in early April, a gala organized by Hotze and his group was held in Houston to raise money to:

• Hire private detectives to investigate, identify, and expose the criminal vote fraud scheme in Harris County and across Texas.

• Ensure that poll watchers are recruited, hired, and trained for the upcoming elections.

• Fund legal defensive and offensive efforts to Stop Vote Fraud.

• Broadcast radio messages offering rewards to those who expose individuals involved in vote fraud.

Speakers at the “Freedom Gala” were listed as conspiracy theorist and Big Lie guru Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow; GOP Party Chair Cindy Siegel; and Texas GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton.

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Paxton has a long history of working to turn back results in the 2020 presidential election, and Bolts reports that the attorney general has increased pressure to prosecute more voting-related cases, many of which involve Black and brown voters.  

The frightening thing is that it’s not just Texas launching militia-style voter fraud Gestapo.

In January, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed a militarized Office of Election Crimes and Security department that would report directly to him. And in Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp signed a law making it illegal to hand out food and water to voters standing in lines.

Gilda Daniels, litigation director for the Advancement Project and author of Uncounted: The Crisis of Voter Suppression in America tells The Appeal, “Whether it’s an armed police officer patrolling a polling place or just having a police car with lights blaring in front of a polling place, all can serve as a form of voter intimidation and certainly can have a chilling effect, particularly in Black and brown communities.”

Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas, tells the Bolts the “possibilities are kind of endless for how that could go really badly” when someone is hired to investigate based on beliefs of a stolen election.

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Maryland has become the latest state to take steps to protect its population from the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, as is expected to happen this summer. State legislators expanded abortion rights by overriding Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s veto over the weekend.

The new Maryland law expands which medical providers can perform abortions, allowing nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, and trained physician assistants in addition to doctors. It also calls for most insurance providers to cover abortion without deductibles or other costs, and puts $3.5 million into a new training program with the mandate to “expand the number of health care professionals with abortion care training and increase the racial and ethnic diversity among health care professionals with abortion care training.”

Maryland isn’t the only state making recent moves to shore up reproductive rights, though.

RELATED STORY: The forced birthers who’ve taken over the Supreme Court, Republican Party are not ‘pro-life’

Last week, Colorado passed the Reproductive Health Equity Act, which will ensure that the basic rights guaranteed by Roe continue in the state. “In the State of Colorado, the serious decision to start or end a pregnancy with medical assistance will remain between a person, their doctor, and their faith,” Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement.

“This bill simply maintains the status quo regardless of what happens at the federal level and preserves all existing constitutional rights and obligations,” Polis specified.

In Michigan, where a 1931 abortion ban is still on the books and could be enforced after the Supreme Court overturns Roe, a Republican-controlled state legislature means there’s no chance legislators will protect reproductive rights. Instead, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is suing in an effort to get the state Supreme Court to overturn the state ban.

If Roe is overturned with the state ban still in effect, Whitmer tweeted as she announced the lawsuit, “nearly 2.2 million women lose access to legal abortion. Let me put that into perspective for you. They lose their reproductive freedom, economic freedom, and are denied the right to chart their own destiny.

”No matter what happens to Roe, I am going to fight like hell and use all the tools I have as governor to ensure reproductive freedom is protected,” she added. “Today in court, I represent all those who deserve the freedom to choose their own future. That’s a fight worth having.”

Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union have also filed a lawsuit seeking to block the 1931 law from being enforced.

This shouldn’t be necessary, though. The Maryland law actually expanding abortion access would be a good thing even without the looming threat from the Trump-McConnell Supreme Court. But the purely defensive move from Colorado and the Hail Mary effort from Whitmer should not be necessary, and would not be if Republicans had not shattered norms by first holding one Supreme Court seat open for close to a year of then-President Barack Obama’s term and then rushing to fill another seat after voting had already started in the 2020 elections.

RELATED STORIES:

GOP states move from banning surgical abortions to focusing on the pill, too

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It’s incredibly difficult for me to understand a world where Senate candidate Herschel Walker—a man who’s touted a spray that kills COVID-19, lied about finishing college, and doubts evolution—could beat the incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock, senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, a Democrat, and the first Black senator elected to serve in the state. But, as I’ve reported in the past, it’s Georgia, and anything’s possible.

Walker, who is fully supported by former President Donals Trump, has raised a ton of money for his campaign and is the current GOP frontrunner. The question that has currently popped up, among others, is: Where does all of his money come from?

According to Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB), Walker’s personal financial disclosures are murky, which could make it challenging for voters to discern exactly who he’s aligned with.

RELATED STORY: ‘Why Are There Still Apes? Think About It’: Herschel Walker has his doubts about evolution

Walker’s net worth is between $29 million and $65 million, GPB reports. And his income from the end of 2020 to the end of 2021 was reportedly $4 million.

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One example of Walker’s possibly opaque reporting comes from Stephen Spaulding, a senior adviser at Common Cause, a government watchdog organization.

“According to this candidate’s financial disclosure form, no person or entity paid more than $5,000 for any services provided by him—at the same time, he disclosed an interest in an LLC valued at more than $25 million and that provides ‘business consulting and professional services,’” Spaulding told GPB. “This may raise questions for voters trying to screen for conflicts of interest who want to know more about who got what from the consulting and professional consulting firm that bears his name and pays him millions in shareholder income.”

Delaney Marsco, a senior legal counsel for ethics at the Campaign Legal Center told GPB that “The lack of sources of compensation over $5,000 definitely raises some red flags … It’s very odd that there would be somebody who has a consulting firm, has a lot of money from that consulting firm but is not reporting any clients that are paying over $5,000.”

In addition to this latest reporting, Walker has openly admitted to mental health issues, along with accusations from his ex-wife of domestic violence. According to the Associated Press, Walker also has had an ongoing issue inflating his wealth.

But beyond exaggerating or lying, Walker seems mostly unable to comprehend complex political concepts. He appeared on Fox News Sunday, calling himself a “warrior of God” and claiming that President Biden’s administration “decided to give up our energy and now we’re not energy independent anymore,” while clearly advocating for more oil drilling. Obviously, he hasn’t read or doesn’t believe the recent  climate report released on April 4 that essentially gives the planet three years to stop the worst of global warming, or else.

Meanwhile, although Walker was more than willing to chat up Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo Sunday morning, he skipped out on the first major GOP Senate debate on Saturday.

According to ArcaMax, Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black, one of Walker’s most well-known GOP opponents, called Walker’s no-show a “shame” and then brought up his domestic violence accusations, arguing that “Anyone who has put their hands on a woman, who has stalked, has threatened police with shootouts does not deserve to be in the U.S. Senate.”

Contractor and veteran Kelvin King added that “Mr. Walker not showing up and not making himself available to the people of Georgia is not serving the people of Georgia … This is an interview process and if you don’t show up for the interview process you don’t get the job.”

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been in a pitched battle with his Republican legislature for weeks over his desire for a new gerrymander that eliminates Democratic House seats with large Black representation. On Monday, the legislature gave in, ceding the map drafting to DeSantis.

DeSantis vetoed an unusual “two-map” bill that had one option that would have carved up the 5th District, held by Democratic Rep. Al Lawson Jr. It was created last time around by the state Supreme Court during redistricting litigation and has a large Black population: about 43%. The map presented to DeSantis back in February would have a 35% Black population. In case that map didn’t pass muster with the state constitution, the legislation had a backup map that preserved the 5th District but made changes elsewhere and still shuffled the population into 18 Trump districts and 10 Biden districts. DeSantis rejected that plan, insistent on obliterating this and another heavily Black and Democratic district, the 10th.

Now the legislature has given up. Senate President Wilton Simpson and state House Speaker Chris Sprowls released a statement Monday indicating that the “Legislative reapportionment staff is not drafting or producing a map for introduction during the special session.” They essentially handed the project over to DeSantis, regardless of their responsibility for redistricting under the state constitution.

RELATED STORY: Morning Digest: Florida House GOP proposes ‘two-map’ bill for Congress, but will it soothe DeSantis?

“We are awaiting a communication from the Governor’s Office with a map that he will support. Our intention is to provide the Governor’s Office opportunities to present that information before House and Senate redistricting committees,” they continued. “We look forward to working with you next week as we complete our constitutional obligation for the 2022 redistricting process.”

Lawson blasted them for “caving to the intimidation of DeSantis and his desire to create additional Republican seats in Congress by eliminating minority-access districts.”

A map already drafted by DeSantis would eliminate the 5th District as well as the 10th, another Democratic district represented by Val Demings. About 28% of its population is Black. That map, critics and the legislature said, is a clear violation of the state constitution’s Fair Districts amendment, passed by voters in 2010. It requires lawmakers to give minority communities the ability to “elect representatives of their choice.”

That could be precisely what DeSantis has in mind: using the current makeup of both the state Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court to overthrow the state amendment and the federal Voting Rights Act, or what’s left of it after previous Supreme Court eviscerations. That’s what state Rep. Joseph Geller, the ranking Democrat on the House redistricting committee, told The Washington Post is going on.

Cecile Scoon, president of the League of Women Voters Florida, condemned the legislature’s cowardice. “It’s very disappointing to see them folding their cards and abdicating their high and honorable responsibility of creating a congressional map,” Scoon said. “They want to stay on the good side of a powerful leader. People are afraid to cross him.”

A former prominent Republican strategist in the state who left the party after Trump was elected had strong words. Mac Stipanovich condemned the state Republicans for “prostrating themselves” for DeSantis. “The legislature has abdicated its responsibility, the leaders in the Republican Party in the legislature have abandoned all principle. It’s just all about maintaining and acquiring power and holding on to office,” said Stipanovich. “What we’re witnessing is a mile marker on the road to one-man rule in Florida, at least for the time being.

“This decision is a function of two things by Republicans. Their ambition, and their fear of being primaried,” Stipanovich said. “DeSantis is as powerful in Florida as Trump was and still is among Republicans nationally. When that sort of thing happens, this is what you get. Gutless, spineless, sycophancy.”

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As Daily Kos continues to cover, Texas Republicans are stomping down hard on some of the most vulnerable people in the state: trans youth. While there is (sadly) much to cover when it comes to anti-trans legislation across the nation, Texas is in a somewhat unique circumstance when it comes to the supportive families of trans youth being investigated on grounds of child abuse.

As a review, we know that Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has directed state agencies to investigate families who support trans youth receiving gender-affirming, safe, and age-appropriate medical care. Abbott’s direction is based on an opinion—which is an analysis of existing law—from Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. Some families say they’ve already been investigated, but a handful of child welfare workers for Texas Child Protective Services (TCPS) told the Texas Tribune in an interview that they’ve already resigned or are actively looking for other work because they don’t want to bend their personal ethics and carry out dirty work on behalf of evil.

RELATED: Fox News is spewing fresh queerphobia with the latest grooming accusations against LGBTQ people

Most social workers who spoke to the Tribune did so anonymously for obvious reasons. It’s a deeply difficult choice, though. On the one hand, people don’t want to investigate into families and send the message to already vulnerable children that there is something potentially wrong with them or their home. On the other hand, by leaving these roles, others may come to fill their shoes, and they might not be as accepting or affirming. And for the workers, there’s also the reality that changing jobs is not an easy feat, especially not if you’re someone who lives with any number of marginalizations that could impact your hiring process. 

One worker, however, did speak to the Tribune on the record. Morgan Davis, an openly trans man, said he ultimately joined the agency to serve as an advocate for young people. He told the outlet that his supervisors, upon assigning him one of these cases, offered to reassign it, but Davis was conflicted. 

“If somebody was going to do it,” Davis told the outlet. “I’m glad it was me.” Davis went on to share that the person who reported the family in question didn’t even agree with the directive, but reported them because of their role as a mandated reporter. He visited once and reported that the family seemed loving and the home seemed safe and clean. He noted that he saw no evidence of abuse or neglect. But that doesn’t mean the family’s case is closed. 

As Davis explained to the Tribune, as well, the family’s lawyer didn’t see it as a potential comfort that a trans man would be doing the investigation, but rather that he condones it.

“It hit me like a thunderbolt,” Davis recalled, adding that by being there “for even a split second, a child could think they’ve done something wrong.”

Shortly after this, Davis resigned, and four other people in his unit have reportedly put in resignation notices, as well. They’re far braver than most Republicans in office will ever be, but it’s up to all of us to speak up in defense of trans youth.

Sign the petition: Demand the Senate pass the Equality Act and protect the LGBTQ community from discrimination.

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While Justice-designate Ketanji Brown Jackson was vowing to recuse from a Harvard affirmative action case the U.S. Supreme Court will hear next term, walking ethics violation Clarence Thomas was supposedly recovering from whatever undisclosed illness that had him hospitalized for a week, and presumably making plans for this, his first public appearance since the illness.
 

That’s not problematic at all, right? It’s just the Supreme Court justice whose wife was egging on a Trump insurrection just a little over a year ago, hanging out with a Trump-endorsed Senate candidate, in the middle of the campaign. The tweeter there is Walker’s campaign spokesperson, who followed up with typical Republican obnoxiousness: “If you are offended that two men who happen to be Black are conservative, you might be racist.” Because of course a Republican isn’t going to be bothered by obvious political corruption.

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The event at which Thomas decided to reappear was for Walker’s award from the Horatio Alger Association, on whose board Thomas sits as an honorary member. How that happened, how Walker—the confessed domestic abuser with violent tendencies that have put him in conflict with law enforcement—qualified for an award based on “perseverance, integrity, and a commitment to excellence,” is slightly mysterious.

That Thomas would pose for a photograph with him, which was then made public by his campaign staff, is less mysterious. Thomas is a rabid partisan, as rabid as his wife, who continues to thumb his nose at the very idea that Supreme Court justices should be bound by any kind of ethics concerns. Like any other Republicans, he pretends to be deeply hurt by the mere suggestion that he’s taking his politics to work every day.

Last September, he complained about the impression that he and his fellow conservatives were playing politics on the court. This, immediately after the court decided in an unsigned, unargued, unprincipled shadow docket ruling to let Texas’s unconstitutional abortion ban continue even as it was being challenged in the courts.

“I think the media makes it sound as though you are just always going right to your personal preference,” Thomas said, at Notre Dame University in Indiana. “So if they think you are anti-abortion or something personally, they think that’s the way you always will come out. They think you’re for this or for that. They think you become like a politician.

“That’s a problem. You’re going to jeopardize any faith in the legal institutions.”

Yes, it’s the media’s fault that the hyperpartisan Supreme Court is losing legitimacy with the American public. That people are talking about reforming the Supreme Court and making it accountable. “You can cavalierly talk about packing or stacking the Court. You can cavalierly talk about doing this or doing that. At some point the institution is going to be compromised,” Thomas said at an event last month. That event? At the foundation created by former Republican Senator Orrin Hatch in Salt Lake City.

“By doing this,” Thomas said, “you continue to chip away at the respect of the institutions that the next generation is going to need if they’re going to have civil society.”

Or you just have a coup and overturn Congress and the White House, sort of like the coup that Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump achieved at the Supreme Court, and you could call it “civil society” while you systematically impose fascism.

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The Supreme Court needs to be reformed. Clarence Thomas is Exhibit A of that need. Congress needs to impose ethics standards—it has deemed itself above the rules the rest of the judiciary has to abide by. Congress needs to expand the court.

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Some of the police officers attacked by the mob former President Donald Trump incited on Jan. 6, 2021 are only now regaining greater mobility in their bodies—461 days since the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

But according to a new report by ABC, attorney for Trump John Eastman took a meeting with a Republican state assembly official in Wisconsin just a few weeks ago. While there, Eastman pushed the official to overturn the 2020 election results by “reclaiming” those electoral votes that went to President Joe Biden. 

RELATED STORY: Jan. 6 committee wrestling with criminal referral for Trump

The meeting was reportedly held on March 16 between Eastman and Robin Vos, the GOP speaker for the Wisconsin state assembly, as well as a number of pro-Trump activists, including right-wing activist Jefferson Davis. Davis has been a vocal advocate of election fraud conspiracy theories central to Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 results. 

Other attendees reportedly included Douglas Frank, a friend to pro-Trump MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell; Shawn Smith, one of Lindell’s reported financial backers; and Ivan Raiklin, a U.S. Army Reserve lieutenant colonel with close ties to Michael Flynn, Trump’s disgraced former national security adviser and Q-Anon enthusiast. Raiklin’s political advocacy put him under an internal review by the Army in December 2021.

Lindell did not attend the meeting with Eastman, Frank, Smith, and Raiklin. 

Eastman told ABC he would not discuss the meeting.

“By explicit request from Speaker Vos, that meeting was confidential, so I am not able to make any comment,” he said Tuesday. 

An attorney for Eastman did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Daily Kos, nor did Vos. 

The Jan. 6 committee declined to comment to Daily Kos on Tuesday.

For the last several months, the committee has been slogging it out in court with Eastman as he fought to keep thousands of emails away from the probe. He rebuffed an initial subpoena from the committee, but the probe maneuvered around him and subpoenaed his professional emails from his tenure at his ex-employer, Chapman University.

Ultimately, a federal judge cut Eastman’s obfuscation short and in the course of reviewing some of the attorney’s emails, found information that led him to believe Trump and Eastman “more likely than not” engaged in a federal crime by trying to stop Biden’s victory from being certified. 

Eastman’s March 16 engagement is not his first get-together with Trump allies or election fraud conspiracy theory peddlers since he was first subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee. 

As noted by ABC, a month before his appointment in Wisconsin, Eastman was in Castle Rock, Colorado, meeting with activists bent on ousting the state’s Democratic secretary, Jena Griswold. Republicans in the Colorado legislature have been stumping hard on election fraud conspiracy for weeks to reverse their defeats. 

All the while, Trump has continued to push bunk election fraud claims and call for new investigations by state officials.

A day after Eastman’s meeting with Vos, Trump issued a statement through his chief spokeswoman, Liz Harrington, on Twitter.

Vos “just said there was widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election but that the state legislature cannot do anything about it. Wrong!” Trump said on March 17. 

The twice-impeached ex-president continued: “If you rob the diamonds from a jewelry store, if you get caught, you have to give the diamonds back,  votes should be no different.” 

Trump demanded that Vos “do the right thing and correct the crime of the century—immediately.” 

Meanwhile, the government watchdog group American Oversight has successfully sued Vos for access to tens of thousands of pages of emails from the Wisconsin state assembly. The oversight group was interested in reviewing the many inquiries that were made to the assembly about the 2020 election.

On Monday, the Wisconsin Examiner reported in-depth on Vos’ communications during that time. Many of the emails had been deleted, 

Emails showed messages sent and received between Vos and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and other election fraud conspiracy theory-peddling lawyers like Victoria Toensing. 

Giuliani was subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee this Jan. 18 for his records and deposition. The former New York City mayor was often the public face of Trump’s plan to install “alternate electors”  and according to at least one prosecutor in the 2020 election battleground state of Michigan, Giuliani also pressured him to seize voting machines and send them to Trump’s team.