U.S. Politics

[Rick Plant]

Judge rejects pro-Lauren Boebert group's attempt to boot her Republican opponent off the ballot



On Thursday, The Colorado Sun reported that a Denver District Judge Alex Myers has shot down a legal challenge from a group supportive of Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) trying to disqualify her Republican primary opponent, state Sen. Don Coram, from the ballot.

"A lawsuit filed by a group that includes a man who has tried to discredit Coram and another who has donated to Boebert’s campaign alleged that 390 of the 1,568 petition signatures submitted by Coram and accepted by the Secretary of State’s Office were flawed. If the judge agreed, Coram would have fallen below the 1,500-signature threshold he needed to meet to make the primary ballot," reported Jesse Paul of The Colorado Sun.

"But Myers, in a 14-page ruling, found that only 19 of the signatures accepted by the Secretary of State’s Office should have been rejected, not enough to disqualify Coram from the primary."

One of the people behind the group, David "Dee" Laird, has attacked Coram for using signatures to qualify for the ballot at all, rather than going through the caucus system, writing two local letters to newspapers on the matter.

"Before being cajoled into signing his petition, voters should take a few moments to educate themselves and do their own background check on Coram. Check out corruptcoram.com,' Laird wrote in both letters," said the report.

"Corruptcoram.com is a website created by Boebert’s campaign to dubiously attack Coram, who is also from Montrose, over his work on hemp policy at the Colorado Capitol, calling it self-dealing because the state lawmaker once cultivated hemp himself."

Coram has spoken out against Boebert, an ally of former President Donald Trump, attacking her for "embarrassing juvenile antics" and "cheap political tricks."

https://coloradosun.com/2022/04/28/lauren-boebert-primary-don-coram-proceeds/

[Rick Plant]

2022 Generic Congressional Ballot Poll:

Democrats 44% (+4)
Republicans 40%

@YouGovAmerica/@YahooNews ~ 1,187 RV ~ 4/19-4/22
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/v4b3724q7j/20220422_yahoo_toplines.pdf

[Rick Plant]

These two right wing trolls are a total embarrassment to the GOP. Neither one of them has ever voted for a bill that's helped their constituents. All they are focused on is to create controversy and to ask for campaign donations.   

Warring Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert had to be separated at GOP conference



According to a report from Politico's Olivia Beavers, despite all outward appearances, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are at odds with each other, with the Colorado Republican unhappy she is mentioned in the same breath as her Georgia colleague.

In a deep dive into squabbles that are pulling apart the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus, Beavers reports that at a recent conference the two had to be separated.

According to the report, "Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert look from the outside like MAGA twins, both loathed by Democrats for their incendiary right-wing rhetoric. But inside the House GOP, they’re not quite buddy-buddy."

The report notes that Boebert fits in more with the thinking of her Republican colleagues ("a team player") and she joined many of them in being furious with Greene over her appearance at a white nationalist conference well months ago.

As Beavers wrote, when the House Freedom Caucus board of directors gathered last month at its usual spot a few blocks from the Capitol, the two tangled over Greene’s appearance at a February event organized by a known white nationalist."

"Their confrontation grew so heated that at least one onlooker feared the Greene-Boebert back-and-forth might escalate beyond the verbal cage match had another board member not stepped in to de-escalate, according to a GOP lawmaker who was granted anonymity to describe what happened," Politico reports.

"The incident was confirmed by three people connected to the Freedom Caucus, whose members largely avoided public criticism of Greene and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) at the time and focused their discontent on the event organizer, Nick Fuentes," the report added.

Read more here: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/29/house-republican-freedom-caucus-challenges-00023071

[Rick Plant]

Anti-Trump Ohio Republican rising in polls



Much of the attention on the Ohio Republican gubernatorial primary has been focused on J.D. Vance and former President Donald Trump's endorsement of his candidacy.

But with just a few days to go before the May 3 primary, the GOP candidate experiencing a surge in the polls is the only one who hasn't made the journey to Mar-a-Lago to get in Trump's good graces: state Sen. Matt Dolan.

Politico reports that while Vance is leading the most recent Fox News poll, Dolan is gaining ground on Vance and in fact placed first in a different survey by Blueprint Polling, besting Vance 18 percent to 17 percent. That poll found no GOP candidate with support by more than 20 percent of Buckeye voters and more than a third are still undecided.

After Dolan's rise in the polls this week, Trump released a statement saying that the state senator is "not fit" to serve in the U.S. Senate and take over the seat of retiring Sen. Bob Portman.

The new polling suggests that Trump's status as Republican Party kingmaker is not as potent as the former president would have you believe.

Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist who lives out of state but donated $250 to Dolan’s campaign in October, said this about Dolan to Politico: “I think there’s mounting evidence that he’s in a scenario where he’s running up the middle, unmolested, with a unique message and some things in his favor. Does it mean he has a lock on the race? No way. But it’s a competitive race, and he’s in it. He’s got the momentum, as of last week.”

Dolan said in an interview, “When I made my decision to get into the race, I knew that it was going to be a tough slog, at least publicly, for a while. I knew that I would not be doing well in the polls until much, much later in the campaign. I think it’s playing out as I thought it was going to play out.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/29/trump-says-matt-dolan-is-not-fit-for-ohios-senate-seat-hes-gaining-ground-anyway-00028824

[Rick Plant]

Madison Cawthorn scandal exposes how the GOP depends on right-wing media to delude their base
https://www.rawstory.com/madison-cawthorn-scandal-exposes-how-the-gop-depends-on-right-wing-media-to-delude-their-base/

Republicans never liked Madison Cawthorn — and now they're trying to destroy him



Republicans have had enough of first-term Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) and are ready to send him packing after just two years.

Cawthorn's troubles began last month when he claimed that people he admired had invited him to an orgy and used cocaine in front of him, and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy turned against the North Carolina congressman and damaging leaks started coming out as he faces a primary battle against establishment candidates, reported Independent correspondent Eric Garcia.

"The opposition research about him now falling off the back of the GOP truck is prodigious," Garcia wrote. "But the real question is why Cawthorn is the target, particularly given there are equally controversial members in the caucus, including some who, like him, helped incite a literal insurrection."

While the cocaine orgies make for a lurid topic for gossip, the truth is that Republicans never really liked Cawthorn in the first place and were saddled with him because Mark Meadows resigned from that congressional seat to become Donald Trump's chief of staff and got the former president to endorse family friend Lynda Bennett, who flopped.

“The original sin in all of this is the son of a b**ch Mark Meadows,” a Republican source told Garcia, "[for] the way he blocked those other legislators from running."

Cawthorn also irked the GOP establishment in North Carolina by moving to a newly drawn congressional district, which was eventually struck down by the state Supreme Court, and returned to run in his old district as state House speaker Tim Moore was considering a run himself.

"If Cawthorn does lose," Garcia concluded, "it will be because enough Republicans didn’t like how he p*ssed all over them – and they intend to make sure it ends with him soiling himself."

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/madison-cawthorn-republican-cocaine-primary-b2068354.html


Madison Cawthorn is a 'monster of Republicans' own creation' -- and he won't be the last: columnist

According to the Washington Post's Dana Millbank, the leadership of the Republican Party would like to see Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) go away so they won't have to answer for his almost daily antics including repeatedly being stopped for speeding while driving on an expired license to trying to take guns on planes to blurting out stories about drug-fueled conservative orgies in Washington D.C.

As the longtime political observer notes, even if voters in Cawthorn's district oust him -- there will be more Cawthorn's coming down the pike in the upcoming midterm election and elections beyond November.

With Cawthorn vying for media attention with fellow freshman House members Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, Millbank suggested that North Carolina Republican's extracurricular activities are proving to be more than mainstream lawmakers are willing to put up with.

However, those same lawmakers are the same ones who not only made a "monster" like Cawthorn possible in the first place but eased the path to him winning in 2020.

"Ousting Cawthorn in his May primary won’t cure this Republican illness; the North Carolina congressman is just a symptom," the Washington Post columnist wrote. "More than 50 QAnon believers have run for Congress as Republicans in 2022, the liberal watchdog Media Matters reports. Several who participated in the events of Jan. 6, 2021, have run for Congress. If Republicans succeed in taking the House in November, the new majority could make the current Congress — with Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert and the rest — look like Periclean Athens."

The reason for the rise of what a "Morning Joe" panel on Friday called the "lunatic fringe" taking over the party, is a culmination of years of increasingly incendiary rhetoric along with changes at the state level where gerrymandering has created unassailable GOP districts, Millbank said.

"Cawthorn and the many rising oddballs and extremists are the inevitable result of Republican leaders’ choices: drawing increasingly uncompetitive districts, blessing unlimited dark money, exercising timid leadership, embracing disinformation, flirting with white nationalism, stoking conspiracies and undermining elections," he wrote.

The columnist claims the North Carolina Republican understood the prevailing winds and took advantage of it as far back as 2015 when he told a newspaper, "I absolutely will run for Congress," with Millbank pointedly adding, "And so he did, on the basis of audacious lies and winks at white nationalists."

Listing off a varied selection of controversies Cawthorn has enmeshed himself in -- including accusations of sexual improprieties -- the Washington Post columnist claimed Republicans still haven't learned their lesson with some GOP leaders backing his re-election because he received the nod from former president Donald Trump.

As he put it: "Now that their young gun is going off half-cocked, Republicans have only themselves to blame."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/29/madison-cawthorn-republicans-created-guns-photos/

[Rick Plant]

Republicans' rush to block Biden from forgiving student debt backfires



Over the last two years, Republicans argued that President Biden, who made a campaign promise to cancel student debt, does not have legal authority to fulfill that pledge, insisting that the tens of millions of Americans currently crushed by student loans should be forced to pay them down. But now, amid new reports that Biden is considering a partial jubilee, Republicans are backing a bill that would prevent the president from pulling the trigger – a tacit acknowledgment Biden appears to have the power to finally make good on his promise.

On Wednesday, five Senate Republicans introduced the "Stop Reckless Student Loans Action Act," a measure that would end Biden's ability to continue suspending debt payments (for debtholders of a certain income) and prohibit the president from canceling the debt altogether in the case of a national emergency.

The bill's sponsors – Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., Richard Burr, R-N.C., Mike Braun, R-Ind., Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Roger Marshall, R-Kansas – have attempted to frame the measure as a bulwark for American taxpayers.

"As Americans continue to return to the workforce more than two years since the pandemic began, it is time for borrowers to resume repayment of student debt obligations," Thune said in a statement. "Taxpayers and working families should not be responsible for continuing to bear the costs associated with this suspension of repayment. This common-sense legislation would protect taxpayers and prevent President Biden from suspending federal student loan repayments in perpetuity."

Braun has meanwhile claimed that a jubilee would force people without college degrees to "pick up the tab" for graduates.

"This transfer of wealth is not a move to 'advance equity,' but rather a taxpayer handout to appease far-left activists," he said.

The Republican-led measure comes just weeks after Biden extended his student loan repayment pause for the sixth time over the course of his administration. According to the Federal Reserve, Biden has saved borrowers, who hold roughly $1.7 trillion debt, about $5 billion in interest a month. Those savings have been a lifeline for over 40 million student debtholders, 11.1% of whose loans prior to the pandemic were in default or delinquent by at least 90 days.

Toward the beginning of Biden's presidency, many Republicans and establishment Democrats were adamant that the president could not forgive student debt by executive order. Some experts suggested that only Congress could rubber-stamp such a move, in part because it was the legislature – not the president – that appropriated the funds loaned out to borrowers.

But now, with the GOP waging a pre-emptive counteroffensive amid reports that Biden might relieve the debt, there's more reason to believe that the president has that very authority, as The American Prospect's David Dayen wrote this week.

"There would be no need for such [the GOP's] bill if there was not already authority granted by Congress to the executive branch to suspend, defer, or cancel student loan payments," Dayen argued. "The bill represents an effort to claw that authority back, or at the very least clarify the statute to remove all doubt."

Republicans appear to be targeting provisions contained within the HEROES Act of 2003, an amendment to the Higher Education Act that "allows the secretary of education to waive or modify any requirement or regulation applicable to the student financial assistance programs" in a time of national emergency.

The Stop Reckless Student Loans Action Act would prohibit the president from using the HEROES Act to pause repayments for any longer than 90 days. It would also means-test these pauses and make them subject to the Congressional Review Act, an esoteric law that allows the legislature to overturn actions taken by federal agencies, like the Department of Education.

To be sure, it's unlikely that the Stop Reckless Student Loans Action Act will be approved by a Democratic-majority Senate, paving the way for Biden to leverage the HEROES act without opposition. But even then, Biden will undoubtedly face a deluge of legal challenges, which could stop a jubilee in its tracks.

At present, very little legal precedent exists on whether Biden has the unilateral power to forgive student debt. No president before him has attempted the move, and "no court has considered where the outer boundaries of the Secretary's HEROES Act authorities lie," as the Congressional Research Services wrote last year.

Luke Herrine, Yale Law Ph.D. who has studied the legality around a potential jubilee, describes the predicament as "a vague terrain."

"Who would sue? I mean, that's the real question," Herrine said. "The [debt] servicers are probably the most plausible, but there are a number of problems with them having standing [...] They are not guaranteed any amounts of payments under their contracts with the Department of Education, so it's not really clear what their claim is."

There's also the question of whether sweeping debt relief would qualify as a mere "modification" or "waiver," as the Congressional Research Services noted. In the 1992 case MCI Telecommunications Corp. v. AT&T, the Supreme Court declined to defer to the Federal Communications Commission's interpretation of what the company felt was a modification to its tariff policies.

"If a court deemed the HEROES Act sufficiently analogous to the statute in MCI, it might conclude that the power to 'modify any statutory or regulatory provision applicable to the' Title IV programs likewise does not authorize the Secretary to make fundamental changes to statutes or regulations," the Congressional Research Services wrote.

And all of this legal analysis, Herrin said, will have to be weighed against the "political calculus" of issuing a jubilee whose economic implications are still ill-defined.

"First of all, do we think this is good policy? Is it regressive or is it progressive? Is it good politically?" Herrine explained. "I think that's the calculus that's really changed over the past few months."

Biden's pause on student debt repayments is set to expire on May 1. On Monday, Biden indicated to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus that he is open to both extending the repayment suspension and wiping away a portion of the debt, according to The Washington Post.

"I feel very confident that he is pushing on his team to do something, and to do something significant," Rep. Tony Cárdenas, D-Calif., a member of the caucus, told the Post. "That's my feeling.

https://www.rawstory.com/republicans-rush-to-block-biden-from-forgiving-student-debt-backfires/

[Rick Plant]

Marjorie Taylor Greene rebuked by right-wing Christians for attack on Catholic Church



Conservative Christians are quickly piling on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who this week accused churches that help resettle undocumented immigrants of being controlled by Satan.

Prominent right-wing pundits and Catholic organizations alike castigated the freshman GOP congresswoman from Georgia.

Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, called Greene "a disgrace," saying that "she slandered the entire Catholic Church."

"Satan is controlling the Catholic Church? She needs to apologize to Catholics immediately," Donohue said in the statement. "We are contacting House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy about this matter. He's got a loose cannon on his hands."

Donohue's remarks are in reaction to an interview Greene gave with the Church Militant, a Christian news organization, last week, first reported on by Salon's Kathryn Joyce.

"The church is not doing its job, and it's not adhering to the teachings of Christ," she claimed, speaking of churches that help undocumented people.

Her comments drew immediate backlash from a number of conservative religious leaders, including the right-wing radio host Erick Erickson.

"It is inexcusable to accuse the Christian community of being controlled by Satan for stepping up to help immigrants, illegal aliens, and refugees the United States government, not the church, has allowed into this country," Erickson tweeted.

James J. Martin SJ, a priest and the editor-at-large of the Jesuit magazine America, also condemned the freshman lawmaker.

"Marjorie Taylor Greene thinks the Catholic Church is controlled by Satan. She also believes that caring for the stranger is 'perverting the Gospel,'" Martin tweeted. "Jesus disagrees, saying that caring for the stranger *is* the Gospel (Mt 25). I'll side with Jesus."

Greene, herself a Christian, has since walked back her remarks, claiming that she was rebuking church leadership rather than the Catholic Church writ large.

"I refuse to use kinder, gentler language as Bill Donohue might prefer when I talk about his disgusting and corrupt friends, who have made him rich with the donations from ordinary churchgoing Catholics," she added.

It isn't the first time Greene has made controversial remarks about religion. Back in December, the Georgia Republican expressed a desire to "restore" America's Christian principles. That same month, Greene denounced Kwanza as a "fake religion created by a psychopath."

https://www.salon.com/2022/04/27/marjorie-taylor-greene-to-right-wing-catholic-site-how-come-god-hasnt-destroyed-america/