Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Calls Supreme Court ‘Most Corrupt in American History' (2024)

Drag queens unite! Drag PAC is looking to challenge anti-trans laws and drag bans around the country.

It was founded by a number of RuPaul’s Drag Race alums, including Willam Belli, Jinkx Monsoon, Miss Peppermint, Monét X Change and BenDeLaCreme, as well as Dylan Bulkeley-Krane, according to The Hill and KFOX-TV. Bulkeley-Krane previously co-founded Disability Action for America, a PAC dedicated to disability rights.

Drag PAC announced its existence Wednesday in a new YouTube video, where the queens involved spoke about why they were driven to found it.

“I think everyone is a little disheartened with a lot of our elected leadership, and frankly, our community is being assaulted, and it’s escalating to violence,” Jinkx Monsoon says in the clip.

“Our diversity is what drives democracy,” BenDeLaCreme adds.

Read More: WATCH: Moms for Liberty Chapter Chair Flips Out at Drag Queens in Viral Clip

The queens say that Drag PAC is the first PAC to be led by drag performers. The goal is to “motivate the LGBTQ+ voter base to create a community of empowered and informed citizens that participate in the democratic process, amplifying the values and issues that affect them as unique but equal American citizens,” according to the PAC’s YouTube page.

Right now, the PAC’s website is sparse, with the YouTube video, plus links to register to vote and to donate. The PAC has so far raised $15,000 from individuals, according to Open Secrets.

Anti-LGBTQ legislation is on the rise. Across the United States, there are at least 527 anti-LGBTQ bills currently pending, according to the ACLU, even in blue states like Washington and Oregon.

This year, Republican politicians like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have banned pride displays. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson added in an amendment to the recent government funding bill barring Pride flags from being flown at U.S. embassies.

Two states, Montana and Tennessee, explicitly ban drag performances, and four other states, including Texas and Florida, have laws that could be read as banning drag. Though some of these laws have been struck down as unconstitutional, it doesn’t seem to stop anti-LGBTQ politicians from trying.

“A lot of this political rhetoric does have real life effects and consequences on people of multiple marginalized identities,” said Peppermint told the Hill. “Each time people who are attacking the queer community come back to the table it’s sharper, and stronger, and more impactful, and it hurts more each time.”

We’re in the middle of something historic,” Monet X Change told KFOX-TV. “This is the most important election cycle for queer people’s rights and freedoms in our lifetime.”

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Over two-thirds of nonvoters in the 2020 election think the country is headed in the wrong direction, according to a new poll.

The New York Times/Siena College poll released Wednesday asked 1,226 registered voters about the upcoming election. Of those polled, 19% did not vote in 2020, though 11% of the total polled were not registered to vote that year. As one might expect, the demographics of those who didn’t vote skews young — 55% of nonvoters are under 30.

Overall 67% of people said the country was headed in the wrong direction. But those who voted for former President Donald Trump were the vast majority, with 91% agreeing. A large number of nonvoters, 68%, also agreed. While less than half of Democrats also thought America was on the wrong track, it was a relatively high 46%.

READ MORE: ‘I Can’t Imagine a Better Turnout Engine’: CNN Conservative Warns GOP About Roe Ruling Blowback

When looking at the demographics of those who didn’t vote in 2020, 48% identified as independent, compared to only 16% who said they were Democrat, and 18% who were Republican. Another 37% of those who didn’t vote didn’t know who they were going to vote for this year. The nonvoters did, however, generally aspire to vote in this election, with only 37% saying it was unlikely they’d vote this November.

Trump is popular among this demographic. Nearly half, 49%, of those who said they didn’t vote in 2020 said they’d vote for the former president if the election were held today, compared to only 30% who’d go for Biden.

The poll was conducted by phone between June 20-25, and has a 3% margin of error.

The last presidential election had the highest voter turnout in over a century, with 67% of eligible voters actually voting, according to NPR. But that still means 80 million who could have voted didn’t. Of those people, 29% weren’t registered and 23% said they weren’t interested in politics.

When it comes to those who do care about politics but still didn’t vote, 43% (20% overall) said they didn’t like either candidate, while 34% (16% of the total) said voting wouldn’t make a difference, and 21% (10% total) were undecided, according to an NPR/Medill School of Journalism poll.

Though there have been concerns about voter suppression, NPR found that 75% of those who didn’t vote thought it was an easy process. The poll found that some voters didn’t align with the parties — one of those polled said she couldn’t vote Democrat because she’s against abortion, but disagreed with Republicans’ anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ policies.

But the most common reason appeared to be apathy or fatalism — though the latter was common among voters and nonvoters alike.

“I feel like I’ve lost a lot of trust in our government, because even with a pandemic, they tell us one thing, and then a day later, they tell us another thing,” ICU nurse Megan O’Malley told pollsters. O’Malley said she did not vote in 2020.

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The Supreme Court has been issuing rulings this week — and many expected the Court to have decided whether former President Donald Trump is immune from prosecution by now. But Thursday night is the debate, and the Trump immunity ruling is nowhere to be seen.

The Court issued a number of high-profile rulings this week, including one on the Idaho abortion case and one about “gratuities” for politicians. The Court’s session isn’t over, but no more rulings will be issued Thursday, so a Trump immunity ruling could come Friday or next week. But that would be too late for the first CNN presidential debate.

If the ruling came out before the debate, it was sure to be a major topic Thursday night, experts said. Grant Reeher, director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute at Syracuse University, told The Hill that he “would definitely expect that to get worked into the conversation or even the moderators to pose a question on it.”

READ MORE: ‘Hidden Hand of Politics’: Law Professor Scorches SCOTUS for Slow-Walking Trump Immunity

But without that ruling, it’s a question as to whether or not it will be brought up at all. In its debate preview, The Washington Post doesn’t even mention the immunity question or the Supreme Court itself at all. The Court was a major topic in 2020, with questions of whether President Joe Biden would expand the Court to counteract Trump’s naming of three conservative justices during his term. Though Biden had been critical of the current Court, he has continually said he believes expanding it would be an error, according to Reuters.

The upcoming ruling applies to two federal cases against Trump. One is the election interference case, alleging he attempted to undermine the 2020 election and take power illegally, and the other is the classified documents case. The latter is unlikely to be decided before the 2024 election, due to Judge Aileen Cannon dragging her feet and indefinitely delaying the trial.

The election interference case, which also includes Trump’s alleged responsibility for the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol building, was initially expected to be decided before this year’s election.

However, in late February, the Supreme Court agreed to rule on whether or not Trump is immune from prosecution over anything he did while president. Waiting for the Court has put his other cases on hold, meaning neither is likely to be decided before election day.

The question hinges on a reading of the Constitution, which shields sitting presidents from lawsuits involving anything they did as an official duty. Trump argues that everything he did was an official act.

Critics, however, point out that this argument would mean that disgraced former President Richard Nixon would be shielded from prosecution over the Watergate scandal. Watergate involved Nixon’s aides bugging the Democratic Party’s offices in the Watergate hotel in order to help his reelection campaign.

Because Nixon resigned and was immediately pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford, Nixon never went before the court in the Watergate case. However, that didn’t shield his aides; there were 69 indictments and 48 convictions connected to Watergate.

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