#bryan steil

Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI) —dragged at his own town hall.

He should have known when it kicked off w/constituents reciting the Pledge of Allegiance w/extra emphasis on “justice for all.”

Then came the truth:

“I don’t think you’re the right fit for us anymore.”

Even telling him it’s time to step down.

Rachel Leingang at The Guardian:

The Republican president is taking aim at a Democratic fundraising platform, issuing a presidential memorandum to crack down on supposed foreign contributions to elections, an unsubstantiated claim from the right.. Donald Trump announced the memo on Thursday, directing the attorney general to investigate, and report to the president, “concerning allegations regarding the use of online fundraising platforms to make ‘straw’ or ‘dummy’ contributions and to make foreign contributions to US political candidates and committees, all of which break the law”. ActBlue, the largest online donation platform on the left, has anticipated the presidential action. Its CEO and president, Regina Wallace-Jones, sent an email this week saying the organization expected an executive order targeting it, and that the threat of these investigations had “caused many in the ecosystem anxiety and distress”. “If we look past rumors and innuendo, here is what we know to be true: Nothing will deter or interrupt ActBlue’s mission and work to enable millions of Americans to participate in our democracy,” she wrote. “There is an ongoing and persistent effort to weaken the confidence of the American people in what’s possible. This is the next version of ‘the big lie.’”

ActBlue is the main platform used to collect donations for Democratic candidates and causes. The move is among several actions the Trump administration has taken to “cripple the left”, the New York Times has reported, part of a “series of highly partisan official actions that, if successful, will threaten to hobble Democrats’ ability to compete in elections for years to come”. The memo comes amid ongoing unsubstantiated claims on the right about the fundraising platform. Elon Musk has tweeted about ActBlue multiple times since Trump took office. “Something stinks about ActBlue,” he said in one post. Republican lawmakers have called on the treasury department to investigate ActBlue. Representative Darrell Issa wrote to the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, in March, saying the department should investigate whether ActBlue facilitated donations from “terror-linked organizations and non-profits”, based on reporting in rightwing media that the platform had cut ties with a Palestinian organization that advocates for divestment in Israel.

Congressman Bryan Steil, the chair of the committee on House administration, requested documents from ActBlue in October “related to the platform’s donor verification policies and potential vulnerabilities that foreign actors may exploit to illegally participate in the US political process”. Those documents showed that the platform had updated its policies to automatically reject certain donations from gift cards and other avenues, Steil said. The organization has seen internal strife, the New York Times reported, leading to departures of senior officials. Republicans demanded more documents from ActBlue based on the departures, the paper reported. The attack on the fundraising platform comes as Democrats prepare efforts to win back majorities in Washington in the midterms. On Thursday, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced a plan to revitalize state Democratic parties by sending monthly donations from the national party to the states, with more funding going to red states.

Tyrant Trump’s election-rigging memorandum that targets ActBlue is an authoritarian attack on fair elections that could make Democratic chances at winning elections more difficult. The memorandum is supposedly about “foreign contributions” but is in reality about legitimizing far-right conspiracy theories about ActBlue.

See Also:

Politico: Dems brace for Trump’s assault on ActBlue: ‘We’re not going to let Donald Trump attack our core infrastructure’

The New Republic: Trump Prepares to Take Revenge With Order Targeting ActBlue

It outright strips authority from local election officials of all parties:

A nationwide ban on Ranked Choice Voting in general elections for federal offices

A nationwide ban on voting by mail in federal elections

Require states to share voter citizenship data with the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice — under threat of losing all federal election funding

Whether you support Ranked Choice Voting or simply believe states should make their own decisions, ask yourself this:

Who do you trust to handle your elections, your local clerk or the federal government?

A Ranked Choice Voting ban would be especially harmful to military voters. In six Southern states, military and overseas voters already use Ranked Choice Voting to participate in runoff elections; this bill would take that option away.

They also voted for this

They redefined the age of a dependent child from 18 to 7 and under, in regards to SNAP (food stamps)

So what about if a parent isn't working because they have a disabled child and rely on government assistance to get by. Once that child turns 8, they get kicked off snap? Their already tight budget becomes tighter. Because having a disabled child that requires 24/7 medical care is not cheap.

They also changed the dependent child tax benefits

So if one parent is a us citizen and the other is a us resident, they would no longer be able to get the child tax credit for their us citizen child....

Here are the cited sources

Didn’t the Nazis also disrupt meetings? It’s catnip for MSNBC and its ilk— the urban myth that The People are rising up spontaneously, like mushrooms after a heavy rain, to protest at back-home listening sessions the threat to democracy represented by elected Republican congressmen. The peanut gallery at Blaska Policy Werkes is not that gullible. They know these disruptions are organized by the…