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The embarrassing Republican backlash against companies that have dared to speak out against voter suppression continues apace, with a flurry of threats, false equivalencies, and weird Twitter threads asserting that Stephen Miller is a human man who loves baseball. “I will never forget consuming Cracker (consults notes) Jack at that beloved American pastime, ‘The Bat Game.’”
- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is nothing if not a relentless defender of companies’ First Amendment right to express themselves by dumping millions of dollars into elections. On Tuesday, McConnell made the spectacular argument that corporate free speech simply should not extend as far as, uh, speech: “My warning to corporate America is to stay out of politics. I’m not talking about political contributions.” Shut up and pay up, or Americans might have to enjoy a baseball game where Stephen Miller isn’t casting an evil pall across the field.
- The problem is, corporations have indeed been paying up. A new report from the watchdog group Public Citizen found that state legislators pushing voter suppression laws have raked in over $50 million in corporate donations since 2015—including $22 million in the 2020 campaign cycle. AT&T was the most prolific corporate donor, and while it shut off the tap for members of Congress who tried to overturn the election after January 6, the company has refused to commit to withholding donations from state lawmakers trying to steal the next one.
- Laws are a little subtler than violent insurrections, and Republicans are doing their best to muddy the waters about what makes these bills unacceptable in an effort to keep that cash flowing. After MLB announced that it would move the 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver in response to Georgia’s new law, conservatives seized on the fact that Colorado also has election laws. Colorado has a voter ID requirement too, and two fewer early voting days than Georgia will have! Surely this is incontrovertible proof that Georgia’s new restrictions are Not Actually Bad?
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Well, no.
- There’s no genuine comparison here. Yes, Colorado has an ID requirement for in-person voting, but a) it’s nowhere near as strict as Georgia’s, and b) the new restriction at issue is a strict ID requirement for mail-in voting. Colorado’s early voting period is slightly shorter, but Colorado is a state where 99 percent of voters vote by mail, and have an extremely easy time doing it. Also, Colorado doesn’t allow Democratic officials to toss out Republican ballots willy nilly. Add in the fact that Georgia’s new law was founded entirely on Donald Trump’s Big Lie, and you’ve got Peter Doocy looking like a real fuckin’ doofus in the White House briefing room.
- Even with this level of dishonesty around the state-level war on voting rights, guess who’s still holding out for Senate Republicans to do the right thing? Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) has re-upped her defense of the filibuster: “When you have a place that’s broken and not working, and many would say that’s the Senate today, I don’t think the solution is to erode the rules...I think the solution is for senators to change their behavior.” Okay! You go first?
While Republicans test new, dishonest spin about their voter-suppression efforts, Democrats’ lone recourse remains unchanged: The Senate parliamentarian has approved Democrats’ plan to circumvent the filibuster to pass much of President Biden’s agenda, but H.R.1 can’t pass through budget reconciliation. To save democracy, it’s still very much reform the filibuster or bust.
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This week on Takeline, hosts Jason Concepcion and Renee Montgomery discuss the impact of the MLB pulling the All-Star game and MLB draft out of Atlanta in response to the restrictive voting law SB202. Then, they’re joined by director and writer Travon Free to chat about his recent Oscar nomination.
Give it a listen and subscribe to Takeline on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts →
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A former Trump official who tricked people into appearing in an RNC video has been (gently) penalized for violating the Hatch Act. Lynne Patton, whom Trump appointed to a top post at the Department of Housing and Urban Development based on her work experience as a Trump-family event planner, has been fined $1,000 and banned from federal employment for 48 months. Patton helped produce a video that aired at last summer’s Republican National Convention, featuring New York public housing tenants who did not know they were participating in an RNC video, and whose interviews were misleadingly edited to make them seem like Trump supporters. While it’s pleasantly startling to see any Trump administration official face repercussions for boosting the Trump campaign in their official capacity, Patton’s punishment boils down to...not being allowed to serve in the Biden administration? And what about the Trump officials who arranged for that convention to take place at that obscure little federal outpost, the White House? This lone wrist-slap might not be the most powerful deterrent of future violations.
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- The GOP-controlled Arkansas legislature voted to override Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson's veto on an extreme anti-trans bill, making Arkansas the first state to ban gender-affirming health care for trans youth. A true abomination. The ACLU has pledged to challenge the law in court.
- Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) privately asked the Trump White House for blanket pre-emptive pardons for himself and some unidentified congressional allies, as perfectly innocent people are wont to do.
- Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) banned government-mandated vaccine passports in Texas, as White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki ruled out the possibility of government-mandated vaccine passports.
- Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) has died, at 84. Hastings was Florida’s longest-serving member of Congress.
- A Navy hospital corpsman shot and seriously injured two Navy sailors near Fort Detrick in Maryland. Police shot and killed the gunman when he drove onto the base and brandished a weapon.
- On Monday and Tuesday in the Derek Chauvin trial, top-ranking police officials testified that Chauvin’s use of force on George Floyd was unnecessary and went against his training—an unusual instance of police officers cracking the “blue wall of silence” to provide evidence against one of their own.
- Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) has re-upped her call for Biden to replace the whole USPS Board of Governors over its complicity in Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s harmful new policies.
- Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been transferred to a prison sick ward for a respiratory illness, and tested for coronavirus. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin has signed a law paving the way for him to run for two more terms, and potentially remain in power until 2036.
- San Francisco will pause its public-school renaming project, amid continuing controversy and lawsuits.
- A group stole a Confederate monument in Selma, AL, and will turn it into a toilet unless its demands are met. On Friday, The United Daughters of the Confederacy must hang up a banner bearing the quote, “The rulers of this country have always considered their property more important than our lives,” and leave it up for 24 hours, or it’s toilet time.
- Yahoo Answers will disappear forever on May 4, and with it, perhaps the richest collection of terrible questions in human history. Find a quiet moment to light a candle, rend a garment, and type into Yahoo Answers, "Feel sad about website,.,could I am be pregnant??/3/?"
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The Biden administration has taken a series of new steps to combat domestic terrorism, following last month’s intelligence report warning of an increased threat of violence from militias and white nationalist groups. That effort involves multiple federal agencies. The Department of Homeland Security designated domestic extremism a “national priority area” for the first time this year, opening up more funds for efforts to track groups that pose a threat. Biden has revamped a group focused on domestic extremism at the National Security Council, and Attorney General Merrick Garland, who helped investigate the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, has said the Justice Department will prioritize domestic-extremism cases. National security leaders have also begun meeting with officials from the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Education, and Health and Human Services, presumably to develop prevention strategies. Amazing what kinds of actions are possible when the president acknowledges a problem exists.
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President Biden has bumped up the deadline to make all adults eligible for the coronavirus vaccine to April 19. That's this month! The current one!
Nearly 80 percent of teachers, school staff, and childcare workers have received at least one vaccine dose.
New York leaders have reached a tentative agreement to raise taxes on the city’s wealthiest residents.
The Atlanta-based organization Love Beyond Walls has installed portable sanitation units for people experiencing homelessness in 52 cities during the pandemic.
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