This week on The Brief, host Kerry Eleveld was joined by guest host Carolyn Fiddler, Daily Kos’ communications director and nation’s foremost authority on state legislatures. They discussed important ways to shape Democrats’ messaging as we head towards November with Joe Sudbay, a host on SiriusXM Progress and political strategist with over thirty years of experience at both the state and federal level, who shared his thoughts on important messaging opportunities to help Democrats improve their chances in this year’s midterms.
With so much at stake in this year’s midterm elections, Eleveld and Fiddler wanted to highlight some of the really great opportunities for Democrats across the country to focus on and offer listeners important information that they can use to make informed decisions about the issues they care most about. Eleveld pointed out that the true power to create change lies with voters: “The [real] heroes in 2018 and 2020 were voters—a coalition of white, Black, Latino, and Asian American voters who came together to save the country from a slide towards fascism under Republican rule. We can do it again, and we want you to have the knowledge of what we’re seeing so that you can use it, too, in your everyday lives.”
Fiddler had just returned from assisting with a candidate training in Pennsylvania—a key midterm swing state that’s home to a major gubernatorial race, a “hugely consequential” U.S. Senate race for an open seat, and state legislative races this cycle—and offered updates from this critical battleground.
In Harrisburg, Fiddler joined forty or so candidates running for state legislative office for the first time and learning how to run a winning campaign:
This is the first cycle in at least twenty years where the maps for the state legislative maps are remotely competitive. These candidates have a lot on their plates … These maps are new, fairly recently settled. Democrats do have to pick up a decent number of seats, and it might be a multi-cycle prospect, but we said that about Virginia in 2017, too … but [in Virginia] it definitely changed the landscape dramatically to have Democrats within one seat in the majority, and working working towards that in Pennsylvania will absolutely be a worthwhile endeavor, even if they don’t win the majority this time around—which, there is a path. It is narrow, but it does exist.
“The energy in the room was just really, really great,” she added.
Fiddler also named fracking and education as major issues. “There are a lot of bad things Democrats have to invest time in rolling back when they do win back power.”
“Does it help that Democrats and President Biden ushered through a big bill to address infrastructure needs? Is that like a help to candidates?” Eleveld asked.
Fiddler highlighted the need for Democrats to be more vocal and aggressive in taking credit for their accomplishments and all of the work they do:
It is, especially if Biden’s approval numbers improve by the fall. The credit-taking is a big deal, and Democrats are notoriously bad at it … There are things for which Democrats can claim credit in Pennsylvania through this bill, but in terms of how much it’s like, ‘Hey, Biden did this great thing for us,’ you know, that sort of inserting state legislative campaigns into the national narrative on purpose may or may not happen. The landscape is still taking shape. Republicans are going to attach Democrats to Biden anyway, it’s what Republicans do—they nationalize everything, because they don’t have anything local to run on.
“Nationally, they don’t have much to run on, either,” Eleveld quipped.
Sudbay then joined Eleveld and Fiddler to share more about how “Republicans keep handing Democrats issues on silver platters” and why he wants to see Democrats claim credit more aggressively for what they do to address these issues.
According to Sudbay, cracks in the GOP are being exposed on a near daily basis: “Republicans are in extreme disarray—I mean, they’re fighting amongst themselves all the time. Mitch McConnell fighting with Rick Scott, some of them hate Trump but they’re afraid … Trump dumps candidates he doesn’t support. A bunch of Republicans in Georgia trying to defeat Herschel Walker because he’s kind of a damaged candidate. So they’re all fighting amongst themselves.
“There’s almost like a rule in the media, you know, if Democrats are holding a press conference and someone sneezes, the Capitol Hill press corps immediately describes [it as] ‘Democrats in disarray,’” he noted.
“You know, it does feel like that’s the narrative as opposed to Republicans clearly infighting just consistently over the last year,” Fiddler agreed.
Sudbay believes it is incumbent upon Democrats to lean in on good news and to take credit for the good things they do:
[Democrats] are doing good things. Is it everything we want? No. But is it markedly better than if Donald Trump had won [in 2020]? Absolutely. The vaccine rollout was amazing. We more or less have COVID under control—not as much as we want to but … that’s an important move forward. We have Democrats trying really hard to pass good legislation. Last week alone, on Thursday, Democrats in the House passed a bill to cap insulin prices. That is a real issue for the American people. Now it’s going to the Senate.
Sudbay listed off other things to be excited about, including House Democrats passing federal marijuana legislation and Ketanji Brown Jackson’s coming confirmation.
Eleveld believes voters need to be given more positive reasons to care and get more involved:
Thinking about how you can talk to people about these issues [is] kind of interesting … for a lot of people, that just shuts them down—hearing that things are so bad that they’re about to collapse, or hearing your worst fear—it just kind shuts them down. It’s too overwhelming … [we need to] make them feel empowered. Make them feel like can be part of something that’s bigger than themselves, and they have the power to vote, they have the power to get involved, they have the power to enact the change that they want to see through casting their vote, knocking on doors to help other people cast their vote, writing them, calling them … giving money, whatever their gig is.
She also called out this opportunity for older generations to lead the way and make a difference for younger generations:
As [a] Gen Xer … this is our chance to make a difference. We haven’t had a chance to make a difference for future generations yet; this is our chance to do it. But we can do something real here—we can do something fundamental. We can do something important for future generations … It feels like a slog, but if you invest in it, if you say, ‘Look, this is really important that we win this fight,’ and god, if you want to see people who are fighting the fight, look over at Ukraine. Look at what the folks there are enduring in order to fight for freedom, in order to fight against what a horror show President Vladimir Putin’s Russia is. We can do this, and this is our chance to really make a difference. I invite everybody to get involved.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Daniel Donner, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
●MI-04: Michigan Rep. Fred Upton, who was one of 10 Republicans to vote to impeach Donald Trump last year, announced Tuesday that he would not seek a 19th term this fall. In an email to supporters, Upton said he believed “it is time to pass the torch,” though the person who will most likely be claiming that beacon in the new 4th Congressional District is his colleague and would-be primary foe, Trump-backed Rep. Bill Huizenga.
While it’s possible that Upton’s departure will entice someone else to run against Huizenga in the August GOP primary, they’d need to collect at least 1,000 valid signatures by the April 19 filing deadline. No notable Democrats have entered the race so far for the new version of the 4th, a southwestern Michigan seat Trump would have carried 51-47 in 2020.
Huizenga announced back in December, right after the state’s new congressional maps were completed, that he’d be seeking re-election in the new 4th, and he earned an endorsement from Trump last month. Upton, by contrast, spent months keeping the political world guessing as to whether he’d go up against Huizenga in the primary or retire, though until Tuesday, it seemed that he had one more race in him: In February, Upton launched a $400,000 ad campaign in which he told viewers, “If you want a rubber stamp as your congressman, I’m the wrong guy. But if you want someone committed to solving problems, putting policy over politics, then I’m asking for your support.”
Upton, though, said at the time that he was still undecided about 2022, and his retirement announcement proves he wasn’t just playing coy. On Tuesday, he insisted that redistricting mattered more to him than any backlash from his impeachment vote, saying, “My district was cut like Zorro—three different ways.” However, it was Huizenga who, at least on paper, was more disadvantaged by the new map: While about two-thirds of the residents of the new 4th are currently Upton’s constituents, Huizenga represents only about a quarter of the seat he’s now the frontrunner to claim.
Upton’s decision ends a long career in politics that began in the late 1970s when he started working for local Rep. David Stockman, and he remained on his staff when Stockman became Ronald Reagan’s first director of the Office of Management and Budget. In 1986, Upton decided to seek elected office himself when he launched a primary challenge to Rep. Mark Siljander, who had succeeded Stockman in the House in 1981, in an earlier version of the 4th District.
Siljander was an ardent social conservative well to the right of even Reagan: Among other things, he’d unsuccessfully tried to torpedo Sandra Day O’Connor’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 1981 because he didn’t feel she was sufficiently conservative, and he even threatened to vote against the White House’s priorities in an attempt to thwart O’Connor. Siljander, though, had taken just 58% of the vote in his 1984 primary, which suggested that a significant number of primary voters were unhappy with him.
Upton argued that, while both he and Siljander were “conservative Republican[s],” the incumbent had ignored his constituents to focus on international issues. Upton, by contrast, insisted that he’d work better with the party’s leadership and seek committee assignments that would allow him to direct his energies to domestic concerns. The race took a dark turn late in the campaign when audio leaked of Siljander telling local clergy members to aid him in order to “break the back of Satan,” arguing that his loss “would send a shock wave across America that Christians can be defeated in Congress by impugning their integrity and smear tactics.”
Upton ended up dispatching the congressman 55-45, a convincing thumping that both sides attributed to Siljander’s comments. Upton’s team, while denying that the outcome represented a loss for the religious right, predicted, “Fred’s tactics will be much more moderate and more reasonable.” Upton easily prevailed in the general election and had no trouble winning for decades; Siljander, for his part, was last in the news in late 2020 when Trump pardoned what an angry Upton described as “a series of federal crimes including obstruction of justice, money laundering and lobbying for an international terrorist group with ties to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida and the Taliban.”
In 2002, Upton easily turned back a primary campaign from state Sen. Dale Shugars 66-32 in what was now numbered the 6th District, but when the burgeoning tea party turned its wrath on establishment figures in 2010, the longtime congressman had become much more vulnerable to intra-party challenges. His opponent that year was former state Rep. Jack Hoogendyk, who had badly failed in his quest to unseat Democratic Sen. Carl Levin two years earlier but argued that Upton was insufficiently conservative. The congressman outspent Hoogendyk by an 18-to-1 margin but prevailed only 57-43, which enticed Hoogendyk to try again in 2012.
However, while the anti-tax Club for Growth ran commercials this time against Upton, who by now was chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the incumbent worked hard to emphasize his opposition to the Obama administration and won by a larger 67-33 margin. That was the last time he faced a serious primary challenge at the ballot box, but in 2014 he went through his first expensive general election campaign when law professor Larry Lessig directed his Mayday PAC, which he called his “super PAC to end super PACs,” to target Upton.
Mayday spent over $2 million to aid a previously unheralded Democrat named Paul Clements, and while Upton didn’t come close to losing in that red wave year, Democrats hoped his 56-40 showing meant he could be beaten in a better political climate. Clements sought a rematch in 2016, but Upton won by a 59-36 spread.
In 2018, though, the congressman faced a considerably tougher battle against physician Matt Longjohn at a time when the GOP was on the defensive nationwide. Upton got some surprising help during that campaign when Joe Biden delivered a speech in his district that was paid in part by an Upton family foundation; Biden, who was apparently motivated to praise Upton because of the congressman’s work on a bill called the 21st Century Cures Act, declared the congressman was “one of the finest guys I’ve ever worked with” and “the reason we’re going to beat cancer.” Ultimately, the congressman prevailed 50-46 in what was by far the closest race of his career. Afterwards, Longjohn’s campaign manager said Biden’s involvement was “brutal at the time and stings even more today.”
Democrats hoped they could finally take Upton down in 2020, but Upton returned to form and beat state Rep. Jon Hoadley 56-40 as Trump was carrying his district 51-47. Two months later, Upton responded to the Jan. 6 attack by voting for impeachment, a vote that arguably did more than anything else to close out his lengthy time in Congress.
1Q Fundraising
PA-Sen: John Fetterman (D): $3.1 million raised, $4.1 million cash-on-hand
NH-Sen: Kevin Smith (R): $410,000 raised (in nine weeks)
FL-07: Rusty Roberts (R): $173,000 raised (in 10 days)
MI-12: Janice Winfrey (D): $200,000 raised (in six weeks)
RI-02: Joy Fox (D): $175,000 raised (in two months)
SC-01: Nancy Mace (R-inc): $1.2 million raised, $2.3 million cash-on-hand
Senate
●AZ-Sen: Monday was the deadline for candidates to file for Arizona’s Aug. 2 primary, and the state has a list of contenders here. We run down all the major contests in their respective sections of the Morning Digest, starting with the Senate race.
Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly won a tight 2020 election for the final two years of the late John McCain’s term, and he’ll be a top GOP target this fall as he seeks re-election. Five Republicans are running to take him on (though Gov. Doug Ducey, to the frustration of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, is not one of them), and polls show that a large plurality of primary voters is undecided.
The most prominent contender may be state Attorney General Mark Brnovich, though he attracted heaps of abuse last year from Trump for not doing enough to advance the Big Lie. The only other current elected official is state Corporation Commissioner Justin Olson, but he’s struggled to attract attention. The field also includes self-funding businessman Jim Lamon; former Thiel Capital chief operating officer Blake Masters, whose former boss is heavily financing a super PAC to boost him; and retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael McGuire.
●OH-Sen: Venture capitalist J.D. Vance and former state Treasurer Josh Mandel are each running commercials for the May 3 Republican primary espousing ultra-conservative ideas as they attack the very idea that their beliefs could be racist.
Vance is pushing that message in what the GOP firm Medium Buying says is his first-ever TV ad, though his allies at Protect Ohio Values PAC have already spent over $6 million promoting him. “Are you a racist?” Vance begins as he points right at the camera, “Do you hate Mexicans? The media calls us racist for wanting to build Trump’s wall.” The Hillbilly Elegy author continues by accusing the media of censorship before proclaiming, “Joe Biden’s open border is killing Ohioans with more illegal drugs and more Democrat voters pouring into this country.” Mandel, meanwhile, exclaims, “There’s nothing racist about stopping critical race theory and loving America.”
On the Democratic side, former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau official Morgan Harper has launched what her campaign says is a six-figure opening ad buy. Harper describes her local roots and service in the Obama administration before trying to contrast herself with Rep. Tim Ryan, the frontrunner for the nod, by declaring, “I’m the only Democrat for Senate who’s always supported Medicare for All and a $15 living wage, who’s always been pro-choice, and supports expanding the Supreme Court to protect women’s rights.”
●PA-Sen: Allies of Rep. Conor Lamb at a super PAC called Penn Progress just dropped the first negative TV ad of Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senate primary, but there’s a huge problem with the spot.
The narrator begins by asking, “Who can Democrats trust in the race for Senate?” and contrasts Lamb—”a former prosecutor and Marine”—with Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, “a self-described democratic socialist.” The ad cites an NPR segment from 2020 for that claim about Fetterman, but at the bottom of the piece are not one but two correction notices that both read, “This story wrongly states that Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman is a ‘self-described democratic socialist.’ He is not.” Citing those corrections, attorneys for Fetterman’s campaign sent a letter to TV stations demanding they take down the spot, calling it “false and defamatory.”
Penn Progress responded by pointing to other news articles that have also called Fetterman a “self-described democratic socialist,” but no one seems to have found a quote from Fetterman actually referring to himself this way. That’s because, according to his campaign, no such quote exists. In their letter, Fetterman’s lawyers say the candidate “has never described himself as a ‘democratic socialist'” and link to a 2016 interview in which Fetterman says, “No, I don’t label myself a democratic socialist.”
Fetterman’s team is seeking to have this advertisement bumped from the airwaves because TV and radio stations can be held liable for defamatory content in third-party ads. (Because they’re obligated under federal law to run candidate ads so long as they’re paid for, broadcasters aren’t liable for the content of such spots.) On Tuesday evening, the Fetterman campaign said that one station, WPVI in Philadelphia, had complied with its request.
Aside from the factual blunder, Lamb’s supporters may be making a political mistake as well: Attacking a rival as too liberal in a Democratic primary is rarely a winning move. If Penn Progress’ ad gets bounced, it may actually be a blessing in disguise for the super PAC.
Separately, a new poll of the GOP primary from Public Opinion Strategies for Honor Pennsylvania finds hedge funder David McCormick (whom the group is backing) leading TV personality Mehmet Oz 22-16. In a previously unreleased POS poll from January, Oz enjoyed a 31-13 advantage, but both sides—and other candidates as well—have unleashed millions in attack ads since then.
●SD-Sen: Candidate filing closed March 29 for South Dakota’s June 7 primaries, and we’ll be taking a look at the fields for any notable 2022 contests now that the Secretary of State’s office has had a week to receive “the official certification(s) from county central committees or state political parties”; you can find a list of contenders here. A runoff would be required on Aug. 16 in the races for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and governor if no candidate wins at least 35% of the vote, but there aren’t enough contenders in any of those races to make this a possibility. Note also that the parties hold nominating conventions (typically later in June) instead of primaries for several offices, including attorney general.
Donald Trump used the last days of his time on Twitter to rant in late 2020 that Republican Sen. John Thune “will be primaried in 2022, political career over!!!” but the Senate minority whip’s political career seems like it will continue just fine. Only two little-known Republicans, Oglala Sioux tribal administrator Bruce Whalen and rancher Mark Mowry, ended up filing to take him on, despite Thune’s long dalliance with retirement, and there’s no indication that either poses a threat. Attorney Brian Bengs has the Democratic primary to himself in this very red state.
●Ad Reservations: Last week we got preliminary information about the first fall TV bookings from the Democratic group Senate Majority PAC, and AdImpact now has full details about how much money is going into each reservation:
Arizona: $22.4 million
Georgia: $24.6 million
Nevada: $14.1 million
Pennsylvania: $25.8 million
Wisconsin: $11.7 million
Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada are Democratic-held, while SMP is going on the offensive in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. These are the first general election reservations we’ve seen from any major outside groups on the Senate side.
Governors
●AL-Gov: Former Ambassador to Slovenia Lindy Blanchard is running more ads ahead of the May 24 Republican primary arguing that Gov. Kay Ivey is insufficiently conservative. One spot focuses entirely on attacking the governor, including a clip of her saying last year, “It’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks.” The other commercial tries to use the Big Lie against Ivey, with the narrator proclaiming, “Lindy believes the election was stolen from Trump. Kay Ivey thinks Biden’s victory was legitimate.”
Ivey, meanwhile, is running her own ads playing up her own far-right credentials. “The fake news, big tech, and blue state liberals stole the election from President Trump,” says the governor, “but here in Alabama, we are making sure that never happens. We have not, and will not, send absentee ballots to everyone and their brother.”
●AZ-Gov: Both sides have competitive primaries to succeed termed-out GOP Gov. Doug Ducey in swingy Arizona. Secretary of State Katie Hobbs has long looked like the frontrunner on the Democratic side, and she picked up an endorsement Tuesday from the state branch of the American Federation of Teachers. Her two intra-party foes are former state Rep. Aaron Lieberman and former Homeland Security official Marco López, who is a one-time mayor of Nogales.
Republicans, meanwhile, have six contenders. Trump has thrown his endorsement behind Kari Lake, a former local TV anchor turned conservative conspiracy theorist. The only current elected official, by contrast, is Board of Regents member Karrin Taylor Robson, who is backed by former Govs. Jan Brewer and Fyfe Simington.
Another name to watch is former Rep. Matt Salmon, who narrowly lost the 2002 general election to Democrat Janet Napolitano; his second bid has the support of the Club for Growth as well as Reps. Andy Biggs and David Schweikert. There’s also self-funding businessman Steve Gaynor, who narrowly lost the open-seat race for secretary of state to Hobbs in 2018. Businesswoman Paola Tulliani Zen, who founded a biscotti company, also attracted attention earlier this year when politicos learned she’d self-funded $1.2 million, but she hasn’t otherwise generated much press. Neither has the sixth GOP candidate, Scott Neely.
●NM-Gov: Former Sandoval County Commissioner Jay Block uses his first spot for the June Republican primary to proclaim that he was “a day-one supporter of President Donald J. Trump,” who badly lost New Mexico twice. The ad goes on to tout Block’s conservative ideas, including his desire to “finish the border wall” and “block the COVID mandates,” though at times the narrator’s message almost gets drowned out by the commercial’s loud music.
●SD-Gov: Gov. Kristi Noem faces a Republican primary challenge from state Rep. Steve Haugaard, a former state House speaker who, believe it or not, is trying to run to the incumbent’s right. Noem, though, has a massive financial edge over the challenger, as well as Trump’s endorsement, and there’s no indication yet that she’s vulnerable. The winner will take on state House Minority Leader Jamie Smith, who faces no opposition in the Democratic primary.
●TX-Gov: YouGov’s new poll for the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation shows Republican Gov. Greg Abbott leading Democrat Beto O’Rourke 50-42 among likely voters.
House
●AK-AL: 314 Action Fund, a group that supported independent Al Gross in his 2020 Senate race, has released a survey from the Democratic pollster Change Research that finds him locked in a close special election against former GOP Gov. Sarah Palin in the instant-runoff general election in August.
It’s impossible to know which of the 48 candidates competing in the June top-four primary might advance to the general, but we know the final matchup will be different than the one Change polled because one of the candidates it included, Republican state Sen. Lora Reinbold, did not end up running; the survey was also conducted days before either Palin or the final Republican candidate tested, state Sen. Josh Revak, announced they were in.
The firm initially finds Gross leading Palin 33-30 in a hypothetical general election, with Revak and Reinbold at 9% and 8%, respectively. After the instant runoff process is simulated, not much changes, as Gross and Palin tie with 35% apiece, while 30% are undecided. In a separate question pitting the two head-to-head, however, Palin edges out Gross 42-40.
314 Action hasn’t made an endorsement yet, but the organization made it clear it wanted Gross to win in its release, saying, “Dr. Al Gross has dedicated his life to improving health outcomes for Alaskans, and if elected to Congress he’ll have a platform to craft policy that will do just that.”
●AZ-01: Republican Rep. David Schweikert is running for re-election in the revamped 1st District, a seat in eastern Phoenix and its eastern suburbs that’s changed quite a bit from the 6th District he currently represents: While Trump would have carried his existing constituency 51-47, it’s Biden who would have taken the new 1st 50-49. (We explain the many changes to Arizona’s congressional map here.)
Before he can focus on the general election, though, Schweikert needs to get past self-funder Elijah Norton in the primary. Norton has been attacking the ethics of the incumbent, who in 2020 agreed to pay a $50,000 fine, accept a formal reprimand, and admit to 11 different violations of congressional rules and campaign finance laws in a deal with the bipartisan House Ethics Committee to conclude a two-year investigation. Schweikert, though, has made it clear he’ll focus on Norton’s turbulent departure from his insurance company. The field also includes Josh Barnett, who badly lost to Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego last cycle in the safely blue 7th District.
Three Democrats are also competing for this competitive seat. The field consists of Jevin Hodge, who lost a tight 2020 race for the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors; former Phoenix Suns employee Adam Metzendorf; and environmental consultant Ginger Sykes Torres, who has the backing of southern Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva.
●AZ-02: Democratic Rep. Tom O’Halleran is defending a seat in northern and eastern rural Arizona that would have backed Trump 53-45, which is a significant shift from Biden’s 50-48 win in the 1st District that he currently holds.
Seven Republicans are competing to take him on, and there’s no obvious frontrunner at this point. The two elected officials in the running are state Rep. Walt Blackman and John Moore, the mayor of the tiny community of Williams. Also in the running are Navy SEAL veteran Eli Crane; Ron Watkins, the reputed founder of the QAnon conspiracy cult; and three others. Navajo Nation Vice President Myron Lizer had announced he was running last month, but his name was not on the state’s final list of candidates.
●AZ-04: Democratic Rep. Greg Stanton is defending the 4th District in the southern Phoenix suburbs that, at 54-44 Biden, is considerably less safe than the 9th District it replaces. Six Republicans are competing to take him on, including Tanya Wheeless, who served as a staffer to then-Sen. Martha McSally, and Chandler City Councilman Rene Lopez.
●AZ-06: Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick announced her retirement last year before Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission drew up a new 6th District in the Tucson area that Biden would have carried by a tiny 49.3-49.2 margin—a sizable drop from Biden’s 55-44 win in the old 2nd District.
The Democratic contest pits former state Rep. Daniel Hernández, who as an intern helped save then-Rep. Gabby Giffords after she was shot in 2011, against state Sen. Kirsten Engel; a third candidate, engineer Avery Anderson, hasn’t earned much attention so far. The GOP frontrunner is Juan Ciscomani, a former senior advisor to Gov. Doug Ducey, though it remains to be seen if any of his four intra-party rivals can give him a serious fight.
●FL-13: 2020 nominee Anna Paulina Luna, who has Trump’s endorsement, has released a Spry Strategies poll that shows her again winning the August Republican primary. The firm gives Luna the lead with 35%, while prosecutor Kevin Hayslett and 2020 candidate Amanda Makki are tied for second with 9% each.
●GA-07: NBC reports that Rep. Lucy McBath is spending $74,000 on her first TV ad for the May 24 Democratic primary, which features her visiting the grave of her son, Jordan Davis, as she describes how he was murdered by a gunman. (The commercial features surveillance footage from the gas station where Davis was killed, with someone responding to the sounds of gunfire, “Oh my God. Somebody’s shooting!”) McBath tells the audience, “My tragedy turned to purpose. In Congress, I’m fighting to protect voting rights, to lower prescription drug costs, and to prevent gun violence.”
McBath’s longtime allies at Everytown for Gun Safety are also spending $1 million to help her, which the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says will come in the form of digital and radio ads and a mail campaign. McBath has already benefited from $1 million in advertising from another group, Protect Our Future PAC, while fellow incumbent Carolyn Bourdeaux has not yet received any major outside support.
●MD-01: Former Del. Heather Mizeur says she’ll continue her campaign for the Democratic nod to take on Republican Rep. Andy Harris even though Trump would have carried the newest version of this seat by a tough 56-42 margin. Foreign policy strategist Dave Harden, who is the underdog in the July primary, also made it clear he’d remain in the race.
●NH-01: The Associated Press reports that former Trump administration official Matt Mowers, one of the leading GOP candidates for New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District, voted twice in the 2016 primaries, which would be a violation of federal law.
According to the AP, Mowers cast a ballot in New Hampshire’s primary in February, when he was working for Chris Christie’s presidential campaign. (Christie finished sixth with just 7% of the vote and quit the race the next day.) Mowers then voted in the June primary in his home state of New Jersey, a month after Donald Trump became the GOP’s de facto nominee, though there were other races on the ballot that day as well.
Any statute of limitations has long run out, so Mowers—who has a page devoted to “election integrity” on his campaign website—would be able to evade any legal ramifications. Politically, though, it’s a different story, as his rivals for the nomination to take on Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas immediately went on the attack. Mowers’ campaign has so far declined to respond directly to the story.
●SD-AL: Rep. Dusty Johnson faces a Republican primary challenge from state Rep. Taffy Howard, a Big Lie supporter who launched her bid last year insisting, “I believe there was fraud in the last election that needs to be investigated. Our current congressman is not willing to admit that there was an issue.” No Democrat ended up filing to run for the state’s only House seat.
●TX-15: EMILY’s List has endorsed businesswoman Michelle Vallejo in the May 24 Democratic primary runoff for this open seat. Vallejo will face Army veteran Ruben Ramirez, who led her 28-20 last month in the first round of the nomination contest.
●TX-34 (special): Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has scheduled the special all-party primary to succeed former Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela for June 14, with the filing deadline set for April 13. A runoff date would only be scheduled if no one earns a majority of the vote in the first round.
Attorneys General
●AZ-AG: Republicans have a six-way primary to succeed termed-out Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who is seeking Team Red’s nod for U.S. Senate, and this is another nominating contest without an obvious frontrunner. The only Democrat, by contrast, is former Arizona Corporation Commission Chair Kris Mayes.
One familiar GOP contender is Tiffany Shedd, who lost a close general election last cycle in the 1st Congressional District against Rep. Tom O’Halleran. Another 2020 loser is Rodney Glassman, who narrowly failed to unseat the Maricopa County assessor in the primary; Glassman was the 2010 Democratic nominee against Sen. John McCain, but he now sports an endorsement from far-right Rep. Paul Gosar. The field also consists of two former prosecutors, Lacy Cooper and Abe Hamadeh; former Arizona Supreme Court Justice Andrew Gould; and manufacturing executive Dawn Grove.
●TX-AG: YouGov surveys the May 24 Republican primary runoff for the Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation and shows incumbent Ken Paxton fending off Land Commissioner George P. Bush 65-23, which is even larger than the 59-30 lead that CWS Research found in its recent poll for a pro-Paxton group. YouGov also has former ACLU attorney Rochelle Garza beating former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski 46-31 for the Democratic nod.
YouGov tests hypothetical general election scenarios as well and finds that, despite his myriad of scandals, Paxton outperforms Bush. The attorney general leads Garza and Jaworski 48-42 and 48-41, respectively, while Jaworski edges out Bush 39-38 and Garza ties him at 39-all.
Secretaries of State
●AZ-SoS: Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs is running for governor, and four Republicans and two Democrats are running to replace her as this swing state’s chief elections officer.
Donald Trump, unsurprisingly, has taken a strong interest in this contest and endorsed state Rep. Mark Finchem, a QAnon supporter who led the failed effort to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory and attended the Jan. 6 rally just ahead of the attack on the Capitol. Team Red’s field also includes state Rep. Shawnna Bolick, who championed a bill that would have allowed the state legislature to decertify the state’s presidential results at any point before Inauguration Day, and state Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, who has sponsored some of the most aggressive new voting restrictions in Arizona. The final Republican contender is advertising executive Beau Lane.
Democrats, meanwhile, have a duel between state House Minority Leader Reginald Bolding and Adrian Fontes, who narrowly lost re-election in 2020 as Maricopa County clerk, the post responsible for election administration in the county.
Prosecutors
●Maricopa County, AZ Prosecutor: Republican incumbent Alistair Adel resigned late last month as the top prosecutor of America’s fourth-largest county over serious questions about her ability to manage her office, and one Democrat and three Republicans quickly collected the requisite signatures needed to compete in the special election to succeed her. The partisan primary and general elections will take place on the same days as the state’s regularly scheduled statewide contests, and the winner will be up for a full term in 2024.
The only Democrat in the race is 2020 nominee Julie Gunnigle, who lost to Adel by a close 51-49. The GOP field consists of Anni Foster, who is Gov. Doug Ducey’s general counsel; City of Goodyear Prosecutor Gina Godbehere; and prosecutor Rachel Mitchell, whom Senate Republicans hired in 2018 as a “female assistant” to question Brett Kavanaugh and accuser Christine Blasey Ford. A fourth Republican, attorney James Austin Woods, does not appear to have filed.
Trump asked Putin for dirt on Biden during the Ukraine invasion, but a few days ago Biden almost choked on a spicy pizza — the worst scandal in presidential history pic.twitter.com/q9VVeFhLAA
And for the record, George W. Bush didn’t choke on a pretzel. He was attacked by one sent by the Demonrats and successfully fought it off by beating it with his codpiece. Look it up. But only in a Texas schoolbook.
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, April 6, 2022
Note: Today is C&J’s annual Random Religious Objection Day. How it works is, you each get to draw one random religious objection from the God Jar and adhere to it all day long. It’s fun! I’ll go first. [Draws from God Jar] It says your incessant biological need to drink water goes against my sincerely-held religious beliefs. See you in court, hydrators!
CHEERS to footnotes in history. When you sit down with a gaggle (Herd? Pod? Murder?) of historians, you’re pretty much screwed if you try and fudge the facts on recorded history. So, finally, for the literal and official historical record, here’s the asshole who long denied what really happened in the election of 2020 un-denying what really happened:
“I didn’t win the election,” Trump said.
And lo the villagers did rejoice. Now lock the f*cker up.
JEERS to swirling eyes of evil. If it’s April, it must be hurricane season…or, to be more specific, hurricane prediction season. First out of the gate is AccuWeather, the Pennsylvania-based private company that in 2005 lined Senator Rick Santorum’s campaign coffers in exchange for his promise to try and neuter the government’s National Weather Service and eliminate them as a forecasting competitor. What a dick move. But they have some decent meteorologists, so it’s worth hearing what they have to say about the upcoming season:
Privately-held Accuweather Inc forecasts 2022 will be the seventh straight above-average Atlantic hurricane season seeing the formation of between three and five major hurricanes with sustained winds of at least 111 miles per hour, said Dan Kottlowski, senior meteorologist.
The canvas is blank, soon to be filled with 2022’s squiggly lines of doom.
Those major hurricanes are forecast to be part of six to eight hurricanes with winds of at least 74 mph out of 16-20 tropical storms in 2022, said Kottlowski, who is Accuweather’s lead hurricane forecaster. […]
Warmer than average seas, which power storms, and the absence of an El Nino weather pattern that sends high winds across the southern United States to break up hurricanes are the primary reasons for Accuweather’s forecast, Kottlowski said.
The names for 2022’s tropical storms are listed here. As always, if you’re named after a storm this year, you’re in charge of the cleanup.
CHEERS to great moments in synthetics. On April 6, 1869, the first form of plastic—celluloid—was patented. 153 years later, the talking heads at Fox News swear by it for their almost-lifelike appearance. Memo to Jeanine Pirro: time to order another case—you’re sagging again.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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I heard Betty Reid Soskin is retiring at 100, and want to congratulate her for more than a decade of service as a National Park Ranger. Betty, I hope you realize just how many people appreciate everything you’ve done—myself included. pic.twitter.com/lElFYwxVMg
CHEERS to little reminders. Forty-two years ago today, Post-It Notes were introduced by 3M. The road to market was a textbook case of serendipity. Little-known fact: A Post-It Note will play a central role in archiving our 45th president’s accomplishments at his Presidential Grift Shop:
Took Oath. Broke Stuff.
Got impeached twice. Lost. Pouted.
Died. Buried along with his name. Nobody came.
Meanwhile 84 years ago, in 1938, Roy Plunkett invented Teflon. It has saved many a meal…and many a presidency.
CHEERS to cool science. Hey, remember last Monday when we told you NASA had a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT for the following Wednesday? Of course you don’t—neither did I. These days I can’t remember what I had for breakfast on March 30, 1975, let alone March 30, 2022, despite guzzling gingko biloba pills by the pallet load. But anyway, yesterday our dog Haley reminded me via a series of nearly-illegible scrawls on our kitchen chalkboard that I’d promised to let you know what NASA’s BIGANNOUNCEMENT was. And you know what? For something so small it’s actually pretty darn BIG:
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has established an extraordinary new benchmark: detecting the light of a star that existed within the first billion years after the universe’s birth in the big bang—the farthest individual star ever seen to date. […]
When we finally see the actual spot where the Big Bang happened, my money says it’ll be an Airbnb that’s received dozens of police complaints.
The newly detected star is so far away that its light has taken 12.9 billion years to reach Earth, appearing to us as it did when the universe was only 7 percent of its current age. […]
“We almost didn’t believe it at first, it was so much farther than the previous most-distant, highest redshift star,” said astronomer Brian Welch of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, lead author of the paper describing the discovery, which is published in the March 30 journal Nature.
The star’s name is Earendel. And on behalf of all of us on Planet Earth, we’d like to apologize to Ms. Orpglorb McGillicutty-9z for inadvertently capturing the iconic image through her bedroom window before she’d had time to put on her size Triple-Z 49-cup sports bras as she was getting ready to go jogging around the methane track to maintain flexibility in her 322 tentacles. We’ll spring for some Levolors and SpaceX ’em to ya, ma’am.
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Ten years ago in C&J: April 6, 2012
Angus grows tired of your foolishness.
CHEERS to the Maine event. There’s a new poll out on our U.S. Senate race here (mission: replace Olympia Snowe), and it shows extremely soft support for the Republican and the Democratic candidates. Instead, Independent candidate (and former Governor) Angus King is leading the pack with 56 percent of the vote in a three-way matchup. There will, of course, be much vetting of King at the national and state level in the months ahead, including the crucial question of whether he’ll caucus with our side or the other side. Let’s see: he believes climate change is real, was an early cheerleader for GLBT rights, introduced computers to classrooms to enhance educational opportunities, is pro-choice and knows President Obama is an American citizen. Tough call. [4/6/22 Update: Angus, aka “The Mustache of Independence,” handily won his election and is currently in the middle of his second term as a beacon of common sense in the Senate. Our only regret up here: that he didn’t replace Susan Collins instead.]
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And just one more…
CHEERS to 30 days of tummy growlies. The Islamic holy month of Ramadan started over the weekend (our immigrant neighbors had a big pre-Ramadan bash Saturday—a good time was had by all), and we’d like to give a C&J shoutout to all of our Muslim readers around the world.
According to the mighty Wikipedia, “This annual observance is regarded as one of the Five Pillars of Islam. The month lasts 29–30 days based on the visual sightings of the crescent moon, according to numerous biographical accounts compiled in the hadiths.” It’s also a month of dawn-to-dusk fasting, which is why I’m an Episcopalian—our holidays are marked by dawn-to-dusk pancake suppers with real Maine maple syrup by the gallon. To mark the occasion on behalf of the nation, the Democratic President of the United States wished those who celebrate Ramadan a—spoiler alert—Happy Ramadan!
The Biden-Harris Administration wishes our Muslim communities a blessed and prosperous month of Ramadan. pic.twitter.com/7RiBxc8mQO
His Republican predecessor, who did not do that even once, will be surprised when he finds out his afterlife consists of 72 virgins beating him for eternity with bottles of spray-on tan.
Have a happy humpday. Floor’s open…What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today’s Shameless C&J Testimonial
When many people think of Cheers and Jeers, the taste of Pineapple Kiddie Pool Whip, a soft-serve ice cream comes to mind.
The real reason Lauren Boebert wants to cancel Mickey Mouse
In the right-wing populist imagination, this [government protection] enabled Disney to oppose a law that most parents support, and insert pro-gay material into content — while remaining insulated from punishment at the hands of the market via, say, customer boycotts.
And so, these right-wingers see ending such privileges as key to exposing Disney to the harsh realities of actual public opinion about its wokeness. As [Samuel Hammond of the Niskanen Center] put it, this is really an effort to weaken Disney’s economic shield in “the culture war,” making them more vulnerable to customer backlash.
This is what Boebert is really up to in attempting to cancel Mickey Mouse.
The ‘next pivotal battle’ in Ukraine? Sloviansk, military analysts say.
Russian success in capturing the Luhansk and Donetsk regions — two areas where there has been intense fighting between Ukrainian and pro-Russian separatists since 2014 — may hinge on its ability to capture Sloviansk, a city of 111,000 about 400 miles east of the capital, Kyiv.
it appears that the GOP rants about practices at Disney World didn’t move the needle on public support for KBJ. go figure. https://t.co/5CHHI8bJUy
Reflections on the state of the war, attrition, atrocity and why Russia is heading for an even greater disaster than expected (and I wrote from the start I didnt see how they could win this war)–all compounded by their own choices which are speeding up their army’s dissolution.
We start with the mathematics of war and Russian loss rates. Best to focus on vehicles (large, easier to count, photographic evidence) and there we turn to the excellent @oryxspioenkop who has listed those with pictures attesting to loss.
With not all the losses of the last few days listed, the Russian minimum losses are 391 Tanks, 255 Armored Fighting Vehicles, 375 infantry fighting vehicles, 81 Armoured Personnel carriers, etc.
The “groomer” talk is just warmed-over 1970s homophobia returned, there’s not much more to it. Nothing about it is particularly new. https://t.co/Fq8bDHFYVq
Ukraine May Mark A Turning Point in Documenting War Crimes
Accountability, though, requires evidence. The collection and preservation of digital media and other evidentiary material in Ukraine is a massive undertaking. It is being met by brave Ukrainian officials and local civil society groups operating in besieged cities and towns, as well as by an international coalition of human rights, open source intelligence and digital forensics researchers. This loose coalition is drawing strength from relationships formed with one another and lessons learned while investigating past conflicts, including in Syria, Yemen, Myanmar and elsewhere.
The ongoing effort in Ukraine, then, can be seen as part of an evolution – or a maturation – of an expanding community of volunteers and professionals gathering user-generated evidence and open source intelligence. It may also represent a crucial test of whether the evidence produced by these methods can play a substantial role in securing convictions.
Razumkov Poll of 🇺🇦 Refugees: 89% believe 🇺🇦will win war; 1% don’t. 79% plan to return to 🇺🇦after war; 10% don’t. 78% evaluate actions of🇺🇦leadership during🇷🇺aggression positively; 2% negatively. 35% consider int’l community assistance to🇺🇦sufficient.https://t.co/PHGAjaAftepic.twitter.com/RDNFCdqNYr
IS RUSSIA’S INVASION A CASE OF COERCIVE DIPLOMACY GONE WRONG?
Rather than interpreting the invasion as proof of Putin’s revanchist ambitions, or of secret plans to conquer the former-Soviet “near-abroad” by force, policymakers, analysts, and other observers should consider an alternate hypothesis: that Putin intended, and indeed expected, to achieve his political aims merely by presenting a highly credible threat. As Charles Michel, the president of the European Council aptly put it, Putin was attempting to commit “geopolitical terrorism,” holding Ukraine hostage in order to coerce its leaders, the United States, and NATO to meet his political demands. The invasion may have been the cruel consequence of Putin’s failed coercive diplomacy, and evidence of an inept strategist at the helm of the Russian state.
When national conservatives flail at foreign policy
Natcons have not handled Russia’s invasion of Ukraine terribly well.
In bashing the Iraq war and then winning the GOP nomination, Trump’s biting critique of the Iraq war in particular and neoconservative foreign policy pronouncements in general caused a sea change in GOP discourse. Trump’s worldview was grounded in more reactionary, nationalist, Jacksonian impulses. Sometimes this meant a more dovish approach toward U.S. adversaries, although just as often it meant acting unilaterally and/or incoherently, since Trump’s national security team was not always on board with his policies.
This has left the GOP’s foreign policy discourse in something of a mess. A motley crew of paleoconservatives, traditional conservatives, right-wing economic populists, and Trump grifters have attempted to reorient Republican foreign policy toward their more insular worldview. They have partially succeeded in areas like trade and immigration.
With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however, it appears that national conservatives have met their own version of the war in Iraq. Many of them pooh-poohed the idea of a war occurring prior to the invasion, and many others pooh-poohed the very idea of Ukrainian statehood. Even after the invasion began, some Republicans defended Vladimir Putin while sympathizers of national conservatism argued that the war itself did not undercut the ideas animating their movement.
Five weeks later, polling shows most Americans oppose Putin’s invasion of its sovereign neighbor. Americans support U.S. efforts to bolster Ukraine’s defenses, helped in no small part by Ukraine proving to be more stalwart on the battlefield than many expected (due in no small part to assistance from NATO countries). At the same time Americans want to avoid a wider war with Russia. In other words, the mass American public is pretty prudent.
In response, national conservatives are left… well, sounding pretty weird to be honest.
“The Russian propaganda machine has trained the Russian public to want blood, and now they want blood” –@JuliaIoffehttps://t.co/tkHaMBuO6i
On the Trumpian Right, where all the energy in the Republican Party is, there can be no moderation, no acceptance of democratic political culture. There can only ever be escalation in what they see as a life-and-death struggle against “Un-American” enemies – without and within.
The notion that these people are just cynical opportunists who will say whatever they think gets them elected is dangerously flawed both analytically and political. Analytically, it ignores the fact that ideology always circumscribes and defines the realm of opportunity.
Of course there is a good measure of opportunism involved, but what’s on display here is also a manifestation of deeply held ideological convictions. It’s white nationalist ideology and opportunism reinforcing each other in dangerous ways.
.@crampell: In today’s Republican Party, the primary economic role of the state is not to get out of the way. It is, instead, to reward friends and crush political enemies. https://t.co/tIEw9LxRkJ
As both Russia and Ukraine race to redeploy troops toward eastern and southern Ukraine, where a battered Russia still hopes to gain new territory that it can then proclaim to have been part of Russia all along, much of what happens next is contingent on the Russian military being able to either recommit those forces or muster suitable replacements. That’s not necessarily a given; while the news is now filled with images of the atrocities Russian troops committed during their brief occupation of towns north of Kyiv, the retreat also brought evidence of even heavier Russian losses than previously known.
A good chunk of Russia’s entire deployment of tanks, in particular, has been either wiped out or captured. And while we might expect that Russia might have better luck resupplying forces through Russia than it did from Belarus, that’s not a given either. Ukrainian forces have also suffered heavy losses—but an influx of NATO weapons is boosting what was lost, and Ukraine has more defenders willing to fight for it than it can properly gear up.
A Russian move to annex Donetsk and Luhansk is in theory a more achievable action than Putin’s previous grab-it-all approach, but Russia has already thoroughly wrecked much of its own standing army, it has already been begging China for military gear it was thought to have already stockpiled in mass quantities, and we simply cannot guess how much of Russia’s supposed military might has been stolen from its warehouses by a Putin-led kleptocracy that has shown utter contempt for the nation it claims to lead. And the sanctions Russia now faces won’t be going anywhere for a long, long time.
The spate of anti-civil rights, anti-civil liberties, bigoted, hateful bills recently implemented throughout conservative municipalities to attack education are predicated, like all GOP policies, on misinformation and disinformation.
The misinformation and disinformation inherent in the messaging for this bill by conservatives is the implication that little children are being taught all about sexual education by elementary school teachers. If we are to believe the Grand Ol’ Party—the same political party that refuses to move a centimeter on creating gun safety laws because it would be a slippery-slope of civil liberties violations by big government—laws must be created to stop teachers from telling your five-year-olds all about the joys of homosexual sex and the fun of being a transgender child who isn’t allowed to play with other kids in sports because little Abigail might not get a trophy.*
The problem is obvious: None of this is happening. This isn’t what teachers teach in elementary school, grades K through 3. There is no “sex education” in those grades and, in fact, there never has been. In double fact, no one has ever even asked for that to be something teachers teach in school. Recognizing that some people have two moms, or that a historical figure was gay, or that gay people exist is just a normal human response to gay people existing. With regard to gender identity, the idea that children can recognize that someone isn’t the sum of their reproductive organs is also just essential human education.
*Oh yeah, this is the same crowd that reviles “participation trophies,” as well.
On Monday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki gave her daily press briefing. The questions she received from the reporters on hand ranged in topic from Ukraine and further sanctions on Russia to the confirmation process of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson.
But inside of that press room is a tall drink of dumb: Fox News’ Steve Doocy’s son, Peter Doocy. Doocy has made a career so far as the guy willing to simply regurgitate the day’s conservative talking point as both his question and the lede of his report. It’s sort of like watching the tallest, least impressive elementary school kid take a journalism class.
First, Doocy asked, “At what age does the White House think that students should be taught about sexual orientation and gender?” What Doocy is attempting to do is make it sound as if the White House wants little children to learn how a penis goes into a vagina, or how individuals of various gender identities and sexual preferences perform sexual acts. This isn’t a thing in elementary school. It’s really not even a thing in dedicated sex education classes at the high school level. It also obfuscates what the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and others like it (see CRT book banning) are actually designed to do and how damaging they really are.
Psaki explains that the White House has made it clear that they don’t think legislation like the “Don’t Say Gay” bill are anything more than “a reflection of” the “politicians in Florida propagating misinformed, hateful policies that do nothing to address the real issues.” Pretty simple and one-hundred percent correct. She goes on to say that the Biden administration will be looking at whether or not this bill infringes on the federal civil rights laws of our country and will act accordingly.
It’s important to note here that this law is very clearly not a solution to anything. The vagueness of the law is proof that what conservative politicians are maneuvering for is a useful dog whistle—a hateful talking point that attacks teachers (and their labor unions) while marginalizing the already-marginalized, and offering up nothing more than bigotry.
Already, many are fighting back, pointing out that denying a teacher’s ability to talk about “gender identity” or “sexual orientation” and to ban books with reference to any of those umbrella topics actually includes heterosexual couples, “moms” and “dads,” and the mythic nuclear family that GOP operatives are ostensibly defending from the onslaught of … a made-up LBGTQ+ boogieperson militia.
But never fear, Peter Doocy has a solid follow-up question: If the White House supports the “kinda instruction” he himself clearly cannot articulate, in grades K through 3, does the White House support penis and vagina talk to even younger children????
At this point, Psaki is fed up with this dance of ignorance, and she cuts right to the chase: “Do you have examples of schools in Florida that are teaching kindergartners about sex education?” she asks. In response, Doocy sort of mumbles, “I’m just asking for the President’s opin—“
Psaki was having none of that. “Because I think that’s a relevant question. Because I think this is a politically charged, harsh law that is putting parents and LGBTQ+ kids in a difficult, heartbreaking circumstance. I actually think that’s a relevant question,” she fired back.
And knowing that Peter Doocy and his ilk will never answer that question because they have no evidence of any of the ghosts they frighten their gold-selling, pillow-buying audience with, she moves on to the next reporter.
The COVID-19 con artists never miss a trick. Check out their latest scam: For just a small fee—well, or maybe not so small, depending on whether you want a hat and shirt or participate in the show proceedings in Nashville—you too can be seated on “America’s Grand Jury,” which plans to hold a mock trial for Dr. Anthony Fauci, accused in “the deaths of millions of people all over the globe.” It’s like a sovereign-citizen scheme for the anti-vaxxer crowd.
The scheme is part of a pushback by the same charlatans who have wrongly insisted that the anti-parasite drug ivermectin is a powerful treatment/preventative for COVID-19 and are selling it to gullible buyers online through “telemedicine.” But they tip their far-right hand by targeting a singular scapegoat—in this case, the COVID denialists’ chief boogeyman, Fauci, though in fact he’s only their first target—to be put “on trial”: This isn’t about the pandemic, it’s about the targeting liberals for revenge and creating permission for violence.
It’s not clear who is financing the “America’s Grand Jury” operation, but its website tells us plenty about who is involved, not to mention how the scheme is supposed to work:
“Let YOUR VOICE be heard in the worlds most important Grand Jury!”
“For the first time in history you can be a Grand Juror in a case that involves the DEATHS OF MILLIONS of people all over the globe.
“For this purpose we’ve put together America’s Grand Jury! The fair & balanced way to decide if Anthony Fauci should be INDICTED! We want YOU to be a Juror and cast YOUR VOTE!”
It quickly discloses that this “is a mock Grand Jury closely simulating what an actual Grand Jury might conclude if the case were to actually be brought before an official Grand Jury by a prosecutor.” Most of all, they envision it as “the official template for Attorney Generals and Prosecutors on any level to not have any excuses not to prosecute Fauci and his bandits.”
The concept of ordinary citizens convening a grand-jury proceeding independent of civic authorities has long been the purview of the far-right sovereign-citizens movement, which claims that ordinary people can declare themselves free of all kinds of government jurisdictions and prescribes a blizzard of pseudo-legal paperwork as the road to “freedom” from taxes and regulations.
Sovereign citizens have often convened vigilante “people’s grand juries” as a way of threatening and intimidating local officials. In 2017, a group of Colorado sovereign citizens who had threatened dozens of elected officials—including the sheriffs of two counties—were indicted and brought to trial for such a scheme. They were all convicted, and the ringleaders were sentenced to 38- and 36-year prison terms each.
The “America’s Grand Jury” operation includes the added feature of being a large-scale moneymaking scheme, especially considering the extent to which people on the anti-vaccination far right have demonized Fauci, routinely demanding he be fired, that he be brought to trial, and that he be hanged. It’s spread to mainstream Republicans, like Fox News’ Jesse Watters, who urged his viewers to “ambush” Fauci in the streets and record a “kill shot.”
If you want to be one of those “grand jurors” who “proves” Fauci should be prosecuted for genocide (and you’ll be excused for thinking this is one of those “fair trial afore we hang him” affairs), all you have to do is pony up $25. But wait! There are multiple levels of participation: For $100, you can tune in to “prosecutors” on Zoom chats, plus you get an “America’s Grand Jury” hat. For $250, you also get the T-shirt. And for $10,000 you and seven others can get VIP treatment in Nashville.
And just who would these “prosecutors” be? According to their bios, the team is headed up by the disgraced former Indiana attorney general, Curtis Hill. A Republican, Hill was driven from office in 2018 amid credible charges of sexual harassment by four women.
Their chief witnesses:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaxxer guru who has taken a leading role in the movement’s shift from vaguely left to far-right conspiracism (and is suing Daily Kos because we have documented this). His scurrilous book attacking Fauci has sold a ton of copies, claiming that the doctor helped orchestrate “a historic coup d’etat against Western democracy.”
Pierre Kory, the Wisconsin doctor whose testimony at a hearing chaired by Republican Senator Ron Johnson went viral when he accused the government of silencing health professionals and doctors who recommended “alternative” COVID-19 cures, like ivermectin. Kory is the co-founder of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), one of the primary promoters of the ivermectin claims.
Of course, a recently released gold-standard study based on a large, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial from Brazil confirmed that ivermectin does not help reduce hospital admissions or emergency room visits for patients with COVID—as dozens of studies had already found.
But this operation is not about science. It’s about politics—the eliminationist politics of the far right. We know this because Fauci is only the first target.
The organization’s website reveals that after they’re done putting Fauci “on trial” (scheduled for April 11-15), there will be upcoming trials: One for Hunter Biden this summer, and a third for Hillary Clinton in the fall.
We’ve known for a while now that for the anti-vaxxer/anti-mandate/anti-mask crowd, the issue really isn’t about the pandemic or the disease—it’s about their hatred of liberal democratic governance and their intention of tearing it down at every turn and through every opening, even those they create themselves. It’s a far-right movement whose purpose is not to enhance “liberty,” as they claim, but rather to take everything away from the people they hate.
As Kavita Patel explained at MSNBC this week, the issue of ivermectin and COVID-19 is just a stalking horse for far-right radicalization and extremist insurgency—one that has proved disturbingly effective:
The playbook is clear: stoke fear, prey on vulnerable Americans, launch social media to promote lies and attack credible officials and repeat. In the process, these charlatans stand to profit or gain power as the subjects of their con suffer the consequences. The similarities between the campaign to discredit the 2020 election and the proliferation of ivermectin are clear—both resulted in needless death and the normalization of fear and misinformation.
The GOP-led effort to resurrect the cruel Remain in Mexico policy continues to endanger the lives of asylum-seekers. BuzzFeed News reports that the State Department urged the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to pause sending vulnerable people enrolled in the inhumane policy to a Mexican city where “heavily armed members of criminal group” have been operating “with impunity.”
Under the policy, asylum-seekers are once again forced to wait in Mexico until their U.S. immigration court dates. This includes waiting in dangerous cities like Nuevo Laredo, in the state of Tamaulipas. But while asylum-seekers are escorted back to the U.S. by Mexican National Guard, this has also attracted the attention of dangerous actors, the State Department warned.
“’[In] the event that the criminal networks want to retaliate against [the government of Mexico] … migrants could be caught in the middle,’ Stephanie Syptak-Ramnath, a lead official in the US embassy in Mexico City, wrote in the email, which was intended for Blas Nuñez-Neto, the top DHS official running border policies for the Biden administration,” BuzzFeed News reported.
“Heavily armed members of criminal groups often patrol areas of the state and operate with impunity, particularly along the border region from Reynosa to Nuevo Laredo,” the State Department said. “In these areas, local law enforcement has limited capacity to respond to incidents of crime.”
The Biden administration’s announcement that it will stop using Stephen Miller’s debunked Title 42 policy by the end of next month is a win for U.S. asylum rights. But CBS News further reported that “a senior DHS official said the US will enroll more migrants in [MPP] once Title 42 is lifted.”
“Tens of thousands of people legally attempting to seek protection in the United States have been subjected to an inherently cruel policy that strands people seeking safety at our border in dangerous and often deadly situations,” said signatory Fwd.us. “The stories of asylum seekers are brought to light in this brief now before the Supreme Court.” Among them are Roberto and his son Mario, who were targeted by cartels just days after being sent back to Mexico.
While Mario got away, he has no idea what happened to his dad. Advocates have further warned that a ruling on Biden v. Texas could stretch far beyond asylum policy, because justices will be deciding whether an incumbent president even has the ability to legitimately end a predecessor’s very flawed policy.
“In the interim, the Department is required to abide by the order to re-implement the program in good faith,” a DHS spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. “As it does so, the Department is committed to implementing MPP in the most humane way possible.”
Allies of Rep. Conor Lamb at a super PAC called Penn Progress just dropped the first negative TV ad of Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senate primary, but there’s a huge problem with the spot.
The narrator begins by asking, “Who can Democrats trust in the race for Senate?” and contrasts Lamb—”a former prosecutor and Marine”—with Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, “a self-described democratic socialist.” The ad cites an NPR segment from 2020 for that claim about Fetterman, but at the bottom of the piece are not one but two correction notices that both read, “This story wrongly states that Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman is a ‘self-described democratic socialist.’ He is not.” Citing those corrections, attorneys for Fetterman’s campaign sent a letter to TV stations demanding they take down the spot, calling it “false and defamatory.”
Penn Progress responded by pointing to other news articles that have also called Fetterman a “self-described democratic socialist,” but no one seems to have found a quote from Fetterman actually referring to himself this way. That’s because, according to his campaign, no such quote exists. In their letter, Fetterman’s lawyers say the candidate “has never described himself as a ‘democratic socialist'” and link to a 2016 interview in which Fetterman says, “No, I don’t label myself a democratic socialist.”
Fetterman’s team is seeking to have this advertisement bumped from the airwaves because TV and radio stations can be held liable for defamatory content in third-party ads. (Because they’re obligated under federal law to run candidate ads so long as they’re paid for, broadcasters aren’t liable for the content of such spots.) On Tuesday evening, the Fetterman campaign said that one station, WPVI in Philadelphia, had complied with its request.
Aside from the factual blunder, Lamb’s supporters may be making a political mistake as well: Attacking a rival as too liberal in a Democratic primary is rarely a winning move. If Penn Progress’ ad gets dinged, it may actually be a blessing in disguise for the super PAC.
This story has been updated to include the Fetterman campaign’s statement that one TV station has complied with its takedown request.
