Today’s Republican Party Update

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Dave Weigel:

If you were expecting the Republican-run House of Representatives to hurry on a patch to the Voting Rights Act, what’s wrong with you? The Judiciary Committee’s Constitution subcommittee met today to talk this over, and the consensus was that the leftover parts of the VRA would work out alright.

Of course that was the consensus. There was never the slightest chance that they’d reinstate preclearance in any way, shape, or form. I confess that I’m mystified that anyone ever thought otherwise. But then again, I’m endlessly mystified that there are so many people who, even now, still don’t seem to understand the nature of the modern Republican Party. They would (a) never do anything to the VRA that might benefit Democrats, and (b) they would never do anything which tacitly admits that racism still exists. (Except for anti-white racism, of course. You know, the real kind.) Put those together and the chance of action on the VRA from Republicans was always zero.

And as long as you’re over in Weigel-land, you might as well check out the latest non-bombshell from Darrell Issa in the IRS scandal. The whole IRS affair has dwindled away to nothing over the past few weeks as we’ve learned more about what really happened, and obviously Issa just can’t stand that. So he promised fireworks today. Fireworks, I tell you! But guess what?

What’s that? You’ve already guessed? Hmmph. But I suppose that wasn’t very hard as Final Jeopardy clues go, was it? Click here if you still want the details.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate