Interior Secretary Deb Haaland spoke before the House Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies on Thursday to discuss her agency’s budget and answer any questions members may have about what the Interior Department’s been up to as of late. That included addressing offshore leasing concerns, with Haaland admitting that three lease sales have yet to be held ahead of the department’s current five-year plan concluding on June 30. The Interior Department is working on a new plan that will extend to 2027. Five-year plans are the norm, though continued fossil fuel development is utterly incongruous to the Biden administration’s net-zero aspirations and goes against the president’s own pushes for offshore drilling bans through the Build Back Better Act.
Questions about renewable energy and the minerals needed to use them far outweighed concerns over fossil fuels, however. That’s likely because “the 2023 budget includes $476.6 million for oil and gas programs,” according to a statement released by Haaland ahead of the hearing. Meanwhile, funding for climate-related projects is expected to increase—as is the overall budget for the department—but those numbers pale in comparison to the $63.7 million more the department is requesting for oil and gas programs compared with the prior year’s budget. Haaland billed the ask as “balancing the nation’s energy portfolio,” a frustrating framing akin to Sen. Joe Manchin’s calls for “all of the above” energy initiatives.
Little was discussed during Thursday’s meeting about the difference in budgeting for climate resiliency projects compared with oil and gas programs, though lawmakers did share concerns over the extraction of minerals to be used for renewable energy. An interagency task force report about those minerals is expected to be delivered to Congress within the year, Haaland told the committee. Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada briefly discussed permitting difficulties in the state, but his concerns seemed to center on the typical Republican concerns about “rights-holders” rather than environmental impact, something he previously touched on in a Q&A with the Reno Gazette-Journal.
Minerals were discussed in Haaland’s prepared statement only insofar as how the industry can provide additional jobs as well as how the Interior Department can streamline payouts from revenue from federal and Indian mineral leases. The Bureau of Land Management is expected to receive $49.7 million for its Renewable Energy programs, which includes expanding the amount of Renewable Energy Coordination Offices, “which specialize in permitting for renewable energy projects on public lands,” Haaland noted in her prepared statement.
What was discussed during the hearing that is of particular concern to Haaland and, really, anyone invested in Indigenous rights, is the proposed $7 million to continue funding the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, which was launched last June to provide “a comprehensive review of the troubled legacy of federal boarding school policies.” During the hearing, Haaland revealed that her grandparents were forced into such schools, which she’d initially written about in an op-ed for The Washington Post.
“It’s important for me to make sure that people know that we care about this issue, that we are doing something about it, giving them a chance to heal from this inter-generational trauma,” Haaland said. “We are working on the boarding school initiative. It should be out very soon … I think the initial start in getting a full listing of exactly what federal boarding schools were in this country where burial sites are, what tribes were relegated to these various boarding schools, those are the important facts that we are working on now that we’ll get out soon.”
Despite Tucker Carlson’s rant saying he “sounds like an MSNBC contributor” in recently released recordings and is a “puppet of the Democratic Party,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy appears to be hanging on to the support of his fellow House Republicans.
In January 2021, in the wake of the attack on the U.S. Capitol, McCarthy claimed he was going to pressure Donald Trump to resign. He said Rep. Matt Gaetz was “putting people in jeopardy” and that he would tell Gaetz to “cut this shit out.” He wondered, of some House Republicans, “Can’t they take their Twitter accounts away, too?” But apparently, McCarthy has done enough sucking up over the past 15 months to convince the far right, including Trump, that he can be relied on to keep sucking up and supporting assaults on democracy.
McCarthy reportedly got a standing ovation at a House Republican meeting Wednesday, after he claimed that all those comments were part of a “conversation about scenarios” and worked to focus attention on winning in November.
”McCarthy has explained that his comments about resignation were made only in the context of an anticipated impeachment conviction, and he has argued that he did not really want to kick members off Twitter,” The Washington Post reports, based on an anonymous “person familiar with the comments.” The part about the comments about resignation isn’t too far out of line with the recordings, in which McCarthy said, “This is, this is what I think. We know [the impeachment resolution will] pass the House. I think there’s a good chance it’ll pass the Senate, even when he’s gone. Um, and I think there’s a lot of different ramifications for that,” and speculated about whether Democrats would follow through on impeaching Trump if he resigned first. But the part about not really wanting Republicans kicked off Twitter is a strong case of “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying ears?” Most House Republicans are apparently willing to believe McCarthy, despite the clarity of the recording.
Gaetz remains unhappy, speaking out at the Republican meeting. But while Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene reportedly called on Rep. Steve Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican, to apologize for his comments on the recordings, and said she was hurt by McCarthy’s comments, it seems that McCarthy has done enough to butter her up—Greene isn’t after his head. And all it took was McCarthy coming out of a discussion about her speaking at a white nationalist event and pledging that he’d restore her committee assignments if Republicans control the House, and—as she told her fellow Republicans on Wednesday—working on getting her reinstated on Twitter.
In addition to his Wednesday comments claiming he had just been gaming out scenarios and hadn’t meant what he said and don’t Republicans want to win in November, a large part of McCarthy’s effort to get past his recorded comments has involved further sucking up to Trump. He talked to Trump three times in the 24 hours after the first round of recordings became public, the Post reports, and Trump told The Wall Street Journal the two men’s relationship was good.
But it’s Trump, so it’s all transactional. “He will extract something from it. I’m sure of that. He will hold it over McCarthy,” someone who had talked to Trump about the recordings told the Post. Trump understands that he’s dealing with someone weak, someone he can handle:
It’s not transactional with only Trump, either—as the explanation for Greene’s muted tone about the recordings shows. McCarthy has spent 15 months making sure that Trump and Greene and everyone else understands that his ambition to be speaker is definitely more important than upholding democracy or ensuring accountability after an insurrection.
Whatever McCarthy really thinks about January 6, or about some of his members’ Twitter accounts … doesn’t matter. Because the only thing that matters for McCarthy is Republican power, and his own power within his party. And since most of his fellow Republicans share the former goal and think he can help deliver it, his barrage of phone calls to Trump and his refusal to discipline Greene and Rep. Paul Gosar for speaking at a white nationalist event, and his help with Greene’s Twitter account are enough for him to hang onto the latter.
Less than a week after appearing in a Georgia courtroom to defend herself in a reelection lawsuit, and swearing under oath to not remembering a damn thing, text messages to the contrary have been added to the slew of evidence against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
The suit against Greene, filed by five voters represented by Free Speech for People, a legal nonprofit advocacy group, alleges the congresswoman cannot run for reelection because she “engaged in an insurrection to obstruct the peaceful transfer of presidential power disqualifying her from serving as a Member of Congress under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.”
During a hearing on April 22, Greene took the stand and denied involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection or having any recollection of the events surrounding that day, including conversations about martial law.
Wednesday, petitioners filed a motion to that suit to add “newly discovered evidence”:— a damning text that shows Greene’s memory while on the stand was faulty at best, and perjurious at worst.
A text message from Greene sent on Jan. 17, 2021 to former President Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows reads:
“In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall law. I don’t know on those things. I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next. Please tell him to declassify as much as possible so we can go after Biden and anyone else!”
The motion reads that the text “undermines Greene’s credibility,” and “sheds light on the meaning of her pre-January 6 statements. Eleven days after the failed insurrection, Greene was still fighting against the peaceful transfer of power by advocating extra-legal means.”
Anyone who watched Greene’s testimony doubted her honesty. Apparently, attorneys for the plaintiffs felt the same. According to the filing:
“Greene’s testimony at the hearing that she could not remember discussing martial law with anyone was already dubious. This text with President Trump’s Chief of Staff makes her testimony even more incredible because it seems like the kind of message with the kind of recipient that a reasonable person testifying truthfully would remember.”
The hysterical thing is that Greene remains confident that she doesn’t remember the text.
Even when she appeared on Fox News on Wednesday, she claimed she didn’t “recall advocating for martial law,” adding that the text is “clear and easy to read that if that’s my text message and that’s what they’re reporting, I don’t recall if they are, but if they are, those text messages do not say calling for martial law.”
“I don’t recall ever advocating for martial law. IDK if you have that up on the screen right now but if you put that text message up, it’s clear & easy to read that, if that’s my text messages and that’s what they’re reporting, I don’t recall if they are.”pic.twitter.com/AoDLOVttly
In addition to her complete amnesia of any mention of martial law, Greene also mentioned never hearing of the Proud Boys. Welp … pre-Musk Twitter brought the receipts.
The White House renewed its pleas to Congress for more COVID-19 funding this week after weeks of Congress failing to get it done. One senior administration official put it bluntly: “Congressional inaction is already taking its toll—from uninsured Americans suddenly having to foot the bill for tests, treatments and vaccines, to states receiving fewer monoclonal antibodies to keep people out the hospital. Further inaction is unacceptable, and Congress must promptly provide us the funds we urgently need to protect the American people and abroad.”
That’s being backed up by providers who have had to cut back on COVID-19 care for the uninsured because the money for testing, treatment, and vaccinations has run out. “From my perspective, it’s insanity,” Neal Smoller, a pharmacist in Woodstock, New York, told Politico. Smoller ran an outreach program in underinsured communities, traveling to those communities and administering thousands of shots. He’s had to stop.
They blame Congress, and they should. The problem started with a misstep from House Democratic leadership in trying to hurry a funding bill through that hurt Democratic members’ states and cities, clawing back funding that had already been promised and budgeted. The COVID-19 funding was then stripped out of the larger omnibus funding bill that kept government operating.
Since then, though, it’s all been on Republicans who continue to not give a damn if people are dying from what it now appears is a preventable disease. From the $22.5 billion the administration first requested, it’s been whittled down to $10 billion. Republicans have blocked the funding for weeks, demanding that they get a vote on an unrelated anti-immigrant, white supremacist amendment to block President Joe Biden from ending the Trump-imposed pandemic restriction on migrants, including asylum-seekers.
Back in the middle of March, the White House warned of the consequences of funding drying up.
Without funding, the United States will not have enough additional boosters or variant specific vaccines, if needed, for all Americans. The federal government is unable to purchase additional life-saving monoclonal antibody treatments and will run out of supply to send to states as soon as late May. The federal government cannot purchase sufficient quantities of treatments for immunocompromised individuals. And, the federal government will be unable to sustain the testing capacity we built over the last 14 months, as we head into the second half of the year.
All that’s happening now with the uninsured.
“We can’t spend money like the government can. We have to make it with what we have,” said Mayela Castañon, CEO of Community Health Development, a clinic in Uvalde, Texas. “Hopefully Congress will stop fighting and think about what we’re going through.” The majority of the 11,000 people the clinic serves are Hispanic and uninsured. The clinic can only provide testing one day a week, down from six; has restricted testing; and might have to start increasing fees or laying off staff without a new injection of funding.
“The moment that we get a little bit ahead of this problem, they rip back any protections we have,” Smoller said. “I know people are fatigued, but this virus is more patient than we are.”
That’s proven by both increasing infections and hospitalizations. “The 7-day average of cases was 44,416 as of April 25, up more than 20 percent over the previous week,” Politico reports from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. Hospitalizations were also up by 6.6% over the previous week.
“Making sure uninsured people have access is absolutely critical,” White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha said during the Tuesday press briefing. “If Congress continues to not fund these urgent priorities, it’s going to get harder and harder for people to access care.”
Which means it’s going to get harder and harder to keep the disease under control. “It’s truly irresponsible of the government to take away funding for Covid when Covid is far from over and health care systems are already strained,” said Coleen Elias, CEO of Community Clinical Services in Lewiston, Maine. “We have to pay a living wage to our staff that works extremely hard.”
Earlier this week, Russia declared that it had taken “all of Mariupol.” Which meant that they had captured all of the city except the vast collection of factories, buildings, sheds, scrapyards, and material heaps of the Azovstal complex. Established in 1930, Azovstal was one of the Soviet Union’s largest manufacturers of steel and other alloys through World War II, the Cold War, and into the present day. During all that period, the complex continued to grow, and as it did its importance to the USSR, which was marked by an increasing complex of shelters and tunnels explicitly designed to keep the factory’s 40,000 workers on site and in business, even in the middle of war.
The tunnels beneath Azovstal were designed to take a near-direct hit from a nuclear weapon. For the last two months, hundreds of Ukrainians, including families with children, have been in those shelters and tunnels as part of the resistance to the Russian invasion of their city. And for the most part, those tunnels and shelters have served their purpose, holding out against not just a constant pounding from artillery, incredibly, but against weeks of bombardment by Tupolev Tu-22M “Backfire” bombers that blanketed the area with explosions felt miles away.
But not everywhere is equally protected: On Wednesday evening, a field hospital located within the complex failed under the constant weight of the Russian air and artillery assault.
The Russians bombed the AzovStal plant all night. Part of the military hospital collapsed. The video shows that the wounded in the hospital were buried in rubble. ps I just can’t stand it anymore. I don’t understand why we have UN, ICRC etc who can do nothing to help people pic.twitter.com/oSjQU8xZQS
Dozens of people, including children, have reportedly died in the attack as Russia continues to bring down the boot on the last holdouts in a city already turned to rubble by weeks of constant attack. Most of those still remaining below Azovstal are fighters from the national Azov Regiment, who Russia has made into the boogeymen of this war. The regiment knows what would happen to them if they tried to surrender. They know what would happen to their families, to their wives and children.
Azovstal was built to be a shelter under the worst imaginable circumstances. Now those circumstances are here. And unless something changes soon in Mariupol, what started as a shelter will end as a tomb.
⚡️ Russia launches phosphorous bombs, around 50 airstrikes on Mariupol overnight. Deputy Commander of the Azov Regiment Sviatoslav Palamar called for decisive measures to evacuate the city, as Russia is employing “everything that a barbarian can use against humanity.”
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) April 28, 2022
Elsewhere in Mariupol, the BBC reports that Russia has set up “filtration camps” at which local citizens are processed before being taken away to unknown locations within Russia. Some of the few to escape from those camps call conditions there “unimaginable.”
“It was like a true concentration camp,” Oleksandr, 49, says. …
Elderly people slept in corridors without mattresses or blankets, Olena says. There was only one toilet and one sink for thousands of people. Dysentery soon began to spread. “There was no way to wash or clean,” she says. “It smelt extremely awful.”
Those suspected of being “Ukrainian Nazis” or who showed any sign of protest were taken away to be tortured or killed.
“The filtration camps are like ghettos,” she says. “Russians divide people into groups. Those who were suspected of having connections with the Ukrainian army, territorial defence, journalists, workers from the government – it’s very dangerous for them. They take those people to prisons to Donetsk, torture them.”
The situation in Mariupol is intolerable for the people there. It should be intolerable for everyone who is not there.
One elderly man who managed to get out of Mariupol Ukraine with his wife. Can not speak about what he and his wife endured there. An old man in tears. What would it take. HORRIBLE!! #LoserTrump#LiarTrumppic.twitter.com/04WZZlT8Zs
— Chuck And Jim 🏳️🌈 👬🐻🌪🌊🌎 #IDWP (@fireman452a) April 23, 2022
Think of Putinism as next-stage Trumpism: Oh, sure, we’re all going to die, but that’s a good thing because we get to go out while expressing our hate for everyone else. It’s all the worst things about radical jihad, in a western suit. Oh, and with nukes.
Russian state TV is raging about WWIII and an inevitable escalation over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Citizens are being primed to believe that even the worst outcome is a good thing, because those dying for the Motherland will skyrocket to paradise.https://t.co/PzAt9jCBLtpic.twitter.com/DK2mXXWdfe
A Florida makeup artist is suing Dillard’s department store after she was falsely accused of stealing a dress from a Jacksonville store while with her then 2-month-old baby. Destiny Aeinpour retained civil rights attorneys Ben Crump and Jasmine Rand in the suit against the department store, which the noted attorneys announced at a news conference on Wednesday.
“It was definitely one of the most devastating and emotional times of my life,” Aeinpour said during the news conference.
Aeinpour told First Coast News shortly after the encounter on Oct. 1, 2018 in Jacksonville’s Town Center that she frequently purchased makeup from the store but didn’t usually shop in the women’s department. She only visited the department on the day in question to compare a maroon dress she purchased at a boutique to Dillard’s offerings. She was looking for something to wear to her brother’s wedding.
She said as she was leaving the store a security guard ran in front of her and told her to stop. Her baby was in a stroller. “My heart completely dropped,” she told the ABC-affiliated news station. “I knew in my mind and heart that I did not do anything.”
Aeinpour said she was targeted because of the color of her skin and taken to a backroom of the store to be questioned and have her bags searched. “They began to search my stroller and my diaper bag and I told them this is not their merchandise,” she said.”I began crying because I was so overwhelmed.”
Aeinpour said employees were searching for a blue dress but they didn’t find it on her. The store’s management later apologized and let her go, First Coast News reported.
“We are looking into the matter and will respond as appropriate directly to Mrs. Aeinpour,” Dillard’s spokesperson Julie Johnson Guymon told the news station at the time.
Guymon declined comment to Daily Kos on Wednesday. “We are respectfully declining comment as a matter of policy,” she said in an emailed statement. “We do not comment on pending legal matters.“
Attorneys Rand and Crump wrote in the complaint:
DILLARD’S store employees targeted Mrs. Aeinpour based on her race, accused her of shoplifting, falsely imprisoned her and her two month old son N.A. for more than a half an hour, searched her person and possessions against her will including her stroller and diaper bag, accused her of stealing a dress, and otherwise subjected Mrs. Aeinpour and her two-month-old son to degrading and humiliating conduct with no reasonable or probable cause to suspect that she had or was in the process of committing a crime.
The attorneys also alleged a history of discrimination accusations against Dillard’s, including an incident involving Artelia Phelps, the plaintiff in another complaint filed against the department store chain last November. Phelps was accused of wearing stolen clothes at a Dillard’s store in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Nov. 3, 2020. She was handcuffed in the store, “held and publicly searched,” according to the lawsuit.
The incident began when Phelps and her sister took two evening gowns to the store’s dressing room to try on. Phelps left to go to the restroom and reportedly returned to a police officer asking a loss prevention employee: “Is this them?”
The cop demanded bags from the women withPhelps having taken her sister’s purse with her to the restroom, according to the lawsuit. And even though no stolen merchandise was discovered, the loss prevention employee allegedly suggested that the very jeans Phelps wore into the store were stolen. The officer then “reached inside” Phelps’ pants to see if the label matched that of the clothes in the store, attorneys reported in the suit. When it did not, the Dillard’s employee reportedly said: “Those look like our sneakers, too!” After checking the label of her shoes as well, the officer freed Phelps from the handcuffs placed on her previously.
Attorneys mentioned the Phelps complaint in the suit involving Aeinpour as evidence of repeated incidents of discrimination that Dillard’s is accused in. “NAACP officials have referred to DILLARDS as one of the most racist companies in America,” attorneys wrote in the Aeinpour suit, “and the NAACP has filed several lawsuits against DILLARDS alleging racial discrimination.”
Aeinpour is seeking damages in excess of $75,000, and Phelps is seeking damages of $500,000 or more.
Senate Republicans seem to have settled on a new messaging push, with a bill to block President Joe Biden from canceling student debt. The Stop Reckless Student Loan Actions Act was introduced by Sens. John Thune, Bill Cassidy, Roger Marshall, Mike Braun, and Richard Burr, with Sen. Mitt Romney quickly jumping on the messaging bandwagon with a tweet suggesting that any Democratic move to cancel student loans would be a response to polling.
It’s true that a series of polls have shown that young voters and Black voters support student debt forgiveness, and those are both groups Democrats must mobilize for November. But it’s also the case that student debt is a huge drag on the economic prospects of tens of millions of people, and canceling it is the right thing to do.
The bill would prevent Biden or future presidents from canceling student loan debt due to a national emergency, as well as limiting the duration of any suspension or deferral of federal loan payments to 90 days during a national emergency. It would also prevent the suspension of loan payments for borrowers with household incomes over 400% of the poverty line.
In their press release announcing the bill, the Republicans hammered on fiscal responsibility and framed the ongoing pause in student loan payments as a giveaway to people who don’t need help. They particularly focused on doctors as an example of people with high incomes who can afford their student loans. But medical school is so massively expensive that only wealthy people can become doctors without significant debt—an average of more than $200,000. That burden can, according to the American Medical Association, “discourage students from underrepresented minority groups or lower-income families from pursuing a career as a physician. This creates a ripple effect of widening health care disparities that disproportionately affect the accessibility of primary care physicians in underserved areas.”
Medical school debt, then, doesn’t just affect the individual doctors. It affects the care we get. Not that you’re going to hear about that from Republicans. “Unemployment is not at pandemic levels and a student loan repayment pause benefits those who are high income and able to pay their bills,” said Cassidy.
Additionally, while doctors and lawyers do have particularly high student debt, that doesn’t mean that most student borrowers have high incomes. Student debt reinforces racial wealth inequities, with Black graduates more likely to have debt and Black borrowers having higher average debt.
Republicans have another argument, though, and it’s just as bad.
”Two years removed, this White House and Democrats in Congress continue to pursue the fiscally unsustainable policy of suspending payment, and ultimately canceling, student loan debt, nearly two trillion dollars owed to the federal government. Following the costly response to the pandemic, we must focus on implementing a fiscal strategy that will address the unsustainable path we’re on, not compound it,” said Marshall.
”Fiscal strategy,” he says. “Unsustainable path,” he says.
Both the argument that student debt suspension or cancellation benefits rich doctors and that it is fiscally irresponsible are great examples of how Republican accusations are usually projection, attacks against Democrats for supposedly doing what Republicans have really done. The 2017 Republican tax law was a giveaway to corporations and the wealthy. The Congressional Budget Office projected it will increase the deficit by $1.9 trillion over a decade.
Republicans want to have this fight, and it probably does appeal to their base. But they also may be trying to stop Biden from making a move that would get a strong positive reaction from key groups that Democrats need to get to the polls in November. Whatever the politics, though, on a policy level, student debt relief is the right thing to do.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Daniel Donner, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
●NY Redistricting: New York’s highest court struck down the state’s new maps for Congress and the state Senate on Wednesday, ruling in a bitterly divided 4-3 opinion that lawmakers did not have the authority to take over the redistricting process after the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission failed to agree on new districts. The Court of Appeals ordered the trial court handling the case to work with a special master to adopt replacement maps “with all due haste” and suggested that primaries for affected races be moved from June to August.
Under an amendment to the state constitution, referred by the legislature and passed by voters in 2014, new maps were to be drawn by the misleadingly named Independent Redistricting Commission, which in fact is not independent as that term is commonly understood. Rather, eight of its 10 members are chosen by legislative leaders, with an equal number of Democrats and Republicans, and those eight then choose two unaffiliated commissioners. (A judge even struck the word “independent” from the ballot text describing the amendment, but the commission’s name has nevertheless stuck.)
The amendment also requires that the panel approve any maps on a bipartisan basis; predictably, this evenly split body made up largely of political appointees deadlocked earlier this year. The legislature, where Democrats enjoy supermajorities in both chambers, then stepped into the gap to draw new maps on its own—a power the Court of Appeals now says it lacked.
What should lawmakers have done instead? The court was vague on that score, relegating the discussion to a footnote that included suggestions like “political pressure” and “more meaningful attempts at compromise” as possible “courses of action.” Judge Jenny Rivera, in a dissent, argued that the majority’s stance “leaves the legislature hostage to the IRC, and thus incentivizes political gamesmanship by the IRC members.” Should the legislature have exhausted all of these remedies, it’s not at all clear what the court would have the state do had the commission still failed to perform its duties.
The majority also went a step further: Despite ruling that the congressional map had no force of law from the get-go—”void ab initio” in legal parlance—it nevertheless further determined that it violated the constitution as a partisan gerrymander favoring Democrats. A different dissenter, Judge Shirley Troutman, called this part of the decision “an inappropriate advisory opinion,” citing longstanding judicial precedent against the issuance of such opinions because the “function of the courts is to determine controversies between litigants.” (In a third dissent, Judge Rowan Wilson offered a detailed rebuttal to the majority’s finding of illegal gerrymandering.)
The practical effects of the court’s decision will cause considerable upheaval to the state’s political calendar. Notably, the candidate filing deadline passed weeks ago. As a consequence of this ruling, not only will the primary have to be delayed but campaigns will have to gather signatures to appear on the ballot a second time (1,250 for Congress and 1,000 for the state Senate)—a notoriously time-consuming and expensive process in New York. They may even once again have to fend off legal challenges to their petitions from rivals.
But barring an unlikely appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on the grounds that the Court of Appeals has intervened too late in the election cycle, congressional and senatorial hopefuls in New York can now only bide their time as the trial court develops new maps.
The Downballot
● The 2022 election cycle really gets going next month with primaries in more than a dozen states, so we invited Daily Kos Elections editor Jeff Singer to join us on this week’s episode of The Downballot to run us through all the key contests. We analyze some sloppy GOP food fights in Senate races in Alabama, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania; a pair of primaries in Oregon and Texas where progressive challengers are seeking to oust irritating Democratic moderates; and the first incumbent-vs.-incumbent matchup of the year, thanks to West Virginia losing a House seat.
Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also shake their heads in disbelief at a bizarre ruling by New York’s top court striking down the state’s new maps; explain why Utah Democrats chose not to endorse a candidate for Senate at their convention last week; discuss the Michigan GOP’s decision to back Trump-endorsed Big Lie proponents for state attorney general and secretary of state; and breathe a sigh of relief over the results of the French presidential runoff.
●NH Redistricting: A committee in New Hampshire’s Republican-run state House has narrowly advanced a congressional map that would dramatically reshape the state’s two existing swing districts in an effort to favor Republicans in the 1st District by packing Democrats into the 2nd District. Sununu previously vowed to veto a similar map that Republican lawmakers advanced, and he has also signaled he doesn’t like the latest proposal.
Senate
●AL-Sen: A group called Alabama RINO PAC has spent $714,000 so far in the May 24 GOP primary on an ad calling Army veteran Mike Durant a liberal who wants to confiscate guns, and Durant has gone up with a response ad that highlights his military background and features him firing an assault rifle as he bemoans the “career politicians” funding lies against him.
●GA-Sen: 34N22 PAC, which is supporting former NFL star Herschel Walker, has released a poll conducted by a firm called Grassroots Targeting that shows the Republican with a 51-41 lead over Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock. This is the first time this cycle where we’ve seen a survey from Grassroots Targeting in any contest, and this release is by far the best result for Walker from any pollster that has tested this race. Most other outfits that have released surveys this year have found him only narrowly ahead of Warnock.
Walker’s campaign has also begun airing his first TV ad this cycle as part of a $1 million buy. The spot introduces parts of his biography to voters and preemptively offers a rebuttal to some of the attacks on his past behavior by calling him an “advocate for mental health” who “spent more than a decade sharing his story, raising awareness, and offering help to those in need.” The ad emphasizes his endorsement from Trump and hits standard conservative themes on immigration and crime.
However, one of the ad’s claims that Walker “built one of the largest minority-owned food service companies in the country” prompted Georgia Democrats to accuse him of once again blatantly lying about his business record. State Democrats cited a recent Daily Beast article that investigated Walker’s Renaissance Man chicken business and noted that the largest Black-owned food service business in the country, Bridgeman Foods, reported $870 million in annual revenue and 20,000 employees, while even the largest such company in Georgia, TME Enterprises, had $41 million in revenue and 680 employees.
By contrast, Walker has claimed only $70-80 million in annual revenue but told a federal court in 2019 that Renaissance Man and two of his related businesses only had $14 million combined in net earnings between 2009 and 2017, which averages to just $1.5 million a year.
This is far from the first time that Walker has been accused of telling easily disproved lies about his business record and academic achievements, and state Democrats cited a number of other news articles from reputable sources that debunked many of Walker’s claims.
●IA-Sen: Retired Navy Vice Adm. Michael Franken has released a poll from Change Research showing the Democrat down just 45-42 against longtime GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley. No other poll among the handful released by other pollsters this cycle has found Grassley’s lead anywhere near this small, and neither national party is acting like this race is competitive so far. Franken is running in the June primary against former Rep. Abby Finkenauer, whose campaign published a GBAO poll earlier this month showing her with a 64-15 lead over Franken.
●PA-Sen: Honor Pennsylvania PAC, which is backing former hedge fund manager Dave McCormick in the May 17 Republican primary, has launched an ad that throws the kitchen sink at TV personality Mehmet Oz. The ad notes that Oz, who is a dual citizen, served in the Turkish army despite growing up in America, and it claims Oz admitted that he’s “not socially conservative” before playing clips of Oz appearing to support abortion, gun safety laws, and gender transitioning for children. The spot closes with a video clip of Oz calling Hillary Clinton “one of the smartest people I have ever met” before Clinton is shown on screen laughing.
●OH-Sen: Fox News has released a new survey of Tuesday’s Republican primary from the Democratic firm Beacon Research and the Republican pollster Shaw & Company Research that finds Trump’s endorsed candidate, venture capitalist J.D. Vance, taking a 23-18 lead over former state Treasurer Josh Mandel, with wealthy businessman Mike Gibbons at 13%; a 25% plurality remain undecided in this crowded contest. This is a notable shift from Fox’s March poll when Gibbons enjoyed a 22-20 edge over Mandel as Vance languished in third with 11%.
Mandel’s well-funded allies at the Club for Growth are still hoping that Vance’s past attacks on Trump will still drag him down, and the group is out with a commercial that actually questions the GOP master’s choice. After old footage plays of Vance labeling himself “a Never-Trump guy,” the audience is treated to a 2018 clip announcing that Trump had endorsed Mitt Romney’s Senate campaign in Utah. “How’d that turn out?” asks one of the spot’s stars before another explains, “Look, I love Trump, but he’s getting it wrong with J.D. Vance, too.” The GOP firm Medium Buying says that the Club is putting at least $1.7 million into ads for the final week of the primary.
The Club itself also intensely opposed Trump in the 2016 primaries, though unlike Vance, it never considered supporting Hillary Clinton in the general election. The organization, like Vance and other one-time Trump critics, spent the last several years reinventing itself as all-in for MAGA, and until this month, its rehabilitation seemed to be mostly complete. As recently as April 9, Trump used a rally in North Carolina for Rep. Ted Budd, a Senate candidate both he and the Club back, to say of organization president David McIntosh, “We are undefeated when we work together.” Nevertheless, writes CNN’s Gabby Orr, there was still friction between Trump and McIntosh: In one incident, McIntosh reportedly peeved Trump by bringing along Mandel as an uninvited guest to their meeting.
But whatever detente existed collapsed just days after that North Carolina event when the Club responded to Trump’s embrace of Vance by re-airing a different ad that showcased the candidate’s past attacks on him. Trump, reported the New York Times, had an aide text McIntosh, “Go f*^% yourself” (which presumably wasn’t censored), and Orr reports the two have not communicated since then. Donald Trump Jr. has gone even further, tweeting this week, “The same pro-China group funding career politician @JoshMandelOhio spent $10 million to stop Trump in 2016 & are spending millions today to stop @JDVance1.”
The Club, though, may already have more to worry about than a few mean texts and tweets. Orr writes that the organization “is grappling with frustrated board members and donors, who worry its influence will plunge if it doesn’t quickly patch things up with Trump.” But the Club’s decision to run this new anti-Vance ad indicates its leaders aren’t in any hurry for another reconciliation.
●UT-Sen: After Democrats at the party’s state convention recently opted to support anti-Trump conservative independent Evan McMullin instead of fielding a Democratic challenger, far-right Republican Sen. Mike Lee is running a new ad claiming that he hasn’t changed since going to D.C. and is still “a conservative’s conservative” as multiple Utah GOP officeholders praise him for his “family values” and “pro-life values.”
●WI-Sen, WI-Gov: Marquette University Law School is out with new numbers from both the state’s major August primaries. In the Democratic contest to take on Republican Sen. Ron Johnson the school shows Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes leading Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry 19-16, with state Treasurer Sarah Godlewski at 7% and a large 48% plurality undecided. Back in February, Marquette had Barnes beating out Lasry by a larger 23-13 spread.
There was far less change in the GOP race to face Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, though. Former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch leads businessman Kevin Nicholson 32-10, compared to 30-8 two months ago, while state Rep. Tim Ramthun lags with 4% of the vote. Another contender, wealthy businessman Tim Michels, announced his own bid Monday after the poll was already in the field and was thus not included.
Governors
●MA-Gov: SEIU Massachusetts State Council, which represents 115,000 workers across the state, has endorsed state Attorney General Maura Healey ahead of the September Democratic primary, where Healey faces state Sen. Sonia Chang-Díaz.
●NE-Gov: The Republican firm Medium Buying caused a brief stir on Wednesday morning when it tweeted that wealthy businessman Charles Herbster had stopped airing ads with less than two weeks to go before the GOP primary, but his campaign quickly told the National Journal‘s Mary Frances McGowan that it very much was still running spots. The problem, tweets McGowan, was that “there was an issue with the wiring of the buy” that has since been fixed.
●NM-Gov: State Rep. Rebecca Dow has unveiled the first negative ad in the June GOP primary, going up with a spot that attacks former TV news meteorologist Mark Ronchetti as a “Never Trumper.” Dow’s spot plays a video clip of Ronchetti saying, “I used to be a Republican until the orange one,” and it also accuses him of being a “climate change activist” who worked with those funded by Jewish philanthropist George Soros, a common boogeyman for the far-right.
●NV-Gov: North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee has launched a commercial arguing that, despite his tough talk, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo is anything but the immigration hawk he’s positioning himself as ahead of the June GOP primary. The narrator’s claim that Lombardo “defied President Trump [by] letting Vegas become a sanctuary city, protecting criminal illegal aliens” is accompanied by a photo of Wilber Ernesto Martinez Guzman, an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador who was sentenced to life in prison for murdering four people. However, as the Nevada Independent’s Riley Snyder points out, that crime happened in northern Nevada, which is well outside Lombardo’s jurisdiction.
●OH-Gov: Fox’s new poll from the bipartisan team of Beacon Research and Shaw & Company Research shows Gov. Mike DeWine well ahead in Tuesday’s GOP primary with just a plurality of the vote because his opponents appear to be splitting the anti-incumbent vote. The governor leads former Rep. Jim Renacci 43-24, with farmer Joe Blystone taking a potentially crucial 19%. Back in early March, Fox’s survey had DeWine beating Blystone 50-21, while Renacci was in third with 18%. We’ve seen no numbers from any reliable pollsters during the intervening time.
Blystone, likely to Renacci’s chagrin, is continuing to do relatively well even though he hasn’t aired any TV or radio ads whatsoever. Renacci, who was the party’s 2018 Senate nominee against Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown, by contrast has used his personal fortune to finance his campaign, but he’s still lagged far behind DeWine in ad spending. The GOP firm Medium Buying tweeted Tuesday that the governor has swamped Renacci $4.68 million to $1.52 million, while an RGA-funded organization called Free Ohio PAC has deployed another $778,000 to aid DeWine.
Perhaps most ominous for Renacci is Trump’s utter silence about taking down DeWine. Trump went after DeWine in November of 2020 for recognizing Biden’s victory by tweeting, “Who will be running for Governor of the Great State of Ohio? Will be hotly contested!” But Trump’s interest in this race seemed to disappear along with his Twitter account, and The Plain Dealer notes that he didn’t even mention DeWine or Renacci at his recent Ohio rally for Senate candidate J.D. Vance. Renacci was at the event but didn’t even get a speaking slot while DeWine, citing a conflicting event honoring the 200th birthday of President Ulysses S. Grant, avoided Trump’s appearance altogether.
●VT-Gov: Observers widely expect Republican Gov. Phil Scott to seek a fourth two-year term, but the governor still hasn’t formally reached a decision about re-election and indicated via a spokesperson on Monday that he would wait until closer to the end of the legislative session to do so. While no noteworthy Democrat has launched a campaign against Scott so far, VTDigger has assessed the field of potential Democratic challengers and found no one seems too enthusiastic about facing the formidable incumbent
Former Lt. Gov. Doug Racine, who held office from 1997 to 2003, refused to rule out running on Monday but cast doubt on the resources and volunteers needed to run being readily attainable. State Attorney General TJ Donovan, whom VTDigger writes “is widely believed to have his sights on the governor’s office,” wouldn’t say whether he was considering opposing Scott, only promising to make his plans known “in the near future.”
Additionally, former state House Speaker Shap Smith made it clear that he would not challenge Scott if he runs again, and 2016 nominee Sue Minter said she isn’t planning on running for office this cycle and that “if Gov. Scott is running again, that it will be a difficult race to win for anybody.”
●FL-23: Hava Holzhauer, a former prosecutor who later served as a regional Anti-Defamation League director, has joined the August primary to succeed her fellow Democrat, retiring Rep. Ted Deutch. Holzhauer previously ran for the state House in 2010 but badly lost the general election during that GOP wave year.
●HI-02: State Sen. Jill Tokuda on Tuesday filed FEC paperwork for a potential bid for the House seat held by Rep. Kai Kahele, a fellow Democrat who is considering running for governor. Tokuda had been campaigning for lieutenant governor, a post she narrowly lost in the 2018 primary, but Civil Beat reports she recently dropped out of a debate for that race.
●ID-02: Bloomberg reports that a new organization called America Proud has launched a $413,000 buy against Republican Rep. Mike Simpson, which makes this the first outside spending ahead of his May 17 primary rematch against 2014 foe Bryan Smith. The spot digs up Simpson’s 2016 criticism of Trump and faults him for supporting “Pelosi’s Jan. 6 witch hunt.” The second half of the ad praises Smith as a Trump loyalist who backs term limits.
●NC-01, NC-04, OH-11, PA-12: AIPAC, a hawkish pro-Israel group that has come under widespread criticism for endorsing 37 Republicans who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 elections, is using its newly-created United Democracy Project super PAC to air ads in four Democratic primaries. Links to the ads, none of which mention Israel, are below, along with Jewish Insider’s report on the size of the buy in each contest:
The progressive group End Citizens United, meanwhile, is taking the opposite side in two of these contests by endorsing Lee as well as Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam in North Carolina’s 4th District.
Gavarone’s main intra-party foe, state Rep. Craig Riedel, previously won the endorsement of 4th District Rep. Jim Jordan, who has plenty of influence in far-right politics even though his existing turf doesn’t overlap with the new 9th: Riedel himself went up with an ad weeks ago pledging to “join Ohio’s own Jim Jordan and other true conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus to fight for what we believe.”
●WV-02: The Club for Growth isn’t letting its current estrangement from Trump (see our OH-Sen item above) stop it from running a new ad arguing that Rep. David McKinley is lying about his own pro-Trump credentials. The Club, which along with Trump backs fellow incumbent Alex Mooney in the May 10 Republican primary, claims that McKinley digitally inserted himself into a photo so it looked like he’d appeared next to Trump at a rally. The Club has spent at least $517,000 on this contest so far.
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Projected real GDP growth for the 4th quarter relative to pre-pandemic growth: 6.1%
Rank of heart disease and cancer among leading causes of death over the last year, per the CDC: #1, #2
Rank of Covid-19: #3
Number of voter fraud claims, out of 11-million votes cast, forwarded to Florida law enforcement after the 2020 election: 75
Percent chance that this has given Florida cult governor Ron DeSantis the impetus he needs to create his own Election Gestapo to intimidate and persecute Democrats: 100%
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
My favorite running story these days is the Year 2000 Problem. This is the wonderful news that come midnight Dec. 31, 1999, all computers will tick over a notch and announce that it is Jan. 1, 1900.
If you believe the most dire analyses of the consequences of this slight misunderstanding, planes will then fall from the sky, ballistic missiles will run amok, global financial markets will crash, hospital life-support systems will shut down, your microwave won’t work, your Pontiac won’t start, and in general, a fine time will be had by all.
—April, 1997
CHEERS and JEERS to schlepping through the hallowed marble halls again. Here’s a fun fact: 99.8 percent of Americans had no idea that Congress had adjourned for an extended Easter break. And here’s another fun fact: 99.9 percent of Americans have no idea that Congress is back in session.
Yes, under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi in the House and John Kennedy Jr. in a Chuck Schumer mask in the Senate, the dueling chambers are once again drafting drafts, gaveling gavels, shouting shouts and, depending on the circumstances, either flocking to or fleeing from the press with their “note pads” and “flash bulbs.” The good news: President Biden’s judicial nominees are expected to continue enjoying an easy path to confirmation. The bad news: with Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema still tragically consuming oxygen and fluids, President Biden’s legislative agenda is expected to continue going through this rigorous process:
Thankfully, the Affordable Care Act that Biden helped pass a dozen years ago includes coverage for chiropractic services. He’s gonna need ‘em.
CHEERS to predictions of doom. As Russia continues launching everything but nukes and literal kitchen sinks at Ukraine to little effect, Vladimir Putin’s allies have basically dwindled to our Republican party, Tucker Carlson, Belarus, North Korea, on-air propagandists who stand in a little circle on live Russian TV spouting shit like “Ukraine destroyed our national toilet paper reserve on orders from Satan Hitler,” and all the corrupt Russian oligarchs. Well, almost all the corrupt Russian oligarchs:
A Ukrainian oligarch who made his fortune with help from the Kremlin is now denouncing Vladimir Putin, even as he fights extradition to the U.S. on corruption charges.
Firtash is under house arrest in Austria. This is his morning wake-up call. Looks quaint, but they’re playing gangsta rap.
In an exclusive interview with NBC News while under house arrest in Austria, billionaire Dmytro Firtash said the Russian president cannot win in Ukraine. “He is never going to come out victorious,” said Firtash, who became fabulously rich selling Russian natural gas to Ukraine with the help of powerful Russian interests. “No matter what happens, Russia will lose.”
If he could, Firtash said he would tell Putin: “It’s time to stop. There will be no victory. The longer this war takes, the worse it will be for the Russian people. Not just for the Ukrainian people.”
Wow. Very candid of him to say that. But we’re still keeping his yacht. Gotta store all that Russian toilet paper for Satan Hitler somewhere.
CHEERS to #5. Happy 264th birthday to President James Monroe—the last Founding Father to occupy the White House. He creeped people out by wearing his revolution-era clothing and a powdered wig at a time when doing so was long out of style. He also told Europe and Russia to keep their paws off the west and then sucked up to the AARP by snagging Florida. And then there was this bit of insanity (From Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents by Cormac O’Brien):
Secretary of the Treasury William Crawford once came calling on the president with a stack of patronage recommendations, all of which Monroe rejected.
Monroe’s first attempt to chase Crawford from his home with puffs of air from his fireplace bellows failed to dislodge the Treasury Secretary.
Enraged, Crawford threw a temper tantrum and demanded to know whom Monroe intended to appoint; the president replied it was none of Crawford’s damn business.
Crawford snapped and actually advanced on the chief executive with his cane raised, calling Monroe a “damned infernal old scoundrel.” Monroe then stepped to the fireplace, seized a pair of fire tongs, and chased his secretary of the treasury from the Executive Mansion.
Historians call it “The night Monroe went mad.” Fox News calls it “Saturday night with Jeanine Pirro.“
CHEERS to toting the tykes. Today is the 26th Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day. It’s a time to show the kiddies how Mom and Dad’s productivity gets cranked up to the max, while their paychecks do not. What fun! I believe I speak on behalf of the entire nation when I say to children of the military personnel who control our nukes: please don’t push any blinking red buttons or turn any keys. Well, unless the code’s been authenticated, of course.
CHEERS to pigskin fever! Round 1 of the NFL draft is today. Moments after he hears the word “draft,” Ted Nugent will instinctively respond by shitting his pants.
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 28, 2012
CHEERS to something that looks really awesome on your resume. President Obama named this year’s gaggle of Medal of Freedom winners. The awards are given out for “An especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.” This year’s gaggle (click the link above for their bios) is pretty damn awesome:
Madeleine Albright, John Doar, Bob Dylan, William Foege, John Glenn, Gordon Hirabayashi, Dolores Huerta, Jan KarskiKarski, Juliette, Gordon Low (Girl Scouts founder—a sly choice), Toni Morrison, Shimon Peres, John Paul Stevens and Pat Summitt
I admit I was shocked to see that John Glenn hadn’t gotten one yet, but he’s gonna live to be 150 so what’s the rush, I guess. Besides a medal, each honoree gets a ribbon, a tie clip and a monogrammed umbrella sword. Now you know why no Medal of Freedom winner has even been mugged.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to a life well-lived…and lived…and lived. I always thought that there were only two things in life that are certain: taxes, and the endless bickering between Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy. But apparently I was lied to by adults in whom I’d put all my trust, because apparently there’s a third thing: death. And last week it struck down an innocent woman in the prime of her life:
Although she didn’t quite make it to her goal of 120 years old, Kane Tanaka still lived long enough to become the world’s oldest person—a title she held for the past three years, and attributed to family, sleep, hope and faith.
All she’s saying is give peace a chance.
Tanaka died last week at 119, Japanese authorities announced. Tanaka, who had been living at nursing home in Fukuoka, died on Tuesday at a hospital.
According to Guinness World Records, Tanaka was born prematurely on Jan. 2, 1903—the same year the Wright brothers brought powered flight to the world. She was the seventh child in her family.
When she was 19, she married Hideo Tanaka, and helped run a family business selling sticky rice, udon, and the Japanese dessert zenzai.
Doctors say she died of an acute case of being 119, but police say they plan to bring in the recently-crowned world’s newest oldest person for questioning. Neighbors report she’s doing “way too much smirking.”
Have a nice Thursday. Floor’s open…What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today’s Shameless C&J Testimonial
“I just want Cheers and Jeers to be ‘The Twilight Zone’ and all go away.”
