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McCarthy blocks Democrats Schiff, Swalwell from intelligence committee

January 25, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Tuesday he will block Reps. Adam B. Schiff and Eric Swalwell from serving on the House Intelligence Committee, days after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) formally recommended the California Democrats be reappointed to the panel.

McCarthy has argued that both Schiff and Swalwell are unfit to serve on the committee, using Schiff’s work conducting the first impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump and Swalwell’s alleged ties to a Chinese intelligence operative. There has been no evidence of wrongdoing in relation to the allegation against Swalwell.

“This is not anything political. This is not similar to what the Democrats did,” McCarthy told reporters Tuesday evening. “Those members will have other committees, but the Intel committee, the Intel committee’s responsibility is a national security. … I respect Hakeem Jeffries’s support of his conference and his people. But integrity matters.”

Unlike most committees, where party leaders control their appointees, the speaker has final say over who sits on the Intelligence panel.

McCarthy declined to answer multiple questions on whether he will try to keep Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from serving on the Foreign Affairs committee — a move that would require a majority vote in the full House.

Schiff told reporters that McCarthy was “carrying the dirty water” for Trump by leaving him out of the committee as retribution for his work during Trump’s first impeachment trial.

Republicans have been keen to deny Democrats positions on key panels after the Democratic-led House in the last Congress voted to remove Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) from their committee assignments. Greene had previously voiced approval of violence against prominent Democrats, and Gosar had posted an animated video on social media that depicted the killing of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). In the votes to remove them from their committee slots, some Republicans joined Democrats in voting yes.

Greene and Gosar were removed “after a bipartisan vote of the House found them unfit to serve on standing committees for directly inciting violence against their colleagues,” Jeffries wrote in his letter. “It does not serve as precedent or justification for the removal of Representatives Schiff and Swalwell, given that they have never exhibited violent thoughts or behavior.”

McCarthy, in his formal response to Jeffries on Tuesday, said he cannot “put partisan loyalty ahead of national security” and accused Democrats of misusing the panel during the past two congressional terms. McCarthy claimed that, under Democratic control the panel “undermined its primary national security and oversight missions ultimately leaving our nation less safe.”

In a joint statement released Tuesday after McCarthy’s announcement, Schiff, Omar and Swalwell said they find it “disappointing but not surprising” that McCarthy would attempt to keep them from committee assignments. They accused him of “undermining the integrity of the Congress, and harming our national security in the process.”

“He struck a corrupt bargain in his desperate, and nearly failed, attempt to win the Speakership, a bargain that required political vengeance against the three of us,” he said, referring to the negotiations McCarthy engaged in with the far-right flank of his party during his lengthy fight for the speakership.

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A National Sales Tax Is a Terrible Idea

January 23, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

A small minority of House Republicans may force a vote on the creation of a national sales tax. This will needlessly give Democrats a political cudgel in exchange for a flawed bill with no hope of passing.

The Fair Tax Act has been introduced by a small handful of Republicans in every Congress since 1999. The bill proposes to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and eliminate the federal income tax. So far, so good. Unfortunately, the bill would replace the income tax with a 30 percent national sales tax on all goods and services and establish a giant new entitlement program. Problem.

Several, in fact. Replacing our current tax code with a national sales tax would create a system of double taxation on retirees. Take, for example, a 65-year-old who has spent a lifetime saving after-tax income and has retired, expecting to draw down that income without paying further taxes. Instead, they would now face a 30 percent sales tax on everything they buy. Representatives seeking reelection may want to remember that people over the age of 65 tend to vote.

Ryan Cooper: The greatest tax system in the world

The Fair Tax Act would also strip any work requirements from the tax code—an approach that is completely antithetical to conservative principles. Under the bill’s plan, all households would receive a monthly check from the federal government regardless of earned income. Americans are still living with the negative effects that pandemic stimulus checks had on the labor market and supply chains; this plan would make those sorts of payments a permanent feature. In all but name, in fact, the Fair Tax’s “prebate” system would establish a universal basic income, one of the left’s favorite policies.

Fair Tax proponents typically frame the prebate as a replacement for the current standard deduction allowed under the federal income-tax code, as well as an advance refund on sales taxes that will be paid. But this argument carries little weight given that these payments would be untethered from taxpayers’ actual consumer spending. On its face, it’s hard to see how the prebate system does not amount simply to a huge new entitlement program.

Nor would the Fair Tax Act do anything to reduce the size of government. The bill would hand the job of processing payments to the Social Security Administration. Shuffling responsibilities and personnel from the IRS to the SSA does nothing to shrink wasteful bureaucracy, let alone make it small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Fair Tax proponents make two good points. They understand the need to end the double taxation of savings and investment in the present system, and they want to depoliticize the IRS workforce, whose union makes 95 percent of its political contributions to national Democratic candidates. But both problems are already addressed by other legislation widely supported by Republican House members.

The new Republican House majority’s first vote was to strip the IRS of most of the $80 billion promised by Joe Biden; Republicans have also called for investigations of politicization in the IRS. And an already existing conservative policy goal would enable individual retirement accounts to offer tax-free savings for all purposes, not just retirement, solves most of the problems with double taxation.

Read: The tax break dividing the Republican Party

Despite all of these shortcomings, the Fair Tax Act’s lead sponsor, Representative Buddy Carter of Georgia, recently told reporters that as part of a deal to drop their opposition to Kevin McCarthy’s effort to secure the speakership, holdout members in the House had been privately promised an up-or-down vote on the bill. But, luckily, the Fair Tax Act has no hope of passing in the House.

In the 24 years of the Fair Tax proposal’s existence, House Republicans have declined to hold a single hearing or mark-up session in committee, let alone a floor vote. The number of lawmakers sponsoring the bill has actually declined with each Congress, falling from a peak of 76 House Republicans in 2015 to 24 today. The Fair Tax effort is not gaining momentum but losing it.

The bill probably won’t even get a vote in committee: Republican opposition is reportedly so strong that Carter is likely to soft-pedal the bill to avoid the embarrassing spectacle of Republican committee members unanimously rejecting it. But should the bill somehow reach the floor of the House, it is safe to assume that roughly 90 percent of Republicans will vote against it. In addition, the bill would stand no chance in the Senate, and the president has said he would veto it.

None of this has stopped Democrats from seizing the opportunity to claim that Republicans now want to raise taxes on the poor and middle class. President Biden bludgeoned Republicans from the presidential podium a week after it was reported that the bill would receive a vote. “National sales tax—that’s a great idea,” he said sarcastically. “It would raise taxes on the middle class by taxing thousands of everyday items, from groceries to gas, while cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans.”

Later, Biden’s chief of staff openly mocked Carter on Twitter for his statement that if consumers don’t want to pay a 30 percent sales tax on some item, then “don’t buy it. It’s as simple as that.” Democrats are right to be confident they have the winning message there.

Read: What small-government fans should learn from Walmart

In fact, the Fair Tax Act has a long record of proving politically toxic. Back in 2010, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board noted that Democrats had made effective use of the issue against Republican proponents of the Fair Tax: “These Democratic attacks are unfair and don’t mention the tax-cutting side of the proposal, but the attacks do seem to work … voters rightly suspect that any new sales tax scheme will merely be piled on the current code.”

This past election cycle showed how Democrats are still succeeding in tagging mainstream GOP candidates with unrepresentative minority positions on tax policy. Before the midterms, Senator Rick Scott of Florida put out a list of policy ideas that included a remark that all Americans “should have skin in the game” when it comes to federal income taxes. (Currently, only about half of American households pay federal income tax in any given year.)

Even though Scott ultimately dropped the point, his status as chairman of the Senate Republican Campaign Committee gave Democrats what one Democratic operative called a fundraising “godsend,” enabling attack ads that painted all Republicans as plotting to raise taxes on retirees and low- and middle-income Americans. Republican candidates were forced to spend time and money distancing themselves from a proposal they did not support.

Such episodes risk undoing Republicans’ careful work over three decades of creating a clear contrast with the Democrats on taxes: Republicans won’t raise your taxes; Democrats will.

Keep in mind that eight states already have no personal income tax, nine states have a flat-rate income tax, and 10 states have a Republican leadership committed to phasing out personal income tax, first to a flat-rate tax and then to none. These states are paying for these policies with long-term efforts to keep spending below what can be sustainably funded from economic growth and revenues from sales and property taxes. The model for success over the past 10 years is North Carolina. More income-tax-free states will eventually raise the question for voters nationwide: Why do we need a federal income tax?

All of this progress could be undermined if the Fair Tax proponents have their day. Imagine what Democrats will be able to do if they get the opportunity of an actual House vote on a federal sales tax. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has already taken aim at House Republicans in competitive seats in recent elections with negative ads focused on the Fair Tax.

To mitigate the political damage already done, Republicans need to kill the bill. Denounce it. In public. Loudly. This may seem harsh, but it’s no less than the Fair Tax deserves.

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Solomon Peña’s plot to shoot Democrats’ homes was motivated by false claims of a stolen election, New Mexcico authorities say

January 18, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

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The arrest of a defeated candidate for the New Mexico legislature on charges that he orchestrated a plot to shoot up the homes of four Democratic officials in Albuquerque prompted widespread condemnation Tuesday as well as accusations that the stolen-election rhetoric among supporters of former president Donald Trump continues to incite violence.

Following the Monday arrest, new details emerged Tuesday about the alleged conspiracy, including how close a spray of bullets came to the sleeping 10-year-old daughter of a state senator. Albuquerque police said in charging documents released Tuesday that Solomon Peña, 39, who lost a state House seat in November by a nearly 2-1 margin but complained that his defeat was rigged, hatched the plot. Police accused him of conspiring with four accomplices to drive past the officials’ homes and fire at them.

Peña “provided firearms and cash payments and personally participated in at least one shooting,” the documents said. They alleged he intended to cause “serious injury or death” to the people inside their homes, the documents said. The group allegedly stole at least two cars used in the incidents, police said.

One of the targets of the attack said the shootings were part of a lineage of violence that stems from Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and that includes the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“You think it wouldn’t happen here, that someone would do this to local officials,” said former Bernalillo commissioner Debbie O’Malley, whose home was shot at Dec. 11. “There’s been this narrative for a long time: If you don’t get your way, it’s okay to be violent. The message came from the top. It came from Trump.”

According to the charging documents, the most recent incident occurred Jan. 3, when at least a dozen rounds were fired into the Albuquerque home of state Sen. Linda Lopez (D).

Lopez told police she had initially thought the loud bangs she heard just after midnight were fireworks. But in the middle of the night, her 10-year-old daughter awoke thinking a spider had crawled across her face and wondering why her bed felt like it was filled with sand.

At daybreak, Lopez noticed holes in the house that made her suspect gunfire. After realizing that it was drywall dust from bullet holes that had awakened her daughter, she called the authorities, according to the charging papers. The documents also allege that Peña personally participated in the Lopez shooting because he was displeased that prior shootings had aimed “so high up on the walls.”

Peña brought an automatic rifle to Lopez’s home, but it jammed during the incident and did not fire, according to the documents.

Police accused Peña of orchestrating similar attacks in December on the Albuquerque homes of New Mexico state Rep. Javier Martinez, Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboa and O’Malley, who at the time was also a county commissioner. They did not say whether the gunfire at those homes came close to striking anyone. Lopez, Martinez and Barboa could not be reached for comment.

Before his run for office, Peña served nearly seven years in prison on convictions related to a smash-and-grab scheme that included burglary, larceny and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

In an interview, Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said he has no doubt that Peña was motivated by Trump’s false claims of election fraud following the former president’s 2020 defeat. Medina said Peña regularly expressed extreme views on social media and boasted of attending Trump’s Stop the Steal rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.

“The individual that we’re charging believed in that conspiracy,” Medina said. “He did believe that his election was unfair and he did escalate and resort to violence as a means to find justice.”

Medina said federal law enforcement is also investigating potential federal firearms violations related to the shootings, as well as whether Peña participated in the Jan. 6 riots. An FBI spokesman said the agency is assisting local authorities in their investigation and declined to comment further.

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung called it “appalling that some people would use this tragedy to try to score cheap political points. President Trump had nothing to do with this and any assertion otherwise is totally reprehensible.”

Lawyers for Peña and two of his alleged co-conspirators, Demitrio Trujillo and Jose Trujillo, could not be reached for comment.

Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller (D) said Peña visited all four targets’ homes in the days leading up to the attacks, seeking to persuade them that the result of his election had been rigged. “What’s absolutely disturbing and terrifying is that he went from that to literally contracting felons who were out on warrant to shoot up their houses,” Keller said. “That’s the leap he took within a matter of days.”

Keller said it is not clear why Peña did not target his opponent, Democratic state Rep. Miguel Garcia. He said police have collected an overwhelming amount of evidence, including shell casings found at the crime scenes and in the recovered stolen vehicles as well as texted instructions, including the targets’ addresses, from Peña to his alleged co-conspirators.

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, an outspoken critic of the threatening rhetoric of election deniers and a target of frequent online attacks, called on Republicans to condemn the violence in Albuquerque and urged voters to reject candidates who don’t.

She cited the plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as well as the more recent attack on Paul Pelosi, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, as other troubling recent examples of political violence.

“It’s horrific,” Griswold said. “There are so many people who have to look over their shoulder living in fear in an atmosphere of political violence. As a nation we’re just lucky that the bullets didn’t land.”

Some Republicans joined in the condemnations. Ryan Lane, the New Mexico House Republican leader, praised law enforcement for their quick investigation. “New Mexico House Republicans condemn violence in any form and are grateful no one was injured,” Lane said.

The Republican Party of New Mexico issued a statement late Tuesday that made no mention of Peña’s candidacy or his denial of election results, but said the accusations against him “are serious, and he should be held accountable if the charges are validated in court.”

The incident also prompted a new push for gun control. In Santa Fe, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) called for a ban on assault weapons in an address to the state legislature on the first day of its 2023 session. “There are elected officials in this room today whose homes were shot at in despicable acts of political violence,” she said.

Peña allegedly conspired with four other men, according to the charging documents, hatching a plan to steal cars to use during the attacks and then abandon them. Subsequent investigations of stolen vehicles found with matching shell casings appear to confirm that plan, the police said.

Police said they examined the cellphone of one of the alleged co-conspirators, Demitrio Trujillo, and found that Peña had sent him the addresses of the targets, and that Trujillo had then searched for the addresses on his phone.

Peña started organizing the shootings soon after the election, according to the police report. On Nov. 12, he texted Barboa’s address to Trujillo. A week and a half later, Peña texted Trujillo a passage from an unknown book.

“It was only the additional incentive of a threat of civil war that empowered a president to complete the reformist project,” the text read.

On Dec. 8, Peña sent the address of Martinez, whose home was attacked that night, and that of O’Malley. The texts between Peña and Trujillo contained plans to meet in parking lots, stores and fast food restaurants, according to the police report.

The charging documents also recounted the recollections of an unnamed confidential informant who said that Peña was not happy that the shootings would take place late at night, when they were less likely to injury anyone.

“Solomon wanted the shootings to be more aggressive” and “wanted them to aim lower and shoot around 8PM because occupants would more likely not be laying down,” according to the documents.

According to the documents, Jose Trujillo was arrested less than an hour after the Lopez shooting and just a few miles away, after he was pulled over for an expired registration in a Nissan Maxima registered to Peña. In addition to two weapons found in the trunk, police found 800 pills believed to be counterfeit Oxycodone as well as cash. Police also discovered that Trujillo had a warrant out for his arrest.

Police said Peña paid his co-conspirators at least $500 for their roles.

O’Malley told The Washington Post that Peña visited her home on Nov. 10, days after he lost the election.

“He was agitated and aggressive and upset that he did not win,” O’Malley said. Peña told O’Malley that he had knocked on tons of doors across his district, which should have led to him winning more votes. She rebuffed his request that she sign a document alleging the election was fraudulent, so he left.

A week later, on Dec. 11, a loud pop — “like a fist just banging on our front door,” she said — woke up her and her husband. There were four more bangs. “Oh my goodness, gunshots,” she remembered thinking.

No one was injured, but 12 shots were fired at her house. O’Malley said that because her grandchildren often sleep over, she now worries what could have happened if they had been there. She said she also worries about what the attacks mean for democracy.

“Someone has threatened my home and feels that it’s okay to shoot at my home where my family is because they didn’t get their way,” she said. “I absolutely blame election denialism and Trump. I couldn’t tell you what the solution is.”

Devlin Barrett, Isaac Arnsdorf and Alice Crites contributed to this report.

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Solomon Peña: Failed GOP candidate arrested on suspicion of orchestrating shootings at homes of Democrats in New Mexico, police say

January 17, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

CNN
—

A Republican former candidate for New Mexico’s legislature who police say claimed election fraud after his defeat has been arrested on suspicion of orchestrating recent shootings that damaged homes of Democratic elected leaders in the state, police said.

Solomon Peña, who lost his 2022 run for state House District 14, was arrested Monday by Albuquerque police, accused of paying and conspiring with four men to shoot at the homes of two state legislators and two county commissioners, authorities said.

“It is believed he is the mastermind” behind the shootings that happened in December and early January, Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said in a news conference.

CNN has reached out to Peña’s campaign website for comment and has been unable to identify his attorney.

Before the shootings, Peña in November – after losing the election – had approached one of the legislators and some county commissioners at their homes with paperwork that he said indicated fraud was involved in the elections, police said.

An investigation confirmed “these shootings were indeed politically motivated,” Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller said Monday.

“At the end of the day, this was about a right-wing radical, an election denier who was arrested today and someone who did the worst imaginable thing you can do when you have a political disagreement, which is turn that to violence,” said Keller, a Democrat. “We know we don’t always agree with our elected officials, but that should never, ever lead to violence.”

The stewing of doubt about election veracity, principally among Republicans and usually without proof, has exploded nationwide since then-President Donald Trump lost his reelection bid and began propagating falsehoods the 2020 presidential election was stolen. The claims have stoked anger – and unapologetic threats of violence – against public officials down to the local level.

Peña will face charges related to four shootings: a December 4 incident at the home of Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboa; a December 8 shooting at the home of incoming state House Speaker Javier Martinez; a December 11 shooting at the home of then-Bernalillo Commissioner Debbie O’Malley; and a January 3 shooting at the home of state Sen. Linda Lopez, police said in a news release.

In the latest shooting, police found evidence “Peña himself went on this shooting and actually pulled the trigger on at least one of the firearms that was used,” Albuquerque police Deputy Cmdr. Kyle Hartsock said. But an AR handgun he tried to use malfunctioned, and more than a dozen rounds were fired by another shooter from a separate handgun, a police news release reads.

The department is still investigating whether those suspected of carrying out the shootings were “even aware of who these targets were or if they were just conducting shootings,” Hartsock added.

“Nobody was injured in the shootings, which resulted in damage to four homes,” an Albuquerque police news release said.

Barboa, whose home investigators say was the site of the first shooting, is grateful for an arrest in the case, she told “CNN This Morning” on Tuesday.

“I’m relieved to hear that people won’t be targeted in this way by him any longer,” she said.

During the fall campaign, Peña’s opponent, Democratic state Rep. Miguel Garcia, sued to have Peña removed from the ballot, arguing Peña’s status as an ex-felon should prevent him from being able to run for public office in the state, CNN affiliate KOAT reported. Peña served nearly seven years in prison after a 2008 conviction for stealing a large volume of goods in a “smash and grab scheme,” the KOAT report said.

“You can’t hide from your own history,” Peña told the outlet in September. “I had nothing more than a desire to improve my lot in life.”

A district court judge ruled Peña was allowed to run in the election, according to KOAT. He lost his race to Garcia, 26% to 74%, yet a week later tweeted that he “never conceded” the race and was researching his options.

“After the election in November, Solomon Peña reached out and contracted someone for an amount of cash money to commit at least two of these shootings. The addresses of the shootings were communicated over phone,” Hartsock said Monday, citing the investigation. “Within hours, in one case, the shooting took place at the lawmaker’s home.”

Firearm evidence, surveillance video, cell phone and electronic records and witnesses in and around the conspiracy aided the investigation and helped officials connect five people to this conspiracy, Hartsock said.

Detectives served search warrants Monday at Peña’s apartment and the home of two men allegedly paid by Peña, police said in the news release, adding Peña did not speak with detectives.

Officers arrested Peña on suspicion of “helping orchestrate and participate in these four shootings, either at his request or he conducted them personally, himself,” Hartsock added.

Police last week announced they had a suspect in custody and had obtained a firearm connected to one of the shootings at the homes of elected officials. A car driven at one of the shooting scenes was registered to Peña, the department said.

Authorities had earlier said they were investigating two other reports of gunfire since December – near the campaign office of the state attorney general, and near a law office of a state senator. Detectives no longer believe those two incidents are connected to the other four, police said Monday.

O’Malley, the then-county commissioner whose home police say was shot at in December, is pleased an arrest has been made, she said.

“I am very relieved – and so is my family. I’m very appreciative of the work the police did,” O’Malley told CNN on Monday evening. O’Malley and her husband had been sleeping on December 11 when more than a dozen shots were fired at her home in Albuquerque, she said.

Barboa discovered the gunshots at her home after returning from Christmas shopping, she said.

“It was terrifying. My house had four shots through the front door and windows, where just hours before my grandbaby and I were playing in the living room,” Barboa said in a statement. “Processing this attack continues to be incredibly heavy, especially knowing that other women and people of color elected officials, with children and grandbabies, were targeted.”

Martinez, the incoming state House speaker whose home also was shot at, is grateful a suspect is in custody, he told CNN in a statement. “We have seen far too much political violence lately and all of these events are powerful reminders that stirring up fear, heightening tensions, and stoking hatred can have devastating consequences,” he said.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Debbie O’Malley’s first name.

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House Speaker says Democrats should cap spending to avoid U.S. debt default

January 16, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (Reuters) – House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy said on Sunday he believes Democrats would agree to cap government spending to avoid a U.S. debt default and he wants to discuss the idea with President Joe Biden.

Republicans now in control of the House have threatened to use the debt ceiling as leverage to demand spending cuts from Biden’s Democrats, who control the U.S. Senate.

This has raised concerns in Washington and on Wall Street about a bruising fight that could be at least as disruptive as the protracted battle of 2011, which prompted a brief downgrade of the U.S. credit rating and years of forced domestic and military spending cuts.

“I want to sit down with him now so there is no problem,” McCarthy said in an interview with Fox News, referring to Biden. “I’m sure he knows there’s places that we can change that put America on a trajectory that we save these entitlements instead of putting it into bankruptcy the way they have been spending.”

McCarthy pointed to the Trump-era agreement by U.S. lawmakers’ in 2019 to suspend the statutory debt limit on Treasury Department borrowing until a later date as evidence that such compromise is possible.

“I believe we can sit down with anybody who wants to work together. I believe this president could be that person,” he said.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said on Sunday he hoped debt default could be avoided but put the onus on Democrats to agree to spending cuts.

“Republicans were elected with a mandate from the American people in the midterm elections. We campaigned on the fact that we were going to be serious about spending cuts,” Comer said in an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“So the Senate is going to have to recognize the fact that we’re not going to budge until we see meaningful reform with respect to spending.”

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Friday the United States will likely hit the $31.4 trillion statutory debt limit on Jan. 19, forcing the Treasury to start extraordinary cash management measures that can likely prevent default until early June.

Congress created the debt ceiling in 1917 to give the government greater borrowing flexibility, and must approve each increase to ensure that the United States meets its debt obligations and avoids a catastrophic default.

Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Katharine Jackson; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Grant McCool

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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What Democrats Should Expect – Rolling Stone

January 7, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), the soon-to-be House minority leader, has been telling his fellow Democratic lawmakers to think of the next two years this way: The White House is the client, House Democrats are the defense attorney. Indeed, the Biden administration has huddled a coterie of legal, legislative, and communications specialists to map out likely vectors of GOP oversight and will hire more into the effort. Ashley Etienne, who led House Democrats’ impeachment war room, has dispatched top protégés to communications posts at federal agencies Republicans have indicated they’re eager to interrogate: the Departments of Homeland Security (over border security), Health and Human Services (over COVID), and Education (over woke indoctrination).

Democrats, after all, are familiar with how Republicans intend to use their control of the House of Representatives. Indeed, GOP lawmakers have said it out loud for months. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the soon-to-be chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said Republicans would use their oversight powers to “frame up the 2024 race” — a race they “need to make sure that [Trump] wins.” Incoming House Oversight chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), meanwhile, vowed the intensity of investigations under his committee would “prevent Joe Biden from running” for another term.

The vibes harken back to a not-so-distant era on Capitol Hill, when the Tea Party surge wrested control of the House halfway through Barack Obama’s first term — time when Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), then chair of the House Oversight Committee, vowed to do after the 2010 midterms: “I want to hold seven hearings a week, times 40 weeks.” With little hope of advancing legislation under divided government, Republicans are looking to investigate everything from Covid to critical race theory.

To lawmakers and operatives of both parties who survived that era of GOP interrogation, they caution that this new regime will bring much of the same — only worse. “This crop of House Republicans make Darrell Issa look intellectual,” says Eric Schultz, who served as a deputy White House press secretary during that era.

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After House Republicans reclaimed the House in a landslide victory during the 2010 midterms, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) issued a mandate to his new majority: “We’re in the communications business now,” recalls Kurt Bardella, who served as Issa’s spokesperson. Issa’s House Oversight Committee was the nerve center of that directive, tasked with interrogating and amplifying any whiffs of scandal from the Obama administration. While many in leadership eyed their new Tea Party majority warily, Issa welcomed some of the feistier new lawmakers, like Reps. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) and Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), onto his committee.

Their work began in earnest with an investigation into Obama’s management of Operation Fast and Furious, a George W. Bush-era program that had permitted illegal gun sales in order to track Mexican drug cartels. In September 2011, the House Energy and Commerce Committee dug into the bankruptcy of Solyndra, a solar-panel manufacturer that had received a $535 million loan guarantee from the Energy Department. The committee hauled then-Energy Secretary Steven Chu into Congress for more than five hours of testimony. Then, a year later, Islamic militants attacked the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, leaving three Americans dead. The attack spurred ten separate GOP-led investigations into the Obama administration.

None of the investigations ever really found substantive wrongdoing, but that didn’t stop the oversight from sucking up the political media industrial complex’s attention. “There was a deliberate communications strategy: Flood the zone and take advantage of the media’s competition with one another to break things,” Bardella explains. The recent advent of Politico and its thirst for microscoops had just upended D.C.’s media landscape, playing right into the committee’s hands. Republicans could milk four or five news cycles out of a single request for information with a formula that went something like this: “Step one, issue a voluntary document request; step two, threaten subpoena; step three, issue the subpoena,” Bardella says. Never mind that the coverage rarely asked hard questions about the validity of what was being investigated. “I don’t think reporters and Washington understood how irresponsible Republicans were willing to be,” Schultz says.

Boehner, by some measures, would come to regret his mandate as the colleagues he empowered made increasingly strident demands of Obama administration officials. The House held Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress during the Operation Fast and Furious investigation, but GOP lawmakers requested more — something Boehner waved off as illegitimate. Indeed, former Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), who led the Solyndra investigation, said Boehner’s lack of support took the wind out of his investigation’s sails. “He said he felt we had too many contempt of Congresses in the offing, and ours wasn’t as important as other ones were,” Stearns recalls. “It’s the kind of thing that led to Boehner losing his speakership.”

The Solyndra investigation had been premised on Republicans arguing that political allies had been paid back for their investment in the bankrupt solar panel maker ahead of taxpayers. But GOP lawmakers could never prove that — and, in fact, the program made money and helped accelerate development in renewable energy companies, a 2014 report from NPR found.

The Boehner-era brake-pumping may be harder to find in this Congress. After groveling his way to the gavel, new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy isn’t in a position to be a check on much of anything — nor has he suggested any interest in restraint when it comes to investigating the Biden administration. The only thing that strikes McCarthy as too far have been the more than a dozen impeachment resolutions filed against Biden and various administration officials. “I think the country doesn’t like impeachment used for political purposes at all,” McCarthy told Punchbowl News in October.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-Ga.), who will have her committee assignments reinstated after Democrats stripped them last Congress, says she wants to serve on the Oversight Committee — a request to which incoming chair Comer has signaled he welcomes.

Do Democrats stand a chance in this new era? Having the right messengers lead Democrats on key committees can help, veterans of the 2010s GOP investigations say. Bardella recalls then-minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) opting for the rare breach of Democratic seniority when she installed Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) as the ranking member of Oversight in 2011. “Cummings had a political mindset and knew how to communicate effectively — he was a perfect foil for Issa,” Bardella recalls. Last month, House Democrats chose Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who was among the leaders of the House investigation into the January 6th insurrection, to lead Oversight, a choice Bardella lauded.

Another upside for Democrats, veterans says, is that the GOP continues to zero in on the culture wars. Ashley Etienne, who led communications for Cummings during that era, recalls Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University student who GOP lawmakers did not allow to give testimony at their Oversight hearing on contraception. The GOP’s denial of Fluke’s testimony backfired. Wen Democrats gave her a chance to later testify in a standalone hearing, they earned nearly two weeks of positive news cycles — fueled, in part, on voters’ fears about the future of abortion rights. Bardella says Democrats should look to exploit the times Republicans try to hold hearings on matters like trans rights. “If they’re going after the LBGTQ community and the hospitals that treat them, Democrats can put a human face on what that looks like,” Bardella says. “If you have members of congress up there lambasting a patient telling that story, that’s not going to look good.”

And perhaps, most of all, the GOP inquiries seem more absurd than ever before. “At least with Benghazi and Fast and Furious, those are at least governing actions in question,” says a Democratic official working on oversight investigations. “When you cross the rubicon with ‘Dr Fauci collaborated with China to launch the pandemic’ or ‘Hunter Biden’s work overseas is why the strategic petroleum reserve is running out’ — these are just conspiracy theories.”

“Back then, we were more bipartisan — I don’t think we’d be bipartisan today,” Stearns says. “You lose your authenticity if it looks like a political witch hunt.”

Democrats are nevertheless taking the GOP’s ambitions seriously. The White House and House Democrats have kept an open line of communication on oversight preparations. Jeffries had been elected to lead House Democrats, in party, because of his discipline as a party messenger, a trait he highlighted when he served as a manager during the first Trump impeachment. They’re also preparing their own sort of counterattack: The Senate remains under Democratic control, and its leadership has nascent plans to keep the investigations into the Trump administration. “Hunter Biden’s laptop looks like nothing compared to what Jared and Ivanka did in the federal government,” Bardella says. “That needs to be spotlighted every day.”

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Shootings in Albuquerque share target: elected Democrats

January 7, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Bullets flew through one home’s front door and garage. At another home, three bullets went into the bedroom of a 10-year-old girl in a series of shootings that had at least one thing in common: They all targeted the homes or offices of elected Democratic officials in New Mexico.

Nobody was injured in the shootings that are being investigated by local and federal authorities. Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina said they’re working to determine if the attacks that started in early December and were scattered around the state’s largest city are connected.

The attacks come amid a sharp rise in threats to members of Congress and two years after supporters of then-President Donald Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol and sent lawmakers running for their lives. Local school board members and election workers across the country have also endured harassment, intimidation and threats of violence.

Albuquerque officials have acknowledged they don’t know what motivated the shootings, but felt it was important to notify the public nonetheless. No suspect has been identified. Police declined to comment further on the investigation Friday.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will analyze bullet casings recovered from the scenes to try to determine whether the same weapon was used or if the gun was used in other crimes, said Phoenix-based ATF Special Agent in Charge Brendan Iber.

The shootings began Dec. 4 when eight rounds were fired at the home of Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboa, police said. Seven days later, someone fired more than a dozen shots at former Bernalillo County Commissioner Debbie O’Malley’s home.

Albuquerque police said technology that can detect the sound of gunfire indicated shots fired near New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez’s former campaign office on Dec. 10. Nobody was in the building at the time, and police said they found no damage.

Just this week, multiple shots were fired at the home of state Sen. Linda Lopez — a lead sponsor of a 2021 bill that reversed New Mexico’s ban on most abortion procedures — and the office of state Sen. Moe Maestas. Maestas, an attorney, co-sponsored a bill last year to set new criminal penalties for threatening state and local judges. It didn’t pass.

Maestas said employees at his law office heard loud, rapid-fire shots just outside on Thursday and called 911.

“I don’t think it’s anything we did or said, but just the fact that we’re elected officials,” Maestas said. “Hopefully they (law enforcement) can get a semblance of a motive.”

O’Malley and her husband were asleep when the gunfire struck the adobe wall surrounding their home, she said in an email.

“To say I am angry about this attack on my home — on my family, is the least of it,” she said. “I remember thinking how grateful I was that my grandchildren were not spending the night, and that those bullets did not go through my house.”

Lopez, a longtime state senator, said in a statement that three of the bullets shot at her home passed through her 10-year-old daughter’s bedroom. Other bullets penetrated a garage door and damaged a wall.

She called on the public to provide any information that will lead to an arrest, as did Republican leaders in the New Mexico Senate.

Barboa told Albuquerque TV station KRQE that having bullets shot directly through her front door is traumatizing, especially as families prepare to gather for the holidays.

“No one deserves threatening and dangerous attacks like this,” she said.

Federal officials have warned about the potential for violence and attacks on government officials and buildings, and the Department of Homeland Security has said domestic extremism remains a top terrorism threat in the U.S.

In October, an assailant looking for then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi broke into her San Francisco home and used a hammer to attack her husband, Paul, who suffered blunt-force injuries and was hospitalized. Rioters who swarmed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and halted the certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral victory roamed the halls and shouted menacingly, demanding “Where’s Nancy?”

Members of a paramilitary group were convicted of plotting to kidnap Michigan’s governor. And in August, a gunman opened fire on an FBI office in Ohio after posting online that federal agents should be killed “on sight” after the FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.

Across the U.S., election workers, judges, school board officials and other politicians have been harassed and hounded, sending some into hiding.

In June, a man who was arrested outside Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home in Maryland said he was there to kill the justice after a leaked court opinion suggested the court was likely to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling establishing a nationwide right to abortion.

New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat, went into hiding for several weeks in December 2020 and January 2021 in response to online threats.

In 2020, Democratic New Mexico state Sen. Jacob Candelaria fled home after receiving anonymous, threatening telephone messages following his criticism of a protest outside the state Capitol against COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

Maestas’ bill to protect judges documented 15 threats against judges and courthouses in 2021 alone, as well as a barrage of threats that shut down a courthouse in northern New Mexico in 2018. The judge who was overseeing a case involving the mysterious death of a child at a remote family compound, retired following those threats.

___

Lee reported from Santa Fe. Associated Press reporters Terry Tang in Phoenix and Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston contributed to this report.

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Sinema’s switch was months in making. Now it poses a challenge for Democrats.

December 18, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

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Sen. Kyrsten Sinema caught many by surprise earlier this month when she announced she was leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an independent, saying in a slickly produced video that the change is “a reflection of who I’ve always been.”

But the decision was months in the making, according to current and former aides and allies close to the senator from Arizona, and it reflected Sinema’s longtime dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party. Her consternation deepened in recent years, said these people, who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The unhappiness has run in both directions and loomed over Sinema’s political future, prompting some critics to see a calculated ploy for survival in Sinema’s announcement. She is unpopular with Democrats back home following some high-profile party-line defections. Polls also suggested she could lose a Democratic primary if she sought reelection in 2024 — a hurdle she would no longer need to clear as an independent.

Now Sinema, 46, has caused what many see as the first big potential political earthquake in the battle for the Senate in 2024. Her shift is the latest of several reinventions throughout her career, as she has climbed the ladder from Green Party activist to state and eventually federal lawmaker with far less liberal positions. Although she has not said whether she will run for a second term, Sinema’s most recent conversion carries significant ramifications in a key battleground.

“There are certainly some who have wanted me to fit into one box or the other,” Sinema said in an interview. “But I have never wanted to do that.”

Sinema had been weighing a departure from the Democratic Party for months, people familiar with the timing said. By the fall, planning was underway, even before she appeared in late September at the University of Louisville McConnell Center, where she defended her centrist brand of politics — and further enraged some liberals — with the Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, looking on.

McConnell advises Sinema frequently, according to a person familiar with their relationship, and the two spoke about her decision to defend the legislative filibuster and other matters. “She and I talk all the time,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday.

High-ranking Democrats said they remained in the dark until just before she pulled the trigger. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) learned she would be leaving the party the day before she announced it, he said recently. White House aides have declined to say whether President Biden received a heads up, or how he reacted when he was told she would not be joining him on Air Force One for his visit to Arizona a few days before she broke the news. (Biden said at the time that Sinema needed to stay in Washington to work on legislation, calling her a “tremendous advocate” for Arizona.)

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) declined to say whether Sinema warned him that she was leaving the party and, like most Democrats, did not answer a question about whether he would support her if she runs for reelection as an independent. “You are getting into hypotheticals,” he said last Monday. “But I have worked very closely with her for a long period of time.”

A marathon runner and triathlete who has broken the mold of the typical senator, Sinema often eschewed Democratic events and meetings, frequently setting up her own bipartisan negotiations with Republicans and centrists on legislation. The first openly bisexual person to serve in the Senate, her latest negotiation resulted in federal legislation to protect same-sex couples that attracted 12 Republican votes in the Senate.

“She’s always been an independent thinker,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn). “This seems like this changes the letter next to her name and not much else.”

Where some have seen a maverick streak in line with Arizona’s history of rewarding political independence, others have seen a betrayal in her disconnect from local party officials and activists who supported her election as a Democrat as she sought her Senate seat.

“There has been zero engagement since she got elected,” Stephen Slugocki, a former chair of the Maricopa County Democratic Party, said of the senator and her team. “No relationship. They haven’t been involved in anything — they’ve lost all communication. People feel disappointed that they worked hard to elect her and this is what they’ve got in return.”

For her part, Sinema has said that her decision is not political and that she has not yet made a decision about whether she will seek reelection, even as she has filed paperwork to run. She declined to pinpoint a specific moment when she decided to change her party ID.

“I’ve always been independent,” Sinema said. “I can’t point you to any specific instance because there isn’t one.”

‘She told us who she was going to be’

A former social worker, Sinema entered politics not as a Democrat, but as a member of the Green Party, where she worked as a spokesperson and organized antiwar protests.

Records obtained by The Washington Post show that after losing a bid for city council, she registered as an independent voter, joining the growing ranks of Arizonans without a political home. She then pursued a seat in the state legislature as an independent affiliated with the Green Party, but lost.

By 2004, she had registered as a Democrat, won a seat in the state House and displayed a liberal streak in a legislature dominated by Republicans. Over time, she moved to the center and forged relationships across the spectrum.

“My first legislative session was a bust,” she wrote in her 2009 book, “Unite and Conquer: How to Build Coalitions That Win and Last.”

She continued, “I’d spent all my time being a crusader for justice, a patron saint for lost causes, and I’d missed out on the opportunity to form meaningful relationships.”

Republicans, she wrote, were a “discipline machine” on messaging their priorities while liberals were too “free-flowing,” to their detriment. “This is not home decorating — you do not need a flourish,” she wrote, adding, “winning is the best flourish of all.”

She adhered to that approach after clinching a toss-up seat in the U.S. House in 2012, where she was known as one of the chamber’s most moderate Democrats, and again during a bitter campaign in 2018 for an open U.S. Senate seat. Sinema rarely described herself as a Democrat. Instead, she told voters, her focus would be to “get stuff done.”

But her first few years in Washington were a disappointment to many Democrats, even though she rarely strayed from the party line. She voted to confirm William P. Barr as attorney general and David Bernhardt as interior secretary during Donald Trump’s presidency, earning her condemnation from party activists.

In an evenly-divided Senate, Sinema, along with Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va), torpedoed Democrats’ $3.5 trillion climate and social spending “Build Back Better” plan, objecting to its price tag. (She eventually supported a $1.7 trillion version, after demanding changes to a proposed tax for private equity executives that angered some liberals.)

“I don’t think she went there thinking she was going to be a traditional Washington Democrat,” said Kirk Adams, a Republican and Sinema friend and former chief of staff to Gov. Doug Ducey (R). “She told us who she was going to be.”

Sinema has largely shunned the Arizona Democratic Party and its apparatus. She routinely skipped party conventions and fundraising dinners, an approach some liberal activists hoped would change after they helped elect her to the Senate.

By early 2021, anger with Sinema among Democrats boiled over after her vote to keep an increase in the federal minimum wage out of a pandemic relief package — which she cast with a conspicuous thumbs down motion — and her continued opposition to eliminating the Senate’s legislative filibuster, which requires 60 votes for most legislation to pass.

She posted a photo of herself on social media last year drinking sangria and wearing a ring she bought from a local boutique that read “F— off.”

Fury at Sinema was reflected at the very top of the state party. Brianna Westbrook, an official with the party, tweeted that Sinema was a “villain that is opposed to democracy” last year when she opposed getting rid of the filibuster, and encouraged her staff to quit their jobs. Other party officials amplified criticism of her online.

Angry protesters confronted her at Arizona State University last year over her Build Back Better objections, following her into a bathroom while recording her on a phone. She was also confronted on a plane and at airports. Previously unguarded, she began traveling with security guards. Campaign finance records show her campaign has spent thousands of dollars for security that extends to her Phoenix home.

Former staffers and associates, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations or offer candid assessments, said the confrontations frustrated her. One Sinema ally vented that party leadership — including the White House — could have done more to head it off.

Biden sometimes vented his frustration with Sinema’s opposition to Build Back Better. “I was able to close the deal with 99 percent of my party,” he said last year. He held up two fingers: “Two. Two people.” Asked about recent protests targeting Sinema and Manchin, which included the bathroom confrontation, he called them not appropriate but said “it happens to everybody.”

Sinema downplayed the significance of the relative silence from Democrats as she faced blowback. “I’m not sure it’s particularly relevant to me or to my thinking,” she said in the interview. “I’m perfectly capable of standing up for myself.”

Yet those close to Sinema have complained to allies that she has not gotten credit for her legislative accomplishments — including those her Democratic colleagues ran on during the midterm elections, such as the bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan and gun control legislation that she played a key role in negotiating.

John LaBombard, Sinema’s former spokesperson, said partisan pressure was “pulling the Democratic Party and its leadership closer to the extremes in a way that was undermining her work to get bipartisan, lasting things done.”

Though Sinema is friendly with her Democratic colleagues, many of her warmest relationships in the Senate are with Republicans, such as outgoing Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio) whom she called “one of my closest friends in the world” in a recent speech, and Sen. Thom Tillis (N.C.).

During the height of the blowback Sinema received back home, Tillis wrote an op-ed defending her and comparing her to former Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). “While I may have fielded some angry messages from constituents a few years ago, Sinema has been on the receiving end of a full-on assault from activists across the country,” he wrote.

‘The Mount Rushmore of Arizona politicos’

Allies in Arizona have long suspected that Sinema would cut ties with the Democratic Party, but even they were surprised by her timing.

“I know her pretty well, and certainly I thought she might [leave] someday, but I didn’t think she would do it now,” said John Graham, a Republican businessman.

Many Democrats said they believe Sinema saw the writing on the wall: Polls showing a low approval rating for her among Democrats, and some limited surveys suggesting Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who has said he’s been preparing to run for her Senate seat, could best her in a Democratic primary.

Sinema’s decision left Democrats and Republicans scrambling to size up potential 2024 primary campaigns that could evolve into chaotic, crowded contests. Sinema, meanwhile, has filed paperwork for a 2024 bid as a politically unaffiliated candidate and has an $8 million war chest.

Some Democrats believe that if she runs for reelection as an independent, she’s effectively daring the Democratic Party to field a candidate against her and risk splitting the liberal vote, boosting a Republican candidate to victory. Such an outcome would represent a final stick in the eye to those who’ve resented her unapologetic flouting of some Democratic priorities.

“Is she willing to be the spoiler?,” asked Sacha Haworth, who briefly worked for Sinema during her 2018 Senate bid and is now advising a political action committee seeking to defeat her. “Is she the one who is going to be willing to hand the seat over to a Republican?”

Sinema’s path to victory would be a difficult one, observers said.

“Even if she’s an underdog as an independent — which I think she probably is — she looks at it as, ‘Well, if I fail, I’m supposed to fail as an independent and at least I tried,’” theorized Democratic consultant Adam Kinsey, who did not claim any insight into her thinking. “‘But if I succeed and actually get elected as an independent United States senator from Arizona, I will have blazed a trail for every elected official who wants to run outside of the two-party system in Arizona.”

He added: “She would be on the Mount Rushmore of Arizona politicos if that happened. Will it happen? Probably not.”

Matt Viser contributed to this report.

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White House clashes with Senate Democrats over Saudi weapons bill

December 15, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

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The White House has mobilized to derail a Senate resolution that would end U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, creating an unusual rift among Democratic allies and forcing the bill’s sponsor to pull the bill before a scheduled vote earlier this week.

The legislation, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), would have ended some U.S. support for the Saudi-led war effort in Yemen, which has gone on for more than seven years. Forces from a Saudi-led coalition have bombed and killed hundreds of thousands of Yemeni civilians and blocked crucial ports, helping fuel a nationwide famine.

Saudi-led strikes have been called war crimes

Similar resolutions passed the Senate in 2018 and 2019, during the Trump administration, with support of all Democratic senators. In 2019, the measure won the support of both chambers of Congress, but not enough to override a veto by President Donald Trump.

Now those efforts have been renewed. President Biden’s White House also opposes the measure, putting the president in the unusual position of standing against an effort to punish a Saudi regime that has been anything but friendly to him.

But Biden aides say the president is opposing the resolution for different reasons than Trump did. The current version of Sanders’s measure differs from the previous versions, particularly in defining intelligence-sharing and support operations as “hostilities.” That could have dire consequences for U.S. operations globally, some congressional aides say, including in such hot spots as Ukraine.

“It really has made us nervous,” said one senior Democratic aide, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The changes “could have real ramifications for our support for Ukraine right now, or our support for Israel,” the aide said. “This is the first time that the Congress is being asked to vote on defining hostility as intelligence-sharing, and it’s dangerous.”

The White House is concerned enough that it distributed talking points to senators ahead of a scheduled vote Tuesday night, arguing that the resolution would endanger a fragile pause in the hostilities between the Saudi-led faction in Yemen and the country’s Houthi rebels. The talking points acknowledged that senators might be reluctant to switch their positions after taking a forceful stance in favor of the resolution just three years ago.

“We know that it is a difficult decision to change a vote, but the circumstances are fundamentally different than they were in 2019, and a vote would undermine the possibility that we can finally bring an end to this war and the humanitarian suffering of the people of Yemen,” the documents said. “If this resolution were presented to the President, his staff will recommend the President veto it. The stakes are too high.”

The White House cited a nine-month halt in fighting and pointed to ongoing U.S. diplomacy that it said was not in place three years ago. “The bottom line is that this resolution is unnecessary and would greatly complicate the intense and ongoing diplomacy to truly bring an end to the conflict,” the talking points said.

Sanders, while nominally an independent, is allied with the Democratic Party, and he had expressed confidence in recent days that the measure would secure enough votes to pass — based, perhaps, on the support for the previous Yemen war powers resolutions.

Some proponents of the legislation pushed back on the administration talking points. “The White House is touting the lack of recent Saudi airstrikes, but their opposition to Bernie’s bill shows that they remain open to supporting a Saudi escalation,” said Erik Sperling, executive director of the advocacy organization Just Foreign Policy and a former congressional staffer who has worked on Yemen policy since 2015.

“The best way to support Yemen’s truce is to guarantee that the era of Saudi airstrikes is over,” Sperling said.

In 2019, seven Republicans joined all Senate Democrats in backing the measure — albeit with exemptions for intelligence-sharing and protections for military cooperation with Israel, which are omitted from the current resolution. In 2018, when the Senate passed a more vaguely worded resolution, seven Republicans also joined Democrats to back the measure.

The current Saudi regime, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is viewed with distaste and even disgust by many in Congress, given its record of human rights violations that include the murder of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi. In an effort to improve relations, Biden visited Saudi Arabia in July and was criticized in many quarters for giving Mohammed a fist bump — only to have a Saudi-led coalition announce a few months later it was slashing oil production, in a move potentially damaging to the U.S. economy as well as Biden’s political prospects.

Sanders, who caught Democrats and the White House off-guard when he announced last week he would reintroduce the measure, said he is now in talks with the administration on a compromise, though it remains unclear what that would look like. Aides and others involved in the legislative push say it is uncertain whether the outcome will be simply a delay in the vote, a diluted version of the war powers resolution, or an agreement to pull down the effort entirely while Biden officials try to forge a long-term peace agreement between Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

“Let me be clear. If we do not reach agreement, I will, along with my colleagues, bring this resolution back for a vote in the near future and do everything possible to end this horrific conflict,” Sanders said in withdrawing his resolution Tuesday.

Sanders introduced the measure in July, along with Sens. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). “Why are we supporting a corrupt theocracy that brutalizes its own people, in a war that is best known for causing immense suffering and death among impoverished, defenseless civilians?” Leahy said at the time.

Other key Democrats, including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a close ally of Biden and a longtime champion of efforts to end the bloodshed in Yemen, had expressed support for the measure ahead of the vote.

“The Saudis have shown more willingness than in the past to end the war, and right now, the Houthis are the biggest obstacle. But the Saudi interest in de-escalation comes and goes,” Murphy wrote in a tweet Tuesday.

“I just don’t think the US should play any role in the war any longer,” Murphy wrote in a separate tweet several hours later.

But even supporters of Sanders’s resolution acknowledged that the vote was not as cut-and-dry as it was in 2019. Some expressed frustration at both the White House and Sanders for complicating an already difficult situation.

One Democratic congressional aide, whose boss supported the motion and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said there was frustration at Sanders for bringing up the resolution when the vote is tougher for some Democrats than it was three years ago.

The aide added that many Democrats felt Trump had been overly friendly to Saudi Arabia and wrote the kingdom “blank checks” without any effort to end the war, and Congress was pushing Trump to be more active in negotiations. In contrast, Biden has been far more proactive in trying to bring the conflict to a close, Democrats argued.

The White House itself is pointing to a lull in the fighting in Yemen, crediting that relative calm to its own “robust diplomatic efforts,” according to the talking points. Some advocates of the war powers resolution said continued pressure from Congress also played a key role in forcing Saudi Arabia to pull back on airstrikes.

“The port and airport have opened, with food and fuel flowing, and there’s rarely a shot fired. The Saudis have conducted no airstrikes at all over the past nine months,” the talking points said, while emphasizing that the Biden administration had “halted ALL sales of offensive munitions” to Saudi Arabia.

But few diplomats are confident the hostilities are definitively over. And the dispute over the resolution comes at a time of heightened scrutiny surrounding the Biden administration’s relations with the Saudi government.

In recent weeks, the Biden administration has taken heat for attempting to reset relations with Saudi Arabia, which wields significant influence in international markets thanks to its copious petroleum reserves at a time when oil and gas markets have been roiled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Biden’s visit to Riyadh this summer broke his campaign promise to make Saudi Arabia “the pariah that they are.” And when OPEC Plus, a Saudi-led coalition, announced weeks ahead of the midterm elections that it would cut oil production, some in Biden’s circle saw it as a personal shot at the president.

Biden promised consequences for the move, but those have yet to materialize.

The tenuous situation was punctuated further in recent days by the Biden administration’s decision to grant Mohammed immunity in Khashoggi’s murder, prompting a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit against him, as well. The crown prince was condemned by both a U.S. intelligence report and the U.S. Senate as responsible for the 2018 murder, which took place in the Saudi embassy in Istanbul.

But opponents of the Yemen resolution said it was important not to turn it into a referendum on Saudi Arabia.

“The way the administration has gone about expressing its opposition to the resolution has been firmly placed in the context of Yemen policy and the impact on Yemen,” a second senior Democratic aide said.

The aide added that Democrats who oppose the resolution will be watching to make sure the White House lives up to its commitments regarding the Yemen war. Lawmakers, the aide said, will be “measuring the actions of the administration now, both in terms of what they’ve done to withdraw support for Saudi Arabia … and also what they’ve done to double down on diplomacy.”

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Raphael Warnock wins Georgia runoff, growing Democrats’ Senate majority

December 7, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

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ATLANTA — Democrat Raphael G. Warnock on Tuesday was projected to win reelection to represent Georgia in the Senate, defeating Republican Herschel Walker in a tight runoff and expanding his party’s slim majority in the chamber.

It was a hard-fought victory for Democrats in an increasingly purple state that was central to the party’s gains last election cycle and is expected to be a key battleground in 2024. Rural turnout for Walker, 60, a former Georgia football star, was not enough to offset a strong Atlanta-area performance by Warnock, 53, a pastor at a historic church in the city.

Warnock’s win gave Democrats their 51st Senate seat — handing them more leverage in a chamber that for two years has been evenly split, with Vice President Harris empowered to break ties and two swing-vote Democrats able to make or break their party’s plans.

The result also capped a disappointing midterm cycle for Republicans, who expected a red wave but fell short of retaking the Senate and reclaimed the House majority by a margin of just a few seats. Walker, a first-time candidate ridiculed for gaffes, accused of serious misconduct and elevated by former president Donald Trump, exemplified broader Republican concerns that their nominees — and Trump — undermined their chances. His loss spurred more calls to rethink the party’s direction and strategy.

With more than 97 percent of the vote counted Tuesday night, Warnock led Walker by nearly 2.5 percentage points. An estimated 3.5 million people voted in the runoff, slightly down from the 3.9 million ballots cast in the general election.

The DJ at Warnock’s election night party played “All I Do Is Win” by DJ Khaled right after CNN posted that Warnock was projected to win. Declaring victory late Tuesday, Warnock said he was honored to “utter the four most powerful words ever spoken in a democracy” — “the people have spoken.”

“I’m proud of the bipartisan work I’ve done,” he said, “and I intend to do more because I actually believe that at the end of the day, we’re all Americans.”

Walker’s supporters gathered in a prayer circle at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta as media outlets began to call the race. Conceding Tuesday night, Walker said he would not be making excuses for his loss because “we put out one heck of a fight.” Throughout the campaign, he criticized the incumbent as a reliable vote for President Biden’s agenda and said he would check Democrats’ power in Washington and represent “Georgia values.”

Analysis: The difference that 51 votes makes for Democrats in the Georgia runoff

Warnock campaigned on Democratic priorities such as legislation to cap drug prices and appealed directly to independents and moderate Republicans, calling Walker unfit for public office and saying the race should come down to “character and competence.” He also promised to support abortion access, as his opponent embraced strict bans that took effect in Georgia and other states after the fall of Roe v. Wade — setting up a stark contrast on an issue that helped galvanize Democrats nationally in an otherwise daunting election year.

Kyle Cartledge, an independent, said he backed Warnock because Walker’s gaffes and the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe alienated him from Republicans this year.

“I wish we had more of a middle, but we don’t seem to have one these days,” said William Shank, who voted for Walker but said he was unenthused about his options.

In a statement, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Warnock would serve as “the last brick in our firewall” against GOP threats to democracy.

Both parties always expected a close contest and lined up colossal resources, with candidates and outside groups spending a combined $380 million on ads for the seat throughout the election cycle. The campaigns focused heavily on in-person get-out-the-vote efforts during the runoff, saying the result would hinge on each candidate’s ability to turn out their base a second time.

Georgia GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker on Dec. 6 said his campaign was the “best thing” he had done after losing to Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.). (Video: The Washington Post)

Republicans hoped that frustration with Biden and the economy would remain powerful motivators and enlisted surrogates for Walker, including Gov. Brian Kemp (R), who had kept a distance from the Senate nominee during his own reelection fight.

But as Tuesday neared, some expressed growing doubts about Walker’s ability to bring out a winning coalition without more popular Republicans such as Kemp on the ballot. The GOP’s challenges only seemed to compound in the runoff, with Republicans feuding openly and Democrats growing their spending advantage.

Outside groups helped Walker try to catch up to Warnock’s record-breaking fundraising in the general election and invested more the past four weeks. But Democrats ultimately spent about twice as much as Republicans on ads in the runoff, pumping roughly $60 million more into the race.

In Georgia runoff, GOP worries about Walker, Trump and party’s future

While Democrats entered the runoff with the Senate majority in hand, a 51st seat will still have big consequences. Democrats are now expected to get a one-seat majority on committees, which are currently evenly split under a power-sharing agreement with Republicans. That will speed up the confirmation process for judicial and executive nominees by averting tied votes and give Democrats more leverage in oversight hearings.

Another seat will also allow Democrats more room to confirm appointees and pass bills over objections from within their caucus. Two moderate senators, Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), currently wield tremendous power to reshape or scuttle legislation. And it boosts Democrats’ position heading into an ominous 2024 Senate map, where they will have to defend many vulnerable incumbents and have tougher odds for a pickup.

Warnock’s win marks the first time in more than a century that all incumbent senators were reelected, and the first time since 1934 that a president’s party gained both Senate and governor’s seats in a midterm. Democrats won two more governorships this cycle.

Karen Schultz, 66, said she almost didn’t come out to vote given the rain and foggy weather in the metro Atlanta area. But “I felt so guilty and I told my husband, ‘We just have to go vote. We have to do our part,’” she said.

Republicans did well in Georgia last month despite their national shortfalls; Kemp won handily in a rematch with Democrat Stacey Abrams. Yet Walker got about 200,000 fewer votes than Kemp, becoming the only statewide GOP candidate not victorious on Nov. 8. Warnock ran about 1 percentage point ahead of Walker in the general election but fell short of the 50 percent required to win outright in Georgia.

Walker gave his final rally in Kennesaw, Ga., flanked by GOP leaders including Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who called his race a “critical seat that will allow us to stop Joe Biden and the Warnock disastrous agenda that is killing our country.”

Speaking at the same event, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley called the runoff an opportunity for Republicans to show that the state’s recent election of Biden and two Democratic senators was a “hiccup.”

In an interview Tuesday night, Dianne Putnam, the chair of the Whitfield County Republican Party, insisted that Georgia remains “a red state.”

“The people just didn’t vote straight down like they should have and that’s usually what Republicans do,” she said of Walker trailing Kemp in November. “I don’t understand that, I really don’t. It’s a mystery to me.”

Ben Burnett, a conservative podcast host and former city councilman in a suburb of Atlanta, echoed calls for the GOP to take a hard look at its strategy. “Winning in the suburbs needs to be the first question that the GOP asks, not the last question that we never answer,” he said.

With nearly 2 million ballots cast before Tuesday, the runoff stoked increasingly vocal GOP concerns about their party’s reliance on a big turnout Tuesday over early voting. Democrats were buoyed by high Black voter turnout last week and said they believed they had the GOP outmatched on the ground, despite Republican investments to repurpose Kemp’s get-out-the-vote operation the past month.

Warnock, the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church — where the Rev. Martin Luther King once preached — will now serve a full, six-year term. Last year, he won a special election to replace Republican Johnny Isakson, who stepped down over health concerns, and became Georgia’s first Black senator.

He and fellow senator from Georgia, Jon Ossoff (D), both prevailed in a January 2021 runoff that gave Democrats control of the Senate and underscored the state’s shifting political identity. In 2020, Biden was the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the traditionally conservative state since Bill Clinton in 1992.

Some Republicans blamed Trump for undermining their party’s chances in the runoff by focusing on his own loss in the lead-up, pressuring Georgia officials to overturn the results and spreading GOP distrust of the voting system.

Trump also loomed over the 2022 midterms, often boosting inexperienced or polarizing candidates to primary victories in battleground races. He endorsed Walker but stayed away from Georgia during the general election.

“It’s not his time to come — not his time and place right now,” Fulton County Republican Party Chairman Trey Kelly said of Trump on Tuesday evening.

Trump and Walker’s teams agreed the former president’s presence would not be helpful during the runoff, according to Trump advisers who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private conversations. Walker did not advertise a Monday tele-rally with Trump on social media or allow reporters to attend. He did tout the endorsement of another Republican on Facebook that same day — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, an increasingly formidable rival to Trump who could challenge him for the presidency in 2024.

Biden also avoided campaigning in Georgia, as Republicans emphasized that Warnock has voted with the president 96 percent of the time and sought to harness widespread dissatisfaction with the direction of the country.

While both Senate candidates attacked each other’s character, allegations from Walker’s past dominated the race. Ex-partners of Walker accused him of domestic violence, said he had little contact with his children and alleged that he paid for their abortions despite his antiabortion views. One of Walker’s sons, who is conservative, harshly criticized Walker this fall and responded scathingly to the outcome on Tuesday, tweeting, “Don’t beat women … fund abortions then pretend [you’re] pro-life … leave your multiple minor children alone to chase more fame, lie … And then maybe you can win a senate seat.”

Walker has spoken openly about a struggle with dissociative identity disorder, and allies pitched him on the trail as a devout Christian who has been redeemed for past mistakes. The GOP nominee denied the abortion claims and some allegations of violence, while saying he cannot remember other incidents.

Democrats worked to highlight Walker’s most puzzling comments from the campaign trail, including a riff about vampires and werewolves, releasing one runoff ad that featured voters listening to sound bites and calling the candidate embarrassing.

Republicans defended Walker’s personal record while leaning into his celebrity status as a former running back at the University of Georgia. They said Warnock was not the “saint” Democrats portrayed, broadcasting allegations from Warnock’s ex-wife that he ran over her foot with a car during an argument. Warnock denies the claim, and law enforcement did not file charges.

Knowles reported from Washington. Rodriguez reported from Atlanta and Norcross, Ga. Wells reported from Marietta, Ga, and Atlanta. Amy B Wang, Liz Goodwin and Scott Clement in Washington contributed to this report.

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