#USPS Is announcing layoffs of 700 workers in the Denver hub. All part of the plan to warehouse mail-in ballots until after the deadline. DO NOT MAIL YOUR BALLOT. DROP IT OFF. EARLY.
Two tweets from X.com. The first, by Alex Cole (@acnewsitics) with a verified badge, reads: "Republicans don't want you to go to college because the second you learn history, science, or civics, you'll stop voting for them." The second, by Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) with a verified badge, posted 1 hour ago, reads: "It's time to defund American universities. You don't need to go to college. Charlie Kirk didn't go to college." Both include profile pictures, one of a man and one of a woman.
Around 5 million people participated in last week's "No Kings" protests, according to the organizers. Next month, they're going to do it all again. The Transformative Justice Coalition has announced that the next protests will happen on July 17 in honor of the fifth anniversary of John Lewis's death. Spokesperson Barbara Arnwine said that they will focus on racial justice, voting rights, and "our continued and united fight for a just, inclusive and strong democracy that is our goal, that is our obligation in these times." Here's more from @AxiosNews.
A couple of weeks ago on the other account, I wrote a very short thread about my increasing frustration with Very Serious PeopleTM asking if Trump really means it every time he starts rambling on about all the fascist shit he wants to do. In that post I mostly noted that Trump, a fascist, literally has no idea how to tell a joke, has at least tried to do all the nazi shit people thought he was joking about in the past, and fascist in general were not known for their sense of humor. Whether or not Trump is actually able to accomplish all the nazi crap he says he wants to do, is often a matter of debate. But if he says it, he means to give it a try.
What brought that outburst on, was an article about a democracy watchdog group warning that people weren't taking Trump's threats to circumvent term limits and run for (or make himself) president again in 2028 seriously enough, and that was a bad idea - a position I agree with wholeheartedly.
I'm bringing this up now because apparently the slightly less disgusting Cuomo had noted fascist propagandist Steve Bannon on his podcast this week; Bannon remains a very close ally of Trump and a big supporter of the regime even though he's not actually working in the government this time. During that discussion, Bannon revealed that the Trumpist political movement is actively working on ways to secure a third Trump term already:
'We're Working On It': Bannon Says Planning Underway for Trump 2028
"Appearing on journalist Chris Cuomo's NewsNation podcast, far-right mouthpiece Steve Bannon demurred when asked if he had ambitions to run for president himself, replying: "No, and I'm a firm believer that President Trump will run and win again in 2028, so I've already endorsed President Trump."
When Cuomo pressed Bannon on the existence of term limits that would bar Trump from seeking a third term, Bannon said, "We're working on it. I think we’ll have a couple of alternatives, let’s say that. We’ll see what the definition of term limit is."
"We've had greater long shots than Trump 2028 and we've got a lot of stuff we're working on there," Bannon added. "We're not prepared to talk about it publicly, but in a couple months I think we will be."
Setting aside the fact that this podcast episode should not exist, because Chris Cuomo shouldn't be inviting fascists on his show to normalize fascist ideology and openly lie on behalf of the Trump regime with only mild pushback, I watched the clip; aside from what's quoted here, the only real notable addition I would make is that Cuomo let Bannon duck a question about whether or not the fascists would try another insurrection to keep Trump in power by touting how popular the regime was, and implying Trump would simply win anyway. Let's just say this wasn't Chris's finest hour, even if he did avoid literally agreeing with the nazi propagandist on his show, about nazi shit, like California Governor Gavin Newsom did.
What Bannon didn't shy away from is revealing here, is that Trump absolutely intends to run again in 2028 and his minion strategists are working on a way to circumvent the 22nd Amendment of the US Constitution which would otherwise forbid that. As I've mentioned in a number of articles, we seem to be seeing a pattern of the fascist right transforming Trump's seemingly fantastical ravings, into a type of "unreality" enforced as if it were fact by the larger fascist movement, and then transformed into real and direct action by the regime itself. Given the reality that Trump has repeatedly mused about clearing the way for him to run for a third term in multiple public settings, and we now have a fascist propagandist who is closely allied with Trump revealing that the larger regime is "working on" making that a reality, I think we can safely dispense with the idea that these guys are joking.
So will the nazis get away with this? I mean, who knows; it's not easy to legally change the Constitution, but I have no idea if Trump even cares what the laws say anyway - his actions in power thus far suggest that he literally does not. Right now, the nazis seem to be in the planning and manufacturing popular support stage of this particular autocratic fuckery project, but I'd be inclined to take Bannon at his word when he says we'll be hearing more about it soon, because while Steve is a nazi liar, he rarely lies without a purpose. What I can say is that since Trump was sworn in as president, I can think of dozens and dozens of things he's done that Very Serious PeopleTM swore he couldn't do, and so far he appears to be getting away with the vast majority of it.
Alright, so we now know Trump's Justice Department is threatening election officials across the country with federal prosecution, based on fascist conspiracy theories about voting systems integrity; a redux of "The Big Lie" that fueled Trump's political rebirth after losing the 2020 US Presidential election and the failed coup (autogolpe specifically) on January 6th, 2021. Whether the Trump regime fascists ever charge anyone with this nonsense or not, we know they're actively trying to take over election boards and the election process more broadly, all over the country. All that's left is to watch them put that control into practice, and I think this Common Dreams story is a good enough place to start on that front.
As recently reported in the Washington Post, Trump's Justice Department lead by Attorney General Pam Bondi, "has taken the unusual step of asking at least nine states for copies of their voter rolls, and at least two have turned them over." These efforts appear to be particularly focused on Colorado, a former battleground state that has been increasingly shifting towards Democrats, where a local Republican operative is pushing to allow the federal government to physically inspect their voting equipment.
'The 2020 Playbook on Steroids': Trump DOJ Requests for State Voter Data Spark Alarm
"Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, called the Trump administration's efforts "the 2020 playbook on steroids."
"This all is part of a bigger ploy to further undermine our voting in this country," warned Griswold. "They are actively in a power grab."
Even some Republican election officials responded with alarm to the Trump administration's requests for voter data and access to voting equipment.
"To me, it felt like they were wanting to intervene before 2026," Justin Grantham, the Republican clerk in Colorado's Fremont County, told the Post, referring to the upcoming midterms.
Carly Koppes, a Republican clerk in Weld County, Colorado, said she rejected requests for a federal inspection of election equipment.
"That's a hard stop for me," said Koppes. "Nobody gets access to my voting equipment, for security reasons."
So, if you were wondering why Pam Bondi and the Trumpenreich Justice Department were looking for ways to prosecute election officials who don't go along with Trump's fascist conspiracy bullshit, even though the fascist right has already been quite successful at stacking election boards, including in many deeply blue counties, with Trump-humping Republicans, folks like Justin Grantham and Carly Koppes are the answer.
I think however the larger point to remember here is that absolutely none of this is actually about maintaining election integrity, and therefore none of the regime's actions have to be moored to the truth in any tangible way. For example, they're not asking to look at Colorado's voting equipment because they think they'll find something fishy. Rather, they intend to point to the investigation itself and any possible charges against Colorado election officials brought by Pam Bondi, which the Trump regime itself is creating whole cloth, as evidence that there is something fishy about a Colorado that doesn't go full fascist in the next cycle of elections. The ultimate results of those investigations and potential trials are largely irrelevant to the Trump regime's current goals of interfering with, and ultimately rigging the US electoral process.
This then brings us to the regime's ongoing obsession with obtaining access to voter rolls; attempts the Trump administration has made through a wide variety of methods, including the Department of Government Efficiency, formerly run by Elon Musk. Obviously, analysis isn't prophecy, but both the Trump regime and the larger Republican Party have aggressively been pushing conspiracy theories about undocumented migrants or deceased Democrats voting, so it doesn't really take a genius to figure out they want to use those voter rolls to generate trumped up accusations of widespread voter fraud, and then use that as a justification to purge or otherwise disqualify huge numbers of people likely to vote against them in upcoming elections. The fact that they can also feed all that data into the digital panopticon Palantir is building so Trump can find all his political enemies, is pure gravy for the Trumpenreich and Downmarket Mussolini.
For much of the past month and a half, we've all partaken of an American political discourse openly asking "why doesn't the Republican Party care about harming their own voters" in the face of an upcoming election cycle? I fear the answer to that question may well be that the Trump regime feels pretty confident about its ability to ensure they can't lose political power in rigged elections.
Hooray! It’s Friday! We made it! And we made this #NewstodonFriday thread too, with a dash of science, a soupçon of tech, the inevitable slug of politics, and a spoonful of sweet stories to make the medicine go down. All the newsrooms featured here are independent and have their own active fediverse accounts. Please follow them, click on the stories, boost them, subscribe, donate and otherwise support if you can.
People in jails are largely cut off from voter information and seldom exercise the right to vote because it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible.
@bolts’s Alex Burness visited Genesee County jail in Flint, Michigan to see how activities and authorities there are encouraging election participation, but simultaneously providing inadequate living conditions and food, and blocking visits from families.
Antidemocratic: Inside the Far Right's 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections by David Daley, 2024
A riveting yet disturbing history of the fifty-year Republican plot to hijack voting rights in America, its profound implications for the 2024 presidential election, and the crucial role that Chief Justice John Roberts has played in determining how we vote.
In 1981, a young lawyer, fresh out of Harvard law school, joined the Reagan administration’s Department of Justice, taking up a cause that had been fomenting in Republican circles for over a decade by that point. From his perch inside the Reagan DOJ, this lawyer would attempt to bring down one of the defining pieces of 20th century legislation—the Voting Rights Act. His name was John Roberts.
Over thirty years later in 2013, these efforts by John Roberts and the conservative legal establishment culminated when Roberts, now Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, wrote Shelby County vs. Holder , one of the most consequential decisions of modern jurisprudence. A dramatic move that gutted the Voting Rights Act, Roberts’s decision—dangerously premised on the flawed notion that racism was a thing of the past—emboldened right-wing, antidemocratic voting laws around the country immediately. No modern court decision has done more to hand elections to Republicans than Shelby.
Over the past twelve or so years that I've spent exposing the "mainstream" American right's mask off "transformation" into an overtly (instead of covertly) fascist movement, I cannot tell you how many times reactionary apologists have attempted to counter my fact-based analysis by screeching that "you can't just call half of Americans nazis!" Despite the fact that this argument is entirely off topic and based in the realm of feelings, I always push back on it because the plain numerical truth is that it's certainly not "half" of the American population that supports fascism and the new American Nazi Party.
Say whatever you will about the reactionary nature of American thought and politics, and believe me I've said plenty, the objective reality is that support for the Republican Party in the United States isn't anywhere near fifty percent. In fact, most modern analysis of political positions in the U.S. electorate strongly indicates that if everyone, and in particular every non-white American, actually got to vote in U.S. elections, the GOP might not win another national election in my lifetime. Furthermore, I know that the fascists in American politics know this, which is why they've spent at least the past thirty years stacking the judiciary with unhinged reactionary judges dedicated to dismantling the Voting Rights Act by any means they are able to.
Given these realities, it shouldn't surprise you to learn that last week Republican-appointed members of the federal judiciary once again took steps to attack voting rights in the lead up to the 2024 U.S. Presidential election:
As the Voting Rights Act Nears 60, Conservative Judges Are Gutting It From Every Angle
"On Thursday, the ultra-conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals overruled two previous court decisions and reinstated a county commissioners’ map in Galveston, Texas, that eliminated the only majority-minority district, ousting the lone Black and minority commissioner. In a 12-6 decision, with all of the Republican-appointed judges in the majority, the appeals court overturned its own precedent dating back to 1988, ruling that minority groups who form a combined majority, such as Black and Hispanic voters in the Galveston area, are not protected under the VRA. That will make it much tougher to secure representation for communities of color, since different minority groups often combine to form a majority in an increasingly diversifying country. “Today, the majority finally dismantled the effectiveness of the Voting Rights Act in this circuit,” Judge Dana Douglas wrote in a dissent."
Look, I'm not an electoralist, and I've told you all countless times that I don't believe you can actually vote out fascism in a country that has been embracing fascist ideology since before we even had a word for such, let alone the capitalist order that controls our politics and threatens all life on our shared biosphere. With that having been noted however, voting rights are foundational to what passes for our democracy and it sure does say a lot about the anti-democratic nature of a political party when that party's only path to victory and continued relevance depends on restricting the right to vote along demographic lines that objectively reflect the white supremacist inclinations of said party. Voting out Republicans is not a panacea for solving all of the problems we're facing in a capitalist country built on genocidal land theft and actual fucking chattel slavery, but I'm absolutely certain that our collective struggle for justice, equality, and sustainability in America would be easier if goddamn nazis in judge's robes weren't allowed to dictate who gets to have a say in politics in order to force minority rule by fascists on us all.
I'm far too fascinated with far too many topics. I've compiled an exhaustive list of hashtags for some of those interests; I'll try to do better about keeping it current and updated.