02 U.S. Politics

House Republicans poised to reject funding bill with shutdown just around the corner – NBC News
Source Link
Excerpt:

 House Republicans on Wednesday are expected to derail their own plan to avert a government shutdown at the end of the month, with the party divided over the length of a short-term funding bill and what, if anything, should be attached to it.

Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan calls for extending funding at current spending levels for six months, through March 2025, and linking it with the SAVE Act, Donald Trump-backed legislation requiring that people show proof of citizenship to register to vote…

The funding package is on track to fail given Republicans’ razor-thin 220-211 majority and the fact that a number of GOP lawmakers — a mix of fiscal conservatives and defense hawks — have vowed to tank it….

House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., said after Wednesday’s meeting that he had complete faith in Johnson figuring out how to avert a shutdown, noting the speaker reached a funding deal earlier this year with Schumer for the current fiscal year.

“At the end of the day, if he ever wanted to shut down the government, he had a lot of opportunities to do that,” Cole said. “Since he’s been speaker, he’s never let it happen. I don’t think he ever will.”

NH Governor Signs No-Excuse Voter ID And Citizenship Law– thefederalist.com
Source Link
Excerpt:

Gov. Chris Sununu, R-N.H., signed a no-excuse voter identification and proof-of-citizenship bill into law last week, but it will not go into effect until six days after this year’s election.

The law, which passed the state’s Republican-majority House and Senate earlier this year, will require New Hampshire voters to provide proof of citizenship to apply for registration, as well as a photo ID when casting a ballot. In the event a person can’t show a valid ID, the supervisor may “review the voter’s qualifications and determine if the voter’s identity can be verified.”

“If the supervisor of the checklist determines that the voter’s qualifications and identity have not been established, the voter shall not be allowed to vote,” the law clarifies.

Google Blocks AI on Second Trump Assassination Attempt, Favors Leftist Media– www.newsbusters.org
Source Link
Excerpt:

Gemini’s Censorship: MRC researchers prompted Gemini to answer whether there had been a “second assassination attempt on Donald Trump.” Gemini—one of the most popular and Google’s “most capable” AI chatbots—inexplicably refused to answer the simple question even though it admitted to having real-time information.

“I can’t help with that right now. I’m trained to be as accurate as possible but I can make mistakes sometimes,” the chatbot claimed, before directing MRC to Google Search…

Google Search and the Google News tab Were Not to be Outdone:  … Google Search results yielded not a single right-leaning outlet among the five search results displayed, while simultaneously featuring CNN and NBC News twice when queried with “second trump assassination attempt.” Meanwhile, the Google News tab only displayed Fox News once out of nine results for the same query.

In total, Google displayed leftist and center outlets at a staggering 13:1 ratio, according to MRC’s analysis using the AllSides Media Bias Chart…

 

Michigan Supreme Court Upholds Democrat Rules Restricting Poll Watchers– slaynews.com
Source Link
Excerpt:

The Michigan Supreme Court has upheld Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s new restrictions on poll watchers.

In a divided ruling, the top court’s Democrat majority sided with Benson.

The court argues that Benson is acting within her authority as the chief election officer of the state to require poll watchers to communicate only with a designated “challenger liaison,” among other changes.

“Under the Michigan Election Law, the secretary of state is the chief election officer of Michigan,” Justice Kyra Harris Bolden wrote.

“The secretary has supervisory control over local election officials in the performance of their duties.”

The court also upheld rules requiring poll watchers to use a credential form provided by Benson.

PA Motor Voter System Will Be Audited For Noncitizen Voters  – thefederalist.com
Source Link
Excerpt:

Pennsylvania Auditor General Timothy DeFoor, a Republican, sent a letter Monday to PennDOT Secretary Michael Carroll and Neil Weaver, secretary of the Governor’s Office of Administration, informing them that the auditor’s office will be conducting a performance audit of the motor voter registration process.

The audit will look at the automatic voter registration system covering the period between Jan. 1 and June 30.

Specifically, it will look at the implementation of the program, its compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, and how it relates to the state election code. The audit will also “determine whether PennDOT’s Motor Voter interface files sent to the Pennsylvania Department of State properly excluded non-citizens.”

It is unlikely the audit’s results will influence the 2024 election. DeFoor set a deadline of Oct. 4 for a meeting to be held between PennDOT and the auditor. Draft notes and audit information are not made public. PennDOT will have 120 business days to submit a response to the audit. The election is less than 50 days away.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Kicks Cornel West Off 2024 Ballot– thefederalist.com
Source Link
Excerpt:

Pennsylvania’s Democrat-controlled supreme court shot down left-wing presidential candidate Cornel West’s bid to appear on the state’s 2024 ballot.

In a reportedly unsigned order, the Keystone State’s highest court affirmed a lower court ruling denying West’s bid for ballot access. In that ruling, Commonwealth Court Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer sided with the office of Secretary of State Al Schmidt “in rejecting West’s candidacy paperwork,” according to the Washington Examiner.

Schmidt’s office had argued that “the paperwork lacked the affidavits for 14 of the 19 presidential electors required by the Aug. 1 filing deadline,” according to the outlet.

Schmidt indicated prior to Monday’s decision that a final ruling on West’s case by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court would allow counties to begin printing ballots for the November contest. Schmidt is a self-professed “Republican” and was appointed by Democrat Gov. Josh Shapiro.

“As soon as the court rules on that, we’ll certify the official list and then counties can complete their preparations to mail out ballots and to have voters, if they choose, go to a county election office to apply in person,” he reportedly said.

WI Attorney General’s Fraudulent ‘Fake Electors’ Case Exposed– thefederalist.com
Source Link
Excerpt:

When Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul held a state capitol-steps press conference in early June to announce “forgery” charges against two former attorneys and an aide to former President Donald Trump for an alleged crime that took place nearly four years ago, it felt like the fix was in.

New unsealed documents in Dane County Circuit Court suggest the real forgery is Kaul’s politically weaponized investigation into Trump allies involved in the 2020 alternative electors contingency plan — what Kaul and corporate media have falsely billed as a “fake electors scheme.”

The filing, first reported on Thursday by Wisconsin conservative talk show host Vicki McKenna and conservative activist Eric O’Keefe, sheds light on another dark prosecution that looks a lot like Wisconsin’s infamous John Doe investigation. That leftist prosecutor-led star chamber of more than a decade ago was declared a “perfect storm of wrongs” by the state’s supreme court and used as a national blueprint for the left’s penchant for weaponized justice.

While Kaul’s early June press conference — covered by news outlets across the country — was orchestrated for maximum exposure, his move to seal the subpoenas and silence the defendants was designed to keep the full story in the dark. More than three months after the attorney general’s office sought and received the secret subpoenas, the key documents have finally been unsealed. The raised curtain exposes a prosecutor going against his own justice department to pursue a political prosecution.

Mass Mail-In Voting Is Democrats’ New ‘Blue Wall’– thefederalist.com
Source Link
Excerpt:

The most striking feature of the contentious 2020 election was the sudden explosion of mass mail-in voting in states that had little experience with it, and the unprecedented levels of election interference that occurred as left-leaning nonprofit organizations such as The Center for Tech and Civic Life (which was behind “Zuckbucks”) and Democrat “lawfare” experts tried to make the best of this chaotic, mail-in ballot free-for-all.

The mail-in ballot election of 2020 created the template for the Democrats’ new “Blue Wall” election strategy, as a deluge of mail-in ballots propelled Joe Biden to victory, especially in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The rate of mail-in voting rose to above 50 percent in Michigan and Wisconsin, and almost 40 percent in Pennsylvania.

The old “Blue Wall” was an impregnable fortress of safely Democrat states because of large blocs of blue-collar voters — mainly in the Rust Belt of the upper Midwest — that could be relied upon to get Democrats an electoral college victory in a close election. The old “Blue Wall,” however, dramatically failed to protect Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, as an unexpectedly large number of formerly Democrat, working-class voters in Rust Belt states became Donald Trump voters.

Six RINOs Just Pledged to Certify 2024 Election Results, No Matter the Outcome — Here’s the List– wltreport.com
Source Link
Excerpt:

The swamp is already preparing for Election Day (or month, if we have a repeat of last election…)

A group of over 30 House representatives — including 6 Republicans — just signed a bipartisan pledge promising to certify the results of the 2024 Election, no questions asked.

They’re calling it the “Unity Commitment,” and they’re framing it as a way to “safeguard” Democracy.

Democrat Rep. Josh Gottheimer from New Jersey and Republican Rep. Don Bacon wrote up this pledge and rallied other Congress members to sign it. Along with Bacon, here are the other 5 Republicans who signed the pledge:

• Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA)
• Mike Lawler (R-NY)
• Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR)
• Nick LaLota (R-NY)
• Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY)

Poll Finds Taylor Swift’s Endorsement of Kamala Harris Turns Off More People than it Attracts– lidblog.com
Source Link
Excerpt:

A poll conducted after pop superstar Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris seems to show that Swift has lost some of her ability to persuade because the poll shows that her endorsement is turning off more people that she has convinced to join the Harris bandwagon.

The post debate poll comes from YouGov, which are left-leaning pollsters, and the firm found that only a tiny eight percent said that Swif’s endorsement is “somewhat” or “much more likely” to make them want to vote for Harris.

On the other hand, according to the New York Post, the other end of the scale did not make Swift look very good…

But a whopping 20% said they are “somewhat” or “much less likely” to vote for former President Donald Trump’s opponent now that Swift has spoken.

Most of the respondents, 66%, said Swift’s endorsement made no difference on how they will vote in November.

Tim Walz Spent Billions To ‘Improve Child Literacy.’ Reading Levels Remain Low, New Test Scores Show.– freebeacon.com
Source Link
Excerpt:

Minnesota governor Tim Walz, now the Democratic vice presidential candidate, last year signed a flagship education bill that boosted K-12 education spending by more than $2 billion, a “signature accomplishment” that he said would “improve child literacy.” New test scores reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show that hasn’t happened.

Just 46 percent of Minnesota’s third-graders, for example, are considered proficient in reading, marking a slight dip from 2023, according to data recently released by the Minnesota Department of Education. Across all grade levels, roughly half of Minnesota students are proficient in reading, and just 45 percent are proficient in math. Those figures are nearly identical to those from 2023.

The new numbers suggest Walz’s $2 billion education spending blitz did not impact Minnesota’s students the way he said it would, undercutting a central part of his pitch to voters as he runs for vice president. As Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s running mate, Walz has leaned on his educational background, touting his record as a former teacher. The National Education Association last month lauded him as the “Education Governor.”

CNN Caught Doing Journalism, Calls Out Harris Campaign As ‘repeatedly deceptive’– legalinsurrection.com
Source Link
Excerpt:

CNN’s Daniel Dale has done the unthinkable. He took aim at @KamalaHQ, the official rapid response page on X for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign. With over 1.3 million followers, the account has a wide reach, and according to Dale, “has made a habit of misleadingly clipping and inaccurately captioning video clips to attack former President Donald Trump.”

The account has been “repeatedly deceptive” and has made “inaccurate comments on multiple occasions,” Dale wrote. And he goes on to detail eight of the account’s most disingenuous posts from the last month.

He points out that all of these posts have been called out in real time by “an anonymous rebuttal account called @KamalaHQLies, which itself has more than 268,000 followers.”

CNN just nuked @KamalaHQ for their constant lies about Trump and Vance.https://t.co/1UWGpK8fPt pic.twitter.com/lhdeHpLWCt

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 14, 2024

Tim Walz Brags About Passing Laws That Restrict Speech– thefederalist.com
Source Link
Excerpt:

This week, a federal court will take up a case challenging a 2023 Minnesota law that prohibits employers from discussing religious or political matters at required meetings, including meetings on elections, regulations, and whether employees should join a union.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., bragged about the impact of the new law, saying that employers will either have to toe the line or be sent to jail.

Making matters worse, Walz also personally appointed all the members of Minnesota’s teacher licensing board, which recently instituted new rules restricting and coercing teachers’ speech. These new regulations “require educators to ‘affirm’ their students’ gender identities, have ‘racial consciousness,’ and learn to ‘disrupt oppressive systems,’” according to Fox News. Count me in as one of those who are shocked yet perhaps not terribly surprised that Walz believes that there should be no guarantees to free speech in America.

Couple Walz’s attacks on free speech with attempts from the political left (and Walz’s attorney general in particular) to put public pressure on social media platforms, such as Elon Musk’s X, and the message is clear. Our First Amendment is under attack.