...Creating a durable political majority won’t be easy, but Democrats have a better shot at doing so. As research by the political scientist Alan I. Abramowitz shows, they represent a broader swath of middle-ground opinion than Republicans do, and President Biden’s program, with its emphasis on problem-solving, is built for coalition-building.
House Republicans hope to block this possibility by destroying Biden’s presidency through investigations and by creating governing crises with such maneuvers as resisting a debt-ceiling increase. But none of this expands their base.
Republicans are limiting their realignment possibilities by orienting their strategy, particularly in the House, toward keeping their large far-right faction happy. But the GOP has little room to grow on the right — only five House Democrats represent districts Donald Trump carried in 2020. Its vulnerabilities are in the more moderate districts, particularly the 18 GOP House districts that Biden carried. Six of them are in New York, five are in California, and they largely have a suburban character. [snip]
In the meantime, the outcome of the 2020 and 2022 elections suggests a realignment opportunity for Democrats. To make it happen, they need first to tend to their own base, halting Republican gains among Latino voters (modest in most places, larger in Florida and Texas) and restoring Black turnout to something closer to 2020 levels. But to end the electoral deadlock, they need to renew themselves among working-class voters of all races, including White defectors from the old FDR alliance...
And the Democrats have a plan for that.
The man suspected of carrying out a deadly shooting in Monterey Park was identified Sunday afternoon, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said.
The man, Huu Can Tran, 72, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a white van in Torrance as officers closed in, Luna said.
When law enforcement searched the van they recovered "several pieces of evidence" that linked the suspect to both the Monterey Park scene and a second scene in neighboring Alhambra, Luna said. A handgun was also found in the van, he said.
Luna said two community members disarmed the suspect at a dance hall in Alhambra. He described the community members as heroes and said they saved lives.
He said the weapon recovered at the Alhambra dance hall was a "semi-automatic assault pistol" with an extended large-capacity magazine attached.
Officials continue to investigate the motive...
No one is safe anywhere, anytime in America. Sic transit gloria.
Gregg Phillips and Catherine Engelbrecht are best known as the election deniers behind True the Vote, a Texas-based nonprofit responsible for amplifying conspiracies that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
But soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, they shifted some of their focus to the war effort, jumping into the fray with an inspiring idea — to bring a mobile hospital to the region to care for victims of the conflict.
They called it The Freedom Hospital.
Phillips solicited donations on conservative media platforms, linked up with American veterans working in Ukraine and traveled to the region in March to meet with local officials. The Freedom Hospital’s website announced it was halfway to its goal of raising $25 million.
“Our recent project, The Freedom Hospital, in Ukraine helps old folks, women and kids near the fight receive healthcare,” Phillips wrote on the conservative social media site Truth Social on June 5.
But that was one of a series of misrepresentations from Phillips and The Freedom Hospital about the operation’s donations and accomplishments, according to a joint investigation by ProPublica and The Dallas Morning News. The Freedom Hospital never got off the ground, and, through their lawyers, Phillips and Engelbrecht now say they never raised significant amounts of money for the project.
They never brought the mobile hospital to the region...
Shocked not shocked MAGA grifters would grift off the suffering of others.
