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Good Same-Sex Marriage News From Arizona, New Mexico, And (Even) Texas

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Some good and important news coming from three border — and bordering — southern states: Arizona, New Mexico, and (amazingly) even Texas.

First up: Arizona, where Republican Jan Brewer, perhaps best-known for wagging her finger at President Barack Obama on the tarmac, is being sued in her official capacity as governor, by four Arizona same-sex couples in a federal class-action lawsuit.

The Republic reports the couples’ attorney is using the Supreme Court’s DOMA decision to argue that Arizona’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, much in the same way same-sex couples in Utah last month won the right to marry — even if that ruling is now on hold.

“We are asking for relief on behalf of all married and unmarried same-sex couples in Arizona,” said attorney Shawn Aiken. “Now is the time to take up this issue.”

The couples in the Arizona case are: Joseph Connolly and Terrel Pochert, a Pinal County couple that has been together 18 years and was legally married in California in 2008; Suzanne Cummins and Holly Mitchell, a Maricopa County couple that has been together for seven years and have two children adopted through the state’s foster-care system; Clark Rowley and David Chaney, a Maricopa County couple that has been together for five years; and Mason Hite and Christopher Devine, a Maricopa County couple that has been together for 11 years, legally married in California in 2008 and have a child adopted through the state’s foster-care system.

 

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Next, New Mexico Republican governor Susana Martinez — the nation’s first female Hispanic governor — has announced she will not seek to overturn last month’s state Supreme Court ruling that made same-sex marriage legal in the Land of Enchantment.

Recognizing that same-sex marriage is “now the law of the land,” Gov. Martinez in a statement said that while “there will surely be intense debate about this decision moving forward,” she will “encourage New Mexicans to continue to respect one another in their discourse, as this is an important issue for many New Mexicans on both sides,” Edge on the Net reports.

“As we move forward, I am hopeful that we will not be divided, as we must come together to tackle very pressing issues, like reforming education and growing our economy, in the weeks and months ahead.”

And finally, could same-sex marriage be coming to Texas?

Two gay couples are suing the state of Texas, seeking to overturn the Lone Star state’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

“Cleopatra de Leon and Nicole Dimetman of Austin married in Massachusetts but a constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2005 prohibits Texas from recognizing their marriage,” On Top magazine reported last month. “The law also prevents San Antonio couple Victor Holmes and Mark Phariss from marrying. The couple was denied a marriage license in October.”

“Just as the judicial branch protected the fundamental right to marry and established that discriminatory laws could not prevent mixed-race couples from exercising that right, the courts again must step in to protect the marriage right,” Lane is previously quoted as saying.

Jonathan Saenz, president of the Christian conservative group Texas Values, described the lawsuit as “frivolous” in comments to AFA’s One News Now.

“Do laws mean anything to the homosexual advocates?” Saenz rhetorically asked. “It’s gotten to this point to where the only way they win is people don’t enforce the law. That kind of mob rule will not work, and it’s something that will be a disaster for our state and our country.”

“This is the definition of a frivolous lawsuit,” he added.

Freedom To Marry has a listing of marriage equality lawsuits in dozens of states across the country.

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‘Grifters’: A MAGA Civil War Is Eating Away at Its Own Power

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A MAGA “civil war” is playing out across the right-wing ecosystem, sapping attention from the ideas that once powered the base and held GOP leaders to power. Now, the movement appears more consumed by infighting than achieving political goals.

MAGA is being drained of “its political muscle, leaving it defenseless as the Trump administration revisits policies previously opposed by the base,” according to Axios. The strength of MAGA “lies in its ability to rally influencers, politicians and activists behind a hard-charging conservative agenda.” But that “superpower is faltering amid a cascade of bitter personal feuds.”

The National Pulse’s editor-in-chief Raheem J. Kassam told Axios, “There’s no focus on anything philosophical or even ideological right now.”

READ MORE: ‘Where Is Antifa Headquartered?’: FBI Official Struggles Defending Top Threat Label

“It’s all just a cacophony of grifters tussling over audience and ego,” Kassam said. “So, corporate America gets to wield power with the admin virtually unencumbered by scrutiny from the base.”

Serving up a series of examples, Axios reported that on issues such as artificial intelligence, marijuana, Venezuela, and redistricting — all of which “would have triggered significant MAGA backlash” earlier — there has been “mostly crickets.”

Trump reportedly will loosen federal regulations on marijuana soon — an act that once would have attracted MAGA influencers to scream about “pothead culture,” Axios noted. This time, however, the news “barely made a ripple on right-wing social media.”

The “America First” president seizing a tanker loaded with Venezuelan oil and refusing to rule out boots on the ground to overthrow the Maduro regime “barely pinged on MAGA’s radar.”

MAGA influencer CJ Pearson told Axios that “the movement is wholly consumed right now on personality clashes. That is a recipe for electoral doom, and it’s unfortunate to see the unity that we saw after Charlie [Kirk]’s death dissipate so quickly.”

READ MORE: ‘His Heart Just Ain’t in It’: Report Reveals Trump’s ‘Achilles Heel’

 

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‘Political Vendetta’: DOJ Blasted for Suing Fulton County Amid Debunked Fraud Claims

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President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against Fulton County, Georgia, demanding records related to the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden.

Trump “has increasingly pressured his administration to find widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, despite those claims having been debunked and dismissed in dozens of cases by the courts,” The Washington Post reported.

The lawsuit calls for Fulton County to hand over to DOJ “all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County.”

READ MORE: ‘Wall of Resentment’: Trump’s ‘Affordability Weave’ Isn’t Working Says Columnist

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, according to the Post. “indirectly and without evidence accused Georgia officials of ‘vote dilution'” in a statement.

“States have the statutory duty to preserve and protect their constituents from vote dilution,” Dhillon said.

“At this Department of Justice,” Dhillon added, “we will not permit states to jeopardize the integrity and effectiveness of elections by refusing to abide by our federal elections laws. If states will not fulfill their duty to protect the integrity of the ballot, we will.”

Trump in a recorded telephone call told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in January 2021, “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”

READ MORE: Trump Is the ‘Biggest Security Threat’ Facing America: Columnist

Two years later, a Georgia grand jury indicted Trump on racketeering charges. The case ultimately was recently dismissed after setbacks and that Trump, having since become a sitting president, could not be indicted.

Democracy Docket, which covers voting rights, elections, and the courts, called the move “a major escalation in the Trump administration’s dangerous effort to revive President Donald Trump’s fraudulent claims that the election was stolen.”

The news site also reported that Kristin Nabers, the state director for All Voting is Local, said in a statement: “This administration’s unending obsession with the 2020 election results in Georgia uses outright lies to compensate for the fact that they lost.”

“With this terrible overstep of power, the DOJ is now weaponizing laws meant to protect voters for their political vendetta,” Nabers added.

Larry Sabato, Director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics called it “More insane nonsense.”

READ MORE: ‘Where Is Antifa Headquartered?’: FBI Official Struggles Defending Top Threat Label

 

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‘Wall of Resentment’: Trump’s ‘Affordability Weave’ Isn’t Working Says Columnist

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President Donald Trump’s “signature” weave — where he goes off-script and off-topic — is not working for Americans when it comes to affordability.

That’s according to CBS News correspondent John Dickerson, writing at The Atlantic.

His weave was “on display” this week during a speech that the White House promoted as focused remarks on the economy, but his comments included, Dickerson noted, “the topics of tariffs, U.S. Steel, fracking, wind turbines, electric-vehicle mandates, immigration, crime, gender policies, Obamacare, the Fed, his election victories, rare-earth negotiations, a D.C. terror attack, and ‘the lips that don’t stop’ of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.”

READ MORE: Trump Is the ‘Biggest Security Threat’ Facing America: Columnist

The problem, he noted is, “now that the engine of the U.S. economy is smoking, the American people are looking for a technician, not an improv comic.”

Trump is hitting “a wall of resentment,” according to Dickerson, who pointed to a Politico poll which, he noted, found that “nearly half of voters—including 37 percent of Trump’s own 2024 coalition—said that the cost of living is the ‘worst they can ever remember.'”

There’s more.

“Only 31 percent of U.S. adults now approve of how Trump is handling the economy, a new AP/NORC poll found, down from 40 percent in March,” he reported. “It’s the lowest economic approval that AP/NORC has registered in either of Trump’s two terms. In a recent CBS News/YouGov survey, a majority of respondents said that his policies are driving up food and grocery prices.”

During times of crisis other presidents have worked to get results:

“Franklin D. Roosevelt passed 15 major bills in 100 days. Ronald Reagan, in the teeth of double-digit unemployment, pushed for sweeping tax cuts week after week. Bill Clinton built an economic ‘war room’ before he even took office, and his team introduced what has now become a political cliché: focusing ‘like a laser beam’ on the economy. Barack Obama instituted a morning economic briefing that put the issue on par with national security. Each practiced the same principle: If you can’t solve the problem fast, at least get caught trying.”

READ MORE: ‘Where Is Antifa Headquartered?’: FBI Official Struggles Defending Top Threat Label

He say that now, Trump is trying. “Kind of.”

Despite talking about “affordability” during his Pennsylvania speech, he also knocked it.

“The president’s most focused message on affordability is that affordability concerns are a hoax. He used that word, or an equivalent, several times on Tuesday, as he has in Oval Office remarks, in a Cabinet meeting, and on social media.”

The “unavoidable truth, no matter how hard you weave,” Dickerson wrote, is that “his argument is weak because he has to overcome people’s lived experience.”

READ MORE: ‘You’re a Loser Dude’: Carville Scorches Trump as ‘Done’

 

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