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President Joe Biden has done some outstanding work identifying and seating federal judges. As of Oct. 1, 14 federal circuit and district judges had been confirmed. Remarkably, this month the Senate has confirmed 11 more, with the Senate adding six more just this week. That’s the most confirmations in a president’s first term since the Nixon administration.

Biden is also making history in who he is nominating and getting confirmed. Public defenders, civil rights defenders, and non-corporate attorneys—many of whom are people of color—are being elevated to the courts in an unprecedented effort to make the judiciary look like America. He’s rightfully receiving praise, as is Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for prioritizing these votes. “Leader Schumer is doing everything you could want in terms of using floor time to quickly confirm President Biden’s nominees, as well as in recommending professionally diverse nominees for New York-based judgeships,” Brian Fallon, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Demand Justice, told Reuters. But that doesn’t mean all is well in the Senate when it comes to nominations.

Because this: “Out of [the] 38 district court nominations, 35 have come in states with two Democratic senators. The only exceptions are the three Ohio nominations announced last month.” That’s because Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin is maintaining the “blue slip” tradition for district-level judges, and Republicans aren’t playing along.

The Senate tradition, from days of yore when the Senate was a place where members felt like they had to fulfill their constitutional duty, was for the president to collaborate with senators on nominations from their home states. When the White House and the senators had agreed on a nominee, the senators would indicate they were ready to advance that nominee with a form printed on blue paper, aka a blue slip. The tradition has come and gone in the past few decades, pretty much depending on who is president and who controls the Senate.

Basically, Democrats have respected the tradition and Republicans have thrown it out the window. Under President Barack Obama, Republicans boycotted the process while Democrats were in control, and simply didn’t return their blue slips. While Democratic Sen. Pat Leahy was in charge, that worked. He honored the courtesy of blue slips and so didn’t bring nominees to committee from those states. That left a lot of vacancies for Trump to fill, and with Trump in the White House and Republicans in control, of course they abandoned the blue slip process for the really important courts—appeals courts—and packed them.

So far, that’s what Durbin is doing, honoring blue slips for district judges and ignoring them for appeals court positions and so far that’s working okay—they can get a lot of good people in those district court positions. And they have been! But there are a lot of district court vacancies in Republican states, too, that are going to have to be filled eventually and the sooner, the better.

“The White House strategy up to this point has been low-hanging fruit,” Jill Dash, vice president of strategic engagement at liberal legal organization the American Constitution Society, told Sam Mellins at Balls and Strikes, a newsletter produced by Demand Justice. “There’s a lot of work to do on judicial nominations before we get to any pitched battles.”

The White House and Senate can point to what they’ve accomplished thus far and be rightfully proud of it. It’s a fantastic achievement, particularly because of the backgrounds of the judges that are being seated. The problem for the country, though, is that they’re only covering half the states. The rest of the states, even the red ones, deserve to have the same diversity on their courts as the blue states.

Faudlin Pierre, a Miami-based civil rights attorney who practices in federal court, told Mellins how important it is to have a judge who has experience in public defense or civil rights. “It matters when you’re in practice, because they see the world a different way,” he said. “When it’s a close call, judges, like any other human being, go with their biases. They go with their life experiences. That’s why we need to have a more diverse judiciary.”

That’s better for the residents of those states, but it’s also better overall to help dilute the power of conservative-packed higher courts. The cases that reach the appeals courts come from those district courts, after all. “You need good intellectually competent judges to set the stage for the Eleventh Circuit,” Pierre said, referring to the conservative appeals court covering Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, where he works. “You need people at the bottom to say, ‘Here’s the roadmap and here’s the reasoning why you should affirm [the district court’s decision].’” Seven of the 13 appeals courts have majority Republican appointees now, after the Trump/McConnell court-packing scheme.

The Biden administration has also been trying to find nominees that Republicans will agree to, according to Dash. That means the administration is “not putting the same kinds of nominees in red or purple states as in blue states.” Again, back to Florida and Pierre.

Recent developments in Florida, which is represented in the Senate by two Republicans, demonstrate how Republican obstruction can warp the nomination process. A commission led by Florida’s congressional Democrats drew up a list of potential nominees for two open district court judgeships in the state; a separate commission led by Republican Senator Marco Rubio drew up its own list in opposition. There were two common names between the lists: Detra Shaw-Wilder, a corporate lawyer, and David Liebowitz, a former federal prosecutor whose billionaire uncle is a major Rubio donor—hardly the stuff of progressive dreams.

Right now those nominees from Florida are at an impasse, and Pierre is frustrated. “There’s been nothing. And I’m just like, ‘Hey, we’re important too,’” he said. “I don’t think that the administration appreciates the sense of urgency that we on the ground feel. […] This has to be a multi-front attack,” Pierre said. “We need people at the front lines who can intellectually combat the nonsense that comes from the other end.”

That means ditching blue slips and getting as many good, diverse judges in all the vacancies as possible, as soon as possible. There are no guarantees about Biden having a Senate majority to confirm his nominees come November 2022.

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While 2021 is an off-year for much of the country, we still have plenty of exciting races to watch on Tuesday. The biggest action will be in Virginia, where Democrats are hoping to keep their hard-won gains in this onetime swing state by holding the governorship, House of Delegates, and other statewide posts. We also have several important contests in major cities and counties across the country, as well as statewide elections in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. 

What follows is an hour-by-hour guide to Tuesday’s most interesting and competitive contests, organized by poll closing times. Please note that all times are Eastern. All mayoral races discussed below are for four-year terms unless otherwise noted.

7 p.m. ET: Florida, Georgia, New Hampshire, Virginia

• FL-20: Veteran Democratic Rep. Alcee Hastings died in April, spawning a very crowded Democratic primary to succeed him in South Florida’s safely blue 20th District. Whoever wins a plurality of the vote will have no trouble in the Jan. 11 special election, which Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis scheduled to take place nine months after Hastings’ death, effectively doubling the length the seat will remain vacant compared to other recent Florida specials.

The field includes five sitting elected officials: state Sen. Perry Thurston; state Reps. Bobby DuBose and Omari Hardy; and Broward County Commissioners Dale Holness and Barbara Sharief. The top spender by far, though, is businesswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who badly lost primary challenges to Hastings in both 2018 and 2020 but is pouring millions of her own money into her latest campaign. There’s been very little outside spending, though, and there’s no polling to indicate which candidate might be favored.

• Hialeah, FL Mayor: Five candidates are competing in the officially nonpartisan open-seat race to lead the conservative Miami-area community of Hialeah, and if no one takes a majority of the vote, a runoff will take place Nov. 16.

Steve Bovo, a former Miami-Dade County commissioner who lost last year’s general election for county mayor, has the backing of Donald Trump and other Florida Republican bigwigs like Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Marco Rubio, and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart. Bovo’s main foe appears to be a fellow conservative, former City Council President Isis Garcia-Martinez. The two have agreed on most issues, though Garcia-Martinez has emphasized her disapproval with DeSantis’ lax handling of the pandemic.

• St. Petersburg, FL Mayor: Rick Kriseman’s 2013 victory made him the first Democrat to hold St. Petersburg’s officially nonpartisan mayoralty in decades, and it looks like his party will hang on to the post now that Kriseman is termed out. Former Pinellas County Commissioner Ken Welch, who would be the city’s first Black mayor, outpaced Republican City Councilman Robert Blackmon 39-28 in the August primary, and recent numbers from St. Pete Polls show the Democrat ahead 55-39.

• Atlanta, GA Mayor: Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms shocked Atlanta in May when she announced she wouldn’t seek a second term, prompting several fellow Democrats to launch campaigns to succeed her in the city’s nonpartisan primary. In the all-but-certain event that no one wins a majority in this crowded race, a runoff will take place Nov. 30. 

The most prominent candidate is former Mayor Kasim Reed, who was termed out of office four years ago but is now free to run again. However, while he easily won his second term in 2013, his rivals have argued he should take responsibility for a huge corruption scandal that has resulted in the indictment and conviction of several Reed administration officials. (Reed’s attorneys say that federal prosecutors told them their client is no longer a target of their investigations.)

The field also includes City Council President Felicia Moore and self-funding attorney Sharon Gay, who were both running against Bottoms before she retired, as well as City Councilmen Andre Dickens and Antonio Brown—who, like Reed, entered the race after the mayor said she’d depart. Most polls conducted during the summer showed Reed and Moore advancing to a runoff, but there’s little recent data.

• Manchester, NH Mayor: Mayor Joyce Craig, the Democrat who leads the most populous city in swingy New Hampshire, faces a rematch against former state Rep. Victoria Sullivan, her Republican opponent from 2019, in her quest for a third two-year term as mayor of Manchester. Craig beat Sullivan 57-43 two years ago, an outcome that closely mirrored the results of that year’s nonpartisan primary, but things could be closer this time: Craig led with 52% in the September primary, while Sullivan and another Republican scored a combined 47%.

• VA-Gov: The Old Dominion is the only state left that bars governors from seeking a second consecutive term, so as we do every four years, we once again have a closely watched open-seat race for Virginia’s top job. Joe Biden’s 54-44 victory last year gave Democrats lots of optimism about former Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s prospects of regaining his old job, but almost every poll shows him locked in a tight race against his Republican foe, self-funder Glenn Youngkin.

Youngkin has focused heavily on attacking McAuliffe over schools, while the ex-governor has sought to link his opponent to Donald Trump. A McAuliffe victory in the race to succeed Gov. Ralph Northam would give Team Blue its third straight term in this office, while Youngkin would be the first Republican to prevail statewide in any race since the 2009 GOP sweep.

• VA-AG, VA-LG: Democrats are trying to hold Virginia’s other two statewide offices as well, and polls likewise find things close. Attorney General Mark Herring, the only incumbent on the statewide ballot, faces a challenge from Republican Del. Jason Miyares in his quest for a third term.

The race for lieutenant governor pits Democratic Del. Hala Ayala against former Del. Winsome Sears, who served one term in the legislature almost two decades ago; either would be the first woman of color elected statewide. This post—which is open because Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax waged an unsuccessful bid for governor—is of particular importance in Virginia because the lieutenant governor can break ties in the state Senate, where Democrats have just a narrow 21-19 advantage (the Senate isn’t up for election again until 2023).

• VA State House: Democrats won control of Virginia’s House of Delegates for the first time in two decades in 2019, but now they need to defend their 55-45 majority. Because the Census Bureau was unable to supply the data needed for redistricting in time, elections for all 100 seats will take place under the same court-ordered map that was first used two years ago. We’ve put together this guide to help you keep track of all the key contests.

7:30 p.m. ET: Ohio

• OH-11, OH-15: Special general elections will take place in two Ohio congressional seats, one held by each party, but there isn’t likely to be much suspense in either race. The Cleveland-area 11th District backed Biden 80-19, and Cuyahoga County Councilwoman Shontel Brown’s come-from-behind win in the August Democratic primary makes her the overwhelming favorite to succeed Marcia Fudge, who resigned to become Biden’s secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

The 15th District, which includes the ​​southern Columbus area and Athens, is nominally more competitive at Trump 56-42, but this gerrymandered district is still very one-sided turf. Aided by a Trump endorsement, coal company lobbyist Mike Carey won the Republican primary to replace Steve Stivers, who left the House to lead the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, and it would be a shock if he were to lose to Democratic state Rep. Allison Russo.

• Cincinnati, OH Mayor: Two Democrats are competing in the nonpartisan race to succeed termed-out Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley: Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Aftab Pureval, who lost a competitive 2018 race against Republican Rep. Steve Chabot in the 1st Congressional District, and City Councilman David Mann, a longtime local political figure who lost his 1994 bid for re-election to Congress to none other than Chabot. Pureval, who would be the first Asian American to lead the Queen City, outpaced Mann 39-29 in the May primary and earned an endorsement in September from Sen. Sherrod Brown.

• Cleveland, OH Mayor: Incumbent Frank Jackson is retiring after 16 years as mayor of Cleveland and backing City Council President Kevin Kelley as his successor, but Kelley faces a tough contest against a fellow Democrat. Nonprofit head Justin Bibb, who is a first-time candidate, edged out Kelley 27-19 in the September nonpartisan primary and went on to pick up the support of Sen. Sherrod Brown.

8 p.m. ET: Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania

• Boston, MA Mayor: The nonpartisan general election for mayor of Boston is a contest between two city councilors, either of whom would be both the first woman and person of color elected to this post: Michelle Wu, who is campaigning as a progressive, and Annissa Essaibi George, a more moderate contender who is arguing that Wu’s proposals are unrealistic. Wu led Essaibi George 33-22 in September, and a trio of polls released in October gave her massive leads ranging from 25 to 32 points. The election turned into an open-seat affair after Acting Mayor Kim Janey (who assumed the job in March when Mayor Marty Walsh became Biden’s labor secretary) finished fourth in September.

• NJ-Gov: New Jersey’s hosting the only other governor’s race on Tuesday’s ballot, but unlike in Virginia, there isn’t likely to be much suspense. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy is facing off against former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli in a state Biden won 57-41, and the few polls that have been released have usually shown the incumbent well ahead. Thanks to his allies, Murphy has also enjoyed a huge spending advantage.

• NJ Legislature: Democrats hold a comfortable 52-28 advantage in the state Assembly and a 25-15 majority in the Senate, and there’s no question that Team Blue will keep control in both chambers. There are, however, some competitive races throughout the state. (As in Virginia, the elections are being held under the old district lines due to the delay in receiving census data.) Democrats are trying to flip several North Jersey seats that swung to the left during the Trump era, while the GOP is hoping to hold its own in the suburbs and make gains in constituencies that moved in the opposite direction.

• PA Supreme Court: Democrats have a 5-2 edge on the Supreme Court in swingy Pennsylvania, and they’re trying to flip another seat to expand their majority. Republicans desperately don’t want that to happen, and they’ve poured $3 million to support Kevin Brobson, a judge on the state’s Commonwealth Court. Democrats, likewise, have spent $2 million to aid Superior Court Judge Maria McLaughlin. In particular, the court has great sway over redistricting: The justices invalidated the GOP’s congressional gerrymander in 2018, and they pick the tiebreaking member of the state’s legislative redistricting commission.

• Bucks County, PA District Attorney & Sheriff: Democrats in the populous battleground of Bucks County, situated in the Philadelphia suburbs, are hoping former prosecutor Antonetta Stancu will unseat District Attorney Matt Weintraub, who is the one Republican left who holds a so-called “row office,” the local name for the countywide offices other than the commissioner.

Republicans, likewise, are targeting the row offices they lost in the historic 2017 Democratic wave, with their most prominent target being the sheriff’s post. That race pits Warrington Township Board of Supervisors member Mark Lomax, who decisively unseated incumbent Milt Warrell in the May Democratic primary, against Fred Harran, the Republican who is Bensalem Township’s director of public safety.

Stancu and Lomax, who have been campaigning together, have both sought to pre-empt GOP attempts to label them as opponents of the police. In one commercial starring the two Democrats, Lomax declared, “We know to fight crime, we must fund the police.” Bucks County has supported the Democratic presidential nominee in every election from 1992 on, but it’s not reliably blue turf further down the ballot: While Biden carried it 52-47, local Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick won both Bucks County and the entire 1st Congressional District 57-43 that same night.

• Erie County, PA Executive: The race to succeed retiring Democratic incumbent Kathy Dahlkemper in the northwest Pennsylvania county of Erie, which flipped from 48-46 Trump to 50-49 Biden, pits Democrat Tyler Titus against Republican Brenton Davis. Titus, who would be the first trans county executive in American history, has enjoyed a fundraising edge over their opponent.

9 p.m. ET: Minnesota, New Mexico, New York

• Minneapolis, MN Mayor: Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey faces a crowded field of fellow Democrats in a nonpartisan election that will be decided in an instant runoff if no one earns a majority. The incumbent has faced vocal criticism for his handling of the direct fallout of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, but he enjoys a big financial advantage over the rest of the field. 

Frey’s two most prominent opponents appear to be activist Sheila Nezhad and former state Rep. Kate Knuth. The two both received an endorsement from Rep. Ilhan Omar, the nationally known progressive who represents the entire city in the House, and they’ve each encouraged their supporters to rank the other as their second choice. Also in the running are 2020 City Council candidate AJ Awed and attorney Clint Conner. 

The only poll we’ve seen was an ALG Research survey released by a pro-Frey group about a week ahead of the election that showed Frey outpacing Nezhad 44-25, with 10% going to Knuth. The firm then found Frey beating Nezhad 47-27 after simulating the instant runoff process.

• Minneapolis, MN Ballot: Minneapolis voters will also be presented with two ballot questions that could dramatically change how government functions in Minnesota’s largest city. Question 1 would greatly strengthen the mayor’s executive powers by, among other things, “consolidating administrative authority over all operating departments.” Currently, Minneapolis operates under a so-called weak-mayor system, wherein the mayor acts in concert with the city council to run the city.

The more high-profile ballot issue is Question 2, which would replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a Department of Public Safety, and shift more control of the department to the city council. This issue, which seems to have drawn more attention than the mayoral race, has divided high-profile Minnesota Democrats. In support are Rep. Ilhan Omar and state Attorney General Keith Ellison, who argue that the current setup prevents much-needed changes to the police department. Opposing Question 2 are Gov. Tim Walz, Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, and Mayor Jacob Frey, who say that, while police reform is essential, this plan isn’t the right way to go about it.

• Albuquerque, NM Mayor: Democratic Mayor Tim Keller is hoping to secure the majority of the vote in Tuesday’s nonpartisan race that would allow him to avoid a runoff in his quest to run Albuquerque for a second term.

Keller’s main opponent is Bernalillo County Sheriff Manny Gonzales, a self-described “strong fiscal conservative” who remains a nominal Democrat. Gonzales has been trying to use the city’s high crime rate—a perennial issue in local politics—to argue that Keller doesn’t deserve re-election. However, Gonzales’ campaign attracted months of negative attention after the city clerk denied him public financing due to suspected fraud. Also in the running is Republican Eddy Aragon, a conservative radio host who has raised little.

A late-September survey, from the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling on behalf of the local site The Paper, had Keller just short of a majority at 47%, with Gonzales far back at 21%. A more recent poll from Research & Polling Inc. for the Albuquerque Journal, though, had Keller beating the sheriff 53-20.

• NY Ballot: New Yorkers will have the chance to vote on several constitutional amendments concerning elections and voting that were placed on the ballot by the Democratic state legislature. Proposal 1 would reduce the threshold for lawmakers to approve a redistricting plan from a supermajority to a simple majority. Proposal 3 would allow the legislature to create a same-day voter registration law, which Democratic leaders say they’d go forward with if the amendment passes. Proposal 4, finally, would remove the excuse requirement to vote absentee, which was waived temporarily last year due to the pandemic.

• Buffalo, NY Mayor: Activist and nurse India Walton scored a shocking win in the June Democratic primary against four-term Mayor Byron Brown in Buffalo, but Brown is running a well-funded write-in campaign to try to keep his job as leader of New York’s second-largest city.

Walton, a self-described socialist who is the only candidate actually listed on the ballot, is continuing to argue that the incumbent has failed to “make things better” during his long tenure in office. The challenger earned the backing of Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand late in the race, though other high-profile Empire State Democrats, including Gov. Kathy Hochul, have stayed neutral.

Brown, for his part, has aired ads starring police officers claiming that Walton’s plans would result in huge layoffs for the force, a charge she vehemently denies. Brown’s campaign has also focused on Walton’s 2014 arrest after a dispute with a co-worker, which eventually resulted in a judge ordering Walton to stay away from her colleague for six months. Walton has said she was a victim of her co-worker’s bullying.

• Syracuse, NY Mayor: Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh, an independent, faces a two-fold challenge from Democratic nominee Khalid Bey, a longtime member of the Syracuse Common Council, as well as Republican Janet Burman. Biden carried this city 77-21, but Walsh has a huge fundraising advantage over Bey.

• Nassau County, NY District Attorney & Executive: New York Democrats are defending the offices of district attorney and county executive in Nassau County, a populous region on Long Island that backed Biden 54-45 but is often friendly turf for Republicans down the ballot.

The more competitive of the two races appears to be the special D.A. election to succeed Madeline Singas, a Democrat who resigned to join the state’s highest judicial body. Democratic state Sen. Todd Kaminsky, a nephew of comedy legend Mel Brooks, has outraised prosecutor Anne Donnelly, a Republican who has campaigned almost exclusively on her opposition to ending cash bail and other criminal justice reforms. The winner will be up again in 2023.

The contest for executive, meanwhile, is a clash between Democratic incumbent Laura Curran and Hempstead Councilman Bruce Blakeman, a longtime local Republican politico. We haven’t seen any surveys of either race, but state Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs said in early October that his internal polling showed Kaminsky only “slightly ahead” even as Curran led by at least 10 points. The local Republican Party seems to agree that the D.A. race is much closer, as it’s sent twice as much money to boost Donnelly as it has for Blakeman.

• Suffolk County, NY District Attorney: While Suffolk County, which gave Trump a 232-vote margin of victory last year, is the more conservative of Long Island’s two counties, the race between Democratic incumbent Timothy Sini and Republican prosecutor Ray Tierney hasn’t attracted nearly as much outside attention as its counterpart next door. Still, Tierney is hoping that his own opposition to bail reform will help him overcome his big cash disadvantage. Sini, for his part, also says he’s against bail reform.

• Staten Island, NY Borough President: Most races in New York City, including the mayoral contest, will be easy wins for the Democrats, but even a very flawed candidate might not be enough to cost the Republicans control of an office they’ve held for three decades. Team Red’s nominee for Staten Island borough president is former Rep. Vito Fossella, a Republican who retired from Congress after the public learned about his secret second family in 2008. The Democrats are fielding Mark Murphy, who unsuccessfully ran for the House in 2012. Also in the running is Conservative Party candidate Leticia Remauro, who lost the June GOP primary.

Fossella only received matching funds from the city just before Election Day after previously being denied them for failing to disclose necessary financial details. Still, despite his high-profile fall over a decade ago, he could be tough to beat in a borough that supported Trump 57-42.

11 p.m. ET: Washington

• Seattle, WA Mayor: With Mayor Jenny Durkin not seeking a second term in deep-blue Seattle, the nonpartisan general election to replace her pits two major political factions against one another. Former City Council President Bruce Harrell is close to business interests, while most labor endorsements have gone to his successor, Lorena González.

Harrell edged out González by a small 34-32 margin in August, but most polls have given him a decided edge heading into the general election. González also had to pull a commercial in the final week of the campaign that accused her opponent of having “repeatedly sided with abusers.” Harrell, who is Black, argued the spot deployed racist stereotypes about him and disputed the facts behind the commercial.

• King County, WA Executive: King County Executive Dow Constantine faces state Sen. Joe Nguyen, a fellow Democrat, in the nonpartisan race to lead King County, Washington’s most populous county and the home of Seattle. Nguyen has argued that the county’s leaders had been too slow to deal with vital issues like racial wealth gaps, criminal justice reform, and homelessness. The incumbent, though, outpaced Nguyen 52-33 in the August primary.

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It has been three months since the Jan. 6 committee has held a public hearing unpacking the events of that violent day, but in private, a flurry of work continues as an individual charged with breaching the U.S. Capitol is on tap to cooperate.

When reached for comment by Daily Kos, Heather Shaner, the attorney for the individual being interviewed by the committee on Friday remotely, would not disclose the identity of the person testifying but did confirm Politico’s initial reporting.

Remarking on why this deposition with a defendant is happening, Shaner said: “If I am an American citizen and if I had any personal knowledge that would help the committee, it is my responsibility to give them that information.”

“And if I have contacts, whether they are friends or people who have contacted me or my clients who have information relevant to what happened on Jan. 6 and they are willing to give that information to the investigators, it’s my job to facilitate that,” she said.

Turning to testimony from individuals who engaged in the Capitol attack for months now, the committee is quietly piecing together evidence related to the planning and organizing of the breach as well as the role former President Donald Trump had in summoning his supporters to Washington.

“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” Trump tweeted on Dec. 20.

Not limited to the Capitol assault, the committee is also carefully assessing how the former president’s false claims of election fraud manifested inside of the White House, and how close allies, like former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino—both already subpoenaed by the committee—may have played a role in attempting to subvert the electoral process.

While Friday’s testimony with the unidentified defendant unfolded, a previously scheduled meeting with Amy and Kylie Kremer, the founder and co-founder of the pro-Trump Women for America First organization, was put on hold. It is unclear when either Kremer will be called back and a spokesperson for the committee did not immediately return a request for comment.

Also postponed was deposition from Jeffrey Clark who, just 24 hours before his meeting with lawmakers, split with his attorney, Robert Driscoll, a former deputy assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice who now works for the Washington firm McGlinchey Stafford, leading their white collar and government investigations board.

Notably, Shaner also said Friday she has forwarded to the committee another source who may prove useful to investigators. That source is not one of her clients, however. Politico reported that this individual “claimed to have information related to associates of Alex Jones, the far-right broadcaster who helped promote pro-Trump election conspiracy theories.”

In the vein of remote hearings, or in this case, a lack thereof, less than 24 hours ago at the nearby U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, District Judge Trevor McFadden took a strict stance on a request from Jan. 6 defendants and Florida residents Dana Winn and Rachael Pert.

Both Winn and Pert were initially hit with five charges, including unlawful entry to a restricted building and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. They were also charged with obstruction of Congress, but that was dropped as a part of their respective plea agreements. The Florida couple self-surrendered to the FBI; court records disclosed it was one of Pert’s coworkers at a convenience store who tipped off law enforcement about her involvement. The coworker recognized Pert in a wanted flyer displaying many of the intruders to the Capitol.

Winn and Pert were scheduled for sentencing on Dec. 20—incidentally, exactly one year to the day Trump announced the impending “Big protest” in Washington on Twitter—and requested the hearing be held virtually because of the cost they would incur traveling from Florida to Washington. The request was unopposed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Regan.

“Both defendants work full-time, however their respective incomes and other assets are such as they both qualified for court-appointed counsel in this case,” defense attorney Allen Orenberg wrote in the request. “Furthermore, Ms. Pert is a single parent to two minor children, aged 10 and 7, who live at home with her. Consequently, it will be a significant financial burden on both defendants if they are required to travel to/from Middleburg, Florida to Washington, D.C.”

Orenberg also cited as a burden: the costs of a hotel in Washington for a single night, childcare while they are away, and the levy of $500 in restitution that they and all Jan. 6 defendants pleading guilty to a misdemeanor crime are expected to fork over. The restitution is aimed at defraying the $1.5 million in damage done to the Capitol.

But McFadden was having none of it, writing in his order: “Defendants found the means to travel to Washington, D.C. to commit the crime to which they have plead guilty. Defendants can therefore find the means to return to Washington, D.C. to be held accountable for this crime.”

McFadden is not the only judge in Washington who appears to have little patience of late. On Thursday, District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell ripped into Justice Department prosecutors as “almost schizophrenic” during her first sentencing of a Jan. 6 defendant.

The dig, first reported by The Washington Post, was related to the disparity Howell purportedly observed between how U.S. prosecutors have described the insurrection and how they have so far compiled plea agreements for defendants.

“No wonder parts of the public in the U.S. are confused about whether what happened on Jan. 6 at the Capitol was simply a petty offense of trespassing with some disorderliness, or shocking criminal conduct that represented a grave threat to our democratic norms,” Judge Howell wrote. “Let me make my view clear: The rioters were not mere protesters.”

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The recent exposure of the Oath Keepers’ membership through hacked data revealed a great deal about their spread—both within the ranks of law enforcement and among elected officials. But the underlying story contained therein goes beyond the relative handful of examples at hand: Namely, how deeply right-wing extremist ideology, particularly the far-right “patriot” movement, has penetrated mainstream American society at multiple levels.

The normalization of this brand of extremism is reflected in the refusal by the large majority of the people exposed as Oath Keepers to acknowledge the organization’s violent extremism—as manifested by its critical role in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, for which the mountain of evidence has grown so large that it has forced a delay in the conspirators’ trial—let alone repudiate it. Most of them either blame leftists for the violence, or minimize it.

One examination of the data, by Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson, found that dozens of the people applying to join the Oath Keepers over the past year have done so while using government email addresses. Their review uncovered some 40 memberships associated with public-sector work emails, including such domains as nasa.gov, dmv.virginia.gov, and city.pittsburgh.pa.us.

ProPublica’s review of the data identified 48 state and local government officials among the Oath Keepers membership, all Republicans. Among them were county commissioners in Indiana, Arizona, and North Carolina; 10 sitting state lawmakers; sheriffs or constables in Montana, Texas, and Kentucky; and a smorgasbord of other elective officials or Republican Party candidates.

Their denial that the Oath Keepers represent a violent far-right ideology was a constant refrain among those who were contacted by reporters. Joe Marmorato, a retired New York City police officer, told ProPublica: “I just thought they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing. I know most of them are all retired police and firemen and have the best interests of the country in mind,” adding: “No matter what you do, you’re vilified by the left.”

Don Dwyer, a former Republican state delegate from Maryland, said: “I still support the cause. And I’m proud to say that I’m a member of that organization.”

He told ProPublica that he was unaware of any Oath Keepers presence at the Capitol on Jan. 6. “If they were there, they were there on a peaceful mission, I’m sure of it,” he said. When their key role in invading the Capitol while wearing tactical gear was explained to him, Dwyer responded: “OK, that surprises me. That’s all I’ll say.”

One of the Oath Keepers identified in the membership data is Edward Durfee, who was seen outside the Capitol talking with group leaders and wearing an earpiece; he did not enter the building and has not been charged. Durfee is a local GOP committee member in Bergen County, New Jersey, currently running in a predominantly Democratic district for a seat in the state assembly. Durfee has not been charged and said he did not enter the building.

Durfee was the subject of a somewhat airbrushed profile in The New York Times, which examined his unrepentant embrace of the Oath Keepers while seeking office. He claimed that he drove from New Jersey to Washington on Jan. 6 to assist with an Oath Keeper security detail. “We weren’t enforcers,” Durfee said. “We were just there as eyes.”

He added: “It just morphed into something and got out of control. It’s just shameful.”

However, the story also noted that Durfee had been in close contact with Oath Keepers leadership during the runup to the insurrection, including a videoconference with Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers founder, and dozens of other members 10 days after the 2020 election, (A leaked recording of the call was released by Unicorn Riot, an alternative journalists’ collective site.)

During the conversation, Durfee had urged moderation: In the recording, he could be heard urging people to “show the respect that we have for our country and our Constitution.”

“We’re not coming down there with fisticuffs, unless, you know,” he said.

But the full context of that conversation is important: By that point, Rhodes—who earlier that summer had declared all-out “civil war” and urged Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act against “antifa”—had already gone on Alex Jones’ Infowars program and urged Trump to invoke the same act in the wake of the “stolen election.”

Rhodes told Jones that, in support of Trump, “we have men already stationed outside D.C. as a nuclear option in case they attempt to remove the president illegally, we will step in and stop it,” and emphasized that these men are “armed” and “prepared to go in, if the president calls us up.” In some post-election chats, Oath Keepers talked among themselves about killing members of the media.

On the Nov. 13, 2020, videoconference call in which Durfee participated, Rhodes told the group of 50 men: “I’m telling you straight up, guys, if he doesn’t drop the hammer on this communist insurrection, we are going to end up fighting a bloody civil war in this country to defeat them. Horrific. More of us are going to die.”

“I think regardless that’s going to happen,” a member offered.

“Well, sure,” Rhodes said. “But it’s better to fight it while he’s Commander-in-Chief. We’re not going to get out of this without a fight, that’s a friggin’ fact.”

Durfee was also interviewed by ProPublica, and he was more bluntly unrepentant about the Oath Keepers. “They were caught up in the melee, what else can I say? For whatever reason, I didn’t go in,” Durfee said. “They brand you as white supremacists, domestic terrorists. I don’t know how we got in this mix where there’s so much hatred and so much dislike and how it continues to get fomented. It’s just shameful actually.”

This extremism is also being condoned by Republican party officials. A local GOP chair in Minnesota’s Beltrami County, Rich Siegert, told ProPublica that he supported a local candidate, Steven K. Booth, not merely in spite of his Oath Keepers membership, but because of it. “When tyranny comes, that’s when you stop and say you’ve got to do something about it,” said Siegert. “To go out and get violent and kill people like they did in the early days, I’m not really in favor of that. How do you get the attention of liberals and get them to listen? Firing guns, I don’t know, it’s what they do in some countries. Define what ‘radical’ is.”

The New York Times spoke to at least one Republican—Roy Sokoloski, a New Jersey ex-councilman who helps recruit local candidates—who saw the problems with such candidates as Edward Durfee.

“He’s the worst candidate that the Republicans could have endorsed,” Sokoloski said. “If the Republican Party can only find people like that, what does that say about the party?”

Mother Jones observed the same kind of mainstream infiltration by the Oath Keepers in its review of the hacked data, and set about examining how the organization was able to spread so readily by reading through the emails’ contents. One of its primary conclusions is that social media, particularly Facebook, plays a central in providing a platform for their “patriot” movement conspiracism to readily spread—confirming previous studies showing a similar effect for the far right generally. Facebook was joiners’ most frequently cited source for having first heard about the Oath Keepers.

It also noted that certain right-wing media outlets and figures, notably Jones and Infowars—on whose show Rhodes has appeared repeatedly—play key roles in spreading the extremism; Jones is mentioned over 900 times. More mainstream outlets and figures also play central roles: Fox and Fox News show up 526 times, while Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly appear nearly 300 times.

The Oath Keepers are also able to spread by associations with related communities, including “Three Percent” militias and the disaster “prepper” universe.

The data also illustrates longstanding cross-pollination between the militia and prepper communities. Rhodes has pandered to survivalists, according to the Anti-Defamation League, calling them awake and aware, and claiming their self-reliance makes them a threat to the government. Nearly 130 people mentioned coming to the Oath Keepers through the Survivalist Prepper podcast, where Rhodes made two 2011 appearances. Another 40 cited 299 Days, a series of novels about preppers surviving an end-times scenario where Oath Keepers are imagined to play a key role. Another 50 mentioned finding the group through various websites, magazines, conventions, and other venues related to the prepper movement.

The Oath Keepers, of course, are not the only organization spreading their extremist ideology within the halls of public authorities. Another “patriot” movement outfit, the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), has enjoyed disturbing levels of success in recruiting law-enforcement officers around the country into their nonsensical “constitutionalist” approach to the law.

Mother Jones reported this week that the CSPOA’s Richard Mack is currently giving training sessions to law-enforcement officers in Texas, with the blessing and sponsorship of the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement. Another ten states including Virginia, Montana, and South Carolina, Mack says, have signed up for similar trainings. Texas’ attorney general, Ken Paxton, spoke at a CSPOA gathering in October.

“There is a huge problem already with hate groups organizing within law enforcement,” Jonathan Smith, executive director of the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, told Mother Jones. “We’ve seen repeated waves of it in the past 10 years, with the recruitment of law enforcement officers on the internet. For this to move from the sort of the dark corners of the internet to officially sanctioned trainings from one of the largest states is really frightening in my view.”

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Leading Off

● New York: Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul has signed a law that aims to ban gerrymandering in elections for county legislatures across the state. The new law requires that mapmakers follow several nonpartisan criteria, including that districts be compact and that they “not be drawn to discourage competition or for the purpose of favoring or disfavoring incumbents or other particular candidates or political parties.”

The law applies to the 23 of New York’s 62 counties that have their own county charters and therefore use a county legislature system, which covers nearly half of the state’s population (the rest are either small upstate counties where town supervisors serve as the county’s lawmakers or the five boroughs that make up New York City, whose City Council already has nonpartisan redistricting requirements in place). We have published a spreadsheet showing which counties will be affected along with statistics showing which party controls county government and how each county voted in recent statewide elections.

Of particular note, the new law could have a considerable impact on three major urban and suburban counties that consistently lean Democratic in statewide elections and have elected Democratic office-holders countywide but have Republican legislative majorities in part due to gerrymandering. Those counties include Nassau, a populous Long Island suburb just east of New York City, along with Monroe and Onondaga in Upstate New York, which are home to Rochester and Syracuse, respectively. Collectively, those three counties are home to 2.6 million residents or roughly one-eighth of the state’s population.

Redistricting

● Alabama: A joint committee in Alabama’s Republican-run legislature advanced new congressional and legislative gerrymanders, which would maintain the GOP’s large majorities and continue to limit representation for Black voters, in a series of party-line votes on Tuesday ahead of a special session that began on Thursday. The maps were not posted on the legislature’s site until after the vote; they were made public beforehand only because state Rep. Chris England, who is also chair of the state Democratic Party, posted copies on Twitter.​

Campaign Action

​The GOP’s congressional map would retain six Republican seats and one majority-Black Democratic district, the 7th, though since the state’s population is about two-sevenths African American, it could easily sustain a second Black district. It’s a certainty, however, that Republicans would not draw such a district, and it’s unlikely that the extremely conservative federal judiciary would find that the Voting Rights Act requires them to do so in a lawsuit filed last month seeking to compel such a district.

● Arizona: Arizona’s independent redistricting commission has unanimously voted to adopt draft maps for Congress and the state legislature (both the state Senate and House use the same district lines), setting off a 30-day period for public comments. Commissioners plan to give final approval to new maps by Dec. 22 after incorporating public feedback over the next several weeks. You can find data files for the new maps here, and we have also uploaded the congressional map to Dave’s Redistricting App, which has partisan and racial statistics.

The new congressional map in particular scrambles both the district numbers and the partisan composition of several districts when compared to the current map (one of several criteria requires commissioners to consider competitiveness). Three Democrats and two Republicans would see their districts become considerably more competitive. While the map preserves the current two Latino-majority seats held by Democratic Reps. Raúl Grijalva and Ruben Gallego, it would make it harder for Native American voters, who are a solidly Democratic constituency, to elect their prefered candidates in a district currently held by Democratic Rep. Tom O’Halleran.

We also took a more detailed look at how the new map will affect several districts and incumbents in our other newsletter, the Daily Digest.

● Iowa, Illinois: Both chambers of Iowa’s Republican-controlled legislature have almost-unanimously voted to approve the new congressional and legislative maps proposed by the state’s nonpartisan redistricting agency, sending them to Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds for her signature. Although a number of counties would be moved to different congressional districts, the new map roughly maintains the status quo in terms of political lean by having one solidly GOP district in western Iowa and three red-leaning swing districts in the rest of the state, one of which is currently held by Democratic Rep. Cindy Axne in the Des Moines area.

Meanwhile in Illinois, Democratic legislators have unveiled and quickly passed a new version of a congressional gerrymander that aims to turn the existing 13-5 Democratic majority into a 14-3 Democratic advantage, sending it to Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker for his expected signature. Democrats radically reconfigured the districts of every GOP incumbent, which prompted GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger to announce his retirement on Friday. They also added a second predominantly Latino seat with the new safely blue 3rd District in the Chicago area, which resulted in mapmakers drawing a new Democratic-leaning 6th District that combined much of Democratic Reps. Sean Casten’s and Marie Newman’s existing districts, setting up a member-on-member matchup after both incumbents said they would run there.

We’ll have a more thorough look at both of these new states’ districts in the Monday edition of our other newsletter, the Morning Digest, but in the meantime you can view interactive versions of the congressional maps in Dave’s Redistricting App for both Iowa and Illinois, which has partisan and demographic statistics available.

● Massachusetts: Massachusetts’ Democratic-run state Senate has passed new legislative maps, about a week after the state House did the same thing. The plans now go to Republican Gov. Charlie Baker for his signature. While Baker could veto the maps, they passed both chambers almost unanimously. Lawmakers have yet to introduce any congressional redistricting proposals.

● Ohio: Republican state House Speaker Bob Cupp, who is a member of Ohio’s GOP-dominated redistricting commission, confirmed that the commission would not meet its Oct. 31 deadline to draw a new congressional map, punting the task back to the legislature. Lawmakers had already missed a Sept. 30 deadline to come up with their own map, a failure that kicked the task to the commission, which has now passed the redistricting hot potato right back where it came from.

Why all the hijinks? Had legislators drawn a map in time, they’d have needed to muster the support of half of the members of each party in order for it to pass. The seven-member commission, which has five Republicans and two Democrats, likewise would have needed bipartisan agreement to adopt a map. But now that the task has reverted to lawmakers once more, they can then pass a map that’s good for a full 10 years with the backing of just one-third of Democrats—or they can approve one without any Democratic support that will last for four years.

There’s a good chance that the latter option is exactly where we’re headed, because that would allow Republicans to fine-tune their gerrymanders after just two elections rather than hoping they hold up for five. In fact, that’s precisely what transpired last month during the legislative redistricting process, which is handled exclusively by the commission but operates with similar rules: Republicans needed Democratic buy-in to pass a 10-year map but instead chose to ram through a four-year map without any bipartisan support.

Even if Republicans don’t go it alone on the congressional map, the mere fact that they can gives them leverage over Democrats to pressure them into accepting a slightly more modest but still durable 10-year gerrymander. Skeptical observers warned at the time that the constitutional amendments passed during the last decade that created the redistricting commission were only a sham reform. The GOP’s actions over the last few months have proved those warnings prescient.

● Texas: After Texas Republicans recently enacted a new congressional gerrymander, a second federal lawsuit has been filed by Latino voter advocates with the support of a prominent Democratic law firm arguing that the new map illegally discriminates against Latino and Black voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act. The plaintiffs note that 95% of Texas’ population growth came from people of color, but the new map drew no new districts where Black or Latino voters can be expected to elect their preferred candidates. It also weakened two existing Latino districts, the 15th and 23rd along the border with Mexico.

A previous federal lawsuit was filed last week shortly before Republican Gov. Greg Abbott even signed the map into law; that suit also challenges the GOP’s new gerrymanders of the legislature and Texas’ state Board of Education. However, given the ways in which the conservative majority on the Supreme Court has successively dismantled the Voting Rights Act and separate constitutional protections against intentionally discriminatory gerrymanders, both lawsuits may face a hostile reception in federal court.

Voter Suppression

● Texas:  A federal district court has rejected Texas Republicans’ motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Vote.org challenging a law that Republicans passed earlier this year to require a physical “wet” signature for voter registration applications submitted electronically or via fax, which makes any form of online registration impractical. The suit argues that the law violates the Constitution and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Texas is one of just a handful of states that lacks a broadly available form of online voter registration, and Republicans have repeatedly fought efforts to expand limited forms of online registration in recent years.

Electoral System Reform

● Alaska: Alaska’s state Supreme Court will hear an appeal from several conservative plaintiffs of a lower court ruling earlier this year that upheld the constitutionality of a law voters passed via a 2020 ballot measure to adopt a “top-four” primary with a ranked-choice general election. The court is set to hear arguments on Jan. 18 and will reportedly issue a decision soon thereafter in order to ensure there’s enough time to implement its ruling for next year’s elections.

Under the newly adopted law, the top four vote-getters regardless of party will advance to the general election, where voters will be able to rank their choices using instant-runoff voting. The law will also institute ranked-choice voting in presidential elections, though traditional party primaries will remain in effect for those races. The law further sets up new financial disclosure requirements for state-level candidates.

The plaintiffs challenging the law include members of the Republican, Libertarian, and right-wing Alaskan Independence Party. They contend that the new law violates their freedom of association by getting rid of party primaries and allowing candidates to choose which party label appears with their name on the ballot. However, Alaskan Independence Party chairman Bob Bird previously expressed skepticism about the plaintiffs’ chances of success.

Secretary of State Elections

● Washington: Republican Secretary of State Kim Wyman announced Tuesday that she would resign on Nov. 19 to join the Biden administration to oversee election security. As the only Republican to hold such a post in a strongly blue state, Wyman has been one of the rare members of the GOP who’ve spoken out against Trump’s lies about mail voting and his attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss. However, she also disappointed voting rights advocates by testifying against the For the People Act in 2019, a major bill to expand voting rights and ban congressional gerrymandering.

Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee will now be charged with appointing her successor, who will be up for election in November 2022 for the final two years of Wyman’s term. Inslee has the chance to put a Democrat in the secretary of state’s office for the first time since the 1964 elections. There’s no guarantee he’ll take advantage of the opportunity, but while Inslee refused to rule out appointing a Republican placeholder, he also said he wouldn’t appoint a Republican solely because the outgoing secretary is one, disagreeing “with the Republican Party where they think that somehow the Republican Party owns a particular office.”

This post was originally published on this site

Guardian:

Capitol attack panel faces pivotal moment as Trump allies stonewall

The select committee’s struggle to enforce orders against the Trump aides shows the lack of teeth carried by congressional subpoenas, with its power systematically eroded by a Trump administration that has found, since 2016, that defiance carries scant penalties.

But the difficulty in obtaining any formal Trump White House materials – either through the former president’s aides or even through the National Archives – also underscores how what could be the most consequential lines of inquiry appear to be dangling by a thread…

But without knowing what Trump’s top aides know of the former president’s connections to the Capitol attack, the sources said, it could mean that Congress is left unable to write legislation to avert a different effort to stop the certification in 2024.

Jonathan Bernstein/Bloomberg:

Congress Is Doing Better Than You Think

Yes, the current wrangling is complex and unseemly. But democracy is messy.

Oh, sorry: A lot of you may have been lost there because I didn’t stop to explain several steps, and so unless you’ve been following all of this more closely than anyone needs to, it probably seems very confusing. Which is one reason people really dislike Congress. Why can’t they just cut the deal that, at this point, they are extremely likely to conclude? Why can’t Manchin say that he’s going to vote for a bill that he’s presumably going to vote for? Why is it okay for the Progressive Caucus to hold the infrastructure bill hostage? Can’t they just get on with it? Can’t Biden tell them to get it done?

Nope. No one can tell a member of Congress to do anything. It’s all bargaining, and once people are empowered to bargain they’re going to use leverage where they can, even if it seems messy, takes more time and achieves results that no rational expert would’ve ever produced. I understand why people want to put politics aside and just do what’s best

WaPo:

New budget deal marks the biggest climate investment in U.S. history

The $555 billion focused on cutting carbon emissions includes tax credits for businesses and consumers, but omits a key plan targeting the U.S. power sector.

Although Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) forced Democrats to drop a key provision targeting the electric power sector, the final bill includes an array of tax credits for companies and consumers that will make it easier to buy electric vehicles, install solar panels, retrofit buildings and manufacture wind turbines and other clean-energy equipment in the United States.

The climate package comes at a time when President Biden is hoping to demonstrate at a high-profile United Nations summit next week that the United States can meet its international climate commitments. The legislation, coupled with executive actions, could help Biden halve U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in less than nine years compared with 2005 levels.

Guardian:

Hungary: anti-Orbán alliance leads ruling party in 2022 election poll

Six-party grouping ahead by four points after choosing Péter Márki-Zay as prime ministerial candidate

The poll, published late on Wednesday, 10 days after the alliance chose a small-town mayor, Péter Márki-Zay, as its prime ministerial candidate, showed support for the united opposition at 39%, compared with 35% for Fidesz and 23% who were unsure.

Orbán, whose combative brand of national conservatism has transformed Hungary’s political and institutional landscape since 2010, will face a united front of normally squabbling opposition parties for the first time since he came to power.

WaPo:

Biden says Pope Francis called him a good Catholic and said he should keep receiving Communion

● Biden’s account of the meeting provides potential insight on Francis’s thinking about an issue that has divided the U.S. Catholic Church.

● Later Friday, Biden is scheduled to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron, their first in-person encounter since the U.S. role in a thwarted submarine deal incensed the French government.

● On Saturday, Biden will join leaders of the Group of 20 nations for a summit focused on the coronavirus and climate change.

Ronald Brownstein/Atlantic:

Democrats Need to Count Up, Not Down

President Biden’s infrastructure “framework” can be seen one of two ways.

To the extent that the public has heard of the budget bill at all, the message for the past two months has been dominated by this brutal game of legislative Survivor, with sponsors and advocates of each doomed program loudly bemoaning its demise and the outsize influence of the two senators forcing the cuts. But as painful as the process has been, Democrats generally remain optimistic that they can come together soon around Biden’s framework agreement. If and when they do, they will have the opportunity to begin highlighting the key elements that survived—including universal pre-K, expanded health-care subsidies, and massive investments in green energy. That is, if they can avoid replicating the bitter postmortems that occurred after similar resistance from a handful of center-right Democratic senators forced the removal of some progressive priorities from the Affordable Care Act in 2010, particularly a public option to compete with private insurance companies.

WaPo:

Biden privately questions whether major emitters will deliver on their climate pledges

In an Oval Office meeting last month, President Biden questioned his top aides on whether the world’s top polluters would actually follow through on their commitments to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions.

The president expressed his skepticism in characteristically blunt terms, said two senior administration officials familiar with the exchange.

“He basically said, ‘This is bulls—,’ ” one official said. “ ‘They’re not going to get there from here.’ ”

Biden’s frank assessment captured a vexing challenge for an administration that has made promoting ambitious emissions targets a centerpiece of its foreign policy: Climate scientists agree setting firm targets is critical to staving off the worst impacts of global warming, but they acknowledge that enforcing them is maddeningly difficult.

Wajahat Ali/Daily Beast:

 58,000 Dead, and Depraved DeSantis Is Just Getting Started

FLorida’s Governor Ron DeSantis gave us a sneak preview of how Republican leaders will challenge the Biden Administration’s proposed mandate that would require private sector employers with 100 or more employees to either vaccinate their staff or impose weekly COVID tests. The mandate would affect nearly two-thirds of the private sector workforce, and judging from the success of other recent mandates, it would be a major step towards trying to flatten the COVID-19 curve and “reopen” America by 2022…

DeSantis tweeted that “no one should lose their job over a COVID shot,” but he seems less concerned with Floridians losing their lives over COVID. His state had more deaths than any other during the Delta variant spike this summer, and altogether over 58,000 people in his state have died so far from the virus. Unfortunately, it seems DeSantis, who is allegedly “pro-life,” cares more about his political future, softball interviews on Fox News, and the supposed rights of selfish and reckless pro-death GOP voters to spread the virus and kill the elderly and immunocompromised before Christmas.

DeSantis, who is vaccinated, is also apparently fine with anti-vax disinformation. Florida’s dangerous new surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, whom the Orlando Sentinel’s editorial board described as a “well educated COVID crank,” joined DeSantis at his press conference where he questioned the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. He also denounced all workplace mandates. Instead, the governor now urges that people simply “stick with ther intuition and their sensibilities.” Those “intuition” and “sensibilities” have led to a shortage of ivermectin, a deworming drug that hasn’t been proven to help cure COVID but has now poisoned many Republicans.

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It is a spooky Friday! That’s a Halloween joke! Have you heard of the story of the 74-year-old white guy that stole tens of millions of Americans’ chances at paid family leave? Have you heard of the terrifyingly cynical and corrupt monster called Manchinema? Unlike most Halloween monsters, this one is real and very dangerous and ultimately depressing. It’s not all doom and gloom though; Manchinema has also been able to get rid of the government’s power to negotiate lower prescription drug prices! They also successfully destroyed the expansion of Medicare coverage to include dental and vision. And the horrific twist ending is that … the watered-down legislation hasn’t moved an inch closer to actually being passed! ARGH!!!! 

Here are some stories you may have missed:

• Vulnerable Democrats pick up the pieces after Manchin, Sinema kill widely popular provisions
• Manchin, Sinema still holding out on passing Biden’s big agenda, continuing stalemate
• Justice Department lays out the constitutional stakes of the Texas abortion vigilante law
• Coup architect John Eastman to be subpoenaed by Jan. 6 select committee
• Boise mall shooter was a far-right gun rights extremist who stalked local antifascists at rally
• New Republican poll watchers in Virginia will learn that their leaders lied to them about ‘fraud’​​​​​​​
• Justice Dept. reaches settlement with families of Emanuel AME victims, but gun sale loophole remains​​​​​​​
• Supreme Court lifts stay and executes Oklahoma inmate as he vomits and convulses on a gurney​​​​​​​

And from the community:

• Good News Roundup for Friday, October 29, 2021: We’re Not Waiting for the Great Pumpkin
• Corporate Christianity: Some companies say Tomato, some say Tomahto, and some say Tomaht-Uh-oh!​​​​​​​

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While many of us are (understandably) happy to try and forget Mike Pence, one former history professor, Lora Burnett, doesn’t have that particular luxury. How come? As reported by The Texas Tribune, Burnett was fired from her job as a professor at Collins College, a publicly funded community college in North Texas, near Dallas. What does this have to do with Pence? Burnett took to her private social media account to share a tweet critical of Pence, which made waves during vice presidential debate coverage. Burnett was eventually disciplined by the college before being fired.

And now? Burnett has filed a federal lawsuit against the college (including its president and trustees) claiming the school violated her First Amendment rights. Specifically, the school decided not to renew her three-year contract. Because Collins doesn’t have a tenure system in place, this contract renewal system is an especially big deal.

Back in October 2020, Burnett tweeted that the vice presidential debate moderator “needs to talk over” Pence until he “shuts his little demon mouth up.” From there, Republican state Rep. Jeff Leach texted H. Neil Matkin, president of the college, and inquired about whether Burnett was “paid with taxpayer dollars,” as reported by The Fire. Matkin replied that he was “aware” of the situation and promised to “deal” with it before wishing Leach good luck in November.

According to Inside Higher Ed, Collin reportedly spent $14,000 to try and keep these texts private while engaging in a legal back and forth about their release. Leach also tweeted that Burnett being fired was a “BIG WIN”—nine days before Burnett herself was informed her contract wasn’t renewing. Leach allegedly shared a picture of a ticking clock as well.

In the Tuesday filing, she claims that the school’s decision not to renew her three-year contract was retaliation for those comments, as well as her public criticism of the school’s COVID-19 reopening plan, and violated her First Amendment rights. In speaking to the Tribune, Burnett stressed that she was not teaching while making the comments, nor was she speaking on behalf of the college. According to the suit, Burnett believes she was also let go partially because she was critical of the school’s COVID-19 response. The suit also notes Burnett made the comments using her own personal device. 

Interestingly, four professors have publicly called out the school over the way it handled the pandemic. A fellow former professor, Suzanne Jones, who taught education, has also sued the school in recent months, while the third and fourth professors have opted not to sue. Only one of the four remains employed by the school, though according to Burnett’s filing, that professor did receive a warning after calling out the school’s pandemic response on social media.

Burnett, for example, alleges that the school was too slow in announcing that a student had died due to COVID-19 and that the college purposefully “obscured” the impact of the pandemic. After a former colleague died, for instance, Burnett tweeted her peer’s obituary, writing: “Another @collincollege professor has died of COVID.”

In a statement via the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Burnett argued that people shouldn’t lose their jobs simply because they have opinions. 

“Outside the classroom, I have the right to express myself, too,” she said in part, as reported by The Independent. “I have the right to fully engage with any public debate. That right is for all of us, not just for professors whose politics match up with their college administrators.”

Collins spokesperson Marisela Cadena-Smith said the college “stands firm in our belief in our faculty review process and looks forward to defending our actions in court.”

You can check out an awesome interview with Burnett below, where she goes deeper into her side of the situation.

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Donald Trump and the Republican Party had four years to pass an infrastructure bill revamping and upgrading the nation’s transportation systems, broadband access, roadways, and everything else included in the current so-called “bipartisan” infrastructure package that has already passed the Senate. They didn’t come anywhere close to accomplishing that. In fact, they made no real effort to do so for the simple reason that the Republican Party has no interest in governing for the purpose of helping the American people.

The only legislative accomplishment of Trump’s entire wretched tenure was a mammoth tax cut for the very wealthiest Americans and the corporations that many of them own and operate. Those tax cuts resulted primarily in stock buybacks, which simply further enriched those corporations and those at the top of them. They did not “trickle down” in any substantive way to ordinary Americans. Nor did the extraordinary largesse pocketed by these individuals and corporations create any lasting job growth, or even investment in research and development from those same companies. Ultimately, it really wasn’t a tax “cut” as much as it was a massive giveaway of money to the country’s richest, which they used primarily to shore up their own wealth and the generational wealth of their families. 

Suddenly, with a Democratic president and a Democratic-controlled Congress in place—however tenuous and fragile that “control” has turned out to be—a comprehensive “hard” infrastructure bill passed. Many Republicans who never put forth a similar proposal under Trump felt it was in their own self-interest to sign on to it so they could claim credit for it when they faced their constituents. Although the bill was passed with input from the GOP, it’s not completely accurate to characterize that as a “bipartisan” achievement. After all, it would never have come to be without Democrats initiating it, and Democrats could have passed it through the reconciliation process had they chosen to, rendering additional Republican votes unnecessary.

Assuming the Build Back Better “human infrastructure” bill passes in something close to its current form, it’s going to severely disappoint many Democrats with its abandonment of several key provisions due to the antics of Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Americans who would have received the benefit of those discarded programs will also be bitterly disappointed, and they should be. There is no legitimate excuse (pure self-serving submission to corporate interests is a reason, not an excuse) for Manchin and Sinema’s cynical, targeted elimination of those programs. Many vulnerable Democrats who fought for the programs Manchin and Sinema so blithely dispensed with will need to show their constituents (the majority of the American people) that they took their concerns seriously. But even with the glaring omissions, the bill’s provisions for universal child care, health care premium reductions, elder care, housing, tax credits for parents, and incentives for clean energy are hardly insignificant.

Most importantly, the cumulative impact of both bills—with the $2 trillion in COVID-19 relief from the American Rescue Act, which incorporated substantial allocations to lower- and middle-income Americans and billions towards schools and rural hospitals, food assistance, and health care while providing stimulus payments, additional unemployment compensation, and tax credits for families with children—adds up to nearly $4.7 trillion allotted towards the immediate benefit of the American public. None of that pandemic relief would have been provided by Republicans who unanimously opposed the Rescue Act in March. And while the benefits of the infrastructure legislation are still to come, the COVID-19 relief legislation successfully staved off many of the worst economic hardships caused by the pandemic.

Again, none of this would have been accomplished had Democrats not captured the presidency and the Senate in 2020. It’s not too difficult to imagine what would have happened had the Republicans been in charge: effectively, nothing. Though voting rights and Medicare expansion, paid family leave, reduced drug prices, and all the other benefits afforded to nearly every other developed country in the world are now being held hostage to two corporate sellouts named Manchin and Sinema, the American people have a way to remedy that situation in 2022: by electing more Democrats to office. And $4.7 trillion—almost all of it for the benefit of ordinary Americans—and everything good and beneficial that has or will come of that is a hell of a lot better than nothing, which is all we would have received from the Republican Party.

Weigh that $4.7 trillion against the right’s howling about critical race theory, demonizing of transgender people, and the specter of violent terrorists attacking the Capitol along with the devotion to Donald Trump, which is really the entirety of the Republican platform for 2022. In the face of a crisis unlike any in living memory, Republicans collectively and voluntarily choose to do nothing but block, obstruct, and race-bait. Their aim is not to govern this country for its citizens, but simply to attain and hold power for the benefit of their well-heeled, insulated donors, whose interests and concerns begin and end with evading taxes, no matter what the consequences to the nation.  

Democrats should hammer this contrast. It’s one that Americans should appreciate.

This post was originally published on this site

Between the global pandemic, the Trump era, and the stuff Republicans spew on a regular basis, the bar is high for describing anything as “surreal” or “bizarre.” With that in mind, an incident at a high school in Hazard, Kentucky, certainly fits the bill. What happened? As reported by Insider, Hazard High School was celebrating its homecoming week and included a “man pageant.” Photos from this pageant appear to show barely dressed students giving lap dances to teachers and staff, girls in Hooters-inspired outfits, and students and staff appearing to spank one another. Those photos have gone viral after being posted to the school’s Facebook page (yes, really).

That an event like this could happen while Republicans are stirring hysteria and hate over critical race theory (CRT) just adds to the sense of a bizarro world. And if you’re wondering what folks in the community think about the homecoming event, parents (somehow) fall on both sides of the issue.

The principal of the high school, Donald “Happy” Mobelini, who just so happens to also be the mayor of the town of Hazard, was not only present for the event but is captured in at least one photo. He appears to be participating in the festivities and laughing. It appears that the original Facebook photos have been removed, but screenshots have gone viral on Twitter.

Here’s one example:

One mother told local station WLEX that she wouldn’t want her son “involved” in such actions. Another community member spoke to the outlet and said the event didn’t represent pageants and was “demeaning.”

Jenna Smith, a parent with children who attend school in the district, said the adults in the room should have stopped the event once they realized students were underdressed. Smith told LEX 18 she feels adults should have told students they knew it was a joke but that it had to stop because it wasn’t appropriate. She (accurately) pointed out that giving or witnessing a lap dance is not an activity appropriate for children.

On the flip side, Hollie Layne, who has a son who she says participated in the event, told the same outlet she thinks it’s just “teenagers being teenagers.” She added she thinks it’s been “taken completely out of context” and that photos don’t show teachers “pushing the children off of them.”

According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, district Superintendent Sondra Combs has apologized for the incident and said “disciplinary action” has been taken. She’s also said they are investigating the situation. According to Combs, this tradition has gone on for years and has never before been an issue. Combs also did not specify who was disciplined. 

Oh, and the principal? According to WYMT, court records show Mobelini and two teachers from the high school were sued in 2019 by a former student over allegations they did not properly chaperone a school trip to Washington, D.C., and New York City. During this 2017 trip, a student was allegedly raped by another student. A trial is scheduled for August 2022, and Mobelini and the other teachers named have asked for the suit to be dismissed. 

You can check out brief interviews below.