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Controversial Deal Reached to Immediately – But Only Partially – Repeal North Carolina’s HB2

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GOP GOAL: Get NCAA Games Back in the Tar Heel State

HB2 could be partially repealed by the close of business Thursday. Late Wednesday night Republican lawmakers and North Carolina‘s Democratic governor announced a deal that would “leave bathroom regulation to the state,” but retain HB2’s ban on allowing cities and towns to enact any laws banning discrimination or regulating employment practices through the end of 2020.

Those conditions would allow conservatives, who have a strong reputation of working against North Carolina’s minority communities, more than enough time to re-enact the portions of HB2 they would like to retain presuming they are able to place another Republican in the governor’s office literally the day after the moratorium would expire.

North Carolina’s Democratic Governor Roy Cooper called the compromise legislation “not a perfect deal,” but one that “begins to repair our reputation,” as The News & Observer’s Colin Campbell reports.

Democratic state lawmaker and Equality North Carolina executive director Chris Sgro opposes passage.

“The deal proposed would continue to actively discriminate against the LGBT community,” he said on a conference call Wednesday night.

The state senate is slated to vote on the bill at 9:15 Thursday morning, allowing no time for public input or commentary, much less a practical review of the bill.

The Human Rights Campaign issued a statement on a leaked version of the bill Wednesday evening.

“The rumored HB2 ‘deal’ does nothing more than double-down on discrimination and would ensure North Carolina remains the worst state in the nation for LGBTQ people,” HRC President Chad Griffin said. “The consequences of this hateful law will only continue without full repeal of HB2. Sellouts cave under pressure. Leaders fight for what’s right.”

Lawmakers main goal appears not to be supporting the LGBT community and the many other groups impacted by the likely unconstitutional law that has cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of jobs. Instead, the NCAA has a deadline of Thursday. Passing the bill into law, repealing only portions of HB2, the lawmakers believe, will be enough of a compromise to allow the NCAA to return to the state, and with it, the millions of dollars in revenue the games provide.

If the bill fails, North Carolina will reportedly lose NCAA games through the end of 2022, according to ACLU attorney Chase Strangio:

Earlier this week an Associated Press analysis found HB2 will cost North Carolina more than $3.76 billion over 12 years.

“North Carolina could lose hundreds of millions more because the NCAA is avoiding the state, usually a favored host. The group is set to announce sites for various championships through 2022, and North Carolina won’t be among them as long as the law is on the books. The NAACP also has initiated a national economic boycott,” the AP reports.

The AP calls its own report “an underestimation of the law’s true costs” because it ignored reports that it could not quantify. 

“Some projects that left, such as a Lionsgate television production that backed out of plans in Charlotte, weren’t included because of a lack of data on their economic impact.”

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‘All Those Biden Towers’ Where ‘Influence Was Used’: Democrat Turns Tables and Mocks Republicans in Sarcastic Q&A

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September 28, 2023

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U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) turned the tables on Republicans during the House Oversight Committee’s first impeachment “inquiry” into President Joe Biden by sarcastically referring to “all those Biden towers all over the world where foreign partnerships were formed and influence was used here in the US,” forcing the witness to correct him and point out he actually meant ex-President Donald Trump.

The hearing, chaired by Rep. Jim Comer (R-KY) was widely seen as another failed effort by House Republicans against President Biden. It took a turn when Republicans’ own witness, law professor and Fox News media contributor Jonathan Turley told them he saw no evidence that warrants an impeachment of the President.

Meanwhile, Congressman Connelly’s scathing remarks quickly spread across social media, garnering hundreds of thousands of views views in just hours.

“Um, well let’s see,” Connolly began, slowly, “I’m looking at, um, I heard again, um, I think it was professor Hurley talk about – – because he’s not prejudging of course, but he’s just suggesting that maybe we want to look into criminal activity like obstruction, fraud, and abuse of power.”

“So let’s take fraud. So shouldn’t we be concerned that a New York judge just found President Biden’s organization committing fraud every year for the last 10 or 15 years,” Connolly continued, “and that, under the Martin law, that Biden organization is now subject to dismemberment and dismantlement because of the fraudulent activity?”

READ MORE: ‘Flying Monkeys on a Mission for the Wicked Witch’: Raskin Rips Republicans Over Impeachment ‘Inquiry’

“That should be of concern to Mr. Trump,” the witness, Professor Michael Gerhardt, replied.

“Mr. Trump again!” Connolly sarcastically exclaimed, feigning surprise. “And in this case, we’re not speculating, a judge actually made that ruling?”

“Yes sir,” Gerhardt replied.

”Should we be concerned about the personal – I mean, while we’re at it, while we’re loading on – shouldn’t we be concerned about the personal behavior of the President, for example, President Trump or President Biden, being found guilty of sexual assault and defamation associated with that activity, again in a civil court?”

“We should be concerned as it related to Mr. Trump,” Gerhardt again replied.

“With Mr. Trump again?” Connolly again said mockingly.

“I just think that one of the reasons we’re here is because somebody has been indicted in four different locales, on four different sets of concerns, with I think 81, 91 actual counts, and has been found guilty in two civil proceedings, one involving sexual behavior and one on actual corporate fraudulent activity. And we don’t want to talk about any of that. We want to speculate about discredited testimony from discredited witnesses,” Connolly added.

“Distract, deflect, dissemble,” Connolly added. “I think this hearing’s all about ‘look over here, not over there.’”

READ MORE: Poll Finds Majority Oppose Impeachment Inquiry as House GOP Kicks Off Hearings Two Days Before Likely Shutdown

“I’ve heard concerns about ‘branding,'” Connolly continued. “So, shouldn’t we be concerned about all those Biden towers all over the world where foreign partnerships were formed and influence was used here in the United States? I’ve seen these towers in Indonesia, in the Philippines, in Turkey. I even saw one in Chicago. Shouldn’t that be a source of concern of this committee in terms of influence, both foreign and domestic, when Biden became president?”

“If there were such things as ‘Biden building,'” Gerhardt said.

“Well, was there anyone who did have them?” Connolly asked. “Well, could you tell us? Just give me the name.”

“I think we’re talking about Mr. Trump,” Gerhardt replied.

“So, when President Biden appointed his son to manage U.S. foreign policy, both in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East peace, by the way, a son who couldn’t qualify for getting a security clearance, but President Biden apparently granted it to Hunter anyhow – and then, after leaving the White House, getting a $2 billion deal … shouldn’t that be of concern to us that maybe a sweetheart deal occurred with the blessing of the president, with foreign money, and shouldn’t we look into Hunter Biden for that, given the fact that the handled Middle East peace in the White House?”

“It should have been a concern with President Trump and his son-in-law,” Gerhardt said.

“Oh Trump. I got that wrong again,” snarked Congressman Connolly.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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‘Flying Monkeys on a Mission for the Wicked Witch’: Raskin Rips Republicans Over Impeachment ‘Inquiry’

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3 hours ago

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September 28, 2023

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U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, blasted members of the House GOP at the opening of their first, televised, impeachment “inquiry” into President Joe Biden Thursday morning, declaring, “If the Republicans had a smoking gun or even a dripping water pistol, they would be presenting it today but they’ve got nothing on Joe Biden.”

Ranking Member Raskin noted he full House did not vote to hold an official impeachment inquiry, which he said violates the ruling of the Dept. of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC).

Congressman Raskin, a former constitutional law professor who served as the lead prosecutor for the second impeachment of Donald Trump, told the Committee, “like flying monkeys on a mission for the Wicked Witch of the West, Trump’s followers in the House now carry his messages out to the world: shut down the government, shutdown the prosecutions. But the cultmaster has another command for his followers, which brings us here today.”

Raskin added that Republicans “don’t have the votes because dozens of Republicans recognize what a futile and absurd process this is. Now, the title of the hearing is ‘The basis for impeachment inquiry of President Joseph Biden,’ and yet they present us no basis at all today. Even after eight months of investigation.”

READ MORE: Poll Finds Majority Oppose Impeachment Inquiry as House GOP Kicks Off Hearings Two Days Before Likely Shutdown

“They’ve invited three witnesses to testify. Not one of them is an eyewitness to a presidential crime of any kind. Not one of them is a direct fact witness about any of the events related to Ukraine, and Burisma. Not one of them has participated in the eight months of investigation, in which our distinguished Chairman has publicly boasted that he received 100% of everything he asked for, and I quote, ‘every subpoena that I’ve signed as chairman of the House Oversight Committee, over the last five months, we’ve gotten 100% of what we’ve requested, whether it’s with the FBI, or with the banks, or with Treasury.'”

Raskin kicked off his remarks with remarks of Republicans attacking other Republicans for holding an “impeachment drive.”

“So let’s get it straight,” Raskin began. “We’re 62 hours away from shutting down the government of the United States of America. And Republicans are launching an impeachment drive based on a long debunked and discredited lie. No foreign enemy’s ever been able to shut down the government of the United States but now MAGA Republicans are about to do just that. But they don’t want to cut off public services to people and tonight, paychecks to more than a million service members, without first launching impeachment drive, even when they don’t have a shred of evidence against President Biden for an impeachable offense. You think I’m being harsh? Here’s what some Republicans have had to say over the last week about the actions of the Republicans, as they watch up close ‘the dysfunction caucus at work,’ in the words of our GOP colleague from Nebraska, Don Bacon, ‘clown show,’ ‘foolishness,’ ‘terribly misguided,’ ‘stupidity,’ ‘failure to lead,’ ‘lunatics,’ ‘disgraceful,’ .new low,’ ‘pathetic,’ ‘enabling Chairman Xi,’ ‘people that have serious issues,’ ‘those folks don’t have a plan,’ ‘show just how broken they are, and ‘individuals that just want to burn the whole place down.'”

“Now, if I said any of these things, they’d probably take my words down, but these are Republicans talking about Republicans. So let’s be clear. This isn’t partisan warfare America’s seeing today, it is chaotic infighting between Republicans vs. Republicans. It’s MAGA versus extreme MAGA, as if anybody in the real world could tell the difference between the two.”

“What a staggering failure of leadership. Speaker McCarthy’s invertebrate appeasement of the most fanatical elements of his conference now threatens the well-being of every American. Now some people think the members of the GOP caucus aren’t interested in anything logical. They just want to see the world burn, as Alfred Pennyworth put it in ‘The Dark Knight,’ but I see a method in the madness.”

READ MORE: ‘Poof’: White House Mocks Stunned Fox News Host as GOP’s Impeachment Case Evaporates on Live Air

“A week ago Donald Trump posted a comment saying that a government shutdown ‘is the last chance to deep fund these political prosecutions against me and other patriots.’ You get it? To delay justice Donald Trump would cut off paychecks to a couple million service members and federal workers and furlough more than a million workers and pay them later for having not worked. They would halt food assistance to millions of moms and kids and keep NIH in my district from enrolling any more patients in life and death clinical research trials. Trump’s convinced if you shut the government down his criminal prosecutions on 91 different felony and misdemeanor charges will be defunded in delayed long enough to keep him from having to go before a jury of his peers before the 2024 election.”

“On August 27, he posted this edict: ‘Either impeach the bum or fade into oblivion. They did it to us.’ Of course the standard for impeachment is not whether ‘they did it to us,’ but whether the President committed treason or bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. But the Constitution is irrelevant to them. What counts is what Donald Trump wants. As Republican Representative Ken Buck, a Freedom Caucus member, told CNN the other day, President Trump has gone on his social media accounts and said we should be impeaching President Biden. Kevin McCarthy said we have an impeachment inquiry. You draw the conclusion directly or indirectly. This impeachment inquiry was a result of President Trump’s pressure.”

“So we move from a Trump-ordered government shutdown to a Trump-ordered impeachment process, and yet back into reality-based world the majority sits completely empty-handed with no evidence of any presidential wrongdoing. No smoking gun, no gun, no smoke. In fact, we have had to slide awkwardly into a House impeachment process without the benefit of the floor vote that Speaker McCarthy insisted was absolutely imperative and necessary when Donald Trump was impeached.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘I Feel a Little Bit Dumber for What You Say’: The Nine Worst Moments of the GOP Presidential Debate

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Poll Finds Majority Oppose Impeachment Inquiry as House GOP Kicks Off Hearings Two Days Before Likely Shutdown

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4 hours ago

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September 28, 2023

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A just-released NBC News poll finds a solid majority of registered voters are opposed to House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden, which kicks off Thursday morning, just two days before House Republicans are likely to shut down the federal government.

“56% of registered voters say Congress should not hold hearings to start the process of removing Biden from office, while 39% say it should,” NBC News reports. “The House Oversight Committee is gathering for its first hearing in the inquiry, which Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., announced two weeks ago to investigate Biden’s ties to his son Hunter’s business dealings, probing what McCarthy described as ‘allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption.'”

Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s “own conference was divided over the impeachment inquiry, and so are voters — who are also, unsurprisingly, divided along party lines when it comes to proceedings aimed at removing Biden from office,” NBC News adds. “An overwhelming majority of Democrats (88%) oppose the hearings, while 73% of Republicans support them. Six in 10 independents oppose the hearings, and 29% say Congress should move forward with them.”

READ MORE: House GOP Shutdown Demands Include Gutting Billions From Dept. of Education, Costing Over 200,000 Teachers Their Jobs

The Congressional Integrity Project, a group of Democratic strategists, have published what it calls a “regularly updated rundown of Republican commentators, Members of Congress, and media personalities” who have indicated there is not sufficient evidence to initiate an impeachment inquiry against President Biden. It includes recent statements from Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH), Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD), Rep. French Hill (R-AR), Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT), Senator Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV), and Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY).

At midnight on Saturday the federal government will shut down, unless the House passes legislation to fund the government, the Senate passes the House’s legislation, and President Joe Biden signed it into law.

READ MORE: ‘I Feel a Little Bit Dumber for What You Say’: The Nine Worst Moments of the GOP Presidential Debate

The shutdown, which has yet to begin, may already have cost the American taxpayers possibly a billion dollars, well-known economist Justin Wolfers casually suggested:

“This week you and I are paying over a million federal employees over a billion dollars to put aside their regular work to plan for a pointless shutdown, and that shutdown will grind the government to a halt which will also cause untold disruption through the private sector.”

Earlier this week, House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi said, “A MAGA shutdown drains billions of dollars from our economy. It says to our men and women in uniform — you’re not getting paid. To women and children depending on food assistance — you’re not eating. All 3 recent shutdowns were under REPUBLICAN House Speakers. Irresponsible.”

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