Weekend Report: What’s happening?

Trump has inspired a surge of violent threats against opponents. Attempt to pardon Colorado election denier fails. Hundreds quarantined in South Carolina measles outbreak amid anti-vax rhetoric.

This week Republicans in Indiana pushed back on Donald Trump, with 21 GOP state senators voting against redistricting and showing Trump to be weak. It took a lot of them to vote no because, in addition to the political revenge promised by Trump, they also faced death threats. In fact, threats against Trump opponents, Democrats and Republicans, have surged in recent weeks.

Trump also got slammed by the state of Colorado, when he attempted to extend his pardon power to a state conviction. Tina Peters, the election-denying MAGA former Colorado county clerk, was convicted by state prosecutors of tampering with voting machines and sentenced to nine years in prison. Trump has tried to get Peters transferred from state custody, and this week claimed he pardoned Peter, while the Colorado attorney general called him “desperate.”

As RFK Jr., an avowed anti-vaxxer, heads the Department of Health and Human Services, a measles outbreak has surged in South Carolina and shows no sign of slowing. Hundreds have been quarantined while state officials have urged vaccination. But even as it’s spreading to other states, the conservatives on the Supreme Court have challenged New York’s law that doesn’t allow “religious exemptions” in vaccine mandates.