Crooked Media - What A Day: Don't suppress with Texas

Dozens of Democratic state lawmakers have put themselves at risk of arrest to fight back against the GOP assault on voting rights, in the hopes that two Senate Democrats might mirror their courage by putting themselves at risk of doing their jobs.
 

• Texas Democrats once again staged a walkout to deny Republicans the quorum they need to vote on their voter-suppression bill, this time with a dramatic exodus across state lines. Whereas in May Democrats were able to leave the House floor in the final hours of the regular session and simply head home, the current walkout requires them to flee the state for the entirety of the 30-day special session, or risk being rounded up by the Texas Rangers and hauled back to the State Capitol.
   
• At least 58 of the 67 state House Democrats agreed to skip town to block the legislation. The majority of them boarded a pair of chartered flights from Austin to Washington, DC, on Monday, with the aim of using their spotlight to pressure Senate Democrats to do something—anything—to protect voting rights. They’re not the only ones bringing the issue back to the forefront: President Biden is set to deliver a major address on voting rights in Philadelphia on Tuesday, at which he’s expected to push back on the Big Lie and denounce GOP voter-suppression laws as “authoritarian.”
   
• Texas Republicans advanced their anti-voting/pro-voter-intimidation bill over the weekend, and if not for the walkout, it would have come to a vote later this week. Democrats’ departure has also brought all other Texas legislative business to a halt, preventing Republicans from passing several far-right culture-war measures that would restrict trans kids’ participation in school sports, limit how teachers can discuss racism, make abortion pills harder to access, lash out at social media “censorship,” and more.

If Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) aren’t moved by walkouts and presidential speeches, they might consider listening to the smug chuckling across the aisle.
 

• In a video posted to Twitter on Friday, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), and Bryon Donalds (R-FL) credited Smanchinema with enabling GOP obstruction by refusing to abolish the filibuster, and encouraged conservative activists to call their offices and thank them for blocking Democrats from carrying out the will of a majority of voters. Straight from the horse’s ass’s mouth, if you will.
   
• Manchin and Sinema might also consider watching any 10-second clip of the weekend’s CPAC conference in Dallas, at which Donald Trump continued to tell toxic election lies and overwhelmingly won the straw poll for the 2024 GOP presidential nominee. In a Fox News interview ahead of his CPAC speech, Trump described insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt as an “innocent, wonderful, incredible woman,” and put a target on the back of the officer who shot her, falsely claiming that he was part of a Democrat’s security detail.

One of the two major U.S. political parties has pledged fealty to an authoritarian leader, exiling any members who attempt a course correction from within. Outside action is required. For Texas Democrats, that means leaving the state en masse; for Senate Democrats, it means ending the filibuster immediately, and making sure Americans know why.

This week on Lovett or Leave It, New York Times bestselling authors Ronan Farrow and Jia Tolentino join to talk about their investigation into the Britney Spears conservatorship and some of the larger lessons it offers. Never miss an episode of Lovett or Leave it by subscribing to the Crooked Media YouTube channel!

Here’s one more reason Democrats might not want to ignore the democratic emergency at hand and run on their policy successes alone: Voters largely haven’t got a clue about what those successes are. The pro-Biden PAC Unite the Country sent Democrats a June strategy memo warning that key swing-state voters in focus groups had internalized right-wing disinformation about the American Rescue Plan, in spite of Biden’s visits around the country to tout the legislation and ad campaigns to help get the message out. Democrats can continue educating voters on the ARP and Biden’s infrastructure agenda ahead of the midterms, but so far, it would appear they’re getting drowned out by Republicans shrieking “critical race theory.” Good policies, no matter how popular, may not be enough to keep the House.

• The FDA has added a new warning to the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine, saying it can lead to an increased risk of Guillain–Barré syndrome, a rare neurological condition. Around 100 suspected cases have been reported, out of 12.8 million J&J recipients in the U.S.
   
• Republican governors did not improve the labor markets in their states by cutting off enhanced unemployment benefits early, according to new JPMorgan research. 
   
• Far-right extremist congressional candidate Nick Taurus instigated violence at a town hall meeting for Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) on Sunday. Taurus had invited supporters to come “CONFRONT KATIE PORTER!” in an Instagram post, and was among the people throwing punches. 
   
• Israel has begun offering a third Pfizer vaccine dose to immunocompromised adults, and Pfizer met with U.S. health officials on Monday to make its case for a booster shot. 
   
• The EPA approved the use of forever chemicals in fracking back in 2011, in spite of the agency’s own concerns that the chemicals could “persist in the environment” and “be toxic to people, wild mammals, and birds.”
   
• A federal judge signaled probable sanctions for Sidney Powell, Lin Wood, and other members of the illustrious Kraken legal team (one of whom was openly weeping in court) during a chaotic six-hour hearing. Wood did his best to distance himself from the fake-fraud legal effort entirely.
   
• An advisor for Turning Point USA named “Rip McIntosh” runs a stunningly racist newsletter, if you can believe it. 
   
• Western states broke all kinds of temperature records over the weekend, with Death Valley, California reaching 130-degrees Fahrenheit.
   
• Three Black English soccer players have been flooded with racist abuse on social media after the team’s loss to Italy in Sunday’s Euro 2020 final. 
   
• Virgin Galactic owner Richard Branson flew to the edge of space on Sunday, narrowly beating out Jeff Bezos in the Vain Billionaire Not-Quite-Space Race.
   
• Tilda Swinton pranked Timothée Chalamet and it somehow didn't involve either of them transforming into a rare bird.

Thousands of Cubans took to the streets on Sunday to protest food and medicine shortages amid rising coronavirus case numbers, in the country’s largest protest movement in nearly 30 years. President Biden said on Monday that the U.S. stands "with the Cuban people and their clarion call for freedom.” But Biden has yet to reverse the Trump administration’s last-minute tightening of the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba, which has exacerbated the shortages. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, urged Biden to lift those Trump-era sanctions, renewing calls to do so from 80 House Democrats back in March.

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The Biden administration will begin sending out the first monthly payments to families with children this week.

Chantale Wong has become the first openly gay woman nominated to an ambassador-level position in U.S. history.

Charlottesville, VA, has ditched the statue of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson that was at the center of 2017’s Unite the Right rally. (Enjoy.)

Former Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-SC) announced a plan to legalize recreational marijuana in South Carolina, if he’s elected governor.