Election officials in Georgia formally announced(11/09/22) that the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock(D) and his challenger Herschel Walker(R), will be headed for a runoff slated for December 6th, 2022. Prior to this formal announcement however, Gabe Sterling, the Chief Operating Officer at the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, appeared on CNN, where veteran Anchor John King, an authority in election result coverage, appeared to question the wisdom behind the decision to declare a runoff, when in his opinion, there were still enough outstanding votes to bring either candidate to 50%. I found that exchange quite interesting because it was John King, a very respectable figure, essentially arguing that a runoff decision was premature.
John King(0:46): “Why are you certain at this point, it will be a runoff? If you look at the results, there’s 49.2[Warnock] to 48.7[Walker] and we have the estimated outstanding vote here, maybe you have updated numbers. We have it at 96% estimated reporting, and you still seeing these circles, a decent amount of votes, a decent share of the votes still to come in in Fulton County and the suburbs around it, where Senator Warnock is doing well. You’re certain that there’s absolutely no possibility he gets to 50?”
Gabe Sterling: “At 2 AM last night I tweeted out it’s pretty safe to say we’re going to have that runoff. As we get closer and closer, more votes keep coming in. By our internal estimates, we have less than 10,000 votes to go into the election night reporting for the final counts. You know, I’ve seen some of these estimates of these votes and I’m like, I don’t know where the hell they are getting these numbers from, but we know there’s about less than 10,000, so there’s just not enough numbers out there still, to change the outcome of this race.”
Did CNN get the numbers wrong? Was Gabe Sterling’s answer satisfactory? Is this an issue the Warnock campaign needs to look further into? Hmm, lots of valid questions here, that’s all Yours Truly is saying.
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Interesting segment on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show(04/19/22) looked into the intense pressure building on Senator Mike Lee(R-UT) from his hometown newspapers, for him to come clean over his involvement with efforts to assist former President Trump to overturn the 2020 elections, and specifically, his role in the fake electors scheme. As Maddow correctly pointed out, public statements attributed to Sen Lee regarding Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 elections are in stark contrast with his newly released private text messages, which clearly show his deep involvement with the fake electors scheme.
It appears Sen Lee’s hometown newspapers have seized on this glaring discrepancy between public “constitutional conservative” Mike Lee, and private insurrectionist Mike Lee, and are demanding that the Senator finally come clean about his involvement with Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 elections. The newspapers have zeroed in on the Utah State Republican Convention scheduled for Saturday(04/23/22, for Sen Lee to finally come clean about this issue.
Maddow referenced an editorial from a leading Utah newspaper(video at 4:15): “Just today, the Salt Lake Tribune has released a new editorial under this headline, Saturday’s Utah State Republican Convention would be a great place for Mike Lee to come clean…It’s past time for Mike Lee to start fessing up to all he knows about the plot to set aside the results of an honest and fair election in order to keep Donald Trump in power. We know Utah’s Senior Senator had a much greater role in that plot than he has previously acknowledged. His constituents deserve a much more detailed accounting of what went on and the extent of Senator Lee’s participation in it. Yesterday would be a great time for Senator Lee to come clean. Saturday’s State Republican Convention would be a really good opportunity for that too.”
Bottom line folks, it is very encouraging to see the media in Utah pressuring Senator Lee to come clean about his involvement with Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. To date, there has been been very little individual accountability for members of Congress who were clearly involved in Trump’s illegal efforts to overturn the 2020 elections and hopefully, this is the beginning of some much overdue reckoning for members of Congress. It would be great if Texas newspapers would also inquire into whether public “constitutional conservative” Ted Cruz was likewise, a private insurrectionist.
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Biden administration’s Infrastructure Coordinator, Mitch Landrieu, made a major announcement on CNN’s New Day(02/08/22), that a major electric vehicle charging facility operated by Tritium, is opening in Tennessee. Tritium is a global leader in the electric vehicle charging industry, making this announcement a major development on the infrastructure front.
Mitch Landrieu said on New Day: “The infrastructure law is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rebuild the country. We’re not just talking about roads and bridges and airports and lead pipes, we’re actually talking about manufacturing, and of course as we electrify the economy, and we talk about electric vehicles coming, somebody has to make the electrical vehicle charging stations, and we want those made here in America, so this particular announcement is really groundbreaking. It’s going to be in Tennessee. They are going to build 30,000 electrical vehicle charging stations. On Thursday, Secretary Buttigieg and Secretary Granholm are going to announce $5 billion to begin the process of putting 500,000 charging stations across America, but we want those charging stations made in America, we want them with American products, and today is the start of actually manufacturing those here at home.”
Think about that. The infrastructure law was just enacted the other day and already, the Biden administration is putting people to work. Per Coordinator Mitch Landrieu, the plan to install as many as 500,000 charging stations across the country, begins today in Tennessee. Talk about MAGA–Make AmericanManufacturing Great Again!!
Bottom line folks, as Yours Truly said the other day after Speaker Pelosi and her House Democrats passed America Competes Act, don’t get lost and discouraged with all the noise from naysayers on MSM, talking about how Dems will “lose in November because they are not delivering.” The fact of the matter is Dems, both congressional and the Biden admin, are hunkering down and delivering on things that matter to working families, the latest example being the electric charging plant in Tennessee, which translates to jobs, jobs, jobs(good ones). MSM naysayers have one valid point though–Dems need to do a better job of touting their accomplishments.
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The Nation’s Justice Correspondent, Elie Mystal, dropped a major bombshell on MSNBC’s American Voices (01/16/22), when he slammed U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts as the “chief architect” of the assault on voting rights. Unlike many mainstream media pundits who engage in incendiary rhetoric just for ratings, Elie Mystal backed up his bombshell assertion with very good examples that would make any reasonable person either agree with him, or at the very least, find his assertion quite plausible. The fact that Elie Mystal’s bombshell claims pass the plausibility test, should compel Chief Justice Roberts to address them, for the sake of the Supreme Court’s integrity.
Elie Mystal specifically said: “The chief architect of this assault on our voting rights is not Mitch McConnell, it’s not ot David Duke, it’s not whatever boogey man you think is hiding under the closet. The chief architect is Chief Justice John Roberts. It is he who has been an enemy of voting rights and racial equality from his very first job out of law school, which was to oppose the 1982 amendments to the Voting Rights Act. It is John Roberts who authored Shelby County v Holder in 2013 which eviscerated section 5 of Voting Rights Act which is basically why we are here right now, it is John Roberts who authored Rucho in 2020 which swung wide the doors towards gerrymandering, and it is John Roberts who provided the crucial 5th vote in last year’s Brnovich decision which eviscerated section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. This is all being done by Federalist Society conservatives that have been put on the Supreme Court, and until we stop them, until we do something about the court–you want to pass your Freedom to Vote Act, I think that’s a great bill, we should pass it, I think we should have passed HR1, but always remember that John Roberts and his conservative cronies are waiting at the Supreme Court level to strike down whatever laws we put forward. As long as you let Republicans control the Supreme Court, you cannot have a fair and equal just society.”
It’s worth pointing out here too, that Elie Mystal is not only decrying Chief Justice Roberts’ questionable history on voting rights, but crucially, also making the point that minorities are doomed going forward, with him at the helm of the Supreme Court. This naturally raises the question as to whether Chief Justice Roberts is the right person to lead the high court.
Bottom line folks, these are questions that the mainstream media needs to take up with Chief Justice Roberts. At a time when voting rights are a red hot topic, and minorities are increasingly concerned about Republicans infringing upon their right to vote, the public deserves to know whether the Roberts Supreme Court will be a neutral arbiter in the fight for voting rights, as it should be.
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CNN’s Reality Check w/John Avlon did a segment(11/19/21) featuring an extreme gerrymandering case currently playing out in Ohio. Back in 2018, Ohio voters overwhelmingly backed(75%) an amendment to the state’s constitution that would ensure redistricting was carried out in a bipartisan fashion. Ohio’s congressional district maps were to be drawn by a bipartisan 7-member redistricting commission. The idea behind a bipartisan redistricting commission was quite simple–to create competitive district maps which would in turn reduce political polarization. Basically, politicians will shy away from radical ideas/conduct if they know they can be easily beaten at the polls.
Well, it turns out Ohio Republicans have since reneged on their support for a bipartisan redistricting commission, and are now using the Republican-led state legislature to come up with an extremely gerrymandered map, one that will give them a 13-2 advantage in congressional seats(86%R-14%D), even though Trump’s 2020 win in Ohio was only 53%-45%. No reasonable person would ever conclude that Ohio is an 86R-14D state, yet this is exactly what the new congressional map being pushed by state Republicans attempts to achieve–a total fraud and willful disenfranchisement of Democratic-leaning voters.
Even more repugnant is the way the Republican-led Ohio state legislature ended up being responsible for drawing the congressional maps. According to John Avlon, Republican members of the bipartisan redistricting commission simply refused to show up for duty, thereby crippling the commission because it was unable to convene meetings. With the bipartisan commission deliberately crippled, the redistricting job fell back to the partisan Ohio legislature, which drew the extremely gerrymandered map–a sad state of affairs indeed.
John Avlon said: “Ohio Republicans just decided to disregard the state constitution and the will of the voters. A seven-member redistricting commission had a month to work on a fair map, but Republican members refused to participate, and so the commission couldn’t convene. The power to draw the lines fell back to the Republican-controlled state assembly, who proceeded to do exactly what the constitutional amendment forbade. They cracked and packed minority communities, dividing counties and cities for their own partisan advantage. For example, Hamilton County, home to Cincinnati, which voted for[President] Biden by a 16-point margin, will be divided into 3 congressional districts, with Black voters offset by White Republicans.”
This is just the latest example of how state Republicans are actively disenfranchising Democratic-leaning/minority voters while Democrats in Washington are still dithering over abolishing the filibuster, and coming up with a federal voting rights law. A federal voting rights law is the only solution to the rampant GOP gerrymandering.
Bottom line folks, time is of the essence. Democrats need to abolish the filibuster immediately and pass a federal voting rights law. The two Senate holdouts, Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, must be confronted with this troubling Ohio gerrymandering case, and be forced to explain why a filibuster carve out for a federal voting legislation is not the appropriate way to go, given the dire circumstances.
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CNN’s Gabby Orr reported on New Day(11/19/21) that tension is growing between former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over the 2024 election. Trump is apparently upset that Gov DeSantis has not yet stated publicly that he won’t challenge him for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, if he decides to run. Trump is reportedly fuming to close aides, telling them that he “made” DeSantis.
If this reporting holds, it will be the clearest sign yet, that Gov DeSantis’ rise in the national GOP ranks, and his potential 2024 presidential run, has caught Trump’s attention, and not in a good way.
Gabby Orr told New Day Host **John Berman: “As Donald Trump tracks very closely what Republican presidential hopefuls for 2024 have said about challenging him if he does decide to go for a third presidential run, he has been increasingly irritated with the cardinal sin that Governor Ron DeSantis is committing, by not saying anything of the sort. He has not come out and said ‘I will not challenge Donald Trump if he decides to run in 2024’, he has not even said that he is interested in 2024 and that, according to aides to Donald Trump…is really irking the former President. My colleague Steve Contorno and I talked to several people close to both DeSantis and Donald Trump who said, there is a noticeable strain on the relationship and that [former]President Trump will not be satisfied until Ron DeSantis comes out and unequivocally says he will not challenge the former president in a GOP presidential primary. “
Gabby Orr added that while Trump is not personally attacking Gov DeSantis in his private conversations with allies, he is constantly reminding them that he “made” DeSantis, an obvious implication that DeSantis should be loyal to him. Trump’s craving for loyalty pledges is nothing new. The only question is whether rising GOP star DeSantis will clip his wings to appease him as we head towards 2024.
Bottom line folks, the 2024 GOP presidential primary will be a Trumpism referendum–whether the Republican Party continues with Trump as it’s leader, or whether the party settles on someone else–a Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley–as the new flag bearer. It will be very interesting to see how Florida Governor DeSantis navigates the choppy waters ahead, now that he knows he has TeamTrump scared.
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An interesting Texas Monthly piece from way back in 2000 suggests that then Texas Attorney General John Cornyn went easy on the powerful Koch industries after they polluted Texas waters in return for their support for him during his 1998 campaign.
John Cornyn was a judge at the Texas Supreme Court from 1991 to 1997 and was elected Texas Attorney General in 1998. Prior to his stint at the Texas Supreme Court, Cornyn was a judge at the Texas 37th District Court.
According to the Texas Monthly piece, pipelines belonging to Wichita-based Koch Industries leaked oil products into the waters of Texas and several other states. The federal government went after Koch Industries for violations of the Clean Water Act and several states including Texas joined the lawsuit. Texas attorney General at that time was Dan Morales (Cornyn’s predecessor). AG Morales is famous for the major win he scored against the Tobacco industry that netted the Lone Star state a staggering $17.3 billion in fines from Big Tobacco.
It is against the backdrop of AG Morales’ win against Big Tobacco that Koch Industries backed John Cornyn’s candidacy for Texas AG–in essence to shield themselves from having to pay astronomical fines to the Lone Star state as Big Tobacco did. So you say, “OK @Emolclause you’re really grasping at straws here. Cut to the chase and explain how Koch Industries recruited Cornyn to avoid paying astronomical fines to the Lone Star state after polluting its waters.” Here it is in a nutshell.
As the Texas Monthly piece correctly points out, going after Big Tobacco, Big Oil etc in court usually involves very complex litigation that requires a battery of “cream of the crop” attorneys. Needless to say, such attorneys charge astronomical fees for their services–fees that most state elected officials(AGs) feel uncomfortable paying using taxpayer funds. What most states end up doing therefore (at least before AG Cornyn came along) is that they enter into agreements with these smart attorneys whereby the attorneys take on the complex litigation without any payment from the state in return for a share(percentage) of the fines they recoup from the offending company. In the case of Big Tobacco for example where Texas netted an astronomical $17.3 billion in fines, the attorneys in the case ended up getting paid a whopping $3.3 billion.
AG Morales attempted to duplicate his success against Big Tobacco in his fight against Koch Industries by using the same technique of a battery of smart attorneys not paid by the state. Koch Industries backed Cornyn’s campaign for Texas AG in 1998, donating $5000 to his campaign. Cornyn went on to win the election in 1998 and when he became AG, immediately began fighting the practice of using “outside” lawyers for complex litigation like the one the state was pursuing against Koch Industries. Cornyn wanted only state attorneys(from the AG’s office) to handle the complex litigation against Koch Industries and others–an obvious legal advantage to the big companies. He used the straw argument that the staggering $3.3 billion paid to attorneys in the Big Tobacco case should have ended up in the state’s coffers instead.
What ended up happening is that the high-powered attorneys AG Morales had lined up to go to trial against Koch Industries left and the Lone Star state was forced to accept a paltry $35 million settlement from Koch, a settlement that deeply angered environmentalists. Most experts agree that had Cornyn allowed Morales’ attorneys to take Koch to trial, they were looking at a possible $225 million or more in fines. Obviously some of the $225 million would have gone to pay the attorneys’ fees but the Lone Star state would still have ended up with more than the paltry $35 million “slap on the wrist” settlement Cornyn got. Therefore Koch essentially backed Cornyn as AG in order to save themselves from paying astronomical fines to the state for polluting its waters. Sad indeed!!
Cornyn when confronted about this “slap on the wrist” settlement against Koch industries reportedly answered that it was “pretty darned good for a Republican.” In other words he did not aggressively pursue Koch Industries as much as he should because they traditionally supported Republicans.
Even more troubling is the fact that Cornyn assailed his GOP primary opponent in the Texas AG race for engaging in the exact similar conduct he was now excusing–taking money(contributions) from a company the Texas AG’s office was pursuing in court. This means Cornyn knew what he was doing was unethical but did it anyway.
It also cannot be left unsaid that the Texas Monthly piece accused John Cornyn of “playing politics with the law at the expense of the public interest.” This is especially instructive now that he is running for reelection in 2020. Hopefully his Dem challengers will dig into this excellent Texas Monthly piece to dig up other troubling aspects of John Cornyn’s political career
Bottom line, Texas has always been assumed to be a reliably “red state” by much of the national mainstream media and indeed by some establishment Democrats. Yours Truly challenged this notion back when nobody thought Beto O’Rourke had any chance against Ted Cruz and we saw what happened. The same needs to happen with John Cornyn, whose long record both in Texas politics and as U.S. Senator provides ample oppo-research fodder for his prospective Dem challenger. Yours Truly will certainly do his part to expose John Cornyn for the corrupt politician he has always been, beginning with this shady deal he did for Koch Industries against the best interests of the Lone Star state.
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With many Democrats gunning for the White House in 2020 (the current count at 20+), the question that is increasingly popping up among grassroots Democrats is why some of these excellent candidates are not running for the U.S. Senate instead?
Every week we get stories from the mainstream media about how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is refusing to bring bills passed by House Democrats to a vote in the U.S. Senate. One would think, given these dire circumstances that Democrats would focus heavily on recapturing the U.S. Senate in addition to the White House in 2020. Strangely however, all the talk is about who is running for President, even though as mean as this sounds, some of these potentially excellent Senate candidates have zero chance of securing the Dem presidential nomination.
Yours Truly recently raised this very point on Twitter and the reaction was almost unanimous that some of these Democrats currently gunning for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, should focus instead on taking over the U.S. Senate.
This! ABSOLUTELY this!
Winning the WH would be huge. The House? Also huge.
But because we are no longer a representative Republic, winning the Senate is THE most important goal.
In a recent post, Yours Truly laid out the 22 GOP Senators up for reelection in 2020 and the fact that everything remaining constant, Dems will need to flip at least 3 seats to recapture the U.S. Senate. Senators Susan Collins (Maine), Cory Gardner (Colorado) and by some estimates John Cornyn (Texas) are GOP Senators most pundits think could lose to a Dem opponent in 2020. Why for example shouldn’t John Hickenlooper, who by all accounts is struggling in his presidential campaign, go after Cory Gardner’s Senate seat instead?
“I feel like that I haven’t been successful at expressing some of the solutions we’ve created that would be scalable for the entire country. ” – Former Gov. John Hickenlooper on reports of a major shakeup in his campaign as it fails to gain traction https://t.co/LBLXmpYnaopic.twitter.com/cKmkLCIisU
The same question applies to Texans Beto O’Rourke and Julian Castro re John Cornyn’s Senate seat, and Montana Governor Steve Bullock re Senator Steve Daines’ seat. Bottom line folks, as the Dem presidential contest chugs along, it would be helpful if the mainstream media, especially the cable TV punditry class starts asking some of the long shot candidates, why they should not be gunning for the U.S. Senate instead? Better yet, this would be an excellent question for the debate moderators at the next Dem debate in Detroit slated for the end of July
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CNN’s Inside Politics has uncovered a 1999 video showing then Rep Lindsey Graham arguing for then President Clinton’s impeachment because as chief law enforcement officer, he had not only lied, but also encouraged others to lie for him. Essentially then Rep Graham was saying that by encouraging others to lie for him, Clinton(a Democrat) had obstructed justice and thus needed to be impeached. You will notice that President Trump(a Republican) is currently facing the exact, if not worse accusations, yet Sen Lindsey Graham is now against impeaching Trump.
https://youtu.be/GaBBsvuCbU4
Then Rep Graham specifically said, “He[Clinton] is the chief law enforcement officer in the land. He encouraged people to lie for him. He lied. I think he obstructed justice and I think there’s a compelling case that he has in fact engaged in conduct that would be better for him to leave office than to stay in office.”
Bottom line, Sen Lindsey Graham is up for reelection in 2020 and all indications are that he will cruise to victory. However if Democrats proceed with impeachment proceedings against Trump and expose Trump to have engaged in the same conduct Lindsey Graham wanted Clinton impeached for, the shameful hypocrisy might create an opening for Graham’s 2020 Dem challenger.
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After Democrat Beto O’Rourke’s heart-breaking loss to incumbent GOP Senator Ted Cruz, many Texas Democrats are left wondering what to do with the groundswell political energy generated by the highly inspiring Beto campaign. Many including Yours Truly are yet to accept Ted Cruz’s “win” given the troubling reports that the eSlate voting machines switched some Beto votes to Ted Cruz. There has been no follow up on this story by the mainstream media or #TeamBeto as to exactly how many votes were switched by the eSlate machines meaning we are stuck with Senator Ted Cruz for the next six years.
The good news however is that Texas Democrats have a fresh opportunity to avenge Beto’s heart-breaking loss to Ted Cruz. The other U.S. Senator from Texas, John Cornyn is up for re-election in 2020 meaning Texas Democrats have a perfect opportunity to take out all their frustrations over Beto’s loss on him. Sen Cornyn is also Mitch McConnell’s right hand man in the GOP-controlled U.S. Senate which should provide added impetus for Texas Dems to vote him out in 2020. Simply put, its officially “Operation Defeat John Cornyn” in Texas.
Also good news for Texas Democrats is that the Harris County Clerk(Houston area) is now a Democrat and she has already promised to phase out the problematic eSlate machines before 2020. There is also tremendous momentum in Dallas, Austin and San Antonio regions that vote heavily Democratic to come up with more reliable voting machines before the 2020 elections.
Bottom line, it appears we have lost the fight over Ted Cruz’s seat. We should therefore start focusing our energy on the upcoming 2020 fight against Senator John Cornyn and make sure we flip that senate seat blue. It will be very interesting to see which Texas Democrat steps up to the plate to take on Senator John Cornyn in 2020. Will it be Beto 2.0, Lizzie Pannill Fletcher(TX-07), former NFL linebacker Colin Alred(TX-32), or….? Folks there are a lot of quality Dems to go up against Senator Cornyn in 2020. We must flip Cornyn’s senate seat blue!
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