How a Washington DID Identify a Black Hole: An Attorney General Refuses to Tell Us About the Abortion Campaign in Texas

Editor’s Note: Jill Filipovic is a journalist based in New York and author of the book “OK Boomer, Let’s Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind.” You can follow her on social media. She has her own opinions in this commentary. You can also share your opinion on CNN.

Republicans are running from abortion because of the anger women have towards the Supreme Court.

More than an hour later, he approached him, as he exited the house through the garage. “As soon as he saw me and heard me call his name out, he turned around and RAN back inside the house through the same door in the garage.”

Minutes later, said Herrera, Paxton and his wife exited the house again, climbed into a truck parked in their driveway and drove off without taking the document.

Paxton, for his part, doesn’t dispute that he ran. He said that he ran from a shady person outside of his house. The media should be ashamed of themselves for wasting time on this. “All across the country, conservatives have faced threats to their safety – many threats that received scant coverage or condemnation from the mainstream media.”

He continued, “It’s clear that the media wants to drum up another controversy involving my work as Attorney General, so they’re attacking me for having the audacity to avoid a stranger lingering outside my home and showing concern about the safety and well-being of my family.”

It was scary to have your privacy invaded, and frustrating when people try to interfere when you try to protect yourself and your family. The women of Texas can relate to that.

Breaking the Rules of Life in New Mexico: Reply to Mark Ronchetti, Michelle Lujan Grisham, and Elena Kagan

Recently, there was a deletion from the website of the Arizona Republican senate candidate, who advocated for fetal personhood laws that would have made abortion and potential infertility a crime, along with contraceptives.

Mark Ronchetti, who is challenging New Mexico’s Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, said that “life should be protected – at all stages” on his campaign website last election cycle; now, he is putting out ads saying, “I’m personally pro-life, but I believe we can all come together on a policy that reflects our shared values,” and saying he thinks New Mexicans would support outlawing abortion only after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Republican running in Colorado, also removed her support for “defending the sanctity of life” from her website, along with a video of her speaking at the 2022 March for Life.

Americans do not support broad abortion bans. When you survey voters in conservative states, you should not push for criminalizing abortion even if you think it would be a good idea.

These laws are wildly unpopular, and they may cost Republicans at the ballot box. The solution was simple: stop writing and passing laws that are unpopular. Republicans are still doing that, and when they say it was not them, they use a cartoonish expression. gesture when pressed on it.

During times like this, it is necessary for the Supreme Court to ensure a fair playing field for all, as Chief Justice Roberts said in his confirmation hearing. The court’s right-wingers call balls for one team and strike for the other.

As Justice Elena Kagan said in a talk this month at Northwestern University School of Law, “When courts become extensions of the political process, when people see them as extensions of the political process, when people see them as trying just to impose personal preferences on a society irrespective of the law, that’s when there’s a problem — and that’s when there ought to be a problem.”

As the dissent in Dobbs noted: “The majority has overruled Roe and Casey for one and only one reason: because it has always despised them, and now it has the votes to discard them. The rule of law is replaced by a rule by the majority.

In a recent ad, Nunn claimed most Iowans support common sense limits on abortions but his opponent votes for the most extreme abortion laws in the world. Axne has been running ads attacking Nunn for raising his hand during a GOP primary debate when candidates were asked if they supported a policy banning “all abortions” with “no exceptions.”

“Democrat politicians have done incredible damage to America, ruining our economy, causing chaos at our border, increasing crime in our cities. They changed our lives. But one thing hasn’t changed: abortion in Nevada,” the spot says.

Abortion rights have been a flashpoint not only in Georgia, but in Pennsylvania, where Fetterman has looked to turn voters’ attention to Oz’s comments about the procedure in this week’s debate. The Republican said that “local politicians” should contribute to women’s medical decisions.

The Democrat is running an ad in which she says that she will always fight for a women’s right to make her own health care decisions, while the Republican won’t.

Tiffany Smiley, a Republican senate candidate in Washington state, is against a federal ban. “Patty Murray has spent millions to paint me as an extremist,” Smiley says of the longtime Democratic senator in one of her spots. I am pro-life, but oppose a federal abortion ban.

Murray started airing a straight to-camera ad shortly after the court ruling, which said that politicians were in charge of the most private health care decisions.

In the month of September, the Democratic campaigns and outside groups spent more than 70 million dollars on ads about abortion. Republicans spent $6 million on 23 unique ads about abortion in the same period.

National Republican Senatorial Committee urged their candidates not to allow opponents to define them on abortion, but not to campaign solely on that issue.

“The Democrat position is extreme and strident, our position should be based in compassion and reason,” read an NRSC memo sent to GOP Senate campaigns in the wake of the Dobbs decision. The group thinks candidates should speak out against Democrats who hold extreme views on abortion.

In his race for the Colorado Senate, the Republican nominee, Joe O’Dea, has tackled the issue in a way that differentiates him from his opponent.

In a recent ad, the first-time candidate and businessman touted his outsider credentials – “I’m an outsider, not a politician” – and his support for abortion in the early stages of pregnancy – “For the first five months, that should be a woman’s decision between her and her doctor.”

According to O’Dea, he would have voted for Elena Kagan, a liberal justice who dissented in the Dobbs ruling, as he wanted to end the blood sport of the Supreme Court confirmation process.

Why Do Women Think Abortion is Important? A Conversation with Vice President Ted Budd after the Supreme Court Decision overturning Roe v. Wade

“If it is an issue in the district and it is showing up in your polling, talk about. If it’s not an issue that you see in the polls, speak about topics like the economy that are more favorable to you.

Ted Budd, the North Carolina Republican Senate nominee, said in an interview that the Supreme Court made it clear that this was a Raleigh decision, not a Washington decision.

The congressman co-sponsored a bill in the House to let elected officials in Washington decide on abortion policy, even though the North Carolina capital of Raleigh does not approve it.

Ever since the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade first leaked in May — a decision that led to bans and severe restrictions on abortion in 15 states — Vice President Harris has had a lengthy series of conversations.

Harris, who was a district attorney and California’s attorney general before she entered national politics, has a long track record on reproductive rights.

“Let’s link arms, and do what we need to do, including in the next 34 days,” Harris said last week at one such event at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, Conn.

Polls conducted by FiveThirtyEight suggest that with inflation high, crime rates elevated and fears of an economic downturn still growing, voters are no longer interested in abortion. In the immediate wake of the Dobbs ruling in June, 29% of women aged 18 to 44 listed abortion as one of their top three political priorities. In a poll conducted in September, that number had dropped to 12%.

The Campaign of Jahana Harris to Protect the Right to End Abortion, and Having the Right To Vote: A Roundtable Address in New Britain

In her New Britain stop, Harris was introduced by Rep. Jahana Hayes. It’s usually a safe Democratic district but this year is different, as the Democrats are trying to hold on to their majority in the House.

Harris has brought people from across the country to listening sessions at the White House, but she has also traveled to states like North Carolina, Indiana and Florida, and will be traveling to more states with competitive elections into November.

These events give Harris the chance to hear from people affected by the new restrictions on abortion. But they’re also a “smart move” politically, said Democratic strategist Adrienne Elrod.

The events get a lot of local headlines even though they don’t make national news. “Her visit to those states will likely lead most of the daily papers in that state, or at least in that area,” Elrod said in an interview.

People who have been in the meetings say Harris is focused on the details. When you attend the meetings, you will see that she is very much involved in the conversation, as evidenced by the president of the National Partnership for Women and Families.

She is not reading talking points at this meeting. She is immersed in what’s going on day-to-day … She really wanted to learn during the conversation. She had done her homework according to Frye.

“The issue of fighting for the dignity of women in the health care system was ingrained in me literally from the time I can remember,” Harris said last week at the Connecticut event, flanked by Planned Parenthood President Alexis McGill Johnson.

“This is truly an issue that is going to be about what all of our movements have been about, frankly,” Harris said. There will be a need for organizing and litigation.

In the meetings, Harris points out that when states are prohibiting abortion access, they are also prohibiting other rights such as voting and LBGT rights.

One Latina state lawmaker from Utah who attended one of Harris’ Roundtables in August said that she was moved by the message. She said she left the meeting thinking that the call to action Harris gave them was about more than abortion.

“She also gave us a challenge as elected officials to organize,” Ramos said. It was about ensuring that everyone has the right to vote.

Ramos said her takeaway from the roundtable was a reminder that there is a lot at stake — and she says it’s pushed her to engage with her constituency, to knock on doors and encourage people to vote.

How the Left will respond in the era of post-Roe elections: The role of pro-life for women and children in the political process

Editor’s Note: Patrick T. Brown is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank and advocacy group based in Washington, DC. He was a senior policy adviser to the Joint Economic Committee. Follow him on the social networking site. His views are not shared in this piece. CNN has more opinion on it.

Most Republican candidates have tried to ignore or change the subject. It is possible to win over moderate voters in the final weeks of the campaign.

Republicans running for office have largely tried to downplay the issue. Both Masters and Laxalt had their websites scrubbed of pro-life language, but Laxalt was running ads emphasizing his lack of interest in changing the status quo.

Republicans have little to lose by sketching out a vision in the uncertain political environment of our post-Roe elections. An explicit stance in favor of supporting women through stronger safety net spending and improving maternal health would soften the hard-edged image the left would love to paint and could influence key races that could decide the balance of power in Washington, DC, and state capitals.

Some elected Republicans have already pivoted in that direction. In the wake of the Dobbs ruling, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, locked in a closer-than- expected reelection campaign, announced a package of safety-net proposals that will bolster resources for pregnant mothers and give moms and their babies the support they need.

Red states like Tennessee, Florida and South Carolina have opted into a federal program that provides postpartum Medicaid coverage for a year after birth, up from the previous standard of 60 days; it should be a no-brainer for every state that advances restrictions on abortion to follow suit. Texas and Indiana also passed new spending aimed at supporting low-income moms at the same time as passing restrictions on abortion, demonstrating their commitment to being pro-life both during and after pregnancy.

Reply to Walker’s Complaints: Preferences, Fears, Emptiness, And Criticism: What Have Georgians Really Mean?

It showed the results of a recent poll in which voters in Georgia were asked to name their top concern. The most common answer, given by about 40 percent of them, was the economy. threat to democracy was the second most common answer. Access to abortion came in a distant third. Only 11.7 percent of respondents said that.

Walker’s job on Friday night wasn’t to make voters excited about him It was to make them less apprehensive. It was to reinforce that even though he lacks charisma and coherence, he is still a reliable vessel for their concerns and a viable expression of their qualms.

Did they not like the use of an executive order to forgive billions of dollars in student loans by Biden? Walker let them know — succinctly and clearly — that he was, too. Did they feel that too many progressives demonstrated too much contempt for the police? He registered his own upset about that.

It was as if he was going methodically through a checklist of the reasons Republicans were or should be on board with him, and he did so with a discipline that made prior characterizations of him as a hapless buffoon seem selective. Was he eloquent? Please. Was he articulate? Sporadically — and that was all that was necessary to exceed the expectations for him.

He endorsed a Georgia law that prohibits abortion after six weeks of pregnancies, and made exceptions for medical emergencies, rape and incest, despite earlier statements that he opposed all abortions.

What Are Your Expectations? What Do You Want to Know About Abortion? What Happens if You’re a Republican, or a Muslim?

You bring with you your hopes and fears, your expectations and your disappointments. Your choice is made through a maze of considerations, but it hinges primarily on how the candidates — their principles and their party — line up with your worldview. Would they, if elected, represent and promote the kind of community and country you want to live in? Are they on your side, fighting for you and people like you?

Often, the things that are top of mind as you consider those questions are urgent and imminent, rather than ambient and situational. The economy, since it affects the most people most directly, takes top billing.

Anger over abortion can be powerful, but it’s not the main issue in some races. No person assigned male at birth will ever have to make a decision about abortion or health issues related to a pregnancy that could cause an abortion. So, for half the electorate, the issue is a matter of principle rather than one of their own bodily autonomy.

Two red states have taken abortion issues to their voters. Kentucky’s proposed amendment would make clear that the state Constitution would not “secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion.” And in Montana, an initiative would require full medical care for babies born alive because of an attempted abortion.

PA Senator J. D. Shapiro is a Pseudosented Lt. Gov. Fetterman

The former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania used to chair the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans and Related Agencies as well as chair the House Ethics Committee. He is also a political commentator for CNN. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

Governor Wolf will finish his second term in office, while the US senator Pat Toomey is retiring. It is very rare in the commonwealth.

It is no surprise that Shapiro, an honorable and decent man, has earned the support of many mainstream Pennsylvania Republicans like me and others who are mortified and repulsed by the Mastriano candidacy. It is hard to imagine a scenario where this race is not decided, even if there is a huge GOP wave.

Shapiro has dominated the airwaves. Mastriano spoke last week on the Real America’s Voice network and claimed that the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is experimenting on homeless kids and kids in foster care and with gender transitioning, something that is irreversible.

The US Senate race, on the other hand, is a toss-up between Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz and Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman. The stakes are high for Fetterman, who had a stroke a few days before the primary election, and will face Oz in a debate on Tuesday.

Questions have been raised about Fetterman’s capacity to perform the duties of a US senator due to auditory processing issues as a result of his stroke. Fetterman is going to use closed caption during the debate. Neurological experts have said people with auditory processing or hearing issues often use closed captioning.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/24/opinions/pennsylvania-elections-fetterman-oz-dent/index.html

The Problem of Oz and the Left: The Case for a Proposed Reform Congress to Win the House of Representatives and Senate Minority Leaders in Pennsylvania

Polling remains tight. Oz emerged from a brutal GOP primary that drove his unfavorable ratings high among Republicans as well as Democrats and independents. Republican voters have since come home to Oz.

He and his allies have been pounding Fetterman on inflation, taxes, fracking and the Green New Deal, a plan to wean the United States from fossil fuels and cut greenhouse gas emissions. Fetterman, an early supporter of US Sen. Bernie Sanders, has been attacked as a radical socialist.

The modern direction was interpreted by Fetterman’s opponents as a mass release of convicted criminals, with a record rate of homicides in Philadelphia. In fact, Republicans are contrasting Shapiro’s votes on the pardons board with Fetterman’s in an effort to capture voters like me who reject Mastriano and question Fetterman’s stance on public safety.

Fetterman has waged aggressive attacks against Oz, cleverly trolling him over social media and paid advertising on issues such as carpetbagging, crudité, health care and Social Security in an attempt to portray the wealthy GOP candidate as out of touch with ordinary Pennsylvanians.

There is a reason for Republican optimism. Oz is in a strong position to win because likely voters are worried about inflation and the economy. Republican candidates are surging on economic issues even though they have quality problems, and the former President is making speeches that are too political.

Pennsylvania also features three toss-up House races — in the Lehigh Valley, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and suburban Pittsburgh-based seats. In particular, watch the Lehigh Valley race between incumbent Democratic Rep. Susan Wild and Republican challenger Lisa Scheller, who runs a family-owned manufacturing business. It is one of the most competitive swing districts in the country and was held by me for nearly 14 years. CNN reported on the Northampton County which may determine control of Congress and the fate of statewide races.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer expressed some concern Thursday over Democratic prospects in Georgia in the final weeks before the midterm elections, but he remained hopeful about Pennsylvania after the their nominee’s recent debate performance.

“The state where we’re going downhill is Georgia. The leader said that it was not believable that the Republicans would vote for Herschel Walker.

Of Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman’s high-stakes debate performance against Republican Mehmet Oz, Schumer said: “It looks like the debate didn’t hurt us too much in Pennsylvania … so that’s good.”

The conversation took place at a New York Air National Guard base on the tarmac. Biden gave a speech in the state Thursday as part of his midterm closing message in which he painted Republicans as a threat to Americans’ pocketbooks.

The Virginia Senate Race to Win a Senate Seat: A Manslaught of Truths and Related Phenomenology, and the Case of Senator Catherine Masto

The Democrats hold a narrow majority in the Senate, but face a battle to maintain it as Vice President Harris votes against them on Election Day. Both Georgia, which Democrats are defending, and Pennsylvania, which represents their best opportunity to flip a seat, are critical to that mission.

The leader said that his party was picking up steam in Nevada, where Sen. Catherine Masto is one of the most vulnerable incumbents.

A woman claims to have been in a romantic relationship with Walker for years and this week the Georgia race was thrown into turmoil. She said at press conference on Wednesday that he had pressured her into having an abortion in 1993. Walker denounced all of the claims as lies, after he was accused of encouraging his former girlfriend to have the procedure and then reimbursement for the cost. CNN has not independently confirmed the first woman’s allegations. She has remained anonymous in public reports.

The most recent polling of the race, from the New York Times and Siena College, showed no clear leader, with 49% of likely voters supporting Warnock to the 46% backing Walker – a difference well within the survey’s margin of error. At the end of October, a poll was conducted by Fox News and it found that the contest was close, with Warnock at 44% and Walker at 43%. If neither of the candidates wins a majority of votes, the race will go into a December 6 runoff.

Do We Really Want to Be Wrong: Sensitivity to the Effects of Fetterman’s Stroke on Pro-Life Voting

Fetterman told Joy that Oz actually believes in abortion and said that you can not afford to give a clown a vote.

But while Democrats immediately seized on Oz’s comments in their paid advertising, most of the post-debate attention was focused on the effects of Fetterman’s stroke.

“We wanted to be and thought it was important to be there. And we showed up,” the Democrat told Reid. “And getting knocked down, I always got back up. And, to me, that’s really at the essence of our campaign, is that we’re running for any Pennsylvanian that ever got knocked down that has to get back up. And that’s really what we’re running on.”

Voters in nearly three quarters of the states are faced with a variety of ballot initiatives, ranging from questions on rainy day funds to hot-button cultural issues this year. The most consequential questions are related to abortion.

California’s proposed amendment would make choosing abortion a “fundamental right,” opening the door to abortions past the point of fetal viability and, opponents predict, hamstring any future efforts to restrict abortions later in pregnancy or go after unqualified providers that leave women vulnerable to substandard care.

Opponents of the amendment worry that it has implications for matters like parental consent and health care professionals being able to decline to participate in procedures that violate their religious beliefs.

If the polling holds, it should inform Republicans’ strategy on social issues going forward – candidates who are pro-life can win, and many will, but pro-life ballot initiatives, facing the headwinds of an unsympathetic media environment, face a heavy lift.

But as Kansas’ resounding defeat of a state referendum that would have banned abortion showed, even red-leaning states can vote against pro-life initiatives.

None of those states are out of reach for Republican politicians, but it should not surprise conservative activists if many of these measures pass. Too many voters have the sense that politicians forget about them in between elections; 68% of respondents told a New York Times-Siena poll that “the government mainly works to benefit powerful elites.” A ballot amendment makes the voters feel like they’re being heard. It has been shown that the Tea Party’s attitude of the government being best suited to govern the least is no longer valid.

State Referenda as a Probe of What Makes the U.S. Great: Former Vice President Mike Pence in Cumming, Georgia,

Colorado will vote on whether to decriminalize psychedelic drugs for medical use. Opponents are right to worry that, regardless of the intended safeguards, legalization will eventually lead to a cultural normalization of these drugs could lead to more usage across the population, in the same way that legalizing marijuana for medical purposes apparently led to higher rates of illicit usage.

In the long run, voter ID laws can hurt conservative principles, as evidenced by the fact that many of the main proponents of them have tended to spend more time on a narrative with baseless claims.

In our era of nationalized politics, state referenda are a welcome reminder of the importance of a federalist system. States retain general police power for the purpose of shaping the health, well-being and general welfare of their citizens, even though authority has been delegated to the federal government. Allowing states to experiment with different approaches to the minimum wage, taxes, and health care is part of what makes America great.

For the second time in just over two years, Georgia, which elected two Democratic senators in the last election cycle, is now home to a contest that has gripped both national parties and could affect the fate of President Joe Biden’s agenda.

The GOP will likely lose the majority in the Senate because Vice President Harris is casting a decisive vote. The confluence of reality and headwinds, familiar to Democrats across the country, helped coalesce Republicans behind Walker.

Underscoring his party’s mix of ambivalence and political practicality, former Vice President Mike Pence, after not mentioning Walker during his remarks at a rally in Cumming, Georgia, on Tuesday for GOP Gov. Brian Kemp, told reporters he is “supporting the whole (Republican) ticket here in Georgia.”

The War in Ukraine: War, Reconciliation, and the Future of Democracy as Seen by CNN and other News News Reports in Warnock

Warnock, meanwhile, initially sought to steer clear of directly addressing the controversy. He did a TV ad last month called Hypocrite.

“For you, Herschel Walker wants to ban abortion,” says a narrator, before playing comments the Republican made supporting no exceptions to a national abortion ban. “But for himself,” the narrator then asks before playing news reports about the allegations.

Warnock’s play to undecided voters and moderates has focused on his efforts to expand access to health care – he often cites his work to lower the cost of insulin – along with his bipartisan record in the Senate.

“I’ll work with anyone if it means helping Georgia,” he says in another ad, hammering home a message the senior pastor at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church has repeated at rallies and in his lone debate with the Republican.

At the College Park rally, Obama said that there was little evidence of Walker taking interest in public service or volunteer work and that he did not show any inclination towards helping people in anyway.

Walker’s campaign has trafficked heavily in culture war rhetoric, along with criticism of inflation and crime rates under Biden, whom he’s sought to tie to Warnock to as tightly as possible.

Sign up to get this weekly column as a newsletter. We’re looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets.

The war in Ukraine is a classic VUCA moment. The election is taking place in the US. The vote for all the seats in the House and more than a third in the Senate is volatile, uncertain, complex and potentially, ambiguous.

Will it be a verdict on the leadership of President Joe Biden and the Democrats who control Congress? Will it strengthen or weaken the election denialism many Republicans adopted after former President Donald Trump refused to accept his 2020 election loss? How would GOP control of Congress affect the country’s future and the last two years of Biden’s term?

The issues of the election are not being fought over by both parties. Republicans and Democrats see threats to democracy and the overturn of the Supreme Court decision on abortion as reasons to vote for their candidates.

The Democratic Party thinks the warnings about the future of democracy are justified. “We all understand inflation is temporary but losing our democracy could be permanent,” wrote Dean Obeidallah. The Washington Post has reported that a majority of the GOP nominees are denying or questioning the outcomes of the 2020 election. We have never seen anything like this in our lifetimes – if ever in the history of the United States.”

The economy is top of mind for voters. “It’s nothing new,” wrote historian Meg Jacobs. She pointed out that the first televised political advertisement, for the winning Republican presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952, focused on inflation. In the ad he talked to an average housewife, who complained that her high prices were just driving her crazy. Eisenhower promised to fight on her behalf. That was at a time when inflation was below 2%.

“Battles over inflation — what’s the cause, who is to blame, what is there to do — get to basic fights over who should have what. Should corporations earn bigger profits, should workers earn higher wages and should consumers shoulder the burden of both?”

“The message is clear: As energy companies continue to rake in massive profits, energy has become increasingly unaffordable for lower-income Americans. The federal government needs to take action now to help families maintain access to affordable energy throughout the winter.” He said the US should impose a tax on fuel company profits, directing the money towards people struggling to pay their bills.

An “unnecessarily painful recession” is on the horizon, warned Desmond Lachman of the American Enterprise Institute. The Federal Reserve Bank hiked interest rates this week for the fourth time in a row because of the unexpectedly rapid pace of monetary policy tightening. Higher rates are rapidly slowing the housing market and putting pressure on companies to cut staffing, he argued. The Feds stance on policy is occurring in a world economy that has been hard hit by high inflation. The Fed’s leaders have signaled that they may start moderating the pace of interest rate hikes.

My Election: My Campaign Dashboard for CNN’s Changing Politics (The Case of Biden in the Washington Post, Aug. 17, 2016)

Obama served up the perfect closing question for voters, ‘Who will fight for your freedom?’ The answer is obvious, it is the Democrats, and the former President pointed to Republican threats to reproductive rights and gay marriage.

Having Obama make the closing argument “might not be such a great idea,” wrote Republican Marc A. Thiessen in the Washington Post. Obama’s record of helping Democrats is not as stellar as he would have you think. In fact, Obama presided over the loss of more House, Senate, state legislative and governors’ seats than any president in U.S. history… Democrats don’t want Biden to join them on the campaign trail But Obama may not be the savior they are hoping for. To the contrary, based on this disastrous record, he may be electoral kryptonite.”

On Tuesday, key races will determine control of the House, Senate, and dozens of governorships across the country. CNN’s My Election allows you to build a custom dashboard with contests that matter to you. You can get a free CNN account by logging in or creating one.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/06/opinions/midterms-are-vuca-election-opinion-column-galant/index.html

“Don’t Let Paul Pelosi Become Your Spot”: Michael Fanone, the 22-Year-Old Senator, and the U.S. Capitol

Michael Fanone, who was injured in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, wrote in his memoir that he spoke to fellow officers who defended the US Capitol and found many Americans were not interested in the insurrection. In other words, most Americans just don’t seem to care. An overt attempt to end our democracy? So…Meh…

I would like to believe that the attack on Paul Pelosi will be the turning point, but I doubt it. We no longer talk about isolated incidents or condemnation of violence by our leaders. The 82-year-old husband of the woman who is third in line to the US presidency was beaten in his own home for political reasons, and right-wing media and some Republicans reveled in the violence,” Fanone added.

About three-quarters of the states have some initiative up for a vote this year. “Democracy itself is on the ballot in 2022,” wrote Joshua A. Douglas. Many states and localities will vote to change the way elections are run even if candidates don’t accept defeat in the 2020 election.

Friday brought word that former President Donald Trump could announce that he is launching another bid for the White House in the next few weeks. “Democrats should not underestimate the threat that Trump poses,” observed Julian Zelizer.

The Republicans are a united party. The unity can not be shook. … the ‘Never Trump’ contingent failed to emerge as a dominant force. Liz Cheney was kicked out of the party.

“If Republicans do well next week, possibly retaking control of the House and Senate, members of the party will surely feel confident about amping up their culture wars and economic talking points going into 2024. And given the number of election-denying candidates in the midterms, a strong showing will likely create the tailwinds for the GOP to unite behind Trump.”

Zelizer wrote that Trump himself would feel an increase in confidence. “Despite ongoing criminal investigations and the House select committee investigating January 6, Trump is still a viable political figure. … And once Trump is formally a candidate, it will make prosecuting him all the more difficult. Trump will claim that any investigation is intended to take him out of the running and he will play the victim.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/06/opinions/midterms-are-vuca-election-opinion-column-galant/index.html

The impact of Kanye West on the alt-right and the antisemitic community: a critical look at the case of Twitter

The businesses that severed their relationship with West were considered to have played a part in the muted outrage over his attack on Jews. “Some underplayed the impact of someone as big and famous as Kanye West diving into the ugliness of bias, despite the fact that there already has been a sustained surge of antisemitic comments in alt-right online communities.”

Musk’s first few days as the new owner of the website have been tumultuous, with him spreading misinformation, laying off lots of employees and sharing the idea of charging for blue-check verification.

“The power that US tech executives have over our lives, from politics to the health of democracy, is painfully tangible to all,” wrote Marietje’s comments in the Financial Times.

“Immediately after the sale was confirmed, the number of neo-Nazi and racist tweets exploded on the site. The accounts were associated with Russian and Chinese state media and asked for their labels to be removed. Speculation was rife that Musk would reverse the account ban for extremists.

Musk “has placed no limits on his own speech,” wrote former advertising executive Rob Norman in the New York Times, “and, under his ownership, seems likely to enable the inflammatory, provocative and sometimes verifiably untrue speech of others.”

Advertisers worry about these things a lot since I have represented the world’s largest buyer of advertising space. In this case, advertisers’ worries could lead them to flee en masse, costing Twitter almost all its current revenue. Without that revenue, Mr. Musk can’t afford to take over the platform and it could endanger the future of it.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/06/opinions/midterms-are-vuca-election-opinion-column-galant/index.html

The worst year of her working life: Martha Hickson, an educator and the CNN Opinion on midterms are Vuca election columns

Martha Hickson, a high school librarian in New Jersey for more than a decade, called it the worst year of her working life. There was a school board meeting in which protesters railed against the novel “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe and “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison. They used words from the book and isolated images from the other book.

Banned Books Week is an annual event that celebrates the freedom to read. The protesters think it’s a scheme to lure kids to be degraded.

The sucker punch came when a protester labelled me a pedologist and paedo. After a successful career, with retirement on the horizon, to be cast as a villain was heartbreaking.”

The response from my employer was worse. The board sat in silence that night, and for the next five months refused to utter a word in my defense.”

Hickson’s piece was the concluding personal essay in CNN Opinion’s series on midterm issues, “America’s Future Starts Now.” Nine education experts also weighed in with thoughts on how to move America’s schools forward.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/06/opinions/midterms-are-vuca-election-opinion-column-galant/index.html

What did Brazilian President Arick Wierson learn about his presidential comeback? The case of Benjamin Netanyahu, the most stable political party in Israel: a tale of two faces

The faces of familiar people returned after the Middle East and Latin America elections. The former President of Brazil posted a stunning political comeback, defeating the incumbent, according to Arick Wierson.

“Not since the end of the military dictatorship in the 1980s have Brazilians been faced with two more starkly contrasting candidates, each with diametrically opposing political outlooks for the country,” Wierson wrote. And “it’s clear that a sizable percentage of the voting population didn’t buy into either of their visions for the country.”

Benjamin Netanyahu is still the most consequential politician in Israel even though he is being tried for a number of different crimes, including fraud and breach of trust. “For Netanyahu this election was truly existential. If he failed to secure a governing majority, the consequences of a guilty verdict would have driven him away from politics.

The most stable political party in the country is Likud. Israel is now shaped more by the right wing than at any point in its history because Netanyahu is its master.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/06/opinions/midterms-are-vuca-election-opinion-column-galant/index.html

Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen: The Divorcing of a Perfectly Sweet Spot for a Supermodel and NFL Player

NFL quarterback Tom Brady and supermodel Gisele Bündchen are divorcing, a development that is hardly unusual in the world of celebrity power couples. Yet there’s enormous public interest in the split, Jill Filipovic noted. The fascination with the Brady-Bndchen divorce stems from the fact that this couple is a perfect celebrity sweet spot, because they seem to be splitting up over a familiar gender dynamic.

After years of sacrificing so that he could thrive professionally, Brady wants to spend more time with their family, and Bndchen suggests that he is worried about his health playing a dangerous sport.

This is “a familiar and frustrating” dynamic: “The woman who steps back to care for children and make sure her husband succeeds – and the husband who doesn’t quite seem to appreciate that sacrifice and continues to push professionally far past when he needs to, at the expense of his family.”