Crooked Media - What A Day: The running of the Bols

- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) definitely getting the first part right.

I know, I know. More midterms news. Well, folks, I’ll stop writing about them when our democracy no longer hangs in the balance. 
 

• Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) is going wild in her lame-duck stretch, crossing party lines today not only to endorse Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) but to campaign for her. Cheney and Slotkin both serve on the House Armed Services Committee, and Slotkin’s race for Michigan’s 7th Congressional District against her Republican challenger is extremely close. As of two weeks ago, MI-7 was the most expensive House race in the country, with the two campaigns and outside groups having spent a combined $27 million. 
   

• In Nevada, an unprecedented hand-count of mail-in votes continued for a second day today, while opponents asked the state Supreme Court to issue an immediate order to halt the process. The ACLU filed an emergency request in a 20-page filing accusing Nye County, NV, of violating Supreme Court rules, set last Friday, requiring the count to be conducted in a way that prevents public release of early results before many voters have a chance to vote by mail or in-person early or at the polls on November 8. ACLU Nevada executive director Athar Haseebullah warned that “a historic disaster is brewing in Nye County.” Nevada is home to one of the most closely-watched Senate races in the country, along with high-stakes gubernatorial and secretary-of-state races, which will determine whether future elections there are free and fair or subject to MAGA subversion.
   

• Alaska isn’t a swing state, but Democrats have an opening there nonetheless. Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) became the first Alaska Native elected to Congress and the first Democrat elected to the state’s only district in half a century in a special election this September, and now, less than two months later, she remains on the campaign trail to keep her seat. One of her Republican challengers in this ranked-choice race is none other than former vice-presidential nominee and half-term Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK), who has railed against ranked-choice voting because it “produced the travesty of sending a Democrat to Congress to represent Alaska.” Tough luck, babe! Maybe you should have been a better candidate. In a televised debate last night, Peltola portrayed herself as a coalition builder, calling for more civility in politics and decrying partisanship as the “number one threat to our country…in foreign policy and domestic policy.” Ordinarily, this kind of rhetoric makes my eyes roll harder than a car down a hill with no emergency break, but whatever it takes to win in a red state, sure. Throw every platitude at the wall.

Arizona was a hugely consequential state in the 2020 presidential election, and the 2022 midterm election will be no different. 

• Our frenemy who loves the filibuster, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), may not be on the ballot this November, but she’s played an outsized role in Arizona’s marquee Senate and gubernatorial races. Sinema has strongly backed Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) in his bid for re-election, but had until recently stayed relatively quiet about the governor’s race even as Democratic nominee Katie Hobbs trails MAGA nutjob and perhaps the most vociferous advocate for the Big Lie besides disgraced former president Trump himself, Kari Lake. Sinema’s relationship with the Arizona Democratic Party remains rocky because she tanked much of president Biden’s agenda by refusing to budge on nuking the filibuster. Yeah, that does tend to sour people.

• Less than two weeks from election day, Sinema finally endorsed Hobbs.  Every little bit helps, because it’s difficult to overstate how dangerous a Kari Lake-run Arizona will be. Hobbs’s decision not to debate Lake (because she lies so promiscuously and has threatened to throw Hobbs in jail) has proved detrimental to her campaign.. Phoenix police said today that they made an arrest related to a break-in at Hobbs’s campaign office earlier this week. Hobbs’s campaign manager said that Hobbs and her staff have faced “hundreds” of death threats and threats of violence over the course of this campaign. 

More than any campaign we can remember, the coming midterm is a reminder that elections turn on much more than just swing races, and we will have to fight like hell to win every single one.

Election Day is coming up fast, and you know what that means: t-shirts. Oh, and voting obviously. Get yourself and everyone around you pumped to go vote with new merch from the Crooked Store. We’ve got merch to shout out voting as well all the most important issues, from abortion rights to filibuster reform. Treat yourself to something that represents what you stand for, like an “I voted” sticker you can put in the washing machine.
 

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If there’s a silver lining around Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it’s this: The war has expedited the global transition away from fossil fuels. While some countries have been burning more fossil fuels such as coal to offset the sting of lost Russian oil supply, the agency expects that to be short-lived. For the first time, the agency now predicts that worldwide demand for every type of fossil fuel will peak in the near future. Many countries have already responded to soaring oil prices by embracing wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear power plants, hydrogen fuels, electric vehicles, and electric heat pumps. The shift towards renewable energy was central to president Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. Japan is pursuing a new “green transformation” program. China, India, and South Korea have all increased national targets for renewable energy and nuclear power. The agency expects global investment in clean energy to rise from $1.3 trillion in 2022 to more than $2 trillion annually by 2030, which will be a significant shift. Despite the major boost, this shift still isn’t happening fast enough to avert dangerous levels of global warming, and governments will have to take significantly stronger action to reduce CO2 emissions in the next few years.

The U.S. economy grew 2.6 percent last quarter after two previous quarters of contraction. We’re coming back, baby! But we also may be in a housing recession now, whoops!

The Supreme Court will hear arguments in two cases related to affirmative action in college admissions on Monday, spearheaded by  Edward Blum, a septuagenarian former stockbroker and failed Republican congressional candidate. Sounds right.

The man who pulled former Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police officer Michael Fanone into a crowd of violent insurrectionists on January 6 was sentenced to seven years in prison today. 

A new analysis shows that threats against federal judges skyrocketed during the Trump administration and have not cooled off since. Can’t imagine why! 

Disgraced former president Trump is coming to Miami two days before midterms to campaign for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) but not Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). 

Texas’s state police chief announced today that the criminal investigation into the delayed police response to the Uvalde school shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers will be finished by the year’s end. 

An Associated Press-NORC poll found 58 percent of Republicans still believe President Biden’s election wasn’t legitimate. That number is down slightly from 66 percent in August, but dear God. 

A former CIA officer who spied on Qatar’s rivals to help the small Arab nation land this year’s World Cup is now under FBI investigation after documents revealed he offered clandestine services beyond soccer in order to influence U.S. policy. 

Multiple people once close to rapper Kanye West told CNN that he has long had an “obsession” with Adolf Hitler, spoke openly about reading Mein Kampf and even wanted to name an album after Hitler. Maybe you guys could have said something earlier! By the way, the Republican Party still think he and all his antisemitism are awesome.

The hotly anticipated Brazilian presidential election takes place this weekend, and most international observers will be primarily interested in whether President Jair Bolosnaro follows through on his Trump-inspired threat to reject the results if he loses. A less-publicized aspect of the potential outcome will be its effects on the habitability of Earth in the future. Brazilian Indigenous Leader Txai Suruí argues that this election is the last chance to save the Amazon Rainforest. Soaring deforestation rates under Bolsonaro have left the Amazon ecosystem on the brink of a tipping point, with the loss of millions of trees already causing decreased rainfall. The catastrophic collapse of the Amazon will be felt far beyond Brazil. Rainfall across two continents, including California’s agricultural lands, comes from the Amazon. Its trees absorb billions of tons of harmful carbon. Bolsonaro’s challenger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva promises to stop the deforestation and destruction and has a proven record of being tough on environmental crime. The future of the planet is at stake, but no pressure, Brazil!

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A federal appeals court rejected disgraced former president Trump’s request to reconsider a ruling that he has to turn over his tax returns to Congress. 

The Department of Agriculture announced today that it will make $759 million in high-speed internet grants available to rural communities.   

A ballot measure this November could make Oregon the first state in the country to amend its state constitution and explicitly declare that health care is a human right. 

For the first time in its 157-year history, a woman will be commissioner of the New York City Fire Department. 


According to a new Department of Health and Human Services report, communities of color recorded big gains in health- insurance coverage from 2020 to 2022 due in large part to improved affordability and increased outreach efforts for enrollment.