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Georgia is ground zero in the midterm election battle

Georgia is one of only a handful of states with top-tier contests for governor and the U.S. Senate this year. The Democratic sweep in 2020 in the Peachtree State turned this red state purple and made it ground zero in the battle for the heart and soul of American politics.

Georgia, along with President Biden’s victory in Arizona, revealed new opportunities for Democrats in the Sunbelt. Democrats can cement those gains this year, while Republicans hope to reverse the results in these states.

The 2020 election year was a dark time for the GOP in Georgia. Not only did Biden win the state’s electoral votes but both Republican incumbents, Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler lost their Senate seats.

The close contests in 2020 set up another set of tight and tough midterm campaigns in 2022. Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp is in a competitive race with his Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams, who lost a close race to the Kemp in 2018. Then Democratic Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock faces a difficult challenge from former University of Georgia football superstar Herschel Walker.

Warnock and Abrams face a hostile political climate because of Biden’s unpopularity in the state. A recent poll conducted by Eastern Carolina University (ECU) found former President Donald Trump with a 7-point lead over Biden in a potential 2024 matchup in the state.

But the GOP has its own problems. Kemp’s certification of Biden’s 2020 win, when he was Georgia secretary of State overseeing the election, made him persona non grata with Trump. The Fulton County district attorney has empaneled a grand jury to investigate a call Trump made to the Kemp asking him to “find 11,780 votes” that would overturn the presidential election results.

Meanwhile, Walker enters the race with considerable personal baggage in his race against Warnock, a Baptist pastor. Bulldog fans at the University of Georgia used to chant “Run Herschel Run” to encourage their star running back. Now Walker, with Trump’s enthusiastic endorsement, is running for the U.S. Senate.

If Democrats have any hope of retaining control of the closely divided U.S. Senate, Warnock needs to retain his seat, although he’s fighting strong political headwinds at the national level. But the race is as closely divided as the balance in the upper chamber of Congress. The ECU poll indicates the race between Warnock and Warnock is a jump ball.

Undoubtedly, Race will play a prominent role in Georgia this election cycle since both senatorial candidates, as well as Abrams, are African American. This is a definite sign of progress in a state that was once the heart of the Old Confederacy.

Pending Supreme Court decisions —expected to upend abortion rights and efforts to prevent gun violence at the state level —make the nation’s governors the last line of defense for Americans, and Georgians, who value reproductive freedom and abhor gun violence. The results will have significant impacts.

The 2022 gubernatorial campaign is a rematch of the 2018 race, when Kemp narrowly defeated Abrams, as Kemp appears to have the early advantage.

Abrams used her near miss as a springboard to national prominence. She was under consideration early in the 2020 presidential campaign as a running mate for Biden. She even appeared in an episode of “Star Trek: Discovery” as the president of United Earth. If she wins this race, she will become even more of a national figure — and a potential candidate for president of the United States. Kemp will likely use her celebrity against her and attack her for being a national liberal elite out of touch with the values of Georgians.

If any one state can claim to be a sign of things to come in the next presidential race in 2024, Georgia is that state. Don’t be surprised if both races are too close to call early on election night and get lots of airtime on the cable networks through the early hours of the next morning. Then the conversations about results there will continue all the way until Election Day in 2024.

Brad Bannon is a Democratic pollster and CEO of Bannon Communications Research. His podcast, “Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon,” airs on Periscope TV and the Progressive Voices Network. Follow him on Twitter: @BradBannon

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Hispanic super PAC releases gun control ad

The country’s largest Hispanic-oriented super PAC on Thursday released a Spanish-language ad linking Republicans to gun violence.

The ad released by Nuestro PAC, a group that promotes increased outreach to Hispanic voters, will air exclusively in Spanish, with a six-figure investment by the PAC.

“The frustration in the community started with the local Uvalde community not even being able to get information about the shooting in Spanish,” said Chuck Rocha, the Democratic political consultant who started Nuestro PAC. 

“It made me think that if they can’t even get information about who’s to blame and what happened – on the shortcomings – in Spanish, then they don’t even know that they should be blaming Republicans for the lack of action on curtailing assault rifles,” added Rocha.

Rocha’s hope is that the investment will serve both to educate Spanish speaking voters and to attract donors interested in running the ad in key congressional districts.

Hispanic voters will play a key role in several competitive districts in 2022, a novelty for a community that’s traditionally held most of its political power in safe Democratic districts.

Among the potential targets for Nuestro PAC’s ad are the South Florida where state Sen. Annette Taddeo (D) is challenging Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R); the California district where Democrat Rudy Salas is challenging Rep. David Valadao (R); the New Mexico district where Democrat Gabriel Vázquez is challenging GOP Rep. Yvette Herrell; and the Texas district where Democrat Michelle Vallejo is facing off against Republican Mónica de la Cruz.

“We bought a six figure National Digital buy to target Latino voters and donors, to see if we can raise enough money to run this into individual congressional districts that have large Latino populations,” said Rocha.

“For the first time in American history, there’s a whole bunch of [districts] that are actually marginal and have a ton of Latinos,” he added.

Many of those districts are relatively near to sites of mass killings that shook entire communities.

In the ad, the narrator asks “how many more children do we need to bury?” while the names of Columbine, Colo., Newtown, Conn., Parkland, Fla. and Uvalde, Texas are displayed on screen.

“All of this is very localized where the shootings have happened. There’s large constituencies of Latino voters, who a lot of them consume information in Spanish where they’re not hearing anything from Democrats,” said Rocha.

“Latinos who consume MSNBC, Latinos that consume Fox News, they’ve already picked a corner. They’re already going to be with one party or the other. Right? Because they’re getting information in English. There’s just not a lot of information getting to our community in Spanish,” he added.

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Ocean viruses might help reduce climate change, study says

Studying plankton carrying certain viruses could help in the battle against climate change, according to researchers at Ohio State University.  

The study published earlier this month in Science examines how there are 5,500 marine RNA virus species, several of which can drive carbon absorbed from the atmosphere to permanent storage on the ocean floor.  

Study crafters argue that a few of these species have “stolen” genes from the sea life they have infected, which can help researchers identify their hosts and “functions in marine processes.”  

One of the lead authors of the study, Matthew Sullivan, professor of microbiology at Ohio State University, told The Lantern that plankton could play a key role in determining what happens to carbon dioxide, a powerful greenhouse gas.  

Carbon dioxide is generated by the burning of fossil fuels for transportation fuel and electricity and accounted for almost 80 percent of the United States total greenhouse gas emissions in 2020, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.  

A large portion of CO2 is actually absorbed by the ocean with one study from NASA claiming that 40 percent of man-made CO2 emissions worldwide is absorbed in the Southern Ocean.  

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What the Supreme Court decision on concealed carry means for laws across the country

The Supreme Court decision to strike down a centuries old New York state law that limits who can conceal carry weapons has put the spotlight on “may issue” states that have discretionary power over who can be issued a concealed carry permit.

California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey along with New York are may-issue states. In the wake of the Supreme Court decision, the constitutionality of regulations in these states is likely to face renewed legal challenges. 

Stephen Halbrook — a firearms law litigator and author who specializes in constitutional cases — told The Hill that the Supreme Court decision is likely to force them to strike down their existing laws.

“None of these states will have to amend their laws. All they have to do is consider whatever they have equivalent to the New York law to be invalid, and they might as well just cross it out,” he said.

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen case comes amid intense public debate over gun control measures and Second Amendment rights in the wake of two horrific mass shootings in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas.

The decision raises constitutional questions to the laws similar to New York’s in the other five states that give officials discretionary powers over the issuance of concealed carry permits.

In New York’s case, the state required proof of “proper cause” to carry concealed weapons and for applicants to show officials that they faced “special or unique” danger that necessitated a concealed carry firearm.

Halbrook also said language in the decision stating that “everybody gets an equal chance to get a license” is significant. 

While the Supreme Court’s ruling is final, Halbrook said that states are likely to put in place other restrictions, such as “sensitive places” exceptions that govern where people holding concealed carry permits can have weapons. 

Looking to the future, however, Halbrook said that the decision will be significant in that lower courts will likely look at two factors above all when examining firearms cases: the text of the Second Amendment and the historical understanding of what its authors meant when it was created. 

Jonathan E. Lowy, the chief counsel at the gun control group Brady, told journalists on Wednesday that an end to other state’s may-issue laws could happen “relatively quickly.”

“It basically depends on whether the NRA’s lawyers skip lunch today or not,” Lowy quipped. 

However, Eric Tirschwell, the chief litigation at Everytown for Gun Safety, said that the ruling is unlikely to lead to an “overnight transformation”. 

“It is only this aspect of the licensing regime,” he said. “You’re still going to need to get a license even if this one requirement isn’t applicable….that process remains intact and in place.” 

Tirschwell added that he believes that the Supreme Court’s decision shows it is upholding the Second Amendment in a way “that interprets the right broadly”. 

Unlike may-issue states, “shall issue” states issue concealed carry permits or licenses to anyone who meets all the requirements.

Ester Sanchez Gomez, a senior litigation attorney at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, told reporters that Justice Stephen Breyer’s dissenting opinion in the Supreme Court case highlighted the majority’s creation of a “false sort of black and white distinction” between may-issue and shall-issue states. 

“These [may-issue laws] exist on a spectrum, and the court’s consideration of them as an all or nothing is false to the reality of what the statutes look like,” she added.

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Kentucky's 2022 Teacher of the Year quitting over anti-gay discrimination

Kentucky’s 2022 teacher of the year, Willie Carver Jr., is leaving his K-12 post for a university job, citing anti-gay discrimination.  

Carver, who spent 17 years teaching K-12 students, will assume a new role in student support services at the University of Kentucky. 

“This was not an easy decision; I have cried quite a few times trying to make it over the past few months. But ultimately, I have always wanted to be in the place where I can most make a difference in the lives of the next generation. I believe that UK is where I can do this,” Carver said in a Facebook post viewed by the Lexington Herald Leader.  

 “I also increasingly find that, as a queer person in K-12 education, I have been unable to do that work without facing discrimination, heartache, and being a part of systems that cause harm, though I am immensely proud of my brilliant, hardworking, and fierce colleagues who have and continue to change that system in defense of students,” Carver added.  

Carver, who testified before Congress in May that he’s “always faced discrimination as a gay teacher,” told the outlet he’s making the transition due to vocal discrimination at school board meetings. 

“The national rhetoric is turned up, and LGBTQ teachers bear the weight of a lot of hatred that catalyzes the vitriol. It’s tiring,” he said, adding he did not receive adequate support from the administration.  

America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news. 

“Mr. Carver is a wonderful English and French teacher,” Montgomery County Superintendent Matthew Thompson told Changing America. “We wish him well in his new endeavor,” Thompson said. 

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Confidence in Supreme Court is at lowest level in 50-year recorded history, Gallup poll finds

The American people’s confidence in the Supreme Court is at its lowest level ever recorded, according to a Gallup poll released Thursday. 

The poll found that only a quarter of Americans have confidence in the court, dropping 11 points from its mark of 36 percent recorded last year. The most recent figure is 5 percentage points lower than the previous lowest point, which was recorded in June 2014. 

Gallup has tracked the percentage of confidence that Americans have in the court since 1973. Gallup’s analysis states that many institutions have seen a fall in the level of confidence from the public, but the court’s decline is about double what most other institutions have seen. 

The results come as the court appears poised to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision on abortion rights. A leaked draft opinion in the spring showed that five conservative justices on the court — three of them nominated by former President Donald Trump — are ready to overturn the ruling.

The ruling, in a case known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, is expected to be released soon as the court’s term comes to an end. 

Gallup found in September that the court’s approval rating dropped 9 percentage points to 40 percent, also a record low. This poll was taken in the aftermath of the court declining to block a Texas law that bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy but before the draft opinion in Dobbs leaked. 

In the recent poll, public confidence dropped most significantly in the past year among Democrats and independents. Confidence dropped by 17 points to 13 percent among Democrats and by 15 points to 25 percent among independents. The percentage of Republicans who expressed confidence rose two points to 39 percent. 

The number for Democrats and independents is the lowest Gallup has measured in the history of this poll. 

Public confidence in the court has also seen a drop over an extended period of time. The average percentage of respondents who reported having confidence in the court was 47 percent from 1973 to 2006, but it has been 35 percent since 2006. 

Gallup’s analysis concludes that it is unclear if the court overturning Roe could overall harm its reputation further or improve it based on those who agree with the decision. 

“The public may have already taken the Supreme Court’s stance on the abortion issue into account, with its decision on the Texas law and the leaked draft majority opinion on the Mississippi law,” it states. “But an actual, rather than hypothetical or expected, decision may have more potency in shifting Americans’ views of the court.” 

The poll was conducted from June 1 to 20 with 1,015 adults. The margin of error is 4 percentage points.

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Gun control groups condemn Supreme Court concealed carry ruling

Gun control groups denounced Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling that struck down a New York law restricting concealed carry permits outside of the home, arguing that the decision is out of step with the public and will cost lives. 

“Today’s Supreme Court decision in NYSRPA v. Bruen is wrong,” Eric Tirschwell, chief litigation counsel at Everytown for Gun Safety, told reporters at a briefing Thursday afternoon.

“It’s dangerous, and it’s out of touch with the bipartisan majority of U.S. senators who just voted to advance major gun safety legislation for the first time in 26 years,” he continued.

Tirschwell said the ruling makes it “even more clear” that Congress needs to pass the recent bipartisan deal on gun safety legislation. 

The package, which appears poised to pass the Senate later this week, would send millions of dollars to states to implement red flag laws, close the so-called boyfriend loophole and require a review of juvenile records for gun purchasers under 21.

The Senate voted to advance the bill earlier on Thursday, overcoming a filibuster.

But some legal experts are now questioning whether some of the bill’s provisions would survive legal challenges under the same logic as Thursday’s ruling. The majority of justices struck down the New York law because they argued it was not consistent with the “historical tradition” of gun regulation. 

Esther Sanchez Gomez, a senior litigation attorney at Giffords, said justices had thrown out arguments made in the case of historical statutes regulating public carry to protect against terror.

“The majority selectively chooses what historical context is relevant,” she said. “While it has no problem asserting that the Second Amendment covers modern weapons, It rejects every piece of historical context if it’s not to support the opinion’s outcome.”

But Gomez and other gun control advocates on Thursday’s call cast off concerns that the ruling could eventually strike down the bipartisan gun safety legislation.

“I believe what the Senate is considering and hopefully will be passing today is clearly constitutional, even under the Bruen standard,” said Jonathan Lowy, chief counsel at the Brady Campaign.

He said that the six justices “invented” a right that has never existed in the country’s history.

“The court is hell-bent on making the Second Amendment into a super right that can trump all other rights,” Lowy said. “That is madness. This decision is radical judicial extremism at its worst, and Americans will die as a result.” 

That sentiment was shared by other gun control advocates, who repeatedly said Thursday’s ruling would lead to more deaths.

“I’m here because today the Supreme Court released a decision that will kill young people,” said Yvin Shin, a legal associate at March for our Lives.

She said the group, which formed following a mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., had filed an amicus brief in the case detailing stories of young people impacted by gun violence.

“The court today overturned 100 years of settled law,” Shin said. “It has demonstrated once again that this Court is an undemocratic political animal, one that is not interested in moving with public opinion with settled constitutional jurisprudence or in protecting the lives of children.”

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Just get the damn shot

With more than 100 years of medical and scientific progress since the great influenza of 1918, the U.S. was expected to perform better against the next major pandemic than the rest of the world and certainly better than we performed compared with the world in 1918. In actuality, we did dramatically worse.

From 1918 to 1920, U.S. influenza deaths were 1.4 percent of the worldwide total. Today, the U.S. has surpassed 1 million COVID-19 deaths — accounting for 16 percent of the global toll.

Can we learn from mistakes we have made in our response to COVID-19 in an effort to save lives throughout the remainder of the pandemic and in future pandemics?

In some critical ways, we actually have done extremely well. We developed highly effective vaccines that dramatically reduce the chance of death (or serious illness or hospitalization) from COVID, in record time, and they have been distributed across the country, free of charge. So, it is deeply troubling that we also have not adequately risen to the challenge. Tens of thousands of our fellow citizens whom we lost, mostly those who chose not to get vaccinated, did not have to die.

From the outset, there has been a widespread unwillingness to properly mask, distance and isolate. An anemic testing regime further weakened the U.S. effort. But the biggest barrier to success was the failure of a large segment of the population to get vaccinated and boosted.

Numerous countries have been far more successful in containing the pandemic than the United States. In comparison to Australia’s response, a recent New York Times investigation calculates that if the United States had taken the same COVID-19 measures, “about 900,000 lives would have been saved.” Australia’s approach was strict, with numerous mandates and fines for violating restrictions. Australians are at least as independent and devoted to individual freedoms as Americans, but their suite of restrictions was still effective because, despite their discomfort, the vast majority of Australians committed to and stayed with the program. According to the New York Times, that success against COVID-19 is based on trust — trust that others will do the right thing for the greater good, trust in science, in government, in responsible media. Additionally, like most wealthy democracies, Australia has a simpler, centralized, coordinated and more equitable health care system than ours in the United States.

But mandates alone are not the whole answer. China’s stringent zero-tolerance COVID-19 policy, for example, has backfired in areas like Shanghai. Other potent tools also exist for shaping human behavior to promote health and wellness. Early in the pandemic, the Australian government used incentives, paying people who had COVID-19 or had been exposed to COVID-19 to stay home.

In their book “Nudge,” Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein make a strong case for “nudging” people into optimum behaviors by reshaping the environment in which they live and make decisions. Put carrots first in the school line, and kids select and eat more carrots. Thus, vaccination sites could be located where people already go, at convenient times. Houses of worship could offer vaccinations following services. Primary care physicians should have COVID-19 vaccines available. Accessible free masks could be placed at the entrances to shops and other venues.

Clearly, government and public health officials can do a better job of communicating and explaining what is known about COVID-19 and the ways to prevent it. Improved messaging is particularly critical in a time when so many are inundated by an incessant flood of conspiracy theories and misinformation.

As we pass 1 million COVID-19 deaths, with the disease surging once again, it seems almost harder now than at the beginning to up our game. Everyone feels COVID-19  fatigue. We all want the pandemic to be over, but while in Australia 95 percent of adults are fully vaccinated, in the U.S. we are at an inadequate 66 percent.

Our response does not have to be — shouldn’t be — partisan. Australia’s pandemic success resulted from thoughtful, bipartisan discussion at the highest levels of their government. The widely praised U.S. pandemic preparedness plan was initially developed in 2006 under George W. Bush, then followed up, with bipartisan collaboration in the Obama administration. Unfortunately, when the pandemic emerged in 2019, it seems nobody in charge opened the binders of the plan, choosing, instead, to ignore and dismiss its recommendations.

Our biggest challenge now appears to be willful ignorance and the volume of misinformation about the vaccines despite the reality that the modern mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are extremely safe and highly effective in preventing serious illness and death, safe enough to be approved for children 6 months and up. The rightwing politicians and newscasters, who encourage vaccine hesitancy and mask resistance, likely know this, and for the most part they make sure that they and their families are vaccinated.

It is heartbreaking and truly tragic that anti-vaccine folks who do finally manage to give up their uninformed and illogical opposition to a life-saving option are those who are seriously ill or on their deathbeds, telling spouses, parents and children — often by text since they have to be isolated from loved ones, “I should have just gotten the damn shot.”

Peter Katona, MD, is a clinical professor of medicine at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and an adjunct professor of public health at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. He chairs the UCLA COVID-19 Infection Control Working Group.

Kavita Patel, MD, MS, served in the Obama administration as director of policy for the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement. She is currently a primary care physician at Mary’s Center in Washington, D.C.

Seth Freeman, MPH, is an Emmy-winning writer and producer for television, a playwright and a journalist, who writes about technology, policy and public health.

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CDC panel endorses Moderna two-dose COVID vaccine for kids ages 6 to 17

An advisory panel for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday gave the green light to Moderna’s vaccine for kids 6 through 17, bringing it closer to becoming the second vaccine in the U.S. eligible for use in children.

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) on Thursday unanimously endorsed Moderna’s vaccine for use in those between the ages of 6 and 17.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is likely to sign off on the committee’s recommendation, as the agency almost always follows ACIP’s endorsements.

Currently, the only COVID-19 vaccine authorized for use in children between 6 and 17 is Pfizer’s two-dose mRNA vaccine.

Walensky has already signed off on the committee’s previous recommendation that Pfizer’s and Moderna’s coronavirus vaccines be administered to children under the age of 5, with administration of these reduced doses having already begun.

With ACIP’s recommendation on Thursday, all children will soon likely have access to both the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.

While this recommendation will soon give parents more vaccine options for their children, it remains unclear what sort of impact this development will have when vaccination rates have become sluggish, especially among children.

While a majority of U.S. adults and older children are believed to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, a minority of eligible young children can currently say the same. The most recent CDC data shows 29.5 percent of children between 5 and 11 are fully vaccinated and.

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