AP News: Federal jury in Colorado finds MyPillow founder, Mike Lindell, liable for “statements made about Eric Coomer, the former security and product strategy director at Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems, including calling him a traitor.” Jury awards Commer “$2.3 million in damages, far less than the $62.7 million Coomer had asked for to help send a message to discourage attacks on election workers.”
“He [Lindell] said he used to be worth about $60 million before he started speaking out about the 2020 election and is now $10 million in debt.”
Scarcely 24 hours after a Democratic lawmaker in Minnesota was assassinated in her home, Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, posted a pair of politically charged messages mocking the attack.
“This is what happens When Marxists don’t get their way,” Mr. Lee wrote on Sunday on his personal X account, a message accompanied by photographs of the suspect released by law enforcement officials.
An hour later, in a second post showing the suspect, Mr. Lee wrote: “Nightmare on Waltz Street,” in an apparent reference the Democratic governor of the state, Tim Walz.
By the afternoon, amid outraged responses to his postings, Mr. Lee issued a very different message on his official Senate account in which he hit all of the sober notes one would expect from an elected official reacting to a political assassination.
“These hateful attacks have no place in Utah, Minnesota, or anywhere in America,” Mr. Lee wrote on X. “Please join me in condemning this senseless violence, and praying for the victims and their families.”
But that standard-issue statement came long after his initial derisive posts, in which he appeared to lay responsibility for the shooting at the feet of Democrats and the political left.
While the political affiliation of the suspect is not clear — he was listed in some recent state records as “other” or “no party preference” — people who know him have said he is a religious conservative who supports President Trump and is passionately opposed to abortion….
Update: Be sure to read this message from Senator Smith of Minnesota’s staff to Mike Lee’s staff:
A top staffer to Sen. Tina Smith emailed Sen. Mike Lee’s top staffers on Monday about “how much additional pain you’ve caused on an unspeakably horrific weekend”Via Sam Stein on twitter
On Friday, the California State Bar Court’s three-judge Review Department came to the same conclusion as a hearing judge over a year ago and recommended the disbarment of President Trump’s former lawyer, John Eastman. (98-page decision and five-page concurrence here; news release here.)
Saying that “[i]n a democracy nothing can be more fundamental than the orderly transfer of power that occurs after a fair and unimpeded electoral process as established by law,” the Review Department concluded disbarment is “the appropriate discipline . . . when an attorney, who has sworn to uphold the laws and constitutions of the State of California and the United States, attempts to actively undermine the results of an election to the most powerful office in the United States with the goal of delaying or invalidating the lawful installation of his client’s electoral opponent and thereby keep his client in office.”
Eastman can ask the Review Department for reconsideration. He has 15 days to do so. (Rules of Procedure, 5.158(A).) If, as is likely, the Department’s opinion is not reconsidered, Eastman can seek California Supreme Court review of the disbarment recommendation. Under Rules of Court, rule 9.13(a), his petition for review is due 60 days after the recommendation is filed with the court….
Conflict with DNC Chair Ken Martin leads Randi Weingarten, leader of the American Federation of Teachers, and Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, to resign their positions in the Democratic National Committee.
Plaintiffs allege “GOP legislative leaders violated federal law and the U.S. Constitution when they enacted new electoral maps.” Republicans claim the maps are a legal partisan gerrymander.
“Favorable rulings for the plaintiffs could force Republicans to redraw maps for the 2026 elections, making it harder to retain their partisan advantage. Otherwise, the districts could be used through the 2030 elections.”
In the past three months alone, a man set fire to the Pennsylvania governor’s residence while Mr. Shapiro and his family were asleep inside; another man gunned down a pair of workers from the Israeli Embassy outside an event in Washington; protesters calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colo., were set on fire; and the Republican Party headquarters in New Mexico and a Tesla dealership near Albuquerque were firebombed.
And those were just the incidents that resulted in death or destruction.
Against that backdrop, it might have been shocking, but it was not really so surprising, when on Saturday morning, a Democratic state representative in Minnesota, Melissa Hortman, and her husband, Mark, were assassinated in their home, and a Democratic state senator, John A. Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette, were shot and wounded.
Slowly but surely, political violence has moved from the fringes to an inescapable reality. Violent threats and even assassinations, attempted or successful, have become part of the political landscape — a steady undercurrent of American life….
Adam Liptak for the NYT:
The Trump administration is ordinarily quick to appeal its losses. When courts in recent weeks blocked President Trump’s tariff plans and his takeover of National Guard troops in California, government lawyers filed appealswithin … Continue reading
I am pleased to welcome Ciara Torres-Spelliscy to the ELB Book Corner, writing about her new book Corporatocracy. This is the first of four posts:
Press coverage of the political events in 2025 often lament that the corruption unfolding… Continue reading
Democracy is more than Elections. Checks and balances at further risk from Bloomberg:
“The provision would bar federal judges from issuing a preliminary injunction or temporary restraining order against the federal government, unless the challengers had put up a financial… Continue reading
Fascinating episode from Reveal that speaks to a range of issues of interest to readers of this Blog, from the NYC mayoral race to the appeal of Donald Trump among Latino voters to the future of VRA and the political… Continue reading
Bruce Mehlman, at Mehlman Consulting, has put together this data showing a dramatic shift that takes place in the late 1960s/1970s about whether lengthy prior experience in Washington, DC appears to be an advantage or a disadvantage in presidential elections.… Continue reading
Violence directed at innocent people is abhorrent and political violence even more so because it is an attack not just on people but on the institution of democracy itself and an attempt to change government not through elections but through… Continue reading
NYT’s “The Tilt” newsletter:
Of all of Elon Musk’s explosive X posts last week during his public sparring with President Trump, perhaps the one that received the least attention was his call for a third party.
Even if… Continue reading
AP:
A political consultant who sent artificial intelligence-generated robocalls mimicking former President Joe Biden to New Hampshire Democrats last year was acquitted Friday of voter suppression and impersonating a candidate.
Steven Kramer, 56, of New Orleans, admitted orchestrating a message… Continue reading