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We Need Trevor Thomas In Congress And Trevor Thomas Needs Your Help Now

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I like Trevor Thomas. Trevor first came on my radar when he was working for SLDN, working to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Remember all those “Stories from the Frontlines: Letters to President Barack Obama” we published in 2010? Thank Trevor for making that happen. Trevor worked tirelessly for SLDN, providing so much information and advocating day and night to repeal DADT. But even before I knew Trevor, he had worked for the LGBT community at HRC, since 2007. And when DADT repeal was sewn up, in January of 2011, Trevor went to work for a group I admire greatly, Equality Matters, part of the Media Matters family. He’s had five years of successful campaigning for our issues. Now he’s campaigning for us again — this time, hopefully, his campaign will lead him into Congress.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=dME7qql824o%3Fversion%3D3%26hl%3Den_US

Trevor Thomas, who happens to be openly gay, is running for Congress, for Michigan’s third district in Western Michigan, the Grand Rapids area. Here’s his website.

You should vote for him if you can. You should support him in every wary that you can.

You can support Trevor Thomas by clicking here now. Please do!

Here are a few words from Trevor’s campaign about why he’s running and about the multi-millionaire Tea Party Republicans he’s facing.

Trevor Thomas, 28, filed in February to challenge tea-party freshmen U.S. Rep. Justin Amash in Michigan’s 3rd district — the seat of President Jerry Ford.  As the only person not self-funding in the race, Trevor comes from a working class family — his mom and dad met on the lines of General Motors where they worked together for more than 30 years.  According to campaign pollster Mark Mellman, Justin Amash is unpopular with a re-elect of 33 percent. Trevor is in the margin-of-error, but first he must win the democratic primary against local establishment pick Steve Pestka, 60.

Pestka is socially conservative and does not support a woman’s right to choose and does not allow exceptions for rape and incest. Trevor, who helped repeal the discriminatory “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, spoke out at Netroots Nation for the DREAM Act and is pro-choice.  Trevor was just endorsed by Governor Jennifer Granholm and Lt. Gov. John Cherry.  Knowing the district leans red, his campaign slogan, “A campaign for us all”, was unveiled as Trevor was introduced at his kick off by former Kent County/Grand Rapids GOP party chair Bob Eleveld.

Today, The New Civil Rights Movement is joining other prominent blogs, listed below, and coming together to say we don’t want Tea Party politicians in Congress, and we don’t want Republican politicians in Congress, and we don’t want so-called “moderate Democrats” who aren’t progressive Democrats in Congress.

Remember the 14 months of war in Congress over “Obamacare”? If Congress had been filled with more real Democrats, more real progressives, we could have had a single payer system and not faced the threat –a very real threat, as we’ve learned this week — of the Supreme Court striking down the most important Democratic achievement in 50 years.

Here’s more about Trevor, from his campaign:

Trevor Thomas is running for Congress against a Tea-Party Republican in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and he needs help.  Trevor, who is openly gay and helped repeal ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ by working with the Human Rights Campaign and Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, is at a critical fundraising deadline in the next 24 hours.

Trevor’s up against a lot.  Both his opponents are self-funding millionaires. Trevor is a member of the 99%, coming from a working class family — his mom and dad met on the factory lines of General Motors where they worked together for more than 30 years.  He filed in February to challenge freshmen U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, but now also has a Democratic primary opponent who doesn’t support a woman’s right to choose and called Trevor’s work on LGBT issues “extreme.”

This is the seat once held by President Jerry Ford.  Trevor’s message centers on the values of Jerry Ford – a man who believed in clean water, the Civil Rights Act, LGBT equality, and a woman’s right to make her own personal health care decisions. To this day, the district still leans red, which is why Trevor has already started reaching across the aisle even as he maintains solidly progressive stances. His inclusive slogan, “A Campaign For Us All,” was unveiled at a campaign kickoff where Trevor was introduced by longtime Republican and former Kent County GOP Party Chair Bob Eleveld.

After working as a reporter in the community, Trevor went on to work for Governor Jennifer Granholm who has now endorsed him in the race.  You can watch Trevor’s interview with her on The War Room with Jennifer Granholm, aired last Friday night and focused on his race being one of the youngest in the country.

Trevor needs our help so he is not outpaced by two multi-millionaires.  Let’s stand with him now.

The New Civil Rights Movement is proud to support Trevor Thomas, who is openly-gay, and has done battle for the LGBT community. Now, he wants to help all Americans.

Here’s the list of other blogs that today are participating in a “blogswarm” to help elect Trevor Thomas:

–Marcy Wheeler at EmptyWheel

–Chris Savage at Eclecta Blog and Blogging for Michigan
–John Avavosis and Joe Sudbay at AmericaBlog
–Pam Spaulding at Pam’s House Blend
–Bil Browning at Bilerico Project
–Joe Jarvis at Joe.My.God.
–Jeremy Hooper at Good As You
–Andy Towle, Towleroad
–Karen Ocamb at LGBT POV
–Howie Klein, DownWithTyranny
–Scott Wooledge, Daily Kos

I hope you’ll consider contributing to Trevor’s campaign if you possibly can. If you can’t, please share this with all your friends and family.

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News

Gaetz: ‘Corrupt’ Republicans Could ‘Take a Bribe’ and Throw House to Dems, Blocking Trump Run

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1 hour ago

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April 19, 2024

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U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) says some of his fellow House Republicans would “take a bribe” to throw the razor-thin GOP majority to the Democrats if a far-right faction calls up a motion to oust Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, allowing Democrats to hand the gavel to the Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries. he warned if that happens, Democrats would immediately declare Trump ineligible to be President, pack the U.S. Supreme Court, and pass numerous laws like the American Rescue Plan.

“I do believe in a one seat majority there could be one or two or three of my colleagues who would take a bribe in one form or another in order to deprive the Republicans of a majority at all,” Gaetz said Friday on his podcast (video below.)

He added, “the risk that one or two of my corrupt Republican colleagues might take a bribe, take a walk, feign an ailment and flip this thing to the Democrats is a risk that is too high for me at this time.”

Gaetz’s fellow far-right Florida Republican member of Congress, Anna Paulina Luna, told listeners, “I heard that when, if and when the motion vacate is introduced, that there will be immediate resignations of a couple of more moderate members of Congress. And in the event that that happens, that ultimately means it does go to a Democrat speaker.”

RELATED: Jeffries Vows Democrats Will Ensure Ukraine Aid Passes as Johnson Defectors Grow

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) last month filed a “motion to vacate,” which she can use at any time to force a vote to oust the GOP Speaker, Mike Johnson. U.S. Rep. Tim Massie (R-KY) and just today, U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) has signed on as co-sponsors.

Congressman Gaetz told listeners if Democrats do take the House through a force vote to remove Johnson, Democrats would “be declaring Donald Trump an insurrectionist and setting up a barrier to him being able to become the president United States.”

“That’ll be their leadoff hitter, and then the chaser to that shot will be a massive spending package that looks a lot more like the American Rescue Plan. They will blow past every concept of every cap ever imagined. You’ll be looking at Universal Basic Income, you could be looking at packing the Supreme Court.”

Watch a short clip of Gaetz’s remarks below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Stop Bringing Up Nazis and Hitler’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Smacked Down by Democrats

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Jeffries Vows Democrats Will Ensure Ukraine Aid Passes as Johnson Defectors Grow

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April 19, 2024

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Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries vowed Friday the majority of Democrats will support Republicans’ Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and Gaza foreign aid legislation as Republican Speaker Mike Johnson lost support of another member of his conference to a faction determined to oust him.

“Democrats will provide a majority of our majority as it relates to funding Israel, humanitarian assistance, Ukraine, and our allies in the Indo Pacific,” Minority Leader Jeffries said. “It remains to be seen what Republicans will do in terms of meeting the national security needs of the American people, but it was important for House Democrats to ensure that the national security bills are going to be considered.”

Despite Republicans having a one-vote majority, more Democrats on Friday voted to move the critical and long-awaited foreign aid bills forward than did Republicans.

READ MORE: ‘Stop Bringing Up Nazis and Hitler’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Smacked Down by Democrats

The 316-94 vote included 165 Democrats and 151 Republicans voting yes, and 55 Republicans and 39 Democrats voting no.

Axios’ Juliegrace Brufke posted the list of Republicans voting against their party’s legislation.

Calling it a “rare” moment in modern congressional history to have to rely on opposition party votes to pass legislation, BBC News reports Speaker Johnson’s “hold on power is tenuous, and the legislators who oppose him – and his bid to provide aid to Ukraine – occupy some key positions within the House’s power structure.”

Amid the procedural vote to move the foreign aid funding bills forward, U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, a far-right Republican of Arizona, announced he is joining Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and Congressman Tim Massie (R-KY) in formally announcing their will vote to oust Speaker Johnson.

Gosar, like Greene, is reportedly a Christian nationalist. In 2022 CNN reported his “lengthy ties to White nationalists, [a] pro-Nazi blogger and far-right fringe received little pushback for years.”

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“We’ve been very honest in our assessment of the situation from the beginning,” Jeffries on Friday also declared. “At the appropriate time as House Democrats, we will have a conversation about how to deal with any hypothetical motion to vacate.”

“Moscow Marjorie Taylor Greene, Massie, and Gosar are quite a group. But central to our conversation is to make sure that the national security legislation in totality is passed by the House of Representatives.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

 

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Biden Amps Up Field Offices, Trump to Mobilize Thousands of Lawyers to Monitor Vote Counts

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6 hours ago

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April 19, 2024

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With less than seven months before Election Day the Biden campaign and the Trump campaign are taking shape, and like their politics they could not be more different.

President Biden is “scooping up record-making donations,” “flush with cash,” “building a behemoth of a campaign,” and “plowing the money into an expanding campaign operation in battleground states that appears to surpass what Donald Trump has built,” NBC News reported earlier this month.

Ex-President Donald Trump, struggling with donations, has “raised $75 million less for his presidential bid than Joe Biden and has 270,000 fewer unique donors now than at the same stage of his run for the White House four years ago,” the Financial Times reported Wednesday.

Now, as the Biden campaign invests in a massive ground game, Trump’s strategy is emerging, and it appears to be built on his “Big Lie,” the false and debunked conspiracy theory that there was and is tremendous election fraud.

READ MORE: ‘Repercussions’: Democrats and Republicans Stand Against ‘Pro-Putin’ House GOP Faction

Politico reports the Trump campaign plans to dispatch “more than 100,000 attorneys and volunteers across battleground states to monitor — and potentially challenge — vote counting in November.”

The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee are calling their plan “the most extensive and monumental election integrity program in the nation’s history.” The RNC is chaired by Trump’s hand-picked elections specialist who worked on the Bush 2000 election Florida recount team, and co-chaired by Trump’s daughter-in-law.

Despite Trump’s claims of a stolen election in 2020, his own Attorney General, Bill Barr, his own FBI Director, Chris Wray, his own Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Chris Krebs, all concluded there was no widespread election fraud and none that would have changed any election results. An independent federal agency, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, came to the same conclusion, all as The Brennan Center for Justice reported more than a month after the 2020 election.

Politico warns, “should Trump once again attempt to overturn the election, he will already have in place tens of thousands of workers who could help with that effort.”

“Having the right people to count the ballots is just as important as turning out voters on Election Day,” Trump said in a statement.

The Trump campaign “plans to deploy lawyers to monitor voter machine testing, early voting, election day voting, mail ballot processing and post-election canvassing, auditing and recounts. The campaign also plans to station lawyers at mail-in voting processing centers and set up a hotline that poll watchers and voters can use to report problems,” Politico adds. “The RNC also stated that attorneys will be stationed at ‘every single target processing center where mail ballots are tabulated.'”

READ MORE: ‘Big Journalism Fail’: Mainstream Media Blasted Over Coverage of Historic Trump Trial

The announcement of that massive operation comes on the heels of a convention this week hosted by the far-right Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association that “drew a parade of felons, disgraced politicians, election deniers, conspiracy theorists and, in the end, a few sheriffs,” NBC News reports. Also among attendees were “MAGA celebrities.”

“The group sees sheriffs as the highest authority in the U.S., more powerful than the federal government, and it wants these county officers to form posses to patrol polling places, seize voting machines and investigate the Democrats and foreign nations behind what they claim is a criminal effort to rig the vote by flooding the country with immigrants who vote illegally.”

David Gilbert at Wired reported: “Far-Right Sheriffs Want a Citizen Army to Stop ‘Illegal Immigrant’ Voters.”

Their plan perfectly dovetails with Donald Trump’s campaign push.

Gilbert writes, “election deniers and conspiracists have coalesced around a narrative they plan to push ahead of November: Blame the immigrants.”

Richard Mack, founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association told Wired that immigrants “have already disrupted the election because they are getting registered to vote.”

“That is election fraud,” Mack added, “these people are not qualified to vote. They are going to vote for whoever got them here and gave them a bunch of free stuff to get here, and of course that’s the Democrat Party, who are complicit in all of this.”

There are no reports of undocumented immigrants registering to vote in any substantial number. NBC News last week reported, “noncitizen voting” is “already illegal and very rare.”

READ MORE: ‘They Want Russia to Win So Badly’: GOP Congressman Blasts Far-Right House Republicans

Those claims, however, echo some made by the Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson one week ago in his joint press conference with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

“We only want U.S. citizens to vote in U.S. elections,” Johnson said, standing next to Trump, “but there are some Democrats who don’t want to do that. We believe that one of their designs, one of the reasons for this open border, which everybody asked all around the country, why would they do this? Why would they allow all this chaos? Why the violence? Because they want to turn these people into voters.”

“Right now the administration is encouraging illegals to go to their local welfare office to sign up for benefits,” Johnson, one of the top election deniers in the country, claimed as he explained his conspiracy theory. He did not state how the Biden Administration is communicating with undocumented immigrants, nor did he offer proof of these communications. He also did not state that the vast majority of undocumented immigrants are ineligible for any government welfare program.

 

Image via Shutterstock

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