Author: ali redford
I love dogs and people. I want living creatures to thrive. I love to cook, and share the food, but ya gotta get in line in front of the dog.
Ha. Hahaha. If He’d Been Doing Our Work All Along, He’d Have Won His Primary-
because his voters would be better off. It’s good he’s at least finishing less weakly.
Senate advances bill aimed at ending Iran war as Cassidy, after primary loss, flips to support it
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate advanced legislation Tuesday that seeks to force President Donald Trump to withdraw from the Iran war, as a growing number of Republicans defied the president’s wishes.
Since Trump ordered the attack on Iran at the end of February, Democrats have forced repeated votes on war powers resolutions that would require him to either gain congressional approval for the war or withdraw troops. Republicans had been able to muster the votes to reject those proposals, but Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy — fresh off a primary election loss in which Trump endorsed his opponent — switched sides to deliver a crucial vote to pass the legislation.
The 50-47 vote tally demonstrated the small but crucial number of Republicans voting to halt the war with Iran. The legislation will get a vote on final passage, but the timing was not immediately clear.
Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska had all previously voted for similar war powers resolutions and did so again Tuesday. Cassidy voted for the legislation for the first time.
After his primary election loss last week, Cassidy returned to Washington saying that he was proud of his work to uphold the Constitution and would carefully consider how he would vote on several priorities of the Trump administration.
Randy Rainbow Nails It Yet Again!
Picking on Minority Leader Jeffries who truly ought to be able to say a little more is fine, but it’s actually Republicans who need to step up, as they have the power and ability to put things on the floor for action.
This is a great song all on its own as a song!
A Beautiful, Calm Morning-
Think I’ll go outside for a while, and just smile! And pick up the branches, put the bird feeders back out, etc., etc. I am so very thankful our storms were not nearly so bad as was forecast as possible-to-likely! I hope all of us are able to find beauty today!
This Week’s “Lay Lines”
Clay Jones & Open Windows
(You want to click through to see this first one well. I don’t know why WP miniaturized it, but it’s really good.)
Vulgar and self-aggrandizing
Trump plasters his name everywhere
Orange Chicken
Did Donald Trump sell out Taiwan?
Donald Trump went to China, and all he got were some seeds.
Donald Trump did not receive any help from China on ending the war in Iran or reopening the Strait of Hormuz, but Chinese President Xi Jinping did give him some rose seeds. The Chinese leader gave Trump a tour of the Zhongnanhai Garden, where he admired the roses. I guess he admired them so much that Xi decided to give him seeds so that he could grow his own roses. He didn’t even give him roses, just the seeds. You know that Donald Trump does not care about growing some damn flowers.
Trump’s trip to China was a total and abject failure and failed to secure any agreements or promises. Trump came home empty-handed. (snip-MORE)
Trumpy Poo
Donald Trump found a new shitty way to grift
In 2023, a government contractor pleaded guilty to stealing the tax information of Donald Trump and other wealthy Americans and leaking it to media outlets in 2019 and 2020. After he was restored to the presidency in 2025, Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service for “allowing” this leak, along with a $230 million lawsuit against the Department of Justice for the Russia collusion investigation he faced during his first term in office and the 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago.
Since he is the president of the United States and head of the executive branch, and the DOJ and the IRS are agencies under the executive branch, Donald Trump was the plaintiff and defendant. Basically, he was trying to hand himself $10 billion of our money. Even Richard Nixon didn’t try to get away with this kind of corruption. The only kink to Donald Trump’s plan of grifting us out of $10 billion is that it had to be approved by a judge. (snip-MORE)
This and That
Hi, all-
Well, a few weeks ago when his health was improving, I’d written in a comment to Scottie that I needed some time because I want to help out our Humane Society director with some tasks she cannot get done. Things went South with Scottie’s health, and I let it go until Scottie improves. Well, it is unfortunate to have worked out that I need to go in to the shelter to help out; our director is in danger of burning out. She’s always had many offers from shelters around the country, many of which no doubt can not only provide her with office support but also with more money and benefits than my city and county is able to provide. I was asked again if there’s anything I can do, so I’m trying to configure things. As a board member, I’m somewhat obliged to pitch in (which is what I was afraid of, but I do need to get out of the house now and then.)
I’m thinking maybe I’m not going to post every day, or at least not as many posts. Josh Day Next Day will be posted weekly! I don’t want Scottie to worry about the blog, so I’ll be writing to him tomorrow about all this after I see how it hits with readers; also, he may, of course, see this post and chime in. I’m wondering, though: if the posts are fewer during some days, will you readers drift away from the blog? Please be at liberty to say yes, don’t cut back on posts. Or, nah-some days everyone’s busy, so no worries. Or, whatever your words and opinion may be.
Lots Happening This Week; Joyce Vance Previews And Comments:
The Week Ahead
May 17, 2026
Coming this week:
Looks like the law firms win
Last week I flagged that oral argument was set in the D.C. Circuit for this past Thursday in the combined challenges filed by four law firms against Trump’s executive orders seeking to keep them from conducting much of their business. All four firms won in the lower courts. Based on the panel’s reception, they seem on track to do it again.
These cases are highly significant because they go to the heart of a major abuse of executive power: Trump’s insistence that he has the ability to put entities that oppose him out of business. Former Solicitor General for George W. Bush, Paul Clement, representing the firms, argued that Trump’s executive orders “run afoul of the better part of the Bill of Rights.” Not just one or two provisions, mind you, but “the better part.” He argued that they threaten the right to counsel, the separation of powers, and the rule of law.
Clement explained, “The executive orders here strike at the heart of the First Amendment and the ability of lawyers to zealously represent their clients. Lawyers cannot zealously represent their clients while walking on eggshells for fear of reprisals; thus, the executive orders strike at the heart of the rule of law and the zealous representation on which the judiciary and the adversary process depend.” That seems entirely clear. It could even be possible that firms might avoid representing certain clients—one of Trump’s early attacks was on Covington and Burling, a D.C. firm that gave advice to Jack Smith, the special counsel during the Biden administration who oversaw the two prosecutions of Donald Trump.
Clement also explained the headlock Trump had put firms in: “I either keep my security clearance, or I can sue the Trump administration, not both.” For many defense firms, the ability to obtain a security clearance is essential to doing certain types of work. Trump’s orders purported to remove those clearances for lawyers at firms that ran afoul of him. He also tried to suspend active government contracts and prevent attorneys who worked at the interdicted firms from entering government buildings, including federal courthouses. As we discussed here, it was always going to be a nonstarter because the orders, if permitted to go into effect, would allow a president to pick and choose which attorneys could continue to make a living and put ones he didn’t like out of business.
During argument, the panel seemed unpersuaded that the executive orders were discretionary national security decisions made by a president that aren’t subject to review by the courts. If the case makes its way to the Supreme Court, Trump will undoubtedly argue that the district judges who first considered the case were biased. Assuming Trump loses at the Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court could take the case on appeal, but is not obligated to. For instance, Judge Richard Leon, one of first district judges to consider a law firm executive order case, is also the judge who issued a preliminary injunction halting construction of Trump’s ballroom, finding that the president is the “steward” of the White House and not the “owner,” and that Trump had no statutory authority to proceed, absent authorization from Congress. So prepare yourself for meritless arguments about judicial bias if Trump suffers a loss here. There is no way of predicting how long it will take the court to rule, and the administration is enjoined from putting the orders into effect while the cases are being litigated.
Closing the loop on mifepristone
With only two justices, predictably, Thomas and Alito, writing in dissent, the Supreme Court has prevented Louisiana’s law, which would make mifepristone unavailable via telehealth, from going into effect while the litigation moves forward.
It’s not skeptical to question whether this happened because the Court is well aware of the risk of agitating voters in advance of the midterm elections.
Trump is hyperfocused on trying to salvage the November election despite his sinking performance in the polls.
We always knew that, backed into a corner, Trump would become ever more willing to damage democracy to save himself. It’s on.
NOTUS is reporting that meetings are being held, out of the public eye, between the White House, DOJ, DHS, and the Postal Service to try and interfere with the election. The goal seems to be building a national voter database that can then be used to determine who can and can’t vote—which is up to the individual states—and implement Trump’s order that the Post Office should interfere with mailing ballots.
The report in NOTUS included comments from an unidentified White House staffer speaking on background, who declined to acknowledge that the conversations were taking place, but did say that “it is standard process for administration officials to coordinate on implementing President Trump’s executive orders. We do not comment on private meetings that may or may not have happened.” That’s as good as a yes.
Trump’s executive order directing USPS to interfere in state-run elections is under challenge in court. At a hearing last week, DOJ argued that the court can’t act because the issue being raised is an “abstract legal question unless and until the Postal Service actually issues a rule that injures the plaintiffs and it does so only because it was directed to by the president — rather than, for example, as an exercise of the agency’s own independent judgment.” Judge Carl Nichols seemed inclined to buy that argument at one point in the hearing, asking how there could be irreparable injury, which he must find before he can enjoin the executive order, when no action has been taken as of yet. But at other points in the hearing, he pushed the government on the constitutionality of the president’s executive order.
We’ll watch carefully for a forthcoming ruling in this case, which will tell us a lot about whether the courts will entertain presidential interference in each state’s administration of its own election. But the White House is making its position clear.
Stephen Miller, who it’s always worth noting is not a lawyer and doesn’t seem to appreciate what the Constitution says, seems to be continuing to look for a new way to militarize the country for reasons that don’t hold water in advance of the election. We’ll take up the issue of the illegality of sending federal troops or federal agents to the polls first breather we get.
Also …
On Wednesday, the state of Tennessee has a court date to defend itself against the NAACP’s allegations that it cannot, without violating state law, redraw its voting maps this late in the decade.
On Thursday, SCOTUS will be issuing more opinions.
By Friday, the Government has to produce discovery to the defendants in the Minnesota church protest case against Don Lemon and individual protestors who were indicted for violating the FACE Act. A judge ruled that heavily redacted discovery that prevents the defendants from identifying witnesses, including members of law enforcement, so they can prepare their cases violates the law. He has given the government until Friday to rectify its errors and “produce discovery consistent with its Rule 16(a) obligations, unredacted as to all victim and witness names, addresses, and telephone numbers; as well as fully unredacted as to law enforcement PII [personally identifiable information]” to every defendant who has agreed to abide by a protective order preventing its public dissemination. The government’s case has been widely viewed as likely violating the First Amendment from the outset.
Next up on the list of bad cabinet secretaries
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins is being sued for violating employees’ right to be free from establishment of religion by the government. She’s been proselytizing in emails to the captive audience that is her workforce.
I recall once handling a case where a public employee was being subject to far less overt religious commentary, and the government agency immediately conceded error and fired the offender. This case is even more clear. Government employees are not disciples of Christ.
But don’t hold your breath for the president to fire her. This was a weekend characterized by a full-scale display of support for Christianity being promoted by the White House. The administration held a “Rededicate 250,” which many observers, both approvingly and disapprovingly, referred to as a Christian religious service featuring high-ranking government officials on the National Mall.
Rededicate 250 was “a White House-backed prayer festival dedicated to America’s Christian roots.” Trump gave a video speech. Speaker Mike Johnson, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were present, standing with evangelical leaders on the stage. Johnson told the crowd, “Our founders boldly proclaim that our rights do not derive from the government. They come from you, our Creator and Heavenly Father.”
Podcaster Brian Allen posted this snippet from MAGA radio host Eric Metaxas’ speech at the federally funded prayer event on the National Mall today: “It’s hard to believe that it would take two centuries for the Lord to raise up a great man to bring that ballroom finally to stand where it needs to stand. It’s extraordinary. We only had to wait two hundred years.”
As Allen put it, Metazas “told a crowd of thousands of Christians that God spent two centuries waiting to raise up Donald Trump — to build a ballroom.” The crowd responded by cheering.
The only way to overcome this sort of thing, a clear violation of the Constitution, is with a relentless commitment to telling the truth and sharing it widely. We know from Trump’s poll numbers that some of it is breaking through. The utter lunacy of the Christian God wanting a ballroom is something to ask people to stop, and instead of just following like sheep, spend a moment thinking about.
More Kleptocracy
Bloomberg is reporting that Trump’s disclosure forms for the first quarter of 2026 show that he made 3,600 Stock trades, and that they are worth as much as $750 Million (the reporting is done in bands, so it’s impossible to determine the exact amount from the forms). Former Undersecretary of State Rick Stengel pointed out that Bush and Clinton kept their assets in a blind trust and neither Obama nor Biden traded stocks or bonds while in office.
“3,700 trades,” Stengel tweeted, “is probably more than all the trades of all the presidents until now. And he is trading stocks that are affected by his decisions. A walking conflict of interest, at the least, and perhaps insider trading. Just as members of Congress should not be able to trade stocks, so too the president.” Stock trades aren’t official acts; they’re clearly personal ones. Stengel has certainly identified reasons that merit a closer look at these trades.
So, lots happening this week. We’ll be here through everything as we head into the Memorial Day weekend, trying to make it make sense. I’m grateful to all of you who spend part of your week here with me, thinking carefully about the law, democracy, and where we go from here. Thank you for being a part of Civil Discourse.
We’re in this together,
Joyce
Dark Money Funding State Redistricting Movement
(From “Open Secrets.” I used their republish code to post this important story; formatting is theirs. We should be aware of this.)
The same dark money groups keep turning up in redistricting fights
- By Joedy McCreary
- The mid-decade fight to redraw congressional lines ahead of the November midterm elections has surged beyond statehouses and into ballot boxes and courtrooms – with millions of dollars pouring in to shape those outcomes, much of it from nonprofits that never have to say who is funding their activities.
Voters in California and, most recently, Virginia have weighed in on new House maps. A Colorado group wants to put its own proposal before voters. Missouri petitioners are trying to stop a new map from taking effect. And lawsuits are stacking up from Florida to Utah.
One through-line: dark money from 501(c)(4) nonprofits. Free from donor-disclosure rules, these groups move large sums with little transparency and have helped turn state-by-state redistricting battles into nationalized, big-dollar fights bankrolled by tight networks of high spenders.
“It’s a perfect example of where money is trying to influence policy outcomes, and redistricting is so high-stakes that now it’s just part of the process,” said Alex Keena, an associate professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University who has co-authored two books about redistricting.
What began last year with President Donald Trump urging Texas to redraw its map has now gone national, fueled by a surge in dark money that “perfectly encapsulates what’s happening here,” said Doug Spencer, a law professor at the University of Colorado.
“Every single story really feels like a domino in a long chain of events that goes back to President Trump’s cajoling of Texas to start this,” Spencer told OpenSecrets.
‘A tsunami of money’
The latest epicenter of the redistricting fight was Virginia, where voters in April approved a mid-decade redistricting plan that could have helped Democrats win four additional House seats in November. The measure would have bypassed a bipartisan redistricting commission and allowed the state to use new districts drawn by the Democratic-led General Assembly. The state Supreme Court blocked it on May 8, declaring it unconstitutional because of a procedural timing dispute. Democrats filed an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on May 11.
Virginia, which has no limit on campaign donations, is “basically the wild, wild west in terms of campaign finance,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a political newsletter run out of the University of Virginia. The three key players in this ballot measure fight combined to raise nearly $100 million since February in large cash contributions alone. The Virginia Public Access Project found it to be the most expensive referendum in state history.
“This was the confluence of all of these variables that resulted in just a tsunami of money in a state with lax regulation, high stakes, a single vote involving redistricting that could lead to four or even five new members of Congress,” Keena told OpenSecrets. “And we just had a ton of money flow into the state in a relatively short amount of time, and the result of all that money was just a blitz coming from every medium.”
And on both sides of the debate, the vast majority of that money came from a handful of dark money groups. window.addEventListener(“message”,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][t]+”px”;r.style.height=d}}});
Virginians for Fair Elections, the main organization backing the redistricting effort, reported $63.2 million in large cash contributions, defined as any single contribution or loan of at least $10,000, between Feb. 6 and April 24. Nearly 97% of that total came from five 501(c)(4)s:
- House Majority Forward, which is aligned with Democratic leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives, contributed $39.3 million across 10 installments from Feb. 6 to April 10, the largest of which was $9.3 million on March 30.
- The Fairness Project, founded by a California-based healthcare workers union, contributed $11.7 million across five payments from Feb. 18 to April 9, including a $5 million contribution Feb. 18, in addition to $22,950 in in-kind contributions.
- The Fund for Policy Reform, funded by Democratic megadonor George Soros, donated $5 million on March 12.
- American Opportunity Action, which has been linked to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, contributed $3.5 million.
- The Global Impact Social Welfare Fund, the 501(c)(4) arm of philanthropic organization Global Impact Ventures, donated $1.5 million across two contributions.
The same structure appeared on the opposition side. window.addEventListener(“message”,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][t]+”px”;r.style.height=d}}});
The Virginians for Fair Maps Referendum Committee, which formed Feb. 9, reported $24.1 million in large contributions between March 2 and May 1. One organization – Virginians for Fair Maps, which shares a post office box in Alexandria with the committee – accounted for 98% of it. State records identify the group as a tax-exempt organization, but there is no corresponding listing for it or its classification in the IRS online database. Co-chaired by former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), it donated $23.5 million across nine contributions from March 6 to May 1, a sum that includes $5 million contributions on both March 31 and April 7 along with $4 million on April 6.
The Justice for Democracy PAC – founded by former state Del. A.C. Cordoza (R) and accused of distributing misleading mailers before the election – raised $10.2 million in large contributions between March 4 and April 24. More than 95% came from Per Aspera Policy Inc., a Massachusetts-based 501(c)(4) previously linked to billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel that donated $9.7 million – including four seven-figure contributions between March 26 and April 14.
“There’s a real question. … Who’s actually trying to influence our election, and to what end?” Keena said. “What are they hoping to get out of it and whose interests are hanging in the balance?”
Donor networks in multiple states
Some of those groups also spent big on similar efforts in other states.
Coloradans For a Level Playing Field wants a new House map for the 2028 and 2030 elections before allowing the state’s independent congressional redistricting commission to draw another one for 2032 based on the 2030 census. Under the plan, Democrats would be favored to win seven of the state’s eight House seats.
According to its May 4 report, the organization raised $246,747 between Feb. 18 and April 29. Two of the key donors in Virginia also supplied more than 97% of the Colorado group’s total: House Majority Forward contributed $150,000 on Feb. 25, and the Fairness Project provided $90,000 on April 29. Of the 149 other cash donations made during that time, 148 averaged just $32.
That breakdown reflects the uneven appetite for redistricting in the state, Spencer said. Sometimes, it draws attention; other times, he said, “it really feels like it’s gone by the wayside – or, at least when you dig underneath, you don’t see a big push or a lot of local money.”
And in Missouri, the Democratic-supported group People Not Politicians, which opposes the state’s new GOP-drawn map, in December submitted more than 300,000 signatures for a petition seeking to block the map from being used. In its April 14 campaign finance report, it reported raising $6.1 million during the cycle. Of that total, $1.7 million came from American Opportunity Action, a Democratic-aligned dark money group supporting ballot measures. Additionally, the Fairness Project donated $250,000 on Nov. 17, 2025, along with four $1,000 payments in late 2025 and early 2026 for “strategic guidance.”
“I think, to the layperson, this all just looks like gerrymandering,” Spencer said. “But up close, every state’s doing this slightly differently.”
Massive spending around California’s Prop 50 fight
The biggest spending took place in California – where more than a quarter of a billion dollars was poured into its redistricting measure.
Voters in a November 2025 special election passed Proposition 50, which responded to the Texas redistricting push by redrawing the map used in the 2026 midterms and in 2028 and 2030. It generated more than $256 million in fundraising from both sides combined. Roughly two-thirds came from groups supporting the measure, and 87% of that $171 million came from two organizations, both of which have received noteworthy contributions from dark money groups:
- Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Ballot Measure Committee raised more than $102 million through Nov. 3, 2025. The Fund For Policy Reform provided its largest single contribution, $10 million on Sept. 18, 2025..
- HMP for Prop 50, the House Majority PAC, raised $46 million. That group’s largest single contribution in 2024 ($34 million) came from House Majority Forward, which also contributed $11.2 million in late 2025, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
On the opposition side, two organizations combined for an even higher share of the spending – 92% of the $84 million that flowed into the race.
- The No on Prop 50 Congressional Leadership Fund raised $44.3 million. That group received four separate $10 million donations in 2024, from hedge fund founder Ken Griffin, Aon founder Patrick Ryan, Mellon banking heir Timothy Mellon and Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwartzman. Billionaire megadonor Miriam Adelson donated $10 million on March 11, according to the FEC.
- Protect Voters First reported $32.8 million, with Charles Munger Jr. – a physicist and the son of a late billionaire – loaning the organization nearly the full amount.
“It does not seem like the states themselves have been going out of their way to clamor for this,” Spencer said. “California responded to Texas. Texas was responding to Trump.”
How dark money fuels the legal fights
While some states decided redistricting questions in the voting booth, others are fighting the same battles in courthouses – and some groups funding those fights are just as nationalized, donor-driven and opaque.
The National Redistricting Foundation has partnered with the left-leaning Elias Law Group in suing to challenge Florida’s new map. It filed a legal brief urging the Supreme Court to reject Alabama’s request to fast-track its redistricting case and filed a motion to intervene in Utah’s.
The foundation is the 501(c)(3) nonprofit arm of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. As a 527 organization, it is tax‑exempt and may spend unlimited amounts on issue advocacy. It is chaired by former Attorney General Eric Holder, and in 2018 it received $2.6 million from Soros. Its largest contribution in the 2024 election cycle, the most recent available to OpenSecrets, was $500,000 from PAC to the Future, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leadership PAC. The committee also provided nearly $20,000 in in-kind contributions to the pro-redistricting group in Virginia.
The foundation makes up one part of an apparatus that also includes the National Democratic Redistricting PAC and a 501(c)(4), the National Redistricting Action Fund. The PAC raised $423,000 in the first quarter of 2026, has raised $2 million during the current election cycle and had $250,000 in cash on hand, according to FEC documents. The 501(c)(3) foundation reported $9.7 million in contributions and grants in 2023, according to its most recent IRS filings, but does not identify those donors. Neither does the action fund, whose latest IRS filing shows $5.2 million in total revenue in 2023 – and the same Washington address as the foundation.
A similar structure is in place at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that on May 4 joined the UCLA Voting Rights Project in suing Florida over its redistricting plan. It has also moved to intervene in the Utah case. It shares a Washington address with Campaign Legal Center Action, a 501(c)(4) dark money nonprofit.
Campaign Legal Center’s most recent IRS documents show $13.9 million in total revenue in 2024, with most coming from contributions and grants, and $36.7 million in net assets. But its donors are not identified. Campaign Legal Center Action also does not disclose donor names on its IRS filings.
On the Republican side, the American Redistricting Project – a 501(c)(3) also known as Fair Lines America Foundation Inc. – has been active in redistricting debates in recent years. Its most recent IRS filing shows roughly $1.9 million in both revenue and expenses in 2024. It maintains an online repository tracking redistricting legislation, but it is unclear whether the organization is providing financial support or filing motions in the current legal fights. OpenSecrets reached out to the group but did not immediately receive a response.
This article was originally published by OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that tracks money in politics. View the original article.
Scottie's Playtime 