https://twitter.com/JasonSCampbell/status/1388129500366577677

By Rudy Takala

Apr 30th, 2021, 1:53 pm


A group of House Republicans are accusing the Biden administration’s Census Bureau of inflating population estimates in left-leaning states in order to increase their representation in Congress after redistricting.

“Given the extra time it took to complete the 2020 Census — including not meeting the statutory deadlines by months — we have questions about the methodology and the role the Biden White House may have played in releasing these numbers, especially as the results differ from evaluation estimates released mere months ago in ways that benefit blue states over red states,” the group wrote in a Friday letter addressed to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

As evidence that something untoward had taken place, the group said they contacted the Census Bureau with questions about the apportionment of House members after population estimates were released this week, but that the bureau had redirected them to the White House. “The statute is clear,” they wrote. “It is the secretary of commerce who reports the apportionment count to the president, not the other way around.”

The group didn’t clarify what questions they asked. The Commerce Department is responsible for relaying the results of the Census Bureau’s population count to the White House, which subsequently relays it to Congress. State officials then take responsibility for drawing the boundaries of new House districts, which are reallocated among states every 10 years according to the results of the census.

more
https://www.mediaite.com/news/house-republicans-accuse-census-bureau-of-inflating-blue-state-populations/

By Tommy Christopher May 1st, 2021, 8:24 am

Former President Donald Trump ranted about a dip in Twitter’s stock price with one of the brief statements that have become his primary method of communication since being banned from Twitter and leaving office following the deadly Capitol insurrection.

Since Trump was permanently banned from Twitter for inciting violence during the Jan. 6th attack on the Capitol, he has been relegated to releasing statements via email through his post-presidential office and his PAC.

On Friday night, he released one such statement that carried many of the hallmarks of a Trump tweet, but not quite the reach. Trump ranted about recent dips in the price of Twitter stock, and falsely claimed that users are flocking away from the social media platform in droves:



more
https://www.mediaite.com/news/trump-rants-about-twitter-stock-price-the-only-way-he-can-falsely-and-not-on-twitter/

Source: USA Today


Kevin Johnson
USA TODAY

The campaign to oust the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine is part of the federal inquiry into the dealings of Rudy Giuliani, the personal lawyer to former President Donald Trump, who dismissed Marie Yovanovitch from her post two years ago.

Giuliani's attorney, Robert Costello, said Friday that Yovanovitch's name was among about eight others referenced in a search warrant served during an early morning raid Wednesday at the former New York mayor's Manhattan apartment and law offices.

Yovanovitch, a career diplomat, was a key witness in the 2019 Trump impeachment hearings in which lawmakers examined the president's efforts to pressure Ukrainian officials to investigate then-Democratic rival Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

The former ambassador's connection to the Giuliani probe was first reported by the New York Times.



Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/05/01/former-ukraine-ambassador-marie-yovanovitch-part-giuliani-inquiry/4898434001

Former president speaks as lone anti-Trump Republican seeks House seat in Texas special election

Martin Pengelly in New York
@MartinPengelly

Sat 1 May 2021 08.29 EDT

Ahead of a special election on Saturday to replace a Texas congressman who died after contracting Covid-19, former president George W Bush said the ascendancy of supporters of Donald Trump suggest Republicans “want to be extinct”.

-snip-

Bush is promoting a new book, a collection of portraits and stories of immigrants. In an interview released on Friday by the Dispatch, an anti-Trump conservative podcast, he was asked about recent moves by pro-Trump extremists to form a congressional caucus promoting “Anglo-Saxon traditions”.

“To me that basically says that we want to be extinct,” he said.

If such trends continued, Bush said, in three to five years “there’s not going to be a party. I mean I read about that and I’m saying to myself, ‘Wow, these people need to read my book.’ And I mean, it’s like saying when I was running for governor of Texas, you’ll never get any Latino votes because you’re Republican. And I said you watch. And I worked hard.

“And the key thing was to let them know that I could hear their voice. I mean, democracy is great in that sense. And the idea of kind of saying you can only be Republican ‘if’, then the ultimate extension of that is it ends up being a one-person party.”

more
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/01/george-w-bush-anglo-saxon-donald-trump-republicans-texas-congressional-election

04/30/2021 11:30 am ET Updated 19 hours ago

The GOP insists the same type of conservative backlash President Barack Obama faced is coming for President Joe Biden.

By Igor Bobic

President Joe Biden has spent his first 100 days pushing massive spending bills, proposing higher taxes and enacting progressive policies. But unlike his Democratic predecessor, President Barack Obama, a mass movement in opposition hasn’t materialized yet.

At this point in his presidency, Obama faced the Tea Party revolt. On April 15, 2009 ― Tax Day ― thousands of protesters took to the streets in cities across the U.S. to demonstrate against high taxes and increased government spending following the Great Recession. In Washington, D.C., a crowd even forced a temporary shutdown of the White House after they hurled tea bags onto the executive mansion’s lawn.

Republicans insist the same type of backlash is coming for Biden if he continues down the path he’s on. But the party, still reeling from years of Donald Trump and a Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, faces a problem: some of Biden’s policies are very popular.

That’s particularly true of the coronavirus stimulus. Turns out, people are less displeased with spending when it puts dollars in their pockets, as Republican Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) acknowledged to HuffPost this week.

more
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-tea-party-congress_n_608c0d4ee4b02e74d226adb4

May 1, 202103

In the run-up to the vote, some still expressed doubt that voters would approve the memorial.

“One of the first questions that we tackled was, should there even be a memorial?” the commission chairman, Daniel Krauss, said in a Facebook Live forum sponsored by the town’s newspaper. The commission reviewed other memorials to other tragedies, finding no shortage of case studies.

The group has “worked very tirelessly for seven years now,” Mr. Krauss said. “We’ve had disagreements, we’ve had difference of opinions, but at the end of the day we all stand behind the project, and believe in it.”

The final design, at $3.7 million, “does what we wanted to do at the very beginning of the project,” he said, “which was to remember and honor those who were lost at Sandy Hook school.”

more
https://newswirenews.com/memorial-to-sandy-hook-slaughter-approved/

05/01/2021 04:02 am ET

The zings at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner have been credited with angering Trump into running for office, a claim Trump refutes.

By Lee Moran

Friday marked 10 years to the day since then-President Barack Obama and comedian Seth Meyers roasted then-businessman and reality TV personality Donald Trump during the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

Some key Trump allies and commentators have suggested the gags angered Trump into running for office in 2016. Trump, though, has dismissed the suggestion.

Obama on April 30, 2011 mocked Trump’s rumored White House run (which he’d been touting for more than 30 years) and ripped Trump’s pushing of the racist birther conspiracy theory with a crack about releasing his official birth video — complete with a clip from Disney’s “The Lion King.”

“No one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald,” Obama continued. “And that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter, like: Did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?”

Watch the video here:

-snip-

more
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/barack-obama-seth-meyers-donald-trump-2011_n_608cfc20e4b02e74d22781f5

Joan E Greve in Washington
@joanegreve

Sat 1 May 2021 03.00 EDT

The president has sought bipartisan support but not at the cost of delay and dilution of his bold policies

Joan E Greve in Washington
@joanegreve
Sat 1 May 2021 03.00 EDT

Joe Biden started his presidential campaign with promises to be a unifying force in Washington who would help lawmakers come together to achieve bipartisan reform. But over his first 100 days in office, Biden’s message to Republicans in Congress has been closer to this: get on board or get out of my way.

This willingness to go it alone if necessary appears to be a hard-won lesson from the early years of Barack Obama’s presidency, when Democrats negotiated with Republicans on major bills only to have them vote against the final proposals.

It has also prompted some – especially on the left of the Democratic party – to make early comparisons between Biden and Obama that favor the current president as a more dynamic, determined and ruthless political force for progressive change than his old boss.

Just three months into his presidency, Biden has already signed the $1.9tn coronavirus relief package, which did not attract a single Republican vote in Congress. Delivering his first presidential address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, Biden signaled he was willing to take a similar approach to infrastructure if necessary.

more
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/01/how-bidens-firm-line-with-republicans-draws-on-lesson-of-obamas-mistakes

05/01/2021 02:54 am ET

“Reject these poisonous voices,” urges the new spot from progressive PAC MeidasTouch.
headshot

By Lee Moran

Progressive PAC MeidasTouch calls on people to reject the “radicalized” GOP ― and spotlights the harmful influence that personalities on right-wing media such as Fox News can have on Republicans ― with its latest viral ad.

The narrator in the 90-second spot released online Saturday notes how the alienated worldwide “are drawn to extremist leaders promising to take on the enemies of their people.”

“In America, some of our lost souls respond in a similar way to the call of influential voices,” he continues. “But instead of militant preachers or radical clerics, every single night in America they can listen to our own angry advocates of division and conspiracy” on right-wing media.

Fox News’ prime-time host Tucker Carlson, for example, has in recent weeks pushed white supremacist rhetoric, downplayed the deadly U.S. Capitol riot and sowed doubt about COVID-19 vaccines.

-snip-



-snip-

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/meidas-touch-ad-radicalized-republicans_n_608cf3f9e4b046202707bbfc