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Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin

Americans Who Say U.S. Heading in Right Direction Doubles Since Trump Left Office: Poll

(Newsweek) The percentage of Americans who said the country is generally headed in the right direction has nearly doubled since former President Donald Trump left office in January. An NBC News survey released Sunday showed a slight majority—53 percent—of U.S. adults said they either strongly approve or somewhat approve of the job President Joe Biden has been doing in the White House for the past four months.

The day after Biden's January 20 inauguration in Washington D.C., the same poll found only 20 percent of Americans agreed the U.S. was "headed in the right direction."

applegrove

Pollster Frank Luntz: Trump may cost GOP the House in 2022

(Axios) Former Republican pollster Frank Luntz tells Kara Swisher on her New York Times podcast "Sway" that Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 election "could cost the Republicans the majority in the House in 2022." The former president is still the most popular figure in the Republican Party, but his baseless claims about the election have alienated moderates and key GOP leaders — including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.).

kpete

AZ GOPer Who Supported Sketchy Election Audit Now Says It 'Makes Us Look Like Idiots'

(TPM) Arizona state Sen. Paul Boyer (R) apparently has regrets about backing his fellow GOP senators’ push for a shady audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 election ballots to boost ex-President Donald Trump and his allies’ bogus conspiracy theories about voter fraud.

“It makes us look like idiots,” Boyer told the New York Times in an interview published on Sunday. “Looking back, I didn’t think it would be this ridiculous. It’s embarrassing to be a state senator at this point.”

Omaha Steve

House GOP leader says he backs ousting Cheney from No. 3 job

(Associated Press) Top House Republican Kevin McCarthy on Sunday publicly endorsed Rep. Elise Stefanik for the post of No. 3 leader, cementing the party conference’s support of the Donald Trump loyalist over Rep. Liz Cheney, an outspoken critic of the former president for promoting discredited claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

House Republicans could vote as early as Wednesday to remove Cheney, the highest-ranking woman in the Republican leadership and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, and replace her with Stefanik, whose ascension has received Trump’s backing.

Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin

If Republicans Purge Liz Cheney, They're Purging Many Voters Along With Her

(Newsweek) "I've had it... I've lost confidence." That's House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) talking about one of his fellow Congressional Republicans. He wasn't speaking of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA), the freshman lawmaker who spread QAnon conspiracy theories, signaled support for executing Democrats, and openly flirted with launching a racist Congressional caucus to protect "Anglo-Saxon political traditions." Nor was McCarthy referencing Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), the hard partying Congressman under investigation for alleged sex trafficking.

JHB

Monday TOONs

MineralMan

Worried about the 2022 Midterm Election?

Worrying will not help. Truly it will not. Complaining that not enough is being done will not help, either. What will help is figuring out how you, personally, can help turn out the vote next November. There's plenty of time for you to plan to do that. Did your red state put new obstacles in the way of Democratic voters? Find out what you can do to counteract that, and then help do it. Do you live in a blue state? GOTV will still be important, especially in state and local races. What do you plan to do to help?

Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin

With civil rights charges, Justice Dept. signals priorities

(Associated Press) The Justice Department is sending a strong message about its priorities these days. In just over the past two weeks, it has opened investigations of police in Louisville, Kentucky, and Minneapolis. Federal prosecutors have charged four former Minneapolis police officers with civil rights violations in George Floyd's death, and accused three men of hate crimes in the death of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia. In both criminal cases, authorities moved forward with federal charges before most of the defendants have gone to state trial.

Attorney General Merrick Garland is making good on his confirmation promise to refocus the department around civil rights after four years of tumult during the Trump administration, when such investigations waned and the focus was on curbing immigration and the Russia probe.

mahatmakanejeeves

How an obscure Texas security firm helped convince Americans the 2020 election was stolen from Trump

(Washington Post) Key elements of the baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen from President Donald Trump took shape in an airplane hangar here two years earlier, promoted by a Republican businessman who has sold everything from Tex-Mex food in London to a wellness technology that beams light into the human bloodstream.

At meetings beginning late in 2018, as Republicans were smarting from midterm losses in Texas and across the country, Russell J. Ramsland Jr. and his associates delivered alarming presentations on electronic voting to a procession of conservative lawmakers, activists and donors.

Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin

GOP governors slash jobless aid to try to force more Americans to return to work

(Washington Post) An unexpected slowdown in hiring nationwide has prompted some Republican governors to start slashing jobless benefits in their states, hoping that the loss of generous federal aid might force more people to try to return to work. The new GOP cuts chiefly target the extra $300 in weekly payments that millions of Americans have received for months in addition to their usual unemployment checks.