Team Biden-Harris Enters June Ahead of Trump with $192M War Chest
From President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign:
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From President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign:
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From DPVA:
Reproductive Health Leaders Hold Governor Youngkin and Republicans Accountable for Veto of the Right to Contraception Act
This morning, DPVA hosted a press call with elected officials and reproductive health leaders U.S. Rep. Jennifer McClellan of Virginia’s 4th Congressional District, Senator Ghazala Hashmi (D-Chesterfield), Delegate Cia Price (D-Newport News), Penny Blue of Franklin County, and Lara Bury of Springfield to respond to Governor Glenn Youngkin’s veto of the Right to Contraception Act (HB609 and SB237). Governor Youngkin and MAGA Republicans continue to push for dangerous and extreme measures that could leave Virginians at risk of losing access to a wide range of contraceptive methods. On the call, the lawmakers and leaders had a simple message: This veto highlights the importance of electing President Biden and Vice President Harris this November so Donald Trump and Republicans cannot enact a national abortion ban and other restrictions to reproductive freedom.
Find Highlights Below
U.S. Rep. Jennifer McClellan: “By laying the groundwork for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Trump has emboldened his MAGA allies across the country, and in the last two years, we continue to hear MAGA politicians say quite explicitly that contraception should be next. In Congress, I am a proud cosponsor of the Right to Contraception Act, but we have to flip the House, keep the Senate, and re-elect President Biden and Vice President Harris to make it a reality.” [WATCH THE FULL CLIP HERE]
Senator Ghazala Hashmi: “Nowhere is the threat to contraception more clear than in the votes and in the veto that just occurred. Every Republican in the state Senate voted against this bill and our governor vetoed it. He can give any excuse he wants to, but his veto pen speaks louder than words. He simply will not protect the right to contraception and that has been made clear.” [WATCH THE FULL CLIP HERE]
Delegate Cia Price: “The governor knows this bill is supported by 8 in 10 people, which is why he tries to talk from both sides of his mouth. But instead of listening to the 8 in 10, he chose to appease the ultra-right wing of his party and he bent to extremist ideologies at the expense of our freedom to decide if and when to start a family. I want to know if he agrees with them and their backward thinking.” [WATCH THE FULL CLIP HERE]
Penny Blue: “I ask women and all across Virginia to put aside politics and party and vote our own interests, and not allow anyone to take us back 100 years, but to support leaders up and down the ballot that support women’s reproductive freedom.” [WATCH THE FULL CLIP HERE]
Lara Bury: “[Governor Youngkin’s] decision showed us once again, we are right to be fearful of how far this will go. What is staring us in the face is that extremists want to and are making it possible to eliminate our reproductive choices. I lived my entire life without needing to think about access to birth control, as it should be. It should be guaranteed that we have the choices in our reproductive health.” [WATCH THE FULL CLIP HERE]
From the Dan Helmer for VA10 campaign:
Dan Helmer Launches First Broadcast Television Ad in VA-10
The ad will run on major networks across the district and highlights Helmer’s unique ability to protect our democracy along with his endorsement by the Washington Post Editorial Board
Fairfax, VA — Today, Dan Helmer’s campaign placed the first broadcast television advertisement in the race for Virginia’s 10th Congressional District. The ad, which will run on major networks across the district beginning tomorrow and run through Election Day on June 18th, highlights the stakes for our democracy as well as Helmer’s recent endorsement by the Washington Post Editorial Board.
“I served our country in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’ve seen what happens when extremists trample people’s rights,” said Helmer in the ad. “It’s why I wrote the bill to ban January 6th insurrectionists from holding office and led the fight to protect abortion rights in Virginia.”
The full ad can be viewed by clicking on the image below:
With scenes of the attack on our Capitol on January 6th in the background, Helmer describes the stakes in the election: “We can’t take our democracy for granted.”
by Lowell
Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Monday, May 20.
by Lowell
Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Sunday, May 19.
Trump starts playing QAnon music during his bizarre slur-filled NRA speech pic.twitter.com/tprP3rRxMR
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) May 18, 2024
Experts on the breakdown of democracy warn us to be ready for when the bright red warning lights start flashing. And no sign is more ominous than when you have political leaders explicitly promoting violence against whole segments of the population.
That was precisely the message sent by Texas Governor Greg Abbott when he pardoned the convicted murderer of a Black Lives Matter protestor. I looked a bit more deeply into this case in the hope, frankly, of finding some mitigating factor, some reasonable doubt – some excuse for this pardon other than to proclaim: “it’s open season on progressives, boys.” But there was none. This was a pretty open-and-shut, fairly adjudicated case of a politically motivated murder – which Abbott decided to overturn after being goaded to do so by the likes of Tucker Carlson.
Unlike Kyle Rittenhouse, the then-teenager who shot three men – two of them fatally – at a racial justice rally in Wisconsin in 2020, the defendant in the Texas case, Daniel Perry, was found guilty by a jury of his peers. And no, we’re not talking about those liberal-by-definition New York City jurors that Trump and his cronies love to complain about – this was a jury of red-blooded Texans.
The facts of the case were depressingly clear. Perry, an Uber driver, in July 2020 followed the increasingly common – and Republican-encouraged – practice of driving into groups of protestors. At that point, he came upon marcher Garrett Foster, whom he shot to death.
Now, the only thin reed upon which right wingers have to hang their defense is the fact that the victim, Foster, was open-carrying an AK-47 at the time of the incident. The hypocrisy of a party that has spent decades touting unfettered gun rights – to the point of Republican U.S. Representatives wearing assault weapon lapel pins on the floor of Congress – saying that progressives deserve to be shot if they have a weapon in their hands is, well, just breathtaking.
Careful accounts of the trial have noted that multiple eyewitnesses stated that Foster did not raise or point his rifle at Perry while only Perry and his defense attorneys claim otherwise. Eyewitnesses versus a defendant trying to keep his butt out of jail – hmm, tough call there!
The most damning part was actually excluded from trial but released later – a full 82 pages of Perry’s social media messages in which he made or promoted endless racist slurs and made statements like “I might go to Dallas to shoot looters.”
See what I mean by open-and-shut case? The justice system worked and that should have been the end of it.
But that’s the point at which Tucker Carlson, then still at Fox, attacked Abbott for allowing the cold-blooded murderer of a progressive protestor to be convicted without a fight. And like a well-trained dog, Abbott responded with a tweet stating “Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive District Attorney…I look forward to approving the Board’s pardon recommendation as soon as it hits my desk.”
Take just a moment to gawk at the sheer, incoherent nonsense and dishonesty of this statement. “Jury nullification” is the practice of jury members declaring a defendant innocent even when they know he is guilty, as a way of protesting against the criminal justice system. What the hell does that have to do with a case in which a jury found the defendant guilty? Abbott, by the way, is a former state Supreme Court justice and attorney general who surely knows better.
Furthermore, “Stand Your Ground” cannot be a defense when there is nothing to stand your ground against – you can’t just shoot and kill a victim who does not threaten you. The clear and disturbing message here is that the sheer existence of members of the political left peacefully protesting is itself a threat justifying right wingers in actually shooting such progressives to death.
The pretense for this pardon could not be thinner. Abbott acted after his self-appointed parole board recommended it – but that board, in an empty three-paragraph statement, did not give a single reason for its recommendation.
So, ultimately, there was no remotely reasonable justification for this pardon. That leaves only one explanation – it was a political act. And I do not see any way to read this political statement other than to reward the murderer for what he did and to encourage more MAGA types to take up arms and use the threat or reality of violence to stop members of the left from peacefully expressing ourselves.
You’ll know that fascism has arrived at our shores when you have a major political party deciding to throw aside the legal and moral norms and constraints of democracy in favor of outright mob violence as their favored form of political expression.
So you tell me: are we there yet?
(Thanks for reading — please check out my Substack)
From the “DNC War Room”:
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by Lowell
Here are a few international, national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Saturday, May 18.
From Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action:
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From State Sen. Ghazala Hashmi and Del. Cia Price:
Senator Hashmi and Delegate Price Condemn Governor Youngkin’s Veto of Right to Contraception Act
“Governor Youngkin is now on the record agreeing with the extremists in his party – including Donald Trump – who conflate contraception with abortion”
RICHMOND, Va. — Senator Ghazala Hashmi (D-Chesterfield) and Delegate Marcia “Cia” Price (D-Newport News) today issued the following joint statement in response to Governor Youngkin’s veto of their legislation to codify the right to use contraception in Virginia:
“Despite polling show widespread public support for the right to use contraception, despite the 37,000 petitions that were delivered to his office, and despite the clearly-stated threat to the Constitutional right to use contraception from the United States Supreme Court itself, Gov. Glenn Youngkin today made his position crystal clear: he will not protect Virginians’ freedom to use contraceptives, including IUDs and Plan B.
“To every Virginian paying attention, to the media preparing to cover this story, and most importantly, to everyone who relies on contraception for family planning and other critical health care needs: do not believe any more of this right-wing governor’s doublespeak as he continues to play both sides.
“This year, we introduced a simple bill that defined contraception and protected the right to use it. By vetoing our legislation, Governor Youngkin is now on the record agreeing with the extremists in his party – including Donald Trump – who conflate contraception with abortion.
“This is not the end of our fight. We will be back year after year until this bill is signed and the vital health care that Virginians rely on is protected. We do this so that Virginia can continue to be a beacon of freedom and reproductive justice in the South.”