“We have perverted the word love. We don’t understand the word love. We don’t understand what love really is. We think love is sunshine and rainbows, and put your arms around somebody saying ‘I love you, brother’ — certainly that’s a form of love. … But how many of y’all know when you hold your young’un by one arm and beat them in a circle, because they were bad — how many of you know that’s love too?”
— North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R) described his loving approach to disciplining misbehaving children, WUNC reports.
Rep. Jeff Jackson, D-NC, on Reddit: “This morning there was a political earthquake in North Carolina. A legislator in the state House announced she was switching parties from Democrat to Republican. I want to make sure you understand how dramatic the impact of this one switch will be.
Rep. Jeff Jackson D-NC
“Until today, Democrats had enough votes to sustain [Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s] veto – but only by a margin of one vote in the NC House. With this switch, Republicans now have a supermajority in both chambers, which means they have the votes to override any veto – which effectively just gave them full control of state government for the first time since 2017.
“I can’t overstate the policy consequences of this single switch. While we don’t know how she will vote on any given bill, dozens of bills that were essentially dead – from elections law changes to reproductive freedom to LGBTQ rights to education policy – may have just sprung back to life. And the state budget – which controls education funding – can now be passed entirely on the basis of Republican votes.
“In short, the decision by this legislator to suddenly switch parties will have consequences for millions of people.”
Riding the tea-party wave, Republicans took control of North Carolina for the first time since the 1860s, back when the GOP was the liberal party. Anticipating a Blue Wave in 2016, billionaire Tom Steyer is signaling his intent to help Democrats regain control of the Tar Heel state.
“Despite Republican assurances that North Carolina’s ‘bathroom bill’ isn’t hurting the economy, the law limiting LGBT protections will cost the state more than $3.76 billion in lost business over a dozen years,” according to an Associated Press analysis.
This isn’t just hardball politics. This is a fundamentally anti-democratic approach to government, one that says that when we win, we get to implement our agenda, and when you win, you don’t. … To put this in context, perhaps nowhere in the country have Republicans moved more aggressively to solidify power by disenfranchising their opponents as they have in North Carolina.
It’s time to celebrate our democratic process and respect what I see to be the ultimate outcome of the closest North Carolina governor’s race in modern history.
— North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R), announcing he has conceded the gubernatorial election to Attorney General Roy Cooper (D) and will support transition efforts, the Raleigh News & Observer reports.
Number of votes that “might not be counted in this year’s Nov. 8 presidential election if a federal appeals court upholds the 2013 law,” a Reuters review of Republican-backed changes to North Carolina’s voting rules finds. “Besides banning voters from voting outside their assigned precinct on Election Day, the law also prevents them from registering the same day they vote during the early voting period.”
FeingoldWe’re not yet halfway through 2015 but the 2016 race for control of the U.S. Senate is starting to take shape. This week The Hill ranked the 10 most competitive races — and since then there has been a development in the race The Hill listed as likely to be the easiest pickup for Democrats.
Yesterday former Sen. Russ Feingold, the Democratic incumbent who was unseated by current Sen. Ron Johnson in 2010, announced he was entering the race. Johnson, a tea partyist, won by 5 percentage points in the tea party’s anti-Obamacare wave election after spending millions of his own money. The Hill quotes him as saying he won’t self-fund this year — which only means he’ll rely on his wealthy cronies to spend unlimited money anonymously to fund his campaign. The Hill cited a poll by PPP taken before Feingold’s announcement that found Feingold with 50 percent support against Johnson’s 41 percent. Wisconsin has voted for the Democratic candidate in every presidential cycle since 1984.
Within hours after Feingold’s announcement, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts endorsed him, according to an email sent by the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee.
I don’t have any problem with Starbucks if they choose to opt out of this policy as long as they post a sign that says we don’t require our employees to wash their hands after leaving the restroom. The market will take care of that. It’s one example.
— Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), saying that restaurants should be allowed to opt out of regulations requiring restaurant employees to wash their hands, the Washington Post reports.
To hear Trump talk, he’s the only one
Who’s ever stood trial for crimes he’s done.
But instead of courtroom drama,
We get Trump in his pajamas,
That’s how he earned his new nickname: Don Snoreleone.
“This week has been a howling vortex of suck for the MAGA movement and Donald Trump. Imagine a black hole in the profound interstellar vacuum in the cold emptiness of space, drawing all matter and energy into its brutal singularity, an ineluctable and final journey into nothingness. … That’s the GOP this week. It’s been bad and will get worse.”
“I am not resigning. And it is, in my view, an absurd notion that someone would bring a vacate motion when we are simply here trying to do our jobs. It is not helpful to the cause, it is not helpful to the country, it does not help the House Republicans advance our agenda, which is in the best interest of the American people here — a secure border, sound governance – and it’s not helpful to the unity that we have in the body.”
— Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) on the “resign or be fired” ultimatum from the GOP’s Freedom Caucus just 174 days into his tenure as sp[eaker, reported by Punchbowl News.
“Trump’s head slowly dropped, his eyes closed. It jerked back upward. He adjusts himself. Then, his head droops again. He straightens up, leaning back. His head droops for a third time, he shakes his shoulders. Eyes closed still. His head drops. Finally, he pops his eyes open.”
— Law360 reports from the second day of Donald Trump’s “hush money” criminal trial.
“Functionally, Chris Sununu is as active a part of Trump’s campaign as Matt Gaetz or MTG, or any of the other MAGA freaks. And it seems not to bother him that these people would poleaxe him if given a second’s chance. It seems not to bother him that his political career is over. He’s not just willing to exit public life on his knees—he’s eager to do it. … In the end, it doesn’t matter if Sununu is a mountebank, a coward, or a fool. Those three characters are equally pernicious. … What matters is that the rest of us understand that it is the Chris Sununus of the world who make this ongoing authoritarian attempt possible.”
“He’s f**king crazy! The press often will ask me if I think Donald Trump is crazy. And I’ll say it this way: I don’t think he’s so crazy that you could put him in a mental institution. But I think if he were in one, he ain’t getting out!”
— New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R), quoted by the Associated Press two years ago. Sununu is now backing Trump for president.
Punchbowl News: The DCCC [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] raised $45.4 million in the first quarter of 2024, outpacing the NRCC [National Republican Congressional Committee] by $12 million. That’s the DCCC’s best quarter of the 2024 cycle and includes a $21.4 million March haul. This is a massive show of force for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.The DCCC has $71.1 million on hand. Compare that to the NRCC, which has $45.2 million on hand.
A new Harvard Institute of Politics poll of voters under age 30 finds Joe Biden leading Donald Trump 56% to 37% among likely voters. Pollster John Della Volpe: “For a Democrat to comfortably win the Electoral College, he or she needs to win 60 percent of the youth vote. Biden and Obama, ’12 and ’20, won 60 percent. Obama got 66 percent in ’08. John Kerry and Hillary Clinton got 55 percent. Biden is in the mid-50s. Can you improve that to get to 60 percent? It’s within reach.“
Financial Times: “In another troubling sign for Republican fundraising efforts, Trump has 270,000 fewer unique donors than he did at the same stage of his 2020 White House run. His campaign and affiliated political action committees got money from 900,000 donors from July 2023 to the end of the first quarter of 2024, down from 1.17 million four years earlier.”
New York Times: “Of the 96 possible jurors brought into the room, more than 50 raised their hands to say they couldn’t be fair. They were immediately excused.”
“Nationwide, homicides dropped around 20% in 133 cities from the beginning of the year through the end of March compared with the same period in 2023. … Homicides in American cities are falling at the fastest pace in decades, bringing them close to levels they were at before a pandemic-era jump,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Riding the tea-party wave, Republicans took control of North Carolina for the first time since the 1860s, back when the GOP was the liberal party. Anticipating a Blue Wave in 2016, billionaire Tom Steyer is signaling his intent to help Democrats regain control of the Tar Heel state.
