Good morning, and welcome to RedState's "Morning Minute" — a brief glimpse at which stories are trending at the moment and a look ahead at what the day may bring. Consider this your one-stop shop for news to kickstart your day.
TOP O' THE MORNIN'
You don't make America great again by taking more of Americans' money.
Mark Cuban and Others Dunk All Over Ted Lieu's Ignorant Attack on Donald Trump's Wealth
But Lieu and the Democrats don't care about the truth here, or whether this is fair, all they care about is incapacitating Trump.
Virginia Republican Who Called Herself 'Trump in Heels' Has Been Booted From the Party
"Based on your actions during the 2023 Election Cycle," the county committee wrote, "you have effectively chosen to withdraw your membership from the Republican Party of Virginia."
WHAT'S ON TAP?
Today on Capitol Hill...
There are a LOT of meetings set for Wednesday on Capitol Hill. Some of the key hearings include:
- House Homeland Security — Examining the Current Status of Iran’s Axis of Resistance and the Implications for Homeland Security and U.S. Interests
- House Armed Services — U.S. Military Posture and National Security Challenges in the Indo-Pacific Region
- House Judiciary — Reining in the Administrative State: Agency Adjudication and Other Agency Action
- House Financial Services — SEC Overreach: Examining the Need for Reform
- House Oversight and Accountability — “Influence Peddling: Examining Joe Biden’s Abuse of Public Office” — Witnesses to include Biden business associates Tony Bobulinski and Jason Galanis
- Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs — Hearings to examine reforming Federal records management to improve transparency and accountability
- House Agriculture — “The Danger China Poses to American Agriculture”
- House Homeland Security — "Securing our Nation from WMDs: A Review of the Department of Homeland Security's Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office"
- House Natural Resources — Oversight hearing titled, “Assessing Domestic Offshore Energy Reserves & Ensuring U.S. Energy Dominance”
- Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs — Hearings to examine strengthening international cooperation to stop the flow of fentanyl into the United States
- Senate Judiciary — Hearings to examine post-Dobbs America and reproductive freedoms
No word yet on whether the members will be better able to mind their manners today.
White House What's Up
More traveling for President Joe Biden on Wednesday. He'll start the day off with a garbled mess speech in Arizona, then head to Dallas for two campaign events.
Full Court Press...
Fresh off the whiplash-inducing SCOTUS ruling on Texas SB4, the immigration law that allows state law enforcement officials to arrest and detain those suspected of entering the country illegally, which allowed the law to go into effect, the Fifth Circuit set oral argument for 10:00 am (Central) on Wednesday regarding whether it should issue a formal stay pending appeal on the merits.
READ MORE:
NEW: Fifth Circuit Schedules Wednesday Hearing on Stay in Texas Immigration Case
Speaking of the Supreme Court, two more cases are up for oral argument before the justices on Wednesday:
Gonzalez v. Trevino — A Texas city council member contends that she was subjected to retaliatory arrest.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Wednesday in the case of a 76-year-old Texas woman, Sylvia Gonzalez, who was arrested on charges that she had violated a state law that prohibits tampering with government records. The charges against her were dropped, but Gonzalez brought a federal civil rights claim against three city officials, contending that she had been arrested in retaliation for her criticism of the city’s manager. A federal appeals court ruled that Gonzalez’s case could not go forward because she had not provided examples of others who had engaged in the same kind of conduct but had not engaged in protected speech and had not been arrested.
Gonzales urges the Supreme Court to reverse that ruling, telling the justices that it “provides a loophole for unaccountable retaliation: As long as an official can find a crime to fit a critic, he can avoid accountability.” She compares her arrest with those of government critics in Russia, Iran, and China, writing that “arresting critics is corrosive to the very foundation of a free society.”
(1) Whether the probable-cause exception in Nieves v. Barlett can be satisfied by objective evidence other than specific examples of arrests that never happened; and (2) whether Nieves is limited to individual claims against arresting officers for split-second arrests.
Texas v. New Mexico and Colorado —
Whether the court should deny the motion by Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado for entry of a proposed consent decree that would resolve this dispute over the United States' claim as intervenors that New Mexico violated the Rio Grande Compact without the United States’ consent.
Of Primary Concern
Want to know what happened in the multiple primary races held on Tuesday? Check out our live results thread.
MORNING MUSING
Wednesday marks the first full day of Spring, and I am here for it. (Technically, it became Spring on Tuesday night at 11:06 pm Eastern, but I'm not counting that.) The older I get, the more I find myself gritting my teeth at the prospect of getting through another Winter. If it were up to me, we'd have three weeks of Fall, one week of Winter, and the rest would be Spring and Summer. Regardless, we are now officially clear of Winter, and though I'm tired after a long day (as I write this), there is, indeed, an added Spring in my step. Praise be!
LIGHTER FARE
Oh dear...
We were able to isolate the audio for this video.
— NautPoso 🇮🇪☘️ (@NautPoso) March 20, 2024
(meme collab with @drefanzor) pic.twitter.com/t3eAEvDbWm
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