Punxsutawney GOPers See Shadow, Repeal Everything In Sight
Happy Ground Hog Day! Today is the day the American people across the country — suffering from one of the harshest winters in memory — have been waiting for, the day America’s Groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, comes out of his Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania hole, while Americans watch. This morning, thanks to one of the worst snowstorms this winter, Punxsutawney Phil didn’t see his shadow, foreshadowing an early spring.
Sadly, the GOP hasn’t been able to experience the same optimism as America’s Groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil. It’s as if they saw their shadow, got scared, and are working to extend our long, hard winter by repealing everything good in sight.
Why is it the GOP, at the state and federal levels, are working not to move the country forward by creating jobs, but are working to move the country backwards by repealing good laws that help the American people? Despite the GOP’s campaign promise last year to make creating jobs job one, their entire focus — at the state and federal level — has been on social issues. In fact, they’ve not created a single job since taking over the House this year, nor have they produced any legislation that will.
Here’s what the GOP is “working” on:
On Tuesday, Iowa state House Republicans “passed an amendment that seeks to repeal the state’s marriage equality law, and deny any form of legal recognition for gay couples.” You’ll remember that Iowa’s Supreme Court in 2009 ruled that state’s ban on marriage equality unconstitutional. So Maggie Gallagher and NOM got those judges repealed also.
The New Hampshire GOP is playing politics with marriage equality. In an attempt to appear “moderate,” Republicans in the granite state “will ask that the fight to repeal gay marriage be postponed until 2012.” Of course, 2012 is a presidential election year, so they’re doing themselves a favor. Expect marriage equality to take center stage next year across the country as the GOP works to divide the American people and use our equality as a tool to get bigots to the polls.
At the federal level, Congressional Republicans are working on a complete and total repeal of the Democrat’s historic health care reform, for which not a single Republican voted last year. The House already voted to repeal the healthcare law. Now, Republican Senators, who hate “Obamacare,” as they disparagingly call it, so much, are willing to let a Democratic jobs bill that would add 280,000 jobs, AND re-authorize the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) — the folks who make sure planes don’t fly into each other — die. Yes, The GOP would like to see “Obamacare,” (which will help at least 30 million Americans get health insurance,) the FAA, (which pretty much keeps the sky from falling) and 280,000 jobs, all die.
Not satisfied with repealing the agency that prevents the sky from falling, House Republicans are also working to repeal the Supreme Court-direct responsibilities of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and ban it from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
David Espo in The Huffington Post writes, “the bill would nullify all of the steps the EPA has taken to date on the issue, including a threshold finding that greenhouse gases constitute a danger to the public health and welfare.”
“In addition, it seeks to strip the agency of its authority to use the law in any future attempts to crack down on the emissions from factories, utilities and other stationary sources.”
What else is the backwards-moving GOP working on repealing? Here’s a list:
- In the wake of the Tucson shooting that left six dead and thirteen wounded, including Rep. Gabby Giffords, Arizona Republicans want to effectively repeal gun laws and “make Arizona the second state in the nation to require universities and communities to allow guns on campus and one of 10 that permit guns inside public government buildings such as the state Capitol.”
- Also in the wake of the Tucson shooting that left six dead and thirteen wounded, including Rep. Gabby Giffords, Minnesota state lawmakers are working “to eliminate state system of background checks, permits” on guns.
- More repeal from Minnesota: Rep. Michele Bachmann (who has actually said she wants to “repeal Obama,”) is working to repeal Dodd-Frank, “the landmark Wall Street regulatory law,” designed to rein-in the financial industry, in the aftermath of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
- State GOPs across the country are pushing “for a constitutional amendment to allow state legislatures to repeal acts of the federal government,” by a two-thirds vote of all 50 state legislatures.
- At the intersection of federal-meets-local, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is “seeking to overturn Washington, D.C.’s marriage equality law,” which was signed into law after a thirty-day Congressional waiting period, on December 15, 2009.
- Federally, the GOP wants to repeal the 14th amendment to the U.S. constitution. “Sens. David Vitter (R-La.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced a proposal to amend the Constitution ‘so that children born in the United States are only considered automatic citizens if one parent is a U.S. citizen, one parent is a legal immigrant, or one parent is an active member of the Armed Forces.'”
- House Republicans want to “repeal” the definition of rape, by “permanently prohibit some federally funded health-care programs from covering abortions, but would change the language exempting rape and incest from rape to “forcible rape.”
Repeal of healthcare, marriage equality laws, gun laws, the 14th Amendment, not to mention strangling the FAA and the EPA, etc., etc. Is there anything today’s GOP won’t do to “take their country back” — to the stone age?
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
