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Another GOP Governor Rejects McConnell Plea To Run For US Senate

Another GOP Governor Rejects McConnell Plea To Run For US Senate

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan announced on Tuesday that he will not run for Senate this year, marking another setback for Senate Republican leaders who want to take back the majority.

"I sincerely appreciate all the people who have been encouraging me to consider it," Hogan told reporters Tuesday afternoon. "Just because you can win a race doesn't mean that's the job you should do if your heart's not in it. And I just didn't see myself being a U.S. senator."

Hogan also quipped that he called incumbent Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) "to let him know that he can rest easy and get a good night's sleep tonight."

Both Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, had reportedly been working hard to persuade Hogan to run for Senate this year to help the GOP regain a majority in the chamber.

Hogan, who has served as Maryland's governor since 2015, is term-limited and not allowed to run for reelection.

The Associated Press reported in January that Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and former Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao had also been enlisted in the effort to persuade Hogan to run.

This is not the first recent high-profile recruiting failure for Senate Republicans in a state carried by President Joe Biden.

In November, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu rejected the party leaders' attempts to get him to challenge Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH).

Sununu pointed directly to McConnell and his caucus' obstruction of nearly all legislation as a reason he did not want to be a GOP senator, observing that "too often, doing nothing is considered a win."

He openly observed that the Republican incumbents recruiting him seemed generally "content with the speed at which they weren't doing anything," adding, "OK, so I'm just going to be a roadblock for two years. That's not what I do."

McConnell and Scott also reportedly tried to convince Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey to mount a challenge against Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly. Ducey, who had previously disclaimed interest in the race, said last Thursday that his answer "hasn't changed."

Van Hollen is considered by political experts to be a heavy favorite to win a second term in a solidly blue state. But Hogan is the very rare Republican who has managed to be elected statewide in Maryland in recent decades, winning reelection in 2018 by nearly 12 points.

A recent internal GOP poll showed Hogan ahead in a hypothetical Senate matchup against Van Hollen, 49-37 percent.

Hogan has presented himself as an independent-minded moderate who rejected Trump. This did not stop him from advocating for GOP control of the U.S. Senate in the 2020 Georgia runoff elections or from using his position as co-chair of the No Labels super PAC to oppose Biden's popular agenda in the name of "bipartisanship."

But as Trump and his supporters have pushed to get revenge against his critics and drive them out of the party, there appears to be little room for even slightly centrist Republicans.

Last week, Hogan rebuked the Republican National Committee for censuring two House Republicans, Reps. Liz Cheney (WY) and Adam Kinzinger (IL), for their role in investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that was carried out by Trump supporters.

"The GOP I believe in is the party of freedom and truth," Hogan tweeted on February 4. "It's a sad day for my party — and the country — when you're punished just for expressing your beliefs, standing on principle, and refusing to tell blatant lies."

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

Maryland state Del. Daniel Cox

QAnon Promoter Seeks Maryland GOP Governor Nomination

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

Maryland state Del. Daniel Cox (R), now a candidate for governor, has in the past expressed support for the debunked QAnon conspiracy theory.

Cox announced on Sunday that he would be seeking the Republican nomination for governor of Maryland. The current governor, Republican Larry Hogan, is term-limited and cannot seek a third consecutive term in office. Two other Republican candidates are currently seeking the nomination and nine Democrats are running for their party's nomination.

Cox, an outspoken supporter of Trump, used the hashtag "WWG1WGA" in an October 2020 tweet that warned that Biden was "dark and oppressed" and would "lock us in our homes."

The acronym "WWG1WGA" stands for "when we go one, we go all" and rose to prominence for its connection to the QAnon conspiracy theory. QAnon devotees believe that celebrities and elected officials are part of a worldwide child trafficking network. Those claims have repeatedly been debunked.

Hogan in January referred to Cox as a "QAnon conspiracy theorist" and criticized the delegate for lawsuits he filed against the state that attacked mask mandates designed to halt the spread of the virus. (Cox also works as a lawyer).

"I know he filed suit against us multiple times, [he's] a QAnon conspiracy theorist who says crazy things every day," Hogan said of his fellow Republican.

In addition to his QAnon background, Cox called for a "forensic audit of the 2020 election" in the video accompanying the launch of his gubernatorial campaign, a reference to right-wing conspiracy theories that have emerged since Trump lost to Biden.

Many Republicans have been pushing for other states to emulate the flawed election "audit" currently underway in Arizona, led by GOP state lawmakers.

Cox has previously promoted election conspiracies. He organized buses to transport protesters to the "stop the steal" rally in Washington on January 6, and as Trump supporters attacked the Capitol, Cox tweeted, "Pence is a traitor."

The website Maryland Mattersnoted that on the same day, Cox promoted tweets that falsely claimed antifa was behind the Capitol attack.

Cox later released a statement denouncing the attack after some called for his expulsion from the Maryland General Assembly.

Cox is a former member of Alliance Defending Freedom, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as a hate group opposed to LGBTQ rights. In 2017, Cox filed suit against a Maryland high school, alleging that allowing students to use bathrooms aligned with their gender identity violated the rights of a female student.

While the current governor of Maryland is a Republican, it is expected that the seat may tilt toward Democrats. Cook Political Report rates the race as "lean Democratic." In 2020, Maryland overwhelming voted for President Joe Biden over former President Donald Trump, by a margin of 65 percent to 32 percent. Both of Maryland's senators are Democrats and seven out of the state's eight House representatives are Democrats.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

Sean Hannity

Misleading Voices In Right-Wing Media Promoted Virus Spread

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Although some GOP governors have joined their Democratic counterparts in aggressively promoting social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic — including Maryland's Larry Hogan and Massachusetts' Charlie Baker — President Donald Trump and much of the right-wing media, from Fox News to AM talk radio, have failed to take the crisis seriously. And according to Washington Post reporter Christopher Ingraham, some recent studies offer a damning indictment of right-wing media coverage of the pandemic.

"In recent weeks," Ingraham explains, "three studies have focused on conservative media's role in fostering confusion about the seriousness of the coronavirus. Taken together, they paint a picture of a media ecosystem that amplifies misinformation, entertains conspiracy theories and discourages audiences from taking concrete steps to protect themselves and others. The end result, according to one of the studies, is that infection and mortality rates are higher in places where one pundit who initially downplayed the severity of the pandemic — Fox News' Sean Hannity — reaches the largest audiences."

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GOP Governor Blasted Trump's Testing Claims As 'Absolutely False'

GOP Governor Blasted Trump's Testing Claims As 'Absolutely False'

Donald Trump's attempt to blame governors for the lack of adequate nationwide coronavirus testing by falsely claiming there are plenty of available tests was shot down by governors of both parties on Sunday.

"They don't want to use all of the capacity that we've created," Trump falsely stated at a Sunday press conference. "We have tremendous capacity. ...They know that. The governors know that. The Democrat governors know that; they're the ones that are complaining."

Trump is wrong, according to Larry Hogan, the Republican governor of Maryland."To try to push this off, to say that the governors have plenty of testing and they should just get to work on testing, somehow we aren't doing our job, is just absolutely false," Hogan, who is also chair of the National Governors Association, said Sunday on CNN.

"It's not accurate to say 'there's plenty of testing out there and the governors should just get it done.' That's just not being straightforward," Hogan added.

Hogan was not the only governor to call out Trump's lie.

"That's just delusional to be making statements like that," Gov. Ralph Northam (D-VA) told CNN on Sunday. "We have been fighting for testing," Northam said. It's not a — it's not a straightforward test. We don't even have enough swabs, believe it or not. And we're ramping that up. But for the national level to say that we have what we need and really to have no guidance to the state levels is just irresponsible, because we're not there yet."

Scientists at Harvard University estimate that the United States needs to test between 500,000 and 700,000 people per day in order to be able to reopen the economy by mid-May, the New York Times reported on Friday. Currently, the country is testing less than 150,000 people per day on average.

On March 10, Vice President Pence vowed that 4 million tests would be available by the end of the week. On March 13, Trump promised 5 million tests would be available by the end of March.

The administration broke those promises.

More than a month after Pence and Trump made the declarations, the number of Americans tested stood at 3.6 million on Friday, according to the Times.

The Trump administration was slow to ramp up testing after refusing to use a testing protocol published by the World Health Organization, and then an initial test developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was flawed.

As of Monday morning, there are more than 753,000 confirmed cases in the U.S., according to the New York Times, and at least 36,109 people have died.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.