State courts can carry out arrests and penalties themselves without federal government involvement
Primarily in the context of Musk that’s going to matter with his active cases in the WI court
Other states governments can extradite him too even if he never steps foot in Wisconsin. He’d have to basically never go anywhere other than federal territories or deep red state to avoid that. That’s assuming they’d block his extradition in the first place which is quite rare to begin with
Musk spending $25 million and also reduces his grip on congressional Republicans
They have been worried about him funding challangers against them. If he can spend this kind of money and heavier time investment and still lose badly, that reduces a motivation to go along with him
Both appear to be happening in the specials lately
Higher comparative dem turnout and some degree of persuasion is likely
Can’t directly tell because individual votes are anonymous, but you can tell what party a voter is registered with in some states.
Generally seeing higher turnout among registered dems and margins large enough to suggest that many independent and likely some Republicans are shifting their votes
Elon Musk does. He poured $12 million into it for a reason. He has cases before the Wisconsin court system for violations of Wisconsin law. They can carry those penalties out without Trump being able to pardon for them either (can only pardon for federal crimes)
This is for a state court, not a federal one
State courts make decisions about state laws and are enforced by state officals
*In deep red districts. Like R+33 red
Dems overperformed by like 20 points. They probably would have outperformed more if Republicans didn’t notice the close polling and start pouring millions into the race
Yes, don’t be complacent, but don’t look at it strictly in a binary way
No senate business can take place because of this even though it’s technically not a filibuster of a specific bill. The senate was suppose to open under normal operation at noon EST, but he’s still speaking as of me writing this comment
Not that I forgive Schumer for what he did on the CR, but Schumer actually was on the floor helping Booker
Schumer along with many other dems have been asking super long winded questions to give Booker a break speaking for a few minutes
(Procedurally, you can take and answer questions without yielding your time on the floor)
If you want to get stuff through, no, but it you want to help him, then yes
Various Dems senators have been helping him by asking super long questions to give him a few minutes break from speaking
In any case, Republican senators leaving without being able to voting on nominees and other stuff is helpful
Not that I forgive Schumer for what he did on the CR, but Schumer actually was on the floor helping Booker
Schumer along with many other dems have been asking super long winded questions to give Booker a break speaking for a few minutes
(Procedurally, you can take and answer questions without yielding your time on the floor)
Mostly through taking a sledge hammer via executive branch right now
Which needs things like confirmation of appointees from the Senate
Plus in a broad sense they’re also trying to codify some of their currently illegal actions. It’s good to slow stuff like that down
The Senate is still not able to go about their normal business because of this. It was suppose to start going through their schedule at noon today
Weird, no paywall for me but you can read on archive.is
For the last bit, that’s more or less what the article suggests
There’s no clear path to breaking the meat industry’s grip over American politics on the horizon, but there is something anyone can do — starting today — to push back against the kinds of horrific allegations made against Mountaire and other poultry giants: Eat less chicken.
https://archive.is/ITR1e for the paywall
The laws these industries are trying to overturn are just ones that set such low standards it’s truly insane. Cage-free still means plenty of cruelty and yet that’s still much for the egg industry
For instance, practices like chick culling exist in most of the world including the US. Billions of male chicks are shred alive around the world right after birth
Or forced molting is quite common in the US where they intentionally starve a flock for a 7-14 days to increase egg production rates after it
Among other broader problems like how they’ve been bred to produce eggs at such high rates they start getting tons of bone health problems. I could keep going on and on, but I think that’s enough to get the idea
Even if there’s no criminal charges, at least there are some groups that just filed civil lawsuits about the record keeping laws they broke
And note that Pardon powers do not apply to civil cases - only criminal ones
Less a fluke, more of a pattern lately. Dems have been overperforming in most special elections since Trump took office again. Sometimes by a couple percent, and frequently by 10-20%. Only a handful of underperformances
For instance, they also flipped a Trump+21 distict in Iowa. They won by 5 points too
Will it hold up in the longer term? That’s much harder to say, but it’s not just one special election that’s been a large upset
Probably
And yet some Republicans were actually already warning about potentially losing this district before the election
Dems are pressurable. Republicans are lot harder to pressure
Elections decide who you have to work with
They alone won’t fully fix things, but they can set the stage for progress
It’s going to take both voting and directed pressure to change things
Call your local & state officals about this. The federal government does not run elections. It’s the state and local officals that do even for federal office. They are the ones who chose to follow or not follow a blatantly illegal order
Trump is threatening to pull unrelated federal funding if they don’t, but he’s been pulling funding for many states anyways for zero reason. Make sure your local & state officals know you’ll have their back if they don’t bow down
Plenty of states are directly rubuking Trump right now and actively going against what he’s telling them to do. We don’t have to imagine them enforcing things that they don’t want. Many are already doing just as much
Statewide dem parties have been better at standing up than much of the national dems have
NY still has the congestion prices going despite his demand they pull it
Maine’s governor is not bowing to Trump’s demands on trans rights even after direct in person confrontation
And so on