Jerod MacDonald-Evoy, Arizona Mirror A trial court judge has said Republican secretary of state nominee Mark Finchem will be forced to pay attorney’s fees in what the judge called a “groundless” lawsuit that aimed to overturn his election loss. Finchem challenged his loss to Adrian Fontes, who won by about …

Luke Clausen, Iowa Capital Dispatch Back in Washington after a week in their districts, members of Iowa’s congressional delegation focused this week on student loans. The Iowa Republicans also worked on issues dealing with first responders, transgender athletes, cattle pricing, parents’ rights, China and more. Sen. Chuck Grassley and Minnesota …

The former presidents of Brazil and the United States took the stage CPAC on Saturday where both fascist politicians continued to sow doubt about their respective electoral defeats as they received standing ovations from the annual convention’s far-right attendees. Brazil’s disgraced former leader Jair Bolsonaro—whose supporters stormed government offices in …

Marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on Sunday to commemorate the 58th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday.“ President Joe Biden arrived in Alabama on Sunday morning. He addressed the crowd soon before the crossing, speaking to the nation about the protection and expansion of voting rights, and specifically calling …

Vice President Kamala Harris’ statement on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday:   Fifty-eight years ago, six hundred brave souls set out from Selma, Alabama to secure one of our most sacred freedoms: the right to vote. On the Edmund Pettus Bridge, their peaceful march was met with crushing violence. The …

Orion Rummler Originally published by The 19th Tennessee Gov. Bill  Lee, a Republican, on Thursday signed two bills targeting LGBTQ+ people in the state — one to ban gender-affirming health care for minors and another to ban drag performances that could be viewed by minors and seen to cause them harm. …

Danielle E. Gaines Last week, Maryland became the first state to get federal approval for a plan to reimburse victims of food benefits fraud — and Gov. Wes Moore (D) included funding for the effort in a supplemental budget delivered to the General Assembly on Friday. The Maryland Department of …

Stephen Fowler, GPB News A yearslong effort by a small but vocal group pushing for a wealthy Atlanta neighborhood to secede from the city’s control was roundly rebuked Thursday, as a bipartisan coalition in the Georgia Senate rejected legislation for the City of Buckhead City. Ten Republicans joined the entire …

Casey Quinlan, Virginia Mercury Forty million people in the U.S. are having difficulty affording household expenses, and a little more than 25 million people say they sometimes or often do not have enough to eat, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent Household Pulse survey data. The survey is …

Ken Coleman, Michigan Advance In bipartisan fashion, the Michigan House approved bills on Thursday that would nullify Michigan’s 1931 abortion ban. The vote was 58-50 on the two bills, with state Reps. Thomas Kuhn (R-Troy) and Donni Steele (R-Orion Twp.) crossing over to join Democrats to vote for the legislation. …

Jay Bookman, Georgia Recorder Marjorie Taylor Greene is an idiot, and idiots, as a rule, aren’t interesting people. They aren’t interesting because their idiocy overshadows all other aspects of their personality. Greene is more an exemplar of that rule than an exception to it. Nonetheless, in their wisdom, the voters …

Caitlin Sievers, Arizona Mirror Kari Lake, the failed Republican candidate for governor, has asked the Arizona Supreme Court to review the decisions in her election contest case after the case was shot down by both the Maricopa County Superior Court and Arizona Court of Appeals. “The undisputed facts, and the …

Casey Quinlan, Florida Phoenix The expanded child tax credit that families received in 2021 helped reduce child poverty across the country, but particularly in the South where families lack a sufficient safety net, according to a paper released on Wednesday. The report by the Hamilton Project, the Brookings Institution’s economic …

Julia Forrest, The Texas Tribune Sen. Ted Cruz continued to take aim at U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, calling him “the most partisan and politicized attorney general our nation has ever seen.” These remarks came on the first day of CPAC, where …

Jacob Fischler, Nebraska Examiner Republicans on a U.S. Senate panel raised several objections Wednesday to President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Federal Aviation Administration, while Democrats indicated their support and called the objections “fake scandals” meant only to create a political controversy. The Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee’s confirmation …