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Sanders calls Sinema 'corporate Democrat' who 'sabotaged' legislation

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) slammed Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) on Sunday as a “corporate Democrat” who “sabotaged” party priorities following her announcement that she was becoming an Independent.

During an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” with co-anchor Dana Bash, Sanders said Sinema didn’t have the guts to take on special interests while attacking her voting record.

“She doesn’t,” Sanders said. “She is a corporate Democrat who has, in fact, along with Sen. [Joe] Manchin [D-W.Va.] sabotaged enormously important legislation.”

Sinema on Friday announced she was leaving the Democratic Party, a move that enraged many in the party and came three days after Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) won reelection and gave Democrats a 51-49 Senate majority.

Sinema will keep her committee assignments through the Democratic caucus, which will allow the party to keep much of its newly gained power compared to the power-sharing agreement created by the current 50-50 makeup.

But her move now poses a key decision for Democrats as to whether they will still nominate a candidate for Arizona’s upcoming Senate contest in 2024. 

Sinema has not yet said if she will run for reelection, but rumors had grown that Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) or another progressive would mount a primary challenge to Sinema.

“I happen to suspect that it’s probably a lot to do with politics back in Arizona,” Sanders said on CNN of Sinema’s decision.

“I think the Democrats, they’re not all that enthusiastic about somebody who helps sabotage some of the most important legislation that protects the interests of working families and voting rights and so forth,” he added. “So I think it really has to do with her political aspirations for the future in Arizona. But for us, I think nothing much has changed in terms of the functioning of the U.S. Senate.”

The Hill has reached out to Sinema’s office for comment.

Sanders is now one of three independents in the upper chamber, although he and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) both caucus with Democrats.

Sinema, along Manchin, was one of the most moderate members of the Senate Democratic Conference, at times drawing ire from others in the party as they attempted to pass major legislation with razor-thin majorities.

She has opposed efforts to eliminate the legislative filibuster, the Senate’s 60-vote threshold for passing most bills, and garnered accusations from progressives that she is cozy with corporate interests as she sparred over elements of Democrats’ massive social spending bill.

“Americans are told that we have only two choices – Democrat or Republican – and that we must subscribe wholesale to policy views the parties hold, views that have been pulled further and further toward the extremes. Most Arizonans believe this is a false choice, and when I ran for the U.S. House and the Senate, I promised Arizonans something different,” Sinema wrote in an Arizona Republic op-ed explaining her decision.

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Sinema throws curveball into Arizona's 2024 Senate race

Sen. Krysten Sinema’s decision to leave the Democratic Party and register as an Independent is already having a significant impact on Arizona’s Senate race in 2024.

While it remains unclear whether Sinema will even run for reelection in two years, her Friday announcement means Republicans and Democrats in the Grand Canyon State are already having to recalibrate ahead of what is expected to be a bitterly fought contest in two years.

“It’s a new game of chess for Democrats and Republicans about how do you actually play the game to be successful statewide,” said Lorna Romero, an Arizona-based Republican strategist, who worked on the late Sen. John McCain’s (Ariz.) 2016 reelection bid.

Prior to Sinema’s announcement that she was leaving the Democratic Party, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), a noted Sinema critic, was considered the top candidate to challenge her in the party’s 2024 primary. 

Gallego reacted to the news on Friday by accusing Sinema of “once again putting her own interests ahead of getting things done for Arizonans.”

Other progressives echoed Gallego’s reaction. 

“She should join her friends on Wall Street in 2024, and Democrats should nominate someone truly on the side of the working class who can unite and win Arizona,” said Stephanie Taylor, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. 

The Primary Sinema campaign, also known as the Change for Arizona 2024 PAC, vowed in a statement to defeat Sinema in a general election “with a real Democrat.” 

“For the last year, we’ve been laying the groundwork to defeat Kyrsten Sinema because Arizonans deserve a Senator who cares about them, and not special interests,” the group said. 

Indeed, the numbers would seem to suggest at first glance that Sinema will be in trouble no matter what letter is beside her name on the ballot. An AARP poll released in September showed her with a 54 percent unfavorable rate and 37 percent favorable rate among all Arizona voters. Among Democrats, 57 percent said they had an unfavorable view of her and 37 percent said they had a favorable view. Among Republicans, Sinema’s unfavorable rating dropped to 54 percent, and her favorable rating sat at 36 percent. 

However, Sinema had her highest favorable and lowest unfavorable rating among independent voters, respectively at 41 percent and 51 percent. 

“The fastest growing political party in the state is actually independent voters,” said Arizona-based pollster Mike Noble, chief research and managing partner at OH Predictive insights. 

“There’s got to be representation for folks more in the middle,” he continued. “I could absolutely see Democrats having a progressive candidate, Republicans having a more hard-right candidate, and then you have Sinema in the middle. Absolutely there is a path to victory there for her.” 

One Arizona-based GOP operative predicted Sinema would “kick everyone’s ass” if she ran as an Independent. 

“She is John McCain-ish and would pull from both sides,” the operative argued. “Gallego would get crushed, and unless Ducey runs the GOP has nobody. You can’t beat Sinema with a generic candidate.” 

Others aren’t as convinced. 

“It’s a really tough hill to climb,” one national Republican strategist told The Hill. “I think she could probably win the independent vote as an Independent, but I don’t think she could win the Democrat vote as an Independent. I don’t think she could win the Republican vote as an Independent.” 

Sinema likely wouldn’t have issues making the ballot in Arizona as an Independent. She would need to obtain a minimum of 43,492 signatures to get on the ballot, which is not expected to be difficult given her name ID. 

Should she run as an Independent in 2024, Democrats would face the difficult question of whether or not to field their own candidate. Should they do so with Sinema also on the ballot, they risk losing votes from both the independent voters and the more centrist Democrats who have helped propel them to victory in the state in recent elections.

Republicans argue that while a candidate like Gallego could easily win a Democratic primary, someone that progressive would not fare as well in a general. On the other hand, they argue the opposite is true for Sinema. 

Regardless, Republicans say Sinema’s announcement is a reason for their party to be optimistic after a bruising midterm election that saw them lose high-profile Senate and gubernatorial races. 

“The fact is, if Sinema were the Democrat nominee, it would have been a very, very tough race,” said Brian Seitchik, an Arizona-based GOP strategist who is a Trump campaign alum. 

“This is a good day to be an aspiring senator from the state of Arizona if you’re a Republican,” he said. 

Already a number of Republican names have been floated for the party’s Arizona Senate nomination, including outgoing Gov. Doug Ducey, Rep.-elect Juan Ciscomani and former gubernatorial Karrin Taylor Robson. 

“It would have to be somebody like that who is still relatively known and has the financial backing behind them,” Romero said. 

And just like she has impacted the future of key pieces of legislation on Capitol Hill, Sinema’s decision on whether or not to run again in 2024 could stand to impact the future of the state’s Senate seat.

“The one thing we do know about her is that she’s predictably unpredictable,” Seitchik said. 

Al Weaver contributed.

Source: TEST FEED1

Lockerbie bomb suspect in US custody, officials say

A former Libyan intelligence officer accused of making the bomb that killed more than 250 people aboard a plane flying over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 is in U.S. custody, according to Scottish officials.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) roughly two years ago announced criminal charges against Abu Agila Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi in relation to the bombing that killed 270 people when Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed in flight on Dec. 21, 1988.

“The families of those killed in the Lockerbie bombing have been told that the suspect Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi (“Mas’ud” or “Masoud”) is in US custody,” a spokesperson for Scotland’s Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said in an email.

“Scottish prosecutors and police, working with UK Government and US colleagues, will continue to pursue this investigation, with the sole aim of bringing those who acted along with Al Megrahi to justice,” the spokesperson added.

The tragedy remains the deadliest terror attack on British soil, and a criminal complaint filed in the D.C.-based federal trial court charged Al-Marimi with destruction of an aircraft resulting in death and destruction of a vehicle by means of an explosive resulting in death.

Former Attorney General William Barr, who previously held the post in the George H.W. Bush administration in the years following the attack, announced the charges in his final days in the Trump administration, calling it the “product of decades of hard work” at the time.

“As to all the victims and the families, we cannot take away your pain from your loss, but we can seek justice for you,” Barr said at the time. “Our message to other terrorists around the world is this – you will not succeed – if you attack Americans, no matter where you are, no matter how long it takes, you will be pursued to the ends of the earth until justice is done.”

The Hill has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.

Two other Libyan intelligence operatives, Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, were also charged in connection to the bombing.

Fhihmah was acquitted of his charges, while Megrahi was convicted on 270 counts of murder in 2001 before passing away from cancer 11 years later.

Citizens from 21 countries were killed in the attack, including 190 Americans and 43 from the United Kingdom, according to the DOJ. 

Eleven of the victims perished on the ground as fiery debris from the plane rained down on Lockerbie following the bomb’s explosion at 31,000 feet, which took place 38 minutes after the plane took off from London’s Heathrow Airport en route to New York City.

–Updated at 9:01 a.m.

Source: TEST FEED1

The Trump campaign that isn't

Four weeks after declaring his 2024 White House bid, former President Trump appears to be a candidate in name only.

Trump announced his third presidential campaign on Nov. 15 from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, giving a long-winded speech in which he said he is seeking a return to the Oval Office “to make America great and glorious again.”

Since then, Trump has not held any formal campaign events. He has not traveled to early voting states, made any major staffing announcements or done much of anything to scare off would-be rivals.

Instead, he’s been making headlines for controversies including dining with a white nationalist and calling to suspend the rules of the Constitution to redo the 2020 election.

The failure to launch has fueled chatter that Trump is as politically weak as he’s ever been — giving others weighing 2024 campaigns more food for thought.

“His announcement and post-announcement period went terribly,” one former Trump campaign adviser said, pointing to Republican Herschel Walker’s defeat in Tuesday’s Georgia Senate runoff as the latest negative development.

Trump plows ahead

Trump’s campaign launch itself came at a time when many Republicans, including some of his own advisers, were urging him to delay at least until after that vote.

Underwhelming midterm results for Republicans, due in part to key losses by Trump-backed candidates in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin and now Georgia had led some in the former president’s orbit to call for holding off until there was a clearer argument for his candidacy.

Instead, Trump plowed ahead with his launch. Although there is still an abundance of time left on the calendar, what has followed has not resembled much of a campaign building momentum or clearing the field.

Trump has brought in a handful of staffers for the operation, including Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, but there is no clear campaign manager.

He has not left Florida for any campaign events. He addressed the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas virtually while several other possible 2024 candidates attended in person. Trump did not hold a rally in Georgia in support of Walker, instead doing a telerally amid concerns his presence would turn off independent voters.

There have been no major policy rollouts or campaign infrastructure announcements in the weeks since Trump launched his bid. His one impromptu speech came during a gala at Mar-a-Lago, when he took to a microphone to denounce the appointment of a Justice Department special counsel to handle investigations into his conduct now that he is formally a candidate for office.

The general lack of activity has only fueled speculation among some Trump critics that the early announcement was intended to potentially insulate the former president from a possible indictment over his handling of classified documents.

Meanwhile, Trump has generated an avalanche of bad headlines with his private meetings and social media commentary.

Republicans widely condemned his meeting with the rapper Ye and Nick Fuentes, both of whom have espoused virulently antisemitic rhetoric, and the latter of which is a Holocaust denier.

The former president drew condemnation from his own party again, though it was more muted, when he suggested the country should disregard the Constitution and redo the 2020 election or put him back in the White House because of internal communications that showed Twitter employees deciding to limit the spread of a story about President Biden’s son, Hunter, in the fall of 2020.

This past week, a New York jury found the Trump Organization guilty of tax fraud, and a federal appeals court ended the appointment of a special master to conduct an outside review of White House records seized from Mar-a-Lago that included top secret and classified government documents.

‘Ready to win’

Despite all this, Trump and his team believe the former president remains the candidate to beat in any GOP primary.

“President Trump entered the race three weeks ago ready to win and he is going to do exactly that — no amount of wishful thinking from the media or consultant class will change it,” said Taylor Budowich, head of MAGA Inc., a Trump-aligned super PAC. “He’s building one of the most talented teams in American politics, and he is the only person in the country who is ready and capable of reversing America’s decline.”

In the meantime, other possible candidates are building out their own infrastructure as they weigh a 2024 campaign.

Former Vice President Mike Pence has made multiple visits this year to New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina, the first three primary states. And Republican operatives have formed a super PAC in support of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who will reportedly meet with major donors in the coming weeks.

Republican strategists largely agree that Trump still has to be treated as the front-runner in any GOP primary given his devoted base of voters that give him a solid floor of support. Recent polling has also shown that Trump is still the preferred candidate of many voters, especially in a large, divided field.

A YouGov-Yahoo poll conducted Dec. 1-5 found 35 percent of voters would back Trump in a GOP primary in 2024, followed by 30 percent who said they’d support DeSantis. Twelve percent of respondents said they weren’t sure who they’d support, while 5 percent said they’d back Pence.

The same poll also found Trump losing a hypothetical rematch with President Biden, 45 percent to 42 percent, underscoring the fears many in the party have about nominating Trump a third time. The early weeks of Trump’s campaign have done little to dispel those concerns.

“It’s crystal, crystal, crystal clear,” former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said in an interview with SiriusXM this week. “We lose with Trump if we stick with Trump. If we dump Trump, we start winning elections. So I think he has just shown himself to be who he is, and that is not a reflection on our democracy.”

Source: TEST FEED1

GOP members who rebuffed Jan. 6 panel may face referral to ethics panel 

The five GOP members of the House who flouted subpoenas from the Jan. 6 committee may not be included in the panel’s criminal referrals but could see the matter punted to the Ethics Committee.  

Lawmakers on the panel suggested that the Constitution ties their hands when it comes to recommending prosecution for the group.  

But the committee can refer the matter within the House, which has its own processes for addressing the behavior of its members. 

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a constitutional law expert and chairman of the panel subcommittee tasked with responding to the five members, pointed to a specific clause limiting the penalizing of lawmakers for actions they take through the course of their job. 

“The Speech or Debate Clause makes it clear that Congress doesn’t hold members of Congress accountable in the judiciary or other places in the government,” Raskin said. 

“Members of Congress are only held accountable through Article One in their own chambers for their actions.” 

After months of being asked how they plan to deal with lawmakers who have since May ignored their subpoenas, it appears the task will likely fall to the Ethics Committee. 

It’s a panel that has long been criticized as a toothless body, one that next year will have a GOP chair. 

As a result, it could have little appetite to go after the five GOP members the select committee determined “have information relevant to our investigation into the attack on January 6th and the events leading up to it.” 

The list includes House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), and Reps. Scott Perry (Pa.), Jim Jordan (Ohio), Andy Biggs (Ariz.), and Mo Brooks (Ala.). 

Raskin’s comments indicate that the Republican members won’t be included in a list of criminal referrals the panel plans to send to the Justice Department, a recommendation on prosecutorial decisions still wholly left to the department. 

A referral to the Ethics Committee would likewise be largely symbolic. 

“A lot like the Jan. 6 committee, they can’t indict anybody. They can’t bring charges against anybody. They can issue a report basically wagging their finger and admonishing people,” said Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, government affairs manager at the Project on Government Oversight. 

“That’s about the extent of what they’re able to do. And that’s only if they choose to do that.” 

Hedtler-Gaudette said the ethics panel is plagued by “collegiality considerations,” with members often hesitant to police their own, including those who they may need to work with on other legislation. 

Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, said the committee can often be a black box. 

“They’ve got to work with everybody that they have to judge,” he said. “So traditionally, like the Senate Ethics Committee, they have done very little, mostly just sweeping complaints under the rug. And they operate in confidentiality. And so no one really knows what happens.”   

Holman said the Jan. 6 committee’s referral could put some pressure on the ethics panel to be more transparent, given the public nature of the possible referrals.

“That sort of forces the House Ethics Committee into providing a public response,” Holman said, even if just to explain why they didn’t pursue the matter further. 

The evenly split distribution on the committee means Democrats would need at least one Republican to side with them in advancing it — a significant initial hurdle.  

And even if the panel did decide to take up the matter, Holman said it’s hard to see them doing anything beyond issuing a letter of reproval.  

Perhaps the biggest consequence the Jan. 6 committee can doll out is shining a spotlight on the GOP members’ behavior — a public shaming that may mean little. 

“If [Congress] were operating in the way that it was designed to and should, then yes, I think the members who were being referred would care and would feel some kind of a shame about it,” Hedtler-Gaudette said. 

“In today’s world, I think it’s just going to be spun as, ‘Oh, this is just a partisan attack. It’s all about these people hating Trump and trying to go after him through us, who are his allies in Congress.’ … I don’t think there’s going to be any amount of contrition or introspection on the part of the people who are being referred. I suspect that it’s just going to be shrugged off the same way they’re sort of shrugging off the Jan. 6 committee.” 

There is still the remote possibility that the Justice Department could prosecute the members.  

While members of Congress can’t be held liable for their speech on the floor, the department could determine their actions in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6 were well outside the scope of their official duties.  

“These members include those who participated in meetings at the White House, those who had direct conversations with President Trump leading up to and during the attack on the Capitol, and those who were involved in the planning and coordination of certain activities on and before Jan. 6,” the committee wrote in a press release announcing the formal subpoena of the members after calls for voluntary interviews went unanswered. 

For Perry, that involved conversations with the former president and Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark, who Trump weighed installing as attorney general so he could forward investigations into his baseless claims of election fraud.  

Jordan attended multiple meetings discussing various strategies for keeping Trump in office after he lost the 2020 election. 

The Justice Department’s own Jan. 6 investigation has appeared to pick up steam in recent weeks, with Trump White House attorneys being called before a grand jury to provide additional testimony and a flurry of new subpoenas sent last month, including those asking local officials about any contact with 19 different Trump campaign staffers and associates. 

Some of those same names — like Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman — could be among those included in the list of criminal referrals the Jan. 6 committee makes to the Justice Department.  

Any prosecutorial decisions will rest with recently appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith. 

“I will exercise independent judgement and will move the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate,” Smith said last month when he was appointed to the role.  

Source: TEST FEED1

White House disputes Biden DNC move rewards South Carolina

The White House is pushing back on the notion that a change championed by President Biden to elevate South Carolina in the 2024 election calendar is rewarding a state that propelled his campaign in 2020, arguing the move is a way to promote diverse voices in early Democratic primaries.

But it’s also being seen as a way for Biden to chart a path to victory should he opt to run for reelection, as the Palmetto State is largely credited for turning things around for Biden when his last presidential run appeared all but over.

The White House has disputed that notion, defending the lobbying effort by Biden to have the Democratic National Committee (DNC) make South Carolina the first state to hold a primary, putting it ahead of New Hampshire, Iowa, North Carolina and Nevada. 

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre this week pushed back on the idea that the move is a way to reward South Carolina for Biden’s victory there.

“That is not what that is,” she told reporters on Tuesday. “It had nothing to do with the primary results. And I can definitively say that.”

A critical endorsement in 2020 from South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, the No. 3 House Democrat, helped Biden gain the momentum needed from Black voters — a bloc that played a critical role in his ultimate victory. 

Clyburn is notably remaining in a leadership role during the next Congress, despite Speaker Pelosi (Calif.) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Md.) opting to step aside after decades at the top in order to allow a new generation of Democrats to lead the party in the House. 

Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright, a former aide and close ally of Clyburn, said that Biden’s push to elevate South Carolina goes beyond Clyburn’s endorsement. 

“I think this was bigger than Jim Clyburn. I think this is about all the issues that Jim Clyburn has spent his career fighting and advocating for and the communities unrepresented and left behind for far too long,” Seawright said.

“This is a way to move them from being on the menu and them having a seat at the table,” he said. “And Jim Clyburn is still at the leadership table. That means there’s someone there who can actually read the menu.”

But Biden’s efforts still raise questions about whether the change to make South Carolina the first state to vote in a Democratic primary is a way to repay Clyburn.

The South Carolina Democrat himself told CNN this week he was “stunned” and “a bit surprised” by the president’s move to reshape the primary calendar.

The news also came as a shock to lawmakers from New Hampshire, which has first-in-the-nation primary status.

Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan both skipped the White House congressional ball earlier this week in protest of Biden’s proposal. Hassan called the suggestion by Biden “misguided.”

The move also reignited old tensions between Biden and allies of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who ran against Biden in 2020 and was defeated in South Carolina after several wins in states earlier on the primary calendar.

“The Biden nomination calendar contains a fundamental, dooming flaw: the replacement of Iowa with South Carolina as the first state,” former Sander campaign manager Faiz Shakir wrote in a New York Times op-ed. “The change would be comical if it weren’t tragic.”

Iowa, which hosts the first Democratic and Republican caucuses in the nation, also gets the boot from being the first to vote in 2024 under Biden’s proposal.

The White House has echoed Biden’s argument that the change aims to make good on his commitment to promote diversity. South Carolina has among the highest share of eligible Black voters in the country.

“This is an opportunity to have a greater place in the process,” Jean-Pierre said. “The president has been very clear on making sure that … we meet what the country looks like, right? Making sure that, even in his administration, it looks like the country, the diversity of the country.”

Ivan Zapien, a former DNC official, called Biden wanting to promote diversity in the primary process and to thank South Carolina and Clyburn for his 2020 primary victory “both good reasons” for the move.

“The country and the party has changed, and we need to change with it,” Zapien said. “Giving diverse voices, and earlier voices in the process, will make the eventual candidate stronger with the modern Democratic base.” 

Some Democrats also argue there’s a bigger picture. It’s not just that South Carolina helped Biden in 2020 — the state has helped decades of Democrats win the presidential nomination.

Since 1992, nearly every Democrat who won the South Carolina primary has gone on to win the Democratic presidential nomination, the only exception being John Edwards in 2004, Seawright noted.

“I think it’s perhaps the biggest way you can say thank you to the most loyal and consistent and perhaps consequential voting bloc in a generation of Black voters,” he said.

Seawright said that for decades, South Carolina voters have served as a test case for Democrats and their vote is a way to also test messaging to voters to see what resonates.

Clyburn himself reiterated that sentiment, telling CNN that “every candidate that’s won South Carolina has gone on to be our nominee and get together [the] majority of the vote in the general election.”

DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison, who previously served as the chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, fiercely defended Biden’s push for diversity in the primary calendar and said he had “zero tolerance” for critics who don’t see the importance of Black voters.

“Zero tolerance- ZERO for any disrespect or dismissal of Black voters,” he said.

Source: TEST FEED1

The Memo: Two Americas draw vastly different lessons from Brittney Griner saga

Basketball star Brittney Griner was released from a Russian penal colony Thursday — and America’s reaction has been so polarized, it’s like watching a split-screen.

Did Griner’s release show that “President Biden gets it done” as Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), the soon-to-be leader of House Democrats, claimed? Or did the White House deliver “a gift to Vladimir Putin,” as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) asserted?

Was Griner’s release proof that “God is good,” as an exultant Joy Reid of MSNBC tweeted, or that Biden had gone out on a limb for an athlete who “despises the United States,” as Tucker Carlson indignantly told viewers of his Fox News show? 

Was Biden right to celebrate what he called “a day we’ve worked toward for a long time” or was his predecessor, former President Trump, correct to assess the episode as “a stupid and unpatriotic embarrassment for the USA!!!”?

Polarized reactions are hardly a surprise in today’s hyperpartisan political climate. 

But the contours of the Griner matter make it a particularly combustible element in a fractious nation.

The bare facts are these:

Griner was arrested in February at a Moscow-area airport with vape cartridges containing marijuana oil in her luggage. She pleaded guilty at her subsequent trial and, last month, was moved to a penal colony with a grim reputation in the western region of Mordovia.

In order to get her out, the Biden administration agreed to release a notorious Russian arms dealer, Viktor Bout, who had been serving a 25-year sentence imposed in 2012 for crimes including conspiracy to kill Americans.

Importantly, the deal failed to spring from captivity another American in Russian detention, Paul Whelan, who was arrested in 2018 on espionage charges. Whelan proclaims his innocence despite having been convicted by a Russian court in 2020 and sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Beyond those details, the symbolism is at least as important as the substance — particularly when it comes to conflicting views among Americans as to what the events really mean.

Griner is a Black, lesbian athlete whose plight became a cause celebre, especially in liberal circles and in the worlds of sport and popular culture. 

Whelan is a white, middle-aged former Marine whose family has struggled to get his case into the headlines at all. 

Bout, for his part, has a story lurid and macabre enough to inspire a Hollywood movie and earn him the nickname “The Merchant of Death.”

Anyone looking for ammunition to fire new volleys in the culture wars could hardly have designed things better.

“The entire decision to release Griner and then the response to it is emblematic of America,” said Tobe Berkovitz, a Boston University professor emeritus who specializes in political communication.

“One part of America is celebrating the release of an African American gay woman, and another part of America is bemoaning the continuing long imprisonment of a white Marine.”

There is also the broader backdrop of Russia’s war in Ukraine to consider, as well as the frayed nature of American political culture.

“This is really the perfect storm,” said Democratic strategist Joel Payne. He added that, within the case, there are “a number of thorny domestic cultural issues exploding, along with difficult geopolitical challenges outside the U.S. … What happens when those things meet?”

What happens, at least in part, is that huge numbers of Americans seem to pick a side.

Carlson, in a segment on his show Thursday — the day of Griner’s release — put the contrast between Griner and Whelan in especially stark terms.

“The former Marine, who has been there for four years already, gets left behind in Russia, while the celebrity athlete [who] gets busted with hash oil is championed by her celebrity media friends like Gayle King [of CBS News] and is home in just months,” Carlson complained.

This, he added, “seems like a metaphor for how America under Joe Biden is working at this point.”

But to Democrats like Payne, it is precisely those kinds of arguments that expose an unfair, derogatory view of Griner.

“Those folks who over the last 24 hours seem to have been rooting against Brittney Griner are telling on themselves, because I think they are telling you who and what they value,” Payne said. 

“If you are someone who thought Brittney Griner should have spent nine years in a penal colony, I think it probably says something about the value you put on her as a Black woman, an athlete and an LGBT woman.”

The Griner and Whelan families are trying their best to avoid the pitfalls of partisan politics or divisive public statements.

Cherelle Griner, Brittney’s wife, speaking alongside Biden at the White House on Thursday, said the couple “will remain committed to the work of getting every American home, including Paul, whose family is in our hearts today as we celebrate BG being home.”

The Whelan family has endorsed Biden’s decision as the “right choice” — given Paul Whelan’s release was apparently not on offer. 

Still, the matter is far from settled. Paul Whelan himself told CNN from Russia that he was “greatly disappointed that more has not been done” to get him home.

The Biden administration has been emphatic that it will continue to work for Whelan’s release, as well as for other Americans held in foreign nations.

When it comes to the Griner situation, the refrain from the White House has been that the president’s only choice was whether one or zero Americans would be released.

By most accounts, that seems to be true.

But it’s an argument that has no chance of quelling a controversy that so neatly fits into America’s deepest divides.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.

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Cárdenas spotlights his track record as he angles for DCCC chair appointment

As election day drew near in November, Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.) was focused on supporting Democratic candidates in tough districts, but he had another priority on the back burner: a second run at leading the House Democrats’ campaign arm.

In 2020, Cárdenas was riding high after a strong stint as head of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) campaign arm, Bold PAC, when he announced his candidacy to run the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) blocked Cárdenas’ path, narrowly defeating him for the post.

Cárdenas was preparing for a comeback, challenging Maloney, when the first of several twists hit: Maloney was defeated in his reelection bid by Republican Mike Lawler, in one of several upsets for Democrats in New York.

Then, Democrats did surprisingly well in the 2022 midterms, holding off a so-called “red wave” that Republicans paraded as a done deal for months.

Shortly after the election, Cárdenas officially announced his bid for DCCC chair, praising Maloney’s hand in keeping Republican gains to a minimum at a national level.

But House Democrats then voted to make DCCC chair an appointed position, giving incoming leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) the responsibility of picking the next campaign chief.

That decision changed the dynamics of a race that had become increasingly political, ever since now-Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) won a caucus vote in 2018 to serve his second term after serving his first by appointment.

“I was appointed and elected …  was appointed in ’16, and then it was changed after that cycle to be an elected position,” Luján told The Hill.

While traditionally the DCCC chair is not a leadership position with many takers — it implies a heavy workload that can be thankless — both Cárdenas and fellow California Democratic Rep. Ami Bera have thrown their hats into the ring for the 2024 election cycle.

But the new Democratic Caucus rules shifted the dynamics behind the selection process, with members wary of stepping on their new leader’s toes.

“I’m not going to speak beyond what I know is important in this process, which is to make sure that we reclaim the Democratic majority in 2024. And I trust our new Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries to make the best, most informed decision to have someone lead the D-trip who understands how to win,” said Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.).

A fundraising track record

Still, Cárdenas is pursuing the DCCC post, in large part because his top successes as a politician have come from recruiting, fundraising and campaigning for his colleagues.

In 2013, during his freshman year in the House, Cárdenas had dinner with Sen. Bob Menéndez (D-N.J.), at the time the only CHC member in the Senate. Cárdenas pitched Menéndez a game plan for Bold PAC, which at the time was about to undergo its most aggressive expansion process with Luján as chairman.

The pitch was aggressive almost to the point of being unrealistic, even compared to Luján’s expansion of Bold PAC beyond a campaign arm dedicated solely to protecting its incumbents.

“My experience I think is different than Representative Cárdenas’ experience at Bold PAC. And here’s why: I had the honor of helping to grow Bold PAC to help more candidates when I was there. Tony blew the roof off,” said Luján, who ran Bold PAC before his appointment as DCCC chair for the 2016 election cycle.

Under Cárdenas, Bold PAC fundraising took off, going from just under $1 million in the 2014 cycle under Luján to $6 million in the 2016 cycle and almost 12 million in the 2018 cycle.

For the 2020 presidential election year, Bold PAC under Cárdenas raised more than $18 million. The expansion of the group’s reach has continued under current Chair Rep. Ruben Gallego, with new investments in competitive primaries and an independent expenditure program led by Cárdenas.

Unlike some of his peers, Cárdenas didn’t learn the ins and outs of political fundraising until later in his career. 

Cárdenas, who grew up in Pacoima, a poor neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, entered politics in his 30s.

In California, he lived through drastic changes in fundraising rules, going from an open system where individual donors could single-handedly fund a candidacy to a system with contribution limits.

Managing those reforms drove one of Cárdenas’ mantras for Bold PAC: hire lawyers first, make fundraising plans later.

But Cárdenas usually refers to Pacoima when discussing his successes in recruiting political allies, not in fundraising.

On the stump, Cárdenas routinely rolls out a bit about his first campaign manager, a then-22-year-old engineer who grew up a few blocks away in Pacoima: Alex Padilla, now California’s Democratic junior senator.

​​“I’ve been fortunate to have a front row seat to Tony’s career in public service, from managing his first campaign for California State Assembly in 1996 to now serving together in Congress,” Padilla told The Hill.

“In his decades in office, he has never forgotten Pacoima and the working class community we come from in serving as their voice at all levels of government.”

Cárdenas’ DCCC pitch

Like the Padilla story, Cárdenas often reminisces about Hispanic Democrats he’s helped get elected.

Lately, Cárdenas has been focusing on his success in getting non-CHC Democrats to Washington.

It’s at the center of his pitch for DCCC chairmanship, in contrast to Bera’s focus on his work with frontliners.

But with Democrats winning more races in diverse districts throughout the country, the definition of a frontliner has changed.

In Nevada, for instance, Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s victory somewhat overshadowed the party’s success at defending three competitive House seats, including Horsford’s.

“What we have learned in Nevada is you win through that coalition. That’s how President Biden did so well, and why Nevada is number two now in the selection process, why we got moved up. It’s how I won. And my other two colleagues in the House, it’s how Catherine Cortez Masto, the first Latina ever elected to the U.S. Senate, was able to win her reelection,” said Horsford.

“And you know, one of the things I gotta say about Tony Cárdenas is, he understands that – he came out to my district several times. And it was always about being great engaging with volunteers, canvassers, and people that were talking to voters at the door. Because in the end, that’s how you win elections. So that’s the recipe for success for us,” added Horsford.

Source: TEST FEED1

Georgia cements itself as a swing state after runoff

For years, Georgia has been a deep-red state. But after securing President Biden the White House in 2020 and electing two Democratic senators, a changing demographic shows the Peach State has become a critical battleground state. 

Coming out of the 2020 election, Georgia was thought to be a red state trending blue. But the recent reelection of Sen. Raphael Warnock (D), despite Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s victory at the top of the ticket, underscores the extent to which the state has become unpredictable. 

“After the 2020 cycle, what you saw was a narrowing trend of margins between Democratic and Republican candidates,” said Andra Gillespie, associate professor of political science at Emory University. 

That trend is what allowed two Democrats — Warnock and Sen. Jon Ossoff — to be elected to the upper chamber, despite Georgians voting for a Republican governor. 

“2022 was important because it would prove whether or not 2020 was an outlier or whether or not the trend itself would continue,” Gillespie added. “If we look at the decisive victories of everybody other than Herschel Walker at the statewide level, where they’re winning by margins that are less than 10 but more than five percentage points, that fits the narrative that Georgia is more competitive than it was 15 years ago.”

Part of that competitiveness comes from new voters. 

Over the last 20 years, African Americans have moved back to the South in what has been dubbed a “New Great Migration.”

Though there was a mass exodus of Black families from the region in the early-to-mid-1900s — spurred by new job opportunities in the North and places like California — by the 1990s and early 2000s the South’s Black population began ticking up again. 

Georgia led all states in migration gains though 2010, according to the Brookings Institute. And Black voters have consistently made up a core constituency of the Democratic Party.

But Asian Americans also began to settle in Georgia, and the demographic remains widely untapped by both parties. In July, a report by the nonprofit Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote found that more than half of Asian Americans have never been contacted by either party.

Now, the two voting blocs have become some of the fastest growing demographics in the state. Combined with liberal white voters, these populations created a new opportunity for Democrats in the last two elections.

But some of that opportunity might have been missed if not for candidates like Stacey Abrams, said Adrienne Jones, assistant professor of political science at Morehouse College and director of the historically Black college’s pre-law program.

“She’s the person who told the Democrats — who begged them, for a period of time — to recognize that the state was in play,” Jones said. “She’s the person who was like, if we mobilized, we can make this visible, we can make this impactful.”

Part of that mobilization was identifying key voters and telling them the stakes were high, Jones added. She pointed to SB 202, a bill many claim perpetuates voting rights concerns. Abrams ran a campaign focused on battling voter suppression and intimidation, reminding voters such tactics were built on systemic racism.

Gillespie said this approach was vital to turning out more democratic voters in the last election.

“Over time, we’ve seen Democrats, led by Stacey Abrams and others, start to identify voters who are more likely to be Democratic-voting, and they were registering them and educating them about the process to get them actually turned out to vote in elections,” Gillespie said. 

Gillespie predicts that as 2024 gets closer, Georgians can expect to see even more investment in their state.

“When it comes to the eventual nominees, they start looking at where to deploy their resources, they’ll have a long list of competitor states,” Gillespie said. “Georgia is going to be on the long list. As people invest money, as people do research in the state, they are going to determine whether or not the race is actually still close.”

But Democrats will also need to maintain the momentum they have now if they hope to keep Georgia a swing state, Jones argued.

Though former President Trump ended up being a hindrance to the Republican Party’s expected “red wave” this midterm cycle, Jones said the competitors lining up for 2024 are more “streamlined” than the former president. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), a likely competitor for the White House, did oversee a smaller red wave in his state, Jones noted.

“They might have the same kinds of political views, but they don’t have the same kind of reputation or shine,” Jones said. “Democrats have to figure out what to do and then Republicans have to figure out how to position themselves so that Trump isn’t bringing them down.”

Still, as more attention is put on Georgia, Jones added, voter excitement increases — making it even more competitive. 

“For the state to be in a position where their votes matter, I think it’s helpful for Georgians,” said Jones. “I think the state gets a little alienated and feels like well, it doesn’t matter what we do. I think for Georgia, this is invigorating. They liked the fact that Georgia folks are out here getting in the mix and that it matters what goes on here. It gives some gravitas, I think, to the whole environment. People want recognition, they want to be in play.”

Source: TEST FEED1