Republican Case Against Biden Beautifully Goes Up in Flames on Fox News
Tori Otten – September 25, 2023
Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Monday completely—and hilariously—destroyed one of Republicans’ main arguments to prove that Joe Biden is corrupt.
Republicans launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden, after months of insisting that the president is guilty of criminal wrongdoing. The GOP has yet to produce any actual evidence of their claims. But one of their main talking points is that Poroshenko fired former Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin after Biden pressured him to do so.
Fox News host Brian Kilmeade played Poroshenko a clip of Shokin saying Biden wanted him fired because he had been investigating the oil company Burisma Holdings while Hunter Biden served on the board.
“First of all, this is [a] completely crazy person,” Poroshenko replied without hesitation, referring to Shokin. “This is something wrong with him. Second, there is not one single word of truth.”
“Please do not use such a person like Shokin to undermine the trust we feel” from both U.S. parties, he continued.
Poroshenko added that Shokin was fired because “he played very dirty games.”
Shokin was fired in 2016 for corruption. Three years later, Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani started a conspiracy theory that the Biden family accepted a $10 million bribe to remove Shokin to stop a probe into Hunter Biden’s role at Burisma. This claim has been repeatedly debunked by the owner of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, as well as Giuliani’s associate Lev Parnas. And now, the former Ukrainian president himself.
‘Full fascist’ Trump condemned after ‘treason’ rant against NBC and MSNBC
Martin Pengelly in Washington – September 25, 2023
Photograph: John Locher/AP
Donald Trump said Comcast, the owner of NBC and MSNBC, “should be investigated for its ‘Country Threatening Treason’” and promised to do so should he be re-elected president next year.
In response, one progressive group said the former US president and current overwhelming frontrunner in the Republican 2024 presidential nomination race had “gone full fascist”.
The Biden White House said Trump threatened “an outrageous attack on our democracy and the rule of law”.
The US media was “almost all dishonest and corrupt”, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, “but Comcast, with its one-side and vicious coverage by NBC News, and in particular MSNBC … should be investigated for its ‘Country Threatening Treason’.”
Listing familiar complaints about coverage of his presidency – during which he regularly threatened NBC, MSNBC and Comcast – Trump added: “I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I win the presidency of the United States, they and others of the lamestream media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events.”
Trump also used familiar terms of abuse for the press: “the enemy of the people” and “the fake news media”.
Observers reacted to Trump’s threat to NBC, MSNBC and Comcast with a mixture of familiarity and alarm.
In a statement, Andrew Bates, White House deputy press secretary, said: “President Biden swore an oath to uphold our constitution and protect American democracy. Freedom of the press is a fundamental constitutional right.
“To abuse presidential power and violate the constitutional rights of reporters would be an outrageous attack on our democracy and the rule of law. Presidents must always defend Americans’ freedoms – never trample on them for selfish, small and dangerous political purposes.”
Elsewhere, Paul Farhi, media reporter for the Washington Post, pointed to Trump’s symbiotic relationship with outlets he professes to hate, given that only last week Trump was “the featured interview guest last week on Meet the Press, the signature Sunday morning news program on … NBC”.
Others noted that on Monday night, the former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, a key witness for the House committee that investigated the January 6 attack on Congress, which Trump incited, was due to be interviewed on MSNBC.
“Female political or media antagonists really cause blood to come pouring out of Trump’s eyes,” wrote Howard Fineman, a columnist and commentator.
Sounding a louder alarm, Occupy Democrats, a progressive advocacy group, said Trump had gone “full fascist” with an “unhinged Sunday-night rant”.
“There you have it, folks,” it said. “While Trump and his Republican enablers love to falsely accuse Democrats of ‘weaponizing’ the government against Trump, Trump himself is now openly threaten[ing] to weaponize the presidency to completely remove entire news channels from the airwaves simply because they expose his rampant criminality.”
Juliette Kayyem, a Kennedy School professor and CNN national security analyst, pointed to a previous warning: “To view each of Trump’s calls to violence in isolation – ‘he attacked Milley’ or ‘he attacked NBC’ or ‘he attacked the jury, the prosecutor, the judge’ – is to miss his overall plan to ‘introduce violence as a natural extension of our democratic disagreement’.”
Trump’s rantings were also coupled with threats to Gen Mark Milley, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff whose attempts to cope with Trump were detailed in an Atlantic profile last week.
They come after a Washington Post poll gave Trump a 10-point lead over Joe Biden, who beat him in 2020, in a notional 2024 general election matchup.
The Post said the poll was an “outlier” but Trump dominates the Republican nomination race and generally polls close to Biden despite facing 91 criminal charges – for election subversion, retention of classified information and hush-money payments – and civil threats including a defamation trial arising from an allegation of rape a judge said was “substantially true”.
Another new poll, from NBC, showed Trump and Biden tied at 46% but Trump up 39%-36% if a third-party candidate was added. A “person familiar with White House discussions” about the prospect of a candidacy from No Labels, a centrist group, said it was “concerning”, NBC said. Biden, the report added, was “worried”.
Jimmy Carter makes rare public appearance, days before his birthday and 7 months after starting hospice
Tal Axelrod – September 24, 2023
Jimmy Carter makes rare public appearance, days before his birthday and 7 months after starting hospice
Former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, made a surprise appearance in their Georgia hometown on Saturday — having largely retreated from the spotlight amid health challenges.
The Carters went to the Plains Peanut Festival in what seems to have been their first outing since the announcement seven months ago that Jimmy Carter would receive hospice care. The couple previously attended two events last year.
“Beautiful day for President & Mrs. Carter to enjoy a ride through the Plains Peanut Festival! And just a week before he turns 99. We’re betting peanut butter ice cream is on the menu for lunch! #JimmyCarter99,” the Carter Center wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. (Peanut butter is a favorite of Jimmy Carter’s.)
At 98, he is both the oldest living and longest-lived U.S. president. He will turn 99 on Oct. 1.
The former president’s office announced in February that he had decided to receive hospice care following a series of short hospital stays. He had suffered multiple falls in 2019 and survived cancer in 2015.
In May, the Carter Center said the former first lady had been diagnosed with dementia. The Carters are also the longest-married presidential couple in American history, having wed in 1946.
The Carter Center launched a tribute earlier this month for the former president’s upcoming birthday.
Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson, recently said on “GMA3” that “we didn’t know, and we didn’t believe at the time, that we were going to get to this 99th birthday.”
“They are coming to the end, of course, at this time in their lives. But they are at peace, they are together, they’re at home, they’re in love. And you don’t get much more than that, and they don’t expect more,” he said.
“It’s a true blessing for all of us to have had this much time with him,” Jason Carter added.
Martin Pengelly in Washington DC – September 22, 2023
Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
A report detailing how Clarence Thomas secretly participated in donor events staged by the hard-right Koch network drew more fierce protests and outrage over the conservative supreme court justice’s proliferating ethics scandals.
Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee who has advanced ethics reform amid reports about Thomas and other justices, said: “Oh, my.
“More undisclosed private jet travel, more fingerprints of the billionaire-funded court fixer Leonard Leo” – a rightwing activist widely linked to Thomas – “more engagement with billionaire-funded organisations scheming to influence the court.”
Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who chairs the Senate judiciary committee, said: “Once again, Justice Thomas’s gaggle of fawning billionaires expands and their influence on the court grows larger.
“The Koch brothers are the architects of one of the largest, most successful political operations in history, aimed at influencing all levels of government and the courts. Justice Thomas hid the extent of his involvement with the Koch political network and never reported gifts associated with these engagements.”
Kyle Herrig, senior adviser to the campaign group Accountable.us, said: “It’s clear that Justice Thomas sees his position on our nation’s highest court as a way to upgrade his own lifestyle with no regard for ethics or consequences.”
The report linking Thomas to Koch donor summits at Bohemian Grove, an exclusive all-male resort in California, was just the latest blockbuster from ProPublica, the nonprofit newsroom that has hounded the justice over his failure to declare links to and generous gifts from rich rightwing donors often with business before the court.
The new report said Thomas attended Koch events at least twice, putting him “in the extraordinary position of having served as a fundraising draw for a network that has brought cases before the supreme court, including one of the most closely watched of the upcoming term”.
That case, Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo, concerns the right of federal agencies to regulate businesses in areas including labor rights and environmental and consumer protection. Durbin said Thomas should step aside.
“The Koch network has invested tremendous capital to overturn longstanding legal precedent known as Chevron deference, which would handcuff regulators and serve the interests of corporate fat cats,” Durbin said.
“As more details are revealed of Justice Thomas’s undisclosed involvement with the Koch political network, there are serious questions about his impartiality in cases squarely confronting the Chevron doctrine. For these reasons, I’m calling on Justice Thomas to recuse himself from consideration of Loper Bright v Raimondo.”
A Koch spokesperson denied wrongdoing, saying: “The idea that attending a couple events to promote a book or give dinner remarks, as all the justices do, could somehow be undue influence just doesn’t hold water.”
Thomas did not comment. He has said he did not declare gifts from donors because he was advised he did not have to. Subsequent filings revealed more such links.
Supreme court justices are nominally subject to the same ethics rules as all federal judges.
On Friday, Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer now a law professor at the University of Minnesota, said the new ProPublica report showed Thomas “violated: 1) financial disclosure laws, 2) laws prohibiting judges from participating in partisan fundraising (the Kochs have a super pac) and 3) recusal laws for judges. 28 U.S.C. 455. He simply does not understand or care about the law.”
In practice, however, the justices govern themselves. John Roberts, the chief justice, has rebuffed demands for testimony in Congress about reports of links with rightwing donors also involving Samuel Alito, another hard-right justice.
With Republicans opposed and holding the House, Democratic-led ethics reform stands next to no chance of success. Calls for Thomas to resign or be impeached have come from figures as influential as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive congresswoman from New York. But such calls also stand next to no chance. Only one supreme court justice has been impeached: Samuel Chase, unsuccessfully, in 1804-05. In 1969, Abe Fortas resigned, amid a scandal over his financial dealings.
Thomas is 75 but has no apparent reason to resign or retire. The senior conservative on the court, he is a key part of a 6-3 rightwing majority, years in the making by activists and Republicans in Congress, that has handed down epochal decisions including the removal of the right to abortion.
Herrig, of Accountable.us, added: “As ethics violations by Thomas and others keep piling up, Chief Justice Roberts’s lack of action becomes more egregious. The chief justice must demand Justice Thomas recuse himself from upcoming cases with Koch network conflicts of interest. We need accountability and reform now.”
Media observers also reacted to the new ProPublica report.
Jane Mayer of the New Yorker, co-author of Strange Justice, a seminal book on Thomas’s controversial confirmation in 1991, asked: “Does justice go better with Koch?”
Dahlia Lithwick, who covers the supreme court for Slate magazine and hosts the Amicus podcast, wrote simply: “Pay. To. Play.”
David Rothkopf, a columnist and author of books including Traitor: A History of American Betrayal from Benedict Arnold to Donald Trump, asked: “Is Clarence Thomas the most corrupt supreme court justice in our history? One of the most corrupt senior officials in our history?
“What are we going to find out next?”: Clarence Thomas’ shocking ethics scandal “sickens” experts
Tatyana Tandanpolie – September 22, 2023
Clarence Thomas Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty Images
Legal and political experts have erupted with disgust online Thursday after a report revealed Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has participated in two Koch donor summits and ultimately aided the political network, which has appeared before the high court in multiple cases — including one of the most highly anticipated of the upcoming term — in its efforts to raise funding.
According to ProPublica, who conducted interviews with three former network employees and one major donor, Thomas has attended Koch donor events at least twice over the years with the justice, staffers said, being flown in to speak in hopes that it would encourage attendees to continue donating. Thomas did not report the 2018 flight he took to Palm Springs for the Koch organization’s annual summit on his disclosure form, and a spokesperson for the network told ProPublica it did not pay for the jet.
As the outlet notes, Thomas’ participation in the events is part of a yearslong, personal relationship he has with the networks founders — libertarian billionaires David and Charles Koch — that has largely remained out of the public eye and sprouted from years of trips to the Bohemian Grove, a secretive, all-men’s retreat in Northern California Thomas has attended for two decades.
The revelation comes after ProPublica’s previous reports have also shed light on the conservative justice’s ties to GOP megadonor and billionaire Harlan Crow, who financed a number of luxury trips for Thomas across decades, paid private-school tuition for two years for the child Thomas raised and purchased property from Thomas — including his mother’s home — in 2014.
Thomas neglected to report these dealings with Crow in his annual financial disclosures but acknowledged in his most recent financial report that he took three trips aboard the billionaire’s private plane last year and included amendments to reports filed between 2017 and 2021 to address matters he “inadvertently omitted.”
Thomas’ ties to billionaires whose political interests have been brought — if not also seen success — before the Supreme Court has sparked calls for the imposition of an ethics code on the justices and instilled doubt in the public’s trust of the high court. The latest revelation has only bolstered those concerns with some experts and officials on Friday renewing calls for his resignation.
“Justice Clarence Thomas continues to bring shame upon himself and the United States Supreme Court,” Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “He should resign. What are we going to find out next? A fundraiser for Trump headlined by Clarence Thomas? Ridiculous.”
“Personally, I’d go right to resign. It’s long overdue. And I’d revisit the cases he’s decided—including Citizens United and Shelby v Holder, which together handed our democracy to the rich—while we’re at it. Corruption of the highest order,” said Boston College professor of 19th-century U.S. history Heather Cox Richardson, whose research focuses on American political history and ideology.
Other experts have expressed outrage and further critiqued Thomas over his acceptance of gifts and failure to disclose them or recuse himself from relevant cases.
“The whole point of disclosing conflicts & recusing is to maintain public confidence in key democratic institutions, like the Court,” former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance tweeted. “It’s clear that the integrity of the branch of gov’t he serves in is not important to Justice Thomas.”
“Clarence Thomas might not be the finest Justice money can buy, but he’s definitely bought,” attorney and retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Moe Davis, said on X. “Imagine if Supreme Court justices were held to the same ethical standards we demand of a 21-year-old Army lieutenant.”https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-3&features=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%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1705197204053414297&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.salon.com%2F2023%2F09%2F22%2Fwhat-are-we-going-to-find-out-next-clarence-thomas-shocking-ethics-scandal-sickens-experts%2F&sessionId=3f497b0df6d0efbd4a8714586fcd62d8aac8a429&theme=light&widgetsVersion=aaf4084522e3a%3A1674595607486&width=550px
“As a public servant who sacrifices donor $ (I don’t take donations from elected officials, PBAs, or attorneys with cases before my office), b/c I believe the justice system should be free from even the appearance of political influence, this sickens me,” added Mimi Rocah, a former federal prosecutor and current district attorney
A South Florida no-party-affiliation voter tells me a story that perfectly illustrates business owners’ predicament in a state once a sanctuary for the undocumented, and now imposing one of the strictest anti-immigrant laws in the nation.
He needs to remodel his home’s entire irrigation system, a big job, but the owner of the company he has contracted — a die-hard supporter of brothers-in-prejudice former President Trump and DeSantis — can’t get the job done.
Two reasons for the drama: He has lost almost all of his long-time employers to E-verify, which forces him to send for governmental review the immigration status of his employees — or face punishment that can escalate from a $500 civil fine to jail time for repeat offenders.
Before the Florida Legislature, at DeSantis’ behest, passed the laws that severely punish people who hire, drive or assist undocumented immigrants, the irrigation contractor was simply doing what a lot of agricultural, service and construction businesses do: ignoring the immigration status of his laborers.
Looking the other way. Getting jobs done.
Furious at DeSantis
Now, he and other business owners have lost experienced workers — and they can’t hire any new migrants, either. Not only would many newcomers also fail to pass the status test — but they’re nowhere to be found.
Migrants afraid of being targeted and arrested at workplaces are fleeing Florida for states where they’re better treated and appreciated.
The Republican contractor is furious at DeSantis.
He’s overwhelmed and falling all over himself apologizing for the delays.
And he’s not alone bad-mouthing the governor — and still singing the praises of Trump, who he feels understands him better because he, too, hires foreign workers to operate his resorts, condo towers and golf courses.
What’s playing out in industries all over the state is almost comical, as DeSantis prances around the country grandstanding about crossing into Mexico, if he becomes president, to kill migrant smugglers.
And the bravado isn’t helping him much politically. He’s still badly losing the GOP presidential nomination race, this week losing ground in polls to other contenders.
To be brutally honest, the thought of a smug Republican businessman who voted for Trump and DeSantis sweating it — and now facing the task of himself having to do the hard labor of migrants or lose the job — gives me a jolt of pleasure.
This is what happens when you: 1. ignorantly vote against your own interests; 2. fall for candidates who feed a narrative of fear and loathing for immigrants, thinking it’s not going to affect you because you and your family have status; 3. still believe only a Republican president is going to solve the problems of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua for you and them.
And that vote leaves us with quality-of-life problems in Florida.
Worse, bashing hurts migrant families and mixed-status families.
The recent arrest of a migrant van operator drives home the point that a well-to-do business owner has resources, but for a detained worker facing deportation, the harsh treatment amounts to a stolen future.
What the Mexican consul in Orlando, Juan Sabines, told the Miami Herald about the arrested driver is true: Immigrants coming to work in Florida aren’t criminals, but people who want a shot at a better tomorrow and are in need of work.
They take on hard jobs Americans find undesirable to feed and house their families back home.
Unfounded loathing
I don’t understand the visceral loathing of humble, hardworking people who’ve proven over and over again that they add value to this country — and that their struggle is inspirational.
Ironically, as DeSantis roams the country demonizing immigration — and boasting about what he’s done in Florida to crush immigrants — filmmakers have brought to film the life of one of the nation’s most inspirational migrant stories.
A tearjerker, “A Million Miles Away” (streaming on Amazon Prime) tells the story of José Moreno Hernández, a Mexican child migrant worker who toiled in the fields of San Joaquin County, California dreaming of reaching for the stars.
Inspired at age 10 by the Apollo 17 flight and astronaut Eugene A. Cernan’s walk on the moon, he put himself through unimaginable hard work and education and, with the support of his family and community, he persevered and became a brilliant engineer.
Despite being turned down by NASA 11 times, he trained as a pilot and scuba diver as well to meet all requirements and made it into the astronaut program. He finally set off to space in 2009 as the flight engineer and one of the astronauts on Space Shuttle mission STS-128 to the International Space Station.
He spent 13 days there — a lot of time to star-gaze to his favorite Mexican song.
Cover of the book by José M. Hernández, the child migrant worker who became a NASA astronaut and inspired the newly released Amazon Prime movie “A Million Miles Away.” Courtesy
“Tenacity is a superpower,” Hernández, played by actor Michael Peña, says in the movie.
“Who better to leave this planet and dive into the unknown than a migrant worker.”
And, as if his space exploration wasn’t enough, the film credits tell us that Hernández helped develop, at the Livermore Laboratory where he worked, the first full-field digital mammography imaging system used to detect breast cancer early.
But we, in Florida, mistreat the Hernándezes of today.
Never underestimate the spirit and energy an immigrant, much less that of one who has toiled in the fields and picked your food.
As I watched the movie, I could only feel sorry for us.
DeSantis wants to rollback climate measures as he embraces ‘drill, baby, drill’ mentality
Zac Anderson, Sarasota Herald-Tribune – September 20, 2023
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis attends a live taping of Hannity at Fox News Channel Studios on September 13, 2023 in New York City. DeSantis unveiled his energy policy platform on Wednesday during an event in Texas. The plan emphasizes the development of new fossil fuel resources.
Gov. Ron DeSantis dismissed fears about climate change plunging the planet into crisis Wednesday during an event in Texas where he rolled out an energy policy platform focused on developing new sources of fossil fuels.
Once hailed by environmental advocates for his green initiatives as governor, DeSantis positioned himself Wednesday as an ardent critic of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by transitioning to renewable energy sources and electric vehicles.
“We’ve seen a concerted effort to ramp up the fear when it comes to things like global warming and climate change,” DeSantis said.
Noting that phrases like “climate crisis” and “climate emergency” have grown in use, DeSantis said: “This is driven by ideology, it’s not driven by reality. In reality, human beings are safer than ever from climate disasters.”
The comments are among DeSantis’ most aggressive and extensive in pushing back against climate change concerns, which are especially pertinent in his home state of Florida where sea level rise and stronger hurricanes fed by warming waters are a major worry for climate scientists.
President Joe Biden raised concerns about climate change making natural disasters worse after Hurricane Idalia – which rapidly intensified in the warm Gulf of Mexico waters – smashed into Florida, prompting a rebuttal from DeSantis. The governor’s energy plan is an extended rebuttal to Biden’s energy and climate policies.
DeSantis wants to end subsidies for electric vehicles and pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord. He would withdraw from the Global Methane Pledge and any commitments to move toward net zero emissions, and also wants to remove the words “climate change” from some federal planning documents.
“We will also replace the phrase climate change with energy dominance in natural security and foreign policy guidance,” DeSantis said.
The governor delivered his remarks in front of an oil rig in West Texas, a major oil and gas drilling region. He promised speedy permitting of new oil and gas permits, saying his goal is to get gasoline prices down to $2 a gallon.
“We’re going to unleash our energy sector,” DeSantis said, adding: “We will green light oil and gas drilling extraction… I will demand faster approvals than any president in history. If bureaucrats are slowing down projects then those bureaucrats will lose their jobs.”
DeSantis first ran for governor in 2018 on an environmental protection platform as Florida faced a series of devastating algae blooms. Shortly after taking office he issued an executive order focused mostly on water quality initiatives, but it also incorporated efforts to help Florida prepare for climate impacts, raising hopes among environmental advocates that he would provide leadership on the issue.
DeSantis established a new state office to deal with sea level rise led by the state’s first chief resiliency officer, and pushed to fund climate mitigation efforts. His first budget proposal called for funding to address “the challenges of sea level rise, intensified storm events, and localized flooding.”
Leading environmental activists hoped DeSantis would go beyond preparing Florida for the impacts of climate change and take strong actions to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, which are released by burning fossil fuels and create a greenhouse effect when they accumulate in the atmosphere, warming the planet.
DeSantis touted Florida’s heavy reliance on natural gas as an energy source Wednesday, noting it produces lower emissions than coal. But environmental activists have been disappointed by the state’s energy policies and have pushed for emissions-free sources.
DeSantis questioned the dependability of some energy sources.
“We will not rely on unproven technologies that lead to blackouts… we need reliable energy in this country,” he said, adding: “When disaster strikes, when you need to get people’s electricity back on I can’t rely on windmills, I need oil and gas to get the job done.”
Ron DeSantis unveils energy platform, aims to “stop inflation and achieve $2 gas in 2025”
Katie Akin, Des Moines Register – September 20, 2023
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled an energy platform Wednesday that emphasizes American fuel production and dismisses concerns about climate change.
DeSantis announced a six-point energy plan during a campaign visit to Texas on Wednesday. The plan centers on increasing domestic production of oil and gas, while repealing or withdrawing from initiatives meant to lower carbon emissions and curb the effects of climate change.
“As president, I will fight to ensure our energy is abundant, affordable, and American,” DeSantis told the Des Moines Register in a statement. “That means protecting all liquid fuels, including biofuels, from harmful government regulation and preventing California from setting America’s environmental standards. Under my administration, we will get back to commonsense energy policies that help Iowa farmers and families, starting with eliminating mandates for electric vehicles and ending our energy sector’s reliance on China.”
DeSantis said prioritizing “American energy dominance” will “stop inflation and achieve $2 gas in 2025.”
What does Ron DeSantis have planned for Iowa biofuels?
In a Wednesday news release, DeSantis pledged to protect biofuels from “harmful government regulation” and to eliminate surtaxes on liquid fuels.
However, his policy announcement did not include details about the renewable fuel standard, a goal set by the Environmental Protection Agency to mix a certain amount of renewable fuels — like ethanol — into gasoline and diesel.
While serving in Congress, DeSantis co-sponsored a bill that would eliminate the renewable fuel standard.
A column published in the Register earlier this month offers more insight into DeSantis’ plan for biofuels. DeSantis wrote that he will work with Gov. Kim Reynolds to support the year-round sale of E15, and he would introduce higher ethanol blends, like E30, to consumers.
How would Ron DeSantis address climate change?
DeSantis calls for American energy dominance to take priority over “climate change ideology.”
He would repeal President Joe Biden’s incentives for Americans to buy electric vehicles and Biden-era rule to protect thousands of small waterways. DeSantis said he would also withdraw from the Paris Climate Accords, the Global Methane Pledge and all “Net Zero” commitments.
During the first GOP presidential debate, candidates were asked to raise their hands if they believe human activities are warming the planet. DeSantis bristled at the question, telling the moderators “We’re not school children” and launching into a criticism of the media.
When pressed on the question, DeSantis said, “No, no, no — I didn’t raise a hand.”
USA Today reporter Zac Anderson contributed reporting.
Our excerpt from a forthcoming biography of Mitt Romney has many people talking about the Utah senator’s principles and character, but we should be deeply alarmed by Romney’s warning about the Republican Party.
The End of Pretenses(Charles Ommanney / Getty)
My colleague McKay Coppins has spent two years talking with Mitt Romney, the Utah senator, former Massachusetts governor, and 2012 Republican presidential nominee. An excerpt from McKay’s forthcoming book confirmed the news that Romney has had enough of the hypocrisy and weakness of the Republican Party and will be leaving the Senate when his term expires; other stunning moments from their conversations include multiple profiles in pusillanimity among Romney’s fellow Republicans. (I am pleased to know that Senator Romney holds as low an opinion of J. D. Vance as I do; “I don’t know that I can disrespect someone more,” he told McKay.)
But I want to move away from the discussion about Romney himself and focus on something he said that too many people have overlooked.“Some nights he vented,” Coppins wrote of their conversations; “other nights he dished.” And then came a quiet acknowledgement that should still be shocking, even after seven years of unhinged right-wing American populism:“A very large portion of my party,” [Romney] told me one day, “really doesn’t believe in the Constitution.” He’d realized this only recently, he said. We were a few months removed from an attempted coup instigated by Republican leaders, and he was wrestling with some difficult questions. Was the authoritarian element of the GOP a product of President Trump, or had it always been there, just waiting to be activated by a sufficiently shameless demagogue? And what role had the members of the mainstream establishment—people like him, the reasonable Republicans—played in allowing the rot on the right to fester?
I think every decent Republican has wondered the same thing. (The indecent ones have also wondered about it, but as Romney now accepts, people like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz have figured out that playing to the rot in the GOP base is a core skill set that helps them stay in Washington and far away from their constituents back home.)
But enough about the hollow men of the GOP. Think about what Romney is saying: “Millions of American citizens no longer believe in the Constitution of the United States of America.” This is not some pedestrian political observation, some throwaway line about partisan division. Leave aside for the moment that Romney is talking about Republicans and the hangers-on in the Trump movement; they are also your fellow Americans, citizens of a nation that was, until recently, one of the most durable democracies on Earth. And they no longer care about the fundamental document that governs our lives as Americans.
If Republicans no longer care about the Constitution, then they no longer care about the rule of law, secular tolerance, fair elections, or the protection of basic human rights. They have no interest in the stewardship of American democracy, nor will they preserve our constitutional legacy for their children. Instead, they seek to commandeer the ship of state, pillage the hold, and then crash us all onto the rocks.
It would be a relief to find out that some of this is about policy, but for many of the enemies of the Constitution among the new right, policy is irrelevant. (One exception, I suspect, might be the people who, if faced with a choice between a total ban on abortion and the survival of the Constitution, would choose theocracy over democracy; we’d all be better off if they would just admit it.)
The people Romney is worried about are not policy wonks. They’re opportunists, rage-junkies, and nihilists who couldn’t care less about policy. (Romney describes one woman in Utah bellowing at him, red-faced and lost in a mist of fury while her child stood nearby, to the point where he asked her, “Aren’t you embarrassed?” She was not.) What they want is to win, to enjoy the spoils and trappings of power, and to anger and punish people they hate.
There is no way to contend, in a rational or civic way, with this combination of white-hot resentment and ice-cold cynicism. Romney describes multiple incidents in which his colleagues came to him and said, You’re right, Mitt. I wish I could say what you say. I wish we could stop this nightmare. And then all of them belly right back up to the table in the Senate Dining Room and go on pandering to people who—it bears repeating—no longer care about the Constitution.
This is the seedbed of authoritarianism, and it is already full of fresh green shoots. And yes, at some point, if someone is clever enough to forge a strong and organized party out of this disjointed movement, it can become a new fascism. So far, we should be grateful that Donald Trump and those who surround him have all been too selfish and too incompetent to turn their avarice into a coherent mass movement.
If you’ve ever served in the military or as a civilian in the U.S. government, you’ve taken the oath that requires you, above all—so help you God—to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” and to “bear true faith and allegiance to the same.” Romney is warning us that many of his Republican colleagues and much of their base will do no such thing. They would rather turn their personal misery and resentment into mindless political destruction—even to the point of shredding one of humanity’s greatest political documents.
I have written before that we can no longer indulge Republicans and their various media enablers in the fantasies that Trump is a normal candidate, that we are heading into a normal election, that the Republican Party is a normal party (or, indeed, a political party at all). How we each defend the Constitution is an individual choice, but let us at least have no pretenses, even in our daily discussions, that we live in normal times and that 2024 is just another political horse race. Everything we believe in as Americans is at stake now, and no matter what anyone thinks of Mitt Romney, we owe him a debt for saying out loud what so many Republican “leaders” fear even to whisper.
SEPTEMBER 6th 2023: A New York federal judge rules that former president Donald Trump is liable for defamation in the second E. Jean Carroll case and must go to trial to determine damages. – AUGUST 7th 2023: A New York judge dismisses a defamation countersuit brought by Donald Trump against columnist E. Jean Carroll. – JULY 19th 2023: A New York judge denies the request from former President Donald Trump for a new trial in the E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse, rape and defamation civil case. – MAY 9th 2023: A New York federal jury finds former President Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation in civil lawsuit and awards $5 million in damages to accuser E. Jean Carroll. – MAY 1st 2023: A New York judge has denied the request from Donald Trump’s legal team for a mistrial in the rape and defamation lawsuit brought columnist E. Jean Carroll. – NOVEMBER 24th 2022: Ex-magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll files a new lawsuit against former President Donald Trump for battery and defamation under the provisions of a new New York State law that allows adults alleging sexual assault to bring claims years after the attack. – SEPTEMBER 20th 2022: Former President Donald Trump to face a new lawsuit alleging sexual assault to be filed by columnist E. Jean Carroll who claims Trump raped her in the 1990s. – File Photo by: zz/Dennis Van Tine/STAR MAX/IPx 2015 6/16/15 Donald Trump announces his 2016 candidacy for President of The United States of America on June 16, 2015 at Trump Tower in New York City. (NYC) (zz/Dennis Van Tine/STAR MAX/IPx)More
The early polls show Donald Trump and President Joe Biden tied nationwide. Does that mean Trump has a clear advantage in the battleground states that decide the Electoral College?
It’s a reasonable question, and one I see quite often. In his first two presidential campaigns, Trump fared far better in the battleground states than he did nationwide, allowing him to win the presidency while losing the national vote in 2016 and nearly doing it again in 2020.
But there’s a case that his Electoral College advantage has faded. In the midterm elections last fall, Democrats fared about the same in the crucial battleground states as they did nationwide. And over the last year, state polls and a compilation of New York Times/Siena College surveys have shown Biden running as well or better in the battlegrounds as nationwide, with the results by state broadly mirroring the midterms.
The patterns in recent polling and election results are consistent with the trends in national surveys, which suggest that the demographic foundations of Trump’s Electoral College advantage might be fading. He’s faring unusually well among nonwhite voters, who represent a larger share of the electorate in noncompetitive than competitive states. As a consequence, Trump’s gains have probably done more to improve his standing in the national vote than in relatively white Northern states likeliest to decide the presidency, like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Midterm results typically don’t tell us much about the next general election. Polls taken 15 to 27 months out don’t necessarily augur much, either. But the possibility that Republicans’ Electoral College advantage is diminished is nonetheless worth taking seriously. It appears driven by forces that might persist until the next election, like Biden’s weakness among nonwhite voters and the growing importance of issues — abortion, crime, democracy and education — that play differently for blue and purple state voters.
Of course, there is more than a year to go. Biden may regain traction among nonwhite voters or lose ground among white voters, which could reestablish Trump’s Electoral College edge. Perhaps his Electoral College edge could grow even larger than it was in 2020, as some Democrats warned after that election.
But at this point, another large Trump Electoral College advantage cannot be assumed. At the very least, tied national polls today don’t mean Trump leads in the states likeliest to decide the presidency.
There are three basic pieces of evidence suggesting that Trump’s key advantage might be diminished today: the midterms, the Times/Siena polls and state polls.
The Midterms
The 2022 midterms were a surprise. Republicans won the national vote, just as the polls anticipated. With Republicans usually faring better in the battlegrounds in recent cycles, a national popular vote advantage might have been expected to yield a “red wave.”
But Democrats held their ground in the battleground states, allowing them to retain the Senate and nearly hold the House. Nationally, Republican House candidates won the most votes by about 2 percentage points (after adjusting for uncontested races). The margin was almost identical in the presidential battlegrounds, like Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where Republican House candidates also won by 2 points.
The shrinking gap between the key battleground states and the national popular vote wasn’t just because of Democratic resilience in the battlegrounds. It was also because Republicans showed their greatest strengths in noncompetitive states like California and New York as well as across much of the South, including newly noncompetitive Florida. Democratic weakness in these states was just enough to cost them control of the House of Representatives, but did even more to suppress Democratic tallies in the national popular vote, helping erase the gap between their strength in the battlegrounds and the national vote.
Does the House popular vote tell us much about the Electoral College two years later? Possibly, though not necessarily. The 2018 midterm results showed House Republicans running well in key battleground states, foreshadowing Trump’s expanded Electoral College advantage two years later. Republican strength by state in the House mirrored the presidential race in 2020 as well. Perhaps it should be expected to foreshadow the presidential vote by state again.
But today, it’s harder than it was at this time in the last cycle to connect voter attitudes about the House with presidential preference. One major issue: the House results weren’t highly correlated with Biden’s approval rating. In contrast, the tight relationship between the House vote and Trump’s approval rating back in 2018 made it reasonable to believe the distribution of the House vote told us something about his strength heading into 2020.
The midterms are an important clue, but additional data is probably needed to connect what happened last November to what might happen next November.
Times/Siena Polls
Times/Siena polling over the last year offers additional evidence of such a connection.
Overall, Trump has gained in the places where Republicans fared well in the midterms, while Biden is holding up well in the states where Democrats fared well in the midterms, based on a compilation of 4,369 respondents to Times/Siena polls.
On average, Biden continues to match his 2020 performance in the states where Democrats fared better than average in the midterms, a group that includes every major battleground state. Instead, all of his weakness in Times/Siena national polling is concentrated in the states where Democrats fared worse than average last November.
In the sample of 774 respondents in the battleground states, Biden leads Trump, 47-43, compared with a 46-44 lead among all registered voters nationwide. On the other hand, Biden leads by 17 points, 50-33, in a sample of 781 respondents in California and New York — the two blue states that primarily cost Democrats the House last November — down from a 27-point margin for Biden in 2020.
In general, I am loath to look at geographic subsamples in our polling; results by state are just so sensitive. For this analysis, it makes a huge difference whether Biden is tied in the battlegrounds or up 5 points.
But in this particular case, the specific findings are part of the broader pattern supported by larger samples. Splitting our sample into two groups, we have over 2,000 respondents in states where Republicans did well and states where Democrats held up. The trends in both groups align with those of the midterms, and, while the sample is small, the pattern also appears to filter down to the crucial battlegrounds.
State Polls
There aren’t too many polls of the key battleground states at this early stage. But the available survey data doesn’t show any sign of an Electoral College advantage for Trump, either.
Over the last year, Biden leads by 1.3 points in national polls, while he leads by at least 1 point in the average of polls taken in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — three states that would probably be enough to reelect him.
In contrast, Biden won the national vote by 4.5 points in 2020 while winning Wisconsin by just 0.6 points. The key measure of Electoral College strength, relative to the national vote, is the difference between the national vote and the “tipping-point state” — the state that pushes a candidate over the Electoral College threshold. That difference was roughly 3.8 percentage points in Republicans’ favor in 2020 and 2.9 points in 2016, with Wisconsin the tipping-point state in each case. In the state polling today, that gap is essentially nonexistent.
On the other end of the competitiveness spectrum is New York, one of the most solidly blue states in the country. Biden will surely win the state, but he may not do as well there as he did in 2020. He holds a 48-35 lead in eight polls over the last year, including a 47-34 lead in a Siena College poll last month. For what it’s worth, you can add a 49-36 margin in the Times/Siena compilation of 256 respondents in New York.
In one sense, New York was the worst state in the nation for House Democrats in 2022, based on their mere 9-point aggregate House win compared with iden’s 23-point win in the state in the 2020 presidential election. The state numbers today look as reminiscent of the midterms as the last presidential election. Results like these in blue states will hurt Biden in the national polls and popular vote, but won’t do anything to hurt his chances in the Electoral College.
The New Issues
Together, the midterms, the state polling and the Times/Siena polls offer three serious if imperfect data points suggesting Trump isn’t faring much better in the battleground states compared with nationwide, at least for now.
But why? Broadly speaking, there are two major theories: the issues and demographics.
First, the issues. In the aftermath of the midterms, Democratic strength in key battleground states appeared attributable to specific issues on the ballot, like abortion, crime and democracy. This helped explain some aspects of the election, including the failures of anti-abortion referendums and stop-the-steal candidates — and perhaps New York Democrats.
It’s possible these new issues are helping to shift the electoral map heading into 2024 as well. New issues that have emerged since 2020 — abortion rights, trans rights, education, the “woke” left and crime — are primarily state and local issues where blue, red and purple state voters inhabit different political realities, with plausible consequences for electoral politics.
Moderate voters in a blue state — say around Portland, Oregon — have no need to fear whether their state’s conservatives will enact new restrictions on transgender rights or abortion rights, but they might wonder whether the left has gone too far pursuing equity in public schools. They might increasingly harbor doubts about progressive attitudes on drugs, the homeless and crime, as visible drug use among the homeless in Portland becomes national news.
But moderate voters in a purple state — say those who live around Grand Rapids, Michigan — might have a different set of concerns. The “woke” left could be a very distant worry, if they understand what it is at all. They’ve probably never heard of the gender unicorn. Their city’s crime, homelessness and drug problems don’t make national news.
What does make national news is the conduct of their state’s Republican Party, which not only tried to ban abortion last fall but also embraced the stop-the-steal movement. The “threat to democracy” is not an abstraction for Biden voters here: It was their votes that Trump and his allies tried to toss out.
This is a plausible explanation, if one that’s hard to put to the test. The apparent relationship between the midterms and presidential polling is perhaps the best piece of evidence, if we stipulate that the pattern in the midterms was indeed explained by the varying salience of these state and local issues.
Shifts Among Demographic Groups
Trump’s Electoral College advantage was built on demographics: He made huge gains among white voters without a college degree in 2016, a group that was overrepresented in the key Northern battleground states. It let him squeak by in states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, even as his weakness among college-educated voters cost him votes — and ultimately the popular vote — in the Sun Belt and along the coasts.
The polls so far this cycle suggest that the demographic foundations of Trump’s advantage in the Electoral College might be eroding. Biden is relatively resilient among white voters, who are generally overrepresented in the battleground states. Trump, meanwhile, shows surprising strength among nonwhite voters, who are generally underrepresented in the most critical battleground states. As a consequence, Trump’s gains among nonwhite voters nationwide would tend to do more to improve his standing in the national vote than in the battleground states.
Overall, 83% of voters in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania were white in the 2020 election, according to Times estimates, compared with 69% of voters elsewhere in the nation. Or put differently: If Biden struggled among nonwhite voters, it would do a lot more damage to his standing outside of these three states than it would in the states that make up his likeliest path to 270 electoral votes.
Is this enough to explain Trump’s diminished advantage? It could explain most of it. If we adjusted Times estimates of the results by racial group in 2020 to match the latest Times/Siena polls, Trump’s relative advantage in the Electoral College would fall by three-quarters, to a single point.
In this demographic scenario, Biden would sweep Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. He would lose Arizona, Georgia and Nevada, just like in the state polls conducted so far. It would be a narrow Biden win if everything else went as expected: He would earn 270 electoral votes, exactly the number needed to win.
There’s also a chance that maybe, just maybe, Democrats might defy these unfavorable national demographic trends in states like Arizona and Georgia. After all, these two states lurched leftward in 2020, even though nonwhite voters shifted to the right nationally in that election as well. Clearly, other state-specific trends canceled out Trump’s gains among nonwhite voters: White voters moved more toward the left than elsewhere in the country; the nonwhite share of the electorate grew more than it did elsewhere; and Democratic support among nonwhite voters appeared relatively sturdy, for good measure.
If those state-specific trends prevail over the national ones again, perhaps Biden can hope to get the best of both worlds: good results in the Northern battlegrounds, thanks to his national strength among white voters, with resilience in the blue-trending Sun Belt states where idiosyncratic factors might cancel out unfavorable national demographic trends.
With more than a year to go, none of this is remotely assured to last until the election. But at least for now, a tied race in the national polls doesn’t necessarily mean that Mr. Trump has a big lead in the Electoral College.
(Charles Ommanney / Getty)