Ginni Thomas Pressured Multiple Swing States to Overturn Biden Win: Emails

Nick Mordowanec - Sept 1, 2022 - Newsweek 

Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, wife of conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, reportedly attempted to sway 2020 election results in the battleground state of Wisconsin following repeated communication with dozens of Arizona state lawmakers.


New emails reportedly show Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, urging lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin to overturn President Joe Biden's election victory. Above, the husband and wife share a laugh at the Heritage Foundation on October 21, 2021 in Washington, DC.

© Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The Washington Post reported that she contacted 29 Arizona lawmakers, some multiple times, in November and December of 2020 and urged them to "choose" their own presidential electors while ignoring President Joe Biden's popular vote victory—a contradiction of Arizona state law that stipulates voters choose electors.

Emails to Republican Wisconsin lawmakers state Senator Kathy Bernier and state Representative Gary Tauchen reportedly showed communication at 10:47 a.m. on November 9. It was the same time Arizona lawmakers received a "verbatim copy," according to the Post, which obtained the Bernier email, while the Tauchen email was obtained by the watchdog group Documented and then provided to the Post.

Justice Clarence Thomas And Wife Ginni Under Fire For Alleged Jan. 6 Link

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Thomas reportedly sent all of the emails through FreeRoots, an online platform that allowed people to send pre-written emails to multiple elected officials.

"Please stand strong in the face of media and political pressure," read the November 9 emails, days after Biden's election victory. "Please reflect on the awesome authority granted to you by our Constitution. And then please take action to ensure that a clean slate of Electors is chosen for our state."

Ginni Thomas has refused to testify before the January 6 committee. Previously, her attorney, Mark Paoletta, wrote a letter to the committee that was later obtained by The New York Times that stated there was not a "sufficient basis" for her to testify.

Newsweek reached out to Paoletta for comment.

Previous emails uncovered by The Washington Post revealed that Ginni Thomas told two Arizona legislators, "Please do your Constitutional duty!" and encouraged them to choose a "clean slate of Electors" and to "audit" the 2020 presidential vote.

Public outcry escalated for Thomas to be subpoenaed due to revelations that she had emailed John Eastman, a former campaign attorney for Donald Trump. The emails reportedly showed that her efforts to overturn the 2020 election were greater than previously known.

Republican Representative and January 6 committee Co-Chair Liz Cheney reiterated that Thomas could still be subpoenaed, saying that the committee hopes Thomas would testify "voluntarily."

"But the committee is fully prepared to contemplate a subpoena if she does not," Cheney said on July 24.

Attorney and former Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks has suggested that even with a subpoena, Ginni Thomas might be able to get out of testifying due to her husband citing spousal privilege and his inability to testify against her.

Newsweek reached out to Bernier, Tauchen and the Supreme Court for comment.

Dem Candidate Pisses Off Party Elders With Abortion Tweet

Ursula Perano - The Daily Beast

Less than a week out from her high-stakes primary election, progressive New York state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi is tripling down on her assertion that members of Congress “past child-bearing age” are too old to effectively fight for abortion rights.


Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty

The comment, on Twitter in July, gained minimal traction at the time.

“At the risk of sounding ageist, it’s still important to ask: when a majority of Congress is past child-bearing age, how fierce can we expect their fight to be?” Biaggi, who is challenging Democratic incumbent Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney wrote on July 5, explaining in a successive tweet that it’s not that “elders” aren’t needed, but that they needed to “make space” for younger leaders.

But then Hudson PAC, a pro-Maloney group, began circulating copies of the post in campaign materials this week, and Biaggi dug in, calling it one of her “finest tweets.”

“When a generation of elected leaders fail to protect our rights, and respond by sending fundraising emails, it merits asking whether we need new diverse leaders,” she tweeted in response to criticism of her original comment. “Having a blind spot to such a pervasive frustration is not workable.”

The average age in the House is 57 and in the Senate it’s 62.

Her explanation did little to quell the backlash, particularly among lawmakers “past child-bearing age.”

“It’s kind of a slap at older women in office… I can’t figure out why she would say that,” New York Assemblywoman Sandy Galef (D) told The Daily Beast.

Galef, 82, said she fought her way into politics at a time where being a woman in office was more of an anomaly—and that she thinks effective policy making benefits from “people of all ages” being in office.

“It was all about men before… we all fought very very hard to be elected,” Galef added.

Westchester County Democratic Party Chairwoman Suzanne Berger said she knows “many people—men and women—who are offended by it,” but added that she simply doesn’t understand the strategy.

Berger said she thought Biaggi’s initial “child-bearing age” comment was just a political misstep. But as Biaggi continued to double down, the intention became clear.

“Any time you try to exclude a significant portion of the electorate, meaning women over 40, that’s not a winning formula in politics,” Berger said.

New York political strategist Jennifer Cunningham, who started a public Twitter feud with Biaggi over the tweets, also posted that if Biaggi “had any respect for me - or women over child bearing age - you wouldn’t say it in the first place. Politically, [it’s] also one of the dumbest moves I’ve seen in a long time. Maybe when you’re older you’ll understand.”

Biaggi’s campaign was undeterred.

"Alessandra Biaggi believes our government should be as diverse as our country — including racial, economic, gender and age diversity — which is why we need more young people in Congress, just as we need more women, working people and people of color,” Biaggi campaign spokesperson Monica Klein said in a statement.

Some of the head scratching over Biaggi’s strategy was due to the fact that the primary is just days away—and though Biaggi has defeated an incumbent before, it’s no small task.

“As someone who is new to the district and being outspent in all forms here… she really needed or needs all the cards to kinda break her way,” New York Democratic strategist Chris Coffey told The Daily Beast, noting Biaggi is facing an uphill battle in the moderate-leaning district.

Biaggi’s progressive supporters feel differently. Sochie Nnaemeka with the New York Working Families Party, told The Daily Beast she believes Biaggi’s built a strong ground game, and that she’s mobilizing voters around the idea of change.

“The establishment benefits from a demobilized, demoralized electorate,” said, later adding that Biaggi is waging an “uphill battle against the current to give people something to turn out for and to say that, you know, ‘We might vote with hope. We also vote with righteous indignation. We also vote for an agenda.”

The NY-17 congressional race was contentious from the start. After redistricting jumbled up members’ pre-existing territories, Maloney announced he would be running in the district where he lived even though it is currently represented by progressive Rep. Mondaire Jones (D). Jones was left with two options: run against Maloney, or run somewhere else.

Jones chose the latter—opting to run in NY-10’s crowded but open primary. That prompted some immediate backlash to Maloney, the chair of congressional Democrats’ national campaign arm in charge of protecting incumbents, for potentially edging out a young, Black Democrat from a safer path toward re-election.

His sharp elbows are hardly the only criticism Maloney has faced during his tenure at the DCCC. Just this week, he was called out for using his perch at the DCCC to fundraise for his own campaign. His decision to meddle in GOP primaries this cycle has also attracted the ire of his fellow House Democrats who slammed the tactic of spending money to prop up GOP primary candidates who are further right—but potentially easier to beat—as an objectively risky strategy for the party.

But Coffey doubts the DCCC-related criticism would penetrate the conversation among voters in the district. The DCCC is hardly a household name and party primary strategies are often a muddy amalgamation of insider baseball.

“Too in the weeds,” Coffey called it.

Maloney’s campaign is remaining optimistic. Spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg told The Daily Beast in a statement that the campaign is confident Maloney “will win this election because of his record of results and strong relationships across the Hudson Valley.”

Coffey, though doubtful about Biaggi’s prospects, conceded that the race is still up in the air. There’s been minimal public polling—and New York City politics has seen a number of surprising upsets in the past few years.

“It’s not over,” he said. And you never know.”

Beto O’Rourke drops f-bomb on rally heckler after Uvalde sneer
Brian Niemietz -


A Beto O’Rourke rally in Texas took an R-rated turn Wednesday night when a heckler chuckled about gun violence.

O’Rourke, who’s challenging incumbent Greg Abbott in the Lone Star’s gubernatorial race, covered a wide range of topics during his address to supporters and critics at Mineral Well Town Hall near Fort Worth. When he spoke about Texans being able to purchase unlimited ammunition and AR-15 rifle, “originally designed for use on the battlefields in Vietnam” at least one person in the back of the room let loose with a dismissive chuckle.

(WARNING: GRAPHIC LANGUAGE)

“It may be funny to you, motherf---er, but it’s not funny to me, OK?” the Democratic candidate fired back.

The crowd erupted with a standing ovation for the 49-year-old El Paso native.

“We’re going to make sure that our kids who are starting their school year right now, that they don’t have to worry,” O’Rourke said.

O’Rourke tweeted after rally that the May 24 mass shooting that killed 19 students and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, would not be forgotten if he’s elected.

“Nothing more serious to me than getting justice for the families in Uvalde and stopping this from ever happening again,” he wrote.

Several antagonists at the rally were being addressed by police after the disruption. according to video posted by the BetoMedia fan site. That site claimed multiple antagonists laughed at O’Rourke’s description of the kinds of weapons frequently used in mass shootings in the U.S.

O’Rourke and Abbott are set to debate on Sept. 30, the Texas Tribune reports. O’ Rourke, who narrowly lost a Senate rate against Ted Cruz in 2018, is reportedly pushing Abbott to agree to a second debate.

Beto O’Rourke confronts Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over school massacre: ‘It’s on you’

Abbott currently finds himself at odds with New York Mayor Adams, who had choice words for the Texas governor on Wednesday after several busloads of migrants shipped out of the Lone Star State arrived in New York City.

“He is an anti-American governor that is really going against everything we stand for,” Adams said.

Abbott accused Adams of “rank hypocrisy” during a Wednesday visit to Fox News, where he argued that Adams is now getting a taste of what his border state deals with on a regular basis.

The Classified-Files Scandal Is the Most Trumpy Scandal of All

Quinta Jurecic - Atlantic

The iron law of scandals involving Donald Trump is that they will always be stupid, and there will always be more of them. Trump scandals—the Russia investigation; Trump’s first impeachment, over his efforts to blackmail Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky; the insurrection on January 6—have something else in common: All these catastrophes result from Trump’s refusal to divorce the office of the presidency and the good of the country from his personal desires.

© James Devaney / GC Images / Getty; The Atlantic

Now Trump’s apparent squirreling away of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, and his outrage over the Justice Department’s investigation of that conduct, speaks once more to his vision of his own absolute authority—even after he has departed the presidency. It’s a vision that places Trump himself, rather than the Constitution and the rule of law, as the one true source of legitimate political power.

A great deal remains unclear about the documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago—among other things, why and how the material arrived at the estate in the first place instead of remaining in the custody of the National Archives, where it belonged. Reporting, though, suggests that Trump may have understood those documents—material that, under the Presidential Records Act, belongs to the American people—to be his own, to do whatever he liked with. “It’s not theirs; it’s mine,” Trump reportedly told several advisers about the misplaced documents. One “Trump adviser” told The Washington Post that “the former president’s reluctance to relinquish the records stems from his belief that many items created during his term … are now his personal property.” Another adviser to the former president said to the Post, “He didn’t give them the documents because he didn’t want to.”

[Graeme Wood: Not even the president can declassify nuclear secrets]

This childlike logic reflects Trump’s long-running inability to distinguish between the individual president and the institutional presidency, a structure that existed before him and that persists even after he unwillingly departed the White House. In his view, he is the presidency (which … is not what legal scholars typically mean when they talk about the “unitary executive.”) The same logic surfaces in the bizarre arguments made by Trump’s defenders that Trump somehow declassified all the sensitive documents held at Mar-a-Lago before he left office. Under the Constitution, the president does have broad authority over the classification system. But as experts have noted, it makes little sense to imagine a president declassifying information without communicating that decision across the executive branch so that everyone else would know to treat the material in question as no longer classified—unless, that is, you understand presidential power not as an institution of government, but as the projection of a single person’s all-powerful consciousness onto the world.

The approach of separating the presidency from the individual president evolved for a good reason: The vision of the man inextricable from the office he holds tips quickly into monarchy. Again and again during his presidency, Trump did his best to transform executive power into a resource from which to extract personal benefit. He likewise sought to use that power to extend his own time in office—either by seeking damaging information to harm the political chances of an opponent, as in the Ukraine scandal that led to his first impeachment, or by attempting to overturn an election outright on January 6. That tendency to collapse the institutional presidency into a reflection of his own desires often took the form of clashes between Trump and federal law enforcement, as officials tried with varying success to resist Trump’s efforts to turn the Justice Department and the FBI into a Praetorian Guard tasked with going after the president’s political enemies and protecting his friends.

The idea that law enforcement cannot and should not be the tool of the leader’s individual whims is central to the divide between the president and the institutional presidency, and therefore to the idea of “rule of law.” The concept’s roots trace back to the origins of liberal political theory: As John Locke wrote, governmental power “ought to be exercised by established and promulgated laws, that both the people may know their duty, and be safe and secure within the limits of the law, and the rulers, too, kept within their due bounds.” Authority, in this view, stems not from the person of the ruler but from the broader structure of law and the consent of the people.

In his terse public comments about the Mar-a-Lago search, Attorney General Merrick Garland has emphasized this understanding of law and power, which runs so counter to Trump’s. “Faithful adherence to the rule of law is the bedrock principle of the Justice Department and of our democracy,” Garland said in his August 11 press conference announcing that the department would move to unseal the warrant for Trump’s estate. “Upholding the rule of law means applying the law evenly, without fear or favor.”

Trump, obviously, disagrees with this characterization. In posts on his social-media platform, Truth Social, he has returned to familiar tropes, calling the search warrant and related investigation a “hoax,” a “scam,” and a “witch hunt.” During his presidency, attacks such as these on the Russia investigation followed naturally from his own understanding of absolute presidential power. After all, if the president’s authority is total and unbound by law, then how can the DOJ investigate him? As Trump liked to say during his time in office, “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.”

[David Frum: Stuck with Trump]

The additional twist of the Mar-a-Lago scandal, though, is that Trump is now implicitly claiming that total authority even out of office. If, before, Trump was furious that Special Counsel Robert Mueller could investigate him even when he was the president, now he is outraged that the DOJ would investigate him even though he is Trump. Supporters of Trump incensed by the search of Mar-a-Lago, Adam Serwer writes, “simply believe that Trump should not be subject to the law at all.”

Following the Mar-a-Lago search, Trump’s Republican supporters in Congress have called to “defund the FBI.” Meanwhile, the former president’s aggressive denunciation of the agency and the Justice Department has coincided with a flood of threats against law enforcement, including the magistrate judge who approved the Mar-a-Lago warrant. A bulletin from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security announced that, following the Mar-a-Lago search, the agencies “have observed an increase in violent threats posted on social media against federal officials and facilities.” Last week, a man attacked the FBI field office in Cincinnati; recent posts on Truth Social under the name of the attacker, Ricky Shiffer, had called for people to “get whatever you need to be ready for combat” following the FBI’s arrival at Mar-a-Lago. On Monday, prosecutors brought a case against another man, Adam Bies, who had posted threats against federal agents days after the search of Trump’s estate.

Such threats reveal the disturbing logic behind the GOP calls to defund the agency. The goal is not to critique law-enforcement overreach, but rather, as Zeeshan Aleem argues in MSNBC, to make the bureau “completely subordinate to the authoritarian political project.” And this project is authoritarian, because it locates total power in one person—even, it seems, when he has been voted out of office. This vision of Trump’s authority sets up a parallel structure of political legitimacy that competes with the Constitution.

This is the logic of insurrection. “HEY FEDS,” Bies apparently wrote on the social-media platform Gab two days after the Mar-a-Lago search. “We the people cannot WAIT to water the trees of liberty with your blood.” Meanwhile, Representative Bennie Thompson—the chair of the House committee investigating the insurrection—warned that such apocalyptic comments “are frighteningly similar to those we saw in the run-up to the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol.”

After all, if power flows not from structures of law and consent but from the will of a single person, then the measure of whether violence is justified and legitimate no longer turns on whether force is channeled through the proper processes of state authority. Rather, it boils down to a single question: Is that violence wielded on behalf of Trump? Or against him?

Rick Scott's Fraud Settlement Resurfaces as Senate GOP Runs Low on Cash

Jason Lemon - 

Critics of Senator Rick Scott, a Florida Republican who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), resurfaced a past Medicare fraud settlement from his tenure as CEO of a hospital corporation, as his committee reportedly is running short on cash and pulling ads in support of GOP Senate candidates with less than three months until the midterm election.


Senator Rick Scott (R-Florida) faces criticism as the NRSC, which he chairs, reportedly runs low on funds ahead of the 2022 midterm election. Above, Scott walks to the Senate Republican Luncheon in the U.S. Capitol Building on August 2 in Washington, D.C.© Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The NRSC is the primary organization working to raise funds and support Republican candidates in the party's bid to take back the majority in the upper chamber of Congress. Scott has led the committee since January 2021, but The Washington Post reported on Friday that campaign advisers are asking "where all the money went and to demand an audit of the committee's finances" as the NRSC pulls ads and runs low on funds.

Many on Twitter pointed to Scott's past Medicare fraud scandal during his time as CEO of Columbia/HCA. When Scott was deposed in 2000 amid the investigation, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment 75 times.

Columbia/HCA later reached a settlement with the Justice Department of $840 million in 2000, and another settlement of $881 million in 2002, with the combined fines totaling $1.7 billion. At the time, this was the record health care fraud settlement, although it has since been surpassed, according to PolitiFact.

"Rick Scott oversaw the biggest Medicare fraud in history, so the GOP in its genius put him in charge of its national campaign fund and now is wondering where all its money went. Incredible," writer Gary Legum posted to Twitter, commenting on the Post's reporting.

"There's clearly been some shift in momentum over the summer. But fundraising collapses like this don't happen in a week or a month. Did Rick Scott defraud the NRSC like he did Medicare? How on earth can they be out of money after a year of gop surge?" Talking Points Memo founder Josh Marshall tweeted.

"Rick Scott has gotten amazingly far in politics for a guy who perpetrated the largest Medicare fraud in history but I'm not sure why you'd put the guy who perpetrated the largest Medicare fraud in history in charge of a large sum of money," writer and editor Matthew Yglesias tweeted.

The Post reported that the NRSC has rapidly burned through its funds, despite its record fundraising. The committee raked in $173 million this election cycle, the report said, citing Federal Election Commission (FEC) disclosures. Despite that massive haul, the NRSC had less than $29 million on hand at the end of June.

An NRSC spokesperson told the Post that the committee planned to spend more money in support of Republican Senate candidates at more crucial moments.

"Our goal was to keep our candidates afloat and get them to this point where they're still in the game in all our top states," committee spokesperson Chris Hartline said. "So when the big spending starts now we have a fighting chance."

Newsweek reached out to Scott's press representatives and Hartline for comment.

The senator has previously faced criticism from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, over suggesting that Republicans would raise taxes and cut funding to Social Security and Medicare. McConnell knocked the proposals in February, assessing that it "raises taxes on half the American people and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years." The top Senate Republican said that the GOP "will not have" such a plan "as part of our agenda" if the the party retakes the majority in the midterms.

Meanwhile, Democrats now appear well-positioned to maintain, and possibly expand, their majority in the Senate, despite President Joe Biden's abysmal approval rating and recent historic precedent. Earlier in the year, analysts largely believed Republicans would retake control of the Senate, as they only needed to pick up one seat.

Even McConnell admitted that prospects that his party will retake the majority are dimming.

"I think there's probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different—they're statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome," he said in Kentucky on Thursday, NBC News reported.

Marco Rubio Slammed After Saying He Paid Off Student Loans by Writing Book

Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, faced criticism online after saying on Saturday that he paid off his student loan debt from the money he gained by writing a book.


Sen. Marco Rubio speaks during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies hearing on Capitol Hill on May 17 in Washington, DC

 Photo by Anna Rose Layden-Pool/Getty Images

"I owed over $100,000 in student loans. The day I got elected to the Senate, I had over $100,000 still in student loans that I was able to pay off because I wrote a book and from that money, I was able to pay it," the senator said during an interview on Fox News' One Nation With Brian Kilmeade.

In a reaction to his comments, Democratic Florida House Representative Anna V. Eskamani said on Twitter: "Interesting how Rubio forgets to mention using $20,000 from his political committee to hire a ghost writer for his memoir, which was potentially an ethics violation."

Eskamani was referring to the ghostwriter who was reportedly hired to help write Rubio's memoir, An American Son in 2012. Rubio's Reclaim America Political Action Committee (PAC) paid $20,000 to his ghostwriter, political strategist Mark Salter, to help write the book, Melville House Publishing reported in 2015. Conservative imprint Sentinel reportedly paid an advance of $800,000.

"Rubio's book was written by a guy paid by his political donors and it was probably an ethics violation. just do that, kids, and you'll be fine," producer Jordan Zakarin wrote, referring to some media reports that mentioned that Salter said that he was paid for "projects unrelated to the book." However, the Tampa Bay Times reported in 2013 that he was paid "for help writing a memoir."

White House Slams GOP On Student Loans: 'All Of A Sudden It's Socialism'

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Meanwhile, screenwriter Randi Mayem Singer reacted to Rubio's comments, saying: "Yeah, kids. Just take NRA blood money, get elected to the Senate and write a book, you lazy f****!"

President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced a relief plan to forgive outstanding federal student loan debt for some borrowers. Biden said that those who have student loans and make less than $125,000 a year are eligible to get $20,000 in student loan forgiveness if they received Pell Grants, while those who make less than $125,000 a year and didn't receive a Pell Grant will be eligible for $10,000 in loan forgiveness. However, Rubio among other Republicans criticized the plan, with some calling it "unfair."

"I think the student loan thing in America is a big problem and it's broken and needs to be fixed and needs to be reformed, and I have bipartisan ideas I've been pushing for years to do this," Rubio said on Fox News. "This is illegal. The president doesn't have the authority to do this. He's not an emperor. He can't just with the stroke of a pen cancel $300-$400 billion worth of student loans...It's unfair."

In another reaction to his comments, Representative Val Demings, a Florida Democrat, wrote: "Marco Rubio's advice to Floridians struggling with student debt: become a career politician and profit off your position. I have a better idea, let's elect someone who will actually show up and fight for Floridians."

Meanwhile, in response to Biden's student loan forgiveness plan, GOP Texas Senator Ted Cruz said on Friday that "slacker baristas" benefitting from loan relief might help Democrats in the midterms later this year, while Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene called the program "completely unfair" during a Wednesday interview on Newsmax.

Alaska upset flashes warning signs for GOP

Caroline Vakil - Set 3,2022

Mary Peltola’s win in the Alaska special election this week became the latest surprise to spark concern for Republicans as it appears that a once presumptive red wave in November is neither definite nor guaranteed.


Peltola, the first Alaska Native and first Democrat in decades to be elected to fill the state’s lone House seat, edged out two formidable Republican challengers on Wednesday, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), to serve the remainder of the late Rep. Don Young’s (R) term.

The win came about a week after Democrat Pat Ryan prevailed against Republican Marc Molinaro in a New York special election in what was considered a bellwether ahead of the midterms.

While Peltola was likely aided by the state’s newly implemented ranked-choice voting system, her win also fuels further concerns for the GOP about how energized Democratic voters are, as well as the quality of Republican candidates running in critical races.

“First thought was that the Republican Party has some work to do,” said Rick Whitbeck, who previously served as the vice chair for the Alaska Republican Party and now serves as the Alaska State Director for Power the Future, when asked about his reaction following Peltola’s win.

Whitbeck said he believed Republicans’ underperformance in the special election was in part due to ticket splitting between Palin and fellow Republican contender Nick Begich III competing with Peltola. He said other reasons Peltola might have prevailed could be voters seeing it as a protest vote against the two Republican candidates or the fact that voters might have been uneducated about the candidates.

To be sure, Peltola’s win in Alaska comes with its own caveats that distinguish it from other recent races. For starters, this election cycle marks the first time the state has used ranked-choice to elect its representatives — a system some Republicans have criticized. The Last Frontier is also known for its uniquely independent brand of politics, where ticket splitting is seen as more common than in other states.

But the race also laid bare some of the challenges facing Republicans — including divisions plaguing the party.

One GOP strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, pointed to Palin’s standing in the state as an explanation for this week’s surprise upset.

“I think you got to take into account the fact that Palin is just an extremely controversial brand in her own state, has been for a long time now,” the strategist said. “And so she had a core base of people that were always going to support her, but, you know, even in her own party, there was a lot of dissension and disruption, and you saw that, you know, gravitate towards a Begich, for example.”

Concerns over the quality of the Republican candidates this cycle have become apparent in recent weeks, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) even citing that as a reason why the GOP was more likely to flip the House than the Senate this year. McConnell’s admission provoked a furious response from Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the head of the Senate campaign arm, who called McConnell’s remarks “a shot at our candidates and the voters.”

Meanwhile, Democratic optimism has only grown over the summer amid a string of victories for the party.

Related video: Dem. Peltola wins Alaska House special election
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In Kansas, voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure that would have given the state legislature more authority to regulate abortion in the Sunflower State.

Further emboldening them were special elections in Nebraska, Minnesota and New York earlier this year that saw Democrats lose by smaller-than-expected margins. In another nod to Democrats’ momentum, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report this week shifted their ratings of five House seats toward Democrats.

“I think what’s happening in the Democratic Party right now is, and particularly among the House Democrats, is that the combination of the win in New York last week and Alaska has given Democrats — has changed the Democrats’ understanding of what’s possible in the election,” said Simon Rosenberg, who has served as a senior adviser to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).

“And we’re now moving from sort of a defensive stance to a much more offensive stance,” he continued. “And I will tell you, I talked to the DCCC the afternoon of the New York special last week, on Tuesday afternoon, and they thought they were going to lose that race by three to four points, and we won by almost two and a half.”

Peltola, who spoke to The Hill in a phone interview on Thursday, was more circumspect in her analysis of what her victory meant.

“I don’t like to make too many predictions. I’m a pretty superstitious person and feel like making declarative statements tends to jinx things. So I do not want to speculate on national trends,” she said. “I won by a decent margin, but it certainly wasn’t a landslide. I’ll be taking a very careful look at where I need to focus more of my time in terms of outreach to Alaskans and connecting with voters.”

Many Republicans remain confident their party is still in a good position heading into November.

Matt Gorman, a former spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP’s campaign arm, said Peltola’s win was an “aberration thanks to ranked-choice voting.” He also pushed back against the idea that Republicans were performing less competitively than expected, citing Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District, which was one of several special elections held this year. He noted the late Rep. Jim Hagedorn (R-Minn.) won the House seat by close margins in 2018 and 2020.

And Democrats clearly still have their work cut out for them. While there are new signs of hope that the party could retain control of the Senate, recent polling shows Republican candidates in states like Ohio and Georgia running closely alongside their Democratic counterparts.

An Emerson College Polling survey released last month showed 45 percent of somewhat and very likely general election voters backing Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance (R), while 42 percent supported Democratic challenger Tim Ryan, polling that falls just outside the margin of error at plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

A separate Emerson survey released earlier this week found 46 percent of very likely general election voters in the state supporting Republican candidate Herschel Walker compared to incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) at 44 percent, falling within the margin of error at plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

And while the Cook Report moved some House seat ratings toward Democrats this week, the nonpartisan election handicapper still predicts Republicans will win between 10 and 20 seats in November.

Still, the primary season has at times been a difficult one for the GOP, which has left candidates bruised after some especially brutal primaries.

“I’ve said this for the 30 years I’ve been involved in politics: Republicans don’t always play nice,” said Whitbeck, the former vice chair of the Alaska GOP, when discussing the toll some Republican-on-Republican races have taken on the party.

“Sometimes I wish the Republicans would figure out how to limit the damage, you know, the circular firing squad mentality,” he added.

But with the primary season largely wrapped up and many campaigns shifting into a general election mindset, some say it’s too early to speculate about how both parties will fare in the midterms — after all, there’s still more than two months to go.

“The teams that win are usually the ones that are able to ride out those bumpy rough stretches and regain their footing heading into the fourth quarter,” said the GOP strategist who spoke on condition of anonymity, likening midterm races to NFL games.

“And in terms of this year, we’re about to, you know, post-Labor Day is the fourth quarter of campaigning, and so even with Republicans having a bit of a bumpy stretch, I actually think Democrats may have hit their peak, you know, during halftime, but in the third quarter, which is just too early.”

California drought raises red flags for agriculture

Zack Budryk - THE HILL


More than 97 percent of California is under at least “severe” drought conditions, raising the specter of difficult agricultural decisions in a state that produces a quarter of U.S. food.

Farming is the main driver of water usage in the state, and the drought, now in its third year, comes alongside increasing pressure on California to bear more of the burden of Colorado River water cutbacks.

As of Thursday, 97.52 percent of the nation’s most populous state is in a state of “severe” drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, while 99.76 percent is at least “moderate” drought. This time last year, 95.56 percent of the state was classified as under “severe” drought.

Much of the drought has been concentrated in the northern part of the state, said Alvar Escriva-Bou, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California’s Water Policy Center.

That’s important and a problem, since the Southern California gets much of its water supplies from the Sacramento Valley, he noted.

California produces more than one-third of U.S. vegetables and three-quarters of domestic fruits and nuts, including $5.23 billion in grapes, $3.02 billion in strawberries and $2.03 billion in lettuce in 2021, according to the state Department of Food and Agriculture.

Much of this agriculture is concentrated in the state’s Central Valley, the source of about 8 percent of the nation’s crop output, and the Salinas Valley, the source of about $1.36 billion in lettuce in 2019.

California is the senior-most state in the interstate agreement governing allocations from the Colorado River, which, in the Golden State, primarily goes to farming in the Imperial Valley. As a result, the state avoided any cuts in a new round of allocations announced by the Bureau of Reclamation in August, with the cutbacks focusing on Arizona and Nevada instead.

“Arizona is taking the brunt of that [because] they’re the junior water user, if you will, on the Colorado. But it seems that all the states in the Colorado River Basin are going to have to decrease their use of Colorado River water,” Holly Doremus, James H. House and Hiram H. Hurd professor of environmental regulation at Berkley Law School, told The Hill.


New poll finds Californians extremely concerned by the ongoing drought

CBS SF Bay Area

Separate negotiations are  aking place after basin states missed an August deadline to agree to cuts to avert “dead pool” status in Lake Powell and Lake Mead. The Imperial Irrigation District and Metropolitan Water District, which serve the Imperial Valley and Los Angeles respectively, remain in talks as of this week.

California’s size, combined with its seniority on water rights, means the overallocation of the river hasn’t severely impacted the state yet, but “there’s quite a bit of folks in in other states calling for California to make more of a sacrifice on the Colorado River,” Faith Kearns, an academic coordinator at the California Institute for Water Resources, told The Hill.

For example, earlier this week, Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.), in a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), called on California to step up its contribution to water preservation, noting the state increased use of river water by 41 percent from April 2021 to April 2022. “The cuts necessary cannot possibly be borne by one or two states alone,” he wrote.

Even aside from the river allocation, “there’s certainly concerns about the long-term viability of agriculture in many parts of this state,” said Jay Lund, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California Davis’s Center for Watershed Sciences.

Since California’s previous drought, which stretched from 2011-2016, the state has looked at ending groundwater overdraft, which occurs when more groundwater is used from an aquifer than enters it.

“That by itself was going to require fallowing maybe half a million acres of irrigated land in California,” Lund said. “But as we’re seeing this warmer, drier climate, with perhaps greater frequency of droughts and floods, with climate change, in addition to the overdraft and the perilous state of some of the invasive species … California is probably looking at fallowing 1.5 or 2 million acres out of maybe 7 million acres of irrigated land, which is pretty substantial.”

California’s agriculture industry irrigates about 9.6 million acres a year with 34 million acre-feet of water, and cutbacks would likely be achieved by paying farmers to plant less.

Last year, drought conditions cost California agriculture about $1.1 billion as nearly 395,000 acres were idled, according to research from the University of California Merced.

“Should dry conditions persist throughout 2022, a higher tier of adaptation measures may come into play to reduce economic impacts on agriculture and communities that host thousands of households relying on agriculture for a living.” Josué Medellín-Azuara, a professor at UC Merced’s School of Engineering and lead author of the report, warned in a statement.

In addition to the agriculture needs, Los Angeles, the state’s most populous city, is located in one of the driest parts of the state, meaning California’s handling of water often turns into a sort of shell game even without the Colorado River issues, Doremus said.

“We’ve been moving water around the landscape to support our forming and our cities, but there’s just not as much water as we expect to go around these days,” she said.

“I think the cities will be fine, they’ll just have to buy more water,” Lund said. However, he said, if dryer conditions persist, “there will be some important local changes in some of those agricultural areas [like] the Imperial Valley and Paolo Verde as well … you will see a lot of the lower-valued agriculture going away.”

Not all the indicators are going in the wrong direction for California. A year ago, 47.4 percent of the state was under “exceptional” drought conditions, the highest USDM classification. This week, the portion is down to 16.57 percent.

“What we’re looking at, I think over the next 10, 20 years, is finding ways to move water from one use to another without drastically destabilizing our economy or our natural systems,” Doremus said.

THE PURGE

Changes spark chatter of CNN shifting to the right

Dominick Mastrangelo - Friday

Major changes at CNN in recent weeks have sparked chatter in media and political circles that the network’s new corporate ownership is pulling it to the political right.

Changes spark chatter of CNN shifting to the right© Provided by The Hill

CNN strongly denies such a change is taking place, saying it is entirely focused on objective journalism.

But recent high profile on-air departures, coupled with what’s seen by some as a shift in tone in the network’s political coverage, are drawing intense scrutiny.

Criticisms of President Biden by on-air personalities in particular have triggered questions from the political left about whether things are changing at CNN, which has a new corporate owner in Discovery.

Brianna Keilar, an anchor on CNN’s flagship morning program, lambasted Biden’s White House last week over a decision to use U.S. Marines and a dark-red backdrop in the background of a speech slamming Trump Republicans.

“Whatever you think of this speech the military is supposed to be apolitical. Positioning Marines in uniform behind President Biden for a political speech flies in the face of that. It’s wrong when Democrats do it. It’s wrong when Republicans do it,” the anchor wrote on Twitter.

Keilar has also offered pointed criticism of Trump over the years, which to some made the comments about Biden even more significant.

Keilar’s commentary also reportedly angered staffers inside the White House and came a day before the network departure of White House reporter John Harwood, who had been strikingly critical of former President Trump as well.

In late August, CNN canceled “Reliable Sources,” the long-running Sunday show focused on the media, parting ways in the process with host Brian Stelter, one of the most prominent critics in media of Trump and Fox News.

“The message coming out … is that this is part of a deliberate effort to get rid of people at CNN who are seen as too critical of Donald Trump and Fox News,” said Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a liberal media watchdog.

He also noted “some very high-profile cases of CNN staffers making a sort of public display of criticizing President Joe Biden.”

CNN in a statement to The Hill said criticism from those like Gertz are completely off base.

“CNN is not shifting from left to right or pursuing a centrist position,” a CNN spokesperson told The Hill. “We are entirely focused on our core strength and mission — objective journalism, presented in a fair and compelling way. We will continue to acknowledge different worldviews and experiences. We will always stand up for democracy and call out lies — regardless of their origin. That is not centrism, that is journalism.”

It has been a year that has brought significant change for CNN, which is still churning from the departure in February of former President Jeff Zucker.

Zucker was an imperious presence at CNN, well-known for messaging questions from his control room to on-air personalities as they interviewed public figures and guests.

During the Trump presidency, CNN saw its ratings boom during an often confrontational period with the president that at times seemed personal: Zucker had been a leading executive at NBC when Trump’s show “The Apprentice” was a hit for the network.

Trump regularly derided CNN, Zucker and some of the network’s stars, such as Jim Acosta — at the time a White House correspondent. Trump at one point retweeted a video that showed him wrestling and punching a person whose head had been replaced by the CNN logo.

Zucker was replaced as president of the network by Chris Licht, a broadcast veteran who has come under online criticism over the Harwood firing and other changes since his tenure began — some of which was shared on social media by White House chief of staff Ron Klain.

The hashtag #BoycottCNN was briefly trending on Twitter late last week after the Harwood news broke.

“I decided to #BoycottCNN as soon as the network began its shift to the right,” wrote Jon Cooper, a former finance chair for President Obama. “If I wanted to watch right-wing propaganda, I’d watch Fox.”

Some liberals have suggested any tone shift for CNN can be traced back to John Malone, a billionaire media mogul who is a major shareholder in Discovery, which purchased CNN’s parent company, Warner Media, last year.

Before the purchase, Malone turned heads with comments saying he “would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing.”

Warner Media declined to comment this week on recent changes made to CNN’s programming and personnel, while Malone told The New York Times he had “nothing to do with” the decision to cancel “Reliable Sources.”

That hasn’t stopped the chatter.

“A lot of people on the outside are seeing this as some sort of gambit for audience and viewership,” said Michael J. Socolow, a former assignment editor at CNN who is now an associate professor at the University of Maine’s Department of Communication and Journalism. “There are much bigger economic and regulatory benefits for the political positioning than any kind of viewership gains.”

More shake-ups to the network’s daytime and prime-time evening programs are widely expected, and the recent changes have left a feeling of nervousness among staffers since Licht took over.

“There isn’t a bigger, faster rumor gossip machine than a newsroom,” said Joe Ferullo, a former network television executive who writes occasional columns on the media for The Hill. “In a vacuum, that rumor machine goes in overdrive, so it has to be addressed.”

Since arriving at CNN, Licht has engaged on what he has called a “listening tour” while promising advertisers and staffers his vision for the network is one where partisan rhetoric takes a back seat to objective analysis and sensationalism is trumped by sobriety and context in the outlet’s news reports.

He met with a number of Republicans on Capitol Hill earlier this summer to solicit feedback, a move that rubbed some liberal critics the wrong way. Licht also met with Klain and a number of Democrats on Capitol Hill earlier this summer.

“To contend that there are two sides to the Jan. 6 insurrection or Trump’s methods really is beyond remarkable, it’s kind of repulsive,” said Larry Sabato, a pundit who runs the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “Why are they doing it? The media moguls want it done because they’re fairly conservative themselves, whether they openly admit it or not. So they’re pleasing themselves and justifying it by saying we’ve all got to get back together.”

Licht, whom people close to him have described as a methodical tactician more than a top-down visionary as Zucker was, has also not done a sufficient job communicating his ideas internally and externally, others point out.

“While Twitter is not necessarily real life, one can’t help but notice that CNN viewers are growing frustrated with some of these recent developments,” wrote Tom Jones of the Poynter Institute. “It would behoove Licht to get out ahead of this and explain what CNN is doing and where it is going.”

 

The NFU Calls on the Government of Canada to Stop Funding Philippine “Anti-terrorism” Campaigns Targeting Peaceful Farmer Protestors   On June 9th, 2022, 83 Philippine farmers and allies were arrested and charged by the Philippine National Police for engaging in a peaceful protest to obtain food security in response to land-grabbing by corporations and landlords. Held in a cramped and unsanitary prison for three days, these promoters of sustainable food systems are facing charges of disobedience, obstruction of justice, and alleged trespassing on private property.  The National Farmers Union (NFU) joins PEN International in calling for the dismissal of all charges against the “Tinang 83” and for all peaceful protesters currently incarcerated in the Philippines to be released and all charges dropped. The “Tinang 83” were arrested while engaging in  “bungkalan,” a collective act of land cultivation to advance land reform and food sovereignty through the practice of organic and sustainable agriculture. The NFU is outraged that Philippine farmers are being labelled as terrorists without cause. The mass arrest and charges laid against the “Tinang 83” are part of a larger trend of human rights violations against peaceful protesters—including members of the farmers’ reform organization, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP)—executed by the former Duterte regime and now continuing under the authority of the newly elected Ferdinand “Bongbong” Romualdez Marcos Jr., the son of the former dictator, Marcos Sr. In August 2020, Randall “Randy” Echanis, 72, the KMP’s Deputy Secretary General who helped craft the 2008 Agrarian Reform Bill, was stabbed multiple times in his home while undergoing medical treatment. Echanis’ allies allege that it was police forces that carried out his murder while Amnesty International has called on the authorities for an independent investigation. Four months later, Randy’s daughter, Amanda Echanis, a leader of the Amihan National Federation of Peasant Women, was arrested with her month-old baby for alleged possession of firearms, ammunition, and explosives. Amanda and her son, Randall, are still in prison; Amanda maintains that the weapons found were planted by the national police. The NFU agrees with the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines – Canada (ICHRP-Canada) that the Canadian government risks complicity in Philippine’s human rights violations. According to ICHRP-Canada, between 2017-2021 the Philippine government was among the international recipients of $13 million in Canadian government funding to support anti-crime and counter-terrorism capacity building. An additional $3 million in funding since 2018 from Global Affairs Canada has gone to the Philippines to support counter-terrorism and unspecified “security and political affairs” programs. These Canadian funds, argue ICHRP-Canada, have inadvertently enabled the Philippine Government to “criminalize dissent, target human rights defenders and critics of the Government and restrict democracy.” The Philippine Government’s campaign has led to “thousands of killings, false charges, and arbitrary and irregular searches, arrests and detention” including the murder of Randy Echanis, the imprisonment of Amanda Echanis, and the recent mass arrest of the “Tinang 83.” The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and a well-respected team of independent commissioners have provided detailed reports on the Philippine’s ongoing human rights violations.  The NFU joins ICHRP-Canada in calling on the Government of Canada to immediately stop funding all counter-terrorism measures of the Philippine Government.  The NFU supports the ongoing peaceful protests and grassroots actions of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and the Amihan National Federation of Peasant Women, fellow organizational members of La Via Campesina. La Via Campesina is an international farmer and peasant organization that advocates for the rights of peasants, food sovereignty, and family-farm-based sustainable agriculture. We encourage you to write to Global Affairs Canada calling on them to stop funding Philippine so-called "counter-terrorism measures" that have been used to target peaceful protestors. We also encourage you to sign this petition calling for the dismissal of all charges against the Tinang 83.  Global Affairs Canada email: Melanie.Joly@parl.gc.ca

L’UNF exhorte le gouvernement du Canada de cesser de financer les campagnes « anti-terroristes » qui ciblent les fermiers manifestants pacifiques Le 9 juin 2022, 83 fermiers et alliés philippins furent arrêtés et accusés par la police nationale des Philippines d’avoir participé à une manifestation pacifique afin d’obtenir la sécurité alimentaire en réaction à l’accaparement des terres par des corporations et des propriétaires. Retenus dans une prison entassée et insalubre pendant trois jours, ces promoteurs de systèmes alimentaires durables font face à des accusations de désobéissance, d’entrave à l’exercice de la justice et d'allégations d’intrusion sur la propriété privée.   L'Union nationale des fermiers (UNF) se joint à PEN International en demandant la révocation de toutes les accusations contre les « Tinang 83 » et que tous les manifestants paisibles présentement incarcérés aux Philippines soient libérés et que toutes les accusations soient abandonnées.   Les « Tinang 83 » furent arrêtés alors qu’il participaient à un « bungkalan », une action collective de culture des terres pour faire avancer la réforme agraire et la souveraineté alimentaire par l’entremise d’une agriculture biologique et durable.   L’UNF est indignée que des fermiers philippins soient étiquetés comme étant des terroristes sans une cause.   Les arrestations massives et les accusations portées contre les « Tinang 83 » font partie d’une plus vaste tendance de violations des droits de la personne contre des manifestants pacifiques—y compris des membres de l’organisme de réforme agraire, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP)—exécutées par l’ancien régime Duterte et qui continuent présentement sous l’autorité de Ferdinand « Bongbong » Romualdez Marcos Jr., fils de l’ancien dictateur, Marcos Sr.   Au mois d’août 2020, Randall “Randy” Echanis, 72 ans, le Secrétaire général adjoint de KMP, qui a aidé à formuler le Projet de loi sur la Réforme agraire en 2008, fut poignardé plusieurs fois chez-lui alors qu’il subissait un traitement médical. Les alliés d’Echanis affirment que c’était les forces policières qui ont effectué ce meurtre, alors que Amnestie internationale demande une enquête indépendante aux autorités. Quatre mois plus tard, Amanda Echanis, la fille de Randy et leader de la « Amihan National Federation of Peasant Women » (Fédération nationale Amihan des femmes paysannes) fut arrêtée avec son bébé d’un mois pour la prétendue possession d’armes à feu, de munitions et d’explosifs. Amanda et son fils, Randall, sont toujours en prison ; Amanda maintient que les armes trouvées furent placées par la police nationale.   L'UNF est d’accord avec la « International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines – Canada » (ICHRP-Canada) que le gouvernement canadien risque la complicité dans les violations des droits de la personne aux Philippines. Selon  ICHRP-Canada, entre 2017-2021 le gouvernement des Philippines faisait partie des récipiendaires internationaux de 13 millions de dollars de fonds provenant du gouvernement canadien pour renforcer les capacités de lutte contre la criminalité et le terrorisme. Un financement additionnel de 3 millions de dollars depuis 2018 de la part d’Affaires mondiales Canada fut envoyé aux Philippines pour appuyer des programmes de lutte antiterroriste et « d’affaires politiques et de sécurité » non spécifiées. Ces fonds canadiens, comme l’explique ICHRP-Canada, ont aidé par inadvertance le gouvernement des Philippines à « criminaliser la dissidence, à cibler les défenseurs des droits humains et les opposants et à restreindre la démocratie. »   La campagne du gouvernement des Philippines a mené à « des milliers de meurtres, de fausses accusations, à des fouilles arbitraires et irrégulières, ainsi qu’à des arrestations et des détentions », y compris le meurtre de Randy Echanis, l’emprisonnement d’Amanda Echanis et à la récente arrestation massive des « Tinang 83.» Le Haut-Commissariat des Nations-Unies aux droits de l'homme (HCDH) et l’équipe très respectée de commissaires indépendants ont fournis des rapports détaillés sur les violations des droits humains qui sont en cours aux Philippines.    L’UNF se joint à ICHRP-Canada en exhortant le gouvernement du Canada à cesser immédiatement le financement de toutes les mesures antiterroristes du gouvernement des Philippines.    L’UNF appuie les démonstrations pacifiques et les actions de terrain qui sont en cours par la « Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas » (KMP) et la « Amihan National Federation of Peasant Women,» qui sont membres et consoeurs organisationnelles de La Via Campesina. La Via Campesina est un organisme international de fermiers et de paysans qui milite pour les droits des paysans, pour la souveraineté alimentaire, ainsi que pour l’agriculture durable basée sur les familles fermières.   Nous vous encourageons à écrire à Affaires mondiales Canada et leur demander de cesser de financer les soi-disantes « mesures antiterroristes » aux Philippines qui ont été utilisées pour cibler les manifestants pacifiques. Nous vous encourageons également à signer cette pétition demandant la révocation de toutes les accusations contre les 83 individus « Tinang ».