Tag: residents
'Tax Elon!': Irate Crowd In Deep Red County Shouts Down GOP Congressman

'Tax Elon!': Irate Crowd In Deep Red County Shouts Down GOP Congressman

Even residents of a county President Donald Trump won by a significant margin are outraged by the Trump administration's slashing of public services — and their Republican congressman's support of the cuts.

The La Grande, Oregon-based Observer reported Friday that Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-OR) was recently met by an angry crowd of constituents during a town hall at Eastern Oregon University. The outlet noted that the audience of several hundred people filled nearly all 435 seats in the McKenzie Theater, and more people filled the aisles and stood along the walls to hear their congressman.

Attendees reportedly grew impatient with Bentz's presentation, yelled "we can read" while he went over PowerPoint slides and urged him to move to the question-and-answer portion of the meeting. At that point, the crowd indicated it was furious with Bentz's support of Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's "Department of Government Efficiency," or DOGE (which is not an official federal agency authorized by Congress). Bentz has recently said he would even support firing some of his own staff in order to help DOGE.

In addition to cutting budgets for federal agencies, Bentz talked about his hopes to extend Trump's 2017 tax cut package — which could cost anywhere from $4.6 trillion to $5.5 trillion over a ten-year period. He also said he plans to vote for additional funding for border security and to increase oil and gas production.

While Bentz got back to his desire to reduce federal spending, members of the crowd reportedly shouted over him yelling, "tax Elon," "tax the wealthy," "tax the rich" and "tax the billionaires." Bentz countered that some of his colleagues weren't even holding town halls during this week's Congressional recess, saying: "You should be here to speak with me." The Observer reported that Union County, where Bentz held his town hall, went for Trump by 68 percent. Bentz won reelection with 64 percent of the vote in the ruby-red district.

"If you just came to yell, I can leave," Bentz said.

The Observer reported that members of the audience kept coming back to the "power of the purse," which is a power that Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution specifically delegates to Congress. Bentz pushed back, saying he supports Trump "doing his best to exercise his legal power" to reduce federal spending, and that the president wants to make sure the nation doesn't "go broke." Bentz — who is the lone Republican in the Oregon congressional delegation, confronted his own constituents just as Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) had a tense town hall in his own deep-red Georgia district.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

neo-Nazis Protest

Angry Ohio Residents Disperse Nazi Mob And Burn Swastika Flags

Local residents of a predominantly Black neighborhood near Cincinnati, Ohio recently chased away a group of masked men carrying rifles and displaying swastika flags.

On Friday, Cincinnati-based ABC affiliate WCPO reported that a group of several people wearing black clothing had been spotted on an Interstate 75 overpass in Lincoln Heights, Ohio waving banners emblazoned with swastikas. Some in the group were seen openly carrying AR-15 rifles and wearing red face masks.

However, the group was quickly run off by a crowd of angry local residents, who seized some of the swastika flags and recorded video of themselves burning them in the street.

"Burn that b---- up," one member of the crowd is heard saying. "Get the f--- out of here ... Hitler been dead! Y'all living in the Forties!"

Lincoln Heights is almost 90 percent Black, according to 2020 Census data. The neo-Nazi demonstrators were condemned by other members of the community following their highway display, with Cincinnati mayor Aftab Pureval calling it "shocking and disgusting."

"Messages of hate like this have no place in our region," Pureval tweeted Friday. "This is not what we stand for, and it will never be what we stand for."

Neo-Nazis were also seen demonstrating in Columbus, Ohio in the weeks following the 2024 election. The Columbus Dispatch reported that a group of masked men shouting racist slogans and waving swastika flags were met by an angry crowd that pointed guns at them and doused them in pepper spray. One of the men complained to police after the confrontation that he had "never been attacked like this."

Neo-Nazis appeared in Lincoln Heights (metro Cincinnati) Ohio and got ran out of dodge… but not before locals stole and burned their swastika flag in the street.

[image or embed]

— The Rooster (@rooster.info) February 7, 2025 at 8:39 PM

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Joe Biden

'Choose Someone Different': Swing-State Voters Restless After Biden's Bad Week

Residents of the small handful of states that will decide which candidate wins a majority of Electoral College votes are speaking out about which way they’re leaning after President Joe Biden's rocky post-debate week.

The Wall Street Journalrecently interviewed several residents of battleground states like Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to gauge their voting preferences in the November election, given the wave of scrutiny Biden is facing from both the media and his own party about the 81 year-old's continued viability. These interviews took place after Biden's Friday evening rally in Madison, Wisconsin and his nationally televised interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos.

51 year-old Pennsylvania voter Johanny Manning told the Journal she voted for Biden in 2020 and plans to vote for him in 2024. However, she said Biden's interview didn't assuage concerns she had about his candidacy after the debate.

“I will still vote for Biden,” Manning said. “But I don’t know if there will be enough of us.”

The registered Democrat indicated she hoped that there would be a different Democratic nominee come November, and that she was worried about the president digging in and refusing to even acknowledge the numerous calls from other Democrats to step aside.

"We still have an ability to choose someone different to run,” she continued. “But he’s saying it’s not going to happen. Like, nope, I’m not stepping down, and that’s a problem. You’re not listening to what we’re saying.”

North Carolina voter Gloria Ashe — a 71 year-old registered Democrat — told the Journal she's voted for Democrats in every presidential election going back 20 years. But in 2024, she's leaning toward voting for former President Donald Trump after seeing Biden's "scary" showing on the debate stage.

"I’m sad more than anything," Ashe said. "It feels like elder abuse... Like him or not, Trump does have that zest, he has that vinegar."

Independent voter Mak Kielselah of Milwaukee, Wisconsin voted for Biden in 2020. But he told the paper he's frustrated with a lack of action on issues pertaining to racial justice and homelessness. He said right now, he's likely going to vote for independent candidate Cornel West. Kielselah noted that his worries about the president being too old for the job were not alleviated when watching Biden talk to Stephanopoulos.

"If the object of this interview was to prove to me that you’re not old, it didn’t work,” Kielselah said. “Everybody knows you’re old. You know you’re old. So if you’re trying to prove that you’re not old, you just did a [bad] job.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Gun Violence

Louisiana's New Gun Law: Concealed Carry, No Permit Or Training

A bill that will allow Louisiana residents to carry a concealed firearm without a permit is headed to the desk of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry. The bill would also remove current requirements for new gun owners to have their fingerprints taken and attend a training course on firearm safety. Landry has already indicated he intends to sign this bill into law.

The Republican governor is also set to sign a new batch of “tough on crime” bills authored and approved by a GOP-dominated state Legislature. These bills increase the number of crimes that are subject to prison sentences and lengthen sentences for existing crimes.

Louisiana currently has the second-highest incarceration rate in the nation. It also has the second-highest firearm mortality rate and the second-highest homicide rate. How are Republican legislators addressing these issues? By putting more people in prison and increasing potential gun violence.

When you add in people held in local jails, Louisiana has the nation’s highest overall rate of imprisonment. Thanks to relatively low spending per prisoner, it doesn’t make the top 10 when it comes to the overall cost of incarceration. However, it still manages to blow through better than $1 billion per year on correctional facilities.

The new legislation would add 60 crimes to the list of those ineligible for probation or a suspended sentence, ensuring that every conviction results in prison time. It would also increase the time prisoners must serve before they are eligible for parole.

The new legislation also makes juvenile court records public, even though they are typically sealed to protect minors. That means even a crime committed as a juvenile will now be visible to potential employers and others for the rest of a young offender’s life.

Meanwhile, the state Legislature is also pushing through a permitless concealed carry law that dumps the state’s previous requirements for training. An 11-state study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health showed that dropping training requirements for those carrying concealed weapons resulted in an average of 21 additional gun assaults per 100,000 population.

Considering how closely Louisiana trails Mississippi for the top spot in gun deaths (28.6 gun deaths per 100,000 population in Mississippi vs. 26.3 per 100,000 in Louisiana) this seems like just the ticket to move the Bayou State to the top of the chart.

For comparison, Louisiana’s rate of gun deaths is three times greater than California's and almost five times greater than New York’s. But then, those states both require permits.

Meanwhile, as it prepares to spend more money on prisons, Louisiana turned down federal funds to feed 594,000 hungry children this summer and falls 20% below the national average on spending for education.

Still, Landry is looking at one cost-cutting move to shorten some prison sentences: The governor reportedly wants to add hydrogen gas as a death row execution method and make electrocutions a thing again.

Maybe he’ll try using both at once. Oh, the humanity.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

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