The Trump administration created an opposition research file on Ginni Thomas, the far-right activist married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
In a bombshell report published by The New York Times, reporters Danny Hakim and Jo Becker detail the power Ginni Thomas has within the conservative movement.
“This article draws on hours of recordings and internal documents from groups affiliated with the Thomases; dozens of interviews with the Thomases’ classmates, friends, colleagues and critics, as well as more than a dozen Trump White House aides and supporters and some of Justice Thomas’s former clerks; and an archive of Council for National Policy videos and internal documents provided by an academic researcher in Australia, Brent Allpress,” the newspaper reported. “The reporting uncovered new details on the Thomases’ ascent: how Trump courted Justice Thomas; how Ginni Thomas used that courtship to gain access to the Oval Office, where her insistent policy and personnel suggestions so aggravated aides that one called her a “wrecking ball” while others put together an opposition-research-style report on her that was obtained by The Times; and the extent to which Justice Thomas flouted judicial-ethics guidance by participating in events hosted by conservative organizations with matters before the court.”
The newspaper reported on a Jan. 25, 2019 meeting with Trump.
“It was the craziest meeting I’ve ever been to,” said a Trump aide.
“It was an event with no precedent, and some of the details of what transpired soon leaked: the wife of a sitting Supreme Court justice lobbying a president when several cases involving transgender rights were making their way through the federal courts,” the newspaper reported. “Before the meeting, Trump’s aides assembled the research document outlining concerns with Ginni Thomas and some of her preferred job candidates, the contents of which they shared with the president.”
The opposition research document noted that Ginni Thomas ally Crystal Clanton had been forced out of Turning Point USA for reportedly texting “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like [expletive] them all. … I hate blacks. End of story.”
Thomas reportedly pushed for positions for Dan Bongino and former Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke.
“In the White House, she was out of bounds many times,” one of Trump’s senior aides said. “It was always: ‘We need more MAGA people in government. We’re trying to get these résumés through, and we’re being blocked.’ I appreciated her energy, but a lot of these people couldn’t pass background checks.”
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a new clash involving religion and the rights of LGBT people. The high court said Tuesday it would hear the case of Colorado-based web designer Lorie Smith.
Smith offers graphic and website design services and wants to expand to wedding website services, but she says her religious beliefs would lead her to decline any request from a same-sex couple to design a wedding website.
She also wants to post a statement on her website about her beliefs, but that would run afoul of a Colorado anti-discrimination law. Smith had argued the law violates her free speech and religious rights.
As I reported when this suit was first filed back in 2016, it’s likely that Smith’s is yet another fake company created by the Alliance Defending Freedom in order file a “peremptory challenge.” In other words, she’s never refused any LGBT clients because she’s never had any attempt to hire her.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a new clash between religious rights and the rights of LGBTQ+ people. https://t.co/Hm6MXeavEf
BREAKING🚨The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of ADF client Lorie Smith, owner of 303 Creative. This could be a landmark case for religious liberty and artistic freedom.
I know some of you don’t care for this guy. But I would ask you to listen anyway. He talks about what Republicans are trying to do with states rights and controlling people even in the bedroom. He talks about what they are trying to overturn in the constitution. Pretty important stuff.
JD Vance says transgender rights drives looming conflict in Ukraine
IF YOUR TIME IS SHORT
Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance said the State Department’s focus on transgender rights is inflaming the conflict with Russia in Ukraine.
Russia has placed as many as 150,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders.
Russia has said Ukraine’s ties to NATO are a key threat to Russia’s national security.
As the prospect of a ground war hangs over Ukraine, Ohio Senate hopeful JD Vance said he doesn’t “really care what happens to Ukraine, one way or the other.”
Speaking to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, Vance, a Marine veteran, said there’s no reason for U.S. military intervention.
“We didn’t not serve in the Marine Corps to go and fight Vladimir Putin because he didn’t believe in transgender rights,” Vance said Feb. 19. “Which is what the U.S. State Department is saying is a major problem with Russia.”
Vance went on to say he is “sick of Joe Biden focusing” on Ukraine at the expense of dealing with problems on the border with Mexico.
Whatever the troubles on America’s southern border, Russia’s transgender policies are not affecting the current tensions in Ukraine.
The U.S. and its NATO allies estimate that since last spring, Russia has moved as many as 150,000 troops within striking distance of Ukraine’s borders.
“That is by any means, by any estimate, a massive number of forces,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said Feb. 16. “We also know that the Russians have capabilities when it comes to electronic warfare, when it comes to aerial capabilities, any number of tactics they could employ, whether on their own or together as part of a broader onslaught.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said a Russian attack could come at any moment, if Russia wanted.
“They have enough troops and enough capabilities to launch a full fledged invasion of Ukraine with very little or no warning time,” Stoltenberg said Feb. 17. “That is what makes the situation so dangerous.”
President Joe Biden has said the warnings of war are aimed at forestalling it.
“We’re calling out Russia’s plans loudly and repeatedly, not because we want a conflict, but because we’re doing everything in our power to remove any reason that Russia may give to justify invading Ukraine and prevent them from moving,” Biden said Feb. 18.
Europe hasn’t seen sustained warfare on its turf since the breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and that didn’t involve the prospect of Russian forces driving combat operations. With Ukraine, the potential scale of a military conflict is orders of magnitude bigger.
Democratic lawmakers and activists are decrying a proposed amendment they say would require schools to inform a parent of their child’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
The amendment is among a slew lawmakers will consider Tuesday on a measure opponents are calling the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The bill (HB 1557) seeks to closely regulate LGBTQ instruction and conversation in the classroom.
It would restrict primary schools from “encouraging classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity.” It also would allow parents to sue over alleged violations. Levy County Republican Rep. Joe Harding is the bill sponsor. He is also sponsoring the amendment.
Read the full article. The full Florida House votes tomorrow.
If you want a sense of what kind of guy @josephbharding is, he recently promoted a tweet claiming "the left is having full-blown meltdowns" about his bill because "teachers are not going to be able to groom kids anymore in Florida." pic.twitter.com/bju9ltiY6H
I am absolutely disgusted with @josephbharding. If you have already determined that outing a student would result in abuse, abandonment, or neglect, then there is NO WAY to make a "safe, supportive, and judgement-free environment" that involves that parent. #DontSayGayhttps://t.co/w5GHWRjlaw
Harold Hamm, one of the wealthiest oil execs in America, recently doled out an estimated $2.3 billion to each of his five children…completely tax-free.
It is hard to overstate how damaging trickle-down economics has been for the American economy. It has eviscerated our tax code and empowered a class of oligarchs that dominate our political system.
The right calls anything that helps the public socialism. Republican block any attempt to require the upper wealthy pay their share of taxes so the country can have more than the bare minimums of survival. The country did best when the upper class paid more in taxes including wealth taxes. The country had the money to expand and create, to do things that astonished the world. Now a we have multimillionaires and billionaires paying next to nothing ruling the country while 80% of the people struggle for a decent quality of life. 40% of the country couldn’t handle an unexpected $400 expense. We need to do better on the messaging and help people see they have been lied to by the wealthy to steal the countries assets.
The end of privilege feels like loss for so many.
Mark my words: if Russia invades Ukraine, the same Republicans in Congress who were silent when Trump cozied up to Putin will criticize Biden to no end.
Before GOP leaders pass their next trim to voting rights, they should visit Philly’s Constitution Center’s Xcllnt exhibit on Reconstruction. Republican Congress passed historic voting rights. pic.twitter.com/gy0O0yodJz
“It’s really, massively stupid not to welcome vaccination,” the 98-year-old Munger said. “We probably have 30% of the people in the country that think vaccination is evil and [is] coming after them like the hobgoblins. It’s not good that there’s that much ignorance left.”
Republicans attract the ignorant, then weaponize their self-interests and sadism.
Always reasonable to oppose US intervention overseas but the formulation "I don't give a shit if other people die" always reflects a hollow, immoral politics. https://t.co/4NYBbQYkse
Putin doesn’t have all those troops in Belarus and Crimea to just invade the Donbas.
Strategically, I would think Putin would want to make them fight on multiple fronts at once, too — I’m still expecting Kyiv to be targeted https://t.co/hokKdQPC0u
“So I’m gonna break into your house and take what I want, and if your dog bites me, you’re responsible for me burning down your house” https://t.co/YnqIDeoqPr
FFS, corps are having record profits, CEOs & execs are getting big bonuses and raises. The supply chain is breaking down, slowing products from the Wall Street bottom liners outsourced factories to the market, decreasing supply and driving up prices even further. The Owning Class is engaged in wholesale looting, and Real Leftist Ted Rall is putting this drivel out? GTFO.
Wages are up and people are still buying. If people are willing to spend over retail for vehicles and such, inflation will continue. The white supremacist backed road blocks impeding commerce between the USA and Canada certainly didn’t help do anything good to slow inflation. Republicans are desperate to find an issue they can run with. One fizzle after another. Hillary still seems the best bet for them.
The protesting truckers were a small percentage of all the truckers in Canada. The truckers union and the majority of truckers condemned the protest. It wouldn’t have stopped food deliveries nor caused shortages in grocery stores. This cartoon is about fear. Be afraid, don’t let the government require vaccines or you will go hungry.
The slogan is awkward but it is correct. The police have become too militarized with too many non-law enforcement jobs required of them. Right now the police are more occupying army than protectors of the people. Police shouldn’t be the primary ones answering mental health calls, they should only be a back up to the mental health workers trained for that job. Several places have tried switching to having trained professionals answer those types of calls and it works. Right now in many areas of the country the police have become gangs, thugs demanding ever higher pay, perks, and military gear. Time to get back to what core policing really is and leave the video game commando tactic to the gaming consoles. Civilian boards should be in charge of police investigations, No excuses for body cams not on or worn. It is time for civilians to be in charge, not the gangs of cops. A national database for bad cops and those in that data base do not get rehired if they are fired for cause.
A protest organized by a fascist Qanon leader and supported mainly by far right white supremacists with the goal of over turning a law in the US about not being able to cross the US / Canada border without being vaccinated. This was vaccine protest was in a country already 90% vaccinated. The public did not support this, the truckers union did not support this action, and the protest was conducted by a very small percentage of Canadian truckers. It was promoted on social media by foreign governments interested in causing unrest and chaos in the US and Canada. The majority of funding was coming from the US. Which might explain the Confederate battle flag being flown by the protestors.
Springboro families were shaken to their cores in 2019 when they learned a former gym teacher had been accused of inappropriately touching first grade girls.
John Austin Hopkins was ultimately sentenced for 34 counts of gross sexual imposition involving 28 students, whom he would pull onto his lap or hold between his legs. The children didn’t know they were being abused, prompting parents to speak out in favor of efforts to bring sexual abuse prevention to classrooms, the Dayton Daily News reported.
Lawmakers got the message.
Last summer – one year after Austin Hopkins’ sentencing, the Ohio House approved a bill that would require school districts to teach child sexual abuse prevention in kindergarten through sixth grade classrooms and sexual violence prevention in grades 7-12. The vote was opposed by only eight Republicans.
Sponsors say the bipartisan bill has enough support to pass the GOP-controlled Senate and move to Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk. However, a conservative lobbying group has been working for months to derail the measure over concerns that it leaves parents in the dark and flies in the face of abstinence-only sex education.
“Who would not want to protect children?” Rep. Scott Lipps, R-Franklin, said.
Fighting over abstinence, opt-out
The bill in question, dubbed Erin’s Law, mirrors legislation approved by three dozen other states. It’s named for Erin Merryn, a child sexual assault survivor who is working to pass the law across the country after action in her home state of Illinois.
Lipps and Rep. Brigid Kelly, D-Cincinnati, have pushed the bill in Ohio’s last two legislative sessions, and it was introduced multiple times before that.
Child sex abuse prevention should include information about counseling and resources for children who have been sexually abused. No other content requirements are outlined in the bill.
The Ohio Department of Education must provide free resources to help districts develop curricula on sexual violence, an all-encompassing term that includes sexual assault, incest and intimate partner violence.
School districts would be required to notify parents and guardians about the lessons and let them review the materials if requested.
Parental notification isn’t enough for opponents at the Center for Christian Virtue. Policy director David Mahan said the bill should allow parents to opt their children out of the curriculum altogether and argued it lacks a clear definition of what “age-appropriate” instruction means.
Mahan also contends the measure violates state law because it does not emphasize abstinence. Ohio currently requires educators to teach students that abstinence is the only guaranteed practice to avoid sexually-transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies.
“If we’re going to do that in the state of Ohio, it’s got to be abstinence-related,” he said. “It’s not opinion. It’s law.”
Allowing parents or guardians to remove their children from the program raises red flags for advocates. One in 9 girls and 1 in 53 boys under 18 are sexually abused by an adult, according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, and one-third of the perpetrators are family members.
“Any effort to attach parental consent to this law is another layer of perpetuation of violence, removing power, control, agency and autonomy from the victim,” said Rosa Beltré, president of the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence. “The vast majority of survivors of child sexual assault express that their victimization occurred at the hands of a caretaker, an adult they trusted, a parent.”
Erin’s Law: Bill in Ohio faces uncertain future
After meeting with the Center for Christian Virtue, Lipps said lawmakers agreed to let the group submit their own version of the bill for consideration.
The proposed draft would limit the teaching of abuse prevention to once in middle school, while dating violence education would be taught annually in grades 6-12. The courses could not encourage sexual activity among children, demonstrate contraceptive use or include information from groups that advocate for abortion access. It also says abuse prevention courses should note “that sexual activity is only appropriate in marriage” and discourage any implication that parents aren’t trustworthy.
“It absolutely guts Erin’s Law,” Lipps said. “There’s no reason that we would pass this bill.”
The future, for now, is uncertain. Lipps and Kelly want to avoid starting over so survivors don’t have to retell their traumatic experiences to lawmakers. The committee’s chairman, Sen. Andrew Brenner, expects further hearings but said they may be delayed because of redistricting.
“We have a bipartisan bill,” Kelly said. “We have a lot of support from families, from survivors, from advocates. I would think that those voices should carry weight in the statehouse.”
But the Center for Christian Virtue is still determined to squash the bill. Mahan said the topics are important – and in some cases already taught in schools – but the details don’t work for them.
“It’s important in terms of the what, but the how is an issue,” he said. “It’s not like if we oppose (the bill) we’re for abusing children, which is absolutely ridiculous.”
We all said this was coming. First get rid of abortion, the contraceptives, then clamp down on these other women’s rights. Women got way to uppity over the last 60 years. Give them the right to vote and look at who they think they are. Next they will go after the queers and the rest of the LGBTQ+ and drive them back in the shadows were the will be afraid to come out.
GOP attorney general candidate debate, Feb. 18, 2022 in Alpena. From L-R: Former Speaker Tom Lenard, Rep. Ryan Berman and attorney Matthew DePerno | Screenshot
It may have been the last question of last week’s debate for the three men seeking the GOP nomination for Michigan attorney general, but the inquiry seeking their stances on a 1965 Supreme Court ruling has garnered the most attention.
The question concerned the high court’s decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, a landmark decision that struck down Connecticut’s ban on the sale of contraception. Citing a “right to marital privacy,” Griswold helped to pave the way for 1973’s Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion that many experts expect will be overturned or gutted by the right-wing-majority Supreme Court this year.
However, at Friday night’s forum at Alpena Community College, all three candidates — Former House Speaker Tom Leonard (R-DeWitt), state Rep. Ryan Berman (R-Commerce Twp) and Kalamazoo-based attorney Matthew DePerno, indicated they thought the issue was wrongly decided and trampled on states’ rights.
Speaker Tom Leonard gives his goodbye speech to the Michigan House as Gov. Rick Snyder looks on, Dec. 20, 2018 | Michael Gerstein
After seeking clarification as to what the Griswold decision was, Leonard was the first to respond. “This case, much like Roe v. Wade, I believe was wrongly decided, because this is…it was an issue that trampled states’ rights and it was an issue that should have been left up to the states.”
Berman then echoed that, after indicating that he was unaware of the decision.
“You know, what? I wasn’t familiar with Griswold vs. Connecticut, but I’m an advanced legal researcher, so I pulled it up real quick to look what it was about,” he said. “And it says the court ruled that the Constitution did in fact protect the right of marital privacy against state restrictions on contraception. Again, I would have to look more into it and the reasoning behind it, but I’m all about states’ rights and limiting federal, and especially federal, judicial activism.”
DePerno followed suit, saying, “I didn’t know we could have our phones up here.”
The line drew laughter from the audience and prompted Berman to quip, “You gotta be quick.”
DePerno then continued, saying that the Griswold and Roe decisions were states’ right issues and predicted that the U.S. Supreme Court would rule that “the privacy issue currently is unworkable.”
DePerno, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump and is known for espousing conspiracy theories, then finished with a flourish.
“We need to start defending state rights as attorney generals, across this country,” he said. “Too many people, even in our own party, too many people have lost the idea of what states’ rights means. They haven’t read the works of our Founding Fathers. They haven’t read The Federalist Papers. They continue to push the idea that we need to give rights away to the federal government. We don’t. We need to take state rights back. We need to stand in our borders. When the feds come and try to take our rights, we need to stand as citizens in Michigan and hold the line and protect states’ rights.”
Attorney General Dana Nessel at the Mackinac Policy Conference, May 29, 2019 | Andrew Roth
While that drew a hearty round of applause from Friday’s audience, it prompted a less than celebratory response from the woman all three candidates are hoping to replace this November. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, tweeted out afterward it was “terrifying” that the three Republicans running for Michigan attorney general “just stated that they oppose the ruling in Griswold v Connecticut which outlawed prosecuting married couples for using contraception.”
Friday’s debate also tackled another issue that figures prominently in GOP politics, namely conducting a so-called “forensic audit” on Michigan’s 2020 election results. Despite over 250 state and local audits of those results which have confirmed President Joe Biden’s more than 154,000 vote victory over former President Trump, persistent unproven claims of widespread voter fraud remain a core message for Republicans seeking office.
There’s legislation sponsored by state Rep. Stevc Carra (R-Three River) for a so-called “forensic audit” and there’s also a ballot measure. Earlier this month, there was a small protest at the Capitol attended by GOP leaders including Michigan GOP Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock.
Leonard, who lost to Nessel in 2018, said he fully supported such an audit.
“I was a prosecutor in Flint for three years. There were times when tragic things would happen and you had to conduct an investigation to protect the integrity of the system,” he said. “When I look at a forensic audit, to me that’s what a forensic audit would be doing, is protecting the integrity of this system. Our republic can not function if 50% of our population no longer trusts that when they go to vote, it’s not going to count or it’s not going to be accurate.”
Berman burnished his credentials on the issue by saying he sponsored a budget amendment for $5.5 million to conduct a forensic audit, which would include interviewing voters themselves.
Ryan Berman
“In fact, it’s broader than that because it included canvassing and going out there and asking people who haven’t voted in 20 years and all of a sudden showed up in that election and ask them, ‘Hey, was this you? Did you vote?’ I called it a comprehensive statewide election integrity review. Who can be against an integrity review? We should all be secure in knowing our election can’t be compromised.”
Berman indicated, however, that the amendment was “ultimately shot down” by his party’s leadership in the House.
DePerno, who was involved in Arizona’s sham audit by Trump supporters, was much more specific in what he wanted a “forensic audit” to include, saying that in addition to “taking a deep dive into a computer system” he also wants to examine the paper used in the voting machines.
“You can’t do one without the other,” he said. “Doing one without the other is essentially meaningless. You must do both. And I tell you, that’s why they always say to us we can’t see the paper ballots.”
DePerno also falsely claimed that it was pointless to determine what happened in the 2020 election.
“I know what happened because I did the work. I examined these systems. I know how fraud occurred in this state,” he said.
Those same assertions were dismissed last year in a report issued by the Republican-controlled Michigan Senate Oversight Committee, which determined DePerno’s conclusions were “demonstrably false and based on misleading information and illogical conclusions.”
DePerno also led the charge when it came to investigating Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for her policies toward caring for COVID-19 patients in state nursing homes, indicating he would seek charges and have her arrested.
“We will investigate and prosecute Gov. Whitmer for what she did with the nursing homes. She sent people to nursing homes against the medical advice of doctors who have said that it was dangerous. People would die. She did it anyway. She did it for political reasons, make no mistake. That is misconduct of office at the very minimum,” he said.
Whitmer administration officials say they were following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines when they allowed nursing home residents who had been hospitalized with COVID-19 to return to those facilities as long as they were housed in separate units. While a state auditor general report later determined there were nearly 2,400 more long-term care COVID-19 deaths in Michigan than had been reported by the Michigan Department of Health & Humans Services (DHHS), Director Elizabeth Hertel argued that the tally included facilities that were not required to report their COVID-19 deaths to the state.
While Leonard and Berman also said they disagreed with the governor’s nursing home policy, both indicated that they would conduct full investigations before deciding whether or not to press charges. Leonard also used the discussion to take a shot directly at DePerno, saying that his statements would prejudice any investigation before it started.
“Any person that’s running to be the chief law enforcement officials in the State of Michigan to stand here and say they are going to arrest someone on Day One, does not respect our system of justice,” said Leonard. “In fact, if there were ever charges brought against that individual, I can tell you the first thing the defense counsel is going to do. They are going to play the videos of that attorney general on the campaign stump making political promises that they’re going to arrest somebody and throw them in jail, and that case is going to be thrown out and that person is going to be acquitted.”
Trump-backed Kalamazoo attorney Matthew DePerno speaks at a right-wing rally calling for a so-called “audit” of the 2020 election at the Michigan Capitol, Oct. 12, 2021 | Laina G. Stebbins
Last month, DePerno sent out a graphic of Nessel in prison demanding to “Lock her up” in a fundraising pitch after she said that the fake Trump electors who attempted to enter the Michigan Capitol where the real Electoral College was meeting in December 2020 could be charged for violating the law.
Other issues in which there was consensus among the candidates included Enbridge Energy’s Line 5 pipeline which runs under the Straits of Mackinac. All three said they were in favor of moving forward with having a tunnel built around the aging line, while Nessel continues to pursue a lawsuit in federal court that would close it down.
The trio also made clear they would lift any state or federal COVID-19 mandates still in place when they take office, although most restrictions have already been lifted.
About 90% of Americans support birth control. All three GOP men running for Michigan attorney general in 2022 want a landmark decision on contraception overturned.
If you think Republicans are going to stop at Roe v. Wade, think again. https://t.co/C1BaxSmiRy
Gov. Jared Polis, the first openly gay man to be elected governor, expressed concern for LGBTQ youth.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis criticized the GOP for latching onto an issue “the American people have long move past” and accused the party of “overreach.” | David Zalubowski/AP Photo
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, the first openly gay man to be elected governor, criticized the push for anti-LGBTQ laws in Republican-led states.
“Look, words matter. Laws matter. When a group of people, LGBTQ youth, feel targeted by the words and laws that some politicians espouse, of course, it can increase anxiety, depression,” he said during an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
Just six weeks into 2022, more than 150 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced across the country, according to USA Today. States such as Florida are going as far as prohibiting classroom discussions on sexual orientation and gender identity and requiring teachers to inform parents of their child’s sexuality if they identify as LGBTQ.
Polis expressed concern for the youth that might be affected by that type of legislation, many of whom already are dealing with challenges with their family. Eighty-five percent of transgender and nonbinary youth said their mental health was negatively impacted by the surge of anti-trans bills, according to a recent Morning Consult and Trevor Project poll
The governor criticized the GOP for latching onto an issue “the American people have long move past” and accused the party of “overreach.”
“These hard policies about saying certain youth can’t play sports, and certain people aren’t allowed in certain places, or micromanaging what restroom people use and mandating what they do are really, frankly, un-American and are an example of Republican overreach, which will ultimately hurt their party, if they can’t espouse the full diversity of the American people,” he said.
Wages are up and people are still buying. If people are willing to spend over retail for vehicles and such, inflation will continue. The white supremacist backed road blocks impeding commerce between the USA and Canada certainly didn’t help do anything good to slow inflation. Republicans are desperate to find an issue they can run with. One fizzle after another. Hillary still seems the best bet for them.