The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
@jeisrael
Dave McCormick

Connecticut Republican Declares Candidacy For Pennsylvania Senate Seat

Connecticut-based millionaire and former hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick on Thursday announced that he will challenge incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), following months of recruitment efforts by national Republicans. McCormick, who has run for the Senate before, has a long record of opposing public education, reproductive rights, and American workers.

Hours before a scheduled Pittsburgh announcement speech, McCormick released a campaign video, promising: “I will fight for pro-growth economic policies, for America-first energy policies. I will fight on day one to secure borders. I will lead the fight on China.”

In 2022, McCormick sought the Republican nomination for the seat of retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey. He narrowly lost in a primary to television personality Mehmet Oz after Democrats criticized both candidates as carpetbaggers from out of state.

McCormick told the right-wing American Enterprise Institute this March, in an interview first flagged by the progressive super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, that part of the reason Oz lost to Democratic nominee John Fetterman in the November 2022 general election was a lack of authentic connection to the state.

Telling the interviewer that he himself has deep roots in Pennsylvania, McCormick said: “He didn’t have enough anything like that. And so that explains a lot, I think, because people want to know that the person that they’re voting for kind of gets it, and part of getting it is understanding that you just didn’t come in yesterday.” (Disclosure: The American Independent Foundation is a partner organization of American Bridge.)

Though McCormick repeatedly claimed to be a Pennsylvania resident during his 2022 campaign and earlier this year, an August 14 Associated Press investigation of tax filings and property records revealed that he still appears to live in a $16 million mansion in Westport, Connecticut.

The American Independent Foundation later reviewed additional tax records that show he paid Westport town motor vehicle taxes on two vehicles, indicating that they were still registered in Connecticut as of October 2022.

In his 2022 campaign, McCormick spoke about his opposition to abortion. He endorsed a nearly total abortion ban during an April 2022 debate: “I believe in the very rare instances, there should be exceptions for the life of the mother.”

A spokesperson told the Philadelphia Inquirer last June that McCormick now supports exceptions in cases of rape and incest.

Recent polls have shown more than 60 percent of Pennsylvanians support abortion being legal in most or all circumstances. Casey has backed legislation to restore the right to an abortion in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned Roe v. Wade.

During his 2022 campaign, McCormick opposed gun safety legislation and, on his campaign website, accused the “extreme left” of wanting to abolish the Second Amendment.

McCormick attacked public education during a March radio interview, also flagged by American Bridge. Asked on the Rich Zeoli Show about “wokeness” in the education system, McCormick complained that schools were not teaching that America is exceptional:

And this all became clear during COVID, because all of a sudden, parents could see that the history that was being taught, the sexualization that was happening, particularly in our elementary schools, they could see that teachers were making decisions that were not in the best interests of their children. And that’s why we’ve got to break the back of our teachers’ unions and our public school system and give kids choice and get parents more involved.

McCormick said in April 2022 that he opposes efforts to increase the $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage, which has not been adjusted since 2009. “I wouldn’t change the minimum wage we have now,” he said on the Politics PA podcast. “But I wouldn’t raise it.”

Asked that January about allegations that his businesses had outsourced Pennsylvania jobs, he told Pittsburgh radio station KDKA: “Certainly, there was never any outsourcing of jobs to any country, and there was certainly no outsourcing of jobs to China. And the businesses I ran had very, very little business at all with China. The firm I led had two percent of its revenue coming from China.”

This appeared to contradict a 2005 Pittsburgh Tribune-Reviewstory about McCormick’s assumption of the position of undersecretary of commerce for export in the George W. Bush administration, which said, “McCormick said his experience as a corporate CEO helping companies to move work offshore, and as a platoon leader in the Army during the first Gulf War, will serve him well in his new post.”

The American Independent Foundation reported in March 2022 that McCormick had repeatedly called himself a former Army Ranger, though he never earned that title.

According to the Army’s Special Operations Command, only military members who serve or served in the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment can call themselves a U.S. Army Ranger. McCormick completed the Army’s Ranger Course training program in 1988, entitling him to say he was “Ranger qualified,” according to U.S. military standards, but he never served in the 75th.

In his 2022 campaign, he touted the endorsement of Sean Parnell, a former primary opponent who had dropped out of the race. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had reported that Parnell sought to seal custody records after his estranged wife filed protection-from-abuse orders against him.

“The real David McCormick is a mega-millionaire Connecticut hedge fund executive who is lying about living in Pennsylvania, and has spent his life looking out for himself and his rich friends at the expense of working families,” Pennsylvania Democratic Party spokesperson Maddy McDaniel told the American Independent Foundation. “Bob Casey has spent his career fighting for Pennsylvanians who work for a living, while McCormick has shown he will do and say anything to benefit himself and his wealthy Wall Street friends.”

Casey has introduced 54 bills so far in 2023, addressing gun violence, Medicare and Medicaid expansion, public health, and costs for Pennsylvania families.

The Cook Political Reportlists the race as competitive, but leaning Democratic.

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz And Rick Scott Back House Extremists On Government Shutdown

Much of the federal government could shut down on October 1, with far-right members of the House Republican majority unable to come to an agreement on federal funding for the upcoming fiscal year. Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rick Scott (R-FL) have been cheering those extremists on.

The House has approved just one of the 12 must-pass appropriations bills needed to keep the government operational each year. Although President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) reached an agreement in May, members of the archconservative House Freedom Caucus have refused to allow votes on legislation to fund the government at those levels or on a short-term extension of last year’s spending levels.

After narrowly winning their 2018 reelection races, Cruz and Scott are the most vulnerable Republican Senate incumbents on the ballot in 2024, according to the Cook Political Report. Both sided with the far-right House GOP faction against a bipartisan spending deal.

“Thank God for the @freedomcaucus and all they are doing to ensure Washington does its job and reins in Democrats’ reckless spending,” Scott tweeted on Sept. 12. “Since 2019, the population is up 1.8%, but budgets have grown by 55%. It makes no sense, drives inflation & must be stopped.”

During an appearance at a Freedom Caucus press conference on the same day, he said: “I thank God for what the Freedom Caucus is doing in the House. If they don’t stand up, nobody’s standing up. They stood up on the debt ceiling, and they fought for a great bill. Unfortunately, it didn’t end up that way, but they fought for a great bill. We’ve got to stop this insanity.”

Cruz praised Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy, the Freedom Caucus policy chair and Cruz’s own former chief of staff, for fighting against a compromise.

He told Spectrum News on Monday:

“What Chip is arguing for is that Republicans, who were just given a majority in the House, ought to stand up and fight for the priorities that the people elected them to fight for. I think that’s exactly right.”

“Washington often presents a false choice that either … you have to completely concede to the massive spending, the unprecedented debt that is fueling inflation that is hurting Texans across the state, you either have to completely roll over to the Democrats, or the alternative is a shutdown,” Cruz said, according to Spectrum News. “I don’t think we should have a shutdown.”

While a shutdown would not stop the federal government from carrying out some essential functions, it would have to cease most operations, and federal workers would not get paid.

This would mean older Americans would be unable to file new Social Security claims, that lower-income citizens would be unable to access food aid through the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program, veterans would not be able to get services, and food safety inspections would grind to a halt. Recent shutdowns have reduced the nation’s gross domestic product by billions of dollars.

While the House Republicans have been unable to agree on a path forward, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate have joined together to offer bipartisan appropriations bills.

On September 14, the Senate voted 91-7 to begin debate on a three bill “minibus” package to fund the Departments of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, as well as the Food and Drug Administration and military construction, for the next fiscal year. Cruz and Scott both voted against the proposal.

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

Matt Hall

Michigan GOP Politician Sent Death Threats As A Student

The Michigan legislature is currently considering bills designed to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals. Records provided to the American Independent Foundation show that one of the leading opponents of gun safety legislation in the Michigan House has a history of threatening others with gun violence.

House Minority Leader Matt Hall, a Republican who represents a southwest Michigan district around Kalamazoo, is a graduate of Western Michigan University. During his time there, according to police records obtained through a public records request, he admitted to sending death threats to a student at a college in Maryland, where his girlfriend was studying.

In a signed statement, Hall wrote:

“On December 3, 2001 I sent two separate e-mails to [redacted] at Washington College. The e-mails were threatening to kill him. I thought he had sent me threatening instant messages, but discovered he didn’t.”

In one email, Hall wrote:

YOU BETTER NOT GO TO THE CHRISTMAS PARTY TOMORROW NIGHT! JUST A WORD OF ADVICE!! THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN AND WE DON’T LIKE YOUR KIND TREATING LADIES LIKE [redacted] WITHOUT DIGNITY. SHE IS A FINE LADY YOU DON’T NEED TO BE SAYING SHIT ABOUT HER! WE ARE GOING TO IMPOSE OUR SOUTHERN WAYS ON YOU! I’VE GOT A SHOTGUN RIFLE AND I JUST PUT A BULLET IN IT WITH YOUR NAME ON IT!

In another, he told the student: “YOU HAD BETTER WATCH OUT!! WE DON’T LIKE YOUR KIND HERE IN WC! YOU WON’T FEEL VERY CROMBIE WHEN WE ARE DONE WITH YOU! BY YOU BLOCKING US ON IM WE ARE JUST MORE ANGRY!!! CLOSING TIME IS COMING SOON! BETTER SAY YOUR PRAYERS!!! STAY AWAY FROM [redacted]”

In his statement to the police, Hall wrote: “I don’t have a shotgun or have a bullet with his name on it. I wasn’t going to harm him. I had no intention to hurt him. I realize it was unacceptable and inappropriate. I am sorry for causing him stress. I will not threaten anyone else.”

The file indicates that the case was sent to the Western Michigan University Office of Student Judicial Affairs to be handled within the university. It does not indicate how or whether Hall was punished, but his campaign bio notes that he graduated from Western Michigan University and its affiliated law school.

Hall did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the American Independent Foundation.

In the aftermath of a mass shooting in February at Michigan State University that left three students dead and more injured, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the Democratic-led Michigan Legislature enacted a series of bills to combat gun violence.

These included stronger background checks, safe storage requirements, and extreme risk protection orders, commonly known as red flag laws, to temporarily disarm those judged to be a danger to themselves or others.

Bills that would prevent anyone convicted of domestic abuse from owning or possessing firearms and ammunition for eight years after completing their sentences are working their way through the Legislature.

“This is about preventing domestic violence survivors from experiencing further domestic violence and making sure people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence can’t have a gun for a period of years,” Democratic Sen. Stephanie Chang, who sponsored the proposals, told the Michigan Advance in July.

The Republican minority has opposed these gun safety efforts. In an Aug. 9 press release, since deleted from the Michigan House Republicans’ website, Hall framed himself as “a Leading Defender of our Second Amendment Rights”:

It’s no secret that many left-wing activists are pushing radical infringements on constitutional freedoms. You may have heard of extreme ideas such as banning so-called “assault weapons” or holding local gun shops liable if someone else commits a crime. I’ll always stand against these radical proposals to interfere with your right to bear arms, and if Democrats bring up any of them for a vote in the Michigan House of Representatives, I will proudly vote “NO.”

Earlier this year, I voted “NO” on “red flag” laws — which would take away law-abiding Michiganders’ constitutionally protected firearms and their ability to defend themselves, while violating citizens’ right to a fair legal process. I also voted “NO” on burdensome mandates requiring universal background checks and registration for private gun sales.

In a post in March 2022, Hall touted legislation to lower the penalties for those carrying concealed pistols with expired licenses.

Ryan Bates, the executive director of End Gun Violence Michigan, said in a statement: “This year, the legislature has made historic progress on gun safety measures. It’s concerning to learn that a legislative leader who opposed some of those initiatives has made violent threats in the past. Now is the time when all our leaders in Lansing need to unite around protecting our communities from gun violence.”

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

John Joyce

House Republicans Fighting To Promote Deadly Car Exhaust

Two hundred and fourteen House Republicans approved a bill by Pennsylvania Rep. John Joyce to restrict California’s authority to protect the environment.

Joyce, who represents a central Pennsylvania congressional district that includes Altoona, Chambersburg, and Johnstown, authored the Preserving Choice in Vehicle Purchases Act with the support of 84 Republican co-sponsors. The bill, which passed the House 222-190, would change the federal Clean Air Act to prevent states from requiring that all new vehicles sold in the future be electric. Eight Democrats voted in favor, 190 voted against.

All eight Republicans representing Pennsylvania backed the bill.

Under current law, states can request a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency to implement clean air restrictions that are stronger than federal standards. Because California had specific air quality challenges, the state enacted tougher emissions rules starting in the 1970s.

With climate change already causing record temperatures and unprecedented numbers of damaging storms in California and around the globe, the California Air Resources Board proposed in August 2022 that only zero-emission vehicles be sold in the state by 2035.

Although the state has not yet obtained a waiver to implement its plan, the fossil fuel industry and its GOP allies in Congress hope to block it from receiving one.

“California’s discriminatory waiver request would set a costly and dangerous precedent,” Joyce said as he introduced the bill in March. “One state should not be able to set national policy and Americans should not be coerced into making purchases they cannot afford. Congress must immediately pass the Preserving Choice in Vehicle Purchases Act to stop this heavy-handed proposal that only takes away choices from American consumers.”

“Every American should be able to choose the type of car or truck they want to drive,” argued American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers president and CEO Chet Thompson in a March press release. “Restricting consumer choice by eliminating competition and banning entire vehicle power trains is the wrong path to achieving cleaner transportation or supporting U.S. energy security; in fact, it could undercut both.”

Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee opposed the bill, noting in the committee report that the vague restrictions in the legislation could also imperil other state clean air regulations:

This would put existing waivers dating back to 2013 in jeopardy, upend the entire clean vehicle supply chain, and create uncertainty for the U.S. automotive industry. This bill is a direct attack on over 50 years of Congress and EPA recognizing California’s ability to voluntarily adopt those standards to protect their citizens from dangerous air pollution and climate change. … Instead of joining Democrats in addressing dangerous air pollution, strengthening domestic vehicle manufacturing supply chains, and driving innovation, the Majority is choosing to help their polluter friends at the expensive of public health, technological innovation, states’ rights, and a stronger, cleaner economy for American families.

The bill is unlikely to come up in the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate, where only Republicans have backed it thus far.

In a statement of administration policy, the Biden administration said on Tuesday it strongly opposes the bill, warning, “H.R. 1435 would restrict the ability of California and its citizens to address its severe air pollution challenges.”

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

Mark Harris

North Carolina Republican Whose 2018 Victory Proved Fraudulent Runs Again

Republican Mark Harris, who has run unsuccessfully for political office and has a documented history of sexist, homophobic, antisemitic, and Islamophobic comments, announced on Tuesday that he will run for an open North Carolina U.S. House seat in 2024.

In a nearly five-minute announcement video, Harris, whose 2018 House race victory was overturned due to evidence of election fraud, baselessly accused Democrats of having “manufactured a scandal to steal the election” from him five years ago and of stealing the 2020 election from President Donald Trump.

“Well, in 2024, President Trump is making a comeback. And so am I,” Harris tells viewers. “I feel called to serve my nation and I’m willing to make the sacrifice needed to do it.”

According to theCharlotte Observer, Harris plans to run in North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District. Incumbent Republican Rep. Dan Bishop is running for state attorney general.

The former president of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, Harris, who is the senior pastor at Trinity Baptist Church in Mooresville, North Carolina, defeated incumbent U.S. Rep. Robert Pittenger in the 2018 Republican primary in the state’s 9th Congressional District, after failed campaigns for U.S. Senate in 2014 and U.S. House in 2016, but his general election victory was overturned.

Initial results had shown Harris narrowly defeating Democratic nominee Dan McCready, but a state investigation found evidence that campaign operative McCrae Dowless had illegally collected vote-by-mail ballots and had altered or destroyed those that were not Harris votes. The state board of elections did not certify the results, and a new special election was ordered. Harris denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of the scheme, though his own son testified before the board of elections that he had warned his father about Dowless and his methods. Harris did not opt to run in the 2019 special election for the seat, citing medical issues.

On his 2024 campaign site, Harris’ campaign is already touting his anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ views:

Mark fervently believes in the sanctity of all human life, from conception to natural end. A pivotal figure in the pro-life movement, he asserts that every life is invaluable. Mark is also a stalwart defender of traditional family values, having led the charge for the 2012 marriage amendment and consistently advocating for measures that uphold the foundations of our families.

He has a long record of opposition to women’s rights and claims, “God instructs all Christian wives to submit to their husband.”

In a 2013 sermon on “God’s plan for biblical womanhood,” first flagged in 2018 by the progressive super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, he argued that a “woman of valor” is created to be “a supporter, a nurturer, a caregiver,” and complained:

You and I know that in our culture today, girls are taught from grade school, that we tell them that what is most honorable in life is a career, and their ultimate goal in life is simply to be able to grow up and be independent of anyone or anything. We tell young girls to not be connected humanly as they are designed to do naturally, but instead disconnected, so as to be able to do anything they want any time they want. But nobody has seemed to ask the question that I think is critically important to ask: Is that a healthy pursuit for society? Is that the healthiest pursuit for our homes? Is that the healthiest pursuit for our children? Is that the healthiest pursuit for the sexes in our generation?

(Disclosure: The American Independent Foundation is a partner organization of American Bridge 21st Century.)

In other sermons, he complained about the legalization of no-fault divorce, falsely said that most people who make the “decision” to be LGBTQ+ do so due to having experienced abuse, and claimed that legal abortion is to blame for mass shootings.

In 2018, CNN KFile reported that he had given sermons calling Islam dangerous and the work of Satan and arguing that Middle East peace required that all Jews and Muslims convert to Christianity. “There will never be peace in Jerusalem until the day comes that every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,” he said in 2011.

As a candidate in 2014 and 2018, Harris called for the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education. He proposed in 2014 that Social Security benefits be reduced for future retirees who were then under the age of 50.

According to the Cook Political Report, North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District is solidly Republican.

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

Robin Vos

Wisconsin Republicans Misuse Tax Dollars To Defend Gerrymander Map

More than half of Wisconsin voters, or 51.2 percent, voted to reelect Gov. Tony Evers in November 2022. Yet Republican lawmakers were still able to win an overwhelming majority in the state Legislature.

That’s because Republicans drew the state’s legislative maps to maximize their party’s power in the state while disenfranchising Democratic and independent voters. This practice is commonly known as gerrymandering.

Now, state Republican leaders have reportedly approved a plan to spend as much as $1.8 million in public funds to pay private lawyers to defend their gerrymandered maps in court.

After the 2020 Census, Wisconsin’s Republican majority in the state Legislature approved new federal and state redistricting plans in 2021 that gave their party the lion’s share of the seats. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the maps, explaining, “I promised I’d never sign gerrymandered maps that came to my desk, and I’m delivering on that promise today.”

Though the Republican did not have the votes to override his vetoes, the then-conservative-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court adopted the Republican legislative leaders’ proposed maps for the state districts and a GOP-leaning congressional map.

After the election of Justice Janet Protasiewicz earlier this year shifted the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s majority, advocates for fair maps filed new legal challenges to the state legislative districts on August 2.

The legal nonprofit Law Forward, one of the plaintiffs challenging the maps, tweeted on August 27, “Every day that the gerrymander continues to distort politics and policy in the state of Wisconsin is an affront to our Constitution, an affront to our democracy, and a violation of the rights of the people of Wisconsin.”

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported on August 31 that state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and state Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu signed contracts in August with three legal firms to defend the maps at taxpayer expense against those challenges. Two of the contracts are capped at a total of $1.8 million in hourly legal fees, plus expenses. The third contract has no spending limit.

“Using a blank check written by Wisconsin taxpayers, Legislative Republicans have entered into contracts with three law firms to defend their gerrymandered maps,” Democratic Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard told the Journal-Sentinel. “Again we see that they only care about their own special interests rather than the interests of Wisconsinites.”

Republican legislators spent millions to defend a 2011 gerrymander in Wisconsin. “We didn’t pick the fight and all we do is keep trying to defend,” then-Senate Republican Leader Scott Fitzgerald said at the time. “Unfortunately, I think we find ourselves in a position where we’re kind of at the whims of all these attorneys that continue to file these lawsuits.”

Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin, told the American Independent Foundation that neither expense was an appropriate use of public money.

“The $2 million, it’s outrageous. I’m not even gonna say it’s dismaying, because we’re kind of used to it. But it’s just, it’s so galling, to think that after doing this 10 years ago,” Heck said. “I’d like to say it’s shocking. It’s not shocking, because this has been the norm for the last 12 years, since 2011.”

In 2018, Democrats swept statewide elections for Wisconsin governor, secretary of state, treasurer, and U.S. senator. Due to the 2011 gerrymander, Republicans still won almost two-thirds of the legislative seats.

Under the 2021 maps, Republicans control six of Wisconsin’s eight seats in the U.S. House and the vast majority of legislative seats: 22 of the 33 seats in the state Senate and 64 of the 99 seats in the state Assembly.

Heck noted that while the Wisconsin Legislature has a constitutional role in drawing maps, that does not mean it has the power to spend millions of taxpayer funds to help their future election prospects.

Dan Shafer, who writes the blog The Recombobulation Area, called Wisconsin “the most gerrymandered state in the country” in a March 2023 post.

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

Rick Scott

Rubio, Scott And DeSantis Want Disaster Aid They Voted Against For Other States

As their state prepared for Hurricane Idalia this week, Florida Republican Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott called for immediate disaster relief and an $11.5 billion increase in funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Both have previously voted against FEMA funding after emergencies in other states.

At the request of Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Rubio, and Scott, President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for the state on August 28. “Florida has my full support as they prepare for Idalia and its aftermath,” the president tweeted.

But with FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund about to run out of funding, Biden asked Congress on August 10 to approve $12 billion in additional disaster relief, $3.9 billion to address immigration, and $24 billion to support Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion.

Scott and Rubio opposed the idea of considering the requests together and demanded the FEMA aid funds be passed separately.

Scott said in a press release on Monday:

Unfortunately, while I’ve spent the months leading up to this storm fighting to make sure the federal government shows up, President Biden and politicians in Washington have been playing games with FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund and insisting that this critical domestic aid be tied to foreign aid for Ukraine. We’ve had enough with Washington playing politics and demand that Congress does what’s right for American families, starting with ensuring our federal government has all the resources it needs to show up after disasters, now and in the future.

Scott’s call for billions in new spending comes just months after he proposed massive across-the-board government spending cuts. “It’s simple: If we went back to 2019 spending levels, we’d have a balanced budget,” he tweeted on June 5. “Instead, @JoeBiden and Democrats insist on spending more and more money every year.”

Less than a year ago, Scott asked his colleagues to approve a special disaster relief package after Hurricane Ian caused significant damage to Florida and other southeastern states. USA Today noted in October 2022 that Scott had been one of just 25 senators who had voted just days before against a continuing resolution to avert a federal government shutdown and to provide $18.8 billion to keep FEMA running. Rubio also voted no.

“This CR failed to fund the federal government until the new Congress begins in 2023, and that is why I could not support it,” Scott explained at the time, noting that he had unsuccessfully sought a stand-alone vote on the FEMA money only.

In January 2013, Rubio voted against a $50.5 billion disaster relief package in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which did an estimated $80 billion worth of damage to New York and other mid-Atlantic states.

Rubio called for a much smaller package, misleadingly claiming, “In sum, the current spending bill goes far beyond emergency relief and all efforts to strip the bill of unrelated pork are being blocked.”

DeSantis, then a U.S. representative, also voted against the 2013 Sandy relief package. “I sympathize with the victims of Hurricane Sandy and believe that those who purchased flood insurance should have their claims paid,” he said after the vote. “At the same time, allowing the program to increase its debt by another $9.7 billion with no plan to offset the spending with cuts elsewhere is not fiscally responsible.”

According to The Hill, New Jersey Republican Rep. Frank LoBiondo scolded opponents of Sandy funding during the floor debate, warning:

Florida, good luck with no more hurricanes. California, congratulations, did you get rid of the Andreas Fault? The Mississippi’s in a drought. Do you think you’re not going to have a flood again? Who are you going to come to when you have these things? We need this, we need it now. Do the right thing, as we have always done for you.

Experts agree that climate change is causing flooding from storms like Idalia to be more severe and damaging. Scott, Rubio, and DeSantis all have long records of opposing efforts to address global warming.

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

GOP Senate Hopeful McCormick Registers Cars In Connecticut, Not Pennsylvania

GOP Senate Hopeful McCormick Registers Cars In Connecticut, Not Pennsylvania

Wealthy Connecticut hedge fund executive Dave McCormick claimed to have moved to Pennsylvania in 2022 prior to running for the Republican Senate nomination. Now, as he reportedly prepares to launch a 2024 Senate campaign in the Keystone State, tax documents reveal he has continued to register two of his vehicles and pay taxes on them in Connecticut.

After months of heavy recruitment efforts by national Republicans, McCormick has begun raising money through a super PAC and hiring staff for a challenge to incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey Jr., according to an August 21 Washington Examinerreport.

Tax records reviewed by the American Independent Foundation show that McCormick owns a 2019 Honda CR-V and a 2019 Toyota Land Cruiser, both registered to his Westport, Connecticut, mansion. He paid town motor vehicle tax bills on the vehicles that were due July 1, 2023, indicating that the vehicles were still registered in Connecticut as of October 2022.

The Associated Press reported on August 14 that property records and other tax filings suggest that McCormick still lives in Connecticut and that the likely candidate had done recent interviews from his $16 million Westport residence.

In January 2022, McCormick announced that he would seek the GOP nomination to replace retiring Republican Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey. McCormick resigned from his position as CEO of the Westport-based investment firm Bridgewater Associates and changed his voter registration to Pennsylvania, claiming residency in Pittsburgh.

“Many Pennsylvanians have told Dave it’s time for the Keystone State to be a leader again to restore the promise of the American Dream,” his campaign claimed. “Many Pennsylvanians believe Dave McCormick is the battle-tested, Pennsylvania true, fighter we need to get the job done.”

In the 2022 race, Democrats attacked both McCormick and New Jersey-based television personality Mehmet Oz as carpetbaggers from out of state. Oz narrowly beat McCormick in the primary, but lost to Democratic nominee John Fetterman in the general election.

In a March 2023 interview first flagged by the progressive super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, McCormick told the right-wing American Enterprise Institute that Oz’s lack of Pennsylvania bona fides was a factor in his defeat: “He didn’t have any of those roots in Pennsylvania. He didn’t have enough of anything like that. And so that explains a lot, I think, because people want to know that the person that they’re voting for kind of gets it, and part of getting it is understanding that you just didn’t come in yesterday.” (Disclosure: The American Independent Foundation is a partner organization of American Bridge.)

A Pennsylvania Democratic Party video posted on YouTube August 15 shows clips of McCormick claiming in a June 2022 campaign speech that Pennsylvania was his home, and of him saying in a March 2023 podcast, “I mean, I live in Pennsylvania.”

A McCormick spokesperson did not immediately respond to an inquiry for this story. His spokesperson Elizabeth Gregory told the AP: “While he maintains a residence in Connecticut as his daughters finish high school, Dave’s home is in Pittsburgh and for the last 10 years he has owned a working farm in his hometown of Bloomsburg, which has been in the family for decades.” Gregory did not address questions about what percentage of his time McCormick spends at his Connecticut residence.

“The real David McCormick is a mega-millionaire Connecticut hedge fund executive who is lying about living in Pennsylvania because he doesn’t want us to know he’s out for himself and his rich friends, not working families,” Pennsylvania Democratic Party spokesperson Maddy McDaniel told the American Independent Foundation. “Pennsylvanians won’t be fooled by another carpetbagger who is lying to them to enrich himself.”

McCormick is not the only rich man being urged by national Republicans to run for Senate in a state to which he may have only recently moved. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has reportedly worked to recruit wealthy candidates from out of state to run in Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

Joe Biden

House Republicans Denounce Biden's Effort To Cut Carbon Pollution

White House senior adviser for clean energy innovation John Podesta cited recent climate change-fueled disasters on Wednesday in explaining the significance of the clean energy and climate action investments in President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. The Republican National Committee and GOP members of Congress pounced on his statement, framing it as a shocking admission.

Podesta, who is overseeing the clean energy investments funded under the 2022 law, acknowledged at a press briefing that it was “a time of heartbreak as the toll of extreme weather, fueled by climate change, is being felt across the country and the world.” He said:

This summer has brought one climate disaster after another, from extreme heat in Arizona and Texas and across the Southeast, to floods in Vermont and upstate New York, to thick smoke from Canadian wildfires. And all of us have watched in horror as the Maui fires have claimed over 100 lives — the largest loss of life of a fire in the last 100 years in America. … To stop these disasters from getting even worse, we have to cut the carbon pollution that’s driving the climate crisis, and that’s what the Inflation Reduction Act is all about.

Podesta’s warnings are consistent with scientific consensus. NASA said on Monday that July 2023 was the hottest month on Earth since 1880, when global temperature recording began.

The RNC’s research team tweeted a clip of Podesta’s remarks and wrote, “Top Biden advisor John Podesta: ‘We have to cut the carbon pollution that’s driving the climate crisis and that’s what the ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ is all about!’”

Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA) retweeted that message. Montana Rep. Matt Rosendale wrote: “So the ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ was never about reducing inflation. It was always about promoting the Left’s radical climate agenda. This is an insult to the hardworking taxpayers across America!”

“When I said it was the Green New Deal under another name, I wasn’t kidding,” tweeted Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert. “Now they’re saying it too.”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s deputy spokesperson Chad Gilmartin wrote, “Translation: Biden’s radical agenda is about to cost American families even more of their hard-earned money.”

While the Inflation Reduction Act is not actually the Green New Deal, a 2019 proposal to address climate change and other issues, it does include significant investments to help consumers lower their energy costs and carbon dioxide emissions.

The Energy Department estimated in August 2022 that by 2030, American families will save an average of $1,000 a year on energy costs due to tax credits and rebates for installing heat pumps, weatherizing homes, and switching to electric vehicles. The law did not raise taxes for anyone earning less than $400,000 annually.

In August 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations group dedicated to climate change science, released a “code red for humanity” warning that humans are causing global warming and that immediate action is needed to curb greenhouse gas emissions in order to avert catastrophe.

Republican lawmakers in Congress ignored that report and unanimously opposed the Inflation Reduction Act. Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Lloyd Smucker denounced it as “socialism.”

The law’s investments have already spurred jobs in the clean energy sector in districts represented by House Republicans, but 217 of them voted in April for the Limit, Save, Grow Act, which would have repealed virtually all of those climate and clean energy investments.

On Wednesday, Biden tweeted: “One year ago, I signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law – delivering on the most ambitious climate action in history and lowering costs for hardworking families. We got it done together.”

Tennessee Republican Rep. John Rose tweeted the Biden comment, along with a headline about an August 10 Biden speech in which the president said: “The end result of a lot of these things — and, by the way, the Inflation Reduction Act — I wish I hadn’t called it that, because it has less to do with reducing inflation than it does to do with dealing with providing for alternatives that generate economic growth.”

“It’s been one year since President Biden signed the so-called ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ into law,” Rose wrote. “Now, Democrats are saying the quiet part out loud: it was never meant to reduce inflation! It was just another step closer to socialism.”

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

David McCormick

Carpetbagger! GOP's Rich Senate Picks Don't Live Where They May Run

Wealthy hedge fund executive Dave McCormick differentiated himself from his former Pennsylvania Senate primary opponent, New Jersey resident Mehmet Oz, by touting his strong ties to the Keystone State. But the Associated Press reports that McCormick actually still lives in Connecticut.

National Republicans reportedly have been trying to convince the failed 2022 Senate candidate to challenge incumbent Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey in 2024 and he has indicated he is considering a race.

Politicoreported in March that the National Republican Senatorial Committee is attempting to find candidates for 2024 who can afford to self-fund all or some of their campaigns. After being outraised by Democrats in the 2020 and 2022 Senate campaigns, NRSC Chair Steve Daines acknowledged that it was helpful to find candidates who can provide their own funds, telling the outlet, “We’ve got some work to do to catch up.”

But most of the wealthy candidates Daines, a U.S. senator from Montana, and his team have been recruiting are like McCormick: conservative male business executives who are recent transplants or may not even live in the state in which they’re seeking office.

In the 2022 Pennsylvania Senate primary, Democrats accused both McCormick and eventual nominee Mehmet Oz of not really being Pennsylvania residents.

In a March 2023 interview with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, first flagged by the progressive super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, McCormick suggested that Oz lost to Democratic nominee John Fetterman in part over the issue: “That explains a lot, I think, because people wanna know that the person that they’re voting for kind of gets it, and part of getting it is understanding that you just didn’t come in yesterday.” (Disclosure: The American Independent Foundation is a partner organization of American Bridge.)

The AP report noted that McCormick listed his Westport, Connecticut, mansion in public documents as his primary residence and has done remote interviews from the property as recently as this spring. McCormick has said he is considering a challenge to Democratic incumbent Sen. Bob Casey.

In Wisconsin, as prominent elected officials declined the chance to challenge Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin in 2024, national Republicans are reportedly eying wealthy real estate developer and banker Eric Hovde. Hovde reportedly owns a multimillion dollar home in Laguna Beach, California in addition to his Madison, Wisconsin home. He lost a bid for Senate in 2012.

In May, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Hovde spends a significant amount of time in California and was named one of Orange County, California’s top 500 most influential people by the Orange County Business Journal in 2020.

“We hope California Hovde had a safe trip to La Crosse from his Laguna Beach mansion. As Republicans continue to scramble to find a candidate for U.S. Senate, California Hovde is back once again to pitch his extreme and out of touch policies in Wisconsin,” Democratic Party of Wisconsin rapid response director Arik Wolk quipped in a June press release.

Daines has also urged New York Stock Exchange vice chair John Tuttle to run for retiring Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s open seat in Michigan next year. As of last September, Tuttle listed a New York City address as his home when making a campaign donation.

Former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who moved to Florida to run a consulting business and reportedly registered to vote there in 2022, is also reportedly considering a run in his former state.

In Nevada, the NRSC recruited business owner Sam Brown to challenge first-term Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen. Prior to moving to Nevada, he unsuccessfully ran in the 2014 Republican primary for a seat in the Texas Legislature.

Brown will face another wealthy newcomer in the GOP primary. President Donald Trump’s controversial former ambassador to Iceland, Jeffrey Ross Gunter, announced on August 7 that he will also run for the Nevada Senate seat. The GOP mega donor told theNevada Globe two days earlier that he has been a full-time Nevada resident for four years, though the Daily Beastnoted in June that he has been registered to vote in the state only since 2021.

The U.S. Constitution requires that every senator “be an inhabitant of that state for which he shall be chosen” as of Election Day, but it does not specify what that means.

On August 10, Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler noted that Republican Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville appears to reside primarily in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

Jeff Gunter

Discredited Trump Ambassador Joins Nevada GOP Senate Primary

Jeffrey Ross Gunter, a dermatologist and Republican megadonor whose tenure as one of former President Donald Trump’s diplomatic appointees was marred by charges of abusive behavior and failure to follow protocol, announced Monday that he will seek the GOP nomination to challenge Nevada Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen in 2024. Gunter has already indicated that he will run on a pro-Trump right-wing agenda.

In a campaign kickoff video released on Monday, Gunter touted his loyalty to his former boss. “I was honored and humbled to serve as President Trump’s ambassador to Iceland, where I fought the deep state, I fought China, and I fought Russia’s influence in the Arctic in the great high north,” he said.

“I’ll fight to support Donald Trump and his amazing and great America First agenda,” Gunter added. “I’ll work with President Trump to finish the wall to secure our border.”

The Daily Beastreported in June that Gunter has only been a registered Nevada voter since 2021 and does not appear to have voted since the 2018 election in California. He told the Nevada Globe on Aug. 5 that he has been a full-time Nevada resident for four years.

According to NBC News, Gunter donated $100,000 each to the 2016 Trump Victory joint fundraising committee and Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee. Trump rewarded him by nominating him to be ambassador to Iceland in 2018. Gunter acknowledged in his Senate confirmation hearing that he had never previously visited the country.

While it is not unusual for presidents to select wealthy donors for ambassadorial posts, Gunter’s tenure proved problematic. He went through seven different deputy chiefs of mission in a little more than a year. In early 2020, according to CBS News, he refused to return to Reykjavik from his home in California for several months, until told to do so by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He garnered negative headlines in the Icelandic press for a July 2020 tweet in which he used a racist term to describe the coronavirus. Using Trump’s phrasing, Gunter posted icons of the U.S. and Icelandic flags with the words, “We are United to defeat the Invisible China Virus!”

An October 2021 report issued by the State Department Office of the Inspector General documented numerous problems after Gunter had left his post as ambassador: “OIG found that the Chargé and DCM were focused on rebuilding staff morale and normalizing embassy operations following the former Ambassador’s tenure, a noncareer appointee who served from June 2019 to January 2021.”

In addition to noting Gunter’s “frequent failure to respect diplomatic protocol or to coordinate with the Icelandic Government on policy initiatives and press statements touching on sensitive defense-related subjects,” the report said:

Despite several months having elapsed since his departure, OIG found at the time of the inspection that embassy staff were still recovering from what they described as a threatening and intimidating environment created by the former Ambassador. For example, staff reported to OIG multiple instances in which the former Ambassador had threatened to sue Department officials and embassy staff who expressed disagreement with him, questioned his wishes, or were perceived to be “disloyal” to him. In addition, many employees reported to OIG that the former Ambassador threatened reprisal against employees who communicated with Department officials in Washington while conducting their official duties.

On his personal website, Gunter identifies 122 “triumphs” of his tenure, including posting a July 4 Facebook video and having his “congratulatory tweet on President Trump’s historic brokering of the Abraham Accords” retweeted by many people, including Trump himself.

Gunter left the post in January 2021 when President Joe Biden was inaugurated. Carrin Patman, the former chair of the Houston, Texas, public transit system, has served as the U.S. ambassador to Iceland since October 2022.

Gunter has remained a Trump loyalist even in the face of the former president’s multiple felony indictments. CNBC reported on June 13 that Gunter was among the attendees at a Trump campaign fundraiser at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, hours after Trump’s arraignment on 37 federal counts related to improper handling of classified documents and obstruction of justice. Gunter touted his endorsement of Trump in the 2024 presidential election in his campaign announcement on Monday.

The issues page on Gunter’s website notes the candidate’s far-right views and his opposition to “wokeness.”

Using dog whistle language aimed at anti-LGBTQ+ activists, he promises to “protect our children’s innocence” and “stand for family values.” He pledges both to “teach reading, arithmetic, and science, not political agendas” and to “strengthen civic education so people remember how great America truly is.”

He notes his opposition to taking action in response to the global climate crisis and moving away from fossil fuels, calling for an “all-of-the-above strategy in energy sources.” Among his promises are to “increase production of all domestic energy resources,” “fight the Socialist Green New Deal,” and “support building and revitalizing oil refineries – our last one was built in 1976!”

In a section titled “Fair, Transparent and Timely Elections,” Gunter proposes several steps he would take to change the way elections are conducted, steps that would in fact make it harder for citizens to vote. After complaining about Nevada’s universal vote-by-mail ballots, he says he will force all states to adopt strict voter ID requirements, eliminate early voting, and “ban ballot harvesting (though we will compete with Democrats and beat them at their own game until new legislation is passed).” Ballot harvesting is a misleading term often used to falsely suggest that those who help deliver mail-in ballots for others are engaged in widespread fraud.

Gunter also lays out an anti-public education agenda, including eliminating “the useless and unneeded Dept. of Education,” increasing “school choice,” weakening certification requirements for educators, and reducing the influence of teachers.

While he has offered few details on his positions on gun safety legislation and reproductive rights, he makes it clear he is against both.

Repeating a widely debunked lie about Rosen’s position on abortion rights, he says: “I became a doctor to save lives. I am pro-life and have delivered 14 babies early in my medical career. I cherish each life and I believe Jacky Rosen’s position allowing a healthy child with a healthy mother to be killed at 9 months is abhorrent. I will always protect our Constitutional Liberties such as our Second Amendment and Free Speech and fight government encroachment and overreach.”

Gunter will face other Republican candidates for the nomination, including unsuccessful 2022 Senate hopeful Sam Brown and unsuccessful 2022 Nevada secretary of state nominee Jim Marchant.

In a press statement, Nevada State Democratic Party spokesperson Johanna Warshaw said:

“The Republican Senate primary in Nevada is growing more crowded and more MAGA by the day. No matter who emerges from this extreme field of candidates, it’s clear they will be entirely out of step with hardworking Nevadans.”

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

Glenn Youngkin

RNC Now Endorses Early Voting But Trump Still Claims It's 'Corrupt'

After years of opposing early voting laws, Republicans in Virginia and nationally have been mounting an effort this summer to convince conservative voters to take advantage of those same laws, while former President Donald Trump and some Virginia Republicans have undermined their efforts.

Trump repeatedly opposed early voting and voting by mail during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Though he has personally cast absentee ballots multiple times, Trump falsely claimed that mail-in voting leads to fraud and urged Republicans to block it.

“Republicans should fight very hard when it comes to state wide mail-in voting,” he tweeted on April 8, 2020. “Democrats are clamoring for it. Tremendous potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason, doesn’t work out well for Republicans.”

After losing his reelection bid, Trump baselessly claimed the election was unfair because of mail-in voting. “’I’ve been talking about mail-in voting for a long time. It’s really destroyed our system. It’s a corrupt system. And it makes people corrupt even if they aren’t by nature, but they become corrupt; it’s too easy,” he said on Nov. 5, 2020.

In Virginia, the Republican majority in the House of Delegates passed an array of bills in the 2023 legislative session that would have made it harder to vote early. The bills would have eliminated ballot drop boxes, cut the in-person early voting period down from 45 days to just two weeks, and ended the automatic vote-by-mail list. The bills each died in the Democratic-led Senate.

John Stirrup, a Republican currently running for the House of Delegates in a competitive district, called the 45-day early voting period “ridiculous.”

“Too many people have easy access to voting. Voting needs to be tightened up,” Stirrup said at a candidate forum in May, according to the Prince William Times.

Now some Republicans are changing their tune on early voting.

On July 11, the Republican Party of Virginia released a video in which Gov. Glenn Youngkin urged his fellow Republicans and swing voters to vote early in person or by mail ahead of the general election in November, when all 100 House of Delegates seats and all 40 Senate seats will be on the ballot.

“We’re making Virginia the best place to live, work, and raise a family, and to take us to the next level, I need your early vote this year,” Youngkin said. “We can’t go into our elections down thousands of votes, and you can secure your vote before Election Day. Join the permanent absentee list or make a plan to vote early by mail or in person.”

The Republican National Committee launched a national effort to encourage early voting.

On July 24, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel announced a campaign to encourage voters to “Bank Your Vote” before Election Day, starting with an early voting operation in Wisconsin in 2024.

“To beat Joe Biden and Democrats like Tammy Baldwin in 2024, we must ensure that Republicans bank as many pre-Election Day votes as possible in Wisconsin,” McDaniel said in a press release. “The RNC is proud to work with Republican leaders across the state to encourage voters to Bank Your Vote and deliver Republican victories up and down the ballot next November.”

The GOP even enlisted Trump to help with the effort. He urged supporters to vote early in a 40-second video message released on July 26.

“We must defeat the far left at their own game, or our country will never recover from this disastrous crooked Biden administration. Sign up at bankyourvote.com now and join the Republican effort to win big in 2024. We’re going to win, and we’re going to make America great again,” Trump said.

Just two days later, he appeared on John Fredericks’ right-wing radio program in Virginia and contradicted that message.

“We should have one-day voting, we should have paper ballots, and we should have voter ID and you’d have honest elections,” Trump said. “When you see these votes when they take 42 days and they have ballots sitting all over the place, it’s a disgrace. We’re like a third-world country.”

The same week, Axios reported that the GOP majority on the Richmond Electoral Board voted to reduce the number of early voting sites in the city from three to one, claiming budgetary concerns. The move eliminated satellite voting locations in downtown and South Richmond, where many of the city’s Black and Hispanic voters reside.

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

Glenn Youngkin

Youngkin And Virginia GOP Now Promote Early Voting They Tried To Repeal (VIDEO)

The blog Blue Virginia reports that Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and other Republican leaders have launched a campaign to urge Republican voters to take advantage of easy-voting laws they pushed to repeal.

The Republican Party of Virginia shared a video on Tuesday in which Youngkin encourages his supporters to vote early in the November 2023 legislative elections. With every seat in the Legislature up for election, voters will decide whether to give the GOP majorities in the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates and enable them to roll back reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ equality, climate protections, gun safety, and voting rights.

“We’re making Virginia the best place to live, work, and raise a family, and to take us to the next level, I need your early vote this year,” he says. “We can’t go into our elections down thousands of votes, and you can secure your vote before Election Day. Join the permanent absentee list or make a plan to vote early by mail or in person.”

Youngkin directs voters to a website paid for by the Republican Party of Virginia with links for early voting options.

Between 2020 and 2021, when Democrats held majorities in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly and the governorship, they enacted more than a dozen laws aimed at expanding voting rights and making it easier for all citizens to vote. These included changes to allow voting by mail without an excuse and without a postage stamp on the envelope, increasing the number of sites for early voting, and permitting voters to sign up for an annual automatic vote-by-mail list, all passed over strong GOP opposition.

After Youngkin and a narrow GOP majority in the House of Delegates were elected in 2021, they quickly moved to repeal the laws and make it harder to vote. In the 2023 legislative session, they passed bills along party lines to prohibit drop boxes for ballots, reduce the period for in-person early voting to just two weeks, and do away with the automatic vote-by-mail list. Those bills each died in the Democratic-led Senate.

Former President Donald Trump, who endorsed Youngkin in 2021, has made opposition to easy voting a key part of the GOP agenda. In 2020, Trump falsely claimed that voting by mail causes fraud and chaos in American elections. Like Trump, Youngkin has also cast doubt on the integrity of elections.

“It’s blatant hypocrisy,” House Democratic Leader Don Scott said in a statement shared with the American Independent Foundation. “This is a party that is on the record against early voting. They are doing this whole push to pull the wool over our constituents’ eyes and hide from the fact that they’ve worked to make it harder for Virginians to vote at every turn. They’ve undermined our democratic systems for years and if allowed the majority, they will vote to restrict voting access.”

Democratic Delegate Cia Price told the American Independent Foundation on Tuesday that Republicans should apologize for their hypocrisy:

I would be more thrilled if the MAGA Republican Extremists decided to stop proliferating dangerous and wildly false claims about our free and fair elections systems. Their actions have put lives at risk and undermined the confidence in our entire democracy. I demand alongside their calls for GOP members to utilize the early voting and vote-by-mail options, that Democrats have instituted, apologies for the previous falsehoods. We also need apologies for and cooperation in undoing the damage of racially and politically gerrymandered districts across the nation. We need their votes for the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. We need them to halt their court cases to invalidate valid voters from voting roles. We need their votes to help end prison gerrymandering and for automatic voter rights restoration. And so much more. Until then, this is nothing more than political games from people only focused on using any means available to grab power from people with whom they disagree or devalue.

The Democratic Party of Virginia also called out Republicans for their “change of heart (or cynical political stunt).”

“We welcome the Virginia Republicans’ newly discovered interest in promoting democracy,” press secretary Liam Watson said in a statement. “Of course, we wish they had shown up in support of early voting and vote-by-mail years ago, instead of consistently voting against reforms designed to strengthen democracy in the commonwealth.”

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

Republican Party of Wisconsin

Wisconsin GOP Senate Candidates All Support Abortion Ban

The Republican field for the 2024 Wisconsin Senate race remains in flux as several potential candidates mull over whether to challenge incumbent Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin. Despite strong support among Wisconsin voters for reproductive rights, each of the likely GOP contenders has a history of opposing legal abortion or actively working for an abortion ban.

In the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans expected a “red wave” would net them a pickup of at least two Democratic-held U.S. Senate seats and a GOP majority in the chamber. Instead, every single GOP challenger lost, and Democrats ended up gaining an open Republican-held seat in Pennsylvania.

Many analysts have attributed the lack of predicted Republican victories to voters’ anger over the 2022 Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the nearly 50-year-old guarantee of reproductive rights established in Roe v. Wade. Republicans nominated abortion rights opponents in targeted Senate races across the country in 2022, and they all lost to Democratic backers of reproductive freedom.

As the 2024 elections approach, Senate Republicans seem poised to repeat the same failed approach.

On June 17, the WisPolitics political news site held a straw poll at the convention of the Republican Party of Wisconsin in La Crosse. Six possible Republican Senate candidates received support: former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke; real estate developer and 2012 Senate candidate Eric Hovde; staffing firm executive Scott Mayer; former College Democrats of America president turned 2018 GOP Senate candidate Kevin Nicholson; former state Senate President Roger Roth; and U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany.

Clarke has repeatedly backed state and federal abortion bans. After House Democrats passed a ban on semi-automatic assault weapons in July 2022, he tweeted: “Oh bag it Democrats. They claim gun control will save lives. SO WILL A BAN ON ABORTION. That kills more lives than guns do.”

A month earlier, Clarke compared abortion rights to slavery, tweeting: “These same devils would have called reversing Plessey v Ferguson [sic] and Dred Scott decision was a step backward. WRONG. It righted a wrong by the US Supreme Court just like reversing Roe v Wade has done. Killing babies is as immoral a wrong as slavery.”

According to the progressive website Blogging Blue, Hovde said at a July 2012 campaign event, “I’m 100% pro-life,” and added that he only would make an exception in cases of rape and incest. In campaign radio ads that year, he noted an endorsement from the anti-abortion rights group Wisconsin Right to Life and said: “I believe that we’re all created in God’s image. Defending innocent human life is a basic responsibility of civilized people.”

Wisconsin Right to Life said in its June 2012 endorsement, “Eric Hovde has indicated strong support for federal right-to-life issues should he be elected.”

“I am absolutely unapologetically pro-life, I really am,” Mayer told USA Today in May, “ but we have to have some access.” In April, he told NBC News that he was “absolutely pro-life” and would likely allow the procedure only in the first three months, except in cases of rape, incest, or health risk.

Though Nicholson said in a 2000 address at the Democratic National Convention that Democrats “care about a woman’s right to choose,” he has since abandoned his support for reproductive rights. During his unsuccessful 2018 bid for the Senate, he said he would back an abortion ban but would consider exceptions “case by case” as long as the legislation “saves the unborn and does it in a way that’s enforceable.” In an aborted 2022 gubernatorial campaign, Nicholson promised to “protect innocent life” by providing state funding for anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers.

During Roth’s unsuccessful 2022 campaign for lieutenant governor, his biography on his campaign website said, “Despite radical moves from liberals to push partial-birth abortion, abortion on demand, or murdering a child based on their sex, Roger has stood to thwart the left’s ruthless ambition to end the life of thousands of future Wisconsinites.”

Roth sponsored a 2015 bill in the Wisconsin Senate to prohibit “abortion of an unborn child considered capable of experiencing pain.” Abortion rights opponents have falsely claimed that fetuses can feel pain as early as 15 weeks into a pregnancy, though the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says on its website, “The science conclusively establishes that a human fetus does not have the capacity to experience pain until after at least 24–25 weeks.”

Tiffany received “A+” ratings from the anti-abortion rights group SBA Pro-Life America for the past two Congresses, indicating consistent agreement with its positions. He is currently a co-sponsor of a bill that would ban abortions nationally after a “fetal heartbeat is detectable.” Abortion opponents falsely claim that there is a heartbeat at six weeks into a pregnancy, while the science shows that there is no cardiac structure in a fetus at that age.

“All of the potential GOP candidates for Senate want to help Mitch McConnell and MAGA Republicans pass a national abortion ban and keep abortion illegal in Wisconsin,” Arik Wolk, a spokesperson for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, told the American Independent Foundation. “That’s out of touch with Wisconsin values and dangerous for our state and our country.”

According to the report “Abortion Attitudes in a Post-Roe World: Findings From the 50-State 2022 American Values Atlas,” produced by the nonprofit research organization PRRI, 64 percent of Wisconsin residents believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases.

A June 2023 survey by the polling firm GQR of voters in Wisconsin and six other Senate battleground states, commissioned by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, found that 65 percent support abortion being legal in all or most circumstances.

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

Jim Marchant

Nevada GOP Candidate Urges Execution Of DNC And RNC Leaders

Republican Nevada Senate hopeful Jim Marchant agreed in a radio interview last week that the leadership of both major national political parties should be executed.

Marchant, who served one term in the Nevada State Assembly, appeared on the June 23 episode of What’s the Story/LeRue Book Hound, a right-wing talk show, to talk about his campaign for Senate.

“I am not liked by the lobbyists. I’m not liked by the uniparty,” he told the program’s hosts, “I’m not liked by the large corporations that tried to buy me, and certainly they buy other legislators, and so I’m swimming upstream, trying to get elected for this seat, because, like I said, I’m not liked by the uniparty, and that’s exactly what we have out there.”

The failed 2022 GOP Nevada secretary of state nominee has frequently used the term “uniparty” to suggest that there is little difference between the Republican Party establishment and Democrats.

Co-host Ed Noel urged: “So I think, just take all the RNC and DNC people and stand them up, side by side. There you go,” referring to the Republican and Democratic national committees.

“And shoot ’em,” added co-host Doug Ashby.

Marchant laughed and responded: “Exactly. So that’s my point. How do you — to me we have what we call RINOs, ‘Republican In Name Only,’ right? They’re in the way. They kept President Trump from passing laws that would really benefit our country and get our economy really going.”

A Marchant campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond to an inquiry for this story.

Marchant has a long political history that includes falsely claiming election fraud, pushing to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and opposing LGBTQ+ and abortion rights.

Citing debunked claims that many undocumented immigrants vote in Nevada, he said in a September 2021 interview that he would force every voter to re-register to vote.

He said in March that he was “kind of hoping” the U.S. military intervenes in the 2024 election to ensure election integrity.

In March 2022, he said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and philanthropist George Soros, both of whom are Jewish, are part of a “cabal,” a term often used in antisemitic statements to suggest that there is a conspiracy of Jewish people running the world.

In May, he announced that he would seek his party’s nomination to challenge first-term Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen in 2024. “We have to encourage principled America-first MAGA candidates to run for office,” he told attendees at his kickoff in an anti-LGBTQ+ church in Las Vegas. “That is why I’m announcing today that I am running for United States Senate.”

That event featured QAnon conspiracy theorist Michael Flynn and white nationalist Arizona Republican Rep. Paul Gosar.

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

Adam Schiff

Attempt To Censure Adam Schiff Fails In House With 196 GOP Votes

One hundred and ninety six House Republicans voted on Wednesday to advance a resolution censuring Rep. Adam Schiff for his criticisms of former President Donald Trump’s ties to Russia. The resolution, which was tabled on a 225-196 vote, falsely claimed that Schiff lied about Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election in support of Trump and recommended that the California Democrat be fined $16 million. Seven members voted present.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) introduced the resolution “censuring and condemning Adam Schiff” with 10 Republican co-sponsors on Friday. On Tuesday, she brought it to the House floor for consideration.

“Schiff just hit the fan,” she tweeted.

The resolution reads in part:

Whereas Representative Adam Schiff, who served as ranking minority member and then Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives (HPSCI), occupied positions of extreme trust, affording him access to sensitive intelligence unavailable to most Members of Congress;

Whereas for years Representative Schiff abused this trust by citing evidence of collusion that—as is clear from reports by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, and Special Counsel Durham—does not exist;

Whereas, by repeatedly telling these falsehoods, Representative Schiff purposely deceived his Committee, Congress, and the American people.

It also would order an ethics investigation into Schiff, stating, “Whereas if it is determined by an investigation conducted by the Committee on Ethics that Representative Schiff lied, made misrepresentations, and abused sensitive information, he should be fined in the amount of $16,000,000.”

Mueller’s March 2019 report did not actually exonerate Trump or his campaign of working with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime to win the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

In fact, it documented several suspicious interactions and connections, finding that “while the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges” and that “several individuals affiliated with the Trump Campaign lied to the Office, and to Congress, about their interactions with Russian-affiliated individuals and related matters.”

Schiff, who was chair of the House Permanent Select Committee On Intelligence at the time the report was issued, documented numerous examples of improper contacts between Russia and Trump’s campaign in a speech at a committee hearing that month:

My colleagues might think it’s okay that the Russians offered dirt on the Democratic candidate for president as part of what’s described as the Russian government’s effort to help the Trump campaign. You might think that’s okay. My colleagues might think it’s okay that when that was offered to the son of the president, who had a pivotal role in the campaign, that the president’s son did not call the FBI, he did not adamantly refuse that foreign help. No, instead that son said he would love the help of the Russians. You might think it was okay that he took that meeting.

The resolution garnered the backing of House Republican leadership. “I support @RepLuna’s resolution to censure Adam Schiff, and I’m working with her on the best timing to bring it to the House Floor to help it pass,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise tweeted Tuesday.

But Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie objected to the language urging a massive fine, calling it unconstitutional. “The Constitution says the House may make its own rules but we can’t violate other (later) provisions of the Constitution,” he tweeted on Wednesday. “A $16 million fine is a violation of the 27th and 8th amendments.”

Schiff made note of the timing of the resolution, tweeting Tuesday: “On the day of Trump’s arraignment, MAGA Republicans introduced a resolution to censure and fine me to the tune of $16 million. Their problem with me — I hold them accountable and I’m effective. They don’t go after people they’re not afraid of.”

Since becoming a member of Congress in January, Luna has filed four pieces of legislation; three of them have been resolutions against Schiff, including one to expel him from the House of Representatives.

On Friday, after Trump was indicted on 37 federal felony counts, she told Fox Business, “It’s very likely that this president is going to be impeached — and by that I mean Joe Biden.”

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

Marjorie Taylor Greene

'Law And Order' Republicans Aim To Avenge Trump By Defunding FBI

On June 8, former President Donald Trump was indicted on 37 federal felony counts related to taking classified documents from the White House and refusing to return them. In response, Republicans in Congress are calling for the prosecutor and the entire U.S. Justice Department to be defunded.

Republicans across the country have falsely attacked their Democratic opponents in recent elections, claiming Democrats want to defund the police, though few Democratic lawmakers have actually endorsed the idea of slashing law enforcement funding.

But now, at Trump’s urging, House Republicans are pushing to defund law enforcement, contradicting their own “law and order” platform.

First, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, threatened to reevaluate funding for the FBI and Justice Department. On April 2, after Trump was indicted in a separate state matter in New York, Jordan complained about federal law enforcement’s treatment of Trump and told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo: “We control the power of the purse. We’re going to have to look at the appropriations process and limit funds going to some of these agencies, particularly the ones who are engaged in the most egregious behavior.”

Three days later, the Washington Postreported that Trump posted on his Truth Social site:

REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS SHOULD DEFUND THE DOJ AND FBI UNTIL THEY COME TO THEIR SENSES. THE DEMOCRATS HAVE TOTALLY WEAPONIZED LAW ENFORCEMENT IN OUR COUNTRY AND ARE VICIOUSLY USING THIS ABUSE OF POWER TO INTERFERE WITH OUR ALREADY UNDER SIEGE ELECTIONS!

According to NPR, Special Counsel Jack Smith commented on the federal indictment in a June 9 public statement in which he said: “We have one set of laws in this country and they apply to everyone. Adhering to and applying the laws is what determines the outcome of an investigation. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Trump’s congressional allies quickly called the criminal charges political, a witch hunt, and the end of democracy as we know it.

“This morning, I’m writing an appropriations rider to DEFUND Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office and entire investigation,” Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted on Monday. “I will not vote for ANY appropriations bill to fund the weaponization of government. I hope every one of my Republican colleagues will join me.”

“ENDORSE!!!!!!” replied Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz. “This must happen.”

Rep. Mike Collins, who also represents Georgia, tweeted on June 8: “This year, I’ve cosponsored legislation to abolish @ATFHQ and @usedgov. Abolishing the corrupt @FBI and @TheJusticeDept sounds even better. #BananaRepublic.”

On Monday, Texas Rep. Tim Burchett told Newsmax that the Department of Justice funding should be reduced: “We need to bring them down before the committee and, if not, they need to, at some point, we need to start talking about cutting their funding. I know I keep talking about this. I’m beating a dead horse, but that’s really what needs to happen because this group is out of control, they’re rogue.”

On May 15, every one of those lawmakers voted for a nonbinding resolution expressing “unwavering support for law enforcement officers across the United States.”

Real Clear Politicsreported on Tuesday that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is seeking the GOP 2024 presidential nomination, has plans to decimate the Justice Department if elected. “We’re not going to let all this power accumulate in Washington, we’re going to break up these agencies,” he reportedly said at a recent strategy session, specifically citing “problematic components of the DOJ.”

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.