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Its a drumbeat these days in the party of Big MAGA: Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is something to be despised, defeated and destroyed. In the past couple of weeks, Virginias most powerful Republicans have joined the parade by pandering in a legislative election year to the GOPs white, anti-DEI base.

First, the states chief diversity officer, Martin D. Brown, told a gathering of faculty and staff at Virginia Military Institute a school riven recently by allegations of racism, sexism and resistance to diversity and inclusion that diversity is the wrong mission and is dead.

The comments, as first reported by The Washington Post, are stunning considering that Brown is specifically tasked under a 2020 law to advance diverse, equitable and inclusive policies throughout state government.

Imagine the superintendent of the Virginia State police telling motorists, Feel free to disregard the speed limit, were not going to stop you! Brown and Youngkin, who hired Brown in November, have a legal duty to faithfully execute Virginias laws. Brown conceded as much.

Were not going to bring that cow up anymore. Its dead. It was mandated by the General Assembly, but this governor has a different philosophy of civil discourse, civility, treating living the golden rule, right? the Post, citing a recording of the event last month, quoted Brown as saying.

Brown may not like the work hes paid to do. If he and the governor can bring a majority in both chambers of the General Assembly around to their point of view, the law can be changed through the due process of representative democracy. Thats one of the things Novembers election is about.

Until that happens, Youngkin could (and should) command Brown to do the work of the commonwealths chief diversity officer rather than undermining it. Or he could fire him, as many have implored him to do. Among them is Youngkins predecessor, former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, Americas first elected Black governor and a Democrat who had previously been a vocal supporter of Youngkins.

Youngkin, instead, is siding with Brown and traveling the state articulating his consistent position against DEI programs, saying he supports equal opportunity but not equal outcomes.

Asked for elaboration, Youngkins press secretary, Macaulay Porter, referred to remarks the governor made in a streamed interview with the Milken Institute shortly after Browns comments at VMI. (Go to the 14:50 mark.)

These concepts five, seven, 10 years ago were laudable. It was about creating inclusive environments where people felt like they had access and could be engaged. It was about making sure that we understood that diversity of thought, which comes from diversity of life experience, results in better outcomes, and all the academic data points to this. What weve seen, of course, is that this has gone in a very, very excessive area where all of a sudden, the idea that we should compromise excellence, we should compromise merit, in pursuit of a goal for equal outcomes is the real challenge. And we see it manifested in real decisions, he said.

Then last week, the Republican leaders of Virginias House of Delegates picked up the baton.

Speaker Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, and Majority Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Scott, asked the General Assemblys investigative arm, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, to study how non-instructional administrative staff, particularly Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) positions, contribute to rising costs of college education in Virginia. The development was first reported Friday by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

One such report stated that approximately 1,100 in-state students could receive a full-tuition scholarship for the amount spent on DEI salaries, Gilbert and Kilgore wrote to JLARC executive director Hal Greer. They were citing a Virginia Association of Scholars report titled Should Virginians Pay for University Diversity Leftism? Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Leftist Ideology at Virginia Universities.

The Republican Party has become a refuge for seething white antipathy toward anything that calls out the wrongs done for hundreds of years to generations of African Americans and other Americans of color.

The modern GOP has been clear in its unambiguous appeal to aggrieved and frightened white, straight men for a long time. But until recently, the party not all Republicans, but a significant and noisy element avoided making it as harshly clear as it has since 2020. At times, it plays out like a contest to see who among them can most forcefully plant a flag in a pre-1954 Jim Crow America and drag the rest of the country back there.

In Tennessee, the states Republican-led House of Representatives undertook the self-defeating act of expelling two Black members who, along with a white colleague, disrupted House proceedings to protest the states liberal gun rights laws after six people were shot dead at a private school a few miles from the state Capitol. The white representative survived her expulsion attempt by one vote, something she attributed to her skin color.

Republican-ruled states, especially in the South, have effectively canceled any public school history curricula that provide a frank accounting of their states and the nations shameful history of slavery and the institutionalized discrimination that endured long after Appomattox Court House and the 13th Amendment.

In Texas, Republican Gov. Gregg Abbott provided a telling insight about his regard for the others recently when he referred to five members of a Honduran family, including women and children, allegedly slain by a neighbor with an assault-style rifle last week as illegal aliens. The governors mouthpieces have since attempted damage control, but his callous tweet endures in infamy.

Diversity initiatives exist because injustice indisputably existed and continues. Those initiatives, like all government endeavors, are imperfect, but where abuses exist, address them legislatively, if necessary.

But defying existing law and taking a sledgehammer to DEI to leverage white grievance in an election year is reprehensible and risks leaving the party that brought about the emancipation of enslaved Americans mired on the wrong side of modern history.

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By trying to demolish DEI initiatives, Va. Republicans dig in on ... - Virginia Mercury

Abortion

As states continue to bring in tighter restrictions on abortion, internal divisions within the GOP are starting to show

In one state, Republican women filibustered to block a near-total abortion ban introduced by their own party. In another, the Republican co-sponsor of a six-week abortion ban subsequently tanked his own bill. On the federal level, a Republican congresswoman warns that the GOPs abortion stance could mean losing huge in 2024.

As states continue to bring in tighter restrictions on abortion following the fall of Roe v Wade, internal divisions within the Republican party on the issue are starting to show.

Divisions became most apparent last week in the deep red states of South Carolina and Nebraska, where Republicans roundly rejected further attempts to curtail abortion rights last week.

In South Carolina on Thursday, all five female senators three of them Republican led a filibuster that ultimately blocked a bill which would have banned abortion from conception with very few exceptions.

That was the third time a near-total ban on abortion has failed in the Republican-dominated senate in South Carolina since Roe was overturned last summer.

We told them, Dont take us down this path again for the third time in six months you will regret it. And so we made them regret it, said state senator Sandy Senn, who spoke at length on the senate floor on Thursday, of the male Republican senators continually pushing abortion restrictions in her state including in an earlier attempt this year to make abortion a crime punishable by the death penalty. Abortions remain legal until 22 weeks in the state, which has become a safe haven for abortion in a region with increasingly limited options.

With nothing having changed since the last two times the senators brought the bill, Senn said her Republican counterparts knew another abortion ban had no hopes of passing. But with an election looming in 2024, she believes they are keen to flaunt their anti-abortion positions.

He was just trying to flex his Republican credentials, she said of Shane Massey, the senate leader, who voted in favor of the bill. He wants people to know, I want a strict ban, I want no abortion. Im going to try it for the third time and lose, but its not my fault that we lost its these Republicans who voted against me.

In Nebraska, an attempt to bring a six-week abortion ban failed by a single vote in the majority Republican chamber. Merv Riepe, a Republican senator who had initially co-sponsored the bill chose to withhold his vote on Thursday, becoming an unlikely player in the bills demise, having voted in its favor as recently as two weeks prior.

But Riepe had raised hesitations about the bill back in March, telling local press that six weeks might not be enough time for a person to realize they are pregnant and get an abortion.

He did propose an amendment to the bill on Thursday, proposing a ban on abortion after 12 weeks, but other Republican legislators rejected it, saying they had already compromised enough.

Barrett Marson, a GOP strategist based in Arizona, said that these increasingly visible tensions may speak to a difficulty that Republicans are having trying to balancing different wings of the party.

There is a tension between the base of the Republican party and moderate Republicans. The hardcore base wants outright bans on abortion. But the broader electorate, and certainly a substantial amount of right-leaning independents and moderate Republicans, want to keep abortion legal but rare, said Marson.

Those tensions are certainly becoming clear on the national stage, with growing numbers of Republicans sounding the alarm that the party should not lean too far right on abortion, especially since last years midterms showed a string of victories for abortion rights that seem to suggest the partys stance on the issue is out of sync with the general public.

Recent weeks have also seen a number of Republican presidential hopefuls trying to walk back the partys stance on abortion. Last week, the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley asked the party for a humanizing, not demonizing conversation on abortion. Donald Trump has indicated he thinks a federal abortion ban touted by Senator Lindsey Graham last year a losing proposal for 2024.

Following a supreme court decision to keep access to a crucial drug in medication abortions widely available for the time being, the Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace said told ABC she agreed with the ruling.

I want us to find some middle ground, Mace said. I represent a very purple district As Republicans, we need to read the room on this issue, because the vast majority of folks are not in the extremes, she said.

Mace criticized a recent decision by the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, to sign a six-week abortion ban in his own state a bill she said he signed in the dead of the night.

We are going to lose huge if we continue down this path of extremities [People] want exceptions for rape and incest, they want women to have access to birth control. These are very commonsense positions that we can take and still be pro-life, Mace said.

Senns own decision to join the filibuster in South Carolina, she said, was about principle but she added that the politics are also compelling.

As far as in my state, 53% of the Republican voters agree with me. And in my district, 70% agree with me, she said.

I dont want any woman to have an abortion. I hope she doesnt have to, but Im not going to judge her. And she has to have a meaningful opportunity to make her decision, she said.

Senn supports a ban after 12 weeks, with exceptions for people who have been raped, victims of incest, or whose life is threatened by a pregnancy and said she continues to be shocked by fellow Republican who disagree with that stance.

The baby is not even a baby at that point. In my state, 19 lawmakers in our house of representatives signed on to a bill that would make a woman guilty of murder if she had an abortion at any stage, she said, referring to a recent bill. I just wish we had more people in the middle, with common sense on all issues. And on this issue, why not have some mercy? she asks.

Marson, the strategist, believes the mixed messaging from the party could end in catastrophe for Republicans in 2024 if they dont heed those calls.

We dont have to guess what will happen. Just a little over six months ago, we saw what the issue of abortion does to the electorate it pushes them to Democrats, he said.

Weve seen states like Kansas, one of the more conservative states in the country, reject abortion bans. A six-week ban that doesnt allow for exception of rape and incest and life of the mother thats a campaign-ender for a Republican, he said.

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Republicans reject abortion bans as campaign-enders in warning to party - The Guardian

House Republicans narrowly passed a bill late last month that would temporarily suspend or raise the federal debt limit while significantly reducing caps on discretionary spending for the next 10 years. The legislation does not identify which discretionary programs would or would not see future spending cuts under the proposal.

However, some Democrats have claimed that the bill would lead to deep cuts in several areas, including health benefits for military veterans.

It makes a series of deeply devastating and unpopular cuts to things like veterans health benefits, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on May 2, adding that the Department of Veterans Affairs would be gutted.

But some GOP lawmakers have called such Democratic claims a lie and argued that congressional Republicans do not intend to scale back spending on services for veterans.

Joe Biden and the Democrats are yet again shamelessly lying to the American people, Rep. Elise Stefanik, the chair of the House Republican Conference, wrote in a May 1 tweet. There are absolutely NO cuts to veterans benefits, or the VA in the Limit, Save, and Grow Act.

Its true that the bill does not mention spending cuts for veterans, but it does not exempt them either. The specific cuts would be determined later, during the appropriations process if the House-passed bill became law, which is unlikely to happen.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the bill is dead on arrival in the Senate, which is controlled by the Democratic caucus. The White House also opposes the bill and has said President Joe Biden would not sign it even if it reached his desk.

Here well explain why Democrats claim that the legislation is a threat to veterans, as well as why Republicans claim that those opposing the bill are simply using fear tactics.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen informed Congress in a May 1 letter that the U.S. could default on its $31.4 trillion debt as soon as June 1, if Republicans and Democrats fail to reach an agreement to lift the debt limit before that time.

On April 26, House Republicans passed their proposal the Limit, Save, Grow Act by a vote of 217 to 215. It would extend the borrowing limit through March 31, 2024, or until the debt increases by $1.5 trillion, whichever comes first.

In exchange, starting in fiscal year 2024, the bill would cap discretionary budget authority at about $1.47 trillion similar to fiscal year 2022 levels and then restrict future growth in spending to 1% per year for a decade. (Discretionary spending refers to spending that is authorized in annual appropriations legislation and is separate from mandatory spending for programs such as Medicare and Social Security.)

According to summaries of the GOP bill, it also would repeal certain renewable and clean energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act, block Bidens executive actions canceling student loan debt, reclaim some of the unspent COVID-19 funding, rescind funds designated for the Internal Revenue Service, as well as create new work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries and expand work requirements for those enrolled in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill would reduce budget deficits by a total of about $4.8 trillion through 2033, compared with CBOs baseline projections under current law. Nearly $3.2 trillion of that amount would come from savings in discretionary spending, the nonpartisan budget analysts said.

The White House budget office has said that if Defense Department funding is exempted from the discretionary spending cuts, as Republicans have indicated, the GOP bill would initially require a 22% cut to funding for all other discretionary programs, assuming the cuts are applied across the board.

The legislation proposed by Congressional Republicans would set the FY2024 topline at $1.471 trillion, equal to the FY 2022 level, says an April 20 blog post written by Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget. Under the assumption that funding for defense in FY 2024 will at least match the baseline level of $885 billion, non-defense funding would total $586 billion, which is 22 percent lower than the currently enacted level of $756 billion.

Among other things, those cuts would undermine medical care for veterans, leading to 30 million fewer veteran outpatient visits, and 81,000 jobs lost across the Veterans Health Administration, Youngs blog post said.

An April 30 tweet from Bidens presidential Twitter account similarly claimed that 217 House Republicans Voted to Undermine Veterans Health Care, and other Democratic lawmakers, like Sen. Chris Coons, claimed that the GOP bill would cut veterans health care.

Veterans groups also have raised concerns about the potential impact of the legislation, and the Department of Veterans Affairs has warned that discretionary spending cuts could affect additional benefits for veterans not just health care.

In responding to these comments, Republicans have said they would not reduce funding for defense or veterans.

On ABCs This Week on April 30, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who was interviewed after Coons, disagreed with the claim about cuts to services for veterans.

We talk about protecting veterans, Scalise said. Weve heard this lie over and over again. The speaker himself has said were protecting veterans. My boss, the chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee, is a veteran himself. The only person talking about cutting veterans benefits is Joe Biden. And Ill tell you, as the majority leader, I will not bring a bill to the floor of the House, even if President Biden wants it, I will not bring a bill that cuts our veterans.

In an April 21 statement released before the vote on the GOP bill, Rep. Mike Bost, the veterans committee chairman whom Scalise mentioned, said Democrats had spread false claims about House Republicans trying to cut veterans benefits.

This commonsense bill will grow the economy and save American taxpayers money, all while protecting veterans benefits, Social Security, and Medicare, he said. Republicans have always prioritized veterans in our spending to ensure veterans have access to the care, benefits, and services they have earned, and as the Chairman of this Committee, that is my number one priority. Anyone who questions our commitment to the men and women who have served should find new talking points.

In an email to FactCheck.org, Chad Gilmartin, deputy spokesman for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, said, Democrats should point to where in the bill it says any of the claims that they make.

As we said, the text of the bill does not specify which parts of the discretionary budget would be cut but it also does not say which parts would be shielded from future cuts, which is a point the White House made to us.

Congressional Republicans could have protected veterans medical care in the bill but they chose not to which is why 24 veterans organizations opposed this bill, a White House spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

We would note that the bill also does not state that defense spending will be spared. However, Democrats seemingly have accepted Republican assurances that it would be, while now dismissing similar assurances that funding for veterans also would not be cut.

But if Republicans were to exclude defense and veterans health care from cuts, as they say they would do, that means other discretionary programs would have to be cut by larger percentages.

If they protect both defense and veterans health care from cuts, then all other non-defense discretionary programs would have to be cut 33 percent in 2024 and 59 percent in 2025, the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated in an April 24 analysis.

Discretionary funding also pays for programs for homeland security, transportation, education, housing, social services and more.

Ultimately, specific spending cuts, or exemptions from those cuts, would be addressed during the regular appropriations process if the GOP bill somehow became law.

Editors note:FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made throughour Donate page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104.

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Republicans Push Back on Democratic Claims of Veterans' Health ... - FactCheck.org

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Tim Griffin, a conservative election attorney and former prosecutor, has been named the Republican nominee for the Virginia House of Delegates 53rd District after his competitor ceded to him at a Saturday convention.

Griffin, whos worked at several right-wing law firms and agencies over the past few years, won over Sarah Mays at the event, which gathered residents from Amherst, Bedford and Nelson counties to serve as voting delegates. Hes the favorite to win the November general election over Democrat Sam Soghor in a district where 73% of voters favored Glenn Youngkin for governor, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.

Griffin boasted more endorsements than Mays, a Bedford County resident who runs a daycare business in Amherst County, and had vastly crowded out Mays campaign signs at Jefferson Forest High School, the site of the Saturday morning convention.

Some time after GOP volunteers began tabulating votes, Mays moved to nominate Griffin by acclamation, deciding the outcome of the convention before officials announced the results among the 285 voting delegates, allocated based on each countys share of the districts population. The 53rd had no incumbent, drawn anew by special commission in 2021.

In his speeches, Griffin positioned himself as the ideal candidate to go on the offensive against Democratic communists and groomers in the statehouse given his background as an attorney. He promised he could hit the ground running in Richmond without needing any training.

When a society falls into societal decay, there is a remaining amount of people that understand the culture that came before them, the history that came before them, their religious roots, their faith in God, he said. And this is the foundation upon which we bring society back.

Convention delegate Teresa Craig said she has known Griffin as a fellow member of the Bedford County Republican Committee, which the nominee has been chair of for the past three years. Though she thought Mays heart was in the right place, she had more confidence in Griffins ability to stand strong in the bustle of the statehouse.

He seems like he is very attentive, very aware of whats going on, she said. I know he worked on a national campaign, which helps a lot to know that when he gets to Richmond to represent us, that he will be able to withstand the heat.

Mays spoke toward her run as a foil to politicians who dont deliver on promises and vowed to fight government overreach. She cast her run as that of a common everyday citizen looking out for the interests of her fellow citizens.

We can no longer sit back and let others dictate what is best for us, what is best for our children and what is best for our country, she said.

Amherst County resident Michael Brockman came out in support of Mays, noting that Griffin presents himself well but questioned his follow-through if elected.

Hes a better speaker and he delivers well, but I dont think he is as genuine as she is, Brockman said. Cause we got a lot of ungenuine so-called Republicans down in the General Assembly our Speaker of the House didnt advance a single pro-gun bill that was presented to him.

The only booing of the day came when Mays disavowed being the source of rancor in the race thus far.

An anonymous, uncredited website had exposed legal records from Griffins child support proceedings in court, and three Bedford County residents had unsuccessfully challenged the validity of his residence for purposes of voting and running for public office. In those records, a judge characterized his living situation as essentially being homeless in 2021, and he told the same judge in January 2023 that he was living in a garage.

The Bedford County registrar decided about two weeks ago that he was fit to run for office. He blamed the Mays campaign for mudslinging, but she denied her team had leaked the information.

Both ran on similar policy platforms: vowing to outlaw abortion in Virginia without any exceptions, toss out Democratic-passed voting right expansions, allow tax dollars to be allocated toward options outside public school and protect gun rights, among others.

Griffin has drawn on his efforts to fight the Democrats when they were trying to steal our elections in national battleground areas, training poll watchers and claiming elections have become a disaster. Hes touted his work for right-wing groups such as the Amistad Project, whose lawyers unsuccessfully challenged Donald Trumps 2020 loss in courtrooms across the country.

Griffin will face off against Soghor in the Nov. 7 general election.

For a full list of General Assembly candidates in Southwest and Southside, see our election guide.

Excerpt from:
Republicans nominate Griffin for House seat that takes in Amherst ... - Cardinal News

And Andrew Marantz reminisced about Tucker Carlsons wondrous reign at Fox News: And who could forget the Tucker Carlson Originals special The End of Men, which introduced the world to bromeopathy, the patriotic practice of bathing ones testicles in red light? That special also featured hand-wringing about soy boys, paeans to raw-egg slonkers and homoerotic montages, apparently filmed on Alex Joness bocce court, that looked like Abercrombie & Fitch ads directed by Leni Riefenstahl. (Peter J. Comerford, Providence, R.I., and Allan Tarlow, West Hollywood, Calif.)

In The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson marveled at Ron DeSantiss fixation on Disney: The more he persists, the more attention he draws away from the shiny object he wanted to show off to the MAGA crowd the anti-gay education bill and puts the spotlight, instead, on his own Ahab-like pursuit of the Little Mermaid. (Lorrie Gervin, San Jose, Calif., and Tom Cosgrove, Arlington, Va., among others)

In The Times, Mike Tanier assessed the Indianapolis Colts pick of Anthony Richardson in the first round of the N.F.L. draft, comparing him with the star quarterback of the Buffalo Bills: Richardson has the arm strength, athleticism and sheer size to rival Josh Allen but about as much experience (13 collegiate starts) as the intern who filled your office coffee machine with copy toner. (Mark Grove, Indianapolis)

Also in The Times, Dwight Garner reviewed Death of an Author, a stunt novella whose language is 95 percent machine-generated, somewhat like the food at a Ruby Tuesday. Garner went on to philosophize: Fiction matters more now, in a world increasingly deracinated by technology. A.I. will never pose a threat to the real thing to writing with convictions, honest doubts, riddling wit, a personal vision of the world, rawness and originality. Another word for these qualities is soul, which is exactly what ChatGPT lacks. Left wholly naked in front of the A.I. onslaught may be the writers of certain formulaic best sellers, but thats a matter for their agents. (Benjamin D. Diamond, Washington, D.C.)

Finally, you occasionally send in headlines that you find especially delightful, and I occasionally include one of them, such as this recent gem in Texas Monthly: Apocalypse Sow: Can Anything Stop the Feral Hog Invasion? (Sylvia Pearl, Maplewood, N.J.)

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Opinion | Republicans Are Running Wild in My State - The New York Times