(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: The slow creep of fascism in America [1] [] Date: 2023-10-28 It’s a small story, but one that simply should never happen. From WOODTV (MI): State rep. pays tribute to men acquitted in governor kidnap plot A West Michigan state legislator paid tribute Friday to two men acquitted in the failed plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, with Rep. Rachelle Smit saying she was doing so on behalf of the state. Not so fast, the governor’s office responded. “We’re here to recognize Bill and Mike Null for their unfortunate involvement in this scandal, if you will, and that’s what I’m going to call it,” Smit, R-Shelbyville, said at an event in Allegan. “If you would just accept these tributes on behalf of the state of Michigan and our office as your representative in the 43rd District,” Smit said. The governor’s press secretary called the tribute “disturbing.” What should happen is expulsion. What will happen is something different. x the leader of the House GOP is anti-democracy, anti-freedom, anti-diversity, anti separation of church and state, anti LGBTQ, anti Roe v. Wade, anti-science, anti gun reform and anti do anything about climate change. The GOP just chose a christian nationalist to lead them. — Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) October 25, 2023 Here’s some good news from CNN amidst all the bad news: UAW closing in on deals with both GM and Stellantis The union has been on strike since September 15 against GM, Stellantis and Ford, the first time the union has ever struck all three companies at once. It announced a tentative agreement with Ford on Wednesday evening, however, after an all-night bargaining session with the company Tuesday night. “There was definitely a lot of movement overnight” in talks with Stellantis, one of the sources said. That deal still needs to be ratified by a vote of 57,000 UAW members at Ford before it will take effect. The ratification process at Ford is due to start Sunday with a meeting in Detroit of local union officials who represent Ford workers around the country. If deals are reached at GM and Stellantis by Friday, the union could begin the ratification process at all three at the same time. Membership approval of any deals reached at GM and Stellantis would also be needed before they would take effect. And icymi: x BREAKING: Maine shooting suspect Robert Card has been found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, multiple law enforcement sources tell @ABC News. https://t.co/JkUPTgZbaN — ABC News (@ABC) October 28, 2023 Philip Bump/Washington Post: Does Mike Johnson get too much credit for the effort to overturn 2020? This attention on Johnson’s role in that push, though, risks overstating his importance, centering on one person a sweeping, pervasive set of arguments and tactics that Johnson may have simply advocated rather than initiated. By making Johnson the poster child for efforts to overturn the 2020 election, we run the risk of minimizing that pervasiveness and the important roles played by other people… None of this is to say that Johnson wasn’t a fervent actor in the post-2020 moment, or that he wasn’t closely aligned or working in concert with Trump and his team. It certainly isn’t to suggest that having someone second in line to the presidency who is willing to embrace baseless claims — or, worse, to throw out valid votes on a technicality — doesn’t raise problematic questions. It is, instead, to say that Johnson was not a linchpin of the effort to block the will of voters in the 2020 election. He is in a position of power and prominence now, but, back then, he was simply part of a wide-ranging and ceaseless effort involving a huge number of people — many of whom presented more danger to democracy than the new speaker of the House. Of course we don’t run the risk of minimizing that pervasiveness. But we do need to know who this guy is, and this piece covers that and adds some perspective without hyperbole. x A sage Dem texts, basically: Repubs are gonna elevate a speaker who tried to overthrow the election and backs an abortion ban - the two issues we won on in 2022 “What are they thinking ?” — Jonathan Martin (@jmart) October 25, 2023 Bloomberg: George Santos Faces Expulsion Vote in US House Next Week New York Republicans demand vote, triggering deadline Santos to be arraigned on additional criminal charges Friday Santos said he isn’t resigning and is “entitled to due process and not a predetermined outcome as some are seeking” in a posting on X, the social media site. The Constitution requires a two-thirds vote to expel a member, a move the House has taken only five times before in its history. Expelling Santos would result in a vacancy in a GOP-held House seat at a time the party’s narrow majority already has caused headaches in passage of legislation and other matters. When the vote fails, the NY Democrats will hang Santos around the neck of the NY Republicans. Bolts: Pennsylvanians Are About to Decide Who Will Oversee the 2024 Elections Where you live shouldn’t determine if your ballot counts, but in Pennsylvania county officials have wide discretion over drop boxes and mail voting. They’re on the ballot on Nov. 7. Bob Harvie was thrust on the national stage in late 2020 when Donald Trump, in an effort to find any angle to cling to the presidency, unsuccessfully sued Bucks County, a populous suburb of Philadelphia, demanding that thousands of mail ballots be thrown out. As one of the two Democrats on the three-member county commission, Harvie was responsible for the county’s voting procedures and he wanted people to vote safely during the pandemic. With his support, Bucks County installed ballot drop boxes and notified roughly 1,600 voters that they had made a clerical mistake on their mail ballot such as forgetting to date their envelopes, giving them the opportunity to correct it—a common procedure known as ballot curing. “The Republican Party and the Trump campaign wanted things done a certain way, we didn’t do things the way they wanted to, so they sued us. Clearly we’d followed the law because we won all these suits,” recalls Harvie, who is running for reelection in two weeks. The race will determine what party controls Bucks County’s commission during the next presidential election. x The overall picture is a country that is inclusive, respectful of religious differences, pro-democracy and supportive of women’s rights — except when it comes to the Republican, mostly White evangelical Christians who reject these fundamental ideashttps://t.co/eMRIuQkJIV — Jennifer Truthful, Not Neutral Rubin 🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@JRubinBlogger) October 26, 2023 NBC: Trump-skeptical GOP rainmakers are taking another look at Trump “Why? It is easy, I want to win,” one donor told NBC News. The movement doesn't mean the anti-Trump donor crowd has completely broken in favor of him: Just this month a group of major anti-Trump GOP donors, collectively known as the American Opportunity Alliance, summoned DeSantis, Haley and Scott to a gathering in Dallas, where they pitched themselves as the best Trump alternatives to secure the donors' financial support. It’s unclear whether any of those pitches moved the needle with the donor group or whether it would dent Trump’s polling lead if they did. But what is notable about the moment is how it's demonstrating how open some Trump-skeptical donors are to once again raising money for him, according to interviews with donors and a review of campaign finance records. Jeff Morris, Jr./Twitter via Threadreader: The TikTok War: Why High School & College Kids Are Getting The Wrong Information about Hamas & Israel I spent the weekend trying to reverse engineer the TikTok algorithm, as I am convinced this is the reason we're losing the information war with high school & college students. 🚩One red flag was seeing San Francisco high school students who were aggressively anti-Israel and asking myself where they were getting news. Their protests happened right after the fake @nytimes headline that accused Israel of the hospital bomb. 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