Democratic lawmakers are hoping to force Republicans to remove Bill Pulte from his new side-gig as acting director of national intelligence. Senator Mark Warner told Senate Majority Leader John Thune to get Pulte removed or risk Democrats withholding their votes for Donald Trump’s long-term extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), Punchbowl News reported Wednesday. FISA expires in just nine days, leaving Republicans with a short window to force Pulte out. Democrats aren’t alone: Republican lawmakers have also expressed their concerns about Pulte. “Well, we don’t need a weaponized DNI, we need professionals there,” Thune told reporters Tuesday. Pulte has none of the military or intelligence background necessary to lead ODNI. He’s made a name for himself by being Trump’s pitbull, recklessly targeting the president’s political enemies and making himself wildly unpopular in the process. By positioning Pulte as a dealbreaker for FISA, Democrats believe they’re doing Republicans a favor, Punchbowl News reported. If there’s one thing that Democrats and Republicans can agree on, it’s hating Bill Pulte.
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor offered a scathing dissent after the court on Tuesday allowed Alabama Republicans to eliminate one of two majority-Black districts ahead of the midterms. “Before the Court are two paths. Down one lies an orderly election, held under a tried-and-tested congressional map that protects Black Alabamians’ right to vote and with which all voters, elections officials, and candidates alike are familiar. Down the other lies a chaotic election, held under a never-before-used congressional map that intentionally discriminates against Black Alabamians,” Sotomayor wrote in a withering 17-page dissent.She also noted that the last-minute ruling—sent down just months before midterm elections— would “require officials to change the voter registrations of hundreds of thousand[s] of voters in just days at best, a task that Alabama previously represented would take months.”“Just as Alabama doubled down on racial discrimination, the Court today doubles down on chaos,” Sotomayor concluded. “Because I choose to defend the rule of law and the right of all Alabamians to participate equally in democracy, I respectfully dissent.” The NAACP also sounded off against the decision. “The Supreme Court continues to unleash chaos in our democratic process, and with this latest action, gives Alabama approval to use a congressional map that had previously been found to be intentionally discriminatory,” general counsel Kristen Clarke said in a statement. “This is a Court that is stripping Black voters of power and voice at a speed that would put Jim Crow jurists to shame. Our message to communities remains the same—the best way to express dissent is by showing up at the ballot box this election season.” The Supreme Court’s decision will likely force newly elected Black Democratic Representative Shomari Figures out of his seat.
Richard D. Wolff Substack By the end of World War 2 in Europe, that continent’s extremely violent self-destruction had killed tens of millions and wrecked many economies. Its politically dominant employer classes had driven their national governments to a clash that had produced those results. By 1945 the war’s outcome had proved far worse than […]