“Lawsuit brought by the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP, Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, League of Women Voters of Georgia, Galeo Latino Community Development Fund, Common Cause and the Lower Muskogee Creek Tribe challenging several provisions of a Georgia voter suppression bill. The case claims that the bill’s voting restrictions – including new identification requirements for absentee voting, limits on the use of absentee drop boxes, invalidating ballots cast before 5:00 PM in the wrong precinct, banning any non-poll worker from giving food or water to voters waiting in line, and more – violate the First, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act“ – Democracy Docket.

AP: “When former President Donald Trump was asked to list those he considers the future leaders of the Republican Party, he quickly rattled off names including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz. Conspicuously absent from the list: Mike Pence. The former vice president is steadily reentering public life as he eyes a potential run for the White House in 2024. He’s joining conservative organizations, writing op-eds, delivering speeches and launching an advocacy group that will focus on promoting the Trump administration’s accomplishments. But Trump’s neglect in mentioning Pence during a podcast interview earlier this month signals the former vice president’s unique challenge. For someone who built a reputation as one of Trump’s most steadfast supporters, Pence is now viewed with suspicion among many Republicans for observing his constitutional duty in January to facilitate a peaceful transfer of power to the Biden administration, a decision that still has Trump fuming. To prevail in a Republican presidential primary, Pence may have to reinforce his loyalty to Trump while defending his decisions during the final days of the administration when the president falsely alleged widespread voter fraud, contributing to a deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol. If anyone can achieve this awkward balance, some Republicans say, it’s Pence.”

“‘Anybody who can pull off an endorsement of Ted Cruz and become Donald Trump’s vice presidential nominee should not be counted out,’ said Republican strategist Alice Stewart, who worked for Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign when Pence endorsed him. ‘He has a way of splitting hairs and threading the needle that has paid off in the past.’ Pence aides generally brush off talk of the next presidential election. They insist he is focused on his family and next year’s midterm elections, when Republicans are well positioned to regain at least one chamber of Congress. Allies argue that, over time, the anger will subside. ‘I think 2024’s a long time away and if Mike Pence runs for president he will appeal to the Republican base in a way that will make him a strong contender,’ said Republican Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, who chairs the conservative Republican Study Committee and has already endorsed a Pence 2024 run.”

“A group of House ultra-conservatives who rose to power by making life hell for GOP leaders is now facing cracks in its once-united front – which some worry could foreshadow an even wider rift if Republicans win back the majority next year. A notable split has emerged inside the House Freedom Caucus in recent weeks over its members’ use of delaying tactics on the floor to protest Democratic policies. That effort has grabbed attention and ruffled leadership, two hallmarks of the Freedom Caucus, but it’s also snarled legislative proceedings enough to breed frustration among some members of the far-right crew.”

“Some in the caucus criticize the legislative slowdown, led by Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and several others, as a failure to act strategically. Conservatives should challenge a select few bills rather than a wide swath, these Republicans argue, to avoid diluting the potency of moments when they choose to tie the House in procedural knots. Internal critics also warn that their fellow Freedom Caucus members’ antics could backfire if Democrats respond by starting to block the GOP from using an expedited process to advance its own non-controversial bills. But other Freedom Caucus members feel strongly that wreaking havoc on the floor is part of their brand and they need to deploy every procedural weapon at their disposal. After all, regardless of how they feel about the current floor strategy, House conservatives share a frustration with the way Democrats are running the chamber – and using their limited power to force recorded votes is one of the only real ways they can vent that energy. ‘The level of division is whether to use it on every single bill or to withhold it on some bills,’ said one Freedom Caucus member, who was granted anonymity to more freely discuss internal group dynamics. ‘If you say unconditionally, ‘we’re using [our power] on every motion,’ there’s no negotiation possible. So that’s been the breakdown – is whether to object to everything or some things'” – Politico.

Daily Beast: “With billions of dollars in lawsuits now in the balance, Dominion Voting Systems has quietly expanded its legal armada in recent days, as the election technology company goes after Trumpworld and conservative media giants. Clare Locke – the legal firm spearheading Dominion’s lawsuits against Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and pillow magnate Mike Lindell – recently brought in seven attorneys from the Texas-based firm of Susman Godfrey, which has experience litigating against the so-called ‘Kraken’ suits filed by one-time Trump attorneys Lin Wood and Sidney Powell. ‘There are great synergies between the work that the Susman team had done on the 2020 election and the defamation cases we were pursuing for Dominion,’ Tom Clare, from the notoriously aggressive law firm Clare Locke, told The Daily Beast.”

“‘As those discussions unfolded we also discovered the two firms have a great cultural similarity in having a ready for trial approach to litigation,’ he added. ‘I think it’s going to be a very effective team.’ Dominion expanding its legal team is the latest effort to punish leading players in the months-long propaganda push to trash the company and baselessly assail the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential contest. On Friday, Fox News was hit with a $1.6 billion lawsuit. ‘Fox News Media is proud of our 2020 election coverage, which stands in the highest tradition of American journalism, and will vigorously defend against this baseless lawsuit in court,’ a statement from the company said. Other conservative media outlets including Newsmax and One American News Network – also aired post election conspiracy theories and are among the top targets for Dominion’s next round of lawsuits, according to two people familiar with the matter.”

https://youtu.be/-ewwnyPoSIk

Immediately after saying that “the christians” like she have “bigger things to focus on” during Holy Week than a stupid pair of shoes, the woman realizing that she she’s the least attractive woman in the Fox News lineup even when you include Jesse Watters, Laura Ingraham goes on to immediate discuss a pair of Satanic sneakers with her guest, Raymond Arroyo, who’s wondering how he’s going to explain all those ATM withdrawals at Kyle’s Kinky Male Karnavale to his wife.

Nearly 70% of the 26 million Texas customers getting their power from ERCOT, the state government commission responsible for the state’s power grid, lost their power during last months winter storm, a new post-mortem report on the grid failure shows.

The audit by the University of Houston and reported by the Texas Tribune also found that half of ERCOT customers lost water during the crisis as the region’s temperatures plummeted.  The average time time power was out:  42 hours.

Texas recently updated the number of fatalities due to the storm to 111 people dead, and that number may go up as more medical examiner reports get filed with the state.  The storm caused more damage than the previously-worst storm, Hurricane Harvey in 2017, which cost $125 billion.  Texas will receive an unspecified amount of federal relief, even though their state leadership regularly supports secession and their federal representation votes against storm aid for other states.

“A Minnesota attorney who filed legal challenges to the November election of five congressional Democrats was given a $10,000 sanction Friday after a judge found she ‘bamboozled’ voters into signing on as plaintiffs without their knowledge or permission. ‘Susan Shogren Smith… perpetrated a fraud against this court and, more importantly, perpetrated a fraud against these plaintiffs,’ Ramsey County Chief District Judge Leonardo Castro said from the bench. Shogren Smith is a member of the MN Election Integrity Team, a conservative group that sought to prevent the state from certifying its election results while President Donald Trump and his allies promoted unfounded claims of election fraud” reports the Twin Cities Pioneer Press.

“On Dec. 1, she filed five complaints in Ramsey County District Court, naming as defendants Secretary of State Steve Simon and the Democratic candidates who won their Congressional races. Those legal challenges were filed in the names of 14 separate voters, at least four of whom had no idea they were participating. Castro ruled in the defendants’ favor on Dec. 18 and closed the cases. But it wasn’t until February when Republican activist Corinne Braun discovered her name was connected to one of the cases. She testified Friday that on a whim, she searched her own name in the state’s online court records system and was stunned to see the result. ‘To my horror, I saw that I had sued Steve Simon and Ilhan Omar. It was a surreal moment for me,’ she said, likening the discovery to finding her car had been broken into. Braun testified she had received an anonymous email asking to add her name to a list of disgruntled voters. She filled out the form and signed her name and then forwarded the email to about 5,000 people on her mailing list.”

AP: “President Joe Biden is aiming for summer passage of an infrastructure plan that is expected to cost more than $3 trillion, and the White House hopes to take a more deliberate and collaborative approach with the contentious Congress than it did on the COVID-19 rescue package, officials said Monday. The president will announce parts of his ‘Build Back Better’ package Wednesday in Pittsburgh. Sweeping in scope, the ambitious plan aims to make generational investments in infrastructure, revive domestic manufacturing, combat climate change and keep the United States competitive with China, according to the officials. It could include $3 trillion in tax increases. The final price tag is in flux but was expected to be between $3 trillion and $4 trillion. One White House official said Monday night that it may end up being closer to $3 trillion.”

“Though the White House is emphasizing the urgency, it also insists this will not be considered an emergency response like the $1.9 trillion virus relief bill that Biden signed into law over Republican objections earlier this month. The administration wants to see progress on the new legislation by Memorial Day and have it passed over the summer, White House officials said. ‘The president has a plan to fix our infrastructure and a plan to pay for it,’ White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. ‘But we certainly expect to have the discussion with members of Congress, as we move forward, about areas where they agree, where they disagree, where they would like to see greater emphasis or not.’ The administration is setting the political pace and tone for this next big priority in Biden’s agenda. The COVID-19 bill, though broadly popular with voters of both parties, exposed the president to criticism for going it alone with only Democratic votes. White House officials believe this time there will be far more of an opportunity to win some GOP support and plan significant outreach on Capitol Hill.”

https://youtu.be/s9SEhyBw8v4

In a “I’m not a racist but I’m going to say something racist and claim that it’s actually science” bit of pseudointellectualism, perpetually perplexed Tucker Carlson cites a chart retweeted by debunked conservative social scientist Jordan Peterson of the out-of-wedlock birth rate to claim that if you took that chart and compared it to some unspecified chart of crime rate, you’ll notice they’re exactly the same.  Of course, Carlson, doesn’t mention what “crime rate” he’s referring to, nor does he mention how they match. 

Federal prosecutors Monday added federal sex trafficking to the list of charges Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell is facing, which already included conspiracy and enticing minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, and the transportation of minors to engage in criminal sexual activity for allegedly grooming and recruiting underage girls from 1994 through 1997.

According to CNN, the charges stem from Maxwell recruiting and grooming an unnamed 14-year-old girl to engage in sex acts with Epstein as recently as 2004.  The indictment alleges Maxwell interacted with the girl many times in Palm Beach, Florida when she the girl was under the age of 18.  She encouraged her to enact in massages with Epstein and urged the girl to make them sexual.

In the court filing for the amended indictment, prosecutors also said they would start producing affidavits from non-testifying witnesses by April 21st. 

For the first time in American history, fewer than 50% of Americans say they belong to a church, synagogue, mosque or other religious congregation, according to a new Gallup poll reported by the Washington Post.

In a poll released Monday, 47% of American reported belonging to a religious congregation, the first timey a minority have reported such an affiliation since they started asking the question in 1937, when membership was at 73%.

Also in a first, a minority, 48%, said that religion was very important to them.  Church membership is directly correlated to the age of the respondent:  66% of people over the age of 75 said they belonged to a church, versus just 36% of millenials. 

With all the effort–from bulldozers, tug boats and engineers–to free the grounded Ever Green cargo ship from the banks of the Suez Canal, one Herculean effort will go unrewarded:  that of the moon.

According to Space.com, the powerful gravitational pull of the moon, in its full moon phase as well as its closest point in its orbit to Earth, raised the water level of the canal by about 18 inches over the past week, helping to float the stranded ship.

“We were helped enormously by the strong falling tide we had this afternoon,” Peter Berdowski, CEO of Boskalis, the salvage firm charged with freeing the Ever Given, told The Associated Press. “In effect, you have the forces of nature pushing hard with you, and they pushed harder than the two sea tugs could pull.”

Athletic clothing superpower Nike has streetwear designer MSCHF over its appropriation of Nike Air Max 97s for use as its “Satan Shoes,” a limited edition sneaker with a drop of human blood inside the sole designed in association with Rapper Lil Nas X, NBC News reports.

The sneaker is decorated with a pentagram medallion and a graphic for the Gospel verse Luke 10:18, which describes Satan’s fall from Heaven: “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”
MSCHF made 666 pairs of the edition, selling for $1,018 each, in coordination with the release of a new single from the rapper.

Nike filed the lawsuit because its sneakers were used without permission and the distinctive Nike “swoosh” logo has been prominently used in advertising for the shoes.

“In fact, there is already evidence of significant confusion and dilution occurring in the marketplace, including calls to boycott Nike in response to the launch of MSCHF’s Satan Shoes based on the mistaken belief that Nike has authorized or approved this product,” the lawsuit stated.

New Yorker: “In public, Republicans have denounced Democrats’ ambitious electoral-reform bill, the For the People Act, as an unpopular partisan ploy. But behind closed doors Republicans speak differently about the legislation, which is also known as House Resolution 1 and Senate Bill 1. They admit the lesser-known provisions in the bill that limit secret campaign spending are overwhelmingly popular across the political spectrum. In private, they concede their own polling shows that no message they can devise effectively counters the argument that billionaires should be prevented from buying elections. A recording obtained by The New Yorker of a private conference call on January 8th, between a policy adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell and the leaders of several prominent conservative groups – including one run by the Koch brothers’ network – reveals the participants’ worry that the proposed election reforms garner wide support not just from liberals but from conservative voters, too.”

“The speakers on the call expressed alarm at the broad popularity of the bill’s provision calling for more public disclosure about secret political donors. The participants conceded that the bill, which would stem the flow of dark money from such political donors as the billionaire oil magnate Charles Koch, was so popular that it wasn’t worth trying to mount a public-advocacy campaign to shift opinion. Instead, a senior Koch operative said that opponents would be better off ignoring the will of American voters and trying to kill the bill in Congress.”

“Kyle McKenzie, the research director for the Koch-run advocacy group Stand Together, told fellow-conservatives and Republican congressional staffers on the call that he had a ‘spoiler.’ ‘When presented with a very neutral description’ of the bill, ‘people were generally supportive,’ McKenzie said, adding that ‘the most worrisome part… is that conservatives were actually as supportive as the general public was when they read the neutral description.’ In fact, he warned, ‘there’s a large, very large, chunk of conservatives who are supportive of these types of efforts.’ As a result, McKenzie conceded, the legislation’s opponents would likely have to rely on Republicans in the Senate, where the bill is now under debate, to use ‘under-the-dome-type strategies’ – meaning legislative maneuvers beneath Congress’s roof, such as the filibuster – to stop the bill, because turning public opinion against it would be ‘incredibly difficult.'”

https://youtu.be/x2FyZTHBqz0

Pillow manufacturer and crack addict who will ultimately be smothered by his own product Mike Lindell claimed on Steve Bannon’s podcast that somehow, however contrary to the Constitution, Donald Trump will be installed as president in August.

“The social network Parler was flooded with a wave of angry comments on Friday after it emerged that the ‘free speech’ platform had repeatedly collaborated with the FBI in the weeks leading up to the January 6 Capitol riot. Hundreds of users have responded to a post published by the official Parler account on Thursday that called for ‘an investigation into big tech collusion’ that, it alleged, ‘took place just as Parler began to pose a credible threat’ to Facebook and Twitter. The post linked to an article by The Wall Street Journal detailing how Parler made more than 50 referrals to the FBI ahead of the violent siege. If the company thought the post would garner a positive reaction among the site’s users, they were wrong.”

“One user wrote: ‘To confirm, you are calling for an investigation into big tech collusion while you are colluding with the FBI against your platform members?’ Another user wrote: ‘This is NOT an example of a free speech platform. Parler is a fraud.’ The negative comments quickly piled up. Users vented their fury at the site’s apparent willingness to report its users despite its pitch of protecting free speech. ‘I guess when a company says they are a free speech platform I would not expect them to turn folks over to the corrupt FBI,’ one person commented. Another wrote: ‘How is this supposed to make us want to stay on Parler when you violated people’s right to free speech?’ A third Parler user said: ‘So you are saying you ratted on a bunch of us.’ One person asked how to delete their account. Another said: ‘Dropping Parler as soon as President Trump starts his new platform… y’all are done in my book'” – Newsweek.

A happy Monday to the FBI agent who had to write this footnote explaining "soy boy" to a judge (HT @ryanjreilly catching this newly unsealed one) https://t.co/VKY6QWQljP pic.twitter.com/SQeBkuOpyp

— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) March 29, 2021

Copying a measure recently passed by their counterparts in Georgia, Florida Republican members of the state legislature are considering passing a measure that would ban people from passing out food and drinks, including water, to people standing in line to vote, NBC News reports.

The draconian measures are part of the GOP’s efforts to tap down voter participation because traditionally, when more people vote, Republican candidates lose.  This leads to GOP officials creating long wait times and other obstacles to voting.

The Florida proposal attempts to expand the traditional anti-electioneering zone–where voters cannot be solicited by political messages–from 100 feet to 150 feet, and it will include a ban on giving anyone in line food or drinks, including water.

Rochelle Walensky, the director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that she has a sense of “impending doom” because of a recent jump in the number of daily new coronavirus cases, the Washington Post reports.

The feeling comes as the seven-day-running average of new cases jumped in the past week, to more than 60,000.  This follows a week where Spring Breakers took over Florida and weeks after Texas and other states lifted public health guidelines, including mask wearing.

“We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are and so much reason for hope,” Walensky said during a White House news briefing, her voice breaking at times. “But right now, I’m scared.”