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This weeks House Judiciary Committee hearing on abortion access featured, shall we say, some interesting moments. Such as Catherine Glenn Foster, president of Americans United for Life, testifying that aborted fetuses help power streetlights in Washington, and Republican Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina trying to create a gotcha moment by asking women to define the word woman.

Now, throughout history, both Republicans and Democrats have used hearings of this nature to score political points, so the partisan grandstanding wasnt unexpected. Still, given whats at stake, I was hoping for more substance and fewer theatrics. In retrospect I was hoping for the impossible, especially given that the hearing was held just four days after the mass shooting in Buffalo, N.Y.

By now we all know the details: the racist nature of the attack and the 180-page manifesto attributed to the accused. It seems clear his motives were shaped by some of the same rhetoric repeated by far-right figureheads and politicians. The great replacement theory the fear that white Christian Americans are systematically being replaced by immigrants, people of color and non-Christians for political purposes is something that has been echoed by Republican politicians and Fox News personalities like Tucker Carlson for years.

So yeah, I guess I should have expected Bishop, who authored North Carolinas infamous bathroom bill, to try to change the national conversation by using a hearing about abortion to express his dislike of transgender people. Thats certainly easier than trying to condemn white supremacy in a way that doesnt offend the white supremacists in ones voter base.

Not that it matters. Conservative elected officials can condemn white supremacy and the great replacement theory on social media until their fingers cramp. We all know how they feel about matters of race. Its apparent through the books the party seeks to ban, the history it wants to remain hidden and the legislation it turns into law. With the hope to take over Congress in the midterm elections this fall, there is little chance Republican leaders will say anything that could alienate constituents who consider what happened in Buffalo to be a step in the right direction.

White supremacists vote too, you know.

Racism of any sort is abhorrent in America and ought to be stood up to by everybody, both Republicans, Democrats, all Americans, Sen. Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, said on Tuesday, as if we hadnt all seen him avoid criticizing President Trumps racist language and policies for four years.

During the judiciary hearing, Rep. Chip Roy, Republican of Texas, seemed irritated that one of the witnesses characterized his state as an inhospitable place because of its draconian abortion laws and asked the witness if she knew how many people had moved to Texas in the last decade.

Do you know what that number is? he asked.

I dont know, she said.

Four million people have moved to Texas in the last decade, he said. Thats the entire population of Alabama.

Now, lets look at what he didnt say: The Department of Justice is suing Texas because, while 95% of that population growth is attributable to people of color, the redistricting map his party created and signed into law increased the number of majority-white districts. State Republicans intentionally diminished the power of Latino and Black voters by attaching their communities to heavily white districts.

The Voting Rights Act was a safeguard against that long-documented racist practice until the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 to essentially gut it. The 5-4 decision ran along presumed political ideologies. After that ruling, Texas closed 750 polling places through 2020, mostly in counties with large communities of color.

The next time you see Roy or any Texas elected official talk about the states population growth, please keep that in mind. And the next time you hear rumbles about replacement, remember who is actually being replaced silenced by racist redistricting.

This kind of gerrymandering is just one example of how white supremacy is kept alive. Bans on wearing a hijab or natural Black hairstyle would be another. Doesnt matter what they call it: We all can see what it really is. Racism doesnt always come with the violence we saw in Buffalo. But when it does, I find politicians and talking heads to be the unrepentant ghost writers of racist shooters manifestos.

@LZGranderson

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Granderson: Don't let 2022 midterms be a repeat of the tea party - Los Angeles Times

So it looks like they finally found their red line.

Meaning the Republican Party. Tuesday, the GOP seems to have finally identified the barrier no Republican may be allowed to cross. Many of us had wondered where it was or even if it was. We were genuinely, if morbidly, curious about what it would take to get the party to rebuke one of its own.

Now, thanks to the election and, specifically, to the defeat of Madison Cawthorn, the soon-to-be former representative from North Carolina, we have our answer.

The red line is this: Dont embarrass the GOP.

Its OK if you embrace a white-supremacist theory like Rep. Elise Stefanik.

Its no problem if you are an anti-Semite like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Its fine if you support insurrection like Sen. Josh Hawley.

Just dont embarrass the party.

One might argue that any or all of the above ought to embarrass the party plenty. But that argument misreads the Zeitgeist.

Consider Cawthorns catalog of impolitic behavior: He twice brought loaded guns to the airport; he was shown on one video thrusting his naked genitals in another mans face and on another partying in lingerie; he was accused of sexual harassment; he issued an apparent call for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government.

His controversies ranged from kink to outright sedition, touching several bases in between, yet none of it raised more than mild intraparty reproof. Not so a March podcast wherein he inexplicably claimed to have been invited to cocaine-fueled orgies by his colleagues.

That, said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, was when Cawthorn lost my trust. It was also when Thom Tillis, a senator from his state, endorsed his primary challenger. It was when one member of the House Freedom Caucus told Politico anonymously about reactions across the political spectrum saying What the hell ?

Even at that, Tuesdays rejection by voters was narrow; he lost by just 1,300 votes out of 88,000 cast.

Not to minimize how stupid it was for Cawthorn to make such an incendiary claim with zero evidence to back it up, but it says something about GOP priorities that this is what it took to get them to make a stand, as opposed to, you know, issues with actual impact on peoples lives. After all, no one will die because of Cawthorns accusation. But apparently, it threatened the brand, so something had to be done.

That this turned out to be the red line tells us all we need to know about GOP values. The Republican Party stands for the Republican Party.

In ridding itself of Cawthorn, however, that party provides itself, at best, temporary relief. He is hardly the only loose cannon in their arsenal. To the contrary, the GOP has pioneered a dangerous conceit: that high office, once held to be the proper province of the serious, the learned and the prepared, has now been democratized till it can be fulfilled by any unremarkable twit with the gumption to seek it and the ability to convince the average Joe or Jane that ignorance, immaturity, hostility toward liberal values and lack of impulse control constitute authenticity.

No experience required. Apply within.

Hence, Cawthorn. Hence, Boebert. Hence, Greene. Hence, Trump.

And hence, existential threat. How much of this can a democracy absorb and continue to function? We careen toward a moment of truth.

And America better have a red line of its own.

Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for the Miami Herald. Readers may email him at [emailprotected].

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Leonard Pitts Jr.: The Republican Party stands for the Republican Party - Lewiston Sun Journal

Thomas Barrack, a billionaire private equity investor who chaired former president Donald Trump's 2017 inaugural committee, altered the official GOP platform for the 2016 Republican National Convention in an effort to minimize connections between the Saudi Royal Family and the 9/11 hijackers, according to The Daily Beast.

The Department of Justice updated its indictment against Barrack who in July 2021 was arrested and charged with illegal lobbying, obstruction of justice, and lying to the FBI to reveal the extent of his role at the party's convention, which was held in Cleveland that year.

Barrack was released shortly after his arrest last year on a $250 million bond.

The revised indictment revealed that an individual listed as "Person-1" sent an email to Barrack to alter the Republican messaging at the convention.

"We need to talk about language for me to put in [the national political party] platform at national convention. Can be much more expansive than what we did in speech," said the individual. "Platform language [should be] based on what you hear from your friends."

Trump sought to disclose roughly 28 pages of information that was absent from the September 11 Commission report that detailed Saudi ties to the hijackers, but "Person-1" was insistent that anything that could be construed as "anti the Saudi Royal Family" needed to be axed from the party platform.

Barrack then sent the email to Rashid Al-Malik, an Emirati businessman who last year was indicted by the Justice Department for relaying information to United Arab Emirates spies, per the report.

"Very confidential but you can share with HH," Barrack said in a message to Al-Malik. "Please do not circulate any further since it is very sensitive."

Federal investigators stated that Al-Malik sent the email to an unspecified Emirati official.

Brian McGlinchey, an independent journalist based in San Antonio who has sought the disclosure of the missing 9/11 documents, told The Daily Beast that the messages reflected "hypocrisy" from those in the Trump orbit.

"It underscores the hypocrisy of the Trump camp, because at that time, there was an active presidential campaign going on," he told the publication. "You've got the candidate out front raising deep suspicions about Saudi involvement, at the same time you have these back channel maneuvers at the Republican convention to help the Saudis avoid embarrassment."

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Trump ally changed GOP platform to soften ties of 9/11 hijackers to Saudis: report - Business Insider

Ever since Donald Trump came down that escalator the entire nation has been either elated or appalled by him. Hes an addiction we cant seem to shake. But such outsized attention tends to inflate his importance. A look at the Republican primary candidates for Congress reveals some interesting facts about those who hope to lead the Republican party in the future and its not all about Trump. First of all, there is Donald Trump and there is Trumpism. So far in the 2022 primary season both are doing wellalthough Trumpism is more widespread than Trumps endorsements. But forgotten in all the attention to Trump is that, amazingly enough, there is still another non-Trump Republican Party out there.

Lets look at formal endorsements first. So far 10 states have held primaries. Most of those states are ones that Donald Trump won and that lean Republicanonly one state, Oregon, is a Democratic leaning state and Pennsylvania is very much a swing state. So, while they do not represent the totality of the Republican Party, primaries in those states can give us a pretty good first look at whats going on within that party.

To date, 405 people have run for the Republican nomination for a House or Senate seat. Of these, Trump has formally endorsed 63. However, most of these endorsements (54 out of the 63) have been of incumbents and/or uncontested seats. Incumbents have such a high re-nomination rate (98%) that it is impossible to attribute victory to an endorsement.

The other thing that jumps out from the data is that, of the endorsements Trump has made in House primaries so far, 90% are in districts that are either likely or solidly Republican.[1] As he did when he was in office, Trumps strategy is to double down on his base and forget about expanding his coalition.

Thus, if we discard the candidates who are incumbents and in uncontested seats, Trump has only endorsed nine candidates for open seat primaries that have taken place so far. Of those, eight candidates (excluding the Pennsylvania Senate race which has no winner as of this writing) have won their primaries. The only incumbents Trump endorsed who had serious opponents were Madison Cawthorn of NC-11, who lost, and Alexander Mooney of WV-2, who triumphed against incumbent David McKinley after they were forced into the same primary due to reapportionment.

While our database does not code for Gubernatorial candidates, it is worth mentioning that in those races Trump had an equal number of wins and losses. In Idaho, Trump backed the losing candidate, the Lt. Governor who challenged the incumbent governor. Trumps endorsed candidate for Governor of Nebraska also lost. But in Pennsylvania, an open seat, Trumps gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano won, as did the incumbent Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott.

If we look beyond the wins and losses of the candidates who were formally endorsed, we find a more nuanced picture of the Republican party circa 2022 than we get from the headlines. Many candidates ran as Trump wannabees, or candidates who didnt have Trumps endorsement but ran on his name and platform. They plastered their campaign materialsusually their websites, their Facebook pages and their twitter accountwith images or favorable mentions of Trump. Eighty-nine (or 21.98%) of the Republican candidates fell into this category. If you then add in the candidates formally endorsed by Trump63that percentage increases to 37.54% of all the Republican candidates. Thats nearly 40% of Republican candidates running tied firmly to Trump even though most of them failed to get a formal endorsement. In the marquee Senate races in Ohio and Pennsylvania, we saw that candidates attacked each other for not being loyal enough to Trump or they tried to paint themselves as the best example of Trumpism even when they did not get the formal endorsement.

Other candidates adopted some of the Trump rhetoric, stating that they were MAGA or believed in America First on their websites without mentioning Trump by name. Thirty-seven candidates fell into the Trump light category, or just 9.14% of the candidates. We expect that as the primaries move into more Democratic states there will be more candidates like thiswho send a wink to the Trump voters but dont wrap themselves in Trumpism.

And finally, and most surprisingly, 216 or 53.33% of the Republican candidates put out campaign materials on their websites that were devoid of either Trump or Trumpismeven though often some of their issue positions such as immigration, hewed pretty closely to Trumps positions.

In other words, more than half of the Republican candidates running so far in these mostly deep red states and deep red districts stay away from Trump.

These preliminary data suggest two things. First, the emergence of Trumpism without Trump marks the maturation of a movement. As Josh Mandel, one of the Ohio Senate candidates who did not get Trumps backing and lost put it: they [his opponents] think America first is a slogan. Its not a slogan, its a governing philosophy. And Im the only one who gets that. Although its early and there are many more primaries to come, its clear that while Trump is a major player in the Republican Party, so far he is a factional leadernot an absolute leader. (As Im sure he would like to be and probably believes himself to be.) As many have noted, Trumps endorsements do not clear the field of other candidatescandidates have stayed in races even after Trump endorsed their opponents.

Second and of even more importance is that, contrary to conventional wisdom, there are a substantial number of Republicans who have stayed clear of both Trump and Trumpism. We can expect that number to grow as the primaries move from solidly Republican states to Democratic and swing states. With Trump sucking up all the attention its easy to miss the fact that there still is a sort of normal Republican party out there. For some Republicans, Trumps shambolic[2]approach to politics (and life), makes him a flawed and vulnerable leader.

Just as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and others are jockeying to inherit the Trump faction of the Republican Party, there are others, chief amongst them Rep. Liz Cheney and former Vice President Mike Pence, who are lining up to lead the non-Trump Republican party. On the weekend before the primaries when we witnessed yet another horrendous and racially motivated mass murder, Cheney called out the Republican leadership for enabling white supremacy and anti-Semitism.

The non-Trump political party is still there. Well keep watching.

[1] Of the 58 endorsements Trump has made in House primaries so far, nearly 90% (89.7%) are in districts with an R+5 or higher rating from Cook. If you only include solidly red districts (PVIs of R+15 or higher), thats more than half (55%) of Trumps House Endorsements.

[2] Oxford Dictionary defines shambolic as chaotic, disorganized or mismanaged.

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Just how Trumpy is the Republican Party? Lessons from Republican primaries so far - Brookings Institution

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, weighed in Thursday on the high-profile and contentious Idaho gubernatorial race, saying he was happy to see Gov. Brad Little beat his rivals, including his own lieutenant governor, in the primary.

Gov. Little is a good friend and an excellent governor, and Im very proud that he won the Republican nomination by a very large margin, Cox said during his monthly PBS Utah news conference.

Asked what Littles victory over his more conservative opponent says about Republican politics in the West these days, Cox challenged using the word conservative to describe Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump.

Little, Cox contends, is the true conservative and the type of conservative that the U.S. needs.

I would push back a little bit on the contention that he was running against somebody more conservative, Cox said. I think that term has been changed from what I believe conservative means.

McGeachin isnt more conservative, Cox added. She was more something, but not more conservative.

Little, Cox said, is one of the most conservative governors in the country. I think hes an excellent conservative. Hes a model conservative. Hes the type of governor that we need and the effective governor that I aspire to be.

Idahos contentious governors race has garnered national headlines after Little and McGeachin became bitter rivals over the past two years, feuding over how to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Littles primary election win represents a victory for a traditional, establishment Republican over a more extreme, far-right challenge from McGeachin, the Idaho Capital Sun reported.

Twice, when Little traveled out of state and McGeachin served as acting governor, she issued executive orders thatbanned mask mandates even though Idaho never had a statewide mask mandate andCOVID-19 testing and vaccinations in schools, according to the Idaho Capital Sun. Little immediately repealed each of McGeachins executive orders and accused her of abusing authority to score cheap political points.

Cox is a Republican who has at times taken a more moderate approach on issues, most recently by vetoing the Utah Legislatures ban on transgender girls competing in school sports.

Hes also been an outspoken ally for LGBTQ issues. In 2016, before he was elected governor, Cox went viral for an emotional speech he gave at aSalt Lake City vigil to honor the victims of the Pulse Nightclub massacre, a shooting at a gay bar in Florida that left 49 dead. In that speech, Cox apologized for at times not being kind to some of his high school classmates who he later found out were gay, saying his heart has changed and he will forever regret not treating them with the love, kindness, dignity and respect the love that they deserve.

As governor, Cox has urged his fellow Republicans to focus less on culture war wedge issues and more on policy issues that impact the day-to-day lives of Utahns. Hes garnered national attention for his approach, including in Vanity Fair, which highlighted Cox and Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb for both vetoing anti-transgender sports bills and refusing to join their partys anti-trans culture war.

Utah lawmakers swiftly overrodeCoxs veto and tweaked it to address some of his concerns.

Coxs veto frustrated the far-right wings of Utahs GOP. But Cox said during last months PBS Utah news conference he believes most Utahns admire that, even if they disagree ... that were not always just pandering or making decisions based off of poll results or whatever talking heads on cable news say they should do.

Cox received a wave of negative national attention when Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson named him in atirade earlier this month for, among other things, sharing his preferred pronouns in an online conversation with high school students.

The Utah Republican Partys chairman, Carson Jorgensen, joined Carlsons April 11 programto say Cox is out of step with GOP delegates.

Cox, when asked last month if hes concerned about the political fallout from his veto, told reporters, Oh, you know, I dont know, nor do I care to be perfectly honest.

He said he knew there would be political repercussions, but hes not making decisions based on what will boost his poll numbers.

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Idaho governor election: Little is the Republican we need, Utah governor says - Deseret News