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Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised a Texas high school valedictorian after she used her speech at graduation to rail against the state's restrictive abortion laws.

First reported by D Magazine, Paxton Smith, the valedictorian of Lake Highlands High School's Class of 2021, was preparing to graduate after earning a 104.93 GPA, and to submit her speech for review at the school's commencement ceremony.

She told the outlet that she became increasingly disturbed by the recently passed "heartbeat bill" Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law earlier this year. The law effectively bans abortions once six weeks of a pregnancy has passed, even in the instances of incest or rape.

Abortion rights activists have called the law - which goes into effect in September - among the most restrictive in the country.

She determined that she needed to use her platform to address the bill, so she set out to dupe the high school by submitting a speech for review that she knew would be accepted while planning her real speech at home.

Despite being an outgoing person, Ms Smith said she was nervous ahead of giving the speech, for obvious reasons - not only was her viewpoint likely to be met with resistance by at least some of the audience in the reliably red state, she was also undermining the trust her administrators put in her when they named her valedictorian.

So she practiced her speech, ensuring she got the words down, but said when she went to deliver her remarks at her commencement, she blanked.

She pulled a white piece of paper from inside of her commencement gown and began her speech, shakily at first but growing in confidence as she got into her remarks.

During her speech, she said it "feels wrong to talk about anything but what is currently affecting me and millions of other women in this state," which launched her into her condemnation of Mr Abbott's heartbeat bill.

"Recently the heartbeat bill was passed in Texas. Starting in September, there will be a ban on abortions that take place after 6 weeks of pregnancy, regardless of whether the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest. Six weeks. Most women dont even realize theyre pregnant by then," she said. "And so, before they have the time to decide if they are emotionally, physically, and financially stable enough to carry out a full-term pregnancy, before they have the chance to decide if they can take on the responsibility of bringing another human into the world, the decision has been made for them by a stranger. A decision that will affect the rest of their lives."

She went on, discussing the ambitions women have and the futures they dream of, and how the bill strips them of the autonomy to make decisions about their lives.

"I am terrified that if my contraceptives fail me, that if Im raped, then my hopes and efforts and dreams for myself will no longer be relevant. I hope you can feel how gut-wrenching it is, how dehumanizing it is, to have the autonomy over your own body taken from you," she said.

She concluded by saying she refused "to give up this platform to promote complacency and peace when there is a war on my body and a war on my rights," and told listeners "we cannot stay silent."

Her speech drew the attention of people in her community and more broadly on social media, including praise from Ms Clinton.

"This took guts. Thank you for not staying silent, Paxton," Ms Clinton tweeted.

Others - including some of her administrators - did not share the former First Lady's sentiments.

She claims that some administrators said the school could withhold her diploma for what she did, though she has not seen anything come of that threat as of yet.

Ms Smith said she had no regrets over using the platform to deliver her message.

"It feels great. It also feels a little weird," she said two days after giving the speech. "Whenever I have opinions that can be considered political or controversial, I keep them to myself because I don't like getting attention. It just feels weird for me personally, that I'm linked to the attention that the speech got."

Read the rest here:
Hillary Clinton applauds valedictorian who switched her approved speech to a rallying cry on abortion rights - The Independent

The morning after Donald Trump returned to frontline politics with a speech in North Carolina, a close adviser poured cold water on his reported belief that he will be reinstated in the White House when it is proved Joe Biden beat him thanks to electoral fraud.

Corey Lewandowski, Trumps first campaign manager in 2016 and a loyal sidekick since, told Fox News Sunday Trump lost the election.

Indeed he did, by more than 7m ballots in the popular vote and by 306-232 in the electoral college, a result Trump called a landslide when it was in his favour against Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Experts agree there was no mass voter fraud in 2020. Nonetheless, according to multiple reports Trump has told aides he believes he will be reinstated.

Lewandowski said he had spoke to the president dozens, if not more than 100 times since he has left the White House and I have never had that conversation about him being reinstated.

But, he added: I know of no provision under the constitution that allows it to occur, nor do I know of any provision under the constitution that allows an individual who lost an election to come back in if a recount is dubbed inaccurate.

On Friday, Facebook announced that it was suspending Trump for two years, over the nadir of his push to overturn his defeat: his incitement of the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January.

In Greenville on Saturday, Trump said he was not too interested in returning to Facebook in 2023. Facebook is however a vital fundraising and communications resource for candidates for office, which Trump could yet be in 2024. He also called the decision to suspend him so unfair.

On Sunday Nick Clegg, the former British deputy prime minister who is now Facebooks vice-president for global affairs, told ABCs This Week: For Donald Trump, of course we dont expect him to welcome [our] decision. We do hope, though, that reasonable observers will believe that we are acting as reasonably and proportionately as we can in these very difficult circumstances.

In North Carolina, Trump also repeated his lies about the election, which he called the crime of the century, and referring to Republican attempts to restrict voting and overturn results, said: I am not the one who is trying to undermine American democracy, I am the one who is trying to save it.

Clegg was asked: If the president gave the speech he gave last night in January 2023, would the suspension be extended?

The Facebook executive declined to answer, saying he had not heard the whole speech, but did say he thought people did not want Facebook to be a sort of truth police and said inciting violence was more of a concern than telling lies.

It doesnt matter who you are, Clegg said, you can be the pope, the queen of England, the president of the United States, you cannot use our services to aid, abet, foment or praise acts of violence.

Trumps spoke for 90 minutes on Saturday, ranging over familiar subjects as he began a series of appearances some think presage another run for the presidential nomination in a party he still dominates.

Repeatedly hitting out at Biden, Trump touched on hot topics among conservatives. His successor, he said in one such jab, was pushing toxic critical race theory ... into our nations schools. Joe Biden and the socialist Democrats are the most radical Democrats in our nations history.

Trump also took sustained aim at Dr Anthony Fauci, the senior public health official with whom he was often at odds in his last year in office, as the coronavirus took hold.

Fauci, 80, has served seven presidents since 1984 and is now Bidens chief medical adviser. Trump said he was not a great doctor but hes a hell of a promoter, hes been wrong on almost every issue.

On Sunday, Lewandowski said: If were going to follow the science and listen to Dr Fauci, who has been lifted up by the media as the foremost expert on this matter in the world, listen to what Dr Fauci said.

Lewandowski mentioned Faucis initial advice against the need to wear masks, which Fauci has said was meant to preserve supplies for medical personnel; Faucis view of travel bans, which he said would prove irrelevant if a pandemic began; and a claim that through his government agency [Fauci] funded at least $800,000 of government taxpayer money to the Wuhan laboratory.

US funds were routinely allocated to laboratories in China.

Republicans have seized on new interest among US intelligence agencies in the theory that the coronavirus escaped a Chinese lab. Most public health experts still think it more likely the virus reached humans via the consumption of animals, but Fauci is among those who have said the lab leak theory could prove true.

Lewandowski suggested the formation of an unlikely investigatory commission, featuring two former secretaries of state.

Lets appoint Secretary Mike Pompeo and maybe Secretary Clinton to look into why 600,000 Americans have died because of this. Lets hold China accountable.

Repeating a line from Trumps speech, he also said the US should ask for the reparations which they owe not only us but probably the world, and I think $10tn.

Excerpt from:
Trump adviser Lewandowski: he lost the election and will not be reinstated - The Guardian

It seems letter-writer Tony Pittore (Real world vs. fantasy world, May 29, TribLIVE) has decided to elucidate the rest of us on the difference between the conservatives real world and the liberals fantasy world.

Im rather curious as to whether Mr. Pittores real world is the one where:

The Democratic Party is populated by pedophiles and cannibals

A child trafficking operation is run out of a D.C. pizza parlor

Hillary Clinton was personally responsible for the Benghazi massacre

Bill and Hillary Clinton are responsible for more murders than Tony Soprano

A previous POTUS was actually ineligible to hold the office

The coronavirus pandemic was a Democratic hoax (or alternately, that George Soros, Bill Gates and Dr. Anthony Fauci were responsible for intentionally loosing the virus on an unsuspecting world)

That willfully thumbing ones nose at public health mandates and protocols enacted to try to stem the pandemic was a patriotic act

That a nefarious coalition of neer-do-wells recruited, organized and bankrolled by Soros hijacked the 2020 presidential election

That the Capitol rioters of Jan. 6 were likewise merely a gathering of patriots engaging in peaceful protest.

Is this your real world, Mr. Pittore?

As Elvis Costello so elegantly wrote over 40 years ago, I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused. Or, maybe as cartoonist Walt Kelly famously penned in his Pogo comic strip, We have met the enemy, and he is us.

Russ Schmidt

New Kensington

Read more:
Letter to the editor: 'Real world' of conservatives - TribLIVE

Democrats have to defy history to hold onto the House in the 2022 midterms. As I've noted before, the president's party almost always loses House seats in the midterms. History, though, is a guide, not a fortune teller.

This week's special election in New Mexico's 1st congressional district is part of a larger trend that shows us that if President Joe Biden remains as popular as he is now, Democrats have a fighting chance to maintain House control.

Democrat Melanie Stansbury beat Republican Mark Moores by 26 points in the special election to replace Deb Haaland, who represented the district until she joined the Biden administration as interior secretary earlier this year. She did so in a district that Biden won by 23 points in 2020, Haaland took it by 16 points that same year and Hillary Clinton won by 17 points in 2016. In other words, Stansbury didn't just match but slightly exceeded the baseline Democratic performance in the district.

Of course, this was just one special election. But there have been a slew of special elections, mostly on the state legislative level since Biden became president, that seem to indicate something similar. Look at these specials using the past two presidential elections (giving more weight to 2020) as a baseline.

Democrats seem to be doing 2 points to 5 points better than you'd expect in a neutral political environment, depending on whether you look at all special elections involving at least one Democrat and Republican or those taking place with only one Democrat and one Republican.

This 2 to 5 point Democratic advantage matches pretty much what we saw in the national congressional generic ballot. It is also pretty much identical to the results we witnessed in last year's election. Biden won by 4.5 points nationally, and Democrats were victorious in the national House vote by about 3 points.

The common thread through these special elections is that Biden is popular. His approval rating has been north of 50% throughout his entire presidency. When we limit ourselves to only polling that asked voters (i.e. not all adults), Biden's approval rating is still above 50%.

Presidential approval ratings aren't all that matter during midterm elections -- but they do matter. There have been six presidents who have lost House majorities during a midterm in the polling era. All but Dwight Eisenhower (a war hero who always seemed to do worse politically than his approval rating indicated) had an approval rating below 50%.

Put another way, the presidents whose parties lost the House in midterm elections were almost all more unpopular than Biden is right now.

Now, that may not save Democrats next fall because all but the most popular presidents have lost seats in midterms, even if their party didn't lose House control. The Democrats have almost no room to spare as they won a slim majority in the 2020 elections.

The potential saving grace for Democrats is the relationship between midterm voting patterns and approval of the president has only increased over time. Since 2006, the president's party has won at least 86% of those voters who approve of the job the president is doing. They have never lost more than 90% of voters who disapprove of the president's job during the same period.

The bottom line is that if you approve of the president, you're very likely to vote for his party, and if you disapprove, you're very likely to vote for the opposition in this polarized era.

In 2018, Republican House candidates won 88% of those who approved of Donald Trump's job performance and lost 90% who disapproved. Republicans lost the House because more voters disapproved of Trump (54%) than approved (45%).

Biden, at this point, is inverse of this with an approval rating in the mid 50s and a disapproval rating in the low 40s.

Again, history suggests that Biden and particularly the Democrats' position should fade. I have pointed out that the White House party's position on the generic ballot from this point to the election should get worse. Additionally, special election results sometimes can get worse for a party the further we get from the beginning of the presidential term.

But Biden has one thing going for him that acts as a counter to the normal cycle: an approval rating that is steadiest for any president since World War II through this point in his term. He didn't experience a big honeymoon in his approval rating after his inauguration, and he hasn't seen a decline either. Biden's current approval rating looks awfully similar to the 52% who held a favorable view of him in the 2020 exit polls.

If Biden doesn't lose ground going forward, the 2022 midterms may prove to be an ahistorical event.

Read this article:
Why Democrats may defy history and win the 2022 midterms - KCTV Kansas City

Have we no decency?

At long last sir, have you no decency?

These words were spoken to Sen.Joe McCarthy in 1954. He died three years later in disgrace, and his rabid movement died with him.

I can think of 15 to 25 people who should be asked this personally (actually hundreds), but tops is Yancey County's esteemed climate change denier. I wonder how the conversation went with the denier and all his Ph.Dfriends after 60 Minutes revealed that the sea ice in the Arctic has melted and the Russians are trying to confiscate the newly opened sea lanes. I know he would say if it is not Fox News, it is fake news. The aware know better! I just googled fascism, and whose name do you think popped into my head after Hitler and Mussolini, after reading the definition? You guessed right, Trump.

The informed know that Trump lost the election, lost the House, lost the Senate, was impeached twice and is the first president to have such charges brought against him. With a grand jury opened in Georgia and New York, I am hoping that justice will prevail. I have known for years that he was a delusional misfit who is inherently corrupt. He misled his followers with lies and deceit.

Now, the U.S. Senate is probably not going to form a 9/11-like commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Out of 50 Republican senators, only 15 agreed to meet with the mother of Brian Sicknick, the slain Capitol police officer. We only need 10 of these senators to vote with the Democrats; I bet it won't happen. They have something to fear! They did not fear, however, forming a commission to investigate Hillary Clinton and Benghazi.

After 33 hearings, $7.8 million and nearly four years, no evidence of wrongdoing was found. She did get beat in 2016 by a corrupt charlatan exactly the results they were seeking.

We had better straighten up. In recent news, Russia again hacked us. Putin is winning in his attempts to divide us and we are too ignorant or unaware to realize it.

Have we no decency?

Michael Perham, Clermont

I have been a resident of Leesburg and a Daily Commercial subscriber for the past several years. Each week Ive read with interest the Op-Ed section, noting that Russ Sloan was afforded a weekly byline to promote a decidedly right-wing point of view.

While perhaps expecting thoughtful, positive treatises on conservative principles and values, instead we received a weekly tirade, essentially telling us the Democratic Party was responsible for all of our problems, and the ultimate end of the republic as we know it.

It didnt seem to matter who was president, or which party had a congressional majority, Sloan told us that each and every problem in our country was the other guys fault. Over the years and through this unending weekly barrage of rhetoric, two absolutes have emerged: Sloan always told us the sky was falling and the sky never fell.

Tom Pierce, Leesburg

Excerpt from:
Today's letters: Readers comment on former President Trump and right-wing op-eds - Daily Commercial